Employing Differences

"Awesome things end to make room for more awesome things. If we just continue to try to hold on to things that have been great, even when they're still going great, eventually everything has a natural lifecycle and time span to it." Karen & Paul talk about the complexities of ending long-term collaborative projects, using their decision to conclude their podcast, 'Employing...

"The greater the skillset of the participants, the less skill the facilitator needs and the greater the skill of the facilitator." Karen & Paul discuss how a meeting participant can help a facilitator during a meeting without undermining their authority.

"If you're the sort of person who naturally dominates conversation, step back. If you're the sort of person who naturally doesn't say anything, step in. And to add some nuance to that, really to think about and to listen for what are things that are being said in the group that's relevant, germane to the topic at hand." Karen & Paul talk about how to be an effecti...

"And starting with preparation, which very often we don't think about preparing for a meeting, especially if we're not facilitating. But it's very useful to gather what information you can. If there is an agenda, review it. If there's information that's been sent out, you know, decide how much of it it's useful for you to read and get familiar with." Karen &...

"Part of being a good advisor is trusting the other person to be an expert in their context, in their life, in the things that they're doing and to listen to them when they say things around that." Karen & Paul discuss how to effectively provide advice in a collaborative space, particularly for consultants or advisors who must respect their clients’ autonomy while offering their...

"Sometimes what happens is somebody's organizing in a meeting on behalf of others with great intentions, but the others, like the people who are in the conflict, who need to work it out actually are not very interested in doing any work on it." Karen & Paul share how to identify and address meetings that are inherently impossible to facilitate successfully. They share insights o...

" If we're gonna ask, it needs to have something, we need to know what we're gonna do with it. Because when people know that they're supposed to ask for feedback about stuff, but they actually have no plan to incorporate any of the ideas that they get. That contributes to, you know, just this feeling of like, well, this is a checkbox, like this is a performative ask." Kare...

" Give yourself permission to choose the one that serves you best. And if you're in a community space or a teamwork space or a job kind of space, that doesn't just mean you can do the thing that's entirely selfish, but you can selfishly do the thing that gives me the community that I want." Karen & Paul share the concept of intentional choice and its importance in rela...

" What is vulnerable for one person to do in one situation, in one environment is not the same for everybody else and for anyone else in that situation that there are a lot of external factors that play into it as well." Karen & Paul talks about the concept of calibrating vulnerability in collaborative and relational environments. They explore how balancing vulnerability with safety...

"The idea is that what we know and what we think is what matters, and that ignores the fact that what we think and what we're able to access of what we know are decidedly influenced by what we feel. So the introspection is kind of trying to get all of those pieces together." Karen & Paul discuss the concept of introspection skills and their importance in collaborative relationsh...

"Curiosity is about knowing what questions to ask, so that we can then listen deeply for the answer. And for me, curiosity is very much about asking genuine questions, and that is to say questions that we don't know the answer to. These are non rhetorical. These are things where we actually don't know the answer and we want to know the answer. Like there's a sense of wonder or...

"This is where I am. This is what I'm thinking. This is what I've experienced. This is the impact that it had on me, where my brain went when you said that thing, or whatever it is. But it leaves the door open for them to have a different experience, and a different understanding. So yes, they need to know that you're really mad about that thing they did, but they don't ne...

"Listening is a relational skill. It's not just about I know what you know, so now we can make better decisions. It creates connection to feel heard. It creates trust and safety to know that I actually have heard what you have to say. It has that relational impact in addition to the informational part." Karen & Paul share the importance of listening skills in building effective...

"One of our criteria was, it has to be a skill that is an individual. This is how I relate to people. This is how I engage with people. This is perhaps how I engage with conflict, that kind of space." Karen & Paul discuss the importance of identifying and developing relational skills that individuals can use to improve interactions and prevent conflicts. They outline six key skill ar...

"In some ways, you don't want people to feel good after the skill building. You want them to feel capable. You still want them to be unhappy about the situation, but know that they now have a thing that they can do. Because you want them to still be motivated to do it." Karen & Paul share strategies for intervening in organizational crises, focusing on whether to address the imm...

" The learning space is best served when while there is a problem, it's not a giant problem. There may be a flame, but the whole house isn't on fire yet. And that is the ideal learning space because once the house is on fire, your brain is not set up to learn, and it is a capacity issue. " Karen & Paul  discuss the factors that motivate individuals in groups to engage in le...

"It's not actually about how the other person feels, how the other person reacts to what it is that we say to them. What we're really worried about is how we are going to react to their reaction." Karen & Paul discuss how to handle difficult conversations by focusing on your response to the other person's emotional reaction. 

"Just because I am a hundred percent willing to hand it off and a hundred percent confident in their ability to make it, doesn't mean that it's something they're willing to do." Karen & Paul share the complexities of delegating decisions in collaborative environments. They explore the dual aspect of the question 'Can you decide?'—considering both the capacity...

" If we're not clear about what we are doing in exerting that control, why we are doing it, how long that will last. We can amplify that stress response, that threat response in all of the people around us. So it's not just that we have less collaboration, but we're probably freaking other people out." Karen & Paul talk about assessing the appropriate level of control...

"If you can get somebody who will listen with you, read with you, talk with you, explore with you along these same kinds of things, your odds go up dramatically for actually making a difference in your organization." Karen & Paul talk about the benefits of having a 'learning buddy' when working on relational skills and collaborative practices. They highlight that while lear...

" 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." Karen & Paul talk about managing unexpected changes in collaborative projects. They explore the cognitive and emotional impacts of altered plans, emphasizing...

"You land in a place that's more challenging than you expected, you don't have the sense of belonging that you normally would think you'd have in that kind of environment. And I just wanna say, if we don't have a strong sense of connection in a group, we do feel threatened." Karen & Paul discuss the cognitive and emotional costs of differences in collaborative spa...

"So none of us liked the fact that we were in that situation, but the fact that we could then choose which of these various options works the best for my situation, what's the least bad thing for me? I now had that choice." Karen & Paul share how to effectively present the least bad option to a group, focusing on the importance of context, choice, and connection.

"The sooner they know, the better they can deal with it, and if they're hearing from me that it's not gonna happen. That has a totally different feel than if we wait until they figure out on their own that it's not gonna happen and then are coming back to me for it." Karen & Paul discuss the importance of timely communication when project deadlines change. They emphasi...

" I don't want to jump to assumptions and conclusions here about this. So let me understand, do you need this by a particular time? What would the impact of it, it being here by that or not? You need to do it in a way that the other person feels like the conversation is moving forward." Karen & Paul explore the complexities of asking for timelines in personal and professional se...