No one is their most brilliant sitting perfectly straight and using the words, “leverage strategic capabilities.”
Work is often performative. No one really knows what they’re doing (at least not all the time), and, therefore, we’ve created symbols of professionalism to telegraph our competence. We wear suits so we look like what the business world tells us “professionals” look like. We use jargon to obscure our lack of clear and original thinking. And we create work that looks like every deck that’s come before us.
Some might argue that formality in business is a sign of respect, a way of saying, “I’ve prepared for you.” But somehow, we’ve conflated preparing our appearance with preparing high-quality work. When we think of a professional, we often imagine a well-groomed, well-dressed person.
But why should work be a costume party? Grooming holds no bearing on that person’s quality of thought. Imagine if someone told Einstein, “Comb your hair! You look unprofessional!”
None of it is necessary. General relativity didn’t care about hairstyles, and neither does your business.
Valuing performative professionalism also hurts employee confidence. Employees often don’t feel complete in their business attire without their business masks—that way of showing up that is seen as palatable, presentable, and in line with the dominant business culture. It leaves us feeling we need to dim our humanity and individuality, and in doing so, we also dim our creativity and unique perspective.
Consider these quotes from employees at one client: “We have a great culture if you know how to fill in the prescription. If you’re on the outside, it’s hard. People do not invest in them.” And, “The feedback was focused on delivery, not content. We’ve gotten better but have work to do around embracing people, their styles.”
This dimming also shows up in employee work. It’s a desire to regress to the mean. But do we want the mean? Do we want the feedback on our work to be “Not bad” or are we shooting for “It was brilliant!”? If our business benefits from bravery (certainly our careers do), are we creating the conditions where it’s safe and rewarded to be brave? If that’s what we want, we need to signal that humanity, self-expression, and creativity are valued—even over palatability.
4 Strategies to Try
To deprofessionalize your organization, consider these strategies:
- Start with hello. In any meeting or training, it’s tempting to get right down to business. In fact, many facilitators worry they’ll be seen as “wasting time” if they start with an icebreaker or a bit of camaraderie. However, there are ample benefits to starting with a simple check-in. Ask participants to show on one hand how they are doing, on a scale from one to five fingers. Then, in about 30 seconds each, ask each person to share. Responses can range from “I’m a 2 because I’m nervous about this meeting later today” to “I’m a 4 because we got a puppy and it’s been really fun, but also he’s keeping me up all night so I’m not a full 5.” Even a short moment of humanity upfront can go a long way toward building employees’ confidence that they can share their thoughts honestly and be affirmed for it.
- Model humanity. As norms of culture often are sourced from power, it’s important how leaders model their own humanity in the workplace. This can look like showing up to a meeting with wet hair because you exercised that morning, took a quick shower, and then jumped on a call. After all, our brains work whether our hair is wet or dry! Or this can look like folding your legs up in a chair to get comfortable versus sitting with perfect posture. It also could mean eating during meetings on busy days, because no one should sacrifice their nutrition out of professionalism.
- Talk like a human. Jargon is useful in some contexts because it allows quick communication about complex industry ideas. But more often, it’s performative word slop. It’s a way of making our thoughts seem fancier than they are, but often jargon is seen as a sign of insecurity, not intelligence. Consider a strategy that reads, “Our Q3 strategy is to leverage critical business insights and double-down on strategic capabilities and to propel market share growth.” What? The strategy is no more than, “Use what we’ve learned and do what we’re good at,” which is what every business everywhere should be doing every day. The more we can model and encourage others to lose the business-speak, the more clarity, humanity, and bravery we’ll grow in our business. As a team, review your materials and see if you can replace any jargon with more direct language. For example, instead of saying, “leverage,” say, “use.” Instead of “action item summary,” say, “what we’ll do next week.” Instead of “human resources,” simply say, “people”!
- Humanize your space. The context of our surroundings often impacts how we feel we need to show up. We’re used to seeing paper, pens, and perhaps bottles of water at each seat in a workshop. And, certainly, people need to write and drink! But those kinds of purely functional tools alone also communicate that this is a place for efficient and serious thought. For a session in which we want to encourage energy, connection, and aha! moments, consider how you might change the place setting to invite more humanity. You might include a fidget toy or a gel pen. Perhaps little bottles of juice labeled “Creativity!” and “Vision!” or perhaps there’s a folded fortune teller that participants can use with a neighbor that includes questions on the topic at hand.
As with all things in company culture, shifts are made day by day. One person with wet hair.
Another person swearing because they’re so excited about a new idea. A third making a brilliant point while sitting cross-legged. They’re small cues that tell us, “I don’t have to pretend here. I can show up as my best self.”
