Grounded Thinking VS Concrete Thinking

I’ve been told quite a number of times that I need to be more ‘concrete’ in my thinking, enough times to make me start to question what was wrong with the way I think and the way I bring about change and transformation.

So, I started reflecting on this whole concept of ‘concrete’. (You can listen to my musings in a podcast here, or keep reading, or both!)

Firstly, concrete is a man-made construct, a conglomerate of materials that form a solid, and there is strength there. I get it.

Conversations I’ve had with women around the world confirm what I have read in much of the research around how women are perceived in the way in which we often communicate. For example, that investors, banks, ‘funders’ who are investing in or supporting women entrepreneurs perceive them as lacking confidence and not being ‘concrete’ in their decisions and convictions.

But here’s what I’m thinking – the downside of concrete thinking is that you get stuck. It’s never going to move unless you bring in a jackhammer! Think about the pace of change right now, in technology, the development of AI, the ways in which we communicate and market our ideas. We are doing things today in ways we could not have even imagined 5 years ago.

Disruptors. Uber. Airbnb. Game changers.

If you are locked in concrete, you cannot move. You literally need a jackhammer to lift and shift to enable movement and change. Everything is slower.

There is no agility in concrete. 

There is little to no risk management in concrete thinking. We need to be able to respond quickly to changes, internally and externally, positive and negative.

My observation is this – women are generally very agile. We were created to move fast, to respond to ever-changing circumstances, from sudden sick children to elderly parents needing care. We have a wide periphery of vision which enables us to see and recognise that there are likely things that will get in the way, or have the potential to disrupt, whatever it is that we are planning.

This comes out in the way in which many women communicate, me included.

Sometimes it can appear as lacking conviction, as not being ‘concrete’, but what it is is ‘grounded’.

Being grounded is about being rooted, it’s a natural process that enables us to be firm and solid, but at the same time allows for movement and growth.

Personally, I’d prefer to be grounded than concrete any day. I can clearly commit to things, make decisions, I can determine what I believe an outcome could be, in business, in family, in community, but in doing so, I can recognise that there are a million moving parts, so many things that could disrupt, or could even add to the plan – the unforeseen can be positive, opportunities that we want to harness, collect, build on.

That means, for me, I may be a little hesitant to commit to something because I am thinking through all the knock-on effects, the other things that I have going on that may impact on this decision. I am less likely to make a promise about something unless I am certain I can move things around, duck and weave, or bring in the resources required to deliver.

In business, in government, in family and in community, we need to be flexible enough to respond to those things, to embrace the shifts and changes. That could be the people on your team moving on, new technology, changes in legislation, new ways we have to do things, new ways we could do things – this is happening on a daily basis.

When you are grounded you have the capacity to be agile, not only to respond but to also perceive what could be around the corner, to know 100% that there will be things that will pull you off track. If you don’t have a buffer, if you don’t create space for growth and change, for movement, knowing there will be people who need to be taken care of, creating room for compassion, for understanding, for kindness, for nurturing, then frankly, you are not being real.

This is why we need balance. We need more women on boards, on leadership teams, and not just women, but diversity of thinking. People who can see what you can’t see and help navigate better, more inclusive pathways to achieve the desired outcome.

We can’t just have concrete. We’ve had that for so long, and we are seeing and living out the effects of that incorporates, in governments. We are experiencing the fallout that concrete thinking creates – and as I said, you need a jackhammer, or an explosion to break that up (aka #MeToo, Royal Commissions into Institutional Abuse, or Misconduct in the Banking Sector in Australia, historical uprisings, protesting…).

If we want a smoother ride, if we want to avoid the inevitable crisis, we need more grounded thinking, more real, more agile. Balance.

We need that around the Board table, in leadership, in communities, and in the home.

Sources

Permission – Vanessa Hall – Trust & Transform