The book is coming! September 10 is the day that The Empathy Dilemma: How Successful Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries hits shelves to help leaders dedicated to people-centered practices to get the best performance possible and balance the demands of the business with the needs of their people.
I am so excited to share this with you! For the next 5 months, I’ll be devoting a Hot Take episode to one of the 5 core pillars of effective empathetic leaders, outlined in the book. See, I emphasize EFFECTIVE because it’s not just about being empathetic – you have to actually perform, deliver, and get results, too. You as a leader can and must balance empathy with accountability. And today we’re going to talk about the first pillar to accomplish that…Self-Awareness.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Humility and empathy go hand in hand. You have to let your ego go and embrace your curiosity to learn and grow.
Some ways you can become more self-aware include: requesting input from teammates and colleagues, leveraging self-assessment tools (such as the Enneagram, DISC, or Myers Briggs), and learning to listen deeply.
You can pre-order now through August 27, 2024, to get 30% off your copy of The Empathy Dilemma for stories from leaders, and recommendations for tactics to try to put these strategies into practice and benefit from the results.
“Self-reflection is not woo-woo; it’s a smart strategy. You need to cultivate a deep and ever-evolving understanding of your people, as well as of yourself.”
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. Hi, everyone, and welcome to this month’s special hot take episode, where I’m going to start outlining some content from the book for you because the book is coming September 10, is the day that the empathy dilemma how successful leaders balanced performance, people and personal boundaries, hits shelves to help leaders like you dedicated to people centered practices, get the best performance possible, balance the demands of the business with the needs of your people. And I am so excited to share it with you. So for the next five months, I’ll be devoting a hot take episode to one of the five core pillars of effective empathetic leaders outlined in the book. See, I emphasize effective because it’s not just about being empathetic, you have to actually perform, deliver and get results to you as a leader can and must balance empathy with accountability. And today we’re going to talk about the first step or the first pillar to accomplish that. This is a hurdle that gets in many leaders way they think they have to choose between empathy, or high performance, compassion or ambition. They don’t, it’s both and not either, or, and they never realize sometimes that empathy is the catalyst when it’s actually being shown, that leads to engagement, innovation and results. And speaking of the new book, there’s a special presale offer that I will tell you about at the end where you can purchase copies at 30% off until August 27. So stay through to the end. And I’ll tell you how you can get those discounted copies for your team, you’ll get special launch swag, a special VIP launch event. And you can have me crash your next meeting for an empathy discussion. So stay tuned till the end. But I wanted to share with you today what I loved about writing the book, my favorite part was interviewing so many leaders who are actually doing it. They are being authentic, empathetic and tuned into their people, while never losing focus on why they’re there. And what they’re being tasked to do. As one of my interviewees shares in the book, their number one goal is to make the business successful. That’s their job. But that does not mean it has to be at the expense of not showing empathy and humanity for their team. In fact, because they do show those things, their teams are loyal to a fault and would go through fire for them. But how right how can leaders balance performance people and personal boundaries? It’s sometimes a delicate question. My new book offers guidance on the healthy and productive ways that leaders can deal with the unique challenges they’re facing in trying to balance it all. And that’s where the five pillars of effective empathetic leadership come in. These are common traits and behaviors I see over and over again, in the successful empathetic leaders I interview, speak to and advise even those who truly are empathetic, but don’t label themselves as such. The five pillars are a result of hundreds of podcast interviews, extensive research data, and I found them to be the common threads across all those who are empathetic and high performing at the same time. So let’s dig into the very first one pillar number one self awareness. Now what do I mean by self awareness? This is understanding your own strengths, your blind spots, your emotions, your leadership style, and your emotional triggers, and helping your team members understand theirs. Now, you might be saying to yourself, hang on Maria, isn’t it more important for me to understand my team members and not myself? Do I really have to do a bunch of woowoo self reflection? And my answer to this is that both are crucial. self reflection is not woowoo. It’s a smart strategy. You need to cultivate a deep and ever evolving understanding of your people, as well as of yourself. It’s not about navel gazing or ego trips, but having a very honest, clear picture of where you shine. And we’ll see where you fall short. Humility goes hand in hand with empathy. So you can recognize that someone else may have a different or better perspective. And that means being real. about how you show up, as well as how you can better connect with others. In fact, letting go of your ego and being curious enough to learn and grow is a sure sign that you’re truly tapping into your empathy. Self awareness is an important success skill for leaders because no one leads in a vacuum, your style preferences. Your pet peeves your needs, your strengths as a leader will influence every single interaction you have at work. And yet, many leaders don’t take the time to understand themselves fully and completely. Self awareness helps you to understand complaints and constructive feedback, know when you might need help navigating a situation and take accountability for your actions. So how do we become more self aware? Some strategies include requesting input from teammates and colleagues, leveraging self assessment tools such as the Enneagram disc or Myers Briggs, and learning to listen deeply? But what are those strategies actually mean? To better understand them to become more self aware, I hope you’ll check out the empathy dilemma for stories from leaders and recommendations for these tactics that go along with putting these strategies into practice and benefiting from the results. The results in how your team engages and performs, and how they innovate. And in the loyalty they will show to you and your customers. And speaking of the book, as I mentioned, there’s a special pre sale offer, you can purchase one to 99 copies of the book at porch light, buy amazing bulk distributor and get 30% off from now until August 27. You’ll get the book in September. Plus you’ll save some chatter. And if you’re interested in helping your favorite podcaster out which hopefully that’s me all pre sales go towards my first week’s sales numbers, which could help get the book on the bestseller list. Check out the deal at the link bit.ly/t E. D, that’s Ted special presale and I will definitely put that link in the show notes. And by the way, when you preorder, please save the receipt to email me because you’ll get some goodies you’re gonna get a VIP invite to an exclusive virtual author q&a and launch party, you’ll get some swag to be determined. And if you order 25 or more books in presale or at launch, you’ll get a free 30 minute virtual author q&a discussion for your team or organization for a limited time. Let me crash your event. Do you want to order more than 99 copies there are tiered volume discounts for that too. Just DM me on Instagram at Red slice Maria or go to my website contact page at the empathy edge.com You’ll be able to check out more about the book and very soon download a free chapter of it at WWW dot v empathy dilemma.com Thank you so much for listening to this week’s heartache. I can’t wait to share the empathy dilemma with you and help you through it. And if you liked this podcast, you know what to do you hear me say it every week. Please share it with a friend or colleague rate and review it and make sure to follow or subscribed. In the meantime, until our next time together. 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 empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called out an epidemic of loneliness and highlighted how workplaces are one way to help. How can people get their needs for connection and recognition met in appropriate ways at work? And how does this impact the overall performance of the organization?
I dug into these questions and more with Logan Mallory. Today, we talked about why he is so passionate about this work and how his empathy for his customers comes from being a customer himself at one time! We discussed why employers and employees are having so much conflict right now, what leaders can do to improve the employee experience, and simple ways to create an above-and-beyond culture. We talked about how your company can create a Gratitude Flywheel and got real about the short shelf life of “surface perks,” why a more consistent culture is required, especially in dispersed or hybrid environments, and why a workplace can help support community and connection to keep us mentally healthy.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Communication and transparency are two of the pillars to understanding one another’s perspectives. Without that clarity in understanding, there cannot be effective empathy.
People want to be recognized and they want to recognize their peers. According to a Motivosity survey, 75% of people said that their mental health would improve if they were recognized at work more often.
The higher you are in your organization, the less you know about what’s going with your teams and customers creating an iceberg of influence. This is the same for the good and the bad. Put systems in place to help bridge this gap.
Good culture is different for everyone. What leadership in a company needs to do, with input from their team, they need to decide what those values are going to be. When you state who you want to be, that is empathetic for your employees and new recruits.
“We have people that are burnt out, people that are disengaged, you have a mental health crisis in the US. And maybe one of the easiest things employers can do is empower their people to say Thank You more often.” — Logan Mallory
Logan Mallory is the Vice President of Marketing at the leading employee recognition software, Motivosity. Mallory is a public speaker, adjunct professor, and thought leader on culture and leadership in the workplace to achieve employee retention. Motivosity helps companies create winning cultures by focusing on gratitude and connection at work. Mallory’s wife, four kids and poodle are all his favorites.
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. The US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, has called out an epidemic of loneliness and highlighted how workplaces are one way to help. How can people get their needs for connection and recognition met in appropriate ways at work? And how does this impact the overall performance of the organization. Today, I dug into these questions and more with Logan Mallory, Vice President of Marketing at moda velocity. Motor velocity is a technology that helps companies create winning cultures by focusing on gratitude and connection at work. In a survey the company ran with 2000 respondents, they found that 75% said their mental health improved when they are recognized more often, recognition and gratitude matter, and they are keys to a healthy and high performing workplace culture. Today, we talked about why he is so passionate about this work, and how his empathy for his customers comes from being a customer himself that one time, we discussed why employers and employees are having so much conflict right now, what leaders can do to improve the employee experience, and simple ways to create an above and beyond culture. We talked about how your company can create a gratitude flywheel, and we got real about the short shelf life of quote unquote surface perks, and why a more consistent culture is required, especially in dispersed or hybrid environments. Finally, we discuss why a workplace can help support community and connection to keep us mentally healthy. This was such a great conversation, take a listen. Welcome Logan to the empathy edge podcast to talk all about happy cultures, connected cultures and engaging your employees. I’m very excited to have this conversation with you.
Logan Mallory 02:36
Thanks for having me. I am excited to spend some time with your audience and to hang out with you Maria.
Maria Ross 02:40
Yeah, it’s always great because this podcast has really branched out into speaking to leaders across marketing, social entrepreneurship, HR Dei, but you know, back to my original wheelhouse of marketing and branding. I love welcoming folks that are doing really innovative things, with their marketing with their own marketing and branding for their customers, but also being part of building a company that is devoted to improving workplace culture. It’s sort of like the happy marriage of the two sides of my interests. So I’m excited to get into it.
Logan Mallory 03:13
It’s a really nice Venn diagram. And I feel the same way. So I’m here for it. I’m here for it.
Maria Ross 03:19
It’s that’s that whole thing. I’ve always said it, my entire marketing career is like, I’m interested in doing marketing for good, not for evil, and marketing and brand. And storytelling has that power to pull us together and help us ignite action and help us persuade and help us to make things better, just as there’s a dark side to it, you know, more of us are hopefully turning towards the light. I hope
Logan Mallory 03:44
so I think that there is so much good that we can do and that has really become a big like cornerstone of my time at motivasi. And in my role, well in marketing at it, it makes both work and life better. When not you’re up, bro.
Maria Ross 03:57
100% 100%. So let’s get into that a little bit. Tell us your story. And what brought you to this work? What was your interest in leading marketing at a company devoted to employee experience and customer experience?
Logan Mallory 04:10
Yeah, you know, I was actually a motive opportunity customer before I ever worked here. And so I worked for a tech company called work front and work Brian used motivasi. And so I spent part of my career there using this tool that focused on connection and community and recognition. And then I left and went to another job that didn’t have that. And I can’t tell you how many times I thought to myself, Oh, I wish I had I wish I had motivasi I wish I had a way to say thank you to my peers. And I and I didn’t. When the opportunity that came up to work promoted paucity. I knew the founder of this organization because he also was the founder of Workfront, where I had worked previously, and Scott stories really fascinating. He started building Workfront Late 90s, like 1999, he was the CEO for a really long time. And they, they built a great company. Eventually, Scott left the CEO role and was on the board of directors and people were a little more comfortable with him. And so they would come up and say things like, you know, what this place has changed. It’s not exactly what it used to be. I feel like a cog in a machine. And, and I don’t know if he was frustrated or disappointed, but I know that Scott wasn’t happy, because he had tried to do all the things to make people happy at work, right, the snack room, the parties, the good health insurance, the PTO policy. And so Scott said, I’m gonna go solve this problem with technology. And that’s how motivasi was born. And I wanted to work for someone with that philosophy, like, I wanted to work for a leader that had that approach, and wanted to work towards something higher. And so here I am, and it’s been a really great three and a half years so far. Okay,
Maria Ross 05:55
there’s quite a few things to unpack in that story. Number one, what a great example of empathy that you were sort of a customer. Uh huh. And now you are working for the company. And you were so able to be empathetic to the needs of your own customers, because you were in their perspective, before you were I am trying to move away from the in their shoes, language these days, sure. But you do see things from their perspective. And you bring that to the work you do. And so often, when we go into roles, I know when I’ve gone into marketing roles, when you’re first there, you’re almost you’re most impactful when you’re first there, because you’re looking at things with a beginner mind and a fresh eyes, you get those fresh eyes, but then you get indoctrinated into the thing, and you sort of go into your ivory tower. And it’s, here’s what I think. And here’s what we think is best. And so we’ll talk a little bit later about what you do as a company to make sure that you still keep that customer perspective, always front and center, because that is one of the most important things about building an empathetic brand is never ever, ever lose it losing sight of the customer experience, and what they want and need and feel and what their goals are. So I love that. And I love this idea of moving beyond, I had a guest on a past episode, I’ll link to it in the show notes, Rebecca freeze, who wrote the book that goes the good culture, and how leaders can create workplaces that don’t suck. And she talks a lot about what many Silicon Valley companies did, or tech companies did in the beginning of of just throwing the veneer on it. Like let’s give them a foosball table, let’s give them free beer Fridays, and thinking that was going to solve culture problems. And I love that, even though those can be fun, and those are great, and even the perks that go along with them and the benefits. There’s a deeper need to connect and engage. And I love that your founder saw that and decided to say how can I look at this from a different angle? And how can we leverage technology to help us better connect and engage because that is something not to replace connection and engagement. We can’t outsource that to AI so to speak. This idea of leveraging technology to bring us closer, can you tell us a little bit more about that philosophy? And give us an example or two of what that looks like?
Logan Mallory 08:11
Yeah, for sure. And I want to take even one step back. I don’t always quote US Surgeon General. But our current US Surgeon General is evac Murthy. And I mean, this is the same administration that normally puts the the warning on cigarette boxes about about cancer, right. And he is now has six priorities. And one of them is the epidemic of loneliness. And the other is well being at work. And when he dives deeper into that He literally says community and connection is one of the ways that workplaces can help solve the health crisis that we’re experiencing in the US. And so I think that is really fascinating. I don’t I don’t know that companies should be the social place to meet all of the social needs for their team members. Right? I don’t think we can solve all of the problems. But organizations should be able to support their team members and be a place where they can get some of that community and connection. So let me give you an example. We’ve we’ve got a customer down the road. At this point, I think they had about 800 employees, and it was a tech company with employees across across the country. But they did have kind of a central group here in Utah. And they use motivasi. They use our tool, and we focus on interest groups. I like to call them micro communities, right, like micro micro cultures. And so these people loved road biking that that was their hobby, and they found each other through our product. So they started spending time together. They started biking in the mornings before work and so all of a sudden, you had people from finance and people from sales and people from support who have otherwise would have never interacted in this 800 person company, they were spending two or three mornings a week together, road biking. Now the company noticed that, and they could have just said, Hey, that’s great, go do your thing. They could have ignored it. But this company like doubled down on that they saw the micro culture and they said, that’s a win for us, we’re going to support that. So they gave them a little bit of money to go buy kits, right? Essentially, they’re Jered their their jerseys. They gave them a little bit of money to go sponsor a few races a year. And so they just, like supported this community. And when you have a community at work, you stay longer, you work harder, you solve problems more effectively, right? Like all of these roadblocks start to go away when you like and care for the people that you’re working with.
Maria Ross 10:50
100% and I am hearing echoes of another person that I interviewed on the show that you should meet actually, Shasta Nelson, she is a social relationship expert, she wrote a book called The business of friendship, citing many of the studies and the experts, one of whom you just mentioned the US Surgeon General, but about this idea of Korea, encouraging friendship in the workplace, not necessarily that we all have to be close to each other. But this idea of being friendly and being joyous and being connected at work, because there’s data around the fact that you know, you’ll you’ll retain employees more if they have a quote unquote, best friend at work as an example. Yeah. And it’s this idea of like, we this is the place where we spend the bulk of our time, it should be a place that we want to come to it doesn’t mean it’s always easy. It doesn’t mean that the work is always fun. But it’s this idea of like, do I feel this sense of belonging? Do I feel this sense of connection and camaraderie? So when I go there, I can contribute my best to the organization? You know,
Logan Mallory 11:56
it’s it’s interesting, and I have a little teeny bit of a different opinion about some of that, but not the overall concept. Gartner, Gartner in there, they have 12 questions that they asked about culture, and one of them is do you have a best friend at work? And I kind of laugh at that, because I actually don’t expect my work to replace John and Cory and Doug, who are my college roommates and my best men and like, I don’t expect work to replace them. But I expect work to help me have relationships with people that I like. And so I think about that, as you know, if I had to travel with this person, if I had to jump on a flight and go to London with this human being, would it be miserable? And what I dread it? Or would I have a good time on this work? Train, right. And so for me, there is this balance, like, I don’t want companies to feel like they have to provide the best friend, that’s really hard to do. Because it late best friends are created out of this deep life experience. I want them to provide me with people that I like that I would be happy going to lunch with, that I would not be opposed to hanging out with on a weekend or after work hours. And that might be a more might be a more like consumable goal for companies. Yeah, than a best friend.
Maria Ross 13:07
Well, and I think that’s the point. It’s not necessarily your best friend in life, but is that my best friend at work? Right in that situation. And as speaking as someone who met multiple lifelong best friends from my first job out of college and met my husband at work, we do form those relationships because, and then there’s some times where you, you are working in a company and you’re really, really close to someone, if you both leave, and you go your separate ways. That’s okay, too. It can be seasonal, temporary, but in those moments, when I was working with those people, I kind of felt like they were my quote unquote, best friends. And it gave me something to look forward to. To your point, when I have to do work, that’s a slog. When I have to travel for work, are these people that I know have my back? Do I feel comfortable with them? Do I feel like I can show up? Do I feel like I can offer out crazy ideas, or creative ideas, and not be afraid to take risks in front of these people? I think that’s when we really do our best work. If we’re sort of pretending to be somebody we not we’re not to protect ourselves when we go to work. That’s that’s a sign that we’re not really giving our most innovative selves to our work.
Logan Mallory 14:13
Yeah. And it absolutely means when we’re not giving our most innovative selves, that absolutely means that work isn’t getting our best result, right? We’re probably just doing whatever we’ve always done and checking the boxes the same way and not not coming up with new solutions to old problems or new solutions to new problems.
Maria Ross 14:32
I love it. I love it. So in your opinion, and I have a whole book coming out in the fall called the empathy dilemma about my own musings about this. But I’d love from your perspective in the trenches working with customers that are trying to improve their cultures. Why do you think employers and employees are having so much conflict right now?
Logan Mallory 14:52
Yeah, you know, I think about a relationship between employees and employers as a pendulum. And I think it kind of swings back and forth. And for basically most of human history, it was in favor of the employer, right. And then probably 100 110 years ago that like, started to shift, and we’ve seen it swing back and forth, right after COVID. It was, you know, for a minute, it was an employers market, and everybody was just holding, still trying to do whatever their employer needed. After COVID, it very much became the employee focused and people were leaving jobs and demanding more flexibility and making a lot of demands. And even in the last, I’d say, two quarters, we’ve seen that pendulum go back in favor of the of the employer, right, you have all these people that are all these layoffs, hundreds of 1000s of tech slash tech layoffs, and so employees are afraid again. And what I hope is that someday, as a society, we can, we can balance that out better, so that it is more so that the right things are being focused on, right for both groups. But you know, I’m a people manager, and I’ve got a team. And what I’ve realized is the more senior I get in my career, the more it is just about people problems. Yeah, like I spent so much of my day thinking about my team and who has what, that I can help solve that work. These two people aren’t getting along, how do I bridge that gap? This person has something happening at home? How do I support them as a human? And, and so like, I do think it’s hard because the conflict is real. The company needs to make money. Like we’re not, we’re not all here for social causes, right? You have to make money. And most of the wants or needs of the employees are in opposition to that they want more freedom, they want more money, they want more perks they like, and so I do think that we have to, and I won’t say be in each other’s shoes, since you’re avoiding that. I do think with each other’s perspective, we have to see each other’s perspectives. Yeah. And understand the realities of both sides. Yeah. And I’d say one of the solutions to that is really great communication and transparency, when we’re honest. And my talk about realities, that makes those conversations
Maria Ross 17:09
easier. 100% actually, in the new book coming out, one of the five pillars of being an effective and empathetic leader is clarity, because you can you can be as empathetic as you want. But if people are not on the same page, it doesn’t matter. You’re not even seeing you’re not even watching the same film. Right. Right. So I can’t even see the film through your perspective, because I’m in another theater. Right? Right, exactly. So it’s that idea of being able to be crystal clear. And also, one of the other pillars is decisiveness. Because I think what happens is a lot of very well intentioned leaders get caught up in people pleasing, which is actually not empathy, it’s submission, right? It’s, I’m just going to try to make everybody happy, which is an impossibility. So the clearer you can be in, the more decisive you can be, that’s when you can open up empathy, as you know, I’m sure you’ve experienced where you do have to make a tough decision. But I can use empathy as a leader to communicate that decision in a certain way. Or provide someone who’s particularly struggling with that decision, maybe some extra support. Yeah, but it’s those levers, right? Yeah,
Logan Mallory 18:15
exactly. It hasn’t been too long ago, but I was in a conversation with a team member. And this is a really great team member, like, they do really great work. They’ve been here for a few years, and, and are like wanting to grow. And I want them to grow. But the reality is, is that like within within the realm with which this person wants to grow, like, we don’t have the opportunities at the moment. And so it was a really interesting conversation to sit across the table from this person and say, You’re great talent. And if you want to be able to grow that way, like I will be your reference, I will help you learn, I will give you some projects to help you move that direction. But I don’t have that answer here. I like I can’t solve your problem in today’s work environment. Right. And that doesn’t make it an easy conversation to have. But it does kind of eliminate some question marks, right, because the decisions were made, the conversation was had, and so like that gives that per that helps that person know their real options.
Maria Ross 19:18
I love that story. And I mentioned a story about that in the new book, because it’s this idea of we can’t completely give all our agency to our employers to sort of like sit back and fold our arms and say, What do you got? Right? It’s got to go both ways. And part of that agency is understanding in a very kind, compassionate, respectful way, that maybe this isn’t the place for you anymore. Not for any bad reason. But but this is what the company needs to do. This is how the company needs to move forward. And if that doesn’t align with your values, I get it. So how can I support you in finding a place where you better meet your needs and your values because we just can’t do that for you here? err, yeah. And that doesn’t have to be a conversation. Right. It doesn’t have to be a contentious conversation. Yeah,
Logan Mallory 20:06
and I think that oftentimes, especially in, especially in today’s environment, and with, kind of, I’m gonna use the word entitled, like, we have some entitlement. And then that keeps us from seeing realities. i If I can share the story, it’s a few years old, but I was in a in a, in a role. And I got a call from appspot. Right a marketer’s dream, I got a call from a HubSpot recruiter. And it was one of those calls where I like almost texted my wife on the other line and was like, pack your bags, we’re moving to Boston. At the end of the call, at the end of the call, the recruiter said, Tell me about the budget that you’re managing. And I said, I’m managing a few $100,000. It’s mostly on licenses and tools. And I could hear this recruiter get bored with me. And they weren’t disrespectful. But they basically said, like, oh, that’s, that’s not going to cut it. And so I, I realized that my next role had better include a really large budget. And eventually that opportunity came knocking. And there was an opportunity to manage a multi million dollar budget. And the company that I worked for, said, What could we do to keep you here? And I said, unfortunately, you’d have to give me Mike’s job. Like, that’s the job. I have to have to keep me here. Yeah. And Mike was really good at his job. So it wasn’t I didn’t take it personal from the company that I couldn’t have that. I took it on myself. That was my career and my responsibility to get the experience I needed. Yeah, I just couldn’t do that there. So we shook hands and, and high fived and left with a really amicable departure. And I wish it could be like that more often. I wish. I wish we saw that more often. You had the
Maria Ross 21:45
clarity, though. And I think that’s what’s so important. I did it, I did an interview. I’ll link to that in the show notes as well with Claude silver, who’s the the Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia, Gary Vaynerchuk, X marketing company. And she talked about the fact that when they started to get really clear about not just job requirements, but expectations and values and progression and opportunity, and how you’re expected to show up and lead, she said entitlement sort of vanished, because we were so clear that it wasn’t that people were constantly asking, right? It’s like, everyone was clear, everyone was being honest, everyone was being transparent. And they understood what was in front of them. There was no sort of guessing about like, Well, I’m just not getting this opportunity. Because whatever reason you make up in your head, right, right. And so this idea of kind of coming back to it again, about clarity, and communication is so important, because it can actually eradicate some entitlement perceived entitlement, where entitlement can just be someone’s, you know, ambition, it could be someone’s desire, it could be some something burning inside of someone that says, I’m running out of time, and I need to do this, whatever, whatever the emotional and logical reasons are for that those requests. It’s that clarity can have that conversation of like, okay, I’m not happy with this, but I understand where the company’s coming from. And I understand they’re doing everything they can. And now I have to make a decision back to agency of is this the best place for me right now? Because, you know, like you said earlier, like, you can’t just make more VP positions just because people want them. Right, exactly. So it’s that it’s that idea of really nurturing someone and going okay, I see you. And I see you’re ready for this next role. And unfortunately, we don’t have that role available for you here. So what can we do while you try to find that role?
Logan Mallory 23:40
Yeah, it’s, there’s so many dynamics to have to manage. Yeah. And again, being able to see each other’s perspectives can really help with that. Yeah.
Maria Ross 23:48
So I want to I want to talk a little bit about what you’re hearing from your customers, as they look to your product to help them increase communication and clarity and collaboration. What are the challenges that they tend to come to you with and and how does a solution like yours? How does technology help solve those problems? For leaders and cultures?
Logan Mallory 24:10
I think that when people think about motivasi, they they come to us through two separate doors typically. One is very as we’ve kind of talked about community and connection related, right, they have they have dispersed workforces, they have multiple offices, we work with a decent number of financial institutions where they’re, you know, across different branches. And and they want to take what is a good culture and do two things. The first thing is cement that good culture and make it a great culture. Right. So like, I don’t I don’t think motivasi solves your bad culture problem. Now I think when you have a have a good culture, we help you like, turn that into something more tangible and kind of the the like Town Square like the place where everyone comes in the company,
Maria Ross 24:58
almost like codify it. I’d like to systematize it in a way I did that sounds so cold. I don’t mean it to sound that way, but in a way that makes it repeatable and scalable and inclusive of everyone. Exactly,
Logan Mallory 25:10
exactly. So with the community and the connection piece like that really is, how do we create the happy spot that your employees want to go, so many tools are created for the administrator or for corporate in mind. And motivasi kind of becomes the social intranet. And and our adoption is so high, because people want to go there, it’s where they’re seeing the highlights, it’s where they’re getting the good news throughout the company. It’s where they’re like, where they’re getting their onboarding experience from a culture perspective. So from day one, motivasi helps you and I’m going to steal your word Maria codify your culture and your values. And and like this, that that community matters within your organization. The second door that people approach us through and this is, frankly, what motivasi was born from, like this is our entire legacy is through a recognition door. People want to recognize their team members. And so often well intentioned executives or HR people default to what you mentioned earlier, the foosball table, the pizza party. And it’s not that those things are bad, right, they default to swag. I’m wearing my motivasi hat today that love this hat. And we’re all the time. But it doesn’t get me out of bed on Monday mornings. And it doesn’t make me a better team member.
Maria Ross 26:29
I was mentioned when I’ve referenced Rebecca freeze earlier and her book, the good culture, she talks about that as bungee nearing. Like it’s a way to, it’s a way to hide a little bit of like, oh, solve our culture problem. That’s called fungineer thing. So yeah, that’s it. That’s, but that’s often what we default to when we don’t know that there’s a different way. It’s exactly well intentioned, as you said, it’s
Logan Mallory 26:51
super well intentioned, but the shelf life on it is almost non existent. It lasts for a day or two, and then it’s kind of just and then it is just this the expected standard. And so what motivasi does, is motivasi, recruits all of your team members to look for and recognize the good things happening in your culture. And so we do that we wish give every team member a few dollars every month, normally like three to five bucks. And they can only use those dollars to say thank you to someone else. And so you end up again, in the same place where your community and your connection and your micro cultures and your org chart are, you end up with this social feed of all the positive things happening throughout the company. And, and so like, I feel recognized people are seen, they feel like their day to day work is is being noticed. There’s this this theory that I talk about a lot. It’s called the iceberg of ignorance. And the concept is that the higher you are in an organization, the less that you know about what’s happening throughout the, you know, kind of the the bottom of the org, that’s
Maria Ross 28:01
a real, that’s actually been studied that Yeah, that happens that you act and actually What’s also been studied is that many founders lose their empathy as the organization gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and they get further and further from the people and the customer. Right?
Logan Mallory 28:15
Yeah, exactly that that distance grows, and you lose the empathy, you don’t really know what’s happening. And I would, I think lots of times the iceberg of ignorance is referenced with the problems, right? The drama in the company, the systems and the processes that don’t work. It’s also very true for the winds and the good things, the higher you are in the organization, you can’t see the day to day things that people are doing to contribute, let alone take the time to thank them. And so motivasi, it puts that kind of power to recognize in the hands of of the individuals. And it makes a massive difference on culture. One, one last stat on that Maria, we did a survey motivasi did of 2000 people. And 75% of people said that they thought their mental health would improve if they were recognized at work more often. And so we’ve we have people that are burnt out, you have people that are disengaged, you have mental a mental health crisis in the United States. And maybe one of the easiest things employers can do is to empower their people to say thank you more often.
Maria Ross 29:21
I love that. Is that a publicly available survey? The
Logan Mallory 29:25
survey data is somewhere we did that in combination with one poll, and I would be thrilled to to send a link Yes. So that you can share that
Maria Ross 29:34
a link. Yeah, we’ll put a link in the show notes to that because that is powerful. And I also just want to point out this idea of, you know, as I talked about in the book, the empathy edge, that you have to be walking your talk and part of the walking your talk is modeling, celebrating and recognizing that this value, whether it’s empathy, whether it’s service, whatever your company decides to call empathy, right? Or caring about each other. Whatever. It’s just a nice bullet on a poster on the wall, that the brand strategist raising my hand said should be important, right? But comes to life when you model it when you celebrate it when it’s recognized, and people see that it is celebrated. And they start to understand this is how I can find success here. So what I love about what you’re saying is this idea of peer recognition and executive recognition and making it so public creates a learning environment that this is who we are. And even if you were skeptical about it, when you joined our organization, you’re seeing it in action. And now you want to get on that bus. So now it’s who can I thank, who can I recognize? I want to I want to participate in this, that when we do so much of that recognition behind closed doors, or just like a bonus check every quarter that nobody else sees. We’re not really we’re not really creating a culture that celebrates and models recognition and empathy and understanding and like you said, being seen.
Logan Mallory 31:06
Yeah, we we talk about that a lot as like this virtuous cycle, right. And I know that concept is used in a lot of places are the idea of a flywheel, it’s, it’s kind of like the gratitude starts. And then it just takes on a life of its own. And so you don’t even have to think about it anymore. Because it just becomes a part of who your people are. Reading. I’m reading right now The Happiness Advantage by a Shawn I believe it’s a corps who has a infamous TED Talk. And he talks about the impact of happiness on cultures, right? And how people who work from a positive perspective, are faster, quicker or faster. They’re just better on all the metrics. And gratitude is a big part of being happy. Absolutely,
Maria Ross 31:52
absolutely. And we’ve even talked on the show about gratitude being a great gateway to empathy, because it gets you out of your own situation and sort of get you in a very external mindset of looking up from whatever you’re dealing with. And saying, what what am I grateful for? Who am I grateful for around me? And then to your point, then taking that that next step? So what kinds of transformations have you seen from clients, or customers that have implemented this? Or is there any sort of even if it’s anonymous, any sort of before or after you can share with us,
Logan Mallory 32:29
one of one of my very favorite conversations that I’ve ever had with a customer is actually from from an organization, it’s called Desert, first credit union, their credit union kind of in the western states here, and, and I’m happy to share this because that their their president and CEO, Shane London, shared it with us. And we’ve used it all the time. Shane has been with Deseret first credit union for a really long time. And like, basically been in every role the organization has, right. And when we were interviewing him about the impact of gratitude and connection, he said, you know, I’ll be honest, when when my team brought mode of audacity to me, my CFO attitude, my skeptic attitude came out. And I did not think that this was going to work. And his exact words were, Boy, was I wrong. And I think that the reason that Shane and their organization sees so much value and Moto biocity, is because they have all these branches that are disconnected. And it can be hard to create a consistent culture, when you’re not all in the same place. Like that adds an extra element, and motivasi it helps them focus on that, again, I want to be really clear, I think desert first credit union had a good culture before and motivasi helped codify that and make that a great culture across across the board. So I think they were doing a lot of things, right. You know, one of our, we were with a really big company in kind of the FinTech area. And they wanted, they wanted to create a more powerful Foundation for their culture. And so they would use the appreciations in their feed in each of their in each of their all hands meetings, and the executive would get up and reference those. They would, they would use motivasi to like, help onboard people and help them understand the values of the company. And like they weren’t just appreciations. They were recognitions around when values were being lived. And when one of their senior executives left that company. And her first phone call at her new organization was was to us and so like, we just hear people say that we hear people say that motor velocity helps our employees feel seen route work. Right. And, and that’s really hard to do. Like, you can’t do that in a one day pizza party. Right.
Maria Ross 34:48
Right. And you know, and we should add, I mean, of course, like, you’re on the show, You’re my guest and there’s probably other technology solutions out there that can help people. But I think what I’m hearing you say Hang as well, what I’m seeing as the common thread is that it wasn’t like, it’s probably not a good idea to start at throwing technology at something if you don’t know what your culture problems actually are. Am I hearing you right? Like, is there some work that needs to be done before technology can be a panacea and solve your problems? Like what would you say a company needs to really honestly look at? Before they can expect that technology will help them? Just deal? You know, quote, unquote, deal with all the people issues?
Logan Mallory 35:31
Yeah, I have I have two answers. They’re the super obvious answer is the values. What what do you care about? What do you want to convey? Like whether you know, you are you had mentioned, you had mentioned service or empathy, but like, it could be a million things, right. But pick some that you really care about. And then the other challenge that I would offer is, do you really care, like, if you are an executive, or a leader, or a person in HR, if you’re trying to check a box, then don’t invest the money, don’t invest technology, like just go check a box in whatever way you want to do it. If you sincerely want to create a great place to work, where you care about your people, and they can thrive both as their skill set, and as their human being, like, what they what they want to prioritize? If that’s truly valuable to you, then I think that that’s the question you need to answer and you should be sincere about it. Not every place has to be a great place to work, like some places can be all about the money. And some places can be a stepping stone, and some places can be the you know, like a law firm that it’s all it’s all about the hourly and the and the billable hours. And like, I guess what I appreciate is that, and maybe this is my patriotic side and rear coming out. I’m grateful to live in a in a country where there can be different options. And there can be different places, because not everybody speaks my love language.
Maria Ross 37:00
Well, I love that you said that. Because good culture is different for everyone. Yeah. And what accompany has to do with the leadership of a company has to do hopefully, with the input of their best people, you know, not, we’re not going to go in a boardroom and then decide between the six of us what our values are for a 200 person company, right? Yeah. And this is why when I do my brand strategy and brand messaging projects, I bring together a cross sectional group together that’s like, I don’t even know what marketing does, why am I here? Right? It’s because you have a different perspective on the company and on what we do and on our values. But you know, getting gathering that input, synthesizing that input, and then deciding this is who we want to be. Because when you clearly state that that’s actually empathetic for your employees to know, what have they gotten themselves into? And is this the right place for me or not? Right, but it’s also empathetic to your recruits. So you’re putting a band a very clear banner out there. This is who we are, this is what we stand for you if you did this, come work with us. And you know, there’s companies right now post pandemic, that are, you know, making some questionable leadership decisions. And I talk about a few of them in the new book. But also, one thing I have always said is at least you know, where they stand. Exactly, if that’s okay, for someone, they just need to be okay with taking the responsibility for the stance that they’re taking. Yes. Do you know what I’m saying? And so it’s this idea that, like, if you really do want to attract the best talent, and you know, that within Gen Z, and younger millennials, these things, you know, and all the data is there, these things are important to them. If you’re gonna say, No, that’s not important to us, you need to accept the responsibility for that decision as well, of the impact is going to have on your business.
Logan Mallory 38:45
Yeah, and I bet you, you also can’t please everyone, like Hypersoft, you can’t craft a group of values. That is the perfect banner for every US citizen. I was, excuse me for I guess quoting myself, maybe this is a little weird. I was in the LA Times not too long ago, when there was an article about about Elon Musk and Twitter and what culture he was creating. And again, I will defend for or against
Maria Ross 39:11
my his approval, confirm or deny. Yeah, right.
Logan Mallory 39:14
But you know, exactly what Elon Musk, you know, the banner he’s putting up and it is meritocracy and hard work, and dedication and toeing the line. Like, right, that’s, that’s the flag he put up. Right. And if you don’t like it, it’s claimed as different. Yeah, at least, you know, it’s time to move on. Well, and
Maria Ross 39:33
that’s the risk that that leadership team runs in terms of long standing sustainable business performance and innovation, right? So if they understand the risks, and they want to, you know, defy the data file that they can but I think it’s this idea, you know, and I’ve, I’ve long said this in my brand strategy work. You can’t be all things to all people or you end up being nothing to no one so you as a company Leadership along with your employees need to decide who we are. And that’s not just five bullets on a website. Yes, if we’re going to claim that these, it’s also not 14 values because I was in a, I was in a workshop one time with a company that said, when I asked them about their values, because we were going to revamp their their values for their brand messaging, they were like, Hold on, let me check the website, because I can’t remember them all. And I’m like, exactly, and throw them away, because
Logan Mallory 40:26
they’re not doing you any good, right? There’s, there’s your first problem, there’s your first
Maria Ross 40:30
problem, right? And you’re not actually living by them. But what are those values? And then take that next step of what are the behaviors that show us that those values are being lived out? So what are the examples that we give to our leaders to say, if we’re going to look at your performance review and judge you or assess you based on how you’ve lived these values? Do I, as a manager, or leader actually have the actions and behaviors that we have determined? Show each of those values? Because if I don’t, I’m just making it up. Right? Yeah. So linking to your point about recognition and whatever. If we don’t agree what each of those values look like in action? How can we acknowledge and reward it doesn’t matter how great our technology is? Great thought, I love it. I love that. Yeah. So um, so as we as we wrap up, what is what is your biggest piece of advice to a leader listening to this right now that’s like, Hey, we are we are struggling, as an example with hybrid work, or a dispersed workforce. And we think technology can solve our problem, but we’re not really sure. What would be your your first two steps they should take.
Logan Mallory 41:43
So I think that you nailed one of those, you need to look at the team members that exemplify what you want. And hopefully you have some of those in the organization. But who are the team members that that exemplify if you could clone that person? Who are they, and making sure that you have their input and their feedback, and that you’re very intentional about any kind of caught a theme here, Maria? Like I think intentionality is one of our is one of our themes today. You can’t you don’t need to say yes to all of the ideas that your team members give. Right. But if you’re going to say no, help them understand why if they say we think this should be a value, or our culture should be based on this, and you’re going to disagree with that. Why is it? Is it budget? Is that something in your background? Is it an experience you had with with a former employer, and I think kind of explaining that can go a long way? Well, one of the very best things that a leader can do when it comes to improving culture or changing culture. And I actually believe this happens just as well, at the individual level as the team level, is what I call a relationship reset. And that’s not my phrase, I’m certainly borrowing that. But I think that the concept is being able to say, Hey, this is our current reality. And we’re interacting, this, we’re interacting, and I don’t like how it’s going. And I’d really like to reset that. I’d like to, I’d like to start over. And here’s what I can do differently. What could this look like to you? Let me give you an example of that. My, my team, the vast majority of my team has been here for a few years, at motivasi. And I started notice a couple of months ago that things felt kind of stale. Like it, it just felt like we were doing the same thing over and over. And so for one of our team meetings, I said, Listen, like I can feel that we’re all a little tired. Like, even at a place with a really great culture. Yeah, I can tell that we’re that, that we’ve been doing the same thing. And just
Maria Ross 43:42
to interject in there, too. It’s the what do you guys think? Yeah. Like, are you feeling this? How do you is this all in my head? Like what? You know, and opening that door for them to give their perspective as well of like, actually, yeah, it’s been a little weird, you know? Yeah, I love that. Sorry, go on. I
Logan Mallory 43:58
know, I appreciate that. And I think I did that more in the individual conversations, and then brought that sentiment to the, to the meeting to the group. But I, I basically said, like, I think one of the things that we’re not doing is putting new inputs into our head, so that we have new outputs, right. And so like, we watched, we watched a TED talk. And I said, Hey, for the next for the next little bit, whenever we have our team meetings, I want you to come to the meeting. And we’re going to spend the first 15 minutes talking about the new things you learned whether it was a new conversation over over lunch, whether it was a podcast or a book, or a YouTube video, like I want you and sometimes it’s going to be worker related. Sometimes it’s going to be just related to you but like, I want you to be putting in new inputs. And and I think that’s been pretty successful. We’ve we’ve had some really great conversations, the team is looking at new ideas, and we’re trying things we haven’t done before. And I attribute all of that to just the concept of a relationship reset. And so for leaders Don’t be afraid to say this isn’t working, we need to push the reset button. How do we push that button together?
Maria Ross 45:06
I love that I let’s leave it there because that is such a great, a great piece of advice. That is low cost. Yep, low risk, and will actually help your people feel seen heard and valued by by getting them together and saying our relationship as a team. And my relationship with each of you is important to me. And so we want to make it as positive of an experience for everybody as we can, because that’s going to help us deliver results to the organization. You
Logan Mallory 45:37
nailed it.
Maria Ross 45:38
I love it. Logan, I could talk to you for a whole another hour or two. But we gotta go. So I will have all your links in the show notes as promised. But for folks on the go, where’s one of the best places they can connect with you or learn more about your work? motivasi.com
Logan Mallory 45:51
is a really easy place and I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. If you just look for Logan Mallory, you’ll see a guy wearing a hat with a goofy smile. And that’s me.
Maria Ross 46:01
That’s your signature. I love it. So it’s motivasi motivosity.com. You guys, thank you again for such a great conversation. I’m sure it won’t be the last that we have. And thanks for your insights today.
Logan Mallory 46:15
Thanks to you and your audience. I
Maria Ross 46:16
appreciate it. 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 and share it with a friend or a colleague. And until next time, please remember that cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
Could YOU or YOUR company survive if you had to live and work with your customers and coworkers? Hearing every bit of praise, every complaint, and every…everything? That’s what life is like for the cruise industry, where crew and customers live together for weeks in the middle of the ocean. And it’s why my guest today, Paul Rutter, helps land-based companies apply the lessons he’s learned from the cruise ship industry to create exceptional customer experiences.
Today, we talk about what he learned about both customer experience and culture from working in the cruise industry, and how to ensure your employees are supported so they can show up with the right attitude and deliver great customer care. We discuss what to look for in hiring, how to empower employees to solve problems right away, why gossip is a culture killer, the importance of top execs getting in the trenches, and the link between empathy, innovation, and risk-taking. Paul even shares how to deal with extreme customer disappointments – like weddings canceled due to hurricanes – and how empathy helps turn those experiences into lifetime customer value, loyalty, and referrals.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Hire for attitude. Skills can be trained (and training is so, so important and should be done regularly), but without the right attitude having the right skills won’t matter.
Learn about and celebrate the differences of those onboard your team. You need to take care of your employees and they will take care of your customers. You want your employees to be your raving brand ambassadors.
If you’re in the C-Suite, take time to work how your lower-level employees work each day. It is important for the employees to see and for the executives to know what your employees are dealing with every day.
“We have one goal on board a ship. That’s it. And it should be the goal of all of your listeners as well: Create such an exceptional experience that exceeds expectations that they will come back because they’ve had such a great experience.” — Paul Rutter
About Paul Rutter, Chief Experience Officer:
After three decades as a global cruise director who lived with his team and clients, speaker, trainer, and author Paul Rutter knows that “perfect” is just a starting point. He knows that with today’s abundance of options for customers, every single experience they have is critical to running a successful business. Paul helps companies around the world set a standard for unmatched customer service.
Recognized by USA Today, ABC, NBC, MarketWatch, and FOX, Paul Rutter is a customer experience expert, speaker, bestselling author, and founder of the More Than Perfect service model. Paul is the author of the bestseller You Can’t Make This Ship Up, a hilarious look at the lessons he’s learned at sea and now applies to land-based businesses. He is also the creator of the strategic guide, Repeat Business Inc: The Business of Staying in Business.
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. Could you or your company survive if you had to live and work with your customers and co workers, hearing every bit of praise every complaint, and everything. That’s what life is like for the cruise industry, where crew and customers live together for weeks at a time in the middle of the ocean. And it’s why my guest today helps land based companies apply the lessons he’s learned from the cruise ship industry to create exceptional customer experiences. After three decades as a global cruise director who lived with his team and clients, Speaker trainer and author Paul rudder knows that perfect is just a starting point. He knows that with today’s abundance of options for customers, every single experience they have is critical to running a successful business. Paul helps companies around the world set a standard for unmatched customer service. Recognized by USA Today, ABC, NBC, MarketWatch and Fox. Paul is a customer experience expert speaker best selling author, and founder of the more than perfect service model. Paul is the author of best seller, you can’t make this shit up a hilarious look at the lessons he’s learned at sea and now applies to land based businesses. He’s also the creator of the strategic guide, repeat business, Inc, the business of staying in business. Today we talk about what he learned about both customer experience and culture from working in the cruise industry, how to ensure your employees are supported so they can show up with the right attitude and deliver great customer care. We discussed what to look for in hiring how to empower employees to solve problems right away. Why gossip is a culture killer, the importance of top execs getting in the trenches, and the link between empathy and innovation and risk taking. Paul even shares how to deal with extreme customer disappointments, like weddings canceled due to hurricanes, and how Empathy helps turn those experiences into Lifetime Customer Value, loyalty and referrals. Take a listen. Welcome Paul Rutter to the empathy edge podcast, I am so excited to have this conversation with you about living with your customers 24/7 And what that’s like and what you’ve learned. So welcome to the empathy edge podcast.
Paul Rutter 03:03
Thank you so much. It’s great to be with you.
Maria Ross 03:05
So tell us a little bit we heard your bio, but tell us a little bit about your story, and your experiences at sea. And what got you into this work now of consulting with organizations and helping them better connect with their customers to create winning customer experiences.
Paul Rutter 03:22
So I come to you from the hospitality industry, the travel industry, but more specifically the cruise industry. And as you mentioned, I’ve been working on board cruise ships for I hate to say this close to 40 years now. And it’s one of the very few industries where you actually live with your customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So Maria, let me ask you have you cruise before? Have you taken a cruise?
Maria Ross 03:47
Oh, I have not. I am not necessarily a cruise fan. But I come from a family of big cruise addicts. So, yes.
Paul Rutter 03:56
So we’ll have to get you on there one of these days. Because there’s some magnificent ships all over the world, all different sizes, all different products that they have. But one of the things that we learn on board is that you know, you have no excuses. If there’s a problem with your customer, you have to take care of it right away. You can’t have any excuses. And so if somebody comes to our front desk and says, My toilets not working, we’re not going to say well, it’s the weekend we’ll send somebody on Monday. No, we send somebody within 30 minutes to solve any problems because if you have a stuck toilet, you know they’re not going to your customers are not going to be happy about it. Same thing with air conditioning or if they have a problem with their key or you know anything else on board. We have to take care of our situations, problems, complaints or whatever you want to call them. We have to take care of them very quickly because if we don’t, they’re going to be right there. We’re going to walk around the corner and we’re going to run into those people again. And so we have to have policies, procedures, and really put ensembles in place in order to deal with all sorts of problems, some of the largest ships in the world, there’s over 6000 guests on board, along with over 2000 crew that’s over 8000 people in a big metal boat in the middle of the ocean, what could possibly go wrong? Well, pretty much everything can go wrong. We’re sitting in the middle of the ocean there. And so we have to be prepared for all sorts of things that go wrong. And so we deal with that. And so that’s why when I talk with businesses on land, the first question I ask is, could you or your company survive if you had to live with your customers? And their eyes get very big? And they go, no, no, there is no way that I could live, there would be violence involved at some point. In that relationship, I could not live with my customers. And if you add to that, we also live with our coworkers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So the person that we just worked in the dining room or a state room attendant, or next to each other at the front desk, or crew, staff members, or singers and dancers on board, they could be roommates at the end of the day. And so we have to keep our employees engaged, we have to have a great culture on board, we have to have a lot of employee engagement, our employees come from close to 70 different countries, Americans on board are the minority. And so, you know, how do you keep your employees engaged so that when they wake up and walk out of their cabin, they’re gonna have a big smile on their face. And they’re going to want to give to tremendous service, so that people come back, because we have one goal on board a ship. And that’s it. And it should be the goal of all of your listeners as well. And that should be to create such an exceptional experience that exceeds expectations that your customers will come back. Because they’ve had such a great experience. So onboard our ships, our goal is to exceed expectations. So people will book their next cruise right then and there. It’s an impulse buy, people buy an emotion. And if we’re doing a great job, now, we they don’t want to risk going to our competitors, and maybe not having that same great experience. So our goal is to create such an exceptional experience that exceeds expectations, they will book their next vacation with us, and 98% of the time that they put down a small deposit, they don’t even have to tell us what ship or where they want to go. They’re just reserving a room a state room on one of our ships 98% of the time they take their next vacation with us. So if your listeners know that 98% of the time their customers are going to come back to them over and over again, wouldn’t they do what’s necessary to exceed those expectations. And so that’s what we do on board a ship has tried to exceed those expectations. So they come back right away,
Maria Ross 07:56
right. And so you’re helping land based businesses adopt these philosophies. And in your book, called, you can’t make the ship up, which I love the title, you offer this hilarious look at the lessons that you’ve learned at sea, but applying them to land based businesses. So I have so many questions. But I want to start with, before I get to the external customer experience, I want to talk first about the opposite side of that coin, which is the culture that you create. And we talk a lot about, I talk a lot about empathy starting from the inside out, or really any brand attribute starting from the inside out, it’s got to be genuine, it’s got to be authentic, and it’s got to be lived inside the organization. So externally, it can be shown by the employees. You talk about building a culture based around exceptional customer service. And I’m wondering, because of the extremes of the environment for the cruise ship industry, the challenges that you mentioned where you’re living with your customers 24/7 And you’re living with your work mates, your colleagues 24/7? Is there something specific you hire for? And how do you screen for it? If you need to find someone that can thrive in that type of very different culture?
Paul Rutter 09:15
We hire for one thing and one thing only and that is attitude, you have to have the right attitude in order to work on board. There’s an old saying I’m sure you’ve heard hire for attitude train for skill, and that we can do weather. Now if you’re gonna if you’re being hired as a waiter in the restaurant. Yes, we want you to have some restaurant experience. Yes, if you’re we’re hiring you as a stateroom attendant. We want you to have some sort of experience but we can train you how to do the job. But if you don’t have the right attitude to be away from home for four or six or eight months of the time, then you’re not going to fit in now. Training is so important. Now, I know that some land based businesses when they have new hires, they may do an hour of training and that they never, they never do training. Again, we do constant training. And that’s one of the big things, there’s the first of all, for us on board a ship safety and security is the most important thing for us. Because we have to deal with things in the middle of the ocean, you know, fires and groundings or, you know, all sorts of problems like that. And so we have to hire for attitude. But in order to keep your employees engaged, you have to bring a little bit of their home onto the ship with them. So, for instance, as Americans for breakfast mean, we may want fruit, or eggs or bacon. But if you’re from the Philippines, or from Indonesia, or from India, you don’t want that for breakfast, you want rice and you want beef, or you want fish. And so the ships do a very good job, the cruise lines of of trying to bring home a little bit of creature comforts in order to make our crew members feel at home. And we have a saying onboard. And I’m sure it’s the same saying that many land based businesses have is that happy crew equals happy guests. If you keep your crew happy, then they’re going to go out and deliver the product that you really want them to. And so we have some things in place. So for instance, we talk about empathy. Being away from home is so difficult, especially when you’re new. But what happens if you have a family member, your mother is gone into the hospital, and you’ve heard this, how’re you able to go see your parents or your brothers getting married and you want to go to the wedding, it’s in the middle of your contract. So we do things called compassionately where we allow our crew members to be able to fly home for two weeks up to two weeks at a time to take care of business at home. So that they know if there’s a problem, I’m going on a ship for eight months. But if there’s a problem, I’m able to come home and take care of it. And so that’s really important for our crew members to know. And it’s, you know, it’s putting ourselves in their shoes. I mean, that’s what empathy is all about is, you know, if the same situation happened to us, how would we want to be treated, and that’s how we want to be able to treat our crew members there. So we do have things like compassion leave, we’ll also do things you know, we celebrate birthdays on the board, we celebrate independence day. So if it’s Jamaican Independence Day, and we have a number of Jamaican crew members on board, we’ll have a big party for the Jamaican crew members. You know, if it’s Fourth of July for the Americans, we’ll have a fourth of July party. So we will celebrate the differences that we bring on board. And it’s it’s one of the best things about the job of working on board is learning and dealing with and working with these people from all these countries outside the work. It’s such a wonderful education. But at the same time, you have to make sure that you’re taking care of your employees, because they’ll be the ones and they’re going to go home and sing your praises. If they like the atmosphere on board, then they’ll tell their friends that were a great company to work for. So you want your employees to be your raving brand ambassadors. We call them in the book.
Maria Ross 13:11
Of course, of course you do. They are your biggest brand assets are your employees. I want to dig into that a little bit further. Because this idea of attitude, it sounds good. And I think folks think about it and sort of they know it when they see it. But what specific traits or behaviors are you looking for in the hiring process to show you that this person has the right attitude? Well,
Paul Rutter 13:40
I should say that meese specifically, I’m not involved in the hiring process, because we have 26 ships, we might probably have 50,000 crew members now. And so we have a whole human resources team for shipboard hiring, depending on if you’re going into housekeeping or if you’re an entertainer. We have specific people for hiring for skills like that. And so I wish I could tell you that I’m personally do all the hiring. I don’t that the crew members are my responsibility. Once they walk up the gangway, then it’s up to me to make sure that they feel like they fit in. So for instance, the first day on a cruise ship, for anybody is hectic and stressful. There’s people running all over the place down in the career areas because we’re getting ready for a new cruise. And invariably, every single time a new crew member will say to themselves, this was the biggest mistake I ever made. What am I doing here? This is crazy. And so I make sure as a division head as the cruise director on some of these large ships. I may have 200 people work just in my division. I make sure I bring in a new hire to my office on the either the first or second day and let them know we know how crazy it is. for them to go through, I will always say to the new hire. So have you asked yourself why you’re here, and this was the craziest decision you ever made. And every time they go, Yeah, I can’t believe this, this is crazy. And so we try to let them know that we know what they’re going through, because we’ve been through it as well. And we know how crazy it is. And we know that people get homesick. And so we go out of our way to make sure that people feel welcome. Onboarding is a new term. And it’s such an important aspect of a business to make sure that especially our crew members feel welcome, because we’re flying them there. And we’re making an expense to bring them to our ships all over the world. It’s very important the that they feel comfortable coming on board the ship. I
Maria Ross 15:49
love that because that is so important about empathy for your employees and understanding everything you talked about the benefits, the inclusivity are all of these touches that, you know, leaders are finally understanding that that has a direct impact on the employees performance, which has a direct impact on the customer’s experience. It’s not some fluffy feelgood thing I mean, it is but it also impacts the bottom line. And making that investment in in that connection. And that humanity for each person is so important to ensure that overall, the organization is achieving its goals. So I want to flip to that customer experience. Because, you know, again, your industry very unique, you are living with your customers 24/7. But the we talked a little bit about the bad when things go wrong, or the complaints, but also the good. And so how can organizations that can’t do that, be more in lockstep and attuned with their customers? What are some ways that you’ve worked with your clients to help them not quite mimic that experience, but gather be able to gather the information and the data that’s gleaned from that experience? And maybe a different way?
Paul Rutter 17:06
Alright. Well, I think I understand that question. Let me, let me go one, just back to the one point with the employees first, and that is how important it is to empower your employees to take care of problems right away. Because if I have a problem and go to somebody at the front desk, and then they tell me, oh, sorry, I have to go get permission from my manager or my supervisor, in order to give you you know, the $10 back. And then the manager supervisor comes out in the office explain the problem all over again, like on the phone when you’re trying to call up a business on land. And so empowering your employees to take care of problems right away, helps towards guests and customers knowing that these people care about me that they’re not going to nickel and dime me that yes, if I have a problem, they’re going to take care of it right away, because we’ve learned in the past, if somebody let’s say, has a problem with a shore excursion, and they come to the front desk and say, Well, I didn’t like that shore excursion. 20 years ago, we would hand them a business card and say, Okay, call this number when you get home. And so they’re upset for the rest of the cruise, they’re not having a good time because they haven’t, their problem hasn’t been resolved. And so they go home, and they call the number and then the people in the office call us on the ship. And they say, Okay, what was the story, and the time involved is crazy. If you just take care of the problem and empower your employees to say, no worries, we’re giving you a 50% refund right now. And we’re going to send you a bottle of wine for the inconvenience, then they leave happy, and they can enjoy the rest of their cruise. And they’re going to tell their friends and family when they get home. I had a problem. But this cruise line took care of it right away. So empowering employees. I just wanted to make sure that we got how important that is. Definitely. Before
Maria Ross 18:54
you get to the question I actually asked, I just want to jump on that because that is such an important point. I think there are so many businesses set up to put policies in place that only deal with the random outliers. And yet, there’s really just a cost of doing business. Will people take advantage of liberal customer service policies and refund policies? Maybe, but the majority of them won’t. I mean, we learned this from Nordstrom, we learned this from Amazon. It’s for those exceptions that might milk the system. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to a stellar customer experience where you resolve someone’s problem right away. And the majority of people are not trying to screw the company. The majority of people genuinely have a problem and that is always frustrated me about so many businesses that want to put all these hurdles in place, because of the few people that might take advantage of the system. Meanwhile, they are neglecting all of these potential loyal lifetime customers because They think they’re being savvy about it. And they’re not. So
Paul Rutter 20:02
they’re just wanted to go. They’re not looking at the long term they’re looking. They’re
Maria Ross 20:06
not. And it’s like, you know, what is it worth to be able to save that time and create that better experience? By empowering your employee to solve the problem. This is the thing I love about Amazon customer service is, you know, we are loyal Amazon customers, I know that that’s controversial. But whenever you have a problem with an item, you can just chat with customer service, and it’s no questions asked, they’ll refund, sometimes you don’t even have to ship it back. Right? What you know, you might a CEO might look at that and say, like, look at all the money, we’re letting go out the door, how do we know if that really happened or didn’t happen, we need an investigation, it’s, you know, sort of just chalk it up to a cost of doing business, and reap the rewards of when you solve the nine out of 10 customers whose complaints are legitimate. So now I want to kind of get back to this idea of living with your customers 24/7. Because my point being, you have that advantage in the cruise industry. So when you work with clients and land based businesses, what are some ways you help them recreate that information gathering experience, so that they can get the benefit of hearing from their customers right away and sort of being in the trenches with their customers, without actually creepily going home with them?
Paul Rutter 21:22
Exactly. So, at the end of every cruise, we do surveys, customer feedback is so important. So we get surveys every single week at the end of a cruise. Now, there is so much that you can learn from the surveys. Now a lot of it is just oh, there was a piece of dust in my room. So my cruise was ruined. Okay, you can take that with a grain of salt, right. But if you hear over and over again, let’s say Bob was rude at trivia or at bingo today or an activity. And if you get that once you can write it off. But if you see the same things happening week after week after week, and Bob is rude and keeps getting written up week after week, then we have a problem on our hands that we have to solve, we understand that you can something can happen for one cruise, and somebody takes it the wrong way or, and you can get written up for that. But if you have the same problems, week after week, after week, you need to. And so I would just try to look for trends and tell companies to look for trends that if somebody is getting, you know, as we mentioned a rudeness common every single week, then that is something that you need to look into. The other thing I would mention is, you know, pick up a phone, people are hesitant to pick up a phone. And if you haven’t seen a customer in a while and you want to know why call him up and say hey, you know, we haven’t seen the a year in a couple of months. We’re just making sure everything’s okay. And if there’s anything we can do, please don’t hesitate to contact us. And so picking up a phone, even I’m a big believer in sending thank you notes to people, handwritten, thank you notes are so personal. I have one friend who keeps sending postcards. I mean, when do you get postcards in the mail anymore? Just making sure that customers know that you’re there, and that you’re thinking about them does so much for the customer to then start thinking about your business. Again,
Maria Ross 23:18
I love this. And something that we spoke about pre recording was something I wrote about in the book about executives who sort of outsource the customer feedback. And we know we’ve got Customer Support Teams, we’ve got Customer Success teams, we’ve got account manager, that’s their role to stay in lockstep with the customer. But what about the executive team that can sometimes get into their ivory tower and forget what life is like for the real people on the ground? What suggestions do you have around executives being able to stay in touch with their customers and not lose sight of that beating heart of the company.
Paul Rutter 23:53
I am a very big believer in executives and owners and C suite officers to come on down where the real people work and live and do a job for a day or a week we’ve had people switch jobs we’ve had when a ship is coming out we’ve had captains and all the officers serving dinner to the crew members in the restaurant, I mean and to for them to see how the other half lives, you know talking about empathy, they see exactly what’s going on. And that is so important. First of all, it’s important for the employees to see the executives down where they are instead of in their ivory tower. And so I’m a very big believer in switching jobs or come on down and work the front desk of your hotel or work at the counter of your business and see exactly what your employees are dealing with on a daily basis. Plus, the customers will be very happy to see you there if they know who you are. And so I’m a big believer in switching roles for a day or a week or even an hour
Maria Ross 24:58
or two If you like, yeah, no, I put that in the book of wherever possible, you know, get the CEO on the customer support line for an hour, or, you know, wherever it is possible for them to get into the trenches. I’m a big proponent of airline CEOs, flying anonymously in coach and seeing what that experience is like, which I know they don’t do, I wish they would, or even to understand what it’s like online to purchase from your company or book an experience, to go through that process yourself as an executive every so often, and not be too arrogant about the fact that that’s beneath you. And you know, I shared a story in the book about a CEO who thought it was beneath his executive team to actually spend time talking to customers, and why that’s a recipe for failure because no customers no company, right? So
Paul Rutter 25:54
you’re just to build on that a little bit. I mean, I talked to land based businesses, they’ll park in the back parking lot and use the back door to go up to their offices, the last time they went in the front door where customers actually go in was a years ago. And so they don’t know they don’t see the dirt or the filth or the loose handle or something that’s a safety concern. Because they they go in the back way all the time. And they need to do and walk in the footsteps of their customers. Go online, call your office, call your one 800 Number and see how long it takes to answer. We do that on our ships, we have managers on duty, will specifically call you know, room service, or the front desk to see how long it takes for them to answer. And I highly recommend CEOs to call their 800 Number, or go on their website and see how long they are and see what they need to do to find a phone number to call for customer service. So I highly recommend that CEOs work and walk in the steps of their customers at every chance every chance they get.
Maria Ross 27:00
So in your book, you can’t make the ship up, which I love the title again, you talk about a few business implementation strategies. And I’d love to just get a high level insight on a few of these. One of them is how loose lips literally sink ships. Can you tell us what that one’s about?
Paul Rutter 27:19
Well, there’s a couple of things. There’s no privacy on a cruise ship, you learn that fairly quickly that everybody knows everybody’s business. And gossip can be very bad onboard a ship. Because I think there’s a saying, if they don’t have anything too bad to say about you, they’ll make something up. And so we have to be very careful. And even on land, I try to get the point across that gossip is just such a cancer. And it grows and it brings people down. And so when I say when we say loose lips sink ships, it’s that you just have to be careful what you’re saying, you know, you may hear a rumor, and then you spread it. But you know, gossip is such an especially on a ship because it’s such close quarters. I mean, we have, for instance, to give you an example, there’s a crew bar on board, every ship has a crew bar where crew members can go with at the end of the day and just have a nice drink and relax and listen to some music. Well, Lord have mercy. If a guy and a girl leave the crew bar at the same time. The rumors start to spread, right Oh, you see who left here and and all of a sudden, you know, they’re married together. But that’s not the way it works. And you just real careful about some of the things you say, because gossip is such a cancer in any business and, and there’s really no privacy on board a ship. So I would just recommend to try and nip it in the bud when there’s gossip going around that, you know isn’t true,
Maria Ross 28:51
right? I mean, that is definitely a culture killer for sure. And it’s anything but apathetic. We’re not really thinking about the impact that our words can have on our colleagues and our workmates. But also that that just detracts us from the work as well. It’s all well and good to have fun and, and joke and inject joy I I’m a huge proponent of that to create to create a good culture that then in turn offers great customer service. But yeah, I think we need to we all need to keep each other in check about the gossip issue. You have another one here throwing off the bow lines to take some risks. Talk to us about that. Well,
Paul Rutter 29:26
I just think first of all, working on a cruise ship is a risk because it’s not like it’s on anybody’s radar, they already going to college for all I’m going to college so I can work on a ship. So you do have to take risks in life and business owners need to take risks. If you’re doing the same thing that everybody else is doing. You’re not going to stand out in the crowd. And you need to stand out and even if it’s, you know, some people do it with, you know, crazy colors or a different logo or something like that. You have to take some risks. I mean, you know you mentioned Amazon look at the risk he took by creating Amazon On and things like that. So if you see that there’s a problem that isn’t being fixed, taking a risk to fix that problem is how you create businesses.
Maria Ross 30:10
Well, and I think related to empathy, what we, what the data show is that companies with empathetic leaders and empathetic cultures create more innovation. And it’s because people know, they, they know that they’re seen, heard and valued. So they’re more comfortable throwing out crazy ideas, or, you know, failing in in the pursuit of trying to try something different, you get people that are more willing to step outside their comfort zone, because they know there might not be retaliation, there might not be, you know, people not accepting them. And so that that idea of the empathetic Culture and Innovation do go hand in hand across multiple studies. One study showed that exponentially people in empathetic cultures felt they could be more innovative at work, I think it was four times as many verses in companies where they don’t have an empathetic culture. So that idea of being a disrupter, that idea of risk taking in business to create growth in the company in the business is so closely aligned to how employees feel about giving their perspectives and offering up their ideas, and also about how they know they can innovate, and create and they’re not worried about all the other stuff that happens when you’re in an environment where you’re, it’s fear based, you don’t feel psychologically safe. You don’t feel like you can bring your ideas to the forefront. You’re so worried about that stuff that think about all the innovation you’re losing as a company, because people are too afraid to speak up.
Paul Rutter 31:44
Exactly. Well, if I can give you an example of something that happened on a ship where empathy was involved, weddings, very big business on board a cruise ship, people are now planning their weddings. And there’s two types of weddings on board. There’s what’s called a shipboard wedding where you can let’s say this cruise starts in Miami, people calm, you have friends and family, they’ll come on board the ship, and you get married on board that day, and then your guests leave and then the ship sails and you go on your on your honeymoon together. So that’s a shipboard wedding. And things usually go well and we know how important weddings are. But the other type of wedding is called the destination wedding. And that’s where the couple says, well, we want to get married on the beach in Jamaica, or we want to get married on the beach in Grand Cayman in the Caribbean. And so they make the plans and they do the paperwork and omit they might do it through a travel agency. But everything is set. And so they’re gonna get married, and sometimes they have family, their parents are sailing with them. We had one wedding, we had 200 guests on board were there just for the wedding. There’s only one problem though, when people booked destination weddings. We’ve had a couple when they’ve booked them during hurricane season. So of course what happened, right, for 99% of the summer time, there’s never a hurricane. But of course, that one time when it’s your wedding, there’s a hurricane coming right towards Jamaica or right towards Grand Cayman. And it’s supposed to hit a day or two before or after the day that you’re supposed to get married. While on a cruise ship. We’re not going there. We’re afraid of hurricanes, there’s no reason to go because the islands are going to be in a bad state. So if there’s a hurricane in the Western Caribbean, a ship will usually go to the Eastern Caribbean because it’s not affected. And people want to go where there’s good weather. Yes, they’re upset that they’re not going to the ports they planned on. But they don’t want to go during a hurricane where the weather is terrible. They want to go where there’s nice weather. But the problem with the people who booked that wedding on that day, they’re not having their wedding day and we have some very upset guests. Now we as a cruiseline could say listen, not our problem. You know, we didn’t book this wedding during hurricane season you did. There’s a hurricane sorry, nothing we can do. Or you can take an empathetic approach and put yourselves in the shoes of these people who were so disappointed and all the family and friends who are with them. The paperwork for the wedding, let’s say they planted on Jamaica or Grand Cayman, the paperwork is only good for that island because the government’s are all different. So if you have a wedding license in Jamaica, you can’t use it if we go to one Eastern Caribbean country, because it’s different paperwork. So we could say sorry, nothing we could do. Or we can put ourselves in their shoes and at least make them feel as valued as possible. So we send them to a romantic dinner and one of our specialty restaurants. We book couples massages for them so that they can get a massage. One couple who had their wedding canceled? They had they this is the couple that had 200 people on board, they said what was really important to us was to have our first dance together. And so we arranged it on the last night of the cruise. In the middle of the shift, there’s always a big central area. The bride got dressed in her gown that to the gentleman was in his tuxedo, we announced to the ship that they were going to have their first dance, it was packed, it was crowded, and the band learned their song there one song because it was going to be played on the beach or recording, we had our band learn that song. And so we were able to let them have their first dance. The crowd went crazy. There was not a dry eye in the house, everybody, they understood that they miss their wedding and that they had planned for and they paid lots of money for this wedding as well. This is you know, It’s so upsetting to us that we couldn’t deliver the product that they were looking forward to. But we were empathetic, and this couple. And both couples that this happened to, at different times were so happy with what we provided for them, they’re taking their anniversary cruise with us, they’re going to bring their families the next time they cruise because they felt that they were valued, even though they never got to get married, that they were happy with the way that we responded to their situation. And that’s where the empathy has now gotten us lifelong customers, who are then going to bring their families and their kids in their grandkids. And you know, how much money has now been brought in in the future, because we were empathetic, and it didn’t cost us very much money to send them to a specialty restaurant or get a massage together. They were very happy about that. Right? And
Maria Ross 36:48
that’s about a mindset of being able to look for those opportunities and have people on board who who understood how can we make this better? What and also what I love about that is getting to the heart of what was most important to that couple, which was the first dance. How many times do we sort of try to apply a cookie cutter solution to customers that are unhappy or customers that are having a less than excellent experience? Where if we just take the time to get to know them and talk with them and understand what is really underneath the frustration or the anger or the sadness or the whatever about the experience? What is the most important aspect to you and how can we fulfill that need for you? So that is such a great story to land on. Paul, we’re going to have all your links in the show notes for folks, but for anyone on the go, can you let us know where’s the best place to get in touch with you?
Paul Rutter 37:42
Oh, absolutely. Thank you for inquiring. I appreciate that. My website is Paul Rutter. speaks.com. My last name is ru t t e r. So Paul Rutter speaks.com books are available there. I’m very big on LinkedIn. If people want to reach out on LinkedIn, I have a Facebook public page. Paul Rutter speaks Instagram, YouTube. So all of those all of those
Maria Ross 38:08
website is great. Yeah, we’ll have all those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time today and your insights. We really appreciate it. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge. If you like what you heard you know what to do, please share it with a colleague or a friend and don’t forget to rate and review and subscribe and follow so you always get the latest episodes. Until next time, remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
Marketing often relies on a lot of “tricks” to reach people in this noisy world. But we have an opportunity to be more intentional and responsible in our marketing – and when we do, that leads to increased customer engagement, loyalty, and yes, profit.
Today, I talk with Kat Kennan about trauma-informed marketing and how we can rethink the way we promote our offerings. We talk about what trauma-informed marketing means, why brands need to pay attention, how to avoid cancel culture, and how to rethink old marketing models and get away from fear-based messaging. We discuss how trauma can show up for your customers, where you can take a pause and adapt, and some great tips on easy ways to start infusing more empathy into your marketing to boost your customer’s perception of your brand.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Fear-based marketing techniques are going to continue to get diminishing returns. As businesses, we need to move beyond personas and really connect with our customers.
Over 70% of people have experienced at least one major traumatic event in their lives. In thinking about the pandemic, we are now looking at 100%.
Empathy is a bottom-line issue. 97% of customers say that empathy is important to their customer loyalty.
You need to have a pretty nimble and agile group of decision-makers that can adapt and adjust campaigns on the fly based on real-time events.
“It’s encouraging marketers to just take a pause before they send something out to think about how it might feel or how it might read.” — Kat Kennan
Episode References:
The Cancel Culture Checklist: Go to Kat’s website radicalcustomerexperience.com & use code MARIA30 to enjoy 30% off the 1st 3 months. Check the website for all details.
Brand Story Breakthrough course to help you craft a clear, compelling brand story – includes weekly office hours with Maria!
About Kat Kennan:
Kat Kennan is the Founder and CEO of Radical Customer Experience, a groundbreaking consulting firm that encourages brands to establish genuine connections with their customers by embracing strengths-based, trauma-informed, and inclusive marketing services. With a passion for empowering individuals and driving positive change, her mission is to help brands speak up, speak out, and foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in their customer interactions. As a certified trauma-informed professional, Kat brings a crucial perspective to her work, infusing every aspect of her business ventures with a deep understanding of the human experience.
Kat’s unwavering commitment to creating a more inclusive and empathic world have earned her recognition and respect within the marketing and trauma-informed community. She is leading the charge in revolutionizing the way businesses interact with their customers, leaving a profound impact on the industry and society as a whole.
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. Marketing often relies on a lot of tricks to reach people in this noisy world. But we have an opportunity to be more intentional and responsible in our marketing. And when we do that leads to increased customer engagement, loyalty, and yes, profit. Today, I talked with Kat cannon, about trauma informed marketing, and how we can rethink the way we promote our offerings. Kat is the founder and CEO of radical customer experience, a groundbreaking consulting firm that encourages brands to establish genuine connections with their customers by embracing strengths based trauma informed and inclusive marketing services. With a passion for empowering individuals and driving positive change. Her mission is to help brands speak up, speak out, and foster diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in their customer interactions. As a certified trauma informed professional Kats journey to success is rooted in years of marketing leadership for companies and organizations of all shapes, sizes and industry sectors. Moreover, her personal experiences with complex PTSD have made her a passionate advocate for all trauma survivors, leading her to establish the advocacy organization stand up to trauma. Through this organization, she enables others to heal and thrive beyond their traumatic experiences. Cat’s unwavering commitment to creating a more inclusive and empathic world have earned her recognition and respect with the marketing and trauma informed community. She is leading the charge and revolutionising the way businesses interact with their customers leaving a profound impact on the industry and society as a whole. Today, we talk about what trauma informed marketing means, why brands need to pay attention, how to avoid canceled culture, and how to rethink old marketing models. And get away from fear based messaging. We discuss how trauma can show up for your customers, where you can take a pause and adapt. And she offers great tips on easy ways to start infusing more empathy into your marketing to boost your customer’s perception of the brand. And she has a special offer for all you listeners. So stay tuned. Welcome Kat cannon to the empathy edge podcast, I am really looking forward to having this conversation with you about marrying two of my favorite things, which is empathy and marketing together to help businesses succeed. Because as you know, this podcast is all about leveraging the power of empathy not only to improve our lives, but to improve our businesses and our brands as well. So welcome to the show.
Kat Kennan 03:22
Oh, thank you so much. I’m thrilled to be here.
Maria Ross 03:25
So let’s talk a little bit about your work. You know, as I read in the bio, you talk about radical customer experience your business, as a consulting firm that encourages brands to establish genuine connections with their customers by embracing strengths based trauma informed and inclusive marketing services. Can you explain what that is for people or what those things are for the leaders listening to that podcast right now?
Kat Kennan 03:51
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, let me take it a step back and just talk about our mission for a second. So we really are looking to empower companies to embrace empathy, in their marketing practices, really redo things from the way that they’ve been done forever. So I do talk about strengths based marketing, which is probably an easier entry point than trauma informed, but, you know, as marketers, we were all taught fear based techniques, right? And we have to create urgency, it’s a limited time, it’s limited quantity. You know, I’m sure any of the listeners can go to their inbox right now and find a dozen emails that say Oh, until midnight, but, you know, that’s sort of the opposite of empathy and particularly now, you know, after the pandemic, like we are in a mental health crisis, and you know, kids are on social younger and younger as well. And the peer pressure and all of that like negative, you know, focus is really dangerous and the you know, obvious believe there is a business result in all this too, which is sales. So like, don’t stay with me. But I think brands have a responsibility just like they do, you know, with sustainability or overall diversity inclusion initiatives. Like to me it fits under that larger umbrella. But yeah, definitely encouraging companies and my clients to embrace empathy.
Maria Ross 05:27
And I love that because we’ve had a variety of past episodes, I’m going to be putting in the show notes of this episode that have dealt with various aspects of this. And one of the reasons why some of those techniques are used is because scientifically, they have been shown to work and behavioral economics and I had expert Melina Palmer on the podcast twice, actually, but one time talking about what your customers want, but can’t tell you. And she made it very clear. It’s not about manipulation, it’s just about understanding the way people make decisions, and leveraging that in a positive way in a responsible way. So that you can provide a product or service for the people who need it. And so I think that’s where a lot of that comes from is there’s the sort of tips or ways to promote, or ways to phrase things or ways to price that our thinking brain says will never work on us. But our subconscious brain it does. And I think we just need to be more savvy as both marketers and consumers about what a powerful tool that is to wield, and why we need to wield it responsibly. So that’s why I really love the work you’re doing and showing brands that again, what I love the both and thinking, you can be responsible, and be trauma informed and be inclusive, and you can still make a profit, like everybody wins in this scenario.
Kat Kennan 06:49
Absolutely. And you know, those fear based techniques, you know, particularly aware our society is and where we’re going, you know, we’re gonna get diminishing returns. And so it’s time to, you know, rethink things I’m sure to if you went to LinkedIn now and any of those, like marketing articles, right, you’d see those same tips and tricks that we’ve been following for years. And it’s like, no, come on, we need to get beyond personas and really connect with our customers. Right.
Maria Ross 07:20
So tell us a little bit about this is usually the first question I asked. I asked, but I wanted to dive right into the What is this that we’re talking about today, but let’s take a step back and talk about your story. And how your personal journey and experiences have influenced this approach to marketing, and why this approach of being trauma informed as a marketer? First of all, I know you’re going to define what that means for us. Yeah. But also, what’s the personal part of your story that informs this work? Yeah,
Kat Kennan 07:49
absolutely. So I talked about it all the time. But I have complex PTSD, which, you know, a lot of us are familiar with PTSD, as you know, with vets, or, you know, perhaps like medical crises, ad complex, it just means there have been multiple things. But in, let’s see, 2018 19 and 20, I had three back to back, pretty, like terrible things happen. And then with my mom passing away, and expectedly. And I realized during that time that I was perceiving marketing messages differently. So you know, you can, I guess you can’t take the marketer out of me no matter what. So my analytical brain was on. But I think that’s where I started understanding, you know, both Annika healing journey and doing a lot of research and reading that there is this concept of being trauma informed. And, you know, it’s really come from the medical or therapy community, in terms of like, how you talk to survivors or patients. And then during the pandemic, I actually went and got a certification and being a trauma informed professional, to really learn, both for me and my own journey, but just, you know, also in general of what’s happening in the body. And you know, what current reach research is saying, and I was able to marry all these things together. You know, I always say that I will forever be healing and never healed, which is awesome. It’s all right. My PTSD is my superpower, and allows me to see the world in a very unique way. But yeah, we can marry all of these things together, and really create customer experiences that are indeed
Maria Ross 09:40
radical. And what do we mean by trauma informed marketing? Yeah, absolutely.
Kat Kennan 09:44
So let me give a couple of tangible examples. For everyone who’s listening. We can think about it from a campaign or creative perspective. You know, sometimes we’re not all sitting around in a boardroom trying to figure out how to ruin someone’s day, you know, as goodness, at least I hope not. But, you know, sometimes there’s images or words that can be really triggering. You know, we’ve seen non trauma informed campaigns such as like, you know, Walmart releasing Juneteenth ice cream, or, you know, yeah, it
Maria Ross 10:22
is. I mean, I
Kat Kennan 10:23
feel Yeah. Like, no. But, you know, I’ve seen really great examples, the first marketing campaign I saw around this hit me as a consumer. So there’s a brand called uncommon goods, which I’ve been such a fan of, for so long. And my very first mother say, without my mom, obviously, you know, particularly in any holiday, right, there’s always so many messages coming at you. And before Mother’s Day, it’s every email, it’s every social post, it’s every commercial, right? And so, you know, I just lost my mom. And I was like, Man, this is so hard. And then I got a text from uncommongoods and said, Hey, we know this time a year is tough for many of you click here to opt out of our Mother’s Day messaging. Oh, wow. Yeah. And, you know, as a, as a consumer, as a customer, a longtime customer of the brand, I was like, they really see me, right. And the loyalty that that created and went well, beyond the years of like me giving them business, it’s like, this deep spot, right, that hits. And, you know, as a marketer, I’m like, Wow, they’re so smart. They’re just segmenting. Right? And like, that’s not a hard thing to do. That’s a really easy campaign to put out. And, you know, so there’s no reason that brands can’t do that, like all along the year, you know, holidays are really important for companies in terms of profits. Right, but can we handle it with more sensitivity? Yes. And, you know, there are other areas of marketing, let’s, let’s take probably the least sexy area of data hygiene, right? No one wants to talk about it. But if you’re not cleaning your database regularly, then what if you are sending an email or even a direct mail piece? Or even it could just be business mail, right? Where maybe you’re sending it to a partner that’s passed away? Or there’s been a divorce? Or, or right. And, you know, then with that one envelope, you really have ruined someone’s day. And, you know, I mean, I also know this personally, you know, my, my neighbor’s husband passed away last year, it was like, you know, one of the nicest people, and, you know, every single day, there is mail for him. And, you know, how triggering must that be? So, you know, it really applies to all sites of marketing, I would say, more than anything else, it’s encouraging marketers to just take a pause, before they send something out, to think about how it might fit. I
Maria Ross 13:16
love that, what are some of the examples of the ways you’ve worked with clients, to, you know, what are some before and afters you might be able to cite for us to give people more, more examples of things that could spark their thinking of how they can look at their own marketing, and maybe reassess what they’ve been doing?
Kat Kennan 13:34
Yeah, so I mean, I’ve done some training, like within marketing departments, almost on the employee side, because I think it’s really helpful for marketers or anyone else, really executive wise in the workplace to really understand how pervasive trauma is, and what trauma reaction was, can look like. So, I mean, statistically speaking, it’s north of 70% of people have experienced at least one major traumatic event in their lives. And if we think about the pandemic, I mean, we are really looking at 100%. And, you know, it’s not just things like you’ve lost a friend or family member, or perhaps there was something in your childhood, it could be moving homes, or changing jobs, like these can still be extremely triggering. And so I like to lead, you know, departments through that exercise of what that can look like. And, you know, I’ve also I’m sure we’ve all been in those meetings where maybe someone just has a meltdown. And you’re like, Wait, what just happened? I’m so confused. Yeah. You know, and the reality is that, you know, that person probably had a trauma reaction. And no, it had nothing to do with what was happening in the room. Right. And it probably wasn’t even as simple as hey, they had a fight with their partner that morning. Hang, or you know, something’s gone out there kids, it’s always hits much deeper, I always find myself kind of pointing here. Because, you know, that’s where trauma really lives. It’s underneath everything. And even if you see someone that’s angry, for example, that’s a secondary emotion, there’s always something underneath. So I find that, you know, by leading my clients sort of through that internal exercise, it’s much easier for them to then look at the external side, right, of how messages might be received. And so I try to start with early things like are easy things, you know, holidays are absolutely any, you know, easy thing. We’ve already talked about how, say even in q4, right, the holiday season, like we are looking at way north of 25% of profits. So how can we handle it since actively, when, you know, the holiday is aren’t an easy time for a good majority of consumers? Right? And, you know, so what kind of messages can we put out? Like, maybe like, things with a lot of happy families? Maybe we should rethink it? Maybe not? Maybe it is appropriate. But just to take that pause? And, you know, and you know, then we see, we see sales increase? We’ve done some, we’ve done some really fascinating research with it isn’t even fully public yet. But at least at this time, but we’re seeing that 83% I just feel like I need to say it again, 83% of consumers feel that brands do little to nothing to handle complaints or difficult situations that they are having, in terms of customer experience, customer service, 83%.
Maria Ross 16:48
I mean, that’s nuts, I’m just going to slap you with another hit you with another statistic is that a 97% of customers say that empathy is important to their customer loyalty for a brand that if they have an empathetic experience, or if they don’t, yeah, 97% say that is very important to them in terms of will they buy from this brand, or won’t they? So, you know, this is a bottom line issue. This is not just sort of a like, oh, we just need to be touchy feely like, this is impacting, you know, things that the CFOs care about. And I’m gonna, you know, as I mentioned, when I was thinking through our talk today, there’s so many past episodes that I want to link folks to one is to Charna caselle, where we did an episode about recognizing trauma in the workplace. And also, Bridgette, I Rousseau, who spoke about disrupting toxic marketing models and business models, especially in the online space. And how many of those are rooted in patriarchy, oppression. So many of those methods are rooted in forcing people to do something that they might not choose to do. And so and then finally, Lindsay law shell, who spoke about being a marketing activist and leveraging marketing, to do good in the world, rather than cause more harm. And I’m hearing echoes of all these themes as you talk. And the biggest word that’s popping up for me as you talk is intention is to stop running, and stop, you know, stop and pause, think about, is this something we should do? Or are we doing it because we’ve always done it? Or everyone is doing it? Or it’s the next shiny new thing? And, you know, I think what is probably the question coming to most listeners minds is, well, can you just drive yourself? Nuts in circles? Because you have to consider every possible reaction? At what point do you start suffering from analysis paralysis? And you don’t put a campaign out there? Do you have any perspective or guidance on that? Because I think and myself as a marketer, that’s kind of my number one question is, at what point are we spent? Do we spend too much time on intention? And then we just have to go?
Kat Kennan 19:05
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is definitely an early pushback that I got a lot. And it sort of really forced me to think about it, right. And what I realized is that intention piece is key because it is just about taking a pause. It doesn’t mean that, you know, as a brand marketer, you need to sit there and think about every single person’s experience. Me now maybe it’s been a health issue, or maybe you know, whatever it is, but by taking that pause, I think you’re getting over halfway there. Just just to take a moment and think about how it might read. And, you know, a think for a lot of brands to they’re terrified of being canceled. Right? You know, it’s such a big topic right now. Now the last number I saw was like over 40%, probably higher now of executives are absolutely terrified of being cancelled, which, you know, leads them to not say anything, right. But, you know, speaking of the statistic you just cited Maria, consumers also expect brands to speak up, and to stand for things to write. Yeah,
Maria Ross 20:27
I’ve said that for a long time that it be cannot brands cannot be Switzerland anymore, they have to put out there, what their values are and what they believe. And it becomes a lot easier to avoid the landmines, so to speak, if you are very clear on your mission and your values, because and I’ve spoken to C level executives for my new book that’s coming out in the fall, the empathy dilemma, that that helps you narrow the options. If you can think about what is true for our mission and our values, then you can decide which things to take a stand on, you don’t have to comment on everything. But you can take a very clear stand on things that are immediately relevant to your mission and your values. And it’s sort of a sort of a litmus test of, okay, there’s lots of things going on in the world that we could comment on. But what, what is true for us as a company as a brand, where are we going to, you know, claim our stake, and be very clear with not only the type of customer that will want to work with us, but also the types of employees that want to work with us. Because we always have to remember that both internal and external culture and brand are two sides of the same coin. And so it’s about taking that stand and, and where do you stand on something? And but again, you don’t have to comment on everything. But where it matters, and where people, your customers and your employees are expecting you to speak up?
Kat Kennan 21:58
What will you say? Absolutely, absolutely. And I
Maria Ross 22:03
want to talk real quickly about your, your vision for, you know, if you if you had a perfect world of this vision for the future of trauma informed marketing strategies within the marketing industry, what would that look like? Yeah,
Kat Kennan 22:16
I mean, I think about our overall vision is, you know, we are trying to drive, you know, compassion and understanding who went positive change, like, I’ve talked about how, you know, our mental health crisis is getting worse and worse. And, you know, for me, I want to make such an impact, it’s so important to me, and it’s been a part of my journey, for sure, to positively impact lives. And because I’m a marketer, right? I think about how can I do this via companies, right. And if I can get, you know, of course, I want it to be hundreds and 1000s of companies. But you know, even if it’s a, you know, a few dozen companies that think differently about marketing, you know, that’s 10s of 1000s of consumers that are going to have a different experience. And that’s everything.
Maria Ross 23:12
Mm hmm. I love that. So let’s give some folks some tangible ways to embrace this approach we talked about a few of them already is thinking about thinking about timing, thinking about, for example, the holidays, and what might some of your customers be thinking and feeling. And what I heard wrapped into that was also just this extra step of consent. So this very easy step of we’re going to be sending you a boatload of communications about Mother’s Day, or about the holidays. Because the truth is, they’re going to opt out anyway, without telling you, if it hits a nerve. So you might as well ask permission, and still have them in your community, and let’s say on your email list, or you know, in the family, but this way, you’re offering them the opportunity to give consent of yeah, I’d rather not hear about you from you right now, if these are the messages you’re going to be sending, because I’m having a really hard time. So for me, I hear this idea of consent and timing. What are some other ways that they can take some approaches to marketing in this fashion? Yeah,
Kat Kennan 24:18
I also think we, you know, can’t forget sort of real time events, right? We’re always trying to get ahead of things and scheduled things and, you know, be more proactive instead of reactive, right. But, you know, what, if we had a sale that was about to start, I thought about this recently, when we had the wildfires in Hawaii, like, what if you’re like, this sale is fire, right? And yeah, no, it would have been it would have been so clever and you know, probably worth a chuckle. And then what had it come out that same day, it wouldn’t have been right In wouldn’t lunch? Yeah, it would have been very insensitive. And you know, honestly, that example probably came true for many brands right would not
Maria Ross 25:09
doubt it. And I think that’s the challenge with automating so much, which I’m not anti automation, but someone has to be the keeper of knowing what’s going out when and being able to make a call that something might need to be pulled, or rescheduled, based on something that’s going on, and not to make that like this laborious decision that requires 12 Different people to sign off on it, you need to have a pretty nimble and agile group of decision makers that can adapt and adjust campaigns on the fly based on real time events.
Kat Kennan 25:44
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we’ve seen examples of this for years in terms of like, real time marketing that happens, you know, I don’t know what what pops in my head, like that Oreo example, if I was just gonna say that from the Superbowl. Right. Yeah. Right. And it’s like that, that exact same process, and very probably likely very narrow group of decision makers, were able to come up with that on the fly and send it out. So in that exact same structure that allows you to take that pause or like, you know, turn something off, reschedule it, when needed. And you know, it’s absolutely the structure that you need for the department.
Maria Ross 26:28
It’s like that process in reverse. And so I think it’s, I think it’s a worthwhile thing to try within your marketing planning meetings, whether you have them weekly or monthly, as sort of like what’s going on in the world right now that might impact campaigns we have going on? I don’t, I feel like so many marketing departments, and I’ve been in them, where once you get the campaign out the door, you’re thinking about the next. But no one’s thinking about like, okay, let’s, let’s pause, what’s actually going live this week, and what’s happening in our world where we may want to rethink what’s going on, give us one more way that they can embrace this approach. What’s another tip? Yeah,
Kat Kennan 27:09
so I think about it, you know, all the way to like the roots of your company DNA. So what my company is won based around is my three R’s method, which is not rocket science at all. But obviously, we we should know by now that I love the word radical. So it’s radical vulnerability, radical empathy, and radical authentic investment. And a think if your marketing department, and obviously that ties into your overall leadership and DNA of the company, is able to embrace these three tenets, right, that not only will you be implementing more trauma informed, strength based practices, but it is like, affecting your bottom line in a very positive way.
Maria Ross 28:03
Walk us through them real quickly, before we wrap. Yeah, what are the three?
Kat Kennan 28:08
Yeah, so on the empathy side, you know, we we really want to make your customers feel seen, right? So it’s just like, again, that really is that pause that we’ve been talking about in terms of vulnerability, that means that as a brand, you’re willing to recognize when you have had a misstep, you’ve made a mistake? Maybe you were that brand that accidentally sent out like the sales buyer. Right? And, and, you know, that’s okay, we all right, but just own it. And really, and I use this word very carefully, authentically, apologize, right. And, you know, in terms of like, you know, authentic investment, you know, there are a lot of brands, and this gets so tight into the marketing department to in terms of cause marketing, or we’re doing a campaign where a percentage of profits or whatever it is, right. But so many of those don’t get tied into the DNA of the brand. It’s, you know, it’s October, so we’re raising money for breast cancer, or or, you know, whatever, you know, month of the year, or it is right. And a think really thinking about where is your community, whether that’s consumers, whether that’s your employees, is really like authentically investing in your neighborhood, essentially, right? Where your headquarters like, you know, who are people in your community? Are you training the next generation of workers doing that versus like, you know, setting up a park bench or cleaning like, you know, cleaning a few blocks, you know, on a on a volunteer day. So I think so much of the This gets tied into marketing, even if it doesn’t seem like marketing at first glance, because let’s be honest, marketing is everything. And everything is marketing.
Maria Ross 30:10
So on that, before we wrap, I do want to share that you have a special offer for listeners. It’s called the canceled culture checkup. Tell us about that. And what do people listening need to do to get a hold of that?
Kat Kennan 30:22
Little special? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we have this software product. Now. It’s a tiered subscription, like many SaaS products. But it really measures brand sensitivity. So the end result is a brand sensitivity score. Yeah, so it really is measuring brand sensitivity against these three tenets that we were just speaking about. And just in terms of overall Kancil culture, right, we talked earlier about, you know, businesses, and executives are terrified of getting caught, you know, and whatever it is me, you know, maybe they made a campaign decision, and then they reverse the decision, and probably getting more hot water. But this really, you know, by serving their customers, this is like all based on psychology, and I could really, really dive into it, if I have the chance. But it really shows you by looking at these tenants, like, how can you overcome that? How can you be proactive? What do you need to be looking for? Maybe there’s a company that’s doing like, really well above average on vulnerability, they will admit mistakes, but maybe they could do better on authentic investment. And people, you know, their customers are like, Yeah, you know, maybe you can invest in a different way in terms of supporting a nonprofit or what have you.
Maria Ross 31:52
So again, where can folks find this?
Kat Kennan 31:56
Yes, so head on over to my website, radical customer, experience.com. And you will see all of the tiered options there. There’s a quick little video that walks you through the platform. And for listeners, I do have a discount code that gives 30% off for the first three months, and it’s Maria 30. Yay,
Maria Ross 32:20
Maria 30 is your discount code for that. So go to radical customer experience.com. And check that out. Cat, it was a pleasure to talk to you. I’m always excited about new ways to be more responsible as marketers, and still have a profound impact on profitability and success. So thank you for coming on the show today. We’ll have all your links in the show notes, including the link to the website so folks can take advantage of the canceled culture checkup discount offer that you have. But for folks on the go right now, where’s the best place they can reach you contact you find out more about your work? Yeah,
Kat Kennan 32:53
absolutely. Since you all have a website already, head on over to LinkedIn. And I’m Cat Kevin, and most of my stuff is is all there. Awesome. Awesome.
Maria Ross 33:05
Thank you cat again for sharing your insights. today. I’m sure you have given marketers and marketing leaders listening some food for thought. So thank you. Thrilled to be here. 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, please rate and review and share it with a colleague or a friend. And remember until next time that cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
My guest today, Charles Gellman, is the CEO & Co-founder of HiDO Health and he has leveraged empathy from his own health experiences into AI-assisted robotics that will alter the future of medicine and healthcare. Charles is an outgoing data scientist with a Masters in Clinical Informatics, an accomplished speaker, and one of the top voices on AI-assisted robotics, digital health, and the impact on care.
Today, he shares his personal story and shocking statistics on the big and costly problem of inaccurate home health care. We discuss how AI-assisted robotics can impact emotional well-being and why empathy is not going away because of all this new technology. We even take a detour and talk about how to ensure that leaders who succeed passionate founders possess the same empathy for customers and commitment to purpose. Finally, we discuss the importance of empathy to understand both providers and patients and help them alter behaviors to improve health outcomes.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
When selecting a successor as a leader, you want to make sure they are aligned with the vision and mission, not just capable of running the business side of things.
Providers struggle to get care to everyone. Patients struggle to communicate their needs. AI can help to bridge that gap and allow for better communication.
Around $300B is wasted each year on medications not being taken as prescribed. HiDO is using AI to help reduce that and make life easier for patients, caregivers, and physicians.
“One out of four patients in the US have chronic care diseases. More than 10% of the population have some type of caregiver responsibilities. We have a health care system, where we are solely dependent on people at home to care for themselves. How is that working out for us?”
Brand Story Breakthrough course to help you craft a clear, compelling brand story – includes weekly office hours with Maria!
About Charles Gellman, CEO, HiDO Health:
Charles Gellman, MSHI is the CEO & Co-founder of HiDO Health, where AI-assisted robotics will alter the future of medicine and healthcare. An outgoing data scientist with a Masters in Clinical Informatics, he is also an accomplished speaker with 100+ podcast interviews scheduled for 2023 from notable university professors, leading researchers, and forward-thinking podcast hosts. NIH-funded research in collaboration with Stanford and Rush Universities. He is one of the top voices on AI-assisted robotics, digital health, and its impact on care.
Charles was recently featured in a full feature documentary, “AI Robotics… The HiDO Story.” He publishes his analyses regularly in the newsletter, “The Future of Care.”
He is a former advisor for StartXMed and has worked in various executive roles at Startups as well as Fortune 500 companies. He received an MSHI degree from University of California at Davis, Medical School.
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. Taking our medication properly at home is a huge problem that has serious consequences on our health and lives. Many patients do not get all the benefits they should from prescribed medications when they’re not taken properly. Often, we’re relying on ourselves or ad hoc caregivers to ensure we’re following the right care instructions at home. Did you know that the number of caregivers increased and reached about 53,000,020 20 or more than one in five Americans and according to a PubMed article in 2022, overall pharmaceutical expenditures in the US grew 9.4% compared to the year prior, for a total of get this 633 point 5 billion with a B net net or taking a lot of drugs people and often not correctly to get the maximum benefits from what we spend on them. That leads to more than just wasting money, it can lead to death. My guest today Charles Gelman is the CEO and co founder of Heito health, and he’s leveraged empathy from his own health experiences into AI assisted robotics that will alter the future of medicine and health care. Charles is an outgoing data scientist with a master’s in clinical informatics and accomplished speaker and one of the top voices in AI assisted robotics, digital health and the impact on care. Heito is a patient friendly device paired with a mobile app that helps automate home care by assisting patients with medication compliance. It automates the medication experience and removes much of the burden on from patients on remembering the right medication, the right frequency, the right dosage, and validates that the right person took it through a remote video record. Today he shares his personal story and shocking statistics on the big and costly problem of inaccurate home health care. We discuss how AI assisted robotics can impact emotional well being and why empathy is not going away. Because of all this new technology. We even took a detour and talk about how to ensure that leaders who succeed passionate founders possess the same empathy for customers and commitment to purpose. Finally, we discussed the importance of empathy to understand both providers and patients and help them alter behaviors to improve health outcomes. This was a great one, take a listen. Welcome Charles Gellman to the empathy edge podcast. I personally am very excited to have this conversation with you about your very empathetic technology at high dough and how it helps save lives as someone who has gone through some major medical issues and been on multiple different types of medications in the past, had aging parents, all the things. So welcome to the show. And thanks for being here to talk about Hi, Joe. Rhea, thank
Charles Gellman 03:40
you so much for having me. I’m very excited. We got some very exciting things for audience so they can play behind the scenes, you’ve got some way. So be on your toes.
Maria Ross 03:50
I will I will. First tell us a little bit about your story and why you started this company.
Charles Gellman 03:56
Yeah, so my story really aimed from a personal experience that many folks have when they have interactions within healthcare. I was in my early 20s A bit naive, you know, still going to school still trying to understand how the world works. Also, I was I had a conversation with a physician where I was having pain in my lower abdomen at that time. And they thought because my father had a family history of kidney stones, that I was also having a kidney stone, but being in my 20s I didn’t really question anything. It’s an authority figure. Again, you know, I wasn’t very educated at that time. And so I just went with it, like many people do when they have the interaction with, you know, a trusted resource, but in fact, what happened is I had a ruptured appendicitis. Oh, wow. Yeah. So by having ruptured appendicitis for about a week, that caused my body to go into septic shock, which ultimately led me into the hospital for two weeks and I had a couple different surgeries and based on upon that interaction, in what really I understood from that interaction, and I think a lot of your audience can also understand is that you have a limited window of time that you have when you see a physician. And we’re very hard to articulate or communicate what is happening with your body. And they’re pressed for time. And you’re pressed for getting the information across. And it’s a very challenging interaction between provider and patient right now. And that’s the struggle that I believe many folks across the country have on a regular basis.
Maria Ross 05:38
So tell me, I mean, I so relatable to so many people, and what led you to try to tackle that problem by dealing with how we take medicine? And how we deal with our care at home? Yeah, so
Charles Gellman 05:53
this is where trivia question number one for the audience. Right? How many prescriptions are given out each year in the United States, I want you to take a wild guess, Maria, to anyone, like collectively, collectively, in the United States, oh, my gosh, total prescriptions are there in the United States per year,
Maria Ross 06:11
I’m going to say, I’m going to say something crazy, 100 million, 6
Charles Gellman 06:16
billion prescriptions are giving out each year in the United States. Oh, my goodness, 180 7% of the population has multiple chronic care diseases to manage on their own. That is very, very significant. So what’s the likelihood? trivia question number two, that all 6 billion prescriptions are taken as intended by providers? Oh, I’m
Maria Ross 06:43
gonna say 15%. Okay, well,
Charles Gellman 06:47
this one is a little bit higher. So the clinical studies, it’s about 40 to 50% of all medications are taken as prescribed. So $300 billion a year is wasted on medications, because we don’t know whether or not they’re taking as prescribed so many patients at home, that may or may not understand the complicated regimens or directions by their providers, following those directions, so they’re not getting the benefits and the medications. So my interest in medications really culminated from my background in data science, I was trying to figure out how do we connect the dots? How do we care for people, when they may not be capable, or they’re challenged with caring for themselves at all. So if the majority of time is spent away from a sterile environment, be in the hospital, or the clinic, where you have all of those resources, you have pharmacists, you have nurses, you have physicians that are helping care for you, the second you step away, and you go into your home, look in the mirror, because that’s just caring for you. And if you can’t care for yourself, who is doing it? Right.
Maria Ross 08:01
Right. And you know, what this reminds me of so much is I did a lot of work with healthcare literacy, and patient communications as a patient advisor for the hospital where I got my care after my brain injury. And a lot of what we worked on was communication and education, especially around this issue around discharge, instructions to minimize readmissions, minimize chance of death, chance of injury. And you can only do so much with the communication aspect of it because like you said, when you get home, it’s you in the mirror, or, like in the situation of my aging parents that are now gone. Now you have a you know, 90 something year old partner taken care of and responsible for the dispensing of medicine to their 87 year old spouse. And so there’s no room for error. I mean, just just in trying to put the chart together for my parents way long ago of the different times of day, my mother needed different add medication and what she needed with food and what she didn’t need with food. And this was taken four times a day, but this was taken to and this one, you had to cut the pill in half and and I thought I can’t even keep track of this with a spreadsheet. How is my father keeping track of this, right? So I mean, the technology that you’ve invented, I get let’s just get into that right now. Let’s talk a little bit about what Heito does, and the problem that it solves.
Charles Gellman 09:24
So your story is not not unique. Millions of people are challenged with the exact same thing that you described. So what Haidle is, is the AI system robotic device to smooth care out in the home setting. So we take the medications that you have, we have an embedded RFID hap which knows the medications, the name, dosage, frequency and count that you put in the device is similar to like a Keurig coffee machine. You place it in it auto recognizes read that information. You walk up at unlocks with baseline D, it dispenses the medications as prescribed, and you take it and we monitor dose by dose, whether or not you’re taking your medications. So we know whether or not you missed or taking your medications. You know whether or not you’ve taken your medications, and most importantly, your physician and nurse know what’s going on in the home. And that is why we created Heito, the importance of knowing the cocktails of medications you’re taking are incrementally impactful on your overall health. So your experience as a caregiver, you just got a taste of managing your parents, as you know, you know, remotely or, you know, within that that defined challenge, but there are multiple chronic care conditions, cardiovascular conditions, there’s diabetes, there’s cancer, there’s dementia, that it goes on and on and on. And this is trivia question number three. I love that I have a percent of patients cost me how much money for health plans 1%. It’s probably in the billions are going to ask for a percentage. So Oh, you’re set cost? How much percentage of every dollar? I’m going to say 30%? Great answer. 40% 40 cents of every dollar is 1% of the chronic care population. And 5% of the patient population cost 80% 80 cents of every dollar is going to 5% of the people. So what if we could control that? What if we already pay for the medications for those chronic care diseases, but they’re just not taken as prescribed? Would that not be a travesty? So hydro smooths out the process for patients at home with chronic ear diseases, so we can lower the cost of care and help support people in their home. unassisted so they can live independently with freedom without being dependent on their caregivers. So trivia question number four. How many caregivers are there in the United States?
Maria Ross 12:25
That sounded like a joke of like, How many people does it take to change a light bulb? I’m gonna say 300 million?
Charles Gellman 12:36
Well, there’s almost the entire population is about 300 plus million. The United States. That’s true. Yeah. It’s about maybe 3 million 40 million caregivers in the United States. 40 million. Wow. And most of these folks are not paid for the caregiving services that they’re providing. Absolutely.
Maria Ross 12:54
Because it’s family or friends. It’s yeah, it’s not an official caregiver. Yeah.
Charles Gellman 13:00
So one out of four patients in the country have chronic care diseases. And more than 10% of the population is having some type of caregiver responsibilities. We have a health care system, we are a we are solely dependent on people at home to care for themselves. How is that working out for us? Right?
Maria Ross 13:23
All right. Well, I want to talk a little bit about the fact that, you know, this is reminding me of a past episode, and I’ll put it in the show notes when I interviewed Ron gura, who is the CEO and founder of a company called empathy. And they are leveraging technology to create a better experience for those dealing with bereavement and death in their family and how to how to how to create a better, quote unquote, better experience for those people at a very vulnerable time in their lives. So obviously, with your company, you’re applying, you know, AI assisted robotics, to this very human problem. This very, this problem that touches our emotional well being is that the promise of AI that you see is that the promise of technology where you’re trying to find applications where it can improve lives versus all the scary stuff you hear about in the news every day.
Charles Gellman 14:12
Yeah, so I believe that the the significant promise of AI is enhancing our lives. So, you know, to get headlines, you’re going to have both the positives and the negatives. And, you know, oh, we’re, you know, it’s going to take us to a different realm where AI is going to take over the world to a very primitive technology, which you’ve seen, which is, you know, generative AI, which is, you know, enable text and it does some, you know, applications for efficiency and productivity. What hydro does is it has the potential to enhance and insist your lifestyle. So, a goal is if we have these basic behaviors that need to be altered, so it’s called the classic condition in behavioral modification, we are trying to elicit risk wants is to help you care for yourself. So you can spend time on the most important things like believing your life and not worrying about your medications, right? Whether you take them, you know, just the very right stuff, right?
Maria Ross 15:14
I mean, and I, again, I can relate, and I’m sure many people can too, like, even just certain medications I’m on. It’s like, Did I take that this morning? I forget if I did. And now I don’t know if I should take another one. Because that would be bad. And so that constant, like, do I need that stress on top of everything else going on in my life, like you said, it gets in the way of living,
Charles Gellman 15:34
while you’re trying to balance you know, you a lot of folks have worked in family responsibilities for them. Or maybe they’re helping a friend, family member, as a caregiver, you know, if they had an application where they could just look on their phone, and they didn’t have to remember with all of the other things that are going on, it’s just something to ease the burden on
Maria Ross 15:55
totally reduce that cognitive load for sure. What’s been the most rewarding aspect of I mean, you’re a technologist, you, you know, you’re you’re a founder, but what’s been sort of the emotional reward for you, of working with your customers and working with folks that are using the product? Can you share a story about how it’s really transformed someone’s life? Yeah,
Charles Gellman 16:17
there’s multiple stories. And you know, people, if they want to look on YouTube, just look up Heito, health, ha do health, and you’ll be able to see most multiple patient testimonials, but the biggest impact to me, you know, it’s the end of life. You know, we had a patient, Nancy, that at that time, you know, I didn’t know she had terminal cancer, she was struggling with heart failure. So we were treating her for heart failure, I got to know her and her family. And her family worked very well. Her husband is a hypertensive diabetic patient, David, who still uses our device to this day. And we were able to get to know him through Nancy and Nancy brand of a friend. So we first started this journey. This was, will this work for these patients, because they were wanting some of the things that could help alleviate the burden. And as a founder, and as a technologist, I said, You know what, I don’t know. But let’s try, let’s give it a shot. Because these people already suffering, what if we can alleviate some of the burden, and help enable them to live those final moments and memories, and focus on their family and their loved ones versus trying to manage a very complex regimen and process. So we just went in, we just said, You know what, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But let’s just lean in and see what we can do. And, you know, I was able to get to know her story very well. And, you know, ultimately, she passed and was very challenging for us, we learned a lot. And those experiences, those memories, and the type of impact that we can make on touching people’s lives to help enable them to live the lifestyle they want, or to extend into the moments they have with their family. That’s what drives me 24/7 and drives us as an organization.
Maria Ross 18:06
I love that story. Thank you for sharing that with us. And I want to pull back for a second because you sparked something in that answer that I’ve seen in my career working in tech as well, is, obviously the passion of so many founders is the people component is how is this technology going to enhance someone’s business or life? They’re very close to their customers, whether they’re doing beta testing, or MVP testing, anything like that? How do you see that transferring? Let’s say at some point the company sold, it grows so big, you’re no longer there that touch point, that singular touch point. I’m curious how you transfer that empathy and that caring and that passion in a succession plan? How do you get someone to take over a company or to lead a company that they didn’t start? And still feel that same passion, that same empathy for their customers? I’m curious if you have any thoughts on that?
Charles Gellman 19:05
Yeah. So that is a great insight, you know how to essentially ensure the legacy of compassion. Empathy will continue after you stepped aside because there will be a succession plan as we grow and scale out. And this is a product that could reach worldwide exposure out into Asia and Europe and the Middle East, and Latin America. And that’s very realistic. And my guess counterpoint would be is that, you know, when you start thinking about patients as a whole, and then being solely independent, rely on themselves. The way I see it is just by having our technology integrated within their home is a substantial lift to everybody training, manage this complex regimen, no matter what country or what language or what leaders in charge, and vice simplifying that process with AI technology, you will lift up many, many millions of people right now that are struggling, that it’s a unknown paradigm. And so the leader that will, you know, succeed in this position and roll through, they’ll understand the type of impact that they’re making to humanity as a whole, in carry on the mission legacy that we started here. Well,
Maria Ross 20:26
it’s also something you know, we, I’ve talked about this many times in terms of culture, it’s something that you look for, right? So when you’re, when you’re selecting that successor, it’s do the values of the organization and for you the values of the founder, are you aligned with that? Can you get on board with that? Do you genuinely connect with that mission, and that that vision, that purpose of our company, and so you know, that’s part of the selection process, not just the business acumen of the next person that that steps in charge, but I know, we went off on a little bit of a tangent there, but I was just so curious from your perspective, because that’s often a struggle, I hear from founders who are very passionate about the impact of their technology. And then sometimes they sell their companies sometimes, you know, I’ve talked to other founders, and they feel like the values of the company have been eroded, because the people that took over didn’t hold those same values, dear.
Charles Gellman 21:20
Yeah, I think it just depends. I mean, that’s just a question of just interviewing folks that are aligned with your vision and mission and capable of hearing it to those next levels. And there are plenty of good folks out there that want to do the right thing that and drive business and make an impact. And they are mission driven. So it’s just a question to just connect, I
Maria Ross 21:41
think them? Yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk a little bit, again, about the AI and automation industry writ large. This is a common debate that’s happening is empathy going away, because of AI, and because of automation. What’s your perspective.
Charles Gellman 21:58
So I think that AI technologies can help enhance, you know, specific items in life, if you’re solely dependent on a chatbot. And then you can eliminate, you know, all type of human factors or connections, that’s where I think, you know, things kind of get away from understanding the situations, I don’t see that taking place, unless it’s very mundane tasks, like you’re calling in for a prompt and you’re trying to get a bank balance, or, or something very simplistic in nature, where it’s just, you just need a simple task done. But once you need full understanding, they can enhance the data to bring it front and center for people to understand and synthesize and then have a educated discussion, versus you hear them typing up on the other side, and trying to pull that information. So again, I believe it’s going to enhance professions over time, and the people that lean into it and utilize it, they will be miles ahead versus people that are still on pen and paper.
Maria Ross 23:04
Love that. Love that. And let’s talk about kind of a final wrap up the role of empathy, in altering behaviors to improve health outcomes, like you’re in this space, you’re tackling this problem in a very specific way with technology. But how do you see the role as empathy of empathy evolving, or, or ramping up to achieve better health outcomes? I mean, you you’re talking to physicians all the time, you’re talking to patients all the time. What do you see as the landscape of where empathy is really improving those health outcomes? Whether it’s with technology or not,
Charles Gellman 23:44
you wonder that you have to understand the challenges that everybody has. And that’s why I proceeded the conversation, the beginning is that your providers struggle, giving care to people, and patients struggle communicating what is happening with themselves, because they’re not educated from a medical standpoint, and you have to communicate it accordingly. So you get this moment of lost in translation. So you have to understand where both parties are coming messenger and receiver to broadcast that message, synthesize it and understand it. So based upon the unique circumstances, and the constraints that exists within healthcare, and the burdens that people experience on both sides, then you can start attacking the underlying issues and address them accordingly. But you have to understand what challenges that they have in order to address them accordingly. And that’s why we stay very, very close with both providers and patients and the different types of, you know, struggles that people have. So then we can build accordingly. And I’ve said this time and time again. Heito is the culmination of the ship discussions and interactions. It’s not because of us. It’s been Designed by the customer for the customer, as needed, when needed. Love
Maria Ross 25:05
that. Love that. So, Charles, thank you so much for your time today. And more importantly for this work you’re putting into the world to improve people’s lives. And you’re you’re coming at it from such a perspective of empathy and a desire to improve people’s lives and well being. So I really applaud that effort. And we’re going to have all your links in the show notes. I’m going to put a link to the intro video for Heito as well which was really explains the product and the promise very, very well in a very succinct way. But for folks on the go, who might be exercising right now as they’re listening to us, where’s the best place they can get in touch with you or find out more about your work. So please
Charles Gellman 25:44
visit us at hydro health. It’s H ideal health or you can go on YouTube search a hydro health, we have plenty of videos on there for you to peruse and look forward to connecting you if you have any. Anything you want to drop comments or likes or feedback, please feel free to write accordingly.
Maria Ross 25:59
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Charles. Thank you, Maria for having me. Appreciate it. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard, you know what to do, rate review and share it with a colleague or a friend. And until next time, please remember that kashflow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
I’ve often said that many entrepreneurs get their business ideas from practicing empathy. From either experiencing a pain point themselves or wanting to solve a pain or provide a benefit to an audience who needs it. Today, we talk to one such start-up entrepreneur, Shizu Okusa, the Founder and CEO of wellness company Apothékary.
Today, Shizu shares her entrepreneurial journey from Wall Street to wellness, and how many of her leadership and product philosophies are inspired by her Japanese heritage. We discuss why self-awareness is key for founders to be successful for the long haul and specific examples of how Apothékary creates an empathetic culture devoted to her employees’ and customers’ well-being. We discuss the number one reason many leaders can’t embrace empathy – to their own detriment. And Shizu shares how they gather customer feedback as well as how they make remote work more personal and collaborative. Finally, Shizu offers her advice to other leaders and entrepreneurs looking to lead with empathy.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Self-awareness is key to being an effective leader. You can’t have the space in your brain for empathy, creativity, and listening if you don’t know where you are at.
Rather than having a maximum number of vacation days, consider setting a minimum number of vacation days to support your team and encourage them to take care of themselves.
Empathy is consumer psychology in the business world. It is sometimes seen as a soft skill, but compassion and business success are not mutually exclusive.
Surveys are a great way to gather information from your customers, but if you don’t take action on that data, that data is wasted.
“The CEO’s job is to provide the healthy oxygen for your team to breathe in.” — Shizu Okusa
Brand Story Breakthrough course to help you craft a clear, compelling brand story – includes weekly office hours with Maria!
About Shizu Okusa, Founder and CEO, Apothékary
Shizu Okusa is a Wall Street alum-turned-wellness entrepreneur. After leaving an intense finance career, she became inspired to live a more balanced lifestyle and revisit her Japanese roots and passion for herbal medicine. Shizu set out to help others regain their holistic health using traditions she grew up with and ones she learned along the way. Now, she proudly leads Apothékary in its mission to deliver natural herbal remedies that get to the root cause of health issues rather than masking the symptoms.
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. I’ve often said that many entrepreneurs get their business ideas from practicing empathy, from either experiencing a pain point themselves, or wanting to solve a pain or provide a benefit to an audience who needs it. Today we talked to one such startup entrepreneur, she zu o Kusa. She’s who is the founder and CEO of wellness company apothecary, she’s who is a Wall Street alum turned wellness entrepreneur. After leaving an intense finance career, she became inspired to live a more balanced lifestyle and revisit her Japanese roots and passion for herbal medicine. She’s who set out to help others regain their holistic health, using traditions she grew up with, and ones she learned along the way. Now, she proudly leads apothecary and it’s mission to deliver natural herbal remedies that get to the root cause of health issues, rather than masking the symptoms. Today, she’s who shares her entrepreneurial journey from Wall Street to wellness, and how many of her leadership and product philosophies are inspired by her Japanese heritage we discuss why self awareness is key for founders to be successful for the long haul, and specific examples of how apothecary creates an empathetic culture devoted to her employees and customers well being. We discussed the number one reason why leaders can’t embrace empathy to their own detriment. And she’s who shares how they gather customer feedback, as well as how they make remote work more personal and collaborative. Finally, she’s zoo offers her advice to other leaders and entrepreneurs looking to lead with empathy. So many insights in today’s episode, please take a listen. Welcome, she’s due to the empathy edge Podcast. I’m so excited to have you here to talk about all things entrepreneurship, culture and wellness, which wraps up your own personal history as well as the products that you sell at apothecary. So welcome to the show.
Shizu Okusa 02:41
Thank you so much. This is amazing. It feels like all those terms. And words are combinations of all the things that I’ve strived to do here at apothecary, so I’m happy to be here. Thank
Maria Ross 02:51
you. Awesome. So let’s start because your story is so interesting. Your entrepreneurial journey is really interesting. Tell us a little bit about your story, and how you got to the work you’re doing now. Absolutely.
Shizu Okusa 03:04
It’s not super linear, but I think that’s what most entrepreneurs stories are. So I was born and raised in Vancouver on a farm. My parents were both Japanese immigrants coming out of World War Two, they were actually an intern camps. And it was kind of a crazy time for them to grow out. And they were like, please get a stable job. We got you here in Canada. And of course, my first job then was in Wall Street, I chose sort of this, what I thought would be the most stable thing and the most lucrative money wise because that’s the thing that we didn’t have as an immigrant family. And I kind of flew myself to New York got myself a job on the one of the most stressful but most, I would say the most brightest of people on that trading floor. And I joined the distressed investing desk there at Goldman Sachs for about three years and kind of was again like nonlinear, I kind of quickly knew, being empathetic to myself realized this wasn’t the right fit for me. And so I really deeply thought about my eulogy virtues and my resume virtues and how I wanted to shift my focus not just from my resume my career to more of like how I want to live and how I want to be remembered when I die. And I know that sounds so crazy, but you know, I grew up again in like a very Buddhist family. So I traveled the world for a bit I lived on a Banana Farm in Mozambique and Africa. I lived there for a year, then got myself back to DC where I then started my first company. It was a cold pressed juice brand called drink. And I did that for eight and a half years making cold pressed juices and smoothies. We had 15 stores partnerships with whole foods. We got acquired and I was able to then kind of start my second company apothecary and what I call apothecary today’s Mother Nature’s pharmacy, we are providing clean, natural herbal remedies that bridge Eastern medicine with Western health care. And we provide sort of these herbal alternatives to over the counter supplements so melatonin, laxatives wine, energy drinks, quick fixes, and I don’t know what else could be more sort of empathetically focused because, you know, this whole vision has been And I know there are more consumers like me that don’t want to use melatonin as a crutch. I know there are people that drink just as much as I do with wine and don’t want to drink as much. But we want like a better alternative. That’s not gross. That’s not dark and witchy. That’s not like, on accessible from a price point perspective. And so we wanted to create that. And that’s kind of what apothecary is today, four years later.
Maria Ross 05:25
Okay, so funny because you’re describing me with the melatonin and the wine, but I’m so interested in the pivot you made from Wall Street to wellness prompted that? Was it the environment you were in? Was it the culture you were working in? Like? What prompted that? That route?
Shizu Okusa 05:41
Yeah, you know, I think it was. So be I lived, I was on a very interesting desk at Goldman, a very unique and special desk and distressed investing, which means usually, it’s companies that are going through bankruptcy or about to go through bankruptcy. So I was looking at companies that were like bus companies, yellow page books, companies, like who knew right at the time. And all of that being said, it was like, at the very end of the lifecycle for a business, it almost looked like I was just looking at death every single day of a company. And I’m, as you can probably tell, I thrive on the energy I thrive of life, I want to breathe and live and give back life. And I didn’t want to keep doing that in a world where I’d wake up at 4am in the morning, and go to bed at like 11 o’clock at night with alcohol in my system every single day. And I think a lot of people just need to ask themselves, like pretty early on, like, like, is this the life that I intended for myself, we live once we really live a very short period of time in this world. And as much as sometimes we think this day is going by too slow, or like, I just want to get to tomorrow, or I want to get to my next vacation. That’s just like not the way I wanted to live. I don’t look forward to my vacation personally, because I don’t take vacation. I don’t I don’t need it. Like I I was listening to something yesterday about like when when things are going well. And you have momentum you never burn out. Like I’m sure you feel the same way for yourself. Marie is like when you have momentum and things are going great. You can do that every day, all day, every day. Right? It’s when the entrepreneurial bumps in the road, the crashes and falls on your face happen. And that’s when you start to burn out. Right.
Maria Ross 07:13
Right. It’s so true. And I think that that’s the culture, especially for people that work inside organizations. Yeah, that’s the part of the culture that gets to them where they’re like, you know, I am starting to burnout, I do need to refuel, I need to re energize I need to replenish in some way. And I advocate very strongly for that, because as you know, we were talking before we started recording, is that empathy is more accessible to you when you’re in that state of being when you are feeling replenished and rejuvenated. And you’re well as full, as I like to say, because then you can take on another person’s perspective without defensiveness or fear. You can you can get curious, you’re not in such a self protective mode. Yeah. And what I loved about apothecary, and your story is that you had that need as a person in the world. And then now you’ve created this company that creates that for other people. And that’s a common thread, I actually spoke about it or wrote about it in my book, The Empathy edge, where the spark for entrepreneurship is oftentimes, I mean, nine times out of 10. Yes, empathetic, it’s, yeah, I have this challenge and this problem and this need. And I want to help other people with this as well. Yeah,
Shizu Okusa 08:29
yeah. It’s really, really good point. I mean, we recently did a whole rebrand for this very reason around empathy. Because I was just, you know, I just told you that was just on the interview right before this. And I was sharing that I think apothecary wouldn’t be alive in a year from now, if we didn’t do that rebrand. And I think it’s such an important investment that we did. And I know investors are probably like, Bran doesn’t matter. But like, I’m like, no,
Maria Ross 08:53
no, we have a whole other episode about that as a brand strategy.
Shizu Okusa 08:59
It’s probably better than anyone. Looking specifically just for numbers. And as an investor, those are all former past indicators. They’re not leading indicators. And when I was looking at some of our leading indicators, as an early stage company, it’s really important that you’re looking at affinity to brand and, you know, engagement to brand. And it was very clear to me that the packaging at the time was not suited for that we were putting powders into juice shop bottles, which was my first company, of course, it didn’t work out. And so now we did a rebrand, we’re being much more thoughtful about like, the packaging. So things, you know, you know, given the podcast is very clear, like, you know, there’s an opening on the side so that people can look inside. It’s very apparent that people from an empathy standpoint, like they want to know what’s inside. So we give them that opportunity we give them so that they know exactly what they can expect inside. Being again, like, if I was a consumer, how would I want to be treated like me lately?
Maria Ross 09:53
Completely and being in lockstep, you know, again, I write about this a lot being in lockstep with your customers. so that you’re speaking their language and you’re creating something they need, from their point of view. I mean, it’s great to start with a product that you have in mind or a service that you have in mind. But you’ve got to road test it. And then you have to understand how does it fit into my ideal clients life? How did? How do they interact with it? How do they feel about it? Because I work with a lot of tech companies, even though I’ve worked with b2c as well. And that’s the thing I’m trying to always drill into their heads is that I know you’re selling to IT people, for example, but every human being buys based on emotion and logic. And often they use the logic to justify the emotion, they don’t even always realize why they’re making the decision that they’re making. And just since we’re talking about this, I’m gonna put a link in the show notes to another episode, Melina Palmer, where we talked about behavioral economics, and why people buy and why sometimes customers can’t tell you why they feel a certain way, or why they’re making the decision that they’re making, because they actually don’t always consciously realize it. Yeah.
Shizu Okusa 11:07
But it’s also like, Do you think that’s a function of just being busier as a society now, like, consumers just don’t want to think
Maria Ross 11:13
no, it’s human. It’s actually how our brains are wired. And she cites a lot. In her books, she cites a lot about basically how the brain works, Daniel Kahneman, ZZ work, and different studies and research projects that have been done around pricing around packaging, around display, and have you we say that it doesn’t matter to us that it doesn’t matter. If you say, Buy one, get one free or buy three get to, you know, if you word it a different way, but it actually does the data show that it does, right. So I love that you’re already building the business and working through the business and I love that you rebranded like, it’s sometimes you have to rebrand, like you do you do consumer needs change, the marketplace change, competition changes, messaging changes all those things. So I love that you’re doing that from a customer point of view. So is that something you know, for leaders and entrepreneurs listening? Is that something that was intentional from day one for you to be so in lockstep with your customers? Was that something that the company came to? Over time? Where did that philosophy develop?
Shizu Okusa 12:20
I think this was so tight, I don’t know if this ties into but I’m just gonna say it, I, I have a lot of focus on one thing, right. And so when I’m building apothecary, I’m very hyper focused on this chapter of my life, which allows me to give space and boundaries to other parts of my life, that maybe otherwise other people would do. So like, I don’t have kids, I’m not married, I’m very focused on the company, my team, and then supporting myself so they can continue to breathe healthy oxygen into the business. And what that means, though, is I also have downtime in my day, make it I’m not running around chasing kids or chasing diapers, or like serving my husband food. I don’t know what other people do. But like that capacity allows me to take journaling time, and really get into the weeds of like, what did I do today? What do I want to do accomplish tomorrow? What were some of the challenges that we faced, and really kind of manifest the things that I think I need to do, and that I think that ties into I think a little bit about the empathy piece has been just around self awareness I’ve been, I’ve been very aware of my journey, both as a founder, both as a prospective partner, for other person, and I just want to be thoughtful about that before I enter a new chaos into my life. And so I think to that, to that end, I’ve been, I’m always thinking about the business. And I’m always thinking about what how to better serve the community and the customers. And when that when I run out of ideas, or when I think I can’t do that anymore, that’s the time that founders also need to be really aware and empathetic to the fact that that’s, your time has maybe passed for this journey of this company. And it’s time to now think about a succession plan. And so I think any healthy entrepreneur will ask those questions, and we’re not going to be self imposed by, you know, restrictions around the shoulds. The, the, the expectations on ourselves that a founder will always be a part of the company. I don’t know about that. You know, and I think it’s for now, it works for now. It’s great for now, I think I’m needed for now, you know, it’s so important for the stage of the business, we’re only less than four years in that we’re really listening to the consumer. It’s a consumer business, right? And so we have to be listening we have to be watching and ultimately be creating for something that they don’t even know they want yet.
Maria Ross 14:31
100% I have so many things to unpack there that I’m like lighting up about because the one of the things you mentioned was that ability to create enough stillness in space. Yeah, to be able to hear yourself and to be self aware and for the new book that I’m working on that’s coming out anytime you’re raising 2024 You’re one of the one of the pillars of being an effective empathetic leader is self awareness. Because if you don’t know your strengths if you don’t know your blind spots if you don’t know your triggers. Yeah. And like you said, if you don’t know, when you’re hearing that voice that says you need a break, or you need you need to read, refresh, you need to re Energize. Yeah, you can’t have the space in your brain to be able to go. Let me get more creative over here. Or let me take time to listen to my employees over here. Or let me take time to listen to my customers over here. Absolutely. I love that that was such a key component for you. Yeah, in building the business. And so I want to ask you, you know, how do you foster a culture of empathy? Yeah, I think we’ve talked a lot on the show to to larger companies. Yeah. And a few smaller companies. But I really want to dive into this. Because what I love about startups and small businesses that I’ve worked with in the past, is you have the opportunity to build things right from the beginning. Yeah, we don’t always, but what have you done to build a culture of empathy into into the company, so that you can continue to empower and engage your employees to do their best work?
Shizu Okusa 16:07
Yeah. So I think there’s a few things. It’s, I think about mostly scheduling the types of work that we give and mental health days. And so one thing that we started from the very beginning of a company was mental health days. So, you know, this was even before COVID. I mean, we was gonna say, was it before it was trendy? Yeah, it was before 2020. And so like, we gave everybody once a month has a mental health day, you know, you can take that in addition to your PTO. You know, we encourage people to take that, because it’s actually something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, because I’ve started to take vacation. Finally, personally, myself, even and I’m like, I, we need to have a minimum vacation day. Not a maximum, but a minimum. Because, yeah, the way that we hired apothecary, because I do come from Wall Street, I have at Wall Street expectations. But I also have, but that also comes with like being Japanese and having very high expectations and sort of on ourselves, right? I think the Japanese culture is a lot of perfection, unfortunately. But it would balance, right. And all these like nomenclatures like do wabi sabi which means imperfection, is is beautiful and iki guy, which means life purpose, and like, there’s all these words that I think I’ve been surrounded by, through my culture, and my family, that I’ve we’ve tried to, like really instill that with the business. So whether it’s like through a harmony video with my mom, the heritage video with my dad, we tried to really interweave the side about self awareness and meditation and using the lifestyle component of plant medicine. And so that’s one piece. I think the second is like, you know, when I first took my vacation earlier this year, I went to this place called the ranch Malibu, which I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, it’s like a, you have, okay, great.
Maria Ross 17:50
So,
Shizu Okusa 17:50
you know, I absolutely love that it was like, seven days of complete offline, not having to think about a single decision or what I was going to eat or where I would need to be, you didn’t need to be anywhere, but there. And so that was kind of a journey for me to say, you know, I schedule my emails now for our team, I don’t send an email be beyond seven o’clock at night. I don’t send emails on weekends, I scheduled it for Monday morning. And so it’s just being again thought I turned my email on a way purposely so that because I know my team is going to check their email, they’re going to see if I’m on Gchat, or slack. And they’ll be like, Oh, my God, she’s working again. Right? So I purposely go on away, which should also just
Maria Ross 18:28
creates anxiety for people like, even if they’re just checking it, to make sure there’s no fires, if they see, you know, like, I know, when I checked my email, I’ve got like, 300 new messages a day when I log on in the morning, and it just, I feel it rising in my chest, just like, oh, you know, that feeling of like, do I need to go through this do I need to just spend some time clearing it out, so I don’t have to face it. When I come back. It just creates all kinds of anxiety.
Shizu Okusa 18:53
It does. It does. And I mean, as you know, we can schedule things we can boomerang or inbox, we pause the inbox, but the very least from my job, like, again, if the CEOs job is to provide the healthy oxygen for your team to breathe in, if I’m if I am breathing carbon dioxide to my team, that’s gonna kill the team pretty quickly. And so again, if we’re nature is medicine, we’re sourcing sustainably we’re recycling sustainably from a team side, I also have to be breathing in the right medicine for my team. And part of that is the words that they use the emails that I send out the content that we share the time off that you get the offline and online component. I often tell teams like if you’ve had 10 calls already today, please turn off your video camera. Just get off the camera. I know it’s exhausting. Just get off, take calls while you’re walking. Send voice notes instead by the beach. I don’t care. I just want a job. And I don’t care about formalities. I really don’t
Maria Ross 19:48
know. Why do you think what do you think gets in the way of more entrepreneurs and more leaders quite frankly. Yeah, having that perspective. I’m just curious. I always like to ask other people what they think gets in the way of people being able to be an empathetic leader like that. I think it’s scarcity. Yeah,
Shizu Okusa 20:08
I think I have to admit that like when I was a, you know, when you’re when this gets very spiritual, but if you’re thinking about your root chakra falling off, or you’re like Maslow’s hierarchy are very bottom doesn’t have any base, ie like money issues, like you go into complete scarcity mode, and I think you then try to control everything. And then you try to like, you put parameters in place, and then you lose all sense of empathy. Because your empathy, I think, is one of those things that you think about at the very top, it’s close to self awareness, self actualization, in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy. And so, again, if you’re at the very bottom, because you’re just trying to survive, that’s where I think people can’t make those decisions from a place of abundance.
Maria Ross 20:47
100% I feel like if that foundation is weak, yeah, you just you’re in self preservation mode. Yeah, there’s no ability for you to think beyond your own needs, and see and hear and understand someone else’s point of view or someone else’s perspective. Exactly. So I love that I love that. You talked a little bit about, you know, prioritizing the well being of your employees. What about the products you choose to sell, and even this industry that you’ve gotten into? What role does empathy play in that mission? Of being empathetic to community being empathetic to the planet? Like, Was that intentional? Is that because I don’t know that every wellness company talks that you say, yeah, yeah,
Shizu Okusa 21:34
it’s a good point. And I think it’s interesting. It goes, this sounds so silly, but I think it goes a little bit to like color psychology, because when I when we were doing our rebrand, we were very intentional about like, what Pantone colors to choose for our brown book, you’re very intentional about moods.
Maria Ross 21:52
speaking my language right now, like, seriously, all of those things, say something, whether you want them to say it or not, they’re going to say something. So you have to be intentional
Shizu Okusa 22:02
about that. Yeah. And so you probably know, this is like light purple is more like lilac and calming, right, yellow is more uppity and energizing. Green is something that feels more like filling and like its nature. So you feel like you’re just left with like abundance of energy. And so that’s why it’s on our energy blend, to chill the eff out. It’s like a light blue, because we want to take you to the moon and sky and we want even like relax and be expensive. And so we use a lot of that with like color therapy and color psychology. And then I think layering on top of that has been always like the opening unboxing experience. So when we how do we want to feel when we open that box? We want people to be like great packaging, she’s to, like, if I hear that. I’m like, my job’s done. I’m done. I’m retiring. Now, like you, we know that we’ve done our jobs. Right. And most times, it doesn’t require like a 5000 bajillion dollar investment in brand. Like it can be as simple as a little gift note, yes, simple as like a little additional bubble wrap around a certain thing, because we knew it might break or just little touches, you know, and it goes such a long way.
Maria Ross 23:09
Yeah, it really does. It really does. And so, you know, again, kind of getting back to beyond your customer and beyond your employee. What policies or practices do you have in place that are empathetic to the community or empathetic to the environment, let’s say,
Shizu Okusa 23:24
Yeah, so right now, so all of our packaging is completely biodegradable. So we use all of our sort of these secondary cartons and the primary packaging, everything is recycled goods. And then we use wood pulp packaging from this guy here. And then when customers subscribe, which is about 30% of the business, so they subscribe to like a regular product getting delivered. At their second delivery, we actually send refills. And so we know the customers wanting to save money by the time they’re on their second or third order. So we make sure we send them a refill. And that refill actually is like 30% more product. So they get the benefit of having more product, and it’s cheaper. But also for mother nature, we can ship it in a lower, sort of like just basic USPS mailer, and then it saves money on the shipping environment and the bulk, we don’t need to use a box, which is more water intensive, too. And so everything is so thoughtfully, I think created from like our rebrand experience and always putting ourselves where the customer is in terms of what really matters, rent as we think about like all of our new formats, you know, alcohol alternatives continue to be a very big category for us. And so when we’re thinking about the names of the product, like take the edge off, very, very clear, but what that is intended to do wind down very, very clear what it is and what the intention is right is to like wind you down, rose a tinted glass, it’s very clear. You want to lose your mood. It’s a Rosedale alternative. And so there’s just a lot of I think consumer psychology maybe, and empathy. It’s very interrelated. And I think to your it’s interesting because empathy I think, in many ways is consumer psychology as a terminology for business and business world. Yeah, for sure. It’s just kind of sad because it feels like sometimes there’s workplaces that may not feel like the word empathy is like a safe word to use. Because they think it’s too soft.
Maria Ross 25:12
I don’t know. Exactly. I mean, I mean that, yeah. Welcome to like my world of just trying to make the business case for empathy. When really what I’m trying to do is just make the world more empathetic. I’m just starting at the place where we spend the bulk of our time and energy, which is that work. So but but the benefits, they’re there. They’re not mutually exclusive. I talked about this all the time. Actually, when I sign off on the podcast, I say cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. No, we’re not signing a light on on entrepreneurs and leaders and companies like yours, who are showing that you can find success that way. Yep. And everybody wins. Like, yeah, this Yeah, nothing bothers me more than the either or thinking of like, purpose or profit. Yeah, it’s not mutually exclusive. The or ambition? No, there, it’s both and right. So, uh, gosh, so many questions I want to ask you. What would you what are some ways that you can share that are great strategies or methods for staying in touch with your customers on a consistent basis? Do you do anything innovative in terms of gathering that customer feedback? And it doesn’t have to be, you know, overly innovative? It could be something. Yeah, effective. But what are the ways that you actually gather feedback? How many different mechanisms and methods do you have?
Shizu Okusa 26:33
So you know, the craziest thing is like, we have over 500,000, email customers subscribers, and when we do launches, we send it from Shizu. apothecary, the people are willingly going to be able to just be me back. And then on our Instagram, you can look today it says, founder, Japanese and female founded by she’s a Prusa, you can click on that, and you can DM me at any time. So my door’s always open for our customers. And I think the surprising thing is, most people will probably still not reach out to you, even though it’s that accessible, but at least knowing that the door is open, and there is a door means so much to people already. And so when people ask questions on Instagram about a certain product, or like they ask questions, generally, I always respond to that myself. As for my personal, my personal account, and so there was always a means for someone to get in contact with me whether it’s by email, hack, I don’t know, smoke, smoke signal, by letter for sure. Because shipping from our facility, so people, people write letters to me from to the facility. And then they can also DM me. So I think it’s one of those things where it doesn’t matter as much. Like we don’t purposely need to say she’s just reaching out to you, we always have a door open. That’s always been an open door. But that
Maria Ross 27:50
may not scale over time, like you’re one person with one personal account. So how do you think about actually making sense of that feedback? So not? Not just the gathering of it, but just synthesizing it and prioritizing it? Are there methods that you use that could be helpful for listeners of trying to figure out you know, everyone just falls back on surveys all the time, right? Yeah. And yeah, that’s very methodical. And that’s a very organized way to gather information and collate it and, you know, make it into pretty graphs and charts and all the things. But you know, it’s also about are you asking the right questions? Are you getting getting feedback that’s useful? How is that feedback being implemented in a future product decisions or pricing decisions? So can you talk to us a little bit about your process around synthesizing that feedback? Yeah,
Shizu Okusa 28:43
absolutely. So there’s a few things that we do do, including like, you know, we saw not, so we have automations, running so few automations. Right, which are after you purchase something, there’s a post purchase survey, like did we serve you in terms of all of your needs that you were looking for today? That’s part one. Part two is what were you primarily here looking for? And 80% of our consumers say stress? So that’s on one thing. So right, I think if that continues to be the answer, we’re doing a good job, because I would say 50% or more of our products are focused on stress, if not the connection to stress. And so from that perspective, I think we continue to serve our consumers where they are. And then we have every one week, so t plus one week, meaning the time upon delivery, and a week later, we’ll send a post purchase survey through a review system. So it allows him to anonymously review. So that you know, it is a survey system on that regard. And I think that there could be a world and this is actually a world that we believe will come very soon because we are hiring the community liaison community person, so that person will be dedicated specifically to creating and fostering a healthier community of communication. And so that includes things like our Facebook group and they make sure that we’re engaging people through the right recipe. We are creating journeys soon as well right which are going to be these plot Medicine journeys that will be international. So to allow consumers to come with us and go through journeys of meditation, heart opening exercises. And so it’s just been like, that is all part of listening, I think to our consumer and where they are today. And then also just getting gathering input from like these reviews and surveys. But to your point, I think from a brand perspective, we still have room to go, right? Short, right, we will always have room to go.
Maria Ross 30:26
And I love this because I love hearing this from the perspective of an actual in the trenches practitioner, and I’m gonna put a link to a few episodes I’ve done around customer journey mapping, gathering customer insights, and also on building effective communities, because I’ve interviewed experts in those areas. And I think anyone listening to this, with their eye on trying to gather the best practices of things, will just give them a little package in the show notes of other places they can go as well. I love that, though. Because we want to hear what’s really going on, you know what I mean? Yeah, you can talk to consultants and experts all you want, but how are people actually leading? How are they actually running their companies? Right? And so how will you this is kind of an interesting question that maybe some founders have on this that are doing everything very old school personal touch away? How will you know, when you get to a point that you can’t manage? people contacting you directly? Um, have you thought about that? Or is it Yeah, I know, it’s, when you come to it. Yeah,
Shizu Okusa 31:27
you know, you can ask my team, but like, I tend to operate in a capacity where I don’t think I feel like I actually have 50 people working for me, I think I operate from a world where, like, I today was a launch of our wind down product or like, which I think is going to be like our number one SKU going into next year, I sent a photo to literally everyone in the entire company, because we have like one email that goes to everyone is a listserv, and I sent a photo of my nails. And I was like, Look, guys, in celebration of wine now launching, here’s my matching manicure. Er, and I was like, I was like, I don’t care if people don’t perceive me to be the CEO that they think I need to be or whatever. It allows me to continue to be free, not feel bogged down, not feel bogged down by bureaucracy. Yeah. role. And I think what I’ve learned the most about myself over the last year is that it’s, it’s money to me is less important than freedom. And I think about the moment where I know my freedom becomes constrained, whether through customers emailing me and there being that being just too much, I’ll know, my body will tell me and I’ll hire someone to like, you know, potentially be my EA or something. But that’s far, I actually gave my EA to our head of operations, because
Maria Ross 32:37
like I don’t want to manage. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Oh, my God, I love it. Well, you’re speaking to really about tapping into your authentic leadership style. Yeah. And I think that’s why so many entrepreneurs go off on their own. I know, I went off on my own because I was tired of the politics, right and tired of, I wanted to do things my way and not like at the expense of not listening to people. But you know, when you have there’s so much added stress on employees. Yeah, you know, which is some of their dissatisfaction with workplace culture is most a lot of it’s not about the actual work. Yeah, it’s about the environment that they swim in. It’s about the, like, I can’t just focus on my work, because I’ve got to worry about politics, and I’ve got to worry about optics, and I’ve got to worry about that person that’s going to stab me in the back. Which is, is. It’s not hilarious. It’s sad, but you know, CFOs, do you realize how much productive hours are being wasted by your people? Because of poor workplace culture? Yeah, like to say it’s fluffy. You say it’s soft? Yeah. Like, attach $1 value to that if you need to, to understand the impact. And so I know, because you’ve stretched you know, you’ve been in Wall Street, you’re starting your own business. I know, you get that. Yeah.
Shizu Okusa 33:50
I mean, you know, the trading floor is probably a whole new extreme, right? Like, I learned to yellow across the room and be yelled at, and to be sitting beside someone with their, their pants, kind of like half on button because they’re trying to eat lunch. And they’re just kind of like, I don’t give a shit like that vibe. That’s the vibe of trading floors. Right? And, you know, recently with apothecary, even because we’re fully remote, and I was reading about this, from a culture standpoint, it’d be really easy to feel like you’re just a zoom face, right? Like you’re just a face that logs on and then logs off and can be really replaced, replaceable, but like, that’s not what we want to create. And so now, you know, onboarding has been a very big progress and work in progress for us. The onboarding now has a buddy system, and like a full transparent 3060 90 Day goal setting process. And so we know that that all that first 90 days will really set the company up for success with that first employee, but the buddy system is huge. Because otherwise in remote, you’re kind of just talking to your three or four people in your department. And so the buddy system allows for that cross functional relationships and to be able to make friends Isn’t the company that could because you might not have to work with them directly? So that’s a lot, I think on retention,
Maria Ross 35:05
for sure for sure. Because you can’t, you know, I’ve done a few episodes on hybrid work. And yeah, actually spoken to people that do really great team building and skill building work with remote teams and how they’ve managed to combine that with philanthropy. Actually, it’s really cool. But I’ll put a link to that Terry Terry Schultz is episode. But it’s this idea of, you know, what people do miss about the in person environment is the happy accidents. Yeah, the the magical moments that you don’t plan for that just happen. And unfortunately, when we are on Zoom calls all the time, when we hang up, we hang up, and we’re by ourselves. There’s no one to debrief with. There’s no one to sort of collide with in the hallway. But it doesn’t mean we can’t be innovative. And it doesn’t mean we can’t form close connections. Sure. So I love that you’re being really intentional about that, rather than what I’m seeing a lot of leaders do is out of fear of the unknown. They’re snapping back to the way things were because they’re more comfortable leading that way. Instead of saying things have changed. Now let’s figure out how to make this work environment work for us and still foster collaboration and foster creativity. Yeah, I love that you’ve actually looked at the the pressure points within that process. And you’re addressing them very specifically, like the onboarding process, for example, or the buddy system being very specific examples of like, these were the these are the problems, the challenges, we’ve pinpointed with working remotely? Yes, solve for those rather than throwing the whole thing out and demanding everybody come back to work. Yeah, absolutely. So I love that. Okay. So as we wrap up, I could talk to you for another hour, like I say to all my guests, but we can’t as an entrepreneur, what advice would you give to other businesses, looking to build companies with an empathetic approach, looking to understand that empathy and profitability, empathy, and success
Shizu Okusa 37:05
can coexist? Whoo, new processes. Say more. I think for us, you know, so recently, what we’ve tried to do with every launch that we’ve done, so for example, we had our very big black Friday, this past Black Friday, and it has defeated all expectations that we originally would have had. And because we’re starting, we’re always kind of like, on the next thing, we’re already thinking about January. Now we’re thinking about like our new launch in February, March, April, May, June, it’s exhausting to keep going that way. And it’s exhausting. For me, too. As much as I’m excited about the next new thing, it’s really important to do a post mortem. And so now we intentionally create these post mortem calendar invites to ourselves, keeping ourselves accountable with the right people on that call to say what went right, what went wrong? What can we do better? Where did we struggle? Where could we have done better and supported each other? What actual mistakes happened? What was the cost to that and also celebrate the wins along the way. And so, from a company standpoint, those are new processes that we’ve put in place. And I think like, that allows us to always just be better. And that’s also just the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen, right? Kaizen has always been this idea of constant improvement. It’s also tiring to say that because my life is full of constant improvements, and I’m never perfect, but hey, that’s the life that we live in. So right now is probably one concrete and good example for other leaders to put into place. So what
Maria Ross 38:32
I hear you saying, If I can paraphrase that, is that never losing sight of that growth mindset? And being willing to learn from mistakes? Yeah, and create new processes or new ways of doing things going forward? Absolutely. We
Shizu Okusa 38:44
are never a fixed mindset company. I think that from a culture fit, we probably wouldn’t ever hire someone that had a fixed mindset from like a culture personality standpoint. And so it’s very early on that we recognize that if we made a bad hire, because they’re not growing, and it’s very clear, yeah, right. They’re
Maria Ross 39:01
really happy with the status quo. And they don’t want. Yeah, that’s actually a really good piece of advice, too, is is higher, right and higher, don’t just have, you know, as part of my branding work, we will articulate values and will our vision as part of it. But those can’t just be pretty posters that live on the wall. Yeah, those have to be applied in everyday actions and used to vet everyday actions and used to vet new hires. Yeah. And not to not to create a very cookie cutter culture or cook cookie cutter employee base where everyone looks and sounds the same. Yeah, but do people embrace these values? Are these values they can get on board with are these values that they live, eat and breathe as well? Right, right.
Shizu Okusa 39:49
Right. Absolutely.
Maria Ross 39:51
I love it. I love it. So such great advice. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank
Shizu Okusa 39:56
you for having me, Maria. I appreciate it.
Maria Ross 39:58
We’re gonna have all your link in the show notes to all your wonderful products. I think you you gained a new customer in me so yay. But we’re gonna have all those links in the show notes. But for folks that are on the go or listening while they’re working out or on their morning walk, where’s one of the best places they can get in touch with you and learn more about you?
Shizu Okusa 40:16
Yeah, I think if you’re on a morning walk, YouTube is the best place to listen and engage with our video content. So that’s just apothecary ko on YouTube. For Instagram. You get a lot of recipes if you’re looking for inspiration on your next healthy mocktail or a digestive bitters tincture relief recipe, liver detox, all of that apothecary CO on Instagram. If you have business questions, you can find me on LinkedIn that she’s Yakuza. It’s a pretty rare name in the world of Japanese. Japanese names there. And yeah, I think that’s, that’s awesome. Yeah, just Google us and you’ll you’ll definitely find us
Maria Ross 40:50
and I will just point out for folks listening it’s apothecary with a que nada. Yes. So off the carry.co. But again, we’ll have all the links in the show notes. So thank you so much for your time. It was great to connect with you. Yeah,
Shizu Okusa 41:01
I appreciate it. Appreciate you. And thank you everyone for
Maria Ross 41:04
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 friend or a colleague. And until next time, please remember that kashflow 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.
Burnout is one of our biggest workplace challenges. Turnover and lost productivity due to burnout cost businesses $322B globally. Voluntary turnover costs 15+% of a company’s payroll annually. Most employees will seek out workplaces that support mental health in the future, showing the importance of these benefits in employee retention.
Today, I chat with Amy J. Wilson. We talk about how burnout is the biggest obstacle blocking us from empathy, what burnout is and its symptoms, where it comes from, and how it is especially a challenge in traditional care professions but can impact any of us in any organization. We discuss the difference between compassion fatigue and empathic distress. Amy also shares the Four Rs framework for healing from and preventing burnout.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Burnout is preventing people from feeling empathy. It applies blinders that keep people from connecting with those around them.
Modeling is more effective than telling. You can model empathic behavior even in the face of adversity.
Curiosity is the first step in empathy. Burnout stops us from making that connection with someone else’s and their story.
“People think of burnout as a mental health condition, but it isn’t defined as a mental health condition as currently in the DSM. I think it has an origin in our own personal abilities and conditioned responses, but at the same time, it is a product of the system around us that often prioritizes profit over people.” — Amy J. Wilson
Brand Story Breakthrough course to help you craft a clear, compelling brand story – includes weekly office hours with Maria!
About Amy J Wilson, Founder and Guide, Healing for Work
Amy J. Wilson believes in the power within each of us to shape the future we want to have—a future with more awareness, compassion, connection, and love. They specialize in building and sustaining compassionate cultures that can hold change so that individuals and the organization can thrive. They have challenged the status quo and redesigned systems centered on empathy and equity in action at more than a dozen organizations with thousands of people within the private and public sectors. Amy is the bestselling author of Empathy for Change: How to Build a More Understanding World with language and frameworks to evolve individuals and organizations to meet the realities of today and reimagine a better way forward.
Amy founded Healing for Work, a community and program rooted in scientifically-proven ways for individuals to overcome burnout and improve workplace well-being. Through the Empathy Action Lab, they work with ambitious, purpose-driven organizations or entrepreneurs to design communities & movements with more empathy, to tell powerful stories, and to advance collective action.
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. Burnout is one of our biggest workplace challenges have life challenges. According to my guest today, 79% of US workers are emotionally detached or miserable at work. Two thirds of us employees are looking for more fulfilling work, and 75% of US workers reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition, turnover and lost productivity due to burnout costs businesses 322 billion globally. Voluntary turnover costs 15 to 20% of a company’s payroll each year, most 81% of employees will seek out workplaces that support mental health in the future, which shows the importance of these benefits in employee retention. Today, I chat with Amy J. Wilson, founder and guide of healing for work, a community and program rooted in scientifically proven ways for individuals to overcome burnout and improve workplace well being through the empathy Action Lab. She works with ambitious purpose driven organizations or entrepreneurs to design communities and movements with more empathy to tell powerful stories and to advance collective action. You may remember Amy from her past interview, talking about her book empathy for change, how to build a more understanding world. Today we talk about how burnout is the biggest obstacle blocking us from empathy, what burnout is, and its symptoms, where it comes from, how it is especially a challenge in traditional care professions, such as medicine or teaching, but how it can impact any of us in any organization. We discuss the difference between compassion, fatigue, versus empathic distress. And you will not want to miss out as Amy shares the four our framework for healing from and preventing burnout in your own work and life. This is such an important episode, take a listen. Welcome back friend of the show, Amy Wilson to the empathy edge podcast. Hi, how are you doing? I’m good, I’m good. I don’t know if people listening know that you and I are on a superhero team. Together, we are part of the empathy Superfriends which is this lovely little brain trust of empathy advocates and empathy ad activists who write and teach and speak about empathy. And so I get to see your smiling face at least once a month. So this month is a treat for twice. Yes, I love it. We mentioned you’ve been on the show before. But we are here to talk about burnout and sort of the next iteration of your empathy work and the next iteration of your programs. So let’s talk a little bit about first remind people really quickly of your story and how you got into empathy work. And what has led you from that empathy work into the field of burnout? Hmm.
Amy J Wilson 03:35
So I want to talk about it. Since we’re talking about burnout, I wanted to talk about like, experiences when I’ve experienced burnout in my own life, right? Because a lot of this work is like work you wish you had when you’re doing doing things through life. And so I have what I call my burnout supernovas that experienced that happened in my life. And it’s a really geeky thing. But a supernova is a really bright, super powerful explosion that happens when a star explodes. And so, but for me, that’s something when I have a really big project that expands really quickly, but it and then I burned out really quickly at the same time because of that explosion that happens. And that’s kind of happened three times in my life. And I’m on my fourth career right now. So as you know, I’m there’s a lot of things that I do but the first supernova I had was when it was after Hurricane Katrina, and I was living in a gutted out elementary school, doing rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. And I was asked to build in my early 20s, a rebuilt rebuilding project about 50 ohms and four months. Wow, which is why old with very little resources, right? And I had to like kind of pool resources within the second supernova. I’d say is that I went to work at Booz Allen Hamilton. I had done management consulting for 12 years after Hurricane Katrina, and I at Booz Allen was turning 100 years old. And so they decided, they asked me in a team of five people to come together and say, How can we build? It’s 100 years old. And we’re How can we build the next iteration of Booz Allen, for 25,000 people. So that was called building a culture of innovation. And I burned out very quickly wrote the playbook, the blueprint, the like ecosystem, we the team really worked around the clock. And then the third one, I would say, is I also focused@innovation.gov. And the better government movement is the third one. And this is I was an entrepreneur in residence in the Obama White House. And so during that time, I helped create co create a shared language around what innovation means in the public sector, but also a community of practice called the better government movement. And like a 200 active volunteers 5000 people grew that huge movement there. So it I have done a lot of very complex work, and also work around empathy at the intersection of empathy and innovation, right. So big cultural change, but also recognizing that empathy, and transformation is at the center of all that it’s an individual transformation, as well as a systems transformation. So that’s kind of like where the My career has taken me to. And where the world, my world like Island Empath, that highly sensitive person. And a, an empathy is my biggest strength. And so I bring that to everything that I do.
Maria Ross 06:50
And now that has led you into the world of burnout. So you’re doing this, you’re doing this project now healing, for healing for work, where you’re helping leaders and professionals deal with burnout in the workplace realm. But I’m sure that spills over into other areas of their lives. So how did you make that jump from empathy to burnout? Because I think you have a theory about what is our biggest blocker to empathy? Hmm,
Amy J Wilson 07:17
yeah, I call it my empathy epiphany. But I got names for all these things. I got a supernova, I got an empathy epiphany. And for me, I think I have in my research I published my book was published about three years ago, but I’ve been working on it for several years prior to that. And with that work, I, the more and more people I talked to, the more and more I realized that people are burnt out, right. And yet, especially post pandemic, there’s a mental health crisis there is there is, you know, a lot of systemic inequalities that are showing up in the world, you know, the politics, a lot of things that are happening in the world, are also making us really distressed as well. And so what I found is that we are in a perpetual state of burnout, especially in the United States. And so but then what I started thinking about what is blocking us from having empathy, I thought I’d oh my god, goodness, if we’re burnout, we are, that’s what’s blocking us from having empathy and compassion in the world. So when if you think about it, when you’re in burnout, you’re putting your blinders on your, your reach, you’re reacting instead of acting in the world, you know, just being responding, you’re really mindless to tell you the truth, right? You’re, you have tunnel vision, that so that blocks you from seeing the people around you and connecting, because you’re not even connected to yourself, let alone the people around you. Because it’s too painful to be connected to your, your inner self preservation
Maria Ross 08:47
mode. I know. Yeah. You know, this is why in the in the new book coming the empathy dilemma. The first two pillars are self awareness and self care. Because if your well is dry, you have nothing to draw on to stand study and be able to take on someone else’s point of view or someone else’s feelings or someone else’s perspective.
Amy J Wilson 09:06
Exactly. It’s about the oxygen mask on yourself. Yep, we like to say.
Maria Ross 09:12
And so So that led you into the work that you’re doing now, which is helping leaders and organizations not only deal with burnout, quote, unquote, but heal from it. And so I’d like to take a step back and talk about what exactly is burnout because I feel like it’s one of those terms where we all it’s like empathy, we all have our own definition. And a lot of people lay claim to it based on lots of varying conditions and feelings and emotions. So what is burnout and what are its symptoms?
Amy J Wilson 09:45
Right, right. So burnout is a state of emotional, mental and often physical exhaustion, that we that is brought on by prolonged and repeated stress that we experience in our lives. It’s often caused by problems that we have at work. But it can also appear in parenting and caretaking and romantic relationships and
Maria Ross 10:09
raising my hand for those of you listening as a mother, you
Amy J Wilson 10:13
know yourself. And so how that manifests in an invalid individual is that they might be physically or mentally exhausted, they might have a sense of dread about work, and, and the work that they do, they might be cynical, or angry or irritable at the end of the day. Those are the key signs of burnout. But there’s also people helping professions, doctors, nurses, you know, teachers, I notice really dwindling compassion, that’s called compassion, fatigue, and towards people that they’re caring about. So. And then also, if you’re feeling like you can’t really do your job effectively, you know, from a mental perspective, that’s, that’s something that shows up with burnout. So if you want to know where burnout is coming from, and like, if you think you’re experiencing burnout, we are on our website, we have a questionnaire of 15 different questions that you can ask yourself to determine if you think you’re burnout. So check that out on our website,
Maria Ross 11:16
and that website is the healing for
Amy J Wilson 11:18
work, healing for website.
Maria Ross 11:19
Okay, great. Yeah, everyone should check that out. I’m gonna go check that out after we finished recording. And so I think what’s, there’s a couple of things I’m hearing and what you’re saying. And one is that it’s not necessarily something you’re born with, or necessarily a propensity towards burnout, you might be a highly sensitive person or a highly empathic person, and you can get to burn out more quickly. But it’s not sort of a condition, it’s really something that can come and go and be healed from Yes,
Amy J Wilson 11:47
yes, for sure. It actually doesn’t show up. People think of it as like a mental health condition, it actually isn’t defined as a mental health condition is currently in the DSM, which is the manual for mental health conditions out there. So it is actually something that I think has an origins in both something that we all like our own personal abilities and conditioned responses that we have been learned from the world around us. But also at the same time, it is a product of the system that is around us that often prioritizes profit, you know, over the people that are around them, right? So I think it’s an in this world of burnout, it’s not not an either or in this way. It’s a yes. And what I would say as far as the origins of where this comes from, at the end of the day, right.
Maria Ross 12:42
And I think that that’s, that’s a hopeful thing to remember. Because sometimes it feels when you’re, when you’re experiencing the depths of burnout, it feels like you will never get any fuel back in your tank, it feels like you won’t ever climb back up out of that abyss. Right. And I think it’s important to know that you know, like you do with your programs and with your coaching is help people learn strategies and learn methods, to not only help them prevent burnout, but to sort of get themselves out of burnout when they’re in it. And then ultimately, when you talk about healing from burnout, do you mean that from like, a long term impact perspective of the burnout? Or are you talking about literally healing from when you’re in the depths of burnout? I
Amy J Wilson 13:27
think it’s both, right, it’s a yes. And for that, because when you’re in that, you know, state where you’re just reacting to what’s in front of you, you’re in fight or flight mode, right. And so, your or Feign is another part of the responses you can have. So that is something that’s your, your body, your entire body is connected to that. So you need to be able to what we call regulate, so regulate yourself in that instance. But then there’s also what we know is like, is so many people who like are taking for sabbaticals. For example, we were talking to somebody the other day, who was like, who works in you with overcoming with a war in Ukraine. And she says that people just fall off the face of the earth, right? So the map because they have such deep burnout that they’re experiencing. So what I’m what we’re also noticing is that it’s not just a band aid approach. It’s not just there’s a book that came out that we talked about on our on our website as well around. It’s not just self care, right? It’s much be much more beyond that. It’s not it’s not going to you’re not going to take a mani pedi for example. Like it’s going to be like I’m going to be done. It’s something that really have to go inward. Yes. Build the power within yourself. To be an actor in your life. Set the boundaries you need to set, build the relationships you need to build to create a better life for yourself.
Maria Ross 14:57
Well, and I love that you brought that up because when I talk about the self Hair pillar in my new book. It isn’t mani pedi it isn’t massage is my friend of mine who’s a women’s coach I’ve had on the show before Jamie Greenwood, and I’ll link to her episode where she talks about that self maintenance. That sorry, self care is Minar it’s physical care. It’s emotional care. It’s also not necessarily static or silent self care could be what rejuvenates you what refreshes you? What recharges you you know, maybe for some people, it’s paragliding, like that’s self care, even though that’s a huge adrenaline rush. But I think you know why it was so important for me to pare self awareness and then talk about self care is, if you’re not self aware, you don’t know what self care you need. You don’t know what what your triggers are, you don’t know where your blind spots are, you don’t know what lights you up unless you are more self aware. And so yeah, it’s funny, because the work that we do around empathy is so outward focused, as it you know, as it shouldn’t be, it’s about dealing with people’s perspectives. But there’s so much inner work that has to take place before you go, yeah, empathy effectively. Yeah, yeah. Every new conversation I have, like this conversation right now, it just it reiterates that point, and not that we want to spend all of our time navel gazing. But yes, we do have to do some work by getting our own house in order before we can open that house to other perspectives and a needs and opinions. So I’m gonna I’m gonna segue us for a second, we weren’t planning to talk about this. But since you brought it up, I haven’t talked about this yet on the show is this difference between compassion, fatigue, and empathic distress. And we both have a really good friend Rob Volpe, who did a wonderful article a few weeks ago that I’ll link to where he talked about the difference. But what is the difference from your perspective, and especially as how it relates to maybe I’m not using the right language recovering from burnout. Mm
Amy J Wilson 16:55
hmm. So they also wrote an article probably about like six or eight months ago, I’ll send it to you. So you can, you can also link to that to around empathic distress in particular. And so I talked a little bit earlier about compassion, fatigue, and with compassion, fatigue is a condition that many people it’s someone becomes numb to the suffering of others. And they’re a lot less able to feel empathy towards those individuals. And there, they feel less hope in their ability to help at the end of the day. So it is actually an like an equation of secondary trauma, experiencing the trauma of someone else. Plus burnout equals your state passion fatigue, okay. And so, and that’s the emotional duress, secondary trauma is the emotional duress that you experience with that firsthand trauma that you’re experiencing. So it makes it makes sense that nurses or nurses, doctors, first responders, even therapists, I would think teachers to teachers, yeah, there’s experience. And that’s a large, we actually have my co conspirator on this work. She is a teacher who left the profession and wants to help a teachers heal. Right. So we’ve been co creating that forum for that reason, for as we’re up on healing professions. But if you take him on the other side of the spectrum, you asked about empathic distress. So empathic distress is, is what’s happening in our bodies, we are wired to pick up signals from other people’s nervous systems. And so that is called empathic resonance. But sometimes we’re going to when other people are giving these signals, like distracts it does distress signals. And I’m like, SOS, like, if you’re in the, in the middle of the water, like these SOS like, yeah, these beacons going is that are, like going off, you’re picking up those signals, whether you like it or not, right? Your body is just wired to do this. And so what’s happening? Is it making you even more stressed at the end of the day, and that is why that people who are in workplaces that are challenging workplaces, other people are around you are in distress, even in your own personal relationships. If somebody is in distress, you already start feeling that distress as well. And so what happens with that is that over time, over the course of a day, you might start off with energy, but at the end of the day, you’re showing up depleted, and exhausted. And so we check out, we start disconnecting from ourselves and from others.
Maria Ross 19:43
We numb ourselves within up with negative behaviors, drinking drugs, all the things right, the things that distract us. I’m wondering too, I’ve heard that empathic distress is also something that can happen to us when we’re hearing about so much violence and pain. Heat and suffering going on in the world, right? And right now we’re sort of in that situation where you just feel like it’s so much, you’re never going to be able to have an impact, you’re never going to be able to help anyone. So you sort of just like, I’m done, I’m out, I can too much.
Amy J Wilson 20:18
Shut off the faucet. Right, you know. And I think Adam Grant did a piece recently about empathic distress when it comes to that, too. And I think of it in my own therapy of like, it’s like a gray door that shuts down when there’s emotions coming up, like I have to do. Like, that’s, that’s part of my own story about dissociation is like, when it gets too emotional, you shut down, and you shut that off, because it’s too hard to feel. Right.
Maria Ross 20:47
Right. And our bodies will do that to us to protect us. Yeah. So it’s emotional. And it’s mental, but it’s also physical, right?
Amy J Wilson 20:56
Oh, yeah. Yeah, a lot of this work is the physical reconnecting to who we are, and recognizing what’s our inner life? What is the what is our feelings? How are we showing up? It’s even deeper than just awareness. It’s like, how does that show up? Up in like, in Cymatics? In our body, right, so Right, right. Part of what we do. Okay,
Maria Ross 21:16
so let’s talk about the solution. Right? For people listening, who are going they’re nodding their heads vigorously going, Yes, I’m in it, I’m there, what can I do, and you have a framework that you are going to share with us and then also that you go deeper into in your program and on your website, but give us a little a moose boosh of your framework,
Amy J Wilson 21:36
and love a moose. Boosh. So I’ve got the four R’s framework, the first part of the framework is called regulation. So earlier, I mentioned that the first part of this work, it has to start with yourself in Trump personal work. So we’re going to go deep into uncovering your emotions, your feelings, what you need to do to understand and define who we are, and our purpose and principles. So we focus on something like the mirror, like what we look in and look at ourselves. But we also look at what the the window is how our identities show up in the world. So give us an example of that. Yeah, so some something I would say is like, we actually go into all the different pieces of identity. So one piece of my identity is I am I show up as a pansexual. Woman, and so but I’m also have a, like a disability, like an invisible disability. And so I sometimes people see me and see that I’m showing up in in, in a certain way, right? And I’m if I’m holding hands with a man, for example, they’re going to assume that I’m heterosexual, right? And but I do have this additional identity. So like, how is that mindset kind of shaped, being how I perceive the world at the end of the day?
Maria Ross 23:01
So if I can reflect back, what I hear you saying is that you’re it’s not just your own identity for yourself, but your perception of the identity. Others have a view? Is that, am I on the right track there? How we
Amy J Wilson 23:14
perceive the world? It’s so it’s how can we we take in the world when we talk about identity. And there’s lots of different pieces of of that and we go into like 20, some dimensions of, of your identity. But identity can be things that we’ve inherited, you know, so this mindset of, you know, what we’ve gotten done in the US, for example, we have a focus on rugged rugged individualism is really big here, you know, and so
Maria Ross 23:43
don’t get me started.
Amy J Wilson 23:45
Individualistic versus the collective. Right. Exactly. Yeah, spectrum. Yeah. So all of these things exist on a spectrum. So where do we live in these kind of like spectrums of life? Right? So that’s, that’s a deep exploration. So that’s like the first piece where you’re just being like, who am I? How do I perceive myself, but how do I perceive the world? That is what regulation so I can get into that space, right? Part two is called relationships. And so that’s where we talk about the work relationships, we help you to start seeing the system we call it. This is where you start doing interpersonal relationships. When people think of empathy, they usually think of interpersonal relationships. And, you know, we said earlier it’s inside and also engaging with the other people. So you’re now starting to share emotions with other people, share feelings with other people, you’re going to challenge your assumptions. This is where you start set setting boundaries, and understanding what our boundaries and we were never taught boundaries growing up, especially
Maria Ross 24:50
women. Yeah, especially especially women. You’re not supposed to have a boundary as a woman. Yep, yeah, worse.
Amy J Wilson 24:56
Just do what other people tell you to do. Yes, exactly. So 100%. So also we help you reframe failure as learning as you go out into the world. And then you’re overcoming the self doubt that you have inside of the, the your comfort with ambiguity and changing and also, how do you take action. So throw this out this whole experience, it’s like, looking inward, but it’s also been like, action is a big part of what we do. So that’s part two. Part three is resilience. And so this part of the framework is where it’s putting things into practice. And so the first two are is like, inter intrapersonal, interpersonal, part three is where you start seeing the start engaging with the extra personal, right. So that is like the system that’s around us and start seeing how do we manage our adversity by drawing on our resources, as we keep showing up in this space. And so we’re going to be more equipped with that to deal with setbacks in this work. But it really has to do with like taking all of those things you learned in the first two sections, and show up to pause and reflect? How am I doing? Because we don’t do that enough. We don’t get to sit and be like,
Maria Ross 26:16
we’re on. We’re on to the next thing. Yeah, right.
Amy J Wilson 26:18
Exactly. Right. How do we How did we I did I react to somebody in a very interesting way there, right? How can I reframe conversations that and have conversations that people perceive as hard conversations, but but at the end of the day, they create better relationships at the end of the day. Right? So and then also, what is who are your trusted allies? Who are your who’s the community around you, that can help you grow and be better? And then the fourth piece is called reintegration. This is a piece that I love myself. And it’s, it’s actually where empathy and innovation meet, and that experience. And so we know that you’ve learned in this container in a better way that you get to see what are the things that we’re doing? How do we, we know that there’s in the world that you’re integrating into, they’re not going to be focusing on like the world of work? It seems authentic, you want to try to go out into the world in an authentic way. And so the world around you doesn’t speak the same language. So how do you go into that language, and start creating a system that will allow you to not just change yourself, but change your team and also change the system around you?
Maria Ross 27:35
I love that this is the final step of the framework, because I actually wanted to ask you about that before you even got to this part. And it’s that idea of we can do all this work, and create this language and the system for ourselves. What do we do when we’re confronted in, in interpersonal relationships where the other people don’t have that awareness? Don’t have that language? Don’t have that understanding? Right? I get that question. A lot of like, I’m doing all this work, and I’m trying to but then when I actually integrate and engage with someone else who has not had that those learnings, those epiphanies, that, that deep reflection, what is the advice that you give to those people?
Amy J Wilson 28:17
Well, I personally think that if you are showing up differently than I know this from my own personal healing work, that if you show up differently, the people around you start showing up differently as well. So that is a key part of this work is like you’re continually having a community in turn to. But we also can be beacons of hope for other people at the same time. So I can’t always control what somebody else does. But if I’m reacting or responding actually, to somebody in a in a kind and compassionate way, people are going to understand they’re like, Oh, well, this person is responding to me in a different way than I was expecting before. So that that change can actually occur through that. But there’s also a lot of things that you learn from, like community organizing, that we’re bringing into this piece around. How do you get people to engage? It’s quite the ladder of engagement. So how did you get different people who are leaning into this work already, and get them to be change leaders, and almost build a movement of empathy? And, and overcoming burnout within the system? Because we can’t have one individual can’t just change a system. But we have to build a coalition of the willing. I
Maria Ross 29:35
love that because that’s actually how I answer that question a lot is that it’s kind of not it’s not our work or our job to necessarily convert someone else. But we can show up in the exchange, we can show up in the interaction in a certain way that models the behavior. We all know that that modeling is more effective than telling. And so if you’re modeling that in the behavior and even if someone’s being antagonistic For argumentative or, you know, withholding, they’re going to notice if you’re not getting fazed by that, if you’re still reaching out, if you’re still, if you’re still acting with empathy, if you’re still asking questions, they may not admit it in the conversation, but they’re going to know something was different about that conversation, because quite, quite likely, that’s not the reaction they get in their other exchanges, they probably are met, the reason they have those reactions, and they have that that model for themselves is because that’s what they’ve been getting back from other people who haven’t done the work either. And so it’s sort of like, you’re kind of shocking them into, into engaging with you of like, oh, usually somebody yells at me by now for asking that question or doing that thing, or usually they walk out of the room and slam the door when I react that way, but this person has stayed, this person is actually engaging with me, what’s going on here, and you sort of create that intrigue around, maybe there’s a different way that you can interact with someone and you you might, that other person might actually really like the experience of being in that exchange and want more of it. Right? So little by little, it’s like these little ripples, right? Like, and then they go on, and they you know, let someone in front of them in traffic later that day, you know, it’s that whole ad knock on effect is
Amy J Wilson 31:21
the ripple impact. I know I wasn’t thinking about in the bigger in a bigger context of curiosity is something that is the number one thing I teach people, like, that’s the first step and empathy really, like a lot of judgment. And like, if you start having curiosity about the other person, you know, you start questioning, like, why are they reacting this way? Maybe something happened to them at work, or maybe they’re just having a bad day, all these different things. You start having, you know, self compassion, you have compassion, but you have compassion for them. So you’re like, Okay, where are they coming from? And then you can be like, how do I respond in a way that might be helpful for them?
Maria Ross 32:01
That’s so interesting, because Well, number one, I am constantly working on my Miss Jegi Ness all the time. And what I’ve what I’ve interjected into my thoughts, is, instead of judging making myself go, well, that’s interesting. Yeah, and just kind of like observing it and thinking about, and it also reminds me of when I wait, you know, folks that have listened to my podcast know about my experience, surviving a ruptured brain aneurysm. And when I was in therapy, we did cognitive behavioral therapy to help us with the damage that had been done to our emotional regulation and our emotional filters, especially with a frontal lobe injury, and cognitive behavioral therapy, challenges you invites you to come up with potential alternatives to the initial explanation, you’ve given yourself in your head about what someone is doing. So for example, that person just rudely cut in front of me in traffic, they’re a jerk bla bla, maybe they just found out their wife is in the hospital, and they’re trying to get to the hospital, maybe they got fired today, maybe they and that’s a very simplistic view of that therapy, I don’t claim to be an expert in that therapy. But that’s what I took away from it is, because what we would do is we would measure our emotions before. And then after we thought of alternatives. And always the emotions were less angry, less resentful, less, you know, less aggressive, when you when you start to think of alternate theories or alternate reasons why someone might be behaving the way they were behaving, if you don’t feel so self righteous after that. And so what everything you’re saying is reminding that because I, you know, you forget after you’re not in therapy anymore, but but it’s it’s a muscle that you have to practice. Yeah. And luckily, we get lots of opportunities to practice dealing with bad behavior, right? So,
Amy J Wilson 33:58
yeah, well, when it comes to what you were saying, when you were saying that it was like, it’s all coming back to empathy, right? Because what empathy is it’s feeling with someone instead of for them. And so when you are having that curiosity, when you’re thinking and using the CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, you’re starting to say, what is not the story that I’m having? It’s their story. Right? Right, the story they could be having, and you’re now having empathy, right? And so, but that’s the exact thing that burnout stops us from doing right. Yeah, able to open up No, and to have that that space, you know, as your your,
Maria Ross 34:33
your bruised your, your, your sense. You’re just like, Ah, I’m just, I don’t deal with somebody else right now. Right. So I love the connection that you’ve made there. And this is such a great conversation. We could talk a million hours more sure. But all your links will be in the show notes, your your link to healing for work to your books to some of the articles that you mentioned, but for folks on the go listening while they’re In exercising and practicing self care for their physical body, where is the one place people can go to find out more information, right?
Amy J Wilson 35:07
So healing for work.com. It’s healing for work as a community and a program for individuals healing from burnout or preventing burnout. That’s also another part. We’re not just talking about healing from it. And so it’s, it’s also helping to shift the system for everyone. So there’s programs for individuals, there’s programs for organizations, I always want to get one plug, we have weekly support sessions, every Tuesday from at 3pm. Pacific 6pm. Eastern time. So later today, it is a Tuesday, we’re going to be having anyone experiencing burnout can come and participate in us go go to healing for work.com/join. And you can learn about our two coaching programs, and also about support sessions and sign up there. I love that.
Maria Ross 35:58
Thank you for sharing that. I’m sure a lot of people are going to run over to that URL right now, Amy, a pleasure as always talking with you, musing about all these big issues with you. And thank you for spending the time with us today.
Amy J Wilson 36:11
Yeah, thank you for having me. This has been great. And thank you everyone for listening
Maria Ross 36:15
to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review and share with a friend. And until next time, remember that cashflow? Creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Stay well and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
We are experiencing a transformation, an evolution in how we lead and what makes a successful leader. Today, I had a great conversation with Alain Hunkins, CEO and author of Cracking The Leadership Code: Three Secrets to Building Strong Leaders about the common leadership assumptions that can get people into trouble, the obstacles we face in how to connect, the three secrets of strong leaders, and how we can communicate better. He shares the story of how one leader went from being ranked at the bottom to achieving outstanding results by focusing on people first before the numbers and the work.
Alain and I discuss what gets in the way of empathy, the role transparency plays in killing the old leadership paradigm, how employees got to the point that they have such low confidence in their leaders – and what we can do to reverse that – and he’ll also share a great trick to ensure you are communicating effectively.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Studies show we judge ourselves by our intentions, but others by their actions.
The old model of command and control leadership is a dying paradigm. Leadership must evolve – all leaders are now living in a glass house with the technology available. We no longer live in a world of information asymmetry.
Numbers are neat and tidy, people are not. To lead people, you have to make the time to connect with your team empathetically not just look at the business numbers.
Ask for a receipt in your communication. It doesn’t take much time, but it does increase understanding and clarity.
“All leadership development is personal development, and all personal development is leadership development. Whether or not you have the job title, we all lead every single day.”
— Alain Hunkins
Brand Story Breakthrough course to help you craft a clear, compelling brand story – includes weekly office hours with Maria!
About Alain Hunkins, CEO and Author, Cracking the Leadership Code
Over his twenty-five-year career, Alain has worked with over 3,000 groups of leaders in 27 countries, including 42 of the Fortune 100 companies. In addition to being an executive coach, leadership and team development facilitator and keynote speaker, Alain is the author of the book Cracking The Leadership Code: Three Secrets to Building Strong Leaders.
Alain is a faculty member of Duke Corporate Education and serves on the Academic Board of Advisors for the New Delhi Institute of Management. Alain’s work has been featured in Chief Executive, Fast Company, Inc., Training Magazine, Chief Learning Officer, and Business Insider. He’s also a monthly leadership strategy contributor to Forbes Magazine. Alain was recently named #33 on the Global Power list of the Top 200 Biggest Voices in Leadership for 2023 by LeadersHum. A father of two teenagers, he lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.
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. We are experiencing a transformation and evolution and how we lead and what makes a successful leader. If you’ve been with me for a minute, you know, we’ve spoken with amazing guests about the changing paradigms of leadership. Some leaders are embracing this new model, while others may be having a harder time. Today I have a great conversation with La pumpkins, CEO and author of Cracking the leadership code, three secrets to building strong leaders about the common leadership assumptions that can get people into trouble, the obstacles we face and how to connect the three secrets of strong leaders and how we can communicate better, and he’ll share the story of how one leader went from being ranked at the bottom to achieving outstanding results by focusing on people first, before the numbers and the work. LA is CEO of Hawkins leadership group, and helps leaders teams and companies achieve performance goals easier. He’s an executive coach, leadership and team development facilitator and keynote speaker. And for decades, LA has worked with over 3000 groups of leaders in 27 countries, including 42 of the Fortune 100 companies. Alliance work has been featured in chief executive Fast Company, Inc, training magazine, chief learning officer and Business Insider, and he’s also a monthly leadership strategy contributor to Forbes magazine, LA was recently named number 33 on the global power list of the top 200 biggest voices in leadership for 2023 by leaders home. Today we discuss what gets in the way of empathy. The role transparency plays in killing the old leadership paradigm, how employees got to the point that they have such low confidence in their leaders, and what we can do to reverse that. And he’ll also share a great trick to ensure you are communicating effectively. This one has so many good nuggets. Take a listen. Allah Hankins, welcome to the empathy edge podcast to talk to us about cracking the leadership code. I love that title. Welcome.
Alain Hunkins 02:50
Thank you so much, Marie. I’m really excited to be here with you today. Thank you.
Maria Ross 02:53
And I’m so glad we connected because you have such an interesting background. And you’ve been doing this work for a long time. So let’s get right into it. About what are some of the common assumptions about leadership that can get people into trouble?
Alain Hunkins 03:08
Yeah, so let’s start from the point of view of the assumptions that leaders have about leadership. And actually, I learned this, like I thought about this, because, you know, the studies would say that only about 23% of people think their leaders lead well, right only. And so the state of leadership overall has been poor for quite some time. And I thought about this, you know, I’ve been studying this for a long time. And I got this great hit one day about a little over 10 years ago. So I have two kids. My son is Alex, my daughter is Miranda. He’s now 19. I’m recording this, my daughter is 16. But take take them back. They’re about six years old and three years old. And the two of them are playing in the living room. They’re goofing off, they’re getting really loud. And I have to confess Maria, I was in the kitchen. I was trying, I can’t even remember what I was trying to get done some kind of work thing. I was trying to get something done. And they were really loud in the living room when I was getting out a little trigger. And I went into the living room. And these were the words that came out of my mouth. I kid you not I said, Would you to stop behaving like children? Right? And I say this. Been there? Okay, you know this right? So this is like not your this is like sub optimal parenting moment. Yeah. So here’s the thing. I say this for two reasons. One, it’s a ridiculous thing to say because they were a six and three year old, they aren’t kids. So how would they behave? But the real reason I’m telling you is because as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I was in shock. Because honestly how they said parenting moment, I had this moment where it was, oh my gosh, I have just said the exact same thing. My mother said to my brother, I think I had to come my mother. And so I shared the story because I think about the assumptions we make we unconsciously inherit habits from the leaders that we have learned all through our lives, whether those are our parents, teachers, people, bosses we’ve had at work all over. And I think one of the things that so many people the original and premature people have around the leader follower role is power struggle, right because I’m your dad. Add because I’m your mum do what can I say so and so I think when people step into their first formal authority leadership roles, they kind of step into this weight and like, oh, this power thing kind of feels nice, you know, and like, I feel I’m in control, I get to tell people what to do. And that I call that in my book, I write about this too, and other places to call that old school leadership, right, the old school leader was the commander in chief, right, and we don’t need commanders in chief. In fact, the world has changed. So significantly. So that’s one of the big assumptions is that we have around that the other assumption is what psychologists call the fundamental attribution error, which is a cognitive bias, which basically means that we judge ourselves by our intentions, but we judge other people by their actions. And so we step into leadership, like, I mean, well, I care about people, I appreciate my people. Well, again, the studies would say that, you know, 80 to 85%, of supervisors, managers, bosses say, Yeah, I tell my people, I appreciate them, yet only Why is it 15 to 20% of employees feel like they’re being appreciated. So we tend to judge ourselves by, oh, I think this, I feel this, I intend this. But you know, what, you’re not closing the gap, which is why only 23% of people believe their leaders, they will. So those are a couple of the big assumptions that people have about leaders. Okay,
Maria Ross 06:22
so many things there. I’m like nodding my head vigorously for people that can’t see me right now, because this old model of command and control is a dying paradigm. And what we’re seeing right now is people embracing the new paradigm, but struggling with it, which is why I’m writing my next book called The Empathy dilemma. Our people snapping back to boss ism, because it’s all they know. And it’s what got them as far in their careers as it did. And you’re going back to the conditioning that you had in whatever work environments you’re in. So you can almost tell the leaders that had really great leadership models, their whole career, because they’re actually modeling those behaviors. And, you know, when I talk to those leaders about the secret to being an empathetic leader, or the secret to connection, they almost can’t verbalize it. They’re like, I don’t, I actually don’t know what I’m doing. What am I? What am I doing with people that’s enabling me to understand them? Because it’s so innate, it’s so ingrained in who they are and how they lead. They didn’t learn or adopt the old way. But, you know, there’s so many experts, I’m sure you included, who are talking about the fact that this isn’t a preference thing. If you are leading in that old way, you will not win, you will not succeed going forward, we are evolving the leadership paradigm and it’s going to move with or without you.
Alain Hunkins 07:42
Totally. And the thing about this evolution of the paradigm, it isn’t just human consciousness that is evolving here. This the big kicker, and I write about this too, in my book, is technology. Just think about the level of transparency we have like we didn’t have LinkedIn, we didn’t have Glassdoor we didn’t have indeed 1015 years ago. So now every single leader and company is living in a glass house to realize everyone knows your dirty laundry. So how are you showing up if you are not aware of that. And the thing is also with millennials and Gen Z in the workplace, particularly, I mean, it’s amazing because like, I’m dating myself, I’m a Gen X or myself. The idea that, you know, you know, I see this Millennials constantly like, this is a crappy job, I’ll quit, I’ll move back in with my parents. Rather than take a bad job. Like Gen Xers, we would never move back home. Under eight, I was stuck in a lousy job for years, it meant that things we didn’t have the transparency, were they what we do now, as you can tell, how are things what are the Glassdoor reviews? What are things like to work here? And so leaders can’t, they can’t we don’t live in this world of information asymmetry anymore. You know, so this is this is a huge connection. And obviously, people who are more digitally native get this even more so. And also mean the way that millennials and Gen Z’s have been raised. They’ve been asked their opinions their entire lives. I’ve my kids are now 19 and 16. I mean, my daughter, I remember she had to write a persuasive essay in the third grade, like who’s writing it? No one cared what I thought until well, I don’t know maybe like I was 35. Somebody was like, yeah, no, no one wanted to know what you thought. And so when you when you grew up with this baseline level of respect, why would you settle for a boss who doesn’t show that to you? Again, the number one thing why people leave jobs is a toxic workplace. And the number one toxic behavior is lack of respect.
Maria Ross 09:37
That’s it. 100%. So actually, I’m gonna put a link in the show notes of this episode. Since we’re talking about it. I interviewed an amazing woman named Ana Liana, who’s a generational expert and wrote a book unlocking generational codes. And she, she has a way of describing and writing about the differences in generations that are not the classic tropes you’ve heard, right? It’s very much about generations our behavior and the way they view everything from voicing opinions to how they value information to what they determine is respect, quote, unquote, or what they determine is professionalism, quote, unquote. They’re all influenced mainly by events that happened around their ages of 10 or 11. You can think back with these different generations, what influenced things. And just one thing that stuck with me from what she spoke about, because you mentioned it was how the different generations value information. So boomers and traditionalists saw Information is power to be hoarded, not to be shared. We don’t talk about that at work. We don’t talk about that with our colleagues. Meanwhile, Gen Z and younger millennials value the democratization of information, we have to disseminate information to as many people as possible so that we can make better decisions. So yes, I am going to air my dirty laundry on Glassdoor Yes, I’m going to share with my colleagues what I’m making and what I got from my raise, or what I got for my bonus, and that might be shocking to leaders. But that is what’s happening. And you can’t just have a mandate of we’re not going to talk about those things at work. Because when we fly with those generations, I mean, that’s just such a small example of what you’re saying. But it just sparked it when you were talking about this idea of information. Yeah. Yeah, that’s huge. All right. So let’s talk about the challenges that leaders have in developing empathy with their teams, and how they can overcome that we’ve talked a lot about on this podcast that many people, we all innately have empathy as human beings. Yes. And some of us the muscle has atrophied. For some of us, it’s very strong, but it can be strengthened. So when people when leaders say, I’m just not good at all this connection stuff, right? What is What are they actually saying to you? What is actually getting in their way of forming those connections? Yeah,
Alain Hunkins 11:56
I love this question. So So here’s the thing about empathy. I’m sure you’ve touched on this elsewhere, if this is the empathy edge podcast, is that you know, while human beings we are innately wired to be empathetic, we’re not equally empathetic with everyone, right? So if you’ve talked about the empathy circle, right, so like immediate, close family, great old friends, etc, they’re kind of in your immediate empathy circle. And the further you get away, the less empathy that we have for other people. So then throw into the mix now, work. So what does that mean? That means we now have deadlines, and limited resources and performance targets and expectations and too much to do and then of time, suddenly, we start seeing other people as task getter donors, as opposed to people right now, I’m amazed at how often you know, if you listen to a leaders language, it tells you a lot is like when they talk about my people, or they need to do this I it relationship, it’s like you really hear that language of now we have to drill this I mean, and again, this is all old inherited history, because the language of business came out of the language of mechanical engineering, you know, which is why we talk about rolling things out and drilling things down. You know, I can’t yet I’ve yet to meet a single employees that, gosh, you know, senior leadership hasn’t drilled anything into me lately. Gosh, how I missed that. Right? No one ever says things like that. But that language is so pervasive. Yeah. So this thing about empathy. So what are the things that get in the way, there’s a few if you like, your point is like, I’m not really a people person, well, then maybe you shouldn’t be leading people. I mean, I have this conversation with a lot of organizations where it’s like, you know, like, for example, everyone has heard of like, the tech superstar, who’s an amazing software engineer or coder. But you know, don’t let them lead the team. And a lot of companies are starting to go down the track of how do we create a specialized, you know, expert contributor track, where you can get more money, more status, because traditionally, in every organization, if you wanted to get promoted, and all the perks that go along with that the salary, etc, the title, you needed to lead people. Thing is, if you’re going to be leading, you’re going to be leading people. So frankly, a lot of people just don’t like people that much, and they shouldn’t be leading, you know, it’s like, they want all the perks that come with it. So this is an issue, this is definitely an issue. The other thing I would say, around the other big, a few big barriers, right? I run about six of these in the book, but I’ll just share the kind of top two. So top number one barrier, empathy is time, right? So I define empathy as showing people that you understand them and care how they feel. Now we live in a digital workplace where information travels the speed of light, the last time I checked, human beings travel at the speed of human beings, which is a lot slower. And you think about the ability to step back, pause, reflect, how am I feeling? How are you? Listen, reflect, affirm, that takes time, and so many people are feeling compelled, you know, I can’t tell you how many leaders I’ve talked to where they say, you know, the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning is I have all these things to do. And they go through their very busy day. And the last thing they think about when they go to sleep at night is I didn’t get all these things done. Right. It’s like that’s A horrible, challenging way to live. And so in a lot of companies, we were enforced this right? If you think about how many companies have values that say things like, drive for results, or bias where we have a bias for action, I get it. Like, I understand that you’re in the for profit enterprise business to get things done. I have no quibble with that. However, part of the wisdom of being a leader is there’s a time and a place to go fast. And there’s a time and place to go slow. And leadership, wisdom is knowing when to do which, where and sometimes you need to slow down on the people side, before you can speed up on the task side. And unfortunately, I see too many leaders who, in their drive for results, end up driving over the people who are trying to deliver those results. And there is massive collateral damage when you do that. And we’ve all experienced it at work, right? When you have the talking the meetings after the meetings, and then like, all this is about, you know, the going escalating things to HR, all these things. And just thinking about the amount of time it takes, you know, most managers would say that HR and interpersonal related issues take up a huge percentage of their time, right? That’s all that stuff. And why is that because we didn’t catch it earlier. So that’s the first number one is time, right? The other big barrier to leading with empathy is that emotions and people are messy by nature, we are we’re messy. We’re not always the same. I think part of why we love numbers in the business world is because numbers are discreet, neat and tidy. Like if you and I show up to a meeting, we can be guaranteed that if eight walks in that meeting door, eight is always one more than seven and one less than nine today, tomorrow, next week, next year forever. And you know, when you think about how many businesses start their meetings with, let’s go over the numbers, right? Because it gives us a sense of certainty and security, right? Oh, our profits are up 12% This month, that’s great, because last month, they were 10% liquid. And we can kind of create this whole story based on this. And it gives us the sense of confidence and certainty, when we don’t stop and realize you know, all those numbers, which by the way, can be fudged and often aren’t, depending on what the numbers are. But all those numbers are only lagging indicators of the behaviors of someone, right? revenue targets, revenue doesn’t sell itself. People sell things to make things happen. And so recognizing, you know, what if we shifted our meetings around, and instead of starting with the numbers, and then maybe getting to the projects? And if there’s any time talking about the people? What if we flipped the script, and instead started talking about our people? Right? What if when we started our meetings, we checked in where everyone like actually took a centering breath. I’ll do one right now, right? And be like, how am I? How are you feeling? Like, and I teach this and you might do something similar? Teach people a check in three simple questions. Number one, how are you feeling? Number two, what’s on your mind? Or what’s distracting you? Right? Because there could be something distracting. And number three, how can I or how can we support you? And it’s amazing how if people get into the ritual of asking these three questions, what it does is it actually helps people to get their prefrontal cortex back online, because like as humans, we’ve got all this distraction, all the stuff going on. And so by giving people the time and space to be present, to notice how they’re feeling, and you’re living in a body, so just to go, Hey, how am I feeling, then suddenly, I can be centered and present, and then I can get on with the task at hand. But if we skip through that all the time, what ends up happening is this sense of uncertainty. And people feel like they can’t actually show up as themselves. So Deloitte did this wonderful study a few years ago, and they found that 61% of us employees feel the need to cover their identities in some ways, right? That they don’t feel safe, being fully themselves for jetting judged for all sorts of reasons. And the reasons can range from, let’s say, I am a lesbian woman, and I don’t feel safe coming out at work. That’s one reason they might not feel safe. Another reason might be, I could be a white heterosexual man. And I don’t feel comfortable saying I want to leave early, because I want to go see my kids at their ballet recital. And I don’t want to seem like I’m not a team player or high performer. So I can’t actually say that or do that. Right. Totally different reasons. Yet, at the same time, at the end of it, what we’re getting is disconnection. And what we know is when we have a low connection, low empathy, culture, what we have is we have low trust and ultimately low performance. So it’s a lose, lose, lose, lose, right across the board. Right. So
Maria Ross 19:14
I just want to summarize this, the two biggest obstacles are time. And the fact that we’re messy as human beings, right? I love there’s so many things in there. I just You were on a roll. I wanted to let you go. But there’s so many things in there because this idea of checking in. And well let me back up. This idea of time, comes up over and over and over again. I don’t have time. I don’t have time to make friends with my team. I don’t have time to ask somebody how their weekend was I don’t have time. We’ve got to go go go. And you talk to every variety of experts. And they will say if you don’t make the time now you’re going to pay for it later. You’re going to pay for it and disengagement you’re going to pay for it and lack of cohesion and lack of collaboration. You’re going to pay for it in terms of poor performance. Yes. So that’s almost like somewhat like a leader saying, I don’t have time for strategy I just need to execute. Now even though some of them do that, they would never actually say that they do that, right? They would say, of course, we’re gonna build a strategy before we go off and spend resources and spend money and have people doing all these things why that would be crazy, right? But yet, we don’t do that with our people, which is like one of our most valuable asset classes within the organization, right. But this time issue, I actually did a very informal survey with about 50 respondents, I want to ask what gets in the way of them being empathetic leaders? The number one answer was time. Yeah, whether it’s time that you’re dealing with work, or the fact that time dealing with your life, no one seems to have enough time. But if like your point, if we actually slow down with we have some self awareness, which is why that’s one of the pillars in my new book about being an effective empathetic leader. Spoiler, is that we need to recognize number one, where are we spending our time? Number one, where are we making our connections? And our number two? And number three, what triggers us? Yeah, you know, what, what actually, what about this situation is going to make me go off the rails? What about this situation? Am I going to be able to bring my best foot forward? But we don’t stop to think about that. And we think it’s a luxury to sit. Think about that when it’s really a necessity. Yeah.
Alain Hunkins 21:25
So true. And other thing I like to frame when I’m coaching leaders around this, too, is, you’ve got to stop thinking about I don’t have time as like, Oh, this is costing me something. This is an investment, this eyesight, you have to think you’re investing in your people. And not because you should do it’s because you need to and want to make because if you just think, oh, this leadership expert told me that I should do this, I’ll do this. Hi, how are you feeling? Anything distracting you what’s on your mind? How can I support you? Like, everyone’s gonna smell that BS a mile away? 100. So it’s, so it’s like, you have to recognize this. And honestly, like, Look, if you don’t, if you don’t want to lead people, because they’re people, then you’re in the wrong job, my friend.
Maria Ross 22:07
No, I always tell people that as they say it, Detroit, it takes me away from the work. But you as a leader, that is the work, you’re not the doer anymore. So if you are doing doing doing and you don’t have time to lead and manage, then you should be an individual contributor somewhere. You don’t get the fancy title and the pay raise. Just for you know, doing the work you have to lead people that is the work of leading people. Yes. So in your book, you talk about the three secrets to building strong leaders. Can you give us a little sneak peek as to what those secrets are? And I know, folks, when you go back to the book,
Alain Hunkins 22:43
and you’re out, and I’ll tell you the secrets through a story about a guy named Matt. So I met Matt, Matt works for a retail company. And the company has 100 districts all around the USA, but 900, retail 950 retail stores. And there’s 100 districts. So every retiree, basically, each district manager has about nine or 10, stores to ish, okay, and I met Matt and a bunch of his colleagues because I was coming in to do a keynote speech at their district manager conference that they have once a year here. And I got a chance to meet a few of the district managers in advance. So I could, you know, tailor the talk to make it more relevant as it were. So it turns out that Matt was the number one top rank district manager out of all 100. And I said, Matt, that’s really quite impressive. Have you always been such a high performing leader? And he said, No, actually, when I first got promoted from being a store manager to district manager, I was about 84th out of 100. And I was in the low 80s for about three years until things started to change. So I said, Matt, you got to tell me what changed because this here’s a story right at point number one, and you were stuck. There wasn’t just random. He said, Yeah. And I think Matt story is sort of a good archetype for many people can recognize and ourselves. And so Matt said when he first got promoted to being a district manager, he was an excellent store manager, which is very executional based, right? It’s all very tactical and execution. So basically, he thought, as he said, he said, he thought his job was to be the fixer, like, Okay, I did this all really well in my store and I have nine stores, I’m gonna help them all to fix what they need to do. And in their world, they have a printout they call hotlist. It’s basically a metric a key performance indicators every day, they get metrics of, you know what a revenue is in the store, etc. Like the all these things they have. And so the first thing that Matt would do every morning is you print a copy of the hot list for his nine stores. And he’d circle what was in red, right? It’s all color coded reds, not measuring up there’s the yellow caution green, right. So he’s circle, it was in red. And this was his strategy. He would hop in his car and he drive to the first store and and see the store manager. And he’d say, Hey, see this, you got to fix this, you got to do this, fix this, do this. And then he just like I’m bark at them, like, fix this, do this, fix this, and then go to the next store, and you do the same thing. And he said, I have never worked so hard in my life. And you know what, it didn’t work. I was struggling and the stores weren’t getting better. He said I had my personal hit Bob, bottom day, when I realized there were people on the teams and the stores they were quitting and I didn’t even know what their names were. And he realized he needed to change his approach. And so this is what he did. He got some mentoring, and then he shifted his strategy. So on the outside, some things were the same every morning you get up. He pulled out the hotlist, but he wouldn’t circle what was in red and played, just take a look at it. And then he would drive to the first or let’s say, the first store manager was Maria, he’d say, hey, Maria. Good morning, happy Monday, how was your weekend? What’d you do this weekend. And then he started to talk. And then after a while after talking and connecting, he say, Maria, here’s the hotlist from this morning, here’s the information, what do you think we should do? And then he let whoever it was that you write, speak, and then together, they co create a strategy together. And what he found was when he started doing all of this, the numbers, the performance started to go up and up, and up and up. And what he said he learned was, that the secret to hitting the numbers was to stop focusing on the numbers first, instead of us to start to focusing on the people because it’s those people that are hitting the numbers. And so what Matt story really demonstrates are what I call the three secrets to building strong leaders, and they are connection, communication, and collaboration. So first, what connection because I don’t care what industry you work in, whether it’s retail, or pharmaceuticals, or manufacturing or high tech, we’re all in the people business, and you’re all having to connect with another live human being. So first, it’s about connection. So how are you doing that? And obviously, empathy is the gateway drug of connection. Right? Without that, and all the studies would say that, like the number one thing is that, you know, do people feel valued and cared for is what makes them most engaged in performance, you know, and then think about it valued and cared for sounds like the softest and fuzziest thing ever. But it’s so true, because it’s the thing about because we’re human, we’re wired to connect, we’re wired for empathy, we’re wired to belong. And so connection is the first one communication.
Maria Ross 26:45
I’m gonna I’m gonna interrupt you first. Yeah, sure. We go to the other two. Yeah. So with connection, the rebuttal you often hear to that is, but I’m not that type of person. So if I go and start asking people, how was their day? How was their weekend? We’re both going to know it feels fake and false. Yeah. What would you say to somebody to say, here’s how you can actually create an authentic connection with somebody? And does it start with just rote questions, and eventually, that becomes your mechanism?
Alain Hunkins 27:15
Look everything at people usually I find when they say that I don’t do this. They’ve given it like, all of two seconds of practice. Like, I can’t do this. I know. I asked a question once, but didn’t answer me. Right. So.
Maria Ross 27:27
So forget it. Yeah. This connection thing? And
Alain Hunkins 27:30
it’s also again, here you are, you’re judging yourself, based on how it feels to you on the inside? Or do you actually have feedback from the outside of how it feels? You actually know that? And so what I saw, I say is, I think try it, right? Try it for 30 days, like a percent, you know, try this first, you know, and if you don’t start with, like, how are you feeling? And find an open ended question about work, that you could actually probe and get a sense of their input. And then I always say, listen, and I put a little asterisk after listen, and I put the an asterisk means then shut up and let them keep talking, right? Because some people listen, actually
Maria Ross 28:07
listen to the answer. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Okay, so I wanted to interject on that. I know that that’s a pain point for people. So totally, one is connection. Second is communication,
Alain Hunkins 28:18
communication. And so here’s the thing about communication. There’s often big barriers between what people mean, and what they say. And what we hear, right? So those three are should be all aligned. Think of like, Do you ever go to a carnival day pay or something, you know, the Midway when they have that ring toss, but you want to get all three rings in perfect alignment. But you realize how hard that is actually to do. Because oftentimes, what I mean isn’t what I say. And what I say isn’t what you hear. And so we have to constantly go back and clarify. And the reason that getting to the point of communication isn’t communication, that’s the trap. It’s like, well, I have to communicate better. No, communications goal is not communication, the goal of communication is shared understanding. And why that is so important is because shared understanding is the platform on which you are going to take all future action. So if you have a solid foundation, understanding, guess what, you’re gonna make some good decisions, you’re gonna get some good results. But if you have some shoddy understanding, like I’m not quite sure what they mean, but I didn’t check. So let’s go off. And we all have those meetings after the meetings. And hey, Maria, what do you think we just decided that I don’t know what do you and we have 10 different versions of reality, and then 10 Different people going off in different directions. So anyway, I like to tell leaders that you should assume that the default setting for human communication is misunderstanding not understanding but miss, and then make sure you’re putting scaffolding to shore up to make sure you’re getting confirmation of what it is. Because it’s too important not to it’s too important not to right so you all know the carpenters Maxim, right, measure twice, cut once. So in we have to like think of communication before we take action, which is the cutting, the measuring is the back and forth. It’s all that back and forth of how we’re dealing with that. So that’s the second secret. And the third secret is around collaboration. So when it comes to Collaboration, it’s up to leaders to design environments where people can work at their best. And in my research, I found that there’s four key elements that need to be in place for people to perform at their best, which is for them to be most engaged, and as productive as possible. And the four things are safety, people need to feel safe, obviously, physically safe, but also psychologically and emotionally safe, right. And we can get into more detail on that if we have time. That’s the first one. The next one is that people have to feel energy that certain environments are going to energize people, other environments are going to drain them to a greater or lesser extent. So what is the leader are you doing to create environments where people can be energized, I’ll give you a quick example, how many of us have been to a meeting that was scheduled for two or three hours, and the person running the meeting has now gone an hour and 45 minutes, and we still have not taken a break. I mean, it’s something as simple as that. Right? Another example, that even closer to home that people can relate to is how many of us have our meetings scheduled, your nine o’clock meeting goes right until 10, which starts your 10 o’clock meeting goes till 11, etc, etc. That all works fine on paper and for Outlook might not work for human beings, human being to the point from
Maria Ross 31:04
earlier is we’re not giving each other the space. That’s actually one of the best ways to ground yourself so that you can be present and actually maintain empathy for someone else and be clear headed enough to take on someone’s point of view is put some buffers in your calendar for crying out loud, like don’t be going next, because you’re going to be in the one meeting, worried about if you’re going to get to the next meeting in time.
Alain Hunkins 31:28
And we’ve all been there, right? And the thing is, what it creates is a certain sense of franticness. And what happens is our prefrontal cortex goes offline, we’re just like, and we’re kind of in this slightly whacked out fight or flight or freeze mode, like what’s happening and just trying to catch up and, and we wonder, like, what is actually getting done? And how many of us have gone through those days were like meeting after meeting after meeting at the end of the day, like, what did I actually get done today? I was incredibly busy. I’m exhausted, I’m drained. And yet, what the heck do we actually discuss do what was significant? Did we move anything forward today? Exactly. So yeah, so energy, that’s we got safety with energy. The third one is around ownership, right? Giving people a sense that people need autonomy, right? No one wants to be led by a micromanager are so how can you give people a clear what they need to do? But you know, in terms of the goals and outcomes, but give them some flexibility and parameters on how they can bring their own creativity and how they go about doing it? Because just because you do it a certain way, doesn’t mean they should do it certain way, because they’re not, you know, which is the whole
Maria Ross 32:24
tension between hybrid remote work, it’s, you know, so millions of people realize they can actually do their jobs really well. Yeah, not being in an office. And for leaders who only know how to lead people if they can see them. That’s the inherent tension. So you’re not giving me the flexibility to do my best work for you. If you’re going to mandate that I have to do it in an office when I actually know about myself, I’m more productive and focused, if I get to work from home, and I don’t have to do a two hour commute to get to work. And so it all comes down for me, all of what you’re saying is coming back to this idea of Do you want your company to make money? Do you want your company to hit its performance targets? Do you want to be profitable? Do you want to be sustainable? If so, you’ve got to let people thrive. You’ve got to let people as your assets quote unquote, do their best work. It’s an it just drives me up a tree when I hear that that’s fluffy. That’s, that’s, you know, pandering to them. That’s this that’s that. If they don’t do the work, you have no company.
Alain Hunkins 33:27
Yeah. Yeah, it’s like get on the human bandwagon. And don’t don’t just give it lip service. And I think there’s too many leaders are like, hey, if we just wink, wink, nudge, nudge, and it’s going to be our way through this, like, yeah, people are our greatest asset. So it says in a big, glossy poster on the wall, yeah, whatever. Everyone’s sniffed that stuff out. And people are just, and things like, and I think we are at this amazing inflection point, host pandemic, right? Because everyone’s had this taste, where it’s like, you know, what, I when the chips were down, and you needed me to be autonomous and responsible, I did it. I showed up. And I was great. To Who are you to tell me that I have to come back in now two or three days a week? Because you say so, you know, and then you know, and people will come up and they’ll say, oh, but you understand, like, we’re missing out on the water cooler chat. And this, there’s no data that shows that people are any more innovative or productive this way. I think what would be much, much more honest, if the leaders would have said, hey, you know what, folks, I need you back in the office two or three days a week, and this is why I have really high control needs, and I just feel a lot better if you’re here next to me. I mean, I think people like got it, boss, I’m sure. Okay, I understand. Thank you. Right. Okay, I can that’s honest. Like, that’s what so often it is, or there may be some other things going on. Like we spent all this money on the real estate, commercial real estate we have to show who knows what the reasons are? Yeah, yeah. So all of which I think we’re in heated agreement that autonomy, people need their autonomy, right? Ownership flex.
Maria Ross 34:47
Well, they cite in many studies that flexibility is their most important desire of of a workplace environment of a culture to make a job desirable for them. The number one thing is flexibility.
Alain Hunkins 34:57
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then therefore Arthritis purpose, right? The sense that people feel that what they do matters that they’re contributing to something more than just a paycheck. It’s not just a job, they feel like, you know, because what we know is that when people are connected to something that’s greater than themselves, they bring more of themselves and they perform better. They just do. Right. And so what are you doing to remind people of that, and not it’s not enough just on orientation day, to show them your last year’s annual report and say, Read this? You know, it’s like, I like to say, it’s like telling your beloved on your wedding day that you love them. It’s like, well, I said, on our wedding day, I mean, nothing’s changed. Right? I have to say it again. Come on, like, No, you need to remind people of the purpose on a regular and frequent face. Absolutely. So those are the secrets, connection, communication, and collaboration.
Maria Ross 35:41
I love it. I love it. So I want to get back to I have two more questions for you. I want to get back to this idea about communication. Because I’m a stickler about this. I, from a very young age, I have been convinced that most of our problems in the world are due to lack of a lack of effective communication, that we could avoid issues at work, we could avoid interpersonal issues, if we communicated better, but unfortunately, I’m going to date myself here. We live in a world that’s like an episode of Three’s Company, where it’s someone overhear something, and then they make assumptions. And then they spend the whole episode trying to figure out what the real story is, right. And I have been told in the past by managers that I can be too literal, because I will repeat back several times to make sure I understand that we could have a whole other episode as to why I’m like that from a past leadership failure. But I actually would rather err on the side of over communicating to ensure that we’re on the same page, and to the point that when I’m in groups that are not work related, if it’s like the parent teacher board, or like another group, I’m actually the one I can’t help myself, I step in, and I go, I think you guys are misunderstanding each other. I think what I hear her saying is x, but what you think she’s saying is why and then they go Oh, and everybody laughs and then they figure it out? Yeah. Why? What are our obstacles to communicating? Well, like, why is aside from probably we’re moving too fast? Assuming that might be one of them. That is, what are some of the other obstacles we have? And how can we overcome them so that we can communicate better, literally just message transmission, better sender received better?
Alain Hunkins 37:14
Totally, totally. So there’s a few things that are kind of are not working in our favor as human beings that get in the way, we talked about it already a little bit. It’s that sense of the difference between what I say what I mean, when I hear, right, so I may mean something, but the way in which I communicate it is not actually what I mean, which of course, then then leaves you having to interpret it through your own filter. So that is a huge piece already. Alright, and connected to that. The second one is this bias that we have, which is called the projection bias is like, and how many of us have ever said something like, well, I sent the email, they should know what to do, right? Because we think just because we’ve communicated that it’s now done. It’s not done. It’s a you’ve communicated it one way. But if you think about it, it needs to be two way where you have to confirm the receipt of that. And in fact, one thing I coached leaders, I’ll share a little tool that hopefully the listeners will find really useful. I calling it asking for a receipt, if you stop and think about this idea of receipts, right? What are receipts receipts are confirmation of a completed transaction. So when you buy something, it’s a transaction. And when you want proof of that transaction, you ask for a receipt. Now obviously, the more important the transaction, the greater likelihood, you ask for a receipt. So for example, you will go to the local convenience store, you want a pack of chewing gum for 79 cents, you might not need that receipt, whatever, it’s fine. But I can guarantee you, you would never buy a house or a car without getting a receipt, right? So then when the stakes are high. And so there’s a great anecdote that comes out of the fast food industry. So you might remember this I certainly do the beginnings of in the early 1980s is when all the fast food franchises started putting drive throughs in, right and so when they first put in the drive throughs to all the fast food restaurants, the first few months, the processor clock across the board was a nightmare. It’s very common people would order things and they drive up to the counter and you know, the window, I should say the window to pick up their food and be filled with mistakes. And this was across every single thing. And so that went on for months and months and then suddenly drive through mistake rates just started to plummet. And what was the what was the new technology? What did they change? It was so simple. What happened was they realized, Oh, we’ve been getting one way communication and acting on one way communication. What if we do this, what they started doing is having all the employees repeat the order back to the customer before they started to make it let’s say although this use McDonald’s, I’m not playing favorites here, but it’s like, okay, you choke to McDonald’s. I like to get to Big Macs to medium fries and too small, whatever. So it is the habit, McDonald’s these days. Um, okay, and so that they go back, right. So you want to Big Macs to medium fries and two Cokes, right? Yes. Got it. Okay, and guess what? So it’s asking for a receipt. And the thing is, it doesn’t take much time. Now I’ve talked to leaders and I’ve talked to like senior executives like I don’t know like a CEOs have said, I don’t know if if I asked my my C suite at our meetings to like, go around. room and ask for a seat like, What is everyone walking out of here? They’re gonna think like, I’m treating them like kids. Like, was that you are? Is that them? Okay? Because the fact is, if it’s it look, if Taco Bell will invest in this technology for a 99 cent taco supreme, don’t you think your million and billion dollar strategies are worth the same level of clarity? mean? So it’s just we have to get over that ego when they say, I don’t know if that’s an ego talk? Yeah, yeah, that is such ego, it’s
Maria Ross 40:25
gonna be unhappy that you prevented them from wasting a bunch of time and effort. Because you took five seconds to clarify what the marching orders were. Yeah,
Alain Hunkins 40:34
and this you just named the third big challenge that I think that we have around communication is that we live in a world where leaders think the ultimate pinnacle is efficiency, whatever we can do to be more efficient. And we sometimes confuse efficiency with effectiveness. And sometimes an advertiser’s know this really well, how many times do you need to hear a message before it sticks? Right? Eight 910? Whatever it is, we need to repeat ourselves often and frequently and confirm like, what did you get? Did I get this? Did I get that and to be vigilant around working to shore in all the misunderstanding to get back to a point of clarity. And so we have to do these things, we have to recognize that the default setting for human communication is misunderstanding, like I said, and so how can we create clarity, and don’t let efficiency get in the way of effectiveness and the same the and the other piece around this around challenges to communication is that people are just swimming in information overload. So another example, let’s say I have 10, direct reports. And I have a really important project. And I need their ownership. And they’re in there. And they’re all going to lead teams. And so the most efficient thing for me to do is to send an email to all 10. Like, hey, and here’s the subject, this is what I need you to do, boo, boo, boo, boo, boom, done, right? send one email to 10 people, scale is great, right? I just efficiently communicate that out. However, if I really need their commitment, and engagement and buy in over this important project, I’m probably better served having one on one meetings and talking to each of them, and creating a relationship of connection and communication and collaboration. So that I know when they walk out of there, they are ready to rock and roll. Right. And so if you think I don’t have the time, it goes back to what we said before, are you willing to invest the time because a little bit of time from a leader goes so far for the people that are wanting to follow them. And I think we forget the power of that those little moments doesn’t have to be a lot of those little moments to make things happen.
Maria Ross 42:26
Great stuff. I’m going to ask you one last question. Before we wrap up quickly is it’s a little bit of looking backward. But I want to leave on a positive note looking forward. And that is how did we get to the point that employees have such low confidence in their leaders? And what can we do to turn it around? Or what is being done to turn it around? Yeah,
Alain Hunkins 42:46
I mean, we got to this place, because we unfortunately have this inherited leadership legacy, where basically, we have a lot of 21st century knowledge work, workplace leaders, bleeding with an industrial age mindset, there’s still leading as the commander in chief, right, and people don’t want the commander in chief what they really want. They want facilitators in chief, right? We need people who can make things easy for us, we live in a very complex world. And so that’s kind of how we got here, in terms of what can we do moving forward is to realize that we live in an age of incredible opportunity for all sorts of whether it’s for employees, for leaders, for organizations, for society, we live in this time and opportunity, where if we choose, we can lean into being exceptionally human. Right? And what I mean by that is, what does it mean to be an exceptionally human leader, it means to be someone who was masterful at connecting, communicating, and collaborating. And if you take care of those things, and start with the people side of connection, communication and collaboration, then the results will start to take care of themselves. So kind of like Matt story, we got to flip the focus, make it less about the work and more about the people because it’s the people, the ones that are actually doing the work. And if you’re in a leadership role, it is not your not your job to be an excellent Doer anymore. You’ve been promoted beyond doer, you are now a leader of doers are a leader of leader, a leader of doers, depending on how many levels up you are. So I’d say the most important thing is to continue to lean into being an exceedingly exceptional human being. And I like to say that all leadership development is personal development, and all personal development is leadership. Because whether or not you have the job title, we all lead every single day. We certainly lead ourselves, we lead our families around, we lead our kids, our parents, our friends all over and so these skills are going to make for better workplaces, but they’re going to make for better families and ultimately, ultimately a better world. I
Maria Ross 44:48
love that we all have that sphere of influence whether we’re officially a leader or not. And how we show up in that space is going to be a model for everyone around us of oh I can find success. Is that way by being a very human leader and a human centered leader? Allah, this was so wonderful. Thank you for all your insights. The book, again is called the leadership code three secrets to building strong leaders highly recommend folks pick that up and take a look. And we’ll have all your links in the show notes including a link to a 30 day leadership challenge that you are offering. But for folks on the go right now or exercising or walking, where can they learn more about you and your work?
Alain Hunkins 45:26
Well, first of all, well done you for exercising and walking or whatever. Because we’re not Yeah, we’re sitting here having a nice chat. So go to my website, you can find all things leadership related. Is Atlanta Huggins. I’m gonna spell that for you. It’s a l a i n. Allah Huggins, H U N. K I N s.com. There are links to my book there, there’s links to my articles, etc, lots of resources. And yeah, if I can be of any support, please do reach out. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn as well. That is my social media of choice.
Maria Ross 45:55
Thank you so much for your time and your insights today. It was a great conversation.
Alain Hunkins 46:00
Thank you. I really appreciate it really enjoyed our conversation too.
Maria Ross 46:04
Thank you, everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard you know what to do, please share it with a friend or colleague and of course rate and review on your podcast player of choice. Until next time, please remember that kashflow 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.
Empathy is a superpower, yes, but what about those people you just truly believe are unbearable to work or talk with? I know someone is coming to mind for you. And how much more complicated does it get when you work for that someone, or they work for you?
Today, I am delighted to share my conversation with leadership coach, speaker, and best-selling author Michael Bungay Stanier. Michael and I talked about the difference between leadership and coaching and the role empathy and curiosity play in those skills, why so many leaders misunderstand what coaching means, why rescuers create victims and the importance of learning how to listen. He shares the key to having Keystone Conversations to create a better working relationship. And he shares five questions that will help you build the best possible relationship with almost anyone – and why he says “almost!” Plus, we had a love fest for our mutual publisher, Page Two. Michael is a legend and as kind and generous as they come. Take a listen.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
There are six different leadership styles, and the greatest leaders know how to utilize each of them at the appropriate times.
If you’re a leader, your job is to help figure out what the right stuff is to work on, and then help get the best people to do their best work working on the stuff that matters.
Rescuer behavior appears to be empathetic and kind, but it’s actually being nosy and it hurts more than it help others in adult-to-adult relationships.
You are doing the work of leading when you’re doing the work of self-care and self-reflection.
“I do believe…that every working relationship can be better. If you could make all of them 10-15% better, that would make a difference, because not just your success at work, but your happiness at work is dependent on the quality of your working relationships.”
Brand Story Breakthrough course to help you craft a clear, compelling brand story – includes weekly office hours with Maria!
About Michael Bungay Stanier:
Michael Bungay Stanier is best known for The Coaching Habit, the best-selling coaching book of the century and recognized as a classic. His most recent book, How to Work with (Almost) Anyone, shows how to build the Best Possible Relationship with the key people at work. Michael was a Rhodes Scholar, and was recently awarded the coaching prize by Thinkers50, “the Oscars of Management.”
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. Some people am I right? I mean, empathy is a superpower. Yes, but what about those people you just truly believe are unbearable to work or talk with? I know someone is coming to mind for you. And maybe it’s Norman accounting who I made up for this episode. And how much more complicated does it get when you work for that someone or they work for you? Well, you’re about to hear five questions that will help you work better with almost anyone. Today I’m delighted to share my conversation with leadership coach, speaker and best selling author Michael Bungay Stanier. Michael is best known for the Coaching Habit, the best selling coaching book of the century, and recognized as a classic. His most recent book, how to work with almost anyone shows how to build the best possible relationship with key people at work. Michael was a Rhodes Scholar and was recently awarded the coaching prize by thinker’s 50, the Oscars of Management. Today, Michael and I talked about the difference between leadership and coaching, and the role empathy and curiosity play in those skills. Why so many leaders misunderstand what coaching means, why rescuers create victims, and the importance of learning how to listen, he shares the key to having Keystone conversations to create a better working relationship. And he shares those five questions that will help you build the best possible relationship with almost anyone. And why he says almost, plus, we had a love fest for our mutual publisher, page two. Michael is a legend and as kind and generous as they come take a listen. Welcome to the empathy edge. Michael, I am so excited to have this conversation with you after following your career and your work for a long time, as I mentioned to you earlier based on a client’s recommendation years ago, but welcome to the show to talk about empathy and coaching and relationships and all the things. Really I’m
Michael Bungay Stanier 02:45
happy to be here. I mean, I feel like it’s been a long time brewing. You know, we haven’t we share a publisher page true together. You know, I would say my work is very connected to compassion and empathy and this kind of human connection. So I think this is going to be a really rich conversation for people.
Maria Ross 03:01
I love it. I love it. So before we dive in, we’ve read your bio. But tell us a little bit about your story behind the story. How did you get into this work of coaching and leadership and relationships? And what makes you most passionate about it? Well,
Michael Bungay Stanier 03:15
I would honestly say I’ve kind of stumbled board into it accidentally. It wasn’t I mean, occasionally you meet people have the plans, like I’m in this age, and I’m going to shape a career in this profession. And I’m like, I was never that. But I
Maria Ross 03:29
don’t know who those people. I don’t know what makes them tick. Yeah, I’m
Michael Bungay Stanier 03:32
still going. I don’t know who I’m going to be when I grow up. But I better figure it out sometime soon, because I’m now declining rather than growing. But if you if you believe in the quote, which I love, inspiration is when your past suddenly made sense. There are moments from the past, which in retrospect, I can go all this was grist for the mill. So probably the starting point was your 1718. I did two things I
Maria Ross 03:59
joined not the year 1718. But when you were 17, I’m not that old.
Michael Bungay Stanier 04:05
But when I was 17, or 18. In that kind of age group, I volunteered at a youth crisis telephone line, a suicide hotline sort of thing. And it was my first training in asking questions, not talking, listened, learning how to listen to an answer. Learning how to listen for what not being said, learning that the first answer is not necessarily the only answer or the best answer. And there’s also the first year I did a kind of self help self growth thing. You and I go into an all boys school. And so this year, this touchy feely self help stuff was a bit weird. And it didn’t help at that cost was a course on how to be more spontaneous. But then I told my friends I’m doing a course on how to be more spontaneous. I know they took the mickey out of me for basically months because I’m like, why are you doing a course on spontaneity? I’m like, Sure, it just felt like the thing to do. What’s the
04:59
syllabus for are a course on spontaneity.
Michael Bungay Stanier 05:03
So, kind of seeds were planted there. And then there’s another theme, which is, as I, as I went to university, finally got came out of university. I wasn’t living in England now. And I got my first jobs, I’ll say, No, I, I enjoy working. But I don’t really enjoy organizational life, I don’t really enjoy having a boss. And there’s a way that working life can be a bit diminishing, rather than ennobling. And it is a sense that a big part of what drives me is a kind of core value is like, how do I make? How do I help people be the best version of who they are? And because a lot of my work is about people in work, how do I have organizational life be something where people flourish and grow and learn rather than not. And I think organizational life bends to the humanizing. It’s kind of a blunt statement when you put it like that. But your organization’s are set up with a purpose, and they’re trying to get an outcome, and you’re part of a structure and you’re part of a process. And it’s very easy to lose sight of the humanity of the people you’re working with, because of systems and structures, and efficiencies and KPIs and OKRs, and whatever else, all the things, yeah, all the things, and it was discovering the philosopher Martin Buber. And I don’t know his work deeply. But he has a very powerful model where he says there are just two types of relationships in the world there are I eat relationships, and I thou relationships, and I eat is when you’re in that kind of you objectify the other person a bit, and it’s a bit transactional. And I thou, which are rare, and wonderful, are when you’ll kind of be able to show up more in a fully human like, messy, complicated, glorious, excellent. And I would love there to be more i thou relationships, I’d love there to be more adult to adult relationship, you’d want to use a different piece of jargon a different type of language. And then right, these are all hard, in the best of times, these are hard. So how do I create tools and support people to help with some of that.
Maria Ross 07:15
And that’s how, and that’s how you got here. Now you’re now you’re writing and you’re teaching and you’re coaching, and you’re,
Michael Bungay Stanier 07:19
like stumbling, and you’re placing bets that a bunch of stuff failing and some of the stuff taking off, you know, I I will I had been living in Boston, came up to Toronto in 2001. I literally had a flight out of Boston on 911. So because of all the things and amongst other things, it meant that the job I had lined up, which was as a kind of consultant vanished, and it accelerated me into finally starting my own business. And honestly, when I started my own business, I didn’t know what to do, I could do a whole bunch of things. I was a jack of all trades. So I did a bit of this did a bit of that. And got lucky somebody, you know, nestle in Canada said, can you design a coaching program for me for you know, for them, and it turned out that that was such a that was really helpful, because it turned out as you know, a, I think coaching is a really powerful technology, I think it can unlock the best to people been, I think it can be done really badly. There’s a lot of gum in coaching. And there’s a lot of rudeness and a lot of kind of jazz hands mysterious black box Afghan wearing staff drives me nuts, as particularly doesn’t work in organizational life. It’s it’s not useful to the busy life of the typical busy manager and leader in the work that she’s doing. And thirdly, I thought I had an opinion on how it could be better and how it could be different. And so Jim Collins, the writer of Good to Great has this metaphor of your strategy is a question of firing bullets and firing cannon walls, you fire bullets to figure out what the target is. And these are kind of small experiments or small tests or kind of like a try this out. And designing a coaching program was was a bullet for me is one of the things I was doing. I thought I’d do market research. I was also teaching innovation. I was also starting to do keynote speaking, I was also building a coaching program. But with the coaching program, as I this is actually the thing I’m interested in. And so that’s when you fire the cannon ball as like when you commit to it. And from that grew the Coaching Habit book, which is the book that I’m best known for. And you know, that went through a process of being turned down repeatedly by a publisher who published other books of mine. So I then had this moment where I’m like, Well, what do I do with this? And that’s when I found the path to page two and self published or hybrid published his book. Of course, that then took off and became its own phenomena and its own thing. So you know, it’d be foolish to think that a I really have ever Knowing what the heck I’m doing the year is placing bets and being brave and going. Here’s the stuff that’s taken off. And you know, what never gets talked about in the context. Like, this is like all the stuff I tried that didn’t work,
10:14
per se. Oh,
Michael Bungay Stanier 10:17
yeah, well, that’s sort of stopping. That’s plenty of stories about that. Yeah. So I could fill up the remaining hour and a half with you. Like, here’s all the stuff that I’ve tried that has been mediocre. The interesting
Maria Ross 10:26
thing is I asked this of every guest, and most of them don’t start out with like, from the moment I was eight, I knew that this was the work I was going to do or how I was going to have my impact. And so I think many of us that just have more of a growth mindset, even though we didn’t call it that back then. But an insatiable curiosity and annoying curiosity as some people might say, the inability to accept no as an answer. Yeah. I, we meander, and we find these to us what seemed like perfectly connected related paths, but from the outside looking in might be like, you know, Maria, how did you get from brand strategy to empathy? And I’m like, Well, that should be a straight line. I don’t understand how you don’t get that, you know. So I love that you just further validate my career choices by talking that way. But I want to get to this question. Because you are so well known for the Coaching Habit, we’re going to talk a little bit about your latest book, which is how to work with almost anyone. But I want to talk about first the difference between because to your point this these terms are used interchangeably, leader and coach. So what makes a great leader? What makes a great coach? And are those two one in the same? Or is there a Venn diagram where it overlaps? Talk to me about your viewpoint on that?
Michael Bungay Stanier 11:40
Well, I’d say in a quick summary, great leaders are typically also facile with coaching, and they know when and how to use that as a leadership skill. But there is more to leadership than just coaching. Your Gangrel Goleman wrote an article in 2000 or 2001, in the HBr, Harvard Business Review called leadership that gets results. And he says, Look, there are six different leadership styles in great leaders know how to use all six at the appropriate time, because each one has pros and cons, prizes and punishments. And coaching is one of those six leadership styles. And in fact, it was the least utilized, even though it has this direct impact on engagement and also profitability. So it’s a really powerful leadership skill. Yeah, the government at the time said, do it. People feel it takes too much time, as part of the grist for the walk, I do it. It’s like, you know, let me show you how you can coach fast, you can coach in 10 minutes or less. So the benefit of coaching, is that it you show up with curiosity. And when you show up with curiosity, you’ve got a better chance of figuring out what the real challenges are kind of staying open. And in a place of ambiguity long enough that you get a clearer sight on what the big picture is, and what really matters. And also, when you’re curious, you get a sense of who the other person is across the table from you. So that I thou relationship that we were talking about earlier on. So curiosity is a bit of a leadership superpower. But I think leaders have to do things like see the pictures exist in the future. Oh, look at the stuff that isn’t working. make the hard decisions, take the be able to take the best gas. Understand that, you know, if you’re a CEO or a leader, and you’re getting 60% of your, your decisions, right? You’re actually winning the game. It’s not a ray or 90. It’s like 60%. And you’re like you’re you’re doing great, right? So I do think leadership. And leadership also probably means taking care of yourself, and like self care, stuff. So I do think coaching is necessary, but but not sufficient to be a good leader.
Maria Ross 14:09
I love so much to unpack there. But I love that thinking because that’s the crux of my work as well is that it’s a both and scenario. I think so many leaders get locked into this thing of like, I’m either going to be a leader or a coach, I’m either going to be empathetic or high performing. No, you do them both simultaneously, you hold both of those things to be true at the same time. And that’s why leadership is hard. That’s why hopefully they pay the big bucks. Like there’s a reason why not everybody is an effective leader. But we’ve we’ve sold ourselves ourselves, this bill of goods that because we’re, we’re if someone is good at the work, they’re gonna be good as a leader. Right and and being good at the work and not being a great leader doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Right? It just means that you lacked that capability. And that’s okay.
Michael Bungay Stanier 14:58
Yeah. You know, when we’re teaching this work in organizations, we will we say to people, we’re not training you to be a coach, we’re training you to be more coach like, so we give them a specific behavior. So not an identity, because the behavior is like, can you stay curious a little bit longer? Can you rush to action and advice giving a little bit more slowly. And part of the work we’re trying to do is I want to free people up from this binary of like, being a coach, because I’m like, most people don’t want to be a coach. Most people want to do the job or be a marketer or
Maria Ross 15:36
just do their work. Yeah, exactly. Work done.
Michael Bungay Stanier 15:38
But But the essence is, if you’re a leader, your job is to help figure out what the right stuff is to work on, and then help get the best people to do their best work working on the stuff that matters. So that strategy and culture or strategy, what’s the stuff that matters? Culture? Who are the best people to work on the stuff that matter? And that is hard. All of that is hard. Curiosity, is a powerful contributor to being successful on both of those two things. Well,
Maria Ross 16:13
and that is a perfect lead in to my next question, which is, you know, empathy is what we talk about on the show, but all these different facets of empathy of how you come out emotional intelligence, or compassion, or what have you. And curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people, because clearly, it’s about not just guessing what the other person’s point of view is, it’s about finding out what it is, right? So in your view, and in your work, where have you seen curiosity and empathy show up? In the most successful leaders in the best leaders in your, your your best clients? Can you give us some stories about where maybe someone wasn’t curious and empathetic before? And then when they unlocked those habits, those behaviors, it improve performance for
16:58
them? Yeah, I,
Michael Bungay Stanier 17:01
I would I go to if you’ll be okay with me doing this, you know, I started this company called Box of Crayons. And about four years ago, I stepped away from being the CEO of that gentleman who is as brilliant woman who I recruited from behind the bar of my local pizza, Ria, like one of the best recruiting moments of my entire life, it was like this woman who was doing a PhD and finishing it up and working in a bar part time, or they come and help me out with a little bit of book stuff. And now she is the CEO. It has been interesting watching her shift from being very driven around the strategy, which is like one of the things we need to do to going, how do I also keep thinking about the people and keeping the right people involved? So I think the stories are, that they feel a bit generic, actually, when I think about it, which is, it goes something like this, you become a leader, you freak out, because you’ve now you’re responsible for other people getting work done. You a obsess about what the work is, and how do I get the work done? You become a bottleneck, because you keep trying to do all the work that other people should be doing for you. Because you’re trying to be helpful, you suddenly realize that the only way this works, is if you trust other people. You go through a process of a dark night of the soul about what is trusting other people? And how do I do that? I trust myself, how do I trust other people, right? And you start going really start going well, what are the what are the ways that I build a relationship, where we do the best job we can and trusting each other and supporting each other? And finding that balance that you’ve been talking about Maria, roaches like it, look, I want to be kind and compassionate, and empathetic. And I need to get stuff done. And I need to have accountability. And I need to call it when you’re not when you’ve screwed it up, or you haven’t done it or you’ve made the mistake. And how do I do all of that while maintaining my humanity? Yeah, so for the most part, I’d say most people, as they grow as a leader, what they expand from is our work happens through people. So I’ve got to get better at thinking about or just acknowledging or being more nuanced and empathetic towards the people who I manage. And then there are occasionally some people who are on the other side where the like, I’m all about just wanting people to, to feel loved and liked and appreciated. And the work doesn’t get done in a way that doesn’t work either, which is
Maria Ross 19:47
not empathy, which is why I’m writing the next book, the empathy dilemma because so often the burnout and the stress and the overwhelm happens because you think you’re being an empathetic leader, but what you’re doing is actually something else. It’s people pleasing. It’s yeah, you haven’t gotten your own triggers and emotional regulation in place. All these other things. Yeah, I
Michael Bungay Stanier 20:06
talk about and use the model which I’m, I’m gonna guess you might be familiar with the Cartman Drama Triangle. And you’re basically you know, it’s got its roots in transactional analysis, which gives you adult to adult relationships and parent child relationships, that kind of jargon. For the Drama Triangle says, when things get dysfunctional, there are three roles that play out. There’s the victim, the persecutor, and the rescuer. And when you teach us model, people instantly get it that leads them to get what the three roles are. But what they don’t always get is that the rescuer is as dysfunctional a role as the victim and the persecutor. It sounds better. It’s got better PR. Yeah, but it is just as screwed up. And it is just as bigger contributor to the dysfunction as as the other two roles. And when you ask people, you go, Okay, so here are the three roles that see who identifies with which role 90% of people put their hand up when you go who feels like they’re a rescuer? The a jump in a save it, I solve it, give it to me, let me take it on the help. That’s how I have conflict. That’s all be nice. Yeah. That it is exhausting. And it is frustrating and rescue as create victims and rescue as create persecutors. So it actually is this kind of infecting behavior
21:30
that isn’t, you know, and believe me, I
Michael Bungay Stanier 21:34
have lived this whole story, because this is the stuff I’ve had to unlearn or partially unless
Maria Ross 21:39
we write about what we what we need. Yeah, exactly. So I
Michael Bungay Stanier 21:43
I’m really, I’m just kind of like enthusiastically agreeing with you, Maria, when you’re like when you go. This range of behavior, which you’re like, dice can be rescuer behavior, which is dysfunctional, limiting. Exhausting, creates burnout creates resentment breeds and victims, it is the very opposite of empathy. And it’s the very opposite of an adult to adult relationship. Well, and
Maria Ross 22:13
so much of that stems, which is, the new book is based on five pillars of being an effective and empathetic leader, right, we sometimes we forget the effective and we just focus on the empathetic leader. The first pillar is self awareness. The second one is self care. So the first two pillars are about you digging, and understanding what motivates you what triggers you? And it’s to your point is, Am I doing this? Because I think I’m, I’m saving people, or I’m rescuing them, or I’m being an empathetic boss, or am I doing this because I need control? I’m fearful, I’m afraid of how I’m going to look if this project fails. What is it really about underneath?
Michael Bungay Stanier 22:55
Yeah, I love that. Because I do think that rescue behavior is it’s it’s a very controlling behavior, you’ve got your fingers and everybody’s pies. look like you’re being nice. But really, you’re being nosy? No, but let me ask you a question right. Now. How do you help with that first pillar of self awareness? Because it’d be like, it’d be so much better if everybody was enlightened, so much easier. But you know, we’ve all got blind spots. We’re all flawed. We’re all oblivious to a bunch of things that we do. I’m wondering in your work, how you help deepen that sense of this is actually who I am. And this is actually the impact I have in the world. Yeah,
Maria Ross 23:35
I think the first step is losing the stigma of self awareness as a wasteful nasal gazing exercise, right? So when I write in the new book that’s coming out and even a little bit in the empathy edge. Why I mentioned for example, as an effective leadership practice is practicing presence is you have to get your own house in order. If you’re going to be open and receptive enough to take on another person’s point of view, or perspective, empathy, without defensiveness or fear. So if we actually want the benefits that empathetic leadership provides, it has to start with you and the interior work. So number one is letting go of that stigma. Number two is what? How are you getting that assessment? Are you just aren’t you know, are you doing one modality of just journaling or therapy? Are you doing another modality of taking a self assessment tool like an Enneagram or Myers Briggs or the strengths finders test? And are you getting feedback from other people so that your reality checking whether you are ego tripping or selling yourself short? Yeah. And just being able to use that and I try to make executives feel good about that and leaders feel good about it as again, not a navel gazing exercise, but you’re gathering information so that you can be more effective going forward and I think once they once that And I would love to hear what you have to say in your work. Once they calmed down a little bit about the fact that things like self awareness and self care are not done out of selfishness. They’re done out of service. But you have to, you have to start with that compassion and empathy for yourself, so that you understand yourself enough. And you know that when you fall back, like many leaders have in the post pandemic world, on command and control, that’s out of fear. That’s out of fear of like, I don’t think I can handle this new way of leading this new way of working. And I need to go back to what I know. Can you honestly admit that to yourself? Or do you make excuses like, we all have to be back in the office because that’s the only way we can innovate? We all have to be in the UK in the office? Because how will I know if you guys are getting any work done. So it’s just being able to check yourself on those things. And I think once you let people relax, I don’t know if you’ve seen this, relax into it as like you are doing the work of leading when you work on self care. And when you work on self awareness. Do you see that with your clients as well, and the people that you talk to? Yeah,
Michael Bungay Stanier 26:04
I mean, I think I think navel gazing gets a bad rap. Like, I think like there’s something actually about staring at yourself in the mirror, staring at kind of reflecting on who you are and how you show up. makes all the difference. I mean, this new book of mine how to work with almost anyone. There are these five questions which Bramer conversation with the person you’re trying to build the best possible relationship with? Where you kind of share? A this is how I am how I work best how I work worse,
26:36
you need to know this. So that about yourself before you can share it right? Well, exactly. So
Michael Bungay Stanier 26:42
in some ways, it’s meant to be a business book, but there’s a kind of self help navel gazing book inside that film. Like, if you never have a keystone conversation, but you do the work to be able to answer the five questions, you’re going to be more effective in the workplace, because to your point, you know, empathy without being effective is not a winning strategy.
Maria Ross 27:08
There’s a great leadership consultant named Edie Batista who wrote an article he’s got a quadrant. Are you familiar with it? Yeah. Where it’s empathy. Accountability without empathy is a bootcamp. But empathy without accountability is a daycare. And I love that. I love that I’ve included it in the new book. So I love that you, you keep segwaying. For me, this is great. So I would love for us to talk a little bit about that book, how to work with almost anyone. And out of curiosity, why do you have the almost in parentheses? What’s your philosophy on that?
Michael Bungay Stanier 27:40
Well, why don’t I ask you that? What do you think he almost brings to that dead title?
Maria Ross 27:45
I will I personally think it lets you off the hook of feeling like you have to have an effective relationship with every single human you come in contact with. That’s a lot of pressure. Yeah. And you might feel like there’s something wrong with you. If you can’t get along with everybody. Is that kind of where you’re going with that? So?
Michael Bungay Stanier 28:02
Yeah, I mean, first of all, I think the book title how to work with almost anyone is the best book title I’ve ever come up with. It’s like, it’s so good. Because people love the almost it’s it’s intriguing. Light, and it lads laughter and kind of insight and sparkle to the title. And you know,
Maria Ross 28:20
they’re thinking of someone when they like almost anyone except my in laws or
Michael Bungay Stanier 28:25
Exactly. You know, who you almost is. Yeah, I personally would never believe a book called How to work with anyone. Um, like, either, as soon as I see it, I like that. I’m like, have you met? A, B, and C? Yeah. Nightmares. The psychopathic, the the sociopathic, there’s something. And I’m sure people say the same about me. So I say, Okay, I have too many failed working relationships to come close to making the claim of how to work with anyone. Right. But the idea is, every work, I do believe, you know, even as I say that title that every working relationship can be better. And it
Maria Ross 29:05
can be better. I think that’s the key is it’s it’s a it’s a shift, it’s a delta.
Michael Bungay Stanier 29:11
Exactly. So if you think of the bell curve that probably describes most of our working relationships, you know, a few at one end where they’re like, sparkly and wonderful, a few of the other end where they suck badly, a bunch of them in the middle where they’re like that, okay, they have their ups and their downs. But if you could make all of them 10 to 15% better, that would really make a difference, because not just your success at work, but your happiness at work is really dependent on the quality of your working relationships. Like everybody listening to this conversation right now. Can imagine back to a time Well, maybe it’s happening in real time for them where they’ve had a really tough working relationship. And it has soured everything. No, it is. If there was a single single word It’s like it’s a diminishing experience, you lose a sense of self, you lose your confidence, you lose your trust, you lose your ambition, you kind of play small. And it doesn’t matter if you’re working on the best thing in the world, and you have a manager who sucks, it’s gonna suck as an experience.
Maria Ross 30:18
Yeah, or the inverse that I’ve experienced is I had I worked within a company where the culture was awful. Yeah, it was a grind. But our direct team of five people were amazing to work with. And they made it worth it. Exactly, yeah. And
Michael Bungay Stanier 30:36
most of us leave the quality of our work and relationships to chance, you kind of go, I hope I get my day, a person who somehow creates magic within this otherwise. But somehow, they’ve made it okay. Yeah. And you’re just like, I’m gonna roll the dice. And I hope I get lucky with this team or with this person, or with this client, or with this boss, or with this colleague or with this vendor. And I’m like, you don’t have to just leave it down to luck.
Maria Ross 31:04
Are you familiar with the work of Shasta Nelson, she’s a friend of mine. And I’ve had her on the podcast before. She’s She’s a friendship expert. She’s written several books. But she actually wrote a book called The business of friendship, that is about all the benefits you get from forming friendships at work, and what the definition of friendship at work really means. Especially if you’re at different levels. And it’s fascinating because there’s so much proof like there is for empathy in the workplace, that it boosts productivity, it boosts engagement and boosts retention. All of these things happen, this magic does happen. But it doesn’t magically happen that you create those friendships. And so she also gives advice about how to create those friendships in a way that works for you. So I’m gonna put a link to that episode in our show notes. But yeah, definitely want to Yeah, definitely want to let you know about her work, because it’s exactly that. And so I would love to get into what are those? You know, just give us a little amuse boosh, because we want people to get the book. But what are those five questions? A few of them if you want to tease us with some of them?
Michael Bungay Stanier 32:08
So the core idea is how do I build the best possible relationship with somebody. So again, not a perfect relationship, not every working relationship is going to be a unicorn, burping up a rainbow. You’re like each of your key relationships with a boss or team or colleague or vendor or whoever? The ones that affect your happiness and your success. They have a kind of potential to how do you make them live up to as much potential as that relationship has, and you know, the attributes for me that it should feel safe, it should feel vital, meaning lively for all of life, and it should be repairable. Then you go well, okay, Michael, that sounds good enough. But how do I get that you like where you have a conversation about how you work together? Before you leap into the work itself? That’s to be active conversate, it’s as simple and as difficult as that. So I call it the Keystone conversation in the book because I spoke about how we were before we were
Maria Ross 33:06
before we talked about what we’re doing. Let’s talk about how we’re going to make it happen naturally.
Michael Bungay Stanier 33:11
And that is hard and rare, because the worker was suckers us in like we always put you you
33:18
always let’s get down to business. Right? As he will say, yeah,
Michael Bungay Stanier 33:21
right, because it’s either a crisis or it’s exciting, or because you’ve just had years of going okay, we’re here to have a meeting. Let’s talk about the stuff that we’re having only half an hour. Yeah, right. And so the five questions that I think can shape a keystone conversation, and I’ll give everybody the headlines for them. The first one is the amplify question, which is, what your best, you know, when do you shine and when do you flow? And, you know, this draws on all that kind of positive psychology and appreciative inquiry and positive deviance, all this kind of going, how do we amplify the good rather than worrying about the bad? Like, if I was, Maria, you and I were going to launch a joint podcast together or write a book together with Paige to know it’d be really helpful for me to go Sumeria Kelly, when you’re right, when you’re creating and CO creating with somebody, and you’re at your best what’s going on? What does that look like? What are you great at, you know, what’s the thing that lights you up and puts you into the zone? And let me tell you what true about me, because you and I have just met. And we’ve already made up a whole bunch of stories about each other. You’ve made up stories about me, I’ve made up stories about you. I’m like, I Okay, I figured out Maria, I kind of know what she probably good at what she’s probably not good at. Yeah, and I’m drawing and all these cliches and whatever else stereotypes. And I’m like that you’re some are going to be partially true, but but actually, what if I heard from you what it is that lights you up and makes you in that place where you flow where you shine? Okay, that alone is sustained. Really lovely conversation where you’re like, This is talking about how we what we look like at our best. And then the Nathalia like, so how do we get some of that? Because that sounds pretty great. The second question is kind of a bit more mechanical. It’s like, the steady question, what are your practices? Or what are your preferences? Because many working relationships get damaged just by logistical hiccups, like, you know, it’s like, I hate zoom, and you keep making me come to zoom meetings. Like, I’m not a morning person, and you keep scheduling meetings for 7am.
Maria Ross 35:34
I don’t understand texts that are all emojis. Exactly.
Michael Bungay Stanier 35:38
Exactly. LOL LOL, lol. So, yeah, so a conversation about what are the logistic even mean, you know, the last number of years we’ve started going well, let me tell you what my pronouns are. But it can be as simple as go look, my name, for instance, is Michael Bungay Stanier. So let me tell you about my name briefly. When I got married, my wife and I combined our surnames and it became Bungay Stanier. But it doesn’t have a hyphen. There’s like an invisible hyphen. So it’s not Michael Stan year. And I like just tell you really my middle name, your name, My surname is Bungay Stanier without a hyphen. people mispronounce it all the time. You know, I heard a letter once to Michael banging spaniel. That’s not my name. It’s Bungay Stanier. And by the way, my name is Michael, not Mike. So don’t do this kind of funny thing around going back pulling your mic. I’m like, no, no, no. This is a mic. This is a mic. I speak into it on stage. I’m a Michael. Yeah. So just that mean, so I don’t have somebody unilaterally deciding that they want to call me Mike. And me basically hating them for the rest of their life. Yeah. Because I’m like, you just really started calling me Mike. So that’s just an example. third, and fourth question are the good date and the bad date question. So you can see they’re related. And the Insight is patterns from our past, repeat again and our future. So talk about the patterns from your past. So the good day question is, what can we learn from past successful relationships? I can you like, and when you’re answering that, talk about what the other person did that really made that relationship zing. And then the bad day question is what can you learn from past frustrating relationships. And when you’re answering that, particularly talk about how you contributed to the dysfunction of that working relationship, is that you know, it’s kind of interesting for a bit, they kind of have you bitch and moan about that other person. But actually, what’s really helpful for the other person is to go, this is how I screw relationships up. I do that all the time with the people on my team. Now, let me tell you how I will drive you nuts.
37:50
I read a wide put it out there, they’re gonna figure it out eventually, right?
Michael Bungay Stanier 37:53
And done right. And let me tell you how you manage me when I’m driving you nuts. This is how you, this is how we work around my flaws as a human being because of my flaws and manifold. And I would love them to all go away, but they probably won’t. So you can bet on me screwing up this way somewhere down the line. And when what happens, what
Maria Ross 38:16
I love about that is you give people permission, and you give it levity as well. And having that conversation because now we can go back to remember Michael, you know, You warned me that you were gonna do mansplain me that’s probably not one of your things, but you’re doing it and it’s like, Oh, am I like you can just have an honest conversation without putting up these facades. That’s right.
Michael Bungay Stanier 38:39
And it’s so much easier to do that. At the start. When the relationship when things are going well or just in a camp, you know, you can you can do this with a relationship that’s been ongoing for a while but do it in a calm period. It’s harder to have this conversation when you’re in that stress moment because you have screwed up you’re like that. That’s trickier. Yeah. And then the fifth and final question, the repair question is how will we fix it when things go wrong? And what’s powerful about that is two things. One is it says and just acknowledges the truth, which is it will go wrong.
Maria Ross 39:14
It’s not F right. It’s a win,
Michael Bungay Stanier 39:16
it will go off the rails at some stage, sometimes a big explosive wave more often in a smaller the fabric tears are away. Right. And secondly, it’s a kind of already a shared collective goal to fix it when it goes wrong. So there’s a shared commitment to the future health of the relationship. So
Maria Ross 39:35
as we wrap up, because this is all such great stuff, but what would be a few pieces of advice you would give to a leader listening to this who’s going Yes, I want to build a better relationship with my team. It has been maybe subpar at best so far. Do they go guns blazing into work tomorrow with like, I’ve got five questions that I want to talk about to you or like how would you But how would you encourage someone to, if you’re encouraging them to wade into this? So they don’t shock their team? Yeah. What are some ways they can they can get this moving for themselves?
Michael Bungay Stanier 40:12
So most people when they hear this or they read the book, they go, this sounds really good. I’m not sure I can do it. Again, it feels a bit anxious, kind of a bit odd and makes people feel a bit anxious that away, how do I do that? So one very fast thing people can do if this would be helpful for them is, at best possible relationship.com. There’s a video of me actually conducting a keystone conversation. So the first thing you can do is go What does that even look like? In reality? Well, let me show you a little video, you can just go there, it’s free, just access it at best possible relationship.com. But then, the call to action, if you like that I most hope is that people are brave enough to say this is worth giving it a go. Because at the moment, they’re in there to spend it between their will I do it or will I not do it. And both of those choices have prizes and punishments. If you don’t do it, the prize is that everything carries on, there’s no disruption, there’s no chance of failure, there’s no awkwardness, there’s no awkwardness, the punishment is the dysfunction rolls on the misery rolls on, there may be a low grade misery, but it’s still a misery choosing to be the person who starts it there are there are advantages to that this may boost the relationship, this may reset the relationship, this may enhance your leadership, this may build your your empathy capacity and your empathy muscle. The punishment is that it may not work, you know, there doesn’t always work, it may get rejected, you may feel like an idiot, you probably will be a bit weird and awkward. All of that is true as well. Somebody said to me recently, nobody likes to be the first person to say hello, everybody loves to be greeted. So what I would notice is you going so what are the reasons you’re making up about why it wouldn’t work with that person? And then I would tap in to our Roger Martin’s question. He’s a writer and a strategic thinker. And one of his best questions is what needs to be true for this to happen? And what I love about that as a strategic question is it doesn’t have you in the present going, how will I make this happen? It imagines you haven’t completed it. And then looking back and go what needed to be what needed to happen for this to be true. So I would go or a pick, pick one of your relationships. Sometimes it’s one of the relationships that’s already pretty strong. And you’re like, let me work in a way that feels safe. Some people pick a relationship that’s already so badly broken, that it just can’t get any worse. I have nothing left to lose. So I really go with this relationship. But our relationship
Maria Ross 43:00
like norm and accounting, who you can’t stand every time he walks down the hall, right? Yeah. So you’re like, setting norms and accounting. But yeah, it
Michael Bungay Stanier 43:08
can’t get much worse. But no. So why don’t we go? I know, we have a cup of coffee, I’d love a chat to go look, how do we make the way we’re working just a little bit better for you and for me, because I don’t sure about you. But at the moment I just tension, or at least it’s a bit irritating at times. And you might feel that as well, I suspect you do. I reckon we can, I reckon we could just make it a little bit easier for both of us who you are for a conversation around that.
Maria Ross 43:34
I love that because that is the whole crux of the work that I do around empathy, which is that if you actually try to reach out and have a conversation and make yourself a little bit vulnerable, you will understand someone’s context. And maybe what you thought, or why you thought that person was acting in a certain way. Could be something completely unrelated to the work Ah, you
Michael Bungay Stanier 43:56
just make all of this stuff up. Yeah. As soon as something happens. I mean, in writing this book, I did a lot of research into the people who are really deeply wise about writing about romantic relationships. So people like Esther Perell, and Dan Siegel, and Carrie all and the like. And you’re one of the themes that goes across all of their work is that a ie the relationships that flourish are the ones that get repaired, and be most of a sucker repair. Most of us when something small and damaging happens, we tend to go through that just proves that and you make up all these stories, and you make up all this drama and you try to go over it’s always going to happen, they’re always going to betray me or whatever it might be. And, you know, it kind of comes back to empathy and curiosity again, which was like I actually you probably got it wrong. So being brave enough to reach out, knowing that it doesn’t always work, right. You may your outreach may get rejected be the conversation itself may not really work, but see Will the ones that don’t get rejected and all the relationship conversations that do work will help you build the best possible relationships with many of your key people.
Maria Ross 45:09
I love that what a great, what a great piece of insight to leave us on. Thank you so much, Michael, for your insights today. We really appreciate it such good stuff. I know everyone will check out the book, I will put links in the show notes to all your books and your site and all the great work as well as to best possible relationship.com which has that free video that you mentioned. So thank you for being
Michael Bungay Stanier 45:31
here. Ria Thank you for having me. It was a lovely conversation. And thank
Maria Ross 45:35
you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard you know what to do, please rate and review and share it with a colleague or friend. Until next time, remember that cashflow? Creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
Resilience might be eligible for word of the year. You hear it everywhere you go. We talked a lot about resilience during the Pandemic. How do we bounce back and adapt?
One definition of resilience is “The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.”
Clearly, we need to embrace resilience as human beings. In a chaotic, unpredictable world where the only constant is change, you might drive yourself mad if you cannot adapt.
But more importantly, how is the skill of resilience strengthened, taught, or learned?
Today I share two examples from my childhood on how I learned resilience that I hope will not only enlighten you, but entertain you. (HINT: One involves my theater geek high school days!)
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Practice having a growth mindset – it is not about being externally praised, it is about your innate desire to practice and improve and look at what can be tweaked to change the outcome on your next attempt.
Learn from those losses in your life. You can process the grief of losing but still embrace the opportunities in front of you.
Try anyway! Even if you don’t have all of the boxes checked for whatever you’re aiming to do, try anyway, you may surprise yourself with what you do accomplish.
I learned from moments like that to process my grief over what I’d lost, but embrace what was in front of me – and make it my own.— Maria Ross
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.
Hi, welcome to this month’s hot take where you get me solo in your ear guest free. And I hope you’re having a wonderful February, the month of love, the month of Black History Month. And I hope you’re able to celebrate all forms of love, platonic love, romantic love, parent parental love, love for your job, love for your community, love for your pets.
All of the things, whether you’re celebrating with a romantic partner or you enjoy celebrating Galentine’s Day. I hope you have a wonderful month full of love and actually I hope you have a wonderful year full of love. But today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about resilience because resilience might be eligible for word of the year. You hear it everywhere you go. We talked a lot about resilience during the pandemic, and how do we bounce back and adapt. One definition of resilience is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties or toughness. Now, clearly, we need to embrace resilience as human beings. In a chaotic, unpredictable world where the only constant is change. You might drive yourself mad if you can’t adapt. But more importantly, how is the skill of resilience strengthened, taught or learned, can only be built when you face change or disappointment? Is it kinda like skydiving, like you only learn how to really do it by jumping out of the plane? And how can I teach it to my son before he actually needs to draw on it. So thinking back, I got lessons in resilience and rejection early from professional acting as a child where I never held on to any one opportunity to lightly and was on to the next if I wasn’t cast to participating in plays at school. While I got many juicy roles in school plays I remember the ones that stung, particularly one a school theater director organized a joint seventh, eighth and ninth grade summer production of the musical Grease and I wanted to be Marty Mara Tino so badly. She was the sophisticated red haired Pink Lady brilliantly portrayed by Dinah man off in the movie version. My favorite line of hers was on Marty Mara Tino as in Cherry. Before the audition, I studied the lines I watched the movie, I perfected my sex pot pout, even though I had no idea what I was doing it 1314 15 However, however old you are, when you’re in eighth grade ninth grade, the director somehow knew I wanted the role so it was mine to lose and lose. I did. While I have been a choir singer for a very long time. I was and still am very insecure about singing solo. So I bombed the singing portion of the audition, singing Freddie my love off key and likely to softly the director even sharply I might add, ask me later what happened? I don’t know. But the role went to a much more deserving classmate who did a fabulous job. And I got the part of Dorothy the cheerleader. I loved that my school plays would often give names to the extras so we didn’t have to simply be known as cheerleader number five, but I could play Dorothy and give her a whole backstory. I got to be an every dance number I sported a very fun fifth. cheerleading outfit. And I even got to do the hand jive with a cute boy during the big dance scene. I learned from moments like this to process my grief over what I’d lost, but embrace what was in front of me and make it my own. Play Dorothy to the hilt and perhaps, maybe even steal the show. I mean, I was voted best pickpocket in the seventh grade production of Oliver. Another unexpected resilience lesson came when I was in middle school. I desperately wanted to be on the drill team, which was the middle schools and high schools dance squad. I loved to dance, channeling Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson with my bestie to their iconic 80s hits on her living room couch. I even gained some brief notoriety with an unforeseen gift and rhythm for Dirty Dancing. We shall not speak of this. But my Achilles heel was not being able to do the splits. Despite being you know, a person who took ballet and gymnastics as a little girl, this flexibility eluded me, I even remember following random remedies like stretching after a hot bath or doing five minutes a day of slips against a wall. If you were on the drill team, you knew how to do the splits, high kicks and all of that. But that didn’t stop me from trying out three years in a row. I tried out in seventh, eighth, and then ninth grade for the high school team. The feedback, I nailed the routines. My smile was magnetic, but I couldn’t do the kicks or splits. And competition was fierce. So others made the team when I did not. With each disappointment, I still got up and tried out the following year. What can I do better? How could I finally limber up enough to do the splits? Could I make up for this inability with precision moves and bringing the energy. They now call this a growth mindset. But it just came naturally to me. It wasn’t about being praised. It was about my own innate desire to practice and improve. What could I tweak to change the outcome next time. A popular girl’s mom was on the selection committee one year and even told her to tell me how amazing I was at tryouts that I had such a great smile, but that the splits stopped me. But here was what I consider the truest test of resilience. Back then there was no email. So you had to go to the school on the designated day and check the list posted on the door to see if you made it or not. Once again, my name was not on it. But two of my good friends were. And I remember being on the phone in my kitchen with one of them. As we compared notes, weeping in silence. As we talked, I found a way to share in her excitement, through tears. She didn’t know I was crying. I said I’m so happy for you. You deserve this. She said all the right things that she was sorry. And it wasn’t fair. But in the end, she made it and I didn’t. on that phone call at the tender age of 13. I learned how to hold my own disappointment and check while still being happy for my girlfriend. Talk about hashtag hype women. Thank you, Aaron Gallagher for naming this needed ability, starting this movement in 2023. And showing how it only lifts all of us up. None of this answers my initial question about how you can teach resilience without any real fire actually testing your strength. There are some great science backed ways presented in an article by greater good on ways to build resilience. And I will put that link in the show notes. Some of their advice, change the narrative, face your fears, practice self compassion, meditate and cultivate forgiveness. But I submit that these are more like things you can do to shore up your foundation. So when you need to practice resilience, you’re ready. I don’t know if these tips actually build resilience because I’m still not sure it can be built until you’re actually tested. I believe that they make your internal landscape more amenable and open to resilience. They seed the soil, so to speak. Happy to hear other opinions about this. So ping me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I’m curious how you have learned resilience in your own life as a child or an adult? Do you intentionally do things to set up a better environment for yourself to be resilient when you need it? Did you have good role models? Or was this something you had to teach yourself? Please let me know. As you think about resilience as you think about shoring up your foundation. I hope you go on to have a wonderful week. And until next time here on the empathy edge. Remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria never forget empathy is your superpower use it to make your work and the world a better place.
