When You’re Stuck with Curmudgeons and Critics

Bring to mind a time when you were on a team or in a meeting with one or two people who – either literally or metaphorically – sat there with arms crossed, only speaking up to criticize the work of others. Perhaps you can recall many experiences like this. If so, I wonder how you handle it. Do you try to ignore them, engage with those who are more positive, lose patience altogether…?

I recently attended a workshop led by Chad Littlefield, co-founder of We and Me, Inc. (who created the popular We! Connect cards you may have encountered before, and coined the term “Connection Before Content” that we’ve mentioned here in the past). While I was initially excited by the opportunity, my week had become increasingly hectic and I was in two minds about whether to attend at all (perhaps you’ve had similar experiences). In the end, I got on begrudgingly – metaphorically crossing my arms, and ready to criticize. When I got on the Zoom call, I quickly realized there were over 750 people on this call – all with cameras on. This workshop was interactive from moment one – inviting people to say (or post in the chat) how many participants each of us expected to have in programs we facilitate over the course of the next year. Someone did the math: together, it was over 500,000. Suddenly, we had a context hook, and the call had stakes. If each of us had a key takeaway from the call, no matter how small, that could impact half a million people in the next twelve months. My interest was piqued.

Less than 15 minutes later, we went into breakout rooms (Zoom has a 100-breakout room limit – who knew?!) and immediately started chatting with each other about tips, best practices, and key takeaways from other resources. The begrudging critical nature that I came in with quickly dissipated; now I was connecting with a diverse group of people from around the world with whom I have a lot in common.

The workshop was also an opportunity to meta-process how the workshop itself was run. As Littlefield reflected, teams all over the world are constantly looking for ways to improve their quality and effectiveness, but as organizational development and community building author Peter Block puts it, “Without relatedness, no real work can occur.” The quality and effectiveness of teams is directly related to moving people out of three categories: Curmudgeons, Critics, and Consumers, and instead inviting them into two other categories: Contributors and Connectors.

As Contributors (being involved in co-creating) and Connectors (identifying and making connections between people, both within and outside the group), people experience relatedness, and are invested in the outcomes of the team or project. Long-time readers may see overlaps here with the ideas of Banquet Leadership (top-down, the team as consumers) and Potluck Leadership (messy and community-based), with the hybrid Thanksgiving Leadership model still inviting contributors and connectors.

So how do we move people from Curmudgeons, Critics, and Consumers, to become Contributors and Connectors?

This Week’s Tip:

1. Treat observable behaviors as states, not traits. In other words, if someone is sitting with arms folded and shaking their head, this doesn’t mean they are an irrevocably negative person. You may find it helpful to ask open-ended questions and give them a chance to voice their concerns – if you don’t do it early on, that person may feel unheard or disrespected, and will find other ways to introduce their concerns later, potentially derailing plans already in motion. Understand that you too have had experiences of feeling unheard, and consider that even now you are likely going through a lot of things that no one else on your work team knows, which may have you not showing up as your best self; this is undoubtedly true of people around you also.
2. Invite people to contribute and make connections. As simple as it is, the best way to move Curmudgeons, Critics, and Consumers, to become Contributors and Connectors, is to invite them to be contributors and connectors! Ask them to share their thoughts and ideas, tips and best practices. Again, not surfacing objections now doesn’t make those objections go away – so don’t be afraid to ask! And ask what connections they see, either to other work going on, or between people (both within and outside the group). Chances are, each person has a different perspective – rather than trying to align everyone’s perspectives (like a melting pot), encourage people to express their perspectives and understand each others’ (like a mosaic).

Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes – we’d love to hear from you! And if you’d like to find out more about the work of Chad Littlefield and We and Me, visit https://weand.me/.

You can subscribe to our feed here, or sign up for our weekly newsletter to get these articles directly in your inbox.