Idea Meritocracy: Get Comfortable with the Uncomfortable

The Jewish New Year and high holidays began last week. Despite not being religious, this time of year has me look back, take stock of the past and identify areas of improvement for the coming year. Many of the holiday messages I’ve received included wishes for peace. And it got me thinking more deeply about what peace means to me, especially as we are experiencing a surge of intolerance, and intense divisions. In my line of work I help clients form effective strategies to respond to different kinds and layers of conflict on the job. It’s part of the nature of work that contention and discord occur. As a career coach, a working professional, and a social human being, I know the feeling of distress when things don’t go well. When conflict arises, we typically expect to be given the benefit of the doubt while we fail to extend the same courtesy to others.

As an old mentor used to say “life is short, but there’s always enough time for courtesy.” Courtesy means treating others with respect and being gentle and kind in our communications. It doesn’t mean keeping quiet and not sharing our perspective. It’s about looking for a way to bring people together rather than cause ill will and divisiveness. Another of my mentor’s nuggets of wisdom is adopting the “Most Respectful Interpretation” (MRI) approach in a time of controversy. As a first step, always be asking “what might be a more positive interpretation of the person’s actions or words?” Get curious about what might have prompted a particular behavior trying to interpret it in a new way assuming the best of intentions.

We tend to make a lot of assumptions about other people’s behavior. It’s human nature. For example, if someone makes a rude comment in a meeting, our go-to response is to take it personally and assume that the person is deliberately insensitive and disrespectful and thus we react with anger and frustration. However, what if we change the story assuming there’s a good reason for the behavior, e.g. the person is having a really bad day?  Since we don’t know the real story, why not change our interpretation to a more favorable and compassionate opinion? And in thinking about peace, conflict and competing propositions, it occurred to me that this phenomenon may explain why achieving idea meritocracy in the workplace is so difficult. Open debate and directness can create a very stressful work environment.

It is easy to promote sharing of ideas and theoretical discussions as an intellectual exercise; however, it is much more challenging in pursuing practical application and when people have an emotional interest in the outcome. High stakes bring high emotions. I think the worst career advice I ever got was from an old boss telling our team to always check our emotions at the door coming into the office. Whenever he said or did something inconsiderate he’d preface the insult with “it’s not personal, it’s business.” I believe the idea of “strictly business” is a fallacy. To build a work environment of sincerity and trust in business interactions, we must first acknowledge the fact that interpersonal relationships are inherently emotional, and disagreements are a stressful experience. Since we work with people, and not robots, to “get stuff done” we need to take the time to build rapport and trust. This can only be done when we care about other people, show respect to who they are, and try to understand their motivations.

Effective discussions and decision-making require attunement to our own emotions as well as those of others. To show good judgment and make good decisions, we need to be able to address emotions and channel them in the right direction. Make no mistake; the workplace is an emotional warzone where warring tribes compete for scarce resources such as territory (advancing up the proverbial totem pole), recognition, and rewards. Everyone wants the bigger piece of the pie. And thus to have a real idea meritocracy is complicated and complex. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, physical safety comes first, but as we progress to higher level growth needs, we seek psychological security such as status, prestige, and respect from others. This is when things get tricky. We tend to feel “safe” around people who are similar to us. Differences often trigger complex emotions and reactions. To create a culture where the best ideas always win, we need to be willing to get uncomfortable, to embrace the notion that we are a part of a whole working towards best possible outcomes.

Diversity and inclusion are integral to outstanding performance. But for teams to thrive and best ideas to win, we need to overcome our defensive instincts when we encounter the unknown and the unfamiliar and learn to embrace different perspectives. This is easier to do when we assume that people want to do the right thing and are doing the best they can. It is really as simple as taking the time to listen and putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. We do not need to like the person or want to be his or her best friend to adopt the mindset of generous and respectful assumption of intentions, especially when things don’t make sense to us or are in conflict with what we believe to be true. When we assume positive intent and don’t get distracted trying to guess other people’s motives, we become free to focus on the work and the merit of ideas. 

My (Jewish) New Year’s resolution is to get better at choosing the Most Respectful Interpretation (MRI). I will strive to keep my mind open to different perspectives and explore them with an open heart.

 

A Culture of Meritocracy: Where the Best Ideas Win

I started out my professional career with a dream to change the world one student at a time. I was a teacher for 10 years before leaving the profession in pursuit of new horizons. But even though I moved on, I always love hearing from my former students, all in various stages of “adulting,” and learning about their life and career choices.  Recently, I had a different kind of a blast from the past when I reconnected with one of my son’s high-school teachers. It was a very interesting conversation because in those years my son was what could only be described as an ideological slacker. He had a fully articulated world-life-view that the high school years were the best time to live life to the fullest and not the time to worry about life goals, achievements, or the long-term future. He decided he had better ways to spend his time than slaving over homework assignments, doing extra-curricular activities, or preparing for college. Fortunately, he later on adjusted his youthful views with a bit of life experience and a desire to enjoy the good things on life when not on parental dime. As the teacher learned about his current accomplishments, she gave me the proverbial pat on the back saying “wow, your radical parenting antics really worked.”

Well, I always feel I am pretty mainstream and was a bit surprised to learn that I was once viewed as even remotely radical. But it did get me thinking about my core parenting beliefs. We indeed didn’t have many rules at home. And we encouraged the kids to focus their energy on thinking for themselves rather than try and please others. We truly consciously tried to not shove our values down our children’s throats and let them learn (sometimes the hard way) from experience and figure out what worked for them, who they wanted to be, and where their own interests lay. We’ve always believed that love is a stronger motivator than doing things out of obligation. We allowed them to experiment and explore possibilities, and sometimes fail and pay the consequences as par for the course. Looking back, it dawned on me that our children grew up in an environment of idea meritocracy, emphasizing their self-fulfillment pursuing their best ideas.

It is a world-view that I strive to implement as an HR professional and coach entrusted with the well-being of the organization’s greatest asset, its people, to support the business. It’s always been clear to me that a company is only as good as its people – in the way it empowers free thinking and leverages the collective knowledge of the team. But it is certainly easier said than done. This is the million dollar question: how to build diverse work environments where the best ideas flourish? One example of how it’s done is provided by Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, in his Ted Talk describing how thecompany practices “radical transparency” and maintains a meritocratic work environment.

In a world that seems to be changing at a faster and faster pace, changing the decision-making culture has become all the more imperative. With the enormous challenges that face businesses of every size, companies must identify and pursue the best ideas most worthy of further investment of resources and most likely to yield utmost benefits. But how do we determine which ideas are the best? How do we know whether we are on the right path to making a good business decision? Unfortunately, there is never any guarantee of success. But in establishing a business environment that promotes diversity and encourages novel perspectives, companies can facilitate positive outcomes through idea and knowledge-sharing and a rigorous debate. Let the best idea win!

There’s a lot more to this topic, and I’d love to hear your experiences with workplace meritocracy.

3 Life Lessons I Learned Hiking Through the Hottest Labor Day Weekend on Record

I spent hours planning a 4-day trek in Marin County over the Labor Day weekend, agonizing over all the details for each of the four consecutive days of hiking. The one thing I hadn’t worried about was the weather. I figured Marin County has great weather, and September is usually quite wonderful and ideal for outdoor activities. Unfortunately, this holiday weekend, we were hit by a scorching heat wave delivering triple-digit temperatures to the Bay Area. Marin County hit all-time record highs. While the safe decisions are not necessarily synonymous with smart decisions, in this case the wise decision should have been to cancel our plans. And in fact, many in our group showed good judgment making the more prudent choice to forsake the hills and stay safe and cool.

A few of us, however, stubbornly clung to the dream of hiking the infamous Dipsea trail from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach. The trail starts with 688 stairs in the first mile. Due to trail closure, we only did 450 of these stairs but were not spared the long uphill climb stretching for about 2,000 feet elevation gain. We survived Cardiac Hill, our hearts racing, beating harder than ever. We briefly experienced the bliss of arriving at the hilltop and seeing the Pacific Ocean, knowing the end was near, only to have Insult Hill sap the last of our energy. Yet we persevered and completed the hike earning the bragging rights.

I enjoy pushing my body, but apart from the physical aspect, hiking certainly strengthens my mental toughness. It puts me in touch with my own capabilities and vulnerabilities and helps me practice good habits such as paying attention, acting with intention, keeping things in perspective, and having a positive attitude. It is often my mental toughness and not my athletic prowess that gets me to the top of the mountain. And if I allow myself to listen, the trail can be a great teacher instilling valuable life lessons. Hiking Dipsea at temperatures topping 100 degree, when I wasn’t thinking about how hot it was or wondering if I’d actually make it to the end of the trail, I got to reflect upon the experience and the wisdom gained from it, which can be boiled down to the following 3 simple truths:

1. It’s all in our mind

There will always be that voice saying “I can’t.” But when we hear that voice we should pay no heed to it and trust that we can. Far too often we give up on our goals too easily, overcome by the magnitude of the effort required. On the trail, I learned that all I needed to do was to keep going putting one foot in front of the other. It is, however, important to slow down. There’s tremendous power in taking a breather. Sometimes it’s the only way to make it to the top.

2. It’s all about the company we keep

Great people make the journey more beautiful. My grandmother used to say that being with people is like trying on a new perfume. Whether you buy it or not, you receive the fragrance. We need to surround ourselves with good people who will see us through tough challenges. Even strong hikers can get tired. A little encouragement goes a long way. Camaraderie can be a source of great comfort knowing we are all in this together helping and cheering each other on.

3. It’s all the little moments that make a big adventure

Yes, the view at the top was beautiful, but it’s the special moments along the journey that I remember. It’s the moments of beauty and of pain, not the finish line, which have left me with some great memories. We are often too anxious to get to our destination forgetting that real learning is in the struggle and true beauty arises in walking the path and discovering unexpected treasures.

Hiking in the heat might not have been the best decision. Our little group encountered many challenges, but in the end, it was all worth it. The pain was only temporary, and the feeling of achievement will last forever.