From Sticking Point to  

Tipping Point  

"There's just too many different points-of-view!"  "It's the politics around here." "We tried to get into that before and it didn't work."  These are the kinds of words that indicate sticking points in our professional and personal relationships.  Excuse the alliteration, but we get stuck in sticking points when we are stuck on the judgments we make of one another!  As Margaret Wheatley says, "It's not differences that divide us.  It's our judgments about each other that do." (Turning to One Another - Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future)   To the degree that our judgments cause sticking points, it is worth considering what we can do to get un-stuck!

Authentic curiosity about our differences is one of the best ways I know to pry open our sticking points.  Curiosity is the desire to know; that desire leads us to inquire.   Inquiry does not always come naturally to us, especially because it has an almost opposing energy to judgment.  Inquiry is a practice; it takes intention; it takes time; it takes eye-to-eye connection.  Often it takes a facilitator. 

Questions help us move away from judgment and toward curiosity, even empathy.  For example: "Can you tell me more about why you think ____?"; "I wonder why ____ is so important to you."   In tense situations these comments and questions can help us shift into more ease and receptivity: "What I heard you say that I appreciated is ____";  "What I heard that challenged my thinking is ____"; "To better understand your perspective, I'd like to ask ____".  

"Shift" is a key word here.  We can miss seeing change taking place if we  

expect change to happen in dramatic leaps and bounds.  Change typically happens with little shifts.  When we make shifts in our understanding, attitude, stance or assumptions, we create energy for tipping points.  Most often we don't know about tipping points until after they've happened. Suddenly or upon reflection, we know: "Ah! That's what made the difference!"  If a client of Fearless Conversations has "sticking points", we work on shifting from judgments to inquiry, with the intention of actively appreciating differences and what matters most to one another in the group.  For me as a facilitator, the most delightful and satisfying evidence of a group's tipping point is its newly-found ability to make a decision or to resolve a conflict in a way that no one thought of before coming to the table.