Vulnerability in the Workplace
Being vulnerable is being able to show people you’re not perfect, you make mistakes, and you don’t have all the answers. Traci and Rob discuss how this may seem like a scary proposition for many business leaders, but it is the key to a truly authentic and trust-filled work environment that can foster a more innovative and creative team.
Transcript
Rob:
Hey, this is Rob. Just a quick note about this episode. We had some trouble with our primary recording, so we had to use our backup recording—Zoom. So the quality's a little bit lower, but the content is still great. Hope you enjoy! Thanks.
Announcer:
Welcome to the Overly Human podcast, where we discuss all things human in the workplace. Because it's not just business—it's personal too.
Rob:
So, a little behind the scenes peek at what goes on when we record these episodes, Overly Human. We have this list in a Google Doc of all of the future topics for all the episodes that either Traci, or I, or someone else has suggested. They're all in this big list, and we prioritize them, and clean the list every once in a while.
Usually, earlier in the week on the weeks we're going to record, Traci will send me an email because she's always like wants to be prepared and wants to make sure she has good notes about whatever we're going to talk about. She'll send me a note saying like, "Hey, can't wait to talk to you. What are we talking about this week?" I'll look through the list and often pick a couple ideas and send them back.
This week, I picked up two different ideas, vulnerability and another one that doesn't really matter right now. What I thought when I sent that email was please don't choose vulnerability, please, come on, choose the other one. I think I even put the other one first in the list of the two.
An I sent that email back to Traci again. Within 10 minutes, she replied, "Let's talk about vulnerability." I think she even had exclamation point in there. So, here we are talking about vulnerability today and I'm going to let Traci start because she was obviously pretty excited about this.
Traci:
Oh, well, how very vulnerable you were feeling in that moment, waiting for my reply and how vulnerable of you to share how you actually felt while you were awaiting your response.
I feel like vulnerability is a hard thing to talk about, and a big thing to think about, and parse through, but it is so important and it's such an overly human topic for us to talk about. I thought it was nice to do it after when we talked about the power of leadership, because the power of leadership was a great conversation about how we're looked at as leaders, and there's a lot of pressure that comes with being a leader. We're taught to keep our distance, or project a certain image, or look competent, and competent, and in control.
So When we hear the word vulnerability and how important it is to be vulnerable in the workplace, we can feel a little uneasy about that. So maybe the first thing I'll do is define vulnerability in the way that we're going to talk about it today because a lot of times people think vulnerable means something you definitely don't want to be, you don't want to be vulnerable when you're sick, you don't want to be vulnerable if you're going to war.
We're going to look at vulnerability as being vulnerable as the ... This is Brené Brown, who I love. Her definition is the ability to show people you're not perfect, that you make mistakes and you don't have all the answers. It's basically being human in the workplace. To be vulnerable is to feel that fear, that uncertainty, to put yourself at risk and expose yourself.
So, that all sounds like, huh, why would we want to really expose ourself as leaders when we just talked about how, as leaders, you really need to project an image or look confident. How does it feel to you when you hear that definition of vulnerability and leadership?
Rob:
This is a tough one for me. I think that I'm also ... I love Brene Brown. I actually, in preparing for today, I went back and I watched a couple of her TEDx Talks because I was like, "Okay, vulnerability, how do I get ready for this?" I'm like, "Ah, I go watch a couple of these videos," and we'll post a couple of those with this.
Brené Brown on The Power of Vulnerability
Brené Brown on Listening to Shame
I think it's really interesting because I think that so much of what people envision of being leaders and being responsible for others is projecting strength, and projecting solutions, and having the answers. I think you combine that with the business that I'm in as we're consultants. People hire us to be experts.
I think it's really tempting to always want to have the answer and I think that when a lot of us hear vulnerability and basically that definition of it, it's like, "Oh, wait, I'm not supposed to have the answers. It's okay not to know. It's okay to be in a place of uncertainty." I think that those two things like a lot of times feel like opposing ideas. So I think that's part of the struggle.
Traci:
Yeah, it is part of the struggle. Another piece of it is that the feeling we have when the emotion we feel often, when we expose ourselves in that way, when we say we made a mistake, or when we let our guard down, or we're not projecting the image, that vulnerable feeling can lead to some sort of shame if it doesn't turn out the way we'd hope.
So, being vulnerable can have major payoff for your team and for your workplace. Authenticity is at the root of human connection, right? So, if you want to have a very human connected, engaged, productive team, the fastest way to get there is to build this trusting environment is through being vulnerable and authentic with each other, right?
Teams are looking to their leader always, every single day, all the time when they're interacting with you to see if they can trust you, really trust you. And if they feel like they can really trust you, then all of a sudden you have a deep relationship, a ton of loyalty, and a team that has a high retention rate, right? aAnd there's the safe environment because everybody feels like everybody's being authentic, people can put themselves out there, and then that's going to lead to more creativity, more innovation, right? Because I'm not going to feel stupid in front of you to throw out an idea even if it gets punched up and people laugh at it or whatever, because I'm feeling safe in my environment, right?
That's hard for leaders because they feel like, like you said, that you want to project this strength while you're leading, but ... and I see this when I'm coaching leaders sometimes because it's really popular to say, "Oh, this is a safe place to make mistakes, like we learn from our failure." But oftentimes, what I see leaders do is kind of put a spin. It's like when you're interviewing somebody and you say, "What's your greatest strength," and they answer very quickly. And then you say, "What's your greatest weakness?" They say, "Oh, my greatest weakness is that I work really hard," like they take their weakness and they spin it.
I see people do that with admitting their mistakes as leaders. They'll spin it, like, "Maybe I shouldn't have done this, but it turned out for the best," or “In the end, it's probably better for us to go this way.” Instead of just saying, "You know what, I totally just screwed up." There's a difference there. That's the more vulnerable route to go, right?
Rob:
It feels like so often, whatever topic we choose, we come back to this idea of trust, and building trust, and how trust is the foundation for everything we're trying to do with other humans. I'm just envisioning if there's ever a T-shirt that we get printed the only word that going to need to appear on it is trust, right? That is the foundation of everything we talk about from a human perspective.
The other part that I completely think about is that whole idea of willing to be wrong and how important it is to build trust, to show vulnerability in a way that you're always willing to be wrong about things that maybe even you're sure about, right?
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
It's that idea of like, "No. I'm open to be wrong, and I'm okay with it." This whole idea of wrongness is something I think we demonize rather than letting past mistakes be the breadcrumbs for seeing future growth, right?
Traci:
Yeah.
Rob:
How do we get better unless we're willing to be wrong and get things wrong, right? I think I've said this a couple episodes ago, but I would rather get it right than be right. If that is the idea and I constantly focus on getting it right, even if that means I was wrong and proving that I was right, then we can get some place together.
Traci:
Yeah. In that, I mean, gosh, if you think about our world today, if that's not the answer, hitting the nail on the head right there, I'm not quite sure what is because it's that ability to be able to say, "Do I have all the information? Is there more than I need to know, because I'm not 100% sure I'm right?" That's a really hard place for people to go because being right is a safe place to be for a lot of people even if they're not right. So to be vulnerable enough to say, "I may not have all the answers," can be scary for a lot of people, right?
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
But the flip side is and it seems counterintuitive, but man, you can really heighten people's trust for you and their respect of you when you're vulnerable.
One of the best stories—and it's amazing because this story happened I can't even remember how many years, over a decade ago—I had a woman who worked for me, who's just fabulous. Her name's Karen. Karen, if you're listening, this one's for you; who is a new salesperson. She is just gutsy and fun. In a sales environment, and you know this, when you're dealing with a client, typically, the client's always right.
It's really hard, but when you make a mistake and you know you have to go back to that client, it's really hard to come and tell your boss. And usually, nine times out of 10, people will come in to your office and give you the spin. Like, "Okay, I might've messed up here, but this is why it happened. It was really their fault because they didn't do this and they should have sent this through.”
And that I'll never forget her coming into my office, and just looking at me, and saying, “Holy crap, I really messed this up." but she didn't use the word mess. She's like, "I really messed this up big time and I totally need you to help me." And I was like, "Okay, okay." She sat down and she just completely told me what she did. We worked it out.
From that day, until for the next however many years, 15-plus years we worked together, I totally trusted her. I totally respected her and trusted her because I always knew she’d tell me the truth, and I always knew she was fine with telling me if she made a mistake, and she was even more fine with making it better.
So, too often I think employees and teammates will come in and have their story ready, be ready to defend their case rather than being vulnerable and really putting it out there, thinking I'm going to trust them more because they've spun the story so well and sold me on why it's not really their fault or not really a mistake. As opposed to just coming in warts and all, and saying, "Here you go, I messed up. Today is not a good day. I need you to help me." The payoff of doing that of being vulnerable is so much greater than really saving face.
Rob:
It is, it really is. There are times when it's not a vulnerability thing, but just something that I find myself saying a lot in our business is, "It's our fault. It's our fault," almost always. It's we didn't set expectations. Well, we didn't do this, right? If we're in the business of expertise and that's what we're selling, and we do projects like this every day, 365 days a year for years and years on end, that even if the client didn't know what to do, that goes back to us because we didn't communicate effectively. We didn't do those things.
So, don't ever start with its somebody else's fault. What did we do wrong? What do we own here? I think that's something that's really important, that's a small tangent on this particular topic. But it's a big deal to have that trust, right? That gets back to that trust again.
Traci:
It's the number one way on how to be vulnerable, on how to live this out is you have to be trusting and create a trust-filled environment. You just have to.
Rob:
I think that even like when we speak to large groups, like when I speak to the team, the entire team—all 50 of us now—one of the things that I tried to do really well is talk about my thought process, what I know, but more importantly, what I don't know when I'm working through so that it helps people come along the journey with me. Because typically what I found is when I spent a bunch of time thinking, and chewing, and really struggling through something to get to a place where there's a decision and I know what we need to do next, just informing people what that decision is they've not had time to chew and struggle in anything, and they have to go through all that really quickly, and that hurts.
So, by dropping those hints about, "Okay, this is what I'm struggling with. This is where I think things are going. I'm looking for this kind of input. I'm looking for this kind of data." It allows people to go through those mental exercises, but it requires being vulnerable during the process of not having the answer.
Traci:
Yeah. Also, what you're creating there is you're showing them your growth processes. Like what you've struggled through and what you've learned, and you're basically teaching the team that this is an environment that's a improving environment as opposed to a proving environment. This is a team that doesn't constantly have to be proving itself, but it does need to be improving itself. I think if you can create that environment, you don't have these people putting up on their armor and putting on this tough, I'm going to project the image, and always be competent, and always have to be right.
But if I know that my boss and my leader want to see me grow, and improve, and learn, and struggle through, then it's going to be safe for me to be vulnerable, and real, and say, "I messed up," or, "I don't have all the answers," or, "I'm not perfect.” I'm going to strive for excellence, not perfection.
I think if you can be on that journey together and you can create that environment with your team, that's a pretty powerful environment to be a part of, but it's also a very safe environment to enter into and be a part of.
Rob:
I mean, it goes back like ... It's funny. I've been working professionally for a little bit over 20 years now, which probably equates to hundreds of different projects that I've been on, or led, or whatever the case may be, and I look back on it, and I can't think of a single case where the project has failed for technical or design reasons, but I can name handfuls that have failed because there wasn't the people all on board because people weren't being real with each other. They weren't talking about what they knew, and what they didn't know, and they didn't have trust.
If we want things to go well, we have to have that connection as humans. The only way to have that connections is for people to be real with each other, which requires vulnerability.
Traci:
Yeah. Also to hold each other accountable to be that way, right? So, when somebody isn't being honest, we need to hold each other accountable when we're not being vulnerable, or we see somebody ruining the environment by being more judgmental than curious. When somebody opens up and is vulnerable, and then you completely shut them down, or you tell them their idea isn't great, or they really screwed up and you're basically tainting that environment.
So we need to be ... you know my favorite saying, "Be more curious than certain." That falls into the realm of judgment, and especially if we're working in a tech environment, or a design environment, development environment, where your eye goes directly to the flaw every time, that's a good thing when you're trying to create a great product, not such a great thing when you're trying to create an environment where people feel safe enough to really go deep with their innovation, and creativity, and put themselves out there, and open up, right? If they think they're going to be ripped apart, it's hard to be vulnerable in that environment.
Rob:
It is. I mean, it reminds me like I remember being a young person in my career and I had a mentor that I worked with, gentleman who was in his late sixties, as me as a 20-year-old took me under his wing. I'll never forget one of the things he told me is we've worked on a couple of projects together was he's like your super power is you can tell instantly if an idea doesn't work and you can poke holes in it. He's like, "That is not always helpful." He's like, "It's great." He's like, "Someday, you will learn the skills on how to turn ... figuring out what doesn't work into suggesting things that do work, or helping make other people's ideas work better. He's like, that's when you'll be most effective, that's what you need to work on.
Traci:
Yeah. I coach people on that a lot because to be wickedly smart and have a great eye is such a wonderful thing, but you need to have the delivery skills to go along with that. Sometimes that just comes with maturity and experience where you learn how to deliver that information in a way that people can actually hear you and receive it as opposed to being just this kind of blunt bull in a china shop, like, “This is what's wrong.”
But being able to have that delivery where it might be again, phrased in a question, or it might be a little softer to begin with, and you're guiding them there. That takes patience and that takes empathy and kindness to walk through that with somebody. But that can help maintain the environment you need to foster vulnerability and authenticity, and also setting aside your ego and being super generous I think, too, because sometimes if you feel like you have the answer, that can really feed your ego, and you got to set that aside if you really want to have this type of environment in the workplace.
Rob:
Yeah, no, totally. It's okay to let groups have ideas like we have this. As a society, I think we lift up this idea of genius so much, right? Like, "Oh, this person is so smart." There's a lady in our team, Katie, who has introduced me to concept of scenius, right, that really, that what we want to do is set the environment so groups of people can collaborate, and get better, and smarter together, and it's not just about any one genius, it's about the scenius of a group that gets us to where we want to be and how much work that takes a vulnerability, the trust, and all of those different pieces, the confidence and the humility coming together to let people collaborate in a way that it's better than any one of us could do alone.
Traci:
Yeah. You know what, it takes everybody to make that work. I love that whole idea of ... It's a great word. It's a great description, but it takes everybody on the team agreeing to play that way, and that's a constant struggle against the ego, and it's a constant struggle against all of our emotions.
This is why, again, we talk about emotional intelligence a lot, but managing our emotions and being able to enter into this in the right way is so important. It's a skill. It's a skill that we have to practice because people aren't authentic or are authentic. That's not really true. It's actually a choice. You're actually choosing to be authentic. It's not like you were just born authentic or born an unauthentic person. This is a choice that we're making to be vulnerable, to be authentic.
We have to intentionally say, "I'm going to take a chance. I'm going to take a shot. I'm going to take off the armor. I'm not going to protect myself, and I'm going to be real, and let you know what I'm actually feeling, and thinking, and admit things. If you shut me down and I feel shame or it makes me feel bad, I'm going to still keep true to myself and still keep going. And can we be honest with each other through those moments and pursue on?”
Rob:
We have to and it's that becoming comfortable with the unknown, right? It's that not knowing what's on the other side of that door and be willing to walk through it over and over and over and over again with people. As leaders, and as a business owner, and a coach, we have to be willing to lead by example and show people what that looks like to show up every day, put things at risk so that they are willing to reciprocate and know that it's safe.
Traci:
Yep. Because they are watching us, you're a leader, and they’re listening. They are always watching. Your kids are watching you, your partners are watching you, your spouses, and, man, your teammates are watching you.
Rob:
Yeah, one of the things you said that I loved as we wrap up was be more curious, less certain. I think that is a great way to end this.
Traci:
Yes. Go forth and ask questions. Ask instead of just being certain that you're right. One of my favorite saying that hangs over my desks, be more curious than certain.
Rob:
Yeah, sincerely curious. I like that.
Traci:
Yeah, this was fun. See, it wasn't so bad.
Rob:
No, no, no. My fears have been put to rest a little bit, at least until next time.
Traci:
Awesome. Well, thanks for being vulnerable.
Rob:
Yeah. Thank you, Traci.
Announcer:
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