Brené Brown, behind the famous TED talk “The Power of Vulnerability”, spoke about the common miscommunication that happens in the workplace where parties neglect to speak their honest thoughts, and often spiral into shaming themselves.
Brené gives an example where she had unilaterally dismissed
her CFO’s idea in a meeting without a clear explanation as to why. Commonly,
someone in the CFO’s shoes would think the worst as to why his idea was dismissed.
He’d focus on his greatest vulnerabilities as potential causes.
However, in Brené’s real-world case, her CFO was brave
enough to speak to Brené afterwards about the matter. Her reply was that the
CFO’s idea was so important it needed its own meeting and action plan.
A similar shame spiral was close to happening to me
recently. At one of the companies I’m working with, my role has shifted greatly
away from product management and towards marketing. However, marketing-wise,
much is in a holding pattern while we wait for campaigns to trigger and the new
product to launch. Thus, I’ve stepped back, wary of micro-managing a very capable marketing team.
To the company’s Founder, it looks like I am less passionate
in the product and company. In my head, I am aware of timing and thinking how I
can best bring value to the company given where we are in the product launch
and marketing campaigns. Except, unlike Brené’s CFO, I’ve kept these thoughts internalized
till I figure out how best to proceed.
The Founder realized my diminished role and stepped up to
talk to me about my situation. We had a great talk about what was happening,
and developed a plan moving forward. However, it took him to speak with me, not
me being more proactive.
Thinking about Brené’s message, I can fall into a shame spiral often, but hopefully, don’t. If I do
fall victim, it’s because I’m afraid of the possible outcome or that I am not
good enough. This is where I can improve in being more assertive and viewing
these situations as more collaborative rather than my singular view with set
outcomes to avoid the shame spiral.
What was a situation where you fell into a shame spiral? How
could you mitigate against these occurrences? Also, what are vulnerabilities
did you start to rationalize for yourself, and what are you doing to overcome
those?
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