SEE Lens: Bringing Out the Best

Take a minute to ponder some lesser things that annoy you. Does your list include any of these?

• People (e.g., co-workers, your boss, family members) say they’ll do something, but don’t.

• When people know you want to be left alone at some particular time, but interrupt.

• People say, “I hear you,” but there’s no sign they are listening.

• In fact, there are no signs that your existence makes much difference.

• Alternatively, someone’s thoughtful efforts to show appreciation backfire because they were so poorly matched with your preferences.
  
  It’s likely you have had such annoyances more than once, as well as many others that can dampen joy.

Now flip the scenario. Take a minute to ponder whether you have been the source: 

• The one who said you’d do something and didn’t follow through, 

• Who couldn’t resist interrupting, 

• Who “listened” without hearing what was said, 

• Ignored co-workers or others for whom even a smile would be a welcome greeting,

• Or, the well-intentioned person who failed to really consider the recipient’s needs or preferences?

It’s likely you too have had such experiences more than once.

Our lives are embedded in inconsistencies. Unpredictability greets our hope for certainty, while more of the same beckons when change is what we crave. Without much awareness, we live in a world of asymmetries. Yes, we often violate the Golden Rule (Treat others as you would like to be treated). We want to “be heard” but don’t actively listen; we complain about “not being seen,” but don’t acknowledge when we are. Our sensitivity to our own hurts is much more fine-tuned than our awareness of others’ needs.

How the SEE Framework Fits In

Helping to bring out the best in others is both complex and rich in rewards, not only for those “others” but also for ourselves. Meaningful engagement, one of the three key tenets of the SEE (Supportive Environments for Effectiveness) framework, focuses on the importance of making a difference, building trust, and being respected—all germane components of fostering our common humanity. It’s easy enough to understand the words “meaningful” and “engagement,”; “doing it,” however, is more challenging. “Meaningful” is the hard part. It requires intentionality. It takes concerted attention.

We know from SEE’s Bandwidth tenet that attention is a precious, finite resource that demands effort, the very effort we are often reluctant to invest. The third SEE tenet, Understanding, is also integrally linked with engagement. To be useful, engagement requires understanding of the circumstances, or what SEE frames as environments, that comprise the situation at hand. These are likely to include time parameters (past, present, and future dimensions that impact any decision), social considerations, policies and practices, economic realities, and the physical space impacted by where the action takes place.

What then does SEE offer to make meaningful engagement more likely to happen? Two key approaches are participation and small experiments. Each can have its downsides, but the upsides far outweigh them. Each also has many variants, appropriate occasions, and broad applicability. And they play well with each other.

Participation

One effective way to make someone realize that they are making a difference is a compliment. It can easily convey that a person (or group) is valued, respected, noticed, and appreciated. Occasionally, paying a compliment opens the door for further conversation and exploration of mutual interest or concerns. 

Even a simple “what do you think?” question can offer a chance for participation – with a cautionary addition. The “meaningful” dimension is lost if the effort is disingenuous. “What do you think” efforts are often packaged as surveys. Here the caveat is that effective surveys are not as straightforward as many assume. However, a great deal of helpful information about crafting surveys, sampling, and increasing the likelihood of responses is available. Perhaps less emphasized is the need to anticipate data management so it won’t be cumbersome or overwhelming, ultimately leading to abandoning the effort and violating the trust of those who honored the request for answers.

Feedback constitutes another major category of participatory opportunities. For these too, especially in the organizational context, there is a wealth of information, including so many acronyms for feedback models (e.g., SBI, STAR, EEC, IDEA, DESC, CEDAR, and BOOST) that a super-acronym might help sort them out. Feedback is often institutionalized in the form of performance reviews, typically embedded in a hierarchical structure and sought in a top-down direction (i.e., “superior” to “subordinate”). A uni-directional approach and hierarchical structure, however, seems antithetical to bringing out the best in all participants; meaningful engagement is more likely for both the givers and recipients if feedback is shared in all directions – “up,” “down,” and “sideways.”

A subtext throughout this cursory discussion of participation is that there is no failsafe magical wand that guarantees desired outcomes. Perhaps some sophisticated apps (e.g., project management and collaboration tools) have magical powers. It’s more likely that real people in real time with variable tolerance for frustration and experience need to help with damage control – in other words, be meaningfully engaged. Such situations, including making collaborations workable and beneficial, are ideal for small experiments!

Small Experiments

Why don’t our well-intended efforts work? Why did that feedback backfire? Why did people skip many questions on a survey? Why is meaningful engagement so challenging? Why didn’t anyone read that blog… or did they?

Why not try to figure out answers to such questions? Small experiments are intended to do that, with this caveat: the answers won’t be definitive. The truth is that definitive answers are illusive; not seeking answers, however, is not more definitive! What makes small experiments “experiments,” is that they seek answers, enhancing our understanding of a specific quest. The reason to keep them small is to resist overwhelm. So, there is a delicate balance between pursuing our curiosity, and utter frustration. If all goes well, the process will be sufficiently useful … and enjoyable … to sustain curiosity and desire to tackle the next question.

A Few Small Experiments by Past Grantees

While small experiments can be solo activities, they offer a strong tool for participatory situations. reDirect’s SEE Learning Cohorts have effectively carried out small experiments with several dozen nonprofits. The applications have spanned topics including:

• Improving communication and strengthening connections among dedicated volunteers 

  • Organization: Wheelchair Ramp Accessibility Program (WRAP)

• Helping staff feel more connected and supported through formalized working groups

• The Community Resource Center

• Helping volunteers feel appreciated with a conversation starter tool and highlighting a “Volunteer of the Month”

• Organization: Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver

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Watch the companion video to this post here. Or you can explore more small experiments by our past grantees here.

Bringing Out the Best: Fostering Our Common Humanity Through Meaningful Engagement

Small Experiments - Cultivating a Mindset

Environments Matter: Change Your Environment, Change Your Results

The Small Experiment: Achieving More With Less

SEE Differently: Improve Your Volunteer Program

What is “SEE”?

The Expertise Dilemma

Your Brain on Birdsongs

Shared Understanding

SEE Overview

reDirect’s Grant Programs: Learning With Our Partners

What’s an Environment, Anyway?

Building Supportive Online Environments

Addressing Mental Fatigue

Finding Focus: Tips for Combatting Fatigue, Distractions, and Burnout

Fostering Reasonableness: Supportive Environments for Bringing Out Our Best

Creating supportive environments to foster reasonableness and achieve sustainable well-being

Bringing Out the Best in People: A Psychological Perspective

A Brief Guide to RPM (Now SEE)