Speed and Grace

“But it is possible to build the emotional and behavioral muscles that allow us to respond to human error with speed and grace.” - Amy Edmonson, Right Kind of Wrong

You know those team building exercises where you’re put in a group and you have to get a ball from one side of the room to the other using popsicle sticks etc? A team I was on had one once, intended to support cross-level relationship building. Everyone was put into groups and got started. In the middle of the process, someone got flustered, as happens, and fumbled the prop. Most of the group thought nothing of it. The team lead was immediately rattled, and, raising their voice, began barking instructions at the group so that we would complete the exercise first, or in their words, ”win.” The trainer didn’t engage in the situation, and missed the opportunity to reinforce that the objective wasn’t so much to complete the process as it was to practice cohesion and mutual support. Of course there are times when urgency and criticality necessitate leadership to act with immediacy and authoritatively. A low stakes teambuilding exercise intended to build trust with a sizeable number of new team members? Not it. But that reactive response was the “muscle” that was primed in that environment. 

I know that this experience wasn’t unusual. How many of us have experienced patterns in leadership–or rather, patterns from leadership–that instead of promoting psychological safety, innovation and growth, stifle each element through distrust, fear, and disengagement?  

I come back to Right Kind of Wrong periodically, and this closing line in chapter four  jumps out at me each time I revisit the book because of how Edmonson pairs speed and grace. Speed is often necessary in the world we live in today. Handling the responsibilities and pressures of leadership can make it unavoidable. Grace, however, is also increasingly essential for folks who want to do it better. Leaders who want to be more than reactive must build the muscles for grace. To be responsive in the moment, and proactive moving forward, transformative leaders must be able to pair both speed and grace in their dealings with human error. Leaders who undervalue the relational aspect of their work by focusing on the former at the expense of the latter risk undermining their own potential, and that of their business.