Saying Yes Doesn't Always Create Success

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Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us for another everyday leadership conversation. This is JLC Media. You can find us both on YouTube and you can find us on any of the podcast channels that you enjoy using. Today we've decided to talk a little bit about. About how relationships and planning are connected. Even when relationships appear to be just magnificent sometimes, it doesn't always translate to an effective planning process. We're going to develop an understanding collectively about what it feels like when I keep saying yes and when I really might be wanting to say no. Or let's wait at the end of this particular conversation. And I do hope you enjoy it. I feel confident that you will. Each of you listening will be able to identify when you slip into something called the Abilene Paradox. So, gang, welcome. I'm going to first get you to close the loop, and then I'm going to get you to introduce yourself. So, Colleen, what did you just hear me say? What did that mean to you?

Sure. What I heard you say is, we're going to be talking about this Abilene Paradox. And it sounds like it is. It's that feeling where sometimes because of the relationships, you continue to say yes. When perhaps you're kind of thinking there's something right in the back of your mind going, red alert, red alert. Or I don't agree, but you kind of roll forward. It sounds like we're going to talk about this and how it impacts our planning. How it impacts our planning.

I like that. It definitely impacts our planning. And as you know, we say all the time, planning and preparing are absolutely critical. And doing it in a way that we're able to produce a course of action. We believe in that. Sometimes if we don't have the kind of planning that reveals all of the potential thinking and ways forward and obstacles, et cetera, we can end up making a mistake. So really good. Thank you so much. Nicole, how about you?

Yeah. I think what really struck me about what I heard was the idea that we could believe or feel like we have really great relationships with the people that we're in conversation with, and yet still we might have those feelings or feel the pressure to say yes, let's move forward with that when we're really thinking no. So I'm really excited to explore that.

I've sure been in meetings where I've had the leader go, so are there any questions? And I felt like this tension to go, oh, no, good, we're good. Go, go, go. And this is going to be an example of that, how that happens. In a very natural setting and then what we can do about it as leaders to kind of remove any need to withhold a perspective or an opinion. Joe, what are you thinking about this moving forward?

I think it's a very common trap that organizations fall into where you're just trying to, okay, we're going to have a planning meeting, but I really don't want to be that involved in it. And so let's just kind of keep the conversation at a low level. I have concerns, I have objections, but hey, whatever the group wants to do and let's just press on. So I think it goes at many levels of the things that we talk about that we regard as important to include the quality of the relationships between the individuals and their freedom, their consequent freedom to be able to speak up.

Yeah, the ability to speak up, especially when what you're hearing doesn't resonate in a way that makes sense to you. It may actually may be thinking to yourself, I'm not sure this is the right way to go. So we'll kind of tell the story and then we'll give each of you an opportunity to give me some examples of when. Let me tell you when this just happened. So the story actually begins a long time ago now, in the 60s. And it was written and eventually produced by Jerry Harvey, professor emeritus. And he was sitting on the porch with his new in laws. So his wife is there, his mother in law and father in law. And it's early on a Sunday afternoon and they are in Coleman, Texas. Coleman, Texas at that time was sitting right about 110 degrees. There was a wind blowing that was just blowing dust across the the arena. It was one of those exceedingly hot environments. And they were playing dominoes and they finished one of the games. And his father in law leans back and looks at the three of them and says, you know, I think we should get in the car and take off and go to Abilene, which is almost 60 miles away, and have dinner at the cafeteria and then come back. That'd be a nice way to spend Sunday afternoon. So Jerry, who is sitting on the porch, looks at his new wife and Len looks at his father in law and says, is there air conditioning in that car? And he goes, oh no, we haven't fixed it yet. Well, it wasn't unusual in the 60s to have vehicles without air conditioning. And he said, well, sure, if everybody wants to go, I'll be happy to go. And then his new wife said, sure, sure dad, I'll be happy to go to Abilene. With you. And then they all look at mom, and mom goes, sure, I'm happy to go to Abilene. Well, they clean up, dress up, go get in the car and drive to Abilene, which, on those back roads, took them almost two hours. They got there, they went into the cafeteria, they had their food. They get back in the car, they come back again, two more hours back home. So fast forward to the evening and. And they're all sitting on the back, that front porch again, sipping tea and just looking at one another. And finally his newly minted wife says to everyone, that was awful. I hated that trip. It was just one of the. It was bizarre. Four hours in the car, no air conditioning. I'm hot, I'm sweaty, I'm just so, so uncomfortable. And let's face it, the food was terrible. Well, her mom weighs in and says, yeah, really, I didn't want to go at all. It was terrible. That's a bad idea. I just didn't want to go. And then Jerry says, well, I didn't want to go either. I was just trying to go along, to get along, you know, I didn't want to go. And then dad, who made the original suggestion, said, oh, my God, I didn't want to do this at all. I was just making conversation. And when Jerry reminded me there was no air conditioning, I'm like, I don't want to do this. The Abilene paradox. We say yes, and we do things when we actually don't want to. How did that story land on you? Nicole, why don't you start us off? What are you thinking right now?

I was thinking about how common that is, especially in a family setting, when you're trying to make a decision about what to do with your day or what to even eat for dinner. And everyone has not really a strong opinion, and someone says something and you just roll with it. Just how common that is and how resonant that was for me to think about situations that I've been in, whether it's determining where might we want to vacation this year or where might we want to spend our afternoon on a Sunday, like you were just explaining, and how we might miss opportunities to really spend time, which is our most precious commodity in the way that we really want to, because we feel some sense of obligation to the people, to the person that suggested it. So that was what resonated for me.

Very nice. Notice how it shifted to an obligation because somebody suggested it and I went along. So, okay, I guess I can do this. Joe, what are you Thinking.

I think that's very much the sense of it. It's a sense of obligation or an unwillingness to really raise an objection to somebody that you're trying to show some deference to. And I think this is how, you know, being overly polite. Can you wind up on the bus, Dabileen, and do things that you really don't want to do or that you don't think are a particularly good idea or that are going to have a particularly good outcome? And so again, I think many times this can this hesitancy to speak up and to provide feedback, to say, hey, you know, it's hot and I don't want to get in the car and drive without air conditioning for a long ways for basically a poor meal and come back with the same kind of time commitment. I really don't want to do that. I think it speaks to the need to, again, coming back to the quality of the relationship to say, do we really as a group think that this is a good idea? And I think that groups struggle with this kind of critical assessment, critical feedback. Much of the discussion in coaching that I see is about leaders and leaders being aware and being able to assess the world around them and what is going on and what are people thinking and being open to accessing those thoughts and ideas. And so to the extent that in the scenario you gave us there, Ray, that where the dad is like, well, let's go to Abilene. And then nobody, well, dad wants to go to Abilene. So I guess we're all going to go. I think this is an apocryphal story and we need to examine anytime we find ourselves on this bus to Abilene, I think we need to assess what are we doing here and how do we help the group find a better solution.

What I really liked was when you started that off and you alluded to it twice. Sometimes we feel like we need to give deference to the individual who is leading us or making the suggestion or a thousand other things. And then for whatever reason, we never close the loop. Especially in family settings. We say, do you guys really want to do this? And nobody ever says, I'm not sure. It just doesn't seem to happen. That was really excellent. Thank you both. Colleen, where are you on this?

Sure. Yeah, it just reminded me with working with clients, I mean, we get invited into observe communication practices that are already existing within organizations. And I specifically remember going into an organization and just observing a board of directors meeting where the senior leader was offering a course of action. And I had done some individual interviews with pretty much everybody sitting around the table.

So.

And during those conversations, they surfaced one on one, how they truly felt about this particular strategic initiative and this course of action and, and when. So I'm sitting there expecting to see a heated conversation and perhaps a heated debate. And that didn't unfold because when the senior leader said, this is the way that I'd like to go, nobody else, and offered it up for vote, open the space for conversation to Joe's point, that deference was there. So even though they felt they had some reservations, they felt like perhaps this might not be the best way to move forward. Each one of them concurred around the table. And so I think that goes to that sense of obligation, deference, but also dangerously safe space. And even though I have a quality professional relationship, do I have a strong enough relationship where I feel comfortable in offering my thinking, especially when it is an opposition to, to the senior leader and perhaps those sitting around the table as well?

Yeah, we just kind of lean back in those environments rather than say, wait a minute. And the other part that I found fascinating in listening to the three of you is we talk all the time about how leaders can develop awareness. Well, it comes from feedback loops and if there's no feedback loop, my awareness is pretty one dimensional. I got an idea and I think we should do this moving forward. This gets us into somewhat of a struggle with the output that we want to get now. With that said, Joe alluded to the sense of quality of relationship. So I'm going to ask each of you to tell me in a planning process, why is the relationship so important and why do high quality relationships impact planning in such a powerful way? Because we know that here was a gentleman with a new relationship with mother in law, father in law, and fundamentally a new relationship with his bride. And he felt like he couldn't say what was on his heart. So when we say speak from the heart, if we really mean it, it has something to do with the quality of relationship that's unfolding. I'll start with you this time, Joe. What are you thinking about that quality of relationship and the planning process?

Well, I think there's two pieces here and I think it's also important to point out that very well performing and high performance teams can fall into this. This isn't something that just happens to organizations that don't do very well or are considered not very good. I think any organization can have this experience. And so I think there's a responsibility on both sides of the conversation. I think for the leader, it's important to sense that, okay, are they just giving in? There's not much feedback, not much push around. So I can say that I have been in meetings, when I've said, okay, talking about something, talking about something, and I go, well, I'm thinking X just because I'm trying to get to the next point in the conversation, push it along. And people are like, okay, X. I'm like, okay, there's not much discussion. As the leader, you say, there's not much discussion. There's not much pushback. Are you guys just humoring me or are you on board? You know, and again, I think, again, the leader has to assess and throw open that door to invite that kind of conversation in. Because the people who are there who are a little hesitant, tired, distracted, thinking about something else again, if you say, okay, I'm pointing the boat in this direction, everybody think that that direction is good, that you really give people the opportunity to say, because it's an obvious commitment, then on their part to say, we're not giving you any pushback because we think it's a good idea, or we agree that that's the way to go. And then I think on the other side of the conversation, I think it's perhaps a little more difficult because you don't want to be constantly fighting with your boss or constantly in opposition. Nobody wants to be in that position. Regardless of who you are, you want to be in a position of providing feedback that is meaningful and is not necessarily what. Not some agenda of what you want to do in the organization, but is helpful for the group. So if you're constantly in the category of being the naysayer, unless you're appointed into that role by the group, you know, then I think you have to kind of pick and choose your fights. So you don't. So you. Is this something you want to pick the fight on? At the same time, I think you have a responsibility as a member of the group to say, okay, nobody in the group is speaking up, so we need to have a little conversation here and take a stand, put something out there to provide an alternative point of view.

There are things that a leader can do virtually or in person that can get conversation going about the idea. Those are the practices that we talk about all the time. With that said, to your point, Joe, I actually think you may have experienced this story. I've actually seen this story experienced by you. I was working in one of our states, one of our 50, with the secretary of Environmental Protection. He was a seasoned Leader. His dad was part of that department. He rose up through the department and became the Secretary of Environmental Protection for. For that particular state. Huge job. The men and women on his Cabinet numbered about 25 or 26. They respected him, they loved him. They thought he was a fantastic leader. They really. They couldn't say anything about him that wasn't glowing in terms of their comments. And when he came to me, he said, I have on my cabinet 10 PhDs. One guy that's got two. I've got these experienced people. They don't say anything to me. As soon as I start to lean into a decision because they respect me, I guess they just go along. I need their help. I need their collective wisdom. So I go into the governor's office fully ready to have a conversation about all the possibilities. And I will tell you, Joe, because of your incredible presence as leader, it does not surprise me and didn't surprise me that people just wanted to know, where does Mr. Marshall want to lean when you're out there going, hey, I need some feedback? Tell me what you're thinking. This is an incredibly important story for us to recognize that we can get on the road to Abilene because we love the person, we respect the person, not because I just want to get out of this silly meeting. There's so many other things that can actually unfold. Jo, you were magnificent. Nicole, what you thinking?

I'm thinking about how important it is to frame and give space to that opportunity to seek that wisdom that's in the room. So what is the question that you're asking? Is it what you know, what are you thinking? Or is it give me some additional ideas? What are some other possibilities? Are you saying those words? Are you saying, who sees this differently and inviting that conversation on the other end of that? You talked earlier, Ray, about the quality of the relationship needs to be there. I need to trust as a participant of this conversation that if I say, well, I am seeing this differently and here's how and why, that I'm not going to be labeled the naysayer, that there's not going to be conversation after that conversation saying, you crossed me in this meeting and that wasn't appropriate. And I need to trust that my colleagues in that room are going to be respectful of what I say and not make my own thinking wrong. If I'm going to bring something up and bring something forward to the group, I need to trust that no one's going to say, well, that's a really stupid idea, or we did that before and it didn't work and here dismissive of my thoughts and ideas. So there's so many elements to the leader inviting that conversation and the reaction of that leader to the feedback that you bring forward is a huge element as well as the reaction of the colleagues in the room too. So there are so many different relationship dynamics I think we have to think about as we invite people to really share, like you said, to speak from their heart and really move in a direction that's different from we're going to Abilene.

I love it. I love the way you talked about getting space and you've heard me talk about finding space. So the leader has a responsibility to say, I'm thinking about going toward X like Joe said. And I'm wondering if some of you might see this a little differently or some of you might have a different take on my leaning. That gentleman I described to you a few moments ago, that secretary, even using that language, changed the dynamic in the room. The room woke up to a different conversation. So super, super. Thank you, Nicole. Colleen, what are you thinking? This is good stuff, isn't it?

Yeah, no, it really is. And it's making me pull it back into the relationships and planning. And I think that the piece that I was thinking about is that not all of our decisions, but most of our decisions are based on missing and or faulty data. So if I'm sitting in the room and I'm the leader and to Joe's point, I'm creating space and nobody's saying anything, now I'm going to make a plan. I'm going to make some decisions that move the organization or the team forward based upon just my own thinking. And oh my gosh, what a missing opportunity. Because to your point in your story, ray, there were PhDs sitting around the room. This gentleman organized his team because of their high quality.

Oh, that's great.

And if you're not offering your high quality thinking now, our plan probably isn't going to be the best plan because we're missing that piece of getting those voices in the room, offering and developing or having a common understanding, getting everybody's thinking on the table. Now the plan that we can develop and design is going to be so much more impactful.

Yeah, you just added one more dimension to our conversation. The recognition that when I come to a conclusion, it is based upon the data that I have personally assembled and interpreted and I pull that data into my cognitive frame so I can come to a conclusion and then take action. Now I can do that all by myself and recognize my concerns that Are my interpretations accurate, correct, Rational? If we are doing this with a team, what a wonderful opportunity to ask the team to help me go back through my assumptions, go back through my interpretations of the data, so I can make a more powerful conclusion. This is where that idea of collaboration is it's nice to talk about. What I love about the three of you is you guys put that in action with the people that you coach and the people that you lead. You actually show them methods, protocols, and practices that enable that kind of collective contribution to inform the planning that's going on, unfortunately. And yesterday is the anniversary of the Challenger. And the unfortunate part of that is the engineers all knew. They all knew that there was a potential problem because it was so cold in Florida and they had trouble. They had trouble speaking. And I don't ever want to make it less than as significant it was by saying that they're on the road to Abilene. But they were. When Dr. Feynman did his work and he went through the process of finding out what happened, there was no question that Dr. Harvey and Dr. Feynman both recognized they were on the road to Abilene. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this has been a wonderful conversation from my vantage point. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd like to close out with this, though. If you had to invite someone to behave differently as a leader or as a participant in a meeting. Okay. How would you advise them? If you had the responsibility to actually invite somebody to behave differently as either leader or participant, how would you advise them? Colleen, why don't you start us off?

Well, I guess if I was going to coach them in any type of change, I would ask them kind of their perspective of how are they showing up in that meeting, and is that producing the desired result? And if not, what is the result that they're trying to produce? So I would ask them a few questions, find out where they're at as far as showing up or even leading a meeting and participating. Ask them, what. What does that look like? What would that look like if they were successful in making that change? And then perhaps I'd hold up the mirror a little bit and then coach and guide them along the way.

That's really beautiful. So does my behavior match the intention? And I think that's magnificent. Does my behavior match the intention of this particular piece we're working on in this meeting? Whether I'm a participant, an engineer on the Challenger project, on the Road to Abilene, and countless others? And how am I doing making this move forward? Excellent. Excellent. Nicole, what Are you thinking?

Yeah, I think in addition to what Colleen laid out for us, around discovering what the intended outcomes are and where your current state is and where you'd like to be, I think bringing in the, the idea of that intentionality in your own self awareness, your own reactions. So really focusing in on when someone does bring something forward. What is your reaction to that? On your face, in your body, in your language, the words that you're using to ensure that there's a real opportunity to acknowledge and respond respectfully, to generate that safe space that's needed within those kinds of conversations. So that piece, the questions, so really focusing in on what are the quality of the questions that you're asking those invitations into that feedback loop. So those are two areas that I would want to have conversation around if I was advising someone in this space.

I love your reminder that the work that we do, which I hope I have done for the three of you today, is as we are building ideas, our ability to acknowledge one another and respond respectfully creates safer and safer space. It's not. We just don't show up and say, well, today it's safe space. Ask me what you want. It's not going to happen. Right? It's not going to happen. What happens is over time, if we consistently and regularly acknowledge people's thinking and respond respectfully, we can offer a variety of perspectives that may not be ones that have already been stated. That was great. Thank you very much. Joe, how about you put a ribbon on this one for us?

So I think it's important for the leader to keep this as dynamic as possible and as you said, Ray, to constantly reinforce the fact that the space is safe and that contrary viewpoints and conversations are not only welcomed but essential. So my advice would be to say that the leader should say, okay, most of the decisions, many of the decisions studies show, as Colleen referred to, that the decisions we make are based on bad or incomplete information. And so reminding people of that and then looking around. And again, if you're not getting any pushback, look around the room and perhaps choose someone maybe again to emphasize the safeness of the space. Maybe you turn to, if you have a deputy or someone else who is closely aligned to you as the leader and say, okay, Bill or Mary, you know, I want three reasons why this is a bad idea. And then it opens up the door for clearly the group to see someone who is closely aligned to you. Practice, you know, being in opposition. If you have a group of strong players, you can pick on one of the, you know, one of your antagonists and say, you know, they. They probably can't wait to give you a dozen reasons why it's bad. I. On occasion, I have used the tactic of, okay, we're not leaving this room. Do you guys come up with some reasons why this is bad? You know, so now it motivates them to say, okay to say something critical. And so again, I think it. But all of those are tactics or techniques that leaders can use to open up the door, to get feedback, to get other perspectives. And maybe there's not much to add, in which case, maybe you're on the right track, but you're doing the best you can do. But if the room passes in silence, then you, as a leader, the hair needs to be standing up on the back of your neck about what is going on in that room on that particular day at that particular time.

So that was. That was great. So how do we stay off the road to Abilene? Well, notice in the story I told you, they didn't do much planning. They just kind of surfaced an idea. Dad surfaced an idea, and everybody kind of went, oh, okay, I guess we can just go to Abilene. So they went beyond. They didn't even plan anything. They just went to Abilene. So to Joe's point, we need collective thinking. We need wisdom. We need some folks that if we need to model this with someone. Remember the number one thing from the leadership research. Model. Model. Model the practices that you expect everyone to follow Using somebody next to me, someone I know or someone I know that is always the oppositional learner in the room is right there. They're always thinking, this is not the way to go. If we tap into them and model that, all of a sudden we get feedback, which in the Abilene story, there wasn't any feedback. It was just, let's go. And they got up and they went. So even noticing quality relationship goes right to the planning process. We have to engage in the planning process. How long will it take? How far is it? What's the weather really like? Is the air conditioning? Is there a chance we can have an upper. Blah, blah, blah. Many other things could have occurred before we jumped in the car and drove two hours to Abilene to have bad food. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to us today. The wisdom given to you by Colleen, Nicole, and Joe is just incredible. And I didn't get them to introduce themselves yet. So, Nicole, real quick, tell us who you are and what brings you here today.

My name is Nicole Lyons, and I Am here to be a part of this wonderful team and conversation today. And what I love about all of our conversations is that we are passionate about the idea of helping leaders to create quality conversations and relationships. And I think that brings me to the conversation every single time.

That's beautiful. Yeah. And remember, everyone listening, the conversation is the relationship. The greater the quality of the conversation, the greater the quality of the relationship. Thank you. Thank you. Colleen, tell us about yourself here. What brings you here?

Colleen Sullivan, working as a JLC associate for. I don't know, Ray. What is it, 12 years? And it is just an honor and a pleasure to work with all of you. And I think the thing that brings me here is this sense of it's through your everyday leadership conversations that you can continue to enhance your capabilities around all of these things. And a lot of what we share, it's common sense, not necessarily common practice. So my invitation to each of you listening is you're probably going, oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Or that's a great reminder. And I think it's just that sense of if we really want to enhance our capabilities as a mom, as a leader, as a daughter, in any capacity, it's just that sense of being really intentional.

That's really nice. Well, you know, Colleen, one of the folks I worked with had a picture of Texas up in his office and a big circle around Abilene, so he could constantly remind himself, let's not get on that particular road if we can avoid it. So, Joe, who are you and what brings you here?

Okay, so I'm Joe Marshall. I had a career in the military, and then I had a career in the civilian government. And I'm an executive coach with jlc. And what I'm attempting to do is use my background and experience to help executives be, you know, 1% better.

So, yeah, I think sometimes we get excited about coaching and going to a program. If I can just do one thing a little better tomorrow than I did it today, I win. And this sense of awareness of my practice, oh, my God, can I create awareness? And that's what I think you guys do for everyone that you coach and support. Help them become a bit more aware. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, thanks for being with us. Look for us@gojlc.com if you have any of the podcast channels will be on there and you can find us on the JLC YouTube channel. Be well, everyone. Thank you so much for being with us. Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode.

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