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Justin Jones-Fosu: How to Respectfully Disagree – and Not in a Passive-Aggressive Way

We prep ourselves for so many challenging conversations, whether asking for a raise, delivering a tough performance review, asking for more budget, or even debating a political issue as if we’re going to war. We brace for the confrontation. That puts us in a really unhelpful place to have true connection and conversation – and that just intensifies the misunderstanding and animosity with no helpful outcome.

But there’s a way out of this cycle. And woo boy! I clicked instantly with today’s guest and I know you will, too. Today, Justin shares a very personal story about his trip back to Ghana to confront his absent father and how he changed the conversation following his own 5 pillars to bridge the divide. We also discuss how to practice conversational receptiveness, and how to avoid the dotted line dilemma and the illusion of asymmetric insights which both hinder meaningful engagements with those we don’t see eye-to-eye with. Justin also unpacks actionable ways to have better conversations and cultivate curiosity through the Power of 3 Questioning module.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Plant the seeds with your kids of how to value humanity from a young age. Take them to places and events that will help them see more of the world and humanity.
Be transparent when you are working on your leadership and changing conversations. Bring your team in, make it fun and light, and have one meaningful conversation per week.
Just because it feels uncomfortable to learn about others and practice The Power of 3 Questioning. It doesn’t mean it isn’t working and strengthening your listening muscles.

“People are talking about things that are important to them. The question is, are we really listening?” — Justin Jones-Fosu

Episode References:

Justin’s book: I Respectfully Disagree: How to Have Difficult Conversations in A Divided World
The Empathy Edge podcast: Michael Bach: What Exclusion is Costing Your Company
Book: Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together by William Isaacs

From Our Partner:

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Go to sparkeffect.com/edge and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Justin Jones-Fosu, CEO, Work.Meaningful and Author, I Respectfully Disagree

Justin is a full-time dad-e who also happens to be an international speaker, a social entrepreneur, a critically acclaimed author, and a mountain climber (he recently conquered one of the famed 7 Summits). His passion for elevation extends beyond trekking, it’s mirrored in his work as the CEO of Work. Meaningful, a firm he founded in 2017 focused on workplace engagement and inclusion. He consults with, speaks to, and trains 10,000 to 20,000 people per year. He is a former radio host and former workplace contributor to NPR’s The Takeaway Justin’s most recent book, I Respectfully Disagree, challenges the reader to focus on building bridges with people rather than barriers from them. He also wrote The Inclusive Mindset and Your Why Matters Now.

Connect with Justin Jones-Fosu:

Work.Meaningful: workmeaningful.com

X: x.com/iworkmeaningful

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/iworkmeaningful

Instagram: instagram.com/iworkmeaningful

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

03:14

Super pumped and excited to be with you. Wow. We’re

Maria Ross 03:18

just talking about, I really like your energy. You’re lighting me up today. So folks are in for a treat. You know, we heard a little bit about your bio and the work that you do for companies like Toyota, Mercedes, Adidas, all the things, but tell us a little bit about your story and how you even got into this work of helping organizations and leaders improve their communication and understand each other better. How did you get here? Wow.

Justin Jones-Fosu 03:42

And really, the origin story started from a mom, to be completely honest. Mom, yes, my mom was one of the first black female air traffic controllers in the Air Force, and she told me the story that was really powerful, that she would be stationed in Japan for two years, and there were some soldiers in that same two year time frame that never left base. And she said, Justin, I don’t want you and your brother to be like that and never leave your metaphorical home base and not experience the beauty of people and cultures around you. And so I remember just she would take us to events that we didn’t know a lot about, and even ones that we disagreed with. I’d be sitting there mom like, why aren’t we even here, right? But she was planting these seeds of how we can value humanity and as a leader, one of the things that that’s been so impressed on me is, how do I value the humanity of those that I lead, whether at home, whether in my office and other places. And this specific story took me to this place of Ghana. So I am a dual citizen of both Ghana, United States. Uh, my dad’s from Ghana. My mom from America. That makes me African American. You might get that joke later, but the interesting thing you

Maria Ross 04:52

really are African American. Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 04:56

in 2019 I was going to go back to Ghana. I’ve been there several times. Taking my kids for the first time, and I’m gonna go confront my dad. You see, my dad wasn’t in my life in ways that I felt I needed him to be growing up, and so when my parents divorced at four, I remember I would see my dad every other weekend. Then it became one weekend a month, and then there was two or three years where I didn’t see and or hear from my dad, and for a myriad of reasons, conflict between my parents, but I felt like my dad couldn’t have fought harder for me, and so I remember that I was gonna go and confront him Will Smith style. I’m not talking about the Chris Rock version, but more of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air version, yeah. And one of the things that stood out to me is I was a part of leadership Charlotte, as well as I have a really great therapist, and they help transform how I was going to approach it. So instead of going to confront my dad, they challenged me to go and hear his story. I like what somebody came up to me after one of my sessions. They were like Justin. They helped you to turn a confrontation into a conversation. And as I heard his story, and we had this conversation, and I asked more questions, and I was curious. And instead of going to tell Well, you’re wrong, and then I listened to how he got there. Now we still walked away, and I I disagreed and disagreed respectfully, but I better understood how he got there, and it allowed me to open up and realize that that whole process that I even went with with my dad, is actually the process that we take companies and leaders and executives through that they can create, not only these cultures within their own organizations, but these cultures at home and these cultures in their

Maria Ross 06:31

community. Oh, my God. I love that story, and I love that quote of turning a confrontation into a conversation. I often talk about empathy as a definition, so many times we get it wrong. If you can get empathy wrong right, we’re kind of doing it wrong. You know, I hate to say it that way, but we think empathy is people pleasing, or it’s just caving in, or it’s agreeing with someone. To this point, we can have empathetic conversations with people and still walk away with our own perspectives and opinions and ideologies intact. Yes, because it’s not about conversion, it’s about connection. And so we’re fans of the sea Yes, alliterations. I love it, but that’s so powerful, because I love how you and how you had to prep yourself. Yeah, you know. And that self awareness piece is the first pillar of the five pillars in my new book, The Empathy dilemma. But being aware of what you were bringing into the conversation and what you were bringing into the meeting is so important to being able to take that beat, take that pause, and not react so quickly. Yeah, I love it, and that idea of finding common ground, of like, I’m here to hear your story. I’m not here to condone what you’ve done. I’m not here to agree with you. And this is especially important, as we know with political discourse. Yeah, there’s a gentleman I talk about on the show all the time named Edwin rush. He runs the Center for building a culture of empathy. And back in 2016 2015 he had empathy tense set up at the most divisive political rallies we had in our country, and it was just to get one person and another person from each side into a tent to listen to each other, yeah, not to convert each other to their side, right, but to see each other as human beings. So your story is just such a personal example of that. I’m curious, do you feel like from that approach that you took? Do you think it made a difference to your dad, even though he might not have, quote, known you were doing it? Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 08:34

I definitely. I think what we find often, not only with my dad and other people, is that when we approach people from you’re wrong, and how did you do this? Why in the world, you’re wrong and I’m right immediately, yes, defensive walls come up. Yeah. I love the body of research around conversational receptiveness that really talks through and I’ve done really good work about why people want to continue to have conversations with people, even if they disagree with and one of those things is in finding common ground, right? And choosing to seek understanding, and not only seek understanding, but utilize positive phrases like, wow, I can see how you got there. Well, thank you, right? And those are the things as my dad will open up and share a story, I could imagine me coming to my dad and saying, You abandoned me. You weren’t there for me. Why did you do it? And immediately the defensive walls can come up, of course, yeah. Rather than simply entering into the space of like, Hey dad, I realize I’ve never heard your story. You mind sharing with me? Yeah. Got along the story journey. One of the things I was able to do is to share and ask more pointed questions in terms of what happened when x? But I didn’t start with what happened when X? I started with, I’d like to hear your story.

Maria Ross 09:46

I love that. Yeah, it’s all about really understanding someone’s context. And you know when you go you know whether you’re having a difficult performance review or you’re having a contentious budget conversation with a colleague. I always. That phrase of like, it’s not about going in with, here’s why I’m right and you’re wrong, right? It’s try to take that breath and ask the question, first, tell me how you got here. Tell me why you think this is the right approach. Tell me what you think is going on right now. Are you happy with the way your work is going? Right? Tell me how you’re feeling about it? And then you can have a conversation where that person’s feeling heard. So it kind of lowers the temperature a little bit too, doesn’t it? Oh, 100%

10:30

so I’m sorry, go ahead.

Maria Ross 10:31

No, I was going to ask you more about this conversational receptiveness, because that’s actually a new term I haven’t heard about. And what are some other you know, you mentioned a few other tips there. But what do people do to prepare for that, to know that they’re going to go into a conversation where they might be triggered?

Justin Jones-Fosu 10:47

Yes, one of the things we talk about often is that the first thing that people should do in those conversations around respectful disagreements happens before it even happens. And that’s, I love, the five pillars. I thought you would talk about mine. We actually have five pillars as well. And pillar number one is challenge your perspective. And it happens before any disagreement even occurs, because the more we exercise those muscles of hearing people’s perspective, going in, understanding and listening and learning from others, that it allows us in those moments, to actually hear them deeper. So a practical action item. So the circles of grace challenge is one of those things that we challenge leaders to do and to lead their companies and organizations with. We recently took the Ford family foundation through this. And the circles of grace challenge is simply this that every six to 12 months I go to events experiences, or I engage with people in either which I don’t know a lot about or I disagree with, and I’m going asking two questions. One, what did I learn about these events, experiences and their people? And two, what did I learn about myself? Now, what was transformative, what we did with the Ford family foundation is at the end of the six months, we did a debrief, and oh my gosh, it was amazing to hear some people like, wow, I never knew they chose to focus on constituents and people that they serve within their organization. It’s like I didn’t know this about them, or I had mislabeled or, wow, I still disagree with them, but I want to have more conversations, and that’s because the inverted U theory applies here perfectly. It normally applies to performance, but it’s been attached to learning that says there’s two places that people don’t learn effectively, when they think they know absolutely nothing and when they think they know absolutely everything. And so yeah, how do we get people on that learning journey? It’s to engage and to choose to intentionally hear someone else. Yeah, well, and

Maria Ross 12:38

I think that’s why that’s such an important aspect of empathetic leadership of those leaders who are empathetic and effective is they are able to put ego aside. They’re able to say, I may not know all the answers, and I’m going to be willing to invite other perspectives into the conversation, because they’re not threatening me, they’re just giving me information. Yes, and so I, you know, I know, I’m sure, with your leaders that you work with, I tried to deflate their myths about empathy being this fluffy. Woo, Woo. Oh, it’s me crying on the floor with my employees, and I say, why don’t you just think of it as information gathering? Yeah, think of it as a way to just play detective and figure out. You know, you’re probably wondering, What the heck is that person thinking in a negative way. How about turning that into a positive way? Of like, Well, I wonder what that person is thinking instead of what were they thinking, right? But, and that seems to, like, calm their nerves a little bit if they’re sort of very uptight. And I say because you can’t, if you’ve got all your stuff in your head, you can’t take on another person’s perspective without defensiveness or fear, because you feel like it’s a personal attack.

Justin Jones-Fosu 13:46

Yes, yeah, and this is so true, because we’ve treated communication like war, right? Even leaders, we go into meetings and we talk to the person ahead of time like, hey, I need you to really support me on x, right? And somebody else goes so we’re developing allies, and we go in instead of approaching it from this place pillar four, seek the gray. And we’ve been challenging leaders to start off their meeting, saying, when we leave this meeting, we should have created something that is new and has not been thought of before, because when we seek the gray, right? Yeah, I come from Ghana, we have these drum circles. In a drum circle, you’re not going to get the same beat without each and every single person there, and how do we contribute now? Why is that important? And one of the best books that my professors during my MBA had me read was a book called dialog, the art of thinking together. And it was so profound because it’s not about a and convincing this other person of a. It’s not about B, convincing other person to be is, how do we create C together? And if leaders can start off their meetings, if they can challenge in our one on ones with those direct reports, it allows them to people say, You know what, they actually want a different perspective. They want to hear varying point, because we have to create something new.

Maria Ross 14:57

We have to and also, if everyone thinks this. Same way, you’re going to miss opportunities and you’re going to overlook risk. If someone’s looking at the problem or the challenge or the opportunity in a different way, we see more things that we miss. And this is the thing, you know, we could have a whole other conversation about the DEI be backlash, but that’s all very much about the culture war. The smart companies are actually still embracing deib, because they understand that it actually helps their bottom line. Yes, it helps them win, yeah. So they’re like, No, this is about I want all the information about every opportunity and every risk, and I want people to be looking at this in different ways, so you guys can have your culture war, but our company is still going to invest in

Justin Jones-Fosu 15:41

this, and that’s what I love about see, you’re so brilliant. That’s what I love about you, because you work right? You know, my last book, the inclusive mindset, the whole focus is, this is not something that we should do. This is something that we can it’s not the EIB is not something extra. It’s just a part of our everyday life, and how do we create spaces where people want to come to work, where people want to come back home, right our family members and loved ones, where people want to talk to us as neighbors? It’s these spaces we’re able to engage with people in real, meaningful conversations, because it actually drives results. When our people feel like they can bring their full and best selves to work. They show up with more creativity. Show up with innovation. They show up contributing to ideas in different ways. Rather than fighting. Can I fully be me at work? Yeah, that’s one of the things I’ve had to get even as a leader of a team here of like, Wow, am I creating these spaces for my own team. Yeah, itself,

Maria Ross 16:42

I had a guest on the show, Michael Bock, who does a lot of work. He calls it idea Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, accessibility. He does a lot of work up in Canada and in the US around that work, and has written a few books. And he presents when he was on my podcast. But he also does this as a keynote, he talks about the costs of exclusion like he’s actually gotten it down to $1 amount of how much money companies waste when they don’t enable people to come to work as their true selves, and they don’t enable the people to have those conversations and connect with each other. And it’s, you know, it is, it’s impacting the bottom line. So it’s just smart business. So we’re going to take a quick break, and then I want to ask you about the dotted line dilemma and the illusion of asymmetric insight, which I believe are concepts from your books. I respectfully disagree, how to have difficult conversations in a divided world. We’ll be right back, and we’re back with Justin Jones Fauci, and we are getting into we just had a great conversation about how to have great conversations, basically. And I want to talk a little bit about this concept, the dotted line dilemma. Can you explain to us what that means and how that gets in our way? Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 17:59

so that aligned dilemma simply, where we start filling in the gaps, right? It’s making statements Right? Like, if I said something to you, like drivers who drive on the left side of the street are but what depends, right? You start filling in the gaps depending on what country we’re in, yeah, and our brains want to fill in those moments. And that’s the same thing that we do with people, right? Is that we want to fill in. We want to complete the dotted line, because our brains want to conserve energy for things. It thinks it doesn’t know. Imagine this, right? Imagine you’re driving. You take this exit. Monday through Friday, you take this exit, and one day you’re supposed to go straight. What do you do? Take the exit

Maria Ross 18:42

a million times. Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 18:45

right, and I’m ready to autopilot, conserving energy, and that’s what we do with people and our teams right right before we get to know them, we take the exit based on second or third hand information. We start filling in the dotted lines, and that’s one of the big dilemmas that we have. But how do we drive forward? Pun intended towards some really amazing team members, employees and community members, but one of the ways that we challenge people to do that is in what we call one MC over W, right? And one is MC over W is only math we’ll do today. But thank you for one meaningful connection per week, and that’s where you build into your calendar, maybe the 15 or 20 minutes you have to put it in there, where you intentionally go and hear someone’s story. You intentionally go and ask, what brought you to our company? What brought you to our team, what brought you to our city? And if that’s too much, because you’re like, oh my gosh, Justin, how much I have so much stuff to do that’s 52 point 14 times a year, then make it one meaningful connection per month, put the W up down. That’s when we think we’ve been challenging leaders over and over again. Is like, what would it look like for us to eradicate the open door policy from our organizations? Because Open Door implies passivity. Hey, if you. Eat me. I’m here. We’ve even created a virtual Open Door office. I’ll be on teams Tuesday through Thursday, three to five. But what if we instead implemented what we call an out the door policy, where we intentionally go out the door to hear and experience the stories of our people that allows us to get closer, that allows us to hear those proximity breeds of empathy.

Maria Ross 20:21

Oh my gosh. I love that. And that’s so actionable. Like, do what you can do to actually proactively. And it might feel I always say this, you know, it’s about going to the empathy gym, right? Just like any fitness routine to strengthen a muscle, it feels weird at first. It hurts. You might get sore. You’re gonna feel uncomfortable. So if you’ve never done that approach. The first day you as a leader, go and ask to make a connection with someone. They might be like, what’s going on? Am I in trouble? Like you’ve never done this before, and you can be transparent with people that, hey, I’m trying this new thing. I encourage you to try it as well. I’m trying to find a way for us to build better connections and build, you know, better engagement with each other. So I’m going to try this out. You’re not in trouble. I’m probably going to come to you. We’re going to, like, go have a coffee. I don’t know, but I think that’s it’s the fear for people of flipping to develop the new habits sometimes, because they feel self conscious about but I’ve always been this kind of leader, and now one day, I’m going to come in and I’m going to start talking to start talking to you about what you did for the weekend. And I’ve never asked you what you’ve done in the weekend, and you’re like, what is happening? Are there layoffs? What’s going on? Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 21:28

it’s talking to me, yeah. And so

Maria Ross 21:32

being transparent about, hey, I’m working on my leadership. I’m developing my leadership. A that’s a great model for your team, that you’re you as the leader. Are working on your leadership. Yeah, and two like, make them part of the fun. Make it light. Make it something that you guys can laugh at, you know, something like that. But that is such a great actionable thing. Okay, tell us about this other thing that gets in the way of these connections and healthy conversations, which is the illusion of asymmetric insight.

Justin Jones-Fosu 22:00

Yes, so illusion of asymmetric insight is where I can paraphrase. It’s where I feel like I completely know you. I get you right, but there’s no way you can understand me. I’m just complex. And that’s the the research behind that is how we approach people, not only people, but also groups, right? Imagine, you know, you’re a dog person, and you’re like, I get why I love dogs, but you just never understand dogs. Dogs are just unique, right? And cat people are like, well, you know those cat people, we just are so unique, but dogs, I mean, they’re simple, right? It’s easy to understand, and that’s and unfortunately, what we do with people is that we go into conversations instead of treating it with what we call beginner mind, we treat it with like you’re simple to understand. I’m really complex, so let me engage, right? And what the research actually suggests is that some of that’s fueled by ego, right? We talk about these three cells, and one of those is superior self is that I just I know I’ve had more experience. I went to this college, and I’ve had this position, I am a leader, and that gives me respect, and actually no our humanity should give us respect, and us as leaders model that behavior so they lose asymmetric insight in ways that we resist. It is by challenging ourselves to say, wait a minute, this person is probably more nuanced than I I’m thinking right now, let me ask more questions instead of hurrying to fill in the line. I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to somebody, and you’re always trying to finish your statement before you said it, right? I’m

Maria Ross 23:31

guilty of it too. I’m guilty of it too, because I get so excited. I’m like, I just want to help you find the right word, right? So, yeah, they’re

Justin Jones-Fosu 23:38

like, I went to a really good like, restaurant, because, you know, they love to eat, and they were like Jim, because I was on the way home, right? But that’s the that’s one of the reasons why I choose it to engage and hear the power of people’s stories and asking we talk about the power of three, one way to challenge the illusion of asymmetric inside is with the power of three. And what we found in as people listen is that people aren’t doing deep listening. They’re doing distracted listening, and we’re stopping at the power of one or the power of the power of two. What do I mean by that? So if I’m Sam Marie, how’s your day today? You’re like, Oh, my day is fine. I’m like, my day is fine, too. Power of One, power of two. Mary, how’s your day today? Oh, my day is fine. What made your day fine? Oh, I heard this interesting bald history. I know that ball has power of two, where the power of three goes at least into that third level of the conversation to better hear, understand, and get a better understanding of complexity that might exist.

Maria Ross 24:28

Oh my gosh, I love it. And so how does this go over in these big companies, when you’re having these conversations, do you find that, is it a hard sell? Is it you know, you’re working with leaders that are a little skeptical this is going to help improve their team’s performance or their own leadership capability, like give us a little insight on it, on what they’re thinking and feeling as you’re going into these organizations and talking to them about this, absolutely, one of

Justin Jones-Fosu 24:53

the organizations we work with, Asia coach, and one of the things I love is we practice this power of three, right? And. So they had opportunity to actually lean into this. And in this always. I mean, in any organization, you have a variety of people. Some people are really eager and excited, like, Oh, this is awesome. And some people are like, Yeah, this really gonna work. Is this another one of those sandwich models? I’m gonna tell you something that sounds good, give you feedback and give you like, No, right? But when they start practicing it, that’s when you see the transformation happen. So give you a great example. So we do the power of three, and we ask a very meaningful question about something that’s shaped who they are. And so people are listening and they’re practicing, and what they find is that some people are deep listening, some people still want to jump in, and then the debrief, what they talk and find is like, wow. Like, not only did I feel like more at ease of just hearing their story versus trying to jump in, but the person who was actually sharing their story actually felt heard. They actually felt heard. And oftentimes this doesn’t happen all the time with every person, but sometimes there’s just tears. And the CEO of a company, he said to me, he’s like, I’ve been working with this person for 35 years, and I thought I knew everything, and I just heard something new that I never knew, wow, and that’s gonna allow me to lead them better. And that’s the power of deep listening instead of distracted listening. So when you’re one on ones, when you ask, how was your weekend, then they say, oh, you know, it was good, instead of stopping there, that’s what made it good. Oh, well, I was, you know, did soccer practice with kids? That’s like, wow. You know the soccer did you play soccer growing up? You see, what just happened is that people are talking about things that are important to them. The question is, are we really listening?

Maria Ross 26:37

Yeah, oh my gosh, I love it so much. So, you know, we talk a lot about curiosity on this show, Curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people and empathic leaders. And back to our you know, point earlier that this is about information gathering. You know, empathy is about trying to understand someone’s context, and no better way to do that than to ask questions and be curious. Yeah, so how? What are some of the tips that you have for the leaders or the teams that you work with to maybe they’re not naturally curious, maybe they’re uncomfortable being curious. What are some tips that you have around how they can cultivate their curiosity in a way that feels genuine and natural for them.

Justin Jones-Fosu 27:20

Well, what I will say, and be completely honest about this, is it takes practice. The same way your empathy muscles, right? You talk about the empathy gym, it takes practice. So even the power of three, which is actually great moment of cultivating curiosity as we take that further, is that sometimes you don’t know what to say. You don’t know the next phrase. Use the power phrase. Tell me more. Invite three

Maria Ross 27:43

magic words

Justin Jones-Fosu 27:47

to come to, like, Oh, wow. Like this person actually wants to hear what I’m talking about. And that’s one way the more I’ve done it right? Because initially, when I even did that in my own life, because guess what, Justin was a distracted listener, right? And I still sometimes struggle with it is it felt mechanical initially, but now it’s just become a part of who I am. So I have people, my friends, who know I talk about this, and they’re like, Oh, you just did the power three. I mean, I had no idea I did it, right? Because I’ve just started being more curious and saying, This is, oh my gosh, this phrase is etched in my head.

Maria Ross 28:21

It’s the magic, three magic words we talk about all the time. Tell me more. Yeah,

Justin Jones-Fosu 28:26

more. The phrase, even before that, for me, that that’s kind of pushed me into that lens, is that we should seek to be more interested than interesting, and when we come from that approach, how can I be more interested in the people I encounter, rather than interest interesting, it allows us to hear people. That’s one reason I hate networking events, right? Because people, it’s very transactional. It’s like you work, right? Rather than asking deeper questions and learning and hearing some if you’re feeling comfortable doing it, you’re like the many people who are learning something new, whether in your marriage, whether as a parent, whether and you’re learning Pickleball for the first time or so, that thing may be you don’t know how to do it, and that’s why you take the tortoise approach. Yeah, the tortoise approach is not to be fast and showy and flashy and have it all together. It’s that I’m going to be strategic and steadily moving forward, and that’s leadership.

Maria Ross 29:23

So good, so so good. I think we’re going to leave it at that, because that is amazing, and I think that’s a really good last nugget and tip to leave people with. To your point, it does take practice, and just because it feels uncomfortable doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. So leave it there, all right. Well, this has been such a great conversation. Justin, thank you so much. I definitely want to encourage folks to check out the book. I respectfully disagree how to have difficult conversations in a divided world, which, as we talked about, is not just for leaders and business people, but for basically anyone who’s trying to have better conversations and relationships. So we will have all your. Links in the show notes. But for folks that are on the go, Where is one of the better places for them to get in touch with you and find out more about your work.

Justin Jones-Fosu 30:07

Find out more at how to respectfully disagree.com.

Maria Ross 30:11

Love it how to and we’ll put that link in there too. Thanks for your time. It was a pleasure to connect. Thank you Maria, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review, follow, share with a colleague or friend, and until next time, 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 show notes 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.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Tina Kuhn & Neal Frick: The E-Suite: Helping Execs Embrace Empathy for Success

One of the hardest jobs in business belongs to anyone with a C in their title. Today you’ll hear from Tina Kuhn and Neal Frick, co-authors and successful executives of global companies who have gone on this journey and had tremendous success.

We talk about the ROI of empathy from their own experience and what they have learned about embracing empathy as a strategic advantage. We discuss how fear and bias show up for executives and impact their decision-making. They share the rewards of being an empathetic leader, the best way to bring a leader on board to an empathy mindset, how to practice empathy when your large team is remote, and why simply being a “nice boss” without accountability can be super toxic.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Reactive leaders harm their organizations. Empathetic leaders advance organizations and the lives of those in the organizations.
There’s a difference between being a nice boss and being an empathetic leader. Being “the nice boss” is actually one of the most toxic things in an organization, and that is not empathetic.
Build in time for team building in remote environments. If you choose the right activities, you can create those connections.

“The way that I have found the most effective has been leading by example because pushing someone into a vulnerable space is the quickest way to be met with resistance.”

— Neal Frick

References:

The Empathy Edge podcast: Teri Schmidt: Empathy-Infused Team Building for Lasting Impact

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Tina & Neal:

Tina Kuhn is an accomplished CEO spanning cybersecurity, commercial, and US government.

She has extensive experience in organizational transformations, growth strategies and implementation, M&A due diligence and integration, financial improvements, process and risk management, operations management, business development, and proposal development.

Ms. Kuhn has served in a variety of executive leadership roles, including the President of Proximas Group, focused on integrating 6 companies and developing a growth strategy to take advantage of each company’s strengths.

Neal Frick is the CEO of Avandra Consulting and most recently served as CEO of CyberCore Technologies, which was sold to HP. He’s an author with more than twenty years of experience in organizational growth and leadership and has led successful initiatives around transformational change, strategic planning, and revenue, working with companies such as Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Lockheed Martin. His experiences have fueled his commitment to cultivating inclusive work cultures, where diversity and empathy are not just buzzwords but integral components of business ethos.

Connect with Tina & Neal:

The Lanzar Group: thelanzargroup.com

Tina’s LinkedIn: Tina Kuhn

Neal’s LinkedIn: Neal Frick

Medium Profile: medium.com/@TinaKuhn

Book: The E Suite: Empathetic Leadership for the Next Generation of Executives

tinakuhncommunication.com – The Manager’s Communication ToolKit – Dealing with Difficult Personalities

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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. One of the hardest jobs in business belongs to anyone with a C in their title, whether CEO CFO or CMO, you’re tasked with managing p&l performance, and often a large amount of people who may or may not be geographically dispersed if you’re working for one of the largest companies on the planet, empathetic leadership can feel like a luxury you can’t afford, or worse, a waste of your time, while we clearly know it is not a waste of your time, and can result in bigger revenue, gains, more market share, and improvements in everything from retention to innovation, All bottom line benefits. But how can we help stressed execs balance all the things and build their empathy skills to better empower their people when so much revenue is on the line today, you’ll hear firsthand from two successful executives of global companies who have gone on this journey and have had tremendous success. Tina Kuhn and Neil Frick are co authors of the new book The E suite, empathetic leadership for the next generation of executives. Their vision of the future of leadership based on their in the trenches experience leading large global teams, winning multimillion dollar proposals and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Together, they help executives embrace the future of leadership and unlock success the way they did. Tina is CEO of the lanzar group, and her career as CEO has spanned cybersecurity, commercial and US government. She’s led organizational transformations, growth strategies and implementation M and a risk management and more. Her executive roles include the president of Proximus group, where she integrated six companies, CEO and President of cyber core technologies, and vice president for Northrop. Grumman, managing over 1600 personnel and $440 million in business across US, government and international customers. Neil frick is the CEO of avander Consulting, and most recently served as CEO of cyber core technologies, which was sold to HP. He’s an author with more than 20 years of experience in organizational growth and leadership, and has led successful initiatives around transformational change, strategic planning and revenue, working with companies such as Boeing Booz, Allen Hamilton and Lockheed Martin. Interesting thing about Neil from an early age, he understood that investing in people leads to inevitable profits, and he learned these lessons from his father’s leadership, helping an employee through drug rehab and back into the workforce once sober, his father’s actions instilled a lifelong conviction in Neil about the inherent value of people over profits. Neil’s approach to leadership is grounded in the power of empathy and investment in people. His experiences have fueled his commitment to cultivating inclusive work cultures where diversity and empathy are not just buzzwords, but integral components of business ethos. Today, we talk about the ROI of empathy from their own actual experience and what they’ve both learned about embracing empathy as a strategic advantage and how you can get skeptical leaders and colleagues to see the value and strengthen their own we discuss how fear and bias shows up for executives and how it impacts their decision making. They share the rewards of being an empathetic leader. The best way to bring a leader on board to an empathy mindset. How to practice empathy when your large team is remote, and why simply being a nice boss without accountability can be super toxic. This was a rich conversation. Take a listen. Big welcome today to Tina Kuhn and Neil Frick, who are here to talk about the E suite and specifically empathetic leadership from the executive level. Welcome to the podcast.

Tina Kuhn 04:35

Thank you, Maria. We’re really happy to be here, and I want

Maria Ross 04:39

to start off as I do with all my guests to find out. And Tina, I’ll start with you. You are both co authors of the book The E suite, empathetic leadership for the next generation of executives. We’ve heard your wonderful BIOS at the top of the show, but tell us specifically what is the passion, what is the purpose behind you getting into this work and writing a book? Like this. So for me, really

Tina Kuhn 05:02

the catalyst was Neil. We were executives working together, and he started talking about empathy, and we realized we have very different styles. I’ll put that out there. We still have very different styles, but we realized when we applied and work through some of the aspects of empathy, our decisions together were much, much better than they were when we were making individual decisions. And it took a while for us to get there. Neil can can add to that, but we just found that it was this additive by having empathy and really looking at the big picture and not being myopic and taking into account everybody’s point of view.

05:56

Neil,

Neal Frick 05:56

I think you know, for me, throughout my career, had seen leaders do things two ways, very reactively, which ended up hurting organizations and really impacting the bottom line. And then I had a couple of examples really empathetic leaders. Tina, also being one of them, I don’t think she gives herself enough credit, who really advanced their organizations and advanced the lives of the individuals who worked for them, and I saw my career advance significantly working under those leaders, and started to model my own kind of philosophy around that. And then thought, Okay, how do we take this and apply it within the work company that we worked at? But then also, how do we kind of capitalize on this movement? Especially we started writing this during covid, when people’s perspectives on work were changing, and we thought, you know, how do we get this message about empathy out there? So that was for us, I think, the big push behind writing.

Maria Ross 06:58

So as you were both researching this book and really coming to this epiphany of the power of empathetic leadership. I know, you know, Tina, I know that you’ve discovered a lot of the same data and research that I discovered when I was writing the empathy edge around how there are CEOs out there who align empathetic leadership to business performance. What was surprising for you, especially as a CEO and as a C suite leader, what was maybe the one or two biggest surprises that you found in the research of wow, I didn’t even know that empathy was able to be a catalyst like this for business performance. So for

Tina Kuhn 07:37

me, I don’t know if I learned anything new, but it came to my just came to realize how important empathy was. You know, we’ve all been on teams where we had big deadlines, we worked together, we really everyone was highly productive, and we all felt good about it. I think everyone’s been part of that. That’s one of these why sports teams are so good. You have that community, you have that belonging and and when I consciously brought empathy into the workplace, it also brought in this belonging, and had other people feel that that belonging.

Maria Ross 08:20

So it was more that you kind of unlocked what that secret sauce was that you had kind of seen be present in teams, but you couldn’t really name it is that, would that be accurate to say that correct?

Tina Kuhn 08:29

And putting a name to it, and looking up the research and really embodying it into me allowed me to use empathy consciously instead of unconsciously, to build high performance teams.

Maria Ross 08:47

And Neil, how about you? Was there anything you were skeptical about in terms of trying to make you know, as I did, make the business case for empathy in executive leadership? Yeah,

Neal Frick 08:57

I think the biggest challenge for me was trying to understand the difference between sort of empathy, sympathy, compassion, and how to appropriately apply them. And the thing I go back to right is you may have someone on the team who is performing poorly, but they’re going through a really difficult time, and so you’re sympathetic to their plight, but the impact of that individual in the organization and the rest of the team is really detrimental. So as a business leader, you have to look at the whole picture and make a informed, strategic, empathetic decision about how to move forward. And I think that is something that you know, the the improper application of empathy, sort of the nice boss versus the empathetic boss. Yeah, can really kind of get in the way, and that’s something that I’ve struggled with. And I think through research with Tina, really kind of helped refine what that meant

Maria Ross 09:53

exactly, and that I’m on a mission to tell people empathy is not the same thing as being nice. And in in the new book, The Empathy. Dilemma when I talk about the five pillars of being an effective and an empathetic leader, you know, some of those pillars are about clarity, decisiveness, and the the empathetic thing is almost in the mode of how you do it, but it doesn’t mean you necessarily are making different business decisions. And would you say that that is something that executives embrace, or is it something they sort of struggle against, thinking, well, if I’m making a tough business decision, I have to be cold, I have to be data driven. I have to be, you know, I have to do it this way. What are you finding, Neil, in rolling out this work? What’s been the reception from other C suite leaders that you’ve been talking to.

Neal Frick 10:41

You know, it’s funny. It almost, it almost comes down to, I don’t want to say it’s generational, but it’s almost philosophical, which sometimes almost, almost becomes generational, where, if someone is receptive to the concept of empathetic leadership, they’re willing to have conversations around how to apply it appropriately. But if they think of empathy as sort of a weak scale, a soft skill, then that’s what they point to. But the education around it and showing them that look empathy and sympathy are not the same thing. Empathy and niceness is not the same thing. The nice boss is actually one of the most toxic things in an organization, when applied and appropriately, can really help to reshape people’s opinions about empathy, but it is a difficult initial conversation, because they’re like, oh, empathy, you’re gonna make me spend all this money on my employees, and, you know, I’m gonna have a bunch of people who aren’t working very hard. It’s like, no, no, that’s that’s not what I’m that’s not what I’m advocating for,

Maria Ross 11:37

right? Right? I always say, like, it’s not empathy. Is not you crying on the floor with your employees. That’s not what we’re talking about here, right? And so Tina, tell me a little bit. You know, you mentioned at the beginning that you and Neil have slightly different leadership styles. So tell us about what your leadership style as a C suite leader was, and did it change from doing this empathy work

Tina Kuhn 11:59

absolutely changed for the better, and I think my decisions are better, and I look at the big picture more from my style tends to be fast, fast decisions. I look at something, and I make a decision, and then I move on. And Neil helped me to slow down and really look at the big picture, look at different aspects of the decision. And I think I helped him maybe speed up the decisions. Yeah, and so together, we ended up with decisions. Because the worst, in my opinion, one of the worst things a leader can do is to not make a decision. So we were able to make very good decisions in a timely manner when we really look together and Neil. Neil helped me to see other points of views in the organization and other aspects of the decisions that I may not have looked at before, and so yes, it absolutely made me a better leader, but one of the things it did do is that it also allowed me to see where my weaknesses Were. Because Neil challenged me, I was able to to really see Oh, and sometimes it hurt and sometimes it was hard, but that challenge culture was also a way to bring about much better decisions in the organization, and I think the company was, you know, 1,000% better because of that challenge and the work on empathy than if we didn’t have that.

Maria Ross 13:48

Yeah, you’re touching on two of the five pillars in my new book, which is self awareness is the first one, and decisiveness and this idea that people think you can be either empathetic, the binary thinking kills me all the time, right? You have you can be empathetic or decisive. You can be empathetically decisive in terms of understanding other points of view. So you see the problem, or you see the challenge, or you see the opportunity from multiple perspectives, which some you might miss, but then you have to swiftly be able to make a decision, you can’t leave it lingering, because that’s actually the most unempathetic thing we can do as a leader, is to leave our people hanging right? So I want to switch gears a little bit, Tina, and talk about what you uncovered around fears and biases, whether they’re hidden or not, and how executives deal with their fears and biases, whether it’s ignoring them, whether it’s actually opening their eyes to them and being defensive about it. Tell me a little bit about how they play out with someone in such a senior role. You know, you’ve led, you’ve both led very large teams, you know, half a billion dollar companies, and how. Does that play out if there’s a C suite leader that is unwilling or unable to see their fears and biases and they just think, I don’t have any fears and biases, I’m a really strong, fair leader?

Tina Kuhn 15:11

Yeah, that’s a great question, and that was part of my growth process, was to find what are my hidden biases, what are my open biases, and what are my hidden biases? And what I found is that, you know, anger is that emotional energy that’s fighting against a fear or a threat, right? And so whenever, whenever you’re angry, it’s it’s really because there’s some fear behind it. And so I started looking at my anger. When did I get anger? Why did I get anger? And what was I afraid of? And it was a real pivotal moment for me to understand where my fears were. And I think it comes out in leadership by only wanting to have. I’m putting this in quotes, yes men around them, having people that are not having people to challenge their decisions. You know, there’s lots of fears that CEOs have. I mean, they’re the there’s a lot of pressure, and there’s a lot of people that kind of surround a CEO, the stakeholders, the customers, the employees. There’s just a lot there. And it could be a fear of failure that makes you angry. It can be a fear of failure from an employee, and their failure causes you to look bad. It can be a loss of your job, a loss of status, a loss of being treated unfairly, a fear of not being good enough to succeed. So those are just a few that you know, pop pop out, but that that fear and anger is a is a really interesting thing that I think every leader should explore, because it helped me to, for one, not be afraid, uncover my hidden biases and understand where my fear was, and once your fears are uncovered, then it’s easier not to have that fear anymore.

Maria Ross 17:18

Wow. Okay, so there’s so much in there to unpack, but I think, you know, one of my, my bigger questions that I haven’t really dived into in my work, is, what do we do with C suite leaders? Because this is really a personal development exercise when it comes right down to it, we want to talk about the ROI. We want to talk about how this is a leadership trait for success, but you also have to have a willing participant. And whether it’s at work or in their personal lives, there are just people who don’t want to go there. And so, you know, Tina, I’ll start with you, and then I want to bump it to Neil, what have you found works well with reaching these these C suite leaders who have spent their whole careers, you know, performing at a high level, having the answers, you know, doing all these things. What have you seen that helps them get to the point where they’re willing to do some of that personal development work that developing this skill of empathy requires?

Tina Kuhn 18:17

Yeah, that that’s a great thing for every CEO, and the people that work with CEOs to look at and, and I would say, probably one of the worst things to do is to come at the CEO with anger, because they’re not looking at, you know, anger just puts up barriers. And you want to, you want to do things that break, breaks down that barrier and have a good conversation. So I’ll just talk about what Neil did for me. So he came and, you know, actually talk through some of, you know, some of the decisions and why this was a better way to do things. And initially there was some resistance. And he just, he kind of kept at it, didn’t get angry, and really kind of gently pushed me into into a better place. And I think working with CEOs, if you have a or, or anybody that you work with that comes out with, you know, fear, anger, resistance to other people’s point of view, controlling, you know, all those kind of bad, difficult behaviors, to confront them with those same type of behavior, the bad behaviors is not going to go anywhere. You have to confront them with empathy.

Maria Ross 19:45

Yeah, you kind of have to model empathy in the interaction. Yes. And so now I’m going to flip that, because that is super interesting. So Neil, what do you think worked well to have you know, Tina, look at this in a new way and the other executives that you work with now?

Neal Frick 20:01

Yeah, sure. Well, I think you know, the first thing you have to do, obviously, if you’re going to approach someone that you’re working with, you got to do a lot of that work yourself and make sure that you’re in the right place to be able to understand where you’re coming from. As Tina said, you can’t approach someone in that headspace. But you know, there are going to be people who are not receptive. Regardless, Tina is a very receptive and was a very receptive leader. I’ve worked with people who were not as receptive. And the way that I found the best way is, typically, you have to understand what motivates that individual, right? Is it the bottom line? If it’s the bottom line, a lot of times, that raw data showing someone that, hey, this approach is historically demonstrated to do better through these studies, this company does this, and this is why it works better. Or, Hey, I did this this way, and we got this better result with this customer. Those can be really difficult to argue against when you’re a logical person, that can be something, you know, if you come at someone who is not very emotional with an emotional argument, they are going to potentially reject it, because that is not how they process information. So you really have to understand the person that you are approaching and approach them in a way that makes sense to them. And then the other thing you know that’s if you were working with someone directly, if you’re coming at it as from the outside, as a consultant, you know, I think if someone is approaching you and looking for ways to improve their organization, the likelihood is that they are receptive in some way, and the methodology is very much the same, understanding them and Understanding what is motivating them to make that change, applying that principle of empathy, listening and understanding, and then flipping it and showing them the way to grow their organization or to make those changes in a way that makes sense to them, is going to be the way to lay that sort of foundational trust. And then once you have that trust, then you can start to pile on some of the more complex, ideological or philosophical pieces that maybe they would be initially resistant to, but you just got to build that trust first, right?

Maria Ross 22:08

And that’s where you know, ultimately, they eventually have to make some behavior changes in order to embrace empathy as a leader. But I love the walking them through, because the reason I love this conversation is that that was the whole reason I wrote the empathy edge and researched it, because I thought, okay, the moral argument is not working, that people need to be more empathetic. So I’m just gonna meet people where they are, and I’m just gonna make a business case for it. And that’s how I got the skeptics along. Now the new book is actually for the converts, not for the skeptics. That’s the one for like, Okay, I’m on board. Ooh, here’s why it’s hard. Here’s where it gets sticky, right? And you kind of alluded to this in your answer, but I want to see if it, if there’s anything else to add around just the general complaint I hear about working with difficult people. It’s not necessarily coming from the C suite for their workers or from leaders for their teams. It’s kind of across the board. People are looking for advice and actionable strategies for how do I just work with difficult people? So what you said about convincing a leader sounds like it might be something similar to how you may want to approach a colleague. Would that be an accurate statement to make

Neal Frick 23:25

absolutely I mean, I think you know, all businesses, I mean, most interactions in a professional sense, are about people, and the key to understanding a person is to level set and to try to bring some common understanding right, to build that initial level of trust. If someone is difficult to work with, there is a reason. And it goes back to Tina’s comment about you know that that anger or that reaction being fear based, if you can try to genuinely work with someone to understand where they’re coming from and let them see where you are coming from, more often than not, you will be able to build some level of trust and start to work through it. Now that’s not across the board. Some people are really resistant. You’re always going to have some difficulties, but in most cases, people want to be successful. They want to work well with others, and so they’re looking for an opportunity to do that. So approaching people in that way by initially doing that work on yourself first, can be a really effective way to kind of start that conversation, especially if you are in a environment culturally that promotes that. It’s obviously much harder to do if you’re in a very toxic environment, of

Maria Ross 24:34

course, of course, yeah, and I think that that’s the important thing for all leaders to learn, is that even while they’re trying to develop their own empathy and improve their own leadership style, they need to create fertile soil for other people to be on that journey with them. Because them changing only their behaviors is only half the battle. It’s really creating that environment of maybe you vulnerably share with your team. And that, hey, I’m working on improving my empathy as a leader, and you know, I’d like you to go on this journey with me, and you can start to model those behaviors, or create protocols, create rituals within the organization where it starts to get modeled, it starts to get celebrated, it starts to get rewarded. So then, all of a sudden, that’s just the way we do things around here. But I think you know so many leaders, and you know from your experience as a C as CEOs, you know, I think we know why leaders are scared to admit they don’t have all the answers, and they’re scared to admit they may not know the right way to operate. But what have you found is the best way to unblock that for people. What is a way that you’ve gotten people who will say, I’ll never be vulnerable with my team, or I’m never going to share this, or I don’t need to get to know them personally. Has there been one or two methods or insights that you have found really helps them unlock that vulnerability and really understand what we mean by vulnerability? Again, not crying on the floor with your employees, but being able to admit. You know, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re going to figure it out together. Or I don’t know the best strategy. Let’s get some more inputs. What have you found to be the best way to get leaders to make that leap? Tina, I’ll

Tina Kuhn 26:17

start with you. So as I think about some of the difficult people that I’ve worked with in the past, I think I really agree with what Neil said, and figuring out what motivates them, and then making sure they feel comfortable around around that. So I’ll just you know somebody who’s really controlling. Why are they controlling? What’s their motivation behind that? Is it a fear of failure? And so they have to control everything? I’m coming back to the fears because we, yeah, that’s a that to me. It kind of that’s traces down to everything. It’s like the bottom, bottom of the the funnel. And once I, once I figure out what their what their fear is, or motivation and reason why they act that way, and reason why they’re putting up roadblocks. So for somebody that’s controlling, give them something that will give them success, and start feeling comfortable with you, and start feeling like, oh, they can do it. They don’t have to. They don’t have to be like that. They can have success in a better way. And

Maria Ross 27:29

Neil, do you have anything to add to that about helping leaders unlock that vulnerability of being able to admit you know, they need other perspectives. They need other viewpoints in order to achieve the goals of the organization. How do we get them to be more vulnerable? Yeah,

Neal Frick 27:44

the way that I have found the most effective has been leading by example, because pushing someone into a vulnerable space is the quickest way to be met with resistance. And I’ll give a kind of a personal example. You know, I write a lot on medium, and I wrote an article when I was going through a particularly difficult time about, like, mental health issues. And as a CEO, writing about mental health issues, I got a lot of feedback from colleagues that was like, Whoa, you’re going to lose the respect of your team, and what are you doing? And I found the exact opposite. I found that I had team members come to me and say, Wow, thank you. I actually feel a lot more comfortable coming and talking to my boss now about what I’m going through, because I know that this environment is one where I can have an honest conversation about what I’m dealing with, and I’m not going to get fired, or I’m not going to be looked at as someone who’s maybe weakening the organization. And then I point to that and say, Hey, look at what this vulnerability, this thing that was really hard for me to do, and I didn’t like doing because vulnerability is hard, right, right? But this helped this person overcome something. And now I’ve got someone who is more willing to put in sweat equity for the organization, more willing to be, you know, a team player who also I’ve in some way improved their working condition because they’re less anxious about, you know, hey, if I show vulnerability, am I going to have some kind of negative impact to my job that is all positive, and all it took was me being honest. That cost nothing. What’s the return on investment that it’s immeasurable. But obviously that takes a leader who is willing to put that level of vulnerability out there, you know, so that it really starts with that individual.

Maria Ross 29:32

And that is so interesting, because I also think it’s worth mentioning that, you know, there’s a lot of leaders, when they hear this, either roll their eyes. They’re probably not listening to my podcast if they’re doing that, but or they say, Well, you know, I don’t, I don’t have that kind of vulnerability to share, right? I don’t have I don’t have a personal pain in my life. I don’t have this, like, hard luck story. I don’t have this whatever, when we talk about vulnerability. It’s not just those stories. It’s also the vulnerability of, Wow, this is a really hard decision we have to make. I would like other people’s input on it. So the vulnerability is, again, I don’t have all the answers. It’s not necessarily a personal vulnerability about something that’s happening in my personal life. It could be a vulnerability about how I’m dealing with something at work, in the context of work. And for some people, maybe that’s a that’s a good starting point of, okay, you don’t want to reveal everything about your personal life. I get that. That’s cool. You don’t have to have a hard luck story. You don’t have to, you know, but I bet there’s times in your work you’ve you’ve lacked confidence. I bet there’s times in your work you haven’t know what you don’t you haven’t known which route was the right route to take. I bet there’s a vulnerability around someone you really, really liked, who was underperforming, and you had to have a difficult conversation with them. Maybe one of the first I’m like, thinking out loud with with all of you, is maybe one of the first steps is, where are your vulnerabilities in the work context? If that makes you feel more comfortable, try sharing that with your team. Try showing your team that you actually are a human being and not a robot, and that these moments of insecurity, these moments of indecision, these moments of dueling priorities, happen to you as well as anyone else.

Neal Frick 31:25

Yeah, there’s, you don’t have to open the curtain and show anything personal. That’s not necessary, right? I talked about, you know, when I took over as CEO, I talked about imposter syndrome. And I think that is something that executives deal with a lot. They may not call it that, but it is this idea that, you know, we don’t always know what we’re doing. We don’t always know that the best decision, especially we have to make calls sometimes where we don’t have a crystal ball. We don’t know what the outcome is going to be, that in and of itself, and then the willingness to say when we do make a mistake, hey, that was the wrong call, and here’s what we’re going to do to fix it, and here’s how we what we learn from it, that vulnerability, in and of itself, is all it takes to set the foundation of we’re in an organization where if you make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world. And here is that safety net that starts that conversation, and that starts that cultural shift,

Maria Ross 32:13

absolutely creating a culture where it’s okay to take some innovative risks, it’s okay to make a mistake, it’s not irreparable. I think is so important. And you know, if you as as a worker, don’t see any of your leaders admitting those vulnerabilities, you’re going to go, wow, oh, it’s not safe for me to do that, which means I’m probably not going to innovate, because I’m not going to want to step outside the lines, which is a detriment to the organization at large, right? So, so as we wrap up, I just want to ask both of you individually. Tina, I’ll start with you. You know, you’ve managed teams of like 1600 people, I assume, across the globe or in different locations.

Tina Kuhn 32:53

It was across 40 states and six countries. Wow.

Maria Ross 32:57

Okay, so what’s one piece of advice you have for a leader. You know, this is the way we’re working now, some leaders are used to it. Some leaders are not. They’re used to you know, everyone’s in the same four walls, and I can see everybody. And we’ve talked about hybrid work and remote work on this show before, but I want to hear from someone who’s done it and been in it. What are one or two tips that you have had as a leader for making sure you were creating a cohesive team across geographic dispersion.

Tina Kuhn 33:28

Yeah, that’s a huge topic now, because of all the remote work, exactly being hired and you know just that, continued communication with people is just critically important. But I also want to go back to one of the things that was just said, one of my kind of favorite things to tell people is, if this isn’t the let’s make a decision. If it’s not the right decision, we’ll remake the decision so that decision so that they don’t feel that the decision is the end of the world

Maria Ross 34:07

exactly right,

Tina Kuhn 34:07

exactly and if it’s not right, we’ll just remake it and take a new path. And I think having people hear that over and over makes them able to make a decision and not get, not get stuck and not feel afraid, and not bring something to me that that maybe will change the decision that I already made, right? So I just wanted to add that to No. I

Maria Ross 34:36

think that’s great,

Tina Kuhn 34:37

that fast decision, um, I think people get so stuck there all the time, and I think that causes a lot of bad behaviors. We need to take fear of decisions. Yeah, we

Maria Ross 34:49

need to see more of a design thinking approach, even with our decision making. And, yeah, I understand that some decisions, you know, it’s it’s a little bit of a harder pill to swallow if the decision you’re going to make is going to cause. Cost the company $3 million right? So we do understand there’s ramifications of different decisions, but if you have the support of your leadership and if you have the support of the company, that’s the only way you disrupt, that’s the only way you innovate and stay ahead in the market. If you play it safe all the time, you’re never going to get further ahead. So I think that’s a really important point. And I want to go back to the question that I asked you, which was, you know, you mentioned communication is such an important part of that, and that’s such a broad term. So I want to get very specific. Was it about you making time for Team communications, as well as one on one communications? How did you manage your time to be able to keep that communication flowing. Was there some sort of structure in something you did every week, every month, every quarter? How did you how did you balance it between group meetings, where you know not every personality type can participate very well to individual or small groups? Can you share a little bit about that process of what that communication looked like, so that you were able to create that team environment, even across distances.

Tina Kuhn 36:09

Yeah. So I think the most important thing is to make sure your employees feel comfortable communicating with you, because the bigger your team with, I couldn’t do individual

36:21

talks with people, that’s all you’d be doing. Yeah, right.

Tina Kuhn 36:24

And even with even with smaller teams, you can over communicate, and I see it, especially when the remote work first started, managers were afraid that their employees were being productive, and so they kind of over communicated, over did things, so there’s that that bounce, but the most important is for them to feel comfortable coming to you when there’s an issue, so it’s more of a demand on talking. And that worked well. And I did go, and I traveled a lot, and I went and I met everyone, and I made sure that they knew that if there was any issue, that they could email me or call me. And I did get calls and emails, and it was, it was great. And then I, you know, dealt with with that. But it’s, it’s to make sure they your employees, know that they can come to you when they need to

Maria Ross 37:23

exactly, exactly. And Neil, any final thoughts on how to help executive leaders right now deal with the changing face of work and making sure that they can still create that team environment and get to know their their people, and maybe not, you know, get they don’t have to get to know all of them on a personal level. But how can they continue to build that empathetic culture, especially if they have a large, dispersed team?

Neal Frick 37:51

Yeah, I’ve worked, I actually was running some remote teams before. You know, remote teams were a thing, and the collaboration tools that we had back then were not great, but I found that one of the most effective ways to do things were to build in a little bit of extra time, even at like the top of meeting or at the bottom of a meeting, for I don’t want to call it chit chat, because it sounds not productive, but that opportunity to have sort of just a conversation, Just to have that a little bit of time to build relationships between members of your team, because things that happen naturally when you’re in an office environment don’t happen naturally where you’re in a remote space. And more often than not, some of the bonding that happens in an office environment really does allow for that interpersonal relationships to build, and it’s very difficult to do in remote environments. So, you know, build in a little bit of extra time to do that sort of team building. I don’t It’s tough when to do, you know, like specific remote team builds, but even just building in a little bit of extra time just to have those conversations and facilitate them can really help to just make people feel more comfortable.

Maria Ross 39:07

I love that. And actually, you’re reminding me of a past guest I had, Terry Schmidt, who talked about team building with a purpose, and how to actually make it happen in a remote environment. And so I’m going to put a link to her episode because her advice was gold around how you can how you can simulate that and still create connections in a remote environment if you choose the right team building activity, which most leaders don’t. So I’m going to put a link to her episode in the show notes. I want to thank you both today for your time. Tina Neil, thank you for sharing your insights. I definitely want folks to check out the book, the E suite, empathetic leadership for the next generation of executives. We will have all your links in the show notes. But Tina, can you just tell us real quickly for folks on the go or who might be exercising while they’re. Listening to us, where’s the best place they can get more information.

Tina Kuhn 40:03

So the link just, you know, HTTP, HTTPS, the E sweet.com

Maria Ross 40:10

Okay, the E sweet.com is where you want to go, and again, all those links will be in the show notes. Thank you both so much for your time today.

40:17

Thank you.

Maria Ross 40:18

Thanks and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review, follow and share with a friend or colleague until next time, 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 empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes 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.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Chloé Valdary: The Theory of Enchantment

What’s love got to do with it, as Tina Turner famously asked? Is there even a role for it in…the workplace? Turns out, yes, but let’s be clear on what we mean by that! If you want to better resolve conflict, create inclusive cultures, and harmonize with upset customers to turn them into raving fans, this episode is for you!

Today, Chloé Valdary and I have a delicious discussion about the three principles of the Theory of Enchantment and how they apply to your workplace. We talk about the first step you can take to express gratitude for both your strengths and weaknesses and how this opens you up to better interactions and more understanding. We discuss what love at work looks like, why it’s not the same as romantic love, and how it creates a healthier, higher performing, and inclusive workplace. Chloé shares what prejudice actually means and how we can combat it to create better customer experiences and inclusive workplace cultures. Finally, we debunk the myth of the know-it-all leader or expert and why constant curiosity opens you up to more learning and better results.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

We are not conditioned to share our struggles and weaknesses in the workplace. Breaking that paradigm and bringing our whole selves to work will allow all of us to grow and love.
Ethically speaking, the word compassion means “with suffering.” You will experience suffering in life, but we want to enter the world in a way that doesn’t harm us as we move through it.
We cannot live life with no regrets. But we can have gratitude for the experiences we have had and the lessons we’ve learned.
We change over time. Do the Who Am I practice every three days or so, so you can begin to recognize your patterns and your habits of mind.

“”If we can remind people that they matter in every interaction that we engage in, whether it’s in the business context or not, that makes an impression. That is the kind of transcendent experience that speaks to what I mean by the word ‘enchantment’.”

— Chloé Valdary

Episode References:

The DOJO community: enchanteddojo.com
The Tuning Fork community: enchantedtune.com

The Empathy Edge: Kristine Scott: How to Resolve Conflict with Angry Customers or Colleagues

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Chloé Valdary, Founder, Theory of Enchantment

Chloé Valdary is the founder of the Theory of Enchantment, a New York-based DEI organization that fights against racism and bigotry by teaching love. Theory of Enchantment has trained businesses and orgs across many industries, including tech companies, hospitals, schools, and more. If you’re interested in bringing Theory of Enchantment to your business, contact the org at info@theoryofenchantment.com. If you are an individual seeking daily practice, check out enchanteddojo.com.

Connect with Chloé:

Theory of Enchantment: theoryofenchantment.com

X: x.com/cvaldary

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chloe-valdary-92426565

Facebook: facebook.com/theoryofenchantment

Instagram: instagram.com/cvaldary

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Maria, 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’s Love Got to do with it? As Tina Turner famously asked, Is there even a role for it in the workplace? Turns out yes, but let’s be clear on what we mean by that, if you want to better resolve conflict, create inclusive cultures and harmonize with upset customers to turn them into raving fans. This episode is for you. Chloe valdary is the founder of the theory of enchantment, a New York based dei organization that fights against racism and bigotry by teaching love. Theory of enchantment has trained businesses and orgs across many industries, including tech, hospitals, schools and more, they believe conventional dei programs don’t work, and that to actually improve employee well being comply with the law and better your bottom line, it’s much more effective to teach people how to practice being in a healthy relationship with themselves first Before they can ever build healthy relationships with others, and that’s where love and compassion come in. Today, we have a delicious conversation about the three principles of the theory of enchantment and how they apply to your workplace. We talk about the first step you can take to express gratitude for both your strengths and weaknesses, and how this opens you up to better interactions and more understanding. We discuss what love at work looks like, why it’s not the same as romantic love, and how it creates a healthier, higher performing and inclusive workplace. Chloe shares what prejudice actually means and how we can combat it to create better customer experiences and inclusive workplace cultures, and we debunk the myth of the Know It All leader or expert, and why constant curiosity opens you up to more learning and better results. This was such a fun conversation to have enjoy. Welcome Chloe valdary to the empathy edge podcast to talk about love at work, ending bigotry and all the important things. Welcome to the show.

Chloé Valdary 02:45

Thank you for having me.

Maria Ross 02:46

So as I do with all my guests, I want to start off your work is so interesting, and I want to find out how you actually got into this work. What was, what was the passion, what was the impetus behind it?

Chloé Valdary 02:56

I wanted to be someone who helped people solve conflict. So I studied the Israeli Palestinian conflict in college, majored in international studies with a concentration in conflict and diplomacy, and I saw a gap in the sense that there was no paradigm based explicitly on love and compassion and cultivating love and compassion as a way to help folks mitigate conflict. So I saw that gap, and build it by creating the theory of enchantment, wonderful. And

Maria Ross 03:26

talk to us a little bit about what is the theory of enchantment? I know that’s the name of your company, but I know there’s a whole philosophy behind that, so talk to us about that.

Chloé Valdary 03:34

Yeah. So the theory of enchantment, the idea behind it, is that in order to be able to love one another, we have to be able to love ourselves, and there’s so many barriers and challenges to loving ourselves. Probably the most primary one is being able to accept our own insecurities. We aren’t really conditioned to do that in the culture, and instead, we project our insecurities onto others. It’s sort of like a default thing that we do as a defensive mechanism. Oh, yeah. In order to sort of override that, we actually have to practice accepting our insecurities and directing love and compassion at ourselves, and then we’ll be able to direct that love outward. So there are three principles the theory of entrapment. The first principle is, treat people like human beings, not political abstractions. Second principle is, criticize to uplift and empower, never to tear down or destroy. And then the third principle is, root everything you do in love and compassion. And then all of the workshops and exercises that we have are meant to teach people how to embody those three principles. I love

Maria Ross 04:39

that, and so much of that resonates for me with the work that I’ve done. A lot of the empathy work starts with self you cannot make space in your own brain and your own heart for another person’s perspective. If you’re too defensive or fearful or even in a mode of self preservation, it’s too difficult. And so really. You know, starting with practicing mindfulness and practicing presence. But also, as I mentioned in the new book of mine, that’s out the empathy dilemma. It’s also about starting with self awareness. So we often think empathy is such an outward practice, but it’s got to start with understanding. What are our strengths? What are we bringing to the interaction, and what are our blind spots where, what are our triggers really understanding that and owning that? And I’ve seen that really powerfully impact CEOs and leaders when they’re able to put ego aside and say, No, I know there’s some things I need to work on. Of course, I’m human. Of course there are things I need to work on. And when they model that vulnerability for their teams, they make it safe for their teams to make mistakes, for their teams to go. Well, what are my vulnerabilities and my blind spots? So can you give me an example with working with one of your clients or doing a workshop where you know, were folks resistant to that were Did you see them sort of open up and understand the role that that self awareness and that self love and compassion plays in their interactions with others. I

Chloé Valdary 06:06

think that we’re all resistant to it on some level. So, you know, I have resistance to it, and I created this experience exactly that’s, that’s, that’s part of what it means to be human, right? That’s the first principle. So yeah, I’ve definitely encountered folks who experience resistance at the beginning of a workshop, and then slowly but surely open up and become more willing to be vulnerable. And that’s all about creating a safe environment, a safe space. And like you said, me as a facilitator, modeling that ability to own my own weaknesses and strengths. We also start all of our workshops out with an exercise called the Who am I game, where people ask themselves the question, Who am I for three minutes, and they’re encouraged to respond honestly with both positive attributes and negative attributes, and after writing down each attribute, actually say thank you and express gratitude, whether it’s a positive or a negative attribute. And what, what that really does is, first of all, it’s very strange for people to do it. It’s very strange for people to express gratitude for the things that they don’t like about themselves, but, but that’s part of what it means to be me, that those are also part of what it means to be you. And so really, the practice of enchantment, ultimately, is being able to give thanks for the full complexity of your being. And if you’re able to do that, you will actually be able to again direct that outward. But that task is a very hard task, and it takes practice, constant practice. It’s not you know something that you sort of like see as a definition, and you memorize it, and boom, you’re good. It really takes practice, because, as you said, we have triggers, and these triggers are often subconscious, right? And so the more we can bring the conscious mind of self awareness into noticing the triggers, not feeling stigma force the triggers Right, right, simply noticing and eventually moving to a place of gratitude, because those those are part of what it means to be us, then we can direct that outward towards other human beings in the workplace, in our you know, family groups and the other social groups that we are part of. Oh

Maria Ross 08:20

my gosh, so much to unpack there. Because number one, like you said at the top of this, we are not conditioned to admit our our struggles or our vulnerabilities or our weaknesses, especially in a workplace, especially when you’re a leader. And this old paradigm of, well, the leader has to have all the answers at all times, and has to be, you know, perfect in every way. And so we’re breaking that paradigm, thankfully, and we’re letting leaders bring their whole self to work so that their people can bring their whole self to work. But also this idea of triggers. You know, it’s funny, because you might be met with resistance of someone going, well, I don’t have any triggers, right, but we all do as part of the human condition and and your your thought about my last point is your thought about gratitude is so interesting, because just yesterday, I was on a walk with myself, and I was thinking about a past really toxic personal relationship that I was in, and I struggle because I learned so much in that relationship that has contributed to my happy marriage now with someone else, and it’s hard to go do I wish that never happened, because it was painful, and I it was triggered by finding some old diaries in the move that we just made to a new house. And I was like, am I thankful for that? Am I glad that I experienced that? I don’t know, but it is who made it is what made me who I am. And so just like any other vulnerability or any other pain point or any other friction, we can maybe wish, oh, maybe I wish I didn’t have to go through that, or I didn’t have to inflict that pain on someone else, or it. Have that pain inflicted on me, but ultimately, did we learn something from it that makes us who we are today? That’s the part we need to be thankful for. And say, I don’t wish it away, because it makes me who I am today. It’s just unfortunate that that had to happen that way. That’s kind of where I left myself off. Was just like, yeah.

Chloé Valdary 10:20

Can you talk about that? It? It’s an interesting it’s an interesting thing to wrestle with, because pain and suffering are a part of life, and it’s very, very difficult for us, myself included, sometimes, to digest that path. But it’s a fact, and one of our programs actually trains people to, it’s actually deeply inspired by Buddhism, and it trains people to, you know, watch sensations, whether they be painful or pleasurable, rise and fall, and notice the story that the mind attaches to them, because the sensations are actually separate from The stories themselves. And if we’re not quiet enough or present enough, we won’t notice that there’s two distinct experiences, or two distinct ways of relating to to reality. And like I said, that takes practice. So I think it’s I think it’s beautiful that you had this experience of looking back, you know, something that shaped you, something that molded who you are today, and something that was painful and but here’s the thing about, about that that’s interesting. You know, the third principle is root everything you do in love and compassion. The word compassion actually means with suffering, like, etymologically speaking, that’s what it means. And so there’s this idea within compassion of being able to allow what is to come into being, so that you can be with suffering again, because suffering is a part of life, and obviously you you want to show up in the world in such a way where you do not inflict harm onto others, and at the same time, you recognize, again, that pain and suffering is a part of life. So how can you enter into the world such that you’re relating to that pain and suffering in a way that doesn’t cause more harm, right? So that, and I think that looking back at your experience with gratitude, with grace, right? Gratitude and grace, those words are connected etymologically, as well, being able to look back at that experience and see how even though it was painful, it was, in a way, necessary to make you who you are. That’s where the grace comes through, right? That’s where the gratitude comes through. So, yeah, I resonate a lot with what you’re saying. Yeah,

Maria Ross 12:41

I think, because it’s hard, we I remember, excuse me, I remember when I was younger, I naively wanted to live my life in a way that I had no regrets. And that’s kind of impossible, right? I was, you know, I was like, I remember being in like, ninth or 10th grade and thinking that way. And, you know, we do have regrets, but we can regret we I guess we can regret the actions, maybe, or the things that happen, but we can be thankful for the lessons. I really feel like people are formed through the through the grit and the friction that they experience in their life, and not that I wish grit and friction for people, but it’s going to be there anyway, like you’re saying, and sometimes that carries over to the people, not even just in our personal lives, but the people we’re interacting with in an office environment, in a work environment, they can’t not be the people they are shaped by the experiences that they’ve had and what they’re going through in their life right now. And then forget all that as they’re doing spreadsheets and having meetings like it’s just finally realizing that that’s impossible for us to do that as human beings. So I want to talk a little bit about this idea of love at work, because I’ve written about this before, about making love a part of your business model, which sounds really super icky and uncomfortable for people like in the tech industry or my tech clients or what have you. But this idea that love is is not always romantic love. Love can be respect, love can be self compassion, it can be all of these things. So talk to me a little bit about how you help, maybe very analytical or left brain leaders understand the role that love can play, and maybe even right brain people, right like all of us, can feel uncomfortable with that. What do you mean by love when it comes to the workplace and to an office environment?

Chloé Valdary 14:31

Yep, in our culture. And so when people hear love, they think romantically, but love. So to your point, a lot of people, I think when they think of love, they think of love in a romantic context. Some people say romance is a religion in our culture, but love in the theory of enchantment philosophy is actually a reference to this concept of agape love, or unconditional love, which was, I think, most popularized by. By Dr King and the civil rights movement. It’s this idea that we are all interconnected. We are all interconnected in a web of interdependence. And so what I do has an impact on you, and what you do has an impact on me. And if we can show up with an awareness of that and with a appreciation and a sense of gratitude for each other and for again, the complexity and the fullness of what it means to be human, both myself as a human and both you as a human, then we will be more likely to create an inclusive culture and an inclusive community of belonging and in the workplace that actually matters. And let me explain how it matters in a practical way. Imagine this is coming from a real example that we that I had, of an experience working with a partner. Imagine that you are someone who is a frontline staff worker, and you have to be in service to someone who is trying to purchase something and the person who’s trying to purchase something is super annoyed, right? Let’s say they’re having a bad day for whatever reason, and something in the store wasn’t actually properly set up. And so they come to you with this attitude, with this very like irate attitude of anger, almost verging on rage, if you’re the frontline worker, you could respond in one of two ways. You could respond reactively, right? So the way that they’re showing up can totally change how you choose to show up. It can totally change your nervous system level reaction, and then you hate them on their vibration, right? And that’s probably what you’re going to do if you haven’t been trained to recognize what’s actually happening in front of you, or if you are trained in something like the theory of environment, you will be able to recognize that the person who is responding in front of you is in some sort of pain, and the pain really has nothing to do with you personally, right? And they’re trying to seek a way to discharge that pain, which is why they’re coming to you with this attitude, with this sort of way of trying to blame you. But blame is just a way that they’re trying to discharge pain. So if you respond to them in a sincere way that’s really concerned with asking them, what is the source of the pain, what do you need right now? How can I be of service so that I can service your needs right now, if you show up in that way, you actually shift the frequency of the interaction. And this actually happened. We had a client who was training in our theory of enchantment work for a long time, and someone came into their store and acted in that irate way, and they responded to them that in a way that actually, you know, harmonized the vibrations, like calm them down, essentially. And then the customer started to speak to them in a far more warm manner. The customer started to ask them about their day. The customer started to inquire as to how they were feeling totally changed the dynamic of the conversation, right? And of course, you can imagine how that can scale up in a business environment where folks are, you know, asked to be of service work. Workers are in a place where they’re asked to be of service. Of course, they’re dealing with humans. Humans can show up in any form or state, how they how the day has impacted them. And so imagine your workforce being able to respond in a way that brings harmony to all interactions in the business. That’s what love at the workplace does, right? So exactly that’s, yeah, I

Maria Ross 18:38

love that. And you know, it’s making me think about an episode that we recorded with Christine Scott. I’ll put this as a link in the show notes, but she does conflict resolution specifically for companies with customer service organizations and helping them resolve conflict exactly to your point, with angry or upset customers. And also what that does to not only help the well being and the retention and the engagement of the employee, but how it helps protect the company’s brand. You know, on the other end, you’ve got, if you’re not helping your people resolve conflict in an effective way, because they will be dealing with a variety of people, and they never know what those people are going to bring like you said, whatever, whatever’s happened in their day, whatever’s happened in their life, whatever, whatever anger or fear or distress they’re in being able to, you know, arm your your teams with the ability to effectively manage that and resolve that conflict is so important. And I remember talking to her even about, you know, some of the objective objections she gets is, well, this workforce, it’s very high turnover, it’s very seasonal, so it’s not worth investing in, in this training for them. And you know, both of us see it. You know, me as a brand strategist, I’m like the damage to your brand if you don’t is much, much greater if you don’t invest. And these people for however long you have them, enable them to be the best versions of themselves and to have the best interactions with your customers, whether they’re with you for two months or 20 years. So I love this. And the other point I want to make about what you’re talking about is there have been studies around the importance of empathy to how customers interact with your brand. And in one study, 97% of people said that empathy in the customer service experience is the most important element of a positive experience. And in some cases, even if the customer service representative couldn’t solve their problem, in the end, it was just how the interaction went. Did they feel seen? Did they feel heard? Did they feel understood? And that still left a positive impression for them on the customer experience. And I’ve you know, I can attest to that personally, so I’m sure we all can. So you know what you’re saying really resonates, because it’s this idea of, you know, leveraging love, leveraging compassion, to diffuse conflict, to resolve conflict, and find a way to connect regardless of the issue. So I love that, and I love that example of how you’re able to turn that around. And I should add that when you’re able to turn around an upset customer or an upset colleague, even they actually become your biggest champions, yeah, because when they have the negative experience that turns into a positive one, they’re going to talk about

Chloé Valdary 21:33

it right? Exactly. So exactly you make an impression, you make an impression, and also you show them that you care. And that’s really sometimes I think that people will, you know, we in the business world can forget the fundamental things when we are, you know, caught up in the Excel sheets, yes, or, you know, we it actually matters to signal to people that they matter and on a fundamental existential level, yeah. And if we can remind people that they matter in every interaction that we that we engage in, whether it’s in the business context or not, that really makes an impression on these I mean, again, I can’t say enough like that is the kind of transcendent experience that really speaks to what I mean when I meet, when I say the word enchantment, right? It’s a transcendent feeling of belonging in the world and then the cosmos at large. And that feeling is priceless. That was truly priceless. Yeah,

Maria Ross 22:39

so I want to shift gears a little bit, and I because I know you’ve done a lot of deib work with companies and bringing the theory of enchantment to bear on that and creating that inclusive environment. So I want to get into what role does prejudice play like? Where does it come from? And if we’re dealing with it, whether colleague to colleague, or, you know, customer service, rep to customer. We bring all those biases and those prejudices to our jobs, to our work, whether we’re a leader or we’re frontline. So where does that come from? And how can folks combat that? How can they be more aware and more cognizant of the fact that they might be treating different people differently

Chloé Valdary 23:25

Well, prejudice means to prejudge, right to judge before an actual experience of getting to know another human being, and oftentimes prejudice directed towards another person is actually a reflection of prejudice directed towards oneself. So the Who am I practice that I mentioned earlier is also relevant to this question, because what ends up happening is, you know, if I can, if I can see that I am, in some contexts, hard working, and I can express gratitude for that, and I can see that in other contexts, I am lazy, and I can express gratitude for that, I will be less likely to project the stereotype of laziness onto another group of people in order to feel good about myself. So so prejudice is working as a kind of coping mechanism, defensive mechanism, again, to deal with one’s own insecurities. If I can engage in practices like the Who am I practice on a regular basis, I will actually be able to cultivate a curious mind, a more grateful mind and a more curious mind and gratitude and curiosity that ultimately combats prejudice, because that’s the opposite of a prejudicial mindset or hard set. Is a curious is a curious mindset. It’s a it’s a grateful mindset. It’s an open present mindset. Again, these are all states of being that have to be cult. Made it through practice

Maria Ross 25:01

absolutely and as we’ve talked about on the show before, Curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people, and it’s because they they come at it with an open mind of trying to understand your perspective and your experiences without coming to the table thinking they know all about you, and they can, you know, assume what your experiences have been, yes,

Chloé Valdary 25:22

and and I think that part is really important, and it comes with not over identifying as a knower, right? And this is where the culture, this is where there’s just, you know, challenges to be overcome in the culture. One of the great, great narratives of our culture is that you are a good person if you know everything right, or you are a you know, elite person, if you know everything, you have to prove that you know everything. I have certainly struggled with that narrative, because, you know, growing up, I was bullied as a child for my for my looks, and so I depended upon my intellect, and I depended upon my my quote, unquote smartness to prove my sense of self worth. And then started to over identify someone who knows things, right? All I have to do is show up here and prove that I know things, and many people will love me. Yeah. So, yeah. So, like, really unpacking that, and, you know, slowly but surely removing those, those that armor is a part of that process too, because that’s when you’re able to show up as a curious person. Is like, you don’t act it doesn’t being able to know things, or knowing things is great, but you don’t. I don’t need to. I don’t actually need to know things in order to prove my sense of self worth, right? So once that becomes once that becomes true, then I can show up in a curious way, and I can make mistakes, and I don’t have to take myself so seriously, because this, this self that I am, is constantly changing and evolving. Anyway, I love

Maria Ross 26:59

that you said that because we, we do live in a culture where we deify experts and thought leaders and gurus. And, you know, I see it all the time in these cult of personalities of of some of the influencers in our world. And I, you know, people just look to them to just have all the answers and solve all their solve all their problems. And I have a real problem with people rising to that level of status and not taking the responsibility to say, look, I don’t have all the answers, like I can tell you what I think. I can give you advice based on the knowledge that I do have about this particular subject area. And so I always bristle when people call me an empathy expert, because I’m still working on it myself, you know? I mean, just ask my husband. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, I think we all are, I think all of us who are kind of seen as thought leaders or experts, if we can vulnerably admit that we’re trying to keep learning and we’re trying to keep growing. That’s why I do with this podcast, because I want to hear from other people, and I want more points of view, and I want to add to my learning, because there’s no possible way any human can know everything about their particular subject. You can have a lot of domain expertise if you’re a, you know, rocket scientist or a brain surgeon or whatever, and that’s not to be discounted. But being able to put ego aside is a big practice, and empathy and being able to say, I you know, Chloe, I don’t know your lived experience. I don’t know how you might see this challenge at work, and that you might see it differently than I see it. And so there needs to be room for that conversation and that curiosity and that listening back and forth. Because you know, if you’re going to tell me what your point of view is, I should be actively listening to it.

Chloé Valdary 28:39

Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Maria Ross 28:41

I love it. I love it. So as we wrap up, I want to just leave folks with, you know, this is such great stuff, but how do we? Can you give us one or two actionable tips, and I hate to make you distill your practice down to that, but someone listening, listening, going, I want to get better at resolving conflict. I want to get better at bringing love into my workplace or into my team. What are one or two things you would tell them to start well, you

Chloé Valdary 29:09

know, I would actually suggest doing the Who am I practice every three days or so, so you can begin to recognize your patterns and your habits of mind.

Maria Ross 29:22

And can we? Can we review that really quick? Can we review that really

Chloé Valdary 29:25

so folks listening? So put put a timer on for three minutes, take out a sheet of paper. Ask yourself the question, Who am I? And for every answer that comes to you, say thank you, and say it out loud. Don’t just like write thank you. The vocalization of gratitude is really important step in this exercise, and be sure to include the things that you like about yourself and the things that you don’t like about yourself. And if you do this, you’ll come to discover you’ll never get to the bottom of who you are, because that’s actually what it means to be a human being. And you’ll also notice that you change over time. Which is also what it means to be a human being. And hopefully you will, you know, you will, you will increase. You will cultivate your capacity to give thanks, the more that you do this. And then the other thing I would say is, you know, we have experiences online that actually give people daily tips that they can, that they can tap into. One of those experiences is called the dojo. Go to Enchanted dojo.com, two Ds, check that out, and also tuning fork again, daily tips, daily practices. Enchanted tune.com and you can get into a daily habit with other people, actually, who are doing the practices on a daily basis, which creates, like, a social community, which just like makes the practices more stickier. So that’s what I would recommend to people to check out if they’re interested in deepening their their practice with us,

Maria Ross 30:50

I love it, and I will be sure to include both of those links in the show notes for folks so they can go back to them. It’s enchanted dojo and enchanted tune.com to access those communities. But what a great gift, Chloe to give us that exercise, you know, and also, you know, folks listening find time to do it. You know, set aside five to 10 minutes. I know we want to start the clock for three minutes, but you might need time to digest what you write, and so make the time to do that so that you can be a stronger leader and a stronger colleague, and just, you know, a stronger human being to show up for other people. So Chloe, we will have all your links in the show notes, as I mentioned. But for folks that might be on the go or exercising, what’s one or two of the best places to find out more about you and your work.

Chloé Valdary 31:35

You can go to theory of enchantment.com you can also follow me on social media at C valderie, that is my handle on both Instagram and Twitter. Love it, love it. Love it, love it.

Maria Ross 31:50

You’re one of the lucky people that has one singular handle. Unfortunately, mine are all over the place. So C valderie, b, a, l, D, E, R Y, on all the places. A R, A R Y, sorry. I just realized that V, a, l, D, A R Y, and I will have again, those links in the show notes for everyone. Thank you, Chloe, so much for your time and your insights today. Your work is beautiful and so necessary, and I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Thank you, Maria. I appreciate you, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review, follow and share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please 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 empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes 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.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Courage to Advance: KPIs Don’t Tell the Whole Story: Why Your CEO Evaluation Is Falling Short

Welcome to Courage to Advance, hosted by Kim Bohr and brought to you by SparkEffect, in partnership with The Empathy Edge.

Tune in to our subseries every 3rd Thursday, right here on The Empathy Edge! Or check us out at www.CourageToAdvancePodcast.com.

In this episode, we dive deep into the often oversimplified process of CEO evaluations. We explore why boards need to look beyond traditional metrics and uncover common blindspots in CEO assessments. We’ll discuss the limitations of relying solely on KPIs and how to integrate both quantitative and qualitative measures to evaluate not just what a CEO achieves but how they lead. We’ll examine how robust CEO evaluations impact critical board responsibilities like compensation and succession planning. The conversation will also touch on incorporating empathy and emotional intelligence into assessments. Finally, we’ll reveal how well-designed evaluations can drive alignment between the board and CEO, fostering a culture of trust and continuous improvement. Join us as we uncover how to truly assess leadership effectiveness and drive organizational success through comprehensive CEO evaluations.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Having a relationship and building trust with some board members can create a safe space for the CEO, which can often be lonely.
Soft skills are the essential skills. It doesn’t matter what your organization does, these are vital skills in understanding the inputs and outputs to create success within any organization.
Data only matters if you can translate and interpret it into something useful and actionable.
While hitting the “whats” is important, the “hows” of getting to those “whats” are equally as important.

“When we talk about sustainable organizations, and the ability for organizations to grow, just hitting the numbers isn’t going to guarantee success. It’s important, but it isn’t the whole story.”

— Sandy Stelling, VP of Strategy, Analytics, and Transformation, Alaska Airlines

From Our Partner:

SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level.

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Sandy Stelling, VP of Strategy, Analytics, and Transformation, Alaska Airlines

Sandy most recently served as the Vice President of Strategy, Analytics, and Transformation at Alaska Airlines. A Pacific Northwest aviation leader for over 30 years, she drives change using her experience in engineering, technology, team dynamics, and process performance. She has been recognized for her collaborative, always curious, direct leadership style. Sandy believes deeply in building capability and creating capacity with individuals and teams. Her track record of building trust and coaching teams, leading through challenges and crises, and delivering financial results bring valuable perspectives to the boardroom. Sandy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University. She currently holds leadership roles on several non-profit boards.

Connect with Sandy Stelling:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sandy-stelling-1984501

Connect with Kim Bohr and SparkEffect

SparkEffect: sparkeffect.com

Courage to Advance recording and resources:

CourageToAdvancePodcast.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/sparkeffect

LinkedIn for Kim Bohr: linkedin.com/in/kimbohr

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

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Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Kim Bohr 02:04

Welcome to courage to advance the leadership and transformation podcast. I’m your host, Kim bore, and I’m joined today by Sandy Stelling to discuss how KPIs don’t tell the whole story and why your co valuation is falling short. So before we jump in, I want our listeners to learn more about our fabulous guests today, Sandy is most recently served as the vice president of strategy, analytics and transformation Alaska Airlines at Pacific Northwest aviation leader for over 30 years. She drives change using her experience in Engineering Technology, team dynamics and process performance. She’s been recognized for her highly collaborative, always curious, direct leadership style and Sandy believes deeply in building capability and creating capacity with individuals and teams. Her track record for building trust and coaching teams, leading through challenges and crisis and delivering financial results bring valuable perspectives to the boardroom. Sandy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University, and she currently holds leadership roles on several nonprofit boards, which makes her an excellent guest for us today. Sandy, welcome to the courage to advance podcast.

Sandy Stelling 03:24

Thanks, Kim, happy to be here.

Kim Bohr 03:26

So you and I are have talked a little bit about this as we got ready for our conversation today. And really, where I think it’s the best place for us to start for our listeners is really to talk a little bit about the role of a board member and the role in evaluating the CEO, and what does that look like from your experience?

Sandy Stelling 03:53

Sure. So if I think back to when I first joined a nonprofit board, I think the simplistic view was always your responsibility as a board as a board member, is to ensure that the organization delivers financially and has financial health, and that also goes hand in hand with like advocacy and philanthropy. And so in the nonprofit world, it was really like the KPIs were the dollars and cents at the business of the organization and its ability to earn money and fund their mission and keep the work going. And I think just like with any for profit business, the words changed, the game has changed, and that isn’t enough anymore, which can sound daunting, but, but I think the fact is, it’s not enough anymore. And when we talk about sustainable organizations, and the ability for organizations to grow, just hitting the numbers isn’t going to guarantee success, it’s important, but it isn’t the whole story.

Kim Bohr 04:53

And how does that shift? You know, shift the responsibility of the. The the board members, and what their role is often seen to, to have. Well, I

Sandy Stelling 05:09

think what I found working with different CEOs or leadership team these organizations is there’s always the conversation about the what we’re going to do, the goals we’re going to set, what we’re going to achieve, you know, how we’re going to grow the organization or have greater impact. But I think what really has come to the forefront are the human dynamics that are at play when that’s happening. Because to that can it’s in my personal perspective, I think it’s more of a guarantee of success or not. Is because if you have strong teams, they can achieve anything. But if you have dysfunction within teams, or you have personality clashes, or style clashes, or just lack of good communication, or whatever those human dynamics are, that can be a non starter, right, and can really get in the way of achieving a lot of what you’re going after. And

Kim Bohr 05:59

how is that you do you see that as creating more risk inside from the board’s point of view of how they’re viewing what’s going on, can you speak a little bit from the

Sandy Stelling 06:10

audience as well? I would say at the at the worst case, you go, Okay, if you have, and I, you know, I’ve, probably, I’ve had the opportunity to be a board member in the gamut, when things were great, when things were not so great, and in not so great, I think what happens is it actually pulls the whole organization down. And can end up even pulling some board members into it, because different people will reach out to the board members that they have a good relationship with, people that they trust, and then all of a sudden you’re creating a little bit of chaos in how the organization is intended to run, when really the board is typically, in my experience working directly with the CEO, definitely has interactions with the leadership team, but the board’s responsibility is to ensure the performance of the CEO, and then that CEO has to extend down and get results with the organization. So what I’ve seen happen is, when it’s working well, right, then the board’s job becomes super easy in some ways, right? Because you’re coaching, you’re supporting, you may be asking challenging questions just to mitigate and manage any risks that you may be aware of because of the experience you bring to the board. But the team is working holistic, is working together, and a lot of that diversity of thoughts coming out organically within the team, within the leadership team of the organization, when it’s a little bit fractured, or there’s some other kind of stress or tension in the system, I think what happens is the conversations are different because now they’re about team dynamics and less about the work that we’re trying to get accomplished, right, right, and trying to wade through some other problems. So as much as you want to say, as a board member, it’s not your responsibility. When you talk about the sustainability and the risk and success of an organization, you do have to have a little bit of a lens into the culture and the dynamics of how they’re have, how people are working together or not working together, because that’ll start to send up signals if things are really off track, or if something is at risk of going off track,

Kim Bohr 08:04

that makes a lot of sense. And so when you you know a moment ago, you were speaking about how the landscape has changed, and that looking at these financial metrics isn’t enough alone. So can you speak to that lens of how the layering of more of the empathy and the emotional intelligence lens has come into play, into the board’s, you know, role of taking in that level of data as well. Yeah,

Sandy Stelling 08:32

you know, whether it’s depending on the size of the board, the CEO will have different depths of relationship with different board members, so for a period of time, you know, I was in a leadership role. I was a chair of a board, and working with the CEO of the board, I think one thing is to really build trust, because what I would recognize, and even in my, in my professional career, working directly for the CEO company, that’s like the loneliest job out there, yes, and probably a reason. It’s not for me, but I can see why, but I do think it’s a tough it’s a tough place to be, and I think having a relationship with some board members that recognize that, that can acknowledge that, that can create a safe space for a CEO, I felt that that was really important and part of my responsibility, so that they had a place to turn. They had somewhere to go to talk about what was on their mind and and so I think I naturally leave that way and the roles that I held. And so I carried that into my work as a board member. And I think that unlocked some things, some conversations, some relationships, some trust. It allowed the seat I saw the CEO and even other members of the team feel not comfortable but capable of being vulnerable or otherwise. Maybe they felt like, you know, we don’t want the board to know, we’ll just keep it you know, it’s like, no, we’re actually all on the same team, right? And then vulnerability. Quality is huge to unlock that, yes, and so I think that that’s and that, to me, is a big E to growth, right? If you can be vulnerable together, then you can actually discover, and I think, explore growth that otherwise wouldn’t be available to you.

Kim Bohr 10:19

I love that that’s so important. And I think that’s, you know, I think we’ve come a long way in our our journey of of leadership understanding, to recognize that now there’s strength in this under I’ve been bringing in vulnerability and empathy and, you know, EQ, and all of these things that perhaps were not seen as as important. I

Sandy Stelling 10:47

think a phrase I’ve used is, I, you know, over our career lifetimes, we’ve heard it. These are the soft skills, like you have technical hard skills. You know how to execute your job. You can, you know, balance the budget and deliver the results, and all the KPIs can happen. And people would then refer to this other stuff that we’re talking about as the soft skills. And I argue that till the cows come home, because I’m like, those are the essential skills. Yes, I love that. Then it’s, it’s irregardless of what the mission is, what the work is, what the job or task at hand is, if you can’t navigate with these essential skills, you’re kind of going to be you’re going to be stuck, it’s going to be murder.

Kim Bohr 11:21

Yes, these essential skills are the they’re the foundation. And that’s what we’ve talked about, the you know, the inputs to understand the outputs. Because at some point you could have a CEO with fantastic metrics, and if the inputs and the dynamics inside the organization are really toxic, there’s going to be a cliff for those metrics that performance won’t really, in most cases, be able to sustain, and the turnover and the disconnect of the leadership teams and things really starts to become apparent. And

Sandy Stelling 11:57

I think that’s where the board has has a role not to get involved in it, not to solve some of those dynamics like that’s not our place, but it is to be listening for, observing for because our primary responsibility is to help manage risk to the organization right in its current year and future years. And so if you know, and what everybody wants in an organization is, you know, risk that’s well managed and predictable outcomes and you achieve your goals, and you know it’s all just worked great. But I think as a board, then the biggest responsibility we have is to be able to from a removed space, again, not in the day to day, observe and listen for things that are risk. And it’s not always evident just in the numbers,

Kim Bohr 12:44

right, right? That loan doesn’t tell the whole story.

Sandy Stelling 12:48

It doesn’t tell the whole story. And so it’s understanding to your point, what was the process that got us that number, and what’s the collateral damage that maybe was incurred to get there? Right? Is that tolerable or sustainable? And what could be the downstream consequences of that kind of behaviors?

Kim Bohr 13:07

And I think for many of us, we think of it as followership, right? So gaining, you know, building followership is a skill, and when you think about the this inputs that bring in to play so many of these really important skills that CEOs and leaders need to have that’s such an important factor to that input of what what we’re going to look at and and the other end of it. So just to to pause for a moment and to make sure our listeners are clear on what we’re thinking about when we talk about CEO evaluations, there is a gamut of how this is done. For many organizations. It’s where we started off by saying that, you know, perhaps just the hard numbers, the hard KPIs, the HARD goals are the are the way it’s done and and for many listing, maybe they don’t realize this other idea is actually really prominent, and really is a more complete view than perhaps this those traditional way alone. And so we’re not advocating to throw that out. Of course, that is key. We’re advocating to expand it, to make it more comprehensive in a way that’s so beneficial and in the work that you we’ve both experienced before, that could look like 360s with key layers in the organization, including board members. It can look at interview conversations that are looking for trends and things like that. And I think one of the things that we find in the work is that data is key, and so the way we approach looking at these, this expanded, more complete view, is. Still a very much a data driven approach. I wonder if you could speak to a little bit of of how that data driven approach can, in fact, occur in these areas of skills that we’re talking about that maybe yet, are these now what we think of as essential skills? Yeah,

Sandy Stelling 15:16

well, I think that. So first of all, the data is still important. I’m not going to throw out the data here, like right? And the data has served well, especially over years, if you’re working with the same CEO, and there’s, you know, there’s some over time, you can see trends or movement, but like, even, again, in my professional life, when you got data and and honestly, working at an airline, we’re rich in data, but data is only useful if you can actually translate it into information. And so that’s where all the nuance of complexity live, right? So, and that, I think, is where the interviews and some of the written feedback and some of the more qualitative insights come from. You know, help interpret the data, because the data is you Okay, on a 05 scale, you’re getting all fives or all fives, but one, two, well, I’m curious about the two, right? Actually, the two alone is, it’s interesting, but it doesn’t tell me anything, right? So how do we then follow up with conversations to learn what that two is actually telling us? Because that’s where the improvement, the growth and the change is going to come from right? Otherwise, because the flip side of that is it’s very easy if the data is not coming with insights and information that you connect on. It’s easy to accept it when it’s good and it’s easy to dismiss it when it’s bad, right? And so you need and people are complex. So Kim, you’re a five, and you’re like, that’s interesting, but it tells you nothing, right? So we have to try. We have to get deeper into what are we learning? You know, what does this process? And we have a more comprehensive process that involves a 360 as you mentioned, we have conversations a subset of board members that work, you know, with our partners to figure out, like, the people who help us collect the data, to understand, like, what’s actually happening, and how do we take all of this information, not just data, and have constructive conversations that will not only support the CEO, but in turn, then support the organization, because that’s what as a board, we’re really trying to do, is ensure we have the right leader, leading in a way that’s going to grow, you know, support the organization the way that we intend them to. But it, it is. I find data it’s very easy to be like we’re data driven, only if you could turn it into something useful and actionable, right? Otherwise, you’re just data drowning, right? I think that that’s, you know, that would be easy to say, like, well, we have a process, and we collect data and then we hang it on the fridge. I mean, I don’t you have to do something with it. You interpret it in ways that become actionable. And

Kim Bohr 17:52

I think one of the things that stood out to what you were just saying, too, is that longitudinal view, right, the view of the cons and the and the consistency. So could you speak to where that consistency comes, how critical it is from not just the the process, but the the board being on the same page, you know, around how everybody’s going to view what the inputs are. I’d love to hear a little bit more about that. Yeah,

Sandy Stelling 18:21

I, you know one thing I think that’s bringing this more to the forefront and maybe a conversation is, I think in, you know, in the for profit world, right, leadership is changing as well, right? So even board members who now serve on nonprofits are coming from different experiences than maybe were had in the workplace 30 years ago, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago. And a lot of this, I think, has been accelerated with covid, to be honest, with the pandemic, because there were so many things that happened in 2020 2122 that really required leaders to lead differently. And I think that, you know, and it was like a step change, because all of a sudden, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but you had to care about your employees in a whole new way, right? And the people you lead needed things in a whole different way. So the needs were different, the climate was everything was different. So we’re longitudinal is interesting. So we go back to that. Is you can see, you can see progress. You may also then spot like setbacks. But even if you like, if something slides backwards, let’s just say that numbers go the other way. It allows you to have a conversation, to understand what was going on, and it allows for that if you have trust and vulnerability and the ability and empathy and the ability to have these conversations, it’s you can actually move through it, I would say more quickly, because you’re able to, like, have that safe space conversation and say, hey, you know what happened here? Well, this is what was going on. Oh, well, that makes sense. And then you can acknowledge that was a hiccup, or that’s a red flag, or that’s a blind spot, or. That is actually, that’s a pattern they’re seeing. And what does that mean, you know? And you’re able to have a conversation that is growth oriented and not like, penalizing, if that makes it that’s like, right? But it’s not to be like, you’re bad it’s like, well, this is interesting, right? And nobody wants to do a bad job Exactly, exactly.

Kim Bohr 20:19

I think, you know, I love that you talk about being growth oriented, because that’s like even, I think there’s a mis perception that when somebody becomes a CEO, they’ve hit their pinnacle, and they don’t either think they need to grow, or people don’t think they need to grow, and of course, they need to grow. We all need to grow in our different levels. It changes, and that type of feedback is really critical, as you said earlier, it’s pretty lonely and there’s a lot less feedback when you’re getting further up into the leadership roles. I think the other thing I want to just call out that you said was just so important too, is that during those years of our pandemic life, and where every the needs that we all had became so much more of a focus in ways that even maybe, maybe many of us seem to realize needed to be that hasn’t gone away. I you know. And so the as we move forward into, you know, our business of the future, the needs that people have are still there, and there’s and so it’s not like we traded those back off to, you know, to not having as much. And I think that is really it makes the stakes even higher for a CEO and a board in trying to make sure that’s being viewed as part of these inputs as well. I’d love for you to to share, you know, a story, if you have one that really can perhaps talk about the you know, gaining trust and alignment, you know, with a CEO when you’ve either brought the idea of this level of a depth to that person, or perhaps just the results. And how have the results you know, gained more of that is if you have something that you can share with the listeners. Well, I

Sandy Stelling 22:04

yeah, I think that I remember when we were engaged in a CEO evaluation process and working with the CEO, the one conversation that always comes to mind was, and again, we all come from different backgrounds and different experiences, right? But as those few board members who work on this process were discussing and preparing for the evaluation conversation, we kept coming back to the organization led by the CEO is hitting all the numbers like, check, check, check, check, check, but we also knew first hand accounts. You know, witness engage with stories that we heard, conversations that we had conversations with the CEO, that there was, there was some turmoil happening, and that became concerning as a board member of like, so they hit the numbers. And I think you mentioned it earlier, but I’m not confident. I want to be, but I’m not sure I can be confident they’re going to hit them again next year or to the next year, unless this turmoil is somehow addressed. And the conversation, which I think kind of stopped us all in our tracks, was so the what’s are good, but the how is a little concerning, and I think that they’re both equally important sustainability for the organization, right? And, and if you’re going to do the same thing day after day, year after year, maybe some of that could, like, could could exist, right? Because you’re just going to produce, you’re just going to, you know, bang out the same numbers, right? But that isn’t the way the world works. So how do you have the dynamics in play and the the human dynamics in play that can be nimble enough and adaptive enough to work together when these things are shifting and changing? And we kind of joke, a number of the board members and I have joked about like, it seems like every year there’s like, a thing and, you know, and like, so what? What’s the thing for this year. And there’s usually, there’s a, I wouldn’t say, like an existential crisis, but there is some sort of event or something that happens that makes the organization, like, pause and say, Okay, wait a second. We have to shift resources. We have to shift direction, we have to pull back. We have to something’s happening, right? And I think that’s true for any organization, right, that something happens, yeah, and if you don’t have and again, this is my perspective, if you don’t have the leadership in place and the team working together, it’s really hard to then make those shifts and adapt without losing your footing, right, without losing some footing. And I that’s so I think that when we worked so this, so when we were having the conversation of, yes, you hit all of the what’s the goals? You achieve? The goal or you missed one or two, fine, but you majority hit all the goals. But we want to have a conversation about how you got there, and some of the concerns we see as a board. And it wasn’t again. Wasn’t your bad person. That’s not it. We’re concerned about the health of the organization, being able to sustain the progress, to deliver results year after year after year, and that’s our responsibility, and that’s where our concern was showing up was. And I think that was the beginning of what has been a good multi year conversation and relationship of how one we’re there because we support, we believe, you know, we have confidence, but we want to support also some like adjustments, little adjustments here and there to make the organization stronger. And how can we be resources to help him, help amor, her

Kim Bohr 25:37

do that. And so it sounds like, in that scenario, that information was received as a supportive delivery, you know, as as, not a, you know, punitive, as you said, but more of this. Okay, I’ve got support to help figure this out.

Sandy Stelling 25:55

I mean, I think it’s a, it’s a, I think what also happens as a CEO, having worked with several of them. Part of the reason I think the role becomes lonely is every a lot of what you hear has also been thoroughly filtered by the time it gets to you. So, yeah. So the question is, do you have an environment, or do you have a few safe places you can go to have like the let your hair down, the conversation like the real, yeah, to the real, real. And I think that’s, that’s the level of trust. I think I felt that we created, I think that we have with, you know, a handful of board members that can just really let the hair down and say this is real, and the CEO can feel like that’s a safe space, and that conversations are confidential, and we’re there because we have their back, right? And it’s because we, along with the CEO, believe in the mission and the goals of the organization, and we’re that’s what this is about. This isn’t about you’re a good person. You’re a bad person. You’re, you know, do more of this. That’s tactics underneath the cause. And everyone I’ve worked with in nonprofit. It’s so such mission driven work. I mean, I’m just fortunate to work for a public company that was also very mission driven. So it’s sort of, it’s in my DNA is, anyway, worked out good alignment there. But I think that that you know definitely in nonprofit, people who go work for nonprofits, is because they believe deeply in the mission, and always coming back to that, I think is a really helpful way to open those conversations up and make more safe spaces to explore what can be adjusted or adapted for better performance.

Kim Bohr 27:29

I think that’s so important. And so I want to just explore a little bit further on the board and the board itself needing to align within itself as to how we’re going to take in this type of data, or how we’re going to find consistency year over year. So you spoke to you know, knowing that we’ve adopted a specific process and knowing things like that. But how do you navigate the reality that board roles evolve? There’s terms to them, and people you know typically are moving through and and so how, what kind of conversations are happening in those smaller, you know, teams of the board around, how are we going to commit to this and be consistent? And knowing that we’re, you know, we’re only holding these positions for so long. Is there anything you can can speak to there?

Sandy Stelling 28:18

I think that, you know, I’m very process oriented. I’m very I’m an engineer, you know, unapologetically, but I think that my mindset works in a way. And I’m not unique in this, but there are others on the board who share this is we want to we’re also responsible to ensure our processes support sustainability of the organization. And right? So not just the organization like CEO on down is going to be sustainable. We have to make sure that the board functions in an ongoing, effective way as well. And so I think we’ve collectively made a commitment like to in some way, like document these processes, shared them, onboard people, transitioning so it isn’t just handing over a playbook to someone else and be like, good luck. And so that’s one part of it. I think the other thing that we’ve been the folks, the other board members, I’ve had the privilege to work with, I think we’ve also be aligned and committed to continuous improvement. And so even every year, we may follow essentially the same process every year. We’re also going maybe we, could we do this different now, like maybe we should adjust how we did this. We did this last year, but we knew it wasn’t you’re not going to get perfect, but you can continue to get better. And I think always having that maybe it’s the growth orientation that if we want to continue to serve our CEO Well, we have to make sure that we’re continuing to reflect on our process and improve it, and, you know, take the feedback and continue to work it, because that is also going to serve Him and the organization, him or her and the organization well. And

Kim Bohr 29:52

where does that trans it sounds like some of that transparency. Do you advocate for some of that? Hey, how we, how we as a board, were thinking? About this to translate into a conversation with the CEO and in kind of the how, maybe how the thinking has evolved. Yeah, I

Sandy Stelling 30:09

you know, we’re very transparent. I mean, first of all, we’re fortunate to have a CEO who’s incredibly transparent. So, you know, our CEO is very comfortable sharing the results with the full board and and I think those conversations are helpful, because anyone who takes, you know, does an evaluation, takes survey, wants to know that, like, someone’s looking at the results, and then someone’s gonna take action on the results, right? Like, what’s the number one issue with employee surveys that companies I take the employee survey, everybody doesn’t think about it, right? That’s like, all the time, right? And so I think having the transparency of, like, here’s what we said, and then he, he or she also, like, CEO, our CEO, again, very transparent, shares their goals based on the prior year’s evaluation and what we’re setting up, not only with the board, but with their team, right? So again, we’re all in this together. Yes, right? And it creates a space. It creates a space of accountability, but it also creates a support system, because now everyone knows what they’re trying to do and is in a position to help them. Me

Kim Bohr 31:13

love that. So if you were, you know, giving advice to somebody who was, you know, a board member out there and our listeners and wants to really open up this conversation with a CEO or an executive director around let’s look at this in a more expanded view. Let’s, let’s be inclusive of what we do today. And here’s where we want to, you know, where we think there’s more opportunity. How, what would you advise them in approaching that conversation? Perhaps some of the things you would say, have them, you know, suggest they say, Yeah, I

Sandy Stelling 31:51

so I tend to use, like, um, pretty plain language that creates images, right? Just like, you know. So I would be like, let’s say they have historically been measured on what they achieve, right? The numbers, the KPIs, I would start having, I wouldn’t be like, let’s go get a big survey, and let’s get a third party and let’s go do this, because all of a sudden the CEO is going to feel threat, right? I would imagine that will be, that’s how probably I would respond. If everyone’s like, we’re going to you, I would, I would probably respond as like, threat alert, what’s going on. And I would be so paranoid. Be like, what did I do wrong? Right? That’s who I would be, like, what? But I do think that opening a conversation of always getting better and having conversations about some of the things, I think the examples of challenges that were recently faced, right, especially when it comes to, like, human dynamics, interactions, Team stuff, employees, whatever it is, yeah, being able to point to those and say, you know, and some of them would be let then lead the story, right? They had. They’re going to tell a story of, like, working with one of their leaders and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever the issue is, okay. How would you like to handle that different? And maybe that’s part of what we want to bring into the evaluation, is how you handle difficult conversations. I’m oversimplifying, but Right? Something like that, but some of those kinds of dynamics, but I think letting the CEO tell stories of where they’re struggled, which, again, you have to have trust and vulnerability and be able to have that and then look at ways to expand the evaluation, to start to surface some of those kinds of behaviors, is probably the way I would approach stepping into it, as opposed to, Like, bringing in the program. Yes, feel like you’re, you’re subjecting them, you know, all of a sudden they become a victim of a thing, right to owning their desire to grow, you know, owning that and saying, I actually do want growth. And this is a mecca. This is a, one of the ways we can help do that. Yeah,

Kim Bohr 33:56

I hear you describing, you know, partnership, curiosity, you know, co creation, co involvement, you know, in where, what can we do to to help look at your growth, also to help tell your fuller story. You know, in many ways. So I think that’s, I think those are really important factors and and moving away from a position that feels like it’s, you know, us versus them, and yeah, you want

Sandy Stelling 34:26

to get to a richer conversation where it isn’t just like a checklist, like I do the things right behaviors, it’s a little bit like what you do, how you do it. And then I think when you get deeper into these conversations, and I’ve had this opportunity with people that I’ve you know worked with in my professional career, you actually start to get and that really becomes interesting, because, like, again, it’s just be curious about yourself. Why do you why do you respond that way? Why would I feel threat, right, right, right? And you get into some of the why, and then, because you want to make sure that you. Everyone involved feels like they have agency. And so if, if the CEO feels like they’re being subjected to something because the board is imposing something, they’re never really going to have that agency over. You know, their leadership, right? They’re just, they’re just a part in a play, right to the start of their own show. And I think it’s really changing that up. And I think it don’t mean it to sound manipulative at all. I think it’s just human it’s leaning into human nature in a way, to unlock more, better performance, which is what each individual wants anyway, who doesn’t want to

Kim Bohr 35:38

be their best Absolutely. And I love simplifiers, right? Well, it’s, it’s, it’s, that’s the perfect example. And I love the word agency, because I think that is something that everybody wants to have. And, you know, I’ve heard, you know, this. This gives CEOs and the board and, you know, opportunity to have more collaboration as well. But for the CEO in particular, there is more control in looking at, how do I go about doing this, not just solely what I got because some because of that, I think that element of things feeling thankless at times. You know, there’s a lot to celebrate, too, when we look at the inputs, the how we got there, that is really should be surfaced and can be missed when we’re only focused on those metrics alone, right? I

Sandy Stelling 36:35

mean, when you when you can play to your strengths, you know, kind of where your brain is, when you can play to your strengths, you can find ways to use them in maybe circumstances you didn’t anticipate. Yeah, right. And so that’s one thing. I think that this creates the potential to discover some of that. Yes, right. So if you really good at storytelling, but I never, I never actually used my story telling skill to talk about the financial performance of the institution. I’m making it up. I’m making it up, right? But you could, yeah, I know all of a sudden you’re going to connect with a whole new audience and engage with different employees in different ways and or the board, or other things can happen. That’s one piece I think that’s really powerful when you kind of get into that, right, right? Yeah, and I personally find it fun but hard, right, right? Sometimes you you find things you didn’t want to find. This is true, right? You discover you have to come to terms with your own blind spots and go, Yeah, I do that, yeah. But yeah, if you can, if you can name it, then you can handle it

Kim Bohr 37:39

absolutely, and especially when you know you have a strong yeah team within your your board that’s going to support you in that process too. So before we wrap up, I want to ask you know, or at least maybe expand our conversation a little bit to the opportunity of you know, we’ve talked about how the boards were always talked about the CEO and evaluating and expanding in this way we’re thinking of one of the things I think is not always connected to this type of conversation is the benefit it brings to the organization itself, to the to The leaders who report to the CEO to creating an opportunity to align an evaluation to perhaps, maybe aspects of how others are evaluated on their performance throughout the organization. And I’m curious if you have any, you know, thoughts or experiences in that way where you could say, yeah, there’s a it creates, even a healthy organization, a situation that expands into that level of the organization where those dynamics are bigger.

Sandy Stelling 38:46

Yeah, I think, you know, for our the 360 process we use very much involves the leadership team that reports to the CEO, and so they also participate in the evaluation. They participate in interviews. And I think it’s important for the board to hear from them, right? Right? So we hear that through the data and the insights that come from conversations, right? We hear from them. And, you know, there have been times where that has been very insightful for us, because the board has one view, and the leadership team had a very different view, and that became a place to explore. Why is that? What’s going on? Who’s what are the why are the experiences so different, or the interpretations of the experiences so different? What’s going you know? And I think it was helpful to have that to help, again, help the CEO understand like, you know, and even explore that. This is interesting, and, you know, they’re kind of in the middle of it, but it’s, why do you think this is what’s going on? How can we help? You know, that’s always tricky, too, because we’re not an operational board. We’re just there to support, you know, and and work with the CEO and the team, but we want to make sure, like we’re not doing his job or her job, yep, but we want. To help them and support them right in that way. So I think having hearing from the people who actually are working with the CEO day in and day out, is a rich insight that a board member wouldn’t generally have, right? And I think it definitely rounds up the picture. But I also think the CEO’s self evaluation as part of the 360 process is also insightful. And you know, they’ll mark themselves again, year over year. What’s happening? They’ll mark themselves high. They’ll mark themselves low. What’s going on? Yeah, she thinks that. And then it does give us an opportunity to actually recognize strong performance where there may be being hypercritical. I say, Are you like, from our perspective, like I hear what you’re saying, but you should know, from our perspective, we think you’ve done fantastic at XYZ, at navigating problem, you know, a whatever. And I that. So those opportunities also come out of a process like this, where you get to recognize the strengths and the goodness. Not just we’re here to grow. We’re here to improve. It’s all we’re about. We’re like, no, let’s take a couple minutes and honor. Take some time and honor the strengths you bring to the table every day, how it shows up, how people see it, even if sometimes you get caught up and don’t see it, you get swept up, right? Like, don’t forget, you’ve got really great qualities that got you here exactly, exactly. You’re not here by accident, right? You’re not right in the organization by accident. But always having a growth mindset is not a bad way to move to the world, because the world is constantly changing,

Kim Bohr 41:35

absolutely. And I think just you know, for CEOs that can bring that level of insight and transparency back to that executive team that participated. I think that has the opportunity to just not only show that vulnerability, but strengthen those relationships too and and so it gives it kind of it’s that comes full circle for everybody involved. So as we wrap up, or is there anything you want to make sure we you share that perhaps we haven’t touched on, or you want to reinforce as we bring our conversation to a close,

Sandy Stelling 42:14

big question. It’s a big open question. You know. Again, just to bring it home, I think we can talk about process, and we can talk about evaluations, and we could talk about data, and we can get all into it. They have to remember, it’s humans. Human beings are complicated. They’re messy. And any process that’s evaluating the performance and effectiveness of another human being. You know, there’s risk involved, so I would just say focus on growth orientation and creating safe spaces for those conversations and the curiosity, because then I think you have the best shot at Unlocking Potential.

Kim Bohr 42:57

Agreed, the fabulous words to end on. So what I’ll want to share with our listeners is that we have three downloads for you. If you visit the website, courage to advance podcast.com, it will take you to our spark effect page, and there you’ll be able to download one or all three of these, and just to give you a snippet about each the first downloads a guide to those that are tasked with finding the process or finding a right partner, and addresses really important items that are needed to ensure successful evaluations, so much of what needs to be gathered in order for the Board’s interest and the CEOs. The second download addresses CEOs, highlighting how this expanded view reveals the behind the scenes factors contributing to the outcome. So those the hows and the inputs and the benefit to the CEO of thinking of it from this lens. And then the third download is really for board members, and it really is much about what we’ve talked about here today, whether you’re on a nonprofit or a for profit board. It ties into covering, how do you assess the risk and build trust between the CEO and the board in a way that’s really effective? And so you can find these links in the show notes, and you can also connect with us on LinkedIn. That’ll be in the show notes as well. And I want to just thank you again, Sandy, for sharing your insights and what you’ve brought to our conversation today. And I want to thank our listeners who have joined us today on our courage to advance

Sandy Stelling 44:30

podcast. Thanks, Kim. It’s been really fun, great conversation.

Kim Bohr 44:35

I really enjoyed it as well. We’ll hope to hear and from you more in the future, Sandy and we’ll look forward to our listeners tuning in on our next episode. Thank you

Maria Ross 44:47

for more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop. Up 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.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Julie Harris: Why Disability Accommodations Are Smart Business

Your organization may be missing out on the talent, innovation, and productivity of your workforce because of your own actions! I’m talking about accommodating disability. When we fail to invest in mindset and policy shifts, we fail to optimize the people within our organizations.

After experiencing complete memory loss due to a brain injury, my guest, Julie Harris, defied expectations as she found success in education and the corporate world. Today, we bond over our brain injury stories and discuss the definition of disability, how stigma impairs human performance, and how you may be hindering innovation and productivity. We also discuss why accommodation is not special treatment and why many fail to realize we all expect accommodations daily. Julie shares practical advice for what leaders can do to unleash the potential of disabled workers and achieve their business goals.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Not everybody’s disability looks the same or requires the same things, even if they are in the same category of disability.
Disable and unable are not the same thing. The term disability is an accurate and correct description because it’s something externally acting upon your body to make it not able.
When the brain is under stress, we are only concerned with survival, which impairs your employee’s ability to do the work, impacting the bottom line.

“We accommodate people all the time at work and in everyday life, yet when it comes to disability, it had to be a legal right granted because those accommodations were so frequently denied. Just because one person needs a different thing doesn’t mean it’s preferential treatment. We’re giving them exactly what they need to do their job.” — Julie Harris

References:

The Empathy Edge podcasts:
- Michael Bach: What Exclusion is Costing Your Company
- Minette Norman: Psychological Safety
Disclo: disclo.com

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Julie Harris, CEO/Founder, Access My Ability. Author of Boldly Belong:

After experiencing complete memory loss due to a brain injury, Julie quickly defied doctors’ expectations as she found success in secondary education and the corporate world. Drawing from personal study and formal education in neuroscience, process improvement, and disability inclusion, she consults with individuals and organizations around the globe. Despite having less than 16 years’ worth of memory and knowledge, Julie is now CEO and Founder of Access My Ability and author of Boldly Belong: The Power of Being You in a Disabling Society. Her expertise has been sought after by numerous Fortune 500 companies, where she has delivered compelling speeches and invaluable consultation on disability inclusion, workplace rights, and reasonable accommodation process improvement. Julie’s goal is to demonstrate that success can be achieved through unconventional paths that defy rules and expectations.

Connect with Julie:

Access My Ability: accessmyability.org

LinkedIn: Julie Harris

Book: Boldly Belong: The Power of Being You in a Disabling Society

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Julie Harris 03:42

Thank you. Thank you for having me

Maria Ross 03:44

so you and I share a little bit in common in terms of being survivors of brain injury. So I would love for you to share your story about how you even got into this work of being an advocate for the disabled and for doing the education and the work that you do with companies and leaders. Okay,

Julie Harris 04:03

my brain injury happened in a hospital. Very luckily, I just passed out. But typically, when people pass out, they kind of crumple to the ground, and I just fell straight back, hit my head, went into a 40 minute seizure, and was in a coma for a few days in the hospital for about three months. Now, at this time, I was 20 years old, I went in with the brain of a 20 year old, but came out with a brand that much more the brain of like a three year old. I had the capability of a 20 year old still, but the knowledge, the understanding, the cognitive resources of a three year old. And so when I was in the hospital, my experience was that of my needs being met. You know, immediately, I was immediately provided for I was immediately if I was in pain, I got meds if I if something happened, everyone rushed in if something if I was getting overwhelmed. You know, nurses. Would ask the people to leave. It was all about my needs. So I had forgotten, oh, did I? Did I say that I forgot everything? I don’t think I even said that. Yeah,

Maria Ross 05:07

you hadn’t mentioned that. You forgot to mention forgotten everything. Yeah, times

Julie Harris 05:12

even now, my brain, you know, can, there’s some lapses, but one of the results of my brain injury that got everything prior, I had to relearn everything, and as part of this, I forgot social norms. I forgot how people in hospitals are typically treated. I forgot that, you know, just how everyday interactions with life and with humanity and living in the hospital, basically starting out in the hospital for three months, learned that my needs really mattered. I learned that I was respected. I learned that I was treated like I legit, because every little win was celebrated. When I said my alphabet, even though it was backwards, it was celebrated. And then I got into the real world, and within about a year, realized that that is not the norm, that people with disabilities are not treated that inclusively. Their needs aren’t met that well. Their needs are often tied. My needs were often denied. I wasn’t any more celebrated for little wins. I was judged because I was far behind those of my peers despite the disability and anyway, so it that’s what really led me to recognize how people with disabilities are treated so differently, but not because we’re actually not capable, just because of the stigma behind it. So a root of what I do is really challenging the stigma, and that’s what I hope to do some of here today. I

Maria Ross 06:31

love that. Thank you for sharing that story and how harrowing for you. You know I we have talked before that I had a brain injury several years ago that was a ruptured aneurysm, and it’s normally a catastrophic, catastrophic event, but I was very fortunate now. I did have to do recovery. I did had had to overcome cognitive deficits, vocabulary, recall, I still have problems 15 years later, with short term memory. It drives my family bananas, but I can totally relate to this idea. I remember leaving the hospital after six weeks and feeling like I was exposed, feeling like I wasn’t in that safe cocoon where people understood me and saw me as a person, and again, had seen me at my worst and saw how far I had come in six weeks, and it was really, really scary. So I can only imagine that, you know, we don’t think about that when we think of people getting out of the hospital, we automatically think they’re okay, like, now they’re out of the hospital, everything’s fine. And I remember even someone jokingly said, so is your brain all fixed then? And it’s like, well, not quite so now that what you went through from a recovery perspective is vastly different than what I went through. And we should note, as both being brain injury advocates, that you know, brain injuries differ greatly. They differ depending on the event. They differ depending on what part of the brain was impacted. And so you know that’s why someone with a brain injury can have speech or alphabet or memory impacted so badly. Mine was basically frontal lobe issues, cognitive issues around, you know, the executive functions. That’s really where my brain injury took place. And so, you know, even within we’re talking about a subset of disability, but even within that subset of disability, there are so many differences and nuances, and I think that’s an important point for leaders and colleagues to understand, that not everybody’s quote, unquote disability looks the same. So on that note, can you define for us what is disability and what are the nuances around that? Because I think it’s it sometimes can seem like a very subjective term, and even I don’t know if I’m comfortable talking about myself as living with a disability, even though there’s things that I have to overcome and strategies I have to employ on a daily basis that I never had to before. So talk to us about what is disability? I

Julie Harris 08:58

love this question and this topic, because there’s the common understanding what a disability is, is typically somebody who uses a wheelchair, somebody who’s blind, somebody who’s deaf, some of the commonly understood and more well known and more obvious disabilities, and a lot of times, people who technically could qualify as being disabled in various ways, or say, Well, I’m not disabled like them, so I’m not disabled. And that’s where I was for a while after my brain injury, because I started, when I started to realize how people talked about disability, I was like, well, that’s not me. Well, that’s not me because I’m capable, right? Yes, so interesting, because I’m immediately because of what I was learning. This is me brand new into the world learning. So I’m learning stigma, I’m learning prejudice, I’m learning stereotypes. And I was like, Well, I’m not like them, so I can’t be disabled. But let’s get to the definition, like you asked, I go by the legal definition, especially when we’re talking about the workplace, because. It’s the one that really offers us rights, legal rights. And if you deny that you are disabled, then you’re denying yourself a lot of protections at the ports that you could have. So under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a disability is defined as a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. So what that means? It’s a lot of words to just mean any mental or physical difference, and it uses the word limitation specifically, because it’s something that does live you, like our brain injuries, you said you talked about that you still have some short term memory issues. Well, that’s a limitation that’s in your brain. So it’s mental. I have some many things, but mental limitations, memory is one of them, sensory over stimulation. I really have to plan around my day and what sensory things. You know, if I’m going to the grocery store, I could not do something focused, like I need to focus after. I wouldn’t even do this after I went to grocery store, because grocery store takes so much out of me, sensory wise, that’s a limitation in the sense that limits me more than the average human So then, when it says that limits one or more major life activities that can be sleeping. So narcolepsy disability, because it directly impacts sleeping, even if that doesn’t directly impact the work. Well, sleeping, everybody knows if you don’t have a good night’s sleep, you’re not as Yeah, it

Maria Ross 11:28

impacts your cognitive ability Exactly. And so

Julie Harris 11:31

it can be walking, remembering, thinking, hearing, seeing, focusing, writing, cooking, using the restroom, eating, digesting, it could be any major life activity. And it’s really important to note that depression, anxiety, things like that under the ADA qualifies disabilities, and they qualify depending on I mean, if they major, if they impact a major life activity, which typically to be diagnosable, they will. But it’s all of that too. You know, the ones that we commonly think of as disabilities, which, you know, using wheelchairs, yeah, things we can see, yes, yeah.

Maria Ross 12:11

I always say, you know, brain injury is sort of the unseen disability, because people can mask it pretty well, right? And, oh yeah, you know, so much of what you’re saying is resonating with me. And I’m just wondering a question that listeners might be wondering in that, could it be said that all of us as humans have some form of a disability? I mean, there’s so much that different people based on who they are and how they operate, there could be certain things about them that limit them in a way. So is it fair to say that disability is way more common than we give it credit for? Oh,

Julie Harris 12:48

absolutely. And I what how I talk about disability when I’m giving presentations and trying to, you know, really fight against the stigma is talk about how disability is a natural variation of being human. And an example that I give to talk about this is, you know, in the car, the automatic seat words are leaving me now, but automatic seat adjusters, whatever they’re called, are accommodating for a natural variation of humanity, that is height, that is, you know, preference, even you know, we’re making sure that somebody who’s five, three or six three can fit into this car. Now, there’s some cars that maybe a six three person isn’t going to be able to fit in, but they can choose a different car. We build it in and we accommodate for that natural variation of humanity. Disability is just another natural variation of humanity. Why it’s such a big deal is because it’s something that is different enough that it’s not well understood, that it’s confusing, that it makes us, you know, wait a second, what does that mean? Does that and then we start to develop stories about it. That’s where stigmas come from. We human brains start to develop stories about what we don’t understand. And when we’re talking about disabilities, especially in the workplace, why it’s really specific, or why it’s really important to distinguish between like, who does have a disability and who doesn’t, if they’re asking for rights, is because, for people with disabilities, the accommodations that we give every day to most people often are denied because of the stigma attached to disability. Of Well, you had a brain injury, you don’t remember things, you’re not as smart, you’re not as capable, therefore, I’m not going to give you this that I would give the person next to you who doesn’t have a disability, but they’re smart enough, like a screen, you know, little little things like a different chair, a desk that is a standing desk, or a one that can be moved from sitting to standing. You know, little things like that that are so often. We accommodate people all the time at work, we accommodate people all the time in everyday life, yet when it comes to disability, it had to be a legal right granted because those accommodations were so frequently denied.

Maria Ross 14:51

And why? Why do you think those views of disability are so limited and lacking empathy? What do you think it is because I can’t imagine, there’s that many. Horrible people in the world, I like to imagine there’s not that many horrible people in the world, but especially in the workplace. You know, why do people get so angry or so frustrated or so negative about accommodating for disability? What do you think is causing that?

Julie Harris 15:17

I think our human brains and stigma. And I talk about stigma because I think that’s the root of it all. But what it comes down to is, when I knew nothing and was relearning everything, I learned that disabled people were not capable. That’s a stigma that’s tied to a belief that disabled people are less than is tied to a belief that disabled people inherently are not able, and I want to stick on Disable for a second. A lot of times, people say, well, it literally says it in the word disable. And I want to touch on the word the prefix dis. So in the English language, there’s a lot of prefixes that are negative. It’s making the opposite of whatever the main word is. So the word disability comes with a negative prefix, dis, and a lot of people take that to mean that it inherently means that it’s describing something that is not able, that that person is less able, that person is incapable at this point. And the it’s important to look at what the usage of the prefix dis is. So if we talk about something that’s assembled, that’s something that’s put together, it may have been given to you assembled. It may have been reassembled. You know, we don’t know. It was just assembled somehow. If you say that something has been disassembled, that means it was taken apart. It was acted upon by something external to take it apart. Something that’s unassembled is just not put together. It may have been taken apart, it may have been disassembled, but when you use unassembled, that just means it is no it is not put together. So disassembled is very different than un in the sense that this means an external action was taken on it, to unassemble it the same that’s the same use when we go to able, disable unable. Unable means you are not able to do something. Or it could be we’re talking about a device the light is unable to cook food. I mean, actually lights sometimes could cook food. So maybe that’s a bad example. But the word unable just means you’re not able to do something, or a thing isn’t able to do something. If you put dis on it, it means that something is acted upon it to make it unable. So if you take out remotes out of I mean, if you take batteries out of a remote, you have disabled that remote. It wasn’t inherently unable. The remote is able if it has what it needs, disabling it by removing batteries is an external act to make it unable. So I think that’s really important differentiation when we’re talking about disability. And I really think that the term disability is accurate, an accurate and correct description, because it’s something externally acting upon, whether it’s a genetic condition which is still external of it’s even if it’s internal of your body, it’s something that’s acting upon your body to make it not able. So I

Maria Ross 18:10

love that point that you’re making, though about like it’s still able. It just might be able to function in a different way. And I think, you know, you and I both suffered from brain injuries, and how many times did we hear the word like strategies, strategies to deal with whatever issues we had? Right? It was about finding a new way around the obstacles so we could still accomplish our goals. And I think we forget that and why there is such a, such a misunderstanding and such a, you know, like, you know, a lack of empathy, quite honestly, from other people in the workplace, because, because they don’t understand it, they feel like someone’s given being given preferential or special treatment, when really what’s being done is just helping someone find a new route. You know, for you, think of it like a GPS helping someone just find a different route than your route to get to the same destination,

Julie Harris 19:06

right in the workplace. One way that I describe it when, especially when it comes to preferential treatment, that’s what I’m going to stick on here, because that’s a really, really common pushback against giving somebody accommodations. Well, other people are going to want it too. Other people are going to feel like it’s unfair. No, this is a preferential treatment. Well, there are positions in the workplace where they reasonably require three screens, so they’re given three monitors and a laptop and maybe a computer. You know, there’s some that don’t need that, so they only have a laptop, maybe one screen. There’s some people who have standing desks, there’s some people who have private offices. There’s some people who have some people who work in main areas. We accommodate for specific needs all the time in the workplace, we don’t look at it as preferential treatment, because we recognize that. This is we’re giving them what they need to do their job. That’s the same thing with disabilities. Just because one person needs a little bit of a different thing doesn’t mean it’s preferential treatment. We’re giving them exactly what they need to do their job, right?

Maria Ross 20:12

Well, and I think it goes back to that whole misunderstanding of equality versus equity. You know, equality is giving everybody the exact same thing, and equity is about giving people what they need to operate at the same level, which is a different thing. But we’re going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we’re going to talk about what the stigma of disability does to impact the effectiveness and efficiency of your workers, because this is an important point to make, that it actually impacts performance when your workplace is not inclusive of disability, we’ll be right back. Okay, we’re back on the empathy edge podcast, talking to Julie Harris, and we were just going to get into a conversation about what the result of stigma does to impact an individual who’s disabled and how it impacts their ability to perform for your organization and meet the goals of your organization, which, you know, if we’re being really crass about it, it’s all about enabling people to do their best work so that the organization can meet its goals. And when we’re not inclusive of disability, it actually impacts our bottom line performance. So tell us a little bit about what stigma does to an individual when they’re feeling under stress, when they’re feeling misunderstood, where they’re when they’re struggling to be, when they’re struggling to belong. Yes, this

Julie Harris 21:37

is so important to discuss, to really improve inclusivity of the disabled population in the workplace, and the most obvious and clear cut results are people don’t ask for accommodations, or when they do ask for accommodations, they get them denied because of the stigma. They know that they’re constantly fighting against stigma, so they’re trying to work twice as hard, 10 times as hard, sometimes to show that they mean even missing one letter they’re scared of, you know, having one error because, oh my goodness, are they going to tie that to my disability? Somehow people don’t want to disclose their disability, and if they don’t want to disclose their disability, it means they’re not asking for the help that they actually need, which common sense says that’s going to leave you unsupported, or at least under supported. But the problem is, oftentimes, that’s the only way that you can keep your job. So those are the most main and direct results. However, it gets even deeper, where stigma leads to shame. When you have such a stigmatized part of your identity, then it’s nearly impossible to not feel some level of shame around it. When you feel shame, you start to shame. Shame tells your brain that you’re unsafe for being who you are, that you’re unsafe for having that part of your identity. And so when you feel unsafe for actually being who you are, you start to develop survival skills just to exist. Some of those things are people pleasing. People pleasing isn’t necessarily beneficial in the workplace. Or perfectionism, we can say perfectionism sometimes is beneficial, however, taken too far, isn’t helpful to anybody, the person doing it, or other people on their team, collaborators. Sometimes it results in hyper independence. Hyper independence is absolutely not good in the workplace and in certain situations, it could be good, but taken too far, it’s going to be detrimental to the success of a team and a company. And so there’s the obvious ones that are tied to disclosure and accommodations and asking for support and receiving support, but then there’s the less obvious ones that are stigma results in shame inevitably, and it results in your employees developing survival skills that are not beneficial in the long term and not beneficial when taken into everyday life and everyday interactions.

Maria Ross 23:54

Okay, I’m gonna totally link in the show notes to an episode or two that we’ve done around psychological safety, because it’s the same point. It’s about keeping people in a state of cognitive distress so that they can’t use their higher level executive skills, which is what is needed to perform and achieve and get things done and meet the needs of the business. And if we create this environment for people where, cognitively, they’re constantly under stress because they are afraid, to your point, because they’re being hyper independent, because they are, you know, chasing perfectionism, which is, you know, we as we know a myth. It’s going to impair their ability to do the work like bottom lining it is we have to do everything we can to keep our workers in an environment where they can unleash the productivity and the innovation and the creativity required by their higher level executive skills and when the brain is under stress. You know, science. Shows us that we actually cannot. We’re only concerned with survival at that point. So I’m so glad you brought this up, because you know, and I’m actually going to link to another episode I did with Michael Bach, who talked about the cost of exclusion in a business, what it is dollars and cents, what is it costing businesses when they are not inclusive, and this is a very similar thing. We were talking about it in the context of LGBTQ plus, but any group that is feeling this kind of stress and this kind of pressure on themselves in the workplace is not performing to their fullest capabilities for you, and if you really want to unleash their potential and maximize, you know, their value to the organization. It’s in your best interest as a leader and as a company to create that inclusive environment for them and then just unleash them and let them, you know, perform like you’ve never seen. Exactly

Julie Harris 25:57

put people in an environment where their cognitive resources can go towards their work, not too survivable, not towards mitigating sensory stimulation, not to navigating unhealthy management or healthy cares, just if they can truly put their cognitive resources to the work at hand. Primarily, which, of course we know it’s not gonna be 100% but primarily, if we can’t mitigate all the other external factors, they’re going to be your best employees, period. Absolutely, absolutely

Maria Ross 26:30

okay, so as so many good things in this episode, but as we wrap up, can you give us some practical examples and actions that leaders and employers can take to unleash, unleash that potential of their disabled workforce. What have you seen that works really well? What have you seen that has backfired? And what would be sort of the final tips you would give to folks listening who are like, I don’t know if we’re actually inclusive to disability. How can I go about auditing that?

Julie Harris 27:04

Yes, good questions and actionable items are

Maria Ross 27:07

a lot of questions. Are Sorry, that was, that was like a five part question. But if that’s okay, tackle whichever part you make

Julie Harris 27:13

the basics. Do some do some basic education for especially HR, but leaders, employees as a whole, around what disability is, especially when it comes to the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act and ensure that it’s somebody who actually knows what they’re talking about. Just because somebody’s a lawyer doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about. Just because somebody is in HR, even working with accommodations, doesn’t mean that they know. So make sure it’s somebody who has the disability perspective and the employee perspective, so that you have education around how to keep the employers protected legally, but also while doing what the ADA was meant to do, which is provide for employees. So that’s number one. But beyond that, training is not going to just automatically remove stigma and human bias. So the next step is to accept that you have bias, accept that you have stigma related to disability. Because you are human, it doesn’t mean you’re bad, just accept it as a fact, and then do what you can to build into your processes make them stigma free, so that human error is far less likely. For example, accommodation specifically, if somebody comes to HR and asks for an accommodation, do you have a well defined accommodation process that is one, in line with the ADA, but two, ensures that stigma doesn’t lead as stigma is leading. You’re not doing the best for the employees, and you’re not doing the best. Doing the best for the company. So build processes that are stigma free. And I know that’s kind of vague, but there’s a product that I love that does it for you. It’s called disclo, D, i, s, c, l, o, and it has an accommodation process that is stigma free. It guides you through it. When you’re not sure how to talk to somebody about disability, it kind of gives you little tips. So that’s one way I like to do it, is just refer people to that product, but really build into your processes disability, inclusion without stigma. And you have you have to accept that you have bias to be able to do that effectively. And then the last actionable tip that I find is most successful is to make it to have situations where people who are higher up in your company disclose their disabilities, whether it’s something like ADHD or they just recently got diagnosed with something you know, or and sometimes that’s a huge risk for them, but while it’s risk for them, it becomes far less risky as more people come out and disclose and it becomes more inclusive, because you start to see, oh my goodness, this person who’s really intelligent and really capable has a disability. Wow, I it changes everybody’s view of disability, and it makes it seem more safe, of course. You have to have a safe situation to allow that to occur. But I find it really, really effective when leaders disclose their disabilities, and not just, not just for show, but to start a a more inclusive culture

Maria Ross 30:15

around to be, to be the model that correct. This is okay to be vulnerable about this. This is okay to admit this. And often, you know, with something like this, it’s often the more you know. Again, like you said, Only if you’re comfortable disclosing. We don’t want to, like force everyone to do this. But the more, the higher up you are in the organization, the more power you wield. It becomes, even more effective if those people can admit that they have, you know, they might have issues with certain things, they might have a disability, they might, you know, and even when we’re talking about more broadly, like they’re blind spots, being able to admit that, that’s what we mean by being a vulnerable leader. We don’t mean you’re just you fall apart. We we mean that you just admit there’s things you’re going through too, as well, and then when you’re a high performer, you’re showing that you can do both, and you’re showing that you can have a disability and still perform at the highest level, and you normalize that, and that actually that action helps foster empathy, because then people go, Oh, now I know someone who has that disability, and I see how they operate in the world, and they’re, you know, they’re killing it, or whatever the case may be. And so the more that we can provide the representation and provide the modeling and do it boldly and do it with no apology, the better off. You know, people might not say something to that leader right away, but it’s going to impact them, and it’s going to impact the way they feel at work, exactly

Julie Harris 31:49

and something else for leaders, especially if they’re leaders of a company that has a board of directors or something that they’re reporting to, sometimes these leaders have their own fears about disclosing. So even when you disclose, to disclose about I’m afraid of disclosing too, because I’m afraid of being judged. Despite my history of success, despite the clear evidence, if I disclose, are people now going to judge me? And so it doesn’t matter. I have clients of all different levels, all different income brackets, all different races, ages, and we are dealing with the same thing. It doesn’t matter how successful you are, how much history you have, if you’ve been to companies which one of my clients has still afraid to disclose their disability and ask for support. So when you disclose, if you’re high up, to even disclose the really vulnerable parts that, hey, this is hard for me too. I’m afraid of the blowback as well. Yeah, yeah,

Maria Ross 32:40

yeah. I remember after I had my brain injury and I was getting my business back on its feet again, I wasn’t sure whether I should disclose what I’d gone through. And just from you know, my work as a brand strategist back then, what I realized was, by disclosing it, I actually ended up attracting more of the clients I wanted to attract because they saw something in me that was, you know, about resilience and about grit and about, you know, overcoming adversity, and that actually attracted them to me in my business. But I did have some people say, Oh, or, you know, you’re out talking about your brain injury. Don’t you think that’s going to impact if people want to work with you as a client. And I was like, well, it might impact certain people that are not my ideal clients, and probably people I don’t want to work with, but for so many others, it actually became a magnet. And I think that that’s what that can do for leaders and people in positions of power, is then you create a following, and you create a loyalty where people know that it’s safe to be who they are, and those people will go to the ends of the earth. For you, that’s my experience as well. Awesome, awesome. And kind of just to wrap this up, I just want to go back to the fact that if anyone, and I doubt anyone listening to this podcast, would have this perspective, but I know that there’s skeptics out there who might say, well, given all this work I have to do around, you know, creating an inclusive environment, maybe it’s better if I don’t hire disabled people, right? And I love I want to bring everyone back to the point we mentioned earlier, which is, most people are dealing with something so good luck trying to find the perfect human being who has no disabilities, who has no blind spots, who has no areas that they need accommodation for, because I really don’t think that person exists.

Julie Harris 34:34

Oh no, there’s no human. I mean, when we ask for our meal to be a little bit different at restaurant, that’s an accommodation when we’re going to show up late, when our computer is having issues with their technology issues, we’re asking for accommodations on all of those things. So all the time that there’s accommodations are a human thing. It’s not just for disabilities. It just had to be granted legally,

Maria Ross 34:53

right, right? Unfortunately, it’s had to be granted legally. Yes, yes. Well, Julie, thank you so much. For sharing your very personal story, and also your phenomenal work around being an advocate and helping companies and leaders navigate this and create that inclusive environment so that they can help disabled employees, disabled workers, do their best work and contribute to the organization’s success. So I will have all your links in the show notes, especially the link to your new book that is out now boldly belong the power of being you in a disabling society. I will have the link to that as well. It’s available in all the places. But for folks on the go who won’t be accessing the show notes, where’s one place they can find out more about you and your work,

Julie Harris 35:39

accessmyability.org that has everything to find about me and links to everywhere else that you can learn about me.

Maria Ross 35:48

Awesome access my ability all one word.org, well, I hope folks will check it out. Thank you again for your time and your insights today. Thank you so much for having me and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review, follow and share with a friend or colleague, and until next time, 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 empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes 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.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Kim Bohr: Sparking Transformational Change Through Empathy

BONUS EPISODE! Join me for a conversation with President and COO of SparkEffect, Kim Bohr as we kick off our partnership to provide you with actionable content for the next year on their podcast subseries, Courage to Advance. We talk about Kim’s journey and work in helping leaders embrace change and marry data, technology, and human-centric practices to achieve success. You will love her insights on how to build resilience in today’s rapidly changing landscape, and how integrating innovative technology, data-driven insights, and the human touch is the winning recipe for success in our times.

We kick off our partnership where SparkEffect will be offering you monthly insights, actionable takeaways, and inspiring stories of leadership transformation and the role empathy plays in success.

Tune in every 3rd Thursday, right here on The Empathy Edge!

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

AI is not going away – the more we lean in and understand, the more we can leverage it for ourselves, our clients, and our organizations.
Leveraging AI in your creative endeavors is great to bounce ideas off of, especially for those who work solo.
All change involves bringing people along with you. The human need for information, reassurance, connection, and upskilling never disappears. Only the challenge in front of us changes.

“We believe that AI and data-driven insights are about augmenting and elevating that people-centered approach. And that’s why we find the data, along with the very skill-based empathetic approach, is where the superpower is unleashed for leaders and organizations.” — Kim Bohr

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

About Kim Bohr, President & COO, SparkEffect

Kim is a published author, speaker, and entrepreneur at heart. As the President and COO of SparkEffect, she brings over 25 years of experience as a cross-functional leader, executive and board advisor, and leadership and organization development professional.

Kim has spent her career avidly studying and participating in companies with complex people and organizational dynamics. Making an impact on businesses is important to Kim. She stays inspired by the gratification that comes from unraveling challenging problems for individuals and companies. Her strong, strategic instincts, extensive experience, and the ability to create followership have shaped Kim into the leader she is today.

Connect with Kim Bohr and SparkEffect

SparkEffect: sparkeffect.com

Courage to Advance recording and resources:

sparkeffect.com/courage-to-advance-podcast

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/sparkeffect

LinkedIn for Kim Bohr: linkedin.com/in/kimbohr

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

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Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Kim Bohr 01:52

Thank you, Maria. We’re so excited to be here and excited to listen and share and learn ourselves. Love

Maria Ross 01:59

it. So tell us a little bit about your story. We, you know, we can read the bio in the show notes, and we’ll have all the links in the show notes, but tell us a little bit about you and about Spark effect, and what is the work about these days, and what is driving the need for leaders to embrace more empathy in order to transform and keep

Kim Bohr 02:20

up. Goodness, you know, there’s, it’s, as you so strongly believe, empathy has become such a main skill, right, that is so needed in our business today. And so about almost five years ago, I came on board with Spark effect, and we were, at that point, really different organization. We were trying to figure out how to grow. We ended up bringing a smaller organization together with us, and it was a real pivotal time, because it was coming through the pandemic. I joined just a few months, excuse me, a few weeks, actually, before the pandemic. Oh boy, which you know, talk about trying to learn an organization, learn the people, learn all these components and be thrust into what we don’t, you know, have all experienced in so many different ways we will never forget. And so what I what was really fascinating, and what drew me to the organization in the first place was this love for people in business and my personal journey that I’ve always just had in from my own professional lens, has really focused on having business be better from the inside out, and it always begins with people. And so to me, this was a wonderful opportunity to help enrich that belief I’ve always held and be able to bring it into many organizations that are so dearly in need of that type of thinking. Well,

Maria Ross 03:48

and you and I met because I interviewed you for the empathy edge, for the first empathy book, when you were working with an organization called fierce conversations, and that was really about helping people and helping leaders have difficult conversations, and whether it was overtly stated or not, with empathy, creating that connection with people so that they could do their best work. And I love what you said, because I think it bears repeating over and over again, is that businesses are just a collection of people doing things together, and we’re going to talk a little bit on this bonus episode about integrating innovative technology with the human touch, because there might be some people going, Well, no, we’re just going to all get out staffed by AI. We’re not and so we have to learn how to coexist. But that’s where that those leadership skills and those empathy skills are going to be even more important as we dive into this world of of integrating technology with the human element. So talk a little bit to us though about the inspiration for the podcast you’re going to be doing for courage to advance. Why this podcast? Why now? It’s

Kim Bohr 04:58

just it feels. So people are so ready for it. I think you and I could both agree that the thoughts of some of the work we’ve been so invested in used to be seen as something that perhaps wasn’t as much of a strength as even though we know, and always have known, there’s a superpower into this work when you really embrace it. And so it started to make sense with so much coming at people the you know, we’re so overwhelmed with so much information and technology, and what’s the right and best solution for all the different competing needs that we have. And coming out of the pandemic, when we all, I think we could probably agree, felt a little maybe less stable in how we were to move forward and what we needed. And so it’s, it felt like it was the perfect time to say there’s this concept of of and, you know, we can be empathetic, and we can still also have clear expectations and results. Yeah, that was really like when we started thinking about it. It was, it was really clear that now is an opportunity where people are listening and looking for this to come together in a way that that now was acceptable, right, and made sense,

Maria Ross 06:10

yeah? And that’s why you know, that’s why we’re doing this partnership, is I really want to bring your content, your expertise, your stories, to this audience that cares so much about how to leverage empathy to be more successful, but it’s not without its challenges, and it’s not without pushback from certain people, and we’re seeing it now post pandemic, a lot of that snap back to bossism. Of you know, let’s go back to the ways that things used to be, because that’s where we’re most comfortable. And what I love about your work is that it’s all about leveraging the human connections to drive innovation, to drive transformation, not just get by, but actually leapfrog above your competition and create real change in the markets in which we play. So you know, I love also that what you’re going to be bringing to us every third Thursday are these stories and practical applications of how you have actually been in the trenches helping leaders and organizations embrace this concept and what it looks like, because it looks very different organization to organization. Doesn’t it?

Kim Bohr 07:18

It absolutely does, and so many you know, leaders are still they there are. There is still that strongly held belief of if I’m empathetic or if I’m too nice, then I’m ineffective. And what we find is that if we have the opportunity to see leaders really understanding the benefit of both bringing in the empathy, bringing in the structure, and bringing in data that will actually allow them to make the most informed decisions for the organization. It’s really that idea of getting it right versus being right, and so we’re really excited with the different conversations we have teed up and the type the topics that are so relevant to really expand the thinking and also bring really practical application for people, so that they don’t feel like they’re just inspired, but that there’s actually things that they can go do. Yeah, and that’s what we really want to make sure we’re the value we really want to be bringing. So I’m going to

Maria Ross 08:18

put you on the spot, and this might be a spoiler for a future episode. But is there a client that you’ve worked with that really stands out in terms of the Delta from before they started adopting this kind of leadership philosophy and then after? And maybe, what were some of the things? It could be anonymous, but maybe what were some of the things that they implemented to actually help them create more human centered leadership.

Kim Bohr 08:41

So so much of the one client in particular that I’m thinking of that I will reserve sharing the detail, but I will describe what the situation was. And, you know, very senior level CEO, very tenured in their career and really had the opportunity to be highly effective in the business metrics, however, really was seeing that their followership, if you will, was fractured, and the alignment within their own executive leadership team was fractured. And so what we were brought in to help them do, and what the philosophy was, quite frankly, that they started to adopt was it was a behavioral change, and that’s such a deep level of the work we’re doing. And it allowed us, in this case, to look at how the CEO was evaluated beyond the typical KPIs and metrics and things that still are true, but we like to say, Hey, look at what’s the input that’s going to produce the output, because eventually, if you’re not highly effective and empathetic in your approach, it’ll catch up to you. And in this case, it was with this individual. So what we were able to do was bring in data that allowed the CEO to see that the data. That was showing results that weren’t favorable, but that also at a more behavioral level change, and that was the catalyst for them to then say, well, then what do I need to do? But it really was taking the opportunity of, let’s look at the inputs and let’s and understand that if you invest in these other skills, you’re actually going to be able to produce better results. And in fact, they did. It took about two years, but part of that was consistency, transparency, sharing the results with the executive leadership team, sharing what they were working on, admitting that they weren’t going to always get it right, asking for the ability to feedback. So all of that was really a huge component. And so that story and others will be several that we will explore in our time together.

Maria Ross 10:50

And I love the next one that your first regular episode that’s coming out next week will be about the importance of CEO evaluations. We talk about performance evaluations for everyone else in the company, but who’s evaluating the CEO, and not from a getting them in trouble standpoint, right? But there’s still an opportunity for growth. There’s still an opportunity for flex, even if you’re at the pinnacle of your career, even if you’re at the topmost post. And that’s what I love about your work I’ve always loved about your work across the organizations you’ve worked with, is you are very data driven. And I think what we’re seeing now versus in the past, we’ve talked about these quote, unquote, soft skills, but really haven’t had the data and research behind it, and now we do, and now we can see, like I was saying, the delta between the performance you’re able to achieve if you’re sort of meh about, you know, in these skill areas. But what would happen if your CEO or your COO or your CFO could actually put ego aside and realize there’s things they have to work on, or they could work on, work on those things, and then exponentially, see the growth, see the results and see the success. And I love that you always start with data, because that is what many of these folks care about, right? They

Kim Bohr 12:09

do, and they opens up the conversation, right? And that’s the whole thing. If we could get the conversation open in a way that resonates, that’s where we can see the momentum and move right take place,

Maria Ross 12:19

right? So, yeah, so next week, I’m excited to hear what you have to say about how you go about doing CEO evaluations, how to do them well, and also what you’re looking for and how you actually have the conversation those you know, uncomfortable conversations with a CEO about you know, here’s your areas for improvement. You’re out there giving all this feedback to your people, but here’s where you could actually find some strike points and leverage points to improve your performance, and thus the performance of the organization as well,

Kim Bohr 12:51

absolutely. And just to take it a little bit further, it’s also about the strengthening of the relationships, not only within the executive leadership team, but also within the board of directors and those other really critical stakeholders in the organization that care to understand the more the whole role, and not just the results, in this short term type of way, right, especially when they’re looking to make more of this long term investment. And the other thing that we will be able to talk about and explore, is how this brings, you know, as I mentioned before, more transparency, but a little bit of a more even playing field of evaluation, so that others can understand that that CEO is evaluated on the whole person, which is inclusive of the metrics and the performance and the KPIs and The revenue that is part of it. It’s not a carved off component. And so it’ll be really, I think it’s, I know it’s going to be a very rich conversation that gives that full picture and allows listeners to really, just maybe think a little bit differently about for either themselves or those in their organizations. What could how this could look a little bit new, perhaps, than what happens today.

Maria Ross 14:04

I love it. I love it. Well, I’m super excited. And so today we’re going to give people a little bit of a taste, because we’re going to get into a topic here around integrating technology and human touch in organizational development. And I know that’s going to be a theme that you’re going to come back to in the sub series as we go along for the next year together. But can you talk a little bit about the perspective and your approach, specifically with your clients, about blending AI and data driven insights with human centric practices? What’s your stance on how humans and AI will coexist and will it evolve? Will it be something for the first few years, as we’re rapidly adopting AI and then, you know, kind of future thinking, what could it evolve into?

Kim Bohr 14:50

You know, it’s one things we know really clear, and what the stance that we’ve taken is that we believe, you know, our core, our cornerstone of our system. Is that it’s very human centered people first approach. And we believe that whether that’s because somebody is having to leave an organization, or they’re, you know, growing and developing everything in between organizational the cultural aspects of the the organizational evolution, all of that is about people first, and we believe that the idea of AI and data driven insights are really about augmenting and elevating and lifting up that people centered approach. And that’s why we find the data, along with the very skill based empathetic approach, is really where the superpower is unleashed for leaders and organizations. And so what we found is, from the AI lens, is even internally, we’re starting to understand how does it work to make us more productive and more effective, and what are the constraints that we have or we need to create around it? And so we’ve been exploring it internally, inside, just for our own efficiency standpoint, yeah, throughout this year. And what we also know to be true is that we need to be doing that because it is a real factor that isn’t going away, and the more we understand and lean in versus be fearful, the more we’re able to actually leverage it for doctors ourselves, but you know, those that we work for, and our clients and everyone else, I think that we do find it creating more efficiencies and in certain aspects of business, it probably will change. For sure, the dynamics of and scope of work will it completely eliminate maybe it might in some aspects, some specific aspects of business, more so though people shouldn’t be afraid of that, they should be leaning into understanding, how can they make the roles they do today more effective and efficient with it? And that’s where I think we’re going to see. The reality is it’s moving so quickly. We need to be participating and just adapting with whatever the new thing is that’s coming, and deciding our boundaries around it as well.

Maria Ross 17:09

Yeah. I mean, I’m really seeing, you know, I’m starting to dip my toe in. I know I’ve maybe mentioned this to you offline before, but for someone who’s worked in technology for so long, I am a late adopter. I’m a little bit of a Luddite, and so I’m always late to the party. So, but I’ve been dipping my toe in really seeing the benefit of AI as a thought partner, as a way to unleash my natural creativity, my innovation, and make it additive versus, you know, especially in the field I’m in, and maybe with some of my listeners in, is I work on my own, and so I don’t have that team environment. I don’t have that, those bounce back partners to always work with, and so leveraging AI for that has been great. Now, does it mean, you know, in my work, for example, doing brand strategy and brand messaging, is that going to go away? Probably not, but it probably is going to evolve, and it’s better to be part of the evolution than sort of let the evolution take you over, right? I

Kim Bohr 18:09

mean, we could think of so many of the stories in history where companies kind of threw the line in the sand and refused to take on some of the new type of a technology that was forming, and then they become obsolete. And so I think what we need to be thinking about is is, yeah, how does it, how does it inform and shape, versus the fear of it taking over, right, and recognizing that if I just put my blinders on, right, that’s not going to be a good outcome as well.

Maria Ross 18:36

But the reality is, whether we’re talking about AI or not, jobs change. Roles evolve like even even marketing. For example, I left corporate marketing in 2008 the role of a director of marketing, or of an executive in marketing has changed since 2008 and it has nothing to do with AI. It has to do with the way the expectations and the capabilities and what is required of that role has changed over time. So it happens whether we have technology as a catalyst or not. And so what I really again, what I really love about Spark effects work is that you’re creating resilience among leaders and among organizations to deal with whatever change is going to happen, as you said, marrying data with the human centric approach, and that’s going to get you through pretty much whatever change is going to happen or evolution is going to happen. So it’s not like, you know, there’s some organizations out there that are just consulting or just doing work around one specific problem or one specific challenge. What I love about your approach with clients is that you’re adapting it depending on we’re actually helping you build a capability, a best practice around how to deal with change Exactly. And maybe, right now, we’re talking about the change of AI, but in the future, it’s going to be something else. And if you build that muscle. People, and you build that capability within your organization, it’s sort of like, Okay, what’s next? I can handle it

Kim Bohr 20:05

absolutely. And it’s you know, you think about back to that idea of the pandemic. Most of us didn’t have an AI view coming into that. We didn’t foresee that on the horizon. Now, certainly there were some, especially in that Silicon Valley area, but we know that that wasn’t what we were thinking on yet our lives changed dramatically in how we thought about the nature of work, and way how work is continuing to evolve. And so it is about just it’s about how do we can we lean into it and be curious and find the aspects of it that allow us to be more grounded and more engaged and still be okay that, like, as you said, the next thing is going to come, and it’s going to surprise us, even when we don’t think we can be surprised again, right?

Maria Ross 20:50

Exactly, exactly. And I think the most important thing we can learn from that is that all change involves bringing people along with you on that change. So again, it goes back. I, as you know, I did change management way early in my career for management consulting firm, and the changes were different. The human aspect, the human need for information, for reassurance, for connection, for upskilling, never goes away. It’s just the challenge in front of us changes.

Kim Bohr 21:22

Yes, yeah, the emotional side will always be with us. We’ll always have emotion around change, whether that’s fear or excitement or all the degrees in between. Exactly, exactly.

Maria Ross 21:33

So as folks get ready to get some great insights from you over the next year, every third Thursday right here at the empathy edge. How can they make the most of courage to advance? I know that you are going to be providing some resources and pre work that go with every episode. So can you tell us a little bit about that? Because this is actually not just going to be a passive exercise for people.

Kim Bohr 21:55

Well, they what we wanted to bring is we believe so much around, you know, insights and action and everything and momentum is at the core of everything we do. And so we want to bring forward to people, articles and exercises and things that they can actually do their own self, assess, organizational assessments, and understand what where they might be in the continuum of all this change that is happening. And so we will be providing relevant to each episode, material that people can check out ahead of time. They can certainly download. They can reach out to us and have conversations. But the idea is to give them something that’s beyond just inspiration and really enabling them to feel like they have an ability to take action in some fashion. And so we’re really excited about what that’ll be with that first episode, as you said, next week around looking at CEO evaluations and how does that fit inside an organization? I love

Maria Ross 22:50

it. I love the fact that you’re going to give people sort of tangible things that they can work on and take away with every episode. And I’m just going to share the link, which will be shared in every episode you do, but spark effect.com/courage-two-advance-podcast, and we will have that link in the show notes of this episode. But more importantly, it’s going to be your link and call to action for every episode that you do. And that’s going to be the hub where folks can go back after listening to one of your episodes here on the empathy Edge platform, and they’ll be able to go back to that and see what resources you have available for them to take the next step beyond just listening to a really insightful and thought provoking conversation that you’re going to have with experts that you’re bringing in or sharing your own insights around client work. So I’m super excited

23:40

about it. I

Kim Bohr 23:42

am as well. I’m excited about the partnership, the alignment that we have in the conversations, and just to be able to hopefully make a difference and give people a sense of more that’s possible. Yeah.

Maria Ross 23:54

I mean, basically I when I met you, I knew you were my people, and for folks listening, if I’m your people. Kim and spark effect are your people too. So it’s going to be a great partnership, but we will put all the links in the show notes as well as links to connect with Spark effect in social media and on their website and connect with you, Kim. But this is just the beginning, so

Kim Bohr 24:15

we look forward to more wonderful we’re excited as well. And thank you

Maria Ross 24:20

everyone for listening to this bonus episode of the empathy edge. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate and review and share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, 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 empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes 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 slicemaria now. Never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

October Hot Take: Scary Leaders…Or Scared Leaders?

Halloween is just around the corner, and the ghouls, goblins, and…gladiators will be out in full force, along with spooky music, haunted houses, chills, and thrills. While humans have a weird desire to scare ourselves for our amusement, fear and horror in the workplace is far less desirable. And nothing can strike more fear into our hearts than scary bosses.

But are those leaders scary…or scared?

Today, I discuss how fear is detrimental for your team and how elevated perceived stress levels cause poor cognition. I also talk about why embracing empathy and building strong connections with your team while still maintaining high accountability and performance expectations will allow your team to rise to the challenge. Listen in for some scary statistics, but also the light around the dark corner that waits for those of us who are willing to take the next steps.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Studies show that perceived stress can cause lower cognitive scores and a faster rate of cognitive decline.
Be vulnerable in your journey to be a more empathetic leader – while still expecting high performance and holding people accountable – people will rise to the challenge.
Examine your own emotional triggers and backstory. Be willing to interrogate yourself with a curious mind. Scaring your people won’t help, so stop trying to do so and understand why you were trying to in the first place.

“Most scary or ineffective leaders have no self-awareness about how poorly they come across and how much psychological torture they influence. And that’s because their negative behavior is almost always a result of their own fears.” — Maria Ross

Episode References:

CNN: Stress May Lead to Lower Cognitive Function, Study Finds
More on Arno Michaelis
Buy the book and download a free chapter sneak peek: http://www.TheEmpathyDilemma.com

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red SliceThreads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

It is not only the month of my birthday, but it is also Halloween. Woo. Halloween is just around the corner. Decorations are already in our neighborhood now, not our house yet. Mind you, we’re still settling into the new place, but this neighborhood takes its Halloween very seriously, which will be awesome for my son. So the ghouls and the goblins and the gladiators, that’s my son’s chosen costume. This year will be out in full force, as well as the spooky music, the haunted houses, the chills and the thrills we humans have this weird desire to scare ourselves for fun. So I like to call this the scary time of year, right? But fear and horror in the workplace are less desirable, and nothing can strike more fear into our hearts than Dum Dum Dum scary bosses. Now, I truly believe that most scary or ineffective leaders have no self awareness about how poorly they come across and also how much psychological torture they induce, unless, of course, they’re sadists, but that’s because their negative behavior is almost always a result of their own fears, which is why I called this episode scared least leaders, or scary leaders or scared leaders. They have a fear of losing control, a fear of looking stupid, a fear of failure imposter syndrome, or a fear of letting anyone see the real person inside. Now, a former White Nationalist turned speaker and anti hate activist, Arno Michaelis, who wrote the book, My Life After Hate and actually, whose story I recently got a chance to learn and was so moved by, I’ve invited him onto the podcast. I’ll actually put a link so you can learn more about him in the show notes. He reminded me in a recent talk he gave of the familiar adage, hurt people. Hurt people. Hurt people. Hurt people. And that is never more true than for bad bosses, they don’t realize that their attempts to look good and maintain control, you know, maintain control and command are ruining their chances of success, that when they create fear, anxiety and stress, it’s anything but beneficial to, you know, healthy competition, it actually neutralizes high performance. Studies show that when we are under perceived stress, it can cause lower cognitive scores and a faster rate of cognitive decline. Some studies like those cited by CNN, which I’ll link to in the notes, show how stress lowers cognitive function, even after adjusting for many physical risk factors, people with elevated stress levels were 37% more likely to have poor cognition, the researchers found. And I don’t know about you, but I want my team at their sharpest. I want them thinking at full capacity. And we literally can’t think straight when we’re operating under stress or fear our executives, our executive functions shut down. We can’t engage the parts of our brain that we need in our work when we’re in a constant state of fight, flight or freeze. So why on earth would a leader knowingly degrade their strongest assets, their people in such a blatant way? Well, successful leaders want their teams to be operating at optimal capacity. They want them to invent, problem solve, create, innovate, remember, Important Facts, all the things we need are frontal lobe to do. And if leaders across the board would embrace empathy as a strategic advantage, they would see how their team’s engagement, performance and innovation would increase. They’d be able to get the best out of the people they need to do the work, and those people could perform at levels that ultimately would make the leader look good and advance their own goals. So fear doesn’t work for the long term. It might be a desirable or, you know, seductive to think that it’s a short term fix. You know when you use that stick instead of the carrot, but it certainly doesn’t work for outperforming in challenging markets.

So I would advise any leaders out there who struggle to create strong connections with their teams, or those of you who recognize these bad behaviors in your own leaders, to invest in empathy, open yourself up to a new way to lead and operate or risk falling way behind. Be vulnerable in your journey to be a more empathetic leader while still expecting high performance and holding people accountable. But watch your people rise to the challenge, rather than get crushed under the negativity. The goal is performance, right? So stop trying to scare the hell out of your people, out of some underlying desire for respect or fear of failure, examine your own emotional triggers and backstory and interrogate yourself with a curious mind. Could you find another way to operate be more effective and cause less harm? I bet you could, if you’re willing to walk through that door, I promise there won’t be some crazed maniac inside waiting to torture you like all the Halloween movies would have us believe in this movie, I promise that what waits around that dark corner is actually a whole lot of light. Thanks for joining me this month on this month’s hot take. Please reach out to me on the socials and let me know what you think of the episodes and any other topics or themes you want me to cover in future hot takes and until next time, 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 empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes 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.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Kate, Jeannie, & Jayna: How to Support Transgender Colleagues & Kids in a Dangerous Time

Today I’m facilitating a unique discussion with three brave women, two of which live under this shadow of fear for themself and their child, and one who is a cisgender ally: Kate Brookes, Jayna Sheats, & Jeannie Gainsburg. We talk about their own stories that led them to this work, how the increase in anti-trans legislation impacts them, what it’s like to parent a trans teen and they share their most poignant moments from their journeys. We also share simple yet impactful tips for you on how to be an ally as a manager, colleague and neighbor to support the trans community.

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Accepting and loving your child no matter how they present is support and protection for your child.
Fiction is an amazing tool for empathy. It allows you to explore with your imagination experiences outside of your own.
As allies, we need to step up, use the right language, and let people know that they are safe.
Everyone is watching the world for signals to understand they are safe.

“Dignity is at stake. LGBTQ rights are at stake. Right now, while my daughter has access to these things, a vote could take some of these necessities. They’re not privileges, they’re necessities. They’re what she needs. A vote could jeopardize her needs.” — Kate Brookes

References:

Hanna’s Ascent by Jayna Sheats
Transister: Raising Twins in a Gender-Bending World by Kate Brookes
The Savvy Ally: A Guide for Becoming a Skilled LGPTQ+ Advocate by Jeannie Gainsburg
2016 Study on Mental Health of Transgender Children Who are Supported in their Identities
GFP: Gender and Family Project
Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story by Jacob Tobia
Cori Lovejoy: A Trans Woman’s Journey Transforming Self and Organizational Culture
Jeannie Gainsburg: How to Be a Savvy LGBTQ+ Ally

From Our Partner:

Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.

Kate Brookes: Producer, Filmmaker, Writer. Kate Brookes is an award-winning TV reporter turned producer, filmmaker, and writer. An activist since her teens, Kate has devoted countless hours to the causes she supports, including mental health, housing justice, and anti-gun legislation. But it wasn’t until realizing she’d completely botched the birth announcement for her twins that she became active in LGBTQ causes. The author of Transister: Raising Twins in a Gender-Bending World, Kate lives with her husband and rock star children, one of whom happens to be trans, in New York City.

Jeannie Gainsburg, Founder, Savvy Ally Action: Jeannie is an educational trainer and consultant in LGBTQ+ inclusion and effective allyship, and author of, The Savvy Ally: A Guide for Becoming a Skilled LGBTQ+ Advocate. She is the founder of Savvy Ally Action, a small business that offers accessible and encouraging workshops and videos on how to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ communities.

Jayna Sheats, Author: Jayna grew up on an isolated Colorado ranch in the 1950s, where the word “transgender” had never once been heard. Returning to CO after studying language and psychology in Germany, she finally majored in physical science and settled in Silicon Valley with a PhD in chemistry. Jayna is the author of, Hanna’s Ascent. Today she spends most of her time writing novels about triumph over trauma and social justice, and a non-fiction book on transgender women and athletics.

Connect with Our Guests:

Kate Brookes: transistermom.com

Jeannie Gainsburg: savvyallyaction.com

Jayna Sheats: jaynasheats.com

X: @transistermom

LinkedIn: Jeannie Gainsburg

Facebook: Jayna Sheats, Author

Instagram: @jeanniegainsburgauthor

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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. Today’s episode is a little different, because it’s not just about empathy to improve your leadership and culture, although we do touch on that, but it’s about empathy, because lives are at stake. Transgender children and adults alike are under attack in the United States, according to trans legislation.com. Which tracks legislation that seeks to block trans people from receiving basic health care, education, legal recognition and the right to publicly exist. Here’s what’s going on. 652 anti trans bills in 43 states, 45 have passed. 123 are active, and 484 have failed. Transgender individuals live in constant fear it isn’t right and it isn’t fair, and it’s impacting your neighbors, colleagues, employees, and possibly your families. Today, I’m facilitating a unique discussion with three brave women, two of which live under this shadow of fear for themselves and their child, and one who is a cisgender ally and expert, they have each written books that will help you practice empathy for people you may not understand, but who need your support. Kate Brooks is an award winning TV reporter turned producer, filmmaker and writer, an activist. Since her teenage years, Kate has devoted countless hours to the causes she supports, including mental health, housing justice and anti gun legislation. But it wasn’t until realizing she’d completely botched the birth announcement for her twins that she became active in LGBTQ causes, the author of trans sister raising twins in a gender bending world, Kate lives with her husband and rock star children, one of whom happens to be trans in New York City. Jeannie gainsburg is an educational trainer and consultant in the field of LGBTQ plus inclusion and effective allyship, and author of the book The savvy ally a guide for becoming a skilled LGBTQ plus advocate. She’s the founder of savvy ally action, a small business that offers accessible and encouraging workshops and videos on how to be an ally to the LGBTQ plus communities. Before forming the company, she spent 15 years working for the out Alliance Rochester, New York’s LGBTQ plus Center, where she was the education director. And Jana sheets is an author and transgender woman who grew up in an isolated Colorado ranch in the 1950s where the word transgender or any variant had never once been heard, returning to Colorado after studying language and psychology in Germany, she finally chose to major in physical science and settled in Silicon Valley with a PhD in chemistry. Jaina is the author of the novel Hannah’s ascent. Today, she is still involved in her microelectronics startup, but spends most of her time writing novels about triumph over trauma and social justice, as well as a future nonfiction book on transgender women and athletics. Today, we talk about their own personal stories that led them to this work, how the increase in anti trans legislation personally impacts them, what it’s like to parent a trans teen in a world where trans youth face higher rates of depression, suicide and bullying, and they thoughtfully share their most poignant and impactful moments from their journeys. We also share loads of simple yet highly impactful tips on how you can be an ally as a manager, colleague and neighbor and support the transgender community, and we talk about our hopes for the future. You may not personally know a transgender person or even understand it. Empathy requires curiosity, representation, stories and humanization, and that is what this episode will offer you. A warning suicide is mentioned in this episode. This is an important one. Folks, take a listen. Welcome ladies to the empathy edge Podcast. I’m so excited. As I mentioned to you, I’ve never done a four way interview before, so I’m very excited to do this. Welcome to Kate Brooks, to Jeannie gainsburg and Jayna sheets. I’m. So delighted to have you here to talk about this important topic of allyship, especially with the transgender community, and what we can do to be better allies as as our world is changing, as our society is changing, and as we’re faced with a lot of challenges these days. So I just want to do a little bit of a round robin to have our listeners get to know each of you. So Jana, I’d love to start with you. Can you share a little bit about about your work and what you’re most passionate about?

Jayna Sheats 05:29

Sure, so I won’t say so my work. First of all, I think it’s I’ve I liked being 39 so much, I decided I would say 39 for the next 39 years. So so I’m 76 so I do not really have a workplace, and yet I do, because I’m still a CTO of a startup company, and I still go there once a week, but my work is my writing and and that’s what I’m passionate about.

Maria Ross 05:57

Great. And you and you wrote a book called Hannah’s ascent, a fiction book. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what prompted you to write it?

Jayna Sheats 06:05

So the easiest way, so I can do that, there’s something that’s common in the the movie industry called a log line. And if you’ve heard of that, that’s a way of putting your story in 30 words, so that someone the screenplay so a tenacious transgender girl from 1950s rural Colorado suffers amnesia and loss of language after a vicious assault, setting her and on an intercontinental journey to find a real home and reclaim her true self.

06:33

Wow.

Jayna Sheats 06:36

So yeah, going on so, so then there’s more to be said about it, but, but maybe you know, like we can talk about it as you go along, sure,

Maria Ross 06:45

sure. And then Kate, tell us a little bit about you

Kate Brookes 06:49

Sure thing. So I am a former TV news reporter turned writer, producer and filmmaker. I am a proud wife, a super proud mom and a lifelong activist. Over the years, I’ve probably advocated for everything from housing rights to mental health awareness to gun reform, but it was not until my husband and I realized we had completely botched our twins birth announcement, and then I began advocating for LGBTQ rights. So as part of my advocacy, I write about parenting a trans kid, and some of the issues that pop up accordingly. I speak to schools, hospitals, synagogues, essentially about the importance of accepting and protecting trans kids. And I also, as part of this, wrote the book transistor, raising twins in a gender bending world, and I wrote the book that I kind of wished I had had when my daughter was transitioning, not a prescriptive narrative, if you will, but an affirming one, candid, heartfelt, sometimes humorous, in the hopes that parents who were going through what I was experiencing having a child transition would feel less alone, and that anyone interested in what it might be like to have a trans kid, to be around a trans kid, whether the coach or a teacher, would read this and have a better understanding of how they can help to Protect and accept trans people and to kind of humanize the trans experience, if

Maria Ross 08:24

you will? Yeah, absolutely. And we talk a lot about that on the show, in terms of giving people exposure to different stories and different people that they may not regularly have exposure to, but that important aspect of humanizing a group of people that maybe someone doesn’t understand and representation matters, I would say yes, absolutely, absolutely. So welcome and Jeannie, you are a repeat guest on the empathy edge podcast, and I’ll put a link to your first episode we did together, but briefly remind people about your story and

Jeannie Gainsburg 08:57

your work. Sure, so I am a straight cisgender ally to the communities. I call myself a late bloomer as an ally. I didn’t get started until about age 40. I had a real aha moment. My husband gave me a book about the women who fought for my right to vote in the US. And I was reading this book and doing this thing that I do when I read history, which is like putting myself back in that time period and thinking, how would I have behaved if I had lived back then, you know, would I have been involved? And of course, I had convinced myself that I would be marching alongside all those amazing women, and I suddenly realized how hypocritical I was being, because, you know, there are social justice fights going on in my lifetime. Here I am fantasizing about how I would have behaved, you know, over 100 years ago, and I wasn’t doing anything to help in the current time period. And LGBTQ plus inclusion and rights is just always kind of a no brainer for me, but I had done nothing to get involved, and this book really just kind of lit that fire under my butt. I looked up the word gay in the phone book because I had. No idea what was out there in the straight cisgender world. Didn’t know anyone in the community. And fortunately, at the time, I shouldn’t say fortunately, it’s a very non inclusive name, but at the time, our LGBTQ plus Center here in Rochester, New York, was called the Gay Alliance, so I found it very easily. We later changed our name, by the way, to something more inclusive. But I called and asked if I could volunteer, and that ended up launching me into a career as an LGBTQ plus inclusion advocate and someone who really focused in on how we can be effective allies. So I worked for that agency for 15 years. I ended up being their education director, and by the time I left, I started my own small company called savvy ally action, and ended up writing a book called The savvy ally, which was kind of like what Kate said. This was the book that I so desperately wanted when I got right. I mean, I knew nothing at all. I didn’t even know what, like at the time GLBT stood for, that was the initialism we were using. I’m like, what does this mean? So I started from scratch, and I really wanted a book about, like, just tell me what to do, tell me what to say, tell me what not to say, tell me how not to offend people accidentally. So I wrote the book. I everything I know about how to be an ally. I put into that book, and it really is for not just for folks like me who know nothing and are just getting started, but really for even allies who have been out there doing great ally work. Just, you know, I just hear so many people read it, and they’re like, Wow, I thought I knew, and I learned so much. And so it’s really a very action oriented book,

Maria Ross 11:28

okay, what I love about having the three of you in one interview is we have someone who identifies as transgender. Personally, we have someone whose family is impacted by transgender identity, and then we have someone who seemingly has no connection to that community per se, but an interest in justice and equity now

Jeannie Gainsburg 11:50

and do now have have a vested interest. I’ve got tons of you know, obviously I’ve met the most amazing people, but yes, when I started, I had no no one in my family, no close friends who are part of the community,

Maria Ross 12:01

yeah, and I think that just goes to the to the point that this is an issue that impacts everyone, and also Jeannie, to your experience, it’s never too late, right? You talk about yourself as a late bloomer. I would probably consider myself in that camp too. But a lot of us are late bloomers because of perhaps the environment we grew up in, or the neighborhood we grew up in, or if we were not exposed and not getting to know other people and other ways of living and other ways of loving. So I think many people come to this as a late bloomer and you know, or you’re immediately impacted by it. So I wanted to kind of go intern and talk to a few of you for I wanted to start with Kate first, actually, and talk about, you know, you are the parent of a chan transgender individual, and by the way, call me out on any terminology that I’m not using correctly, because that’s part of my learning too. We know that trans youth face higher rates of depression, of suicide, of bullying, and so help us have empathy for this. What is it like parenting a trans child in this environment, in this climate?

Kate Brookes 13:11

So in a word, I would say it’s scary. I mean, as a mom, I want to raise happy, healthy, kind kids, and I want them to feel safe. I want them to be safe physically. I want them to be safe emotionally. And right now I would opine, and I have, I have twins, one of whom is trans and one is cisgender. One of my children is not as safe as the other, and I know as a mom that there’s a lot that I can’t control, so I try to deal with the things that I can. But above and above it all, I want to be able to protect my kids. And right now, there are 21 states out there that have some sort of ban on gender affirming care for trans youth. More than a third of trans youth live in those states. Now I often point out that in some ways, and I don’t think it’s easy to be trans, and I don’t think it’s easy to parent a trans child, and I think it’s easier for me and for my daughter, because we do live in in a bubble, if you will. We live in a city where we have access to gender affirming care. She lives in a home where her parents accept her, which is huge, and we have the resources if we needed to chop off a limb and sell it, we would do that to make sure that our daughter gets the care, mental health care and gender affirming health care that she needs. So it can be really scary, and I’m reminded of something that one of my heroes in this world had said, John Malpass, he’s the founder of the gender and family trend, the gender and family project in New York, and he said acceptance is protection, meaning if you accept your child, if you affirm his her or their gender identity. Right? You’re already helping to protect your child, and the data supports this notion. And I won’t get too into the weeds, but I always reference this 2016 study that tracked a group of trans kids and a group of cisgender kids, and the results of that study showed that trans kids who were supported by their parents had similar mental health, mental health outcomes as the cisgender control group. So when we talk about increased bullying, increased rates of suicide, increased rates of depression, I, as a mom, can’t control all of that, and I can control whether I accept my child and I love both of my children and I accept both of them, and that goes a long way towards protecting both of them, and in this case, my trans daughter, Gabby, who is an absolute rock star, so yes, it’s scary, and I’m acknowledging the privilege that my family has in protecting our child, and I don’t think there’s a privilege in being trans, and if there was one, she was born To the right family in the right city, and in some ways, at the

Maria Ross 16:03

right time, and is that kind of what fuels you to take up the fight for other families that don’t have it? You know, as quote, unquote privileged as you do absolutely.

Kate Brookes 16:14

I mean, I look at the upcoming election and what’s at stake, dignity is at stake. LGBTQ rights are at stake. So much is at stake, and so right now, while my daughter has access to these things, a vote could take some of these necessities. They’re not privileges, they’re necessities. They’re what she needs. A vote could could jeopardize her needs. So yes, but for my daughter, and especially for other kids out there, I’m in all of these private groups, some on Facebook, some in other places, and so many kids are not accepted and therefore not protected. And I what when my daughter is out of the home, married kids on the way, if that’s what she chooses, I will still be fighting this fight, because it is likely not a fight that’s going away to tomorrow,

Maria Ross 17:09

right? Unfortunately, yeah, all right, I want to shift to Jaina, you know, kind of taking up that theme as a trans woman, going through this life as a trans woman. How do you react to the increase in anti trans legislation, and how do you think your novel can impact that conversation?

Jayna Sheats 17:32

So I have at most one word about the legislation. It’s, I mean, it’s horrifying, and I don’t have anything else to say about it. I really don’t the question about, I mean, it’s, it’s insane, right? I mean, there is not, there are not words to it

Maria Ross 17:53

makes no sense to me. Like, what? Like the cycles of them going through this to try to get this legislation passed. It’s like, it’s just, it’s nonsensical, so

Jayna Sheats 18:04

they’re horrified, right? So I suppose I could say, you know, two sentences. So there are, there are two types. One can divide that world into three types of people, the ones who are opposing the legislation, the ones who are so far on the other side that you can’t talk to them. And then there are people in between who really don’t know because they have never touched that world. And so I guess if I were to jump in to

18:38

to that, you know, the the

Jayna Sheats 18:44

reason for writing a novel. So I would say this in answer to your question, to sort of jump in, and so I haven’t said anything about the novel, but it’s, it’s, it’s written for many, many reasons, and and it’s not attract, it’s it’s not pre it’s not intended to preach anything. It’s intended to describe a story, to allow people to which, I hope you know, from the practical you know, messaging point of view, allows people to relate to a subject that they’d only heard about with the kind of words that are used with no disrespect whatsoever to journalists who, many of whom are doing a wonderful they’re doing absolutely the best they possibly can. But when they say these things, so you’ll have you you have articles you know about, you know, with phrases like born in the wrong body, or you have phrases about mental health. How many people in this country know what mental health is? How many people have even the foggiest faintest idea of what that really means? I’ll bet you not one in 100 I really don’t think that’s the case. So the puberty blockers and the arguments about, you see, somebody’s cash. Creating themselves and blah, blah, blah, blah, these are just words that don’t mean a thing to people. They’re being batted across, back and forth across a net, like like a volleyball or or a tennis

20:11

ball.

Jayna Sheats 20:14

And not all of the people doing that are, are, are are malignant. They’re just ignorant. They don’t know, and they and they, if they knew, they would be different. And so the point of having a novel is this old fashioned word of trying to allow someone to walk in another person’s shoes, which you cannot do literally. But the novel, if it’s written well, can put you there and give you the emotions you can actually experience the life, instead of just hearing about it in some kind of abstract words. You immerse yourself, you feel the emotions as you go along. And I mean, that’s the ideal, at least. And I think I hope that that people can do that.

Maria Ross 21:02

Yeah. I mean, fiction plays such a huge role in strengthening empathy and helping people understand and sort of be able to safely in their mind, see something from another person’s perspective. And you know, when I wrote the first empathy book, the empathy edge, I talked about exploring with your imagination as one strategy to strengthen your empathy, and that was to consume books, novels, fiction, nonfiction, art, music, documentaries about people who are different from you. And that’s how you flex that muscle of just saying, like, I wonder what I would feel. I wonder what that would be like, and be able to test that out and make that actually part of the way you just operate with people in the in the real world. And so I think fiction has a tremendous power and a tremendous place to enabling us to build that empathy for groups and for people that we don’t understand. So thank you. Thank you for bringing that into the world, because that’s going to probably be much more effective for certain people than if you sat them down and lectured, right? And so they’re really getting to humanize someone. They’re really getting to know their story. They’re getting to like a protagonist that in any other context they could perceive as very different from them. And when you when you couch it in a fictional story, it can make more sense. It can it can land better, if you will. So I hope that that’s that’s going to happen with that book. It’s great. So Jeannie, I want to talk to you about a few of your favorite ally tips for supporting the transgender community writ large. What are some ways, if someone’s listening, and not just in the workplace, but in our communities, and then I would like us to drill down, and this is open to anyone too, about what can be done within the workplace. How can we support colleagues or employees? How can managers and leaders address the needs of transgender people. So at the end of the day, we can all be our best selves, but we can all do our best work.

Jeannie Gainsburg 23:08

Yeah? So the big questions, yeah, no, I just tips are my favorite. Yeah? Superpower. I’m excited. Okay, I’ll share three, but obviously I got a lot more in my book some of my favorites that I think are very impactful and not super difficult for anyone. The first one would be to check in with the transgender coworker, you know, especially if you’re a leader, you know, Team Leader, check in with your coworker who’s trans, or if you’re a parent with your child, and ask them how you can best support them, because, you know, everyone’s different. I mean, you know, some people are really going to appreciate some active support, for example, in the workplace from a leader, and others are going to not want a lot of attention drawn to them, and they may not want that support, and they may like support in different areas, so checking in with them is a great thing to do, because you’re going to get guidance right there on you know what to do. And I would say that’s sort of an ongoing thing. So because you’re going to find yourself in situations where you’re just not sure, I always give the example of like you’re in a work meeting and someone accidentally uses the wrong pronoun for, you know, a co worker. That’s what I would consider a gray area of allyship, because for some folks, they’re like, please, please step in and say something. I’m tired of telling people. And for other folks, they’re like, there are new people at the table. I’m uncomfortable. I don’t feel Yeah, I don’t want you drawing attention to this. Don’t say anything, and you have no idea of knowing unless you ask the person. So it’s going to be an ongoing thing of checking in and just saying, you know, what else needs to be done? How else can I support you? So maybe things like that that are very personal, it may be things that are bigger picture. Like, hey, it’d be really nice if we had an all gender restroom in our building. Like, I have to. Go across the street to the library to use the restroom safely, you know, like, what’s needed, right? Yeah, so that’s an easy an easy start is just check in with the person and see what you can do and and keep that sort of an ongoing check in another one. Again, for I’m sort of thinking of like the workplace leader. But of course, this is great for for everyone model the correct language, and also how to mess up properly, because we’re all going to mess up. And there are, you know, great ways to do that, and there are ways that draw a lot of attention to that. But one of the things that I like to say is like, one of the, I think the best ways that we can show respect to a person, anyone, whether they’re cis or trans or anything, is to get their name and their pronoun correct. And so, you know, this isn’t like something special, some special way that we’re treating trans people. You know, I like to give the example of like a woman who changes her name when she gets married. You know, this is considered the norm in our culture, and so no one gets angry at the women. Gosh, I wish these women would stop changing their names. I can’t get it right. No one says this, right? It’s like, that’s understood that that’s a typical thing to do, right? And people are just like, Oh yeah, it’s gonna take a little time, but I’m gonna get that new name, or

Maria Ross 26:11

they correct them, like, easily, right? Like, no, Maria’s married now. Her last name is Rob. Okay, right, okay, yeah, thanks, right.

Jeannie Gainsburg 26:17

But all of a sudden, it’s like, you know, someone’s pronoun, someone has a new pronoun, and it’s like, people take it personally. They’re like, why should I have to, you know? And so I think those examples are really great because, like, well, this is something we do for everyone. So, yeah, special just because this person’s trans, or someone who’s like, name is difficult for us to pronounce in English, same thing. Let’s be respectful and put a little practice into that, you know, to try and get it right. So again, modeling the correct language messing up properly. And just a real simple thing I like to say about messing up when it’s a situation where you’ve used a wrong name or pronoun is, keep

Kate Brookes 26:54

it short,

Jeannie Gainsburg 26:55

keep it simple. Don’t sob on anyone’s shoes. Yes, you know, I like

Maria Ross 26:59

to, I like to think of that as, like, Don’t Michael Scott it from the office, you know, like, he’s actually made it a bigger deal than it exactly.

Jeannie Gainsburg 27:06

Yeah, exactly. You can make it such a big deal that you get in ridiculous situations where the person’s now trying to make you feel better. Because, you know, like, come on. So you want to make it sincere, but you also want to keep it very brief. So just like, oh, excuse me, or I’m sorry. Same thing as if you get someone’s married name wrong. Like, oh, right, sorry, I’m gonna work on it. You know, just really short and that you

Maria Ross 27:26

wouldn’t, you wouldn’t be going off on, if that, like, in that scenario, I just love this, because this is real for people. If it was a married person, you wouldn’t be going on and on about how. Like, well, not that I don’t love married people. Married people are great. My neighbors are married people. And, like,

Jeannie Gainsburg 27:41

my best friends are married.

Maria Ross 27:44

Yeah, you would never do that. So you don’t need to do it. You don’t need to justify and backtrack. It’s just like, wow, I’m really sorry.

27:49

Yeah, it’s so true.

Jeannie Gainsburg 27:52

Yes. And then the final tip I have for folks is to practice. So one of the things that’s really important to keep in mind about humans is that we don’t retain information well, unless we actually practice so for example, if you have a friend who just told you you go out to dinner and they’re like, Hey, by the way, I’m I’m using the pronoun they now, right? You see that that friend again a month from now at the movies, you’re likely to resort to that old pronoun, because we don’t retain that information for a month, right? Unless we actually practice it. And so I would, I always say, just like practice. So if you’re struggling with someone’s pronoun, find ways to practice either that you know you set your phone to send you a daily message that says, What are so and so’s pronouns like test yourself every morning, right? Or find things out in the world that sort of, you can, you can, sort of, I always say this is sort of like self, internal self talk. You know, you walk by their their cubicle at work, and you’re like, gosh, they’re neat, wow. I’ll have to ask them, them for some tips on how they stay so organized in your head. Use the correct pronoun whenever these types of things, we really need to work at it. We’re not just going to automatically get someone’s name or pronoun right without practicing

Maria Ross 29:08

it. Yeah, I love that. Such great tips, and I want to, I want to take a step back also to to talk to Kate and Jayna about their experiences, because I think what’s so interesting to me, and why I am so curious about people in the in in this situation and living these lifestyles, is the moment of clarity. So for you like Jana, I don’t, I don’t know how old you were when you transitioned fully, but what was, what was the spark, what was the moment of clarity? Because I think when we know that and we understand that about other people, we can, we can tell what, what phase they’re in, of of acceptance, do you know what I’m saying? So for you, what was that? What was that spark? What was that epiphany where you’re like, Yeah, I’m going all in on this. And maybe it was a slow. Burn, I don’t know. So

Jayna Sheats 30:01

it’s, it’s a good question and and I would give a shout out to Jeannie describing how many people go through that in different ways. First of all, I detest the word transition, not and it’s just not a criticism, because it’s a ubiquitously used and my what I think about, it isn’t going to change anything but share with us that we need to know you don’t transition, except in the eyes of the law. So I don’t believe there is any indication whatsoever that transgender people are not born with that identity, but it may take anywhere from two years to a lifetime to accept it. And the question is, why is it take so so long for some people, and why is it so hard? And the answer is, because it’s scary, because society has made it scary, and people react to that in very different ways. Some people are, you know, you have, like, my, my grandson has a personality that is so different from anything that I imagined as a child. I mean, he’s just, he’s out there, you know, and he does things I would never have dreamed. I mean, I wouldn’t have gotten away without I went and thrashed into a pulp if I had, but I wouldn’t have even tried it. Yeah, and that determined. So there’s no doubt. I mean, I knew, I knew that I was, that I was a girl at the age of probably five, which is the first time I think I saw a girl, because we lived in a place where there were no neighbors. And of course, I repressed this notion, but I knew it. And so I can look back at my consciousness of myself now and see how I knew things, and within 33 milliseconds, which is about the neural Trent cycle time, repressed it. So how people deal with that is very, very individual.

Maria Ross 31:59

And at what point did you feel safe? What was the what was the difference maker for you?

Jayna Sheats 32:05

Oh, the question so I went through getting married, having having a family, we adopted children, which was, yeah, anyway, don’t get off the subject. But it was the and I thought, okay, it’s too late to do this. And then, and then, I don’t want to call it, you know, there’s different ways of committing suicide too. You don’t have to just sort of jump off a bridge or shoot yourself. There are ways of doing it day by day, year by year, for a lifetime. And it came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t do that anymore, despite the fact that I had, you know, two children and a wife who thought that this was, you know, she wasn’t married, she didn’t plan on being married to a woman, which was understandable. So,

Maria Ross 32:54

yeah, yeah, yeah. It was interesting. I had a guest on my show, Corey Lovejoy who, interestingly enough, a few years prior to that interview with her, I had an interview with Corey Custer, a man who was an executive, and so it was the same person, and I interviewed her later, after she had decided to live her life as who she really was. And it was interesting to me because I really heard her story stuck with me, and I’ll put a link in the show notes to her interview. But because when she was younger, she knew, but she thought something was wrong with her. She thought she was mentally ill. That’s, that’s the message she got. And so lived her life similar to you. You know, got married, had kids, and then it’s finally free and and knowing her from having interviewed her, I think it was two years prior that I interviewed Corey as a man. When I interviewed her two years later, even the way she looked on a zoom call was different. She was just so bright and alive and happy and and I remember even back then, when I did the first interview, it just seemed like, oh, maybe the lighting is bad. Maybe they’re just having a bad day. Maybe it was just remarkable. And I remarked on it when we did the interview, and I was like, This is what happens when you live who you really are. And, you know, same thing, very scary. But it’s just that, you know, this is kind of leading me into the question I want to delve into with Kate. It’s just all these messages we get when we’re younger, and the different experiences people have when they’re younger, and they’re trying to sort this out for themselves, of who they really are on the inside, it can make such a difference if you’re growing up in a house like Kate’s, versus, you know, in a house someone else is growing up in, and the impact on your mental health and your ability to be a thriving individual and to just thrive as who you really are. So I kind of want to ask the same question, Kate, where was the moment of realization for you and I there? You know, there might be folks out there listening who are maybe their child is not transgender. Her yet, but they have a suspicion. Maybe they haven’t talked about it. Could you share a little bit if you’re open to it, about what was that realization like in your family? Absolutely. So

Kate Brookes 35:10

the realization for my daughter happened over time she and Jayna, I will use the word transition, because that’s the word my daughter uses. She socially transitioned at eight years old. But long story short, I gave birth to to twins, Jacob and Gideon in 2009 and when the doctor said it’s a boy, and then a minute later, it’s another boy, my husband and I believe the doctor, until we did, and over time, we realized that one of our twins, Gideon, seemed to gravitate towards more stereotypical, quote, unquote, girl stuff. Favorite, pink and purple. Liked wearing tutus, my shoes, my dresses. And candidly, first, we figured maybe Git is gay. And honestly, we were hoping that he was just gay, not because we’d love him any less if he realized he was a she, but because, statistically, as we discussed earlier, Life can be tough for trans kids and adults, but we knew that we would support both of our kids and love them both regardless, and I think for my daughter, who’s now Gabriella Gabby, it was There were a couple of kind of aha moments when she was presenting as Gideon after a birthday party. That was a super fun birthday party that night. Always, Gideon got upset after celebrating a birthday party. And in retrospect, I think it’s also always it might have had something to do with one more year and I’m still, everyone still thinks I’m a boy. So we’re so kids are going to bed one one night after their fabulous birthday party, and Gideon calls me into the room, Mom, will you come here? And it’s usually that’s that means you’re going to be in there forever. You know twins. You really just want five years old. You want them to go to sleep right. Roll up into his bunk bed, and he said to me, Mama, why don’t my friends know me? And they said, What do you mean? Of course, your friends know you. And he said, No, they don’t. Jacob got all the gifts he wanted his birth, at his at our birthday party, and only Gila Gideon, his best girlfriend, got me a Barbie. My friends don’t know me. And I tried to explain to get that, you know, I was like, grasping for straws. You know, sometimes parents just buy in bulk, and it’s not that they don’t know you, and, of course, they know you and they love you. But Jacob got everything he wanted and rattled for the and and he was right. And I didn’t tell GID that. Well, we probably didn’t tell the other parents that maybe this is what you like. And then I thought, Wait, maybe we can just return some of the gifts and exchange them for gifts that you do want. And GID was like, Oh my gosh, Mom, we can do that. And I said, of course, we can. So rubbing his back, and I kind of feel the muscles start to unclench, and I think we’re getting somewhere. And softly, quietly, GID says, Mama, sometimes I wish I was a girl. And I said, Well, that’s okay, love mommy and daddy will love you if you’re a boy, a girl or a bunny rabbit. And somehow that was enough. Don’t know how the bunny rabbit jumped into my mind, but it did, and that seemed to quell did for a few years, and I’m thinking like, wow, I wish I was a girl. I didn’t say I am a girl, so I’m woo dodge that bullet, except for in my heart of hearts, I knew we really didn’t dodge a bullet. Fast forward a couple years, my kids learned what the word transgender meant, and so all these questions came popping up out of out of both kids. Then at about eight years old, I’m walking down the street holding Gideons hand was with him, not my not his brother. We had this alone time after school. One had a plum play date. One didn’t we stopped at a light and get looked up and me and said, Mama, I think I’m a transistor, to which I replied, Do you mean transgender? And get said, Yes, when I was in your tummy, I was supposed to come out a girl. It was a mistake. And in retrospect, I wish I said, Oh, baby, nothing about you is a mistake. But I said something to the effect of mommy and daddy love you. If you say you’re a girl, we believe you and we’re going to work through this as though there was like some magical finish line that I was going to work towards, Yeah, us towards, and as if there was an end point. But it was at that moment that Gabriela realized she was Gabriela, although my husband and I had been going to support group meetings for parents of gender non conforming kids for a while, because we really thought this could be where it was headed, and we didn’t want to give we were scared to say the word transgender for a long time, and I’m embarrassed to say that, because I’m think of Florida, just say gay, like as though you say the word gay, they’re going to become gay, yeah, and it was still scary. So I would say I absolutely mourned the loss of one of my sons and what I perceived to be a. Quote, normal family. And over time, I learned to celebrate my daughter and realize that there is no such thing as a normal family, and that would and that’s kind of a beautiful thing. So it wasn’t overnight. And I do echo what, what Jaina says that, you know, the trans community isn’t a monolith. I mean, some people know when they’re two. Some people figure it out when they’re 50. Some Yeah, buddy could maybe, you know, maybe their gender identity changes at times, you know, and toggles back and forth. But we tried to follow the lead as best we could. Of our daughter tried to support her along the way, and I’m embarrassed to say that we, at times, really were wishing that she was just gay. Now I couldn’t. I mean, I’m the proudest mom in the world to both of my children, and this is who she’s supposed to be. This not even supposed to be. This is who she is. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t view it as a choice. She is, just who she is. So now I’m grateful, and it was

Maria Ross 41:03

hard, yeah, yeah, completely honest and and thank you for sharing your vulnerability and your your vulnerability through that process, because I think that’s going to help a lot of people who might be in this situation. And I’m wondering if, as kind of as we wrap up, kind of shifting to, I know I’m kind of going back and forth because I’m like, Oh, I could talk to you all. Could talk to you all for like, three hours. But as we kind of go back into the workplace setting,

41:28

is there any advice, and

Maria Ross 41:30

maybe that’s not the setting for anyone to acknowledge anything if they don’t know someone well enough. But is there any advice you can give around if you see a co worker or an employee who’s struggling, not like a parent to child relationship, but if you suspect they there’s something, might be something going on there in terms of that they really are a different gender. What I mean? I know there’s legal ramifications. I’m not talking about that of like HR rules and things like that. But what is there anything a manager or a colleague could do other than just be there for someone, even if they suspect they might not be able to say anything, they might not be able to the person might not be ready to hear anything. But how could we better support those colleagues or those people in our workplaces that we’re spending so much time with, and be there to support them, without scaring them, without overstepping, without offending any guidance on that.

Kate Brookes 42:33

May I offer a quick tip, and I’m not the tip yes and yes, something that I’ve given given a lot of thought to again, I think representation matters and words matter. And by that, I don’t mean that we should make sure that we have X percent of trans people working in our in our in our workplace, right? I just mean indicate to people that they’re who they are is accepted. So how can we do that when you’re speaking publicly, when you’re speaking to a group and referring to people insert, you know, whether he, she or they, prefers this coffee or that coffee. That is a subtle, just a little bit of a subtle hint that, that, wow, he, she, they. Certainly. There’s other things on the gender spectrum. There’s a but that’s a subtle hint that, wow, maybe I don’t have to be binary here. Maybe I don’t have to fit in a box here, and I think that little hint could make someone feel a little more comfortable. Second thing, when you hear somebody saying something that is unkind is transphobic, in the same way that the black community is not responsible, not responsible for making people not racist, and Jews are not responsible entirely for making people, making sure that people aren’t anti, anti semitic. The Trans community is not responsible for doing all the work. So these little subtle things, he, she, they calling somebody out in a respectful way. Because if you treat disrespect with disrespect, then it usually it goes. So those are just as as a mom and as a worker at a university part time gig. Those are things that I try to do right anyone else have something to add?

Jeannie Gainsburg 44:11

I so I actually I want to give credit where credit is due. Jacob Tobiah, who wrote the book Cissy, a coming of gender story, definitely sissy. I think it’s a coming of gender story. They wrote in their book that they think we need a new metaphor, rather than coming out of the closet. They like the metaphor of thinking of a snail coming out of a shell, because there’s a good part of your book. Yeah, thank you. Well, and again, it’s, it’s their it’s their idea. But I love that, because it basically it, you know, when a snail hides in its shell, we don’t, you know, think of the snail as being not brave or withholding or dishonest, right? Like we do somehow with people who are in the closet, like, what’s wrong with them? Why don’t they just come out, you know? Like, we’re we’re fine, we’re okay, you know, yeah, whereas. With a snail, you’re, like, that snail’s not coming out of its shell. You’ve scared it like there’s, there’s an environment problem. And I really like that, that reframe. And so if we think about the snail and the person that you’re talking about, maybe is in that shell, they’re they’re not feeling comfortable coming out. I like to say that if you work for a big company and you have, like, very few, or no out LGBTQ, plus people, your snails are hiding.

Maria Ross 45:23

So yeah, because they’re there. Yeah, they’re there.

Jeannie Gainsburg 45:27

So it’s not just as one person. So I think, you know, if we brought in that, and think, not only how can I help this person who I think might be struggling with their gender, but how can I help all the snails who are at our workplace and are not feeling safe and comfortable, right? So those are things like, you know, again, what Kate said that language so important not making assumptions. Let’s not say good morning ladies to a group of people who we, you know, sort of assume are women, but we’re just looking at them and making that call. Or, you know, we’re using gendered language, and we’re, you know, saying things like, Oh, what a gorgeous wedding ring. You know, what does your husband do like really being aware of our language and making sure that we are staying open, because you you can be sure LGBTQ plus, people are listening to this. They are listening to what Kate said. Oh, they just use the pronoun, you know, he, she and they. Oh, wow. They said partner. They didn’t say wife or husband. And then the visibility thing is huge, too. And I think that’s such a great place where allies can step up to the plate. You know, Hey, pride month, let’s have a huge pride month display. Or let’s, you know, have a table at the Pride festival. You know, these are all ways that you can show as an agency, that you are, you know, inclusive. And you know, these are just all things, again, that are going to create an environment where hopefully your snails won’t be frightened. Yeah. Oh, I

Maria Ross 46:43

love that reframe. And it’s, I think it’s so true, because even the little things, it’s, they’re watching for signals. We’re all watching for signals on if the world around us is safe or not, and there’s things that cisgender folks take for granted, because the world is designed for us, so we only notice the outliers, but there’s other people that need to see those signals to feel safe and know that it’s this is an environment, if and when I’m ready, I know that I will be accepted here. I know that I will find safety here. So I really appreciate those tips, because I think that might be something that people listening to this may be experiencing in their workplaces, or in, you know, in their community, in their friend group. You know, maybe there is a friend who it’s sort of like everyone suspects that they’re not really living their truth. But how do you actually broach that subject? Someone and Jana, I would just like to offer you an opportunity. Is there anything that that would have been helpful to you as you were really coming to terms and wanting to live your honest life,

Jayna Sheats 47:42

not being afraid for my life. No. I mean, sorry, I’m being glib, but because the premise of the novel is based on fact, it is entirely fiction. And yet, in a way, none of it’s fiction. And in the 1950s it didn’t have to be in rural Colorado. That’s just the environment that I could write about the most easily, because, because I had lived there. But it could have been in the middle of New York City in 1950s as a transgender woman, person, but, but it was the woman it’s harder to pass. And as a transgender woman, you had three choices. You could if you were had entertainment skills like Christine Jorgensen did, then you can make it there, because oddity is more tolerated. You’re not going to get an Academy Award, but you can make a living. The other two alternatives are, you pass completely and nobody knows, or you work the streets. That’s the way it was. And if you think that I’m exaggerating about that, Lynn Conway, who recently passed away just a few months ago, who was a electrical engineer whose work was in many ways responsible for the computers that we’re using here for this conversation, was forced out of IBM in 1968 for wanting to make her to wanting to come out, and had to start over in CONGEDO. And for the next 30 years, she was not known. And then somebody started to poke around the IBM archives. And so she then came out and became a very, very prominent and powerful ally and advocate for the next 20 years the University of Michigan, but that’s what she said about what she saw in 1968 so, and we’re going back to that. I mean, you know, parts of the country, as Kate said, are going back to it, and parts of it are not. So we’re, we’re splitting apart, and if we could figure out a way to split, come back together again, exactly,

Maria Ross 49:42

exactly. And I just want to ask one last question. Do you think we’ll ever get to a point where, as a culture, we’re not even using the word transgender anymore? We’re just referring to people as men or women or some other word? I mean that to me, that

Jayna Sheats 49:57

would be, that would be the idea. Well. And of course, it’s kind of like, you know, the colorblind society, you know, we are a few generations from even being able to think that way. I would like to hope that. And you put your actually, you underscored a point that, to me as a scientist, is annoying, and that is, there should be a good word for non binary people. You know, it’s just an awkward word, good phrase,

50:29

and, and, but

Jayna Sheats 50:31

that’s real and, and it should be just totally on an equal footing. And one should be able to, yeah, when we need a nomenclature, nomenclature Commission,

Maria Ross 50:46

we do. We do well, we could talk so much longer, but I just appreciate all of you. I appreciate all of you sharing your own life experiences and your written work to help all of us be better and be more inclusive. So thank you Kate. Thank you Jeannie. Thank you Jaina, for joining the conversation today, and we will have all of your links to all of you, all of your books, but just for folks, I want to just briefly remind them. Kate’s book is called transistor raising twins in a gender bending world, and that’s transistor not like transistor radio, but T, R, A, N, S, I, S, T, E, R, jeannie’s book is called the savvy ally, a guide for becoming a skilled LGBTQ plus advocate. And jana’s book is called Hannah’s ascent, and she is working on a book called transgender women and athletics. So we will await that when it arrives into the world.

Jayna Sheats 51:43

It should be called, my running title for that, by the way, is jeans, gonads and synapses. I don’t know if that’s going to stay or not.

Maria Ross 51:53

I love it. I love it. And like I said, we will have all the links to your websites in the show notes. But thank you all for this candid conversation and for being here. Thank you so much. Thank you, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Rate, review, follow, share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember 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 empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes 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. You.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Dr. Tracy Brower: The Secret to Happiness at Work

Happiness seems as elusive and subjective at work as empathy. But there is a link between the two, and we’re going to get into that today! My guest is Dr. Tracy Brower, a PhD sociologist studying work-life fulfillment and happiness.

Today we discuss what happiness at work means, how happiness is linked to empathy, and the research around what happy workplaces experience in terms of engagement, retention, and performance. Tracy shatters the myths of happiness as a constant state. While we can’t “make people happy” we can create the conditions for happiness. She shares the five measurable conditions for happiness and we discuss the Paradox of Happiness, the benefits of post-traumatic growth, the current loneliness epidemic and the role workplace cultures can play, and the two important components of what it means to thrive. Tracy offers ways you can create connections as a leader – and you’ll love the conversation near the end about how leaders don’t have to take on all the responsibility for this in their culture by themselves!

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Tracy’s Big Five conditions for happiness are: Having a sense of purpose, Connection with other people, Opportunity for learning, growth and challenge, Performing really well, and Gratitude.
Sometimes you will have to do work you don’t want to do. Your work won’t always be fulfilling. But that doesn’t mean your career or workplace cannot be nurturing, engaging, and fulfilling despite that work.
Thriving always includes an element of striving. There are positive challenges, and positive growth that come out of difficult situations.

“It’s actually counterproductive to measure happiness by itself, and the more we think about happiness as its own end, the less likely we are to accomplish it, statistically.”

— Dr. Tracy Brower

Episode References:

The Empathy Edge episodes

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About Dr. Tracy Brower, VP Workplace Insights, Steelcase

Dr. Tracy Brower is a PhD sociologist studying work-life fulfillment and happiness. She is the author of The Secrets to Happiness at Work and Bring Work to Life. She is the vice president of workplace insights with Steelcase and a senior contributor to Forbes and Fast Company. Her work has been translated into 22 languages, and you can find her on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, or at tracybrower.com

Connect with Tracy Brower:

Steelcase: www.Steelcase.com

Website: https://tracybrower.com/

X: https://twitter.com/TracyBrower108

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracybrowerphd/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tlb108/

Book: The Secrets To Happiness at Work

Connect with Maria:

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X: @redslice

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Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Dr. Tracy Brower 02:34

you for having me. Really glad for our conversation coming up so

Maria Ross 02:38

we heard what you do and the work that you’ve done in your bio that folks have heard, but tell us a little bit about your work now and what got you into this concept of happiness at work. How did that all come about?

Dr. Tracy Brower 02:51

Yeah, I mean, I think it really started when I started thinking about work life and work life fulfillment and how we could do better than balance. I was living the dream as a mom and a wife and working full time, and, you know, being a member of my community and all that kind of thing. So my first book is called bring work to life with alternative ways to think about work life balance, how we can kind of do more than balance, better than balance. And then I was really paying attention to the negative narrative about work. You know, work is a grind. Work is terrible. Work is a salt mine. And I really wanted to research how work could be a source of happiness instead of something that occurs in spite of us, right? And so that was my impetus for happiness at work. Was thinking about how we really could create the conditions for joy when we’re working and when we’re outside of work.

Maria Ross 03:43

I love this so much because with my new book that’s out as of when this airs, it will be out the empathy dilemma, that one of the five pillars of being an effective and an empathetic leader is joy. And that can be a word that delights people when they hear it, but also like, well, what does that mean, and how do I measure it? And if it’s joyful to me, is it joyful to someone else? So can you level set us a little bit on the term happiness? How do you define happiness in your work and research, and what are some myths around happiness?

Dr. Tracy Brower 04:16

Yeah, this is really important, because I think a lot of times we think of happiness as, oh, it’s all Bon Bons and butterflies. And I’m going to be happy every single minute, constantly, you know, all the time, with no ups and downs. And I like to think about, you know, having an overall sense of joy and contentment is something that’s possible even with ups and downs. Our lives will be stressful. We’ll have good days and bad days, but we can have kind of that overall sense of rightness with the world, and we can empower ourselves to create happiness. And I think it’s really interesting. We can talk about how to measure the conditions that go along with happiness, but it’s actually counterproductive to measure happiness by itself, and the more we think about. Happiness as its own end, the less likely we are to accomplish it, statistically for two reasons. One, we’re focused on what we don’t already have, right? We’re chasing happiness, so we’re thinking all the time about what we don’t have. And two, we tend to be focused on ourselves, and that’s negatively correlated with happiness. More positively correlated with happiness is, how are we contributing to others? How are we contributing to the community? And so measuring the conditions for happiness, great idea. We can talk more about that and really thinking about how to your point. Joy is different for everybody, and it’s not going to be a constant state. It will be something that ebbs and flows. And it can absolutely be something that comes from really hard work and really challenging times. Yes,

Maria Ross 05:47

I like to say, you know, in the book, I talk about it’s not just about being happy all the time. I use the word happy, but happy all the time at work, or enjoying your work even all the time, but it’s about having a sense of of lightness and connection and joy, even when the work is hard, you know, because, unfortunately, we can’t always get you know, I still have to do spreadsheets, and I hate it with the white hot passion of 1000 suns, but I still have to do spreadsheets right as part of my work. That’s not going to bring me joy, but in the situation that I’m in, where can I find those moments of joy or create them for myself or my team. So I do want to dig in a little bit on the before we get into the myths of happiness, I do want to talk to you about what types of conditions, when you talk about conditions for happiness, that you can measure, what are some of those conditions? Yeah. So we can

Dr. Tracy Brower 06:39

create the conditions for happiness and lots of ways, there’s so much research here, but my big five, and we can dig into any of these when we have a sense of purpose, right? Just that small thing that we do, we don’t have to solve world peace or world hunger, but purpose, that small thing that we do that matters is one another, is connection with other people, whether we’re introverts or extroverts. A third is opportunity for learning and growth and challenge. A fourth is when we’re performing really well, that tends to bring us a sense of joy. And then the other of the Big Five for me is gratitude, that is so highly correlated with happiness. And so those are the kinds of things we can measure right like, to what extent do I feel like there’s a bigger picture that I’m part of. To what extent do I feel connected with my colleagues? To what extent do I have the opportunity for growth and learning? Right? All of those kinds of things can be measured, so we can dig into any of them. But that’s the key. Instead of pursuing happiness Period End of sentence, we’re creating the conditions for happiness. Yeah,

Maria Ross 07:39

and also it’s that’s not a question you want on your employee engagement survey. Are you happy? Yes or No, right? Exactly. That’s not really good, because it’s like empathy too. Though. You can’t just say, Do you think this organization, our culture, is empathetic? Yes or No, it’s It’s more nuanced than that.

Dr. Tracy Brower 07:53

Yes, exactly, right? And if you ask somebody that question, they’re going to say, well, you know, there was that thing that happened last week, and now that I really think about it, there was that other thing that happened yesterday, whereas, if you’re thinking about those conditions for happiness, and it’s a much more reliable metric, and it’s more actionable, right? Like yes, how do we give people a greater sense of connectedness? How do we create opportunities for people to work together? How do we create opportunities for development, right? All of those are much more actionable. You know, you’re making

Maria Ross 08:23

me think I’m going to put a link in the show notes to another episode, another guest, Logan Mallory, who works for a company called motivosity, and they’re all about helping companies build a culture of gratitude. Because of you know, he cited many of the studies that I’m sure you’re referring to around that link between gratitude and service and even just acknowledgement and engagement at work. And, you know, in my vernacular, I would say engagement at work is linked to that happiness that, you know, if I’m engaged, it’s because I want to be here, and there’s something I’m getting from this environment. If I’m engaged as a worker? Yes,

Dr. Tracy Brower 09:01

exactly. And you think about key elements of engagement, which are really similar to key elements of happiness, vitality, right? Do I feel energized by my work and I’m putting energy into it? Do I feel a sense of immersion with my work, like, oh, I lose track of time sometimes. Do I feel dedicated, right? Like I’m committed to doing a good job, and do I feel like I matter? Like, those are four things I think that are really helpful. And your point earlier is worth repeating. Every single minute of our work lives is not going to be, you know, wonderful, right? Like, I always like to think about kind of that Venn diagram, the intersecting circles, yes, have to do. What do I love to do, right? The more overlap, the better. But you’re never going to get perfect overlap, like I’m always going to have to do expense reports. I’m never gonna make you’re never gonna love spreadsheets. No, no.

Maria Ross 09:51

I love what you said earlier about the Bon Bons and butterflies. It’s, that’s my new puppies and rainbows. That’s, that’s usually what I say, Yeah, and that’s. The thing, because I wrote about in the book, you know, some things I was seeing coming up in the in the in pop culture around, you know, when you see this, you know you should only do what you’re passionate about and follow your bliss and all this. And that’s great. But then I saw something in it, newsletter that I am actually way too old to subscribe to. It’s for mostly women in their 20s, but I just find it hilarious and really well written. And they were talking about assessing if you’re in the right culture, in the right job. And the the crux of it was valid. But one of the things they said was, you know, you need to talk to your boss if you if spreadsheets don’t bring you joy, that’s where I got the spreadsheets analogy. You need to tell them that something has to change. And it’s like, no, if that’s the work that needs to be done, sometimes it is work we don’t want to do, but is the environment that we’re swimming in, nurturing and engaging and fulfilling. Even sometimes, when the work is not

Dr. Tracy Brower 10:54

Yes, exactly, sometimes the word won’t be fulfilling. And the other thing that I think is always really interesting is the paradox of happiness and accomplishment. When you accomplish something, if you have worked really hard for it, you will feel better about that accomplishment than if it just came really easy to you. And so I think we have this strange narrative right now about how we want to get rid of all stress, get rid of all challenge anything you don’t like you shouldn’t be expected to do, and that’s just not the case, right? Like there will be, there will be things we don’t love as much. There will also be things that are hard and hard, things can actually bring us happiness, because we’re really rolling up our sleeves and learning something new. We’re challenging ourselves. Usually, if we’re doing something really hard, we’re working with other people, and that builds our understanding for them and our respect for them, and we’re relying on other people. And so those kinds of things really add to the level of happiness, even though they’re challenging.

Maria Ross 11:52

I love that you said that because there is this idea of wanting a friction free life and to kind of get really personal. I remember when I had a major medical trauma many years ago, and coming back from that, I was actually I had always been a type A goal setter, and I was scared for a few years to set goals, because I felt like I was setting myself up for failure. But what I will say is, in that period where I was trying to make my life friction free, as I like to say, I also wasn’t challenging myself the way that I like to challenge myself in a way that makes me feel good about overcoming the challenges. And so there’s kind of a mixed message in the in culture today of we do want we obviously want to work on our mental health. We want to be balanced. We want to feel fulfilled. But it doesn’t mean it’s not with any friction, exactly. So there’s, there’s, there’s this idea of,

Dr. Tracy Brower 12:50

like, gliding through everything because we want flow. But there’s also something to be said about the grit. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And there’s actually, actually a thing called Post Traumatic Growth. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder we’re all familiar with, right? But post traumatic growth is also a thing. When you go through something really, really hard, you wouldn’t invite it. You wouldn’t want that trauma or that difficulty. But when you go through something really difficult, you, number one, get a renewed sense of your own capabilities, like, oh my gosh, I never thought I could have gotten through that. Number two, you get a renewed sense of your people. You know who your people are, that you can rely on, and you get a renewed sense of your priorities, because when you’re going through something really hard, everything else falls away. So those are the friction points that you don’t necessarily invite, but they can have positive outcomes and positive consequences. And then I think there’s friction points that we want right like when we’re stretching anywhere, we are stretching everywhere. So when we go and invite the friction of learning a new language, invite the friction of doing something hard physically, invite the friction of a cognitive challenge, invite the friction of putting ourselves in a situation where we’re learning more about people who are really different than we are, those are really positive for us, and we thrive on friction thriving. Actually, there’s wonderful research on thriving that comes out of both elite athletes and child development literature, and thriving always includes two aspects. One, we’re reaching our personal best, right, like I did the sprint, and my personal best time. And thriving always includes an element of striving, like, what am I going for next? What’s my goal? What’s What am I excited about achieving next? And so those are positive frictions, and I think we need to understand the differences between those. It’s like the concept of eustress, right? Eustress is the just right amount of stress. It keeps us getting out of bed in the morning, keeps us challenged. Yes,

Maria Ross 14:52

so I know we’re probably touching on a few of these, but what are some other myths about happiness, especially when it comes to the workplace, if you’re a. Leader going, I really want to create a happy culture. What are some caveats you would say for folks to look out for that you know that it’s like The Princess Bride? I don’t think that means what you think it means kind of situation

Dr. Tracy Brower 15:12

exactly. Tell

Maria Ross 15:13

me, I know we’re it sounds like we’re talking about some of them. But can you sort of summarize for us what some of those myths are and why they can be dangerous, actually, yeah, for sure.

Dr. Tracy Brower 15:22

You know one of the first things to know is that happiness has incredible business benefits. There’s so much research on this, when people are happier, it is not about a fluffy outcome. People perform better, they’re physically healthier. They tend to be a more positive influence on the culture. They tend to be retained longer. They tend to be more innovative. So one myth to be aware of from a work standpoint, is that it is really a business benefit to focus on, how do we create the conditions for people to be happy around here? Another myth of happiness is that it should be constant. We talked a little bit about that. In reality, we’re going to see ebbs and flows, so we are not looking to remove all friction from everybody. Another really important myth of happiness is about choices. We tend to believe that if we make the right choice, we’ll be happy all the time, and if we’re not happy all the time, maybe we chose wrong right. Like we choose the partner that we want to spend our life with. We choose the place we want to live. We choose the place we want to work. In reality, every choice we make is a set of conditions. There’ll be things you love about your job, like we talked about things not so much, right? There’ll be things you love about where you live, but maybe not every single thing. So the myth of choice can be freeing when you realize you’re just going to do your best to make your best choice. Right? Now, another myth of happiness is kind of a silver platter myth, where you believe that you know when the silver platter arrives and all the things are right, right? You’ll,

Maria Ross 16:48

you’ll, you’ll be content

Dr. Tracy Brower 16:49

for yes, yeah, when I get through this hard project, when I get through this hard time, when I deal with this hard situation. But there will always be things that get in the way of our happiness, and so we’ve got to remind ourselves that we’re empowered to create the conditions for happiness no matter what’s going on outside of us, like we don’t want to give away the power to create our home happiness. So those are some of the those are some of the myths that I think are really important.

Maria Ross 17:14

Okay, I love all of that, because there’s so much to unpack there. And I think number one, I want to just point out, and again, I’ll put a link in the show notes. It’s always when I talk to guests, they always remind me of other guests. But I had a great guest on Jamie Greenwood, who’s a women’s leadership coach and a women’s coach, and she talks a lot about what would happen if you organized your your life around joy, meaning in in the day to day, in the mom, errands, in the work, errands in all that. What would it look like to have joy as an organizing principle? And I think that’s getting to what you’re saying in that it’s and what I’m saying too is it’s not it doesn’t always just happen. Sometimes you have to seek it out in the situation you’re in and being realistic about the situation you’re in and going, where can I find the levity? Where can I find the joy? And so I think that’s really important, that it doesn’t, you know, you can’t look at your culture and just expect it to happen. It’s, are you creating those opportunities? You talked about it earlier? What are some of those, those measures that you can put in place that can optimize for joy? And so I think that that’s that’s something that we miss because we think it is fluffy, we think it is unimportant. We think it detracts from us performing at our best, or innovating, or doing all the quote, unquote important things we have to be doing. But if we organized for joy in the midst of the challenging goals, in the midst of the high performance expectations, I think we’d be a lot better served. And the other thing that struck me about what you said is how much the data around happiness and empathetic cultures and leaders are similar how people perform at their best, how they’re able to be more creative, be more collaborative, be more innovative, be more trusting when you have empathy. And that’s why I think empathy and happiness can sometimes get get wrapped together. So can you explain for us what might be that link between empathetic whether it’s an empathetic leader or an empathetic culture and happiness?

Dr. Tracy Brower 19:15

Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things you said that’s really important to start with, is just an intentionality, right? Like we want to be intentional about at an individual responsibility, creating conditions for happiness, and then at an organizational at a leadership level, creating the conditions for happiness. Like I always say leaders, leaders aren’t responsible for other people’s happiness or well being, but they’re responsible too, so we are each responsible for our own well being, happiness, joy, but leaders have a responsibility to create an organization where we can connect with each other, where we can learn and grow, where we feel understood, where we can bring our whole selves and the relationship between empathy and happiness, I think, is a really solid one. So like one of the things we know is that when we have a few good friends, when we feel connected to colleagues, that is incredibly correlated with happiness, and it is one of the main indicators for health and well being as well. And thing that’s really important, there’s some amazing research out of BYU having a few good friends is more important to health outcomes than your habits around diet, exercise or drinking, and not hard with smoking, like it literally affects dementia, cancer, mental health, heart disease, longevity and so having a few good friends is critical. 75% of people say they make their friends at work, even if they’re not like BFFs. But yeah, like you feel did you feel seen? Somebody knows if you’re showing up. And the thing that’s really fascinating about happiness is it’s very correlated with focusing on others instead of ourselves. We talked about that, but that means I’m tuning in, I’m attending to you, I’m asking you questions, I’m thinking about how you might be feeling. I’m respecting your point of view. I’m seeking you out in order to understand where you’re coming from, right? And those are fundamental links to empathy and an empathetic culture. So that connectedness, that’s happiness and well being, even for introverts, is so fundamental to empathy as well.

Maria Ross 21:27

Yeah, absolutely, it’s that. It’s, it’s, there’s an inside job that needs to be done to help you practice empathy in terms of you need to kind of get your own house in order and be be solid and be stable and make room and space for someone else’s point of view. But then eventually it has to go outward. And then there’s then there’s this virtuous cycle that happens, because when you put that out there, you get back and again, thinking of another guest. Shasta Nelson is a friendship and social relationship expert. She wrote a book called The business of friendship that cites a lot of these studies that you’re talking about, and one of the ones she and I’m probably going to cite it wrong, but it was one also cited by the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy Murphy, about loneliness, the loneliness epidemic, and how being lonely can have just as Much of a physical impact on our body as again, I’m going to get this wrong, something like smoking two packs a day of cigarettes or something like that. Is that accurate? Okay, great, yeah. In

Dr. Tracy Brower 22:29

fact, I’ve just, I just did a segment on CBS News. I’ve written a couple of articles, more than a couple articles on loneliness for Forbes, and absolutely, it’s a really significant epidemic right now, and this actually, interestingly, goes back to friction. We don’t talk to each other in our day to day life, as much as we used to, we’ve elevated convenience over connection, but I don’t talk to the barista. I order on the app, I don’t talk to the checkout person. I get the delivery at my door. And so work ends up being a really important place that we feel connected, we feel seen, we can empathize with others and get a reduced sense of loneliness because of that connection. That doesn’t mean we have to be in the office eight to five, Monday through Friday. It doesn’t mean we have to connect face to face every single time, but it does mean that work has an expanded role to create those opportunities for connection. So yeah, like in the secrets to happiness at work, I really talk about how how we show up has a very significant influence on other people. Sociologically speaking, we learn from other people. We learn most from other people, from listening to what they say, from watching what they do, from drawing conclusions about their choices and so how we show up has a huge impact on other people, no matter what role we’re in and whether we realize it or not. So when we are feeling more grounded ourselves, when we have those conditions in place for us to have solid mental health, we can be helpful to others as well, and we can reach out and ask for help when we need it. Of course,

Maria Ross 24:03

of course, of course. And I always say, you know, empathy is not about coercion, it’s about connection. And so in order to have that connection, there’s got to be a relationship where I’m, I’m getting curious to try to understand you, just as much as you’re trying to get curious to understand me. Otherwise, we’re just talking at each other, right? And so it’s very the link is there. I think no one’s articulated it so well as you have, in terms of the link between empathy and being an empathetic leader, being an empathetic colleague, and happiness and your own fulfillment and thriving at work. And so, you know, this is why I wrote the first book the empathy edge was to show the business case for empathy, and, quite frankly, to speak to selfish motives, if I had to, to get people to understand what’s in it for them, because then once you’re empathetic, you can’t unsee that. You can’t once you decide to see someone else’s point of view, you can’t unsee it. So I was like, whatever is going to get people. People there to help them understand and so it’s very similar of like, hey, let’s embrace this, because the moral imperative doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. So let’s embrace this in terms of what is in it for you, what is it? What is in it for your organization? If you pay attention to this and you’re thoughtful about it, I want to just ask one other thing related to what you’re talking about. We’ve talked a lot about the responsibility of leaders in creating this environment. And the pushback I sometimes get is, when am I going to have time for this on top of my work? Like it’s just seems like I’m just getting more added to my plate, and now I have to be responsible for my team members happiness. What is your response to that? Yeah. I

Dr. Tracy Brower 25:44

mean, I think it’s really critical that this is how we do business. This is not additive, right? This is not, this is not about organizing the team lunch. This is not about organizing that extra thing where everybody has to go out and bond, right? If you’re doing something, that’s great. I mean, if it’s authentic, yeah, if it’s authentic, right? But, but what leaders can do is they can be present and accessible. Statistically, one of the main things you can do to drive trust and positive culture is to be accessible, visible, present. And that doesn’t mean you have to be available. 24/7, but it means that you’re responsive to emails, and you make decisions when people ask and when people have questions, you’re responding to them. Another thing that leaders can do is is really connect team members with each other. It’s it’s a myth that we bond best through social. We do bond through social, but we also bond through task. So how can we give people opportunities to maybe get outside of their swim lane and work together on projects closer and then I think the other thing we can do is give people wonderful learning and growth opportunities, right? And ask them, this is the empathetic part, right? Ask them, What are you most interested in? Because everybody doesn’t want to necessarily climb. Everybody isn’t necessarily interested in the same things, and life stage will dictate what feels rewarding at any point as well. So when leaders can ask questions and really, really understand that, I think the other thing that I mean, it’s really hard to be a leader today, there’s some brand new research that 69% of people say that their leader has a greater impact on their mental health than their doctor or their therapist and on par with their partner. So the average leader hears that and goes, Oh my gosh. Like, what? What else? Right? I’m

Maria Ross 27:32

all right. What else? Yeah,

Dr. Tracy Brower 27:34

but it’s a wonderful opportunity, right? Like you have a positive opportunity to impact people in the course of the day, in the course of the work, how you’re listening, how you’re paying attention, how you’re asking people questions, how you’re giving people opportunities to do work that they enjoy as much as possible, all of those things are just part of leading but can be positive for the culture and positive for happiness and employees

Maria Ross 28:01

and positive for performance. Quite frankly, if you, if you invest the time and the energy, I think you know, my answer is always, but this is the job. This is that. This is actually why you’re a leader. Now. It’s not about you doing the work per se anymore. This is the work is to mobilize and inspire and connect your team so they perform. And what I loved about what you said, and I think it’s an important point to highlight, is that it’s not just about the leader giving of themselves all the time to every person, because that’s a recipe for burnout. I talk about this in my book, right? It’s you when you people please, and you just give of yourself and you never recharge. That does no one any favors. But what you said that was so important is also about taking the time to create the structures and engaging everyone else in the process so that it’s kind of operating a little bit without you in terms of you know, if you’re able to set up a really great targeted mentoring program, for example, or you’re able to set up a tradition within your team where people are paired up every month and they go out to lunch together. You know, whatever it is, create the systems and the structure. And I know sometimes those are dirty words, right? But that will enable you to offload it a little bit off of you having to do the one on one, even though that’s important. But can you create an environment where everyone is helping to connect everyone else, and not just you, one to one, connecting with everyone on your team, and they’re not talking to each other. Yes,

Dr. Tracy Brower 29:29

exactly. You’re creating that culture, right? That culture of connectedness, that culture of mental health, where people seeing, that culture of respect absolutely and and a really important way we do that is by thinking about the systems for how we are assigning tasks and how recognizing performance, and, frankly, how we’re holding people accountable, right? This isn’t just about, hey, let’s just be super nice. This is no really we we need you. We need your deliverable. We need your brain in the room. And that’s really. Validating. So performance is correlated with happiness when people have the opportunity to perform at their best through the systems that you talked about, through the opportunities that leaders are creating and providing those absolutely will move the needle when, and I said this over and over in my first book, it was a really big theme in my first book, bring work to life when we do the right thing for people, we do the right thing for the business, they are not right. There are business benefits to doing the right thing for people within the

Maria Ross 30:29

culture. It’s definitely both and, and that’s why, you know, that’s why I love having this conversation with you. But I just again, to emphasize that point, it doesn’t all have to come from the leader. It’s modeled and sort of put in place by the leader. But as an example, if you create a culture of gratitude or a culture of acknowledgement or a culture of happiness, now you’ve got all these other bright lights doing their thing and sparking things and acknowledging people in meetings, it doesn’t all have to come from you as a leader. And I think that’s the thing that stresses leaders out is I’ve got to do all the connecting and the happiness and the getting to know each other myself like I’m the one that has to thank everybody on my team. No, create a culture and model it, and then let them go, let them take over and do it for each other, which is so important. And not a lot of people on this show have talked about that. So I really wanted to call that out. Yeah, I

Dr. Tracy Brower 31:22

love that. Just one other thing about that that I always talk about the leadership laser, like you don’t even mean to be a model as a leader. You don’t mean to be a model. You don’t mean to be all that. But people over index on watching leaders, paying attention to what you say, how you behave, the choices you make, so you can have a significant influence just by the choices that you make. And you know, the way that we the way that we interact, sends a message to people. And the other thing that I hear from leaders a lot on this topic is, I want to check in with my team member. I want to ask questions, but oh my gosh, I’m not a social worker, and I’m afraid that I’m going to ask the wrong question or TMI, right? But I think you just need to be ready to provide resources. This is your point, right? The leader doesn’t have to do it all, but if the leader can ask questions and then be ready with, ah, here’s a resource, or, boy, here’s something that you can be aware of. And just the process of asking questions, tuning in listening is actually really helpful for people. So it’s a great call that, you know, it doesn’t have to be all on the shoulders of the leader, right?

Maria Ross 32:27

And I love that idea, because it is you, whether you like it or not, you are in a position of modeling, and it’s just like parenting, right? Your actions are going to speak louder than words. And so if you are modeling that behavior, and people go, Hey, that’s something I want to do, because my leader is doing it, whether it’s everything from you actually take your paid time off to every Wow. I noticed, you know, my leader, Tracy, in every meeting, she always thinks someone in the meeting, I’m going to start doing that. You know, I can see how success is possible here, because they’re watching what you do and not just what you say exactly. I love it. I love it. I love it. All right. Well, this, we could probably talk for another hour, but I definitely want folks to check out the book, the secrets to happiness at work. It is out now and then potentially go back and look at your other book, bring work to life, and we will have all your links in the show notes. But for folks that are on the go or exercising right now because it makes them happy. Where’s the best place they can learn more about you and your work.

Dr. Tracy Brower 33:24

Thank you for asking. So you know that I work for Steelcase, which I love. So steelcase.com I’ve also got Tracy brower.com with lots of information, or they can look me up on LinkedIn. Tracy Brower, PhD, so would love people to reach out and tell me how they’re thinking about this. I love that, and as I always do, my PSA for LinkedIn is, if

Maria Ross 33:43

you reach out to Tracy, please put a note that you heard her on the podcast so she doesn’t think that you’re selling her something. This has been wonderful. Tracy, thank you so much for your insights and for this important work and for writing this book. I feel like I’ve met a kindred spirit in talking with you. But thank you so much for your time today. Yeah, thank you for having me. Really appreciate it, and thank you so much for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate and review and share it with a colleague and friend, and until next time, please remember, 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 empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes 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. You.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Empathy Under Pressure: 2024 State of Workplace Empathy (Part 2) with Rae Shanahan

Welcome to another 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.

In today’s episode, Part 2, A Gameplan for Putting Empathy into Action, Rae Shanahan and I focus on why empathy is hard to achieve when everyone thinks it’s a good idea. We give examples of empathetic leadership – and behaviors that are the opposite of empathy. We dive into a study theme of accountability and the false belief that empathy and accountability are opposites. Rae shares what empathetic culture does for your organization, and gives examples of what employees deem to be empathetic company benefits. Finally, we revisit the three pillars Businesssolver discovered in their research and how to take action on each one.

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Everything starts with awareness. We have a chance to impact the culture by focusing on the leaders.
Understanding doesn’t mean endorsement. Empathy doesn’t mean you agree or condone behavior or the decision. It means you are there for someone and factor in their point of view.
It takes time to build up trust, especially in an environment where it hasn’t been there before.

“We are not a one-size-fits-all organization. Employees have different needs and different definitions of benefits depending on where they are in their life cycle.“

— Rae Shanahan

Episode References:

From Our Partner:

Download the 2024 Ninth Annual State of Workplace Empathy study from Businessolver: www.businessolver.com/edge

Discover more valuable content from Businessolver on The Benefits Pulse vodcast: www.businessolver.com/benefits-pulse

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 12 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.

Connect with Businessolver & Rae Shanahan:

Website: businessolver.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/raeshanahan

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/businessolver

X: @Businessolver

Instagram: @Businessolver

Facebook: facebook.com/bsolver

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red SliceThreads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Maria Ross:

Hello, I’m Maria Ross, Empathy Advocate and host of the Empathy Edge podcast. And today I’m also guest host for Businessolver’s Benefits Pulse Vodcast. I’m excited and honored to be back and to discuss Businessolver’s latest empathy study findings with Rae Shanahan, Businessolver’s Chief Strategy Officer.

Today, Rae and I are discussing the second part of Businessolver’s ninth annual state of workplace empathy study, entitled A Game Plan for Putting Empathy into Action. Businessolver has been studying the state of empathy in the workplace for nine years now, and their report has become the gold standard in empathy thought leadership, cited by renowned behavioral and organizational psychologists and news outlets like Forbes, Fast Company, CNN, and Inc. And of course, empathy advocates like me.

This is the second episode in our two-part series where we’ll focus on exploring the empathy findings. If you missed the first one, you can find the recording, the show notes, and many more episodes on Businesssolver.com/benefits-pulse.

So let’s dive in.

Hello, Rae, welcome.

Rae:

Hi Maria, great to see you again.

Maria:

It’s always good to see you. And this report was so chock full of findings that we had to break this up into two episodes, which I love.

In the first episode, we talked a lot about the trends that you saw, the themes that emerged. And today, I know we’re going to be talking a little bit more about now, what can we do? What can leaders do? What can C-suite do? What can HR leaders do to actually put empathy into action?

Before we get there, I just want to talk about that there continues to be obviously a focus around empathy, not just from folks like us who’ve been talking about it for years, but from all of those who are in leadership positions.

There’s a lot of agreement that empathy is a good idea and empathy brings all these benefits to the business. But why is it so hard to put it into action? Like what is the sticking point for CEOs and HR leaders?

Rae:

Well, I agree with you.

I think one of the stats out of our report, Maria, was that across the board, 83% of employees, HR professionals and CEOs all agree that empathy is undervalued by U.S. organizations and is important.

And then I’m gonna throw another data point in there before we talk about it a little bit more. And that is 55% of CEOs think they lead with empathy at work, but only 28% of employees and 22% of HR share that view.

So I’m going to say that again, 55% of CEOs think they lead with empathy at work, but only 28% of employees and 22% of HR share that view. And employees rate their manager as the highest impact. 33% of employees see managers as key for building empathetic culture.

And I thought that was pretty cool because when we think about, talked in the last podcast, that it’s great that CEOs are generating more awareness. It’s oftentimes not in the CEO’s kind of a persona that they can act empathetically all the time. They’re juggling so many things.

So, as long as those HR, as long as those CEOs can be aware, because everything starts with awareness, then maybe we have a chance to really impact the culture by focusing on that, the leaders where I think sometimes employees or some employers will cut that out in tough times.

Maria:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. mean, like you said, at least they’re even acknowledging that it’s there and it’s important. And some of them are even acknowledging they want to be more empathetic, but they just need some help and some support.

And we can talk about a little bit, we talk about C-suite a lot and we talk about leaders in HR, but we’re really talking about empathy across all levels. Because as I talk about empathy has got to flow both ways. So, are there any, is there anything in the report or in the findings that talk about empathy at different levels of the organization?

Rae:

Yes, in the report, but I think I want to bring in a couple of client stories.

So earlier this year, we did an empathy podcast with clients, Microsoft and Cognizant. And, again, while they focus at the executive level, what they’ve really done is they put into practice some different types of learning sessions and culture sessions that are really focused on that middle layers of management.

Because again, just like our study said, it’s those levels that really those employees look to for that empathy and just a great opportunity to foster that in an organization.

Maria:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s got… No, go ahead.

Rae:

I’d add, I’m sorry, Maria, I’d add to that, you know, you are such a, as you said, an empathy super friend and empathy advocate that when I was going back through some of your materials, I came across what you have as the authenticity checklist and I think any organization, if they truly want to embrace empathy and make change happen, they need to do a true evaluation about the alignment in their organization.

And hopefully you won’t mind, but maybe we can share that with people in addition to the study because I think you have five or six simple questions that an organization needs to ask.

So, are we aligned on mission and values?

What internal policies or practices are in place to foster empathy?

Are we building a safe and trusting environment?

Are we hiring right?

And do we implement proactive and flexible customer service environment?

And I think that those are a great way to gauge the vulnerability of an organization to admit when there’s an opportunity to improve.

Maria:

Absolutely. Yes, can, you know, hopefully we can definitely put that in the show notes for folks to download.

And it’s really meant to be a conversation starter, whether it’s the organization writ large or your specific team. You can create a microculture within your team, even if you think your very large organization might not be doing the best job at empathy. You as the leader of your group can set the tone. And as you talked about and as the report showed, it’s really about how your manager is treating you that makes the difference to engagement and performance and loyalty.

Rae:

Yes.

Maria:

Okay, so let’s talk about the top behaviors that promote empathy. So let’s get real and say, okay, well, when we’re talking about a leader being empathetic, an organization being empathetic, what are the behaviors or the practices that they exhibit to show us that they are empathetic?

Rae:

You know, I expanded on our prior definition and I found some work by Teresa Wiseman and she says the ability to see the world as others see it, ability to understand another person’s feelings, ability to suspend judgment.

I love the suspend judgment and the ability to communicate the understanding and understanding does not mean that you endorse it. And you know, I thought that the without judgment and then understanding without endorsing I think were really good and have things to keep in mind.

Maria:

Absolutely. think the minute judgment comes into play, there’s not going to be a connection there because the other person’s going to know you’re thinking something one way or the other about them.

But if you can learn to listen with discernment and not judgment of just, let me understand what you’re saying so we both can have the same conversation, that ability to do that and not be scared of what you’re going to hear back is a marker of a really empathetic and quite frankly, high self-esteem leader, because they feel comfortable enough that they know they can accept someone else’s point of view without defensiveness or fear.

Rae:

Right, right. And I think those might be good things to keep in mind as we enter this interesting election season.

Maria:

Mm-hmm, definitely, definitely.

Yeah, and to your point about her work finding that it’s not about endorsement, you and I have talked about this a lot, that empathy doesn’t mean you agree or even condone behavior or the decision. It just means that you are there for someone, you are factoring in their point of view, you’re thinking about, you’re intentional about how you communicate something that they may not want to hear.

And you’re leaving space to say, okay, we both are approaching this challenge from different perspectives. How can we get the best out of both of our approaches in order to come up with a solution that moves everybody forward?

Rae:

Right. And you know, sometimes the opposite is a better way people for people to understand the definition of something. And so I don’t know, I don’t, if you remember, Brené Brown’s empathy short from about 10 years ago, it just sticks in my mind because, you know, she talks about empathy doesn’t start with at least doesn’t start with chin up, doesn’t start with get, get it together or get over it.

Those are not empathetic statements. I think at one point in it, she talked about, want a sandwich?

And, or at least you’re able to have children. And, and I think so many high achievers in society and that’s at leader. I mean, that’s at all levels, but they want to fix everything they want to, they want to come in and fix it. And so it’s our human nature to, when somebody shares a problem, it’s we want to help fix.

The best way to promote empathy is just to listen and sit next or sit with somebody.

Maria:

Absolutely. There’s a great thing I quoted in my new book about this idea of when you as a leader are faced with an employee coming into your office and upset or frustrated or angry. And if they start venting, what you can do instead of, like you said, instantly fixing or instantly diving into what I call empathy hijacking, which is, I know the same exact thing happened to me and here’s how I dealt with it. And all of sudden the story’s about me, right?

Is to actually ask the person, I want to hear you out. I want to listen.

So A, is it not a good time for you? Then make some time to schedule. Say, this is really important to me, but I have to rush off to a meeting. Let’s schedule some time tomorrow to talk about this because I really want to hear what you have to say.

The other thing is to say, do you want me to just see it? Do you want me to support you? Or do you want me to solve it? What is it actually you’re after?

And instead of trying to guess, ask the employee, you know, maybe they just want to vent. They just want to be seen. It’s like, okay, bring it on. Like I will be your punching bag for a little bit so you can vent it.

Or is it, no, yeah, I actually need you to collaborate with me and help me solve this. And that can get us out of the instant fixing mode, I think.

Rae:

Like you said, the empathy hijacking or our tendency to over kind of overuse empathy, right?

Maria:

Mm-hmm. Yes, yes.

Overuse it. I love it.

And I think that’s also an element of control, you know, and also especially for us as leaders. We don’t want our people to have problems or challenges and our instinct, which is lovely, is that we want to fix it for them and we want to make them quote unquote happy. But making someone happy is not the same thing as being empathetic. You might have to be empathetic with someone who’s not happy right now and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Rae:

Right. Right. That is absolutely true.

Maria:

Right. So let’s talk about accountability because this is the thing that I get a lot. It’s the subject of my new book, The Empathy Dilemma. How do you balance empathy and accountability? And I found it really interesting that accountability was a big theme in this year’s report, in this study. So can you explain why? In what context?

Rae:

Well, and first of all, shameless plug because I think your new book comes out next week. So I’m not sure when we’re broadcasting this, but listeners should stay on the lookout because you’ve got very good actionable information in the empathy dilemma.

But, you know, I can, take this back to a conversation I had with our CFO shortly after he started. He’s like, right. I get this empathy thing. I really do. I’ll tell you for a CFO, he is a very empathetic person, but he’s like, how do we draw the line between empathy and accountability?

And I think that there’s organizations that over-index on empathy, and they could be kind of called a daycare. And they maximize the comfort of the employee and the relaxed pace. But are the true performers happy in that? No, they look over their shoulder and say, why do I keep working so hard?

So then the opposite of it is, when they over-index on accountability. And then the culture is more of fear and focus on production. And again, that’s not how you’re going to maximize your organization.

And I think it goes back to a couple of the words that you used. And it’s really about how do you have a shared sense of mission? How do you have mutual trust? Because to build that accountability, to build that combination of empathy and accountability, the foundation is trust. Having trust in the relationship between employees and their leaders.

Maria:

Yeah. Yeah, and it’s not something you can just, mean, with whatever your good intention, if there are issues with the culture, if there are issues with the environment and the psychological safety, no pronouncement of the next day coming in and going, we’re going to lead with empathy now, and I’m going to be an empathetic leader. No one’s going to buy it. And so you really have to repair these underlying structural issues.

And really understand that it’s not just about this one thing or this one interaction. It might be more systemic than that. And it’s gonna take time and it’s gonna take time to build up that trust, especially in an environment where it hasn’t been there before. Because people are gonna be very, very skeptical. But if you’re open and transparent and vulnerable, and vulnerable doesn’t mean weak.

Rae:

No, it does not.

Maria:

It means that you are just open about, we’re trying to figure this out too, and I’m trying to be a better leader and we’re trying to create a stronger culture here. And we’re not gonna fix it today. We’re gonna fix it over time and we’re gonna fix it together.

And so here’s some practices we’re gonna start with and they’re gonna feel weird and it’s gonna be strange and we’re just gonna live in the discomfort because where it will take us is such a more inclusive, productive, innovative workplace.

And I think the more that leaders can just admit that they want to go on this journey instead of pretending that no one knows they haven’t been on this journey yet, the better off they’re going to be in the long run. And it’s not going to be a weakness.

Rae:

You know, Maria, you me think about when I meet with new hires, they all read a book by John C. Miller called Question Behind the Question about personal accountability. And I always tell them my favorite chapter is chapter 24, believe or leave. And it’s called an integrity test.

And what I tell people is, you know what, if you want to find problems in our organization, you will. And it’s that moment of truth when you say, I believe in this organization and I know that they’re a learning company and they want to continue to improve, and you buy in, but those that say, found this problem, I found this… You have a choice to make and you can believe or leave.

Because if you want to find problems, you will. And just starting out their career and understanding, that is the kind of the belief in our organization, I think is part of that vulnerability doesn’t mean, like you said, incompetence.

Maria:

Exactly. Exactly.

It just means you’re vulnerable about what you’re good at and you’re vulnerable about where there might be blind spots or gaps and we’re honest about it. And that honesty is what’s going to build the trust. I’m going to trust you a lot more as a leader if you tell me, you know what, we’re not perfect. Then if you try to convince me we’re perfect and everything’s running to maximum capacity, I’m going to be a little bit skeptical of that.

So the key to trust is just to be honest about what’s happening. So I love that.

Another way that you can really put empathy into action, and I’ve talked about this a lot in my keynotes and my trainings and on my podcast, is this concept of one of the, maybe it’s not a low hanging fruit because it’s very hard to implement new benefits, but there are benefits and perks that employees actually deem empathetic.

So if you are, as an organization, focused on trying to deliver these benefits to your people, they’re actually going to start to believe that the organization sees, hears, and values them and that it is an empathetic organization.

So can you talk to us about, from the study, what are some of the top perceived benefits of empathy? What do they get from it? And also, not just how they feel, but what are some actual benefits? I’m using the word benefits in two different ways here. What are some actual employee benefits they get that they deem to be empathetic?

Rae:

Yeah, yeah. It is funny about the definition of benefits because it’s always in the eye of the beholder.

So back to using empathy, we need to have to think about the perspective of people asking questions.

But an employer can receive benefits of having an empathetic workplace by having improved job satisfaction, having more satisfied employees, and their clients because if you have satisfied and happy employees, they’re going to deliver better for your clients because we’re in business. We’re in business to serve our customers.

And benefits for the employee can be a feeling that they’ve been heard. They can feel that they follow across. We have really kind of three main pillars that we break the benefits down into, and that is employees that we support, the professional, realizing that each professional is different. We are not a one size fits all, we’re going to, know, employees or not, and they have different needs and different definitions of benefits where they are in their life cycle. So flexibility was mentioned over and over and over again about.

Maria:

[Flexibility was mentioned] so much in this report. couldn’t believe, I mean, I know it’s kind of an outcrop of the pandemic, but it’s amazing how just a flexible work schedule is seen by employees as an empathetic work benefit.

Rae:

Right, right. And I think the things I struggle with, know, what I do, I’ll preface this. I do feel for organizations that they do need people that have to be present. It’s difficult to have a flexible nursing staff that can come and go as they want, right? Or if I’m on a line manufacturing a product, you can’t say, well, you can come on and off the line because they have, you know, that’s key. So.

Maria:

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. They can’t work from home. Yeah.

Rae:

I do understand in those environments, we really need to think about empathy in those environments where work schedule flexibility, ad hoc flexibility is not as achievable. But I do believe there’s still ways to have flexibility in those workplaces.

But for those organizations that are delivering a service or people do not need to be at their desk in an office or behind a line, what is wrong with letting somebody have a few minutes here and a few minutes there, if they need to go run and take the kids.

They bring their whole selves to work. We, you know, there’s the whole talk about bringing your whole selves to work. If you’re bringing your whole selves and you have to acknowledge that they have lives outside of work and let’s treat them like adults, deal with the outliers, right? Let’s, let’s, you know, there will be some people that have something going on in their life that makes them not perform consistently at that point in time. Deal with that.

But give the others the flexibility. And my guess, if you give them the flexibility, you’ll get more in return.

Maria:

100% because then they’re going to feel, they get me, they have my back. I don’t want to let them down.

And yes, like you said, there’s going to be people, there will be people that will take advantage of the system. That’s true anywhere, any place, anytime. But if you build your culture to, like you said, the outliers, you’re going to make your top performers miserable and they’re going to go work for your competitors.

So, where can you find the opportunities to infuse the flexibility and ask your employees what they think is flexible in the context of, you know, what is flexible? It could be, I get a few more paid sick days. It could be, you know, hey, I’m at the office, I, you know, on Mondays and Tuesdays, I have to leave at four because of my kids, whatever, you know, gymnastics class or whatever it is.

Give them those opportunities to tell you what they believe are flexible and then implement that and then watch how their performance and loyalty and engagement goes up.

So, I love it. Okay. So let’s talk about the three pillars, because we talked about that in our first part of the series. Let’s refresh on what the three pillars the research identified in terms of supporting employees. What are those three pillars? And then we’ll dive into each of them.

Rae:

Sure. Sure.

Yeah, I started to mention one of them.

So supporting the professional, kind of like what I said, appreciate that that one size fits all and what’s fair to one person may not be or desired to one person may not be the same to another person. And I think that’s where leaders need to have what we call table stakes in our organization and having an understanding of these are the things that are expected of you every day. You can still have flexibility, but like for one thing, we’re a cameras-on organization. It’s not a negotiable thing to not have your camera on. It’s part of our benefit of being able to continue to be a remote workforce is that we say to be part of remote workforce, you need to be engaged and you need to be a cameras on, right?

So establishing those table stakes in that employee-employer relationship can go a long way to supporting what I’d call the professional.

Number two is supporting the whole person, kind of like I alluded to earlier. You know, there’s the whole concept of bringing yourself to work, your whole self to work, belonging and inclusion. And what we as an employer need to understand is we need to give people the space that they can bring their whole person to work. And, you know, again, that’s just part of that empathetic conversation.

Part of our study showed employees like to be known as people. They want to know about, many want to share about what’s going on in their lives outside and it’s okay to listen. Right.

And then the third thing is, you know, supporting their community. You know, I put the phrase down that altruism is, is alive and well, you know, people want to feel a part of something bigger and, know, give employees a chance to showcase, their talents and give employees the opportunity to showcase, you know, their, backgrounds, their histories and you know, having it’s very free to do a it’s easy for an employer to say, Hey, let’s do a Latino cooking show to share with employees. Let’s do let’s let’s talk to new moms and let new moms have an have an environment.

It’s, again, allowing them to coexist with life and work.

Maria:

Exactly. And integrate that, not balance it, because work-life balance is a myth, as we both know.

Yeah, I just I want to bring up something on that because this is such an important point. I’ve made, I talked about some of these tactics and strategies in my new book that just identically aligns with what your research found.

And this is why Businessolver’s thought leadership is something I go to over and over and over again with my own work.

But there’s a way that you can do team building and bonding that actually benefits not just the professional development of your people, but the community at large. So you sort of get like a double win. They’re developing a professional skill. They’re actually a triple win. They’re bonding as a team, but they’re also benefiting the community in some way.

And there’s a woman named Terri Schmidt who runs a company called Stronger to Serve, and she helps businesses create team building experiences that go beyond just, we’re all getting together for happy hour. Can you create a team building experience that builds professional skills, which is beneficial to the organization and helps your people give back to their community?

So they’ve created these really unique experiences you can choose from that actually teach a skill and then you apply the skill through a community project. So it’s just this wonderful way. And to your point, it’s kind of supporting the whole person.

It’s supporting the professional from a development standpoint and it’s supporting the community. So I love it’s like a triple threat.

Rae:

Well, it’s interesting you say that this year for our Foundation we did just that.

And this morning in our What’s Going On Show, we had a woman that runs a nonprofit in Louisville come and share what it meant to have a Businessolver team come and help support her operation.

So we did six, we did six, or we’re doing six week long volunteer events in different cities across the country. And employees are given the week off. But then, you know, we believe that it’s about giving back in attitude and actions. So part of supporting the community, we’re doing these different events and Solvers applied and then they come back and I mean, it’s the emails that I get back from people about what they’ve learned and how they’re going to continue to give back is just so heartwarming.

So it sounds like something very similar, but it’s just been a fantastic experience. And sure there’s an expense on our side, but the expense is minor to what we’re able to do in the communities and the experiences that employees are able to get.

Maria:

Right. Well, look at all the benefit you get. I mean, you build brand awareness, you build community connections, you build, you know, it’s just, it goes on and on and on.

Yeah. Okay. So as we kind of wrap up here, what is, what would you say is a key takeaway from the report in terms of not just concept, but an action, a game plan action that your viewers and our listeners can take?

Rae:

You know, this is going to sound very simple Maria, but go read your book. No, kidding!

Maria:

Why thank you!

Rae:

Because I think you’re going to hit on some really good things. you know, the biggest thing is I’ll say two positives. Again, we’ve have the most awareness of the impact of empathy. And I am a firm believer. The awareness of something is the place to start to make a change. And I think it’s even down to, we think about Jelly Roll in his ‘I’m not okay’ song that, you know, is garnering a lot of attention. and, and I think we are just at a, really pivotal time to embrace empathy, embrace, you know, as, as, Brene says, embrace the suck a little bit and, and, and, and take a step back and just say, how can we number one, just listen.

Maria:

Yeah, first place to start is to put your own ego aside and just listen for a while.

Love it, so much great stuff.

Well, this has been so insightful and so fun as always to talk to you about all these issues. Thank you for having me as a guest host. I really appreciate it. And thank you everyone for stopping by the Benefits Pulse. Stay in touch by signing up for email or following Businessolver on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram to get the latest episode information.

So all of the links, we’re have all the links in the show notes, right? And on businesssolver.com slash benefits dash pulse. Have a great day and remember to check out more episodes of the Benefits Pulse.

Rae:

Thanks Maria.

Maria:

Thanks.

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