I have always had the good fortune to be able to work in a creative and innovative context: at the pinnacle of photography, the advertising world of the eighties and with various creative communication firms. Right up to the present day, my work has always revolved around creativity. For my family it’s important too. In searching for a secondary school for my son, creativity is in our top three of criteria. Because I am fully convinced that every individual and every organisation needs creativity and innovation for self-development.
Yet, I struggle with a dilemma. It is exactly within this creative context that I often run into a sense of shame. Shame that is caused by thoughts like, ‘I’m not good enough,’ ‘why should they listen to me,’ ‘he’s better than me,’ ‘other people have a lot more experience,’ ‘I should keep my mouth shut,’ etc. I believe that everyone is at times tormented by these kinds of self- doubts. These thoughts are often stimulated by dominant colleagues, managers and/or bosses.
Peter Sheahan of ChangeLabs, an international consulting firm, which sets up and executes big behavioural change projects, has this to say about it:
‘Shame is, in a sneaky way, detrimental to innovation. Every time someone represses a new idea, you can be sure that shame is playing a role. It is that deep-rooted fear in all of us to be wrong, to be put down and to feel inferior, which keeps us from taking those risks that we need to take in order to help move ourselves and organizations forward.
If you want a creative and innovative culture, you must make sure to have teams that dare to make themselves vulnerable. And this is something that starts with managers having to learn this. The idea that the manager always has to be pulling all the strings and have an answer for everything is both outdated and backward, because it gives others a sense of being less knowledgeable and less worthy. And that is the best recipe for risk-avoidance. Shame leads to fear. Fear leads to risk-avoidance. And risk-avoidance is detrimental to innovation.’
What this all boils down to is that in order to show courage and be able to experience the power of vulnerability, we need to have a strong sense of self-worth. I’m calling out all leaders of organizations, educational institutions and families, to take a good look at themselves and see how they are stimulating creativity and innovation. And what kind of role shame and vulnerability are playing in this.
The renowned researcher and writer Brené Brown lends a helping hand. She has written a Leadership Manifesto about vulnerability, ‘Daring Greatly’. You can download it here. And for those who are not yet familiar with her work: the famous TED talk and her book about Vulnerability are also well worth the effort!
