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

[00:00:08] Paul: I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:00:10] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig.

What Is Emotional Fuel in Collaborative Work?

[00:00:11] Paul: Each episode we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, where do we get our fuel? 

[00:00:18] Karen: This is a thing that I think Paul and I both run into as we're doing workshops, but we also think it applies in a much more general way.

[00:00:27] Karen: And in the workshop context, what I see is that groups are struggling with relationship stuff. They're trying to do the kinds of things that we have talked about on probably every episode of this podcast. So all of the curiosity and vulnerability and communication work and the working through conflict and the doing the self growth, that all that stuff takes energy and somewhere we have to get that energy, that sort of fuel for it.

Burnout and Emotional Fatigue in Team Dynamics

[00:00:51] Karen: And very often by the time that Paul and I get called in, the sort of sense and feel and culture of the space is increasingly, well, this is wrong and this is wrong, and that's not working very well, and it's just very sort of fatigue and tired and struggle and it's just all about hard. And what we often see happen is that when we come in for a workshop and everybody's a little bit optimistic, 'cause the expert is coming in and people show up and they get more of a turnout than they probably usually do for a regular meeting because they brought an expert in and they actually show up and spend time together and work on the thing and feel connected and it feels like progress.

The Power of Optimism in Group Workshops

[00:01:34] Karen: There's this huge lift that happens. I sometimes think that's the most important thing we do at a workshop is give them that lift. We also hopefully give them some skills and tools and learning and lots of other stuff and how to carry it forward. But for this episode, what we really wanna talk about is how powerful it is to get that sense of connection and optimism and hope that is the fuel to keep doing the hard work that it takes to make relationships work.

[00:02:01] Paul: And I think that really is the way to think about it, right? When our tank is empty, right? When we're trying to do these things that are new for us, they're different for us. We're trying to shift the dynamic in a group. We're trying to problem solve. Like all those things take energy, right?

[00:02:15] Paul: And they probably take more energy than we sort of normally have on an ongoing basis. You and I sometimes joke about the fact that people rarely call us in when everything is going well.

[00:02:25] Paul: I have worked with groups where they recognize the value of, or maybe even that things are going well, but they need to be different. Right? And they need to make some sort of shift. Those are actually a lot easier to work with because people are generally kind of well fueled, right? And so I think where we get our fuel for this type of work, when we're talking about that space between, we're talking about the relational work, I think we get a lot of it from things going well that, you know, this work is very generative.

Positive Momentum: How Success Fuels Change

[00:02:56] Paul: When we see that it is possible for change to happen, that encourages us to keep working on it. Honestly when we get better results. The American football coach and commentator John Madden, once said, winning is the best deodorant.

[00:03:11] Paul: He said we are far more likely to overlook the foibles and the perhaps annoying characteristics and traits of our coworkers, of our teammates when we're winning, when things are going well. And actually there is a good bit of research that shows that strong bonds in teams actually comes outta success, not necessarily the other way around.

[00:03:32] Paul: Sometimes we have the causal thing inverted. So I think that honestly, one of the places where we get our fuel is things going well. 

[00:03:38] Karen: Yeah, I think that's true. And I think that there's almost always more going well than we talk about. 

[00:03:45] Paul: A hundred percent. 

[00:03:46] Karen: And so, you know, there's a, well, how do we make things go well?

[00:03:50] Karen: Well, we have to do the work. And in order to do the work, we need the fuel. And where would we get the fuel, where things have to go well. Okay, how do we fix that? Fair enough. But I think the piece that we can fix is how much we pay attention to the things that are going well, and not just the things that are going well, but even like the underlying resource that we have.

Reframing Struggles into Strengths

[00:04:10] Karen: So it's pretty easy to look around a community or a workplace or a, a organization that you may be part of and go, you know, everybody's tired and nobody's showing up to anything. And we only got 50% attendance at our last meeting, and that's kind of normal now. And you can kind of flip all of that and go, we still care about each other and 50% of us did come to a meeting even though we're busy and we got a lot done at that meeting and whatever the things are.

[00:04:37] Karen: But what I find is that when you get people together, there is good stuff. But as we've said on other episodes, our brains are absolutely wired for noticing the bad stuff. And we tend to talk about the bad stuff. So if something goes wrong, I'm far more likely to send an email that says, Hey, there's this problem.

[00:04:56] Karen: You know, if I go into a common space and there's dishes all over the place, might send an email about that. But if I go into the common space and it's exactly the way it's supposed to be, do I send an email about that? Probably not. And whatever, you know, fill that in with whatever examples make sense in the group that you're part of.

[00:05:12] Karen: But one of the things that we can do to get our fuel and it's honestly a thing we can do to help each other get fuel, is just pointing to the things that are going well. Like for everything that goes well, we can get a tiny bit of fuel from it or a huge amount of fuel from it, depending on how we think about it, how we share it, how we celebrate it, how we engage with it.

Fuel Through Positive Feedback Loops

[00:05:32] Karen: And so that's one of the places to look is what could we be pointing out, celebrating, being glad about that we're not. 

[00:05:40] Paul: And I know that you and I both do a good bit of trying to draw group's attention to that when we're working with them. And I think one of the important things about that is doing it in a way that is authentic to the group.

[00:05:53] Paul: Right. Because I think many of us have had the experience of having someone, you know, trying to lead a group, trying to bring, folks together to do a thing, to inspire them, to get them all riled up, to get them the sort of rah rah enthusiasm sort of thing.

[00:06:09] Paul: And if that does not match the tone that works for the group, it feels fake, right? And it feels like you're just trying to, you know, do you want us to come together and do the kumbaya thing, right? Where we're all just gonna hold hands and move together and everything's gonna be wonderful and we want everyone to see the glass as half full and this the other thing.

[00:06:28] Paul: And so I think it is important to figure out how to do that in a way that that lands and that resonates with the group. And so oftentimes when I try to do it, I don't make a big deal out of it, right? I very often come to the place of wanting to say, so what's just going well?

Authentic Appreciation vs. Forced Positivity

[00:06:43] Paul: I wanna know, and I'll often frame it in terms of every group has challenges, but every group also has strengths. And the thing that's useful to do is identify the strengths that you have so we can figure out how to build off of those and leverage them. And there's a degree of truth to that, that I really am looking for.

[00:07:01] Paul: Like, what are patterns that are already in place that we can amplify? Things like that. But also by doing that, I can get them to start to notice, oh, there are things that we do well. Right? It's not all doom and gloom, right? It's not that everything we do is wrong, but I don't necessarily, unless I get the sense that the group wants this, I don't necessarily go, we should be so, so excited about those things and so proud of them and like, I don't necessarily bring that energy to it.

[00:07:26] Paul: And I think there is a lot to how you draw the group's attention to it that affects how much they're gonna believe it about themselves. 

[00:07:35] Karen: I think authenticity is important. I do wanna say, I think silliness can be hugely valuable too, though. 

[00:07:41] Paul: Fair. 

[00:07:42] Karen: I recently was working somebody, I was teaching a class actually, and somebody in class was sharing an example and in their community they have a sort of, each person gets like their own little kit when they come into a meeting that's got their red, yellow and green cards for where they are on a decision or things like that.

Rituals and Silliness as Team-Building Fuel

[00:07:58] Karen: And also their own kazoo because when they get a decision made , they play their kazoos as a celebratory, like we succeeded. We got to consensus thing. And it sounds absolutely goofy, and I'm sure it is, but it is a way to draw attention to something that is genuinely a happy thing and in a way that is a kind of a ritual.

[00:08:18] Karen: Like we don't just. It's not this random sort of out of character thing. This is a thing that we do as a practice and it is completely goofy and silly, and it's bonding and connecting and gives us fuel. So, yes, I don't think as an outsider, I would come in and hand out kazoos to a studious business group or whatever, but I do think that it is a place to add fuel, to add some silliness to things that are authentically, genuinely positive things.

[00:08:45] Karen: Which is a different thing than I think where you were going, Paul, which I'm completely with, which is we don't put lipstick on the pig, right? We don't, Hey, good news everybody. Isn't it wonderful when it's not actually wonderful? Like, I don't think that helps. I think we do need authenticity, but when there is authentically a good thing, I think it can, in some cases, especially if you're within the group, you're part of it.

[00:09:08] Karen: If you're the leader in the group. Exaggerate it a little bit or be a little goofy, silly about it and like really point to it. I think there's room for that. So that's a both end for me. 

[00:09:17] Paul: Yeah. Well, and there's part of that that's for me around like inquiring, like with a group, how do you celebrate when things go well or when big accomplishments happen, or even small accomplishments, and then starting to figure out what's a thing that could you, how could you expand that practice?

Amplifying What Already Works

[00:09:32] Paul: What's next door to that? And again, this is about taking what's already existing in the group, like that works for them, but turning it up, right? Kind of going, there's a colleague of mine who like to say, how do we turn up the good, right? Because when we do that, we sort of crowd out the bad, right?

[00:09:47] Paul: When we take those things and amplify those things that are working in useful ways. And so I think, celebration practices are a great place to do that with. Gratitude practices, I think are another one. Like any of those things where we are reinforcing that what people are doing is a good thing, right?

[00:10:06] Paul: That we want more of that, like we're trying to amplify. And that in general, it pulls us out of that space of everything is terrible. Because living in that space of pessimism, right? Of believing that there's no way out of this, it is draining and it takes kind of, there's an energy, I don't know, curve you have to get up in order to be able to jump into that place of positivity and of celebration, of gratitude of things like that.

[00:10:32] Paul: But building those practices, that makes it easier and easier and easier to get there. Then that can often be generative. Like really great ideas can come from there. I mean I do actually really like silliness.

Gratitude, Recognition & Team Motivation

[00:10:43] Paul: There are times where playfulness will show up in the work that I'm doing, in part because we want to shake things up a bit, right? Sometimes playfulness is a way to get to things that are too difficult for us to get to in a solemn, somber way. That may not be a case where we're necessarily getting fuel by introducing the silliness, but we're reducing the cost of trying to go there.

[00:11:06] Paul: But then having gone there and seen like, oh, actually by talking about the challenges that are going on here, we've seen that something good can result from it. And for me, I think that's kind of the ultimate, place that we get our fuel from. Again, going back to that idea of when we see that the work is worth it, when we see that we get some result out of doing the thing.

[00:11:26] Paul: If we don't believe that it's possible for us to move forward, then we're not gonna do the work. And so actually seeing it, experiencing it, feeling it in our bodies, I think is one of those places that really does move us forward.

Connection as a Source of Workplace Energy

[00:11:41] Karen: The other direction I wanna go that's a little different than the celebrations and ritual gratitude stuff is connection.

[00:11:49] Karen: I do think there's something hugely valuable about taking time to slow down and whether you use a mirroring type practice, which is one of my favorites, or it's a, we get together for a cup of tea or had one corporate client that the principals made a point of once a week they, each of them has their schedule or whatever, but a principal and a non-principal goes out for a walk for 20 minutes and just talks about, whatever needs to be talked about.

[00:12:18] Karen: But those moments of connection and the times of feeling heard and recognizing that we have things in common and somebody else is on this ride with me and I'm not just hanging on for dear life by myself and there may be some support out there.

[00:12:32] Karen: That kind of stuff. That's also a way to turn up the good and if everybody is increasingly stressed and increasingly task focused and sort of isolating with that. Then again, you don't have any fuel, you're not getting that connection fuel. So looking for times and places to get that connection. Maybe it's one-on-one, maybe it's small group, you know, gee, we we're stuck with these decisions and we can't get through that.

[00:12:57] Karen: Maybe we plan a game night or maybe we have a team lunch or something. But anything that's appropriate within the context of your group that will give people a sense of connection, of shared purpose, of being heard, I think is a huge fueling experience for most people. 

[00:13:17] Paul: I'm reminded of an improv workshop that I did more than a decade ago at this point, where one of the exercises that we ended up going through pointed out that our natural tendency when we get stressed, when we get anxious, when things get difficult, is that our vision kind of closes down and we go inside.

Reconnecting During Times of Stress

[00:13:36] Paul: Of course when you're doing theatrical improv, the best resource you have for getting out of trouble is the person who's on stage with you. And so how do you reconnect, right?

[00:13:44] Paul: How do you go, wow, we're both in trouble. What are we gonna do? Kind of thing. And, but yeah, like recognizing that when things are not going well, we cut ourselves off from an incredible source of support. And so the idea of reconnecting right, of refueling that way makes a ton of sense to me. And I do see that, and it's, you're right that it's so often, like one of the first things that gets sort of cut when we're starting to do this. Also in part because we may be feeling like, that space between is getting squeezed.

[00:14:15] Paul: But if we don't spend the time to actually nurture it, I mean even to acknowledge like, Hey, you and I are having some trouble right now. Like this thing isn't going well. Like being able to reconnect in that way and to say like, you know, are we both interested in trying to figure something out?

[00:14:31] Paul: Or, wow, it seems like in the group there's a lot of challenges right now. Do we wish it would be different? Like that's a way of reconnecting that sort of reaffirms some of that mutual purpose thing as well. So it doesn't have to be. I do think that, I mean, I've been in groups where things are not going great and someone just kind of says like, do we want it to be this way?

[00:14:50] Paul: Like, are we all good with how things are feeling right now with everybody in the room? Kind of goes, oh no, and that's enough for us to kind of go, okay. This is not a given, that it's just gonna collapse under its own weight sort of thing. Like there is actually something out there where other people are also noticing that they would like it to be different.

Final Thoughts: Build Fuel Before You Burn Out

[00:15:10] Karen: So we started this week with a question, where do we get our fuel? And the fuel that we're talking about is the sort of emotional, energetic fuel to do the hard relationship work that it takes to make things happen. And probably also the fuel to do the task work related to whatever our objectives are.

[00:15:28] Karen: But it's really tough to do the vulnerability stuff and the relationship stuff and so on when we're just feeling down and depleted. So where do we get fuel to do all the kinds of things that we talk about on episodes of podcasts and kind of two or three places that we think are good to look for. One is paying attention to what's going well and highlighting that in ways that are appropriate for our various groups, and maybe even exaggerating them a little within the context of what's good for your group, but in a way that's authentic and real for your group and isn't just sort of leadership painting a pretty face on it that when it's really not great, but something that is authentically good, can we pay attention to that?

[00:16:12] Karen: And a variant on that is gratitude, having practices and rituals for gratitude as well as for celebrations, but that we make a point to notice the good stuff and to talk about the good stuff because success actually is a thing that fuel us up to go on and do the next thing. And in addition to that, anything that helps us feel connected.

[00:16:37] Karen: So whether that's deep conversation or going for a walk together or having a team lunch or any number of things that help us feel heard, help us feel like we're on the same team, help us feel like there's help out there if we need it, and we're not just sitting here alone. Anything that helps us feel hopeful, all of that stuff is fuel that feeds us so that we can do the work to actually make things run better.

[00:17:04] Karen: So sometimes we think, we don't have time for all of that feel good stuff. And I think actually we don't have time not to do the feel good stuff because if we don't do it, we don't have the energy for anything else. So where do we get our fuel? We've given you some answers and are encouraging you to look for your own.

[00:17:24] Paul: Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time. I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:17:28] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.