We have all left discussions either feeling inspired or discouraged. If you’re a dreamer, sometimes you leave thinking people are raining on your parade with too many details. If you’re a detailer, sometimes you leave thinking we are going to do something before we’ve even thought it through.
Dreamers want to go from dreaming to doing. Detailers want to take time to think before doing. If dreamers and detailers don’t take the appropriate steps to incorporate each other’s gifting into the doing, resentment can quickly build. Detailers resent dreamers for the graveyard of ideas that either ‘cost’ more than expected or didn’t work out (or took much more work that initially thought), while dreamers resent detailers for holding them back from dreaming big. If we are not careful, the resentment builds and the dreamers and detailers stop working together, with the end result being stunted possibilities.
How can we resolve this problem? A member of our team had the epiphany. Her thought: Take time to define the type of discussion we are having. In so doing, we can value and include each person.
Here’s how we broke it down: In this discussion, are we dreaming, designing, detailing, or doing? Dreaming is coming up with our vision. Designing is thinking about goals and measurables. Detailing is thinking through specific steps and costs. Doing is agreeing to put the plan into action.
Depending on the size, cost, duration, and impact of the discussion, more time might need to be spent on designing and detailing before doing. Sometimes we can do all four in one discussion, while other times we need to divide them into multiple discussions. Sometimes everyone needs to be in the room, other times it’s just the dreamers or just the detailers, but if you know the purpose of the meeting, you’ll know who to include.
Declaring the intent of our conversations is one way in which we can value each other’s personality and gifting, and celebrate that our personality and gifting has been given for our benefit and joy.
In the chart below, see the necessary progression and parts of a good discussion. If you want to leave a discussion inspired, declare the intent, and take time to work through all the necessary parts before you move forward.
Here’s the final word: to really take care of each other, you have to do all four parts. Dreamers must be held accountable to taking design and detailing seriously, just like detailers need to be held accountable for taking dreaming seriously (even if it’s not them personally doing it). And, both dreamers and detailers need to commit to actually doing...neither can just dream or detail.
