Vulnerability

For a group of people to become a team, each member of that team must learn to trust one another. For people to trust us, they must feel that they are able to be emotionally vulnerable around us. For us to trust other people, we must feel that we can be emotionally vulnerable around them. This presents a paradox, as trust requires vulnerability, but vulnerability requires trust. How can we become a team of people who trust one another without being vulnerable, but how can we feel safe being vulnerable until we've built trust?

If a team does not have members that trust each other, then it is only an organizational assignment of personnel to a group that is tasked with the same goal. In the face of adversity, a team of people that do not trust each other will fracture, as its members focus on achieving individual success rather than the success of the group. This fracturing results in the whole no longer being greater than the sum of the parts, and instead of a team, there is only a group of individual contributors.

However, when a group has learned to trust one another, they begin to leverage each other's strengths, and compensate for each other's weaknesses. Goals assigned to the group are no longer considered company objectives, but team objectives, and instead of focusing on individual success, the focus shifts to team success. This is the type of team that every organization wants and needs in the modern world, but achieving this level of trust is not easy.

To promote trust and vulnerability, many organizations have tried to foster an emotionally "safe" work environment. While this is a well-intentioned goal, in reality emotional safety cannot be created through organizational policy.

For a work environment to truly be emotionally "safe" would mean that no employee has to fear any negative repercussions of being vulnerable. The real world, however, has two rather insurmountable obstacles to creating such a utopia. First, companies cannot fully control how their employees communicate with other employees. Second, companies have no control whatsoever over how employees react to how others are communicating with them, as emotional reactions happen instinctively and are rarely if ever under someone's direct control.

Imagine you are in a meeting, and you choose to be vulnerable and share that you are worried that the quality of your work may not be up to company standards. Now imagine that one of your colleagues responds to your vulnerability by letting out a big sigh and rolling their eyes. How would you react? Many people would take these non-verbal cues as a sign of disrespect, and immediately become upset, perhaps followed later by sadness. However, what if the person was reacting instinctively not to you, but to unrealistic company standards, and instead of being disrespectful, they were actually empathizing with you and showing support by implying that company standards should be changed?

If we can't fully control what makes us sigh or roll our eyes, and we can't fully control how we react to someone sighing and rolling their eyes, how can we guarantee that a workplace is somewhere that you are safe to be vulnerable?

If we accept that emotional safety cannot be guaranteed in any social setting - whether in our personal or professional lives - then rather than focusing on remaining safe, we can focus on taking appropriate precautions. In this way, we can think of emotional safety like automotive safety.

The safest strategy to avoid auto accidents is to simply never drive a car, which would be like never being vulnerable with anyone. A less safe strategy would be to drive carefully and wear a seat belt. Driving carefully would be like respecting others and expecting that respect to be reciprocated. Wearing a seat belt is like being prepared for situations where someone is exhibiting disrespectful behavior and being willing to advocate for yourself by assertively asking them to change their behavior.

For people to trust one another, a delicate balancing act must be performed where a little vulnerability builds a little trust, and that little trust leads to a little vulnerability. Provided people experience consistent positive outcomes from being vulnerable over a long period of time, eventually, people will start to let down their guard as others let down their guard.

For example, let's say that you shared with a colleague that you were having trouble focusing on your work, and no matter what you tried you always found yourself drifting back to your phone for entertainment, even though you know that you should be working. Your colleague then replies, "It's OK, everyone has trouble focusing from time to time," and then they share how they learned to focus by turning off phone notifications during work hours. In this case, the two of you have had a positive experience being vulnerable with each other, which creates trust, which opens the door for more vulnerability in the future.

As teams work to build mutual trust, there may occasionally be situations where people don't know how to react appropriately when someone is vulnerable with them.

If you were to share with someone that your eyes were tired from looking at a computer screen, them saying, "Maybe you should wear glasses," would be rather awkward, as you were not asking them to be your optometrist and were instead looking to commiserate with your teammate.

These awkward moments come hand-in-hand with authentic human communication, and they tend to happen more with people who haven't had much experience being a part of a social group. If you are vulnerable with someone and they respond awkwardly, but you feel that they did not intentionally mean to offend you, do your best to forgive them, as these occasional communication mishaps will happen from time to time.

Still, when these situations do arise, rather than ignoring our emotional reaction, we should take the opportunity to authentically express how we feel as respectfully as we are able. If someone criticizes you in a way you don't appreciate, tell them you didn't appreciate it. If someone makes a joke at your expense that you found hurtful, tell them it hurt and not to do it again. The dance of human relationships requires that both parties participate fully, and if one person steps on the toes of another, the appropriate response is to help them become a better dancer, not to pretend everything is OK.