No More Touchy-Feely!

Lately, I’ve been hearing and thinking about the phrase “touchy-feely” a bit more often than I usually do. If you are a team leader inclined to pay attention to team development or if you are a facilitator of such events, you might want to join me in an exploration of this phrase, its meaning, and its implications.

What is this derisive, dismissive, cringe-inspiring phrase really about? Where does it come from? And more importantly, what can be done to prevent the experiences that give rise to the use of such a term?

I most often hear the term, touchy-feely, when I’m talking up-front with members of a group who are about to have some type of team-development—facilitated by me. Prior such events, I always have conversations with participants to get to know their thinking about a variety of issues. A typical question I ask is What will make this event a great use of your time? That’s when touchy-feely shows up in responses such as: “Well, I just don’t want it to be touchy-feely.”

Okay. No touchy-feely. Yet in response to the same question I will hear that people want to get to know each other better or to come away feeling “more like a team.” They want to trust each other more. They want to learn to work together more effectively so that they can achieve their common purpose and make their time and effort count for something. Clearly, people want a group experience that is about more than data, analysis, and results. Yet, such requests head us into the territory they might label touchy-feely.

Here’s my take on this paradox. Touchy-feely comes from unfortunate team or personal development experiences that did not meet the core needs brought to the event by participants. Perhaps it was the setting, the issues, the facilitation, the leader, the group dynamics, the time of year, the external world, or the worries or fears brought into the group. For whatever reasons, the team development failed. And participants walked away believing that the day (or week!) had been a waste of time, that they had been “techniqued” by the facilitator and, perhaps, by their leader. And sometimes—worse--they sense that relationships have been damaged or they have lost personal confidence or credibility in the group. Enter, the now understandable damning phrase, touchy-feely.

And soon, those who have not had such negative experiences have learned the phrase, have a guess about what it means, and do not want any part of such encounters. And so it is that building the critical connection between group members and helping them to become more self-aware is dismissed as insignificant fluff.

What’s to be done? If you lead or facilitate groups, imagine that below any self awareness or team development activity rests a set of Group Needs (see Chapter 3, Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary Teams Achieve Amazing Results, Jossey-Bass, 2009):

• Accepting our selves while moving toward our Potential
• Bonding with others while pursuing a common Purpose
• Understanding Reality while we make an Impact together

Here are a set of principles that enable me to confidently say, I don’t do touchy-feely but I certainly do effective team development.

1. Make sure that you create time for group members to connect your team development activities with why the group comes together and its ability to effectively achieve its goals.
2. Design your event and select activities that align with and support the six Group Needs outlined above. See the methods you choose as standing on the foundation of these Group Needs. As the team development unfolds, ask questions about the implications of what people are experiencing and how that experience connects to any of the Group Needs.
3. Employ strategies that emphasize learning from what’s already working well. Remember that analyzing what’s wrong won’t necessarily get you what you want.
4. Consider differences a strength and a powerful source of individual and group learning. Intentionally explore them in the spirit of learning and discovery.
5. Open up controversial or undiscussable topics with a light structure that creates a sense of safety. About any one issue, ask… What do we know? What do we believe? What do we want moving ahead? What do we commit to doing differently? Why is all this important to us?

Team and personal development activities can be transformative for groups when, as they unfold, they meet the Group Needs of Bonding with others, enhancing one’s own self-Acceptance, discovering or growing into one’s own Potential, or increasing the group’s ability to fulfill its Purpose and desired Impact. When such activities, methods, or techniques free float, with no connection to these instinctive human needs, they backfire. In doing so, they make it more difficult for people to willingly engage in team and personal development in the future. And they justify the use of a term I would just as soon forget.

I’d love to hear what you think about all this.