23 Sep Goldilocks and the Three Cares
We are preparing for our October Conversation Café, where we’ll explore ways that HR can deepen their connection to the business. (For those wondering: there’s no September Café this year – the holidays and a welcome workload mean our next gathering is in October.)
The build-up so far
In our recent writing, we’ve been circling around one central dilemma: what separates support services from the operating core? In Different Values, Same Business? we showed how HR, IT, Finance, and Marketing each create value in their own way, but often clash with the priorities of the operating core. In Who Are We? we brought identity theory into the conversation, recognising that professionals carry multiple identities that can pull them in different directions. In our Tips and Tricks, we examined the “me and we” tension, the balancing act of belonging both to one’s profession and to the wider organisation.
Together, these reflections set the stage for October: why do silos form, and what keeps them apart?
Too little care, too much care
Today we move the conversation into the territory of hubris and relationship. The Greeks warned us that hubris – a deadly combination of excessive pride and arrogance – invites downfall. But hubris does not arrive in a vacuum. It arises in relationships when the balance of “care” tips too far in one direction.
Think of it as three scales, or (perhaps) three bowls of porridge in the Goldilocks tale.
When I show too little care for myself, I slip into a victim stance. I doubt my voice, withdraw from the conversation, and feel outcast. When I show too much care for myself, I inflate my importance and dismiss others, drifting into arrogance and superiority. Only in the middle – caring enough to have a voice, but not so much that I silence others – do I find the balance needed for healthy relationships.
The same is true in how I care for others. At one extreme, I am so deferential and eager to please that I erase myself, seeking only their approval. At the other, I stop caring altogether, discounting their needs, their expertise, or even their humanity. In the middle, I respect both myself and the other, allowing room for mutual recognition.
The Goldilocks zone
This middle ground is where the organisation thrives. In the Goldilocks zone, professionals carry pride in their craft without imagining it makes them superior. HR believes in the value of people practices without sneering at the line’s focus on delivery. IT defends system reliability without dismissing operators as careless. The operating core asserts its central role without treating support services as overhead.
It is in relationships of mutual hearing, mutual respect, and mutual curiosity that organisations perform at their best.
The warning signs
When certainty hardens and curiosity disappears, hubris waits at the door. When curiosity swallows certainty and people lose their own stance, helplessness follows. Both undermine the organisation in different ways.
Building the middle
The challenge for leaders and managers is to cultivate the Goldilocks zone: not too much care, not too little, but just right. At WorldsView, we’ve seen how genuine engagement processes create these balances. Real conversations facilitated by trained organisation development professionals – where people enter with a mix of certainty and curiosity – build the psychological capital to resist both arrogance and victimhood.
Join the conversation
At our October Café, Beyond the Silo: Bridging the Gap Between Support and Core Business, we’ll explore how HR – and by extension IT, Finance, and other support roles – can deepen their connection to the operating core by staying in the Goldilocks zone. Join us as we consider how three kinds of care – care for myself, care for others, and care for the whole – can rebalance relationships and strengthen organisations.
Click HERE to register now and join the conversation.