I’ve been revising my Resistance as a Resource Workshop. One of the improvements I want most is to add exercises to help participants explore how relationship issues affect resistance, and how to address those issues. I’ve been having difficulty creating good exercises.

Meanwhile, today and tomorrow, I’m attending Payson Hall’s problem solving workshop. Like his project management workshop, which I wrote about in May, the problem solving workshop is excellent. As part of today’s class, we applied some simple and effective problem definition principles to a problem we’re currently struggling with. I explored my difficulty creating relationship exercises.

One of the problem definition principles is to identify success criteria for the problem: the conditions that would have to be true in order for us to declare the problem solved. I identified these criteria:

• The exercises illuminate how relationships affect resistance.
• The exercises explore challenging relationship issues (not just easy issues).
• The exercises give participants an opportunity to practice effective ways to address the relationship issues that increase resistance.
• Learnings from the exercises are directly relevant to real relationship issues that participants are likely to encounter.
• The exercises are emotionally and physically safe for the participants.

It took me about ten minutes to sort out these success criteria, and those ten minutes were worth the price of Payson’s workshop. When I looked at my list, I noticed that I was struggling not with just one problem, but a cluster of problems. If I think about these problems separately, I can see several ways to make progress.

For example, I noticed that my criteria include several learning goals: to illuminate various kinds of relationship issues, and to apply helpful techniques for resolving the issues. Now that I’m clear that my learning goals are multiple, I can create separate exercises for each goal. That’s much easier than… whatever I was thinking about before (what was I thinking?). And I can create several exercises of each type, each exploring one or two issues in depth.

Another criterion is to give participants an opportunity to practice effective ways to address relationship issues. As I wrote this criterion, I realized part of why I’ve been struggling: I’m a little fuzzy about the techniques. I don’t lack ideas; I’ve learned lots of helpful tips from lots of helpful people. But I’ve been keeping most of the ideas in a big fuzzy ball in my head. It’s hard to create crisp, focused exercises from a big fuzzy ball of ideas. For those few ideas that I’ve taken the time to write down and describe clearly, I can easily see how to create good exercises. So one easy way for me to make progress is to sort out the big fuzzy ball — write down all of the ideas, organize them, and explain them clearly to myself (and probably publish them here).

I have another big ball of fuzz in my head: the good stuff I’ve learned about what factors in a relationship increase or decrease resistance. Again, I don’t lack ideas. I lack clarity and crispness. This gives me more clear steps to take: write about these factors and how they affect resistance.

Finally, I noticed that several of my criteria create some conflict for me. How can I create exercises that explore challenging relationship issues in a way that is emotionally safe for the participants? This may be my biggest challenge, but already I can see some possibilities. For example, I can place these exercises later in the workshop. By the time people experience these exercises, they will have learned and practiced other, more straightforward skills that provide a safer basis for exploring sticky relationship issues. I can prepare exercises with a range of challenge, so that I can select, in the moment, a level of challenge that fits what the participants (and I) are ready to explore. I can remind people that, as always, participation in any exercise is voluntary. And I can work throughout the workshop to make every exercise safe, even while they challenge participants to try something new.

By separating my big, fuzzy goal into several distinct criteria, I’ve given myself a pile of possibilities for making progress. And most of the possibilities are relatively straightforward. I know how to do this stuff.

This is a big payoff for a ten minute exercise. Thanks, Payson!

Experiment: Think of a problem on which you’ve been stuck. Brainstorm your success criteria: the list of conditions that would have to be true for you to declare your problem solved. Look for ways to separate the criteria into distinct problems that are easier to solve.

Experiment: Attend Payson’s problem solving workshop.

I have seen many managers make trouble for themselves by treating their team members’ estimates as commitments. An estimate is not a commitment, and the difference between the two is significant for managers.

The essence of an estimate is expectation.
When you give an estimate, you express your expectations about what will happen. Built into each estimate is an element of uncertainty. If you weren’t uncertain, you would use a word other than “estimate.”

The essence of a commitment is promise.
A commitment is a pledge or promise. When you make a commitment, you declare your intention to create some result, and you invite someone (usually another person, but sometimes yourself) to rely on your intention.

Though commitments always include an element of uncertainty, uncertainty is not a defining element of commitment. Though estimates often include an element of intention, intention is not a defining element of estimates. Estimates are about expectation. Commitments are about intention.

Suppose team member Fred is writing the installation guide for your product. You ask Fred, “What is your estimate for when the installation guide will be ready to go to press?” Fred says, “Two weeks from today.”

If you were to take Fred’s estimate as a commitment, you would create trouble for yourself. How does this create trouble? Two ways. First, it gives you the possibly false impression that Fred intends to deliver the installation guide two weeks from today. Fred may indeed intend to deliver at that time, but he may not. He may be expressing not his intention, but only his best guess.

Second, treating Fred’s estimate as a commitment downplays the uncertainty inherent in his answer. Is Fred highly confident that he will deliver in two weeks? Moderately confident? Barely confident? It’s hard to tell.

If you were to make commitments of your own based on Fred’s answer, you would be promising results that Fred himself has not promised (in his mind), and that Fred may not be confident of delivering. That’s a risky basis on which to make promises.

When Fred says, “Two weeks from today,” is he making a promise, or merely stating his expectations? How confident is he in the date? Answer those questions before you make your own commitments based on Fred’s estimates, and before you ask Fred to “meet his commitment.”

Estimates are not commitments. If you want commitments, don’t ask for estimates. Ask for commitments

Experiment: To determine whether your team members see their estimates as commitments, try this test. The next ten times you ask for estimates, ask also for commitments. How close are the estimates to the commitments?

Experiment: If you think I’m all wet, and you’re sure that when your team members’ give estimates they really are making commitments, try this test. Stop asking for estimates, and from now on ask only for commitments. If you balk at that, perhaps you see estimates and commitments as not quite the same.

Experiment: If you ask Fred, “When will you be done?” have you asked for an estimate or a commitment? What does Fred think you asked for? If Fred says, “Two weeks from today,” has he given an estimate or a commitment? What might happen if you want a commitment and Fred thinks you want an estimate? What might happen if you want an estimate and Fred thinks you want a commitment? How could you make it crystal clear whether you’re asking for an estimate or for a commitment? How could you make it crystal clear whether Fred is giving an estimate or a commitment?

Yesterday, the U. S. Department of Labor released its latest labor statistics. An online community in which I participate had a conversation about the unemployment rate, which was reported at 6.2 percent. Several people told stories of their difficulty finding jobs. One person offered some historical information, and said that from a historical perspective, “6% unemployment is really considered pretty danged good.” Another replied, “I only deal in what I know from my own experience… Probably a quarter of the people i know are out of work… In this case, historical perspective is just worthless.”

These comments got me thinking about we create meaning. We make meaning of facts by placing the facts in some context, some frame of reference. Our choice of frame both generates and constrains the kinds of meanings we will make. An unemployment rate of 6.2 percent looks pretty danged good or pretty danged bad, depending on what frame of reference we place it in. The meanings we make of a fact may be determined more by our frame of reference than by the fact itself.

How do we choose the frames of reference by which we interpret what happens around us (or even within us)? As we interpret the latest unemployment rate, is sixty years of history an appropriate frame of reference? Is “a quarter of the people I know” appropriate? What would lead us to choose one frame over the other? What makes one frame more appropriate than another? Is it possible, or useful, to accept both frames, along with the conflicting meanings they generate? I’d like to hear your thoughts about these questions.

Notice that “resistance” is a frame of reference. I often begin my resistance workshops with a brief exercise. People pair up, and I give one person in each pair a simple action to perform. Until about a year ago, I would next ask the people who did the simple action, “How many of you got some form of resistance?” Almost everyone would say they got resistance.

I stopped asking that question. The question, and the context in which I ask it (a workshop about resistance) creates a very strong “resistance” frame of reference. It lures people into thinking about their partner’s responses as resistance. Given that a big part of my workshops is to reframe resistance as information, setting up a strong frame of “resistance” feels like something of a swindle.

On the other hand, I also want people to experience the meaning-creating power of that “resistance” frame of reference. Maybe I’ll put the question back in. What do you think?

Changing the frame of reference can often be a great way to solve a “problem.” Earlier, I described a conversation I had with Kenneth about a possible consulting assignment to conduct a risk assessment for his project. At the end of our conversation, Kenneth decided not to hire me. A few weeks later, I was talking to Jerry Weinberg about that conversation, and feeling discouraged that I hadn’t landed the job. After listening to my story, Jerry said, “It seems to me that Kenneth took your advice.”

Wow! Jerry’s simple reframing made all the difference. Instead of seeing the conversation as a failure (I didn’t get the job), I now saw it as a success (the client took my advice, probably saving himself a ton of money and aggravation). Same facts. Different frame of reference. Different meaning.

My earlier article about walking to the horizon gives another example of the power of choosing a frame of reference. When I’m trying to improve a process, progress can seem pretty depressing in comparison to where I want to go. If instead I compare my progress to where I started, my progress usually looks “pretty danged good.”

Several years ago, on the day I moved to California, I was carjacked at gunpoint in the parking lot of the apartment complex that I was moving into. For a half hour, two carjackers drove me around in my car, one driving, the other sitting behind me, holding a gun to the back of my head. I won’t go into the details, but I was, as you can imagine, terrified.

A few days later, I was walking across a parking lot to a store. As a woman walked out of the store in my direction, I began to panic and shake. Then I began to panic about my panicking, fearing that I would forever be terrified of people in parking lots.

At that moment, some very wise part of me asked, “How do you feel about being afraid?” After a few seconds, I realized that, at that moment, I felt good about being afraid. My fear didn’t mean that I would always be afraid in parking lots. It meant that, for a while, it would be healthy for me to be more attentive to my surroundings. That reframe was a big step in my recovery.

(That wise question — how do I feel about what I feel — comes from Virginia Satir’s Ingredients of an Interaction, which you can read more about in my article “Untangling Communication.” I call the question The Acceptance Question.)

Reframing is often a simple way to solve a problem. But when you’re stuck in the middle of a problem, that can be the hardest time to think of more helpful frames of reference. Fortunately, other people may not be stuck in the same frame as you, and may be able to offer ideas for reframing the problem. That’s one of the many values of friends and colleagues. And consultants (Hi, my name is Dale!).

Experiment: For the next week, notice the frames of reference that people offer to make meaning of facts. Which frames of reference do you accept? Which do you reject? How do you decide whether to accept or reject a frame of reference?

Experiment: How does the frame of “resistance” affect the way you interpret people’s responses to your ideas? What are two other frames of reference that you could use? What meanings does each frame encourage?