| When I needed to strengthen the connection with my stepdaughter, I didn’t regale her with my accomplishments. I told her an embarrassing story: I was an 8th grade cheerleader-in-training when I asked the entire team during a practice how to spell that strange word they kept shouting in their cheer: L-E-T-S-G-O! My stepdaughter and I laughed hysterically and instantly bonded.
When I need to build trust with mentees, I don’t brag about my achievements. I start with an embarrassing story: I was on stage to keynote a conference when I discovered that my shirt was inside out, and then my pants ripped… in the seat! We laugh and connect, and my mentees immediately feel safe.
And now all my cringe-worthy-story-sharing is backed by research!
A study done by the Kellogg School of Management shows that embarrassment can actually be a gateway to connection, creativity, and collaboration.
Participants in the study who shared embarrassing moments before a brainstorming session generated a larger number (26% more!) and a wider range (15% more categories!) of ideas than those who shared proud moments.
Proud-moment sharing is typically used to boost participant confidence at the beginning of meetings. Inadvertently, this approach causes people to edit their contributions later. Why? Because the resulting air of achievement ultimately suffocates those anything-less-than-brilliant ideas.
But when participants reveal an embarrassing anecdote, they shed their barrier of self-censorship, allowing community and creativity to thrive!
How?
- Embarrassment at the start alleviates the fear of embarrassment later
- Human stories are captivating, immediately engaging people in the meeting
- Identifying similar experiences helps people feel connected
- Being vulnerable increases communal empathy and trust
- Admitting blunders makes it safe for all to blunder while ideating and brainstorming
- Reflecting on our survival-from-embarrassing-moments reinforces our own resilience
If your Zoom/Teams/WebEx calls are getting a bit stale, experiment with an embarrassing-story swap to accelerate the connection, creativity, and collaboration!
As the late filmmaker Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally) often said, “Everything is copy.” |
