Last time, we began a multi-essay arc inspired by my recent weight loss. I was not actually digging for kudos by using my weight loss journey as the example to frame this discussion, but thanks for the encouragement! (Blush) The discussion is really about how to create lasting change, which involves real commitment driven by clear priorities, which in turn begins with being truly authentic with yourself and others. Last time we discussed Authenticity and I said that this time I’d start in on Priorities. I lied. As I read your feedback and thought more about this whole arc over the last week, I realized that there is one more topic closely tied to Authenticity that we must discuss and that is Vulnerability.
Even the word “vulnerability” can make people cringe. The words “vulnerable” and “vulnerability” have a connotation of “weakness”. It brings to mind some scene in a drippy drama where the protagonist, having just experienced some loss or break up or serious setback, weepily begs a love interest or friend through averted eyes, “Don’t hurt me! I’m so vulnerable right now!” Even the online dictionary definition of “vulnerability” reads “the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally”.
I don’t subscribe to that definition, though, in this context. To me, allowing yourself to be vulnerable is one of the singular most courageous acts a person can undertake. Being vulnerable is making a decision, taking an action or just committing to who you are even though that choice might leave you exposed to being hurt, taken advantage of or just embarrassed—but doing it anyway because the benefits of doing so are worth the risk of the downside. None other than my spirit animal, Brene Brown, says, “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.” (I highly encourage you to invest 20 minutes and watch her TED talk on Vulnerability. It is one of their most popular ever, will help you understand what I stumble through in the rest of this essay, and I hope will turn you on to one of our greatest contemporary thinkers.)
It’s counter intuitive to think that embracing vulnerability can make you a stronger person and leader. How else, though, can you truly improve upon your already wonderful self if you are not willing to recognize and embrace those traits of yours that need changing? Or if not truly “changed”—since in many ways we are who we are—then balanced with other traits? But first you have to “see” those traits. A real and effective leader does not believe she has all the right answers nor knows more than anyone else in the room about everything. NO ONE has all the right answers or knows more than anyone else in the room about everything! It is not a weakness to say, “I don’t know much about (fill in the blank), but XXX does and I want her in on this discussion.” Traditionally, leaders in the workplace would have a very small group of people with whom they could admit “I don’t know”—the people with whom they could be vulnerable. However, keeping that admission too close to the vest means that the circle of knowledge they relied upon was too small (and probably inbred). That, my friends, is what has led to the downfall of many a large corporation and not a few small countries. (I’m not saying get up in front of everyone and say, “I don’t know nuthin’!” with a smile. Jeez, people, there is something in between! I’m saying seek counsel more broadly than just your two or three best buds and when you don’t know, SAY you don’t know and that you’ll find an answer. Don’t make stuff up.)
Certainly vulnerability and authenticity are pre-requisites to healthy human relationships of all kinds. Think about relationships with pets. Most of us have had a cat and/or a dog. Those animals are so special to us because their love is unconditional. They just want us to love them and they love us without judgement. OK, so maybe cats judge, but that judgement is OUT OF love. And when a cat chooses to sit in your lap it is the highest compliment! Which is why people will not move for hours if a cat is sleeping on them. Anyway, the unconditional non-judgmental love we get from our pets allows us to be fully authentic and vulnerable with them. We don’t put on airs, pretending to not be upset or proud of ourselves or bored or whatever we are feeling. They get the true US. We tell them our deepest darkest secrets and most important thoughts because they won’t judge us or answer back or argue. They just listen. And love us. This is why we are so unbelievably broken up when they die. Not because they hurt us or abandon us or even betray us, but because we love them so purely.
If only we could be like that with PEOPLE! But that’s hard because people DO judge and they DO talk back and argue. And they sometimes leave. And say horrible things on their way out the door. So we save that vulnerability for our pets. Avoidance of pain is probably the principle reason behind lack of vulnerability—hence the courage involved in being vulnerable. I could go on and on about the importance of vulnerability and authenticity in your relationships with other people, both at work and more broadly, but what I want to focus on is that openness turned toward yourself.
Vulnerability is a pre-requisite to authenticity—only by allowing yourself to feel hurt and fear and anxiety can you accept those difficult things about yourself and only then can you start to change them. So what keeps us from being honest with ourselves? Maybe we can be vulnerable with pets because they just keep looking at us with love, no matter what we say, yet when we try to be honest with ourselves our brains talk back. We judge ourselves. We hold ourselves to a level of perfection or achievement or constancy that we would NEVER hold anyone else to (except maybe politicians of the opposing party). I will admit that I have a really hard time being as honest in my journal as I know I should be because it’s all written down and someone may read it someday. But isn’t that the point, Sherri? Your flawed self is still pretty awesome. Not perfect. Not totally constant. Certainly not lacking in contradiction. But awesome nonetheless.
So back to the example of my weight loss journey over the past several months. To be able to make the commitment that I needed to create a permanent change in my relationship with food, I had to begin with an honest look at the reasons why I had the relationship with food that I DID. (No, I’m not going to get into that here!) Understanding and accepting why I had gotten to the point that I had gotten to was that first critical step toward change. It’s that way with any change, be it weight loss, a job change, a relationship change, any change of habit. Weight Watchers starts the process by having you define your “Why?” WHY do you want to lose weight? Once you have the true “why” you can move on to looking at your priorities and what is keeping you from supporting that “why”. I promise we’ll pick up there next time!
Well said, Sherri. Always love reading your posts.
Sherri-
Your vulnerability essay was interesting and caused some personal thoughts. Perhaps another approach to looking at vulnerability is to look at one’s comfort level with risk, both are related.
Being an anal engineer, and following the surprise (to me) divorce from my first wife after over twenty years of marriage, which resulted in me suddenly becoming a poor single 42 year old parent of three teenagers all heading towards college, I thought about whether I wanted ever again to share my life with someone who could again shatter my happiness, deplete my sense of self-worth, and further deplete my now non-existent financial worth. It took two years to meet the right person, Donna, but once I met her not more than a moment to take the full plunge without reservation. It was of course the right decision and I’m much better off that my ex did divorce me rather than we continued in an unhappy and weak marriage.
Acceptance of risk is difficult for many. It can be especially difficult for those who have high intellect and the skills to analyze extensively and well, and therefore those who have the ability to make careful decisions and minimize potential error. Important real life decisions, however, are almost never open to detailed analysis and therefore risk free. Risk aversion can become very stifling, whether making personal or business decisions.
We need to be comfortable with exposing ourselves to risk, or using your term accepting our vulnerability and thereby through acceptance of risk, not be so vulnerable. Genuine life decisions are almost always difficult, whether personal such as selecting forever partners, giving critical advice to loved-ones and offspring, or making professional decisions in the workplace.
I’m not suggesting abandoning clear thinking or solid decision making, but the world does not come risk free. Even if you try to avoid the world by being a recluse in Montana and living next to a fishing stream in the wilderness. Bears are hungry beasts and sometimes you will be the meal.
What are the rewards for accepting risk, or for allowing yourself to be vulnerable. At our workplace (yours and mine for so many years), the career consequences of being wrong, at least occasionally, were not severe. God knows our senior management made enough of them through the years. It helped, of course, to be the one who eventually solved the problem. A personal example, I made one big mistake that costs AP $20 million. I fixed it and I then received the Chairman’s award. Corporations make mistakes all the time and survive them. Management prefers to remember successes and not failures. Where people get into problems is 1) when they are incompetent, which at least at our company was rare since those who were incompetent weren’t generally allowed to make decisions, or 2) dishonest and they hid the facts instead of admitting their culpability and getting on with the solution.
As in business, the consequences in our personal lives from mistakes are equally digestible. We do get through the consequences of our mistakes. In fact for most of us life continues to improve.
Knowing how to accept worthwhile risk is critical to growth and happiness. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, whether from our own actions or those from others, as you said, is not a weakness since the benefits from risk taking are substantial and we know that solutions for mistakes will present themselves and more than likely we will be successful in solving them. This knowledge about risks, vulnerabilities and our abilities to find solutions is an important recognition, and limits our desire to move to Montana with the hungry bears.
Take care, Doug
Doug,
As always, thanks for your thoughtful comments. I had to read them over a few times and think a bit before responding. I agree with your sentiments. And I also don’t. We are talking, I believe, about two similar but different things. The Authenticity and Vulnerability I talk about are not conditional based upon a risk assessment. They are a permanent state of being. It is a personal choice you make to ALWAYS be authentic. Even if you know the risk of being hurt or taken advantage of is high. And that is why it is so courageous!
Sherri
Thanks my dear. I missed reading your piece on authenticity. This might explain my misdirected thoughts. We have been on vacation since late June at our Nantucket home basically running a serial bed and breakfast for our children and their family. I’m looking forward to reading what I missed.
Well, I have now reread both of your last two essays.
I only have experience with one brain, so its difficult for me to understand how other brains really work as they read your essays. The best I can do is guess. As I read your essays, I came to an interesting idea and my brain took off in a tangential but related direction. I focused again, read more until another idea of yours diverted my focus, and once again my grey matter took off for another digression. The net result of reading your essays is that I achieved some understanding (only some) about what you are trying to say, but I also experienced a broad set of other ideas and recalled memories that your essay triggered. These were also of value.
I’m not a good listener either, although I now try to be a better. Perhaps the reason is that my upbringing was very much like “Leave it to Beaver”. Its still on cable- the “perfect” parents with two children having traditional problems, with the father (who always ended up wrong) constantly lecturing his children at the dinner table. As my father lectured to us during dinner, my twin brother paid attention. I, instead, paid no attention but learned to move my head up and down at the appropriate times. This skill allowed me to survive without indigestion and was one advantage of a good imagination.
As always, I enjoyed your essays and also my wondering thoughts. One thing that popped into my brain as I was reading yours was that I always thought of you as being very authentic. So you hid any non-authentic tendencies very well. Another pop-in memory was my recruitment of a very smart PhD who, although a Chem E, did her dissertation in an Bio-Chem area. Because this topic was so atypical to AP’s businesses, I was the only one who would offer her a job and she worked for me for her first assignment. She was bright, enthusiastic, and spontaneous in many ways. In a word, I remember her as very natural. We lost touch for about 20 years as she went into other divisions and eventually went to the dark side, the commercial area. When AP sold the business she came back into Gases. We met again and there had been a complete transformation. Perhaps maturity had something to do with it, but it was much more. She became very serious and deliberate in her words, she was stiff and not relaxed, she conformed to the wardrobe of the female business people, her mannerism were all business. In a business environment she had none of the relaxed, near brilliant, eager and enthusiastic characteristics of the woman I hired almost 20 years earlier. What happened? Where did she go? We had other times together which were more one-on-one and at times I saw glimpses of her old self, especially when we talked about her family and children. I became aware that she was playing a role. This need to conform to a role is not just a female characteristic. As you know, during our last ten years at AP, casual dress was the word. Yet, every male V.P. had to put on a sport coat before a meeting, but their personalities did not seem to change with the sport coat, yet the demeanor of the woman I hired certainly was different, especially in the commercial meetings. I think women have it tougher.
So- one message to me from your essays is that its very difficult for many people to be authentic, at least in the workplace. A question is whether this role is really necessary. If I were a buyer, trust is important and authenticity is helpful in establishing trust. I had experiences in setting up and leading a number of collaborations with other companies. I never felt I had to play a role. Not only is it uncomfortable playing a role, I could not have pulled it off in a convincing manner. There is a price to pay for not being yourself. Ironically, my female colleagues efforts to conform to the right commercial dress and mannerism didn’t seem to work and she was eventually let go.
I’m not sure whether playing the appropriate role is all that important to the senior-most management who really decide our progress in the company. It would be interesting to understand whether the conformity that does exist is driven by senior management or is the need to conform in this way only a perception by those who are striving for success. It would also be interesting to understand the influence of the herd on individual behaviors, dress and mannerisms.
As you point out, authenticity is important to ones wellbeing. Also as you say, this does not mean that we should accept ourselves without attention to self improvement. We also need not strive for perfection. After all, who is the definer of perfection. One point of your essay is that you need honesty in your own self-evaluation for what needs to change. I agree with that conclusion. I’ll also provide you a personal view. I think perfectionism is like cleanliness. A good concept, but we should be concerned and focus on the important shortcomings, a little dirt behind the ears is not all that important. I also hope that those who are important in my life, those who I want to judge me, recognize that I am mostly clean.
Take care, Doug