The whole and its parts

The whole & its parts

On judging negative reactions

Greta was frustrated. She felt that she had done her best to share the news with her team leader in a professional way. But she had not expected such an angry reaction.

Together with her colleagues, she had worked on the meeting format her teams should use in the future, but Jim was rejecting it, telling her that these changes were inappropriate for his team.

Greta had hoped that everyone would appreciate their work and join in the new initiative. But Jim’s reaction made her doubt and wonder if she had done the right thing. Jim and she had been working effectively together and now he seemed to have turned his back on her.

She was finding herself in a typical dilemma of deciding for the greater good of the company and had to deal with her appreciation for one of those affected by the change. It’s a situation in which emotions and values seem to oppose one another.

That is, as long as one believes that caring for one’s people is about doing what they want.

While it is easier to do what others want, in a team it can easily happen, that it is not possible to satisfy everyone. Competing objectives and perspectives cannot always be aligned. And finding compromises only goes that far. While they may make the change a bit better, they often will not change the way people feel about the change.

Greta and I thus worked together on her understanding of the situation and her reactions.

None of the ideas and arguments Jim had brought up were new to Greta, she had considered them before and made her decision knowing that while Jim was right with some of his ideas, she still was happy with her decisions.

The most difficult for her was the way Jim had attacked her with his reaction. But after a while, we worked out how this was also showing Jim’s vulnerability. What he needed first and foremost was to be listened to, to be able to express his concerns, and to know that she had heard and understood them. For Greta, this meant listening with empathy and stepping away from her desire to argue with Jim and refute all his points. There was no need to reassure Jim with her descriptions of how everything would work out well, or to persuade him of the chosen solution. It wasn’t helping. She needed to show him that she had understood his concerns and seen how the change affected him.

It was only once he had felt heard, that they would be able to start working on the ways Jim could implement the change based on his concerns.

 

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