“It was hard today. It felt like we did more arguing than anything and I’m not sure we made any progress!”

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard comments like this from clients. I’ve made the same comments myself from time to time. You may have too, because, let’s face it, working with diverse groups on difficult problems can be hard. We seek agreement, decisions, progress, but can’t seem to avoid frustration and exasperation as we ‘wade through treacle’.

Groan!

And those times that make us groan feel like failure. “What am I doing wrong?”

But what if you and your collaborators saw the tough times as the most useful times? What if you reframe that experience as not groaning but growing?

Yeah, I had the same reaction. But then someone pointed me to the Diamond of Participatory Decision-Making from Sam Kaner. This little framework gave me a whole new way to think about the collaborative journey and the role, even the value, of what Kaner labelled the groan zone.

What Kaner showed me was that the groaning is necessary, not evidence of failure. The tough times are the mother of innovation, invention, inspiration. That is, when we are groaning, it tells us we are doing the difficult work of collaborating on hard things together. If it was easy we would have solved this ages ago. If we are disagreeing it shows that this is important to us. And if we are challenging each other, we stand a chance of learning something new and finding novel solutions together.

Our fight or flight instincts are strong, and we tend to shy away from conflict, or do anything to avoid going there. But a quick look through clearly shows us that the urge to avoid the groaning and get to the decision is itself the thing to be avoided. When working together we need to allow time and space for divergent thinking where new ideas and new questions emerge. We need to allow time and space for convergent thinking where we get to agreement and answers. And the journey from one to the other is through the groan zone.

Yes, collaboration on complex problems is hard work. But that groaning you hear is the sound of old ideas fading and new ideas emerging. It is the sound of exploration. It is the sound of growing. Enjoy it while it lasts.