Wanting the same thing isn’t enough
One way to get the outcomes that we actually want is to be intentional with our asks.
We’re agents. You’re an agent, I’m an agent, and we want things to happen. Let’s call them outcomes.
I can’t truly know your wants, and you can’t truly know mine, because they’re expressed through these walls, these protective mechanisms. Many of them were designed by a child, which is how I might hear what you don’t mean, and you might hear what I never meant to say.
But behind these protective mechanisms, say guilt, is something like caring for people. Or behind something like perfectionism is something like fear of embarrassment, which itself might stem from not wanting to be seen as defective, because deep down there’s this want to belong. A lot of what we want is the same.
But wanting the same things isn’t enough. There’s a story in management from what’s called the Abilene paradox. A family takes a really long trip for dinner, and everybody thinks everybody else really wants to go on this trip. It’s only when they get back that they realise nobody wanted to go on the trip. They successfully coordinated on an outcome that no one wanted.
One way to get the outcomes that we actually want is to be intentional with our asks. I think a good starting point for that is to remember what it is we’re trying to protect, on both sides.
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