The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 294 - Bothering Me?

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: I'm coming at you today with a bit of a random one, but I'm wondering if you can help me apply something that our pediatrician said to us almost ten months ago to the day. And it's some throwaway line that I'm sure he says to everyone, that I've literally thought about every single day of Ollie's life. And I feel like there must be a way to translate this to other applications outside parenting, and I want to bounce it off you.

Jen: Okay, what did they say?

Pete: So the pediatrician said, in response to us asking him a question about something that was happening with Ollie, he said, "Is it bothering him? Or is it bothering you?"

Jen: Oh, yep. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: So this was, I don't know, we must have said something like, "Oh, Ollie vomited in his sleep last night." And he was like two days old so, you know, they're like vomiting all the time. And he's like, "Oh, was it bothering him? Or was it bothering you?" And we were like, "Oh no, he was fine. He just kept sleeping. But we were really freaking out because he's vomiting. Like, what do we do? And oh my God." And he was just like, "It's okay. He's okay. He's okay. The babies do these things all the time." And so, I've thought about this so much through the lens of parenting. Like, you know when he started trying to walk and crawl, and you see them fall and you're like, "Ah," and he's like fine. He just keeps rolling, and gets up and goes again. And you're like, "Oh, I think that that was scarier for me than it was for him." So I think about it a lot through the parenting lens, but it's not necessarily what I want to talk about today. What I'm thinking about today, which I think you can help me translate, is, is / how is this relevant to our lives, our work, the way we lead, the way we perform, the way we run our businesses? Is there an application where we can look at certain things, like feedback for example, and think, "Huh. Is this bothering them? Or is it bothering me?" I feel like it could be a helpful tool, a helpful question to maybe, I don't know, get ourselves unstuck or reflect back to ourselves that we're getting caught up on something that's not actually relevant or important. So, maybe you can help me translate this from parenting advice to life-related advice.

Jen: I mean, it's so profound. The question is so profound.

Pete: He didn't mean for it to be profound. You know what I mean? He was just like, "Oh, is it bothering you? Or is it bothering him? See ya. Next patient."

Jen: And yet, here we are ten months later, talking about it.

Pete: Ten months.

Jen: And I've got to tell you, I feel a visceral response to this question. So yes, I think there are quite a lot of applications. The first thing that is coming to mind, Pete, is less about the present and more about the imagined future, and how the idea at the root of this question is something that holds us back from doing things that might be meaningful or impactful.

Pete: Hmm.

Jen: Using, let's say, feedback as the example. You just brought up feedback. "Well, I need to give this challenging feedback. Maybe I won't give it, because it might bother them." But what is true is that, "It actually bothers me. That it makes me uncomfortable."

Pete: Yeah, because I don't want to be uncomfortable.

Jen: Right. Right.

Pete: Yeah. Oh my god, I feel so called out. Ah, it's so funny. I feel so called out. Yeah, it's like a a call out question for when we are overthinking something prior to it happening. Yeah. Oh god, that is me. "Hello, Pete Shepherd. That is you." Interesting.

Jen: I have a funny example of this. Well, maybe I'm the only one who finds it funny.

Pete: Please.

Jen: But literally yesterday, I saw the very brilliant play Appropriate, on Broadway. It's funny. It's devastating. It has a lot of challenging content in it. I was saying to my husband, "Oh, you've got to go see it. I'm not going to tell you anything about it. You've got to go see it." And then, my fourteen-year-old daughter said, "Can I go see it too?" And my first response, internally, was like, "No, she can't go see it. That's so inappropriate for her." And then, I thought to myself, "Wait a minute, it's totally appropriate for her. It would just be uncomfortable to sit next to her while she watches it."

Pete: Oh, it's bothering you. Not her. Interesting.

Jen: Right? Right?

Pete: Oh my gosh. So yes, in the last few days, I've been trying to work out, where does this apply in a work context, in a leadership context? And one of the things I was sort of grappling with is if this applies where, say you've got a leader who's leading a team of five people, and each of these five people works / operates / likes to be led in a different way. And so, one of them might really love direct and honest feedback. One of them might really want to get lots of appreciation. One of them might love coaching. Or one of them might be super organized and structured and process driven. And one of them might be more free flowing and like, "Oh, I'll get it done the night before it's due," kind of thing. And as the leader, and even them as peers, I know through so many conversations how this gets people really wound up. Because they're like, "Oh, I've got this really structured person. And they're so structured, but I'm not a structured person. And I don't know how to work with them or operate with them, and I just can't compute. We need to have the same way of working, the exact same agreement on what structure looks like." And I feel like this question is relevant to these situations, where, whether it's your peers or a leader looking at the people that they lead, there are so many situations I can think about where it's like, "Is it bothering you, the leader, or you, the peer? Or is it bothering them?" And this is not a universally applicable principle, because sometimes it's like, "No, no, no, there are actually things that we need to agree upon in order to get stuff done. So it's bothering me, but it's also going to impact the work." I get that. But what I'm thinking about is, "It's bothering me, and the thing I'm bothered about probably isn't going to impact the work," if that makes sense. So if it bothers me that Jen leaves the feedback until the night before, but it doesn't actually change the fact that the feedback is due the next day anyway so the work doesn't change, it just bothers me. Then, I think that question is like, "It's not about Jen. It doesn't bother Jen. It's actually a reflection of me." So I'm just like looking for these connecting points into teams and leadership, and, you know, into your work as well.

Jen: Yeah. It's really interesting. I'm seeing different iterations of this question appear in my mind's eye. For example, "Do they need to adapt? Or do I need to adapt?"

Pete: Exactly, yeah. Yes.

Jen: And sometimes, the answer is, "They need to adapt." And sometimes, the answer is, "I need to adapt." But it's a really useful framing device, to sort of intentionally take on two perspectives.

Pete: Right. Yeah. And to sort of build empathy. I'm just realizing...I mean, I guess there's probably situations too where the opposite is true, where something is really bothering Ollie, but it's not bothering me.

Jen: Mmm-hmm.

Pete: You know? Like, "Oh, he's teething. It doesn't bother me, in the sense that I'm not teething. I don't have a sore jaw. And he still seems to be sleeping okay, often. But clearly, something's bothering him, because I woke up and he was gnawing on the side of the cot." So in the leadership context, it could also be that, yeah, the way that you're leading is bothering someone else, but it's not bothering you. And so, you're right. It's this tool or this question that we can use to kind of hold two things at once, two ideas at once, two perspectives at once, I guess.

Jen: Yeah. Another adaptation of that question is, "If it is bothering them, should it be bothering you?" Because again, sometimes, the answer is, "Yes." And sometimes, the answer is, "No." I don't know why I'm wanting to pull these real life stories right now, but when I was fourteen years old, Pete, I was at summer camp. I had a water skiing accident. I walked around for two weeks, telling people I was bothered by some pain in my foot. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. I came home from camp. My mom walked into the room, looked at my foot, and was like, "What is wrong with your foot?" I said, "Oh, I had a water skiing accident. It's really bothering me." She was like, "We're going to the doctor." It was broken. I ended up having surgery. I ended up being in a wheelchair.

Pete: Oh my god, in a wheelchair. What? Yes. And

Jen: And so, the answer to the question, "If it's bothering them, should it bother you when you're at camp and someone can't walk," the answer is, "Yes."

Pete: You know what? This is so wild, because I have a very similar story. (Sorry, mom.) I had an accident playing football. I won't even go into the details of what football is for North American folks. I had an accident once where I basically injured my hand. And it was like four days, and I was like, "My god, my hand is stuffed. My hand is screwed." And my mom and dad were like, "Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. You're okay. Everything's okay. It's not bothering me. You're okay." And then, like four days later, my mom saw me trying to butter my toast and I couldn't hold the knife with enough force to cut through butter, like I was in that much pain. Anyway, and she finally was like, "Show me that hand." And it was like purple. And she goes, "Oh, okay. Clearly this is bothering you, but now I've realized I can see why." We went to the doctor. Literally, that afternoon, I had surgery on my hand. I got pins put into it. There was a whole thing. It was a whole surgery. It was a whole thing. I didn't end up in a wheelchair, but yeah, it was definitely bothering me. And it took a couple days for my mom to ask the question of, "Yeah, maybe there's a reason it's bothering him. It should be bothering me, that it's bothering him."

Jen: And then the flip side of that is, I'm thinking about my times backstage in dressing rooms, where, you know, when you're in those tight quarters with people, there comes a point where everything bothers everyone. And for people in a leadership role, it's really important to be able to distinguish which of those things that are bothering people actually need to be addressed, and then which of those things, if you get into the weeds with those things, are going to actually take the entire group off course.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So, I think there are lots of leadership lessons from your pediatrician.

Pete: Isn't that wild? I was just thinking about a workshop I ran the other day with this group of like thirty general managers, an unbelievably smart group of people, really dedicated and driven and emotionally intelligent. And we ended up having this...I wouldn't call it a debate, but this like interesting constructive conversation where there were a bunch of differing views on a very specific scenario, where you might have a one-on-one with a team member and that team member comes to the one-on-one with, "Here are the eight things I need to get you across." And there was this tension in the room of, "That is so frustrating, on one hand." One perspective was, "That is so frustrating for me. Because we have thirty minutes, and all you're going to do is try and update me on eight things. We're not going to get through the eight things. I'm going to try and want to fix one. And I'm going to get annoyed because you're not going to get to all eight. And then, you're going to be annoyed because we didn't get to all eight. And why can't they prioritize the two or three that are most important, and then come to the table with that?" And then, someone else's perspective was a little bit of, "Is this is bothering you, or is it bothering them?" Because they were like, "I'm the person that goes to my leader, sometimes, with seven things. And the reason I do it is because it's the only chance I get with my leader to say, 'Here are all the things I'm working on, just so you know. So if you get asked questions about them, you know, don't worry. Jen's all over that, because she showed me that she was all over that.'"

Jen: Right.

Pete: And so the example, I think, was basically, in the first case, it was really bothering this person, but it wasn't bothering the direct report who had the seven things. Actually, that was what they needed from their leader. And sometimes, what someone needs from their leader can feel counter to what they think that they should be getting or need. Because so often, my god, so often, what someone needs from a leader is to just feel heard.

Jen: Right.

Pete: To feel like they got a chance to speak, and that their leader knows, "Oh, okay. This is what they're working on. They're all over it." "Now, I feel better that I know that my leader knows that I'm all over it." And so, I'm just realizing...this was like two days ago. It was an example of this, where it was really annoying a leader. And it was just so funny to hear the other perspective in the same room, of like, "Oh. I'm that person, and it doesn't bother me."

Jen: Well, this is, again, a great reason to come back to these questions. "Is it bothering them? Or is it bothering me?" Because it is like immediate instant perspective taking. It is such a great empathy-building series of questions.

Pete: I agree, yeah. And then, I mean, I think the like introspective next question could be, "Okay. And interesting, if the realization I have is, 'Oh, it's really bothering me, but not them,' I might go, 'Why is it bothering me?'"

Jen: Right. "What is it about this that bothers me?"

Pete: Exactly. "What is that saying about me? That I'm looking for more control? I'm stressed out about my time management skills?" Like, what is it actually saying about you, that that really bothers you? I feel like that's a, yeah, that's a deep question.

Jen: And then that ties into boundaries and expectations, which ties into clear communication. I mean, there's a lot of fallout from these questions, Pete.

Pete: I know. I know. A pediatrician, who knew?

Jen: Is there a version of this where we replace the idea of someone being bothered with something more pleasurable? And then, the questions still apply?

Pete: Oh my god, yes. So I just wrote down, "Does it excite me? Or does it excite them?" And I'm having a like moment of, you know the cliché example that we've all probably seen in some capacity or experienced, where you hear the story of the parent who wants the kid to be a golf player?

Jen: Hmm. Or a dancer.

Pete: Oh right, you shared an example recently on the podcast. So you give him a bunch of golf sticks, and you're like, "I'm excited about you being a golfer. You're going to be a golfer." And the parent eventually realizes, "Oh, the kid actually isn't excited about golf at all. They don't care about golf at all." But the same is true in, you know, in work contexts, of like, you might be really excited about a new project, but does your team care about this project? Are they excited about it? If so, awesome. If not, why not? And are you going to get the outcome you want, given they're not excited about it?

Jen: Yeah. I'm also thinking in an artistic context, I've definitely been in those shows where it's like, "This is so good to us. But to other people, not so much."

Pete: Not so much, yeah.

Jen: Oh me, oh my. Yep. And then, the other way I think you could apply this question is around clarity. Which, again, going back to good communication, "Is this clear for me? Or is this clear for them? And if it's not clear for them, what can I do to make it clearer for them?" Or if it's reversed, it's clear for them and it's not clear for me, that might be a cue to let the person know it's not clear for you and ask some good questions.

Pete: My god, that's so good. Yeah, "Is this clear for me? Or is this clear for them?" That's so good. I mean, I could think of so many examples of like getting...you know when you're in a conversation and you're like, "Wow, they seem to be really clear on this, but I have no idea what they're talking about. I feel like I need to understand some more."

Jen: Oh, gosh. Well, I found this to be actually quite useful. I'm excited to apply this in my coachings this week. I do a lot of perspective taking, but I don't think I have anything that's quite this simple, that I use.

Pete: Right. Yeah, and I don't even think I'd thought of it as a perspective taking, empathy-building exercise. I think I just...maybe subconsciously, I knew there was some application. But for ten months, I've just been thinking about it through the lens of when I get worried or confused or concerned about something as it relates to Ollie, and I look over and he's just smiling and laughing and not bothered by it at all.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: I'm just like, "Oh, that's bothering me. Not him. Okay, yeah. He quite likes the coffee table. It's only me that's bothered by the fact that maybe he'll bump his head on it."

Jen: Right? Right. Oh my gosh. Wow. Can we also just say, Ollie has been alive for ten months. That's amazing.

Pete: I know, it's wild. It's wild.

Jen: Is it wild to him? Or is it wild to you?

Pete: Probably just to me. And that is The Long and The Short Of It.