Ep. 22 Best of Both in Relationship

In this episode, Katie talks with Floyd Carlson about bringing a Both/And mindset to our relationships. Across the conversation, they discuss:

• How can we help the systems navigate polarities when they show up
• Shifting from either/or thinking to a Both/And approach.
• The link between polarities and perpetual issues. 
• And how a Both/And mindset can help to create alignment.

Floyd Carlson is a Front of the Room Leader for CRR Global who focuses on leaders and teams and bringing the best out of individuals based on company and individual objectives. Floyd has more than 30 years of business and military experience which he combines with his coaching, training, and organizational development to help leaders achieve professional and personal goals in alignment with company needs.

Resources:

• Navigating Polarities: Using Both/And Thinking to Lead Transformation, by Brian Emerson  & Kelly Lewis
• Andiron- Key Polarities Indicator
• Esther Perel Podcasts- Where should we begin? & How’s work?
• Tiny Habits, by BJ Fogg
• The Love Prescription, by John and Julie Gottman
• The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level Paperback, by Gay Hendricks 

For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

Transcript

Key 

KC – Katie Churchman 

FC – Floyd Carlson 

[Intro 00:00 – 00:06] 

KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole. I’m your host, Katie Churchman, and on this episode Floyd Carslon, faculty member of CRR Global, is back on the show talking about how to bring a both-and mindset to our relationships. Across the conversation we discuss how can we help the system navigating polarities when they show up, shifting from either or thinking to a both-and approach, the link between polarities and perpetual issues and how a both-and mindset can help to bring alignment. Floyd Carlson is a front of the room leader for CRR Global who focuses on leaders, teams and brining the best out of individuals based on company and individual objectives. Floyd has more than 30 years of business and military experience which he combines with his coaching, training and organizational development to help leaders achieve professional and personal goals in alignment with company needs. So without further ado I bring you Floyd Carlson talking about the best of both in relationship. 

KC – Floyd, welcome back to the relationship matters podcast, it’s been a while since we’ve had you on the show! 

FC – It has been a while and I’m so happy to be here again with you Katie, wow. 

KC – And I’m very intrigued by this topic. So, today we’re talking about how to bring the best of both in relationship. So talk to me a bit about this topic and why it’s caught your attention. 

FC – Yeah, so there’s a question, Katie, I’ve been just pondering is when we start seeing these challenges in the systems that we’re working with and there’s also challenges in ourselves that we’re trying to work through, is there different approaches that we can use that’s gonna help benefit, you know, the clients in front of us, to help them to navigate through this. And so we start thinking about what are the challenges that are out there? You know we have from, Gottman’s work, there’s that 69% of issues are perpetual. Perpetual issues are the same issues that keeps coming up over and over again and one of the things that we’re gonna talk about today is typically those around opposite ends, there’s a polarity. You know, polarity in ourselves, there’s those polarities in systems. An example from an organization polarity, there would be, an organization is decentralized vs centralized. We’re constantly in that pendulum going back and forth and if you’ve been in organizations a long time, I’ve been in those where one week it seems like, well this year the flavor is we’re centralized, and all of a sudden next year we’re decentralized. There’s benefits of both but what happens is we’re constantly in this either or thinking. And guess what, we’re born that way, right? In this either or thoughts. And so we know that these challenges are out there, there’s other challenges that you know we’re going to talk about, what’s happening, also, in relationships. I think this is just a different way that we can do this. Imma talk today about some of the tools that we already have in our program that can help with this, so this idea of how do we help the systems we’re working with navigate these polarities? And in this work that I’m gonna lean into today, you know, comes from a couple different people. One is from the book Navigating Polarities by Brian Emerson and Kellie Lewis. I’ve also taken a certification which is called key polarity indicators, how to navigate those certification and their company’s called Adrian. I’m leaning into that because as I was going through it I started to go wow, this can really have a difference with the systems we’re working with and I’ll give some of those examples as we go through. 

KC – What an ally for this work. It’s so interesting how often we go into that binary thinking, so regularly I get clients and they get their 360 back and they go straight to what they’re not doing well, and then they see oh, I’m too direct in meetings and so then they start doing the other thing and they start being soft and then they get called out for not talking up enough and so it’s like either or, this way or that way. 

FC – Yeah it is an ill part. You know, the use of how, and a lot of this also comes from Keegans work, right? And you know how do we navigate those? So we wanna get the best of both, so an example one of the leaders I was recently working with had their 360. The polarities that they were navigating is they really found themselves in candor, matter of fact that was their identity, that was their hook. But they didn’t have candor, candor had them. And what we can see is when you look at the benefits, they’re getting all the benefits but they’re getting all the overuses too. And the overuses, what do you think we’d hear in our 360, they’re cold, they’re hard to connect with. Those are the things that demonstrated they were getting the overuse. So what was the opposite? Diplomacy. But even when we brought up the word diplomacy to navigate these, immediately what we saw, we see in a person was oh wow, it was kind of like a shiver of, because why is that happening? And I’ve been there too if I’m navigating fast vs slow, it’s like I can’t do that, I would be this, and why? Because we focus on the negative aspect of it. Those overuses. So what we’re gonna do with this individual was, what we’ll do in the coaching, is to help them to navigate this where what’s the best of both? And this is where our theme for today, the best of both-and. So we captured those and then we start to come into this third way of doing things, this new way of doing things, of now once you’ve seen the benefits, the positives or the benefits of candor or the positives and benefits of diplomacy, what is this new way of going forward? And we start identifying that, they made those connections. There’s also a piece in Brian and Kelly’s work, there’s this vulnerability, knowing that as I do this I need to recognize this vulnerability so we help them name that before we go into actions. So what comes up for you? 

KC – I love what you said there about they don’t have candor, candor has them, and I think it reminds me of that exercise from fundamentals, who do you want to be in relationship or who do you want to be in business relationships, and how that reveals our preferences to us and if we’re not aware of them it can become a bias, potentially. It sounds like for this individual they just weren't aware that that was so much of a preference that I’m sure the absence of which they notice maybe in other people, maybe they judged. And so it’s interesting how these strengths can suddenly become a weakness if we’re not aware of when we’re utilizing them and how we’re utilizing them. 

FC – Yeah. You know, you and I Katie have probably done a few 360s with people, every strength has a shadow, every shadow has a strength. And this is, what I love that you’ve come up with is this is bringing that visibility. Even being able to see it can create at least that awareness and open that possibility of a new way of doing this. Going wow, I did not realize that it actually had me versus me having it. 

KC – It also makes me think that, so I’ve been working a lot lately with passive vs active and, like you, I prefer fast paced, get things done and so I have quite an active life and I’ve been looking a lot at some of the passive practices that I can bring more into my life, like meditation. Yet one of my mentors said to me but actually, meditation has an active part because you actually actively have to sit on the cushion, even though it’s somewhat passive when you’re there, and I wonder if you notice this with the work you do with your clients? 

FC – Yeah, absolutely. So, again, when we bring awareness and we actually map these out and take the clients through this or through the system, because we’re talking now about one and we’re gonna move to how do you do this with two or more. Absolutely, they start to realize well, actually, I might already be doing something there. But what I found is we get so focused on that overuse, it’s like well diplomacy’s slow, it’s like you’re trying to get people to agree and it takes so much time, we get so focused on that that it actually becomes, we’re kind of repelling it. Because we navigate polarities all the time, so it’s not everything is a polarity, it’s only when it shows up to where it has us and we don’t have it and why we kind of lean into it in this conversation too is when we’re working with systems, perpetual issues, these are polarities. I love the work from Esther Perel, I listen often to her podcast, matter of fact you were the one who first told me about her work that got me interested in it so thank you! Big gratitude and thanks. And as reflecting in on this one episode we’re, you know, she had this system she was working with, a couple, and she was leaning into her article about what couples therapy can teach us about conflict in the workplace. And what I thought was quite interesting about this is she talks about this idea that we all have this, you know, resume of relationships. All of our past relationships are coming into every new relationship, be it romantic or be it in the workplace. You know if I grow up in, my family didn’t share, as in you do it yourself, you bootstrap, if you came from a family where you share everything and you’re all of a sudden coming together, that can create this either or where I’m used to you know, you just do it yourself, you’re self-resilient to let’s share everything. And now that in itself could be a perpetual issue, a challenge to our relationship. So then how do we go about it? Well, I’d be thinking I want you to be a lot more like me, you’re gonna be thinking I want you to be more like myself and then that creates the challenge. So how do we then help the system to navigate, and this is what we’re thinking about, well what’s the best of both? So, coming back to this idea is these perpetual issues as they’re showing up, how then can we help them to navigate that? And in our tools in ORSC we have quite a few different tools that we’re gonna talk about also as we go through this. 

KC – Would you say this is, in many ways, alignment coaching or a version of alignment coaching? Because it’s not so much working toward agreement or even liking each other but finding, I guess, a common purpose or value underneath. 

FC – Absolutely. So, alignment coaching is one of our foundational tools that we you know, take our participants through. And as you and I both have lead this course, as a matter of fact lead together, which is incredibly fun. You know, the alignment as we talk about, you don’t really have to have that agreement but you can align in every situation. Matter of fact you don’t even have to really like this person, but you can still get to this alignment and so that tool is incredibly helpful to help us be able to do that, and what we talk about in our program is when you have like this hot conflict that this is creating, so if these two things, say sharing and being ourself is a real hot issue. Matter of fact, part of Gottman’s work is you can’t really resolve these perpetual issues but you can dial along around it. And alignment coaching can actually help us to do that because just imagine, as we go through alignment coaching we’re looking for what are the common interests that we have and then we’re getting to that point of what we call putting the issue out in front, because it’s no longer between us and that brain storming that happens on ways to move it forward is yet another way of we can get this, the best of both. How do we work through that? 

KC – It makes me think of that phrase from geography, how can we create from the very best of our differences? In many ways this both-and space is an our land, I guess when we’re working with partnerships or even parts of self it’s what does the sort of middle space look like now, what’s the bringing the part that we like from each land look like? 

FC – Which is, again, another opportunity, a tool, a technique that can support the systems we’re working with. Absolutely. There’s other ones too, you know, also from our foundation course we talk about third entity. You know that in itself can be yet another possibility to help get through some of these opportunities, because a lot of the time we live in our head right? And third entity, if I’m taking an individual through it, it touches the three intelligences. Emotional intelligence, what’s happening from myself, social intelligence, what’s happening over there, just even being able to get the person into that other person’s shoes or that position can already start to have a shift where they start to see it differently. It kind of goes to how we started is, whereas making this visible and that alone sometimes can help make a shift. And that third entity position is, you’re seeing the two of them or however many of them together and they’re going through those questions to see, you know, what’s happening and we call that Relationship Systems Intelligence which is unique to the work that CRR and ORSC is about. What’s coming up for you when we’re talking about this? 

KC – I’m curious about this overuse piece and how you become aware of overuse within, it could be within an individual client or with couples or within a team. How do you start to sort of sense that maybe a quality is being overused and it has them rather than them having it? 

FC – So, it’s one of those sayings, once I had the training around polarities it’s like now you see them. 

KC – Ok. 

FC – It’s like awareness, right, before I didn’t see them and now all of a sudden it’s like I see them showing up. So it could be even direct questioning, right? Where we have with the system we’re working with is what are the challenges that keep coming up over and over again? I like to use that with, you know when I’m working with systems I ask that question. What just keeps coming up over and over again? That starts to give us an indication. Then once we have this show up, whatever they say the topic is, we start to identify is there a polarity there, is there opposites at work? And then we can start at least having the awareness and we can go with our hunch and start saying so what I’m noticing here is there seems to be, and please help me, we always want the system we’re working with to help educate us about them so we can learn about them. What I’m noticing here is in this system there seems to be a difference between say some are wanting stability and some are wanting change. So maybe that then is our two polarities, and then we can kinda see well who is on what side? And then once we’ve identified that, if we can see that this is the opportunity that this system has we can actually start saying, so what is the upside or what are the benefits that you get from stability? And we start getting them to name those. What are the benefits that you get from change? And they start naming those. Guess what, now we’re starting to basically build this map. You know, here’s the upsides or here’s the positives of both of those. And then we can go to the next step and say so what’s the downside of stability? And we’re going to start to hear those things and we can start capturing these either on a virtual space, on some type of electronic means, or if we’re in person you can capture this on some type of board or flip chart. Likewise, we used to do the same then with what’s the overuse or downside of change. Now that we’ve had it mapped we can even start, you know, using the skills and talents that we have as ORSC coaches and we can start using that to help reveal, start asking it what’s that like in this system to now see that, both of these? You have the upside and you have some challenges, both of these ways. And then we’re going to reflect, we’re going to see what’s happening in the system, what do they come up with. And then in that moment we can take the system to that next level is, so ok, now that you’ve seen this what’s possible? Guess what, now we’re getting them into that dreaming. What’s possible if you have the best of both? What are some of the questions? That could be amazing dialogue that starts to happen with that relationship, that system, be it a couple, be it more, a team. They start having that dialogue and then we can start to even take it to the next step, what would be needed to be able to do that? That’s that piece of vulnerability. And then once we’re there, then we can start going into what’s some actions that could be possibly taken here to actually help you to be able to do the best of both? And then we can support that system. Does that resonate when you hear me talk about? 

KC – It makes me think a lot of inner roles coaching and how this would be so useful, say if you have, you know these polarities showing up and then having the other person focusing on so what’s useful about that role, what do you appreciate about that role, and then as a system holding these polarities differently. I mean there’s so many ways, once we start to become aware, as you say, once the glasses have been taken off and you start seeing these polarities it seems like there’s so many different ways that we can work with these. And I guess it’s not so much about getting rid of them but holding them differently, would you say? 

FC – You know, it’s obviously typically maybe not working for them, so the example I gave up front of the individual, you know, we can see in their 360 the feedback they’re getting, the impact was not the impact that they were wanting to have. Mapping it, bringing it, making it visible, helping them to be able to take a look at it from a different angle. You know, think about like when we do paper constellation, what do we do, what does the system look like today, you draw it, then you have a look at it from different angles, you know what are you noticing from this? Some people might, well, yeah, that’s just the way it is, ok. Then we know from our training, what we normally do is what’s that question sitting in our stomach that we wanna ask? Hey, how’s this working out for you? To help them again for supporting them with potentially maybe where they’re wanting to go. 

KC – It’s such a useful way, I think, of seeing systems. Because I think so often, and maybe this is partly because we’re somewhat extrinsically motivated, we’re looking for other people to tell us how to be that as soon as we’re told oh, candor is bad because on my 360 it said it was bad, we then maybe shift that to the side and try and get rid of that part of us, and then we go for the opposite, and we forget to acknowledge the brilliance of candor and actually how it’s got us to where we are, and so I love this because it’s such a systemic way of holding all the different parts of who we are but also all the different parts on how the systems show up. 

FC – Absolutely. And you nailed it. Typically we’ll get feedback or, you know, saying you’re not this, you’re not that – oh, I’ve gotta go run over there and change that. It’s the pendulum swing. 

KC – Yes. 

FC - So then they go over there and then maybe immediately they are getting the benefits of it, maybe they’re not or they start over using it and then it’s like wow, then you feedback, you went too far over there, you need to come back over here. So constantly you’re just in this pendulum swing. The idea here is it’s a both-and, how do we do something that gets the best of both? The other piece that then comes to mind for me and this comes from my work with Tiny Habits, I love B.J Fogg’s work and so then I followed not only his book, I went through some of his training. When we then finally get to actions, because a lot of times it’s like oh, it’s easy, there’s a polarity, here take action. Actually, this kind of this discussion you and I are having is no, we need to understand and then we can get into the both-and. To me, then, it comes down to what are the actions that are going to support but it’s actually building new habits, I’m gonna give you a couple examples here. I love the, I’m listening now to the new book by the Gottmans, it’s called Love Prescriptions. And basically they’re talking about how it’s the small things that make a difference, it’s like one of the small things in their first day one activity is about leaning in, and you know, you’re familiar with their research, they’ve been studying relationships for years, and there was a group of 100 and some newlyweds, so they took them through their first six years, studying them, watching them, seeing what was happening, and in that small habit of turning in, what they recognized was in those relationships that ended in sessration only had a lean in rate of like 33%. Those that were thriving had a lean in percent of 86. So that small thing of daily connection is so important and that is a habit then that we can help that system to come up with, to say what would help the two of you or you as a team be able to lean in? If that’s what you’re trying to focus on at that particular time with that system. It’s those habits that actually start to make the real difference. I’ll give you another example is, I was working with a team and they had a beautiful why statement. I asked them hey, wow, this is an incredible why statement that you have, so what are you doing to enable that? It was like crickets. They had this beautiful statement yet they didn’t really know how to make it work. So once we’re able to do this, this both-and, we’re gonna get to now we take them to the next level, it’s the tiny habits. So this team came up with a playbook, we created seven habits for them to enable their wise statement, and an example of that, one of them was every Wednesday when they met as a leadership team they were gonna identify one person and write a hand written thank you note for that person. What do you think happened in this system? Before we did this they had the lowest employee engagement of all of the organizations in that company. After they started implementing these changes, these habits, they went to number one. It was that much of a shift. And so I’m bringing this up, when we talk about this both, you know how do we get the best of both, it’s one to give the awareness as we’re doing the polarities, but it’s then, you know, helping to enable them to really take this to the next step. What comes up for you when you hear these examples? And I’m sure you have some examples that you could share. 

KC – Well this is very much the spirit of both-and, I think there’s, firstly I want to point to the fact it really reminds me of the yes-and mindset that comes from the world of improvisation. Yes-but is a block, it’s turning away from relationship, yes-and is a build. And this is a build on yes-and with the both-and, it really speaks to that infinite diversity in infinite combinations, IDIC, that shows up in geography, the geography module. And I think what I am curious about here is yes, we can explore the lovely, the lovely overlap on the Ven diagram and have a wonderful coaching session and we need to also create action, so in terms of both-and, this is both doing the learning and the reflective practice and it’s applying it and now creating those habits in our lives. And I think the conversation we’re having is very much with the spirit of both-and because we can’t just have the wonderful insights, we also have to do the work afterwards. 

FC – I love how you bring in the improv and you’re so right. That yes-and we’re building on. So you identify hey, what’s the challenge that is here, either in myself and maybe there’s an instance of 360 or something, the system we’re working with, a couple or more, you help to navigate that. It could even be the secret selves or the parts of ourselves and it’s looking at this, this both-and, and then we’re getting into that yes-anding, is what are those little habit that are going to actually support us. Because from tiny habits we know is if it’s too difficult and it takes a lot of personal motivation to do it it rarely lasts. If we can make it the simpler we make it and the smaller we make it, so if we think about like a lean in, going into one of the recommendations in this new book by the Gottman’s, a 10-minute check in. Everyday there’s a 10-minute check in, something simple like that, it’s a simple habit that can start to get created. One of the ones I do with leaders that I’m working with, individual clients, to help them build some habits around connecting is, say that the identification is how do I build my network, so on a Wednesday morning when you come in and you have that anchor, that cup of coffee or tea or beverage in your hand, who’s one person you can reach out too? We start small and build from there. And that is what starts to make a difference because what sometimes happens is I’ve gotta go big or go home. So you try something really big. I was training with people in running and I see some people go out there right away, they lace on the shoes and they’re like oh yeah and they go out and try to do a 10 or 15 or 20 km on their first day and then I never see them again. 

KC – Yeah, guilty of that. That’s why I actually got a running coach! It’s so funny isn’t it because there’s certain areas of our life where we’re like of course you shouldn’t do that, but then running I just didn’t think about the fact that small and steady does win the race and yeah, this very much is in the spirit of both-and. It’s holding the fact that, I think in our society we have a sense of it’s all or nothing, we need to go big or we go home. Even sort of the phrases, the turn of phrases we’re using have that either or mentality built-in. Which is sort of fascinating. I didn’t even realize how much we live in a binary way. 

FC – I think it leans into some of our other things and our principles around deep democracy. You know, just being able to identify, what’s the crutch of the conversation? Matter of fact, in Gottman’s book and this is one of our key tools, and this tool’s been coming in a lot for me recently, what’s the dream behind the complaint? What the Gottman’s realized and they recognized too is it’s what’s being argued about isn’t it. It’s typically there’s a belief, there’s a value, there’s history behind it, and in our tool dream behind the complaint, what we’re trying to do is what they’re bringing us isn’t normally it. If we can get to that history, the value or that thing behind it, what’s the dream that’s not being fulfilled? Now we might be able to start to map this and go ok, so the argument here between these two parties is this. The lens or the curiosity or the metaskill, you know that energy that as we’re working with systems that we might want to stand in, sit in in that moment, is curiosity. And start going into well what’s behind this? Maybe that is the true polarity or the perpetual issue, is that I have a value, I have a belief that’s not being fulfilled. Matter of fact right before this I was working with a client and what I was hearing was, you know, the symptoms, and once we got into it it was true values that were behind it, and that’s how we were able to start to find that hey, there’s something here, now that we can work with that. That’s where we can do, I think, some of our best work, is getting a couple of clicks down and that tool, dream behind a complaint, can help us get there. What is a dream? You know, what’s behind us? What’s that value that’s maybe not being fulfilled? Or the history, as we started talking about this, resume of all the relationships. Being able to bring that up and have a conversation around it. Wow, you know, Katie, you grew up in a family who shared everything, I grew up on a farm by myself, you did it yourself. That in itself might even be able to change the trajectory of our relationship, just having had the conversation. 

KC – That’s such a different kind of conversation as well and in the spirit of curiosity, I’m curious about whether you feel our fear, maybe, of not knowing or the unknown drives our desire to live in the binary as opposed to the grey space. 

FC – Oh gosh. Great question. I’m with you there, I think some of it is unknown. I think some of it too is ego and what hooked us, you know, where is our identity being seen and how tied am I to that. You and I talked about in a prior podcast where we talked about neuroscience, you know, the scarf model and status, if I’m driven by status that could be creating some of that locking me in to where I don’t see the ability or that gray area, it’s either this or that. And as we listen to people, guess what, you know the beliefs, all the stuff that starts coming out of their mouth we can hear it in them. And we can also see how hooked they are too it. I remember one of my favourite books I love to recommend to people is The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. 

KC – Oh I love that book. 

FC – And it’s about living in our zone of genius and in there there was this chapter on Einstein time and once I read that literally I was physically tingling for like three days afterwards. Because time and pressure is a human made concept so how can we tell if somebody’s hooked by something? Say time? You’re gonna hear it in there language. I don’t have time for this. No I can’t do that I don’t have the time. That then can give us the indication that that could be something where we could, as system workers, you know coaches working with clients, be able to bring some visibility, some sunlight to that and to explore it, let’s go a little deeper here, what’s behind this? And then maybe there’s, maybe there’s a polarity or there’s something else that comes up. 

KC – I’m so glad you mentioned that part of the book because that also has stuck with me to this day and I read it years ago, and I also had a real sense of not having enough time. I either had loads of time or no time and I remember reading that and there was a bit in it that sort of spoke to the fact that if you decide you’ll have exactly enough time and it completely changed the way then I prepared for my work. It was never a rush or I don’t have enough time, it was exactly enough time and it was a narrative that had plagued me for a long time and so it’s so interesting that you pointed to that Floyd because that is ultimately a polarity that I was, that was controlling me, I wasn’t controlling it, I wasn’t conscious of it and when I became aware I had more choice. 

FC – Absolutely. And the fact that you became aware of it, you were at choice, you made choices and there’s a different result going forward. There’s another part that came up as you were mentioning this. Last week I was listening to Adam Grant’s new podcast that came out about work life, where it was the science of healthy relationship with John and Julie Gottman. And he shared something in there that another study about how when we become aware of those things that have us, and another term might be we might have some triggers there, when we share emotional triggers with others the research is actually showing how that can actually be of benefit because once others know that those are, unless they really wanna go after them and use it against us, typically that actually makes it less conflict in the workplace or in relationship. I big idea forming and why I wanted to share that is just becoming aware of what are those things that actually have us? That can be something for us to then even do that deeper exploration, what’s the opposite? Let’s navigate that, let’s look for that both-and but as we become more aware of that, like imagine if you went into your team at that time and when you had that epiphany to say hey, one of my triggers and things that’s emotionally impacting me is this thing around time, now we’re inviting in others to help us with that. And that in itself, because once I know, if that’s your thing you think I’m gonna come and start putting time pressures on you? Absolutely not. So I find it fascinating you know that that was shared and I’m still noodling on that. Because I’m looking at how do I bring more of that in myself sharing those, but also then support those systems that we’re working with. Maybe that’s part of it, too, it… let’s name a, what’s a typical polarity in a relationship? What’s a perpetual issue? 

KC – Urm, risk taking, risk adverse. 

FC – Yeah, risk taking, risk adverse. What if each of us have some history, some emotional ties to that where all of a sudden in this, in the relationship we share that? I think that then can start really giving us and helping us to find ok, well I didn’t really know that, that you had that trigger. One recently that’s come up for me that I know I’m trying to navigate around is this thing of if somebody tries to, you know, I sense I’m being, they’re trying to make me feel guilty about something, that is an old wound. You know, that you owe me, and I’m thinking gosh, the more I can share that in my relationships the less then that wound can be activated because people then know about it. So I just think as we’re trying to navigate a perpetual issue or something that’s in that relationship, even going back to that one around stability and change, is there some triggers here around that? Yeah, you know, I came from this space where we always had stability, I came from this where change was so important, that can create a different dialogue. You know, it reminds me, recently one of the NFL National Football League teams that I follow in the US was, something that has been unique for them is this year when the new coaching staff came in they had every player write down something unqiue about them and then they got up in front of the team and they shared that, and guess what that did. Now when you’re out there and something happens, say, in the third quarter, and somebody messes up on something, rather than getting on each other, maybe using a toxin, what they did was hey I know where that person comes from, I know their background, and so they go hey, we can do this. And that team has been incredibly successful this year, and this has been the one thing that keeps coming up over and over and they keep saying, you know, we shared something about ourselves, basically our history, what got us here, and once we know that about the other person that empathy starts to get built. A lot of our tools are built around that, third entity, a lot of these, putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes. I can then see that and go wow, I can support this. I’m not gonna come down on a person because I know that that’s something, I know their history, I know their values, their beliefs. 

KC – That’s a lovely way of living from both-and. It makes me think of, the first time I met Faith Fuller, many years ago, I was sort of awe-struck and Faith Fuller, our co-founder for those of you who aren’t aware, who’s been on the podcast many times, and we were designing our alliance and Faith asked me the following: how might I piss you off? And I thought that was just the most wonderfully revealing question in terms of bringing up some of those potential polarities that might create conflict down the line. But your version of how might I piss you off is such a great thing to ask both family members, maybe, on a, you’re about to go on a big holiday together or you’re starting a new project with a team, it surfaces the stuff that maybe we don’t wanna share but actually it’s very useful when the going gets tough. Because now we know, now we’re aware. 

FC – Well it also speeds up in systems because you walk in a system, it could take you six to 24 months to just understand your boss, what do they like, what they don’t like. That’s a lot of wasted time!

KC – Yeah! 

FC – If up front we’re sharing, you know, hey, here is my triggers, here are those things that irritate me, my pet peeves or the things that piss me off, what about you? At least we know up front! You know, look at all that pain and conflict that can be avoidant just by sharing our resumes of our relationships and everything about us from the past that could impact and be part of this, that might even take some of the perpetual issues off the table because we’ve already had conversations around it and we don’t even step into those landmines. 

KC – Because we’ve surfaced some of the potential polarities that may create challenge down the line, it’s, yeah it’s a lovely way of designing and thinking about, quite often we wait until something’s going wrong to then have coaching, but what about designing for high performance, I’m very curious about that space at the moment, as opposed to coaching because there’s conflict, how about coaching so that we can continue to be high performing and flourishing as a team, a partnership or as an individual. 

FC – It brings up a, there’s a couple studies that were done over the last couple of years, one by Google and one by CISCO about their best performing teams and there were some common things that they saw in there. And some of these are such as the individuals was able to use their strengths, the individuals felt that psychological safety that the team has my back. And another one was they bought into the purpose. In our work we know that every voice, being able to have a voice in the system, helps generate and create that effectiveness. So we can take these blueprints and how then can we bring this into those systems that we’re working, to support them to where we’re wanting to go and to achieve some of this stuff. 

KC – This is such a fascinating concept and a way of living and leading, and I guess bringing into our most intimate relationships too, I love the both-and and I’m certainly going to be trying to work more of this into my life, so a huge thanks to you Floyd and a delight as always to dance with you in this conversation on the show. 

FC – Yeah, thank you Katie, always appreciate being on the show and spending time with you. You know, we’ve had a chance to co-lead and this peer fun and I really hope your listeners are able too, we covered a lot here, and to be able to just, what are the couple things here that I would like to try and we gained a lot of resources here too, and feel free to look at some of those resources and pick one thing, what is it that I can do with those systems, system of one, myself, or two or more, and see how it goes. 

KC – I realize Floyd we’ve very much been living from the space of both-and in this conversation so thank you for not just talking about this concept but bringing it to life for me as well, it’s been a real delight. 

[Outro begins 44:37]  

KC – A huge thanks to Floyd for that insightful conversation that touched a range of topics. For a full list of resources mentioned in this episode please see the show notes. Here are my key takeaways. As opposed to reviewing 360 assesments with an either/or, binary approach, for example confident vs quiet, consider some of the benefits that exist within both of the qualities on opposite ends of the spectrum. In this way we can start to consider a third way which blends the best of both. 69% of problems in relationships are perpetual. Whilst we can’t resolve perpetual issues we can dialogue around them. Looking for the best of both can be an effective way of creating alignemt in relationship. It’s not about agreeing or even liking each other, but rather about finding some common ground from which we can move forward together. Our preferences can become biases if we’re not aware of them. For example, if we have a preference for positivity that we’re not aware of then we may judge the absence of this in the relationship systems we work with. When we become aware of our preferences we can prevent overuse and over reliance. Overuse is when we belong to the quality rather than the quality belonging to us. How can we take some of the perpetual issues off the table up front through preemptive designing? In the designing phase can we surface a systems preference and polarities that might develop into perpetual issues to that we can create behavioral agreements with these in mind? Thank you for listening to the Relationship Matters podcast. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with your colleagues and friends so that we can continue to spread these ideas across the globe, and if you haven’t already, do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. And for more information on the ORSC courses please visit CRRGlobal.com. For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. We believe Relationship Matters from humanity to nature to the larger whole. 

[Music 47:18 – end]