Bridge The Gap with Katie McCleary and Jennifer Edwards
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"We live in a more diverse, gray, nuanced world and environment... people are social creatures and they want to belong to their tribes and their identity labels and it gives us great comfort."
— Katie McCleary
Bridge the Gap - The Book
The aim wa to help people understand how their biology and psychology may hinder them from bridging gaps with others
The book provides practical skills to connect and collaborate with people who are different from them
They focus on tangible ways to disrupt listening hurdles, trigger responses, and prepare for difficult conversations in the workplace.
The Gaps In Leadership Teams
The rise of identity politics led to a more diverse and nuanced world with more population.
Social media and technology have made it easier to judge and harder to connect with others who seem different from us.
A survey from 2019 showed that 42% of employees and leaders experienced serious breakdowns in work relationships due to polarization.
Leaders need to take personal responsibility to show up as clean and curious to bridge gaps and be a strong leader.
Showing up clean
Showing up clean means being clear in your mind that you want to build a relationship and bridge a gap with another person
It involves having a direct conversation that seeks to understand the other person's perspective without bringing in assumptions
It requires suspending assumptions in service of the relationship and the shared goal of the team
Getting clean happens long before the conversation starts by relaxing the mind and body to show up with the cleanest brain and most high-performing prefrontal cortex possible
Getting clean is not just about polarization in society but also happens in everyday situations, such as a meeting where different views on how to solve a problem are presented.
Our Brains Desire For Certainty
The brain and mind seek safety in the human suit.
The brain desires certainty to feel safe and do what it thinks is right.
The brain also wants authorship, freedom, and agency.
True collaboration happens when we approach with curiosity and bring forth options, concerns, and strategies.
The debate should focus on finding the right answer, not proving one's answer is right.
Creating A Safe Place For Hard Conversations
Psychological safety is important in creating a safe space for hard conversations.
Leaders should bring psychological flexibility to their leadership to suspend their need to be seen a certain way and to lead from a place of humility.
Psychological flexibility can help leaders find new answers, collaborate differently, and build a culture of optimal performance.
Leaders should ask questions and be genuinely curious instead of using it as a technique to prove they are the smartest person in the room.
Curiosity Fraud
Curiosity fraud is just asking questions without genuine curiosity
Deep, radical, perceptual curiosity involves allowing the other person to speak their mind
Avoid crafting "gotcha" questions to prove one's own idea
Open-ended questions such as "tell me about" or "share with me" are better than data measurement questions
Listen for energy words that light people up or bring them down
Pay attention to context, language, and energy to dig deeper and understand better.
Don’t rush to conclude, but instead to carry the information and make notes.
Different brains process information differently, and it's important to tailor leadership to individual needs.
Knowing the team and the situation's risk level is crucial in deciding whether to give prep time or not.
It's essential to create space for curiosity and new connections to happen during meetings, and time should be intentionally allocated for it.
What Can A Leader Start Doing To Be "Clean and Curious"
Begin the day by recognizing the choice to show up and be responsible for optimal performance. Engage in practices such as meditation, prayer, and exercise to prepare oneself mentally and physically.
Get clear on who will be encountered during the day and what energy and level of curiosity is necessary to show up appropriately.
Handwrite priorities and to-do lists for the day to avoid overwhelming oneself or one's team with unnecessary tasks.
Before meetings, take a moment to be present and attentive to the person(s) being spoken with and avoid external and internal distractions. This will build trust and respect and help to create a connection with the other person(s).
Take a long walk to generate ideas and then record the most important outcomes to be committed to achieving that day. The outcomes can be personal or business-related.
Quiet Quitting
Leaders who are not clean may not be curious or bridging the gap, which can impact their team and company.
People in organizations tend to silo themselves, closing their doors and focusing only on their job duties.
Quiet quitting is a term used to describe the phenomenon of employees quietly disengaging from their work.
When there is a lack of connection, conversation, and relationship building, silos can increase.
Bringing biases, lived experiences, old stories, and the need to look important into a room can change outcomes.
It takes intentional work to be present and collaborate effectively.
Taking responsibility for starting well can lead to increased creativity and collaboration.
Being brave and leaning in to learn what you don't know can help get out of the finger trap.
Positive vs. Negative Intent
Assuming negative intent leads to frustration and anger.
Assuming positive intent means assuming people are trying to do their best with the resources they have, which leads to curiosity and asking questions.
People tend to assume negative intent, even though assuming positive intent can lead to curiosity and understanding.
Holding People Capable
Holding people capable is important for leaders
It means seeing the light in people, their skills and what they can develop
Humans are wired for defensiveness and negativity. We need to work hard to cultivate joy and trust
Holding people capable helps teams thrive
What Is The Drama Triangle?
The Drama Triangle is a paradigm where people unconsciously play one of three roles: victim, persecutor, or rescuer.
These roles are behavior patterns that trigger each other.
The paradigm does not yield the strongest, optimal team or leadership.
People can change their behavior by changing the lens they see things through.
In drama triangles, every person is fighting to be right, which doesn't bode well for teams.
It’s not about individuals being right; TEAMS need to be right.
Circle Of Choice
The circle of choice is an alternative paradigm that offers a constant opportunity to find the next iteration, the next choice
It is the perfect metaphor for love, never-ending and always with a new beginning
When in agency and choice, people always have a new choice and the next new choice.
Thanks for listening!
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Mike: All right. Jennifer Edwards and Katie McCleary are passionate about creating healthy relationships between diverse people in a polarizing world. As co-authors of Bridge the Gap, they equip people to engage in curious conversations that open up meaningful dialogue in even the most tense of encounters, Jennifer and Katie are work wives who personally know the transformative power of collaboration between diverse, talented, and smart people.
They embrace their own dichotomies of being conservative versus liberal country versus rock and roll, Christian versus Buddhist, executive versus creative. And they've helped thousands find the sweet spot in their relationships by transforming how they show up. Think, behave, and connect. Their work has appeared in Fast Company, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, NPR, New York Post Shondaland and Computer World.
We shared the TEDx stage together back in January and I loved their message, so I knew I wanted to have them on the show. So Jennifer and Katie, welcome.
Katie: Oh, thanks for having us.
Jennifer: Thanks for having us.
Mike: Beautiful. And as you can hear from both of them saying, this is the first time I'm doing a show where it's interviewing two people.
And so it's just kinda like a little panel discussion. So it's gonna be a little different. So I'm looking forward to it. And let me start off with kind of the most obvious question, your book is called Bridge The Gap, the book you wrote together. What gap are we talking about?
Jennifer: Well, I don't know if you remember, but we just had this huge pandemic, I joke this enormous polarization, this monumental event that woke so many of us up to the fact that there were enormous gaps between us politically, economically, the way we saw the world religiously and, racially.
And Katie and I wrote this book right in the darn middle of all of that implosion happening in the world. And what we came to realize is that, we wanted to support people in a skills-based way to understand how their human suit and their biology was perhaps, hindering them from bridging gaps with people who are different from them.
And so Katie and I wrote this book and are about the fact that gaps exist, but they don't have to be canyons. Gaps exist and we can find a way to understand another person's human suit we call it, and actually collaborate, connect, and be curious about them. Katie, what would you add?
Katie: So I think there's so many wonderful leadership books out there that tell you about this human suit we're in, right? Like, here's how you should speak and here's how body language works, and here's how to listen better. But a lot of it is rooted in the why and the esoteric-ness of it. And what we really wanted to do was say, these are skills to practice and learn.
People need sentence starters. They need to understand what their listening hurdles are and how to bypass them, and they need to know how to disrupt their biology and their psychology, when you know that name appears on your phone and your whole body goes tight, and you're like, do I wanna answer it or not?
Or, I'm gonna walk into that meeting and so and so is gonna say this again, and it's gonna rile me up and trigger me. How do I disrupt that in a very tangible way that can happen in my workday in order for me to show up better and bridge gaps and have better relationships?
Mike: Are these gaps things that have always existed? We're just talking about it more now or have things, I think most people would say things have gotten worse over the last five, ten years.
We can't even talk to each other anymore. Is that true or has this always been an issue?
Jennifer: Katie, why don't you take that? Because you and I were having this conversation just about the fact that there's always been pain points between us, but somehow. it's gotten to rapid fire levels of pain.
Katie: So I would say that in the eighties and nineties we began to see a real rise in identity politics and that if you think about the exponential growth of the planet, there are now 8 billion people of us in the eighties. It was not that at all. We were way less populated. And so we live in a more diverse gray, nuanced world and environment.
And people are social creatures and they want to belong to their tribes and their identity labels. And it gives us great comfort. So what do we do now in a world where we have social media, the speed of technology, the way in which we can look into people's homes and offices, and we're a pretty judgey group of people as social creatures.
Like we can't turn judgment on or off. It is wired in our biology. I think it has gotten worse actually. I think that forward moving fast progress, tons of people. A media that, I mean, in the eighties and nineties we were all watching basically the same 13 channels that offered us a cultural story.
How many channels are on TV now? How many news and media outlets are there now? We're not sharing the same cultural story anymore, and we think that's beautiful. But if you can't begin to get out of your own head and your own perception and your own lived experiences, it's really hard for you to connect with someone who seems so different than you.
But there are easy things that people can do to bridge gaps, to really connect with another human.
Mike: So let's go from like we could take this two different directions, right? We could talk about society and what this polarization and the inability to bridge that gap and have these conversations. We could talk about it a society level, and that would be really interesting.
But this show is all about creating a better leadership team. So let's get it to a team level. So what kind of problems have you seen this cause on teams and maybe most specifically on a leadership team, because that has a tendency to cascade down through the organization.
Jennifer: Such a good question, Mike. Let's just go to the facts. Actually, there was a survey done in 2019 and 42% of employees and leaders cited serious breakdowns in their work relationships due to polarization. So your question is real. And so in that space, Mike, I mean, let's even turn it back over to you and have a three-way conversation about this. Leaders have to take great personal responsibility no matter where they are in any organization, to say, I need to show up as clean and curious as I possibly can to lead well.
So we're really clear that in order to bridge gaps and to be a strong leader, the responsibility sits at I because that great expression, wherever I go, there I am. So let me just throw it back to you. I mean, are you seeing that in all the people you're interviewing and the leaders you are working with that the responsibility sits in awareness?
Mike: Yeah. I mean, and I wanna get back to this clean and curious and dive into both of those and what does that mean and how do we get clean and how do we get curious and why does that matter?
But, as you're talking, what went through my head is a specific client, and I obviously won't say who the client is, but if they're listening to this, they'll be able to recognize themselves.
But on a leadership team, there were a majority of folks who would consider themselves liberal. More, you know, leaning more left than right. And there were a minority of folks on that team that were more conservative, more on the right side.
And during the Black Lives Matter, you know, really w was getting a lot of news time and a lot of press a few years back there was someone on that team, on the more conservative side that was on video, on social media
fighting back against Black Lives Matter and what it meant. And there was someone on the left side that was interestingly enough also on video during one of the major protests that turned violent. And there was some real,you know, there were problems on the leadership team because those two.
I'll call them factions amongst the leadership team first would not talk to each other about it. There was just a whole bunch of resentment that cascaded down through the organization because there were members of the leadership team that couldn't talk to each other about that, and it meant they stopped relating to each other more generally.
And then when it did come out, it caused an explosion on the leadership team that caused one member of the leadership team to leave the team.
Katie: Yeah.
Mike: So I have seen this loud and clear. Very real. So how do we deal with that? You mentioned, you know, getting clean, getting curious. Let's talk about those and let's start with getting clean.
What does that mean and how does that help us dive into some of these potentially really dangerous conversations.
Katie: Absolutely. So I love that example that you gave. I think that's happening in the workplace all the time. And, we choose to, most of us are pretty conflict avoidant. And so we can be more ourselves on social media. And then all of that just slides everybody into negativity and doubt.
So to show up clean really means that you are clear in your mind that one, you want to build a relationship and bridge a gap with another person where this is happening. And when I do this, who are listening, that conflict is happening and we're rubbing up against each other and maybe we're not having a direct conversation that seeks to understand.
So the biology in the mind, our psychology, we have a lot of evidence for the way the world works. And so when we dig into our perspectives in that way, we're not showing up clean to another person to say, I really wanna understand your mindset here, what lived experiences you've had that contribute evidence to the way in which you think the world works.
And so when we say show up clean, it means that you are ready to have that conversation, to have an open mind and that you won't come with all those assumptions, that you suspend them in service of the relationship and on a team in service of the shared goal in which you're working on. Because there's this element to the fact that when we really disagree with someone and then it riles us up to the point that it damages the relationship, then we have to move our point of care somewhere.
What do I care about? Do I care about my job, my work, the shared goal that this team is desiring to do? And so the smart thing to do is to show up, clean, have a conversation, decide your care point, and go forward from there.
But often we don't do that in the workplace. We hope that it happens organically when leadership in a best world could be setting up containers that are safe in order to have these conversations and explorations to help move the team forward.
Mike: And I love that the quote I have in my head that you just said, and I may be paraphrasing, is you are suspending your assumptions to better focus on the team to better care for the team and I love that. And that's so hard to do when we feel so strongly about things. But that's important. So getting clean is suspending those assumptions. And deciding that you're gonna care about team more than your assumptions is that, do I have that right?
Jennifer: Yeah. And it happens long before the conversation starts, long before you even walk in the room, in the office. I mean, how many of us come in hot with a backpack, a metaphorical backpack of just noise going on?
And it's heavy when we walk in this room already predisposed to come in hot or with our own human suit full of noise. We really encourage people to take such responsibility to getting clean, that they're clear about how they're gonna show up their context.
They've relaxed their jaw, they've relaxed their shoulder, breath they've taken the deep breath so that they can show up with a clean, the cleanest brain and the most high performing prefrontal cortex they can.
Mike: And let's be clear, I mean, we started this talking about the polarization in society and left versus right, but sometimes getting clean
is you are walking into a meeting about to walk into a meeting and you feel totally convinced that the answer to the problem is X. The answer to the problem is we're gonna growby conquering Europe, right?
We're gonna grow by expanding our focus to Europe, and somebody else might have the view that says, Maybe we shouldn't be growing right now and somebody else might have the view that maybe we grow, but we've gotta do it domestically and we've gotta add new products and new services.
So it's not always society polarization and maybe polarization on the team. And as to what you think the right answer is.
Katie: It’s a certainty. So there's two things. The brain and the mind want to feel safe in the human suit. One is your brain wants certainty. It wants to know because when it can know, it can feel safe to then do whatever it needs to do to get to whatever it believes is correct and right. At the same time, our brains also want authorship and freedom and agency.
So we will fight pretty hard for what we're certain about, while also entertaining all the stuff in the atmosphere to say, what are my choices? But in the end, we kind of just go back to the one choice. And so we have the ability to entertain other perceptions, ideas, strategies, goals, but the brain defaults to certainty.
So the less certain we go in and the more we go in with curiosity and to bring our option, it's an option. It's not the only option, but to bring forth our options, our concerns, the strategies. True collaboration happens in that space when we seize into curiosity and less into certainty.
Mike: And then it sounds like the debate in the meeting becomes about finding the right answer through that debate. Not proving my answer is right.
Katie: Right.
Mike: Right. which is leader, there are a lot of folks listening to the show that are leading a team. They may be part of a team, they also may be leading a team. What could we do as leaders to create that safe space around the table so that we can kind of enter the fire of those difficult conversations, but feel safe doing it.
Jennifer: There's a lot of talk about, psychological safety and it's such an important piece, and we deeply believe in it, and we really believe that there is one core piece a leader can embrace to show up revolutionarily differently, and that is to bring psychological flexibility to their leadership.
And what that really means is to bring a profound sense of curiosity to suspend what they think they know they know to suspend their need to be seen, valued, understood in a certain way. And to say, what don't I know I don't know in this conversation?
And how can I lead from that place of humility, but still confidence, right? And so we really encourage leaders. And Mike, I'd love to hear how you encourage your leaders in that way to come in with that psychological flexibility as a leadership tool to find new answers, to collaborate differently, and most importantly, to build a culture of optimal performance. Because it's safe.
Mike: So what that makes me think about is way, way back. I owned a staffing and recruiting firm many years ago. tha Thank God I don't still own. That was a nightmare. But, I was reading all of the management books and leadership books about asking questions. Don't dictate the answer, ask the questions, be curious.
And the challenge I had, and I want to get your take on this because I had such an important learning here, is I started doing that. I started asking my team a lot of questions, and then I sat down and had a deep discussion with someone on my team who felt safe enough to tell me the honest truth, even though I was the boss.
And she said, you know, I wish you'd listened to us more. I was like, what do you mean? I read all the books. I'm asking you questions all the time. And she said, yeah, you're asking us questions, but we still come back around to your idea.
And what she helped me to realize, and here's where I want to throw a question back at all of you, back at both of you, is she helped me to realize that I was using questions as a quote on quote technique.
I really wasn't curious. I really thought I was the smartest person around the room, so I was asking questions cause I knew it was a good technique, but it was bullshit. I really thought I was the smartest person around the table.
So how can we, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. How can we make sure that this curiosity, this asking of questions, that it's not just a management technique, that it really comes from a shift in attitude that says, maybe I'm not the smartest person around the table.
Maybe someone does know more than I do. How do we change it from a technique to a true attitude that's gonna drive behavior?
Katie: So we call that curiosity fraud. We have been taught curiosity is just asking a bunch of questions and getting as much information out on the table as possible. Deep, radical, perceptual curiosity says that I'm gonna allow that speaker, the other person that I'm asking the question of to go with what's top of mind from them.
Because how often do we craft questions that are, in a way a gotcha question? In a way of, I'm gonna ask this question so that you give me the evidence. I want to prove that I'm right or that my idea will win.
So it's really easy. You actually remove a lot of the questions we've been taught, like why, what or not what, but why, when, where, how much.
Those are all like data measurement questions, but really, truly open questions like, tell me about, share with me. What are you challenged by? What don't I know here that I'm not seeing? Right. Share with me how the market plays into this. Like they're experts. If you're a really smart leader, you surrounded yourself by people who are experts in areas that you are not.
So let them be top of mind. And then in our listening, and this is in our book, is that you listen for the energy word people light up or they go down. When they have a particular word that means something that has impact on your business. The mindset organization. So you're listening for their context, their language, and where their energy takes them and you dig deeper.
Tell me more about that. I'm not sure I quite understand. Can you illuminate it for me in a different way? So they're very simple, open questions, but what you're doing is you're listening deeper. And then hold. Don't rush to say that's it, right? Carry it with you for an hour, 30 minutes a day, make some notes, come back to it, and coalesce all that information that you got now, because in the old strategy of asking a bunch of questions, you're getting performative answers or defensive answers, not real answers.
Mike: So are you better off as a leader? Say, I'm a CEO and I know in our weekly meeting this coming Thursday, we need to make a decision about something. We've gotta go with option A or option B.
And I've got the choice to let my team know know three days before. Hey, prepare. We're gonna be talking about option A and option B. I want you to come in with opinions and rationale for that opinion, cause we're gonna talk about it Thursday.
Are you better off doing that or are you better off waiting till Thursday hitting people with it?
Because in some ways I can see preparation helping. In some ways I can see preparation means they might get stuck in their opinion. What should I do? Should I let 'em know before or should I wait and just throw it out there in the meeting?
Jennifer: No, perfect answer for this question, Mike, because everybody's brain is different. Everybody's brain needs a different way of processing. There are a lot of brains. In fact, my husband often says, I want time to think about it. Because I have a more of a slow twitch and I want my words to really carry power and responsibility when I share them.
And so for him, he wants something in advance. There are other people who may process differently and wanna show up with a creativity that comes like, I need to talk off the top of my head and see if it lands.
You know, Katie and I have a really deep commitment to when supporting leaders, knowing that leader well enough by using that platinum rule, right?
The golden rules, treat somebody how you wanna be treated. A platinum rule is, Hey, let me find out what you need and give you that. So we spend a lot of time, and I'm sure you do as well, saying, Hey, what does your brain need to make great decisions? And let me give you that. And we tailor all our leadership to the brain in front of us.
Mike: So does that mean knowing my team and saying there's some people where maybe I should give them a little prep time and others where maybe it's okay. I don't.
Jennifer: Also, you know, the other thing is that, we think about this is, when the price tag is affordable, you can make different decisions than when the price tag isn't affordable.
For example, I'm sure you've been there where you want your team to feel really empowered to make a decision, and it's kind of low risk, but when it's high risk and you are the one with the name on the check and the responsibility, it's a different game.
Katie: Love it. I think that if that leader is sort of a pre thinker and that's their modality to bring forth two questions ahead of time, then I think it's fine to throw that out to the whole team. At the same time though, I think it's always important in the moment to bring forth a piece of information, a piece of education, something that people can chew on in that moment to scratch their brains in a different way.
Because if I offer the two questions three days in advance and then they come and they're all prepared, that information and data is great. At the same time, it also reeks of certainty.
So to, throw another piece of information in there, or another question that arises from and for that leader to take the time to say, we need to wrestle with this, even though it wasn't in the original email you got three days ago.
I see that's the issue, is that the leader, the facilitator, whoever's leading that meeting, is unwilling to shift their agenda to make space for a question that arises that is kind of meaty and substantial. Time is the issue. I always feel like in these meetings, you know, to be able to create space for curiosity and new connections to happen.
So we have to be intentional about creating that sense of time.
Mike: And speaking of being intentional, are there things a leader could do every day? Twice a day, once a week, whatever.
Mike: Are there things a leader can do? And back to the idea of, you know, clean and curious is really wanting the best answer, being intellectually curious about other ideas a little less certain that what you have is the right answer are there things day in and day out a leader can do to start training their mind?
A little bit more to be in that mode most often because we all, I don't know, I don't think there are a lot of folks that would argue with the logic of what we're saying, but actually behaving that way and making it a habit is a lot harder.
Jennifer: Maybe we could all share what we do as a start, because we're all leaders in our own area, and here's what I really encourage people to do, and I do myself, I think to myself, is as I start there I go, from the minute I wake up and get out of bed, I think to myself, I have a choice.
I have authorship about how I'm gonna show up today and how I show up is gonna matter. So the very first thing I do is I rely on a practice of slowing my mind down, meditation and prayer, and then getting exercise in my body so that I can show up clean, right?
As a leader, first responsibility I have is to make sure this vessel is ready for optimal performance.
And then the next thing I do after, you know, I eat well and drink water, which is super important cause I gotta fuel this brain to show up well, is I say, who do I have in front of me today and what's the most responsible way I need to show up? I get really clear, look at calendar, like what energy do I have to bring, what what level of curiosity am I working with a creative or an executive?
So I think it's really personally for me, and I talk to people about this all the time, is get yourself as prepared and clean as you can, and your leadership will follow from that same perspective. Katie, what do you say? And then Mike, I'd love to hear what you do.
Mike: Yeah.
Katie: So I'm a writer. I also wake up in the morning and set my day and who I'm gonna be with, but I spend time handwriting things down and, I feel like there's,great magic in just getting that out of your body and it's who's your mind down to?
And your mind will naturally filter through handwriting what's important to you in that day, in that moment, if you text or type or put it in your phone, it's a different cognitive process. So going a little bit slower and more intentional and handwriting what really matters, like I can make a to-do list that's 50 items long. I'm gonna just set myself up for failure and my team for failure.
If I say, oh my God, we can accomplish everything today. And a keyboard wants you to put out 50 things. It's meant for speed and efficiency, but handwriting says uh uh, there's so many hours in a day. What is essential? What is that 20% thing that we can do that makes 80% of all the difference? So I get clear through handwriting, and then anytime before I go into a meeting, a conversation I have the moment that doctors called the golden moment, the golden knock on the door.
It's where I say to myself, okay, Katie, you're gonna show up in there and you're going to be present. Not internally distracted, not externally distracted. And I'm finding that most people are pretty distracted in their conversations.
So I work really hard to not look at my phone, not have a smart watch on, to be so with that person so that my curiosity is with them, because that's where I'm gonna get the most connective tissue.
I'm gonna build the most trust and respect, and they will feel heard. They will feel that I'm connected to them and trust is a feeling. So those are two things that I do.
Mike: Love it. Love it. And I guess my addition to that is for me it's about taking a long long walk. I like to take a four or five mile walk in the morning.
Preferably first thing if I can do that. And those walks is where, that's where I think best. That's where I can, you know, I typically come back with five or six new ideas that I've recorded on my phone, cause I just think better when I'm walking and then I get back .
And Katie, I type this and I'm with you. Writing is better, but when I write I can't understand what I wrote 10 minutes later so
Katie: I get it.
Mike: So I get back and from that walk and I journal and my journal isn't, dear diary, my wife yelled at me today. My journal is, what are the outcomes? 2, 3, 4 most important outcomes that I am committed to achieving today.
Now an outcome could be having a great conversation with my son. It doesn't have to be business related or dollar related, but when you think, and, but if you do have a big meeting that day, it may be what do I want the outcome of the meeting to be? And that might be a great time. Speaking of getting clean, getting curious, that may be a great time to think about is the outcome that
I win the debate about my idea or is the outcome of the meeting that we're gonna have a great conversation to build relationships on our team and create the right outcome, versus, my goal is I'm gonna win the argument. So I love that. What have you seen when this isn't done right?
Mike: When the leaders aren't getting clean, they're not curious, they're not bridging the gap. What impact does that have on a team? What impact might that have on a company?
Jennifer: You wanna take that, Katie?
Katie: Sure. So,a team, a company, an organization, a school district, a government, People silo. It's as simple as that. They close their door, they go to their cubicles, they go to their classroom, they put their head down and they say, what's on my job duty list? Because that's just the job I'm gonna do. I mean, there's quiet quitting that term came out.
It's quiet quitting everywhere. And quiet quitting has been happening for ages, especially in a culture that might be driven by fear, a culture that might be top down where they lack a sense of buy-in. To the work, the behaviors, the expertise. So when we don't make time for connection, conversation, relationship building, we just increase silos.
Jennifer: I wanna add one piece to it. When we don't take time to get really clean and clear, we bring all our own biases, our lived experiences, our old stories, our need to look important into the room, and that can change the outcome because, you know, we're pretty,we're all pretty self-absorbed.
We're in a human suit that wants to survive and wants to be noticed and seen and understood and valued. And so it takes some really intentional work, like Katie said, to walk into a room and be just super present.
And it's really amazing when you're super present, the level of creativity, collaboration that can happen. And that's where we all take responsibility for starting well, because we have authorship.
Mike: Do you have to like everybody on your team?
Katie: No.
Jennifer: I think it's impossible. I pulled this out. I mean, like, so for those listening, I've pulled out one of those finger traps maybe we played with this children, and we use this often times as a metaphor because, you know, the opening line in our book says, let's just say it flat out, we all struggle to like, understand and respect some people in our life. And Katie. Some people...
Katie: Struggle to understand, like, and respect you. I mean, you can think I like that person. They don't like you. It happens all the time.
Jennifer: And most of life. Right now I'm putting my fingers in the finger trap and I'm pulling away most of life, most relationships, maybe not most for you, but many feel like being stuck in a finger trap and they're a little bit difficult and they're hard, and they're uncertain.
And our natural tendency when we're in relationships where they're not our style, not our jam, is to do what?
Katie: Pull away.
Jennifer: And what do we do? We get stuck.
Katie: We need to move closer.
Jennifer: And the only way out, the only way out is that word curiosity. The only way out is to bring a sense of care and say, wow, the struggle is getting me nowhere.
But more fractionalized, more disassociated with the person. And the only antidote, and the only hope we really have of connection is saying, well, I'm gonna be brave.
I'm gonna really be brave. I don't wanna do this, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna be curious about what I don't know I don't know. And lean in and find out what I can learn to get myself out of the finger trap.
And you know, if there's one thing that great leaders Mike, can do and need to do, and we all need to do it in the world and in work is is say, let's get outta the finger trap by being curious. That's where leadership starts.
Mike: I love it. And I know one thing we both talked about on the TEDx stage, and I remember hearing it in rehearsal from you guys going, oh my God, we're talking about the same thing.
Mike: Is this idea of assuming. Positive versus assuming negative intent and I have found one way to kill curiosity.
Is when we assume someone has negative intent, we assume, they're just trying to throw a wrench in the idea. They're always a pain in the neck. When we assume negative intent, we get frustrated.
We get angry when we assume positive intent and I'm assuming positive intent doesn't mean everybody's doing the right thing, but it just means people are trying to do the best they can with the resources they have if we assume they're trying to do the best they can. We kind of automatically get curious, well, I wonder why they think that when I think something else.
So I love that idea of that curiosity driven by, hey, step back and say, Hey, what if they were trying to do the best they can? And then you're gonna get curious and come up with questions.
Katie: Mike, do you know anybody who's actively trying to be unhappy? They might be self-sabotage.
Mike: Oh, God I feel like I do, but I'm sure that's not the case of, I think of, yeah, my mother-in-law seems that way sometimes, but noand it's funny, quick story about that.
So my mother-in-law lived with us for about a year and a half, many years ago. And it was that year and a half, seemed like 10 years. And I hope she's not listening to this. She has no idea how to listen to a podcast. She's not listening to this. But I could remember one morning, and this is such a great example of assuming negative intent and what it causes.
One morning. My kids were young at the time, and it was about five to seven, and my kids had to get up at seven o'clock and it was five to seven. My wife had to leave early that day. She normally got the kids up, but I was up checking some email, five minutes to wake up the kids and there's a soft knock at my door, and my mother-in-law peeks in and goes,I know Angela is not here.
Do I have to wake the kids up? And I thought, does this woman not think I know how to be a father? Like, my God, her daughter's not here, so I can't take care of the kids. And I got all riled up and I said, no, don't worry. I've got it taken care of. And I said it exactly with that tone of voice, which I heard about about later, and, you know, when it caused.
And then I thought a day later I thought about what happened. And I thought this woman, this horrible woman was asking how she could help.
And there I was assuming negative intent and getting all angry when all she was doing was trying to figure out if there was a way she could help. What a b*tch, what a horrible woman she was.
So I see it all the time and man, I get on a TEDx stage and talk about assuming positive intent, but I need to learn that lesson over and over every single day.
Because I still don't do it the way I should. So it's and no, I don't know anybody who just wants to be miserable every day, who wants to screw things up.
But as human beings, we all feel that way. We look at other people and we tend to assume negative intent. It's crazy, but we do it.
Katie: Yeah.
Jennifer: Yeah. So true.
Katie: I think one of the best things that a leader can do is hold people capable. We hold people accountable, but I'm gonna hold you capable to the light I see in you to the skills that I know you can develop to the thing that you're trying to accomplish. Because the human suit, whether we like this or not, it is wired for defensiveness and negativity.
Eight of our core emotions, five of them are defensive and negative. If we were to label them, we're the only creatures on earth that walk upright with all of our major organs exposed. So we have to work really hard at joy and trust. We have to work to see and hold people capable to what's possible and be really clear and intentional about doing it. And when we do that, especially on our teams, they thrive.
Mike: So this makes me think about something I know you mentioned in your book is is The Drama Triangle.
Talk a little bit about that, cause I think some of that is also at the heart of what we're talking about.
What is the drama triangle?
Jennifer: Dr. Karpman coined it and there's a lot of information you can read out there on the web about it, but pretty much making it super simple from childhood. We've been raised to play one of three roles unconsciously in our lives. Victim, persecutor, or rescuer.
Their roles, not people, their behavior patterns that trigger each other. And what happens is unconsciously we slide into a role and interact from a perspective that we're oftentimes unconscious to it. And, let me make it even for everybody listening who haven't heard about this, you know, you've read it in Disney, you've seen it television. Katie and I are huge Star Wars fans, so you've seen it in the rebels.
Luke Skywalker and who's the villain? Darth Vador.
*Both Katie and Mike say Darth Vador*
Yeah. Right. I mean, every great, you can do it, every great quote on quote story we know has a triangle, has a drama triangle in it. And what we really say, and Dr. Karpman shows is that, that's a behavior pattern, a paradigm that does not yield the strongest, optimal team or leadership.
And that there is another choice. And that choice is, in our book, we talk a lot about moving to the circle of choice where we say, oh wait, I don't have to be baited. I have an agency. Oh wait, I don't have to play the victim. I have a prefrontal cortex. I have metacognition. The ability to think about thinking, I am response able and to really wake ourselves up to the fact that everything we have in front of us.
Is seen through a lens, and that if we change the lens, our behavior can be more optimal. And,we deeply believe it. And then here's the hard truth, Mike. Even though you know it, you'll still get in drama triangles sometimes. You know, you've gotten a little drama triangle with your mother-in-law there.
You became the victim and then you became the and then you rescued yourself. I mean, like, and so like, hey, no hassle to anybody. We all do it. It's just how can we think? And how much more quickly can we wake ourselves up when we slide into those drama triangles?
Mike: I just wanna be clear though, it was her fault.
Jennifer: I'm sure that it was.
Mike: I mean, it was, I mean, I'm all for growth, but it was her fault.
Katie: Well, in a drama triangle, every single person is fighting to be right. The victim, the hero, the villain, they're all fighting to be right. And so that doesn't bode well for teams. The team needs to be right.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Mike: Love it. And what did you call, so it's the drama triangle. What was the circle called?
Jennifer: Circle of choice.
Mike: Circle of choice. Love it.
Jennifer: And the image right is a drawing. A triangle is really sharp. It's got edges, but a circle is a constant opportunity to find the next iteration, the next choice. It's the perfect, metaphor for love. It's never ending. And it's always got a new beginning, and that's what behavior opportunity is, right?
Like when we're in our agency, when we're in our choice, we always have a new choice. And then the next new choice.
Mike: Love it. This is great. So as we start to wrap up, tell me a little bit, I guess this could be together or separate. Tell me a little bit about how do you work with clients on this?
Is it mostly work on stage in front of an audience? Is it consulting? Is it separately? Is it together? Give us all a sense of how you work with clients to help them on all of this. Go ahead, Katie.
Katie: It's all of it. It's all of it. So we do a lot of public speaking, a lot of stuff on stages, and we love that. We also love to do breakout workshops, you know, because 45 minutes of being talked at and we try to have a conversation and get people engaged and moving. You know, you can only have a small bite of information and a keynote.
And then we do breakout workshops and kind of deepen into certain things. But a lot of our work is done with teams of saying like, what are the skills, the professional development, the personal development that we need to teach this team? And we don't believe it just belongs in leadership. It has got to be driven and integrated into the entire organization because then everybody has shared context, shared skills, shared learning and language.
And when a team grows together and really wrestles with an invisible architecture that's now made visible to them about communication, collaboration, how we show up. That's where the most growth can happen for a team. And then we work a lot on culture because we get in there and we're hired for communication and collaboration and team building.
And the culture has been eroded, the culture hasn't been tended to, and so then that often moves into culture work. What would you add, Jennifer? There's a whole bunch of stuff I'm missing. I know.
Jennifer: No, I think. Here's the thing. Here's our target market. Are you a leader who wants to up their skills of their human suit? We'd love to have a conversation, period. Period, whether it's in big groups or little groups.
Mike: Love it. And this will be in the show notes, but if people wanna find out more about you, and your work and your book, let's say the name of the book again. Bridge the Gap. If people wanna find out more, where should they go?
Jennifer: We have a great website, howtobridgethegap.com. And check us out. We've got tons of videos, podcasts, articles, reels, and most importantly, give us a call. We'd love to have a conversation.
Mike: Love it. Well, Katie, Jennifer, thank you so much. This is great.
Jennifer: Thank you.
Katie: Thank you Mike, and thanks for the work that you're doing. Your TED talk was just so awesome.
Mike: Ah, thank you very much.
Jennifer: It was. Thank you Mike.
Mike: Let's spend another, let's spend another 10 minutes and just talk about me we would. I kinda like that.
Katie: You're looking so good today and oh my gosh your wife must be just so proud of you.
Mike: I love this. Yeah, we're gonna make this a double episode. Thanks guys.