The bricklayer, the builder, and hard conversations

Craig Browne

Is it just my experience, or are builders and bricklayers more emotionally aware than the rest of us? Let me explain …

The bricklayer

A few years ago, while having some building done, I was having a conversation with the leader of the team of bricklayers when he said something that really struck me – so much so in fact, that I added his words to our Unpacked CCS User Manual (pp140 if you have it!).

At the time I had just discovered Roger Lewin and Birute Regine’s great book, The Soul at Work, and was interested in how leaders motivated their people and the overwhelming importance of the relationship a supervisor has with their direct report. I asked him (let’s call him, “Clay”) how he knew when his team members were performing well, and when they weren’t.

Clay said,

“I find I can gauge a person’s performance by how they are making me feel. If I am feeling frustrated, there’s probably a problem.”

I found Clay’s intuitive, “gut feel” approach intriguing. I admit that, at the time, I was sceptical of the reliability of such an approach. But there is plenty written about the pros (and cons) of intuition in decision-making (here’s a recent example).

And even if there wasn’t, we all know we do it – we can’t help ourselves. Humans are emotional, thin-slicing, creatures. Even if we go on to mix it with rational arguments, previous experience and empirical data, it’s our emotional responses that lead to action and pretty much everything else:

“Emotion has a substantial influence on the cognitive processes in humans, including perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem solving.” [Tyng et al].

I recall Clay saying that he relies on this approach because it suits the “workplace” – a building site – where meeting one-on-one in an office is not so common. So, he observes and feels.

Clay also said something else though:

“Trouble is, if I am feeling frustrated, I’m not good at bringing it up with them.”

Clay is not alone. That’s another thing we all know – talking about hard things is hard. And bringing up something like poor performance is not on many people’s list of fun things. Hard conversations have the potential to be messy and conflicting and painful and noisy, full of tears, liabilities, loss, and shame. They are also, necessary.

What is not talked about, does not usually go away, it just gets buried, which just leads to more messiness, and mental health problems (and continued poor bricklaying).

Talking about the hard stuff has always have been important. But in a world riddled with zillions of digital distractions, decreasing real social interaction and knee-jerk messaging – constructively and safely talking about hard things is critical.

While a quick search will reveal dozens of useful strategies for having difficult conversations, the capacity of CCS Cards to add visual support, simple structure, and rich mutual disclosure, makes them a valuable tool for these situations. Even, or perhaps especially, when the subject is likely to be hard, image cards provide a way for people to:

Thoughtfully reflect upon and understand their true position
More fully articulate their concerns – where they may otherwise have struggled with words
Actively listen to each other
See common ground
And look for possible solutions
Build relationship.

While each of these things can certainly be achieved without image cards, not many tools fit so naturally to the task. As many facilitators, coaches and counsellors (and perhaps a few bricklaying foreman) will know, with just a little guidance image cards can used to reliably create a productive, safe environment for all manner of hard conversations.

The builder

So, fast-forward to today and some more building work I am having done – and another builder with communication concerns. Let’s call him, “Art” (Artisan). Artie’s hard conversation was with a personal relationship.

While I was assisting by holding one end of a tape measure, the conversation drifted to other things going on in our lives. Art was soon talking about the difficulty of relationship conversations. I swear I did not start this … I think it might be a builder thing!

Suffice to say, Art now also has a couple of packs of CCS Cards in his builder’s toolkit and was impressed with his first 5-card conversation with a few members of his family.

So, while it’s only a sample of two, it sure makes me wonder if builders are more emotionally and socially aware and concerned than the rest of us. Has anyone else had this experience?

Either way, the next time you need to have a hard conversation, remember, as Bitrus Dangiwa (Director of Training at the Interfaith Mediation Center, Nigeria) says,