Should I not just speak plainly for once?!
As an organisational developer and process consultant, empathetic neutrality, adjusting to a team’s pace and the ability to change one’s perspective are part of basic skill set: You keep your own opinion to yourself, you do not pull on the growing blades of grass and you step into the shoes of the other person to experience their problem as a challenge of your own. In theory, this makes a lot of sense, in practice as well and yet, there are moments when you think: if someone does not finally speak up, I am going to start screaming.
“Organisational Development with Punch:
We shout at you whenever required.”
More for fun than for real and inspired by the Fishermen’s Friend claim “Strong, Honest and Just a Little Bit Intense", slogans for a more direct kind of organisational development came to mind. What would happen if confrontation and brutal clarity were part of the concept? If I were to leave the role of neutral observer to become part of the game?
The courage for a field test continues to be absent, but I recalled the comparison of organisation-al development to the role of a court jester – a topic I was interviewed about years ago for a re-search project. Just as jesters were allowed to name things more freely under the guise of hu-mour, it is the task of today’s organisational developers to hold up a mirror to a company, its teams, and its leaders.
Becoming a weather announcer...
Directness and confrontation are therefore—when presented in the right way—entirely possible. Deep Democracy, the toolkit developed by Arnold Mindell for a more integrative approach to tensions and conflicts, suggests using the “weather report” for this purpose. In my role as facilitator, I describe the mood and the voices in the room using the same tone of voice as if I were describing the weather: What was said, how does that make me feel as the facilitator, and what emotions do I perceive in the room? In doing so, I do not single out individual people, but rather describe the overall “weather conditions” in order to then receive feedback on the weather description.
Such a shift to the meta-level of the discussion usually works wonders, because the elephants in the room become visible and everyone regains clarity. As variations of the weather report, the fol-lowing approaches often prove to be effective:
Present observations as possibilities: Since personal observations are always influenced by one’s own perspective, it is advisable to frame them as possibilities. “It could be that…,” “It seems that…” are possible ways to begin such statements.
Frame feedback as questions: Following the motto “What is thought through and said out loud by oneself sticks longer,” questions help lead to one’s own insights. Cleverly phrased, feedback is thus adorned with a question mark. “If you were experiencing the situation from a moderator’s perspective, what would be going through your mind?”, “What effect might such behaviour have on others?” or even “Do you find such an approach and the associated impact useful?” can help to voice one’s own observations.
Using humour: Playfulness, wit, and well-measured provocation help make confrontational content communi-cable without causing offence. It is important not to end up with sarcasm or irony, as the latter carry a bitterness that can lead to rejection or at least irritation. For instance, a statement like “Considering it took an entire morning to obtain these results, I must certainly find them mag-nificent!” requires a lightness in the voice and a benevolent inner attitude.
Describing causes and effect: Much like explaining a mathematical formula, behaviour, the resulting reactions, and the asso-ciated impact can be described. If you even go as far as to visualise the team dynamics, a seemingly objective distance results. By referring to roles, motives, and needs rather than in-dividual people, one remains more neutral.
Getting permission to be more direct: Finally, one can simply ask how direct and unfiltered feedback should be. Furthermore, certain things can be addressed more easily in private than in a plenary session, where more soften-ing and conditional forms are needed.
If the tone fails to be adapted to the situation despite all these communicative tricks, it may be awkward or slightly embarrassing in the moment but maybe just also human. “Trust the process” then becomes a catchphrase and a lifeline, because either this very reaction leads to a break-through, or inner peace is rediscovered with the next deep breath.
Time for self-reflection
What influences your tone of voice? When do you want to scream? Or how much directness is right for you? The following questions help you better understand your own needs.
Remember a situation where you wanted to scream, take two to three minutes per question, and write down the answers so that you can read through them again in the end and summarise your insights.
Why do you become impatient, what drives you up the wall, and what might be the reasons for it?
Is there a personal “suffering” of your own that begins to resonate?
Are values that are important to you being violated?
How do you become loud, and how comfortable are you with that?
What can help you to calibrate the volume and directness appropriately?
How do you find your inner peace and generosity?
How are you in touch with your humour and wit?
How are you generous with yourself should your directness become too much?
On what do you wish to focus even more in the future?
How much directness do you want yourself, and how do you make such need known?