Exercise 11: Avoid imposing values
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Avoid Imposing Values
I caught few examples of using the “imposing values” words. When I did recognize using them in speaking, I felt like a big “GONG” go off in my head and I immediately reworded what I said to more of an “I statement”, using a statement of my feelings as opposed to my judgements.
The most glaring example that comes to mind is when I was out with my sister and brother-in-law listening to music. The waitress automatically brought water in plastic cups and I moaned. My sister said something about a message on the side of the cup about recycling and my response was a very emphatic “yeah but that’s bullshit”. My sister recoiled and I recognized my behavior as EXACTLY the opposite of what I want to do and having exactly the opposite effect that I would like to generate. I then said that what I meant was that very little plastic is recycled and that I wished I had told the waitress I didn’t want it before she put it down. The energy of my statement stopped conversation and took some time to dissipate.
Another time I recognized that I used the word “good” in an email response to Josh’s birthday greeting to me. On this occasion I didn’t recognize my use of the word until the next morning when I was meditating and I “saw” the word in my head and it made me laugh. He expressed appreciation in his email and I appreciated that. I said something like I was glad he experienced my having brought some “good” things to his life. On further reflection, what I wanted to communicate was that I appreciated his sharing some of the ways I had touched his life.
One of the things I appreciated most about this exercise was taking Hayden’s comment about being a beginner to heart and approaching it with “beginner mind”. I had a meditation that exploded with recognition that “beginner mind” is the source of awe and wonder, of being present in the moment. This prompted me to approach this exercise with fewer preconceptions.
One of the places I most frequently saw these words was in my inner monologue. “I could have done that better”, “I’m always wanting to do my best”, etc. I will continue to watch in this arena as well as in the world around me.
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Hi Beth,
I’m happy to be featured in your exercise! Ironically, with all the family time the last two weeks, I do not feel like I’ve embodied my beginner mind. I can very much relate to your story about the plastic cup. Saying things that end up having the exact opposite effect that I wanted. Then I just feel like a jerk!
Writing that reminds me of a couple of times I swallowed my pride last week and apologized for my tone or comments made. I noticed that if I could at least try to address the situation, others involved seemed to appreciate it and it made me feel better.
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#11 Avoid imposing values
(and an update on avoiding NO-BUT-HOWEVER)NO-BUT-HOWEVER, Dec 28th update note:
After noticing the no-but-however situation for a couple of weeks, I am noticing more situations where I’ve used it and it is more top of mind. I am catching myself and changing my words some of the time but it is not automatic or fully integrated yet. I’ve detected additional circumstances where I’ve not used the specific words but have spoken an implied no-but-however and am now counting those. An example is, ‘We can’t do that’ or ‘we can’t go ahead with that’. It amounts to the same effect on the person to deflate their contribution.
I’ve not been in my usual work circumstances for the past 2 weeks and haven’t had as many conversations or the type of conversations that result in many no-but-however responses. So, I don’t feel I’ve waded into the deep end of this pool yet. I’ve extended the offer to my group to pay them $5 each time they catch me up to the end of January so I expect it will be much more intense in the coming weeks. I’ve developed a que card to tally the times in the moment when I’ve let the words slip out. I am also going to attempt to tally the times when I catch myself before using the words as a means of creating a positive reward for this behaviour change.
AVOIDING IMPOSING VALUE-JUDGEMENTS: HOW DID IT GO?
I’ve come to realize how pervasive value-judgement words like good, better, best, needs improvement, unsatisfactory, poor, insufficient, bad are used in companies and specifically in the context of yearly performance appraisals which I’ve been completing through November-December, the act of soliciting feedback from stakeholders, reporting on project outcomes, senior leader town halls where they are recognizing safety and operational results and 1 on 1 meetings with employees, to name a few circumstances.
I feel like the whole organization runs as a big judgement machine. It is going to take some time to change my behaviour. I have particular trouble with good, better, perfect, great rolling off my tongue as encouragement for employees and groups I interact with. This is an open question I have about how to stick handle performance rating and feedback because it is essentially a value-judgement exercise. You could talk about outcomes of a project having met all of the requirements but that is not very inspiring. People crave positive personal feedback and get too little of it so I’m not sure yet what the solution is. Going to have to look into this further.
What I’m doing to effect this change
1. I’ve started listing additional value judgement words to watch out for and am up to 26 so far.
2. I am keeping score on when I use the words in a judgement circumstance as a positive measure of how much I can improve my communication style.
3. I am noticing when others use these words to practice how I would say it differently.
4. I am flipping some of my judgement statements into questions. For example, ‘instead of saying, you did a great job on that project’, asking, ‘How did you do on this project and tell me about some of your biggest learnings and achievements’
5. Thinking ahead to differentiate judging statements from my mental state statements.REFLECTION:
1. What fraction of my value-imposing words do you think you caught?
Not sure this is a useful question to try to quantify the value imposing cases at this stage so I will answer it this way, I am catching more value-imposing words this week than I was in the weeks before. My interaction with people over the last 2 weeks was not the usual so much fewer conversations had relevance to this exercise. I know I use a handful of certain value judgement words a lot so the real test will be in the coming weeks when back in my usual environment. I’m telling some people what I’m up to so they can catch me to help make the change go faster.2. Did you notice changes to other’ reactions?
Minor differences noticed if any at this stage. Some positive responses to my, ‘I like what you did there’ statements.3. How do you imagine the different responses feel?
I don’t know, warm and gooey inside? Many people are habituated to hearing certain judgement responses so it is going to take a while. I’m hoping as I practice this skill people will feel appreciated more and judged less.4. How did you express yourself without using these words?
Turned my value-judgement statement into a question to them about how they feel about the topic in question. I’m using I like and I appreciate a lot more. I need to come up with more mental state responses.5. Do you think others noticed a difference?
Not really sure as I have not been interacting with my usual interaction group over the past 2 weeks. I am going to let it run for a while and ask for feedback.6. Where and how might you apply your experience in the remainder of your life?
Communication happens in all aspects of work, personal, casual, professional life and this is about practicing effective communication so it is probably one of the few universal transferrable skills. Looking forward to making it a superpower for me. -
Leadership Step by Step Exercise 11: Avoid Imposing Values
Reflection:
Namely, for this exercise, we were trying to avoid starting with the words No, But, However, and to avoid using the words good, bad, best, and worst. I found this immensely challenging to combine the exercises. I think I would need to spend time in my think box to actively craft alternative responses to ones typically used.Most of the times, I would catch myself after I would use words that would impose values and often find myself in a state of confusion, not knowing the boundaries of imposing values. For example – Instead of ‘No worries’ I would say ‘It’s all good.’ Then, upon inclusion of exercise 11, I would want to say ‘That’s alright with me’ or ‘That’s okay with me’ instead of ‘It’s all good.’ Invariably, saying that something is okay or alright is also a projection of my value. Hence, my conundrum and frustration because a moderate judgement about a situation is still a judgement of the situation nonetheless. Instead of good, bad, best and worst, I started to use other quantifier and qualifier words like great, decent, etc. and then realized that they were also imposing values. I did try to pivot to my expression, such as ‘I enjoyed …” when possible. At times, it felt challenging or not possible to do in a reasonable amount of time to keep conversation flowing.
I think I caught a small fraction of my value-imposing words. I didn’t really notice changes in others’ reactions. I imagine that the different responses feel more well received that value-imposing words, but I don’t have a comparison. I don’t think others noticed a difference. I think I would have to draft out the words and commonly used phrases and proactively think of qualifying phrases to use instead of my normal ones in order to actively avoid value-imposing words.
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Avoiding Imposing Values
We’re at the halfway point of Leadership Step By Step’s exercises! This week’s exercise was to avoid imposing values on other people. What exactly does that entail? To start, avoiding using the terms “good”, “bad”, “right”, and “wrong”, but with a stretch goal of also avoiding “should”, “appropriate”, “better”, and “worse”, among a few others. Not forever, but just for the purpose of this exercise and seeing what comes of it.
The idea behind the exercise is to become more aware of your unconscious judgment of others – if you say a movie is “good”, what does that even mean? To some people, it might mean entertaining. To others, it might mean that it had subtle depth that requires comparing/contrasting studies against concepts in philosophy to truly uncover meaning. In the end, the term “good”, has no real meaning of its own and simply shows your own personal bias or judgment, which can very often be taken as demeaning. After all, am I in any position to tell you whether the way you dress, or talk, or make movies, or like your coffee is “good” or “bad”? Probably not. Is anyone? Maybe not.
This exercise is another that Josh had challenged me to do several years ago, when he was helping me develop my podcast interviewing skills, so it was not new to me. It has, however, become a skill that I consciously choose to keep in my day-to-day life. I think that I have gotten to a point where I’ve eliminated a great deal of my ‘value impositions’ from my usual speech.
In many cases, I find that this challenge is just a matter of finding a better way to replace these words: instead of using “good”, rephrase using “I like…” (i.e. instead of “that movie is so good!”, use “I really like that movie!”). Instead of saying “worse”, use more detail to describe what exactly you think has worsened (“The dialogue in the second book didn’t hook me as much as the first” instead of “the second book was worse than the first”). This not only eliminates your value judgments, but it also allows deeper, more meaningful communication.
Since being tasked with this exercise, I have become very conscious of my usage of the words “good/bad” and “better/worse”. I haven’t necessarily eliminated them from my vocabulary, but I use them far more sparingly and often make note of it when I use them. I will admit that some of the more difficult-to-eliminate words like “acceptable”, “appropriate”, or “should” still often escape my lips, and I often feel like I haven’t found a good way around using those terms yet. Even so, I feel like this change to the way I communicate has really helped in my ability to connect with others.
Since I removed many of these value-loaded words from my vocabulary (or at least got to the point where I only use them when I consciously decide to), the way people react to me and my speech changed dramatically. In general, I think that people naturally have an opposing reaction to value judgements. For example, if I say “the new Bruno Mars album is really good.”, then many will react immediately with “Yeah, but…” and tell me what isn’t good about it (even if they like the album!), whereas “I really like the new Bruno Mars album!” is generally met with agreement, or at least acceptance. It’s quite difficult to convince someone that they don’t like something that they say they do. This means that my conversations with others have become more thoughtful and meaningful, less adversarial, and have allowed me to connect better with others.
This exercise is one that I really think we should all do at some point (Gah…”should”…Another judgment). I want to re-emphasize that the point is not to eliminate these words from your vocabulary, but to use them consciously and intentionally – to think about when you’re being judgmental and be hyper-aware of when you allow yourself to judge and how it is affecting your conversation. It is a skill that, when mastered, can really help improve how you connect with others.
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Hi Eugene,
I appreciate you sharing how after communicating in this way for an extended period of time, you’ve noticed dramatic changes in reactions of others. I haven’t noticed much difference yet myself, but perhaps I will!
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Avoiding imposing values
I wrote reflections for each week of this exercise. I noticed changes in my communication skills from week 1 to week 2. It became more natural for me to avoid good, bad, right, wrong, etc. It was fun and interesting. Moving forward, I’d like to pay closer attention to the reactions of others if I can pick up on them.
What fraction of my value-imposing words do I think I caught?
Week 1: I think I caught much more than I did last week. Maybe 70% or more. I still used them plenty, but after catching them, I was able to rephrase, which was fun.Week 2: I think I caught even more than I did last week. I honestly think I caught almost myself nearly every time. This didn’t always mean I stopped myself from saying them, but I at least realized after the fact. If I didn’t catch myself ahead of time, I could backtrack and rephrase whatever I just said.
Did I notice changes in others’ reactions?
Week 1: I noticed changes in other classmates’ reactions when we chatted. I didn’t notice much with anyone else.Week 2: Same as week 1
How do I imagine the different responses feel?
Week 1: I could imagine them feeling more genuine and interesting to others. We’re all so used to the classic “I’m doing good” or “good idea” that other responses are probably way more interesting. I think my new responses described my true feelings and ideas with more depth.Week 2: This is also the same as last week, but I believe it more strongly after practicing for another week: I could imagine them feeling more genuine and interesting to others. We’re all so used to the classic “I’m doing good” or “good idea” that other responses are probably way more interesting. I think my new responses described my true feelings and ideas with more depth.
How did I express myself without those words?
Week 1: It was fun and honestly felt a little more authentic. Instead of automatically replying “good” to the question “how are you?” I started saying things like, “I’m enjoying life right now” or “I like the way my day is going” or even going straight into describing the day itself. I was creative in self-talk and in my responses to others.Week 2: Like last week, it was fun and felt authentic. I came up with more new responses and I found myself naturally more interested in the other person. I’d emphasize that my thoughts were from my perspective which I think made it more meaningful — it meant being slightly more vulnerable. Because I’m still new to this, I had to think more and stammer through my responses sometimes. Which, in a way, I think made the interactions more authentic.
Do I think others noticed a difference?
Week 1: Maybe a few times. Maybe more and they just thought to themselves “that was a different response”Week 2: I was becoming so much more aware that I felt like others were noticing, too. But I didn’t pick up on any clear signs of others noticing a difference.
Where and how might I apply my experience in the rest of my life?
Week 2: I’d like to continue being more thoughtful about the way I respond to questions like “how are you?” because saying “good” is just so boring and the real answer is almost always more nuanced. I also want to continue saying things like, “I like that idea!” instead of saying “great idea!” There are other parts of my life where I’ll definitely be happy to start using good, bad, right, wrong, etc. again. It is really interesting to think about how impactful word choices can be.
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