Creating What You Want

            A few years ago, a computer systems consulting firm asked me to instruct one of their training courses. The program was basically a three-month boot camp designed to improve some of their consultants’ technical skills and interpersonal savvy.

In a way, the careers of these consultants were at stake. They had worked on converting programs to function after 1999—remember “Y2K”? They helped fix that. By 2000, they were outmoded. The computer languages they knew were now ancient. This program was designed to upgrade both their technical and interpersonal skills.

            A group of fourteen software engineering consultants was chosen to attend. They felt lucky to have been invited. Several of them even moved to Austin for the three months. My Home Team, as I liked to call them, had a specific room in the company’s training center. Every day, from 8:00 a.m. until all hours of the night, they came to this room to absorb what it was going to take to succeed in their world. My role was to help these consultants with their collaborative communication and work practices.

One day, after they had been together about a month, I arrived after lunch to lead a session. That morning, eight other consultants from a different division, had joined the Home Team’s class on web design. Usually when I arrived, all the participants were seated, in their charming, geeky way, ready to begin—they might nod or smile shyly. But today was different. Some huddled in groups and whispered, some sat on their desks, several even stood. They all started talking at once:

“You wouldn’t believe those guys, Lauren!”

“No wonder they couldn’t get in this program.”

“They totally abused the privilege…”

“Their departments better get charged back their part of the cost.”

“We let them join us and they were ungrateful …”

Clearly, we needed to investigate what happened.

“I’m sorry it felt like such a crummy morning,” I said. “Sounds like you felt invaded, taken advantage of.”

Nods and grumbling.

“Now, you know me, I can’t just let it go, right?”

They groaned.

“Remember, I’m completely on your side. You get to do, or not do, whatever you want. Right now, we’re just going to look at what happened. Let me check with you first, though, does it matter that you’re mad at them? Are there any consequences to this?”

“Well, we work for the same company,” Jan said.

“But you may never see them again?” I offered.

“No, it’s likely we’ll work on projects together,” Jan admitted.

“I see. So we ought to take a look—who’ll start us off with some details?”

“They didn’t pay attention at all!” This was from Erin, who always paid attention.

“How do you mean?” I asked. “What did they do that told you they weren’t paying attention?”

“They sat in the back.” Mark swung around in his chair to wave at the hinterlands of the room.

“They used their cell phones while the instructor was talking,” said Kyle.

“They didn’t talk to us or answer the teacher’s questions,” sniffed Jan.

“Let me see if I’ve got it,” I said. “They came in, sat in the back, didn’t talk, and one of them answered his phone during the lecture?”

“Right and two of them were late.”

“Okay,” I said. “They were not acting the way they were supposed to, the way you wanted them to. In response to their behavior, what did you all do?”

“I gave them a look.”

“What kind of a look?” I asked.

Steven shifted in his chair and shot me an over-the-shoulder glare.

“Aha.”

“When that guy answered his phone, I went, ‘Shhhhhhh!’ ” said Melanie.

“All right—do we have everything we need? Anything else to include? Then our first step is to gather up all the unhappiness you have about this morning. You do get to keep it but for 15 minutes we’re going to put it away. For those of you with an appendix please put the feelings in there. Everyone else put the unhappiness in your left elbow. Okay, now it’s time for some curiosity and, if we need it, generosity. From this place, let’s walk through this morning. What part did you play in creating it exactly as it occurred?”

Silence.

“Now, it might help to remember that we’re just pretending, simply conducting an experiment. It’s not like it’s true that you created this morning but we’re trying on the idea to see what we might discover. For instance, why do you think your visitors sat in the back?”

Steven laughed. “Because we had all the seats in the front.”

More silence. A few frowns.

Finally: “There wasn’t anywhere else to sit,” said Mark. “And, really, why would they get close to us? They don’t know us.”

“Right, they’re guests here. They might have felt uncomfortable,” I said.

“I hate to say this,” Melanie said, “but another person went outside to answer his phone.”

Joanna suggested, “He might have sat on the back row so he could leave quickly. To not bother us.”

I said, “Now you don’t want to start thinking too generously about these guys. They did ruin your morning after all.” 

A few feeble laughs—faked for my benefit.

“Let’s keep going. They didn’t interact with you. How could you have created that?”

“We didn’t talk to them,” Mark said. “Here we are, the chosen ones, we know each other and this room better than we ever wanted to. It’s our turf. And we pretty much just looked at them as they came in.”

“Uh huh. After they sat down, what was their experience?”

“Our backs. Until I glared at them,” said Steven.

“Or me shushing them,” mumbled Melanie.

“What are you noticing now?” I asked.

Joanna shook her head. “We know how to act in this room. Pay complete attention, participate, no phones. That all really works. We were expecting those guys to know the rules.”

“Yeah, and they’re coming back tomorrow,” croaked Erin.

“How do you want tomorrow to be?” I asked.

“The opposite of today,” said Mark.

“Okay,” I started, “you can see that you may have had an impact on them and the way they behaved. In our hypothetical experiment, if you were responsible for today, you can be responsible for tomorrow too. How can you make tomorrow, without telling them about your feelings, more fun for all of you?”

We discussed some options and I was tickled at how excited they became. It was as if they were planning a surprise party. Ultimately, the Home Team decided to act as hosts. They rearranged the room so that the visitors were interspersed between them. When the guests arrived the next day, they were to be met by their host, welcomed, shown where the coffee and snacks were, and their new seats.

That afternoon, when I arrived for my session with the group, I received a much different report than I had the day before. The morning had been easy and satisfying. These old hands were proud of themselves for creating a friendlier, more welcoming atmosphere. The visitors had turned out to be not so bad—they had interacted in class and added insights to the discussions. And sure enough, several months after that web design workshop, three of the Home Team members were assigned to a big project with two of the visitors.

Peace Is Boring

Happily, this interaction turned out constructively—but only because the Home Team became conscious of what they were creating. Let’s review the process they went through before I ruined their fun. To begin, this group had selected data that supported their conclusion about the visiting consultants. The Home Team felt utterly justified in their belief about the asinine nature of the other group. They presented data to me that proved they were right about this belief. They also left out data. Not necessarily in a mean-spirited way, but in the age-old way of thinking—“Here’s my argument and I’m going to make it as good as I can.” This group was about to get locked into a “truth.”

It would be nice if we didn’t compartmentalize people this way, but our minds are organized this way. We are wired to categorize, make sense of, and rationalize the world at large. Typically, this is our survival instinct at work. The seemingly safe bet is to believe that the enemy is over there, to buy in to the idea of the quintessential “they.” This might be a fine way to view things—if it worked.  But what it leads to, usually, is escalating suspicion and defensiveness.

The frightening fact is that we actually create who other people are—we create them in our heads. Anais Nin, the author, said that, “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.” This is where my Home Team consultants interrupted their own typical pattern. They decided to stop blaming others and take responsibility for what was happening. Each of us has a tremendous amount of choice here—we get to see how we are creating what we don’t want. One more time—be careful of creating what you don’t want. You can examine Rat Brain’s impact on your behaviors and choose to do something else.

Here’s something else to notice: Didn’t the resolution of the problem seem anti-climactic? Everyone got along. The meeting went smoothly. Big Deal. Problems are more exciting than solutions. When conflict appears, there are sides to root for, bombs to defuse, spying to be done, gossip to be had, suffering, close calls, and saving the day.

There are plenty of ways, mostly legal, to get a rush of adrenalin—bungee jumping, open mike night, streaking. It also takes enormous courage and nerve to talk about what really matters. Figuring out how you are the problem is compelling detective work. And discovering how you are also the solution is like receiving an anonymous Valentine card—thrilling, embarrassing, satisfying. You get to keep all the drama and excitement you have with problems. But now these feelings can be directed toward a constructive outcome rather than the same old stories of indignation and blame. Or you can keep company with Mark Twain who said, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”