(Un)helpful solutions

Patterns are hard to break. 

I’ve noticed one emerging as I’ve shared a few of my facilitation stuff ups over the past few weeks here and on Linked In. 

Quite a few people have responded with, ‘that happened to me’ quickly followed by ‘and this is what I did…..’. 

Whoosh! That was fast. If you missed it, here’s the pattern:  

Person A shares a stuff up – after a deep breath, often with red cheeks and a slightly thumping heart. 

Person B jumps in, breathless, to share not only their stuff up, but their solution to it. 

Puff! Right there. The stuff up disappears. 

No chance to look at it from other angles. To poke it or prod it. To learn a bit more. All gone in the rush to solutions. 

And person A is left drifting in open sea after their boat has capsized, bobbing up and down in a life jacket, watching Person B’s solution unfold. Their heart is probably still thumping. 

We mean well. ‘I can help! I have a solution! Let’s make it better!’ 

It’s hard just to listen, isn’t it? 

To strangers, to colleagues, to your partner. We all want to help. 

I don’t know about you but my partner and I have learned to preface our rants, complaints and mistakes with a request to ‘just listen….I don’t need an answer or solution.’ 

If we want one, we ask. 

But this (un)helpful pattern is quite entrenched in workshop groups.  

So in my Flearn workshop, to help people stop rushing to solutions in response to other people’s stories of stuff ups and f$!k ups, I give people three clear instructions and model them. The modelling is critical – it shows that others need to ‘zip it’ when another shares and not jump in with a rush to solutions. (The instructions are here if you missed them). 

Last time I said I would talk about what happens after Flearners have shared their stuff ups, how the Flearns are packaged up, what Flearners like you do with them in the room and where they might take you once you leave it.  

I’ll do this soon. 

Today, I thought it was worth highlighting this pattern of rushing to (un)helpful solutions and the effect it has on not only the time we spend just sitting with the stuff up story, but also on the brave person who shared it. I’d like to keep them in the lifeboat after the ship’s capsized, not drifting away like a cork in the ocean.  

Thanks for reading this far.

Stay (fl)awesome!