Today’s post is from Matt Ridings, Co-Founder of SideraWorks, and a thought leader on social business transformation. He’s not so much a guest here anymore as the guy who you’d comfortably give a key to your house (and that drinks all the beer in the fridge). He blogs over at Techguerilla, and you can find him on Twitter at @techguerilla
Humility.
It is one of the central tenets of all the worlds major religions. Â It’s something that we are taught from a young age is a primary virtue to uphold. Â Studies in the business world have shown that humility is a trait of strong effective leaders of the most successful companies (something that wasn’t so appreciated in years past).
Yet what, exactly, is humility? Â At its core it is a trait requiring self-awareness and an idea of ones self-worth. Â To be more specific, one cannot be humble (suppress traits such as arrogance, etc.) without the self-knowledge that would drive those traits to begin with.
OK, So?
So what does this have to do with “don’t hide the awesome”?
I’ve been giving a talk with that title for the past year at various organizations needing assistance with changing their culture. Â It’s a variant and result of the work I used to do in developing innovation cultures within organizations. Â What became clear during those years is that the fear of appearing arrogant was leading individuals with the highest capabilities to hold themselves, and thus the company, back. Â The question became, how does one solve a problem such as this when culturally both the organization and society have a set expectation of what arrogance and humility are?
After a lot of hit and miss experimentation and research I came across an article by some psychologist on the topic of humility, its focus was primarily on religion but parts of it gave me the insight I needed to turn the corner. It turns out there are really only two things needed in a progressive organization. First, a definition of what constitutes ‘productive humility’. Â And second, communicating this information in an easily absorbed way to the leadership on down through the rank and file.
People want an excuse to not have to hide their capabilities, and bringing everyone up to the same level of understanding and the implicit acceptance of management that goes along with that gives them that excuse. Â And the clear differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ humility provides management with some assurance that their culture won’t fall into some prideful abyss.
Like most of my talks, this one includes a fair amount of humor and scenario driven storylines. Â Most of the boring psychobabble above is thankfully absent. Â However, here is a bit of what I learned as differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ humility.
Productive Humility
- There is a difference between a quest for significance and that of selfish ambition
- There is a difference between personal significance and pride
- There is a difference between self-abasement and realistic self-assessment
- There is a difference between confidence and arrogance
In practical terms it boils down to this.
- If you’re a manager of people, learn how to recognize, encourage, and reward public displays of talent when that talent is applied towards a group objective (the difference between selfish and significance).
- If you’re an executive, learn that some of your best assets, with the most to say, are staying quiet because your culture doesn’t support their desire for significance. Â Change your culture, publicly demonstrate what you value.
- If you’re an individual, learn to simply say “thank you” and feel pleasure when you are complimented on your work instead of denigrating yourself or your work in an attempt to deflect the thanks and display humility. Â You’re not a doormat, don’t act like one. Â Learn to insert yourself when you have something truly valuable to add, even if your addition is not in your realm of work. Â Learn that your management supports this behavior (this assumes management is bought into the concept).
- If you’re a leader, or want to be one, learn that one of the most common characteristics of a Level 5 leader (the highest there is) is personal humility. Â While we may create a cultural mythos about those ‘win at all costs’ leaders who enjoy having the spotlight on them the reality is that most of the best corporate leaders do not fit this profile at all. Â Change your role models.
It can be difficult to grasp the nuances of productive humility and when to let your little light shine but if you KNOW you can contribute to your business’ cause, whether that is in a meeting or even a suggestion box, then Don’t Hide The Awesome!
You are only doing yourself and your company a disservice.
There is a difference between confidence and arrogance.
I’m quite often guilty about this one. It’s probably a lack of the very thing — confidence — that I want to convey. Something to actively work on in 2011.
Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.
~Stephen Covey
Really good post. Love the breakdown on Productive Humility. It can be hard sometimes to find the balance between a doormat and over assertive. Keeping this list – I am a sucker for bullet points.
The leaders who gain the most respect and best command over a group are ones who put their employees’ interest before themselves. That is one spot where personal humility really kicks in. Execs who only think of number one don’t do as well in the long run, whether that be running a company into the ground over time or losing credibility among their staff.
Like we’ve talked about, the gender disparity here is one of the things I contemplate. Is this a universal issue? Is it more related to overall organization culture, or is it exacerbated for one gender over another (namely women)?
This is part of the issue I have with events like TED Women; as though women need a separate stage to even the playing field to show their strengths with more parity or something. And in a workplace, I wonder how many men FEEL that they aren’t really letting loose with what they’re good at, but that our culture (and likely society) discourages them from expressing that. The labels that pop to mind in all of those scenarios are intriguing. An assertive female, or a demure one. An aggressive man, or a humble one.
I’d also love to explore more about what it takes to a) identify a culture that’s hindering this and b) how to move it from there to a more open culture that can constructively accept contributions and talents. Pondering.
Carol Roth addressed the TED Women “thing” in her post yesterday. I weighed in with my own rant. I don’t believe in the separate playing field and think that if you’re a woman and need to be surrounded by women to feel empowered, it’s a self esteem issue, not a business skills issue. Confidence. In YOU. The again, I say things all the time that tick people off. This is probably another one of those things 🙂
Just one more reason I love you. 🙂
I can only tell you what I’ve experienced at the organizations where I’ve done this. The main driver for the development of this talk to begin with was the fact that it was the *most* capable people who were being held back in general, not necessarily the ‘majority’. And my focus was not on a specific gender.
In addition to those I was targeting (which was for the most part was evenly split across norms of race/gender/etc) women in general seem to resonate most with the concept. I only have theories as to why that is. In particular the fact that women (often rightfully) have a greater fear of being negatively labeled for what could be seen as ‘aggressive’, ‘ladder climber’, ‘showoff’, ‘trying to prove something’, etc. But when you remove some of that by a common understanding across the company of ‘productive humility’ and the executives desire for you to ‘not hide the awesome’ it can remove a lot of those fears of what others will think about you.
Add to that the fact that it puts a damper on a lot of the jerkoffs (scientific word, typically men) who assert themselves in aggressive ways to make themselves known but in a non-productive way. That opens the door for those with more valuable things to say, who would typically not take on the jerkoff in a public forum because of the unsurety of which behavior management values more.
My .02 cents
Powerful post Matt. I apologize beforehand for such a banal comment, but I can’t get past the point of you having the keys to my house and drinking all the beer. Not cool man. I’ll add this post to my Instapaper and return once that picture leaves my mind. Cheers! ~Paul
Contrary to Amber’s implied statement, I always restock upon departure. Promise. Now give me the key.
Humility along with integrity is displayed when the “audience” is not there. Example…you can be encouraging to the “public” and belittling behind closed doors with a select group. You might have respectful things to say to a group and when they leave, have negative and disrespectful things to pull apart. Classic case of a “two faced” personality. It would seem that integrity and humility go hand in hand.
What a great contextual note to add… and something to always take into consideration. Well put Summer.
Thanks Brad! It’s easier said than done but we’ve got to remember to control the tongue even outside of the public eye.
Matt – always a brain treat to read your musings and I thank you for the pingback on my “Self Deprecation is Crap” post. I don’t think I could have broken it down any more effectively than you have in your Productive Humility list, so thanks for that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to share the crap out fo this post. Hat tip, sir!
Always a pleasure to hear from you Erika. Thanks for the comments, and for the great post to link to 🙂
Always a pleasure to hear from you Erika. Thanks for the comments, and for the great post to link to 🙂
Always a pleasure to hear from you Erika. Thanks for the comments, and for the great post to link to 🙂
saying “Thank You” to a compliment is surprisingly difficult. It should be second nature but I think we got confused along the way that you would presumed arrogant if you did. You were given the compliment because you deserved it. Now be polite and say thank you.
Nice article. Thank You for posting!
I still find it extremely difficult to accept verbal compliments. I was raised to always be wary of ‘pride’, and accepting compliments openly was made to feel like it was boastful. Knowing that you should change, and accomplishing that change are two different things….but I’m still trying 🙂
thank you for keeping up with your comments as well and creating a conversation. Surprisingly, I find the conversation is one sided on a lot of non-social media sites.
Matt, I hate to comment with “terrific post” but I do want to commend you on the truth you’ve written here. Coming from a corporate sales background to now being a creative person has been quite a shift in how I look at things…and how I acknowledge praise.
In sales, I didn’t have to proclaim my awesomeness – it was clear for all to see on the sales charts (that usually had me at the top) that were posted in the office. That translated to money in my pocket, the ultimate pat on the back.
As a creative person now, I used to be very uncomfortable receiving praise for my work. When my very first documentary film won an award at its first film festival screening, I always downplayed the accomplishment as nothing more than a lucky break. But as my video production business began to grow because of it and more and more clients began to praise my work for them, I slowly started to realize that A) I’m pretty good at what I do, B) It’s OK to realize that and C) People like to work with someone who’s confident in what they do.
When my next documentary film won “Best Florida Film” at the Sunscreen Film Festival last year, I found myself humbled yet very comfortable in the praise of the film and my own creative efforts in giving life to the film. I guess the “religious” way to look at it is “blessed”. Blessed with this ability God has bestowed upon me and ready to unleash it on the world to hopefully make it a better place or perhaps just make an impact on somebody who might then go on and change the world. Either way, I’ll be glad.
Nuff said.
Thx Dan. Always good to hear from you, and glad you liked the post.
It’s very hard to find an equilibrium between humility and arrogance I think, or at least how you are perceived by others. In my business I try my best to put the spotlight on people who deserve to, I always hated to take credit for what isn’t due. Making people understand they are doing a good job is the key element in building a successful team, which, I think, is like an orchestra where every instrument necessarily has to play its notes harmoniously with others.
I like the orchestra analogy, and to take it a step further, it’s just as important to know when to let everyone have their solo 🙂
Glad I found your post Matt – right up my street.
In my confidence work I come across this all the time – a set of beliefs, expectancies and assumptions about how an individual should behave and what “good” people do and what “bad” people do.
It’s easy for people to get mixed up.
The line between confidence and arrogance seems a fine one, and there are some subtleties to it. If I can nutshell it, I always talk about confidence as quiet and arrogance as noisy. This fits right in with the idea of productive humility, which I love.
I feel an article coming exploring this a little, and I’ll be sure to give you kudos for a really insightful post!
Thanks Steve, I think the nuance comes in understanding that ‘quiet’ in your example doesn’t mean “don’t speak up”. Appreciate the comments and glad you liked the post.
Matt thanks for sharing this post again today in facebook. Â Having been a very self-reflective person as well as business owner, you have opened another window for me to look at a widening view of humility.
I do have to say as a women in business, there are different expectations in our behaviors as leaders. Â What one gender is rewarded for, the other is punished for exhibiting.
Now I am contemplating how we can create a more evolved business culture that allows for each our our brilliance to be respected and allowed to flourish.