Imagine a world where compassion is the norm. This is the world I’m trying to build with my work. In this final Hot Take episode of 2024, I talk about the importance of humanity, compassion, and empathy in all aspects of our lives and businesses and remembering those things that matter most as we go into 2025. With clear statistics from the 2024 Businesssolver State of Workplace Empathy report showing increased loneliness, toxic workplaces, and higher mental health challenges, it’s key that we fight against these negative trends by embracing our values, modeling them, celebrating them, and rewarding them in whatever sphere of influence we have. We fight by disproving the false belief that you can’t be empathetic and successful or impactful at the same time.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Business is just another way we humans interact with one another. We should be able to be whole people wherever we are in the world. However, we move about it, and with whomever we choose to interact.
We cannot “go gentle into that goodnight,” as poet Dylan Thomas once wrote. Human connection, empathy, and compassion are worth fighting for.
Embracing empathy is how we will change the cultures of toxic workplaces and improve mental health.
“I invite you to be part of turning the tide – speak out, and model empathy and compassion whether you’re with your kids, on social media, stuck in traffic, or, yes, at a budget meeting at work.” — Maria Ross
Episode References:
Get a volume discount on multiple copies of The Empathy Dilemma for employees, Colleagues, partners, clients, or customers: Check out both Book Passage and Porchlight Books at www.TheEmpathyDilemma.com. For brand customization or a custom landing page for fulfillment, please contact me directly and I’ll take care of you with Porchlight: https://red-slice.com/contact/
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Hello, everyone. It is December, the last podcast of 2024 what a year it’s been. I hope you’ve had a good year. I hope that if you are facing challenge, if you are facing adversity, that you can find ways to find the compassion and the self empathy that you need for yourself to keep moving forward and to do your work in the world. And today, I want to talk about a variety of things with you around this idea of empathy in life and at work being worth fighting for. But before I dive into this month’s hot take, I do want to take a moment to wish everyone a happy holiday, whatever you celebrate.
This time of year, we tend to get reflective, we tend to get nostalgic, we tend to get filled with love and hope, and usually at this time of year, what happens is that we open our hearts, we open our wallets, we donate service hours. And I would just invite you as I’m going to invite and challenge myself this year to do more of that on a consistent basis, year round. I think we tend to get into this trap that this is the only time of year to give back. And I know I’ve tried to fight against that tendency my whole life, but especially after I had a child, it got increasingly harder to do that, so I am recommitting to myself, not just with monetary donations, but with time, with service to really be that example for my son, that service should be a part of our life, Just like family, time, just like work, just like exercise, all of the things we try to teach our children. So I invite you to join me on that 2025, challenge of dedicating a little bit more time, carving out a little bit more time for service.
But again, before I get to the meat of our talk today, I do want to remind you that even though it’s Christmas Eve today that you’re hearing this, there’s still time to give a gift of love, a gift of empathy, to your favorite leader, your favorite employee, your favorite partner, your favorite client. So I want to remind everyone that the empathy dilemma and the empathy edge are both available in a bulk sale at a volume discount, and there are a couple of options you have. So I’m going to send you to one URL, which is the empathy dilemma.com, that is the main book website on my website, and you’ll there, you’ll find options for two places where you can get a volume discount on books. One is porch light, the other is book passage, which is actually a regional independent bookstore chain in Northern California. I actually don’t know if they extend to the rest of California, but I have done book events there in the past. I had a successful book event there this past fall, and they are wonderful people keeping the magic of reading alive. So if you want to support an independent bookseller and provide a great insightful gift to your employees, to your partners, to your customers or clients, to your neighbors, to your family, please go ahead and investigate that option with book passage. If you order more than 25 books from them, they will do free shipping. If I believe you are in the United States. The continental United States. Porch light is a larger bulk distributor, and there are options there if you want to personalize the books with your brand. So if that’s something you’re interested in, to give out as thank you gifts or client gifts into 2025 send me an email at Maria, at red dash slice.com and I will put you in touch with the folks over there, and they can customize that for whatever you need. They can even create a custom landing page for you where people can fulfill their own orders. So that is porch light that will save you the hassle of having to mail out books to people. They also do ebook fulfillment on a landing page if you want to do something like that. So check out that page, the empathy dilemma.com. You’ll find porch light, you’ll find book passage, and if you have any questions on any of it and you just want me to help you through it, send me an email. So that’s my little advertisement for you for today.
But I want to get to the. Meat of our hot take today as we close out December, and that is, again, that empathy in life and at work is worth fighting for. Now, the Dalai Lama had a lot to say about business and leadership. Yes, the Dalai Lama. And a few years ago, I read the book a force for good, the Dalai Lama’s vision for our world, by Daniel Goleman, and it was a game changer for me in terms of marrying values and ethics and business with kind of a splash of spirituality. And I want you to just imagine us for a second or a minute, a lovely, decadent minute, a world where compassion is the norm, not the exception, right? And when I say a world, any sphere of our life, our neighborhood, our community, our government, our business, our schools, this is the world that I’m trying to build with my work. And His Holiness has met with leaders from around the world. He has seen how many of them bring purpose and positive energy into their work, and he loves how successful they have been as a result. And he often talks about self awareness and self mastery being the essence of good leadership. And you might recognize self awareness from the new book, from the empathy dilemma, as pillar number one. So if you are able to be self aware and have self mastery. That usually means you’re putting your ego aside for something greater than yourself. And he has noticed that in some of the greatest leaders of our time and the most successful leaders of our time, and I’m talking about even business leaders that he admires and respects. So when studies like the 2024 business solver state of workplace empathy report, and I will put a link to that in the show notes.
Of course, when those reports still show that 37% of CEOs, 30% of HR professionals and 24% of employees believe empathy doesn’t have a place in the workplace. I you know, in my humble opinion, that number should be zero. Everyone should believe that empathy has a place in the workplace, but they are saying this. You know, this percentage of these folks are saying it has no place in the workplace. And there’s also findings claiming higher rates of workplace toxicity and mental health challenges. How are they not putting those two things together that the lack of empathy, the lack of civility, the lack of humanity in the workplace is causing this toxicity and mental health, these mental health challenges. So I want to just remind all of us the business work is just another way that we humans interact with one another. It’s not outside of ourselves, and for many of us, we spend the bulk of our time working, that’s a reality. So again, it kind of boggles my mind. How is it possible that some of us still think we have some sort of armor we put on when we clock in. Or if you’ve seen the Apple TV series, severance, that a chip is implanted in us to forget about everything going on in our personal lives when we walk through the Office Store, and then everything about our work life and how we were treated there is gone when we take the elevator back up, which is the premise of that show. That’s not the world we live in. Empathy belongs in any place where humans interact with other humans, and we when we lose touch with our ability to be compassionate in the face of adversity, in the face of challenge or tough decisions, we relinquish our humanity. We shouldn’t be required to give up our humanity just to work at an accounting firm or a software company or a construction site. We should be able to be whole people, wherever we are in the world, however we move about it and with whomever we choose to interact now, I know you know there are some pretty awful leadership role models entering our spheres of business, society and government, there always have been, there always will be. And it’s easy to say we’re resigned to that, but we cannot go gentle into that good night, as poet Dylan Thomas once wrote, human connection, empathy and compassion are worth fighting for, and we fight for them, not with weapons and screaming, but by embracing those values, by modeling them, celebrating them, rewarding them in whatever sphere of influence we have, we fight by disproving the false belief that you can’t be empathetic and successful or impactful at the same time, only then can we really strengthen the connections that are needed to build community.
Now we have a mental health crisis in our culture. We’re dealing with a loneliness epidemic, toxic masculinity, oppressive systems that only make room for a few. Two while hurting the many and society could not be flying a large enough banner across the sky to tell us we need to change something. What we’re doing is not working. We need to embrace empathy, get again in all areas of our lives, at work, the Dalai Lama got it smart, successful leaders I speak to all the time. Get it. So I invite you to be part of turning the tide. Speak Out model empathy and compassion, whether you’re with your kids on social media, stuck in traffic or yes, at a budget meeting at work, and I say all of this with the acknowledgement that it’s hard. No one ever said it was easy. It’s hard for me when my capacity is low, when I’m under stress, when I’m under pressure, it gets even harder. And I know it gets harder for you, but we have to make an intention to try otherwise, what are we left with? So I’m going to share some resources in the show notes on some past articles about this. I’m going to share the link for you to the business solver survey I was referring to. I’ll share a link to this wonderful book by Daniel Goleman, where he was curating the lessons and the teachings of the Dalai Lama in terms of Compassionate Leadership. And I invite you to spark a conversation with me, either on LinkedIn, I’m Maria J Ross, or you can find me on Instagram, red slice Maria, spark a conversation and let me know what this episode brought up for you. If it inspired you, if it motivated you, if it gave you some ideas, or if you have some other resources that you turn to to build your leadership capacity and build your own capacity to be a more human, centered leader, individual person in the world, I would love to know I and That’s an invitation that stands for you throughout 2025 to reach out to me at any time, with articles, with resources, with whatever you’ve got, because the more that we share, the more that we normalize, the more that we can make this movement gain traction and have an impact on our world. And you know, they say you, the only person you can control is yourself. The only person you have agency over truly is yourself. And so we need to start with ourselves. And if there’s a world out there that you are not quite thrilled with what you’re seeing right now, like me, I invite you to join me on this journey. Keep listening to the podcast. Please check out my books, the blog, and reach out to me. Interact with me. I really want to build this community this year and hear what’s going on for you and highlight your stories and your successes and your insights and ahas. So please feel free to reach out to me as I close out the year.
As I close out, you know, what are we in? We’re year four and a half of the podcast. Oh my goodness. I just want to thank you for being with me through all this, and being a supporter of this work, and hopefully being a modeler of this work in your own spheres of influence. And thank you for being a loyal listener. Thank you for being a subscriber. Please make sure that you are also signed up for my newsletter, because platforms come and go, but my newsletter, you’re in my tribe, so please make sure you go to Red slice.com and sign up for the newsletter so we’re in each other’s orbits. You don’t have to read every newsletter that comes out, but I only send, like, twice a month, unless something cool is going on and it’s chock full of insights and inspiration to help jump start your leadership and jump start your day, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care, be kind, and have the best 2025 you could possibly ask 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™
In today’s episode of Courage to Advance, brought to you by SparkEffect, Kim Bohr and Tracy Wik, VP of Business Strategy at Harrison Assessments, challenge traditional approaches to workplace stress. Drawing from decades of behavioral data and leadership experience, they expose how burnout often stems from unconscious behavioral patterns rather than workload alone.
With 83% of U.S. workers suffering from workplace stress and 76% saying it affects their personal relationships, organizations continue investing in wellness programs and workload reduction—yet engagement and productivity still suffer. Why? They’re treating symptoms, not causes.
Kim and Tracy demonstrate how our greatest strengths—whether being extraordinarily helpful, highly empathetic, or achievement-driven—can become our biggest derailers when overused. Drawing from Dr. Dan Harrison’s research on leadership paradoxes, they reveal how balancing seemingly contradictory behaviors is essential for sustainable leadership success.
You’ll discover:
Why high performers unknowingly sabotage their effectiveness
The critical difference between personality traits and behavioral tendencies
Practical strategies for breaking the burnout cycle
How to develop a more expansive leadership repertoire
Don’t miss the special offer for listeners to access the Harrison Assessment tool, complete with a professional debrief. Additional resources, including a self-reflection guide, are available at CourageToAdvancePodcast.com.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
“People don’t work in aggregate. They work in moments, they work in conversations, they work in individual connections.” – Tracy Wik, VP of Business Strategy
About Tracey Wik, VP of Business Strategy, Harrison Assessments:
A disruptive talent management strategist, Tracy Wik transforms how executives view their workplaces and careers. With over two decades of experience, she sees beyond spreadsheets to unlock human potential, helping leaders reimagine what’s possible. A recognized speaker on strategy, culture and women’s entrepreneurship, Tracy developed innovative executive coaching programs to advance women into senior leadership roles and serves as a Founding Forty Board member of DePaul University’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Institute, the only research-based women’s accelerator globally. Her mission: make executives love Monday mornings by turning workplaces from soul-crushing machines into engines of human possibility.
About SparkEffect
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
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. How do we break the burnout cycle? Well, we start with knowing what leadership behaviors impact workplace stress and either make it worse or help make it better. And we need to care about the mental health of our employees, because that impacts their productivity, their performance and their engagement, which all impact our bottom line. Today’s courage to advance sub series brought to you by the good for folks at Spark effect have us talking about this very important topic and challenging the traditional approaches to workplace stress that, quite frankly, haven’t been working. Today you’re going to hear from host Kim bore from Spark effect and her guest, Tracy Wik, VP of Business Strategy at Harrison assessments. You’re going to love this episode because you’re going to learn more about how high performers are unwittingly sabotaging their effectiveness, some practical strategies for breaking that burnout cycle, and how to develop a more expansive leadership repertoire so you can help your teams battle workplace stress and be more engaged and thrive. Take a listen.
Kim Bohr 01:57
Hi everyone. 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 Tracy Wik, the Vice President Business Strategy for Harrison assessments. Tracy believes that where most people dread Monday mornings, Tracy makes executives love them, which is something we all can relate to. And I’m thrilled to be hearing what she has to say with us today. Tracy is a disruptive talent management strategist with a master’s in organizational development from Northwestern University. She is an entrepreneur in her own right, having developed an executive coaching program to help advance women to senior ranks and achieve parity, she is also a founding 40 board member of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Institute at DePaul University, the only research based women’s accelerator globally. Tracy, welcome to courage to advance podcast.
Tracy Wik 02:52
Kim, it’s such a pleasure to be here. I’m so excited to talk to you today.
Kim Bohr 02:56
It’s going to be a great conversation. And so for our listeners today, we’re going to discuss how your leadership superpower may very well be sabotaging everything you’re trying to achieve. I know that’s a bold statement, and it’s worth listening to hear if what Tracy and I discuss resonates with you, or perhaps some of those even in your own organization. So Tracy, you and I have had looked at a lot of behavioral data over the years. We’ve looked, we’ve had a lot of experience in the realm of leadership and talent. And I think you and I, you know, coming together for this conversation, agreed, there’s some really alarming trends that we’re seeing, and in that it prompted us to perhaps bring forward this discussion for others, to see if maybe we can give some, you know, insight and guidance and direction that people perhaps can really put to use. And so Tito, as we start off, I want to just share with our listeners some statistics that you and I have surfaced that are really relate to the impact of stress and productivity and leadership. So according to the American Institute of Stress, they measure workplace stress, and their site lists several statistics that are very relevant to our conversation. First, they speak to 83% of the US workers say they suffer from daily work related stress. 76% of US workers say that workplace stress affects their personal relationships, and 50% of US workers are not engaged at work, leading to loss of productivity. None of that is what we want to be experiencing. So in our discussion today, we really want to talk about the notion of how wellness programs and reduced workloads really aren’t addressing the real causes of stress. We bring forward this concept that stress and impact to productivity and perhaps someone’s role misalignment is rooted more in these behavioral tendencies that people may not be aware of, that. Once understood, affords agency to making this individual change, and that’s really, really empowering and important to both of us. And so there’s a concept we’ll talk about a little bit later that we want people to understand, called the leadership Bermuda Triangle. But before we go there, we want to share just a little bit about ourselves and how we actually our own leadership journeys brought us into this place. So Tracy, I’d love for you to to kick us off with that.
Tracy Wik 05:23
Sure I would love to. And every time I hear those statistics, I’m always I just cringe, because it’s definitely my experience. From talking to my clients, they’ll tell me those stories, and then you hear those statistics. So prior to coming to Harrison, I was an internal practitioner, and I was head talent management for one of the largest banks in the world, and I had all of talent management, including employee engagement. And I thought I had mastered the art of employee engagement surveys. It was my favorite part of my job. I couldn’t wait to roll it out, and I had the, you know, part of it was to roll it out, but also to lead the executive sessions. The action planning is that, they would say. And I proudly present these intricate data maps and sweeping insights to the executive teams, believing I was driving meaningful change. And then one day, there was a thunderbolt of a question that came from, I’ll remember it. I just, I still see this person, okay, in the second row, a manager with a yellow tie shared my illusion with this piercing question. He’s like, Well, this is great, but what do I actually do? What do I do with this information? And I just thought he didn’t understand. So I went back to the PowerPoint with the aggregated themes and my data and my charts, and he said, No, I understand, but again, what do I do? And so I realized that I’d been delivering these beautiful PowerPoints, and it really didn’t impact at the human level, we were tracking, groups, departments, averages, key themes. But people don’t work in aggregate. They work in moments. They work in conversations. They work in individual connections. So by the third year, this was no longer my favorite aspect of my job, at the least. You know, I just dreaded it, and I felt like I was trapped in this cycle of presenting information that looked impressive but was really creating no real transformation. And so I really got curious about, what is it? What’s missing that could make a difference. And I think that the question that would ultimately change it for me was not so much about, what does the data show, but what can we actually do? And so once I started to ask, what can we actually do, it was then that I came to the notion that you really have to create a common language around behaviors, and what are we asking people to do differently or better or change from a behavioral perspective, and that’s how I came to understand the power of what Dan Harrison has presented In his theories.
Kim Bohr 08:20
Can you just share a little bit before I share my journey around you mentioned the behaviors, and I think people sometimes confuse that with personality traits or things, so just, I think that’s an important factor.
Tracy Wik 08:33
So behaviors, it’s not about personality. It’s about when, again, the yellow tie manager, right? Would ask that question, what I do? What he wanted to understand is, what are the questions? What are the conversations? What does he need to do differently with his people and so behaviorally, that looks like asking questions, that looks like being curious. So it’s about giving them the things to do that would then be at the individual level, to basically create the conversations for change with that individual.
Kim Bohr 09:13
And I think we also talk about, you know, the idea like people think, well, personality is hardwired Well, and that’s true. Behaviors aren’t now, some behaviors may be harder to change, but they’re also they also can be evolved. I think, you know, I love that moment in the description of how you can bring forward. What was that really pivotal point for you in your career? So for me, it was in my first true leadership role, I had taken over a new group. It was in a new city. It was everything was very new. And it was a very, you know, very kind of forward looking organization at the time. This was pre financial crisis type of timeline. And so I remember going in. And trying, you know, to just be, just try to try to just be a manager like I hadn’t really had all the training yet. I hadn’t had great role models in it, frankly. And so I really found that I was not very, very effective. And I can remember, I affectionately say my team was like, it was like, mutiny against me. I can remember this day that I had made a call to a executive coaching firm, and I can remember getting the call back. I was just getting out my car coming home from work one day, and the coach called me back and asked me to tell my story, and I can remember being in the front of my house, and I said, You know what I know is Something’s off. I’ve asked you, my manager and colleagues to tell me, what is it that I’m doing wrong? And nobody can tell me. And I don’t want, I want to lead, and I don’t want to have people feeling the way that they are feeling. And that started my journey down of really understanding what is the at the behavioral change level to create followership, to create, you know, a group of people that really respected what I was trying to bring forward. And that was a game changer for me, and that got me into more and more into the work of the behavioral aspect, like, you know, and then getting introduced into the Harrison and really understanding how much more agency and control we have, and how sometimes, like, the at the root cause, like we talk about, is that these behaviors we don’t even realize are, perhaps, what are getting in our way into being, you know, more effective. So I love that we both have these memories that are like very steering still, that we can steering.
Tracy Wik 11:50
And I, I think you’re quite like, if I could, yeah, but you’re describing is a perfect example, I have an expression called name it to tame it.
Kim Bohr 12:04
So when you have when I’m sure that, that when you are asking people, right, you said they can’t tell me it’s because there’s a language barrier, okay? And it’s the language of leadership that’s really missing. And so people, can I I’m sure you’ve experienced this and for the listeners, and she probably had this conversation too, where Kim and I could be having a conversation about behaviors, or kind of what we think we’re looking for in a boss, and she could use even some of the same language that I mean as I say it. But yet, when we walk away and we come back, we’re very on very different pages. And I think that is part of the challenge, is that without giving people the ability to really understand what we’re talking about and have the same language your experience and my experience is what’s happening in the workforce. And so I think that both of us really have a commitment, which is so fun, to share that, to really help people get the tools that they need so that they don’t have that because it right really creates barriers. And it doesn’t have to be, it really doesn’t. And I think just to extend on that, I think it’s creates barriers, and it becomes personal. Right, people start to feel that somebody is right and uses the labels of maybe they’re a jerk or they don’t care. And there’s these, we jump to this very personal place where most often it’s more that we’re, as you said, we’re just not using the same language. And if we understood that how we define that, then it’s a game changer. And so I think one of the things that I think you and I have talked about, and I think we see so frequently in the work we do, is this place of, you know, unintended consequences, right, where the impact that, like we just said, right? It’s not intentional to be personal, but yet people don’t realize that the perhaps their approach or their lack of empathy, or they’re perhaps not really understanding how to be more clear in their communication or asserting themselves, has this unintended consequence that really could be quite destructive in the organization and their leaders ability to lead. One of the things I think, that I want to really introduce to our listeners in our conversation is we talk about Dr Harrison talks about these ideal behaviors that help really drive performance and strong leadership and performance management. And I think that I want to just share what those are for our listeners as when we start to dive into it. And then I would love for you just talk kick us off around this idea of over indexing, because you have such a beautiful way of talking about it. So for our listeners, so you know the research that Dr Harrison has done, and we’ll put the research paper in the link in the show notes, so that you can get more detail about what we’re speaking to. But the. But these particular behaviors are really centered on the ability to really be successful. And so they are called paradoxes. The idea is that if you think about them individually, you may not think that they complement each other. And yet this is where, if we’re if we have a strong understanding and preference in both these become our superpowers. And so the four that really stand out, the four paradoxes are we think about this idea of warmth and empathy, being kind at which people are, you know, so often wanting to do, but also having that coupled with this idea of enforcing and enforcing, being able to have people still understand what the rules are they have to follow in order to get their work done, assertive and helpful, where we think about being very helpful, but also asserting our own needs, diplomatic and Frank, so being able to be direct and frank, but also in a way that’s very diplomatic. And bringing those two together, and then the fourth pair. Is this, the idea of open and reflective, along with our need of certainty. And those four stood out to us in the conversation, because there’s so much tied to leadership, burnout, wellness, and so when we think about this idea of when we favor one over the other, I’d love for you to just talk a little bit about how you think about that and when you you’re looking at data and working with clients,
Tracy Wik 16:24
sure. So the big idea behind it, I’ll start there, is that in today’s fast paced workplace, leaders are increasingly being asked to exercise what on the surface seems like contradicting skills, when, in fact, the way that the Harrison framework would talk about it is that they’re a continuum. So you know, using the warmth and the empathy, you need to be both related to people have a rapport, but you also have to hold them accountable. And that typically there is a preference or a strength. However, I call it the natural resting state that we have, where we usually have a preference for one or the other, and so that the unintended consequence, you call it over indexing, is when you rely too much on one strength versus another. And what happens when you over rely let’s take the warmth and the empathy versus holding people accountable, the enforcing is that you’re over indexing on that strength excessively, and then what happens is that instead of it becoming useful to you, it starts to have this unintended consequence. Diminishing Returns is that, I would say, and ends up being a potential weakness. So it’s something that people are usually unconscious of, that they’re doing it again, that they are just being them, like you like your story is a perfect example. You just were promoted. You were being the leader that you thought you were to be, and then you don’t really have the capacity to hold people accountable in the way that you should, so you might avoid some of the tough conversations in favor of harmony. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, until it’s not serving the organization or serving the team anymore. And so that, I think is the unintended consequences, is a great way to think about it, because people, I don’t believe people get up, you know, in their day to purposely not do a good job. I think everyone gets up trying to do their best, and so when you give them the language that if they’re relying too much on one strength or another, and by the way, it doesn’t matter. It could be the opposite. It could be the enforcing. You hold people accountable, you know, all the time, and they lose the sense of who you are in the relationship. So it doesn’t matter, but what happens is, when you rely too much on one, it’s not in balance, and it creates this unintended consequence. And the key is to develop the capacity, like you said earlier,
Kim Bohr 19:11
with the behaviors for both. And I think you and I both have experienced that in our work, and I think I love the way you describe it, it’s that there’s this, the continuum and the flow, right? And although we, you know, so many, there’s often belief systems that we’ve had over our own experiences that have, you know, caused us to believe that these are good, this is the way it should be, and that if we flex into bringing either this other behavior into play that might weaken one of the other. You know that what we are, what we naturally do, and that’s where we get into, I think people struggling to perhaps see the opportunity you to change and to bring more balance. Balance into the way they think about leading and interacting with others. I think what’s so important, what we’re talking about, too, is this isn’t just leadership of others. This is just how we engage and go through life, regardless of whether we have direct reports or not. So I bet you and I both have some stories that could help explain maybe some of what we are describing to our listeners, anything that you want to share first? Well,
Tracy Wik 20:25
I’ll just share a story of one of my clients. His name is Joe, and we’re talking about the paradox of being assertive versus helpful. Joe’s strength was he was kind of Off The Charts helpful, if you will. He’s key to your point. He was the guy, okay, you know, like that. You know, I’ve got a guy that was Joe, and he had been at this organization for quite some time over, I think it was 27 years, and so he knew everybody and knew everything, and was the first call, and he made it his. It was a manufacturing facility, and he made it his business to be the guy that everybody called. And so people would call him. And then what started to happen is that he was spending so much time being helpful, that his performance, his individual performance. But then he had gotten promoted, and he had a bigger team, and he was not setting boundaries about who he was helping, when he was helping. He was just being helpful all the time. And it was a situation where he, when we talk about the burnout, I mean, I remember the first time going into his office, he just looked like he needed a nap because he was so overwhelmed. And he was like, I’m working two hours past the time I’m supposed to be working. And we started to just look at his, you know, balance of helpful being completely his strength and the assertive piece, not so much. And so what I said to him was, let’s look at that. Okay, let’s look at how that’s costing you. And at first to your point, he it was just he couldn’t imagine not being helpful. He couldn’t imagine not being the guy that everyone called and I said, don’t worry, you’re still going to be that person, but what you need to do is just learn to say no. So I gave him an assignment that he had to say no, just one time a day, and then he had to be willing to disappoint people. And he it’s, you know, at first it was he couldn’t do it. Then he did it two days a week. Then he did, like, three days a week. He never got to all, you know, five of the working days. But he did recently, we had a fun exchange where I had called him to see how he was doing before Thanksgiving, and normally he would call me right back, but it took him a week, and when he called me, he said, I’m taking your coaching. I knew you were just calling to say hello, and it wasn’t important. So I prioritize other people. I was asserting myself. I hope I disappointed you. That’s what he said to me, and I thought it was such a great example of how this concept came into play. And I thought it was great that he was having so much fun with it, and that we could joke about it. But that’s like a, I think, a great, you know, tangible description of how these things can show up in your own life.
Kim Bohr 23:23
And it sounds like there was such this. It was a reframing for him. Yes,
Tracy Wik 23:29
he was able to see that. I said, Listen, you know, not everybody you need, you’re always going to have the tendency to be helpful. Now, what we want to do is bring in some other aspects, what you had said earlier, and again, this, I think, was a big epiphany. I think a lot of times people think, Well, I’m just helpful. I can’t be any other way. Well, that’s sort of true, but not really. Yes, his his natural resting state might be to help and be the person that you know people call, and he can, as a rational business person think through is Tracy’s call as important as the view of operations, probably not okay, right? And he can prioritize accordingly and be assertive about what it is that he needs to get done. And I find that particular behavior when people realize
Kim Bohr 24:22
there’s so much in that idea of being assertive and helpful. And I found that assertive piece. There’s a lot of baggage in there. Sometimes there’s a, you know, I have found, I found this to your point of Joe, it’s, I don’t necessarily think it’s a gender specific situation, because I found many men and women that have a lower, assertive preference really like to be help, higher, helpful in their behaviors. And it turns out that there’s burnout, there’s opportunity when people feel like they’ve been so helpful and not had the. Ability to have their own needs met in that assertive world that they you know, there’s a this kind of the flip behavior of being more dominant and being kind of out of character. And I think resentment, burnout happens. I was working with a team doing this work looking at the team’s individual and collective data, and one of the things that I found really concerning was that the entire team had this preferences of being very low in their ability to assert their own wants and needs, and very high in their helpful nature. And they were having these stressful moments that were putting them collectively flipping to these areas that were more dominant, and they were starting to have a lot of resentment amongst one another, and burnout, and it was the team was in really dire straits, and work we did was around understanding that that had real consequences around their productivity and their relationships, even the relationships at home, because several of them are finding they weren’t able to create boundaries for what they needed to fulfill at home with their families. And so what we started to work on was helping them to do a lot of that reframing. And it was different. It wasn’t necessarily the same thing for each person, you know, part of it was a sense of, Well, if I assert what I need, then people are going to think I’m not a team player. And for someone else, it was, well, if I assert what I what I, you know, what I need, I’m afraid people think that I’m, you know, selfish or self interested, or some of these other words that we might think of that come up. And so each person had to really identify for themselves. What is it? And then the team collectively had to make an agreement that they needed to have more support around, asking people what else they had on their plate. Asking people, What did they have commitments around for their, you know, their family or other things. And one of the, you know, the tools we ended up playing with was this idea of Yes, and so that someone could have space to say yes, and then literally, and so that they can then have some space to think and negotiate. You know, if it meant helping to reprioritize their workloads, or if it meant giving some space to do it after their kids game, or whatever that might be. And that was a really for that team dynamic. We saw real shift in that particular way of relating to each other and work that was really, really powerful.
Tracy Wik 27:33
I and I can certainly say that that was the case for Joe, because he not only was he tired and burned out, like just really, you could see it in his physical, you know, his full demeanor. It was also that the team was suffering because he was giving so much to that there was no priority around what needed to be done by when. And so there was not the sense of meeting some of the numbers that they needed to meet. And I think then it became this spiral, and then he to your point under stress. And I think this is, again, the kind of how the burnout cycle starts to show you act out. And he would just become, you know, close his door, and then, you know, not return calls and act out in ways that people were like, What got into him. And I said that’s part of it. Is that if you’re not setting up yourself to understand this cycle in advance the reframing piece, you’re at the effect of it. You’re not causing your own outcome that agency you spoke about, Kim, you’re literally at the effect of these unintended consequences. And once he saw that, that’s when it could become playful for him, because prior to that, it was just this vicious cycle that he was in of overworking and feeling underappreciated.
Kim Bohr 28:52
And I think that’s something that so many of us can relate to. And I think what I find interesting about this conversation is that we all can fall into it and not realize we have, yeah, you know, and this kind of idea of the rat race, or, you know, constantly going through. And I think, you know, your mantra around wanting people to love Sundays is a really great framing of what’s possible when people think about, you know, how to break that cycle? You know, when we think about this work, there’s such a deep aspect around accountability. And I think sometimes, often, I think accountability is thought of, less of this kind of personal, maybe personal choice and how we show up, but more about that. What’s on my job description, what I’m you know, what I’m supposed to deliver. And yet, I think what we’ve found as we’ve done this work and all this data that we’ve looked through over the many years is that there’s accountability in all aspects of this data and aspects of these behaviors that really, you know, you. Drive performance. And I curious if you have thoughts on how some of that accountability starts to, you know, to surface or gets missed when people are moving through this kind of just before they have this awareness. Yeah, I
Tracy Wik 30:15
think that. I think it’s very freeing for people to see that there is a place that they can go to once they have the behaviors, right when we give them that language, like even just what we’re talking about, having self, you know, reflective or assertive and helpful. But I think that what starts to happen before that is, there’s missed deadlines, there’s unexpected, you know, resentment, kind of your story of the team, there’s and then it’s always the people, and this was definitely happening with Joe. That are the best performers, that seem to be the most upset about these dynamics. So there’s this kind of like self sacrificing spiral, almost, is how I would describe it, in terms of and then what happens is the person continues to do more of these behaviors that don’t actually get them where they need to, and it becomes this perpetuation. So it’s really something that doesn’t necessarily make sense to people when they’re in it, but when you give them this framing of it, then they can take a step back and see to your point. Oh, I need to be accountable to myself first, and then set this up. And I think that’s when it really makes a big difference for people.
Kim Bohr 31:37
What’s been your most surprising or, you know, just like I say, surprising experience in working with people at this, you know, with this behavioral level of data and and seeing, you
31:52
know, the impact,
Tracy Wik 31:52
I think it’s when you talk about the preference, the strength of being helpful. Let’s keep let’s continue with Joe. And Joe is helpful, helpful, helpful. And then all of a sudden there’s a stressor, there’s the moment the straw that broke the camel’s back, and Joe becomes the opposite of how he normally is, okay, and it’s very upsetting to the individual when they’re acting against how they see themselves, to your point, their own perceptions. And then it’s even more upsetting to the team, because employees, you know, they want leaders to be consistent, so if the person’s acting inconsistently, it’s this big kind of snowball effect. And so what’s been the most empowering and the most surprising for me is how when you give people that language that I just had a moment I just flipped, I’m acting out of how I normally am, you give them the ability to speak about it in language with no make wrong. It’s not you’re just being you, and here’s what happened, here’s the circumstance, here’s the pattern, if you will. What has been empowering about this taking the Joe example is how Joe literally uses these examples in his meetings with his people in a way that says, I may act differently than you know me on a regular basis, I’m just having a moment. And he calls it the hurricane moment. I flip and have this hurricane moment, because that’s kind of how we visualize this effect, like a hurricane blew in. I’m acting differently. And to me, that’s the most surprising, is then people get it. His people are like, Oh, he just had a moment. He just flipped. You know, they don’t go and do maybe what your team did with the mutiny. They literally give you so much more grace, and in that grace, you have the ability to continually learn, and so do they. And so to me, that’s been the most, which is why I’m talking about this, because I’ve never seen another tool that can do that type of true transformation so powerfully, so simply, with no make wrong as what I see when we’re using this language.
Kim Bohr 34:10
Yep. And I love how you said that, too. I think one of the pieces I’m always encouraging people is like, this is not good or bad. There’s no, you know, there’s it’s not this binary place. It’s about just this is just how we are, and we can shift and grow and change, because it’s behavioral based. And that’s okay. This is where we’re at this time, and we do have places that we’re going to more naturally fall to. But I really do try to make sure people think about this from a place of, this isn’t a judgmental lens, it’s a awareness building lens. And then you get to decide if what you’re experiencing, if you’re getting the results, you want that level of self reflection. And for some people, it might be and that’s great. One of the things I think that will you know, as we mentioned. Having this Dr Harrison’s research in the notes, I think is really important, is this idea that the leadership Bermuda triangle, and I hope our listeners will go and download this and really read it and understand just the thinking behind how certain behaviors, when they string together, really can very detrimental to a leader’s ability to be effective. And you know, I wanted to share some stats that just really support this. Gallup did another 2020 survey. It’s their 10th iteration of this survey they’ve been doing for a number of years, and they linked employee engagement and 11 performance indicators. I want to just share with the listeners the listeners the top four, and we’ll put the link in the show notes to this research as well. So what they linked was that employee engagement is linked to customer and loyalty. Engagement of the customer, it’s linked to profitability, productivity and turnover, everything we’ve talked about today and that we know that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores. So just having knowing, when we talk about that, we all have heard those kind of stats, or we hear things like, you know, people leave because of their managers, and yet, there’s this real disconnect as to it’s like a big, it feels like a big, you know, jump between, well, yes, we know that, and how do we fix it? And so I think what we want to really be able to really start to talk a little bit more about is so how can people start to understand what maybe is going on, and what can they do about it? And so I don’t know if you have any thoughts that you want to kick us off with there or thoughts about anything that we’ve talked about so far. But I want to do well, I think,
Tracy Wik 36:48
as I’m hearing the statistics again and when you’re sharing your story, I think, I think it’s the first step I know, like, especially if we link it to, like, the burnout and the stress, that we kind of come back up to yes off of why we’re talking about this, and that we think that they’re not telling the entire story of the, you know, the leaders dilemma. Yes, it’s that, if you understand that you have these behavioral tendencies, and we use that language, and you prefer some over the other. But it’s not fixed, that you actually can intervene if you had the awareness and that it’s not bad, it’s your point. It’s not wrong. It just is that, to me, is the most empowering place. And I’ve seen this with leaders to stand because then they’re freed up to take action in ways that they wouldn’t. And I think that correlates to some of the statistics that if you talk about managers who are able to use these concepts and behaviorally adjust by getting better. It’s not perfect, by the way. You’re not that’s not even a goal. You’re just it’s just right. Having a, what I call an expanded repertoire of how you deal with different individuals and different circumstances, then I think it really is a place that you can start to create compelling employee experiences with leaders and employees, because it’s a journey that they’re on together, versus I’m just burnt out. I’m just in my office, and I think, to me, that’s the big aha that I want people to leave with, that there are ways you can get your arms around this and start to go to work on it, so that you don’t feel so trapped. Because I think that’s part of why people are so stressed, is it they feel just either in their role or or their organization, or in their in their who they are being? Indeed,
Kim Bohr 38:48
I agree, and I think that’s when you and I started talking about this topic we were talking to, you know, it’s, it’s like, somehow we have to interrupt or disrupt the patterns that so many people are in their in their lives, in their organizations, and, you know, just setting goal lists and just kind of trying to do all of that isn’t enough if we haven’t actually addressed the behaviors that are getting in our way from achieving, whether those are personal or professional goals, and whether those are, you know, leading or Just being able to show up and feel like you’re been productive and fulfilled in your daily work. One of the things that I think you know I was just reflecting on in our conversation is you talked about how the man with the yellow tie and how that really took you to this place of how do we start to find and how to bring more of this type of data in to be more engaged? I’d be curious if for you to talk us, to talk for us to talk a little bit about, how does this start to make that connection back for organizations in the way that they could actually understand how engagement could. That could be looked at different or more completely. Well, I
Tracy Wik 40:04
think that you can take a look at your engagement data, and you can look thematically like there’s, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with group themes. They can be quite useful. But what I would say is, what’s the story of the story of the data. It’s again, kind of coming back to that question, what can we actually do? So it’s not enough to know that communication is an issue. So what I always look at is, do you know those turnover triggers? Do you know those experience underneath it that are having people report that communication is an issue. And I think you don’t really, you can get this information really, quite easily, actually, by just asking your employees. And you can do you can just even put out a not even, you know, say, just tell us. What does this look like? Where are the friction points? That’s what I would say. And I think so often in, you know, employee engagement, like the readouts. I know in ours, we didn’t do that. We just gave the themes. But if we had just even come down one layer below, we would then be able to look at, what are some of those turnover triggers, and what are the warning signs, and how can we equip the managers in advance, as opposed to waiting till after the fact?
Kim Bohr 41:19
So what are so I think that’s so important to try to crystallize, you know, what we’re speaking to, and so what, when you think about, you know, you and I have talked about, what are some of the the ways to help people think about what those triggers might be, and what could they, you know, if they didn’t have the level of behavioral data that we’re speaking to, but they wanted to start to just kind of pay more attention. What are some things that you maybe would share with them? Sure.
Tracy Wik 41:48
So the first thing I would say is know that your natural resting state, ie, your preferences, are always there, and so be careful of what I call the overcorrection. So if we are somebody like myself, who is more of empathy person than enforcing I’m pretty low on enforcing myself, then if you’re finding yourself over like being in communication with people, like getting to know more people, that’s kind of like the over correction, and it’s probably not going to go very well for you. So kind of take a step back and think about what I always like to tell people is, how much white space do you have on your calendar? How much of the warning signs are you aware of
42:35
before?
Tracy Wik 42:36
And I think that’s what Joe did. I said you got to take a step back, and I literally gave him an assignment about how much white space do you have. You have to come back to me with reporting how many minutes you have of white space where you just can reflect and decide what you need to do. And he was shocked to find you didn’t really have any when he first did it. But I wasn’t because somebody who’s over correcting helpful, right? Probably wouldn’t have a lot of white space. Yeah. And then the other thing that I think is another client I just last week, I talked about, is to set up an accountability partner who’s a safe partner outside of it, could be your boss, it could be a co worker, it could be somebody at your faith based community. It could be anybody, but to it’s holding you accountable to that white space, or to that reflection, or to a different type of behavior, because I think that’s when you start to see, oh, okay, I have a choice here that I didn’t know I had, because you’re just kind of caught up in the moment. So those are really, they seem kind of white space on my calendar or an accountability partner, but they really do make a huge difference for people.
Kim Bohr 43:50
I’ve experienced that as well. I think those are great tips. And I think, you know, all of us know when we’re we could literally feel our bodies changing when there’s something happening that is out of, perhaps out of character for us, and we can feel the maybe building where that’s a that’s a where it’s a time to pay attention and to try to create that white space if we don’t have it already planned in of realizing, like, Okay, I need to take a step back before I I react, which tends to be those hurricanes, as you you noted, if we don’t do that, I think, you know, some of the, some of the things that I will share with people’s, you know, just to create the moment to think is, as I mentioned before, this idea of Yes, and this idea of, you know, reframing when we think about enforcing. There’s so much just reframing opportunity to what does it mean? So I think people can get themselves into a trap often, if they’re lower on the enforcing preference, by when they start to think of things like, you know, I’ve hired really smart people. They’re supposed to just know how to get their job done. I shouldn’t have to babysit. At them. I shouldn’t have to. It’s that kind of if you know, if any of our listeners have have told that of themselves, said that to themselves, at any point, it’s very likely there may be this you have a lower preference in the enforcing area. And yet, whether we have direct reports or we’re just working cross collaboratively, we still need to find ways to engage with others to get our work done, especially in this more interconnected world that most of us are working in. And I, I often will tell people that there’s part of that, that area of enforcing is setting more clear expectations, literally, like, what’s the expectation of our deadlines? What’s the expectation of what we’re producing, or what’s coming into our one on ones, and what’s the structure and that clarity alone moves people into a stronger place around enforcing. And so there are tactical tips that can help bring us as you described and as I’m sharing, that can help people move in these areas pretty effectively, completely.
Tracy Wik 46:03
I mean, I I’m just thinking of this CEO that I worked for who, literally, he must have said that, well, I’m only hiring people that know what they’re doing and, you know, and we all were worried we weren’t doing what we were supposed to because we didn’t know. I mean, I mean, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so even if you’re hiring good people, you still need, from a clarity perspective, to make sure they’re aware about what the expectations are. And it’s something even if your natural resting state isn’t to do that, which is certainly wasn’t, it went a long way when we had team meetings and we all were aligned and we understood what was expected. So to your point, that’s a really great step to take that can create huge results in terms of performance into you know, from the clarity perspective,
Kim Bohr 46:54
absolutely. So I think for our listeners, you and I are certainly action oriented people. We’re also very much experiential people. And in addition to some of these, you know, tips we’ve shared, I you know, we want to present maybe some internal challenges that people can take on in order to just try to for themselves, see where they’re at. And so I want to, I’ll share the first one I’m just thinking of. I think, you know, we could ask people, they should ask themselves. So count how many times this week you say yes to request while your inner voice is screaming. I have no idea how I’m going to get Yeah. And if you’re finding that volume of yeses to be pretty high, there’s a really good chance you have an opportunity to increase that assertive preference and reframe what that looks like for you.
47:50
I’m just thinking, that’s what Joe did. That’s why I was laughing.
Kim Bohr 47:52
Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes. Tracy, do you have a with something that stands out to you that you, well,
Tracy Wik 48:02
there’s, this is kind of a it’s the same challenge, but it’s two sides of the same coin, okay, so what I think people, there’s people who have a preference, where they are great with high fives, great job. Okay? And even, and then there’s the other side of people who are, you know, kind of, you could have done something, okay, like, kind of the so I call it like a green target, like, great job. And yeah, other side is more like, you know, you miss the mark. So what I think is is interesting is just to notice, because you’ll notice, now that we’ve had this conversation, that you have a preference for one or the other, either the high fives or do you know you miss my you know expectation or you could have, and so just notice that you’re probably relying on one side of that coin or the other. Again, not bad. There’s just might be an unintended consequence of, are you missing the people who you need to hold accountable? Right? They’re missing a mark, but you said Great job, or conversely, you’re giving constructive feedback to people who might need a high five. So I think that’s just a really good one to see, because what I noticed is people definitely one side or the other of that coin is flipped.
Kim Bohr 49:20
I like that. I think one other one that comes to mind that might resonate for people is, you know, if you are in a position of leadership, or just a position where you know you need to give somebody some perhaps critical feedback, something that might feel like it’s really challenging, if you find yourself delaying to do that, telling somebody else, and hope that they will convey the message on your behalf, just hoping that it will get better, gonna go away. It’s just hopefully it’ll go away. They just, you know, if I will it enough, they will actually get that through my my energy. That is. Is not going to be the really great solution. And so if you find yourself in that situation, that’s a real opportunity to just step back and think about you’re not doing service to the individual or to yourself or to your organization. And so that’s, I think, a real opportunity to be paying attention to as well,
Tracy Wik 50:21
for sure. And then I just think the other one that I would just bring up again is the white space, okay, and that that goes across that’s not just about helpful, but that’s also for some of the achievement folks who get their needs met by the achievement more and more and more. Yeah, there’s a place where you have to stop and say, I’m okay. I’m okay, where we are. So if you are either saying yes, too much to things that you shouldn’t that overly helpful, or the achievement where I have to self improve, self and grow, I have to keep going, going, going. I would just take a, you know, Tally up, like I gave Joe that that. How many minutes do you have where you can actually reflect, as opposed to going from one meeting, one phone call, to the next. That brings to mind for me, when you know high achievers are I often use the analogies, like you keep you go to accomplish something, but then you move the goal post on yourself. So you keep moving the goal out, and so you you don’t even acknowledge that what I achieved is great and I can still do more or do better or whatever, right? But there’s this idea of like, it’s just not good enough. It’s just not good enough. And that comes to mind when you say that of you know, if we’re thinking about never celebrating where we’re at and accepting that we can still want to do more or improve that is a recipe for real burnout. Real burnout.
Kim Bohr 51:47
So as we bring our this conversation to close, Tracy, is there anything you want to share you feel like we have just to emphasize or anything we haven’t hit on that you want to make sure the listeners are exposed to,
Tracy Wik 52:03
I would just say, start where you are. Wherever you are is where you’re supposed to be. And there’s no there’s no place to get to. It’s just understanding where you are and then using these concepts that you know because, because, if you hear this, I think sometimes it can occur overwhelming, and it doesn’t have to be. So just start where you are, and then then it leads you into a new place with, you know, an expansive repertoire of what you need as a leader. And I just think that’s, that’s the big takeaway for me, you build your toolkit. You build your toolkit. Yeah, I love it. So for our listeners, there’s two resources that we hope you’ll take advantage of.
Kim Bohr 52:47
The first one is a very generous offer from Tracy and the Harrison team. If you are interested in taking the Harrison instrument and finding out for yourself what your preferences are and opportunities to grow. We will have a code that you can do that for complimentary experience, including a debrief with one of our certified professionals. That code will be on our courage to advance podcast.com, website, the second resource also on that same website is a self reflective experience, good activity that you can walk yourself through. It gives you some of these concepts, of these scenarios, and even some other other, more reflective questions that may help you do your own, a bit of your own assessment of where you might be falling into some traps. So we hope you’ll take advantage of both of those resources, and what I want to just say in closing is again, thank you so much, Tracy for sharing the conversation and your expertise and the passion that we both share around hopefully figuring finding this as a way for people to really make more tangible moves into healthier relationships with our our work in the ways that we’ve talked about. So thank you very much.
Tracy Wik 54:07
You’re welcome. Thank you for having me. It’s been so much. It’s just a delight.
Kim Bohr 54:11
It’s been wonderful. And I want to thank the empathy edge for hosting our podcast sub series, to the listeners that are tuning into this episode and really, just to say, you know, when we think about the whole premise of this podcast of courage to advance, it’s really where Transformative Leadership isn’t about having all the answers, it’s about having the courage to find them. Thank you, everyone we look forward to having you. Tune in again
Maria Ross 54:38
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™
Today, sports fans and high achievers, you’re in for a treat! Empathy is not soft. It’s not weak. Nothing thrills me more than when I can share examples of empathetic leadership that help win national championships or create winning sports dynasties. You may recall my example of Golden State Warriors coach, Steve Kerr, in my book, The Empathy Dilemma.
Emmy award-winning producer and sports broadcaster Jen Mueller shares how she’s seen coaching and leadership styles evolve in the last few decades, how she conducts sideline interviews with athletes who may have either had the worst or best day of their careers, why empathy is not just showing up on a bad day, but encouraging and celebrating your team’s best days, and why top athletes and performers crave clarity and feedback in order to get better. You’ll get so many tips on how to deliver feedback, ask the right questions, and infuse joy and levity into your team for championship-level performance.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
We don’t need or want to be cruel in the name of candor. Candor and clarity are empathetic and can help everyone understand where they are at.
Prepare ahead so that you can be with your team in the moment. Consider: how do you give somebody permission to talk about their win and an easy way to share in that celebration with everybody else?
You can lead a high-performance team, while still leaving room for emotion, feelings, and disappointment when things don’t go well.
“We assume that everybody understands what winning and losing look like and they don’t. When you are clear, now people can do their job to the highest level.” — Jen Mueller
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
Jen Mueller: Producer, Broadcaster, Founder, Talk Sporty to Me
Jen Mueller is an Emmy award-winning producer and sports broadcaster based in Seattle. A 24-year sports broadcasting veteran, she currently serves as the Seattle Seahawks radio sideline reporter and is a member of the Seattle Mariners television broadcast team on ROOT SPORTS. She was honored for her work in the industry in 2022 as the recipient of the Keith Jackson Media Excellence Award presented by the Seattle Sports Commission.
In addition to her work on the sidelines, Jen is an established business communication expert and the founder of Talk Sporty to Me. She’s published three books that outline her approach to conversations and effective communication. She is also the executive producer, host and creator of “I Cook, You Measure” a cooking show on YouTube.
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Today, sports fans and high achievers, you’re in for a treat. Empathy is not soft. It’s not weak. And nothing thrills me more than when I can share examples of empathetic leadership that helps win national championships or create winning sports dynasties. You may recall my example of Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr in my book The Empathy dilemma today, Jen Mueller shares how she has seen empathy show up in high performing sports teams. Jen is an Emmy Award winning producer and sports broadcaster based in Seattle, a 24 year sports broadcasting veteran. She currently serves as the Seattle Seahawks radio sideline reporter and is a member of the Seattle Mariners television broadcast team on root sports. She was honored for her work in the industry in 2022 as the recipient of the Keith Jackson media Excellence Award presented by the Seattle Sports Commission. In addition to her work on the sidelines, Jen is an established business communication expert and the founder of talk sporty. To me, she’s published three books that outline her approach to conversations and effective communication. She’s also the executive producer, host and creator of I cook you measure a cooking show on YouTube today, we talk about how she’s seen coaching and leadership styles evolve in the last few decades, how she conducts sideline interviews with athletes that may have either had the worst or best day of their careers. Why empathy is not just showing up on a bad day, but encouraging and celebrating your team’s best days. And why top athletes and performers crave clarity and feedback in order to get better, you’ll get so many tips on how to deliver feedback, ask the right questions and infuse joy and levity into your team for championship level performance. This is a great one. Take a listen. Welcome Jen Mueller to the empathy edge podcast. I have been so looking forward to this conversation with
Jen Mueller 02:50
you. It has been on my books for a while. I cannot wait to dive in.
Maria Ross 02:55
I know and your work is so interesting. We just heard your bio. You know, all the impressive accomplishments that you’ve had, sort of the voice of the Seahawks in many respects, and sideline reporter, and also the work that you do with talk sporty to me and helping people communicate more effectively and leverage sports as a way to find commonality and find common ground, which is a huge theme with empathy. But I want to know this is always the first question I start with is, what’s your story? Briefly, how did you even get into this work? How did you get into the work of sports, casting, producing, and then ultimately doing the work you do with helping teams communicate better?
Jen Mueller 03:32
I have to give a lot of credit to my high school guidance counselor, Sandra Steele. Mrs. Steele, saw something in me that I did not well. I guess technically, everybody saw that I could talk a lot and that I wasn’t afraid to talk in front of people. And I thought it was going to be a teacher. I had grown up wanting to be a third grade teacher, and that seemed like a pretty safe and straightforward path. And Mrs. Hill said, Have you ever considered broadcasting? And I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, because who knew a broadcaster like, how do you even get started on that? Yeah, as it turns out, you go to school for that, and you get internships, and then you get a job, just like everything else, you’re working your way up, and you’re gaining skills as you go. The one thing that I tell people when they ask me for career advice when it comes to my story is, if you would have asked me what my dream job was, or what I would be doing at this point in my career, so I’m 25 years into my career, my dream job was anything working in sports. I didn’t care what city it was in. I don’t care what sports teams I was covering. All I wanted was a chance to work in sports. When I started down this path, they were allowing women, but not necessarily encouraging and supporting women. So my vision and my goal was way too small and way too narrow. I have spent the last 18 years on the mariners. Television, broadcast. I’m 16 seasons with the Seahawks. It has been really cool to see the conversations, the people that I’ve gotten to meet, the experiences that I’ve had. And I would say this, it is always about finding the opportunity in the conversation, and I think that’s where it all ties in, because for me, if I wouldn’t have advocated for myself in the smallest ways possible, I wouldn’t be here. And I’m very passionate about making sure that my clients in the corporate sector have those same tools so that they can do that
Maria Ross 05:34
as well. Yeah, I love that idea of presence and being able to adapt in the moment, because if you look at the data and the research, and you can choose a field like sales, what makes sales people successful is not knowing the product inside out and not memorizing the pitch. It’s actually empathy combined with ambition, and that’s because they’re able to adapt in the moment when they’re talking to somebody, to be able to read the room, and it sounds like you’ve employed a lot of those skills too. When you’re interviewing someone, you don’t know what they’re going to say, so you have to be in a place where it’s like, well, you can’t say no. They’re not following the script. They’re not saying what I want them to say, right? So how do you create that common ground when you’re when you’re interviewing athletes and they’re just coming off the field, right? Well,
Jen Mueller 06:19
there’s a lot going on when they are just coming off the field. I think the thing that people miss most often, and that sales example, is a great one, right? We go into conversations, and we think that being present means everything has to happen organically in the moment. You can’t have a script, you can’t have these things formulated ahead of time, and we set ourselves up to fail all the time, right? So when athletes come off the field, I am having a conversation about their day at work. So to compare this to business, what we’re doing is having a performance review in the moment, in front of everybody on TV in the stadium, and in some cases, it is a post mortem on what went wrong, right? So empathy starts with understanding, right, the tone and the context and all of those things. But I have also written out my questions ahead of time, and you’re right. I don’t know exactly what they are going to say, but empathy allows me to put myself in their shoes and guess their response to the degree that I need to meet my objective, right? Because these interviews are about three questions long. They generally do not go more than 90 seconds, so I am on a tight, tight timeline to get the answers they need that resonate with the audience. And ultimately, if you ask me, what I do for a living, I give people a platform to tell their stories. I want to make sure that, however I phrase that question, I give you a platform to tell me the story of the play, the game, the hard work that you put in what this means to your family. All of that has to be thought through ahead of time, so that in that moment, you can be present and not thinking of the next question and not thinking of the next answer, and not going, Oh my gosh. But I forgot to ask about this, and I forgot, oh, once you were prepared. Now you can be present. Now you can hear, and that conversation, it feels like a conversation instead of an interview, for
Maria Ross 08:26
sure, and I think that’s great advice for anyone delivering a performance review. In general, it’s, you know, the points you need to discuss, you know, it’s their performance, and you know, the hardest ones are when it’s difficult, but it’s giving them space to tell their story and getting curious about what actually happened for you out there. How do you think the game went? Right? Yeah,
Jen Mueller 08:45
that’s exactly right. Yeah, you just kind of open it up. How would you rate your performance today? And they’ll tell you, I think don’t give people in business enough credit. And I know why this happens, and part of it is, I work in a very highly accountable environment, right? High performance athletes know when they have messed up. They know when they didn’t meet expectations. They know when they weren’t prepared, and they fully expect to be called out on it. Now I might not be the one calling you out, but a manager or coach is going to call you out. Your teammates going to call you out, the front office is going to call you out. And so I think the difficult conversations have a very different tone in sports, because everybody just watched it all play out. And so the harder conversations is when you realize how much it means to these guys, like the mistake is a mistake, right? Not having the same talent level as another team, you can’t fix that. What’s hard is a seven game losing streak and you just feel it like you feel their pain and you feel their frustration. That’s hard, right? That’s hard when a guy’s on the verge of tears because he knows that his play just resulted. In an outcome that hurt everybody else, right? Like those are the harder conversations to me than what we think of in business,
Maria Ross 10:07
exactly. And you as you know, I’ve looked to sports for some analogies around leading with empathy, and I know in my most recent book the empathy dilemma, you really liked my story about Steve Kerr and I just so admire him, the coach of the Golden State Warriors, and his entire value system and ethos around coaching with empathy. And you know, great example of someone who learned it from someone who modeled it, but also how it’s not just about punitive and writing people and pressuring. It’s about trying to get to know each individual player and what their strengths and their challenges are, and helping them create not just a group of people on a court, but actually creating a team to your point. Each person has very clear expectations of what their role is, and when they don’t deliver, they understand that is something that needs to be improved, versus sometimes in the workplace, we have people who think they’re doing a great job because we don’t know what mission they’re signing up for, because the leader hasn’t been clear about what, and not just we’re getting our individual jobs done, but what on this team? How do we operate and what do we expect from each other, and that’s how you can balance empathy and accountability. So I would love to hear from you. You know you’ve been around sports a long time. Have you seen a shift in the coaching style, or has it been that you’ve always seen this secret, quote, unquote, to success, and many other coaches didn’t realize it until now. We’re talking about it like, what’s been your perspective on on leadership and how it’s evolved in sports,
Jen Mueller 11:45
I think it absolutely has undergone a shift in the last 15 or so years. Every coach that I had growing up, granted, I only played through high school, but every coach I had growing up, and every coach that I observed when I was in college and, you know, just getting into the industry, it was old school, right? And it was exactly what you were describing. There’s no smiling, there’s a laughing, you know, yeah, you were having fun because you got to play sports. But I wouldn’t say that practices were fun, right? There was a lot of yelling, a lot of screaming, the accountability. It was always about, like, toughening you up. But I would say, like old school, it was like you got to be tougher than the next person out there. And what changed for me was Pete Carroll, who I think is very comparable. He and Steve Kerr are very good friends. Pete Carroll was the head coach of the Seahawks for 14 years. He was previously at USC one national championships. And I will tell you, Maria. And it is so funny to me to think about this. I remember exactly where I was when I found out that Pete Carroll was being hired to see I was in the frozen food section of Costco, and the alert comes through on my phone, and I’m like, this is never gonna work like, I don’t think that this college approach is ever gonna work in the NFL, and I don’t know if I’m gonna like working in this environment anymore. It is so ridiculous to think about, because Pete completely changed everything, and it was fun, and he proved that you could, in fact, have fun and be successful and be a high performer, and he did all of those things that you were talking about with Steve Kerr, and when Steve Kerr and Pete Carroll have that kind of success, now, what gives other coaches permission? Because nobody wants to go out there and fail, right while being empathetic and try to, I think all of those things happened behind the scenes prior to some of these big coaches. So you would have, like, position coaches, and they would be the ones who would come and put their arm around guys or gals, right, and coach them up and love them up. But that kind of happened behind the scenes. What you were seeing now is coaches who weren’t afraid to tell guys that they love them. We’re seeing coaches intentionally maximize the skill set, even if it’s non traditional and that doesn’t fit, you know, the mold of this position, or, you know, this type of offense or defense. I think it’s also giving people business a different way to think about things 100%
Maria Ross 14:13
I think the more that we have those models, and that was my whole desire when I wrote the empathy edge was we’ve gotta normalize this. We’ve gotta show people that there are examples of leaders and teams who are winning with empathy. Because if we don’t see it, we can’t be it. I mean, representation matters, and the fact that you have people, this is what I love about this. This sports is an industry. Professional sports is an industry where it’s pretty binary, you win or you lose. Yes, right? And if they can accommodate and make room for empathetic leadership in order to succeed, then you know, some software company, some manufacturing firm, surely can find a way to leverage empathy to get the best out of their employees and to create an environment where people want. To be there. They want to be part of the team. And you know, I hate it when I hear coddling. It’s not coddling. If the goal is to get the best out of your people and to perform and hit your numbers and make your goals and get your bonuses, then do what you need to do to help people be their best at work and to not be afraid to innovate, not be afraid to improvise, not be afraid to fail, because that’s where you’re going to get change and transformation and innovation. Yes,
Jen Mueller 15:31
and you made some great points in the book about how empathy. I used to just define it as putting myself in their shoes, right? But all of the examples that you kind of pulled out and that you teased out, empathy is also clarity, and empathy is joy, and empathy is all of these other things tied together, and clarity is a really big one. So when you see that sports is binary, look, everybody knows what the objective is. The objective is. There’s four more points, right? Yeah, and we laugh at that, right? Because every sports and everybody knows the objective. We are not nearly as clear business now, me, as a business owner, I know what my objective is, but do the people who are helping me execute this, do they know what it is? We assume that everybody understands what winning, losing look like and they don’t. And when you are clear now, people can do their job to the highest level, right? That’s not coddling. And I tell you, every single athlete so there’s cut down day in the NFL, they used to say the Turk is coming for your playbook, right? It used to. And if you’ve ever watched hard knocks, right? They make it this big, dramatic thing, yeah. Guys care, obviously, whether they get cut or they don’t get cut, and they do. But more than anything, they want you to tell them the truth leading up to that, they want clarity on where they stand if they are the bottom two on the roster. It doesn’t hurt nearly as badly as finding out they thought they were up here, and they’re actually down here exactly. We’re finding out. All you wanted me to do was work on my hand placement, or my foot placement, or this is the drill that I wasn’t performing at and so you started to question my ability, but all I needed to do was that if you were just there with me from the beginning, I would have done that. Yeah, might not have been enough to make the team, but it’s, I guess it is the difficult conversation in business. But I really love how you brought that out being empathetic, because we do tend to avoid those conversations. Yeah, yeah. We anticipate somebody pushing back against having that player. That’s where
Maria Ross 17:38
we confuse empathy with being nice. That’s where we confuse empathy with it means I’m never going to upset you, right? And there’s a way to do it like there’s radical candor and there’s kind candor, right? We don’t want to be candid in the name of candor. We don’t want to be cruel, right? There’s a way to be direct and clear without being cruel to somebody and saying, Well, I’m just being honest, right? We hear that all the time. But that idea of it’s not just about and it’s not just about being with someone in a difficult performance review or in the hard situations or when things are quote, unquote bad. It’s also about being empathetic in the moments where they’re performing well and seeing things from their perspective, and seeing things when, when things are going right? And so we often, I think that’s where we conflate empathy and sympathy, right? Yes, is that you can be empathetic in the good times too, and share in the good times with people?
Jen Mueller 18:33
Yeah. And I would say the thing that always goes through my head when I’m doing a post game interview, so during Mariner season. If it is a huge win, I’m probably dodging a Gatorade bath right now. For some of these guys, they have experienced that moment of celebration any number of times, right? I mean, it doesn’t happen all the time, but it would happen enough that it is not a new experience for them, right? There have been very specific moments in my career where I know this is the only walk off interview this athlete will ever have, and having that awareness at the beginning of the interview my question, there’s always one question there that is specifically for his family, so that When you look at this 30 years from now, 40 years from now, you get to play this for your kids and your grandkids, and you got to have that moment of joy in front of everybody like that. Those are the sorts of things. Yeah, we do what we’re looked at right? Because we think, Oh, great. You already know that you did a great job, right? Everybody’s cheering for you. They’re celebrating you. Of course, you did a great job. You know that? Yeah, how do you give somebody permission to talk about it and an easy way to share in that celebration with everybody else?
Maria Ross 19:55
I love that. I just got goosebumps when you said that, because I think that it’s such a level. Of awareness that you’re bringing to it as an interviewer of just like, what frame of mind is this person in, also based on your experience, knowing that you’re going to make this a moment, whether they realize it’s a moment or not. You know what I mean, and that’s the forethought, that’s the preparation that goes into being empathetic, so that in the moment, you can be with that person where they are, and that’s what we mean by empathy. I always say, you know, empathy is not us crying on the floor with our employees. I mean, it might be, you know, you might be crying with your team. It doesn’t mean it’s always that, yeah.
Jen Mueller 20:31
And I think sometimes we have this cop out of, well, I don’t know how they’re gonna react. I know what they’re gonna say to that, hell am I supposed to know? Right? That’s their life. It’s not my life. And I would say this, I always know what the answer to the question is going to be in that I know that if I am the pitcher who just pitched a complete game, right, I’ve never thrown a pitch in a big game. I have never done that. What I have done is absolutely crushed an assignment. You know what that feeling is? It’s the same feeling, right? Like, yes, you can sit there and say, Well, I don’t know. Like, how am I supposed to know that they wanted to talk about this, how am I supposed to know? Well, you didn’t know, because fucking what’s comparable in your world, right? Right? You. And this is a question that drives me crazy. What were you thinking on that play? I hate that question, because now you can ask it kindly, hey, oh my God, what did you see and what were you thinking on that play? Or it can come across as a challenge,
Maria Ross 21:32
what were you thinking?
Jen Mueller 21:33
What were you think, right? In either case, which approach do you appreciate more? Do you want somebody to come up to you and say, Hey, what were you thinking and you sent that email when you pitched that idea. Or would you rather have somebody come to you and say, hey, that’s interesting. Where did you get that idea? Or, I haven’t heard it felt like that before. How did you reach that conclusion? Right? That’s a very different tone of conversation. And my guess is you would appreciate the lab rather than the form, right? You’re
Maria Ross 22:07
going to be less on the defensive if you get that kind of an approach. So I want to talk about this idea of we were just mentioning it about showing empathy isn’t just about showing up when people have a bad day. So there’s always a way to connect and put yourself in their shoes. You gave us some examples. What are some ways that you’ve seen coaches balance, you know, winning streaks or balance when the team’s doing well. I mean, they don’t just say, like, Good job. Go home. No need to practice anymore, right? So how do they have empathy for the fact that their team is enjoying the win, enjoying the success, and they still need to be accountable. They still need to put in the reps. They still probably have things to work on. Have you seen some examples of coaches, whether in your own sports life or on the sidelines, where you’ve seen them handle that really deftly?
Jen Mueller 23:00
I think part of a sports schedule takes care of this a little bit right, because your practice schedule just happens. However, coaches do make sure that players get a chance to enjoy time when they have it. So sometimes during the NFL season, I’ll have what they call a victory Monday, and it will cancel all practice in meetings on Monday, so you get a bonus surprise day off on long paid time off exactly, exactly. Now it doesn’t happen often, because there still is the responsibility of you got to take care of your body and all of that stuff, you know, on long flights. Hope they don’t necessarily go over film all the time. They will sit and watch a movie and they will have fun. Now, it’s only a couple hours, right? But that was kind of their time to decompress. I think the other thing is, when they have team meetings, yeah, you get the bad highlight meals like these are the plays that we need to fix, yeah, but they also show these are the plays that you did really well, and to keep doing it really well, here’s what we’re going to emphasize this week. So God, I think that there’s a lot of different ways that you can celebrate wins without just shutting down and saying, Okay, I’m going to go on vacation for a week or Nope, we don’t have to do that again. Also highly competitive and high performing people, they want that next thing. So part of coaching people to their potential is giving them that next thing. I
Maria Ross 24:36
love that because this speaks directly to the joy pillar in the empathy dilemma that this is you can have accountability, and you can actually increase accountability and increase performance by creating some levity, by creating some lightness for people so they’re not constantly using the stress part of their brain, right? We need a break from that. And I love these examples, because I could totally see how this kind of. Apply in a workplace environment where it’s like, you know, there might be a boss that says, you know, yeah, all that went really well, but let’s focus on what we need to work on first, like, let people celebrate a little bit. Let people let off some steam.
Jen Mueller 25:12
And, you know what? And I was just thinking about this, there are certain songs that I hear that take me back to very specific Mariner seasons, because every year there is a winning playlist, and one of our players takes responsibility that in a lost, that clubhouse is quiet like there is zero music. There is zero noise in a win, the same playlist plays after every single game. It’s lightness, it’s levity, but it’s also an easy way for everybody to acknowledge what just happened. You could have a winning playlist or winning song at work. You could have something that looks like that, you know, and it often types of football. You’ll have what we call sizzle reel, which is the highlights, right? They just cut them nice and fast, and sometimes they’ll throw in fun clips from the guys, but it’s just like a two minute thing of like, okay, it’s your hype video, right? You do that before you get into the work to remind you how good it felt to succeed. Okay, now we’re going to get back to work exactly
Maria Ross 26:17
that. My husband is a CMO at a software company, and he has a creative director who, on his own accord, just creates little sizzle reels and little videos of things that they’ve been doing, not because he’s asked to do it, just he likes to do it, and just the humor and the lightness and just the team building, it provides yes for people to be able to just laugh a little bit and enjoy it and Go, yeah, that off site or that meeting, was actually really fun. You know, it’s interesting, because this other great example that I saw of empathy in action was actually on the documentary, welcome to Wrexham. And I don’t know if you’ve been following that on Hulu. It’s Rob mcelheny and Ryan Reynolds, who bought the soccer the football team in Wales, and have turned it around, and it’s from the beginning, when they first buy the team, to how they learn how to staff up leadership and how they management. It is a master class and in Leadership and Motivation, like you should binge it because it’s amazing. But there was one episode in particular where they lost a key game that was going to get them to promotion. And the guys were devastated, of course, right? They’ve been working really hard. They thought all this investment they had, all the town behind them, all the Hollywood, you know, attention they were getting. And it was really interesting, because actually, Rob mcelheny and Ryan Reynolds are both really empathetic team owners. They empower the leaders that they’ve hired. They bring in the right people. They’ve invested in the women’s soccer team of Wrexham a lot, and that team has gone on to championships. But there was this one particular moment where they both went into the locker room separately, and when Rob mcelheny went to the locker room, he was just sort of like, you know, chin up, move on next game. Like, don’t, like, he wasn’t letting them feel the loss, right? And great intentions, right? I just don’t want these guys to feel horrible about themselves. Like, you know, suck it up. Let’s look forward to get back at it. We’ll go to the next game. Ryan Reynolds walked in and was like, this sucks, you guys. Like, I get it. I know how you’re feeling right now. This was not great. And yeah, I feel you, and let this sink in, like he was letting them have their feelings and have their moment, because he knew they were going to get back to it. He didn’t have to tell them that, right? And I just thought it was such a stark contrast in terms of what empathy looks like in disappointment, and it’s not making people brush it off. It’s not making people focus on what’s next. It’s letting them feel what they feel when they feel it, and then we know we’re going to get back to work. Yes. And I just, I was so, you know, I don’t like to bring my work into my, like, personal time a lot, but, you know, I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to remember that, talking about it. And it was such a great example of how you can lead a high performance team and leave room for feelings, and leave room for emotions, and leave room for someone to be disappointed in the moment, and it doesn’t mean they’re not going to try hard the next day or the next practice. Yeah, you
Jen Mueller 29:16
didn’t just lose the magic, right? You had that game, or it was, it was an off night, or whatever it is you did, let’s
Maria Ross 29:21
acknowledge it, yes, because, like you said, they want you to be clear that they don’t want somebody prettying it up for them,
Jen Mueller 29:28
right? Oh my gosh, that is something we get wrong all the time, and I have seen this happen with really well intentioned people, fans, right? Or people who work at a stadium and the guys will come off the field after what we all know was a terrible game for whatever reason, right? Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. It’s a terrible game. The last thing they want to hear is, great job. Good job. You’ll get them next time. Do not like just go talk to them, right? That’s not empathy. That’s not right. Support. They are mad. Had like they did not meet their expectations. So I think some of that is also just giving people agency right over how they’re going to feel in the moment. What are the easiest ways we can do that and acknowledge that? In business, it’s I do this with interviews too. So just because I have a microphone does not mean that you have to talk to me. Just because you are an athlete does not mean you were required to give me a post game interview. So I will always give them a choice on will you answer a few questions for me today? Now, most of the time, they will say yes, but there are times after games, or I don’t know that they just got chewed out by their position coach, right? Or I don’t know what’s going on in their life, they’ll say, I just I can’t today. Or, as happened a couple of times during the baseball season, they’ll tell me no. And then two minutes later, after they had chance to feel their feelings, they’re like, actually, I can answer three questions, right? It’s not pushing in that moment. It’s giving them a little bit of agency to choose. Okay, now I’m ready for this. Okay, got it. You’re not going to be in my face. Got it.
Maria Ross 31:06
I love this. And so kind of, as we wrap up, tell us a little bit about the work that you do with business people and with companies, and how you translate, you know, this world of sports that you’re in and the lessons that you’ve learned there into the workplace. You’ve talked a little bit about it today, but specifically, what kinds of things are you helping companies and professionals with? What are they coming to you
Jen Mueller 31:28
to get better on they really want to be better at communicating. And a lot of times we think about this in, you know, like, really just kind of overarching themes and terms, or you talk about being a better teammate. Well, being a good teammate and communicating at a high level has some really specific things that need to happen. So people come to me for very specific conversation strategies that I have developed and learned through trial and unfortunately error on live TV and radio with professional athletes. So there’s actually words to say, right? It’s not, we’re not talking about things in theory. I will give you the formula. I will give you the words to say that. And sometimes, a lot of times, it’s reminding people how many opportunities we have during the course of the day to make an impression, to build a relationship, to showcase your skills. We tend to think that it’s all happening around us and that, oh my gosh, you know, like I’ve either missed the opportunity or I don’t have enough working for me. Nope, I will point out all of those little interactions that you can use to your favor and give you that little confidence boost to keep you going. I
Maria Ross 32:35
love it. And you know, the reason you’re here is because I know empathy is such an important part of your work and an important part of your success. So thank you for sharing your insights with us today. It’s been so fun, and we’ll have all your links in the show notes. But where can people find out more about you and your work?
Jen Mueller 32:50
The best place is probably the website talks sporty to me.com. There’s lots of stuff there. There’s ways to get a hold of me. There’s also ways to connect on the socials. So love
Maria Ross 33:00
it well. Jen Mueller, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you Maria. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Rate review, share with a friend and a colleague, and remember until next time 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™
No matter what side of the aisle you fall on – employee or leader – you may have uttered these words, “Why can’t I just fix them?!” Building strong relationships either way is both an employee AND a leader responsibility because empathy must flow both ways.
Today, I talk with Molly McGrath. She reveals some biases that leaders can break free from to be more effective, how to merge the perspectives of boss and employees to better understand each other, and you’ll love her actionable tips and examples on how you can initiate healthy communication, build trust, and create a more positive and high-performing environment with less drama and more impact. We also talk about the importance of re-dating and re-committing with your employees on a regular basis!
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
If we’re only hiring to the résumé, we are going to be missing out on a lot of the people skills that aren’t written down.
Self-awareness and self-care are two of the key pillars of empathetic leadership. We have to get our own house in order to understand our blind spots, triggers, and strengths, and know what we’re bringing into the conversation.
The work of leading is spending time with your people. You need to understand how each of your team are hardwired.
“You have to re-date your employees and re-enroll (your employees) every single day.” — Molly McGrath
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
About Molly McGrath:
Molly McGrath is the Founder and CEO of Hiring & Empowering Solutions and the author of Amazon’s top #1 Best Seller: Fix My Boss: The Simple Plan to Cultivate Respect, Risk Courageous Conversations, and Increase the Bottom Line. She is also host of the Hire and Empower podcast.
Molly is a thought leader with 27 years of experience in the CEO space. Since the late nineties, She has coached, consulted, and directed presidents and founders of national organizations and over 4,500 law firms in executive-level leadership, continuous improvement, and team empowerment initiatives to infiltrate new markets, leverage partner ecosystems, and produce profitability.
Molly has 27 years of specific skill set experience in legal marketing, fractional CEO roles, conversation intelligence coaching, team development & empowerment, intrapreneur talent acquisition, Kaizen leadership, root cause analysis, revenue mapping, and action-based project management.
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business, no matter what side of the aisle you fall on, employee or leader, you may have uttered these words, why can’t I just fix them? Building strong relationships either way is both an employee and a leader responsibility, because empathy must flow in both directions. Today, I talk to Molly McGrath, founder and CEO of hiring and empowering solutions, and the author of Amazon’s top number one best seller, fix my boss, the simple plan to cultivate respect, risk, courageous conversations and increase the bottom line. Molly is a thought leader with 27 years of experience in the CEO space since the late 90s, Molly has coached, consulted and directed presidents and founders of national organizations and over 4500 law firms in executive level leadership continuous improvement and Team empowerment initiatives to infiltrate new markets, leverage partner ecosystems and produce profitability. She’s also the host of the hire and empower Podcast. Today, she reveals some biases that leaders can break free from in order to be more effective, how to merge the perspectives of boss and employee to better understand each other. And you’ll love her actionable tips and examples on how you can initiate healthy communication, build trust and create a more positive and high performing environment with less drama and more impact. We also talk about the importance of redating and recommitting with your employees on a regular basis. Lots of gems here today. Take a listen, and a big welcome to Molly McGrath today for being on the empathy edge podcast. Welcome to the conversation.
Molly McGrath 02:31
Oh, thank you for having me, Maria. I’m excited to be here. I
Maria Ross 02:35
am really excited to talk about your book, fix my boss, the simple plan to cultivate respect, risk courageous conversations and increase the bottom line. And before we get into it and give people all the goodies and insights and actionable nuggets, tell us a little bit about your story and how you got into this world of coaching and executive leadership and all of that. What’s your passion there?
Molly McGrath 02:58
Yeah, well, at one point, I was an employee, so at the tender age of 27, years old, back then, when you would apply for a job through a classified ad, which is a newspaper for some of our younger listeners that might not resonate with that term, and had to mail in your resume, walk your resume. And I was really, blessed to be interviewed by a boss, if you will, a leader, actually CEO of a national organization for lawyers, which, if anyone knows anything about lawyers or the top intellect, everything is about skill set, knowledge, years of service, but they’re always interviewing from the resume or CV. And when I went through the interview, I had a phenomenal leader that really knew how to facilitate a conversation, how to lead with servant leader communication. And he said to me, you’re not totally qualified for this position. And he said a key word after that yet, but I see your energy. I see in this back in 1997 where energy and intuition, all that was so out there, woo, woo and was not commonplace in the league, in the workplace, they said to me, I’m going to take a chance on you, because it’s up to me, as a leader and a mentor and a coach, to really give you the framework where you can be set up for success. You have hard working. You have beautiful mindset, you have confidence, you have confidence. And the rest of it is on me to really provide you a place to grow and lead. So I started my, you know, career as an employee shined from a administrative assistant all the way up to CEO of the company. Then became a partner within the company because somebody took a chance on me, and they took their job description as a leader seriously. And through that, I would go to all we did conferences all over the world every quarter, and I would have our clients come to me at the cut. Tail reception, coffee break, what have you. And they’re like, Where can I find one of you? How can I clone you? How can and I’d hear this over and over again. And then I really became very passionate about the employee side, about really creating what I call in my first book, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs world. Love
Maria Ross 05:21
it, and so then you just kind of got fell into executive leadership coaching and doing the work, and you’ve worked with 1000s of leaders and founders and people all over the world. So we’re really going to be appreciating your insights today. I want to start first with some of the biases that leaders need to break free from in order to be more effective. What are some of the biases that we want them to be aware of?
Molly McGrath 05:47
You know, number one, I would say, is in regards to getting seduced by the resume or the CD Cv of people. So often they have to remember they’re hiring human beings first, human doing second. So a lot of times they’ll be say, I need somebody batteries included. I don’t have time to train on board or what have you. I’m like, great. You assume their batteries included, skill set, knowledge, work ethic, all that. Guess what? Now you still need to spend time with them. Might not be on training the specifics of how to do their job or your process or procedures, or what have you. But they’re a human being, and this a personal, relate, two sided relationship, so you’re still going to have to give them time, attention and feedback. So regardless if they need a little bit of skill set training, or they come in perfect, they have the years of service, skill set, all that you still need to spend time with your people outside a Slack channel or communication, ping pong, through email and other do just stop hiding out behind technology. Yeah,
Maria Ross 06:54
I think that’s so important, is you’re not going to get those people skills, that emotional intelligence, that emotional regulation, if we’re just hiring to the resume, and it doesn’t mean someone has the potential to strengthen that and build that, but that requires commitment, that requires time, that requires mentorship, and if we really, you know, if the goal, I always go back to the ROI, if the goal is that you have a high performing team and A high performing employee, then yes, spending the time is worth it. Because I hear that a lot is like, well, I don’t have time to be empathetic. I don’t have time to get to know but that’s your job as a leader. That’s actually where you should be spending your time. So I love that you talk about that. Are there any other biases we need to be aware of that are getting in the way of us being more effective leaders?
Molly McGrath 07:40
Yeah. Number two is that you have not won, and you can’t wipe your brow once you hire somebody and you have a high performance team, is retention is the biggest thing that most people look over. You hire someone, you get them, they give you entrepreneurial freedomship, time freedom, financial freedom. And we think that we are smooth sailing. Yeah, I’m always about gamification to keep up, especially myself as an entrepreneur. I’m running a team. I’m all to keep yourself on your toes. You have to redate your employees and re enroll them every single day. I always keep myself and healthy check to assume that there’s any given day that I could come in and somebody’s resigning, and then I always hear we’re like, oh my God, how did I not know you were unhappy? How did you get recruited and poached away from me? I have a recruiting side of my business as well, and I’ve had that for 30 years now, and it’s fascinating that you say so often when I’m interviewing people like, why are you talking to a recruiter today? Why are you looking for a new position? And the knee jerk responses, there’s no opportunity for growth. Blah, blah, blah. Like, let’s get real here. Talk to me, and 100% of the time, it’s abandonment. It’s the leaders not giving them time and attention feedback. And I believe in our job descriptions, whether you’re owner operator or your C suite or your HR or what have you, the number one bullet point in our job description is to grow our people up and to pour into them, make them feel like they matter and really it has to be authentic, if you know it’s not just something that you’re checking a box
Maria Ross 09:34
on for sure, and I’m so intrigued. You know you called your book fix my boss. So is your book meant for employees, or can leaders sort of pick this up to get into the mindset of what their employees are thinking.
Molly McGrath 09:47
Number one question I get about this book, the first title of this book was called, fix my employees, because that’s the question the phone calls, the emails that every time. 100% of the time it fixed my employees when people call me. And so going through the book, that was the title, and as I was sharing that with the C suite leadership entrepreneurs like, oh my god, I can’t wait to give my team this book, right. And my publisher is like, no, they’re every business book out there is written in the perspective of the leader. There’s something wrong with the employees. And the employees always tell me, they get handed all these business books at team development programs or what have you, and it’s written in the perspective of the entrepreneur. So we were like, my publisher, and I was like, visualizing running through the airport, and a business owner sees this book right in the window. It says, fix my boss, and the needle scratches. They’re like, well, if I You’re the leader, you’re like, Whoa. What is this chick telling my people? And so they’re going to buy it and 100% it’s for them, but employees gonna see it, and they’re like, Yes, finally, someone got has us. They understand us, and they’re actually gonna read it and digest it and implement it. Because this entire book, and there’s a company workbook with it, is not meant to be a one and done and read it is a book written for both of them with a very empowering title, I believe that’s going to cause each whatever seat you sit in, to kind of pause, but also maybe have a healthy level of fear of like, oh boy, what’s she going to be saying?
Maria Ross 11:37
Exactly. And, I mean, I think that subtitle of the simple plan to cultivate respect, risk, courageous conversations and increase the bottom time, not line, is really a, you know, a little teaser, a little appetizer for folks to understand what some of those secrets are. To fix your boss, but also it’s about fixing the relationship between the boss and the employee, and so I want to dive in for a second on how do we merge those perspectives? This is where empathy really comes in. We’ve I’ve talked a lot. I’ve been guilty of it too, as many empathy advocates have, of talking just to the leaders about empathy. But empathy is a two way street, and we’ve also got to teach that those skills to strengthen and flex your empathy muscle to everyone at all levels in the organization, so that empathy flows down, but it flows up as well. So how can we merge the perspectives of the boss and employees so that they understand what the other person sees?
Molly McGrath 12:38
I talk about this and train this all day, every day. I mean, what’s the saying? Leaders go first, so you have to make it a safe place, first and foremost, for people to use their voice and share sometimes in a courageous conversation of what’s not working or what have you in that regard. So how to have it both ways? The greatest hack that I have, especially for new employees coming on, and I’m using the word employee might be an independent contractor, overseas state side. I’m just using it very general, especially if you’re using overseas support team or contractors, is to actually a model that I have, which is, teach, show, do, go, grow. And what I mean by that is I say at the very first day, when you’re onboarding a new employee, have them walk around and shadow you right, and go through and watch you sit in every meeting, what have you. And then I debrief at the end with the boss and the leader and the employee. The employee, 10 out of 10 times is in tears. There they will say to me, my boss didn’t have a meal all day. They never went to the bathroom. They were in back to back to back meetings with existing clients, doing sales meeting trying to, you know, do diffusion on a certain department or a team, and they are just like this has got to stop there. Then they have a back for they have your back so they have an appreciation for what it takes to get clients. Service. Clients, get employees. Service employees process production, profitability, all that. So when they can walk in your shoes all day long, and they understand it and then debrief with you after that is the first way to get empathy. 10 out of 10 times when I hire new people and take them through that boarding process, I’m talking from a receptionist to an executive level person, they have such completion. They have such complete compassion for what you’re dealing with on the daily. How
Maria Ross 14:47
practical is that, though? How realistic is that for if you’re talking about a larger company with 10s of 1000s of people, and your person is remote and they’re not then they’re not in your backyard, how can a lead. Or do that with a new hire.
Molly McGrath 15:02
I have 10 full time remote people, Philippines, Honduras, Belize all over and I make them sit. And first of all, I make them watch my calendar every single day. And so I have a marketing coordinators, I have recruiters, I have executive assistants. I have coo I will make them sit in the Zoom Room every single meeting that I have. I have a virtual company. I have for 30 years now, and I make them sit and watch every single meeting. I tee them up. I’m like, here’s the goal. This meeting, it’s an hour long. Here’s what we’re walking into, etc. If it’s a sales person, you’re onboarding. Same thing. I just hired two sales people. I’m on boarding them right now, and they’re spending time and shadowing me for the entire week, seeing the meeting, seeing the follow up that comes out of every single meeting, right? And what have you. So do you think they’re going to march in my office when you back to back meetings or ping me and say, Do you have 10 minutes to puke all over me and dump on me. No, you know, I train too and the team. Another way to have empathy is to batch your communication. Don’t blow up your boss. Leader, HR, I’m working with a big company right now. They’re in 17 countries, big law firms, and their HR team is, I can’t even I’m witnessing what the employees do to the HR, and I’m getting them to sit in their perspective and understand that. So you know, before you send Lori an email that Susie just showed up late and looked at you cross eyed and did blah, blah, blah, they’re all remote, I want you to look at what’s on her calendar the hour before, yeah, you see she might have a 10 minute break, or you see she has no break at all, and pay attention to what she what happened in her day before, this emergency conversation you had to have. You know about your PTO, or whatever it is, and what look at what she’s walking into because she’s not able to be present. There’s a time and place for data and information and be aware of it in regards to what they’re carrying on their back for the day, for the week, for the month. And
Maria Ross 17:14
then how do you flip it so that the boss can have empathy for the employee? Oh,
Molly McGrath 17:19
I love this question in regards to it’s really the same way as well. So instead of pinging them and emailing them and say, did you do this? Are you doing this? Words have way and words matter. So I train a lot of times you mentioned emotional intelligence early. We’re getting ready to kick off a three month series on emotional intelligence, which I’m a huge fan of as well, but having that self awareness right? And that’s really what we’re talking about perspective and self awareness and self governing and self regulating. So for the boss, in the same way they can clarify, verify before, meaning, there are times when I need you to drop everything. I completely understand what’s on your plate right now. I completely understand what’s going on for you, but right now, this is an SOS. I need support in that. And just even when my bosses and leaders frame, you know, sandwich the conversation, it is all about what comes out of your mouth, the intentions and delivery. Your intentions might be pure. We need to do this, or we’re going to lose a client, or there’s real risk attached, but it’s all in the delivery and and sometimes it comes out sloppy or a brass or whatever. That’s okay, because, as you said, it’s a relationship. So if I’m an employee, I train my employees that if they’re like, did you do this? Like, don’t give it story and meaning in the moment. You know the urgency of this matter, or what have you de energized, and don’t make it personal. Give it now when you have your weekly meeting, one of the frameworks I have is what worked and what didn’t work about last week. And in regards to it might be that what did not work is there were 4000 emergencies. So something’s broken in our process or a system, right? Sometimes you might snap as an as an entrepreneur, leader, what have you. We’re going to hold space for that, but we’re not going to shut down, not do our work, or have to have this huge emotional conversation in the moment, always training and they teach us in the book time and place for debriefing,
Maria Ross 19:33
I love that. Yeah, with the new book coming out, the empathy dilemma, the five pillars to being both an effective and empathetic leader, to your point that you just made the first one is self awareness, because we have to get our own house in order to understand our blind spots and our triggers and our strengths, and we know what we’re bringing into the conversation. We know what we bring into the room when we enter it. And so the you know, the first two pillars of my five pillars are. Actually about self self awareness and self care, because then you can be in a place where now I can come in and maybe I won’t come in all guns blazing about this is an emergency, and to your point, empathy is not always about the decision that you’re making, because you have to make tough decisions as a leader that people won’t like. And I’m using air quotes here. People can’t see me, but that’s not the goal. The goal is not to make decisions that everybody likes or even agrees with, but you can be an empathetic leader in the way that you communicate information, and so it’s not just the decision you’re making. I did a whole podcast episode. I’ll put a link to that on layoffs with compassion. Sometimes it is just a business decision and it isn’t personal, but we also, as leaders, have responsibility to deliver that communication in an empathetic way. Do some people need time to process and come back and ask questions? Do other people want to ask all their questions right away? Do I know what questions they are going to have? Am I prepared to answer them when I tell them the news, and then what support might it? Might they need on the back end? So it’s doing all that preliminary thinking before you communicate with your team. And you know, as you know, that’s not just a leadership skill, that’s just a human skill, and being able to do that, yeah,
Molly McGrath 21:16
but I have two points I really want to grab on quickly of what you said, in regards to self awareness, with your two pillars, I always tell train my clients as well. In regards them, it’s okay if we have a moment where we have to just be very, you know, brass and all that, as long as we preface it with say that and we’re just like, Okay, I’m coming in hot right now. I know this isn’t an ideal, but I just need a lifeline right now, people, yeah, absolutely, I’ll do it, and the goal is to pay attention, right? Whether you’re the deliverer or the receiver of that, right? It’s an exception and not the norm. If it’s a norm, then we have a bigger problem in regard, right? That, I would say, Yeah, and
Maria Ross 21:58
that, you know, a lot of the leaders I interviewed for the new book, when they talked about what enabled them to be empathetic and effective was this idea of making the norm trust and collaboration and just respect and just a personal interest. And they said, and it’s not fake. They’re not doing it, you know, with some devious motive. They’re saying, I just get to know my team and get to know them as people and respect who they are, so that when I make the big ask, they trust me and they have empathy for me when I make those big asks. And so it’s building that foundation with your employees. You talk about respect, cultivating respect, and it’s that foundation needs to be there. So when you do have those moments where you lose it, you know people can give you a little bit more grace.
Molly McGrath 22:47
Yes, to your point, when you’re doing that on the daily and when you’re operating like that, yes, it’s how you build trust number one. But when you have to make the heavy decisions, lay off, or if it’s we’re restructuring our comp plan, or we’re no longer having unlimited PTO, where people think things are being taken away from them, or they’re very dictatorial, or big corporate, or what have you, when you deliver the message, in regards to, you know, we made the decision from who we were When we initially started off as small company, or what have you, and now we’re really treating this like a business. And when you have those conversations, there’s no sting, there’s no emotions around it, and then like and you speak into their listening in a way that makes a difference for them. As leaders and owners, I always say, I don’t think we’re ever delivering bad news or hard news or tough decisions if we live the way that you and your books communicate on the daily Yes, it’s a lot of work. It feels like a lot of work in the beginning. I don’t have time to have a weekly meeting with my team or daily huddle or a break bread lunch or what have you, but it goes a long way, because we can go on a whole tangent around retention statistics.
Maria Ross 24:07
Yeah, absolutely. And I know I’m kind of throwing you a curveball here, but can you give us an example of a leader you’ve worked with with which who may be really memorable to you in terms of the turnaround they did with their team?
Molly McGrath 24:20
Yes, I have one that is a very live example. As I told you, it’s a big company. They’re in 28 location, 17 states, and they have 28 office or 17 countries. 28 offices are opening, 10 more right now. And so huge organization, and I’m working with one of their firms in California, one of the offices in California, they brought me in, and they hired new leader, new manager, HR and business development call me, and so I kick off a program for them. What have you. There was so much resistance from this man. Manager leaders, I don’t have enough time. I am, you know, opening off two more, opening up two new offices, and within the next 30 days, blah, blah, blah, and just resistance. Did not want to meet with her team at all. Did not have time. We said, just, let’s play with this. I’m all about gamification. Let’s have fun with this, and let’s just try it on. We can always take it off if it doesn’t fit, but you have your team is full of drama. There is. They’re constantly killing HR with complaints. It is like referee Central, and there’s always the meeting after the meeting and what have you we’re like, can you just give them 30 minutes a week? That’s it. We created the agenda, which is going to talk about company news announcements upcoming, and then also team building, collaboration and getting to know people. What have you? Massive resistance. Made a commitment to that. Prior to that, she was constantly canceling meetings. Was supposed to be doing quarterly reviews. None of them had ever had them just thinking, well, if they’re not saying anything, so they must have forgot about it. Employees forget about nothing. They know they want that they want. Personal and professional growth. Made the commitment to 30 minutes super grouchy about having to do it. And again, you’re responsible for the energy you bring in the room and you leave in the room. They could sniff it out like a dog. And so they knew this was just a box checking. Had to do it. And then eventually started really getting into getting the agenda in the intentions meeting, in her bones and blood, and has not missed one meeting in five months, has had the weekly meeting. Has also implemented a 15 minute it’s your nickel. Open Door meeting. Every employee on her team gets that they come in, no agenda, no anything. And the ability to do that and has now started implementing to bring them into their UK office for their development programs that she never even knew about, that were free, that carried a lot of the burden in the load for her, yeah, I mean, she’s still sticky and stiff with it. Yeah, she’s still struggling, but it’s made the team are like, it’s consistent, it’s persistent. She’s keeping your word, she’s showing up and she’s actually present. Now, I mean, she would show up late, she would, you know, you could tell she was on her phone. She was, yeah, not there. And now it’s just really grounded and still
Maria Ross 27:35
well, and is that, I assume that’s impacting performance for her team as well, and maybe lessening some of the drama,
Molly McGrath 27:41
lessening the drama. They were always a high performance team, which is so fascinating, because you go to the senior leadership and partner this team, they pump out work. They are profitable by all measure and their work production. But it was the headache and heartache that it was making for the HR team, for the senior leadership team. And you know a saying is that it’s like a five year old, so if you don’t give them attention, they will get the black Sharpie and scribble all over the wall until they get your attention.
Maria Ross 28:15
Totally. Yeah. So I love it. What a great example of just this is the thing I always keep going back to spending the time. Is the job like, if you’re doing so much work that you can’t spend the time, then something’s wrong with the work, right? Because the work of leading is spending the time with your people. So I love it so much. So as we wrap up, can you share a few tips for how employers can initiate that healthy communication and create that positive work environment. You talked about a few through the course of the interview here, but what are one or two nuggets you want to leave people with if they’re dealing with an environment where there’s a lot of distrust and discord between the employees and the leaders? Well, I
Molly McGrath 28:59
say first and foremost, give them, like you said, the time and space and grace of your greatest resource that you bring, which is your time. So hard wire it, treat it like you would for an internal they’re your internal clients, just like you would for your external clients. You would never ditch a meeting with the client that’s paying you or what have you. So put a hard wire time, even if it’s one hour a week where you treat it, I like to call it a weekly stakeholders meeting, not shareholders, stakeholders. We are all stakeholders in our department and collaboration. So start there number one, and make it consistent. Do show up. Present. Show up prepared. Do not ditch the meeting. Do not have your cell phones in there and what have you. And really have an agenda and give it out to the team and ask them for their feedback. The way people that step up and lead and take ownership and pride in their position and really trust their leader is when their voice matters. And their conference allowed on it, so allow them to make revisions or additions that they would like to see in our meeting. It’s our meeting together. And so really, when you have that, they will be fully, wholly invested in them.
Maria Ross 30:17
Have you ever advised that when they when you start to establish that as a regular kind of team meeting, stakeholder meeting, that the leader sometimes let someone else lead it. That
Molly McGrath 30:27
was my second point. Okay, good, exactly. It’s so once they have that established, and trust me, it takes no more than three to four weeks of consistency with that, and then what they do is it depending on personalities. One thing you mentioned earlier that I think is really important, you need to understand how each year, people are hardwired. So I have a lot of assessments that I recommend to understand how they give and receive information. Like you said, do you get the news? And they need to go back to a high Fact Finder, and they need to process and then they need to come back a week later and have the second meeting as a high, Quick Start where they have 400 questions right then and there. And so knowing how people like to give them receive information is important, because when it comes time to this meeting, you might have a ton of technicians. If you’re an engineering firm or a law firm, or what have you. You might have introverts, extroverts lead, natural leaders, what have you. So know your team, if you have a healthy balance, I have people that do it one two ways. Anyone want to step up and start facilitating this meeting for a week, and then we’ll pass the baton. A lot of my clients. Well actually, for one, have one person each week on the team to still manage, lead and facilitate the conversation, even if they’re shaking in their boots, even if they’re nervous. It’s a growth opportunity. It’s a growth opportunity. So many people like, I don’t want to do that. I’m afraid I’m going to cry, I’m nervous, and that’s way. That’s why Toastmasters is such a beautiful program, if you’re old enough to remember that, yeah. Well,
Maria Ross 32:04
this has been so wonderful. And I know there’s tons more value in the book fix my boss, the simple plan to cultivate respect, risk, courageous conversations and increase the bottom time, the bottom line, and Molly, this has been so great. We’re going to have all your links in the show notes. But for folks on the go, where’s one of the best places they can find out more information about you and your work,
Molly McGrath 32:27
I would say the best way, easiest way, because we know time is of the essence. Go to hiring and empowering.com. Just opt in to our value. Add information that we furnish every Tuesday, we drop podcasts every Thursday, blog, and then I do a pocket coaching every Saturday. So a way for you to really just get some really rich whether you’re the employee, employer, leader, entrepreneur, HR, what have you. I really try to get in the perspective of each C and speak into each one.
Maria Ross 33:00
I love it. Well. Thank you so much for this conversation. It’s been wonderful, and it’s been so great connecting with you. Thank
Molly McGrath 33:06
you for having me and for your amazing work that keep it up. I can’t wait for your next book.
Maria Ross 33:11
Thanks and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate, review, follow, subscribe or share with 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™
Transparency is a cornerstone of empathetic culture. And when it comes to the labor market, pay scales, and required skills, the more information you can get, the more confident you feel in making decisions- whether you’re a hiring manager or a job seeker.
What do workers today want? What kind of benefits are the most appealing in competitive markets? How are others at this level getting compensated? Where is the best talent for our organization and what skills do they need?
Turns out data-based decision-making can actually be a very empathetic approach to being a more human-centered organization.
My guest is Cary Sparrow and we discuss what the data show workers today want (and it’s not all about pay!), the barriers to connecting the right talent with career opportunities, and the mindset getting in the way of organizations competing effectively for top talent. Cary shares his own empathetic leadership model in how he set up his team to support employees with broader life needs and how that resulted in finding great talent, keeping them, and making the company successful. Cary also offers practical next steps to help leaders navigate change and embrace what the data show they need to do to succeed in today’s labor market.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
What employees want has shifted significantly over the last few years, largely stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Transparency around pay is now an expectation from job seekers, even if your state does not require it.
You have to have data on the workers in your market. What workers need in NYC or LA, is likely going to be different than those in much smaller towns.
People in untapped talent markets were able to participate in the workforce more during the pandemic when things were fully remote than ever before.
“Employees are much more interested in understanding what is available to them for benefits and working conditions, more than they have been in the past, compared to salaries.” — Cary Sparrow
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
About Cary Sparrow, Founder & CEO, Wagescape
Cary Sparrow helps HR professionals and consulting firms to predict the future of pay. He is also a former US Navy officer who served on several nuclear submarines. 35+ years (combined) of engineering, military, consulting, technology, and operations leadership in achieving organizational growth makes him a guest of value to HR leaders and other decision-makers wanting to navigate the labor market, in today’s rapidly growing access to remote work and digital promptness. Here’s his one-sheet: https://legendarypodcasts.com/cary-sparrow/
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. Transparency is a cornerstone of empathetic culture, and when it comes to the labor market, pay scales and required skills, the more information you can get, the more confident you feel in making decisions, whether you’re a hiring manager or a job seeker. So what do workers today want? What kind of benefits are the most appealing and competitive markets? How are others at this level getting compensated? Where is the best talent for our organization and what skills do they need? Turns out, data based decision making can actually be a very empathetic approach to being a more human centered organization. My guest is Cary Sparrow, founder and CEO of wagescape. Wagescape provides labor market intelligence, helping HR professionals and consulting firms better understand the labor market to predict the future of pay. He’s also a former US Navy officer who served on several nuclear submarines his 35 plus years combined of engineering, military consulting, technology and operations leadership in achieving organizational growth makes him a valuable advisor to HR leaders and other decision makers wanting to navigate the labor market in today’s rapidly growing access to remote work and digital promptness. Today, we discuss what the data show workers today want, and it’s not all about pay, the barriers to connecting the right talent with career opportunities and the mindset getting in the way of organizations competing effectively for top talent. Cary shares his own empathetic leadership model in how he set up his team to support employees with broader life needs, and how that resulted in finding great talent, keeping them and making the company successful. Cary also offers practical next steps to help leaders navigate change and embrace what the data show they need to be doing to be successful in today’s labor market full of gems today, take a listen. Welcome Cary Sparrow to the empathy edge podcast. So glad to have you here today.
Cary Sparrow 02:50
Thanks a lot, Maria. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Maria Ross 02:53
So we were just jibber jabbering before we started recording about like mutual ties with Minneapolis and the work that you’re doing around you know that you’re doing with wages scape, and how you’re supporting companies and consultants that are interested in trends in the labor market. And I want to talk a little bit, I want to take a step back and ask you how you got into this work, because you founded this company, so what was sort of the empathetic need that you discovered in the market that led to the creation of wagescape. So
Cary Sparrow 03:22
I founded wagescape Back in 2015 after coming out of several careers. So I started in the military as a submarine officer. I then went into management consulting. I then went into corporate America and was responsible for building out global HR infrastructure in a really large company, and along the way, always had a kind of natural disposition for finding new opportunities, for creating businesses and bringing new solutions to audiences that needed them. And I also had a really deep passion for unlocking the potential of talent anywhere. And coupled with that passion was kind of a pretty profound disdain for a lot of the ways that companies unfortunately stifle talent, and along the way, saw that one of the biggest barriers to connecting talent with career opportunities, connecting businesses with talent that could really help drive their own competitiveness was data, was data about what’s going on in the marketplace. I can, we could spend a whole other episode on why market data is so bad and the problems that presents. But basically, you know, if you’ve got a huge market and it’s really inefficient because there’s really poor information, you’re doing two, you’re doing lots of things wrong, but there’s a couple of facts of that in particular. One is a huge amount of inefficiency, which means that it takes more money and more people to do things that should be able to be done, you know, in a much more streamline way. But even more important than that is you’re stifling innovation. You are really preventing. Seeing the ability for folks to connect dots in ways that have never been connected before, and to create new ways to serve, you know, their customers, serve their audiences, serve their communities, and that’s what I saw with the waiver market, and we saw a better way to do it. And so I founded wagescape to pursue that with the idea that we would help companies, communities, individuals, you know, find ways to be much more innovative in terms of the jobs and careers that they can pursue, the ability to, you know, find and then grow the skills that companies need and so forth. And that’s basically been our guiding star ever since we started, right
Maria Ross 05:33
well, and it’s so apparent that transparency is a part of compassion. I’ve talked about that in my books and in other podcast episodes, this idea of sharing information because that not knowing is so disorienting for people, whether you’re the hiring manager or the talent, it’s not empathetic to keep people in the dark about where they’re going and leaving them stumbling around. And so I’m really struck by this idea of leveraging technology as a compassionate practice to give people the information they need so that they can find a mutually beneficial solution, right? So the hiring manager can find the right person and the talent can find the right opportunity. Yep,
Cary Sparrow 06:17
exactly right. And it goes even beyond that, and looking at kind of what are the systems, you know, and for example, the labor market touches every aspect of our life. It touches every individual, every family, every community, every government, every organization, every country, in very profound ways, every minute of every day. And so giving communities the ability to see, where are we attracting businesses, or where do we have, you know, capabilities within our population that could be, you know, given better opportunities from a career standpoint, helping governments make policies, helping universities figure out how to best serve, you know, their constituents, and educate and bring up the skills of their students. All of these are things that depend on a perspective of what’s happening in the labor market. And as I mentioned to start this off, the information that people are using to make those decisions is really very, very poor by any objective standard,
Maria Ross 07:08
and it runs the gamut. It’s not just transparency around pay. It’s transparency around what skills are in demand right now, right? It’s transparency around what are workers looking for. Yep. And so I’m curious your take what the data shows. I mean, I know what I’m out talking about in terms of what employees want, but what does the data show employees want in their culture and in their leaders and in their jobs? Well, there’s
Cary Sparrow 07:32
the what employees want has really shifted in the last few years, and a catalyst for that, obviously, was the pandemic. So, you know, we can start with the ones that are most obvious, in terms of work flexibility. Companies recognize, because they had to, that they could structure remote you know, remote organizations, employees, meanwhile, realize that they could contribute and be productive and valued in ways that didn’t depend on them having to commute two hours plus a day in cities, having them, you know, not spend as much money on their wardrobes, having them not spend as much money on, you know, extra home care arrangements with their families and so forth, and build in a lot more flexibility. And so that’s kind of an expectation, I think now, I think that companies are struggling with that, but employees definitely understand what the benefit to their lives are. I think transparency around pay is an expectation that is now a reality. It’s pretty clear, as we talk with our own clients who are recruiting firms that not having pay in your pay ranges in your job ads, whether your state requires it or not, really limits the number of job seekers that will even pay attention, will even bother to open your ad. If they don’t see a pay range right in the, you know, in the headline of the ad, they just skip right over it. And then, like I said, that’s not something that was driven by law, although lots of laws are moving in that direction now, but it’s driven by employee preferences, and they recognize that there are lots of jobs out there and lots of employers. I think that there’s a bit of back and forth and a bit of maturity that is developing around how individuals expect to be able to contribute in organizations, and the support that they have around those. And I think there’s pretty high expectations there. Or, you know, being able to learn and have a an ability to contribute. I think in some cases, to be honest with you, those expectations go beyond the experience, you know, that the folks have actually earned. And so there’s a little bit of sorting out that’s going on there. But employees are our employers are absolutely changing their approach to sort that out employee. I mean, we can just keep going on this list. For example. You know, employees are much more interested in understanding what is available to them for benefits and working conditions, more than they have been in the past, compared to salaries. So salary is important, but folks are very concerned about how. Are you going to be supporting, you know, my life well? And
Maria Ross 10:02
there’s multiple studies that are out now, including the 2024, business solver, state of workplace empathy report that shows, when we talk about what employees consider empathetic benefits, pay is like, 13th on the list in terms of, like, I mean, obviously we all want to get paid, but in terms of, you know, bonuses, things like that, what’s at the top of the list, like you said, is flexibility, and towards the top of the list is professional development. Are you going to invest in me, even if you know I might not be here in five years or 10 years? And we spoke to, I’ll put a link in the show notes. We spoke to Rhonda George Denniston, who is the chief learning officer at TBWA globally. And one of the things that she talked about was that they have a philosophy of, we already know you’re not going to we already know we only have you for about five years, but while we have you, we want you to be doing your best work for us. So we’re going to invest in training, we’re going to invest in development, we’re going to invest in professional growth, and we’re going to invest in benefits that support you as a whole person. And I just think that’s such a, you know, that seems so taboo to think of it that way, like, why would I invest in these people if they’re going to leave me in a few years? But the idea is to get the best out of them while they’re there so that your company can succeed. Yes,
Cary Sparrow 11:15
that’s right. Now, one thing I would say about pay and where that stands is, you know, prior to the pandemic, and prior to this period where we had not just wage inflation, but actual inflation. That was, you know, that we’ve all been living through. That goes back before even I mean, the last time we had those levels of inflation was when I was in high school, so, which is way too long ago. The conventional wisdom has always been that nobody ever left the company because of pay, they always left because of poor leadership and poor culture. That’s not true. Starting in 2021 that stopped being the case where wage inflation from 2021 through 2023 went up at 20% a year in terms of advertised wages. And in an environment like that, when you’ve also got you know the cost of your food, the cost of your, you know, the ability to heat your cost of transportation, the cost to take, you know, a vacation,
Maria Ross 12:06
if you it’s gotten a lot more expensive to live now, right,
Cary Sparrow 12:09
exactly, and so employees, absolutely will, you know, switch jobs for what in the past was not considered a meaningful pay difference, but now the pay differences can be, in fact, very meaningful. And I think that a lot of companies have really struggled with that reality. They’re used to, you know, they know how to lean into the things that are not related to pay, but especially if you have very wage sensitive, uh, employees, it’s, I think
Maria Ross 12:34
it probably depends on their sensitivity to your point. Because there are, there is some research that shows that people will stay in jobs even for lower pay and more hours, if they’ve got a supportive, empathetic culture. So but I think it’s depending on who you’re asking, right? If you’re asking someone who has five kids at home, well maybe, you know, and they’re living in San Francisco, or they’re living in New York, maybe not. But so that’s really interesting, that you really have to have an eye on the data in your market for your particular group that you’re hiring for, because we can’t always make the blanket statement
Cary Sparrow 13:08
that’s exactly right, and that’s you just listed a couple of the major deficiencies with market data that’s been available, and the deficiencies that the platform that we set up were specifically designed to correct. But for example, our clients that are in retail, for example, or in hotels and hospitality or, I mean, we’ve got one client that is a huge provider of the staffing for big, huge events like, you know, kiosks that sell T shirts and that sell hot dogs and sodas and beers and everything else, those employees will go down the street for an extra $50.50 an hour, they have no compunction whatsoever of doing that. You’ve got the higher paid employees that you see will be a little bit less sensitive. But to be honest with you, at the inflation rates that we’ve seen over the last couple of years, seeing an offer for a 20% raise is a meaningful difference almost to anyone. And that’s not, yeah, not uncommon, but especially for the folks that are really kind of scraping by to maintain a standard of living, yeah? I
Maria Ross 14:06
mean, it’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? Like, exactly, but
Cary Sparrow 14:10
that’s where, like, you were you said, so a couple things that are really important. You have to know what’s going on locally, like, literally, who is within half a mile of of your location that’s offering something different. And, I mean, we’ve got one client, a huge retailer that has built, with our data, a huge alert system so on any given they can see who’s now advertising higher rates than us within a certain distance around every one of their stores in the country. And those go on to an alert list. I mean, it’s really very sophisticated, as opposed to the way that a lot of companies manage pay decisions, which is once a year, they go in and they look at how much they can afford to pay their employees, and they set their policies based on that which is completely out of touch with, kind of the power dynamics in the market, right, right?
Maria Ross 14:52
And, you know, I was just talking about this to someone in the context of education, in the context of the school system in America, right? Yeah. Where you know you’re gonna get what you pay for, like, yeah, maybe it’ll cut costs for you in the short term. But what are you giving up in terms of talent, in terms of innovation, in terms of engagement, in terms of all these other things we have to weigh that it’s not just a numbers decision. It’s gotta be about what is the long term strategy of the organization, and what are we actually trying to accomplish here? What is our purpose? So I love how this is bringing into impact. We talked about this before we started recording this idea that data, cold, analytical data, can be used as a mechanism, as a catalyst for making really compassionate, human, centered decisions. Yes. So can you talk a little bit about that, sure well,
Cary Sparrow 15:42
so I’ll just use my own company as an example. So when I founded wagescape, I came out of an environment where I had figured out how to work with global teams without necessarily even meeting individuals. And I also, just like I said, I had a growing disdain for a number of the unnecessary kind of management practices that a lot of organizations have as it relates to the way that they lead and develop and even attract talent and give them opportunities. And so made the decision that, first of all, we were going to be remote right from the beginning. So even before long, before remote was a thing, I could go out and find people that were interested in what we’re doing, and we’re available with the right skills that were needed regardless of where they were. So I have a global I have a very small company where we got about 15 people that work with us on a basis, that are spread all over the world, right? And we occasionally meet each other at like events and things, but we know how to work with each other in a way, and that’s super flexible. The other thing that we do and why that flexibility is it reinforces kind of other parts of the value proposition that that we offer is we look for people that you know are kind of outside, that may have opted out of a traditional career path. So we’re talking about like professional moms, for example. Or it’s not just moms, it’s dads now too that they’re the primary, you know, they’ve got primary responsibility for raising the kids, and they’ve got hugely, you know, highly qualified from a professional standpoint, like my, my head of it, my head of marketing, my head of product development, all are in this category, and my proposition to them was, I will give you really interesting work. You will make a huge difference. You’ll be a part of my leadership team, and I will give you all the flexibility you need in order to manage the other things in your life. Work is one thing in your life, and as a result of that, so many companies don’t realize how much talent is out there that have these realities in their lives, right? Would love to be able to contribute in a way where they keep they don’t take a step back, right? So if you I mean, what a horrible choice to say you can either be a parent in the way that you want to be a parent, or you can grow your career, but you can’t do both. Yeah, that’s a horrible choice to give people well.
Maria Ross 17:57
And I’ve talked to several guests on this show around this untapped talent that’s in the market that we overlook because they’re not fitting into this mold that we think is the way the workplace has to run. And the research that came out of the pandemic is that people got more involved in the workforce than they had been previously. Neurodiverse people from underrepresented communities, they were able to contribute in a way that they were not able to before, and the whole just blanket mandate from some companies to return to Office is actually shooting themselves in the foot, because you’re giving up that talent that can be there when you know not all innovation has to happen within four walls, and that’s where we need to change our leadership paradigms. Of you know, is it that they can’t innovate, or is it that you don’t know how to lead if they’re not remote? You’ve obviously led remote teams for a long time. You’ve honed that skill. But there’s a lot of leaders, and I have empathy for them. They’re scared. They’re like, I don’t know how to do this, and I don’t know how to do this well, I just will do better if I can see everybody
Cary Sparrow 19:00
Well, I think a lot of organizations had that. That fear was manifested in, like, conventional wisdom of how they had to set up the organization, and the pandemic smashed that conventional wisdom, yeah, because we had to, and a number of organizations embraced it. They weren’t comfortable with it, necessarily. They didn’t like the transition. But once they started to get through it, they realized, hey, we can give our employees a better deal, and by the way, that means we can tap into more talent. Yeah, there’s an upside, yeah, before, right when, regardless of where they are and regardless of what they look like, and you know what limitations they have, there are people that can contribute that we’ve never tapped into before. And there was a whole segment of companies that embraced that. And then there’s a segment of folks that are like, God, I can’t wait to get this over with, and I want everybody back in the office, yeah, and I think, you know, my own opinion is, so let me get this straight. You’ve got a whole universe of companies out there that have figured out that they can tap into talent that’s much better suited to what they need, engage them in a way that they’ve never been as engaged. In the work before and really optimize how much you pay them compared to what the value is that they give. So it’s a better match for employees productivity and your overall costs and your ability to compete. You’re going to say that you’re going to compete against those companies by bringing everybody back into the office and take away all the advantages that those companies have figured out that they can take. I, you know, good luck with that. Yeah, exactly, exactly how that goes. So
Maria Ross 20:30
I want to go, you know, you alluded to this. And you know, you talked about how you set up wagescape to support your employees broader needs, and specifically, how did that help you find great talent? Was it that folks found out about you and found out about the way that you were running the organization? Was it that’s what you were advertising in your job postings? Like, how did that actually happen, that they that you were able to tap in? Because I think one of the big barriers that people cite to even diversity in the workforce, right is, well, I don’t know where to find those people. And I’m like, You’re not looking in the right places. So how did you actually end up attracting, how did you end up, you know, for folks listening that are like, How can I do that? How can I find those untapped resources?
Cary Sparrow 21:18
Well, in terms of creating kind of a, you know, a concept around, you know, the jobs in the company that was more flexible and more inclusive. I put it right in the ads, right? So we’re not big enough, and we’re very young, so it’s not like we had this huge employment brand. We had no employment brand, right, right? We were just another very, very small company, right? And so I put it right in the ads. I went to places that tended to cater to folks that wanted a more flexible approach. There’s a couple of you can go online and find you know, groups that you know are specifically catered to working parents, working moms. But I just put it right in the ads, and that attracted you know, the folks that I ended up hiring, that was one of the main things that attracted them. And so there was a bit of a, you know, that enabled some self selection,
Maria Ross 22:08
right? Well, and because you’re actually, you know, it’s not just about, I want to hire all these diverse people and then bring them into an environment where they won’t flourish. You are actually advertising the environment, right? So that when you get them, you hold on to them and they stay.
Cary Sparrow 22:22
That’s the other thing is. So we keep people because our work fits with their life, but very importantly, because we offer amazingly interesting work. It’s challenging, but it’s rewarding. It’s, you know, every one of my team, I think, would line up and could go through instance by instance, of all the things that they’ve learned in these jobs. Yeah, that’s just, and that’s important, yes, and, and also attracting people where that is, right? I was really clear on that is, you’re going to learn a lot, and the job is, you know, a month from now, is not going to be the same, and that’s either going to energize you, it’s going to turn you off, but you should make a decision on that based on what’s going to work for you,
Maria Ross 22:59
exactly. And I think that’s a lot of the flack that you know, Gen Z and younger millennials get, but they crave that kind of variety. They crave that kind of like, I want to be challenged, I want to learn more. And it comes off as entitlement in many instances, but it’s really just about how that generation is wired, their generational code, as we’ve talked about on this show before. I’ll actually put a link to Anna lay out as episode about unlocking generational codes, and what is the operating system of each of these generations. Because once you understand that all the quote, unquote demands and entitlements make sense, and if you leverage them to your organization’s advantage, you actually can get phenomenal work and phenomenal loyalty out of those people, but it’s about understanding what people want, like, back to where we started here, what people want in the workforce today and what they want in a culture, and it’s changed. Like, we just need to accept that it’s changed.
Cary Sparrow 23:56
Yeah, we have. Most of my employees are not full time employees, again, part of the flexibility piece. But I’ve had other CEOs that look at me and said, Well, you know, you’re only getting, you know, 16 or 24 hours a week out of these folks. How can you run a business like that? I’m like, I’m getting the best 16 or 24 hours, exactly. I mean, do you honestly think that somebody working 40 hours a week. They’re
Maria Ross 24:20
not working 40 full hours. Yeah, exactly chooses
Cary Sparrow 24:23
to work 16 or 24 it’s not right. So I would say that, you know, our productivity level compared to the kind of the number of hours that are worked is very, very high, and our engagement level is very, very high. So I love
Maria Ross 24:35
that. So as we kind of wrap up, because you’ve given us so many great nuggets here, and things to think about. Is there one or two things you would advise companies that are hiring right now, like, Are there one or two actions you can give them based on the work you do at wagescape, the data that you see that you think could be something relatively accessible for them to do to start? Attracting and retaining that top talent.
Cary Sparrow 25:02
Oh, there’s so many things there, and so many companies now have really been down the path of trying, you know, lots and lots of things. And I would say, recognize that things are not static, and they’re not going back to the way that they used to be. So the more that you can make decisions that are about creating more flexibility in terms of how you make decision coming forward. A lot of organizations are set up to drive risk out, which means more standardization, more predictability. And I would say, embrace more opportunities. Find more ways to see, how can you do more, right? As opposed to how can you get conformancy? And that’s every leader’s opportunity every single day, multiple times a
Maria Ross 25:41
day. Well, what you’re describing sounds like really a design thinking mindset around how you, you know, try some things. I spoke to the CHRO of Box A while back, and what I loved was her vulnerability and saying, Nobody knows, nobody’s figured this out. Yet right like nobody knows what the right thing to do is, and the right thing is different for every company. So we’re doing a lot of experimentation. We’re doing a lot of listening. We’re doing a lot of let’s try this and see how it works. Oh, that was a spectacular failure. People hated that. Let’s try something else, and to not be afraid to do that while you’re running the business, while you’re generating revenue, while you’re trying to grow. I think that’s so important. And that’s that’s a big ask of some people who are reticent to embrace risk, as you said, yeah,
Cary Sparrow 26:28
it is a very different risk profile. It’s so good to hear that, you know, played back from kind of a design thinking standpoint, yeah, I will say though, that there’s a lot of people that really, really, really don’t like change that. Really want, you know, things to be very predictable. They want to be good at what they do. Yeah? They want it to be interesting within the bounds, very tight bounds of kind of, yeah, evolution and so you can’t ignore those people, no.
Maria Ross 26:56
So I’m saying I have empathy for them. Like, you know, they’re like, Wait, I’ve been working this way for 30 or 40 years, and now you’re telling me, I have to, like, ask my employees about their own personal lives, like, what?
Cary Sparrow 27:08
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, my risk profile is pretty much off the charts compared to a lot of others, right?
Maria Ross 27:15
It’s still not, well, you’ve been in the military, so it’s not nearly
Cary Sparrow 27:19
like what fighter pilots have and things like that. So, but it’s still pretty high, and there’s a lot of folks that, I mean, for folks that are energized by change as opportunities, you’ve got to remember kind of who’s around you, and to, you know, Learn, Build muscle to manage change in a way that brings, you know, everyone that you need along. I love
Maria Ross 27:39
this little tangent we’ve gone on, because it’s also about how you support people through change, because if you can help them feel comfortable and feel safe and let them know we may fail, and that’s okay, yeah, you know, they still might be a little hesitant because of their risk profile, but that goes a long way to bring some of those people along with you. Do you have a psychologically safe and a supportive environment that says, hey, we’re all in this experiment together, and we need to hear from you. We need to know, and we’re not going to get it right, and you’re not always going to get it right, but we have your back. Yeah, yeah, I love it. Okay. Well, this has been such a great conversation. Cary, thank you so much. We’re going to have all your links in the show notes for folks to connect with you. But for folks on the go, where can they learn more about you? Or wagescape.
Cary Sparrow 28:30
Go to wagescape.com or look me up on LinkedIn. Great. Cary
Maria Ross 28:33
Sparrow, and if you connect with him on LinkedIn, make sure you personalize a note. I always do this. PSA, and say You heard him here on the empathy edge podcast. Cary, thank you so much for your time today. It was a pleasure. Thanks very much for having me, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review, share with a friend, and don’t forget to follow us and subscribe 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™
What makes a perfect candidate or even company? You know the one where when you meet them or visit their offices, where you just know they’re something special? Is there a blueprint for how to be such a unicorn?
Today, William Vanderbloemen shares the 12 teachable traits you can master to be a unicorn candidate or company leader and we deep dive into four specific ones: Authenticity, Self-Awareness, Curiosity, and Connection – what those look like in action, and the data shows that anyone can master these skills with practice and intention, even if you think you’re not good at them. We discuss why these skills are anything but soft, and can actually catapult you to success. And William reveals the single biggest trait that helps you separate yourself from the crowd.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Every one of the 12 habits of unicorns can be learned. While some may seem more innate than others or may show up differently for different people, they are something everyone can learn.
In uncertain times, the people asking questions will be able to adapt quicker than those who are not.
We live in the best time ever to work on self-awareness. You can work on your own stuff, on any level, and it is no longer considered quackery as it used to be.
“After studying 30,000 face-to-face interviews, we discovered that what really separates somebody from the crowd is how they treat other human beings.” — William Vanderbloemen
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
About William Vanderbloemen, Founder & CEO, Vanderbloemen Search Group
William Vanderbloemen has been leading the Vanderbloemen Search Group for 15 years, where they are regularly retained to identify the best talent for teams, manage succession planning, and consult on all issues regarding teams. This year, Vanderbloemen will complete their 3,000th executive search. Prior to founding Vanderbloemen Search Group, William studied executive search under a mentor with 25+ years of executive search at the highest level. His learning taught him the very best corporate practices, including the search strategies used by the internationally known firm Russell Reynolds. Prior to that, William served as a Senior Pastor at one of the largest Presbyterian Churches in the United States.
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. What makes a perfect candidate, or even company, you know, the one where, when you meet them or visit their offices, you just know there’s something special. Is there a blueprint to how to be such a unicorn? My guest today, William Vanderbloemen, founder and CEO of Vanderbloemen search group is here to talk about the 12 teachable traits you can master to be a unicorn candidate or company leader. He’s the author of be the unicorn 12 data driven habits that separate the best leaders from the rest, a blueprint to master these traits based on impressive research and rigorous data gathering. For 15 years, Williams firm has been regularly retained to identify the best talent for teams, manage succession planning and consult on all issues regarding teams. Prior to founding the company, Williams studied executive search under a mentor with 25 years of executive search at the highest level, his learning taught him the very best corporate practices, including the search strategies used by the internationally known firm Russell Reynolds. Prior to that, William served as a senior pastor at one of the largest Presbyterian churches in the US today, William shares the 12 traits, and we deep dive into four specific ones, authenticity, self awareness, curiosity and connection, what those look like in action, and the data shows that anyone can master these skills with practice and intention, even if you think you’re not good at them. We discuss why these skills are anything but soft and can actually catapult you to success. And William reveals the single biggest trait that helps you separate yourself from the crowd. Don’t miss it. Take a listen. Big. Welcome to you. William Vanderbloemen, to the empathy edge podcast. I am so excited to talk about the 12 traits that separate the best leaders from the rest. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Maria.
William Vanderbloemen 02:41
It’s a joy to be with you.
Maria Ross 02:42
So before we get into it, tell us a little bit about your story. And how did you get into this work of helping leaders and helping organizations? Yeah,
William Vanderbloemen 02:53
well, it’s, it’s a weird story, Maria, I mean, like, well, I couldn’t have drawn it up and and I think the advice I give people who are looking for jobs, how do I find a perfect job? There are a number of different lenses I’ve put on when I’m looking for that, but one that would be a marker of my story is the job you’re thinking of taking should be a job that you’re only able to do because of all the things you’ve done leading up to right now. That’s the dream job, if you can say I’m taking my experience from this one and this one and this one and this and I had a very jagged or different path, I guess be a way to say it. I was a entrepreneur as a kid, for sure, started, I don’t know how many businesses learned things like distribution when I was a paper boy, figured out that the routes were really pretty randomly laid out. So I bought out a few routes from buddies, and, you know, reconfigured things and sold off the parts I didn’t want, including the dogs that chased me. I got rid of them. That was, that was me early, yeah. Then in college, I did a really, really good job of being a wild child. And, you know, or prodigal journey, if you want to. So about halfway through college, Faith got very real to me, and that’s not meant to proselytize or be pushy, but it just changed. It turned things around for me. And I’m like, wow, this is pretty amazing. I’d like to help people turn around. I love seeing change, and I didn’t know it then, but I’m a sales guy, so getting up making a pitch is, I didn’t even know it, but I like doing that. So yeah, ended up being a pastor. And I’ll speed this up. You ask a pastor, a recovering preacher, and open ended question, not good pastored. And the talent pool at the time was really, really small in my age group, particularly, lot of lot of boomers and retirees. So what that meant was scarcity of talent means you don’t have to be that good to rise to the top. And I ended up pastoring one of the probably top three Christian churches in the country, oldest church in the city of Houston in. And I was the youngest pastor they’d ever talked to. They were nice, nice people, but they really should have had a search firm. Shouldn’t hired me. Was there six years, went through divorce, which I would not recommend, but found myself single dad. What am I going to do? Joined a very large oil and gas company, Fortune 200 and he was on a management rotation, and that year, I was on the HR team, and the CEO had been there nine years, which I didn’t know is a lifetime for a company that large, right? It was bigger than Starbucks at the time, and he said, I’ve been here long enough it’s time to find my successor. We’re hiring a search firm. Well, I’d never heard of such thing. I knew what it was, but my rotation that year was in HR, so I was on the HR team, and, you know, I got to see firsthand what a search firm could do. And it made me say, Wow, let’s build something like that for churches, because churches don’t move that fast, it was awful. So I made the brilliant move in the fall of 2008 of quitting my job and starting a search firm, which 2008 was just a super good time to quit your job. Perfect timing, yeah, 16 year later. 16 years later. Here we are, yeah, and I’m getting to help something that was really important to me, and it’s branched out since then. So that’s
Maria Ross 06:20
all good, yeah. And I love you know, the title of your book, which we mentioned in the in the bio earlier, is be the unicorn, 12 data driven habits that separate the best leaders from the rest. And so was that book a direct result of the placements you were making, the leaders you were talking to, the companies that you were working with,
William Vanderbloemen 06:39
100% Maria, I wanted to do research during the pandemic, when everything was shut down, we had some extra time, and so I thought, well, this the first year, we’re not going to set a record on all fronts, so we’ve got a little time we can look at, well, we’ve done a rocket ride, like the best candidates we’ve ever interviewed. What do they have in common? So that we can spot great candidates, or we can be a better search firm. What we found, after studying 30,000 face to face interviews that we’ve done with not just talent, but the very best, we found, they do have things in common, and it wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. The list was not what I’d predict. In fact, I was wrong on most fronts.
Maria Ross 07:18
What did you actually think? What were one or two of the top traits you thought you’d find?
William Vanderbloemen 07:22
Oh, intellect, privilege. I happen to you look behind me. I happen to be born into a family that could afford to send me to Wake Forest for undergrad, and then I got a scholarship at Princeton for seminary. So, like, I thought it would be things like that, or even simple as well. He was the quarterback and she was the head cheerleader, valedictorian, or whatever. Knew what it was, and this is what I’m so excited to do with you. It was 12 habits that these, we call them unicorns, works for you where you live, but 12 habits that unicorns tend toward, that most of the rest of us neglect, and all 12 of them centered around you could call it emotional intelligence, soft skills, empathy, like kind of right in the zone of where you’re living, we discovered that what really separates somebody from the crowd is how they treat other human beings. And now it’s not just my opinion. It’s a data driven project that shows these things. If you do these things, you will stand out in the crowd. It’s like, it’s like, you ever, you ever meet somebody. Doesn’t happen often. You meet them, and within 345, minutes, you’re like, oh my gosh, this one’s different. This one’s special. Yeah, that’s what these unicorns give off. And instead of finding a map, like a how to find those people, kind of guidance system, we found a blueprint for building them. Because every one of these habits can be learned. Everyone can become more empathetic. It creates a dilemma, which we’ll hear about in this fall. But
Maria Ross 08:59
yeah, no. And that’s, I think that’s the important thing there, is that many of these things are teachable. Many of them stem from from habits and characteristics that are innate. It sometimes they look different for different people, depending on how emotional they are versus logical, or how they experience the world, or how they view the world, and I’m learning a lot more about that in terms of even being empathetic looks different to different people, depending on on how their brain works, right? But I think that’s the important thing, is we can’t just give up, and that’s always when I’m in front of a room full of leaders and I tell people that empathy is innate in us, but sometimes that muscle atrophies over time, whether it’s upbringing or environment. So I think it’s a cop out for many leaders to say, I’m just not naturally a people person, or I’m just not naturally empathetic the way you exhibit that could look different than what people you know have in mind, but it’s absolutely. Accessible to everyone. So I love that your book talks about these in terms of being teachable traits and to your point of being data driven. That’s exactly the work I do is showing people the data and the research that proves how empathy can be an advantage for you and how it can actually help you succeed and not succeed in spite of it. So I want to dig in a little
William Vanderbloemen 10:21
bit. Sorry to interrupt you, let me ask you a question. You’re the empathy expert. I think I know the answer. Can AI use empathy? Do you foresee that day?
Maria Ross 10:31
We’ve done a lot of episodes about that already, and I’ll link to many of those in the show notes. So yeah, there’s it’s a much more nuanced question that a yes or no, and we’ve spoken to many AI experts on the show so about that question. So let’s dig into this idea of under How did you come to an understanding, or what is your definition of soft skills, or human skills, as it as it relates vis a vis to business acumen or expertise? Well,
William Vanderbloemen 11:01
the research that we used was really an archeological dig. You know, sometimes you go into a research project with the conclusion you want to be true. That wasn’t the case. We just started digging around carefully and see what’s under this, what’s under this, what’s under this, and what separated these unicorns from everyone else was the way they treated individuals, human to human skills, and we saw it in 12 different manifestations. All the unicorns had a higher than normal testing around these 12 habits. We discovered 12 habits. We interviewed all 30,000 we surveyed them all. Then we surveyed a quarter million people to lay them against the 30 so lots of forensics that led to a real simple conclusion. I tell people, if you read the chapter titles in the book, you’d go, William, I could have written this and and the reality is, the alternate title that we joked about was, oh, I guess Mom was right. Most of these lessons or just like, treat people well,
Maria Ross 12:01
right? Everything we needed to know we learned in kindergarten, right?
William Vanderbloemen 12:04
That sort of thing. But this actually has the research to put underneath it absolutely
Maria Ross 12:08
and that’s what I love about it. I’m all about making these, making these claims about emotional intelligence and soft, quote, unquote, soft skills, which drives me crazy that they’re called soft skills, because they actually impact the bottom line, but people like you, people like me, others I know in sort of the the empathy advocacy space, are focused on on the ROI, are focused on the business case, and the data and the research that shows that this actually is not just somebody trying to equate these two things that have Nothing to do with each other. It actually does result in success. So let’s talk a little bit about a few. So I just I’m for folks listening. I’m going to list out the 12 traits, fast, authentic, agile solver, anticipator, prepared, self aware, curious, connected, likable, productive and purpose driven. So I want to dig into a few of these with you, and have you share how this showed up in your research, and what are some examples of it in action and as you, as you work with folks, what are, what are different ways that folks can learn this skill, build this skill for themselves, if they feel that for some reason, they’re particularly weak in this area. So let’s start with authentic and what
William Vanderbloemen 13:27
you mean by that, yeah, and let me, just before we dive into those, say anyone can learn these. It’s never been easier. There’s a map now it’s data driven, and by the way, there’s low hanging fruit, because the generation, you know, I’m the very edge of Gen X. I got millennial kids, Gen Z kids, and then whatever’s behind that, A, or whatever their alpha, yeah, and so, well, actually the next gen is Gen a, I then alpha, but, but the lack of human to human skills among the digital natives is frightening, and it’s because the whole Gen we gave them phones to look at, and they scroll, scroll, scroll. So so it’s easier than you can imagine. We just hosted a rehearsal dinner and for our son and the you know RSVP via email that people didn’t have RSVP, somebody wrote my wife back that just said, RSVP. Like that’s a question. That’s not an answer. Anyway, authenticity, basically, this is the hunger everybody wants. Are you the same on stage as you are the same off stage? Is there a difference between what I see in the boardroom and how you’re going to treat me wherever else you see me like? Is it one person, or is there stage William and behind stage, William and there, you know, that’s a balance. I mean, it used to be when I was cutting my leadership teeth. You never let them see you sweat. Same lead strength, right?
Maria Ross 14:51
Or there’s business you, and then there’s personal you, and never the two shall meet. Yeah, right.
William Vanderbloemen 14:55
And that was one side of a spectrum. And I don’t know whether it was good or not, but it’s a spectrum. Now we’re on the other side of the spectrum where, you know, Brene Brown has done amazing work and research. She actually lives about four doors from me, and so I would say I know her, but actually the truth is, my dog knows her dog, but, but, you know, it has led some people to think that authenticity means sharing every worst, scary part of you in your whole world, that’s not authenticity. So it’s not just go vomit on people. That’s not Authenticity. Authenticity. I feel like you’re authentic because I feel like you see me and you hear me. That makes you authentic to me. And in each of the chapters of the book, we go into case study for the authentic we have quotes from all the unicorns on what they do to practice authenticity. And then we have a section of it, and here’s how you apply it. Now, can I give you a how to apply it? That’s not in the book, okay? Authenticity, authenticity hack and and you’re the expert, so correct me if I’ve got it wrong. But you know, when you look people in the eye, where do you look? Nearly everybody says, Well, I just look them in the eye, right? Yeah, no, no, not really. Which eye? Well, I don’t know. I just look them in the eye, yeah, I know. I’m
Maria Ross 16:10
trying to think of how I do that. I’m not sure. Do I look at the time? I
William Vanderbloemen 16:13
don’t know, because I can look in that one little circle and I’m looking as much as I can. Oh, okay, so here’s the hack 90. You only use one eye to see. Use one eye to see, and the other is distance perception. That’s just the way every Humans built. 90% of all humans on the planet are right eye dominant. Their left eye just provides perception. It’s a higher number than who’s left handed, who’s right handed. So if you’re willing to gamble, there’s a 90% chance you’re right. If you guess that someone’s right eyed, and when you have a conversation with them and look them dead in just their right eye, nowhere else you ever talk to somebody, and you go, they made me feel like I was the only person in the room. That’s one way to do it, yeah, and if you get a really good interviewers, they know to do that, but it’s a little known act, and maybe you’re wrong out of 10 times. But who cares, right? But look them dead in the eye and then they will feel seen. I actually interviewed a few homeless mission directors, very large homeless missions, you know, like, what is the biggest source of pain for people suffering with homelessness? And every one of them said, Oh, they don’t feel seen, because, you know, you pull up to the stoplight and do you look at them? Do you not look at them? Do you look being seen makes you feel like the person looking at you is authentic well, and also,
Maria Ross 17:29
I think just kind of more macro to that is just, if you’re if, if people get the sense that you’re presenting a persona, that’s right, you’re not who you say you are. And I think that’s what happens sometimes with leaders who who unbeknownst unintentionally to what they’re trying to do, they’re not effective because they’re trying to put on a quote, unquote leadership persona, whether that’s out of fear or insecurity or imposter syndrome, they’re acting in certain ways that are actually not congruent with who they are and how they act outside of work. And you know that because you know those people that are in the workplace with you, or those leaders that potentially have been psychologically abusive and you’re like but I know they have a family. I know they have kids like people love them somewhere else. Why? Why can’t they bring that to work? Right? And it’s often because it’s out of fear or insecurity or hurt that they just think they have to present themselves in a different way, because I have to present my leader persona to you, or offer you in your in your instance, the perfect candidate persona.
William Vanderbloemen 18:37
Yeah, what we’re seeing in candidates right now, and I think it’s a this pendulum swing is, uh, false humility. That’s very off putting. It’s the same thing. It’s just the other side of the spectrum.
Maria Ross 18:48
Yeah, give us. Give us. What? What does that? What does that look like? I know about humble brags, but what is, what
William Vanderbloemen 18:53
is the living the humble brag okay? I mean, like, you know, what do you do for living? Well, I work alongside a great team that helps companies find their you know, hey, you can also say Bossy Pants way. I’m the CEO and founder of a company that helps right? There is a third ground you can say, Oh, we had crazy ideas 16 years ago and started a company. We had some great people come join us, and we’ve gotten do a lot of great work. I’m still learning, but I feel like I’ve learned some things along the way. Yeah,
Maria Ross 19:24
and you can be really proud of the work you’ve done, too. That’s okay, yeah, yeah. I think that’s such a great point, because, you know, we talk about marrying humility with empathy, because empathy actually requires humility for you to be able to put your own narrative aside for a second, sure to take in someone else’s. And I think people misunderstand what humility means, and it’s the pendulum swings too far each way. Either they’re like you said, they’re, they’re braggadocious or or they’re just trying to downplay every great accomplishment they ever had. And this. Facility, guys, this is what I tried. My son just turned 10. Yesterday. We we talked to him about being confident but humble and kind at the same time good, and learning that those are not either ORs. Those are both hands you can walk softly and carry a big stick exactly, boom, right there. Okay. The second one I want to talk to talk to you about is because this is actually pillar number one in the new book The Empathy dilemma. Is self awareness. So what? How does that show up in your work? And what is an example of that from the people that you interviewed and the unicorns that you spoke to,
William Vanderbloemen 20:38
it showed up. It shows up in everybody’s work, whether they realize it or not,
Maria Ross 20:43
the lack of it or the presence of it, right? Lack of it, lack
William Vanderbloemen 20:46
of it. The people who have presence, who have self awareness as a presence, are often dealing with people that are so unaware that they don’t even realize who they’re talking to. There’s a busy thing about themselves, they’re not so it’s not a trait that gets congratulated a lot. But I think if you think of the 12 habits as an archway with 12 stones, I think self awareness is the keystone to the whole thing. Pull it out. Everything else falls. You put it in. It’s easier to build the arch, right? And the funny thing is, we surveyed all 30,000 of the unicorns. Massive survey hired behavioral scientists. And, you know, did it right, right? And one of the things we asked them was to force rank the 12 habits. What do you need? Really need to work on? What are you really doing? Great at last place, self graded last place by a long, long, long shot. All the unicorns said, I got to get better at self awareness, which is usually the number one sign that you’re doing pretty good at it,
Maria Ross 21:46
if you’re self aware that you’re not very good at being self aware. That’s
William Vanderbloemen 21:50
so we surveyed the quarter million people, like the normal people, right? And we asked one of the things we asked them was, would you say you’re below average, average, above average in self awareness, one to five, right? 93% of everyone said they’re above average at self awareness. Now, I don’t know how many math majors are on this podcast, but I’m pretty sure there’s not a group on the planet where 93% of the group is above average. Yeah, yeah. It’s 50 and 50. So, so it’s self awareness is the single biggest blind spot for all of us, and it’s the thing people want to work on the most when they’ve already got it. And you know, you say, Well, I’m glad I’m not one of those 93% Hey, do you remember the first time you heard your voice recorded? Oh, yeah, yeah, I do. I was really not happy. I was, Who is this?
Maria Ross 22:44
Because it doesn’t sound like the voice echoing it. Oh,
William Vanderbloemen 22:47
I listened to me all. Let me tell you something. I listened to me all day long, and I know what I was saying. That’s not me. That was kind of where I was, right, right? Yeah, that’s a lack of self awareness, yeah. And it’s almost impossible.
Maria Ross 22:58
How what is a tip or two on how to work on your self awareness?
William Vanderbloemen 23:03
Well, I think we live in the best time ever to work on self awareness. Why? William, well, you can work on your own stuff on any number of levels now, and it not be just quackery like and what do I mean? Okay, on a self awareness at a small level is learning what work you do best and what work takes more energy out of you. I can do detail work. I sent every bill when we started the company. I like, you know, cook, bottle washer, the whole thing. But the reality is, there are fewer mistakes on detail or in the documents. If I’m not doing them, I have more energy. I’ve got more time to give in things that so self awareness can be as simple as you’re interviewing somebody. You got a lot of C suite people listening today they’re interviewing and you ask them that old question that’s kind of thrown away as an icebreaker. So tell me about yourself. Some people are really thorough, and they’re like, you know, when I was one, I started walking, and then then you got other people who just talk about what they have for breakfast, like, that’s a great question to ask. It’s not a throwaway icebreaker, because you can answer it in a way. And if you’re listening for this kind of answer, you can figure out self awareness. Oh, you’re saying, Tell me about me. Maria, well, okay, let me tell you what I’m learning. Sign number one, it’s a present tense verb. It’s not a past. You know, I’m learning. And Maria, I’d love to come work with you, because your work is taking off. I mean, my goodness, you hit a nerve right before the pandemic, and your work’s just gonna so you’re probably growing real fast, and it’s up into the ride, and you’re making it up as you go. I actually thrive in those environments. I’m a seven on the Enneagram. I love the next party. I’m an extrovert. In my first job, I was supposed to build an email list. They didn’t even have an email list. They didn’t know what software he’s had to figure it out. As it went, we grew it to 100,000 email addresses within 18 months. Was pretty good. Second job, another one, where I had to go figure it out. Lot of people get paid. Realized by going to figure it out, I love it. Not Want an accountant. Don’t hire me.
Maria Ross 25:07
Yeah, yeah. It’s really, it’s really understanding those strengths and also understanding the blind spots and those emotional triggers too, knowing yourself well enough to know when things aren’t going well, how do you respond? And however you respond is okay. It’s just, what do you do to mitigate where you know, okay, this is what tends to happen to me. And I get, you know, I get a little upset. I My heart rate starts to go up. And so what I need in those moments is to leave the room and take a few deep breaths, or whatever. It’s just knowing that about yourself. And like you said, No, and that’s like you said, you know. And what I talk about in the book, in the new book, is, you know, there, like you said, there are lots of resources out there to help you. There’s the Enneagram, there’s Myers Briggs, there’s something called the hearty assessment that I talk about. There is Clifton.
William Vanderbloemen 25:59
Sorry, we built this. So we built an index. It’s at Vander index.com but it’s how do you measure up in each of these 12 habits compared to the general normal population and the unicorns? What are your three best? What are your three worst? We actually even built in a 360 tool where managers could give it to teams and teams could take it about I’ll have a conversation about we as a team are really good at these three, and we’re really lagging in these three. Okay, great. We
Maria Ross 26:26
are going to put a link to that in the show notes at Vander index.com that’s fantastic. Okay, let’s talk about my favorite one, because it is the number one trait of empathic people, which is curiosity. Yeah, so how did that show up in your research in terms of identifying if or self identifying candidate? How did candidates determine if they were curious people?
William Vanderbloemen 26:49
Well, you know, over the years, I’ve been doing this 16 years now, I have learned that here’s the best interview question I can ask. Now, when I do, I do very few searches. Now we really do have a great team. They do most of the work. If I’m involved in a search, it usually means I’m interviewing the finalists before they go to so there’s been a lot of other stuff done, and you’ve got to do baseline interviewing, right? But when you get down toward the end, here’s the single most effective interview question I’ve ever come up with. All right, you ready? Yeah. What questions do you have for me? Perfect. I learn more from hearing people’s questions as I get older than I do hearing their answers. And I think that, you know, I’m looking for curious because we’re entering forget and don’t forget empathy. I was about to say, Forget empathy. I often, but you just shut the podcast down if I said that. So forget whatever you want to forget, but you know, the the future is less certain than maybe ever. Like, what is this AI thing going to do? What happens? You know, can’t watch the news over the weekend because something might happen in the Middle East. That makes me crazy. I it’s a really uncertain time, and the people who are asking questions will be able to adapt quicker than the people who aren’t. So I’m incredibly interested in people who are curious. And to me, a lot of the automated tasks going to be better served by computers, but human curiosity will be a very hard thing to get replaced.
Maria Ross 28:14
Love that. Love that. Yeah. I mean, I definitely found the right career, because as a kid, I was, you know, why do you want to know that? Why are you always asking questions? Why are you so nosy?
William Vanderbloemen 28:24
Well, I asked, I actually, when I talk about this in a longer format, we don’t have time now, but I talk about how it atrophies two year you get tired of how many times the two year old says, why? Yes, we are trained to not ask questions, shut up and do what you’re supposed to, what like the world is going to try and drag that out of you, but you’re innately preset to a why? Yeah,
Maria Ross 28:43
exactly, and it’s why. You know, I’ve learned this little positive parenting tip is praising my son about the questions he asks. That’s a great question. You ask really good questions, and constantly reinforcing that and helping us reinforce that in young people too, so that they do, they don’t just go along. They question the
William Vanderbloemen 29:05
the single best mentor I’ve had for growth in our business, the guy that I saw when we first started growing, and when I was interviewing my friends say, who should I go to? I went to all my high growth friends and said, Who coaches you and and the reference that one of the leaders I respect most of the world said to me, said, William, go to him. He will get you asking questions that expand your mind. He’s not going to give you the eight ways to grow your business or the seven proven steps to blah, blah, blah. He’s going to ask questions that cause you to ask questions that opens your mind. Yeah,
Maria Ross 29:39
asking better questions. I love it. And then finally, let’s talk about connected because how do you how do you measure that in a data driven study?
William Vanderbloemen 29:48
Yeah, this has flipped quite a bit in the 16 years since I’ve started doing this. Used to be I got some more friends on Facebook. I got some more friends on Facebook. I’ve got likes. I’ve got this. That’s. I’m connected, right? Well, it’s so nauseatingly overdone now, right? And on how many platforms? Oh, there. Here’s one really super way to supercharge your connectivity. Okay? Do fewer conversations and community quality, not quantity, right when I moved here to Houston to pastor this big old church, it was right at Christmas time and all of the different, you know, groups of friends that come together, or support groups or Sunday school classes have their Christmas party. And I thought, well, I can get to every Christmas party. I can knock out meeting half of this congregation in three weeks. I had no idea what a bad idea that was. I could drop into a party and go say hello for 30 minutes so I could max out how many parties I could get to that night. And not only did no one feel like they talked to me, everybody thought I blew them off. Oh, so what I’m interested in now is I go to an event and I say I’m going to have 320 minute conversations here, and it’s going to be about more. What do they say? You know, surface level conversations of the weather, the next level down is about events. Then you can talk about people, but then there’s ideas. So I try and get down to, let’s talk about, you know, events or ideas, and not just people in the weather. But I think if you’ll focus on fewer, more thorough conversations, the person yeah and look them in the eye, the people you’re talking to, will tell your story for you, and you’ll feel unconnected
Maria Ross 31:31
absolutely, yeah, I’m a huge proponent of quality over quantity in everything, really, and not just in that, but just in so many things In our lives. So this has been such a great conversation as we wrap up, I just want to ask if there’s any more macro advice or a little golden nugget you want to share with people who, again, may be feeling like this, all sounds great, and I’m terrible at all this. I don’t know that I’ll ever get better at being able to read people or connect with people. What would you say to them? Yeah, I
William Vanderbloemen 32:05
would say that. First of all, I don’t know if you’re going to get better. Only you can answer that. You know, like it’s on you listen or decide whether you get better. I think in the book, we’ve built the perfect treadmill that will get you in better shape than any other fitness equipment on the planet, and now you have to get on it. So I don’t know whether you’ll get better listener, but I know you can, and I’ve seen it happen. And if there’s any way that this book can help you, all the resources, every part of the book, everything bonus content, all those things, you’ll find that the unicorn book.com, the unicorn book.com. I hope it helps you, and I hope it you know, if you’re a C suite leader right now, what would happen if, when people come to your company, everyone they met, they walk away going, you know, within five minutes, I was like, that person’s different. The security guard was different. The person I met in the elevator was what if people left your company with that feeling? That’s what happens when you train a team of unicorn unicorns.
Maria Ross 33:03
I love it. I love it, and you’ve already given us our great place to connect and get more information. The unicorn book.com. William, thank you so much for your time today and your insights. The book is phenomenal. Everybody. Check it out. Be the unicorn. 12 data driven habits that separate the best leaders from the rest. And I appreciate being in conversation with
William Vanderbloemen 33:24
you today
Maria Ross 33:27
Absolutely. Thanks so much, 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, subscribe, share it with a friend, and until next time, remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. 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™
In this essential episode of “Courage to Advance,” host Kim Bohr and global inclusion strategist Mason Donovan tackle a critical challenge facing today’s leaders: maintaining organizational cohesion in an increasingly polarized world. Their timely conversation cuts through the noise to deliver practical wisdom on fostering productive workplaces where differences drive innovation rather than division.
Through real-world examples, Mason and Kim explore how thoughtful leadership can transform potential friction points into opportunities for organizational growth. Drawing from personal experience and extensive client work, they examine why some corporate inclusion initiatives soar while others stumble, offering senior leaders a strategic framework for making decisions that align with mission and market realities.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Inclusion is for the entire organization, no matter if you are in the majority or the minority group. It is more than just policy, it is operating with a lens of inclusion in every aspect of the organization.
Everybody has to own inclusion. While leaders may have a greater impact, they cannot be the only ones carrying the inclusion bucket.
Politics in the US have put almost everything, every cultural decision, in either the red or the blue. Think about those connections, think about what may be said to others by those decisions, then make a decision.
Hard, uncomfortable conversations will come up. Get ahead of them before they begin with policies and training.
“When you’re a head of organization, everything that you do in public is a representative of that organization.” — Mason Donovan
From Our Partner:
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
About Mason Donovan:
Founder/Consultant of The Dagoba Group
Mason was Managing Director of Client Solutions for Personified, a human capital consulting firm, before becoming a principal for The Dagoba Group, a New England-based consultancy that specializes in leadership development in inclusion and diversity. He has over 20 years consulting clients in the areas of talent acquisition, performance management, and leading inclusive teams. Mason holds a long list of sales achievement awards for direct sales and sales management. He believes diversity and inclusion is a marketplace differentiator. Co-author of The Inclusion Dividend and SET for Inclusion. Author of the Golden Apple.
00:03 Kim Bohr Welcome to Courage Advance. Welcome to Courage to advance leadership and transformation. I’m your host, Kim Bohr, and I’m joined today by Mason Donovan, a longtime friend and former colleague. And we’re here today to talk about leading through polarization. And before we dive in, let me tell you a little bit about Mason. So he is a global inclusion strategist and managing partner of the Dagobah Group, an integrated global corporate culture engagement consulting practice with specialties inclusive leadership, wellness, unconscious bias, work life balance, workplace dynamics, and client engagement. He’s also the author of three books, the Golden Apple, the Inclusion Dividend, and Set for Inclusion. I am so thrilled to have you here and excited for our conversation today, Mason. Welcome to the podcast.
00:59 Mason Thank you. Thank you, Kim. It’s a pleasure being here. It’s honored being here with you and your listeners. I look forward to our conversation.
01:06 Kim Bohr I think our listeners are going to really appreciate what we’ve, what we’re going to talk about today. And you know, although we’ve talked a little bit about what that’ll be, we’re really, we’re going to just lean into where our conversation goes. And just so our listeners know, we’re recording this just days before the US Presidential election. And we can all probably agree that there’s high emotion there feels like high stakes regardless of what side you’re on. And there’s a real opportunity to try to understand how do we move through this, not knowing what the outcomes are going to be. And yet we all still have to work and live together in pursuit of common goals that we share.
01:54 Kim Bohr And so this felt like a really important conversation that you and I wanted to have in order to just talk through what’s going on and trying to see if we can bring to our listeners perhaps some tips and some ideas of way to think to try to you bridge that polarization that we all are just the reality of our society today. So from that perspective, I’d love for you to start to talk a little bit about what has brought you into the work of inclusion and really where do you come at, especially in this type of time that we’re in.
02:35 Mason Sure. First I want to make a bold prediction though. So this podcast will drop a couple weeks after the election. So my bold prediction is by then we will know who is the president.
02:49 Kim Bohr So I think that is a good prediction.
02:51 Mason That’s my full prediction. Probably not the day after.
02:56 Kim Bohr Agreed. We definitely feel that’s not, we definitely can agree that is not going to be a clear.
03:02 Mason I’m not saying not that night so yeah, it’s. We are living in a world polarization. I think there’s not a single person out there that doesn’t feel it. It’s in our personal life, but it seeps into our work life. Right. So how do you keep that outside conversation, either keep it from coming inside or when it does come inside, how do you keep that from really deteriorating sort of the inclusive teamwork that you’ve created as a corporation? So I’ll go back to the question you have. What drew me into inclusion is that we both worked for a company called careerbuilder.com where we met.
03:45 Kim Bohr Yes. Many years ago.
03:47 Mason Many years ago. It was a really dynamic company, but it had. I’m not sure if you agree, but I’ll say it had a bro culture. What we would say is sort of, even though it wasn’t Silicon Valley, it had that Silicon Valley what you have broke culture. And I can tell you, as a gay man in that organization and not being out, realizing, feeling like I could never come out because it just didn’t ever feel like it filled the culture. There was inclusion. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what it meant to me personally, but also the organization. And there was a time when we created a human capital consulting firm, when I started working for them and we started to outsource some inclusion work.
04:34 Mason And that’s when I really started to lean in and understanding what is inclusion, why is it important to me, how does it make me feel, but also how does it connect me with the company? So I leaned more into it and it wasn’t too long after that I realized I had a big passion for it and what it could do for, to allow somebody to be fully realized in their life. And so we ended up, I joined with my partner, Mark Kaplan, we created the Dagobah Group. And from there we really started to leaning and it blended to so many other areas that I am passionate about within the organization. And obviously we think of talent acquisition, but there’s talent assessment, there is the client engagement, there’s product creation.
05:25 Mason There’s so many stories and where inclusion has really created a inclusion dividend as the name of the book has created that dividend that’s paid back many times over. And for me personally, I saw myself and how once I was able to bring my full self to work, how that made me more productive, how it increased my morale, increased my connection to. To the corporation. And I see that with our clients as well. And when they have a more inclusive workplace, what that means for everyone. And when I mean everyone. Whether it is you find yourself in the majority stakeholder group or the minority stakeholder holder group, inclusion is really for the entire organization. So that’s really sort of my lean in with inclusion. How to get connected.
06:16 Mason On the point of view, for our corporation, we really look at inclusion of a way that can advance a company forward. So there are three types of inclusion firms out there. There’s the academic, the civil, and the corporate. So the academic are like Dr. Banaji, that’s really studying about unconscious bias. How does it impact our brains? How does it impact our decisions? Daniel Kahneman does the same thing. Is that whole academic world’s really doing that strong research that we use. The civil world is in the civil world. What they’re doing is really trying to push the legislation to be more inclusive. So out there and really working a lot of organizations out there, whether it’s HRC or NO W or naacp, they’re there to create a more equitable workplace in society and they’re there to really change legislation.
07:11 Mason And then there’s the corporate, and that’s where we sit. And that’s how can we fully leverage our people to advance our company, to make our company better than it was before or if you’re nonprofit, to advance towards your mission. So that’s how we look at it. And it’s really about a. An actionable going beyond awareness. So because we think awareness is necessary, but it’s not sufficient, you have to move to action. And it has to be an alignment with the path forward for your company overall.
07:44 Kim Bohr And I absolutely agree with you where that culture we came from was very much that bro culture. And it really did limit so many different areas of innovation. And I think that lack of inclusion was certainly a predominant reason why. And so when I think about the work you do with organizations, what you’ve shared with me before, and I think would be interesting just to elaborate on a little bit further with our listeners, is that it’s, it’s beyond just policy setting. It’s really operating from a lens of inclusion in every aspect of an organization. And so I’d love to have you just share a little bit about that because I think that is perhaps a little bit different than the way some people think of inclusion in maybe stopping just at a policy level.
08:38 Mason Sure. And it’s, you know, it’s about putting inclusion. Anytime there is a people decision or a people challenge, inclusion should be part of that thought process. I give you an example. We had A company we’re working with, who are working with them on inclusive leadership. They called me up and just out of the blue and say, hey, we’re building a brand new headquarters. So this is a very large Fortune 1000 company. We’re building new headquarters and we’re thinking about how the conversations we had with you, how inclusion should be part of our everyday conversation. We think we never looked at the build out from an inclusive lens. We just looked at it from a functional lens. Could you come in and speak to us about. And we have a design team, we have those interested to talk about the building of our headquarters.
09:36 Mason And I’d love that. We had a great conversation. We did visioning of them, like walking in, what do they see? What do other people see? Because diversity is, goes beyond just sort of those five or six or seven dimensions of difference you typically see in the EEO statement, right? They go beyond that. They go to areas such as parents and non parents, they go to areas like introverts and extroverts. They go to areas of economic class. And when you’re building out this headquarters, which will be their headquarters for the next 30, 40, 50 years, they need to look beyond what, you know, what is our functional need today? But what is our need for our people socially? Like, do we need social groups, do we need pods? How do we work with that?
10:24 Mason How can we make this flexible enough to build for the future? And it’s always interesting when somebody thinks about, well, we’re spending a lot of money to build for this small group of people. And it always reminds me of the ada. So the American with Disabilities act, they came in and said that we need to make corporations, not corporations, we need to make spaces, buildings, spaces more accessible to those that have some ableness challenges, those that are in crutches or in wheelchairs or whatnot. And so what did, what happened? They put in cuts into the sidewalks, they put wheelchair ramps in, they put in elevator space, they probably put in some bathroom stalls that were bigger. And guess what happened? The majority of people using them was not the target audience. So I remember doing an audit once for a company.
11:17 Mason We sat outside for three hours and all we did is look at the front of their building after they build a ramp. And the people who are using it, whereas it was 90% were, did not have even a challenge. It was the delivery guy, it was a person coming with the bike. It was the, it was somebody pushing a baby carriage. It was in the list went on and on to somebody that might have sprained their ankle. That weekend or somebody had a lot of roll on luggage to going in, out for business. So when we build out, we got to think of, you know, all the additional impacts, how this impacts everyone and not just that particular group. And another clear example of that, well, another one with it.
11:59 Mason I used to travel quite a bit and I remember sometimes I would need to change my clothes in the airport because they’re going there and going to another firm or heading home. And the only stall you could do that is within the handicap stall. And I would find, oh wow, the majority of people going to those stalls or actually ones that were changing or had suitcase or other things with them. And one thing I always make sure, if I’m using this, I make sure that nobody else is there. So if somebody else did have a need, a verified need for that stall, that’s Jesus. But it just gives you another idea of when we’re building something out for individuals, it’s an entire group.
12:45 Mason When we think of maternity leave and then we think of paternity leave and then we think, oh wait, what it really is, it’s really caregiver leave. And when you start thinking that and moving back and taking a broader range of what the leave is for and the leave is for to caring for a loved one, sometimes that might be an elderly mother or father that’s living with us or an adult child that needs more help and more care, or it might be a newborn baby or adopted baby. So when we start looking at these policies, how it impacts the entire organization and how it can really start to have a huge impact on us as a community within the corporation as well as, you know, the productivity, the morale, how that really moves a company forward.
13:36 Mason So yeah, inclusion is not just about sort of our traditional approach to diversity. Like we need to get X number of women in or we need to represent the society and percentage of this particular group or another, it’s really about how we feel. It’s really about that climate that then allows. Inclusion is something that you can lead with globally. 50% of our clients are outside the US inclusion you can lead with globally and then you can allow for the diversity challenges at hand. Because your diversity challenges in London are probably going to be different than they are in D.C. Or Taipei or Tokyo or even within your department. I can tell you diversity challenges of almost any organization for their, say their HR support department are going to be very different from their technical service department or the sales department.
14:26 Mason So inclusion allows for that diversity challenge locally. Then you can have this consistent approach for Everyone. And a guideline to go by.
14:38 Kim Bohr I think that’s so important how you’ve described it, because it’s really at the heart of the design, and it doesn’t sound like it’s housed in one particular functional area. It’s really in the way you describe it. And what you encourage clients to think about is everybody has a piece of ownership in this area of. Of thinking from an inclusive place by how we. How we think about designing for the business and everybody in it, not just from a, you know, not just a sole function of maybe an HR lens. And I think that’s sometimes perhaps where this conversation gets stalled because it. It is maybe thought to live there versus everybody has a piece of ownership in it.
15:19 Mason Yeah, I agree. It’s, you know, we. We all need to own it. We can’t just put it on the shoulders of the leaders, and we can’t just put it on the shoulders of who has D and I in their title. I typically have a metaphor. We will. I will ask a client, you know, if we’re in a workshop, how many here have digital security in the title? Maybe one hand might go up. And I say, okay, how many here feels, though digital security, data security is part of your responsibility? Every hand goes up. Because if we only allowed and focus on that one person that had digital security, they’re the only ones that worried about digital security, the only ones that cared about it. Well, guess what? You would. You would not have a secure data. You would not have a secure site.
16:05 Mason You would not have sort of secure systems, because that. The first time somebody hits one of those. Those scam emails or gives information away on the phone when they shouldn’t, then it’s gone. So everybody has to own it. Another example, safety. We used to work with Dupont, who’s now owned by Dow. I remember the walking up. They had this grand staircase in Delaware, and the CEO was walking up and she had things in both arms, and somebody stopped her right away. Someone just out of the blue stopped her and say, hey, you can’t do that. You have to hold on to the railing. They had a rule, a safety rule, that if you’re going up the steps, you have to have one hand on the railing. And the CEO said, thank you. You know, you’re right.
16:52 Mason And then she asked somebody if they can hold the other thing that was in her hand, and she walked out with their hand on the railing. And it was that individual that had the. Because the company owned safety so much, that had the power to stop. As CEO of a Fortune 500 company from making that step. And the CEO received it really well in the way you expect. So that’s ownership. Right. And same thing comes through inclusion, diversity, inclusion. Everybody has to own inclusion, whether you’re the entry level person or you’re the CEO. Obviously as leaders, you have a much greater impact and influence on the culture as those individuals. But you can’t be the only one that’s carrying that bucket.
17:37 Kim Bohr Right? Right. And I think that’s such a powerful example of that in action. And so thinking about what we have in front of us today, we are well aware of CEOs that are perhaps more public figures that are really taking very maybe polarizing stances. And you know, it’s that maybe starts to become a conflict. Right. With what is maybe stated or implied or intended. And so I think the example you gave is such a great example of alignment. And yet maybe a lot of our listeners are feeling that’s not the kind of environment that they’re in. And so how do we start to think about when there is this clear, you know, do as I say, not as I do type of a situation that pops up where we all feel.
18:41 Kim Bohr So I don’t know, maybe there’s this sense of like fairness that starts to creep in, especially when we’re seeing the dynamics and at play. So how do you start to address that type of scenario?
18:55 Mason You know, it’s corporate culture is really started from CEO on down. And there is a culture of Simon Says in every organization. So if you remember the game of Simon says, and when I did my research on that a long time ago, I found that Simon Says is actually played in almost every country around the world. A different name for it, you know, somebody else says, but it’s the same exact game. And as we remember, it’s kids. Simon says, what happens is the leader says, does something different, but tells you to do, say they’ll tell you to pat your stomach, but they’ll pat their head. And we lose by doing what they do instead of doing what they say. And because we are just trained as humans, so often we follow the leader.
19:40 Mason And so if your leader is saying one thing but doing another, we’re going to follow what they do, we’re not going to follow what they say. And so that’s, it becomes difficult. So we talk about polarization. There are leaders out there of CEOs, organizations that are very public with their political stance. They might even within their organization have a policy of not talking about politics. You know, it gets sticky because CEOs are people too, and they deserve to have their own personal opinions and their own political preferences. And so there’s that one argument is that they need. They have their own personal life. But when you’re ahead of organization, unfortunately, you give up a lot of that. Everything that you do in public is a representative of that organization. So let’s. I could just call one out. Elon Musk.
20:38 Mason We all know that Elon Musk, the head of Tesla and of X and other companies, is very outspoken. I think people know he’s. He’s a very outspoken individual. And so the idea is, well, the concept is if you have a CEO like Elmox that’s very outspoken and very outspoken of who he favors and how strongly favors, if you have individuals within your organization that don’t agree with him, is there the safety to say that without reprisal? And those who do agree with them, do they feel more emboldened to be more political within the workspace? Because the CEO’s doing it, and so why can’t I do it? The CEO is doing it. So that becomes a very sticky wicket for the manager because the manager, organization realized to have inclusion, you really have to have a term we can discuss further on psychological safety.
21:40 Mason People have to feel as though being themselves and be able to express themselves without the fear of reprisal. It’s interesting because in diversity inclusion, often you hear that we’re doing this to bring your full self to work. We want your whole self. Full self to work. Well, I always say, well, not fully. Right. Because our full self is. Some of us are very political outside of work. Some of us are very religious outside of work. Some of us have maybe a vocabulary that we would typically not use in work. And when we say, when organizations say bring your full self, what they really want to say is bring your full professional self. Right. You realize you’re in a profession, you’re in a community of colleagues in which you have to have respect.
22:30 Mason In order for us to all work together, you have to have respect, and you have to look at some clear boundaries of where conversations go beyond the professional. Some are just legal. There are just some things that you don’t say that you’re just going to get. You know, you’re crossing line. You’re. Yeah, you’re. You are going to open yourself up to all kinds of litigation. But then there’s stuff that’s in the gray area, like talking about politics. So it’s as challenging for the manager. It’s challenging for a Manager. When you have an outspoken CEO one way or another, whether it’s a one sided party or another party, it doesn’t matter which party it is.
23:14 Mason And how do you make it a safe inclusive space for those who might disagree with that or have whole different opinions as well as those who do agree that also might feel like they can’t speak as much as they can because of the policies. I think one of the things we look at with organization when this comes to hand is it’s not a surprise the election’s coming. The election is not a surprise. It happens every four years. When it comes to presidential election. Every two years we’re having some type of other election at the Rep or the senator level. So get ahead of it, create policies. Understand that the outside talk. When it becomes so passionate, we get close to the election like we are now, it’s going to happen. People are nervous. Both sides are nervous, both sides.
24:07 Mason And in the end one side will win and one side will lose. And we’re talking about the parties. Hopefully everybody wins and whoever is elected works for all of us. But one party will win and one party will lose for that presidential spot. That’s just how it works. And they will.
24:24 Kim Bohr That’s the heart of our democratic institution, right? Is the competition and the ideas that you know there’s going to be a trade off, you know and hopefully we get into the. Where we’re all trading off something that we gain something too.
24:39 Mason Yeah, you do. And then you know, you sort of, either you cry or scream, you scream whatever you need to do, brush yourself off and you move forward with what you have. But the. Within the organizational space, you know it’s coming. So get ahead of that conversation. Create some, create some policies that in place of. Do you allow from attire. Do you allow political slogans coming into work? Not just coming into work. If you are a hybrid or remote organization, do you allow that? What’s in the personal space? Like if I had a political presidential sign behind me, is that allowable? Get that ahead of time.
25:15 Mason Put those out in policies, communicate with that and understand, talk to people, open communication and realize that they will say, hey, I recognize there’s a lot of passion out there during this time and we want to talk about it, but we also have to respect each other and realize after the election is over, we’re still working together, we’re still in the same organization and we still have the same goals. Regardless of who wins the election. Our goal is XYZ for this corporation or for this Nonprofit mission. But as a CEO and understanding and as a leader organization, understanding your actions, no matter what the intent, have a huge impact. Now I’m going to bring something up you and I discussed before.
25:59 Kim Bohr Yes.
26:00 Mason Behind you. You have two pictures.
26:03 Kim Bohr I do.
26:04 Mason I want to ask you, why do you have, you know, RBG and MLK behind you? Why? What’s the reason for you to have that? And you know, you’re a CEO of your organization. These are behind you. These individuals are behind you in this talk and I’m assuming other business talk. Tell me why they’re there. What do they mean to you personally?
26:28 Kim Bohr Yeah. So actually as the president and COO of the organization, you know what I found in back during, I think it was during the pandemic. And one of the things that I had a friend who, as an outlet during the pandemic, when were all shut in, started painting these pictures and she started doing everything from, you know, musicians all the way through some political figures. And when I happened to see these two that she had posted, you know, and was sharing online, I was really drawn to them. And what I was drawn to was the essence of the values that I shared with what they stood for, the, the doors that they opened that the work that they had to do that was really hard work to give all of us better opportunities.
27:33 Kim Bohr And so when I saw these, I was really drawn to them. And I felt that so much of the work, even what we do at Spark Effect, we very much are working to help broaden the conversation, help leaders find understanding not just growth for themselves, but growth with their team in alignment into their organizations. And so I felt that it was very much aligned with my values and the values of our organization and the brand. And what was really interesting is you and I started talking about this topic in this moment. I had this light bulb moment together where when were talking around, oh, maybe I’m, as much as I feel like what I reflect doesn’t feel political to me, it feels a supportive, kind of more historically supportive of movement that has been around inclusion.
28:36 Kim Bohr Maybe that’s not the full message I’m sending to those who join me in this setting that maybe don’t see it the same way. And that was really eye opening to me in our brief conversation we had as were talking about this because I had not, I hadn’t thought of that way. And I had my own maybe blind spot, if you will.
29:01 Mason Yeah. And you know, it’s, we’re talking about sort of our at Dagobah we have a methodology when you’re making a decision, it’s called set Self awareness engages into. So the self awareness is what we, when we started having this conversation, you’re like, oh, wait, it’s something I didn’t even think about these pictures behind me because it’s of everything you just mentioned. They align with what you say, align with how the company works, with how Sparke looks at things. You know, moving people forward, opening doors. And then the engage system too, which is built off of what Daniel Comlin made popular, which was System one is our really quick, reactive decision making. It’s really sort of the back of the head thinking. And the majority of our decisions during the day are made that, whether you know that are made.
29:52 Mason And they’re usually fairly accurate, except when it comes to people. When it comes to people decisions, they’re not so accurate because we’re going off of sort of our biases that we’ve, our experiences we’ve had and we stop looking at the individual. I mean, we think make decisions on our experience with the group. And so System two is when we really have to reflect and stop and reflect. I always tell people it’s like if you drive home as a commute every day, you probably, sometimes you realize you get home, you’re like, oh God, how did I get here? Did I go through stoplights? Did you know, did I hit somebody? Yeah, because you’re on system one the whole time.
30:29 Mason System two is usually in the summer when all of a sudden there’s a detour and maybe you’re on the call, you’re like, hey, wait, hold on. I have to think, I have to figure out this is gone that system to your engagement system too. So we talked to a self awareness engaged System two. We had this conversation like, okay, this is what you think about what they bring. But what else might they represent in this conversation? Talking about polarization, they obviously represent the liberal side of the party politics. The politics in the US have put almost everything, every cultural decision on either the red or the blue. So I can say, you know, why not have a picture of Clarence Thomas up there? He was another Supreme Court justice.
31:14 Mason There’s a lot of things that he has done that people can say that opened up the door. But I can guarantee you somebody who associate Clarence Thomas very differently as they would Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They’re both Supreme Court justices, they both served a long time, but they are connected very often to a one party or the other. And so the System two is. Am I sending that message beyond there is this something that. Beyond what they stand for, beyond party. Are they connecting to a party and my putting people off by having these. If they’re connecting politically to it and then Taylor is the last part of this. Okay, then make a decision. We thought about it. You raised your self awareness of what’s going on. You thought about what you’re doing now. Make decisions, take them up, put them down.
32:06 Mason It’s a really good sort of very quick and easy mythology methodology to when you’re thinking about making decision now CEOs let’s take Elon Musk as an example again. So Elon Musk, as we said, is very public and he’s a good figure to use in these examples because he’s very well known, he’s very public. He’s ahead of a lot of the companies that we use or connected with. Whether it’s X or Tesla or one of the charging stations. Anything that’s connected to there, the self awareness some people would say is something that he might lack. Does he fully understand what he’s saying, how it impacts him? Now I can tell you a lot of shareholders think what he’s saying.
32:51 Mason He’s not self aware because it’s impacting the sales of Tesla who that every time he tweets or says something that alienates a particular group of individuals, that’s a group of individuals that won’t buy another Tesla. And so there’s that engaged system too of like oh wait, what am I saying? And how is that impacting sort of the overall corporation? Again, as a CEO, whatever you say is magnify a hundred times.
33:19 Kim Bohr Yeah.
33:20 Mason Whatever you do is followed through. And you and I as being in the heads of our organizations, what we do and say and we think, well we’re not ahead of Fortune 1000. They still have an impact on who we work with and how we go about. So when we think of managers, when we think of even the manager level, we don’t have to look at the CEO level. When we think of managers, what they do and what they say has a big oversized impact on their team than one of the individuals on their team. And it’s really to take themselves through that piece and self awareness is the first step. Right?
33:54 Kim Bohr Yeah.
33:55 Mason So often we are, we have friends and family like they’re just, they just, they’re really well intended but they just don’t know how well how they’re being received.
34:05 Kim Bohr Right.
34:06 Mason And a lot of times we might think that with our. It’s funny, we, a lot of people Here, say about their mothers or their fathers, their parents. Oh, how can you say that? That’s sort of. That the fun personal side. But we see it in the professional side too, right? We see things that are, that might be a little off and then we see things that are a lot off and have a huge impact. And one of the things we look at is the little off. Are they happening a lot? Are there a lot of these sort of micro exclusions some people might call microaggressions? We prefer micro exclusions. These things that people are saying, they don’t know they’re saying. Like they may call the younger people in their and their group kids. Their intent might be just fun, you know?
34:51 Mason You know, I have kids and I say kids. It’s just sort of a fun way of saying it. But how are they receiving it? Right?
34:57 Kim Bohr Yeah.
34:58 Mason How are they receiving as full grown adults that work in those organizations being called kids or when women are called girls in an organization? Because men, I can tell you, I never hear them call boys in a corporation. And I can tell you that they are, they’re not going to like it. But you know, when people, a lot of times it’s meant with good intent or no intent at all, like they don’t think about it. It’s not meant with ill intent, but is if these little things happen over and over again, these little sort of behaviors or words that builds up over time and there’s this accumulation effect that then has an outside of impact on your team or your organization and your culture, regardless of your intent.
35:42 Mason I often will ask, tell somebody, okay, let’s believe a CEO is talking to a group of shareholders. And the CEO said, well, we intended to make 36 cents a share. Well, we came in at 29 cents a share. Do the shareholders really care what the intent was? They understand, of course, the company wanted to do well. Intended to do well. They really care about the impact.
36:05 Kim Bohr Yes.
36:06 Mason Really. What was the result in the end? And that happens with when our actions, what we say, whether it’s in the office, outside the office. So let’s go back to polarization. When we’re bringing politics and we’re discussing politics on the office, what is the intent? Yeah, Is it intent to persuade somebody? Is it intent to, you know, have camaraderie or just do off steam? But what is the impact of that?
36:29 Kim Bohr So let’s talk a little bit about how do we address the reality that maybe it’s not politics explicitly, so maybe something’s not coming in as explicit, but yet we pretty you know, we, we certainly know we come at something differently because we’re sure, you know, we’re maybe on the opposite political spectrum, but yet what we find as we come together is that without talking politics, there’s still really misaligned dynamics.
37:04 Kim Bohr And I know from, you know, the work we do when we’re trying to, when we do executive coaching with leaders and we’re trying to help them look at impact, there’s so much around the, you know, looking at it from a real, you know, what are the behavioral components, what are the behavioral elements of that are causing those, you know, the actions to be, to try to get to creating a better, bigger understanding around self awareness and inclusion. Yet that’s one layer of it. But not everybody’s going to have the luxury of an executive coach or somebody who’s pointed out. And so how do you suggest individuals who may be, you know, listening or they’re saying, you know, I’m. It’s not a specific political conversation, but there is. Clearly we do not see the world the same way.
37:58 Kim Bohr And now it feels like we can’t, we’re not even working in an aligned fashion.
38:04 Mason Yeah. And we’ve seen that. And it could be something that just happened in society. So the killing of George Floyd, it wasn’t political when it started. It was an event. It was a very sad event and tragic event that got a lot of people talking in the organization. It didn’t have a red or a blue attachment to it. It came with a lot of passion. And there was other incidents that happened time and time again after that. But people needed to have the conversation in work. Right. So they need to have the conversation. But then it would veer off. It would go veer off into politics or veer off into other areas and which people are uncomfortable with that conversation.
38:51 Mason So you know, if you’re an individual and you don’t, you’re not a manager of the organization, the best thing you can do is just say, tell somebody, hey, you know, can we table this conversation? It’s making me feel a little uncomfortable in the area. I’m not ready for this conversation within work. Can we talk about the AI project? Like redirect gently, so gently put it aside and redirect the conversation to something that is, doesn’t have that sort of passion or flair with it. If you are a manager and then if it’s something that keeps coming up, then you need to, as an individual contributor, you need to discuss it with your management. Team.
39:32 Mason And if it’s something that is just not stopping and if it’s making you feel or if you see it’s making somebody else feel left out or excluded or really feeling like it’s not a welcoming sort of conversation or culture. If you’re a manager, you can do a lot more, especially if a manager that sets policies or procedures. The first thing you need to do is, like I said before, is you need to get ahead of it, understanding it’s coming. If it’s not this election, it’s going to be the next. If it’s not this incident, it’s going to be another incident. And have a clear conversation. First thing you can do is have this clear conversation. Say, you know, we are a workplace of respect. Detail what that means. Detail what that means. When we come, this is what we do.
40:23 Mason I remember that I used to work with Pfizer and one of their. They had these values and one of the values was no jerks. They just. I love that. It was just so plain and simple, no jerks, just don’t be a jerk. We don’t want a jerk here. And so. But it was very plain and simple. And I’m not saying adopt that, but I’m saying is they got ahead of it, right? And as a manager, you can get ahead. You know, this conversation is going in, going forward or might come at some point and just explain what is our policy around conversations that make us feel uncomfortable, whether political or not, how do we manage that? And second is provide training. It does not come as something that is innate to us to handle sensitive, these sensitive topics.
41:09 Mason Because we’re at home, we talk about anything we want to talk about because we have family and we grew up with family. And you just say all kinds of things, right? And the end you can say, I’m sorry if something happened, right? Do that in work. It doesn’t work so much like that in work. So you really have to start to understand. Let’s develop our team, develop our managers, how to manage difficult conversations, but also develop our entire team about what is an inclusive workplace, what is a respectful workplace and what does it mean to us and what is sort of the actions around it. And what do you do when you come head to head when something’s not inclusive, something’s exclusive and you can do it. Sometimes it’s very simple. Again, assume good intent. We always say assume good intent, right?
41:50 Mason But sometimes the very simple things you can do, it could be something talking in a group meeting and you notice that somebody that might be little bit More introverted or shy. Or it could be somebody that their native language is not the one that’s being spoken at the table. And every time they go to say something, they get cut off. And it’s not people coming off because bad intent, but just the conversations going that way, right? Everybody’s kind of jumping in, cutting everybody off, but this person, because they don’t have the command of the language or don’t have the sort of the extroverted character to put themselves out there. What they have to say is not heard. So what can you do about that? Well, an individual, whoever it is that notices that can say, hey, you know what? Deborah has something to say.
42:38 Mason Can we all be quiet? Because I would like to hear what Deborah has to say and give Deborah that space.
42:44 Kim Bohr Or John, I love that.
42:45 Mason Or Jose, wherever it happens to be, give them that space right this week. So it could be something teaching your team and training your team and coaching your team to be able to do those very simple interruption techniques. So get ahead of what’s getting out there, the conversation. Create those policies and let people understand what is respect, what is the conversation. Where’s the culture of your team? Second, provide training. And third, provide space and time for those conversations. So I’ll go back to the. The incident I talked about with the killing of George Floyd. It was a tragic, as I said, a tragic incident that happened. And people had to talk about it, right? Couldn’t just quell it. People had to talk about it. So a lot of companies gave space. Okay, let’s just.
43:36 Mason They gave us some safe space for people to talk about. Just express. What are you feeling? What does this mean to you? How does it impact you? And everybody else could just listen, right? Not interrupt those individuals. And so people can really just have this safe space and time so they can express that, express their feelings. And then when they’re outside of that space or that time, they can go about work and they don’t feel as though they have this on their shoulders. So that third thing is really to give space and time when something comes up that you feel as though it has to be discussed within your organization. So those three things are something that a individual contributor can do at certain levels, definitely a manager. And certainly as you go up in leadership chain, you can create as a corporate culture.
44:20 Kim Bohr So let me ask, I want to ask just you to elaborate one piece. And then I do want to spend a little bit of time before we wrap a little bit more on the individual lens. So back to the lens of, you know, thinking about how you start to create these elements in an organization, especially when you’re in a position of authority to do so. It sounds like there’s an opportunity to take an inclusive approach by including some of these diverse perspectives in how you start to shape the boundaries and the policies. Just very much as you said, when you think about it from a design perspective, even in a literal physical building, is that something that you would certainly recommend also as a best practice?
45:03 Mason Yeah, certainly. And another thing I didn’t mention is that companies, when they’re looking at what they want to respond to, where their mission, what’s aligned with their mission, they don’t have to respond to everything. You don’t have to respond to every incident itself. You don’t have to respond to everything that happens in the world. Because when you do, what will happen if it’s not aligned with the mission? You’ll forget your audience. Remember your audience, right? Remember who the audience, whether is that your clients or your talent pool, remember who that is and who you’re aligned with. I give an example. So we’ve done a lot of work with Goldman. We did a lot of work within the LGTQ space.
45:46 Mason They decided not only that they were very conscious that they wanted an inclusive space with that dimension difference within the workspace, but they also took a decision, a very conscious decision that they were going to take a position outside the organization and publicly. But this is well thought out, really well within their mission and alignment. And they wrote during the Defense of Marriage act, when it was at the Supreme Court, they wrote an amicus brief to overturn DOMA which would allow same sex marriage. So something, they were very much in alignment and understanding where it was with the mission. And it wasn’t something that was just knee jerk. It came up and they decided to do that. When DOMA was overturned, they flew the pride flag from the headquarters.
46:36 Mason And so it was something, it was very much to their core of what they believed, inclusion, how it aligned with their mission, internally, externally. If you don’t have those conversations, if you’re a PR team, your DEI team, your HR team, your marketing and sales team, don’t have that conversation up front. You will find yourself knee jerking reaction to everything that comes your way, especially if you are a consumer facing organization. Right?
47:02 Kim Bohr Yeah. And I think you and I were talking about a great example that I think our listeners will remember, which was the Coors Light experience that they had. And I think, you know, when you. And I think that just really resonates that you knowing your audience and trying to create alignment needs to be done, you know, in from that place of true understanding and not necessarily trying to, I don’t know, it’s like make a, you know, perhaps wish for something that is impossible. So for our listeners that don’t, maybe don’t remember Coors Light, I think it was Bud Light. Was it Bud Light?
47:49 Mason I think was Bud Light.
47:50 Kim Bohr I think you’re, I think.
47:51 Mason I’m not a beard drinker, but I’m pretty sure it was Bud Light.
47:53 Kim Bohr I think you’re correct. It was Bud Light. So. Excuse me, for Coors Light, it was Bud Light. And what they had done was they decided to do some custom cans with a trans influencer who, which was very much outside of the audience. It was outside of the audience who consumes the product. And they took a very bold statement in doing so and then received quite an extensive backlash from lost market share and. Lost market share. Yeah, very much so.
48:31 Mason Yeah. They used to be the lead beer and they dropped. They lost market share to hurt their stock. And you’re right, it’s where a company sort of forgot who the audience was. Now, the intent was to be inclusive. Awesome, great intent. But the way that they went about it and pursuing out there, it didn’t feel like it was in alignment with their target market. Who was actually buying the beer, who was, you know, who was within that whole target demographic. Maybe they’re looking to expand the demographic, but you know, there’s other companies out there that, and they felt the backlash. They started pulling back. And then other companies, whether it’s John Deere or Ford or tractor supply company, are all recently just sort of say, oh, you know what?
49:21 Mason We’re pulling back on all our DEI efforts, either scrapping it all together or minimizing it. But that’s the, that’s doing the same thing, but the opposite way. You know, there is, oh, let’s do DEI and let’s do everything. That’s whether it’s in line with their mission or not. And then there’s, let’s not do any of it. You know, there’s two, there’s two things that are not going to change. Their clientele is going to become more diverse, especially in America, especially if going global. And your talent pool is only going to become more diverse. It’s not becoming less so. So if you want to ignore how to deal with differences, it will only impact your company negatively in the future.
50:01 Mason Give an example when John Deere was announcing that they were pulling back from their DEI at the very same time, this very same time, they were paying over a million dollars for discriminatory hiring practices.
50:15 Kim Bohr Wow.
50:16 Mason You know, it’s. You can’t just. There’s. First, there’s laws out there. The laws. Well, regardless of what, you know, somebody, your policies.
50:25 Kim Bohr Yeah.
50:25 Mason The laws are still there. You still have to be compliant. Okay. But then there’s also people out there that still want to feel included, still want to feel like they belong. And as we started this conversation out before is when you start looking at, when you’re looking at creating more equity and inclusion, how can impact a greater audience? Right. How can that, what you do, support the greater audience and support a greater group of people by what you’re doing? We talked about the wheelchair ramps. We talked about, you know, parental leave and caregiver leave. You know, when you’re looking at these pieces, these policies, how can it support you as a entire audience? And remember your audience, remember who your. Remember who your talent pool is. And yes, remember your mission and what it is.
51:15 Mason And if you’re a corporation, your sole mission, if you’re a far profit sole mission is to continue to make a profit. Because if you don’t, you won’t be in existence. If you’re not profit is to fulfill whatever your mission is. So when we look at, in our respect, when we’re working with companies, how do you align being inclusive with moving a company forward?
51:36 Kim Bohr Right.
51:37 Mason You can do good and you can be good and do good at the exact same time. But some companies just haven’t figured that out.
51:45 Kim Bohr Right. And that’s a big miss because that is an opportunity for, you know, for, as you said, it’s the alignment and reinforcing the goals of the organization. And the bottom line, there’s those, they’re not mutually exclusive. You know, before we wrap up, let’s just. If we can spend just a couple more minutes on these individuals. So I think so many times we come into conversations, you know, and in this very charged environment, I think it’s very likely that this is happening where we make assumptions about what somebody is thinking or their perception or. And you know, when we’re working on projects together and we’re trying to move something forward and perhaps somebody reacts in a way that we don’t think is a way we would react to.
52:34 Kim Bohr And all of a sudden we start to get the snowball effect in this, in the judgment that starts to lay blame. And then we really start to find the groups starting to break down and the team’s Breaking down. And I think that’s one of the concerns I have as I think about what may transpire as we come to the other side of this election. And I’m curious if you have any, just some, maybe some tips or things for people to think about that maybe will help try to, you know, try to help them reframe maybe what’s going on and try to find a common place for. For discussion. Commonality.
53:09 Mason A great question. And I’ll bring something very personal to me into it. So we, as we mentioned right before this and something you didn’t know that was I was running in a state election. So I’m running for state. I live here in New Hampshire. I was running for state rep. I’m running for state rep. That’ll be over when this drops. I can tell you when I would go to our candidate forums, something I would always say and this first thing or the last thing I would say is everybody at this table, regardless of what part of the on loves New Hampshire. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re here. We might think of it a different way to get to that success and what we think is great for New Hampshire and. But we all love New Hampshire.
53:55 Mason And you just substitute New Hampshire for your state or your organization or wherever you are that understanding and assuming good intent there, you know, they wouldn’t be there if they didn’t. So assume that good intent. But then understanding that the good intent you can help clarify. So for individuals that you think that they might have said something or did something that didn’t feel right, you say what do you mean by that? Like when somebody called, I mentioned calling them kids. Hey, I know what you call us kids. What do you really mean by that? Because we’re obviously not kids. What do you mean by calling us kids? And you might find that one.
54:37 Mason They don’t realize they’re saying that or it’s really endearing to them because it’s something word that just feel because they have kids and it’s something that makes them feel like you’re like family and that’s why they’re saying it. And I don’t think you’ll ever find somebody saying that has ill intent typically. So understand that clarify when you find out what it is and in a very nice way, you don’t have to beat somebody over the head. You can just say, hey, could you speak more to that? Because I don’t understand. You know, this is how I took it. But you probably didn’t mean it that way. So when you assume good intent, clarify when you’re wondering whether it is there or not and then move forward.
55:22 Mason We talked about that self awareness engages in two and Taylor and then move forward with that conversation and understand where you are. And when it comes to the polarization, realizing that I think both parties love this country and we’re talking about this election. We if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be so passionate. Right. We’d be so passionate of both sides is right. And we are very passionate on both sides if we didn’t love it. So let’s start there. Let’s start with that premise to move forward and discuss where we are. And and again, when you’re talking about your organization, use that as your premise as well.
56:00 Kim Bohr I love that. Thank you so much for this rich discussion. So I think, you know, there’s a lot here that we’ve talked about and I think as we come through the other side of this election, there’ll be more conversations to be had and I hope that people will take from this time today some ways of reinforcing the opportunity inside their organizations, thinking about how to reach out to others and start to have a conversation that can be more one of that’s more around learning and growth. And so from that lens, we have some things that we want to be able to share as we wrap up. And we’ll have links in the show, notes for our contact information as well as some of these resources. But Willie, we both want to provide some free resources that are very relevant to this conversation today.
56:50 Kim Bohr And so you’ll be able to download the core set from the courage to advance podcast.com and in that there’ll be, you know, both Mason and I believe very deeply in actionable, you know, tools and experiences that’ll allow you to move forward and not just feel, you know, just motivated alone or, you know, just the warm and fuzzies aren’t enough these days. We want to make sure everybody has something that’s really they could apply. So we’ll both be providing that. I think Mason, you know, you spoke to wanting to be able to do a little tailoring. Do you want to share a little bit about your thoughts there? Because you really wanted it to be personal.
57:34 Mason I did. We discussed like building something ahead of time, but I wanted to see where our conversation went because as you said, we had a guide of what we’re going to talk about, but we didn’t exactly know where it would go. So it’s something I would build that’s bespoke, probably a one page based on our conversation here. They’re very bespoke to our conversation and it won’t be something that’s just off the shelf for somebody to download and bring this conversation further, maybe to bring it in with your team as well.
58:02 Kim Bohr Thank you for being so thoughtful and doing that and I think that’s a very it’ll be a wonderful component that people get to take advantage of and as I mentioned, you’ll find the links to everything that we’ve been able to talk about and how to contact us and to learn more and links to Mason’s books and I want to again thank you so much Mason for sharing your insights. Thank you again to the Empathy Edge for hosting our podcast sub series and to all the listeners for tuning into this episode of Courage to Advance, where transformative leadership isn’t about having all the answers, it’s about having the courage to find them. Thank you again, Mason and thank you. 58:43 Mason It was a pleasure. Thank you very much.
Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™
Recently, we’ve heard a lot about resiliency, the ability to bounce back from challenge, and grit, that ability to grind away and never give up. But we’ve heard less about hardiness. It turns out hardiness enhances resilience, promotes personal and professional growth, and creates a more adaptive organizational culture.
Today, Dr. Steven Stein and I talk about hardiness and how it differs from both resilience and grit. He breaks down five key components of emotional intelligence and discusses how emotions impact our ability to make (or not make) good decisions. Dr. Stein offers the three C’s of Hardiness and how to improve hardiness to create a more resilient, healthy, and adaptive culture that impacts your bottom line.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
The concept of hardiness breaks down into the 3 Cs: commitment, challenge, and control.
If your goal is overly ridged or too narrow, it can become detrimental and paralyzing.
Resilience and hardiness definitely overlap. Where the overlap is, we see continuous improvement and forward motion.
When you balance emotionality with rationality, you can make better decisions, We call that wisdom.
“Hardiness means I can withstand the difficult situation and I can still deal with you (as a person), I can bring you along and make you stronger, and make the organization stronger.” — Dr. Steven Stein
From Our Partner:
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
About Dr Steven Stein: Clinical psychologist, speaker, best-selling author of Emotional Intelligence for Dummies and Hardiness: Making Stress Work for You to Achieve Your Life Goals
Dr. Steven Stein is a world-renowned clinical psychologist, international best-selling author and sought-after speaker, and founder and Executive Chair of Multi-Health Systems (MHS), a publisher of scientifically validated assessments for over 40 years, which has been named a three-time winner of Profit 100 (fastest growing companies in Canada), one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies since 2013, and Canada’s 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures (2016, Waterstone).
A leading expert on psychological assessment and emotional intelligence, he has consulted with military and government agencies, including the Canadian Forces, U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, special units of the Pentagon, FBI Academy, as well as corporate organizations, including American Express, Air Canada, Canyon Ranch, Coca-Cola (Mexico), and professional sports teams.
Dr. Stein consults with numerous reality TV shows, including Big Brother Canada, The Amazing Race Canada, MasterChef Canada, Bachelor Canada, Real Housewives of Toronto, Bachelor in Paradise, Blown Away, and many others, providing psychological expertise and candidate selection assessments.
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. We’ve heard a lot about resiliency in recent years, the ability to bounce back from challenge and grit, that ability to grind away and never give up no matter what, but we’ve heard less about hardiness, and it turns out, hardiness enhances your resilience, promotes personal and professional growth and creates a more adaptive organizational culture, and it has everything to do with empathy. Today, my guest is Dr Steven Stein. He’s a world renowned clinical psychologist, speaker, Best Selling Author of emotional intelligence for dummies and hardiness making stress work for you to achieve your life goals. He’s the founder of multi health systems, a publisher of scientifically validated assessments, and has consulted with many elite military and government agencies, including the Canadian Forces, us, Air Force, Army, Navy, special units of the Pentagon, FBI Academy, as well as companies including American Express, Air Canada, Canyon Ranch, Coca Cola, Mexico and professional sports teams. Dr Stein also consults with numerous reality TV shows, including Big Brother Canada, The Amazing Race Canada, Real Housewives of Toronto, Bachelor in Paradise and many others providing psychological expertise and candidate selection assessments. Today, we talk about what hardiness means and how it’s different from both resiliency and grit. He breaks down the five key components of emotional intelligence and discusses how emotions play into our ability to make or not make good decisions. Dr Stein offers the 3c hardiness and how to improve hardiness to create a more resilient, healthy and adaptive culture that impacts your bottom line. This was such a rich conversation. Take a listen. Dr Steven Stein, welcome to the empathy edge Podcast. I’m excited to have you on to talk about emotional intelligence for dummies and hardiness and your work on reality TV shows, like there’s so much juiciness here.
Dr. Steven Stein 02:49
Thanks, Marie. I’m looking forward to talking about it with you.
Maria Ross 02:53
So you know, we’ve heard in the intro, we heard your impressive bio and all the different organizations you’ve worked with. Let’s talk a little bit about your story quickly. That’s always kind of the first question I ask guests really briefly. How did you even get into this work? What made you want to be a psychologist and doing the really interesting work that you’re doing now?
Dr. Steven Stein 03:12
Well, it’s a pretty unusual route that I took. So I wanted to be a psychologist because I thought it was an interesting area. And I started out looking at sort of health areas like dentistry and medicine, but I really didn’t like blood very much, and I didn’t like pain, so and all my psychology marks, my psychology grades were all like A’s, and my biology grades were like C’s. So psychology, I think, was just calling me, right? So I went into psychology, and I did the typical thing as a psychologist. I worked in the children’s mental health center. I work with families and children and families, and I was also the head of research, so I did a lot of research and clinical work. And what happened was that’s when things took a bit of an odd turn. I’m going back quite a few years, when the micro computers were first invented. There was these two guys named Steve Jobs and Wozniak. Maybe heard of them, so they came up with this thing called an Apple computer. So at the time, I was doing this large research study comparing treatments for these really difficult adolescents. And in order to do my studies, they had to do what we call a pre test before we treated them and then post test after well, these kids, you know, they weren’t the most polite kids, so they told me where I could shove my tests, and that wasn’t very wasn’t very helpful when I’m trying to do research. No, no. So I saw one of these computer machines that just came out, and I saw kids like playing games on them. So I said, What if we put our diagnostic interviews on one of these machines? So I got myself a programmer, and we bought one of these boxes and we put it on, and I had kids, come on, hey, why don’t you just try this and see what you think? Well, the kids just loved it. I was getting all kinds of history that no one else was getting, and in fact, they almost had a lineup at my door of kids telling each other, hey, you got to go. This guy’s computer. So what happened was I eventually published a research study showing that we discovered more about these kids on the computer than all the clinicians that had ever interviewed them. They reported drug use, sexual abuse, attempted suicides. So I published a research paper on that, and I told the hospital. I said, You know what, I like to change the focus of my research into this computerized assessment and do less on the therapy. And they said, no, no, we don’t think so. So still intrigued me, so I took it home at night, and my wife at the time happened to be on maternity leave. We had our first daughter. She worked at an addiction treatment center, so I said, Well, why don’t we just open up a little company and start doing this right? Which is what we did. So we opened up a little company, started selling software diagnostics, two of us, the 345, and we became an overnight success. It’s 40 years later, but we now have over 200 staff. So that kind of took me in these different directions, yeah.
Maria Ross 06:00
And so you know your books, emotional intelligence for dummies and hardiness, making stress work for you to achieve your life goals. Very intriguing, very timely, especially coming out of the period of time we’ve all just come out of. And it’s got to be very heartening to you that mental health is such a focus right now for people, and hopefully not just some trend, you know.
Dr. Steven Stein 06:22
Well, you know, I sort of live with people telling me things were trends for 40 years. Computers were trends, uh, emotional intelligence was a trend, but we’ve been at it. Well, emotional intelligence, we’ve been at for over 25 years. So this is, I don’t really pay much attention to that. I mean, I remember when we first got in the news, when we started emotional intelligence, we were among the pioneers of that concept. And reporters used to ask me, isn’t this just some fad like re engineering or whatever? And I think my response 25 years ago was, listen, as long as there’s more than two people in the world on Earth, emotional intelligence will be important.
Maria Ross 07:01
Oh, exactly. I love that. So let’s dive in, because I love this concept of hardiness that you talk about. Can you talk about some effective methods to build resilience? Because that’s another buzzword right now, right? Building resilience through hardiness and emotional intelligence. Because a lot of people say, you know, and I’m raising a 10 year old, you know how important resilience is, but it seems so elusive, and how is it connected to hardiness and emotional intelligence? There’s kind of a lot of questions in that. But yeah,
Dr. Steven Stein 07:30
pick your pick. Yeah. Well, I’ll start off with what is hardiness. So there’s a lot of comparisons. People are comparing hardiness to resilience, and they are similar. The difference is resilience means when you’re you’re sort of motoring along, something happens, you have a difficult time, and then you eventually recover and get back to where you were with hardiness. What we’ve discovered is people who go along and something happens, some awful thing or whatever, but then you come back even stronger than you were. So that’s the sort of main difference, and what we know about hardiness is really interesting. My co author, Paul Barton, he’s a psychologist. He was the senior psychologist in the US Army, but he was a colonel. He’s a retired colonel, and he was at West Point. And as you probably know, a lot of leadership training is done at West Point, world famous leadership training. So Paul’s had the good fortune to be able to do research on these leaders or coming leaders. And the concept of hardiness has been researched for about 20 years now. So there’s a lot of background to this idea, this concept, and it really breaks down to three things, what we call the three C’s. And the first one is what we call commitment. And commitment means that you basically are engaged in the world. You have a purpose, you have something you’re working towards. You have something in the future, a goal, or it could be you have strong religious beliefs, or something larger than yourself that you’re aiming for. The second one is challenge. And what that refers to is when things become difficult for you in your life, you’re really good at knowing what things you can Oh, sorry. Challenge means you know how to look at it in a different way. You look at it like a puzzle. You sort of step back a little bit and get a little less emotionally involved and say, you know, if I was advising a friend of mine to deal with this problem. What would I have them do? So you have a way of, sort of changing your mindset when you’re looking at the problem. And the third is what we call control, and that’s knowing the difference between those things I can control versus what I can’t. So it’s raining out there. I can’t do anything about the weather, but I can take an umbrella or put on a raincoat. So making that distinction, that’s a simple example, but it gets way more complex in real life. And you know, learning how to deal with those three C’s, we find, and the research has shown, can help you in many ways to become much better at dealing with stress. Okay,
Maria Ross 09:58
so how? Does that apply to a workplace culture? So people listening say, that sounds great. We need more of that. How do you start building that culture of hardiness, of resiliency? Where can folks start?
Dr. Steven Stein 10:16
Okay, so where we tend to start is with the commitment. And what we look at there is, you know, what are we about? I mean, what’s the purpose of our organization? I mean, if you want our own example, we started, you know, my goal was to have psychology and kind of transform it into something that would be good for the world, that people could use, you know, as I started out as a psychologist, I was dealing with families, you know. And how many families can you deal with at a time? And I also was a university adjunct professor, so again, you only have so many students at a time, but in the work that we do, which is in the assessment developing psychological assessments and so on, we’re affecting the lives of at this point, millions of people. So the goal of of our organization and people who work here is to make the world a better place by tools. And we work with clinical samples. We work in public safety with offenders, and we work in organizations. Yeah.
Maria Ross 11:10
So how do you use what are the methods that you use to build resilience through hardiness and emotional intelligence? So
Dr. Steven Stein 11:19
the first thing we do is we do is we sort of find out what the organization stands for, what is our commitment, what is our goal, what do we want to do, and then we look at the ways in which we do it, and when there’s and that gets to the challenge. So things are difficult. We have problems we have so how do we solve our problems? How do we deal with these challenges? How do we step back? We work together. We create teamwork. We find solutions to problems, and we really differentiate the things beyond our control and those that aren’t. So the economy may be bad and our sales are down, right? But what can we do in the interim? Well, maybe we can learn more about our customers, we can do surveys, or we can study our products and maybe even work on new products when we have difficult times in our organization, that’s when we really invest in R, D. So when the economy gets better, we’re ready to roll with new products, and we’re just out of the gate. So it’s using these in a strategic way with your people to get them all on the same page so that they can get through the stressful times.
Maria Ross 12:20
So are companies that you’re working with doing this as like, a big transformation initiative they’re launching. It’s like, okay, it’s announced from on high. This is coming. This is what we’re doing. We’re going to be creating work groups, or does it start more organically, with a group within the organization that says, hey, this is something we want to take a look at within our team, we’re going to assess what our micro culture, what our commitment, challenge and control are, and then does it spread, or is it a comment? You find it happens both
Dr. Steven Stein 12:51
ways. We do mostly organically as you’re describing it. So I mean, ideally you want the buy in of the senior leadership, senior management. Otherwise it’s not going to really sustain so once you have that, and they understand the benefit of this and what how it could be helpful, then you start working with senior groups and working your way through the organization with the different groups. We’ve been doing this much longer with emotional intelligence than we have with with artines, because artines is a newer concept to bring it to the world. So with emotional intelligence, it’s bit of an easier sell, because people now know what it is and they want it, right? So it’s easier to roll that out.
Maria Ross 13:29
Is hardiness actually under, you know, I talk about empathy being sort of under the umbrella of emotional intelligence. Is hardiness similar? Yeah,
Dr. Steven Stein 13:36
that’s a good way of looking at it, yeah. So emotional intelligence, I’ll break that down a bit in terms of the model that we’ve been using. So there’s the five key components to emotional intelligence that we look at so the first is self perception, your ability to be aware of your own emotions, right? And the second is what we call self expression, the ability to express your emotions. If you want to be a leader, you have to know how to express how you feel. You have to be transparent, authentic. People have to see that. You know, you walk the walk, you talk the talk. The third area is interpersonal skills. So you want to have good relationships with people. You don’t want to be the boss who walks into the room and everybody shuts up and won’t talk anymore. When I walk into the room, my staff like to joke with me, and we have fun, right? And the next area is decision making, the role of emotions in helping you make decisions. Some people are over emotional when they make decisions, and some people use no emotion. They think all decisions are rational, which they aren’t. And the fifth area is what we call stress management, and that’s where the hardiness fits in. So people who are high in emotional intelligence are usually pretty good at managing their stress using some of these techniques that we’ve talked about
Maria Ross 14:44
well, and is that as a result of the other elements? Because if you are self aware and you’re able to express yourself, you’re probably going to be able to manage your stress a little bit better, because you understand your triggers, your emotions when you need to take a break, when you need to pull back. Do you. Think so they’re all interrelated, yes, exactly,
Dr. Steven Stein 15:01
exactly. That’s exactly how it works and and that’s exactly how we work through the cycle of emotional intelligence. It’s
Maria Ross 15:09
interesting because my new book that’s coming the empathy dilemma, it talks about five pillars that I’ve seen as common threads among leaders that are both empathetic but also highly effective, right? They’re not getting burned out. They’re not giving just giving it into whatever anyone wants. And the first pillar is self awareness. The second pillar is self care. And actually the fifth pillar, which you mentioned earlier, is joy, being able to bring some levity and relaxation to the group environment enables trust to flow, enables people to calm down a little bit about everything. And so I’m seeing all these parallels in what you’re talking about, but also what you mentioned that sparked that is decisiveness is one of the pillars as well, being able to make thoughtful, intentional decisions quickly, while still synthesizing multiple points of view. And so in your work, when you’re working with folks and you’re talking about emotional intelligence, I’d love to just dig into that one a little bit, because that one always seems to feel like a mystery to people. What have you seen in terms of the most effective and emotionally intelligent leaders in their ability to make a decision that others can buy into, even if they it’s not necessarily what they wanted, and in that leader’s own confidence in that decision.
Dr. Steven Stein 16:32
So there’s a number of things that you got in there, they’ll try and so in terms of actually making a decision, that’s, I guess, the first step of what you’ve asked. So that is what we’ve looked at in decision making, is how emotions fit in with that. And again, it’s a matter of balancing your emotion with the decision. You do not want to be totally rational, because you can make a really rational decision that pisses off a lot of people, and that’s not a good thing. So you want a decision that is really the best situation for that the best decision for that situation, and that’s where you want your emotions to be balanced. You want to really look at it with a combination of rationality and emotionality. We call that wisdom. That’s what it means to be wise, right? So that’s the first part. Then your next part is, how do I sell that? So I finally decided that this is the course of action. We’re going to make cutbacks in the organization. It’s not going to be a popular decision, but this is our circumstance. So that gets into self expression. How am I going to deliver that message? So one thing I wanted, and empathy is critical, as you mentioned, critical there. Yeah, we’ve done a lot of research at that. I actually published a study looking at CEOs and looking at the profitability, comparing more profitable with less profitable. And these guys were all shot. These people were all shocked that empathy was one of the key deciders, because when you listen to people you respect the people you work with, they’re going to go all the way with you. They’re going to, you know, even in bad times, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So empathy and the other part that’s really important, because you said people kind of react negatively sometimes to empathy. That’s because they’re confusing empathy and sympathy, right? So sympathy, as I look at it, is more of an i statement, you know, Oh, I feel real sad that your husband’s not feeling well, right? Whereas empathy is more of a you statement, oh, you must be feeling really upset right now about what you’re going through. It shows that I understand what you’re feeling. It doesn’t mean I agree with everything or I’m going to give in to everything. All I want you to know is that I understand your point of view, and I know where you’re coming from Exactly.
Maria Ross 18:37
And that’s, you know, my work with the first book with the previous book, the empathy edge was about building the business case for empathy and demystifying those myths that empathy is not about being nice, it’s not about caving into demands, and it’s also not about agreeing with people. And that’s where so many people have burnt themselves out in the name of Being Well, it’s just because I’m a really empathetic leader, but what you’re doing is acquiescence. It’s not submit, it’s submission. It’s people pleasing. It’s actually not empathy, because if you don’t have decisiveness, if you don’t have clarity, if you don’t have self care, if you don’t have joy, if you don’t have self awareness, what you’re doing is likely not empathy, because otherwise you would be pulling back when you need to on the self care, and you wouldn’t necessarily be burning yourself out so you’re preaching to the choir. I love it.
Dr. Steven Stein 19:24
Yeah, we’re on the same page.
Maria Ross 19:26
I know, right? I love that. Okay, so talk a little bit. Let’s go back a little bit to this concept of hardiness, because does it ever get conflated with leaders who think hardiness means I’m always a stalwart. I’m always going to act like I have the answer. I have the right decision. That means I’m party right. Do you ever find that being conflated? Not
Dr. Steven Stein 19:51
a lot. I think it gets more conflated with grit, because grit seems to be out there a lot, and people are trying to adapt that, and we differentiate. From grit, both on the research level and conceptually, so in terms of, and I’ll sort of differentiate those grit, as you know, has become very popular, and the issue of grit is meaning I’m really determined. I’m really gonna, I’m gonna go all out. So, for example, I’m a musician. I play saxophone, and I used to think I want to be like John Coltrane or Stan Getz, and I could practice day and night month after month. I’m never going to be John Coltrane. I can, you know, and I finally realized that, and I stopped, I actually stopped playing because of that. And that’s so wrong, right? Because if I did become a musician, there’s many other things you could do than being a performer. You could be teaching music. You could be a studio musician, you could just play in a band, and so on. So you just do it for the love of it, and the love of it, which is sort of the end of my story, which I ended up doing. But the point here is that grit is just to continue pushing ahead no matter what. And the research side of that is kind of interesting. So there’s two studies that kind of look at that. One is a study of mountain climbers. The mountain climbers who had the highest grit tended to die on the hilltop because they wouldn’t give up. They were going to just keep going no matter what. And some of them ended up dying because they wouldn’t turn back when they should have and the other example of in the research side is in gambling. And if you have a lot of grit, you lose a lot of money at the roulette table, because you’re going to keep going till I win, right? And you’ll never beat the house. So that’s where hardiness differentiates. I mentioned challenge. So in challenge, I look at that situation and as a problem, and I say, Wow, I’m never going to be that famous musician, so maybe I should shift gears and do something a bit differently, right? So that’s how we differentiate hardiness from grit. And the other thing, I guess you were mentioning it meaning that I’m strong. I don’t have to whatever. I’m a stalwart, yeah, so this macho kind of thing, no, that’s not what it means at all. It means I can weather the storm and I can come out okay, or I can come out even stronger than I was before the strong, before the storm. But strong doesn’t mean again, I’m I’m this macho person. It means I can withstand the difficult situation and I can still deal with you. I can bring you along and make you stronger and and make the organization stronger. I
Maria Ross 22:21
think what I’m hearing from you, and correct me, if I’m wrong, is this idea that with hardiness, I think you mentioned it earlier, resilience is about bouncing back to our original position. Hardiness is more about kind of going through that storm, but coming out stronger at the end of it. So there’s some delta around maybe our own capacity, or our own mental state, or our own ability with hardiness? Is that an accurate statement? Very
Dr. Steven Stein 22:49
good. Yeah, excellent. All right, great. And again, it’s not something we just made up out of the blue. This has like over 20 years of research. See Paul, my co author, Paul was doing all this research in the military. So all the work he was doing was getting published in either scholarly journals or military journals. And nobody in the outside world really knew about this stuff. Yeah. So when he and I got together, I said, you know, Paul, we got to take this out into the world. I mean, people, this is great research, and people should know about it, right? So that’s why we decided to write the book hardiness together and to put it out there.
Maria Ross 23:23
So how can hardiness help make those working environments more adaptive, and what are the steps that leaders can take to practice it, to model it, to build it. What are some examples with clients you’ve worked with?
Dr. Steven Stein 23:42
Well, we have, and in the book, we outline a lot of these boring research, yeah, yeah. But, you know, we talk about what the situations are, what are the challenges that you’re undergoing? How are you dealing with those challenges now, what seems to be working and what’s not working? And then we break it down into these components, in terms of of how you look at the challenge, are your solutions, kind of emotional solutions, or are they logical solutions? And how else can we look at these solutions and we look at control in terms of implementing it. You can control the economy. You can’t control certain things out there. So what is there within your organization or yourself that you can control. What are the levers that you can pull to make a difference? And commitment is the other one we look at, where do you see yourself? Where do you see yourself going in terms of personal growth, and where do you see the organization going in terms of the organizational growth?
Maria Ross 24:35
Yeah, we I talk a lot about that in terms of both in the brand work that I’ve done, but even with this work now with empathy, is how one of the the practices of an empathetic culture is that you are actually aligned on mission and purpose and values. So you know that you’re all on the same mission and otherwise that it’s that difference, it’s that I think we’re. Going this way, you think we’re going that way that causes so much of our inability to connect? Because now I just think you’re not doing your job, or you’re not listening to me, or, you know, all the empathy goes away, because we actually, in our minds, think we’re on different missions 100% Yeah,
Dr. Steven Stein 25:17
and that’s what we frame as commitment, that what are we trying to achieve? What are our goals? And you know, in the book, we talk about how to build commitment within yourself as well as within the organization. So for example, we’ll start out with a 10 year plan. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What would you like to be? And we have different areas. Like, how would it like to be, in terms of my career, in terms of my family, my friendships, don’t want to live in a city or in a country, like, Where do I see on all these variables? Where do I want to be? And then we sort of step back and say, Well, where do you think you want I want to be in five years? You know, what would that look like? And we bring it down to one year. And, you know, I think it’s really important that we get down to almost daily or weekly, where we have certain goals that we can say, well, I feel good today because I accomplished this little piece that adds to that bigger picture. And we learned this. You know, we did a lot of work with athletes in elite levels. Elite levels work towards those major goals, but they know it’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of work to get there, and it can be very discouraged easily, because you don’t feel like you’re moving forward, and the same with your career, right? You’re working your butt off, and you don’t feel you’re getting anywhere. You didn’t get that promotion, you didn’t get that raise. So this gives you a way to sort of look at the big picture and get through those little frustrations and and difficult times by saying, Okay, this may be bad, but this is what I’m shooting towards. I’ll put up with this for now, or I’ll try and change it this way, but I gotta keep that target in mind where I want to be.
Maria Ross 26:46
I have kind of a curveball question for you, since you’re talking about this, do you ever think I talk to a lot of leaders and a lot of experts on this show, and we always talk about the notion of goals and short term goals, long term goals? Do you ever think that we can to ourselves get to a point where the goal setting becomes detrimental, where we get paralyzed by goal setting, because it’s all we’re doing is assessing ourselves and our situation constantly?
Dr. Steven Stein 27:13
I think if they’re overly rigid goals or too narrow goals, you know, like, for example, my goal is to get psychology into the world. So that’s a pretty broad goal, right, right, right? It still guides me, you know, like when I look at doing a project or whatever, does that sort of fit or not? So I don’t feel comfortable with that, because I don’t know it looks more like anthropology or it looks more like biology, so I rule it out. So that way I keep on a fairly wide track. I mean, psychology is pretty broad, so I think you got to keep your goals fairly broad that you know that you give you flexibility. You don’t want to get locked in, and it’s not the end of the world if I go home today and say, you know, I didn’t really do anything to move forward. I mean, I’m not going to say that, because I’m on your show and I interviewed you, and we’re going to meet new people. So, you know, that’s a positive thing. I’m going to feel good tonight, but maybe tomorrow comes along and I don’t have this opportunity, I’m going to say, Well, I had it yesterday, and maybe I’m going to have it tomorrow, right? So there’s this optimistic way of framing it, so goals can be detrimental if they’re too rigid and too narrow,
Maria Ross 28:17
right? And almost unachievable in some Yeah, although, shape or form,
Dr. Steven Stein 28:22
what big hairy goal? I don’t mind that. Yeah. I don’t mind the big hairy goal, as long as you accept the fact that you know it’s going to take a while, and it’s going to be steps, and you might not get the full thing right, but you’re going to get closer to it.
Maria Ross 28:33
You’re going to get farther than you would have had you not had the goal right. Absolutely. Do you think that there’s a either or with resiliency and hardiness, or is it a both? And are they two skill sets you need to equally shore up for yourself? Well, I
Dr. Steven Stein 28:50
think there’s some overlap. Definitely overlap. Yeah. I mean, you know, some people fall apart at slightest stress, right? And that’s there’s not a lot of resilience or hardiness there. Some people are used to sort of falling down and picking themselves up and just keep going and fall down and pick themselves up. So it’s kind of repetitive. It they don’t learn from their mistakes, and that just happens the hardiness people, or if they follow the steps and build hardiness, they’re going to fall down and then pull themselves up and maybe be a bit smarter than they were before and fall down again, well, they’re going to even go up higher and be even smarter than they were before that. So we see it as kind of a continuous improvement in yourself, right?
Maria Ross 29:30
And like when you were saying that, I was thinking with hardiness, it almost sounds like you get back up again and you assess and you might do something different in the future, right? Yeah, okay. Well, this has been such a rich conversation. I know we can delve into all these little nooks and crannies, probably for hours, but I definitely want folks to check out your books, emotional intelligence for dummies and hardiness, making stress work for you to achieve your life goals. We’ll have links to all the things in the show notes for those that are exercising. They’re listening to us. What’s one best place that they can find out more about you and your work. They
Dr. Steven Stein 30:04
can come to my website, stevenstein.com,
Maria Ross 30:07
wonderful, and we will again put that link in the show notes. Thank you, Steven, so much for your insights today and for the work that you’re doing. It’s really important. Well,
Dr. Steven Stein 30:16
thanks for having me, Maria, great speaking with you, and thank
Maria Ross 30:19
you everyone for listening to another great 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 colleague and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Stay well and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the 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. Maria here, if you’re listening to this podcast, you already believe organizations can achieve radical success through empathy. But what is the state of empathy in the workplace today. How can we understand what everyone from CEOs to HR leaders to employees are thinking and feeling about how to do their best work? My go to source has been business solvers, state of workplace empathy study Now in its ninth year, business solver provides benefits technology that transforms HR solutions into a personalized benefits journey. What could be more empathetic than that? It’s technology with heart powered by people so they know a thing or two about empathy. Learn more about the state of workplace empathy. Study for yourself and put your empathy game plan into action. Visit business solver.com/edge to download the reports and keep the conversation going. New reports coming soon include diving into the mental health statistics and d, e, i, b, go to business solver.com/edge to get the insights you need to transform your organization.
Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™
Today, I want to talk about something that’s been heavy on my heart: the importance of holding onto Real History as it’s unfolding, not just to understand today but to avoid repeating mistakes tomorrow.
Lately, I have felt anxious about the world we’re building and the future we’re leaving for our kids. When I look at what’s happening, I can’t help but think about the role models I want my son to emulate. It’s not just about those leaders at the highest levels. We can be leaders even if we don’t have the title. It’s about us, each of us, stepping up, being those role models, and showing that we can lead with both empathy and strength.
Let’s keep leading with empathy.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
The best leaders have the humility to recognize their flaws and understand that the best, most effective decisions come from inviting expert voices that aren’t their own so they can get a clearer picture of both risks and opportunities.
Use the upcoming leadership of the US to teach your children what kind of leader not to be.
Kindness, inclusion, and integrity are qualities worth pursuing—not just in others, but in ourselves.
“We can be leaders if we don’t have the title but some people, even if promoted to the title, even if elected to the title, will never be true leaders..” — Maria Ross
From Our Partner:
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Hi everyone. Maria here with our November hot take. I was going to talk about revisionist history in light of November and the US Thanksgiving holiday, but today I want to talk about something that’s been heavy on my heart, the importance of holding on to real history as it’s unfolding, not just to understand today, but to avoid repeating mistakes tomorrow.
Lately, I, like many others, have felt anxious about the world we’re building and the future we’re leaving for our kids because of the US presidential election earlier this month, so many people, black and brown communities, immigrants, women, LGBTQ plus folks, are moving through the world with uncertainty about their safety and opportunity to just simply exist and autonomously pursue health, happiness and opportunity, just like all of us want to and this isn’t just about policies anymore. It’s about celebrating and modeling in our policies a core value. I think we all share empathy, the kind of empathy that inspires ethical leadership, leadership grounded in values, not in titles, leadership that brings out the best in all of us, that activates us as citizens, to work together to solve problems. When I look at what’s happening, I can’t help but think about the role models I want my son to emulate. It’s how I got on this empathy journey in the first place, back when I was researching the empathy edge, I want him to look up to leaders who serve others with integrity, respect and genuine love for humanity, leaders who don’t put status above service, who don’t confuse loyalty with effectiveness, leaders who celebrate people’s differences and see the value in those diverse perspectives to make our world better, leaders who don’t need to be surrounded by flatterers and yes men, leaders who have the humility to recognize their own flaws and understand that the best, most effective decisions come from inviting expert voices that aren’t their own so they can get a clearer picture of both risks and opportunities.
I gotta be honest, I struggle with understanding how to explain to my 10 year old son why someone who’s been indicted multiple times, someone who lies, who sows division, who is hateful, misogynistic and racist and encourages others to be so why someone who has had multiple affairs cannot speak without lying, and who has committed sexual assault? How I explain to him that that is not appropriate behavior, that’s not the way a true leader acts, and that such people get to be president, and let’s be honest, Vice President, some would like to excuse this behavior by saying it’s just rhetoric, but we tell our kids not to say such things. So why is it okay for the leader of the free world to do it and not be held accountable? No wonder our kids think we’re hypocrites. Also with that rhetoric comes not only actual policies that put lives and livelihoods in danger, but it pits neighbor against neighbor. Maybe those supporters always felt this way and are just as they say, saying the quiet part out loud now, but we as a society used to check them on that behavior, and at least we didn’t have this type of rhetoric unabashedly coming at us from the leaders of our own country. I watched a great video on social media the other day, and I’m sorry I don’t have it with me to cite, but the video’s creator asked what people actually mean by Make America Great Again, like, what year in America’s history do they want to go back to exactly one where women couldn’t vote or do anything without their husbands, one where blacks couldn’t eat at the same lunch counters or go to the same schools as whites? The Creator mused, instead of going. Back to an America where gay and trans people had to live in fear in the closet. I would love to go back to a time when assholes had to stay in the closet because society would actually call them out for bad behavior. I guess if anything, I can use these moments to show my son what kind of leader he should not aspire to be, that he can be a better person than that.
He has asked me when he listens to the news with me, but if they’re all saying what he said is not true, why does he lie? And if he’s lying, why do his people support him anyway? And in those heartbreaking moments, I have to tell him, honey, I just don’t know. We can be leaders if we don’t have the title. But some people, even if promoted to the title or elected to the title, will never be true leaders. So this is really a call to action for all of us to step up and be the empathetic, strong, diverse, action oriented leaders that we want and need to see in the world. And it’s not just about hoping for these leaders at the highest levels. It’s about us. It’s about each of us stepping up being those role models and showing that we can lead with both empathy and strength, because the truth is, even if we never hold a title, we can still be the kind of leader our companies, communities and families need right now. So my call, my plea, my invitation to you today is to embrace the role you play wherever you are, use the leadership we will see over the next four years as a cautionary tale for your kids and for ourselves of what not to do, not as something to look up to.
Please, don’t let this negative type of leadership ever get normalized. Let’s prove to our kids, our employees, our world, that empathy and success can coexist. Let’s show them that, yes, kindness, inclusion and integrity are qualities worth pursuing, not just in others, but in ourselves. Each time we choose empathy, each time we choose to treat people with respect. We’re creating a model for them. We’re making history that one day they’ll look back on with pride. Thank you for listening and as always, let’s keep leading with empathy. I hope you enjoyed today’s hot take. As always, if you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend or a colleague and rate and review, because your feedback matters. 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™
We prep ourselves for so many challenging conversations, whether asking for a raise, delivering a tough performance review, asking for more budget, or even debating a political issue as if we’re going to war. We brace for the confrontation. That puts us in a really unhelpful place to have true connection and conversation – and that just intensifies the misunderstanding and animosity with no helpful outcome.
But there’s a way out of this cycle. And woo boy! I clicked instantly with today’s guest and I know you will, too. Today, Justin shares a very personal story about his trip back to Ghana to confront his absent father and how he changed the conversation following his own 5 pillars to bridge the divide. We also discuss how to practice conversational receptiveness, and how to avoid the dotted line dilemma and the illusion of asymmetric insights which both hinder meaningful engagements with those we don’t see eye-to-eye with. Justin also unpacks actionable ways to have better conversations and cultivate curiosity through the Power of 3 Questioning module.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
Plant the seeds with your kids of how to value humanity from a young age. Take them to places and events that will help them see more of the world and humanity.
Be transparent when you are working on your leadership and changing conversations. Bring your team in, make it fun and light, and have one meaningful conversation per week.
Just because it feels uncomfortable to learn about others and practice The Power of 3 Questioning. It doesn’t mean it isn’t working and strengthening your listening muscles.
“People are talking about things that are important to them. The question is, are we really listening?” — Justin Jones-Fosu
SparkEffect partners with organizations to unlock the full potential of their greatest asset: their people. Through their tailored assessments and expert coaching at every level, SparkEffect helps organizations manage change, sustain growth, and chart a path to a brighter future.
Go to sparkeffect.com/edge and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
About Justin Jones-Fosu, CEO, Work.Meaningful and Author, I Respectfully Disagree
Justin is a full-time dad-e who also happens to be an international speaker, a social entrepreneur, a critically acclaimed author, and a mountain climber (he recently conquered one of the famed 7 Summits). His passion for elevation extends beyond trekking, it’s mirrored in his work as the CEO of Work. Meaningful, a firm he founded in 2017 focused on workplace engagement and inclusion. He consults with, speaks to, and trains 10,000 to 20,000 people per year. He is a former radio host and former workplace contributor to NPR’s The Takeaway Justin’s most recent book, I Respectfully Disagree, challenges the reader to focus on building bridges with people rather than barriers from them. He also wrote The Inclusive Mindset and Your Why Matters Now.
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. We prep ourselves for so many challenging conversations, whether asking for a raise, delivering a tough performance review, asking for more budget, or even debating a political issue, as if we’re going to war, we brace for the confrontation that puts us in a really unhelpful place to have true connection and conversation, and it just intensifies the misunderstanding and animosity with no helpful outcome. But there’s a way out of this cycle. And oh, did I click instantly with today’s guest, and I know you will too. Justin Jones, Fauci is a full time dad who also happens to be an international speaker, a social entrepreneur, a critically acclaimed author and a mountain climber. He recently conquered one of the famed Seven Summits. His passion for elevation extends beyond trekking. It’s mirrored in the work he does as the CEO of work meaningful, a firm focused on workplace engagement and inclusion that he founded in 2007 he consults with, speaks to and trains 10,000 to 20,000 people per year, and has clients like Toyota, Adidas, Mercedes Benz and the National Institutes of Health. He’s a former radio host and a former workplace contributor to NPRs. The takeaway, Justin’s most recent book, I respectfully disagree how to have difficult conversations in a divided world challenges us to focus on building bridges with people rather than barriers from them. Today, Justin shares a very personal story about his trip back to Ghana to confront his absent father and how he changed the conversation, following his own five pillars to bridging the divide. We also discuss how to practice conversational receptiveness and how to avoid the dotted line dilemma and the illusion of asymmetric insights, which both hinder meaningful engagements when we don’t see eye to eye. Justin also unpacks actionable ways to have better conversations and cultivate curiosity through the power of three questioning model. So many gems and quotables in this episode. Enjoy. Welcome to the empathy edge. Justin Jones Fauci, so excited to have you here today for a great conversation about curiosity and better communication. Whether you’re a leader or you just want to be a better human.
03:14
Super pumped and excited to be with you. Wow. We’re
Maria Ross 03:18
just talking about, I really like your energy. You’re lighting me up today. So folks are in for a treat. You know, we heard a little bit about your bio and the work that you do for companies like Toyota, Mercedes, Adidas, all the things, but tell us a little bit about your story and how you even got into this work of helping organizations and leaders improve their communication and understand each other better. How did you get here? Wow.
Justin Jones-Fosu 03:42
And really, the origin story started from a mom, to be completely honest. Mom, yes, my mom was one of the first black female air traffic controllers in the Air Force, and she told me the story that was really powerful, that she would be stationed in Japan for two years, and there were some soldiers in that same two year time frame that never left base. And she said, Justin, I don’t want you and your brother to be like that and never leave your metaphorical home base and not experience the beauty of people and cultures around you. And so I remember just she would take us to events that we didn’t know a lot about, and even ones that we disagreed with. I’d be sitting there mom like, why aren’t we even here, right? But she was planting these seeds of how we can value humanity and as a leader, one of the things that that’s been so impressed on me is, how do I value the humanity of those that I lead, whether at home, whether in my office and other places. And this specific story took me to this place of Ghana. So I am a dual citizen of both Ghana, United States. Uh, my dad’s from Ghana. My mom from America. That makes me African American. You might get that joke later, but the interesting thing you
Maria Ross 04:52
really are African American. Yeah,
Justin Jones-Fosu 04:56
in 2019 I was going to go back to Ghana. I’ve been there several times. Taking my kids for the first time, and I’m gonna go confront my dad. You see, my dad wasn’t in my life in ways that I felt I needed him to be growing up, and so when my parents divorced at four, I remember I would see my dad every other weekend. Then it became one weekend a month, and then there was two or three years where I didn’t see and or hear from my dad, and for a myriad of reasons, conflict between my parents, but I felt like my dad couldn’t have fought harder for me, and so I remember that I was gonna go and confront him Will Smith style. I’m not talking about the Chris Rock version, but more of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air version, yeah. And one of the things that stood out to me is I was a part of leadership Charlotte, as well as I have a really great therapist, and they help transform how I was going to approach it. So instead of going to confront my dad, they challenged me to go and hear his story. I like what somebody came up to me after one of my sessions. They were like Justin. They helped you to turn a confrontation into a conversation. And as I heard his story, and we had this conversation, and I asked more questions, and I was curious. And instead of going to tell Well, you’re wrong, and then I listened to how he got there. Now we still walked away, and I I disagreed and disagreed respectfully, but I better understood how he got there, and it allowed me to open up and realize that that whole process that I even went with with my dad, is actually the process that we take companies and leaders and executives through that they can create, not only these cultures within their own organizations, but these cultures at home and these cultures in their
Maria Ross 06:31
community. Oh, my God. I love that story, and I love that quote of turning a confrontation into a conversation. I often talk about empathy as a definition, so many times we get it wrong. If you can get empathy wrong right, we’re kind of doing it wrong. You know, I hate to say it that way, but we think empathy is people pleasing, or it’s just caving in, or it’s agreeing with someone. To this point, we can have empathetic conversations with people and still walk away with our own perspectives and opinions and ideologies intact. Yes, because it’s not about conversion, it’s about connection. And so we’re fans of the sea Yes, alliterations. I love it, but that’s so powerful, because I love how you and how you had to prep yourself. Yeah, you know. And that self awareness piece is the first pillar of the five pillars in my new book, The Empathy dilemma. But being aware of what you were bringing into the conversation and what you were bringing into the meeting is so important to being able to take that beat, take that pause, and not react so quickly. Yeah, I love it, and that idea of finding common ground, of like, I’m here to hear your story. I’m not here to condone what you’ve done. I’m not here to agree with you. And this is especially important, as we know with political discourse. Yeah, there’s a gentleman I talk about on the show all the time named Edwin rush. He runs the Center for building a culture of empathy. And back in 2016 2015 he had empathy tense set up at the most divisive political rallies we had in our country, and it was just to get one person and another person from each side into a tent to listen to each other, yeah, not to convert each other to their side, right, but to see each other as human beings. So your story is just such a personal example of that. I’m curious, do you feel like from that approach that you took? Do you think it made a difference to your dad, even though he might not have, quote, known you were doing it? Yeah,
Justin Jones-Fosu 08:34
I definitely. I think what we find often, not only with my dad and other people, is that when we approach people from you’re wrong, and how did you do this? Why in the world, you’re wrong and I’m right immediately, yes, defensive walls come up. Yeah. I love the body of research around conversational receptiveness that really talks through and I’ve done really good work about why people want to continue to have conversations with people, even if they disagree with and one of those things is in finding common ground, right? And choosing to seek understanding, and not only seek understanding, but utilize positive phrases like, wow, I can see how you got there. Well, thank you, right? And those are the things as my dad will open up and share a story, I could imagine me coming to my dad and saying, You abandoned me. You weren’t there for me. Why did you do it? And immediately the defensive walls can come up, of course, yeah. Rather than simply entering into the space of like, Hey dad, I realize I’ve never heard your story. You mind sharing with me? Yeah. Got along the story journey. One of the things I was able to do is to share and ask more pointed questions in terms of what happened when x? But I didn’t start with what happened when X? I started with, I’d like to hear your story.
Maria Ross 09:46
I love that. Yeah, it’s all about really understanding someone’s context. And you know when you go you know whether you’re having a difficult performance review or you’re having a contentious budget conversation with a colleague. I always. That phrase of like, it’s not about going in with, here’s why I’m right and you’re wrong, right? It’s try to take that breath and ask the question, first, tell me how you got here. Tell me why you think this is the right approach. Tell me what you think is going on right now. Are you happy with the way your work is going? Right? Tell me how you’re feeling about it? And then you can have a conversation where that person’s feeling heard. So it kind of lowers the temperature a little bit too, doesn’t it? Oh, 100%
10:30
so I’m sorry, go ahead.
Maria Ross 10:31
No, I was going to ask you more about this conversational receptiveness, because that’s actually a new term I haven’t heard about. And what are some other you know, you mentioned a few other tips there. But what do people do to prepare for that, to know that they’re going to go into a conversation where they might be triggered?
Justin Jones-Fosu 10:47
Yes, one of the things we talk about often is that the first thing that people should do in those conversations around respectful disagreements happens before it even happens. And that’s, I love, the five pillars. I thought you would talk about mine. We actually have five pillars as well. And pillar number one is challenge your perspective. And it happens before any disagreement even occurs, because the more we exercise those muscles of hearing people’s perspective, going in, understanding and listening and learning from others, that it allows us in those moments, to actually hear them deeper. So a practical action item. So the circles of grace challenge is one of those things that we challenge leaders to do and to lead their companies and organizations with. We recently took the Ford family foundation through this. And the circles of grace challenge is simply this that every six to 12 months I go to events experiences, or I engage with people in either which I don’t know a lot about or I disagree with, and I’m going asking two questions. One, what did I learn about these events, experiences and their people? And two, what did I learn about myself? Now, what was transformative, what we did with the Ford family foundation is at the end of the six months, we did a debrief, and oh my gosh, it was amazing to hear some people like, wow, I never knew they chose to focus on constituents and people that they serve within their organization. It’s like I didn’t know this about them, or I had mislabeled or, wow, I still disagree with them, but I want to have more conversations, and that’s because the inverted U theory applies here perfectly. It normally applies to performance, but it’s been attached to learning that says there’s two places that people don’t learn effectively, when they think they know absolutely nothing and when they think they know absolutely everything. And so yeah, how do we get people on that learning journey? It’s to engage and to choose to intentionally hear someone else. Yeah, well, and
Maria Ross 12:38
I think that’s why that’s such an important aspect of empathetic leadership of those leaders who are empathetic and effective is they are able to put ego aside. They’re able to say, I may not know all the answers, and I’m going to be willing to invite other perspectives into the conversation, because they’re not threatening me, they’re just giving me information. Yes, and so I, you know, I know, I’m sure, with your leaders that you work with, I tried to deflate their myths about empathy being this fluffy. Woo, Woo. Oh, it’s me crying on the floor with my employees, and I say, why don’t you just think of it as information gathering? Yeah, think of it as a way to just play detective and figure out. You know, you’re probably wondering, What the heck is that person thinking in a negative way. How about turning that into a positive way? Of like, Well, I wonder what that person is thinking instead of what were they thinking, right? But, and that seems to, like, calm their nerves a little bit if they’re sort of very uptight. And I say because you can’t, if you’ve got all your stuff in your head, you can’t take on another person’s perspective without defensiveness or fear, because you feel like it’s a personal attack.
Justin Jones-Fosu 13:46
Yes, yeah, and this is so true, because we’ve treated communication like war, right? Even leaders, we go into meetings and we talk to the person ahead of time like, hey, I need you to really support me on x, right? And somebody else goes so we’re developing allies, and we go in instead of approaching it from this place pillar four, seek the gray. And we’ve been challenging leaders to start off their meeting, saying, when we leave this meeting, we should have created something that is new and has not been thought of before, because when we seek the gray, right? Yeah, I come from Ghana, we have these drum circles. In a drum circle, you’re not going to get the same beat without each and every single person there, and how do we contribute now? Why is that important? And one of the best books that my professors during my MBA had me read was a book called dialog, the art of thinking together. And it was so profound because it’s not about a and convincing this other person of a. It’s not about B, convincing other person to be is, how do we create C together? And if leaders can start off their meetings, if they can challenge in our one on ones with those direct reports, it allows them to people say, You know what, they actually want a different perspective. They want to hear varying point, because we have to create something new.
Maria Ross 14:57
We have to and also, if everyone thinks this. Same way, you’re going to miss opportunities and you’re going to overlook risk. If someone’s looking at the problem or the challenge or the opportunity in a different way, we see more things that we miss. And this is the thing, you know, we could have a whole other conversation about the DEI be backlash, but that’s all very much about the culture war. The smart companies are actually still embracing deib, because they understand that it actually helps their bottom line. Yes, it helps them win, yeah. So they’re like, No, this is about I want all the information about every opportunity and every risk, and I want people to be looking at this in different ways, so you guys can have your culture war, but our company is still going to invest in
Justin Jones-Fosu 15:41
this, and that’s what I love about see, you’re so brilliant. That’s what I love about you, because you work right? You know, my last book, the inclusive mindset, the whole focus is, this is not something that we should do. This is something that we can it’s not the EIB is not something extra. It’s just a part of our everyday life, and how do we create spaces where people want to come to work, where people want to come back home, right our family members and loved ones, where people want to talk to us as neighbors? It’s these spaces we’re able to engage with people in real, meaningful conversations, because it actually drives results. When our people feel like they can bring their full and best selves to work. They show up with more creativity. Show up with innovation. They show up contributing to ideas in different ways. Rather than fighting. Can I fully be me at work? Yeah, that’s one of the things I’ve had to get even as a leader of a team here of like, Wow, am I creating these spaces for my own team. Yeah, itself,
Maria Ross 16:42
I had a guest on the show, Michael Bock, who does a lot of work. He calls it idea Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, accessibility. He does a lot of work up in Canada and in the US around that work, and has written a few books. And he presents when he was on my podcast. But he also does this as a keynote, he talks about the costs of exclusion like he’s actually gotten it down to $1 amount of how much money companies waste when they don’t enable people to come to work as their true selves, and they don’t enable the people to have those conversations and connect with each other. And it’s, you know, it is, it’s impacting the bottom line. So it’s just smart business. So we’re going to take a quick break, and then I want to ask you about the dotted line dilemma and the illusion of asymmetric insight, which I believe are concepts from your books. I respectfully disagree, how to have difficult conversations in a divided world. We’ll be right back, and we’re back with Justin Jones Fauci, and we are getting into we just had a great conversation about how to have great conversations, basically. And I want to talk a little bit about this concept, the dotted line dilemma. Can you explain to us what that means and how that gets in our way? Yeah,
Justin Jones-Fosu 17:59
so that aligned dilemma simply, where we start filling in the gaps, right? It’s making statements Right? Like, if I said something to you, like drivers who drive on the left side of the street are but what depends, right? You start filling in the gaps depending on what country we’re in, yeah, and our brains want to fill in those moments. And that’s the same thing that we do with people, right? Is that we want to fill in. We want to complete the dotted line, because our brains want to conserve energy for things. It thinks it doesn’t know. Imagine this, right? Imagine you’re driving. You take this exit. Monday through Friday, you take this exit, and one day you’re supposed to go straight. What do you do? Take the exit
Maria Ross 18:42
a million times. Yeah,
Justin Jones-Fosu 18:45
right, and I’m ready to autopilot, conserving energy, and that’s what we do with people and our teams right right before we get to know them, we take the exit based on second or third hand information. We start filling in the dotted lines, and that’s one of the big dilemmas that we have. But how do we drive forward? Pun intended towards some really amazing team members, employees and community members, but one of the ways that we challenge people to do that is in what we call one MC over W, right? And one is MC over W is only math we’ll do today. But thank you for one meaningful connection per week, and that’s where you build into your calendar, maybe the 15 or 20 minutes you have to put it in there, where you intentionally go and hear someone’s story. You intentionally go and ask, what brought you to our company? What brought you to our team, what brought you to our city? And if that’s too much, because you’re like, oh my gosh, Justin, how much I have so much stuff to do that’s 52 point 14 times a year, then make it one meaningful connection per month, put the W up down. That’s when we think we’ve been challenging leaders over and over again. Is like, what would it look like for us to eradicate the open door policy from our organizations? Because Open Door implies passivity. Hey, if you. Eat me. I’m here. We’ve even created a virtual Open Door office. I’ll be on teams Tuesday through Thursday, three to five. But what if we instead implemented what we call an out the door policy, where we intentionally go out the door to hear and experience the stories of our people that allows us to get closer, that allows us to hear those proximity breeds of empathy.
Maria Ross 20:21
Oh my gosh. I love that. And that’s so actionable. Like, do what you can do to actually proactively. And it might feel I always say this, you know, it’s about going to the empathy gym, right? Just like any fitness routine to strengthen a muscle, it feels weird at first. It hurts. You might get sore. You’re gonna feel uncomfortable. So if you’ve never done that approach. The first day you as a leader, go and ask to make a connection with someone. They might be like, what’s going on? Am I in trouble? Like you’ve never done this before, and you can be transparent with people that, hey, I’m trying this new thing. I encourage you to try it as well. I’m trying to find a way for us to build better connections and build, you know, better engagement with each other. So I’m going to try this out. You’re not in trouble. I’m probably going to come to you. We’re going to, like, go have a coffee. I don’t know, but I think that’s it’s the fear for people of flipping to develop the new habits sometimes, because they feel self conscious about but I’ve always been this kind of leader, and now one day, I’m going to come in and I’m going to start talking to start talking to you about what you did for the weekend. And I’ve never asked you what you’ve done in the weekend, and you’re like, what is happening? Are there layoffs? What’s going on? Yeah,
Justin Jones-Fosu 21:28
it’s talking to me, yeah. And so
Maria Ross 21:32
being transparent about, hey, I’m working on my leadership. I’m developing my leadership. A that’s a great model for your team, that you’re you as the leader. Are working on your leadership. Yeah, and two like, make them part of the fun. Make it light. Make it something that you guys can laugh at, you know, something like that. But that is such a great actionable thing. Okay, tell us about this other thing that gets in the way of these connections and healthy conversations, which is the illusion of asymmetric insight.
Justin Jones-Fosu 22:00
Yes, so illusion of asymmetric insight is where I can paraphrase. It’s where I feel like I completely know you. I get you right, but there’s no way you can understand me. I’m just complex. And that’s the the research behind that is how we approach people, not only people, but also groups, right? Imagine, you know, you’re a dog person, and you’re like, I get why I love dogs, but you just never understand dogs. Dogs are just unique, right? And cat people are like, well, you know those cat people, we just are so unique, but dogs, I mean, they’re simple, right? It’s easy to understand, and that’s and unfortunately, what we do with people is that we go into conversations instead of treating it with what we call beginner mind, we treat it with like you’re simple to understand. I’m really complex, so let me engage, right? And what the research actually suggests is that some of that’s fueled by ego, right? We talk about these three cells, and one of those is superior self is that I just I know I’ve had more experience. I went to this college, and I’ve had this position, I am a leader, and that gives me respect, and actually no our humanity should give us respect, and us as leaders model that behavior so they lose asymmetric insight in ways that we resist. It is by challenging ourselves to say, wait a minute, this person is probably more nuanced than I I’m thinking right now, let me ask more questions instead of hurrying to fill in the line. I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to somebody, and you’re always trying to finish your statement before you said it, right? I’m
Maria Ross 23:31
guilty of it too. I’m guilty of it too, because I get so excited. I’m like, I just want to help you find the right word, right? So, yeah, they’re
Justin Jones-Fosu 23:38
like, I went to a really good like, restaurant, because, you know, they love to eat, and they were like Jim, because I was on the way home, right? But that’s the that’s one of the reasons why I choose it to engage and hear the power of people’s stories and asking we talk about the power of three, one way to challenge the illusion of asymmetric inside is with the power of three. And what we found in as people listen is that people aren’t doing deep listening. They’re doing distracted listening, and we’re stopping at the power of one or the power of the power of two. What do I mean by that? So if I’m Sam Marie, how’s your day today? You’re like, Oh, my day is fine. I’m like, my day is fine, too. Power of One, power of two. Mary, how’s your day today? Oh, my day is fine. What made your day fine? Oh, I heard this interesting bald history. I know that ball has power of two, where the power of three goes at least into that third level of the conversation to better hear, understand, and get a better understanding of complexity that might exist.
Maria Ross 24:28
Oh my gosh, I love it. And so how does this go over in these big companies, when you’re having these conversations, do you find that, is it a hard sell? Is it you know, you’re working with leaders that are a little skeptical this is going to help improve their team’s performance or their own leadership capability, like give us a little insight on it, on what they’re thinking and feeling as you’re going into these organizations and talking to them about this, absolutely, one of
Justin Jones-Fosu 24:53
the organizations we work with, Asia coach, and one of the things I love is we practice this power of three, right? And. So they had opportunity to actually lean into this. And in this always. I mean, in any organization, you have a variety of people. Some people are really eager and excited, like, Oh, this is awesome. And some people are like, Yeah, this really gonna work. Is this another one of those sandwich models? I’m gonna tell you something that sounds good, give you feedback and give you like, No, right? But when they start practicing it, that’s when you see the transformation happen. So give you a great example. So we do the power of three, and we ask a very meaningful question about something that’s shaped who they are. And so people are listening and they’re practicing, and what they find is that some people are deep listening, some people still want to jump in, and then the debrief, what they talk and find is like, wow. Like, not only did I feel like more at ease of just hearing their story versus trying to jump in, but the person who was actually sharing their story actually felt heard. They actually felt heard. And oftentimes this doesn’t happen all the time with every person, but sometimes there’s just tears. And the CEO of a company, he said to me, he’s like, I’ve been working with this person for 35 years, and I thought I knew everything, and I just heard something new that I never knew, wow, and that’s gonna allow me to lead them better. And that’s the power of deep listening instead of distracted listening. So when you’re one on ones, when you ask, how was your weekend, then they say, oh, you know, it was good, instead of stopping there, that’s what made it good. Oh, well, I was, you know, did soccer practice with kids? That’s like, wow. You know the soccer did you play soccer growing up? You see, what just happened is that people are talking about things that are important to them. The question is, are we really listening?
Maria Ross 26:37
Yeah, oh my gosh, I love it so much. So, you know, we talk a lot about curiosity on this show, Curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people and empathic leaders. And back to our you know, point earlier that this is about information gathering. You know, empathy is about trying to understand someone’s context, and no better way to do that than to ask questions and be curious. Yeah, so how? What are some of the tips that you have for the leaders or the teams that you work with to maybe they’re not naturally curious, maybe they’re uncomfortable being curious. What are some tips that you have around how they can cultivate their curiosity in a way that feels genuine and natural for them.
Justin Jones-Fosu 27:20
Well, what I will say, and be completely honest about this, is it takes practice. The same way your empathy muscles, right? You talk about the empathy gym, it takes practice. So even the power of three, which is actually great moment of cultivating curiosity as we take that further, is that sometimes you don’t know what to say. You don’t know the next phrase. Use the power phrase. Tell me more. Invite three
Maria Ross 27:43
magic words
Justin Jones-Fosu 27:47
to come to, like, Oh, wow. Like this person actually wants to hear what I’m talking about. And that’s one way the more I’ve done it right? Because initially, when I even did that in my own life, because guess what, Justin was a distracted listener, right? And I still sometimes struggle with it is it felt mechanical initially, but now it’s just become a part of who I am. So I have people, my friends, who know I talk about this, and they’re like, Oh, you just did the power three. I mean, I had no idea I did it, right? Because I’ve just started being more curious and saying, This is, oh my gosh, this phrase is etched in my head.
Maria Ross 28:21
It’s the magic, three magic words we talk about all the time. Tell me more. Yeah,
Justin Jones-Fosu 28:26
more. The phrase, even before that, for me, that that’s kind of pushed me into that lens, is that we should seek to be more interested than interesting, and when we come from that approach, how can I be more interested in the people I encounter, rather than interest interesting, it allows us to hear people. That’s one reason I hate networking events, right? Because people, it’s very transactional. It’s like you work, right? Rather than asking deeper questions and learning and hearing some if you’re feeling comfortable doing it, you’re like the many people who are learning something new, whether in your marriage, whether as a parent, whether and you’re learning Pickleball for the first time or so, that thing may be you don’t know how to do it, and that’s why you take the tortoise approach. Yeah, the tortoise approach is not to be fast and showy and flashy and have it all together. It’s that I’m going to be strategic and steadily moving forward, and that’s leadership.
Maria Ross 29:23
So good, so so good. I think we’re going to leave it at that, because that is amazing, and I think that’s a really good last nugget and tip to leave people with. To your point, it does take practice, and just because it feels uncomfortable doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. So leave it there, all right. Well, this has been such a great conversation. Justin, thank you so much. I definitely want to encourage folks to check out the book. I respectfully disagree how to have difficult conversations in a divided world, which, as we talked about, is not just for leaders and business people, but for basically anyone who’s trying to have better conversations and relationships. So we will have all your. Links in the show notes. But for folks that are on the go, Where is one of the better places for them to get in touch with you and find out more about your work.
Justin Jones-Fosu 30:07
Find out more at how to respectfully disagree.com.
Maria Ross 30:11
Love it how to and we’ll put that link in there too. Thanks for your time. It was a pleasure to connect. Thank you Maria, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review, follow, share with a colleague or friend, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop, and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
