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. 

The Importance of Group History

[00:00:14] Karen: This week's question is how much history is useful? 

[00:00:20] Paul: So Karen and I talked last week on episode 252 about questions that we often want to have answers to when we're being brought into a group to do some work with them, right? To do a workshop, to do a training, to do a talk, you know, whatever it is. Working with a group we've never really worked with before. And we talked there about how it can be useful to have some understanding of the group's, history with a topic, particularly if we're doing something around decision making.

[00:00:44] Paul: We wanna know what shared information do they have, what's their experiences been, you know, sort of in that space. 

Handling Conflict in Groups

[00:00:50] Paul: What we wanna talk about today is related, but a little bit different, which is often when people really wanna give us an incredibly detailed history of what's going on, is when we're working with a group that's experiencing some degree of conflict.

[00:01:04] Paul: There's something, almost always something that has happened in the past that people wanna tell us about. They think that in order for us to be able to work with the group, we need to understand the entire history of the grievances, of the wrongs, of the, you know, things as they went down. And Karen and I often push back against that, that we actually don't think that we need to know all that.

[00:01:28] Paul: And then in fact, rehashing all of that can sometimes be problematic and can keep us in that space of conflict. So we wanna explore today, together when we are working with a group that's in some conflict, how much history is useful for us to know and is useful for the group to reexamine. 

[00:01:47] Karen: Yeah, and by the time I'm getting pulled into a conflict, it's usually pretty hefty.

[00:01:53] Karen: Often has been going on for a while. Typically, the groups that I work with have some sort of internal process for trying to support each other in conflict. So that's usually been tried, like they've used the skillset that they have. So often this is something that's been going on for a while and may have accelerated to the, like what I would call grudge holding kind of stage.

[00:02:14] Karen: Like we may be pretty deep in it. It's usually something that's impacting the whole group. So it's like two people are mad at each other, but everybody feels it because the spillover of their being upset with each other or they won't sit with each other, or they won't talk to each other or whatever. And it's impacting the group as a whole, usually some people more than others, depending on sensitivities, but that it's enough of a problem that the group has a need to clear it, even if it's really a disagreement between only a couple of folks, and very often what happens with that, if I get called into work on it, is that each side, which may be, you know, two people, or it may be a couple of people on each side or whatever, I. Each side thinks it's really important for me to know their perspective.

[00:02:59] Karen: And their perspective usually goes like this. The other person did this terrible thing and then they did this terrible thing. And then I tried to do this very reasonable thing, and then they did this other terrible thing, and then they did this other terrible thing. And it seems to me that the.

[00:03:16] Karen: Conclusion that they wish I would draw from this is that the other person is reliably gonna behave badly and terribly and they are gonna behave reasonably and just be the poor victim at all of this. And maybe they're open to owning their own piece of it. They just so far aren't seeing it. And that's okay that they come in not seeing their own piece.

[00:03:36] Karen: That's part of my job. I'm all good with that. 

Avoiding Bias in Conflict Resolution

[00:03:38] Karen: But the thing is that I like to point out to folks is that. I work really hard not to gather information about person A from person B, which is of course exactly what they're trying to get me to do. So, you know, I will say, I'm gonna try really hard to form my opinion about you based on my interactions with you and not based on what someone else says about you.

[00:04:02] Karen: And that's also true of the other person, right? So you can throw all of this at me and. Sometimes that happens because until they have shared all of this with me, they just don't feel safe with me. They need me to hear it. I can listen to it, but they do it because they think I will then do a better job with their conflict and I won't.

[00:04:23] Karen: I will do my very best to clear most of that all out of my brain. I may hold on to the person who told me the story has a particular sensitivity around a certain thing like that. I might hold on to. The conclusions that they're hoping I'll draw about the other person. I do everything I can to resist those, to clear them out, to not let them have any impact on how I engage.

[00:04:47] Karen: Because then I come in biased and I'm working in the past. I'm not working in now. 

Focusing on the Present

[00:04:52] Karen: Like it doesn't help me to know the whole sorted history from either perspective. 

[00:04:57] Paul: I think that the thing you said about the, like, I really want to engage with them. Based on the information I get about how they are with me, right.

[00:05:06] Paul: What I observe them do. I think that is really useful. Right? So it's like if they're, as you said, I've been in this situation before where they're unloading on me and it's really clear that what they're wanting for me to do is to vote for them, right? They're campaigning for the rightness of their side sort of thing.

[00:05:22] Paul: And I can hear that, right? And I go, okay, and this is clearly important to you. Like, that's usually one of the, all about the only takeaway. The 2% truth that I will take outta the thing they're saying, right, is I'm not assuming that any of those things actually happened to the way that you, you are describing and it's clearly important to you.

[00:05:40] Paul: And I'm listening for the like the what matters piece. And so I'll do that. But then I'm also kind of thinking, you know, as you said, sometimes people will clear all that and then now they go. I probably sound really unreasonable. Like I realize like this, that and the other thing, and I'm going, well, that's information that I can work with, right?

[00:05:56] Paul: And I'm going, okay, great. So you know, so now, whatever have you. But that's not often what happens. Sometimes it is, but yeah, that it's like that in a lot of ways. I don't think we need to go through that whole recounting of past grievances. And sometimes it turns into like. North saga, right? Of all of these things that had happened, and then they wronged the family in this way, and then they did this, and then another thing, you know?

[00:06:21] Paul: And it's just like we can get to where we need to be in terms of how we need to engage here and now to move forward without going through all of that storytelling. 

Effective Communication Strategies

[00:06:33] Karen: Yeah, and the thing that I think there's a myth about is that. The only way we can clear up the past is to go back and relive or adjudicate or address the thing in the past.

[00:06:48] Karen: And there may be a thing in the past that needs to be addressed, but the fact that it exists in the past doesn't mean it's still true. Now, even if I still have feelings about it, like it doesn't mean it's the thing that's the real root. Now what I find is more common. Is that the thing that started it all is actually no longer very important.

[00:07:08] Karen: And that what has happened since is important. And so what I say to folks is, I am gonna work in the now. And also I think there's a myth that a mediator comes into a conflict and their job is to decide who's right and who's wrong. And I am explicitly gonna never do that. And in fact, I sometimes will get off of a call thinking.

[00:07:28] Karen: Gosh, I think one of them's right and one of them's wrong, and I have to clear that outta my head 'cause I cannot be useful to the relationship if I'm in a right, wrong space. So sometimes I find myself very much more sympathetic with one than the other, and I hope they never know that. And I have to just get clear that I don't know the whole story and I don't know all the background, no matter how much they think they've told me.

[00:07:50] Karen: It's not helpful for me or probably anybody, but it's certainly not helpful for me and working them through their conflict to have opinions about who's right and who's wrong. What my job is, is to hold space so that there is space between them, because one way that we might think about conflict is that over time the space between them just gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

[00:08:14] Karen: 'cause I'm not talking to you and I won't sit with you and I won like, we're protecting, we're so guarded that there isn't any space between, or maybe just that the space between is so full of muck that there's no room for anything to happen in it. So my job is to try to open up some space so that two people who in my experience, by the way, are always mostly reasonable, mostly kind, mostly generous, mostly wanting the relationship to work like.

[00:08:42] Karen: They aren't always effective in their behaviors toward those goals, but they mostly are good people who want things to work out. And so to make space for both parties to kind of see that in each other, for both parties, to learn some things about each other, about how we can be together, and sometimes in that, like what's present right now, which is the only thing I actually care about, is what's present now.

[00:09:06] Karen: And maybe a little bit about what will it mean going forward. Sometimes in the what's present now, there is a person who says, what's present now for me today is I just really need to hear the other person say That thing did happen and they understand that I was hurt by it. And sometimes that can be hugely useful.

[00:09:27] Karen: I wanna say that's different than I need the other person to spend six hours listening to me rant about all the litany. Long list of things that I have collected, that they have done that are horrible. Very, very different. So one of the things that I do in individual meetings with folks is if there is a tendency for them to want to rant about a list of things, I try to help them figure out what's true now.

[00:09:52] Karen: What's the need now? And even if like, maybe they think their need is, they need the other person to hear six hours worth of something, I'm gonna say probably the other person doesn't have the capacity for that. So can we set the bar a little lower in terms of how much blame, shame, rage the other person has to tolerate?

[00:10:13] Karen: Because we gotta get a match, right? We've gotta get that going and almost always somebody can tolerate a like, I need to revisit this one thing. I need to know that you heard my perspective on it. If what I need is for you to agree with me, that may be a bridge too far as well. That's not necessarily what we're after, but all of that is because there is a current, present, thoughtful and intentional need, not because we'll never get over it unless we go back and dig it all up and rehash the whole thing.

[00:10:41] Paul: I want to point back at a couple things and what you said. There's some great things in there. I wanna underline a few. So one is that, you know, the thing that started it all may not be important anymore, and I think it can be really valuable. Like when somebody starts into that, you know, for me, when they start in with that storytelling about like, well, here's what happened, right?

[00:10:59] Paul: I can often very quickly head that off by saying, so is that still going on? And if they say, oh, well no, like, that's not, then I'm like. So what is still going on? And now we're actually, we're shifting out of it, but it's like, because sometimes that thing is still happening and so it is potentially useful to know about.

[00:11:18] Paul: So now we're talking about current situation. It just has been going on for a long time. So how does that manifest now? And that's a useful shift. And asking that question will sometimes cut off a heck of a lot of storytelling, right? Because you're like, okay. But I think then the other thing that I can do when I'm brought in that space is when somebody's launching into that and it seems clear that they want me to vote for them right to be on their side.

[00:11:41] Paul: Going back to what you said about like what my job is here, right? If I can say, to be clear, it doesn't matter what I think about this situation. What matters is how the two of you are going to continue or how the group is going to work together now. They're trying to put the focus on me and I need to be consciously and explicitly shifting it back to them to, as you said, that space between and sometimes, so that's often just about clarifying my role.

[00:12:10] Paul: You know, I'm not here to decide who's right and who's wrong. I sometimes will, I've talked about this in the show before, bringing in that notion of being multipart. I actually want everyone to get what they need, everybody's side. That will usually break enough of people's sense of, well, they're trying to appeal to my sensibilities or get me to, you know, all of that, to then kind of, they stop that as a tactic and then as you point out, that really allows us to go, so what's here now?

[00:12:39] Paul: What do we want to shift here? How do you want it to be going forward? And that can bring them back to that thing around their needs. Right. To be able to go, you know, actually the reason I was bringing this whole thing up is 'cause they just need an acknowledgement of what happened and then I can move on.

[00:12:52] Paul: It can sometimes bridge them to that. So these are, I agree with everything that you said about how the dynamic works and then sort of thinking about what are the moves that I can do when I'm in that situation to help the group. And the people involved to move to that present focus so we can go, okay, we actually don't need to rehash all that because Hmm, most of you were here for that. Right. 

[00:13:14] Paul: You know it and explaining it to me isn't gonna help you. In fact, sometimes it's just gonna reignite some of these old fires. It's gonna rub salt in these old wounds. Like going back to that old drama isn't useful for the way you think it is. So given all of that.

[00:13:29] Paul: Now what? Where do you wanna move forward? And I'm trying to bring people to the present and the future focus is really valuable and living in the past can detract from that. 

Normalizing Emotional Responses

[00:13:40] Karen: And I wanna take just a minute to normalize if you are a rancher. I am, by the way. Like if you are a person that in your own head, in the shower, in the car with other people, when you have a captive listener, like there are places where there's that tendency and sometimes there is just enough pent up energy that you need a place to go just vomited out.

[00:14:03] Karen: And maybe that's, as I say, while you're alone and at the shower in the car in a very isolated space. Maybe it's with a trusted confidant. Maybe you're paying me to be that trusted confidant. Okay. That's not inherently a horrible thing, but I am gonna encourage you to check in with yourself. Is that useful?

[00:14:22] Karen: The likelihood that it's useful to do it toward the person you're upset with is tiny. I can't think of a time that I've ever seen that produce anything that anybody found useful. The likelihood that it's useful in with a trusted confidant, or to run through it in my head and just like clear it out of my own head.

[00:14:40] Karen: I give it maybe 50 50. I think there's the danger that Paul was just talking about of what it does is it ramps me up and it like, I think of like we lay down patterns in our brain and thought patterns and stories and the more that we travel them, I mean this is why if you wanna remember a thing, you repeat it over and over again and then it holds well.

[00:15:00] Karen: Do you wanna remember how mad you are at this person? Do you wanna remember how wrong they are? 'cause every time we speak it. Or even think through it or whatever, that rant raves that road. So yes, there's a letting off steam thing and I don't want to judge that. Like I don't wanna say that if you're a person who needs to let off steam, that's a terrible thing.

[00:15:21] Karen: You should never do it. I do wanna say, if you're a person who has a habit of rehearsing again and again, the ways in which you've been wronged, I think it's a good idea to ask yourself, is this serving me? Is reinforcing this story, helping me have the relationships that I want. I think we think it protects us maybe from further damage with that person.

[00:15:44] Karen: Maybe it does, like if I can't remember that the snake bit me, I might need to remind myself that, you know, wound up things that his at me are probably dangerous. Usually remember dangerous things pretty well, but like usually that's not a thing. But if it is, then it is. There are reasons that we have those patterns.

[00:16:02] Karen: And very often if we stop and think about it, we go, oh yeah, not serving me. How do I get out of it? Like, how's my way out? And I may need help from somebody else to get out of it, or I may need to give myself space to do the rant one more time because that's how I escape it. Like I just wanna normalize.

[00:16:20] Karen: That is a thing a lot of us have, and I'm not vilifying that tendency, but I am asking us to sort of examine it. 

[00:16:27] Paul: We've talked a little before about venting and clearing versus ruminating, whereas, as you say, kind of rehearsing, right, and I think a useful thing there is to note what is our emotional state as we're doing that.

[00:16:40] Paul: Because I actually think that being able, if every time we go through it, we just get angry and things like that, that's a sign that's probably not serving. But also to be able to go. Let me go back through this recounting. Can I do that in a way that is relatively neutral, right? That is not overly blamey and judgy.

[00:16:58] Paul: Like, can I revisit my emotional relationship to this narrative in a way that then maybe I can actually be with the person and not be so emotionally activated? And wound up and things like that. But I do agree with you that like if every time we tell the thing and we just give in more and more wound up, it's probably not useful to do.

[00:17:19] Paul: And it's, as you say, almost never useful to do with the other person there. And unless what we're actually able to do is change their experience of us. Right? If they're used to us going on the rant, right. And in fact, we're able to say. To come to this and actually give an incredibly short and succinct and relatively unemotional account of things.

[00:17:43] Paul: That also includes our understanding of our part in it, which they have never heard us do before. That is a thing that can really shift. It's rarely what people end up doing when they're bringing it to us as a facilitator to sort of get us on their side. 

[00:18:01] Karen: Yep. 

Curiosity vs. Blame

[00:18:01] Karen: And the other frame that sometimes happens in that, that's different to me than a rant, is a problem solving curiosity, energy.

[00:18:07] Karen: Okay, how the heck did that happen? What was going on for them? Like what? And so to go back and think through, okay, what do I remember happened? What did I miss? Or what was like, if there's a curiosity about what else is there, or what could I have done differently? Lots of places curiosity can go, but if there's a heavy element of curiosity.

[00:18:27] Karen: It's likely we're in a useful space if there's a heavy element of blame. Less likely. 

[00:18:32] Paul: Yeah. It's where the skill of reappraisal becomes really, really useful. Looking back at the same thing in a different way and changing our relationship to it, which then allows us to change our behavior when we're working with others.

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

[00:18:44] Paul: But to sort of track where we've been here, Karen and I are talking about when we get brought in to work with groups that are experiencing a degree of conflict. You know, sometimes they wanna really. Walk us back through the entire drama that has occurred. And what we're saying is that we rarely find that whole thing useful.

[00:19:03] Paul: There often is some degree of grudge holding that's happening and there's an impact that's having on the group and going into rehearing. The past story is rarely a place to get out of that. And the ways that we find useful to engage with that right are to really say, look, we're not here. One to decide who's right and who's wrong.

[00:19:23] Paul: We're here to help you to repair that space between, to figure out, you know, how you can be in better relationship with each other than you are now. That's why we're here. The issue that that started this whole thing below these many years ago may likely not be an issue anymore. It's not really about that.

[00:19:41] Paul: What it's about is what's happening here and now. That's what we wanna bring our focus to. And then when we're working with a group in conflict, you know, sometimes there is a bit of the past that informs what's happening that's useful to know about, but rarely is the whole saga relevant to the here and now.

[00:19:58] Paul: And really rehearsing that distracts us from what's here and now, from the work that we actually need to do to figure out how to move forward. And so really leaning into that place of what's present right now. How can we help rebuild that sort of space between recognizing, of course, that there are times where we do need to clear something right, where we do need to get it out of our system.

[00:20:20] Paul: That may be a way that we process it, looking at the energy we're using to process that and potentially, and how can we shift from a place of blame and judgment into a place of curiosity. Sort of looking back at it in a problem solving space. So that when we're actually face-to-face with the other person or the other people involved with this, we can show up in a more useful way, in a way that isn't how they've experienced us with this conflict in the past.

[00:20:45] Paul: That can be useful to do with somebody else in a different space, but almost certainly not with the people who you have been having this conflict with for the first time, because that's likely to lock us back in to that conflict that's been going on in the past. Not really help us focus on what's present and how we move forward into the future.

[00:21:04] Karen: That's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Karen Gimnig. 

[00:21:08] Paul: And I'm Paul Tevis. And this has been Employing Differences.