Last Thoughts on Openness: A Summary of What I Have Learned

Open­ness is a psy­cho­log­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al move­ment that is at once vul­ner­a­ble and strong. It is not just show­ing emo­tion in the work­place or telling some­one else how bad he or she is. Rather it is the rev­e­la­tion of a per­son­al self in an effort to touch, con­nect with and engage anoth­er per­son. It is the oppo­site of accus­ing, which is based on judg­ing oth­ers and pro­tect­ing one­self through separation.

By com­par­i­son, open­ness is the truth­ful shar­ing and own­er­ship of per­son­al expe­ri­ence in a way that is also a direct expres­sion of care for the oth­er indi­vid­ual — it is not about minc­ing words, but not about being scathing either. It is the truth you tell because you hold — or want to hold — respect for anoth­er per­son. That inten­tion comes through: in face, in body lan­guage, in tone of voice as much or more than through the con­tent of what is said.

In addi­tion, open­ness is the will­ing­ness to gen­uine­ly hear and receive anoth­er’s truth so that togeth­er you can build a com­mon truth. This com­bi­na­tion of shar­ing and receiv­ing, this effort to tell the truth as a way to demon­strate real care for some­one else — these are the ways open­ness becomes the high road to human connection.

The risk of open­ness is that it caus­es a rela­tion­ship to be dam­aged or to fail. No mat­ter how gen­uine I am, there is always the pos­si­bil­i­ty that I will be mis­judged or sim­ply not heard. For many the stakes are just too high, the fall-out too grave. But, in fact, this is not the great­est or most pen­e­trat­ing risk asso­ci­at­ed with open­ness. The great­est risk is that open­ness will serve as a mir­ror. The act of becom­ing open in order to share and to receive brings me into real con­tact with myself.

It is not the open­ness, per se, that caus­es dam­age to the rela­tion­ship; it is the per­son who is revealed: me, my fail­ings, neg­a­tiv­i­ties, judg­ments, assump­tions and mis­as­sump­tions, all of which I must defend. I see my emo­tions, my frus­tra­tions, irri­ta­tions, angers, cyn­i­cism, faith­less­ness. I see my side of the sto­ry but I also begin to see how incom­plete it is and, recoil­ing, notice how much I have neglect­ed oth­ers’ real­i­ties. I hear their words and their beliefs and I do not under­stand them, and they hurt me, offend me, both­er me, and yet I also have to face the pos­si­bil­i­ty that they, too, con­tain a truth.

What a blow!

And yet with­out tak­ing that risk to be seen, by myself and oth­ers, I can nev­er ful­ly know who I am or tru­ly con­nect with those who sur­round me.

With­out self-knowl­edge and gen­uine con­nec­tion, rela­tion­ships at work can only go in one direc­tion. They can only become more polit­i­cal, pow­er-based, super­fi­cial and bureau­crat­ic. They can only focus on “the task,” with­out the every­day genius of cre­ativ­i­ty, con­text, mean­ing — and joy.

Not exact­ly the zone of real trust, true per­for­mance or productivity.

Lead­er­ship is the divine capa­bil­i­ty to take the first risk towards open­ness, and some­times the sec­ond and third as well, in the effort to con­nect and to do some­thing real and mean­ing­ful with oth­ers. With­out open­ness, col­lab­o­ra­tion — which is the art of being togeth­er pro­duc­tive­ly in groups, the essen­tial art of turn­ing con­flict into syn­er­gy — sim­ply can­not occur.