In her excellent book Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown suggests that “Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires surrender to uncertainty. We have to ask questions, admit to not knowing, risk being told that we shouldn’t be asking, and, sometimes, make discoveries that lead to discomfort.”
This is a profound statement when it comes to understanding our organization. It is those discoveries that lead to discomfort that cause us to learn, grow, and get better.
Comfort is not what causes us to get better. Discomfort is.
The best leaders are not those who choose comfort but those who are willing to be uncomfortable and, in that discomfort, discover and dialogue about things they would otherwise not discuss.
Organizations tend to gravitate toward comfort and predictability. It is why they become institutional over time, losing their missional bent. The rule becomes, “don’t rock the boat, and those who do rock the boat can be labeled as troublemakers and irritants. Yet, these individuals may be the most valuable staff you have.
The best leaders create discomfort. They create waves without sinking the ship to discover new answers and confront the uncomfortable. They always look beneath the hood to see what is there. They are sleuths seeking to understand what is happening beneath the surface. For them, “bad or problematic” findings are “good news” because they have found something that can be made better. They are not afraid of candid evaluation of the organization but embrace it. The truth of what is there does not create defensiveness but rather instills hope and promise that things can become better.
My goal is to change our mindset about looking candidly at our organizations. Rather than seeing such an evaluation as a threat, we should view it as an opportunity to grow and improve, and everyone benefits. When we react defensively, everyone loses because nothing gets better.
Leaders, whether staff or board members, often fail to ask the right questions and instead guard the status quo, rather than embracing the vulnerability of curiosity and the discomfort that comes with it. If you want to break the ice, do a whiteboard session where everyone is invited to ask the hardest questions they can about the organization. Not to criticize but to challenge the status quo, create discomfort all around, and see if we are satisfied with our answers.
I once worked with a non-profit where the interviews with constituents raised significant questions around common themes. The discomfort of the senior leader and certain members of the board caused the results to be put on ice, and the conversation stopped. There was a lack of curiosity and honest discussions at the senior level. There was only defensiveness and a desire to keep the status quo. Yet the vast majority of those below them saw that the organization needed to make significant changes. Leadership, however, was either unwilling to examine the culture map or to consider reevaluating the outdated and ineffective leadership paradigms that were present.
It is in choosing to be curious, as Brene Brown says, that we make discoveries that lead to discomfort. And it is there that we can get better. But we must be open to curiosity and challenging questions to get there.
Peter Drucker, the renowned management guru, had a deep understanding of what was happening in industry and business. How did he know? Every morning for many years, he would call “line operators” in various companies and ask probing questions. He didn’t call the presidents, vice presidents, or leadership team, but those who directed the work. And then he listened and asked a lot of questions.
One of the most strategic things any leader can do is invest time in talking to staff at all levels. In those conversations, ask questions, listen carefully, and follow the trails that emerge.
Understanding your organizational culture may be one of the most challenging tasks for a leader. Not because it is hard to do, but because it can reveal truths that can be hard to accept. This discipline requires living out the commitments: “Nothing to prove, nothing to lose, and nothing to hide.”
Understanding your current culture is a humble undertaking. Beneath the shiny exterior, there will always be some rust and corrosion you don’t want to find. You may find pockets of dysfunction, people in the wrong seats, leaders who don’t empower and release, a lack of alignment, and systems that are broken.
If you can shift your mindset from viewing these discoveries as negative to seeing them as opportunities for growth and improvement, and if you can embrace discoveries that lead to discomfort, as BrenĂ© Brown suggests, you will be on your way toward a healthier culture and a better organization. But it always starts with the willingness to be uncomfortable… in order to become better!
