Topaz Adizes, an Emmy Award-winning writer, director, author, experience design architect, and founder of The Skin Deep, explains why not sleeping in your kitchen is important and why not to confuse comfort with safety.Hear Topaz's full interview in Episode 476 of The Action Catalyst.
You don't sleep in the kitchen and you don't cook in the bedroom. You do certain things in certain spaces. So are we articulating the rooms we're in in the house of our relationship? We're talking about work, right? What kind of meeting are we having right now? Do we tell the people to do that? Do we tell people what kind of meeting we're having? We're doing a brainstorming meeting, team.
The reason you tell them about the space you're in is that you're articulating what is permissible, what's acceptable, what we were suggesting. This is the behavior that we want. Ah, this is the game we're playing. In the kitchen, you know you're cooking. You're not going to sleep in the kitchen. And in the bedroom, you're sleeping. You're not cooking in there.
So the expectations, the permissions are clear. In our relationships, are we doing the same? So the work world is like, okay, if we call a meeting, what kind of meeting is this? What's the phase we're in now? Are we brainstorming? Because how many times are you in a brainstorming meeting where everyone's brainstorming? At the end, there's no decisions made. People are upset. Wait, hold on.
This was a brainstorming meeting. So don't expect us to end up with a decision. or vice versa. It is a decision-making meeting. You're not interested in new ideas. We need to decide who's doing what by when and how. People are like, wait, they're never asking for ideas. And I know, we got to be clear about what kind of meeting this is. And that's part of the space. So that's one thing.
Two, let's not confuse comfort and safety. Or let's not confuse discomfort with being unsafe. Let's not confound them. Safety is imperative, but discomfort is great. If I'm going to go bungee jumping, in theory, I should be safe because these guys have done it all the time. The rope is tested. I'm like the 5,000 person doing this. Okay, so in theory, I'm safe because they've checked everything.
They know the bungee is good. But am I uncomfortable? Absolutely, I'm uncomfortable. But that doesn't mean I'm not safe. Now, in your conversations at work or with relationships, are you safe? How do we create that safety? Well, part of it is articulating, hey, what's the room we're in? What are the rules? What are the boundaries here? What is expected? And then...
To say, okay, in that space, now we can ask these well-constructed questions that put us in discomfort and we can actually be uncomfortable because we know we're safe. But just because you're uncomfortable does not mean you're not safe. And vice versa, just because you feel comfortable does not actually mean you're safe.
So making that distinction is good and not shying away from discomfort and actually leaning into it, but making sure that the space is created that you feel safe. And then you can ask questions in a way that reinforce that safety or not.
There's a lot of power in the questions, and we're always so focused on the answers, and we don't realize how, by shaping the question, you are shaping the answer. This is huge. So let me just give a very simple example. It's 7.30, 8 o'clock, and you go to your kids, and you say, hey, you want to go to sleep? What do you think the answer is? We all know it's no. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
You ask the question, do you want to go to sleep? It's like, yes or no. I mean, okay. But if you go and say, hey, kids, you want to sleep on the couch or in the bed? You've already shaped the answer. The answer is bed or the couch. The question has shaped the answer, the options. Oftentimes, we're so good at finding answers, but oftentimes we find the right answers to the wrong questions.
Put more emphasis on the questions. Why did this campaign fail? Why did this candidate not work out? What about saying, let me change that question. What can we learn from this campaign that we could take to the next? What was the failure of this candidate that started the company and didn't work out? What can we do to improve to ensure that the next one doesn't have the same failure?
So you're asking questions that are giving you answers that are constructive that you can actually have agency from versus saying, why did this campaign not work? Oh, here's a thousand reasons why not. Shift the question such that the answers you get are going to be constructive to your life, to your business.
Let's just take a very simple question because power dynamics are really important in the workplace. And you're trying to create a safe space where you can share your opinion, but you also don't want to get fired or piss off the boss or the politics of the culture. So you're in a meeting. It's a group of you.
And whoever's running the meeting with the power dynamics, let's say they are the executive who's running the meeting, has responsibility for some decisions or the unit leading the team. And they ask a question.
First of all, the fact that they're asking a question is already a power play because they get to ask the question and everyone on the team is going, wait, why are they asking that question? But here comes that question. You're in the meeting and the boss goes, Stephanie, why did our marketing campaign fail? Why did the product fail? or whatever? Why did the product succeed?
That question shapes that your answer is going to give an objective truth about reality. It failed because this and this, this. Now everyone else in the room is going, that's not why it failed. No, wait, that's not why it failed. And now we have some type of conflict because the question has actually invited you to give an objective truth, which everyone else has different opinions about.
If you just add the words, why do you think Or why do you feel? You see how that re-empts any kind of conflict going forward because this is your subjective opinion. I can't disagree with your subjective opinion. And by asking that, especially in the power dynamic space, it's like inviting you in to give your opinion.
And this is inviting you to step in in a way that's safe because we can't really argue with your subjective experience. So you can say from my point of view, if the boss says, why did the product fail? your response can start just say from my point of view. But a better question as a leader is to say, why do you think, why do you feel? That's her experience. That's her POV. Thank you for your POV.
What's your POV, Jimmy? And from that, we're inviting different POVs to illuminate all the opportunities for challenge. And then we could discuss from that, what do we think is objectively true or not? But just by adding, why do you think, why do you feel, is already shaping an answer that's less confrontational, less conflict. And there's a lot of little semantic differences
tools we can use in constructing questions to invite sharing while still keeping it safe, albeit uncomfortable.