Cultivating Collaboration: Don't Be So Defensive! | Jim Tamm | TEDxSantaCruz

I want to share something with you today that I believe will make you much more effective at

resolving conflict and building collaboration. But, I want to start by telling you a little story about

some groups of chickens because believe it or not, chickens have a lot to teach us about collaboration.

This takes place at Purdue University where Bill Mear is a professor of genetics, and a genuinely

nice guy, and Bill was looking into the differences between groups of collaborative chickens. These

were just chickens that got along well with each other. I call them the green zone chickens.

And there were no star performers in their group. They were just nice to each other. And in the

chicken world, a star performer is the hen that lays the most eggs. But the problem with the star

performers is that the tend to be much more aggressive animals. And so we often times see

among the chickens, something that we occasionally see in human organizations, and

that is that the star performers become the stars not by being so good themselves, but by

suppressing the egg production of other chickens. So, the look better. And they do this by pecking

on them. Now, I call these more aggressive star performers the red zone chickens, and they do

a lot of damage. So the farmers have tried different strategies to deal with that. One is to house the

birds in individual cages, about this big. Not a great solution because it's very expensive - takes

millions of cages. Another thing they tried is something that's called trimming their beaks.

Now, this is a bit of a deceptive term because it gives you the impression that there's a chicken

manicurists out there sort of filing down the sharp point, but really it's an employee with a tool

that looks a little bit like a pair of pliers, and they go up and rip a big chunk of the chicken's beak

right off its head. Also very expensive, not to mention horribly unpleasant for all the chickens

and the employee that's assigned to do that. So Bill was trying to see if it's possible to breed

collaborative instincts into chickens, and if so, what would be the impact of that on their egg production.

So we had all of the green zone chicken groups over there, and the red zone chicken groups

over there, and he took the best of each generation's egg producers to produce the

next generation. He did this for one year - about five generations. And at the end of that one-year

period, the results were pretty dramatic. This is a picture of the green zone chickens. They were

healthy and productive. Now the next picture is what was left of the red zone chickens.

And I say it's what was left of them because more than half of the red zone chickens had been

murdered by their colleagues - pecked to death. Now, they say that a picture is worth a thousand

words, but if this doesn't tell the whole story, let's look at the egg production of the green zone

chickens. In that one year period of time, it went up 260%. So what we can learn from these chickens

is that red zone environments that are more hostile, that are more adversarial, highly-conflicted,

internally competitive vs. externally competitive, they produce more red zone behavior. It feeds on

itself and can spread like a virus in an organization. And green zone environments that are more

supportive and cooperative and more highly skilled at collaboration, they produce more eggs - or

whatever your organization's equivalent is to more eggs. Now, I'd like you to think back on that picture

of those red zone chickens for just a minute and get that in your mind. As a judge for almost

25 years, my jurisdiction was collective bargaining disputes - labor management conflicts. And in that

role, I believe that I have mediated more school district labor strikes than any other person in the

United States. In just about every single strike that I have ever mediated, by the time we get to the end

of that process, every single person involved in that process, on both sides of the table, knows exactly

what those chickens feel like because that is the existence that they are trapped in. Now these are

not mean people. These are good people doing their imperfect best to improve the world the

best way they know how. I mean they've all dedicated their lives to public education. They

didn't lack an interest in collaboration. What they lacked was skills, and this lack of skilss was

costing the state of California a tremendous amount of money in the cost of conflict.

So a small group of us got together. We did a lot of research and we set out to teach the more

adversarial red zone groups to be more collaborative. We were wildly successful.

Trust went up. Conflict went down. We reduced the amount of measurable conflict in almost 100

different organizations by almost 70% over several years. It saved the state of California a huge

amount of money. It also transformed the working lives of thousands of employees who had been

trapped in that red zone chicken existence, which in turn, I believe, improved the quality of education

for the thousands of school kids who finally had positive role models who could teach them

how to resolve their differences without destroying their community or going to war with each other.

And what we learned from this experience is not just limited to public education. It is applicable

in any setting that requires collaboration, whether that's a family trying to figure out where to go on

vacation together, or the corporate world where it has become blindingly obvious lately that you

cannot compete externally if you can't first collaborate internally. Or even in politics where

the defensiveness of our Congress probably costs as much as the entire defense budget at the

Pentagon. So, what I'd like to do is share with you today what I believe is the biggest learning from

that experience, and that's this: There is nothing that will help you become more effective at

resolving conflict and building collaboration more than better manaing your own defensiveness.

In over 25 years of working with other people's conflicts, I almost never had to deal with pure

legal issues. People were almost always before me because somebody would start feeling vulnerable,

and then they would get defensive. And when we get defensive, our thinking becomes rigid. Our

IQ drops about 20 points, and we simply become stupid. And not only are we terrible problem

solvers ourselves, but then we invite everyone else in the room to get defensive, and then what you

end up with is a whole room filled with red zone people who cannot solve a problem. The technical

term for that, by the way, is litigation. It's as simple as this. If you reduce your defensiveness,

you increase your ability to solve problems. Now if we know that's true, why don't we just stay

non-defensive and keep a more collaborative green zone mind set all the time? So, I'd like

you to try something with me that may give you some insight into that question. I would like

you to use all your creativity and empathy to let yourself become one with this piece of paper.

Know what if feels like to be this piece of paper - nice and cool to the touch, and crisp edges,

a few sharp corners, a few wrinkles like some of us have. So in just a minute, I'm going to ask you all

to take a deep breath, we'll do this all together, and as you exhale, I would like you to focus all of your

attention on this piece of paper and just see if it's possible for you to breath yourself right into this

piece of paper and become one with it. Okay, is everybody ready? All right ... Go.

Okay, everybody have that now? Now, anybody want to collaborate with me right now?

Or build a relationship with me right now? Or more likely, anybody have any really strong red zone

feelings towards me right now? So, I apologize for this, but I wanted to do this because I wanted you

to see how easily and quickly you can move from the green zone, where pretty much everyone

in this room was just a minute ago - into the red zone. And when it happens, it can happen

just that fast. And when it happens, we don't have defenses, they have us. They own us. They

become our operating system, and they determine how we see the rest of the world out there.

And the problem is that it's almost all unconscious stuff. So, we don't even recognize that we're

getting defensive until it's too late. So, here's our premise about defensiveness. When we get

defensive, we are not defending ourselves from another person. We are defending ourselves

from fears inside of us that we don't want to feel. Three big fears that come up all the time: Fears

about our own significance, our competence, and our likeability. Let me give you an example.

Pretend I have some big fears about my own competency for doing this TED talk today.

And say it's going really badly. You know, maybe I'm jet lagged and forgetting things, and no

one's paying attention. That can cause me a lot of discomfort because believe me, I do not like

feeling incompetent at all. So, one way that I could avoid a lot that discomfort is that I might start

blaming you. After all, you are not the smartest group I have ever worked with, you know.

And really, does anyone here think it's possible to teach the whole audience to be non-defensive in

the puny little 18 minutes that I've got for this? I mean, give me a break. Now it might seem

like I'm defending myself against a bad audience or a bad situation, but what I'm really doing is

I'm behaving in a way that lets me not be in touch with those fears. Our defensiveness helps us

hide our fears from ourselves, but unfortunately, that is an awful lot like putting whipped cream

on dog poop, and I know that's a really ugly metaphor, but I'll be you will remember that one.

If you're getting defensive it's because there is some fear there. But since most of us are not

sufficiently in tune with that fear, to do anything about it until it's too late, what can be more

helpful for most of us it to start paying attention to the outward behavior that we do. Our outward

signs of defensiveness are usually muc heasier to spot at a much earlier point int he process.

So if we know what our signs of defensiveness are, they can become our own personalized early

warning system. For example, I notice that when I get defensive, my breathing becomes faster,

I tend to talk much louder, and I usually feel very misunderstood. So, if I'm getting some feedback

from my friends and I notice that I'm breathing faster, talking louder, and feeling very put upon,

the alarm bells can go off. Ding, ding, ding - Hey Jim, pay attention. You're doing that thing.

Then I can take some action. So, it is worth your while to figure out what your specific signs of

defensiveness are, and then create your own early warning system. Now, we've come up with a list

of about 50 different signs of defensiveness, but these are just a few of the more common ones.

Take a look at this, and see whether any of these look familiar to you. If you don't see your favorites

up there, or even more importantly, if you happen to be sitting out in the audience right now thinking

to yourself, well, I don't really get defensive. Let me suggest to you that you are probably in complete

denial or overly-medicated because defensiveness - this is a human condition - so if you're one of

those few people on earth that thinks they don't get defensive, when you go home tonight, I would

suggest that you ask your spouse or your kids. I found family members to be remarkably willing

to help out on this task. Usually, very accurate too. So your job is to figure out what your specific

signs of defensiveness are and then create your own early warning system. Then when it tips you

off that you're getting defensive, here's a few things that you can do that can help. Number 1 -

Acknowledge to yourself that you're getting defensive. Now that may not seem like it's

a big deal, but if you don't notice it, you won't take any other action. Number two - do whatever

you can do to slow down your physiology. Maybe take a walk around the building. Get some fresh

air. Or if you're trapped in a meeting, just take a few deep breaths. Number three - pay attention

to your self-talk. If you're engaging in negative self-talk, consciously try to turn it into something

a little more positive and a little less toxic for you. Number four - create an action step that is directly

related to whatever your sign of defensiveness is. So for example, if your sign is flooding with

information to proove a point, maybe your action step would be to just be quiet for 10 or 15 seconds.

Just zip it up. If it's high charge of energy in the body, maybe it's take a few deep breaths,

or visualize some relaxing scene. If it's a sudden drop in IQ, do something that's going to

buy you a little time to let your thinking process catch up with the rest of your body - maybe

hang out in the restroom for a few minutes. One woman, her sign was always wanting the last

word. And so she got this image of herself standing at the conference room door throwing in the last

word and slamming the door, and it was a way of not only reminding her of what she was doing, but

also lightening up her mood a little bit. So you create your action step. Number five is - this is a

recovery model. This is not a model of perfection. So, if you get defensive, like we all will, you notice

it, you take some action, and start over. Let it go. So to recap: When you leave here today, the

two most helpful next steps for you will be: 1. Figure out what your signs of defensiveness are

and create your own early warning system, and 2. Figure out an action step and practice. You want

to practice it so it becomes automatic because the worst time to be figuring out how to deal with

your defensiveness is when you're defensive. Now, if you can do both of these things, I guarantee you

you will significantly increase your chances of ending up like a green zone person, rather than

one of those red zone chickens. In the words of one of our wisest, greatest modern day

philosophers, "It's not easy being green." But let me tell you, it's a whole lot easier and a lot

more effective than being red, and it could just make a big difference in your lives.

Thank you very much.