Openness

Open­ness is an essen­tial con­di­tion of liv­ing well. To be open means to be recep­tive to new infor­ma­tion, ideas, and expe­ri­ences – to be gen­uine­ly sen­si­tive to the world around us, avail­able to what is new and fresh, unblocked by the fil­ters of past con­di­tion­ing. It means to rise out of the grooves of habit and addic­tions in think­ing and feel­ing to touch what is unex­pect­ed­ly present. In terms of human rela­tion­ships, open­ness is the qual­i­ty of inclu­sion and wel­com­ing that enables us to hear not only dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives, but total­ly dif­fer­ent ways of being. It enables us to con­vert con­flict into syn­er­gy, a tran­for­ma­tion essen­tial to true col­lab­o­ra­tion. Like explor­ers mov­ing from known roads into the wilder­ness, two peo­ple who become gen­uine­ly open to one anoth­er find them­selves cre­at­ing new paths of under­stand­ing. They may have to fight their way through many mis­un­der­stand­ings to find inno­v­a­tive con­nec­tions and rig­or­ous solu­tions. And in the process they each grow as individuals.

This jour­ney to reach one anoth­er across unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry requires first and fore­most a com­mit­ment to truth. The jour­ney can be alive and real only in pro­por­tion to the indi­vid­u­al­s’ will­ing­ness to take inter­per­son­al risks of dis­clo­sure. Only when there is a deci­sion to main­tain per­son­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, to be can­did, some­times even in grace­less ways, can open­ness help the explor­ers reach the high, com­mon ground, that place of extra­or­di­nary beau­ty in the rela­tion­ship that has been wait­ing for them. Espe­cial­ly when indi­vid­u­als start from iso­lat­ed, well-defend­ed ground, or when they face tra­vers­ing very deep, daunt­ing canyons of mis­trust — espe­cial­ly then telling the truth is what is most called for and care for self and one anoth­er become essen­tial sus­te­nance for the jour­ney. If then they also have the will to car­ry through, they can tru­ly find one anoth­er. They can meet.

Orga­ni­za­tions com­pli­cate our abil­i­ty to be open with one anoth­er and there­fore to gen­uine­ly meet one anoth­er. Dif­fer­ences in func­tion, pow­er, and stature over­lay nat­ur­al dif­fer­ences in back­ground, cul­ture, indi­vid­ual style, intel­li­gence, and tem­pera­ment. And so to lead, to improve, to change, to make a dif­fer­ence in the land­scape, the first ingre­di­ent of open­ness – espe­cial­ly in orga­ni­za­tions is the divine capac­i­ty to take the first risk, the leader’s risk. And fail­ing that, the sec­ond and third as well. How else could learn­ing hap­pen among peo­ple? When open­ness fails, lead­er­ship fails. And then war is engaged, whether between nations or two good peo­ple who love each oth­er, or a man­ag­er and employ­ee deal­ing defen­sive­ly with their ques­tions about one another’s performance.

It is pre­cise­ly because orga­ni­za­tions habit­u­al­ly under­val­ue true open­ness that they are so inept in build­ing cli­mates of inno­va­tion, adap­ta­tion, and respect. Peo­ple learn to address prob­lems polit­i­cal­ly. Most orga­ni­za­tions, groups, teams are high­ly avoidant of con­flict, and those that say they val­ue con­flict may just as eas­i­ly be in a state of denial. I think of an orga­ni­za­tion, young and aggres­sive and grow­ing by dou­ble dig­its, where the most expe­ri­enced long-term employ­ees com­mon­ly waxed elo­quent about the val­ues of the com­pa­ny, includ­ing the val­ue placed on fight­ing through con­flict­ing ideas, speak­ing one’s mind, and stand­ing up for per­son­al opin­ion. This was said to be the direct out­come of the cul­ture set by the company’s founder, who still ran the enter­prise on a day-to-day basis. This was also a place where in pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion these same good, long-term employ­ees decried the founder’s reck­less anger about any mis­take, where it was said he enjoyed the process of chew­ing out key employ­ees in front of oth­ers, and where after a good chew­ing out he would go back to his office, lay down on the couch and take a nap, so exhaust­ed he was from the tantrum.

This is not open­ness although it is often con­fused with it by those addict­ed to anger. Open­ness is a psy­cho­log­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al move­ment that is at once both vul­ner­a­ble and strong. It isn’t just show­ing emo­tion in the work­place, telling some­one else how bad he or she is. Rather it is the rev­e­la­tion of self in an effort to touch and to engage. It is not accus­ing. Open­ness is about the own­er­ship of per­son­al expe­ri­ence – which may at once feel both entire­ly pow­er­less and ful­ly present. Pow­er­less because the full impact of speak­ing is often unpre­dictable, and ful­ly present because with real open­ness a per­son takes respon­si­bil­i­ty for per­son­al feel­ings and truths. Open­ness is con­scious, but not con­trol­ling; aware, lis­ten­ing, divulging, explor­ing – and clar­i­fy­ing. It can and some­times must include an hon­est expres­sion of per­son­al or orga­ni­za­tion­al lim­its and bound­aries, espe­cial­ly when the lim­its have been vio­lat­ed. Open­ness includes stat­ing clear­ly what is unac­cept­able. But most of these bound­aries, which are often real­ly fortress­es against “bad behav­ior” of some kind, must also have a gate that can swing open, a win­dow to see from, and a room to the side for con­sid­er­a­tion and reflec­tion, a place whether some­thing new and unknown always has a chance to enter and make its case. Any fortress with­out a gate is real­ly just a prison in disguise.