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Welcome to Episode 98 of The Non-Anxious Leader podcast. I'm Jack Shitama, and in today's episode I am going to look at a challenging concept that is really important to being a non-anxious leader. That is the concept of paradox and playfulness.

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A central part of Edwin Friedman's approach to leadership through self-differentiation is the ability to use paradox and playfulness when appropriate. Leadership through self-differentiation is the ability to claim your own goals and values, to say what you believe, where you believe the organization should be headed, while staying connected to the most resistant in the system. The best way to do this effectively is to be a non-anxious presence, and paradox and playfulness are important tools to help you do that.

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We'll get into this concept more deeply but let me give you a couple of quick definitions. Paradox is going in the opposite direction then you might think you should. Friedman describes this as turning your wheels in the direction of a skid. For example, when you think you need to bear down and work harder at convincing somebody to agree with you, paradox would say go in the other direction.

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Playfulness is keeping things light, even humorous, to help reduce anxiety in the situation. Playfulness can sometimes include using paradox, but at the very least, it avoids getting into a situation where you have a conflict of wills.

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Before we get into paradox and playfulness, it is important to understand the leverage of the dependent and the conflict of wills. I just mentioned the conflict of wills. So let's go into those first.

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The leverage of the dependent is the idea that the most anxious, the most dependent people in the system will hold the leverage in any situation as long as the leader is trying to convince them to agree with her. If you've ever been, "held hostage" by somebody who refused to budge, you understand what I'm talking about.

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A great example of this is a fable called The Bridge, written by Edwin Friedman. It is the opening story in his book, Friedman's Fables. If you don't have this book, it is a must. It will help you understand family systems concepts in the same way that Jesus' parables help us to understand the Reign of God.

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In the bridge, a man who has finally understood where he needs to be headed in life sets out on his journey. He's got a limited period of time to arrive at his destination to be able to have a chance of achieving his goals. In short, this man has a vision for his life, and it is motivating and focusing him. However, he gets to a bridge that runs high over a river, and an unknown man comes up to him, asks him to hold a rope, then jumps over the side

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Our, focused, motivated protagonist is now stuck. The man who is dangling at the end of the rope refuses to help himself and actually holds our protagonist responsible for this man's own salvation. This is the leverage of the dependent. I'm not going to tell you how this story ends. I think you'll want to read it yourself, because it is a great way to understand how anxious people can put us in a bind and how we might be able to respond in the most healthy way.

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The leverage of the dependent will often come across as an ultimatum or something that defines others and not themselves. It almost always comes across as surrounding togetherness pressure. When somebody says, "You don't love me because you didn't do that for me," that is a statement that defines you and tries to use leverage to keep you in line.

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Paradox is a willingness to push in the opposite direction than you would think. For example, if somebody says that statement that you don't love me, a paradoxical statement would be to say something like, "You're right, I must not."

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Now, people have heard me say that you shouldn't argue and shouldn't agree when you're dealing with an anxious person who's unleashing their anxiety on you. And in this case, you're not arguing. You're saying, "Well, you're right, I must not."

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You're not really agreeing because you're not giving in on the whatever you didn't do that is causing the situation. When somebody gives an ultimatum, rather than trying to appease them, paradox would be to stay emotionally connected, but to give them the choice to do what they say; to say something like, "I care about you, but you need to do what you need to do." That is paradoxical. It feels like we should be trying to convince them not to follow through with the ultimatum.

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I saw a video of Friedman speaking once and he was talking about how his daughter wanted to go to college far away. He said the hardest thing to do is to push somebody you care about in the direction that you most fear. It's that fear that causes your anxiety, that wants you to engage and try to convince them not to do it. But what he is saying is that paradox will actually release you from that anxiety and put the responsibility back on the person who is giving you the ultimatum.

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Of course, this requires self-regulation because initially paradox will cause your own anxiety to go up because you are pushing in the direction that you most fear. But if you can keep it in check, if you can self-regulate and remain a non-anxious presence, it gives the other person, especially a dependent one, responsibility for themselves. In fact, typically when somebody is giving an ultimatum, the last thing they want is to take responsibility for self. What they want to do is to be able to blame others for their actions.

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I have an example in my own life that I think helps to illustrate how paradox can work. If you've heard this story before, I apologize, but I believe I should share it because I think it's an important example.

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Prior to arriving at a new appointment when I was a young pastor, there was a meeting with the Staff Parish Relations Committee (SPRC), which is the personnel committee of the church. The process is called a "take-in," where the District Superintendent (DS), who supervises the pastors in the district, meets with the SPRC and gives them some background on their newly appointed pastor.

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At my take-in, the DS shared that their new pastor had an earring. That would be me. Of course, I wasn't in this meeting. This is prior to them bringing me in. But one person on the committee got very upset and started proclaiming loudly that she would never be in a church with a pastor who had an earring. In fact, she threatened that if this was going to be the case, she was going to leave.

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This is a good example of the leverage of the dependent. Imagine if the SPRC tried to calm her fears and reason with her. It's more likely that she would have held her ground and held them hostage.

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Another member of the SPRC, who happened to be a saint in the church, must have understood paradox intuitively because she looked at the woman who was upset and said to her, "Well, we will miss you."

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That is the essence of paradox. Notice the emotional connection. Saying we will miss you communicates care and concern. But it's also turning the wheels in the direction of the skid. It is giving the dependent the choice to follow through with her ultimatum. Apparently, everybody had a good laugh, and the woman who was upset calmed down and decided to stay in the church.

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I'm told it wasn't the first time that she had given an ultimatum. People were kind of used to it. But that's how paradox works.

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The second idea that helps us to better understand paradox and playfulness is this idea of the conflict of wills. When I think of a conflict of wills, I like to think of a tug of war. The more you try to bring somebody over to your side, the harder they pull back. And the underlying idea here is that nobody likes to be told what to do.

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A conflict of wills occurs when each side tries to convince the other of its own rightness. It usually results in people entrenching in their own position and anxiety in the system increasing. Avoiding a conflict of wills means not arguing, not agreeing and remaining emotionally connected. That's what the saint in the church did when she told the other that she was free to leave, but that she would be missed. It was not only paradoxical, but it was a touch playful.

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Being paradoxical and playful is letting go of the rope, which reduces the tension between you and the other. This helps reduce or even eliminate the conflict of wills.

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According to Friedman, playfulness is not really about one liners, but it is the ability to keep your own anxiety in check so that you can remain a non-anxious presence in the system. I share a story in my book, If You Met My Family, You'd Understand: A Family Systems Primer, about a Sunday where our family gathered for lunch after church.

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It was a sunny day as we sat on a restaurant deck overlooking a river, and it was great to be together. At one point, my wife exclaimed, "We have the best family in the world!" We all agreed. But the moment was fleeting. A few minutes later, our two sons, both adults, started arguing about mortgages. One had worked in the mortgage industry previously. The other was working in it.

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Now, like most children, our boys fought quite a bit growing up. But as adults they've been reasonably well behaved. Not this day. One of them finally said, "You're not listening to what I'm saying." There was silence. The anxiety was palpable. This is when I had to go into my family systems, self-awareness and intentionality mode, and I found a way to be playful. I said, "Well, we used to have the best family in the world." We all laughed, and we were able to move on.

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If I would have gotten involved in the conflict between my two sons, if I would have tried to mediate, I would have stepped right into a triangle. And if I kept silent and stayed out of the awkward pause in the conversation, it would be likely that the anxiety at the table would increase. The effect of playfulness there was to help me relax as well as to do the same for everybody else.

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One caveat here is that if you come across as sarcastic when you're trying to be paradoxical and playful, then it's best not to do it. At that point, you just have to fall back on your ability to listen, which will keep you emotionally connected, but will avoid a conflict of wills.

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My own experience has been that understanding, paradox and playfulness and being able to use them appropriately is a life's work. When I am anticipating anxious situations, I will go through how the conversation might go, and I'll try to figure out how I can respond as a non-anxious presence. Sometimes it's being paradoxical and/or playful and others it's just listening or taking a non-anxious emotional stand.

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By preparing in advance. I have a better chance of being a non-anxious presence when things get anxious. The other thing that I've learned is that when I am reactive or adaptive, that is when I am not able to self-differentiated in a situation, I can reflect on what I could have done differently and could do better next time.

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You will begin to recognize the emotional process when anxiety is present, and this will enable you to think about how you can respond oftentimes with paradox and or playfulness. None of us is going to get it right 100% of the time. Remember that Murray Bowen said that the best we can hope for is 70% of the time and more often it's going to be 50/50. That is just the way life works. We are not going to be able to be a non-anxious presence all the time. That's OK.

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Reflecting on how things go when they don't go well will enable us to recognize the anxiety more readily in the future and to be able to be a non-anxious presence more effectively. The bottom line is that paradox and playfulness can become a way of being that will help you be more effective as a non-anxious leader. It may be a life's work, but it's work worth doing.