3 Metrics Tell the Health of Every Relationship

Brett: We were working with a group of CEOs last week, and you brought up three metrics to change the company culture in their organizations that I really, really loved. And I also found that they'd be really applicable to relationships, to families, and to life in general. So I'd really love to talk about those and bring that onto the podcast.

Joe: Yeah. I really was looking at, like, what are the things that describe all dysfunction at a certain level, and how do you make it very simple so it's very s- easy to understand? So, and now that you say it, I like, I love the idea, and it's very true. It's the same thing that will predict, like, how functional your family is and how functional your relationship is.

Brett: Yeah. I like that you mentioned all the different types of dysfunction there. 'Cause if it only works for certain types of dysfunction, then you don't know that it's actually gonna work for you. 'Cause you might not know what dysfunction you're in until you've started to move out of it.

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And this reminds me of a quote from, I believe it's Anna Karenina, which I believe it's the opening line, if I'm not completely mistaken and illiterate. "All happy families are happy in the same way. All unhappy families are unhappy in different ways." 

Joe: Oh, man. 

Brett: Of course, there's nuance to it, but I also think that that could be applied to companies. Like, the companies people wanna work for that are really great companies to work at are generally, they all have their own flavor. 

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: But there are certain qualities that are universal across them. 

Joe: Correct. 

Brett: Whereas every company that's completely dysfunctional can be very uniquely and creatively dysfunctional in very different ways. And so we're looking for metrics here that can apply and bring you back from the brink in all these different directions towards something that is healthy. 

Joe: Yeah. So first, culture. What do we mean by culture? It's just basically how people interact together generally.

Like, how healthy is the interaction? A healthy culture is one where people feel like they're growing and becoming better people, and it's not particularly 100% smooth because there's gonna be creative tension because everybody's growing, but it definitely means that it's, like, enjoyable and we feel like we're growing in this culture, and that there's connection and warmth in the culture.

As far as bad culture, let's just talk about two different kinds of culture. You know, let's say you have bosses who yell. Let's say you have a CEO of a company who's a yeller. They get really aggressive, they get really angry, and people are all scared of them. And then you take another culture where just the exact opposite, where the CEO is super conflict-avoidant, and so nothing ever gets resolved and everybody feels like it's, like they're, like, trying to like, run through mud. 

Brett: So we can name those, like, creating conflict versus avoiding conflict all of which generates conflict. 

Joe: Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. So we would need metrics that actually describe both of them. And so the metrics that I think about and that I've found just work across every dysfunction that I've found so far is, the first metric is how long does it take to have an uncomfortable conversation? Uncomfortable conversation is any conversation that's potentially gonna get somebody in hackles, get them defensive, that's gonna like directly talk to the politics, that's gonna be a hard decision that the company doesn't wanna make.

Brett: Name the white elephant in the room.

Joe: All those things, right? The second is how long does it take for that conversation to become productive? Right? So you can have that conversation, and it never resolves, or it resolves in a very non-productive way. It's like, how long does it take for that conflict to be like good action that is, creates real resolution? 

Brett: 'Cause I can imagine the company where somebody speaks up immediately, almost like reflexively, when something's off, and then everybody simmers about it for months, 

Joe: Exactly.

Brett: And avoids each other. 

Joe: Exactly. 

Brett: So like it might have started, but doesn't get metabolized. 

Joe: Or there's like the one person who's always bringing up the problem and nobody's paying attention to them, right? You know, the, the person... we see this in cultures all the time where there's one person who's like, white elephant, white elephant." Everyone's like, "God, just shut up, dude." "We know. Come on." And then the last one is, how empowered do people feel to actually be able to transform the situation positively? How much does everybody feel like they can make the difference in the family or in the company or whatever? And so that empowerment, the empowerment to make a positive transformation, is the third metric. 

Brett: So, going back to the diagnostic here, how do you know if you're looking at your relationship, if you're looking at your family dynamic, if you're looking at your company, your team, how do you diagnose each of these three metrics? 

Joe: Let's look at the two examples that we gave, right? So you have the yelling CEO. So the question is, does the conversation get had quickly? Maybe if the CEO's upset, it happens quickly. But doesn't happen if anybody else sees the problem, so the CEO has to see the problem. So they're not doing so well, meaning the 100 people around the CEO are scared to bring up anything because the person yells, then you're not actually having the hard conversation quickly, so failing on that metric.

And then how quickly does it get resolved? The CEO might just say, "Okay, we're gonna do this," and then there's a resolution. That happens sometimes, but what it never does is incorporate everybody's wisdom in it.

Brett: Right. So resolution doesn't mean that we just made a decision and moved forward. That might look like resolution, and that might be short-term productive. 

Joe: Right. 

Brett: And even over the medium term, you might win. But you're gonna be accumulating some sort of cultural technical debt that's not being resolved. 

Joe: Correct, and you're not also... Right? The CEO doesn't know the fine print of what hundreds of people are doing, so if you don't have their wisdom, you're not actually solving the problem. And I see this all the time in companies where the CEO's like, "Problem? Here's a solution," but he's taken none of the wisdom of the people who are actually doing the work to actually create the solution, so it's just this perpetual action being taken.

We're gonna reorg again, we're gonna reorg again, we're gonna reorg again, but, like, nothing actually changes because there's no one's being listened to. So that's the second one, is, like, is real resolution found? And then the third one is the empowerment piece, the, like, how empowered do people feel? And then if you look at the angry company, the angry CEO, nobody feels empowered because everybody's scared, right?

Now let's take a look at the entire thing on the other side of it, which is the conflict avoidant. So is a hard conversation had? Probably not. If somebody does have it, maybe somebody, you know, one of the direct reports has the conversation, but then it's not really resolved because it doesn't get a full conversation in the group. 

Brett: Or fragments of the hard conversation are had piecewise between people in a political way. 

Joe: Exactly. yeah. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And then does a resolution happen? Nope, because to actually have that resolution, there's gonna be conflict, and that's critical when we talk about, like, what happens when you implement it, is there is gonna be some of that conflict.

And then do people feel empowered? No, people feel super disempowered. This is whether it's consensus decision-making or avoidant decision-making. It's like people don't feel like, "Oh, I can make a change. I have to go and get all these people to agree with me, and there's gonna be somebody who doesn't agree with me," or "I need to get action, but the CEO's never gonna actually make the hard call because there's conflict avoidance." And so it doesn't really matter what kind of dysfunction it is. These three metrics, as far as I can tell, hit no matter what the dysfunction of the organization is. 

Brett: Right, and it's kinda cool because that third metric, do people feel empowered, feels kind of like a cause and a result of the first two metrics.

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: The more empowered people feel, the more quickly the hard conversations are had, and the more quickly they metabolize into an integrative resolution. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And then the result of that increases the sense of empowerment. So there's a virtuous feedback cycle or a downward spiral in the opposite direction.

Joe: There's a huge amount of evidence that shows when decision-making is pushed down in an organization or in an army or, any situation like that, that they're more effective generally, right? Decentralization, whether it's Uber, where the driver gets to decide when they drive, how much they drive, where they drive, like that's a more successful situation. Like a democratization of publishing, people get to decide on the ground. 

Brett: Yeah, that's something interesting to double-click on too, 'cause this came up in the group that I was working with last week. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Like decision-making gets pushed down, yes, everybody has the capacity to become more empowered but also pushing down the responsibility. Correct. So, like, if you push down the decision-making, but the people who are making the decisions aren't responsible for or owning the results of the things that they're working on, then you end up sort of decoupling the decisions from the results.

Joe: Yeah, and they feel super disempowered. Which is weird. People feel disempowered if I'm responsible, but I don't get decision-making. That feels disempowering. It's odd, but the other feels disempowering too. If you're like, "I have an opinion about everything, but I'm not actually responsible for any of it," it feels a little bit more empowered, but you still feel disempowered.

You still don't feel like, it's still a yucky feeling in your system of like, "Oh, it's not me being like capable and potent," right? Yeah. It's like, "I have a whole bunch of opinions, but nothing ever fricking happens," and so, ugh. So that's why the empowerment piece is so important.

And it's interesting 'cause a lot of folks will talk about empowerment, well, how does that work in like a manufacturing line, or how does that, and there was a company called Nucor Steel that was going up while all the other steel companies were going down, I think it was in the '80s, maybe some of the '90s, and they were known like the, the CEO would say, "I pay five employees the same amount most people pay eight employees, but I expect them to do the work of nine employees," or something to that effect. And they did this decentralized steel production. They could do it in all these places. And it was known that if somebody got on the line and when these small groups of people doing steel, if they weren't doing their job, they would literally be physically chased off of the premises.

Which is like, it's like that, that's super empowered. Like, obviously I don't want people physically chased off with hammers or whatever happened, but like, they would liter- there was like multiple times when people would be chased off saying like, "No, you don't get to work here." Like, that's a deeply empowered group of people who are like, "No, this is our..." They didn't need somebody to come in and s- manage somebody out. They were just like, "No, we don't, we don't work like that. You're not welcome here." And so, it can happen anywhere. And the weird part about that, I think the way people have a hard time giving somebody that empowerment is that they have a hard time believing that people really care about their work, right?

The idea that you have to hold is that people wanna do a good job. And they wanna be effective, and they don't wanna just mail it in. Now, if you disempower people, they do wanna mail it in. They don't wanna do a good job. They become passive-aggressive. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: But if they feel empowered, then they're like, "I want to do a good job."

Brett: These metrics are really measuring the reality field that the organization or the family or the relationship lives in, which is I can speak my truth. I want someone else to share their truth with me. 

Joe: Correct. 

Brett: We can go through the hard conversations together. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And we can do that in a way that leads to deeper trust, deeper connection.

Joe: Yeah. Well, that's actually... I think it's the only real way to build trust. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Right? So you and I, the reason that we trust each other is 'cause we've been through hard stuff together, and we every single time feel better because of it. I don't feel any kind of, like, thing in the back that I haven't discussed with you. And yet we've had multiple hard conversations, and every time our relationship deepens because of it. And so that's where trust is built.

Brett: You have to experience that. Like, your nervous system, your neurology has to have experience in order to update in such a way that that is your reality.

It can't just be " okay, we're gonna have a company where we all trust each other. Let's all do that."

Joe: Or the other way that I think most people approach trust is, "Let's be really nice to each other, and then we'll all trust each other." But what you'll see is, like, you don't really ever trust anybody until they say no to you. Because then they're just trying to please you, so you don't know where they are really. And if you look at the high-trust folks, I think war is a great example. Any soldiers that I know who have fought together, they trust each other and will be there for each other forever because they have been through conflict and come out the other side together and in such a big way.

And whereas people who are super nice to each other, like, they stop working together, and that's the end of it. You know what I mean? Like, sh, they just disappear and never hear from them again. And as you've seen, that super nice culture is super conflict avoidant and therefore fails on these metrics.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And we... remember the, there was the company that was there, and they literally on the first day, they're just like, "We're not performing well because we're way too nice to each other." And I don't know how many times I've heard that, especially in Silicon Valley. You get a lot of that in Silicon Valley.

Brett: How does that work in families, the niceness? 

Joe: I'd say the same thing as far as if I am in, say, a highly aggressive relationship or I'm in a highly codependent relationship, or sometimes one person's highly codependent, one person's highly aggressive, then same thing. Your conversations aren't being had quickly, they're not resolving well, and nobody feels empowered. Both people feel like, "Oh, my God, what am I into? How do I get out of this?" "I can't do it because of so and so." If you are topping from being super aggressive, you're preventing the conversation from being had. You're preventing resolution. 

Brett: By dominating.

Joe: By dominating. 

Brett: The conversation in this case.

Joe: Yeah. Exactly. You're preventing them from coming to you with any real problem, and you don't feel empowered. Nobody who, like, yells all the time is like, "I feel super empowered," you know? And nobody who's being yelled at all the time feels, "I'm super empowered." But it's the same thing if you're dominating through passive aggression or through, like, more of the victim thing, which is, you know you're in that relationship with somebody when you're scared to say the thing because you might break them, or they might get hurt, or they might not be able to function for the next two weeks because of the thing that you said or anything like that.

That's when you're being topped by a passive-aggressive person, where they're holding you responsible for their emotions, and you're agreeing to that. 

Brett: Which may or may not be conscious for them. 

Joe: Of course. 

Brett: Like, somebody can be just legitimately in freeze when anyone is angry with them, and anything that comes up for you, if you're scared, anger comes up for you, and then you end up in this dynamic. It may or, may or may not be, like, 'cause there's a thing that happens when someone's really playing the victim. 

Joe: Right. 

Brett: And that's like, that's actually a very active thing to be doing.

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Which is different from, like, the freeze state of, like stuck in the victim. 

Joe: I agree. Totally. And I think that the same compassion can be given to the people who are angry, right? So a lot of times when people are super angry, they're like, you're consciously getting angry, and it's actually, you know, they're own nervous system is in reflexive fight. They're actually deeply, deeply scared, and feel like they're not being held. Yeah. Which is odd. And we can get into that. If we get into that this episode, it'd go deep. But in both sides, it's like we're not looking to blame anybody. Right? But in either case, those things really destroy the metrics, right? So I'm not saying the thing because I might hurt you. I might... I'm not saying the thing 'cause you might yell at me. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: I'm not getting to resolution because I'm not saying my truth 'cause you might yell at me.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: I feel super disempowered because I'm walking on eggshells around you. Either way, both of those two things are the metric. The place where it gets weird is with kids because how empowered do you... Like, I don't want my kids empowered enough to decide, you know, that they're gonna drive a car at eight years old, right?

So there's like, that's the weird pieces, like how much are they responsible for making the environment, right? But the way that I think about that is it's if a child doesn't feel heard, then that would be more the metric I would use for a child, which is kind of the precursor for empowerment. "Oh, I, I hear you. I'm with you. You've been attuned to. That's kind of the precursor. 

Brett: Are they given permission to listen to themselves? 

Joe: Are they given permission to listen to themselves? Yeah. That's right. Instead of, "Oh my gosh, I have to worry about Dad's yelling," or "I have to worry about Mom's gonna be broken if I cry," or whatever the thing is.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And so I, this, I think for kids it's, it gets a little bit different just in, it's like, I would say it's empowerment for kids, which is, "I feel listened to and attuned to, so I feel relevant and important here." And kids will get scared if you give them too much autonomy for their age. They know, that's a weird thing about kids, is that their job is to push the boundary and try to get more autonomy, but on some level they know, like, that's, "I should be taken care of in this situation. This isn't my job to make this decision." 

Brett: Yeah. So there's something really interesting here, 'cause now we're talking about, we were initially talking about grown-ass adults in businesses and relationships. And now we're in the realm where a lot of these patterns start. And so I really wanna explore a little bit about how they begin. Because from a different perspective here, you could say that if you have learned that certain kinds of conversation are not going to resolve productively, it is an adaptive behavior to learn not to bring them up unless absolutely necessary. 

Joe: Correct. 

Brett: And so there's a bit of a compromise to be had if you believe…

Joe: Not just if you believe, if you don't have the skill set, just to. 

Brett: Or, or if you're a two-year-old kid. 

Joe: Or if you're a two-year-old kid. Yeah. Right. But yeah, so many CEOs that I see are like, "I'm not having that conversation 'cause it's not gonna resolve because I've had 100 of those conversations and they haven't resolved." 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: What they don't do is, "I need those kinds of conversations to resolve. What do I need to do to figure out how to get to resolution on those?"

Brett: Right. There can be a learned helplessness in it. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And so you imagine, you project onto your boss, or you project onto your employees, or you project on your manager that certain kinds of conversations are going to lead to mayhem. And then you are likely to bring those conversations up in ways that do lead to mayhem because that's the only way you've ever had them before.

Joe: I would be... Just to be clear, I think usually most people don't have the conversation not because of mayhem, but their internal excuse is, "It's not worth it." The amount of effort, it's gonna drain me. And like I'm gonna be like wrecked for the rest of the day. Instead, I should just like program the computer, or I should just like figure out the finances.

Brett: Yeah. I mean, we could call it an excuse or we could call it like a metabolic optimization learned from the past. And one of the things that's really cool about a lot of the perspective shifts that happen in self-discovery is that there's a before moment where it seemed like the path of least resistance was to do the pattern that you later learn was actually causing a lot of friction, resistance, and energy. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And that when the flip occurs, it becomes permanent the moment your system recognizes that it actually costs less energy to have the conversation quickly. 

Joe: Yeah, so I mean, I, I think about those folks that were at the retreat that we just did, and they, young company. They came with 10 people, they left with eight, right? And I think this is really important to talk about because this is, this will prepare you for the path if you're gonna do it, right? Which is when things aren't working there and you bring up the situation, you're gonna actually need to confront the inefficiency in the business or the toxicity in the relationship.

And so what was interesting to watch them is they had one person get fired, I think it was, like, on day two, and then one person quit on day three. And I remember going to the table where they're all sitting having lunch. I'm like, "How are you all feeling?" And they're like, "Better." And you could feel the nervous system. They were a little shocked, no doubt, but the, their whole nervous system was relaxed because they knew, like, "Oh, this was... We all kinda knew it, and we weren't doing anything about it. And we'd all said that we were being too nice, and now we're all like, oh, wait, we're, we, I all have more faith in our capacity to win now."

And it was interesting. I got to talk to the person who got fired, and they were like, "I totally understand." It was like they were actually beautiful. The person was an amazing human. And they recognized, like, it wasn't in alignment for the business. And they were all friends, which was interesting. So there wasn't any particularly, like, hard feelings. There was, like, sadness and grief, and I think on both sides. But it was really interesting to watch the recognition like, "Oh, this is what needed to happen." 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: You know? And you do actually have to have the hard conversations, and they, and to get to alignment, sometimes people leave. Sometimes the relationship ends. Sometimes everybody has to realize what's necessary to be in alignment and ask themselves if they wanna do it, and then they do it or they don't do it. And I remember saying at the end of the offsite, I was like, "Remember those three metrics?" I was like, "Look what's happened. You're having the hard conversations, and about half of them have already been resolved in three days that have been slowing your company back for years." 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: You know, or months, depending on the company. 

Brett: Which brings me back to families. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Because your company can blow up and everybody finds another company. You're not gonna find another family of origin. You can find other friends that feel like family.

Joe: Yeah, yeah. Without a doubt. Which is, interestingly, which what makes it all that much more important to do if you're choosing to have a functional relationship with your family. But yeah, the risk is somewhat higher and somewhat not higher. I think that what I notice is getting good at hard conversations, I mean, this is what we teach in View over and over again. But it's, it's like can you show up vulnerably, impartially in empathy and wonder?

Brett: This is what the Connection course is all about.

Joe: Yeah. Can you show up with an open heart in a non-defensive way? The difference would be "Mom, you're constantly fucking criticizing me, and if you don't fucking stop it, I'm not coming home anymore. And like, why my whole life did you teach me that I was, like, reasonable to be criticized? I've been criticizing my whole fucking self my whole life ever since then. What the fuck? Like, how the fuck could you have done that to me, Mom?" That's one way to do it. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Right? And then there's another way to do it. 

Brett: I love the passion in that. I'm not sure how it's gonna be received. 

Joe: Exactly. And then there's another way to do it, which is like, "Every time you criticize me, it really hurts, and I don't wanna be around that. I wanna have a relationship with you where we're really loving and supportive of one another, and I wanna know how... if you want that, and how we can get that together. Because what I want is a relationship where we're, like, deeply attuned and loving and supportive of one another. And I don't wanna feel like I'm constantly being criticized when I'm home."

It's really about coming from that place and really doing the work that's required to know, like, oh, you deserve a supportive, loving relationship. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. And so that's the more damaging, like, and if you have a mom who's like, "No, I want to be able to criticize you and beat you up all the time and make you feel like shit, and that's the relationship I want to have with you, and you're a sissy for wanting to be loved and supported," like, it might be a good idea to have a lot less of a relationship with your mom, even though you want her love and you care about her, like, but it might be a really healthy thing to be like, "Yeah, that's not what I want." 

Brett: Yeah. And it might be a way of loving and staying in connection with them to just say, "Hey, you know what? I'm gonna have a phone call with you every now and then when it feels like we can have that in a way that feels good to both of us. Otherwise, it's just gonna damage the relationship further." 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: I could be living with you and have a worse relationship than if I talk with you once a year. 

Joe: Yeah. And I actually said that to my... that was the route that I had to go with my parents. I did not, of course, say it as elegantly. I was learning, but I definitely was like, "Like, when you can, when you all can stop criticizing me every time I'm home, I'm happy to come home." 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And then I waited until they were happy with it. so yeah. And my relationship is far better. My dad's dead, but my relationship with my mom is far better.

Brett: Yeah. So how do we measure, in an organization and in a relationship or a family where maybe we don't have charts and spreadsheets and slideshows, hopefully not too many of them. 

Joe: I'm sure there's a type A family that has all that shit. 

Brett: Oh, yeah, plenty of them, especially around the Bay Area. And you know, for the rest of us, how do we measure these three? They seem a little fuzzy to me. They seem very powerful and potent. 

Joe: Yeah, yeah, they are. 

Brett: And, like, how do you measure how long it took to have the conversation that you took three months to become aware of was even a problem for you?

Joe: Yeah, yeah. Let me first say it's a lot less about measurement than it is about doing. So just knowing that those are the metrics to pull has a lot of power. 

Brett: The levers to pull. 

Joe: The levers, yeah, exactly. So, oh, right, something isn't working for me, I'm gonna bring it up. Okay, we need to learn, I need to learn how to get to resolution on these topics, and get better at resolving them, and figure out how to have those discussions in a way that get us where everybody feels happy, nobody feels like they compromised, like they cut off their arm to save their life or anything like that.

And so that's a really important thing is just to know that to do those things and to encourage other people to do those things or to set an environment where it's safe enough for other people to do those things is more important than whether you measure it or not. The measurement is just really a form of reminding you to do these things. That's why we would measure them. Metrics generally are a way to keep us staying focused. It's a way to keep us, you know, aligned. It's like why there's metrics on an NBA board.

Brett: Or like days since last injury on site. 

Joe: Yeah, exactly. It's a way to keep yourself aware of the situation. And so, so the measurement is a little bit less important. But what I would say is... and then the other cool thing is that you can do both simultaneously. So inside of a team, you can just simply ask, like, you can just say, "What's the thing we're not talking about?" To the whole team.

And then you can count how many things come up. You know that would be a great metric. Asking people how empowered they feel. So there's also, like, the responsiveness of that. There's tons of metrics that everybody from Harvard to, you know, Google has put together to figure out if people feel empowered coming to work.

And if people don't feel empowered coming to work, they're probably not really happy to come to work. Right? Because we, we don't feel happy to... the DMV is a great example. Nobody fricking feels empowered at the DMV, so no one's like, "I can't wait to, go to the DMV."

Brett: We use the DMV as an, as a example a lot. So I'd love to hear if anyone works at the DMV and feels empowered and loves it, and we're full of shit. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Please tell me. 

Joe: Please. And also, I wanna come to your DMV. Field trip. Road trip to your DMV and see what's going on there. I think there's asking people, "Do you feel like we're having the hard conversations? How often when you have hard conversations, do they get resolved?" I think that in any kind of, like- there's different ways to measure it. There's, like, the annual measurement, which I do not recommend in a company. I do recommend what's, like, called a pulse measurement, where it just goes out on random, some questions on random, so you're actually getting people not when they're in a particular mood. Usually, it's like…

Brett: The high anxiety of the performance review coming. 

Joe: Exactly. That's when they do it. Yeah. So that's obviously one way to do it. You can also just track, like, how many... If you're a CEO or you're a manager, how many people come to you with a hard conversation?

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: I mean, that's a really good one. Like, if it is not once a week, you are in trouble, right? Somebody doesn't come to you maybe once every two weeks, depending on the kind of business. If it's a very non-moving business, then okay, it could be slower. But if you're in any kind of fast-moving business, you should have somebody coming to you with a hard conversation weekly. And if they don't, then that's a really easy way to measure it. And you can track those. You can say, "Okay. These are all the hard conversations came, people came. How long does it..." Like, and then measure. When does the resolution happen? 

Brett: Yeah. And you can also measure what... how was it responded to when it was brought up. 'Cause there's... Just, like, internally, if, if I'm beating myself up about something, and then I notice that I'm beating myself about it, I can beat myself up about it further- Right ... or I can say, "Oh, look. I notice that I'm beating myself up. That means I'm on a trajectory to deeper awareness and self-discovery, and it's happening on its own, and I don't need to manage it." 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: So in the organization, do you celebrate when a hard conversation's had? Do you notice it? Do you surface it and say, "Hey, congrats for having this hard conversation, everybody"? 

Joe: Yeah. Exactly. Do you reward that behavior?

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Or do you punish it? 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: That's correct, yeah. So and that's the way I would measure it. In a family, I think it's just a discussion on a regular basis is like you know, what's the things we're not talking about that we need to talk about that would make us a more of the family that we wanna be?

Brett: Yeah. And a metric there is how excited are you to see your family and spend a weekend with them, and how excited are you when you're leaving or they're leaving? 

Joe: Yeah, exactly. 

Brett: Or, like, how much can you let yourself feel the heartbreak or the sadness of leaving or the gratitude? 

Joe: Yeah, exactly. I think that's a really beautiful metric, and how excited are you to have the hard conversation? Because my exper- and I think this goes in the business world as well. Like, when the culture has them regularly, you get excited to have the conversation. 

Brett: Yeah. It's like, oh, look, something's gonna change, or we're about to enter a new level. 

Joe: Exactly, because you know, like, every time we have the hard conversation, we come up with a better solution. We've improved. Because each of these hard conversations are exactly where the company's inefficient, where there's a lack of alignment, where, you know, the machine is not well-oiled. And so you just start going, "Oh, my gosh." And it's the same with the family. You just start thinking to yourself, "Oh, my gosh, if I have this hard conversation, we're gonna get to more love. We're gonna have more connection." And so you wanna have them. And so I think that's a really good measurement internally is, like, oh, do I wanna have these conversations?

That's a good way to describe. They'll get to resolution 'cause if they don't resolve, nobody wants to have them. 

Brett: Yeah. And the flip side of that is if you are paying attention to when things aren't working, and you're like, "Oh, why have I been in spin for months?" Recognizing and tying it back to, "Oh, there was a moment that I could have had the conversation, and I didn't."

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: That can be a really powerful thing. Just to allow your system to process the cause and the result, the consequence, stimulus response of where the choice point actually was so that that can start the process of orienting attention towards. 

Joe: Yeah. More spin is a great indicator that the hard conversations aren't happening. If you keep on re-litigating in your head over and over again, "Should I have... Maybe I... What do we have to... We gotta get this, da, da, da," then that it shows you that you're not having the hard conversation. You're not getting to resolution.

Brett: Yeah. Or if you keep recycling the sense of blame for somebody or like having them in a certain role relative to you rather than seeing them as a whole person. Like, just looking through your world right now, the people who are... Like, who are you in conflict with right now? And whoever just pop up in your head, like, what is holding you back from seeing them as a whole person? That could be a really good place to look for the hard conversation that hasn't been had. 

Joe: Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, also any kind of blame inside of an organization or inside of a family pretty much is guaranteed that you're not living these metrics. So those are all, like, really great indicators.

'Cause like, if I'm having the hard conversation, I don't need to be in blame. Blame means that I'm feeling super disempowered to be able to make my life better. Like, I have to blame you is only because I feel oppressed by the situation.

Brett: Thanks for listening to The Art of Accomplishment. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave us a review. We'd love to hear your comments, questions, and suggestions for future episodes. You can leave those to us on Spotify or on YouTube or by emailing us at podcast@artofaccomplishment.com. 

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