Head On Page 11
Whether in a team setting or in a meeting, difficult conversations may stem from differences in approach to the work itself or they may originate from personality and communication style differences that impede collaboration. Regardless of the source, the dynamic of holding a difficult conversation becomes more complex in teams and meetings because more people are typically in attendance and involved. It is no longer a conversation between a duo as described in earlier chapters.
We will look at a variety of difficult and dysfunctional phenomena that occur in meetings and teams. First, we look at conflicts that stem from interruptions and we examine the importance of equal turns in meetings. Then we turn our attention to sabotage or “being thrown under the bus.” Finally, we look at conflict and how to channel such conflict into productive conflict where new and better ideas can emerge.
INTERRUPTIONS
One rainy Sunday, when I was eight years old, I recall sitting with my parents and two older brothers around the dinner table. Everyone had something to share, we were all highly animated, and we were all talking over each other in bursts and shouts. Not a single one of us was discussing the same topic. Several minutes into the chaos, there was a brief pause. I couldn’t take it any longer, and found myself declaring (in my most grown-up voice), “This is NOT a conversation – we have to take turns!”
As an adult, I now understand just how crucial turn-taking is to the success of any group endeavor-especially at work. For example, research published in the journal Science found that groups whose members foster equal individual participation-both in terms of numbers of turns and length of turns-consistently demonstrate higher quality decision-making skills and an increase in overall group performance results.22
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon, MIT and Union College were curious to know if there was a “collective” intelligence of groups that could be measured, much like we measure individual intelligence with IQ tests. They wondered if some groups were more intelligent than others, and if so, was it simply because the average IQ of the group was higher, or was there something else at play? To test their hypothesis, the researchers conducted a series of experiments. First, research participants were given two assessments, one that measured their IQ and one that measured their social sensitivity, or their ability to “read the mind in the eyes” of others. Then they were placed in small groups to perform decision-making tasks. Researchers evaluated the outcomes of the small groups’ decisions to see if the groups who had the highest average IQ made the best decisions (meaning individual intelligence was the best predictor of group outcomes) or if there was a collective intelligence, meaning other factors were better predictors of outcomes.
The researchers’ hypothesis was confirmed. Some groups performed better than others, even though the individual IQ scores of the participants were not as high as those in other groups. Indeed, there was such a thing as collective intelligence. The researchers found that the groups that made the best decisions had three clear characteristics in common: they included people who scored higher on the social sensitivity assessment, they were groups with more women than men, and in the conversation, team members took more or less equal numbers of turns. Groups with these characteristics consistently outperformed the other groups on the problem-solving tasks. (Researchers posit that women tend to be better at accurately assessing other’s emotions, accounting for the unanticipated finding that more women in the group led to higher collective intelligence. In the experiments, if the group was predominantly or entirely women, the group no longer outperformed the other groups. The bottom line: gender balance is important.)
Overall, the research shines a light on the role of turn-taking in effective collaboration and decision making. It demonstrates that no matter how intelligent an individual might be, it is how he or she interacts with others that brings value to a team or meeting. Says lead researcher Anita Woolley, “It really calls into question our whole notion of what intelligence is. What individuals can do all by themselves is becoming less important; what matters more is what they can do with others.”23
One of the chief obstacles to equal turn-taking is people who hijack other people’s turns, or interrupt. Interruptions are one of the primary sources of conflict in the workplace. When people are interrupted, they feel disrespected. That disrespect can quickly spiral into quiet (or not so quiet) anger and disengagement. Meetings, because of the dialogue and exchange of ideas that is associated with them, are a rich breeding ground for interruptions. The sting of disrespect is more acute in a meeting as well, because with five or ten of your colleagues as an audience, the disrespect feels magnified.
Turn-taking isn’t always easy. Perceptions about hierarchy, expertise, even our conditioned beliefs about gender and diversity (whether conscious or unconscious) can all contribute to roadblocks that prevent beneficial and equal collaboration in meetings. Knowing what you now know about the importance of turn-taking in effective decision making, you can begin to subtly monitor turns in the meetings you attend and make interjections to distribute turns more equally.
Overcoming Interruptions
Better outcomes begin with mindfulness. Are you the one who chronically seizes the spotlight, or do you find yourself constantly losing center stage? Are you the frequent witness of unfortunate interruptions, but don’t know whether or how to intervene? Knowing that interruptions tend to lead to unequal turns in meetings, and consequently less intelligent outcomes, can provide inspiration to strive for more balanced conversations in meetings. With that awareness in mind, approach interruptions head on with the strategies outlined below.
To get the turn: Make direct eye contact with the person who has the turn, lean forward, and frown ever so slightly. This non-verbal cue will help signal your desire to interject or adjust the direction of the conversation, once the current speaker is done sharing.
To keep the turn: Resist the urge to make eye contact with people who start squirming for their turn to speak before you are finished. If that’s not enough, hold up your hand in the direction of that person with your palm facing them, a gesture that means “stop,” and subtly shake your head while you continue talking.
To regain the turn if you’ve been interrupted: Hold your ground and interrupt right back. Try saying something quick and clear like, “George, I wasn’t finished,” and continue with your thought.
To mitigate ongoing interruption issues: Prepare in advance with a confederate who is willing to interject on your behalf and give the turn back. For women, like it or not, it works best if your confederate is a man. A confederate intervention might sound like this: “Wait, I want to hear what Lisa was saying. Lisa?”
To give the turn after you’ve finished: Try passing the turn to someone on your team whose voice is historically under-represented. Or, if you know there are already multiple group members waiting to respond to your ideas, call them out in order like this: “Lisa, I know you’ve been waiting to respond, and then George.”
Next, we examine sabotage and the accompanying amygdala hijack that happens when it catches us unawares.
SABOTAGE
Julie and Daniel were collaborating on a proposal for entering a new market with one of their company’s products. The big day had come; after four months of research and hard work, they were making their pitch to the senior management team. They had shared preliminary research and conclusions with their manager and various stakeholders during the previous months, seeking feedback and input along the way. They felt prepared.
Part way through their presentation, it became clear that the Chief Operating Officer was not in favor of their proposed approach. He was beginning to sway others on the management team through persuasive but empty rhetoric, circumventing the data driven argument Julie and Daniel were making.
Much to Julie’s surprise, Daniel changed course and aligned himself with the COO. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Julie all these months,” Daniel asserted. Even though many of the ideas in the presentat
ion that the COO was shooting down were his own, Daniel went on, agreeing with the prevailing opinion of the outspoken COO and abandoning his research partner. Julie was flabbergasted. She’d been thrown under the bus before, but never to this degree. Julie grappled with feeling blindsided and with the enormity of the situation, struggling to find her voice. What would it take to professionally disagree with the senior management team and the COO without her colleague’s support? And further, how could she show the management team that the ideas being presented were just as much Daniel’s ideas as they were hers?
Intentional sabotage and becoming a victim of office politics are not uncommon occurrences in the workplace. Think about the last time you were caught unawares by a colleague in a meeting. Perhaps you assumed the two of you agreed on the topic and instead your colleague cut your opinion down, humiliating you in the process. Were you able to speak up in the moment and advocate for yourself? Or were you rendered speechless as Julie was, struck dumb in the midst of being caught off-guard? Your reaction may vary, especially as the stakes and the people involved differ. In Julie’s case, the stakes were quite high and the audience included the most senior leaders in the organization.
In situations like these, the prefrontal cortex is likely to go offline as adrenaline, cortisol, and other stress hormones are released, mobilizing the body for defense. The R-brain is engaged and is preparing to defend the sense of self that feels attacked. It is more important than ever to remain present and fully engaged, calm and centered, in order to sort out the situation and correct any misinterpretations or allegations as they occur, or as soon thereafter as possible. While it may be tempting to throw the other person under the proverbial bus, it is critical to handle the situation professionally and assertively.
Approaching Sabotage
Julie is essentially experiencing an amygdala hijack and as such she has three possible innate responses: fight, flight, or freeze. As you learned in earlier chapters, one of these responses will kick in unless deliberate and conscious action is taken. That is the nature of the human body, working on a stimulus-response basis. In a full-on fight or flight response, as you will recall from Chapter 3, the neocortex will go offline and Julie’s complex language skills, abstract thinking, imagination, and curiosity will become inaccessible.
If Julie goes down the path of fight, she will become antagonistic and aggressive with Daniel during the presentation. That attitude will most likely spill over and influence the way she addresses the management team in the meeting, particularly the COO. A response fueled by rage and anger will come across as unprofessional to the senior management team members and may put Julie’s job and career advancement opportunities in jeopardy.
If Julie freezes and does not respond, she will yield control of the meeting and its direction to the COO and Daniel. She will take a backseat to Daniel and his approach through the rest of the presentation and fail to advocate for her position. If she remains frozen, her shock will prevent her from participating in the meeting in a meaningful way. She may find herself wishing she could say something but feeling essentially immobilized.
If Julie takes flight (even if she stays in the room), she will cow to Daniel’s position. She will mentally “check out” of the meeting and will feel much like she is watching the episode unfold from a distance. Much like the freeze response, Julie’s participation will drop off considerably. She may be acutely aware of what is being said, but feel like she is not an active player in the conversation, as if she is watching the meeting on television.
While one of these responses is likely to be Julie’s initial, unfiltered response, none of them are effective for her. Further, none of these responses will serve Julie’s career or the company’s best interests. Let’s walk through what it would look like if Julie were to take a head-on approach.
First, Julie will need to put some space between the stimulus and her response. To find that space, she might anchor to a physical object on her body like her glasses or her wedding band as described in Chapter 4. As she anchors, she can acknowledge the response she is having (“I’m angry with Daniel and I can’t believe he’s throwing me under the bus!”) and then consciously choose how she’d like to carry on. Julie’s self-talk might sound something like this: “I’m going to use the Fact AND approach to bring this discussion to a close and I’m going to try to remain as neutral as possible while I do that. I am Switzerland.”
After anchoring, Julie must make a deliberate choice about her next move: she will need to take the situation head on and be assertive. Julie’s response might sound something like this: “Allow me to recap our discussion so far. Daniel and I presented data and a recommended direction. Other opinions and suggestions were added to the discussion. I know many of you felt differently about the proposed direction before the meeting than you do now. The new ideas put forth by Craig (the COO) are indeed compelling. I propose that Daniel and I take those ideas back for additional research before we move ahead with a decision. I know how important it is to all of you and to our shareholders that we make data-driven decisions.” Julie may have to assert this position several times to shift the momentum of the meeting.
Note that Julie doesn’t specifically address Daniel or his changing allegiance in her assertive stance. She may be tempted to dress Daniel down to make him feel as she felt (there’s that human tendency to reciprocate again!). However, that does not serve the outcome she is after. Rather, she can best speak with Daniel about his shift in perspective and the consequences it had for her and their professional relationship in a private conversation, again using a head-on approach. It is likely in a situation like this that it will take two or more conversations with Daniel to reach agreement. Julie would be wise to follow the steps for a Type 2 agreement outlined in Chapter 8 as she proceeds.
Next, we turn to transforming an antagonizing conflict into one that has an opportunity to give way to original, innovative solutions that would not otherwise have come about.
CREATIVE CONFLICT
As they prepared for their next product launch, Jerry and Tanya arrived at a major hiccup in the creative process. Advertising campaign proofs had just come in and the tone of the key message and the visuals were both off the mark. With only a short window of time until the campaign launch, tensions were high.
Jerry was convinced that the solution was to fire the outside ad agency and start over. Tanya felt that their in-house marketing team could salvage the expensive work from the external agency and get the campaign back on track. Neither could move beyond their own fixed way of thinking.
They went to others on their team. The prevailing opinion among other team members was that the campaign was fine and could run as delivered from the agency. Tanya and Jerry had more accountability for this project than others on the team. The two of them were further infuriated by the dissenters who thought the campaign was “fine.” According to Tanya, Jerry was being inflexible and aloof. Jerry thought Tanya was overly optimistic and naive. After discussing the problem on multiple occasions, the conflict was starting to seem insurmountable.
What is happening with Jerry and Tanya and how can they get through it? Whether it is a larger group or the dynamic of a pair within a larger team setting like Tanya and Jerry, internal conflict often leads team members to become defensive. When they are defensive, they are unable to hear one another’s ideas, so much so that they don’t interpret their colleagues’ contributions as they were intended. This is a common result of defensiveness. As psychological defenses go up, listening ability declines. In the case of a team, other people and processes are involved. For the sake of the issue at hand and for the overall health and well-being of the team, it is important to reach agreement amicably and resolutely.
For Jerry and Tanya to find resolution, they are going to have to give up their fixed thinking. They face an excellent opportunity to shift gears and walk into what I refer to as creative conflict. To embrace creative conflict, you must make a choice to consci
ously let go of “my way” versus “your way” thinking and transcend face-value differences. If you implement what you learned in Part 2 of this book, working hard to listen to one another and remain curious about the other person’s position, you can capitalize on the conflict and allow more creative solutions to emerge. You will need to honor points of disagreement and not take those points of disagreement personally, while also making room for new and inspired solutions. Using creative conflict as an ultimate form of collaboration, Jerry and Tanya can reach a better outcome than either could have arrived at on their own.
One or both will need to shift into a place of curiosity about the other’s position. Once there, they will need to ask more questions and listen deeply to the answers. Suspending the view that your own answer is the right or best answer is tricky business. Often, we are so committed to our position that the commitment becomes a hindrance to good decision making. For either Jerry or Tanya to shift their position so they can be in creative conflict, they will need to step away from the situation for a moment.
Oftentimes physical distance helps create the emotional distance needed to address a situation head on. Taking a short walk, even if only to the restroom or coffee station, can help create that distance. With newfound emotional distance, imagine at least three different ways the problem might be addressed. For Jerry that might include Tanya’s way of thinking, taking seriously his colleagues’ sentiment that the campaign really is adequate as is, and reaching out to a colleague at another agency to see if they could put together a creative solution quickly.
Next, Jerry could go back to Tanya with his newfound commitment to solving the problem and share his ideas and be open to her response. To be in creative conflict, he will look to find some points of agreement with something she says, even if they are minor points of convergence at first. It is critical at this point that they share agreement on something, even if it is merely the acknowledgement that they are in a challenging situation. From this place, it is much more likely that the two of them will be able to work through the conflict to find a creative solution-one that will be built upon the best ideas they both have to offer. The steps for transforming an antagonistic conflict into a creative conflict are outlined below.