Opportunity knocks – even at 106!

At 106, Joan’s lost count of how many elections she’s voted in.

But she has never lost the strength of her political conviction, as an unfortunate young political volunteer found out recently.

He knocked on her door on behalf of the local Member, who is not from Joan’s side of politics. Joan’s eldest son, John, answered the door.

John, 80, lives overseas and was visiting Joan for the first time since the pandemic started. He wanted to spend as much time with her as he could and was keen to help out where the opportunities arose.

Opportunity knocked on this day – or so he thought.

He took the party pamphlet and started chatting with the enthusiastic young volunteer. In the middle of a federal election, he reasoned, it would be useful for his mum to know about the sitting Member’s background and policies.

Joan was curious – but only to find out who John was talking to. She came to the door, took one look at the colour of the volunteer’s t-shirt and declared, “I’m a Labor voter!”

She took the pamphlet from John’s hands and thrust it back at the volunteer. He made a polite exit. He presumed that John was the owner. Imagine his surprise when he found out that an octogenarian like John had a mum, and she was the voter in this household.

As regular readers will know, Joan’s my mother-in-law. A remarkable woman in full control of her life, her faculties and not open to persuasion when it comes to politics.

It’s a great story. It made us giggle when John recounted it. I hope it put a smile on your face too.

But what does it have to do with our work with groups? Well, as is often the case, an episode in Joan’s life has lessons for all of us.

At some stage this week, I bet we will all be in the room, or on a zoom, with people with similar strength in their conviction about the topic at hand.

Will we tried to persuade them? Can we? What gives us the right to think we can?

We’ve all been there. Working through a tricky issue with colleagues or stakeholders, trying to find common ground.

Like the time I participated in a heated discussion about changes to Victoria’s road rules.

There were drivers, bike riders and pedestrians in the room. There’s very little movement in views when these three groups in a room together. The strength of their conviction is almost as strong as Joan’s. We were stuck.

But we’ll never have separate roads, so we knew we had to find middle ground. Otherwise, the government would just decide what to do without our input.

So, there we were. Standing on an imaginary line, indicating our agreement or disagreement with proposed Road Rule Change #5. To help us move a little closer to each other on that spectrum, the facilitator asked a great question.

‘What would it take for you to move to xxxx?’ with ‘xxxx’ being the next point on that agreement spectrum.

There were about 20 of us. It was slow. But it was enlightening to hear everyone’s response to ‘what would it take you to move to ….’.

Bit by bit, we moved closer together, and towards the ‘agreement’ end of the spectrum, although nobody could ‘strongly agree’.

One person would not move. She represented walkers. Slower but often at more risk on two feet compared to those whizzing by on two wheels, or even faster on four.

There was nothing that anyone of us could say that would persuade her to move from her position of ‘strongly disagree’ even towards ‘disagree’ point on that line of agreement.

Time crawled. Frustration grew. Why was she holding out?

But thanks to the facilitator, we had to listen. As she dug deeper into her ‘why’, it was clear that on this particular point, she was not just ‘holding out’. Road Rule Change #5 was a question of life and death for any walker, such is their vulnerability on our roads and footpaths.

Gradually, as we talked, we found we could move closer to her.

We got closer to being able to ‘live with’ her strong disagreement to the proposed change. We didn’t reach consensus, but could live with not supporting Road Rule Change #5. Because we’d been through a useful process where we heard her reasons. She persuaded us to move.

So, this week in your meeting where there is one person who holds the strength of their conviction like the walker or Joan, they may not be ‘holding out’. If they say ‘nothing’ when asked ‘what would it take….’ this could be your opportunity knocking.

Dig deep. Find out what the reasons behind the strength of their conviction might be.

👩‍🎓 They will know something we don’t.

👓 They will have a perspective we have not considered.

🙃 Their point of view will be different.

Joan and our young volunteer would have undoubtedly learned something from each other if they’d taken the time to talk. But I doubt it would have changed either of their voting intentions.

By contrast, when working in groups, we generally need to find common ground, make a decision or reach agreement. Questions like ‘what would it take for you to move to…..’ are extremely helpful. And ‘nothing’ could well be as valuable as any other response. We might just hear something new or different that persuades us to move a little closer to their strongly held conviction.

If you’d like help what to do when opportunity knocks at your next meeting or workshop, just type ‘OPPORTUNITY’ in the comments below and we’ll jump on a call.

Illustration: Jacinta Cubis

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