Discomfort, Paralysis, and the Glacier Leap (2-7-24)

Last week was about discomfort and psychological safety. This week is about discomfort, paralysis, and the Glacier Leap.

The Glacier Leap is one of the obstacles at the Abominable Snow Race. You start by climbing up an incline wall (covered in snow/ice/slush) until you are on top of the first structure and about 7 or 8 feet off the ground. This is where things get interesting. You have to jump to the next structure making sure you position your body correctly and grab the bar tightly or you will fall.

When I got to the top of the structure, I watched as people would stand at the edge and peer down. You could feel them becoming more and more uncomfortable until they ultimately became paralyzed at the thought of falling. At that point, they wouldn’t jump. Instead, they’d turn around and climb down without ever giving it a try. I knew that the same thing would happen to me if I didn’t move quickly. I made a decision. I would step up to the edge, count out loud, and jump on three. Any more hesitation and the discomfort would turn to fear would turn to paralysis. So, I stepped up, counted to three and jumped! My hands grasped the bar, my feet hit a patch of ice on the wood, and I instantly slid down and fell. It wasn’t exactly pleasant. 😉 At this point, I was determined (or dumb), and refused to let this obstacle beat me. I climbed back up. This time I had an advantage, because I knew exactly what the discomfort felt like. I knew exactly what falling felt like. I had survived, and now those things weren’t so scary. I stepped up, counted to three, and jumped! This time I made it! With my heart beating out of my chest, I stepped up and jumped to the next platform! Success!

What does this have to do with anything? Whether you’re doing an obstacle course race or performing your role at work, sooner or later we all run into a patch of discomfort. When that happens it is easy for the discomfort to turn into fear which turns into paralysis. Have you ever experienced this at work? I know I have. I’ve walked out of situations and said, “I wish I would have asked this. I wish I would have said that. I wish I would have done something different, but I just froze.”

I wish I had a magic way to avoid this, but I haven’t uncovered one yet. All I’ve found is that once the discomfort starts setting in, I need to move. I need to take some kind of action before the discomfort becomes fear and before the fear becomes paralysis. During the obstacle course race I counted to three and then jumped. Counting was the trigger to move. What could your trigger to move be at work? Maybe you write down the statement or question you think you’ll want to make, so when you start to freeze you can just read off the paper. Maybe your action isn’t dealing with something that day, but scheduling time on calendars to handle it in the future. Maybe it’s recognizing that the paralysis is taking over and just stepping out of the situation to catch your breath.

The challenge: How will you ensure discomfort doesn’t paralyze you?

#yetination #abominablesnowrace

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Discomfort, Psychological Safety, and the Yeti Challenge (1-31-24)

Last week was about embracing discomfort, so you can be successful. This week is about discomfort, psychological safety, and the Yeti challenge.

This past weekend I completed the Abominable Snow Race. I did the Yeti challenge, which consisted of 12 miles through ice/snow/mud/slush and around 50 obstacles. I was in a constant state of discomfort through most of the race. I was cold, wet, sore, covered in bruises, had a weird spot on my hand we call a yeti bite because we have no idea what happened (credit to Kristina Kittle for the name), and I was nervous/anxious/scared a fair amount. It would have been easy for me to say, “I’m uncomfortable, so that means this isn’t safe.” However, even though I was in a constant state of discomfort, the course and environment were safe. Plus, I felt like a complete bad a$$ when I crossed that finish line. #yetination

How does this connect with work and psychological safety? There are a lot of different definitions for psychological safety. At their core, I believe that most definitions center on the idea of creating an environment where people can be themselves and freely share their ideas without fear of negative repercussions. What you’ll notice if you read different definitions is that none of them promise a workplace without any discomfort or tension. This connects back to my racing story. I was uncomfortable for most of the race, AND I was still safe. In a similar way, it’s easy to be in a tough conversation or situation at work and think to yourself, “This isn’t comfortable, so this environment must not be safe.” This isn’t necessarily true. Tension, challenging questions, or a difficult conversation at work, doesn’t mean that the environment lacks psychological safety. Sometimes what we are feeling is just discomfort, and we need to find a way to process that and move forward. In my experience the more psychological safety I have with a person or group the more real conversations we can have that include tension and discomfort, and like how I felt when I finished the race I usually feel so much better after these convos. Is this true for you?

The challenge- How will you think about discomfort vs psychological safety?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Performing Poetry in Bars and Embracing Discomfort to be Successful (1-24-24)

Last week was about choosing when to feel discomfort. This week is about performing poetry in bars and embracing discomfort to be successful.

I remember one time earlier in my career, when I had crushed a presentation in front of a difficult audience that peppered me with tough questions. Afterwards, a person asked me what my secret was. I replied, “As a hobby I perform poetry in bars. Imagine presenting in a room where everyone is loud and obnoxious. Imagine sharing deep parts of yourselves and then getting a low score on the poem. Imagine being booed. None of that is pleasant. Besides the poetry, I do dry runs where I ask people to come at me hard with stuff to throw me off my game. That gets bumpy. You live through that ugliness a few times, and the official presentation becomes a lot easier.”

Where is this going? A large reason why I was successful presenting in a tough situation is because I had spent so much time embracing discomfort. As a result, my mind and body were ready for the discomfort when the stakes were real. The pressure from the situation and the tough questions weren’t anything new. They were things I had dealt with and more importantly overcome time and time again. Once the pointed questions started coming, it’s like my muscle memory took over and just handled things. However, if I would have never experienced discomfort like that before, I would have frozen.

Think about work for a moment. How often are you embracing situations that cause discomfort? How often do you truly encourage people to challenge you and your thinking? How often do you do a dry run and ask people to critique you before the real presentation? How often do you role play through difficult feedback and conversations, so you can be prepared for the real convo? If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t create or invite these situations as often as you should. While none of those situations are particularly pleasant, consistently embracing discomfort in lower stakes instances make it a lot easier to tolerate that discomfort when things are on the line.

The challenge: How are you embracing discomfort to grow and be better?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Choosing Your Discomfort (1-17-24)

This week I’d like to kick off a series exploring comfort and discomfort. We will start by exploring working out and choosing your discomfort.

There are some people who feel great as they workout and love doing it. I am NOT one of those people. I’m quite the opposite. Whenever I exercise my body screams at me about how miserable and stupid all of this stuff is and pleads with me to just go sit on the couch. While exercising causes discomfort, I’ve found that if I consistently go through the discomfort of working out, then I feel more comfortable in my body on any given day. On the flip side, if I embrace the comfort of just hanging out on the couch too often, I begin to feel uncomfortable in my body. It’s achy, sore, tired, etc. It’s weird that sometimes my body can feel worse from not doing anything vs pushing itself. Anyone else experience that? As a result of all of this, even though I don’t particularly like exercising, I choose the discomfort of working out, so I can have the comfort of being in my body.

Where is this going? I can’t remember who said it, but I once heard someone say something like, “Either way you’re going to experience discomfort. You get to decide what discomfort you experience and when.” While this sentiment applies to me and working out, it often applies to work situations as well. Last week I was in a kickoff call, and we were discussing milestone maps and timelines. It became apparent to me that the rough draft just wasn’t working. At that point I had a decision. I could choose comfort and not say anything, or I could choose discomfort and encourage us to dive into the issues which would likely bring some tension. I chose discomfort. I said to the team, “These kickoff meetings are always messy. I want you all to know that not only am I okay with that, but I expect that to happen. We need to dive deeper into these milestone maps, because it’s not quite where it needs to be. Before we go any further, I just want to reiterate that I’d rather have these uncomfortable conversations about how we need to fix our plan now early in the year vs avoiding the conversation and scrambling at the end of the year when we missed things because we didn’t plan for them.” With the stage set, we all chose discomfort. We began challenging, pushing, and demanding more from ourselves. We had real talk about how certain parts weren’t well defined and how the sequencing was off. There was a healthy amount of tension, and no one felt carefree, cozy, and comfy during the conversation. Afterwards, we were all thankful we chose discomfort because we could see how choosing discomfort now will make life easier down the road.

Is the above situation familiar to you? Maybe your situation isn’t about milestone maps. Maybe your situation is about giving tough feedback. Maybe your situation is about making a tough prioritization decision. Maybe your situation is making a market research recommendation that won’t exactly be embraced with open arms (Nothing like telling a VP that the data isn’t as meaningful as they had hoped 😉). Whatever your situation you have a choice. You can choose to go through some relatively short-term discomfort that can set you up for more sustained comfort or you can choose short-term comfort which will likely make you consistently uncomfortable in the long-term. The choice is yours.

The challenge: What discomfort will you choose?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Feedback and Discomfort (11-29-23)

This will be the last in our series on feedback. This week we will reflect on feedback and discomfort.

The other night Cam made a poor choice, and his behavior didn’t meet our minimum expectations. I had a calm conversation with him about it. I explained that his behavior wasn’t where it should be. Ultimately, he lost privileges. There was no yelling or harsh words involved. Still, Cam didn’t like being told he did something wrong. Having to admit that he fell short made him feel discomfort. After our talk he told Alice all about it and Alice came and told me I made Cam feel bad. I explained to Alice that I didn’t want to make Cam feel bad. At the same time, me making Cam feel good by only telling him positive things and ignoring his behavior when he doesn’t meet our standards is not good for him or fair to the family. Ignoring his behavior sets a precedent that it was acceptable when it wasn’t. I was okay with him feeling discomfort. I didn’t tell him he was a bad person. I held him accountable, talked to him about the negative impact of his choices and behavior, and asked him to own up to his mistake so he can grow. I wasn’t surprised that he felt upset with the conversation. Owning up to your shortcomings isn’t a pleasant process.

What does this have to do with anything? Sometimes we value comfort so much that we assume discomfort is bad, and that’s not true. Furthermore, when it comes to feedback, if it causes you to feel discomfort then it’s easy to decide that the feedback is bad and the person giving it is bad. Have you ever received feedback that struck a nerve, and your first instinct was, “Forget them! They don’t know me! They don’t know my work!” I’m not particularly proud of it, but I’ve done that before.

Truth be told, most of my best growth has come from feedback that was initially uncomfortable. Being told that the work I did on a project wasn’t good caused discomfort. Not getting roles I posted for and being told I wasn’t as qualified as other candidates caused discomfort. Being told I wasn’t bringing enough value in a situation caused discomfort. Being told I messed up a parenting situation caused discomfort. All of this also led to growth. I’d rather have moments of discomfort that led to growth, than people telling me everything is great when it’s not. The latter will keep me from growing.

The challenge: How will you handle it when feedback makes you feel discomfort?

Bonus thought: If the feedback hijacks you, it’s okay to ask for time to process it. Asking for time and space is ALWAYS okay, and I’ve done that on more of a few occasions. I say something like, “I need time to process, because right now my wheels are turning, and I can’t really have a productive conversation.”

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry