3

Know What You Bring

The hidden baggage of conversations

Over and over in our own experience, in our interviews with advocates, and in workshops with aspiring leaders, we see a recurring pattern. When we get fired up about issues that matter to us, we approach our conversations in a particular way.

Here’s a story from Jason’s experience:

Heading into the basement to grab something in our storage room, I notice that the lights are on. I grumble, flick the switch, and then head upstairs to the kitchen, where my wife is doing dishes. “Someone left the lights on in the basement,” I proclaim, arms crossed.

Freeze-frame. What is going on in this situation? What Jason has described here is the first moment of a conversation. He has conveyed things that you would see and hear on a video recording. Reading his description, you might infer a great deal about the hidden conversation he is having with himself: “What a waste of electricity (and money and carbon). Someone (not me!) has left the lights on. I better figure out who it was and teach them why this is bad so they don’t do it again. I always have to be the guardian of green in this house.” All of this is bundled up in the simple statement he has made—and he acts as if his wife doesn’t know it!

My wife immediately counters with a wry smile, “Well, ‘someone’ leaves the light on in the shower every morning. And you know what? I just turn it off.”

How does she see what’s going on here? What gives her a window into the hidden conversation in Jason’s head? Part of it is that they’ve been married more than a decade, these are well-worn patterns, and she can anticipate the lecture he’s about to give her about energy conservation. He’s created a pattern that she’s projecting onto what he’s saying now (and appropriately so!). But something else is present in that moment in his expression—a stance, a tone, the way he’s phrased his statement. Somehow, by avoiding the language of blame, he still manages to create an implicit accusation.

Beyond the words he says, there is a way he is being in this situation: judgmental, self-righteous, and passiveaggressive. This way of being has two issues. The first is that it is unlikely to be effective toward engaging Jason’s wife in conversation or ensuring the lights get turned off. At best, he provokes sarcasm and some gentle mocking of his own bad habits. At worst, he fires up an argument.

At a deeper level, being self-righteous is out of line with the world he wants to create. When Jason and his wife talk to their children about their values and expectations of them or he drafts a team charter for his organization, what does he stand for? He usually talks about pursuing humble mastery and compassion and care for people and nature. But then in these everyday situations, he shows up in a way that disrespects other people and sends conversations off the rails.

This is a wider issue for advocates on social, environmental, and political issues. We often show up being holier than thou, certain, dogmatic, or intellectually superior. We spend a lot of time telling others what they should and shouldn’t do. We focus on the next possible apocalypse more than we do on the world we want to create. It’s not very inviting, and it’s frankly not a lot of fun. Nevertheless, we wonder why people aren’t flocking to our cause. We retreat to our well-worn phrase, “They just don’t get it.” And we find ourselves frustrated and upset.

In this chapter we address the question, Are our ways of being aligned with the world we want to create?

Our way of being is tied with our background conversation

How can we see our way of being? A fish, swimming in water, is not aware of the water. In the same way, we are often not aware of our way of being and how it is shaping the way we act and the way others respond to us.

In the story above, Jason was not quite aware of his way of being in the moment. Two factors conspired to make him a little more aware after the fact—to the point where he could name his way of being. The first was that his wife noticed it. We can tell because she pointed out an alternative way of being in a similar situation: she suggested just being helpful and turning off the light (without the judgment and preaching). The second is that he took a moment to think back over the sequence of events and the thoughts running through his head along the way: he reflected.

The point is that noticing our way of being takes effort and self-effacing courage, and it is a profoundly important skill. Our way of being generates the set of things that we do (including what we say) and the things others do and say in response to us. Those actions and conversations give rise to the results we have in the world.¹ This process is shown in figure 1.

Figure 1  Our way of being gives rise to what we do and the results we have

In chapter 1 we shared a story about John Frey, at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, shifting his approach to be more effective at selling his company’s sustainability services. The most powerful aspect of that story is not that he used a new frame to sell his company’s services. What allowed him to generate that new frame is that he shifted his way of being.

He came to understand the effect his way of being was having on his audience. He was being passionate and proud about HPE’s accomplishments in his presentations, but he saw that was leaving his customers disengaged. He shifted to a way of being that was inquiring and connecting. From there, a new set of ideas naturally came to him about how to interact with his customers. Doing followed being. He listened to their challenges, read their business plans, and helped them solve their problems. In doing so, he advanced his own organization’s goals for business success and sustainability. He created a new language or conversation he could teach others.

Noticing our way of being is not trivial. It involves looking at how we are feeling internally and how we are coming across to others. It involves both introspection and empathy. Developmental psychologists say this kind of process is a key to personal growth—seeing what is hidden and going to work on it. It is the basis of our becoming—our journey toward greater awareness, consciousness, capability, and freedom. At the same time, it can be challenging and painful because it requires being vulnerable.²

So how can we come to understand, and ultimately shift, our way of being? In conversations with others, our way of being emerges from the background conversation we are having with ourselves. That ongoing conversation you’re having with yourself influences the way you come across to others.

Stop reading for a moment and listen to the conversation you’re having with yourself.

Stop. Listen.

You might be thinking, “A conversation with myself? I’m not having a conversation with myself. I don’t need to do this step; I’ll just keep reading.” That is the conversation we are talking about.

It is the voice running in your head before, during, and after you talk with others. Different practices have different names for this voice. You may have heard people talk about reflecting on their “internal monologue” or “stream of consciousness,” or they may refer to “observing the process.” You have thoughts happening, and those thoughts can be described as a voice or voices.

The conversations you’re having with yourself create your way of being. Our thoughts and feelings create an internal tone. That tone shapes the nonverbal and verbal dynamic of our conversations with others. And the way our conversations go—whether we successfully share our values and vision and plan of action—determines our results in the world. Once we notice the impact of our own way of being, then we start to free ourselves up. We can create new ways of being and start new conversations that produce new results. We enter into a process of becoming authentically aligned with our highest aspirations.

Our ways of being are shared

In this chapter and throughout this book we will help you access your way of being and the conversation with yourself. In doing so, we will make use of an important fact: as personal, intimate, and reflective as this inquiry may appear, it isn’t really that personal.

Can you recognize yourself in Jason’s story we shared above? Have you ever caught yourself being judgmental, self-righteous, or passive-aggressive? Chances are that you have. We’re all human. We have inherited some ways of being. Some conversations with ourselves and others have been going on for a long time. We come to share these ways of being when we are born into a particular culture and when we join a broader discourse or movement, such as social justice or sustainability. Many of our pitfalls—traps that get us stuck—are commonly shared experiences in the pursuit of a better world. They can even become clichés. We find ourselves playing the activist who is strident and hot-headed or cynical and resigned.

We have conducted workshops in a variety of settings in different countries and with different communities. In our workshops, we ask participants to reflect on conversations that didn’t go well or on conversations they were avoiding because of how they might go. Here are some examples of situations people have described:

• An employee wants to approach the chief financial officer of the company about the need to invest in social or environmental outcomes.

• A woman tries to engage her mother on issues of gay rights.

• A person argues for his chosen career path, and the difference he wants to make in the world, to a skeptical parent or grandparent.

Conversations like these are important. They have the potential to inspire others to take action and to support us in pursuing goals that matter to us. Unfortunately, they too often get stuck in conflict, frustration, or resignation, many times before they even begin.

“What was your way of being in that conversation when it got stuck?” In our workshops we pose this question and collect the responses. Figure 2 shows what we have heard.

Figure 2 Ways of being when people are stuck³

Imagine sitting on a long plane ride next to someone described by the above word cloud. Would you want to chat, or would you be calling for headphones and pretending to take a nap? These words reveal an issue with our own ways of being—they correlate with our conversations not going well.

Now, take another look at the word cloud, and imagine getting into a conversation where this is how you are going to feel and how you are going to come across. Does that seem like fun? Probably not! So our tendency is to avoid the hard conversations, those with the possibility of engaging with people who aren’t already aligned with our values. We don’t want to find ourselves being this way, feeling the way it feels, and being perceived this way by others. So we avoid the difficult conversations and fall short of our goals for creating a better world.

This is all bad news and good news. It’s bad news because we are our own worst enemy in these situations. Our way of being gets in the way of our achieving our goals. One Fortune 500 employee, upon seeing this word cloud, said with a self-effacing chuckle, “That looks like my performance review!” The good news is, our way of being is one place where we have real agency. If the conversation is a dance, then the way of being is the tune. If the conversation is stuck, you can start dancing to a new tune and sometimes, even often, people will follow. Our exercises in this book will help you get to that place.

Another aspect of the word cloud is the strong commonality among the words. A few ways of being come up time and time again: frustrated, defensive, resentful, self-righteous, passive-aggressive, resigned. Many of the other words are close correlates: defeated, pushy, superior, know-it-all. We interpret this commonality to mean that our ways of being are shared, possibly even contagious. They arise in a shared context of being stuck—we are operating in a gap between the world as it is and the world we want, and we’re not moving forward.

Unfortunately, these ways of being help create people’s expectations of us as advocates and activists. Psychology researcher Nadia Bashir and her colleagues at the University of Toronto recruited a representative sample of North Americans using an online survey tool. They asked participants to name traits characteristic of a “typical” activist from different movements. Table 2 shows the most frequently mentioned traits of a “typical” environmentalist.

Table 2 Thirty most frequently mentioned traits of a “typical” environmentalist⁴

You may chuckle when you read this list. You may see a bit of yourself or others you know. Our point is, this is not personal. There is an important resonance between the ways of being our workshop participants identify in their personal reflections and this broader cultural study of how advocates are perceived in the world.

This is actually good news. By identifying the gap between who we’re being and the world we say we want to create, we break the pattern and create a space for something new. We will guide you through a conversation to transform your own ways of being, your relationships, and your social movement. We will change the world the only way it has ever been done—one conversation at a time.

Uncover your background conversations

We’re now going to take you through a process of transforming a conversation. First, it’s important that you not merely read along. Recall exercise 2, where we asked you to think of a conversation that didn’t go the way you wanted or that you’re avoiding entirely because you’re afraid it won’t go well. Pick one conversation for yourself that fulfills exercise 2 before moving ahead.

Let’s say you’ve chosen a specific conversation and have identified the details (who, when, where, what was said, what wasn’t said). Most likely, your default reaction is to ask, What should I have said? What should I say now? In this inquiry, we are asking something different.

Start by getting in touch with your conversation with yourself. If your conversation with someone went off the rails, what thoughts were you having before, during, and afterward? If you have gotten stuck by avoiding a conversation that matters, then all you have is a conversation with yourself!

In our workshops, participants have shared these responses when asked to share their unspoken background conversations:

• “You’re too lazy to figure it out.”

• “ Resolving these issues is more important than being nice to you.”

• “I can’t believe how selfish you are.”

• “There’s no good way to have this conversation.”

• “You’re not telling the truth.”

• “ You just don’t get it. You’re not even interested in getting it. Your mind’s made up. You don’t care what I say.”

• “ You say you want it, but you’re not willing to take the necessary steps.”

It makes sense that we aren’t saying these things aloud—if we did, the conversation might go further off the rails. At the same time, think back to Jason’s conversation with his wife about the basement lights. She knew what Jason was thinking. These background conversations are no big secret. One reason is that we may have said these things out loud in the past. If so, they are hanging there in the space between us—an expectation of what we’ll say. They also bleed through in the present through our nonverbal communication. Our background conversation affects our stance and our tone—our way of being. Let’s look into that.

We can’t emphasize enough the importance of stopping here and using exercises 2 and 6 to reflect. “How was I being?” is a much less familiar inquiry than “What should I do?” or “What should I have done?”

Stop.

Reflect: how would you characterize your way of being?

This inquiry may seem awkward. So give yourself the space to ponder and struggle with this a little. Set the book down and come back to it when you’ve developed your first, second, or third response.

Also, check in with your buddy. Have they named their way of being? Be candid. Don’t hesitate to challenge them if they’re trying to make it sound rosier than it is.

Part of the reason this exercise can be challenging is our tendency toward self-judgment: “I already beat myself up for the outcome of the conversation. Now you want me to confess to a way of being I’m not proud of?”

We are not asking, Are these ways of being good or bad? In fact, it’s powerful not to label them as good or bad, right or wrong. They just are what they are. Judging ourselves for being judgmental is just more judgment. The more fruitful questions are: Do you find these ways of being effective? Are they authentic to the person you want to be and to the interaction and world you want to create? If the answer is no, then we want you to have the freedom to try something new.

Now that you’ve wrestled with that exercise, we will share some common challenges to identifying your way of being and tricks for overcoming them.

Ways of being can be tricky to see

We worked with one woman whom we’ll call Alice. She shared that she was avoiding conversations with her mother because of issues around gay rights. She said, “My mother calls about every four months, it always blows up, and I ignore her calls for another four months. I’ve organized my whole life around social justice. I can’t be true to my values and love my mother. She hates gay people.”

We asked Alice to reflect on her way of being, and she got stuck and asked for help. She said, “I suppose I’m being optimistic.” When we asked her to elaborate, she said, “I suppose I’m being optimistic that my mother can change.”

We responded, “How would your mother describe your way of being? Would she describe you as being optimistic?”

After a pause, Alice said, “No, she’d describe me as being self-righteous and judgmental.”

A couple of things are going on here. First, notice Alice’s tendency to cover up, mask, or hide her way of being when recounting her conversations. Like Alice, we often won’t say exactly what was said or what we were thinking because it’s far from flattering. Rather, we’ll give our summary of it. Recall Jason’s story about the lights in the basement: “I grumble, flick the switch, and then head upstairs to the kitchen, where my wife is doing dishes. ‘Someone left the lights on in the basement,’ I proclaim, arms crossed.”

What if Jason told the story this way: “I reached the top of the stairs and told my wife the lights had been left on.” This latter description is still accurate and valid, yet it carefully strips out his way of being in that situation.

We’ve all mastered retelling stories in a way that strips out the ways of being that we’re not proud of or that weren’t effective. In our recounting, we carefully cover up the communications, verbal and nonverbal, that ran our conversation off the rails. Recounting the story this way leaves you looking good and the other person less so, but it doesn’t give you access to transforming your conversation going forward.

Details matter. See how closely you can identify the verbatim conversation, what exactly was said and what wasn’t said, that generated your way of being. Consider that your first responses may be a cover-up or mask hiding your actual way of being in the conversation.

Is being in the eye of the beholder?

One question comes up frequently in our workshops at this point as we inquire into our ways of being in our conversations. Whose truth is the “true” truth? Whose perspective is the right one? If I think I’m being “optimistic” and the other person thinks I’m being “judgmental,” who is right? Aren’t both perceptions correct?

The truth is, how you think you’re being makes little difference to the trajectory of the conversation. We invite you to take responsibility for your way of being as perceived by the other person. That’s the one that counts. This is a powerful starting point because it puts the onus on you to show up the way you want to be perceived.

By looking at their conversation from her mother’s perspective, Alice saw, “In reacting to my mother’s righteousness and judgment, I become righteous and judgmental.” Then Alice’s righteousness and judgment might have generated more of the same in her mother, resulting in a downward spiral. Seeing this helped Alice free herself to create a new way of being and to approach the relationship with her mother in a new way.

Take a moment to explore your conversation from the perspective of the other person. What is your way of being? Will you take responsibility and own that way of being? Is there convergence between the two points of view? If not, keep looking. Examining and confronting your own contributions to the conversation’s failure can be challenging. Paradoxically, the more confronting and uncomfortable it is, the more space you’re creating for your own growth and breaking through gridlock in this specific conversation.

Being and inauthenticity

If you have a good handle on your way of being, we can confront the questions we raised earlier about authenticity. For you personally, is your own way of being aligned with your personal aspirations? Among your fellow advocates or in your movement, are the shared ways of being aligned with your shared purpose? For example, if you stand for compassion and inclusion, do you operate in compassionate and inclusive ways? As you try to engage broader constituencies in your companies, supply chains, marketplaces, families, schools, communities, and political parties, will your way of being help you succeed at inviting others to join your cause? Will they be inspired to change their behavior, invest resources, and endorse and vote on policies that improve the world in the way you say you want?

If you answer yes to these questions, great. Chuck the book and take a nap.

If the answer is no, you have successfully identified an important source of inauthenticity. You are beginning to create space for something new—a way of being aligned with your aspirations that naturally gives rise to the conversations and the world you want. Alice saw that she could be compassionate and loving, starting with her mother, and she would indeed be “true to her values.”

First, however, we have to address a central puzzle. If and when we experience misalignment, why do we persist? Why do we sometimes get stuck in ways of being that fall short of producing the results we want? This is the question we address in the next chapter.