Podcast Episodes Archive - Page 3 of 24 - Red Slice | Speaker, Author, Leadership Trainer

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

Safaa Charafi: Spatial Justice and Building Inclusive Cities

What are inclusive cities? How can we shape our cities to be more inclusive for individuals and organizations? Too often, we take things for granted when designing cities and don’t realize how they actually may not work for many of our citizens. Whether it’s public transport, green spaces, or even how we decide what to plow first after a snowstorm – there are perspectives we don’t consider in our very male-focused, majority group-biased urban planning processes.

Today, my guest is Safaa Charafi, an architect, urbanist, and founder of Urban Inclusion. With over 10 years of experience in her field, Safaa shares valuable insights on gender-inclusive urban practices. We talk about why empathy is a pillar in building inclusive cities. Safaa shares how she ended up in this niche field and how our cities fail us – particularly women and marginalized communities. She defines spatial justice and how it is linked to social justice. You’ll also learn about some wonderful concepts you may never heard of, such as feminist cities, the right to the city, and even cities for kids

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Diversity in a decision-making group will bring better solutions to community problems. You can’t know what people need if you don’t talk to a wide group of people.
Diversity is not just a trendy topic. Building a community around diversity requires learning new things and unlearning things we thought we knew.
Empathy is not about pleasing everybody, but about factoring their perspective into the decision-making.

“Cities need to use empathy and rely more on listening to each other, reflecting the needs and aspirations of their inhabitants. Cities are made for people, but also by people and that’s something we tend to forget.”

— Safaa Charafi

Episode References:

The Empathy Edge podcast: James Ehrlich: The Neighborhood Of The Future Is Here
Feminist City: Reclaiming Space in a Man-Made World by Leslie Kern

About Safaa Charafi: Architect Urbanist, Founder of Urban Inclusion

Safaa Charafi is an architect and urbanist and the founder of Urban Inclusion, a consulting firm at the intersection of gender, diversity, and urban development. With a strong academic background and practical qualifications, she brings over 10 years of experience to her field. Safaa’s expertise lies in social research and urban development, with a special focus on diversity, inclusion, and intersectionality. Currently, she serves as a policy officer for UNOPS, she is also a fellow of Allianz Foundation, Belgium’s 40 under 40, entrepreneur, lecturer, and speaker, sharing valuable insights on gender-inclusive urban practices.

Connect with Safaa Charafi

Urban Inclusion: https://www.linkedin.com/in/safaa-charafi/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/safaa-charafi/

Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: http://red-slice.com

PRE-SALE SPECIAL! Pre-order 1 to 99 copies of Maria’s new book, The Empathy Dilemma for your leaders, exec team, (or yourself?!) and GET 30%! https://bit.ly/TEDSpecialPresale Offer ends August 27, 2024!

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Safaa Charafi 02:49

Thank you so much for having me, Maria. Well, so

Maria Ross 02:51

first of all, tell us about your story and your work. And how did you get to doing this work around being an architect and an urbanist? And what are you most passionate about?

03:04

Well, so

Safaa Charafi 03:06

my name is southpaw. I’m originally from Morocco, I moved to Europe to do my second master’s in urban studies. And I got to live in Vienna, in Copenhagen, in Madrid, and in Brussels for my matters. And so when I lived in Vienna, actually, I don’t know if you know that or not, but like Vienna is known to be the most feminist city in Europe. I did not know that. Yeah, it’s quite intriguing, because I’ve never heard of a feminist city back then. This was a couple of years ago, and I got to interview ever chirinos lebauer, who are at the head of the cloud, and before, which is actually the translated in German it translated to women’s office kinda. And they’re basically the ones who implemented what we call gender mainstreaming in urban development projects, and policymaking in order to make the three more included from a gender perspective. So what gave birth to this concept of femininity? And yeah, sort of like all click, then that’s when it started. I’ve always been very, very feminine, growing up in quite patriarchal society. Back then, in Morocco, I’ve always been very passionate about social justice, about equality, equity, diversity, all of these topics. And then, during my master’s in urban studies, I got to discover what we call racial justice. And I realized that the struggles for justice are actually much more diverse in their focus, and they can empathize or focus on social environmental and racial justice and somehow like overlap and reinforce one another. And the concept of spatial justice, which is Yeah, linking the social aspects or to the space as in place is never or just the container of human activity. It also shapes human life. And said it can be indeed quite exclusive OR quite a reflection of our society, basically, which are Yeah, much, quite often sexist or racist or yeah, not very equal. So yeah, that’s been my reasons for starting this work. It’s my why. Then, yeah, I started open inclusion, which is a consultancy firm working on the concept of social justice and spatial justice, and gender and diversity into the urban settings.

05:39

Maria Ross 05:40

I love that. And I’m just seeing so many overlaps in, in not as grand missions, but just the ability to take space and encourage collaboration and inclusion that I see in workplaces trying to do some innovative things with their actual physical space, for example, making the physical space accommodate neurodiversity, or the different ways that people work together. You know, there’s spaces for collaboration, there’s spaces for solo work. And so I’m imagining that you’re applying that on a larger scale to a city. Yes.

Safaa Charafi 06:16

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I really like to think of it as the concept. I mean, it will do what you work on, and what you talk about all the time, this concept of empathy, whether we think of marginalized community, the people who usually wouldn’t have a seat at the table, or their voices heard. And when it comes to urban development, and when it comes to making the city, it is historically by men for men, and they’re oftentimes able bodied, hetero, educated, rich men. And these are just the facts. So that, for example, our cities are car centric, knowing that the majority of those who use those cars to go to work are men, also says a lot about who’s included or excluded from the conversation around, how do we make a theory? What is the city for what kind of resources do we put in the city, and sort of like having the quality of life and the well being of residents also in the center? So yeah, that’s something that we kind of, like, start doing with the DNI work at the workplace. And it’s more of Yeah, micro level, I would say. And in the city, it’s much more on a macro level. So yeah, for me, the empathy is a fundamental pillar of what I would like to call an inclusive city or an empathic theory, which is a concept as well. So

Maria Ross 07:51

I love that and I want to get to the role of empathy and building inclusive cities. But first, I want to ask, how do you believe that cities are failing us right now? With whether it’s women, whether it’s marginalized communities? Can you give us some examples? I know, you just gave us sort of the car example. But can you give us some other examples of things we may not even realize are non inclusive in the way that we design our cities?

08:14

Mm hmm.

Safaa Charafi 08:16

I mean, I could give a lot of examples. It’s also Yeah, I do give lectures as well on the topic of like sexism and the theory or how urban planning also failed women, how our cities actually fail women. I mean, like I said, theories have been an article predominantly designed by men, for men, men, and then with a very known book called feminist theory claiming space in a man men world, by the author, Leslie Kern, who’s also an urban Canadian. And she talked on about the role of theory in or how like, things have changed as well for her when she became a mom, for example, and how she navigates the city much more in a much different way because he has a stroller or because of her body changing because of how the gaze as well as the male gait in the city. And this failure to include women in the policy planning for urban development, for example, is a way of making their specific demand or the specific need

09:33

invisible,

Maria Ross 09:35

right, but can you give us some actual examples like like you said, earlier, you were talking about the cars? Can you give us some other you know, some things that will ignite people to see something that maybe has been unseen to them before?

Safaa Charafi 09:50

Well, one particular example is and it’s kind of a running gag right now. It was, yeah, a couple of years ago and also Though there was a theory planning meeting, and someone asked like, oh, it’s like was more of a joke. So they said, what if no one was now sectors? Right? Without? Yeah, the consultants were there. And they were like, Oh, what if actually, maybe it is. And they did a study where they realized that the so basically, they were always starting to plow the snow that was on the, on the row of Spruce for the cart. And then second, they would do the pavements and do the sidewalks, and still had a high rate of people break in there. Yeah, like bowling and having to do it at all, at all bites. But also, yeah, older people, etc. And they decided they were just thinking, Okay, but what if we just change the? Like, what if we just start with the sidewalks first? How would that be? And it turns out that the rate of people falling and of course, they’re going to be higher, or the majority were women of a certain age, that rate fell down. And they were much less, I mean, it also cost the city less, because the current didn’t need it as much, first of all, and the majority of those who are using the roads were men, the majority of those using the pavement or the sides were women of a certain age, but also women with strollers, because they have much different mobility, which in our terms we call mobility of care, because they do what we call trip chain. So they have much different way of going from A to B, they do like a B D, like, yeah, either because of care work, or because of attending to like different activities happen to drop kids at school, picking up groceries, you name it. And that’s also something that we see all over. Like in different societies, it’s not that more patriarchal society would have, obviously, much higher rate, that even in Western society, it is still the case that women do more care, work and unpaid labor, which also translate in how they navigate the city and how they use public transport, how they, yeah, whether they will drive cars or less. And also when it comes to power ownership or housing, home ownership, etc. So they’re, like, we talk now about the gender inequality. But there’s also inequality between women entities, the when it comes to those who work in certain areas, or in certain spaces, or the highly educated women, the single moms, the women of color, the I mean, all of these women will all it’s not a monolith. So they will use public paper, they will use the theory in very different ways. So it’s really important to have like in terms of political pace of conversation and discussion, women’s participation, when it comes to including them in the theory has been so far very partial, and yet fails to really create any sort of equality.

Maria Ross 13:04

Yeah, I mean, you can look at it across so many vectors, because, you know, you can look at some lower socio economic neighborhoods, predominantly black or brown communities, at least here in the US. And, you know, they’re their cities where their food deserts, for example, they don’t have access to fresh produce, or fresh groceries, or access to green space. And so I can see how when you’re when you’re having those planning discussions, but also those, those revitalizing and expansion discussions, that is so important that all different voices, this is again, where diversity makes for a better decision, all those different voices are brought to the table, to be able to unearth these issues that people might miss because they are part of the predominant culture or the predominant group, and they don’t even see it. I’m thinking back to when my husband and I spent a few weeks in London for his work. This was when my son was maybe 10 months old. And my husband is from the UK. He’s from Scotland. So we brought the baby with us so he could go visit his grandparents up in Scotland. But we were in London for a while at an apartment. And I loved it because I could get anywhere in the cabs there because they have the platforms so that you can get your stroller into the cab without taking your child out of the stroller. And I just thought I mean, that’s such a small detail, but it’s in terms of accessibility in terms of my ability to get around with my young baby and in a stroller. And by the way, it was also pouring rain the whole week. We were there. So I was using a lot of cabs. And so I just I so appreciated it because it felt like it was such a thoughtful, intentional decision to do that and, and not that hard, and the impact that it has on citizens and Their ability to move through their day move through their life is just, it’s just so much more improved when you bring those voices to the table to say, Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? So I’m kind of answering my own question here. But what do you feel is the role of empathy and building inclusive cities? Is it that ability to, you know, gather diverse voices, is that that ability to be able to listen, you know, productively to those diverse voices? Like where do you see the role of empathy? And where have you seen it play out to success in building inclusive cities?

Safaa Charafi 15:36

Well, like I said, yeah, for me, it is a fundamental pillar when it comes to building cities that are inclusive, but also listen to these diverse voices. It’s, I mean, it serves as this guiding principle, at least in my, the reasons why I do this work is because there’s this need for an attendant for compassion, for again, considering the diverse needs and experience of all the residents of the city. And I think that when you embrace empathy, as an urban planner, or as a policymaker, we sort of like recognize and acknowledge the lived experiences of the typically marginalized communities, and those who are affected by Yeah, factors like, like we said, socioeconomic status, age, disability, gender, race, migration, status, you name it. And when we actively listen to this, and this is also like the active empathy, right? It’s not just like passive empathy. But we’re not just listening to them, we have to do something with it. So it also but I also encourage, like the parts betray designs, or to really have an active voice in how the city is being made. So that would help with like, really understand their unique challenges and their perspective, to then tailor or address their specific needs, and really make sure that no one is left behind, which is, again, it sounds very cliche, and I think it’s mostly to be thoughtful, and acknowledge, rather than I don’t think we can include everyone, this is also something that we we can only try. And by trying we can fix, what’s the wrongs that the city had been built on, or whatever has been done before. And I think the me empathy also, like drives co creation efforts within communities. Like I said, it’s about having this active dissipation, creating partnerships between residents and different decision makers, different stakeholders, and really like engaging in meaningful dialogue. I mean, I don’t think diversity. For me, it’s also this aspect of diversity, which had been wanted to talk not in a lot of like posters, and we talk about diversity, like it’s just some trendy topic when it’s actually more open to learning and unlearning it’s hard work. So yeah, I think that cities need to use this empathy and really need to rely more on listening to each other. And, like, yeah, reflecting the needs and aspirations of their inhabitants, like cities, are made for people, but also by people. And that’s something we tend to forget. Because urban planners, like just be the experts.

Maria Ross 18:33

Yeah, to be the master architects. But I think that’s such an important point you brought up there and that we can’t possibly create something that’s going to please everyone. And that’s, that’s the often the argument you hear for, you know, diversity or empathy or whatever is, and that’s not the goal. The goal is that we make the best decisions synthesizing as many inputs as we can. And then when we communicate what are you know, this is true for work, this is probably true when they unveil the city plan, when we have the conversation of this is the decision we came to, number one people know that their voices were heard. And number two, you can provide an opportunity to say we know that many of you, you know, there were quite a few people who wanted this. And here’s why we weren’t able to provide it like that’s actually empathetic is to give people a reason why like that. You heard what they said. But here were the constraints. Here were the obstacles to why we were not able to provide that. So maybe come up with some alternatives. But it’s almost like people that are in decision making. Just don’t even want to have the conversation. They just want to be able to go like here’s the decision. Here’s the plan, live with it. Yeah, the empathy comes in not from doing and pleasing everyone who was involved in the process, the empathy comes in in synthesizing all their information allowing them to be heard And then being able to explain how you came to the ultimate decision that you had to come to. And I feel like that’s the missing piece for people, where they say I just don’t even want to have that difficult conversation. So I’m going to just make the decision and proclaim it from on high. And then I don’t want to hear from anybody. Again, right, that’s like the most on empathetic approach to decision making. So I just want to make sure that we strengthen we underscore that point, because this is one of the myths that I feel like stops so many leaders and decision makers from embracing empathy, like, I’m not even going to practice it, because I know I’m not going to please everybody. And empathy is not about pleasing everybody, it’s about at least seeing their point of view, and enabling them to be heard, and factoring that in to your decision. But if that decision can’t accommodate what they’re asking for, you can then have another conversation that says, here’s why we had to make that decision, or here’s what we can do instead. Do you agree with that?

Safaa Charafi 21:02

Absolutely. I think especially when it comes to now we call multicultural city, or the super diversity, or it’s often this resistance mechanism that we will hear like, oh, but we can’t please everyone. Oh, but we can have everyone’s voices heard. It’s not possible in a theory of few Yeah, 100 1000s. To just have a, it’s not possible. And I think in my opinion, it’s not about that we have to take every single resident into account, it’s really about this, more of an democratic way of building the city. There’s also the concept of the right to the city, which is the philosophical concept, but it’s basically the full accessibility to all the resources and opportunities that a city can offer. And these are actually not, I mean, there is a whole set of activists who work on this on this topic to really ensure that everyone has a right to the city, the reading, or that we all have equal access to the resources to, to public spaces, to housing, to dignity in the city to public transport. I mean, it’s really making sure that different needs are taken into account. And that also recognizing that not everyone will use the theory in the same way that not everyone has the same ability or not everyone has the same need. But it’s also Yeah, like just taking this into account. I think it’s something that most urban planners and policymakers would come from, it’s also coming from this lived experience. So we

22:42

would build cities that worked for us, right? Yes, we absolutely did.

Safaa Charafi 22:47

Yeah. What about the elderly? What about the kids? I mean, there’s also this city for kids, or for children content, that something that I absolutely love, because we tend to forget, and maybe we were all kids at some point, but we tend to forget how it is or how it was or like how distances are why stairs not be built at the scale of a kid when it’s much higher for them to client than then read for adults, like all these small things, because we don’t delve in the shoes of other users of the Yeah, right structure.

Maria Ross 23:24

And it’s often the voices that don’t have the power, they are not heard, because they don’t have the power. And so we need to as leaders and as allies, if we are in those positions of power, we need to seek those voices out. We need to make sure intentionally that they’re being heard. And I’m kind of giggling about your city for kids concept, because this is something we’re facing in the beautiful place where we live, our son is nine and it’s really difficult for him to actually go ride his bike safely anywhere around here. There’s huge hills, there’s this horrific four way stop sign down where you know, the main places are, there’s nowhere for kids to go. Other than like a park or two or maybe Starbucks like, so like, this is one of the things we’re looking at in terms of like, do we need to move to a different city that accommodates more of what, like our child wants in his upbringing and in his childhood, right. So, you know, and that’s a very bottom line impact because we could end up leaving the city because of that. And so they lose our tax dollars, they lose our our contribution. And so, you know, if you’re if you think of a city as almost like a workplace, you know, you’re losing talent. That way you’re you’re you’re not attracting talent to your organization, if you will, because you’re making these decisions that are very, you know, myopic in nature. So this is such a such a great thing. And I think you kind of answered this last question I had for you, we think We’ve been dancing around it. But the idea that spatial justice connects to social justice. But is there anything we’ve missed around that?

Safaa Charafi 25:12

I think I mean, yeah, there’s definitely a huge field work from Edward soja. To David Harvey, working on how the impacts of urban planning decisions plays out in society and how justice can sort of like be translated. I think it’s really important to also, something we don’t talk often about is this distribution of public services or resources have like it had, like the redlining, for example. That’s also something that just blows my mind. I don’t know if I need to explain what it

Maria Ross 25:50

let’s just explain the definition for anyone that doesn’t understand what that means. Well,

Safaa Charafi 25:53

yeah, it’s a it’s a discriminatory practice that basically consists of the systematic denial of services like schooling, insurance loans, mortgages, in certain areas based on their race or ethnicity. And it basically it was literally just planted by neighborhoods with a red line. That’s why it’s called Red Line in in places that would be not really good for investment. And it happened to be of course, neighborhoods with a number of racial and ethnic minorities.

Maria Ross 26:25

Well, actually, you know, it’s not to interrupt you, I’m sorry. The other thing that’s like atrocious about redlining is it also, you know, kept different ethnic groups from buying homes in certain areas. And it was like a year or so ago that I heard about a neighborhood in the San Francisco Bay Area that they discovered, the ability to redline was still in the city’s charter, it had never been removed. So just to discover that this law was still in the charter and still in the books, and nobody caught it. In, you know, the 2020s in the 2010s, was absolutely shocking to me. But that’s the remnants of, you know, racial inequity, the remnants of, of slavery, the remnants of racism in our country, and I’m sure it exists in other places, too.

Safaa Charafi 27:15

Yeah. I mean, yeah, just talking about Now you talk about the US another example, that it’s really mind blowing, you probably heard of is the poor door policy. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this one, which is a separate entrance in the like a residency or like a multi unit housing development, there is a policy that would allow the tenants to ask for having a separate door for people who pay. So you would have Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s, it’s visible, a symbol of an unfair housing practice and of discrimination based on basically you can add, yeah, you can just have a separate entrance to the building for condo owners. And another one in the back are the renters, who live in more nice low income housing units, or like more affordable housing units. And this has been like in mixed income development, urban development, or like real estate, which often will translate into race, this grid discrimination because the affordable unit or the cheaper rental are often disproportionately rented by or occupied by people of color, or people with a disability or trans people, while the more higher end units are going to be primarily occupied by non disabled, educated white people. So yeah, a lot of advocacy behind it, or like affordable housing, civil rights and local political leaders to, like, urge New York City to stop these practices. But it’s very telling of the nation’s history as well.

Maria Ross 28:59

Yeah. And so as we wrap up, I just I would love to leave on a hopeful note, like where do you find hope in the work that you’re doing? Are you seeing, are you seeing change? Are you seeing this be? Slowly but surely, more of the adopted model as people plan cities as they think about adapting cities to more of the needs of their citizens? Like, what keeps you motivated in the work right now?

Safaa Charafi 29:25

I mean, there’s definitely more and more talk about the topic of inclusive city, the feminist theories of something that was more theoretical, when, like in the late 80s and 70s. With the feminist geography or human geography, which is the field of human geography, and which created more like, like safety, justice and career geographies and decolonial geography etc. But now in the past couple of years, we really feel like this research Since the topic is not just a theoretical topic, it’s something that a lot of international organizations are taking over a lot of cities are trying to adopt and taking the lead up to Vienna, there is a lot of like pure learning of knowledge sharing. And really, like a lot of cities are adopting this strategy of gender mainstreaming, for example, which is, like we’ve had an initiative of implementing gender aspects in all phases of the project from the the first phase to the implementation to, you know, the constructions and bond, there’s a lot of civil society organizations that are working on the topic in order to bring about more safety for women, like reclaim the streets movement, that kind of thing. And I think it’s also really like becoming more mainstream, I do realize that my work, because rather niche, especially when it comes to decolonizing, urban spaces, and I have a much more intersectional approach, rather than like a, yeah, playing gender. It’s not only about gender for me. So that’s something I think we need to me to work on. But there’s one more need for it. I think a lot of people are now more aware that it’s something that can change, and we can they’ll change our cities like, especially when we talk about inclusive climate adaptation, or then yeah, so I think they are going in the right direction, and the some resistance, but yeah, I do get a lot of projects and calls from the front, like all different theories and different organizations. So let’s hope there.

Maria Ross 31:41

Yeah, that is great. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna link to a past episode I did a few years ago with a gentleman named James Ehrlich, who was working on concepts for the neighborhood of the future. And it was very much about about leveraging technology, and then taking lessons from the environment and creating a more collaborative neighborhood where residents are sharing resources, and they’re, they’re doing things together as part of the design of the neighborhood. So it’s not exactly your work, but it’s sort of that it’s that tangential, you know, how can we reimagine where we live as a way to better our lives and, and what that living space, whether it’s a city, whether it’s a neighborhood, what it looks like, and what it offers, so that we can have richer and more interconnected, more thriving lives. So I’m going to put a link to that in the show notes for folks, if they’re interested in checking that one out. But Safa, I just want to thank you so much for your work, first of all, and for your time today, and the great education and insights that you gave us into this work. And I for one, if I am speaking personally, you know, at least at least we’re at a place where when you say the phrase inclusive cities, there’s probably more people that kind of have an inkling of what that means then maybe 10 or 20 years ago. So slow progress is slow, right? What do they say? It but it bent, the arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice or something like that. But thank you so much. And we’re gonna put your links in the show notes. I know that currently urban inclusion as of this recording doesn’t have a website yet. So folks can connect with you on LinkedIn. And I will have your LinkedIn link in the show notes so people can connect with you and learn more about you and see your see your work and see your writing. So thank you so much for your time today.

Safaa Charafi 33:32

So much Maria. Thanks for having me.

Maria Ross 33:33

And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard, you know what to do, rate review and share with a colleague or a friend. And until next time, please remember that cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

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

Jim Wharton: How Fostering Empathy with Animals Encourages Conservation

Let me be clear: Humans ARE animals. Empathy for animals is not about thinking they’re cute. It’s about creating a strong connection where we understand their unique needs and habitats so we can be part of the solution to increase biodiversity, avoid extinction, and promote a healthy planet for ALL of us.

Today, I am delighted to speak to Jim Wharton. We talk about how and why to create stronger connections between humans, animals, and nature at large, why empathy is required to make change, how to make conservation personal, and when and how we can use strategic anthropomorphism (that’s when we attribute human traits to animals!) without actually causing harm to them. And Jim shares the amazing 2024 expansion at the Seattle Aquarium featuring animals and habitats from the Coral Triangle which allows them to tell a more globally connected story of ocean conservation. It sounds amazing!

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

The disconnection to nature is artificial and allows people to externalize conservation and not embrace it as something that affects them as fellow animals.
The disconnect between humans and nature is an illusion that falsely elevates humans above everything else.
Anthropomorphism is not necessarily the problem. The real problems come with anthropocentrism – thinking the human experience is the central defining experience leading to humans harming the animals they are trying to care for.

“Developmentally we all start out being deeply, deeply connected to everything around us. We begin our lives looking at animals as anthropomorphic peers, the same as your brother or sister, there’s no difference to you. And then gradually, over time, we have “difference” educated into us and “connection” educated out of us.”

— Jim Wharton

Episode References:

Empathy Initiatives at the Seattle Aquarium: seattleaquarium.org/about-us/in-our-community/fostering-empathy-for-wildlife
Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us by Jon Alexander
Internet of Elephants

About Jim Wharton, VP, Conservation Engagement & Learning, Seattle Aquarium

Dr. Jim Wharton is the Vice President of Conservation Engagement and Learning at the Seattle Aquarium. Jim joined the Aquarium in 2012 from Mote Marine Laboratory where he served as Vice President of Education. He holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in marine resource management from Oregon State University, and a Ph.D. in educational measurement and evaluation from the University of South Florida. Jim and the team at the Seattle Aquarium have been working with partners to explore how fostering empathy in our audiences can contribute to conservation outcomes. The Aquarium has shared effective practices and strategies for fostering empathy through publications and workshops with over 70 zoos and aquariums with a combined attendance of more than 75 million annually. The Aquarium partnered on a children’s book (and puppet show), Catastrophe by the Sea, that encourages readers to empathize with less traditionally charismatic animals. Jim is also an advocate for diversifying the way we talk about and portray sharks, shark scientists, and shark conservation in popular media.

Connect with Jim Wharton

Seattle Aquarium: seattleaquarium.org

X: https://x.com/jimwharton

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jimmwharton

Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: red-slice.com

PRE-SALE SPECIAL! Pre-order 1 to 99 copies of Maria’s new book, The Empathy Dilemma for your leaders, exec team, (or yourself?!) and GET 30%! bit.ly/TEDSpecialPresale Offer ends August 27, 2024!

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Jim Wharton 03:36

sure. So I, you know, I grew up like a lot of kids fascinated by the ocean, particularly fascinated by sharks, read a book when I was, I don’t know, seven or eight that made me convinced I was going to be world famous shark researcher. And, you know, as you go on, you have new experiences. i By the time I found my way to grad school, I mean, sharks had become a conservation concern that when I was a kid, that was not a concern, like they were, we were redistributing fisheries effort to sharks, instead of instead of thinking about their conservation, so So I shifted that focus started thinking about things like fisheries management. Once I started to get into sort of internships and experiences, I realized quickly that that was not a path for me, not one, I felt like I could bribe them. And so I actually went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and volunteered just because I wanted to feel connected to the ocean. Again, I wanted to remind myself why I wanted to do the work and, and sort of stumbled into education as a conservation strategy. I don’t think it occurred to me that, you know, you can create all these regulations that you like, you can create broad systemic changes, but you it’s kind of pointless to create systemic change and an ignorant or apathetic system. Like those things just don’t happen. And so, you know, education is a bit of a long game, but, you know, education grew into thinking about, you know, environmental behavior and social science and of course, empathy folds. into all of that. And so that’s thinking about how we get people more connected to not just nature, but for us, in particular, the ocean, because the ocean is a little out of sight out of mind. For most people, it is not, you know, in their, their closest circle of concern. And so, you know, aquariums are an important window into those habitats a way to connect with those animals. And, you know, I think without that strong connection, it’s much more difficult for people to think about how they might like to change their lives.

Maria Ross 05:30

Yeah, I love this, because what you said was so powerful about, it’s pointless to create change in an apathetic setting, I’m paraphrasing there. But it’s true, because if there’s not a desire to care, or desire to change, or quite frankly, a connection to the group that you’re trying to impact, it’s a lot harder, and it’s forced, it’s optics, it’s all these other things. And so it’s really not just about sort of collecting money for conservation, but getting people really invested in caring about wildlife and caring about the oceans Exactly. Like you said, I live right on the cliffs of the Pacific Ocean. So every time I leave my house, the ocean is ever present for me. But I didn’t always live in an environment like that. So I get that the oceans can seem like this big, vast thing over there. And when we hear about, for example, pollution in the oceans, or different biodiversity, different ecosystems going extinct, it doesn’t really impact our daily lives. And so I’m sure like, you agree, having aquariums as a way to get up close and personal is so important. But it’s, it’s only a first step. And so talk to us a little bit about before actually, before we go into what the aquarium specifically is doing. Can you talk about or give us your take on how you create or leverage empathy for animals? Because I just want to share something very personal. Many years ago, I kind of had this existential crisis that I was actually more empathetic with animals than I was with human beings. Because it was, it was yeah, it was like the stories of abuse to animals or animals dying out that actually brought me to tears. And I thought, oh, what’s, what’s wrong with me, but then other people, I’m a dog lover, I’m a dog owner. And other people are like, I just don’t get having a pet. Like, they just can’t even fathom why that’s a thing. So what’s your particular take on the connection that humans have with animals? And is it always about as strong as empathy? Or, you know, where do you where do you see that?

Jim Wharton 07:35

Yeah, it’s an interesting question. Because developmentally, you know, we all start out, being deeply, deeply connected to everything around us, like everything around us. And so animals begin, we begin our lives, looking at animals as anthropomorphic peers, you know, the same as your brother or your sister, no difference to you. And then gradually, over time, we have difference educated into us, and connection educated out of us. And so we’re increasingly taught that humans are different from animals. Whereas, you know, that’s nothing could be further from the truth. Humans are animals. So not only are we separated from animals, but often we’re placed above and to the point where making a comparison to an animal can be an insult, right? You’re blind as a bat, or you’re, you know, breeding as a pig, or however you want to use those those kinds of comparisons. But we’re taught that we are different than and better than, and, you know, as we become as a society, more, more sort of digital and more metropolitan, we’ve become increasingly disconnected, not just from animals, but from nature. You can answer a question you can reach anyone in the world with a couple of clicks. But most of us don’t work food comes from, we don’t know where our waste goes. And we create this incredibly artificial disconnection from nature. And that allows us to externalize what’s happening to nature and to externalize conservation as a responsibility, right? So it’s like, I’m going to send my money to Conservation International, I’m going to send my money to the aquarium, they’re going to take care of conservation, as opposed to making it part of my personal identity, my personal, you know, mission as a as a person. So the way we think empathy plays into that is that empathy is a really strong skill set for developing and reinforcing connections. So the more you utilize your empathy skill set, and that’s one of my favorite things about empathy is it’s not a characteristic, right? It’s a thing that we do, we become better at. And so if you practice empathy, you become more empathetic. If you practice empathy, specifically with animals, you become more empathetic from animals. And then the sneaky thing about empathy is that the neural pathways for having empathy for animals and for people are the exact same pathways. So as you become more empathetic for animals, you kind of sneakily become more empathetic for people as well. But really, it’s about practice, right? If you’re if you’re not exposed Who’s to you didn’t grow up with Pat, you didn’t grow up with four h you didn’t grow up in a setting with animals, then you just haven’t practice that skill set. Right.

Maria Ross 10:08

And I’m frantically looking up as you’re talking because you’ve sparked some things I want to mention while we’re talking about this, but I loved what you said about we, we get sort of D educated about versus we get educated about difference, and we get d educated about connection. That’s not exactly the way that you said it. But I just thought that was super powerful, because that is true. That’s true across anything, in terms of difference across racism, across sexism across LGBTQ or homophobia, those things are not innate. Those things are are educated into us. And so is sort of the apathy for wildlife and nature and just animals in general, that can be educated into us. And I think that’s a really important point, just like empathy is innate to us as human beings. Science has shown us that. But as I always talk about the muscle can atrophy if it’s not modeled if it’s not celebrated, if it’s not rewarded, and I would imagine the same is true about our connection or our view of animals and nature.

Jim Wharton 11:20

The more you know, and you know, in in the olden days, you know, zoos and aquariums in science in general, my only contributed to that because we treated animals as objects, objects have fascination, but still objects, right. And so, zoos and aquariums used to be really uptight about naming animals. Because you didn’t want people to think of the animals that are in our care as pets, or you’d want them to think of them. You wanted to think of the sort of example of species because we were institutions of learning. But you don’t need to be an institution of learning anymore, because we’ve got, you know, you can answer just about any question you need on your phone, whether you get good information or not another question, but But yes, you still learn at zoos and aquariums, but that can’t be our purpose anymore. Purpose has to be about meaning making a connection, and helping people feel and see those connections. Because this idea that there is huge, there are humans and there is nature is is not it’s not accurate in the slightest, like humans did become unnatural. When we started breeding technology and building things. It’s just just this illusion we’ve created for ourselves, and in many ways, sort of selfishly elevating ourselves in that process.

Maria Ross 12:32

So as I mentioned, as you were talking earlier, two things came to mind. One, this idea of believing that conservation is done by other people or other organizations, that’s sort of a good first step. But there’s a fantastic book that I’m still working my way through called citizens. And I highly recommend it, I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. It’s called why the key to fixing everything is all of us. And it’s written by an author who has a consultancy called the new citizenship project. And they help both nonprofits and for profit companies engage their stakeholders in a way where they’re not solving the problems for them, but they’re making them part of the solution. And they have great case studies in the book about things they’ve done for the British trust. And for the BBC, where they’ve made people feel a sense of ownership. Rather than just give us your money and don’t worry, we’ll you don’t need to know any more, we’ll take care of it, getting people involved, getting them educated, getting them to feel bought in to being part of the solution. And so that’s exactly the the the sentiment you’re talking about. So highly recommend that book. And then there’s another organization that was started by someone, I went to college with a friend of mine from college, it’s called the Internet of elephants. And his work is applying technology to help people have more of a personal connection to endangered wildlife. And everything from super unique projects, like creating apps where people can exercise alongside, you know, a an endangered animal in Africa, or something like that. Just very unique ways to pull people back into nature and being back a part of it, so that they want to do more. And what I love about what you’re saying is I you know, we could probably have a whole nother conversation. There’s very mixed emotions about zoos and aquariums these days, right. And some of them have abused animals and some have not. But what I love is this is what I’m seeing is the organizations like the Seattle Aquarium, who are focused on education and and conservation. And obviously, treating animals with respect and treating animals with dignity. And as a way to, again, engage people into the process. And your your observation you made earlier about zoos in the past being more about looking at animals as objects of fascination. I mean, they are very awesome in the actual meaning of awesome but not just looking at them as an other, but sort of like how do we live together in this ecosystem? You is really powerful? Yeah, I

Jim Wharton 15:02

think we keep thinking like, how do we like what’s the highest and best use of the time that we have with people when they’re with us? Right? It’s not to help them understand that some whales have to blowholes some whales at one level, like the the facts of the matter if they interest you, and they get you excited, and that what brings you to the aquarium then great, but let’s talk about let’s talk about whale society, let’s talk about the the ways that these animals enrich the systems enrich our lives, because in the end, you know, conservation is not really an animal or a habitat problem. It’s a people problem. So I mean, people are both the problem, the solution, and consequently, the beneficiaries. So healthy ecosystems are in our best interests. Unquestionably,

Maria Ross 15:45

yeah. And it’s just, it’s similar to helping people strengthen their empathy for, for other people, in that, if you just think of this vast amorphous group, it seems very removed from you, right? But when you actually go to the aquarium and meet the whale, and meet the, you know, the other, the other organism, the other animal, you’re learning their story, right? And that actually engenders empathy and us we start to feel more connected when we learn about an individual, versus like, oh, 1000s of fish in this particular ecosystem are dying, right, for better or worse, that just sort of glances off us. But if we have an experience at the aquarium, or at the zoo, where we’re meeting that animal, and we’re learning that animal story as a representation, we are way more connected. So I’m assuming that’s part of the goal as well. Yeah,

Jim Wharton 16:35

no question. I mean, what’s that old expression, like a single death as a strategy and a million hours this, right, so that’s sort of that same idea that by showing an animal as a subjective other, you create a different kinds of respect for and connection to that animal, it’s easy to bring animals into your circle of concern, and think of them in a less utilitarian way.

Maria Ross 16:57

I’m gonna throw you a curveball here, because this question just occurred to me, you know, it’s so interesting, the way movies and documentaries humanize animals to the point that sometimes I can’t watch the nature documentaries, because I’m too invested in the baby seal, and I don’t want to see them getting attacked. What’s your take on that? Like, can that can that humanization of the animal go too far?

Jim Wharton 17:19

So that’s a great question, and zoos and aquariums, this is something that that we constantly struggle with this idea of anthropomorphism right can’t are we, I can’t

Maria Ross 17:26

say that word. That’s why I didn’t say it. So

Jim Wharton 17:30

we’re making animals too much like humans. And I think that I think that we sometimes misunderstand what anthropomorphism is. And what it is, it’s a metaphor, right? It’s a way that a person tries to understand something that is different than their own experience. And so, I mean, this is just education at its basic. So you see something that’s different than than what you’ve experienced the past that you’re trying to hang it on a hook somewhere in your brain that’s similar to something that you’re doing. So in some cases, that’s super helpful, like you can see behaviors that animals, you know, undergo, and they’re very similar to ours, and it helps us understand them better. And then there are other cases where we assume that something that’s happening with an animal is exactly the same thing that would happen with us. And that becomes problematic. And so we talk a lot about strategic or enlightened anthropomorphism. If you understand an animal’s natural history, then you are less likely to project yourself into that animals experience because the real problems that anthropomorphism is anthropocentrism. It’s, it’s thinking that the human experience is the central defining experience of life. And that leads to things like, like feeding grizzly bears, because you think that they’re hungry, saving seals off the beach that don’t need saving, it would lead to us doing things that are not helpful to animals and making assumptions about what’s happening, that similarly not helpful to animals. So I think the other thing we often talk about is that there are some animals that benefit from that kind of humanization. And there are some that it’s just not necessary. Like we have sea otters in our care. You know, they’re, they look wonderful and cuddly adorable. Yeah, they are. But the, you don’t need to anthropomorphize a car, right, people already feel deeply connected to them, because they have a lot of the characteristics that just naturally engender empathy thing, you know, they have really strong agents. See, they show a lot of activity, they look like an animal, so it’s easy to recognize them, like people just this they instantly drawn to a sea otter, but something like a barnacle or a CNM. And you see him and he doesn’t even look like an animal, it looks like a flower. And so anthropomorphism for these animals can be incredibly helpful because it allows you to start to understand that this is an animal like me, it has some of the same needs, it has some of the same challenges. And so it creates a connection. And it’s in you’re not in you’re not in any danger of, you know, over anthropomorphizing the CNMV

Maria Ross 19:52

oh my gosh, I love that so much because that’s, that’s I’ve often wondered that of if that’s actually a good thing or a Sometimes it goes too far, and you’ve just given us some great examples of when it can go too far to the point where someone, this is true of humans too. You think you’re being empathetic, because you’re making assumptions, when actually, you’re thinking of it like how I would want to be treated. And I wrote in the empathy edge, that it’s not about the empathy is not about the golden rule. It’s about the platinum rule, which is Do unto others as they would have done unto them. And so this, this calls to mind, that concept of, we want it we want to be curious, we want to get to know someone else’s, or an animal’s context and story, and then be able to be empathetic by giving them the things that they need, not the things that we think they need.

Jim Wharton 20:43

Right? And we talk about that a lot. We talk about the difference between what’s it like to you know, walk in another person’s shoes or swimming in another animal spins, it’s not about what it’s like, you it’s like, what what is it like for them? Right? Right. And that’s an that can be that’s an incredibly powerful nuance that a lot of people haven’t processed.

Maria Ross 21:03

No, and it’s and it’s good. And I feel like it’s good intentions. But it goes as it goes, right. Like don’t feed the grizzly. Don’t feed the pigeons like they’re fine. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about the what the aquarium is doing. And the big expansion that’s happening this summer.

Jim Wharton 21:27

Yeah, so we’re opening a new building here at the Aquarium of the buildings, called the ocean pavilion focuses on the coral triangle, which is a incredibly marine bio diverse habitat on the other side of the world. So around Indonesia, Philippines, those that sort of area. And the reason we chose to focus on that space is that we really, you know, we’ve been a regional aquarium for our entire existence representing the Salish Sea in the Puget Sound, we will always be a regional aquarium. But simple fact of the matter is what happens in Puget Sound doesn’t say in Puget Sound. And so, you know, in order to understand the global context of ocean issues, we wanted to be able to provide another sense of place to allow people to make comparisons and to understand that the challenges facing the coral triangle are suspiciously similar to the challenges that are facing the Salish Sea. And so working together is the best way to face those challenges. And in that process, you know, in building the new exhibit, we don’t we didn’t want to just build them in their brain. So like there’s there’s empathy as part of the of what’s interwoven in the way that we understand our approach. So some exhibits, it’s we’re really hoping to encourage people to think about what is what does that animals experience like in the ocean, as opposed to what’s in this tank? What’s in that one? And, you know, so even to the point where the, the exhibit titles aren’t titled their questions, we want to really encourage people to, to think about their place in these systems, how they improve the systems, how systems influence them. It’s really about meaning making. It’s not about information sharing. But it’s exciting, and we can’t wait to see it happening. It’s gonna open this summer, this summer, summer 24. Great.

Maria Ross 23:05

Well, I am definitely going to check that out next time. I’m in Seattle. But I’m so excited for that. And I’m so excited with, with what I’m seeing from organizations like the Seattle Aquarium, from other you know, I live in near San Francisco, the San Francisco Zoo, the efforts that are being done to not just work on conservation and education, but to involve everyone. And again, it goes back to that book citizens, which I highly recommend, which is about, it’s not the consumer story where things are being done. For us. It’s the citizen story where we’re part of the solution. So love the work you’re doing. I have great memories of the Seattle Aquarium when I lived in Seattle before I had kids, so we have to take our son up there at some point. But so I’m gonna have all your links in the show notes, where people can also find out more about the aquarium. But real quickly for anyone who’s on a peloton right now or something? Where can they connect with you? Where can they find out more information about the exhibit? Sure,

Jim Wharton 24:02

yeah, please do connect with me on LinkedIn, easy to find there. You could follow me on Twitter at at Jim Morton, please do come to the Seattle Aquarium website, which is simple Seattle aquarium.org. You could search for empathy or or take a browse around and see some of the other programs that were invested in. We’re doing work all over the world now and super proud of, of not just the work we’re doing, but the community we’re building around conservation.

Maria Ross 24:24

I love it. Thank you, Jim, for your time and your insights today. Thank you, it was a pleasure. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard you know what to do. Please rate review and share it with a colleague or 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. booked 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™

Tim Leon: The Return on Empathy for Brands and Marketers

Empathetic marketing is having a moment. But really, this trend has been a long time coming. Buyers today are savvy, everything is available online, and they have no patience for brands that don’t understand them or their needs. My guest today, Tim Leon, coined the term Return on Empathy and talks about all that companies gain when they engage in more empathetic marketing tactics.

We discuss what empathy marketing means, why marketers should embrace it, and how it applies equality to B2B as well as B2C brands. We share data that shows why buyers are choosing empathetic brands, and why this is not just a trend, but a transformative moment in how we market and sell. And finally, we share actionable strategies to inject more empathy into your marketing – not least of which is understanding where marketing’s limitations end and your culture, leadership, and policies need to also become part of the effort.

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Ask customers what challenges they’re facing, not just what they think about your product or service. You’ve got to go deeper to better understand and empathize with them.
Now more than ever, the companies that portray ads that promote well-being and comfort are the companies that people want to do business with. They don’t want a hard sell, they want to feel good about the brands they’re working with.
You have to sell to people, whether you’re working B2B or B2C. People want authenticity and empathy from the organizations they work with, no matter what industry they’re in.

“Return on Empathy means if you’re delivering empathy authentically and honestly, you’re building customer loyalty and protected market share.”

— Tim Leon

Episode References:

Geile Leon Marketing Communications Return on Empathy white paper: https://bit.ly/44MiSrY
PepsiCo/Ipsos Mori research study on empathy and brands
Denise Roberson: Mistakes Leaders and Boards Make When Thinking About Purpose
Lisa McLeod: Selling with Noble Purpose to Win
Phil Preston: Profit with Purpose
Emily Vernon: Are You Gathering the Right Customer Insights?
Sandy Thompson: How to Make People Fall in Love with Your Brand

About Tim Leon, President, Geile Leon Marketing Communications

Tim Leon is the President of Geile Leon Marketing Communications. The firm was founded in 1989 and has served clients locally, regionally, and nationally. The firm is celebrating its 34th year in business and is located in The Hill Neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri, Tim’s role at the agency includes brand strategy/planning for clients, new business development, and a host of other duties that come with owning a small business!

Connect with Tim Leon:

Geile Leon Marketing Communications: geileon.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timleon

Facebook: facebook.com/GeileLeonMarketingCommunications

Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: red-slice.com

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Tim Leon 02:27

Thanks a lot, Maria. I’m really excited to be here today.

Maria Ross 02:31

So tell us a little bit, Tim, about how you got into this world of marketing. And specifically, what was the epiphany moment where you realized, like many of us marketers do that empathy is actually a superpower when it comes to connecting and engaging with your ideal clients.

Tim Leon 02:49

Sure, it really started in 2018, I did a workshop, I was a participant on finding your why your personal why. And I did a lot of soul searching and what I really came to the conclusion, what really drives my mission in life is to serve people with empathy, so that they can feel their true value. I try to do that, as a leader, I tried to do that in my personal life, some times more successful than others. But empathy, to me is a gift that I feel I have, but it’s really opened a lot of doors because I feel like I can connect to people in a way that really is productive for myself and for the person I’m interacting with. And when the pandemic kids, I sat back and looked at what was going on in the world. And as you can well appreciate Maria, empathy became more and more talked about, not just in every part of society. But in marketing and branding, I started the city. This, what I call pattern, right marketers, really, that were sensitive to it, figuring out, I’ve got to get on board and figure out how to infuse authentic empathy. And you saw examples of folks that didn’t do it, that really kind of didn’t really take into account what was going on in the world, tried to just keep the Evergreen marketing going and plow through a pandemic. That didn’t work so well. And I think the pandemic did this as marketers, it was the first time we could talk to our consumers, kind of under this theme of we’re all in this together. Because Wait, we’re experienced the same things they were. And to me, the companies that got it right where the people that realize that it changed how they did business, to be a little more sensitive to the plight of what people were going through. So that’s kind of how I abroad into our business. And how, you know, it led to this white paper that we wrote called Return on empathy, which is that whole premise of authentic empathy, infused and delivered and branding and marketing has benefits way beyond, you know, you’re doing the right thing, but it has benefits to the bottom line. I mean, it can help build your brand. Yeah, it was the, that was the salutely.

Maria Ross 05:27

That was the Epiphany, I love it. And it’s true, it’s, you know, our work has followed a similar pattern in that, working with the clients. And I would love to hear the kinds of clients you work with, because I’ve worked with tech clients, mostly, but also solopreneurs, consultants, coaches. And it was only in my later years of my marketing career did I realize that what I was doing as a marketer was trying to be empathetic, trying to see things from the customers or the clients point of view, and being able to connect with them where they were, and you look back and you go, I don’t know that I called it that as a marketer, when I was building campaigns, or writing, copy or doing all the things, but that really is the superpower of marketing. And I have worked with and maybe you have two very senior marketing executives who almost have a disdain for their customers. And I think to myself, you’re never going to be effective at reaching them, if you don’t respect them. So what kinds of clients do you work with? And have you seen that that play out as well?

Tim Leon 06:35

Absolutely. And you know, it’s really across, I work in the b2b sector, quite a bit Heil industrial clients. I also work in higher ed, which, to me has seen a transformation in terms of higher ed all of a sudden, focused on being close to the customer, understanding the mindset of today’s students, because it’s changed, right? I mean, what students today, they’re looking to stay closer to home, which is a new phenomenon. When they’re looking on campus, they want to understand what kind of mental health resources you can offer. There are things that are happening today in higher ed, that totally were probably precipitated by the pandemic, but they changed the behaviors. And that’s the thing I would say, as marketers, we’re all trying to figure out which of these behavior shifts that’s happened over the last two or three years, I get a stick, you know, we keep thinking that a consumer is going to come back to the way they used to purchase products, I tend to believe across all industries, changes have occurred, that are the new norm and the new reality.

Maria Ross 07:45

Absolutely, absolutely. So let’s talk about empathy and marketing. Because I, you know, I work on that aspect. I talk about that. Other marketers I’ve had on the show, talk about it. In your definition. What does empathetic marketing mean? What does it look like? And how do you define it as a concept?

Tim Leon 08:07

I think, traditionally, we’ve all we’ve all said to ourselves, as long as we put ourselves in the customers shoes, we could be effective at marketing. That’s not, to me, the total story, we have to put ourselves in the minds of the customer, which is a lot deeper, and a lot more, you have to do a little more soul searching to get there. So for me, we’ve always done voice of the customer research Brady campaign we’ve done but the types of questions I’m asking now are much more probing, I want to know, not just what the customer thinks about our industry or category or product, I want to understand what the customer challenges are, personally, professionally. That to me is what change is we have to understand the plight of the customer on a completely deeper level, to really deliver empathy. And to me, there’s no empathy. There’s a million million definitions. The one I like is from a guy named Alfred Adler. He was an Austrian psychiatrist, but he said, empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another. And that to me, is, you know, how do I get there? How do I understand customers at that level, that when I can do it, I can see we’re connecting on a deeper level because I see engagement, right social media, I see people commenting on some of the posts we do I know that we’re hitting a nerve. When I start to see that dialogue, customers aren’t as passive. They’re actually commenting on our posts and what I see what their cabinet got to me. I know we’ve struck that nerve. So that’s it. Be is what bringing empathy, marketing and how it resonates. You know, I want the campaign to be successful, successful. But more importantly, I want customers to be excited about what we’re talking about and engaged with it just as important. I want employees to be excited that say, now we’re talking about something meaningful in our lesson, that to be, again is true empathy when your employees can get behind what you’re doing, right,

Maria Ross 10:31

right. Well, you know, as I’ve always said, culture and brand are two sides of the same coin, and it’s got a, it’s got to live internally and start from the inside out in order to be genuine on the outside. So now, your agency coined the phrase return on empathy, which I love it because I’m all about proving to the skeptics the ROI of empathy, and there have been so many reports out there. One recently that I started citing in my talks, is that nine out of 10, customers state that empathy is the most important factor in customer loyalty. So talk to us about what you define as return on empathy. What does that mean for marketers? And why should they embrace it? And then let’s get into a few of the highlights of the report on empathy that you have available for folks on your website?

Tim Leon 11:20

Sure. So let’s start with a couple of facts that I think build the case for what return on empathy is about 2020. PepsiCo did a study with I think it was Ipsos that Yep. Okay, a couple of things that that was with us consumers, but similar to what you just said, 94% of the respondents said, empathy is necessary for society to thrive. I mean, to me, 94% of the people believed empathy KISSmetrics there for society, they went on to say the half of them said, companies that portray the ads that promote wellbeing, comfort, our companies that we will do business with and take about 2020 well being and comfort, that’s what people needed, they didn’t need to hard sell, they wanted to feel really good about the brands they were working with. And so, to me, I started thinking to myself empathy. You know, empathy is bigger than just, like, feel good, or be companies are experiencing greater customer loyalty. And the final statistic, Maria, that really resonated for me, that was a 2020 Morning consult study that stated, I think it was 85% of respondents said, the companies that display authentic empathy, are companies I’m more apt to buy from, and they are the companies I will stay loyal to, no matter what, I take that and translate it into return on Empathy means if you’re delivering empathy, authentically, and honestly, you’re building customer loyalty protected market share.

Maria Ross 13:15

Yeah, and I think that’s where it comes into play, because that can’t all be marketing’s job, right? That has to be how the company behaves as a whole, because that’s what people are looking for. And, you know, coming from marketing on both the client and agency side, we can do a lot in marketing, we can’t be miracle workers. We can’t wave away bad behavior from our companies. And so marketing and HR, marketing and culture need to be in lockstep to be ensuring that empathy lives from the inside out. So what are our policies? What are our customer service processes? What is our buying process? Like? How do we resolve customer complaints? How do we address negative feedback in the public domain, but all of these things go beyond marketing’s role. And that’s why, you know, again, you can’t just use marketing to erase bad behavior. It’s got to be a system wide, holistic view of how the company operates inside and out.

Tim Leon 14:18

Well, and you bring up a great point, consumers are much more highly sensitive to how companies treat employees, there’s tons of research to say, companies that don’t treat their employees well will suffer in the marketplace because consumers won’t put up with it. They’re highly sensitive to that. So I think you’re right and culture, and how you’re treating employees and what you do about kind of that front end of the business is probably the more important today than well,

Maria Ross 14:48

and it’s more important to Gen Z in terms of being consumers and buyers because at the beginning of the pandemic, many studies were done around brands that were not treating their employees or their communities Well, during the beginning months of the pandemic, and several studies were done by an organization called do something.org. And they found that, you know, we’re talking about 16 and 17 year olds, who were saying, I’m not going to buy from that store because of the way that they treated their employees. So the transparency now is there, and consumers, shoppers buyers, in, you know, younger generations. But you know, we have to remember Millennials are in their 40s. Now, so these are business buyers, these are buyers of cars and houses, they’re looking at the holistic behavior of companies. So let’s get back to marketing, specifically, when, when you did the report, what were those? Were those really the findings? Or was the report also looking for what some companies were doing where they were getting a good return on empathy, so to speak?

Tim Leon 15:54

I’d say yes, we looked at companies, one that comes to mind for me is Rei, who for the last few years, as you well know, closes their business on Black Friday, and the campaign is all about getting out getting away from consumers opt

Maria Ross 16:11

outside.

Tim Leon 16:11

If you look at all the receipts or all of the marketing articles, it was it’s it was brilliant, because it aligns with the values of that brand. But it was also brilliant, because it really, really made a strong statement on what they care about for their employees. And that campaigns being repeated again this year. I’m no economist, but my guess is, they do not suffer because they’re closed on Black Friday.

Maria Ross 16:39

No, actually, I wrote a whole section in the book about that case study, I spoke with their chief customer officer. And they’ve been doing this since I think 2015, I can’t remember how long they’ve been doing it. It came about because of an employee meeting, not a boardroom decision on how to look better in the marketplace. And they, they have reaped nothing but benefits from this campaign and this philosophy. And what was interesting about what the chief customer officer had to say was, it wasn’t actually it sounded crazy. But it wasn’t actually a hard sell when they looked at it against their corporate mission. And they thought and this is what our customers are expecting from us, we’re Co Op, our customers, you know, are part of our company. And if this is truly our mission to help people develop a love of the outdoors, we need to get them outside. So the it has reaped benefits in terms of press, it has reaped benefits in terms of paying members going up, revenue, all the things. So I want to shift gears for a second and talk about, you know, you’ve been talking a lot about since the pandemic but this has actually been a trend that was happening before then because of what I was saying about the buying behaviors of some of the younger generations. So right now, this is a very top of mind topic for marketers of yes, we want to figure out how to inject more empathy into our marketing. And we’re going to talk about some concrete strategies and ideas that you have to offer in a minute. But do you think this is just a fad? Or do you truly believe this is a transformative moment in how we market and sell,

Tim Leon 18:14

I would say, the pandemic precipitated it. But this is a transformative moment. I can pick other societal issues, climate change, sustainability, the economic climate today, racial equity, you can look what’s changed as consumers being highly sensitive to how brands are reacting to what’s going on in the world. That’s transformative moment. Consumers are highly sensitive, and brands that can align like REI, their mission to taking, taking a stand, support it putting their money where their mouth is, I think are going to succeed. Those that don’t will get called out.

Maria Ross 19:02

Right, exactly, I 100% agree. So let’s hear some concrete strategies and ideas on how marketers can effectively use empathy in their marketing and branding efforts. I always share a few I have I have a course available called brandstory breakthrough that talks about how you can use some different techniques to understand and align with your customers. But what are some concrete strategies and ideas that you’ve seen and you talk about with your clients?

Tim Leon 19:32

Sure. The number one strategy we always talk about because it’s something we’ve done is helping organizations find their why. Obviously, Simon Sinek made that very, very popular years ago was start with why but understanding your purpose and mission as an organization. Because to me, that’s again, people don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it. That to me shows empathy. If you can’t express your mission in a way that consumers can feel part of it and feel like they can support really what you’re all about. So finding your why. And that’s something I mean, read the book, watch the video, but I think finding your why to be a step toward truly delivering empathy.

Maria Ross 20:22

Absolutely. And I’m gonna put a link in the show notes to one or two episodes that we’ve done around purpose driven organizations and how they succeed in the market. So thank you for bringing that up.

Tim Leon 20:32

Yeah, please do. The second one is, and this is building community around your back brand. Think about Harley Davidson, Harley Davidson, Davidson owner group. These are passionate fans. They have their own, you know, social media page, think about customer loyalty programs, but finding the people that love your brand, and giving them a channel, a venue, a place to talk about it. Those are the people that are going to write the reviews. But I think, as you know, consumers want to hear from people that understand your brand that are on the same side of the fence as their consumers that love your brand. And finding that community and building it, I think is something every company needs to do in a lot of companies are don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think that can be, that’s not an option. For people. We always say number three is EPA emphasizing the human side of your business. We’re seeing a lot more creative campaigns, we do a lot of video content, customer testimonials that never been probably resonated more than they resonate today. But also employee testimonials. I think of a campaign you’re probably familiar with lush, lush National Art, I’m sorry, lush, natural beauty products that Alex made video series, or it’s their employees showing how these beauty products are made. All natural ingredients, really rarely. But when you watch the spots, what you really come out of is look at how passionate these people are about making this product for me. So I think emphasizing the human side of your business. That could be also getting some your C level people out in front customers PR events, but people want to do business with people they like so I don’t think that can be underestimated. anymore. You talked about something earlier, this isn’t just marketing, but focusing on the entire customer journey, your customer experience, every touchpoint evaluating it for Am I making it more convenient? Am I making it more easy? You mentioned customer service, inbound marketing, all of those things, your processes? What are you doing to make the experience even better, and to me, that’s empathy. That’s really understanding what your customer wants. Number five, the person map people, personalized marketing, we see it, everybody’s got a CRM system, what I would say is not everybody’s probably using it to the potential that it has to really deliver one on one messages that resonate. And I’m not talking about the emails that say, Hey, Tim, I have an opportunity for you. Right, I’m talking about something that can get to a specific need of an audience. On a one on one basis. Yeah, it’s very labor intensive. But that to me, again, is what true empathy is all about in the marketing space.

Maria Ross 23:43

Absolutely. You know, I’ve talked to my clients in the past about just getting out there and talking to their customers and their clients, and like you said, not about their experience only with your product or service. But what are the challenges? What are their goals? What are their fears? What are their values, and understanding where what you offer can augment that can fit into that. And it’s not about finding out what they believe so you can manipulate them, it’s about finding out if this is truly a good product market fit, offering market fit. And then you can echo their words back in your marketing and sales. I talked, I mentioned I work with a lot of tech clients. And I’m sure you’ve faced this as well, where they get so caught up in the jargon and also what their competitors are saying. And yet when you go talk to their customer, how do you describe the product? How do you describe the value you’re getting out of the product, use that wording and be able to be the voice inside their head when other prospects see that? Because if you talk how they are talking to themselves, you have a much better chance of connecting and engaging with them. than if you try to force terminology and jargon down their throats, because that’s what the analysts want to see, or that’s what the press wants to see. It doesn’t matter if you actually want to make sales

Tim Leon 25:11

couldn’t agree more, or you could not. That, to me is that authenticity. You’re looking in there, the bachelor, right? The industry expects you, right? And that really, man that can really resonate and attack at b2b sectors where, oh,

Maria Ross 25:32

well, I mean, and that’s where, you know, that was where my first frustration to ultimately build my own consulting practice came from as being in tech marketing. For a long time, I was so tired of the robotic way we were talking to customers. And it didn’t, it doesn’t matter if it’s b2b or b2c, you’re still selling to humans at the end of the day. And so what is going to resonate for them we buy based on logic and emotion. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a cynical, it developer, there’s still an emotion, there’s still an impact that you want to have. And how can a company tap into that story? I love what you said about being more human in your marketing, because I think, you know, we look at, we look at these amazing, small businesses, for example, that advertise on Instagram or on Facebook. The reason they’re successful is because they’re just people telling their story, and sharing their passion. And that’s why they’re selling millions of skews is because that’s what people want to see. That’s what we mean by authenticity. That’s

Tim Leon 26:34

right. And people want products that are manufactured with passion. They want the people they want to visualize that these are boys that are trying to make the best product. That to me is very, very powerful. Absolutely.

Maria Ross 26:48

Well, thank you so much for this conversation today. And your insights, we’re gonna have all the links in the show notes to your website, Guile Lian marketing communications, where people can also find the return on empathy white paper and download it for themselves. Where you know, for people on the go, we’re gonna have all your links, but where’s the best place they can get in touch with you? Is it the website,

Tim Leon 27:12

website, contact us or please visit my LinkedIn page. Tim Lyon Guylian, marketing communications. I am on LinkedIn all the time. So

Maria Ross 27:26

I will I will respond. And I want to spell the website out for folks. It’s g e i l e o n. Guy, leone.com. And so again, that’s where folks can find the return on empathy report. And also find out more about you and your work. Thank you so much for your time today, Tim, it was a delight to connect with you. And we’ll catch you next time.

Tim Leon 27:49

Right, Maria? Thanks for having me. And I’m gonna look forward to that book coming out in 2020 for the empathy dilemma.

Maria Ross 27:57

Awesome. I love it. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard you know what to do, please rate and review or share with a colleague or a friend. And until next time, please remember that cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

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

Barbara Huelat: Empathy for Dementia Caregivers and Effective Interventions

According to the NIH, an estimated 6.7M Americans 65+ are living with Alzheimer’s dementia. This number could grow to 13.8 million by 2060 barring the development of medical breakthroughs. Today, you’ll learn why dementia is not a disease, but a symptom, and what caregivers go through, experience, and need – especially from their managers and workplace colleagues.

I talk with Barbara J. Huelat about what dementia is, how emotional interventions are more effective than cognitive ones, and how to create more healing environments in hospitals and workspaces. You’ll gain empathy for your colleagues who are dementia caregivers, as Barbara shares her personal experience caring for her mother and husband, and she talks about what workplaces can do to better support caregivers in the office to help them continue to perform and do their best work.

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Emotional memories are those with our senses – these memories can reach a person with dementia where language or cognitive memories cannot.
It is critical to prepare your helpers and part-time caregivers if you are away to give everyone the best chance for success, much like having a disaster plan.
Be flexible, don’t try to change reality, and give information rather than asking questions. You can go far with that, even when there are mistakes and challenges.

“Be understanding of what they’re going through. There’s a very large emotional drain on the person. The caregiver is often considered the second patient as their health risks skyrocket while taking care because it’s long-term chronic stress that doesn’t go away like acute stress.“

— Barbara Huelat

About Barbara J. Hiuelat

Barbara J. Huelat is a prominent Human Centric Healthcare Designer, author, and speaker. She has created healing environments and solved health challenges for more than 300 healthcare organizations and serves as a healing environment consultant to healthcare facilities, product manufacturers, academia, institutions, and the architectural design community. By placing humanity at the core, her pioneering mindset proves that human-centric designs impact healing, improve the human experience, affect health outcomes, and are cost-effective.

Ms. Huelat’s latest work, Taming the Chaos of Dementia: A Caregiver’s Guide to Interventions that Make a Difference, provides a compassionate and insightful guide to those facing the tumultuous journey of dementia, offering solace, support, and practical strategies to navigate this challenging path. Currently, she shares human-centric designs globally via lecturers at international conferences, universities, and organizations and through research collaborations with government agencies and universities, contributing to white papers and research articles. Always fascinated with the beauty of science and the science of design, she believes human-centric design experiences can mitigate human misery.

Connect with Barbara Huelat

Website: barbarahuelat.com

X: x.com/huelat92456

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/barbara-huelat-fasid-aahid-edac-89061213

Facebook: facebook.com/barbarajhuelat

Instagram: instagram.com/bhuelat

Book: Taming the Chaos of Dementia: A Caregiver’s Guide to 9 Interventions that Make a Difference

Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: red-slice.com

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Barbara Huelat 03:28

you so much. And thank you for inviting me for this afternoon, and I look forward to it.

Maria Ross 03:34

So tell us a little bit about your story. We just heard your bio, how did you even get into this work? And how did you get into the work of being a healing environment consultant and an expert on dementia and caregiving?

Barbara Huelat 03:48

Okay, well, my career has been in architectural design for health care facilities. So for the past 40 Some years I’ve designed health care facilities for hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes and senior living facilities. But then it’s been the relationship of my personal experiences as a caregiver first with my grandmother with vascular dementia, my mom with dementia from Parkinson’s and my late husband who had Alzheimer’s. So with those, I learned a whole different side of caregiving and the environment or feeling space spaces from a very personal side.

Maria Ross 04:34

Wow. And I can’t imagine there are many people who have not been touched by dementia in their families or their circle. I know I had a maternal grandmother that lived with us in her last years. And I actually didn’t know her without dementia as a child. And so, and I didn’t understand it, and I think that’s probably true of a lot of people who are not sure what they’re dealing with? are they dealing with just someone getting older and forgetting things? Or they’re dealing with someone who’s had a brain injury, that I had a brain injury? It impacted short term memory? Or are they dealing with dementia? So can you please share with us? What is the definition of dementia? And how is it different from things like Alzheimer’s?

Barbara Huelat 05:18

Yes. Well, dementia is an overall term for all types of diseases with cognitive impairment. And so yes, it can be from from a stroke and brain injury from diseases like Parkinson’s, and but the biggest cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. That’s what we’re dealing with today. That is the largest cause. But dementia is actually a symptom. It’s not a disease. But it’s a symptom of all of these diseases that they and the symptoms are quite common, regardless of which disease you have. There’s very little bit of differences. Some are actually treatable, but the majority are not correctable.

Maria Ross 06:08

And I don’t think that’s well known that that’s a symptom, not a disease. I know, for example, when I had my brain aneurysm rupture, I thought that a brain aneurysm was an event. But a brain aneurysm is a thing. And only if it ruptures, does it usually cause major issues? So it sounds like dementia is very similar? Where we we use it in terminology as if it is its own diagnoses? Yes, its own disease.

Barbara Huelat 06:35

It’s very common people asked the difference. Well, what’s the difference between dementia and ultimates? Is it the same thing? And no, it’s it is it is part of the disease, but it is not the same thing. And you really can’t, it’s used interchangeably, but it doesn’t work that way. And so when

Maria Ross 06:57

you talk about your new book that not so new now, but it came out last November, taming the chaos of Dementia Caregivers guide to interventions that make a difference, what are caregiver interventions? And why are they necessary? Well,

Barbara Huelat 07:12

it could that’s a great question, thank you. Be intervention is something that a caregiver can do. It’s a positive, actionable item, that something that you can do. We think of most interventions like pharmaceutical or surgical or PT, these are interventions to change outcomes. But there are so many interventions that caregivers can do that don’t fall in those categories. And that’s because dementia is not a disease, like we talked about earlier, it’s a symptom. And the things that are hard to deal with are the symptoms. That’s what makes the diseases so difficult, because they are disruptive behaviors, they are hard to manage, you can’t give them a pill to stop it. And understanding really how dementia works. And how it impacts the memory is really crucial. And it’s one of the first things that we need to do to understand dementia. When we talk about cognitive impairment that we said is the primary symptom of dementia, we’re talking about memory, cognitive brain is our our data, the things we learn through life, you know, the math, the spelling, the language skills, but they’re also the filters that we have, we’ve learned that this is correct. And this is an incorrect way of working or being. So dementia impacts those cognitive impairments. But on a positive side, there is also the emotional memory in our brains. And dementia doesn’t affect this as much, really not until the end. And so the emotional part of the memory is that pivotal portal that caregivers can have to reach those with dementia. So

Maria Ross 09:19

give us an example of that. What would it What do you mean by emotional memory? And what are some of those interventions that caregivers especially caregivers, listening who are taking care of someone in their life in dementia,

Barbara Huelat 09:30

those emotional memories or those with the senses, our sight, what we see what we smell what we hear an example a great example where there’s a great deal of research is that on music, how music can reach a person with dementia, where language in that language is a cognitive skill. Music is an emotional attribute. So when we use music and art and color and tact Little things, fuzzy blankets of funny puppies, various emotional things that trigger the emotion, you can get a response, even when cognitive leveling is really not available to us.

Maria Ross 10:15

That’s fascinating. And I know, I know, I’ve seen research around music and the power of music and not just even with dementia patients, but with autism with other with other. I don’t want to say diseases because autism isn’t really disease, but other afflictions that occur where sometimes there’s parts of our brains that we can’t access, again, in sort of a logical way, in effect based way. And so being able to access that emotional portion makes a lot of sense. And so were were you aware of that when you were in the caretaking phase, as you mentioned? Or was this did this come later?

Barbara Huelat 10:54

Yes, and no, I think I first became aware of that, in designing facilities, and health care design. When I talk about in my early work, early books, healing environments, it’s about the emotional connection to Being Well, staying well. And it’s about how, how healthcare institutions often don’t make us feel, well, they’re very intimidating, they’re scary. They’re terrifying. So how do you transform a medical environment to help the person heal, and to be able to move beyond their illness or surgery or wherever they’re in the hospital. And so I learned that there’s a connection there early, but I didn’t really realize how profound it was until I was a one on one with my mom was trying to climb a fence out of the nursing home, or leading a coup to get the other residents to leave with her, or my husband, who was throwing sticks over the fence at a neighbor. how important the emotional aspect was to connect with and connect with really what they were trying to express that did not have the cognitive abilities to deal with it. So what what are some

Maria Ross 12:17

of those? What are some of those tips around creating a healing environment? What were some of the things that you did in your design,

Barbara Huelat 12:24

in the design will use color as intuitive Wayfinding, for example, help people get through a hospital system, using art and music, from the lobby through the procedures, using aromatherapy, for example, in MRIs to help the body to be able to deal with the noise and the terror of going through some of these procedures. So I use elements of this throughout my practice. And when it when it came to dealing with them personally, I was able to modify them to be very personal to impact the person. So my husband was a great photographer and an architect. And when he had dementia, what harmed him was giving him a box of photographs to sort through, and it couldn’t tell you who they were in the pictures. But it gave him a lot of satisfaction going through his own photos. So by combining some of the elements that I knew and personally adapted to, yeah, he had more reward and pleasure from from those last days. Well,

Maria Ross 13:42

I wonder if there’s a lesson to be learned here. We often have talked about the redesign of office space, especially pre pandemic, a lot of workplaces. were redesigning workplaces to be more collaborative and innovative and inspiring and reconfiguring. Using space and using furniture and using layout as a way to create more innovation create more productivity, do you still think there’s space for that in the workplaces that people are going back to but also in the workplaces? They surround themselves in at home? What do you think are some mistakes that offices or people with home offices might be making that they don’t even realize are detrimental to their mental state?

Barbara Huelat 14:30

though? That’s a great question. Yes, I know in my work in office design, but the some of the healing factors in that was getting as much of nature in as possible. Access to Windows, everybody wants to be in an office with a window, why not just for status, it feels better, they can see the light of day if it impacts their circadian rhythm that’s going to impact their productivity. Now Nature is essential for us feeling good, being able to be more productive, more engaging, and for all those creative acts that we need in part of our workplace. And, and yet, there are still many windowless offices people work in. And that is, that really impacts their productivity.

Maria Ross 15:21

So I always, I always feel for the people, especially during lockdown that, you know, like, if I had had the studio apartment that I had, in my early 20s, I would have gone stir crazy because I had a window, but it was facing a wall of the building right next to us, there was no room to separate work and life, not a lot of natural light. And you know, people have had to work in that environment for a long time. But then on the other hand, there’s people that have really outfitted their home offices as an example, to be an oasis for them to be a place where they are, where they are their most productive, when they where they feel inspired, where they feel invigorated and where they can separate their home life from their personal life a little bit by separating their work area in their home.

Barbara Huelat 16:09

And, and also, I think, the reluctance of piece people going back to work, though, there’s, I mean, there’s empty offices all over, especially in the big cities, people don’t want to give up on windows for their pets, or their cat can sit on their desktop. And there’s elements in that, so much of it comes down to the nature and the biophilic need that we have to be one with nature, it just makes us feel good. And we’re going to be more productive when we feel good,

Maria Ross 16:45

right. And there’s so there are a lot of companies investing a lot of time and thought into reimagining their workplaces. Companies like box companies like Salesforce like Google, where they’re trying to make it a very attractive and nurturing and innovative environment, to encourage people to come back into the office and collaborate together. So I love that this is something that people are paying attention to, and leaders are paying attention to. I want to shift gears because I’d love to talk about, you know, your work is so much with supporting caregivers. And first of all, can you give us an insight into what caregivers are facing caregivers for dementia patients? What are they facing? What are they dealing with on a daily basis? Because what I want to segue into is how we can better support our employees or our colleagues that work who we know or might not know, are caring for a dementia patient. So can you give us a little behind the scenes of what their worlds are like and what are they dealing with in addition to having to work or lead teams or

Barbara Huelat 17:51

produce? Aha, that’s another great question. Caregivers have a lot on their plate, especially the primary caregiver. They’re the one that’s responsible. It’s like being a parent, and you have the child at home and you have to deal with daycare. I know when I was working and and my husband had dementia and was at home. I had to find caregivers to stay with them each day. One day a caregiver showed up drunk, what was I going to do? And you know, do you call in sick? Or do you bring him into the office like people do with children? And I think there has to be that understanding because caregivers are going to increase and everybody’s going to be a caregiver here and there. If not a primary caregiver, they’re going to be asked by a neighbor, hey, I’ve got to go into the office. Can you stay with Joe this afternoon, I really are I have an important meeting, I have to do this. And I need some help. So your caregivers, you might think of them as like parents of small children, they cannot be left alone. Once the the person with dementia enters into the phase where they can no longer do the activities of daily living on their own. They have to have a caregiver. And so that is that’s a piece that I think offices and corporations need to understand that there’s going to be an increase of caregivers out there. They have to provide meals, transportation, they have to get them to the doctor, they have to provide entertainment for them to do while you’re gone. They have to have help dressing they need up taking their meds, they need help keeping them in the house and just all of these activities together, in addition to taking care of their finances. So they could no longer do those on their own. So it’s I think the best way to think of it as taking care of a small child right and what that means needs to do while working

Maria Ross 20:01

well. And it’s extra complexity because you are dealing with an adult. And like you said, the issue of finances, things like that. And, and the issues of the blowback of that, especially if someone doesn’t, can’t properly assess their own cognitive state, you’re dealing with that. But also, I think there’s a assumption that if you are, if you’re caring for an adult, there might be a small window of opportunity that you could leave them by themselves. And that’s just not the case. You can’t you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not even like with a kid that you could give an iPad, there’s, it’s more complexity, and what you’re describing is a whole other full time job. And I think that that’s what we need to remember, not to mention, the emotional toll of watching who might have been appear to you or apparent to you previously, is now someone that you have to take care of you, we expect that as parents that we’re gonna have to take care of our child. What happens when the person that used to take care of us is now the person that we have to take care of that role reversal? Takes a big emotional toll, I’m sure. And so, on to my second question, what do you think workplaces and leaders could be doing to better support caregivers who are working for them? So that, you know, we talked before we started recording that? Yes, I mean, time off is great. But they also need support while they’re working. So what are some things you suggest, one of

Barbara Huelat 21:31

the big things that actually jazz was was most helpful for me was to allow me to bring my loved one to the office occasionally, not all the time, but when an emergency happened, to be respectful of when you need to work at home, then not I mean, I think you don’t want to always work at home and the caregiver needs to get out it’s Well, I was always grateful to have an office to go to to help clear my mind. Also, things that could help clear the mind times of respite. Just being understanding of what you’re going through, it is a there’s a very large emotional drain on the person. Person also has trouble sleeping at night. Usually, counseling therapy is really, really helpful. Because the caregiver is often considered the second patient, their health risk skyrocket while taking care of because it’s a long term chronic stress, it doesn’t go away like like an acute stress. So in understanding being able to have access to therapy and counseling, depression, anxiety is really important. And just having access to knowing who is a caregiver, just like snowing, you have a child that’s coming home from school at three o’clock, and the parent needs to check on that make sure that they got to their destination or their after school activity or whatever. There are times that the person though the the worker will need to check in at home and with their loved one, and be on the phone when there is seemingly a crisis. And it may not be this. But I remember one time I got a call and says Mom won’t come in the house. She doesn’t think it’s her house. How do you deal with this? Right? Right? You have to take the call and talking on through it and and calling my brother to help him talk her through it. How do you deal with that? Continued? issue? So I think being understanding, being open being creative, not you don’t even know what you can and is a possibility. And that’s what some of these interventions that I talked about in the book, and how we get a person through that particular disruptive behavior or mill? Or what

Maria Ross 24:09

is some of your best advice around someone who is caretaking for someone with dementia and they’re at the office? And they get that kind of call? Is there any advice you can give to anyone listening now that might find themselves in that situation? What might be the best way that they can approach it and sort of coach themselves through that situation? Let’s say they’re in a meeting and they’re in the middle of presenting and they get a call? What do you what’s, what are some suggestions you have?

Barbara Huelat 24:38

Okay, the probably the biggest suggestion that anybody can do, and it’s important that they have these conversations with the time caregiver, before they go into the office is what are the effective interventions for this, your particular loved one because it’ll be different with your mom or your spouse or My grandmother, whoever it is, but going through and the most effective intervention is a positive distraction. And a positive distraction works in all dementia is because the person with dementia has their short term memory is gone. So is if you can move them away from the awful event that is happening momentarily. In a few minutes, they’ll be okay. Like for my mom that wouldn’t come in the house is nice, I just did take her for a walk around the block and talk about everything that she sees. And you get to her house, and this is her front door. And this is her swing that she used with dad and talk about them. And by the time she gets to the door, walk right in and aborted because she forgot that she thought that wasn’t her house. And so by distracting the person using that intervention of short term memory, and relying on it, it almost always works or at times, nothing works. Right, right.

Maria Ross 26:14

But that communication with your caregiver or with your part time caregiver, or your part time support is so important that it almost sounds like I might be dumbing this down a little bit. But it almost sounds like having a disaster plan. Like if this should happen. While I’m presenting my big meeting today. Here’s what you might want to go through, you know, almost having that that sort of disaster recovery plan in place so that they can maybe do all the interventions they can do before it’s time that you’ve got to leave and you’ve got to come. Right,

Barbara Huelat 26:47

those conversations are so imperative. I remember, I went on a retreat, much needed retreat while I was caregiving. And the first time I did this, I didn’t leave those instructions with the my support team. And they call several times during the retreat, and the retreat was absolutely almost worthless, because I was so interrupted on the retreat. I did it again. Am I prep the caregiver, do not call me if this happens. Paul, my daughter, Paul, my brother, and I gave her a whole list of things to do. And that important meeting coming up a caregiver, do not call me between two and four o’clock in the afternoon today. Major happens, this is what you need

Maria Ross 27:44

to do the take these steps try these interventions. Yeah.

Barbara Huelat 27:47

And whenever I used a notebook and put those everything in the notebook and whoever was caregiving that day, and often it was not the same person, right? Get it from an agency, somebody’s sick, or something else, there were alternatives when they needed to have the same information. But your disaster plan? Perfect. That is? Well,

Maria Ross 28:13

and I think that that’s another challenge to point out is that unlike childcare, which is normally a little bit more predictable, you have the same nanny or the same daycare agency or the provider, that can be very different and stressful. If you have a worker who is the caregiver for someone with dementia, if they are relying on agencies that staff differently, they’re relying on part time support, if they’re not necessarily relying on a consistent, relative or friend. To do that. That’s just another layer of stress and complexity that these caregivers are dealing with. Yes. So what is your as we kind of wrap up here? What is your what are some final gems you want to share with us about how to make life and work easier for caregivers of dementia patients? Okay,

Barbara Huelat 29:04

but I think the best advice is to go with the flow. And that sounds overly simple. But you’re not going to you’re not going to cure the dementia, no matter how badly you want it and needed and to work with the way the person with dementia feels things and their reality, not yours. Not to question because the person with dementia, that cognitive side isn’t working. They don’t know how to respond to a question. And often questions as well meaning as they are can lead to really disruptive behaviors. Simple things like what do you want to eat? They get overwhelmed. Yeah, it’s too big of a question. And putting something in front of them that Oh, this smells good. I heard you love the cinnamon on the oatmeal. And it’s delicious today and giving them information about it is so much better than asking questions. So don’t ask questions. Don’t try to change the reality. And use emotions, especially the senses and nature are real positive lengths, as well as positive distractions. And you can you can go really far with that, and there will be mistakes, we all right, there will be meltdowns and challenges, but you don’t, if you realize you’re really not going to change it, and you can make it better, then that’s the way you want to go the path of least resistance.

Maria Ross 30:51

Exactly. I love that go with the flow. Well, thank you so much. We’re gonna have all your links in the show notes, and especially a link to your book, taming the chaos of Dementia Caregivers guide to interventions that make a difference. Barbara, thank you so much for coming on today. As I mentioned, we’re gonna have all your links in the show notes. But for folks on the go, where’s one place, they can find out more about you and your work? Probably

Barbara Huelat 31:14

my website. And there’s also a lot of helpful resources on my website, books that are important organizations, focus groups, a lot of resources for a for those caregivers at my website is very simple. It’s www and my name Barbara hewlett.com. And

Maria Ross 31:37

that’s Hu E, la,

Barbara Huelat 31:39

la T.

Maria Ross 31:41

Wonderful. And again, we’ll have those links in the show notes. But thank you so much for your time today and your insights.

Barbara Huelat 31:46

Thank you Maria with such a pleasure. And thank

Maria Ross 31:50

you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard you know what to do, rate and review and share it with a friend or colleague and until next time, remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind

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

July Hot Take: How Thoughtful Decisiveness Shows Your Team Empathy

Today we’re diving into Pillar Four of the 5 Pillars of Effective Empathetic Leadership featured in the new book coming September 10, The Empathy Dilemma – Decisiveness.

Yes, factoring in various viewpoints is the way forward for empathetic leaders – and enables us to see more opportunities and avoid more risks. . But we must combine that with swift and decisive action to make a call. Leaving your people in limbo or avoiding difficult conversations is unkind. And leaves your people paralyzed, unsure what to believe, do or expect next.

In our dive into decisiveness today, I talk about what decisiveness is and why it is important. And I’ll hone in on six strategies that you can start using today to be more decisive. More details, examples, and tactics to try can be found in The Empathy Dilemma, so don’t forget to snag your presale copy now at TheEmpathyDilemma.com.

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Avoiding employees until you have something to report isn’t empathetic – get in the habit of giving status updates, even if it is just “we’re working on it.”
Dithering over your decision does not demonstrate empathy. Not knowing what decision to make, no matter how you mask it, demonstrates fear and insecurity.
Learn to be clearer more quickly. Talk openly about the choices you’re making whenever possible.
Put a deadline on your thoughts. It’s not about making good choices, it’s about making good choices in a timely manner.

“Perfection isn’t the goal, even when it comes to high-stakes choices. Don’t succumb to analysis paralysis. Instead, gather input, decide, and move forward with a sense of curiosity and experimentation.”

— Maria Ross

Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: http://red-slice.com

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Hello, everyone, it’s Maria here. Welcome to this month’s our take how thoughtful decisiveness shows your team empathy. As you know, the book is coming September 10 is the day that the empathy dilemma how successful leaders balanced performance people and personal boundaries, hits shelves, hits your ears and audible hits your Kindle or other device in ebook, and will help you as a leader center around people focused practices to get the best performance possible so that you can balance the demands of the business with the needs of your people. And as you know, I’m so excited to share this with you. If you’ve been with me the last few months, you know, I’ve been devoting a hot take episode in the months leading up to launch, showcasing one of the five core pillars of effective empathetic leadership outlined in the book. Because the reality is that we want a more human centered workplace culture, but we have to get actual work done. You can do both, but only when you’re able to show up fully and have capacity to take in other perspectives without fear, stress or defensiveness. So today, we’re diving into pillar four of the five pillars decisiveness. And I feel like this one is the most least understood in how it correlates to empathy, because we can often think about decisiveness as dictatorship, right. And that’s not what we’re going to be talking about here today. Before I dive in, I do want to remind you that there is a special presale offer for the book going on right now. If you purchase between one to 99 copies of it from porchlight, my amazing bulk distributor, you can get, as I said, 30% off until August 27. So stay through to the end, I’ve got some information for you. I’ve also got some information for you in the show notes. And there’s some bonuses that go along with the pre sales, including allowing me to crash your next video meeting to have a discussion about empathy and balancing empathy with performance and accountability. So that is a limited time. Now again, before I dive into today’s pillar, I know I’m teasing you, the book is a direct result of all the feedback that I’ve gotten from my previous book, the empathy edge. And from attendees in my training sessions, conference attendees at my keynotes, and all the company talks I’ve done, people have reached out to me to say, okay, Maria, I’m on board with this whole human centered new leadership paradigm. But here’s where things get challenging for me, here’s where I get stuck. And it’s usually around the either or thinking I’ve mentioned in past episodes that we we hold this either or binary thinking that holds us back, I can be empathetic or high performing, I can be compassionate, or hold people accountable. Right? I am promoting a both and philosophy. And that is the crux of my work to show us that we can hold two seemingly opposite things to be true at the same time, if we have the right strategies, if we employ the right tactics, and if we have the right mindset. So that’s where the five pillars of effective empathetic leadership come in. And these came about from common traits and behaviors that the successful empathetic leaders I’ve interviewed or spoken to or advised, have shared with me, and it’s how I see them balancing people performance and personal boundaries with such grace and dexterity. So again, decisiveness is the topic for today. It’s the fourth of the five pillars in the book, and let’s dig into it. What do we mean by decisiveness? decisiveness is taking thoughtful that’s important but swift action that doesn’t leave people hanging, addressing issues before they fester and blow up synthesizing input and perspectives to make timely choices, and practicing radical and kind. Honesty is not enough to practice radical honesty and be a jerk. You need to also be kind and respectful. So why is decisiveness important? Well, keeping people in limbo is one of the least empathetic things a leader can do. And it can feel risky to commit to decisions quickly. But dragging your feet to avoid hurt feelings will only erode trust, I see this time and time again, you’ve got a difficult decision to make, you’ve got a crunchy conversation you need to have. And your approach is to delay is to procrastinate is to put it off thinking you’re being kinder thinking that you’re being empathetic. And that is not the way. So addressing choices, performance issues, action plans, and pending questions as soon as possible, is the most compassionate way to operate. Now, it doesn’t mean you fake an answer. It means that you get back to people, it means that we’re going to talk about this today you’re transparent in the process, but avoiding them until you have something to report is not empathetic. Get in the habit of giving status updates, even if the status update is we’re still working on it. Doing this shows your team members that you’re paying attention and you want them to know what to expect. It helps them fully understand what’s happening around them and feel good about it and feel safe. decisiveness helps leaders maintain team momentum, cultivate trust, and build a culture of open and consistent honesty. And most empathetic leaders strive to hear and implement input from all their people. But sometimes, sometimes endlessly soliciting everyone’s feedback for unanimous agreement can drive your team mad. And I share a story in the book about a brand story client I had way back when the team was paralyzed and frustrated, because the CEO would simply not make an important decision about distribution priority, which impacted who our brand story needed to primarily speak to and attract. And in the name of wanting to solicit all perspectives. The CEO dragged his feet on making the decisions. And by this point, the team was like, can we just decide and move forward already, they were frustrated, they were unsure. They felt like if they moved in one direction, it was going to change tomorrow, because they weren’t sure what was happening. And really what this came down to, even in the name of quote unquote, empathy. It was about fear and insecurity on the part of the CEO just not knowing what decision to make. And he was masking it with this veneer of Well, I just want to make sure everyone’s on board, I just want to get everyone’s opinion. So you want to avoid that. Here are we’re going to talk about today, six strategies to try to be more decisive. And we’re just the tip of the iceberg in this podcast today, there are going to be more details, examples and actual tactics to try that can be found in the empathy dilemma. So don’t forget to snag your copy now at the empathy dilemma.com. So let’s get into the six strategies for being more decisive and thus more empathetic as a leader. Number one, revisit your goal and purpose. Often, so much of the time leaders get caught up in the drama surrounding important decisions and they lose sight of the goal of that decision. Because of all the input they’re getting right. ensure everyone is on the same page. So when the decision is made, you can put it in context of the goal. It helps people understand that their input is valuable, but that it detracts from the goal it may not be the right course of action. However, it also keeps you honest, to not get caught up in people pleasing and keep your eyes on the prize. Second, practice transparency, there is no need to make all your decisions in a secretive way and unveil them only when they’re fully baked. There might be some that are more sensitive and confidential, obviously. But for the most part, the business decisions that you’re making that impact your people don’t need to be made in a black box and then revealed like some home improvement show. So learn to be clear quicker, and if possible, talk openly about the choices you’re making and have made. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Don’t be afraid to say I don’t know. But let’s find out together. This ensures that folks know what you considered and can trust you in the process. Third, third strategy for being more decisive and thus more empathetic as a leader is to solicit and synthesize input quickly and fairly. You want to get skilled at gathering facts and opinions and knowing the difference between those giving others a voice so they can point out opportunities or risks that you may have missed. People see different sides of the different facets of the diamond. So it’s important to get multiple points of views, especially from diverse voices. And you want to give others a voice and then sort through all the inputs and come to a conclusion. Be clear that once that decision is made, naysayers will be asked to disagree. But commit, and I talk about this concept in the book a lot. At a certain point, we’ve all got to move forward together and still be committed to the mission. But if you you know from the previous strategy, if you practice transparency, and people understand how the sausage was made, so to speak, they’re more likely to understand how and why and when you were able to implement some of their ideas or when you had to, you know, not implement their ideas. Fourth strategy for decisiveness is put a deadline on your thoughts. So decisiveness isn’t only about making good choices. It’s about making good choices in a timely manner. If you tend like me to ruminate endlessly, you need a mechanism to get yourself unstuck, such as setting aside a block of time to make a decision, which is itself a task. Get in the habit of setting deadlines for decisions that trip you up. If it’s a small decision, say picking a spot for a business lunch, give yourself a few hours. If it’s weightier, like a big investment or strategic pivot. think more in terms of days or weeks. Fifth strategy for decisiveness is build trust, and an environment where trust has been cultivated and built. People are more willing to trust a leader decisions, even if it’s a tough decision for them to swallow. So if your people don’t trust you, they’re less likely to think your decisions have been reached fairly with everyone’s input and overall best interests in mind, right? If you don’t trust someone and they make a decision, you’re always going to be questioning their motives. Now, this may not link directly to your ability to make decisions as a leader, but it’s vitally important to ensure that those decisions are accepted, instead of questioned and picked apart. So building trust is very important to being able to make tough, difficult decisions. And finally, adopt a design thinking approach. This is your sixth strategy for being more decisive and more empathetic as a leader. Now we know Design Thinking asks us to experiment and try things out to see if they’ll fly in the real world. And if you force yourself to consider every option until you’re absolutely sure you’re selecting the perfect one, you may never make a decision for fear of being wrong. Perfection isn’t the goal, even when it comes to high stakes choices. Don’t succumb to analysis paralysis, instead, gather as much input as you can decide, and move forward with a sense of curiosity and experimentation. Right? Most things can be undone, we can look at things from sort of a scientific perspective that, hey, let’s make this decision. Let’s put it into action. Let’s test it, let’s tweak it, let’s measure it and see what we need to change or keep, you know, keep that design thinking approach in mind. And it will help you make decisions faster because it won’t feel so loaded every decision that you make. So to better understand all of these deceptively simple strategies, which I’ve presented again, just the tip of the iceberg on if you want to understand them in detail, then please check out the empathy dilemma. Because I’ve got stories from leaders in there. I’ve got actionable tactics for each of these strategies, so that you can put them into practice. And you can pick one or two tactics and try them out for a few weeks at a time and see if that helps improve your decisiveness or your clarity, all your all your self care all the pillars that we’re discussing, I promise you that these five pillars will transform how your team engages, performs innovates delivers for you and your customers, but you want to be smart about it and you want to experiment and like I said, try a few of the tactics that are in the book to help you improve on whichever pillars need improving. For some people, it might be pillars, one, three, and five. For others, it might be pillars two, four, and five. But that’s why self awareness is the first pillar because you need to understand your strengths and your blind spots. Check out more about the book and link to presale bonuses and all the things at the empathy dilemma.com And don’t forget about that special presale offer I told you about because when you submit your receipt, you also get invited to a VIP Launch event that’s happening in October, and there will be swag, it is still to be determined what that swag will be. But I promise there will be swag for pre sales. And again, go to the empathy dilemma.com to check out everything you need to know about the book. And I’d love to come in and bring the book to life for your team, for your company for your conference for your event. So if that is of interest if you want to do an interactive workshop, if you want to do a keynote, if you want to do an erg talk, please come find me at red dash slice.com and go to my Connect page, my contact page and let me know what’s going on and I’d love to help so I hope you enjoyed today’s solo hot take I hope you’re enjoying the heartaches let me know. And until next time, when you tune into another episode of the empathy edge and more with my amazing guests. 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 shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

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

Esther Goldenberg: Imagining Deborah’s Untold Story with Empathy

What does it mean to tap into empathy and reimagine the life and experiences of someone only mentioned in a few sentences in history, whose story remains untold.

My guest is Esther Goldenberg, educator and author of the Biblical fiction novel, The Scrolls of Deborah. We discuss how a few lines in the Bible sparked Esther’s curiosity to imagine this woman’s entire life story and perspective, how seeing historical events from other points of view can be so valuable and fill in gaps or change hearts, and how books and stories help us nourish empathy and relate to others from a safe distance. We also talk about how writing can be a lonely endeavor and what creating something for the world that only exists in your head feels like.

Esther even reads us a passage from the novel that is a shining example of an empathetic conversation so pay attention to that debrief as well!

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Build a practice of engaging in literature, music, documentaries, movies, and other media created by people and about people who have different life perspectives than you. It will build and foster empathy.
As human beings, we can become numb to large numbers surrounding tragic events. By bringing it into the story of one person or one family, such as in historical fiction, it can remind the readers that it is about the one, even among the many.
Scenes in books and movies can model empathy for those who do not necessarily see it in their daily lives.

“Through fiction, people get to really see themselves in the characters and see the characters as people who they get to know. And that really creates fertile ground for empathy.”

— Esther Goldenberg

Episode References:

Shira Guru and the unSTUCK method
The Empathy Edge podcast: Chris L. Johnson: When Leaders Pause, They Win

About Esther Goldenberg, Educator and Author, The Scrolls of Deborah

Esther Goldenberg is a native Chicagoan, author, educator, and mother. Once a reluctant reader, but always someone who enjoyed a good story, she developed a passion for writing. Her much anticipated Biblical fiction novel, The Scrolls of Deborah, is available in paperback, e-book, and audio formats. Esther continues to write and teach students of all ages, with most of her workshops now tying in with themes from her book.

Connect with Esther Goldenberg:

Website: EstherGoldenberg.com

Book: The Scrolls of Deborah: amazon.com/Scrolls-Deborah-Esther-Goldenberg/dp/195590541X

Facebook: facebook.com/EstherGoldenbergAuthor

Instagram: instagram.com/EstherGoldenbergAuthor

Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: red-slice.com

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Esther Goldenberg 02:57

Thank you so much for having me, I’m really looking forward to this conversation. And we

Maria Ross 03:02

should mention how we know each other because years ago, I worked with you and helped you with brand messaging around a publishing firm that you were starting to help elevate voices that might not be able to be traditionally published. And so now and here, you are now publishing your book. That’s true.

Esther Goldenberg 03:21

I mean, you and red slice, you were so helpful to me in figuring out what my message was what it was, I was trying to say, and then how to say it. It was really great to be supported in that way. You know,

Maria Ross 03:35

absolutely. And I unless I’m misremembering, I think you were talking about working on a book at that time, or maybe you had plans to write a book at that time.

Esther Goldenberg 03:45

It’s interesting, I probably had recently written a book or, and, or was about to write a book. And I had discovered the world of self publishing, which I’m really a fan of, actually, I think there’s a lot to be said, for self publishing. And at that time, what I wanted to do was help other people who didn’t want to make a career out of their books, get their books into the world, you know, sort of like a side, not a side gig, really, but just a passion project. And so I started this publishing company, because I now knew how to publish a book thanks to learning how to self publish. Now, I’m not doing doing that anymore. And this book, the scrolls of Deborah is being traditionally published by row house. And it brings me back to what I said earlier about how great it is to have support in the process. Because right now my job is to write the books and talk about the books and read the books, and it’s somebody else’s job to do the messaging and the covers and the formatting and all the things that go into creating books

Maria Ross 04:50

100% And I love that you’ve always had a passion for sharing stories, whether they were your own or other people’s and a passion to be a catalyst for enabling those stories to see see the world because we talk a lot on the show about the fact that stories help increase our empathy and help us get to know people we never would have necessarily had contact with, or experiences we never would have had contact with. So let’s talk a little bit about the book and tell us what it’s about. And let’s talk about the genre because we were talking before we started recording about that, obviously, there’s different genres of books. And especially when I talk about embracing reading, or watching documentaries, or going to the theater as a way to strengthen your empathy, people asked me well, like what kinds of books do they only have to be biographies? Do they only have to be nonfiction? So let’s talk a little bit about the scrolls of Deborah give us a little taste, and I know you’re gonna do a reading for us and a little bit, but give us a little bit of taste of what it’s about how you got the idea for the story and tell us about the genre?

Esther Goldenberg 05:58

Sure, well, the scrolls of Deborah can be categorized as biblical fiction, that basically means it’s historical fiction that takes place during biblical times and has appearances walk ons, or major characters who are also in the Bible. Now, Deborah, some people who are familiar with the Bible may have heard of Deborah as a judge. And this is actually not that Deborah. So the Deborah in the scrolls of Deborah is from the book of Genesis, and she has one line in the book of Genesis, only one so I’m not going to call her major character from that story, because I don’t think she was right. He was mentioned in Genesis chapter 35, verse eight, it says, this is a paraphrase now that Deborah Rebecca’s nursemaid died and was buried. Wow. That’s it. So nothing about her life, except what we can deduce from that one sentence that she was Rebecca’s nursemaid. Now, what does it even mean to be Rebecca’s nursemaid? And why is her death mentioned but not her life. And, you know, it’s just really like right in there, this one sentence, Deborah died, says where, you know, you’re near Beit El Bethel and English. And she was buried under the crime tree.

Maria Ross 07:18

And then we move on. And, but important enough to mention her death. That’s is that what intrigued you that

Esther Goldenberg 07:26

really intrigued me like when this story was being written, who was this character, this person, Deborah, who was not really air quotes, important enough to get a story written about her, and yet she was important enough that her death was mentioned. So that really intrigued me. And it also gave me a really great opportunity to use my imagination, because basically boundless you know, it’s like, there was this woman, Deborah, and she was Rebecca’s nursemaid, and she died. I mean, I get to make up everything. Yeah, because there are no details about her life. Other than that she was Rebecca’s nurse night, and we don’t even know what that means. So it was a really fun opportunity, kind of to just say, well, who was Deborah. And if we know that she was with Rebecca in some way that makes her privy to some of the stories that we might be familiar with from the Bible, as well as stories that we would not be familiar with from the Bible, because they’re not included. And one of my favorite parts of the Bible, or the parts that aren’t included? I don’t know if that can be considered one part. Yeah, what one of my some of my favorite stories about the Bible are the stories that aren’t in there. Yeah, Deborah is just one example. Because if you take a more major character like Abraham, his birth is mentioned, along with the important information like who his father was. And then the next thing that’s mentioned about him is that he was married. So here we have even a major character in the Bible with a lot of gaps in the story. So according to my version of the story, Deborah was not around at the time of Abraham’s youth. But she did overlap with him with all the patriarchs in some way, Chair Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as well as with the matriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, and as well as other characters who just might not have heard of in the Bible. So this gave me the opportunity to really get this sort of insider’s view on both characters who we might be familiar with and brand new people as well.

Maria Ross 09:51

Okay, I love this and just to take a step back for people not familiar, Rebecca was Abraham’s wife, Rebecca I

Esther Goldenberg 10:00

was Isaac’s wife, Isaac’s wife, and she was the mother of the twins, Esau and Jacob. Got

Maria Ross 10:06

it. Got it. And so just wanted to level set that for people. I always joke that I’m Catholic, so I don’t know the Bible very well. So I what I love about this is it’s very similar to where people have taken stories about characters or people in history, we don’t know a lot about, like, if we look at Downton Abbey, and people’s fascination with the staff, the servants in these royal grand households, people are sometimes more intrigued by the people that are on the periphery of the story and what they’re privy to, and what they learn and what they hear and their perspective on the events that we may know about, or hear about, you know, like, for example, Downton Abbey, it’s, you know, taking place within the landscape of real events happening in the world. And I can’t remember, I think it’s Hilary Mantel, I’m gonna get that name wrong. She who does the historical fiction around the monarchy, and around, you know, Anne Boleyn, and Henry the eighth, and all those people. And so it is fascinating to see events you feel like you’ve heard about, but see them through the lens of someone else, which, right there is a practice of empathy, trying to see things from a perspective, we’ve never seen them from before. And so I’m curious. Well, number one, speaking of curiosity, your curiosity about Deborah is, isn’t an empathic practice of just not overlooking her and going, hmm, I wonder what’s going on there. I wonder what’s not being mentioned. And I wonder what her story could be. But how? And you know, not to describe everything in the book, because we want people to get the book. But how did you think about what her perspective was going to be on events that people may already know about? Did you have a particular she’s going to have a very skeptical lens, or a very naive lens, or, you know, as she’s observing events, or as she’s being a part of events that are well known, and are perhaps mentioned in the Bible characters as well? Did you have a particular mindset for her of how she was going to approach observing those events and observing those people?

Esther Goldenberg 12:18

That’s a great question. I don’t think that I had intentionally thought of what her perspective is, I don’t think I could have labeled that when I started writing. A lot of that is because I felt like I was almost like going into her eyes and just seeing it from her point of view. And so how would I label it? And she’s also in some ways, being a historian, because she, this scrolls are called the scrolls of Deborah, because she dictates her story to Joseph, who some people might know of the many colored Dreamcoat. He’s younger than she is by a couple generations, and he’s learning to be a scribe. And she dictates her story to him, and he writes them down here. So for her when she’s getting started, this is, let me tell you my story. Because you’re just a little boy, and you know, your grandmother, Rebecca, and you know me, but you don’t really know who we are. So let me tell you my own story. And then as it goes along, I think I discovered that I viewed Deborah as a wise woman. So she’s kind of the woman who I might want to have around to ask her opinion, because she has lived so many experiences. And so she might have a story to tell actually, about when something similar happened to her and then be able to give some advice. So I think I see her as a wise woman, even though she might see herself, in some ways more of an observer. And in the book, she acts as an observer in some situations. So for the burn example, there’s a fairly well known story about Abraham taking Isaac to sacrifice him on the top of the mountain. And Deborah does not witness that. But what she does witness is Isaac retelling that event. So in the scrolls of Deborah, there’s the story of Abraham taking Isaac to the top of the mountain for the sacrifice. And so this brings me back to Deborah being a witness of events and having them written down for the purposes of other people knowing what happened and of course this is still through her eyes.

Maria Ross 14:36

I love this and I know people might be listening going this is not your normal podcast episode Maria because we’re not talking about business or leadership or culture. And the reason why I wanted to have you on Esther is because again, this is such an important practice of, of looking at art and reading books and viewing documentaries and listening to music from people that don’t have the same life experience that you have and why it’s so important to build that practice of it. You know, as you’ve talked about sort of in a safe space, where it’s less loaded, there’s less on the line, it’s easier for you to sort of slip into the perspective of someone else, and not feel defensive and not feel scared or angry, or, you know, fearful of what might happen. And so, when you think about writing, fiction versus nonfiction, like, what does that mean to you in terms of building empathy for helping people build empathy by reading a book like the scrolls of Deborah?

Esther Goldenberg 15:38

Well, I think that through fiction, you have a really nice opportunity to get to know a character and become attached to them. And I think this is the same whether it’s books or movies, or TV shows, even, you know, you see these characters and sort of the design behind it, is that you should identify with them and put yourself in the story because frankly, otherwise, it’s not interesting, right? So, you know, it’s sometimes tell the story of the movie Titanic. So I refuse to see that movie. Because I know what happens, the ship sinks, the people die. Right. And to me, this doesn’t hold any emotion right now. It’s a fact from history. And it’s sad, and unfortunate, and there’s a lot going on there. But if I were to see the movie, then when that happens, I would be crying, I wouldn’t be kneeling, the loss, because that’s what the movie is designed for. And I want to have that experience of sadness. When I go in for fiction. I personally, like they’re all different genres, and people like different things. Personally, I like something a little bit happier than the scrolls of Deborah isn’t like a fairy land kind of story, it tells the story of her life, you know, a couple 1000 years ago was not easy. But I think that through fiction, people get to really see themselves in the characters and see the characters as people who they get to know. And that really creates fertile ground for empathy. And at the same time, there is that safe distance of this isn’t happening to me, this isn’t a scholarly report. So I don’t need to decide whether they’re right or they’re wrong. Do I think they’re right? Or they’re wrong, which really can charge your own emotion, you know, also, but this is this allows you into the shoes of the characters

Maria Ross 17:35

100%. And actually, I, I see what you’re saying about Titanic, because I, you know, the whole story of Titanic fascinates me. And I knew it’s so tragic. But I actually did see the movie. And that, to me was an example of taking an event where people are sort of nameless, faceless figures in history of this thing that just happened and humanizing it. And I think that’s an important role, especially even for books like yours, where it’s whether it’s historical fiction, or biblical fiction is taking these events that happened and putting a person at the center of the narrative at the end of the story. I think that’s really powerful for building our understanding and our empathy for events that we, you know, I hate to say it might just gloss over and however tragic. And so I love that idea of being able to I mean, not, like you said, you kind of have to be in the mood. Are you in for a cathartic situation or not? But I think that that’s such a powerful way to get people to humanize people involved in difficult events or experiences, and also increase our understanding of groups that we may not know very well, or, you know, oh, I always thought this about this particular group of people or that particular group of people, because you had no exposure to anyone in that group. And so it is so powerful. I don’t, right now, I don’t write fiction books I did when I was a kid. But I write nonfiction books now. But that’s always been the appeal of fiction and historical fiction for me is being able to humanize a situation or an event, perhaps one that I’ve heard of, and go oh, that that’s right, that really impacted real people. And there’s, there’s there are studies out that show that we can get very numb to large numbers, when we hear of an event where large numbers of people are hurting or they’re suffering. But an mpr does a great job of this, of doing the story of one person and humanizing that entire event. So it’s not so because our brains think oh, like 10,000 people or 12,000 people or whatever. It’s too big. But when we can learn about the experience of one person, it kind of brings it home, and then we can start to understand and create that connection. So I love I love this conversation I want to talk about, I want to shift gears a little bit and give people empathy for the act of writing. Because you talk about writing as a very lonely endeavor. So tell me about your experience, as an author and as a writer. And if it’s lonely, what keeps drawing you to it? Sure, well,

Esther Goldenberg 20:29

when I was dreaming up the scrolls of Deborah, if you will, because I don’t really know a better way to describe it. When I was dreaming up the scrolls of Deborah, I was living my life, here on Earth, as well as living my life, in my head, or in the past, or wherever this dream was taking place. And nobody else was in that place with me. So while I would have these imaginations, I don’t know what the word is imagining for something that happened, you know, maybe Deborah and Rebecca and the other women are sitting around a circle with drums and the moon is full, and there’s a little bowl with water reflecting it. And it’s amazing. And they’re singing, and they’re dancing. And it’s sort of like, I’m the only person who knows this, I’m the only person who can see it or think it because it’s all in my head right now. And then my job is to put it down on paper, so that I can share it with others. But the process of it being in my head, and then getting to other people, is just a very long process, and sometimes a very solitary process, because this is happening only for me right now until I could share it. And I was very lucky along the way to have friends that I could talk with about it and share some ideas or thoughts or even, you know, a couple pages here or there while it was fresh. Yeah. And that helped. That helped because I got to share this world. I mean, it’s also it’s an incredible world. It’s an exciting world, it’s grabbing my imagination and keeping me interested. So it’s the kind of thing that you really want to share. Now, hey, I have this exciting thing who wants to hear about it? Nobody. Almost nobody wants to hear about it. Because it’s just me saying bla bla bla, bla bla, you know, like this little split, and

Maria Ross 22:27

you put it in a book and people want to read it. Exactly. When you

Esther Goldenberg 22:31

pull it all together, you know? Yeah, people get to hear the whole story.

Maria Ross 22:35

Do you ever feel like I know, I feel this Even sometimes when I’m writing nonfiction, but that I’m never going to be able to tell the story the way I truly experience it and envision it in my head. Did you ever feel that way during the writing of the book?

Esther Goldenberg 22:50

Sometimes I felt that way. But more often, I really felt like this book was gifted to me, I really felt like it almost just flowed through me sometimes. And they say you should write about what you know. And I wasn’t there. I don’t know what. So how do I how do I write about what I know in this circumstance? And interesting stuff happened. Like, I’ll give you one example. There was one day when I found a praying mantis outside on my balcony, and it was dying. And I don’t know if you’ve seen a praying mantis up close, but they’re just stunningly gorgeous. They’re just really beautiful. And the face is so clear. And it just looked beautiful. And it was sat like what am I going to do with this praying mantis? I’m not the kind of person who can step on a bug. I’m just not good at that. And then if you see this thing, it’s like the size of a mouse. You know, it’s like big. It’s not an ant. Yeah. So I picked up the praying mantis, we you know, with paper in a bucket or something, whatever I did, and I brought it down to the soil. And I put it next to a little bush, and it was still dying. And there’s nothing I can do about that other than be there with it or not be there with it. And much to my surprise, that day, I found myself sitting beside a praying mantis that was on the soil and singing lullabies to this praying mantis. I mean, if you had asked me, So Tomorrow’s Tuesday, what are you going to do? I never, you know,

24:26

like, I could go card. Yeah, right. And

Esther Goldenberg 24:29

then it happened. And then it became a part of the book. So there’s a scene in the book, where Deborah and Rebecca find themselves singing to the praying mantis. And this sort of came through as a scene by itself and then took me to the next steps in the next places.

Maria Ross 24:50

Wow, that’s so cool. All right. I want us to hear a little bit from the book, especially where you have parts of it that are very rich and empty. See? So if you could read a section to us, I believe it’s one person helping another with feelings of inadequacy, but providing empathy and compassion, can you grace us with a little bit of a reading of from the scrolls of Deborah?

Esther Goldenberg 25:15

Oh, I’d be delighted. Thank you so much for the opportunity. So readers of the scrolls of Deborah do not need to know anything about Bible stories. It’s a totally a book that stands on its own. But because I’m going to read from page 257, I want to give you just a couple sentences of context here. So Rebecca is the mother of Esau and Jacob Issa is the older one. And Rebecca this whole times ever since the boys were born, had been living under the impression that Jacob would be the more important one. And what just happened before this scene is that Jacob got his older brother’s blessing from his father. And Rebecca helped him trick his father into giving him the older book, older brother’s blessing. So that’s what happened right before this. And now Rebecca has been feeling like, she’s not really sure that she had done the right thing. And she has basically isolated herself in the camp because she’s so upset with what she’s done. Meanwhile, both Esau and Jacob have now left the camp for different reasons, based on this blessing mishap, okay, so she’s feeling very, very alone. And it’s actually Isaac, who says to Deborah, okay, this has been going on long enough, can you help her feel better? And that’s the scene where we are now in with Deborah is going to try to help Rebecca feel better. Got it. So Deborah says, Come take a walk with me. To my pleasant surprise. She left the tent for the first time since Jacobs departure, and walked with me in silence. When we reached the top of a hill, we sat together in the shade of the trees and looked below us at the camp. Rebecca, I said, Tell me what is bothering you. Rebecca cried again. I had seen her cry daily since Jacobs departure, but this was a different cry. This one was loud, not with a few tears, but many. Her body shook, and she spat and pounded the ground with her fists. When her gasping finally returned to easy breathing. I invited her again. I have done terribly wrong. She said, I have worked for a lifetime to prepare Jacob for receiving his father’s blessing. Since the time that ye spoke to me in my dream, I knew Jacob was the important one. The older will serve the younger, I would do everything I was able to make Jacob worthy of that blessing. And now I have ruined all of that. I have turned him into a trickster and a fugitive, oh, Deborah, she resumed her sobs. And do you wish to hear the worst part of it all? She did not pause for she knew she had my attention for anything she would say. The worst part is that I have both failed at preparing him and I have failed my firstborn son. In all of my efforts to guide Jacob. I did not think of Esau for his whole life, right up to betraying him in his moment of earned pride and glory. Oh, Deborah, I am the worst mother ever lived. I have ruined both of my children, and I shall not even have more chances to do a good job with a new baby. This sounds terrible, I said. I paused so that she might have a moment of sympathy before I continued than I said, yet it is not true. Rebecca looked at me, as Jacob not become a skilled Shepherd. Has he not learned to read and to scribe I asked. And are those not skills of great importance? She nodded. Do you not watch Jacob with pride? Did you not watch Jacob with pride as he strode to his quiet places every evening to talk with ya? Is that not a great practice that you helped him build? She nodded again. Does Esau not feed his wives and children and laugh with them and love them? I asked. She had to agree for he did. When Esau returned from the hunt. Did you not raise his patience and persistence as well as the flavors of his food? When he returned with a swollen arm? Did you not cook the herbs for the purpose and wrap his bandage every morning and evening? I did. She said and did you not catch his very first son on your knees and insist that he circumcise the child himself? And had that not happened for all of Aesop’s boys thanks to you. It has she said. These are just a few examples from a lifetime. Perhaps your sons are not ruined. I said I was not pleased with her chicory, but I was proud of the skills that the young men had acquired. Do you think you can call yourself the worst mother who has ever lived? Surely there is one mother or possibly two who have done worse, I could see that she was still thinking of ways she had failed. But she also laughed or she heard the absurdity of it. Perhaps in a distant land, I added, giving her hand a squeeze, perhaps one Far, far away she can seated there, probably not as many as two. Now she gave me a small smile. I could see her pain was still there. But she was making room for it to leave. Oh, Rebecca, I said, Can you please see yourself with my eyes, I see a mother who has loved her children the best she knew how she fed and clothed them, licked their wounds and sang them songs, made them with a generous and kind father, who has taught them not to mention a generous and kind auntie, who has taught them many things as well. Rebecca, put her head on my shoulder and let her quiet tears fall there. Can you do that? I asked. Can you see the mother that? I see? I would like to Deborah, I believe you would not lie to me.

Maria Ross 31:11

Oh my gosh, so great. What a great example of an empathetic conversation. Just giving someone space to feel what they’re feeling and listening and, and offering a perspective I love especially the part where she says, can you see you through my eyes? That that’s so powerful. So what does that what does that mean to you in terms of the ability to show empathy in when someone’s in distress? Mm hmm.

Esther Goldenberg 31:42

Well, I love this example. Because I feel like what we were talking about before, like, we have that safe distance. So we can view these two people from the outside. But at the same time, I can see myself beating myself up for a poor decision, and not being compassionate with myself. And then perhaps needing somebody from the outside to say, okay, you know what, maybe that wasn’t one of your homerun decision. But, you know, that was one thing, out of a whole lifetime, that maybe you’ve had one thing, maybe a dozen things, or whatever, but you also have a lot of great things, you’re still a good person. And so to be able to see that conversation from the outside, I think allows me as the reader, excuse me, me as the writer, as well as other readers, to be able to look at ourselves as worthy of compassion, as capable of receiving empathy and giving empathy. Because there are so many, I mean, countless, Deborah and Rebecca’s out there who have made mistakes, or done things that their closest people and even themselves have disagreed with. And yet, they’re still rounded people, you know, with so many experiences, and to help us not judge ourselves and others, based on this one little sliver of information that we know, but rather to see a person as a whole person who’s maybe struggling as much as we do with just life, because there’s a lot of amazing, wonderful things in life and a lot of really challenging things in life. And so to be able to see characters in a book like that, and then maybe take it in to ourselves and go, You know what, I’m a little bit like that maybe, you know, in this case, I could say, I’m a little bit like Rebecca, I could also say, I’m a little bit like, Deborah, you know, or wouldn’t it be nice to have a Rebecca, who says this to me, or a Deborah, who says this to me? You know, there were many times throughout the book that I felt connected with Deborah, there were many times that I felt connected with Rebecca, or with the other characters, because I could see their actions and their choices and their feelings as parts of a whole person. And so with this particular scene, I think, for me, I like it as an example for people to be able to read a scenario where even in a challenging situation, even when you accidentally caused harm, that you can still receive compassion.

Maria Ross 34:27

Absolutely. Oh my gosh. And, and such a great not even just an opportunity to develop your empathy for, for Deborah, or Rebecca or think about people in your life who might be experiencing what they’re experiencing, but also a model of an empathetic conversation. I think it’s so important because, unfortunately, what many people lack are healthy models of empathy in their own lives, and that’s where their empathy muscle atrophies because they’re not seeing it modeled on a daily basis and it’s an not, it’s not something where they say, well, that’s just what you do when you when someone is in a crisis, or someone’s feeling bad about themselves. And then there’s people who continue to be empathetic. And then they don’t even know why they don’t even know what they’re doing. I interviewed a lot of those people for the new book, to try to unlock their secrets. And I found some, some themes, which is what I talked about in the new book, The Empathy dilemma, but many of them had to really think about why they were empathetic. Many of them didn’t think of themselves as empathetic leaders. And so sometimes it does just come naturally for people. But I submit that that’s because they have been in an environment where it’s been modeled, and it’s been rewarded. And it’s been celebrated. And so it is innate. I mean, it’s innate to all of us. But it’s innate to them, because they don’t know any other way. And so what’s wonderful about scenes like that, in books or scenes like that, and movies, is that model is for people that may not have that in their daily life.

Esther Goldenberg 35:57

Yeah, I want to give a shout out if I may. Yes, the Shira Gora, who created the unstuck method, which is a method that goes on an acronym of the word stuck S T. U ck, I won’t explain the whole thing here. But I’ll say that S stands for stop. And in this scene with Deborah and Rebecca, they actually went through that five step program, but without saying the five letters, right. But really, I think the key is to start with a stop. And at the beginning of the scene, Deborah said, Will you take a walk with me, and we know from the laws of physics, that an object in motion stays in motion, right? And the same is true, I think, for our thoughts, right, we can go down that rabbit hole of thoughts. And that’s just the direction we’re going just sort of like a ball rolling down a hill. But if there can be something to stop that, whether it’s an internal reminder or an external assist, the stop that for a moment, then we can be in a position to have a conversation like that, you know, and show empathy to those who are around us. And instead of just letting those thoughts cycle and build up, we can stop and ask ourselves, you know, where can I show empathy at this moment? Where can I feel empathy, look for that part, because it’s there, right there.

Maria Ross 37:23

I know this, I’m gonna put a link to that in the show notes, as well, as you’re reminding me of a link to another conversation we had on the podcast with Chris L. Johnson, where she talked about the power of the pause for leaders in helping them regulate their emotions, but also be able to more effectively handle tough conversations and tough decisions is if we’re going going, going, going going, we’re never refilling the tank. And the importance, it’s such an important thing that you said, because that importance of that pause is so important. It’s something you know, I try to work on daily, because I I can fly off the handle with my nine year old or my husband or whomever. And I’m really focusing on trying to take that breath, trying to take that pause, regulate my system, before I move forward. And I love that that’s such a perfect example of you know, just I’m thinking about just situations where you might be at work and you’re having a difficult conversation. Go outside, go for a walk. If you’re if you’re on Zoom, my husband does these with people that he works with go on a walking zoom call, where you both get out of your house and you’re walking around, it just changes your perspective. Yes,

Esther Goldenberg 38:35

yes, it does.

Maria Ross 38:37

I love it. Well, thank you so much, Esther, for sharing your insights for sharing the story. We will put a link to your website to the book the scrolls of Deborah, I’m sure it’s available. I’m assuming it’s available in all the places basically everywhere. Yes, basically everywhere. So definitely check that out. And we’ll have all your links in the show notes as well. But for folks on on the go, where’s the best place they can connect with you or find out more about

Esther Goldenberg 39:03

you? The easiest place to find me is that Esther goldenberg.com.

Maria Ross 39:07

And let me just spell that for folks. e S T H E R, G, Olden b, e r g. That’s it. Wonderful. Well, thank you again, it’s been so wonderful to reconnect with you.

Esther Goldenberg 39:20

Thank you so much, Maria. This was great. And thank

Maria Ross 39:23

you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard you know what to do. rate review, share with a friend or colleague. And until next time, remember that cashflow? Creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria never forget empathy is your superpower use it to make your work and the world a better place.

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

Dr. Nicole Price: From Engineer to Empathy Revolutionary

How do you get analytical, process-driven people like engineers, lawyers, and doctors to see the value of empathy and human connection? It’s not that they CAN’T embrace it. It’s just that they see the world and how to solve problems differently.

My guest, Dr. Nicole Price believes two things: 1) everyone wants to do a good job and 2) empathetic leadership is critical to helping to leverage that desire. Today we talk about how she became an empathy revolutionary, how to open up a broader path to empathy, and why diversity doesn’t work when saddled by apathy. Dr. Price shares how a traumatic event opened up her capacity to connect through emotion and better impact performance – and why she now helps others understand that those who are emotional can also be logical. We discuss how to link accountability to commitment and why her role as a translator helps logical thinkers understand they don’t have an empathy deficit, but that there are multiple roads to empathy that are a better fit for the way they experience the world.

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

When people understand people better, it transforms them from the outside in. They don’t need to be practicing empathy for the right reason initially, but it will change most people eventually.
It is not unusual for doctors, lawyers, and engineers to think they are better than those who are not at the same level as them. This is a barrier to empathy, but one that can be overcome.
Empathy is a method of information gathering. For some, they will be attracted to that rather than the emotions of empathy. There is no wrong way to begin your practice of empathy.

“Engineers are taught to listen for accuracy. But when I’m trying to be empathetic, listening for accuracy is not helpful to me. I’m supposed to be listening for understanding.”

— Dr. Nicole Price

Episode References:

Dr. Nicole Price, CEO, Lively Paradox and author of Spark the Heart: Engineering Empathy in Your Organization

Dr. Nicole Price believes two things: 1) everyone wants to do a good job 2) empathetic leadership is critical to helping to leverage that desire. She is an empathy revolutionary who teaches leaders how to build more empathy in organizations. Her clients range from manufacturing facilities to school districts. She is the author of seven books centered on being an exceptional leader—most notably Spark the Heart: Engineering Empathy in Your Organization.

Connect with Dr. Nicole Price:

Email: nicole@livelyparadox.com

Lively Paradox: drnicoleprice.com

X: twitter.com/DrNicolePrice

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nicoledeniseprice

Facebook: facebook.com/nicole.denise.price

Instagram: instagram.com/drnicoleprice

Threads: threads.net/@drnicoleprice

Book: Spark the Heart: Engineering Empathy in Your Organization

Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: red-slice.com

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Dr. Nicole Price 02:47

welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I’ve been looking forward to it too.

Maria Ross 02:50

So we want to hear your story and how you got to this work, and especially how an engineer becomes an empathy, revolutionary,

Dr. Nicole Price 02:59

kicking and screaming. No doubt. Interestingly enough, I have spent most of my professional career working, helping difference to get along. So people on teams who don’t understand each other, how do I help them to just embrace the different ways people think their lived experiences so that the team can gel and make progress on their objectives. But somewhere along that journey, I realized that none of this was going to work if people were saddled with apathy. So I felt like intellectually, I felt like someone needed to embrace this idea of empathy and teach it to technical professionals. But almost all of the work that I was running into involved a bunch of exercises and things that engineers just will not do that. They are not going to sit on the grass in empathy circles, and listen, without any kind of understanding for what that’s going to deliver. Although I’m here for nine day retreats, I’m here for all of those kinds of things. But it was truly just an academic exercise for me until I had a traumatic life event. And in my traumatic life event as these things happen to do. I started to feel people, it was almost like, I would walk around in the world. And it was something written across my forehead that said, tell me that you are suffering. And like I had never had it before. I certainly did not have it before. But after the grief that I had been suppressing related to my mother’s traumatic death, she was killed by a drunk driver and the murder trial associated with that. Just me getting in touch with some of my own feelings, I think, started to project out into the universe that I was a portal that was willing to receive. I think I have that language now, but I did not have the language when it first started know that oh, my gosh, I had no idea why this was happening. And then just short, just briefly. I had been An amazing employee in my organization. But after I came back after a pretty sizable leave of absence, my leader who wasn’t very nice person. And so I didn’t want anybody to think that she was not nice and kind she was, she asked me about my mom and how I was doing. And I shared, but then immediately after that, she pulled out her legal pad and was like, Okay, let’s talk about your projects. And there was something about the timing of that, that just felt off. And so I had my personal experience, but I also had my professional experience, just both of them at the same time saying, we need an we need an empathy revolution. But I absolutely thought that somebody else should be doing. I think that some shouldn’t be me. Right? Every time I went to try to say, Hey, someone should be doing this, for this particular group of people, the answer kept coming back that what if it is you maybe it should be shouldn’t be you? Hmm,

Maria Ross 06:03

wow, that is powerful. And I, you know, relatable, I think for a lot of people that sometimes we have this preconceived notion of what empathy is, and the role that it plays in our lives, and then something traumatic or catastrophic happens. And I believe we do give off this energy when we’ve been through it, that people can sense and they sort of find a kindred spirit. And it’s really interesting that you so descriptively, articulated that of like walking around in the world, like you had something on your forehead that said, I will listen or bring it on, or whatever it was. And so I think that there is an energy around that. And it’s so interesting to me, that you, you come from the traditional left brain analytical world. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that those folks can’t tap into empathy or aren’t empathetic, I think sometimes there’s a really negative stereotype out there. But I also think that in that, in that world that they operate, sometimes it’s not really understanding what it is and what it isn’t. And, like your work, my work is all about helping people understand it from a very non scary and non threatening point of view. So that’s why I’m so drawn to your work. So I want to talk a little bit about why do you think that path that you went on, and that epiphany that you had is so important to the broader conversation of empathy? Did it help you realize something was missing in the empathy conversation and wasn’t reaching? Everyone it could reach? Like, what? What was that journey? Like?

Dr. Nicole Price 07:32

Yeah, I think for me, it’s translation. So engineers, are actually taught not to be empathetic. And people are actually shocked when I say that. But if you make one item, and then I have to make 50 million of that item, by the end of the week, I can’t personalize people and think about their individual situations and stories. I’ve got 50 million parks, I have to get out by the end of the week. And so we’re taught to think in systems, not individuals, in fact, individuals get in the way of a well oiled process. You need standardization in order to get 50 million of anything out by the end of the week. And what I was not aware of was that, that Systems Thinking caused me not to think of consider people as individuals, they did become cogs in wheel. So even though we would all say people are not just cogs and wheels, if Sue is sick that day, I need to be able to put Tom in her spot, and Tom needs to be able to just keep going because I have to get 50 million parts out. And one I was not aware of that. So what I did have had no awareness of it. And to me, like I said earlier, while I am completely open to a spiritual path, many different ways of learning information. I think I understand the difference between kindness and niceness and empathy and all the different types. Most people are just like, hey, can empathy be taught or not? Do you have it or not? Like, what does it look like to practice it or not? Why should I care? How do I hold these people accountable and still be empathetic? That’s what people say. And so I just said, Alright, how can I translate? How can I be a person who translates really important nuance? I think it doesn’t matter that effective empathy doesn’t come from the same part of the brain is cognitive empathy. Absolutely. That matters. And most of my clients don’t care. They just want to know, how am I gonna get my 50 million parts out at the end of the week? And how are people going to feel connected to me? And how do I keep them engaged and want to keep them motivated? And so instead of arguing against that, I thought, how can I translate this in a way that people will receive it? Well,

Maria Ross 09:46

let’s talk about that. Because you wrote sparked the heart and engineering empathy in your organization. So what are some of the ways that you help folks that and I don’t want to I am a little hesitant to use this word but that are Lee worry of embracing empathy because they think it’s going to detract from the system from the goal that they have to accomplish. What is that? That blueprint idea that you’re providing for people? Can you share a little teaser with us? Because we obviously want folks to get the book, but what what is the thinking behind creating that blueprint? And how does it help those people?

Dr. Nicole Price 10:20

I think Leary is the right word. And let me tell you why I think that I have had clients tell me that we can’t even name my session, anything related to empathy, because they don’t believe people will come. So Leary is kind of a nice word.

Maria Ross 10:36

I think that a squared of Yeah.

Dr. Nicole Price 10:40

Yeah. And I, what I did in the book, which I think is masterful, I’m biased, is I shared all the ways, the practical ways that I did not demonstrate empathy as an engineer, and as a leadership, development expert, and also as a leader inside large corporation, was important for me to just describe what it could be what it could look like without putting anybody else on Front Street, but showing how I have dropped the ball on being an empathetic leader, and how we can all be different. So one of the one of the examples that I share is specifically about being in a parking lot at one of my manufacturing clients. And I actually, when I was even telling that story in the book, had to check myself because I wasn’t being empathetic to their situation, they had decided that they were going to do a shift overlap, when there was an overlap. Turns out there weren’t going to be enough parking spots for the people coming to the plant. But I don’t believe everyone knew that. So of course, there’s some people when they get there, there’s nowhere to park. And so they were parking in the visitor thought, well, if you park in the visitor lot, a certain number of times your car’s gonna get towed. So the day I was there, a lady’s car gets towed. And I just happened to be in the room, when they’re talking about, well, why are these people just like, not like parking in the visitor spot? And I asked the question, you know, Curiosity is an important part of being empathetic. Well, are there enough spots? One guy says, of course, and another guy says, well, actually, for about 15 minutes, no. Well, none of the senior leaders knew that. And then I’m a visitor, there’s 25, visitor spots available and open. Long story short, this woman was car getting towed was going to be about $250 to her. And then the next day, you know, there’s an additional fee, and it just keeps. So she left she asked her union leader if she could leave to go get her car. And she did. Well, that stopped the line. Well, stopping the line cost millions of dollars. And so she was going to get fired. And I was there, trying to figure out, okay, what is the best empathy exercise here, and I call it the empathy walk I just made, I just borrow that term. But it comes from the engineering concept of the gimble walk, which means to go and see the real place. And in practical terms, it just basically means if you’re going to cut somebody’s hair, they should probably be in the chair. So you cannot change any process without going to see at first. This was an exercise in understanding poverty for people who actually have jobs. So I just asked, Would anybody in the room be willing to share? What are the kinds of things that could make you late for work if you didn’t have money, and the people in the room had been working with these folks for sometimes decades. So these are people that they know, but they’ve never thought about the fact that they were born or maybe had lived in, in poverty at some. So there’s a woman talking about what her life was like after divorce, there was a person who had grown up where her parents were working, but they were just, they’re poor. And they shared things like having your lights turned off. And so you don’t, you know, you got to figure out where you’re gonna go take a shower, if you want to take a hot one, things like the babysitter didn’t come our school was ran close, or you went outside, you had a flat or you went outside and somebody had siphoned all your gas out. I mean, they were just sharing story after story. And so then we just walked through, what does that mean, then if you happen to get to work, and it’s the 15 minutes where there’s the overlap, what are you going to do? And so at the end of that, like empathy, walk just in our minds, the plant manager decided to pay to get the woman’s car out and to also, you know, restore her her job. And I think those are kind of the practical ways in which I’m trying to get people to buy into what does it look like to understand what somebody else is thinking, feeling, believing and experiencing? Because before we started, you and I were talking about how people can use empathy for bad reasons. I grew up a car To the street from a pennant, and people are surprised to know that but I regularly tell people that in fact, I did a TED talk on pimps are very empathetic. And people are usually shocked to know this. But how do you get someone to do what a pimp is trying to get them to do without understanding what they think, what they feel? What, what motivates them, who you can pimp it, who you can’t pin, in order to do that, for any length of time, that career requires you to understand people very well. It’s just a more tactical form of cognitive empathy. And I’m just trying to get people who have some shred of compassion, to embrace these ideas and these concepts for good. Yeah, they do. I think it can change the way we work, the way we learn the way we just experienced the world.

Maria Ross 15:49

So I love this because I’ve mentioned this a few times on the show, I did a TEDx talk about how to trick leaders into being more empathetic, I taught I called it how to Trojan horse leaders into being empathetic. And it’s the whole reason I wrote the empathy edge, it was the business case, for the ROI of empathy. And that rubs a lot of sensitive people the wrong way, or people that are naturally empathetic and can tap into their empathy, because they think, oh, that’s manipulative, that’s, you know, we should be empathetic, because it’s the right thing to do. And I agree with that, except it’s not working. Like the mineral imperative doesn’t work for many people. And so if we have to show them, this is the marketing part coming in, if we have to show people what’s in it for them, if they embrace empathy, so be it because there are lots of, you know, tangible, ROI pieces that come out of it. And once they embrace empathy, they’re doing it. It doesn’t matter how they got there, if they’re seeing, you know, if they see my point of view, and they respond in a way that recognizes my point of view, it doesn’t matter why they’re doing it, I was in a hospital that, you know, followed a very empathetic philosophy of care, patient and family centered care, they did it to lower costs and increased profits. But the experience to me as a patient was still amazing. I still felt seen, I felt heard, I felt valued. And so it kind of didn’t matter to me. But more importantly, and I’m sure you’ve seen this in your career, getting people there and getting them in the room to have the conversation or see the other point of view, there’s no way that can’t change them. There’s no way that they can’t walk away from that experience going, Ah, there’s something to this. Let me try it again. Let me have more interactions this way. So do you agree, it sounds like you and I are kindred spirits on the like whatever it takes to get

Dr. Nicole Price 17:41

empathy? He absolutely agree. And I and I was over here nodding. And I know the listeners can’t see this. But it’s just like, think about the fact that pimps are using this preachers are using this politicians are using this people shampoo peddlers are using what we think feel and believe and experience in order to motivate us to do what they want. And I had I had not considered this actually. Because I had a life changing event that caused me to also be more sensitive, that I considered that oh, there are people who use empathy for bad reasons. I was given a keynote. And a gentleman walked up to me at the hand and he said, I’m doing everything that you say, but I’m not doing it. Because I care about people. I’m doing it because I’m trying to make a sale. And that was when I had my epiphany like, Oh, yes, you can absolutely do everything I’m saying and you can use it for good, or it’s like a hammer being used to build or to break. Yeah. And I see leaders struggling all the time, not able to naturally get people to be engaged or use hospital systems, patient outcomes just aren’t what we need them to be. Well, who is not going to be smarter about people, if they can understand people better, right? For me, let’s get them there. And when people understand people better eventually I think sometimes the feeling comes later.

Maria Ross 19:11

I agree. I think it transforms them from the outside in because I spoke in the in the first book about being around executives, when I worked at for a cable network, being around executives at a cable affiliate, who were doing a community event at a at a local food bank. They were doing it for PR. They were doing it for press, they were doing it for customers, but there they were stocking shelves in a food bank, and having conversations with the customers with the clients of the food bank to learn what their life was like. And many of them decided to keep volunteering with the food bank after that day. Many of them had gotten exposed to people that they never would have been exposed to before. And so it did transform them. And does it happen all the time? No, there’s definitely going to be people that are like I’m going to use this today. it’d be late everybody. But that doesn’t mean we all give up on it. Right? So I want to get back to the book and this idea of other examples that you have of how you’re bringing, like, what do you think is the unique challenge with engineers? Other than what you’ve talked about? And where do they, you know, barring a traumatic event for them? Where is the epiphany for them, where they start to go, oh, I don’t need to be so leery of these human connections of considering the individual, I can still get my work done well, and balance performance with people. Where do you see that unlocking for engineers? And why do they have a unique challenge in that

Dr. Nicole Price 20:42

the doctors, lawyers and engineers have some of the most difficult training in terms of just the profession? And what does it take to get through the education that’s required to be in those professions? So you’re dealing with people who are incredibly smart, typically not. Now, of course, there are exceptions to this rule. And whether this is on purpose or not, the general population is just not thinking in the same way as doctors, lawyers and engineers. And so when you’re like, hey, I have designed this thing, you, I made this, I was prescribed this medicine, just take it. I have told you what the statute is like, do you want to sue or not? Like the process? Is this follow it or not? And when people don’t do what you’re thinking, subconsciously, you might go? Not smart? And then how do you end up showing up for people who you think are not smart. And I don’t believe any of this is conscious? I don’t think so. But I think you end up thinking that you’re better than talking down to people, not necessarily wanting to be in their circles. My experience in a manufacturing plant was that the engineers set at the tables by them, like differently separate and apart from manufacturing workers are the were our offices where we’re like looking over the manufacturing floor with glass, and it’s beautiful. The manufacturing floor is hot and sweaty, and dusty, and dirty, even just structurally how we were engaging with each other was very, very different. And so I think we shouldn’t just think that people are inherently empathetic or not, how do we create these people who lack empathy is part of the our responsibility, I believe, for us to to own. But when I think about Patrick Lencioni, his work around The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, many leaders automatically go to how do I hold these people accountable. And it was Lencioni, who I first heard, say, you have to go back down the pyramid, the you have to make sure that you have created a trusting environment where people feel like they can be heard and have healthy conflict. And then you can ask people for commitment. And then you can hold people accountable to what they have committed to. But you can’t come in to people who don’t trust you, you don’t hear anything, they have to say if they say something you don’t listen, they’ve never even given you their commitment to buy into your mission or vision or other, but you want to hold them accountable, you’ll always see your results kind of faltering. And typically, I can get engineers to buy into a logical point, a logical idea. And I don’t take the moral compass route, right? In fact, I say, overtly, listen, there are two ways to learn empathy. One is painful, and one is not. And I took the painful route by learning through life experience. I’m here today to help talk about what it looks like to learn it, you know, hearing, right, that’s one method for engineers, doctors and lawyers I use but the second one is, I never hold people accountable to something just because I think it’s the right thing to do. I do think it’s the right thing to do. But I asked people to consider the three or five three to five leaders they appreciate they love, they think they’re and they’re amazing leaders. And then I asked them to describe those leader, give me 10 characteristics of those three to five leaders, like, take the time and write down 10 characteristics. And what do you notice? Once you start looking at your list? Are those people just hard nosed and hard drivers? Typically not? They have empathetic competencies, and that’s why I like working for them. That alone Maria has usually causes my entire audience to shift and say, Okay, let me hear what you have to say. Because you’re right. The people I follow are empathetic and their leadership approach, right. So I never walk in and say you need to learn empathy, because you never, right. Right. And

Maria Ross 24:48

it’s also just that understanding of like we kind of referred to what it’s not, you know, it isn’t. It isn’t all holding hands and crying on the floor together. It isn’t it It isn’t even agreeing with people. And I think that gives folks a huge weight. It takes a huge weight off their shoulders, because of all the things they think Empathy means. That’s what they’re fighting against. And when they understand like you, I talk about empathy as a method of information gathering, if I’m going to have a productive conversation, or I’m going to move a project forward, if someone if we, if we have tension or conflict, I need to understand that person’s context to understand why they think the way they do and get information. Yeah. And so again, it’s like when you talk to those hard driving folks, it’s like, don’t look at it as a touchy feely emotion, look at it as a method of information gathering. They’re like, Oh, okay, that makes sense to me. Yeah, that’s something I can do. Right? Now,

Dr. Nicole Price 25:48

if I have a lot of time, I also try to push this idea and I am trying to push it. If I’m just being honest, that just because you have emotions, that does not make you a less logical person. Because as an engineer, I used to think that if I were emoting that I was not being logical. And it was life altering for me to realize that I’m not a more logical being because I haven’t cried since I was eight. That actually, I’m not as smart because I’m not taking in the information from other people. If I can look at you and know that you’re smiling, but you’re not happy. That has been critically important to me just being a smarter human.

Maria Ross 26:34

Yeah. Yeah. And that’s why so much of this requires us to you, the first step is getting present within ourselves. And in the new book that’s coming out in the fall, the empathy dilemma, that’s the first step is self awareness. What am I bringing to the interaction? What am I bringing to the table? What, what is preoccupying my mind, so I can’t make space to notice your facial expressions, or notice the tone of your voice. Or notice those little things that are going to give me cues on the conversation that we’re having and the interaction that we’re having.

Dr. Nicole Price 27:08

If I had one request of most of my HR partners, it would be to stop assuming that some people just can’t do empathy. And I have air quotes over here, because of their profession. Yes, I have not met many people who don’t have spouses or partners who don’t have children who don’t have siblings. And if we can help them build this competency at work, it can help transform their lives outside of work. Yep. And I think I have been shocked at the number of HR professionals who think techies just can’t get it, like they just can’t get this. What I will say is probably more true is that they can’t get doing these kinds of things for moral reasons, that they’re, you

Maria Ross 27:55

know, and, and also, they just approach it differently. I mean, we had a whole I was on a group discussion yesterday with a group of empathy experts. And we were being presented to by a woman who was presenting a systems based model of empathy. And it’s this idea that, yes, empathy is innate to human beings. But that’s also very, that’s also not the whole story. It’s we all tap into empathy in different ways. And your way of tapping into empathy may look different from mine may look different from someone else. And so there’s no sort of one right way to help you have that connection with someone else. And for some people, it is a little bit more analytical and logical for other people, it is more squishy, and emotional, and woowoo, and whatever you want to call it, but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong, right.

Dr. Nicole Price 28:44

And then we’re going to show up with the same amount of diversity as we do with every other competency in the world. It was helpful to me to learn that I already had high levels of somatic empathy that I can’t watch. I can’t watch a, a even a fictional boxing match that I feel it in my butt like I can’t watch that. Because, again, a life of you’re not very empathetic. You make decisions with logic and reason you don’t make it. I mean, even the Myers Briggs test says, Nicole price does not make decisions based on empathy and compassion. That’s what the tests that I made. Yeah. And so you might start thinking that you have some kind of deficit and i That’s why I love assessments that help people see that there are multiple types of empathy and you don’t have to have 100% of any different kind. There are many bridges to get to being able to understand people better. It was helpful to me to also read this book called never split the difference by Chris Voss, he’s the hostage negotiator. He talks about cognitive empathy, and he renamed it as tactical empathy. Because trying to understand a hostage, a terrorist so well, then by then but they have released the hostages, they don’t We don’t have to kill them. There’s a way to do both. And now I’m like a master negotiator, centering empathy, to be able to save lives. Mm hmm. I think we can use empathy to get a couple of parts out by then

Maria Ross 30:21

to solve a budget crisis. Yeah, exactly. I don’t you know, it’s, that’s my whole thing is this idea of everyone looking so binary at it. And it’s like, it’s empathy. I choose empathy or efficiency. I choose empathy or high performance, I choose empathy or sustainability. It’s both and, and, and the funny part. And I don’t know if you found this in your research, but when I was researching the new book that’s coming, the conversations I had with leaders about and pulling out what were the five pillars, the five common threads to what helps you be both and most of them didn’t realize they were doing it. Many of them were like, Yeah, I don’t know that I call myself an empathetic leader. And but then you talk to them about how they interact with their team. And that is the definition of empathy. So sometimes even the most empathetic people don’t label themselves as empathetic. Because it is a little bit more innate for them. Well, like, of course, I’m going to get to know my team because I have to motivate and inspire them to do what I need them to do. Like, they often have to reflect and think, Well, why? Why just that work? Why am I good at that. And that humility, is so important to embracing empathy, because humility blocks empathy, because it says, We have nothing left to learn. If you don’t have humility, we have I have nothing left to learn. I know everything. My perspective is the right perspective. It’s the humility that unlocks the questioning. Yeah.

Dr. Nicole Price 31:51

And thinking that you’re smarter than everyone else, that lack of awareness that there’s many different types of intelligence, too. Yeah. I love what you’re doing, because it did it. You mentioning it made me think of something else that I had to work on. And that was how engineers are taught to listen, we’re taught to listen for accuracy. Because when you’re not accurate, the bomb doesn’t go off when it’s supposed to. There’s a little bit too much of an active ingredient in your, your medicine, I have to be accurate. But when I’m trying to be empathetic, listening for accuracy is not helpful to me. I’m supposed to be listening for understanding. Someone might be inaccurate in how they’re explaining something to me. They might say something happened Thursday instead of Wednesday. It’s not my time to interrogate does it even matter that it was Thursday instead of Wednesday? Engineers struggle with that lawyers and judges, that difference means you’re lying. And now I can’t trust you, you know. And so it took the biggest gap I had to close was shifting from listening for accuracy to listening for understanding, that probably took me almost five years to become good at because my mind goes well, it wasn’t Wednesday.

Maria Ross 33:11

I love that you just brought this up, because I am the world’s most horrible author and researcher in terms of citing the data that I have researched. Because if you ask me what the percentage was on that particular study, I will say something like I think it was like 60%. I don’t have my notes in front of me. But I know that the end result was x. And I would probably drive a room of engineers crazy or lawyers crazy, because, but it’s just so funny that that’s actually something I’ve realized about myself, that I just don’t cite numbers, like my brain just doesn’t grasp it unless I’ve completely completely memorized it. What I grasp is the is the point it’s making non the actual numbers and what you said was so important that for certain groups of people that erodes trust, and

Dr. Nicole Price 34:00

I’ll tell you my employee engagement score scores to the 10th of a percentage from 2005.

Maria Ross 34:07

So I need part of your brain, I need to like, meld that into me.

Dr. Nicole Price 34:12

But it’s not helpful, right? Like when I think about my, my relationship with my son, if he says, Hey, we didn’t spend any time together last week, and I go, What are you talking about? We were just on a plane together, we went to Atlanta, and I’m hurting it our relationship because what he means is he wants to spend more time with me. And my ability to be able to hear what he’s trying to say. One of my first coaches told me I needed to learn how to read the tea leaves. I didn’t even know what he meant, but that’s what he’s talking about. Like what is the message behind the message and I just listened naturally. Listen to what you say. I can repeat back exactly what you say. And then conversation I want to have but that is not empathetic listening.

Maria Ross 35:01

No. It is reflective listening, though. So there is there is some benefit to that of, can you reflect back to someone what they’ve said in a way that’s non judgmental, and and just, you know, so what I hear you saying in the conflict that we’re having, let’s just make sure I understood what you said. You said the sky is purple and frogs are falling out of the sky. Is that Is that accurate? Then at least if you can confirm the accuracy, accuracy for me, you can feel heard like, Oh, she did hear me. And also I’m not saying it dripping with judgment of just like, here’s all the reasons you’re wrong. Before we get to that. Let me just make sure I heard you. Right. So there’s, there’s kind of a time and place in empathy for that. But it can’t end with that is what I hear you saying? Right? I

Dr. Nicole Price 35:47

have to know that whatever it is, you’re trying to tell me about the purple frogs falling from this?

Maria Ross 35:55

You know, what is? What is the point? What is your experience? And what is the point that you’re trying to make on that? I love that. So can you give us what you think? Or can you share with us as we wrap up, I guess I should say, what is one thing that you wish more people understood about empathy, especially if they are under the belief that they can never be an empathetic person? Or, or that it doesn’t have value for them to be an empathetic person?

Dr. Nicole Price 36:23

You know, if there was one thing that I want people to know, is that you? Can I say two things? Maria? Yes,

Maria Ross 36:29

absolutely. It’s there’s that accuracy coming in.

Dr. Nicole Price 36:35

It’s still one is that empathy can be taught, which means it can be learned, that’s one. Two, is it’s almost like anything else you you’re trying to do. That’s difficult. It’s going to take time. And and so when I hear my clients are like, Okay, we’re gonna do this empathy class. And then they expect that

Maria Ross 36:55

they will, I’m sure is going to be transformed. Yeah.

Dr. Nicole Price 36:59

I don’t know if you heard me say it took me almost five years to learn how to listen in this empathetic way. But the person who was working with me on it, I think he knew our relationship was going to be much longer than five years. So why wouldn’t he? And when I think about tenure at it, some organizations, there’s still some organizations that have some pretty lengthy tenure of their employee. And if you’re gonna have people for 10 years, if it takes them three years to learn something, isn’t that beautiful? Last seven, like, like working on this? And what does it look like if I start building your empathy muscle while you work for me, when you go someplace else, you’re in a better position than when you came to me. And I would love for us to embrace that idea that this isn’t, this is not something that you’re going to see a drastic change overnight.

Maria Ross 37:50

Well, I love I had a past guest, Rhonda George Denniston. She’s the Chief Learning Officer at TBWA, worldwide. And she spoke about the fact that which and she started out as an executive assistant at that company. And what she loves about their investment in people is precisely that, like, we know, you’re probably not going to be here for your whole career. But it doesn’t mean we don’t invest in you. It doesn’t mean we don’t contribute to your professional development, because we want you to look back at this job and think this is, this is the best job I ever had. This is where I had the most impact. And they they’re realistic about the fact that they’re not necessarily going to have lifers there. But they’re not expecting instant transformation. And they’re not saying we’re not going to invest in you, because you’re going to leave in three years anyway, for the three years that they’re there. They want them to be at their best. And they want them to produce their best work, which just makes bottom line sense, right? So all these organizations that are in the rush to cut costs are cutting, whether it’s empathy training, or professional development or communication training. They’re doing themselves a longer term disservice. And I understand that difficult choices have to be made. But to think that that’s a nice to have and not a must have. just boggles my mind, because every day, your interactions with people are dictating whether the company makes money or loses money. Absolutely.

Dr. Nicole Price 39:15

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And when you as a marketing person, you know, it’s good for people to have had a good experience when they worked for you. It’s perfect for the brand.

Maria Ross 39:25

Mm hmm, absolutely. Okay, so this is awesome. This has been I could talk to you for another hour, but we’re running out of time. The book is called spark the heart engineering empathy in your organization. So any of my listeners who think they can’t embrace empathy or shouldn’t embrace empathy, I want you to pick up Dr. Nicole Price’s book, we will have all your links in the show notes. And I just want to thank you for your time today and your insights and for being in conversation with me. For folks that are listening while they’re working out. Where’s the one best place they can find out more

Dr. Nicole Price 39:57

about your work, Dr. Nicole price.com

Maria Ross 39:59

I’m easy enough. I love it. Thank you so much.

Dr. Nicole Price 40:02

It’s been a pleasure. I appreciate you. And

Maria Ross 40:04

thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard you know what to do, leave a rating or review and share it with a friend or a colleague. And until next time, 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.

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

Amy Koford: Hypnosis for Self-Awareness and Overcoming Trauma

We talk a lot about the importance of self-awareness and self-care in helping you be a more empathetic and effective leader. In fact, those are two of my five pillars in my book, The Empathy Dilemma because they are vital to being a more effective leader and human. You may think of the traditional modalities, but have you considered hypnosis?

Today, my guest is Amy Koford. We discuss how Amy got into this work, the power she’s discovered in how hypnosis works, why it transforms lives, and she busts some myths about hypnosis. Amy talks about how trauma can show up, how to take traumatic memories and replace the associated emotions, how people show up as work based on who they are and what they’ve been through, and how you can embrace forgiveness through empathy to rise above past trauma. She’ll share how you can show up as the leader and colleague you want to be.

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Everyone can be hypnotized, it may take different forms for some people, but it does not negate the potential benefits.
Insecurities are a bigger deal than many realize. Many successful people are extremely insecure and those insecurities push them to prove themselves to others and fill the void of the insecurities, but still be in turmoil inside.
A lack of empathy often causes many social misunderstandings and team dysfunctions, but the root of that is usually fear.

“People don’t want to grow up to be a jerk or to be an annoying person at the workplace. That’s just not what they really want to be…When we’re in the workplace, it’s important to understand that people are the way they are for reasons and very good reasons. And that helps you have empathy.”

— Amy Koford

Episode References:

The Empathy Edge episodes on trauma:

Katharine Manning: How Trauma Impacts Performance – And What Smart Leaders Can Do

Charna Cassell: Recognizing And Regulating Trauma At Work – Yours And Others

About Amy Koford, the Happy Hypnotist & author of Hardwired to Rise

Amy, The Happy Hypnotist has been a professional hypnotist, public speaker, hypnosis show performer and more for several years to transform the lives of numerous people. She’s the creator of The Trauma Protocol which takes individuals from traumatized to optimized in just weeks. Amy is the author of, Hardwired to Rise: Eye-Opening Truths about How Fear Holds You Back, Causes Suffering – and How to Liberate Yourself to Have the Thriving Life You Deserve.

She has traveled the world to attend hypnosis conferences and has been trained, mentored, certified, and taught mastery skills from the top hypnotists on the planet. Amy specializes in happiness and peace with various techniques that are effective in helping people resolve and let go of the past and change their center to become positive, confident, empowered individuals who know their amazing abilities to live their best lives.

Connect with Amy:

Amy the Happy Hypnotist: amykoford.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/amy-koford-012637184

Facebook: facebook.com/amythehappyhypnotist

Instagram: instagram.com/amythehappyhypnotist

Threads: threads.net/@amykoford

Book: Hardwired to Rise: Eye-Opening Truths about How Fear Holds You Back, Causes Suffering – and How to Liberate Yourself to Have the Thriving Life You Deserve

Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: red-slice.com

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Amy Koford 03:03

Thank you so much. It’s great to be here, Maria.

Maria Ross 03:06

So before we get into the nuts and bolts, let’s talk a little bit about how you got into this work. What is your story and what makes you so passionate about the work you’re doing? Helping people through hypnotism but also helping people overcome trauma and embrace empathy?

Amy Koford 03:21

Thank you so much. Yeah, my story is probably similar to many out there where I was frustrated with not getting results and seeking and seeking I’ve had, you know, illnesses. In the past I’ve had times where I was struggling emotionally, and the resources that I was turning to were simply not cutting it for me it just wasn’t working. So years ago, when I was struggling, I went to hypnotist as a client, and it worked for me. And so I turned around and certified. And then I continued to go to this hypnotist for a little bit of more deep work. And wow, I finally was able to learn how to love myself after a lifetime of not loving myself. So there’s I mean, there’s so much more that I could say about that about my story of why I turned to this. But what I realized is that people are like me, they want what works. And so they’re willing to try hypnotism as a way to work. I have many clients who have been gracious enough to post amazing reviews of what their experience was like. So when people are out there searching for something to help them feel better. Those reviews really help a lot. And

Maria Ross 04:31

what kinds of things are folks coming to you with? And do any of them relate back to the workplace and their work? Oh,

Amy Koford 04:38

yes, absolutely. Most people come to me for depression and anxiety. But with that comes a whole world of other issues right low confidence, low self esteem, and with that comes not as much productivity as they wish. And so yes, it definitely relates to the workplace. A lot of people that come to me or business as owners, or professionals and so yes, what we notice is that as they feel better about themselves, that confidence radiates out of them. And when they love themselves that radiates out of them, and it helps other people around them feel better about themselves too. So they get along better with coworkers, with family members with friends, it improves their productivity in the workplace, their confidence in the workplace. So yes, it absolutely relates to the workplace.

Maria Ross 05:30

And I love this because this is a modality we haven’t talked about on this show before, we’ve talked to psychologists and trauma counselors and folks like that, that are in the more, you know, quote, unquote, traditional realms. And so I’m curious, what you feel is unique about hypnotism for helping people with self awareness, which is, is one of the pillars of my new book that’s coming out in September, the empathy dilemma is that self awareness and self care are both two of the five pillars to help you be an effective empathetic leader, and not burn yourself out or lose your personal boundaries. And so a lot of what I talk about in the book is about taking care of your mind, body and spirit in whatever way that is suitable for you. And I give some suggestions. But what do you think about hypnotism that makes it so unique and so effective for people to engage in that kind of activity and reflection? Yeah, well,

Amy Koford 06:26

I appreciate that. And you’re right. I love what you’ve brought up. You’re absolutely right. Another thing that I’ve learned is that nothing helps us have empathy, the way that going through our own difficulties does. Wow, does that open our eyes, doesn’t it and our hearts to know how other people feel and what it’s like to go through something extremely difficult. So the thing that’s unique about hypnotism is, first of all, people need to understand that the subconscious part of the mind is far bigger than the conscious mind. And that that is the part of our mind where all of our memories are stored, and our emotions. So when someone is doing traditional therapy, they are trying to solve a subconscious problem with their conscious mind. And it’s a lot harder to do. And it takes a lot longer. So what I do with hypnotism is that we’re going into that subconscious part of their mind to solve the subconscious issues. Now, when someone has difficult experiences, that we need to resolve and work through the emotional part of it is what we’re really targeting. Because events are just events in life, right? It’s, it’s the feelings around that that are connected to the events that make it so traumatic and difficult. And again, emotions are in the subconscious. So we’re really working on helping them be okay with a number of ways in the subconscious, I can help their memories be dissociated. So in other words, they still remember them, but it feels like they’re distant, like they’re 1020 feet away. They can’t relive it anymore, the emotional way that they used to the traumatic way that it used to be. So it really works so tremendously well, because we’re fixing where the problems lie.

Maria Ross 08:18

I love that. And so what would you you know, like with this platform, what, what myths would you like to debunk about hypnotism?

Amy Koford 08:26

Yep, there’s a lot out there. There’s a lot of misunderstandings. And often, when someone comes for their first session, they’re a little nervous, because they’ve seen so many misrepresentations on TV shows and movies and so forth. So it’s actually very relaxing. And the myths are that I’m going to make them cluck like a chicken or bark like a dog something like, right, so I have to assure them no, that’s not why you’re here. Now I do hypnosis shows as an on that, yeah, I can get them to do funny things. But in hypnotherapy, it’s so different. And so I’ll also address other fears like maybe that they’re worried that they can get stuck in hypnosis and they won’t be able to come out of it. So I have to let them know that that’s not going to happen that it’s a very natural state of mind. Just like you wake up from when you’re sleeping, you’re going to wake up from this. Another fear is that some people think that they cannot be hypnotized. And so I’ve never had a single person ever that cannot be hypnotized. But some people take a little longer or a little bit different approaches than some there’s no right one way to be hypnotized or one way to feel so I have to individually work on that in my office.

Maria Ross 09:45

And is it a myth that you can’t remember what you’ve done while you’ve been hypnotized?

Amy Koford 09:50

Not no not entirely now. Okay. shows I do have some people that when they come out of it during the after the show, they don’t remember that they He got up and said swear words. It’s like that, yes, that has happened where they don’t remember. However, in hypnotherapy, they tend to remember quite a bit. And I do record their sessions and send them to the client, and have them listen to the session as they’re falling asleep every night. So that it’s really getting reinforced into their mind and helping them sleep better. So that way, if they don’t remember it, then they’re listening to it again and again and saying, oh, yeah, okay. I realize that Amy said that to me during the session. So let’s

Maria Ross 10:35

talk a little bit about a methodology you have called the trauma protocol. Because we’ve done previous episodes on this show about recognizing trauma, especially among colleagues or your teams in the workplace, and how you can be there for them and how you can properly respond. We’ve done some episodes about how you can process your own trauma, and I’ll put links in the show notes to all those past episodes. But you have something specific called the trauma protocol. Can you tell us what that is?

Amy Koford 11:02

Yes, absolutely. I’m really pleased with this trauma protocol. It’s specifically designed, it’s a program of mine, that is engineered to take someone through all the different ways of letting go of those difficult feelings connected to the past events and memories, and replacing all of that with extreme positivity. So every single session, there’s eight, every session has different ways of approaching their subconscious mind, to be able to let go of those very difficult emotions. And like I say, dissociation, and just a number of different ways. So that when they finish those sessions, wow, they are just feeling like a rock star like they are so incredibly transformed. So my little tagline with the trauma protocol is traumatized to optimized. And that is the goal, like when they’re done, they have been able to do a ton of just life changing, dramatic improvement. I love that.

Maria Ross 12:12

Because I just want to interject here because, you know, before we started recording, we were talking about the fact that a lot of this has to do with getting to know yourself, getting to process your own trauma, getting to understand your own emotional triggers, for example, but all because who we are and how we were raised, and what’s happened to us impacts how we show up in the workplace, how we show up as a leader, you know, so, so folks that think, well, why are we talking about this on a business podcast, we talk about these kinds of topics interchangeably on the show all the time, because you cannot park your humanity at the office door when you come to work every day. And so being able to not only understand for yourself to be a more effective colleague and leader, but to understand and recognize these things in people around you, that you’re working with, so that you can better support them and you can better collaborate is so important. And so I love that you know that this protocol, and I know you’re going to tell us more about it. But it’s this idea that these things that have happened in your personal life cannot really be compartmentalized as we’ve been taught, and not interfere or impact your work, your leadership, the way you show up the way you deliver the way you perform. So sort of that step is just even that’s like a game changer of being able to go from traumatized to optimized and what that means for your not just your life and your happiness, but your daily performance as well. Absolutely, yeah.

Amy Koford 13:45

If you have traumas in the past that have not been resolved, it will show up in various ways. It will. I know, you know, everyone wants to hide it stuff at a way never think about it or try to pretend like it doesn’t exist, but it will show up. And so one of the things that you and I were talking about that’s so important. You know, one of the steps of the trauma protocol is forgiveness. But the way that I help people forgive even the most drastic, awful things, is to understand that when that person was a kid, they didn’t aspire to hurt. That wasn’t their goal in life. You know, that wasn’t their aspirations, that they have to understand that, yes, we go through difficult things. And people don’t want to grow up to be a jerk or to be an annoying person at the workplace. That’s just not what they really want to be. But they have these struggles, these battles internally, that make it really hard sometimes for them to be the one that they want to be or they don’t even realize that they’re being not very nice, you know, it, it does show up and So, when we’re in the workplace, it’s important to understand that people are the way they are for reasons and very good reasons. And that helps you have empathy.

Maria Ross 15:11

I love that because, you know, I’ve written in the past about, we’ve talked a lot on the show about psychological safety. And I’ve written an article about what psychological abuse at work feels like. And, you know, now that I’m older and wiser, and have studied empathy and worked on myself, you know, this experience was decades ago, I have more compassion for that, that leader that was making my life miserable. And it’s Yeah, exactly. To your point. It’s, it’s removing yourself enough and your own emotions, enough from the situation to be able to say, what happened to this person. And this is what I the approach I try to take when I run into people who are being mean, or rude, or, you know, hating me on social media. It’s like, wow, who hurt you? Exactly, no. And so we’re what hurt you or how are you hurting yourself? I it is, I have to say forgiveness is hard. It is you have been through trauma, or you have been through psychological abuse. Taking a little bit of a turn here, what kinds of things can people do if they’ve been in a traumatic workplace or personal environment? To begin those steps of forgiveness? Yeah,

Amy Koford 16:28

well, it’s important that I just bring up something real quick that comes up in my book, I have a whole chapter about insecurities. And insecurities are a bigger deal than people realize a lot. You know, you were the reason I wanted to bring this up as you were talking about leaders. Interestingly, what I’ve learned in what I do, and in all my reading, and everything I’ve done, is that a lot of people that are very successful, are incredibly insecure. And those insecurities, push them and drive them to prove themselves. And so you know, they can end up being wildly successful, but still super conflicted and in turmoil inside. Because those very insecurities are what’s just pushing them to burn the candle at both ends. And to succeed, they absolutely, we must succeed in order to prove themselves to others, and to fill that void of the insecurities. Hmm, so true. Yeah. So yes, the steps to forgiveness, it is very hard to forgive when someone has hurt you deeply. And I get all kinds of clients who have had just atrocious things happen to them, you would be shocked. But the forgiveness is for the client. Okay, so it’s important that they start to understand that this is not for them, this is not letting them off the hook. This is for you to be at peace, and to have freedom. So the steps are that you have to first understand that number one, that person did not aspire to hurt you. Okay? They had a crappy childhood, or they had whatever it was right. Like they had difficulties, experiences, events, traumas that brought them to say what they said to you, and do what they did to you. Okay, so that’s super important to understand. And once the client starts to get that bigger picture perspective, that helps so much, because then they realize, you know, that’s true. This loved one or this person that I knew, or the stranger, they probably did have a lot of really difficult circumstances in their lives that caused them to do this, or say this. And so once I can get the client to do that, and this will help everyone, you’re on your way to being able to forgive. But the other thing is to just totally know, it is for you, right, forgiveness is for your peace, for your happiness and your ability to put the past behind you and move forward in a very empowering way.

Maria Ross 19:11

I love that. I love that. And you know, since you mentioned the book, let’s kind of round out the conversation and reminding people again, the book is called hardwired, hardwired to rise, eye opening truths about how fear holds you back causes suffering, and how to liberate yourself to have the thriving life you deserve. So tell us what your hope is for this book. What do you hope this book will do for people or that they take away from

Amy Koford 19:35

it? Thank you. Yeah, my big thing is that I have learned in the many 1000s of sessions that I’ve done over the years, that fear is the base of all negativity, okay, every issue that someone comes to me for is fear based. And that’s something that I realized, you know, throughout my sessions, depression, all of it, the insecurities and so what I’m trying to do is help bring awareness. Because I do get a lot of people. In fact, just yesterday I had a new client, who I asked her what would your life be like without fear? And she said, Oh, I don’t have fear. And so I went through some of the things that she had told me, I said, Well, you know, your, your rating your confidence very low, that’s fear, you are raising yourself low, very low, that’s fair piece you rated at zero out of zero to 10. So, it really I saw her sit there and start to get the light bulb turned on, oh, I’ve never thought of that as fear. So my book is creating awareness that even those people that are fearless, you know, I’ve had lots of clients who do rock climbing, and all kinds of, you know, skydiving, all kinds of really fearless kind of things, but they still struggle with fears that they did not realize. And, and so as we work through that, it is so eye opening to them. So almost alarming, and just really surprising to some clients who felt that like they were completely fearless to learn, no, sorry, you actually were having a ton of fear inside about other things that people would never know, right. And so it’s first of all, creating awareness about how fear is hurting us individually and the world. But every single chapter has exercises and techniques to let go of fear, plus a ton of other things. And as we go through the book, it’s all about letting it go. Overcoming it, and just breaking out of that prison of fear and shining and living your life to the fullest and reaching your full potential. So it really just is all about fear. And let’s just we deserve better than this. Yeah, absolutely. Not only individually, but as the world, you know, and I talk about what is fear doing to the world right now. And that’s going to be really eye opening to some people and saying like, as a world, we deserve better. We are hardwired to rise above fear, and to face challenges with courage not to let fear oppress us and stop us and limit us.

Maria Ross 22:16

Well, if you I mean, many social misunderstandings, many dysfunctions of teams, many of those issues. I you know, my stance has always been, they’re often caused by a lack of empathy, but there’s a lack of empathy because there is fear. So even the most aggressive bully, the fear is not being accepted, not being liked being seen as not worthy of their leadership position, being worried that they’re going to lose, you know, being fearful that they’ll lose control, all of those things. When you see behaviors like micromanagement, or aggressive behavior at work, a lot of that is completely fear based. And it makes sense, because underneath they might not admit that. But what it is, is it’s a fear of something, otherwise, you wouldn’t be acting that way. Yep. And one of the things

Amy Koford 23:05

I bring up in my book is really, the ultimate fear is our needs not being met. And we’re fulfilled. We all every day, every minute of our lives is spent filling our emotional, physical, spiritual mental needs. And so really, fears are all about our needs not being met. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, you’re right, exactly what you say is spot on. Well, I

Maria Ross 23:29

hope folks will check out the book and check out your work. And I thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. And again, the book is called hardwired to rise. And we’ll have all your links in the show notes. But where’s the best way for anyone that’s on the go right now listening to the podcast? Where’s the best way they can connect with you and find out more about your work?

Amy Koford 23:50

Okay, yeah, thanks. They can go to Amy cofer.com that has all my contact information, and you can just contact me directly through the website. And I have a free gift for everyone that visits my website on the top, you just click on the Download the free happiness and peace checklist. Now that’s 41 items that I have found really works. In my years of being a happiness and peace expert. I have narrowed it down into that list and put it all in there. And everyone that uses that list, it will work. Okay, I absolutely know that if you use that list, you are going to feel much happier and much more peaceful and I want that for all of you listening. I want you to feel better. I love that. I

Maria Ross 24:35

do too. And it’s Amy coleford que ORKOFORDKLNY Say o f o r d.com Thank you again, Amy. It’s been wonderful to connect with you. Oh,

Amy Koford 24:48

thank you, Maria. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Maria Ross 24:51

And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. rate review and share it with a friend or a colleague and until next time, please remember that cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources, book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

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

June Hot Take: How Clarity Makes You an Empathetic Leader

The book is coming! September 10 is the day that The Empathy Dilemma: How Successful Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries hits shelves to help leaders dedicated to people-centered practices to get the best performance possible and balance the demands of the business with the needs of their people.

I am so excited to share this with you! For the next 5 months, I’ll be devoting a Hot Take episode to one of the 5 core pillars of EFFECTIVE empathetic leaders, outlined in the book. Because the reality is that we want a more human-centered workplace culture. But we have to get actual work DONE! You can do both, but only when you are able to show up fully and have the capacity to take in other perspectives without fear, stress, or defensiveness. So today we’re diving into Pillar Three of the 5 Pillars – clarity.

Clarity is the key to being an empathetic leader while also still holding people accountable. Learn more about why this is such an important pillar to creating an empathetic – and high-performing – culture.

Today, I share are five strategies to try to be more clear. More details, examples, and tactics to try can be found in The Empathy Dilemma, so don’t forget to snag your presale copy now!

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Five strategies (though not a comprehensive list) include:
- Revisit Purpose and Values
- Clarify Roles and Expectations
- Link Clarity to Accountability
- Tell People Why
- Ask Better Questions
Lacking a reason why can create an empathy gap between leaders and the rest of the team. Even if they don’t like the reason, people want to know why they are being given tasks or goals.
Without clarity, there is no accountability. People cannot be appropriately held to standards that they know nothing about.

“Resentments build where misunderstandings thrive…Clarity helps people feel seen, heard, and valued, reduces the likelihood of conflict, and enables everyone to work together more effectively.”

— Maria Ross

Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: http://red-slice.com

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Hello everyone. Welcome to the June hot take. How clarity makes you an empathetic leader. I’m so excited to share the second pillar of my five pillars for effective empathetic leadership from the new book, and the book is coming. Don’t forget, September 10 is the day that the empathy dilemma, how successful leaders balance performance people and personal boundaries, hits shelves to help leaders like you, dedicated to people, centered practices, get the best performance possible and balance the demands of the business with the needs of your people. So I’m excited to share with you, as I mentioned, these months that we’re in, I’ll be devoting a hot take episode to one of the five core pillars of effective, empathetic leaders that are outlined in the book, and because the reality is that we all want a more human centered workplace culture. I have not spoken to a leader that would disagree with that statement. However, people struggle because we have to get actual work done, and you can do both, but only when you’re able to show up fully and have capacity to take in other perspectives, without fear, stress or defensiveness. So today we’re diving into pillar three of the five pillars, clarity. Now this is the hurdle that gets in many a leader’s way. They think they have to choose between empathy and high performance or compassion and ambition. They don’t think in terms of both and because it is both, and it’s not either or, and many leaders never realize that empathy is the catalyst when it’s actually being shown that leads to performance, engagement, innovation, results, loyalty, revenue, all the things right now, speaking of the new book, there’s a Special pre sale offer, you can purchase one to 99 copies of the book at porchlight, my amazing bulk distributor, and get 30% off until August 27 so stay through to the end, and I’ll tell you how to get discounted copies for your team. Get some swag, get invited to a special VIP launch event, and potentially have me crash your next meeting for an empathy discussion. As I’ve said before, what I loved about writing the book was interviewing so many leaders who are actually doing it, being authentic, empathetic, tuning into their people, while never losing focus on why they’re there and what they’re being tasked to do. As one of my interviewees shared in the book, their number one goal is to make the business successful that but that doesn’t mean that it has to be at the expense of showing empathy and humanity for their team. In fact, because they do show those things, their teams are loyal to a fault and would go through fire for them. But how? How can leaders balance performance, people and personal boundaries? You might ask, that’s where the five pillars of effective, empathetic leadership come in. These are common traits and behaviors that I see over and over again in the leaders I’ve interviewed, I’ve spoken to, I’ve advised in the research that I’ve done, and even among those who are truly empathetic leaders by everyone else’s estimation, but they don’t label themselves as such. So the five pillars are really a result of all that research, all those interviews, and I found them to be the common threads across all those who are empathetic and high performing. And that’s why I wrote the book. Is to help you as a leader and, quite frankly, even as a colleague, be able to firm up your foundation so that you can show empathy for other people, and you can be empathetic in those moments where it matters most. So clarity is the third of the five pillars in the book The Empathy dilemma, and let’s dig into it. Clarity is the key to being an empathetic leader while also still holding people accountable. And this important pillar is needs some definition, right? What do we mean by clarity? Clarity is ensuring everyone is on the exact same page through clear communication, expectations, feedback and other. Understanding of job roles, all of which roll up to an actionable mission statement and meaningful company values. So why is it important? Why is clarity important? Resentments build, where misunderstandings thrive. One of the biggest reasons leaders and workers butt heads is a lack of communication on mission roles and responsibilities, and I would also add unsaid rules and cultural norms right when people know what’s expected of them, including in emergencies and on an as needed basis, they’re less likely to become disgruntled or even feel entitled. Clarity helps people feel seen, heard and valued. It reduces the likelihood of conflict and it enables everyone to work together more effectively. Clarity is so underrated and woefully underused, sure, plenty of leaders talk a good game about its importance, but plenty more shy away from actually creating clarity when things get diplomatically dicey. So here are five strategies to try to be more clear. Now, of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are more details, examples and tactics to try in the empathy dilemma. So don’t forget to snag your presale copy now. So the first strategy is to revisit your purpose and values. Clarity on minutia won’t mean anything if your teams don’t have foundational clarity on the company’s purpose and values, and neither leaders nor employees will be able to act compassionately if the shared purpose and values are confusing or vague. Strategy number two, clarify roles and expectations. How many people review their job descriptions after they’ve been hired, the number probably approaches zero, except during annual review periods. Right? Given that, consider what you can do to ensure your team members understand and agree to their roles and responsibilities on a continuous basis, think beyond the job description to how you can clearly articulate the team’s rules of engagement. Have these discussions, document them and revisit them often, three link clarity to accountability. You can’t hold people accountable if they’re not clear on their expectations and goals. Otherwise, what are they being held accountable to? Everyone on your team should be able to say this sentence, I clearly understand my contribution. I clearly understand that I’m accountable for this piece of the puzzle, and I’m accountable for how I show up every day. Number four, tell people why leaders are busy and overwhelmed, which means they often convey what needs to be done, and then they omit the reason why, lacking a reason why people feel disrespected or kept in the dark, this amounts to an empathy gap and one that can be closed quickly and easily with clear explanations. They may not like the answer, but at least they understand why the ask is being made and why it’s important. And finally, ask better questions. So little known fact, clarity doesn’t come from having the right answer, it comes from asking the right questions. This can include knowing the right prompts when someone approaches you with a concern or a problem. So again, tip of the iceberg, right to better understand these deceptively simple strategies in detail and find tactics you can employ. Hear stories of people putting clarity into action. Please check out the empathy dilemma for stories from leaders and all those crucial tactics so you can put these things into place. These five pillars will transform how your team engages, performs, innovates and delivers for you and your customers. So again, you can enjoy special pre sale and launch bonuses. Just go to the empathy dilemma.com that’s the best place, because it links to everything. It links to the pre sale offers. It links to where you need to go to submit your receipt when you purchase pre sale, so you can get in on all the goodies. Because when you pre order, you will be able to be invited to a VIP virtual launch event. You will get some swag, TBD, and if you order 25 or more books during the pre sale or at launch, you can get a free 30 minute virtual author, Q A with me on your call for your team or your organization. So I can crash your event if you want more than 99 copies. There are bulk volume discounts available too. So again, you can go to the empathy dilemma.com and that will link you to all the places. So I hope you enjoyed today’s hot take. Next month, we’ll be digging into pillar number four, which is decisiveness, very important one. And until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. Mind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathyedge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice. Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

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

Michael Bach: What Exclusion is Costing Your Company

The research is clear: investing in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging contributes to your bottom line. I hate to be so crass about a topic that should just be something we care about as humans connecting with other humans, but with all the recent backlash about diversity and equity initiatives, we have to get executive attention somehow.

Today, you will hear about what’s driving that backlash and how we can fight against it through empathy and understanding. And why quite frankly, exclusion is bad for business.

My guest is the charming Michael Bach. Michael shares how he got into this work, the stereotype of DEI practitioners, how to think about disability, the more dangerous role of apathy in fighting back against exclusion, the difference between diversity and inclusion, and he gives us a short primer on the Alphabet Soup of LGBTQ2+ initialism.

To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

If you’re trying to create any change, you need to understand how the organization operates from the inside.
Disability is not one thing – there are hundreds of disabilities under the umbrella term. It needs to be considered as a range, not just one form of accessibility.
It is not a competition. If we’re creating safer environments for everyone, regardless of how they identify or what they need, it creates a safer more inclusive environment for everyone.
There is a big difference between having diversity and being inclusive. The company is the soil that needs to be right for the seed of talent to thrive.

“It’s very difficult to quantify, but if you just look at it simply you can figure out that exclusion is just bad for business. And the reality is that most employers have figured that out.”

— Michael Bach

About Michael Bach, CEO. IDEA Hub Consulting, IDEA thought leader

Michael Bach is an author, speaker and thought leader in inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA). He has worked globally in the IDEA field, including as the Deputy Chief Diversity Officer for KPMG International. He is the founder of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI), CCDI Consulting and Pride at Work Canada.

He is the author of the best-selling and award-winning books Birds of All Feathers: Doing Diversity and Inclusion Right and Alphabet Soup: The Essential Guide to LGBTQ2+ Inclusion at Work.

In 2023, he was named as one of the 10 Most Influential DE&I Leaders Revamping The Future by CIO Views Magazine.

Connect with Michael:

IDEA Hub Consulting: michaelbach.com

Books:

Birds of All Feathers: Doing Diversity and Inclusion Right

Alphabet Soup: The Essential Guide to LGBTQ2+ Inclusion at Work

New book: All About Yvie: Into the Oddity

X: twitter.com/themichaelbach

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/themichaelbach

Facebook: facebook.com/themichaelbach

Instagram: instagram.com/themichaelbach

Threads: threads.net/@themichaelbach

Join the community and discover what empathy can do for you: red-slice.com

Connect with Maria:

Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com

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

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

Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

X: @redslice

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Michael Bach 03:09

Thank you for having me. Maria Ross, it’s good to see you.

Maria Ross 03:13

It’s good to see you too. And we should mention as I do with my other fellow page, two authors that we are also page two fellow authors, we are working with the fabulous publishing team that’s there. So let’s talk a little bit about your work. We heard your bio and all your great credentials in the intro, but why don’t you tell us a little bit more of your story? And how you come to this work?

Michael Bach 03:37

Great question. So I’ve been doing this work for nearly 20 years professionally, long story, but opportunity came up for me in while I was working for KPMG in Canada. In the IT consulting practice, I ended up moving into a role in diversity there. Aaron was in that role for seven years, was also the Deputy Chief Diversity Officer for the company for a couple years and then also left and ran another organization for another 10 years. I have been doing what we now call diversity and inclusion work for my entire adult life. I was raised in a very sort of social justice be a good person type environment, taught to have a high level of empathy. And, you know, even when I came out as gay, that began my journey, like I started volunteering for different LGBTQ organizations. And so it was always something I did was always part of my life, whether it was it was the LGBT space, whether it was with women, people with disabilities, newcomers, it was always part of my life. It just wasn’t a job. No one was paying me for it. Yeah, it was some or at least not what I wanted to make. It was something you did as of volunteer, and then you sold your soul to the corporate evil. And that’s how it worked. And then all of a sudden, I had this opportunity to do the work I loved inside the corporation. And that was just this magical merging of things for me.

Maria Ross 05:15

Okay, I love that story. Because I think there’s a perception that just because you are part of the LGBTQ two plus community, that you’re going to be drawn to this kind of work. And so clearly your work before that was something else. What role do you see that played you getting into this as a full time job? And again, trying to make money from it, but also trying to do it as your calling as your vocation?

Michael Bach 05:44

Yeah, you are right, that is a bit of a myth that, you know, all members of any community, right, you could talk about women, you could talk about people of color, you could talk about anything, that they’re all drawn to doing this work in this space. And that’s, you know, ridiculous. It’s like saying that all straight white men not living with a disability want to be truck drivers. I mean, random stereotype. But yeah, that’s not the case. Obviously, it had always been something that I would have done, but there just wasn’t a job. And so I went into it. I graduated university and 1940 Something kidding, it was the early 90s. And it was the career right like this, and I had already done a college diploma and it and it was like a language I spoke. So it was a very natural career for me to be in. And it was good money. And right. So it wasn’t until this opportunity at KPMG. Were, all of a sudden, they were saying, Well, we’re gonna hire this role. And, you know, the company, you know, I knew the organization, I’d been there for a couple years, I knew who the players were, and how to get things done. And I think as as idea practitioners, that is far more important than Do you understand what like Muslim burial rights are, or reconciliation with indigenous people, you learn that stuff. But knowing who the CEO is, and how things happen in an organization is critically important. So I think it was I was in the right place at the right time, with the right skills,

Maria Ross 07:36

right. And that’s such an astute observation, because so much of it is about, yes, doing the work and being passionate about it. But if you’re trying to make any change and create any sort of transformation, you need to understand how an organization operates. And I think that’s why unfortunately, so many times that someone is brought in from the outside, with all good intentions, and all the right skills, if they don’t have those relationships within the company. If they don’t really know how things get done, they’re, they’re going to be very limited in their ability to have an impact. And I think that’s a really, really important point. And it’s interesting that you say this, because I started out in the Big Six consulting firms as well at Anderson Consulting, back when it was called Anderson, so I am dating myself as well. But we had made recipes. We had a change management group, I was in the Change Management Group, which was the people side of the work that you did, we would take what the IT developers and programmers were doing and make it understandable to users. But we had I remember this, this was 1994, we had a Diversity Committee. That was sort of an extracurricular if you wanted to join it, and I joined it, not really knowing I thought it was more about, you know, just cultural differences and understanding it wasn’t sort of the the scope that it is now. And we were able to do some things, we were able to bring some awareness and have some programs. But it was sort of this thing on the side, there was no one actually championing championing it I can ever say that word within the organization from a policy level from a hiring level from a values level. And so what how interesting to be in the line of work that you’re in and to see that evolution of wow, this wasn’t a thing before. And now it’s this big thing. Right? So that was originally

Michael Bach 09:27

90s. At least in my experience, those committees didn’t exist in every

Maria Ross 09:31

organization. No, no, it was very unique. Yeah,

Michael Bach 09:35

I worked in a big bank. And there was an I’m talking about a big global bank, there was nothing right there was no conversation about this. Right. And again, it was just that right time, right place right skills. And boy, am I lucky that the this KPMG took a chance on me I didn’t really know what I was doing. Like truth be told, I got the job and went, Oh, heck, how do I do this? What do I do? Right? And I just happened to be somebody who’s, you know, got a lot of gumption and I just picked up the phone and called other people who were in these roles at different organizations who were in the same situation. They already just because a lot of them, yeah, oh, no, there were probably at the time. So 2006, there were probably 50 people in Canada, with diversity in their title 50 out of 35 million people. And in the States, it was a little more, or it was a little more mature of the profession, largely because of things like affirmative action. And the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Kennedy was a little late to the party on this one. But I just call people and said, How do we do it? What do I do and got a lot of advice, and those people are still my friends to this day. But if to your point, had I been on the outside of the organization coming in blind into a brand new role? I would have failed. Guaranteed failure? Because I didn’t know I wouldn’t have known how things happened in a big fork accounting and consulting firm. And that information was critical to my success.

Maria Ross 11:20

I love it. Okay, so let’s talk about this because you talk about your work not as Dei, an idea, i e, AE. Can you tell us what that means? And then I have a follow on question about why is it under attack right now.

Michael Bach 11:40

So, I use the acronym idea. Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and accessibility. And there are lots of different versions of this initialism or acronym you’ll hear EDI di idea, sometimes you’ll hear like, dei A, which is the same as idea but it’s mixed order. D ay b. Sometimes they’ll throw a j in there. They all essentially the same thing. A justice. Oh, okay. Okay, B is for belonging. That’s yeah, I should also so belonging EIB before.

Maria Ross 12:16

Yes, yep. And

Michael Bach 12:19

they all essentially mean the same thing. They all essentially are the same point. We’re trying to make inclusive, equitable, accessible workplaces, so that everyone can succeed. Everyone. In order to acknowledge that that is a requirement, you have to acknowledge that there are some people in society that don’t have the same opportunities as others, that bias exists, that discrimination occurs. Things like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti semitism, pick your, your terminology, that all of them exist, and those things hold people back. So to your follow up question. And I will say, I use I use idea because as a person who lives with a disability, it’s really important for me that the A is in there, because I find that people with disabilities notoriously get left off. They just don’t find their way to being included. They’re a secondary citizen in the inclusion conversation. And

Maria Ross 13:28

I feel like that’s the next frontier. I feel like I’m hearing more and more of the groundswell around that. I don’t know if you are, but I feel like that do need to come to the forefront with even just from a very practical level, people looking at websites and saying, you know, is it accessibility approved? Is it you know, is this accessible to all people? Are we using alt tags? Are we using all these things? Those were things people weren’t even talking about five years ago?

Michael Bach 13:52

I do. Yeah, I agree. And a lot of that is being driven by, frankly, a lot of really big names coming out and talking about being neurodivergent or living with depression or anxiety. And so the celebrity status piece is kind of attached to that. The question is, when the noise from Instagram dies down about that, will we still be talking about accessibility? You know, we live in a highly inaccessible world. And you have to think about disability as not one thing, but a combination of things because of course, there isn’t one disability. There are hundreds of different disabilities that are included in this umbrella term disability. To come to your follow up question, why is it under attack? So I believe that there is a small minority of people who are feeling empowered, thanks to a former president whose name shall not be used, who have been pushed into a corner they don’t feel included. eluded, they’re scared, they hear the data that says that white people are on the decline. And that’s true white people are in decline in terms of the population, because of other ethnic groups, racial and ethnic groups that are growing, whether they’re Latinx, Hispanic, Black, Asian, you name it, we are on the decline, we are not making enough babies to keep up. So they feel threatened. And it’s that combination of being threatened, which they that’s not new, add into it change, which, generally speaking, people are uncomfortable with and don’t enjoy change. And then that empowerment piece where they feel like it’s okay for them, to apply their belief system to a society. And when I say a small minority, I’m talking about maybe 20 to 25% of the population share beliefs, that would be considered exclusionary, they believe that their identity, be it as a man, be it as a cisgender, person, white, able bodied, whatever the case, English speaking, American Canadian, that they are entitled to something and that other people are less than that if you are a member of the LGBTQ plus communities, if you are a person with a disability, if you are an immigrant, that you somehow are less of a human being than they are. And it’s a combination of those things mixed in with a very individualistic me against the world, everyone for themselves. attitude and the lack of empathy. Where they don’t think they don’t see human beings on the other end of this conversation. They see sub human beings, and so they’re not empathetic. They’re very selfish. And I think it’s a, it’s a combination of all of these pieces. And, you know, when I say 20 to 25%, I’m looking at all of the research that shows us that, you know, 70, some odd from companies like Gallup and big research company, something like 75% of Americans support LGBTQ inclusion. So that’s a majority. It’s not a minority, right.

Maria Ross 17:38

But they’re just really loud. They’re

Michael Bach 17:41

really loud, and they’re really getting

Maria Ross 17:43

the airtime they’re getting the media attention. It’s It’s shocking. So it’s clickbait. It’s all the things but what I find so interesting, to be kind with with that word choice, is just the impact of, you know, like the book bands going on. And the like, we’re not going to talk about black history as it happened in our schools, we’re going to get rid of affirmative action, the proactive dismantling of the information, thinking that it’s going to somehow influence or taint someone into a behavior or a life choice that they actually don’t subscribe to. Case in point. The whole thing about the book bands, and taking out books, especially around stories, involving LGBTQ to a, I’m looking down at my notes plus, folks, this this whole thing of getting them out of schools, because they’re inappropriate, is not because they’re inappropriate. It’s because there’s a fear that it’s going to turn my kid gay, or turn my kid trans. We were listening to an NPR story in the car. This was about two years ago with my son, so he was about seven. And he was asking what was going on? And I said, Well, there’s certain places that are banning these books. And he had been exposed to books around transgender kids, I found book children’s books, a great way to open the conversation without it being so loaded with him. So it would just normalize it like, oh, we could refer back to that book reread, and that protagonist we read about. And he said, why would someone think that reading a book about a gay person would turn them gay? Seven years old? And I said, Exactly honey, I go, you read a book about a trans child, Are you trans? And he goes, No, I like being a boy. I’m like groovy. You do you like this is a conversation with a seven year old who can grasp this? Yeah. And it’s it’s this fear that it’s going to turn someone into someone they’re not that I just, I’m trying to be empathetic and understand, but I don’t think it’s grounded in reason.

Michael Bach 19:55

I agree. It’s not grounded in reason. And listen, I was raised by straight parents. I did not have any LGBTQ plus siblings, relatives, I did not see any books. You know, I’m a child of the 70s and 80s, there was nothing, I still turned out to be gay. So that logic doesn’t work at all. No, or the one that kills me is drag queen storytime and how they’re, they’re influencing children and grooming children. Because there’s nothing that says to a child. Here is a middle aged man, heavyset Harry in a dress, sweating his tits off, that you think, oh, that’s what I aspire to? Are you kidding me? Nothing about it. Oh, my gosh, I drag queen to a child is a very feminine clown. It’s just nothing different. It is fun. ETF? You know, the other piece of the puzzle that really confuses me is the willingness to ignore all of the data that says that, you know, when you look at people who are convicted pedophiles, the vast majority I’m talking 90 plus percent identify as heterosexual. So even though they are sometimes, you know, having sex or committing pedophilia, with children of the same sex, they don’t identify as homosexual. Well, so let’s target the drag queen. Yeah, because that makes sense. Right? It is confusing. It lacks empathy. And I think we have to introduce another word into this conversation. And that’s apathy. Hmm. Because these vast majority of people who say that they say, whether it’s LGBT inclusion, whether it’s a woman’s right to choose, whether it’s inclusion, they’re sitting on the sidelines, saying, Oh, it doesn’t impact me. Right? Doesn’t I don’t I don’t, you know, I don’t need to deal with this. So when the Marjorie Taylor greens, or the Ron DeSantis ‘s of the world are oppressing people, they’re not doing anything. Right. And I think this is where the pendulum of reason has swung way too far to one side. And we have allowed the, the this small minority of people to take over the narrative, and we as a society need to push back. And I think the example I would use to say, to show how that works is Kansas. Stay with me for a second, the Republican Congress or state legislature in Kansas was thinking they were so smart, and they were going to entrench it into their constitution that abortion was a should be banned, and it’s illegal. And it over whelmingly failed, and is now required, they have to entrench it in the Constitution, because they put it to a referendum. And their laws state that they have to do that. So the vast majority of people in that instance came out and said, Hold on a second, no, my body my choice. And that’s what needs to happen is the vast majority has to stand up to the Ronda Sana, I call the governor Rhonda Rhonda Santas because I think that’s just funny. Like, that’d be a great drag name, Rhonda Santas that Rhonda needs to have a little awakening where the vast majority of Floridians because we know he’s not making the he’s not winning this one, stand up and say, yeah, not okay. You’ve gone too far. You’re oppressing people. We’re taking things back. And I think that, you know, not to get political, but I think the Republican Party is going to end up being pushed into the abyss by this very far right, social conservative voice, where they’ve just they’ve lost the narrative. Yeah, really? Well, I think on a tangent,

Maria Ross 24:16

no, it’s all good, because it’s all related and it and it impacts workplace policies and and the progress that we have made on inclusion. And you know, people are already saying the data around the Supreme Court’s decision around affirmative action. They’re saying, here’s what’s going to happen. And it’s not good. It’s not good for organizations. You know, I know a lot of your work is talking about what is what is the cost of exclusion, and what is the upside of inclusion? And again, there’s so much data there. So can you share a little bit with us about, you know, what are companies losing when they don’t embrace inclusion when they don’t embrace policies that can Help them diversify their workforce and make their workforce more accessible to more people, what are they losing? From that stance? Yeah.

Michael Bach 25:10

And it’s a lot. And I, you know, I come from a technical background, a data background. And I do a present number of keynotes. But one of them is on the business case, for LGBTQ inclusion, the cost of the club, and I use that as one example of how employers are losing money. And I have a whole set of data that I put up and I, essentially, if a person’s in a closet, they’re wasting 15 minutes of their day, doing something that isn’t their job, explaining about their sexual orientation, or their gender, or hiding it, whatever, 15 minutes a day, that’s 65 hours a year of wasted time for something they’re not getting paid for. And then I add in the average salary, etc. And I have calculated that in Canada, the United States, just on the LGBTQ file alone, we’re wasting over a trillion dollars a year in salary for people doing something that isn’t their job. That doesn’t take into consideration, higher levels of voluntary turnover, lower levels of engagement, productivity, innovation, safety, incidents, absenteeism, presenteeism, all of the costs, that are impacting both top and bottom line. In organizations, you add in all of the groups, I put in air quotes that are included under the diversity, umbrella women, people of color, people with disabilities, indigenous people, or Native Americans, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians, people within the LGBTQ community, newcomers etc. We’re talking trillions and trillions of dollars, that employers are wasting, because they’re not creating inclusive and equitable environment. It is a and I, you know, I am throwing out a really big number. And it’s, it’s very difficult to quantify. But if you just look at it, simply you can figure out that exclusion is just bad for business. And the reality is that most employers have figured that out. And the Supreme Court can do what it likes. But they’re going to figure out ways to make sure that they are tapping into the widest possible talent pool. And that those people are engaged, that they feel like they can be themselves in those organizations that they’re going to give their all to wherever they’re working. And the CEOs and executive directors and whatnot of the world are saying, Yeah, I you, okay, we affirmative action, which, frankly, is been a disaster since it was brought out fine, that’s not allowed. But I can still ask my people how they identify, and I can track the data, and I can make sure that I’m that I’m representative of the communities that I serve, and I’m not missing out on a talent pool. That’s gonna happen. Yeah,

Maria Ross 28:19

that’s chickens still diversify their hiring, they can still put their own corporate policies in place and have their own corporate values they they are adhering to, and they can create a safe haven, but they can create a safe haven that actually benefits them financially. Absolutely. And I have no trouble. I know, you don’t either. Talking about both of those things. Simultaneously, I got some criticism of my TEDx talk, talking about tricking leaders into being more empathetic by showing them what’s in it for them. But if that’s how we make change, and how we make the world better, fine, if that’s what’s going to help somebody see things differently, and gets them to the table that gets them in the room to have the conversation, and then be changed by that and say, Wow, I didn’t realize what I was missing out on. They can’t unsee it. You don’t you don’t learn how to be empathetic, you don’t learn how to be inclusive, and then not be that way anymore. You’re sort of transformed from the outside in is what I always say. And so this is why I’m so drawn to your work. And I feel like I have a compatriot here in this idea of Yes, unfortunately, I know that, for me, it’s empathy for you. It’s inclusion is supposed to be something like this moral imperative. We don’t want to taint it by talking about business that’s not working. So it’s never worked and make it work. Yeah, we’ve got it we’ve got to meet we’ve got to meet people where they are. We’ve got to be empathetic about it and say what’s going to impact you to change as

Michael Bach 29:50

human beings we are innately selfish. We are going to do things that are in our own best interest. It’s very, very difficult, and you have to be a very evolved person to operate from a place that isn’t self involved. So, I always say to people, I don’t care how I get the horse to the water, but I’m gonna make the damn thing drink. And if if that’s focusing on the business imperative, great. The social justice imperative hasn’t worked. We’ve been at it for 5060 years, and it has not worked. And I think the difference being is it? Are we talking about the infamous corporate social responsibility? Or what’s now called ESG environments as environment, social and governance? Or are we talking about business imperative? Are we talking about what’s good for our top and bottom line? We are in the people business, you got to have people and, you know, all of the science shows us that we have to have engaged people back so that we can have productive people and safe people and, and if the CEOs of the world are looking at this from a selfish perspective, to say, this is how I can make my company make more money, okay? Because we as a society win, right? And all those people when

Maria Ross 31:17

you get, they get to work in a psychologically safe, inclusive, welcoming environment where they can do their best work, they can innovate, they can be creative, they can solve problems, they can have successes, and yeah, yeah, we all win, we all win. And it doesn’t have to be the moral imperative. No, and it also the other thing, too, is none of this says that we have to punish straight white people. In order to make this happen. I feel like that’s always the fear of they’re going to be impacted negatively, somehow by this. And it’s the rising tide lifts all ships, right, it’s going to create a better workplace for you, for you to shine and you to bring your best work. And this, you know, imaginary scenario that people always have about, like, it’s going to come down to me, and a gay person for the job, or me and a black person for the job, and they’re gonna win out just because it’s never that black and white. It’s never that it’s, I don’t know, it’s just, it’s not that binary. Exactly. When

Michael Bach 32:20

you look at job interviews, promotions, it’s always a competition. Yeah, someone wins, someone loses. It should always be about the skill. But we have to accept that bias exists, that people make decisions, not based just on who is the best candidate who has exactly the skills that you’re looking for. And there is usually something that pushes someone over the top. So if an organization does, let’s say, you’re hiring a VP of sales, and if if that organization has decided that they want to diversify their customer base, and maybe attract more customers from the Latin X Hispanic communities, then wouldn’t it make sense to hire a VP of sales? Who understands the Latin X Hispanic community? So yes, the VP of Sales should be a person from that background. I had a conversation once with a company, one of my clients got big, big insurance company, and their head of operations in Asia, was a white person who had never lived in Asia, and they wanted to focus on that market. And my if somebody they parachuted in, they didn’t speak the language, they didn’t understand the market. Yeah, you got the wrong person for the job. No disrespect to that person. But you have to, you know, you have to understand the market. This was a bad business decision. And, yes, it was a white man, who was the wrong person for the job. But it could have just as easily been a black woman who was the wrong person for the job, you cannot give someone a job because of the color of their skin or their gender, that is absolutely the wrong decision. That is a bad business decision. You have to choose the right person, but you have to accept that there are some realities that we have to work within. And that if if my goal is to attract more people of color into the job, I’m an ultra I’m gonna focus on people of color.

Maria Ross 34:34

So what do you say to clients you work with? Or audiences that say we want to do that, but those are not the people applying to our jobs? What do you say to that? Because I hear that a lot. It’s like, I don’t know where to find those qualified people. What’s your answer to that?

Michael Bach 34:50

Well, first of all, they’re not hiding. It’s, they’re not no down on an island somewhere being like, oh, no, they can’t see us every year. They want the opportunity. The question Should I ask is why aren’t they applying? So one of a couple things is, is happening. One, they don’t see your organization as a potential employer, keeping in mind that we’re all competing with one another as employers, and there’s the shiny objects of companies like Google and meta and not Twitter anymore. But you know, big organizations that are competing, you’re competing against, and everyone wants to work for those big brands, because they think it’s actually going to be a better job. It’s not. So people are not seeing you as an employer, or people are not seeing themselves within your organization. So they’re opting out of applying to jobs in your organization, because they don’t think that they can be successful. Whether that’s because you don’t have anything on your website about your work and diversity and inclusion, or all of the pictures look like me, a very, very, very handsome, very white man. Emphasis on on handsome, you know, they’re opting out, you have to actively go out and change the perspective, you have to make sure that your website is reflective of the people that you want to hire, not the people who work for you, you have to make sure that you have a focus on diversity and inclusion, that you’re making your environment inclusive. Can I interrupt

Maria Ross 36:22

you right there, because I think that’s another big missing piece is just bringing underrepresented and diverse populations into your organization does not mean the work is done. Because if they get there and they feel highly uncomfortable, they’re going to leave. So what are you doing within the within the structure of the organization and the values of the organization where they continue to feel welcome?

Michael Bach 36:46

There’s a big difference between having diversity and being inclusive. And I use the analogy of a, a garden, when you plant a seed, and the seed doesn’t grow? Is it the seeds fault? Or is it the soils fault? It’s the soil. The seed is the seed, it’s nothing does it grows, it doesn’t grow. But it it it is based off more often than not on the impact of the soil. In this analogy, the seed is the diversity and the inclusion or the the soil is the inclusion. And if the work environment is inclusive, then people won’t stay. I was wearing one client was very proud of this talent attraction program, they had to bring in people of color, because it was a very wide organization. And we looked at their voluntary turnover rate. And they had twice as many people of color going out the back door as they did coming in the front door. So we stopped the program, we focused on the inclusion and their volunteer Terry turnover rate went down. So they could start again, focusing on not just focusing on exclusively hiring people of color, but making sure that they’re hiring a diversity that is reflective of the community that they serve, and the talent population. You know, it is a lot of work. But doing nothing gets nothing like getting a gym membership and not going I promise you nothing’s going to change. I speak from experience. Wish we have to put in the effort. You know, the the ship has left the station. You can try you can ban books, go for it. It’s not going to change anything. You can try to oppress people. As a society, we have a long history of that, look where it’s gotten. I love it.

Maria Ross 38:32

So we’re running short on time. And I know really quickly, what I did want you to share was a couple of highlights because you talk about this in your book, alphabet soup, The Essential Guide to LGBTQ two plus inclusion at work. But let’s give people a little amused Bush, can you help break down some of the definitions for us? When we’re talking about transgender when we’re talking about gay when we’re talking about queer when we’re talking about non binary? Just can you give us a brief rolling glossary here and then I’m going to invite people to check out the book for more to dig deeper into this.

Michael Bach 39:06

Sure. So the first thing that people need to understand is that we use initialisms like LGBTQ two plus or any of them and they’re all fine. Everyone needs to relax them which initialism is the right one. But when we say LGBTQ two plus, we’re talking about two or three distinct things and I’ll correct I’ll explain that. We’re talking about sexuality or sexual orientation, that’s the L, the G and the B. Those are exclusively about sexual orientation. We are talking about gender, which is the T for transgender or trans identified or just trans. That is an umbrella term that covers a lot of different identities. Transgender is a very specific thing, whereas trans or trans identified is an umbrella term that covers all four forms of gender. Diversity. And then we’ve got a Q and A two. Now some people are probably thinking what’s the to stand for it stands for to spirit, which is a term used by some North American indigenous people, First Nations people who are also part of the LG BTQ. community. So the two in the queue can be either a sexual orientation, or gender identity. Now, I mentioned that there’s a third and that sometimes you’ll hear the AI, which stands for intersex, which is a person born with some combination of both male and female reproductive equipment. That’s a terrible word, but you know what I’m saying. And the AI is a sex assignment, not a gender. So we can be talking about sexual orientation, gender, and sex assigned at birth, you can be a combination of those letters. So you can be gay and trans. You can be non binary and a lesbian. You can be intersex and straight. It’s a combination of things. We are not talking about a single community, we are talking about a community of communities. And that’s why I in the book, I refer to it as the LGBTQ plus communities, because it’s a whole bunch of different identities that are stuck together under one Initialism. And it is I honestly do feel like we did a bit of a dirty to people who are not part of the community because we stuck all the letters together and said he figure it out. And we didn’t do our job and explain it to the broader population. And I think we do. You know, I think part of my work now is trying to correct some of that. I

Maria Ross 41:42

love that. I love that. Well, we’re gonna have links to all your books and to all your work to to but I do want to take a left turn and talk about your new book that’s coming out June 19. It’s kind of related but not really about tell us about that book. It

Michael Bach 42:02

is a it’s kind of related is the best way to put it. It is called all about Evie into the oddity. And if you are fans of the show, Ru Paul’s drag race. This is the biography of Evie. Oddly, winner of season 11 of RuPaul drag race. And I’ve had the distinct pleasure of working on this book with Evie. And I’m very excited about it. It’s it’s a total change for me writing wise, because it’s the biography, right? It’s not a business book. And it was a big shift in my writing style and the war and how to pull it together. But it was such a treat. And I am so proud of this book, because I really do think my goal was to create kind of a love letter to the fans, and give them the opportunity to get to know evey in a much deeper way. And I feel like we achieved that.

Maria Ross 42:54

Let’s see, this is how it’s connected. Because when we humanize when we tell stories, and we don’t just refer to these groups as these blanket groups that are inhuman to us, and create these legislations and these policies that impact real people’s lives, books like that. I’m a huge proponent of building your empathy through documentaries, films, music, art, biographies, autobiographies, if you don’t understand this group, read a book like this. Yeah, read their story, get to know them get to that point of empathy, where you might not still quote unquote, agree with that lifestyle. And you know, frankly, those people don’t care. But you can at least get insight for yourself and educate yourself on what this is all about, and how these folks are just like us, and they live like us. And we’re all human beings. And we all just have different stories. So it actually is very related to your work because you shining a light on this one person, yes, a celebrity, but still shining a light into the life and the story of this one person that others might not have that same experience in life. That’s how we build that empathy muscle.

Michael Bach 44:05

I absolutely agree. And it it it definitely is connected it what is about that empathy piece. And you know, we’ve you and I’ve talked about this that it’s so critical to the work in idea. And I really wanted people to understand because Evie was very controversial winner and I really wanted people to understand Evie better as a human being beyond what was shown on television. And it is, I think, a beautiful book so you can pick it up and learn a little more about EB oddly. Yay.

Maria Ross 44:42

And we’ll have a link to that as well in the show notes. But as we wrap up, Michael, you know, again, we’ll have all your links but for folks on the go or who might be on their peloton right now as they’re listening to us. Where’s the best place they can find out more about you?

Michael Bach 44:55

You can go to my website at Michael bach.com Or on the social medias. I am the Michael Bach, the

Maria Ross 45:01

Michael Bach. I love it. Oh

Michael Bach 45:03

my God, the One and Only

Maria Ross 45:04

thanks for your insights. It’s always so wonderful to talk to you. I’m so glad we connected and we were able to do this. Thank you so much for including me. And thank you so much for listening to another episode of the empathy edge. If you like what you heard you know what to do. leave a rating and a review and share this episode with a friend or a colleague. And until next time, remember that cashflow? Creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.

Archives: Podcast Episodes

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

Safaa Charafi: Spatial Justice and Building Inclusive Cities

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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

Jim Wharton: How Fostering Empathy with Animals Encourages Conservation

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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

Tim Leon: The Return on Empathy for Brands and Marketers

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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

Barbara Huelat: Empathy for Dementia Caregivers and Effective Interventions

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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

July Hot Take: How Thoughtful Decisiveness Shows Your Team Empathy

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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

Esther Goldenberg: Imagining Deborah’s Untold Story with Empathy

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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

Dr. Nicole Price: From Engineer to Empathy Revolutionary

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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

Amy Koford: Hypnosis for Self-Awareness and Overcoming Trauma

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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

June Hot Take: How Clarity Makes You an Empathetic Leader

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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

Michael Bach: What Exclusion is Costing Your Company

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Brand Breakthrough Story Course