Introduction to Employing Differences

[00:00:00] Paul: Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals. 

[00:00:08] Karen: I'm Karen Gimnig. 

[00:00:09] Paul: And I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:00:11] Karen: Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, how do we increase participation? 

The Nuances of Participation

[00:00:18] Paul: So when we work in groups, when we live in community, when we are part of a volunteer organization, and just when we're on a team at work, whenever we're doing things together, we tend to think that people participating, people being involved, people being engaged, is a good thing.

[00:00:37] Paul: And that when that isn't happening, when we notice that the level of participation is low, oftentimes we'll sort of question, like, well, what can we do about it? And what Karen and I have come to realize, working with groups like this over time, is that that's not always the first question to start with.

[00:00:53] Paul: And that often that the question about participation as an unalloyed good is sometimes more nuanced than we might think. So we want to explore here a little bit together, right? When you're in a situation where you find yourself thinking, well, how can we increase participation? How can we have people be more involved?

[00:01:10] Paul: How can we get people to step up? What might be going on that you might not be thinking about and that you want to dig into a bit? 

[00:01:18] Karen: And this is a question I get asked all the time. In fact, if I had a magic trick, if I could come in and spend a weekend with a community and at the end that their participation would have doubled, like I could sell that all day long.

[00:01:30] Karen: I don't have that. And the reason I don't have that is because as Paul said, it's nuanced. And what I find is that people wish for a thing that they envisioned. And of course I work a lot with communities, but I think it absolutely happens in workplaces too. We have this vision of a space where people are together and they show up and all the things that need to be done.

[00:01:53] Karen: Somebody gets them done and people bring new ideas and have interesting conversations and are really a high level of engagement. And certainly in the intentional community space, people move into community because they want more engagement with their neighbors. And a percentage of those folks find themselves in communities and saying, I'm not getting as much engagement as I wanted.

[00:02:15] Karen: And so what would solve that is if people would show up to meetings more, show up to do work more, show up to social events more. And I think in the work environment, you know, that people would be more enthusiastic, would take on projects, would volunteer for things, would initiate collaborations or conversations or that kind of thing more. Even if they are contract bound to show up for work and they do spend the hours, there's an emotional, energetic engagement that can be lacking.

Questioning the Desire for Participation

[00:02:40] Karen: And when people ask me that, the first thing I ask them is, why do you want it? If you're saying we want people to show up to meetings more, what is the thing that would be better, you think, if more people showed up to meetings? Would you make better decisions? Would you have more buy in for things? Is the problem that people who aren't at a meeting are then sabotaging the decision of the meeting afterwards?

[00:03:00] Karen: Like, what's going on? And then, given that problem, would more people showing up actually solve it? And the same is true with work, yeah, okay, so you want more people doing work, but if they just showed up and did more work, would they do the work you really want? Like is the problem that they're not doing work or is the problem that they're not doing the work you want?

[00:03:20] Karen: All of these questions that you get into when you just start with, what is the outcome of more participation that you're aiming for? And is there something other than just more participation that is the path to get there? 

[00:03:33] Paul: I think that the thing you mentioned about we have this vision of how we expect it to be or how we want it to be. And the current situation isn't aligned with that. And that vision has more people doing more stuff, right? More people being involved, you know, things like that. I think that's where we get stuck because we're not thinking about what in that world we're envisioning, we're actually getting out of it.

[00:03:55] Paul: We just have a picture of what it's supposed to be like. And we may not realize that there are other paths to getting there, right? That if what we need is better decisions, for example, there may be ways that you can get to better decisions with your current level of engagement, right? Or maybe even less.

[00:04:11] Paul: But we have this idea of what it's supposed to be like. Sometimes that comes from past experiences where we've actually been in an environment where we got better decisions, where there was more buy in, where people were really moving things forward and there was more participation, there was more involvement and empowerment and things like that in that group.

[00:04:31] Paul: And so we're trying to shift the current group kind of towards what that group looked like and felt like, but we're ignoring all of the other things that are true about this situation and this group like it's not, it's distinctly possible. This group can't be like that group. They might be able to get the same sorts of results and the same sorts of outcomes, but not in the same ways.

[00:04:50] Paul: So I do think that that's a place where we get stuck is that we think that we get attached to the means, right? We get attached to, well, we want more people showing up for the meetings and volunteering for stuff and doing these things. But we don't actually, to your point, get to, why do we want that?

[00:05:05] Paul: Well, what's the outcome we're not getting? And then we can explore ways to get there. And maybe more participation is the way to get there with this group. But maybe it isn't. So I think breaking that attachment to the way to get there is one of the first things we need to do when we're looking at a situation like this.

[00:05:25] Karen: Yeah. I think that's the first sort of rethinking, retraining thinking that's super important. 

Understanding Individual Needs

[00:05:31] Karen: And then the next piece that I go to is, why do we not have participation? And when I started this work, I had all kinds of ideas about what are the reasons people don't, do, are we not communicating well? Are we not welcoming enough?

[00:05:46] Karen: Do we have some kind of hierarchy in play that is dampening things? Are people, underlying mad at each other, they showed up to a thing, they didn't feel good at the end of it, so they went home because people said mean things to each other or it just felt dominated by somebody or, I mean, I could make up a thousand stories, right?

[00:06:02] Karen: But that there's something about the way that we are offering things or the way that we're structuring things that just doesn't work for people. And if that's the case, if the problem is that we want more people to come to our social events, but our social events aren't fun. Then we could probably work on how to make our social events more fun.

[00:06:21] Karen: That could be a thing. But that's a whole category of things that are about, the reason people aren't coming is because the thing isn't attractive to come to. And we can work on that thing. But the other category that we tend not to pay attention to, because we don't have any control over it actually, and we kind of want it not to be true. That the other reason people don't come to things is because it doesn't work for them personally.

[00:06:47] Karen: That their life is too busy, they've got other things going on, they're much more of an introvert and actually the ten minutes a week that they're spending with other people is as much as they want or need or is good for them. Again, a thousand stories of why that might be. But if the problem isn't with the structures or the group, if the problem is that the individual is not well served by participating more. 

[00:07:12] Karen: It's not actually good for them to participate more. Then we can work all day long on communication and offering different kinds of events and organizing things and trying to be more friendly. And it's not going to change it because that person is best served by not participating more.

[00:07:31] Karen: And if that's the case, we need to figure that out. 

[00:07:33] Paul: Yeah. One, the trap that we fall into is, assuming that reason people participate in a group is the same reason we participate in the group. And this is the thing, whenever, like, I did an off site with a company recently, where one of the great things that they did about it, you know, they talked about, the CEO came out and said, here's the big vision for the company.

[00:07:53] Paul: And here is why the work that we're doing, why I think it's meaningful. Right. And the impact that it's going to have in the world. And we did a nice little exercise where then people got to sort of think about like, what part of that matters to me? It doesn't all matter to everybody in the same way.

[00:08:07] Paul: Right. But there are pieces of it where it's like, and then they talked about that. And so we pointed out that like, when we share it out a little bit, like we heard a whole bunch of different stuff, people's reasons for buying into that vision were all kind of different. But then we did another exercise later that was really great, which is imagine if the company is really successful five years from now, these are the types of headlines that are being written.

[00:08:28] Paul: Why is that good for you? Does that move your career forward? Do you now have the money you need to retire? Have you gotten to build your skills in interesting ways? And people talked about those and then shared those out and those were even more diverse. And so what it really pointed out was that even though they were all in the same company, working on largely the same thing, they all had very different reasons for being there, for participating.

[00:08:54] Paul: You know, sort of in the work of the company and the things that were going on there. And it's very easy for us to think that we understand other people's reasons for participating and what they get out of being in a volunteer group or what they get out of a particular hobby or things like that. And so when we're trying to increase participation, oftentimes we're doing that because we're going, well, I'm going to get more out of this.

[00:09:16] Paul: Of what I want, because more people are participating, and we don't even think about the fact that it's not going to help other people get what they want. And to your point, it may actually be counter to what they want. They may get less of what they want if they're participating more. 

[00:09:30] Karen: And more to the point, less of what they want, and I want to say also less of what they need.

[00:09:35] Karen: I find in groups that, you know, well, they don't want to, but they want community, and they moved into the community, and so they owe something. And in the workplace, they probably do owe something because they signed a contract and they're getting paid. I think that's a little less true in community, but really, in either environment, if it doesn't work to meet their needs, if it doesn't serve them well, not only do they not want to be there, but actually, the folks I work with, it's really outside their values to ask somebody else to sacrifice what's best for them for the good of the group.

[00:10:06] Karen: Like, that's not a thing we actually want to do. I think even in the corporate world, we mostly don't want to do that. We want to come up with group functions such that everybody, I mean, people may be contributing different amounts, but at the end, everybody is benefiting from their participation. And what they give up is worth less to them than what they get back.

[00:10:28] Karen: And so asking other people to sacrifice what's actually their well being at some level is a bad idea. And what we don't see is when we start with this question of how do we increase participation, this is the point you were making. We don't notice that increasing participation may actually be a negative for some people.

[00:10:51] Karen: It probably wouldn't be for me if I'm asking to increase participation, but it would be for enough of the other people that that can't be the goal. I mean, there may be a goal around, how do we make it easier for the people who want more engagement to get more engagement, but that's different than saying everybody in the group needs to increase their participation.

Aligning Group Goals with Reality

[00:11:12] Paul: And I think that the other thing that happens is that like participation involvement, there's often kind of a cover language, right? That we're not actually really clear about what we mean by that because sometimes if we actually increase participation. We're actually going to get less of what it is that we were hoping for or wanting for or things like that.

[00:11:29] Paul: You know, we don't think through the whole thing. Like, this is a big thing that shows up, like with executives, right? They're like, okay, in business, they're like, I want people to really be empowered, to be engaged, like to be involved, right. To have skin in the game, to, you know, kind of do the thing. And sometimes I'll come back with coaching clients around this.

[00:11:45] Paul: I'm like, so you realize that means that they're going to be telling you that you're going about things in a bad way more often, right? They're actually going to be raising more objections to the things that you're, thinking, right? That when they're engaged, they're bringing their whole thought process, right?

[00:11:59] Paul: They're doing this whole thing. And it sounds like what you really want is them to be expending more energy on your behalf, carrying out what you want. That's not necessarily participation or empowerment or involvement or things like that. And then you have to sort of peel it back a little bit.

[00:12:14] Paul: And then to your point, you sometimes get to that whole like, oh, well, I can actually see why it doesn't make sense for them to spend more energy carrying out my goals. But I also see why it makes sense that they're not telling me that I'm wrong. And so it's like, I want more participation. Like I want them to push back on sorts of things.

[00:12:32] Paul: And when you start to realize like, oh, I see why they're not like, it makes sense. Like it doesn't serve, right. They're going, how am I going to, am I really going to go ahead in my career here? Is this really going to help us out? Am I going to be seen as obstructionist? Like what's going on here? And I think what really starts to happen when people think through that process, whether you're in a company, or whether or not you're in a community group or volunteer organization, once you start to put some of those pieces together, you may come to peace with the level of involvement and level of participation you have right now, right? 

[00:13:02] Paul: You can see it makes sense. And to your point, Hey, maybe there are things that we could do that would lower the cost for people to say, make it easier for them to get involved and things like that, but if people still choose not to do that, we've got to be okay with it.

[00:13:16] Paul: And then figure out what can we do, given the situation we're in, what people I know are actually incentivized and not to do what they do get out of, you know, what needs do and don't get met by participating or not sort of where we're at and work with what's real rather than our vision and our sense of what things should or ought to be like.

[00:13:38] Karen: And I think that's such a key point, the working with what's real. And I just want to name here that this sort of connection with reality, like getting really clear about what is real in our group, what's real for the whole group, not just for me. And maybe not just like the people who show up to meetings tend not to be very aware of the reasons why people don't show up to meetings, right?

[00:13:59] Karen: Like you have a fundamental challenge here. But as we get more engaged with that and looking at it, one of the possibilities is that we're going to have to work through some grief about that vision that we thought we had. Like, that's not happening here. And we may have to change some fundamentals. Most groups move into intentional community thinking that the work to take care of their property is going to be work that the people who live there do that work.

[00:14:21] Karen: And over time, they come to the realization that, wow, all those fabulous gardens that we wanted and made sure we had room for and all of that fabulous common house space that we love to share. It takes a lot of work to maintain that and we don't actually have the interest in doing that much work. So do we need to think about putting in more money to hire a cleaner or pay a landscaper or do we need to simplify the landscaping or do we need to, like, what are the ways that we do when we come to peace with the reality that we're not going to get as much labor from our members as we thought we would. 

[00:14:52] Karen: How do we want to address that? Or is the project that we took on like a, for a volunteer group or even a community of faith that maybe has a building that's more than they can handle. Is there a point at which we say, the reality of this moment in this time is that the things that we have traditionally done or have wanted to do or thought we were going to do, or even the building that we built 30 years ago, is no longer the right fit.

[00:15:19] Karen: For the world that we're living in today. And do we need to fundamentally change some of our expectations? Because if we don't, we're just going to be in this recurring frustration thing because the, we want the vision doesn't make the vision realistic. 

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:15:36] Paul: So if we think about this question of how do we increase participation, the first question that Karen and I are really kind of asking is why? Why do you want to do that?

[00:15:43] Paul: What do you think would be better? If you actually did that. What's the result? What's the outcome that you're not getting now that you think that having more engagement, more participation, more involvement would get you because, oftentimes we're just attached to this vision of how we think things are supposed to be.

[00:15:59] Paul: And in that vision, there's a lot of participation, but we really want to encourage people to step back a little bit, right? To break that attachment to the fact that the outcome that I want necessarily means more participation than I've currently got, and to really start to think about like, what are the things that are within the control of the group to do something about that might be affecting people's willingness and desire to participate, but also start to think about, there may be no reason for people to participate more, there may actually be good reasons why they don't want to.

[00:16:30] Paul: Why they're not going to get their needs met by doing the thing that you think would be good for the group, right? Because oftentimes that vision of what's good for the group is really there would be more going on in this group, in this organization of things that are good for me, right? That those are the reasons I participate.

[00:16:47] Paul: Recognizing that different people participate in the same groups for very, very different reasons. And so, increasing participation might help with the reason that you have that you're involved in this. But it might not help other people. And in fact, the cost of participating more may be a problem for them, right?

[00:17:03] Paul: And may cost them something. And you may be asking them to take on, you know, more, almost certainly you're asking them to take on more burden than you realize because there is that knowledge divide, right? That when people who are participating a lot speculate about all the reasons why people aren't participating, they're often way off the mark because they're just, they're very different.

[00:17:22] Paul: And you really have to look around a bit more, really, the thing is that when you start to think about that, when you start to look at what's really going on, you start to look at reality. Now you're looking about what's possible here and now, right? Not what was possible with some other group that you were part of in the past in a different situation, not this vision you have in your head of how this group must be.

[00:17:44] Paul: You're working with what's here and now. And if you can come to peace with the fact that your initial thought of how things should be, right? And how more participation will get you what you want, you know, may not be now you can start to work with what's really going on. You can ask the question, okay, so now what, given this group, these people, these needs, what this is going on, what does need to change about this?

[00:18:07] Paul: What can we get at least a little bit more comfortable with that maybe will get us to where we want to go in a different way? Or maybe we realize we're never going to get quite to where we wanted to go, but we can get to a place that's good enough that we can actually do realistically from this group here and now.

[00:18:25] Karen: That's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Karen Gimnig. 

[00:18:28] Paul: And I'm Paul Tevis, and this has been Employing Differences.