Frozen

Have you ever become completely paralyzed?

Bumped up against a tough situation and for a moment, you had no idea what your next step was, and so you froze?

I had a moment like that this week. I was leading an exercise for three other people, and I got stuck. Right in the middle of it, I lost my way. I didn’t know how to move forward.

When faced with threat or danger, instinct gives us a few options: to attack, or even run away. But we can also stop in our tracks, or freeze.

In these threatening moments, sometimes there are other people waiting for us to make a move—waiting for leadership. And that can make the freeze option that much more freez-ing.

So, what was my situation?

It came about in trying to teach others how to make an origami frog.

I know, it sounds ridiculous. But it’s true. We were working through a virtual leadership activity on Zoom with funky rules—I was the lead, with my camera on but muted, and others in the group had their cameras off but could speak. It was a kerfuffle of conditions. The goal: to work together and get one other poor soul to make an origami frog.

As the person in charge of the process, I was confident—smiling even—through my first few folds. But then I got stuck. I couldn’t get past step four. The instructions had fancy arrows and dotted lines pointing me to the outcome. But somewhere along the way, I folded my paper into a cute little envelope that refused to morph itself into anything other than stationery.

My colleagues were sweet—they were patient and made light of it. They knew it wasn’t a real task. It was a leadership activity that wouldn’t make or break any of us.

But what did I do? I held up my hands looking clueless. I wrote in the chat I had no idea how to get to the next step. I asked them to tell the paper folder awaiting instructions that I was having an amygdala attack. I basically was a miserable failure.

And so I checked out.

It was only afterwards when we were debriefing that I realized with hindsight that I had had a few options.

When I set up the exercise, I could have asked them if they wanted to change any of the rules (no one said we couldn’t). I could have shared my screen and showed them the instructions (no one said we couldn’t). I could have suggested we ditch the whole thing because I have zero origami skills and instead chat about what we’re binge watching on Netflix. Or, I could have played peaceful guitar music and had us all chill out (ahhh, yes!).

After the debrief, it took me a few hours to get over the anxiety the exercise created. I kept reflecting on it, thinking about what I was feeling, and why it mattered.

I later named the feeling that I had from it: shame.

How crazy to feel shame over not knowing how to fold a stupid frog. Yet shame is the right word: I was distressed and a tiny bit humiliated over my narrowsightedness, my lack of creativity. My lack of leadership.

As a facilitator, I’m so used to knowing what to do next. I know how to move a group forward in almost any situation. It’s what I do. But in this moment, hampered by arbitrary rules and an origami road map that I just didn’t understand, I was lost.

To my folding team: I know you don’t really care about this exercise that much—you probably aren't even thinking about it anymore. But I hope you learned something from watching me stumble.

You’re welcome.

Or, I’m sorry.

To my perfectionist self: lighten up. Do you know that Idina Menzell song from the Frozen soundtrack “Let It Go”? That song that you can’t get out of your head once it’s in there?

Don't let them in, don't let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know
Well, now they know

Let it go, let it go

Can’t hold it back anymore…

There’s grace in coming face-to-face with your own weakness. Not just in paperfolding, but in leadership. And life.

Do you know what the end of that song is? The last verse is:

It's time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules…

Hmmm, no rules. Something to consider.

I believe this experience will be a powerful learning for me. It may even become a pivotal moment in how I show up as a leader.

But I have to get over that damn amphibian first.