Lean Musings and other stuff... Wait, that's not what I meant

How many times has one of the following happened to you when you’re in a conversation with someone who is sharing a struggle with you:

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• You listen carefully, asking clarifying questions, even using body language to show your engagement, only to have the other person eventually blurt out – “Can’t you just tell me what to do!”
• You immediately feel deep empathy for the other person taking on their anxiety, fear, anger, or worry. You feel their pain. The other person appreciates that, but wasn’t looking to make you sad or worries too, they just wanted to talk it out with someone.
• You eagerly listen and realize you know exactly what they are struggling with and exactly how to solve it! Excitedly waiting for their first pause in speaking, you jump in to give precise step by step instructions on what to do and when solving their problem forever! Looing almost worse than you started talking, they look away and say – “I wasn’t looking to be fixed. I just wanted to see if my feelings were normal – to be understood”

This certainly isn’t true for all of you. And even if it is true, it’s likely not true all the time, but as a group of “problem solvers”, it wouldn’t be surprising if you’ve found yourself in one of the above predicaments, all of them, or been on either side of them.

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Conversation - a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged

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Sounds easy right? Short of exchanging written communication (text, email, etc) this is how most humans interact with other humans on a day-to-day basis. You’d assume we’d all be pretty good at something as simple as holding a conversation. Unfortunately, if you’ve made it to the age of 5 or 65, you already know interacting with others in conversation on the best day isn’t “easy”. This is driven by a lot of factors, but today I wanted to suggest one that might be more in our control than some of the others which can be “environmental’ (Wrong place, wrong time, etc) or driven by external factors (what happened to them 15 mins ago?). Let’s hone in on one key word within the definition of a conversation – informal

I’ve shared before that corporate environments are often largely "social" and this can be one of their biggest weaknesses and strengths for this exact reason - informality. For the most part, you are friends and friendly to those you interact with on a recurring basis – we’re drawn to informality. Which is great and way better than some of the formal work environments I’ve been a part of in the past. But, informality can create a lot of unnecessary challenges like the occasional need for a more intentional formality.

You hear lot in the self-improvement circles about “setting your intentions” for the day or even for a particular moment. There’s an element of that to how we can have conversations. It’s a little simplistic but consider what it might look like to categorize conversations with someone who has a struggle (aka a problem). More importantly, consider how those conversations might go if these intentions were declared and agreed upon before the conversations actually started:

I need to be “heard” – if this intention is declared up front, the person/team struggling is likely to be a verbal processor or want help testing out language. Using affirmation (“that’s make sense” or “I understand you - have you considered?”) can be helpful, passive tools, but this person isn’t looking to “be fixed” or to commiserate emotionally. The goal is to be a safe source to let them process as long as it’s actually processing. The watch out here is that verbalizing leads to some kind of action – resolution, dismissal, solutioning – after it’s over. Repeated verbalizing of the same issue becomes stalling or procrastination.

I need to be “held” – if this intention is declared up front, the person/team struggling may want you to “mirror” back emotions and/or use validating statements (“your allowed to feel that way” or “being disappointed makes sense”). The goal is to normalize their emotions as long as those emotions are being held in proportion and not a fixation. There’s a big difference in validating someone moving through anger or sadness versus supporting their willingness to be stuck there. Said another way, this should be a “one and done” type of conversation with them so you aren’t perpetuating the issue.

I need to be “helped” – if this intention is declared up front, the person/team should have exhausted all available options and be out of ideas on how to move forward. Unlike coaching, that assumes they know the answer but are stuck or blocked from that answer, this is more advising or mentoring. You are being sought out for an unknown answer they simply don’t have access too. There’s a cautionary note here too. If this person or group keep coming back to you, you can move from a temporary helper to an ongoing enabler. Their own personal “easy button”.

Hopefully all your conversations will be productive, informative, and pleasing to both parties, but if that doesn’t always happen for you, I hope these are helpful.

Wait, I should’ve asked what your intention was today at the beginning right? Should follow my own advice y’all …..