Here’s a new article on “cultivating intellectual bravery.” I want you to ignore the topic of the article, because “intellectual bravery” is bullshit. If you tried to talk about that concept with a manager or executive in most companies, they would shuttlecock themselves through the nearest plate-glass window out of fear. Most managers do not want people who are “intellectual” or “brave,” because that means a person has (a) ideas and (b) isn’t fearful of sharing said ideas. That’s a very dangerous intersection for managers, who are often concerned with managing up to get more perks themselves and asinine back-of-house logistical work that, 10 years ago, we were all promised would go to technology. (Hasn’t happened yet! Wonder why? Need for relevance.)
Instead, I’d like you to pay attention to this paragraph, which quite likely you have experienced in a job once or twice:
Punished Vulnerability: Last year, I spent a day with a software development team — a group of talented people with high expectations for themselves. This team was behind schedule, over budget, and not making progress as expected. Each member of the team had a track record of solid individual performance, so the prospect of failing on this project created a level of anxiety and frustration they had not experienced before. The leader had given the team guidance about a specific user experience design he preferred, but when team members tried to offer an alternative point of view, he would cut off the conversation and tell them to get back to work. When he finally understood that his UX ideas were not working, he reacted with anger and pointed out the team’s failing in an all-hands meeting. This activated everyone’s self-censoring instinct, and iced the team into crippling silence. It was now risky for anyone to say what they really thought, so the team members retreated into risk management, pain avoidance, and loss prevention — a reasonable reaction. At the very time the leader needed to inspire his team, he created a collective stupor, and his actions were met with compliance, disengagement, and a lack of critical thinking from the team.
Yep. More common than we admit.
Heck, I have a semi-recent story like that!
I worked this gig in ’18-’19. “What had happened was…”
Well, this particular story is some guy approached me who worked there. He had written a 13-page series of notes and some full sentences on wellness software, i.e. benefits, health program enrollment, etc. Like a landscape document. I was supposed to take his thoughts and sentences and make it into a first draft paper.
So, I went and did that, with limited context. Then I kicked it to a few other people.
Eventually 7-10 people got involved, and 4-5 of them (not me) ending up flying to Boston to present this paper to some executives at another company, trying to get business and all that.
I guess that meeting tanked.
About 2 weeks later, all 7-10 people + me got called into this conference room to “debrief” this particular project. Really all I had done was write a first draft, then pass it along. I wasn’t involved with anything after that, including the actual trip to “pitch” this stuff.
This meeting went off the rails in about six seconds. The main guy, name redacted, looked like he would die if he did six Jumping Jacks. He was spitting and bellowing at us about how we “failed him” when he was “in the room.” He demanded answers and accountability. A few people pushed back and got shouted down by him. Then we hung some chart paper and we put Post-It Notes of pro/con on them, all the while with him yelling and some other high-ranked guys alternatively yelling and trying to stop him from yelling.
I’ve been in 10,000+ bad, pointless meetings. That was a top-5 or so, for sure. Nothing was accomplished and honestly, I’m not sure why I was even in it.
But the whole thing was punished vulnerability. People were admitting where the project had issues and flaws, and instead of a cogent, progressive conversation, we just got spittle and insults.
So why isn’t vulnerability a strength?
I’ve wondered about vulnerability as a potential strength for years.
Thing is, people draw very hard boxes and lines around work. They want things to be objective, not subjective. They want things to be process-driven, not emotional. They want to see results and productivity, not have bigger discussions. They want to live in the data and numbers (LOL), not talk around things (even though that is what usually happens). They want hard things to happen — KPIs, spreadsheets, trackable elements — not soft things like empathy, compassion, communication, et al.
Plus, work is very political, as is the process of advancement. A focus on vulnerability means someone has to show or admit weakness to someone else, which usually gets chewed up, not rewarded.
“We don’t reward people for admitting they are wrong.”
So the culture of work — what work is to most people — prevents these ideas from getting to scale.
The managerial fear button
Most managers are terrible. Maybe you have a good one now, and that’s awesome for you. You’ve probably had bad ones, and guess what? Because loyalty is somewhat dead inside companies, you might have a bad one again when revenue erodes and you need a new job. By some measure, 82% of managers are pretty bad. We know many of them don’t get trained even at all.
So what a lot of them do is manage through process or fear, or a combination of the two, i.e. “You didn’t follow this process, so I will now yell at you.” Neither of these are effective ways to motivate individuals by any stretch of the imagination, but the better way — build a relationship — also terrifies managers, because (a) they lack time and (b) they don’t want to be seen as friends with a direct report.
So they press the fear button. The fear button doesn’t work super well because it scares employees, fostering burnout, and mistakes are pretty common at work. Obviously we’d all like to avoid big mistakes, but small mistakes can be learning experiences. Instead, they are often fear experiences. It doesn’t work super well.
If I ever developed a Management 101 course, one of the first things I’d endeavor to teach new managers is: “Hey man, failure happens in your people, and it’s OK.” This would be an improvement over the current managerial approach of “Accountability means the same as scaring the crap out of someone.”
I don’t know exactly how we get managers to press the fear button less, especially in a time where their only job roles are uncertain (CRMs can make trains run, disruption is coming, more COVID layoffs, automation). They are fearful. And when you’re fearful, you press the fear button and you punish vulnerability. That’s just what you do. And I’m not sure “intellectual bravery” is going to get us over that hump.
