Distinguishing Between Having Concerns and the Way They Are Expressed

Today I want to examine a dynamic about which people frequently get confused—especially when they're upset: the difference between having concerns and the way they're expressed.

Suppose Person A does or says something that Person B finds outrageous. Perhaps A is perceived by B to be extreme or acting from personal interest that seems out of alignment with group values or agreements, or has sidestepped what B believes to be good process. Mind you, that may not be A's story (and probably isn't), but B is in reaction. Overwhelmingly, in my experience, they both have a point, but it goes pear-shaped when B does any of the following as a way of expressing their upset—rather than taking their concerns directly to A in a caring way, perhaps with third party help:

• Calling out A in a meeting (often with high affect).

• Railing about A in the parking lot to others.

• Unilaterally sabotaging or undermining something A acted on without group approval.

When this occurs and the choices B has made about how they're expressing their concerns is brought into question, the response is something on they order of, "Person A did an outrageous thing and I'm responding in kind. Now the gloves are off." Sigh. Does eye-for-eye frontier justice ever lead to world peace? Not that I can see. It's just war mongering. While B thinks A started it, does that justify fanning the flames?

Rather than constructively addressing the issues B has with A, they're piling wood on the fire and turning up the heat. Yuck.

Cleaning It Up

OK, so what can you do if you're wearing the FEMA hat? The first order of business is putting the fire out—stopping the sequence of provocative words and deeds. In general, the way in is through making sure that upset people have been heard, starting with the person perceived to be most in distress and working down the line. The concept is that people don't hear that well when they're upset, and you have to unclog the ears first. (People almost always deescalate if they feel heard accurately and their point of view is understood without judgment. Mind you, I'm only talking about hearing, not agreeing—don't conflate the two.)

To be fair, this step can be complicated by a third party (Person C) having a reaction to how B expressed themselves (see the list above), and their urge may be to comment on that first. Don't do that (if the goal is to turn this around). When people are upset they are rarely open to hearing comments about their actions. It works far better if you connect with B before attempting anything else. For that matter, I have the same advice for working with A, who may be poised to retaliate to what they see as B's aggression.

After you have established that all upset parties have been heard (to their satisfaction, not yours) then you can proceed to tackle two things: a) what are the concerns that B (and perhaps others) have with what A originally said or did; and b) what are the concerns with how B expressed their concerns. While these can be done in any order, I think it's important at the outset to make clear that you'll do them both, and one at a time. When working with messy dynamics, it almost always work better if you can break it down into components (simplifying the conversation), and not allow a conversation to mushroom into a free-for-all examination of past unresolved incidents (they can be done later if necessary). Keep it contained!

At the end of the day, people won't remember whether you tackled a) before b) or the other way around, so long as both were fully and fairly addressed.

Choices When Upset

Although this doesn't always occur to people in the heat of the moment, you always have choices about how you respond when you are in reaction. For what it's worth, here is the sequence I recommend for handling this on a personal level:

1. Developing the capacity to understand that you are having a reaction—by which I mean a nontrivial emotional response. It's a normal thing and doesn't mean you're a bad person. It's data. It's a sign that you feel something is off.

2. Take time to examine what that means to you; where the reaction comes from. If you are Person B, to what extent is this about what Person A did? To what extent is this about Person A (unresolved tensions or low trust with them, rather than about the specific action that set you off)? To what extent is this more about you than about A (something you are struggling with internally, or perhaps with another person and that unresolved tension has been triggered by what A did, but isn't really about them or that specific action)? It could be a combination of these—people are complicated.

Essentially, this step is taking time to crystallize what your concern is about, and what meaning you can find in the strength of your reaction. This step is meant to be helpful to you, independent of what happens further.

3. What is your menu of constructive choices based on the outcome of the previous step? By "constructive" I mean potential actions you could take that have a reasonable prospect of opening up a dialog to address your concerns. This probably translates into how best to inform A (and perhaps the group) to the fact that you have concerns about what A did and are in reaction. 

The priority here should be on how to clean this up, not on expressing judgment or condemnation (which is essentially indulgent and rarely helpful).

4. Making a choice about how to proceed. At any step along the way I think it's fine to elicit help from friends—not to faction build, but to explore your feelings, to help discern their meaning, and develop a menu of options about to proceed.

Note: it tends to be less provocative if you can report your emotional reaction, rather than being in it. Thus, "I am angry that you parked the community pickup in front of a fire hydrant and it got hauled off by the police. This is the third time you've done this in the last three months and I'm frustrated that you're not being more careful of community property" is different from "You asshole! Don't you ever learn? This it the third goddam time you've mindlessly parked the pickup in front of a fire hydrant it got hauled off! Even an idiot would have figured out how to stop doing this by now." See the difference?

This is not about suppressing your reaction, including your upset, it's about being mindful of how you go about it and how it will land.

Questions About Working with Emotions in Group

This is from the mail bag. Back in December, Carolina wrote:

If you are in the middle of mediation, how would it help to appear to take sides? To gush about one person? And I see now I made a mistake—watch what someone does not what they say. That's just a rule for life, and a good one if you live in close proximity.

I'm trying to make sense of the madness. Of listening to all people and their hurts and concerns and then not seem to really hear all of them. Plus, I wonder how useful lots of talk is when the actions are not being taken. I wonder who is really afraid of big emotions. That is a theme I hear on this blog. Others are focused on forming a community where all can be respected. As an outsider, that must be tricky to figure out when some are more persuasive than others and without a therapy background, some mental health issues may not be noticed.

There's a lot here. 

1. Appearing to Take Sides

When I'm working with someone in distress, my number one priority is connecting with the person at the experiential level—showing that person that I can feel what it's like to be them. Thus, it's important to get the affect right, not just the words. In doing so, I may come across as siding with that person, when all I'm really doing is seeing them as fully as possible.

For this approach to work well, I have to offer the same quality engagement with others in the conflicted dynamic. My experience is that others will generally give me room to be present for others, so long as I am present for them in turn.

To be clear, I am not "gushing about one person"; I am connecting with them.

2. Connecting Words with Actions

When I'm working with someone in distress, I'm simultaneously tracking what they're saying with their words, and what their saying with their energy. Sometimes, these two don't align, which always gets my attention, usually indicating that we haven't yet gotten to the bottom of what's going on for that person (say, when the speaker reports anger yet expresses themself in well-modulated tones; or the other way, when there is a lot of force and intensity in their speech, yet all of the words are about ideas rather than feelings).

Sometimes people make promises about future behavior that they don't keep ("I won't do that again," and then they do). Of course, you can't know whether the follow through will be there when a person makes a commitment to shift future behavior, but I think it's important to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm not asking groups to be naive, but if the group doesn't allow for the possibility of change, it is far less likely to occur. 

3. Fear of Strong Emotions

—I wonder who is really afraid of big emotions. 

In my experience this is widespread. While it's common to find some support for working emotionally in groups, it is extremely rare to not find pockets of resistance to that. The wider culture does an abysmal job of preparing people to articulate their feelings and to listen closely when others express their feelings. For a number of people, their personal experience with the expression of strong feelings is that people are going to be targeted, dumped on, or abused. If that's all you know, is it any wonder you mistrust going there?

I focus a good deal on working emotionally because I think it's a critical skill, and it's typically hard for groups to buy into it. It's a heavy lift.

Just this week I had an example that illuminates my point. There was a contentious issue in the group and I made room for everyone to state how the topic touched them—not what they wanted to happen (that would come later), but the ways in which they were impacted by the topic, or the group dynamic in relationship to it. Not surprisingly, some people were worked up and they expressed their upset in the session—which was exactly what I had in mind. Afterwards I got roundly criticized by a few members who are uncomfortable with strong feelings being expressed in meetings, having found the criticisms to be raw, uncivil, and unproductive.

Interestingly, three of my detractors have been reported to be among the most provocative members of the group outside of meetings, where they apparently feel it's OK to unload on others they're upset with, or otherwise engage in provocative acts. In other words, they believe there should be special norms for meetings that don't apply otherwise—or at least not to them.

I'm scratching my head trying to understand how that works.

4. Respect

This is not just a song by Aretha Franklin. While almost everyone agrees that respect is a good thing, that concept is seldom unpacked to understand its nuances. Upon examination, it turns out that—surprise!—not everyone defines respect in the same way. Let me give an example of how this can go awry.

For some, respect means a willingness to hear their truth, in their own voice, which may be accompanied by strong passion. For another, respect may mean never raising your voice when communicating. It isn't difficult to see how these two perspectives don't play nice with each other, and each can feel they were promised respect that the other is not willing to give. Uh oh.

5. Knot Therapy

I do not have training in psychology and am not qualified to diagnose mental health issues. While they are a real thing and may be a factor in what's going on, I advocate engaging on the behavior level (rather than dabbling in amateur psychoanalyzing)—what actions are acceptable and which ones aren't. Never mind what the roots of those behaviors are, let's deal with what's in the room, let's unpack the reactions, and let's decide how to move forward. So the first point for me to make is that I am making no therapeutic claims about engaging with reactivity.

Better, I think, is to see what I am advocating as a way to untie the knots that are constricting circulation among members. In doing this work I try studiously to avoid the trap of allowing strong feelings to determine the menu of what gets considered. While I think it's beneficial to welcome strong statements germane to the topic, I do not allow those to dictate what we can or cannot discuss. I prefer to see the feelings as data, rather than as manifest destiny.

At the end of the day, it will be the group's work to discern how best to balance all the factors that are play, and you don't get extra credit for having spoken with high passion—though neither should you be penalized for it.