Stop Avoiding the Big Stuff as a Leader
Guest Speaker Sarah Noll WilsonIn this episode of WiseTalk, CEO and Executive Leadership Coach Sue Bethanis hosts Sarah Noll Wilson, executive coach, leadership development consultant, and bestselling author of Don’t Feed the Elephants!: Overcoming the Art of Avoidance to Build Powerful Partnerships. Sarah is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review and hosts the podcast “Conversations on Conversations”, is certified in Co-Active Coaching, Conversational Intelligence, and is a frequent guest lecturer at universities. Sarah works with leaders to develop more powerful partnerships and helps teams spot patterns that are keeping them from higher performance. An in-demand keynote speaker, she leads workshops and team retreats for leaders and HR professionals. Previously, Sarah worked in management and as the talent development leader for an insurance company, giving her firsthand insight into the challenges of corporate leadership. In addition to her work with organizations, Sarah is a passionate advocate for mental health. She holds several coaching certifications and has a master’s in leadership development from Drake University.
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INTERVIEW SUMMARY AND KEY TAKEAWAYS
For many, overcoming avoidance is not an easy feat, but Sarah provides insights and perspectives to help go from shy or passive-aggressive to confident and direct. Avoidance is common for many in relationships when it comes to having hard conversations. It is easier to put it off or brush it under the rug rather than deal with things directly, but when we do this, we are actually sacrificing connection and the overall health of our relationships. Sarah has found that many fall into specific categories of avoidance ‘elephants’ (10:48) which include:
- The Blamephant: those who blame others rather than looking at the role they play.
- The Imaginephant: those who believe they know other’s thoughts and intentions rather than being curious about their truth.
- The Nudgephant: those who take a passive-aggressive approach and ‘nudge’ the issue indirectly.
- The Deflectephant: those who deflect, hide behind jokes or never have the energy to address the issue.
All these elephants are simply avenues of avoidance that show up for people in different situations. Sarah shares that the best way to really work around these is to get curious about why we are avoiding the issue, curious about the other person in the situation, and being more open to other possibilities and open to communication. She calls this the curiosity-first approach (13:44), which leads to self-reflection and consideration of other perspectives.
Sarah also talks about how to gain confidence in uneasy circumstances (19:35). The first step is to acknowledge that it’s an uncomfortable situation, and to embrace the uneasiness in the short term because it outweighs the uneasiness of long-term avoidance. When we have difficult conversations with anyone, whether it be loved ones or coworkers, we should always do so with the intention of forming a stronger relationship. Sarah also recommends expressing gratitude when difficult conversations do go well to reinforce positive relationship dynamics (30:27). Sometimes fear of things going badly gets in our way, but Sarah reminds us that we can always catch ourselves and ask for a second chance to do it better (27:32). Fear should not prevent us from forming stronger bonds in our lives.
FAVORITE QUOTES
“It’s not that the conflict is the elephant, but it’s our avoidance of it. Hence, the ‘don’t feed the elephant’, we create the elephant when we avoid acknowledging or addressing something.” (4:11)
“The thing that I wish more people practice, and it’s something I’ve been trying to really practice, is naming my appreciation that we can have these conversations to reinforce that this is the dynamic of the relationship.” (30:27)
“When we look at organizations, all they are clusters of relationships. Humans and connections. And so when we can remind ourselves of that it can just make things easier, lighter, not as transactional.” (36:07)
RESOURCES
Sarah Noll Wilson:
Website | LinkedIn
Book: Don’t Feed the Elephants!: Overcoming the Art of Avoidance to Build Powerful Partnerships
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Sue Bethanis 0:00
Welcome, everyone to WiseTalk. This is Mariposa’s monthly podcast providing perspectives on leadership. Today we’re excited to welcome Sarah Noll Wilson. Sarah, thanks for being with us.
Sarah Noll Wilson 0:09
Thanks for having me.
Sue Bethanis 0:10
Yeah. Sarah is an executive coach, leadership development consultant, and bestselling author of Don’t Feed the Elephants! Overcoming the Art of Avoidance to Build Powerful Partnerships. And I really want to talk about the title like, like most of our time talking about that. She’s a contributor to HBr and hosts the podcast “Conversations on Conversations” is certified in collective coaching, conversational intelligence and a frequent guest lecturer at universities, Sarah works with leaders to develop more powerful partnerships and helps teams spot patterns that are keeping them from higher performance. An in-demand keynote speaker she leads workshops and team retreats for leaders and HR professionals. Previously, Sarah worked in management as the talent development leader for an insurance company, giving her firsthand insight into the challenges of corporate leadership. In addition to her work with organizations, Sarah is passionate advocate for mental health. She holds several coaching certifications and has a master’s in leadership development from Draper University. So again, I want to welcome you from Des Moines, Iowa.
Sarah Noll Wilson 1:11
Thanks for having me.
Sue Bethanis 1:12
Yeah, so I read your bio, and you know, want to make sure we got everything.
Sarah Noll Wilson 1:17
I mean, you read it all.
Sue Bethanis 1:18
I read all the things. But you know, I really just want to know more about your personal story. You know, what influenced you to write this book? And also, why did you title it that?
Sarah Noll Wilson 1:33
Nobody’s asked me about the title. So I appreciate that as an opportunity. So a little bit about me personally, and how that led into the book, I was, in my studies of leadership development, I was introduced to the idea of the elephant in the room. And not that I certainly wasn’t familiar intimately with avoidance. I just didn’t know the name for it. And, and as I was learning that, I realized that I had never experienced a team and I had never experienced relationships, quite frankly, where we talked about the hard stuff. And so became really fascinated with how do you actually create that, you know, growing up in the Midwest, you know, something we talked about a lot is the whole Midwest nice, which now I just lovingly call violent politeness. Yeah, it’s the like, I mean, there’s the niceness of if you need something, we will be there, right. Like we you know, we’ll see you on the street. Everyone can tell I’m from the Midwest, when I go to New York, like you’re to smiley, and you’re saying hello to everyone. Just like, stop, stop apologizing. But, but then there’s this other side of that, which is we don’t talk about the hard stuff, we smooth it over, we do everything we can to maintain harmony. But that doesn’t mean that you know, I always say that we’re really good at smiling but seething. And we’re really good at having all the conversations with all the wrong people. And the thing that so I just became fascinated with: can you even create this because I had never experienced it. And then I realized that part of the reason I had never experienced it is because I probably basically only knew how to avoid conflict. And you know, as I need to get more curious realized I came from generations of avoiders, and so it really became my mission to understand it. And, and it started first with just like, how do you have the conversations, right? And there are countless books written on that. But then I started to realize lots of people were reading those, and they were still avoiding it. And so then I became really curious with the avoidance, and just how do we how do we better understand when we have our foot on the brake, and to name it and to be able to then make a conscious choice from that, but it really came from a deep, deep personal desire to want to experience having healthy relationships.
Sue Bethanis 3:48
Yeah. So then you went and did some research, and I assume you did some research on attachment theory?
Sarah Noll Wilson 3:53
Well, yeah, I’m not directly but indirectly through my own therapy. I’m very familiar with it. Yeah. Right.
Sue Bethanis 4:00
Right. Right. So tell us a little bit about the antecedents of the book, in terms of how did you come to you got some different types and things like that. I mean, did you go and interview people or
Sarah Noll Wilson 4:11
Yeah, I mean so some of it was just researching and reading what other people had put out there a lot of it is just my own experience of I was in leadership positions, I led leadership development efforts. So it was a combination of research that I knew was out there and understanding more about the brain and understanding how does that impact things and really just getting curious and experimenting with language that resonated for people and I think that you know, you asked about the title, sometimes not always, but sometimes what I found is that when using language that’s a little lighter, sometimes made it easier for people to engage with the concepts that wouldn’t come with a lot of shame, or beating themselves up or really like a ton of discomfort. And so you know, I lovingly say, while the book is light-hearted, we hope it’s not lightweight. Because when we’re avoiding a conversation, it’s because something matters, or often it is. And, and so that’s, that’s how that came about. And so playing on that metaphor of the elephant in the room, you know, one of the things that I would always hear is people would say, oh, that person is the elephant in the room, and they would point at the boss. And I just became really curious about what actually creates the elephant. And, you know, because if you and I have a problem, and you come and talk to me, there’s no elephant. So it’s not that the conflict is the elephant, but it’s our avoidance of it. Hence, they don’t feed the elephant, we create the elephant when we avoid acknowledging or addressing something.
Sue Bethanis 5:40
Exactly. So there are so many directions, and we have a set of questions here. And I’ll probably go off of those. Not that I’m avoiding them, because I’m not. But you know, so much of what we’re hearing these days is about the avoidance of our care of ourselves, and the avoidance of conflict as well, because we’re in a milieu that is so full of conflict, very much more than any other time in my life, I don’t know about you, but my life, I think we’re still in very much in sort of a pandemic. I mean, we still have to wear masks when we go inside, I mean, maybe I’m one in 10 people that are still doing it.
Sarah Noll Wilson 6:21
I was gonna say in your town because I’m the only one in mine. Yeah.
Sue Bethanis 6:25
So there’s a pandemic, there’s climate change, there’s Roe v. Wade, there are so many things that have been thrown at us. Yeah. And so talk with us a little bit about like, the difference between Tefloning something because there’s so much stuff coming at us that we have to sort of say, Stop, I’m not going to watch the news anymore. Stopping because we have to like, do things. That is an avoidance technique. Yeah. But at the same time, also able to deal with the hard questions. I think that balance is difficult.
Sarah Noll Wilson 6:53
Yeah, it was always difficult. And, you know, I mean, I’m sure you see this in your work and your world. But I mean, we collectively see resilience is at an all-time low, just because of the, again, as you pointed out, just this extended prolonged exposure to stress that we’re experiencing. I mean, we’re living in a time of just chronic uncertainty and complexity and conflict. And the way that I think about this, and certainly from you know, mental health professionals would be able to maybe better articulate of when does it become unhealthy numbing behaviors and avoidance, but there are times when avoidance is appropriate and okay. For me, the way that I think about it in my work is coming from a place, not a fearful avoidance, but of a, like, a conscious disengagement, if that makes sense, you know, because I kind of think of avoidance, how I see it a lot in the relationships that we work with is, there’s the aggressive avoidance, which is passive-aggressive, I’m going to leave the room, but I’m going to throw a grenade behind me, or I’m going to Stonewall you, and I’m going to do all of these things that are really, I mean, it’s not avoidance, but you know, it’s a form of it. And then that fear of I’m so afraid of what’s going to happen, it’s the stress response. And then there are just times where you go, I don’t have the energy right now, to do this. And the thing that’s, like, a slight nuance of that, for me, is that when we are reflective, and we make that choice, that conscious avoidance gives us our power back in a time when I think we can feel really powerless. And because it’s we’re making a choice to say, You know what, I know that I don’t have the energy right now, or I’m not going to have this conversation with this person, because I’m literally dealing with taking care of a sick parent, and that’s where my energy needs to go. And so I’m going to do what I need to do in order to either accept the situation or adjust it or show up differently, or you talk about like the onslaught of news of, I want to be informed. And I also know there’s a cost to me if I keep watching it, and finding that balance of so I can continue to show up at my best.
Sue Bethanis 8:57
I like that because there is a way to balance this.
Sarah Noll Wilson 9:00
Yeah. Because to totally devoid, sometimes there’s an incredible place of privilege.
Sue Bethanis 9:04
That’s right, you have to be in the world. And you have to understand that others are suffering more than we are. And that we need to be able to help people that are suffering more than we are. As extroverted as much as I am, I hate this. I still am able to have a pretty nice life. And so I but I am very conscious of those that are suffering and I’m having a hard time. So we do have to still be in the world. But I feel like every day I wake up okay, how am I balancing my day-to-day? The bad things?
Sarah Noll Wilson 9:34
Yeah, yeah.
Sue Bethanis 9:36
Because there are just so many things going on. Yeah, and this is what we’re hearing from our clients too. It’s like there’s like somebody asked me the other day – she’s in a big job now she goes, “Is this the way it’s always gonna be?” I said “Oh Yeah, actually, this is the way it’s always gonna be put your responses aren’t going to be the same.” I was like Sorry.
Sarah Noll Wilson 10:00
So somebody said, “How are you doing really these days, Sarah” and I said, “you know, the story of the Princess and the Pea,” and they’re like, “Yeah”, I said, “well, some days, I feel like the princess, and I’m inconvenienced, and I’m not sleeping well, and I said, and other days, I’m the pee. And I’m just done being like, cover it up with more and more mattresses, but I was like, I’m not enough for me.”
Sue Bethanis 10:19
One or the other. Yeah. So let’s talk about the book a little bit. So you’ve got different types of elements that maybe talk a little bit about your concept of this. The idea, and then there’s like different types of you have the avoidant, the Imagephant, the Blamephant, the Nudgephant, the Deflectphant, these are all obviously riffs on Elephant.
Sarah Noll Wilson 10:41
very, very rigorous, academic technical terms.
Sue Bethanis 10:45
Yeah. So why don’t you just go through some?
Sarah Noll Wilson 10:48
Yeah, again, part of the practice, and the philosophy is how do we see better what’s happening, so then we can choose differently and do better. And the I don’t remember the origin of where this came about, but I just became really interested in the different types of avoidance and how it came up. And then I was joking with somebody, we’re like, it’d be fun if there are different types of elephants. And the idea behind it, again, in a loving, light-hearted way is for us to examine and go when am I just outright like, avoidance is the main one, right? That’s what creates it. But when am I avoiding something by staying in a place of blaming, like, I’m just going to blame you for everything, I’m never going to reflect on the role that I’ve played, I’m not going to have the conversation with you. I’m not going to maybe have the necessary conversation I need to have with myself, we call that the Blamephant. The Imaginephant is when we imagine, that one, I actually think was the first one because it was you know, somebody was like, Well, I know that’s what they meant. Like, I just know that that’s what they meant, instead of getting curious and potentially having the conversation to confirm and clarify. Yeah, so then the Nudgephant is where it’s like, in this is I feel like this is the one in my DNA from growing up is like, I might nudge it, I might be passive, you know, like indirect about it. And sometimes that can be really an effective approach. The Deflectephant is when the mesh can show up a couple of different ways. Sometimes, you know, you’ll see groups that will deflect having the conversation they need to have, maybe it’s because somebody’s being sarcastic, and they’re making jokes, and they’re kind of the smartass of the group and deflecting actually having the like, the real conversation. Sometimes it’s literally like, I’m just too tired to talk about it. Right. And it’s an avoidant, right, that avoidant technique. But other times in teams in particular, we deflect by not working on the right problem or asking the like, hard questions. And what’s been interesting and fun is, since the book came out, is people will email me or send me new elephants that they like, Oh, I found a new one. And so somebody said, I discovered a Rentephant. And I was like, Yeah, tell me more that, like, sometimes I just need to borrow the avoidance till I can get the confidence. But I know, I’m just borrowing it for a little bit. But the newest one that’s come up, is they somebody coined the Pretendephant, it’s like, we’re just gonna, we’re just, especially in relationships and family relationships. We’re just going to pretend like that didn’t happen. We’re just gonna keep moving forward. Yeah, just smooth it over. And so the idea that is, ultimately how can we start to see oh, I’m caught in a cycle of blaming, or I’m imagining something that I don’t know if it’s true or not. So how do I test like, maybe it’s true? It might be true, it absolutely can. But like, let’s test our assumption. And so it’s a way for people to see differently
Sue Bethanis 13:35
Right and you talk about boundaries and the precepts of freeing the elephant about being curious with yourself, being curious about others and curious with others. Can you explain those?
Sarah Noll Wilson 13:44
Yeah, it’s, I mean, the first thing I would say is, one, there’s no one size fits all approach to conversations or relationships. So this is a tool that we can use, there was a pattern that I was noticing. So I’ll back up just to explain what drove these is that really consistent pattern when people were in conflict, and that was helping them navigate it was: one, it was really difficult or infrequent that people would consider the role that they played. Two, If I get angry or frustrated, being stuck in that emotion or staying in that motion and not understanding – Well, why? what is it about the situation of why I’m frustrated, and then really difficult for people to consider the other person’s point of view, and then treating the conversation like a confrontation, right? I mean, that’s part of why we avoid is where like, I don’t know how bad this conversation is gonna get, but we’re thinking of it. So the practice we call it the “curiosity first approach”, which is first doing some reflection on getting curious with yourself, which could be asking questions just like how do I feel? What was it about the situation that was so frustrating to me or, you know, What needs do I have that aren’t being met or what values of mine or not are being stepped on? Because so often in relationships, when there are issues, it usually comes down to one of those two things that we have a need that’s not being met, and we have a value that’s being stepped on or not honored. And then making sure we do ask the question, what role did I play? Or am I playing? You know, maybe it’s not something you did, maybe it’s something you didn’t do that potentially can contribute to it. When we talk about leaders, for example, and people in management, I, this applies to all people. But in particular, a question that I love to have people reflect on is, is it a preference issue? Or is it a performance issue? Because so often we confuse the two. So and sometimes that’s all you need to free an elephant. I mean, that’s the thing is, you might not have to have a conversation with somebody, you might just realize, Oh, I’m frustrated with that, that’s actually about me, that’s not about them. That’s something that I need to deal with or process with, or you get clarity and you know, in the elephant could be freed. And then the act of getting curious about someone and similarly, kind of asking questions, what makes sense to them, you know, and to clarify, the goal is not to make up a story or make assumptions or fill in their stories, it’s just to remind ourselves that they have a perspective on the situation because that can be really hard, especially when we’re in the heat of the moment. Again, depending on the situation. This is something I always say like, I never want curiosity to be weaponized. And what I mean by that is sometimes, you know, people can learn a tool, and they like, I don’t know, here’s the scenario that actually happened, somebody was experiencing fairly obvious harassment. And the person was like, Well, you just need to get curious about it like, no, that’s not when we get curious like that like they are being harmed like this. We don’t need them to get curious about the person who’s harming them. In this moment, we need to protect them. And getting curious about others doesn’t mean we diminish our needs, it doesn’t mean that we set aside our needs just we opened the door to try to understand their perspective and their needs. And then trying to approach the getting curious with someone is how do we approach the conversation again, more from a conversation of exploration instead of this, like heavy confrontation?
Sue Bethanis 16:58
So let’s give me an example. Somebody from your work, you know, where you’re getting there delineate between these, or yeah, there has to be obviously reflection as part of this account I’m curious if you don’t have the ability to reflect which you are and give yourself the time to reflect. Yeah, so I think there was no one hand in hand, but give some examples.
Sarah Noll Wilson 17:16
Yeah, so here’s a really good example of somebody. And I write about this because it was such a funny moment. But she, I was delivering a workshop actually on this topic. And my client was, unbeknownst to me very frustrated that her boss wasn’t at this training. And she was she was talking to everyone like, Where’s so and so? And why isn’t she here? And can you believe she’s not here. And in her frustration, was talking to everyone else about her. And when we got to the section about, we’ll get curious about the other person, it caused her to pause. And she realized she’s like, I know my boss well enough to know, once I realized that she wasn’t here, because there was probably something more important she was having to manage, because that wasn’t typical or normal for her. And so she came up to me at break, and she’s like, I’ve been throwing around these damn peanuts, like everywhere, Sarah, because instead of considering, you know, the other person’s perspective and thinking about them, she was just so mad and frustrated. But she said, as soon as I realized, Oh, she wouldn’t be here, unless there was something more important. And she’s the head of HR. So there’s always fires. But sure enough, there was a really urgent situation that came up. And she’s like, I realized I just needed to text her and be like, Hey, just wanted to check in and see where you’re going. She was making lots of assumptions, having conversations with everyone but the boss or her manager, and so that’s what you know, look like in that situation to kind of get to that point and realize, oh, the elephant got free. Because once I had that conversation with myself, I realized, Oh, I just needed to like, have a quick check in with her to make sure everything was okay.
Sue Bethanis 18:52
I think people avoid the conflict because the it feels too – it’s a typical fear, fear response, right? Yeah, your stomach might get gurgly or their head might hurt or, you know, whatever physical response, they learned. People have a physical response if they have to confront somebody. Yeah. Okay. In the case, you gave it was like she that wasn’t very confrontational. It was nearly like she was asking. So it wasn’t necessarily going to be confrontational. But I think that a lot of people will avoid because it feels confrontational. And they don’t want to have that either in their bodies. So what do you say to that situation where it is conflict is going to determine that it’s going to feel that.
Sarah Noll Wilson 19:35
I love that you brought that up, because one of the most common requests that I’ll hear from people, is they’ll say, I want to be more confident and have conversations that are difficult or conflict or and then I’ll ask them, I said, Well, what is being confident mean to you? Like, what does that look like for you? And most of them will say that I don’t feel that way which I appreciate. My perspective and the experience of working with so many people is that’s a biological reaction when we feel threatened, that’s a biological reaction when we feel like we’re taking a risk or we feel vulnerable. And so, for us in this work, the goal isn’t to become so skilled, that you never have those reactions, it’s that we’re able to recognize that that’s a normal part of taking a risk and being vulnerable. And instead of being paralyzed by it, we can be present with it. You know, I think if the relationship matters, if the relationship is important, or the situation is important to you, it will likely be difficult on some level, because it’s hard. And there could be, there could be consequences, I’m not naive, or Pollyanna, I’ve seen lots of times where the other person wasn’t ready to receive it, or the situation didn’t get resolved, maybe how the person wanted. But I’ve also seen a lot of times we can imagine it being worse than it actually is. And, and so part of the work of being able to navigate difficult conversations is to normalize that gross feeling. And I still get that. I mean, there are times when I know I have to have a tough conversation with somebody who I really care for, I really loved and appreciate and value the relationship, and I don’t want to ruin it. But I also know that if we don’t have this conversation, right now, there’s damage that’s already been done that we need to repair. And if that doesn’t happen, we’ll just continue to erode. And I have to work through that and process that myself. And some, you know, sometimes my husband will be a smart aleck and be like, It’s too bad you don’t know, somebody wrote a book on this. I was like, this is why it’s, it may never become easy. But the hope is, it can become easier.
Sue Bethanis 21:43
Right? Well, and then you have the situation that kind of not necessarily opposite. But another aspect of this, which is that people who are confrontational in their nature, they don’t, they will not let something get by. So they are not going to avoid conflict. They’re not going to avoid having a hard conversation and bringing something up. And in fact, in some cases, with people like that, if they don’t bring it up, it will feel really bad. So this is almost like, it’s gonna feel really bad for some people that they do bring it up as they feel really bad for something they don’t bring it up. Right. So love that. How do we help? So what are some tips or ideas around the people that are not? So they’re in a fight response? Right? And what do you say to someone like that?
Sarah Noll Wilson 22:26
Yeah, I think about that group, sort of in two categories? Because I think there are the people who need to have the conversation and who want to have a conversation, and then I think there’s the party, I mean, I’ve seen it and experienced it, where it’s I’m going to say it like it is but isn’t necessarily open to receiving it like it is. And the other thing to say to that is particularly if you are someone like that, because I mean, I will say that, you know, I lovingly call this book my love letter to avoiders, right? So it’s very much with them in mind to help them step into how do we have the conversations. But something that is difficult for people who are comfortable speaking more directly, is if you are working in a culture, if you are living in a culture that is avoidant, when you are the person to speak up and to speak the truth, it’s really easy for you to almost become the target and the villain because you’re at the heart of it.
Sue Bethanis 23:21
I have someone right now who’s in a very nice culture and she is like they’re turning to her to be the one who says the truth. It’s like dude, like that’s not fair to you. And she also can’t stop not do that, either. Yeah, so she’s kind of caught. So in that case, I’m advising or coming together on her narrating that, hey, if she’s in a meeting, and she’s actually saying, Okay, guys, I’m gonna do what I normally do, I’d be great if somebody also brings this up. You know, so I’m bringing it up, because it’s important. And that’s a little snarky, but just in some way narrating that’s what she’s doing what she usually does, because she’s calling the question. Yeah. And, and others need to be calling the question.
Sarah Noll Wilson 24:03
It’s kind of like when somebody speaks up, and they come up, I mean, this happens all the time somebody speaks, right, like, and then five people afterward in the shadows go, Oh, my God, thank you so much for bringing it up. And sometimes when you’re that person because I often feel like, even though I’m not comfortable in that role, I’ve become more comfortable in that role, right? Or become, you know. It’s just like, I can’t respond to it, because we have to talk about it, it’s always ‘so what held you back from speaking up’’, you know what, you know, ‘it’s because I can’t go out on the limb, always, you know, and I’m not going to speak on someone else’s behalf.’ But I appreciate and love that practice of her narrating like, Hey, I’m gonna do what I do. And, you know, and the other thing that I might say if she wanted to, in that situation to create an invitation is sometimes it can be powerful too. I’m gonna make an observation. What do you all notice? Like, I’m just noticing this, what does everybody else think or why notice to like, engage.
Sue Bethanis 24:56
I love that. So I tell everything that’s in her head. Just say One little thing and then say, All right, what else do you guys? Consider? Throw it out to the group? Yeah.
Sarah Noll Wilson 25:04
Yeah. The other thing that I find is that again, in some situations, if we can almost establish some commitments to each other, we call them collaborative commitments. One of my favorite questions to ask when I’m building a new relationship is: what do we want to do when we don’t show up at our best? because it’s not ‘if’ it’s ‘when’, and, and it’s a time where we, most people would say, just tell it to me straight, just give me the feedback, just whatever. And then when the time comes, the response is different. But by having some of those agreements, we can come back to that in an individual relationship or in a team and go for that, let’s say you and I agree to that. And, and you give me feedback, and I don’t respond to it well, or I’m, you know, avoiding or whatever the case might be, you can come back to that and go, Hey, Sarah, we agreed to this, did that change for you, that hasn’t changed for me, right? In a way for us to start to normalize it because especially in certain parts of our country, especially when you look at like from a white dominant perspective, right, we avoid conflict, we remove emotions, all of this. And, and like psychological safety. I think this is one of the things when we talk about psych safety because it’s a phrase that is now used as, like, that doesn’t mean comfortable. That means that we can disagree openly and effectively. And we can be better for it. And, and we can fail and we can all have this stuff. And it’s really challenging. I know when somebody is- when they are comfortable, being able to speak it, but it’s the desire for harmony is so great. And I don’t I wish I could remember who I could give credit to this. But somebody said something really profound for me anyway when talking about harmony, and they go, you know, people think of harmony, as settled and keeping the peace. But when you think about harmony and music, harmony music is because there are different voices coming in. And that’s what makes it really beautiful. So how do we think of harmony? Not as one note, but how do we think of harmony as bringing in different voices? And that always resonated with me. Yeah, I wish I could remember who to give credit to.
Sue Bethanis 27:09
So I want to take a moment to throw this out to the group
Unknown Speaker 27:13
I’m volunteering. I love this topic, I’m working with it all the time and wondering what input you have for clients who are afraid of doing emotional damage, that they can’t recover from that the relationship can’t recover from, and how you’d advise moving into the conflict.
Sarah Noll Wilson 27:32
Yeah, that I mean, that I think is such a common one. If people go I don’t, I don’t want to be mean, and I don’t want to do damage. So part of a couple of things. One is we always have the option for a do-over, a thoughtful do-over right if something doesn’t go well. Or maybe we didn’t speak how we wanted to. There’s some power in being able to come back and go. I’ve been thinking on that conversation and how it went. And I don’t know about you, but I didn’t like how it felt. And would you be open to doing a do-over because I value this relationship? And I want to make sure that, you know, we get this right. I think sometimes we’re afraid when we’ve like messed up or had a regrettable event and not come back and repair it. But there’s always time to repair it. So that’s one thing that was coming up for me that that’s been a really powerful practice for myself and clients to realize that. And the other thing is sometimes I think when we’re coming into these conversations, we’re so caught up, you know, as Sue said, like in our emotions that we are thinking about or taking the time to be really intentional about how do we want to show up? What’s the impact we hope to make? And a big question that I always like to ask myself and other people is, who do I need to be? And what do I need to do to try to increase that likelihood? I can’t control the other person, but I can control myself. And you know, I mean, we just had to have a really, really tough conversation with a family member about some decisions that were made that substantially affected health and really damage the trust and relationship, and part of the prep for it was like we do not want to damage this relationship. But the reality is, if we don’t have this conversation, this damage will go on healed. And so being really intentional about how do I want to show up? what do I hope the impact to be? who do I need to be? what do I need to do? And to speak that you know if that’s your goal like I’m having this conversation with you because I care about you. I’m having this because I think you deserve to hear this. If I was in your position, I would want to know this or things like that. Because sometimes I think and I assume you all see this as people confuse directness with not being kind, right? They think that well, I want to be kind and it’s like, right, but you can be kind and direct. You can say I’m telling you this because I care about you. And I’m sharing this feedback with you because I want to see you grow and I’m confident you’ll figure this out. And sometimes we forget to bring in the love when it’s tough.
Unknown Speaker 29:57
I like that a lot, love that. I love that intentionality. And then the only other thing I would say that I’ve tried myself in my own going into discomfort, and also I might even coaching clients is just to name the discomfort to say, you know, just simply, hey, this is feeling uncomfortable for me, I feel uncomfortable right now. But I feel like this is an important conversation, or I’m feeling a little edgy about this, or whatever their authentic language is. And I think that’s helpful, too, to just be human about it.
Sarah Noll Wilson 30:27
Yeah, instead of having to pretend like you have to have it all together, and even just say, like, I might not get it, right, but it’s really important that we try. The other thing that I will say is, when the conversation actually goes well, the thing that I wish more people practice, and it’s something I’ve been trying to really practice is naming my appreciation that we can have these conversations to reinforce that this is the dynamic of the relationship, because I mean, we’ve all had times where you build it up, and you’re like, oh, shit, that’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. And making a point to come back and go, you know, Susan, I’m just, I’m so grateful that we can have these kinds of conversations, even when they’re hard. And I just appreciate, it because then we just reinforced that that’s the norm for us. So when it comes up, we go, yeah, that heat is high. But I know I’m not gonna get burned. Because I’m with Susan, and this is what we do together.
Sue Bethanis 31:14
Thank you for your question. I just wanted to add one thing. I talk with clients a lot about this idea of being direct and directness, and it seems too harsh, you know, and so I actually reframe it for them. And for me, because it’s not just them. It’s to be clear. Yeah. So if the clarity is more of the mindset, then doesn’t feel as harsh
Sarah Noll Wilson 31:36
Yeah, it doesn’t feel like a punch. Yeah.
Sue Bethanis 31:39
Thank you for your question.
Sarah Noll Wilson 31:41
Yeah. Thanks, Susan. And for the suggestion at the end
Unknown Speaker 31:49
Fascinating conversation. I mean, there’s so much wisdom, you know, I just have so many thoughts. One thing is about love. I mean, I myself or I’ve, in my life, it’s all about love. And I speak about love, as I’m kind of fortunate, I guess because I’m just naturally a loving person. It’s surprising I have, I’m not working that much as I used to before. But a couple of CEOs, you know, that I’m working with, and we talk about love, we tell each other, we love, I think there’s so much about being more in that place. You know, it’s to me, it’s more spiritual than all the stuff that we’re doing. And there’s so much antagonism in the world. Yeah, I don’t know if I can change everything. But in my own small circle, it’s really about reading love and being in that place. And if you have a difficult situation with somebody, by the way, a lot of it is the I mean, quote, so one of the most important conversations that we have is the kind and compassionate conversation we have with ourselves. Loving-kindness, love, yeah, whatever you want to call it, self-love, or whatever. And I think we’re less likely to, you know, I mean, anything’s possible and what underlies that, when I talk to people, and I like a love tour, you know, it’s like, The Rolling Stones, it’s just my nature, like, ego, I just bring it up, you know, it’s like, yeah, and underneath, I reflect a lot, like, given my age, I’m living now with incurable cancer. And, you know, so aware of making choices, you know, in all, you know, where it’s important to engage or not engage in, and all these things, but one thing I think, is really to sort of reflecting on what’s really true, and not that I know for sure, but so many people have lack of self-worth. And when you have, when you don’t feel good about yourself, you know, and we’re all working on ourselves, to say the least, otherwise, we wouldn’t be in this business. But we project all this stuff onto everybody else. We all do it right. So I don’t have to kind of sum it all up, you know, it’s, I guess it’s showing up to be in a loving spirit. And that all of a sudden, then I mean, to me, I don’t show up all of a sudden, like that, you know, it’s just yeah, the life I try to live you know if you try to show up just to the conflict, you know, good luck and then come from love with with the people we have difficulty with. And I’ve had hard conversations with people, I have no problem avoiding or whatever. But it comes from love, it doesn’t come from antagonism making someone wrong, the language that we’re using now. And if I get a referral, or on some call, and we’re calling people difficult, or the latest one, it seems like everybody’s toxic, you know, and I still haven’t worked that one out, but I don’t like it but everyone can’t quite figure it out. And everybody Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think I don’t know to me it’s just really unkind. I get there are difficult words in order for all that stuff and challenging. It’s our language that we use is so important this stuff there, but
Sue Bethanis 34:27
Thanks.
Sarah Noll Wilson 34:29
First of all, I love that as you’re talking about love, you have that beautiful painting behind you for people who might be listening to this that’s just love all over. I really appreciate you bringing that up because this is a topic we talk about love in the workplace. And, you know, from the standpoint of war with humans, or you know, we’re with fellow humans, and we stepped into this mindset of at the end, so transactional, and you know, and we think about that, even from a standpoint of moving to remote and hybrid is so many of the conversations have leaned heavily into just transactional and we’ve missed these moments of transformation. And you know, we’ve explored this as a team even if you know, why is that such a scary word to use in the workplace? I love my, I mean, I love my colleagues and there’s I have clients who I definitely love and, and, you know, it comes back to and I’ve had people say, but what if I have to fire them someday like that, that that’s a lot of energy to hold on to, and it creates a distance between you and the person right out of the gate that might not even be necessary. And you can have a situation like that come up, and still, do it in a loving and kind way.
Unknown Speaker 35:39
You can fire someone with love you can do with love, right? You know, I had was when I was doing a workshop in the wine country a while back, and I started talking about love, and someone said the L word. If you gotta be kidding me, you know, it’s like, some of us like the F word or whatever. You know, I’m comfortable with it. And I’m hoping if the more we talk about it, and it’s these kinds of conversations, the more people will become comfortable with it. Yeah. And that’s the future of everything. I think we just as a species, we just need to be more kind and loving with each other.
Sarah Noll Wilson 36:07
Yeah, totally agree. And I think that sometimes we forget that, even when we look at organizations, all they are clusters of relationships. Humans and connections. And so when we can remind ourselves of that it can just make things easier, lighter, and not as transactional. And to your point about self-worth, that’s something that was coming up for me when you were sharing that is. we talked about avoidance from the fearful place. But this is still coming from a fearful place. But sometimes, you know, we might avoid it because we’re protecting our power. And I’ve certainly seen this where people will avoid, you know, maybe leaders who are in a situation where they can influence something they aren’t. And it became very clear, oh, they, they didn’t engage with that, because they were protecting the power they had until that was challenged. And you know, and some of that comes from that, potentially, from that sense of knowing yourself, trusting yourself having that deeper sense of self-worth, and not needing all that power that you had. But that’s something that I think we don’t talk about a lot is, especially when you have access to power and authority. Sometimes you avoid things because you’re staying connected to them and protecting what you have.
Sue Bethanis 37:18
Yeah, also sometimes we downplay it. Wow. Okay, thank you so much. Appreciate your comments, and good luck with everything. Yeah. Okay, Deborah, go for it.
Unknown Speaker 37:29
Thanks. So, I’ve been enjoying this immensely. And one of the things I’ve really latched on to is this wonderful use of the term harmony in its musical sense. And I’m wondering, do you have other metaphors that you find useful, besides the elephant ones, but other metaphors that you find useful in helping people get to the point of, oh, this is going to be so much better when I do this? Even though it looks so difficult before I’ve done it?
Sarah Noll Wilson 38:00
Yeah, I mean, there’s, there’s a couple you know, some of its metaphors, some of it’s just like perspective. One is, it’s funny that I’m using another musical metaphor. But you know, is, how do we increase our range as humans, and so when you think of somebody who’s a great singer, great singers don’t just sing a couple of notes really, really well. They’re able to sing a lot of notes, depending on what the situation and what the song is. And so you know, because some people will be, well, I’m just not that direct person. I’m not like, you know, I can’t do that, or whatever. Or the flip side is, like, I don’t know how to be I just want to say how it is. I don’t want to be curious and ask a question Sarah, or whatever the case may be. And so sometimes I’ll offer that up is, we just want to increase the range. So you have more notes that you can play, depending on the situation. The other this is a phrase that has been very resonant for clients recently is how do we right size, the problem? Because sometimes things will feel so big. So how do we, whether that’s gathering information, having the conversation, how do we right size, it has been really powerful for people when they’re feeling overwhelmed. And so those are a few that definitely come up. I’m sure I know, I’m a little bit of a metaphor person, that those are increasing notes is probably one of the most powerful for people who go but I’m not a people person, you know, like, I’m not. I’m not an emotional person. I was like, what emotions? Don’t you feel? I mean, I’m always kind of a smart aleck when that comes up. But it’s about like, how do we increase the notes that we can play depending on the situation?
Sue Bethanis 39:30
We say the same thing in sports
Unknown Speaker 39:34
Yeah. Thank you.
Sue Bethanis 39:36
Yeah. Thank you, Deborah. So I’ve got one more question and then we’re going to go from there. So it’s want to talk about hybrid because I think that there’s a more pronounced issue with this. It’s easier in some respects to avoid conflict on Zoom and just let things just dissipate or you know, let them go. And sometimes that’s okay. Sometimes, most times, it’s probably not. So are there any tips you have or ideas around? Particularly with hybrid, and particularly, really with remote where we’re not going to be going to the office? And so how do we get people offline? For example, I like to linger with people. That’s one way to do it. What were some of the things?
Sarah Noll Wilson 40:18
Yeah, this is playing the long game, right? But we have to be even more intentional about building really deep levels of trust intentionally so that we have that foundation. And again, you know, like I was mentioning earlier, is that what we’re seeing in the clients who moved from in-person to hybrid, they’re really struggling with filling the gap of how to build the relationships, and the conversations are so transactional. And as somebody said, it’s just harder now. And I am like, I hear that because it’s different. But I would argue you might not have been great at it before you just had more opportunities for it. And so it’s, it’s you know, so the perspective shift is working in a virtual setting almost requires us to be more intentional about, right building a relationship in a different way. But so many of the principles are the same. It’s just what makes them I think, feel scarier is that if we don’t have that existing relationship to build from then it can feel more threatening. I will say this, though, there are some benefits for some people in working in a remote or hybrid situation where they’re at home where they don’t have to deal with some of the BS that they had to deal with in the office, like, I can just focus, I can just get my work done. And I don’t have to deal with microaggressions, or passive-aggressive behavior, and things like that. So I think the thing that we’re seeing is, the intentionality has to be so much higher than it ever was before. And that’s, that’s been a really difficult transition for people, especially people, quite frankly, who never really lead in a relational way to begin with, right?
Sue Bethanis 41:54
Yeah, I feel like I’m a broken record with the intentionality. Like, I think I use the word attention, like every client like five times a session, it’s like, yeah, to be more intentional about that, to be more intentional about that, you have to put time on it.
Sarah Noll Wilson 42:06
Yeah, well, and also to that point, and we need to challenge the rules we’ve created about what it looks like and how we can do it. You know, I was thinking about I was working with a gentleman, and he was lamenting the fact that he goes, I just, you know, in this new virtual environment, it makes me sad that I’m not going to have a relationship with the new hires. I said, is that a rule? Or is that a possibility? And he was kind of paused and I said, if you had to build a relationship, how would you do it differently? And, you know, because we can get so caught in our patterns that we forget to open up and go, so how I could Yeah, how could you? How might we? I think that if I were to add another word, to intentionality, it’s what experiments can we run. Like, what can we try? Like, let’s just experiment here, because we can build deep, I have incredible relationships with people I’ve never met.
Sue Bethanis 42:58
I know. It’s amazing. Some more clients who’ve never met them before. Yeah, it’s weird. But so thank you, this has been great. I love the conversation. I know there’s so much literality. It’s my new word to it’s like you’re very literal. And so nice it’s really easy to follow you and stuff and most people are not so it’s like I think sometimes people get tired of that and they get like a little tired. Okay, she’s taught me to be really literal with everything I’m saying. So that’s, that’s the flip side of intentionality.
Sarah Noll Wilson 43:30
Yeah, I know you’ve thought through this, and I’m not sure I’m ready to receive it.
Sue Bethanis 43:33
So again, this is Sarah Noah Wilson. It’s sarahnollwilson.com. @SarahNollWilson on Twitter and Instagram and Don’t Feed the Elephants!: Overcome the Art of Avoidance to Build Proper Partnerships. Really appreciate you being here. And I got a lot of things to think about fructify. So thank you very much, and wish everybody a wonderful Aloha.