The lessons of a broken computer

A few months into my first job, I had the opportunity to lead a remote team for Circuit City (now defunct) for upgrading their PoS system. They loaned us a pair of primitive computers, and gave us instructions on how to work them. The computers, which we called Tom and Jerry, were so antiquated and clunky they required a precise sequence of commands, typed correctly the first time on a featureless command prompt, to even boot. Other commands for their proprietary and temperamental operating system had to be similarly entered.

On the fateful day of this story, I had come to work early. None of my teammates had arrived yet, and I was at Tom's keyboard preparing for the day's work. I forget now exactly what I did, but the moment I entered a certain command, I heard a few plaintive beeps, the screen went blank, and the LEDs on Tom's control panel went out. A bit unnerved, I thought maybe the power cable to the unit had come loose. So I checked the connection, but that was all fine. I tried carefully typing the restart command sequence on the blank screen. Nothing happened. In mounting anxiety, I tried a hard reset, I whacked the box, I banged on the keyboard, first gently, then forcefully, but Tom refused to cooperate. And then it hit me like a thunderbolt.

My last command had caused Tom's system files to get deleted.

Tom was dead. We had lost all our data.

The first emotion I was conscious of feeling was horror. It was instantly replaced by terror. I, Rohit Mohan, project lead, had destroyed a computer belonging to a client! I had lost my team the data and programs we had built over weeks! I was going to be fired! I was going to have to pay money to replace that computer! I was going to be laughingstock! Imagination amplified my dread with visions of ever starker consequences. I could go to jail! What was I going to do? Surely, I couldn't accept making that big of a mistake! That would be fatal. And I was the team lead, darn it! Leaders don't accept mistakes, they power through them! No, I must deny everything... blame the machine... slink away before anyone came in... anything. But I wouldn't take the ridicule and judgments I was sure were coming only because of some ancient piece of metal.

I was vulnerable and scared, and my only thoughts were about protecting myself.

The quintessential human trait of vulnerability gets a bad rap. It's a trait that people, particularly men but also women, fight to keep hidden. Vulnerability is equated with weakness, and who wants anyone to see that? So we build walls of anonymity around us to hide behind, discouraging people from coming too close, afraid of being judged, wary of letting others see the real human behind the fa?ade. And when someone is able to see the real human behind the fa?ade, we get annoyed at our own lapse of vigilance. We make any amount of small talk, but hesitate to go deeper, neither making nor inviting conversations about the actual thoughts, dreams, fears, hopes or troubles that matter. (Small talk is a useful social construct, but if that's all you're ever doing...). Caution, we're taught, is how we must always interact with people, and we take that lesson to heart. Life then becomes a giant masquerade, where only the masks converse, not the humans. This is particularly true at work (how many people do you know at work about whom you can say you know what's going on in their lives, or what they care about?), but it can be equally as hard to open up to family and friends.

Contrary, however, to stereotype, in no way does vulnerability imply weakness. It takes remarkable self-assurance to allow someone to see your deepest thoughts, your darkest fears, or even your brightest hopes. Trusting someone enough to show your real human self, weaknesses and all, takes immense courage because it carries immense risk. To pitch a new idea in your organization, and risk ridicule; to profess to liking someone, and risk rejection; to tell your bosses they're wrong, and risk reprisal; to ask for forgiveness from someone you've hurt, and risk hurting them again; to tell your manager you broke a client's computer, and risk losing your job -- each of these makes you vulnerable, and each of these requires courage.

I wish I had such courage when I broke Tom. I was just sitting there, mortified at what I had done, when in walked my teammate Binu Thayamkery. He saw my face, and knew at once that something was wrong. "What happened?" he asked me. His arrival meant it was now too late to save myself, so, swallowing my pride, I told him all, even admitting that I was terrified I would be fired.

Whether it was because of his morning cigarette or because that's just how he is, Binu was quite calm, and he immediately offered to help me get Tom back on its feet by using the backup computer, Jerry. In my panic, I hadn't realized we still had a backup, and I was too scared and too distrustful of myself to work it even if I had. Binu booted Jerry up and reset Tom (by fiddling with some hardware switches I'd missed), and sat me down at Tom's keyboard. Then between the two of us, we carefully copied about five hundred files piecemeal from Jerry to Tom. Binu dictated each command and had me type it -- despite my apprehensions -- while he watched.

It took about two hours -- but at the end of that, Tom was up again, and my heart started to slow down. Soon everything was back to normal.

That was my first lesson, though I didn't understand it at the time, that in life, making mistakes, needing help, or just being scared doesn't always have to be hidden. It's very easy to close up when you're vulnerable or insecure, but there will always be people who will stand by you in times of crisis. Those are the people who matter.

If it's hard to be vulnerable in life, with people we know, who care for us, it's doubly so at work. Honesty is a very scary policy. When mistakes happen, as they inevitably do, we hide them instead of owning them. This is especially true for people in positions of authority, for whom admitting to mistakes is tantamount to admission of failure. How many people do you know who will stand up and announce to their superiors that they messed up? How many companies do you know who will publicly admit their failings?

Thankfully, progressive organizations have now started to realize that people bring their whole selves to work, not only curated professional selves -- and that includes human traits in addition to the expected droid ones. They are recognizing that showing vulnerability can help build better teams, and that when bosses allow themselves to be human, people respond.

Vulnerability is coming out of the closet, and it is heartening that along with the yang of assertiveness and confidence, competitiveness and efficiency, the workplace is belatedly accepting the yin of emotional intelligence and empathy, vulnerability and human frailty.