Damn, Brene.
Brains on Fire has had a crush on Brene Brown for years. On any given day it’s not unusual to find one (or several) of us referencing her wisdom in life and work, as a good chunk of us have read at least one of her books. This year has been a BIG year of transition for us with new leadership stepping up to the helm for the first time in 20+ years. We’ve found ourselves more self-reflective than ever before as we evolve and grow into something new together.
Brene has played a huge part in easing our first six months of this new evolution. Benjamin Hart, my fellow co-president, first recommended her latest book, Dare to Lead, as something we should read together. We’re working on launching our own BOF podcast this year, and almost every employee we interviewed quoted Brene at some point. Just last week, the team brought lunch to work and watched Brene’s Netflix special together.
So, why are we spending so much time talking about Brene? Why are we investing working hours on self-reflection? Because we believe our employees should — and do — come first. We care how they feel, how they mature, how they live life while at work and at home. Work-life balance has become more and more blurry over the past decade. We are living life together and our values at work and at home shouldn’t vary from location to location. The more we know ourselves and the more we know about each other, the we more we can dream, innovate and, most importantly, build the kind of trust that leads to true change.
For me, Dare to Lead was hard to read and took time to process. For all our fellow enneagram fans, I’m an eight. The Challenger. The Protector. The Boss. And per the latest book “Millenneagram,” The Dragon. (My personal fav!) At my core, I believe vulnerability is a weakness, so the fact that Brene spends most of Dare to Lead talking about how you can’t be a great leader without being vulnerable made me cuss her…hard and often.
My favorite quote from her book talks about leading your team and company.
“Courage is contagious.To scale daring leadership and build courage in teams and organizations, we have to cultivate a culture in which brave work, tough conversations, and whole hearts are the expectation and armor is not necessary or rewarded. If we want people to fully show up, to bring their whole selves…so that we can innovate, solve problems and serve people, we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard, and respected.”
This is exactly what we want for our company culture at Brains on Fire. If we can’t be intentional about working towards this ideal culture, we might as well pack up and go home. Without bringing our whole selves (messy creatures that we are) to the table, we can’t care for each other and we can’t serve our clients. I now realize that in order to take a step closer to that type of culture it starts with me, as one of our leaders, being open, transparent and vulnerable.
“To feel is to be vulnerable. Believing that vulnerability is weakness is believing that feeling is weakness. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging and joy. We often fail to realize that without vulnerability there is not creativity or innovation. Why? Because there is nothing more uncertain than the creative process and there is absolutely no innovation without failure!”
Damn, Brene. Laying it all out there was a clear challenge and much-needed growth opportunity for this eight. I have to lean into vulnerability so I can model that for others around me so we can feel, learn and grow together into one of the strongest and most trusting cultures around. One that other companies envy. Self-reflection and personal growth are hard and require a ton of work, but knowing we are growing and learning together, as a team, is a comfort and it makes us stronger every day. As Brene reminds us,
“Brave leaders are never silent around hard things. Our job is to excavate the unsaid. And that requires courage and vulnerability.”
