Exposing Belief Systems....

As part of my ongoing growth in opening myself up, I took a risk at work yesterday.

Work is where I spend most of my day, and it is a fertile ground for learning and observing human behavior (myself and others). Also, not everyone I work with has the same beliefs, values, and views on life or cares about my personal growth.

One of the things that I have noticed recently is that the vast majority of arguments about how to do work, tasks, design processes, or systems is due to a clash of belief systems.

Included in the fray is fear in that everyone wants to say their piece, but few or none want to take ownership for the solution. These days the fear is that we will not be given the time, money, and\or resources to be successful. I can't blame us. On the surface, this appears to be likely in the age of "more for less" in Corporate America. I have participated in miracles of accomplishment despite these fears.

As a project manager, I get the opportunity to observe, guide, and in my case try to help harmonize the project team. This stems from my own personal deep need for harmony. I don't care if people on the team argue. My question is can we argue and still work together towards the desired goal? Often the arguments expand our group consciousness.

There are times when teams get in a spin over how to do something. In this case, it was training and support for this project. Having a number of years in technical training and support I have beliefs, knowledge, experience, and best practices from both successes and failures. So to get the team on board with really addressing this quandry, I decided to do a presentation on my beliefs and experience. I told them that I was opening myself up so they could understand me and know why I was saying what I was saying. I told them that they were free to debate and disagree with my beliefs and experience.

I told them I was willing to grow beyond my beliefs and experience, and that I was not taking issue with anyone or anything in my statement of beliefs. My goal was to be defenseless and vulnerable so I could move past the limitations and boundaries of my beliefs if appropriate. The only way I felt I could do this was by looking at my beliefs and exposing them to all. Big stuff for Corporate America.

After the presentation, I asked for help which included the request for ownership for these project pieces. It went really well. It took me a few minutes for them to settle down and become willing to listen to my presentation, but they did.

A good process for getting people to listen to each other that I use is called the Six Thinking Hats .

At the end, I asked who would step up and take ownership for training and support if they absolutely positively knew they were going to be 110% supported by the team, and that we would be there working to help them resolve their problems (myself mostly included). We now have 2 owners for training and support.

Truthfully, it could have easily gone the other way. And if it would have, it still would not have mattered near as much as taking the risk of exposing my beliefs to others.  I felt freedom, relief from fear of not getting my way, and strength  for opening myself up. Mostly, I feel grateful for anything I can do to move past myself into the land beyond beliefs.