When I told colleagues that I was off to see a woman who believes we should be more vulnerable at work, they all said the same thing: what a stupid idea. Vulnerability means opening yourself to hurt. And as hurt is something that hurts, opening yourself to it is something best avoided.
Yet Brené Brown does not think so. She thinks vulnerability is the key to everything of value at work – creativity, courage, connection. She also thinks it’s in short supply: 90 per cent of the corporate leaders she has met don’t have it. And that, in her book, doesn’t make them strong. To risk getting hurt is brave. To act invulnerable is not.
For nearly 10 years, Ms Brown had been quietly studying vulnerability as a research professor of the University of Houston, giving talks with titles such as “Variables Predicting Self Conscious Affect”. Hardly surprisingly, no one took much notice.