reverse gravitas

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Today’s read time: 7 mins

There seems to be this pervasive notion, largely passed on by our society and culture, that says: how we need to be in business or at work is different than how we actually are in life.

One way in which this idea shows up - one that I struggle with mightily - is through taking everything in business or at work so damn seriously. It’s like we’re all ferociously grinding our teeth because, well, we were told to and, yet, we come to find out the grinding serves no purpose and, actually, might be getting in the way.

Consider this: on average, it takes a 4 year old a single day to laugh 300 times, while it takes an average 40-year-old adult 80 days. 80x less laughs! Robert Frost quipped, “if we couldn’t laugh, we’d all go insane.” Well, perhaps we are.

On the topic of being different at work than at home and of taking things too seriously, let’s turn to gravitas.

As a spelling bee contestant might request, “language of origin, please.”

Gravitas as a word and set of ideas has its origin in the Ancient Roman world.It denotes, essentially, “seriousness” and was viewed by the Romans as a key personality trait of leadership.

While the Ancient Roman period was 2,000 years ago, many leadership circles still refer to it as a key aspect of transformational leadership. What may come to mind for you is authority, power, and commanding respect. These ideas may still be useful in 21st century knowledge organizations, buuuuuut, they may not be.

The problem, though, is that we’ve mixed up the interpretation of gravitas. See, people mistakenly think it means being serious when what it actually intends to mean is having your perspective or ideas taken seriously.

If you stop here - after realizing oh, shit, I don’t necessarily need to be overly serious to be taken seriously - that’s enough.

If you want to continue though, what you’ll get from the rest of the post is an intro to the concept of reverse gravitas - the idea that, actually, taking things less seriously might indirectly lead to being taken more seriously.

The fundamental tenet of reverse gravitas is: you don’t need to be overly serious to have your perspectives and ideas taken seriously.

We can only pay attention to - or bring to the foreground - a limited number of things at once. For every one thing we prop up or bring to the foreground, we push many others to the background.

To develop and exhibit reverse gravitas, then, is to focus on a particular set of approaches, attributes, and tenets and bring those into the foreground. They are:

Embracing transparency - it’s showing up as who you really are in life. It acknowledges that who you are at work does not need to be different than who you actually are.

Embracing vulnerability - it’s sharing how you’re really doing and what you're struggling through. Embracing transparency and vulnerability in this way provides unspoken permission for others to do the same.

Embracing emotions - it’s refusing to crop out the things that make us most connected as human and, instead, seeking to amplify them.

Embracing levity and play - it’s harnessing positive states of mind. After all, “levity” comes from the Latin word meaning levitate; as in, “to raise up”. You know, to raise up people’s abilities to solve creative and complex problems.

Embracing uncertainty - it’s openly having the humility to say “I don’t know” as often as needed. The trouble isn’t in not knowing, it’s in pretending that we do. It’s about acknowledging difficult and uncertain realities - e.g. the vast amount of uncontrollable factors, the lack of link between outcomes and activities, the overwhelming options (or absence of options) available to choose from, etc.

Emphasizing gratitude and appreciation - it’s recognizing our connectedness, our unique strengths, our thanks, and our finite time together.

Emphasizing approachability & ending fear - it’s eradicating the fear of pointing out problems, of questioning the status quo, of bringing up new ideas. It recognizes the only way to arrive at good ideas is, after all, to pass through some “bad” ones. It recognizes that if you’re too serious, you’re too intimidating and thus nobody will question you or point out flaws in your thinking.

Prioritizing what ideas, not from who - it’s recognizing the overly ego-centric nature of worrying about having our own ideas accepted and, instead, acknowledges that work is accomplished through teamwork and connectivity. This approach creates the conditions for the best ideas to surface and be executed and relaxes the defensive grip we tend to have around our own ideas.

Thinking that to be more effective at work you need to be more serious is a mistake. In 21st century work, it’s actually the opposite. We need reverse gravitas. We need a willingness to hold everything a bit lighter; to let down our guard; to silence our ego. More than anything, we need to recognize life’s too short to take it too seriously, no matter what we’re working on.

We’d all be served to relax on the tendency to approach situations in an overly serious manner. Or, to put it less formally: as big time Tommy says, take it eas.

With deep appreciation,
Phil

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