November 27, 2024 • 59 mins
Episode N°2
In this MYJO Experience episode, we’re thrilled to welcome Ruth Nicholson, a master facilitator whose unique journey has reshaped how organizations tackle complex challenges. Ruth shares her story, from an adventurous childhood to a diverse career that spans forestry, environmental law, and high-stakes negotiations involving endangered species.
Discover Ruth’s insights on the power of curiosity, the art of effective communication, and finding common ground even in the most challenging situations. With practical tools and wisdom in conflict resolution and decision-making,
Ruth’s experiences reveal how we can transform difficult conversations into meaningful growth and connection. Tune in for a conversation packed with actionable advice on harnessing purpose, curiosity, and collaboration!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the MyJoe Experience, a podcast designed to help you go further faster and do more with less.
(00:07):
Every journey is unique. At MyJoe, we celebrate taking MyJourney, My Way.
Learn more about MyJoe by visiting joinmyjo.com and follow MyJoe on all social channels at MyJoe XP.
Here is our host, Daniel Workman.
Welcome to the MyJoe Experience, a podcast designed to help you go further faster and do more with less.
(00:32):
Every journey is unique. At MyJoe, we celebrate taking MyJourney, My Way.
On this episode, we are joined by Ruth Nicholson, a master facilitator. Ruth, welcome to the show.
I'm so glad to be here.
We are glad to have you. Before we get into what that means, a master facilitator, it's like unlocking the black box for those of us who are not in your world.
(01:01):
I'm sure we're going to find some fascinating things out about what that is.
I first want to go back to your upbringing, your childhood. What was life like for you as a kid growing up?
It was an adventure. I was actually born in San Francisco, not far from Haydashbury, and did elementary in the Bay Area during the 60s and 70s, which was a time of turmoil.
(01:36):
When I was 10, we moved home to Texas. Both sides of my family are from Texas. West Texas, that's the Panhandle, the square bit. It's up between New Mexico and Oklahoma.
I'm a much more conservative part of the country than the Bay Area, but I come from a family where a great many of the people in the family either are clergy or they run nonprofits for a living.
(02:05):
Very people-oriented family. There are a lot of missionaries in the family. A multicultural family. My mother and my grandfather were born and raised in Mainland China as a missionary.
It was a very people-oriented family. It still is. To the hint to the master facilitator thing, working with people and helping them through either getting big projects done or solving really heart-wrenching problems wasn't a profession exactly.
(02:44):
It was a survival. I grew up with committees and conflict in the living room. I didn't know that that was going to play such a big role in what I ended up doing when I tried to grow up.
We don't like to grow up, but we always like to talk about what I do when I grow up. We were talking off air before we started recording, which is our little inside joke for the podcast audience.
(03:16):
In your upbringing, you mentioned clergy, you mentioned nonprofits, you mentioned the fact that your mom and your grandfather growing up overseas. I know this with my own life and my family.
That experience of going abroad and spending time in other countries, experiencing other cultures. Did you have an opportunity yourself to do that? Obviously San Francisco and West Texas can feel like two different countries.
(03:51):
That's a whole other story for the rest of the world. A lot of people just don't realize how big and vast and diverse the US is when you think about, well, I travel through Europe.
And we're like, yeah, you haven't left the South yet. We've got other time zones throughout the US where the world feels like two different countries. Did you yourself as a child have an opportunity to experience life overseas and other cultures?
(04:29):
As a kid, we did, Canada and Mexico were common. When my brother and I graduated from college the first time, we did do a bit of a tour in Europe with my parents.
As a younger person, it was mostly people from other places visiting us. So the intercultural thing was more, they came to our living room.
(05:00):
As an adult in my facilitation work, I've actually worked on every continent except Australia and Antarctica. I haven't figured out how to facilitate kengwin.
Well, I will volunteer to come help you figure that out. That seems like would be a really fun journey to take to the other side of the world and talk to animals.
(05:26):
So if you can figure that out, let's bottle it up and share it with the world for sure.
So you mentioned, you went to Canada, you went to Mexico, you took this trip upon graduation to Europe, you had people coming into your home and sharing their world view and their culture and their life experiences.
(05:51):
What kind of influence do you think that had on your way of seeing the world when it came time to go to college and look at adulthood coming up on 18.
Can you think back to that time and think how you, I know for example, my son who spent a lot of time in his teenage years overseas, he sees the world completely differently.
(06:20):
Then most of his peers that he knows his friends, his friend group who their world is much smaller the way that they see the world, their view about how things should be or what could be the possibility, even aspect of life is different.
(06:41):
Versus when you've had these interactions with the greater world beyond your small local kind of growing up scene.
So can you think back and think about what impact that had on you and those decisions as you were entering early adulthood?
(07:02):
I think of my mom, she just was curious about all kinds of stuff. She was curious about people, she was curious about the natural world.
She was curious, right? And having people with different experiences, different places they grew up, different professions, different hobbies.
(07:26):
I think the thing was realizing there was so much you didn't know and being curious about, well, what does that look like for you or what is that tradition where you're from?
And my mother's favorite question, which can be used in a variety of ways, is how would I know that? How would I know that?
(07:51):
And that's part of that's curious, tell me more. And part of that actually regularly challenges your assumption about what am I assuming that you already know?
And well, it hadn't happened for a day. I was talking to somebody and there was a misunderstanding.
And I stopped and it wasn't how would I know that, it was how would they know that? I was making an assumption that, well, everybody knows that.
(08:21):
Well, guess what? Everybody doesn't know that. And so that that curious question of how would I know that? And how would I find out, right?
Or how would I help you find out? I actually, when I was really little, when I was in San Francisco, actually we moved across the Bay to Oakland.
When I went to elementary school, and my mom and my grandmother were involved in creating the Oakland Museum down by Lake Merritt.
(08:49):
And my grandmother was a fine artist, like an award-winning. And my mother, the magic of my mother was she just knew how the natural world work.
And the museum was designed at that time, the natural history part of it, to go from the Pacific Ocean as a cross-section of California between the Pacific Ocean and the state of Nevada.
(09:16):
And so all of the different natural parts of California. And she helped design that. And so we would go as little kids and try not to get too much trouble.
And I'm like, how could she know that much about the natural world? And so we moved to Texas. I graduate from high school.
She says, what do you want to stay? I want to be a forester. I want to study forest science. She says, sweetheart, we're in West Texas.
(09:45):
It is flat as your desk. There's very little surface water, and there are no native trees. Are you nuts?
Well, okay, we know the answer to that. So I get a scholarship. I moved to Seattle, Washington to go to the University of Washington to study forest science.
(10:06):
Because I'm curious, and I had taken a lot of French in school, and I'm like, I want to do forestry stuff in France.
That just sounded like the best thing in the world to me. And halfway through forestry school, it all came crashing down.
Because remember, I told you there aren't a lot of trees in West Texas.
(10:29):
That's true.
Turns out I was allergic to deciduous tree.
Oh, wow.
Now, there are a lot of conifers up here, but there's some disindustry. And so being in the field when I was in school was actually really hard. It was like hard to breathe.
(10:51):
But I mean, why should that stop you, right?
And that actually pivoted what I ended up doing later as a facilitator. It's like, well, I can still work in the field. It's just, I can't work in the woods as often.
(11:12):
Not if I want to breathe.
So if you are, you're in school, you have this epiphany forced on you, right?
Yes.
You don't know before you get there, my passion is this, this is what I'm going to do. I think I've got it figured out and then wham.
(11:34):
Here's a little side note for you. That's not going to work.
So in that moment, were you leaning towards, okay, what do I do next? Or where do I pivot?
You know, like the famous episode of Friends where they're trying to get the couch up the stairs. Pivot, pivot.
(11:58):
You know, is it pivot or is the mentality pressed through? What way did you choose at first and why do you think you went that direction? Pivot or push through?
I actually pushed through because I was halfway through the program and it's like, okay, you're swimming across the English channel.
You get to the halfway point. Do you give up or do you go to France?
(12:23):
And it's like, no, I'm going to finish my degree.
And I did pivot a little bit. I went more into planning and environmental law as opposed to field forestry.
So a little bit of pivot, mostly power through.
But I got my degree and the economy was really bad in those years.
(12:49):
The forest industry, they were laying people off who had 30 years of experience and here comes this, you know, hot shot kid thinking, I'm going to get a job.
Yeah.
So I immediately went into grad school. I still had enough saved that I could do that.
I'm like, okay, we'll stall the economy can't be bad forever and got a masters in public administration, which is it's like an MBA except for it's for government and nonprofits.
(13:21):
It's kind of the same.
So in the same world that you were familiar with your upbringing with missionaries and nonprofits and and all the clergy and all that.
Fascinating. So you you go through grad school in grad school.
(13:42):
What do you what do you think and are you thinking I'm going to end up being this master facilitator or what were what was kind of your thoughts about like how life was going to go where what kind of profession were you looking or aiming for with that that master's degree.
I was still pretty lost.
(14:06):
There were a couple of courses in organization development and working working with people a little bit of facilitation that were that were really intriguing but I didn't know how to how to put that into into practice I didn't know what to do with it.
Right.
And and actually the folks at that time in those schools at the university were not that big a help in terms of job hunting.
(14:39):
I kind of had to bumble through that myself.
And I had an internship with a county government working in economic development.
I had an internship. Well it was an internship. It actually was a real job with the soccer the semi pro soccer team that replaced the Seattle Sounders.
(15:05):
So when the NSL Sounders folded there was a team in Seattle called FC Seattle.
And they played at one of the high school stadiums out at Seattle Center. And I ran the volunteer program and I ran the stadium.
Back in the days when the current Sounders coached was trying to break in as a player as a player.
(15:32):
So I had a 88 volunteers. We ran the stadium on 88 volunteers and five paid staff. 98% of my volunteers came back.
Maybe maybe I could work with people. They're they're not quitting in droves. Right. They're coming back.
So it took probably five years before I landed a job with warehouser thinking I really want to work in forestry.
(16:01):
So I had a soccer gig on the side which was paying the rent and was really enjoyable.
I had played soccer in West Texas as I did after Title IX passed. Didn't want women to little girls to play.
Right.
So yeah it took a while to get into warehouser and then and then there were two more whammies to come.
(16:27):
In the the process of taking that job with FCC at all. And we kind of see the same common thread of people working with people in that background.
You know I think I've seen this in my own life with my background and my upbringing. There are certain things that when you experience them over and over as a kid.
(16:56):
That become more natural. It may not even be that you were more gifted. You know like a Michael Jordan that seems to have just fallen out of the basketball sky.
You know like it's actually all of the stuff that we don't see behind the scenes that make it that give us that those myths of the you know this Hercules fell out of the sky and now it's like otherworldly.
(17:25):
It's actually all this hard work. It's the culture. It's the family and in in that job having volunteers having run or volunteer organizations myself.
That's impressive to have that. I mean you mentioned it. I get it. I just want the audience to understand to have that many people return not as fans.
(17:49):
Not as spectators. Not not as a ticket purchaser but as a volunteer is insanely good. Like that is incredible.
And so that upbringing what I'm seeing in your story is that culture and family and that ability to work with people starting to pay off and in building in your early career.
(18:23):
Did you have any setbacks along the way during that time that made you face that same choice of pivot or push through.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So the funny thing was it was a forester friend of mine, a mentor of mine who got me the soccer job.
(18:45):
Which was funny. He ran the press. But I went to warehouse or and I thought I'd landed right. Warehouses are fairly well known for us to me.
Right. We had a controversy up here in the in the Pacific Northwest in those years. So late 80s early 90s about the northern spotted out.
(19:10):
Lived in the woods. Ended up on the endangered species on the threatened list.
So the big conundrum up here was how do you manage the woods with an endangered or threatened species in it.
Well the industry being a little more conservative than other places paired back its workforce because it's reading it to tea leaves and saying this could be tough.
(19:37):
Right. There were two of us in my department. We did kind of the same thing. He had 30 years experience. I had not even 30 months experience. Right.
So guess who gets laid off. So I lasted about two years.
I had some you know I had a network and I went to one of my network and I said looking for work again and really don't want to leave land management.
(20:03):
I really love this. And he says well come work for me. Well so I ended up with a job with the US Forest Service.
So I've gone from private industry to government and and did some absolutely amazing things in terms of land use and roads and mining claims inside wilderness areas.
(20:27):
And it was just lovely. And that bird was still in the woods and we were still struggling with how do you manage the woods with a spotted owl in it.
And I got laid off again. Two years. That force we lost a quarter of our employees in six months.
So the transition and the disruption was very real.
(20:52):
And I'm getting a little bit worried about. Can I hold a job. Well there were a lot going on. Well in the federal system when you're on the layoff list they really don't want to.
They want to find you. And they found me a place with the US Environmental Protection Agency.
(21:13):
So now I've gone from corporate to an agency that actively manages land to an agency that regulates all of the above.
And they reassigned me back to the forest that it just laid me off to help regulate how you do endangered species stuff.
(21:39):
And that was a little weird. The meeting I showed up at was even weirder and it didn't go.
And the forest supervisor who has laid me off said Ruth do something.
What would my mother do. What would my grandmother do. Well I think that's what I did. I don't actually.
(22:03):
But the meeting was less bad. So this guy who just laid me off went back to EPA and said I don't want her as my regulator.
I want her as my facilitator. And they hold my regulator job and they gave me the facilitator job.
(22:26):
And I became the accidental facilitator because I understood the technical. I had a degree in forestry and had a master's with environmental policy specialty.
And I worked that ground. I mean I knew the land literally. And now I was the facilitator, the referee, the mediator.
(22:50):
And there were a bunch of people who literally were trying to figure out how do you manage the woods with an endangered species.
So what kind of people are around the table at those kinds.
At those meetings.
Yeah. Like obviously you're talking EPA you're talking about the forestry service.
Are there private parties there as well all trying to figure this out or is this mainly.
(23:11):
What kind of meetings are you facilitating.
So imagine that there are 35 people in a room.
You have the environmental groups that had filed lawsuits, federal lawsuits about you need to figure this out.
And they are enjoining every timber sale coming down as it comes up.
(23:37):
So it's like well if we don't like what you do we're just going to go to the judge.
You have people from small communities where there are mills where the job base is largely timber dependent.
So if you're not cutting trees they don't have a job they don't have a way to feed their family.
You have government folks who are responsible for air water.
(24:02):
Those sorts you've got the regulators in there.
You've got the federal agencies who do their organ.
Congress said part of the reason I created you was pet trees.
So they're they're trying to figure out how to do what they're supposed to do given that.
If they choose this way these folks you know don't have any work and if they choose this way well they're going to end up back in court.
(24:26):
So it's a wide variety of interests and they're all living.
They're all living at different levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Are you familiar with Maslow?
So you've got folks who are worried about feeding their families.
And you've got folks who maybe are just worried about feeding their families but they are passionate about a cause in terms of biodiversity and forest health.
(24:55):
But they're not afraid to lose their jobs.
And so they're talking past each other and they are equally as passionate.
And yeah that's how I learned.
So that's how I thought I learned how to.
So in that moment are you are you thinking back to the there's a classic Bible story where there's two women claiming the baby and to try to figure out who the real mom is.
(25:24):
The person says well I'll just cut it in half and you can have half and you can have half and the birth mother was like no give her the baby and the one who was not the birth mother but claiming to be the mother was like give me my half.
I'll take my half.
And that's how they figured out who the birth mother actually was.
(25:45):
She didn't want her baby to die and she was like just give her I would rather her live than the baby live than me get half.
So were you were you trying to figure out how to divide the baby in those meetings in those early days and and with that what were some of the lessons you learned early on in facilitating what seems to be from from my standpoint with no background in forestry.
(26:13):
No background in in the ability to facilitate on that level.
What were the lessons that you were learning with what seems to be a very complex matrix of outcomes and decisions and you know every choice has consequences and consequences don't necessarily mean they're good they don't necessarily mean they're bad it just means if I choose door a this comes with door a if I choose door B etc.
(26:47):
So what what were some of the lessons that you learned in successes that you you were able to achieve through some of those early negotiations.
I think I mean lesson one is you will never know as much as you want to know.
There will always be I wish I knew this I wish I understood that and you and you still have to make decisions you even saying I'm just not going to make a decision is actually a decision right.
(27:16):
So manning managing the risk of not knowing as much is always there and the fear around not knowing everything.
But the two really big bazongas one was purpose a couple of you know the early meetings they weren't that good.
(27:38):
And I remember sitting down I had a co facilitator from the Forest Service and the Forest Supervisor and and we were trying to figure out how to make these meetings better because they were hard.
And so we started with purpose.
And we said hey when you want your wildlife biologists to handle you know this this topic in the meeting what do you want that person to do what do you want your road person to do what do you want your forester to do.
(28:09):
And the and the boss could say the purpose of this is that and this is what I want and it was very clear.
And we still had half of the agenda to do.
And fortunately he came up with this and I didn't have to say it because I was really nervous.
He says wait a minute half of this agenda is me.
(28:31):
Yeah that's true.
And I'm not clear on my purpose.
Well trying to have a good meeting if you're not clear about why the purpose of the meeting or the purpose of the agenda item is going to make it a lot harder.
Sure. And and he realized and we realized kind of together that when we craft an agenda.
There's a purpose of the meeting.
(28:54):
And you can use this in your meeting this week right.
There's a purpose of the meeting but there's a purpose for everything on that agenda.
And the clearer you are about what you need to accomplish.
I need to come up with a list of places for dinner.
I need to make a decision about who to hire.
I need to brainstorm ideas for a new fundraiser.
(29:17):
The clearer you are about your purpose the better that meeting is going to be and the faster you're going to get your work done.
Because if you're not clear about purpose you just can get frustrated.
For sure.
You know I was watching the other day a conversation between two professional very accomplished Nashville songwriters.
(29:41):
And they were talking about it was a fascinating conversation and they were talking about songwriting.
And you know of any place in the world where the songwriter is valued it's Nashville.
It's that's more than LA that's more than New York it's more than really any other musical hot spot in the world.
(30:03):
Nashville is known as that songwriter it celebrates the songwriter and so when you hear songs come out of Nashville often times it's multiple people.
You know facilitating a song it may not be a meeting but it's a song.
And the reason why I bring this up I came to mind when you were talking about this because I found this to be really fascinating.
(30:28):
They were talking about ego and that there are a lot of they were talking about some mistakes that songwriters make in in writing songs and and it's in the collaboration of creating a song and one of the guys pointed out that often times there's a breakdown with ego where someone in the room.
(30:55):
So let's say there's four people that are trying to co-write the next big hit and one of the people in the room wants to make sure that they have more credit for more lines of lyrics in the song than anyone else.
(31:17):
So let's say there's you know between your verses and your choruses and any other parts of the song that are written.
Let's say there's 30 lines they want to make sure that they've got more than anyone else credit.
It's just an ego thing like I want to make sure I leave my stamp on this song and their point was.
(31:41):
The best songwriting happens when we place the priority on creating a great song not on my part of the song.
So if we keep the song the main thing if we keep the the creation of like our purpose in this room is to create a great song.
(32:05):
We can only write one line of the song but it makes the song better and someone else may have written 29 other lines but that one line made it complete then great because now we've got a great song and it goes for the musicians in the room who are writing the chords
(32:27):
and whoever might be writing melody lines and what is actually you know the lyrics are being sung to those notes.
But they were just talking about all of these different pieces working together about holding at the top the priority is can we create a great song and let's make that what we judge our success on not how many chords did I control.
(32:56):
How many chords did I contribute to the song how many lyrics did I write you know did I write the the main part of the chorus etc.
So in your meetings I'm hearing the same kind of ideas percolate about priority and purpose.
(33:18):
You began that career facilitating which was this evolution you know part pushing through but also at the same time pushing through and kind of pivoting into this new found career and learning about this idea of first principles and priority etc.
(33:42):
How did that shape you going forward in your career and how did it make it did it make it easier to facilitate meetings did you know how did that kind of contribute to your next steps.
It's funny I pointed that meeting with the four supervisor and my co facilitator because that really it turned out to be a turning point for me in terms of understanding why purpose is so it's such a big deal in in the big way and in the small way.
(34:14):
And I'm a graphic facilitator visual facilitator which means I doodle on flip charts like I use color and pictures and to drop people together.
And the graphic I have is is based on the word why and part of the skill of facilitators is is asking questions because you're not an arbitrator you're not a judge you're not the person that's going to give them the answer.
(34:48):
It's really important to be the neutral person in the room because if you're playing agenda that's just it's going to make it work.
But the question why is such a wonderful question because the W stands for what or purpose the purpose of the meeting the purpose of your organization the purpose of everything on an agenda.
(35:12):
The H is the how how are you going to do it. And you know what there's only three things.
You gather information or you share information thinking about updates presentation stuff like that.
You analyze and make sense of information.
What did the survey mean when we made that decision what happened you know sort of making sense of the information that you have.
(35:40):
And then the third thing is you make decisions and that can be making recommendations to a decision maker or it could be making a decision for your group.
And so the magic of matching your purpose to what are you going to do.
So if I need to come up with a list of possibilities that's a different purpose and an action than if I need to choose a place to go to dinner.
(36:06):
I still may make a list of possibilities. But if I stop at the list I don't pick a place to dinner.
And then we're hungry.
And and the power of the word why it's this tiny little word right.
The elementary I live.
I can see an elementary school from my house.
(36:27):
Like it's less than a block.
And they have a piece in every room of the elementary school.
And so if if you have if you're a student and you have a problem you can go to an adult and they'll help you or you can go to a fifth grade.
Because they train between third grade and fifth grader.
(36:50):
They train the kids to be mediators.
They train them to help solve problems.
And so when I go into third grade classrooms.
Yeah we're going to teach third graders how to be mediator and we're going to teach them with one word.
So I walk in with an orange one orange.
And I get two kids to help me.
(37:13):
I say whoa I've got one orange what am I going to do.
And the two kids say I want it I want it and I look at the class.
I got one orange two kids what do they tell me to do.
Split the orange.
Cut it in half.
Logical thing to do.
And on cue my two co-conspirators don't like that idea.
(37:35):
Like they really don't like that idea.
Oh my gosh what am I going to do.
The obvious solution is not so obvious.
And you let the kids wrestle with the silence.
What do I do now.
Help me what do I do.
And you can feel the tension we don't like silence.
Right.
And finally somebody will say why do they want the orange.
(38:00):
The powerful word right.
I say ask the little girl why would you like the orange.
And she says I'm really hungry I want the whole orange.
And you go yeah that makes sense.
You turn to the little boy and say why do you want the orange.
He says it's my mom's birthday.
And she likes orange frosting on her cake.
I want the zest off the orange to make my mom's birthday cake.
(38:21):
And all of a sudden a simple question has opened up more possibilities.
Now when I work in nuclear waste cleanup or reuse for military bases or other things that sound pretty intransigent.
Asking people why.
(38:44):
Why is this important to you.
It's not a judgment about is it good enough.
It's important to you because it's important to you help us understand what that is.
And now you get into your music example.
You know I want to contribute lyrics I want to contribute a chord progression I want to contribute.
But the point is we want to make sure we use this orange well we want to have a good song.
(39:13):
One of the groups that I worked with the longest was working in nuclear waste cleanup over at the Hanford nuclear reservation.
And those groups sometimes they were 100 people.
From all walks of life.
And the history of nuclear weapons in this country and how you clean up from making them is kind of complex.
(39:41):
But when they get lost in the technical or lost in the politics or just mad at you.
They were one of the most powerful groups that I've ever worked with because they had a shared purpose.
Nobody in that government private industry nonprofit regular citizen nobody believed the cleanup was done.
(40:07):
So when we get lost we could always pull back to this the common purpose which was we want this place and we want it safe.
And having that touchstone regardless of what kind of topic you're working on is so incredibly.
(40:30):
Purpose and being able to ask why in a curious fashion not an accuser.
In the why you said the what is the purpose.
H is the how and the why is what the why is is the people it's you or who you were you were it's not it's not quite as clean as the W.
(40:54):
I like it though that makes sense.
But in any meeting.
Okay, you can see the people in the meeting usually right.
You know who they are.
But there are two other groups there are three groups in a meeting.
They're the people who have contributed information and ideas to the meeting that maybe don't show up at the meeting.
(41:15):
Right they prepared a report they ran a survey they passed you a note as you went into the meeting room.
There are people who are contributing to that meeting who aren't physically in that meeting.
Right.
And there are people who will be affected by that meeting who are in the meeting.
And so making sure that at some level somebody's worrying about the people who aren't in the room.
(41:38):
This meetings aren't usually done as an island with no effect.
Right.
So in this line of work.
Obviously you've gleaned a lot of lessons you shared the your your acronym the the why framework which I love and talked about purpose and how that guides you.
(42:04):
What are some things that you know looking at your your career and looking at your work whether whether it was early on with the forestry or the soccer or later in the facilitating.
What are some things or a thing that you wish you would have known earlier.
(42:31):
I think I wish I had understood.
That communications that asking the why.
Isn't something.
That we all come equipped with.
I grew up in a household where.
(42:56):
Most of the adults in my world modeled.
Working with people collaborate collaboratively to get stuff done.
Whether it was you know helping solve a family problem or you know in an organizational setting.
But there was a premium place on communicating and helping people work together.
(43:22):
I didn't understand until I was.
Maybe someone said well you could be a good facilitator and somebody else said well actually you kind of are.
Well I never had a facilitation.
Heck I could hardly spell.
I just do what my mother would do when you know somebody loses their.
(43:45):
And they sent me to a bunch of training stuff and I'm like oh my gosh there were for this their theories for this I just do what my mother.
To do so what I learned is a survival skill isn't common.
And so if I would walk into a group and I'm like they know how to do this.
In other words why do they need me in the first place.
(44:08):
It's because I'm not.
Persuaded that we.
Almost adult people.
Are doing a great job of helping our youngsters.
Learn how to do that.
How to have a tough conversation.
Heck how to have a conversation that it doesn't involve my smart phone.
(44:31):
Right sit down and have a conversation share ideas be okay.
If it's something that we don't have to agree on.
Going to a Chinese restaurant you want shrimp I want chicken.
We don't have to agree.
We do if it's Thanksgiving dinner we're probably only going to cook.
Right right.
But how do we help the people that we work with that we live near.
(44:57):
You know neighbors and friends.
Do a better.
Of communicating and not assuming they have that.
And it's okay to ask the word why it's okay to ask.
Tell me more.
How would they know.
(45:19):
I wish I had understood.
Better.
That not everybody knows how to do that.
And so.
Having compassion around that to help them have those communications.
Is really important.
Whether it's talking to your neighbor or whether.
(45:41):
How would you define success.
You know in a in a meeting or success in a facilitation in a.
An argument you know.
We can take it into a more informal setting you know for the audience they're probably.
They're probably not walking into a meeting with the EPA tomorrow to figure out how to save the spotted owl and.
(46:08):
In what trees they can or cannot cut down or harvest or etc.
But they they probably are trying to figure out.
What do we do.
You know in in this situation with my kid and his school and his grades or.
Do we do we move to this city for this job or not or.
Where are we going for dinner can even result in the need for a mediation.
(46:33):
At times.
My my little side tip for anyone if you're if you're up for some spontaneity.
Just you know pick a couple places you think you would want to do and then flip a coin.
You know and just let chance.
You know make the decision sometimes will kind of.
When it when it comes to food will will will come down to.
(46:56):
We don't want to eat everything but there might be two or three things that we would consider eating and.
I just got to the point where I'm just like hey I'll just flip a coin and if it says.
Heads will go here and it's tails will go here as long as.
We're okay with with agreeing on a wider.
Set of parameters of where we're going to eat rather than just the one place we're going to go eat.
(47:22):
And so I'll do that on occasion I've even done that for vacations and other things where it's like.
We don't have to even force agreement let's just you know do we agree to.
These parameters of how we're going to get the final decision so in your case how would you define.
A successful outcome of a mediation whether it's informal or formal.
(47:48):
There's a short answer in the longer.
The short answer is really bad if you're in consulting and you like to market like get future work.
Because the best meetings are when people actually do come to agreement.
And they're excited about you know have you have you been in a meeting where the meeting ends and everybody is drained and they kind of drag out the door and you go home.
(48:15):
Okay well we survived as opposed to the meeting where people came together they created something they made a decision and as they're walking out the door the energy says did you see what we did.
Right and you can feel the difference.
The great the tricky bit about that is if it's really good they won't say.
(48:37):
Did you see what we did in Ruth was our facilitator you know if it's really good they won't know you were in there it's like being a really good referee.
And people remember the game but they don't remember the referee right 100% the longer version.
I think is rooted in how I think about consensus.
(48:58):
And you are on to something knowing how you're going to decide before you decide is really important.
Because if you're making up how you're deciding in the middle of the thing people will be can feel cheated.
Oh you changed the rules partway between right that doesn't feel fair and we have this in this need for it to feel fair and for us to feel heard.
(49:27):
And sometimes you don't have to win exactly but if it's fair and you feel heard.
You can roll with it easier.
So when and with my groups I asked them what is your definition of consensus because we got to know that before we before we get into this to deep.
And there are three parts.
One is I understand the proposal I understand what we're trying to do.
(49:52):
Right if you don't understand what you're trying to do the rest doesn't.
So it's clear we want to pick a place for dinner.
The second is I can live with the decision.
Now if you imagine a spectrum from over my dead body I am going to fight you to my last breath.
(50:15):
And everything to the other side of that is I guess I could live to this is the best thing since coffee ice cream right.
So you've got this wide range of agreement a little bit of agreement to like absolute enthusiasm but it's not I'm going to fight you over my dead body.
(50:39):
So the agreement part is I can live with it.
And it's OK if your I can live with it has a different energy than mine.
Right.
Because we're still in the I can live with it.
For sure.
But the third part is the magic.
It's all supported.
(51:00):
It's not I'm going to give lip service in this meeting and I can live with it and I'm not as crazy about it as Daniel is.
No no no the test is when I walk out am I going to bad mouth the decision or the people or the process or the no no no no the magic is I'm going to support it.
Even if it wasn't my favorite but I'm going to support it I understand it.
(51:24):
I can live with it.
I can support it.
And maybe part of I can support it is well next time we'll get to go for Italian.
Right.
I've used that card before.
Yeah.
I don't really want to do Mexican today.
Can we do it tomorrow.
You know like that kind of thing for sure for sure.
(51:46):
And you know our family is a little my wife and my oldest son are less picky eaters.
You know we have a spectrum and I would probably say my oldest son is probably the furthest into Ali pretty much anything and then my wife is not far behind.
(52:12):
She'll she'll eat most things and she has in the course of our relationship pulled me much further to her side of the of the dietary spectrum.
My youngest son is me at that age where it was like I have a finite menu of a handful of things and it's going to take me a while to expand my palate let's say.
(52:45):
So we do have some challenges from time to time about figuring out what we're going to have for dinner and the I you know like I said I found the coin toss to be one of the
frameworks to get to a decision and then as you pointed out the idea of OK well maybe not this time but maybe next time we'll do this etc.
(53:07):
As another way to kind of create consensus and an agreement so that we don't all kill each other in the car.
You know it helps.
So for sure for sure. Well if you could leave the audience with one piece of advice maybe they are maybe they're in a difficult situation and they're trying to figure out like I don't really know how to overcome this situation and I've got to talk it through with someone but I don't know.
(53:39):
I don't know how to get there. I don't know. You know maybe it's maybe it's a first step in that process. Maybe it's you know a difficult conversation about you know where do we go from here.
They're facing a business decision and they don't know you know do I push through do I pivot as we've talked about throughout this this episode.
(54:02):
If you can leave the audience with kind of one final thought one piece of advice. What would you have to kind of help people facilitate some you know.
Choices that that as we've acknowledged every choice has a consequence but.
(54:24):
Could you give us something that that would give. Maybe useful helpful to someone in a situation where they're trying to figure out a way forward.
I would I would take two parts and you start with yourself and there there's a technique and it's probably got a fancy name. I just think of my I have a five year old.
(54:47):
And and for those who have small children in their world. What is their favorite question.
It's back to why. Yep.
So when.
When someone asks a series of why questions think about when your kids were little.
And they say you know why do I have to eat my broccoli for dinner. Right. You know what your mother.
(55:18):
Well why well she wanted to create a torture me. I'm sorry why right. So every time you ask why you go a little deeper right.
So okay it's okay to pretend you can borrow my five year old grandson.
And what happens is every time you go deeper you you're discovering more information something that's important to you.
Some more aspects. So if you're in a in a tricky situation in a difficult situation.
(55:44):
Ask yourself that if you go about five times it's called the five wise.
You run that four or five times with yourself. You're going to start getting into why is it important that I contributed a melody.
Why is it important that I have broccoli. Why. Why is this issue so important to me.
(56:08):
Is it self respect. Is it I'm worried about my income. Is it I'm worried about my kids. Whatever it is.
So when you're clear on your why. Why is this important to me. Or even it's important to me because I'm afraid of this thing happening.
And being able to identify that. Oh that's why this is important. Because I'm actually afraid of.
(56:31):
Then when you when you're meeting with the person that you have to work stuff out with.
Find ways to ask them why as well. Because you're not seeking to impose your thing on them off the bat.
That's probably not going to go. But if you're going I want to understand why this is important to me.
(56:55):
So tell me more what does that look like I want to understand. So you keep your why in that in that realm.
Not why do you think that nutty thing. Don't ask me.
But if you ask your partner your colleague. Then you're going to understand better what is important to them.
(57:17):
And sometimes there's a way to solve what's important to you and what's important to me at the same time.
Remember that orange. Cutting it in half wasn't the best idea.
We had to understand why it was important to those two kids.
But before you can have a great conversation with the neighbor.
(57:39):
You got to understand what's important to you.
And then hopefully having the courage to say well it's really important to me that that is not happening.
I'm worried. They just might step up and help you out.
That's good. That is so good. Well Ruth. Thank you for joining us on this episode.
(58:04):
Where can people connect with you or learn more about your work and your background and maybe even get some help from you to mediate and facilitate some of their situations that need to be resolved.
Where could they connect with you?
(58:28):
I've got a website that's more focused on youth sports which is a whole other conversation in conflict.
But it's an easy website to remember which is gohelpsports.com.
Gohelpsports.com. And they can connect with you through there.
Perfect. Perfect. Well thank you so much for joining us.
(58:52):
If you want to learn more about my Joe and what we're doing as part of the my Joe experience.
Go to join my Joe.com and you can follow us on all of our social channels at my Joe XP.
Again, Ruth. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your wisdom with us.
And hopefully your journey will be a little bit easier being able to negotiate and facilitate meetings and conflicts in your life.
(59:22):
I know I gleaned a lot from this and I appreciate you sharing that with us.
Until next time, we'll see you later.
Welcome to the MyJoe Experience, a podcast designed to help you go further faster and do more with less.
(00:07):
Every journey is unique. At MyJoe, we celebrate taking MyJourney, My Way.
Learn more about MyJoe by visiting joinmyjo.com and follow MyJoe on all social channels at MyJoe XP.
Here is our host, Daniel Workman.
Welcome to the MyJoe Experience, a podcast designed to help you go further faster and do more with less.
(00:32):
Every journey is unique. At MyJoe, we celebrate taking MyJourney, My Way.
On this episode, we are joined by Ruth Nicholson, a master facilitator. Ruth, welcome to the show.
I'm so glad to be here.
We are glad to have you. Before we get into what that means, a master facilitator, it's like unlocking the black box for those of us who are not in your world.
(01:01):
I'm sure we're going to find some fascinating things out about what that is.
I first want to go back to your upbringing, your childhood. What was life like for you as a kid growing up?
It was an adventure. I was actually born in San Francisco, not far from Haydashbury, and did elementary in the Bay Area during the 60s and 70s, which was a time of turmoil.
(01:36):
When I was 10, we moved home to Texas. Both sides of my family are from Texas. West Texas, that's the Panhandle, the square bit. It's up between New Mexico and Oklahoma.
I'm a much more conservative part of the country than the Bay Area, but I come from a family where a great many of the people in the family either are clergy or they run nonprofits for a living.
(02:05):
Very people-oriented family. There are a lot of missionaries in the family. A multicultural family. My mother and my grandfather were born and raised in Mainland China as a missionary.
It was a very people-oriented family. It still is. To the hint to the master facilitator thing, working with people and helping them through either getting big projects done or solving really heart-wrenching problems wasn't a profession exactly.
(02:44):
It was a survival. I grew up with committees and conflict in the living room. I didn't know that that was going to play such a big role in what I ended up doing when I tried to grow up.
We don't like to grow up, but we always like to talk about what I do when I grow up. We were talking off air before we started recording, which is our little inside joke for the podcast audience.
(03:16):
In your upbringing, you mentioned clergy, you mentioned nonprofits, you mentioned the fact that your mom and your grandfather growing up overseas. I know this with my own life and my family.
That experience of going abroad and spending time in other countries, experiencing other cultures. Did you have an opportunity yourself to do that? Obviously San Francisco and West Texas can feel like two different countries.
(03:51):
That's a whole other story for the rest of the world. A lot of people just don't realize how big and vast and diverse the US is when you think about, well, I travel through Europe.
And we're like, yeah, you haven't left the South yet. We've got other time zones throughout the US where the world feels like two different countries. Did you yourself as a child have an opportunity to experience life overseas and other cultures?
(04:29):
As a kid, we did, Canada and Mexico were common. When my brother and I graduated from college the first time, we did do a bit of a tour in Europe with my parents.
As a younger person, it was mostly people from other places visiting us. So the intercultural thing was more, they came to our living room.
(05:00):
As an adult in my facilitation work, I've actually worked on every continent except Australia and Antarctica. I haven't figured out how to facilitate kengwin.
Well, I will volunteer to come help you figure that out. That seems like would be a really fun journey to take to the other side of the world and talk to animals.
(05:26):
So if you can figure that out, let's bottle it up and share it with the world for sure.
So you mentioned, you went to Canada, you went to Mexico, you took this trip upon graduation to Europe, you had people coming into your home and sharing their world view and their culture and their life experiences.
(05:51):
What kind of influence do you think that had on your way of seeing the world when it came time to go to college and look at adulthood coming up on 18.
Can you think back to that time and think how you, I know for example, my son who spent a lot of time in his teenage years overseas, he sees the world completely differently.
(06:20):
Then most of his peers that he knows his friends, his friend group who their world is much smaller the way that they see the world, their view about how things should be or what could be the possibility, even aspect of life is different.
(06:41):
Versus when you've had these interactions with the greater world beyond your small local kind of growing up scene.
So can you think back and think about what impact that had on you and those decisions as you were entering early adulthood?
(07:02):
I think of my mom, she just was curious about all kinds of stuff. She was curious about people, she was curious about the natural world.
She was curious, right? And having people with different experiences, different places they grew up, different professions, different hobbies.
(07:26):
I think the thing was realizing there was so much you didn't know and being curious about, well, what does that look like for you or what is that tradition where you're from?
And my mother's favorite question, which can be used in a variety of ways, is how would I know that? How would I know that?
(07:51):
And that's part of that's curious, tell me more. And part of that actually regularly challenges your assumption about what am I assuming that you already know?
And well, it hadn't happened for a day. I was talking to somebody and there was a misunderstanding.
And I stopped and it wasn't how would I know that, it was how would they know that? I was making an assumption that, well, everybody knows that.
(08:21):
Well, guess what? Everybody doesn't know that. And so that that curious question of how would I know that? And how would I find out, right?
Or how would I help you find out? I actually, when I was really little, when I was in San Francisco, actually we moved across the Bay to Oakland.
When I went to elementary school, and my mom and my grandmother were involved in creating the Oakland Museum down by Lake Merritt.
(08:49):
And my grandmother was a fine artist, like an award-winning. And my mother, the magic of my mother was she just knew how the natural world work.
And the museum was designed at that time, the natural history part of it, to go from the Pacific Ocean as a cross-section of California between the Pacific Ocean and the state of Nevada.
(09:16):
And so all of the different natural parts of California. And she helped design that. And so we would go as little kids and try not to get too much trouble.
And I'm like, how could she know that much about the natural world? And so we moved to Texas. I graduate from high school.
She says, what do you want to stay? I want to be a forester. I want to study forest science. She says, sweetheart, we're in West Texas.
(09:45):
It is flat as your desk. There's very little surface water, and there are no native trees. Are you nuts?
Well, okay, we know the answer to that. So I get a scholarship. I moved to Seattle, Washington to go to the University of Washington to study forest science.
(10:06):
Because I'm curious, and I had taken a lot of French in school, and I'm like, I want to do forestry stuff in France.
That just sounded like the best thing in the world to me. And halfway through forestry school, it all came crashing down.
Because remember, I told you there aren't a lot of trees in West Texas.
(10:29):
That's true.
Turns out I was allergic to deciduous tree.
Oh, wow.
Now, there are a lot of conifers up here, but there's some disindustry. And so being in the field when I was in school was actually really hard. It was like hard to breathe.
(10:51):
But I mean, why should that stop you, right?
And that actually pivoted what I ended up doing later as a facilitator. It's like, well, I can still work in the field. It's just, I can't work in the woods as often.
(11:12):
Not if I want to breathe.
So if you are, you're in school, you have this epiphany forced on you, right?
Yes.
You don't know before you get there, my passion is this, this is what I'm going to do. I think I've got it figured out and then wham.
(11:34):
Here's a little side note for you. That's not going to work.
So in that moment, were you leaning towards, okay, what do I do next? Or where do I pivot?
You know, like the famous episode of Friends where they're trying to get the couch up the stairs. Pivot, pivot.
(11:58):
You know, is it pivot or is the mentality pressed through? What way did you choose at first and why do you think you went that direction? Pivot or push through?
I actually pushed through because I was halfway through the program and it's like, okay, you're swimming across the English channel.
You get to the halfway point. Do you give up or do you go to France?
(12:23):
And it's like, no, I'm going to finish my degree.
And I did pivot a little bit. I went more into planning and environmental law as opposed to field forestry.
So a little bit of pivot, mostly power through.
But I got my degree and the economy was really bad in those years.
(12:49):
The forest industry, they were laying people off who had 30 years of experience and here comes this, you know, hot shot kid thinking, I'm going to get a job.
Yeah.
So I immediately went into grad school. I still had enough saved that I could do that.
I'm like, okay, we'll stall the economy can't be bad forever and got a masters in public administration, which is it's like an MBA except for it's for government and nonprofits.
(13:21):
It's kind of the same.
So in the same world that you were familiar with your upbringing with missionaries and nonprofits and and all the clergy and all that.
Fascinating. So you you go through grad school in grad school.
(13:42):
What do you what do you think and are you thinking I'm going to end up being this master facilitator or what were what was kind of your thoughts about like how life was going to go where what kind of profession were you looking or aiming for with that that master's degree.
I was still pretty lost.
(14:06):
There were a couple of courses in organization development and working working with people a little bit of facilitation that were that were really intriguing but I didn't know how to how to put that into into practice I didn't know what to do with it.
Right.
And and actually the folks at that time in those schools at the university were not that big a help in terms of job hunting.
(14:39):
I kind of had to bumble through that myself.
And I had an internship with a county government working in economic development.
I had an internship. Well it was an internship. It actually was a real job with the soccer the semi pro soccer team that replaced the Seattle Sounders.
(15:05):
So when the NSL Sounders folded there was a team in Seattle called FC Seattle.
And they played at one of the high school stadiums out at Seattle Center. And I ran the volunteer program and I ran the stadium.
Back in the days when the current Sounders coached was trying to break in as a player as a player.
(15:32):
So I had a 88 volunteers. We ran the stadium on 88 volunteers and five paid staff. 98% of my volunteers came back.
Maybe maybe I could work with people. They're they're not quitting in droves. Right. They're coming back.
So it took probably five years before I landed a job with warehouser thinking I really want to work in forestry.
(16:01):
So I had a soccer gig on the side which was paying the rent and was really enjoyable.
I had played soccer in West Texas as I did after Title IX passed. Didn't want women to little girls to play.
Right.
So yeah it took a while to get into warehouser and then and then there were two more whammies to come.
(16:27):
In the the process of taking that job with FCC at all. And we kind of see the same common thread of people working with people in that background.
You know I think I've seen this in my own life with my background and my upbringing. There are certain things that when you experience them over and over as a kid.
(16:56):
That become more natural. It may not even be that you were more gifted. You know like a Michael Jordan that seems to have just fallen out of the basketball sky.
You know like it's actually all of the stuff that we don't see behind the scenes that make it that give us that those myths of the you know this Hercules fell out of the sky and now it's like otherworldly.
(17:25):
It's actually all this hard work. It's the culture. It's the family and in in that job having volunteers having run or volunteer organizations myself.
That's impressive to have that. I mean you mentioned it. I get it. I just want the audience to understand to have that many people return not as fans.
(17:49):
Not as spectators. Not not as a ticket purchaser but as a volunteer is insanely good. Like that is incredible.
And so that upbringing what I'm seeing in your story is that culture and family and that ability to work with people starting to pay off and in building in your early career.
(18:23):
Did you have any setbacks along the way during that time that made you face that same choice of pivot or push through.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So the funny thing was it was a forester friend of mine, a mentor of mine who got me the soccer job.
(18:45):
Which was funny. He ran the press. But I went to warehouse or and I thought I'd landed right. Warehouses are fairly well known for us to me.
Right. We had a controversy up here in the in the Pacific Northwest in those years. So late 80s early 90s about the northern spotted out.
(19:10):
Lived in the woods. Ended up on the endangered species on the threatened list.
So the big conundrum up here was how do you manage the woods with an endangered or threatened species in it.
Well the industry being a little more conservative than other places paired back its workforce because it's reading it to tea leaves and saying this could be tough.
(19:37):
Right. There were two of us in my department. We did kind of the same thing. He had 30 years experience. I had not even 30 months experience. Right.
So guess who gets laid off. So I lasted about two years.
I had some you know I had a network and I went to one of my network and I said looking for work again and really don't want to leave land management.
(20:03):
I really love this. And he says well come work for me. Well so I ended up with a job with the US Forest Service.
So I've gone from private industry to government and and did some absolutely amazing things in terms of land use and roads and mining claims inside wilderness areas.
(20:27):
And it was just lovely. And that bird was still in the woods and we were still struggling with how do you manage the woods with a spotted owl in it.
And I got laid off again. Two years. That force we lost a quarter of our employees in six months.
So the transition and the disruption was very real.
(20:52):
And I'm getting a little bit worried about. Can I hold a job. Well there were a lot going on. Well in the federal system when you're on the layoff list they really don't want to.
They want to find you. And they found me a place with the US Environmental Protection Agency.
(21:13):
So now I've gone from corporate to an agency that actively manages land to an agency that regulates all of the above.
And they reassigned me back to the forest that it just laid me off to help regulate how you do endangered species stuff.
(21:39):
And that was a little weird. The meeting I showed up at was even weirder and it didn't go.
And the forest supervisor who has laid me off said Ruth do something.
What would my mother do. What would my grandmother do. Well I think that's what I did. I don't actually.
(22:03):
But the meeting was less bad. So this guy who just laid me off went back to EPA and said I don't want her as my regulator.
I want her as my facilitator. And they hold my regulator job and they gave me the facilitator job.
(22:26):
And I became the accidental facilitator because I understood the technical. I had a degree in forestry and had a master's with environmental policy specialty.
And I worked that ground. I mean I knew the land literally. And now I was the facilitator, the referee, the mediator.
(22:50):
And there were a bunch of people who literally were trying to figure out how do you manage the woods with an endangered species.
So what kind of people are around the table at those kinds.
At those meetings.
Yeah. Like obviously you're talking EPA you're talking about the forestry service.
Are there private parties there as well all trying to figure this out or is this mainly.
(23:11):
What kind of meetings are you facilitating.
So imagine that there are 35 people in a room.
You have the environmental groups that had filed lawsuits, federal lawsuits about you need to figure this out.
And they are enjoining every timber sale coming down as it comes up.
(23:37):
So it's like well if we don't like what you do we're just going to go to the judge.
You have people from small communities where there are mills where the job base is largely timber dependent.
So if you're not cutting trees they don't have a job they don't have a way to feed their family.
You have government folks who are responsible for air water.
(24:02):
Those sorts you've got the regulators in there.
You've got the federal agencies who do their organ.
Congress said part of the reason I created you was pet trees.
So they're they're trying to figure out how to do what they're supposed to do given that.
If they choose this way these folks you know don't have any work and if they choose this way well they're going to end up back in court.
(24:26):
So it's a wide variety of interests and they're all living.
They're all living at different levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Are you familiar with Maslow?
So you've got folks who are worried about feeding their families.
And you've got folks who maybe are just worried about feeding their families but they are passionate about a cause in terms of biodiversity and forest health.
(24:55):
But they're not afraid to lose their jobs.
And so they're talking past each other and they are equally as passionate.
And yeah that's how I learned.
So that's how I thought I learned how to.
So in that moment are you are you thinking back to the there's a classic Bible story where there's two women claiming the baby and to try to figure out who the real mom is.
(25:24):
The person says well I'll just cut it in half and you can have half and you can have half and the birth mother was like no give her the baby and the one who was not the birth mother but claiming to be the mother was like give me my half.
I'll take my half.
And that's how they figured out who the birth mother actually was.
(25:45):
She didn't want her baby to die and she was like just give her I would rather her live than the baby live than me get half.
So were you were you trying to figure out how to divide the baby in those meetings in those early days and and with that what were some of the lessons you learned early on in facilitating what seems to be from from my standpoint with no background in forestry.
(26:13):
No background in in the ability to facilitate on that level.
What were the lessons that you were learning with what seems to be a very complex matrix of outcomes and decisions and you know every choice has consequences and consequences don't necessarily mean they're good they don't necessarily mean they're bad it just means if I choose door a this comes with door a if I choose door B etc.
(26:47):
So what what were some of the lessons that you learned in successes that you you were able to achieve through some of those early negotiations.
I think I mean lesson one is you will never know as much as you want to know.
There will always be I wish I knew this I wish I understood that and you and you still have to make decisions you even saying I'm just not going to make a decision is actually a decision right.
(27:16):
So manning managing the risk of not knowing as much is always there and the fear around not knowing everything.
But the two really big bazongas one was purpose a couple of you know the early meetings they weren't that good.
(27:38):
And I remember sitting down I had a co facilitator from the Forest Service and the Forest Supervisor and and we were trying to figure out how to make these meetings better because they were hard.
And so we started with purpose.
And we said hey when you want your wildlife biologists to handle you know this this topic in the meeting what do you want that person to do what do you want your road person to do what do you want your forester to do.
(28:09):
And the and the boss could say the purpose of this is that and this is what I want and it was very clear.
And we still had half of the agenda to do.
And fortunately he came up with this and I didn't have to say it because I was really nervous.
He says wait a minute half of this agenda is me.
(28:31):
Yeah that's true.
And I'm not clear on my purpose.
Well trying to have a good meeting if you're not clear about why the purpose of the meeting or the purpose of the agenda item is going to make it a lot harder.
Sure. And and he realized and we realized kind of together that when we craft an agenda.
There's a purpose of the meeting.
(28:54):
And you can use this in your meeting this week right.
There's a purpose of the meeting but there's a purpose for everything on that agenda.
And the clearer you are about what you need to accomplish.
I need to come up with a list of places for dinner.
I need to make a decision about who to hire.
I need to brainstorm ideas for a new fundraiser.
(29:17):
The clearer you are about your purpose the better that meeting is going to be and the faster you're going to get your work done.
Because if you're not clear about purpose you just can get frustrated.
For sure.
You know I was watching the other day a conversation between two professional very accomplished Nashville songwriters.
(29:41):
And they were talking about it was a fascinating conversation and they were talking about songwriting.
And you know of any place in the world where the songwriter is valued it's Nashville.
It's that's more than LA that's more than New York it's more than really any other musical hot spot in the world.
(30:03):
Nashville is known as that songwriter it celebrates the songwriter and so when you hear songs come out of Nashville often times it's multiple people.
You know facilitating a song it may not be a meeting but it's a song.
And the reason why I bring this up I came to mind when you were talking about this because I found this to be really fascinating.
(30:28):
They were talking about ego and that there are a lot of they were talking about some mistakes that songwriters make in in writing songs and and it's in the collaboration of creating a song and one of the guys pointed out that often times there's a breakdown with ego where someone in the room.
(30:55):
So let's say there's four people that are trying to co-write the next big hit and one of the people in the room wants to make sure that they have more credit for more lines of lyrics in the song than anyone else.
(31:17):
So let's say there's you know between your verses and your choruses and any other parts of the song that are written.
Let's say there's 30 lines they want to make sure that they've got more than anyone else credit.
It's just an ego thing like I want to make sure I leave my stamp on this song and their point was.
(31:41):
The best songwriting happens when we place the priority on creating a great song not on my part of the song.
So if we keep the song the main thing if we keep the the creation of like our purpose in this room is to create a great song.
(32:05):
We can only write one line of the song but it makes the song better and someone else may have written 29 other lines but that one line made it complete then great because now we've got a great song and it goes for the musicians in the room who are writing the chords
(32:27):
and whoever might be writing melody lines and what is actually you know the lyrics are being sung to those notes.
But they were just talking about all of these different pieces working together about holding at the top the priority is can we create a great song and let's make that what we judge our success on not how many chords did I control.
(32:56):
How many chords did I contribute to the song how many lyrics did I write you know did I write the the main part of the chorus etc.
So in your meetings I'm hearing the same kind of ideas percolate about priority and purpose.
(33:18):
You began that career facilitating which was this evolution you know part pushing through but also at the same time pushing through and kind of pivoting into this new found career and learning about this idea of first principles and priority etc.
(33:42):
How did that shape you going forward in your career and how did it make it did it make it easier to facilitate meetings did you know how did that kind of contribute to your next steps.
It's funny I pointed that meeting with the four supervisor and my co facilitator because that really it turned out to be a turning point for me in terms of understanding why purpose is so it's such a big deal in in the big way and in the small way.
(34:14):
And I'm a graphic facilitator visual facilitator which means I doodle on flip charts like I use color and pictures and to drop people together.
And the graphic I have is is based on the word why and part of the skill of facilitators is is asking questions because you're not an arbitrator you're not a judge you're not the person that's going to give them the answer.
(34:48):
It's really important to be the neutral person in the room because if you're playing agenda that's just it's going to make it work.
But the question why is such a wonderful question because the W stands for what or purpose the purpose of the meeting the purpose of your organization the purpose of everything on an agenda.
(35:12):
The H is the how how are you going to do it. And you know what there's only three things.
You gather information or you share information thinking about updates presentation stuff like that.
You analyze and make sense of information.
What did the survey mean when we made that decision what happened you know sort of making sense of the information that you have.
(35:40):
And then the third thing is you make decisions and that can be making recommendations to a decision maker or it could be making a decision for your group.
And so the magic of matching your purpose to what are you going to do.
So if I need to come up with a list of possibilities that's a different purpose and an action than if I need to choose a place to go to dinner.
(36:06):
I still may make a list of possibilities. But if I stop at the list I don't pick a place to dinner.
And then we're hungry.
And and the power of the word why it's this tiny little word right.
The elementary I live.
I can see an elementary school from my house.
(36:27):
Like it's less than a block.
And they have a piece in every room of the elementary school.
And so if if you have if you're a student and you have a problem you can go to an adult and they'll help you or you can go to a fifth grade.
Because they train between third grade and fifth grader.
(36:50):
They train the kids to be mediators.
They train them to help solve problems.
And so when I go into third grade classrooms.
Yeah we're going to teach third graders how to be mediator and we're going to teach them with one word.
So I walk in with an orange one orange.
And I get two kids to help me.
(37:13):
I say whoa I've got one orange what am I going to do.
And the two kids say I want it I want it and I look at the class.
I got one orange two kids what do they tell me to do.
Split the orange.
Cut it in half.
Logical thing to do.
And on cue my two co-conspirators don't like that idea.
(37:35):
Like they really don't like that idea.
Oh my gosh what am I going to do.
The obvious solution is not so obvious.
And you let the kids wrestle with the silence.
What do I do now.
Help me what do I do.
And you can feel the tension we don't like silence.
Right.
And finally somebody will say why do they want the orange.
(38:00):
The powerful word right.
I say ask the little girl why would you like the orange.
And she says I'm really hungry I want the whole orange.
And you go yeah that makes sense.
You turn to the little boy and say why do you want the orange.
He says it's my mom's birthday.
And she likes orange frosting on her cake.
I want the zest off the orange to make my mom's birthday cake.
(38:21):
And all of a sudden a simple question has opened up more possibilities.
Now when I work in nuclear waste cleanup or reuse for military bases or other things that sound pretty intransigent.
Asking people why.
(38:44):
Why is this important to you.
It's not a judgment about is it good enough.
It's important to you because it's important to you help us understand what that is.
And now you get into your music example.
You know I want to contribute lyrics I want to contribute a chord progression I want to contribute.
But the point is we want to make sure we use this orange well we want to have a good song.
(39:13):
One of the groups that I worked with the longest was working in nuclear waste cleanup over at the Hanford nuclear reservation.
And those groups sometimes they were 100 people.
From all walks of life.
And the history of nuclear weapons in this country and how you clean up from making them is kind of complex.
(39:41):
But when they get lost in the technical or lost in the politics or just mad at you.
They were one of the most powerful groups that I've ever worked with because they had a shared purpose.
Nobody in that government private industry nonprofit regular citizen nobody believed the cleanup was done.
(40:07):
So when we get lost we could always pull back to this the common purpose which was we want this place and we want it safe.
And having that touchstone regardless of what kind of topic you're working on is so incredibly.
(40:30):
Purpose and being able to ask why in a curious fashion not an accuser.
In the why you said the what is the purpose.
H is the how and the why is what the why is is the people it's you or who you were you were it's not it's not quite as clean as the W.
(40:54):
I like it though that makes sense.
But in any meeting.
Okay, you can see the people in the meeting usually right.
You know who they are.
But there are two other groups there are three groups in a meeting.
They're the people who have contributed information and ideas to the meeting that maybe don't show up at the meeting.
(41:15):
Right they prepared a report they ran a survey they passed you a note as you went into the meeting room.
There are people who are contributing to that meeting who aren't physically in that meeting.
Right.
And there are people who will be affected by that meeting who are in the meeting.
And so making sure that at some level somebody's worrying about the people who aren't in the room.
(41:38):
This meetings aren't usually done as an island with no effect.
Right.
So in this line of work.
Obviously you've gleaned a lot of lessons you shared the your your acronym the the why framework which I love and talked about purpose and how that guides you.
(42:04):
What are some things that you know looking at your your career and looking at your work whether whether it was early on with the forestry or the soccer or later in the facilitating.
What are some things or a thing that you wish you would have known earlier.
(42:31):
I think I wish I had understood.
That communications that asking the why.
Isn't something.
That we all come equipped with.
I grew up in a household where.
(42:56):
Most of the adults in my world modeled.
Working with people collaborate collaboratively to get stuff done.
Whether it was you know helping solve a family problem or you know in an organizational setting.
But there was a premium place on communicating and helping people work together.
(43:22):
I didn't understand until I was.
Maybe someone said well you could be a good facilitator and somebody else said well actually you kind of are.
Well I never had a facilitation.
Heck I could hardly spell.
I just do what my mother would do when you know somebody loses their.
(43:45):
And they sent me to a bunch of training stuff and I'm like oh my gosh there were for this their theories for this I just do what my mother.
To do so what I learned is a survival skill isn't common.
And so if I would walk into a group and I'm like they know how to do this.
In other words why do they need me in the first place.
(44:08):
It's because I'm not.
Persuaded that we.
Almost adult people.
Are doing a great job of helping our youngsters.
Learn how to do that.
How to have a tough conversation.
Heck how to have a conversation that it doesn't involve my smart phone.
(44:31):
Right sit down and have a conversation share ideas be okay.
If it's something that we don't have to agree on.
Going to a Chinese restaurant you want shrimp I want chicken.
We don't have to agree.
We do if it's Thanksgiving dinner we're probably only going to cook.
Right right.
But how do we help the people that we work with that we live near.
(44:57):
You know neighbors and friends.
Do a better.
Of communicating and not assuming they have that.
And it's okay to ask the word why it's okay to ask.
Tell me more.
How would they know.
(45:19):
I wish I had understood.
Better.
That not everybody knows how to do that.
And so.
Having compassion around that to help them have those communications.
Is really important.
Whether it's talking to your neighbor or whether.
(45:41):
How would you define success.
You know in a in a meeting or success in a facilitation in a.
An argument you know.
We can take it into a more informal setting you know for the audience they're probably.
They're probably not walking into a meeting with the EPA tomorrow to figure out how to save the spotted owl and.
(46:08):
In what trees they can or cannot cut down or harvest or etc.
But they they probably are trying to figure out.
What do we do.
You know in in this situation with my kid and his school and his grades or.
Do we do we move to this city for this job or not or.
Where are we going for dinner can even result in the need for a mediation.
(46:33):
At times.
My my little side tip for anyone if you're if you're up for some spontaneity.
Just you know pick a couple places you think you would want to do and then flip a coin.
You know and just let chance.
You know make the decision sometimes will kind of.
When it when it comes to food will will will come down to.
(46:56):
We don't want to eat everything but there might be two or three things that we would consider eating and.
I just got to the point where I'm just like hey I'll just flip a coin and if it says.
Heads will go here and it's tails will go here as long as.
We're okay with with agreeing on a wider.
Set of parameters of where we're going to eat rather than just the one place we're going to go eat.
(47:22):
And so I'll do that on occasion I've even done that for vacations and other things where it's like.
We don't have to even force agreement let's just you know do we agree to.
These parameters of how we're going to get the final decision so in your case how would you define.
A successful outcome of a mediation whether it's informal or formal.
(47:48):
There's a short answer in the longer.
The short answer is really bad if you're in consulting and you like to market like get future work.
Because the best meetings are when people actually do come to agreement.
And they're excited about you know have you have you been in a meeting where the meeting ends and everybody is drained and they kind of drag out the door and you go home.
(48:15):
Okay well we survived as opposed to the meeting where people came together they created something they made a decision and as they're walking out the door the energy says did you see what we did.
Right and you can feel the difference.
The great the tricky bit about that is if it's really good they won't say.
(48:37):
Did you see what we did in Ruth was our facilitator you know if it's really good they won't know you were in there it's like being a really good referee.
And people remember the game but they don't remember the referee right 100% the longer version.
I think is rooted in how I think about consensus.
(48:58):
And you are on to something knowing how you're going to decide before you decide is really important.
Because if you're making up how you're deciding in the middle of the thing people will be can feel cheated.
Oh you changed the rules partway between right that doesn't feel fair and we have this in this need for it to feel fair and for us to feel heard.
(49:27):
And sometimes you don't have to win exactly but if it's fair and you feel heard.
You can roll with it easier.
So when and with my groups I asked them what is your definition of consensus because we got to know that before we before we get into this to deep.
And there are three parts.
One is I understand the proposal I understand what we're trying to do.
(49:52):
Right if you don't understand what you're trying to do the rest doesn't.
So it's clear we want to pick a place for dinner.
The second is I can live with the decision.
Now if you imagine a spectrum from over my dead body I am going to fight you to my last breath.
(50:15):
And everything to the other side of that is I guess I could live to this is the best thing since coffee ice cream right.
So you've got this wide range of agreement a little bit of agreement to like absolute enthusiasm but it's not I'm going to fight you over my dead body.
(50:39):
So the agreement part is I can live with it.
And it's OK if your I can live with it has a different energy than mine.
Right.
Because we're still in the I can live with it.
For sure.
But the third part is the magic.
It's all supported.
(51:00):
It's not I'm going to give lip service in this meeting and I can live with it and I'm not as crazy about it as Daniel is.
No no no the test is when I walk out am I going to bad mouth the decision or the people or the process or the no no no no the magic is I'm going to support it.
Even if it wasn't my favorite but I'm going to support it I understand it.
(51:24):
I can live with it.
I can support it.
And maybe part of I can support it is well next time we'll get to go for Italian.
Right.
I've used that card before.
Yeah.
I don't really want to do Mexican today.
Can we do it tomorrow.
You know like that kind of thing for sure for sure.
(51:46):
And you know our family is a little my wife and my oldest son are less picky eaters.
You know we have a spectrum and I would probably say my oldest son is probably the furthest into Ali pretty much anything and then my wife is not far behind.
(52:12):
She'll she'll eat most things and she has in the course of our relationship pulled me much further to her side of the of the dietary spectrum.
My youngest son is me at that age where it was like I have a finite menu of a handful of things and it's going to take me a while to expand my palate let's say.
(52:45):
So we do have some challenges from time to time about figuring out what we're going to have for dinner and the I you know like I said I found the coin toss to be one of the
frameworks to get to a decision and then as you pointed out the idea of OK well maybe not this time but maybe next time we'll do this etc.
(53:07):
As another way to kind of create consensus and an agreement so that we don't all kill each other in the car.
You know it helps.
So for sure for sure. Well if you could leave the audience with one piece of advice maybe they are maybe they're in a difficult situation and they're trying to figure out like I don't really know how to overcome this situation and I've got to talk it through with someone but I don't know.
(53:39):
I don't know how to get there. I don't know. You know maybe it's maybe it's a first step in that process. Maybe it's you know a difficult conversation about you know where do we go from here.
They're facing a business decision and they don't know you know do I push through do I pivot as we've talked about throughout this this episode.
(54:02):
If you can leave the audience with kind of one final thought one piece of advice. What would you have to kind of help people facilitate some you know.
Choices that that as we've acknowledged every choice has a consequence but.
(54:24):
Could you give us something that that would give. Maybe useful helpful to someone in a situation where they're trying to figure out a way forward.
I would I would take two parts and you start with yourself and there there's a technique and it's probably got a fancy name. I just think of my I have a five year old.
(54:47):
And and for those who have small children in their world. What is their favorite question.
It's back to why. Yep.
So when.
When someone asks a series of why questions think about when your kids were little.
And they say you know why do I have to eat my broccoli for dinner. Right. You know what your mother.
(55:18):
Well why well she wanted to create a torture me. I'm sorry why right. So every time you ask why you go a little deeper right.
So okay it's okay to pretend you can borrow my five year old grandson.
And what happens is every time you go deeper you you're discovering more information something that's important to you.
Some more aspects. So if you're in a in a tricky situation in a difficult situation.
(55:44):
Ask yourself that if you go about five times it's called the five wise.
You run that four or five times with yourself. You're going to start getting into why is it important that I contributed a melody.
Why is it important that I have broccoli. Why. Why is this issue so important to me.
(56:08):
Is it self respect. Is it I'm worried about my income. Is it I'm worried about my kids. Whatever it is.
So when you're clear on your why. Why is this important to me. Or even it's important to me because I'm afraid of this thing happening.
And being able to identify that. Oh that's why this is important. Because I'm actually afraid of.
(56:31):
Then when you when you're meeting with the person that you have to work stuff out with.
Find ways to ask them why as well. Because you're not seeking to impose your thing on them off the bat.
That's probably not going to go. But if you're going I want to understand why this is important to me.
(56:55):
So tell me more what does that look like I want to understand. So you keep your why in that in that realm.
Not why do you think that nutty thing. Don't ask me.
But if you ask your partner your colleague. Then you're going to understand better what is important to them.
(57:17):
And sometimes there's a way to solve what's important to you and what's important to me at the same time.
Remember that orange. Cutting it in half wasn't the best idea.
We had to understand why it was important to those two kids.
But before you can have a great conversation with the neighbor.
(57:39):
You got to understand what's important to you.
And then hopefully having the courage to say well it's really important to me that that is not happening.
I'm worried. They just might step up and help you out.
That's good. That is so good. Well Ruth. Thank you for joining us on this episode.
(58:04):
Where can people connect with you or learn more about your work and your background and maybe even get some help from you to mediate and facilitate some of their situations that need to be resolved.
Where could they connect with you?
(58:28):
I've got a website that's more focused on youth sports which is a whole other conversation in conflict.
But it's an easy website to remember which is gohelpsports.com.
Gohelpsports.com. And they can connect with you through there.
Perfect. Perfect. Well thank you so much for joining us.
(58:52):
If you want to learn more about my Joe and what we're doing as part of the my Joe experience.
Go to join my Joe.com and you can follow us on all of our social channels at my Joe XP.
Again, Ruth. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your wisdom with us.
And hopefully your journey will be a little bit easier being able to negotiate and facilitate meetings and conflicts in your life.
(59:22):
I know I gleaned a lot from this and I appreciate you sharing that with us.
Until next time, we'll see you later.
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