Being Vulnerable

I may have discussed this topic before but new interest keeps bubbling to the surface. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, ‘being vulnerable’ means intentionally living on the edge of our comfort in order to gain insight. That insight helps us to live more vitally. We see things clearly, perceive new ideas faster, build even newer ideas where before such was not possible.

We learn how to cooperate more – getting along with people we normally wouldn’t – and even gain skills on collaborating with others. Now collaboration, in my mind at least, is special. To truly collaborate with another person or group you have to trust deeply and share deeply. Together the group makes remarkable gains on invention, redesign, and repurpose. The process can be exhausting but the rewards are exciting and life-giving.

Collaborating with others requires us to give up ideas unshared before now. They are deeply held and private. Those ideas may be wrong, by the way; but collaboration will uncover that, AND rescue what is good and propel the idea toward marriage with other ideas that really work well together. New horizons come from this type of thinking and working together.

When a friend comes to us with a heartfelt problem, do we accept the role of confidante and truly help the person deal with their sorrow and angst? Or do we protect ourselves and buffer our way to safety? Where does that leave our friend? And what does this say about our own ability to deal with similar troubles in our own life? Do we go it alone or do we seek comfort and assistance from others we trust? Both sides of this relationship are engaged in each other if vulnerability is embraced. Both persons gain knowledge they can use well in other circumstances. To learn this and gain skills doing it requires us to be vulnerable. We can be easily hurt if someone turns the tables on us but the opposite is more likely as trust is committed to by both parties. Too much to give up if the opportunity is avoided, and much to gain if the transaction is completed.

Other than interpersonal issues, where can we employ vulnerability to advantage? Well, let’s consider a few opportunities.

First would be international relations and peace building. I suspect diplomats manage vulnerability if progress is made between nations. Of course the progress is slow; these are delicate matters and trust is often frayed or non-existent. Building trust between two nations, however, requires both to be vulnerable to one another and willing to share problems to gain comfort and mutual strength. Recycling these efforts many times builds a platform of trust upon which we can rely on help in trying times in the future.

Second would be academic research and breakthrough discoveries. Such results provide moments of advancement in medicine, pharmaceuticals, engineering, and science. Collaborative research among and between dissimilar academic disciplines have garnered huge breakthroughs in medicine and engineering. Huge breakthroughs. Being vulnerable allows trust to build which in turn allows collaboration.

Third would be governance and management of government programs. Governing nations, states, counties and municipalities requires the electorate to vote into office people they trust. Those same people work with others also elected to make decisions on shared goals and objectives. The people provide this to happen. Making something good from that partnership is mandated. But first they have to trust one another enough to work slowly forward through the issues. Not an easy task, especially in today’s environment of distrust – even hate – in which gridlock of governing bodies is common.

I heard a presidential candidate the other night bemoan mismanagement of the federal government. Rather than delivering that complaint at the feet of one politician, however, it really is a broadside critique of the entire governance structure. Congress has failed to manage its end of responsibility; so too the Judiciary; and the Executive while we are at it. But remember each branch of the federal government requires reliance on the other branches. If fundamental resources are withheld then the partnership falters and results fail. Congress must provide meaningful oversight, not control. Congress must also provide budgetary resources to pay reasonable costs to operate programs. Insufficient funding? Then program results will fail. Immigration management cannot possibly be done well with insufficient staff and agency reach? Education programs will never fully succeed if trust is lacking in the first place and programs are ill designed intentionally and funded poorly. These are ways of ‘vetoing’ what others have supported. More of that goes on in Congress than in the White House.

The real issue is examining the central issue of governance or minimal governance. They are not mutually exclusive but can be managed toward the same end.

I hope that if our elected officials are willing to be vulnerable we can work toward better results for the good of the people. If one group feels that government should be restricted to a minor role while another group feels the opposite, both should still be able to work together to do the work of the people. That never goes away. The work remains to be done. Those unwilling to do so should be replaced until cooperation is restored and governance proceeds. Big or little can be solved another day but in the meantime vital work still needs to be done.

Vulnerability requires us to faithfully explore what we can do together that we cannot do alone. When can we expect this new generation of leaders to appear on the scene?

January 15, 2016