I'm just trying to get clear. There's always something sitting next to the emotion, and so I just want to kind of shuffle my thoughts, but it's certainly confusion and uncertainty. There's a difference there. Oh, okay.
Okay, right, all right. Let's start. Are you confused or are you uncertain? I'm really confused.
What a great way to start. I'm confused, but I'm going to take action, which is I'm going to welcome our listeners. Hello, listeners. Welcome to Management Cafe.
We are in the middle of a series on management emotions, and as you might have heard, we are looking at confusion today. And with me, of course, as always, is Tim Burgess, and my name is Pilar Ortiz. Shall we start with our definition, as always, Tim? Yeah, I think it's very important.
Let's go for, you know what, I looked, when I'm looking for definitions, I try and look for something on a website, but this time I couldn't find anything interesting. It was mainly from dictionaries. So I went to Claude. I went to Claude.ai, and I'm glad I did, and I'll tell you why later.
So the definition is quite long. Confusion is a mental state characterized by a lack of clarity or understanding. It typically occurs when a person encounters information, situations, or experiences that they find difficult to process or make sense of. The emotional state often involves feelings of uncertainty, bewilderment, and sometimes frustration.
And then it goes on to say that people experiencing confusion may feel disorientated, have trouble focusing, or struggle to make decisions. It's a common emotion that can arise in various contexts, from learning new concepts to navigating unfamiliar environments. And then it asked me, would you like me to elaborate on any specific aspects of confusion? But before we do that...
It seems like Claude.ai was assuming that you were confused. I was going to clarify. Did you find any of this information confusing? I think it's actually a really good definition, because the question around confusion is, it's an unpleasant emotion.
It's difficult to sit with. And so this idea of uncertainty, bewilderment, and frustration, that's not nice. Generally, most people don't enjoy those experiences. So confusion is not a state that you want to stay in.
And that's where I think it gets really interesting, is what do you do when you experience it? What does it motivate you to do? There's a couple of different doors you can go down, and some of them are productive at work, and some of them are unproductive. One of them is you can try and find clarity.
One of them is you can run away from the problem. Or one of them is you can try and force, either by pretense or whatever, you can put a knowledge structure in place without knowing if it's appropriate or not, in order to avoid confusion. And does that make sense? In order to avoid confusion, I find that...
Yeah, it's because my head is going to different places. I'm not confused. I've experienced people at work who clearly didn't know about a topic, but would just flag it. You know, would just try and say something to make it seem as though they knew.
And, you know, that's one way of dealing with confusion, which isn't a good way, because they didn't want to say, oh, I don't understand what this is. Can you explain it? They might not have been confused then. They might have just not known the answer and made it up, or the answer, or whatever.
I mean, confusion is, for me, it's more than not knowing something. So I'll give you an example. I mean, this is what you were saying before. You weren't sure if it was uncertainty, confusion, because they are, I mean, they're all mixed.
And the joy of these episodes on emotions is that we're trying to define them, and that's where a lot of the fun is. But I realized, because I'm thinking, okay, where are the situations that I've been confused? Take out the management of the equation. And my greatest confusion comes from people.
And I'll give you a very specific one, which is, and there are transient situations as well, I think the definition we're saying. So I, well, I wanted to take my management property company, the company that looks after a flat, I wanted to take them to court. And luckily, we went to mediation before that. So the process is a very interesting process where you meet your mediator, who's also a judge, but the different, the two parties meet the mediators separately.
So instead of everyone together with a mediator, we met them first, then we were left in the room on our own, the mediator left, talked to the other party, then came back. The first contact we had with her, it was a lady, we were there, she said, oh, so this is how it's going to work? Oh, actually, you know, your application, it sounds like there's not a lot of animosity with them. I'm like, no, no, they're fine.
It's just that we have these problems and we can't solve them. Okay, yeah, well, that sounds really great. And then she left, talked to the others, came back. And so I said, well, you can't ask this.
What do you think you're going to get with this? Of course, and suddenly, she was a different person. And that for me was confusion. Because I was thinking, hang on, you were this person before, now you're giving something different and talk about bewilderment and frustration and uncertainty.
What is going on here? Are you putting an act on blah, blah, blah? And I think that that is where it's not just uncertainty. It's something that for me is stronger and it makes me feel, I mean, it's interesting that I was thinking, oh, you're thinking here about being disoriented.
Well, actually, I think that's how I felt. I didn't know what was going on. So it's interesting that you say that sometimes people try and make something up. But maybe, I don't think confusion will allow someone to just pretend they know something.
But I don't know. Yeah, let me ask you more what you were. Because maybe you can do something different. You can experience confusion without having to act.
For example, for me, uncertainty, I was looking at the definition earlier. Like, uncertainty is where you have to act and you don't know what action to take. But I go left or right, I don't know which one's better, and I'm uncertain. And that's something I've experienced a lot.
Confusion is more of a knowledge, to your point. I don't understand what's happening or it doesn't make sense to me. And so I'm experiencing confusion. So like confusion and uncertainty, you can see that there's a lot of crossover there and doubt as well.
But doubt, I think, is more that you're in different territory. Not that you just don't understand, but doubt that it's sort of, you know, it's new or... Oh, you're bringing in the difference between uncertainty and doubt. Oh my God, that's also quite interesting.
Yeah, but with confusion, I think the challenge with it is, like I was saying before, generally, we'll have a default reaction to it. So it's interesting, I think, to think about what that is and being aware of it. For me, it depends a little bit on the sort of problem. Like, if it's an emotionally charged situation that I'm confused about, like an interpersonal interaction, for example, then I'm more inclined to sort of put some boundaries around it and retreat a little bit in order to try and work out what's happening.
But if it's more of an intellectual confusion, then that's something that I would approach differently. You know, I tend to, you know, I'll think about it, I'll talk to people about it, I'll research it, I'll try and look at different lenses, I'll, you know, start scribbling on bits of paper and that sort of stuff. And in fact, that confusion can lead to curiosity, which can lead to, you know, new understanding, which is quite an enjoyable pathway. Yes, I mean, if it is information related, as it were, then it is much easier to solve.
And if you like learning, you can actually turn confusion into something that could be quite pleasurable, actually. Going back to the emotional one, which is, unless you wanted to say anything else about the knowledge, the emotional and personal one, when you're talking about default, I shut down. It's like my brain short circuits, like in that place. I mean, later in my mind, I said so many times to this woman, excuse me, can you explain why you turned to Mr.
Dr. Jail? And yes, so that is not great. And so I suppose if we start to go back into the management context, then it's, I mean, I think, though, that if this happens to me when I'm, again, in a context where people are depending on me in sound-shaped form, I tend to be able to not feel that much confusion.
And maybe I shape that into uncertainty, or I make it more of an intellectual confusion, which is actually easier to manage. I can't quite think of a point where I've been in a management or leadership role and had this. It's always been at a very personal level. Oh, gosh, no, I've been confused a lot.
Your work has been a lot more hardcore than mine, I have to say. Yeah, I think being in a startup is confusing on the time, and running business is confusing. And I remember particularly like finance, I had to run a finance team, and I just didn't understand a lot of the concepts. You know, I failed economics or econometrics or whatever I studied at uni, failed it miserably.
So having a balance sheet in these technical terms explained to me, cash accounting and accrual accounting, I'm still pretty tenuous in my understanding of that concept. And I went through the full gamut of how to react in terms of, let's just not talk about that because I don't understand it, to, okay, explain it to me again. I'm trying to explain it more simply. I'm trying to explain it like you're explaining to a toddler.
Perhaps a newborn baby. Let's see if I get that. Like, one of the issues, I think, and going back to what you talked about before, is if the confusion triggers fear, you know, anxiety, then I think it's difficult to stay with the confusion because it's scary. Like, it's confusion leading us into a bad place.
If it's confusion without that sort of fear and anxiety element, and it might be time-based or situational-based or people-based or whatever, if you don't have the fear and anxiety, then I think it's an easier path. So you go from confusion to contemplation or curiosity or whatever else, or understanding. Oh, shame you put in understanding, because contemplation and curiosity also started with C's. We're throwing compassion in there.
I don't know. You never know. But I think you're right. And you know, you make me think.
I think this is like, I don't do much of what we call self-development with a capital S as in psychological rewiring. But I'm thinking what an absolute pleasure it would be to turn moments of confusion into moments of curiosity. So instead of asking, why on earth are you doing that? To think, oh, why on earth are you doing that?
And as a good way to deal with it, actually. Because, I mean, you were saying about sometimes there's confusion and we could reject it and not go there. Or I withdraw what I do, which is I withdraw into myself and just let it let the confusion disappear at some point, but it never gets resolved, actually. So, yeah.
Yeah. Well, I think, like I said, like confusion, it takes effort to get through confusion. Because confusion is saying, like, you're not getting this. Like, you're going to have to do some work in order to understand what's going on here.
And as managers, there's a thing about if you see confusion in one of your team and you're strapped for time, do you go, I'm going to try and throw it. I'm going to throw something over that. Like, am I going to ignore it? Am I going to assume I know what's happening?
Or am I going to just take a guess at what I think might be happening? Because that's easier and that's all I got time for. That's, you know, I don't want to actually enter into a state of confusion trying to work out what's happening. It's tricky.
And you make me think that this is an excellent example, the one you've just given of someone. You see someone confused. So, not just uncertain or a bit like not knowing what's going on or not understanding what's going on, but confused. It goes back to that compassion that we talked about.
Because I think this is one of those instances that it's not about someone being upset. It's actually about someone being confused, which is a very interesting form of suffering and hopefully softer than the ones we usually think of. And actually having that compassion to do whatever it is, whether you want to help them talk to the confusion or whether you want to reassure them that it's okay to be confused and that it's a moment of confusion for everyone and that it's fine. We're hoping that things will change that it will pass, whether they change themselves or the environment.
So, I think that's a very good example of compassionate for those who are being confused and understanding how we feel with that confusion. Because, of course, if you're very, if it's something that bothers you a lot, that you're very uncomfortable with that state of confusion and you see someone who's also confused, it might just be a state that you don't want to go anywhere near because of your own relationship. So, self-awareness as well. Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, you're totally right. And as we were talking about before, like if you're in a state of confusion and then you think that's leading you to fear and anxiety, you're going to try and get out. So, you've got someone who doesn't understand what they're doing. You know, or they're like they're preparing some work like a report.
They don't know how to frame it. You see that they're confused and you're the manager. If you react to them in a way that induces fear or anxiety in them, you're not going to help them resolve their confusion, which means they're not going to move forward with understanding. They're not going to do a better job or even be able to do their job.
You might actually exacerbate it. So, like you're saying, acting with compassion and training carefully, I think it's like there's that emotional contagion where if you're afraid of confusion and then they become afraid of their confusion, they're just bouncing off each other. Or the confusion that doesn't get addressed, just spreads, maybe even when there shouldn't be a reason. I've got another example that I think because you said about if someone is confused, sometimes it's okay, it might be okay to let them be.
And I'll give you an example. I don't sit very well with confusion, as I told you, but I'm learning that I don't have to understand everything that's going on. The other days, I started doing yoga lessons. Well, I did some yoga, not too long, probably for a year, not more than that.
But I started a new kind of yoga, which is a much slower one. And it's with a teacher. I think I've been going after two months. And I came into a group that was already quite formed.
It's a small group, like maybe maximum six people. Usually there's five of us, which is really nice. So she's quite hands-on. And I've had two instances where I wouldn't try a pose because I was confused.
As in, I didn't know what I was supposed to do. And it wasn't just uncertain. It was actually creating a sense of fear because physically, I didn't want to hurt myself. And the last time I did it, I think she came to me and said something like, oh, did you not want to give it a try?
I said, yeah, I don't know what I'm doing. I said this to her. But she didn't kind of stop and help me a lot. You know, these people, they have to run their lessons in a way that makes sense for everyone.
And you don't have to get, I think that's part of yoga as well. You have to get everything. And I just learned to let it go. It's like, okay, I was confused.
I didn't know how to do it. Okay, let's move on. So I think that sometimes, I'm just thinking back to that now, is that sometimes, where I always think, well, if someone is confused, you have to help them. Sometimes, actually, maybe it's okay to, I mean, you've got to know the circumstances, but sometimes maybe it's okay to let them sit with that confusion.
And actually, sometimes that will just dissipate and nothing happens. It's not important. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, the strongest lessons that people will learn are lessons that they work out themselves. So if they find their way through confusion to understanding themselves, it will be, I think it's always more powerful. Definitely. That's definitely.
And that's part of the coaching as well. But I didn't find my way through that, but it was okay as well. I mean, it's very specific. I can't give you, I wish I could give you a work one.
But did you actually find your way? I think you did. I found my way through confusion, but not through the post. Yes, yes, exactly.
You found your way. I found my way. Same for the understanding that you need to solve the problem. The problem could just be a thing that exists.
That's a bit of a thing for me. No, but actually, there's an anti-pattern to confusion that I've seen from people who, in my mind, I think there's a correlation to people who don't enjoy anxiety and fear. I mean, no one really does, I guess, but who are really trying to stay away from those states. And so for them, confusion leads to anxiety and uncertainty fear.
If you think about the idea that, so you've got your frame, your understanding, worldview, whatever you want to call it, and then there's some new thing that happens that doesn't fit into that worldview, and you've got to try and work out, like, how does this all come together? And I'm thinking of one person. that I managed in particular who would jump very quickly to trying to fit it in and wouldn't get to, so they wouldn't get to understanding, but they would try and resolve their confusion by going, oh yeah, it's like such a touch. And you're like, no, it's not, it's not, that's not, that's not, you don't actually understand it.
You think you've resolved confusion, but where you've actually got to is like being wrong. Yes. You read my mind. Yes.
Don't apologize for that. I think that's completely right. And so that's a, that's a dangerous behavior. To your point about being okay to be confused, that being confused is a, it's a normal state.
It's something that's going to happen to us in, you know, work in other situations and we should be at least a bit comfortable, try and be a bit comfortable in it. It's really important. I think management is full of situations where you're going to be confused. So, so it's good to know when to sit with it and when not, and not just, it's more of that self-awareness, isn't it?
The difficult part for me is that, well, this one as a manager can be really difficult to vocalize, like to be, to be transparent about because you're often in situations where you have to act or where people come to you for guidance or, you know, you're sort of expected to have the answer or to be able to explain something or, and if you're confused, but you're also being relied on by others to be not confused or expected by others to be not confused, that can be difficult to integrate and then it can be difficult to sit there, you know, someone says, like, how do these departments interact or how are we going to get this project off and say, I don't really know, you know, I'm sort of struggling with that myself right now and it's confusing. Yeah. I think it's worth thinking about in advance this, how to go about something like this and just knowing, knowing your team, knowing yourself, knowing the situation and just having a think for when it happens because you don't want to be thinking about how you're going to manage it when you're in the middle of your confusion. Of course, this is all, you know, you think about it and then something happens differently, but I think it's worth having a think.
Well, I think as well with confusion, it's a great one to pair with, like, I love the toolbox analogy where, like, okay, I'm confused, where's the toolbox? I'm going to open up the toolbox and what's inside? The various tools I have for dealing with confusion, you know, I can take a break, I can ask for help, I can try and reframe it, I can do some research, you know, I can try looking at it from a different angle, you know, I can run away from it. Like, there's all these different ways that you can deal with it.
For me, I love the toolbox analogy because it makes me feel like that. I mean, I love walking around with a little toolbox. And I think, look at all this stuff I've got in my toolbox that I can use to help me do things. And so if I'm in a state of confusion, feeling like, well, you know, there's three or four things I can try here that might be able to help me is really helpful, encouraging.
I think it might also be quite fun to see how other people deal with it. Just as an observer, I think that can also be quite fun. I don't know, you might not have much of a chance to find someone who is actually showing that, you know, is confused, but I think that's also fun. Oh, I think as a manager, you see it a lot, right?
You'll see it in your team. On board a new person, you know, they're going to be confused. Give someone a new project, they're confused at the beginning about what to do or how to deal with it. Like, you deal with it a lot, I think, as a manager.
And again, I grew to understand that when people came to me in a state of confusion, I got better outcomes. I'd love to say that this was a behavior I didn't used to do, and then suddenly I became a good at it. I just began to realize that I got better outcomes when I approached it from that sort of toolbox mindset that, okay, this person's confused. What might help them?
You know, thinking, well, let's pull one tool out, but there's other ones there, right? Like, I'm not saying this is the one solution. Let's try this and it's going to work. You know, let's just explain it to them.
Because sometimes the way you explain it doesn't work, or they're not ready to hear it, or, you know, they need to hear it five times. And I think if you approach it without patience or curiosity to think, okay, this is a problem that might take a couple of different solutions to solve. And also, if you are in a state of confusion, to just be directed to think through something in a linear way, or just to get some help thinking through something, even if it's not directly related, even if it doesn't solve that confusion, it just also can help with your state of mind. It might not solve your confusion itself, but it might just help you approach it in a different way, or at least make you see that you're confused and that you won't be in that state forever.
I think just giving the person an experience in the moment that is different to that confusion, I think that could also help. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, calmness in the face of confusion is really wonderful. Yeah, we can get in there.
Yeah. Right. I think this is plenty on confusion. Yeah, I feel much less confused than when we started.
You seem less confused than when we started. I have understood a lot through this. Isn't it funny? Because I've never thought of this.
And I never thought of the state of confusion in the yoga class, or the fact that my main confusion comes from people who act incoherently. And now, hopefully, next time it happens, I will be able to just recognize it and try and solve it in the moment. Because if not, it doesn't get solved, and that creates an open loop in my mind. But we want to hang out for the podcast, so...
Oh, yeah, but it's funny for me. I couldn't... This is one of those emotions that makes me so much. I can't separate out an example.
So, if you open the door, there's just too many stories in there. That's great. Well, we love to hear stories of those of you around the table, listeners. So, you can email us over at managementcafepodcast at gmail.com, or head over to managementcafepodcast.com.
Well, listeners, coffee's over from us. Now, it's over to you. Thank you for joining us at the Management Cafe. Remember, you can subscribe to the show on whatever podcast app you use to make sure you get your weekly dose of reflection.
Our website is management.caf, and on Twitter, we are at Management Cafe. That's all for this episode from myself, Pilar Orti, and our fellow co-host, Tim Burgess. Thank you for listening.