{"id":192,"date":"2011-08-30T10:14:24","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T10:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjaminmitchell.wordpress.com\/2011\/08\/30\/the-art-of-handling-elephants-in-the-room\/"},"modified":"2011-08-30T10:14:24","modified_gmt":"2011-08-30T10:14:24","slug":"the-art-of-handling-elephants-in-the-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techpeoplethrivi-i2tkeoduos.live-website.com\/the-art-of-handling-elephants-in-the-room\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Handling Elephants in the Room"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we spot and elephant in the room, or an undiscussable topic that isn\u2019t being addressed, it is tempting to tackle it head on.\u00a0 However, just naming the elephant or telling people that they\u2019re not discussing an undiscussable topic\u00a0 is rarely a productive approach.<\/p>\n

\"Afterwards<\/p>\n

Having spotted an elephant in the
\nroom it is\u00a0tempting to shout about it<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a scenario from a team\u2019s retrospective meeting:<\/p>\n

The team had talked about a problem and had decided to hold a workshop to focus on that issue. Kelly, the external consultant, saw a problem that no one was mentioning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s an elephant in the room here!\u201d declared Kelly<\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, there\u2019s a proposal to have a workshop, but no one has mentioned that last time we ran a workshop no one turned up! This seems like an undiscussable topic!\u201d said Kelly<\/p>\n

There was general agreement that people hadn\u2019t shown up for the last workshop. After some discussion the team decided \u201clet\u2019s not have a workshop then\u201d and the meeting ended.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think Kelly\u2019s intention was honourable \u2013 how can I get the group to start discussing things to better understand the cause of problems and ways to avoid them in future.<\/p>\n

However, in this scenario, Kelly didn\u2019t get what she wanted \u2013 rather than get to the cause of their problems in the past, they just decided to bypass these issues and cancel the workshop.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately I think Kelly\u2019s behaviour may have contributed to the results she got including the unintended consequences, such as possibly reducing the chance that the team would feel comfortable talking about \u2018undiscussable\u2019 topics in future.<\/p>\n

Problems with the approach<\/h3>\n

There are several possible problems I see with Kelly\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n

Unclear intent<\/strong>. Kelly raises the issue of the groups not mentioning that no-one attended the previous workshop, but she doesn\u2019t state what her intention for mentioning it was. If you are not explicit about your intention for saying something then people will automatically invent their own reason, which may not have been what you wanted.<\/p>\n

Negative assumptions about others\u2019 motives without providing evidence<\/strong>. When Kelly makes the claim that there\u2019s an \u201celephant in the room\u201d it could be interpreted as her saying that the group were all aware that no one turned up to the previous workshop and that they were all deliberately not mentioning it.<\/p>\n

Kelly doesn\u2019t provide any evidence that others are all aware of the issue, or that they have made a deliberate decision to avoid discussing the issue.\u00a0 Kelly\u2019s claim is high on the ladder of inference.<\/a><\/p>\n

Making an assumption about someone else\u2019s motive, such as thinking \u201cthis group is deliberately not talking about a problem they know to exist\u201d is an example of an attribution. Making negative attributions like this without providing evidence can mean that people feel confused or unjustly accused. Once people feel accused then it increases the chance they will respond defensively or withdraw from the conversation.<\/p>\n

No curiosity about how others see the situation. <\/strong>Kelly states her view to the group but doesn\u2019t ask whether they see things the same way or see it differently. I\u2019d assume that Kelly was acting as if her view was obvious to others. Since Kelly asked no questions about how others see the situation and expressed her view in a definite way, it reduces the chance that others will offer their view or that Kelly would find out if others saw the situation differently.<\/p>\n

Changing the focus from conversation’s content to it’s style\u00a0is challenging<\/strong>. Moving from talking about the topic of a conversation (\u201cwe should have a workshop\u201d) to talking about the style of the conversation (\u201cwe\u2019re not discussing the undiscussable\u201d) is a high-impact change of direction.\u00a0 \u201cGoing meta\u201d like this is often\u00a0worthwhile but takes skill, time and energy. To justify the investment it is better to wait until you have solid evidence of a pattern of this type of behaviour. If it\u2019s just a single instance it more effective\u00a0to keep talking about the content (\u201chow can we make sure people turn up to this next workshop?\u201d) rather than the communication pattern (\u201cwe\u2019re not discussing the undiscussable\u201d)<\/p>\n

A more effective approach<\/h3>\n

A more effective approach may have been as follows, with annotations in brackets on what I\u2019m trying to model:<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to check a concern I have about how we are discussing the plan to hold a workshop [share your intent] and see what other\u2019s views are. My recollection was that the last time we planned a workshop no one showed up. I was speaking to Bob and Jane about this yesterday [share your evidence].\u00a0 Do you remember the last workshop the same way or differently? [be curious about others\u2019 views]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If there was agreement around the fact no-one showed up to the last workshop I\u2019d continue:<\/p>\n

This is making me wonder if we are avoiding talking about what happened around the last workshop [state your reasoning]. I would like to talk briefly about what happened so we can avoid the same problems happening with this workshop [state your intent]. In terms of the last workshop, would anyone be willing to share what caused them not to attend? [inquire into others views]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let me know your view in the comments.<\/p>\n

\"BenjaminHi, I\u2019m Benjamin<\/a>. I hope that you enjoyed the post. I\u2019m a consultant and coach who helps IT teams and their managers consistently deliver the right software solutions. You can find out more about me<\/a> and my services<\/a>. Contact me<\/a> for a conversation about your situation.<\/p>\n

Image Credit: David Blackwell on Flickr<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we spot and elephant in the room, or an undiscussable topic that isn\u2019t being addressed, it is tempting to tackle it head on.\u00a0 However, just naming the elephant or telling people that they\u2019re not discussing an undiscussable topic\u00a0 is rarely a productive approach. Having spotted an elephant in the room it is\u00a0tempting to shout […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,9,11,13,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techpeoplethrivi-i2tkeoduos.live-website.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techpeoplethrivi-i2tkeoduos.live-website.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techpeoplethrivi-i2tkeoduos.live-website.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techpeoplethrivi-i2tkeoduos.live-website.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techpeoplethrivi-i2tkeoduos.live-website.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techpeoplethrivi-i2tkeoduos.live-website.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techpeoplethrivi-i2tkeoduos.live-website.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techpeoplethrivi-i2tkeoduos.live-website.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techpeoplethrivi-i2tkeoduos.live-website.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}