I feel quite proud about how we went from point A to point B. And I feel confident that other people would be able to use this framework as well.
– Janel Torkington
Part of the Flying the Coop project is Janel and I building in public as we move from a typical partnership structure to a coop one.
Every once in a while we’re going to publish mini episodes of us talking through this process.
The first one is apt: how we make decisions, particularly difficult ones.
What do we mean by a difficult decision? One that takes longer than 5 minutes to decide and is clearly coming up against some ethical, value-based, or personal barriers.
In this episode we talk through our Decision-Making Framework, how it works, and how you can use it in your own organization.
Cool things about this framework:
- It transforms the conflict from you vs me to us vs the problem
- It clarifies the difference between a principled objection and a preference
- It kicks things off and wraps things up with feelings, because every decision is made via emotions whether you want to admit it or not
Have a listen!
Access the Difficult Decisions Template here: https://strangebirds.kit.com/decision-making-framework
Listen to Alfred’s podcast, referenced in this podcast here: https://strangebirds.land/ep-3-alfred-garcia-care-for-people/
Subscribe for easy access to transcripts, show notes, our secret insider thoughts on the interviews… and the occasional goof reel.
Read the raw transcript:
[00:00:06] Anna: So we’re making a podcast. And we had gotten to our desired three recorded
and edited podcasts in the bank and you were like, let’s publish them. And I was like, cool.
And then realized that we needed to have a conversation about how we were publishing.
And it had just come across my. My plane of awareness the week before about the CEO of
Spotify investing again in a weapons AI company. Like $60 million. I was like, I’m so done with
this. They pay their artists like crap.
You have to reach like a certain number of views to get paid at all with your music on Spotify
now.
And I was like, yo, I don’t want to publish on Spotify. And you were like, well, funny enough.
[00:01:03] Janel: I was also just. We hadn’t even talked about this, but I also was on my own
journey to, as an individual consumer get off Spotify. I was thinking about making the switch to
Tidal. I actually had the platform installed and just was like dragging my feet about it. So our
brains were in a similar place. We regards to like, this platform sucks. It would be better not to
use it. But then when it came to where are we going to publish our podcast? I had the idea of
more places is better because we want to be where people are listening and Spotify is a major
distributor and it would be better on a practical level to show up there if we want people to
actually hear it.
So what happened was a disagreement of two different values. Right. One is about ethical
consistency and the other is about trying to have success with this project that we’re trying to get
up off the ground.
So what we decided to do was to take our difficult decision making schematic for its very first
test run and it went super great. So we wanted to share it out.
[00:02:04] Anna: Yeah. And I think one thing I’ll add there is we have a weekly call and this was
like a bullet point on the agenda of the weekly call. And we spent more than 10 minutes kind of
like me being like, fuck Spotify and you being like, but, but.
And then I was like, yo, I think this deserves a full conversation. So. So the another goal here is
like, we’re going to walk you through the decision making schematic, but also where we notice
when we needed to pause.
So a good time to use things like this is when you’re working with your team or your business
partner, whatever, and you’re talking about something hard in terms of ethics, morals, values,
and it’s just like you’re talking about it for longer than 10 minutes and no one feels okay in the
room. And you can probably tell when no one feels okay. This is the time to use this.
[00:02:53] Janel: It’s fairly simple, but there’s some good decisions that we made throughout
here that I think facilitated us arriving to a conclusion we both feel pretty good about. The first
really key thing that made a big difference is this little drop down right here, which hides a whole
bunch of good stuff, which is all the homework and research that we did beforehand. So we had
this call on the calendar where we were going to go through this difficult decision together. But
before that, both of us went through and thought about it like, what am I bringing to this thing?
What are different reference points that I want to be mutual between us? We also wrote down
some pros and concerns under the two different options that were on the table. Whether we
should or should not be on Spotify. In this case, it was just pretty much a binary. This is really
important to do beforehand so that you’re entering the conversation with the same context and
can make the same references and you’re not trying to, like, school the other person, but rather
you’re entering already with a collaborative mindset.
[00:03:54] Anna: Specifically with this conversation where I was in the fuck off forever Spotify
camp, my little radical heart was like on fire, burning Cop cars moment. And what was really
helpful for me, I realized I had to do research to better understand Janelle’s point of view. Like,
yeah, Spotify, sure, it has podcasts. I don’t listen to podcasts on Spotify.
And so I was coming from it, from my own experience of there’s other podcast apps, what’s the
big deal? And then finding the. If you could open the research toggle.
What helped me was looking at. Here are the actual numbers behind how many people listen to
podcasts on Spotify versus Apple podcasts versus all of these other things. It helped me come
into our conversation with a bit more flexibility. And I think when you’re doing the research, don’t
just research your point.
[00:04:51] Janel: Yes, yes. Do whatever you can to go beyond your individual experience and
start thinking about the broader context.
Because the goal is to reach mutual understanding and agreement, not to win.
So we did that groundwork and then it came time for our call. And we dedicated a call
specifically to this and this alone.
And the very first thing that we did, as suggested by Anna, brilliantly, was to do a one word, ish
feelings check in.
And both of us were not feeling great. Um, I think you felt pretty nervous and so nervous. Yeah.
And I, I was feeling maybe even some resentment and just. And. And a Little.
[00:05:36] Anna: I think the word you used was frustrated.
[00:05:39] Janel: Frustrated.
[00:05:39] Anna: Yeah. I was nervous. You were frustrated. Something I want to say here with
the one word. Ish. Feelings. Check in.
Keep it short, because if you start in, like, I’m feeling nervous because you’ve already lost the
point of the call. Keep it really focused. Just name the fact that you’re nervous so the other
person knows a baseline where you’re coming from. We got this, actually, from Alfred, who we
interviewed on the podcast, and I was like, this is such a good idea.
[00:06:08] Janel: Yeah. And it’s a little reminder that you’re all humans in the room, bringing your
very human emotions along with you, and it can really lower people’s defenses in a very positive
way.
[00:06:18] Anna: Way.
So we’re about to get into it, and I’m like, okay, I gotta, like, convince Janelle, right? Like, I’m
nervous, so I’m using all this nerd energy to, like, do some convincing.
And Janelle was like, hold on, I have a good idea. I was like, what?
[00:06:38] Janel: My idea was to represent the other person’s viewpoint because I noticed that I
really did not want to argue my reasoning because it just felt combative. And again, the goal,
which we’ve got printed big here in green, is to find the best path forward together, not to win. So
I didn’t want to come in and be all lawyer y about, like, point A, point B, point C in instead, like,
what if we talked about how we think the other person is feeling and what the other person
wants, and then we see if that’s an accurate representation, if the other person feels like they’ve
been understood within that. And that was a really, really cool idea.
[00:07:18] Anna: Awesome. It was awesome. Yeah. And I think we both got about 90% right.
And then the other person can be like, also this point you missed this. That’s kind of big. And the
other person was like, yeah, you also missed this. And. Yep, it was great.
[00:07:35] Janel: Really was. And so we. We went through it. You could see here in the columns,
you’ve got option one and option two. In our case, we only had two options on the table, but you
could expand the. If you had more. And then we had kind of an idea parking lot on the side
where we started typing things as they kind of came up in conversation. And, you know, a really
cool thing about having a schematic like this, it can maybe feel like overkill for somebody who’s
never used this before, but the thing that it did that was quite magical is a thing that relationship
therapists talk about a lot, that it’s not you versus me. It’s us versus the problem and putting it
out in front of us. So. So it’s something that we’re both observing and working on together and
we’re looking at the same context really makes that whole mindset shift happen and it enabled.
[00:08:19] Anna: Us to move forward together again. It’s unity. Right. And I think that there’s this
idea with consensus that everyone is like absolutely excited about the decision.
That’s not the goal. The goal is everyone’s okay with it.
[00:08:36] Janel: The way that we talk about it in our co op is the principled objections versus
preferences. If something is a principled objection, it’s really important to talk about and examine
and work through if it’s a preference that probably shouldn’t be a blocker to moving forward,
something you can maybe mention. But if you just don’t like that particular shade of blue
because you don’t like it, that shouldn’t block the work going forward. So we put a few resources
like that here on the bottom that can be used as reference points during the time that you’re
having the conversation in order to get unstuck and ask some good questions.
[00:09:10] Anna: One of the reasons why we needed to use this was because I was having a
principled objection. Right. And it wasn’t just like, I just like, in general, like, don’t like Spotify, like
their logo’s stupid, I don’t like their ui, like, that’s like, that’s a preference. This was principled
objection. We needed to have a deep conversation.
[00:09:30] Janel: Mm.
So we ended up coming to several conclusions which we’ve documented here. I would highly
recommend documenting as well if you’ve done something like this with your team so that
everyone can then refer back to. Okay, here’s exactly what we’re doing to move forward. Here’s
how we got there and you can remember it, reference it later. And finally we concluded with one
more one word. Ish feelings check in. And we were both feeling far more positive than we
entered the conversation. Yeah.
[00:09:58] Anna: Well, should we talk about the decision that we made?
The. I don’t know if compromise is the right word, but the unity that we came to was Spotify is
needed for reach. You scroll back up to the. To the homework. It’s a huge frickin platform for
podcasts and that means. So for me, I was like, how can we use Spotify? But like not use
Spotify, Right?
Like, that’s where I came in with some flexibility. So can we put some parameters on how we use
Spotify? Janelle was Using Spotify for creators to distribute. I was like, can we use a different
tool? I am happy to pay for a different tool. Like, let’s not use their platform for stuff as much as
possible.
So we’re getting a paid platform for distribution.
We are going to revisit in one year if we still want to distribute our podcasts on Spotify. It’s good.
I think it’s good that we had the time marker where like, no, we have to revisit. That helped me,
the principled objector, to be like, okay, this isn’t a forever decision. We are going to keep talking
about it. And that made me feel a lot better. It ended with us like, that went really well. We
should record a little mini podcast about this.
[00:11:03] Janel: Seriously, like, I’ve been looking forward to having this exact conversation
since we had this tough conversation and, and moved our way through it. I feel quite proud
about how we went from point A to point B. And I feel confident that other people would be able
to use this as well. So here, here is a handy dandy, fill it in yourself version for your use.
Whatever difficult conversations you may need to have with your own teammates and if you give
this a spin, we would really love to hear how it goes. I’m certain that everyone will have their own
little mechanics that they’ll want to add to it because every team is different. But as kind of a
base schematic, we think it would work really well for making a lot of tough decisions.
[00:11:48] Anna: Make sure you do the homework because it’s going to give you that flexibility
that’s needed to have difficult conversations. And if you come in inflexible and like your head is
still steaming, this is not going to work. It’s not going to work. And if you notice that you do the
research and you like think through things and your head is still steaming, afterward, you’re
allowed to ask to delay the conversation.
Right. One of the things of the resources that we have here is notice when you need to pause.
And you can pause before the conversation even happens, right. If you’re stuck, it’s okay to
come back later.
[00:12:23] Janel: I’m inclined to say I’m looking forward to our next difficult conversation, so we
can use it. I’m not, but it was awfully useful and I feel confident that whatever comes up in the
future, we’re going to be able to work through it together.
Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a strategic messaging co op for businesses
who care loudly.
From websites to onboarding flows launches to long term strategy. If you want your brand offers
and experience to tell the same story, we can help. Find us at Strangebirds.land.
See all episodes: https://strangebirds.land/podcast/