Tweet This
“No legacy is so rich as honesty”: I've lived by Shakespeare's words since I started my business, imageOne, in 1991. I've learned over the past 27 years of being an entrepreneur and leader that honesty and vulnerability are what ensure my authenticity. But I wasn't always as able to be vulnerable as I am today.
My ability to be vulnerable owes a lot to my meditation practice. Thirteen years ago, I started meditating. My meditation practice began in a moment of overwhelming professional stress, and I’m grateful to be able to say that it has grown since then into a source of clarity and peace in my life. After years of anxiety holding me back in many areas of my life—leadership included—my meditation practice has helped me be more comfortable with, well, me.
I've benefitted enormously as a person from learning to be vulnerable as I've deepened my meditation practice. My day to day experience, my resilience in the face of stress, my personal relationships—life has never felt more rewarding or joyful. Similarly, I’ve benefited enormously as a leader. My foresight, my sense of calm and clarity, my ability to listen and my performance under pressure have never been stronger. So as a leader, and a leader who believes in serving my team members at that, it’s important to me to offer a safe space for vulnerability for all of our team members.
But what does that mean, being vulnerable? For me it means letting down my guard—it means learning to be present, in the moment, right here, right now. It means learning to do nothing (that’s why it’s the title of my book challenging other entrepreneurs and leaders to take on a meditation practice) instead of trying to solve every problem in sight...and some that aren’t even on the horizon. For some people doing nothing is a really scary step to take. I can tell you that I put it off for years, telling myself I’m a leader—I don’t have time to do nothing! But it wasn’t really time holding me back. It was fear. And when I finally stopped in the middle of life busyness to do nothing—to just be present—it changed my life. Learning to be comfortable with not having all of the answers and being open about my fears, turned out to be freeing. Authentic! I no longer had to pretend I had it all together.
Since I’ve taken meaningful steps to be open and vulnerable with people, I’ve seen my relationships thrive beyond anything I could have imagined. It turns out that when I’ve offered my openness to other people, they return it in kind. When people are able to let their guard down, to share their fears and concerns, their desires and dreams, in a way that’s personal and real, it’s freeing. The relationships that I’ve built on the principle of offering openness make me feel both grateful and humble. Providing openness to others has allowed me to know other people, and myself, in ways I would never have been able to access without it. And I don’t just practice this principle in my personal life...I bring the vulnerability that meditation has helped me to be comfortable with to work, too.
Openness and vulnerability aren’t generally considered fundamental parts of workplace culture. It’s more common to hear about adversarial relationships at work—even between people who are theoretically on the same “team.” It might feel normal to for some to feel like they have to conceal their uncertainties or mistakes from their manager and managers from their team(s). After all, everyone wants to look good at work. And people’s livelihoods are no joking matter. A lot is riding on how people perceive us at the office!
So how could we possibly consider being vulnerable at work?
I have a passion for sharing the message that, as leaders, we can deliver extraordinary experiences that positively impact the lives of our team members. As leaders, we can change the status quo of workplace culture. The imageOne Cycle of Care is one way we stay focused on positive experiences at my company (more on this in another post soon!). We have genuine care and appreciation for our team members. In turn, they have genuine care and appreciation for the company. This part of the cycle translates into a third part, genuine care and appreciation for our customers...which results in genuine care and appreciation for imageOne. All of this genuine care and appreciation flows out to the universe and amazing things happen as a result! The Cycle of Care is a fundamental part of the way we deliver extraordinary experiences at imageOne.
Usually I deliver those extraordinary experiences to my team members...which is where it all begins, after all. Sometimes, though, I fail. Being vulnerable helps me move through those times productively—it helps me and my team keep going, stronger than ever. Let me give you an example.
A few years back, we had a long time team member who was a wonderful cultural fit for imageOne—but unfortunately, the job he was doing had changed with the times and he wasn’t changing at the same pace. After numerous conversations, I thought we were on the same page. When I sat down with him one morning to discuss a transition plan for him to leave the company, he was shocked. I thought I had communicated clearly, but it was obvious I was wrong—as we talked, it became obvious that while he'd known that he needed to improve his performance, he hadn't realized his job was on the line. And once I got past my shock, I came to understand that was for good reason: I'd dropped the ball. I'd failed to follow through on our tried and true development process. I also hadn't collaborated with our leadership team the way we usually do—by spending an hour or so discussing team member challenges and the best way to handle them.
As you might have guessed from the fact that this had fallen through the cracks, this was a particularly busy moment. That afternoon, in fact, I had to head out of town for two days—and I rushed out of the office without communicating anything about this situation to the team. It's usually my absolute priority to communicate these kinds of situations quickly, openly, and honestly. It takes preparation—and it requires confronting a difficult situation with vulnerability—but it works. It builds trust. It helps clarify the stories people are writing in their heads about what's happening. And this time, I didn't do it. While I was traveling, this team member expressed his frustration and disappointment to other members of our team...which made them feel confused and frustrated, too. Once I'd touched down at my destination, I received a phone call from our head of human resources letting me know about what sounded like a storm happening back at our office.
I felt horrible. I couldn't blame this team member for feeling bad. And I realized immediately how my own mistakes had contributed to the situation. Before meditation became a part of my life, I might have responded defensively, or with anger. But instead, I could be present with—and honest about—my own contributions to this situation. I immediately called the team member to set a time to meet on the day I returned. And after I had that meeting, I went right into a huddle with the entire company to explain my mistake and how badly I felt about it. I was emotional and hard on myself. I felt bad, and it showed—and I didn't try to keep it from showing.
Because they could see my authentic feelings, my vulnerability, my team responded with care. They were able to see all sides of the situation. They could see that it was clearly a communication breakdown, and they could see it was time to move forward. The team member whose situation we were discussing was no exception. The next week I met him for coffee to apologize in person and work to do everything we could to make his transition finding a new position as smooth as possible. We ended on good terms, and he even shared how much he appreciated how well the mess-up was handled. I'm deeply grateful to him for his understanding!
We all make mistakes. When we handle them with honesty and vulnerability—by acknowledging them and their impact on others—we make it possible to move forward. We reconnect with each other, get on the same page, and move forward together—as a team.
At imageOne, our teams work so effectively together exactly because of this ability to be vulnerable with each other. Having a high-performance culture does not get lost in the mix—vulnerability contributes to our performance. It keeps us able to be honest with ourselves and with each other. That's true in more ways than our interpersonal interactions. We practice open-book management, using the process from The Great Game of Business—that means we operate with full financial transparency. Everyone on our team knows exactly how we’re doing financially. Having a healthy balance sheet and strong results are the top priority—after all, if we aren't healthy, if we have poor results, we certainly won’t have the ability to do all of the unique things we do to provide the extraordinary experience! With open-book management, team members see where we’re succeeding, and where we're not. Sharing the numbers can be as vulnerable as it gets for some entrepreneurs and leaders—I’ve known plenty who said they valued transparency, but would never dream of sharing that information. At imageOne, though, we find that it ensures that we’re all on the same page...and that it just plain works. As a result of our openness, team members can make smarter decisions which help to increase our profitability and efficiencies.
Our conversations are as open as our books. It’s a passion of mine to serve team members in the totality of their lives, so I don’t just mean conversations about work. At imageOne, we talk openly about work, sure, but also about our lives—and the way work fits into our lives. Our goal: life balance. Not work/life balance...as if work and life are two separate things!
I’ve seen our company culture pay off in the form of high team member retention, strong financial results, and accolades such as being honored as one of twenty-five listed as a Forbes Small Giant: America's Best Companies. The relationships that we’re building and the change we’re creating are humbling: they tell me that it is possible to change "business as usual" in workplace culture.
I'm passionate about making that change a reality. I believe as entrepreneurs and leaders we have been given the responsibility to be honest with our team members. And as I've found, being truly honest requires being fully present, aware, and, yes, vulnerable. As leaders, people depend on us—and while that can tempt us to keep our guard up, it’s amazing what can happen when we actually let it down instead. Being vulnerable with my team has made me a better leader in more ways than I can count. That’s part of why I’m now challenging other leaders to take the donothing challenge.
I would love to hear from you. What scares you about bringing vulnerability and openness to your leadership? What makes it seem impossible to stop and let your guard down enough to be really present? Or have you found, like I have, that being vulnerable, being open—even at work—can transform your life, the lives of your team members, your company culture, the experience your team delivers to customers, and even the bottom line? If you’re interested in being part of a real culture shift in leadership, let’s connect.
