Curious Not Furious

A few times a year, I meet up with a group of old Withingtonian friends. When they stay with me in London, my husband braces himself for a whirlwind. “You’re peas in a pod” he once said to me, after I’d waved them off. He’d noticed we shared a level of confidence and a love of lively, robust conversation and he asked if this had been formed at school. Before he commented on this, I’d not really been aware of our shared values, but I realised he was right. Withington encouraged us to be confident about our ideas but also to respect and be curious about the ideas and opinions of others.

I took this confidence and curiosity into my career in sports journalism at the BBC. I loved the buzz of live sport but was more interested in the stories and tensions behind the scenes. Sport is a high pressure, competitive environment where decisions and opinions are routinely and vigorously questioned in the pursuit of excellence. I really loved the rough and tumble in the industry.

When I left the BBC, I used the skills I’d learned in programme making to start working as a creative consultant. I work with production teams and other businesses to help them generate bold, original ideas. Any work I do requires that same confidence to offer points of view and suggestions that others might not agree with and to feel comfortable questioning colleagues.

But a few years ago, I started to notice a trend. People were becoming more fearful of opposing the prevailing opinions and interests of the group they were with. I’d work with teams and there seemed to be a ‘right’ way of thinking. It became more and more difficult to encourage people to take the risks needed to produce strong ideas that could really surprise and delight.

I talked this through with an old BBC colleague, who leads training in diversity and inclusion. She’d noticed people were sitting quietly in her sessions, afraid of saying the wrong thing and so failing to have the open, interested conversations needed to create authentically inclusive teams. We wondered if we had the courage to try to tackle this. It felt like a huge challenge, but it was one we cared about, so we went back to our journalistic roots and did some research.

Very quickly we knew we were on to something. Every contact we spoke to across a broad range of industries recognised the problem: People unwilling to accept diverse points of view or disconnected at work because they were scared of being judged harshly. The broader cultural shift towards polarisation was playing out at work and making people less productive and less happy.

The training we designed combined our expertise: Moderating sensitive conversations around diversity and inclusion, using problems and different points of view as a catalyst for creativity and getting the best out of a conversation by using carefully crafted, open questions. We were proud of what we produced: “Curious Not Furious” – training designed to help people disagree well.

We launched the training in the summer certain that a few key things would help:

• Making it clear that we are programmed to dig our heels in as soon as anyone tries to change our minds, so we may as well free ourselves from the challenge and relax into the idea we may never agree.

• Emphasising the power of really listening to another person with no agenda, just an honest intent to understand.

• Giving people a framework and some great questions to offer them a guide through tricky conversations.

• Letting people know that facing disagreements could be a wonderful opportunity to strengthen relationships and solve problems in a genuine and positive way.

The training has been lively, eye-opening and rewarding. At the end people often confess they’ve begun feeling apprehensive but, so far, they’ve all finished feeling braver and lighter. We’ve had teams who’ve been divided over certain issues for years, chat honestly for half an hour and make breakthroughs they’re all excited about and keen to work together on. And we’ve had some people tell us there are certain conversations they still want to avoid for now .... And that’s fine. We appreciate small steps as much as great strides.

I’ve no doubt Withington still champions the values my friends and I still live by, I just fear there aren’t as many opportunities to exercise that openness or curiosity at the moment. You only need a few minutes on social media or a brief update on global news to know there’s no shortage of bold, firmly held opinions out there. But many of these opinions exist in echo chambers, or spaces where they are shielded from inquiry or debate. I’d love to play a part in re-invigorating the middle-ground by creating a space for fearless discussions, discomfort and unexpected alliances.

This article was first published in Withington Onwards, the magazine for alumnae, former staff, parents and friends of Withington Girls’ School.