Why what makes us different is actually what unites us....

Andrew Solomon’s are not the type of TED Talks to which I listen typically, or so I thought. Not to seem petty, but he has a rather idiosyncratic presentation style and a high-pitched voice that verges on the whiny from time to time … so when I first experienced his TEDMED Talk from 2013, I fully expected to move on quickly to another option. My first impression wasn’t a particularly positive one, so I decided to try a different program.

But, thankfully, I didn’t.

Why did I just share this story? What’s its meaning/what’s it really about?

It’s about practicing what I preach: it’s about being confronted with a comfort zone (read = a self-imposed limitation) and reacting to it in a perfectly normal way, that is, by giving in to the urge to stay within it. That’s right, I, too, struggle at times with certain forms of the experience of Diversity, even as I exhort us all to embrace it (via my writings in this medium and especially outside of it) in real life.

Except that, this time, I didn’t turn away from this moment of Difference and discomfort, and instead embraced it, and what followed was a uniquely enriching and transformative experience.

This, I believe, is a metaphor for us all: on the other side of our discomfort via the embrace of Difference lies the potential for a deeper, more uniquely resonant and fulfilling life.

Returning to Mr. Solomon’s TED Talk, it was an enthralling, illuminating and elevating experience … and it’s led me on a journey that has, to this point, proved singularly meaningful and enriching.

You see, his presentation, entitled “Love no matter what,” was a revelation and combined with one of his later talks, TED 2014’s “How the worst moments in our lives make us who we are,” proved to be a uniquely powerful testament to the grit and grace of Life to be found in its embrace … once we get beyond our comfort zones, that is.

In these two profound and moving talks, Mr. Solomon reflects on the meaning of identity, culture and Difference; on how we tend to treat people whom we perceive to be different; on how Difference can actually unite us; and on how forging meaning out of our differences can lead to supremely fulfilling lives. In other words, if we can overcome our natural tendency to recoil from Difference and instead learn to embrace it, we can learn to live best lives beyond our present imagining. And, being a self-described “student of adversity” and realist, he also unflinchingly but compellingly addresses the costs of our failure to do so.

For example, in exploring the world of the deaf, he had an epiphany about how members of this community see themselves: “We don’t lack hearing, we have membership in a culture.” Of course, it’s a culture that has formed around a form of Difference, one that typically can be quite alienating in the context of our broader (hearing) society. And yet, when the deaf learn to embrace this difference – which Mr. Solomon would argue reflects their achievement of the three levels of acceptance (i.e., self, family and social) – it can become a powerful “horizontal” (i.e., chosen) form of identity, one from which they don’t wish to be “cured.” Consider this: parents with hearing naturally tend to want to intervene on behalf of their children born without it, but deaf parents most often have a life experience that doesn’t characterize this difference in as daunting and negative a way (which means that it doesn’t necessarily need to be ‘corrected’).

Why does this matter? Because of the way we in society typically treat the Different or Other. Think about it: in this great country of ours, those who are different because of their gender (i.e., in a male-dominated society, women) have only had the right to vote for about a century; (the vast majority of) those who are different because of the color of their skin have only enjoyed this right for a little more than half of a century (though it has been under constant attack ever since); and those who are different because of their gender identity find themselves at present able to access more of the rights that the majority of citizens takes for granted, but they are still fighting for full acceptance and inclusion in our society. So, too, with those who immigrated to this country in the past generation or two. As Mr. Solomon notes, such “concessions confer only a little humanity where full humanity is due; … crumbs are not the same as a place at the table.”

Another compelling example that he explores is that of parents whose children are born with a variety of afflictions that, given their druthers, they would’ve preferred for them not to have. And yet, as they overcome the adversity that inevitably attaches to these realities, they find deep meaning in lives that are greatly affected by previously unwanted problems or challenges. So much so, in fact, that in his own case…

I was finally unconditionally grateful for a life I’d once have done anything to change.

What can we learn from this? Well, for starters, that if we truly want to live our best life, we must learn to embrace and celebrate Difference proactively and fully. And, because “ease makes less of an impression on us than struggle,” it behooves us to realize that…

you discover that it’s a nearly universal phenomenon. Ironically, it turns out, that it’s our differences, and our negotiation of difference, that unite us.

In other words, because we all struggle with something in life, it’s this mandatory grappling with idiosyncratic circumstances and challenges that actually makes us similar and thus able to relate to each other. So while your path and what you’ve had to deal with may be different than mine and my challenges, what we share and thus can learn from each other is the lessons from our struggles and the victories that’ve resulted.

If we’re smart, we’ll avoid what Mr. Solomon describes as “subtractive models of love” and instead focus on “additive ones” that will enable us to create and strengthen an “ecosphere of kindness.” Further, it behooves us to realize that…

people engage with the life they have and they don’t want to be cured or changed or eliminated. They want to be whoever it is that they’ve come to be.

Personalize this: how do you want to be treated?

As the person whom you’ve struggled valiantly throughout your life to become and now are or in a way that’s reflective of how others would prefer that you be?

Herein lies the challenge to living our best life: to be ever mindful to treat people as they want to be treated and not as we want to treat them, and, in so doing, to evidence the acceptance and respect that we claim for ourselves in forging meaning and identity in our own lives in how we approach others, especially the Different.

You see, the goal of the successful practice of Diversity isn’t tolerance; it’s acknowledgment and embrace, as these are what its complements of Equity, Inclusion and Belonging really are and, in fact, produce.

Extending this insight into our organizational lives and our leadership responsibilities therein, how good are you at accepting colleagues for who they are, at meeting them where they are and at leading them in a bespoke way that acknowledges and embraces their reality at this point in your shared journey?

This is what leadership excellence looks and feels like in the real world.

Contrast this to the startling findings from Prof. Kenji Yoshino’s research, especially his book Covering and his survey collaboration with Deloitte: it turns out that 61% of us mask who we truly are at work. Further, to acknowledge the realities of our corporate life, the extent of one’s masking is directly related to real and perceived differences: whereas a minority (45%) of straight white males mask themselves at work, over 60% of Asian and Latinx professionals do, as do two-thirds of women, 79% of African-Americans and 83% of members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Now let’s go back to your self-assessment of how open you are to Difference: how does it compare with the realities revealed above? Truth be told, two things are likely at play in what may be a meaningful (or even a yawning) gap between our (self-)perception and reality: first, we tend to be particularly generous in self-assessment, so chances are that you perceive yourself to be more open to Difference than you really are (that is, as you’re as experienced by Others); and, second, whatever your own openness and embrace of Difference, your organization’s level thereof is likely to be different (and, typically, lower).

So where do we go from here?

I’m often reminded of the lyrics of a song that I discovered during a challenging time in my relationship with a son who had learning differences. In a typical parental paradigm, I would create the rules and performance expectations and he would be expected to follow and meet (or exceed) them (as his unaffected siblings did), right? Except that that’s not how it works with children and young adults who are different: try as they might, in many if not most instances, they can’t simply follow the rules even if they want to … so it’s in such situations that we, as parents(/leaders), need to extend ourselves and go beyond the more comfortable and narrow senior-junior dynamic. It’s incumbent upon us to figure out where those in our care are, what they need and how we can deliver this in ways that are most accessible to them.

And when I failed at this, too often, in the earlier part of his educational career (when the extent of its challenges weren’t fully known, and, on my part, fully appreciated), he would look at me in a way that hurts my heart to this day: with the combination of disappointment, fear and pain because he couldn’t figure out how to please me. When I hear the words of James Morrison’s song Undiscovered, I’m reminded of these moments:

You think that I want to run and hide.

I’ll keep it all locked up inside, but I just want you to find me.

I’m not lost, I’m not lost, just undiscovered.

When we are alone, we're all the same as each other.

You see the look that’s on my face, you might think that I’m out of place.

I’m not lost, no, no, just undiscovered.

I’m not running, no, I’m not hiding.

If you dig a little deeper you will find me.

I’m embarrassed to admit it now, but it took me some time to realize that it was not my son’s job to meet my (arbitrary) expectations, but my job as a loving parent to help him discover his gifts and the approaches that enabled him to manifest them as well as he could at any given time. In other words, it was my job to find him, to meet him where he was and to help him get to where he wanted and needed to go (and not the other way around).

(In a professional context, isn’t this actually an apt description of excellent leadership?)

After a few years, I’m proud to report that I became a much better parent when I figured out that I had to stop trying to cure my son of his challenges and instead to embrace, help him find and then to celebrate and adapt successfully to them. This maturation on my part helped me to live my best life as a more effective (read = loving, nurturing and supportive) parent.

So I took it into my office and inculcated it as the guiding principle of my approach to the execution of my executive duties. In fairness, although my group was performing well – and, in fact, was one of the highest-performing such units in the company – I knew that we, individually and collectively, had yet to reach our full potential and that the reason for this was not that my people were lost/stuck, but that they were as yet undiscovered (by me and my leadership team) and therefore it was my/our duty to help them identify their gifts and manifest them fully.

Needless to say, this changed my leadership approach 180°: no longer were others answering to and serving me in my role as their chief executive, but I answered to and served them in fulfillment of my sacred responsibility to help them realize their own aspirations in their chosen profession. In sum, I moved from what I perceived to be an ‘enlightened’ command-and-control leader to an Inside-Out one: I realized that if I were going to achieve my goal of evolutionarily excellent organizational performance, it was incumbent upon me to invert the metaphorical pyramid and commit myself to helping them, individually and collectively, to achieve theirs.

And in practice, this meant - and means - accepting and embracing that others are Different; that it’s my responsibility to get to know them and to understand their gifts and then to help them develop effective approaches for manifesting these fully; and that my best life as a leader is all about pushing beyond my comfort zone to meet people where they are and help them get to where they want to go. In so doing, I create a culture in which Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging are ubiquitous and the norm rather than the exception. And isn’t this the kind of environment in which we, too, would like to live and work?

Ultimately, as Mr. Solomon suggests, it’s incumbent upon us to accept and embrace our Difference and, in so doing, to…

Forge meaning. Build identity. … And then invite the world to share your joy.

I wish you Godspeed in your efforts to leverage the universal experience of Difference to help yourself and those whom you serve/love to live our best lives both in and outside of the office.…

(Photo credits: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/908475; https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_love_no_matter_what?language=en; https://www.yourquote.in/akhil-sood-cik/quotes/million-things-may-divide-us-billion-may-unite-us-hence-only-z35e; https://www.passiton.com/inspirational-quotes/4406-our-similarities-bring-us-to-a-common-ground; https://textappeal.com/cultureshocks/insightful-quotes-about-culture/; https://medium.com/intercultural-mindset/28-quotes-that-will-level-up-your-intercultural-communication-skills-57790f649d97; https://medium.com/intercultural-mindset/28-quotes-that-will-level-up-your-intercultural-communication-skills-57790f649d97; https://textappeal.com/cultureshocks/insightful-quotes-about-culture/; https://kenjiyoshino.com/KY/covering/; https://ideas.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Intro-to-Diversity-and-Inclusion_Yoshino-Smith-2013.pdf; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undiscovered_(James_Morrison_album); https://www.success.com/15-quotes-to-inspire-you-to-reach-your-greatest-potential/; https://www.pinterest.com/pin/686376799432912289/; https://www.azquotes.com/author/450-Kofi_Annan)