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Sara Taylor: Thinking at the Speed of Bias

Diversity, equity, and inclusion have become polarizing terms in our world and that is likely because they are greatly misunderstood. Part of that misunderstanding comes from our unconscious filters – how we see the world, how we take in information, and how we assume we are “the norm” but others are different when the reality is we are ALL different.

Today, Sara Taylor illuminates us by sharing what unconscious filters are and the three purposes they serve for us humans – even though they can get in the way of effective relationships. We discuss why diversity initiatives have become so polarized despite the data on how diversity and inclusion enrich organizations and the bottom line, and what we can do to better communicate those benefits by dealing with emotions and unconscious filters more than facts and figures. Sara also shares how intent and impact look different from both sides of the relationship, how to pause to check ourselves, and why leaders set the bar and build the culture so your DEIB initiatives will get traction.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

We are inputting 11 million bits of information every second across all our senses, but we can only process and are only consciously aware of 40 of those.
Assume positive intent on behalf of others. Also, assume your impact isn’t positive. When you take that accountability, we can communicate more effectively when we face obstacles.
It is not your responsibility to make others behave empathetically. It is your responsibility to model the appropriate empathetic behavior.
You can’t make empathy HR’s problem. It requires self-awareness and consciously slowing down to understand your own biases.

“Where are we missing the mark when we know that everyone benefits from an inclusive workplace? Why is there resistance? How do we need to approach folks in our organization that are resistant in a different way for them to see what’s in their self-interest as well?” — Sara Taylor. Author, Thinking at the Speed of Bias

Episode References:

Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) Assessment

The Empathy Edge podcast episodes related to DEIB:

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About Sara Taylor, President, deepSEE Consulting, Author, Thinking at the Speed of Bias

Nationally recognized speaker, author, and consultant, Sara is a thought leader in the field of DEI and Cultural Competence. Numerous individuals and organizations use her bestselling book, Filter Shift, and new release book Thinking at the Speed of Bias to increase success and create greater effectiveness in interactions across differences. Sara’s company, deepSEE Consulting works with local, national, and global clients to take their Diversity and Inclusion work to the next level.

Connect with Sara:

Book: Thinking at the Speed of Bias

deepSEE Consulting: deepseeconsulting.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarajanetaylor

Facebook: facebook.com/deepsee.consulting

Connect with Maria:

Get Maria’s books on empathy: Red-Slice.com/books

Learn more about Maria’s work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Maria Ross 00:04

Sara Taylor 02:34

show. Thank you so much, Maria, so glad to be here. Yeah. So you

Maria Ross 02:38

are not new to this author rodeo, you had another best selling book called filter shift, and tell us a little bit about we heard your bio. Tell us a little bit about how you got to this work and what makes you so passionate about it, before we dive into the content of this podcast today. Yeah,

Sara Taylor 02:55

absolutely. Well, that’s kind of a there’s two parts to that question. And for those that are listening and don’t see me, I’m a white woman, and you might think, what the heck is a white woman doing as a diversity, equity and inclusion practitioner of 35 years and surprisingly, even though I grew up on a farm outside of a teeny tiny town, I actually have been doing this work since I’ve been in middle school. I was giving presentations and doing research about bias and stereotype. We didn’t call it bias then, but stereotypes and how to be able to see each other more holistically. So honestly, that young, it’s just kind of always been a passion of mine.

Maria Ross 03:49

Yeah, I love it. And so while 35 years so you have a really good perspective, you know, I’ve seen the changes over the last decades as well. I’m curious this. I wasn’t planning to ask you this, but I gonna throw it out there. What is your perspective on the backlash to dei be in our world today, and do you think it’s short lived? Do you think it’s just a matter of maybe changing the words we use and still embracing the concepts like, what’s your take on that?

Sara Taylor 04:18

Yeah, well, you know, overall, I would say that in some ways, it is a natural reaction, because we’re starting to get some traction, and folks are a little nervous, starting to feel as though they’re going to lose out. And also, there’s a real lack of understanding of what the work actually is, exactly. And so if folks think it is, this is just activity to replace me and mine, then lots of reason to become polarized against that. Absolutely. I think that one thing that’s obviously very, very different about what we see, a couple of things. First, the. Resistance that we see today is amplified in social media, and obviously that wasn’t the case 35 years ago, exactly. And we also know that incidents of actual violence have been on the increase, and that couples with this work in organizations, because folks become more afraid of the work, the more there is violence in our society, violence against particularly marginalized groups. So that is all very, very different. You also in that question, though, said, What do I think is this going to last? And I think in some ways resistance in general, yes, may last. We may completely change the words that we use, but I don’t think the work itself will stop, because there are significant measurable research based reasons, evidence, economic evidence for doing this work in organizations. And so when organizations can make money or save money by doing something, they’re gonna be doing it

Maria Ross 06:17

for sure. That’s actually my optimistic take as well is, you know, folks saying that this is, you know, on the decline, or kind of stay away from it when you’re talking about empathy. The remarkable thing that you see is that organizations that recognize the benefits they’re achieving by investing in diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, all the things they’re not going to be willing to let go of that, because there’s a bottom line benefit to them, and there’s a benefit too overall, in terms of their ability to attract the right talent, their ability to stay innovative and compete, their ability to make good business decisions. So it’s not just this, like fancy veneer they’re putting on their business. It’s actually helping the business or the organization succeed. And so that’s actually my, you know, my hopeful star that I look to all the time to say, you know, if it’s kind of crass, but it’s also like, well, if they’re continuing to see the benefits and they’re continuing to make money, they’re going to continue to support it, no matter what anyone says, no matter what the so

Sara Taylor 07:19

I’m hoping absolutely well. And you know, the other piece about that, we can always look externally and say, How are folks talking about us? Are they going to, you know, what’s going to all of that? And I think it is also an opportunity for introspection as a practice. So if we know so clearly that there are benefit yet folks aren’t seeing it. How are we not communicating about this work in a way that we could be? Where are we missing the mark when we know that really everyone benefits from an inclusive workplace? Then why is there resistance? How do we need to approach folks in our organization that are resistant in a different way for them to be able to see what’s in their self interest as well.

Maria Ross 08:09

Absolutely, and I think you know what you said earlier about the misunderstanding, I get this with empathy all the time, of the misunderstanding of empathy and leadership, the more we can educate that’s actually helping us get over the change management hump of this, which is really psychological. It’s not data driven, so being able to explain, no, this is what it is, and this is what it isn’t. And here’s the role you get to play in this, and here’s how it doesn’t threaten you. It actually enhances what you do. It enables you to do your job better all of these things. It’s a psychological exercise, as much as it is. You know us, we really want to throw the data at people, but it’s really about their emotions at that point. So So talk to us about unconscious filters. What are they? How do we recognize them, and what is the damage that they do

Sara Taylor 09:01

absolutely unconscious filters are automatic mechanisms that operate in our unconscious, and they dictate for us, our thought, our decisions and eventually, Our actions. So one way to better understand them is by understanding what their functions are. So just like my elbow has been designed to bend my arm and it has evolved to do that, my filters have been designed to do three things. First, actually, the first one to get at it. I’m going to ask a question, how many pieces of information do you think our brains take in in one second?

Maria Ross 09:49

Oh, how much are they exposed to? Or how much do they take

Sara Taylor 09:53

in? Well, actually taking in? Yeah, okay, and I mean, one second,

Maria Ross 09:58

I feel like it. In the hundreds of 1000s, just all the data points across our senses. Yeah, 11

Sara Taylor 10:05

million. And you’re right. It’s across all of our senses, 11 million. And the reason why that’s difficult to imagine is because of the second part of the question, how many of those 11 million are we conscious of? Only 40. So

Maria Ross 10:19

40 million or 4040, per second. Okay, got it

Sara Taylor 10:25

so the rest of those 10,999,960 it’s our filters that are taking them in, Yeah, completely outside of our conscious awareness. How many seconds have I been awake today? I don’t know, not a savant to be able to figure that out. But multiply that by that number, that’s how much information I don’t even have conscious access to that. I’ve taken it the second. So that’s the first function. They’re designed to take in that information without our conscious ever being aware of it, because it’s too much for our conscious to it’s protective, in a way. It’s protective. Yeah, our conscious just literally isn’t able to do that, right? So, yep, we need the information. Then the second piece is, second function is our filters go through all of that information, and they use it in every situation to explain and evaluate what’s going on around us. So that explanation and evaluation is coming only from my past experiences. And then the third function I’ll get at also with a question, and I’ll ask you to pause and just see if the listeners can think about it for a second too. Can you tell me right now what your next thought will be? And we can’t, because that thought is created in our unconscious by our unconscious filters. So you start to see putting all three of these together, just how very powerful they are, taking in more information than we’re conscious of, then using that information to create our thoughts, which in turn create our decisions and our actions. Which means every single one of my actions today, whether they were inclusive or not, whether they were equitable or not, whether they were effective or not. They originated with an unconscious filter. And if I don’t have the ability to check and challenge those filters, then my filters are 100% in control.

Maria Ross 12:38

My gosh, so good. Well. And also, you know, where we link that up with how we end up treating other people is that we’re constantly creating, it sounds like we’re constantly creating all those shortcuts. It sounds like kahnemans work around the brain and the two areas of our brain of the conscious and the unconscious, and our brain only letting in so much into our conscious, just from again, from a defensive, a protective like we can only handle so much, but then that impacts not only the decisions we make, but how we treat other people. And so I’d love if you would talk about what is the impact on our empathy of those unconscious filters,

Sara Taylor 13:19

absolutely, if the behavior of another person. So let’s think about that. Our filters create our thought, which create our behaviors, right? And that’s the same with the people that I’m interacting with, but if I’m not thinking about their filters, I’m only focused on their behaviors. And so I see the behavior and I say, Oh, that was rude. Well, that was unprofessional. And I might even expand that value judgment to them as on as an individual, not just their behavior, but they were rude. They were unprofessional versus thinking about that behavior was created by a filter for them as well. And then, if I overlay that with another piece that, if we really think about, I’ve asked this question to, I don’t know, 10s of 1000s of people in presentations and and I say, you know, how many folks, how many of you enter the workplace every day, or enter into your relationships with positive intent? Everyone raises their hand. I mean, honestly, who shows up in the workplace and says, Today, I really want to be an ogre, like I want the biggest jerk? Yeah, yeah. So if we all have positive intent, then why is there any misunderstanding? Why am I not able to see then how my action landed differently for someone else? Mm. Hmm, I’m focused on my positive intent and not the impact I have on the other person. And I’m also not thinking about their positive intent. That’s really the empathy gap. So I’m focused on I’m respectful, because I don’t want to be an ogre, right? I’m respectful, I’m professional, but yet there’s this disconnect here, so then that means they’re the ones that are disrespectful, and I don’t have the empathy to see where that behavior came from. And so instead of seeing that end behavior as something that came from their filters. My I’m letting my filters judge them, yes. So let’s take just a real quick, really easy example. Let’s say two folks, and one like small talk in the in a meeting, and the other one doesn’t. And you can imagine the kind of conflicts, right? So Well, you could extrapolate

Maria Ross 16:06

this across introversion versus extroversion, yes, people that are more open and vulnerable than other people, like, yeah, all the differences that we bring to the workplace, for sure of

Sara Taylor 16:16

those, and if I’m only focused on well that person was rude because they didn’t have the small talk. And I like small talk. I’m not exhibiting the empathy to know what were they really intending. What really did that behavior mean for them? Can I really see that from their perspective, not from my perspective, because if I’m only looking from my perspective and leaning into my filters that are judging them as rude, then I don’t have that room for empathy to see that’s not at all what they intended.

Maria Ross 16:58

So what I’m hearing, which is an interesting tie in of our work. Why you’re here is that in order to get to first acknowledge our unconscious filters that we have them, but also to leverage empathy as a way for us to get beyond both of our unconscious filters in an interaction. And that’s where you know why I believe that trait of curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people. Because I’m not going to make assumptions. I’m going to ask. I had a situation several months ago with a new person that I met. I’m a hugger. I meet people and I hug them, and I was sensing that this woman was like bristling when I was hugging her, and I was making an assumption that as another woman, she was a hugger too. And so what I did was I just said, Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m actually a hugger. Are you not a hugger? And she didn’t quite answer the question, but at least I could ascertain that it wasn’t comfortable for her to hug me yet. Yeah. And so I could have made all kinds of judgments about this person. Absolutely it was cold, or she didn’t like me or whatever, when it’s really, she’s just not a hugger. And so it was just, you know, being able to just put that out there. And I think she was taken aback that I even called it out, but she was also relieved at the same time, yeah, that, you know, her actions weren’t, her impact wasn’t going to be misinterpreted either. And so I really feel like when we are more present, and we’re kind of getting people’s cues, but also asking them those questions, we can help them recognize their unconscious filters as well, absolutely.

Sara Taylor 18:33

And what we the way I talk about it, is very first understanding your own and you started there. Yeah, I’m a hugger, right? So then you know when you’re in those situations, and that’s a rub. But the same is true for things that aren’t as visible, like you mentioned. I’m an extrovert, how does that show up in my behaviors then? I’m a direct communicator. How does that show up in my behaviors then? Or I’m crystal clear about how I’m different, yeah, different from for you, not everybody in this world is a hugger, right? And so if we assume difference a starting with ourselves, that what I do is not the norm. Mm, hmm, what I do is my difference. My filters are my difference. How am I different? How are my filters dictating how I see the world, and then not holding judgment when you come across the difference. And you did that in your example, two things that I’ll just it

Maria Ross 19:32

only took me to my 50s to get that, but

Sara Taylor 19:37

I know when we’re all it’s

Maria Ross 19:39

a long time I just I’m laughing at what you’re saying, not because I’m laughing at you. You’re reminding me of this whole thing of like you’re different because you’re not me versus me, saying, Well, I’m different from you. It reminds me of when I moved to Ohio from New York, from Long Island, from Queens, when I was going into sixth grade. Yeah. And I purposely lost my New York accent because I was treated so badly, yeah, that the kids were saying, Well, you have a funny accent. And I was saying, but you have a funny accent, and they’re like, No, we don’t. We talk like the people on the news. So we don’t have an accent. You do. And it’s was such a great example of No, but to me, you have an accent. I don’t, right, so it’s just that was such a like, blatant example of us. We don’t we think our behaviors and our norms are the norms are the norm. Anyone who’s not that is different,

Sara Taylor 20:36

yes. And then when we don’t start with ourselves and say, I’m the different, then what can happen is we can more easily sit with judgment with others. So if I’m the norm, then, yeah, that’s why your behavior isn’t right, isn’t professional, right? So it’s a whole lot easier to release that judgment if we start with, I’m the different. And it’s also helps us to lean into assuming that there’s different, yeah, and just automatically there’s going to be a difference. Might there be some cases it’s kind of like, I think about the criminal justice mantra, right, innocent, until proven guilty. I say different until proven similar. You might still find that there’s a similarity, but if I start with it’s different, then I’m gonna ask, you know, like in this well, I’ll actually take, uh, what I just did just the other day, there was a holiday that was that’s coming up. And I said, So do you celebrate that holiday? And they said, Yeah, okay, well, then happy this holiday, right? So I’m assuming that difference is there, and the same could be like with that example of a hugger. So I’m a hugger. What do you think? Are we hugging? Are we shaking hands or Yeah, kind of a thing, yeah, just assuming that difference is going to be there.

Maria Ross 22:06

You know, what’s interesting as I’ve gotten older through my career, one of the biggest ones that I’ve become more cognizant of is that whole extroversion, introversion thing. For years, I’ve taken multiple Myers, Briggs, from the time I was like 15 in, like, a leadership camp to, you know, 20 years ago, within a work team that we had and my four letters have kind of remained the same for my entire life. But one of the biggest things I realized about difference at work, when we talk about diversity, we’re not just talking about ethnicity or race or gender. There’s a lot of different facts. And really taking the time to understand that if someone is not speaking up in a meeting or brainstorming session. It’s not because they don’t have anything to offer. It’s because I process in the moment, out loud they do not. They need time to marinate and think about and, you know, discover for themselves. And I was always very judgy early in my career, in my 20s of people like that, until I realized and now I accommodate that in meetings, when I do workshops for teams, when I do brand strategy engagements, I try to give people different modalities to tap into their ideas, so that when we do come to the workshop, understanding that there might be someone who doesn’t say a word for that entire four hours. But have I given them some sort of an outlet, or some sort of a forum, or some preparation they can do in advance? But that was a long time to realize that, and I think it’s because we didn’t have people talking to us like we do today, about difference and about inclusion and just, you know, everybody is not built like us, and this is why you know in my recent book in the empathy dilemma, why the first pillar of being empathetic and effective as a leader is self awareness, yes, understanding where you are and what your strengths and your challenges and your blind spots and your emotional triggers are because they’re different than someone else’s so absolutely little diatribe there. But well,

Sara Taylor 24:03

it’s not because it it completely connects in our process of developing this ability to check and challenge our filters, our ability to be more effective, that’s where we start, too, and we talk about it as see self. I need to see my own filters, see my own differences before I see others, yes, and see their filters and their differences before I see approach and think about how I’m going to operate differently. And when it just to be clear, when I say, see, we’re not talking about just ocular vision there. We’re talking about all of the ways that we’re taken in, yeah, which is, like you said, you know, the feelings, the sense I’m getting about folks, but what we often do is we want to go straight to that end. Okay, what am I supposed to do in this situation?

Maria Ross 24:53

What am I supposed the action? Yeah,

Sara Taylor 24:57

when we actually have to develop. Through those I can’t do that do if I can’t take those other first steps first

Maria Ross 25:06

so I wanted to ask you about that, because we always do like to leave people with some practical things they can practice or take away from this. And so if you’re in that moment, whether it’s it’s you as a leader with your team, what would you advise people to what could be a next step they can take. Is it just they have a broad relationship? Is it that they, you know, what do you advise in that moment where it’s like, okay, I realize there is difference now. Now, where do I go from here? Who accommodates who as an example?

Sara Taylor 25:34

Oh my gosh. Okay, just in all of that, I’m like, Okay, I’ll say this, and I’ll say that it’s

Maria Ross 25:41

just based on the picture. Sorry, say it all. Say

Sara Taylor 25:43

it all. Let me actually start with where you ended, which was, I do get this a lot. You know, folks will say, you know, but it’s a two way street. It’s a two way street. So why do I have to be the one that shifts my behavior? And I use in my first book the analogy of, let’s just pretend it actually is a street, and we’re headed towards each other, and I see the obstacles that will make us crash, and you don’t. Would I say, Well, hey, this is a two way street. I’m not gonna I’m head straight to those obstacles, because you are too. I mean, no, we wouldn’t do that. We wouldn’t cause a crash intentionally. We wouldn’t cause that flash of our personalities, of our ways of being, that ineffectiveness. So first of all, that accountability. If I’m going to wait for others, well, then I’m going to get it sucked into an effective interaction, when I might be able to pull that up to a more effective place. The other piece is just some real quick things we talked about it a little bit earlier, and that is really thinking about intent impact. So instead of focusing on my intent, which my filters are always going to say, you’re right, Sarah, you’re respectful, you’re professional, you’re this, it was them. Instead, I’m going to flip that around, and I’m going to assume positive intent on their behalf, and then I’m also going to assume that the impact I had on them wasn’t positive. So when I do that, it gives me the other piece, which is accountability. I need to take accountability for what’s going to happen in this interaction. Again, it’s kind of like I was saying earlier. Who wants to raise their hand and say, Yay, I really want to be ineffective. No, none of us. So let’s take accountability for being as effective as we can in those situations, assume positive intent on the other part and focus on our own impact. That’s one quick strategy.

Maria Ross 27:55

I love that because, and first of all, I love the analogy of the two cars going at it because it’s like, okay, so what do you want to do? You want to be right, or you want to be right, or you want to be dead, like, exactly. But I love that analogy, and I also love your point about, you know, and I think, I hope, at least for me, it’s been true again, as you get older, you start to think more about what role you play in the interaction I talk to when I’m doing leadership trainings or keynotes. I talk about this fact of understanding what you bring to the interaction, yes, and where you know it’s that old phrase of like, well, I’ve had all these bad relationships with all these people at work. Well, what’s the common denominator? It’s you, right. So thinking about, well, what actually am I bringing that? Maybe it may be, it might not be the truth, but maybe that person is reacting to yes or responding to So really being thoughtful and reflective about the bad situations. I do this a lot. When I have arguments with my husband, I think back of like, oh, I probably could have said that in a better way, or I could have, you know, it doesn’t avoid the argument, but you know, it’s being able to reflect on it after and not just assume it’s all the other person’s fault or the other person needs to do all the changing. And what I always tell people, and this sounds similar, is that when I get the question of, well, what do I do if I’m in an interaction with someone who’s not empathetic, like no matter what I do, they’re not being empathetic to me, and I always say, well, that’s kind of not your responsibility. All you can do is model how you want the interaction to go and hope it stays with them, and it may not impact them in that conversation, but maybe when they go away, they’ll realize that you were acting in a certain way with them, and you were getting curious, and you were trying to reach out, and maybe you’ve impacted them for the next interaction or the interaction with someone else. And so it’s you can’t make someone be inclusive in your world or equitable. We can’t make someone be empathetic. All we can do is be the model and show up absolutely that we can and hope that people sort of get the hint. Yes, absolutely, to dumb it down, right?

Sara Taylor 30:01

Absolutely, you know, you’re reminding me of, I remember eons ago in a parenting class. You know, our youngest daughter was probably, you know, three or four, and the instruct parenting instructor saying, okay, you know, we hear you all want your kids to be empathetic. How do you teach that? And we all sat there scratching our heads, how do you teach empathy? How do you teach empathy? And it was that be empathetic yourself. It is that same piece, so also from my line of work, if I want to set up my children in my life for being an inclusive and effective when they’re adults, I need to model that now with them, right, whatever the children are in my life or the staff that I have on my team, I need to model it myself.

Maria Ross 30:55

For sure, your actions speak way louder than your words, and so talk to us a little bit about what is your intent with the new book. With, first of all, I want to know what you mean by thinking at the speed of bias. But also, what do you hope leaders will do after reading the book? What do you hope they take away from it? So kind of two questions in there as we wrap up.

Sara Taylor 31:15

Yeah, absolutely. Thinking at the speed of bias. If you think about those three functions of our filters, our filters go boom. They’ve created my thought, which lots of times I don’t even have the thought. I just go straight to the action, and it’s happens in a millisecond. So in order to catch up with ourselves, we’ve got to slow down, and we’ve got to have a more active, conscious process. So instead of our filters just dictating our our actions or our behaviors, we do a check and a challenge. Wait, what was that? Well, you know, where is that coming from? And in my book, I give a lot of tools of how to do that. Again, you know, one that I mentioned be real clear about my biggest filters, that’s one of the easiest ways to see when those are in juxtaposition to someone who’s different, and also know understanding the different types of filters and so forth. So that piece of how do you think at the speed of bias? It’s impossible to think that fast. So we have to actually counter intuitively, slow down. We have to slow down and slow down our conscious process in order to do that check in challenge. So when it comes to organizations, what I hope that leaders will do is just like we started off before saying the work starts with ourselves. That’s true in organizations as well. Leaders have to do their own work first. This is not work that we can delegate. We are taught as leaders to delegate, but this is not work you can delegate. Hey, will you go to get some of that self awareness for me? We can you have that by next Friday? I

Maria Ross 32:59

actually say that about empathetic culture, about, you know, you as a leader, can’t make it hrs problem.

Sara Taylor 33:05

Yeah, absolutely.

Maria Ross 33:07

Go. Make us an empathetic culture like, no, you’ve got to do some of the work for your team, and that’s why, you know, the first two pillars in the empathy dilemma are about self, not about others, because you have to have your own house in order. Yes, and you won’t succeed every day. You’re going to have different levels of capacity on different days. And I’m sure it’s the same in the work that you do as well.

Sara Taylor 33:28

Absolutely. And the other piece is that we actually measure this competence. There’s a an assessment out there called the IDI that measures it, and what we have seen in 1000s of groups and organizations, is that when we look at the overall effectiveness of an organization, it is never more effective or more developed than its leaders. So what does that mean? Not that our leaders are somehow better or smarter. It means that our leaders set the bar and create the culture, so if our leaders haven’t done their own work to develop, they cannot expect their organization to develop and be more effective. It also means that any kind of dei work you’re doing without that development is just going to be hamster wheel, spinning the wheels 100% transactionless attraction list transactions. So that development piece has to come first, starting with leaders cascading down in the organization, and then they’ll have the ability to really take a look at where inclusion or exclusion, equity or inequity is built into the system. I love it. Well, I could

Maria Ross 34:48

talk to you for another hour about this. This is great, but we gotta go. I’m gonna put a link to the IDI assessment you mentioned in the show notes, and I’m also gonna give listeners a few episodes they may want to. To take in that are related to this topic, from allies and inclusion experts like Karen Catlin and some of the names are escaping me. Cynthia, oh young, I will put some links to those past episodes as well, because this touches on so much so. Sarah, thank you so much for your time and your insights today. And where can we’ll have all your links in the show notes, but where can folks that are on the go learn more about you and your work?

Sara Taylor 35:26

Yeah, LinkedIn is good spot. So Sarah Taylor also my company, which is deep sea consulting, and that’s se deep sea consulting, that’s another good spot, of course, wherever you get your books, and particularly Amazon. I’ve got an author bio there, and you can get the books there as well. Yes,

Maria Ross 35:45

the new book is called thinking at the speed of bias, and your past best seller is called filter shift. So everyone, please check those out. Thank you again, Sarah,

Sara Taylor 35:53

thank you, Maria. This has been a delight. And thank you everyone

Maria Ross 35:57

for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate review, share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the 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. You.

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

Jason Silver: How to Enjoy Your Work More

Work can be one of the biggest drivers of positivity in your life, but no one ever really explains how to be successful without sacrificing everything outside of the office. When you enjoy your work, you’re more successful and any joy you feel on the job spills over into the rest of your life as well. Kind of like practicing empathy at work and bringing that skill home with you!
My guest today is Jason Silver, author of Your Grass is Greener: Use What You Have, Get What You Want. At Work and in Life. We discuss why leaning into values matters, what he learned about people-centric leadership at AirBnB, and how he carried that into his other successful endeavors. He shares 9 of the most common workplace challenges, why the term “best practice” is dangerous, and the difference between intention and purpose. He shares powerful habits to find more enjoyment at work – which he says is not the fluff but the fuel – and he tells you exactly how to ask your boss to allow you to do your work in ways you enjoy more! Finally, we discuss why it’s easy for leaders to attribute cost but less easy to attribute exponential benefits when you focus on enjoyment and people first.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Take care of your people first and they will take care of any problem your business runs into.
The earlier you start, the more you can bake the values of the organization into the company and team members, which makes it easier to make every decision based on those values.
It is not a waste of time to reflect and learn from our weeks. If we don’t know where we were unintentionally pulled sideways or intentionally set other things aside, we won’t know what we need to focus on going forward.
You are not going to find every aspect of your job fun or enjoyable, but it doesn’t have to be constant fun for you to find overall enjoyment in your career.

“Enjoyment isn’t the fluff. Enjoyment is the fuel. The more you’re enjoying your work, the more likely it is that you accomplish bigger and bigger things.” — Jason Silver

From Our Partner:

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

About Jason Silver, Founder and author of Your Grass is Greener

Jason Silver is a multi-time founder of kids and a multi-time founder of companies. He gets his biggest thrill helping modern employees and their teams unlock a better way to work—surfing is a close second. He was an early employee at Airbnb and helped build an AI company from the ground up back before AI was the cool thing to do. Today, he as a self-professed “Startup Personal Trainer”, advises a startup portfolio valued in the billions on how to build great, lasting companies that people actually enjoy working for. He’s a sought-after public speaker, instructor, and advisor on how to transform work into one of the biggest drivers of positivity in your life. When he’s not busy helping people solve their hardest workplace challenges, Jason’s kids are busy reminding him just how much of a work in progress he still is too.

Connect with Jason Silver:

Website: thejasonsilver.com

Book: Your Grass is Greener: Use What You Have. Get What You Want. At Work and In Life

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/silverjay

Connect with Maria:

Get Maria’s books on empathy: Red-Slice.com/books

Learn more about Maria’s work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Jason Silver 02:46

Thank you, Todd for having me, Maria, excited to chat. So before we

Maria Ross 02:49

get started, I want to ask you. What I ask all my guests is, what is your story, what got you to this place and the work that you’re doing, and especially to writing this book, your grass is always greener. Great title, by the way.

Jason Silver 03:00

Thank you. It’s a bit of a circuitous journey that, like, makes sense when you look back and was is still always frightening while I’m my way through it. But, you know, long story short, I never intended to write a book. You know, people will be like, oh, there’s, you know, the author of the book. And I’m like, looking behind me, like, who are they talking about? But I was an engineer by training. Thought I would be technical work on a bunch of technology got really interested in everything that goes around the technology. How do you build a team? A great company joined my first startup in business, which was kind of the first entrepreneurial thing I did. I wanted to work in business. Didn’t want to get an MBA. Said, Hey, let me come and work here for free, for a little bit nothing on paper says I can do business, but like, let’s just see what happens. I got very lucky. It went great. CEO kind of took me under his wing and was like, You don’t talk, but you sit here and you take notes and you can sit in a bunch of different chairs. Great, great. So I learned about, you know, fundraising and partnership deals and commercialization and yada yada yada yada. The company got acquired. I had a software project on the side which was taking like 30 hours a week. It was a lot on the side. So I jumped. Started my first company hit like a double or a single. Wanted to go bigger. Founded another company, raised venture capital, built a team. Crash that company, which was always an interesting story, happy to talk about

Maria Ross 04:20

it. Oh yeah. I mean, I lived through, through both tech bus, both the night, the one in 99 and then the one in 2008 so, yeah,

Jason Silver 04:27

yeah, it was, that was an experience for sure. You know, I thought my career was done. Like, that’s it, you know, I was 20 something, and I was like, Well, I will never get hired again. Nobody will ever put money in a company again. Like, I peaked. We’re done here. That was a nice run. Let me go be a barista. Yeah, that’s right, yeah, that’s not what happened. One of my investors, whose money I almost entirely lost, thought enough of the way I handled building the company. What happened? He called me up one day and he said, Jay, there’s this team. I think you could be a great fit while you have a chat with them. And that was the folks at Airbnb back before. Airbnb. Was Airbnb, right, met them, got to, you know, experience what the the unicorn in the valley was before it was the big, cool thing to do. So, you know, I was there and we were a couple 100 people got to feel the like scale up to a couple 1000, which was, you know, crazy, lots of learnings there. Wanted to do a startup. Again, had my first kid coming, wanted to be based in the city that, you know, my family’s in. So I did the only thing that feel logical, like, jump started another company. I joined a company that had been started, but there were, like, two people and a half a pitch deck and, like, right, you know, times, and that was in artificial intelligence before artificial intelligence was the coolest thing that everybody was working on. So it was, you know, fun to be kind of early in there, you know, hit a moment in my life where I wanted to do something different and pay forward all the things I’ve been very fortunate to learn. And now I basically advise other people how to build their companies so that, you know, they love their jobs, and the people who work for the companies love their jobs and have a great experience as well, and yada yada that led to the book in a way I never would have expected. Okay,

Maria Ross 06:05

so, so many things in there. First of all, you need to play the lottery just how you fell into these tech companies that did well. Also, I love that you call yourself a startup personal trainer to really guide a startup to success and help them achieve their goals. But you made a shift in your career from numbers to people, and you say it started with your time at Airbnb. Can you talk about that? Yeah,

Jason Silver 06:28

sure. You know, I think because of my engineering upbringing, you know, everything for me was like a technical problem. I I value the education I got in engineering, like the problem solving skills and what have you, but it led me astray in a lot of leadership ways. And what I learned from airb, what I thought I knew about leadership, was, okay, we’ve got a job. We need to get done an outcome we’re trying to deliver. People are one of many inputs, but they’re interchangeable, right? What we need are humans that can do certain things, and if you get humans that can do certain things and will accomplish certain things as a result. For me, I learned that for me, that is wrong. Might work for other people, it doesn’t, you know, work for me and I don’t. It’s not what I’ve seen create the best teams, and what I learned at Airbnb, and the way I think about business now is, you know, you show me a problem. My first question is not going to be, let’s say we’re trying to double sales. Most people will start with, oh, like, what market are you in? What does the product look like? I’m like, tell me about the people who are working on this problem. What are they doing? What are they interested in? What are they motivated by? What’s going on in their in their lives? You know, really like people first. And it’s that old adage, you know, you know, you take care of your people, and they’ll take care of the problems. And so I really genuinely believe that, and Airbnb is the first place that I saw in action, to the point where, after I joined, I was, like, a month or two in, and I was just like, What the heck is this place like this? Can’t, if not for the if not for the scaling I was seeing us doing. I would not have believed somebody describing to me that these business practices would lead to these kind of outcomes. I’d be like, Oh, yeah. What you’re describing is like, you know, not the way that a type A should strive and drive and whatever right. Super long about that. Can

Maria Ross 08:18

you give a few examples of some of those,

Jason Silver 08:20

like, things that Airbnb did, or things that I kind of took that were

Maria Ross 08:24

surprising to you, of like, how can you lead your company to success operating that way?

Jason Silver 08:29

Yeah, I maybe two would kind of pop out. Airbnb, in my personal experience, is like the lead worldwide leader in off sites. You know, this was way before remote work was, like, the hottest topic and all that kind of stuff, but the amount of time that I spent flying to, like other offices to meet with their teams with very loose agendas, and I would go to these things, or people would come to, you know, where I was based, like, a lot of high horsepower individuals who are being paid a lot of money to sit In a room and talk about what’s going on inside of the business. I was just like, hey, can we stop doing this? I have work to get done. Like, we gotta go do stuff. Yeah, what I didn’t realize is there’s so much that comes out of that. If you can’t, there’s no straight line ROI for a thing like that. And it was just baked into the culture. You know, every so often we need to get together in a room. And when things are growing so quickly, you just put people in a room, and there’s some kind of cross pollination that happens, and you can’t predict the outcome. You just do the job very you know well, and the job being, put people in the room, create the right atmosphere, get the right people around the table, give them the right prompting question. And you know, more often than not, something great is going to come out of the other end. You just don’t know where or when it’s going to happen. And I think that I looked at it as a detractor, you know, this is a thing that slows us down. I think it was the opposite, in retrospect. It was something that sped us up. It was a thing that allowed us to go much more quickly. Because. As, you know, as I was kind of progressing at Airbnb, I started to work on more global stuff. And, you know, I would know the team from Japan, like personally, I know what’s going on for them. I know how they’re thinking about things. It doesn’t come up in regular meetings, you know, just doesn’t happen, yeah, but because I know them, it’s like, I could call them up. We can move a thing faster. I can put myself in their shoes better than I otherwise would have been able to. And huge, huge, huge benefit.

Maria Ross 10:25

I love that realization, because that is the crux of my work. Is that, you know, when people say it takes too long to be an empathetic leader, they make the same argument about strategy. It takes too long to sit down and do the strategy when we’ve got to get the tactics going right. That’s a very quarter to quarter mindset, very short term thinking. You’re going to pay the price for that at some point. So you might as well put the money and time in up front and accelerate faster to your point that when you take the time to build those relationships, when you take the time to get to know the people on your team, when you take the time to work, not in the business, but on the business. Like, let’s pick our heads up and look six months out, one year out. And I love what you said about putting the right people in the room, prompting them with the right questions, and then, sort of like, you know, getting your popcorn out and seeing what happens. Because people, if you’re hiring the right people, they will rise to the occasion in many circumstances, not all, but in many circumstances that the command and control model doesn’t work anymore. In today’s world, it’s moving too fast. It’s changing too much, and our problems are too complex, and it requires us to spend the time on these interpersonal relationships to actually be able to, in the end, move forward faster. And I love that you came to that realization having come from an engineering background.

Jason Silver 11:51

You know, I think there’s a good expression, like, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And I think that kind of always stuck with me. And, you know, pulling the thinking out of Airbnb, that the challenge that I’ve seen that similar to what you described, is, I think there’s a big attribution mismatch. The challenge is that it’s really easy to attribute the cost to something like being an empathetic leader or to doing an off site or what have you, and it’s very difficult, bordering on impossible, to attribute the benefit, right? Because I can tell you, Okay, I spend this much time traveling to the place, and I spend this much time at the off site that I could spend working on other things, and it costs us this much money to run the off site. And then you’re like, Okay, great. The cost is X amount of hours, X amount of dollars. Well, what did that get us right. You know, you’re not going to know the benefit that it is providing over the years as things are evolving and changing, because there’s no through line. And I think that would kind of take me to the second point, which we touched on a little bit before we hopped on here about values. This is one of these things that I think you have to invest in, because you believe that, you know, taken on the whole an investment in this nature will be better for the business than it will than that. And you just have to say, okay, you know what? We can’t win this attribution game, right? We’re never going to know exactly what it does. It’s baked into our core values that people matter. And here we’re going to make business decisions behind that, believing that it’s the right thing to do. Airbnb was the first place that I really saw lean into values in like an appreciable it’s not a poster on the wall. There were a lot of things we could improve, for sure, but there was such a heavy lean into values, yeah, that it stuck with me. It’s so much of what I learned there became the foundation for the next company that I was a part of building, and I’m so grateful for it, because we got to put it in from ground zero versus Exactly.

Maria Ross 13:44

Yeah. I mean, that’s why I love when I do my brand strategy engagements, which are fewer now, but it’s really great to work with companies at an earlier stage, because you can start to bake that into the DNA, and you can take the energy and the excitement and the values that they actually do bring to the table when they’re a smaller team, and figure out a way to operationalize that so as they scale, they don’t lose who they are. Yeah, versus it’s way easier. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I love what you’re saying about assessing the cost, because this is often when people say, Well, how do I measure empathy? And I used to try to do, years ago, I used to try to do a song and dance around that of like, well, you know, it depends on what your definition of empathy is, and how do you measure that, and is it about, you know, increased collaboration. Now I’ve moved completely away from that, because you shouldn’t be measuring empathy. You should be measuring your objectives and your goals, and empathy should be fueling the ability to achieve them, right? So we’re not measuring that. That’s like saying we need to measure respect in our organization, or we need to measure hierarchy, or, you know, it just, it’s not the end goal. The end goal is not to say, you know, check a bunch of boxes that, yep, we’re an empathetic organization. I mean, we tanked our quarters, but you know what? An empathetic organization, so that doesn’t really matter. So it’s lever you can pull to get to those objectives faster, more cleanly and without leaving anyone behind. And you get people excited about working there. You get people excited about coming to work every day, because they all know that they’re to achieve that mission and that objective, and that the objective is not necessarily, you know, let’s be empathetic to each other. The objective is something else, and we’re going to get there by practicing empathy with each other. I think that’s a paradigm shift for people. I

Jason Silver 15:32

think about it the same way, you know, the objective is where we’re going, and empathy, for me, is a value which describes how we get there. Yeah, exactly. You know, assuming our company had a value of empathy, we would say, Great, we can list all the ways we’re not going to accomplish this particular objective. Like, I’m not going to accomplish it by the command and control style that you mentioned, and I’m not going to accomplish it by I could list all sorts of, you know, less than stellar leadership traits. If we want to go down that particular we’ll do that in another episode. Yeah. The point is, it’s all about, you know, you’re making a bet, and you’re saying, of the of all of the possible versions of our company accomplishing these objectives, this is the one that we’re betting on. It acts in this way. It behaves in this way. And for me, that’s all about the values and whether or not they’re truly a part of the company.

Maria Ross 16:17

Well, I think, you know, my new book, clarity is one of the five pillars of effective and empathetic leadership, and part of the clarity discussion in the book is that you have to actually explain and articulate your values. Again, not just a bullet point, but when we say empathy is a value, what does that actually look like in practice? Give people tangible examples of behaviors or practices that exhibit empathy. So they have some bearing. They have some way to know how they’re getting there. And for different companies that could look different, maybe they’re not even calling it empathy. Maybe, like Airbnb, they’re calling it service, or they’re calling it something else, and it the name of it doesn’t matter as much as the if you’re going to say this is your value, you need to explain to each and every person what that actually means and what it looks like in practice. And so I’m curious, because you did have this wonderful experience with Airbnb, and then you move on, and you’re working with other companies that are, you know, a little less enlightened about looking at values and looking at people centered leadership that way. So what was there, sort of a culture shock moment for you, of like, oh, not everybody does it this way.

Jason Silver 17:28

No, you know, I think everyone, every company, is different, right? And I think it would be arrogant of me to say, Okay, this is the right way or the wrong right. Of course, it’s not right or wrong. And I think a thing I struggled with, you know, because I went from Airbnb, built the company, obviously, I didn’t define the way that company operated, but I was a part of it. And, you know, fingerprints were all over. And then I started talking to other companies, and I found that in my role, people would often, yeah, I’d be working with a CEO, and we would work on a thing, and they’re like, hey, is this right or wrong? What do you think? Right? And I struggle with that question, yeah? Because, you know, the number of times that I’ve seen a business or a product, I’m like, that is just going to absolutely crush it. This is going to be the greatest thing ever, and it Hey, or the opposite, I’m like, what this is not, yeah, ever, yeah, work. And it goes through the roof, you know? And I think I struggle with it, because I’m not really an Oracle. And so the thing that I try to do, like my work with a lot of companies, is so intentionally focused on intentionality. What I try to help them understand is, like, what is your intent? And then what I can do for you that’s hard when you’re in the weeds, is I can tell you, are you aligned or not with the intent as stated? And for me, that was the thing where I, when I see that I really try to help a company, is like, you’ve told me you want to be empathetic, you’ve told me you want to have your values in or you’ve told me that you’re, you know, trying to create upward mobility for your people. Here’s what I’m seeing, the actions feel misaligned from the intent. I’m not going to tell you whether that’s right or wrong, because maybe we need to change the intention. The market has changed. The business has changed, we change our intention and we march forward, right? But right? It’s that simple, but not easy. Yeah, if you have an intent, you’re either aligned with it or you’re not. And if you’re not, you either get aligned with it or you change a decision to be changed. That’s why. But we should always be trying to be intentional. Do

Maria Ross 19:18

you equate intent with purpose? Ah,

Jason Silver 19:23

I think in the way I interpret your question, no, you know, for me, like the conventional definition of purpose, you know, like, why are we here? Yeah, yeah, it’s like a big overarching philosophical thing. So they’re related. Maybe I would think about them as, like, first cousins or something. But like, the intent can get highly tactical. You know, you can go right down to the intent of, like, we’re trying to accomplish this objective. What’s the intention behind it? Right? Like, the intent can be, we value empathy, like, what is the intention behind that? You know, that’s the key piece. And I don’t think I’m doing the world’s perfect job of articulating the difference, but they feel. Little different in my head,

Maria Ross 20:00

I get you, I think what you’re if I can reflect back, it sounds like you’re saying purpose is, again, more of the like, it’s the mission we’re on, why we’re here, but the intent is maybe related to specific initiatives and maybe even programmatic elements or actions that you’re taking in pursuit of that purpose.

Jason Silver 20:18

Yeah, I think like purpose sits on top of the intents, like every intent should fit inside of the purpose, for sure. Yeah. But I think, you know, every objective, why do we have that objective? What’s the intention behind it? If this is a value, why is it there? What’s the intention behind it? Are we acting in accordance with our intentions? Yes or no. And that can go from, you know, everybody, from the CEO, down to like, you know, you’re working in your job, and you a common problem I talked to lots of folks about is, I get to the end of the week, I feel like I’m really busy. I’m very burned out. I did so much stuff, but I did, didn’t accomplish what I needed to accomplish. And so you don’t feel great like, Well, why did that happen? You know, was it an intentional week? Did you get pulled off of your top priorities on purpose? In which case, great, that’s probably, you know, you made an on purpose decision to move off of what you thought was the most important stuff. Or did it drift unintentionally? Right? And is that an opportunity for you to say, Great, I can have much more intent around what I’m being pulled off of how I’m being pulled off.

Maria Ross 21:16

Yeah, I think we could all do in our companies with as fast as they’re going to have that kind of reflection modeled and rewarded more that it’s not a waste of time to sit and think about, how did the week go? What went wrong? Why did it go wrong? We’re always on to the next thing, and then with that, we lose the learnings from even if something failed, we should be able to learn from that, and we can’t learn from it if we don’t take time to stop for a second and say, let’s look at this. Was this actually the way I wanted this project to go? Was this actually the way I wanted this week to go? Was this the way I wanted this meeting to go, or this interaction or this performance review? We don’t take enough reflection time and again with my book, The first pillar is self awareness, and self awareness requires that pause that let me take a look and from you know, float above myself and try to be objective about why this is going right or why this is going wrong, and how am I showing up in the interaction. So I love that idea of intentionality, and you being that sort of coach and Sherpa to get them to drift back on course, so to speak.

Jason Silver 22:25

Yeah, it’s the difference between being responsive and being reactive. Exactly. Reactive is you just, you’re flying around, doing the thing, and responsive is, my intention was x, you know, I’m moving towards y, quick check. Is that what I want to do? Yeah, it is. Okay, great. Now my intention is why, and let’s go. It doesn’t take a lot.

Maria Ross 22:43

What’s really interesting is, I worked for many startups. I did a whole startup, merry go round for a while in the early 2000s and a few of them, it was just so running, running, running, and feeling like we didn’t know where we were running towards. And it was and it was so frustrating. Yeah, yeah. It was so frustrating, because it felt like the whims of whoever the CEO talked to last would become part of what we were supposed to work on that week. Yeah. And it just leaves you, you know, from a, you know, kind of segueing into your book. It leaves you really demoralized by the work. It leaves you very like, either I’m just like, I don’t even want to start something, because I know it’s going to change in three change in three days. I don’t want to put all this work into it, or just feeling unmoored, like I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know where we’re trying to go, and if I do finally get a grasp of where we’re trying to go. And, you know, I was younger then I was like, manager level, you know, very early director level, and I didn’t even know I was supposed to know that. I didn’t even know that that was actually that I was being shown. A bad example, I guess I should say I didn’t realize. I thought that’s just the way it was. And so frustrating, because I look back on those roles and I’m like, gosh, we could have done so much more. We could, you know, and I could have done so much more if I’d known what it was supposed to look like and the questions that we should have been asking. It doesn’t mean I would have been able to impact it any differently, but I kind of internalized it as like, well, I don’t know what I’m doing, because I constantly felt like I didn’t know what I was doing in those jobs, because the strategy changed every day, depending on the last analyst the CEO talked to, or the last person they talked to, or the last peer. It was like, Nope, this week, it’s this. And then I was like, Okay, well, let’s crumple up that plan. And so I’m curious to know, you know, what is kind of your overall thought about enjoying your job? We hear that right? Like that’s something people want. They want to enjoy their job. So I want to just get strip that down and in your definition from the book, what does it mean to enjoy your job?

Jason Silver 24:51

Good question. So, you know, I think we often confuse the words enjoyment and fun in a way that’s unhelpful. So fun is always. Is enjoyable. Enjoyment is not always fun. You know? I think the best example of that is, you know, you go for a run, you’re running a marathon, you’re in the last mile, you’re probably not having fun. You may not necessarily be enjoying that particular moment, but when you finish the race, you enjoy the entirety of the race. Assuming you’re somebody who enjoys running, if you hate running, if you hate running, you’re probably not going to like that process at all. None of it will be good. Yeah, right. When I think back on some of the most enjoyable times in my career, it’s not the moment when, like, there was no stress, there was no adversity, there was nothing challenging. You know, it’s the moments where a bunch of us are in a room there’s a major problem. We don’t know if we’re going to solve it. The impact is going to be huge. We’re all jamming away on this problem. We don’t know if we’re going to get it. Figured out it figured out. You know, you play the tape board and whatever happens, happens. I’m like, that was such a professionally enjoyable moment. I was not having fun at that time in that moment, but it’s about enjoying the job overall. And I think what I struggled with earlier in my career is this idea that, like the most common pushback I get is, man, I don’t have time to enjoy stuff. I’ve got things to get done. Yeah, right? I’m busy. I’ll enjoy it later. You know, my usual, my model years ago, was, it’ll be great. I’ll enjoy it when I insert accomplishment here, sell this company, that company goes public, like, get this promotion, find some new job. What I’ve learned is like, that’s not the way our brains work. It’s not what you wind up enjoying. You know, you got to think about, in my experience, you got to think about the day to day. And there’s a lot that we have control over. A lot of times it just feels like I have no real control over this, because I have to get these things done, and because I have to get these things done, and they’re not the most fun, I can’t enjoy my job right now. There’s nothing I nothing I can, right, right? And so I wrote this book to show people that actually, you know, enjoyment isn’t the fluff. Enjoyment is the fuel of your accomplishment. The more you’re enjoying your work, the more likely it is that you accomplish bigger and bigger things. The more you accomplish, the more you enjoy, it. The more you enjoy it, the more you accomplish. And it’s a big, gigantic flywheel of greatness that just goes up and up. The problem is, you know, Google it and you know, how do I enjoy my job? You’ll get a bunch of useless platitudes. Find a job you enjoy. You’ll never work a day in your life. Yeah, great. Show me that person. Yeah, right. You know, work smarter, not harder. Like, I’m waking up every day trying to work dumb, like, what do you I don’t know if I knew it to be differently, I would do it right. And so the book is effectively nine of the most common workplace challenges with very I’ve been told, unconventional tactics that are completely within people’s control, like they can read the book, put it down, try it at work tomorrow. Doesn’t matter. You know who your boss is, or what your job is, or what your to dos are. You can try them and you know they’ll make a difference. And if they don’t, it’s a great indication, if you try all nine and nothing changes for you, then it’s a good indication that there might be something external that you need to do. Maybe it’s something maybe it’s something about your environment. Of course, there are toxic work environments. I’m not saying you can, you know, change all of those, but Right, most of the time we think it’s out of my control, or I have to change my environment. And I’ve seen the

Maria Ross 28:15

so this is so funny, because everything you’re saying keeps coming back to the book, and not to be like plugging my book either, but it’s this idea. My fifth pillar is joy, of what makes an effective, effective and empathetic leader. And I don’t mean I say it right there. It doesn’t mean you’re the funniest workplace in the world. It’s can you find moments of levity when the work is hard? Can you find things that are enjoyable when the work is hard? You know, I looked at emergency room departments. I looked at like police stations. I talked to people from different environments that even if you can create, it was one example, if you can create a sense of camaraderie and have a friend at work, that’s an indicator that you are actually going to be more engaged. You are going to perform better. In some cases, it’s going to be less absenteeism, all of these things come about when you encourage work friendships in your team or in your environment. That’s just one example, and that’s why I didn’t call that pillar fun, because it’s not really fun because, again, sometimes you do have to do budget spreadsheets. That’s not fun, unless the reason why it’s called you love accounting, right? Yeah, exactly. And I see a lot of advice going out there to people, you know, and it started with the whole follow your bliss, or, you know, live your bliss thing, that whole movement. But, you know, advice to young people of like, well, you need to have a conversation with your manager if you find that doing reports is really draining your energy. And I think this is the like, you know? I mean, it’s not always fun, 24/7 right? Yeah,

Jason Silver 29:47

well, yes. And I think there’s always going to be stuff that exists on the fringe that you accept, right? But I think on the most part, it is possible to enjoy the majority of your work, and I think you’re hitting on. A point, and I’ll give you like an example and an exercise people can try and if they have a thing to do with their teams. So you’re the point you’re hitting on that I talked about in my book, that I think is really critical is I really think that the term best practice is misused and very dangerous, and the reason why is because the best practice for me is unlikely to be the best practice for you, and it’s unlikely to be the best practice for somebody else. So the analogy, you know, I would use, is like, you open up your phone and you go to Google Maps, and you’re going to a restaurant, right? And you plug it in, it’s not just going from A to B, it’s like Google gives you options. Do you want to take public transit? Do you want to walk? Are you going to walk? Are you going to be on a bike? Do you if you’re going to drive? Do you want to take the most economical route, the most scenic route, right? We can go from A to B, the point is to get to B, but the way we get there is kind of up in the air, right? And so your boss might say to you, let’s take you and I as hypothetical examples. And I’m the person that you just described who really likes spreadsheets, and you’re the person who threads them.

Maria Ross 31:01

I’d rather poke my eye out with a sharp stick. Yeah, exactly, you know, and you want

Jason Silver 31:05

to go give a big presentation. I also love presentations, but I’m going to play the spreadsheet guy for the purposes of this conversation, as long as there are no follow up questions, okay? And we both are handed the same task, okay? And the task is, we got to give a project update at the end of the week. My version is the like analytical spreadsheet guy is, I’m going to go collect a bunch of data, I’m going to crunch it in a spreadsheet. I’m going to send around an email to the team in advance with everything I found, and say, come to the meeting with any questions. We go to the meeting. They ask their questions. I get back the answers. I updated everybody on the project. Objective accomplished. You are going to go talk to a bunch of people on the team, see what’s going on. You’re going on. You’re going to build a beautiful presentation that tells a really nice, engaging story. You’re going to stand up in front of the team, give your presentation. People are going to ask questions. The meeting will end. Both of us accomplished the same objective, yes, but we did it in two completely different ways. And if you gave me your version or vice versa, we would be miserable, right? And so the whole point of the book is, it’s about how, right? Yeah, I’m not telling you that you have to change your to do list. We still have to deliver the project update, right? But if you change the way you’re accomplishing it, you can enjoy it a heck of a lot more, especially the exercise, which is the major problem most of us. We talked about knowing yourself and self reflection stuff, most of us don’t know that much about what we enjoy doing, so I’ll give folks an exercise. They can try. You can try too. If you’d like to, you need a piece of paper and a pencil in your calendar. Pretty simple, okay, on you’re going to take the piece of paper and on the left side of the page, you’re going to write a list of activities at work that you enjoy. You know, I really like brainstorming sessions. I really like crunching numbers in a spreadsheet, whatever it is, these are things I enjoy doing, right? And if you’re like most people, your list will be more than four things, less than 15 things, you know, a handful of items. Okay, then on the right side of the piece of paper, you’re going to open up your calendar, and you’re going to look at last week, and you’re going to write down the things that you did right? I went to this meeting where we did this thing. I talked to this customer about that thing. I worked on this HR problem. And when that’s done, you’re going to draw a line from the things you enjoy on the left to any of the things that you actually did on the right. Oh, and if you’re like most people, you will have few to none, few to no, lines, right? And then you will think, Well, why don’t I enjoy my day to day job? Look at your piece of paper. It will tell you why. Yeah, right. And if you want to do one thing to make your job more enjoyable tomorrow. Look at your list when you’re given a task and find a way to accomplish it that incorporates at least one of the items on the list right, and that will result in you enjoying the process more, and it will very likely result in it being a better work product at the end of it. And so the to do list doesn’t change, no how you talk. It’s

Maria Ross 34:02

the how. So, okay, first of all, I love this idea, because best practices are really just ideas. They’re suggestions that might work, might or might not work for you, right? So I love that point, but it’s also this point that you know, I’ve done with my clients when working, you know, a lot of my clients are doing their own marketing, and I’m like, Okay, your goal is to generate leads. Your goal is to generate revenue and get customers. If your solopreneur as an example, why on earth would you engage in a marketing tactic that you hate? Because it’s going to be clear and obvious when you’re engaged in it, that you’re not nuts about it, that you’re throwing it in. So there’s lots of different ways you can actually reach your target market. Do you like podcasting? Do you like speaking? Do you like writing emails? Do you like being on Facebook or Instagram or Tiktok? Like find the intersection the then. Diagram of what will effectively reach my target audience, and what do I enjoy? Yeah, and only engage in the things in the middle. So I what I hear you saying is the same thing for your job is find a way to engage in the work you need to get done, and make the Venn diagram of the things that you enjoy doing, and try to find ways to accomplish the work that needs to get done by enjoying it, if you can. If that’s in your control,

Jason Silver 35:27

it’s the silliest thing, right? But like, if you want to enjoy your job more, do more work that you enjoy. And what that usually gets translated as is, go find a job that you enjoy overall, but Right? Or that you’re only doing things you’re you enjoy. That’s right? And that’s so rare, you know, I think you practice a job, you practice enjoyment at work. It’s not a thing that exists, right? And so, like, what you’re saying is, you know, hitting home, obviously quite a lot for me, because you’re kind of, you’re preaching the language. But the point really is just, you have to accomplish some things, and you’re looking for that overlap. But what I see a lot of teams do, and the way that I think we’re all kind of hardwired at work is we spend all of our time thinking about what needs to be accomplished, what are the goals, what’s the Gantt chart, whatever. And we think that because something like enjoyment is fluff and it doesn’t matter, you don’t carve out any time to think about it. And so what I’m suggesting is spend this 95% of your time on all the stuff you’re currently doing. What do I have to accomplish? What’s the Gantt chart? What’s the backlog? What’s the whatever structure you use? Take 5% small amount, and just have your list and say, I know what needs to be done. Now I’m going to spend a little bit of time being intentional about how I’m accomplishing it. And you mentioned, you know, if it’s in your control, if you know it is possible that you have a boss who is so micro managing that they will literally stand over your desk and tell you what keys to press on your keyboard. That’s very, very rare. You might have a boss who’s controlling and likes you to do things a certain way. Yeah, the best thing you can do in those situations, it’s not easy to go to your boss and say, I want to enjoy my job more. What can I do? But if instead, you go to your boss and you say, Hey, I know I have this project update at the end of the week, and I know it’s usually done in a presentation format, I’ve done some thinking, and I would really enjoy doing it in the way I described earlier, and ask them this question, what would need to be true for me to try it that way, and the wording of the question is very intentional. You’re not asking them if you can, you’re asking them to list the factors that would need to be true in order for you to try it that way. And that makes it a very productive conversation, because you’re giving them something very specific that they can measure the risks against. They can articulate the risks to you. Hey, I need you to make sure that you include this in whatever your email is that goes out in advance, and I need us to check in afterwards to make sure that you landed what needed to be landed. Since you’re asking you to do it anyway, great. I can do that. That means I get to try it this way. I want to do it. Let’s go from time to time. Obviously your manager is going to tell you, no, sorry, Jay, you can’t do it this way, and that’s okay. But by asking this question, you’re going to show your manager that you’re thinking about this, and maybe they don’t let you do it your way this time, but the next time, or the time after that, or the time after that, they’re going to and they’re going to start to see the result, and it will kind of build over time from there. So what would need to be true for me to try it, insert the specific approach that you have. I love

Maria Ross 38:25

that so great. Okay, let’s talk a little bit more about the book in the in the short time that we have left. You know, you’ve done a lot of research and coaching around things like imposter syndrome and also about how empathy is the key to helping folks deal with that specific brand of self confidence or anxiety, because that can actually take away a lot of our enjoyment in our jobs, because we’re dealing with imposter syndrome or self doubt, or, you know, whatever you want to call it. So what is the role of empathy in helping us deal with that kind of lack of self confidence or anxiety about our job. Yeah,

Jason Silver 39:02

so imposter syndrome is this interesting one. I think it’s poorly branded, is my opinion. And it’s kind of the question and the answer all rolled into one. So the first thought in it is, if, like, we all feel it, if I’m an imposter, you know, the stats are something like 80% of people feel imposter syndrome at some point in their lives, in their careers. If that’s true, we’re all imposters, and we can’t all be imposters. So this thing just needs, like a fundamental rebrand. And the idea is that, you know, I don’t feel like I can fit in with this group of really great people. They’re better than me. I don’t have enough or whatever, whatever it might be. And the common advice here that I see is, I think, wholly useless. Believe in yourself. You can accomplish anything, right? Like, just don’t have self doubt. It’s not a light switch, right? I’m not just like, Oh, I feel like doubting myself right now. I’m just gonna stop doubting myself, right? I. Yeah, it’s gonna go great. That doesn’t work. And I think it actually makes it worse, because you had a little bit of totally normal self doubt, then you label it as a syndrome. Now you have something wrong with you that you have to fix, right? You feel bad that you can’t fix this thing about you and you can’t get the job done. I’m like, I think it’s really corrosive. It doesn’t help Great. Rather, I think there’s a way to flip it on its head and turn it into a superpower. Lots of great research coming out of a bunch of different schools. One of the ones that I think is really interesting is some work that was done at MIT. And what they showed is they took they took doctors, and they put them into two groups, and let’s call them the the confident group and the not confident group. And then they had them go into these kind of mock physician visits, where they have to diagnose what the patient is presenting, and then they have the patients rank the doctors afterwards. Okay, so what they found is the folks who felt imposter syndrome performed equivalently in terms of their diagnostic capabilities versus the self confident ones. So they went in with self doubt, and they did just as well. So imposter syndrome isn’t hurting our ability to perform. But when they followed up with the patients afterward and asked them to rank folks, what the doctors what they found is consistently the folks in the self doubting group showed up as more other focused as they cared more. And so what’s happening is because you feel like you don’t belong, it makes you think more about how to help and show up well for others, which is in turn, making you more empathetic and you’re paying more attention to them, and you’re actually increasing the probability that you fit in, because you’re trying a bit harder. The question then is, well, what do I do about this?

Maria Ross 41:41

Because, because I’m like, I don’t want this to be the solution for how to be more empathetic in your job is to doubt yourself. Yeah,

Jason Silver 41:46

I’m not saying. What I’m saying instead is recognize the imposter syndrome as a trigger moment for something that can lead to a lot of greatness, right, right? If you go down the spiral of self doubt, and there are a lot of you know, if you have very severe imposter syndrome. It’s a very real thing. And if that’s where you’re at, I am not a psychiatrist. You should go and seek you know mental health for sure. It can be very, very effective if you’re not in that zone of debilitating it’s just it comes up for you regularly. It’s getting in your way. What can I do about I can’t make it go away. Recognize it as a trigger. I’m feeling self doubt in this moment, don’t turn it off. Instead, turn it into what will make you most belong. And there’s tons of research, mostly out of Harvard. What it shows is, if you want people to like you and you want to fit in, the number one thing you can do is ask them questions, very simple, so you don’t have to be like I’m an imposter syndrome. Let me flex with all this knowledge that I have and show them how smart I am. That is the anti solution. The better solution is I’m feeling imposter syndrome in this moment. It’s not the moment for me to show off what I know or really push myself out there. Instead, it’s an opportunity to learn. Do I actually have a knowledge gap? What is that knowledge gap? How can I go and figure that out? Okay, and so the antidote, or the thing that flips imposter syndrome from a syndrome to a superpower, is questions. The question is, what kind of questions and where? So I’ll tell people this, and they’ll say, Oh, God, I can’t ask questions in a meeting. It makes me feel very nervous. My colleagues are all around, yeah, and the research backs this up too. If you and I are in a meeting, talking a lot, and there’s five other people around listening to us. I ask you a lot of questions, you will be biased to like me more. Everybody listening will be biased to like you more. And

Maria Ross 43:29

oh, 100% curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people. Because you’re take you’re focusing on someone else. They always talk about when you know you meet someone for the first time, ask them about them. Don’t talk about yourself the whole time.

Jason Silver 43:41

Yes. And the tricky thing, though, is that in a meeting of 10 people, you will think, oh, Jay’s great. He’s so engaged. He’s listening to me. Everybody else be thinking that guy, Jay’s an idiot, like he doesn’t have any answers. You know, it’s all coming out of Maria. He’s just asking questions. Nobody’s hopefully, nobody’s consciously thinking this. But right, your brain is going through this bias, right? And so the findings from this work out of Harvard is the most effective questions are in one on one situations, and they’re follow up questions, which is great, because one on ones are the least risky environments, and follow up questions are the easiest, because you don’t have to know anything to ask them. You just have to listen, right? And so if you’re feeling imposter syndrome, the whole kind of gamut of the solution, there is not a problem unless you have a, you know, severe mental health problem. And I’m not trying to belittle that, right? For the for the average person, it’s an opportunity to create something really amazing for yourself. Recognize the imposter syndrome. Don’t turn it off. Pick somebody from the team, one human, get them on their own book. A coffee meeting with them. Grab them at lunch, whatever, and ask them follow up questions. Help me understand insert thing that they said in the meeting here, right? Help me understand that thing you said about the presentation you were. Yeah, help me understand what you meant when you talked

Maria Ross 45:02

about, I’m laughing, because this is part of the whole thing about finding common ground is the three magic words of Tell me more, right? Tell me more about that. Tell me more about and also, because then I can understand your point of view, and I don’t have to guess what it is. So from a from a linking it to empathy standpoint, I love this. So how does this relate to

Jason Silver 45:21

enjoying your work more? So imposter syndrome is one of the most commonly felt things at work. Like I said, 80% of people get it, and it is a huge detractor to your experience at work. If you’re constantly walking around with feelings of self doubt, you can’t get it done. Why am I not good enough? When that goes away, it is very, very freeing. And for me, what I found is there is no magic wand to wave to become more confident. It’s actually chipping away at removing the self doubt. And this tactic is a great way of just it comes up for me. I don’t get caught in it. I know what to do. I have a formula. I get somebody in a one on one, I ask them follow up questions, and all of a sudden, yeah, the self doubt becomes a thing that I’m looking for. Because I’m like, oh, when that crops up, it’s it’s telling me that I have a moment when I need to go and do a thing that I know works. So just feels great overall. So that

Maria Ross 46:17

sounds like that’s one of the most common workplace challenges, really briefly, because we want people to check out the book why your grass is always greener. What are some of the other common workplace challenges that we might be dealing with as you know, human beings in the workplace trying to interact with each other?

Jason Silver 46:33

Yeah. Sure. So the books divided into thirds. The first is all about freeing up more space and time for yourself. The second is about changing the way you work so you enjoy it more. And the third is about accelerating yourself without having to wait around for a promotion. So first third of the book, it’s all about how to do five days of work and four without changing your job at all, without working until midnight. The things that we talk about there are miscommunications, and how to stop them, because they’re costing you a full day every single work week, slow decision making and how it’s not just your boss’s problem, you can help make a big difference on it with some key tactics and effectively distractions and prioritizations and why that’s a psychological problem, and how to help yourself on them. Got imposter syndrome, which we talked about, how to measure your joy on the job, which is not something that’s talked about very much. You got to measure a thing before you can feel like you can move it. And then how to enjoy your job more, which we talked a little about, bit about earlier, the last third. All about how to progress faster without waiting for a promotion. There we talk about how to make better decisions. Feels great when you’re making really high caliber decisions. How to get more feedback, which is like the rocket fuel for that’s key yourself, yeah, and how to see opportunities that everybody else misses. Love it. I love it

Maria Ross 47:47

so much. I mean, yeah, that is really so much of this overlaps, because this idea of ego kills empathy is so huge, because when we are so focused on trying to play the expert in the room, that is when we overlook risks, when we miss opportunities, and, more importantly, when we miss that opportunity to connect with someone else and maybe find out what their experience is or their perspective is. So you know, this idea that leaders have to have all the answers, or that if I want to be a leader, I have to pretend I have all the answers, is such a false narrative, because we can be confident and say, You know what, I don’t know, but I’m going to find out, or I don’t know, but we’re going to find out together, or I don’t know, but here’s what the next steps we can take are to be more sure about this. You can say that in a confident way and let people know that you have a mastery of the situation, even if you don’t have the right answer in that moment. And so a lot of what you’re saying ties so much into that of being able to sort of take the focus off you and be observant about what’s going on for you and take a beat, and then being able to ask questions and interact with people in a way that you’re actually sharing your problem solving collaboratively versus like you as a leader or an aspiring leader, think that you have to show up with everything baked.

Jason Silver 49:12

I mean, totally agree. You know, I think, yeah, I know it’s not great to judge people, but we all do it. And like I judge people on the quality of their questions, not the answers. I think we live in a world where, you know, almost every answer is at the tip of my fingers. You know, I can go and ask chatgpt A question, as if it’s like the person sitting in the desk next to me, you know, I can Google things, yeah, but all of those things only work if you know the right question to ask right same thing at the office as well as I think great, the best leaders, I know, they ask the best questions to the right people. And those are the things that are very unlocking. Is you’re thinking about it this way, rather than jam my different idea down your throat, like, right? Here’s a question that will broaden your perspective, and then, oh, look at that. Yeah, we come up with an idea that. Better than both of ours combined.

Maria Ross 50:01

Yeah, clarity is not about asking. It’s not about having the right answer. It’s about asking the right questions that’s right and being able to spark that problem solving and spark that innovation. So I love it. Well, Jason, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much for your time. Today, we’re gonna have all your links in the show notes, including your link to your book, which I hope everyone will check out. How your book is called, your grass is greener. Use what you have, get what you want at work and in life. And for anyone who’s exercising while they’re listening to us, what’s the one best place they can go to to find out more about you and your work?

Jason Silver 50:36

Yeah, you can go to your grasses greener.com. That’ll take you to my website. You can see the book there. You can see me. If you really want to look me up, you can do it through the website. Find me on LinkedIn, but your grasses greener.com. Is the simplest, easiest thing folks can remember. I love it. Thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for having me, and thanks for everybody who is still jogging and listening to us and

Maria Ross 50:57

everyone. Thank you 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 friend or a colleague until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice. Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

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

Courage to Advance: The AI Leadership Crisis with Kevin Oakes, CEO, i4cp

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

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

The AI skills gap is widening between high-performing organizations and those falling behind. With only 27% of HR leaders feeling ready to advance their AI strategy, what separates the leaders from the laggards? Join Kim Bohr and i4cp CEO Kevin Oakes as they dive into groundbreaking research on workforce readiness in the era of AI, revealing shocking statistics about executive training and organizational success.

Drawing from extensive research comparing high and low-performing organizations, Kevin shares how leading companies are leveraging AI to achieve up to 30% higher productivity through comprehensive training programs. Discover why companies like Moderna and Mastercard are succeeding with AI adoption rates of 80%, while others struggle to start.

Learn why waiting to embrace AI might be the biggest risk of all, and how to position your organization for success in this rapidly evolving landscape.
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To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

High-performing organizations are 17 times more likely to train their executive leaders on Gen AI, creating a significant competitive advantage
Only 11% of organizations are fully embracing AI across their enterprise, with top performers focusing on both efficiency and effectiveness
Organizations successfully scaling AI achieve up to 30% higher productivity through comprehensive training programs
The role of HR in AI strategy has dramatically improved, with non-involvement dropping from 41% to 22% in recent years
Creating a “change-ready” culture is crucial for successful AI implementation, emphasizing learning over knowing

“You want to create a workforce and a leadership team that are agile and that not only can roll with the punches but can embrace them and figure out how to use this change to our advantage.” – Kevin Oakes

About Kevin Oakes, CEO at i4cp

Kevin is CEO and co-founder of the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), the world’s leading human capital research firm focusing on people practices that drive high performance. He is the author of Culture Renovation®, an Amazon bestseller which details how high-performance organizations successfully change organizational culture. Kevin has an extensive background in HR technology and corporate development, previously founding SumTotal Systems and serving as Chairman & CEO of Click2learn. He currently serves on several boards and is dedicated to advancing human capital practices that create lasting organizational success.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Kim Bohr 01:30

Welcome to courage to advance. I’m Kim borer, and I’ve got a startling reality to share. Only 27% of HR leaders believe their organizations are truly ready to advance their AI strategy in the next few years. Yet, companies that are scaling AI are seeing their employees become 30% more productive. So what do they know that others don’t? Today, I’m joined by Kevin Oakes, CEO and co founder of i Four CP, whose firm conducts more research in the field of HR than any other organization. We’re diving into their groundbreaking new study on workforce readiness in the era of AI, exploring why some companies are 17 times more likely to succeed with AI adoption, and what’s really holding organizations back. Let’s get started just a little bit about Kevin before we jump right in. If you are an HR leader in a strategic role and you are not familiar with ifrcp, you definitely need to check them out. We’ll put links in the show notes. Their firm conducts more research in the field of HR and than any other organization, highlighting next practices that organizations and HR leaders really should consider adopting. And Kevin is also the author of a really, really fabulous book that’s also a best seller on Amazon called culture renovation, 18 leadership actions to build an unshakable company. So Kevin, welcome to courage to advance podcast. Thanks, Kim, glad to be here and thrilled to have you with the time we have the partnership we have outside of this podcast, and just excited to have all of our listeners get to share in so this is a really important and timely research that your firm is doing. And so what inspired Ifor CP to you know, to really conduct this research on AI workforce readiness at this time? Yeah,

Kevin Oakes 03:20

it’s really part of an ongoing series of research we’ve been doing on AI for, really the last four to five years, even before chatgpt got us all so familiar with AI, and specifically Gen AI can do for organizations. What we’ve been trying to track Kim is just, how are companies preparing their workforce. How are they trying to leverage AI in the future? And how is HR involved in that? And so this latest study called workforce readiness in the area of AI is just really looking at companies progress boards making sure that they are ready to take advantage of AI. I think one important aspect of our research is that we’re always delineating between high performing organizations and low performing organizations. We define high performing organizations as those that have better revenue growth, profitability, market share, than their competition, and we look specifically at the people practices in both of those either ends of the spectrum there, and we often find big differences in how high performing organizations are implementing their people practices or their people strategies versus those low performers. But what we really hone in on the concept of next practices. And while we come up with a lot of best practices, we find that there are certain practices that are highly correlated to bottom line, business impact or market performance, but not a lot of companies have yet put the practice into place, and so that’s a cue for us that it might be a next practice. And so this particular study, we found a lot of those. We found that this is so new that not a lot of companies are, you know, yet really grasping. How to Get the workforce ready for AI. But there’s a lot of things that other companies can take away from those leaders in the marketplace. What was

Kim Bohr 05:07

some of the parameters that you looked at in this study just to kind of set the stage? Well, we

Kevin Oakes 05:13

looked at a number of different things around how those high performers are treating AI. So for example, we looked at, are you already operationalizing or scaling AI in your organization, or are you just researching and experimenting with AI, or maybe you’re ignoring it or actively opposing AI. And it was really fascinating to us that those who were already operationalizing it, they were high performing organizations. So some of the best organizations that are out there are some of the quickest to adopt AI, and the companies that are ignoring it, they were by far the low performing organizations. And I think you’re going to see even a bigger separation going forward, unless you know companies do start to adopt AI. So that was sort of an overall premise, and then we honed in on those companies that are operationalizing it, and what are they doing? How are they getting their workforce ready for AI, a lot of it revolves around training, but they’re also just thinking about workforce planning and their future skills, and what do we need, and what are the skills gap? So all of that went into this particular study, which is highlighted by a lot of case studies from different member organizations that we work with.

Kim Bohr 06:24

So one of the things that you you know just going on to what you were talking about from high performing organizations, your study found that two and a half times or they’re more likely to operationalize it compared to the low so what do you feel like the sense is that those organizations are doing differently that are so much for further ahead?

Kevin Oakes 06:42

Yeah, I kind of separated into two camps. I think the initial way people usually look at AI is from an efficiency standpoint, how do we take some rogue tasks, things that just take up a lot of time and are very repetitive? How can we automate that and have Gen AI handle some of that. So from an efficiency standpoint, we still got a long way to go. We’re only in, you know, inning one of a nine inning game here, you know, I think that’s where a lot of companies are experimenting right now and trying to, you know, create more efficiencies across the organization. But the other side of it is effectiveness. How are we using Gen AI to make our services better, to create product features that people will want, and improve our products externally. It’s more of a customer facing or market facing attitude towards Gen AI, we still get a long ways to go there, but you see it in most software products today, particularly in HR I was, I was at HR tech this year. And you know, most of the vendors are going to tell you they have some kind of AI component to what they’re doing that will help improve, you know, aspects of what their software does. So it’s sort of two sides of the coin there. Kim and, you know, I think, again, I think companies just need to have a fresh look at what they’re doing. One of the things that we’ve discovered is there are a lot of very clever ways companies are using AI, particularly in HR today, that other companies could implement, but they just haven’t thought of it, right? They just don’t know about it. And so we’re trying to showcase all these really clever uses to our other members, because once they see it, it inspires them to say, hey, you know we could do that too. It just never occurred to us that’s how we could be using AI. And that kind of discovery process, I think, is going to happen over the next few years, as we see more and more really cool applications of Gen AI.

Kim Bohr 08:31

Are you just out of curiosity, perhaps not related directly to this research, but you mentioned seeing, you know, the AI application inside organizations from a customer service standpoint and product standpoint, but then also internally to their own efficiencies. Do you find there’s an interesting, you know, favoring one or the other, or if they’ve done it well, they’re doing it well on both ends, kind of both spectrums

Kevin Oakes 08:53

at all. Just efficiency is certainly, you know, where most people are spending their time these days. It’s trying to speed up processes. How can we free up people’s time to be more strategic if they’re spending a lot of time on very rote tasks? So certainly, the efficiency side is where you know most of the effort has been focused. That makes

Kim Bohr 09:13

sense. So another aspect of your survey saw that 55% of those at organizations that were scaling AI are actually the ones that are more fearful of their job being replaced by AI, compared to only 25% of organizations which are ignoring it. And so is, do you feel like that’s driven by maybe scarcity or fear in some aspects of those that are motivated or are there? Is there some other factors that you found in relevant to size of organization or industry or anything like that. Yeah, let’s

Kevin Oakes 09:44

back up a little bit. The concept of, is AI going to replace my job? You know, has been a fear for a while now, right? And we’ve been fearing that for years and years, just with automation and robots, etc. And the reality is that AI is replacing very few jobs. These days, over time, there’s no question that the workforce will shift, and there will be roles and responsibilities that AI is doing more of than what we’re doing today. I think the smart companies are recognizing that we can redeploy talent in more strategic and effective ways if we can use AI to free up things that don’t use a whole lot of brain power of that very valuable talent, we have a case study of IKEA. Is good example of that, and I think just a very simple example where they applied AI to their customer service department. And a lot of companies have done this to help speed up finding answers to very common problems when customers call in. And so they were able to take a number of their customer service agents that would have normally done that job and reapply them to a new burgeoning industry or or offering that IKEA had, which is helping their customers with interior designs. It’s a virtual interior design and, you know, it’s a paid for service that IKEA offers. And what better way, you know, to spark that business by taking people who already know our products, and, you know, are very knowledgeable about what we do, and have them help others with that interior design. So that’s a case study that’s out on our site. And there’s a very simple one, but it’s a good example. Of where you can redeploy talent. But I said, let’s back up, because I think first we have to think about training the employees on AI. And a lot of companies today still haven’t done that. If training has happened on AI, it’s happened to a very small segment inside the organization. The majority of organizations haven’t trained all of their employees, for example, on AI. Well, we find that when employees do get trained on AI, they recognize they could be doing so much more with it. In fact, we found in our study that in those high performing organizations, the employees that were trained on AI felt like if they received more training, they could be 30% more productive than they were today, even more than 30% productive. So that was an interesting finding, but what the one you referenced was even more interesting. The more they got into AI, the more trained they got on AI, the more they recognize that, hey, there are big aspects of our jobs or other people’s jobs, that can be done by AI. And so that’s where that fear factor comes in. And I don’t know if it’s fear is the right word. It’s maybe just recognition that, you know, things can be done much more efficiently by using AI than what we’re doing today. If you look over time, that’s happened throughout history, right? So Henry Ford had a great quote a long time ago. He said, If I asked my customers what they want, they would have said faster horses, right? As opposed, you know, automobiles, yeah, you look back to the, you know, invention of the railroad, etc. And, you know, over time, we’ve always had this happen, right? We’ve had automation make things better, and there’s a lot of fear that is going to dramatically change, you know, the people’s jobs. It eventually changes jobs, but they morph. They don’t go away. They just simply morph into doing other work around automation. And that’s obviously what’s going to happen with AI as well. Yeah,

Kim Bohr 13:21

you know, I was at a event a couple of months ago talking with HR leaders as well around AI. And one of the things that was really fascinating in this topic of, you know, job evolution, was that by sitting on the sidelines, that’s where there’s a lot more risk than getting involved. And it’s interesting to find the varying degree of which people are experimenting or avoiding or full on committing. And I think your research really just continues to reinforce that very large spread. And, you know, one of the things you were talking about from the training perspective, I think is very interesting, is, what is there a generational gap around adoption? You know, it’s something when you think about people thinking about where the who’s diving in, and you think about the statistics around, like, where’s the strategy landing, and what’s not being conveyed around strategy and use of AI, do you feel that your I don’t think your research explored this, but do you just have a sense that there’s anything generational there, or is that an area that we maybe need to be looking at To help get everybody more on the same page?

Kevin Oakes 14:22

Yeah, there might be. We’re not, as an organization, real big on trying to just label people based on, you know, their age, yeah, generational divides, yeah. Sort of another, you know, form of, I don’t know, just discrimination sometimes, but, you know, just looking at people, you know, by generations, and labeling a generation is one thing. I think there’s a lot of individuals in each generation that are quite capable of leveraging AI. And frankly, I’m seeing it all over the place with boomers. You know, you would normally think, okay, older, you know, folks aren’t going to rush to, you know, really understand AI and leverage AI, but I’m seeing lots of them do that. I suppose. If you. Look at it by generation, you’re probably going to see some differences in generations, but we didn’t tackle that. We didn’t think that was part of what we wanted to do here.

Kim Bohr 15:06

Yeah, that makes sense. I know. I think in our conversations too, from what the work we’re doing at Spark effect and working with leaders, I don’t know that we’re seeing a generational component either, but I do think we’re seeing just different across the board, regardless of what kind of role people are holding, but I do feel that we are starting to also see some separation of getting everybody in the leadership team, on the same page. I think that’s kind of a big and I kind of got that sense from the work you were, you all did, was that there’s a big opportunity there to get everybody online, because that’s probably where it needs to start. One of the things that that was really interesting also in your research, you talked about it, identified the top five barriers to AI readiness, lack of organizational knowledge about Gen i ai led at night, 39% lack of AI specific training at 27% and then I thought was really interesting is this lack of strategy articulated by senior leaders comes in at 24% I’m just curious what jumped out to you and your team when You saw those top three indicators, and if there was anything that has prompted you maybe to want to explore anything further from that lens?

Kevin Oakes 16:08

Well, yeah, like I said, we’re continuing to research this, so this is a very longitudinal topic area for us, and we’ll continue to look at how companies are improving. And frankly, we have seen some big improvements. We came out with a study a year ago called is HR already behind in the AI revolution? And so I’ll cut to the chase. The answer was yes, HR was already behind. And what we were finding is that in many organizations, HR was being left out of the strategic conversations and the governance conversations around AI, which is kind of silly, because AI affects the workforce. You know, first and foremost, HR, if you’re going to say who’s in charge of the workforce, you know, most people would say HR, you know, is most knowledgeable about the workforce. That has changed dramatically. We found in this particular study that was cut in half. I think we had 41% of organizations where HR wasn’t involved. Now it’s only like 22% something like that, and HR has gotten much more involved in identifying what the strategy should be, what the governance should be for the workforce going forward. But you started out that question just talking about leadership, and I want to just touch on that, because we found leadership is super important to adoption of AI. No shocker, I suppose, but the stats that we found are kind of shocking. We found that in those organizations that are already scaling and operationalizing AI, they are providing targeted training for their senior executives, and so those companies are 17 times more likely to have trained their executive leaders on Gen AI. They’re also 15 times more likely to indicate that their executive leaders are using Gen AI at least to a moderate or high extent inside the company, and then 10 times more likely to say those executive leaders are encouraging others to use Gen AI to a moderate or high extent. And I think it just goes to show that if leaders are involved and they understand Gen AI, then as a workforce, as an organization, you’re going to be more likely to, you know, be ready for the future and be already using Gen AI inside the company. I think a lot of those companies that are ignoring or opposing Gen AI or, frankly, even just in sort of the research mode, you’ll find that the senior executives probably aren’t that familiar. They don’t have that hands on experience. They haven’t been trained. So I think that that was a very interesting finding, just seeing how big the difference was there.

Kim Bohr 18:37

Those are astonishing statistics. So if you think about from the HR leaders lens, you know, how can they have a more prominent voice in this policy discussion, right? And getting everybody aligned, yeah,

Kevin Oakes 18:51

what we encouraged in that initial study that we did HR to do is, first of all, get you start using it right? So get familiar with HR with AI and begin using it also what I said earlier, look around at what other organizations are doing, because that’ll give you inspiration of how to leverage AI within your HR function. There are certain areas of HR that have adopted AI more quickly than others. Probably, talent acquisition has adopted it the fastest and is really seeing good results from Ai. They’re using it to find passive candidates, you know, much more efficiently than sort of the manual way we were doing it a few years ago. We have one case study where a company is using Gen AI to send emails out to passive candidates on an automated basis, seeing if they can get them interested in different positions in their company, and they were finding dramatic improvement in the response rate from the Gen AI emails versus the human written email, which we thought was really fascinating. And there’s a whole bunch of other ways TA is using it just to help the candidate experience. Experience, etc, but TA has been a big user of it. I would say L D is the other 1l. D is right up there with TA and all the research we’ve done, and they’re using AI to provide personalized development paths for individuals. They’re from an instructional design perspective. They’re using AI to much more quickly, create courseware and design, you know, design those courses. So L and D is one that also really embraced, AI, for sure.

Kim Bohr 20:28

That’s great to hear. And I think it’s so important to for more of that to be coming forward, because we talk about HR, you know, trying to keep that seat at the table and but yet, carrying being expected to solve all of the organization’s problems, it seems like it many times. And so this is a big one of, how do they continue to to coordinate? When you think about all the different, you know, stakeholder interest around the security lens and you know, the IT lens, and the actual, you know, application internally, I think it’s a huge opportunity. Was there, has there any been any interest in the research you all have done of some of the different studies of looking at AI and this skill based world that’s starting to evolve in so many organizations, or is that not something that has kind of crossed paths yet?

Kevin Oakes 21:11

No, it’s crossed paths a little bit. We’ve done a lot of research just on how organizations are leveraging skills, and most organizations have morphed into a skills based approach across, you know, a lot of things, what they’re doing, what hasn’t really worked is creating internal talent marketplaces based on skills databases inside the organization, in many companies, that has stalled out a bit, just because the culture isn’t ready to leverage that. And so that’s a whole nother issue, and we felt that for a lot of things, and Gen AI is included in this, you have to really first focus on the culture of the organization. Are they future ready? Are they agile? Are they ready to accept, you know, some of the things that you want to put in, and particularly with an internal talent marketplace, you know, where we have such a job mentality inside of organizations, versus a project or gig mentality, and even where you know, talent mobility isn’t all that common. You know, in a lot of organizations, that kind of that internal talent marketplace is going to stall out a bit, but you can use Gen AI to help on the skill side. Certainly, Gen AI can help identify the current skills that you have and what’s the gap with the future skills that you need going forward, it can do that a lot more quickly than we can as humans. And so I starting to see some application there on the skill side.

Kim Bohr 22:30

So it sounds like maybe those are some of the things that some of those progressive companies you’ve seen adopting are starting to bring forward as some of these best practices, or future practices as well.

Kevin Oakes 22:39

Yeah. In fact, what we list out in this particular study on the future ready workforce, they’re doing the ones that are really high on future readiness. They’re doing some things that are a little bit over and above what most companies are doing. So for example, they’re cataloging their current skills and capabilities. It’s sort of a difference of 48% to 10% you know that they’re doing, that they’re forecasting their future skills needs. They’re identifying the skills gaps. They’re offering up skilling, or I don’t love the term re skilling, but they’re offering those opportunities and then exploring sources of talent outside of their full time workforce. You know they tend to have a cadre of gig talent that they can tap into when needed. So all of those are components of being a future ready workforce.

Kim Bohr 23:26

I think that’s really important, so important in the work we do at Spark effect, where we’re working with executives around from a very high level executive coaching lens, or leaders trying to create alignment to be able to obviously be ready for what’s coming. And I think we find there’s big gaps in leadership readiness be to not only deal with this, you know, very new work, remote workforce, that people have finally got used to. And now here comes another layer of complexity, and how to lead in. And so we’re finding these topics to be really relevant. You know, just in how leaders are trying to get their arms around it all, and we find that helping them understand where, as you mentioned, some of this just tactically can help them is great. And then where is it that can strategically help them, when we think about the AI and their role and how they can be more informed, when one of the things that your research shows that I want to talk about a little bit more is that high performing organizations are investing heavy. You mentioned that 65% are specific training at the executive level. Yet there’s many organizations that seem to be taking a more reactive approach to that leadership development lens that we’re talking about. What risks do you see that organizations may have that were really more proactively, like getting on board in this more organized way.

Kevin Oakes 24:47

Yeah, it’s still a small percentage of companies that are leading from an operationalizing perspective. It’s only about 11% of all organizations are really embracing AI in their work. Flows in their organization, across the enterprise, really. So I think the risk is, the longer you wait, the harder it is to catch up to some of those organizations. For example, the companies that have embraced, AI, they’ve done a lot of training, not only across the workforce, but particularly with their leadership, as we outlined before. And they’re already in, you know, a lot of brainstorming. You know, this brainstorming mode of, you know, enabling the workforce to say, here are areas of my job that I think could be automated. And that’s one of our recommendations, is to enlist the workforce in that task right, to identify parts of their jobs that could potentially be automated. You have to have a psychological safety to do that. You have to have an environment where the employee feels like that’s going to benefit them, not hurt them, to be able to do that. But you move much more quickly if you can evolve the workforce in identifying that. But the ones that are forefront now are starting to look at agentic AI. You know, how can I put in AI agents that are doing complete tasks for us going forward. And you know, how can we create more of these, you know, over time that will even further speed up processes for us, you know, or make us more efficient, whereas those laggards, the ones that are, you know, still sort of researching or even ignoring AI, they probably don’t even know what agentic AI is, right? And so they’re just, you know, they’re falling further behind in this whole space. So, you know, our advice is, don’t, don’t sit on the sidelines. You know, you got to get involved. You got to start creating some sandboxes where people can experiment safely about, you know, using Gen AI, you got to create some governance around it so people know how to use it. But also, more importantly, articulate your strategy. That’s what still a lot of companies haven’t done. They haven’t talked about, you know, how do we think we’re going to use this strategically long term, all those are, you know, aspects of trying to get up that curve, that maturity curve, towards operationalizing. Ai, why do you

Kim Bohr 26:58

think that is that they haven’t been able to articulate that? Is it that alignment piece, getting leaders on the same page? Is it just the complexity of who owns what? Do you have a sense

Kevin Oakes 27:07

all of that? And, you know, look, change is hard, and a lot of lot of organizations are change resistant. They don’t, when they look at change, they think it’s not only a nuisance, but a lot of them fear, you know, change, especially if things are going well within their organization. And history has shown time and time again. Our research shows this over and over again. Companies that not only are used to change, but the ones that embrace change and look at change as an opportunity, right when things are changing in the marketplace. You know, how can we make use that to our advantage, right and benefit from that change? Those are typically the leaders long term and with things constantly changing. Gen AI is a great example of a huge change in our environments, but there’s going to be more. You want to create a workforce and a leadership team that are agile and that not only can roll with the punches, but can embrace it and you know, figure out, how do we use this change to our advantage? So

Kim Bohr 28:04

I think that change is so important. And I think one of the things that I’ve been really fascinated with lately is that there’s this idea of, you know, change is we know it’s happening. We know it’s constant. It’s always there. And yet we still have this almost, you know, parallel thought of, once I get through this thing, it’s kind of that arrival fallacy, and I talk about that in this January podcast of once we get through this, things will be easier. I’ll have more space. And I wonder how you know, at some point I think those have we have to reconcile those two thoughts to be really one, in order to be more, to take advantage of what’s in front of us. So I’m curious if that change exhaustion, or any of that you know, as you talk about from the research, if that’s something that companies really need to be understanding that in order to make that shift to what you’re talking about, of being more leaning in and more, you know, embracing. So I’m just curious if you have some thoughts on that, something I’ve been very fascinated by,

Kevin Oakes 29:00

yeah, you mentioned the book that I wrote, culture renovation, and I talked a lot about this in that book. And there’s a lot of history to this of how organizations have tried to condition a workforce to constant change. You just use the word change exhaustion. I would try to change the attitude towards change excitement, right? You want a workforce that is very comfortable with change, but actually gets energized by change, as opposed to exhausted by change. And so it’s an attitude shift. You can hire for it, for sure, I think more importantly, you want to create a change ready environment. There’s a lot of companies that induce change on a regular basis, just to keep the workforce accustomed to it right? Just so that people don’t get to this point where they don’t want things to change. I think that it’s critical, and Microsoft did a great job in their culture renovation. Satya talked a lot about I want to learn it all attitude inside the organization, versus a know it all attitude. And really, what he was getting at there is I want an organ. Organization that’s agile. I want them to constantly be learning. I want them to embrace new things, share their knowledge internally. And anytime we find a company that says we have a learning culture, they not only are a very change ready culture, but they’re a company that typically is off the charts, high performing, meaning that, you know, they have better market share, profitability, you know, revenue growth, etc. So I think it’s an important concept. I think if you’re trying to be a high performing, high performing organization, you have to get that attitude in the culture of the organization,

Kim Bohr 30:32

yeah, and I think that’s something that’s, like you said, hiring for it being very intentional. I think that’s really the key one as we move into some of our kind of wrapping our conversation up. One of the interesting findings in the research is that organizations successfully scaling aren’t just focusing on technical skills. They’re really investing in more of these leadership capabilities you have mentioned in our conversation prior around, companies like moderna achieving 80% adoption rates. MasterCard success with AI initiatives or significant? What role are you seeing? The executive development playing into this? Anything that you feel like you know, again, we’ve put up so much on HR, what do we do to get everybody you know more to have these kind of results that you all have been able to document through some of your clients? Yeah,

Kevin Oakes 31:18

those are two good examples of dozens and dozens of case studies that we’ve tried to capture, going back to the notion that I said earlier, where people are doing really cool things with AI, but you just have to get other companies to see it, to help them, you know, understand what they can do with AI. And moderna and MasterCard are great examples of where they’ve embraced Gen AI, throughout the organization have trained all employees on Gen aI have very specific training offerings and continuous training offerings. They don’t just stop at the basics, right? They’re helping people really advance their skill set. And the leadership in those organizations has been very clear on the fact that they have an AI strategy and what it is, and the leaders are using AI like I talked about before. In fact, if you go out to modernist site, they have a great video that showcases how they’re using this across the organization and really trying to advance, you know, some of the solutions that they’ve been providing to society, trying to do that in a much more rapid way. So good, you know, just two good examples. But there’s many others out there, depending on what industry you’re in, or, you know, size of company, even you can really learn a lot from some of those companies.

Kim Bohr 32:31

So as we wrap up the conversation and we think about, you know, what your research has shown, what are maybe the top, you know, three takeaways or so that you feel like listeners should really be hearing and what’s going on and what able to start to think about what actions they should take.

Kevin Oakes 32:49

Yeah, we have some recommendations in the study we’re coming out with, so one of them is what I said earlier, engage your workforce and identifying where parts of their job can be automated and used, you know, leveraged with AI. I think that’s a big one, the agentic AI that I talked about. So if you’re not familiar with that, get familiar with it, because that’s going to be a good big part of, you know, of AI going forward, training everybody, including leaders, is a big one as well. Is sort of a simple one, but just so many organizations haven’t really embraced that and then creating a future ready workforce. It’s not just about AI readiness, it’s about being future ready as a workforce and addressing some of those change issues that I talked about. Those are some of the broad recommendations that we have, and then we have more specific recommendations underneath each one of those. One example, you have a love for leadership, we find that some of those leading companies are having leaders teach, and leaders as teachers, has been a concept that’s been around for quite some time. Jack Welch actually popularized it decades ago. But while most companies don’t do this, they don’t have their leaders teach, the ones that do tend to be those learning cultures that we talked about, and there’s a lot of benefits when you have leaders teaching others. You never learn something as best as possible, unless you’re forced to teach it. But there’s also a lot of, I just think, interaction with the workforce and leadership that happens when leaders are actively teaching. So that’s one small recommendation underneath the hey, you know, let’s train everybody recommendation.

Kim Bohr 34:21

That’s a fantastic recommendation as well that we need more people modeling what we want others to be able to embrace and do. As we wrap up any final thoughts or points you want to make sure the listeners get to particularly like

Kevin Oakes 34:36

you’re behind. Don’t worry, you’re in good company, because most, most are, yeah, so we’re really early in this process, and you can catch up. There’s no question about it, you can catch up very quickly in this AI game. But don’t wait, because the longer you wait, the harder and harder it’s going to be to catch up. And so I would just encourage listeners to do what they can to try to get the workforce up to speed on AI and just. Be ready for this future that, obviously is Gen AI is going to play a big part in

Kim Bohr 35:04

Absolutely. It’s not slowing down, it’s not going away, and so we better just find a peace with it, dive in. So thank you so much, Kevin. I so appreciate your time and this knowledge and information for our listeners. We’ll have free resources at that you can download, take advantage of we’ll have links to what you’ve talked about, Kevin, so people get familiarized with this report and some of the recommendations that you’ve suggested for our resources, they’ll be at courage to advance podcast.com. I want to also thank the empathy edge for hosting our podcast sub series and to our the listeners for tuning into the episode of courage to advance where Transformative Leadership isn’t about having all the answers, but it’s about having the courage to find them. Thanks again, Kevin and we’ll tune in again for another episode of courage to advance next month.

Kevin Oakes 35:51

All right, thanks Kim

Maria Ross 35:54

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 you.

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

Jen Stark and Jarrid Green: The DEI Flashpoint and How We Move Forward

Today I speak with Jen Stark and Jarrid Green, Co-Directors, of the Center for Business and Social Justice. We candidly discuss how DEI and other topics became flashpoints and ideological hostages rather than sustained corporate efforts, and how companies can break this cycle. We explore the questions executives and boards are asking, how companies can respond to activist shareholders and continue to promote fairness and equity while also fulfilling their responsibility to ensure strong financial performance – and why we’re “beyond the business case” so we can adapt our narrative. Jen and Jarrid offer valuable advice on how everyone from the C-suite to DEIB and CSR professionals in the trenches can stay motivated and respond.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

You cannot be neutral anymore. Consumers want to know what their money will support and want to be value aligned.
Be authentic with yourself – you need to understand why you are doing what you are doing.
Lean into your smaller, individual communities. Mass media and social media information sharing is not enough.

“We’ve left the era of case-making. There are enough data points, surveys, and white papers that if it is was just rational thought governing business decisions, you’d be in a different place.” — Jen Stark

Episode References:

Kerner Report: pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/bombshell-political-report
The Center’s Social Justice Guidebook: bsr.org/en/focus/equity-inclusion-and-justice
How to Survive a Plague by David France: penguinrandomhouse.com/books/209900/how-to-survive-a-plague-by-david-france
Suffs: The Musical: suffsmusical.com

From Our Partner:

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

About Jen Stark and Jarrid Green, Co-Directors, Center or Business and Social Justice

Jen Stark is a strategy development and implementation expert at complex health and humanitarian organizations with 20+ years of experience. She launched BSR’s Center for Business and Social Justice in 2022 alongside Jarrid Green to illuminate a path for companies to shift from performative to transformational actions with a focus on public policy engagement and influence. She is frequently cited in business press on flashpoint topics and is an advisor to Gauge.ai and GoFundMe’s Compassion Leadership Network.

Jarrid Green co-designs and implements programmatic efforts alongside Jen Stark for the Center for Business and Social Justice, an initiative of BSR that seeks to mobilize companies to take systemic and intersectional approaches to their social impact efforts. Jarrid’s role includes developing research, thought leadership, frameworks, and capacity-building opportunities related to corporate social impact strategies. He also provides collaborative oversight and direction for the Center’s organizational and administrative functions, and acilitates the execution of the Center’s ongoing corporate, civil society stakeholder, and donor activities.

Connect with Jen and Jarrid:

Business for Social Responsibility: bsr.org/en/collaboration/groups/center-for-business-and-social-justice

Jen Stark LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jenstark

Jarrid Green LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jarridgreenmba

Connect with Maria:

Get Maria’s books on empathy: Red-Slice.com/books

Learn more about Maria’s work: Red-Slice.com

Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Maria Ross 00:04

Jen Stark 03:38

Sure? Maria, I came to this work. I was managing the disaster fundraising team at American Red Cross national headquarters, back just before Hurricane Katrina hit what was then one of the most you know, historic disasters of her time that since been you know, subsumed many times over and got to see firsthand the power of the private sector when it brought its talent resources and commitment to meeting urgent needs and long term recovery, and it really opened my eyes to again by whether it was the tech sector unleashing and again, this was in the early days of social media, you know, unleashing their power to create a safe and well website so folks in disaster shelters could check in and let their loved ones know where they are to ways. You know, other companies that you know, if they had nothing more than, you know, trailers on trucks to use to transport items to the Gulf Coast. You know, we’re signing up in all kinds of ways. And it was, you know, a time when everyone was leaning in and really empathy and action, yeah, ways, it was very inspiring. And now I say kind of half jokingly, I’ve experienced, you know, disasters all the way from, you know, natural. Man made that sort of brought me to this moment, and what I think the private sector is really capable of,

Maria Ross 05:04

I love that we are very much aligned on that, because I really believe that there is a power and an influence for good that so many of these powerful, well resourced organizations have, and that’s really what my work is about, is helping them be a catalyst for good and use their platforms for good. So I love it. Jarrid, how about you? How’d you get into this work? All right,

Jarrid Green 05:26

I’ll just lean into a little bit of curiosity. I think where I got to be a wonderful co director with Jen here is just being curious about what opportunities there are for business to actually achieve social impact, being really intentional about what they were trying to address when they talk about social impact. We’re the CO directors for the Center for Business and Social Justice. So that was, of course, at the forefront of our minds and our thinking around the center. And it, of course, was at the forefront in the minds of folks around the globe, right? Yeah, coming out of 2020 we saw some really unfortunate events with folks dying at the hands and public safety officers, and seeing some of the systemic connections that led to that, and the reparations throughout the globe for that in terms of inequality, wealth inequality, gender inequality, those kinds of things. And so I’ve been fortunate enough to have some experience in nonprofit advocacy, some working with think tanks prior to this, and working right just for this role, working in philanthropy and actually supporting groups on a number of issues, working foundations and their efforts to support across civic and social justice issues, groups that were on the ground trying to build communities, trying to address real, challenging problems like criminal justice reform, which crosses ideological lines in terms of support folks who are Trying to build wealth and really underserved under Resources, communities otherwise, and of course, in the throes of the pandemic, which really exacerbated and put on display some of the inequalities and inequities that we experience. And so the constellation of having seen try to intervene in some of these questions in terms of, how do we advance social justice? How do we create a better world that is more inclusive and has lots of opportunity for all folks. Was something I experienced about my career in different roles, in profit, advocacy, intermediary work or in philanthropy before I got to BSR, but I came to BSR because I was just so excited at the opportunity to see, especially given the momentum, where can business achieve impact, whether through internal operations or externally, how can they actually achieve impacts on social justice causes?

Maria Ross 07:23

So I want to get to that question. And I just want to talk about, what do the businesses or organizations that come to you, what are they requesting? And this is kind of a two part question, what do they believe social impact is? And I assume, like my work is all about, they must assume there’s an ROI to that as well. Like we can do good for ourselves and for others. So first, like, if you kind of break that apart, what are they coming to you? What challenges or questions do they have when they’re coming to you? And how did they define social impact? Jen, maybe start with

Jen Stark 07:56

you. Sure. I say this quite often, and I remember back in 2020 when there was a business, an academic Business Press article that talked about the new era of corporate social justice, back in 2020 and often I think back, and I look back at this headline, and I think, if only right, fast forward to where we are in 2025 so just by way, just a tiny bit of background. So BSR, where the Center for Business and Social Justice sits is comprised of a network of 300 plus of the world’s largest companies headquartered in the US or globally. Typically, you know, large companies, complex value chains, and, you know, all the corporate functions and bells and whistles across every industry. So I would say the questions that I’ve experienced since we’ve launched the center have really run the gamut from, you know, reacting to current flash points on issues which I know we’re going to talk quite a great deal about, dei and the cross hairs, what I think we’ve aspired to be is also a couple clicks ahead of where businesses are at the end of the day, corporate social responsibility, corporate social impact, only got us so far, and There’s a lot of unmet, chronic gaps that require larger systemic change that through some of the resources we’ve put out without kind of any pay wall or barrier to entry or social justice guide for business, and a lot of the other materials that we put out are trying to connect the dots for companies, because there is a growing ecosystem of folks of champions and executives across all kinds of businesses that are really seeking a more methodical approach on these issues, whereas often they devolve into, what does our General Counsel say we can or cannot do, or what is the PR play? Here, and there’s so much in the middle that just gets sort of kicked down the road from Flashpoint to flash point.

Maria Ross 10:09

And so kind of back to the original question, though, what kinds of things? If you can give us some examples of what are some of the issues you’re discussing and the things that companies are looking to make the business case for those that are still kind of committed, how did they define social impact?

Jen Stark 10:27

Jarrid, I know you’ve been tracking closely on a lot of the incoming questions,

Jarrid Green 10:31

yeah. Oh, I so many good question in terms of recent showing us here, I think I really want to say, you know, no secret that in the past few years that companies have been trying to respond to the fall of row and then the Dobbs decision in 2022 right? Yep. And so many different SCOTUS companies are like, Well, I just know that it was the year before the affirmative action decision in 2023 right? I don’t, I mean, I’m sure that we did have decisions last year, including, you know, administrative rule making all sorts of attacks, different sort of policies and sort of precedent in the country in terms of how we went about doing things for decades that built the economy that we know and that created the business operating landscape that we live in. And so I just mentioned too, right, major laws that saw dramatic change and shifts that businesses needed to respond to. And so since we launched the center in 2022 right, we of course, have been have been trying to provide businesses with guidance, advice and peer learning spaces where they can talk to other colleagues, whether in their industry or across industry, about what they’re doing, how to navigate this moment. I used to say a lot, and I should say still, right is that businesses are full of people. There are real people who work at companies. I think we typically in the media, it’s really easy to see the brand and associate business with a brand. And businesses are brands, right? They’ve got to protect their interests. And the discussion we’re having right is, how do companies actually be a business, a for profit enterprise, and at the same time take into account but the fact that their for profit enterprise is fueled by individuals and people from communities and different backgrounds. And so naturally, with the two decisions I just named and some of the other ones right that companies have had to navigate around reproductive care, abortion access, you know, diverse talent pools and workforces, inclusive works, places and environments that work for folks to help them mitigate the risk of litigation or, you know, blind spots when it comes to discrimination, that those are the things that folks are coming to us with questions around and how folks are navigating that internally, on their own organizations, what their strategy should be globally, even because what’s happening in United States is happening in the United States, it has influenced globally. But there’s actually global regulations and policies that are afoot as well. But

Maria Ross 12:39

when you say that, that’s a big thing. So what is it they actually are asking? Are they asking for what benefits do we need to offer? What does our public stance need to be about this? How do we need to structure the organization to better address it like, what are the things that they’re asking when they are faced with those decisions or those changes in policy? Is it all of the above. Yes,

Jen Stark 13:01

all of the above. How do we adapt or increase? How do we leverage what’s within our walls? What are the workplace policies, practices, benefits? How does inform or influence physically where we have footprint and that may or may not make us subject to local jurisdiction around data privacy or other kinds of things, yeah, especially, you know, focus on the US. Yeah, more fragmentation between states. This is just sort of more cost and chaos for business to try to navigate what might be, you know, right, in one state, on any number of issues, is criminal in another. This is, you know, a lot for companies to mitigate all the way to, what does it look like to stay the course in a public fashion, in a private fashion, and I think increasing, as we’ve seen in, you know, since, you know, in the last two weeks alone, companies sort of also self sorting into those that seek and secure federal contracts, and therefore are vulnerable to direct retaliatory action as it comes to their bottom line, and those that aren’t affected by that, and therefore, then how do their scenarios differ in terms of the past that they’ll pursue on a number of issues? So I think this is exactly from the inside out we’re seeing companies have to sort of put all the puzzle pieces on the table in a cross functional way, lean into some scenarios that, if we were to have offered them up to companies 12 months ago, we might have been seen as hysterical, but now is sort of a version of reality that companies need to sift through. Yeah. So I think we’re seeing a bit of everything. This, how this, how current events are hitting across all corporate

Maria Ross 14:45

functions, and I think we forget that. That’s why I wanted thank you so much for pointing out those specifics, because we hear the headlines, but we don’t really understand how it actually impacts businesses from an operational perspective. You know? I mean, I. Had guests on the show that talk about, you know, being able to do business travel on behalf of their companies. And I’ve had transgender folks say, I have to be careful where I travel, where my company sends me. So these are things we don’t think about when we think about the repercussions, the real life repercussions, of some of these policies that are, you know, in my opinion, very misguided, but I know other people have opinions about that. I’d love to get back to this human aspect you talked about. Obviously, we understand it’s people behind the company. And that’s, you know, the work I do is about empathy. Has a place in the workplace, because anywhere you have people having to collaborate with other people, you need empathy. So are you finding and maybe Jarrid, this is a question for you. Are you finding that, given what’s happening, are these individuals as humans conflicted with what they have to do in service of protecting their company and playing the game versus what they in their hearts would like to do to promote equity and opportunity. I assume they’re probably not coming to you if they’re not conflicted so. But can you share a little bit about their mindset right now and kind of where their hearts and minds are? I mean, I think

Jarrid Green 16:13

you hit the nail on the head. I think we work with individuals, right? People who have roles in government affairs, dei leads, sustainability, professionals, corporate social respect, responsibility, professional supply chain folks. You know, we’ve seen, we put out materials covering a range of topics and social justice, of course, more broadly. And we’ve seen engagement from folks who are working in different functions across business organizations and at different levels too. So yes, exclamation point on the fact that we’re working with people here, and it’s important to that again, business is not some sort of figurative thing that exists in the world without people behind them, and that diversity, equity, inclusion and practice professional within one company is going to want to maybe talk about what their practice is, what the best practices are, what their lessons learned with folks from a different company, right? It’s not, yeah, the walls, just like with any other sector, there are individuals and roles that want to know what the best way of doing things is, and then want to think about how to tail that with to their company. And so I talked with an individual today at a major consumer brands company, and they talked about this sort of personal to professional conflict. They, of course, you know, in this we were talking about in the context of gender equity and what is right for company to do on gender equality and how they, at the same time, have to navigate their the private sector landscape and even the legal landscape with the scrutiny that’s afoot. And think about, how do I ensure this work surprise continues? I could dig my feet in the ground and say that I think this work should look like this, and these are my values and that kind of thing. But the same time, if I do that, then I’m stuck with that, right? I need to also try to evolve, because at the end of the day, as Jen and I stress a lot, it’s about the outcomes. Like, we don’t want to be a tooth and we don’t want to water down things, there’s a risk to trying to escape talking about something plainly and trying to clear outcomes, right, especially given the history of this country and the history of the globe. But we also want to endure moments, and we also want our best ideas, our best outcomes, to come up. But I just want to quickly, sort of touch back on the loop this to something you named earlier, right? We are working with people. There is a human aspect. People are conflicted. When people come to us, it’s important to remember we’re not legal, right? And so they have their own legal teams who which are also people, right, who have their own practice and experience and profession, and they’re going to look at things with their point of view to try to, you know, protect their own jobs and roles, and also, it’s the organization they’re seeking to protect. And so what we do is try to offer a point of view, and we can offer that point of view through research and data that we put out, we can offer guidance on how folks should talk to their CEOs. So we talk about empathy. How do we persuade? How do we give the data anecdotal talking points that are going to convince the CEO pick up for their internal operations or external operations otherwise? And then also connections, of course, I mentioned peer learning, but how they talk to their other peers in their field, and then how to do this work. So it’s a very personal effort, but yeah, I know it from the way that

Maria Ross 19:05

I know it’s hard. A lot of my, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of my work is about making the business case for a lot of this and but I also a brand strategist and a marketer from my background, so I also understand that data alone doesn’t persuade we’ve got to have stories. We have to have human to human connection. We have to have an understanding of how this actually impacts real lives. But then, when I do exercise that left brain, analytical part of myself that is not as strong as other people, I’m like, but the data like, it’s good, you know, if we’re talking about just shareholder value, these are the right things to do to enable the company to thrive and be sustainable and make better business decisions. And this is what I love about the younger generations coming into the workforce, is they actually link diversity of thought with business outcomes. It’s not just it’s yes for them, it is the right thing to do. But. But it also is something that leads to a better decision, because you are able to see more risk. You’re able to uncover more opportunities when you have diverse voices and perspectives at the table. It just makes business sense. So how is it not crazy making to you as you do this work? And Jen, maybe this one’s to you when you know that this impact directly leads to bottom line results. If we’re being really crass about it 100%

Jen Stark 20:28

and I think I often use that term, yes, I’m about to be really crass about Well, I think we’ve left the era of case making. Yeah, there is enough data points and surveys and white papers that if it was just rational thought governing business decisions, you would be in a different place so much when it comes to equity, around tax policy and common sense regulation ensure the dignity of workers and their health, all kinds of things right? The fact that you know policies around protecting workers from extreme heat don’t pass because of outsized influence. I mean, there’s so many examples, so yeah, with that

Maria Ross 21:07

little flash, I guess that’s like, why is this exactly?

Jen Stark 21:10

So, you know, but I do think I heard melody Hobson say this on CNBC the other day, where she talked about she used this phrase where she said, math doesn’t discriminate and talent is evenly distributed. And I just thought that was such a great bumper sticker in that we can oftentimes, again, kind of get in our own way, again, with, you know, the academic papers and the survey data and the research, but when you don’t have the kind of workplace that values the diversity of thought and idea and experiences. There’s not only the near term impact, but all of these sort of unknown, long term costs. And the fact that this, you know, we’ll talk about dei in particular, like other functions was evolving in, you know, all kinds of ways with more orientation around, you know, impact and outcome. And at the same time, you had this sort of rising tide of a very politically driven, sort of, you know, online, you know, driven opposition. It just became this real cauldron that has us sometimes asking the wrong questions about, How do we improve? Sort of, what’s behind a lot of these practices that you know lead to a lot of cost benefit for business, and not do so in a way where we say, well, the whole theory of change and you know, how workplaces were, you know, evolving again in important ways to be more effective and productive, that somehow we need to roll that back. So I think we’re kind of taking too broad a brush, and unfortunately, there’s a lot of fuel for that fire right now. Yeah. So

Maria Ross 22:55

how are you now talking to people, if we’re sort of like, beyond the business case, maybe not the people working with you, but you know the public at large trying to continue to make sure that these efforts continue, that the progress continues. How have you changed your approach, if at all, given the current climate? And Jarrid, yeah, go ahead.

Jarrid Green 23:19

We have done and I think we knew this when we launched the center and put out our social justice guy, that we kind of moved past the need to make the business case right for business investment and societal programs or building inclusive, diverse and equitable workplaces. We’d move past it, because right, I think, in my hunch,

Maria Ross 23:38

but into what did you move to? Yeah, oh yeah,

Jarrid Green 23:41

I would say we moved past that because practitioners knew that, and business leaders knew it. It was obvious, plain as day. Is why we wanted to do it for the reasons you name, right, stronger organizations, more profitable

Maria Ross 23:51

enterprises, more engagement, better loyalty, all the things, yeah, where we

Jarrid Green 23:55

were was trying to actually bring folks together, to actually elevate best practices on certain topics, and while also navigating flash points right? And what we’d seen was folks engaging on a flash point while they’re trying to advance best practice work, and the flashpoints were so loud and so disruptive to the good work without being, in some cases, good faith in their effort to actually improve the work right we see, I say, Bad Faith Efforts right to advance and in progress that folks have made to create a society where we all can go to work, do our jobs in a safe and welcoming environment, and go home and feed our families and live in an affordable home and seek out opportunity. Otherwise, that’s maybe the core bread and butter what we all maybe want to do with our lives, without getting into the nuances of each particular constituency right and have our civil rights upheld, but tragically, given the media, the data, all the resources available to us and everything that I mean to point fingers, but just given our environment, you know, we as a culture are susceptible to whatever the loudest word. Voice in the room can be despite, right? Not that voice could should be tempered, given the facts and the reality, right? I see you have a question. Yeah,

Maria Ross 25:07

I was going to say, so does that make your focus more on we’re not going to try to do any more convincing of the skeptics. We’re going to try to bolster the people that believe. Is that fun?

Jarrid Green 25:19

Yeah, but what’s shifted is the reality that we, yes, there are constituency of companies and leaders who we can continue to try to input some ambition into. Let’s look 10. I love that.

Maria Ross 25:32

Input some ambition. That’s right. Support their

Jarrid Green 25:34

ambition. Let’s, let’s also recommend some future forward facing things. But the reality today’s world, right, as we see it unfolding rapidly, and I mean literally unfolding. The number one guidance I have for companies right now is talk to your legal team and talk to them about and bring your company’s values and the work that you all have been doing to the conversation, so that you’re not just getting a strictly legal opinion and point of view, but bring in the realities of the entire conversation into that conversation, because it’s important for your legal team. As you have this conversation, as you convince your other stakeholders to know what the global context is, to know how things differ between geographies, to understand how your industry is working, that kind of thing. So

Maria Ross 26:11

can you give me an example? And Jen, I see you wanting to jump in here. Can you give me an example, like a scenario, of that? But Jen, also add your point, please. Yeah. I was

Jen Stark 26:18

just going to say and to make you know of the couple sort of recommendations that we have for business right now, in this moment, it’s about engaging with legal counsel, but in a way that that becomes the floor and not the ceiling. That’s not the ambition for the work right? That’s to ensure that you know what you’re doing is, in fact, consistent with the law, and pulling apart, what’s the law and versus what is meant to have a chilling effect, but is not, in fact, the law or legal. So that’s sort of step one, really tracking trends as far as how this is showing up in your workforce, as they might have questions related to, you know, dei benefits, policies and programs where, again, dei has shown up, perhaps not in name, but in practice, we often forget to think about things like access to paid sick days or paid family medical leave, right? I mean, dei isn’t just sort of one thing. Yeah, exactly so it’s really important to think about how many all workers can benefit from dei Programs and Practices before again, if we give too much oxygen to often, you know, detractors and folks that want to do this rollback. And then we have a couple other steps we recommend too. But it does get very tactical in terms of, you know, finding ways to ensure that company leadership and the board have a really, really understand the why, so that they can be re they can help reinforce, again, what’s legally required the company’s performance standings, and I think, as Jarrid often aptly says, will sort of outlast the current landscape and points of the moment. We also talk about how companies need to be mindful of having a diversity of stakeholders that they’re talking to within the company and outside of it again, so they’re not giving too much weight on the scale to any one single shareholder that’s, you know, aiming an arrow at the company. Well, that’s,

Maria Ross 28:24

I was going to actually bring that up the activist shareholders, and how some companies recently have folded, and how others, like Costco, have said, No, we’re doubling down. Yeah. What can companies do to withstand what I imagine is just a very vocal minority, but yet they’re caving in. What advice do you have? First of all, how do you see that? And also, what advice do you have about what we can learn from what Costco is doing on how to stand firm?

Jen Stark 28:54

I’ll just say quickly, to always consider the source, to examine that carefully before making an over correction. And the shareholder space has become what historically has been a very sophisticated mechanism that only a few activists have been able to find a pathway in has now become sort of this new lever for across the political spectrum, where folks are seeking action from business when government can’t or won’t lead. So it is this new battlefield that companies need to be wholly prepared for, and those that are will have cohesive responses, and those that don’t will engage in a kind of verbal jujitsu, if you will, or a kind of backsliding that damages the issues they pretended to support. Sorry, I’ll get

Maria Ross 29:54

a note box. No, no, I love it. I actually, for the first time ever, I have a me. Working soon with someone at the fund company that you know manages three quarters, two thirds of a trillion dollars. They’re making time to talk to me because I asked my financial planner, how can I have a voice on these proxy votes? I’ve never asked that in my life. I’m 52 years old. I’ve been investing in my 401 ks and mutual funds and all that since I was 21 and we need to do more of that. We need to make sure that there’s other voices being represented at that conversation. And there’s ways, you know, we can’t. We don’t have to just put our hands in the air and say, like, oh, well, my portfolio’s got a ton of things. So I don’t, actually, I’m not a direct shareholder. I don’t vote. You can make your voice heard, to your funded, to the advisors, to the managers of those funds. So I was just curious how you if you had any I love that advice of like checking the source. And what other advice would you have for C suite teams, for boards that are dealing with that pressure right now?

Jarrid Green 30:58

Jarrid, it’s actually not too far from checking the source right. The last two weeks, it’s checked the source and really read the What’s actually happening. Right? We can see companies and leaders thinking that it might be necessary to over correct, because a source that has historically an institution, has had some credibility, puts out a new directive or an executive order, for instance, and it’s all an example, a lot of verbiage, for instance, that is a lot of smoke, doom and gloom, and seems real consequential. But again, I go back to check with the legal because here’s the thing number one, if you read things closely and they talk about what might be unlawful activity, right? Diversity, equity, inclusion programs are actually lawful. And in fact, they have a fact, they have a long history of being lawful under constitution. And so the thing about companies may be moving too quickly because of flash point moments or because or optics or PR despite what actually is legal activity and legal programs, it may not feel like, oh, we can run the risk of moving so swiftly because we’d rather attract the attention of certain individuals or stakeholders and try to nip this in the bud. But the reality then, for what what was to what end is your enterprise doing efforts and programs to ensure that your organization, your company, is actually trying to achieve the goals and targets it’s been trying to achieve. To what end did you hire individuals to come into your company and think about ways to prevent and avoid harassment and discrimination and improve your workforce and have positive friends in the communities that actually are buying your products and supporting your entire business supply chain. To what end Are you up ending all of that because of a rush to not actually see it all through

Maria Ross 32:41

or a fear of retaliation. I think that’s very real for a lot of these companies. Of all of a sudden there’s going to be, you know, federal agency investigations or Justice Department investigations on our company if we don’t toe the line, right? I think that’s a very real and that’s to your point earlier of bringing in the legal team of, what are we really and also, you know, risk mitigation, what is our actual risk of exposure here if we continue to stay the course and stay true to our values,

Jen Stark 33:09

you know, building off of that too, though, what companies would be and practitioners and executive champions among your listeners would be remiss to Think about this as is that there’s some middle ground here that’s safe, like the sidelines are not the middle ground, even some fairly benign kinds of norms and practices that might exist within workforce that have large majority support, you know, are starting could come under closer and closer scrutiny. Is the kind of practices that say somebody, and, you know, an office holder or others, don’t want companies to hold. What will those red lines be for companies? I think, is an exercise that they’re having to figure out in real time. What that bridge too far is, I mean, going back to what we were talking about before, workforces and employees and sort of the tension that a lot of folks that have been really committed have been sort of part of this ecosystem and pipeline that’s growing within businesses. You know, they see their CEOs in different public settings, you know, towing various lines or doing what they feel like they need to do to keep the business going, and again, it this. 2025 is a different moment than 2020 than you know is 2017 just stating the obvious, and these tensions are just going to continue to unfold. There’s not going to be clear answers. Things are just going to be complicated. So all the more companies really need to apply a rigor that they have right, whether it’s, you know, a rigor that they have from how they’ve, you know, thought about, you know, human rights, if they operate, you know, across the globe and in various regions, if you know other different kind of competencies and expertise that they’ve had to develop, they have to bring to this to really identify. What are the decision points and what are the costs? Because, you know, I talked about how it’s no longer the era of case making. I think it’s also no longer the era of sort of like the double triple win right now. It’s decisions and costs, yeah, and

Maria Ross 35:12

no one can, and this has been happening for a while, just from the lens of my brand strategy and brand messaging work is you can’t be neutral anymore. This is not what consumers want. Everything is too transparent. They want to know we’re talking about customers. They want to know what their money is going to support, and they want to be value aligned consumers. And so you can’t just avoid what’s happening. You have to take a stand about what you as a company believe is right, what is our purpose, what is our mission, what our values? And not just those pretty bullet points on the wall, but how do those actually help us make decisions like this, like you’re pointing to, what’s the rigor around how we decide how we’re going to move forward, or not? We have to have that based in something it has to be based in. Do we have a set of beliefs? Do we have a culture here? Do we have a mission and a purpose here? If so, we have to start making decisions based on what is in pursuit of that purpose and mission, and those values, or what detracts from it, and those elements, those the mission, the values, those are not only the things that attract your top talent and your employees, but they attract your customers as well. And so they can’t be wishy washy, they can’t be vague anymore. So to your point, I think you said, you know, there’s sort of no would you say there’s no safe middle ground anymore? I think that’s spot on. I want to take this down a level, because I know I have, we have a lot of listeners who are in the trenches. They might be a employee experience professional or a dei professional. Do you have any advice for how they weather this storm? Do you have any advice for how they can adapt the work they’re doing, not to, like hide it, but just to, you know, to be able to still continue to do the work and have the impact that they want to have, and also just even your advice or guidance on how to stay motivated in this kind of environment, I think would be really beneficial. You

Jarrid Green 37:17

know, I want to be in my response. I’m gonna challenge myself to take my own responses advice, which is to be authentic, okay, right? And I think we talked a little bit here about hiding, and that being, you know, caught in the middle, or figure out what the middle ground or not being on the sidelines. And I think, you know, I started this conversation off. You asked me what my background was, and I mentioned, sort of my background and nonprofit advocacy work, helping folks think about how to increase opportunity for folks, whether through community wealth building activities, or through ending and dismantling structural racial inequity and public policy and actually working with federal, state and local lawmakers to do so because challenges like disproportionate access to wealth, housing, energy, transportation, healthcare, any you name it, and we’re going to find our disproportionate impacts, and we’re going To find our inequities, right? And so when we talk about social impact and we talk about businesses and their ability to hire inclusive workforces, we’re actually talking about how our society operates to actually ensure benefits and the welfare for all people, writ large. And when we talk about companies actually not being on the sidelines or figuring out where they’re going to be, we need to be thinking about how companies are doing that authentically, before even 2023 The question was whether or not co corporate commitments to the $350 billion with the commitments that companies had made to end racial injustice because of the so called racial the global reckoning with racial systemic racial inequity, right was actually doing anything, was actually getting put out there to actually affect that change internal to the organizations or externally. So my advice to the professionals, yeah,

Maria Ross 38:45

the ones in the trenches don’t feel like they have the power, yeah, 100% and

Jarrid Green 38:50

so my advice is to be authentic with yourself. Understand where you work, be authentic with yourself and understanding why you’re doing the work you’re doing in the context in which you’re doing it. Because it might be that you’re doing work in a context where your company is being quite authentic, it cares about it, yeah, you know who they are. That’s not going to do it, right? And some others are going to say, actually, these are our values, and they’re worth fighting for, right? And that’s, this is the kind of company we want to be, this kind of world we want to live in. And those are the companies that I would advise some of these dei professionals and your listeners to think about, how do I get in touch with those companies? How do I support more companies like this? How do I get my company to be like that company, and investigate the work that I need to investigate internally from the vantage point that I have to get there, but I just want to hide the ball because I don’t want to. I think a lot of times in these conversations, we can assume that business should just go about and everyone’s working in this space where we can convince and persuade our leaders to do XYZ. Well, if the folks who have leveraged all of our data to create billion dollar companies by way of advertising revenue by leveraging our private lives that we share and give to them on the interwebs, then go on and celebrate the support folks who are throwing up hit. Signs at their inaugural parties and clearly dismantling the fabric that actually brings people of color, women and other folks along into an economy, into the 21st century. If we see folks like that and companies actually shifting their movements to actually support that agenda, they’re telling you who they are. Mm, hmm. So dei professionals and other professionals in different roles, I think. One, just be authentic and be real with yourself about the environment that you work in and what you’re trying to achieve. And, number two, be agile. You’re not in that role because you just magically appeared as a professional into a company. You actually probably went to school, got a bachelor’s degree. Yeah, actually, Dan’s in 1520, years of experience, probably more experience probably more experience than some of your peers who don’t deserve the roles that they earn themselves to be, and they actually leaders of the company, right? I want to real talk here a little bit. Yeah, who are actually in the don’t discredit your own experience, your history, because the mic, the folks who have the microphone have historically had the microphone and are doing their best work to make you feel inadequate.

Maria Ross 41:02

That’s not the case. Okay, I love that mindset shift, mindset kick in the pants. And I’m wondering, if I’m curious, if there are any tactical things that you’re advising folks on at that level that you’re seeing are being done. Jen, I kind of want to punt this to you. What are some things that folks maybe can take away from this conversation? Obviously, we’re not gonna be able to give them all of it in the next, you know, five minutes we have left. But can you give them some places to start? Obviously, we will put, you know, all your links in the show notes so they can check out those resources. But can you share one or two gems of Yeah, so

Jen Stark 41:39

well. And actually, I was going to exactly, I think our social justice Guide is a great starting place again for providing methodical approach for how companies can think about the the real impact within their walls and the systemic changes that have yet to happen. And I appreciate there’ll be many other resources that the center provides, and we provide updates and sort of other things that we put out in the public domain. What to fuel people’s individual fires too? Though, I think that is such a beautiful question. I just wanted to go back to it for half a second. I’ve made a list of what I would say, sort of our three bits of, sort of reading homework I would ask folks, because I think so often we forget, or we skip over the history, right? We find ourselves in a role with only maybe an inch of depth, where we’ve developed an expertise in one particular area, but without regard for hundreds of years or decades that have brought us to this point. So there’s sort of three things that I sort of often turn back to. One. There’s this book called How to Survive a plague. It’s not about COVID it’s about the HIV AIDS epidemic, and how committed group of activists brought HIV testing, treatment and linkages to care from the periphery into the mainstream over a few decades, and the role of industry both positive and negative. This is sort of a sleeper, but it’s really important one, what’s known as the Kerner Commission report issued under President Johnson in the late 60s. It was an 11 member panel, mostly white men, that asked themselves in the wake of a summer of riots driven by racial injustice. Again, I’m talking about the late 1960s late 1960s not 2022 ask themselves, what could be done to prevent this from happening again and again. And it’s all the same things we are talking about in 2020 and 2022 and I think it had a moment too, as kind of a best seller. They nearly didn’t release it. They thought it would be so incendiary. There’s that. And then, unfortunately, I think it’s had its run now on Broadway, but the musical suffs, I think it might be coming out other domains, yeah, beautiful and inspiring. And essentially in it was one of these moments when, you know, American democracy and franchised a group of people, which has only happened a couple times. And in the instance of SUS, they talked about women getting the right to vote in the US, and how democracy transformed instantly, but it was by no means a foregone conclusion. So all of these things, I think, in these very confusing, chaotic moments, I think it’s important to maybe take a step out of the present and yeah, just in the larger spectrum

Maria Ross 44:23

well. And I think I’m going to share all those links in the show notes, by the way, I love it. And I think also just knowing that there are some playbooks out there, and there’s also people you can talk to, and I know a lot of activists that I know are actually reaching back out to the black community, the Brown community, about the playbooks from the Civil Rights Movement, and what is the advice? What is the ability to mobilize to your point, the facts in the business case were beyond that now, and being able to share that with people and to know that you’re not doing this in a vacuum. So if you are you know a dei be professional, and you’re listening and you’re disheartened and you don’t know where to go from here. I love this advice about reading some of these things, consuming some of this information, and finding support with organizations like yours. Jen and Jarrid of there’s other people out there that can share best practices, can talk about what they’re doing within their companies. One of my big themes for this year is collaboration, but kind of, you know, asterisk community, because we have to lean into our smaller communities, the mass media community, the social media community, is not going to do it for us. We’ve got to lean into these individual communities. I’m even hearing people at local levels putting together little political action book clubs and discussion groups, just to say, how can we share information, how can we share best practices, and how can we make an impact? Whether we’re six people or we’re 50 people, or we’re 1000 and I think that’s, you know, now I’m on my soapbox, but I think that’s going to be the way forward for all of us. So I know we have to wrap. Jen Jarrid, thank you so much for all of these insights. There’s so much more we could have talked about, and I will definitely be putting links to the center and to where people can find those resources. But in terms of connecting with you both, what’s the best place not giving your email, but what’s the best place to have people connect with you? Jen under

Jen Stark 46:24

Social justice.bsr.org, folks can Subscribe to See and hear more what we’re about, and also, you know, certainly can follow us on LinkedIn, more in the moment, updates and hot takes on what’s going

Maria Ross 46:36

on. Awesome. And Jarrid, would that be a ditto? That’s a ditto for me. Yeah. Okay, great. And my public service announcement always is if you reach out on LinkedIn, tell them that you heard them on the podcast so they don’t think you’re trying to sell them something. Thank you both so much for your time and insights today. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you Maria, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate review and share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care, 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 and.

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

February Hot Take: A Rant, a Perspective, and a Challenge

This month’s Hot Take is a bit of a hodgepodge. You’re going to get the chance the tell me more about you and what you want to see on the show this year (and maybe share what you wish were different) – and I warn you: I’m gonna go on a bit of a rant about how we need to desperately stop moving backwards and band together to keep achieving progress – for ourself, our organizations, and our world. You may think I’m being political and ranty, but I am truly sharing facts – albeit yes, with my personal and professional opinion layered in for context. I mean, that’s why you love me, right?! My goal is to inspire you to think differently about what you are hearing and seeing and stay focused on moving forward.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Ambition, competitiveness, bravery, and strength are all key human traits. They do not need to be labeled as masculine or feminine. They belong to everyone.
Sharing opportunity does not remove anyone else’s opportunity. It opens the doors for more people and greater success for all.
All this backlash to DEI, empathy, and emotional intelligence is a mere distraction to the last dying gasp of an old-world leadership paradigm.

“That is what inclusion means: a place where you don’t have to pretend to be something you’re not. A place where everyone has the opportunity and access to grow and contribute – and yes, feel safe doing so.” — Maria Ross

Episode References:

Listener Feedback! Please fill out the short survey here at https://bit.ly/edge-feedback
HuffPost: Mark Zuckerberg Praises ‘Masculine’ Corporate Energy Amid Meta’s DEI Policy Reversal
Edie Falco Reads a Letter to White Supremacists
Inc: The U.S. Economy May Be Too Strong for Its Own Good
The Center for Public Integrity: New data shows why the U.S. needs more immigrants
Advocate: Apple, Costco stand behind DEI programs
HR Grapevine: ‘Doubling down’ | Costco ties its colours to the mast as attacks on DEI continue

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Hello, friends. Happy to be with you for my very first hot take of the year. Ah, 2025 Wow. You have come in, bringing all kinds of change anxiety, and yet my little optimist inside of me sees opportunity and growth potential. This month’s hot take is a bit of a hodgepodge. First, you’re going to get the chance to tell me more about you and what you want to see on the show this year, and maybe share what you wish were different. And I’d like you to be honest and candid. I’m going to also today go on a bit of a rant about how we need to desperately stop moving backwards and band together to keep achieving progress for ourselves, our organizations and our world. Now you may think I’m being political and ranty, but I’m truly sharing facts, albeit, yes, with my personal and professional opinion layered in for context. I mean, that’s why you’re here, right? That’s why you love me. My goal is to inspire you to think differently about what you’re hearing and seeing and stay focused on moving forward. So first, the survey. If you know podcasting at all, you know that Apple Spotify and all the rest tell us hosts very little to nothing about our audience. Sure, they give us numbers and countries and devices you log in on, but we don’t really get to know you. Now I know who I’m targeting with this content, and many of you kindly reach out on LinkedIn and via email. Thank you so much for that. You are leaders, change makers, C suite professionals focused on employee and customer engagement and experience culture and brand, but I want to know more, so I created a super short survey, and would love if you could take five minutes out of your day to fill it out. I’d like to learn who you are and what you like or dislike about the podcast, your ideas for future topics or guests, and to gage your interest in a powerful and fun community I’d like to put together for us this year. So many of you need to know each other, connect support and engage in the work of practicing the new leadership paradigm. It can get lonely and it can get discouraging, as we’ll talk about in a second, but we need each other in this empathy revolution to stand up, change the game and bring humanity back to our workplaces and our world for that matter. So please go to bit.ly/edge-feedback, that’s B, I T, dot, l, y, slash edge, hyphen. Feedback, like I said, it’s just five minutes of your time, but would be a treasure trove of info for me to continue serving up the right content, guests and talks. Thank you. So let’s get to it. How are we doing in the world of blazing a trail for empathetic leadership? Well, some leaders appear to be actively trying to set us back. It’s happening so fast, it’s giving me whiplash. Check out. Mark Zuckerberg, most recent words about celebrating bringing back more masculine energy in the corporate world, a place he deemed as having become too culturally neutered. His words, not mine. In fact, here’s exactly what he said on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which, by the way, the fact, in and of itself that he was on there tells you a lot about what you need to know. And I’m reading from the Huff Post article that I will link to in the show notes. Quote, the kind of masculine energy I think is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think corporate culture was really trying to get away from it. End, quote. He later continued. Quote, I do think that if you’re a woman going into a company, it probably feels like it’s too masculine. It’s like there isn’t enough of the kind of the energy that you may naturally have. Saying that his could lead to the perception that things are, quote, biased against you. That’s not good either, because you want women to be able to succeed and have companies that can unlock all the value from having great people, regardless of background or gender, he said, but added that quote, These things can always go a little far. This all comes as meta removes content moderation in favor of a community policing model read shirking responsibility for content on its own platform and dials back its DEI efforts. Just as companies like Walmart, Ford and McDonald’s have done so, my empathetic question of Zuckerberg would be, what do you mean by masculine energy? Tell me more. Or is that just coded language for white supremacy and patriarchy? Because, quote, masculine energy has done nothing but create a toxic environment where men are not allowed to feel their feelings, where they have limited choices and they experience loneliness, depression and suicide at alarming rates, where boys can only turn to violence or intimidation to soothe their hurt. If that’s the masculine energy you’re referring to, we’ll take a hard pass. Thank you. We actually need more feminine energy in the world to end wars and conflict. If you ask me, the Eastern religions have well understood this fact. Now, Mr. Zuckerberg, if you mean ambition, competitiveness, bravery and strength, I hate to tell you, honey, but it’s 2025 and women can exhibit all of those traits as well, but thank you for your gender bias. We don’t really need to label these traits masculine or feminine. They’re human traits, and they belong to us all. So what is going on here? Well, here’s my hot take. Tech billionaires like Zuckerberg and other company leaders are cowardly kissing the ring of the new administration in the US to get tax breaks avoid Department of Justice investigations and generally curry favor. This sycophantic behavior is so transparent, it’s not even funny, and much of this comes from people who used to champion diversity as a strategic advantage, which it is they used to champion equity for all women’s leadership. I mean, again, the reversal is giving me whiplash. This move by Zuckerberg comes after donating $1 million to the Trump campaign and appointing Trump’s PAL to the meta board of directors, oligarchy. Here we are. We’re already seeing this in action with billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy heading up the newly formed Doge department of government efficiency, designed to cut regulations spending and head counts within the federal government. Doge, by the way, is a wink wink, nudge nudge, reference to Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, we’re seeing a backlash to DEI efforts labeled as efforts to get quote back to merit, as if non white male hires are not as capable or high performing as other groups just because they are black or brown or female or gay. Dei B ensures that talented people from marginalized groups are simply being given the opportunity to compete when they’ve been overlooked and left out for so long. It’s about opening the talent pool, not limiting it, and let’s not forget, this is not just hiring. It’s about creating a culture where everyone belongs, inclusion and the organization can reap the benefits of different points of view and experiences, and can allow everyone to show up as who they are, so they can contribute ideas freely. That is what inclusion means people a place where you don’t have to pretend to be something. You’re not a place where everyone has the opportunity and access to grow and contribute, and yes, feel safe doing so, but put all that aside. What does this mean for empathy in the workplace? Empathy and all the benefits it brings, higher engagement, more innovation, better collaboration, higher performance, retention, customer loyalty, productivity, the list goes on. They still exist. Those benefits are still there. We can’t deny the data. Second, I want to point out that as we have progressed in the workplace, our economy has thrived, yes, truly, higher than expected, jobs report, lower unemployment and inflation being staved off officially, although I empathize that prices are high in some areas, I know I’ve paid for eggs to the point that the US Fed is worried about lowering interest rates too soon, for fear of upsetting the apple cart. I’ll link to a great article in ink for your reference, because in it. Brian Rose, senior US economist for UBS Global Wealth Management, says, quote, given the overall strength of the recent economic data, there is little reason for the Fed to consider cutting rates anytime soon. Yes, eggs and lattes cost way more than they used to. I get that but from a national economy perspective, we’re doing great having bounced back from the pandemic pressures, all that I might add while Biden was still in office, look, I’m not an econ expert, and you don’t tune in to hear me be one. My point is no one is losing jobs to less. Qualified workers, nor are white people going to be put out on the street. We’re fine for a pointed and priceless take on this, please tune in to actress Edie Falco’s 2018 reading of a letter written to white supremacists by a 67 year old white woman named Johnna Ramey from Salt Lake City. It was written soon after the 2017 Charlottesville violence. The letter was titled, what’s wrong with you. The link is in the show notes, and totally worth it if you haven’t seen it, look the US and the world is made up of a huge tapestry of different colors, cultures, languages, religions, work styles, sexual orientations, gender identities. We are a collection of people with neuro diverse needs, different talents, strengths, abilities and emotional health. We have to find a way to work together and continue to share opportunities with one another. We as organizations need to keep innovating and growing to remain healthy. We need different perspectives, global alliances, partnerships and yes, we need immigrants to fuel our workforce. Estimates show that we need them to fill growing jobs so our labor force stays competitive, and we need the tax revenue, especially after the Trump tax cuts back in 2017 Here are other reasons why we need immigration to fuel our country’s growth. Immigrant workers will add an extra $7 trillion to the US economy within the next decade, and an extra 1 trillion in federal tax revenue and new immigrants will prevent the US population from shrinking. They will be the source of all US population growth by 2042 the people denying these facts to embrace exclusion over empathy are playing a short game. Honestly, I’m not actually sure what game they’re playing, but it doesn’t make any data driven and yes, ethical sense to me. Why would you work to exclude more voices, more ideas, more opportunity? What can your organization possibly gain? From a myopic standpoint, your organization serves the people who live in the world, and those people span a broad, diverse spectrum. How can you possibly innovate and activate them if you build a business that doesn’t include them in making the decisions, elevating women, underserved and underrepresented groups, expanding your base of leadership potential only benefits you no one loses. Find me the people they claim are taking their jobs or promotions without merit. There aren’t any to limit competition in this way, just rigs the game. It’s like a pro sports team only playing against the minor leagues, if you’re really good at what you do, open the tournament to everyone. We made so many great strides in recent years. No one is being left behind. That’s just what the cult leaders would have you believe. Know that the leaders and organizations who lead with empathy and inclusion are the ones who are winning. Leaders like Costco and Apple are confidently standing firm and committing to dei as resolutions to end such programs are brought before their shareholders. Costco released a statement that said, quote, our efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion remind and reinforce with everyone at our company. The importance of creating opportunities for all. We believe that these efforts enhance our capacity to attract and retain employees who will help our business succeed. This capacity is critical, because we owe our success to our now over 300,000 employees around the globe. We believe that our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are legally appropriate, and nothing in the proposal demonstrates otherwise. End quote, the results of these important shareholder votes will not be known until the end of January, so stay tuned on that. You know what? All this backlash to dei to empathy, to emotional intelligence is a distraction, and it’s the last dying gasp of a leadership paradigm, and, quite frankly, a cultural world order that puts white men at the center of everything and creates division and caste systems when the true success model of the 21st century is about partnering, not domination, collaboration, not command equity, not inclusion. Activist board member Jeff rakes from Costco, said it best as he doubled down on Dei. Quote, attacks on dei aren’t just bad for business, they hurt our economy. A diverse workforce drives innovation expand. Markets and fuels growth. End quote. My challenge to you, dear listener, what role will you play in this revolution? What can you do within your own sphere of influence to change the conversation, practice empathy, thrive and win. Thanks for listening today. Please don’t forget to fill out my short listener survey as soon as possible. Go to bit.ly/edge-feedback that’s bit.ly/edge-feedback the link is also in the show notes. Like I said, it’s just five minutes of your time, but it’s so important to help me give you more of what you want and need. Thank you for listening to another episode of the empathy edge. Would love to hear what you thought. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate, review and share with a friend and colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

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

Tamsen Webster: Say What They Can’t Unhear: Communicating for Lasting Change

When we have information to give, the communication doesn’t start and end with just one email, announcement, or conversation. Effective communication is more than just the info you deliver, or the words you say. It requires empathy. This is a note for anyone needing to communicate strategic shifts, return-to-work policies, performance expectations, or even layoffs.

Tamsen Webster and I discuss why her work is driven by her desire to only do things once! How the risk of change belongs with the person or organization asking for it, how to understand the why behind how people approach change, and the first step in building buy-in that most people skip. She shares why leveraging pain is almost always guaranteed to fail long-term and how it’s almost always possible to find common ground (and if it’s not, to have a way to identify those differences clearly and without judgment).

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Every decision has a story. Every action or change we decide on has won the argument even if it is only internal.
It is important to understand the story, the heart of the message, surrounding the conversations about change.
Pain is the ally of quick action, but a brain in pain is not a rational brain. Once rationality is resumed, those decisions are often reconsidered.
If people don’t understand what you’re saying it doesn’t matter how powerful or important what you are saying is.

“Anchor the outcome of the change in something that you fully acknowledge and you share with the person that you’re talking to.” — Tamsen Webster

Episode References:

From Our Partner:

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

About Tamsen Webster, Message Designer and Author, Say What They Can’t Unhear

Part message designer, part English-to-English translator, part magpie, Tamsen Webster helps leaders craft their case for large-scale change. In addition to her work in and for major organizations such as Harvard Medical School, Fidelity Investments, and Klaviyo, she’s a judge and mentor for the Harvard Innovation Labs, a professional advisor at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, and has spent over 10 years as the Idea Strategist for one of only nine legacy-level TEDx events in the world. She was named to the Thinkers50 Radar in 2022 and is the author of two books, Find Your Red Thread: Make Your Big Ideas Irresistible and Say What They Can’t Unhear: The 9 Principles of Lasting Change. She lives in Boston with her husband, two sons, and two brindle Greyhounds, Hazel and Walnut.

Connect with Tamsen:

Website: messagedesigninstitute.com

Book: Say What They Can’t Unhear

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tamsenwebster

FREE RESOURCE: The Compact Case, designed to help people apply the principles of Say What They Can’t Unhear to their own case for change. thecompactcase.com.

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Tamsen Webster 03:01

It’s the sequel. I delighted to be back. Maria. Hi. Heart you.

Maria Ross 03:06

I love it. Yes. Last time you were here, we spoke about the red thread and the wonderful work you do around message design and helping people build messages that have impact and that stay with people and actually compel people to take action. And so now you’re back with your book. What they can’t on here the nine principles of lasting change. So bring us up to speed. Why this new book? Tell us a little bit about your work. We know we heard a little bit of it in the bio, but tell us a little bit about again, that story of what brought you to this type of work, and what led you to this new book? Well, what brought me

Tamsen Webster 03:44

to this work is a lifelong interest in doing things once. So again, I don’t know, yes, exactly. And, you know, complicating that was things that are difficult to do at all, you know, so some personal, transformational changes that I work towards for quite a long time, like I lost 50 pounds over 25 years ago, and have maintained that I also overcame a 17 year panic disorder. But in my day job, my it was again about doing things once, mostly because I was working largely with resource constrained organizations, lots of nonprofits, lots of mission focused higher education institutions, and even though they had these incredible opportunities and we had a really important message to get out there, I just saw that Things weren’t always working, and so I’ve just really been focused for three decades now on how is it that we can communicate to people in such a way that we can accelerate the understanding and the adoption of new ideas? Rather, those are new to a person or new to the world. I’ve just endlessly, just fascinated by that. And the first book was the product of figuring out, or really it was the product of figuring out how to construct those messages, what they had to have in them and what order. And that was capturing a process that I had been using for five years previously, now for eight years. And I realized that all the reasons why I did those things, all those principles that I had collected over those years about how to do things once when it comes to communicating change. We’re not conventional wisdom yet, and so that’s really where the second book came from. Was to say, Okay, for those folks who aren’t ready to actually start crafting these messages, step by step by step, which is what the first book was about. These are the big ideas underneath this whole approach. What is it that we need to understand about people in order to inspire them to internally motivated action so aligned with your work? It’s ultimately a much more empathy driven way to communicate, but from my point of view, trying to figure out how to make that work in the business world where taking a lot of time to figure out how to talk to somebody, or that frustration of like, I don’t know how to work through their feelings, could come into play. So that’s really what this whole second book was all about. Well, I

Maria Ross 06:35

love it, and I want to make sure we’re being clear. We’re not saying that you necessarily are just communicating a message once and never revisiting it, right? Because I think that might be a takeaway for people of, yeah, I only have to tell them like, No, we’re doing layoffs and we’re having a reorg once, and then we’ll never have to say it again. No,

Tamsen Webster 06:54

yeah, exactly. Thank you for that clarification. It’s talking about the idea of having to do all the work to get a customer on board, and then they churn out, or a donor on board, and then they turn out, or you get somebody who says yes in a sales meeting, but then they ghost you, or folks that can’t ever really get them to get along or get on the same page in the first place. So this is, yeah, absolutely. Sometimes this is a process of communication, but fundamentally, that process starts with understanding what is it that somebody has to hear in order for them to even be on board in the first place? Just a quick example. So I saw on LinkedIn the other day, actually, a friend of mine posted a poll, and she’s a very well respected researcher, and the poll was about, what do you think is most important when it comes to getting an AI initiative off the ground in the organization? And so messaging and training was number one, and number two was build confidence with trying AI. And number three was something like, you know, demos and practices. And I remember responding to the first one saying, I know what this answer is going to be, predicting it was going to be number two, build confidence in AI, I said, but I don’t understand how you get there without number one, which is messaging. And lo and behold, when the poll came back, it was like, build confidence in AI, you have to communicate the purpose. And I’m like, That’s messaging. This is that little, tiny scenario captures perfectly. I think what happens when we are trying to do a change initiative, we kind of somehow skip to step two, which is we’re going to communicate with them, and then magic will happen, and people will be confident, people will be on board, etc. And I want to dial it back and say, What are you communicating? Exactly how? Because how you communicate, what you communicate from the very get go, can set the future of that change and can kill it right there. Yeah.

Maria Ross 09:04

And I think that’s the most important thing, is that often, when we’re dealing with that step, and I’ve done communication plans in the past for change management initiatives, yeah, communicate doesn’t just mean tell them the thing, like, if there’s more to it than that, right? Like, yes, send it in an email, say it in an all hands, like that’s not the end and the beginning of the communication. That’s just one aspect of it. So what the words you say and the information you convey is one thing, yes, the communication plan of that is entirely another. Oh, absolutely.

Tamsen Webster 09:40

And I would say, even in the I mean, I often think of this as step zero, because the vast majority of messages, and I’m talking now not just change official change management communication messages, but sales messages, marketing messages, all of these other things. All. Are missing at least one piece, if not five. And what I mean by that is, typically, folks will, you know, if they get to we’re doing this because, right? They feel like, well, that’s it. That’s all we need to tell people, right? We’ve got, we’re trying to achieve this outcome. So this is the effect that we want, and so if we make this change, we’ll get that. So we should do the change, because everybody agrees we want that. Now, if this was a change that you were skeptical of, would just saying it’s gonna get us that be enough. No, right? Not and not just because you know you’re a smart, capable, good human, it wouldn’t be enough for anybody to say, Oh, I trust you that just because you say this is going to get us there, that I’m going to believe you, because what’s happening there is that we are missing some really key information that not only is part of what people need to hear in order to even understand the rationale behind the change. Again, it’s not just it’s gonna get us this thing that we want needs to also be this is why, how we’re going to do it is going to get us there. People need to agree in principle that change will happen, and we almost always leave that part out. So a lot of times, this book is very much kind of a call to arms, a critical manifesto to say, hold up. Make sure that when we are talking to people, and we’re when we’re thinking about, what is this, the heart of the message that’s going to be how we have conversations about this change, how we build a communication plan around this change. We need to make sure that all the pieces that build the story in people’s heads is actually there.

Maria Ross 11:56

Okay, so let’s break it down for people, what are some of the things that they’re not considering that they need to consider as they frame the message and get it out there.

Tamsen Webster 12:07

Yes, well, I’d say related to what I just said, would be principle number two, that every decision has a story. And that’s something I said in my first book, and this book’s variation on it, is that really, when it comes down to it, every single action we take, any change we agree with, any idea we agree with, essentially, is because it is one internal argument in our head about why that action, that change, makes sense. And so one of the key things we have to understand is they’re like, this is human. This happens. Not only does it happen in everyone’s head, it also happens oftentimes subconsciously, without our conscious knowledge that it’s happening. So why this is so important is if you don’t give someone all the pieces of that story that they need to for it to make sense to them, then they will fill in the missing pieces with what is most readily available, well

Maria Ross 13:10

and sometimes the worst case scenario, yeah, exactly

Tamsen Webster 13:12

right, because, based on their wiring, their history with you or with the organization, or with changes like this, with just whatever messaging they may be floating around in the ether right now, if they don’t hear it, there’s a vacuum in that story. In order for them to process it, they’re going to fill it in. And so this is part of why I was talking about making sure that all the pieces are at least available, that you know what they are. So if somebody starts to ask you about them, yeah, you can supply them, yeah, because without it, right, they are going to fill in with their own pieces of information, right, right? And we forget that we have reached the decision about this change, because it makes sense to us, it satisfied a story in our heads. And we forget that we can’t just give them the beginning and the end of the story for them either. Because, you know, that’s as unsatisfying as any story would be if you just said, you know, once upon a time, there was a kid named Harry who lived under the staircase, and he defeated an evil wizard and saved all his friends, and you’re like, I think there’s something else that happened inside there. And I don’t even know how those two things are connected. Yeah. So this is the same thing is true, no matter what kind of communication we’re trying to get across. Does that actually change communication? Does

Maria Ross 14:38

that really bring in the aspect of transparency, of bringing people along with I mean, maybe some of those decisions have already been made, but letting people peek under the covers to say, well, this is how we got here. I know, you know, in my past, communications and marketing work, a lot of times when there was a big change, we would develop an FAQ of all the questions we thought. People might have about what this was, and then we were always adding to that, right? I’ve done that in crisis communications, but also in positive change communication, of course, yes. And it’s always great to be able to in your messaging address those objections that you know they might already have. But it’s not quite an objection. It’s more just like, Well, how did we get here? How was the sausage made? Right? In other words, really bad phrase. But you know what actually got us to this point? I know, especially when I was doing brand strategy projects. For example, the reason I would bring in a cross functional team into the workshop, people that said, I don’t know why I’m here. I’m an engineer. Why am I in this marketing meeting for six hours is because I wanted them to see the process. I wanted them to see when those decisions were made. They were in the room when it happened. And not everybody can be if you’ve got an organization or you’re trying to move 1000s of people or hundreds of people, so being able to tell them the story of what happened in the room they weren’t in can go a long way, from a transparency perspective, to say, well, first we considered this, and then here’s why we mixed that, and then we saw that we had this problem. Instead of just, let me just open the finished box and show it to you, and you will accept it. So is that kind of the link there of transparency, of also, just like thinking ahead, of seeing it from their perspective, and like you’ve been living, eating and breathing this change for maybe two months with the executive team, you are springing it on them now in this all hands meeting. So how do you think they might feel

Tamsen Webster 16:31

right if they don’t have the information that they need, then they are again, they’re going to fill in the blanks with whatever makes the most sense to them. And you know this so well, given your work like how people think affects how they feel about it. So if we are giving them what they need to think positively about it to what they need to think positively about it, then they aren’t going to feel positive about it. So what I just, what I saw over and over again was again, this kind of missing piece, and you landed right on it when it when talking about transparency. And the thing is, is that a lot of times what happens is that a decision makes sense to the C suite, which is where I’m often having these conversations, because of assumptions, principles, values, that are actually implicit, that they’ve never stopped to really think about why they think this particular thing makes sense. What is it that they believe that makes this particular approach make sense? And so what this trend? You know what I’m suggesting here, and not just because I think it’s a great idea, but because I’ve seen it work. I’ve been testing this approach for two years, and then much longer, because it’s really what’s sitting underneath the red thread is we are making those implicit assumptions that create that internal rationale for the change explicit. And what that means is, instead of layering on features, benefits, data, where we’re actually starting that conversation, even if we have to present a done deal, is saying because we believe this principle is true, and we believe this principle is true, yeah, that’s why we believe this change, which combines those two ideas, yeah, will achieve this thing that we’re anchoring all of this on, something that we all, collectively, or at least as an organization, agree that is important, agree that we want. And so what that does is it allows for the principles to come first, and what that allows for with the leader is that it means that not only is it a much more principled, literally approach and ethical approach, but it means that you find out very quickly where the actual misalignment is, yes, and that is really important. And this is true in a sales conversation as well, because, you know, if somebody doesn’t want the outcome that this would provide, right, they’re not a prospect for you, right? If they don’t agree with a core principle for why you develop your products or why you offer the services you do in that particular way. Again, not prospect. And so, you know, what I’ve just seen over and over again with my own experience with my clients, is that I would yeah, getting to yes is really important, but getting to know quickly, yes, just as if not more important yes than the other. So it will also tell you where there’s opportunity, if any, for negotiation. Well,

Maria Ross 19:51

okay, I have to bring up my dear friend dia Bondy, who I’ve had on the show, and I will link to her episode. She is queen of asking for the No She applied. As the principles of auctioneering to making a big ask. And one of those principles of auctioneering is that you ask for the no because then you know where you stand, yeah, and then you know what you need to back down from, right? And so asking for the no is a great way to get information. So I’m definitely going to link to her episode, because that is the crux of her work, and you should meet her. So I want to get to this idea of leveraging pain, which is a very popular approach to persuasion, right? We talk about either promoting benefits or helping people avoid pain from a marketing perspective, why is it almost exclusive, right? Why is it almost always guaranteed to fail long term, if you’re focused on leveraging pain.

Tamsen Webster 20:42

Yes, so and the key here is leveraging pain, not identifying with pain. Now, when it comes to empathy, identifying the pain that someone’s already experiencing is really important, as you know and acknowledging listeners know absolutely because not only does that allow them to be seen and feel heard, it also allows you to demonstrate a level of credibility and understanding that you know what it feels like to be in this position where they don’t have an answer to a question, they’ve got a problem that they haven’t been able to solve, they’ve got a goal that they’re trying to reach, and they can’t think how to reach it. So I want to make super clear that I’m not saying never mention pain, because when someone’s in pain, one of the most important things we can do is hold space for that pain, right?

Maria Ross 21:30

And it also gives you credibility, because if you don’t even acknowledge that there’s pain, if you’re like, it’s fine, it’s fine, everything’s fine, like, no one’s going to trust you at that point, right? Exactly. Yes, you can say this sucks and here, and we know why,

Tamsen Webster 21:43

and we know why, and, yeah, that’s the power play. Is that, you know, you can say this sucks, and you know, here’s what we understand as to why, or here’s what, even what we believe is what’s going on, based on the research, based on our clients, etc. Would I, you know, full stop, fully object to, on multiple grounds, is introducing pain in order to create a mental state where someone is more likely to act right. Because people know this, and that’s the problem. People pain is the ally of quick action. If somebody’s in pain, they will act to remove it. But here’s the issue, a brain in pain is an anxious brain. It’s a fearful brain. It is not a rational brain, yep. So it means that any action that is taken by an anxious, fearful in pain brain is probably going to get reconsidered when that person is no longer in that anxious, rational state, and not only that. So that’s why I think a lot of times buyer’s remorse happens, because you get into this like, oh my gosh, I have to act now, oh my gosh, everything’s going to fall apart if I don’t do this. And then when you have that moment to calm down, you’re like, Well, wait a minute. Not only was like, why the heck did I do that? Why the heck did I buy that, but the first time you have to explain to somebody else why you bought it, why you hired that person, etc. You’re like, ooh. And it also makes that person go, Well, who is this person to make me feel that way in the first place? Yes. So it also does damage. So what drives me bananas about leveraging paint in that way? I mean, I’ve literally had someone say to me on a webinar one time, well, that’s what my job is, is to make them sick so I can make them well. And I was like, oh, okay, well, we don’t see the world the same way. No, no, and that’s fine. Not everybody does, but the thing is, like, I don’t whether your drive is ethical or economic or efficiency, it’s there is no basis under which leveraging pain, introducing pain in order to induce action works for you long term,

Maria Ross 24:03

100% I mean, we know from science that your cognitive abilities, your executive functions, shut down when you’re under stress, when you’re in fear. We always talk about this from a culture perspective, right, in terms of if you are running your culture by fear, by command and control, and inducing anxiety and generating competitiveness, where there doesn’t need to be competitiveness, right? Your people are operating on half their brains, if that right? So those are not the kinds of people you want innovating in your organization, because they literally can. They

Tamsen Webster 24:35

can, yeah, and so,

Maria Ross 24:37

you know, and I, you know, from a lot of I have a 10 year old, I know you have kids too. Yes, a lot. We’ve talked on this show with a few parenting experts as well, talking about peaceable discipline and things like that. This idea that, you know, there’s like a visual where you hold a fist and it’s your brain, right? When a child or an adult is under stress, they flip their lid and you put the first four fingers up. And that means it’s all chaos, right, right? There’s no way that they can get out of that red zone and think clearly and make good decisions, and more importantly, that their decisions will stick for the long term, that they’ll actually learn something from that to carry them through for the long term. So yes, you got short term compliance, but not long term success. Exactly,

Tamsen Webster 25:20

exactly, speaking my language, absolutely. I love it. And so again, whether you’re trying to go from an efficiency standpoint, like I only want to have to have this conversation once, right again, at least introduce this idea once, then regularly. If you only want to have to introduce the idea once, then don’t be doing it in the situation of peer, pain and anxiety. In that case, what you want to be doing if you really want people to understand something new, which is a process of learning. By the way, any new idea means people have to learn. You cannot learn when you’re anxious or fearful, and so you cannot achieve what you’re trying to achieve, at least in that state. So part of what we’re trying to do, and why the suggestion that you had made earlier so is so valuable, when you’re saying, I get it. It sucks, but here’s why we here’s why it’s happening. It that activates curiosity. That moment you activate curiosity, that’s, again, a neuro, biologically validated way to start to reduce pain is to create curiosity. So again, efficiency, ethically, I think it’s a better thing to do, because I get I use, I start to question, particularly once somebody knows this about how an anxious brain can’t make a rational decision once somebody knows that and continues to use that device, I would question that person’s motivations. And that’s applicable in all sorts of fields and areas around us right now and, you know, months ago. But yeah, generally, I think that’s the thing. But also just from an economic standpoint, when changes don’t stick, when people back out of a deal, when people ghost you, when they just give you lip service to make you stop talking. That extends the process, which extends the effort, which extends the time, which extends the money invested exactly and who’s got that nobody does. So yeah, I’m pain is the enemy of long term change. Is how I looked.

Maria Ross 27:27

So I know you say people stumble at the first and most important step of building buy in, and that’s ensuring the audience’s understanding. So what tips do you have for folks that maybe do fall back on the idea of just, I just need to communicate the thing, and then I need to be done so I can go move on to other things. Like, what could they be doing to, you know, how I don’t know if they’re going to understand me. I’m using words they should understand. Like, how do I What kind of advice would you give to someone that’s like, how do I even understand if they understand? Yes, well, there’s a certain

Tamsen Webster 28:01

there are certain things that will help, and you’ve already touched on one of them, which is making sure that we’re talking in language and in concepts that are not only understandable to your audience, but recognizably true for them. Because you know you we can talk, just as a quick example. So this approach that I talk about can be used all sorts of ways. I also use it with my TEDx New England speakers who are assigned and, you know, we had one came into me one time, and he’s like, Well, now I said, you know, tell me what your idea is about. And he’s like, it’s about homeostatic regulation of criticality in the brain. Okay? And I was like, we can’t start there. I’m not saying we can’t end there, but we can’t start there, because this audience is not an audience of scientists. And so whereas you know homeostatic regulation and Criticality means something to you, they don’t, it doesn’t mean anything to them. So how can we talk about the same concept in an accessible way. Now, again, not trying to simplify or over simplify. Simplify. This is important. What we’re trying to do is to find the most accessible entry point to what you’re talking about. And so sometimes that’s saying, instead of calling it homeostatic regulation, you’re going to say it’s like maintenance. It is maintenance. It’s the maintenance of something, it’s the maintenance of balance, it’s the maintenance of a temperature, it’s a maintenance of a set point, and in the brain or in the body, we call it this fancy word, but as long as you understand the concept, the principle that we’re talking about here, we’re good. So I think that’s a really important thing. It’s one of the reasons why, fundamentally, this book is about, if I were going to state in one sentence what the big idea of the book is. It’s about the idea that, in order to truly build emotional, intellectual buy in, to get people invested in these ideas. Right? Then we have to build our case for it based on elements of an argument that they already agree with. And what I mean by that is, number one, make sure it is tied to something they agree they actively and knowingly want right now. And this is one of those things, if you’re a leader, you probably have a much broader, more strategic answer to that question than somebody who may be three that levels down from you in an organization. That person is probably thinking about how to make their job a little bit less annoying. There. That problem is, yeah, that person is probably trying to figure out, how do I make this particular quota? That person is probably thinking about, how do I make sure I deliver to my standards, the company standards in this relationship with this client, that’s what I’m talking about. We need to anchor it towards. Because if somebody can understand how it applies to something that they’re already moving towards, to something that they’re already working towards, then you don’t have to do nearly as much work. No, you know, again, just think of it from a physics standpoint, they’re already moving that direction. So it’s a lot easier to kind of draft in the direction that they’re moving than to try to shift the whole thing in the first

Maria Ross 31:18

place. This is the whole crux behind how I got on the empathy work with the empathy edge was a book for the skeptics to show them the ROI of empathy on the bottom line and to get them to empathy through something they already cared about, which is increasing engagement retention, lowering customer churn, increasing customer lifetime value, all of these things. And I did a TEDx talk called How to Trojan horse leaders into being empathetic. And it’s interesting because I got some, you know, pushback on that, of like, how can you make this thing that’s supposed to be this moral beautiful, like, we should have empathy for each other? How can you turn it into something that’s so cold and calculating? And it’s because you have to meet people where they are,

Tamsen Webster 32:01

yes, and very definition of empathy, yes, yeah.

Maria Ross 32:06

And they experience the benefit of it, they will be transformed from the outside in. So I don’t really much care what brings them to adopting an empathetic mindset, because once they’re seeing someone else’s point of view, they can’t unsee it. That’s right. So it’s, I love this, like drafting in your work and this idea, and that’s that holds so true for marketing, as well as what’s in it for them, how can you tie what you do and what you provide to a problem someone already has and speaking it in their language? That’s right. So that ones are the voice in their head, and you’re not speaking above them or outside of them, because that’s going to get you a glazed expression, or

Tamsen Webster 32:46

down to them, or down to that place. And this is a place that I have another bone to pick, and that is this focus. It’s related to the leveraging of pain. It’s focusing on the real problem and and I put that in quotation marks with my fingers, not because there isn’t a real problem, but if somebody doesn’t know they have the real problem, you start the message there, then you’re in a already in for a world of hurt number one, if this is a marketing message, how are they going? How are you ever going to end up in their consideration set, because they’re not looking for anything you say you do, right? Exactly. We have to start with a problem they actively and knowingly have one that they know that they want the answer to, and by the way, as urgent and important version of that as possible. So can your product help someone be more successful. Can it help them be an industry leader? Yeah, probably. But you know what’s going to win, what’s going to be more attractive is somebody who’s going to help them understand how they can increase their profit margin by 5% in the next quarter, right? And so figuring those pieces out is really, really important. The second thing about starting from this real problem is, again, it’s kind of talking down to people. It’s saying, I know you better than you know you. And that’s a big old assumption I mean, and I mean that in a in every sense of the term, right? Like that is big, and it’s an old assumption. Because, you know, one of the main themes of the book, it’s the whole chapter four is very much about this idea that one of the main human drivers is that people want to be seen as smart, capable and good. And what’s important about this is that where we even if we just have understood that intuitively, what we end up doing is we end up twisting it and we end up making smart capable good conditional meaning, you will become like the messaging, essentially is saying in not so many words, you will become smart, capable and good if and only if or when and only. When you do this, you buy this, you agree to this, you see that I am right. And so part of what this is all about is to say you don’t actually know that person better than they know themselves. And even if you think you do, it really doesn’t matter, because if they’re not in that space yet, whatever you say to them won’t make any sense to them. It won’t like you’re at a different level of awareness than they are, not at that level of intelligence. So this is very much about saying, Okay, I’m going to start from the assumption that the person that I’m talking to is already smart, capable and good, and I’m going to think to myself, Well, why would a smart, capable and good person be doing something other than the thing that I want right now? What would they want? What would they be concerned about not having by doing this change? And what that does is it really avoids that. Well, I know what your real problem is. You basically say, I know what your problem is. You’re experiencing this thing that you know you’re experiencing right now, and what I’ve seen is that if we focus over here, then we can start to make some progress on it. But it’s not because you weren’t smart enough to see it in the first place. There’s probably a really good reason why you were doing that. And so that’s a big shift, but it has a lot to do, actually, everything to do with improving your opportunity for success. And back to your point about kind of backdooring empathy, what it allows leaders and business folks or just really anybody who’s communicating to do is start to understand cognitive empathy. What is somebody else thinking? Yes, and I would argue that it’s that really is the only thing we can directly influence with somebody else is how they think about something, because how they take that information and process it is completely up to them. In other words, that feeling that they’re going to get from those thoughts that’s not under your control or your influence, but you can influence the input of the thought, right? That’s what this is all about. Start from the perspective of, you know, my input I’m putting in there is, I believe you’re a smart, capable, good person, and that you want to be seen that way, and then the whole tone and tenor of how you frame that change will also change, and they’re going to end up feeling that, because that was part of what you put into the message in the first place. Okay, so

Maria Ross 37:38

as we wrap up, I want to talk about this idea of finding common ground, because it’s a very big tip that I give around strengthening your empathy and trying to put yourselves on the same side of the table, rather than it in confrontation. Yep, not meaning that you’re going to agree, not meaning all the myths of empathy. It doesn’t mean you agree, it doesn’t mean you’re going to do whatever the other person wants, but it’s just finding a way forward based on different perspectives of the same problem or the same issue, and so you say that it’s almost always possible to find common ground, and if it’s not to have a way to identify those differences clearly and without judgment. So give us an example of what you’re talking about, especially when you’re talking about maybe communicating a change like it could be anything from Return to office to layoffs to a completely different strategic direction. Oh, yeah. What are some ways that you have found work? Well, to find common ground? Well, it’s a great question

Tamsen Webster 38:32

to end with, because it pulls together a lot of the things that we talked about. I mean, the first thing is, is to anchor the change, the outcome of the change in something that you fully acknowledge and you share with the person that you’re talking to. So again, that may mean that you need to be talking to the effect of that change much more in the standpoint of this is going to make the day job easier. And you may be thinking where, and ultimately that’s going to do X, Y and Z for the bottom line or the top line revenue of the company. But for you, I actually do want to make your day to day job easier, because for me, it’s going to do this. So we want this to happen, then it’s about building that quite literal argument in their head. And the simplest, strongest way to do that is to back to Aristotle state the argument for it using two recognizable truths that put together make this change make sense. So for instance, kind of thinking off the top of my head there is, if we’re trying to implement, I’m going to use one of my client examples, but we’re trying to implement and face a strategic shift in our organization, and we want to make sure that our leaders are ready for it, right? That this we as a company are going to be able, we’re going to be ready to successfully execute this strategic shift. That’s where we’d anchor it, because leaders want to be successful. The C suite wants to be successful like we’ve got. The shift. We gotta make it and, yeah, there may be negatives for it, whatever, but we’re gonna anchor it there. And then let’s say that we’ve decided right that there’s gonna be some, you know, leadership development, some training, some assessment that’s going on to make sure that we are, in fact, ready for that. Now, if we just say so, we’re gonna do some training to make sure everybody’s ready to do the strategic shift, people are gonna be like training on what like and why and what’s that mean. So it’s about, again, explaining what why this. So again, using this is Vince Molinaro and the leadership contract, we work together to to sort this out. But you say, Okay, first and foremost, we believe that the most important thing that we can build in this organization in order to make sure that that shift happens is make sure that we’ve got accountability running. You know that we’ve got accountability because we believe that accountability is the ownership of outcomes. If we want to successfully execute this strategic shift, we need to make sure that we’ve got people owning the outcomes. We’ve got leaders owning the outcomes. But if it’s just one leader, or you can’t count on the other person to do it, that’s not going to work, because we also believe success requires execution at scale. So that’s what we’re going to work on. We’re going to bring in this company that’s going to help us scale accountability throughout the organization. Here’s how it’s going to work. And instead of where so the training becomes a how, like that’s lower down. But what it allows us to do is say, this is what we’re doing. In principle, we want to make sure we’re ready for strategic shift. That’s the big Simon sinekian, why, right? This is why we’re doing it. But what’s also really important is the why behind the how. We believe that accountability is the ownership of outcomes, and we believe success requires execution at scale. So those two things put together say that we believe that in order to be ready to execute this strategic shift, we need to scale accountability. Stop there like it doesn’t even take 30 seconds to get that out, and just pause for a moment, because that’s where you get a that’s how you’re going to know whether or not people are agreeing in principle with the change, because if they don’t want to be ready for strategic shift, they’re probably not great on your leadership team in the first place. Second, if they don’t agree that accountability is the ownership of outcomes or the success requires execution at scale again. So you see, this is where the common ground comes from, because what we’re trying to do is, in addition to anchoring it on something that we are fairly sure that we share in common with them, we’re also basing our explanation and our argument for it, our case for it, on things that we believe they will recognize and agree are true. And so if somebody says, Yeah, I don’t agree that’s the case, or I agree that this other thing is actually more important. Well now you’ve got a much more workable basis of understanding where the gap is, because if somebody ultimately says, Well, okay, yeah, scale accountability, but I believe we actually have to work on psychological safety. Okay. Well, then either we can talk about how accountability creates that, or we can start to say, Okay, well, let’s talk about psychological safety and how that could lead to accountability. But again, at this point, you’re just it is much more natural, and this is what I’ve seen over and over again, to go, Okay, well, we may just get to a point where we agree to disagree, underlying peace, and what we stay away from is my way is better than your way, right? It’s this, is why I believe this. And one of the things that I think is ultimately most important about this Maria is that it puts the risk of change where I believe it belongs, and that’s on the person asking for it. The vast majority of communications that are designed to create change, whether in thinking or behavior, are essentially asking the other person to take a leap of faith, to say, based on this evidence we’re putting in front of you, we’re asking you to believe that this is going to work based on what we say is going to be true. And what this approach does is it really flips it around and says, I believe that because I believe these things are true, which I believe you are going to agree is true too. This is why, in principle, this is going to work. Now, do you still need to actually go then and then do the work of making sure that someone agrees as possible and practice as well? Yes,

Maria Ross 44:50

absolutely. But back to what we’re saying at the beginning. I think we skip over this part. Yeah, almost every time, all the time, not every time. Because then that’s when you get into a tit for tat over tactics, yes, and you’re avoiding the issue that you both don’t fundamentally have the same goal. And you can bring this down to even a more practical level of have, you know, I talk about this example all the time, having a difficult performance review, yeah, as a manager and an employee, does the manager start out with the review, sort of setting the tone of like, here’s why we’re both here. Here’s what we both want to get out of this performance review. The goal is to help you do your best work and succeed. Can we both agree that that’s our underlying principle? So now we know that we both have positive intent. Right now we both know that it’s really might just be an issue of the tactics that we disagree on, but we’re not disagreeing on the fundamental principle or values, right? That we’re saying, that we’re stating out loud. And I’ve even used the example in talks that I’ve given of just like, you know, two folks having a disagreement about a strategy, and they get in a room to hash it out. And can we both agree that we don’t want to lose our jobs this quarter? Yeah, we both agree that we want to make our numbers like get down to that nitty gritty level of this is something we can actually recognize that we’re on the same page. And that’s why what you’re saying is so powerful. Because if that is not agreed upon, no discussion of tactics or strategies

Tamsen Webster 46:20

matters. Because one ever matters. Yeah,

Maria Ross 46:22

one person doesn’t agree that that’s why we’re here, and the other person does. So now you’re talking about a fundamental difference in the approach. That’s right, not just how to solve it. That’s right.

Tamsen Webster 46:32

Yes. I mean, that’s exactly it. I mean, I see message design as really three phases, and by and large, we skip the first two. Yeah. In other words, we go straight to the wrapping. We go straight to picking out the drapes and hanging the chandeliers in the house. And we haven’t actually made sure that the walls are going to stand and we haven’t put a foundation under it in the first place, right? And so it doesn’t matter how much data you’ve got, how snappy Your copy is, no matter any of that that’s or how eloquently delivered your talk, is, if people don’t understand what you’re saying, that’s the second phase, right? Like they need to make sure that you’ve got the information they need to get there. And even that doesn’t matter, which is what? Oh, this is another. I know we don’t have time, but story is not the end of the story. Like there’s something underneath the story. That’s the principles upon which that story, which is an argument, by the way, is based, right? So if we haven’t figured out from the beginning why someone would actually agree with it, why do we agree with it? Then there is. It doesn’t. Nothing else matters. Truly, nothing else matters. Yeah. And the bonus is, like I said, you can get to the core conceptual case for what you’re talking about in 30 seconds or less, and then you’ve got all that extra time to really engage in those conversations about it, to add that detail, to add that evidence, to add that what is it going to look like? In principle? To ask and answer all those other FAQs. But ultimately it says this is what I believe, this is what we believe. And yeah, are you taking a risk by putting yourself out there? Yeah, you are. But if you’re not, you’re taking a risk no matter what, and I’d rather know where that true risk was coming from, and being able to really spot it and work with it, or to determine, huh, this just isn’t going to work. And, you know, I think we’ve all had an organization, maybe that we work with, or maybe that we work for, that at some point, typically, if you leave an organization, it’s because something about those underlying principles didn’t actually align with you, right? And so this is really about saying, Yeah, we can wait to the disagreement to get to this, yeah, or we can start the conversation there, right? And be more productive from the beginning and being able to build forward from like, getting everybody on the same, yeah, it’s

Maria Ross 49:05

better to know that up front. And that’s why, you know, clarity is one of my five pillars of empathetic and effective leadership, because you need to suss out the problem sooner rather than later, or the difference sooner rather than later, and then both parties get to make a choice. That’s right, that they want to move forward together with it or not. But, you know, a lot of times there’s leaders that, in the name of empathy, avoid those difficult conversations, avoid those difficult discussions. In the name of, you know, either I’m trying to be nice or I’m just trying to make everybody happy, or that’s going to upset someone. But the empathetic thing is, let’s get it all out on the table so we understand what we’re actually talking about, and then we can both make a choice within that interaction if we want to move forward and make a change, or maybe we don’t

Tamsen Webster 49:50

see what I mean. It’s this funny paradox, which is, and I wonder if you’ve seen this too, Maria, is that I believe, to my core, that there’s a logic. To emotion. And what I mean by that is that how we feel about something, and I mean, this made me be super clear that this is about intentional action, right? This is intentional action because, you know, someone can step out from the bushes and we’re going to be scared, and it’s not because we had a conscious thought that, like, oh my gosh, right? Like, it’s like our bodies reacted. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about like when you’ve had a chance to listen to somebody, when you hear when you’re watching an infomercial, when you’re watching a TED talk, when you are sitting with someone who’s trying to pitch you something, and you know they’re trying to pitch you something, right? What you’re listening for is for those pieces and parts and how you end up feeling about that whole thing is whether or not like those pieces that you fill in fit. Not just logically, does this plus this add up to this, but because fundamentally, those decisions are based on beliefs which are not rational, right? So we use this logical structure with illogical, irrational thing. And so to me, this is good news, though, for leaders who are afraid of empathy and that kind of thing, because by taking something down to its core, logical structure and yet filling in the blanks of that logical structure with belief, we actually depressurize this whole situation and by taking it on ourselves. Ken, if you don’t believe in this change, why would they if you can’t find a reason that you can 100% get behind about why this is the case they’re never going to get about get it there either. Now are there sometimes changes that just aren’t in the best interest of the people you’re talking to? Yeah, yeah, there are. Are they going to be able to suss that out no matter what you say to them? Yeah, they are. So again, back to this like it’s they would rather understand their rationale, right, than feel good about it. What doesn’t feel good is when they don’t understand, because that’s when the feelings will come in, because the thoughts will drive that Well, why didn’t they tell me? Why did they like say it was this, when it was actually this? Why didn’t I know about this rather than saying, here’s what’s happening, here’s I know it’s not in your best interest, but here’s why we had to do this. This is why, again, don’t sugar coat it. This is not inventing concepts and principles to make people feel better or to make you feel better about your brand. This is absolutely a process of excavation. What is actually driving this, with you know Jim Duterte at the UVA calls it the deep rules of an organization. Also notice like, espouse theories versus theories in you. She probably know this too, right? And so what we’re looking for is, what are we actually using to drive these discussions?

Maria Ross 52:52

Awesome. Tamsen, I love it. Well, we’ve gone over, but this has been such a great conversation. We will have all your links in the show notes and a link to your book. But for folks on the go, please tell them the best place they can get in touch with you. Your

Tamsen Webster 53:05

best place is message, design institute.com, that’s where they’re going to find me and all the things that we do to help people do all of this work on their own, but with help. Love it. One. Love it. Love it.

Maria Ross 53:16

Thank you. Always so great to talk to you. I learned so much every time we interact, and I know my listeners will as well. So thank you for your time today.

Tamsen Webster 53:23

Oh my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me back, and thank you everyone for listening

Maria Ross 53:27

to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate, review and share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the 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. You.

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

Elizabeth Lotardo: Leading Yourself Despite Imperfect Bosses and Annoying Cultures

What do you do when striving to be a more human-centered leader or colleague, trying to advance your career, build your skills, and make a difference, and you’re stuck with an imperfect leader, dysfunctional culture, or too much work? You start by leading yourself!

Today, Elizabeth Lotardo and I discuss making the most of a job that’s not your dream job. Elizabeth shares why management is harder than it was 10-20 years ago, and how to work best with imperfect bosses of all kinds. We touch on how to advocate for yourself with empathy. She shares talk tracks and mindset shifts to help you navigate how you can influence controlling the controllable and put yourself back in the driver’s seat. She also shares a 10-second Jedi mind trick to shift complaining employees into accountable problem solvers!

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

It’s not your job to make someone else more empathetic. It is your job to control your reactions and the behavior that you’re modeling.
It’s about leading yourself – not just in your career, but also through your career which includes new jobs as you choose.
Even with all our faults, we, as humans, need one another. As you lead yourself, don’t forget those around you.

“If you are working for a human being, you’re working for an imperfect boss.” — Elizabeth Lotardo

Episode References:

Rhonda George-Denniston: Why Betting on Your People Leads to Market Domination

Elizabeth’s HBR Articles:

From Our Partner:

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

About Elizabeth Lotardo: VP, McLeod and More and Author, Leading Yourself

Elizabeth Lotardo is a consultant, writer, and online instructor who helps organizations drive emotional engagement. Her new book, Leading Yourself: Find More Joy, Meaning, and Opportunities in the Job You Already Have has been called a refreshingly candid playbook that helps you create a work experience worth loving, right now.

With an undergraduate degree in advertising from Boston University and a Master’s in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Elizabeth works with senior leaders, frontline managers, and entry-level teammates to create more purpose-driven work experiences. Her clients include Salesforce, DraftKings, Hilton, and numerous Berkshire Hathaway organizations.

She is also a popular LinkedIn Learning instructor. Elizabeth writes for Harvard Business Review and her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and NPR.

Connect with Elizabeth:

McLeod & More: mcleodandmore.com

Personal Website: elizabethlotardo.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elizabethlotardo

Book: Leading Yourself: Find More Joy, Meaning, and Opportunities in the Job You Already Have (Despite Imperfect Bosses, Weird Economies, Lethargic Coworkers, Annoying Systems, and Too Many Deliverables)

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Elizabeth Lotardo 03:16

Thanks for having me, Maria. I know we’re like mine, so I’m excited to dive in

Maria Ross 03:21

we are and you know, just I want to read the name of your book again, because the subtitles are gold, and it’s really going to guide our conversation today. Your new book is called leading yourself find more joy, meaning and opportunities in the job you already have parentheses despite imperfect bosses, weird economies, lethargic co workers, annoying systems and too many deliverables. And I think you’ve covered all the things that are the pain points for so many of us in the workplace. So before we dive into the book, tell us a little bit about your story and how you got to this work.

Elizabeth Lotardo 03:58

So I have a background in Organizational Psychology. I’ve always been fascinated with human communication, human behavior, and much like you, I have a background in consulting, and through my consulting practice, I saw this crazy phenomenon that two people with the same job reporting to the same leader with the same way too long to do list would have wildly different experiences at work. One person would be happy and joyful in the face of too much to do, and the other person be completely taken aback and almost paralyzed. So what I wanted to unpack and leading yourself is knowing that all bosses are imperfect, like the subtitle says, knowing that we all have too much to do, knowing that we’re all up against annoying systems, weird economies, lethargic co workers, whatever it is, what are these small subset of people doing that are giving them more joy opportunities and meeting at work? And how can the rest of us replicate those mindsets and those behaviors?

Maria Ross 04:57

Okay, I love this because, as you know, you’ve been reading. The Empathy dilemma, which was exactly what I tried to unlock, was, how are some of these leaders able to balance empathy and high performance at the same time? And I think there’s something about our own curiosity of trying to study the people that seem to be doing it well and almost seem to be doing it innately. You know, I don’t know if this was true for you, but did when you were talking to people for the book, did you almost have to make them stop and think about what it was they were doing that enabled them to show up at work this way, because sometimes they’re just doing it and they don’t even know.

Elizabeth Lotardo 05:30

So one thing I wrote about in the book was my own first job experience, and I graduated college really optimistic, wide eyed, like a lot of us do, came into my low level, you know, minimal pay, advertising job and work kind of let me down. I think I had really high expectations, and that’s not an uncommon experience, but it doesn’t happen to everyone so much like you did in the empathy dilemma. I had to unpack why it doesn’t happen for everyone, and I was not included in the small subset of people who are innate self leaders. It’s something I did learn, and it’s something I now teach to lots of people on LinkedIn learning and through various organizations.

Maria Ross 06:10

I love it. And you know what you said earlier? Really sparked something for me, because I remember a previous boss that I really admired and I really got along well with. We had a very similar vibe and a similar style, and, and I didn’t interact with her necessarily on a daily basis, but I came to learn that other people had a not so great experience with her. And it was, it was really startling to me to learn that their experience was so different from mine and and, you know, I think it’s sometimes it is about whether you click, whether you vibe, whether you enjoy that style, but talk to us about what you do when you are trying to whether it’s improving the company’s culture or improving just your team culture and your your daily existence and experience. How can you impact that from whatever seat you’re in? Because what I hear a lot, as I was mentioning to you before we started recording, is that I’m trying to be, for example, an empathetic leader. I’m trying to be more human, centered and be curious and actively listen and be more collaborative. But my management team or my CEO is not like that. So how can I really impact the team or the culture or the organization. What did you find in your research?

Elizabeth Lotardo 07:24

The crux of leading yourself is controlling the controllable, and whether you are the CEO or an entry level teammate or even an intern, you define your organization’s culture. So being really intentional about how you’re showing up to those conversations about the level of purpose you’re putting into meetings is the first step, and it’s often easier to look at everyone else and say they don’t want to be empathetic, they don’t see all the things that we need to improve on. It’s a much more straightforward path than holding up the mirror to ourselves and thinking, what could I model? What can I be and enable other people to see to really move the needle on this? Yeah,

Maria Ross 08:02

that’s often. You know what I talk about as well, is that it’s not your job to make someone else empathetic, but you can control how you show up in the interaction, and hopefully you’re modeling that for that person, and you’re setting the tone for this is how I expect our interactions to go. And, yeah, it’s this crazy thing where you’re showing them that it’s possible to act that way, and maybe they’re not acting that way because they don’t think it’s possible or that it can lead to success.

Elizabeth Lotardo 08:28

And oftentimes we’re quick to assume that people don’t want to be empathetic, that they don’t care about other people’s feelings, unless they explicitly told you that that’s probably not the case. They’re probably acting out of overwhelm. They’re modeling what their own dysfunctional manager has been showing to them exactly. Let’s not assume too much malice here, because oftentimes when people do see a model for acting differently, they’re quick to step into that. I’ll tell you a funny story about this head of HR I was working with as a typical head of HR, lots of people came to him with complaints. My co workers not doing this. My manager said that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all these things around me are going so wrong. And he adopted a very quick response. The first time someone complains is, Oh, what did they say when you told them that they hurt your What did they say when you told them that what they were doing wasn’t acceptable? And that wasn’t his way of skirting responsibility, but it was his way of shaping the culture to be one of transparency and empathy. And again, it’s easier to complain in our own mind or two ahead of HR, when someone is acting in a different way than we expect them to, oftentimes, the root of it is just being upfront with those

Maria Ross 09:47

expectations that is such a great Jedi mind trick of just quickly, without having to say you really should go talk to them. It’s just, oh, you know, and making, maybe making a non assumption. And that they actually did have a conversation, because that manager doesn’t know if they did or not. So I love that table setting, because then it, it definitely sends a message to the other person of like, well, oh, I didn’t, I didn’t try that yet. Yeah,

Elizabeth Lotardo 10:12

over time, people stopped coming without having had the conversation with, frustrated with but I think that talk track used really effectively by the head of HR, is championing the mindset of self leadership. It is putting yourself in the power seat, controlling the controllable, and recognizing that while you can’t control everyone else’s words and actions and what they do and don’t do, you can influence it, and one of the biggest ways you can influence it is by modeling the behavior you want to see. Yeah.

Maria Ross 10:42

I mean, I think, you know, how often are we in a conversation, you know, even when we just talk about empathy, for example, of you know, instead of falling into the trap of solving someone’s problem, just being with them in the moment or in the issue, like, wow, Elizabeth, that must be really hard. Tell me more about that, and going in and asking questions and having that be the interaction actually signals to the person that’s in the interaction that this is how you operate. And maybe they go into their next conversation with somebody else, going, I’m going to try that, because that really made me feel good when I was in that conversation and that happened, and then you sort of light all these little candles along the way of people trying the technique that you just subconsciously showed them.

Elizabeth Lotardo 11:24

It is a Jedi mind trick, for sure. And I learned so much from both of your books, especially the empathy dilemma, on leaning into the uncertain element of a conversation. I employ the strategies at work. I also employ them with my toddler, the equal effectiveness 200%

Maria Ross 11:41

oh my gosh, so much in parenting. It’s ridiculous. So tell us a little bit about your advice or actionable strategies if you are working for these imperfect bosses, which, if you’re working for a human you probably are. But you know, there’s sort of different buckets of imperfect bosses. There’s the micro managers, there’s the know it alls there’s the leaders who don’t show decisiveness, one of my core pillars of being an empathetic and effective leader, and they’re constantly changing their minds. What sorts of things are you seeing those who are able to navigate those kinds of bosses? What are they doing and what are some of their talk tracks?

Elizabeth Lotardo 12:20

Like you said, if you’re working for a human being, you are working for an imperfect boss, and one of the reasons I wanted to call that out in my subtitle was to say, I see you. I wish your manager was more decisive. I wish they got out of your hair and let you do more work. It’s not fair that you have to deal with these idiosyncrasies, but everyone does, so let’s move away from focusing on what’s out of our control. There are sometimes annoying tendencies to what’s in our control. How can we use the power that we always have to shape this relationship for a better? If you’re working for a micromanager that could be setting up a recurring meeting at the start of every day, we’re going to get together and at the end of every day, we’re going to get together again, in hopes that that leaves you that middle chunk to actually do your work, if you’re walking, if you’re working for a boss who’s always changes their mind. I wrote an HBr piece about this last week. It’s so common a leader who backpedals, especially in the face of emerging technology, you’re going to control what you can when you’re talking to that boss, you’re going to give them a tee up. You’re going to explain what you talked about last time, remind them of the objectives, remind them who’s involved in the timeline. And again, these are small strategies, but taken together, the pull through is, what can I control? What can I say? What can I do? So instead of stewing in this other person on all the injustices they’re putting to me, I’m going to take my power back, and I’m going to shape this.

Maria Ross 13:43

And do you advise, or do you see any effectiveness with creating a time and a place to actually give that feedback to the manager? Like maybe not in that moment, but maybe I, you know, I don’t know if they will open the door to feedback to find out what you think or what they could improve on. They may not, they might not be that confident and humble to be able to do it. So is there a time and place, though, where you need to actually sort of have that meeting of, we need to talk about how we’re working together, certainly,

Elizabeth Lotardo 14:11

and back to the top track of, what did they say when you told them it is paramount that you are candid with your manager. That doesn’t mean you grown on and on about how much they’re interrupting costs you in the way you’re thinking but transparently articulating. The cost of micromanaging, of indecisiveness of your boss not responding to your emails in time when you have to spend disproportionate amounts of your time following up with them, pulling that to the fore and talking about it is oftentimes the only way it will change. It is much easier to complain to your spouse about it than it

Maria Ross 14:46

is your manager. Of course it is, yeah, but I

Elizabeth Lotardo 14:51

have never once complained to my spouse and had the other person change their behavior as a result of that conversation. Even

Maria Ross 14:57

zero effectivity, zero strategy.

14:59

Success,

Maria Ross 15:00

right? Yeah, well, and I love that too, because it’s also about, you know, when I talk to people about when you’re giving that feedback, whether it’s to a colleague or a manager, it’s also about, you know, even though I talk about empathy, taking the emotion out of it a little bit, and talking about, this is what, how this is impacting the work, this is how this is impacting what I do, and our chances for success, and if you’re able to even quantify it, that would be great. Like, for example, I took note last week of how often I had to reply to your emails about x. That was two hours of my week that was spent on that. And I don’t know if you realize that or not, but that’s two hours I could be spending doing the work. So this is a problem. It’s not just I don’t like it,

Elizabeth Lotardo 15:43

right, right? It’s not just personally frustrating to me, which does count for something. I mean, you deserve to feel minimal frustration at work, not no frustration at work, right, right. And back to assuming intent here a micromanager is probably a micromanager because they have someone’s foot on their neck, because they worked for a micromanager, because their team previously let them down. Someone is ghosting emails because they have too much to do. They’re dealing with a personal crisis. As an individual, you want to be able to move away from emotional reactivity into tactical maneuvering? How are you going to make this work, to get your stuff done? And you can’t do that if you’re coming at it from a place of anger and resentment.

Maria Ross 16:28

I love that. What say that again, move from emotional reactivity

Elizabeth Lotardo 16:32

to tactical maneuvering, and that is so much of leading yourself. It is moving away from all these other people in these stupid systems. And all of this is annoying, and I don’t know if AI is going to take my job into Okay, all of that is true, and what can I control? And only when we move to that place do we start to feel more energy and more power.

Maria Ross 16:52

So how do you get people past the like i Why do I have to deal with it? Why do I have to put so much energy into managing my manager?

Elizabeth Lotardo 17:03

That’s an interesting question, and I think you’ve probably seen this in your consulting practice too. Topics like empathy and purpose and impact and resilience often fall onto the shoulders of a manager. And what we know about managers now, compared to managers of 20 to 30 years ago is they have more people reporting to them. The previous generation a direct report list was usually five to seven. Now or 10 plus is the norm. They have things to do on top of being a manager. Previously, management was kind of the whole job. Now they have their own deliverables, their own reports, their own OKRs that their boss is holding an account too. So why do you have to do this? Because your manager probably isn’t, and whether that’s fair or not, you decide it doesn’t change the facts. If your manager isn’t doing it, you’re the one that’s going to pay the price. So the choice is, you step up to the plate and control what you can control, and you lead up and you make this work, or you have a soul sucking work experience, the choice is yours.

Maria Ross 18:04

So I would love to ask you a question, and this is kind of a curve ball to you, because we didn’t really talk about this, but you’re you’re a different generation in the workforce than I am. And I’m curious about this thing I’ve heard from generational experts that talk about with incoming talent generations. They’re not their lack of desire, but sort of their lack of knowing that you need to manage up like I I’m Gen X, and that was a mantra in my my early career, was if you can manage up and be very proactive to the needs of your manager. That’s one success strategy. That’s a way for you to get great performance reviews and to advance in the organization. Has that gone away? Because some people say it has. Some people say that with with incoming talent generations, that’s not a thing that they don’t they’re only sort of looking out for themselves, and not in a bad, selfish way, but in a that was just something they never learned. Was, Why do I have to worry about the person who’s more advanced than me? What do you think about that?

Elizabeth Lotardo 19:12

I definitely think you’re tapping into a shift, and whether it shows up in leading up or other areas, I’m not sure. But to me, I’m a millennial, and thankfully, now the clickbait headlines don’t focus on us anymore. They focus on Gen

Maria Ross 19:26

Z. You’re like, no, it’s your turn. Yeah, but,

Elizabeth Lotardo 19:29

but what I think has happened in the last 20 years, generations aside, is a few really important shifts in the way we look at work as a collective first, the recession. Millennials, my generation, we watched our parents, who devoted 20 years to some company, get fired. Am I going to do that? No, of course, I approach this with a What are you going to do for me? I don’t trust you. Dynamic, COVID. We watched a similar thing happen. We watched employers mistreat their employees. We watched some work in. Organizations rise. We watch them fall. But through all of that, we realized employment is not a guarantee. Your paycheck today might be gone tomorrow. So I think some of these, these world shaking events, have drastically altered the way we view work. The younger generation has oftentimes the economic freedom you know, they don’t have a mortgage, kids, all of these things that sort of behold you to your employer, in many cases, to voice those concerns and to bring it to the workplace conversation. I

Maria Ross 20:28

love that perspective, because, like again, I don’t think it’s a bad intention. I just think it’s sort of a workplace trope, truism that is no longer valid, that that people come into the workplace precisely to your point of seeing what the workplace has done to people. And I’m, I’m on the tail end of that, because I remember when I switched jobs in my 20s and 30s, I did have some people go, Well, you know, oh, you just got promoted. Is there no loyalty there? And I was like, I got promoted because of the work that I did. These people could turn around and lay me off tomorrow. Like, as long as I’m here, I’m going to do the best possible job I can, but I don’t owe them anything to stay if I have a good opportunity somewhere else. And that was sort of like shocking to people that I would say something like that, but I feel like that is actually the way it has gone, because we do realize, hey, we’re spending the bulk of our time in this workplace. It better be a place that’s meeting my needs and aligning with my values, the conversation

Elizabeth Lotardo 21:25

has certainly changed, and back to this pull through thread of leading yourself, leading yourself through your career, not just in the job you have, right? Yes, knowing where you want your next step to be, even if it’s not with your current employer and laying the groundwork to get there, even if they don’t know that that’s what you’re doing,

Maria Ross 21:46

right? And even if they’re not, you know, there’s some organizations that are doing a great job of investing in professional development for their people, and that is something that many of the studies say, for example, Gen Z is looking for in a workplace culture. Are you going to invest in me as a professional even though, you know, I might not be here forever. And I’m

Elizabeth Lotardo 22:03

sure you’ve seen that old cartoon where the CFO and the head of learning and development are talking, and the head of learning and development is like, we need training money, and the CFO is like, what happens if we train all our people and they leave? And the head of learning and development goes, what happens if we don’t train them and they stay. The organizations are wisening up

Maria Ross 22:26

exactly, and they’re understanding that, well, you want to get the best out of the people you have while you have them. And I spoke to I’ll put a link to her episode. Rhonda George Denniston is the chief learning officer at TBWA, and she talks about their amazing culture, where they completely understand they may only have these people for four to eight years, they are going to invest heavily in their professional development, because they want them to have the best professional experience they’ve ever had at their company, and also, while they’re at their company, be performing at their best. So it’s

22:59

a long game, talents, long game,

Maria Ross 23:01

right? And it’s also about like, well, we’re going to make sure you know what you’re doing while you’re here, and you’re not, you’re not creating a toxic environment. You’re not, you know you’re you’re communicating effectively. You’re doing your work effectively while you’re here, because that’s actually going to benefit the company as a whole, well. And if you’re

Elizabeth Lotardo 23:19

listening to this, being like that place sounds great to work. My job doesn’t provide me any learning opportunities. What I would say to you is, you are not powerless. Number one, have you asked for those opportunities? Raise your hand. Articulate. Hey, I want to go to this conference. Here’s what I’m going to learn. Here’s why it’s important to me. Here’s the business case. What I bring back to that. Have you take an initiative to leverage resources like LinkedIn learning, like Maria’s book, like my book, so much power is in your hands. You just have to learn to grip it. So if you’re sitting there being like, my company doesn’t have learning and development, we’re too small. Nobody cares about that. There are things you can do. The flip side is definitely toxic, toxic positivity to this. Like, I’m not trying to justify all the woes of a potentially shitty employer, but there’s always something within your control. Any sure about your job

Maria Ross 24:13

well, and that’s that whole I love that you took that around, because that was actually what sparked my thinking of that was that if you can take the reins on your own career and your own professional development, even if your company’s not providing it to exactly to your point, not every company is like TV WA. It doesn’t let you off the hook. If you know that that might be a path you want to pursue, or you know you need to work on communication, or you need to work on empathy, or you need to work on, you know, negotiation skills, whatever it is, you can find other resources to shore up your own professional development, back to your point of navigating your own career, because that’s a long game that’s sort of investing in you know me, Inc, as a company, as a brand. What do I want to do in my career, whether I do it at this workplace or a different. One

Elizabeth Lotardo 25:00

absolutely and again, I think a pull through in this conversation has been Stop complaining about everyone else, because they’re probably not going to change. Your systems will be inevitably annoying, because the way that that’s the way technology is, your boss will be forever imperfect, because that’s the way humans are. But you’re in the driver’s seat, and you can maneuver this situation in a way that works for you, right?

Maria Ross 25:23

And you know, this is based on a radio show, an NPR conversation I was listening to just before we got on this call. And I think it’s also about the manner in which you stand up for yourself. I think what gets some people in trouble, and I will just be frank, especially women, is that we come, we, we speak, we, sometimes some of us speak up for ourselves in a way that’s very confrontational, that’s already assuming negative intent, that’s already it’s sort of guns blazing. We go in there, and I’m like, You better send me this conference. And here’s why. But so it’s being able to tape us take a step back and like you said, like we were saying earlier, turning that emotional reactivity to tactical maneuvering of, hey, I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and this is a skill I really want to develop, and me developing this skill is going to benefit the team in x, y and z. What do you think about investing in this conference? Or at least if you’re not going to giving me the time off, the paid time off, to go and invest in this conference. So we also want to work on our, I guess, our empathy in the interaction of asking for what we want, and not always come at it of like I’m going to come in and demand because that never goes over well with people.

Elizabeth Lotardo 26:36

It never does. But in defense of womankind, I do think we have been one, shot down many times, probably unjustly, where we sort of guarded up and brought this charge to a situation that might not warrant it. And two, the conversation collectively around confidence and being assertive, and so much of that narrative can be summed up by act like a man, but it doesn’t work. If you’re a woman, you’re never gonna be as good of a man as a man, yeah. So taking the approach of empathy, first, of marveling in delight of I’m so excited about this opportunity, I can’t wait to bring these things back to the business. I hope you’ll support me in this and that Invitational tone can make a world of difference.

Maria Ross 27:23

Yeah, and I’m not saying we like pussyfoot around it, and we have to come in all meek and like, oh please, sir, can you please send me to this conference? But I think that there’s a method of being able to navigate our career and ask for what we want, where we don’t have to swing the pendulum completely the other way to where it’s confrontational, demanding, and I know, you know, I’m probably going to get a lot of ads from this, but I just, I really believe that we have to just make room for the fact that everyone’s going through something. And you know, like you said earlier, that that sort of empathy for your leader and for your manager is coming in and coming at it from a place of collaboration and mutual benefit versus I just want what’s mine, like, kind of attitude, because that, you know, it’s like, well, great, I want what’s mine too, but I’m not getting that right now. So really coming at this, navigating your career and being confident and asking for what you want, but making sure you’re asking for what you want in a way that both people can walk out winning from the conversation. Absolutely

Elizabeth Lotardo 28:25

leading yourself is not synonymous with and leave everyone else in the dust, right? Humans are a social species. We live in communities, we work in tribes, we gather in fellowship. You need other people, even when you are focused on controlling your own individual part of that I I think leading yourself can work in harmony with having a good relationship with the people around you, because if you think about the relationships you have most valued over your career, whether that is a manager who always supported you, whether that’s A colleague who was always, you know, happy to help, always really creative, really smart, whoever it is, that person was probably owning themselves. They weren’t lamenting in all of the things that were wrong all of the time. As funny as it can be to, you know, joke about the office like there’s all these sitcoms, literally the office. There was that movie about all the people who conspired to kill their Horrible Bosses, like as as sort of kitschy and hilarious as that can be, it oftentimes leaves us feeling worse, because we feel completely out of control, that all of these things are just happening to us. But when we step into what we do, own, what we can control and how we can influence in our organization. It might not be as funny, but it feels a lot better in the long run. I love that.

Maria Ross 29:47

Okay, I want to leave off with one last question, because I know we’re talking about and I always like to acknowledge this, even when I’m I’m giving keynotes or leadership trainings about having agency over when it might be time. Into part ways. You know, we can. We can always do. We can do what we can. We can lead ourselves. But then you have to also have an honest conversation of is, is this workplace and this culture aligned with my values and what I need in my life right now? And you may have to make a decision where the workplace is not going to change. They’ve decided what their business structure is going to be and who their leaders are going to be, and now you get to make a decision on whether you stay or you go if you are privileged enough to be in that position. So for people who can’t just walk away right now, what are some tips you have for making the most of the job that you’re in, even if it’s not your dream job, and even if you’re trying some of these techniques, but they don’t seem to be, quote, unquote, working. So if

Elizabeth Lotardo 30:45

this job is not your dream job, if it is a stepping stone for you, if it is simply a means to pay your bills on time and support your family, that’s okay. Don’t let the LinkedIn bros convince you that every single day has to be this magical, purpose driven experience, because it might not be. What you’re going to do instead is you’re going to look for small moments of meaning, small moments of joy and small glimpses of an opportunity. We’re not going to take this job that you hate into a job that you absolutely love. That’s probably not possible, but we can work on making it tolerable for the meantime. And you always want to be shifting back to what can I control? If you like, one tiny element of your to do list, you’re going to start with that and give yourself some energy to get through the day. If you really enjoy one of your colleagues, you’re going to invite them to more of your meetings and try and buoy that for yourself, there are always these small elements that taken together, can make a major impact on how you feel at work. Will they be transformative to a job that sucks? Probably not, but they can make it suck a little less. So don’t let this notion that you have to find your dream job before you can be happy get to you that’s not the case. You can find small moments of happiness and a job that’s okay enough and support your family in the meantime,

Maria Ross 32:07

right? I think it all gets back to you know, what? What are you trying to accomplish? What’s your own personal purpose and mission, and what is the role of this job within that larger story right now? And like you said, I love what you said about this idea that maybe this is just a stepping stone, maybe this is just a way to pay the bills right now and just reframing our mindset to be more realistic about what we get. You’re so spot on about the LinkedIn bros. By the way, we don’t always have to be like following our bliss and living our purpose and buying jets like that’s not most 99.9% people’s reality. So this has been such a fun conversation. Elizabeth, thank you so much for sharing your stories and your insights with us. I hope everyone will check out the book leading yourself finding more joy, meaning and opportunities in the job you already have, despite imperfect bosses, weird economies, lethargic co workers, annoying systems and too many deliverables, thanks for your time. Today, we’re going to have all your links in the show notes so people can find you. But for anyone on the go, where’s the best place they can connect with you or learn more about you,

Elizabeth Lotardo 33:15

search me on LinkedIn at Elizabeth lotardo, I put out new content every week,

Maria Ross 33:19

wonderful. And like I always do my public service announcement for LinkedIn, make sure you send her a message that says you heard her on this podcast so she doesn’t think you’re trying to sell her something. Elizabeth, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate you. Thanks for having me, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge. Please. If you liked it, you know what to do, rate, review, share it with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the 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 and.

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

Jonathan Beck: Integrating Compassion, Impact, and Profit in Your Business Model

You’ve heard me talk about Both/And leadership and about Both/And business models. The ability to balance mission-driven, social impact work with sustainable profit and growth AT THE SAME TIME. It is possible, and it’s not just a theory. Today, we talk with Jonathan Beck, someone who knows this firsthand.

Today, Jonathan and I discuss the tension between purpose and profit and how to recognize if you are in a growth vs. survival mindset. He chats about how to integrate compassionate and impact-driven business practices while building a business and making a profit, how nonprofits can scale personalization to drive more impact, and how to leverage innovation to make a difference. Jonathan peels back the curtain on the surprising con being run by many leading CRM players on nonprofits and how we can create a marketplace of meaning. Finally, he shares how WeGive successfully models values such as transparency, honesty, and accountability to gain trust and build relationships that benefit the company and the customer at the same time.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

In a non-profit organization, your donors are your customers. You should have an ideal donor in the same way that for-profit organizations have ideal clients. It’s not enough to just say “We need your help.”
Non-profits are often so busy taking care of their mission and purpose that they forget to take care of their internal team. You must steward your own culture while trying to save the world.
No matter the size of your organization, as a leader, you must model accountability and vulnerability with your team. This allows others to take responsibility for what they bring to the table.
How to increase engagement is not a mystery. It all comes back to creating an environment where people know their contribution and perspective matters.

“Giving is going digital. Consumer expectations are that they have an incredible digital experience. It’s about trust and communication. It’s about a purchase of identity, ultimately.” — Jonathan Beck

From Our Partner:

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

About Jonathan Beck, Founder/CEO, WeGive

Jonathan Beck is a seasoned software and financial technology entrepreneur with a strong foundation in faith-based initiatives. After successful ventures in Silicon Valley, including as a founding team member for the global digital payments solution PayStand, Jonathan returned to his roots to make a meaningful impact in the nonprofit sector. He founded WeGive, a SaaS platform that empowers nonprofits and faith-based organizations with cutting-edge fundraising and donor engagement tools. With a passion for supporting mission-driven causes, Jonathan leverages his expertise to help organizations grow, engage supporters, and maximize their impact.

Connect with Jonathan:

WeGive: wegive.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jonathanbeck1

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Jonathan Beck 02:43

Thanks for having me. Yeah, glad to be here. So we heard a little bit about

Maria Ross 02:47

we give and the work that you do. And I am so curious as to how a, you know, software and financial technology entrepreneur gets to creating a platform for nonprofits and your passion around that. So tell us a little bit about your story.

Jonathan Beck 03:04

Yeah. Well, I think most of the people in what we call like the nonprofit tech space probably have a pretty similar story. They either came from, usually an agency that was doing something for nonprofits and then decided, Oh, we can make a product around this, or they came from the tech world and decided they wanted to do something, quote, unquote, more meaningful, so that the latter’s me was at a payments company that payments companies ended up is is still going to do so one of 3/3, fastest growing company to Silicon Valley for three years in a row, And does, like, a tremendous amount of volume, and I built the sales and marketing team I was very not passionate about, you know, selling payments to companies to do payments, yeah, but some of our customers were platforms that helped nonprofits, and we had some nonprofits as as customers And and I just kind of saw an opportunity for what I thought. There were problems they were dealing with that I thought software could fix and, and so decided to start this company. It originally was a consumer financial technology app, basically an app where you can download, find nonprofits, give to them easily. And it was horrible. It was truly a terrible application and wasted, you know, two and a half years trying to get that to work. I don’t know if waste is the right word, but you learned from it. Yeah, we ended up pivoting that. It was called give list. We ended up pivoting that to we give, which is basically does the same thing, but sells to nonprofits instead of tries to get individuals to be the main user driver. So regardless that, yeah, it’s kind of the genesis well, and then

Maria Ross 04:47

what do you do for nonprofits? Then how do you help them further their mission with this technology platform? Yeah, that’s

Jonathan Beck 04:53

such a great question. I oftentimes completely forget to mention, yeah. So basically. The nonprofits do two things, right? They do, quote, unquote, their program. So whether that’s a school, your hospital, you’re an international relief organization, a church, whatever you are, you have, like, in your mind, something that you’re doing that’s charitable, that the government’s agreed is charitable, and you do and that’s your program, and then the other part of your entire organization basically tries to sell that meaning and identity and purpose to people and communicate to them about the meaning and purpose they’re accomplishing. And so we help with that second piece, but basically the whole front office of the nonprofit can use our tool to communicate and meaningfully to that those basically their their group of supporters, their entire contact database, and then also allow them to have really delightful, personalized, highly, highly personalized giving experiences, not just Giving, but just kind of any kind of digital purchase or interaction, and then gives them kind of a home where they have a profile, they can live on that nonprofits website, see their impact, their numbers, just really dynamic, delightful. Oh, this is who I am, right? My here’s, this is my digital relationship with this organization, right, privately visualized for me, yeah, so

Maria Ross 06:20

I love what you’re talking about here, because, you know, digging under the surface, there is this tension when you are working for a mission driven and I kind of put nonprofits in that category, but there’s many for profits that are mission driven as well. When you have these mission driven organizations that at the end of the day, have to realize that there is something that they’re selling, they’re selling an idea, they’re selling a product, they’re selling a service. But it’s that tension between the commercial aspect of what they’re doing and the mission aspect of what they’re doing. And as someone who’s done brand strategy projects and brand messaging projects for nonprofits, that’s the bulk of the conversation, is getting them to open up. Enough about you know, you are very close to your mission and your purpose, and that’s great. But if you if you can’t communicate that in a compelling way, and then set up a mechanism to make it really easy for people to give or get involved, then your wonderful mission goes nowhere. And so it’s a lot of times, it’s about coaxing them into understanding that this is not gross to deal with this. This is what’s going to enable the organization to achieve its mission and to sustain itself, so that they can help as many people as possible, and getting them to flip to understand that, for example, they need to look at technology platforms. They do need to maybe customize the giving experience. What are those conversations like? Do you butt up against those? That tension a lot, and how do you help them through

Jonathan Beck 07:51

that? Yeah, I mean, most of it is a lot of times that tension. I mean, the nonprofits in general, compared to, you know, I’m from the corporate world, not the nonprofit world. So, you know, we’re all about trying to find optimizations right to grow. And we have growth goals. Nonprofits have survival goals, and they’re all about all their KPIs and OKRs, or whatever you want to call it. They even have them, which they usually don’t, are usually almost all orbiting risk aversion. And, you know, it’s kind of like I heard someone say, once you know, to have a successful career in in government, all you need to do is just not mess up. And it’s kind of the same thing in probably you don’t need to increase bottom lines. But I think because of that, and because of the lack of that good, personalized communication that has, I think, a deep understanding of why someone donated to you, that is largely almost a new idea that’s like kind of becoming a thing right now, and because of the lack of It, retention rates in nonprofit specifically, are really low, like, first time donor retention rates, like less than 20% which is incredible, right? I mean, if you’re for every customer, you’re gonna get you basically of 10 you keep two. Is

Maria Ross 09:15

pretty bad. It’s a bad churn rate, yeah, yes.

Jonathan Beck 09:17

I mean, they’re not selling T shirts, right, right, right? There. Ideally, their products a lot more meaningful and identity based than a t shirt, right? So then Commerce has got better retention rates for first time purchasers, but then the nonprofits that do a good job storytelling essentially about your making a difference in the world. Thank you so much. Get those retention rates to be as high as 80 90% and those organizations grow much faster. So that’s really kind of comes down to, like reframing the conversation around, well, no one in your team has staff capacity because they’re all just trying to communicate meaningful. Fully at all, some kind of meaningful touch point with a group of donors. Usually it’s just, like the top 10% in the CRM that they’re using. Everyone else just doesn’t even get what they just get added to, like a mail list, right, right, you know, and just get treated like ATM machines, the communications, Hey, give again. Hey, give again. Hey, give again, right? Next, like, decade of their life, and that’s really not meaningful, right, right? Yeah, that’s usually the conversation we bump into. We try to reframe it like, I think you guys are thinking about this wrong? This isn’t it. Is the riskiest thing to do here for you guys is to optimize risk aversion. Yeah, right. You’re gonna cease to exist unless you innovate. Because people like retentions are giving dropped this year for the first time, right? Giving is going digital. Consumer expectations are that they have an incredible digital experience, and there’s a big distrust now, you know, you give to Red Cross, and then what’s that going to is it going to buy someone a house and a Ferrari in the Hollywood Hills? Or is that going to, like, save a child’s life. I have no idea anymore, right? And it’s so it’s all about kind of trust and communicating that meaning, yeah, yeah. And

Maria Ross 11:09

I think that that’s the important reframing, you know, that I’ve done in my work, doing brand messaging with them, is, you know, when you talk to them about their ideal donor, which is just, you know, nomenclature for their ideal customer, they’re like, well, our ideal donor is anyone who gives us money. And I’m like, right? That shows you don’t understand anything about them. Like, who are those people that are going to be more likely to be aligned with your mission? And why are they actually donating to you? They may not be donating to you to help those kids, like, hopefully they are. But there’s also other reasons why they donate, and so we need to all of those reasons and having empathy. You know, this is why empathy is such a superpower in marketing, and I love using marketing for good to help nonprofits achieve their mission and expand their impact by learning to look at their donors as human beings, as people like you said, not as cash machines, but what is it they need to hear? And it’s not, unfortunately, it’s not enough to say, we just really need your help. You need to feel sorry for us, or feel sorry for the people that we serve. That only goes so far. That’s maybe your first time donor. And then, you know, because it hit you in the gut, and then what do they want going forward? What do they what community do they want to be a part of going forward? Because that’s showcasing the empathy of like, we really understand you as a donor, and we know why you’re here and why you want to give to us versus all the other places you could be giving money to. This is the purpose, and this is the mission that you support fully?

Jonathan Beck 12:41

Yeah. I mean, it’s that’s a purchase of identity ultimately, right? You know, I’m taking like, that 10 hours that I felt was largely meaningless in a cubicle, and I’m turning it into, like, changing time and a being provided for someone. So there’s that piece. It gives me a feeling of meaning and purpose as as, I’m sure, you know, it’s kind of the hot topic. Purpose is actually what makes people happy, right? Meaning is actually what makes people happy, relationship, community, and it’s, I think ultimately, the reframing of the whole industry as like a marketplace of meaning?

Maria Ross 13:20

Oh, I love that marketplace of meaning. That’s great. And so I want to ask this question, because this is a really important one, if you like, pull out to a higher view of, how do you integrate compassionate and impact driven business practices while still also building a sustainable business and making a profit. Where have you landed in terms of being able to have a both and philosophy, which is very important and what I preach on this show? But how has that actually worked for you in practice? Can you give us some examples of you know, obviously your work is benefiting mission driven organizations, but how have you seen some of them balance purpose with profit?

Jonathan Beck 14:04

Yeah, you know, and that’s such a good question. I think that there seems to be, and you know, there seems to be a large majority of these nonprofits that are the number one complaint is staff capacity, and they’re also very risk averse, you combine both of those, and a lot of times you get really, actually poor cultures internally, Oh, yeah. And they may be all about basically selling empathy, or be agents of empathy in the world, bringing justice and mercy in different areas, but internally, as an organization, it can be, I think, you know, they can be quite a mess. And so as it speaks for nonprofits, you know, I’m not really sure. I think for us, I thought it would be a lot more meaningful to building a company that sold basically that partnered with. Nonprofits instead of, you know, mid market manufacturing companies or whatever, thought serving nonprofits and, yeah, I thought that would be more meaningful. And to be honest, I’m not sure that it has been. It feels better to know that the organizations we’re helping are have at least vowed to be good, right? And still, as of today, like in the government size, provide a public benefit and therefore shouldn’t be taxed, right? That’s basically the line of getting a 501, c3, status. So, but that doesn’t really have much to do with our culture, the way we run our business. I think from what I saw when I came in was I saw a lot of competitors and the incumbents still today that have taken tremendous advantage of the nonprofits in general and their lack of, let’s just say, knowledge in purchasing Other software, systems, solutions, products, I won’t names, but like the gorillas in the space that do CRM, like our aureus, or really long contracts, and then not letting people relinquish their data, and then clamping down on increasing SaaS fees to show growth rate. So instead of new customers, forcing people to have a terrible experience if they turn to limit churn and then increasing revenue by increasing costs. Right? Where I’ve seen other organizations come through that are like some of the leaders in the fundraising space, the giving space, come in and charge unbelievable, really large monthly SaaS fees or annual fees to multi year contracts, not let organizations leave, like, hold on to the payment data for the recurring plan so they can’t leave, and then charge 234, 5% fees on top of, like, an already high bundled rate. What a lot of the nonprofits don’t know is that interchange is, like, really cheap, like a Visa debit transaction for nonprofits, like less than half 4% and they’re paying like 7% Wow, for those transactions. And so what we’ve tried to do is we’ve just basically, kind of approached the industry as okay, like, let’s put ourselves in their shoes, and let’s try to have a solution that really clearly explains what we do, that tries our best to not say yes. A lot of these platforms say, Oh, we can do that. We can do that. We can do that historically. Then they get into a big contract, and now they’re kind of out of luck because they’re stuck. And that solution actually couldn’t do that. That just makes a bad customer relationship. They’re gonna get referrals from that, etc. And so that’s not fun to me. I want to have fun. I want to recreate, not feel like I’m toiling, right? Yeah. And so when I’m working with people that are happy and we’re their partners for a part of their business, and that’s a lot more fun. And so that’s been kind of one piece. Was like, kind of one of our core values is stewardship, humility, autonomy, grit and joy, right? And so like, let’s not be afraid to work hard and over the top to try to help these people that are actually kind of behind, 10 years behind, in fact, in technology adoption and business frameworking, right? Like you mentioned, like the donor customer profile that you were talking about, that was like a revolutionary idea for them, right? So, like that was really popular 10 years ago. Everyone was talking about ICPs, 2012 2014 in other industries, right? Yes, nonprofits are just talking about that right now, right? And so they’re kind of having like a renaissance that, like, I think business experienced most tech boom, and they’re kind of having those framework shifts mentally. And with that, I think there’s a exhaustion with kind of price gouging, sort of extortion tactics. Yeah, that sounds very predatory, for sure. Yeah, exactly. Predatory is the right word. Yeah, predatory business practices from the 90s in software, and yeah. So we’ve been trying to step out of that, practically as a business, but then just as a company, making sure our top goal is steward. And so, like, we don’t want to make money for the sake of making money, right? Like the quarterly goals and the annual goals like those derive like the roles that we hire and the stuff that we do. But if those goals are we need to sell for $300 million by q4 of 2025 then we’re gonna have really, like aggressive things that we need to basically sacrifice. Or to treat certain customers really poorly, yeah, right, yeah. But if the ultimate goal is to, is to, at the end of things, feel like we are really good stewards of the opportunity in our customer relationships, our employee relationships, everything as a company, then most of them, then I think whatever the decisions we make, whatever goals we end up having in between, will be fine. The successful follow for sure, right? So that’s kind of a long winded answer to a difficult question. Yeah, well,

Maria Ross 20:27

and I’d love I’m curious what your definition of stewardship is internally. What Is that understood to mean, and what does that look like practically for your people, when they say, give me an example of what we mean by being good stewards. Can you explain that? Because that is a in my brand work, that’s a brand attribute that a lot of people claim. But then when you actually ask the bulk of the employees, they don’t actually know what it means. So what does it mean in your organization, and how do you expect it to show up?

Jonathan Beck 20:55

Yeah, so we actually have it like little paragraphs written down, yeah, for each of the values that aren’t definitions, but just kind

Maria Ross 21:03

of, they’re narratives for each of the values. Yeah, exactly.

Jonathan Beck 21:07

And that’s kind of a gotcha. I’ll don’t have mine memorized from stewardship, but I think what do you understand it to be? Yeah, I can, can repeat it word for word, like I’ll probably get made fun of internally for this later, but I believe it’s along the lines of we’re purpose driven to be good stewards in our work, and that is very specific, to be of our like everything that’s with that we’ve been entrusted with, and that’s anything from our employees to our clients to our investors, our pre product into our circumstances, like the bad ones and the good ones in all of those that we should have an ownership mindset and approach however we act and think and feel, kind of our posture internally when we’re acting and speaking and living in those circumstances and within those relationships and people with the mindset and approach to Do the best possible job, we can have mindset as like, this is my responsibility, and I’m grateful to have gratitude for having this as a responsibility. How I see how fortunate, how awesome it is that I get to deal with this problem today. What a wonderful challenge. And so just for the sake of doing an excellent job and honoring the sacredness of what that is, and having that be. It’s a goal of the goal within itself, which is more of a process of doing things. And it is a nice made up revenue number for this made up exactly,

Maria Ross 22:33

exactly. It’s our rules of engagement. It’s sort of like the mindset that we want our people to have that’s going to actually, you know, it eventually will impact, you know, I, all my work is about talking about the ROI of empathy, and it’s there if you focus on the people, and you focus on doing the right thing, and you actually, you know, assuming you have a great product or service, we have to, you know, quality is there totally but the numbers will follow. It doesn’t mean you don’t get competitive. It doesn’t mean you lack ambition. All of those things are important too, but, but when you are able to leverage those types of things in the way that you operate, then you have a better chance of success. And so I really like what you’re talking about here in terms of helping. And also, I’m sure you know you see that with nonprofits, and you said something earlier that I want to go back to, which is the this idea that I wrote about in the empathy edge, which was sometimes nonprofits have the worst cultures internally, because they’re sort of the last to take care of themselves. They’re so busy working on their mission and their purpose outwardly, that they can sometimes, you know, like you said, there’s a lot of resource constraints, there’s a lot of staffing shortages, there’s, you know, constantly worried about the budget, and so there’s a lot going on internally that can actually contribute to a negative culture if you’re not careful, if you’re not also stewarding your own culture while you’re trying to save the world, right? So it’s, and that’s that’s counter intuitive to what a lot of people think, where they go. Oh, well, surely the nonprofits have empathetic cultures. They don’t always right. And, you know, for profits can, and some have incredible Of course, yeah, no, I’m talking about some of them though, like, and because there’s a lot of stressors that are there. But also on the same side of that is you can have for profits that have wonderfully empathetic cultures, wonderfully mission driven, purpose driven organizations. And I think the important thing we’re hearing from you is that there needs to be a desire from leadership to balance both, and that has to be part of the values of the organization, the expectations of the organization. And so what do you do within your organization? If you can share with some leaders listening today, what are some ways that you help your team stay true to the values? What practices or rewards or models do you have in place? Just give us like one or two. Examples of how you help them live out the values on a daily basis.

Jonathan Beck 25:06

That’s a tough question. Yeah, I think, well, you know, right now we’re just sub 20 employees, so I really haven’t, you know, it’s different when there’s 250 employees, and that’s just really different, right? When you’re got full blown departments and you really need everything to flow through multiple levels of hierarchy really well, from vision to, like, reporting, etc, it’s quite different. I think, for the smaller team size, I think the lines around 25 it feels like to me, from the experience, I’m actually

Maria Ross 25:39

gonna I’m gonna be a little controversial. I’m going to push back on you on that, because you can have a culture with three people. You can have a culture with 10 people, and so culture is just how work gets done and how we reward and model the work. So I’m curious, if you have, even with the 20 people that you have, what are some ways, you know, obviously you’ve done a lot of work on your values, what are some ways that you implement rewards or practices to recognize and show people that those values actually have meaning to their day to day? Work?

Jonathan Beck 26:09

Right? Totally, yeah. Well, we have a number of things, right? I mean, we have just kind of your basic and standard benefits that you would expect. We also have an unlimited pay time off policy, you know, where we definitely make sure not to use family language. Like, I don’t know that’s just for us personally. Like the leadership team is just like, you’re not my wife or my husband. You’re Yeah, you’re my colleague and you’re my employee, right? Stop using the dumb family language. You don’t want to be hanging out with us after work. You want to be with your kids, and you should be and like, let’s be honest about that, right? And not try to kind of over index there, and we’re very honest. Earlier today, we had, like, a really hard kind of criticizing, kind of public criticism call, but it’s not done with kind of a goal of shaming anyone. But it’s just, yeah, hey, I think as a team, we could do a lot better here. Yeah, right. And you know, I’ll be the first to say that, like, you know, obviously this rolls up to me, and I’m so sorry. I apologize. You know, I’ve totally failed leadership here with by, you know, not giving you guys more goals to keep you guys more accountable to these goals, right off the mark, right? And we all know it, and we’re not talking about it. So let’s talk about, talk about some solutions.

Maria Ross 27:32

So that’s huge. Jonathan, that that just that modeling right there. You know, you sort of brushed past it a little earlier, but that is actually huge, and that’s what you need to do, no matter the size of your company, is really to be about setting the stage for these are the kind of conversations, and this is how I, as a leader, hold myself accountable, and where I’m going to be vulnerable in that things could be better. That’s actually setting the stage for allowing other people to take accountability for their own work and what they bring to the table, and just being able to show that and have that in sort of a transparent public forum, that idea of honesty that’s going to go a long way as you scale and grow. And because we’re going to know this is how we get work done around here, and this is what is expected. And if our leaders can hold themselves to this kind of standard of honesty and transparency, we all need to be able to act in that way, and that what you’re saying right now builds so much trust, and that’s where folks can relax and feel like, hey, I can actually be who I am here, and I can make mistakes, and it’s okay, as long as I take accountability for those mistakes. And I want to keep coming back. I want to say we just

Jonathan Beck 28:41

want people to make mistakes more quickly, yeah, and correct more quickly, yeah. Ultimately, what we’re trying to optimize for is people just the honesty and humility of everyone and autonomy is the other one that I mentioned, where, where it’s like I we definitely want the to accelerate the speed at which we point something out that it’s not going right, and then correct it very quickly, right, right?

Maria Ross 29:04

And so knowing that it’s and knowing that it’s safe to do so, yeah,

Jonathan Beck 29:08

exactly correct. Yeah. So that’s awesome, perfect example. The other thing that we do is we do an all hands every month, and the all hands is all just completely open all the data, the revenue numbers, the bank account numbers, everything. The only thing other employees don’t know is each other’s exact salaries and equity positions, because I believe that’s unhealthy. So anything that can cause like comparison and basically puts them into a judgment mindset is we try to avoid that, right? But the most, more largely like the conversations are, here’s what our like ARR was this month, and here’s what the product team developed, and here’s what’s forecasting the pipeline, and here’s what’s happening with this. And this is a problem here. And blah, blah, blah. Yeah, and then we leave a lot of time, and I basically will try to force people to ask questions. Yeah, Tom, are you sure you don’t have a question? You seem like you were unsure about that revenue number. Yeah, you know? Well, yeah, I don’t. I don’t know if it’s as big as that. I don’t know if I believe that number. And you’re like, Okay, well, let’s talk about that. Yeah, right. Does anyone else not think is that big, you know, send, there’s like four people raising their hands. You’re like, okay, so literally, almost 20% of our team doesn’t believe in that number, right there, right? So we need to talk about it, yeah? Talk about how we got there. Yeah, absolutely. But everyone’s like, totally. We need to get committed Arr, to move to ARR faster, or whatever. So now we’re all back cohesively focused on a goal, right? Yeah. And so anyway, so it’s just small things, I think more so like that, and those are the things that either provide more meaning than like, the working with nonprofits is like trying to have fun. That’s fun, right? That’s like, healthy relationship,

Maria Ross 30:54

yeah? My fifth pillar of being an effective and empathetic leader in the new book is joy, creating that environment of levity, where people can relax, they can use their cognitive skills and not be living in fear and anxiety to actually innovate and to do their best work. And so that’s how you increase engagement, and that’s how you increase meaning of this is a place that I know the role I play. I know that you know, especially what you’re describing in your meetings. I know my opinion is valued and my perspective is valued. It doesn’t mean they, you know, Jonathan does everything I want him to do at every moment. It just means I can have input and I can have impact. And that goes a long way to driving engagement. We try to act like increasing engagement is some creative mystery, and it’s really not. It’s just treat people like they matter. Create an environment they want to keep coming back to where they know their contribution matters and their perspective matters and that they can be themselves they can agree to, you know, Hey, Jonathan, I’ve got this crazy idea.

Jonathan Beck 31:56

Let’s totally why, right? Yeah, and I think that kind of you combine, like not getting people’s identity, not allowing people’s identity to get wrapped up in the perception of their value at the company, and it creates a ability to be criticized, right? Yeah, almost a superpower in business where someone could like, I’ve had multiple times below all hands, if someone says something super inappropriate, like, just to like, because they’re frustrated and like to someone else or to me. And it’s I’ve noticed, it’s not getting defensive at all. It’s being like at all, and just being like, Wow, it sounds like you’re actually upset about that, like, labeling the emotion and being like, and you don’t that numbers as high as it should be, yeah, you know, first of all, I’m sorry that you’re feeling that way. What can we do about that? And then all of a sudden, anyone else that was feeling a little bit of it too, yeah? Is like, all fully diffused and like, oh, but glad we got that off our chest, being like bowing up on the person and getting

Maria Ross 33:05

aggressive, or you have all the backdoor chatter after the meeting ends right, which is counterproductive, but what you’ve said is a classic example of an empathy, you know, Jedi move, which is about, you know, grounding yourself enough to not react to what the person said with your lizard brain, but to take and say, Wow, here’s what I’m seeing, here’s what I’m hearing like, you know, let me make sure I heard this right. Are you saying that you don’t trust the revenue number? That’s a valid point of view. Tell me more about that, because I can tell this is really frustrating. You totally giving them the space to get curious enough to go, what is that person experiencing? And what does that person see? Because perhaps that person might see a risk or an opportunity that other people didn’t see. So we don’t want to, you know, we don’t want to label them necessarily a troublemaker, or like, Oh, they’re just an instigator, or, Oh, it’s being open enough. And like you did so beautifully putting your ego aside, because ego kills empathy, and so being able to be an empathetic leader and say, I want to hear you out, because maybe there is something we’ve missed, or maybe there is something we need to discuss. Yeah, I just

Jonathan Beck 34:13

have been part of too many situations where it’s like the biggest bottleneck to everyone’s success and the company’s success as a whole is the fact that criticism is not rolling a pill, right? It’s just, and it’s like if the CEO would just listen to the sales in the entire 300 person sales team, saying, We have to stop building that part of the product and doing this break. We have to stop it’s killing us. Yeah, a buddy just won’t or like that. This person’s when he says these things, makes these people feel this way. It’s like, how do you get that information to float up? So you have to, especially if speed is apparently your kind of your competitive lever, which is as a venture. Find a startup it should be, yeah. So

Maria Ross 35:02

I love that, because, you know, kind of speaking to another pillar. The first pillar in the book is self awareness, and if you’re not willing to do the work on yourself at whatever level you’re at, to say, I’m going to have a growth mindset. And just because I’m CEO or just because I’m SVP, it doesn’t mean I don’t have more to learn, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t have things to work on and right then and there. That changes the tenor of the conversation. Of you know, I may be more seasoned than people that work for me, or I might make more money, but it doesn’t mean I’m better than them. It means that I can still learn. It

Jonathan Beck 35:35

means you’re much worse. Usually I’m the like the worst CEO in the world. The more like vet, customers, responsibility and product, etc, employees that comes under my roof that, like, in my mind, I’m a steward of it’s more and more and more apparently obvious, like, oh my gosh, I am so bad at this job, and a flabbergasted at, like, these other guys and gals out there that are able to, like do it so well, I said, Okay,

Maria Ross 36:05

that’s your that, but that’s your superpower. That’s your first step to greatness, because they’re probably all feeling the same way, and they just don’t express it. And so that means that also performing incredibly true, true, but you know, you’re doing well. So this, it’s this idea of being humble enough to say, I’m going to have my eyes wide open, not only about my team and my people and my performance, but about myself and how I show up. Yeah, I have a partner that I’m working with, Spark effect. They are an HR consultancy that works with groups to kind of marry leadership capabilities in the age of technology, in rapidly changing technology, and marry those things together. And one of the things they do is evaluations at every level, and one of their most popular services is CEO evaluations, because everyone else in a large organization gets evaluated, right? You get performance evaluations. Who’s evaluating the CEO, and they’re being brought in by boards or governance committees or compliance to say no, the person at the top actually needs a performance review as well to understand how they could improve and how they could do better. And again, like I said, ego kills empathy. So if you’re able to be a leader that can let go of ego, you can actually outperform you can do better. You can do more with your team.

Jonathan Beck 37:24

That’s a really interesting point. But what are these? You mentioned a number of pillars. What are you want to list them all off? I will.

Maria Ross 37:30

My listeners are very familiar with them, but yeah, in the new book, just as a reminder for everyone, the empathy dilemma, the five pillars are, self awareness, self care, clarity, decisiveness and joy. And if you have those elements present as a leader and in your culture, you can balance empathy and performance, empathy and accountability, empathy and your own mental health, quite frankly. So you’ve touched on so many of them without even knowing what the pillars were, and that’s a beautiful thing. So well,

Jonathan Beck 38:02

the book’s only been out for what, two weeks. So it has at the time of this recording, at the

Maria Ross 38:06

time of this recording, yeah, but yeah. So I, I really appreciate the time and the candor today. I love learning from my guests, and you definitely gave me a great viewpoint into this, and I know that you’ve shared a lot with our listeners around the importance and the possibility of balancing purpose with profit and that it can be done. And then there’s a way, and you don’t have to feel bad about it, if it helps you have more impact for your mission and your purpose. So Jonathan, we’re going to have all your links in the show notes, but where’s the best place for folks that are exercising while they’re listening to us right now to find out more about you and your

Jonathan Beck 38:43

work. Yeah, I think probably just our website. We give.com which I’m sure is in the show notes, or my LinkedIn, where I’ll post some thought leadership type stuff. Great.

Maria Ross 38:52

Well, and folks, if you reach out to connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn, remember my etiquette rule, write him a note that says you heard him on the podcast so he doesn’t think you’re trying to sell him something. Jonathan, thank you so much for your time today. It was so fun to connect with you and hear more about your great work. I wish you every success. Thank

Jonathan Beck 39:11

you so much for your what’s been a real pleasure. Yeah, thank you, and thank

Maria Ross 39:14

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 or share with a colleague or a friend, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work. And the world a better place.

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

Courage to Advance: Breaking the ‘Things Will Get Better’ Cycle with Aaron Delgaty, PhD

Welcome to Courage to Advance, hosted by Kim Bohr and brought to you by SparkEffect, in partnership with The Empathy Edge. Tune in here every 3rd Thursday, or visit CourageToAdvancePodcast.com.

Kim Bohr and anthropologist Aaron Delgaty, PhD dive deep into the “arrival fallacy” – the pervasive belief that happiness and fulfillment lie just beyond the next project deadline, quarter, or milestone. Drawing from extensive research on workplace dynamics, they explore how four essential elements – continuity, reciprocity, purpose, and hope – shape our working relationships and overall job satisfaction. Through the lens of anthropology and organizational behavior, they examine why we fall into patterns of perpetually postponing contentment and how this impacts everything from team dynamics to bottom-line business outcomes.

The conversation weaves together insights from Gallup’s research on employee engagement, real-world examples of boundary setting, and practical strategies for breaking free from the “things will get better” cycle. You will be challenged to have honest conversations about work relationships and learn why misalignment isn’t always about bad management.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Having honest conversations with yourself and others is crucial for maintaining healthy working relationships
The four essential elements of working relationships are: continuity, reciprocity, purpose, and hope
Setting clear boundaries is vital for sustainable work practices and personal wellbeing
Misalignment in work relationships isn’t always about bad management – sometimes it’s about fit
Even introverts need to talk about workplace challenges to create positive change

“The arrival fallacy is like balancing on a one-legged stool of hope. You might maintain it temporarily, but you’re operating on an unsustainable promise of ‘someday.'” – Aaron Delgaty, PhD

About Aaron Delgaty, PhD

Aaron Delgaty, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist and ethnographer. He received his doctorate in cultural anthropology from the Univeristy of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2020. His research explores what shapes worker and workplace resilience and how resilience resists, crumbles, or reforms in the aftermath of personal and collective disaster. In addition to teaching research methods and anthropological theory, Aaron leads research for brand strategy agency TSC.

About SparkEffect

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

Connect with Aaron Delgaty, PhD

The anthropology of work: aarondelgaty.com

TSC: tsc.chat

Aaron’s Book: Working Relationships: Crisis and resilience at the heart of employee experience

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adelgaty

Connect with Kim Bohr and SparkEffect

SparkEffect: sparkeffect.com

Courage to Advance recording and resources:

sparkeffect.com/courage-to-advance-podcast

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/sparkeffect

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

Connect with Maria:

Get Maria’s new book: TheEmpathyDilemma.com

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Kim Bohr 01:30

Welcome everybody. I’m Kim bore president and COO of Spark effect and host of the courage to advance podcast, and I’m delighted to be here today with Aaron Delgaty. He’s an anthropologist of work and resilience in residence at TSC. Aaron also has a PhD in cultural anthropology and has a book released earlier this year called working relationships, crisis, resilience at the heart of employee experience. Aaron, welcome to the courage to advance podcast. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I am so excited for you to be here and for our listeners. Here’s a compelling question. How many times have you told yourself, once I get through this project, quarter year, things will get better? Personally, this is something that I have found myself repeating more than I’d like to admit, and I thought it was time to examine more closely where this is coming from, because I feel I’m not the only one that may be experiencing this as well. So today, our conversation is going to explore this concept, termed a rival fallacy, and the impact that this has on our working relationships. So, Aaron, I’d love for you to start us off by talking about why the focus on working relationships in your in the lens that you hold. As an anthropologist,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 02:55

absolutely. So I had an advisor tell me once that kind of the core of anthropology, and the core of sort of why study culture is that our lives are kind of full of things that go without saying, kind of come without saying, because they go without saying. They’re things that are sort of habits or ways of being or ways of seeing the world that are so kind of natural to the way that we operate and that we learn through, you know, we learn without anyone actually telling us it. It’s just something we pick up naturally, but that they go kind of unremarked upon. But those things are actually like when you actually put those things under a microscope. You look at those things, they’re actually the most interesting because they have such a big impact in shaping our lives. So it’s like, the foundation of your house, you don’t really see it, but like, is everything to your house. Like, if your foundation is, you know, there’s a problem in your foundation, everything else is shaky. And so working relationships was this idea of, well, we have a relationship to the work that we do like, we have these things. We have jobs like. We’re the only animal that kind of works and like is employed and has resumes and things like that. And we don’t really talk about it a whole lot in terms of, like, we talk about it a lot in this sort of, kind of minutia of it, of like, oh, you know, TPS reports and this, you know, like doing this skill or having that qualification. But we don’t really talk about it a whole lot in the sort of why of it. Like, why do we do any of this? Like, what does this do for us? Like, why are we the animal that works? And why, in sort of, what is this relationship that we have to this thing that we see as, like, work? And so that’s kind of, you know, where it started. Like, we talk about this idea of working relationships, like we have a. Relationship that is, you know, like we work with somebody, and that’s a working relationship. We also use working relationship in the sense that it’s a relationship that’s kind of in progress, like it’s under construction. And these kind of relationships, like at work, you know, there’s a lot of, I think not so much of a play on words, but I think sort of the language of it kind of reveals how many layers there are to it that actually we form relationships to work, and we develop these relationships to work over the course of our lives, and they have this huge impact on not just sort of our professional identity, but really every aspect of our life, like we make our way through the world by working. And so what is the nature of this relationship, and how do we, you know, for better or worse, influence this relationship, and what does it mean when that relationship is positive, and what does it mean when that relationship is negative?

Kim Bohr 06:04

One of the things that, and I told you before, I’ve like, I’ve got your my tabs in your book, and I really, really enjoyed reading it. And one of the things that you talk about that you know, when I read it made sense, and yet I had, I think so many of us think about working relationships in the sense of the individuals we work with. You speak to of, really a few layers of that dynamic of working relationships, of which the very initial layer is the actual, not literal contract, right? But the work can you speak a little bit about that, the dynamic of, even if it’s just a job, in people’s minds, there is a relationship that exists. And I think that’s contextually. I think that’s a really interesting place to start. Yeah,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 06:50

you know. And so kind of to your point, we can think about working relationships as our relationship to the people we work with, like the sort of folks we collaborate with or report to. We can also think about it as the relationship to the organization. So this is like, the idea of like employer brand that people have taught like, we talk about employer brand, and you know, you have a relationship to the organization as like a sort of going concern. But we also have a relationship to the actual work that we do, like the actual practices and motions that we go through every day. If you think about sort of like, if you’re like a researcher, the research that the work that you do is asking questions and collecting answers, and maybe it’s putting it into sort of spreadsheets, or putting it into software, drawing analysis, writing out, or sort of sharing that analysis in some way, and then delivering it like there are specific work functions that you have to do, if you’re a teacher, you are doing the work that you do is both managing, you know, children, but it’s also about taking in information and then sort of, you know, regurgitating that information in a way that is accessible to the sort of people that you’re managing. And so the question becomes, you know, not just about how much do you like or not like, or sort of, what does your relationship to the people that you are working with or the organization that you’re working for? How does that affect your life? But how does the work itself like the fact that you spend a fair portion of every workday doing this kind of constrained set of activities, what is that doing to you? You have a relationship to that as well. Like it marks us in like physical ways. It marks us in emotional ways. It sort of shapes our philosophy, like when you talk to a sales person, you know you’re talking to a salesperson, because there’s a certain sort of philosophy that sales people generally have. They have optimism, like, it would be pretty impossible to be a salesperson and be, like, nihilistic about things. So the work that we do not just sort of the people we work with or the institutions we work for, but it’s the work that we do actually has a huge impact on who we are. So you can’t really leave the work that is being done out of the equation, because it has such a profound impact on us, for better and for worse.

Kim Bohr 09:37

And I think, you know, there’s so much research right that’s been done on this, and I know Marcus Buckingham has done research on understanding people’s unique characteristics, and that, you know, if 20% of what they do is tied to those characteristics and things they really love, there’s going to be greater engagement. Another stat I was came across was. A scientist and researcher, Dr Gillian Maddock, really that does research around health science says, you know, 40% of our happiness is determined by our everyday thoughts and behaviors. And there’s some other ones that we’ll talk about here in a moment. But I think what’s so important is that this is really, you know, we if we may have great relationships and but the case that you’re making is, if the work itself isn’t aligned in ways that we feel really positive about, that’s also that can have a negative impact on other aspects of our engagement and our happiness as well.

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 10:40

Yeah. I mean, like, you know, going to college, like, you know, we’ve been talking about, you know, your sons in college and stuff. And it’s like, how many people are in like, majors that they hate? Or like, Oh, I’m in this major. And you’re like, Well, why are you in this major? It’s like, well, I don’t really like doing math and I don’t really like looking at rocks. And it’s like, why are you a geologist? Then? Like, yeah, oh, I don’t know. It’s like, you realize that that’s what the work of geology is. It’s like, you’re going to be outside and like, messing around with rocks and doing math. Like, that’s like, if you don’t like, tell us, like, if you don’t like, you know, microscopes, you probably shouldn’t be doing something in microbiology. Like,

Kim Bohr 11:19

so, and I think so many of us get in, you know, generations before this current Gen Z, I would argue there it was. There’s things that were just expected, right? So we were expected to go to college, and, you know, many of us were told, yeah, you’ll figure it out when you’re there. I think you know what you and I have talked about before we got on to this podcast conversation was my son was not buying into that, you know, until he understood exactly what he wanted to do. He wasn’t going to go and just go for the sake of anything, right? And so for him, he is finding alignment with what brings him joy and happiness, and he feels like he can contribute to and I think that is a shift that’s starting to take place. And to, you know, to what you you write about, the idea of misalignment in these areas is going to impact what we know is from just the whole aspect of performance and, you know, productivity and everything else that’s so important to not just the business world, but just our own personal health and well being. So tell our audience more about this idea of a rival fallacy, and you know, this concept that is so aligned into what you write about with working relationships? Yeah,

12:39

you know. And

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 12:41

just kind of thinking about this, like arrival fell say, like we’ve all done it, like we’ve all been there. We’ve all said, Oh well, you know, like, once I get through X, Y or Z, things will be better. I just need to, like, you know, keep my head down. And then when we come out the other side. I mean, how many of us are doing that right now, with, like, the holidays coming up, we’re like, oh God, just gotta get through November, 1 part of December, and then we’ll be home free, you know. And, yeah, there are times where that is inevitable. There are times where, like, you know, work doesn’t typically flow in, like, an even fashion it, you know, there’s kind of High Times and low times. There’s times when you’re really busy in times when, you know, maybe you’re not as busy, but, you know, the sort of arrival thing is like, I mean, I grew up listening to people talk about this, not just so I run up on a, you know, quarterly or a weekly basis, but on sort of a life basis, like, Oh, I just need to put in my time. And then when I retire, I’ll get to go, you know, fishing, and I’ll get a go and, like, do the things that I actually want to do. And, you know, I’m not trying to say that, like, oh, there’s a world in which everybody gets to do exactly what they want to do all the time, like, that sort of, not kind of, I mean, I’m an optimist, but I’m also a realist at the same time. But I think that to an extent, that arrival fallacy excuses us, kind of checking out of our relationship to the work in the moment, and just say, Oh well, we’ll kind of get to it later, when the I think maybe a more productive question, if you’re able to ask, it is, well, you know, why am I just getting through this, like, right now, this period of time, like, why am, like, these kind of hard times, like, these times of struggle are a good opportunity to really kind of assess, like, whether or not you Know you like this or this is a good relationship for you. It’s like, you know, I mean, like anyone can win, but like you lose, you know, you learn a lot about yourself when you lose. And so, like, when you’re in that kind of like, this is not a good situation. I am not having a good time. Like, that’s a. Really important moment to sort of say, well, this is not a good time to lose touch of myself. And this is not a good time to say, Oh, well, we’ll be happy down the road. Because, like,

15:13

I don’t know, like,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 15:15

when times are tough, I think that’s the time to really like, do kind of more of the homework. So I think, oh, go ahead. Sorry. I

Kim Bohr 15:23

would say, Well, no, I think to your point, right time. One of the things that we know as we get older, that we wished we understood better as we were younger, is that time just continues to feel like it just goes by so quickly. And I think as I’ve reflected on this, and you and I have had conversations leading up to this calm today, one of the things I’ve realized is that there will, the more we continue to have this belief, eventually I will get to that, whether it be health or travel or, you know, or just relationships, or whatever it is, that it feels like that you look back and that time has passed so quickly, and it’s started to build, you know, it’s, you know, three years. It’s four years. And I think that is a very at some point, it’s like, what do we have to do to try to disrupt that, you know? And we’ll talk a little bit about those, you know, some of those elements that we think could be implemented to try to disrupt that behavior. I think one of the things that I want to share with the audience too, you know, really continuing to ground why this is such an important conversation into the impact of business, is you mentioned this in your book, and I’ve pulled even the recent statistics that were updated in January this year, Gallup has conducted multiple studies. At the time of pulling this research, it was around their 10th meta analysis on engagement and workforce, and one of the what they use in this study, we’ll put the link in the show notes, so people can geek out at it if they want. But essentially, they looked at 456, research studies across 276, organizations, 54 industries and 96 countries, and in this they found there was 11 key performance outcomes. They referenced customer loyalty and engagement, profitability, productivity, turnover, safety incidents, shrinkage, absenteeism, patient safety incidents, quality related to defects, well being related to net thriving employees and organizational citizenship related to participation. As hard analysis data that has come from the importance of working relationships, engagement and business outcomes. And so one of the things that I thought was really interesting in reading your book and the conversations we’ve had is also around you speak to four essential elements that your research has shown to be really important in this idea of working relationships. And I’d love for you to speak a little bit more to those four, and then we’ll talk about how, you know, how did those really align or misalign in that arrival fallacy loop that many of us may be in?

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 18:17

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And so I do kind of identify for elements. And my general argument is that it’s not so much that the elements need to be in, like perfect balance, but they have to be present enough to be impactful, or else you start to sort of, you know, experience issues. So the first one is continuity. Like you have to feel like the work that you do, that you’re working relationship so to the organization, to the work that you’re doing, to the people that you’re working with, will more or less stay consistent over time. So like that, if you are worried that every morning you wake up that you’ll have, maybe that’ll be an email that says, Oh, you’re laid off. Like, that’s not continuity, like, that’s, you know, discontinuity. Like, that’s like, Oh, geez. If, if your organization is constantly turning people over, and so you’re constantly having to meet new people, and you never really feel like your team is stabilized. If your work, like, you know, all these industries right now that are disrupted by AI, if it’s like, well, what is the work that we’re doing anymore like now that you know, AI is in the mix, do we still have a need for the thing that I do you we imagine our relationships ideally, like our relationships to family members, like, our relationships to spouses, our relationships to friends, as being infinite, like we don’t sort of set a day and say, Okay, well, we’re going to be friends for like, 10 years, and then we’re not going to be frenzy. Or maybe we’ll renew the contract on, like, December 15, 2025 we’ll like, come back and like, oh, let’s review. It’s not a business, really. Relationship. It’s a personal relationship, and we assume that that relationship will continue indefinitely. So we treat our working relationships as if they were indefinite relationships, and so we want to feel like that relationship is indefinite, like it’s not going to just be it’s not going to go away at some arbitrary time, or it’s not going to just be pulled out from under us. So if you’re living in a state where you’re like, at any moment, the rug could get pulled out from under me. Like, that’s not a good situation. The second is like, reciprocation. So the kind of life blood of a relationship is a fair give and take. So if I do something for you, and you do something for me in proportion to that thing. And then I say, Oh, well, you’ve done this for me, and I’ll do something for you. And you say, Well, you’ve done something for me, and I’ll do something for you. And so forth and on and on and on. The cycle goes indefinitely, like, you buy your friend coffee this week and they buy you coffee next week. And so you’re like, Well, you have to buy them coffee, because they got it last week. And the relationship goes on and on and on forever. So we need to see a fair give and take, like the work that we put in has to be met, you know, with a proportionate not always fair, because fairness is like, is a tricky calculus that and we have our own kind of internal calculus of like what we think is like proportional or not proportional, and some people are unreasonable and some people are reasonable about that, you know. But we all have our sort of own internal calculus of whether we feel like we are in a fair relationship or whether we are being screwed like work, then also our relationships or work have to be purposeful. We have to have purpose. Like, we’ve got to feel like there’s a point to all of this, right, like, just because it’s consistent and just because, you know, there’s this give and take, we’ve also got to feel like what we’re doing here actually has like, like a purpose to it. Like, whether that purpose is we’re supporting our family, or we’re making the world a better place, or, you know, we’re living the dream. It’s, you know, it’s got to feel like we’re, you know, if you’re sort of really involved in pointless work, and we all do, like pointless tasks, and like, if you do too many pointless tasks, you’re going to start feeling like your work is pointless. And if you feel like your work is pointless, it’s like, well, why am I doing this? Like, what’s the point? So work has to be purposeful, and to an extent. I mean, I think purpose for it has to be supply. Like, that’s an internal your employer can’t give you purpose. Like they can suggest maybe things you could take up as a purpose, but like, purpose is sort of an internal thing. And finally, there’s hope, I think, that at a fundamental level, and particularly Americans, we have to hope that, like, the world tomorrow is going to be a better place, that this relationship will continue to change, and it will change for the better, that we’re not stuck in a way. We’re not like, sort of, we don’t want sort of a relationship that is like, so that is volatile, like, constantly all over the place. But we want to say that sort of, we are on this kind of gradual uphill trend, like, we want to be on, like, the good we want to be on the front foot, not on the back foot. And I think that kind of where these all kind of come in like, is that, you know, particularly if you look at like the their arrival fallacy, you know, in that moment, you’re so hopeful that, like, the, you know, Thanksgiving holiday, or the winter holiday, or the vacation you have planned In spring or something is going to be so great that it will make, you know, make all of the things that you’re currently doing make sense. And I think that that’s a great moment to look and say, Okay, well, you’ve got that hope that’s great, that things will get better. But like, how are things going with, like, purpose and, you know, reciprocity, like you’re burning the candle at both ends. Well, then, you know, who’s kind of replacing that candle for you? Like, who’s Are you just sort of supplying the candle out of your own pocket? You know, is this pace that you’re doing right now sustainable? Like, is this a, you know, maybe you used to read your daughter bedtime stories every night, and now you can’t, because you’re consistently on meetings that are, like, running over into those bedtime stories. So now there’s that continuity that you used to have, like, like work would pause or end at this time so that I could do this thing that makes me feel like the kind of person I want to be. But I don’t have that anymore, because this is sort of and if that happens once in a while, okay, but if that’s happening now, that’s kind of the new, you know, like, continuity is a good thing, unless, like, the relationship is bad. If it’s just this relationship consistently sucks, then that’s also like, so, you know, taking this kind of inventory, like. Kind of in the same way that we would evaluate any other relationship that we have in our lives, like, and when you’re going through, like, a bad time with your spouse, like, that’s a good opportunity to be like, to kind of reaffirm, like, what are we doing here together? Like, what’s the project here? Like, why are we together? And hopefully the answer is that, like, oh, because of, like, we’re better together in the love and so forth. But like, I mean, hard times also, like, lead to divorces as well. And you know, if you’re going through a hard time at work, that’s a good time to be like, you know, to really kind of reflect on that and say, well, like, were there good times, though? And let’s say I get to this promised land of the vacation, or whatever, is that actually going to be like, good

25:53

you know? Is that worth it?

Kim Bohr 25:56

I think what I really appreciate about how you frame this is, you know, there’s these, four really important elements that absolutely, you know, we could have those, as you said, and it may be a negative aspect of it. And what I like the way that, how you frame this around your continuity, reciprocity, purpose and hope, is that we it’s a great way to to, as you said, do a self check around it, and also realize that we have to bring we have to it’s not all, all on our employers to provide it, right? It should be mutually brought into these working relationships around where do I find this and how you know, and what do they provide for me that makes us a really healthy dynamic in the work we do at Spark effect, we’re really these are elements that, although not coined in the way that you phrased them here, absolutely are in play when we’re talking about the team dynamics and misalignment within teams, and the work we do to help those teams figure that out, so that they can absolutely get to a better place that’s more productivity, and, you know, eliminate the noise and the distractions, and the same when we’re working with the, you know, the executive teams and the executive coaching we do, because so much of these, perhaps patterns, and in this case, you know, we’re talking about their rival fallacy, but these patterns that have gone on for so long that maybe we don’t even know we’re in them, because we’ve been in them for so long, is something that’s really disruptive to teams and to as you point out, to our personal lives as well. You know some a couple other just stats I want to just bring in to the conversation. Was one of the other elements of the Gallup poll said that employees who are actively engaged are less likely to be actively looking or open to new job opportunities. In fact, low engagement teams typically endure turnover rates that are 18 to 43% higher than highly engaged teams. And I think so much of what your research has seen and that we’ve seen play out inside spark effect is that these four elements are really important to how people are thinking about engagement, and you know their purpose and the connection. The other set I found really interesting by the American state of the American manager report, was that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores, and that goes to the, you know, what so many of us heard around people leave because of their managers and things. And I think what why I find those so relevant to our conversation is around the reality that we’ve got to look at ourselves and the what are the patterns that we are bringing into our workplace every day that perhaps could be contributing to the to the poor performance of our teams or organization, that maybe were not taking into consideration from a real, honest, self reflective standpoint. And when you and I talked about having this conversation, one of the things that were so intriguing to both of us was that so often, even from the perspective of a new year comes around and so many of us reset from a perspective of, what am I going to do different? What are the goals I’m going to set for this year? Some people still think about, you know, resolutions and things like that. In reality, there’s unless we’re thinking about reframing around what it means, around this arrival fallacy and how we’re thinking about our working relationships, we’re really going to continue to see the pattern of those, you know, those turn of the year rituals just continue to fall apart or continued, and then we’re going to feel bad about it again, you know, in that pattern. So I think it’s really, you know, when we think about how to disrupt this, what are some of the things that you have found between, you know, the working relationships, the research, the what are some of those aspects of trying to disrupt? Yeah. The Arrival fallacy, patterns and thinking,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 30:04

I think that, you know, one of the big ones, and this is for the arrival I think this is kind of one of my big takeaways, is, and this is, I think applies to the arrival fallacy, but it also applies more broadly, is that sometimes relationships just don’t work out. Like, sometimes it’s just borked from the very beginning, and you can’t, there’s nothing you can really do about it. Like, not everybody is going to be a good match all the time. And, you know, these there is kind of this, almost, like, I don’t know, almost destructive optimism of like, engagement and, you know, you know, kind of Oh, and employer, you know, net promoter, score and things like that, where it’s like, oh, like, and if, oh, what if we talk, if you like, if you encourage employees, For example, to really consider their relationship to work. One of the outcomes of that might be that they realize that they’re not actually a good fit for this, and they leave. And I think that you have to be brave enough to, like, deal with that, like, if you really want to have like, an open, honest relationship with like your employees in the same way that you would hopefully have like an open, honest relationship. You know, if, like, you’re not open and honest with your spouse because they’re afraid you’ll they’ll leave, like, then you don’t really have like, a good relationship with your spouse. Like, sorry. Like, that. Sucks to hear that. But like, you don’t, and if you are kind of constantly, you know, trying to hide stuff and make, you know, kind of obfuscate things. And so, you know, I don’t want my employees to think about that. I don’t want my employees to think about their that. Then it’s like, you might not have very good relationships. Like, you know, you might your place this place of work might not be cultivating very good relationships. Like, this idea that, like, oh, well, these engaged employees are more, are less likely to be on the job market. Well, kind of like, no shit. Like, of course, like, if they’re locked in, like, if you’re playing a video game, you really like, and you’re engaged, you’re less likely to not play the video game. Like, right? Like, yeah, yeah. So the idea that, like, if you’re actively bored playing the game, then you’re probably going to be, like, wandering, you know, your attention will wander. Like, of course, the question is, like, you know, well, how do we get more people to enjoy the game? It’s also the question you also have to bring into that is like, well, maybe the game is just not enjoyable to some people, right? Like, you know, different strokes for different folks kind of thing. And having to kind of be comfortable with the fact that, like, not every relationship is going to be a success. Some people are just not going to be a good fit. You’re not going to be a good fit for some people, some kinds of work you might really like, think that kind of work is cool, but like, you aren’t a good fit for it. Again, I the first research project I ever did was probably my favorite research project that I ever did. It was on funeral services in Japan, in sort of a small village, and sort of, how do people, kind of, how do people mourn death, and how do people sort of use a local institution of a Buddhist temple, which is much more like a funerary space than it is like a Buddhist space. How they use that space through kind of grieving, not only sort of personal disaster, but also collective disaster. I really, really like doing that research, and I got really super depressed, because all we ever did was talk about like death and dying and go to funerals. So I love the research. It wasn’t a good fit, like, long term, it wasn’t a good fit. And that just happens, and yeah, it’ll break your heart sometimes, that that kind of thing, yeah, like, you’re going to get your heart broken. That’s the way relationships work.

Kim Bohr 33:57

But so having that honest conversation with ourselves and thinking about, you know, if we have all the right elements that feel like we’ve got a healthy culture, it’s, you know, my, I’ve always had that philosophy that we’re all on this, you know, we all are in this career journey, and it, you know, we’re here at the moment for the reasons that align, and at some point that may not be the case, right? And so really, just being honest to say, It’s okay if there’s misalignment in the sense of, we all should want to have that feeling engaged and purposeful, and all of those really positive elements should be in play. And if it’s not here, it should be somewhere else and be okay with that. Yeah,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 34:36

it’s really important. I’m always really skeptical of that sort of, well, people don’t leave bad jobs. They leave bad managers. It’s like, whoa. I don’t know, like, how much you ever quit a job because it was boring, like, because you didn’t like it? Like, it was just kind of like, this is

Kim Bohr 34:56

like, yeah, challenging enough. It’s not Yeah, those things, yeah. Well. Or,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 35:00

like, I was, like, how many? But we don’t usually talk about, like, usually when we focus on, sort of the idea of attrition, we’re talking about sort of, I think it’s sort of the way we frame the question. We kind of frame the question as adversarial. Like, oh, you know, why did you walk away from this why’d you walk away from this employer? Like, they make it personal. And I don’t think that. I think that, you know, a lot of times like, I mean, yeah, work is personal, but it also it’s not necessarily personalities that drive us away from work. It’s not like, I don’t like the people I did research with in that village and everything. It was just like, you know, I mean, what do you say? Like, yeah. Like, I just don’t want to be constantly depressed all the time, yeah, the

Kim Bohr 35:50

feeling that you had, yeah, that it didn’t, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Like, there are elements of that, just like the sentiment, like, how we settle with it, you know, and I think that goes back to the idea of, some of it was the, you know, the idea of the reciprocity to some degree, right, that the mutual benefit just wasn’t there. Wasn’t ill intended. It just wasn’t, it wasn’t there, right? Like, if you’re

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 36:19

running an accounting department, and you have one of your accountants, and they’re just chronically unhappy. They just always seem to be unhappy. And so you’re trying to do different things, and maybe you’re like, you bring them coffee, or you’re like, throw a pizza party, or you do, like, you buy one of those, like platforms where you like, send people little like, smiley faces to say, Oh, great job. You What if they just hate numbers? Like, what if they just, like, wound up in this job and they’re like, Yeah, you know, like, there’s nothing you can do about that, like, other than lead them to an honest conversation and say, Look, you know, maybe this job isn’t for you, because, like, if you hate numbers, then you’re in maybe the wrong place.

Kim Bohr 37:02

And you know that is, I, what comes to mind when you say that is, there’s an aspect of our business is supporting people through career transition moments, you know, out placement, type of services. And I, we have had conversations over the years with participants who have taken some of this change that has come upon them in a moment to really ask, what is it that I’m really wanting to do and that it’s been interesting to find people who’ve pursued a path because that’s what they were expected to do. And what they really wanted to do was, you know, be a professional landscaper, to bring design and creativity through, you know, a visual aspect of outdoor, you know, experience for people, it’s been really, we’ve had that. I remember somebody telling me about the conversation they had there, and I think it’s so bringing the moment to the back to this idea of working relationships and the stories we tell ourselves of Well, I just need to do this for this amount of time. I just need to do this to get through this. Really, what are we, you know, what are we stealing from ourselves and in? What are we doing to perhaps not be as aligned and honest with ourselves and our company, when we’re in that type of moment. One of the things I want to talk about that you and I had discussed a little bit was, where do these elements come into play in the arrival fallacy and you and you had a great analogy I loved around you. Think about the four elements as, you know, four legs of a chair, and how and when those really start to you if we’re if one of those key elements are really out of alignment, what is that, you know, do, and some of the in perhaps where we maybe over index on some of these elements, like hope. So I’d love to have you, you just kind of talk a little bit about that, because I think that’s really important for the for how we sometimes get caught in this trap. Yeah,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 39:06

I mean, I think it does kind of come down to an element of balance, like, that’s, you know, like, our lives tend to be better when we’re balanced. Like, things tend to be better when they’re balanced. The question is, you know, balance isn’t sort of just like a passive thing. It’s also like an active thing, like we have to balance. And if you think about sort of the four elements, like the legs of a chair, like it’s really easy to balance on when you’ve got all four legs there, like you really don’t even need to balance that much. You just kind of get to sit on the chair and relax three legs too. Is like, okay, yeah. Like, this is, it’s okay. Like, you know, probably not that hard to balance on it, you know. Maybe you’ve got to be like, a little bit more, you know, aware of your situation. But when you start, like, sitting, like, can you balance and sit on a chair with two legs? Yeah, you can it suck. It’s like. It’s not going to be fun, yeah? Like, it’s not, you’re not going to be takes a lot of

Kim Bohr 40:03

energy, right? We think about it from that place of energy that we have to invest Yeah, more so than we would if we had all four of those. You’re going

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 40:11

to have to be balancing, yeah. And so if you’ve just got one, like, if you’re just like, Oh yeah, you know, like, you’re in the arrival fallacy, right? Where you’re like, oh my god, this is the work I’m doing is not sustainable, and I’m not being adequately compensated or rewarded for all of this hard work that I’m doing. And what is even the point of all of this? You know, it’s not even gonna make the client happy or make anything better, but I still have hope that, like, everything will be better. Like, yeah, you’re balancing, but like, you’re the core strength you must be exerting to, like, maintain that balance on that one legged stool, because all of the other legs have disappeared, like you’re just there. So yeah, you might be maintaining balance. You might be fine, and you might be able to do that over and over and over again. But like, understanding that, like, just because you succeeded this time, it still comes at a cost. And, you know, you’re fine until you’re not. And so the question is, then, well, why are you on a one legged stool? Like, if you’re if the whole point is, like, to sit comfortably, shouldn’t you, like, you know, aim for a more comfortable stool. And, yeah, I mean, there’s some people who are like, well, you know, the grind set, you know, and it got a hustle. It’s like, okay, fine, like, if that’s what you like to do. And, you know, I was 22 once, like, I’m sure that was, you know, I would hustle and grind and whatnot. But like, you know,

Kim Bohr 41:40

at what cost, right? I think that becomes the thing of what cost. I think that’s where what we’re finding in our society is impact on, you know, health and wellness, which directly correlates into the business world of productivity and indeed, of the bottom line results. And so it should be a concern for businesses around that. I think, you know, you and I have talked about, what are some of those behaviors and the stress indicators right when you’re trying to maintain, you know, at some point that you can’t do it for the long term. And that’s what it feels like when we get into these, these loops that people are it’s like, at some point, it’s like, this has been going off a really long time, and now I’m not even sure how to break it. And so I think what, you know, what perhaps, what we we should start to talk about a little bit, is about, how do we help people think about breaking it, you know, in ways. So I think, you know, you you mentioned a really important factor around this, the kind of, the self check, right? So thinking about those four elements of, where am I in that continuum, there’s a resource we’ll put in for the downloads that’ll help people do a self check around, not just those elements, but some other aspects that we’ve found maybe can help break this, you know, this cycle that many of us are in. You know, one things that is possible is thinking about and you alluded to this around, what are some sustainable practices? So what are some of those things that maybe people could do to help bring, you, know, bring more awareness. Do you have thoughts on that too, to kind of share some of those? Yeah.

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 43:11

I mean, I am a qualitative researcher by trade, so, I mean, I think that the best course is to have a conversation, and it’s conversations all the way down, like, from, yeah, so you got to start with yourself, and you have to be willing to have an honest conversation with yourself. And, yeah, like, if you’re like, a parent and or, you know, working a full time job and maintaining a house and etc, etc, and you’ve got other things that you want to do. Like, it’s really easy to not have a conversation with yourself. It’s really easy to but like, making time for yourself, to talk to yourself and really be like, oh, you know, like, Am I like, you know? I mean, it’s like, people say, like, Oh, I do the gratitude journaling and stuff like that, and that’s great. But like, also, do you ever, like, think about the things that you’re not grateful for, or things that you’re like, Man, I really can’t stand that. Like having sort of a multi sided conversation, like being willing to, sort of, like, look at the thing, kind of warts and all, and say, Well, you know, and then then, like, it kind of becomes a willingness to have conversations with the people that you’re in partnership with, you know, that could be, you know, like in a domestic situation, that’s your spouse, but like in a work situation, that’s, you know, colleagues and employers and stuff, and that’s a two way street, like, you’ve got to be willing to show up to that conversation, and they’ve got to be willing to show up to that conversation. And if they’re willing to show up to that conversation, you have to be willing to, like, be honest about it, if you sort of, you know, hide the truth. And you say, Oh, I actually, like, really love spreadsheets and you hate spreadsheets. So it’s like, well, what’s that person supposed to think? Right? Are they supposed. Like, somehow divine that you actually don’t like spreadsheets, but that you lied about it in that moment. Like, yeah. So I think that being willing to, I think it’s it comes down to having conversations, but specifically being open and being and having the courage to have conversations that are honest.

Kim Bohr 45:21

I love that absolutely with ourself and with others. Yeah, one of the things that I’ve also found in the work that we do at Spark effect and lots of data points that come through that work, is that I think part of what perpetuates this type of behavior in this pattern is our inability to create really strong boundaries, you know, and and I think that is for a multitude of reasons. I think a part, people worry that if they create a boundary, that they’re going to not, you know, they’re going to be thought ill. They’re going to be thought that they’re perhaps not a team player, right? Or they don’t really they’re not really committed, which is all you know, really not likely true, but it’s something that gets perpetuated. And without having the conversations like you said, we tell ourselves these stories that we start to believe, and then it starts to become fear driven, and then we just continue to have these patterns, and I’ve found that through some of these other data points in work, we do this nature of boundary setting, or people feeling comfortable to assert themselves in ways that allow for conversation to take place, is really dragging down The ability for people to be productive, for them to find this balance of these four elements. And it’s something that’s been really concerning to me. So one of the things that I would offer into our conversation is also around thinking about some tactical elements of creating space to give you know, to set boundaries to create an understanding to one of the very tactical tips that you know, I tell people, is when something’s coming another thing is coming on your plate, perhaps the response, instead of just saying yes and then feeling the burden of that with everything else that feels like this, such a Heavy list, is this idea of Yes, and so yes, I can get to that. And let’s talk about what else is on my plate, you know, we and we need to reprioritize, or yes, and the soonest I could do it is a timeline out, you know, the way. Or, I think what’s maybe even more personal for people is, you know, when you do, as you talked about, having, you know, personal commitments, having family, you know, yes, and I need to, it’ll be after I’ve had dinner with my family. And I think those things are reasonable. And yet I feel that people struggle to try, even try those things. And I hope that listeners will take away that as one of these, you know, these aspects of these tips, or in sustainable practices, to, you know, to consider,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 48:08

I would say to that, like, let’s say, you know, using my example, like, I don’t do meetings at 630 Eastern Standard Time. Don’t do anything, because that’s when I read books to LC, that’s it. And it’s, like, sacrosanct, and that’s, I don’t protect it, and I, like, I’ll work on something after she goes to sleep. Like, sure, like, you know, if we’re, like, racing for a deadline. But like, yes, and, you know, yes, I will do that, and I will do it after I do, I do bedtime stories with Elsie. And, you know, you’ve got to have the courage. And I’ve had the courage to say to my employer, like, this is like, a non negotiable for me. Like I have this is a boundary that I need to have. Like, this is very important to me. Like, this is the one time out of the day where I know I’m going to feel like a dad, so you can’t, I will not work during that time. And you know, then it’s kind of the balls in their court, and they can make two choices. They can say yes and honor that. And then now you’ve learned something important about each other. You’ve learned that they’ll respect, you know, reasonable boundaries that you set, or they can say no and not respect it. And now you have also learned something important, which is that this is probably not a good relationship for you.

Kim Bohr 49:26

Absolutely. I love that that’s very, very important, you know, just to as we start to wrap up the you know, we talk about open communication, we talk about you trying to to have these aspects of, how do we build these relationships on a daily basis? Are there any things that you you know you bring forward there, either in, you know, the way you interact within your own organization today, or you know, what you found to be really successful that you would offer? Up to listeners to to try to help add to some of these aspects of what they might be able to try. Yeah,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 50:07

and I mean, I would say this, I’ll kind of reiterate this point, and I’ll say this also as, like, a chronically introverted person, but like, nothing gets better unless you talk about it, like you got to talk about it. And if you know, if you really, really do not feel comfortable talking about it with your current group of people, that probably is an answer in of itself, to like you. It should. You should feel as a baseline, you should feel comfortable talking to the people you have relationships with about the nature of those relationships? Yes, very much. If you do not have if you do not feel comfortable having conversations, that’s a red flag. And at the same time, it’s totally okay if you don’t feel comfortable having conversations, just because you’re out of practice at it. So you know. And it’s really scary to do that first conversation. It’s really scary, like, particularly, if you’re like, conversations have really revolved around not being particularly honest, you know. And it’s like, yeah, we’ve all been there. We’ve all like, wanted to, like, get a job we weren’t totally qualified for. So, you know, like, it’s

Kim Bohr 51:19

different to stretch yourself and grow versus, you know, but to be like,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 51:23

oh, yeah, I love like, it’s like, if I went to my employer and I was like, I love sinks, I like, I love client sinks, and I love sales meetings, I can’t stand that stuff. Like,

Kim Bohr 51:34

it’s not your nature, yeah, it’s not my thing. The right fit. I don’t want

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 51:37

to drive a bus, so I don’t want to drive a bus, so, but I’m not going to go and say to someone, I’m passionate about that kind of thing, but it’s hard to sort of open up and be honest with people if you’re not used to that, and particularly if you’re afraid that if you’re honest with people about your about the nature of your relationships, that they won’t want to be In those relationships anymore, and I would say that, yes, I totally understand that. And so then you have a choice to make. You can either test the authentic, authenticity of your relationships, or you cannot, and you will have to live with that one way or the other.

Kim Bohr 52:13

Yep, I totally agree with that. And I think that more often than not, the conversation will be welcomed and opened and the and I think what gets us all at different points is that we have the conversation in our heads, and we never get beyond that. And then we, you know, we because of all those stories we tell ourselves, and then we just continue to fall back into the pattern. And that’s not sustainable, as we talked about, I want to just give you a moment, because I realized as we dove in, I never gave you a chance to tell the audience around what’s an anthropologist doing, talking about working relationships inside a business organization. And I wanted to give you the ability to just kind of talk about, how do you bring that experience and the skill into the work that TSC does, and kind of that lens that I think is so different,

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 53:16

yeah. And I yeah, I appreciate it. I mean, I guess work is fundamentally human, until, like, I guess AI takes over, and we are in sort of a Skynet type situation. It’s, you know, work is fundamentally human, like work is full because work is full of humans. And if you know humans stop doing the work, then there would be no work. Like the work would cease to exist. So, you know, if anthropology is the study of sort of, why do humans do what they do, and why do they make the choices that they make, then I think that’s kind of well, why would an why wouldn’t an anthropologist want to study work? And I think that, you know, when it comes to these kind of topic of forming relationships, like it’s kind of relationships all the way down. So whether you’re you know, you know, you’re trying to attract people to your business, or you’re trying to retain the employees that you have, or you’re trying to attract customers, or retain customers or try to understand, you know, like, I mean, how many of you know listeners out there are currently struggling with, like, an ICP, like, Oh, who’s my ideal client? And like, if only we could know, like, what our customers want, and like, what your or sort of what prospects would want. Well, like you’ve talked to them like, if you just, you know, you if you’re a specialist in kind of going and talking to people and taking the results of those conversations and synthesizing them into observations about, you know, behavior and patterns more broadly, like I heard. Personally, I think that that’s a pretty useful, you know, that’s a pretty useful perspective. Like, yeah, you know, we can send out surveys all day long, and surveys are great for what they are, but like, you know, a lot of the problems that we encounter in the world of work are very squishy problems that aren’t super well suited to a survey. And so I feel like I kind of specialize in, like, like, the squishier the problem, the better. So if it’s like, you know, we have this thing, and we thought it was really cool, and nobody likes it, and we can’t figure it out. But then we sent out a survey, and everyone said, like, you know, somewhat or strongly agree, what would happen? Where’s the disconnect? It’s like, Whoa. That’s because there were humans, because humans are contradictory creatures, and we do all sorts of weird stuff. So hire somebody who’s a specialist in that weirdness. And that’s why I think TSC hired an anthropologist, because the world of work is weird, and so you need to kind of approach it in its in, like, celebrate its weirdness, instead of trying to, like, how do we parse out the weirdness and say, Oh, because it’s, it’s not like, yeah, hot and dry, it’s actually, it’s very much the opposite. People are weird, and that’s what makes people great. How weird we are. That’s what I think creates opportunity for people, that fact that we’re weird, and I

Kim Bohr 56:20

agree. And you know, the reality, like you said with AI, we’re still going to need people, and we need to understand how we work with all this technology that’s flooding into our work and the work you do. And you know, this discussion we’ve had today, I think, is just an example of why this human connection and the working relationships are still so important to maintain and to invest in. Yeah. I

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 56:51

mean, even if AI replaced all of the computer based work and we all just were like, Oh, I guess Screw this. Let’s go back to living in the caves and hunting mammoths. Well, then there would be jobs for that. And I guess we would still, you know, we would probably want to think about our working relationship, like, Well, do you like hunting mammoths or not? Like, yeah, it seems like you could also go gather berries instead, if you wanted to. Like, yep. So it’s

Kim Bohr 57:16

Yeah. So it’s like, this is so it’s important, right? And it’s important right? And it’s important that we’re having this conversation. And I hope for our listeners, what they’ve been able to take away today is realization of, perhaps, if they’re in this pattern, that they’ve got an opportunity to break it. And you know, we we mentioned some of the tips that you know are ways to start, we’ll have more in the resources. So as we close out. Is there any final thoughts that you want to be to leave everybody with that you’ve want to reinforce, or perhaps just didn’t get a chance to share yet?

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 57:50

Yeah, I mean, I would say that, you know, we’re coming up on a holiday. You know, a lot of us will have some opportunity to, like, you know, it will be busy for sure, but though a lot of us will have some opportunity to maybe not do the same work schedule that we are doing, like, take like, take the time to have a conversation with yourselves. Like, you know, maybe you’ll find that you actually really do like, everything that you’re doing, and that your relationship to work is great, and then great. Well, now you’ve confirmed that. Now you did the research and you confirmed your results. You validated it, right? You know, the worst thing that can happen is that you that you discover there might be a route to be happier. So I would say, if there’s one thing that you do, just, you know, do I like what I’m doing? Do? Do I feel like it’s it has that continuity? Do I feel like it’s reciprocal? Does, is it purposeful? And does it like fill my life with hope? And if the answer is no to any of those questions, you know, that’s kind of a second order thing to start working on, but like starting the conversation with yourself, like that’s, I think it’s got to start somewhere. And so that’s what I would say, is, if it hasn’t already started for you, start it. I

Kim Bohr 59:06

love that. Start it, for sure. So thank you so much. Aaron, you know, I want to just again, remind everybody that we will have some free resources that are very relevant to our conversation. Today you’ll be able to download by visiting the courage to advance podcast.com and all of these resources are very aligned with this conversation. They’re actionable. They’re exercises and tools that are designed to really not just inspire you, but really move you forward into starting something different. So we encourage you to check those out, and additionally, you’ll find links to the research we’ve mentioned today, to Aaron’s book, and to all the other components that maybe you want to go dig a little bit deeper in. And so again, thank you, Aaron, for sharing your insights. I want to also thank the empathy edge for hosting our podcast sub series and to the listeners for tuning in to this episode of courage to advance. US, and I want to just really remind everybody that this is the place where Transformative Leadership isn’t just about having all the answers, but it’s about having the courage to find them. Thank you. We look forward to having you tune into the next

Aaron Delgaty, PhD 1:00:13

episode. Thank you so much

Maria Ross 1:00:16

for more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice. Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

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

Taryn Voget: How to Activate Your Genius through Empathy

Can genius and empathy coexist or are we doomed to put up with tortured, erratic leaders to find breakthroughs? People cite examples of temperamental, even bullying, genius leaders who create toxic workplaces and use their ability to unlock innovation as an excuse for their damaging behavior. My guest today, Taryn Voget, debunks this myth, shows us what genius is all about, and how empathy serves as a catalyst for genius.

Today we discuss what genius is and why it’s not simply about being born with it. Taryn shares the link between genius, spirituality, and empathy – and some unique ways leaders have leveraged empathy to achieve innovative insights. She shares how genius actually works and offers you tips on how to enhance your and your team’s genius in the workplace. You will leave today’s episode inspired to embrace and cultivate your own genius.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Genius is a verb, it is not something you can measure on a test.
Effective engagement and genius happen when you try to see things from the other person’s point of view and address those goals, fears, needs, expectations, and aspirations.
Are you excited as a leader? The energy you bring will be the energy that the team feels. If you’re not operating from excitement, how can you expect your team to be?

“Genius is activated through excitement, because that is the driving engine that creates continuous improvement, getting better over time.” — Taryn Voget

Episode References:

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Empathy Edge podcast: Denise Roberson: Mistakes Leaders and Boards Make When Thinking About Purpose

From Our Partner:

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

About Taryn Voget: Founder, EveryDay Genius

Taryn Voget is a leading expert on genius and the founder of Everyday Genius, a media and education company that unpacks the strategies of genius from the world’s top minds. Through her engaging and relatable videos and podcast, Taryn shares these strategies with actionable insights that help people fast-track their growth and unleash their genius.

Known for her dynamic talks on genius, innovation, passion, purpose, and business, Taryn inspires audiences to think bigger and aim higher. She’s the author of six books on the strategies of genius (plus a memoir!) and works with individuals and organizations to uncover and amplify their unique genius.

Taryn’s clients include industry giants such as SpaceX, Disney, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gap Inc., Genentech, and many more.

Connect with Taryn:

Everyday Genius: everydaygenius.tv

Taryn Voget Consulting: tarynvoget.com

X: x.com/tarynvoget

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tarynvoget

Facebook: facebook.com/tarynvoget

Instagram: instagram.com/tarynvoget

YouTube: youtube.com/@tarynvoget

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Taryn Voget 03:00

welcome to the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here. So tell us quickly your story

Maria Ross 03:05

and how you got to this work of helping people harness the value of genius and tap into their own inner genius to innovate and transform it’s

Taryn Voget 03:14

been an interesting journey over most of my career, but I was at a real career crossroads probably about 15 years ago, where I had done corporate consulting work, was really burned out, and I wanted to do my own thing. And I was taking all these classes on psychology, just for fun in my own interest. And I was on my way on one Saturday to a class when I was driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, and literally this bolt of lightning in my head. And it’s what it felt like was a bolt of lightning, a flash. And I saw a whole idea for what became the everyday genius Institute. I got the name, I got the vision, I got everything. And it was this idea that you could deconstruct how people do what they do, and most of it’s subconscious. And I knew this from the psychology class, but I’d never really heard anyone apply it to genius, not at this level. And I thought, wouldn’t that be so interesting, and it’s kind of like a dummy series, but for genius, but really unpacking how people do what they do, and then sharing their strategies. And so 15 years ago, I launched the everyday genius Institute and came out with a bunch of books and educational product lines teaching people to think like a genius. And then after kind of a four or five year journey, I burned out on it, because it was an intense creative effort that took everything I had, yeah, and I was tired, and I took some time off, kind of went back into consulting, and then just in this last probably few months, sort of had this idea, you know, I should really relaunch everyday genius, but in a different way. And it’s not like it ever went away. It never went away. It’s just that I kind of set it down for exactly what it was, and kind of focused on bringing that to the corporate world, and now I feel more called to bring genius back to mainstream. So yeah,

Maria Ross 04:50

that’s kind of how I got into it well. And you know, it’s so timely, because we’ve been through some seismic changes over the last few years, and so it’s natural that people are reevaluated. Evaluating themselves, reevaluating their passions, their interests, but also their skills and their talents. Of where can I best use my skills and talents? And so I’m sure that conversation comes up a lot where, you know, colloquially, we talk about, like, getting in your zone of genius, you know, that kind of, that kind of talk. But I think a lot of people, especially post pandemic, are going through, like, what’s the best use of my time and my talents, and for some of us? And, you know, I’m in my 50s, and it’s still this constant journey of like, what am I good at? Like, am I just repeating what I’ve always said I’m good at? Or am I still good at those things? Or am I good at other things now? Or maybe I’m good at something, but that it doesn’t light me up. Like, there’s so many questions around that concept of inner genius. It’s not just like, What are your strengths, but it’s so much more. So tell us a little bit about how you define genius.

Taryn Voget 05:52

So there’s a real misconception about what genius is, and it came about about 100 years ago, in around 1908 when the French government commissioned a basically a standardized test to try to figure out what level students were in school so they could help them. And that became the sort of the original IQ test. And for a very brief time, the top level of the test, if you scored above whatever that number was, was called the genius level. But the inventor of the test did not actually like that. He said, you really cannot measure intelligence on a test. You can measure some things like ability to read or reason or do puzzles or whatever, but you can’t really measure intelligence on a test. And he did not like the idea that it was called the genius level. So in 19 I think it was 32 or 34 it actually got changed to just the very exceptional level. And yet, this idea that genius is somehow linked to IQ and you can measure it on a test has persisted for the last 100 years, and it’s really just not something that you can measure on a test. The way I define genius is it’s more of a process. I always say genius is a verb. It’s not like a noun. You know? It’s like someone is a genius. Someone has the genius. Are they pursuing it? And genius sing. And genius sing is like taking that thing that you’re passionate about, and the reason that it matters is because when you love something, you want to get better at it. And genius is about focus over time. So at the very beginning of your journey to learn something, you may not be very good, but you love it and you’re passionate about it, so you get this continuous improvement loop. You get better, and then to kind of tie into what your question was, you start exploring it from different angles. So what might have interested you the first 10 years of your career is different than the next 10 years. The themes might be similar, but you’re exploring your own genius from another angle to get better at it. That’s another way to do the continuous improvement loop. And so the whole process is genius, and when you’ve done it long enough and you’ve gotten good enough and you’ve developed great strategy. It looks to the outside world often like, Oh, that’s really genius. But it focus over time and being able to consistently tap into, what I like to say is the quantum field, because often where genius comes from, we do it very naturally. We think it’s this big, mysterious thing. It’s not. But people that are really exceptional at what they do, have very high quality goals, genius level goals, and they can kind of tap into the quantum field to create these results that look exceptional, but it’s only because they’ve been doing it for so long, and they figured out a way to do it that looks like genius,

Maria Ross 08:08

right? Well, is it that it looks from the outside? Does it look effortless like, Does it seem like to someone else? Like, wow, you’re just naturally good at that, but they don’t see all the reps and all the continuous performance loops that you’re talking about. Like, how does that?

Taryn Voget 08:23

Yeah, my all time favorite quote is from Michelangelo. You know, he did all this incredible art, and I think he was, you know, painting the ceiling of whatever. And he said, if people knew how much work this was, they wouldn’t call it genius. Oh, wow. And it’s really my favorite quote, because it sums it up. And often you see somebody after they’ve mastered it. You didn’t see or my dad always says, I was an overnight success after 35 years. You know exactly. You don’t see all the reps. You don’t see the genius sing. And there’s so many people that weren’t recognized in their lifetime, or were recognized much later in their life, but they were genius sing the whole time. Like at what point you say, Oh, they’re a genius when they’re first learning, when they’re mid and, you know, process getting better, or the very end, when it kind of like, looks brilliant, you know, like, yeah, point, are you a genius? You’re genius the whole time you’re just going through the process of geniusing,

Maria Ross 09:12

right? Right? Is that sort of linked to the whole 10,000 hours model of like, having to put in the time and doing the continuous improvement and continuing to adopt a growth mindset. And I’m saying all these words because I’m thinking of my own son, who’s like, 10, and this is something I’m trying to help him learn for himself. Is exactly this, this whole like, you gotta stick with it if you do love it, and if you are passionate about it, because you’re not going to be good at it on day one. So is it kind of linked or not?

Taryn Voget 09:42

It is. I mean, I don’t really know anybody that’s reached a level of mastery or, quote, unquote genius that just hasn’t put in a lot of effort to be good at it. I really can’t think of a single example. Every now and again, you get a prodigy that comes through.

Maria Ross 09:56

I was gonna say, what about those, like, four year olds that, oh, yeah, and actually, let’s

Taryn Voget 09:59

put a pro. And it because I have a very interesting theory about that. Okay, the question is, which lifetime did they put in the 10,000

10:04

hours? Oh, okay, okay,

Taryn Voget 10:08

you know, that’s where you really get into this quantum, multi dimensional kind of question around genius. But, uh huh, it really is about focus over time and getting better. Now, what I will say is, you can shortcut your learning curve, but it is like, sometimes, if things are very physical, like, it requires a certain dexterity, the same with mental, right? Like, you kind of got to, like, hone the muscle a bit, and you can’t go from, like, flabby to ripped biceps overnight, right? There is a process that happens now. You can shortcut that process with better strategy, right? But you can’t eliminate it entirely 100%

Maria Ross 10:39

it’s reminding me of just, you know, when I talk about going to the empathy gym and building your empathy muscle, that it doesn’t for some people, even though it’s innate to us as humans, if it’s gone dormant or it’s atrophied, it’s going to take some time, it’s going to take some reps at the gym to build that back up again. But to your point, it’s about focus and intention, and you can make that decision about getting good at that. So talk to me, since we’re kind of on this trail, what is that link that you see between genius and spirituality and empathy?

Taryn Voget 11:10

It’s a great question. The more, just to sort of back up just a second, I kind of went on a few different tracks in my life, again, kind of exploring my interest from multiple angles. You know, I had the corporate angle and the coaching angle, and then I went to shaman school and got this real spiritual angle. And at some point they all came together, and I realized, oh, that’s what genius is. And here’s what I have come to discover. And I’ve never really heard anyone talk about it quite like this, but it’s kind of like each soul is like a thumbprint, right? There’s like a unique soul signature that everybody has, because we can’t all be good at the same things. If you take the sum total of creation, creation is interesting because it’s all so different, what you like and what I like and what someone else likes. And that spark of passion is really our soul talking to us and saying, go do this. Like this is really your thumbprint. Go pursue it, because you’re going to find all the joy, all the magic, all the abundance, all the greatness in that. And so it’s like the spiritual. When I say spirituality, people think it’s this woo, woo thing. To me, spirituality is like, what is the essence of your spirit, and how do you activate that and step into that? And the essence of your spirit is unique to you, but how you know what it is like, Who you are is what you’re interested in, what you’re passionate about. Now, I think a big challenge in our culture is that we don’t help our young ones identify their passion and nurture them. The whole school system is designed not for that. No, not at all. You know, I don’t even know that the corporate world is designed for that. But really it is. Yeah, it’s really like your soul saying when you do what excites you, whether it’s read a book in this moment, go for a walk, you know, create a podcast, design a whatever, you know, run a race like whatever your interest is, like, if that’s your excitement and you follow it, it’s this really interesting unlock that happens. It unlocks this energy of excitement within you, which is very high vibration energy, and that high vibration energy starts being a magnetic energy, and it kind of starts pulling other high vibration things. To you, people talk about this kind of as the law of attraction, which it is in its sort of most core sense, right? That you know, like attracts like. And there’s a million studies around this. But when you’re excited, then you start attracting more exciting things, and the more exciting things have more opportunity. But the other thing it does is it raises your vibration enough to tap into higher levels of consciousness where more information is available to you. It’s like when you’re really sad and depressed. I don’t know that anyone has ever had a good idea sad and depressed, right? Right? When you’re happy, joyful, out for a walk, not thinking of anything, that’s when the good ideas drop in. And why is that? It’s because you’re happier in a higher vibration and you’re tapping into higher dimensional information that kind of just pops in. So it kind of is this interesting mechanism where that’s like, sort of the mechanics of how it happens, because then you get these great ideas, right, and then you’re all excited about it, so then you act on them and doing that enough, you’re like, Well, that’s good. And then, of course, there’s sort of these strategies of genius that happened. You know, your goals start getting better, your skills get better, your strategy gets better. The things coming to you get more interesting. Opportunities become more interesting. Now, what often happens is, in that journey, you burn out a little bit. You’re like, I’ve explored it enough from this angle. Now, let me try and explore from another angle, which is why people do big career shifts. You know, they change jobs, they change locations, whatever, right? But to answer your question, you know, our spirit is wanting to express itself, and we know what that is, because it’s the thing we’re excited about. Now. We have a whole lot of cultural junk and garbage and layers around that. It’s like, oh, but this is the strategy to make money. This is what

Maria Ross 14:33

right? This is other people’s definition of success, yeah. And what worked

Taryn Voget 14:37

for them, right? Doesn’t always work for you. You You know, I can’t tell you how many horses I bought being like, oh, that’s how to make a million dollars a month. And, you know? And like, yeah, totally, it didn’t work for me. I know my strategy is not their strategy. My thumbprint is not theirs, right? What excites me is not what excites them, and it’s that excitement that is the unique thing. Now, you can learn from other people, but trying to replicate exactly is very hard.

Maria Ross 14:58

Is that where the link to empathy. Comes in and that you open yourself up to seeing things from other points of view and other perspectives, and that includes the perspectives and points of view of other people, not just your perspective and point of view on the passion or on the work, right? Yeah. So

Taryn Voget 15:13

I’ve had a lot of people come through what I call my genius lab, where I really deconstruct how they do what they do, and it’s always very subconscious, and I’ve discovered, really five major patterns. I’ve actually, I’m going to add a sixth one, because the sixth one’s been a recent discovery. But the real one of the key five patterns, or strategies of genius, is this thing around seeing things from multiple points of view. I have never, and I mean, never had someone come through my genius lab that didn’t do this in some way. And so let’s talk about what are the points of view. There’s the first person point of view. Like, how do you see it through your lens your eyes? What you’re looking at? That’s the first person point of view. The second person point of view is like, you stand in someone’s shoes and you see it from them. It’s almost like you kind of like, imagine you step into their body and you look at it through their eyes. That’s the second person point of view. The third person point of view is when you sort of take a step back and you see yourself and another or a group in a third person observer role. Everybody who is good at what they do, without exception, does this. Now. They do it very subconsciously. I’ll just give you an example that’ll be like a duh example. I deconstructed this strategy of the copywriter, one of the top copywriters, he writes for all the big tech companies, you know, Apple and all those companies, brilliant copywriter, and when we unpacked how he did what he did, and he didn’t even know he did this, but kind of in his process, he imagined that he was at coffee with an ideal client, like someone who was going to buy some gadget that he was writing copy for, right? And he imagined that he was at coffee and he was talking to them, but then he would step into them and see himself across the table at coffee, and imagine, like, what are they thinking? What are they feeling? What do they want in this product? What excites them, what would be interesting, right? And then he kind of zoomed out, and he’s like, Okay, well, that’s how I see it. That’s how they see it. Now, how would like the market see it? You know, if I wrote like, a copy, like, how would anybody reading it see it? And that was kind of that third person. So the empathy is that ability to step into truly like you become someone else, and you see it through their eyes. And I could give you 100 examples of this. I mean, that’s just a basic one. Yeah, yeah. The one that blew my mind just happened, actually, a handful of weeks ago. I deconstructed how the shaman basically creates miracles, and he does this probably better than anyone I’ve interviewed. And so he creates miracles for clients, healing, miracles, insights, business, like, just miracles, right? Like, well, how do you do that? So I don’t know how I do it. So, you know, you take the split second that happens in someone’s mind, and you unpack that split seconds, you know, into, like, what’s 50 steps. Here was the, nugget that came out of that interview that was just, and I thought of you, and I thought, Oh, Maria is going to love this. So he kind of gets really quiet, and he kind of just lets himself go totally blank, and he’s like, I know that I can’t create the miracle me, John The shaman, I can’t create the miracle, but the miracle can be created. So he sort of like, takes himself out of it, and then he gets really quiet, and he literally imagines that, like, everything goes black, and he connects to all that is. And you can do this too. Like, if you just kind of allow yourself, you’re like, Oh, if I just connect to all that is in this dark, quiet space, like I can do that. And then from there, here’s what he does. So it’s not him anymore. He’s all that is. He’s like, connected to everything. It’s not it’s no longer him. He sees his client. They’re the one he’s helping. And he literally steps into their body so fully to feel what they’re feeling, understand what they’re thinking, but more importantly, ask, what do they need, and how can they hear it? And he does this so completely and so fully. He’s like, Oh, that’s what they need to hear. And then he pops out, and he’s like, Okay, well, now I know what I need to do. I need to say this or create that, or, you know, tell them the other thing, or show up in this way. But here’s what he does, which is the really brilliant part is he sees the results having already happened. Like, okay, so they need a miracle. He sees the miracle being done, and he’s still kind of in this quantum field. He sees the miracle being done and how happy his client is, like, genuinely happy. He feels how it feels to be happy as them, then he steps out and becomes himself and sees how and feels how happy he is seeing them happy. Does

Maria Ross 19:15

that make sense? Yeah, like taking multiple perspectives. Yeah. Whole process happened for him in a split second.

Taryn Voget 19:21

Nano, it was that fast. Wow, yeah, wow. Both of us were like, Whoa. That was really strategic. But here’s the power of that, right? And they always say this, that creation happens not through physical action, but through a feeling place. And so he gets in these feeling places, which is deeply empathetic, right? Because he gets so happy seeing someone happy, and feeling how happy they are, and he feels happy in that same way. And that is really the heart of empathy and using it in the most positive way to create a miracle for somebody. Yeah. And so then he kind of like, snaps back into reality, and then, you know, kind of the rest of the session happens, and he walks them through kind of a process. But it was then that the miracle. And it was the most beautiful example, I think, of empathy I’ve seen someone do, because it was really miraculous. Well,

Maria Ross 20:07

I mean, so much to unpack there, but first I just want to point out the symmetry of this, and just the reiteration of what has always been a part of my work, and even marketing and branding, is that effective marketing, branding, connection, engagement, happens when you try to see things from the other person’s point of view and address those goals, those fears, those needs, those expectations, those aspirations. And that’s when you get you know, whether it’s you know, sales copy, or whether it’s a nonprofit that’s, you know, asking for donations or asking for support, if they’re able to convey that message in a way that the person reading it, whether it’s the prospective customer or donor or client, says, Yes, I see myself in that message. I see how this impacts me, and therefore I am going to be moved to act. That’s what we’re talking about, and that’s where, you know, just another episode, you know, where that can be used to manipulate people, but when it’s used for good, I’m a huge proponent of using marketing for good and to encourage people and ignite people, and, yes, provoke people in some way, shape or form. But that requires not. Here’s what I want to tell them it requires, what do they need to hear? What is their life like? And even the most you know from the first book on empathy that I did, the empathy edge I profiled, you know, Steve Jobs, who, as a boss, was not known to be the most empathetic boss in the world, but we can all agree that he was a genius and was very empathetic at that level for his customers and his users, and what they were going through, what their goals were, what their aspirations were, and that’s why Apple is. Apple is because it wasn’t about the product, it was about the person and what they were trying to accomplish and what the product could help them be or do. And so I love this. And so this kind of segues us into two areas that I know we wanted to talk about. One was that myth of to be a genius, do you have to be selfish and egocentric and erratic and cruel in some cases, because I think there’s a portion of the narrative that says that that behavior is acceptable in a leader because they’re a genius. What is your perspective on genius from that point of view? I know it has to do with maybe what level of empathy they are exhibiting. But do you really believe that it has to be an either or

Taryn Voget 22:33

well, so if you think about what genius is, right? It’s focus over time. It’s continuous improvement. Focus over time. There has been, and this has been a widely studied phenomenon, or link between mental health, like mental health problems, and genius. And here’s why is that? It’s genius. Workaholism is a form of addiction, just like drugs or alcohol or gambling or whatever, workaholism is a form of addiction. And why do we have addiction? It’s usually a trauma response to something. And so you know, often, when you see these really crazy geniuses, that level of focus and that maniacal focus on something is often a trauma response and an addiction pattern. And yet, it’s what also creates this incredible genius. That level of focus, there was this really interesting rock climber, and his name is escaping me, although he had a really cool documentary, I think it was called free solo. And many would argue he’s the best rock climber of all time. I mean, he freestyled El Capitan, no ropes, nothing. And I think, wow, once. I mean, nuts. This guy is crazy, good rock climber, wow. And yet he’s, you know, someone asked him, like, Are you depressed? And he’s like, you know, I never really thought about it. And he’s like, I think I am, you know. And so it’s an addiction, because he’s getting a dopamine hit from doing it, and a level of focus that kind of gets him out of, you know, his reality, and that’s what makes him genius. So, you know, when we see people that maybe aren’t exhibiting what we might call sort of well rounded behavior,

Maria Ross 23:57

that’s a very nice way of putting it, yeah, what I would say is

Taryn Voget 24:00

often it is a trauma response, and it’s a kind of an addiction, not always. And I like the idea of the everyday genius, because when you were talking about your marketing, I thought, you know, I already, I haven’t had you in my genius lab, but I already know that you’re genius at this because you’re operating from these really high quality goals. And I would call you an everyday genius. And there’s so much of that around, yeah, there is, there is, there

Maria Ross 24:18

is. And yet, the ones that kind

Taryn Voget 24:20

of make the news are these ones that are these ones that are these incredible, exceptional, you know, are operating so singularly minded. Now, the the upside of that is, if you look throughout history, it’s usually been one person that has changed the direction. Now, like if you look at Galileo or somebody, they had this idea, people laughed at them, then had violent opposition, and then after enough time, came around to their point of view. Now, was Galileo, you know, crazy? I don’t think so. I think sometimes, you know, he just, sometimes he’ll just come with these really cool perspectives that do change reality. But then every time, every now and again, you have kind of a crazy genius that also changes society, but you might not like how they do it. I. Right? The end result can be quite good,

Maria Ross 25:03

right? But what I hear you saying is, you don’t have to subscribe to the myth that you have to be tortured to be a genius. That’s what I’m hearing you saying, and that’s where, you know, I remember, a few years ago, I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, and I can’t remember the name of it, something magic. I’ll find it, and I’ll put I know the show I’m talking about, yeah, you know the one, you know the one I’m talking about. And she talked about that like we have to let go of that myth that you have to be tortured to be creative, to be innovative, because we can find ways to tap into what you’re saying, that that spiritual vibration and that other level of thinking, to tap into our larger thoughts and our larger goals. And so I love that she was debunking that that’s not the only way. You know, if you want to be an artist, you don’t have to, you know, form a drug habit and live, you know, in poverty and, you know, have horrible love affairs or whatever. You don’t have to. But what I also hear you saying is sometimes that behavior has been exhibited by people who eventually are known as geniuses because of them acting on this focus. Is that kind of what Andrew’s saying?

Taryn Voget 26:08

Yeah, exactly. There’s no one size fits all. Like, if you take a Steve Jobs, was he tortured? I don’t know. Maybe, you know, sometimes I think souls come in with a really intense passion, like, I’m going to do this thing at all costs. You know, they come in with this drive and as a standard, and a genius has incredibly high standards, which is why they’re hard to work with. Yeah, because they there’s no compromising. But do we? Do we have to care about, but

Maria Ross 26:34

do we have to put up with the bad behavior part of it, when you have a leader that is a genius, like some of the people you know, making headlines in our world today, is that something we can’t hold them to task for because of their genius, or can we expect better from them, because, if they’re burning people out, you know, sort of like leaving a trail of fire behind them in their effort to transform and innovate? Do we let them? I mean, that’s kind of like a more of an opinion question.

Taryn Voget 27:03

What I would say is, every single person has free will. If you’re working for someone that you’re not jazzed about, and the bad outweighs the good, no one’s keeping you there.

Maria Ross 27:12

Well, unless they are, unless you are not in a privileged position where you can just leave a job and yeah, so what

Taryn Voget 27:18

I would say is, even in a situation where you need the job, I believe that everybody has enough power within them to find a way out if they wanted it. That’s just my personal belief. Now, is it always easy? Is it always convenient? No, but if you know, if you’re being abused and you don’t like it, you know? Yeah, I think everyone has enough power inside to find a different path.

Maria Ross 27:41

I guess my question is for you, as a studyer of genius and a researcher and an expert in genius, do you think it’s something we just have to accept about some geniuses, and that that’s okay for the greater transformation, for the greater innovation? And there’s no right answer. I’m just a consecutive

Taryn Voget 27:58

question because yeah, you know, I don’t know that you can change it for somebody. I mean, the way you change I just heard this really interesting story, you know, I’m on Tiktok, and you get such great things on Tiktok. And this boss bought himself a Lamborghini and didn’t give out Christmas bonuses, and the employees were so upset, every last one of them quit, and he was left with orders unfulfillable because there was no staff, and that is a great example. And I’m sure none of those people were in a position to leave that job. I mean, I don’t think it was particularly high paid work, right? And yet, their principles and their morals were, I’m not working for this jerk, right? So, you know, at what point then, so then the guy’s scrambling now he has no business and, you know, no way to pay for his Lamborghini. So you know, at what point do you just decide what works for you or what doesn’t work for you, and then let the chips fall where they may for the person that

Maria Ross 28:44

right is in charge, right, right, right, yeah. I mean, I think that like that on the micro level of that particular company. But I’m wondering, you know, we’ve all seen bio pics and read biographies of genius people throughout history, you know, some of the damage they left behind. But yet, for some of them, whether they were developing cures for diseases or making a scientific discovery, the greater good was that that maniacal focus that might have destroyed individual lives does that. I mean, I’m getting really like, you know, abstract.

Taryn Voget 29:21

I worked somewhere where I really had to come up against some of this asking within myself, yeah, and the person was a billionaire, very influential, and what I realized is, nobody’s all good or all bad. Even in the worst, there is some goodness and good intent, right? And often, when people are, you know, there’s wounds everyone. We all carry wounds, but when you carry wounds, and you have a lot of influence, sometimes it can be really damaging, right? Because what happens when you’re wounded is you tend to inflict those same wounds on others, very unconsciously. And so, you know, in the name of trying to do good this person was doing, I would say just as much evil, if not more. You. Under the intent of thinking he was doing good, right? So they’re complicated questions.

Maria Ross 30:04

They are, they are, yeah. I mean, there’s no, we’re not going to come to an answer. I was just curious about Yeah. That’s the thing I always wrestle with, of like, you look back and you’re like, Okay, maybe those individual lives in that person’s lifetime were negatively impacted, but for the advancement over the centuries that their discovery or their innovation created for the greater good that led to medical breakthroughs or scientific discoveries, like I’m saying, or even like the most amazing art that we can appreciate, is it worth it? I find myself often asking that, like, no, if I was the person that was actually impacted by their bad behavior, I would say no. But when, with the hindsight of time and the impact of that person’s work and their genius on human society over time, it’s like, Oh, was that just a price to pay? You know? So these are just like, I’m totally getting

Taryn Voget 30:57

into like, this whole Yeah. I mean, back to Galileo, who never thought that the sun revolved around the earth. And he said, No, actually, the earth resolves around the sun. People were very, very upset by that. Very upset. Yeah. I mean, it rocked their world. You would argue that people and his

Maria Ross 31:11

family is probably like, can you not bring shame to our name by, like, pissing everybody off? Yeah, yes.

Taryn Voget 31:16

You know it depends on what slice and time when you hit up against people’s beliefs. Yeah. It is really, really an emotional thing for people. And a lot of times when souls come onto the planet to create big change, they’re hitting up against a lot of beliefs on how things are done or how things should be done. You know, with enough time, you’re like, oh, okay, maybe they were right, yeah,

Maria Ross 31:35

exactly, exactly, yeah. The earth is not flat. So let’s bring this down to, like, our time. And, you know, corporate leaders, organizational leaders, not even corporate, whether they’re nonprofit, what are some tips you have? I hate to like sort of distill it down to that, but what are some tips you have where they could start to unlock their genius at an everyday level? So

Taryn Voget 31:56

two thoughts there. Number one is, genius is activated through excitement, because that is the driving engine that creates continuous improvement, getting better over time. When you’re not excited about something, you don’t care and you get sloppy, and that’s why everyone’s complaining about workers right now, is because they’re having them do jobs they’re not excited about, right, right? I mean, so the underlying principle of genius is excitement. So if you just start there at number one. Are you excited as a leader? Because the energy you bring to it is going to be the energy that the team feels. And if you’re not excited, how are you expecting your team to be excited? Right? You know, there’s parts of any job that don’t light us up, but the overall thing does, the mission, does? You know what we’re creating? You know, the new product, the whatever. This is why purpose

Maria Ross 32:40

driven companies do better, because they can get more innovation and engagement out of their people, because they’re like, Oh, I know why I’m here and I’m excited about

Taryn Voget 32:47

it. Yeah. So number one is excitement for yourself and what you’re doing and creating a big enough and exciting enough goal that Jez is you as the leader. Because if it’s not there, and it’s like, whatever level you’re at in an organization, you might not be able to set the big CEO level goal, but for your department, is there a goal you’re excited about? Because without excitement, you’re just not going to get great results, or even your peers. I talk about this all the time, about you have a sphere of influence, whether you have people reporting to you or not. And so what vibe are you giving out? Are you someone that’s able to attract and build excitement and build energy and momentum around something. You might not have a title, but you’re a catalyst than your organization. So Well, Said, agreed. So that’d be number one. Number two is, are you bringing people in that are excited? And this is coaching I give a lot of people is, you know, sometimes there’s this tendency to bring people in that match their resume perfectly, and they talk well, and they’ve got this great experience, but at their core, they’re just not that excited. Maybe they’re a little burned out. Maybe that’s like, kind of the job they feel like they should be doing, not the job that lights their fire anymore. Back to, you know, sometimes we need to change up what

Maria Ross 33:52

we do. Well, like you said, genius stems from being excited about excited. Yeah,

Taryn Voget 33:56

yeah. And so, you know, that’s a direct funnel in, you know, you know, you get people more excited in. You’ve got an exciting vision. So now you’ve kind of got the top and the bottom, you know, I say, you know, or the entry point in. Now, what do you do with the middle, right? And that’s where there’s got to be an exciting enough goal that people are jazzed about, and the companies that do really well, you people are excited about it. I was a consultant at Genentech for a long time. This is years and years ago, and whether you were the accounts payable clerk or the scientist in the lab, that everybody knew that their work connected people to healthier results and happier, you know, like happier, healthier lives and saving lives. And it was so instilled in people that their work mattered. Yeah, and the company did so well for so long now, it got bought out by a much bigger company. I don’t think it’s great, but, but for a long time, that is, I mean, it was just stratospheric how successful they were. Because of that, they linked everybody to something that mattered. Back to your point about purpose driven. So it’s like, how do you create excitement at whatever level you’re at, and at a company level, at a team level, at an individual level, at a recruiting level. Because that is where you’re gonna harness a genius. But there’s a second part to it. It’s not just excitement, it’s empowerment. Because you can be excited and hit up against walls trying to get something done, and it will nothing will curb your excitement faster than hitting up against walls and not being able to get through red tape and layers and all of that. So it’s creating a culture of empowerment. Is the second piece to that. And I think a lot of companies try to do it, but they don’t understand why it’s so important sometimes, like you might, you know, you’ve got these approval levels, like they’re trying to save money and make sure everything’s safe, but in that absolutely stifled all excitement, creativity, innovation, whatever.

Maria Ross 35:38

Yeah, you’ve got to weigh that with you know, well, how competitive Do you want to be in the market, like maybe your accounts payable and your procurement and your you know, all of that is buttoned up, and nobody can spend a dime unless you approve it. But what are you losing in the marketplace in terms of talent or in terms of innovation? And that’s why you know so many research studies show that if you have an empathetic leader, you it’s like three times four times as much of being able to be innovative at work, because you’ve got someone who kind of understands what you need and what you want to contribute and is supporting you in that, not that you know, not that everybody just gets to go spend, like, hundreds of 1000s of dollars. But there’s ways to put guardrails around that where it’s like, let’s not make this the norm that people can’t. Let’s figure out how we can make more people say yes to things and bring their ideas, because they actually have really good ideas. But you’re never going to know that unless you give them that environment and that culture where you’re listening to their ideas, where you’re getting curious about their ideas. And this is kind of, again, that link to empathy and empathetic leadership. So I love it. And so we’re going to have links to the empathy lab, to all your stuff, to the books, to you, to everything. I just I can’t even tell you how excited I was to have this conversation with you, because I think this is a hot topic right now, and I think more people need to embrace their own inner genius and not think it’s only somebody else. So before we wrap up, I want to give you one last chance to share a gem or an insight with us of how you want people to move forward and embrace their genius and embrace living a more fulfilling life and having a more fulfilling career.

Taryn Voget 37:24

I think that the best thing anyone can do in any moment is really do an inquiry of what is going to light my fire right now. And it doesn’t need to be a big, world changing cure, cancer kind of a thing. It can be small. Not everybody is ready for that in their life, you know. So we go through phases, but we’re all ready to do little things that light us up more. And when we do the little things that light us up, we learn to play pickleball, you know? We go out with friends more often. Yeah, you know, we read an interesting book we’ve always wanted to we, yeah, gardening, whatever. When we do the little things, it starts putting us in the energy of the bigger things. It’s like, when you say yes to the small things that excite you, life is like, Oh, she’s listening. Let me bring a bigger one and a bigger one. And that really is the joyfulness of life. And our soul is always whispering to us, and it’s whispering to us through the energy of like, just follow this exciting thing. That’s your purpose. That’s what you’re here to do. That’s what’s going to bring you all the good things. So really, my invitation to anybody is just start small if you don’t have the big thing yet, because it will go

Maria Ross 38:24

well. Oh, what great advice for the new year. So thank you so much, Taryn, for all your insights and for this great conversation. I, as always, with so many of my guests, I could talk to you for another hour about this. Like I said, we’re going to have all your links in the show notes. But for anyone that’s listening to us on the go, where’s one of the best place they could find out more about your

Taryn Voget 38:41

work. It’s been a delight being on the show. Thank you so much. Maureen, I agree we could talk another hour, but the best place to find me is everyday. Genius.tv.

Maria Ross 38:49

Great. All right, we will put that in the show notes as well. Thank you, Taryn, thank you, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review and share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the 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.

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