Failure
Failure, Risk, and Shame: Approaching Suffering at Work

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Failure, Risk, and Shame: Approaching Suffering at Work

Amy Newell • May 26, 2019 • Minneapolis, MN

In her talk titled "Failure, Risk, and Shame: Approaching Suffering at Work" presented at RailsConf 2019, Amy Newell explores the inherent suffering we experience in the workplace and offers strategies for navigating these emotional challenges effectively. Newell, a director of engineering at Wistia and someone with personal experience in managing emotional suffering due to bipolar disorder, emphasizes that suffering is an unavoidable part of work life.

Key Points Discussed:

  • Inevitability of Suffering: Newell argues that suffering, in forms of uncertainty, failure, and shame, is a natural aspect of work. Trying to avoid it can lead to increased suffering.
  • Responses to Pain: She presents three common ways people react to workplace pain: 1) Blaming others, 2) Self-blame, and 3) Numbing emotions. Each of these responses not only fails to alleviate the pain but often exacerbates it.
  • First vs. Second Arrow: Newell introduces the concept of the "first arrow" (the initial pain) and the "second arrow" (the suffering we inflict upon ourselves in response). She encourages the audience to minimize second arrows through skillful handling of their emotions.
  • Mindfulness Techniques: Techniques such as gratitude practice, recognizing and allowing emotions, and nurturing oneself are recommended as ways to mitigate suffering. Newell suggests using the RAIN model (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) as a framework for dealing with painful emotions.
  • Learning from Failure: Newell highlights the importance of understanding failure as a learning experience. Failure should not be avoided but embraced as a critical component of growth.
  • Dealing with Anxiety: She addresses anxiety as a useful emotion when it leads to proactive behaviors, but warns against allowing it to overwhelm one's ability to function.
  • Shame Management: Newell discusses shame as a harmful feeling that can lead to self-doubt and limit potential. Recognizing shame and separating it from the desire for improvement can encourage healthier self-reflection.

Conclusion:

Newell concludes that by skillfully managing suffering, individuals can enhance their resilience and ultimately become better developers. The talk emphasizes that addressing suffering is pivotal not only for personal well-being but also for fostering empathy and connection within teams. Practicing self-compassion and recognizing the shared experience of suffering among colleagues are key takeaways aimed at transforming emotional challenges into opportunities for growth and improved workplace culture.

Failure, Risk, and Shame: Approaching Suffering at Work
Amy Newell • May 26, 2019 • Minneapolis, MN

RailsConf 2019 - Failure, Risk, and Shame: Approaching Suffering at Work by Amy Newell

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“Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” - The Dread Pirate Roberts

Are you dreading an email from work while you’re at this conference? Ruminating over last week’s outage? Worried you’re not learning enough because you can’t stay focused on the talks?

These are three kinds of suffering we all experience at work: uncertainty, failure, and insufficiency. All three are an inevitable part of our work. But more than that: they are necessary. Join me to learn some ways to approach suffering that can make you happier, healthier, and even a better developer.

RailsConf 2019

00:00:20.720 Hi, Canada! Okay, the microphone works. This is great; we are off to a good start.
00:00:26.789 Thank you so much for coming to hear about failure, anxiety, and shame.
00:00:32.970 I promise this won't be as depressing as it sounds. I'm Amy Newell, the Director of Engineering at Wistia.
00:00:40.620 A lot of what I do as a manager is help engineers deal with the emotional suffering they experience in the workplace.
00:00:52.050 I also have bipolar disorder, so I've spent decades intensively studying the problem of emotional suffering.
00:00:59.670 I'm really excited to be here and share some of what I've learned with you.
00:01:06.899 Do you recognize this movie? Raise your hand if you've seen it. Okay, good! There will be a lot of ‘The Princess Bride’ in this talk.
00:01:15.690 I will provide light notes about the plot points in case you haven't seen it.
00:01:21.420 I have some issues with the traditional gender roles in the movie, but it's still an excellent film.
00:01:26.550 So, what are we going to cover in this talk? We will understand the problem: suffering at work is inevitable.
00:01:33.929 However, our usual approaches actually make things worse and create more suffering in our attempts to deal with it.
00:01:40.679 I’m going to talk about the types of suffering we encounter at work: failure, anxiety, and shame, and the lessons they may or may not have for us.
00:01:46.679 Then, I’ll offer some ways to navigate your suffering so that you're moving through it productively.
00:01:53.970 What I am not covering are toxic situations and how to change or escape them.
00:02:00.179 For example, poor Buttercup does not want to marry Humperdinck, but she’s forced to.
00:02:06.000 This talk isn’t about toxic workplaces or psychological safety; it isn’t about how to escape these places.
00:02:11.879 There are essential topics such as social justice, diversity, and inclusion that I won't address here.
00:02:19.980 These are vital topics, but this talk is about what happens even in the best workplaces, where you will still suffer.
00:02:27.510 This is the pain we cannot escape. What’s the problem? Work is hard.
00:02:33.340 We don't always know what we're doing; we are called upon to be productive, creative, and collaborative.
00:02:40.630 Even in the safest workplaces, we will feel pain in the process of doing work.
00:02:47.620 We can’t work together to do hard things without suffering, but trying to avoid pain is not the most skillful move.
00:02:53.680 Avoiding pain hinders our ability to learn, plan, be creative, and work well with others.
00:03:01.679 Let’s talk about our usual responses to pain.
00:03:05.410 One common response is to blame others and lash out. It’s easy to think, ‘It is your fault that production went down.’
00:03:13.660 Even with practices like retrospectives, where we're trying not to point fingers, you can still feel that anger inside.
00:03:20.500 It becomes someone else's problem, which can lead to toxic behavior, even when you're trying your best not to let it.
00:03:26.320 Another approach to dealing with pain is to turn it inward and blame ourselves.
00:03:32.800 We think, ‘I screwed up. I made this mistake. I hate myself for doing a bad job.’
00:03:36.130 This self-hate makes it hard to move past what went wrong.
00:03:40.130 Our third response is to numb ourselves.
00:03:42.970 Some of us use alcohol or drugs; I certainly have. Others may go shopping or binge-watch videos.
00:03:49.720 While these behaviors are ordinary, there’s a problem: we can't selectively numb our emotions.
00:03:56.860 When we numb the bad, we also numb the good.
00:04:03.370 Brené Brown, who will come up later in this talk, emphasizes that we can't selectively numb emotion.
00:04:10.840 If you numb your pain, you're also going to feel less joy. Worst of all, you may begin to avoid situations that cause pain.
00:04:19.060 You might not even realize it; you unconsciously decide not to try things because you think they might cause pain.
00:04:25.290 In doing this, you shrink your life while attempting to avoid pain.
00:04:32.550 Here’s Miracle Max. His life got smaller; he lost his confidence to create miracles after being fired by Humperdinck.
00:04:41.740 Wesley, who is mostly dead, asks Miracle Max why he should be alive.
00:04:48.370 Miracle Max insists Wesley originally said he wanted to bluff cards, and says he won't make a miracle for that.
00:04:54.290 His wife has to chase him around, insisting he should help.
00:04:59.490 Miracle Max eventually agrees to help, showing that accepting suffering can lead to more freedom.
00:05:06.360 The problem with how we deal with pain is not that these coping mechanisms are below morality.
00:05:13.100 We are all human; we all cope. The issue is that they often cause more pain.
00:05:19.300 Mindfulness teachers will tell you these are not skillful approaches to suffering.
00:05:25.900 Let’s consider the ‘first arrow’ and the ‘second arrow’ metaphor.
00:05:33.599 The first arrow is an external event that causes pain—a bug, an outage, or job loss.
00:05:40.900 The second arrow is self-inflicted suffering—self-blame or trying to lash out.
00:05:47.360 Life involves suffering, but we can learn to be skillful at reducing those second arrows.
00:05:54.330 Let’s think about the concept of skillfulness. It means approaching suffering in a way that limits our pain.
00:06:01.620 Skill is something we can learn; we don't have to be the Dalai Lama to deal with suffering effectively.
00:06:09.240 Here’s a warm-up skill: practicing gratitude.
00:06:14.970 I always think this sounds a little hokey, but there’s research indicating practicing gratitude actually works.
00:06:20.950 To lift the mood, I'll take gratitude breaks throughout this talk.
00:06:29.530 First, I’d like to express gratitude for indoor plumbing.
00:06:36.170 I don’t have to use a chamber pot or go out to an outhouse. I can just turn on the sink.
00:06:45.630 This is amazing, and I hardly ever take the time to appreciate it.
00:06:52.560 Now, let’s discuss the types of suffering I promised: failure, anxiety, and shame.
00:06:58.250 Failure is when something bad happens; anxiety is the fear something bad might happen.
00:07:04.670 Shame is feeling like you are bad.
00:07:11.760 For example, Buttercup and Wesley have just escaped the Fire Swamp, but they're captured by Humperdinck.
00:07:19.420 They might be thinking about how they could have avoided this failure.
00:07:25.400 The reality is that failure is inevitable; we all experience it.
00:07:31.050 It could be a project delivered late, being fired, or running out of money as an entrepreneur.
00:07:41.740 After becoming a manager, I realized failing at hiring was inevitable—for every interview process.
00:07:47.360 No matter how well I interview or check references, I will hire someone unsuitable for the job.
00:07:55.340 This reality causes a lot of pain, as I’m afraid of making a mistake.
00:08:02.090 We must be able to accept the pain that comes with failure.
00:08:09.110 Pain teaches us that something has gone wrong; it’s not just a side effect.
00:08:15.620 The lesson from failure is in the pain itself; that’s how we learn.
00:08:22.070 If I recall the intense pain from our last major release, I gather valuable lessons from it.
00:08:29.020 We often have trouble learning from others’ mistakes; it's even harder to internalize the pain they experienced.
00:08:37.080 Experience is a record of our failures forged through pain.
00:08:44.830 Research suggests focusing on our emotional response to failure is more productive than rationalizing why we failed.
00:08:53.930 This is because we often create justifications that don't reflect the real reasons.
00:09:01.400 If we dwell on the pain rather than justifications, we can learn deeper.
00:09:08.960 It’s easy to learn the wrong lesson from failure, like ‘don’t even try.’
00:09:14.900 However, we should learn to get better from failures, not give up.
00:09:21.230 Miracle Max shrank his life because he learned to avoid trying, not wanting pain.
00:09:28.340 We want our lives to be as big as they can be.
00:09:34.670 Here’s another gratitude break: this is my cat in a sheriff's costume.
00:09:43.050 My best friend brought it over for Halloween, and it makes me really happy.
00:09:48.340 Now, anxiety—something bad might happen—let's talk about that.
00:09:56.620 Buttercup and Wesley are entering the Fire Swamp, fraught with dangers.
00:10:03.240 In software, we also deal with anxiety and uncertainty, such as with upcoming reorganizations.
00:10:10.930 Anxiety helps us stay alert to potential threats, but too much can paralyze us.
00:10:21.570 While we need to be aware of risks, we exaggerate them too often.
00:10:26.970 Gratitude break—let's appreciate brunch!
00:10:32.860 There’s day drinking and eggs, and I just had a great doughnut.
00:10:39.680 Now back to another challenging emotion: shame.
00:10:45.030 Shame makes us feel unworthy—like we don't deserve love or approval.
00:10:52.340 This often manifests in software development as fear of inadequacy.
00:10:57.380 For example, if you feel you’re not smart enough, it's easy to develop imposter syndrome.
00:11:04.090 We often compare ourselves to perceived ideals and feel inadequate.
00:11:10.490 Shame leads to procrastination and an addiction to self-improvement, making us feel worse.
00:11:19.140 It tells us we can’t get better or that we are unworthy of success.
00:11:27.550 However, when we manage shame skillfully, we can separate our behaviors from our self-worth.
00:11:34.400 Buttercup, after her dream, decides to take action, despite her shame.
00:11:42.010 She tells Humperdinck she will not marry him, which is a significant step.
00:11:48.200 Taking action, even when feeling ashamed, opens pathways for change.
00:11:55.390 For example, I set regular subscriptions to make life easier and ensure I always have what I need.
00:12:02.960 Now, one more gratitude break: look at this amazing vegetable!
00:12:11.820 You can buy it, stare at it for a while, and then enjoy the fruits of your labor.
00:12:17.620 Failure helps us learn, anxiety helps us deal with risk, and shame masks guilt.
00:12:23.150 But how do we skillfully navigate these painful emotions while minimizing additional pain?
00:12:31.310 Here are some skills for suffering we've already met: practicing gratitude.
00:12:39.020 Pain is temporary; if you don't like the weather, wait a minute.
00:12:44.620 Emotions don’t last unless we feed them. Remember that pain always ends.
00:12:51.950 As we become more skillful with our pain, it won't last as long, and we will throw fewer second arrows.
00:12:58.340 Also, remember that you are not alone. Pema Chödrön says suffering is part of life.
00:13:03.770 We don’t have to feel it’s happening just because we personally made a wrong move.
00:13:09.280 Sharing your pain is a way to recognize you’re not alone; it reduces suffering’s intensity.
00:13:15.710 Reality-checking helps too: am I perceiving this accurately?
00:13:23.640 Ask others what they see; that perspective can help you cope.
00:13:31.600 Suffering can fuel empathy or bitterness; you get to choose.
00:13:38.790 One friend reflected on feeling shame regarding a codebase while being mindful of the context.
00:13:46.320 This helped him feel empathy for others and not badmouth their code.
00:13:53.200 Next, remember to orient toward your values and where you're going.
00:14:00.760 When I speak, I face anxiety, but I do it because I want to share something valuable.
00:14:07.490 Remember what you care about; it's motivation to move through pain.
00:14:17.400 If you’re feeling paralyzed, do the next smallest thing.
00:14:24.040 When I first started this talk, I opened Keynote and put my title down.
00:14:30.510 Sometimes, it may be simply opening an email or reading a message.
00:14:36.260 Taking that small step can lead to immediate relief.
00:14:43.220 Let’s talk about mindfulness approaches; one called ‘RAIN’ can be especially helpful.
00:14:50.910 RAIN stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture.
00:14:57.370 First, identify when you're feeling pain. Pay attention to your feelings.
00:15:04.940 Notice when you feel the urge to blame others or fall into self-hatred.
00:15:10.800 Recognize you must be suffering in these moments.
00:15:15.640 Allow your pain to exist without trying to change how you feel.
00:15:21.540 Investigation means being curious about your pain; it’s not just a singular experience.
00:15:29.290 As you investigate, you may discover your emotions are changing.
00:15:36.240 Finally, nurture yourself. Practice self-compassion.
00:15:43.250 Would you criticize a friend for being in pain? No, you would offer comfort and kindness.
00:15:50.910 Do the same for yourself; say phrases that resonate with you.
00:15:57.860 Rest in awareness of your feelings; remember you are not just your suffering.
00:16:05.810 When you’re confident that you can navigate your pain, your opportunities for living greatly expand.
00:16:11.390 Wesley is mostly dead but showing determination to save Buttercup.
00:16:18.540 He uses what he has to navigate suffering skillfully.
00:16:24.080 Skillfully managing your pain will make you happier, healthier, and a better developer.
00:16:30.370 Increasing your empathy will improve your team dynamics, reducing conflict.
00:16:37.500 You’ll take less pain out on your coworkers, leading to a healthier work environment.
00:16:43.290 As you become more resilient to failure, you’ll learn more effectively and have reduced anxiety.
00:16:51.680 You’ll be more productive and spend less time numbing yourself.
00:16:56.030 Life hurts; we are all in this together.
00:17:01.820 Let's stop running from the pain and instead be compassionate—toward ourselves and others.
00:17:07.270 This is a practice; there’s no moment when you will have mastered it.
00:17:13.360 Here are some resources: if you haven’t seen ‘The Princess Bride,’ I recommend it!
00:17:19.150 Check out the mindfulness talk next.
00:17:24.360 Jennifer Two is giving a talk on burnout, addressing toxic situations more deeply.
00:17:32.060 Try out some of the skills for dealing with suffering that I’ve shared.
00:17:40.350 Please reach out to me at the conference or on Twitter if you want to discuss more.
00:17:47.150 And have fun storming the castle!
00:17:51.920 I guess I have about four minutes for questions if people want to ask.
00:17:57.500 That’s a great question regarding having one-on-ones with team members.
00:18:02.040 First, establish a trusting relationship.
00:18:08.700 If you think someone may be in pain, check in with them.
00:18:14.680 You can say, ‘You might be feeling pain. How are you doing? Do you need anything?’
00:18:20.300 Sometimes, offering someone a break when they’re in pain can be extremely helpful.
00:18:27.410 Additionally, always ask if they are comfortable sharing how they feel.
00:18:32.080 One question about the ‘Five Whys’ process; it can be useful but may sometimes go wrong.
00:18:38.550 It’s essential to address any pain that may arise in these discussions.
00:18:44.790 Acknowledging the emotional aspects of any meeting can create a more productive atmosphere.
00:18:50.250 Finally, if emotions are seen as inappropriate at work, that can create a toxic environment.
00:18:57.340 It's important to communicate that emotions are a natural part of the human experience.
00:19:02.990 If someone breaks production, you should encourage an open conversation rather than dismissing their feelings.
00:19:10.070 And acknowledge that it’s okay to feel pain about the situation.
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