Concept
Rumbling with Vulnerability
A rumble is Brené Brown's term, central to Dare to Lead, for a conversation or meeting in which people commit to stay curious and generous, stay with the messy middle of a problem before solving it, own their part and listen as carefully as they want to be heard.
Brown makes rumbling with vulnerability the first of the four skill sets of courage at work. The word signals that a conversation will be uncomfortable and that the discomfort is expected; teams that share it have a licence to raise hard issues without each one becoming a crisis. A useful tool inside a rumble is to say an assumption as a story, with a sentence such as 'the story I'm making up is…', which turns an accusation into something the other person can correct. A rumble also needs an end: clear commitments about who does what by when. Without them it becomes a pleasant discussion that changes nothing. The practice is close to the habit, taught in Crucial Conversations, of separating facts from the story we tell about them; Brown's version is lighter to say aloud.
A real-life example
Two shift leaders at a dairy plant in Afyon stopped coordinating after a dispute over overtime. Their manager calls a rumble, says it is to understand rather than to decide, and opens with her own part: she changed the rota without asking either of them. One leader says the story he is making up is that she favours the other shift. She explains the real reason, and they leave with a shared rota and a review date.
How to use it
- 1Open by naming the purpose: to understand, not to win or finish quickly.
- 2Say one assumption as a story so the other person can correct it.
- 3Close with commitments: who does what by when.