Choosing your values

Let's be honest. As soon as we start talking about values in the workplace, people's eyes start to roll.

And fair enough, too.

So many organisations have values up on the wall that don't tie directly to any tangible behaviours or accountability.

So many organisations "do vision and values" at some kind of executive retreat, and then never integrate them into the rest of the business.

So many organisations encourage or reward behaviours that are counter to their stated values.

So how should we think about values in the workplace?

As with everything we do, the first place to start is with ourselves. Who we are is how we lead.

So when we think about values, we start with individuals. What are your values?

At this point, someone will inevitably ask whether we mean personal or professional values. But there can be no difference.

Think about it. How could you reconcile a personal value of family with professional values of dedication and hard work?

If you want to live a life of integrity — where who you are on the inside matches who you are on the outside — then you cannot distinguish between personal and professional values.

We have an exercise we use to help people identify and articulate their values.

We start with a huge list of possible values: love, courage, family, faith, etc.

We ask people to put a tick mark next to their top 10.

We then ask people to put a second tick mark next to their top five.

Finally, we ask people to circle their top two — at which point, we hear:

"This is so hard! How can I possibly choose two?"

So here are the five questions I use to identify core values:

1. What values represent me when I'm at my very best?

2. What are my most foundational values? If I'm trying to choose between love and family, could love be the foundational value from which my commitment to family arises?

3. What values would I want to bring into the arena? When I'm gearing up for a difficult conversation, what can I rely on to help me stay grounded?

4. Can I use these values as a filter for decision-making?

5. And, finally, when everything turns to custard — when the business is failing and the marriage is falling apart and things are at their darkest — if I behaved according to these values, would I be able to look myself in the mirror and be okay with what I see?

We've done this values exercise with more than 1,000 people, and I can tell you it is transformative.

It doesn't take much: all you need is the willingness to set aside cynicism and the willingness to be vulnerable.

Of course, there's a whole separate piece of work to bring these to life in your organisation, but understanding our individual values is the start.

And don't you want to know who you are when you're at your very best?

Ngā mihi mahana,

Kaila Colbin, Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator
Founder and CEO, Boma

How can I trust your yes?

In the Dare to Lead™ curriculum, the first element of trust is "boundaries."

I find that so interesting, don't you? I mean, it's not what I typically think of when I think of trust. The first things I tend to think of are, "If I tell you a secret, you won't tell anyone else," or, "If you say you're going to do something, you do it."

To appreciate how important boundaries are to trust, you can work through a simple thought experiment:

Imagine you're someone who likes to be reliable, someone who wants to make an important contribution to your team. I believe most of us feel this way.

Imagine you have a boss who is constantly asking for more, without regard to workload or timeframes: Can you get the report done? Can you also finish the marketing strategy? Oh, and can you implement that campaign we discussed? And run the analysis we need? By tomorrow?

You say yes, of course: you like to be reliable, and you want to make an important contribution. You agree to do the report, to finish the strategy, to implement the campaign, to run the analysis.

But as the deadlines approach, you realise there is simply no way to do all of these things, and certainly no way to do them all well. It's impossible in the time allotted.

Three questions:

1. How are you feeling right now?
There are a bunch of different answers to this question, but, 'not very good' is likely the general theme. You might be feeling overwhelmed, anxious, frustrated or ashamed. You're reliable and useful! You should be able to get it all done!

2. How are you feeling about your boss right now?
Again, a bunch of possibilities, none of them any good. You might be turning it around on her: My boss is so unrealistic! She has no idea what I've got on my plate and she just keeps piling on more! Or you might be giving your boss a pass, turning it around on yourself instead: If I can't deliver, it's because I'm not good enough, not because the requests are unreasonable.

3. What is likely to happen?
Well, you're almost certainly going to drop the ball on some of the things you've committed to. Ultimately, you'll either collapse, blow up at your boss, quit, get fired or some combination of the above...

...all because you didn't set and maintain good boundaries.

The more I reflected on boundaries, the more I came to realise it is one of the most essential elements of trust.

After all, how can I trust your 'yes' if I can't trust you to say 'no' when 'no' needs to be said?

Ngā mihi mahana,

Kaila Colbin, Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator
Founder and CEO, Boma

Being uncomfortable vs. being unsafe: the substantive difference between the two

I got the question one of the very first times I delivered a Dare to Lead™ programme.

"My organisation isn't the kind of place where you can have courageous conversations. What should I do?"

I've gotten it pretty much every time since.

And my answer is the same, every time.

The first thing to understand is that there is a substantive difference between being uncomfortable and being unsafe.

There are people in this world who are choosing every day between rent and heat. And if they lose their job for a few weeks, they're choosing between rent and food. 

If you are in that position, it would be unsafe to put your employment at risk.

Being unsafe doesn't only apply to people living in poverty. You might be looking after a loved one. Suffering from depression. Recovering from an illness. Dealing with violent or bullying behaviour, or systemic issues of repression and racism.

You are the only person who knows what is safe and not safe for you, and nobody can judge you for it.

That being said... we often use the word 'unsafe' when what we mean is 'uncomfortable.'

And we often do that so we can avoid difficult conversations.

I would never advise anyone to have a conversation that is unsafe.

But courageous conversations are always uncomfortable. And we have to be willing to sit with that discomfort if we want to be daring leaders.

So, my response to the person who asked the question. First, is it safe to speak up? If not, look after yourself first.

But if speaking up is merely uncomfortable, then—before you think about leaving—do the courageous thing. Do everything in your power to effect change.

Remember: the single biggest indicator of a lack of courage in an organisation is an inability to have difficult conversations. 

Remember: courage is courageous.

And remember: you have the power to take the lead.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Kaila Colbin, Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator
Founder and CEO, Boma

The single most accurate measure of courage

Published on LinkedIn, 7 February 2020.

I want to introduce you to a man called Ed Stack.

Ed is the CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods. It's a big chain in the US. They sell sports gear, camping gear, workout gear… and guns.

Now, you're probably aware that there's a huge problem with gun violence in America — a problem that has been totally intractable politically. Despite a majority of Americans wanting gun control, the laws remain stuck.

So, two years ago, in February 2018, there was a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. 17 kids were killed. 17 more were injured.

After the shooting, Ed learned that the shooter had bought a gun at a Dick’s store. It was a shotgun, which wasn’t used in the shooting — but Ed had the sickening realisation that the shooter could have bought the guns he used at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Ed describes himself as a pretty stoic guy, but he says that as he sat there watching the news, he hadn’t cried that much since his mother passed away.

He went into his management team that Monday, started to read a statement he had written, and got so emotional that he couldn’t get through it. His chief of staff had to actually take the piece of paper from his hand and finish reading it for him.

Ed made the call that his company was going to stop selling automatic assault weapons. But he didn’t stop there. He then had his company destroy $5 million worth of inventory, because, as he says, if you don’t think it’s right to sell these weapons, the only conscionable thing to do is to destroy the inventory. Otherwise you’re just putting the guns on the street in a roundabout way.

Ed reckons the move cost the company $250 million in lost sales. He says he doesn’t regret a penny. As my friend Geoff says, values aren’t values until they cost you.

When Ed made this move, he was alone. But because he was willing to take a stand, Kroger followed, and then Walmart, and last September 145 chief executives wrote to the U.S. Senate asking its members to pass sensible gun control laws.

Ed, to me, is a hero.

And I've got two big takeaways from his story:

Number one: Our most accurate measure of courage is our willingness to lean into vulnerability.

What is vulnerability? Almost all of us, at some point, have associated vulnerability with weakness. But this is a huge myth. Vulnerability is risk, uncertainty, and emotional exposure.

Think about the risk Ed was taking. Think about the uncertainty. Think about the emotional exposure, as he stood there trying to read his memo.

You cannot have courage without vulnerability. If there is no risk, uncertainty or emotional exposure, then what you’re doing doesn’t require courage at all.

Number two: Courage is contagious. Ed's leadership paved the way for Kroger and Walmart. And as they step forward, their own courage will embolden others.

And won't that make it a better world? 

Ngā mihi mahana,

Kaila Colbin, Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator
Founder and CEO, Boma

The most critical leadership skill for the coming decade

Published on MediaPost, 31 January 2020.

A year ago, I had the incredible privilege of training with Dr. Brené Brown to become a certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator.

Brené is a research professor at the University of Houston, and she and her team recently completed a 7-year study on leadership with Rice, Kellogg and Wharton schools of business. They started by talking to 150 C-suite executives around the world — CEOs and CFOs of major multinationals — asking them a simple question: What is the single most important characteristic for future leaders?

The answer that came back was absolutely unequivocal, no close seconds: the No. 1 characteristic our leaders need is courage.

So here are three things the research tells us about courage:

Number one: The single biggest indicator of a lack of courage is the inability to have difficult conversations. Uncomfortable conversations take courage.

Number two: The single most accurate measure of courage is our willingness to lean into vulnerability.

Most of us associate vulnerability with weakness — it's the No. 1 myth about vulnerability. But the actual definition of vulnerability is risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure.

Think of a time when you saw someone doing something courageous. It can be someone you know, someone famous, something recent, something from a long time ago.

Now ask yourself: What role did vulnerability play in that moment? Was that person taking a risk? Facing uncertainty? Opening themselves up to emotional exposure?

You cannot have courage without vulnerability. If there is no risk, uncertainty or emotional exposure, then what you’re doing doesn’t require courage at all.

Number three: Courage is contagious. But you have to ask yourself what price you’re willing to pay.

One of my favorite moments of courage came from a man called Ed Stack. Ed is the CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods. The company sells sports gear, camping gear, workout gear… and guns.

You might remember that in February 2018, there was a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Seventeen kids were killed, 17 more injured.

After the shooting, Ed learned that the shooter had bought a gun at a Dick’s store. It was a shotgun, which wasn’t used in the shooting — but Ed had the sickening realisation that the shooter could have bought the guns for the shooting at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Ed describes himself as a pretty stoic guy, but he says that as he sat there watching the news, he hadn’t cried that much since his mother passed away.

He went into his management team that Monday, started to read a statement he had written, and got so emotional that he couldn’t get through it. His chief of staff had to actually take the piece of paper from his hand and finish reading it for him.

Risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure.

Ed made the call that his company was going to stop selling automatic assault weapons. But he didn’t stop there. He then had his company destroy $5 million worth of inventory, because, as he says, if you don’t think it’s right to sell these weapons, the only conscionable thing to do is to destroy the inventory. Otherwise you’re just putting the guns on the street in a roundabout way.

Ed reckons the move cost the company $250 million in lost sales. He says he doesn’t regret a penny. As my friend Geoff says, values aren’t values until they cost you.

When Ed made this move, he was alone. But because he was willing to take a stand, Kroger followed, and then Walmart, and last September 145 chief executives wrote to the Senate asking its members to pass sensible gun control laws.

Courage is contagious.

So, three things to remember about courage: Uncomfortable conversations take courage, you cannot have courage without vulnerability, and courage is contagious.

And isn’t that last one the best news of all?

Ngā mihi mahana,

Kaila Colbin, Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator
Founder and CEO, Boma

Dare To Lead™ will not prepare you for this

It's inevitable.

Around 10 minutes into a Dare to Lead™ programme, someone will ask, "I tried being vulnerable, but my [boss/employee/colleague/business partner] wasn't interested."

The question is generally framed as a plea: What can I do to get them to enter the arena with me?

The answer may be disappointing, but it is simple: you can't.

Dare to Lead™ is not a recipe for getting other people to do what you want them to do.

You cannot control one single person other than yourself. If you're trying to change someone else's behaviour, it's not courage you're after; it's manipulation.

There is, however, a great irony in this work: if you change the way you show up in your organisation, if you change the way you lead your teams, it is a virtual certainty that your culture will transform.

That transformation doesn't start with changing someone else's behaviour. It starts with us. Who we are is how we lead.

It's tempting to focus on the ways other people are failing to live up to our expectations. It's certainly a whole heck of a lot less painful than turning that focus inwards. But focusing on others is fruitless. Inwards is where the gold is.

And wouldn't you rather have the gold?

Ngā mihi mahana,

Kaila Colbin, Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator
Founder and CEO, Boma

What we get wrong about courage — the counter-myth to "vulnerability equals weakness"

One of the first things we talk about in the Dare to Lead™ programme is the mistaken idea that vulnerability is the same as weakness. It's definitely a common myth — even my 11-year-old stepson said weakness was the first thing he thought of when I asked him about vulnerability.

But having been working with Brené Brown's material for six months now, with everyone from small senior leadership teams to large public groups, I've observed that "vulnerability = weakness" isn't the only association error we make.

Before we ran our first programme, I started pulling together a playlist of songs for the breaks. I had a few that I knew already I wanted to include (“Brave” by Sara Bareilles being right up there), but it definitely wasn’t going to be enough, so I started searching for songs about courage.

The results made me disheartened. Almost every song was what I would call a “screw you” song: you dumped me but I don’t need you, I’m better off without you, I’m stronger than you, who needs boys anyway, who needs girls anyway.

It’s as if our artists are all making the assumption that the only way I can be strong is for you to be weak. The songs are not actually about courage; they are about putting on armour to cover up our hurt.

So, yeah, we have this mistaken idea that vulnerability = weakness. But we have an equally mistaken idea that courage = toughness.

Courage isn’t measured by how little we need other people. Courage is measured by our willingness to lean into vulnerability.

Ultimately, I did find a few songs that understand this; the playlist gets added to all the time and I'd love to hear your suggestions. I reckon together we can build a world where people know what courage really looks like.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Kaila Colbin, Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator
Founder and CEO, Boma

Vulnerability equals weakness and other myths

One of the first things we talk about in the Dare to Lead™ programme is the mistaken idea that vulnerability is the same as weakness. It's definitely a common conflation —even my 11-year-old stepson said weakness was the first thing he thought of when I asked him about vulnerability.

But having been working with this material for four months now, with groups ranging from small senior leadership teams to large public programmes, I've observed that this isn't the only conflation error we make.

So I wanted to share with you why "vulnerability equals weakness" is so problematic, along with a few other inaccurate "this equals that" myths that are coming up regularly.

Myth One: Vulnerability equals weakness

In every training we do, I ask the room how many have ever associated vulnerability with weakness. Inevitably, every hand goes up. Then (per Brené's teaching) I ask people to try to think of a single example of courage that didn't require vulnerability. And no one can.

If you Google the word vulnerable, the first definition that comes up is, "exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." And that sounds weak to us. After all, if we were strong, we couldn't be attacked or harmed, right?

In the context of Dare to Lead™, however, the meaning is a bit different. Our definition is: “risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure.” And while being in a position of risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure means you’re open to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, it is also the only way to authentically connect with others.

If you’ve got your armour up, you can’t be truly seen. And if there’s no risk, uncertainty, or emotional exposure, there’s no courage. After all, if something is risk-free, it doesn’t make you very courageous to do it, right?

As Brené says, far from making you weak, vulnerability is actually our most accurate measure of courage.

Myth Two: Toughness equals courage

The flip side to the “vulnerability equals weakness” conflation is the equally false idea that toughness equals courage.

Before we ran our first Dare to Lead™ programme, I started pulling together a playlist of songs for the breaks. I had a few that I knew already I wanted to include (“Brave” by Sara Bareilles being right up there), but it definitely wasn’t going to be enough, so I started searching for songs about courage.

The results made me disheartened. Almost every song was what I would call a “screw you” song: you dumped me but I don’t need you, I’m better off without you, I’m stronger than you, who needs boys anyway, who needs girls anyway.

It’s as if our artists are all making the assumption that the only way I can be strong is for you to be weak. The songs are not actually about courage; they are about putting on armour to cover up our hurt.

Courage isn’t measured by how little we need other people. It is measured by our willingness to lean into vulnerability.

Myth Three: Kindness equals not speaking up or setting boundaries

The sub-title for the “BRAVING Trust” section of Dare to Lead is straightforward: “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” And the whole purpose of the work is to allow us to lean into vulnerability, to speak our truth, and to listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard. And while we do dive deep into empathy — and the need to say hard things without shame or blame — we never recommend pulling punches in order to spare someone’s feelings.

And yet, inevitably, someone will bring it up as an objection. “All this empathy stuff is fine, but sometimes a person is really terrible at their job.” As if having empathy means you aren’t allowed to address performance issues or attitude issues. As if being kind doesn’t allow you to set clear boundaries for what behaviour is okay and what’s not okay.

Being kind does not mean letting people get away with anything they want. It does not mean you have to let people walk all over you. It does not mean you have to put up with inappropriate or dysfunctional behaviour.

It does mean you can hold people to account for that behaviour without shaming them — without implying that the bad behaviour means they are a bad person. It’s the difference between guilt (“I did something bad”) and shame (“I am bad”). And it’s a substantive difference.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Kaila Colbin, Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator
Founder and CEO, Boma