Undiscussables – Taming Wicked Problems

Becoming Skilled: Discussing the Undiscussables

Joseph Bentley — Mon, 11 Apr 2016 15:31:08 +0000

April 10, 2016

During the late 1960’s, at the height of the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Baines Johnson found himself with a seemingly intractable problem. Having stated unequivocally that he would not be the first American president to lose a war, he seemed that he was to do just that. Everything that he tried had not stopped the relentless advance of the North Vietnamese offensive into South Vietnam. His great hope had been to begin withdrawing American troops from Vietnam, yet the only option that seemed open to him was to do the opposite, to keep increasing the number of American troops committed to the war believing that would finally turn the tide.

As Johnson faced one impossible situation after another, he would convene the National Security Council, present his latest proposal and ask for advice. According to Chester Cooper, a member of the NSC, these meetings would begin with Johnson introducing an important issue or problem and outlining his proposed solution. This would be followed by a “bland and desultory” discussion. Johnson would then announce his decision, and poll everyone in the room – council members, their assistants, and members of the White House and NSC staffs – as to whether they were in agreement: “Mr. Secretary, do you agree with the decision?” “Yes, Mr. President.” “Mr. X, do you agree?” “I agree Mr. President.” And on and on the pattern would repeat itself.

“During the process,” reported Cooper, “I would frequently fall into a Walter Mitty-like fantasy: when my turn came I would rise to my feet slowly, look around the room and then directly at the President and say, very quietly and emphatically, ‘Mr. President, gentlemen, I most definitely do not agree.’ But I was removed from my trance when I heard the President’s voice saying, Mr. Cooper, do you agree?’ And out would come a ‘Yes, Mr. President, I agree.'”

According to John Stroessinger in Crusaders and Pragmatists, President Johnson “overwhelmed his advisors with the sheer force of his personality. They sensed what he wanted and gave it to him… Johnson did not have advisors to seek advice,” Stoessinger continued, “but to elicit emotional support for his personal beliefs.”

Everyone understood what was expected of them. There was an elephant in the room, and everyone was clear about it: there would be no disagreeing with President Johnson. The fact that no one could disagree was undiscussable. And to compound the problem, the fact that disagreeing with Johnson was undiscussable was itself undiscussable.

During those troubled times, Johnson’s “advisors” were in a double bind. They were required to agree to something that for the most part they did not believe – that more and more soldiers were the answer. If they disagreed they would be punished. If they tried to explain that it was impossible to disagree, they would also be punished. And so they were not able to talk about the predicament in which they found themselves.

Would it have made a difference if Johnson’s advisors would have felt able to freely express their opinions? Clearly, it would depend upon Johnson’s willingness to consider their opinions, to place them on the table and to lead an open and honest discussion in reviewing them. But this didn’t happen. There are historian who have concluded that Johnson’s unwillingness to permit others to openly discuss his proposals, as well as his style, unnecessarily prolonged the inevitable defeat in Vietnam at a cost of thousands of additional lives.

And change could have started with a simple statement: “Mr. President, we are struggling with an issue that we are not able to talk about: We do not feel free to disagree with your proposals and decisions. Much of the time, our agreements are dishonest. It is time we begin to discuss what up to now has been undiscussable.” Even though Johnson desperately needed help during the last months of the war, the force of his personal style made it impossible for those who could have helped to offer the help he needed.

Undiscussables are Universal

Fewof us will face such a disastrous dilemma as did President Johnson. Yet sooner or later, we will all find ourselves is a somewhat similar situation: There are important things that we need to talk about or learn about, but because they are undiscussable, they are not brought to the surface where they can be examined and acted upon. Opening up undiscussable issues and situations, gaining a more accurate and complete understanding of the problems they represent, and then moving to make changes in the way people relate to each other, and the way work is done, are among the most important ways to improve the quality of key relationships and the productivity of teams and organizations. But as I have suggested, discussing undiscussable issues and situations requires careful planning and skillful execution. Otherwise, things can get worse, and may become irredeemable.

Most of the time when issues, events or situations move from the “We Can Talk About This” to “This is Something That We Need to Avoid,” there is the serious possibility of someone being embarrassed, humiliated or exposed. Most things are undiscussable because someone wants it that way. Pushing to bring them to the surface, unless it is done well, will inevitably create tension, resentment, and conflict. Easy issues are discussed easily. It is the gnarly, wicked issues that get pushed down into Undiscussable Land.

From Undiscussable to Discussable

How do the members of a relationship or team or leaders in organizations go about identifying the important undiscussable that exist in all social environments? Jeffery Pfeffer, in Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time, repeats the approach I have proposed in these essays numerous times: “To get from one place to another,” he writes, “you need to know as best as you can where you are, where you want to go, and, most important, the obstacles and barriers that you will likely encounter en route.” When it comes to undiscussable, the first question is “Where are we?” The second is “Where do we want to go?” The third is What are the obstacles that stand in our way?” and finally, “What should be done to remove the most important obstacles?”

Before exploring more in depth these action steps there is an important consideration to keep in mind: In all social environments not everything needs to be discussed! At times, it is better to leave some things unexplored and unexamined. If Knowledge is knowing what to say, and Skill is knowing how to say it, then Wisdom is knowing whether to say it or not. As William James said, “The art of being wise is to know what to overlook.” Some issues or situations are better overlooked; others should be brought to the surface.

I wish I had a simple recipe for telling the difference, but as I have said many times, when we are grappling with wicked problems, there are no recipes. Yet there are guidelines. Here are several:

– If the issue is primarily one’s own, and not shared by other people, then living with it may be the best option;

– If you have tried to live with the issue and found that to be impossible, then perhaps it needs to be discussed;

– If you sense that others share your concern and especially if you or others have spoken of it quietly among yourselves, then it is increasingly something that needs explicit attention;

– Issues to be brought to the surface should have the potential to become actionable. It makes no sense to bring to the surface issues or situations for which nothing can be done;

– And finally, issues or situations that are negatively affecting the quality of relationships and the productively of teams and organizations are important candidates for movement from undiscussable to discussable.

Helpful Conditions

The Owner: Changing an undiscussable situation into one that can be discussed requires that someone be in charge of making it happen. If the “owner” is also the legitimate leader of a team or organization, then the possibilities of success are increased. This “owner” should be one who cares about improving things; who has the authority, power, or “intestinal fortitude” to make it happen; who has “money in the bank;” – a positive reputation – who is willing and able to manage what will surely be serious risks; and who is skillful at managing difficult, emerging situations. If the “owner” has limited experience with such situations, it may be wise to bring in a consultant to help with the process.

Other People: The people who know about, care about, and are affected by the undiscussed problem need to be part of the process but other people need not be involved. If it is part of a relationship, then the several parties all need to participate. If the situation is a team problem, then team members all need to be at the table. If the issue is an organizational one, then key members of the organization should form an action team to deal with it.

Introducing the Concept: Before beginning any serious work, the key people need to understand the concept of Undiscussable. Either the “owner” begins with a brief presentation on the topic (“Undiscussable Issues and Why they Are Important”) or assigns someone to research the topic and make the presentation. It should include the fact that undiscussables exist in all relationships and organizations, that they usually reduce satisfaction and productivity, that there are negative consequences of letting them remain unaddressed, and the potential positive outcomes of dealing with them openly.

Describing the Process: After the people involved understand the concept involved, the “owner” begins: “I am convinced that there are undiscussable issues that are affecting the quality of our work. I believe that it is important that we deal with them. I am committed to doing this in a productive, positive and supportive way, etc. etc.” A “road map” is useful: “Here is what I see happening: We need to figure out what are our most important undiscussables. We need to think about what we should do about them, and then we should get to work on making changes.”

Soft Start: Since the territory that is to be explored is unknown and could be potentially threatening, a “soft start” is helpful. I have learned that one way to begin is that once people have grasped the concept, invite them to write an anonymous list of undiscussables that concern them – two or three is a good number for starters – and hand these to the owner. He or she will then read them aloud while someone lists them on an easel or whiteboard.

Establish Priorities: An important next step is to review the list of issues and establish a priority list. I suggest that two criteria be used: Frequency and feasibility. Those issues that are mentioned frequently plus those that seem capable of change should be moved to the top of the list.

Be a Model: It is important for the owner or leader to set an example by modeling helpful behavior. “I believe that the issue of unproductive meetings is one that we should begin with. It is one that I had on my list, and since there are five other mentions, it is clearly important. I will begin by describing what I think is our undiscussable issue about our team meetings…” By taking the initiative and beginning with an issue that he or she has included in the list, the leader can contribute to the creation of a helpful and safe environment that will support and encourage increasingly open and honest conversation.

Moving to Action: Following an open discussion characterized by non-defensive listening, and helpful clarification (“So, what I’m learning here is that what I thought was the problem with our team meetings wasn’t really important for the rest of you, but that these four issues are important…”) the owner (or the facilitator) helps the team move toward the creation of an action plan, one that begins with the formulation of an actionable problem.

It’s Always More Complicated

It is possible, of course, to make a list of steps to be followed in reaching any important goal. I just did it. It is important to emphasize, however, that such lists are always superficial, inadequate and incomplete. Its function here is not to provide a solution to the problem of working with undiscussable issues and situations, but to offer one version of how one might go about it. Doing it in real time, with real people, and real issues, is always much more complicated than making a list. Like any other important skill, once one has an idea about what to do, actually doing it is always a learning process. Including at the end of any work session an After Action Review (AAR) is an excellent idea. An AAR consists of two questions – “What did we do that helped us, that we should keep doing in the future?” and “What didn’t help us and should change next time?” It is a safe assumption few partners in a relationship, or few teams or organizations are competent in managing the difficult dynamics of working with the wickedness of undiscussables and so an AAR is a vital step to take toward the continuous improvement of attitudes and skills.

“Hic Sunt Dracones”

Finally, those undiscussable issues that are themselves undiscussable are not only the most pernicious, but also the most dangerous to address. When the existence of undiscussable issues itself becomes undiscussable, it is safe to assume that someone is vitally interested in covering something up. Bringing them to the surface may never be a good idea, at least at first. Making such an effort is not for the unprepared nor the fainthearted, but requires a combination of a climate of trust and an unusual group of highly skilled people, two conditions that rarely come together at the same time and in the same place. And even then, attempting to get to the bottom of the pit where undiscussable issues that cannot be discussed are consigned may open a proverbial Pandora’s Box, the consequences of which may leave a path of unwanted and unfortunate destruction in its wake.

When the medieval mapmakers came to the end of their known world, some would place on the margin of their maps the Latin phrase “Hic Sunt Dracones:” Here be dragons! When struggling with wicked problems we will find ourselves in a similar predicament: we will come to the end of our known world; what lies beyond is always uncharted territory. When it comes to surfacing undiscussable issues and situations, and especially when the issue of undiscussablity is itself undiscussable, we need to explore these unknown territories with great care: “Hic Sunt Dracones!”

Becoming Skilled: The Existence of Undiscussables

Joseph Bentley — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 18:51:29 +0000

March 26, 2016

A Skill for Wicked Problems:

The Existence
of Undiscussables

What Elephant?

In 1935 singer and comedian Jimmy Durante starred in the Billy Rose Broadway musical Jumbo. In one scene, Durante crosses the stage leading a huge elephant. “What are you doing with that elephant,” asks a policeman. Durante’s answer, “What elephant?” always brought down the house.

An Elephant in the Room

When the consultants delivered their diagnosis about the effectiveness of the executive team, no one was surprised. Their first conclusion was an observation that everyone already knew: “The most important problem in the senior team is a reluctance to express openly what the members are thinking, especially if they believe that their ideas or suggestions are controversial.” Unfortunately, “everyone” who knew this didn’t include John, the CEO and team leader.

John began the next team meeting by saying, “I have read the consultants’ report,” he said, “and I have a hard time believing that what they say is true. I can’t imagine that here, in this team, there are people who are holding back. So we are going to begin this meeting by going around and asking that each one of you say exactly what you are thinking.” He turned to Mary, sitting on his left. “Mary, you begin.”

The next hour was full of what Chris Argysis has called “Fancy Footwork.” Each person worked hard to give the appearance of saying something important (” What I think is that we have worked hard to face up to our problems, and we have made good progress. We just need to keep going.”), but actually danced around saying anything important. They all knew it was too risky to say what they really thought.

Finally, it’s your turn. Surprising everyone, even yourself, you rise to your feet, turn to look at your boss. and say in a clear and confident voice: “John, the consultants are right. I’ll speak for myself, but I know that everyone else in this room feels the same way. There is an elephant in this room and all of us know it except you. Our problem is that we are afraid to talk about it. I don’t say what I think because it’s too dangerous. None of us do. Why? Because I don’t trust you to hear me out and treat me fairly. After all, everyone in this room saw what happened to Charles when he spoke up and disagreed with you. The real problem here is not that we are not able to speak up and express ourselves, it is that we are fearful that there will be negative consequences. And John, these consequences come from you. You are the real source of this problem.”

Undiscussables

Actually, you do nothing of the kind: You do not stand, you do not speak to your boss, and just like everyone else you do not say what you think. The elephant in the room is big and powerful and very much in charge.

Rather, when it’s your turn, you remain seated and say the innocuous, safe things that echo everyone else: “Sure we’ve got problems. Everyone knows that. But speaking up and saying what we think is not one of them. I have no idea where the consultants got that idea.” John nods at you and looks around the room, a broad smile on his face.

There is no actual elephant of course. The “elephant” stands for issues, situations, or events that everyone knows about but not is willing to discuss.

Elephants-in-Rooms have another name: They are the Undiscussables.

In all relationships and situations there are difficult issues and problems that with effort and patience can be openly discussed and, as a result, are often resolved. And then there are those that can never be resolved because it is unacceptable, even forbidden, to name them, let alone discuss them. These are issues, situations, events, that everyone knows are off-limits and taboo. They are not to be acknowledged, named or discussed. These are the undiscussables. The fact that they exist and not discussed compounds their toxicity since those who suffer their consequences are painfully aware that since they cannot be discussed, nothing will be done about them.

And they are found everywhere: in families, in relationships, in teams and groups, in organizations, in societies, and even in individuals’ private lives. Wherever they are found, they contribute to making things worse.

Here are some examples:

Hume Cronyn’s Happy Family

Hume Cronyn, the renowned actor, grew up during the early years of the last century in a wealthy, upper class, Canadian family. His father suffered from a chronic disease that caused him to suffer occasional seizures. These seizures, when they occurred in public, were never acknowledged or discussed; they were assiduously ignored. In his autobiography Cronyn writes of the time when they were having dinner and his father suffered a seizure and fell face-down into his food. “We all had to keep our places while they butler came over and righted my father, wiped him off carefully and served him a fresh plate. After a while,” Cronyn writes,” he regained consciousness. He looked around, bewildered…as we resumed the conversation exactly where it had broken off.” His father’s seizures were undiscussable, and family members had to pretend that they had never happened.

The Dance Critic

In December, 1994, dance critic Arlene Croce published an article in The New Yorker titled “Discussing the Undiscussable.” The focus of her article was to explain why she was not going to write a review of the dance performance, “Still/Here,” created by dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones. “In this piece,” writes Croce, “…Jones presents people who are terminally ill and talk about it.” When Croce wrote her article she had not seen the performance and had no plans to see it. A dance piece featuring people who were terminally ill and who talked about their experience of dying while other people were dancing out the meaning of their words was more than she could bear “I don’t deny that ‘Still/Here’ may be of value…But my approach has been cut off. By working dying people into his act, Jones is putting himself beyond the reach of criticism. I think of him as literally undiscussable – the most extreme case among the distressingly many now representing themselves to the public not as artists but as victims and martyrs….For me,” Croce concluded “Jones is undiscussable because he has taken sanctuary among the unwell.”

The Nun with a Glass Eye

A number of years ago I spent several days at a Catholic High School in San Antonio, Texas, helping the teachers and administers – nuns and brothers – increase their collaboration and communication skills. During the time I spent with them, I was puzzled by the behavior of one of the nuns. Whenever she spoke to me, or to anyone else, she would arrange to have her right hand covering her right eye. She would do this by making what seemed to be casual, even random movements of her hand in the vicinity of her eye. It was as if she were telling us that having her hand in front of her eye meant nothing and so we shouldn’t notice.

Curious, I asked the Mother Superior about it. “Oh,” she said,” that’s Sister Mary Catherine. She has a glass eye and she is ashamed of it. She has spent the last eight years pretending that her eye is not made of glass, and because we love her, we have all joined in. We never discuss the fact that Sister Mary Catherine has a glass eye, and we never let on that we all know.

“Eight years seems to be a long time to keep up the pretense,” I observed. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to talk about it with her?”

“Oh, we couldn’t do that, “she answered. “She would be devastated.”

“Or she might be relieved,” I countered.

We discussed the”glass-eye” problem for twenty minutes, and eventually the Mother Superior agreed that it was time for everyone to discuss what up to that point has been undiscussable.

Later that afternoon, in a group session designed to identify issues and topics that people were avoiding but needed to talk about – the undiscussables- the Mother Superior turned to Sister Mary Catherine and said with great tenderness, “Sister Mary Catherine, please do not be offended, but I want you to know that we all know that you have a glass eye. Be assured that it makes no difference at all. We love you the way you are.”

What happened next can only be described as a huge collective sigh of relief, followed by crying, laughing and hugging. At last, Sister Mary Catherine was able to talk openly about her struggle to hide something that everyone knew about, and she was able to do it without any attempt to cover her now-famous glass eye. Everyone acknowledged how much emotional energy had been wasted is trying to “play the game.”

The CEO’s Helicopter

During a time when I was consulting with a large company in Mexico, the CEO, facing a precarious economic climate, announced a major cost-cutting program. The work force was to be cut by 15%, travel budgets were to be slashed, the R & D program was put on hold, and for the next two years, there would be no raises.

As I interviewed key employees about the effects of this drastic attempt to cut costs, anger and frustration was rampant. It was not, however, directed so much at the cost-saving program itself – it was clear that something needed to be done – but to the fact that the CEO continued to arrive each morning as was his custom in his helicopter. People could not understand, and some could not accept, that he continued to arrive by helicopter even though he lived only 20 minutes away by car, and had a limo and driver available. “Carlos should be setting the example of saving money instead of arriving each morning in his helicopter,” said Francisco, the VP of Operations, “It would send a powerful example.”

“Shall we bring it up in the next meeting?” I asked.

“No, no, no, we can’t do that. What Carlos spends can never be mentioned, and to suggest he cut some of his own expenses is forbidden.”

“You mean it’s undiscussable?” I asked.

“Exactly,” said Francicso. It’s muy, muy undiscussable!”

And he was right. It was never discussed.

The Vision and Values Statement

In every office and meeting room at the New York branch of a large, multinational bank, hangs a plaque upon which two statements appear. They are titled “Our Vision,” and “Our Values.” When I first arrived at the bank as a consultant I studied them and found them to be quite profound. Later, I asked someone about them: “Do people ever talk about the Vision and Values statements that I see hanging on the wall everywhere? ” What I got in return was a blank look, a sophisticated version of “Huh?”

“What are you talking about?” my contact asked

“In every office that I have been in, I see a plaque listing the bank’s Vision and Values. Does any ever refer to them?”

He thought for a moment. “Nah,” he said, “they’re just for show.”

“Then why does the bank have them?”

“You know, I’ve never thought about it. What I do know is that they are the pet project of the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Ten or twelve years ago he brought in a consultant and we all went through an exercise to come up with a vision statement and a list of our values. And what we produced is right there on everybody’s wall.”

During the next week, I asked eight or nine people about them, and the answer was the same. No one could tell me without looking at what was on the plaque that hung in their office; no one could remember a time when they were even mentioned.

Later, while meeting with the CEO, I asked about the plaques and suggested that the Chairman of the Board ought to know that no one seems to be paying any attention to them. Perhaps something ought to be done, I suggested.

“Oh no,” he said. “We can’t say anything about them. The Chairman believes that they are the foundation of our corporate culture and they have made an enormous difference is the success of the bank.”

“You mean that the fact that no one can tell me what they are, and no one thinks that they are important is undiscussable,” I said.

“Yes,” he responded, “that’s it. They’re undiscussable.”

Harvard Business School’s Intractable Problem

In 2013, Jodi Kantor published a story in The New York Times in which she identified what she claimed that “The country’s premier business school was trying to solve a seemingly intractable problem.”

The problem was a a gender inequality problem: “Year after year,” wrote Kantor, “women who had arrived with the same test scores and grades as men fell behind. Attracting and retaining female professors was a losing battle; from 2006 to 2007, a third of the female junior faculty left.”

For the women students, there was confusion. They were likely to be sized up on how they looked rather than what they knew. Being too ambitious risked being punished, being too passive resulted in being ignored. “I had no idea who, as a single woman, I was meant to be on campus,” said Neda Navab, the daughter of Iranian immigrants. She wondered whether her priorities supposed to be “purely professional, were they academic, [or]were they to start dating someone?”

For the women junior faculty members, there was fear: “As a female faculty member, you are in an incredibly hostile teaching environment, and they do nothing to protect you,” said one woman who left without tenure. A current teacher told Kantor that she was so afraid of a “wardrobe malfunction” that “she wore only custom suits in class, her tops invisibly secured to her skin with double-sided tape.” The comparison of the women teachers with men did nothing to bolster their confidence: “The female profs I had were clearly weaker than the male ones,” said Halle Tecco, a 2011 graduate. “They weren’t able to really run the classroom the way the male ones could.”

Making matters worse, the gender issues were undiscussable: “You weren’t supposed to talk about it in open company,” said Kathleen L. Mcginn, a professor who supervised a study that showed a grade gap between men and women students. “It was a dirty secret that wasn’t discussed.”

It Gets Worse: Making Undiscussables Undiscussable.

While the presence of undiscussables in families, relationships and organizations is itself a wicked problem, it is also a contributing factor to many if not most of the other wicked problems -after all, if something cannot be discussed then there is no way to work on it. Yet there is something that is even more destructive to morale, satisfaction and productivity than the presence of undiscussable issues and situations: When the existence of undiscussable problems becomes itself undiscussable. In Flawed Advice and the Management Trap, author Chris Argysis insists that the key causal factor for failure in relationships and organizations is when the critical problems that need to be surfaced and discussed “were undiscussable, and their undiscussability was undiscussable.”

The presence of undiscussables is a serious but not an uncommon or an insurmountable problem. Addressed in skillful and careful ways, undiscussable problems can be discussed! But when the existence of these undiscussable issues, situations and problems becomes itself undiscussable, then all hope for improvement disappears. When important problems in relationships and organizations have the potential to be destructive in people’s lives and cannot be discussed, and the fact that they cannot be discussed itself cannot be discussed, then the the relationships and the organizations are in very serious trouble. If it is forbidden to even hint that “there could be an elephant in this room ,” then the elephant is going to be around for a long time, doing what elephants do when they find themselves in territory where they do not belong.

For the CEO in Mexico, the undiscussable issue of his profligacy in the midst of a campaign to cut costs everywhere else was clearly undiscussable: it could not even be hinted, at let alone discussed, and everyone knew it. When each morning the helicopter skimmed in over the company offices, a thousand people ground their teeth and muttered obscene words under their breaths.

Discussing Undiscussables

When difficult situations and issues in relationships and organizations are avoided, there is usually a good reason. People believe that to talk about them could be rude, or impolite, risky, or even dangerous. And so, over time, such issues become undiscussable. Soon unwritten rules emerge: “Everybody knows that it not acceptable to say anything about the way Brad abuses the staff,” and so even though it makes people upset, they pretend that it doesn’t happen. Without a serious effort, one that is carefully prepared and skillfully managed, undiscussables cannot be moved from the Undiscussable Category to the table where, in the light of day, they can be discussed, examined, and decisions about what do with them can be made.

In the next essay I will review useful steps to take and potential risks to avoid in the process of discussing undiscussables.