When Eng-An shuts down or walks out, Toby is left feeling abandoned and responsible for coping with the problems in their relationship on his own. He complains to friends that “Eng-An is incapable of dealing with feelings, hers or mine. She goes into denial when the tiniest thing is wrong.” Toby becomes increasingly frustrated with their inability to make tough decisions, or simply to have it out.
Meanwhile, Eng-An is confiding in her sister: “Toby is smothering me. Everything is an emergency, everything has to be discussed right now. He has no sensitivity for how I feel about it or whether it’s a good time for me. He wanted to hunt down a three-dollar discrepancy in our checking account on the night before my big presentation to the board! He’s constantly making these minuscule disagreements into huge problems that we’ve got to discuss for hours.”
When Toby and Eng-An finally talk explicitly about what’s happening, they realize that their past experiences have created an intersection of conflicting assumptions about communication and relationships. Toby’s mother had alcohol problems that escalated over the course of his childhood. Toby was the only member of the family willing to speak up about what was happening. His father and sisters went into denial, acting as if nothing were wrong and ignoring his mother’s erratic behavior, no doubt clinging unconsciously to the hope that it would somehow get better. But it didn’t. Perhaps as a result, Toby has a deep sense that raising and addressing problems immediately is crucial to the ongoing health of his relationship with Eng-An.
Eng-An’s home was quite different. Her brother is mentally handicapped, and life revolved around his schedule and needs. While Eng-An loved her brother very much, she sometimes needed a respite from the constant emotional turmoil of worry, crises, and caretaking that surrounded him. She learned not to react too quickly to a potential problem and worked hard to create the distance she needed in an emotionally intense family. Toby’s reactions to their disagreements threaten this carefully nurtured space.
We see how combining the two worldviews produces a system of interaction in which Toby talks and Eng-An withdraws. Operating in a blame frame, Toby concluded that their difficulties were Eng-An’s fault because she was “in denial” and “couldn’t handle feelings.” Eng-An decided that their difficulties were Toby’s fault, because he “overreacts” and “smothers me.” By shifting to a contribution frame, the couple was able to piece together the elements of the system that led to their fights and talk about how to handle it. Only then did communication improve.
Toby and Eng-An were fortunate that they came to understand their intersection in time to do something about it. The failure to do soF can be disastrous. In fact, treating an intersection as a question of right versus wrong leads to the death of a great many relationships.
Mapping a Contribution System
When a relationship begins, infatuation may keep each partner from noticing any flaws in the other. Later, as the relationship deepens, each notices some minor annoyances in how the other does things, but the tendency is not to worry. We assume that in time, watching us, the other will learn to show more affection, be more spontaneous, or demonstrate more concern for living within a budget.
The problem is that things don’t change, because each is waiting for the other to change. We begin to wonder: “Don’t they love me enough to do the right thing? Do they really love me at all?”
So long as we each continue to see this as a matter of right versus wrong, rather than as an intersection, there is no way to avoid a train wreck. In contrast, successful relationships, whether in our personal life or with our colleagues at work, are built on the knowledge that in intersections there is no one to blame. People are just different. If we hope to stay together over the long haul, we will sometimes have to compromise our preferences and meet in the middle.
4. Problematic Role Assumptions
A fourth hard-to-spot contribution involves assumptions, often unconscious, about your role in a situation. When your assumptions differ from those of others you can have an intersection such as Toby and Eng-An’s. But role assumptions can be problematic even when they are shared.
The members of George’s family, for example, all knew their parts in a repetitive family dynamic. Seven-year-old George would do something annoying, like bang a spoon against the dog dish. Eventually George’s mother would say to her husband, “Can’t you make him stop that?” whereupon George’s dad would yell “Stop it!” George would jump, and perhaps cry, and his mom would then turn back to her husband and say, “Well you didn’t have to yell at him.” Dad would sigh and return to reading the paper. And after a few minutes, George would find another irritating way to get attention, and the pattern would repeat. While no member of the family particularly enjoyed this dynamic, it did help them connect emotionally.
Obviously, this form of connecting — fighting to show love — has limitations. Yet it and many other less-than-ideal dynamics are surprisingly common, at home and in the workplace. Why? First, because despite its problems the familiar pattern is comfortable, and the members of the group work to keep each person playing their role. Second, because changing a contribution system requires more than just spotting it and recognizing its limitations. The people involved also have to find another way to provide its benefits. George and his parents need to find better ways to demonstrate affection and maintain closeness. And this is likely to require some tough work in their Feelings and Identity Conversations.
In an organization, this explains why people find it hard to change how they work together even when they see the limitations of common role assumptions, such as “Leaders set strategy; subordinates implement it.” To change how people interact, they need both an alternate model everyone thinks is better and the skills to make that model work at least as well as the current approach.
Two Tools for Spotting Contribution
If you are still unable to see your contribution, try one of the following two approaches.
Role Reversal
Ask yourself, “What would they say I’m contributing?” Pretend you are the other person and answer the question in the first person, using pronouns such as I, me, and my. Seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes can help you understand what you’re doing to feed the system.
The Observer’s Insight
Step back and look at the problem from the perspective of a disinterested observer. Imagine that you are a consultant called in to help the people in this situation better understand why they are getting stuck. How would you describe, in a neutral, nonjudgmental way, what each person is contributing?
If you have trouble getting out of your own shoes in this way, ask a friend to try for you. If what your friend comes up with surprises you, don’t reject it immediately. Rather, imagine that it is true. Ask how that could be, and what it would mean.
Moving from Blame to Contribution — An Example
Shifting your stance away from assessing blame and toward exploring contribution doesn’t happen overnight. It takes hard work and persistence. You will repeatedly find yourself and others slipping back into a blame frame, and will need to be vigilant in constantly correcting your course.
Sydney learned this while leading a team of engineers on a consulting assignment in Brazil. She was the only woman on the project, and the youngest on the team by fifteen years. One of the team members, Miguel, was particularly hostile to her leadership, and she set out to win him over by assigning him to work with her on a number of subcomponents of the project. The two executed several tasks together successfully, and each began to feel more comfortable with the other’s style and competence.
Then one evening while working through dinner at the hotel restaurant, Miguel changed the currency of their relationship. “You are so beautiful,” Miguel said to Sydney. “And we’re so far away from home.” He leaned across the table and stroked her hair. Uncomfortable, Sydney suggested they “get back to these figures.” She avoided his eyes and wrapped things up quickly.
Migue
l’s provocative behavior continued over the next few days. He would stand close to Sydney, pay more attention to her than to other members of the team, seek her out at every opportunity. Although he never issued a direct invitation for physical involvement, Sydney wondered whether this was what he was after.
Initially, like many of us, Sydney fell into a blame frame. She judged Miguel’s behavior as inappropriate and felt victimized by it. But along with blame came several doubts. Just as she would get up the courage to tell Miguel his behavior was wrong, Sydney worried that she was overreacting or misinterpreting his actions. Perhaps it was just a cultural difference.
Sydney also feared that accusing Miguel would take things from bad to worse. “The situation is uncomfortable but manageable,” she thought. “If I tell Miguel his behavior is wrong, I run the risk that he will explode, disrupt the team, or do something to endanger the project. And the project is my first priority.” By continuing to think in terms of blame, Sydney kept the stakes of raising the issue unmanageably high.
Map the Contribution System
The first step in moving away from blame is to reorient your own thinking about the situation. You can begin to diagnose the system by looking for the contributions you’ve each made to create the problem. Some of us are prone to focus on the other person’s contribution and have a harder time seeing our own. As “shifters” we tend to see ourselves as innocent victims — when something goes wrong, it’s always because of what someone else did. Others of us have the opposite tendency: we are all too aware of the negative consequences of our own actions. In the face of this, others’ contributions seem insignificant. An “absorber” tends to feel responsible for everything.
Knowing your predisposition can help you fight it, enabling you to get a balanced picture of what each person is contributing. To understand a contribution system, you have to understand all its components.
What Are They Contributing? Miguel’s contributions are relatively easy to identify. He is expressing romantic affection, but failing to clarify his intentions or the extent of his interest. He chooses to stand close to Sydney, to spend more time and energy talking with her than with his other colleagues, to hint at feelings of longing for her. He chooses (consciously or unconsciously) to ignore the nonverbal signals Sydney is sending. She changes the subject. She changes the staffing assignments. She moves away. He follows. He has chosen not to inquire about how she feels about what is happening.
Miguel may or may not be aware of Sydney’s discomfort. His actions may or may not be blameworthy. And it may or may not be appropriate to punish him. But these are separate inquiries from the question of contribution. What is important here is that these are the pieces of the puzzle that come from Miguel.
What Am I Contributing? Sydney’s contributions begin to surface once we shift out of the blame frame. She was particularly attentive to Miguel’s concerns about the team and went out of her way to work with him. He may have read this as interest on her part. Sydney has avoided telling Miguel — at least directly — that she’s felt at all uncomfortable. Regardless of how justified or understandable Sydney’s actions are, these actions and inactions on her part contributed to their current situation; they make it easier to understand why Miguel continues to act as he does.
List Each Person’s Contribution
* * *
My Contributions
* * *
Gave M. special attention at beginning
Went out of my way to work with him 1-on-1
Haven’t told him I’m uncomfortable
* * *
His Contributions
* * *
Telling me he’s in love, wants to spend private time together, etc.
Isn’t clear about his intentions
Isn’t getting, or is ignoring, my indirect signals
Doesn’t ask me if I am comfortable with his suggestions
* * *
Who Else Is Involved? Often there are other important contributors to the system. For example, with Toby and Eng-An, their families played an important role. In Sydney’s case, other members of the team may have inadvertently encouraged Miguel or passed up opportunities to help Sydney. When exploring a contribution system, consider whether other players may be contributing something important.
Take Responsibility for Your Contribution Early
Raising contribution during the conversation itself can be surprisingly easy. Getting the other person to shift from blame to contribution can be more difficult. One of the best ways to signal that you want to leave behind the question of who’s to blame is to acknowledge your own contribution early in the conversation. For example, Sydney might say to Miguel:
I apologize for not bringing this up earlier, before it became such a big deal for me. Also, I realize that arranging for us to work together at the beginning of the project may have sent a confusing signal, though all I intended was to improve our professional relationship. What was your reaction?
She might also ask, “Are there other things I’ve done that were ambiguous or that suggested I might be interested in something else?” Sydney would learn important information about her own impact, and also set the stage for discussion of Miguel’s contribution.
You may fear that being the first to own up to some contribution puts you in a vulnerable position for the rest of the conversation. What if the other person remains focused on blame, is more than happy to acknowledge your contribution (saying, in effect, “I agree that this is your fault”), and then is adamant that they contributed nothing?
This is an important concern, especially if you tend to be a contribution absorber. Acknowledging your contribution is a risk. But not acknowledging your contribution also involves risks. If Sydney starts by pointing out Miguel’s contributions, Miguel is likely to become defensive and feel that the conversation is unfairly one-sided. Rather than acknowledging his contribution, Miguel may be tempted to deflect attention from it, and the easiest way to do that is to point out Sydney’s part in the problem. Taking responsibility for your contribution up front prevents the other person from using it as a shield to avoid a discussion of their own contribution.
If you feel the focus is somehow on you alone, you can say so: “It’s not okay to look only at my contribution. That’s not reality as I see it. I feel like I’m trying to look at both of us. Is there anything I’m doing to make it hard for you to look at yourself?”
Help Them Understand Their Contribution
In addition to taking responsibility for what you contributed, there are things you can do to help them locate their contribution.
Make Your Observations and Reasoning Explicit. To make sure that you’re working from the same information and understand each other’s interpretations, share, as specifically as you can recall it what the other person did or said that triggered your reaction. Sydney might say, for example, “When you stroked my hair or asked if we could spend some private time at the beach, I was confused about what you wanted from our relationship. And I began to worry that if you wanted romance, then I would have a real problem on my hands.”
Or Toby could tell Eng-An: “When you left the house last night in the middle of our fight, I felt abandoned and angry. I think that’s why I picked a fight with you this morning over the orange juice. I needed to reconnect with you, even if it was just by yelling at you.” By jotting down the things that triggered you to react, you are starting to get a handle on the actions and reactions that make up the contribution system.
Clarify What You Would Have Them Do Differently. In addition to explaining what triggered your reaction, you should be prepared to say what you would have them do differently in the future, and explain how this would help you behave differently as well. The husband trying to repair the relationship with his adulterous wife might say:
I want to do a better job of listening to you and not withdrawing in the future. One thing that would help me to listen is if you could first ask me how my day was, and whether
this is a good time to talk. Sometimes I’m preoccupied or anxious about work, and when you start telling me about the problems you’re having with your boss, I just get overloaded and shut down. And sometimes I feel angry, because it makes me think you don’t care about what’s going on with me. So if you just asked first, I think I’d be in a much better place to listen to you. Is there anything that would make that difficult?
Making a specific request for how the other person can change their contribution in the service of helping you change yours can be a powerful way of helping them understand what they are doing to create and perpetuate the problem. And it goes to the heart of the purpose of understanding the contribution system — to see what you each need to do differently to influence and improve the situation.
Whether you’re talking about your contrasting stories, your intentions, or your contributions, the goal isn’t to get an admission. The goal is to understand better what’s happened between you, so that you can start to talk constructively about where to go next.
But in addition to clarifying the “What Happened?” Conversation, there are two other conversations that need untangling. The next two chapters examine the Feelings and Identity Conversations.
Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most Page 9