Introduction to Employing Differences

[00:00:03] Paul: Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

[00:00:09] Karen: I'm Karen Gimnig. 

[00:00:10] Paul: And I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:00:12] Karen: Each episode we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, what now? 

The Challenge of Changing Plans

[00:00:19] Paul: So when we talk about collaboration, right, we've got at least two people, maybe more than that, working together on something, doing something that oftentimes has some sort of timeline associated with it, or we've agreed we're gonna do something together at this time, or this thing is gonna happen at this time.

[00:00:37] Paul: And Karen and I are apparently in a time where our expectations just keep getting blown up. 'Cause this is the third episode, sort of in this rough theme of expectations, not playing out the way we thought they were going to.

[00:00:50] Paul: Today we really wanna dig into this idea of sort of what happens when we have a plan, when we have something that we've agreed on that we're gonna do, and then things change because the world changes. Something happens. Like we need to respond to some change. That plan isn't gonna work out.

[00:01:06] Paul: And what can we really expect from ourselves and from the other person or people that we're dealing with and working with when that happens so that we can work through that process of really answering the question of, now what are we gonna do now? More gracefully. So Karen, what happens when our expectations don't get met in terms of plans?

Personal Experiences with Plan Changes

[00:01:28] Karen: Well, I'll say the thing I've been living with the last couple of weeks has to do with plans changing, and this is family dynamics and plans changing. And I would say the new plan was, at least as good as the old plan in every case. But it changed, you know, we had a plan I had it set in my head. I knew what I was planning to do.

[00:01:46] Karen: I had travel arrangements made all that kind of thing. And then, can we do it different? And the answer is, yes, we can. It's not even worse for me really, but I'm finding myself sort of overwhelmed and exhausted in a way that just isn't warranted by the amount of work that needs to be done. And what I'm realizing is it's because my brain was in this very settled, okay, I have a plan and I've done the things I need to do to be ready for what's going to happen, and I've had time to think through it and all of that.

[00:02:15] Karen: And now it's been launched into this space of what am I missing? What am I missing? What else needs to happen? And it's not even that that many things needed to be different. It wasn't that I suddenly had hours and hours of work to do, but I did. As it turns out, my brain at least insisted on having hours and hours of scanning the horizons as it were, for what might I be missing. And there was just this sort of sense of being unsettled and all of that. And I think this may be something that's especially true for me.

[00:02:46] Karen: I am definitely a person who likes to have a plan. I wouldn't call myself super spontaneous, but I also think it's a thing that happens to most everyone, that if we start the day thinking this is what's gonna happen or the week or the month or whatever like that, the time horizons can be variable. But if we think, okay, this thing is gonna happen in about this way, and I have made whatever plans and arrangements I need to make to be ready. for that. And then it changes in meaningful ways.

[00:03:15] Karen: It's not just the work of making the changes, it's the work of being unsettled and of looking for the changes and trying to figure it out. 

The Neuroscience of Expectations

[00:03:23] Paul: To broadly generalize neuroscience research, which is always dangerous. But just at a high level, I mean, one of the things we know about the human nervous system and the human brain is that, it really likes to know what is going to happen. There's an evolutionary advantage to knowing that this is what's going to occur, and that does not involve me being eaten by a lion.

[00:03:45] Paul: And so, one of the things we know that happens is that brains are predicting machines. They're going, here's what we think is gonna happen next. And when that prediction comes true, the brain is settled and generally pretty good.

[00:03:56] Paul: And when that isn't what happens, something happens in your brain and it jumps into a different state. Now, sometimes that element of the unexpected is combined with something that you recognize is not a threat. I mean, this is how humor works. Humor works by subverting our sense of expectation.

[00:04:12] Paul: We think that this thing is going to happen, and then something else happens. And then when we look at it, we go, oh, well that kind of makes sense, all right. Or like, oh, I could see that, but we don't immediately have that. Oh my, ah, I'm gonna get eaten, sort of thing. There is a jolt. But because of the environment we're in or things like that, we do not immediately perceive it as a threat.

[00:04:32] Paul: But our brain is in a different state when we hear the punchline than when we were hearing the setup. And so, our brains are more reassured when their predictions are coming true. 

Managing Cognitive Load During Changes

[00:04:43] Paul: And so what happens is you get into that state of different cognitive activation and different people's brains do this to differing degrees.

[00:04:51] Paul: Exactly what you're talking about does happen, which is now we start to go, well this thing that I predicted or that I was planning on, that I was expecting isn't going to happen. What else is there? And that threat assessment can turn up for some people very, very high. And I think this is an important thing when you're working with someone else, is to sort of understand what are the things with your colleague, how do they respond to that? How threatened does their brain feel when those expectations change? 

Extending Grace to Yourself and Others

[00:05:24] Karen: I think both in terms of looking at your own internal work, which is, you know, give yourself grace around, there's all the changes that are gonna be necessary for whatever decision you're making differently. 

[00:05:37] Karen: And in addition to that extra capacity being taken up, managing the change. And so that ability to give yourself grace, I think does tend to generalize to being able to give others grace. That when things are changing, when there's uncertainty there's gonna be a range of discomfort.

[00:05:56] Karen: Some people are gonna be better with it than others, but then not knowing what's gonna happen, not knowing how it's gonna work or having to shift how we thought it was gonna work. That all just takes up a good bit of cognitive and emotional capacity. And I think where we get into trouble is not that we made the change. I think that's a whole other, we've done some episodes about how to make decisions and how to decide if we're changing things.

[00:06:21] Karen: So we're gonna assume you've done a good job on that. Just being prepared for it to take more resource, take more cognition, take more time, slow down other things around it. It's gonna be x plus some other amount. So we can look at, okay, if we make this change, we'll need this much budget and we'll need to change these five things and all of that. And in addition to that, the adjustment is its own cost.

[00:06:46] Paul: And as you said, that's true even when the new plan is as good as the old one. And so it's often, not that we don't like the new plan, but we have this sort of cognitive tax of we need to still keep working through it. And that we should expect that from ourselves.

[00:07:02] Paul: And that we expect that from other people. And so we can both give grace around it at that sort of personal and emotional level, but also from a practical level, we need to plan for it. We shouldn't assume that there's zero switching cost for this kind of thing. And because sometimes we just don't even know what the implications of this change is for somebody else.

[00:07:23] Paul: Like we will have thought through it on our own and we go, oh okay, it's a pretty small change. Right. And there may be two things that we don't know. One is we don't necessarily know how they're going to react to, I need to adjust my expectations.

[00:07:37] Paul: I need to look for other threats. I need to figure out, you know, the thing we've talked about. Sometimes we also just don't know what other plans have they made that were based on the original plan. You know, it's things like, were talking about travel and family stuff earlier. You know, a few weeks back I went to go visit my mom and we ended up changing the dates of when I was gonna go visit.

[00:07:58] Paul: But when I reached out to her about saying, and I wanted to be considerate, right? And I wanna say, I was thinking about it would be easier for me if I came these other dates instead of this first set of dates, because I also wanted to check and just make sure that she hadn't said, oh well, because I was gonna be there, you know, that week she'd invited other family members to also show up and we were gonna do a big thing and whatever have you, and that she just hadn't told me about.

[00:08:21] Paul: I wanted to check in with that because that might. You know, sometimes what we think is gonna be a small change or isn't really gonna inconvenience somebody else turns out to be bigger because we just don't know what all is going on with our collaborators and our colleagues and things like that.

[00:08:36] Paul: And so I think we also need to, in addition to extending that grace, like be open to the notion that this might be a bigger change than we thought it was going to be, and we might rethink our decisions there. So I think also like being open to that is important.

Practical Strategies for Coping with Change

[00:08:51] Karen: And then I think that the piece that I think you're leading to is also what supports might. If it's me or the people that I'm working with need in the case where this is going on. So are there lists that need to be made? That's usually the one for me. Like if I can wrap my head around what are the new things and I have a list that's gonna help and if making the list calms my brain down, like that's a strategy for me.

[00:09:14] Karen: And it won't be the same for everybody. I mean, I'm, I'm not proposing that making a list is always the right answer here 'cause it's not. But getting curious about both for me. I mean, maybe I need to go for a walk. Maybe I need to do some deep breathing. Maybe I need to talk through it with someone. 'Cause I'm a really verbal thinker and say, Hey, what else am I missing?

[00:09:34] Karen: Knowing yourself and what's gonna help you get sort of settled with it. And then also hopefully knowing the people that you work with. But even more important, being curious about, okay, we've made some changes. What are you gonna need that's different? What are you looking for or how can we help? Or do you need to go take a walk?

[00:09:55] Karen: If that's the thing, like, but having that consideration that they may need something that they wouldn't have needed if we hadn't changed things. 

[00:10:04] Paul: And that's a theme that we've talked about a couple of times here in the last few months is that idea of like, what are the personal practices that you have, you know, that help you through moments like this? And for you making a list, right? Let me just put everything down because going through that, you know, I will go, okay, great.

[00:10:23] Paul: That calms down my brain or going for a walk or whatever have you. And I think one of the things you really can do is that when you find yourself maybe not extending yourself as much grace as you'd like, right? Like, why is this a big deal to me? Why am I at so little function around this?

[00:10:37] Paul: It's like being able to use that as a moment to go. What might be useful to me here? What's a practice that I can develop, even if I don't know that about myself yet? How can I use this as a moment to try a few things to see if that would help? So that you can start to develop that practice so that when things come in the future, you go, oh, okay, this is one of those things where I should make a list.

[00:11:00] Paul: Right? And you can try those things out. So I think because so often we make plans that fall through in some way. One of the places we could go is absolutely to blame the other person and to go, well, they're so inconsiderate and they don't think about this thing, or they're not good at planning ahead.

[00:11:19] Paul: They should have anticipated, you know, that this thing could come up. And quite frankly, thinking that doesn't do us much good because we can't really change who they are or what they do. What we can change is how we react and respond to it. And so we can go, okay, what is I know about myself that will help me in this situation right here, right now?

[00:11:40] Paul: Later, we might have some conversations about how we avoid that situation in the future, but right here and right now, what can I do that's gonna help me to absorb as much of that sort of uncertainty and to be able to minimize the amount of additional cognitive load that I have to manage as I'm working through this.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:11:59] Karen: So we started with the question of what now really pointing to this idea that what's going to happen now is different than what I had expected was going to happen now, and how do I handle that? And I think really our theme is recognize that figuring out how to handle that is its own set of cognitive load.

[00:12:19] Karen: It's its own sort of set of tasks. It's its own amount of emotional processing, even sometimes, depending on what the thing is. And that there will be a list of things you need to do to make the change that you're talking about changing in your plans. And then on top of all the things you actually need to do, there will be an additional cognitive load of your brain going, what do I need to do?

[00:12:39] Karen: And what am I missing? And what threat do I have now? And what do I need to pay attention to? And that's real and normal, and we should all give ourselves a good bit of grace about that. And when we're in that, figuring out how to calm that brain down so it's not floundering around. Looking for things is very helpful and that's a thing that we can help the people around us do as well.

[00:13:01] Karen: So being compassionate and giving grace to others. If they seem more stressed or less productive at a time that things are changing or something has changed. And also looking for what supports and how we can help them get through it, with a little bit of understanding of the neuroscience behind all of this, which tells us that this is a very human experience. 

[00:13:21] Paul: Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis. 

[00:13:25] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig, and this has been Employing Differences.