Valuing Multiple Realities
On Friday afternoon, I received this text message alert from the DC police department: “MPD reports there are rolling road closures on I Street NW, traveling from 20th Street, due to a First Amendment protest. Please use caution in the area.”
For those protest participants, I suspect their reality created an urgent need to speak up and disrupt. But when I saw the text, the urgent issue in my reality was finishing up my to-do list before picking up the kids and starting dinner. Since I didn’t plan to be downtown, it was easy to ignore the text and continue with my day. (Besides, in the vocabulary of these fairly regular alerts, “First Amendment protest” can refer to anything from a few people doing a silent sit-in to thousands of people conducting a rambunctious march.)
It made me reflect on a couple of interactions I had earlier in the week.
On Monday, I started a call by asking the other person, “How are you doing?” Before answering, she gave a caveat—“Other than everything going on in the world, I'm doing fine.” Because I’d heard similar prologues lately, I asked why she answered with that framing. It led to a discussion about how, for some people, it’s hard to ignore the chaos in the world. It intrudes on their outlook, even if they aren’t directly involved. For others, it’s easier to separate—their internal world is separate from the world around them. They see issues in the world but can continue with their day.
Later in the week, during a discussion with other executive coaches, we discovered a dynamic in which some of our clients—those whose businesses aren’t yet affected by the current administration—operate as if everything is status quo. They’re focused on the same worries, goals, and challenges as before. But we also have clients whose revenues have collapsed (or are at risk of doing so) and whose missions put them under direct attack from the government. For them, there’s complete chaos and churn.
One insight from that discussion was how easy it is to dismiss people whose realities differ from ours. Depending on our personalities and situations, a claim that the rapture is upon us may seem hyperbolic, or a claim that “things will be fine” can seem utterly naive.
But as leaders, we should not dismiss those perspectives. Staying curious—e.g., asking, “What makes you think the rapture is upon us?”—creates opportunities to learn about another person’s reality, which might contain information that is missing from our own.
Even if their perspectives are driven more by emotions than facts, it is often helpful to give them space to express themselves. Asking questions like “What makes you so worried about this situation?” provides an opportunity for interpersonal learning, which is useful in any relationship.