Matt [00:00:02]:

What companies are succeeding and what companies are struggling. A big part of that is how uncomfortable their people are willing and able to be. We live in an uncomfortable world. In peacetime, it's better to do nothing and make a mistake. And more time, it's better to make a mistake than do nothing. We think it might display some jobs and that's going to create a lot of fear and discomfort where it's a high level of stress, but it's actually positive for us. It's forcing us to engage, it's forcing us, and it's actually driving more performance. So as a manager, you need to ask yourself, are you comfortable pushing people? Is my team comfortable being uncomfortable? Hello and welcome to the Leadership Launchpad, where we talk about actionable insights for leaders in aerospace, manufacturing, defense and the rest of the hard tech ecosystem.

Matt [00:00:56]:

My name is Matt Gjertsen, hosted this podcast and founder of bilt, where we are training the next generation of hard tech leaders how to build teams capable of solving the world's hardest problems. For this month's solo episode, I wanted to walk through something that I've been thinking a lot about lately, and that is being uncomfortable. Or rather the ability to be comfortable being uncomfortable. As far as I can tell, when it comes to what companies are succeeding and what companies are struggling, a big part of that is how uncomfortable their people are willing and able to be. So I want to spend a few minutes riffing on this idea with you. As always, please make sure you subscribe to the show and share with anyone you think would find this helpful. If you need support developing the managers in your organization, don't hesitate to reach out to Launchpad and@built leaders.com so let's dive in. I think obviously we need to start the discussion with what do I mean when I say uncomfortable? And in order to define how I have this in my brain, I want to bring up two other terms of distress and eustress.

Matt [00:02:06]:

So there's a level of stress that you can be under at any given time, any situation. There's a level of stress that you're under, whether it's biologically, psychologically. If the stress is really low, then we kind of become disengaged, right? We start to break down. We're not peak performance, we get bored. We're just not really doing anything. And then as the level of stress raises, our attention has to come in onto the situation more and more to the point where we reach this peak level of eustress, where it's a high level of stress, but it's actually positive for us because it's forcing us to engage, it's forcing us to focus, and it's actually driving more performance. Whereas if you continue past that eustress into distress, if the stress level continues to raise, now, all of a sudden it starts to become destructive to you. To give better examples, let's break this down kind of first biologically and then psychologically, so on.

Matt [00:02:57]:

On a biological level, right? We all know that our body responds to stress. Biological creatures, all the way down to the cellular level, they're naturally lazy, right? Because we were, we evolved in a era of scarce resources and scarce energy. Your cells don't know that you're going to have a meal tomorrow. And so your cells are designed to do as little work as possible at all times. Something like building muscle takes a lot of energy. And so the only reason, the only reason your body is going to build more muscle is if you put it under stress to convince it that it needs more muscle in order to survive. And so when you're lifting weights, the right amount of weight to lift is to the point where you're just starting to tear the muscles a little bit, and so they rebuild stronger. And then obviously, if you continue past that into the distress realm, well, then you can tear ligaments, you can break bones, right? So at a biological level, there's a very clear difference between this, this idea of discomfort, distress and eustress, like you're pushing you forward.

Matt [00:04:00]:

And so athletes that continue to develop themselves, they're constantly raising their capacity for discomfort as they're training so they can lift more weight, so they can run faster, so they can run farther. That's the whole point of training is to intentionally put yourself into the right level of discomfort so that you can get better without going too far and breaking things. So that's an easy way to understand it. Biologically, psychologically. It's actually, in my opinion, really, really similar because there's a certain level of stress that allows you to focus. And then there's a level of stress that kind of breaks people down and can mean you get post traumatic stress disorder or something. If you look at it, it's actually really interesting where when they look at people in the military and the people who actually suffer post traumatic stress disorder, it's much more likely that you're going to suffer ptsd. If you are rear echelon support person, you know, you're on base, you're not going off base at all, and.

Matt [00:04:59]:

And that base gets bombed. Like, that's. Those are the people who are Most likely to get PTSD versus the people who are actually out in the field. You know, the Navy seals, the people who are the ones actually bringing the fight to the enemy, the people who are out on the front lines, they're the ones who are seeing much more stress, probably, but they have the capacity to handle that stress, to handle that discomfort. There's a number of reasons for that, but one of them is because they've been trained. Our body responds to stress just like it does biologically. It happens psychologically the same way where we're exposed to a situation and we mentally figure out how to prepare for it and we can handle it, and so we can move forward. And so the high performers in the military, they're going to be ones who've had the most exposure to stress.

Matt [00:05:45]:

So they're the ones who are most able to handle that stress. And so they're able to go into situations which are much more uncomfortable than the kinds of situations that other people, that people back on base are seen, yet they know how to handle it. They can sit in that discomfort. In fact, they might not even realize that it is uncomfortable anymore. So that's what I mean when I say being uncomfortable. This idea of distress versus eustress and being able to sit in a state that is pushing your performance without breaking you down. How does this manifest itself inside of an organization? Well, there's two different ways that that this can manifest itself. One is for employees, and the other one is for managers and an employee.

Matt [00:06:27]:

You might ask yourself, if you're an employee, you might ask these. You ask yourself these questions of, you know, can I take direct feedback if somebody comes to me and says I'm not doing my job well, or somebody says that you need to fix this thing, Do I take it really personally? Do I have to spend a lot of time? I mean, I would say that most people. Probably the first time your boss comes to you and says you really messed this up, it can be pretty hard. Even if you've gotten feedback for a long time and you're good at giving, receiving feedback, it still hurts. But kind of the question is maybe how long does it hurt? Right? Is it five seconds and you're like, okay, let me go get better? Or do you have to ruminate on it for days before you can accept the feedback? Right. So are you able to take direct feedback? That's a version of the ability to be uncomfortable. Another version might be simply taking responsibility and accountability. I think one of the things that happens a lot in the world today is you See a lot of committees being formed, a lot of panels, a lot of, oh, let me check with five people for approval of this thing.

Matt [00:07:36]:

All of those things are ways that you like, spread out accountability. Whereas if you look back into history at some of the most highly performing projects or organizations, it was all about accountability, saying, you, you are responsible. In fact, really interesting anecdote. When I first joined SpaceX, I remember it was right after they had received an audit from the US Air Force because they were still trying to get their certification from the US Air Force to launch Air Force payloads. And there was a line from the audit which said, SpaceX relies on individual excellence of their employees versus tried and true procedures in order to make sure things happen. And of course we want to develop procedures. But I think there was this difference in the kind of world that they were living in. Whereas in the military, and I, I think this is true generally, the military and other large bureaucracies, they create systems to hold the system accountable versus the individual.

Matt [00:08:36]:

If the individual follows the system and gets a bad result, well, it's the system's fault, not the individual's fault. And so it's a way of pulling accountability away from the person, which I think generally most people want. They don't want that accountability because they know there is that, that check or they know there is that chance that if they take accountability and then don't succeed, well, then you know it's going to look bad on them. So I say all that to say, like, there are plenty of people out there say that the normal response for people is to go to places where they're not going to have that kind of accountability versus the people at a lot of startups that know they went to a startup because they want that accountability. Another example for an employee would be how much can you be pushed, right? If your boss comes to you and says, hey, I know I said I needed this by the end of the week, I actually need it by the end of the day. Does that send you into a frenzy of, you know, you spiral out of control, you don't know what to do? Or are you able to say, okay, new situation, let's reprioritize, let's go? Right? So at an employee level, those are just three examples of your ability to take on uncomfortable situations. And you can probably see for whether it's in yourself or in the people that you work with. You can probably imagine different people being able to, you know, some people, I can give them direct feedback once a week, but not every day versus this person, I can give them direct feedback all the time, and they just accept it and it's great.

Matt [00:09:57]:

Or this person's trying to avoid accountability versus this person's trying to accept accountability. You can probably imagine people that you work with who are on different spectrums of that. So that's on the employee side, but also on the manager side. There's a level of this where you can take all of those questions and flip them and say, are you comfortable giving people direct feedback? Are you comfortable holding people accountable? Are you comfortable pushing people? Because human beings are amazing. We have these things in our brains called mirror neurons, where when we see somebody else experiencing an emotion or doing a thing, we kind of experience it as well. And so there's this kind of feedback loop where if we have critical feedback that we want to give somebody, one of the reasons why it's hard for us to give them is because we're anticipating how they're going to react to it. And we're feeling that fear, we're feeling that reaction, and that keeps us from doing it. And so as a manager, you need to ask yourself, okay, so how much discomfort can I go through? Right? And it's really interesting because I think if you look at a lot of leaders, you know, if you look at some of the leaders today, people like Elon Musk or Travis Kalanick, one of the reasons that they are so successful is because they are willing and able to push people through this discomfort.

Matt [00:11:15]:

Now, that can obviously go too far and lead people to leave, but clearly that pushing people is an important element of being successful. Why does this matter today? Why do I want to bring this up? Why do I think this is so important? I think this is one of the most critical topics today because everyone is uncomfortable. We live in an uncomfortable world for a lot of reasons. You know, I think we. I've maybe you may have heard this before. I've been using this phrase a lot. The idea between. Is the difference between, you know, peacetime and wartime, where in.

Matt [00:11:51]:

In peacetime, it's better to do nothing than make a mistake. In wartime, it's better to make a mistake than do nothing. We live in a time where. Where things are changing so quickly, it's really important that we keep up with them. And so, like, let's just use the example of something like AI. AI is this thing that's out there that's obviously going to make a lot of changes in the world. And you can imagine two different ways that a company could approach this, right? It. Change is uncomfortable.

Matt [00:12:21]:

It just is going to be. But you can imagine a world where the leadership of an organization is saying, hey, we need to roll out AI into our company. We think it might affect some people, we think it might display some jobs. We need to see what we can do with it. And that's going to create a lot of fear and discomfort and it's going to go beyond the threshold of eustress into distress because people start worrying for their jobs versus a company says, hey, we need to institute AI because it's going to increase the amount of impact that we can have on the world. It's going to allow us to serve our custom is better. It's going to allow us to expand our reach and do things that we've never imagined before. Obviously that's a better world.

Matt [00:13:03]:

It's a world that doesn't talk about, hey, we're going to take away jobs. It's a world where we're not going to decrease headcount. It's a world that encourages people to explore and expand in is likely more in that eustress world. Right? But the point being we live in a world where there's just so much change, it's highly likely that everyone is uncomfortable. So if you are a leader, you need to be thinking about what can I do to allow my people to be in this eustress zone versus this distress zone. That's going to allow them to be comfortable being uncomfortable so that they can actually grow that because that's what we need. And so there's obviously a lot of things that you can do. I think again, going back to my time at SpaceX and other companies, one of the reasons that a lot of these organizations are able, a lot of startups are able to bring in people that can handle a lot of stress is because of this like amazing, giant, compelling mission or this idea of a big payout when they sell the company or whatever it is that's going to lead people to a lot of ability to handle stress.

Matt [00:14:08]:

But if you're an individual manager, you can't control that. And so what can you do? What can the individual manager do within the organization? To me it all comes back to the principles of being a minimum VAWA manager. In my book that's coming out, the first principle is building trust, right? You need to create, figure out how within your team. And the book has a couple examples of ways that you can do this. I talk a lot about different techniques that you can use, but you need to figure out how you're going to create a space on Your team, where people feel connected, they have trust with one another, or they feel that this is a space that they can grow. You know, it's like that idea, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. With everything changing, we have a long, a lot of stuff to get through, a lot of work to do. And the best way to do that, best way to encourage people to do that is to do it together, right? And so building those connections on your team is one of the most important things you can do to kind of raise the level of discomfort that people are willing to accept.

Matt [00:15:13]:

That's the first thing. And the second thing I would say is thinking back to the examples of, you know, the psychological distress or the biological distress. It's all about small changes, right? It's all about small tweaks, small exposures. So if you're a manager who has never given feedback before, never given direct feedback before, you know, it's a problem, don't immediately hold yourself accountable to doing it every day or five times a day or whatever. Say, like, I'm gonna out twice this week, I want to make sure I. I give this feedback, you know, and then three times a week, and then four times a week and then every day, right? You slowly get into it. So whether it's giving feedback, whether it's holding people accountable, whether it's pushing people to go faster, I think what you, if, if you are a manager who's new to this, then you need to ease yourself into it. If you think you are good at this because you've done it at a past company, but your team isn't used to being held accountable in that way, or your team isn't used to receiving feedback in that way, then you need to lead them into it as well, right? It's those small changes.

Matt [00:16:17]:

Because just like we said, this zone of distress and eustress, where that line is, changes if you practice, it changes with exposure. And so slowly over time, that exposure is going to allow you to create a team that can handle these high levels of discomfort. And that is how you prepare them to move forward. And so like I said, in summary, like, I really believe that the ability to be uncomfortable is really important in the world today. It is the difference that I see in companies are succeeding companies that aren't. Why those different companies have those different levels is always going to be different. Why different teams have different levels of discomfort that they can take is always going to be different. But for you as a manager, the M.O.

Matt [00:17:00]:

you need to be thinking about this, of course. Is my team comfortable being uncomfortable? Am I comfortable making them uncomfortable? And whatever that gap is there, whatever the answer to that question is, you need to think about how you can raise that level of discomfort that people are going to take, because that is what is going to lead to higher performance, especially in such an uncomfortable world. I hope you found that helpful. I look forward to seeing you next time on the Leadership Lunch Pad.