Part transcript from the Chas Jarvis podcast
“Why we need to talk about failure with Amy Edmondson”
In a recent interview with Chas Jarvis (September 6, 2023) Amy Edmondson recommends how we should avoid potential conflict in teams.
Amy Edmondson:
“Someone says something in a meeting that you instantly interpret as an insult to you or
as a threat to you in some way. Another moment; that’s another opportunity where you pause, breath, and think, “wait a minute my interpreted…I took that to mean XYZ. Is there another possible interpretation to that remark?”
The answer is almost surely yes, especially if you are creative, you can come up with something else and usually that something else is more benign than your first instinct. I could choose…I could go check, but I just choose to think that they weren’t actually out to get me you, they were thinking about something else or frustrated about something, ‘It was about you not me’.“
Chas Jarvis: (hesitant pause)
“Yeah Yeah the stoic philosophy comes to mind to me which is really around it’s not what happens, it’s how I react to what happens”
Amy Edmondson:
“Exactly!”
Chas Jarvis:
Creating that little window that space between impetus and response, where something comes in and we have an immediate response. That is a practice, and its the process of ‘ok that person said something, lets pause, like keep our heart rate at 62, instead of letting it go to 90. Lets reflect, my assumption was this, there are lots of other assumptions that could be made, I’m going to take one of the ones that are not harmful to me and I’m going to play that’. Now, in a sense, are we tricking ourselves or is this just a better way to be in the world?
Amy Edmondson.
“I think we were tricking ourselves, the first time, right? Because we trick ourselves into thinking our spontaneous thought in reaction to some event, which in fact the thoughts are the ones that are driving how we feel. We trick ourselves into thinking that those are reality itself rather than “what I made up about this situation”. And we are so good at tricking ourselves that we fail to challenge that, ‘what I made up’.”
MY TAKE ON THIS CONVERSATION
It seems ironic to me that Amy Edmondson, the premier exponent of psychological safety and speaking-up advocate, at no point recommends we speak up and “challenge” or address the potentially offending speaker, but only recommends we challenge our own thinking, in this example. Not even checking if it was an actual insult. Or in other words “just get over it and move on!”.
I am not a psychologist, but I think I pretty well know when I am being insulted or being talked down to or being gaslit. I imagine a team that has agreed to use a real-time intervention when such situations arise.
Amy Edmondson’s approach is an anathema to me as I’ve designed such a real-time intervention app and platform called SpatzAI to address this type of situation, empowering team members to speak up and enquire what was said rather than holding our tongue or reframing what we initially perceived as an infringement of our space.
I believe that by advocating to avoid potential conflict through Amy’s reframing game of make believe, we would be missing the golden opportunity to cultivate psychological safety in teams by removing uncertainty.
In my view, suggesting one guesses alternative interpretations of the remark and assuming a less negative intent behind it, potentially is gaslighting oneself.
Granted, I think Amy’s approach aligns with the idea of emotional regulation and cognitive flexibility, where individuals consciously manage their emotional reactions and reframe situations in a more positive light. More positive psychology.
Chas Jarvis brings up the Stoic philosophy, which emphasizes the idea that it’s not what happens to us but how we react to it that matters. This philosophy encourages individuals to develop emotional resilience or “toughen up buttercup” thinking, maintaining their composure in the face of adversity, in my opinion.
Both perspectives have merits in their minds.
Amy Edmondson’s approach may help maintain a more harmonious atmosphere in the meeting by avoiding confrontations, while Chas Jarvis highlights the importance of personal resilience and emotional control .
However, I am not convinced. By utilizing a well designed real-time intervention I believe we can safely address the perceived infraction and resolve it rather than try to sweep it under the proverbial carpet.
*FYI Amy doesn’t recommend how we should address the situation if in actual fact an outright insult was aimed at one, but if you read between the lines here, this was an example that could well have been an insult but still one should reframe it into a more “creative” option.
Object123 