What makes an excellent leader? Today my guest shares why he believes that leaders who develop their empathy and emotional intelligence are not just better leaders – they become excellent leaders. An excellent leader looks after their own wellbeing by looking after the wellbeing of the people they lead. Markus van Alphen is a leadership psychologist, author, teacher, trainer, organizational consultant, counselor and restorative practitioner.
Today, Markus and I talk about what a leadership psychologist does, what is observational listening, and how it enables leaders to be more empathetic to create psychological safety, reduce burnout, and increase engagement. He shares what makes an excellent leader – and how they never need to motivate anyone! We chat about why leadership is not viewed as a standalone skill, the link between leadership excellence and corporate social responsibility, the impact of toxic leadership on your bottom line, and how to really change a culture by starting with yourself as a role model.
To access the episode transcript, please click on the episode title at www.TheEmpathyEdge.com
Key Takeaways:
Your shareholders are stakeholders, but they are only one of the stakeholders. Make sure you consider all of your stakeholders in your leadership practices.
People often struggle in conversations because they’re too often in their heads and trying to plan the conversation within themselves, not participate in the conversation.
As the leader, you do not always have to have (or give) the answer to every question. Encourage collaboration in your team by demonstrating that with them. This will help to empower them and help your team learn the skills to solve the next challenges going forward.
“People are always motivated. I don’t even believe that you, as a leader, need to motivate your people. I believe it’s about finding out what motivates them.”
About Markus van Alphen, Director, Excellent Leader
Markus is a leadership psychologist, author, teacher, trainer, organizational consultant, counselor and restorative practitioner. He is an authority on empathy, emotional intelligence, and well-being. Markus has a master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Amsterdam and a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Cape Town. As a thought leader, he introduces the term Observational Listening, a theme he has written several books about, including The Excellent Leader and The More Excellent Leader.
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According to a CPP global human capital study, 89% of employees let their conflicts with co-workers escalate. My guest today, Kristine Scott, is out to build a future where the energy of conflict gets harnessed to create pro-social change, not division.
Kristine shares how she got into this work of coaching teams on how to resolve conflict and what she learned from young people on the street dealing with conflict effectively. We talk about why most of us prefer to avoid conflict and the false narrative we tell ourselves about our ability to emotionally connect. Kristine offers a 3-step formula for resolving conflict and gives examples of it in action. We also discuss how self-awareness and self-reflection are the keys to effectively handling conflict while also protecting your own mental health.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Most people prefer to avoid conflict because they think they’re bad at it. We are more likely to remember the times we failed at conflict resolution, not the times we handled it successfully.
If there’s something that regularly gets under your skin, take a deeper look. Understand whether it is the action that is bothering you, or if it is what that action represents that is a trigger.
Supervisors assume the conflict is repaired more often than it is, which can lead to performance issues and tension within the organization.
Conflict often arises because people don’t feel heard. You can’t always solve the problem, but you can always listen with empathy and help them understand that they’re heard.
“We all have our weak points about the things that really get under our skin, and we lose all objectivity. We can work on that old stuff. We can get support, do a little therapy, and come back to not be so reactive.”
About Kristine Scott, Chief Trainer, Seattle Conflict Resolution
Kristine Scott is the founder and chief trainer for Seattle Conflict Resolution. She has taken over 20 years of lessons from high-incident social service settings and distilled truths and techniques in non-violent conflict response. What began as training for staff and volunteers became so popular she was sought out by hotels, doctors’ offices, and others. She founded the company in 2018 and is now the go-to trainer for Seattle Space Needle and Seattle Farmers Markets. Her customers return because she helps them use conflict to build loyalty through compassionate boundary setting.
As of 2024, Ms. Scott has trained over 37,000 people. She promotes a future where the energy of conflict gets harnessed to create pro-social change, not division. In addition to being a trainer, Kristine is also a regular podcast guest, and media source (USA Today).
Course for Customer Service professionals; Angry Customers, Happy Resolutions available at seattleconflictresolution.com
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Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business.
Did you know that according to a CPP global human capital study, 89% of employees let their conflicts with coworkers escalate. Not exactly the optimal performance environment is it? My guest today is how to build a future where the energy of conflict gets harnessed to create pro social change, not division. Christine Scott is the founder and chief trainer for Seattle conflict resolution. She’s taken more than 20 years of lessons from high incident social service settings, and distilled truths and techniques in nonviolent conflict response. What began as training for staff and volunteers became so popular she was sought out by hotels, doctors offices, and other customer service organizations. Christine is now the go to trainer for Seattle Space Needle, and Seattle farmers markets as well as other customer service organizations. Her clients returned because she helps them use conflict to build loyalty through compassionate boundary setting. As of 2024, Christine has trained over 37,000 people and as a regular podcast guest and media source for publications such as USA Today. Today, Christine shares how she got into this work of coaching teams on how to resolve conflict, she shares her encounter with the Seattle fleece that showcases her long commitment to social work and counseling. Christine also shares what she learned from young people on the street for dealing with conflict effectively, we discuss why most of us prefer to avoid conflict and the false narrative we tell ourselves about our ability to emotionally connect. Christine offers a three step formula for resolving conflict, and gives examples of it in action and customer service scenarios. We also talk about how self awareness and self reflection are the keys to effectively handling conflict, while also protecting your own mental health. We talked about what your employees need after a particularly tough customer service conflict so that they can move on to serving other customers effectively. And I bet many of you are not implementing this. So lots of great useful nuggets today. Take a listen. welcome Christine Scott to the empathy edge podcast where we’re going to talk about all things conflict resolution today.
Kristine Scott 03:05
Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Maria Ross 03:06
So tell us a little bit about your story and the wonderful story that you have to share about your interaction with the Seattle Police. That is so interesting, and instrumental to your history and your expertise and your work. But how did you come to the work of conflict resolution?
Kristine Scott 03:25
Well, there was a stormy night that I got pulled over for speeding, which is kind of a bad habit of mine. And the officer took my license and disappeared for a long time. And you know, when that happens, it’s a long time. That means you’re getting a ticket, right? Yeah. Well, he comes back and he says, You have got to be the unluckiest person I have ever met. I’m like, Yeah, because I got a speeding ticket. And he’s like, No, because you’ve witnessed one arson, and two assaults and three overdoses and domestic violence. And like he starts listing all of these things, that I realized, Oh, you’re talking about times that I’ve call 911. From the shelter that I run, you know, somebody in social services, I didn’t realize that they were keeping track of the 911. Caller, right. That’s what I just explained, like, I run this, you know, the state’s largest shelter for homeless young adults. And so we have a lot of crazy stuff that goes down. So he hands me back my license, and I got no ticket that night. Oh. And I was just like, wow, that was that was really unexpected.
Maria Ross 04:34
And so how did you get into this work of being such a, you know, you’re involved in so much almost like social work? I know. It’s not officially social work, but maybe it is. But this work of helping people in some of their worst moments. It feels like
Kristine Scott 04:47
I think, you know, we’re always drawn to the thing. That is our unresolved thing, right? Like, I grew up in a violent home. And so my unresolved thing was around power and control and how do you handle it when Things get scary, or people are using their power in a way that’s not healthy, healthy. And so I was attracted to social work. And I spent many years running nonprofits, including the shelter and group homes and meal programs. And I was constantly figuring out, like, how do I react, and I would either get way too aggressive or way too passive, and it wasn’t going great. And I started, fortunately watching young people who lived on the streets, and learning from them how they handled conflict. And they were doing much better at it than I was. Wow.
Maria Ross 05:36
Wow, that’s so interesting. We always think about helping them right. And there they are teaching you what, what was it about their ability to deal with it that you learned from?
Kristine Scott 05:48
Well, one thing that they had that I didn’t have is they had better threat assessors, right, like a lot of us, we listen to our bodies, our bodies tell us that there’s a threat to our life, we freak out. And we just assume that it really is a threat to our life, when in fact, it’s just a piece of coworker. And in fact, it’s just a boss who’s having a bad day like, like we, we internalize that alarm bell and think Oh, my God, I’m gonna die, right. And the young people who lived on the streets, their lives really were on the lines. They really had to get better threat assessors. So I watched them handle stuff without breaking a sweat, because it was just a part of their everyday existence. Wow. And
Maria Ross 06:35
so when did you start the Seattle Conflict Resolution Center?
Kristine Scott 06:39
It was after I’d been training people for my shelter, like my shoulder needed to expand, we were turning people away. So I had the tough choice, though. Like, well, I don’t have a staffing budget, but I do have this capital fund. So I’m going to do these construction improvements to my shelter and use a whole bunch of University of Washington student volunteers instead of a staff team, right? Instead of paying a whole bunch of people, I’m going to rely on staff to run the state’s largest slice sleepover for homeless young people. Wow, isn’t that a great idea? I had to learn how to train college students who are the same age as our shelter guests how to conflict, because I had started to figure it out myself by then. So I started like, Well, how do I train these guys, because my staffing budget relies on this volunteer cadre. So basically, I got really good at training other people how to handle conflict, and word spread. And soon other nonprofits started reaching out to me. And soon other corporations are reaching out and said, Hey, like Seattle Space Needle was like my first customer. Can you come and train our elevator operators on how to handle conflict? So so it just grew organically? I didn’t ever set out to become the queen of conflict, because it was, you know, like, 20 years ago, my my very worst thing. Right? Right. Well, so
Maria Ross 08:00
let’s dig into that. Because I think there’s a lot of people that believe that that’s their Achilles heel is conflict resolution, they label themselves as conflict averse, or I’m not very emotionally intelligent. dealing with conflict is really hard for me. So what are those myths that keep us stuck? And actually resolving conflict and being able to move forward together?
Kristine Scott 08:23
That is a great question, Maria. And first off, I want to point out that that’s really common. There was a study done that showed 89% of employees let their conflicts with coworkers escalate, that they would rather let it get worse than handle it because they’re so afraid of conflict going poorly. Wow. Reason why we assume that we’re bad at conflict is the kind of the way our memory works. We only remember the things that don’t go well. Like, you know, if you’ve had that perfect day, do you remember that perfect day? No, you remember that sucky day, right? You remember, things suck. And unresolved conflict feels gross in your body, it you feel that lack of resolution? Hmm. But when you resolve conflict successfully, it barely makes a blip in your memory, it doesn’t get stored in your long term memory the same way that unresolved conflict does. So we walk around like with a story, right? The symbology that, oh, I’m bad at conflict. And I have no emotional awareness at all. Like, no, you’re just remembering, you know, the five times last year that that you didn’t resolve conflict, and there were probably 800 that you did.
Maria Ross 09:35
Exactly, because the ones that didn’t was what kept you up at night. Mm hmm, exactly. And so what is it about? I feel like this persona out there and I grew up in a very loud, boisterous Italian family, and we were very we were not conflict averse. But in a very, like, we’d let it all out and then it would be over and then we’d move on and being married to a British person now. was raised very differently. It stays with him. Right. He, you know, I’ve already forgotten about the thing that happened yesterday, you know, and he’s still processing it. So what is it about certain people, that they’re able seemingly to handle conflict or disagreement or tension with such grace and calm? Like, what is their secret?
Kristine Scott 10:22
Yeah, yeah, I, I’ve kind of broken, broken it down to a formula for folks, they do three things in a certain sequence, usually the conflict will get resolved. And the first thing they need to do is validate the other person, the other person is going to have some big feelings. And when we have big feelings, we feel really isolated. Having somebody else say, Wow, I’d be upset, if that happened to me, just totally takes the air out of the attention just leaves because you validated. And that’s what we all need, we need validation. If you want to validate them, then you state your boundary, I can help you with this. Like, for example, one of my clients right now has this beautiful glass gallery. So the all was hand blown, very fragile, very expensive art. And families come through this gallery with kids that are running and screaming. And you know, the people who put on the gallery displays have chosen not to put big giant signs that say, do not touch the glass out of aesthetic concerns, right? So now all of their staff have to be that person that tells them no patch the glass. And so what I what I’ve trained them to do is like, go up to them and say, oh, yeah, that’s, that’s one of my favorite pieces, I could see why you want to touch that, again, validate them, before you put the next part of the phase, which is boundary, here’s the boundary, like, I’m so sorry that you can’t touch that piece. There are some pieces in our gift shop that you can touch of that. So you’re you’re validating the thing that they want to do the emotion that that needs to like get named, then you’re setting the boundary. And then the last stage is either offer support or offer options, sometimes both, right? So so the gift gift shop is an option, right? There’s this thing you can do if you really need to touch class, you can go do it in our gift shop. Right, right? Or like, Hey, would you like to learn more about about the artist? Because I see that you’re really curious about this piece?
Maria Ross 12:37
That’s such a nice diplomatic way of saying.
Kristine Scott 12:40
Yeah, but but again, because we have this idea, like, oh, I suck at conflict, I can handle this. Like, no, no, no, we just have to do kind of like what your book talks about Maria around empathy, like, once we have that sense of ourselves, and that compassion for ourselves is so much easier to give it to somebody else. And just like, Okay, I don’t like their behavior. But I know that we all do that. I know, we all do stuff we don’t like, right. And so
Maria Ross 13:07
in that in those interactions, like being a hot headed person myself, my challenge is normally that the the instant escalation that happens in my body, and in my tone and in, like, instead of being able to ground myself and be the voice of calm, I match the person I’m dealing with what is some advice you have for people or leaders who are you know, they’re dealing with a with an upset worker, who’s, you know, I’m so mad about this new return to work policy. And obviously, you know, these three steps are great, but how do you what is the internal work that needs to be done to make sure that you have the cognitive ability, the executive functions firing, so you can do those
Kristine Scott 13:51
three steps? You’re exactly right. It’s just like CPR first aid, you cannot enter the scene. If you are not in that in that green zone and that safe like, okay, I’m okay, I know, I’m safe. I know, I’m not under attack. I know my life is not being threatened right now. Like, and that that takes some self awareness. I really like that. That’s the pillar in your new book that’s coming out that self awareness piece because yes, the first step, your last American, right, like, you know, like, Okay, I’m Maria, I’m feeling I’m feeling something about what’s going on here. I’m probably not the right person to deescalate this other folk, you know, I just have to do it for myself. First, you have to deescalate yourself first. And part of how I train people is like what are the signs of their fight flight freeze system taking over? What are some things that they can do to sidestep it taking over? And, you know, we’ve done we’ve done enough neuroscience now that we have learned that we can actually sidestep a full blown fight flight freeze takeover of our body with something as simple Let’s deep breaths, the nerve endings on the outsides of our lungs. Once they stretch out apart from each other, they actually tell your body Oh, everything’s okay. Crisis averted? And I know that sounds really hokey. Ooh, do you bros knew to do, but I swear by
Maria Ross 15:17
them? Because they does. There’s something it’s what do they call the somatic system? I don’t I’m not using the terminology correctly. But the parasympathetic nervous system, it’s it does, because we’re fighting the evolutionary instinct that’s been bred into us that the Tigers going to eat me. Exactly. When we’re in a situation where the tiger is not going to eat you. It’s just your boss telling you, you have to come into the office three days a week, like, Nobody’s life is being threatened right now. But your body doesn’t know the difference. Your brain doesn’t know the difference. And so it’s almost like we need these. I hate the word hacks. But we need these like shortcuts to, to douse water on our own innate instincts to respond in a certain way. And I think that’s the, that’s I for me, it’s the biggest challenge, I’m sure it’s a lot of the biggest challenge for people who are listening is to, how do you catch yourself in that moment, and I, the awareness does go a long way. Because if you start to feel your blood pressure going up, if you start to feel your heart hammering a little more, for me, it’s if I feel like I instantly want to jump in and correct the person. I know that that’s okay. You’re getting escalated here, like take a breath. But it doesn’t always work.
Kristine Scott 16:37
That’s where I tell people keep track of those things that get under your skin. Because that’s your body’s way of telling you. There might be something from your past that you haven’t healed. No, as a person who was raised in an explosive home. Guess who freaked out every time somebody larger than me was screaming at me. Like, I had to do some work around that.
Maria Ross 16:58
So yeah, I mean, that’s that is the thing is looking back at what, you know, like, this is such a silly example. But my empathy seems to go out the window. Sometimes when I’m in a, when I’m in a line, like a coffee shop line, or a checkout line. And my sense of, of indignation, and righteousness is just triggered when people cut the line, whether they mean to or not. And instead of my first assumption being I don’t know that they meant to do that. It’s this. I just can’t not say anything. But I’ve learned to just be like, you know, much kinder about it and be like, let’s assume the person didn’t know, because I’ve done it to where I did. I didn’t know I didn’t see the line over there. But it’s but I’ve explored that for myself of like, Why? Why do we get so mad when people cut the line? And it’s not even about them cutting the line, it actually stems back to my sense of fairness. And my sense of like, No, I’m following the rules. So other P and all of us are following the rules. Everybody should follow the rules. And so it’s just one example. But it’s looking back at like, it’s not actually the thing that’s triggering me, it’s what the thing represents. And I’m sure other people can think of examples for themselves of like, that moment, or that action that gets under their skin. Is it actually that thing that’s bothering you? Or is it what it represents?
Kristine Scott 18:22
Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. And you do that very well.
Maria Ross 18:26
Yeah. I mean, and I know, you know, when it comes to leadership, and we’re the work environment, you know, we think, Oh, it’s work, right? It’s not personal. But those triggers abound in the workplace. And one that I know I’ve talked to a few leaders about, especially female leaders, is that they get, they get very triggered by not being understood. Like if their words are twisted, or if their words are just innocently misunderstood. It’s a trigger for them. Because when, as they were growing up, as they were coming up in the ranks, not being understood seriously was it was a sore spot for them. And so it, it could cause them to explode if they’re not careful. So I want to go on, I’m going on and on, because I love what you’re talking about. When we do deal with conflict. And we’re, we’re strong enough when we’re facing it. When we do tackle it, there’s times where it may not get better. So tell us a little bit about what happens to people after difficult conversations, especially if it didn’t go well. And we’re, you know, we’re we’re brushing up on all the tips you’re giving us we’re doing all the self awareness, but it’s not a magic bullet. It doesn’t mean the situation is going to go well or it’s going to get resolved or everybody’s going to be happy. So what do we do for ourselves post
Kristine Scott 19:44
engagement. Now, I really encourage folks that if you do have that fight, flight, freeze takeover, like if you feel all those things going on in your body, that within the next 24 hour period. I want them to do some type of physical activity, at least 10 Minutes of elevated heart rate. Studies have shown that if you don’t do that your body starts to associate the circumstances of that conflict with a threat to your life. And so you know, problems with job performance, stress related injury, and illness, all of those things will happen to you, unless you reset your body. And then all obviously, in the time that is going on, that a lot of the supervisors and managers I work with, I encourage them give people the opportunity to take a 20 minute break, so that they can fully reset. Because once that mechanism is triggered, it takes 20 minutes of no new stimulation for our parasympathetic nervous system to come back on board. Like the breathing works in the beginning, but once it’s fully gone, it won’t save you. And then the other thing I encourage them to do is do kind of an autopsy about the conflict itself. What was it about the situation that didn’t work? We all have our weak points, like we talked about the things that just really get under our skin, and we lose all objectivity around. Okay, I’m going to make a note of that, and I’m gonna work on that, like, what is it about having people not hear or understand me? That is really, really hard. You know, for example, when I was young, I had a speech impediment. So having people say, what, what did you say? Hugely triggering for me? Yeah, we, we can work on that old stuff, week weekend, get a little support, do a little therapy, and come back and kind of not be so reactive. I think that’s such
Maria Ross 21:38
an important point. Because especially with a lot of the consulting you do around helping customer service representatives, organizations, helping them deal with conflict between themselves and a customer, where you know, what’s on the line is more than just the conflict, you could lose a customer, you can lose revenue, you can, you know, get cancelled all of these things. And so, what I love about that is I don’t think that that’s something that a lot of managers or leaders think about is giving them that, that rest moment, after a particularly tense, conflict with a customer, they just want them to sort of like, okay, shake it off, keep going, especially if you’re in like a phone support center, or something like that, where you know, it’s okay, we got just got to take the next call, we got to take the next call. But I think that that’s a really important point. And I just want to underline that. Because if you want your people to be operating at peak performance, and you don’t want that one conflict, to negatively impact the rest of the customers that that person is dealing with for the rest of the day, it’s in your best interest to just take 10 minutes, 20 minutes and give that person a break. And so what about a leader? Let’s like I know, again, a lot of your work is around helping with conflict between customers and workers. But if you’re a leader, and you have a conflict with someone that you manage, and supervise, or vice versa, you have a conflict with your manager or supervisor, what is the best way forward? On, you know, let’s say you do kind of go to your corners and have a timeout, what’s the best way forward to come back and repair, especially when there’s a power dynamic? Right.
Kristine Scott 23:18
One thing to notice about the power dynamic is the data suggests that people who are the supervisor, assume that conflict is repaired more often than it actually is. So, so know that if you are dealing with a conflict with a report to your bias may be working against you. And that person may not feel resolved, and is much more likely to talk badly about you and have other performance issues, but not actually tell you that the conflict is not resolved. So I really encourage folks like if you feel any kind of tension with somebody that reports to you pull in us maybe a second set of eyes, somebody you trust around, hey, what do you notice about so and so and, you know, this is how our last conversation went? Do you think I’m missing something like ombudsman room safe reporting, all those other things that you can add to the situation. And when it’s your own supervisor, I really encourage people to manage up as best as they can. And just keep on being an advocate for like the the language I like to use is our working relationship is gold. We need to really honor and support and treat it well. And I see this as a threat to our working relationship being healthy. This this this you know, this seems like a minor topic, but it really is important to me like I had the last time I was a director, I had somebody who really wanted a stand up desk. And my little brain couldn’t figure out how to fit a stand up desk in in the small office that he was in and I Just after he brought it up the third time I realized, you know, this, me figuring out isn’t isn’t as important as me hearing what he needs and saying, Yes, I will, I will buy it, you figure out how to make it work. Right. Right. Yeah, he
Maria Ross 25:16
just wanted to be heard. I mean, that’s part of it. It’s I feel like there are so many things. I mean, some things are genuine conflicts and points of contention. But a lot of these things happen simply because someone doesn’t feel heard, and then escalates. And it again, as I always say, it doesn’t mean you have to do what the person asks or says, it’s just about being able to listen and help them feel heard. And I know that that’s hard for people because they go, Okay, so I’m, I’m listening, but I’m never gonna give the person what they want. So why bother? And so what would you say to that in terms of like helping it, helping avoid an escalation or avoid a conflict? Now, what if that is the response from an executive, your coaching or a leader your coaching?
Kristine Scott 25:57
What do you say to them? No, can be the the most connective message you have to give to somebody if you do it? Well. Right? You say? So what I’m what I’m hearing you say, and I would feel that way to who? And here’s my experience of when we’ve tried that, and why I don’t want us to go down that path. And I really honor that you trusted me with this. And I really honor that you’re trying to make improvements around here. So if we can’t make this improvement, are you interested in some other projects that are on my long to do list of things that need to change around here? You know, like, there’s, there’s ways to say no, yes, yes, absolutely. And folks feel heard they feel seen they feel validated. Yeah. And
Maria Ross 26:43
I think that’s where empathy comes in. It’s, again, educating people that empathy doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to be happy. Right? So it’s a method of communicating and connecting. And the goal of it is not conversion, if the goal of it is not to roll over and give the other person what they want. But there’s a way that you can communicate that information, even when it’s a no even when it’s a tough decision, even when it’s hard. Because you’re you’re thinking through what that person might need in that moment. And that is actually our job as leaders, you know, a lot of leaders say, Well, that takes so much time I’ve just got so much to do, and we just got to get going after I don’t have time to coddle it’s not coddling if it’s about creating stronger connections, that’s actually the job of leading.
Kristine Scott 27:24
Yeah, you’re exactly right. Love it.
Maria Ross 27:27
Okay. So, you know,
Kristine Scott 27:29
you always talk about the optimistic
Maria Ross 27:31
view of with a bit of skill, this will always get better, right, and you will get better at helping resolve conflict. So can you share a story with us about an executive that you worked with? And tell us about that? That growth?
Kristine Scott 27:46
That happened? Yeah, I think the first time I was pulled in to a union team, the manager there was pretty burned out. And just act really beleaguered like are the Union wants this and don’t want dad and did it? Any? Yeah, kind of deter
Maria Ross 28:08
just right. Tired and bitter. Yeah.
Kristine Scott 28:13
He did not want to be involved in the details of the SOPs that I set up with this particular team. So I started working with the team and I started like crystallizing what their, what the chips were, to the procedures around their workplace. And they had some really great ideas and some really creative thinking. They just needed a fresh venue. And so when I came back to the manager and said, So what they what they’re saying is this, and what I recommend is that, like, I didn’t have any new ideas, I just basically regurgitated what the team had said, all of a sudden, I saw optimism, and I saw this sense of like, oh, oh, and then the next time I worked with the T team, he sat in on the on the meeting. And then the next time there was more of a lean in, and finally I didn’t even need to be in the room to get with them. Because they were both co creating, they can restore this the sense of balance between him as the guy who held the resources, and they as the ones who, you know, had to make all this work. So what do you think, catalyze that, I think in that case, it was just a fresh perspective. Right? said like, wow, what you’re saying is really valid. Oh, yeah. Well, what you’re seeing is really felt like
Maria Ross 29:38
it was a translator, almost. Yeah. Or mediator? Uh huh.
Kristine Scott 29:40
And also, I brought in some perspective around, like what we talked about earlier around our biology and how, when things don’t go well, we assume really bad things about each other. And some of the assumptions that we’re making about management oh, you should have heard that they said about the management when he was not in the room. Like, I let them vent without giving it credibility. Like it’s okay to like bad mouth because I’m just I’m just this outsider right here underneath that is that you’re really invested in this change or this happening. Hmm. So again, like a little bit inflation, a little bit of entry into.
Maria Ross 30:22
Yeah, I mean, I know you know when I worked in corporate those times I’ve actually told bosses of mine that the moment I stop being the squeaky wheel is the moment I’m disengaged, like the only reason I’m bringing these things up and pointing out how things can get better is because I care. Right? And if I stopped doing that, that’s actually when you need to get worried. Mm hmm. You know, granted, I probably could have done it in a better way. But you know, the point was, I think, sometimes we label these things as Oh, they’re disgruntled, or they’re they’re ungrateful. Titled, yeah, all the things we hear, especially about different generations. But there’s motive behind that. And that’s where empathy can really come in of like, are you actually trying to see what is not being said? Or what is the intent or the the context of the person? That’s not actually the words they’re saying, or the idea they’re sharing, it’s something else under the covers? And that that does take time, and it does take effort, but it’s worth
Kristine Scott 31:25
it? It’s definitely worth it. And Bill Gates said, your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. 100% Yeah,
Maria Ross 31:36
I look at it as free market research. You know, and I’m gonna put a link in the show notes. I mentioned him in the empathy edge, Jay Baer, who’s a marketing and customer expert, he wrote a fantastic book. This is not quite quite the same thing. But it’s called Hug Your Haters, which is around what do you do with negative reviews with negative feedback from customers? And our instinct is to call them all trolls. Right? They’re not I mean, most of the time, if people are taking the time to complain about something, it’s something pretty important. It’s something that has impacted them, like, we know a troll when we see it, but someone complaining about the service they got at a restaurant. It’s not a troll there. They’re venting there. They feel like they were not appreciated. And so he advises, Pat, first of all, how you respond to that says something about your brand, especially if it’s in a public forum, if it’s on Yelp, or on the internet, but also, there’s gold in in that feedback. And yes, maybe it was an outlying one time that thing happened. But chances are, it
Kristine Scott 32:41
wasn’t. No. Yeah. So okay,
Maria Ross 32:45
so as we wrap up, I just want to hear you again, you work with a lot of customer service organizations, I’m putting you on the spot here for a second, because I know we didn’t necessarily plan on talking about this. But what is one of your biggest aha was for helping a customer service rep. Or a customer success rep or whatever, you know, someone dealing with an angry customer. I know, he gave us the three step method, which is great. But what’s another story or again, the word hack that you love that seems to work magic every time
Kristine Scott 33:15
I help them boil down? Why are they in customer service? Like you chose customer service? Because you really care about people having a good experience is my like, and usually that’s usually that’s, you know, when I’m in the room with people, that’s, you know, that’s what comes up. Yeah. And guess what, you you will stop caring, and you are going to get embittered and an embattled unless you give yourself lots and lots of grace, and really promote your own learning of round how to deal with tricky situations. Because you, your body is just not going to want to be hearing more. No. And then, you know, when I say that, I always ask like, Are there any, like people who’ve been here longer than you that you look at and say, Wow, I don’t ever want to be like so and so? Because they’re just really bitter. Like, yeah, yeah. Don’t let that happen to you. Yeah. Give give yourself permission to go on this journey around how you handle conflict, how you show up with lots of compassion for yourself and for others. And it will transform you, you will become so much better at what you do here and at life.
Maria Ross 34:30
Yeah, getting back to our purpose, right, that Northstar of like, let’s try to remember why we’re here. So, Christine, this has been such a great conversation and I don’t want to leave without telling folks about your wonderful interactive online course. angry customers happy resolutions that’s available on your website. So anyone in customer service anyone who leads a customer service or customer success team will definitely want to check that out. It’s designed for customer service as you have told me Eat, and helps them work on content. They’re weakened based on common conflict scenarios and customer service. So lots of good stuff there. Thank you for your insights today. We will have all your links in the show notes. But where is the one or two best places for folks to connect with you if they’re on the go right now?
Kristine Scott 35:21
Probably LinkedIn and you’re my website. Wonderful.
Maria Ross 35:25
And as I always like to put my little PSA for LinkedIn, if you reach out to Christine on LinkedIn, make sure you send her a note that says that you heard her on the podcast. Christine, thank you and I look forward to more collaborations with you on this topic. Thank you. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge. Remember, if you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate review and share it with a friend or a colleague. And until next time, always remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Stay well and be kind.
For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access, show notes and free resources booked me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
Welcome to a special episode brought to you by the great folks at Businessolver! Their annual State of Workplace Empathy Report has been my go-to for years in finding out exactly how everyone from CEOs to employees thinks and feels about empathy in the workplace. The 2024 report offers so much valuable information to help all of us navigate the new world of work.
Today, I’m honored to discuss Part 1 of Businessolver’s 9th annual State of Workplace Empathy study, Empathy Under Pressure, with Businessolver’s chief strategy officer, Rae Shanahan. We focus on laying out the context of the mental health and workplace toxicity findings, what CEOs are currently feeling, and the stigmas and barriers to empathy in the workplace.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
50% of employees cited a mental health issue in the past year, and the report details about 65% of Gen Z cited a mental health issue, nearly twice the amount of Baby Boomers.
If we want to achieve our goals as a team, we cannot leave our humanity outside of the office.
Hold your ideas lightly. Things change and, when they do and you’re given new data, it’s okay to change your mind.
While being nice is great, you can’t “nice” your way to empathy.
“Stigmas create a fear-based environment, and people cannot bring their best selves if they’re in an environment of fear.”
— Rae Shanahan
From Our Partner:
Download the 2024 Ninth Annual State of Workplace Empathy study from Businessolver: www.businessolver.com/edge
About Rae Shanahan, Chief Strategy Officer, Businessolver
Rae Shanahan is an experienced executive with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Known for her strong business development skills in coaching, sales, team building, and healthcare information technology and management, Rae brings a unique blend of strategic insight and empathetic leadership to the table. Her empathetic approach has been instrumental in nurturing the growth of Businessolver from a dozen employees to over 1,700. Rae understands the importance of empathy in fostering a collaborative and innovative work environment, ensuring culture is always first. This perspective has guided her efforts as the current Chief Strategy Officer at Businessolver and her previous role as CEO of Innovation Works, where she supported the incubation of new business strategies and opportunities. Her initiatives, including the launch of Businessolver’s Artificial Intelligence Engine, MyChoice Accounts and the Benefits Innovation Group, are all centered on delivering delight to clients and their employees, ensuring that everyone feels valued and heard.
Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: red-slice.com
PRE-SALE SPECIAL! Pre-order 1 to 99 copies of Maria’s new book, The Empathy Dilemma for your leaders, exec team, (or yourself?!) and GET 30%! bit.ly/TEDSpecialPresale Offer ends August 27, 2024!
Hi, Rae, welcome to the special bonus episode of the Empathy Edge to feature Businessolver and your wonderful State of Workplace Empathy Report. Welcome to the show once again.
Rae Shanahan:
Well, hello, Maria. I’m glad to be here.
Maria:
So we know each other, we’ve known each other a few years and have never met in person, but I followed your work, obviously cited a lot of Businessolver’s findings in my books, in my new book, The Empathy Dilemma. You’ve been doing this report for quite a few years, and we also know each other through a wonderful group of thought leaders called the Empathy Super Friends, where we’re really trying to help leaders and organizations embrace the power of empathy to make the workplace better for everyone.
But before we kind of get into the meat of this interview, and I should let listeners know this is going to be a two-part bonus episode. So it’s going to be fantastic to really dissect the 2024 State of Workplace Empathy Report.
But before we dive in, just to level set, can you tell us what Businessolver’s definition of empathy is and how it applies to the workplace?
Rae:
Sure, I think that what we use in the survey is it’s the ability to understand and or experience the feelings or perspectives of another.
And I would even add on to that part of the way Brene Brown defines empathy is it’s without judgment. So, it’s understanding the perspectives of the other person without judgment so that we can be present and understand. Because don’t we all want to feel heard and understood?
Maria:
100%. And as we talk about on this show a lot, there’s so many benefits that organizations receive when they create an empathetic environment, when leaders and colleagues can be empathetic to each other. And what I love about your report is it really gives the data around what people are thinking and feeling in the workplace, what ways they can do their best work, and to really give leaders a guide.
So, I want to get into part one of the report, titled, Empathy Under Pressure. And I know the findings were really impactful to me in my work. And I feel like every leader in an organization needs to know about these findings. So how and why is empathy under pressure according to your findings?
Rae:
Well, you know, we do this every year right around January, February of each year. And, you know, if we think back to what was going on earlier this year, you know, we’re dealing with heightened political, social state. There was still pressure for people to be returning to the office, you know, and a side note, I hate it when they say people say ‘return to work’ because that’s meaning that if people work from home, it’s not real work, right? We’ll talk more about that. But.
Maria:
Yeah, right.
Rae:
But I think somewhat like 65% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. it’s hard on businesses and, you know, CEOs have to run a business. And I think sometimes they confuse running a business, but they can still be empathetic and run a business and deliver for their shareholders.
Maria:
Yeah, it’s definitely both and, not either or. And so where do you see that pressure coming from?
Rae:
Yeah, you know, I think it’s the pressure to perform. And if we think about it from a CEO perspective, which I think is where we saw a lot of the numbers this year really, I think that we really want to spend some time on, is if you think about CEOs by who they are, they’re on top because they’ve performed. And they have been able to fix it. They’ve been able to take care of business and they’ve been right.
So, it’s really, I think sometimes it’s hard for CEOs to take a step back and be a little vulnerable and model some of the empathetic behaviors.
Maria:
Yeah. And you know, there’s a changing workplace culture paradigm. There’s a changing leadership paradigm. And I have a lot of empathy for those leaders who are sort of like, wait, what? Like now the rules are changing on me and all these things that I was told my entire career that would get me to success, you know, I’m being told, no, I should get personal at work, and I should get to know people. And back in the, back in the day, I was told not to do those things.
So, I have a lot of empathy for them where we’re kind of going, okay, now that you’re at the top, we’re going to change the rules of the game.
And it’s good that we’re changing those rules, but they need to get their footing a little bit there.
So, speaking of that, on the other end of the spectrum is the younger people entering the workforce and Gen Z. So, let’s talk a little bit about the Gen Z findings of the report. You mentioned 50% of employees cite a mental health issue in the past year. And the report goes into detail about 65% of Gen Z cited a mental health issue, nearly twice the amount of baby boomers, which is huge. And Gen Z is also the most likely to say the workplace is toxic.
So, what do you make of those findings?
Rae:
Well, having a Gen Z son and hanging out with some of those Gen Zs, what I love about it is they’re just very open and they’re not afraid to say what’s on their mind. They’re not afraid to share. I think that we have a lot of sharing. I’m one year away from being a baby boomer. So, Maria, when you talk about, you know, the difference between baby boomers. Yeah, there was a time where, my gosh, would I ever admit a weakness? Would I ever actually show vulnerability and that I was nervous or concerned or anything like that or share a mental health issue?
And so, I think it’s just a very distinct line that they grew up being in a very social world where everybody knows everything. I think we felt that and kind of felt that in dealing with Gen Zs, but the results really did back that up.
Maria:
Yeah. I mean, they’ve grown up with transparency and vulnerability, as you said, and I think that’s kind of getting back to the rules have changed. Because I’m Gen X and we were told not to. We were told to pretend we had all the answers and to do things ourselves and to just put our heads down and get the work done. No matter what we were feeling that day, right? People didn’t care about, and not for any bad reason. was just, you don’t bring that into the workplace kind of a situation.
And luckily, we’ve started to realize that actually you can’t just park your humanity at the door when you go to the office. So we have to make room for that and really understand if we want to achieve our goals, if we want to actually get work done and be high performing. it’s not just about coddling, as a lot of people like to say.
Rae:
Right. Right.
Maria:
So let’s circle back to your CEO findings, which were very alarming. And I love this quote from one of the CEOs you interviewed.
They said, ‘I do have a life outside of work. They only see me in one thing. I would like to be seen as a bigger person. I work really, really long hours and I would like them to know that I’m more than just a CEO. I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m a fisherman, I’m a shitty golfer.’
What do you think is happening with CEOs?
Rae:
Wow. Well, I happen to be married to one, so I have a little perspective I can potentially share. But they’re under just tremendous pressure to keep their orgs running, keep running lean to deliver for their shareholders. And what I think is enlightening is between that quote and then also for the first time we had a, I think more than half of the CEOs have said that they had a mental health issue and that’s up 24 points in over a year.
So, when I saw it, when I first saw that, was like, Whoa. And then I said, you know what? This is great. What this is telling me is that by that number of people expressing as a CEO that they’ve had a mental health issue, think we’re making progress on seeing some more vulnerability.
And because, you know, anytime I’m a big believer before you can have behavioral change, you first got to accept something, acknowledge it before you can start to have change.
So, when I saw that number, I thought, wow, an increase of 24 points means that we’ve either we’ve made some progress on at least accepting that its thing, that its a real thing. And so now hopefully we can start to make some progress. And I think that’s an important step in bringing empathy into the workplace for those CEOs.
Maria:
Well, and know you and I have talked about this, that I don’t know that it’s actually, I mean, it probably has increased given all the issues you named earlier about the current environment we’re in. But I just, like you, I feel like actually it’s more people are admitting it. Like maybe they always were suffering from it, but you weren’t supposed to admit it in the workplace.
And so to your point, I think it is very encouraging that, you know, the first step in recovering and healing and getting past something is admitting there’s a problem. And I like that we’re, like that Gen Z is pushing us to be more transparent and open about those things, right?
Rae:
Right? Maybe. Hey, that’s a positive. I like it. I like it. Yes, yes.
Maria:
Yeah, yeah. And so, and it doesn’t mean everything falls apart and we stop producing, we stop being efficient, we stop, you know, all of these things. It just means now we can recognize and admit the elephant in the room, and then we can figure out a way to get beyond it.
I love that.
Rae:
I like it. Yes, yes.
Maria:
All right. So your study also found a relationship between mental issues and workplace toxicity. And I have a few things to say about workplace toxicity, but can you tell us more about that? What is that link?
Rae:
Well, I mean, it’s kind of logical, right? If a toxic workplace where there’s fear in the workplace, there’s fear of retribution, there’s, you don’t have your, it’s not a safe psychological environment. I would expect that there would be more mental health issues if they cite, right, a toxic workplace.
Maria:
Mm -hmm.
Rae:
So, I’d love to hear, I know you’ve written books and you’ve done a lot, you know, really about that toxicity. So, I’d love to hear what you have to say, Maria.
Maria:
Yeah, I mean, it’s just they go hand in hand. And I think we underestimate the personal mental health toll that a tough workplace can have on someone. And as someone who has worked under two psychologically abusive managers, and I don’t use that term dramatically, it impacted every aspect of my life. It impacted my health. It impacted my sleep. It impacted my mood and emotions and my desire to engage, my desire to actually do my best work in those environments.
And what those managers were trying to do, they were trying to get the best work out of me, but they were doing it in a way where it was impossible for a human to deliver their best work in that environment, right?
And I think that’s what we’re learning more of is that, cognitively, like brain science tells us our brains shut down, our ability, our executive functions, our ability to innovate and create and collaborate and think is impacted when we’re living in fear or we’re living or working in an environment that doesn’t feel safe for us.
And so that is actually the opposite of what a manager should want. You want your people at their best, at their sharpest, at their most creative so that everyone can get their bonus next year. And so, I think that really calling that out, in which the report does a great job of showing that corollary, is that the ways that we think we’re getting the most out of people are actually hurting our organizations, not helping.
So, love that.
Now, do you think that that spike in mental health issues and that naming of the workplace as toxic is also related to the return to office push? Do you think there’s a relationship there?
Rae:
I mean, it certainly could be. If people were functioning well, working remotely, they’re getting their jobs done and delivering, telling them that they weren’t, by saying we need to return to the office means that we can’t trust you as an adult to continue to do your work.
And I have to say, again, from our organization, we were a absolute ‘be in the office all the time’ company. It took an act of something for our CEO to approve people in a non-sales job to work remotely.
And I’ll tell you what, you know, one of the things that I think is so important for CEOs, I mean, in all of us in general, but is the concept of holding your ideas lightly. Things can change. When proven data, when given data points, when, you know, it’s okay to say ‘I changed my mind.’
Right? And, you know, five years ago, I didn’t like broccoli, and you know, I like it again, you know, and, and we, we, we can’t be so hard on people for changing their minds.
So, where I was going with that is, you know, once we, as an organization had, you know, a year or two under our belt of working remotely, the data points showed that our employees were more engaged. We had lower employee turnover. We were able to hire a more diverse workforce. We had a higher, what we call pulse score and delivering to our clients.
You know, our CEO said, you know what? I was wrong before and, and we’re going to stay a completely remote environment.
And I think that more times that CEOs can be okay with changing direction, admitting that, ‘Hey, this was, this was, I wasn’t thinking about this,’ right. It’s part of showing that vulnerability, which then can help an organization embrace that and really eliminate some of the fear.
Maria:
Yeah, that resilience and that adaptability is huge. And we saw that people were able to innovate and perform when they worked remotely. Maybe not in every single 100% of the circumstances. It depends on your job, right? But then to expect people to immediately go back is like, well, wait a minute. I see that there’s another way to do this. I see that there’s another way for me to deliver for the organization.
And I think a lot of it is the discomfort of leaders in leading in that environment. When they had to, they had to, because it was a crisis. It was emergency. Everyone was under lockdown. But now that they have a choice, some of them are going back to what they know, which is the status quo. It’s like, I only know how to lead people when I can see them all under one roof. And that’s what I mean about the unlearning, the thing that it’s like, but it was always this way.
And that resilience is really gonna help organizations perform and lead in the market if they can understand that the needs of their people have changed. And it’s not about them demanding something unreasonable. It’s that they’ve seen a way to work. They accomplished it. They did it that way. And it’s like, hey, we know this works now. So, I think that’s so important. I thought it was really interesting about CEOs.
And, I thought it was really interesting about CEOs, 80% of them say that being empathetic, okay, and you know this is like my hot spot, right? Being empathetic means being nice to others all the time versus 55% of employees and 62% of HR. And this quote was great: ‘I thought empathy was sending flowers when someone was sick, doing something along those lines, more sympathy than empathy.’
And you know my rant about empathy is not about being nice. So, it kind of begs the question, and I think I know the answer, do you believe that most CEOs understand what empathy is and what it isn’t?
Rae:
I don’t, I don’t. And it really starts with having a common language. An organization needs to have a common language and common definitions of things like empathy, feedback. And I can’t believe that even in this day that there’s that hybrid percentage that talk about being nice.
I think over the last three years, and you’re one of them, there have been over 300 books published on empathy. I mean, it’s definitely something that’s out there. And I think there’s some CEOs that really grasp it. But it shouldn’t be this hard to be able to pause, listen, and appreciate where someone’s coming from.
Maria:
Right.
And still be able to make tough decisions while you do that. I have often said it’s a mindset. It’s taking the other person’s perspective, seeing things through their perspective, but it doesn’t mean you change your mind. It doesn’t mean you change the business decision. It doesn’t mean that you avoid tough conversations like, you know, difficult performance reviews.
Rae:
Right.
Maria:
It just means it’s your way of operating with someone and your way of interacting with someone. And it’s not enough to be nice. Because as you’ve always heard me say someone could bake really good cookies and bring them to the office, but it doesn’t mean they see my point of view. And it doesn’t mean they’re with me in, you know, what do I need to be successful? What do I need to feel heard?
So, while being nice is great, we can’t just like nice our way to empathy, right? And so I feel like there’s also that stigma around, ‘Well, I’m just not overly emotional’ or ‘I’m not touchy feely,’ which again, I’m out there doing workshops and trainings, you’re out there with the report talking about that, that’s not what we’re saying empathy is.
But given that stigma, or speaking of stigmas I should say, a strong mental health stigma also exists, according to the report. And the study showed that CEOs (81%), HR (72%), and employees (675) all agree that companies view someone with mental health issues as weak or a burden. So what do you think are some of the key things driving those stigmas?
Rae:
That people are perceived as being weak, they’re a burden, they are a pushover. And I think that’s really, really unfortunate. Just because I have a mental health issue doesn’t mean that I can’t still be a very productive employee.
It should not hold people back. The same reason is just because I’m not working in an office and I can’t interact with a senior executive doesn’t mean that I can’t still be a great leader within the organization. So, it’s disappointing to hear that or understand that some people feel that empathy doesn’t have a place in the workplace. hopefully we can both be changing this.
Maria:
Yeah, absolutely. Again, it’s that both and, and really, I think a lot of it is misunderstanding of what mental health issues are, just like it’s about a misunderstanding of what empathy actually is. And I think once people get educated on those actual definitions and what they mean, and as they get exposed to more people that are, whether it’s people with mental health issues that are still performing at amazing levels, or whether it’s leaders that are highly empathetic, but also highly ambitious and highly successful, that will hopefully change those stigmas to say, can be both and.
Rae:
Yeah, we really need to get rid of the, I think that the stigmas create a fear -based environment and people cannot be their best selves if they’re in a fear, an environment of fear.
Maria:
Yeah. And so do you have some tips on what employers can do to break those stigmas?
Rae:
I mean, it’s going to sound so simple, Maria, and I’m sure you can add on to it.
Maria:
And hard at the same time.
Rae:
But it’s about being authentic. It’s about being real. It’s about how I started this with adding on to our definition of empathy, of things without judgment. So, one of the things in the study employs value in open door policy. An open door policy means that there’s a two-way street, that you can listen as well as provide feedback. And I think the sooner we can grasp that people want to bring their whole selves to work, that they come from different perspectives, is the way that we can break down some of those stigmas.
Maria:
Right, and even your story about Businessolver itself, being resilient and listening to people, goes a long way to creating that interaction and that dialogue and that listening so that we get to know people and understand how they work best.
Rae:
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, using that concept that I said about holding our ideas lightly, keeping an open mind, being able to appreciate where people are coming from can go a long way toward helping people feel heard in the end.
Again, employees, clients, you know, people, they want to feel heard and, empathy I think is a key way to be able to do that.
Maria:
Absolutely. And I know in this conversation, we’ve only scratched the surface of the findings of the report, but we’re going to pick up next month with this bonus episode and actually talk about a game plan to put empathy into action.
So, folks will want to tune into that second bonus episode. We’re going to dive into how organizations can really create more empathy. What are the things they can do?
I just, this is so much great information and I hope people will check out the report for themselves because there’s so much more goodness in there. We’ve run out of time today, but next month, I’m, as I said, I’m hosting you again.
And I just want to thank people for listening to this bonus episode and encourage you if you are listening to tune into more content from Businessolver and the work they’re doing, how they’re using their technology to create empathetic environments in organizations, and also listen to their vodcast, Benefits Pulse, which can be found at Businesssolver.com/benefits-pulse. So that’s, that will be in the show notes as always. and you can also stay in touch by signing up for email with business solver or following them on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram to get the latest episode information for their vodcast, Benefits Pulse.
Thank you so much, Rae, for your time today and your insights. And thank you, everyone, for listening to this bonus episode of the Empathy Edge. Remember, if you like what you heard, rate and review it, share it with a friend or colleague. And until next time and next month with Rae, remember that cashflow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind.
Only 1 month away from the birthday of The Empathy Dilemma! I am so excited to share with you the last pillar today – joy. What the heck does joy have to do with empathy or high performance? Well, joy is where many leaders get stuck. When we talk about joy at work, it means ensuring people enjoy their work, encouraging work friendships, and creating a thriving culture, even when the work itself is challenging. Today, I break down how joy benefits teams and leaders, ways you can incorporate intentional joy into your organization every day, and give key strategies for finding success in your empathetic joy journey.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Joy in the workplace does not mean following your bliss at every moment. It means ensuring people enjoy their work, encouraging work friendships, and creating a thriving culture, even when the work itself is challenging.
Learn improv skills to help teams collaborate in virtually any environment. They teach you how to think on your feet, listen well, pass the ball, and even laugh at unexpected outcomes that lead to innovation.
Team building, when done properly, can be a source of joy and can transform interpersonal dynamics for the better when your internal culture is already serving the needs of your people.
“The ability to laugh at ourselves and find humor in tough situations is a sure sign of resilience, which is just what healthy teams need – things can and will go wrong. But when we stop taking ourselves so seriously, we can engage our prefrontal cortex to problem solve more effectively.”
Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: http://red-slice.com
PRE-SALE SPECIAL! Pre-order 1 to 99 copies of Maria’s new book, The Empathy Dilemma for your leaders, exec team, (or yourself?!) and GET 30%! https://bit.ly/TEDSpecialPresale Offer ends August 27, 2024!
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the August hot take with me your host Maria Ross, can you believe we are a month away from the birthday of the empathy dilemma how successful leaders balanced performance people and personal boundaries, it hits shelves, September 10, designed to help leaders like you dedicated to people centered practices, get the best performance possible, and balance the demands of the business with the needs of your people. And I am so excited to share it with you. And if you’ve been with me, you know, I’ve been devoting a hot take episode in the months leading up to launch to one of the five core pillars of effective empathetic leaders outlined in the book. Because the reality is that we want a more human centered workplace culture, but we have to actually get work done. And you can do both. You can be empathetic and high performing empathetic and accountable. Both and not either or so today we’re diving into the last pillar, pillar five, joy, probably my most head turning one. What the heck does Joy have to do with empathy or high performance quickly followed by I’m awkward and not that funny. But before we dive into the last pillar, I have one last reminder about my special preorder price discount because it’s ending August 27. Purchase one to 99 copies at porch light my amazing bulk distributor and get 30% off until August 27. Order your copies now submit your receipt to get special presale offers, I’ll put the links in the show notes. And those presale offers include an exclusive invite to a VIP launch event online, I could maybe crash your next meeting for an empathy discussion. Or you can enjoy discounted workshops or talks for a limited time, just go to bit.ly/empathy presale, and I will put that link in the show notes. So as I’ve mentioned before, this book is the direct result of all the feedback I’ve gotten from leaders actually leaders and people at all levels in the organization. From the keynotes that I’ve done from the leadership trainings that I’ve done, from the company ERG talks, and hundreds of energy interviews on this podcast. And they all say many of them say I should say that they’re on board with this. But here is where empathetic leader is leadership is challenging. Here’s where I get stuck. And that’s usually due to the either or thinking I mentioned earlier. So that’s where the five pillars come in. They are common traits and behaviors across the successful empathetic leaders I’ve interviewed spoken to trained, advised studied. It’s how I see them balancing people performance and personal boundaries with such grace and dexterity. So joy is the fifth and final pillar of effective and empathetic leadership. So let’s dig into it. Joy, what is joy? What are we talking about? When we talk about joy at work, it means ensuring people enjoy their work, encouraging work friendships, and creating a thriving culture, even when the work itself is challenging. I’m going to talk about this more later. It doesn’t mean every second of every work day you are doing something you love, you are following your bliss. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Why is joy important? A joyful work culture breeds trust to collaborate, innovate and take risks. It empowers people to have each other’s backs. Multiple studies have shown that when people enjoy their work, it leads to lower rates of turnover, higher productivity and engagement, increased company profits. Ooh, that sounds good, and loyalty to the employer. Now we all know we that we feel lighter and more buoyed by a work environment that we like going back to it’s basic common sense. I’m going to show up if I like being there mentally and physically. And if I enjoy my colleagues and feel safe and motivated in my environment, my work will reflect that. Now again, Joy does not mean every moment of work is joyful. I mean, I don’t particularly find joy in client crisis or invoicing or budget spreadsheets. but actually some of you might, joy or levity or camaraderie, as part of the empathetic culture equation means I can find joy in the work, even when the work itself is not joyful, as it will inevitably be at certain points, or they wouldn’t call it work. So what does Joy have to do with empathy? You may be thinking, well, when we create a joy filled environment, people can relax, be themselves and share themselves as human beings. This leads to better understanding and collaboration. If I get to know you through joy, I can understand where you’re coming from. I can forgive your bad days, and you can forgive mine. We can learn to listen and seek common ground because we have shared positive experiences, all the ingredients of an empathetic culture. So how does Joy benefit leaders? So many ways, Joy reduces stress, we can show up and laugh, smile bring a little levity to what can be hard work. And as many of us know, happy team members are easier to lead and fun environments foster trust and collaboration that breeds innovation and high performance. Now, I have to pause and give a caveat here. We’re not talking about what my good friend Rebecca Frese of Flynn consulting calls, calls fungineer ing. That is when you just pull out the foosball tables and the free beer on Fridays, and expect that to solve all your engagement problems. Those things are fun, they can be fun to some people, not everyone. But we’re not talking about just throwing those perks at people and leaving it as at that. If there’s no levity and joy in the way we interact with each other, if the culture itself doesn’t feel psychologically safe, because there’s no joy than all the foosball tables in the world won’t save you. And something I’ve seen time and time again throughout my long career is that I can do great work within even dismal overall corporate environments. If my immediate team, the people I work with day in and day out, create a joyful atmosphere. I’m also thinking about particular projects I worked on that were hard ruling, but made better and more memorable and more successful. As a result of joy being added to the mix. I share one of these great stories about one of the hardest projects in my career of global multi city roadshow and how to this day we all laugh and smile about it because we made time for intentional Joy along the way. So the million dollar question, how can you incorporate more joy in your team and workplace culture? Well, the first strategy is to find and encourage humor. The ability to laugh at ourselves and find humor in tough situations is a sure sign of resilience, which is just what healthy teams need, things can and will go wrong. But when we stop taking ourselves so seriously, we can engage our prefrontal cortex to problem solve more effectively. No, you don’t have to be a comedian or even for set, but letting people know it’s okay to laugh, share memes or talk about the latest celebrity gossip while getting work done. All of that goes a long way to making work a place we want to be. Some great examples are in the book about how some leaders allow moments to organically arise, and the team turns those into inside jokes or casual rituals. The next strategy is learn improv skills to nurture creativity and trust. Improv best practices can help teams collaborate in virtually any environment, learning how to think on your feet, listen well and pass the ball. And yes even laugh at the outcomes can unleash trust that leads to innovation. The next strategy, encourage workplace friendships. Now, this is my favorite as someone who has met some of my lifelong best friends at work, and also my husband, the old rules about your work self and your personal self. And I’m using air quotes here that you can’t see, have gone out the window. We are who we are, and we bring who we are to work. I’m not saying let it all hang out or act crassly, but it’s okay to get personal, it should even be encouraged. Mountains of research indicate that having friends in the workplace doesn’t only boost job satisfaction and performance. It also improves wellness. It’s linked to a lower risk of burnout, improved mental health, and maybe even a longer lifespan. According to studies conducted across Europe and Israel. As a leader. It’s your role to foster a culture of warmth and connection so your team members know that work friendships are encouraged. The next strategy make meaningful team building a priority. Okay, so one time long ago, I joined a rather soulless tech firm, drab brown cubicles, high walls and its share of quirky personnel. Ladies, and it truly channeled the movie Office Space. If you haven’t seen it, go see it right away. When if you want to lessen and joyless work environments, because in my first week, everyone was dragged to the conference room to sing Happy Birthday to an executive, and it was utterly depressing. No one wanted to be there. And I bet you’re thinking of a required happy hour, or maybe a ropes course, where you felt the same way. Team building has gotten a bad rap over the years as a cheesy forced way to forge bonds. But when it’s done thoughtfully, it can totally transform interpersonal dynamics for the better. Before you pursue team building. Make sure that your internal culture is already serving the needs of your people. Team building should be a source of shared joy, not a bandage slapped onto a festering cultural issue. Find ways to get everyone involved in suggesting activities, doing community service projects, and ensuring that a variety of options are accessible to everyone, regardless of level ability, neurodiversity, whether they have to get home to kids or not. Or maybe they’re recovering alcoholics. When you can tie team building to your company mission. That is the best experience for everyone to forge bonds and get to know each other outside of work. As I wind down on sharing the high level five pillars of effective empathetic leadership. I would also like to make something else crystal clear. These pillars are not the sole responsibility of the leader. It is not all on your shoulders to build up the pillars of self awareness, self care, clarity, decisiveness and joy. These are pillars you can introduce, model, practice, and cultivate the environment. But share the load with your team. Have them make suggestions, take on aspects that may be a challenging blind spot for you, and practice this with each other. I would hate for leaders to think I’m just adding more to their burden. When we talk about the five pillars that ensure effective empathetic leadership. Yes, we’re talking about your own personal pillars. But the team pillars can and should be strengthened and upheld by everyone involved them in the process. Be transparent about what you’re trying to do and work on. Let them play a role so they have ownership and engagement. And when you do that, you’ll nurture an empathetic environment that flows in both directions. Now to better understand these deceptively simple strategies in detail, please check out the empathy dilemma for stories from leaders and actionable tactics. To put each of these strategies into practice. These five pillars will transform how your team engages, performs, innovates delivers for you and your customers. Remember to check out more about the book and the link to the presale bonuses at the empathy dilemma.com Thank you so much for being here with me to review the heartaches of the five pillars. I truly hope you will check out the book, leverage it, use it with your team, enable yourself to take care of yourself while also leading other people. This has been such a pleasure to present these five pillars as a sneak peek for you over the course of the last few months. And again, check out the book and grab your copy today. Until next time, remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care, and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
What are inclusive cities? How can we shape our cities to be more inclusive for individuals and organizations? Too often, we take things for granted when designing cities and don’t realize how they actually may not work for many of our citizens. Whether it’s public transport, green spaces, or even how we decide what to plow first after a snowstorm – there are perspectives we don’t consider in our very male-focused, majority group-biased urban planning processes.
Today, my guest is Safaa Charafi, an architect, urbanist, and founder of Urban Inclusion. With over 10 years of experience in her field, Safaa shares valuable insights on gender-inclusive urban practices. We talk about why empathy is a pillar in building inclusive cities. Safaa shares how she ended up in this niche field and how our cities fail us – particularly women and marginalized communities. She defines spatial justice and how it is linked to social justice. You’ll also learn about some wonderful concepts you may never heard of, such as feminist cities, the right to the city, and even cities for kids
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Diversity in a decision-making group will bring better solutions to community problems. You can’t know what people need if you don’t talk to a wide group of people.
Diversity is not just a trendy topic. Building a community around diversity requires learning new things and unlearning things we thought we knew.
Empathy is not about pleasing everybody, but about factoring their perspective into the decision-making.
“Cities need to use empathy and rely more on listening to each other, reflecting the needs and aspirations of their inhabitants. Cities are made for people, but also by people and that’s something we tend to forget.”
About Safaa Charafi: Architect Urbanist, Founder of Urban Inclusion
Safaa Charafi is an architect and urbanist and the founder of Urban Inclusion, a consulting firm at the intersection of gender, diversity, and urban development. With a strong academic background and practical qualifications, she brings over 10 years of experience to her field. Safaa’s expertise lies in social research and urban development, with a special focus on diversity, inclusion, and intersectionality. Currently, she serves as a policy officer for UNOPS, she is also a fellow of Allianz Foundation, Belgium’s 40 under 40, entrepreneur, lecturer, and speaker, sharing valuable insights on gender-inclusive urban practices.
Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: http://red-slice.com
PRE-SALE SPECIAL! Pre-order 1 to 99 copies of Maria’s new book, The Empathy Dilemma for your leaders, exec team, (or yourself?!) and GET 30%! https://bit.ly/TEDSpecialPresale Offer ends August 27, 2024!
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. What are inclusive cities? And how can we shape our cities to be more inclusive for individuals and organizations? Too often, we take things for granted and designing cities and don’t realize how they actually may not work for many of our citizens, whether it’s public transport, or green spaces, or even as you’ll learn today, how we decide what to plow first after a snowstorm. There are perspectives we don’t consider in our very male focused majority group biased urban planning processes. Today, my guest is Safa Chaffee, an architect and urbanist and founder of urban inclusion, a consulting firm at the intersection of gender diversity and urban development. With a strong academic background and practical qualifications. She brings over 10 years of experience to her field. Sophos expertise lies in social research and urban development, with a special focus on diversity, inclusion, and intersectionality. Currently, she serves as a policy officer for you knops she is also a fellow of Alliance Foundation, Belgium’s 40 under 40, entrepreneur, lecture and speaker sharing valuable insights on gender inclusive urban practices. We talk about why empathy is the pillar in building inclusive cities. And we stress that empathy does not mean we come up with solutions that will please every single person 100% of the time, because that’s just not possible. Safa shares how she ended up in this niche field, how our cities fail us, particularly women and marginalized communities, and she defines spatial justice and how it’s linked to social justice. You’ll also learn about some wonderful concepts you may have never heard of such as feminists cities, shout out to Vienna, the right to the city, and even cities for kids. This was such an interesting conversation, take a listen. Welcome Safa to the empathy edge podcast to talk about inclusive cities and the role of empathy and building them. I am so excited to have you on the show after we connected on LinkedIn.
Safaa Charafi 02:49
Thank you so much for having me, Maria. Well, so
Maria Ross 02:51
first of all, tell us about your story and your work. And how did you get to doing this work around being an architect and an urbanist? And what are you most passionate about?
03:04
Well, so
Safaa Charafi 03:06
my name is southpaw. I’m originally from Morocco, I moved to Europe to do my second master’s in urban studies. And I got to live in Vienna, in Copenhagen, in Madrid, and in Brussels for my matters. And so when I lived in Vienna, actually, I don’t know if you know that or not, but like Vienna is known to be the most feminist city in Europe. I did not know that. Yeah, it’s quite intriguing, because I’ve never heard of a feminist city back then. This was a couple of years ago, and I got to interview ever chirinos lebauer, who are at the head of the cloud, and before, which is actually the translated in German it translated to women’s office kinda. And they’re basically the ones who implemented what we call gender mainstreaming in urban development projects, and policymaking in order to make the three more included from a gender perspective. So what gave birth to this concept of femininity? And yeah, sort of like all click, then that’s when it started. I’ve always been very, very feminine, growing up in quite patriarchal society. Back then, in Morocco, I’ve always been very passionate about social justice, about equality, equity, diversity, all of these topics. And then, during my master’s in urban studies, I got to discover what we call racial justice. And I realized that the struggles for justice are actually much more diverse in their focus, and they can empathize or focus on social environmental and racial justice and somehow like overlap and reinforce one another. And the concept of spatial justice, which is Yeah, linking the social aspects or to the space as in place is never or just the container of human activity. It also shapes human life. And said it can be indeed quite exclusive OR quite a reflection of our society, basically, which are Yeah, much, quite often sexist or racist or yeah, not very equal. So yeah, that’s been my reasons for starting this work. It’s my why. Then, yeah, I started open inclusion, which is a consultancy firm working on the concept of social justice and spatial justice, and gender and diversity into the urban settings.
05:39
I,
Maria Ross 05:40
I love that. And I’m just seeing so many overlaps in, in not as grand missions, but just the ability to take space and encourage collaboration and inclusion that I see in workplaces trying to do some innovative things with their actual physical space, for example, making the physical space accommodate neurodiversity, or the different ways that people work together. You know, there’s spaces for collaboration, there’s spaces for solo work. And so I’m imagining that you’re applying that on a larger scale to a city. Yes.
Safaa Charafi 06:16
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I really like to think of it as the concept. I mean, it will do what you work on, and what you talk about all the time, this concept of empathy, whether we think of marginalized community, the people who usually wouldn’t have a seat at the table, or their voices heard. And when it comes to urban development, and when it comes to making the city, it is historically by men for men, and they’re oftentimes able bodied, hetero, educated, rich men. And these are just the facts. So that, for example, our cities are car centric, knowing that the majority of those who use those cars to go to work are men, also says a lot about who’s included or excluded from the conversation around, how do we make a theory? What is the city for what kind of resources do we put in the city, and sort of like having the quality of life and the well being of residents also in the center? So yeah, that’s something that we kind of, like, start doing with the DNI work at the workplace. And it’s more of Yeah, micro level, I would say. And in the city, it’s much more on a macro level. So yeah, for me, the empathy is a fundamental pillar of what I would like to call an inclusive city or an empathic theory, which is a concept as well. So
Maria Ross 07:51
I love that and I want to get to the role of empathy and building inclusive cities. But first, I want to ask, how do you believe that cities are failing us right now? With whether it’s women, whether it’s marginalized communities? Can you give us some examples? I know, you just gave us sort of the car example. But can you give us some other examples of things we may not even realize are non inclusive in the way that we design our cities?
08:14
Mm hmm.
Safaa Charafi 08:16
I mean, I could give a lot of examples. It’s also Yeah, I do give lectures as well on the topic of like sexism and the theory or how urban planning also failed women, how our cities actually fail women. I mean, like I said, theories have been an article predominantly designed by men, for men, men, and then with a very known book called feminist theory claiming space in a man men world, by the author, Leslie Kern, who’s also an urban Canadian. And she talked on about the role of theory in or how like, things have changed as well for her when she became a mom, for example, and how she navigates the city much more in a much different way because he has a stroller or because of her body changing because of how the gaze as well as the male gait in the city. And this failure to include women in the policy planning for urban development, for example, is a way of making their specific demand or the specific need
09:33
invisible,
Maria Ross 09:35
right, but can you give us some actual examples like like you said, earlier, you were talking about the cars? Can you give us some other you know, some things that will ignite people to see something that maybe has been unseen to them before?
Safaa Charafi 09:50
Well, one particular example is and it’s kind of a running gag right now. It was, yeah, a couple of years ago and also Though there was a theory planning meeting, and someone asked like, oh, it’s like was more of a joke. So they said, what if no one was now sectors? Right? Without? Yeah, the consultants were there. And they were like, Oh, what if actually, maybe it is. And they did a study where they realized that the so basically, they were always starting to plow the snow that was on the, on the row of Spruce for the cart. And then second, they would do the pavements and do the sidewalks, and still had a high rate of people break in there. Yeah, like bowling and having to do it at all, at all bites. But also, yeah, older people, etc. And they decided they were just thinking, Okay, but what if we just change the? Like, what if we just start with the sidewalks first? How would that be? And it turns out that the rate of people falling and of course, they’re going to be higher, or the majority were women of a certain age, that rate fell down. And they were much less, I mean, it also cost the city less, because the current didn’t need it as much, first of all, and the majority of those who are using the roads were men, the majority of those using the pavement or the sides were women of a certain age, but also women with strollers, because they have much different mobility, which in our terms we call mobility of care, because they do what we call trip chain. So they have much different way of going from A to B, they do like a B D, like, yeah, either because of care work, or because of attending to like different activities happen to drop kids at school, picking up groceries, you name it. And that’s also something that we see all over. Like in different societies, it’s not that more patriarchal society would have, obviously, much higher rate, that even in Western society, it is still the case that women do more care, work and unpaid labor, which also translate in how they navigate the city and how they use public transport, how they, yeah, whether they will drive cars or less. And also when it comes to power ownership or housing, home ownership, etc. So they’re, like, we talk now about the gender inequality. But there’s also inequality between women entities, the when it comes to those who work in certain areas, or in certain spaces, or the highly educated women, the single moms, the women of color, the I mean, all of these women will all it’s not a monolith. So they will use public paper, they will use the theory in very different ways. So it’s really important to have like in terms of political pace of conversation and discussion, women’s participation, when it comes to including them in the theory has been so far very partial, and yet fails to really create any sort of equality.
Maria Ross 13:04
Yeah, I mean, you can look at it across so many vectors, because, you know, you can look at some lower socio economic neighborhoods, predominantly black or brown communities, at least here in the US. And, you know, they’re their cities where their food deserts, for example, they don’t have access to fresh produce, or fresh groceries, or access to green space. And so I can see how when you’re when you’re having those planning discussions, but also those, those revitalizing and expansion discussions, that is so important that all different voices, this is again, where diversity makes for a better decision, all those different voices are brought to the table, to be able to unearth these issues that people might miss because they are part of the predominant culture or the predominant group, and they don’t even see it. I’m thinking back to when my husband and I spent a few weeks in London for his work. This was when my son was maybe 10 months old. And my husband is from the UK. He’s from Scotland. So we brought the baby with us so he could go visit his grandparents up in Scotland. But we were in London for a while at an apartment. And I loved it because I could get anywhere in the cabs there because they have the platforms so that you can get your stroller into the cab without taking your child out of the stroller. And I just thought I mean, that’s such a small detail, but it’s in terms of accessibility in terms of my ability to get around with my young baby and in a stroller. And by the way, it was also pouring rain the whole week. We were there. So I was using a lot of cabs. And so I just I so appreciated it because it felt like it was such a thoughtful, intentional decision to do that and, and not that hard, and the impact that it has on citizens and Their ability to move through their day move through their life is just, it’s just so much more improved when you bring those voices to the table to say, Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? So I’m kind of answering my own question here. But what do you feel is the role of empathy and building inclusive cities? Is it that ability to, you know, gather diverse voices, is that that ability to be able to listen, you know, productively to those diverse voices? Like where do you see the role of empathy? And where have you seen it play out to success in building inclusive cities?
Safaa Charafi 15:36
Well, like I said, yeah, for me, it is a fundamental pillar when it comes to building cities that are inclusive, but also listen to these diverse voices. It’s, I mean, it serves as this guiding principle, at least in my, the reasons why I do this work is because there’s this need for an attendant for compassion, for again, considering the diverse needs and experience of all the residents of the city. And I think that when you embrace empathy, as an urban planner, or as a policymaker, we sort of like recognize and acknowledge the lived experiences of the typically marginalized communities, and those who are affected by Yeah, factors like, like we said, socioeconomic status, age, disability, gender, race, migration, status, you name it. And when we actively listen to this, and this is also like the active empathy, right? It’s not just like passive empathy. But we’re not just listening to them, we have to do something with it. So it also but I also encourage, like the parts betray designs, or to really have an active voice in how the city is being made. So that would help with like, really understand their unique challenges and their perspective, to then tailor or address their specific needs, and really make sure that no one is left behind, which is, again, it sounds very cliche, and I think it’s mostly to be thoughtful, and acknowledge, rather than I don’t think we can include everyone, this is also something that we we can only try. And by trying we can fix, what’s the wrongs that the city had been built on, or whatever has been done before. And I think the me empathy also, like drives co creation efforts within communities. Like I said, it’s about having this active dissipation, creating partnerships between residents and different decision makers, different stakeholders, and really like engaging in meaningful dialogue. I mean, I don’t think diversity. For me, it’s also this aspect of diversity, which had been wanted to talk not in a lot of like posters, and we talk about diversity, like it’s just some trendy topic when it’s actually more open to learning and unlearning it’s hard work. So yeah, I think that cities need to use this empathy and really need to rely more on listening to each other. And, like, yeah, reflecting the needs and aspirations of their inhabitants, like cities, are made for people, but also by people. And that’s something we tend to forget. Because urban planners, like just be the experts.
Maria Ross 18:33
Yeah, to be the master architects. But I think that’s such an important point you brought up there and that we can’t possibly create something that’s going to please everyone. And that’s, that’s the often the argument you hear for, you know, diversity or empathy or whatever is, and that’s not the goal. The goal is that we make the best decisions synthesizing as many inputs as we can. And then when we communicate what are you know, this is true for work, this is probably true when they unveil the city plan, when we have the conversation of this is the decision we came to, number one people know that their voices were heard. And number two, you can provide an opportunity to say we know that many of you, you know, there were quite a few people who wanted this. And here’s why we weren’t able to provide it like that’s actually empathetic is to give people a reason why like that. You heard what they said. But here were the constraints. Here were the obstacles to why we were not able to provide that. So maybe come up with some alternatives. But it’s almost like people that are in decision making. Just don’t even want to have the conversation. They just want to be able to go like here’s the decision. Here’s the plan, live with it. Yeah, the empathy comes in not from doing and pleasing everyone who was involved in the process, the empathy comes in in synthesizing all their information allowing them to be heard And then being able to explain how you came to the ultimate decision that you had to come to. And I feel like that’s the missing piece for people, where they say I just don’t even want to have that difficult conversation. So I’m going to just make the decision and proclaim it from on high. And then I don’t want to hear from anybody. Again, right, that’s like the most on empathetic approach to decision making. So I just want to make sure that we strengthen we underscore that point, because this is one of the myths that I feel like stops so many leaders and decision makers from embracing empathy, like, I’m not even going to practice it, because I know I’m not going to please everybody. And empathy is not about pleasing everybody, it’s about at least seeing their point of view, and enabling them to be heard, and factoring that in to your decision. But if that decision can’t accommodate what they’re asking for, you can then have another conversation that says, here’s why we had to make that decision, or here’s what we can do instead. Do you agree with that?
Safaa Charafi 21:02
Absolutely. I think especially when it comes to now we call multicultural city, or the super diversity, or it’s often this resistance mechanism that we will hear like, oh, but we can’t please everyone. Oh, but we can have everyone’s voices heard. It’s not possible in a theory of few Yeah, 100 1000s. To just have a, it’s not possible. And I think in my opinion, it’s not about that we have to take every single resident into account, it’s really about this, more of an democratic way of building the city. There’s also the concept of the right to the city, which is the philosophical concept, but it’s basically the full accessibility to all the resources and opportunities that a city can offer. And these are actually not, I mean, there is a whole set of activists who work on this on this topic to really ensure that everyone has a right to the city, the reading, or that we all have equal access to the resources to, to public spaces, to housing, to dignity in the city to public transport. I mean, it’s really making sure that different needs are taken into account. And that also recognizing that not everyone will use the theory in the same way that not everyone has the same ability or not everyone has the same need. But it’s also Yeah, like just taking this into account. I think it’s something that most urban planners and policymakers would come from, it’s also coming from this lived experience. So we
22:42
would build cities that worked for us, right? Yes, we absolutely did.
Safaa Charafi 22:47
Yeah. What about the elderly? What about the kids? I mean, there’s also this city for kids, or for children content, that something that I absolutely love, because we tend to forget, and maybe we were all kids at some point, but we tend to forget how it is or how it was or like how distances are why stairs not be built at the scale of a kid when it’s much higher for them to client than then read for adults, like all these small things, because we don’t delve in the shoes of other users of the Yeah, right structure.
Maria Ross 23:24
And it’s often the voices that don’t have the power, they are not heard, because they don’t have the power. And so we need to as leaders and as allies, if we are in those positions of power, we need to seek those voices out. We need to make sure intentionally that they’re being heard. And I’m kind of giggling about your city for kids concept, because this is something we’re facing in the beautiful place where we live, our son is nine and it’s really difficult for him to actually go ride his bike safely anywhere around here. There’s huge hills, there’s this horrific four way stop sign down where you know, the main places are, there’s nowhere for kids to go. Other than like a park or two or maybe Starbucks like, so like, this is one of the things we’re looking at in terms of like, do we need to move to a different city that accommodates more of what, like our child wants in his upbringing and in his childhood, right. So, you know, and that’s a very bottom line impact because we could end up leaving the city because of that. And so they lose our tax dollars, they lose our our contribution. And so, you know, if you’re if you think of a city as almost like a workplace, you know, you’re losing talent. That way you’re you’re you’re not attracting talent to your organization, if you will, because you’re making these decisions that are very, you know, myopic in nature. So this is such a such a great thing. And I think you kind of answered this last question I had for you, we think We’ve been dancing around it. But the idea that spatial justice connects to social justice. But is there anything we’ve missed around that?
Safaa Charafi 25:12
I think I mean, yeah, there’s definitely a huge field work from Edward soja. To David Harvey, working on how the impacts of urban planning decisions plays out in society and how justice can sort of like be translated. I think it’s really important to also, something we don’t talk often about is this distribution of public services or resources have like it had, like the redlining, for example. That’s also something that just blows my mind. I don’t know if I need to explain what it
Maria Ross 25:50
let’s just explain the definition for anyone that doesn’t understand what that means. Well,
Safaa Charafi 25:53
yeah, it’s a it’s a discriminatory practice that basically consists of the systematic denial of services like schooling, insurance loans, mortgages, in certain areas based on their race or ethnicity. And it basically it was literally just planted by neighborhoods with a red line. That’s why it’s called Red Line in in places that would be not really good for investment. And it happened to be of course, neighborhoods with a number of racial and ethnic minorities.
Maria Ross 26:25
Well, actually, you know, it’s not to interrupt you, I’m sorry. The other thing that’s like atrocious about redlining is it also, you know, kept different ethnic groups from buying homes in certain areas. And it was like a year or so ago that I heard about a neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay Area that they discovered, the ability to redline was still in the city’s charter, it had never been removed. So just to discover that this law was still in the charter and still in the books, and nobody caught it. In, you know, the 2020s in the 2010s, was absolutely shocking to me. But that’s the remnants of, you know, racial inequity, the remnants of, of slavery, the remnants of racism in our country, and I’m sure it exists in other places, too.
Safaa Charafi 27:15
Yeah. I mean, yeah, just talking about Now you talk about the US another example, that it’s really mind blowing, you probably heard of is the poor door policy. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this one, which is a separate entrance in the like a residency or like a multi unit housing development, there is a policy that would allow the tenants to ask for having a separate door for people who pay. So you would have Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s, it’s visible, a symbol of an unfair housing practice and of discrimination based on basically you can add, yeah, you can just have a separate entrance to the building for condo owners. And another one in the back are the renters, who live in more nice low income housing units, or like more affordable housing units. And this has been like in mixed income development, urban development, or like real estate, which often will translate into race, this grid discrimination because the affordable unit or the cheaper rental are often disproportionately rented by or occupied by people of color, or people with a disability or trans people, while the more higher end units are going to be primarily occupied by non disabled, educated white people. So yeah, a lot of advocacy behind it, or like affordable housing, civil rights and local political leaders to, like, urge New York City to stop these practices. But it’s very telling of the nation’s history as well.
Maria Ross 28:59
Yeah. And so as we wrap up, I just I would love to leave on a hopeful note, like where do you find hope in the work that you’re doing? Are you seeing, are you seeing change? Are you seeing this be? Slowly but surely, more of the adopted model as people plan cities as they think about adapting cities to more of the needs of their citizens? Like, what keeps you motivated in the work right now?
Safaa Charafi 29:25
I mean, there’s definitely more and more talk about the topic of inclusive city, the feminist theories of something that was more theoretical, when, like in the late 80s and 70s. With the feminist geography or human geography, which is the field of human geography, and which created more like, like safety, justice and career geographies and decolonial geography etc. But now in the past couple of years, we really feel like this research Since the topic is not just a theoretical topic, it’s something that a lot of international organizations are taking over a lot of cities are trying to adopt and taking the lead up to Vienna, there is a lot of like pure learning of knowledge sharing. And really, like a lot of cities are adopting this strategy of gender mainstreaming, for example, which is, like we’ve had an initiative of implementing gender aspects in all phases of the project from the the first phase to the implementation to, you know, the constructions and bond, there’s a lot of civil society organizations that are working on the topic in order to bring about more safety for women, like reclaim the streets movement, that kind of thing. And I think it’s also really like becoming more mainstream, I do realize that my work, because rather niche, especially when it comes to decolonizing, urban spaces, and I have a much more intersectional approach, rather than like a, yeah, playing gender. It’s not only about gender for me. So that’s something I think we need to me to work on. But there’s one more need for it. I think a lot of people are now more aware that it’s something that can change, and we can they’ll change our cities like, especially when we talk about inclusive climate adaptation, or then yeah, so I think they are going in the right direction, and the some resistance, but yeah, I do get a lot of projects and calls from the front, like all different theories and different organizations. So let’s hope there.
Maria Ross 31:41
Yeah, that is great. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna link to a past episode I did a few years ago with a gentleman named James Ehrlich, who was working on concepts for the neighborhood of the future. And it was very much about about leveraging technology, and then taking lessons from the environment and creating a more collaborative neighborhood where residents are sharing resources, and they’re, they’re doing things together as part of the design of the neighborhood. So it’s not exactly your work, but it’s sort of that it’s that tangential, you know, how can we reimagine where we live as a way to better our lives and, and what that living space, whether it’s a city, whether it’s a neighborhood, what it looks like, and what it offers, so that we can have richer and more interconnected, more thriving lives. So I’m going to put a link to that in the show notes for folks, if they’re interested in checking that one out. But Safa, I just want to thank you so much for your work, first of all, and for your time today, and the great education and insights that you gave us into this work. And I for one, if I am speaking personally, you know, at least at least we’re at a place where when you say the phrase inclusive cities, there’s probably more people that kind of have an inkling of what that means then maybe 10 or 20 years ago. So slow progress is slow, right? What do they say? It but it bent, the arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice or something like that. But thank you so much. And we’re gonna put your links in the show notes. I know that currently urban inclusion as of this recording doesn’t have a website yet. So folks can connect with you on LinkedIn. And I will have your LinkedIn link in the show notes so people can connect with you and learn more about you and see your see your work and see your writing. So thank you so much for your time today.
Safaa Charafi 33:32
So much Maria. Thanks for having me.
Maria Ross 33:33
And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard, you know what to do, rate review and share with a colleague or a friend. And until next time, please remember that cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
Let me be clear: Humans ARE animals. Empathy for animals is not about thinking they’re cute. It’s about creating a strong connection where we understand their unique needs and habitats so we can be part of the solution to increase biodiversity, avoid extinction, and promote a healthy planet for ALL of us.
Today, I am delighted to speak to Jim Wharton. We talk about how and why to create stronger connections between humans, animals, and nature at large, why empathy is required to make change, how to make conservation personal, and when and how we can use strategic anthropomorphism (that’s when we attribute human traits to animals!) without actually causing harm to them. And Jim shares the amazing 2024 expansion at the Seattle Aquarium featuring animals and habitats from the Coral Triangle which allows them to tell a more globally connected story of ocean conservation. It sounds amazing!
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
The disconnection to nature is artificial and allows people to externalize conservation and not embrace it as something that affects them as fellow animals.
The disconnect between humans and nature is an illusion that falsely elevates humans above everything else.
Anthropomorphism is not necessarily the problem. The real problems come with anthropocentrism – thinking the human experience is the central defining experience leading to humans harming the animals they are trying to care for.
“Developmentally we all start out being deeply, deeply connected to everything around us. We begin our lives looking at animals as anthropomorphic peers, the same as your brother or sister, there’s no difference to you. And then gradually, over time, we have “difference” educated into us and “connection” educated out of us.”
About Jim Wharton, VP, Conservation Engagement & Learning, Seattle Aquarium
Dr. Jim Wharton is the Vice President of Conservation Engagement and Learning at the Seattle Aquarium. Jim joined the Aquarium in 2012 from Mote Marine Laboratory where he served as Vice President of Education. He holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in marine resource management from Oregon State University, and a Ph.D. in educational measurement and evaluation from the University of South Florida. Jim and the team at the Seattle Aquarium have been working with partners to explore how fostering empathy in our audiences can contribute to conservation outcomes. The Aquarium has shared effective practices and strategies for fostering empathy through publications and workshops with over 70 zoos and aquariums with a combined attendance of more than 75 million annually. The Aquarium partnered on a children’s book (and puppet show), Catastrophe by the Sea, that encourages readers to empathize with less traditionally charismatic animals. Jim is also an advocate for diversifying the way we talk about and portray sharks, shark scientists, and shark conservation in popular media.
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Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. Let me be clear, humans are animals to empathy for animals is not about thinking they’re cute. It’s about creating a strong connection where we understand their unique needs and habitats. So we can be part of the solution to increase biodiversity, avoid extinction and promote a healthy planet for all of us. As a huge animal lover myself, I was delighted to speak to Jim Wharton, Vice President of conservation, engagement and learning at the Seattle Aquarium. From his childhood fascination with sharks to the work he does now. Jim and the team at the Seattle Aquarium have been working with partners to explore how fostering empathy in our audiences can contribute to conservation outcomes. The aquarium has shared effective practices and strategies for fostering empathy through publications and workshops with over 70 zoos and aquariums, with a combined attendance of more than 75 million annually. The aquarium partnered on a children’s book and puppet show catastrophe by the sea that encourages readers to empathize with less traditionally charismatic animals. Jim is also an advocate for diversifying the way we talk about and portray sharks, Shark scientists and shark conservation in popular media. We talked about how and why to create stronger connections between animals, humans and nature at large, why empathy is required to make change as it’s pointless to create change in an apathetic environment. Thank you, Jim, for that, quote, how to make conservation personal, and when and how we can use strategic anthropomorphism. That’s when we attribute human traits to animals without actually causing harm to them, you’ll be surprised, and Jim shares the amazing 2024 expansion at the Seattle Aquarium featuring animals and habitats from the coral triangle, which allows them to tell a more globally conducted story of ocean conservation. It sounds amazing. PS, you can connect with the Aquarians work from wherever you live through their website, social channels, or by attending virtual events like lightning talks and empathy cafes. It was a great conversation on how the lessons of empathy building for animals apply to our own human to human relationships as well. You’re in for a treat. Welcome Jim Morton, to the empathy edge to talk about empathy with animals and our relationships and connections with animals and what that can teach us about developing empathy for each other. So welcome to the show. Thank you. So before we dive into our conversation around this work, tell us a little bit about how you got to this work in conservation, engagement and learning and how you even got to the aquarium just briefly tell us about that journey. And and what are you most passionate about in that in the work that you do? Yeah,
Jim Wharton 03:36
sure. So I, you know, I grew up like a lot of kids fascinated by the ocean, particularly fascinated by sharks, read a book when I was, I don’t know, seven or eight that made me convinced I was going to be world famous shark researcher. And, you know, as you go on, you have new experiences. i By the time I found my way to grad school, I mean, sharks had become a conservation concern that when I was a kid, that was not a concern, like they were, we were redistributing fisheries effort to sharks, instead of instead of thinking about their conservation, so So I shifted that focus started thinking about things like fisheries management. Once I started to get into sort of internships and experiences, I realized quickly that that was not a path for me, not one, I felt like I could bribe them. And so I actually went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and volunteered just because I wanted to feel connected to the ocean. Again, I wanted to remind myself why I wanted to do the work and, and sort of stumbled into education as a conservation strategy. I don’t think it occurred to me that, you know, you can create all these regulations that you like, you can create broad systemic changes, but you it’s kind of pointless to create systemic change and an ignorant or apathetic system. Like those things just don’t happen. And so, you know, education is a bit of a long game, but, you know, education grew into thinking about, you know, environmental behavior and social science and of course, empathy folds. into all of that. And so that’s thinking about how we get people more connected to not just nature, but for us, in particular, the ocean, because the ocean is a little out of sight out of mind. For most people, it is not, you know, in their, their closest circle of concern. And so, you know, aquariums are an important window into those habitats a way to connect with those animals. And, you know, I think without that strong connection, it’s much more difficult for people to think about how they might like to change their lives.
Maria Ross 05:30
Yeah, I love this, because what you said was so powerful about, it’s pointless to create change in an apathetic setting, I’m paraphrasing there. But it’s true, because if there’s not a desire to care, or desire to change, or quite frankly, a connection to the group that you’re trying to impact, it’s a lot harder, and it’s forced, it’s optics, it’s all these other things. And so it’s really not just about sort of collecting money for conservation, but getting people really invested in caring about wildlife and caring about the oceans Exactly. Like you said, I live right on the cliffs of the Pacific Ocean. So every time I leave my house, the ocean is ever present for me. But I didn’t always live in an environment like that. So I get that the oceans can seem like this big, vast thing over there. And when we hear about, for example, pollution in the oceans, or different biodiversity, different ecosystems going extinct, it doesn’t really impact our daily lives. And so I’m sure like, you agree, having aquariums as a way to get up close and personal is so important. But it’s, it’s only a first step. And so talk to us a little bit about before actually, before we go into what the aquarium specifically is doing. Can you talk about or give us your take on how you create or leverage empathy for animals? Because I just want to share something very personal. Many years ago, I kind of had this existential crisis that I was actually more empathetic with animals than I was with human beings. Because it was, it was yeah, it was like the stories of abuse to animals or animals dying out that actually brought me to tears. And I thought, oh, what’s, what’s wrong with me, but then other people, I’m a dog lover, I’m a dog owner. And other people are like, I just don’t get having a pet. Like, they just can’t even fathom why that’s a thing. So what’s your particular take on the connection that humans have with animals? And is it always about as strong as empathy? Or, you know, where do you where do you see that?
Jim Wharton 07:35
Yeah, it’s an interesting question. Because developmentally, you know, we all start out, being deeply, deeply connected to everything around us, like everything around us. And so animals begin, we begin our lives, looking at animals as anthropomorphic peers, you know, the same as your brother or your sister, no difference to you. And then gradually, over time, we have difference educated into us, and connection educated out of us. And so we’re increasingly taught that humans are different from animals. Whereas, you know, that’s nothing could be further from the truth. Humans are animals. So not only are we separated from animals, but often we’re placed above and to the point where making a comparison to an animal can be an insult, right? You’re blind as a bat, or you’re, you know, breeding as a pig, or however you want to use those those kinds of comparisons. But we’re taught that we are different than and better than, and, you know, as we become as a society, more, more sort of digital and more metropolitan, we’ve become increasingly disconnected, not just from animals, but from nature. You can answer a question you can reach anyone in the world with a couple of clicks. But most of us don’t work food comes from, we don’t know where our waste goes. And we create this incredibly artificial disconnection from nature. And that allows us to externalize what’s happening to nature and to externalize conservation as a responsibility, right? So it’s like, I’m going to send my money to Conservation International, I’m going to send my money to the aquarium, they’re going to take care of conservation, as opposed to making it part of my personal identity, my personal, you know, mission as a as a person. So the way we think empathy plays into that is that empathy is a really strong skill set for developing and reinforcing connections. So the more you utilize your empathy skill set, and that’s one of my favorite things about empathy is it’s not a characteristic, right? It’s a thing that we do, we become better at. And so if you practice empathy, you become more empathetic. If you practice empathy, specifically with animals, you become more empathetic from animals. And then the sneaky thing about empathy is that the neural pathways for having empathy for animals and for people are the exact same pathways. So as you become more empathetic for animals, you kind of sneakily become more empathetic for people as well. But really, it’s about practice, right? If you’re if you’re not exposed Who’s to you didn’t grow up with Pat, you didn’t grow up with four h you didn’t grow up in a setting with animals, then you just haven’t practice that skill set. Right.
Maria Ross 10:08
And I’m frantically looking up as you’re talking because you’ve sparked some things I want to mention while we’re talking about this, but I loved what you said about we, we get sort of D educated about versus we get educated about difference, and we get d educated about connection. That’s not exactly the way that you said it. But I just thought that was super powerful, because that is true. That’s true across anything, in terms of difference across racism, across sexism across LGBTQ or homophobia, those things are not innate. Those things are are educated into us. And so is sort of the apathy for wildlife and nature and just animals in general, that can be educated into us. And I think that’s a really important point, just like empathy is innate to us as human beings. Science has shown us that. But as I always talk about the muscle can atrophy if it’s not modeled if it’s not celebrated, if it’s not rewarded, and I would imagine the same is true about our connection or our view of animals and nature.
Jim Wharton 11:20
The more you know, and you know, in in the olden days, you know, zoos and aquariums in science in general, my only contributed to that because we treated animals as objects, objects have fascination, but still objects, right. And so, zoos and aquariums used to be really uptight about naming animals. Because you didn’t want people to think of the animals that are in our care as pets, or you’d want them to think of them. You wanted to think of the sort of example of species because we were institutions of learning. But you don’t need to be an institution of learning anymore, because we’ve got, you know, you can answer just about any question you need on your phone, whether you get good information or not another question, but But yes, you still learn at zoos and aquariums, but that can’t be our purpose anymore. Purpose has to be about meaning making a connection, and helping people feel and see those connections. Because this idea that there is huge, there are humans and there is nature is is not it’s not accurate in the slightest, like humans did become unnatural. When we started breeding technology and building things. It’s just just this illusion we’ve created for ourselves, and in many ways, sort of selfishly elevating ourselves in that process.
Maria Ross 12:32
So as I mentioned, as you were talking earlier, two things came to mind. One, this idea of believing that conservation is done by other people or other organizations, that’s sort of a good first step. But there’s a fantastic book that I’m still working my way through called citizens. And I highly recommend it, I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. It’s called why the key to fixing everything is all of us. And it’s written by an author who has a consultancy called the new citizenship project. And they help both nonprofits and for profit companies engage their stakeholders in a way where they’re not solving the problems for them, but they’re making them part of the solution. And they have great case studies in the book about things they’ve done for the British trust. And for the BBC, where they’ve made people feel a sense of ownership. Rather than just give us your money and don’t worry, we’ll you don’t need to know any more, we’ll take care of it, getting people involved, getting them educated, getting them to feel bought in to being part of the solution. And so that’s exactly the the the sentiment you’re talking about. So highly recommend that book. And then there’s another organization that was started by someone, I went to college with a friend of mine from college, it’s called the Internet of elephants. And his work is applying technology to help people have more of a personal connection to endangered wildlife. And everything from super unique projects, like creating apps where people can exercise alongside, you know, a an endangered animal in Africa, or something like that. Just very unique ways to pull people back into nature and being back a part of it, so that they want to do more. And what I love about what you’re saying is I you know, we could probably have a whole nother conversation. There’s very mixed emotions about zoos and aquariums these days, right. And some of them have abused animals and some have not. But what I love is this is what I’m seeing is the organizations like the Seattle Aquarium, who are focused on education and and conservation. And obviously, treating animals with respect and treating animals with dignity. And as a way to, again, engage people into the process. And your your observation you made earlier about zoos in the past being more about looking at animals as objects of fascination. I mean, they are very awesome in the actual meaning of awesome but not just looking at them as an other, but sort of like how do we live together in this ecosystem? You is really powerful? Yeah, I
Jim Wharton 15:02
think we keep thinking like, how do we like what’s the highest and best use of the time that we have with people when they’re with us? Right? It’s not to help them understand that some whales have to blowholes some whales at one level, like the the facts of the matter if they interest you, and they get you excited, and that what brings you to the aquarium then great, but let’s talk about let’s talk about whale society, let’s talk about the the ways that these animals enrich the systems enrich our lives, because in the end, you know, conservation is not really an animal or a habitat problem. It’s a people problem. So I mean, people are both the problem, the solution, and consequently, the beneficiaries. So healthy ecosystems are in our best interests. Unquestionably,
Maria Ross 15:45
yeah. And it’s just, it’s similar to helping people strengthen their empathy for, for other people, in that, if you just think of this vast amorphous group, it seems very removed from you, right? But when you actually go to the aquarium and meet the whale, and meet the, you know, the other, the other organism, the other animal, you’re learning their story, right? And that actually engenders empathy and us we start to feel more connected when we learn about an individual, versus like, oh, 1000s of fish in this particular ecosystem are dying, right, for better or worse, that just sort of glances off us. But if we have an experience at the aquarium, or at the zoo, where we’re meeting that animal, and we’re learning that animal story as a representation, we are way more connected. So I’m assuming that’s part of the goal as well. Yeah,
Jim Wharton 16:35
no question. I mean, what’s that old expression, like a single death as a strategy and a million hours this, right, so that’s sort of that same idea that by showing an animal as a subjective other, you create a different kinds of respect for and connection to that animal, it’s easy to bring animals into your circle of concern, and think of them in a less utilitarian way.
Maria Ross 16:57
I’m gonna throw you a curveball here, because this question just occurred to me, you know, it’s so interesting, the way movies and documentaries humanize animals to the point that sometimes I can’t watch the nature documentaries, because I’m too invested in the baby seal, and I don’t want to see them getting attacked. What’s your take on that? Like, can that can that humanization of the animal go too far?
Jim Wharton 17:19
So that’s a great question, and zoos and aquariums, this is something that that we constantly struggle with this idea of anthropomorphism right can’t are we, I can’t
Maria Ross 17:26
say that word. That’s why I didn’t say it. So
Jim Wharton 17:30
we’re making animals too much like humans. And I think that I think that we sometimes misunderstand what anthropomorphism is. And what it is, it’s a metaphor, right? It’s a way that a person tries to understand something that is different than their own experience. And so, I mean, this is just education at its basic. So you see something that’s different than than what you’ve experienced the past that you’re trying to hang it on a hook somewhere in your brain that’s similar to something that you’re doing. So in some cases, that’s super helpful, like you can see behaviors that animals, you know, undergo, and they’re very similar to ours, and it helps us understand them better. And then there are other cases where we assume that something that’s happening with an animal is exactly the same thing that would happen with us. And that becomes problematic. And so we talk a lot about strategic or enlightened anthropomorphism. If you understand an animal’s natural history, then you are less likely to project yourself into that animals experience because the real problems that anthropomorphism is anthropocentrism. It’s, it’s thinking that the human experience is the central defining experience of life. And that leads to things like, like feeding grizzly bears, because you think that they’re hungry, saving seals off the beach that don’t need saving, it would lead to us doing things that are not helpful to animals and making assumptions about what’s happening, that similarly not helpful to animals. So I think the other thing we often talk about is that there are some animals that benefit from that kind of humanization. And there are some that it’s just not necessary. Like we have sea otters in our care. You know, they’re, they look wonderful and cuddly adorable. Yeah, they are. But the, you don’t need to anthropomorphize a car, right, people already feel deeply connected to them, because they have a lot of the characteristics that just naturally engender empathy thing, you know, they have really strong agents. See, they show a lot of activity, they look like an animal, so it’s easy to recognize them, like people just this they instantly drawn to a sea otter, but something like a barnacle or a CNM. And you see him and he doesn’t even look like an animal, it looks like a flower. And so anthropomorphism for these animals can be incredibly helpful because it allows you to start to understand that this is an animal like me, it has some of the same needs, it has some of the same challenges. And so it creates a connection. And it’s in you’re not in you’re not in any danger of, you know, over anthropomorphizing the CNMV
Maria Ross 19:52
oh my gosh, I love that so much because that’s, that’s I’ve often wondered that of if that’s actually a good thing or a Sometimes it goes too far, and you’ve just given us some great examples of when it can go too far to the point where someone, this is true of humans too. You think you’re being empathetic, because you’re making assumptions, when actually, you’re thinking of it like how I would want to be treated. And I wrote in the empathy edge, that it’s not about the empathy is not about the golden rule. It’s about the platinum rule, which is Do unto others as they would have done unto them. And so this, this calls to mind, that concept of, we want it we want to be curious, we want to get to know someone else’s, or an animal’s context and story, and then be able to be empathetic by giving them the things that they need, not the things that we think they need.
Jim Wharton 20:43
Right? And we talk about that a lot. We talk about the difference between what’s it like to you know, walk in another person’s shoes or swimming in another animal spins, it’s not about what it’s like, you it’s like, what what is it like for them? Right? Right. And that’s an that can be that’s an incredibly powerful nuance that a lot of people haven’t processed.
Maria Ross 21:03
No, and it’s and it’s good. And I feel like it’s good intentions. But it goes as it goes, right. Like don’t feed the grizzly. Don’t feed the pigeons like they’re fine. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about the what the aquarium is doing. And the big expansion that’s happening this summer.
Jim Wharton 21:27
Yeah, so we’re opening a new building here at the Aquarium of the buildings, called the ocean pavilion focuses on the coral triangle, which is a incredibly marine bio diverse habitat on the other side of the world. So around Indonesia, Philippines, those that sort of area. And the reason we chose to focus on that space is that we really, you know, we’ve been a regional aquarium for our entire existence representing the Salish Sea in the Puget Sound, we will always be a regional aquarium. But simple fact of the matter is what happens in Puget Sound doesn’t say in Puget Sound. And so, you know, in order to understand the global context of ocean issues, we wanted to be able to provide another sense of place to allow people to make comparisons and to understand that the challenges facing the coral triangle are suspiciously similar to the challenges that are facing the Salish Sea. And so working together is the best way to face those challenges. And in that process, you know, in building the new exhibit, we don’t we didn’t want to just build them in their brain. So like there’s there’s empathy as part of the of what’s interwoven in the way that we understand our approach. So some exhibits, it’s we’re really hoping to encourage people to think about what is what does that animals experience like in the ocean, as opposed to what’s in this tank? What’s in that one? And, you know, so even to the point where the, the exhibit titles aren’t titled their questions, we want to really encourage people to, to think about their place in these systems, how they improve the systems, how systems influence them. It’s really about meaning making. It’s not about information sharing. But it’s exciting, and we can’t wait to see it happening. It’s gonna open this summer, this summer, summer 24. Great.
Maria Ross 23:05
Well, I am definitely going to check that out next time. I’m in Seattle. But I’m so excited for that. And I’m so excited with, with what I’m seeing from organizations like the Seattle Aquarium, from other you know, I live in near San Francisco, the San Francisco Zoo, the efforts that are being done to not just work on conservation and education, but to involve everyone. And again, it goes back to that book citizens, which I highly recommend, which is about, it’s not the consumer story where things are being done. For us. It’s the citizen story where we’re part of the solution. So love the work you’re doing. I have great memories of the Seattle Aquarium when I lived in Seattle before I had kids, so we have to take our son up there at some point. But so I’m gonna have all your links in the show notes, where people can also find out more about the aquarium. But real quickly for anyone who’s on a peloton right now or something? Where can they connect with you? Where can they find out more information about the exhibit? Sure,
Jim Wharton 24:02
yeah, please do connect with me on LinkedIn, easy to find there. You could follow me on Twitter at at Jim Morton, please do come to the Seattle Aquarium website, which is simple Seattle aquarium.org. You could search for empathy or or take a browse around and see some of the other programs that were invested in. We’re doing work all over the world now and super proud of, of not just the work we’re doing, but the community we’re building around conservation.
Maria Ross 24:24
I love it. Thank you, Jim, for your time and your insights today. Thank you, it was a pleasure. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard you know what to do. Please rate review and share it with a colleague or a friend. And until next time, remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. booked me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
Empathetic marketing is having a moment. But really, this trend has been a long time coming. Buyers today are savvy, everything is available online, and they have no patience for brands that don’t understand them or their needs. My guest today, Tim Leon, coined the term Return on Empathy and talks about all that companies gain when they engage in more empathetic marketing tactics.
We discuss what empathy marketing means, why marketers should embrace it, and how it applies equality to B2B as well as B2C brands. We share data that shows why buyers are choosing empathetic brands, and why this is not just a trend, but a transformative moment in how we market and sell. And finally, we share actionable strategies to inject more empathy into your marketing – not least of which is understanding where marketing’s limitations end and your culture, leadership, and policies need to also become part of the effort.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Ask customers what challenges they’re facing, not just what they think about your product or service. You’ve got to go deeper to better understand and empathize with them.
Now more than ever, the companies that portray ads that promote well-being and comfort are the companies that people want to do business with. They don’t want a hard sell, they want to feel good about the brands they’re working with.
You have to sell to people, whether you’re working B2B or B2C. People want authenticity and empathy from the organizations they work with, no matter what industry they’re in.
“Return on Empathy means if you’re delivering empathy authentically and honestly, you’re building customer loyalty and protected market share.”
— Tim Leon
Episode References:
Geile Leon Marketing Communications Return on Empathy white paper: https://bit.ly/44MiSrY
About Tim Leon, President, Geile Leon Marketing Communications
Tim Leon is the President of Geile Leon Marketing Communications. The firm was founded in 1989 and has served clients locally, regionally, and nationally. The firm is celebrating its 34th year in business and is located in The Hill Neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri, Tim’s role at the agency includes brand strategy/planning for clients, new business development, and a host of other duties that come with owning a small business!
Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: red-slice.com
PRE-SALE SPECIAL! Pre-order 1 to 99 copies of Maria’s new book, The Empathy Dilemma for your leaders, exec team, (or yourself?!) and GET 30%! bit.ly/TEDSpecialPresale Offer ends August 27, 2024!
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Empathetic marketing is having a moment. But really this trend has been a long time coming. Buyers today are savvy, everything is available online, and they have no patience for spending money on brands that don’t understand them, or their needs and goals. My guest today, Tim Lyon coined the term return on empathy, and talks about all that companies gain when they engage in more empathetic marketing tactics. The president of Guile Lian marketing communications, a firm founded in 1989, that serves clients locally, regionally and nationally. His firm recently released the return on empathy white paper, and the link will be in the show notes for you. Today we discuss what empathy marketing means, why marketers should embrace it, and how it applies equally to b2b as well as b2c brands. We share data that shows why buyers are choosing empathetic brands, and why this is not just a trend, but a transformative moment in how we market and sell. And finally we share actionable strategies to inject more empathy into your marketing, not least of which is understanding where marketing’s limitations are, and where your culture, leadership and policies need to also become part of the overall effort. Take a listen. Welcome, Tim Leon to the empathy edge podcast, I am super excited to have this conversation with a fellow marketer, and brand strategist about the importance of empathy in marketing, and what it actually means and how to leverage it in a healthy way, and all the things. So welcome to the show.
Tim Leon 02:27
Thanks a lot, Maria. I’m really excited to be here today.
Maria Ross 02:31
So tell us a little bit, Tim, about how you got into this world of marketing. And specifically, what was the epiphany moment where you realized, like many of us marketers do that empathy is actually a superpower when it comes to connecting and engaging with your ideal clients.
Tim Leon 02:49
Sure, it really started in 2018, I did a workshop, I was a participant on finding your why your personal why. And I did a lot of soul searching and what I really came to the conclusion, what really drives my mission in life is to serve people with empathy, so that they can feel their true value. I try to do that, as a leader, I tried to do that in my personal life, some times more successful than others. But empathy, to me is a gift that I feel I have, but it’s really opened a lot of doors because I feel like I can connect to people in a way that really is productive for myself and for the person I’m interacting with. And when the pandemic kids, I sat back and looked at what was going on in the world. And as you can well appreciate Maria, empathy became more and more talked about, not just in every part of society. But in marketing and branding, I started the city. This, what I call pattern, right marketers, really, that were sensitive to it, figuring out, I’ve got to get on board and figure out how to infuse authentic empathy. And you saw examples of folks that didn’t do it, that really kind of didn’t really take into account what was going on in the world, tried to just keep the Evergreen marketing going and plow through a pandemic. That didn’t work so well. And I think the pandemic did this as marketers, it was the first time we could talk to our consumers, kind of under this theme of we’re all in this together. Because Wait, we’re experienced the same things they were. And to me, the companies that got it right where the people that realize that it changed how they did business, to be a little more sensitive to the plight of what people were going through. So that’s kind of how I abroad into our business. And how, you know, it led to this white paper that we wrote called Return on empathy, which is that whole premise of authentic empathy, infused and delivered and branding and marketing has benefits way beyond, you know, you’re doing the right thing, but it has benefits to the bottom line. I mean, it can help build your brand. Yeah, it was the, that was the salutely.
Maria Ross 05:27
That was the Epiphany, I love it. And it’s true, it’s, you know, our work has followed a similar pattern in that, working with the clients. And I would love to hear the kinds of clients you work with, because I’ve worked with tech clients, mostly, but also solopreneurs, consultants, coaches. And it was only in my later years of my marketing career did I realize that what I was doing as a marketer was trying to be empathetic, trying to see things from the customers or the clients point of view, and being able to connect with them where they were, and you look back and you go, I don’t know that I called it that as a marketer, when I was building campaigns, or writing, copy or doing all the things, but that really is the superpower of marketing. And I have worked with and maybe you have two very senior marketing executives who almost have a disdain for their customers. And I think to myself, you’re never going to be effective at reaching them, if you don’t respect them. So what kinds of clients do you work with? And have you seen that that play out as well?
Tim Leon 06:35
Absolutely. And you know, it’s really across, I work in the b2b sector, quite a bit Heil industrial clients. I also work in higher ed, which, to me has seen a transformation in terms of higher ed all of a sudden, focused on being close to the customer, understanding the mindset of today’s students, because it’s changed, right? I mean, what students today, they’re looking to stay closer to home, which is a new phenomenon. When they’re looking on campus, they want to understand what kind of mental health resources you can offer. There are things that are happening today in higher ed, that totally were probably precipitated by the pandemic, but they changed the behaviors. And that’s the thing I would say, as marketers, we’re all trying to figure out which of these behavior shifts that’s happened over the last two or three years, I get a stick, you know, we keep thinking that a consumer is going to come back to the way they used to purchase products, I tend to believe across all industries, changes have occurred, that are the new norm and the new reality.
Maria Ross 07:45
Absolutely, absolutely. So let’s talk about empathy and marketing. Because I, you know, I work on that aspect. I talk about that. Other marketers I’ve had on the show, talk about it. In your definition. What does empathetic marketing mean? What does it look like? And how do you define it as a concept?
Tim Leon 08:07
I think, traditionally, we’ve all we’ve all said to ourselves, as long as we put ourselves in the customers shoes, we could be effective at marketing. That’s not, to me, the total story, we have to put ourselves in the minds of the customer, which is a lot deeper, and a lot more, you have to do a little more soul searching to get there. So for me, we’ve always done voice of the customer research Brady campaign we’ve done but the types of questions I’m asking now are much more probing, I want to know, not just what the customer thinks about our industry or category or product, I want to understand what the customer challenges are, personally, professionally. That to me is what change is we have to understand the plight of the customer on a completely deeper level, to really deliver empathy. And to me, there’s no empathy. There’s a million million definitions. The one I like is from a guy named Alfred Adler. He was an Austrian psychiatrist, but he said, empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another. And that to me, is, you know, how do I get there? How do I understand customers at that level, that when I can do it, I can see we’re connecting on a deeper level because I see engagement, right social media, I see people commenting on some of the posts we do I know that we’re hitting a nerve. When I start to see that dialogue, customers aren’t as passive. They’re actually commenting on our posts and what I see what their cabinet got to me. I know we’ve struck that nerve. So that’s it. Be is what bringing empathy, marketing and how it resonates. You know, I want the campaign to be successful, successful. But more importantly, I want customers to be excited about what we’re talking about and engaged with it just as important. I want employees to be excited that say, now we’re talking about something meaningful in our lesson, that to be, again is true empathy when your employees can get behind what you’re doing, right,
Maria Ross 10:31
right. Well, you know, as I’ve always said, culture and brand are two sides of the same coin, and it’s got a, it’s got to live internally and start from the inside out in order to be genuine on the outside. So now, your agency coined the phrase return on empathy, which I love it because I’m all about proving to the skeptics the ROI of empathy, and there have been so many reports out there. One recently that I started citing in my talks, is that nine out of 10, customers state that empathy is the most important factor in customer loyalty. So talk to us about what you define as return on empathy. What does that mean for marketers? And why should they embrace it? And then let’s get into a few of the highlights of the report on empathy that you have available for folks on your website?
Tim Leon 11:20
Sure. So let’s start with a couple of facts that I think build the case for what return on empathy is about 2020. PepsiCo did a study with I think it was Ipsos that Yep. Okay, a couple of things that that was with us consumers, but similar to what you just said, 94% of the respondents said, empathy is necessary for society to thrive. I mean, to me, 94% of the people believed empathy KISSmetrics there for society, they went on to say the half of them said, companies that portray the ads that promote wellbeing, comfort, our companies that we will do business with and take about 2020 well being and comfort, that’s what people needed, they didn’t need to hard sell, they wanted to feel really good about the brands they were working with. And so, to me, I started thinking to myself empathy. You know, empathy is bigger than just, like, feel good, or be companies are experiencing greater customer loyalty. And the final statistic, Maria, that really resonated for me, that was a 2020 Morning consult study that stated, I think it was 85% of respondents said, the companies that display authentic empathy, are companies I’m more apt to buy from, and they are the companies I will stay loyal to, no matter what, I take that and translate it into return on Empathy means if you’re delivering empathy, authentically, and honestly, you’re building customer loyalty protected market share.
Maria Ross 13:15
Yeah, and I think that’s where it comes into play, because that can’t all be marketing’s job, right? That has to be how the company behaves as a whole, because that’s what people are looking for. And, you know, coming from marketing on both the client and agency side, we can do a lot in marketing, we can’t be miracle workers. We can’t wave away bad behavior from our companies. And so marketing and HR, marketing and culture need to be in lockstep to be ensuring that empathy lives from the inside out. So what are our policies? What are our customer service processes? What is our buying process? Like? How do we resolve customer complaints? How do we address negative feedback in the public domain, but all of these things go beyond marketing’s role. And that’s why, you know, again, you can’t just use marketing to erase bad behavior. It’s got to be a system wide, holistic view of how the company operates inside and out.
Tim Leon 14:18
Well, and you bring up a great point, consumers are much more highly sensitive to how companies treat employees, there’s tons of research to say, companies that don’t treat their employees well will suffer in the marketplace because consumers won’t put up with it. They’re highly sensitive to that. So I think you’re right and culture, and how you’re treating employees and what you do about kind of that front end of the business is probably the more important today than well,
Maria Ross 14:48
and it’s more important to Gen Z in terms of being consumers and buyers because at the beginning of the pandemic, many studies were done around brands that were not treating their employees or their communities Well, during the beginning months of the pandemic, and several studies were done by an organization called do something.org. And they found that, you know, we’re talking about 16 and 17 year olds, who were saying, I’m not going to buy from that store because of the way that they treated their employees. So the transparency now is there, and consumers, shoppers buyers, in, you know, younger generations. But you know, we have to remember Millennials are in their 40s. Now, so these are business buyers, these are buyers of cars and houses, they’re looking at the holistic behavior of companies. So let’s get back to marketing, specifically, when, when you did the report, what were those? Were those really the findings? Or was the report also looking for what some companies were doing where they were getting a good return on empathy, so to speak?
Tim Leon 15:54
I’d say yes, we looked at companies, one that comes to mind for me is Rei, who for the last few years, as you well know, closes their business on Black Friday, and the campaign is all about getting out getting away from consumers opt
Maria Ross 16:11
outside.
Tim Leon 16:11
If you look at all the receipts or all of the marketing articles, it was it’s it was brilliant, because it aligns with the values of that brand. But it was also brilliant, because it really, really made a strong statement on what they care about for their employees. And that campaigns being repeated again this year. I’m no economist, but my guess is, they do not suffer because they’re closed on Black Friday.
Maria Ross 16:39
No, actually, I wrote a whole section in the book about that case study, I spoke with their chief customer officer. And they’ve been doing this since I think 2015, I can’t remember how long they’ve been doing it. It came about because of an employee meeting, not a boardroom decision on how to look better in the marketplace. And they, they have reaped nothing but benefits from this campaign and this philosophy. And what was interesting about what the chief customer officer had to say was, it wasn’t actually it sounded crazy. But it wasn’t actually a hard sell when they looked at it against their corporate mission. And they thought and this is what our customers are expecting from us, we’re Co Op, our customers, you know, are part of our company. And if this is truly our mission to help people develop a love of the outdoors, we need to get them outside. So the it has reaped benefits in terms of press, it has reaped benefits in terms of paying members going up, revenue, all the things. So I want to shift gears for a second and talk about, you know, you’ve been talking a lot about since the pandemic but this has actually been a trend that was happening before then because of what I was saying about the buying behaviors of some of the younger generations. So right now, this is a very top of mind topic for marketers of yes, we want to figure out how to inject more empathy into our marketing. And we’re going to talk about some concrete strategies and ideas that you have to offer in a minute. But do you think this is just a fad? Or do you truly believe this is a transformative moment in how we market and sell,
Tim Leon 18:14
I would say, the pandemic precipitated it. But this is a transformative moment. I can pick other societal issues, climate change, sustainability, the economic climate today, racial equity, you can look what’s changed as consumers being highly sensitive to how brands are reacting to what’s going on in the world. That’s transformative moment. Consumers are highly sensitive, and brands that can align like REI, their mission to taking, taking a stand, support it putting their money where their mouth is, I think are going to succeed. Those that don’t will get called out.
Maria Ross 19:02
Right, exactly, I 100% agree. So let’s hear some concrete strategies and ideas on how marketers can effectively use empathy in their marketing and branding efforts. I always share a few I have I have a course available called brandstory breakthrough that talks about how you can use some different techniques to understand and align with your customers. But what are some concrete strategies and ideas that you’ve seen and you talk about with your clients?
Tim Leon 19:32
Sure. The number one strategy we always talk about because it’s something we’ve done is helping organizations find their why. Obviously, Simon Sinek made that very, very popular years ago was start with why but understanding your purpose and mission as an organization. Because to me, that’s again, people don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it. That to me shows empathy. If you can’t express your mission in a way that consumers can feel part of it and feel like they can support really what you’re all about. So finding your why. And that’s something I mean, read the book, watch the video, but I think finding your why to be a step toward truly delivering empathy.
Maria Ross 20:22
Absolutely. And I’m gonna put a link in the show notes to one or two episodes that we’ve done around purpose driven organizations and how they succeed in the market. So thank you for bringing that up.
Tim Leon 20:32
Yeah, please do. The second one is, and this is building community around your back brand. Think about Harley Davidson, Harley Davidson, Davidson owner group. These are passionate fans. They have their own, you know, social media page, think about customer loyalty programs, but finding the people that love your brand, and giving them a channel, a venue, a place to talk about it. Those are the people that are going to write the reviews. But I think, as you know, consumers want to hear from people that understand your brand that are on the same side of the fence as their consumers that love your brand. And finding that community and building it, I think is something every company needs to do in a lot of companies are don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think that can be, that’s not an option. For people. We always say number three is EPA emphasizing the human side of your business. We’re seeing a lot more creative campaigns, we do a lot of video content, customer testimonials that never been probably resonated more than they resonate today. But also employee testimonials. I think of a campaign you’re probably familiar with lush, lush National Art, I’m sorry, lush, natural beauty products that Alex made video series, or it’s their employees showing how these beauty products are made. All natural ingredients, really rarely. But when you watch the spots, what you really come out of is look at how passionate these people are about making this product for me. So I think emphasizing the human side of your business. That could be also getting some your C level people out in front customers PR events, but people want to do business with people they like so I don’t think that can be underestimated. anymore. You talked about something earlier, this isn’t just marketing, but focusing on the entire customer journey, your customer experience, every touchpoint evaluating it for Am I making it more convenient? Am I making it more easy? You mentioned customer service, inbound marketing, all of those things, your processes? What are you doing to make the experience even better, and to me, that’s empathy. That’s really understanding what your customer wants. Number five, the person map people, personalized marketing, we see it, everybody’s got a CRM system, what I would say is not everybody’s probably using it to the potential that it has to really deliver one on one messages that resonate. And I’m not talking about the emails that say, Hey, Tim, I have an opportunity for you. Right, I’m talking about something that can get to a specific need of an audience. On a one on one basis. Yeah, it’s very labor intensive. But that to me, again, is what true empathy is all about in the marketing space.
Maria Ross 23:43
Absolutely. You know, I’ve talked to my clients in the past about just getting out there and talking to their customers and their clients, and like you said, not about their experience only with your product or service. But what are the challenges? What are their goals? What are their fears? What are their values, and understanding where what you offer can augment that can fit into that. And it’s not about finding out what they believe so you can manipulate them, it’s about finding out if this is truly a good product market fit, offering market fit. And then you can echo their words back in your marketing and sales. I talked, I mentioned I work with a lot of tech clients. And I’m sure you’ve faced this as well, where they get so caught up in the jargon and also what their competitors are saying. And yet when you go talk to their customer, how do you describe the product? How do you describe the value you’re getting out of the product, use that wording and be able to be the voice inside their head when other prospects see that? Because if you talk how they are talking to themselves, you have a much better chance of connecting and engaging with them. than if you try to force terminology and jargon down their throats, because that’s what the analysts want to see, or that’s what the press wants to see. It doesn’t matter if you actually want to make sales
Tim Leon 25:11
couldn’t agree more, or you could not. That, to me is that authenticity. You’re looking in there, the bachelor, right? The industry expects you, right? And that really, man that can really resonate and attack at b2b sectors where, oh,
Maria Ross 25:32
well, I mean, and that’s where, you know, that was where my first frustration to ultimately build my own consulting practice came from as being in tech marketing. For a long time, I was so tired of the robotic way we were talking to customers. And it didn’t, it doesn’t matter if it’s b2b or b2c, you’re still selling to humans at the end of the day. And so what is going to resonate for them we buy based on logic and emotion. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a cynical, it developer, there’s still an emotion, there’s still an impact that you want to have. And how can a company tap into that story? I love what you said about being more human in your marketing, because I think, you know, we look at, we look at these amazing, small businesses, for example, that advertise on Instagram or on Facebook. The reason they’re successful is because they’re just people telling their story, and sharing their passion. And that’s why they’re selling millions of skews is because that’s what people want to see. That’s what we mean by authenticity. That’s
Tim Leon 26:34
right. And people want products that are manufactured with passion. They want the people they want to visualize that these are boys that are trying to make the best product. That to me is very, very powerful. Absolutely.
Maria Ross 26:48
Well, thank you so much for this conversation today. And your insights, we’re gonna have all the links in the show notes to your website, Guile Lian marketing communications, where people can also find the return on empathy white paper and download it for themselves. Where you know, for people on the go, we’re gonna have all your links, but where’s the best place they can get in touch with you? Is it the website,
Tim Leon 27:12
website, contact us or please visit my LinkedIn page. Tim Lyon Guylian, marketing communications. I am on LinkedIn all the time. So
Maria Ross 27:26
I will I will respond. And I want to spell the website out for folks. It’s g e i l e o n. Guy, leone.com. And so again, that’s where folks can find the return on empathy report. And also find out more about you and your work. Thank you so much for your time today, Tim, it was a delight to connect with you. And we’ll catch you next time.
Tim Leon 27:49
Right, Maria? Thanks for having me. And I’m gonna look forward to that book coming out in 2020 for the empathy dilemma.
Maria Ross 27:57
Awesome. I love it. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard you know what to do, please rate and review or share with a colleague or a friend. And until next time, please remember that cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
According to the NIH, an estimated 6.7M Americans 65+ are living with Alzheimer’s dementia. This number could grow to 13.8 million by 2060 barring the development of medical breakthroughs. Today, you’ll learn why dementia is not a disease, but a symptom, and what caregivers go through, experience, and need – especially from their managers and workplace colleagues.
I talk with Barbara J. Huelat about what dementia is, how emotional interventions are more effective than cognitive ones, and how to create more healing environments in hospitals and workspaces. You’ll gain empathy for your colleagues who are dementia caregivers, as Barbara shares her personal experience caring for her mother and husband, and she talks about what workplaces can do to better support caregivers in the office to help them continue to perform and do their best work.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Emotional memories are those with our senses – these memories can reach a person with dementia where language or cognitive memories cannot.
It is critical to prepare your helpers and part-time caregivers if you are away to give everyone the best chance for success, much like having a disaster plan.
Be flexible, don’t try to change reality, and give information rather than asking questions. You can go far with that, even when there are mistakes and challenges.
“Be understanding of what they’re going through. There’s a very large emotional drain on the person. The caregiver is often considered the second patient as their health risks skyrocket while taking care because it’s long-term chronic stress that doesn’t go away like acute stress.“
— Barbara Huelat
About Barbara J. Hiuelat
Barbara J. Huelat is a prominent Human Centric Healthcare Designer, author, and speaker. She has created healing environments and solved health challenges for more than 300 healthcare organizations and serves as a healing environment consultant to healthcare facilities, product manufacturers, academia, institutions, and the architectural design community. By placing humanity at the core, her pioneering mindset proves that human-centric designs impact healing, improve the human experience, affect health outcomes, and are cost-effective.
Ms. Huelat’s latest work, Taming the Chaos of Dementia: A Caregiver’s Guide to Interventions that Make a Difference, provides a compassionate and insightful guide to those facing the tumultuous journey of dementia, offering solace, support, and practical strategies to navigate this challenging path. Currently, she shares human-centric designs globally via lecturers at international conferences, universities, and organizations and through research collaborations with government agencies and universities, contributing to white papers and research articles. Always fascinated with the beauty of science and the science of design, she believes human-centric design experiences can mitigate human misery.
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Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. According to the National Institutes of Health, an estimated 6.7 million Americans aged 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s dementia today, the number could grow to 13 point 8 million by 2060 barring the development of medical breakthroughs, and that’s just Alzheimer’s related dementia. There are other dementias related to conditions such as Parkinson’s, stroke, and more. Today, you will learn why dementia is not a disease, but a symptom of what can be a number of conditions and what caregivers go through experience and need, especially from their managers and workplace colleagues. Barbara J. Hewlett is a prominent human centric healthcare designer, author and speaker and has created healing environments and solve health challenges for more than 300 health care organizations, and serves as a healing environment consultant to health care facilities, product manufacturers, academia, institutions and the architectural design community by placing humanity at the core for pioneering mindset proves that human centric designs impact healing, improve the human experience, affect health outcomes, and are cost effective. Barbara has written three books including her latest work taming the chaos of dementia, a caregivers guide to interventions that make a difference, which provides a compassionate and insightful guide to those facing the tumultuous journey of dementia, offering solace, support and practical strategies to navigate this challenging path. Currently, she shares human centric designs globally via lectures at international conferences, universities and organizations and through research collaborations with government agencies and universities, contributing to white papers and research articles. Barbara believes that human centric design experiences can mitigate human misery. Today we talk about what dementia is how emotional interventions are more effective than cognitive ones, how to create more healing environments, both in hospitals, workspaces, and how your current workplace environment may be the reason your people don’t want to return to the office, you’ll gain empathy for your colleagues who are Dementia Caregivers, as Barbara shares her personal experience caring for her mother and husband, and what workplaces can do to better support caregivers in the office to help them continue to perform and do their best work. This is an important conversation, take a listen. Welcome Barbara Hewlett to the empathy edge podcast to give us a little bit of insight into dementia care, and the needs of caregivers who are caring for loved ones with dementia. Welcome to the up at the edge podcast. Thank
Barbara Huelat 03:28
you so much. And thank you for inviting me for this afternoon, and I look forward to it.
Maria Ross 03:34
So tell us a little bit about your story. We just heard your bio, how did you even get into this work? And how did you get into the work of being a healing environment consultant and an expert on dementia and caregiving?
Barbara Huelat 03:48
Okay, well, my career has been in architectural design for health care facilities. So for the past 40 Some years I’ve designed health care facilities for hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes and senior living facilities. But then it’s been the relationship of my personal experiences as a caregiver first with my grandmother with vascular dementia, my mom with dementia from Parkinson’s and my late husband who had Alzheimer’s. So with those, I learned a whole different side of caregiving and the environment or feeling space spaces from a very personal side.
Maria Ross 04:34
Wow. And I can’t imagine there are many people who have not been touched by dementia in their families or their circle. I know I had a maternal grandmother that lived with us in her last years. And I actually didn’t know her without dementia as a child. And so, and I didn’t understand it, and I think that’s probably true of a lot of people who are not sure what they’re dealing with? are they dealing with just someone getting older and forgetting things? Or they’re dealing with someone who’s had a brain injury, that I had a brain injury? It impacted short term memory? Or are they dealing with dementia? So can you please share with us? What is the definition of dementia? And how is it different from things like Alzheimer’s?
Barbara Huelat 05:18
Yes. Well, dementia is an overall term for all types of diseases with cognitive impairment. And so yes, it can be from from a stroke and brain injury from diseases like Parkinson’s, and but the biggest cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. That’s what we’re dealing with today. That is the largest cause. But dementia is actually a symptom. It’s not a disease. But it’s a symptom of all of these diseases that they and the symptoms are quite common, regardless of which disease you have. There’s very little bit of differences. Some are actually treatable, but the majority are not correctable.
Maria Ross 06:08
And I don’t think that’s well known that that’s a symptom, not a disease. I know, for example, when I had my brain aneurysm rupture, I thought that a brain aneurysm was an event. But a brain aneurysm is a thing. And only if it ruptures, does it usually cause major issues? So it sounds like dementia is very similar? Where we we use it in terminology as if it is its own diagnoses? Yes, its own disease.
Barbara Huelat 06:35
It’s very common people asked the difference. Well, what’s the difference between dementia and ultimates? Is it the same thing? And no, it’s it is it is part of the disease, but it is not the same thing. And you really can’t, it’s used interchangeably, but it doesn’t work that way. And so when
Maria Ross 06:57
you talk about your new book that not so new now, but it came out last November, taming the chaos of Dementia Caregivers guide to interventions that make a difference, what are caregiver interventions? And why are they necessary? Well,
Barbara Huelat 07:12
it could that’s a great question, thank you. Be intervention is something that a caregiver can do. It’s a positive, actionable item, that something that you can do. We think of most interventions like pharmaceutical or surgical or PT, these are interventions to change outcomes. But there are so many interventions that caregivers can do that don’t fall in those categories. And that’s because dementia is not a disease, like we talked about earlier, it’s a symptom. And the things that are hard to deal with are the symptoms. That’s what makes the diseases so difficult, because they are disruptive behaviors, they are hard to manage, you can’t give them a pill to stop it. And understanding really how dementia works. And how it impacts the memory is really crucial. And it’s one of the first things that we need to do to understand dementia. When we talk about cognitive impairment that we said is the primary symptom of dementia, we’re talking about memory, cognitive brain is our our data, the things we learn through life, you know, the math, the spelling, the language skills, but they’re also the filters that we have, we’ve learned that this is correct. And this is an incorrect way of working or being. So dementia impacts those cognitive impairments. But on a positive side, there is also the emotional memory in our brains. And dementia doesn’t affect this as much, really not until the end. And so the emotional part of the memory is that pivotal portal that caregivers can have to reach those with dementia. So
Maria Ross 09:19
give us an example of that. What would it What do you mean by emotional memory? And what are some of those interventions that caregivers especially caregivers, listening who are taking care of someone in their life in dementia,
Barbara Huelat 09:30
those emotional memories or those with the senses, our sight, what we see what we smell what we hear an example a great example where there’s a great deal of research is that on music, how music can reach a person with dementia, where language in that language is a cognitive skill. Music is an emotional attribute. So when we use music and art and color and tact Little things, fuzzy blankets of funny puppies, various emotional things that trigger the emotion, you can get a response, even when cognitive leveling is really not available to us.
Maria Ross 10:15
That’s fascinating. And I know, I know, I’ve seen research around music and the power of music and not just even with dementia patients, but with autism with other with other. I don’t want to say diseases because autism isn’t really disease, but other afflictions that occur where sometimes there’s parts of our brains that we can’t access, again, in sort of a logical way, in effect based way. And so being able to access that emotional portion makes a lot of sense. And so were were you aware of that when you were in the caretaking phase, as you mentioned? Or was this did this come later?
Barbara Huelat 10:54
Yes, and no, I think I first became aware of that, in designing facilities, and health care design. When I talk about in my early work, early books, healing environments, it’s about the emotional connection to Being Well, staying well. And it’s about how, how healthcare institutions often don’t make us feel, well, they’re very intimidating, they’re scary. They’re terrifying. So how do you transform a medical environment to help the person heal, and to be able to move beyond their illness or surgery or wherever they’re in the hospital. And so I learned that there’s a connection there early, but I didn’t really realize how profound it was until I was a one on one with my mom was trying to climb a fence out of the nursing home, or leading a coup to get the other residents to leave with her, or my husband, who was throwing sticks over the fence at a neighbor. how important the emotional aspect was to connect with and connect with really what they were trying to express that did not have the cognitive abilities to deal with it. So what what are some
Maria Ross 12:17
of those? What are some of those tips around creating a healing environment? What were some of the things that you did in your design,
Barbara Huelat 12:24
in the design will use color as intuitive Wayfinding, for example, help people get through a hospital system, using art and music, from the lobby through the procedures, using aromatherapy, for example, in MRIs to help the body to be able to deal with the noise and the terror of going through some of these procedures. So I use elements of this throughout my practice. And when it when it came to dealing with them personally, I was able to modify them to be very personal to impact the person. So my husband was a great photographer and an architect. And when he had dementia, what harmed him was giving him a box of photographs to sort through, and it couldn’t tell you who they were in the pictures. But it gave him a lot of satisfaction going through his own photos. So by combining some of the elements that I knew and personally adapted to, yeah, he had more reward and pleasure from from those last days. Well,
Maria Ross 13:42
I wonder if there’s a lesson to be learned here. We often have talked about the redesign of office space, especially pre pandemic, a lot of workplaces. were redesigning workplaces to be more collaborative and innovative and inspiring and reconfiguring. Using space and using furniture and using layout as a way to create more innovation create more productivity, do you still think there’s space for that in the workplaces that people are going back to but also in the workplaces? They surround themselves in at home? What do you think are some mistakes that offices or people with home offices might be making that they don’t even realize are detrimental to their mental state?
Barbara Huelat 14:30
though? That’s a great question. Yes, I know in my work in office design, but the some of the healing factors in that was getting as much of nature in as possible. Access to Windows, everybody wants to be in an office with a window, why not just for status, it feels better, they can see the light of day if it impacts their circadian rhythm that’s going to impact their productivity. Now Nature is essential for us feeling good, being able to be more productive, more engaging, and for all those creative acts that we need in part of our workplace. And, and yet, there are still many windowless offices people work in. And that is, that really impacts their productivity.
Maria Ross 15:21
So I always, I always feel for the people, especially during lockdown that, you know, like, if I had had the studio apartment that I had, in my early 20s, I would have gone stir crazy because I had a window, but it was facing a wall of the building right next to us, there was no room to separate work and life, not a lot of natural light. And you know, people have had to work in that environment for a long time. But then on the other hand, there’s people that have really outfitted their home offices as an example, to be an oasis for them to be a place where they are, where they are their most productive, when they where they feel inspired, where they feel invigorated and where they can separate their home life from their personal life a little bit by separating their work area in their home.
Barbara Huelat 16:09
And, and also, I think, the reluctance of piece people going back to work, though, there’s, I mean, there’s empty offices all over, especially in the big cities, people don’t want to give up on windows for their pets, or their cat can sit on their desktop. And there’s elements in that, so much of it comes down to the nature and the biophilic need that we have to be one with nature, it just makes us feel good. And we’re going to be more productive when we feel good,
Maria Ross 16:45
right. And there’s so there are a lot of companies investing a lot of time and thought into reimagining their workplaces. Companies like box companies like Salesforce like Google, where they’re trying to make it a very attractive and nurturing and innovative environment, to encourage people to come back into the office and collaborate together. So I love that this is something that people are paying attention to, and leaders are paying attention to. I want to shift gears because I’d love to talk about, you know, your work is so much with supporting caregivers. And first of all, can you give us an insight into what caregivers are facing caregivers for dementia patients? What are they facing? What are they dealing with on a daily basis? Because what I want to segue into is how we can better support our employees or our colleagues that work who we know or might not know, are caring for a dementia patient. So can you give us a little behind the scenes of what their worlds are like and what are they dealing with in addition to having to work or lead teams or
Barbara Huelat 17:51
produce? Aha, that’s another great question. Caregivers have a lot on their plate, especially the primary caregiver. They’re the one that’s responsible. It’s like being a parent, and you have the child at home and you have to deal with daycare. I know when I was working and and my husband had dementia and was at home. I had to find caregivers to stay with them each day. One day a caregiver showed up drunk, what was I going to do? And you know, do you call in sick? Or do you bring him into the office like people do with children? And I think there has to be that understanding because caregivers are going to increase and everybody’s going to be a caregiver here and there. If not a primary caregiver, they’re going to be asked by a neighbor, hey, I’ve got to go into the office. Can you stay with Joe this afternoon, I really are I have an important meeting, I have to do this. And I need some help. So your caregivers, you might think of them as like parents of small children, they cannot be left alone. Once the the person with dementia enters into the phase where they can no longer do the activities of daily living on their own. They have to have a caregiver. And so that is that’s a piece that I think offices and corporations need to understand that there’s going to be an increase of caregivers out there. They have to provide meals, transportation, they have to get them to the doctor, they have to provide entertainment for them to do while you’re gone. They have to have help dressing they need up taking their meds, they need help keeping them in the house and just all of these activities together, in addition to taking care of their finances. So they could no longer do those on their own. So it’s I think the best way to think of it as taking care of a small child right and what that means needs to do while working
Maria Ross 20:01
well. And it’s extra complexity because you are dealing with an adult. And like you said, the issue of finances, things like that. And, and the issues of the blowback of that, especially if someone doesn’t, can’t properly assess their own cognitive state, you’re dealing with that. But also, I think there’s a assumption that if you are, if you’re caring for an adult, there might be a small window of opportunity that you could leave them by themselves. And that’s just not the case. You can’t you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not even like with a kid that you could give an iPad, there’s, it’s more complexity, and what you’re describing is a whole other full time job. And I think that that’s what we need to remember, not to mention, the emotional toll of watching who might have been appear to you or apparent to you previously, is now someone that you have to take care of you, we expect that as parents that we’re gonna have to take care of our child. What happens when the person that used to take care of us is now the person that we have to take care of that role reversal? Takes a big emotional toll, I’m sure. And so, on to my second question, what do you think workplaces and leaders could be doing to better support caregivers who are working for them? So that, you know, we talked before we started recording that? Yes, I mean, time off is great. But they also need support while they’re working. So what are some things you suggest, one of
Barbara Huelat 21:31
the big things that actually jazz was was most helpful for me was to allow me to bring my loved one to the office occasionally, not all the time, but when an emergency happened, to be respectful of when you need to work at home, then not I mean, I think you don’t want to always work at home and the caregiver needs to get out it’s Well, I was always grateful to have an office to go to to help clear my mind. Also, things that could help clear the mind times of respite. Just being understanding of what you’re going through, it is a there’s a very large emotional drain on the person. Person also has trouble sleeping at night. Usually, counseling therapy is really, really helpful. Because the caregiver is often considered the second patient, their health risk skyrocket while taking care of because it’s a long term chronic stress, it doesn’t go away like like an acute stress. So in understanding being able to have access to therapy and counseling, depression, anxiety is really important. And just having access to knowing who is a caregiver, just like snowing, you have a child that’s coming home from school at three o’clock, and the parent needs to check on that make sure that they got to their destination or their after school activity or whatever. There are times that the person though the the worker will need to check in at home and with their loved one, and be on the phone when there is seemingly a crisis. And it may not be this. But I remember one time I got a call and says Mom won’t come in the house. She doesn’t think it’s her house. How do you deal with this? Right? Right? You have to take the call and talking on through it and and calling my brother to help him talk her through it. How do you deal with that? Continued? issue? So I think being understanding, being open being creative, not you don’t even know what you can and is a possibility. And that’s what some of these interventions that I talked about in the book, and how we get a person through that particular disruptive behavior or mill? Or what
Maria Ross 24:09
is some of your best advice around someone who is caretaking for someone with dementia and they’re at the office? And they get that kind of call? Is there any advice you can give to anyone listening now that might find themselves in that situation? What might be the best way that they can approach it and sort of coach themselves through that situation? Let’s say they’re in a meeting and they’re in the middle of presenting and they get a call? What do you what’s, what are some suggestions you have?
Barbara Huelat 24:38
Okay, the probably the biggest suggestion that anybody can do, and it’s important that they have these conversations with the time caregiver, before they go into the office is what are the effective interventions for this, your particular loved one because it’ll be different with your mom or your spouse or My grandmother, whoever it is, but going through and the most effective intervention is a positive distraction. And a positive distraction works in all dementia is because the person with dementia has their short term memory is gone. So is if you can move them away from the awful event that is happening momentarily. In a few minutes, they’ll be okay. Like for my mom that wouldn’t come in the house is nice, I just did take her for a walk around the block and talk about everything that she sees. And you get to her house, and this is her front door. And this is her swing that she used with dad and talk about them. And by the time she gets to the door, walk right in and aborted because she forgot that she thought that wasn’t her house. And so by distracting the person using that intervention of short term memory, and relying on it, it almost always works or at times, nothing works. Right, right.
Maria Ross 26:14
But that communication with your caregiver or with your part time caregiver, or your part time support is so important that it almost sounds like I might be dumbing this down a little bit. But it almost sounds like having a disaster plan. Like if this should happen. While I’m presenting my big meeting today. Here’s what you might want to go through, you know, almost having that that sort of disaster recovery plan in place so that they can maybe do all the interventions they can do before it’s time that you’ve got to leave and you’ve got to come. Right,
Barbara Huelat 26:47
those conversations are so imperative. I remember, I went on a retreat, much needed retreat while I was caregiving. And the first time I did this, I didn’t leave those instructions with the my support team. And they call several times during the retreat, and the retreat was absolutely almost worthless, because I was so interrupted on the retreat. I did it again. Am I prep the caregiver, do not call me if this happens. Paul, my daughter, Paul, my brother, and I gave her a whole list of things to do. And that important meeting coming up a caregiver, do not call me between two and four o’clock in the afternoon today. Major happens, this is what you need
Maria Ross 27:44
to do the take these steps try these interventions. Yeah.
Barbara Huelat 27:47
And whenever I used a notebook and put those everything in the notebook and whoever was caregiving that day, and often it was not the same person, right? Get it from an agency, somebody’s sick, or something else, there were alternatives when they needed to have the same information. But your disaster plan? Perfect. That is? Well,
Maria Ross 28:13
and I think that that’s another challenge to point out is that unlike childcare, which is normally a little bit more predictable, you have the same nanny or the same daycare agency or the provider, that can be very different and stressful. If you have a worker who is the caregiver for someone with dementia, if they are relying on agencies that staff differently, they’re relying on part time support, if they’re not necessarily relying on a consistent, relative or friend. To do that. That’s just another layer of stress and complexity that these caregivers are dealing with. Yes. So what is your as we kind of wrap up here? What is your what are some final gems you want to share with us about how to make life and work easier for caregivers of dementia patients? Okay,
Barbara Huelat 29:04
but I think the best advice is to go with the flow. And that sounds overly simple. But you’re not going to you’re not going to cure the dementia, no matter how badly you want it and needed and to work with the way the person with dementia feels things and their reality, not yours. Not to question because the person with dementia, that cognitive side isn’t working. They don’t know how to respond to a question. And often questions as well meaning as they are can lead to really disruptive behaviors. Simple things like what do you want to eat? They get overwhelmed. Yeah, it’s too big of a question. And putting something in front of them that Oh, this smells good. I heard you love the cinnamon on the oatmeal. And it’s delicious today and giving them information about it is so much better than asking questions. So don’t ask questions. Don’t try to change the reality. And use emotions, especially the senses and nature are real positive lengths, as well as positive distractions. And you can you can go really far with that, and there will be mistakes, we all right, there will be meltdowns and challenges, but you don’t, if you realize you’re really not going to change it, and you can make it better, then that’s the way you want to go the path of least resistance.
Maria Ross 30:51
Exactly. I love that go with the flow. Well, thank you so much. We’re gonna have all your links in the show notes, and especially a link to your book, taming the chaos of Dementia Caregivers guide to interventions that make a difference. Barbara, thank you so much for coming on today. As I mentioned, we’re gonna have all your links in the show notes. But for folks on the go, where’s one place, they can find out more about you and your work? Probably
Barbara Huelat 31:14
my website. And there’s also a lot of helpful resources on my website, books that are important organizations, focus groups, a lot of resources for a for those caregivers at my website is very simple. It’s www and my name Barbara hewlett.com. And
Maria Ross 31:37
that’s Hu E, la,
Barbara Huelat 31:39
la T.
Maria Ross 31:41
Wonderful. And again, we’ll have those links in the show notes. But thank you so much for your time today and your insights.
Barbara Huelat 31:46
Thank you Maria with such a pleasure. And thank
Maria Ross 31:50
you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard you know what to do, rate and review and share it with a friend or colleague and until next time, remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind
Today we’re diving into Pillar Four of the 5 Pillars of Effective Empathetic Leadership featured in the new book coming September 10, The Empathy Dilemma – Decisiveness.
Yes, factoring in various viewpoints is the way forward for empathetic leaders – and enables us to see more opportunities and avoid more risks. . But we must combine that with swift and decisive action to make a call. Leaving your people in limbo or avoiding difficult conversations is unkind. And leaves your people paralyzed, unsure what to believe, do or expect next.
In our dive into decisiveness today, I talk about what decisiveness is and why it is important. And I’ll hone in on six strategies that you can start using today to be more decisive. More details, examples, and tactics to try can be found in The Empathy Dilemma, so don’t forget to snag your presale copy nowat TheEmpathyDilemma.com.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Avoiding employees until you have something to report isn’t empathetic – get in the habit of giving status updates, even if it is just “we’re working on it.”
Dithering over your decision does not demonstrate empathy. Not knowing what decision to make, no matter how you mask it, demonstrates fear and insecurity.
Learn to be clearer more quickly. Talk openly about the choices you’re making whenever possible.
Put a deadline on your thoughts. It’s not about making good choices, it’s about making good choices in a timely manner.
“Perfection isn’t the goal, even when it comes to high-stakes choices. Don’t succumb to analysis paralysis. Instead, gather input, decide, and move forward with a sense of curiosity and experimentation.”
— Maria Ross
Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: http://red-slice.com
PRE-SALE SPECIAL! Pre-order 1 to 99 copies of Maria’s new book, The Empathy Dilemma for your leaders, exec team, (or yourself?!) and GET 30%! https://bit.ly/TEDSpecialPresale Offer ends August 27, 2024!
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Hello, everyone, it’s Maria here. Welcome to this month’s our take how thoughtful decisiveness shows your team empathy. As you know, the book is coming September 10 is the day that the empathy dilemma how successful leaders balanced performance people and personal boundaries, hits shelves, hits your ears and audible hits your Kindle or other device in ebook, and will help you as a leader center around people focused practices to get the best performance possible so that you can balance the demands of the business with the needs of your people. And as you know, I’m so excited to share this with you. If you’ve been with me the last few months, you know, I’ve been devoting a hot take episode in the months leading up to launch, showcasing one of the five core pillars of effective empathetic leadership outlined in the book. Because the reality is that we want a more human centered workplace culture, but we have to get actual work done. You can do both, but only when you’re able to show up fully and have capacity to take in other perspectives without fear, stress or defensiveness. So today, we’re diving into pillar four of the five pillars decisiveness. And I feel like this one is the most least understood in how it correlates to empathy, because we can often think about decisiveness as dictatorship, right. And that’s not what we’re going to be talking about here today. Before I dive in, I do want to remind you that there is a special presale offer for the book going on right now. If you purchase between one to 99 copies of it from porchlight, my amazing bulk distributor, you can get, as I said, 30% off until August 27. So stay through to the end, I’ve got some information for you. I’ve also got some information for you in the show notes. And there’s some bonuses that go along with the pre sales, including allowing me to crash your next video meeting to have a discussion about empathy and balancing empathy with performance and accountability. So that is a limited time. Now again, before I dive into today’s pillar, I know I’m teasing you, the book is a direct result of all the feedback that I’ve gotten from my previous book, the empathy edge. And from attendees in my training sessions, conference attendees at my keynotes, and all the company talks I’ve done, people have reached out to me to say, okay, Maria, I’m on board with this whole human centered new leadership paradigm. But here’s where things get challenging for me, here’s where I get stuck. And it’s usually around the either or thinking I’ve mentioned in past episodes that we we hold this either or binary thinking that holds us back, I can be empathetic or high performing, I can be compassionate, or hold people accountable. Right? I am promoting a both and philosophy. And that is the crux of my work to show us that we can hold two seemingly opposite things to be true at the same time, if we have the right strategies, if we employ the right tactics, and if we have the right mindset. So that’s where the five pillars of effective empathetic leadership come in. And these came about from common traits and behaviors that the successful empathetic leaders I’ve interviewed or spoken to or advised, have shared with me, and it’s how I see them balancing people performance and personal boundaries with such grace and dexterity. So again, decisiveness is the topic for today. It’s the fourth of the five pillars in the book, and let’s dig into it. What do we mean by decisiveness? decisiveness is taking thoughtful that’s important but swift action that doesn’t leave people hanging, addressing issues before they fester and blow up synthesizing input and perspectives to make timely choices, and practicing radical and kind. Honesty is not enough to practice radical honesty and be a jerk. You need to also be kind and respectful. So why is decisiveness important? Well, keeping people in limbo is one of the least empathetic things a leader can do. And it can feel risky to commit to decisions quickly. But dragging your feet to avoid hurt feelings will only erode trust, I see this time and time again, you’ve got a difficult decision to make, you’ve got a crunchy conversation you need to have. And your approach is to delay is to procrastinate is to put it off thinking you’re being kinder thinking that you’re being empathetic. And that is not the way. So addressing choices, performance issues, action plans, and pending questions as soon as possible, is the most compassionate way to operate. Now, it doesn’t mean you fake an answer. It means that you get back to people, it means that we’re going to talk about this today you’re transparent in the process, but avoiding them until you have something to report is not empathetic. Get in the habit of giving status updates, even if the status update is we’re still working on it. Doing this shows your team members that you’re paying attention and you want them to know what to expect. It helps them fully understand what’s happening around them and feel good about it and feel safe. decisiveness helps leaders maintain team momentum, cultivate trust, and build a culture of open and consistent honesty. And most empathetic leaders strive to hear and implement input from all their people. But sometimes, sometimes endlessly soliciting everyone’s feedback for unanimous agreement can drive your team mad. And I share a story in the book about a brand story client I had way back when the team was paralyzed and frustrated, because the CEO would simply not make an important decision about distribution priority, which impacted who our brand story needed to primarily speak to and attract. And in the name of wanting to solicit all perspectives. The CEO dragged his feet on making the decisions. And by this point, the team was like, can we just decide and move forward already, they were frustrated, they were unsure. They felt like if they moved in one direction, it was going to change tomorrow, because they weren’t sure what was happening. And really what this came down to, even in the name of quote unquote, empathy. It was about fear and insecurity on the part of the CEO just not knowing what decision to make. And he was masking it with this veneer of Well, I just want to make sure everyone’s on board, I just want to get everyone’s opinion. So you want to avoid that. Here are we’re going to talk about today, six strategies to try to be more decisive. And we’re just the tip of the iceberg in this podcast today, there are going to be more details, examples and actual tactics to try that can be found in the empathy dilemma. So don’t forget to snag your copy now at the empathy dilemma.com. So let’s get into the six strategies for being more decisive and thus more empathetic as a leader. Number one, revisit your goal and purpose. Often, so much of the time leaders get caught up in the drama surrounding important decisions and they lose sight of the goal of that decision. Because of all the input they’re getting right. ensure everyone is on the same page. So when the decision is made, you can put it in context of the goal. It helps people understand that their input is valuable, but that it detracts from the goal it may not be the right course of action. However, it also keeps you honest, to not get caught up in people pleasing and keep your eyes on the prize. Second, practice transparency, there is no need to make all your decisions in a secretive way and unveil them only when they’re fully baked. There might be some that are more sensitive and confidential, obviously. But for the most part, the business decisions that you’re making that impact your people don’t need to be made in a black box and then revealed like some home improvement show. So learn to be clear quicker, and if possible, talk openly about the choices you’re making and have made. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Don’t be afraid to say I don’t know. But let’s find out together. This ensures that folks know what you considered and can trust you in the process. Third, third strategy for being more decisive and thus more empathetic as a leader is to solicit and synthesize input quickly and fairly. You want to get skilled at gathering facts and opinions and knowing the difference between those giving others a voice so they can point out opportunities or risks that you may have missed. People see different sides of the different facets of the diamond. So it’s important to get multiple points of views, especially from diverse voices. And you want to give others a voice and then sort through all the inputs and come to a conclusion. Be clear that once that decision is made, naysayers will be asked to disagree. But commit, and I talk about this concept in the book a lot. At a certain point, we’ve all got to move forward together and still be committed to the mission. But if you you know from the previous strategy, if you practice transparency, and people understand how the sausage was made, so to speak, they’re more likely to understand how and why and when you were able to implement some of their ideas or when you had to, you know, not implement their ideas. Fourth strategy for decisiveness is put a deadline on your thoughts. So decisiveness isn’t only about making good choices. It’s about making good choices in a timely manner. If you tend like me to ruminate endlessly, you need a mechanism to get yourself unstuck, such as setting aside a block of time to make a decision, which is itself a task. Get in the habit of setting deadlines for decisions that trip you up. If it’s a small decision, say picking a spot for a business lunch, give yourself a few hours. If it’s weightier, like a big investment or strategic pivot. think more in terms of days or weeks. Fifth strategy for decisiveness is build trust, and an environment where trust has been cultivated and built. People are more willing to trust a leader decisions, even if it’s a tough decision for them to swallow. So if your people don’t trust you, they’re less likely to think your decisions have been reached fairly with everyone’s input and overall best interests in mind, right? If you don’t trust someone and they make a decision, you’re always going to be questioning their motives. Now, this may not link directly to your ability to make decisions as a leader, but it’s vitally important to ensure that those decisions are accepted, instead of questioned and picked apart. So building trust is very important to being able to make tough, difficult decisions. And finally, adopt a design thinking approach. This is your sixth strategy for being more decisive and more empathetic as a leader. Now we know Design Thinking asks us to experiment and try things out to see if they’ll fly in the real world. And if you force yourself to consider every option until you’re absolutely sure you’re selecting the perfect one, you may never make a decision for fear of being wrong. Perfection isn’t the goal, even when it comes to high stakes choices. Don’t succumb to analysis paralysis, instead, gather as much input as you can decide, and move forward with a sense of curiosity and experimentation. Right? Most things can be undone, we can look at things from sort of a scientific perspective that, hey, let’s make this decision. Let’s put it into action. Let’s test it, let’s tweak it, let’s measure it and see what we need to change or keep, you know, keep that design thinking approach in mind. And it will help you make decisions faster because it won’t feel so loaded every decision that you make. So to better understand all of these deceptively simple strategies, which I’ve presented again, just the tip of the iceberg on if you want to understand them in detail, then please check out the empathy dilemma. Because I’ve got stories from leaders in there. I’ve got actionable tactics for each of these strategies, so that you can put them into practice. And you can pick one or two tactics and try them out for a few weeks at a time and see if that helps improve your decisiveness or your clarity, all your all your self care all the pillars that we’re discussing, I promise you that these five pillars will transform how your team engages, performs innovates delivers for you and your customers, but you want to be smart about it and you want to experiment and like I said, try a few of the tactics that are in the book to help you improve on whichever pillars need improving. For some people, it might be pillars, one, three, and five. For others, it might be pillars two, four, and five. But that’s why self awareness is the first pillar because you need to understand your strengths and your blind spots. Check out more about the book and link to presale bonuses and all the things at the empathy dilemma.com And don’t forget about that special presale offer I told you about because when you submit your receipt, you also get invited to a VIP Launch event that’s happening in October, and there will be swag, it is still to be determined what that swag will be. But I promise there will be swag for pre sales. And again, go to the empathy dilemma.com to check out everything you need to know about the book. And I’d love to come in and bring the book to life for your team, for your company for your conference for your event. So if that is of interest if you want to do an interactive workshop, if you want to do a keynote, if you want to do an erg talk, please come find me at red dash slice.com and go to my Connect page, my contact page and let me know what’s going on and I’d love to help so I hope you enjoyed today’s solo hot take I hope you’re enjoying the heartaches let me know. And until next time, when you tune into another episode of the empathy edge and more with my amazing guests. Please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
What does it mean to tap into empathy and reimagine the life and experiences of someone only mentioned in a few sentences in history, whose story remains untold.
My guest is Esther Goldenberg, educator and author of the Biblical fiction novel, The Scrolls of Deborah.We discuss how a few lines in the Bible sparked Esther’s curiosity to imagine this woman’s entire life story and perspective, how seeing historical events from other points of view can be so valuable and fill in gaps or change hearts, and how books and stories help us nourish empathy and relate to others from a safe distance. We also talk about how writing can be a lonely endeavor and what creating something for the world that only exists in your head feels like.
Esther even reads us a passage from the novel that is a shining example of an empathetic conversation so pay attention to that debrief as well!
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Build a practice of engaging in literature, music, documentaries, movies, and other media created by people and about people who have different life perspectives than you. It will build and foster empathy.
As human beings, we can become numb to large numbers surrounding tragic events. By bringing it into the story of one person or one family, such as in historical fiction, it can remind the readers that it is about the one, even among the many.
Scenes in books and movies can model empathy for those who do not necessarily see it in their daily lives.
“Through fiction, people get to really see themselves in the characters and see the characters as people who they get to know. And that really creates fertile ground for empathy.”
About Esther Goldenberg, Educator and Author, The Scrolls of Deborah
Esther Goldenberg is a native Chicagoan, author, educator, and mother. Once a reluctant reader, but always someone who enjoyed a good story, she developed a passion for writing. Her much anticipated Biblical fiction novel, The Scrolls of Deborah, is available in paperback, e-book, and audio formats. Esther continues to write and teach students of all ages, with most of her workshops now tying in with themes from her book.
Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: red-slice.com
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Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. What does it mean to tap into empathy and reimagine the life and experiences of someone only mentioned in a few sentences in history, whose story remains untold? Today, you’re about to find out. My guest is Esther Goldenberg, educator and author of the biblical fiction novel The Scrolls of Deborah. The book is described as quote, a profound feminist retelling of the book of Genesis that immerses readers in a breathtaking exploration of female relationships through the story of biblical characters. Rebecca and Deborah more info about the book, the scrolls of Deborah transports us to the all inspiring landscapes of the past, and uncovers the intertwined lives of Rebecca, a revered matriarch in Judaism, and her devoted handmaiden Deborah in this mesmerizing tale their strength, wisdom and love take center stage, shaping their destinies amid a world steeped in tribal tradition. Esther is a beloved pass brand client of mine, a native Chicago and author, educator, and mother. She was once a reluctant reader, but always enjoyed a good story. So she developed a passion for writing, and this novel is the first and her desert songs trilogy. Today we discuss how a few lines in the Bible sparked Esther to get curious and imagine this woman’s entire life story and perspective, how seeing historical events from other points of view can be so valuable and fill in gaps or change hearts, how books and stories help us nourish empathy, and relate to others from a safe distance. We also talk about how writing can be a lonely endeavor, and what creating something for the world that only exists in your head feels like Esther even reads a passage from the novel that is a shining example of an empathetic conversation, you might be able to use it tomorrow. So pay attention to that debrief as well. This was a great one, take a listen. Welcome, Esther to the empathy edge podcast. It is so good to talk to you today. And have you talked to us about your new book, The squirrels of Deborah, and share your story with us on the podcast.
Esther Goldenberg 02:57
Thank you so much for having me, I’m really looking forward to this conversation. And we
Maria Ross 03:02
should mention how we know each other because years ago, I worked with you and helped you with brand messaging around a publishing firm that you were starting to help elevate voices that might not be able to be traditionally published. And so now and here, you are now publishing your book. That’s true.
Esther Goldenberg 03:21
I mean, you and red slice, you were so helpful to me in figuring out what my message was what it was, I was trying to say, and then how to say it. It was really great to be supported in that way. You know,
Maria Ross 03:35
absolutely. And I unless I’m misremembering, I think you were talking about working on a book at that time, or maybe you had plans to write a book at that time.
Esther Goldenberg 03:45
It’s interesting, I probably had recently written a book or, and, or was about to write a book. And I had discovered the world of self publishing, which I’m really a fan of, actually, I think there’s a lot to be said, for self publishing. And at that time, what I wanted to do was help other people who didn’t want to make a career out of their books, get their books into the world, you know, sort of like a side, not a side gig, really, but just a passion project. And so I started this publishing company, because I now knew how to publish a book thanks to learning how to self publish. Now, I’m not doing doing that anymore. And this book, the scrolls of Deborah is being traditionally published by row house. And it brings me back to what I said earlier about how great it is to have support in the process. Because right now my job is to write the books and talk about the books and read the books, and it’s somebody else’s job to do the messaging and the covers and the formatting and all the things that go into creating books
Maria Ross 04:50
100% And I love that you’ve always had a passion for sharing stories, whether they were your own or other people’s and a passion to be a catalyst for enabling those stories to see see the world because we talk a lot on the show about the fact that stories help increase our empathy and help us get to know people we never would have necessarily had contact with, or experiences we never would have had contact with. So let’s talk a little bit about the book and tell us what it’s about. And let’s talk about the genre because we were talking before we started recording about that, obviously, there’s different genres of books. And especially when I talk about embracing reading, or watching documentaries, or going to the theater as a way to strengthen your empathy, people asked me well, like what kinds of books do they only have to be biographies? Do they only have to be nonfiction? So let’s talk a little bit about the scrolls of Deborah give us a little taste, and I know you’re gonna do a reading for us and a little bit, but give us a little bit of taste of what it’s about how you got the idea for the story and tell us about the genre?
Esther Goldenberg 05:58
Sure, well, the scrolls of Deborah can be categorized as biblical fiction, that basically means it’s historical fiction that takes place during biblical times and has appearances walk ons, or major characters who are also in the Bible. Now, Deborah, some people who are familiar with the Bible may have heard of Deborah as a judge. And this is actually not that Deborah. So the Deborah in the scrolls of Deborah is from the book of Genesis, and she has one line in the book of Genesis, only one so I’m not going to call her major character from that story, because I don’t think she was right. He was mentioned in Genesis chapter 35, verse eight, it says, this is a paraphrase now that Deborah Rebecca’s nursemaid died and was buried. Wow. That’s it. So nothing about her life, except what we can deduce from that one sentence that she was Rebecca’s nursemaid. Now, what does it even mean to be Rebecca’s nursemaid? And why is her death mentioned but not her life. And, you know, it’s just really like right in there, this one sentence, Deborah died, says where, you know, you’re near Beit El Bethel and English. And she was buried under the crime tree.
Maria Ross 07:18
And then we move on. And, but important enough to mention her death. That’s is that what intrigued you that
Esther Goldenberg 07:26
really intrigued me like when this story was being written, who was this character, this person, Deborah, who was not really air quotes, important enough to get a story written about her, and yet she was important enough that her death was mentioned. So that really intrigued me. And it also gave me a really great opportunity to use my imagination, because basically boundless you know, it’s like, there was this woman, Deborah, and she was Rebecca’s nursemaid, and she died. I mean, I get to make up everything. Yeah, because there are no details about her life. Other than that she was Rebecca’s nurse night, and we don’t even know what that means. So it was a really fun opportunity, kind of to just say, well, who was Deborah. And if we know that she was with Rebecca in some way that makes her privy to some of the stories that we might be familiar with from the Bible, as well as stories that we would not be familiar with from the Bible, because they’re not included. And one of my favorite parts of the Bible, or the parts that aren’t included? I don’t know if that can be considered one part. Yeah, what one of my some of my favorite stories about the Bible are the stories that aren’t in there. Yeah, Deborah is just one example. Because if you take a more major character like Abraham, his birth is mentioned, along with the important information like who his father was. And then the next thing that’s mentioned about him is that he was married. So here we have even a major character in the Bible with a lot of gaps in the story. So according to my version of the story, Deborah was not around at the time of Abraham’s youth. But she did overlap with him with all the patriarchs in some way, Chair Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as well as with the matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, and as well as other characters who just might not have heard of in the Bible. So this gave me the opportunity to really get this sort of insider’s view on both characters who we might be familiar with and brand new people as well.
Maria Ross 09:51
Okay, I love this and just to take a step back for people not familiar, Rebecca was Abraham’s wife, Rebecca I
Esther Goldenberg 10:00
was Isaac’s wife, Isaac’s wife, and she was the mother of the twins, Esau and Jacob. Got
Maria Ross 10:06
it. Got it. And so just wanted to level set that for people. I always joke that I’m Catholic, so I don’t know the Bible very well. So I what I love about this is it’s very similar to where people have taken stories about characters or people in history, we don’t know a lot about, like, if we look at Downton Abbey, and people’s fascination with the staff, the servants in these royal grand households, people are sometimes more intrigued by the people that are on the periphery of the story and what they’re privy to, and what they learn and what they hear and their perspective on the events that we may know about, or hear about, you know, like, for example, Downton Abbey, it’s, you know, taking place within the landscape of real events happening in the world. And I can’t remember, I think it’s Hilary Mantel, I’m gonna get that name wrong. She who does the historical fiction around the monarchy, and around, you know, Anne Boleyn, and Henry the eighth, and all those people. And so it is fascinating to see events you feel like you’ve heard about, but see them through the lens of someone else, which, right there is a practice of empathy, trying to see things from a perspective, we’ve never seen them from before. And so I’m curious. Well, number one, speaking of curiosity, your curiosity about Deborah is, isn’t an empathic practice of just not overlooking her and going, hmm, I wonder what’s going on there. I wonder what’s not being mentioned. And I wonder what her story could be. But how? And you know, not to describe everything in the book, because we want people to get the book. But how did you think about what her perspective was going to be on events that people may already know about? Did you have a particular she’s going to have a very skeptical lens, or a very naive lens, or, you know, as she’s observing events, or as she’s being a part of events that are well known, and are perhaps mentioned in the Bible characters as well? Did you have a particular mindset for her of how she was going to approach observing those events and observing those people?
Esther Goldenberg 12:18
That’s a great question. I don’t think that I had intentionally thought of what her perspective is, I don’t think I could have labeled that when I started writing. A lot of that is because I felt like I was almost like going into her eyes and just seeing it from her point of view. And so how would I label it? And she’s also in some ways, being a historian, because she, this scrolls are called the scrolls of Deborah, because she dictates her story to Joseph, who some people might know of the many colored Dreamcoat. He’s younger than she is by a couple generations, and he’s learning to be a scribe. And she dictates her story to him, and he writes them down here. So for her when she’s getting started, this is, let me tell you my story. Because you’re just a little boy, and you know, your grandmother, Rebecca, and you know me, but you don’t really know who we are. So let me tell you my own story. And then as it goes along, I think I discovered that I viewed Deborah as a wise woman. So she’s kind of the woman who I might want to have around to ask her opinion, because she has lived so many experiences. And so she might have a story to tell actually, about when something similar happened to her and then be able to give some advice. So I think I see her as a wise woman, even though she might see herself, in some ways more of an observer. And in the book, she acts as an observer in some situations. So for the burn example, there’s a fairly well known story about Abraham taking Isaac to sacrifice him on the top of the mountain. And Deborah does not witness that. But what she does witness is Isaac retelling that event. So in the scrolls of Deborah, there’s the story of Abraham taking Isaac to the top of the mountain for the sacrifice. And so this brings me back to Deborah being a witness of events and having them written down for the purposes of other people knowing what happened and of course this is still through her eyes.
Maria Ross 14:36
I love this and I know people might be listening going this is not your normal podcast episode Maria because we’re not talking about business or leadership or culture. And the reason why I wanted to have you on Esther is because again, this is such an important practice of, of looking at art and reading books and viewing documentaries and listening to music from people that don’t have the same life experience that you have and why it’s so important to build that practice of it. You know, as you’ve talked about sort of in a safe space, where it’s less loaded, there’s less on the line, it’s easier for you to sort of slip into the perspective of someone else, and not feel defensive and not feel scared or angry, or, you know, fearful of what might happen. And so, when you think about writing, fiction versus nonfiction, like, what does that mean to you in terms of building empathy for helping people build empathy by reading a book like the scrolls of Deborah?
Esther Goldenberg 15:38
Well, I think that through fiction, you have a really nice opportunity to get to know a character and become attached to them. And I think this is the same whether it’s books or movies, or TV shows, even, you know, you see these characters and sort of the design behind it, is that you should identify with them and put yourself in the story because frankly, otherwise, it’s not interesting, right? So, you know, it’s sometimes tell the story of the movie Titanic. So I refuse to see that movie. Because I know what happens, the ship sinks, the people die. Right. And to me, this doesn’t hold any emotion right now. It’s a fact from history. And it’s sad, and unfortunate, and there’s a lot going on there. But if I were to see the movie, then when that happens, I would be crying, I wouldn’t be kneeling, the loss, because that’s what the movie is designed for. And I want to have that experience of sadness. When I go in for fiction. I personally, like they’re all different genres, and people like different things. Personally, I like something a little bit happier than the scrolls of Deborah isn’t like a fairy land kind of story, it tells the story of her life, you know, a couple 1000 years ago was not easy. But I think that through fiction, people get to really see themselves in the characters and see the characters as people who they get to know. And that really creates fertile ground for empathy. And at the same time, there is that safe distance of this isn’t happening to me, this isn’t a scholarly report. So I don’t need to decide whether they’re right or they’re wrong. Do I think they’re right? Or they’re wrong, which really can charge your own emotion, you know, also, but this is this allows you into the shoes of the characters
Maria Ross 17:35
100%. And actually, I, I see what you’re saying about Titanic, because I, you know, the whole story of Titanic fascinates me. And I knew it’s so tragic. But I actually did see the movie. And that, to me was an example of taking an event where people are sort of nameless, faceless figures in history of this thing that just happened and humanizing it. And I think that’s an important role, especially even for books like yours, where it’s whether it’s historical fiction, or biblical fiction is taking these events that happened and putting a person at the center of the narrative at the end of the story. I think that’s really powerful for building our understanding and our empathy for events that we, you know, I hate to say it might just gloss over and however tragic. And so I love that idea of being able to I mean, not, like you said, you kind of have to be in the mood. Are you in for a cathartic situation or not? But I think that that’s such a powerful way to get people to humanize people involved in difficult events or experiences, and also increase our understanding of groups that we may not know very well, or, you know, oh, I always thought this about this particular group of people or that particular group of people, because you had no exposure to anyone in that group. And so it is so powerful. I don’t, right now, I don’t write fiction books I did when I was a kid. But I write nonfiction books now. But that’s always been the appeal of fiction and historical fiction for me is being able to humanize a situation or an event, perhaps one that I’ve heard of, and go oh, that that’s right, that really impacted real people. And there’s, there’s there are studies out that show that we can get very numb to large numbers, when we hear of an event where large numbers of people are hurting or they’re suffering. But an mpr does a great job of this, of doing the story of one person and humanizing that entire event. So it’s not so because our brains think oh, like 10,000 people or 12,000 people or whatever. It’s too big. But when we can learn about the experience of one person, it kind of brings it home, and then we can start to understand and create that connection. So I love I love this conversation I want to talk about, I want to shift gears a little bit and give people empathy for the act of writing. Because you talk about writing as a very lonely endeavor. So tell me about your experience, as an author and as a writer. And if it’s lonely, what keeps drawing you to it? Sure, well,
Esther Goldenberg 20:29
when I was dreaming up the scrolls of Deborah, if you will, because I don’t really know a better way to describe it. When I was dreaming up the scrolls of Deborah, I was living my life, here on Earth, as well as living my life, in my head, or in the past, or wherever this dream was taking place. And nobody else was in that place with me. So while I would have these imaginations, I don’t know what the word is imagining for something that happened, you know, maybe Deborah and Rebecca and the other women are sitting around a circle with drums and the moon is full, and there’s a little bowl with water reflecting it. And it’s amazing. And they’re singing, and they’re dancing. And it’s sort of like, I’m the only person who knows this, I’m the only person who can see it or think it because it’s all in my head right now. And then my job is to put it down on paper, so that I can share it with others. But the process of it being in my head, and then getting to other people, is just a very long process, and sometimes a very solitary process, because this is happening only for me right now until I could share it. And I was very lucky along the way to have friends that I could talk with about it and share some ideas or thoughts or even, you know, a couple pages here or there while it was fresh. Yeah. And that helped. That helped because I got to share this world. I mean, it’s also it’s an incredible world. It’s an exciting world, it’s grabbing my imagination and keeping me interested. So it’s the kind of thing that you really want to share. Now, hey, I have this exciting thing who wants to hear about it? Nobody. Almost nobody wants to hear about it. Because it’s just me saying bla bla bla, bla bla, you know, like this little split, and
Maria Ross 22:27
you put it in a book and people want to read it. Exactly. When you
Esther Goldenberg 22:31
pull it all together, you know? Yeah, people get to hear the whole story.
Maria Ross 22:35
Do you ever feel like I know, I feel this Even sometimes when I’m writing nonfiction, but that I’m never going to be able to tell the story the way I truly experience it and envision it in my head. Did you ever feel that way during the writing of the book?
Esther Goldenberg 22:50
Sometimes I felt that way. But more often, I really felt like this book was gifted to me, I really felt like it almost just flowed through me sometimes. And they say you should write about what you know. And I wasn’t there. I don’t know what. So how do I how do I write about what I know in this circumstance? And interesting stuff happened. Like, I’ll give you one example. There was one day when I found a praying mantis outside on my balcony, and it was dying. And I don’t know if you’ve seen a praying mantis up close, but they’re just stunningly gorgeous. They’re just really beautiful. And the face is so clear. And it just looked beautiful. And it was sat like what am I going to do with this praying mantis? I’m not the kind of person who can step on a bug. I’m just not good at that. And then if you see this thing, it’s like the size of a mouse. You know, it’s like big. It’s not an ant. Yeah. So I picked up the praying mantis, we you know, with paper in a bucket or something, whatever I did, and I brought it down to the soil. And I put it next to a little bush, and it was still dying. And there’s nothing I can do about that other than be there with it or not be there with it. And much to my surprise, that day, I found myself sitting beside a praying mantis that was on the soil and singing lullabies to this praying mantis. I mean, if you had asked me, So Tomorrow’s Tuesday, what are you going to do? I never, you know,
24:26
like, I could go card. Yeah, right. And
Esther Goldenberg 24:29
then it happened. And then it became a part of the book. So there’s a scene in the book, where Deborah and Rebecca find themselves singing to the praying mantis. And this sort of came through as a scene by itself and then took me to the next steps in the next places.
Maria Ross 24:50
Wow, that’s so cool. All right. I want us to hear a little bit from the book, especially where you have parts of it that are very rich and empty. See? So if you could read a section to us, I believe it’s one person helping another with feelings of inadequacy, but providing empathy and compassion, can you grace us with a little bit of a reading of from the scrolls of Deborah?
Esther Goldenberg 25:15
Oh, I’d be delighted. Thank you so much for the opportunity. So readers of the scrolls of Deborah do not need to know anything about Bible stories. It’s a totally a book that stands on its own. But because I’m going to read from page 257, I want to give you just a couple sentences of context here. So Rebecca is the mother of Esau and Jacob Issa is the older one. And Rebecca this whole times ever since the boys were born, had been living under the impression that Jacob would be the more important one. And what just happened before this scene is that Jacob got his older brother’s blessing from his father. And Rebecca helped him trick his father into giving him the older book, older brother’s blessing. So that’s what happened right before this. And now Rebecca has been feeling like, she’s not really sure that she had done the right thing. And she has basically isolated herself in the camp because she’s so upset with what she’s done. Meanwhile, both Esau and Jacob have now left the camp for different reasons, based on this blessing mishap, okay, so she’s feeling very, very alone. And it’s actually Isaac, who says to Deborah, okay, this has been going on long enough, can you help her feel better? And that’s the scene where we are now in with Deborah is going to try to help Rebecca feel better. Got it. So Deborah says, Come take a walk with me. To my pleasant surprise. She left the tent for the first time since Jacobs departure, and walked with me in silence. When we reached the top of a hill, we sat together in the shade of the trees and looked below us at the camp. Rebecca, I said, Tell me what is bothering you. Rebecca cried again. I had seen her cry daily since Jacobs departure, but this was a different cry. This one was loud, not with a few tears, but many. Her body shook, and she spat and pounded the ground with her fists. When her gasping finally returned to easy breathing. I invited her again. I have done terribly wrong. She said, I have worked for a lifetime to prepare Jacob for receiving his father’s blessing. Since the time that ye spoke to me in my dream, I knew Jacob was the important one. The older will serve the younger, I would do everything I was able to make Jacob worthy of that blessing. And now I have ruined all of that. I have turned him into a trickster and a fugitive, oh, Deborah, she resumed her sobs. And do you wish to hear the worst part of it all? She did not pause for she knew she had my attention for anything she would say. The worst part is that I have both failed at preparing him and I have failed my firstborn son. In all of my efforts to guide Jacob. I did not think of Esau for his whole life, right up to betraying him in his moment of earned pride and glory. Oh, Deborah, I am the worst mother ever lived. I have ruined both of my children, and I shall not even have more chances to do a good job with a new baby. This sounds terrible, I said. I paused so that she might have a moment of sympathy before I continued than I said, yet it is not true. Rebecca looked at me, as Jacob not become a skilled Shepherd. Has he not learned to read and to scribe I asked. And are those not skills of great importance? She nodded. Do you not watch Jacob with pride? Did you not watch Jacob with pride as he strode to his quiet places every evening to talk with ya? Is that not a great practice that you helped him build? She nodded again. Does Esau not feed his wives and children and laugh with them and love them? I asked. She had to agree for he did. When Esau returned from the hunt. Did you not raise his patience and persistence as well as the flavors of his food? When he returned with a swollen arm? Did you not cook the herbs for the purpose and wrap his bandage every morning and evening? I did. She said and did you not catch his very first son on your knees and insist that he circumcise the child himself? And had that not happened for all of Aesop’s boys thanks to you. It has she said. These are just a few examples from a lifetime. Perhaps your sons are not ruined. I said I was not pleased with her chicory, but I was proud of the skills that the young men had acquired. Do you think you can call yourself the worst mother who has ever lived? Surely there is one mother or possibly two who have done worse, I could see that she was still thinking of ways she had failed. But she also laughed or she heard the absurdity of it. Perhaps in a distant land, I added, giving her hand a squeeze, perhaps one Far, far away she can seated there, probably not as many as two. Now she gave me a small smile. I could see her pain was still there. But she was making room for it to leave. Oh, Rebecca, I said, Can you please see yourself with my eyes, I see a mother who has loved her children the best she knew how she fed and clothed them, licked their wounds and sang them songs, made them with a generous and kind father, who has taught them not to mention a generous and kind auntie, who has taught them many things as well. Rebecca, put her head on my shoulder and let her quiet tears fall there. Can you do that? I asked. Can you see the mother that? I see? I would like to Deborah, I believe you would not lie to me.
Maria Ross 31:11
Oh my gosh, so great. What a great example of an empathetic conversation. Just giving someone space to feel what they’re feeling and listening and, and offering a perspective I love especially the part where she says, can you see you through my eyes? That that’s so powerful. So what does that what does that mean to you in terms of the ability to show empathy in when someone’s in distress? Mm hmm.
Esther Goldenberg 31:42
Well, I love this example. Because I feel like what we were talking about before, like, we have that safe distance. So we can view these two people from the outside. But at the same time, I can see myself beating myself up for a poor decision, and not being compassionate with myself. And then perhaps needing somebody from the outside to say, okay, you know what, maybe that wasn’t one of your homerun decision. But, you know, that was one thing, out of a whole lifetime, that maybe you’ve had one thing, maybe a dozen things, or whatever, but you also have a lot of great things, you’re still a good person. And so to be able to see that conversation from the outside, I think allows me as the reader, excuse me, me as the writer, as well as other readers, to be able to look at ourselves as worthy of compassion, as capable of receiving empathy and giving empathy. Because there are so many, I mean, countless, Deborah and Rebecca’s out there who have made mistakes, or done things that their closest people and even themselves have disagreed with. And yet, they’re still rounded people, you know, with so many experiences, and to help us not judge ourselves and others, based on this one little sliver of information that we know, but rather to see a person as a whole person who’s maybe struggling as much as we do with just life, because there’s a lot of amazing, wonderful things in life and a lot of really challenging things in life. And so to be able to see characters in a book like that, and then maybe take it in to ourselves and go, You know what, I’m a little bit like that maybe, you know, in this case, I could say, I’m a little bit like Rebecca, I could also say, I’m a little bit like, Deborah, you know, or wouldn’t it be nice to have a Rebecca, who says this to me, or a Deborah, who says this to me? You know, there were many times throughout the book that I felt connected with Deborah, there were many times that I felt connected with Rebecca, or with the other characters, because I could see their actions and their choices and their feelings as parts of a whole person. And so with this particular scene, I think, for me, I like it as an example for people to be able to read a scenario where even in a challenging situation, even when you accidentally caused harm, that you can still receive compassion.
Maria Ross 34:27
Absolutely. Oh my gosh. And, and such a great not even just an opportunity to develop your empathy for, for Deborah, or Rebecca or think about people in your life who might be experiencing what they’re experiencing, but also a model of an empathetic conversation. I think it’s so important because, unfortunately, what many people lack are healthy models of empathy in their own lives, and that’s where their empathy muscle atrophies because they’re not seeing it modeled on a daily basis and it’s an not, it’s not something where they say, well, that’s just what you do when you when someone is in a crisis, or someone’s feeling bad about themselves. And then there’s people who continue to be empathetic. And then they don’t even know why they don’t even know what they’re doing. I interviewed a lot of those people for the new book, to try to unlock their secrets. And I found some, some themes, which is what I talked about in the new book, The Empathy dilemma, but many of them had to really think about why they were empathetic. Many of them didn’t think of themselves as empathetic leaders. And so sometimes it does just come naturally for people. But I submit that that’s because they have been in an environment where it’s been modeled, and it’s been rewarded. And it’s been celebrated. And so it is innate. I mean, it’s innate to all of us. But it’s innate to them, because they don’t know any other way. And so what’s wonderful about scenes like that, in books or scenes like that, and movies, is that model is for people that may not have that in their daily life.
Esther Goldenberg 35:57
Yeah, I want to give a shout out if I may. Yes, the Shira Gora, who created the unstuck method, which is a method that goes on an acronym of the word stuck S T. U ck, I won’t explain the whole thing here. But I’ll say that S stands for stop. And in this scene with Deborah and Rebecca, they actually went through that five step program, but without saying the five letters, right. But really, I think the key is to start with a stop. And at the beginning of the scene, Deborah said, Will you take a walk with me, and we know from the laws of physics, that an object in motion stays in motion, right? And the same is true, I think, for our thoughts, right, we can go down that rabbit hole of thoughts. And that’s just the direction we’re going just sort of like a ball rolling down a hill. But if there can be something to stop that, whether it’s an internal reminder or an external assist, the stop that for a moment, then we can be in a position to have a conversation like that, you know, and show empathy to those who are around us. And instead of just letting those thoughts cycle and build up, we can stop and ask ourselves, you know, where can I show empathy at this moment? Where can I feel empathy, look for that part, because it’s there, right there.
Maria Ross 37:23
I know this, I’m gonna put a link to that in the show notes, as well, as you’re reminding me of a link to another conversation we had on the podcast with Chris L. Johnson, where she talked about the power of the pause for leaders in helping them regulate their emotions, but also be able to more effectively handle tough conversations and tough decisions is if we’re going going, going, going going, we’re never refilling the tank. And the importance, it’s such an important thing that you said, because that importance of that pause is so important. It’s something you know, I try to work on daily, because I I can fly off the handle with my nine year old or my husband or whomever. And I’m really focusing on trying to take that breath, trying to take that pause, regulate my system, before I move forward. And I love that that’s such a perfect example of you know, just I’m thinking about just situations where you might be at work and you’re having a difficult conversation. Go outside, go for a walk. If you’re if you’re on Zoom, my husband does these with people that he works with go on a walking zoom call, where you both get out of your house and you’re walking around, it just changes your perspective. Yes,
Esther Goldenberg 38:35
yes, it does.
Maria Ross 38:37
I love it. Well, thank you so much, Esther, for sharing your insights for sharing the story. We will put a link to your website to the book the scrolls of Deborah, I’m sure it’s available. I’m assuming it’s available in all the places basically everywhere. Yes, basically everywhere. So definitely check that out. And we’ll have all your links in the show notes as well. But for folks on on the go, where’s the best place they can connect with you or find out more about
Esther Goldenberg 39:03
you? The easiest place to find me is that Esther goldenberg.com.
Maria Ross 39:07
And let me just spell that for folks. e S T H E R, G, Olden b, e r g. That’s it. Wonderful. Well, thank you again, it’s been so wonderful to reconnect with you.
Esther Goldenberg 39:20
Thank you so much, Maria. This was great. And thank
Maria Ross 39:23
you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard you know what to do. rate review, share with a friend or colleague. And until next time, remember that cashflow? Creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria never forget empathy is your superpower use it to make your work and the world a better place.
