So!
When I was fresh out of college, I took a job working for a woman who was mean and filled with fear.

I wrote about her as Hannah (not her real name) in The Funny Thing About Forgiveness. In the book, I share more about that experience, how serious a threat it became to my mental health, and what I needed in order to truly recover.

But today, I want to share a story that didn’t make it into the final draft. It’s about the time I sent her the kind of email you only get to send when no one in your house is counting on your health insurance, and you’re too young to care about the bomb 401K match you’re about to lose.

I called her out for her bad behavior. I said she was a bully and a “robot” devoid of empathy or realistic expectations for her staff. I outlined several paragraphs of the egregious nonsense she subjected us to daily.

Folks… I let loose on this woman.

Did it feel good? HELL YEAH!

Do I recommend this approach? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Hannah learned nothing from my email. She used it as leverage against me, and not one thing about the culture within this behemoth organization changed or improved because of it.

I felt strong and empowered for the first time in that situation, but that’s not the only variable worth considering. I had to quit before she could fire me, and she used that email to blacklist me across the entire organization.

The problem with “tell it like it is” thinking is that it’s often rooted in the delusion that it’s somehow helpful or healthy not to care about the fallout or consequences. So often, the folks spouting off and bragging about their mic drop lines in confrontational conversations justify this like “someone’s got to say it!”

The problem is that saying it doesn’t matter if the other person can’t hear it. And in order for them to hear it, it needs to be receivable.

When I think about the situation with Hannah through the lens of my work now, I see so many avenues and opportunities I just simply couldn’t see back then. When going to HR didn’t work, I went to other leaders at the organization. When that didn’t work, I assumed calling her a “robot devoid of empathy” in writing was my best option.

It never occurred to me that unloading on someone is only partial bravery. It counts as “speaking up,” but it’s a cop-out from the vulnerability of choosing to speak up in a setting where someone might actually engage.

Often when I speak, people ask me if there’s ever a time when my framework “allows” you to just speak your mind, or go ahead and burn a bridge. We tend to assume that the work of repair and forgiveness means that parting is never part of the journey.

The reality is that truth telling is integral to the work. Being willing to part is integral to the work. The framework doesn’t discourage those things, it sets us up to do them well.

Mindful Improv Thinking isn’t about ignoring bad behavior or being a doormat - it’s about using our bravery wisely.

The point of the framework isn’t to stifle your true feelings - the point is to support you in taking next steps that build what you actually want, not just what feels good for 5 minutes before the true consequences catch you.

If there’s a Hannah in your life, I hope you confront her. I just hope you do it in a way where she actually gets to learn, and you don’t wind up having to sign up as a paid participant for invasive research studies in order to pay the rent.

You are totally brave enough to do it right. And if you’re like “I don’t know what right means in this situation!” … yes you do. ;)

Let’s not burn bridges and call it brave. I believe in you and your work of confronting with compassion and openness.

In the work with you,
Andrea

Is your group's imagination wearing ankle weights? Does it feel like there's a wet wool blanket of suspicion, anger or resentment hanging over important conversations? Does collaboration feel sluggish or prickly? 

If so, please fight the urge to solve the problem through donuts, long pep talks, or forced-fun team building activities like improv. (Ahh! Blasphemy!! But hey: I said what I said.)

Your people need skills to clear the air productively. There are practical tools that help team members get on board with change, speak up without derailing a meeting and find genuine enthusiasm for their work again. 
We teach those tools in the Resilient Culture Training Program. If you're ready to take off those ankle weights and make real progress toward the goals that matter most, hit Reply to this email and say "HALLLLLP" ... or like, whatever you want.
We'll set up a virtual coffee and have a no-pressure conversation about your team's needs and how the RCTP could meet them. 

So,

My sisters recently took all 6 cousins on my side of the family to Cedar Point. They’re either extremely cool aunts… or gluttons for punishment!

This was the 2nd year for the kids to be gifted a group trip to Cedar Point for their birthdays rather than adding to the overwhelming quantity of nerf guns, stuffies and STEM kits slowly taking over our houses.

If you’re unfamiliar, Cedar Point is a theme park with roller coasters, carnival rides and the opportunity to spend a down-payment-on-a-new-home’s worth of money on arcade games.

The kids were so excited. Last year, they nervously researched every roller coaster in the park to find out which rides felt appropriately thrilling, but not terrifying… and this year, they felt like experts.

And the problem with any group of experts is, of course, they don’t agree on s#*!. They have different conclusions about the best rides, the best games and the best order to do things to avoid long lines. Some kids are SURE the carnival games are rigged, while others are SURE they know how to beat them because they watched a Mark Rober video about it 14 times.

I had a few palm-to-forehead moments hearing about some of my kids’ impatient moments on that day, but I also empathized! I know the strained internal feeling of group travel - or collaboration in general - when others are moving at a slower pace than I’d like. I resonate with feeling certain my plan is the fastest and best plan… and the other plans are stupid and annoying.

One of the hardest parts of being a person is that it’s really tempting to fall into blind spots of arrogance.

On any given day, we are the oldest we’ve ever been. We’ve experienced as much life as we ever have. It’s natural to feel attached to our own ideas and solutions because we have a clear understanding of all the learning that went into that conclusion.

We don’t know all the experiences and knowledge of others. We can never fully see their math. We can’t know for sure if there are errors in their tabulations or if their conclusion is solid.

Unfortunately, most of the times when we need to move forward with a group, the solution isn’t as simple as “we’ll each take a turn picking a roller coaster.” Life outside of Cedar Point can be a real drag that way.

The core of our work here at the CBC is centered on the challenge of “going far together without completely losing our minds and slowly building resentments that destroy trust and suck all the fun out of work we used to love.”

And while I’ve prided myself over the years with developing more and more tactical, actionable processes people can implement within their teams, I really do think the simplest and best way for teams not to drive each other nuts is for each person on a team to cultivate joy and curiosity in their lives as much as possible.

When your heart and mind have default settings of joy and curiosity, you’ll almost always know what to say or ask and you’ll have a much easier time receiving what other people say or ask without defensiveness or offense. People who are joyful and curious regulate their emotions better, and people who regulate emotion better are more effective when the collective going gets rough.

So as you do the work of going far together, may you find opportunities to cultivate as much joy and curiosity as possible in your personal life. Go to a comedy show. Pick up a new hobby. Say yes more often.

Heck - maybe you should even go to Cedar Point! 

May our lives be filled with more laughter and more wondering. Hope you have a great week,

Andrea