Jumpstart New Connections Using a Cheat Sheet

How do you get to the important conversations faster?

Sometimes getting to know a new collaborator can take more time that you have to spare. In this episode Erin and Jessica discuss how a cheat sheet can jumpstart the conversations that build understanding. 

Then Erin walks you through how to write your own. 

Links and resources from this episode:

• Create Your Own Cheat Sheet handout: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1si32FVO0z-upqBhwJOelTi40G4kDcxdAqIBhnskRWrU/edit?usp=sharing

Connect with us!

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• Join our LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12879756/ 
• Send us a message: practicingconnection@oneop.org 

Transcript

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JESSICA BECKENDORF: [00:00:00] Hi, thanks for listening to Practicing Connection. I'm Jessica. Today we're talking about how to jumpstart understanding with new groups by creating a cheat sheet. Later, Erin's gonna share a suggestion on how to write one. Hi, Erin.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Hi, Jessica. How are you?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I'm pretty good, but what I really want to hear about is this book that you've been telling me about that is related to our topic today, because I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have to go and get myself a copy.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay. It's called Finger Exercises for Poets. It's by Dorian Laux. Oh, it's L-A-U-X. Do you know how to pronounce French? It seems like one of those ones where you don't pronounce all the letters. I should have looked this up.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Oh, no, I apologize to Dorian.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Anyway, okay. So -

JESSICA BECKENDORF: But did you know I'm a poet? Did I, did you know that?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: About being a poet. Yes. [00:01:00] Okay.

So I am very picky about books that teach you to write poetry, because a lot of them are soulless and terrible in my humble opinion. But what I love about this book is she uses the example of her mom was a piano player, and she was a really good piano player. She could play these amazing things so well it made you cry. 

But when she was playing, she always started by doing really basic piano finger exercises. And she talked to her mom about it once and her mom said, "Well, you have to warm up your fingers." So each chapter of this book explores a different thing that makes poetry good with some examples of good poetry that are really good at that particular niche thing.

And then at the end of the chapter, there are exercises to practice. And I just read the chapter on the personal universe, and all of the exercises are about helping [00:02:00] you identify and notice the things that make your life uniquely yours. 

Like, what are the things that you smelled in your house growing up? What are the sounds that you heard? What clothes did you used to wear all the time? What's the family lore? Like, what are those weird catchphrases that everybody in your family uses and nobody else has ever heard of before, because it's like your family's unique language?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, I love this. Well, first of all, I love this because the mind-body connection is so powerful. So it makes sense that doing exercises and stuff would have an effect on your writing. But then also, tying it to today's topic, I know that we mentioned that the topic was about creating a cheat sheet, but it was - the purpose was jumpstarting understanding between people who might be collaborative partners.

And so sharing about that, you were talking about family culture and everything, sharing though with others your organizational [00:03:00] culture and some of the ways that your organization talks. Sharing that with your partners, I would imagine, would be just as powerful.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, it really had me thinking about, you know, we had been talking about this idea of creating cheat sheets and maybe like an acronym cheat sheet. 

And then as I was kind of exploring that, I realized, you know what? People, if someone wants to know about me and my context in my personal life or in my professional life, they need more than just, ‘here are the acronyms I use.’

So how do we quickly provide other people or groups with the context about who we are and what we do, so that we can figure out if we want to do stuff together? And this poetry book really has, I think, inspired me to get very specific, and sometimes getting really specific can be more illuminating than kind of a broad elevator pitch.

And so we've really kind of crafted our practice today to help you maybe narrow down on more specifics. It might not be as [00:04:00] poetical as the poetry book, but our practice is really focused on helping you kind of find specifics, and then hone them in a very poetic editing process. To like hone them into a more cohesive thing so you can quickly communicate stuff with people.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So let's talk about why it's worth taking the time to create a cheat sheet, because I think that it feels very surface level, but that's really not the, I mean, it might be kind of an intro level, but it actually, can be really useful.

So what does it do? When do you use this cheat sheet?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I use it to start conversations with people, so we notice our differences and find bridges to navigate them before they become friction points. 

So, you know, we work for Extension, like OneOp is nested in [00:05:00] Extension and Extension is this very interesting partnership between state and county and university.

And it's a very, there's lots of layers to it. And so if we're working with a business or a small nonprofit, we have different organizational structures. So we need to get things approved differently, and our money needs to follow certain laws that maybe a nonprofit has different laws they need to follow.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Like we can't meet a grant deadline that's only a week or two

Away - there's just no way that we can get involved in that.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. We have multiple levels of things, contracts need to be approved by the lawyers and the accountants. And that kind of thing is good to talk about before you're trying to rush to get a grant completed. 

So as I'm thinking about it, we're really talking a lot on this podcast about how do we collaborate with other people in the community?

And that means working with people across sectors. Cross-sector communication is a form of cross-cultural [00:06:00] communication, right? You're talking to people who use different language, they have different things that they're working on all the time. They maybe work with different people. They maybe have different acronyms.

They maybe use the same three letter acronym to mean completely different things. And it's so, so helpful to figure that out before you think you're talking about the same thing, and you're talking about different things. Or before you just get in this place of like, "Oh my gosh, why does it always take them three months to decide if they want to do something or not? We’ve got to be reactive. We’ve got to be on top of it. Why is this taking forever?" 

And it's like, "Well, it's taking forever because we have to have 12 different people approve it before we can say yes to it." And so these are the kinds of things that maybe you don't think to talk about until you're in a conflict, And so I think the power of a cheat sheet is kind of like self-disclosing ahead of time, like here's how we work. Here's what works best for us. This is kind of how we are, this is what's important to us, these are [00:07:00] the values we base our decisions on, or in the case of other people, like this is the policy we build our work on.

And knowing why you're doing your work and what the aim and goals of the work that you're doing is can really go a long way in helping you avoid some of the conflicts that will destroy a collaboration before it can get into the point where you do work together. So this is like a starting spot, a launching pad for communication and understanding so that you can have patience and grace and cohesion.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Awesome. Can you talk a little bit about the feeling, because you and I talked about this, outside of this recording, I should say, and how this feels like it's maybe a little bit surface level, because it kind of does. And I want to acknowledge that. It feels basic and yet it could be this shortcut to understanding.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. I [00:08:00] totally get that. I can understand why you would look at this practice and say, "You want me to write a one page to describe my organization? We have a website."

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, right.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: And the answer is like, "Well, people aren't gonna read your website, and is your website easy to navigate? Can people find this information on your website?” 

Just throwing that out there.

Design your websites for people. So, you know, I can see why it feels frivolous, but it's also a process of you getting to know yourselves better, because are you aligned internally on who you are and how you want to move and the things you want to be working on?

Because you'd be surprised how many times people are talking past each other. And I've spent a lot of time like coming in new to things and kind of having these moments where I have to say as a facilitator, "Do you guys realize you're talking past each other? You're using different words to talk about the [00:09:00] same thing, or you're using the same word to talk about different things. Do you know that that's happening?" 

It can feel frivolous, but it's a really good starting point. And then it means that you're starting from the same place, rather than thinking you're starting from the same place. There's kind of an opening to a discussion. 

And the real goal here is not to write a sheet and never talk about it. The goal is to write this information so that you can have, "Hey, where are you anticipating maybe we'll have some friction? Can we make a plan for how to navigate that now, before we get into it?" 

So it's less about, you know, magically downloading information into people's brains and more, “Here's a concise place to start figuring out what does it look like to do and be together as people who have different objectives and goals.”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I love it. 

Okay. Well, let's get into this. Please share, start sharing the practice with us.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay. So the goal here is [00:10:00] to write a short one pager that provides context and clarifies communication with other people.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I have a question. Should you start with the particular collaboration, or is this just a page that you cr - like, are you tailoring this for the particular collaboration, or partners that you might be working with? 

Or is this just something that you create once and, you know, you can hand it to anybody? Sorry, putting you on the spot.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: That is a great question. I think of it kind of like a resume. You have a standard one and then you kind of tweak it once you know who you're sending it to.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Love it.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: So I think it's really easy when you're thinking about writing a one pager to go to your standard elevator pitch or, okay, well, “Here's our mission and vision and that's all you need to know.”

And maybe, maybe that is all you need to know, but [00:11:00] maybe it isn't. So I've written some other questions to ask yourself, or ask your team, to kind of mine a little deeper and see if there's some additional information that is helpful to know. So I'm just going to read you these questions, and then if you were writing one of these one pagers either by yourself or with a team, you would pause and you would answer these questions before you move on to the next section.

This is the ‘gathering all of the bits and bobs' part of the writing where you're not necessarily including every single one of these things in the final document.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Just what's relevant.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes, don't worry about pruning it yet. This is the point where we're gathering things, and then we'll have a process later to yay or nay anything and decide if we actually want it. But it's easier to edit from a list of information rather than editing it before you even put it on the paper, digital or physical. 

Okay, so questions. [00:12:00] What history of your organization, if any, is relevant? Who do you work with? What do you call the people that you work with? Are they clients? Are they neighbors? Are they patriots? Are they associates? 

What is the name that you call the people that you do work with? How many people are on your team or in your organization? Are you paid? Are you volunteers? Are you full-time? Are you part-time? 

What are the things about your organization that surprise new employees or new volunteers? What are three words you would use to describe your team or organization? How do you make decisions? Do you need to get them approved? 

What have been friction points with others in the past? How do you reframe those as value statements? What are common acronyms or phrases that you use in your [00:13:00] group?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I love these questions because now I feel guilty for bringing up how this feels like a very surface level thing, because these are not surface level items. These are not things that you'll find on a website.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: No.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I mean, some of them might be, but -

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Sure. I mean, you might find out how many people are on your team, maybe.

And so the point of these questions was not to ask you everything you could possibly ask about your organization. They're specifically focused on what are things that are relevant to you working with other people or organizations.

So, once you've gathered your answers to those questions, I want you to start sorting the information that you gathered into three chunks or category areas. Number one is who we are. Number two is what we do. And number three is stuff to know. 

And I think this is the point where once it's sorted into categories, you can see maybe we have a [00:14:00] lot of stuff about who we are, but not any stuff in the, like, what do you need to know about us? Or maybe you have a lot of stuff about who you are and nothing about what you do. Or maybe you only have stuff about what you do and nothing in the other categories.

And the goal is to have a little bit of a balance. They don't need to be equal, but you should have a little bit in each of the three categories. 

And then the final step is prune for clarity. And this is where you can now be ruthless. This document will only be helpful if someone can actually read it.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, please don't make it six pages long. It should be one page, like you said.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. So if you're at this point where you're condensing it and you're doing the normal, ‘okay, we have a document, now we're trying to make a final copy,’ do your copy edits, do your content edits. 

And if you're getting stuck on how to make it shorter and you're not sure about what to include and what to leave out, I want you to pretend you're someone from a different organization, or if that's hard, [00:15:00] pretend that you are yourself in a job that you held before you had this one and you're reading it.

Does it answer what you need to know about whether or not you should partner with a person? What's confusing? What is missing? And I recognize that that is a very theater kid skillset to imagine yourself as somebody else. 

And also, even if you think, "I hate doing that, Erin, that's so silly," I encourage you to do it anyway because one of the most powerful tools for editing content is to imagine you're somebody else reading it fresh.

And if you're really struggling, go find a fresh new person to read it for you and provide you with feedback.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So then you have it created and you bring it to your partner or partners that you wanted to share it with, that you created it for. This is where you're not just handing it out to them, right? You are handing it out with the purpose of, like, “Let's talk [00:16:00] about what's here and how you guys work, and how we can bridge any of those differences.”

Is this the point or am I skipping a step?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Nope, that's the point.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: That's what, this is the point where we're doing that.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: You got it, you get it. So once it's written, I would say maybe we did skip the step of making sure that everybody on your team, like, agrees.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Oh, yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: You know.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: You're not misrepresenting anything.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Make sure it's accurate, make sure whatever approvals you need to get in order to have a thing, it's been approved.

And then as you're talking with people, how I would use it is, I would bring it and say, "Hey, as we're getting to know each other, we've put together this really short page of stuff that's really important to know about us, and we'd love to kind of talk about it with you and notice where we're the same and where we're different. If you have one, we'd love to look at yours. If you don't, if you could just respond to what's on the page, we think that if we have this [00:17:00] conversation, it will help us have a stronger collaboration and it'll help us avoid conflict before it happens."

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I'm going to put you on the spot one more time.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, do it.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Will there be a spot where people can find these questions that you shared in a written format?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. What I have done is created a one-page template on how to create this cheat sheet one-pager. And if you look in the show notes, there'll be a link. It'll be a fully accessible Google document, so you can either print it or download it, and then use it for your own, in your own personal, practice.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Excellent. Thank you so much, Erin. I love this practice.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes, I love it too, and hopefully it is really helpful for everybody else. 

If you do use it, I would love to hear about it. Even if you used it and you're like, "Erin, this stinks. This was not helpful to me at all." I want to hear all of your complaints, so that we can make it more useful for you in the future.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And you can do that by [00:18:00] emailing us at practicingconnection@oneop.org. 

That's it for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us. If you like this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend or coworker. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, keep practicing.

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.