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Our 21^st-century workplace needs its version of the mask dance.

Irrespective of industry, organizational rank, or personal temperament, fear of failure is the one conversation that professionals, including those in the C-Suite, resist the most, even behind the closed doors of a coaching conversation.

One of my group coaching clients said the mere act of talking about fear at work would make her look weak, so she keeps quiet. Her group nodded in agreement. We spent the next hour openly talking about failure and the fear of it.

Without these honest conversations, learning doesn’t happen and organizations are destined to repeat past mistakes, lose competitive ground and risk extinction.

In the business world, we wear a far less empowering mask; the work mask.

We don this work mask to appear confident and in control. However, similar to a child’s Halloween mask, our work mask reduces our peripheral vision, preventing us from seeing resources and opportunities in our environment that are the very keys to solving our big thorny problems.

This work mask weighs heavy.

We spend an inordinate amount of time, energy and cognitive bandwidth on maintaining our work mask, at a time when we need to be investing energy on learning, collaborating and innovating. Over time, we come to falsely identify with this mask, and we enter into a world where egos rule and self-protection is the object of the game. The casualty is our healthy self-esteem and a genuine sense of belonging.

What stops us from shedding our work masks and bringing our most authentic, creative and collaborative selves to our work?

 We believe the myth that our work mask protects us from harm. Humans are inherently risk-averse, a requirement for survival.

Dr. Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics) and author of the seminal book, Thinking, Fast and Slow  describes conducted an experiment that highlights how risk-averse we are. Study participants were asked if they would accept a bet based on the flip of a coin. If the coin landed heads up the participant would win $200.00, but if the coin landed tails, the participant would lose $100.00. In other words, it’s better not to lose $100 than to gain $200. In this experiment, the potential gain must be at least twice as much as the potential loss. According to Kahneman “Losses loom larger than gains.”

Risk-Averse Workplace Cultures

This fear of losing manifests as a risk-averse cultural within many organizations. Work teams and companies experience undue conflict borne out of the inherent tension between playing it safe and risk-taking.

In spite of our risk-aversion, companies must innovate if they are going to remain relevant in our turbulent, uncertain and complex world. The Boston Consulting Group  recently reported that thirty-one % of professionals identified a risk-averse culture as a key obstacle to innovation.

According to Baba Shiv, professor of Marketing at Stanford Graduate School:

“Experimentation and failure are essential to innovation because, by its nature, innovation is an unknown that can only be discovered through trial and error. Failure is the mother of innovation”.

The entrepreneurial rally cry of “fail fast and fail often” understandably doesn’t sit well with the quarterly reporting-focused corporate mindset. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from a healthier relationship with failure.

Here are three strategies for putting fear of failure into perspective:

1. Start talking about failure

Comparison, insecurity and vulnerability (which we believe could be taken advantage of) are why we don’t talk about our failures. Dr. Brene Brown, qualitative researcher and author, delves deeply into this topic in her book Rising Strong: The Reckoning, The Rumble and The Revolution. Brown writes:

“We gold-plate failure…skipping over it or sugar-coating the process and the pain involved in failing. Comparative suffering is a function of fear and scarcity. Falling down, screwing up, and facing hurt often lead to bouts of second-guessing our judgment, our self-­trust, and even our worthiness”.

Shame is the final stop on this emotional cascade, which according to Brown is the “most powerful, master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough”.

With clients, I overtly signal that it is appropriate and safe to take on this heady subject. With my choice of words, tone of voice, and body language, I model that this conversation is welcomed and healthy. I say, “bring it on!”

The sense of relief that washes over my clients’ faces is a telltale sign that they have been holding onto this burden for far too long.  When clients talk about what keeps them up at night they harness the power to transform their relationship with fear for the better. As professionals appreciate the valuable data behind their fear, they learn lessons about what drives them to succeed and what gets in their way. More importantly, they begin to identify a source of rich information about how they see the world, which is one of the first steps to making bigger moves in work and life.

Write your failure CV.

 As a postdoctoral student at Caltech, psychologist Dr. Melanie Stefan wrote an article called “A CV of Failures” in one of the most prestigious scientific journals, Nature. The International Journal of Science. Publishing in this journal is a big feather in any scientist’s cap.

Stefan poignantly wrote:

“Societal pressures to manage our professional image often gets in the way of us being whole, fallible human beings. MyCV does not reflect the bulk of my academic efforts.  It does not mention the exams I failed, my unsuccessful PhD or fellowship applications, or the papers never accepted for publication. At conferences, I talk about the one project that worked, not about the many that failed. As scientists, we construct a narrative of success that renders our setbacks invisible both to ourselves and to others. Often, other scientists’ careers seem to be a constant, streamlined series of triumphs. Therefore, whenever we experience an individual failure, we feel alone and dejected”.

Imagine what organizations would learn and how their teams would grow if leaders, particularly senior leaders, shared their biggest career mistakes?

2.  Anticipate being wrong.

In his seminal book, Good To Great, Jim Collins writes about his teams speaking candidly as they worked together to discover the framework described in the book. He writes, “… we would debate, disagree, pound on tables, raise our voices, pause and reflect and debate some more…”.Had Collins believed he was right all the time, the framework that has been studied by countless organizations and business schools likely would never have emerged.

It’s incumbent upon twenty-first-century leaders to admit they don’t have all the answers. Hiring and cultivating a diverse team that sees the world differently than you is essential to developing the best ideas. Share an idea that might run counter to your team’s current line of thinking. Encourage your colleagues and direct reports to speak out if they have an idea that they might typically keep to themselves. A specific question you might consider according to researcher and author, Dr. Amy Edmonson is “Where am I wrong?”.  Put another way, Dr. Jennifer Garvey-Berger, author and executive coach encourages leaders to ask their teams “What might I be missing here?”

Adopting a mindset of humility, brimming with curiosity is where 21-century leaders can stand-out.

3. Maximize learning after a failure

 Ashley Good, Founder and CEO of Fail Forward, helps organizations get the maximal benefit from failure. Good uses her expertise as an engineer to help teams and organizations design healthy failure processes.

According to Good:

“At Fail Forward, we provide new perspectives on failure alongside the tools and skills to help us deal with missteps more productively – so that when we fail, we Fail Intelligently”. The mere act of documenting failure promotes the risk-taking, creativity and continuous learning required for innovation.”

When I interviewed Good she told me that there is no truth to the labels of “success” or “failure”; because every situation contains elements of both. When we can acknowledge that reality, we appreciate both where we have succeeded and learn from what didn’t go so well”.

Fear has value.

Good told me that fear has value as it makes us test our ideas. “What isn’t healthy is when fear paralyzes us. We need to acknowledge real risks and prepare for those risks appropriately. For example, imagine you sent an e-mail that you later regretted, or you bombed at an important presentation. These types of experiences help determine how they might impact your job, your career and the relationships that you hold dear”.

Replacing negative emotions with objective acceptance is the path through, Good told me.  “It’s about separating yourself from the failure and acknowledging the role that you played in the situation. It means accepting responsibility”.

I still crisply recall a presentation I gave in Banff, Alberta twenty years ago. I fell significantly short of my expectations and I had a hard time shaking it off.  Tentatively, I  approached one of my mentors, who had attended the presentation and suggested that I work on public speaking skills. While painful to hear at the time, I sincerely took this advice to heart. Keynotes and workshops are now an essential and rewarding part of my work.

Step One

Good offers a simple, though not necessarily easy first step in developing resilience through failure. When facing a failure, she recommends pausing and breathing, to avoid a knee-jerk defensive reaction. The goal isn’t to deny or ignore the emotions that erupt after what feels like a failure; it’s ok to feel these emotions.

Step Two

As a second step, Good recommends setting your ego aside and developing a failure fascination mindset. Good reminds us that this new curiosity helps us learn and grow from our life experiences.

Ben Zander, Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, also highlights the need for mistake-fascination. Sitting on stage with Zander is a 15-year old Cellist who makes a mistake while playing a complicated piece of music. Zander invites the Cellist and the audience to throw their arms up into the arm and exclaim “How fascinating”, when we make a mistake to negate our typical ruminative reaction.

Both Good and Zander understand that being fascinated with our foibles helps open us up to possibilities so we can learn and become masterful.

Failure can be a powerful teacher or a harsh critic. Everyone gets to choose. Will you grow or will you wither? The opportunity to leverage your mistakes today is the key to your future success.

If you could share one of your formative workplace failures, what would it be?

The post How to Create an Innovative Work Culture. appeared first on Natalie Currie Enterprises.

Along the path to technological advancement and the pursuit of efficiency, we’ve lost the ability to listen deeply and our willingness to be vulnerable.  In our increasingly distracted and polarized world, it’s easier to dismiss, reject, or avoid thorny conversations entirely.

Flight or fight is our typical reaction to the mere whiff of conflict.

Flight manifests itself as sweeping differences of opinion under the proverbial carpet. Beneath the carpet issues incubate like bacteria in a petri dish, slowly multiplying at first until they invariably morph into personality conflicts and power plays. With enough time, problems become too immense and too toxic to tackle. More importantly, the original problem gets lost in this toxic stew, placing significantly greater stress on the system to solve the primary issue now in the face of strained relationships.

Flight may be as innocuous as glancing down at your phone to text in the middle of a conversation. Flight can also take the form of presenteeism; employees who are physically present but they have mentally checked out, often as a self-protective mechanism.

What does fight look like?

On the other hand, fight behaviours runs the gamut from criticism and sarcasm to bullying and it exists in all organizations, albeit more covert in some cultures than others.  Flight frequently rears its ugly head as passive-aggressive behaviour. Have you ever witnessed a colleague being shut down or ignored outright. How often have you seen conversations transform into hallway gossip? These are all examples of fight behaviour.

Both flight and fight are harmful if not promptly identified and positively dealt with. If left unchecked, these two polarized stances lead to the same predictable results: employee disengagement, poor working relationships, lower productivity, higher employee turnover, less innovation and a soured corporate culture.

Fight and flight are inevitable responses to stressors in the environment. Here are simple skills and techniques that can help you overcome these human tendencies and learn how to disagree well.

1. Focusing on all sets of facts.

 Too often, our discussion goal is to change the other person’s mind. We rarely engage in a conversation anticipating that we need to shift our perspective. In the new world of work, leaders don’t have all the answers. It’s hubris and naive to believe that additional scrutiny won’t improve our ideas or expand our thinking in some way.

Imagine you are with a colleague conducting a venue site assessment for an upcoming off-site meeting. You are admiring the stunning view from the grand foyer. Light floods the room from the 35-foot cathedral ceilings. On the other hand, your colleague is roaming around the dark, windowless basement complete with builder-beige coloured paint and musty broadloom. Each of you would have a very different opinion of the venue. Each of you would be right.

Presume instead that you and your colleague are working off very different data and seek to understand what that full dataset is. Fleshing out the example above, you believe that your colleague is acting negatively as she/he describes the venue as uninspiring if not downright depressing. They, in turn, wonder about your judgment when you describe the event space as being perfect for team-building and celebration.

Ask for clarification.

Why do you and your colleague have such different interpretations of what you believe is the same environment? How can you learn more about their worldview, e.g., take a trip down to the basement to understand their experience better? Invite your colleague up to the foyer to understand where you are coming from.

Rather than disagree with each other, take the opportunity to learn.

While this is a simplistic example, it describes what I regularly observe in the workplace.

     2. Create a Yes and… Scenario

Even with the same data, expect differences of opinions, though your job isn’t to steamroll over people in an attempt to get your way. First and foremost, you need to nurture your relationships by affirming them, not necessarily affirming their point of view. In Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts., author and researcher professor Brene Brown recommends inserting the phrase “that isn’t my experience” when you are faced with an opinion that opposes yours.

Here’s an example.

Your HR business partner approaches you about one of your Managers, Johan. She tells you that Johan is a weak communicator and that he needs to work on his presentation skills if he is going to be a candidate for the next round of promotions. You believe Johan is an exceptional communicator.

Rather than butting heads by making your HR business partner wrong, speak from your own experience, “I understand you feel like Johan isn’t a strong communicator, however that isn’t my experience. I’ve seen Johan deliver compelling presentations to the board on several of occasions. He has been well prepared, articulate and answered follow-up questions with confidence and gravitas. I’d appreciate hearing what your experience of Johan’s presentation skills has been?”

Your HR business partner responds by saying, “Well he certainly didn’t deliver when he presented to our team. He fumbled over numbers and got flustered when asked about some of his 2Q projections.” You remember that meeting differently. While Johan did stumble over a few numbers, he recovered with ease in the final few minutes of his presentation. Plus, you have seen Johan deliver under pressure in many other situations, which influences your opinion of him.

Now your conversation with your HR business partner has some space to breathe. You both have an opportunity to interrogate together.  Most importantly, this open stance protects your relationship, which is vital to business success, your sense of job satisfaction and ultimately, your career.

3. Set learning rather than consensus as the goal.

Consensus is a deceptive and unhealthy goal. We need a greater willingness to explore a broader range of perspectives and be prepared to change our minds in the process. Innovation requires a healthy sense of humility.

In 1983, The Quaker Company headed up by President, William Smithburg, purchased the Gatoraid parent company for $220 million, which Quaker grew to $3 billion in 10 years. By 1994, Smithburg, yearning to buy another high growth product, identified Snapple as the likely candidate at the lofty purchase price of $1.8 billion. Market analysts reported this was a bad buy and every member of the Quaker executive board opposed the purchase. However, not a single board member spoke up to counter Smithburg’s unbridled enthusiasm and the acquisition went through.

The Snapple purchase was later described as one of the greatest business failures in history. By 2000 the fateful purchase nearly toppled the 100-year-old company.  Snapple was later sold for a 1/6 of its purchase price and Smithburg, who had been President for 16-years resigned.

This devastating set of losses might have been averted, if at least one Quaker executive had stepped forward to challenge Smithburg’s over-confidence

Leaders implicitly set the decision-making tone within their organizations. Unconscious biases, which include overconfidence and confirmation bias may be limiting your team’s ability to make the best choices.  Confirmation bias is defined as attending only to the data in the environment that supports your beliefs and world view.  Resist the urge to confirm what you already know; the future success of your organization is predicated on your teams’ ability to harness a more extensive set of ideas. If you are going to lead into a successful future, anticipate that many of the ideas from your teams and consultants who support your work will be counter to your thinking.

Here are two simple tactics that you can use to mitigate over-confidence and confirmation.

(a). Brainwriting.

Brainwriting is a tool to safely surface diverse opinions in a group, while quelling the conflict that can arise.  At meetings, provide each participant with a marker and a stack of index cards or larger sticky notes. Ask questions that invite divergent thinking such as, “If you were in my position what would you do with this project?”, “How would you solve this current problem we are facing” or “What opportunities do you see that we should be capitalizing on?” These questions sharpen people’s thinking, expand the range of ideas, options and interpretations available for further inquiry.

After asking a brainwriting question, give your team a few minutes to think about the question before writing their responses on an index card/sticky note. Complete this individual activity in silence. You might need to re-enforce these rules.  Do not rush this process. The more time you give your team to reflect and write, the better. Get comfortable with the silence.

Once people have written down their idea, they pass their index card/sticky note to the person next to them. At this point, the person reads what is written on the card and builds off of that idea by writing down their additional thoughts. Complete a few rounds of this exercise; three or four rounds are ideal. Finally, have team members post their cards/notes on the wall. Review and discuss the ideas as a team, with an open mind and heart.

Be mindful of your reaction to the responses to these questions. Ask a trusted ally in the room about your tone of voice, your choice of words and your body language. Verify if your verbal and non-verbal communication are in sync.  Were you open and curious and rewarding people for exploring new concepts or were you unconsciously shutting people down?

(b). Expect to be Wrong.

Routinely ask your colleagues and team the question, “Where am I wrong?” Above all, this question explicitly gives other permission to challenge your thinking. Through stress testing your ideas, you are also empowering your team to think more critically and creatively.  Expecting to be wrong is also a healthy and necessary precursor to normalizing conflict.

4. Normalize conflict.

Productive conflict, as Liane Davey in her newest book, The Good Fight describes it, is a wise and proactive way to address thorny conversations that arise in this new world of work.  As Davey explains, historically we relied on “the right words to say”, as though it was a simple role-play exercise. Productive conflict is a natural part of the human condition.  Moving through conflict requires a genuine connection, not just a script that we follow.

Productive conflict is where you will find gold.

First of all,  being comfortable with conflict signals to your team and your organization that you aren’t fleeing the situation, nor are you preparing to go into battle.  In doing so, you will reward your team for staying in tough conversations with curiosity and respect.  Your team will quickly realize that you can take a bit of the emotional heat because you trust them and you have confidence that as a group you will come out the other side, better for it.  Additional benefits include: more fully flesh out ideas, more nuanced solutions, strengthened relationships, more fluid communication and fully tapped innovation.

As the world of work becomes progressively more demanding and exponentially more complex, leaders are going to have to step up to meet these thorny challenges.  Disagreeing well is a vital step forward in creating a more enlightened workplace.

The post How to Disagree Well appeared first on Natalie Currie Enterprises.

Eleven days into her trek, Natalia abruptly awoke when a strong earthquake (6.2 on the Richter scale) struck. She was on a glacier, was it collapsing she wondered? Two hours later a second powerful earthquake rocked the mountain, and in an instant, Natalia’s dream of summiting the mountain was over.

With possible earthquakes and avalanches to follow, it was equally perilous for Natalia to continue with her ascent, as it would be for her to make her way back to basecamp. Her expedition quickly turned into a rescue mission. Harsh weather, hurricane-force winds and heavy snowfall hampered rescue efforts, and Natalia had to call on all of her mountaineering, survival and leadership skills waiting for help to arrive.

Here are four of the valuable leadership lessons we can learn from this courageous mountain climber:

1. Preparation

Natalia spent two years in Patagonia preparing and training for the rigours of her solo trek. As an experienced mountain guide and climber, she was mentally, emotionally and physically equipped to deal with Mount Logan’s harsh weather and quickly changing climatic conditions.

While Natalia hadn’t anticipated earthquakes or the subsequent avalanches, her preparation was the cushion she needed to endure the ordeal. She had adequate equipment, food, and fuel to withstand nearly four grueling and lonely days on the mountain while waiting for help to arrive. Helicopter pilot, Ian Pitchforth described that Natalia was “packed and ready” when the rescue team arrived. Scott Stewart, the Parks Canada rescue coordinator, said she “did everything right” which included her training, her equipment and the mountaineering insurance she had purchased.

Business and community leaders need to prepare mentally, emotionally and intellectually for a variety of unforeseen disruptions, including those in the economy, technology, organizational, and rapidly changing customer and employee expectations. In the world of work, the proper preparation may make the critical difference between success and failure. As philosopher Seneca wrote: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Leaders can no longer afford to leave their futures to chance.

2. Calculated Risk-Taking

Trapped two-thirds up the mountain when the earthquakes hit, Natalia realized she needed to move her camp to a higher altitude to avoid further avalanches of snow, glacial ice and rock. She made the calculated risk of moving beyond the avalanche zone, requiring she expose herself to snowstorms with 100 km an hour winds and temperatures dipping to -30°C.

In the volatile, uncertain and complex world, leaders are always making calculated trade-offs and managing their organizations for risk. Planning requires foresight, courage and the need to adapt quickly and learn from early failures, allowing them to capitalize on their learning. Leaders who develop proactive contingency plans and see failure as experimentation also bank resources that their organizations can use in challenging times, ensuring their teams are successful in the long-term.

3. Mindset 

Natalia focused on what mattered most, her family and friends, including her partner (also a climber), Camilo Rada to keep her morale high during the four days she spent waiting for help to arrive. She was keenly aware of her emotional state, “The last day before the rescue, my mind was eating me. I was more sensitive to every sound. I felt alert to every danger”. She engaged in positive self-talk to help remain calm despite the cold and lack of sleep. “Come on, you can do it, you can do it. Just a few more days.” She kept herself busy and healthy by focusing on what she could do: drinking, eating, tending to her tent and making a wall to stop the wind from howling through her camp.

Self-awareness, a hallmark of emotional intelligence is key to leadership success. The ability to name and monitor one’s emotions in real time unlocks core emotional and mental capabilities. Without this essential ingredient, leaders lack insight into their fears and vulnerabilities, which strips them of their sound decision-making.

4. Attract a Diverse Team

While Natalia mounted a solo trek, she was surrounded by a team who she heavily relied upon. This team included The Royal Geographic Society who financed her trip, the Parks Canada/Kluane National Park and Reserve’s Public Safety Team, the outfitter Icefield Discovery Tours and her partner Camilo, with whom she spoke to regularly via satellite phone while she waited for help to arrive. Without this extensive team, neither Natalia’s expedition nor her rescue would have been possible.

Every leader has their unique set of strengths, weaknesses and consequently, they have their biases and blind spots. Self-aware leaders naturally surround themselves with diverse teams of people who have complementary strengths to augment their perspective. Team diversity also combats the perils of groupthink that so many teams succumb. Workforce diversity makes good business sense. Companies who embrace cultural diversity report higher rates of innovation.

Tectonic forces, brutally cold temperatures, and blinding snowstorms will test few leaders. All leaders will be tested on their proverbial mountain and will face unpredictable forces that challenge their courage and mental fortitude in this new world of work. There are leadership lessons everywhere.

When faced with adversity what lessons will define your leadership?

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