Why I can work with skeptics
Jessica Nagy captures why it is I can work with skeptics but not cynics. Much of my work has to do with at least having a sense of possibility. You can doubt the outcomes or the effectiveness of something, but if you are turned to possibility and hope then you can at least make a contribution. Cynics have both doubt and hopelessness and unless they offer some alternative, then they become corrosive to processes that are just beginning.
I find in general many people who declare themselves cynical are actually skeptical. They want some thing to work out, they hold out hope for things, but they hedge their bets. The trick in doing transformative change work is to work with cynics to unleash the skeptic within. And if you can’t do that, then you have to jettison them from the process. I have had several projects where cynics have had a dominating influence on our work, and we usually get what they are looking for, which is a grinding halt.
When I am working with core teams to host the core of a process I welcome skeptics but try to establish a principle early on that cynics aren’t welcome in the core process. Once we build a process and a container for our work that is robust enough to hear from everyone and to move forward, cynics are more than welcome, but only when the container is strong enough to hear what they have to say without their influence destroying what is being built.
Having said that, there are times when things need to be taken down, and THAT act of discernment is one that is a practice. For example, does it pay to be cynical or skeptical about last year’s Copenhagen process? I was cyncial about Stephen Harper’s participation in that gathering and said so on my blog here. So my call to embrace skepticism and cut loose cynics is not a polyannaish call to embrace only the positive and ignore the shadow. A moral compass helps determine what it is you lend your hope to.
Where do you draw the line between skepticism and cynicism? How do you work with both?
I’ve struggled with this in my own personality, especially as my self-awareness has grown in my 30s. Although I think I’m naturally creative, I also embrace skepticism and critical thinking as essential parts of the creative process. Now “critic” has almost as bad a reputation as “cynic”, and sometimes people seem to confuse the two — even wielding the “cynic” label as a weapon against anyone with a dissenting opinion, even when the so-called cynic is obviously trying to move the discussion forward.
In a group trying to move towards a goal, you absolutely need people who are willing to question assumptions and push back on the tendencies toward group-think. So often I’ve been in decision-making meetings where everyone else is nodding while I get more and more uncomfortable. If I can think fast enough, articulate my criticism and explain an alternative direction in a way that people understand, they’re again nodding in agreement…even when the new direction is in opposition to the original path they had just been agreeing with.
I’ve also been cynical at times, when politics and incompetence make any movement forward seem impossible. Yet I think you’re right that hope is key — hope can be rekindled if there’s evidence of change and real commitment.
Well said Chris. I too can work with skeptics. Cynics are another matter. I think cynicism in a group can be corrosive and suck a lot of energy. Skeptics provide an alternative perspective and bring something that can be built upon. And that’s why i struggle with cynics – they seem to block ANY suggestions so there’s just nowhere to go.
Thanks you two…Jeremy, this is why I like to use decision making processes that bring voices out rather than shut conversation down. People often complain about talking too much, but my experience is that the critics and skeptics can often bring much valuable perspective to a decision. On the conditional hope thing, you’re making me wonder about what it takes to cut bait. Sometimes I can stay in a process, other times I have to check out. For example, I’m largely cynical about the school system’s ability to create hopeful alternatives for my kids, so I have invested hope in the alternatives that we are cultivating.
And Viv, I wonder as facilitators, what we can do to work with cynicism, even if that means rooting it out, let alone converting it at least to skepticism. Comes down to our age old discussion about whether there can ever be “space invaders” in a process, or whether that is simply just a condition of the facilitator’s mind.
Nice frame, provides clarity and simplicity for a important distinction.
If someone is even in a process, I think there is a skeptic at least in them. The iniri of stepping into their life space, holding ground and calling the skeptic from within the cynic is a coaching piece I think we both face in our work. Cynicism is an expression of the quality of the narrative, the story, and so working with this energy is to me about getting behind enemy lines to find the pocket of resistance to the dominate narrative of cynicism…cynicism is all about defense…and finding hope may be able listening for the call…seeking that center of disturbance..stepping in with ears open..
good post…
Great comment Dave…thanks…I love the idea of pulling the skeptic from the cynic.
I liked this post, Chris.
Let me see if I can play and re-frame it a bit, and not like I”™m going to come to any conclusion different from yours rather just a different way of processing and moving with the information. However, one initial nagging observation:
When and where in our culture and society did we create a world where “hope” (and for that matter “doubt”) became a noun, a thing, a something ? I”™ll give you a $100, no questions asked, if you can show me how to put a pound of “hope” in the trunk of my car (and don”™t believe that digging up Bob and exacting a pound of whatever”™s left of his body counts!).
So, what if we changed the language of Nagy”™s model a bit, made it more process-like: hope becomes “hoping” and doubt becomes “doubting.” Does it follow that cynic becomes cynicalling and skeptic , skepticing. Maybe not. But maybe we can rest with: “being in a state of sceptical” and “being cynical.”
So what if we further changed the context and added hoping and doubting continuums. There are millions of possibilities and gradations along the hoping continuum from “hoping” at one end to “despairing” (or hopelessness) at the other. On the doubting continuum, there are millions of choices between “doubting” and “believing” (if we are to accept that”™s the appropriate antonym). If you kept the same x-y axis that puts both cynic and skeptic onto the left side (based on the notion that hoping and believing are the “positive” and desired processes).
Hoping
|
cynic |
|
Doubting ——————— Believing
|
skeptic |
|
Despairing
So using this layout then, I get really curious because I see a huge opportunity to engage in transformative change for people to move into the other two quadrants (although I have no idea what I would label a believing-despairing person?). What might it take to move a skeptic into the hoping-believing area?
Now I personally don”™t like the quadrant approach ”“ way too button-down, business-like mentality that sets up an all-too-obvious positive and negative approach.
So what if we simply made the two continuums horizontal.
Despairing ——————————- Hoping
Doubting ——————————– Believing
I guess cynic and skeptic both remain nearer the left hand side however would probably have skeptic more towards the middle. And not like being cynical or sceptical doesn”™t have its uses as processes for moving through life — they clearly do, but again, in my world I think I”™d rather be over closer to hoping and believing.
In moving them horizontally I wonder what the underlying conversation is for these continuums? What are the commonalities? One underlying metaphor I see is FUTURE ”“ the belief around a future state for the individual, his family, and the community. I also sense something around the efficacy of action and the ability to change.
I think this whole conversation is tied to another continuum I use quite often ”“ that of protection and growth. In biology, as you know, a cell is either in protection or growth, one or the other. As humans we can recontext that a bit and create a process moving between protection AND growth. And when I add that to the mix, I get another conversation around SAFETY.
Despairing ——————————- Hoping
Doubting ——————————– Believing
Protection ——————————- Growth
(where is safety for you along the bottom line?)
It could be said residing in despair and doubt serves only to protect me, protect what I have now. It can be stable, conservative, stay the course, passive. And that can be useful. But for me, SAFETY is in growth, in learning, in moving, in associated values like believing and hoping. Sure my growth has had its measure of despair and doubt ”“ doubt in the status quo and despair that change isn”™t happening quick enough — but clearly, if I look at the everyday language I use, hope and belief are words I gravitate towards.
Hi Chris
This is a really valuable distinction.
In my experience, cynicism is like the scar tissue over a tender heart that’s been broken. The more violent the cynicism, the higher the ideal that has been shattered.
So whenever I can, I will find a quiet corner where I can engage with the person displaying cynical behaviour because I’m really curious about the beautiful ideal that’s protected deep in that person’s armoured heart.
I find it much harder to deal with the apathetic and the indifferent – but they only show up at events that are compulsory!
Thanks both of you…
@Alistair…the despairing/hoping language is helpful because it inplies a process rather than a state and that is more true and more human. I think it’s fair to say that there are times when I am hoping and times when I am despairing, and neither are permanent states. I wonder if safety is not about moving someone (or myself) from one place to another but rather building a container in which I am free to be in the process of becoming either…that container gives me protection and growth.
@Helen…”curious about the beautiful ideal that”™s protected deep in that person”™s armoured heart.” Yes! (and also in mine!)