Reframing Our Mindsets and Getting Out of the Comfort Zone

You may recall my experience from ‘Giving Them an A’ about a leadership role I was offered in an area in which I had no experience. In that post, I spoke about the impact of trust, yet there was another, equally important lesson embedded in that situation about expanding comfort zones that I’d like to talk about here and it’s a topic partially inspired by you!

Your feedback from December’s poll was overwhelmingly clear – almost 50% of you agreed that to unlock innovation and embrace new possibilities in our work, we must first step outside our comfort zones.

Sometimes that’s easier said than done. After all, our brains are wired for comfort and in the professional world, which translates into things like being known for depth of knowledge or skill, being recognized as a dependable team player and/or having a high probability of success when taking on a project.

All positive attributes, but I would argue they’re missing a key ingredient – growth.??

At the time the role was offered to me, it would have been easy for me to say, “Thank you, but no thanks” but I saw the growth opportunity in front of me. That said, I’ll admit that it took me some time to manage the questions in my mind about whether I’d succeed and whether I could learn enough, quickly enough to be the effective leader my new boss already knew I could be.

In that situation, I could have quickly become overwhelmed – new company, new boss, new role in a new function, new people and if that wasn’t enough, I also had to move countries at the same time! I was faced with a choice. I could focus on all of the gaps and the hurdles in front of me, which would create a vicious downward spiral, or I could focus on the possibilities of how I could apply what I have in new and different ways, which would create a virtuous upward spiral.

Bet you can guess which direction I chose.

By choosing the virtuous upward spiral, I employed reframing, another concept within Benjamin and Roz Zander’s “The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life” that inspired me when I first heard Ben Zander speak, and it’s something I actively practice to this day. That’s why I want to devote my next few articles in this series to ideas and actions that can help us all get reoriented, widen our lenses and look for possibilities in the challenges that we face as we inspire a growth mindset in ourselves and our teams.

In my experience, growth occurs when we venture into new areas or seek alternate perspectives. My goal in this article is to reframe what it means to step out of your comfort zone and talk about the mindset that I believe helps us take that first step.

Interestingly, you will not hear me talk about courage anywhere in this article. While it’s certainly a topic to debate, I believe that when you’re told you need to be courageous or take a risk, it can make it harder and actually disincentivizes taking action for many people. That’s why I want to focus on the idea that to help ourselves do something that is uncomfortable like stepping outside our comfort zones, we need to reframe how we think about it to make it easier to do and I believe we do this through exploration and curiosity.

Exploration

I’ve often quoted a former mentor who advised that when given the option, to always take the more challenging path. This formative piece of advice, which I’ve followed throughout my career and often repeat, asks us to purposely put ourselves in a position of discomfort and sit in that discomfort while we’re learning. There is no better way to do that than by doing something that makes us nervous or even downright scares us. I recognize that not everyone responds positively to being challenged and sometimes, even when we like taking on a challenge, it can take a lot of energy, which may burn us out. To address this, I ask you to reframe it as exploring, rather than facing a challenge.

An executive coach once helped me to see that I was creating a lot of stress by viewing things as challenges and helped me pivot to exploring. This insight helped me to better manage my energy and reduce self-created stress. So, when faced with a new role or situation that takes you into unknown territory, instead of gearing up for battle to take on the challenge, think of it as packing a suitcase to go on a trip. You still prepare, plan and move forward, but do it in a way that makes it more palatable, creates positive energy and sparks curiosity. I look at it as an adventure to have rather than a challenge to overcome.

Curiosity

I provided a hint in the previous paragraph about curiosity. Often, when we are trying to innovate, we are faced with unknowns and uncertainties. This can cause feelings of anxiety and stress if we are only focused on performing in this environment. If, instead, we reframe to being curious, it gives us the freedom to ask questions and gain greater proficiency, which will deliver results in the end. There’s also an added bonus of bringing others along on the journey, which helps create more trust and inclusion among our teams.

?In my experience, curiosity is the key to unlocking a growth mindset.??

?Looking back on the new role I mentioned at the start of this post, as I prepared to take a giant leap into a whole world of unknowns, I got curious about how success was defined in this role, since it was different than the roles that I’d held up to that point. Then I got curious about understanding if there were any points of commonality with my past experiences and discovered a few.

?Using those commonalities as building blocks, I allowed my curiosity to identify where else I could create points of intersection or leverage. I knew I had to dive in deep, which meant acknowledging what I didn’t know, asking a lot of questions and listening to stakeholders, in addition to surrounding myself with a team of leaders from whom I could seek advice and expertise. Curiosity allowed me the space to build on my strengths to develop new competencies and bring innovation to my new role by integrating my “outsider” perspectives with the expertise of the team.

?How Psychological Safety Enables Reframing

?For reframing to truly work, it is essential for a culture of psychological safety to exist. I’m grateful that Takeda has a strong “speak up” culture, which encourages employees to raise their hands not only when they experience something that runs contrary to our values, but just as important, in everyday meetings and connections with one another to challenge assumptions and be innovative in their thinking. It is difficult to explore and be curious if our questions are dismissed or our insights are belittled – if this happens frequently, we learn to stay squarely in our comfort zones, which ultimately, doesn’t benefit anyone.

?As leaders, we set the tone and create the space for how fresh perspectives are welcomed, especially those that may not align with our own or even with the majority opinion. We can also lead by example when we demonstrate our willingness to experiment and try something new based on the information we have, knowing there’s always a chance it may not succeed. Hoping to cover failure in a future article! ?

?There’s a Steve Jobs quote that I like and a short summary of it is instead of doing it better, do it differently. While the context of that quote is in regard to competitors, I think it’s equally applicable here. Doing it differently by seeing it differently is exactly what reframing is about. Journeying out of our comfort zones may be daunting, but once we reframe it to exploring and being curious, I hope it becomes easier and opens up more possibilities than we may have even imagined.

I’d love to hear from you. Tell me about a time you went out of your comfort zone and what you learned? What advice would you give others?