Freedom, From Ear to Ear

My best friend Amelia is an amazing parent.  Amelia has always known how to both discipline and exhort her three daughters in very age-appropriate ways, to make sure they really understand the message and can own it for themselves.  Just last week she found out that her ex-husband kept telling their 8-year old what a great swimmer she was and leaving her in the 5' end of the pool to go play with the 6-year old in the shallow end.  "Honey, you're a great swimmer.  You're doing fine," he'd say as he would walk to the other end of the pool.  The little girl was receiving accolades and clearly being treated as more grown up than her little sister.  She trusted her father; what could she do about the uncertainty she felt, not quite secure in water that was over her head?

How many of us have ever had the experience at work of being told we were something we weren't, or that we were capable of doing something when we were privately unsure?  Susan's boss says, "You've really got excellent project management skills.  I want you to run the new client project implementation.  We kick off in two weeks."  Yet Susan fears her 'project management' skills are nothing more than a semi-organized stack of post-its and an Excel spreadsheet that she scours through obsessively to be sure nothing is missed.  Susan knows there are much more qualified people for the role, yet an opportunity like this could finally move her into a true leadership role.  "Sounds good," Susan replies.

My friend knew the 8-year old, Stephanie, wasn't a great swimmer yet and certainly shouldn't be left alone in water deeper than she was tall, so Amelia took both younger girls to a free swim with the intention of giving them a placement test for swimming lessons.  When Amelia asked Stephanie to take a couple of tests - e.g., front float, back float, front glide, back slide - Stephanie's face streaked with fear.  She started screaming, "NOOOO!" and began flailing and hitting her mom, trying anything she could to get away.

"Susan," the boss says in his office a few weeks after the project kick-off.  "I'd like you to pull Wayne in and have him under your wing while you're managing the project.  I need him to really build up his project management skills.  He doesn't know how to use Microsoft Project and doesn't have the skill set to calmly and methodically manage every element of a project like you can.  He needs to know the systems.  I want him to watch you and learn."

"Stan, there is no way I'm going to have time to babysit Wayne while we're in the midst of this project," Susan snaps very uncharacteristically.  "I am too busy doing my full time job and your crazy client implementation!"  She storms out of Stan's office, leaving him bewildered as to her unusual and unexpected behavior.

After some initial confusion, Amelia realized that Stephanie was unconsciously petrified of being found out: that she suspected she wasn't the great swimmer Daddy kept saying she was yet it was frightening to think of anyone proving it to be true.  Without even realizing it herself, Stephanie was terrified and embarrassed of the disparity between what Daddy thought and what she feared might be true.  Sure enough, Stephanie could not yet even do the front float with her face in the water.  The jig was up; she felt so ashamed.

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"And this actual being is such an embarrassing sight when viewed from the perspective of godlike perfection that he cannot but despise it. Moreover, what is dynamically more important, the human being which he actually is keeps interfering - significantly - with his fight to glory, and therefore he is bound to hate it, to hate himself."  Neurosis of Human Growth, Karen Horney

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This is where we pause in the work story.  More often than not, our managers and leaders do not look beyond the metaphorical 'flailing' and 'hitting' to more deeply understand what's happening when we see uncharacteristic behaviors in our colleagues or employees.  We may instead add the behaviors to our performance evaluation comments or chalk the people up to erratic and unreasonable.  Yet we need to begin to develop our consciousness, making higher-order sense of our worlds rather than reactively beefing up our defensive instincts, so that we can help our people move from their own subconscious fears to a conscious level of functioning and communication.

Later that same night, Amelia sat her eight-year old down to draw her a picture.  With Stephanie's colorful markers, Amelia drew a sad little girl, hands clasped, on the left side of the page with a simple, straight-lined arrow pointing to the comment, "You're a really good swimmer."  The next iteration was a little girl with more of a curious expression, arms now down, with some thick, squiggly lines beginning to fill in the space between the girl and the words.  The third and final iteration was a happy little girl - with a smile and arms open wide - with all of the space between the little girl and the comment filled up with squiggly lines.

Amelia lovingly and compassionately explained to her daughter that the sad face stood for the mismatch between what was being said about Stephanie and how she was being treated based on them (i.e., great swimmer capable enough to be left by herself in 5' of water) versus the facts (i.e., Stephanie was not yet able to swim and it was scary to be in deep water without her parent).  Amelia then explained that each stroke Stephanie learned in swimming lessons was a squiggly line on the  page, bridging the gap between her and the truth of being a really good swimmer.  Each stroke she learned in swimming class was a stroke toward building confidence, skills, and abilities she simply didn't yet have today.

As leaders, we have the opportunity to sit with people and - using their 'markers', that is the language or tools they use - help them understand where they are today and where they have the opportunity to go.  And most importantly, tell them how you're going to help them get there.  What are the cues Stan might look for?  What might he start paying attention to?  What shifted recently?  What changed?  What questions can he ask?  Amelia knows Stephanie intimately as her mother, yet how can Stan watch for patterns in the workplace to better learn what makes Susan tick, and what ticks her off?

We need to move from head-in-the-sand to heart-of-the-matter to address people's insecurities, and that includes everyone with whom we come into contact (including ourselves!).  What we think may be arrogance or insubordination or resistance may just be the adult version of flailing and hitting in the pool because we aren't even aware of the fear of 'being found out' and rather only know the sensation to which we then react.

Stephanie's eyes widened with wonder as she watched the strokes stretch across the page.  She could see it.  She could now see how she could get from the painful and scary incongruity of the sad face to the confident, capable happy face.  So much so that she grabbed the marker out of Amelia's hand and started to make the smile on the smiley face even bigger - from ear to ear!  "Mommy!  I'm going to be really happy when I know all those strokes!"  Stephanie had suddenly made the picture her own.

When we work with our people in this way - in open, clarifying, compassionate communication - we have the opportunity to give them the greatest professional gift they can receive: freedom.  We can help release them from stories we as leaders have told them - and help them release themselves from some of the stories they've been telling as well.  Whether we start by drawing them a picture on a white board, carving a roadmap into a piece of plywood in the warehouse, or coding a smiley face simulation on our MacBook Pro, we give our colleagues and employees the opportunity to find the freedom of congruence.

Stephanie is now loving her swimming classes and doing very well.  She's building her abilities and knows it.  No longer afraid of perceived limitations, she is comfortable admitting what she doesn't know, eager to replace it with real skill.  Her confidence is building.  No doubt someday soon she will be in the 5' end of the pool all by herself, and her dad will again say, "You're a great swimmer, Stephanie."   Yet soon she'll be able to reply, "Thank you.  I am a great swimmer!"  And no doubt she will have a smile from ear to ear.

After several deep, challenging, and rewarding discussions between Stan and Susan, they both discovered that Susan really was interested in excelling at project management.  Susan was also able to share her aspirations for a leadership role.  She enrolled in the Project Management certification courses and committed to sharing with Wayne what she was learning along the way.  Susan knew that by teaching the materials to someone else, she would also be deepening her own learning.  With some financial investment for certification training and time investment to better coach and mentor Susan, Stan was pleased that he was a part of healing an incongruity while at the same time gaining two project managers who were finding great satisfaction in their new roles and contributing great value toward a key client project.  No doubt Stan will soon say, "Susan, you're an excellent Project Manager." And she'll be able to reply, "Thank you.  I am an excellent Project Manager."  And no doubt she'll be smiling from ear to ear.

Here's to the freedom of congruence for each of us, from ear to ear.