The more and more I experience of this thing we call life, the more I’ve come to realise that most of us are truly terrible at being open. Half of the time, we can’t even be open and honest with ourselves so how are we supposed to lay everything bare to other people?
It’s about being okay with vulnerability and this instagram world has influenced us to be more terrified than ever of showing imperfection. But why? Why are we so scared of it? Some of the greatest comedians who have ever graced the stage became great because of their self-deprecating humour. They tear themselves apart on stage and we laugh hysterically because we can relate. The jokes are so funny because we’ve all experienced an identical event or thought process and we feel connected.
That leads me into business and our ‘workplace personalities’. I saw a brilliant Ted Talk recently by an engineer called Simone Giertz. My takeaway from it was to bin all inhibitions about failing and stop taking ourselves so seriously, immediately. Many of us, myself certainly included, have forgotten to really create and innovate because we’re so tied up with achieving our goals and ultimately success. Simone stood on stage and made the entire audience feel instantly at ease because she was able to be open about her failures and joke about them.
The fact is, once we can drop those inhibitions, it’s like dropping a military grade 70lb rucksack. We suddenly become so much more agile. You create, you fail, you laugh about it and you learn the lessons that came with that failure. A much quicker process than obsessing over the outcomes and often not even having the confidence to push the boat out and finding out whether you’ve been successful or not.
I sit here writing this at midnight as I slave over the planning of a new start-up. One that society may not be ready for and requires new systems, models etc. Every true entrepreneur believes they’ll be one of the success stories in the world of business and if any deny that, they’re lying. That means that to start the journey of creating a business with full intentions of failing, well it’s incomprehensible. It goes against every fibre of our being, yet is likely to be your greatest tool. The tool of being able to pivot.
The ‘Pivot’ is a recurring theme for me. I’m a sustainability consultant for my own agency Sunda. We work exclusively with small and medium businesses and I push that exclusivity because smaller companies excite me; mainly due to their agility. They’re small, lightweight and far more able to pivot; they’re also far more closely connected to their customers. This to me means they’re perfect candidates for experimentation and gaining data from the customers, exactly what we need to make real progress towards our Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and significantly reducing global emissions.
Some of the biggest responses I’ve ever received have come from being open and honest. That could be “that our product is not what we want it to be right now, here’s why?”, or “I don’t know how to advise you on that (Despite being a consultant), and I’m not willing to give you poor advise for the sake of maintaining face, so leave it with me and I’ll find someone who can really help”. The fact is, all of the times I’ve had to open up have felt right and wrong in equal measure. My brain automatically opts for defensive mode. What if other companies see this? I don’t want to show them our cracks. What if our customers lose faith in us as a company? The conflicting side of me is the heart. It feels right and just like the comedian can emotionally connect with their audience through self-deprecating humour; you can become emotionally connected with your customers, and gain trust, through laying your faults on the table and being solution focused.
I think a hidden caveat exists within transparency in business. People crave knowledge; especially the secret knowledge that you’re never taught in schools. That information you only learn through stepping into the fire. From a marketing perspective, despite the highlights/perfection from instagram, there’s been no better time to open up. Myself, along with millions of other people are visiting Medium, LinkedIn, Youtube etc. every single day to find that nugget of information or learn from other people, so as to move forward. Transparency is a HUGE marketing tool. Who knew?
So focusing on strategy…..Is it better to pivot when something isn’t working or to force your project forwards with your fingers crossed that everything will work out in the end? It’s just got to be the first. There’s been no better time to gain that trust from your customers and open up a conversation with them to improve your product. Too many entrepreneurs believe their own hype, they’re convinced they know the market, until they launch their startup and suddenly tumbleweed…..
Your customers are the market, and through being transparent and vulnerable with your company, will build their trust, loyalty and will likely bag you more market research and data than you can handle. Sahil Lavingia, founder of Gumroad, wrote a brilliant Medium article on his failures to build a billion dollar company. He also reached a point of failure whereby he decided to post monthly finances of Gumroad on his twitter; a proper ‘f*** it’ moment. The interesting outcome from that was that he gained more support, from customers and investors.
I strongly believe the future of business is going to be based around a few key elements. Resourcefulness, Collaboration and Transparency stand out for me and they’re all interlinked. I’d advise any business who want to become more sustainable to be transparent with their faults and to document their journey to becoming more resourceful. Content gold. Similarly, any company that is able to reach out to their competitors and ask for help will be the success stories of the next decade. That’s true vulnerability and transparency right there.
So I’ll wrap this up. Sahil Lavingia also admitted in his article that he started with the completely wrong intentions, to build a billion dollar company. What he should have aimed for was to provide as much value as humanly possible. People have a funny habit of building community around projects that exist for the right reasons; a sure fire way to communicate that is to open up a conversation and talk about your journey, ups and downs. Discuss it like its a scientific experiment. We’re all human, embrace that common ground.