Acknowledging and Engaging under Complexity
This post is part of an online conversation about how Boards and EDs in Not-For-Profits can engage to best steer the organization forward.
The questions below are pulled from a Globe and Mail article that gets are complexity by discussing fact checking in newspaper publishing, where Kathy English acknowledges that people no longer agree on “evidence” to support the facts they are checking.
PART 1 - Acknowledging and Welcoming Complexity
How do we know what we know?
The short answer is that we "know" something when we believe it to the extent that we have stopped questioning it.
We equate beliefs with truth such that we are emboldened. The full sentence may actually be, "I believe this to be true at this moment in time." When we question them, beliefs can also feel temporary and transitional. This questioning has the feel of being a one-way trip. Once questioned, the belief never feels as firm as it once was. Thus, our reluctance to even start the questioning.
To be circular, we believe what we believe. In the public inquiry following the sponsorship scandal of the late 20th century, then Prime Minister Jean Chretien famously said, "A truth is a truth." The context for this was likely, "Why are you questioning what is so plainly true?" We hear people invoke the turn of phrase, "my truth," in conversations. I can't help but see this as a warning to the interviewer or other party: "This is my truth" means, "This is not a belief that I want to revisit right now. Poke and prob at your own risk." The risk is usually that the party will retreat from the conversation and be tough to reengage in the future.
To discuss such complexity, not as a journalistic exercise but as an effort to make important decisions in governing a Not-for-Profit, people need to share their beliefs. In group settings (like Board Meetings), we can see both a reluctance (or redundancy) to discuss such “truths,” both from the sharer and from the inquirer.
PART 2 - Collaborating and Engaging under Complexity
Engaging in conversations "How we know what we know"
I can envision Kathy English, in her fact-checker role, on the phone with a journalist trying to distinguish "unassailable fact" from "perception" or "opinion" or some other thing associated with a particular world view. My understanding is that fellow journalists would have the professional discipline to stay with such a conversation by offering healthy defenses to challenges, as well as concessions where warranted. The rest of us may need a bit of help.
There are ways to engage in conversations about differing perspectives and differing beliefs to overcome the understandable reluctance. The first one is fairly straightforward:
Test the assumption that we actually agree (i.e. I suspect that we believe the same thing. Let's confirm that openly and specifically.)
In another scenario, we may find we are engaging with someone who has yet to fully form a belief. We can:
Provide something with which they might agree (i.e. You seem to have not yet formed a belief. Let me share my belief and you can react to it.)
Note: One tactic in deploying skills in influence and persuasion is to seed doubt in an existing belief. It requires a great deal of self-discipline to present your belief objectively rather than attractively or presumptively.
Two more approaches operate on a continuum based on appetite to discuss:
We disagree, but you seem open to a discussion. (i.e. "Can I share a different perspective with you?")
We disagree, and you do not appear open to a discussion. (i.e. Maybe you have used "my truth" as a warning, so I will engage to better understand your belief, asking to understand rather than probing for logical holes.)
Parting Thoughts
Such conversations require a great deal of effort; they also entail a great deal of risk. There can be a comfortable untested affinity when we assume that people see the world the way that we do. Therein lies the wisdom of avoiding political and religious conversations in polite social settings. Ignorance to beliefs can create blissful comfort, if you get used to the elephant in the room.
The necessity to collaborate should create an appetite to do so. Here are some parting beliefs of mine:
People should be willing to invest the effort and also embrace the idea that relationships can deepen and be more stable when more is shared. Adam Kahane captures this in his latest project, "Collaborating with the Enemy." (Maybe "enemy" really means "someone who holds different beliefs that I do, but with whom good things are possible if we can work together toward areas that benefit us and others.")
Engaging in a discussion delivers strong ideas either because the idea withstood testing OR because through testing we able to strengthen the original idea.