Rumble

Rumble. When you hear that word, I always think of Michael Buffer’s famous phrase from the 90’s. Some may think of it as a sound to describe the thunder that shakes the earth during a lightning storm. I now have a new meaning after doing a deep dive into the world of Brené Brown: rumbling in the context of vulnerability.

If you are unfamiliar with Brené’s work, I would highly recommend reading (or listening to) any of her books because there is so much real life application to her research. I am learning something new with almost every page. She’s got some good humor too… and if you don’t trust me, her Call to Courage talk is on Netflix right now and she’s super witty. She studies shame, courage, and vulnerability. Talk about a hard topic to stay light and funny in!

I have been reading Dare to Lead, one of her books, each night in order to doze off for bed. My phone locks itself down at ten (yes, on purpose), so I have been reading a lot more since I’ve started this new habit. Dare to Lead is a leadership development book with a serious amount of research and real life applications to succeed as a leader. Much of it focuses on having hard conversations which a massive amount of vulnerability between both parties. She calls it a “rumble” or “rumbling with vulnerability”.

As I have been reading this book and a few others that have to do with the work place or personal development, I can’t help but drift off between paragraphs to relate what I’m reading back to my life. There was a particular chapter that I read last week that I wanted to share because it resonated so deeply with me and the way our commercial team during my day job interacts. It’s the reason why I feel comfortable enough to share my opinions and why I’ve been able to really thrive in my new role.

Brené discusses the Seven Elements of Trust as an acronym “BRAVING”. You can read more about them here on her official Dare to Lead hub in case I’ve piqued your interest. Briefly, it stands for Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault, Integrity, Nonjudgment, and Generosity. I want to focus on three of them that I think really makes our team tick and how we manage the relationship with each other to really rumble well together.

First, the weird one: vault. Confidentiality is key. You want to talk about the marbles in the jar analogy for trust? This is the big one here. We don’t share things that aren’t ours to share. We confide in each other with each of our own safe spaces that we have cultivated between each other. My safe space looks different for each of the people I interact with, we talk about different things, and there are some topics that are better off left unsaid but understood. I have found that the more I share about myself, the more they share about themselves, and the more we keep that confidence, the more we trust each other to get the job done or raise our hands for help when we need it.

Second is: integrity. If there’s one thing that I have found out through my commitment to become more compassionate, it’s that it comes with both authenticity and integrity. While we all know what integrity means, Brené breaks it down to simply this: you choose courage over comfort. It’s not easy to tell your team that you don’t think a certain idea really mirrors the values or the messaging we’re trying to portray for a certain target audience. It’s not easy to let someone know that you think their idea might look really bad in the eyes of another internal audience. However, our team has never shied away from these conversations. We even bring in additional perspectives through our networks so we have a diverse dialogue with our audiences. We are bold, but kind with each other, and we are always quick to offer suggestions to turn not-so-good ideas into real winners. How? Because we’ve taken the steps through the vault element to know each other’s values so we know how to respond in an effective way.

And finally: nonjudgment. I once saw a meme that compared different animal species and what they are able to do in the first few minutes or hours of their life. Some learn to walk, some learn to run, others learn to jump or fly, while what do humans do? They cry. But a baby crying is simply just communicating that they need help. THAT, my friends, is our survival method: asking for help. Nonjudgment is one of the key practices that provides the comfort needed to ask for help. Our entire team is open and understanding when someone raises their hand to ask for help, and quite honestly, a lot of the time that help needs to come from those individuals that are external to our group. We are all on the same page with the fact that there is always more for us to learn annddddd there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

While this book is made for leadership development and technically I’m not a people leader role, this book has opened my eyes to a more intentional way of working with my team, or rumbling rather. The way our team has to project manage internally means that we all become people leaders to each other and in turn, the dynamic that we’ve built is incredible.

While I don’t want this post to come off as a brag book entry, it’s important to practice gratitude for the people around you, especially when you interact with them 40 hours a week. Over the past few weeks, I have been increasingly more and more impressed with not only my team, but the company I work for even through these crazy times. I am inspired by our leadership who consistently demonstrates the seven elements of trust so they know they’re employees can depend on them when so much is uncertain.

I hope this post leaves you with some curiosity about how you can better interact with whoever you would like to call your team, maybe it’s your colleagues, your family, your friends, or another group. You don’t have to be a labeled as a leader to implement the seven elements of trust. You just have to practice compassion for others and dive into an immersive experience of authenticity and integrity. If you lead intentionally and passionately, they will follow.

- Rachel