Kittens
I am often asked, “Doesn’t public speaking make you nervous? Don’t you have sleepless nights or that bitter ball of anxiety in the pit of your stomach the night before a big pitch or the day before a presentation before an audience of 9,000 people?”
How honest are you with yourself about the things that stress you out? About the things that scare you?
No.
You know what makes me nervous?
Forms.
Paperwork.
Admin.
Dealing with bureaucracy and logistics that haven’t been triple-confirmed.
I am not being flippant here.
I got a letter from the council a few years back.
Erroneously.
And I knew that.
Because the two-bedroom flat David and I live in was not a Hong Kong holding-company-owned four-bedroom Airbnb.
But until we established it was a mistake and I needn’t worry or do something about it, I was a ball of nerves.
When I have to fill in a form or deal with any type of bureaucracy. When I have an event looming with details and logistics not triple-locked-in a month in advance. I experience anxiety. The constant bunched shoulders and acid taste in your mouth, gnawing teeth and waking up at 3am dreaming of computers you can’t unlock to get to the email that has the answer.
Everyone experiences anxiety. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. We just don’t experience anxiety over the same things.
My mum has a potentially lethal allergy to cat hair.
She is terrified at the sight of a kitten.
And with good reason.
A hair from its cute little ear could cause swelling that blocks blood flow to the affected area in minutes. You can imagine what can happen next if she’s not near a hospital.
Kittens are not objectively scary.
And that is the point.
To my boyfriend, dealing with our energy supplier is just life admin. Giving a presentation to his whole company, meanwhile, is something he will get nervous about for a day or two before the event. For me it’s the reverse. Neither of us is right. Neither of us is wrong. Kittens may not be scary, but they could kill my mother.
So, what is the lesson here?
How honest are you with yourself about the things that stress you out?
About the things that scare you?
About the things that freak you out?
About the things you’d rather would f**k off out of your life, off your calendar and away from your to-do list?
Do you manage your diary to allow for that at work? Do you manage your team to compensate for that? Do you align organisational imperatives to acknowledge that? Individually and collectively?
Because, you know, we live in an era where the whole civilisational paradigm is one of ‘push your boundaries and be on your learning journey, bro’… which is great.
But while you are on your learning journey… bro… an entire organisation is on your learning journey with you whether they like it or not. And your boss’. And their boss’. And I am going to go out on a limb here and say those journeys aint’ the same.
So, although pushing yourself outside your comfort zone is great, an organisation can’t do that without immense amounts of coordination. It needs to be intentional, orchestrated and calibrated for the fact that the thing that has caught the boss’ fancy, right now, or the thing that is collectively outside the comfort zone, may just be impossible for Clive and a piece of cake for Clarisse.
I’ve never struggled with speaking truth to power, but I am not great with Excel. I have never had trouble learning new things, but I lose my will to live when I need to itemise the items on my receipts to get paid for the business trip I was forced to take last quarter. That system, I would do anything to not have to use again.
And if you think I am comparing apples and oranges, stop. Because I am not.
No matter how senior you are, you are still a human with preferences and foibles and weaknesses and fears, irrational as they may be.
The things you are not good at don’t go away because you are now senior.
The things you are worried about or stressed about, irrationally or otherwise, don’t go away because you are now important. Contrary to all the memes on God’s green earth, you do not only get on in life when you confront your fears. You can do great without confronting any of them.
But if you are important and influential and the Big Boss Guy, the things that freak you out affect the rest of your organisation whether you like it or not. Whether you realise it or not.
Only they don’t know why.
And this is important.
The things you are not so good at. The things that scare you. They are the things that will always be left to last. They will always be approached with anger and trepidation.
And this is where you exclaim: “Well, I am only human, what else can I do?”
So glad you asked.
You can hire against your weaknesses as well as your strengths. Arguably to enhance those strengths they pay you the big bucks for.
You can allow yourself more time for the things you know you will hate doing.
Create structures of accountability that force you to get those done even if you are not the one doing them.
But above all, you have a choice.
My mum could die if a kitten touched her. So, she won’t touch a kitten.
But she chose to explain that in that way that shattered the invisible God-like parent image for the toddler version of me but didn’t leave me scared of kittens.
Because what’s the alternative?
Believing that kittens are dangerous and scary and figures of authority infallible and unassailable.
That is the alternative, by the way.
And it’s a terrible idea.
#LedaWrites
Leda Glyptis is FinTech Futures’ resident thought provocateur – she leads, writes on, lives and breathes transformation and digital disruption.
She is a recovering banker, lapsed academic and long-term resident of the banking ecosystem. She is chief client officer at 10x Future Technologies.
Leda is also a published author – her first book, Bankers Like Us: Dispatches from an Industry in Transition, is available to order here.
All opinions are her own. You can’t have them – but you are welcome to debate and comment!
Follow Leda on Twitter @LedaGlyptis and LinkedIn.
