The Power of the Herd (61 page)

It was hard to believe at first, but when I became adept at coaching staff, clients, and apprentices to increase their tolerance for feeling vulnerable — while creating explicit policies to prevent them from using others' vulnerabilities against them — everything else seemed to fall into place. Even teaching Jenna and her mother a few simple tools for recognizing when they felt vulnerable and then doing something constructive in response seemed to work magic. Karen and her daughter actually pledged to be emotional-strength trainers for each other, which they could easily do over the phone by following an early version of the list at the end of this chapter. As a result, Jenna not only stayed in college but decided to enroll in summer school that very year.

“I took your advice to follow what I love or what gives me energy when I'm confused about what to do next,” she wrote me in an email a few months later. “One day, when I was studying outside for finals, I realized that I really like trees. There are so many beautiful old trees on campus. I mentioned this to one of the guys trimming hedges a few days later, and he showed me some ginkgo trees from China. Did you know that ginkgos are considered living fossils? They actually have male and female trees that need each other to fertilize seeds.”

In talking with this enthusiastic, obviously knowledgeable groundskeeper, Jenna learned that the university offered a course on trees held only during the summer. On a whim, she enrolled at the last minute, deciding to sublet a small apartment off campus, realizing by the end of the term that dorm life was not for her. By fall, she was dating a junior she had met in another botany course and was considering a career in environmental education or landscape architecture.

“Everyone in my family is in some kind of classic professional field,” she wrote, noting that her father was an accountant, her mother had majored in political science, and her brothers were heading toward law or medical degrees. “Who would have thought that I'd be out hugging trees in gratefulness for introducing me to a totally new career path? I don't know exactly what I'll be doing in ten years, but right now everything feels just right.”

I never saw Jenna again. During our one and only equine-facilitated session, she and her mother seemed comforted by the idea of “stepping out of the stall” slowly, and that's exactly what Jenna did. Rather than taking a year off to tour Europe or work as a volunteer, she stayed in school, depending on her mother for moral support and advice at times while exploring options that no one else in her family had considered.

“I thought for a while that maybe I should look into working with horses,” she admitted toward the end of her last email. “But then I realized it was really Mocha's
story
that I needed to keep practicing. These days, when I get really nervous in trying something new, I look for a Max, someone who knows something about where I'm at while also having some experience in where I want to go. Sometimes I have to set boundaries with these people, though, or they try to herd me toward the exact path they took. Learning how to ask for, and evaluate, help is kind of tricky, but it's better than becoming barn sour, especially when greener pastures are just over the next hill.”

High tolerance for vulnerability is the ultimate secret weapon in facilitating innovation and transformation, revealing hidden talents and unexpected solutions to twenty-first-century challenges. People can take risks, experiment, and be creative, courageous, and compassionate in direct proportion to how much vulnerability they can tolerate in themselves and support in others.

Yet developing a higher tolerance for vulnerability doesn't happen overnight. It's like isometric muscle control. Holding a weight in a challenging position is more difficult than lifting and releasing in successive repetitions.
You may be able to do one hundred sit-ups, but how long can you hold a single crunch position before your body begins to shake and your abs finally give out?

Building tolerance for vulnerability is isometric exercise for our emotional muscles. When we realize that we have no control over a situation, when someone else's behavior surprises us, when the market throws us a curve, when our own self-image and beliefs are challenged, when our most cherished plans and coping mechanisms aren't working, how long can we stand to feel vulnerable before we go into reactive mode? Before we give in to the urge to flee, fight, dissociate, gossip, shame ourselves, shame and blame others, or use
their
vulnerabilities against them?

Becoming an emotional-strength trainer, for yourself and others, is key to moving beyond this potent, long-ignored challenge. In many ways the process and the attitude are similar to those entailed in physical-strength training. In this sense, holding people's current fitness level against them when they finally show up at the gym would be counterproductive.

Let's say your personal trainer asked you to hold a fifty-pound dumbbell in a challenging position to see how long your muscles could endure the stress. You'd presume he was simply evaluating your current strength level and planning to build from there, wouldn't you? If you only lasted thirty seconds before dropping the weight, there would be no shame in this, only information. But what if your trainer sneered or ran off and told other clients and staff that you must be incredibly unevolved or in need of serious counseling or medication to be so weak and inept? And yet this is often how people treat those who need emotional-fitness and interpersonal skills.

It is therefore
essential
that, when you follow the steps below, you do so without berating yourself, no matter what happens. If you're coaching someone else in this technique, you must maintain not only confidentiality but also the same positive, supportive stance a physical fitness trainer would maintain.

The first week or so, keep a private log assessing your current skill level by evaluating your response to feeling vulnerable in social situations. This means you must be willing to witness your own behavior and feelings honestly. Take notes as soon as possible and answer the following questions:

1.   H
OW DID
I
KNOW THAT
I
WAS FEELING VULNERABLE?
W
HAT WERE THE PHYSICAL SENSATIONS, EMOTIONS, AND/OR POSTURES INVOLVED?
Examples include queasy stomach, feeling kicked in the
stomach, raw feeling in solar plexus or rib cage, face getting red, all color draining from face, jaw tightening, pressure or strangling sensation in the throat, fists forming, eyes tearing up, shoulders drooping, shoulders stiffening, voice getting softer or louder, a desire to disappear or make yourself smaller or sink into the ground, embarrassment, shame, outrage, betrayal, sheer powerlessness, suicidal urges, homicidal urges. (Note: I'm not kidding about the homicidal urge here. Wars are sometimes started over feelings of vulnerability when beliefs or traditional behaviors or lifestyles are challenged. The Spanish Inquisition capitalized on feelings of vulnerability to gather support in wiping out people who practiced other faiths that might have caused prospective followers to question then-current interpretations of Christianity. Some religious people with a low tolerance for vulnerability still promote violence, especially toward groups they've objectified.)

2.   
W
HAT ISSUE SET ME OFF?
Examples: change in policy or job routine, an enthusiastic new colleague arriving with lots of ideas, a missed promotion, recognition or success someone else received, realization that I lacked a skill set, criticism from a colleague or boss, competitive tactic from a colleague or boss, philosophical or religious or political disagreement with a colleague or family member, someone questioned my motives or ideas, the group accepted an idea from someone else that contrasted with my ideals, I simply didn't know what to do next in a challenging situation, I couldn't stand to realize that I was not perfect, I unexpectedly realized that I was more powerful or accomplished than I previously imagined.

3.   
W
HAT DID
I
WANT TO DO TO STOP FEELING VULNERABLE?
Examples: run screaming out of the room, punch someone in the face, insult or shame him or her profusely, control every last detail of the situation, seek revenge, quit my job, blow up a government building, move to an isolated desert island, get another advanced degree, deride someone for not having the right degree or skill set.

4.   
W
HAT DID
I
ACTUALLY DO TO RELIEVE THE PRESSURE?
Examples: became controlling, dissociated, refused to speak during the meeting, gave the “offender” the silent treatment afterward, gossiped about the “offender's” sad personal life or mental health issues (using a real or imagined vulnerability against him or her), shamed him or her in front of the group, hollered at everyone, cried, sought revenge, complained about a total lack of organization or competence, quit immediately,
wrote an insulting email to offender or boss, refused to ever speak to or collaborate with this person or group again.

5.   
H
OW LONG WAS
I
ABLE TO STAND FEELING VULNERABLE BEFORE
I
TOOK THAT ACTION?
Examples: five seconds, two minutes, half an hour, two days.

6.   
W
HAT DID
I
DO TO RELEASE THE ENERGY OR COMFORT MYSELF AFTERWARD?
Examples: ate an entire chocolate cake, drank an entire bottle of wine, worked out like a mad person at the gym, picked up a stranger at a bar, picked a fight with a stranger at a bar, hollered at kids or spouse, went straight to bed with a bag of potato chips and watched crime shows while planning the perfect murder or fantasizing about a rival being publicly humiliated and sentenced to life in prison.

7.   
W
HAT WERE THE SHORT-AND LONG-TERM IMPLICATIONS OF MY REACTION?
I
N OTHER WORDS, WHAT DID
I
HAVE TO MOP UP AFTERWARD?
Examples: alienated boss or employees or coworkers, hurt child or spouse, lost respect from team members, lost self-respect, created a new faction at work that reduced teamwork and productivity, recognized that my ego was more in control than I thought, felt even more vulnerable as I realized I might have to apologize or admit my own contribution to a conflict, realized I wasn't perfect and needed some additional help or training.

Start strategizing after you notice what sets you off, how you tend to react, and how long you can stand to feel vulnerable before you give in to an unproductive impulse. Sometimes, coming up with effective future responses requires coaching or counseling to learn some additional tools. (Guiding Principle 9:
“Prepare for Difficult Conversations”
is one of the most useful tools I've encountered for managing interpersonal conundrums.) It's also important to understand the roots of your strongest emotional triggers and overwhelming reactions. Remember, a response that is out of proportion to the current situation often involves projection or transference (in the latter case, usually from a particularly hurtful past experience).

Sometimes it helps to find a Max (someone like the gelding who helped Mocha) who relates to your current situation, who also has experience in an area in which you would like to gain new skills or confidence.

Sometimes, it simply requires strategizing on how you can
stay longer and
stay thoughtful
when feelings of vulnerability arise. In this case, you recognize that increasing tolerance for vulnerability is like exercising a muscle.

The
stay-longer-and-stay-thoughtful
technique involves slowly increasing your baseline readings. Let's say you have regular disagreements with a particular coworker who isn't invested in boosting her own social intelligence. The situation may feel frustrating and hopeless, but at the very least you can use this irritating interpersonal challenge as an emotional-strength-training opportunity by taking the following steps:

1.   Methodically increase your ability to endure these tense situations before you react unproductively. Let's say your baseline time averages two minutes. The next time you're in conflict with this person, see if you can endure three minutes, then five, then ten.

2.   Look for ways to modify your usual reaction. Rather than rolling your eyes every time this person speaks, you might take notes on what she's saying, differentiating between any legitimate business concerns she may have, differences in her and your philosophies, and all those useless irritating power plays she uses as bait to knock you off your game. (In taking notes over time, you might find the latter is less common than you originally thought.)

3.   No matter what happens, resist the urge to criticize this person behind her back. After the meeting, rather than gossiping with your own faction about how truly inept, deranged, or aggressive this person was, simply say that you'd like to research some other ways of dealing with this situation and change the subject. Privately discussing your reactions to this person's behavior with a confidant, coach, or counselor is much more productive than whipping coworkers into a frenzy.

4.   Finally, modify your self-soothing responses. If you would normally eat an entire chocolate cake that night, try eating half a cake. Then the next time, try eating only a third, the time after that a quarter, and finally just one piece. (Okay, maybe two pieces if you really had a hard day.)

Oddly enough, over time, your simple interest in the situation (and your own evolving responses to feeling vulnerable) will be contagious. Your ability to stay longer and stay thoughtful will have a stabilizing effect on everyone around you.

Finally, in dealing with the stress of discovering unexpected gifts, skill deficiencies, or undesirable, even hurtful or embarrassing behaviors of your own,
it helps to relate to your habit-prone ego as an organizational computer program. Rather than creating a rigid identity based on “programs” of thought and behavior previously downloaded onto your “hard drive,” seeing yourself as the
user
and eventually the
programmer
helps tremendously in moving beyond previous limitations. Which leads us to Guiding Principle 6...