I had thought that in this blog I'd be relating my experience facilitating the retreat with our IT department, but I am not. The retreat happened but without me as the facilitator. I spent the day, instead, with my 16 year old son and my ex-husband in a crisis and the aftermath thereof.
The morning began innocently enough. My son awoke and prepared for school. He had worked on a project the night before that was due that day and when I asked him if he had completed it, he responded that he had not (quite) and the one little piece left to do, well, he was planning to do that at school prior to class.
There was a lot riding on this project, or so I thought. There WAS a lot riding on this project--the what was just different than I thought it was.
You see, my son has been working with a tutor and for a very good reason. He has been struggling in school staying organized and managing his time well to complete assignments and projects. His grades have suffered due to "silly" things around how he organizes and manages his time and the tutor has been teaching him how to structure his approach a bit better. What I understood from his dad and the tutor was that, in order for Sam to have a party with his friends on this same Friday that this project was due, well, the project needed to be completed.
So when I told Sam that it looked like he was not able to have his party because his project was not done, and I presented him with some options (like skipping band practice that morning in order to complete the work on his project and hence have his party), it all seemed reasonable to me.
Sam became very upset and in the course of that upsetness, revealed something that he had been concealing from us and that now explains some his other behaviors we had been concerned about over the last few months. His revelation, in hindsight, was a very good thing because it allowed us an opening to talk with Sam about what's been going on inside his head.
But I fell into some ORJI traps with Sam in this discussion about his project and I've been thinking lots about that. I realize that, with Sam's struggles in school, I have struggled in my trust of him. When he yelled at me after I told him he probably wouldn't have his party that I didn't trust him, he was right. As I replay the tape in my head that morning, I was thinking to myself "Why would he not finish this project before going to school? Why would he jeopardize his party this way? Why is missing band or being late for it that big of a deal if it means finishing the project and having the party?" and I took my answers to these questions as the truth--he must not care, he is testing me, etc. etc. Instead of asking Sam these questions, I answered them myself based upon misinformation and I treated Sam unfairly. I later found out that the agreement he'd made with his dad (and that I misunderstood) was based more on trusting Sam to complete and hand in his project in the manner he saw was best to manage all the work on his plate.
My traps are the ones that occur most often in the O stage of the cycle--observation. I bring with my bias based on previous experiences and expectations and other baggage that causes my vision about what is really going on to be blurred. My data is false and perceptions distorted, as I discovered on Friday with my son Sam.
Wow, that’s a great example self-discovery and a deeper level of consciousness. As a parent, you have an intimate history with Sam’s behavior patterns. How can that be overlooked? It’s near impossible not to draw immediate conclusions after a lifetime of observations. Therefore, your “O” leading to your “R” makes complete sense. Don’t many of us do that in our personal relationships?
ReplyDeleteThis model of Schein offers us all a great opportunity to double-check or even stop three practices in our relationships with others: (1) suspend what we immediately project onto others as we judge their behaviors based upon our own “shadow” behaviors; (2) break patterns or reactions based upon our instantaneous knee-jerk conclusions; (3) interrupt the ORJI cycle to question ourselves and to avoid mistakes.
Before you sell yourself short, please recognize your own victory: You cross-examined yourself. Many people never do this. This is a critical factor in what I believe will facilitate the ultimate positive outcome of this situation. Since you interrupted your ORJI cycle this time, there is a very strong likelihood that you will repeat this activity and interrupt it again in the future. The more often you do this, the more you will create your own new pattern. Awareness and self-examination are huge contributors to personal growth.
Wow Penny! I am catching up on your posts and am so grateful that you've shared a personal story to illustrates the ORJI cycle. I can't say that this chapter of Schein was one of my favorite but your reflection gave me an opportunity to look at it again so thank you! I agree with Steve that you've been victorious. As Schein tells us to do in "Principle 3 - Access Your Ignorance", you've taken that step to be aware of your biases and undoubtedly, you'll be even more aware in the future since this experience with Sam. Further, he recommends that we institutionalize the systematic checking procedures via more questioning, more observation and my favorite (although also the one I am least practiced in...) silence. I know that I don't "do enough silence" with my children - I often react and respond way too fast and way too loud. In fact, as I reflect now while writing here, there is an additional dynamic to add to your situational experiences, systematic biases, and emotional reactions - can we call it a Motherhood Trap? It is not easy to halt and examine the first three and perhaps impossible to suspend the fourth. For me, it is a physiological reaction so I have to remind myself to "be present" and to acknowledge the value that it can provide even as it convolutes my desire to be "helpful" to my children.
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