All human beings are vulnerable. From our magnificent brains that serve as operating systems housed in a relatively fragile container, to the all too porous layers of fat and skin that protect our insides, we are a pretty “open system”. We don’t have scales, poisonous venom or huge fangs or claws. In this time of COVID, we are all more aware that to be human is to be vulnerable.
 
We can practically engage in mitigating risk by physically distancing, wearing a mask and washing our hands frequently. Our physical vulnerability is something we can protect with some certainty. In this post, it is the vulnerability of the state of awareness of not being certain, or sure, in which I am more interested.
 
I am talking about the expanding “not knowing” of our current time. The fact that as our work becomes more knowledge based, and artificial intelligence, access to data and information explodes, even those of us who are gifted with strong intelligence, excellent education, experience and good judgement, are starting to realize there is more and more we simply don’t know. And that is a big problem for most highly competent, accomplished people. 
 
The thing is, we really like knowing. More importantly, the feeling of knowing[1], lights up our brain’s reward system. The feeling of knowing, in and of itself, can be highly attractive and for many of us, highly addictive.
 
And the feeling of not knowing can be uncomfortable. Not knowing can make us doubt ourselves and our work. For leaders this can paralyze our ability to make decisions. Yet, more and more, the best most of us can do is make the wisest decision, given what our teams and we know at a moment in time, and prepare to rapidly course-correct. Here we run into another roadblock of our attachment to “feeling certain”.
 
Our strong attraction to “being right” often makes it much more difficult to quickly adapt or change course. It also makes it hard for us to apologize, to admit we got it wrong and quickly move to solutions. If feeling right is highly addictive, feeling wrong is something to avoid at all costs. Therein lies the difficulty and the opportunity.
 
With more complex, adaptive challenges before us and less clear “right” answers at every turn, we must learn to become more comfortable with not knowing, to admitting we aren’t sure, and making the best (multidisciplinary and highly collaborative) decisions we can. And in order to make this an organizational habit, we need to get more skillful at managing the discomfort and inherent vulnerability with the feeling of not knowing. 
 
This means that organizations must make it okay to experiment more often and reward and promote people who demonstrate comfort with ambiguity and adaptive learning. Leaders need to reward those who demonstrate they can persevere through uncertainty and make solid decisions anyway. This includes rewarding those who demonstrate they can put their ego on hold, and take quick action when the data shows that a correction or different approach is needed.
 
For leaders of all types, feeling more comfortable with not being certain is a valuable skill to improve. For executives, it is a requirement for the longevity and success of their business.
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 20 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you! 


[1] For an excellent explanation of this I highly recommend On Being Certain, Believing You are Right Even When You’re Not, by Robert Burton, M.D.

A number of clients have reached out and asked me if I do diversity and inclusion or unconscious bias work. This is not where I focus my current work. However, all my work is about enabling planned, structured change within organizations, teams and their leadership. And change is certainly needed right now.. 
 
I hear a lot of people using the terms, “systematic”, “structural” and “institutional” applied to racism. Though all these terms are accurate, I don’t think that most people, outside of academics or organization development folks really understand what they mean for workplaces. I won’t go into a definition of each of these for this post, but I will say that what is important about all of them is that, regardless of “intent”, they mean that systematic or institutional racism is:

• Hardwired into the practices, processes, culture and the way of being for organizations
• So longstanding and familiar that people no longer question the way it is (we are in a collective trance about it)
• More beneficial for some than others and therefore contributes to inequality of employment, opportunity, development and promotion. And ultimately limit, over the long term, organizations' ability to innovate, grow and perform.
• Difficult (understatement) to change. You really have to commit. 

Like many people I am updating my learning and reading the books that I should have read when they came out. I am in the middle of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s book, How to Be an Antiracist and, The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, is up next. Still, this work is not new to me. In the past, I have created and co-facilitated several diversity and inclusion programs for my employers. I have been privileged to work with experts in the field who have dedicated their lives to creating more equitable workplaces. I have helped clients structure more equitable benefits, performance management and development systems. And still, it feels like a drop of water in an ocean of need. 
 
Welcome to the work of transforming deeply embedded organizational systems. These are highly complex, adaptive challenges and we are still treating them like technical, closed system, challenges (see the work of Drs. Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky).
 
So, where to start?

• Please don’t start with training! Start with setting an objective and key result you want, communicate it to your employees, and then act to achieve it. Make a commitment to changing one of your corporate practices that will help you achieve one of your diversity and equity goals (which you should be measuring as rigorously as your financials). For example, if you want more diversity in your leadership ranks, post promotional opportunities. One of the challenges organizations have is that they don’t have a good pipeline of diverse candidates coming up through their organization. The way to start to fix this is to promote people who may need some development, and create a plan to help them get the development they need. You can move next to upgrading your recruiting goals and practices and how you choose your high potentials to develop.
• Create an organization and spaces that are truly welcoming. This involves scrutinizing your talent management practices, benefits, compensation practices, signage, stated values, pictures and art that surround your spaces (or your digital meeting rooms). You have to be really intentional about this and infuse a new level of inquiry and awareness into all that you do. You have to rethink and update organizational habits and practices. It doesn’t need to be perfect, just start.
• Offer opportunities for real education. Notice I am not saying “training”.  I do not think most of us (me and other white people, POC, Americans) remotely understand the historical (and present day) denial of economic opportunity to POC. I was listening to a program on NPR’s Planet Money on innovation and patents. Lisa D. Cook, PhD, started researching the history of patents and race and she discusses it with the host Karen Duffin. Here’s the link:

 
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/876097416
 
Aside from the fact that Dr. Lisa Cook is an economic rock star, the findings of her research are so important. And it is just one more example of how economic opportunities have been denied to American citizens of color.  An outcome of which has surely been the profound loss for the person seeking the patent but also of innovation and wealth for our nation. When any citizen is denied the opportunity to build something great, creative or innovative in our country, we all lose. 
 
I do not think we know how badly our institutionalized racists policies have repeatedly shot us in our own foot! 
 
Dr. Kendi writes that he used to think that racism was about fear and ignorance but now he realizes, "The history of racist ideas is the history of powerful policymakers erecting racist policies out of self-interest." If we want to fix this, we have to change the infrastructure of racism - our policies and practices. Which makes me uncomfortable with bias or D & I training. It just seems so beside the point when what we need to do is dismantle economic structures that have denied opportunity to a large section of our fellow citizens. 
 
So much work to do and so much opportunity to do it right this time. 
 
Moira Clarke founded Leadership Consulting Partners 20 years ago to help companies advance their leadership and people systems. If you are reading this to the end, and you find value, please say so and share with others on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thank you!