Discomfort Avoidance

Why cultural bilingualism became my unfair advantage only after I became comfortable with discomfort.

May is Asian Heritage Month in North America, and one topic that often surfaces is the “bamboo ceiling,” the observation that Asians are often underrepresented in leadership positions relative to their educational attainment and other professional successes.

Based on my experience and observation, one reason is the tension between Eastern and Western value systems. Many Asians are taught to:

• Respect authority vs. embrace disagreement

• Maintain harmony vs. embrace pushing back

• Be humble vs. embrace self-promotion

• Listen first vs. embrace speaking up

• Let your work speak for itself vs. embrace advocating for your work

• Accept the answer vs. embrace finding another path

The list goes on. Inherently, there is no right or wrong in these value systems. But they can be incompatible because they are optimized for different paths to outcomes. One is optimized for harmony. The other is optimized for constructive tension. You cannot optimize for both at the same time, just as you cannot turn left and turn right at the same time.

That tension helps explain the bamboo ceiling. I have a unique perspective on this. I was born and raised in the East and have spent my entire adulthood in the West. I am culturally bilingual in both systems.

Although the bamboo ceiling is real, I do not think this system incompatibility is always the root cause. Often, it is the symptom. The deeper issue is discomfort avoidance.

Discomfort avoidance is universal. It is human nature. We avoid difficult conversations, disagreement, asking for what we want, and situations where we might be rejected, criticized, or misunderstood. This is not unique to Asians. But when you are operating across incompatible systems, you naturally have to face more discomfort. Many Asian cultural values can also amplify the instinct to avoid it. I know they did for me.

For a long period of my career, I believed that if I worked hard, delivered results, and treated people well, everything else would take care of itself. Until I realized that leadership in the West requires something different. As an extreme introvert, I was further handicapped by my discomfort avoidance.

The breakthrough came when I became more comfortable with discomfort. It unleashed the full potential of what I could do. I started doing things I never thought I could do as a young adult.

Today, if I disagree with you, you will hear it from me in a respectful and diplomatic way. If I believe something is important, I will speak up. If I think a decision is wrong, I will say so. If someone tells me no, I may respectfully challenge that answer and look for another path forward, all in a Western-compatible way. Not because I enjoy debate, but because I have learned to embrace healthy debate.

Growth, leadership, and influence live on the other side of discomfort. Breaking through that mindset was liberating.

I did not have to abandon the values I grew up with. I simply had to reinterpret them. More importantly, I leveraged my cultural bilingualism and turned it into one of my biggest unfair advantages. I can leverage the best of both worlds and thrive in both.

This Asian Heritage Month, I am grateful for the values my culture gave me. Keep them. Leverage them. They are incredible tools in your toolbox. I am equally grateful for learning when to push beyond them.

For many of us, the most important barrier we need to break through is the discomfort inside our own heads.