Re: Reasons To, Reasons Not To

Hi Wayne,

 > I was hoping for a real example of you making contact with
 > someone using the themes.  You know like Person A said "blah
 > blah blah."  And Dale responded with "bleh bleh bleh."  And so
 > on.

Thank you.  I think I understand more clearly now.

One of my quirks is that I'm often not able to think of specific 
examples in the moment.  Now is one of those times.

One reason I can't think of examples like that is that I hadn't 
thought to use the patterns in the specific way you're asking 
about.  If I could see how to use the patterns in that way, that 
would be great.  Now that you've tickled me, I might see 
possibilities in that direction.

I've been using some of the patterns in other ways.  Not  (so 
far) necessarily to give me specific ideas for making contact in 
the middle of an interaction (which is what I'm hearing you ask 
for), but more to help me enter an interaction (or re-enter) with 
a more flexible, open, receptive frame of mind, so that I am more 
able to be present with whatever happens.

For example, one theme is that the reasons people give for not 
doing something often seem abstract.  Having noticed that 
pattern, I'm much more attuned to abstraction in people's reasons 
for not doing things.  When I someone says something that seems 
abstract to me, such as, "We tried that before, and it didn't 
work," one way I can make contact is to ask about what they tried 
before, and what happened.  And I want to validate what I'm hearing.

Another theme is that different people have very different 
expectations about what will happen as a result of some change. 
So if someone says, "It wouldn't work here," one way I can make 
contact is to ask something like, "What do you think would happen 
if we did it?"  Then validate what I'm hearing.

Also, I try to look for clues about what results the person may 
be expecting.  For example, "I don’t have the people," tells me 
that the person expects that what I'm asking would require people 
that are not available.  One way to make contact is to ask, 
something like, "How many more people do you think you'd need?" 
or "What kinds of people do you think you'd need?"

Another theme is that people often believe that the requester 
doesn't care about their values.  I was recently involved in a 
mailing list thread about agile methods and Extreme Programming 
(XP).  Mark repeatedly raised the topic of "people's limited 
ability to handle complexity," in a way that led me to believe 
that he thought the agile and XP proponents didn't care about it. 
  As one of those proponents, I tried to connect with that value 
each time he brought it up.  I said that I could see how 
important it was to him, and that it was important to me, too.  I 
tried to show that value it, and that one of the things that 
draws me to agile and XP is that many of the practices and 
principles are designed to help reduce complexity to be more 
amenable to our human limitations.

Knowing about the pattern and its importance helped me to stay 
focused on the values Mark was expressing, and to make contact 
with him around those values.  I especially made sure to 
acknowledge his value before I expressed that I valued it, too. 
And I made sure to tell him that I valued it, too, before 
describing how I believed the stuff I was promoting addressed the 
value.  I find that hard to do in e-mail, but I was able to make 
contact with Mark.

So, in general, the patterns I've noticed help me to be open more 
to information about what the person is thinking and feeling and 
wanting, and information about what /I'm/ thinking and feeling 
and wanting, so that I can make contact.

Dale

-- 
Web:    http://www.dhemery.com
Weblog: http://www.dhemery.com/journal (Conversations with Dale)



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