[Y]ou wouldn’t be human if you didn’t at times experience fear or feel intimidated in some way by some of the more challenging behaviours and stuck patterns that can show themselves in groups and teams.
In this series I have focused a lot on working with opposition and the need to make interventions that will bring whatever is covert to the surface to make it visible so that it can be worked with. Better that than allowing it to fester in the darker corners of a room.
However, in making these kinds of interventions it is not uncommon as a practitioner to experience what can at times be enormous surges of self-doubt in the face of feeling intimidated by a behaviour that is manifesting especially when the stakes begin to rise for everyone.
Having a clear practice model for working with resistance and perturbance and trusting your knowledge and skill are critical in moments like this. Knowing yourself broadly and deeply including knowing your childhood stories and how they impact is also fundamental. But there are also some very practical and tangible things you can actually do!
- Have a clear strategy and plan, really think it through, be strong and steady
- Use lots of Bystanding and Following. By this I mean, name what you are noticing, voice it in the room [Bystand], and find one or two things that you genuinely support in what the other is saying or the view they expressing [Follow] before offering your own Move or Oppose.
- Call out for the Oppose, “Does anyone hold a different view to the one that is being expressed here?”
- Acknowledge examples of members of the group or team making great Bystands and Opposes when they do so. Invite them to take some risks in doing so.
- Call on the team’s maturity and authenticity.
- Help them to find the value in voicing their Oppose and to do so with skill and ease.
- Work with and support the leaders to receive the Oppose too so that it does good rather than harm.
And, if you start to feel intimidated by a dynamic in the room, find ways to walk towards it rather than avoid it.
Maybe try this…..
- Name the issue, for example it might be something like: “Right now I’m allowing myself to be intimidated by you and as long as I do that I will fail you, I will not be able to help you in the way that I need to. I think there may be a pattern here in this team that leads to this happening and I want to help you get to the bottom of it so that it stops doing harm when you work together.”
- Ask the group who is the strongest Opposer (re: whatever the issue is). Suggest that you have a conversation with them in a concentric circle/fish bowl.
- Ask for two volunteers, one who will stand behind the Opposer and coach them to say more, one to stand behind you and coach you on how to deal with them and their supporter.
If you do this, you will have to be brave. You may hear things you don’t want to hear. When you do, ask them to go deeper into details, and don’t argue back. The whole point is to bring it out in the open, and to show that you really do understand their concerns.
And most of all, remember, do not wilt!