Shedding Practice: Allowing the New to Emerge
In a CBS This Morning interview, anchor Nate Burleson asked TV and movie actor Edris Elba what he felt was the key to a happy relationship for a marriage. Elba’s response was to keep questioning, examining, reasoning everything, and to have continual honest dialogue. Expanding a little further, Elba said, “keep shedding your skin, learning new things.” Aha, Edris has been reading our blog! But, no, not really…he verbalized a practice that many jazz musicians are familiar with and that is an integral part of our leadership and team success model.
When you think of “shedding,” it’s typically in reference to an animal that loses it skin in a biological process of rejuvenation—snakes, crabs, or insects. Many animals shed, some all at once, like a snake leaving its entire old skin behind or like birds who shed skin gradually.
It was affirming to hear Elba expouse a phrase central to his relationship philosophy that is fundamental to our jazz model—the practice of being “In the Shed” or “Shedding.” A vernacular phrase, common among jazz musicians, shedding refers to the deliberate practice on their instrument to hone their skills and attain mastery. Shedding gets us to the new, the fresh—allowing us to step away from familiar patterns, rhythms, and behaviors that keep us repeating more of the same. This brings me to a beautiful, non-musical transformation I was privileged to witness this week.
Sargeant Joe Friday, Dragnet
Through my corporate coaching work, I recently had an opportunity to do a one-on-one session with a young lady who came to the session with some revelatory insights. She had been through the assigned exercise (like the one above) to distinguish fact from interpretation—which she said she “aced.” Unsettling revelations landed as she carried the distinction of fact vs interpretation into writing about what was frustrating her and making her angry at work. The responses were focused solely on one of her direct reports. As she reflected on her responses, she was astounded at the imbalance of her statements as she pulled apart fact vs interpretation. For the most part, almost all were interpretations. It also became apparent that she was, in some instances, perpetuating the same behavior towards her direct report that was causing her own frustration.
She was not alone—to a man and woman, group members grappled with the realization that up to eighty percent of their statements were based on their interpretations–fed by pre-conceived notions, judgments, and emotions. There was not much based on evidence or concrete objectivity. The facts were few and far between. We joked about the line from the 1950’s television show “Dragnet,” when Sergeant Joe Friday would say, “Just the facts, ma'am.”
Diligent about her leadership development and with a keen level of maturity, my young coachee immediately noted what she needed to shed to allow a shift in her relationship with her direct report. It was a seismic session for her–recognizing the need to shed damaging habits, as she subsequently identified the new, relationship-building habits she needed to adopt. All at once, she realized how she could strengthen her direct reports leadership capabilities, as well as her own.
Shedding can be an external activity, like in jazz, to improve and advance our skillset or an internal reflection to release that which doesn’t serve us, so we can emerge a better leader. Whether it happens all at once or in a gradual mode, when we consider shedding as a technique to rid ourselves of the perspectives and behaviors that hamper our growth, while it stimulates the ability to create anew, we can slough off old habits and swing with our best decisions and best behavior.
