The Leadership Vision Podcast

Why “Trying” is the Secret to Organizational Growth

• Nathan Freeburg, Linda Schubring, Brian Schubring • Season 8 • Episode 33

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In this episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, Nathan Freeburg sits down with Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring to discuss chapter three of their book Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane. Together, they explore what it means for organizations to “try”—to experiment, to refold, and to persist through uncertainty.

Topics include:

  • Why “trying” is a strength, not a weakness.
  • The characteristics of organizations that embrace experimentation.
  • Practical steps leaders can take to build a safe culture of trying.
  • How fear and resistance can be reframed as opportunities for growth.
  • Stories from clients and personal experiences that illustrate the power of persistence.

Listen now to discover why the act of trying may be the most important step your organization can take toward transformation.

📘 Learn more about Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane.

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SPEAKER_03:

Trying is not weak. I think sometimes we hear the word try and it's like, well, because that's just average. Like, just get in there and try. And I think I want to say is just as play gives people an opportunity to practice the things that they love, try actually puts you on the trajectory to greatness.

SPEAKER_00:

And I believe that that's why try is so important. Because without the beauty and the brilliance of someone's uniqueness coming out, there's all these steps of try that no one ever sees that are happening behind the scenes. That's how we get there. We get there by trying.

SPEAKER_02:

You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. To learn more about our work, you can click the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at Leadership Vision Consulting.com. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Freeberg, and today in the podcast, we're talking about what it means for organizations to try. This is based on chapter three of Dr. Linda and Brian Schubert's book, Unfolded, and we're going to be exploring how teams, leaders, and entire organizations must be willing to experiment, fail, refold, and adapt in order to stay aligned with their mission. We often think of trying as an individual journey, but teams are made of people navigating those same emotional and strategic landscapes. Together, we'll discuss what it looks like when a team dares to try something new, how to lead through doubt, and how the map of an organization can guide collective transformation. Brian and Linda Schubring, welcome back to the podcast. We are exploring chapter three of Unfolded. From an unfolding I was gonna say from an I started saying unfolded again. From an origami train. I am trained. Train? Crane? I said crane. Yeah, you said crane. We'll rewind it. Um we're talking about trying. This comes directly from chapter three, and for those who have not been paying attention, we're going through each chapter in the book.

SPEAKER_01:

From an individual, yes, I can say it. From an individual perspective.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I'm just saying if people haven't been paying attention, if they're not following it, they may not know that we've been going through each chapter twice. Once uh from like an individual perspective, and then a second time from a more uh business or organizational perspective. And today we are talking about trying as I don't know, strategic experimentation or as like this this larger collective idea. So before we get into some of our points here, what what do either of you want to say about this?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I want to say first of all is that we have firsthand experience with both teams and organizations that put this concept of try into practice. I also want to say from the beginning, it's not as easy as it sounds. It is really intentional and it takes some time for the trying to actually pay off. So this is not necessarily an easy concept to integrate within a team or within an organization.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I never thought it was going to be easy.

SPEAKER_03:

So if anyone thought that it was it was easy, uh, I'd like to hear it's not easy, especially when you're in a high-performing organization, and the expectation is that you hit bullseyes every single time. And we were with um a board yesterday and facilitating some conversation to help really invest in some of these trustees, and some of the conversation was traversing in one way, and a board member just raised her hand and said, I can't wait to celebrate when we make a big failure. Like when we make a when we have a big failure, when we make a big mistake, or and and it wasn't necessarily, I mean, you could feel the kind of the shudder of fear or like what did you just say? Right. And she was right, and I think celebrate is often maybe a a big word around that. Like you don't necessarily throw a party for all the things that maybe didn't go your way, but we have found that the organizations, the teams, the groups of people that are making innovative moves are the ones that are willing to take calculated risk. And what we would say is try. And how we talk about try is practicing with intention, intentional practice. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And so organizations that try, they have several unique characteristics. One is that they have clear goals, they they have goals, they kind of know where they're gonna go, and they have this expectation that each person has the ability to experiment, to innovate, and to create and to partner with different people to get there. So there is also an element of freedom in how an organization or a team allows people to try. And there's also encouragement and a lack of judgment as people are trying, because there's this idea that you can practice, there's a sense of failure, and it's not judged if you fall down. And the team also has this idea that if we try and it doesn't work, you can try again. And so that mentality creates an openness and a willingness for people to participate. And that's one of the most unique things is that to try means we're willing to experiment, to try means we're willing to practice. To try means we're not afraid to set goals and we're not afraid to try new ways to get there, and we're certainly not afraid to ask for help.

SPEAKER_02:

But how do you get there? It feels like we're a few steps ahead because most organizations, most communities, most groups of people, like they they don't have that mentality, especially in like a larger organization. It's I just want to do my job, I don't want to get fired, I don't want to take a risk, I don't want to, you know, experiment because the risks are too high. So, how do you get a team, let alone an organization, to get to that that level of comfortability where they want to try. They want to maybe risk a little bit here or there.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I would say it begins with what kind of industry you are in.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, sure.

SPEAKER_03:

You don't want you don't want you don't want air traffic controllers to just try a bunch of things, or you don't want to be able to do that. Or surgeons or yeah, you're almost there.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. That's right.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. So obviously there are it's industry specific, but there is an opportunity, I think, for innovation outside of the actual event or whatever is happening or the job responsibility. So my guess is even with air traffic controllers, they are learning how to simulators. Yeah, how let them not run into each other. So I think it's it's an appetite for that. I think there are leaders out there that are modeling the way of being willing to try, being willing to not just lose their mind when when everything goes awry. And they have a tolerance for some risk, a tolerance for some mistakes, obviously not life or death ones, but ones that, well, let's just let's just try it out. Let's just practice. Let's see if this will work. Because if we do some testing and we do some iterating, maybe we'll bump into something that will be really helpful.

SPEAKER_00:

Because try reflects and is specific to one's context. So it's going to be unique and different in every space.

SPEAKER_03:

The pressures of the outside context right now are demanding, and that's a big enough word. They they yeah, they are demanding a new response. The the same old ways are not working. You're not getting the same results. That's obviously the definition of insanity. And so when context is the outside pressures or outside context is shaping uh how people are acting, interacting, approaching the work, approaching the things that they're doing together, the collaboration, it is then that uh it's almost like the culture outside invites a new kind of way of going about business or working together, and that is the try.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, uh I'm I'm jumping ahead in our notes because what I hear you saying is you need to refold. Like, is that what we're talking about? Like the organization needs to refold, the organization needs to adapt, change the context, all this stuff. Are we at that point of the conversation yet, or is there more in this middle section here?

SPEAKER_00:

There's a before. Okay. Because um sequentially, there is try, there is experiment, there is unfolding. It there's like this sequence, because unfolding is a response or reaction to something not working. And in that unfolding, it's it's saying, I'm willing to try something different. That's all we really mean when it comes to the unfolding concept in this process of try is that you're willing to experiment yourself and you're willing to help other people experiment and try something new. Because the need for when the context presents the need to innovate, we really don't know what's going to work until we try something new. Because when the context is saying we need to innovate, the context is saying what we're doing right now isn't happening. What we're doing right now is not achieving our goals, and what we're doing right now isn't it isn't going to get us over this immediate challenge or this immediate change. Something has to be experimented with.

SPEAKER_03:

And your next your question, Nathan, was around is is this the folding? And I wonder if it really it really is the unfolding first. Because one of the ways that that we see, once again, spoiler alert, one of the ways that we see OC navigate is just take my wing and refold it. Take my wing and uh just add, add to it a little bit. If we could just and it was the letting go, the unfolding is a letting go to be able to even position yourself in a new place to be able to try or do all the things like iterate, adjust, and navigate something new.

SPEAKER_00:

And part of the invitation here is to simply try to experiment, to take a swing at it and see what happens. Um, and the speed that that happens and the frequency is going to be dependent on context again. Um, we have one client where they are they're needing to respond to our present circumstance by taking big swings and taking big risks and trying really hard and difficult things. We have we have another organization that is much more um intentional on how it is that they're trying, and they're realizing that they are in the beginning steps of trying to behave and to act a certain way. And in that organization, individuals are stepping forward and demonstrating, if you will, what it means to try a new professional behavior or to try a different kind of collaborative technique. So, again, depending on context, try can look very, very differently. But the point is that there is a willingness to react and respond quickly and boldly, and whatever that looks like is unique to your culture.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm gonna I'm gonna workshop a character here for a second. This should be fun. I this just seems too hard. I mean, what we're doing now, it's not broken, and we have so much going on right in front of us, I just don't know how we experiment. The risks are too high. Like all these people I'm working with, like I just can't this is just too hard. Like you're asking me to experiment with people's livelihood, with our bottom line, with all of this stuff, and I know that we need to, but it it seems like what you're asking us to do is to essentially risk like what we have now is not bad. You're asking us to risk potentially falling off the cliff to do this. So how do I and scene? Is that that's my character? So help me help me.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know if you've ever got the cliff either way. Yeah. You're gonna fall off the cliff either way.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, may as well try something new.

SPEAKER_03:

We hear that, and I think that there's uh our brains want that. Our brains want the comfort, our brains want the predictability, the certainty that gives us a sense of maybe an illusion of groundedness. And and we would say that it is the new thinking that will actually take you from where you are now to to the next step. And we've seen plenty of organizations go out of business because they refuse to meet the moment and they refuse to uh pay attention to some of the cultural contextual pressures just because they were gonna hold out and try. And the organizations that we're working with right now, there are people making six, nine-month plans and different strategic options for how they're going to navigate forward. And if, you know, this different contingency options. And when we watch them and listen to them, it's not like all of a sudden, well, we don't know what to do today, so we're gonna fix this. It's like, well, we were prepared for this scenario, that scenario, that scenario. Right. And so this is how we're going to respond. And I think the leaders that are like, I kind of like where I'm at, I'm like, yeah, then get in, get into a more stable career.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, right, right. I mean, it's almost Brian kind of wrote in the notes for what I was thinking, but it's overcoming that fear, not only at an individual level, but at a a higher level, an organizational level. So is there a I don't know, for lack of a better term, a tip or a trick or a way that you have helped organizations sort of overcome that fear to say, let's just try this, let's see what happens.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, next question.

SPEAKER_00:

This isn't the answer. Um because the fear part the fear, the uncertainty, the unknown, um, the memory can all create these barriers that keep people from trying. And what I was just looking up, um I had this phrase run through my head as you were talking, Nathan, and it was to try you first need to pry. So sometimes people don't try because they're holding so tightly onto how it's always been done, a habit or a pattern of thinking, and because they're holding so tightly onto that, they are really paralyzed by fear and they won't try. So we have to like pry open and or loosen our grip on something in order for us to be able to try and to experiment. And it's okay to just say like, well, I've always done it that way. Because those types of patterns, we naturally want to follow our patterns, but those patterns sometimes need to be unlearned and broken for us to be able to be free enough to try something new. In in this chapter, there's a scene where there's a collision, and that collision creates some damage. So, like there's this need almost to say, well, that didn't work, and without any shame or judgment, try something new. And it it's through those attempts at trying that will eventually break through to find whatever that equation is to really propel us towards whatever we're focused on.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I I like where you're going with that, because you're playing with rhyming. So to try, you first have to pry, and then sometimes you have to cry. Oh, there we go. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00:

What does that mean? You have to cry.

SPEAKER_03:

I think it's a it's a letting go.

SPEAKER_00:

I know where you're going.

SPEAKER_03:

If if there's a cry of Oh, you mean cry like help?

SPEAKER_00:

Could be or cry like tears.

SPEAKER_03:

Either either way, I think sometimes crying is a it's not always, but it is a depiction of someone in grief or someone that has lost something. And obviously tears can mean a variety of different things, but in this in this conversation, I wonder if it is a okay, you gotta recognize that it's hard to let go and just start with that. We know it's hard to let go. When we are working with organizations and they invite leaders to practice, they invite leaders to uh to the table to say, hey, you know, no one we're in this uh off site, we are in this retreat setting, we are in this closed session, no one's eyes are on us. Let's practice here, let's practice the courageous conversations here, let's think outside the box, let's not shoot down other ideas or let's shoot them down quickly and demonstrate resilience. And so a lot of times it takes some framing, it takes some parameters to be given in order to try successfully and to have the courage to even step in and practice.

SPEAKER_00:

Many organizations have us play this role of instigating more try behavior. Um, and and those practice sessions that we facilitate are designed just to do that, to practice, to give people the chance to try and to experiment, to get in different partnerships and have different thought partners. And so it, you know, it's messy, but there's also breakthrough to it as well. And so I think that there's something about this whole chapter that that says we try together, and there is a time when practice is the performance, and we're not focusing on getting something perfect. And another key element to try that is key to the environment, creating places for people to try is that there are leaders and team members or people who are influential who are actually demonstrating what try looks like. Where they take the risk, they ask for help, they're not afraid to say out loud, Well, that didn't work. You know, thank you. Thank God we didn't go public with that. And and so they're demonstrating that. And I and I think that when leaders or team members of influence begin to demonstrate what it means to try, it's giving people the opportunity to observe, to interpret, to put language to something, and to really pay attention to how they're feeling when someone's experimenting and trying to dance to new music for the first time. That was pretty good.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow, okay, so so well.

SPEAKER_02:

So what what what I and I don't know if this will make it in, but I just it's very aspirational. It's very like I'm thinking with organizations I've worked with or even are currently worked with, who just are like we're going too fast. We can't stop to think about this. We just don't have time, we don't have the energy or space. Yes, we know we need to do something different, but we're gonna keep um, you know, we're we're gonna keep using, you know, building fire from scratch, we just don't have time to go out and buy matches or you know, wh whatever it is. And so I'm wondering how do you yes, it's everything that you said, it's changing the culture, it's taking a risk, it's doing all that stuff, but how do you get through to a leader or to an organization and say something to like what you were saying about you're gonna fall off the cliff anyway, you may as well try something different. Because that that's where I wonder if the magic of this is is like no, here's how you actually go get on the back of a golden retriever and run into a tree.

SPEAKER_00:

The magic happens when the leaders in the moment are ready for something new to emerge. We work with plenty of organizations, not too many right now, but some in the past, where it is clear that the organization and leadership is not open to any type of try because how things are being done are quote, not broken, so why fix them? Yeah, and there isn't an environment of experimentation or curiosity or openness or adaptation, it just isn't there. So what you're saying, Nathan, is is true, is we is maybe the invitation is for us to ask is our environment a place where try is welcome? And if not, then I think that that that is a a place of acceptance as well.

SPEAKER_03:

And I would say don't start with the biggest things. So how do you run some smaller experiments of okay, we're gonna change this? This won't take this will take a couple hours. This is not gonna take a whole team effort. How did it go? What did you learn? What did you bump into? How can AI help with some of the you know navigating of the some of the what feels like maybe menial, menial tasks? And the the consistent trying, I think, will in those small areas will give people and perhaps teams a greater degree of confidence in order to tackle the big like, well, we have to press pause, we have to go slow to go fast, and or we'll just burn ourselves out, we'll burn out the team, and you know, we might disappear.

SPEAKER_02:

So I have some actions. Well, so a couple final things here. I want to I want to read this conclusion and just get your hot takes. Um I have some action steps that we'll include in the show notes and the blog posts, but one of them is kind of what you were saying. Uh a team practice is identify one area this quarter or this week, whatever, where your team can experiment without fear of failure. So maybe after you ask that question is why don't we have a tri-culture? All right, huh, this is weird. Well, what if we identified one area where we can try something and then see if that sort of gets that flywheel moving? Okay, so here's the conclusion. Organizations like people are made of stories, shapes, and dreams. To grow, to innovate, to become more of who they're meant to be, they must try. Not once, not perfectly, but persistently. Trying becomes a culture, not just an action. And when teams are willing to refold, reimagine, and reach out, they move closer to the light of their shared vision. Your thoughts.

SPEAKER_03:

My initial thought is that trying is not weak. I think sometimes we hear the word try and it's like, well, because that's just average. Like just get in there and try. And I think I want to say is just as play gives people an opportunity to practice the things that they love, try actually puts you on the trajectory to greatness.

SPEAKER_02:

Try puts you on the trajectory to greatness.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I like it. I think try is the only way. We were once watching an artist live, and she was painting a very like a life-size painting, and it was clear, like the person that she was painting was coming into full view. You could see the features of this person's face, you could see the background, and the artist, she was so into this, and we're thinking, like, man, this is beautiful. And then all of a sudden, she takes this one motion with her hand and like swipes the whole thing clean and just continues to paint something right over the top of it. The point is, what she was trying didn't work, and she just kept right on going without without changing a canvas, just kept working off of the previous try. And eventually, you know, her masterpiece came through, but then you realize that there were layers and layers and layers of try that were built behind what the end product was. And I believe that that's why try is so important because without the beauty and the brilliance of someone's uniqueness coming out, there's all these steps of try that no one ever sees that are happening behind the scenes. That's how we get there. We get there by trying. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, Brian and Linda, thank you so much. This is um, I always love these conversations when we take, you know, the these words that you wrote on the page that are now static and we make them dynamic through this conversation and hopefully open up uh other people's ideas to maybe for uh future and further application of them. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

And thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. If you found value in this episode or any of our other material, we would love it if you could follow us on the socials, join our email newsletter, but maybe more importantly, share it with someone that you think could benefit from this message of trying or building strength-based culture. To learn more about us, you can click the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at Leadership Vision Consulting.com. My name is Nathan Freeberg. I'm Linda Schubring. And I'm Brian Schubring. And on behalf of our entire team, thanks for trying.

SPEAKER_03:

Last time we did try it, guys. It's okay.