While multiple studies show that we are experiencing mental health crises, burnout, and stress at alarming levels, I don’t have to tell you that you’re feeling it. It impacts your ability and your team’s ability to perform at the highest level. To innovate, problem solve, and focus. Some workplace stress is a given, but what about the stress we can control? The stress caused by a culture and a leader who refuses to recognize our humanity? The leader who does not value empathy, connection, well-being, or psychological safety as a way to empower their people to achieve success.
Today, I talk with Marisol Solarte-Erlacher about the price you pay for toxic and psychologically unsafe cultures and how that impacts business performance. We discuss why chronic stress is an issue, how it impacts leadership and performance, and what it looks like to put employee well-being at the center of your business strategy. Marisol shares how to make the culture shift in your own team to prioritize well-being in meaningful ways, not just surface-level perks. She offers three questions you can ask your team to discern if they feel psychologically safe, and she shares how you can make the business case for well-being so your people can thrive and your company can achieve its goals.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- The pandemic gave everyone the ability to pause and actually question if the way we have always done things is the only or best way to do things.
- Being in a constant state of stress takes a long-term toll on our bodies and health.
- Do assessments with yourself and your team to understand what the biggest stressors are at any given point.
- To assess psychological safety, you can ask three questions: What are the things in the workplace that cause you the most stress? How do you handle those? How do you ask for help?
“This is about the long-term investment of your culture for the overall well-being and sustainability of your organization.” — Marisol Solarte-Erlacher
Episode References:
- The Empathy Edge podcast:
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About Marisol Solarte-Erlacher, Trauma Expert and Resilience Consultant
Named one of Colorado’s Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Business, Marisol Solarte-Erlacher is a trauma expert, resilience consultant, and licensed psychotherapist with over 20 years of experience helping organizations build cultures where both people and performance thrive, while hosting the award-nominated podcast ‘Resilience and Resistance,’ featuring successful Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color who have overcome trauma to become resilient leaders.
Connect with Marisol:
Email: marisol@marisolerlacher.com
Website: marisolerlacher.com
Instagram: instagram.com/marisol_resilience_expert
Connect with Maria:
Get Maria’s books on empathy: Red-Slice.com/books
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Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. While multiple studies show that we’re experiencing mental health crises, burnout and stress at alarming levels, I don’t have to tell you that you’re feeling it. It impacts your ability and your team’s ability to perform at the highest level, to innovate, problem solve and focus some workplace stress is a given like if you work in a hospital, fire station or prison, let’s say, but what about the stress? We can control the stress caused by a culture or leader who refuses to recognize your humanity, the leader who doesn’t value empathy, connection, well being or psychological safety as a way to empower their people to achieve success. Today, I talk with Marisol Solarte Urlacher about the price you pay for toxic and psychologically unsafe cultures and how that impacts business performance. Named one of Colorado’s top 25 most powerful women in business. Marisol is a trauma expert, resilience consultant and licensed psychotherapist with over 20 years of experience helping organizations build cultures where people and performance thrive. She also hosts the award nominated podcast, resilience and resistance, featuring successful black, indigenous and women of color who have overcome trauma to become resilient leaders. We discuss why chronic stress is an issue, how it impacts leadership and performance, and what it looks like to put employee well being at the center of your business strategy. Marisol shares how to make the culture shift in your own team to prioritize well being in meaningful ways, not just surface level perks. She offers three questions you can ask your team to discern if they feel psychologically safe, and she shares how you can make the business case for well being so your people can thrive and your company can achieve its goals. This was such an insightful conversation as always, take a listen. Marisol, welcome to the empathy edge podcast. I am so excited today to talk to you about the importance of well being in the workplace, how we turn stress into resilience and all the things that people are facing right now. So welcome, yeah.
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 02:58
Thank you so much
Maria Ross 02:59
for having me. So we heard your bio, we heard about the work that you do, and you know, it’s really interesting, the way you bring together your expertise as a psychotherapist, and the fact that you call yourself a resilience consultant, which I think is wonderful, how you’re bringing that to the workplace. So tell us a little bit about your story and what got you to this work, and what are you passionate about with this work?
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 03:24
Yeah, so I have been a mental health therapist for the past 20 years, and my primary focus has been working with adults and adolescents who have some form of developmental trauma. And so I’ve worked with very complicated cases, and I felt really good about that. Been really passionate working in the field of trauma, and like many other people, in 2020 during the pandemic, I ended up burning myself out. So even someone who has a lot of awareness around the impact of chronic stress and overworking themselves, I ended up falling into the same trap. Yeah. And so in 2021 I reached a point of crisis where I had to make a decision about what I wanted to do. And during the pandemic, I had friends who were CEOs and executive directors who had reached out to me to ask me to come and speak to their staff, because they were dealing with the stressors of the pandemic, the anxiety that was coming with that, and having transitioned to work from home. And so in this crisis that I had around what I was going to do because I couldn’t do what I was doing ongoing, it wasn’t sustainable, I decided that I would, you know, I really love teaching. I really love presenting. I love being able to be in a room with a group of people who really get it. Yeah. So that ended up being my path. And I have slowly, very slowly, been retiring from clinical work, but I’ll be done at the end of this month, and have just, you know, really leaned into providing these services to organizations and companies who need it.
Maria Ross 04:55
I love it. Oh my gosh. And your words about what you love doing, about teaching and being. In rooms full of people who get it is totally my jam as well, so I can appreciate that. So let’s talk a little bit about this, because we hear a lot about, I mean, we experienced a lot about the mental health crisis through the pandemic, and if anything, the pandemic woke us up to the fact that what we have going on in our personal lives absolutely impacts what’s going on at work. We don’t park our humanity at the door, as I always say when we come to work every day. So can you tell us a little bit about your perspective on the statistics we hear about chronic stress, the statistics we hear about the mental health crisis? You know, one study, the 2024 state of workplace empathy report showed that, I think it was 55% of CEOs said they had mental health challenges that were impacting their abilities to perform at work. And that number was equally high for employees as well as HR executives. What, in your opinion, is actually going on that’s causing this? Is it just that it’s always been there and we’re talking about it more, or is it, has it increased because it feels like it does? But I don’t know if that’s just that we’re more open to talking about it? Yeah, that’s
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 06:11
such a great question. I really do think it’s a shift. It’s a mindset shift in terms of how we we’re looking at work. You know, I think that there’s a generational component to this. I think that, you know, for the boomers are essentially retired or moving out. Was just telling my husband that I know someone who’s leading an organization who’s, she’s like, well into her 80s, wow. And so, you know, they’re on their way out. And we, you know, us, Gen Xers, I think we did adopt some of those same beliefs around work and work life. You know that we had a path. We, you know, work our job. We do everything that we can. We work as hard as possible. And, you know, we kind of figure out that work life balance on the other side. I think as millennials and Gen Xers are, you know, millennials have been in the workplace, and as Gen Xers are moving into the workplace, I think there’s, it’s brought this questioning around, is this sustainable? Are we able to sustain this level of intensity of work and deal with this level of stress? Think there has been a culture shift, or shift around how we think and talk about mental health and really thinking about the overall impact that, like you said, it’s not just personal, and we spend most of our time in the workplace. The majority of our life is spent at work, right? So it’s going to have the greatest impact. And so I think, you know, part of it is a culture shift, how we’re starting to the culture and the shape of our work place is changing. How we’re taught things is changing. And I think you’re absolutely right. I think that the pandemic woke us up a little bit. I always say that it wasn’t necessarily, it was the anxiety and stress that was happening in the time obviously, we’re going through such a significant collective stressor. I also think it gave us an opportunity to sit down. We were able to stop and say, What are we doing? Like right working. It really gave us an ability to pause and to question whether or not the way that we’ve been doing things is really working right, right? And I think we see a lot of positive impact from working from home, but, you know, now we’re kind of seeing this, the shift back to needing to come back to the office. And so I’m not sure that our mindset has changed in terms of, you know, going back to doing things the old way. But I think that we’re having different conversations
Maria Ross 08:22
about it, absolutely. And I think you know that part of this is this shift was slowly bubbling before the pandemic. It just got accelerated because of the pandemic. And as I often talk about, it is a shift in workplace culture. It’s also a shift in a leadership paradigm. And what’s happening with those that are sort of demanding that people come back to work. There’s a variety of reasons, both good and bad, why they are doing that, but a lot of it’s rooted in fear. A lot of it’s rooted in the inability for certain leaders to know how to lead in a hybrid or remote environment. It’s also about really elevating what’s going on in your culture, because if there’s no trust in your culture, remote and hybrid is really hard. And so it sort of lays bare if you have a problem in your culture around trust or psychological safety, or all those things that were always there. They were just more hidden because everyone was in the same room, absolutely. And so it’s really interesting to me, and that I think it’s sort of like this weird, not really virtuous, but kind of vicious cycle that that causes stressors for people who are like, I don’t know how to lead in a different way. I don’t know how to manage this. There’s so many companies that are trying different things and testing things out and seeing what works for them, because for them, they’ve seen the benefits of not going back, right? But for some leaders, it’s like, oh, I’m in the last 1015, years of my career, and now I have to change. I have to upend everything, yes, about what I believe. So that’s really interesting, that that’s that’s the perspective. And what do you see, if there is any data available, what do you see as the impact of that? Anxiety and stress and sort of emotional toll in the workplace. What’s the impact on performance or on leadership?
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 10:07
I think there are two ways to look at it. I think there’s obviously, there’s so much data about the economic impact of chronic stress, so think there’s, like, an estimated 300 billion that’s lost annually because of absenteeism, turnover, diminished productivity, you know, other medical, legal insurance costs that come with that. So that’s just a huge economic burden. And, you know, I always talk about how, from a very, you know, physiological, neurological perspective, like we always talk about, like, chronic stress is like the biggest killer in the US, or, you know, it’s like stress is going to be the thing that, you know, essentially ends us. And we don’t really conceptually understand what that means. So part of it is, you know, when our brain is really built for survival, like we’re super sophisticated, you know, in our way of, like, organizing the world and being able to think about big ideas, but our brains are not that sophisticated, and it’s always responding to our environment. We’re always trying to adapt in order to survive as a species, right? And part of that is, you know, we our brain because it’s built for survival. If it feels constant threat or potential threat, it’s going to stay in a state of activation, which then triggers all these different parts of our or our, you know, triggers our organs. It triggers every part of our body to be in a chronic state of stress, and, you know, hyperactivity, and so it has a long term impact on our well being. We usually see things. I say this, and I love my parent. My parents are the hardest working people that I know, but they also came from my dad is an immigrant to this country. My mom grew up in extreme poverty, like the drive to work and work and work outside of the home. Inside of the home is so real in them, which has been such a gift to me, because I feel like they gifted me that, like drive and ability to have some work ethic, but I also see the impact of that on their health. And I think sometimes we attribute some things to aging, but really it’s the ongoing chronic stress that we’ve experienced throughout our lifetime.
Maria Ross 12:12
Wow, so much in there. And I agree wholeheartedly, because there is that toll that we pay on our health and on our own well being. And there’s also this aspect of the stress we can control and the stress we can so, you know, there’s, of course, there’s work environments that are more stressful than others, emergency rooms, police stations, right? Fire Stations, yeah, that is just the nature of the work. But then there’s also the culture aspect that is what we can control, how our leaders lead, and that’s sort of, to me, the unnecessary stress you know when you’re creating when we talk about toxic workplaces, right? We’re not necessarily saying a stressful workplace is a toxic workplace. What makes it toxic for people is the way they’re treated, the way they feel, the way their leaders are leading, whether they feel seen, heard and valued, and to your point, I always love to point this out about stress and anxiety and fear. If that’s how you’re leading, you know our and you probably know this better than me, but this idea of like our executive functions, our cognitive functions shut down. So do you really want a room full of employees working with half their brains engaged? Probably not a smart business decision, right? And so this is not just coddling people. As some leaders like to say, this is about, you know, if you want to be really crass about it, like, are you getting maximum optimization of all your assets and resources?
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 13:40
Yeah. I mean, that’s absolutely true. You’re absolutely right. It’s about if our brain is only functioning at 50% and I’m just using that, I don’t you know, it’s probably less, but like you said, like part of what happens when we’re faced with threat or potential threat on a constant basis. You know how our nervous system perceives that we’re in a state of chronic stress? We don’t have access to our frontal lobe, so that executive functioning is not accessible to us. We’re not able to really think through things in a way that is wise and tempered, decisive, intuitive, like they’re all we miss out on, right? We’re just reacting to our environment, and then we you’re right, it creates. It’s a cumulative effect, like the culture becomes impacted by the stress of the leader and the environment that they’re creating. And right? Just don’t get the buy in. You don’t get the output. You don’t get the things that you really desire. Yeah,
Maria Ross 14:34
you don’t get the creativity and the innovation and the collaboration, because everyone’s in self preservation mode at that point. And the interesting thing is, I’ve spoken to leaders who work in very high stress environments who have managed to create a really healthy culture that is about taking care of their people even when the work is tough and stressful. And so they’re finding different ways. That’s what I talk about in my latest book, the empath. Dilemma those five pillars of effective and empathetic leadership. I’ve seen those in the most stressful work environments, but because it’s about, you know, again, it’s about the stress we can control versus the stress of the work itself. Yes, so I just want to talk about, you know, many organizations say that they’re prioritizing employee well being, but their actions are and I love this, this idea of the surface level perks and programs. I have a good friend who is a workplace Crusader and a chro Rebecca frees, she was actually on the show before, and she calls that fun generic. That’s not creating a good culture. That’s just, you know, dressing so what does it look like when a company genuinely puts employee well being at the center of their business strategy? What is What are they doing? How can we deconstruct
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 15:50
that? Yeah, I love that, because I think I’ve talked to a lot of different organizations, and they’ll say, Well, we have so many benefits. You know, we have all these exactly access. And I’m like, no one’s accessing them, because it’s not how we work as humans. And like you’re saying, our brains are constricted in that way. We’re not trying to, like, seek out well being. We we need to be in that state of well being. I think it really is a whole culture shift. It’s really thinking about, how do we start to address the things that are continually impacting the stress levels of our staff? Like, for example, I’m working with an organization, and they’re a fantastic organization, and they do incredible work, and it’s a highly traumatizing work, as you’re saying. You know, you’re talking about, like, EMTs. You know, police officers are in constant states of stress, and I’ve worked with that population a lot because they’re highly traumatized. And you know, when I tell them, like, let’s try to, like, get your nervous system to calm down. They’re like, No, I need to be in a high state of alert, because that’s how I have to respond. Like, I can’t, wow, yeah, I can’t just turn it off and on. I have to be at that level all the time. And that’s understandable. And I think there, like you said, there are ways to mitigate that, but I think organizationally, one thing that we talk about all the time is like the sense of, I have to constantly make sure that we’re doing as much service to people as possible, you know, for service for organizations that that provide services to people. And so I always tell them, like, yes, of course, you want to be able to provide the service that you are giving to people at like, the highest capacity that you can. But part of that is going to actually going to be seeing less people. Because what happens is, the more that you try to inflate that number, the more that you’re going to wear your staff out. And there, you know, people who are motivated by mission or the value of an organization or company are that loses its effect if you’re in that state of stress for too long, where people can be really passionate about the work that they’re doing, but until you change some of just very simple, systemic parts of the culture, you can never change the state of the mental well being, right, the organization.
Maria Ross 17:56
So, so what are some examples of those changes? So
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 17:59
I think one of them is really thinking about is doing, I think first and foremost, is just doing an assessment, like, even quick assessments, of staff being like, what are the biggest stressors right now? Like, what happens throughout your day? You know, I think one thing I always say, I did this presentation really early on, when I started to do this work, and someone asked, we were talking just about like, how do you mitigate chronic stress throughout the day? Like, really simple topic, and she asked a question. She said, you know, what do you do if you have scheduled I’ve scheduled a lunch in my calendar every day, but I’m just too busy. So what should I do? And I was like, take your lunch period. Like, there’s no other answer to that. And I think part of it is like, because we do still somewhat idealize this idea of, like, working harder, or working past your lunch or not taking a break, or, you know, working when you get home, if you have to be in the office, or whatever that is, I think trying to really assess, like, what’s happening in the day to day of your staff and one of the biggest stressors, and then trying to figure out, how do you shift that? And then I think this is, like, the simplest thing is in staff meetings, or however, you know, the staff convenes to really check in with people, just ask a simple question, like, how are you doing? And like, let that be part of the culture. Because I think like, you’re saying, like people feel like we’re coddling people when we ask too much about emotions, or we like, allow them to talk too much, or we’re like, interested in how people are feeling. But it really shifts how people are invested in the work, and it really makes a connection between the leader and the staff to help them know that they care about who I am as a person, as opposed to just, you know, giving me the mindfulness app.
Maria Ross 19:39
Right? Exactly. So I hear a few things in there. One I hear, you know, basically doing an assessment or an audit of how people spend their day, and then seeing where you can make some positive, small shifts in there. But I would think that kind of like you were saying earlier, that’s a mindset shift too. So it’s all well and good if I. Work with my team, and I do that. But if the C suite is like, No, you need to work, work, work, work, work, that’s going to be a problem. So what are some of the ways that you help, you know, bring leaders along who are in stuck in that mindset of like, well, everyone has to be productive at every moment of every day, of every hour. What are some ways that you’ve found to cut through to get them to see, Oh, I get it. This is actually really important.
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 20:27
Yeah, that’s such a great question. I’m actually working with someone right now who is a VP, and we’re talking about that, how she has definitely had somewhat of a mindset shift in terms of how she relates to her team, like, really thinking about, like, Okay, I want to figure out how to help them not be in that chronic state of stress, and to change that cultural tone, because it’s so pervasive within the organization, and she’s having that same conflict where, you know her, the president who, who supervises her, is like, efficiency, work, work, work, work, work, work. You know she’s like, I don’t sometimes I don’t know how to like, right? Figure out how to protect my staff or my team from that culture. And so we’ve been working a lot around like, Okay, well, part of it is it really is adapting some of these shifts for yourself. And of course, they’re going to be some things that you know, like come down that you you can’t avoid, you have to do. But how do you start to think about you setting boundaries and starting to have some conversations. And I think it’s about, you know, that leading by example is so critical, and it seems so ridiculous, like I was just thinking about it for myself in my day to day life. And I was thinking, I have a six year old, and she’s my she’s a foster daughter, and she’s really addicted to her phone. And so I was like, GPT chatting. I mean, you think I would know this already, but I’m like, Yeah, reduce my daughter’s screen time because she’s always asking for the phone or whatever it was. Uh huh. Like, model it, yeah. And I was like, they’re right. I probably look at my phone when she’s around, and if I just stopped, what could happen, right? And so I think it’s this idea of, if I just stopped this thing right happens, like, if I stop overworking my staff, or making these demands and really having an assessment about what do we what’s the outcome I really need, right? Then maybe there could be possibility. And I think it’s just like I always tell clients, let’s try and experiment. Like experiments are not they don’t have to be forever, right? But maybe something great could happen, right? I think it’s cutting through the fear. Yeah,
Maria Ross 22:28
absolutely. What do you think I’m kind of kind of shift gears here a little bit and talk about psychologically safe workplaces, which, you know, obviously foster well being and foster an ability to reduce our stress. What is the biggest misconception that leaders have about creating psychologically safe workplaces, and how does that impact their ability to retain top talent? This is
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 22:50
such a great question. I mean, it’s such a challenge, I think, for people to shift their mindset around psychological safety, because they typically frame it. I think, as I was saying before, is we have to talk about our emotions right over this emotional thing that should not be part of the workplace. Like, you know, we’re just here to work. We’re not here to like, make you feel good about yourself, you know, or make you feel happy, find your own happiness, you know, whatever that is. But psychological safety is so fundamental, because it’s really about being able to do things within an organization without fear of recrimination. So you can say things and do things without the fear of recrimination. And so part of that is it allows for creativity and innovation within an organization like you were saying. So I think what happens is when people feel unsafe psychologically, and part of that has to do with what you were saying before, when we started, is being able to trust the leader. So when that trust is present, it creates a lot of psychological safety that you can start to work within. Yeah, and it allows for creativity innovation. It just allows for so much more, like, output, you know, kind of going back to that, like, that’s essentially what we want for an organization and company. It really changes the way that people are able to adapt to the workplace. I
Maria Ross 24:14
have kind of a weird question, so let’s say you’re listening to our conversation right now, yes, and you’re like, I don’t know if my team feels psychologically safe or my organization is a psychologically safe culture. The urge is to just go, do you feel psychologically safe? What are some markers or some ways that you as a leader? If you’re curious about that and how safe people feel. What are some good questions to ask of your team in lieu of, you know, it’s kind of like saying, Are you an honest person or aren’t? Aren’t you? Of course you’re going to say you’re an honest person, right? So what are some a way, like a roundabout way to get to asking your employees or your team? Team in an engagement survey, in a conversation whether psychological safety is present. Do you have one or two of those? Yeah, I think
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 25:08
that you’re absolutely right. Sometimes there’s a power dynamic that exists and people are not gonna feel safe.
Maria Ross 25:14
It’s like, yeah, I’ve totally feel psychologically safe.
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 25:18
So I think, you know, I think typically, it’s about looking at what are the pain points of the organization. We can tell what they are. As leaders, we know, you know. And so are there things that you see like, do you see staff like having side conversations? Do you feel like they’re not able to come to you? Do you feel like people aren’t directly addressing some of the issues that are happening in the organization. So I think that becomes really important, is making sure that you are the communication avenues are really are effective, and that they’re working the way that they should. Yeah, and I think that’s a primary, I think, indicator of psychological safety is, do the people who you supervise feel good about coming to you when there’s an issue.
Maria Ross 26:04
But how do you ask that? Let’s say you’re not someone who’s very touchy feely, and maybe you’re not very good at intuiting the moods and feelings of others, because some of us are not. Some folks are very analytical and black and white, and if you didn’t say it, I don’t sense it, right? Yeah. So what can they ask? What could they measure?
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 26:22
Yeah, I think some. Actually, there are three questions that I usually have people to start to work with, psychological safety. One of them is, what are the things in the workplace that cause you the most stress? How do you handle those? And how do you ask for help? And I think that’s those are really important questions, like, what are the things that are most difficult and challenging? How do you typically deal with them? And then do you ask for help? And so I think it kind of gives you a bigger picture. You know, just within those three questions about what’s really happening for the staff or the person that I’m supervising, right, right? I love
Maria Ross 26:59
that. I love those three questions. I think that’s a great guide for people of just like, hey, we’re just trying to get a pulse on how things are going in the organization. It doesn’t have to be. We’re trying to assess psychological safety. You know, it’s like, trying to, like, ask someone, do you have a diverse culture? Like, it’s, yeah, you know, do you feel included? Like, right?
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 27:19
Is your culture equitable? Like, yeah. It’s like, well, yeah,
Maria Ross 27:22
I don’t know. So I really like those questions. Could you repeat those three questions again?
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 27:27
Yeah, sure. Like, what are the things that are causing the most stress for you right now? How do you handle them? Or how have you handled them in the past? And do you have you, do you ask for help? Have you been able to ask for help? And so it kind of gives you an understanding of when people are in those states of stress, what’s happening
Maria Ross 27:45
well. And I think the other important thing too about what you’re saying is you don’t have to wait for a mandate from the CEO, like if you are the leader of the team. I talk about this all the time, creating your own micro culture, and I’ve been part of a really healthy, vibrant micro culture within a more toxic work environment. I’ve actually our team was killing it. We were high performing, we were over performing, but we were our own little island in this organization, right? And it’s because our leader made that a priority, right, regardless of what the CEO was doing or the COO was doing, right? So I just think it’s really important to understand that like you can do this, do this for your own team. This doesn’t have to be a large, transformational company wide effort, that you have to get buy in from the CEO to do it. It’s just checking in with your team and saying, hey, just within our team, we want to assess where some of the bottlenecks are. We want to assess where some of the friction points are. Do you mind, you know, filling out the survey, or can we have a listening session about it, or whatever people feel most comfortable with based on your culture. So I love that. So as you know, we’re in an environment. I worked in tech for a really long time. I continue to work with a lot of tech clients, especially in Silicon Valley. It’s all about very short term results, right? The next quarter, just getting through the next quarter and long term thinking is kind of pushed to the side sometimes. So as companies are facing this increasing pressure to deliver those short term results, how have you helped your clients and the leaders you work with make a business case for prioritizing well being, for prioritizing psychological safety. What are some tips you have for making that business case? I devote my work to making the business case for empathy. But how do you make How do you help them make the business case for psychological safety and employee well being?
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 29:35
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s really about like you were saying it’s making a case around like what’s actually happening within the organization. So like you were saying, I think it’s like something like 83% of people in the workplace suffer from work related stress, and like 25% say that their job is the thing that’s causing the most stress in their lives. So I what the way that I make the case is, I really look at it from a neurological perspective. Effective, you know, really looking at the long term impact of stress, of lack of wellness, of psychological unsafety, and showing them how these things have an ongoing, consistent impact on turnover and absenteeism that people when they’re in chronic states of stress, and they just want to check out, you know. And absenteeism doesn’t just have to mean, like, I’m not coming to work. It’s like, I’m checked out, you know, right? My body’s here, but I’m not, yeah, yeah, I’m working with a client right now. And, you know, I think there’s like, the quiet quitting that’s happening, and he’s just, like, some days I just, I’m like, gone. I’m here, but not here, you know, right, right? And so I really make a case for this is about the long term investment of your culture for the overall well being and sustainability of your organization. Because people want to, people always want to draw on new talent. You know, they’re always like, we want to bring in good people. We want to make sure that they’re coming. And we know that people are drawn to positive, psychologically safe,
Maria Ross 30:59
right? Workplaces? Oh, it’s table stakes for Gen Z. It’s not even an edge, almost, for them anymore. It’s, I’m not even going to look at this organization if I suspect that this culture is going to drain my soul, right?
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 31:13
I’m not interested in soul draining, yeah, exactly, being happy. And so it really make the case for it’s about the long term investment in order not only to retain the good people that you have, but it’s also to bring good people in, right? And to make sure that you’re constantly cultivating that, because once people get wind, but this is not a good place to work. That could be death to
Maria Ross 31:34
the no, they’re gonna go to your competitor,
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 31:36
absolutely, yeah, and you’re gonna be kind of stuck with the people who are maybe not the ones that you want
Maria Ross 31:42
to be, not as discerning. Yeah, well, I’m gonna, you know from this whole conversation, I want to put two additional links in the show notes to link back to some past episodes. One was with Exos, which is an employee wellness company. And I spoke with Amanda, who I believe is their chief strategy officer, about, you know, to your point, not only the neurological but the physiological importance of helping your employees take care of themselves and how that maximizes performance. And then also what you mentioned earlier was about the generational mindset shift. I’m going to put a link to an episode with Anna layata, who wrote a book called unlocking generational codes, and she talks about how we operate and what our belief systems are within different generations that are all in the workplace at the same time right now, there’s like five generations working in the workplace together, and what that means to our ability to handle conflict, to collaborate effectively, which ultimately all leads to our well being. Right? If I know in past jobs where I’ve had conflicts with people in the workplace, you know, I was crying after work. I didn’t want to go in. I felt attacked, you know, all of these things that were impacting the actual work. Yeah, so I’m going to put some links there, as well as the link to Rebecca freezes episode in there. So as we kind of wrap up, what are some tips you have for leaders that suspect and know or you know they’re feeling it themselves, that their teams are feeling run down, they’re feeling anxious, they’re feeling overworked. Where? What are some tips that you would offer to them as a place to start? Obviously, we’re talking about putting long term, sustainable solutions in place, but tomorrow, where could they start? I
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 33:26
really do think the simplest place to start is just to create a space for people to talk about what they’re feeling when people feel seen and heard. It’s transformative, and it doesn’t really take a lot for people to feel seen and heard. They just need a place for you to ask them what’s going on? How are you feeling? And I really want to hear that. It’s important to me. I think that can fundamentally change and shift the energy of a culture as you start to, like, transition and move toward creating more psychologically safe and like, you know, I think sustainable environments. I think also really trying to tune into, how do I become more trustworthy? And I know, like we talked about, like, sometimes it’s hard to think about, like, what does trustworthiness mean? I think a simple way to think about it. Someone said this to me, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot in my own life, is, in order to be trustworthy, we just have to like, be able to like, cultivate that trust. Like, am I trustworthy? Be trustworthy. Like, what does that mean? Is to like when people ask you for something, do it, or when you say you’re gonna do something, do it, you know. And so the only way to like, earn trust is to be trustworthy
Maria Ross 34:30
well, and also to be vulnerable. And just to say, you know, as long as you’re if you’re trying to hide behind some mask of leadership that you’ve decided to put on, where you don’t make any mistakes. You don’t feel anything for anybody. Yes, that’s going to cut, that’s going to block the connection with anyone else in your organization. But you know, some other ways to build trust is be transparent with decision making, right? Be a little bit vulnerable, yeah, have some levity. Give people room to just. Sort of be themselves and relax and maybe crack a joke or two or whatever, and to your point, especially, do what you say you’re gonna do and walk the talk. So you know, you used the example earlier about modeling the leaders that are like, well, I know mental health is really important to my employees, so I’ve been trying to encourage them to take their paid time off, but they just won’t do it. Well, did you take your paid time off, because they’re never gonna go if they know you’re still working exactly, they’re gonna think there’s an expectation. So even if you say there’s not an expectation, your actions speak louder than words
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 35:32
100% and I think to the point of vulnerability. I think you know, sometimes can feel really scary to do that, but you’re absolutely right. It models psychological safety, because it’s giving people the opportunity to see you’re doing something that’s hard, and I can do it too. And you know, this idea that emotions are not part of the workplace is so false, like we’re 100% driven by our emotional states, like we’re all of it. I think I’ve read some statistic and I’m going to get this one wrong, but it’s like, I think over the course of a day as human beings, we feel like 85 different emotions. Oh my gosh, yeah. So like, try to remove the emotion from like us as humans in the workplace, is impossible, right? So we just have to start to, like, step our toe in as leaders. Like, just ask how people are doing. Be a little vulnerable. Just say how you feel, yeah. And you know, really try to model what you want to happen in the workplace,
Maria Ross 36:23
right? And like, I always tell people, empathy is not necessarily crying on the floor with your employees. So if you’re not over, overly emotional, if you’re not overly touchy feely, that’s okay. You can still access empathy. You can access vulnerability by just letting your guard down a little bit, yeah, leaving space for if someone is having a bad day, if they’re taking care of an elder parent, if they’re going through a divorce, if they are having a really tough time with a client, just to say, wow, you know, Marisol, I see this is really hard for you. And I just want to say, you know, good job if you need to vent, if you need to talk, if you want to problem solve about it, I’m here. Yes, there’s no crying, like there’s no crying in baseball, like we don’t have to be when we talk about emotions at work, people have this total end of the spectrum view of what that means, right? And same thing with vulnerability, and same thing with transparency. No, you’re not letting it all hang out at work. Oh no, but it’s just being human, just like you would connect with a neighbor or a friend or, you know, maybe not even with a friend, right? Maybe you do reserve a little bit, but we know how to do this in our real lives. I just don’t know why we can’t do it at work
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 37:34
well, and I think we don’t because, you know, as a therapist, when I was trained like we have, we are trained how to and how to do empathy. You know, it’s like you’re providing a beautiful resource, because you can learn it, and it’s not, you know, there’s a way to do it that, like you said, it’s not about having to, like, curl up in a ball, or, like, hold someone as they cry. Exactly, clear, like, I can I have the same human experience as you. Yeah, that’s powerful.
Maria Ross 37:59
Exactly, all right? Well, I love it. Let’s leave it there. We could probably talk for longer, as always, I say that with like every one of my guests, so I’m sure my listeners are tired of hearing it. But thank you so much, mattersol for your insights and your this conversation was great. We’re gonna have all your links in the show notes, but for folks that are on the go, what’s one place where they can find out more information, and also, if you can tell them about your workplace culture shift package as well. Yeah. So
Marisol Solarte-Erlacher 38:25
Marisol locker.com so that’s the easiest way to find me, just to go to my website. And so we’re actually revamping the way that we do packages, so we have different levels of packages, and they’re really focused on identifying, like, what are the pain points of your organization, what are the things that need to change culturally? So at different levels, do different types of assessments and really look at like, how do we work concurrently with both leadership and staff? So we’re helping the leadership really figure out, how do I start to implement some of these things, and helping staff build skills in order to create less stressful, psychologically safe workplaces
Maria Ross 38:59
well and more productive and profitable at the same time, right? All of it, I love it. Win, win, win. Okay, well, thank you so much again, of course, thank you, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review or share with a friend or colleague. And until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the 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 slicemaria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
