Conditions for Speaking Up

 

In this episode, Bill and Ralph discuss the value of changing our thinking about the way we solve problems. When we think of problem-solving as polarity management  –  that is, managing two forces that are interdependent but seemingly opposite of one another, we can reap tremendous benefits for ourselves personally, and for our teams and organizations. Listen to learn more about the concept and get ideas about how you can introduce polarity management to your leadership.

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*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors

 

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Bill Berthel:

Welcome to the Get Emergent podcast where we discuss leadership team and organizational topics and best practices. We like to provide ideas, concepts, and pragmatic experiments to help you develop your potential in your work and your leadership. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone:

And I’m Ralph Simone.

Bill Berthel:

Ralph, great topic today, the conditions for speaking up, what is the space of folks not speaking up? What’s happening?

Ralph Simone:

Well, I think a lot of our coaching experience is coaching people to have those missing or pivotal conversations. And as I was thinking about this, this is kind of a both/and opportunity. We need to have the structure and culture in place so people feel safe and comfortable speaking up. On the other hand, as an employee, I need to have the courage and I think take the responsibility that if I see it, I need to say it and perhaps even do something about it. So I think it’s not just one or the other. The culture and the employees have to be working to mitigate what we would refer to as missing conversations.

Bill Berthel:

Oh, absolutely. Having a culture of that psychological safety, that term of psychological safety means that people do feel safe to share ideas, speak up, and possibly if needed disagree. Sometimes speaking up is disagreeing. It doesn’t always have to be, but we have that sense that I’m going to be emotionally safe in this space. Something I say won’t be held against me.

Ralph Simone:

And I think for our listeners, I want to make the distinction that you may be a very open, very personal, very kind individual, but sometimes your passion around a particular topic could make it difficult for people to speak up. And I have a recent example where in our organization, I’m the founder. I’ve been around practicing this leadership development and coaching the longest, and we introduced a topic and we had our extended team at this meeting. And it was a topic that I felt strongly about, really passionate about, and instead of waiting my turn and giving people, I just kind of went full bore with how I felt it needed to be. And I didn’t catch it real-time, but I reflected a few minutes later. Now our newest guy, if he saw it differently, I don’t know that I created the conditions for him to speak up. So sometimes it can be just by how passionately we feel about something, we can make it uneasy for others to see it differently or to challenge our perspective.

Bill Berthel:

That’s a great point, Ralph. Recently I’m working with a client and it’s about a year-long program, multiple workshops and meetings with the same cohort group. And really everyone in the group is wonderful and really bright. This one individual approached me through email and said, I really want to share some content with you, but I’m really hesitant to do that because you seem so well-read and an expert in your field. And I didn’t even think about that, that sometimes our expertise can create that space just like our passion. And by the way, this gentleman has shared so far three amazing pieces of content with me that I’ve never was exposed to, never heard of. That is just fascinating.

Ralph Simone:

Bill, I appreciate you sharing that. I think sometimes subject matter experts cast a large shadow and they create conditions that cause people to be tentative. And I think it’s a general awareness around that. And I think there are ways, there’s ways of framing it, but you really need to be mindful of your behavior, not just what you say, but what you do. I mean, we’ve all been part of the instructor that’s up there and says ask any question. There’s no such thing as dumb questions. And yet people still don’t ask things that they don’t understand. And so I think that is incumbent on them, right? The responsibility to speak up. But there’s a lot of wasted time and energy in organizations and relationships because we do not have the conditions where people speak up. And when you don’t have all the information, you can’t make the best decisions. And I think that’s one of the reasons why we think this is so important to really keep being mindful. I remember in one organization, people who spoke up, they were thought of as troublemakers or people who weren’t supportive as opposed to people who were trying to make it better. Yeah, absolutely. I think that is an important distinction when we create these conditions for speaking up.

Bill Berthel:

And there’s something cultural in this as well that I want to recognize that in western societies we have the saying, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, which means that sometimes speaking up gets attention that may be positive or negative attention. In Eastern European countries, they have a saying that says the noisiest duck gets shot first, and that’s to keep the voice lower, to keep the voices, voices down. I think something that came out of the terrible events of nine 11 was that the T.S.A. taught us that if you see something, say something. And I think in organizations, I think if we see something, we get to say something and possibly do something. And that behavior matters towards creating an improvement or creating a positive change.

Ralph Simone:

And I think the important thing you just brought up before that point is the complexity of a diverse culture. We need to be aware of how people process different things regarding speaking up and how do we address that as well, and how do we create those conditions that take into consideration the different experiences that people have had based on where they were value programmed.

Bill Berthel:

Absolutely, absolutely. Let’s talk about missing conversations. We know we train, we work with many leaders and teams and organizations around this idea of having those missing or pivotal conversations.

Ralph Simone:

I think people psych themselves out. I think they have the conversation over and over in their head, and for some reason there’s an obstacle, there’s a belief, there’s an assumption they’re making that’s preventing them. And one of the tips I give myself, I give my kids, I give the leaders I coach, is don’t overthink it. If you think something needs to change, you’re probably right. It doesn’t mean you don’t want to be thoughtful about it, but don’t overthink it. I think too often we’re overthinking it and to the point that we have the conversation in our head so much that we think we’ve had it in some instances.

Bill Berthel:

Right.

Ralph Simone:

When we look at relationships that go sideways or organizations that go sideways, it’s often because the most important conversations that need to happen are the ones that are not happening. Those are the ones that we need to speak up and we need training for that. But it goes beyond training. It goes around what’s the belief, what’s getting in the way of mitigating those missing conversations?

Bill Berthel:

Well, I love that in Dr. Susan David’s work in the book Emotional Agility, she calls that first step of not psyching yourself out. She calls that getting yourself off the hook. We put ourselves on that hook by just what you’re saying. We overtalk it inside of our own heads. We overthink it. The first step is getting ourselves off that hook and finding the courage to say something. And

Ralph Simone:

Here’s a tip for getting yourself off the hook, and it’s one that I’ve been using for years is I might tee it up by saying, I’m really not sure about this, but what I’m seeing doesn’t make sense. And I think it was important to point it out. And so I kind of soften it at the beginning and to kind of create that opening, but I’m creating that opening to let myself off the hook to put something in play.

Bill Berthel:

So Ralph, I love the softening approach. Many ways to do that. I have an idea. I’m not sure it’ll be popular. Don’t apologize. In that space, many of us, me included, are inclined to apologize. We start with, I’m sorry, but I need to share. And that really takes away the power. It takes away the validity of your point. So softening is great. Resist apologies in The soft.

Ralph Simone:

Good distinction, good distinction. But I think that the biggest tip would be if it’s not feeling right, bring it up.

Bill Berthel:

Absolutely.

Ralph Simone:

Absolutely. You can bounce it off somebody around how to bring it up. But don’t play too much a mental or emotional tug of war with yourself. Just bring it up, put it in play, and stay present to how the person or person responds to it. There’ll be a lot of information in there. Conditions for speaking up. I don’t fill out surveys when I’m not happy with the service. I give that feedback direct. I will fill out the survey if I’m happy. And somebody said, why do you do that? I said, because I think it’s important for people to hear from me first, what I wasn’t happy with so they have an opportunity to change it. And I think one of the things, the reason we want to continue to create these conditions for speaking up is so that we see what needs to be changed in an organization so that we keep people engaged so that we’re not wondering why all a sudden we’ve lost a high percentage of our people. There were indicators, but for some reason people didn’t feel comfortable putting them in play. So I just think we need to continue to push ourselves in making sure that we have the structure and the culture and the courage to speak up.

Bill Berthel:

So Ralph, where would you ask leaders to start?

Ralph Simone:

I would ask leaders to start by journaling and by really observing their own behaviors and how psychologically safe, how do they frame things, how do they respond when somebody challenges them? And I also think I would encourage leaders to be vulnerable because I think when you do those three things, you are actually creating an inviting atmosphere for people to feel less uncomfortable chiming in.

Bill Berthel:

Ralph, thank you.

Ralph Simone:

Yeah, as individual contributors, I think I would encourage you, if you think something is not quite right, test it out. Don’t sit on it. I think those would be probably the two things I would suggest.

Bill Berthel:

Thank you. And folks, thanks for listening. You can listen to a new podcast two times every month here at Get Emergent or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is where we bring you contemporary leadership topics and ideas, balanced with what we hope you find are better practices that you can apply to your work and your leadership. Thank you.