The Ugly Couch

Our Ugly Couch

A part of our culture here at Beratung is called the Ugly Couch.  It’s a term we use to call each other out and a term we use to celebrate discovering our blind spots. It’s such a big part of our culture that we even have an Ugly Couch in our reception area of our headquarters.

This concept comes from a podcast episode from Andy Stanley, where he talks about the lesson of the Ugly Couch.

What Is the Ugly Couch?

When you get married, often your first major purchase is a couch. When you buy this couch, you spend a lot of time trying to find the best couch. You go to multiple stores, you try different models, maybe you argue about it, and maybe you stretch your budget to get that perfect couch.

Over time, that couch becomes a place where you make all kinds of family memories. You might have held your child on it after you first brought them home from the hospital. You might have watched movies together that brought you to tears and led to deep conversations. You might have hosted a mentor in your house that sat on the couch that taught you a lesson that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. Maybe you even made a child on that couch.

As we make memories on that couch over time, it starts to become dirty and ripped and fall apart. Maybe your dog has scratched it or some keys that fell out of a pocket ripped it. It might have gone out of style. All the while, you do not notice the couch has become ugly. Everyone else that comes to your house sees it and thinks, that is an Ugly Couch.

Why Do We Not Notice Our Ugly Couches?

The concept of the Ugly Couch really got me the first time I heard it because my dad spent the last year of his life on a couch. I loved that couch before my dad spent his last days on it but after that, it had a special meaning to me.

When my wife and I bought our first house, and my mom wanted to get rid of the Ugly Couch (because it really looked ugly), I took it. Due to my emotional connection to it, I genuinely couldn’t see it was ugly. I couldn’t understand why everyone that came over to our house told us this couch was ugly, because to me, it was beautiful. I was blind to it.

We see this all the time at firms. You have an Ugly Couch, something you see every day, and it has special meaning to you, so you don’t realize how it presents to others. Even though you are not blinded by the special meaning, you are just so used to seeing that “couch” that you do not realize how dated or ugly it is. You would probably not replace it with the same thing. It works. People can sit on it. Why replace it. You grow accustomed to it. You stop noticing how ugly it is.

How To See Your Ugly Couch.

For starters, you are not able to see your Ugly Couches alone. We all need help. Ask someone to come through your office and point out your Ugly Couches. Use 360 reviews from your team to spot out the Ugly Couches in your leadership. Survey the people you serve to find your Ugly Couches. Join a leadership development group to find your Ugly Couches. Hire a coach or consultant from outside your life or organization to spot your Ugly Couches. Ask people to spot your Ugly Couches and reward them when they show you your blind spots.

One of the things we do in our firm is we try to call out the Ugly Couches. Maybe we walk past it every day. We don’t notice the mark on the wall, that if we just took a minute with a magic eraser, we could clean it up. Maybe we don’t notice that the dishes in the sink are overflowing and how that looks to other people. It is a culture where we try to call out each other’s Ugly Couches to make each other and our firm as a whole better.

One of the things I like to say to our team is if you see someone with a booger coming out of their nose, you should probably tell them. If somebody’s flies down (or as we would say “Kennywood is open), you should probably tell them. That’s why we have an Ugly Couch in our reception as a constant reminder to spot our Ugly Couches. 

If you found value in reading this, share this with someone that needs to spot the Ugly Couches in your life. If you were able to spot an Ugly Couch after reading this, please share your story with me. I would love to hear your process for spotting your Ugly Couches.