[00:00:00] Dan: Hello and welcome back to We, not Me, the podcast where we explore how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.

[00:00:13] Pia: And I and Pia Lee. Welcome back. Dan Hammonds. You've had, had a nice trip away and, had a, well, a really interesting trip actually, because you chose to go to Beirut.

[00:00:25] Dan: We did and we went, yeah, we had sort of five days in Jordan. in the Kingdom of Jordan, um, tra driving around and then we had an amazing crazy two days in, um, in Beirut meeting up with our daughters, one of whom was returning from a trip and the other one is a bit of a good traveler as well. So we with a, we had a family reunion in Beirut of all places, which it's a classic, isn't it, for people our age, I think we said before, but uh, that's always been associated with all kinds of unpleasantness through the years. But, um, but yeah, we had, uh, yeah, wonderful little break, actually. One of those breaks to be honest, which you need a holiday from afterwards cuz it was quite adventurous, uh, and exciting and demanding. But, uh, but wonderful, 

[00:01:08] Pia: And good to, you know, always refreshing and stimulating to go and get a, a, a different perspective and go right, right into the country to get that. Get that view because you can really form all sorts of assumptions that aren't necessarily true.

[00:01:21] Dan: Yeah, definitely. We hear so much. You know, the Middle East is always in the news. To a greater lesser extent, they are Islamic countries. We hear a lot about Islam that, um, that isn't true in the news. Um, and so yeah, it was, it is wonderful to sort of, We definitely felt that when you go to another country, you have literally a different stand, a viewpoint. You're standing in a different place, seeing the world from a different point on the, on the surface of the earth. And um, yeah, we, we definitely, um, it, it was, it was refreshing to see things from a complete, a completely different perspective. Um, and yeah, we met loads of obviously wonderful, kind, helpful people. Needless to say, because they're humans.

[00:02:01] Pia: And we, we had a, I was thinking actually that we, you know, we spent, seven or eight years traveling to and forth to Tanzania and other parts of Africa running leadership programs over there. And, and this similar experience that all assumptions were cast aside when you really got in to have a conversation to really understand actually what you shared and, and and what was common ground, much more than you ever thought. But the diversity of perspective of, of culture and viewpoint, experience, belief, religion, 

[00:02:36] Dan: Completely. Yeah. And it, it just, yeah, it's, it's, it's open. And I think as you say that different perspective, there are two things that leap out for me from that time. One was in a coffee break in Tanzania was standing there and this huge, massive civil servant standing next to me, this guy, he held my hand for about five minutes. And you know, It was just so glor, so lovely and friendly, and that's what they do. It was, but I thought, I'm so honored. But at the same time, that is quite strange for, you know, whitey tighty Straighty, uh, man here to sort of have your hand out was, it was an, a true honor, but at the same time, wow. Um, but then another time, I remember in, in one of the, we were talking about good governance and all kinds of things because it was about civil servants and someone said, um, we had a guy, um, a, a apol head of police, um, in one of the southern parts of the country. And he, his way of improving education went round with a stick. And any teacher who wasn't performing, he beat them with a stick. And that really worked. Is that a good idea? And I, he had this 

[00:03:37] Pia: Is that good 

[00:03:38] Dan: Is that good And I had this moment cuz I was, it was pretty early in my sort of facilitation life and I thought, this is another perspective. I cannot say that's not right. I can't because I, it, it's not gonna be helpful if I say, oh no, don't do that. That's really not on. So had to deal with it in a different way. But you sort of think, right, I've gotta take on board that perspective and even the cha the fact that that's a question was fascinating, but. 

[00:04:03] Pia: And a valid one. 

[00:04:04] Dan: Yeah, exactly, exactly. For, for what is so, uh, and with assumptions behind it. So this is something we're going to be talking about today, uh, starting to talk about with Matthew Bellringer because we planned to talk to them about, actually about disagreement, but actually what it ended up being was that Matthew talked a lot about diversity in teams, neurodiversity diverse opinions, um, and how teams can, uh, we know the benefit of teams of that.

[00:04:33] Dan: So we chunked it down. We've got this episode here, but then we'll be hearing from Matthew later in the series on, on disagreeing agreeably, but, uh, let's go and hear the first half of our conversation now. 

[00:04:45] Dan: Matthew, a lovely, warm welcome to We, not Me. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

[00:04:52] Matthew: Uh, thank you very much for having me. I'm really excited to, uh, see what happens.

[00:04:56] Dan: Uh, uh, excellent. Well, this is a strange thing because I've seen your, I've watched your, um, and listened to your Delightful Descent podcast a lot. So actually seeing your face on our podcast is a bit strange, but it's also wonderful. So thank you for being here. Thank 

[00:05:11] Matthew: Well, yeah, thank you. And feeling's mutual. Actually, I've listened to a few of yours and so it is a slightly 

[00:05:15] Dan: Great. Yes. Oh, that i, now I'm the 

[00:05:18] Pia: podcast. Love. That's what we like. It's a good start.

[00:05:21] Matthew: absolutely. 

[00:05:21] Dan: And let's all hope that other people listen to podcasts than podcasters, that it's not just because in mutual back patting session.

[00:05:30] Matthew: Just everyone all, all talking to each other. 

[00:05:32] Dan: Exactly, exactly. Just have a big meeting. Yeah. 

[00:05:34] Pia: There are no audiences, just us. 

[00:05:37] Dan: No, no, just podcasting to podcasters. Alright. Right. We're gonna kick off with the joy of the conversation starter cards, which I have in my hand. Give 'em a quick shuffle and I'll see what your question is. It's an orange card, which is medium level. I felt really valued when.

[00:05:53] Matthew: Mm. I think I feel really valued when I am free to do my thing, which is a bit weird usually. Um, when, particularly in a work context, they're actually not always in a work context where I don't feel that I'm being managed. That I don't feel that I'm being constrained, that I'm being trusted to follow my own path and to go where that leads me. Because that's a lot of what I think is, is valuable in my work. That ability to kind of go off into the weeds and see what happens. And with too much constraint, I can't do that. And I think there's almost, it's interesting cuz I, I, I just can't realize what I really value and maybe what other people often value, but I can't find the thing that I really value unless I'm free to, to wander a bit.

[00:06:45] Dan: Oh, interesting. So if you are working in a group, yeah. How does that work for you? Is that Yeah. What's the ideal environment in which that can happen? Because groups have direction and quite often can be quite a little bit constrained, um, in some ways. Um, how does that, how does that work at its best?

[00:07:02] Matthew: So for me it's the ability to really go off, like to challenge, to tangent, to be like, okay, yes, we've got this, this, and this, but what's around? What's, is there something different around, is there something we need to be aware of? Or is there something we need to tread carefully around? Or is there something, is there an opportunity there that we, we are missing out on? And just to explore the space a bit rather than, um, needing to be like just this, follows that, follows that.

[00:07:35] Matthew: And, and part of that is also because I know I draw a different frame than most people naturally. I just, I, I frame things differently. It's a, probably a result, my neuro diver neurodivergence. Um, and so it's really helpful for me to understand what the terms of other people's frame is because otherwise I will probably choose the wrong one or choose a different one and then come into conflict. So, it's helpful for me also on that. And, and that itself makes me feel more valued cuz it, it tells me that my perspective is valued.

[00:08:10] Pia: Well, that, that's a cracking start that, is Matthew. So, tell us about you, who you are and, and how you came to be here today. I.

[00:08:20] Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. So I have a, a kind of somewhat, um, un unconventional professional background in the sense that I've done an awful lot of things that aren't always supposed to go together and, um, and, and tried to bring them together into something coherent. And, um, I mean, I, I'm a kind of, I guess the, the best way to describe it, I'm, I'm a systems engineer in the very broadest sense. So I'm really interested in living systems, complex systems, human systems, um, ecosystems, the, the, the really big stuff. And I do come from a, from a technology engineering background as well. But, but I, I was always interested in people more than technology. And whilst I was working in tech, I, I studied psychology just on the side. and it suddenly opened up all of this stuff at the intersection between these two things. 

[00:09:19] Matthew: And I got really interested in about how we could change these things, how we could improve them. Cuz it always bothered me on some level. I think there's that, you know, there's just, everyone's irritated by different things and, and, and it can actually be a really valuable professional tool. Like what annoys you is a professional is an important professional question. Because it talks about where we're sensitive. And what we're sensitive to. And I am, you know, for me that opportunity to change the way things work together in reduce friction, like be more effective as well, is a, is a really important part of it.

[00:09:54] Matthew: So, so I developed this practice and in the end, uh, in 2018, I, I had left a, working for anyone else and started working for myself. And in 2020 I had an ADHD diagnosis and in, uh, and last year I had an autism diagnosis. So I really wanted to kind of bring in all of this, this kind of increasing awareness of neurodiversity as a concept and as a positive benefit. Because I realized it just wasn't talked about in those terms, either on a personal level, you know, the, the strengths that you can, that, that the conditions often come with. You don't get the chance to cultivate them or express them very much because they're not, they're not part of the normal expected mental pathways by almost by definition, so that you don't, you don't get the chance to develop the strengths. You just have to deal with the deficits with no benefit.

[00:10:42] Matthew: And also on an organizational level, how can we benefit, how can everyone benefit from, from real neurodiversity? You know that it's the plurality of perspectives that really matters. It's the breadth of perspectives that you can encounter, and there's a lot of evidence for that. There's actually quite a lot of strong academic evidence that one of the big benefits of diversity is around this kind of innovation and also organizational endurance. Um, because it's, because of that, those perspectives mean you can see opportunities and threats that you wouldn't otherwise be able to see.

[00:11:19] Matthew: But really putting the work in those terms and looking at benefits instead of the more conventional, kind of either the deficit based model on the, on, on the individual side or the more accommodations based model in organizations. But instead saying actually, you know, what's, what do you want out of this? Where is, where's the good stuff here? And what's in the way of potentially what's in the way of getting to that, but not worrying that it has to be, you know, that you, you have to be doing exactly the same as everyone else.

[00:11:53] Matthew: So that's the focus that I take. And also, you know, and, and, and how people are supported, how we support ourselves and how organizations and other people support us in doing this different and exceptional work. And that can be on an interpersonal level, but it can also be on a process level and a systemic level. And a, you know, I, I do a lot of work digitally. And I volunteer for BCS with the Chartered Institute of IT here in the uk. Um, and I'm, uh, in that, I'm chair of Neurodiverse it, which is a group for Neurodivergent IT professionals. So within that group, that's the, the intent is actually how can we build tools that support a wider range of brains better? And also how can we make the profession more accessible because they're two sides of the same coin.

[00:12:45] Matthew: That said, I also run my own community here in Brighton, in the UK, called Curious Being, which is a community for unconventional people who want to make the world a better place. Um, and I largely do that because I wanted it to exist and it didn't. It's, I'm a, first of all, I'm a community member rather than a, you know, organizer. Um, and just to be around other people who experience the world that way, um, more similarly to me is, is really helpful.

[00:13:11] Matthew: I also host the Delightful Descent podcast, which is a, a, chance to challenge conventional ideas. And I actually came up with that idea before I knew a whole load of this stuff about myself. So it's a really interesting, you know, uh, the threads all joining together again is a really interesting experience. 

[00:13:26] Dan: Fascinating, yeah. And Matthew, what, what does your work actually look like on it? Is that, is it coaching, consulting? What, what sort of things do you actually do to bring this gift to, uh, to organizations 

[00:13:37] Matthew: Yeah, so, so I work across a range of different domains. Um, fundamentally my work is I consultant, practitioner, speaker, author, facilitator, but partly coaching, partly design, partly support, partly knowledge. Um, so it's, it's, it's a combination of things for me. I often like to think in terms of processes and cycles rather than just from A to B. And so, um, it's, for me it's about how do we establish something new and all of the support that one would need to do that.

[00:14:14] Matthew: So that's what I offer that first pass. None of it's perfect. All of it will need polishing and improving later, but it's enough to get it out there and it's all coherent. Because that's often the challenge with the new thing is like you talk to an expert in one domain and they'll take you in a direction that pulls you away from the other stuff. So you need something that's gonna work for you, it's gonna work practically. You're gonna need to try it out and see how it works with other people and, and like, how do all of those fit together? So that's why I do that range of different things about establishing something that's, that's just, that's new, um, and unconventional doesn't have a direct precedent,

[00:14:55] Pia: so that's quite a late, a late diagnosis in your life. So what was life like when you were younger, when you were growing up? And, and, and I guess even neurodiversity. I don't, I don't think we even had the word really then, or I, I can't, I can't remember it. 

[00:15:12] Matthew: which it was coined in 1999, so we 

[00:15:14] Pia: yeah. So something, yes. And, and so not knowing, what was that experience like and how did you see the world?

[00:15:23] Matthew: Yeah, I mean, I, I did have a dyslexia diagnosis for a young, so I had quite, uh, as a child, so I had some sense that my brain worked a little bit differently. Like you say, it wasn't nearly as mature a set of ideas as, as, as we have now. Um, and it was, it was an Australian sociologist, Judy Singer who coined the, the term in, in, in, uh, neurodiversity in 1999.

[00:15:47] Matthew: But for me, I always had a sense that I saw the world somewhat differently and that I was just, I had a very small group of very close friends who I think in hindsight, one of the interesting things about getting a diagnosis is how many people around me have since also got diagnosis. Um, and, and so, so you suddenly realize that actually, you know, that, you know quite a lot of this stuff on some level already.

[00:16:14] Matthew: And so, and one of the things is I also have always been interested in, in how people think and how I think and feel and experience. I've always been interested in there's an idea of people as a special interest, and that means just being really fascinated by people and how they work. Um, and that, that's always been a thing for me.

[00:16:37] Matthew: So I was, and also I've done, I did an awful lot of self-development work in my, like twenties and thirties. I, in some ways that was, that was what led to the diagnoses for me. But, so I, I was pretty clear by that point about how I worked. Id done enough that I knew how I was. What's been really, really interesting is the understanding that other people's brains don't work like mind, do as much or, or often don't work like mind do.

[00:17:09] Matthew: For example. one of the things is, I, I have a lot of ideas, a lot of ADHD people, it's like a, I sometimes think the best metaphor is, is a fire hose of ideas. It's, it's always going, it's always there. It's almost like, um, it's almost intrusive. Like you're, you know, that, that like, okay, I'm supposed to be doing this, but I wanna, that's, oh, well, that, that. And, to realize other people don't, and necessarily experience the world that way has actually been really useful. Partly because it tells me, you know, the way that the world treats ideas is like, you know, they, they're these precious things that you have an idea and then you nurture it and you treat it like this rare orchid that needs watering, and like, and, and oh, you must look up for me, ideas are like tribbles, you know, in Star Trek, these little creatures that, that, that just to divide, they look cute and they're fluff fun, and then they divide and divide and then you end up buried in them. Uh, and so, so actually treating ideas like they're, they're not these scarce things that need this gentle care is really helpful for me to understand and understanding that the, the cultural message. Isn't necessarily appropriate to me because I experience a lot differently. That's that.

[00:18:30] Matthew: And so that's been the really, one of the really useful parts of what I mean by understanding other people's brains don't work like I do. That and the misunderstandings that that have occurred, you know, is, is my the, we always infer people's internal state from their behavior, but understanding that my inference of other people's behavior and their inference of mine is often based on some very faulty assumptions about internal, state versus behavior has been a really helpful thing to pick through and understand some of the difficult experiences that I've had in the past.

[00:19:06] Pia: We always call that the amateur psychology hour. You know, when you, when you are then

[00:19:11] Dan: Just trying to woo woo yeah. 

[00:19:13] Pia: one and one equals three and you're nowhere near it, really? 

[00:19:16] Dan: if you don't know what the connections are. 

[00:19:18] Pia: I mean, if, again, if we take this back, are we so full in our brains that we are not taking that time out to understand other people's brains?

[00:19:28] Matthew: I, I think it's downright hard. I mean, I, I think we, we underestimate how hard it is to work outside of one's own perspective. There's, um, uh, I forget whose work it is. Conceptualizes hard empathy and soft empathy. And that there is soft empathy. Is empathy. Born of shared lived experience. And hard empathy is empathy, not born of shared lived experience where you don't share that experience. And that latter type is incredibly hard and actually is beyond many people. And we just don't notice it as much when we share lived experience with people.

[00:20:13] Matthew: And so that really being able to, to build that, those bridges is, is a really important part of how we're working. And, and, and I think there's also, there's almost a, um, another catch here that I notice in organizations is that the more marginalized your perspective, which can be for all sorts of reasons, um, different cultural background, different neuro neurodiversity, but all sorts of different reasons, the more you encounter perspectives that are different to yours and you have to work with them to get what you need

[00:20:54] Matthew: . So I have to be able to present and talk in a norm, in a what's expected as a neurotypical way, from a neurotypical perspective, very often to get my needs met, to work, to get, you know, just to get by in life. So I get practiced at perspective taking and working with someone else's perspective. And if you happen to be more privileged in the sense that your perspective is the default, you never necessarily have to work outside of that perspective. You can go through your entire life, never encountering it. To the point at which when you do it feels very scary, overwhelmingly scary, and a big threat. Which explains why, you know, why alternative perspectives are often treated so badly in organizations because people just don't have, you know, they don't have the emotional tools and they don't have the practical tools to be able to work with something outside of their conception.

[00:22:01] Matthew: And that's a real, you know, I, I think for me, that's, that's the big challenge. So I, I think, but we underestimate how hard it is to do this. It's, it's serious. It's a significant skill. It's perfectly educable and practicable, but it's without cultivation, I don't think it shows up necessarily. It's not like part of our default skill sets to a high degree very often.

[00:22:26] Dan: Matthew just thinking about a, a, a, a listener who wouldn't count themselves as neurodiverse. I think this is quite interesting or neurodivergent. Um, when, when I was trying to get my head around this topic a little bit of, a little while ago, probably a couple of years ago, we had a chat maybe two months ago. and you said it's a spectra of spectra. Um, you know, it's sort of, there's a range of ranges, you know, and it made me, I've thought a lot about that since, and realized that you've got multiple dimensions on which people's brains are different and operate in different ways. And, everyone's different in some way.

[00:23:06] Dan: Now, obviously that's not diminishing or, um, the, the, the only way if you have an D h D diagnosis, the, the benefits and the challenges that, that obviously brings. But this is, this, what we're talking about is actually applicable to everyone, isn't it? 

[00:23:19] Matthew: Yes. I think it's, it is, it's important to say that there are, you know, most people are mostly normal in the sense of near the middle of the bell curve in most of their traits. And so we, we, but, but it's kind of a force of numbers thing. but to be completely normal, you know, like, like in any of these things, to be, so, to be utterly normal in all of the things is almost a, a paradox because you'd be so abnormal to be completely average and everything, um, that it would mark you out as, as, as kind of as strange.

[00:23:55] Matthew: But there are, there are a range of these different things and there are some people who sit a long way. So, up certain areas. You can see one, one lens to look at neurodiversity through is, is as, as specialisms, you know, as specific specialisms that the, if you think about our evolutionary history as a species, it makes sense within a, a group of say 150 people, that there are five of those people who are like, oh, I'm, I'm a bit bored with the, the normal, so I'm just gonna disappear off. And, and three weeks later they come back and say, oh, we found this amazing valley, like we, we should go there. It's much, much better. And then, and it also makes sense that within that group you've got a few people who will sit and stare at a hut for, you know, and, and like, just look at the, you know, figure stuff out for a few days and then say, you know, if we, if we change the way we do That little joint differently, the huts wouldn't blow down next time in the next time the widths. So it makes sense that we've got these range of abilities.

[00:24:59] Matthew: but because of the way that humans work, we are also all, you know, some people have significant traits without necessarily reaching any clinical threshold. And the clinical thresholds are largely our arbitrary, um, they're more about the difficulties that society presents us rather than our specific traits. Though things do kind of cluster, um, partly because again, I suspect developmentally there are only a limited number of coherent pathways. Like you, you know, there's an effect that separates out and causes clusters, certainly by the time you reach adulthood.

[00:25:38] Matthew: Yeah, so, so there are relatively distinct groups, though I think the best. The best metaphor is constellations, actually, you know, is to think about it in constellation terms. But that means that even for people in the relative, you know, in the middle of the galaxy as it were, then yes, they might well be towards one or two edges and, and improvements and changes that we make, that support people who are further out also very often support those people.

[00:26:06] Matthew: And one of the, one of the, reasons to include a wider range of, of perceptive kind of experiences and capabilities is because when people are very sensitive, uh, a far end to a problem, they're often very well placed to fix that, to address that. And that then makes it better for everyone who's kind of that side of the bell curve, almost. 

[00:26:33] Pia: When I was, um, when I was doing my, my A Levels many years ago, I studied English and studied Jane Austen and what always I. Amazed me was the power of di dialogue. Those people could take a topic and discuss it in a multitude of ways, and obviously they had plenty of time on their hands and absolutely no Netflix. So they, they really were able to, to really explore perceptions and points of view. It was beautifully written, but you've got a sense. And I sometimes wonder whether our power of discourse and our ability to be able to have those conversations has diminished because we don't have the attention span for it, and we want instant gratification of being right, or being accepted or being in the right group. Uh, what, what do you think about that?

[00:27:32] Matthew: I think there is, I think as, I think we still retain the pleasure in doing that, but I think we've also created some systems where we, we don't give ourselves the space. And that's particularly true in work. You know, where we are all about cop output, get to the end, get to the, you know, get to the result. And that itself can be, you know, it, it becomes doing for doing sake before we've even considered the, what we are thinking about the, the questions. And, and, and for me, I think there's a real, a real value in thinking about the questions we are asking rather than the answers to those questions.

[00:28:18] Matthew: And it feels like a lot of those considerations. It's yeah, how are you seeing things? What, what is what, what, what is coming up for you as a preliminary conversation instead of, okay, there's this, that, and we do that. You know, and, and that whole approach that's stepping back, I think it, it, it fosters a kind of creative approach and also a very personal approach.

[00:28:45] Matthew: And I think, you know, if I think to Jane Austen, you know, that, how personal those books are you know, one of the things that makes Jane Austen such a, such a good writer is that the, the characters are very real on a personal level. They feel like actual people. And I think the extent to which we experience our colleagues as actual people is surprisingly limited. It's very functional. And that's a real loss on multiple levels, honestly. 

[00:29:18] Dan: Could we pick that up, Matthew, and think about this topic and, and thinking specifically about teams or groups of people who have to get something done together. What, what does this, what does that look like at its best when we are really harnessing this diverse, this, this neurodiversity that we have amongst us? What, what's the, and have you seen it? 

[00:29:40] Matthew: I've not seen it to the extent I think it could exist, partly because, we don't have the. Tools to do it. It, it requires some different ways of working that are actually quite hard to implement. it, particularly in larger organizations where, where we, we just haven't quite got there yet as a a at a collective level. Because it's not just that in the, that team it becomes, you know, how do you interface with the rest of the organization?

[00:30:11] Matthew: And I've, um, you know, I've encountered this doing Agile and lean work, um, with a fair few organizations and it's like, it's all very well adopting agile and lean in a team. But if the, all of the funding comes through very formalized planning, and much more traditional planning methodologies, then there's a limit to how much you can be adaptive and explore because so, so it's, so, it's about that outward.

[00:30:40] Matthew: When it is working, um, it is fundamentally about asking good questions and then exploring multiple answers. And I think that particularly the asking questions, that's very in, in a lot of organizations, that's strategy and strategy is done at the top, and that's a real problem. Because actually we should all be, you know, I, for, for me, teams and individuals within teams, we, we know we need autonomy. It's a huge motivator driver. And we'll do all sorts of things to avoid autonomy threat as well, which is another side of it. And that ability to, to self-direct or choose a path that doesn't conflict with the needs of our immediate Pearse or with the overall organization, but yet is our own, is, is a very difficult path to walk.

[00:31:35] Matthew: And so I think for me, when it's working really well, we are going our own way together, whereas, the two failure modes of that are either everyone just going off completely in their own direction without any coherence at all, or everyone being directed. And organizations often flip, we often flip between those extremes actually, rather than sitting at the integration between them..

[00:32:05] Dan: Matthew, it's a wonderful place to end and, um, thank you so much for this rich, rich conversation, that we've had. It's really appreciated and, um, I think massively valuable, 

[00:32:18] Dan: I love that point about organizational endurance. I think it's really, worth in all these times when people are talking about diversity inclusion, diversity inclusion, to really think about not just the important individual benefits of that, but the organizational imperative to have diverse views and I thought Matthew's summary of that, of having an organization endurance versus um, having a sort of brittle organization that can't change and move with the times is really relevant for these times when we are in complex and fast changing, uh, environments. So yeah. I I, I thought that was a great why for this whole conversation.

[00:33:00] Pia: Yeah, I agree with you. And I think that that having those different perspectives, so sometimes we. We use busyness and time as a reason not to have the right conversation. And, and we don't go below, below the surface level or we're positional. And I think what this was indicating was actually that there's, by giving yourself a bit more space and time, you can really actually get to probably quite an innovative co-created idea that you may never have found before, but, you know, gotta let go of the ego in order to be able to do that. It's always been a tricky part, you know, when power, position and ego actually make you want to be right. So that's, that's a harder, but I think, I think just really accepting that people do see things differently and it's okay, we don't have to be this homogenous group.

[00:33:51] Dan: I really like though also the way Matthew is quite clear that we do use these perspectives in order to come to some, some better path together. I really like that phrase. It almost summarizes what we talk about as we, not me, is going our own way together. That sort of build the building a, a new team view from these diverse perspectives and moving forward. It's not about having just lots of people with different opinions all the time. I, I, I, I really like the way, uh, yeah. Matthew summed it up in that way as well. It's, it's pragmatic.

[00:34:24] Pia: It's quite an art because inside large organizations, when the pressure is placed on those organizations to perform, that can become a point scoring. It can feel like a point scoring. So it's an art to be able to get that, that way together and to really make people feel comfortable, that we're seeking, we're throwing the Nhat wide.

[00:34:48] Dan: And being open to different perspectives on this. I think if someone was listening to this show and said, I don't agree with that. I mean, you know, I, I was, I had a team that I was coaching once, I think I might have mentioned them before, where they really strongly challenged me on this and said, we don't want diversity. We all get on really well. We make decisions really quickly and we, we move on. And If they were in a very simple market and so they didn't have to, they didn't need this, but there are people who would, who would, who would object to that, but I think that at the heart of it is about that imperative to hear diverse perspectives so you see more and then bring it down to something to do together.

[00:35:25] Dan: But I'm, I'm sure there are people still think that, particularly when the pressure's on, the last thing I need is this difficult person, you know, in inverted commas. Actually coming up with alternative points of view. And it, it, it's tricky when the pressure's on particularly, but those voices have to be listened to and engaged with.

[00:35:42] Dan: And I also really like the way Matthew talked about, you see an opinion, but actually what assumptions are underlying that is really, as you say, taking the time to, to understand that at a deeper level. Because often assumption levels is where we can, we can resolve matters.

[00:35:56] Pia: I agree. And I, and I thought, that they just challenged our way of seeing things rather than making it something that is either homogenous or oppositional. This was like a third space, and that's what I really liked about how Matthew pos, positioned this. This is a third STA space to be able to do it, but you've gotta be really conscious of it. 

[00:36:16] Dan: it's, it is tricky. We own our own views and we, we, we sort of like them. We sort of that some where our identity can get tangled up with them sometimes. I think it is, it is challenging for all of us. But we'll be hearing from Matthew again later in the series when we'll be talking about, how to disagree in teams, which will be absolutely fascinating.

[00:36:35] Dan: But that is, It for this episode. You can find show notes and resources at squadify.net. Just click on the We Not Me podcast link. If you've enjoyed the show, please share the love and recommend it to your friends and you can also contribute to the show. Just email us at wenotmepod@gmail.com. We Not Me is produced by Mark Steadman of Origin. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:36:58] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.