Employing Differences

"If you are hoping to have ongoing relationships, either with individuals or with the group, you want to be thoughtful about what kind of relationships you hope those will be and what it will take to make that happen." Karen & Paul share tips on quitting or leaving a group.

"We often undervalue or we understate how much adding another person to a group makes it harder for the group to do its work. But we also want to make sure that the group isn't so small that there aren't perspectives that aren't being represented that need to be there." Karen & Paul talk about figuring out how many people should be in a group to get certain tasks done.

"If somebody else is doing it, think about them with curiosity and compassion. Why are they doing it? What are they needing? And how do we address that need, even though we don't sanction what they're doing to try and get that need met? And if it's spinning and it's just filling up your inbox, be willing to set a boundary to say, 'Nope, I'm opting out.'&quot...

"I always love asking the question, why is the problem a problem? Which is often a prompt that starts to get us into that reflective space." Karen & Paul share tips on how to handle a problem in a group that seems impossible to fix.

"I think it is often useful to ask for questions. But we need to do it in a way that's  effective and that helps us move towards the goals that we have for asking for them." Karen & Paul share ways to run an effective Q&A.

"There are a variety of different roles that I might end up playing because of my natural tendencies, because of my skills, because of my needs for things to happen. And sometimes what happens in a group is I really don't want to do that." Paul & Karen discuss what keeps us playing the same roles in groups, even when we'd rather not.

"Before I give somebody some feedback, I actually want to ask them, are they open to it? I want to ask this question because if my intention is to actually share some information that's going to help them to do something effective in the future, then I need to know that they're in a space where they could hear it."  Karen & Paul talk about being at choice about how, when, a...

"When we go to work with somebody else, it's pretty easy to find myself saying, 'Man, I wish they would just show up on time." Or, 'Man, I wish they would just be organized and not be constantly asking me for the stuff that I already sent them.' Or, 'I wish they would dream along with me so that I'm not off by myself coming up with all the big ideas.'&q...

"We shouldn't expect that things will always go perfectly, that we will never fail to deliver on our obligations. The need to repair trust isn't a sign that this is a broken, dysfunctional relationship. It's normal, it's just unfortunate." Karen & Paul discuss rebuilding trust when we didn't do something we were supposed to.

"The way you share bad news has an impact on the relationship; on that space between; in that collaborative space. So we want to explore today ways that you can share that bad news in a way that works; in a way that maybe avoids some of the things that we think might go wrong; that actually helps us to work through the sharing of the bad news together." Paul & Karen share advice for...

"How relevant is it to them in terms of their decision-making? What sort of agency are they gonna have when this comes out? Because if it's something that's uncertain, that they can't actually do anything about, and they're just gonna stew on it and cogitate, ruminate, and stress about it, then maybe it makes sense not to share it until we know it's more likely that i...

"Sometimes there are actual consequences that do need to go along when things go wrong, but it's far less often than we actually seem to think when somebody is saying there needs to be more accountability." Paul & Karen  discuss what do to when we did have shared expectations about what we needed to do, but we still didn't get the results we wanted. This is the second of a...

"The statement 'We need more accountability' usually comes up when we've deviated in some way from our perfect idea of how we're going to work together. Which is to say, we start with this shared understanding of what it is we're all each individually going to do and deliver and who's going to do, you know, what by when and how well sorts of things." Karen &...

"For this particular decision, how aligned do we all need to be around it in order for the decision to be effective? In order for the idea that we're trying to move forward to really move into reality? Because that threshold of alignment varies with the type of thing that we're trying to do." Paul & Karen talk about helping a group converge on decisions. This is the finale...

"That's where the actual solutions to your complex problems are: in the things that we disagree about, that we want to run away from because other people's ideas or perspectives are so different from the ones that we have. We can't just look at them and go, "Okay, fine, whatever," and move on. We actually need to come to understand them – because that's where dur...

"Whatever that thing is, we're bringing our own flavor to it, and we don't realize that we're painting it. A lot of that flavor painting is unconscious. And so it's not that I think I'm sneaking my way in, or you think you're sneaking your way in. It's that we don't notice how much of our own kind of criteria or condition that we have on it in our own m...

"We often say, 'Who's willing to do this?' And we wait awkwardly for someone to raise their hand. Willingness matters, but it is not the only concern that we have." Karen & Paul share techniques and advice for filling roles within a group.

"I don't get to decide that for the group. I set prompts that might be deeper or shallower. I set structures that facilitate depth. Some of them foster depth, and some of them don't as much. So I do make choices about how deep we're going to go. But at the end of the day, I actually only am making a decision about how deep I'm inviting people to go." Paul & Karen...

"It's very difficult for me to assess for other people, 'Is this a space where it is safe for them to take risks?' Because they may have very different risk profiles and very different things that make things dangerous. And they may have much more severe consequences that could hit them as a result of things that they bring up. And so I think that I can say that I feel safe in...

"We are assuming that no one wants to be a controlling boss or to use the structural power that they have in a way that would cause someone else to feel controlling or that would diminish somebody else's agency to speak or do their job or say things. It doesn't mean that that person who has authority doesn't want to make decisions and use their decision-making authority, but th...

"There is a whole range of what transparency means. There's a range of ways we might achieve it. And we want to be thoughtful about who needs the information and how much of the information they need." Karen & Paul discuss how the benefits – and costs – of transparency aren't always what we expect them to be.

"Those moments of conflict in those types of relationships are precisely the moments where we have the opportunity to learn and grow individually and as a part of that relationship. We get to make a choice about whether or not we want to do that." Paul & Karen talk about how conflict creates opportunities for growth.

"With a simple decision, the math says we should do this, and somebody else is going, 'But how could you possibly?'" Karen & Paul talk about how the logical and emotional parts of our decision-making can show up when we collaborate.

"We sometimes can fall into the trap of thinking that we can work with anyone, and that we can fix every situation. That if we just use the right words, if we approach things in the right way, that we can always make things better. And our experience has been that's not true." Paul & Karen  talk about recognizing the limits of our interpersonal skills.

"There's no one answer to this. It depends on the situation. What we really want to dig into is understanding what our options are – being able to see what's going on in these situations so that we can make good choices about it." Karen & Paul talk about how to move forward when a situation upsets only part of a group.