Introduction to Employing Differences

[00:00:01] 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. 

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

The Importance of Values in Decision Making

[00:00:18] Karen: So this is one of those questions that we sometimes ask, and really the point of it is to say, we think this is a question we should all be asking more often.

[00:00:27] Karen: And we're gonna be revisiting today a topic we have covered many times before because it comes up in group life, which is decision making. And this is actually part one of a two-part series on decision making. And we think that when a group needs to make a decision, the tendency is to start with, so who thinks we want choice A and who thinks we want choice B and maybe choice C and D, depending right?

[00:00:52] Karen: And then there's sort of a majority vote thing, and then maybe we talk about it for a while. Like that's kind of the typical thing. And I think what we are promising in this episode today is that who wants which choice is not actually a starting point. It's a useful tool much later in the process, but at the beginning, it's actually really important to get people thinking about.

[00:01:15] Karen: What do we value? So our question today is, what do we value? Because we think it's really important to ask it, especially when there are multiple paths forward and not a lot of alignment about which one we wanna take. 

Challenges in Group Decision Making

[00:01:29] Paul: And I think that lack of alignment comes from the fact that we haven't actually decided what we value.

[00:01:36] Paul: And what I mean by that is when we talk about what we value here, we're saying, look, we're as a group looking to make a decision about something. And we have some sort of deciding process, right? Whether that be majority vote, whether or not it be the sort of sociocratic method, some sort of consent based decision making, whether or not it even, you know, and it's usually group and discussion based decision making that suffer from this.

[00:02:02] Paul: Although I think this also shows up even when you have decision making power invested in a single person. We'll touch on that in a minute. But having the conversation about what is the purpose of this decision? Like what are we looking to get out of it, right? And what that sort of points to is how will we evaluate our choices?

[00:02:22] Paul: Like how will we decide between some things, not just from a, like how we count votes, but like what do we want people to be thinking about? When we're talking about choice A and choice B. What do we want them to be taking into consideration? What do we value? What are we hoping comes from this conversation?

[00:02:41] Paul: I'm part of an Angel Investment group, and we had some different, investment choices we could make. There were a number of different companies that were interested in attracting investment. We had a very vague investment thesis in terms of what we were looking to invest our money in.

[00:02:58] Paul: And I think that did us a disservice when we got to the point of needing to decide, so who were we going to invest in? Because we hadn't really teased apart, like, are we looking for something that is relatively low risk. So we wanna find something that has a lot of traction, but it may not have as much upside.

[00:03:16] Paul: Are we looking at something where we actually are thinking more about the social impact that it's gonna have in the world? And in particular, the type of impact that we wanna have is environmental or social or those kinds of things. Like each of us in the group came to the decision with a bunch of those things in the backs of our heads.

[00:03:38] Paul: But we didn't actually have them out on the table to begin with, to have clarity around what do we as a group value as we make this decision. 

[00:03:47] Karen: Yeah. 

Personal Interests vs Group Values

[00:03:48] Karen: And I think it gets just only messier the more self-interest there is. So in your case, there may be people who wanted something pretty safe, the money's gonna come back.

[00:03:58] Karen: Or they really are a very, you know, like they may have their own, like even in terms of what the financial impact on individuals would be, aside from what's the group trying to do. I've been working with a group that similarly has a decision to make that is a financial decision and it will have an impact on the group overall.

[00:04:17] Karen: And it will very specifically have financial impact on different members and depending on how they make it. Some members are gonna end up financially better off and others are gonna end up financially worse off. It really is actually one of those things and there are decisions that will make everyone generally better off, but some people want much more so than others.

[00:04:39] Karen: Or there are elements or a decision that on average will make everybody better off, but some subset actually will spend more or something like that. So when there is personal interest involved, that. If we don't stop to say, what are our values? The personal interest will become our values.

[00:05:01] Karen: It will be what guides the conversation. 

Facilitating Value-Based Discussions

[00:05:26] Karen: So as a facilitator coming into that conversation, it's really important for me to find a way to get the individuals to shift out of that sort of glaring self-interest thing that is right in front of their noses and drawing their attention. And instead to get focused on what are our values and some of our value is the self-interest, right?

[00:05:29] Karen: Part of my values is keep money in my bank account so I have it for other things and don't spend more money than I need to. That's a real value, and that's on the list, but it's not the only thing on the list. And if we can get clear, even if we don't all agree about what our values are, I mean, it's great if we have an aligned group value that is fabulous, it helps the group will be more effective.

[00:05:48] Karen: But even if we can't get there, if we can get each individual to name and in their own head to get clear, these are the things that I value and related to this decision. These are the things I wanna make happen. Then we open up the possibility of some critical thinking and some nuances and actually engaging and hearing other people.

[00:06:10] Karen: And not having it just be a, you don't want the thing that's good for me. You're trying to attack me. Defend. Defend, right? We've all been in those meetings where that's the dynamic that's playing. And I think we can disrupt that and create the potential for some alignment if we can get everybody to just stop for a minute and think about values, and they won't do that if we ask them to take a stand first.

[00:06:32] Paul: Something you said sparked an idea for me, which is this idea of. If we actually want the group to make a decision, there needs to be some groupness to it. Right. Kind of your point around like in the absence of any of these things, the absence of group values, like its self interest will win, right.

[00:06:49] Paul: But it's like there are times when we're not actually trying to make a decision as a group, right? So for example, if it really is just, we're not gonna really even have much of a discussion or we're gonna have limited time bound discussion and then everybody vote right?

[00:07:04] Paul: Where we're actually not expecting it to be a decision that the group owns. Like we're actually fine with it being a largely individual decision. And when we're all good with going with however the vote goes, right? That's one thing. But if we actually expect that the group is going to make a decision, there needs to be some group there.

[00:07:22] Paul: And so if that's an existing long running group, where we do have ways of working where we actually may have some alignment on our values and our purpose from a larger thing that we've done, like there, we can kind of bring those into the room. We can say, Hey, we, you know, as a group we have said, as part of this community, we value this, that anything, like, we've already got some there.

[00:07:41] Paul: If we don't have any of those things, right? If this is a group, and in this case, right, this is really the first time the group is trying to do anything as a group. If there is no shared reasoning about things and a shared perspective that like, oh yeah, actually we agree that we're interested in environmental impact here.

[00:08:02] Paul: Like until we have that, you're not really making a decision as a group. And so you shouldn't be surprised then if you're trying to use some sort of vaguely defined group process and it goes sideways. 

[00:08:13] Karen: Yeah. 

Criteria for Decision Making

[00:08:21] Karen: I think another word I wanna bring in here is criteria. And depending on the decision, depending on where you are, depending on how much time you're gonna put into it, being clear about what criteria do we want to consider.

[00:08:24] Karen: So maybe we'd like to try really hard not to consider individual self-interest, but we do want to consider. What's gonna happen for the group overall? We've got some other goals. What's the impact on the environment? Maybe that's a thing. Or maybe, what's gonna work for the most members?

[00:08:41] Karen: So we'll get the most participation is a thing. The goal is maximum participation. Maybe that's a criteria. I don't always do that 'cause it's another step that takes time. So it kind of depends on how important it is and what's the capacity and so on. But I think it's a thing to consider. Should we be talking about what the criteria is that we wanna base this decision on?

[00:09:02] Karen: Because then when somebody says, but wait, then you know, we won't have any blue in the mix. We're like, well, color wasn't really a criteria. Do we think color are criteria? 'Cause we didn't list it before and do we wanna derail it all over a color criteria or whatever the thing is. I mean, I'm just making up a random example, but it can help us stay grounded because one of the things self-interest does is it makes us really creative about the reasons we can give, and we bring in stuff that actually isn't that relevant or important. It just kind of helps us win. And so we need some defenses against that because self-interest is part of what's going on in any conversation always.

[00:09:44] Karen: That's just human nature. And if we don't want self-interest to drive, which by the way almost always means we just get stuck and can't decide. But if we don't want self-interest to drive, we have to give our brain something else to work with. 

[00:09:56] Paul: And I think your point there around, you know, it forces us to make sure that we are relating the reasoning that we're giving to things that other people actually have said they care about.

[00:10:07] Paul: Your argument has to connect back to these criteria or these larger values because it's then easier for the group to kind of say, yeah, you are correct. But we did not say that that was part of how we were gonna make this decision what we're gonna value here. 

Aligning Group Decisions with Shared Values

[00:10:20] Paul: I think the tricky part, right, because effectively what we're trying to say is, as a group, when you're gonna make a decision.

[00:10:27] Paul: Don't start by looking at the decision. Think about how you're gonna make the decision first, right? What's gonna be important in this decision, which is itself a decision, right? There's kind of a bootstrapping problem here. I think a lot of groups shy away from that because they go, well, then we'd have to make two decisions.

[00:10:48] Paul: The actual decision itself, but also the conversation and the decision about what's important and how we're gonna decide, and we don't have the capacity to do one much less two. I think that's a little shortsighted because I think in some ways the conversation about what we value is sometimes less fraught.

[00:11:07] Paul: Because we are less tied to the specifics, right? Our self-interest shows up a little bit less. I think when we talk about what we value, we may not be looking ahead quite so much to the like, well that means that choice D is gonna win, if we decide on that. But also we think it has a tendency to pull us into perhaps a slightly nobler version of ourselves when we talk about those sorts of things.

[00:11:31] Paul: So I actually, you know, I think groups would do better, even if they don't firmly say, these are the six criteria we're gonna use. If they have a conversation in which they say, what we want people to keep in mind are these three things like, so that it's up to the individuals to sort of self-police around some of that stuff to say, we want you to be thinking about are we pricing anybody out of their home?

[00:11:58] Paul: You know, if we do this kind of thing, right? So, we're not saying maximize financial, or you know, minimize cost. We're saying there's a threshold here. Like, think about that. Is anybody not gonna be able to afford to live in our community if we make this decision that might be of value, that, you know, something you value, right?

[00:12:14] Paul: And you might say, we also wanna look at how this affects the environment around here and what it means for common areas and things like that. So like, laying that stuff out. Saying, we want you to consider these things as you're deciding what you're gonna support. And when we start to reveal the actual options.

[00:12:30] Paul: So I think that conversation can be easier because any amount of it you have actually makes the second decision the sort of the final decision easier. 

[00:12:39] Karen: Yeah. And I think the first decision, as we say, like the deciding about the criteria. If we have alignment about that, like if we get to a place pretty easily and it's a pretty easy decision, it's a really worthwhile one.

[00:12:52] Karen: If that's becoming just too cumbersome, we don't agree about it. Like what I think is a criteria and what Paul thinks is a criteria just aren't the same criteria. Maybe we don't make that decision, but we at least go into the actual decision we need to make with the understanding. Like Paul's going at it from the environment thing and I'm going at it from the low risk thing or whatever, so that then I can hear him and understand where he's coming from.

[00:13:19] Karen: Whereas if we hadn't articulated that, I'm sitting here going, why does he wanna do that stupid risky thing? Why would we put our money at risk like that? I don't get it. And he's on the other side going, why does she wanna trash the environment? What's wrong with her? Right? So that piece about. Even if we aren't gonna get to an agreement about criteria or an agreement about values, having had us all connect with our values so that we're more likely to act out of the things we actually value, which by the way, you know, the whole concept of marketing in the world and the people who make lots of money on marketing is because they know there are ways to get you to act outside your values and instead do something else.

[00:13:57] Karen: That's the whole world we live in. So there's nothing immoral or wrong about saying, if I'm not careful, I'm gonna land outside my values. I think that's the human condition. So what we wanna do is help each of us individually act within our values and have a shared understanding of, even if we don't agree about what is the criteria or what is the primary value here, that at least we can understand where each other are coming from as we're trying to come up with something that's gonna work for the group.

[00:14:26] Paul: I think the other thing that having that conversation does right is if we talk about values criteria, two things happen. Either we come to agreement and we go, okay great. And now that's gonna be a really useful tool when we actually go to make our real decision. The second thing that could happen is what you pointed to.

[00:14:43] Paul: We don't actually come to an agreement about that. And that's useful not just because of what you talked about there. It's also useful 'cause it now informs what we need to do to make the real decision, knowing that we don't actually have a shared basis. The thing is, if we just jump into that second decision, we don't know if we have a shared agreement around what's important or not.

[00:15:08] Paul: If we know there's several competing values that are at work in this group here, we might structure that second decision a lot differently. And so it gives us information that is useful in making that decision, in deciding how to structure the conversation, what we're gonna do, how we're gonna move this, through.

[00:15:29] Paul: So I think getting that information, realizing that. So it's not just at an individual level, I can go, ah, okay, it makes sense that you're making that argument because you value this thing. It's also as a group and if there's a facilitator, whoever is making decisions about structure and process to help the group achieve its goals, like that person now knows, okay, this is gonna be a different type of decision making process than if we had shared criteria around it and they can plan appropriately.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:16:00] Karen: So I think what we're saying here today is when we have a group decision to make, it's really important to check in with each other about. What are the values that are driving this decision? What are the goals that we have? What are the things that we hope will result from this decision? What are the criteria we wanna use for making it?

[00:16:18] Karen: Those are all kind of different ways of saying the same thing, but whichever one works. But to have that conversation, so that either we have, oh, look, these are the things that we wanna be thinking about, and those can be our guideposts as a group, and we get to alignment faster. Or we go, oh, we don't have a lot of alignment.

[00:16:38] Karen: We're coming from very different places. This is gonna be a different kind of conversation and we can plan for that conversation. And regardless of which of those cases it is, we wanna have that conversation also to help each individual get connected to their values. Because it's just the human condition.

[00:16:56] Karen: That self-interest is gonna show up, it's gonna drive unless we do something to make that not be the thing that's driving. If we can slow everybody down a little bit and get them to think about, okay, if I really acted within my values, which way do I wanna go here? Some percentage of us are gonna land in a different place than we would if we just say, well, which one do you think?

[00:17:16] Karen: And so it is a slowing down get into deeper thinking so that the nuances, like weighing multifactors and all of that. Can happen in a way that is transparent and useful and connecting. Because at the end of the day, if we're a group trying to make a group decision, that sense of connection within the group is gonna be really important, and we want it to still be there after we've made the decision.

[00:17:41] Karen: We may need to build it in order to make the decision, and we want it to be there at the end. 

[00:17:46] Paul: Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:17:49] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.