What Twenty Years in Healthcare Content Taught Me About Vulnerability

I still catch myself sometimes.

There are situations where I am digging into something that is not really mine to dig into. Not my role, not my job as CEO. I get curious, then more curious than I should be, until I am three layers deep into a process, thinking, who is in charge of this. Why am I the one finding it.

Right about then, if I am not careful, frustration gets to my voice before a single word does.

What stops me, most of the time, is not confidence. It is a different question, asked before I speak. Not, why isn’t anyone looking at this. Instead: I think I might be missing something here. Can we look at this together and help me understand what I am seeing. 

That shift, from frustration to curiosity, is not comfortable. It requires admitting, out loud, that I might not have the full picture. That is its own kind of vulnerability. The willingness to say I do not know yet, before I say anything else.

I did not learn that shift recently. I learned to notice it decades ago, in a completely different part of my career.

Where I First Learned to Notice Vulnerability

More than twenty years ago, my company began specializing in healthcare content, helping hospitals and health systems communicate with patients. We were one of the first agencies to focus there, and we grew up alongside that industry.

Here is a belief that has guided our healthcare work from the beginning: people are at their most vulnerable when they are ill or searching for answers about their health. They are scared. They are confused. They do not always know the right questions to ask.

Every piece of content we wrote had to hold that vulnerability with care. Not talk down to it. Not rush past it. Just see it and respond to it like it mattered. Because it did.

The Same Vulnerability Shows Up at Work

It took me a while to notice that the same thing was true on my own team. Someone on my team is not so different from a patient searching a hospital website late at night, worried and looking for answers. They come to work carrying uncertainty too. Am I doing this right. Does my leader actually see me. Is it safe to admit I do not know something.

That moment I described earlier, catching my own frustration and choosing curiosity instead, is me trying to answer that question for the people in front of me. If I go in hot, the answer is no, it is not safe. If I go in curious, the answer might be yes.

Fear of Vulnerability Is a Liability

In Your Cultural Balance Sheet, I write about fear of vulnerability as one of the most damaging liabilities a culture can carry. Not because vulnerability itself is risky. Because a culture that punishes it teaches people to hide.

They stop asking questions. They stop admitting mistakes. They stop raising concerns until those concerns have already become bigger problems.

One tool I still lean on when feedback is hard to receive is trying to separate myself from what is being said, at least for a moment. Not taking it personally right away. That small bit of distance is often what makes it possible to actually hear it, instead of just defending against it.

Building a Culture Where Vulnerability Is Safe

I do not have this fully figured out. But here is what I keep coming back to.

Catching yourself before the frustration reaches your voice and choosing a question instead of an accusation.

Responding to a mistake with curiosity instead of blame.

Asking someone how they are doing and actually waiting for the real answer.

None of this requires a healthcare background. But working in healthcare content for two decades taught me to notice vulnerability where I might otherwise walk past it, and to treat it as something worth protecting rather than something to fix quickly and move on from.

I still catch myself digging where I should not be, more often than I would like to admit. It just takes less time now to ask the better question instead.