Strong Ground, Brené Brown
Cold Open: Brené’s got a terrible pickleball injury. Owwww. Much writhing ensues.
Cut to: Brené’s got a great personal trainer! He’s meticulous about activating lats and hard to impress. Now she’s really grooving with the medicine ball.
I get it. I, too, am a middle-aged woman recently obsessed with building muscles and bone density. My social media algorithms exclusively feed me the latest strategies on creatine and plyometrics.
For Brown, of course, strength training also provides so many opportunities not only to geek out on health science but also for…leadership metaphors!
“Recruit the right muscles for the job. Train them, and use them with intention.”
“We need to push into the source of our strength and sturdiness so we can navigate the world. We need the ground to steady us and at the same time to propel us into purposeful action.”
“Developing core stability and functional strength in organizations means investing in people, because for an organization, people, and our connection to each other, are the strong ground.”
I am into it. Locked in. Let’s go!
Unfortunately, in just a few chapters, the strength training analogies run dry. The remaining 300-plus pages of the book become unsummarizable. A mishmash of ideas and concepts on all-things-leadership, some of the chapters are literally transcripts from her podcast or a summary of someone else’s book.
And yet.
I read the whole dang thing. Just when I’d decide a section was blatant filler content and start skimming, I’d land on some nugget that could be potentially transformative.
For example: “Leadership is plumbing and poetry.” This is actually a quote from James Marsh, and may be my next (only) abdominal tattoo?
Or this distinction between stress and overwhelm: “Stress is barely managing the Whac-a-Mole game at the carnival. Overwhelm is leaving the carnival in tears and not being able to find my car.”
Or here’s a gorgeous summary on systems thinking: “The future can’t be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems can’t be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned. We can’t surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them. We can’t impose our will upon a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever e produced by our will alone.”
Or this, which I assume is also in a previous Brené book, and is yet still useful:
“The heart of daring leadership remains:
You can’t get to courage without rumbling with vulnerability. Embrace the suck.
Self-awareness and self-love matter. Who we are is how we lead.
Courage is contagious. “
So. Do I recommend nonprofit leaders read Strong Ground?
Maybe. It’s probably better to start with one of Brown’s earlier, more cohesive books, such as Daring Greatly. But if you’re already a fan, think of this book as a “This is Brené Brown” playlist on Spotify. Enjoy each chapter as a standalone piece of wisdom and information. Your leadership, life, and pickle ball game may improve as a result.
