Oh Yeah...We're Human Beings

Thanks to Etienne Laliberté of the Contrarian Thinking blog for including me among a list of favorite blog posts--not only because it was nice and might have diverted a few more people to my Strategy in Four Words or Less Post, but because it diverted ME to a cool blog by Dan Oestreich called Unfolding Leadership. The specific post was about the term "touchy feely," and Dan's frustration with the general distaste of things touchy-feely in the business world. That is, distaste for consciously confronting the fact that organizations are made up of human beings, all of whom have emotions and relationships and baggage, etc.

I know the feeling. I often almost apologize for dealing with these human aspects in my work. I try to relax people by joking that not once in any of my sessions has anyone sung kumbayah. But then I go right to the human factors, because they are there and they (usually) need to be confronted. Not everyone will confront those things in the same way. Not everyone, as he points out, is going to want to use a "talking stick" during a facilitation. There are plenty of ways to get at these things, some that would be described as more touchy-feely than others. But we're doing our organizations a disservice by looking the other way, and I feel the costs are becoming increasingly larger.

Dan lays it out quite clearly:

At fifty-eight, I find myself getting really tired of the smugness of business people who want people like me to figure out how to help them solve their human problems without direct human means — and then ridicule my profession. What clever strategy can I come up with to deal with a problem of leadership or team dynamics without actually dealing with the problem of leadership or team dynamics? Please, they might as well say, don’t take us anyplace we don’t feel good, anyplace we are scared and vulnerable as individuals or as a group. Please don’t make us share our subjective stuff so somebody else can see how incomplete and untogether we are, where we have to show up as ourselves with actual feelings, actual anger, actual anxiety! In this sense, those who complain the loudest about not wanting to do something too touchy-feely often really just want to maintain the power of their personal feel-good mask. God knows, we shouldn’t disturb that.

This is the damage, the real, tangible human damage in the business world. By business world, I certainly also include other sectors, non-profits, academic and research organizations, etc. I don’t think we’ve changed the business culture much over time — some, but not nearly enough if we don’t start examining and dealing with the “touchy-feely,” undiscussable stuff that causes our enterprises to be woefully inefficient and sometimes really inhumane places to work. Because if you want to know what “touchy-feely” is code for that absolutely scares the crap out of people, it’s really simple. It’s just this: the truth.

Comments

[Maggie]

Very cool post! Reminds me of a staff retreat I went to, facilitated by a "touchy feely" person. Forget the regular team-building activities--first thing she wanted us to do was make a representation of our families using pipecleaners. First everyone--especially me--was freaked out, but the day ended up being awesome. I admit it was very hard to step out of the comfort zone of nobody knowing anyone's personal business, but it made for a very memorable retreat.

Unrelated to this retreat story but related to your post--something that happened after Patti Digh's session at the Great Ideas conference in February. Even though the whole audience was rapt during her presentation, the minute the clapping stopped at the end, someone at my table said, dismissively, "That was nice and all, but no way would I actually do any of those things," or something to that effect. The other people at the table quickly agreed. It was like she and the other people within earshot had to wipe off the stigma of actually becoming emotional in a business context by minimalizing the impact of what they'd just heard. I personally found it depressing--god forbid anyone in the room actually admit to being moved or affected in any way by her presentation.

[Jamie Notter]

Right on, Maggie! There are a lot of times where the overwhelming desire to be a part of the group causes us to act in weird ways. Liking anything touchy feely puts you in the "out" group, and we rarely want to be there. It's easier to go along and agree, or laugh with the joke, or dismiss the presentation. It's harder to stand up and contradict and say "Wow I had a different reaction. I think we need to be having more powerful conversations like that." But as Jeff said in a webinar today, leadership isn't for cowards.

[Dan]

Jamie

Just found this. Thanks for extending the learning!

Maggie -- your story about Patti Digh's session is all too common. I sympathize.