Ideas in the Wild: How Brett Cooper and Evans Kerrigan Are Helping Us Better Understand Those We Work With

We all work with people who think or act differently than us. Wouldn’t it be nice to understand why they think and act that way? Knowing that would allow us to build more productive relationships with our coworkers, including our boss. That’s why Organizational Health Consultants Brett Cooper and Evans Kerrigan wrote Solving the People Problem.

Packed with their own personal insights gained over two decades “boots on the ground” experience, Brett and Evans explain the what, why and how of DISC-EQ, a powerful new framework that will equip readers to better understand those they work with.

I recently caught up with the duo to learn what inspired them to write the book, their favorite idea they share with readers, and how that idea has impacted their work.

What happened that made you decide to write the book? What was the exact moment when you realized these ideas needed to get out there?

Our organization has focused on getting great results for our clients and the people that work in those organizations. Our vision is “Improving lives by expanding the existence of healthy organizations and great places to work.” We began this project because we saw clients seeing success in improving individual relationships and entire cultures across their organizations.

We know that there are a lot of issues in the workplace that lead to low levels of engagement, a high cost to organizations and people in terms of unproductive workplace conflict, challenges in creating positive and successful team environments.

As we were working on this project, COVID came on the scene and made the need to improve our emotional intelligence even more critical in our socially distanced workforce. When the pandemic hit and people all went to work from home, we realized that the challenges of building strong, positive working relationships had become even more a critical need.

We wanted to be able to provide information to help those we did not know, who were struggling with some of the same issues. We wanted to show people that work can be more fulfilling and our relationships at work can be more effective. We wanted to provide tangible tools to help them start making changes right away. Based on the responses we’re hearing, people are finding it helpful and empowering to know they can improve their workplace themselves.

What’s your favorite specific, actionable idea in the book?

It is a simple and powerful idea that we need to “Honor the Differences.” We find ourselves repeating this when we’re starting to react to someone approaching an idea from a different perspective. In the past, we might have looked at the other person’s idea as possibly wrong and looked to see how we could reinforce our point of view. Now we better recognize that this approach closes off our ability to really hear the other person and learn new approaches.

Looking to honor how someone approaches an issue with a different perspective has opened us up to learning and growing in new ways. People want to engage with us around ideas and we can build ideas together, complimenting what we each bring to the table when we start by honoring the differences. We’re not saying that we always do it perfectly, and there are times when a different approach can make us a little uncomfortable, but when we put in the effort to truly honor a different approach, we frequently learn new insights that we’d been missing.

What’s a story of how you’ve applied this idea in your own lives? What has this lesson done for you?

One of the nice things about honoring the differences is that they are almost always available for us if we are watching. This can have an impact with people we have just met, but sometimes it is the impact with people that we have known for a long time.

We frequently tell people that differences that we don’t attend to can create big problems out of little ones. They are the minor irritation that really impacts a relationship over time.

Several years ago, Evans was working on a major project with two people that he found challenging (and who would likely say the same about him). It was impacting the team’s ability to get the best results and led to a lot of sidebar and hallway conversations.

After a difficult meeting, Evans met with the others to get to the bottom of their issues. They walked through how they had each approached the problem and what their thoughts were as the discussion progressed. They better understood how they had each approached the issues and realized that they each had good value to offer, though they had different approaches.

The three of them came out of that meeting with both an appreciation and a decision to try to listen for the value that their different approaches brought to the team. This became easier as they tried this new approach and saw the results that the team was able to start delivering.