Podcast Episodes Archive - Page 9 of 36 - Red Slice | Speaker, Author, Leadership Trainer

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

Shilpa Alva: Non-Profit Leadership Lessons to Drive For-Profit Success

How can we balance performance and purpose to sustain growth? Well, look no further than a successful non-profit for the answer to that! And while your organization may sell anything from software to shoes to services, you can indeed leverage a clear, co-created purpose to ignite performance. And you can embrace empathy for employees or customers who are nothing like you in order to do it.

Today, Shilpa Alva shares the powerful childhood experiences that led her to this work, with a stopover in corporate America, where the skills she learned now serve her very well in the non-profit world. We discuss what her shift from corporate culture to the non-profit world was like, and how she balances mission with results, like 70% growth! She talks about values versus process and why values light the fire, so your people will achieve results. Shilpa shares how they co-create solutions with local partners, gathering input from everyone to get the most impactful ideas, and offers a great model for clearly communicating back those final decisions to increase buy-in.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

We are all part of a shared humanity and are way more alike than different. Exposure to different perspectives can help build your empathy muscle.
Partner with the community, don’t just assume you know what is best for the community.
The organization and structure that got you to where you are today is not going to be the same one that gets you to your wildest, most audacious goals.
Bring all stakeholders in your ecosystem together in the vision to make your goals a reality.

“You keep your values and your foundation strong so that it doesn’t shift. But then you use those values to guide you in achieving your goals.” — Shilpa Alva

Episode References:

Joy McBrien of Fair Anita
The Empathy Edge podcast: Heather Hiscox: The Surprising Empathy Gap in Social Impact That Hinders Change

About Shilpa Alva, Founder & Executive Director, Surge for Water

Shilpa Alva is the founder and Executive Director of Surge for Water, a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing the cycle of poverty through access to safe water and sanitation solutions. Since its founding 15 years ago, Surge has impacted hundreds of thousands of people in 12 countries. Shilpa’s journey didn’t start in the International Nonprofit world. After graduating from Johns Hopkins University with a Chemical Engineering degree, she joined the corporate world and earned her MBA from the Carlson School at the University of Minnesota. After a successful corporate career in Supply Chain Management, she made the bold choice to follow her purpose and live fully in alignment with it. She went from running the organization on nights and weekends to going all the way in!

Connect with Shilpa Alva

Surge for Water: surgeforwater.org

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shilpa-alva-858b841

Connect with Maria:

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

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

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

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Shilpa Alva 03:23

So Maria, the story for me starts all the way when I was like seven years old, and I grew up in Dubai, and for daycare, my parents would send me and my sister to India to basically be with extended family for the summer. So not everyday daycare, but the summer breaks, and from a very young age, like as early as seven years old, I remember recognizing injustices, like seeing poverty around me, seeing children my age without the clothes I had, or, you know, begging on the streets, and just a lot of like, vivid images of how that was different from the life that I was leading and we were middle class, but still it was quite a big difference. And at that very young age, I recognized that there was a need in the world and that I was privileged. However, a seven year old can process that right, that there was that difference. So fast forward, right? I just continue to be a child and do the things that child does. Fast Forward, when I was at university, going age, I moved to the United States, went to University in Baltimore, and during that time, while I was in university, that seven year old child kept coming back up into like, hey, like, you need to do more for people. And I was always drawn to, I’d say, international development work because of my childhood experiences, spending every summer in India growing up. And it was in my junior year that I decided to do what a lot of college kids, I think, do, and especially back then, was volunteer for like, a summer in a very tiny village, Rajgir in India. And it was on that trip where I was there thinking I was. Were going to be teaching like English and math and science, which I did, it was like a scholarship from my university. It was STEM related, and English was the bonus thing thrown in. And while I was there, I recognized very early on that my students wouldn’t show up to class, almost always related to a water situation. They were either sick from a water related illness, or it was a farming community. So we had situations where, if it was their farm stone, a family stone, to get water from these tankers that the government would bring around, everyone would stay home in that village to help with whatever duties were related to that water supply. And while I thought at that time that I was, like, passionate about education, which I still am. I care deeply about the right to education. I recognized that that was not possible if you had basic needs unmet, such as water and sanitation. So that’s sort of like the spark started when I was seven, and grew a little bit bolder when I was in my, you know, sort of college years, and then I continued to continue life the way, you know, a college kid does. I came back, I graduated, I went into the corporate world, which I know we’re gonna possibly talk about a bit more later, but that was the original, like starting of search. Search didn’t start until, you know, years later after that, when I finally was able to put this like Spark into reality. But for me, it was always about this childhood, like realization and like listening to that at different stages in my life, and for it to keep

Maria Ross 06:30

coming back. So you built up your skill sets. You built up your talents in corporate world, and then it sounds like you took those talents now to create something sustainable and sort of an infrastructure around being able to solve these problems. How did that happen? Was it something you were doing on the side as you were still working in corporate, and then you decided to go all in, like, how did the shift happen? And then in a little bit, I want to talk to you about the stark differences between those worlds. Yeah,

Shilpa Alva 06:59

yeah. You know, in retrospect, when I look at it, it’s like the perfect formula. I have an engineering background, by the way, it’s, I can’t help doing these balances. But, you know, I saw a need, I was privileged, and now I’m building the skills and the network, and you put it all together, and you have this recipe to start something right? It just depends on what it is. I thought I was ignoring this child and this fire within me, well, it was still a flame, then a little bit of spark even. But in retrospect, like in hindsight, it really was the path I needed to be on, because I needed to build that network. I needed to build those skills, even the engineering background, the business skills. I was managing a global supply chain. So like the working with international governments and, you know, just different cultures. So all of those spaces came together. I’d say that the final transition happened when I could no longer ignore what I like to just call, like, my calling, right? Like the purpose. When you’re in tune to that and it’s starts getting louder, there are ways to silence it, but you’re not living in peace with yourself, right? If you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do. And I just say that that got louder Now, having said that, I definitely try to silence it. I definitely try to do it in different ways. So when I first started surge for six years, I ran it nights and weekends. I was too afraid to go into it full time. I mean, I just started something. I didn’t know what was going to be. And I also want you to know that was going to be something I wanted to do full time, right? I was just a volunteer hobby sort of thing. It turned into something else. But, yeah, while I was doing that simultaneously, what happened was, as I spend more time the communities that we work in, my passion just started getting bolder, right? That flame started to become a full on fire within me. And while I was good at my corporate job and actually quite passionate about that too, at some stage, it was reducing, right? And I just knew that the energies weren’t aligned, and couldn’t do both because of, like, the differences in how I felt within each space, and I just wasn’t showing off, like, fully. And I had to make that decision eventually. Yeah.

Maria Ross 09:12

I mean, it’s so interesting to me, you know, you talk about not realizing that even when you sort of thought you were ignoring the flame, you weren’t, because you were actually building the skills you needed to be able to have more of a amplified impact when you were ready to jump into it. And you’re reminding me of a woman I interviewed for my previous empathy book, the empathy edge. Her name is Joy McBrien, and she started a company called fair Anita, which is about creating opportunities for women and girls in third world countries and and providing goods and services and jewelry and artisan crafts, but not but actually to level them up, not necessarily like poor quality goods, like helping them up level the quality of their goods so they could sell them to an audience that needed it, and that was not going to buy from them solely for pity. But was going to buy it because it was beautiful, and it was handcrafted, and it was well made, right? And she spent many years where, when she went back to school, she felt guilty about she couldn’t let go of the people she had met South America. And, you know, she came to the realization that where I can do the most good is to do this at scale, like, instead of going back to help that one person, I’m actually going to be, it’s going to be a better use of my talents and time to create something that can help even more people. That sounds like you sort of came to that realization too absolutely and she was building the skills that she needed in order to run a social, you know, a social venture. So I love that. So tell us what I mean when we talk about empathy, right? Like your work is all about empathy. So the first question I want to ask is from the perspective of running a nonprofit, and I want to say this because it’s so important for many leaders to try to grasp when you are serving a population, when you’re serving an audience that you can’t necessarily relate to, right? It’s easy to be empathetic with someone who’s just like me, right? Because I can kind of we’re at some similar level. We have some similarities. But even leaders who are leading people they don’t understand. Maybe it’s a cisgender leader leading a transgender person, maybe it’s, you know, a white leader leading a black or brown person. The experiences are not the same, and especially if you look at customer bases that they’re serving. So how do you tap into empathy for a population that you serve or a group that you lead when you are not like them? What are some of the ways that you have made sure that you’re still in lockstep and alignment with the people that you serve and the people that you lead?

Shilpa Alva 11:41

Yeah, my response here might be a bit controversial, Maria, but I’m gonna go with it. Go with it. I kind of feel like that. You know, I’m an immigrant in the US, right? And I do think this is a very individualistic society, so I’m gonna say that. So for me, that question is very hard, because I come from a society where people don’t need to be like you to care for it, because we don’t think that way, like it’s not it’s a very foreign concept for me. So it’s just so natural and so innate. I’m really it’s a struggle for me to think about that, because just culturally and like my blood, right, is, in a way, where you think about community, and when you think about community, it’s for me, I think now, just the experiences of like living in different places, like having moved here at a college, going age, grown up in Dubai, spending time in India, now, spending time in all those communities, if we’re looking for people who are just like us, I think that’s hard. But if we can go beyond that surface, right beyond the skin color, beyond you know, yeah, what we are, where we are, in a socioeconomic status and all of that, like, who are we at the end of the day? Right? We’re just human beings who have the same hopes and desires, right? If you’re a mother, what do you want from your for your child? And that’s guaranteed, very similar from what a Ugandan mom in a very small, remote village that’s underserved, and Uganda would want for her child, right? So if we’re looking for similarities, there are way more that are there if we look beyond the surface, because, yeah, children want to go to school, get an education, or find ways to get out of school and go hang out with their friends, that’s

Maria Ross 13:18

universal, exactly,

Shilpa Alva 13:19

right? Right? So there’s so many common themes among who we are as a shared humanity, and that is like the way I think we I would encourage people who have not grown up with the background I’ve had to think about right, like stop looking at the differences. If the way to connect is our commonality, then what’s deeper, what’s beyond the five layers of like, what you see as a person and what’s within that, right? Yeah, I love

Maria Ross 13:47

that. Yeah, it’s true. And I also think, you know, you and, I mean, I have a similar background, it’s we’ve had more exposure to different types of people. And I think that’s really, you know, that’s why representation is so important to me, because when you see something different or someone different, you understand that there’s more out there than what’s in your own little tiny part of the world. And it doesn’t necessarily make you automatically empathetic. You know that’s still a muscle that you need to build, but it’s you have a better understanding that like, Oh, I get it. Not everyone is like me. Now, whether you tap into being able to connect and engage across those differences is something else entirely. But I think a lot of the challenges, and I’ll just say it in our country, is that there’s pockets of people in our country that don’t experience anything else, they don’t know anything else, they’re not exposed to anything else. And this is why books and films and documentaries and music and travel and food are so important, because just to acknowledge that there’s difference, and difference isn’t bad, it’s just different. So it sounds to me, if I can paraphrase, it sounds to me like that exposure to difference, that mindset. Set of difference is something that helps you connect with people, regardless of socioeconomic differences, regardless of where they are in the world. It’s just being able to understand them. And then do you do a lot of work within the organization around sitting down and talking with the people that you’re serving? Like, what are their thoughts and their fears and their hopes and like, how much time does the organization spend on actually getting the insights from the people that you’re serving?

Shilpa Alva 15:24

Yeah, so everything that we do is community owned. So it’s not just led by the community, but it’s full ownership. And what that means is in we’re currently Serge is currently working in Uganda, Haiti and Indonesia, very remote, rural, hard to reach underserved communities in these places, and all the work is implemented by local leaders from those communities, and they are deeply integrated into the community. So they understand, like everything that happens there. They understand the political systems. They understand the challenges, the unique challenges, Nuance challenges with the woman, the men, the children and so and all of our solutions are based on a response to a community need, which means the community is physically usually coming up to, you know, our local offices, our local partner offices, demonstrating a need. We are talking to that. And I’ll also add that our work, even though it’s like water, sanitation, hygiene, it’s that’s just the beginning. It’s really to serve a larger community that, like, drives improvements in education and income now, right? So you have to understand, like, what that like pulse is, of like community doing, and as an outsider, I would not be able to do that like no matter what, no matter how many times I visit. Of course, I’m talking to them when I’m there. But the relationship happens from local to local. Right, right? Local Community Leader talking to their people, from our program officers, you know, from those places. And that’s, I think, the true, like, essence of how we do our

Maria Ross 17:00

work. Well, I think that’s a great model, regardless of your if you’re a nonprofit or a for profit, is what I hear you saying, is giving people the tools and empowering them to give you the feedback. And that requires empathy. That requires leaders and people in the organization to say, I gonna put my ego aside. I don’t know what’s best for you. You need to tell me what’s best for you, and then we can partner with rather than us doing for you. And I know I’m trying to think about which episode it was, and I’ll put it in the show notes when I can remember, but I’ve spoken to quite a few social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders, and that is always the theme over and over again, is the most successful ones are the ones that don’t come at it. Of we know what’s best for you, it’s partnering with the community, and that, again, is empathy. That’s about listening to another perspective and not I know what you need. It’s no I need to be open and flexible and empathetic enough to listen. You tell me what you need, and we’ll find a way to get there together. Because it never works when you try to do it as something for someone. That’s why so many community initiatives fail, because they’re from these very well intentioned people that think they know the neighborhood, think they know the community. And like, from what I see, what you need is this, rather than asking

Shilpa Alva 18:16

them, yeah, absolutely. And I’d say, I’d add to that, it’s also putting your ego aside, right? Because there are so many situations where I don’t necessarily agree with what the solution is being that’s being proposed, but we have to go with what the leaders want, right, unless right something really wrong with it from a technical standpoint, but right, you’re not always going to agree like, you’re going to have to defer to local wisdom, to community wisdom if you truly want to do this in the right way, and you learn together, right? But right things happen, and that also strengthens empathy, right? Maria, like, as you do those things, you put yourself out of your comfort zone. You’re listening to something, you’re leaning into something that you would not normally have done. It’s exposing you to a different way of thinking. Right is also another tool. Right continues to get built, because even if I say I naturally grew up with empathy, keep building on it. I liked your your reference to to being a muscle that you need to like, keep strengthening. And this has other ways to do it right, right comfort zone, to trust, strengthen relationships

Maria Ross 19:23

well, and that idea of of having those diverse points of view. I’ve talked about this on other episodes before, the reason why companies that continue to invest in diversity, equity, inclusion belonging is there’s a good business case for that when you make better business decisions, when you have people with different perspectives looking at the challenges in a different way, because I might not see the opportunity or the risk that you see because you’re local to that community, or you know that audience, or you know, in a corporate setting, you work in that department, right? I need those multiple points of view to make sure that we’re not missing. Opportunities and that we’re not accidentally stepping into risks that we don’t see. And so that’s where, again, it’s like we’ve got to put ego aside. And it doesn’t mean you as a leader don’t lead. It just means you’re open and you’re providing the guidance. You’re providing the guardrails. You know, a CEO has a bigger view of the market than maybe like the marketing manager right in their little department, but the CEO can also listen to what’s going on in the trenches and what’s going on on the ground for someone that’s living and breathing this task or this function or this challenge on a daily basis, right? So yeah, I love it. Okay, so tell me a little bit about the shift from corporate into nonprofit, from a culture perspective for you, what was that like to shift into that, and what were some of the good things, and what were some of the like challenges that you had with that?

Shilpa Alva 20:55

Yes, I started my career in the corporate world. I grew up in it. It was all I knew in many ways, and I definitely felt like when I first started surge, I was taking all my corporate skills and applying that right. So I took all the strengths of like, how you run, you know, a department or a functional area in my corporate experience, and I applied that to search, and I also surrounded myself with corporate leaders, managers, you know, at that time, who were similar, like, as my board members, right? So I’d say in the first, like, years of surge, that probably was not a lot of difference, because that was all I knew, right, right, right? I was literally, like, not coming to this. I didn’t grow up in the nonprofit space. I didn’t grow up in the international development world. So I actually don’t even know really what that kind of culture would be like, because I’ve never written it now the org, right? I think over time, what started to change is that I started to, you know, really think about and formulate, like, what is surges culture, right? And for me, a lot of that was built with through our local partners, and like the relationships we have with them, because I was understanding, like, you know, truly like needs on the ground, and like how they approach it, and like that started to shape us, and like how we were different. And I’ll just say another personal journey is I started to notice that it was definitely like my masculine side, like the from the energetic standpoint that was leading in the corporate states, place I was in a male dominated industry, and I think that in order to be successful, like, those were the skills that I perfected, right? The Type A, the very like high strung, like, you know, just leading the way I was leading them seemed to tap into my masculine side. We all have masculine feminine sides, right? What surge has allowed me to do is highlight the feminine a lot more. Highlight more of the empathy, highlight more of the compassion, the love, the passion, the softness, being more uncomfortable with the uncomfortable, the unknowns, the gray areas, leaning more in towards my intuition, not saying you don’t do this in the corporate world. But that was not the corporate leader. I was right, and now I see it like a balance or formula that has both like of course, I know that certain parts of what I learned in the corporate world are important, and how you run a business and balance your books, and, you know, do all of those kinds of things, but I make sure that that’s not what you’re walking into in an experience with surge. You see warm first that you see people who are passionate about other people. People have empathy, people have compassion. Like that’s the leading part of our culture that I think is very different,

Maria Ross 23:46

but it didn’t start that well. And I you know, that’s it’s interesting because I’ve spoken to a lot of nonprofit leaders through all my research over the years. And it’s interesting because one thinks, because the cause is noble and the cause is empathetic, that naturally, the culture of the organization has to be empathetic. And many nonprofit leaders have shared with me, actually, some of the worst cultures internally are nonprofits because they’re so resource and time strapped. They put all the empathy and compassion into the people that they’re serving, but they kind of grind everyone down to a nub inside the organization, which is a little counterintuitive, right? So I find that really interesting, and I find it also interesting. And what I would love to hear from you next is given you came from the corporate world now you’re running a nonprofit. The question always in even in the for profit world, is, how do I balance purpose with profit? How do I balance purpose with results? What is the balance you have found to balance the compassion and the warmth and the service you know, service mentality for your for the people you’re trying to serve, with the fact that you also still need to hit benchmarks. You also still need. See Results you also still need to have the impact you want to

Shilpa Alva 25:03

have. Yeah, I think I view it as the values versus, sort of the process to achieve that, like, our value, yeah. So, you know, focusing on like, you know, what drives me to do this work, right? That’s my love, that’s my compassion, that’s my empathy, you know, words I’ve used a few times already, and I think that’s always there, like that’s there, that’s the fire, that’s what drives all of it. But because of my corporate experiences and running PNLs, and like you know, in management consulting, having experience with sweet people, I also understand what you need to do in order to stay alive as an organization, right? So I’ve been able to compartmentalize that, I guess, in a way, like when you have to, like, run a fundraising campaign, or when you’re, like, going after funding or pitching. Of course, my compassion comes through on the pitches. It’s not separate from that, of course, yeah, but it is a different mindset, right? It is very much target and goal oriented, right? If we have obligations to reach 5000 girls who are menstrual health programming grant, then we’re going to hit 5000 girls. And you figure out and you work on all the logistics and the operations and the funding to ensure you meet that target. The thought comes in to make sure that your staff properly, of course, and that people are taken care of. Like, I don’t think you compromise that. So it’s like almost holding these multiple like, you keep your values and your foundation strong so you like, that doesn’t shift. But then you you use those values to guide you in achieving those goals, right? I’d almost look at it that way, right? Being like empathy as a goal, parallel to hitting a financial target. And I think that would be very impossible in a constant daily struggle, if you’re thinking about that. But yeah, always be compassionate. Always lead with love and then and softness, and then also realize that you got to double down to achieve those goals when, like it’s all possible and when it’s not, you have more compassion and self care to like yourself for it, I guess, yeah, that’s your value at the end of the day.

Maria Ross 27:13

Well, that’s exactly the crux of my work. Is trying to get leaders to understand it’s both and you’re not. You’re not. It’s not either or. I’m all about both and leadership, like empathy and performance, empathy and accountability, yeah, and I love the way you’ve articulated this, that it’s like the values create the fire and the create the momentum around the work that you need to be doing, but then it has to have a container to go into. It has to have processes. It has to have targets, it has to have objectives in order to us, for us to continue to feel good about the mission that we’re on. Because even if it’s a noble mission, if we don’t achieve it, no one’s going to feel good about that. So it’s not just about like, Oh, it’s okay that we didn’t make our goals this month or this quarter. Like, yes, there’s forgiveness, there’s compassion around that. But like, we need to change something in order to make this happen. It’s not enough for us to just be purpose driven. We have to be able to create those processes around it that help us. I love how you said it was in order keep the values strong, but use them to achieve your goals exactly, and using them as the fire and the fuel. And I think that’s why purpose driven organizations, you know, the data show that many of them perform better, and I think it’s because people have a reason. They have a reason why to follow the process, a reason why to hit the objectives, and it’s a reason that resonates with their heart and mind. Yeah, right. So I love that. That’s great. Okay, so we could probably talk for hours more, but let’s talk a little bit about what’s next on the horizon. So as you go forth and you’re achieving these goals, you know, just like any organization, nonprofits need to keep stretching and they need to keep growing, because the mission is never completely done. So how do you Well, what is next on horizon, and how do you balance, like, how much further you have to go? I guess this is more of an emotional mindset question for your people, how do you keep them motivated that there’s still a lot more we have to achieve, but help them still feel good about what they’ve achieved so far. So kind of two part question there, yeah,

Shilpa Alva 29:23

so it’s an interesting story there. Maria, so in the last, like last fiscal year, we grew 70% as an organization from a revenue perspective. And then this fiscal year, we just closed in March, actually, we sustained that because that was the big scare, right? Okay, you just had this huge, significant growth. Now, can we sustain? It? Was a one time thing. We sustained and grew from that, not another 70% we’re still working, you know, closing our books, but Right, let’s just say 15% right, right, huge. So in the last two years, we’ve doubled in size as an organization. Wow. Yeah, incredible. But parallel to that, I mean. That we achieved all our strategic goals. You know, people, we wanted to reach communities way earlier than we planned, and we didn’t have that aspirational plan. We thought it was aspirational, but we got there years faster than we thought we were going to. So last summer,

Maria Ross 30:16

nice problem to have. Yeah,

Shilpa Alva 30:17

it was a nice problem, and it

Shilpa Alva 30:19

was very exciting, but that celebration lasted a very short time, because then my board was like, So what’s that plan? What’s next? Yeah, no idea. Like, literally, I was like, I had an idea, but it wasn’t documented. It wasn’t thought through, right? But we thought, we got together with board members, if you know, core team, and we worked on what that next strategic plan and that vision would be. The next one is way bigger and way bolder. It goes to 2030 which is actually aligns really well with the sustainable development goals that the UN has set for water being one of the goals. And we put a goal that’s really bold and really strong. And in establishing a goal which is reaching a million people, you know, and serving a million people daily. By that point, we developed it, or CO created that goal, with our partners, our existing partners in each of the countries. So they were part of it. We know their expansion plans. They were in there. That actually was the foundation of it, right, right? So that’s where we’re going next. And to achieve that, we’ve got to be three times bigger than we are today by 2030 right? That’s Wow, really aggressive. That’s not and with that, we realized the organization and the structure that got us here is not going to be the same work that gets us there. We’ve got to do different things. So we’ve been really smart and mindful about how we invest the revenue, the revenue growth, talking to donors about investing in infrastructure, things like we just did a brand refresh, like, what’s our messaging? Our messaging today is different from the messaging we had even four years ago, because we’re a different organization, completely investing in development, investing in data analytics for the programs that we’re doing in the community. So again, this is a lot of business sort of things that you would do when a company grows. And you know, yes, we’re taking some of that money away from mission, like direct mission, where we know that by doing that, we can get to a larger size, or we’re taking that risk, at least calculated risk. And that’s been a lot of the process. And I’d say, because we’re in this planning stage and we’ve done it so collaboratively, my board is fully aligned and excited about it, because we’re all part of this plan, right? Donors and partners are excited about it because we’re sharing it and we’re getting feedback on it, and then the most important people in our whole ecosystem are the community partners doing the work, and it’s their plan. So they’re excited about their vision right for their communities. Each of them are going to go from like, you know, three to four times their size right now, and, you know, and with, we’ve just hired a resource to focus on their structure and their

Shilpa Alva 32:52

command, yeah, and all of that. Well, it’s

Maria Ross 32:54

all, it’s exciting, and it actually, I this was kind of going to be our wrap up question, but from you talking, I want to ask one follow on question to this, because you are so collaborative, and you do a lot of co creation. This is sometimes the challenge I hear from leaders of, Okay, I’m getting all these points of view, I’m synthesizing all these points of view, but at the end of the day, I have to make a decision that is going, you know, by the very nature of getting all this input, not everyone’s going to get their way. So how do you do you have any tips for leaders listening on how you balance that prioritization and how you communicate those decisions back to the people that have contributed, because potentially their input was not part of the plan going forward. How

Maria Ross 33:35

do you Yeah, that’s really hard. I don’t think thank you for being vulnerable about it, but yeah, that’s

Shilpa Alva 33:42

really hard, and I don’t I can’t say I have the answer for it. I think I struggle like everybody else on that situation. The only thing I do differently, I don’t not necessarily differently. Others may do it as well. What I tend to do in situations like that is I don’t shock them in a community or larger setting, like if there’s something that we’re not incorporating in their plan, make sure to have those conversations on the side, explain the reasoning. You know you’re gonna disappoint some people when you make hard decisions. And I think that’s okay, like we’re doing a brand refresh now, we changed our colors. A lot of people are not happy about our new color. I

Maria Ross 34:13

mean, I’m a brand strategist by background, and I do and like, no one’s ever happy, but you have to get into a point where they can commit even though they disagree. To your point, I mean, this is why, in the new book that I wrote that came out in the fall, the empathy dilemma, I talk about the art of decisiveness is not the art of decisiveness is not everybody gets a say necessarily in the final decision. It’s you’re factoring all that in to when you make the decision and you just shared a really good point. There’s no shock. There’s a communication back that says, Thank you for all the feedback and ideas. It really sparked a lot of great conversations. And Shilpa, here’s why your idea was great, and we had a whole, you know, day long conversation about that, but here’s why that’s not going into the final decision. But please keep that feedback coming. Because it was really useful to us in the decision making process, you sort of reveal. So it’s not a black box that people are going into and they step out. It’s like surprise we listen to any of you, yeah,

Shilpa Alva 35:12

yeah. It’s just about respect, right? And making sure that they feel valued. And then I think the hardest part of this too, and I think we all have to recognize this as leaders. Not everybody’s gonna sign up for your vision and your journey and your path, and that’s also okay, right? And I think that’s hard for me, because I, you know, we treat our team as a family, and we’re all in this together, but I’ve seen that that’s not always the case. Some people decide to go out on their own, and, you know, we’re heavily volunteer run, so it’s like even more, you know, complicated from that perspective, yeah? And that’s just something that’s part of it, right? So, like, that’s the part of like, yeah, you’re not going to make everyone happy, but you do what, right, the best decision you possibly can. And know there are consequences, and has to handle them the best you can, yeah, and there might be losses,

Maria Ross 35:58

well. And there’s also, like, I always remind people, you know, if you’re clear and you’re fair and you’re empathetic and you’ve at least considered it at other points of view, there’s a certain point where the other person, or your employees, they have agency too. And if you’re being clear about here’s what we’re doing, and we would love for you to come with us, but if that’s doesn’t align with your values, we totally understand that, like we respect that, and if you need, if we need to part ways, we need to part ways. But it doesn’t mean we’re changing our business decision. And that’s a much more empathetic approach than like, it’s my way or the highway, right? It’s an acknowledgement of, I get that this might not be what you thought you signed up for. I get that this might not be the way you want to go. And, you know, talk to me about that. Are you still able to commit? Do you kind of understand our rationale? And if you don’t, and you feel really strongly about this, then, you know, how can we support you in transitioning out of the organization or into a general or whatever? But we forget to give people the agency back. But we can only give them, like you said, the only give them the agency back when we’re clear and there’s no surprises. So I think that’s a great tip. I know you were like, I’m not really sure how we balance it, but it sounds like you guys are doing all the right things. So Shilpa, we could probably talk more, but we’ve got to run so I am going to have all your links in the show notes, and also the link to surge for water so that people can donate or get involved or, you know, just see what you’re up to and see how they can be part of the effort. But for folks that are on the go or exercising while they’re listening to us right now, where’s the best place they can get in touch or find out more about the work.

Shilpa Alva 37:35

I mean, if you’re on social media, when all of the channels so choose your favorite and search for water as I handle and if you want to connect to me personally, LinkedIn is probably the best place.

Maria Ross 37:44

Great. And like I always tell people, my public service announcement is, if you reach out to Shilpa on LinkedIn, please put a note that says you heard her on the podcast so she doesn’t think you’re trying to sell her something. Shilpa, thank you so much. It’s been delightful to connect with you, and I really admire the work that you’re doing, and I hope that we’ve kind of amplified the message and the brand to more people that haven’t heard of you

Shilpa Alva 38:06

before. Thank you for this opportunity, Maria. I really appreciate it, and thank

Maria Ross 38:10

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

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

Steve Durbin: How Empathetic Leadership Strengthens Cybersecurity and Risk Management

My guest today, Steve Durbin, shares why empathy, agility, and resilience are vital to managing risk and keeping your organization secure. Steve shares the biggest threats to organizations right now and how empathetic leaders foster the resiliency needed to adapt. We discuss how CISO’s and risk officers can create an empathetic culture where trust and transparency flow to help protect the organization. Steve shares how letting go of control can keep you safer, and how curiosity and listening help you communicate in ways people understand. He candidly shares that CEOs who don’t understand empathy are a risk. And finally, Steve offers ways to balance a culture of experimentation and empowerment with effective risk management.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

When assessing risk, people are your greatest risk, but they are also your greatest asset and your greatest opportunity for solutions.
It is not the machine or the algorithm that will solve your risk problem; it is your people.
You risk losing your best people if you’re not willing to adapt to what needs to be done for the best of your organization, employees, clients, and other stakeholders.

“You increase awareness by explaining why people need to be aware, why they should care, and you may have to make it personal.” — Steve Durbin

About Steve Durbin: CEO, Information Security Forum

Steve Durbin is Chief Executive, Information Security Forum (ISF). His main areas of focus include strategy, information technology, cyber security and the emerging security threat landscape across both the corporate and personal environments.

He is a frequent speaker and commentator on technology and security issues, and, since 2016, the host of the ISF Podcast.

Formerly at Ernst & Young, Steve has been involved with IPOs, mergers and acquisitions of fast-growth companies across Europe and the USA. Having previously been senior vice president at Gartner, he has advised a number of NASDAQ and NYSE listed global technology companies.

Steve has served as a Digital 50 advisory committee member in the United States, and he has been ranked as one of the top 10 individuals shaping ow organizations and leaders approach information security careers. He has also been featured on the top 20 most influential list of leaders whose companies have a vision that shapes the conceptual landscape of their respective industries.

Steve is a Chartered Marketer, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Forbes Business Council Member and a lecturer at Henley Business School, where he speaks on the role of the Board in Cybersecurity.

Connect with Steve:

Information Security Forum: securityforum.org

X: x.com/securityforum

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stevedurbin

YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCyTu0HsWQd_ucrt0Zo0042A

Connect with Maria:

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

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

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

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Steve Durbin 03:16

Thank you, Maria. Nice to Nice to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Maria Ross 03:20

So before we dive in to talking about all the things and how management of information and management of people can help us live with and manage through the risk that we face today, tell us a little bit about your story and how you got into this work. You know you are now chief executive of the Information Security Forum, but how did you get here, and what are you most passionate about?

Steve Durbin 03:41

Yeah, I never, I never set out to work in security. I didn’t really know much about it, to be quite honest. I came to security. I was at EY. I was doing a lot of M and A work, working with a lot of entrepreneurs, sort of startups, that kind of thing, fast growth organizations. And one day I was I was approached about joining the ISF, and I’d never heard of them, and I’d never really come across security at all, which is interesting. And if you think about the amount of m and a work that goes on, not to have even considered the role of security would seem perhaps strange today, but going back, I don’t know, 1516, years, it was the norm, and so I was intrigued, and it was really sort of presented to me as more of an opportunity to grow an organization, so the security bit wasn’t really overplayed, and that was how It all started. And you know, here we are 1617, years on, I’m still here. And the security space keeps changing. It’s very, very fast moving. It is, in its own way, very entrepreneurial. It’s going to become increasingly so as well when we see things like aI coming in and the different ways in which people are going to have to respond. To that. But there was no sort of master plan. There was no sort of, you know, never is a bed and say, you know, THAT’S IT security. That’s the thing for me, yeah, because I started out in in literature, really, that was my that was my degree, yeah, that is really interesting. And then worked in technology from there and, you know, consultancy, and then ended up where I am today. So, yeah, wow.

Maria Ross 05:28

Well, I mean, I think that also gives you a more holistic view of things. I think when people, when you have people just that are in single silos and single tracks approaching their work, sometimes that that causes us to not see risks or not see opportunities because we’re so single minded. So I really appreciate that you have kind of this well rounded background, and you’re coming at it from that perspective. So let’s dive into security, because it’s really interesting to me. Obviously, we’re in a time of disruption. We’ve got cybersecurity threats, we’ve got aI we’ve got geopolitical forces impacting organizations. Leaders are dealing with a lot. And so what do you think are the biggest threats right now, not only from a security perspective, but from an organizational perspective? Where do you think CEOs and C suite leaders need to focus right now in terms of the threats that are out there to their organization?

Steve Durbin 06:19

Yeah, I think, you know, many people at this point would probably expect me to dive into technology, and I don’t see it that way at all. Actually. I see it as being fairly and squarely in that sort of people wheelhouse. And the reason that I say that is twofold. First, when things go wrong, it is people who dig you out. We can pretend that we’ve got the best technology in the world, that we’ve got all the great backups, but I’m not aware of any organization that’s gone through a significant breach or significant downtime that has said, okay, you know, feet up. Let’s go. We’ll go down the coffee shop, because technology is going to get it all working for us. Doesn’t work. It’s people right to do it. And then on the flip side, then people are often, you know, viewed as being the weakest link in the security chain, and get a bad rep from from from being that. And it’s true that a lot of you know, phishing, malware, all of those sorts of things come in because people click on the on the wrong links and but that’s human nature. So I think you know, when you go into the boardroom, it’s all too easy to get involved in a conversation around chat, GPT and AI and, you know, and I’ve been there and I’ve had those conversations because it’s the latest shiny new toy, but people are at the at the heart of it, if you step away from that and what are the sorts of things that we need to be concerned about? Well, geopolitics is up there. You know, it’s fairly and squarely right at the top of the list. The rise in in cyber crime, obviously, whether that be state sponsored or whether it be otherwise, that’s up then as well. And most boards are concerned about ransomware, and they ought to do about that, how they’re going to respond to it. So those are the sorts of things from a security standpoint. But ultimately, you know, when an organization assesses risk, it’s in, it’s in the context of what it’s trying to do expand, is it trying to introduce new products and all of those sorts of things. And again, I’ve noticed that sometimes the security component, the risk component, can get lost in some of the enthusiasm that you would hope is smart by an organization wanting to do something fresh, new, different. But those are, those are the sorts of things that we’re talking about, mostly at the moment, and the sorts of things that organizations are are concerned about

Maria Ross 08:55

so so much to dive into there. I want to talk a little bit. And obviously why you’re here is because people are at the heart of both the risk and the opportunity and solution around what we’re facing right now. But I want to talk a little bit about that. So when you’re working with clients or you’re working with other organizations and leaders, what are the types of skills that are required from our people now to really be able to handle these risks and be able to meet the moment and adapt to what’s coming at us.

Steve Durbin 09:26

Yeah, you know, again, if you look at it through the security lens, and just go back not that many years, and actually, you still see it today, when people are advertising for, say, a chief information security officer, you know, they want somebody who’s in their 30s with 40 years experience, you know, completely unrealistic. The reality of the matter, I would say, is what you’re looking for is people who are naturally curious, people who are able to bring different elements of the business to the room. Risk challenge, who are going to be able to contextualize it, ground it, convey the risk in a language that people not just understand but buy into. Because ultimately, of course, what you’re trying to do when you identify a risk of some sort is to put in place some kind of mitigation that be a plan for the day that you hope never comes, or whether it be a real mitigation plan for something that needs to be addressed in the here and now, inevitably, you’re going to have to sell that message to somebody, and you’re going to have to support them through the implementation of whatever that project or plan happens to look like. So if you struggle stringing two words together, you’re going to be up against it. And again, that’s stating the bleeding obvious. But so often I see organizations still, you know, trying to entrust some fairly sophisticated people interactions to people that are probably best suited to really working with the machines, working with the technology, doing all of the great things that needs to be done in that in that space. So it’s about really understanding, I think, who is best placed to deal with the challenge, the issue that you have, and making sure that you’ve got your best players on the field at the right time, and that is, you know, I suppose, the biggest job of of any senior executive. It always makes me smile, because if you talk to anybody who’s you know, going through the career, going up the career ladder, they’ll always say they want to manage people. Now, that seems to be the whole sort of goal, doesn’t it? You know, I’ve got to manage people. I’ve really arrived when I manage people. And it’s interesting, you know, you talk to some of them after they’ve been doing that for a short while, and they wish they’d never started, because people are just hugely difficult, yeah, to manage, yeah. And if you get it right, it’s immensely rewarding. But, you know, it has its ups and downs.

Maria Ross 12:01

Well, I think, you know, we talk a lot on the show on the difference between management and leadership, and managers really manage tasks. Leaders can empower people. And I love, of course, I love what you’re saying, because that’s why you’re on the show. But it’s this idea of being a leader who can listen curiosity. The number one trait of empathic leaders, the number one trait of empathic people is your ability to put your ego aside and listen and understand that there might be a different perspective, there might be a different point of view. And this is really that you know what you’re saying is really that tie in and making that business case for diversity and inclusion, because when we have people with different points of view, we might see risks we would have missed, or we might uncover opportunities that we overlooked, because people have a different vantage point. And so being a leader, well, I love what you’re saying about this idea of being a leader who can listen, who can be curious. But also to your other point, this is speaking straight to my brand strategist. Heart is the ability to articulate that message. And this is why clarity is actually an element and a marker of empathy. When you can really be clear with someone, you can hold someone accountable to an expectation that you’ve clearly set. And to your point, being able to clearly articulate the risk, being able to clearly articulate the mitigation strategy and get people’s buy in is so crucial, and we we tend to skip that when we’re hiring for the resume, or we’re hiring for the the university somebody attended. We really need to be a little bit better in the hiring process of looking at a leader in terms of how do they interact with people, because that’s where the empathy comes in, and that’s where, you know, it’s confident empathy, it’s not strong empathy, but it’s this idea that I can actually listen and I can adapt to the people in front of me based on their needs and based on how they can best receive a message. So I love that you’re saying this,

Steve Durbin 13:53

you know. And Maria, I think you’re absolutely spot on. You know, for me, the best leaders understand that they need to explain the why. Why does somebody have to do something? And all too often, I think, you know, you come across some leaders who perhaps have forgotten that that’s what their role is. And you know, you sort of veer towards the dictator leader, the sort of command and control leader. And you know, that has its place. And from time to time, we will, all, you know, flip into that because we’re that’s appropriate for that point in time. But I do think that increasingly, and this is very, very true in the security space. You know, we talk so much in security about the need for increased awareness? Well, you increase awareness by explaining why people need to be aware, yeah, why they should care Exactly. And you may have to make it personal, yeah. And so I think that you know, this isn’t some sort of, you know, fluffy leadership, it’s actually exceptionally practical efficiency. Yes, and has been shown to work. And that is the message, I think, that that sometimes it’s very easy to lose sight of, you know, as you sort of, you know, elevate to the to the busy heights of running an organization, you know, you forget you actually need to put people around you as well who are just going to nudge you and remind you right, why you’re there?

Maria Ross 15:22

That’s huge reason. Yeah. I mean, in my most recent book, the empathy dilemma, when I talk about the five pillars of being both an effective and an empathetic leader, within within clarity is is a tactic of building a culture of why, being able to explain to people it’s and it’s not coddling. It’s not, you know, I laugh when I hear these leaders say, like, well, I just need to tell them what to do, and they should just do it, you know, yes. And if you want your people running at full capacity and optimize their contribution to what you’re doing, give them a reason why. This is why purpose driven organizations do so well. Is because you’re giving giving people a reason to perform, a reason to innovate, a reason to think about it, and a reason to accept, even if it’s a decision they don’t like or agree with, you’re at least giving them a reason to say, Okay, I don’t really agree with it, but I kind of get it. I understand why we need to do this and why it’s important, and that, you know, follow the data, follow the research on that boosts engagement and performance and innovation and all of those things within a culture. But I love your perspective, because you know, a lot of what I talk about is related to how empathy is practical within the workplace and how it actually enhances the bottom line. And you know, nothing to me is more practical than security and risk. There’s nothing more sort of data driven and analytical to me as a very right brain thinker. So I love that you’re tying this to the importance of if you want to manage and mitigate risk effectively, it still has to come down to your people. And you said something earlier that I kind of chuckled at inside, because I do a lot of talks now around the role of empathetic leadership in the age of AI. And you talked about, you know, it’s not the machine or the algorithm that’s going to solve your security problem or that’s going to solve your risk problem, it’s your people. So as you’re working with leaders, now, how are you finding their reception to that message? Do they get it? Do some of them still need to kind of connect the dots around the fact that they do need to be more of a people centered leader in order to mitigate risk and to keep their organization secure. What’s sort of the consensus you’re finding within the executives that you talk to? I

Steve Durbin 17:32

think the consensus is that people are finding it really tough. You know, the world is not in a great place. There is a need for increased agility from an organization to be able to respond to things that change on a very, very regular basis. You know, whether that be the implementation of tariffs, whether it be the outbreak of war, whether it be the implications that that conflict might have on the supply chain, whether it may be a whole range of different things that are, you know, hitting hitting leaders and their businesses and yes, you know, particularly the C suite, the board, obviously, they have to continue to meet the expectations of the stakeholders, The shareholders, the employees. So it’s an immensely stressful time at the moment. And so I think that even the best the most, the leaders that get it the most when it comes to the need for some of these things we’re talking about, even they are going to fall off the wagon from time to time. And I think that’s okay. I think one of the things that you have to one of the most difficult things that the leader has to do is to allow himself or herself the space to get it wrong. It doesn’t matter if you get it wrong. What’s what’s important is how you make it right. And that, I think, is, is the sort of the dawning realization that that we’re starting to see with some fairly advanced thinkers in that, in that space. But there are so many different elements to consider, you know, because if you’re a fairly traditional organization, maybe family run always behaved in a certain way, you know, my way or the highway, you know, then, then bringing in some of these, these, these concepts, perhaps a little alien, much easier, perhaps, if you’re entrepreneurial, fast growth startup, because you can, you don’t have any baggage, right? I think it’s really interesting to see, and, and you’ve probably done this, you know, to sort of categorize, not in a destructive way, but to categorize some of the leaders that we’re seeing at the moment who are dealing with just the post pandemic. You know this shift from perhaps well, you could all work at home now, you all need to work in the office. And you know there’s, it doesn’t seem to be a massive amount. Amount of halfway house in some of these things, right? And again, for me, I think these are not some of the issues. The issues should be, what is in the best interest of providing the service, the product, to the client base. How are you going to get the best from your employees in doing that? And then let’s worry about whether or not they ought to be in one big, multi story building, right, or spread around the world, right? And I think all too often that piece sometimes is missed because, we can become so dogmatic about it, you know, and people, people will always want to know why it is that Susan can work from home, whilst Thelma has to go into the office, yeah, all of this sort of thing. And you can get caught up. Yes, meaningless debate was, if you start, if you go back to the why, you know, why it’s important for people to work collectively together. You know, is that the best way of doing it? And if so, well, then actually, this discussion about whether or not I have to go into work or work from home, I find tends to go away, of course. One example that I’ve observed,

Maria Ross 21:19

yeah, I mean, it’s, I call this the snap back to bossism, post pandemic. It’s like some leaders who are saying, you had your fun being treated like humans. Now it’s time to get back to work. And I believe a lot of that is from fear. I do a lot of talks and a lot of advising around this. It’s that it’s the companies I’ve had folks on my show, where it’s the companies that have a have an experimental mindset of work has changed. We’re not going back. People have seen what they’ve been capable of doing in a different work structure, and we’re not going back. So instead of fighting it because our leaders are just too scared or don’t trust their people enough, if they’re not, they can’t see them for the entire work day and have them all within the same four walls. Let’s experiment with different ways of doing this. And let’s because nobody has it figured out. I spoke to the CHRO of box, and they’re doing a lot of experimentation around this, and they’re like she said, you know, show me someone who actually has this on lock, who understands what they’re doing. We’re all learning as we go, and we have to have that experimental mindset of we tried it this way. Here’s what went well. Here’s what didn’t we we listened to our employees. We measured productivity. We measured sentiment, you know, and they’re constantly tweaking and tuning to see where they can land on this. Versus a leader who’s just like, I don’t want to learn how to lead in a new way. I want to go back to the way things were, because that’s where I’m comfortable. And so everybody needs to be back in the office, even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense. And so, you know, talk about risk. You risk losing your best people, if you’re if you’re not willing to sort of adapt to to how things need to get done. But I love the way you just you narrowed it down. And this is what I try to always get them to think about, is what is going to be best for the organization and our customers or clients, or whoever our constituents and stakeholders are. That’s what it comes down to. And if we have leaders who are unsure or afraid of leading in a hybrid environment or a remote environment, we need to upskill them, like to me, you know, again, you and me, it kind of seems very simple, but it’s very hard to do in practice, I think for people, and a lot of it is based in fear. Would you agree?

Steve Durbin 23:30

I would, and I think the other thing I would say to that is that it’s never going to stay static anyway, exactly. So you can come up with the finest blueprint for what the world might look like, and tomorrow, all gets torn up because something else happens. So the key to it all, I think, is agility, this ability to allow experimentation. You know, if I, if I look at, you know, my own business, how we operate. We try to do the right thing. If it’s appropriate to have people working together in one location. For a reason, we do it if it isn’t, we don’t. I mean, I do remember post pandemic saying to people, you know, the last thing I wanted was for them to be wasting, you know, three hours a day commuting since right, we perfected the art of remote working. That being said, if you actually need to get in a room with someone right, brainstorm on a flip chart, then, you know, then do it. Yeah. And so allowing people, I think, to make the right call based on what’s needed at the time, without being constrained by by some of these things. It is, I think the real, the real art of the leader when it comes to that kind of creation of of the environment. But I think you’re right. I think there is so much fear out there of getting it wrong, you know. And I suppose. Think if we look at turnover rates, you know, I mean, I don’t know what the what the life expectancy of a chief executive is in an organization, it’s not that long now, you know, nor is it for, say, a CMO, whereas CHROs tend to stay around a little bit longer. But you’re at the C suite, you know, you’re not there for a great deal of time. And if you go into Security, then I think it’s down to something like 12 to 18 months, which is just crazy.

Maria Ross 25:23

Yeah, I was just on a, like a think tank call yesterday, and someone actually had that data around what the what the average tenure of a CEO was 10 or 20 years ago, and what it is now, and it’s definitely gone down. And I know you know from my, my proximity to CMOS, for example, that tenure, at least in tech, is approximately 18 months. Yeah, so, yeah, it’s not a long time. And so again, you’re constantly shifting. And this kind of leads me to a question, kind of an organic question here is, how do you balance that, that constant change and that need for experimentation from the vantage point of being able to manage security and risk. So if you’ve got, if you’ve got your chief security officer, you’ve got your RISK COMPLIANCE OFFICER, experimentation is not necessarily their friend all the time. So how do you, how do you balance that within a culture of being comfortable with experimentation and design thinking, with keeping the organization locked down and

Steve Durbin 26:19

safe? Yeah. I mean, the last he wanted to is for have somebody who’s playing around with, let’s try this security protocol today, and if it doesn’t work, well, you know, we’ll try different

Maria Ross 26:30

Exactly, exactly, especially with a remote or a hybrid workforce, you

Steve Durbin 26:33

know. Well, exactly. Yeah, exactly. No, I think that in that instance, you know, it comes down to more of a sort of philosophical discussion around what is the role of security? And for me, the role of security is to support the business to achieve its objectives in a safe manner, so that when things go wrong, the organization is sufficiently resilient that it doesn’t suffer as badly as it would have done without you now that is a very different approach to security, I think, in terms of the definition of it. And I’m sure that, you know, some of our members listening to this will think I’ve lost the plot, but I do actually believe that’s what it’s becoming. And I think successful CISOs get that. They get that they are there to support the business. They’re not there to prevent the business doing things. They’re there to provide advice, guidance, to consult with with the business as to what might look, you know, good for them, and to understand the risk associated with some of the different elements that they’re that they’re implementing. So, you know, I use myself as an example. So I travel a fair amount. I’m also targeted on a regular basis with phishing attacks and all of the things that mostly it’s not, it’s not new news is it, in order to manage and mitigate that risk. If I’m traveling, I don’t have access to any of our sensitive corporate systems at my email, but that’s it. So I can’t access the HR system or the, you know, payroll, and I can’t access payroll anyway. Actually, I don’t need to ifd does that, but so I’ve stripped back very deliberately what I can access as a means of managing my risk profile when I’m traveling to the extent that I do obviously want to make office different matter. So that’s something that’s that’s very simple, and yes, I had to change the way that I worked slightly to accommodate that, but it’s a very effective and efficient way of working. What he also does, which I think is really good, is it means that other members of my team have to pick up certain things, so I’m no longer this single point of failure, right? And I like to think they like it because it means

Maria Ross 29:08

distributed management, yes.

Steve Durbin 29:12

But by doing that, what you’re also doing is introducing a higher degree of transparency so people can see why things are happening or why we want to do what we what we’re intending to do, and they’ve got first hand experience of some of that. And so gradually as well, what that produces is a much flatter organization and a much broader opportunity for people to have sensible conversations about the importance of certain risk elements, or indeed about the business as a whole, right more ideas as to how you might change, as to how you might more effective, and so the benefits that you begin to see from a very simple decision that’s that was taken because I was really actually fed up. Of every time I went to the US, my credit card was, was the details were stolen. You know, I’d have had much fishing. It was particular part, and so it was just brought about by by that the benefits that we’ve seen as a result, I would never have anticipated. And you know, if we’d sat down in a room and tried to come up with them, we would have been a waste of time. So I think that, again, just being open to introducing more agility, difference, change, trying something, you know, one of my biggest frustrations is that we’re not people don’t try new things often enough, right? Within a sandbox type environment, you have to have guardrails, yeah, of course, yes. And so in security, I think there’s, there’s an immense amount of opportunity for people to think differently in terms of raising levels of awareness, there’s also a need for some fairly locked down protocols processes that are in line with standards, because that just makes a lot of sense, right? And I think that the trick, from the CISO perspective, running a security department is make sure you’ve got the right people doing the right things, and yeah, and yeah, and just to help communicate those

Maria Ross 31:23

and that, you know, that’s, that’s what my work is all about, is that the old leadership paradigm is dying. And, you know, you made a point earlier about command and control. I’ve had several military leaders on this show where they talk about command and control works in the heat of battle. We’re not in the heat of battle, 24/7, in an organization. So then it doesn’t work. We need more collaborative. We need more partnering with versus powering over in order to get the best results. And so that example that you’re you’re talking about, is really an idea of you’ve got to let go as a leader. You are not going to be able to control everything, you’ve got to be able to create a culture where you’re empowering people to do their part, and you’re collaborating, you’re you’re listening. We talked earlier about getting curious, but that kind of, you know, risk mitigation that you’re talking about in that example, doesn’t happen if you’re trying to hold everything close to you as a leader, we’ve got to be able to trust we’ve got to be secure enough and confident enough in our own abilities that we know we’re bringing in a team that will give us different perspectives may challenge us on occasion because of the place where they sit and the vantage point that they have. So I love what you’re saying, because that’s a very practical example of where some leaders might have a hard time letting go of the control.

Steve Durbin 32:47

Yeah. So I think that’s right. And I think, you know, again, back in that whole security space, you know, I’m big fan of running cyber simulation exercises, business continuity planning, for want of a better description, you know, when an incident happens that is not the time to be freestyling,

Maria Ross 33:06

exactly. That’s the time that might be the time for command and control. Yeah, that is the time, yeah.

Steve Durbin 33:12

But when you are rehearsing, when you were going through a simulation exercise, and that is the time for just playing with it a little bit, you know, analyzing. How did that go? How do we compare with other organizations? You know, is this what good really looks like? How did you know what went wrong? So I think that, again, creating the space for Play has benefits, even if you’re going to ultimately be in a command and control situation, right? Don’t want people to be fiddling about with things in that in that scenario, you don’t have the time. It’s too you know, I octane. It’s too stressful.

Maria Ross 33:51

Absolutely, absolutely. So as we kind of wrap up, I wanted to ask you a question about navigating division in the workplace. So you kind of could look at division in the workplace as a risk, as a risk to the business, as a risk to it being fulfilling its mission, fulfilling its purpose, and serving its stakeholders. But where does navigating division in the workplace? Does that fall under for you? Does that fall under the category of risk? Is that something that a Risk Officer or CISO or somebody like that should even be concerned about? Are they just concerned about technological risk and environmental risk?

Steve Durbin 34:33

I’m not sure that I understand what navigating division means, to be honest.

Maria Ross 34:36

Okay, so navigating conflict and navigating maybe potentially culture rifts within your organization, for the example we were talking about earlier, if you’ve got, if you’ve got a mutiny on your hands because of return to Office policies where those have actually been done intentionally and thoughtfully, let’s say, in this fictitious scenario we’re talking about is that actually something in the purview of a compliance. Officer of a risk officer, or does that still sit squarely in HR?

Steve Durbin 35:04

I think it has to sit squarely in HR, okay. I mean, I think that there is also a bit of a tendency that we need to avoid, of thinking that the higher you go in the organization, you have this ability to do everything. You’re omniscient, omnipotent, and you’re not, and I firmly believe that you know, certainly, again, if we look at my own organization, my CHRO is far better placed to deal with all of those sorts of things than I will ever be or any of my other senior leadership team. However, I would not expect her to do the job of the CTO, because the CTO is there to do that job. So I think it’s about people understanding the lanes that they that they must stay within their

Maria Ross 35:53

zones of genius. Exactly.

Steve Durbin 35:54

That’s a great way of describing it, yeah. And also understanding that by cross communicating, they’re going to be better than just handing down these sort of edicts as to as to how we should do. Some of the things that drive me crazy, you know, is when people implement bits of technology and they don’t explain why I’m a big sort of why thing, I’ve always, I love it in my thing, right from when I was a child, you know, I always probably don’t know why I should do something

Maria Ross 36:21

you and every other child in the world? Yes, absolutely.

Steve Durbin 36:26

And it just, it’s just sort of stayed with me. And I think that you can solve so many problems by explaining things better at the beginning and getting the right people involved who actually know what they’re talking about, who are being, you know, paid to do that job, rather than somebody coming up with a better idea. And this applies to business with security and security with business as well. It’s throughout. It permeates the organization.

Maria Ross 36:52

Would you go so far as to say that having a CEO who doesn’t think that way is a risk to the organization? I think

Steve Durbin 37:00

it is today. Yeah, I think it is today. That’s not to say that they don’t exist. I mean, there are plenty of them out there. I mean, we can look at many examples. Yes, exactly. But I think if you’re going to, I think if you’re going to endure, if you’re going to be successful, you know, we touched on earlier, the fact that CEOs don’t stay around for very long. So from a board standpoint, there’s always a risk when you hire a new CEO, that you can do all of the diligence until the person hits the ground. You’re never going to know whether they’re going to make it or not make it. You want to try to keep them for as long as possible. And I think that the ones that will endure in the future have will have this stability to be much more flexible, agile. Call it what. You will have a much broader perspective than perhaps some of the more traditional ones that we’ve still got in place. And the challenge, I think, there, is it’s just something else that we’re expecting the CEO to do, in addition to managing the shareholders, you know, there’s the stock price and all of those sorts of things. And, you know, I don’t want to come across some sort of bleeding heart, but it’s a pretty lonely, old job as well. You know, not many people who really want to, lots of people who really think they would want to be it, yeah, CEO, fantastic. But actually, it’s probably, you know, one of the most lonely jobs. Yes, when it’s going, Well, fantastic. Yeah, when it isn’t, then you know, you’re on your own, right,

Maria Ross 38:31

right? Well, that’s why many of the successful CEOs I’ve spoken to and advised they are part of accountability circles. They’re part of peer support groups. They’re part of, work, you know, places and spaces where they can feel less lonely and also sanity check themselves. So and they’re the ones that tend to be more empathetic and agile CEOs, because they know I don’t have all the answers. You wouldn’t be going to an accountability or group or support group or peer group if you if you thought you had all the answers, you’d think you wouldn’t need it. So the ones that I find are most successful, and they’re balancing that performance, that high performance, with empathetic and people centered leadership, are the ones who are willing to put their ego aside and say, I still always have more to learn. And that’s how they also feel less lonely. To your point is they try to surround themselves with other people that can help them grow and help them learn. Yeah,

Steve Durbin 39:23

absolutely. I think you have to, you have to have people around you who are not afraid to challenge from whom you can you can grow. You can pick up different things. And, you know, I think in every interaction, there are things that you can learn. I mean, my my favorite is actually spending time with, with some of the much graduates and things that might join us, because they great perspective. They’re not, they’re totally unencumbered, right? Corporate politics and nonsense, and it just, they just call it as it is, you know? And they’ve got great ideas, yeah. So I love. Being able to try to create space for some of that and just let them try it.

Maria Ross 40:05

I love that. Well, this has been such a great conversation. Steve, thank you so much for your insights and for for really helping us understand. You know, what I’m taking away from this is actually it is a risk to your organization if, if your leadership can’t be agile and can’t be people focused like that’s sort of my, one of my headline takeaways from today. So thank you so much. We are going to have all your links in the show notes for folks, but for anyone on the go right now, where’s the best place they can find out more about you and your

Steve Durbin 40:33

work? Oh, the easiest one is, is obviously LinkedIn. People can find me on that specifically around what what I do, what the ISF does. Then again, if they go along to our website, which is security forum.org then my details are there. Fantastic. Either way,

Maria Ross 40:52

great security forum.org, well, thank you so much for your time today. It was a pleasure to connect. No nice talking to you Maria, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate and review and share it with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slicemaria, 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™

Laura Camacho: Developing Your Empathy and Executive Presence

How do some leaders show up, almost effortlessly, with a proactive point of view and clear messaging? I’d bet you money that for most, it’s a matter of intention and skill-building, not just natural talent! The ability to balance warmth, confidence, and competence is not just within reach for extroverts, either, according to today’s guest.

Today, Laura Camacho and I talk about what executive presence means (it’s not just how nice your suit fits!), how empathy relates to executive presence, specific challenges for more introverted leaders to increase their empathy, and what the C-suite is looking for to promote someone internally. Laura shares that the true purpose of executive presence is to help others have confidence in YOU as a leader, and she shares some tools on how to be clearer and empathetic in your messaging, as well as tips to mentor others, especially introverts.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

You have to be both a storyteller and a data driver. It is not a hard binary. Even the most analytical people are driven by emotion.
If you are stressing about saying something badly, say it anyway – it likely won’t be bad and you can always course correct on the off-chance that it is.
Prepare in advance to speak out in meetings about your domain. Be prepared to speak up early and with structure.

“Connection, competence, and confidence – you need all of those. You cannot have executive presence without empathy.” — Laura Camacho

About Laura Camacho, Executive Presence Coach:

Laura Mixon Camacho, PhD, is an executive presence coach. When leaders communicate with authentic executive presence, it builds a healthy culture with a better bottom line.

From her deep dive research into luxury brand messaging, winning political campaigns, and neuroscience, she takes a bespoke approach to teach highly intelligent high-performers how to connect, engage, and inspire people to improve business outcomes and build culture.

Her articles on influence and culture have been regularly featured in several publications, including Forbes, The Southern C, Lionesses of Africa, and Training Industry.

She is also author of the Cultured Communication Workbook and The Practical Guide to Effective Communication. Her podcast, Speak Up with Laura Camacho, is ranked #2 in the world for communication skills podcasts and is in the top 2.5% of all podcasts in the world.

Connect with Laura:

Mixonian Institute: speakupwithlaura.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lauramcamacho

Instagram: instagram.com/speakupwithlaura

Executive Presence Mastery System: a 90-day intensive coaching program to prepare mid-level managers for senior leadership: speakupwithlaura.com/executivepresence

Connect with Maria:

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

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

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

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Laura Camacho 02:53

Oh, thank you so much, Maria for having me. I’m delighted to be here, and I’m so grateful for your reframing for me in a previous conversation on my podcast, what empathy was. It’s not just being nicey nice. No, I think it’s we’re gonna have a great conversation, because so many people think that being clear and being nice are two different things.

Maria Ross 03:14

Yes, exactly. We’re here to help give people a different perspective on that. So before we dive in, I would love to hear a little bit more about your story. So can you quickly share with us how you got into this work?

Laura Camacho 03:26

Absolutely, I’m happy to share the story. So I would, I am a card carrying certified introvert, like I’m sure a lot of your listeners, if not all of them good students, you know, teachers, pet kind of student always turning things in doing good work. And I guess a little variation that was early moving me in the communication space was my fascination with foreign languages, and that would be when I did a study abroad in Spain in college where I saw that it’s not just the words, right, because I was taught, my mom taught me mean what you say, say what you mean. She’s also an introvert, and that’s great, but it’s not enough. It’s not because that’s totally ignoring the emotional message and the inspiration that you need to succeed in business. So anyway, long story short, I lived in Venezuela a long time, lived in Germany, got so got a lot of cross cultural exposure to the way different people communicate. And when I ended up in North Carolina teaching communication at East Carolina University, you know, like that was the first time I really did an academic Deep Dive. And then that led to getting my PhD. And then this was the real kicker, Maria that I, you know, have my PhD, speak these languages, have this experience. And I’m like, communication is so bad in all the companies. Like, what am I going to do with all the money I’m going to make? Yeah, but it turns out that selling communication. Skills training requires really good communication, and I wasn’t at the level at when I in 2009 when I started, but I developed it because what I learned, Maria and what a lot of people listening need to get, it’s not just having the ideas, it’s not just the deliverables, it’s selling the value. And that’s what I had to learn to build my business where I now have, you know, a few part time employees, and I have a, you know, it’s a nice business that supports me, but I wouldn’t have that if I hadn’t learned how to get people excited about, yes, better, and that’s and if you’re in tech, or if you’re in finance insurance, that’s what you have to be able to get people, yeah, buy into your priority. So that’s kind of the story,

Maria Ross 05:45

yeah. And I love that, because you know that as coming from a marketing and a branding background myself, like that, is the key is it’s not enough to have a good idea or a fantastic product or be the most expert person in your field if you can’t communicate that value, and not from a here’s why I’m so great. Here’s why the product’s so great. It’s in a what’s in it for you as the listener, as the client, as the customer. And that is where you know, that’s what led me, that put me on the path right empathy as a strategic advantage was my marketing work. Of it’s not enough to just think you’re the coolest product in a bunch, exactly.

Laura Camacho 06:23

But that’s not intuitive exactly who is, especially if you’re, you know, a little bit bookish. And, like, I know my stuff. I’m an expert. I have a PhD. I did my dissertation. I was like, nobody cares all about what are you how are you going to help me, and then that’s just counterintuitive, and I think especially for young professionals, when they’re coming up in the work world, they’re getting rewarded for those results, which is great, but there’s going to come a day where you just you feel like you’re just the workhorse, and people aren’t seeing you As senior leadership material, despite your stellar performance reviews, and that’s those are the people that I help a lot, because, as you can imagine, is extremely frustrating,

Maria Ross 07:08

I’m sure. So let’s dive in, and let’s talk about how empathy relates to this quality of executive presence. And maybe if we can take a step back and explain to us what you mean by executive presence, and whether you believe you can even have executive presence without empathy. So a couple questions wrapped in there. Let’s start with what, how you define executive presence,

Laura Camacho 07:31

right? Well, it is a is this quality, right? And the way I see it, it’s a balance between competence and confidence and warmth. You know, that connection, you could say, if we could stick to three words, connection and competence and confidence. So you need all of those. And absolutely you cannot have executive presence without empathy. And here are the two traps that people fall into when they’re trying to, you know, access that C suite, or influence them, or just present themselves. In general, it’s either they’re just so warm and friendly and they bring brownies and they’re so nice and so agreeable, and everybody loves them, but they are not seen as senior leadership because they’re doers, like, oh, Laura is great to work with. She has, she has the best cappuccino brownies. Love her senior leadership. Oh no, no, no, no, no. And then there’s the other extreme. Is you’re just like results, especially if you’re introvert, you don’t speak up as much or and so people think that you don’t really have anything to say, or you’re just, you know, again, a doer, a quiet doer. Or maybe you speak up and you’re just so your presentation is so direct and logical and fact driven that it’s either too much information or too cold, and people are just not attracted to that,

Maria Ross 08:57

or it’s not persuasive, because people don’t see themselves in the story, and that’s why what I what I’m hearing you say and correct me if I’m wrong, there’s also it’s not quite just the niceness versus the results oriented, but also the like the storyteller versus the data driver. And having like, the combination of those two things come together where you’re not just thinking with your head, you’re thinking with your heart as well, so that you can connect with someone even, even if it’s B to B or B to C, it doesn’t really matter. It

Laura Camacho 09:31

does not because you’re dealing with people and it doesn’t matter, and it’s just hard for so many of us. I think in general, we put things into categories and labels, and, you know, we think of things as being binary and and the ratings and all the data, we all were all data driven. But at the end of the day, everybody is overloaded with data, right? And at the end of the day, the decisions, I don’t care you take the most data driven. Uh engineer, uh, technical person. They are still driven by emotion, absolutely that has remarked. They may not admit it. They may not even see it

Maria Ross 10:10

well. I mean, that’s why behavioral economics exists, because we don’t do things for the reasons that we think we do

Laura Camacho 10:16

exactly, exactly. So your executive presence. Let me just go circle back to that definition. The purpose of it is for other people to have confidence in you. It’s not you want to you have to have confidence in yourself. But the purpose of that presence, where you can state your point of view, where you can sell your ideas, is that it’s going to succeed to the degree that you inspire confidence in yourself from this C suite or the stakeholders, or the board of exec the board of directors, whoever the everybody’s got somebody to report to, and they need to have confidence in you, and your executive presence is your tool to inspire that confidence.

Maria Ross 11:00

So that’s a great segue to the third part of that question I started with, which was, can you have executive presence without empathy?

Laura Camacho 11:07

Absolutely not. You will be robotic. You will not connect. You will not care about people. I mean, I mean, you may actually care about them. Let me, let me clarify. There. A lot of times say the mistake I’ve seen, and many of my clients and I can just see it right off the bat. They’re so concise and they’re we introverts tend to economize on words, and so it seems like, Oh, she just answered my email with a two words and didn’t ask how I was doing. So Laura must not really care about me, and we don’t even consciously think that it’s just not it’s not resonating the message that’s just fact driven. And so we make that mistake, without the presence, without the empathy, to know that even though I have a short answer, I also want to say, I hope you’re having a good day, or exactly look forward to seeing you like that personal connection. It is indispensable. You cannot have executive presence without empathy well, and I

Maria Ross 12:07

think that’s about being able to take the pause. We talk a lot on the show about taking the pause, taking the beat, and recognizing that it’s not just about relaying information and then running out of the room. It’s also about making the connection, whether you’re, you’re, it’s a physical room, or it’s, you know, you’re shooting off the email without thinking about how the email is going to be received, and exactly. It’s interesting, because I think there are a lot of people who are very economical in how they speak and how they relay information, and I actually really admire those people, because I tend to ramble. So I really admire people that can just concisely sum up what I’ve said in 15 sentences into one sentence. Like I love that. I love saying economize. I think that’s a good way to put it, but that can be perceived as cold, uncaring, icy, whatever you want to say,

Laura Camacho 13:01

exactly yes and, or even snobby or even elitist. I mean, we fill

Maria Ross 13:08

in the gap, yeah, we think that means I’m really the person’s like, No, you asked me a question. I gave you an answer. Like, there’s, there’s no judgment there, right?

Laura Camacho 13:16

Exactly, see, that’s the whole thing. And that’s the introvert brain is just like, well, I answered the question and I and introverts was, it depends. It’s hard to generalize about every single one of us, but we don’t want to waste people’s time, you know. And so we’re just like, trying to always get it, you know, to the most were the least number of words for the most impact, which, like you said, is a great quality, but you cannot be so concise that people feel that you don’t care about them. Or, you know, you may need to sell your idea a little bit and connect it to the impact and not sometimes we think it’s obvious that, you know, Laura’s great idea is clearly what we should do because of some logic, but that doesn’t right.

Maria Ross 14:04

You’ve got to come back the dots for people, yeah, for sure. So while we’re on the introverted path, what other What other challenges do you see introverted types having with either building executive presence or even just advancing in the organization?

Laura Camacho 14:18

Well, that’s a great question. And the and there’s two sides to that, and one is that a lot of introverts tend to be internal processors, and that means that you ask me a question that I haven’t been asked before, or I haven’t prepared, and I’m deer in the headlights, but then five minutes later, I have this, you know, brilliant Tiffany’s quality answer for you, but the meeting’s over the moments past, and so that internal processing that’s, you know, that keeps us up at night, and we always think of these great answers, you know, in the shower. So that is a problem in executive meetings, where, if you’re intimidated. Because of your if people that you don’t know very well, they don’t know you very well, they have more power than you do, then you’re already like your brain is not as functioning as well. And then on top of that, if you’re an introvert who tends to economize on how much you say. And then up on top of that, you are internal processor where you need time to think about what’s being said, or you want to analyze it just a little bit. Then in the moment, you’re not going to say anything. And if they ask you a question, you’re going to, you know, maybe blurt out something, but it won’t be it won’t sound as confident, because you’re a hot mess in some Right, right? Whereas a extrovert, external processor may ramble a little bit, but it will eventually land the plane.

Maria Ross 15:45

Hopefully, yeah, hopefully,

Laura Camacho 15:48

hopefully, we’ll land the plane and not take too many take too long to do it. But yeah, they don’t sound like, riddled with doubt, yeah, like they’re, you know, going somewhere with it. Yeah, see it. And then if the person is on top of being an introvert is also highly conscientious perfectionistic, then they’re putting so much more pressure on themselves to to it’s like, well, if I can’t say it super eloquently, then I’m not going to say say it at all, exactly. And I say it’s better to say something badly than to not say it at all, because, first of all, it’s not going to come out badly. And even if it does, you can course correct, but you have got to break your mental box that you’re in like, Oh, when I feel this way, I can’t speak up. And of course, the answer to that, you know, that’s what I help my clients with, yeah, preparation. What are the what are the things that are likely to come up? What’s important to you? But see, we have to prepare for something

Maria Ross 16:45

well. And actually, in my first empathy book, the empathy edge, I talked about, I talked to an expert about how to run an empathetic meeting. And that was part of it, was accommodating different not only different neurodiversity, but different personality types, and being able to give people the agenda and materials to review ahead of time, so that if you do have introverts, you do have people that need to marinate on things for a bit, they can show up fully in the meeting, and you can actually get the benefit of their brain power in the meeting, versus just the loudest people in the meeting. You know, people like me will take up airspace. Meanwhile, these other folks have great ideas that we didn’t even consider because they didn’t get an advance notice of how to contribute to the meeting. And so I always joke that if we actually ran meetings in the effective way that you should run meetings, which is about having a clear goal, having agenda setting, sending things ahead of time, and then, you know, post meeting, sending the follow up, right, recapping the summary. We probably would have less meetings, because that’s actually a lot of work, right? And maybe that’s the key to less meetings, is make them better, prepare them better. Yes, people like you’re talking about, I have kind of an off road question. Yeah, what you were saying? Have you ever worked with an executive team that was over indexed on extrovert or introvert to the point that it was actually impacting their performance, and they didn’t realize why until they worked with you and discovered that,

Laura Camacho 18:21

oh, that is such a good question. Yeah, it happens a lot with leaders. You know, we tend to gravitate towards people like ourselves, right? Because we feel more comfortable and it’s just more natural and it’s just easier. And so yes, more outspoken people will tend to hire people like them, and vice versa. So yeah, the problem is, with a team, performance is like you said, you’re not getting everybody’s ideas your head. And then, not only that, like a person on your team who doesn’t normally speak up, well, it won’t take long where they will never speak up because they just feel like it’s not worth it. Oh, Maria’s there, so she’s gonna take over. I’m just gonna, you know, check out, and it can lead to demoralization, and it can lead to poor performance and

Maria Ross 19:17

and missed opportunities. Yeah. I mean, really, that’s, that’s what we’re talking about here. Is what, what could that person contribute, if we were more inclusive of their their personality type and management style. And I kind of have a follow on question to that, which is, how do you help? How can we, collectively, or even, like extroverted leaders, help mentor or include introverts. What are some some tactics or strategies that you have to help us help those people step into their executive presence? Oh,

Laura Camacho 19:53

I love that question, and it is so beautiful. I’m always so touched when an extrovert leader asks me that, because a lot of times. Times they’re thinking, Oh, Laura’s not speaking up because she doesn’t have anything to say, or she doesn’t care. You know that. So there’s all these judgments that are kind of logical. And so when an extrovert asks me, I just love it. And one of the main things is, well, to recognize that to ask them, if you ask them a question, and if you say, Hey, Laura, we’re going to talk about executive presence in this meeting. And I really want your top thoughts on that. And if you just mentioned that in the email or passing in the bathroom, whatever, like that that helps. Another thing that helps is to like, if, if this is you know more, I don’t know how you would apply this to virtual meetings, but back in the olden days, when you were all in the same

Maria Ross 20:46

room, the before times, yeah, you could

Laura Camacho 20:49

have everybody go to the whiteboard and, you know, just write an idea. Or you could, you could make it so everybody has to contribute one idea or one hole in this is the main thing that you need to do with that person in the one on ones is say, Laura Bob Jamal, like I, I want to hear more from you in meetings. And actually, a leader who sees potential and introvert needs to encourage that and maybe mentor them in how to speak up. But the problem that extroverts have is they don’t know what they’re doing. Like, if I were to ask you, Maria, so we’re going to this event, you know? How can I meet more people? And you would say, oh, Laura, just go talk to them. And I’m like, Oh my gosh. What do I say? Yeah, you know, yeah. And so anyway, it’s all. It all is, you know, the people who want to learn, they they learn how to learn. But if you’re a leader, introverts on your team or extroverts on your team, you just need to, you need to notice that. You need to notice and leverage and work with them so that you’re getting the best that everybody has to offer,

Maria Ross 22:03

right? So in terms of tips, what I hear you saying is ask them, and maybe that means even in the meeting, being able to do more of a round robin and giving everyone a chance to speak in the meeting, or giving them a heads up before the meeting to say, hey, we’re going to talk about this. And I’d love for you to be prepared to share some thoughts exactly, and then being able to call them in the meeting. And then also, it sounds like giving them an opportunity, or maybe, and maybe I read this into what you were saying, sort of giving them prompts Yes, or if you’re asking them to go meet some people, quote, unquote, at an event. Maybe you help them formulate some, some prompts or questions ahead of time that they can ask in that venue. So if you’re sending your direct report to a networking event to help them with their professional development, maybe you don’t just send them. Maybe you’re like, Hey, how are you kind of strategizing how you’re going to approach this event? Maybe, let’s think of some some icebreaker questions. Yeah, you could ask if you go and so maybe, as an extrovert, you can help them do that, rather than just sort of like you said, just go talk to

Laura Camacho 23:09

people, right, exactly. And I bet if we were to drill down, like, what you do at a networking event, you probably have one or two questions like, you know, what brings you to this meeting? Exactly? What are you excited about these days? But you don’t think about it, because this just adds something

Maria Ross 23:30

well, and when I get nervous, I when I get nervous, and extroverts get nervous. Let’s just be honest, they do. It’s very it’s it’s an easy tactic to get the pressure off yourself, which also feeds into empathy, is to your point earlier, ask questions. Yes, people love to talk about themselves. Yes. So if I’m feeling uncomfortable, and I’ve gone to networking events where I’ve known I know no one, so what I do is I kind of step in near a group, and I start asking questions of the other people, and it might be 20 minutes before they ask me about me, right? But that’s okay, because the impression they have of me is that I’m a good listener, and also I am just curious. I’m a naturally curious person. So that is going to create that connection with someone, because they’re like, oh, there’s, there’s something about Laura. She’s a really good listener. Well, it’s because you didn’t ask me anything about me, but, you know, anyway. But I find that that’s a great way. And then you can always be additive to that of like, Hey, Laura, what brings you here? You tell me. And then I can say, Oh, wow, that’s really interesting. I found out about this event. And then you can start talking about yourself exactly. And so, you know, we’re kind of dipping in and out of, like, executive presence and just, you know, social skills with people you know. So I want to kind of get back to executive presence a little bit more and say, what are some different tools to make what you want to say more clear and thus more empathetic. I know, you know. I know that things. I’ve shared in my books and in my work, but from your perspective, working with leaders, on on that executive presence and on that ability to be more clear, be more impactful, and more about what the other person needs. What are some of the different tools in your toolbox?

Laura Camacho 25:19

Maria, that’s such a great question. So the one thing that I think helps everybody with executive presence, because if you are interested in executive presence, I am assuming that you want to be an executive like you, want to first reach as far as influencing above you. And then

Maria Ross 25:36

would you also call that leadership presence, not just executive presence,

Laura Camacho 25:40

okay, it’s similar. I use executive presence because I deal a lot with ICS and then individual contributors. I mean, it’s just seems more gotta know you’re leaving yourself, but you’re right, right? I got you. I got you. So, yes, it’s the same thing, but what people need to see is your point of view, and this, this is the switch from being reactive. You know, you asked me for these deliverables. I delivered on time under budget, versus no, Maria, I think that that that we’re over indexing on x, and what I’ve observed is this and that. And even though you’re my boss, I think we should do, you know, I think you should look into, or let me look into this, like making suggestions and having a point of view about your domain. And that point of view has to do, has to be, what is working well and why, what is driving you crazy, and why? How You Can you make the company more successful? That’s the that’s the rub. That’s where the rubber hits the road. That’s where you start becoming senior leadership. When you have that idea in your head, and it’s not that you’re gonna, like we were talking about earlier, you’re not gonna present this. Well, I’m a, you know, just promoted to director, but I have a whole reorg plan for the company? No, it’s not that, but it’s, it’s, you know, we need to focus on a instead of B, or change with AI with our customers, like those things that are above your actual deliverables level, yes, the company level, or your division or business unit level, what are you seeing? Because the people that talk, they only see what they’re told that they’re not actually interfacing down with the customer like you probably are. So I think with executive press, I would encourage everybody listening, if you want, I would develop three to five things that you wish the president of your company understood about your domain, about your area and and not that you’re going to go knock on the door and tell her that maybe you would, but, but you have that kind of tea dub, and that’s going to serve as the raw material for Your intervention in meetings and speaking up in meetings, and I’m going to give a couple of tips about speaking up in these meetings and preparing for meetings where you’re the more junior person, and one is to speak up earlier, rather than later. Every meeting tends to generate momentum, and if you’re Junior and you don’t speak up in the first 10 or 15 minutes, it’s going to be super hard. Speak up later. However, one way to speak up at the very end, if you’ve just, like, haven’t pulled it together until the very end of the meeting, you could say, oh, I just want to clarify. What I’m taking away is blah, blah, blah, blah, like recapping the main points, because you’re probably a really good listener, and you’ve probably taken notes that would be a way to add value, because I’m talking about speaking up in a meeting to add value, not just to hear the sound of your voice, which is an anathema to introvert. So preparing what? How do you think you can add value to this meeting from your current place in the organization? Because, trust me, they will not ask you to come to any meeting, unless they see that you can add value. So you have to figure that part out. And and you want to, you know, keep it to the one thing you need that I see is this, or this thing is important, because, all right, these three trends, like one thing or three things, number them, keep it, you know, very nicely organized, and that will sound very executive. Presidency. Yeah. I love that, yeah. So preparing, speaking up early, speaking up in structure, with structure.

Maria Ross 29:37

And I think your point, we need to stress, your point about where the empathy comes in is that it’s not all about you. It’s about what is going to benefit the business, and that is about understanding what someone else cares about. So when you’re speaking to senior leaders and you’re speaking to or people you’re trying to influence, how can you speak in a language that’s not a do. About I want this thing because I want it right, versus if we do this thing our, you know, we said our goal was to increase revenue or increase customer retention or increase, you know, our satisfaction scores. And I believe that if we do this thing, here’s that, how that is going to be

Laura Camacho 30:17

impacted, exactly, and another, another research, because introverts love to do research. We love to analyze things is and but everybody should be doing this. If you are going to be in a meeting with people you don’t know, research them like what’s important to them. Find you know. Read their bio on LinkedIn, on the company intranet. They have an executive assistant. Maybe you talk to them. Maybe you ask your boss, hey, what do you know about Maria Ross? I hear that’s what

Maria Ross 30:46

good that’s what good salespeople do all the time, is they learn who’s going to be in the room, and they learn as much about those people as they possibly can before they go in the room. And I’ve always been in awe of sales people, because I’m a great marketer, but I have worked with sales people who we’ve been privy to the same conversation, and then we leave and I’m like, This is what I heard. And they’re like, Oh no, there was it. Was this and this and this, and they’re scared of this, and that person actually reports to someone else. They’re not the decision maker. And I’m like, how did you get all that from that meeting? So it’s definitely a skill when you have a good salesperson that understands, understands subtext, and understands how to read the room. But my point being is that this is why empathy is actually one. Empathy, combined with ambition, is the single largest success trait for successful salespeople. Oh, wow. And you wouldn’t think like salespeople empathy, but actually empathy is their greatest asset, because they come in what is important to you as I frame my talk or my pitch or my conversation, and I’m going to ask questions to find out what’s important to you, and I’m going to adapt on the fly based on what I’m getting back from you. That is a big skill. So we kind of went off on a

Laura Camacho 32:00

little Yes, but Maria, that’s so good, because that’s exactly what you’re going to do if you have executive presence. I mean, maybe you’re not going to go out on the

Maria Ross 32:07

street. And so you’re selling you’re selling yourself

Laura Camacho 32:11

Yes, and your ideas, and your ideas, exactly. I love it. That was so on point. I love it.

Maria Ross 32:18

So the last question I want to ask is, when the C suite is looking to promote someone internally, what qualities do they see that indicate strong empathy from the leaders and the executives that you’ve worked with? What are those indicators for them? I know what they are for me as like an empathy advocate and researcher, but from their viewpoint, how do they gage empathy. How do they gage that executive presence?

Laura Camacho 32:43

Okay, so one of the things they would look at is, you know, have there been any complaints about you? Because you know, if you’re you can have a problem with one person on your team or another stakeholder, and it can not be your fault, and it can, you know, there can be damage there that you need to take care of. So that would be kind of the baseline, like, make sure that nobody’s complaining about you, because the senior leaders they are, they have filtered information about you. They don’t have direct information. So do Pete, like, do people even know who you are? Do the peers of your boss know who you are. Have they heard your name? Because that that’s also going to be an indicator of your empathy. And if they’ve heard you know just what the vibe is, or what people are going to sum up your whole body of work in a couple of sentences. But in that’s going to include some reference, either overtly or in or implicitly, or are you easy to work with? And I think that would be kind of an executive filter for empathy is, do people like working with you? Because they certainly don’t want to bring trouble. You know that kind you can be super good at what you do, but if people don’t like working with you or writing complaints, or nobody knows you, yeah, those are gonna all be red flags.

Maria Ross 34:09

There’s that quote from Daniel Goleman, and I’m totally gonna butcher it here, but it’s something around if you don’t have empathy and emotional regulation, no matter how smart you are, you’re never gonna get very far

Maria Ross 34:20

correct. So I’m totally butchering the quote, the paraphrase, the paraphrase, yes,

Laura Camacho 34:25

is on point, exactly. And the thing is, you can be like inside of yourself, like, wish everybody the best and love everybody, but if they don’t feel it, then it doesn’t matter. So it’s not just feeling that you care about people, they have to feel that you care about them and that, yeah, you know that takes a little bit more effort investigation, just more work.

Maria Ross 34:51

I did see a study. It’s probably a little bit outdated now, but it was when I was researching the first empathy book that talked about your your. Managers will perceive you as a higher performer. If your team sees you as empathetic, does that make sense? It’s kind of like skipping a level, like they actually look at how your team talks about you, and if they if your team thinks you’re a very empathetic leader, you are actually rated as a higher performer by the people that rate your performance. That’s which I find so interesting.

Laura Camacho 35:26

Yeah, that is interesting, yeah, because they’re and because they’re looking at it, well, the team likes, likes you, likes to work with you, and that’s maybe, right, we maybe there’s also studies that when the your team like your leader, perform better, I would think that,

Maria Ross 35:40

yeah. I mean, I’m sure it’s all linked together, but yeah, exactly because they’re probably more engaged, they’re more motivated, they they have higher productivity, less absenteeism, all the things, right? So

Laura Camacho 35:50

yes, but that’s an interesting play on perception there. Yeah, right, yeah, down,

Maria Ross 35:54

yeah. Well, and I think because there are some leaders, and I’ve worked for them, who think that they can hide what they’re doing to their team, yes, from their superiors, right? And they can treat their team like crap, but as long as they look like the shining golden, golden child to the person they report to, that they’re going to be seen as amazing and that the data doesn’t bear that out.

Laura Camacho 36:17

Well, yes, but I have, I have coached situation where, individually, here and there, I work short term, for sure, short term, yes. So if you’re in that situation, and you’re listening, and you’re like, Maria, Laura, no, you don’t know. You don’t

Maria Ross 36:32

know my boss, yeah, yeah. Now

Laura Camacho 36:35

if you’re seeing that, yeah, I would say your boss is not going anywhere.

Maria Ross 36:39

I think it catches, yeah. I mean, having been through personal experience of this, it ultimately catches up to that person, exactly, right? So, and then the emperor has no clothes, and, yeah, exactly. Take heart. Take heart. Take heart. So I really love this conversation, because we’ve touched on a few things. We’ve touched on just executive presence and the role of empathy in showcasing your executive presence. But then specifically, I love this deep dive that we’ve done around if you’re introverted, all is not lost, right? You can still be a leader. You can still be you can still have executive presence. And you know, there are so many strengths in introverts that make them such good leaders, and especially that ability to listen,

Laura Camacho 37:22

yes, to listen and to think, to reflect, to take a pause, yeah, off the handle, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think they can be extremely good leaders. And I think Tech has is the domain where introvert leadership has just flourished. But of course, we don’t all work in tech, but definitely, you know, Susan Kane’s book about the power of quiet definitely legitimize being an introvert and help popularize the understanding of that our brains just work a little bit differently, and we’re not It’s not that we don’t like People get exhausted by so much chat, right? So, yeah, yeah,

Maria Ross 38:03

I think, you know, it’s great. Part of what I try to do that with this show is not only help, you know, share about empathy and how it can, you can leverage it in the workplace, but also provide empathy by talking to different people and explaining you know what their experience is like. So if you are managing or your colleagues with someone that fits that description, you can better understand them. So I think this is a great episode for those of us that work with introverts and want to better understand them, and what we can do to support them in being their, you know, be trite. You know, their best selves at work. So flourish. Yeah, to flourish Exactly. So Laura, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you for your insights. We will have all your links in the show notes, but for anyone on the go, where’s the best place they can learn about you and about your wonderful books.

Laura Camacho 38:52

Oh, thank you so much. Well, my website, speak up with Laura long but not

Maria Ross 38:58

we got it. We’ll have the link in the website, in the show notes. Yeah, sure.

Laura Camacho 39:03

You’ll see you know all kinds of Laura Camacho, executive presence content

Maria Ross 39:09

there. Great, great. Well, thank you so much for joining us today.

Laura Camacho 39:12

My pleasure has been an honor, and I loved your questions. Thank you so much. And thank

Maria Ross 39:17

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

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

Courage to Advance: Why AI Can’t Call BS: The Irreplaceable Human Edge in Executive Coaching with Rod Bacon

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

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

As AI revolutionizes how we work, what makes human executive coaching irreplaceable? Kim Bohr sits down with Rod Bacon, SparkEffect’s Chief Coaching Officer, to explore why transformative leadership breakthroughs happen through human connection, not algorithms.

Rod reveals what he calls “sacred pressure” in coaching relationships – the ability to create breakthrough moments through presence and challenge blind spots in ways AI cannot replicate. This conversation explores the neuroscience of trust-building, why discomfort drives growth, and how mirror neurons enable coaches to move executives from stress to creative insight.

Whether you’re defending coaching investments or seeking authentic development, discover why trust acts as a “force multiplier” in organizations and how vulnerability-based leadership creates the psychological safety teams need.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Biological synchronization between the coach and the executive creates conditions for transformation
AI can ask questions, but cannot synchronize nervous systems or create a calming presence
Growth requires “sacred pressure” – productive tension that human coaches apply with precise timing
Trust acts as a “force multiplier,” enabling innovation, agility, and resilience
Without trust, teams make false commitments in meetings but have real conversations elsewhere
Mirror neurons enable coaches to regulate nervous systems, moving executives from stress to creativity
The future is leveraging both AI efficiency and irreplaceable human wisdom

“Trust is the new strategic capital…it’s the interstitial connections which holds everything together.” — Rod Bacon

About Rod Bacon: Rod Bacon serves as Chief Coaching Officer at SparkEffect, developing world-class executive coaches and working with C-suite leaders across healthcare, pharmaceutical, and technology industries. His philosophy that “personal growth is professional growth” has guided transformative leadership development worldwide.

Connect with Rod Bacon:

Website: sparkeffect.com/about/rod-bacon/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rodbacon/

Connect with Kim Bohr and SparkEffect

SparkEffect: sparkeffect.com

Courage to Advance recording and resources:

sparkeffect.com/courage-to-advance-podcast

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/sparkeffect

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

Connect with Maria:

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

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

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

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Kim Bohr 01:52

All right, everyone, let’s talk about leadership disruptors, and the number one that we are all facing right now is AI, yes, it can ask you powerful questions, but it can’t call BS when you are lying to yourself. And while AI can ask these powerful questions, it can’t synchronize a nervous system to re ground you. And while it can help validate your feelings, it can’t call your bluff what you need the most. I’m Kim Bohr, president and COO of Spark effect and host of the courage to advance podcast on this episode, we’re diving into why the most transformative leadership breakthroughs happen not through algorithms, but through the irreplaceable power of the human connection, productive tension and this biological synchronization. And I can’t think of a better guest to have to discuss this with than rod bacon, our chief coaching officer at Spark effect. Rod has held several executive roles prior to spark effect that have informed his work as an executive coach of C level leaders. His philosophy centers around the people and this idea that personal growth is really professional growth. I am so excited for this conversation. So let’s dive in. Rod, welcome to courage to advance podcast. Thank you. Happy to be here. So rod, everyone’s asking, Will AI replace executive coaches? But is that the wrong question? Is the real question, as AI takes over more of our analytical and tactical work, how do we evolve the kind of transformative leaders in our organizations that we will desperately need?

Rod Bacon 03:27

I like the framing of that question, and a couple things come up. First, I want to say the first part of your question, will AI eliminate executive coaches? I kind of want to say yeah, to the ones who aren’t really bringing those core human skills, where the executive coaches think everything is about asking the right question. That’s going to fall away, because chat bots and AI bots can do that. So we’ll explore what some of those deeper human capabilities are that I think are really critical for creating transformative change. And then the other part about your question about the need for transformative thinking is exactly what I see is going to be coming down the road, because the way I think about it, and I’m totally embracing it, and we at Spark effect are embracing it, is that AI is kind of like outsourcing that analytical thinking capability. So we’re going to get better at that. Everybody’s going to get better at that. Have the tools. The key thing that we need to get better at then is kind of managing, regulating our emotions, creating deeper trust and connecting with people. A good place to start on that, actually maybe, is in this area of kind of that regulation, when an executive coaches, least the ones that we develop and work spark effect. When they’re working with executives, it’s as much about who they are and how they are creating a resonance and a presence with whoever they’re working with than it is. It’s more about that than it is about just. Asking powerful questions.

Kim Bohr 05:01

I think one of the real important differentiators that we’ve been pulling forward as we’ve been rethinking this executive coaching with this AI, is that that biological synchronization, where we literally, when we’re in conversations, there’s nuance through body language, or there’s nuance through subtleties that we help bring forward that we don’t see AI able to do that in the same degree, right? We start off by saying there’s so much of the tactical task based stuff that is absolutely valuable, but not this next level, just isn’t there, and our belief is that it probably won’t be there rod walk us through what’s actually happening. You know, in the brain, when a coaching kind of moment breaks through, that makes this biological synchronization so important to our perspective in the way that we’re talking about

Rod Bacon 05:52

it. Yeah, perfect. Perfect. Because the essence of executive coaching, especially if we’re working with that transformative change, is creating that ability for the human to actually change under stress. What’s happening is that our amygdala is keeping us away from that kind of safety to be able to explore new opportunities, and it’s those mirror neurons that connect between us that create our resonance together. So the way I think about it is, when we meet with an executive, especially if they’re under stress, what’s happening is, if we are calm, if our nervous systems are regulated, it creates a space for the other, for the executive to kind of slow down and synchronize and create a resonance that amygdala, the threat center, starts to soften, and then they can have access to that prefrontal cortex piece where you’re able to look at yourself and think about what’s happening. But if you think about it, when we’re under stress, we don’t have access to that synchronization. So that’s why the element, the essence of the coach has to be self aware. They have to monitor their body, come into the relationship, hold that center, allow that regulation between the two systems to start to happen, and then you can start to access those that again, that prefrontal cortex and explore what you might do differently, access creativity and insight. Absolutely.

Kim Bohr 07:24

Do you have an example to share where that’s been brought forward, and are there some tools you might say these were some of the ways that you came to that place with this executive you were coaching?

Rod Bacon 07:35

Yeah, when I thought about just our conversation overall, there’s lots of examples, but I think sometimes it’s the simple ones that hit home again. Don’t over complicate them. I remember I was working with an executive at a biotech firm, and she was like an always on type A personality. It was a zoom based meeting, because other people will sometimes talk about, well, can we do this single application over zoom? And she was just going off again on the polished answers about what she was doing. Because when she came to coaching, she typically came in, I don’t know if it was a fear or a performance piece, but she was again, an always on person. But this particular time I remember she was just talking about all the different things were happening. And I took a risk. That’s something that executive coaches, I think, have to do, is stretch beyond what feels comfortable sometimes. And I don’t always do this, but with her, I just asked her, I said, Hey, I feel like we’re going really fast. Can we just slow down? Can we actually pause for 30 seconds and just breathe? And it was a bit of a stretch, and I could see her shift a little bit. And then we just paused longer. We hung out for a minute, and a shift seemed to happen. I can tell that she visibly changed a little bit, and she said, wow, that’s what I needed. And because she was able to slow down and start to connect, and from there, I was able to hear a lot is going on and what’s really going on underneath the surface, but it was that simple stopping and connecting, which brought attention to that resonance I was talking about. And from there, the relationship was able to change, and she broke open about how much stress she was under and stuff she was having to

Kim Bohr 09:17

do. Yeah, I love that example, because it really shows she was coming in with, this was another item on her agenda for the day, right? And she was just in that motion of checking the boxes and not really showing up to it sounds like unintentionally, she wasn’t showing up to do the work because she was just moving through the list of whatever was going on. And that sounds heavy too to hear you describe how she came in, I feel a weight in imagining what that was like. And I can also feel what you described as the reset of, Oh, I could feel their energy shift just by how you even paused in what you were sharing with us.

Rod Bacon 09:57

Yeah, it’s really amazing to me. Kim, how important. Important. And I want to say again, how simple. Because if we think about the biological nature of this, the idea of the mirror and neurons. Oh, by the way, I don’t know if you know of a therapist called resmaa McKenna. He wrote a book called my grandmother’s hands. It’s all about the somatic nature of doing therapeutic work. And one of the things I love what he said. He said clients don’t realize it, but when they come to me, what they’re coming to me for is to regulate their nervous system. That’s important. And the same concept we said before, if your mind is in that busy mode, if you’re under a lot of stress, the fight, flight and freeze mechanism is keeping us from that prefrontal cortex, that amazing thing that evolved in evolution that allows us to have that reflective nature and that creative thinking. So what resmaa says is that the responsibility of the therapist to work with, to breathe and to like, be that deep rudder so that the other can synchronize with them, so that they can do the work. And as you were speaking, I don’t want to go into too many stories, but another one came up to me where a very high powered executive, and she came into tears. I think sometimes it’s just that nature of really feeling like you’re seen. I love AI, and we’re using the heck out of it, but it’s this kind of thing where AI can’t do AI can ask the powerful question, AI synchronize a nervous system,

Kim Bohr 11:27

right? And that’s so important for all of us. And what you described in that work is really powerful to think about how, in some ways it’s very simple too, like the techniques can be very simple to just have that moment, and we talk about having those pauses, I think we use those a lot of time. That terminology is used so lightly and not understanding actually the power of it. What do you feel like you alluded to this around the synchronization when we’re talking about zoom, and how do you coach people when leaders, specifically, when they’re thinking about, hey, they’re teams, and we’re always on Zoom, and we’re moving through these meetings after meetings, and what is happening there, when there’s a need to say, Hey, I think something’s off. Or how do you try to have teams regulate? Or in those kind of settings where it’s not just one on one, well,

Rod Bacon 12:16

exactly. I mean, a lot of times people think in this virtual world of using zoom, again, it’s all around organizing the content or presenting in certain ways. But even over zoom, my belief is that the other humans on your team are looking for and needing that sense of human connection. And what’s fascinating, because when zoom first came out, all of our stuff in this world of COVID, I was on that side of being curious, looking at all the different fields in therapy, etc. Can they create the same kind of results in a virtual in a remote setting? And the answer is yes, because it’s about the pacing. It’s about having people feel seen. And sometimes with Zoom, we want to forget that and we go to content, but it can happen just the same so lots of ways, but really it’s very powerful, very doable, and it’s very important to slow down and do some of the same techniques that you do in a face to face for creating that synchronization over a zoom setting.

Kim Bohr 13:16

That takes us into this other pillar, if you will, we talk about at Spark effect, where we have a really strong belief that tension is really required for transformation to happen. And I know that may sound very controversial to some of the listeners, but if any of us think we often realize our biggest growth comes from the challenges we face, and I think it’s really important that we talk about, why is this discomfort so necessary for growth and thinking about that from the executive coaching perspective, I’d love to share your

Rod Bacon 13:50

thoughts. Well, something we talk about amongst our coaches sometimes is this thing of almost like sacred pressure. It’s like coaching is not just warm empathy, but it’s creating that place of tension where can happen. I mean, for all learning, even when you look at like a child learning to tie their shoes, there’s vulnerability and there’s failure. But as we get older, our identity sometimes forms so much around I’m not going to be vulnerable. Failure is not an option. It doesn’t look good on me. And we create this kind of layered shell of this performative nature of being, and by gosh, it’s the coaches in the world that are hired that they have to do their own work, to stretch, to be able to call BS when they see it, and create that tension. It’s not always easy. It takes training and a certain amount of courage, because coaches also are human, so they want to perform. They want to get to the right outcomes. And sometimes by creating this tension, you’re not exactly sure which way it’s going to go, but it’s critical. Again, the AI can offer insights, but they. Can’t call a bluff.

Kim Bohr 15:01

Yeah,

Rod Bacon 15:02

I remember a situation not long ago where one of the key things we run into in coaching a lot is people talking about cascading accountability down through their organization. I was working with one of our clients just recently, and that’s what he was saying. He’s a CEO hospital, and he was talking about accountability through his team, and why they’re not doing this, and etc, etc. And in this particular case, my kind of calling BS, a little bit, is when I asked him and said, So are you modeling the same kind of accountability? And he started to talk, and I just pause, and because I talked to him enough, and he knew what he was working on. And he paused in his story, and he said he not gonna let me off the hook. Are you? I love that exactly. And I said, that’s what you pay me for,

Kim Bohr 15:53

right? And that you don’t get from the AI world. Can’t say I’m calling BS on you at this very moment, because I could tell you’ve got some inconsistencies in what you’ve said in past conversations and what you’re saying now. Can

Rod Bacon 16:08

I share one? Yes, it’s a little bit tangential, but I work with a woman at the largest consumer company in the world, and she is partly responsible for driving insights for that company. She and I have been talking about all this AI stuff. She’s integrating both at work and in her personal life. She shared a story with me where she was in Australia a couple months ago, and she was having a very difficult time in a personal situation, and she was using AI and describing and AI knew all about her because she had uploaded all of her personality profiles, etc. So when she was describing the situation, AI was coming back and saying, you know, I totally can understand, given your profile, why this would be difficult, etc, etc. She told me, in the space of two weeks, three times, her dialog with AI brought her to tears in the way that she felt like, oh my gosh, I’m so fully seen and understood. Wow. But here’s where it gets interesting. Is it in the latter part of that two week period, she realized there was no growth happening. It was just validating. It was seeing her and validating, but she wasn’t getting any tension about what her role was, maintaining this dynamic. So she came back to me, and I’m her coach, and she was with a whole nother level of appreciation, how I would hold that tension if someone was saying, Well, this is what’s happening. This is what’s happening. Not just seeing her. I’m glad she was seen. It helped her. She touched her emotionally, but it wasn’t asking her, what’s your role in this? So that, again, that tension the value of AI and the incredible value of a well trained tension holder.

Kim Bohr 17:56

So what is the difference between this productive tension, like we’re talking about, and maybe what’s more destructive. Let me step back and say, I think it’s not uncommon in our American society that maybe this idea of tension or healthy conflict is very adverse, right? People aren’t often leaning into that, and our belief, as we’ve said, that’s where growth happens. So how do we help people see where this healthy tension opportunity is, versus something that could feel maybe more destructive, and not necessarily destructive because of the executive coach side, but just something where people like they’re so adverse attention they don’t even want to step into it. How do you help people realize where that can go? I guess

Rod Bacon 18:33

that’s a beautiful conversation, and one that takes some practice, because there has to be a little bit of risk in that. So part of how I’m transforming how I’m handling your question is part of my role as chief coaching officer at Spark effect has helped to grow and develop our coaches in this category. The conversation is, how do you know how much of that tension to bring? Yeah, without pushing someone over the line or being asked to walk out of the office, and that takes practice, but it does take some risk. I know I’ve been there a couple times myself where I’ve had that tension and wondered if I was putting my own job on the line. Every time I’ve done that, it’s come out well. So I think the answer to your question is through experience and discernment. In other words, if I’m bringing tension to our conversation, I need to be plugged into the why. Why am I going to say what I’m going to say? Because if I’m somewhat self aware, I can still get into a debate situation tit for tat and in my head and have challenges come from that place, or I can be more connected to what is my job here with the person I’m coaching, bring tension and discernment, yeah, making sure what I’m there and discerning how much, and then taking some risk. But I think we’re asking the coaches to bring con. Consistent self awareness into the dynamic. So they’re not doing tension just for tension sake, for performance, but in service to the growth of the other

Kim Bohr 20:12

one of the things I know you are deeply invested in for yourself as an executive coach, as well as what you’re bringing forward to the executive coaches at Spark effect is a level of self awareness training. I think it’s really important to talk about that, because part of what you’re speaking of now and what we’ll talk about in this next segment, is really how it goes into the trust, right? But in order, one of the things I think is beautiful about the level of coaching you do and what we provide at Spark effect is that it’s elevated. It’s meant to bring growth, as we’ve talked about, but it’s also about checking our own biases, and how do we come forward? I think that’s worth us talking about that a bit, because that’s so powerful to this level of work we’re speaking

Rod Bacon 20:57

to. I don’t know if you just what you’re speaking about in general, but what we’ve just been piloting, and what we are going to be rolling out formally at Spark effect is providing what’s called coaching supervision to our coaches, which is not an oversight role about what work they’re doing. It comes out of the therapeutic field. It’s well adopted and required in most coaching organizations in the European nation, but it’s really to grow that self awareness, because if we’re working with one of these executives, we sometimes aren’t aware that we’re bringing in our own biases, and it’s end up being a filter between the work that we’re trying to do with the coaches, and as I said a minute ago, around that discernment, we can go into an argumentative debate of space, but it may not be in service. And that’s a great example, actually. Like, if I have a executive I’m working with, if they’re very analytical, and I feel like I can meet you there, that’s what’s happened, at least that’s what happened for me. Because, yeah, educated, etc. And if I meet someone who’s type A and they come to the field of our coaching with that analytical piece, like, I’m a genius. If I’m not careful, there’s a part of me that can do that too. I’m good enough. Let’s go, yeah. And so the work is to see when that is appropriate and when that is not. If I’m responding in that way because I’m good enough to be able to play in that space. But what I’ve developed over the years, and what I know is that what really is good enough and most effective for me is to have that counterbalance, be able to meet them, not at the level that they want to play, always to a certain degree, and then maybe to gain confidence. But if I’m unaware, I may be in a loop pattern, and I’m not really working and supporting that coach, so there’s just that awareness. Yeah, coaching supervision is a place where we bring our coaches, they start talking. We’re not breaking down in any detail the client they’re working with or the details that’s confidential, but we look at the pattern, and we create a space where they can get the same awareness that we just talked about, all in effort to have cleaner, more effective coaching conversations, more impact for the client organization and the individual, because that’s who we are serving, not ourself. I just felt that come up. I get anger when I see people entering the coaching field, because they like to do people work. It makes them feel good, and you got to grow past that. That’s why I said earlier in our conversation, AI eliminate half the executive coaches. What we’re looking for are people can have this self awareness, not just meet in patterns, but really be discerning and figuring out how to do the work to serve the client,

Kim Bohr 23:46

as you were speaking in an example of situation I had. I was doing a CEO evaluation a few years ago for a CEO in a healthcare space, and we were debriefing the results. It was a challenging evaluation that was done through a 360 process where the board was weighing in the peers were weighing in direct reports, I shouldn’t say peers, but direct reports and some other levels in the organization. And in order to do the debrief, the CEO already had an executive coach that was not a part of the spark effect organization. We invited that coach to join because we thought that would be very good in implementing what came from this evaluation? What was really surprising was that this coach didn’t try to defend the results and the CEO and tried to bring their own biases into and really not providing space for growth. What was interesting is the CEO said, I don’t need you to defend me. And that was a really interesting moment. What came up for me as you were describing the coaching supervision, this extra investment that these coaches do to try to put their own biases in check, is that’s a huge that isn’t necessarily every coach’s way of operating. And it really can be detrimental to the growth of an executive or anybody taking having coaching if you don’t have that level of experience to come in to say, I’m holding the space for you and leaving some of these belief systems of our own behind. So that just popped into my head as you were speaking. And I think it takes us to the other pillar that we have really strong belief in the trust is so important when we think about building trust. How does that show up in the C level leaders you coach when we’re trying to challenge as you describe the egos and the experience are there and trust is so critical.

Rod Bacon 25:39

I think trust is the new strategic capital. Trust is the interstitial connections which holds everything together and what is so difficult, I think for a lot of again, type a individuals to play in that space of what are the behaviors that actually start to build trust? And for me, one of those, oftentimes, is a level of vulnerability, because when I’m working with a team and you can show where you are concerned about your own capabilities, you’re not perfect, you’ve had some failures. It creates the space where other people can start to actually ask for help on things that’s important, what’s horrible, what’s most damaging in an organization is when it’s like the Wizard of Oz. Don’t look behind the curtain. Everybody in that same kind of modality, if you have a team together, and everybody is like, Hey, how’s it going in your section? Rod, I know you had the big project you’re working on, and my only response is, I got it. And someone else will say, Well, I’ve got some resources if you needed it. Want to ask questions and I want to deflect, because I don’t want to be seen as not being fully capable. And it’s such a strange inverse piece, that when you can start to share that you’re also human, you’re fallible, you don’t have it all together. You need resources. When you can start to actually resource yourself and be more effective. And the ripple effect is it creates that level of trust on another category in that right now, I’m working with another executive, and it’s interesting. He’s on the other side of the spectrum. He’s very even keeled calm. Everybody loves this person. He’s relatively new into his role about a year and a half as a CEO, but he doesn’t show much emotion. I don’t know if it’s not his natural place to be, right? Yeah, but in our conversation, what the 360 people were saying the organization is too soft. When the CEO said, We need to get certain things done, the resulting experience of it was, how does that differ from what was said two weeks ago or a month ago? In other words, what he is needing to work on is more dynamic range. Yeah, and how he communicates to our conversation about trust, if I get upset about something, I’m not advocating. We in anger, but we get frustrated. We have things where suddenly something is more urgent than another, and if our communication is always even keeled, people don’t know what you really need or what you really mean. And if they don’t know you, they don’t fully trust it. The connection is when I see and feel your emotions, whether it’s sadness, frustration, joy, et cetera. I trust you more.

Kim Bohr 28:26

That makes sense. People will

Rod Bacon 28:27

often think, well, that calm, even demeanor, is good, but actually it’s not as trustworthy. You don’t know where the person stands when they need something.

Kim Bohr 28:36

Let me ask you something that it just prompted as well. When you talk about that example in the work I’ve done, sometimes, what I have come across in what you’re describing is that there’s this fallacy that we as leaders can fall into that is something of the effect of, hey, I hired this person at the senior level to do this work. They should know what they need to get done and do it. Why am I having to deal with it? There’s this fallacy of like, since I hired you for this, I shouldn’t have to lead you. And I think what comes to mind when you say that is, sometimes there’s this missed expectation setting around. What’s at stake if we miss this mark? Where have we come from? Where are we at today? Where’s the deadlines that have to happen? And if we miss them, what’s going to happen? So to what you were describing, I often see that as some components too, of that range of sometimes we think like, Hey, we’re all in this together. And really, people still need to be led. Even at the most senior levels, they need direction and motivation and inspiration and correction as well. Would you agree? Oh,

Rod Bacon 29:41

yeah, absolutely. And to our connecting that back to the trust piece, okay, him, tying it all back what you described partly, when we say, well, I’m hiring expertise, so I shouldn’t need to lead them, that sounds like I’m hiring an AI bot.

Kim Bohr 29:55

That’s a great point, and that’s something we fall into, isn’t it? As humans. Yes, because we’ve done all the work. Yeah, you said you have the qualifications. Have at it. Yes,

Rod Bacon 30:06

what we’re talking about is that nobody is that way, right? We’re complex systems. We’re humans, and because of our need for identity and acceptance and performance, sometimes we are presenting ourselves as being a little bit more capable, or having everything buttoned down that it is. And so that leader leads in part by creating trust and doing that in part by showing some of their own vulnerability. And when they, for instance, in that scenario, that leader might say, you look very capable, et cetera, I’m not sure how I could best lead you. Where is it that I could add value? Because now engaging in the conversation, yes, and they’re calling out the fact that I know you’re not as perfect as you seem. So help me understand how I can lead you. And if they can use an example in their own style, maybe I come off this way. And here’s what I come off as versus what I mean, they start to create that openness for the human to human trust. Trust is a force multiplier.

Kim Bohr 31:08

Yes, I love that. It’s so powerful. Just to hear you say that it absolutely is, when we think about relationship building this way and the dynamic of trust, sometimes people think, Well, what’s in it? For me, what’s the ROI of it? And I think we know that there’s ways of measuring it through 360s and interviews and conversations, but what’s the case you make to executives you coach around, why this will have a return for them. That little

Rod Bacon 31:36

quip, trust is a force multiplier is great, but the other piece is innovation, agility, resilience, all of those pieces won’t stick without that human trust in it, and if you don’t have trust, then you’re not going to be able to challenge each other, right? Lack of trust, especially vulnerability based trust, means that don’t call me on my stuff. I won’t call you on yours, if we flip that around where we have the trust and I can call you on your stuff. You can call me and my stuff when we start to have that necessary conflict in organizations to work out that one of the biggest issues that I see in organizations is when teams say that people are not bringing everything to the table. They’re not having these difficult conversations in the meetings or in their one on one. They’re having them at the water cooler. They’re having them other places, which means you get together and you say, we need to get this done. I’m sure you experienced it. We have an agenda. We need to get this stuff done two, three weeks out later, people aren’t getting stuff done. Well, what’s the gap here? Everybody said, we all committed to it, but if they committed to it, but they didn’t have the trust where they could actually debate each other and say, I don’t think then it’s a false commitment. Yeah, very much. So it’s one of the worst things in an organization, because you spend all of this energy and time kind of aligning project plans and getting the commitment you think, and then there’s the lack of follow through. And everybody has good reasons. The result of that, I mean, that stems from this lack of trust, which means you can’t have the right level of kind of conflict and working out the details, the ROI of trust is just in medicine. It’s

Kim Bohr 33:16

huge. As we start to wrap up our conversation, you think about our listeners, if you were to put on your C level hat outside of our spark effect world, what’s your one takeaway defending the human coaching investment when the AI is everywhere and so easily accessible,

Rod Bacon 33:34

I’d say that what we have to watch out for. We’ve touched on some of it in this conversation is we all know the power and the importance of the brain, of the analytical piece, and with AI, it’s just going to give us more access to more stuff like that. And what is harder to see, because we spend our whole life going through colleges and getting experience and with over rotating on making sure we have the market information and how we handle things. And this other piece that we’re talking about, the power of the system synchronizations, the ability to discern and have the right level of tension. Because love means tension. I mean growth, the idea of having this level of trust that’s this force multiplier, all of those human capabilities, what I’m hoping and what I think is our path to salvation is that, yes, let’s outsource more of the brain. But for the CHROs, the CEOs, the VPs, understand that it’s, I’m sorry, there’s no shortcut. Is the human to human trust, synchronization, creativity, tension, that will allow us to actually create the cultures and get things done that we need to get done. So do both, yeah, trust in AI, learn how to use it and trust yourself. That would be maybe the closing statement. Is it trust for the CHROs out there, your instincts are right. Yeah. You got into the HR division overall, as opposed to finance, because you had human centric capabilities. Don’t let those get washed away with all of the AI stuff that human element. Trust your instincts. We are biological systems, and we need to work together and understand those dynamics and layer on top of that, this new outsourced brain that we’re having called AI

Kim Bohr 35:27

fabulous rod. Thank you so much for this conversation. I think we’ve got more coming. As we continue to do our work, I’m sure we’ll be having more conversations together with our audience, for our listeners, we have free resources that are very relevant to our conversation today that you can download by visiting courage to advance podcast.com and it will take you to our spark effect podcast page. And again, Rod, thank you so much for this very insightful and dynamic conversation. I want to also thank our empathy edge podcast for hosting us, our partners there in the sub series, and to our listeners for tuning into this episode of courage to advance where Transformative Leadership isn’t about having all the answers, it’s about having the courage to find them.

Rod Bacon 36:11

Love it. Love it. Well, I really enjoyed it. Thank you very much. See you next time. Thank you

Maria Ross 36:18

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™

Robin Dreeke: Spy Lessons for Leaders: Forging Unbreakable Alliances Through Empathy

Years ago, I was introduced to a former Marine and FBI counterintelligence officer whose job was to recruit spies to help protect our country. His secret weapon? Empathy. Finding out what is important to someone so that they can then build trust and find shared goals.

Robin Dreeke joins us again today to talk about his latest book, Unbreakable Alliances: A Spy Recruiter’s Authoritative Guide to Cultivating Powerful and Lasting Connections. He shares the four keys to communication and the difference between inspiration, influence, and manipulation. He shares the behaviors of trust required to inspire people to feel safe. We talk about how to engage empathy to inspire people to open up, share their context, and forge those unbreakable alliances. Finally, Robin shares a great definition of active curiosity and what it can do for both your relationships and success.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Every little word and emotion matters.
You have to balance the dichotomy of vulnerability and confidence.
Four keys of communication: seeking the thoughts and opinions of others; talking in terms of challenges and priorities that other people are dealing with; non-judgmental active curiosity; and empowering people with choice.
We need to be asking better questions – focus on what they want to share, not what you want to ask.

“Active curiosity is taking it to the next level – don’t just be curious about what it is you want to know, but be curious about what it is they want to share.” — Robin Dreeke

Episode References:

The Empathy Edge podcast: Robin Dreeke: Spycraft and the Leadership Code of Trust

About Robin Dreeke, Executive Coach, Speaker, Former FBI, and Author, Unbreakable Alliances

Robin Dreeke is an accomplished Executive Coach, Best-Selling Author, and Professional Speaker with an impressive background. As a Marine Corps Officer and retired FBI Special Agent, he served as Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, where he honed his skills in Recruiting Spies and Behavioral Assessment. Today, Robin has translated his expertise into his unique Interpersonal Communication Strategies that focus on Recruiting Allies in business. Since 2010, he has been working with Executives, Corporations, Entrepreneurs, the Military, and Law Enforcement to help them Forge Trust, Solve Challenges, and Lead. Robin’s People Formula has helped countless individuals and teams achieve quick, measurable results and maximum success. Whether you’re a newly promoted leader, executive, sales team member, or customer relations specialist, Robin’s proven strategies will help you excel.

Connect with Robin:

Website: robindreeke.com

X: x.com/rdreeke

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rdreeke

Facebook: facebook.com/ForgedbyTrust

Instagram: instagram.com/rdreeke

Book: Unbreakable Alliances: A Spy Recruiter’s Authoritative Guide to Cultivating Powerful and Lasting Connections

Connect with Maria:

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

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

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

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Robin Dreeke 02:51

You lighten up my day every time we contact each other, and so it’s such an honor to be back Maria.

Maria Ross 02:56

I know we were just saying how we couldn’t stop doing the pre record chat, because we just kept going and going and going. But yeah, we’re here today to talk about unbreakable alliances, your newest book, and the subtitle a spy recruiter’s authoritative guide to cultivating powerful and lasting connections. And I think creating those unbreakable alliances is really what we’re all after. And as you and I have talked empathy is one of the keys to creating those alliances. So for those who are not familiar with you, tell us a little bit of your background. I’ll also link to our first episode that we did together about spycraft, but tell us a little bit about your background. It’s

Robin Dreeke 03:38

I’m taking my pause because it’s always hard not to say the first thing that always pops in my mind is my background is number one thing in life is I’m a dad. I am such a proud father, and I suffer proud parent syndrome to the nth degree. Everything I’d learned in my professional life gave me a skill set to be the father I am my because again, I’m going to glow first. And my son is a Marine Corps jet pilot, and my daughter is a labor and delivery nurse. Um, I have two adult children that are just rocking it, killing it, and the best part of every single day is them sharing their day with me. I just got off my phone again with my son this morning. After every single flight, he calls me, tells me about the flight, tells me about the cool stuff he does, and I just light up inside. Oh, the thing that gave me the skill set to do that was I’m a, I’d say, Naval Academy graduate. I went to the Marine Corps afterwards, after my stint in the Marine Corps, got out as a captain, I came in the FBI. Was in the FBI, I served as a counter intelligence agent. My job was recruiting spies for my entire career, and I was a member of the behavioral analysis program for counterintelligence. I became the chief of the behavioral analysis program, so I did all the hooky, spooky spy stuff for the FBI as an instructor at Quantico, blah, blah, blah, and there you go. That’s it.

Maria Ross 04:44

I love it well, and that’s actually what you know that’s led you into a life of being an executive coach and a speaker to help leaders just build those connections. And my first question to you, because it was something that really jumped out at me from reading your book. What. Was the difference, because when we talk about, you know, empathy, and we talk about creating connections and building trust through empathy, we all know reality, and we all know that there’s some bad actors in the world that manipulate through empathy, and they try to coerce, to manipulate, to get what they want out of the interaction. So you had a great breakdown of the differences between inspiration, influence and persuasion. Can you share that with our listeners

Robin Dreeke 05:30

today? Yeah, you know, when you work in the world of recruiting spies, where no one has to talk to you, you know, because whether it’s the intelligence officer themselves that you’re trying to recruit, or the people around them in their lives, that you’re trying to glean information from to learn about this individual you want to have a conversation with. No one has committed a crime, and when no one’s committed a crime, and you’re in the FBI making an approach to try to have a relationship and a conversation with someone, no one has to have a conversation with you. And so if you have in your mind what you want to learn, what you want me, me, me, what’s your reaction? Shields up good out of my life. Why do I want to have a conversation with you? And so I have found that every single word you use and you think about just emanates from you, also from your non verbals, your verbals, your energy. And so the more you focus you are on yourself, everyone picks up on that. And so in order to get out of that, we I had to let go. And again, there’s no right or wrong. There’s just choices. I can just guarantee choices of human behavior. If you’re focused on yourself and what you want, people are going to shut down. They’re going to ignore you. They’re going to be polite potentially, but they’re not really going to respond in a way that you hope they will. And so I really felt this nuance was really key and critical. At first, I got away from the word convince anyone, because you cannot convince anyone of anything. And then people like using the word persuade and influence, because they’re softer words and they’re nice words. And you look up the definitions that I put in the dictionary about how to Yeah, they keep coming back the same word, influence someone to do this, or get someone to do this, or shift their mindset. But remember, every one of those things I’m saying, where’s the focus? It’s on what I want. But again, if I’m focusing on what I want, the number one thing I’m not doing, which you talk about so eloquently in both your books, is I’m not understanding what they want empathy doing a deep, active dive. And so I use the word inspiration here. This inspiration forces your mind to shift from what you want and really think about, how do I inspire them to want to because inspiration is literally just doing that deep, active, empathetic dive to unlock from within them their challenges, pain points and friction points in life. So you can understand life through their optic, through their lens, and then start thinking in terms of, what can I do to be a resource for them, allow them and inspire them to feel safe with me, so they might want to align, and thereby you’ll have trust and ultimately, the healthy relationship that they choose to have because they see you as someone in their life that they can move forward with. So that’s the really the key, to me, is getting away from the words that are self centered and focused for your goals and objectives and priorities and thinking in terms of inspiring so you unlock it with them. Now, granted, you know what it is you want. You know what it is your hopes, dreams and desires and goals and objectives are that’s in the back of your mind. You don’t have to actively make that the forefront. You will automatically align it when you discover theirs. That’s all you’re offering. When you’re offering a relationship, when you’re offering solutions to things in your life, you’re automatically aligning what it is that you’re hoping for with what it is you’re unlocking within them.

Maria Ross 08:40

So where do influence and persuasion fall into that? Is it all the same? I put

Robin Dreeke 08:45

influence and persuasion on the same line. I really do to me. They’re the same words, because, again, they’re about what I want. They’re about what I’m trying to get you to think, what I’m trying to get you to do. And again, I’m not talking about intentions here. Intentions can be altruistic. Intentions would be good. But when you’re I use my little non verbal here. You know, when you’re dealing with little micros, or, as James clear talks about atomic habits, when you’re talking about one atomic particle, when you’re trying to put all the possibilities of success that you can on your side. Every little word matters to me. Every little emotion matters, every little everything matters. And so if I can just get rid of all the agenda that I have and focus on their agenda. It’s just it makes a difference. It might not be the only difference, but when you cascade that with other behaviors, you’re setting yourself up and them up for greater

Maria Ross 09:32

success together. And you talk in the book about, you know, the whole linchpin to creating these unbreakable alliances is a focus on trust. And what I always get is the question, how do I build trust? And, you know, they’ve got their pad of paper out. They’re ready to take notes on what I’m gonna say, in a way, you know, that’s not really my expertise is psychological safety or trust. So I’m like, I don’t know, how do we build trust? So in your experience, how can you build trust? Especially when. There could be a perception of contention. I mean, you’re like you said, you’re dealing with people who are very wary of you and very protective of themselves. Think, you know, expand that to a work situation where you have a very contentious relationship with a colleague, or you have direct reports who don’t believe a word you say, let’s say that’s the situation. How do you build trust in a genuine way? What are some ways that leaders need to put in what are some things they need to put in place, and what are some mindset shifts they need to have in order to build that trust with people? There’s

Robin Dreeke 10:36

a few things I’m going to try to it is very simple to say, challenging to do, because our ego and our vanity, our own insecurities and trauma responses we have to others flare up to keep us from doing these behaviors. But the first thing I’m going to do is kind of share very simply what the behaviors of trust are as I define them. Yes, it’s really simple, open, honest communication, transparency and vulnerability. That’s it, because when you are being open, honest with the information that you’re looking for, the information that you’re sharing that inspires someone to feel safe. Because first, let’s go to the baseline of all human beings as a species, each of us are extremely predictable, because we were all seeking safety, security and prosperity from the other person’s point of view, empathy, as long as you know what that is doing a deep dive of what they think safety, security and prosperity looks like from their point of view. You’re on the road to trust, and the bedrock of all it is people just want to feel safe. They want to feel safe physically, they want to feel safe emotionally. Want to feel safe spiritually. So if you’re the person and you exhibit behaviors that inspires them, not makes them, inspires them to feel safe. That’s trust. And so what are the key behaviors that I can do? Because I can’t control what they think. I can’t control the perception. All I can do is control me. The behaviors that I can control for myself is that open, honest communication, the next is transparency. I get asked this a lot, so, Robin, you’re using, you know, all these tools, techniques and strategies to build rapport, build trust, and blah, blah, blah, blah, are you doing it to me now? What ensuring that I’m making it all value absolutely I’m doing the best I can, because naturally, I’m self centered. You know, I’m overcoming my own trauma responses from my childhood and growing up to move on, from solving my problems to moving on to solving your problems. So that requires a little bit of effort of my time. At this point my life. I got life reps and so, you know, it’s more of a habit for me now than a thoughtful process. But yes, I am doing it because I want to make it about you. And so what was I just doing? Being transparent. So when in doubt, how do you make sure and ensure that someone knows that you’re not manipulating or influencing persuaded in any way? Just be transparent with what you’re doing, what your goals, your agendas, everything. Now this takes courage, because people get afraid to share what their goals and objectives, because it takes courage. But you know what? No one’s expecting perfection. They’re expecting effort. They hope forever. Because the other thing that we’re all guaranteed as human beings also is no one’s perfect, not even close. And so if you try to present an air of perfection in all that you do, you erode trust, because you’re not being transparent. And the final key here is the really brave one, being vulnerable and being vulnerable just just means that you are self aware enough, like Tasha York talks about in her book, insight, is that you just have enough self awareness and self confidence and assurance that you can share. Hey, here’s what I’m working on. Here’s not what I’m so good at, but at the same time, here’s the skills, tools and techniques, or the other relationships I have to offset that in me and my team. Same time, here’s what I’m good at, and so here’s what I’m going to bring to bear, really naturally for you, and then just own it. So those are the behaviors of trust. Yeah, I’m going to keep going. Or you can ask a question, no, lots of words in here. I’m so

Maria Ross 13:39

sorry. No, I love it well, and that’s why you know, with the second book I talked about, the first pillar of empathetic and effective leadership is self awareness. It’s also the first step in strengthening your empathy. But you know, if we don’t know what we’re dealing with, if we don’t know we don’t have our own house in order, as I always like to say, we really can’t take on another person’s perspective without fear or defensiveness, right? Because we’re too stuck in our own stuff and and, you know, I’m always beating the drum on this when I’m out doing talks. Is vulnerable does not mean you fall apart. That’s the perception people have, right? No, I’ve got to keep it together. Vulnerable. You can be confidently vulnerable. I don’t know the plan for that yet, Robin, but let’s find out together. That’s a vulnerable position to say, I don’t know, but you don’t, it doesn’t have to put you in a position of weakness.

Robin Dreeke 14:27

You just said it though, right there, you know, you just actually said something very vulnerable that you’re, I’ve got to put on these errors to try to, you know, present that I got it all together, but I don’t that was a very vulnerable statement, right? Because you’re and you’re and you’re being transparent about what it is you’re trying to do, because you’re trying to present these great things at the same time you you have the self awareness understand, you don’t have it all together, right? And when you share that and you couple it with competence, because a really important thing here, where that people want to partner with you is that you can con that you can balance the dichotomy, the vulnerability, with confidence. Competence, because all you’re ever doing is saying, I’m vulnerable, I’m not good at this. Exactly. Why would I want to work with you? You’re right rags that can’t do anything, or you’re so insecure, or you’re fishing for compliments, you’re fishing for this, you know. So that’s what you don’t want. So you want to balance that dichotomy, as late Babban and Jocko will link, talk about in dichotomy of leadership and Extreme Ownership is that you want to everything is a balance. You got to balance this dichotomy, the dichotomy between being vulnerable and confident, because that’s what people are hoping to see absolutely and so few people do this. All you have to do is be the one person that can do it, or at least make the effort of doing it, and who wouldn’t want to partner with you,

Maria Ross 15:40

right? Well, and that’s, and I was kind of paraphrasing a leader saying that, like, look, I, you know, there’s a crisis within a company. I don’t have all the answers right now, you can say that, and you can say that with confidence, rather than, I don’t have all the answers, I’m falling apart. Like, that’s the vulnerability. A lot of leaders think art is expected of them, and that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about being able to admit when you know something, when you don’t know something, be open, put your ego aside enough to say someone else might have a better answer, someone else might have a different point of view, and also that growth mindset of I’m not a perfectly formed version of myself, no matter if I’m the CEO or the chairman of the board or chairperson of the board, it’s just that we have to always know that there’s more we can learn, more ways we can grow. And that’s what we mean by vulnerability, is being honest about that journey and saying I’m we’re all still learning. We’re all still works in progress, and that’s okay. I can still have confidence, I can still be grace under pressure, I can still make a strong decision, but I can also be vulnerable and authentic while doing that. And I think that’s the balance that some leaders have a challenge doing, because they’ve only learned to be a leader and in their minds, build trust through I have all the answers. I’ve got it all covered. I am perfect. I am flawless, right? And so how do we how can we inspire to use your words them to shift their mindset, that it’s okay to let that guard down, that maybe that was a model of leadership you were exposed to for most of your career, but that’s not the model of leadership that’s going to help you find success today.

Robin Dreeke 17:24

I think the challenge in that is, anytime someone has a belief system to move someone beyond their own personal belief system, we tend to only consume information that validates our own belief system. Robert Greene talks about in laws of human nature, you know, as a species, again, we consume information and validates their own self opinion. That’s why the two leading news networks are CNN and Fox News. Why are those two dilute? That’s why they both have large audiences that you cannot shift from one side to the other, because people consume the information they want to consume. And so same thing with a belief system. The only thing that can start shifting a belief system is to demonstrate, you know, and so I would say, as a CEO, if you’re trying to inspire them to adopt, or at least consider, I won’t say, adopt, at least consider a new mindset on how to approach is that you’re going to have to demonstrate the cause and effect, and do, basically do a simple science experiment for them, show them a stats, show them the data. But the same time, it’s going to have to be real life. It’s going to have to be demonstrated with a control and an experiment. And that’s what science experiments are, and that’s what human beings are. You know, every time something goes sideways with one of my children or even a client, the first thing I always say is, all right, what’s next? Who do we need to have a conversation with? What relationship do we need? And let’s not change 50 million things at once. Just Just pick one, watch cause and effect and move forward. All these things do require courage and require a lot of patience sometimes, which, if we’re bottom line and we have a high tempo, we can’t do but same mind. You know, here’s a guarantee, though, the easiest way to inspire some of the change is ask them, Are you satisfied with what’s going on now? Then what would it cost you to actually try something different, right? Again? What’s the definition of crazy? Do the same different results every time as I literally. So I was telling before we started, I do a lot of true crime, on commentary, on the news and on different podcasts. And we’re looking at this one case that this individual was saying, actually it’s it’s the Karen Reed case up in Boston as as of this recording. Anyway, it’s going through his second trial right now. It’s about to start, and one of the references the defendant was saying was that she was doing what she was doing to try to out the corruption in the police department, because she’s very human, you humanitarian, and she’s altruistic, and she’s trying to out corruption in the police department, and that’s part of her defense. And the only thing I said was, if you can’t prove the positive, let’s look at the reverse angle. All right, if that’s what you say, show me all your data points and experiences before that, all these great public services and anti corruption things you’ve done, because this should not be a one off. In other words, if you’re saying this. Is who you’re about, then this will not be a one time event. This is gonna be a life arc of being altruistic, of being about anti this, and being about, you know, you know, societal influencer. So same thing here. So I’m just looking for patterns behavior. If you have a pattern of behavior and that you’re trying to wire a CEO to change, all you have to do is pinpoint when the behaviors they’ve had up until that point the results is generating, and if they want a different result, change your pattern behavior.

20:30

That’s what I would do. I

Maria Ross 20:31

love it. I love it. Okay, in the book in unbreakable alliances, you talk about the keys to communications, and you they’re not just pretty bullet points. You’ve got some really powerful you have four powerful nuggets here. Can you share with us what those keys are? And maybe just a quick synopsis of

Robin Dreeke 20:49

each one? Yeah, I get my little Jesus going here. I know he’s got it.

Maria Ross 20:52

He’s doing his happy dance, folks

Robin Dreeke 20:55

right now that i i was so desperately missing in my life. Um, so just a quick narrative preamble, I apologize, um, as the origin of this and why I needed these so desperately, and why a lot of people do so I’m what’s called, actually, I think I got this from you first generation professional, right?

Maria Ross 21:13

Yes, I got that from a guest of mine. Yeah, yep. I absolutely loved it when

Robin Dreeke 21:17

I read it in your book. I use it all the time, Maria, because I am a first generation professional, meaning, I am the first person in my family that has ever owned a home, first one that went in, that went to college, you know, first one for everything. So I had no mentors, guides or teachers in front of me, paving the way like I’m doing, and I love doing for my children. Part of that challenge was that I was very, very adept at problem solving for myself. I was very, very good at building my own alliances and trust and relationships. I need to solve those problems, which is a great skill set to have, but I was doing it for myself. In other words, I had life reps until around 23 to 24 years old. That was me, me, me, me, me, because I didn’t have I needed to feel safe, secure and prosperous that we all did, and I need to do it for myself. And so what happened was I started fumbling in leadership in the Marine Corps, and I was told you need to shift the focus from yourself to others. And I had no idea what that meant. I had no idea the language behind it. And so, you know, my my this is

Maria Ross 22:17

why we want our son to go to the Marine Corps. It’s not even about

Robin Dreeke 22:21

the military. It’s about it’s about learning about people. Yeah. And so what, the what the Marine Corps major couldn’t articulate all he said was, just, do it be better, right? How do you shift the focus from yourself to others? Because we all know this intuitively, right? Make it about everyone else. So here’s the four keys of communication that I was missing. Okay, so the first point is seeking the thoughts and opinions of others, instead of rambling on and on and on about what I think as a master of telling you what I thought, especially being an extrovert from New York, oh my god, forget I hear you. I could not shut up like now.

Maria Ross 22:59

Second you’re allowed to do that on this podcast. That’s why you’re here. Yeah,

Robin Dreeke 23:02

I’m very aware of it at least. Second one is, is talking in terms of the challenges, priorities, pain points, and even the friction that other people are dealing with. Instead of focusing on what I was complaining about, what’s going on in my life, who cares? I was focused on that. The third one, and this is the golden key for everything, if you remember nothing, and you can take one atomic nugget and make it part of your life. This is it, non judgmental, active curiosity and validation. And I’m going to dive a little bit deeper on this one, please. I call it active curiosity and and

Maria Ross 23:39

this is where our work intersects all the time.

Robin Dreeke 23:41

And actually, know where I got this from was actually Neil deGrasse Tyson. I interviewed him for my show about a year or two ago, and I remember I had asked him a question, and he rephrased the question and then answered it. And I was like, That’s interesting, because he didn’t like the way I asked the question, right? And so that was really interesting. And so what I thought, what I really came to realize through him and then other writings I had read, was that it’s not just enough to be curious about what it is I want to know. Let go of your agenda entirely, which allows you to be present and be curious about what it is that they want to share. That’s what active curiosity is. Say that again, so active curiosity is is taking it to the next level. Don’t just be curious about what it is you want to know, but be curious about what it is they want to share. In order it is, in order to do that, we have to let go. And this is the greatest challenge. People always say, So Robin, how do I be present? Everyone says, just need to be present. This is easy. Let go of an agenda. Yeah, that’s it. Engage another human being excited to hear what comes out of their mouth. Yeah, you start off with a beautiful, open ended question of what, and I’ve done to you on my show, was that spark and inspiration that it inspired you to be who you are today, right? They’re going to take you on a journey, and then all you have to do. Is fill out nooks and crannies, be curious about what it is they’re saying without an agenda, except the only agenda I’ve ever had, I’m going to find your greatness. I’m going I have a I have I’m going to give myself a positive confirmation bias, and I’m going to find your greatness, because it’s in there. And I’m going to find it hopefully. I’m going to, I’m going to ask a question inspires you to think about yourself in a way that you never thought about, and you’re going to say, Oh, my God, I never thought about that before. Yeah, what a great moment that is. And how did that happen? Active curiosity. And finally,

Maria Ross 25:29

before you go to the fourth one, I just want to point out this whole thing that has been a common thread through all the work that I’ve been doing over the years, it’s that we need to ask better questions. That is the key to empathy, that’s the key to prioritization, that’s the key to that’s the key to inspiring people. We’re we’re focused so much on finding the quick answers we need to be asking better questions. So I love that this. This fits right in with one of your keys to communications

Robin Dreeke 25:57

here. So here’s the greatest challenge. You know, what a better question is? A question that you don’t want to learn, a question it is they want to share. Because if I’m focusing on what it is I want to ask, I’m not hearing what it is they’re saying. Now, if we do all the great pre work and hard work we need to do and research and due diligence ahead of time, you don’t have to think about it actively. It’s all it’s all in the back of your brain. Because now what’s happened is, when you don’t have the questions that you’re thinking of in your brain, because remember, when you’re thinking you can’t do two things at once again, are, are? I know you love Tasha Europe as well, because I’ve read it in your books too. You cite her, and she’s got a new one coming out. But in Insight, you know, and also Simon Sinek says the same thing, we cannot, no matter what any other generation says, We can’t multitask. It’s impossible for us one thing at a time. And if you’re thinking about what it is you want to say or what it is you want to ask, you’re not focusing on what it is they are actually saying what it is they actually want to share. And that’s what being present is. That’s what active curiosity is. And so that’s what a great question is. A great question is following up with something that they shared. Now, granted, you have it in the back of your mind where you’re hoping to go together, the question you ask is going to be threading what they said to the destination that you both want to get to. That’s what a great question is. I love it, okay. And the fourth key simple, empower people with choice. In other words, use the word if, more than anything else, if, like, when the FBI I was recruiting competent human sources or spies or whatever a the way I would empower people with choice, I’d give them my little song, my little dance. I’d offer an opportunity to do something patriotic, if that, if that’s something you’re comfortable with, if not, let me know what it is, and I’ll do my best to accommodate you. That’s it. Offer a choice.

Maria Ross 27:44

How can leaders do that when there is no choice? This is the question I’m getting a lot of I’m trying to be as empathetic as possible, but the new policy is the policy, and I can’t change that. So how do I have a conversation where I want to listen and I want to hear what they’re saying, and I want to build that trust and build that rapport, but at the end of the day, we can’t actually give them the choice of what they want. How would you answer that question?

Robin Dreeke 28:14

I do the same thing. I’d say. So here’s what we got to do, and here’s a new policy that’s coming down the line, if that’s something you’re comfortable with, and please raise your hand. Let me please raise your hand let me know who’s not comfortable with this, and we’re going to work it

Maria Ross 28:26

through, because this is what we need to do. Love it. Love it. Because, yeah,

Robin Dreeke 28:30

people don’t expect all the time that you’re going to do what they say. They just want to feel like they’re hurt. And

Maria Ross 28:36

100% this empathy is not about caving in. It’s about helping people, support people through and listening to them and okay, I get that this is hard for you. How can we it’s going to happen anyway. So how can I best support you through this?

Robin Dreeke 28:51

I just love asking if that’s something you’re comfortable with, because then you’re saying that, hey, I understand and recognize and validate that you might be uncut, that someone might be uncomfortable with this. Let me know what is making you uncomfortable, and we’ll work through that until you are comfortable, and then we’re doing it. In other words, I am here to problem solve to Yes. That’s exactly what we’re doing. My number one thing is life. How do we move towards Yes? I did this on the phone with people I’m dealing with, with warranty people. I was literally doing this all the time. I’m battling on a warranty on my I have a motor home. I’m bat battling a warranty company right now in my motor home. And all I when the first time I got on the phone with warranty people said, All right, let me know how we can move towards Yes. I We i just need to know what you need to do to feel safe and comfortable saying yes, what we need to have done.

Maria Ross 29:36

How do we move towards Yes? Love it.

Robin Dreeke 29:39

Yeah. Begin. How do you say no to that?

Maria Ross 29:41

Right? And also, I just want to have a former FBI agent negotiating everything in my life on my behalf. I think that’s awesome. The last question I want to share, because, I mean, there’s so much in the book, and I really want folks to take some time to listen to it or read it, because what I love about the book is. For each key, you give actionable ideas for people, or you give actions they can take to improve that area of communication. But I want to kind of wrap up with this idea of context, because we were talking even in the pre call, the importance of the importance of understanding someone’s context. And that’s, you know, really my definition of empathy is that it’s a fact finding mission to understand someone’s context so that you can figure out the next right step to take together. Because if I make all these assumptions about why you feel the way you feel, or why you believe what you believe, that’s not accurate. I need to hear it from you. I need to understand how you got there, even if I don’t agree with you. So talk to me a little bit about context and the role that you think it plays in building unbreakable alliances.

Robin Dreeke 30:47

I got my goosebumps as soon as you mentioned it. Context is key, and it’s my word for empathy that I use is my word for inclusion, diversity. Whatever anyone wants to say, I don’t care what it is. It’s literally what Brene Brown talks about in her books, and that is, it’s not just enough to walk in someone else’s shoes. You have to take yours off first. And this is deep con. And how did I learn this? And so let’s bring it back to the spy world. Yeah, every time I had to or had an operation where I was going to pitch and try to recruit a Russian military intelligence officer, which is my main job in New York, my supervisor, I’d come up with my plan and come up with my operation of what it is I wanted to say, and all the stuff and the logistics and all that. And I bring it into him for approval to move forward, to move it up to headquarter State Department, all the things I had to do. And the first thing you say was to me, it was like, All right, say it. I go, what you go, say, actually, say exactly what it is you think you’re going to say, go now. And it’s like, and he goes, and then he’d follow up with so why should I want to be recruited by you? I said, Because. I said, No, no, no, why should i i am Sergey Ivanov, why would I want to be recruited by you? What’s going on in my life, with my family, with my retirement or lack of retirement, my pay, the challenges, priorities and pain points in my life that I should even want to have a conversation to listen to you, and then he’d say to me, if you can’t answer that question, don’t even speak to me. Yet he forced me to have deep, active empathy and context. Every time a behavioral team would go in and offer suggestions of points consider, as we call them, for a recruitment operation, every single time we told the case agent before you open up your mouth and give what you think is going to be this masterful one liner, you must know your individual and I don’t call the word subject or target of an investigation, because that dehumanizes a human being. You’re about to have a conversation with a beautiful human being that you’re hoping to solid challenge or part of your pain point in their life and offer them resources for it, in reciprocity, that they will help protect the national security United States and our NATO allies. I literally that is what I did. Allies. I literally that is what I did. I said you need to do a deep dive of what their day to day life is. What time do they get up, what time do they go to work, what kind of things they do at work, what what their day to day life is with their family, the challenges they have, how many soccer practices are going to I want you to do such a deep dive. And then after you do enough of a deep dive, I want you to actually live that schedule to the best of your ability for two weeks, and then I want you to take that line that you think is so massive, give it to one of your squad members and walk up to you on the street, just like you plan on do them and have them deliver that line to you and see how it feels. Wow. And if it feels too creepy, don’t open your mouth. That is how I learned context.

Maria Ross 33:21

Wow. Mic drop. I mean, this is the thing that gets me over and over again. First of all, thank you for sharing that story. Secondly, this I I’m just going to call it a complaint that, well, this all takes too long. I’ve got work to do, to which my response is the most important use of your time is inspiring and motivating and leading your people. So if you don’t have time to get to know them and what’s going on for them and what motivates them and what speaks to them and what inspires them, you need to look at where you’re spending your time. And I think a lot of leaders you know, who are just basically, they’re not leaders. They’re glorified managers. They come into these roles with knowing how to do the work, and then they step into a leadership position and still hide behind the work and don’t actually dig into getting to know their people, getting to understand how to optimize, if we’re being really cold, right? Optimize their most precious assets, which are their people. That’s actually the difference between leadership and management, is that a manager manages tasks, a leader leads people, and so to those leaders. And I just want to also acknowledge I know it’s hard. I know that. You know, that’s why I wrote the second book. That’s why I wrote the empathy. Dilemma is they’re caught between managing the needs of the organization and the needs of their people, while also trying to protect their own boundaries and mental health. So I’m not saying it’s easy, but the challenge I have is, if you don’t think you have time to engage, you know, maybe not to that degree, but I mean, you know, really engage in having a conversation. What’s going on? For you, how’s your family? How what did you do on your last vacation? You know, having those conversations where you’re actually getting to know someone as a person, so that you can better lead them, you can better inspire them. I really feel like that’s not necessarily a skill gap. I mean, it could be, but it’s also a prioritization issue. Where are you actually spending your time that you don’t have time to do that,

35:23

right?

Robin Dreeke 35:24

So here’s an interesting, fun stat for you. So I was in the FBI for 22 plus years before I retired, there was not one instance in 22 plus years of me working counterintelligence that taking a shortcut and not doing that ever worked. Not once taken, yeah, we call them, you know, cold pitches, you know, where you didn’t take time to understand individually, you didn’t understand the context, and just walk up to them on the street and try to make a cold pitch, like a cold sale, like a cold call, like a cold call, never worked once in my experience, in 22 plus years. Well,

Maria Ross 35:56

and that’s, you know, what’s so funny, so much of what you’re talking about is what I have learned and taught around marketing and branding and effectively connecting and engaging with a customer, and that is when you don’t take that time to understand what’s important to them. When you don’t have take that time to ensure your message speaks to what’s in it for them and what they care about, it will always fail. No one cares about your widgets and your functions and your features unless you help someone understand how it benefits them. And so to your point, those interactions were the cold pitch that didn’t work. And

Robin Dreeke 36:27

here’s the beauty, where we can put it all together with these other things about transparency and vulnerability and open, honest communication. So say that you are in a high pressure situation, you have promulgation on high that you got to make this cold pitch, and you got to do all things and blow all the things we just said, you can’t, you don’t have time for context. You don’t have time do all this, and you got the high pressure, then you can counter that by doing this. I’ve done this all the time too. When I walk into a business as a counterintelligence agent in the FBI and try to inspire some company and a president to share all the information with me to help protect the national security of their company, you know, I said, whatever it is, and said, Listen, I have no idea why you’d want to have a conversation with me. I did the best I could, to do I could to learn your company ahead of time, to learn what your goals, priorities and objectives are. I think I made a little bit of a guess here, but I’m probably off on that. I would love it if you had time to let me know what some of those things are. Here’s the resources I have that I’d love to offer you, if that’s in line with what’s good and important to you. But if not, let me know, and I’ll completely leave you alone. I made a cold call. You know how many times I was told Get away from me, to never talk to me again? Zero. And that’s not me. And I didn’t know the context. So here’s the context. I did know who’s this guy coming in to talk to me? Out of the blue, right? The only and the only counter I could do to it was being open, honest communication, transparency and vulnerability. And I empowered them with choice about saying, if you want me to leave you alone, I’ll completely

Maria Ross 37:40

do it right. And copying to the fact that I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing

Robin Dreeke 37:46

here, it always works. Because I’m being again, you’re being real, genuine, organic present, making it all about

37:53

them. Yeah,

Maria Ross 37:54

I love it. Well, I want everyone to pick up the book, unbreakable alliances. Pick it up. Listen to it all the things a spy recruiter’s authoritative guide to cultivating powerful and lasting connections. I you know, and really just beyond the leadership realm, beyond the business realm, I think we need this advice more than ever in our world right now, because our world feels so fractured and so polarized. And if we can start to forge these alliances, my big word for this year is community and collaboration, and I’m really leaning into that, because no one’s going to survive this alone. So we need these unbreakable alliances right now, and how we create them is exactly what you spell out in your book. And I feel like this book could be applied to work, to leadership, but also to life as well. So really appreciate your time today, Robin, always good to talk to you, and we’ll have all your links in the show notes, as you know. But for folks on the go, someone’s exercising right now, where can they learn more about you and your work?

Robin Dreeke 38:54

Really, really simple. Robindreich.com, R, O, B, I, N, D, R, E, K, e.com, I have tons of videos. Got my podcast on there as well, on on YouTube that Maria’s on twice, and so everything’s right on there. Reach out. I’m here as a resource for you and your life.

Maria Ross 39:10

I love it. And if you get the opportunity, bring Robin in to speak to your teams. He’s great speaker. Thank you so much, Robin. Great to talk to you, and a pleasure, as always, Maria. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate, review and share with a friend or a colleague. And until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slicemaria and. Never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place. You.

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

July Hot Take: Empathy Under Attack: Leading with Heart in Hostile Times

Today’s episode is a little more personal. A reflection. A struggle.

Because lately, I’ve been wondering: Is empathy under attack? And if so, how do we as leaders, parents, citizens—and humans—continue to lead with empathy in a world that sometimes seems to mock, punish, or politicize it?

So today, I want to pull back the curtain and talk about what it’s like to do this work, and why—despite it all—I continue to fight for empathy at work, in leadership, and our culture at large.

Let’s dive in.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

In a chaotic world, cruelty often gets mistaken for strength.
Empathy is not about coddling and indulgence but about the courage to pause and listen, not to react.
Three small but powerful steps to resist the tide of cruelty and amplify empathy instead: model it, name it, protect it.

Empathy is not weak, naive, or political. It is what allows us to build trust, resolve conflict, and create workplaces where people—and performance—can thrive. – Maria Ross

Episode References:

FREE upcoming 2-day virtual leadership event with me! Let’s have a chat first and see if this aligns with your goals and where you are right now. Visit www.TheEmpathyEdge.com/event to sign up for a time.

VAST Institute

Robert Reich’s Substack article, ”Trump, Musk, and The Empathy Bug”: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trump-musk-and-the-empathy-bug

Listener Feedback! Please fill out the short survey here at https://bit.ly/edge-feedback

Connect with Maria:

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

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

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

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. Hi, it’s Maria here for another monthly hot take. Today’s episode is a little more personal. It’s a reflection and a struggle, really, because lately I’ve been wondering, and I’ve been seeing, is empathy under attack, and if so, how do we as leaders, parents, citizens, humans, continue to lead with empathy in a world that sometimes seems to mock punish or politicize it? So today, I want to pull back the curtain and talk about what it’s like to do this work and why, despite it all, I continue to fight for empathy at work, in leadership and in our culture at large. So let’s dive in. In my work as a speaker, strategist and author, I’ve spent more than a decade specifically championing that’s a hard word to say, the business case for empathy, and many more decades leveraging it to achieve success for clients and better collaboration with colleagues. Now I’ve shared research, told stories and interviewed brilliant minds on this very podcast, all to illustrate how empathy is not just nice to have, but essential for high performance, innovation, loyalty and trust, and yet, something’s shifted in recent years. I’ve noticed, I’m sure you’ve noticed, more and more leaders, especially those in public life or at the helm of large organizations, start to shy away from empathy, or worse, to dismiss it as weakness, as soft, as irrelevant in an era of AI economic pressure and culture wars. And honestly, it’s disheartening. Recently, my wonderful colleague Michelle Sherman of vast Institute, who does work empowering leaders to embrace their true genius and lead a life of purpose to gain dramatic results, she emailed me a brilliant piece by Robert Reich on substack titled Trump musk and the empathy bug in it. Reich explores how leaders like Donald Trump and Elon Musk are not just lacking in empathy, but almost proud of their attachment. He writes, and I quote, empathy is the capacity to see the world through the eyes of another and to feel what they feel. But in Trump’s and Musk’s cases, the empathy bug is entirely absent. They don’t even fake empathy. They don’t seem to care if they appear to care. He goes on to explain that this performative lack of empathy is actually part of their appeal to followers that in a chaotic world, cruelty gets mistaken for strength, and that that thought hit me hard. Here I am traveling the country, delivering keynotes and workshops on empathetic leadership, and I start to wonder, Am I pushing a boulder uphill every time I say things like empathy boosts performance or empathy increases customer loyalty, a small voice inside me whispers, is anyone still listening? Reich’s article inspired this thought, when our culture elevates those who mock others, who trade in blame and dehumanization, who treat workers or dissenters or entire communities as disposable. It feels like we’re slipping backward, and yet, here’s the rub. I also know that millions of people are craving something different. I hear it in the voices of the audiences I speak to, the leaders and HR professionals that I partner with, the CEO is brave enough to ask me, How do I lead with more heart without losing respect or results? So maybe we’re not so much fighting a losing battle, but a fractured one, where two very different visions of leadership are colliding, domination versus collaboration, command and control versus connection. Now, in the empathy edge, I wrote that we need to rebrand empathy as a strategic leadership skill, that it’s not about coddling or indulgence, it’s about courage, and I stand. By that, because in today’s world, it takes real courage to pause and listen rather than react, to treat your team like people, not machines, to sit across from someone who disagrees with you and still see their humanity. Robert Wright calls empathy the glue of society without it, he says, we lose the ability to make collective decisions, we lose democracy, we lose decency, and we cannot afford to lose those things. By the way, I am going to put a link to Robert’s article in the show notes, so make sure you check it out in full. So if you’re a leader wondering whether empathy is still relevant, let me assure you, it’s more relevant than ever. But we need to reclaim it from cynicism, from Spin, from weaponization. We need to stop thinking of empathy as a nice to have, and start recognizing it as a critical operating system for leadership in the 21st century. In fact, Reich further talks about how without empathy, our society just cannot work. And this part of his article is particularly powerful, so I want to quote it verbatim. Quote a society depends on people trusting that most others in society will have a modicum of empathy for others rather than take advantage of them. In this way, civic trust is self enforcing and self perpetuating, while civil distrust can corrode the very foundations of a society. Polls tell us that many of today’s Americans worry that the nation is losing its national identity. Yet the core of that identity has never been the whiteness of our skin, the uniformity of our ethnicity or the commonality of our birthplace, our core identity as Americans, the most precious legacy we’ve been given by the generations who came before us consists of the ideals we share and the obligations we hold in common. We are tied together by these empathic meanings and duties, our loyalties and attachments guided by empathy define who we are. If we are losing our national identity, it’s not because we are becoming blacker or browner or speak in more languages than we once did. It is because we are losing the ties that bind us together, our collective empathy, Musk and Trump typify what has gone wrong. Their most damaging legacies may be the erosion of the trust and empathy on which our society, any society, depends. End Quote, so what can you do right now as a leader who wants to resist the tide of cruelty? Well, here are three small but powerful steps. Number one, model it. You don’t have to be perfect, but when you listen, first admit your mistakes or show compassion in a tense moment, you show your team that empathy is strength. Number two, name it. When others dismiss empathy, push back gently, firmly. Say, I think listening to understand is productive, or I’ve seen empathy increase our results, not weaken them. Number three, protect it. Cultivate spaces where empathy is valued, whether that’s your team, your family or your community, surround yourselves with others who get it, because if we don’t protect empathy, who will, in closing, empathy is not weak, it’s not naive, it’s not political. It is what allows us to build trust, resolve conflict, and create workplaces where people and performance can thrive. And as Robert Reich so powerfully reminds us, when leaders lack empathy entirely, they lose touch with the people they claim to serve, they create fear, not loyalty, silence, not innovation, chaos, not progress. I know it’s hard. Some days I feel like a lone voice shouting into a storm, but then I remember, I’m not alone. You’re here, listening, caring, trying, and that gives me hope. So keep going, keep leading with empathy, even when it’s unpopular, because empathy is not the enemy, it’s the antidote. Thank you so much for joining me today on the empathy edge. If this episode spoke to you, please share it with a friend or a colleague or someone who needs to hear it. And as always, if you’re looking for support in building a culture of empathy and performance in your organization, and you’re not sure where to start, visit me at Red slice.com you know, I’d love to help until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Stay kind, stay courageous, stay human.

Maria Ross 09:53

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™

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse: The Nuts and Bolts of DEIB, By Stage

In today’s climate, where DEIB efforts are under attack, smart organizations know that embracing diverse perspectives leads to better decisions, stronger innovation, and thriving teams. Today, I’m thrilled to talk with Asheli Mann-Lofthouse about how to build and sustain impactful DEIB efforts—whether you’re just starting or already well along the journey.

We dive into how DEIB differs between nonprofits and for-profits, why the ultimate goal is to make DEIB programs obsolete, and what’s needed at every stage—budget, buy-in, ROI, and more. Asheli also breaks down the difference between sponsors and allies, how cis white individuals can spark change in spaces where representation is low, and why your team’s culture matters more than their job responsibilities.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

DEIB isn’t going anywhere, no matter what the politics say. People are just getting creative in how they describe it, talk about it, and structure it.
While allyship is important, sponsorship is equally important.
The more diverse voices you have, the better business decisions you’re going to make.

“We shouldn’t need these elaborate structures and all these different ways to make sure we’re being inclusive, because we should already be doing it. It should be holistically built into our system.” — Asheli Mann-Lofthouse

About Asheli Mann-Lofthouse, President & CEO, Cultural Outreach and Racial Equity Collective

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse is an Organizational Anthropologist who draws collectively from her afro-indigenous background and 15 years of DEI, human resources, and organizational development experience to lead the design and implementation of strategies that foster a culture of belonging and inclusion aligned with entity imperatives. With expertise in the development and execution of structured initiatives, Asheli empowers communities and organizations to break down systemic barriers, heal divisions, align value-driven priorities, and support diverse populations, allowing each individual to thrive. Her unique anthropological approach promotes awareness, allyship, and social justice by understanding holistic and diverse human experiences.

Asheli is actively committed to contributing to social and organizational impact efforts in partnership with local, state, and federal organizations, educational institutions, non-profits, communities, and businesses from all sectors in need and has a proven track record of delivering results in equitable [and efficient] process and program management, research, evaluation, and organizational improvement through learning and leadership development. Asheli is a servant leader and lifelong learner, committed to understanding individuals from all perspectives, using anthropological and ethnographic methodologies to overcome barriers for those facing adversity.

Connect with Asheli:

Cultural Outreach and Racial Equity Collective NFP: core-collective.org

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/asheli-mann-lofthouse

Instagram: instagram.com/core_collectivenfp

Connect with Maria:

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

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

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

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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. In today’s climate where deib efforts are under attack, smart organizations know that embracing diverse perspectives leads to better decisions, stronger innovation, and thriving teams. Today, I’m thrilled to talk with Ashley Mann Lofthouse about how to build and sustain impactful deib efforts, whether you’re just starting or already well along the journey. Ashley is an organizational anthropologist who draws from her Afro indigenous heritage and 15 years of experience in dei HR and organizational development as president and CEO of the Cultural Outreach and Racial Equity Collective. She helps organizations break down systemic barriers, align values with actions, and create cultures where everyone can thrive. Her unique anthropological lens promotes allyship and equity by centering diverse human experiences. We dive into how deib differs between nonprofits and for profits, why the ultimate goal is to make deib programs obsolete, and what’s needed at every stage, budget, buy in ROI, and more, even in today’s tough climate. Ashley also breaks down the difference between sponsors and allies, how CIS, white individuals can spark change in spaces where representation is low, and why your team’s culture matters more than their job responsibilities. So many insights. Take a listen. Welcome, Ashley, to the Empathy Edge Podcast. I’m so glad we finally made this happen to talk about the nuts and bolts of deib, which has been in the news lately.

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 02:27

Yeah, it has been all over the place. So, thank you for having me at this very interesting time.

Maria Ross 02:34

Yes, exactly. And you and I met at the SHRM inclusion conference two years ago and hung out last year, and it was really interesting to see the shift just within a year of where dei is, where it’s going. And so this is going to be a great conversation to get your unique perspective on that, about how you’re working with clients now to empower them to still achieve all the benefits that they can get from a diverse and inclusive workforce. So before we dive into all that, though we heard your bio, I love that you call yourself an organizational anthropologist. So tell us a little bit about that. Tell us about your story and how you got into that this work, and where the anthropology aspect fits in.

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 03:16

Definitely. It really started from my experience in mental health and education. I was getting burned out at work, and I loved what I was doing, but it just wasn’t the right fit. So I thought about how I could continue that journey of supporting people, especially the ones that needed support, but also continue my development and growth in that aspect of education, and from there, I actually had a leader that said to me, you know, what do you even want to do? Like, what would be your dream job? And I was like, Oh, well, if I could be, like, an ancient historical archeologist or anthropologist. And he was like, Oh, why can’t you? So I thought about it, and I said, Well, anthropology is just people. It’s the study of people, past, present, future, place, and time. How can I use that interest that I have of the human experience to transform what I’m doing now at work? And that’s exactly what I did. I did a little bit of research and decided that was the path I was going to take, and then shifted into the corporate environment so that I could have more visibility and experience in that space, just kind of understanding holistically the evolution of humans.

Maria Ross 04:31

Yeah, well, and talk about, you know, cultural study like, that’s really, it’s really taking a microcosm of all these really interesting cultures, everything from the most inclusive, innovative, creative cultures to like soul sucking cultures that are portrayed in movies and TV, right, everything in between. I come from a background of working over a decade in tech and in Silicon Valley, and that is so different from when I worked in the Midwest, from when I worked. On the east coast and in different industries too. So it really is an anthropological treasure chest, I guess, when you’re looking at different cultures within an organization. So how did you specifically get into the diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging Lane from that work?

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 05:16

Yeah, it’s interesting because I was doing te and I work before it had a name, and working with vulnerable populations has just always been something that was important to me, because I come from several identities that are aligned with different vulnerable populations and underrepresentation. And so understanding how my experience is also relative to theirs, and how I can support them better than maybe somebody who hasn’t experienced some of these things. From there, as I was kind of designing my path through my introduction to formal education with anthropology, I was like, this is exactly how I can get in the DE and I space, you know, I had to start in a different way. I went into operations for a bit to try to get the feel behind that organizational development, which is also, you know, how I transform my work. But from there, I was like, Yeah, this just solidifies my goal for myself, is that I know that thinking about the experience that people have in the workplace and in the environments that they occupy is more important than the job that they’re doing, because the job that they’re doing can’t be done well or right unless they are well, right. And that was really the kind of caveat that kicked back into, you know what it’s the DEI space for me, because it’s all about having that diverse perspective through inclusion by equity.

Maria Ross 06:51

So what do you make of the backlash we’re experiencing right now, and how do you find a way forward in your work? Because clearly, I mean you and I both know there are a multitude of benefits to an organization that creates an equitable, inclusive, diverse workforce, and you know, putting aside the fact that those particular words have been politicized and vilified, really what? How is that impacting your work? And what are you seeing with your clients in terms of continuing to do that work when they know it’s going to benefit the organization?

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 07:23

Absolutely wonderful question, because this is something that I think, even before November, per se, when I saw you last, even before all that, people started to shy away from it, right? They started getting rid of their de and I teams. They stopped using the word. They changed things within their organizational structure. And everyone kept saying, Well, what about when de and I goes away and de and is going away? Aren’t you scared? And I have consistently said it’s not going anywhere. People are just getting very creative about how they talk about it and how they structure it. And in all reality, I’ve said this many, many times, we shouldn’t even need a dei department, right? We shouldn’t need these elaborate structures and all these different ways to make sure we’re being inclusive, because we should already be doing it. It should be holistically built into our system, right? So if you ask me, we’re kind of heading in that direction. We’re getting rid of all these words that trigger people and set them off into something they just don’t understand, so that we can do these things systemically. And that is exactly the goal,

Maria Ross 08:37

right? And it’s really just about embedding the mindset into your culture, it sort of would be like if we had a department of integrity or a department of honesty. I mean, I feel that way when I talk about my empathy work too, right? It’s actually just a value and a philosophy that enables the organization to operate at its fullest capacity. That’s really what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about giving people a pass on their competence to put them in a role. We’re not talking about unfairly giving roles to people that are not qualified. I mean, I don’t even know how that got caught up in everything, but to your point, you know the reason we had to start with sort of systemically putting it in there is because it was not systemically in there before. And so when you work with organizations, what are I mean, I know you work with some very unique organizations, not necessarily all for profit. And so for you, what’s the difference when you’re working with an organization that’s more mission driven doing this work, versus an organization that is a very much a for profit organization. Are there differences in how they implement inclusion and equity programs?

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 09:46

That is, I think, very relevant to the space that we’re in right now, in de and I there is a difference, but I don’t necessarily think the difference fully comes from the organizational structure. Yeah. So I work with all organizations and industries through from nonprofit to educational institutions, community entities, corporate environments, whatever that looks like. What I find is that regardless of the entity structure, it’s the people that change how we implement. It’s not necessarily the organizational structure. It might not even be the industry or whatever it’s the individual people that are tasked with that job of saying, we need this to happen. I think I have a really good example where I was submitting an RFP for a community entity. So basically, a city of XYZ, in like the third stage, you have to meet with the council, and they get to ask you all the questions. It’s basically like an interview, and one of the gentlemen says, I have a question. We have a problem, you know, and this is closer to the end of the interview, and I’m like, Okay, what did I do? And he’s telling me, internally, we’re butting heads because we really want to move this project along very fast, but to do that, we have to, I mean, do we just go with the people we know in our back pockets that can help us push this along? Because they have the visibility and they have the high powered positions and all these other exciting things that these people just have. Or do we move forward with the way that we want to implement this committee to get this equity plan done? And I said, I love that you’re thinking about the fact that you should do this the right way, but ultimately you’re considering doing it the wrong way, and that’s what they decided. Because it was faster, it was easier, they didn’t have to work hard. I told them very plainly, the whole reason you’re doing this is to support those people and to get their voices heard. If you do this without them, you might as well scrap your whole program. It’s not going to be successful, right? And that’s what they did. Wow, so that’s unfortunate. It’s about the individual people and their perspective and their understanding, you know you talk about in your talks about developing empathy. It is really it, like you said it’s beyond value, right? We think about this as a perspective. It’s a holistic way of viewing the world and how you experience other people. And I think if you don’t have those different perspectives, you just don’t get it sometimes, and that is usually when you see the differentiation between the organizational

Maria Ross 12:40

choices. What do you think about organizations? Because I’ve been part of organizations where I’ve tried to push through dei initiatives, and I haven’t always been successful, and partly it’s because I’m a white woman of a certain socioeconomic status, and I see the need. But if there’s no one, if the need is there, because there are not diverse voices, if you want to include those people, how can you if they’re not even in the room, but you want to create an organization that in the future, they will be and they they will have a space and a place and the opportunity to be heard. It sometimes feels like, and I know I’ve talked to other fellow white people that feel that way too, where they they’re seeing the need, but because of the way the organization is systemically now, they don’t have those other diverse voices to lead the effort. So they they come in there, and it feels weird that they’re the ones asking for this. How do you help organizations deal with that fact that those players aren’t in place yet, but the goal is to actually get more of them in place and give more of them a voice.

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 13:48

That is a wonderful thought, because I I’ve had that exact experience. I have had the wonderful opportunity of working in some very, very diverse environments, from backgrounds to cultures, to just people in general. However, there was one organization that I worked for that was very behind the curve on de and I, and this is 10 years ago, and they knew it, which was something that I very highly respect. If you can say I’m way back here. I don’t get it. I want to, but I just, you know, and I’m not there yet. If you could admit that I respect that more than somebody that’s way up here that says I have all of these values and I love to do all these amazing things, but they don’t really mean it. They don’t have the commitment, and they don’t actually do those things, right? So my time spent with this organization, who knew they were behind but wanted to be there, knew that they couldn’t make such a jump so far ahead, right? They knew they had to take baby steps. So in that instance, they did something that I think we see a lot of organization do, sure. And that would be finding the one, finding the one right, having that one lead the charge, and she was happy to do it right, because she has to, and because she has to, like, it’s your job. You’re being told that, hey, this is what you’re going to do. This is why we want you to do it, and you’re going to do it right. And especially for women of color or for certain different cultural identities that have this idea that they have to perform above and beyond at a specific level of professionalism. What are you going to say? So you do it, and it was interesting. It was uncomfortable, because everybody knew, especially when it was Black History Month, and the only every year, every year you’re getting put on there. And the way that we combated it was to tell them the fact that you’re taking these steps is fantastic, but here’s a strategy to get from where we are to where we want to be instead of what we’re doing right now, because it’s not working. And I think a lot of the times we at humans in general, get stuck in this way of living, this way of working, it’s how it’s always been. And we’re trying to change things. Let’s just do a little bit at a time, which is fine, but you can’t expect change if you’re doing things the same way, right? And and I think that’s where that strategy development really, really came into play. It took us a little bit to get the buy in we needed. We had to pitch a couple of times, but when we finally understood what they needed and wanted to see and hear, we were able to get what we needed. We were able to grow the team. This was the first ever de and I department right in this organization. It’s a global organization,

Maria Ross 16:57

but what happens if you’re in an organization that the people committed to to it are not, are not the underrepresented groups. What if it is just because everyone does in that organization look and sound the same? It feels inauthentic in a way, and also it feels disrespectful to say, Well, I’m seeing that we only have a few diverse voices. I as the white person, I’m gonna come in, and I’m deciding we need dei but maybe those people always thought that was needed, but they didn’t have enough of a coalition within the organization to to push it through. So do you become a sponsor? Do you come become a champion of that? And then how do you avoid being a white savior in that situation, right? It’s that’s the balance, like, how do you how do you help companies or organizations navigate that I

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 17:48

love, that you use the word sponsor and not ally. While I think allyship is important, I think sponsorship is equally as important, because especially when we think about our white counterparts, or people that are maybe, you know, higher up in the hierarchy of authority, at at our employer, our employment, it is those people that can say these things behind closed doors when the people that you’re trying to support are not there, right? That’s what the sponsorship is, compared to the ally that’s going to stand by your side, right? So with that being said, I think that the way to avoid it is to make sure that you’re doing it in the quote, unquote, right way. And the way that I found to be the most success, successful way is to bring in those voices. So obviously, we’re saying, maybe they don’t have any people of color that work here. Maybe they don’t have any folks with disabilities. Folks with disabilities and neuro divergence that work in this environment. So, and we’re trying to attract Right, right, right? We want to get them here, but they see that this is what we are. Why would they want to be here

Maria Ross 18:52

exactly? Exactly? It’s like a chicken or the egg thing, right? Yeah? Like,

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 18:56

yeah. And you have to not only change your strategy, but I think that you have to be very, very, very transparent about that. And I’ve actually seen an organization do that by saying, Wow, we did not realize how badly we were doing in this space. So we’re going to put it all out there. And this is another very, very big company in the United States, and they put it all out there for everyone to see. And they were like, This is embarrassing, but these are the eight things that we are committed to doing, to fixing this. And they brought in the external help. They brought in these, you know, how do they make this a visibly public situation? And obviously not all organizations are so big they want to make it public, but that was what worked for them. Because of their status in society, they could put this out there, and now it literally everywhere you go with this organization, you can see that they were actually serious in what they were doing. You can see it in their. Products. You can see it in their marketing. And I think that is something that I’ve chatted about with one of my recent organizations that I’ve supported, to say you want XYZ consumers, but your packaging says that’s not, that’s not my consumer. So how do we meet them in the middle? Because, like you said, we’re not out here trying to just give give things away and dumb down our systems. There’s no need for that, because we’re not. The whole point is that we are all on the same level, right, right? We’re not. We’re not shifting here. We’re all on the same level. Not everybody just has the opportunity to reach, to reach that level, right? You know, right? Well,

Maria Ross 20:49

it’s where we’re sourcing people from, it’s where we’re hiring people from, it’s who we’re partnering with. It’s all of it. And it’s not because, you know what, what gets twisted by people who who disagree with dei is that, well, then you’re using race or ethnicity or gender as the basis for trying to find someone kinda but not really, because the point is, the more diverse voices and perspectives you have, the better business decisions you’re gonna make. So just like you would be looking for someone in in your sales team who has a certain skill or has a certain experience, just like any other job requirement or job skill, we’re looking at that, but we’re also going to make sure that person can do the job. We’re not just going to give them a pass because they it’s like, oh, I’m going to hire you as a salesperson because you’re really outgoing, you’re horrible at closing sales, but because you’re really outgoing, I’m going to hire you as a salesperson. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about actually finding the people within those diverse populations, within those underrepresented populations, who can

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 21:54

also do the work. Yes, exactly. I’m

Maria Ross 21:59

getting on my soapbox a little bit, but I’m, I’m preaching to the choir

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 22:02

here. That’s the whole point. That’s the point of the podcast. I know exactly. But yeah, it’s actually funny, because my first experience in like a formal and I was on a committee, and within that committee, not only were we supporting de and I for the employees, which is kind of where I I started to shift, right, like the beginning of my work was all for my clients, for my, you know, partners, for all the external and at in this role, serving as my first de and I Committee Chair, I was like, Oh, what about the internal aspect? So that was my shift, but that still informed our external outreach, right? So in this organization, our clients are students, they were children. And with this we’re like, Okay, we have all these people that are super diverse. We’re like, right? But the culture that they are diversified from is a very specific culture that you would expect to be in this environment. So therefore that’s out the window. You scrapped that idea. Right point is, is that you have no black and Latino or indigenous individuals here at all, because the sentiment is smart people are white or Asian, and that is not the case, right? Turned out it was exactly like you said. It was the sourcing. We’re not Where are you going to recruit for these students? Oh, you’re going to the high end Ivy League educational institutions and the private schools. That’s not where you’re gonna find the people that can’t afford to go there, right? Which means, just because they’re smart enough, the fact that they don’t have the money, or they live in the wrong side of town, they don’t have the opportunity. And that is that full circle. So we started expanding. We started saying, Okay, what about this area of Illinois? What about going across the border? What about doing X, Y, Z, looking at those demographics of the specific areas that we typically would recruit from to say, how do we expand that? Because one of the places that we were recruiting from actually has an extremely high population of different cultural backgrounds, different demographics, ethnically, socioeconomically, but we’re still only pulling these kids, why and institutions within those places. So it’s layered, right, right. Of course, there’s all these layers, but ultimately it was like, this needs to happen. And it was kind of finding the next steps, pivoting, moving this way, dividing, redefining strategy. And it worked out. It was exciting. I

Maria Ross 24:47

love that. I love that. So talk to us a little bit about, you know, people, listening, leaders, listening might be at different stages of the journey, and let’s put aside whatever we’re going to call this thing to avoid being in the crosshairs of critics. That’s right. We know we need it. We know we need diversity of thought and experience in our workplace. You’re not listening to this show unless you believe that. So people are different stages. Some are at the like we don’t we’re not doing any initiatives, but we know something needs to change. Some are pretty far along in the stage that they’re at. So, you know you talk about the difference in addressing budget and buy in and programs and engagement and even ROI at different stages. So could we maybe break it down into three different stages of like beginner, intermediate and expert. So if you are a beginner, you’ve got no you’ve got no systemic dei programs. You know that a problem exists. You know that you need to get something off the ground. Maybe you listening. Have been charged with that. What are some of the ways at that stage that you address budget and buy in and engagement at the at the infancy

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 25:55

of it? Yeah, um, the the infancy of it, I think, is usually the hardest part, because you’ve already been able to identify that there’s a problem, right? But clearly we’ve gotten to this stage of a problem in the first place. So it’s challenging, but the way that I found seems to work best in the infancy stages to get that buy in, is to be able to produce the ROI, right? We think about the fact that we want and need these changes, some people get it. Some people don’t, but you have to reach the ones that have the decision making power, and to do that, you have to prove to them why this is going to benefit them. There’s always a what’s in it for me, and it doesn’t have to be spelled out that way exactly, but giving them the opportunity to say what this does not only impacts this. Which makes us look good, makes us feel good,

Maria Ross 26:58

impacts revenue, impacts sales, impacts the markets, we can address all the things, right? So you’re basically saying at that phase, you need to build the business case based on data and based on tying it into the objectives of the organization, not just we should do this because it’s the right thing to do, even though we all know it’s the right thing to do, it’s like we’ve got to make a business case for it. Is what you’re saying, right?

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 27:20

Absolutely. And I think that people forget that just because it’s the right thing to do doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, and building that business case to convince them is what’s really going to just get the needle moving right? Next steps, fine, but just to get the needle moving, you have to convince them as to why this is important. Otherwise, it’s going to be a one off, right? It’s going to be one and done, or they’re going to check the box if they even do it at all, right?

Maria Ross 27:45

And what do you recommend? I mean, I’m sure there’s, like, hundreds, but what’s a, what’s a good, recommended, small step someone could take to actually get a quick win, or not, maybe not even a quick, but a substantial win. Would it be in hiring? Would it be in in I don’t even know, like, what would be the first where would you kind of look, what were, what would be some of the places you would look to to start to get that first

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 28:09

small win. I think it really depends on the type of organization or institution that you are. Okay, if you are an organization that has very visible internal aspects, then hiring might be your priority. That also can inform some other aspects of what tiny, little moves you can make. But that is a pretty good one. The challenge is, is that if you are a small business, or if you’re you know, private or nonprofit or anything like that, or you’re just not in the public eye, that doesn’t give a lot of the authority leaders the visibility that they might feel that they need. And I know that sounds gross, but unfortunately that has that’s what we’re seeing, right? The other thing that I think is really beneficial is, and I know this is played out, I know we’re gonna hear it, but a cultural calendar that is the easiest way, the simplest way, do a little bit of research, get a little graphic design and create a real cultural calendar for the entire year. And however you push that out, I think makes a difference on the impact. Of course, you know, but having the ability to say we are recognizing, you don’t have to say you’re celebrating it. You don’t have to do anything just acknowledging, acknowledge it. And that’s it. And it could be the big six. It could be one every month. There are so many ways to when you think of Black History Month, Women’s History Month, oh, I cried, right? Like so there are the big six, right, which everybody knows, which are not scary, right? Right, right? But. And there’s a few that you’re like, Oh, do we really want to talk about that? But then again, there are some that are super cool, like we have mental health awareness month, Asian Pacific Islander Appreciation Month, or, excuse me, Heritage Month and Military Appreciation Month all in the same month. So think about all the intersectionalities that we have there that we can identify, that we can recognize. There are so many different ways to do it very, very simply, right? That just to start, yeah, and then all those people who either feel this stuff or are part of any of those identities, or maybe they’re, you know, Hispanic, and they’re like, Oh, I can’t wait until my month comes, right? Like, that’s exciting, right, right? That is gonna kick start it, okay? And that’s it.

Maria Ross 30:49

Well, that sort of creates a mindset of appreciating other perspectives and cultures. So, I love that. I love that. Okay, so now let’s go to the let’s go to the intermediate. They maybe they have a head of deib. Maybe they’re calling it something else right now, but they’ve got some initiatives. They’ve got a little bit of budget. They do their cultural calendar, they, you know, but they’re kind of seen a little bit as more performative than having some real impact on the business and on the organization’s success. What are some ways that they can move to the next level to have some material impact to the organization?

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 31:28

Yeah, I see this is the most common stage.

Maria Ross 31:33

This is the most common stage where they’ve done a few things but not really connected,

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 31:37

yeah, yeah, a lot of performative ideals. They want to do something, don’t really get the buy in to do something, or or they really don’t want to do anything, and they’re just happy with where they are, which is that’s a thing, but this stage is where, yes, budget is still important, but the buy in is really what you need, because you’ve clearly gotten far enough, along with saying, this is the ROI, this is why we should do it. And they’re like, Yeah, okay, fine, you’ve convinced me. But do you have full buy in to be able to make the impact that you want? This is the phase that I recommend really diving into strategy. Because if you can develop your holistic strategy, kind of in this middle area here, that’s going to push you to that next level of being advanced, doing the things that you want to do, making the impact you want to make. Inside this area is where you start to talk about how the rest of the organization can come along on that journey. And that’s kind of where you see the buy in come from different areas of the business before. Maybe it’s just HR, maybe it’s just learning, maybe it’s just D, E and I, but in this place where you find yourself doing all the work, and it looks and feels performative if you bring in your key players from different areas of the business, not to necessarily embed into their systems yet, but to just have that extra voice, especially if you are a director. If you are you know more of a hierarchical title, you can talk to your peers and get them on your side. That way. We’re all having the same conversation when we’re discussing the next steps. We talk about strategy development and we talk about the partnership internally to say, Oh, this, yeah, we’re on the same page here. So now we’ve got four people working together instead of just me and my team, yeah. And that buy in kind of comes with all the other people, kind of sending these whispers around, how, oh, wow, this is going well. This is doing we can do more.

Maria Ross 33:59

Yeah? What? This is sparking so many tangential questions on this. What are some good metrics that if you are committed to this, you can make a commitment to measure and be okay with the fact that maybe the metric didn’t hit the mark in a certain quarter, like being completely transparent of you know, this is what we’re putting this program in place. These are a couple of the metrics we’re trying to hit. Let’s reevaluate this in six months or year end. Ooh, we didn’t hit it. What? What are some of those metrics that the most successful dei B teams you’ve worked with look at to continue to make the business case.

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 34:41

I think the first and foremost what you mentioned about not hitting that mark, it happens all the time. That doesn’t mean we scrap the idea. That just means we need to figure out the one or two things that we have to change, and that’s okay, right? So those metrics, it they come down to what exactly your implement. Content. Is it something that is tangible? Is it something that is systemic, like, are we thinking about something within HR and talent development? Are we thinking about learning and growth, or are we thinking about programming and projects, right, or retention, or anything like that? Exactly like, there’s so many different aspects of how we can look at this. So I think initially, especially when you’re in this phase, you’re thinking about the the impact you’re talking about hitting these metrics or not, and how you continue to kind of see yourself climb. One of the bigger things is sentiment. It is employee experience, because your employees make your company work, and if your employees are saying that they’re not feeling this impact, or it feels performative, you know, all these different things, then that should mean something to you. The problem is, is that a lot of organizations send out, you know, employee surveys once or twice a year, but they don’t do anything afterwards. They’re like, thanks so much for sharing that with me. Yeah, yeah, talk to you next year like there’s no action. So being very, very transparent in the fact, not only with your leadership, but with your employees, to say, one of our metrics is measuring employee satisfaction and sentiment, and that is not just on the nominal level, also thinking about how we’re going to categorize and code these different words that are coming up in these thought bubbles from all the comments that people are sending. Because if we just go by a Likert scale of one to five, we’re like, oh, okay, you can make it say anything you want it to, of course, yeah. But if you’re looking at actual words from actual people. You can categorize them into thoughts and feelings and sentiment and experience that is going to not only spark a couple fires, right? Goodness, no way, but also get you some more of that. Just that oomph, yeah, you can measure it. And I will tell you when you are measuring these things, if you’re trying to do some stuff and you’re not quite getting there, it’s not going to look great, and it’s not going to feel great, right? And and that it’s not good, right? But the fact that you are taking it and you’re being transparent with your your employees, saying, We’re doing this because we actually want to make change, but having the somewhat visible structure of how you’re going to implement that change is important. There are so many organizations that are like, Yeah, well, we do that. We have a strategy. We have all these plans. They don’t talk about that with the employees or the team members, the people that are asking how they feel and what they want, they don’t talk about the plan. So they’re like, Oh, they’re not doing anything, right? That’s great, right? We have to be transparent as much as we can be

Maria Ross 37:52

absolutely and so I have a couple of other questions, but first, I want to get to sort of the last phase of if you are a pretty mature organization, if you’re a Costco, you’re publicly shouting from the roots rooftops that this is a good business strategy for you to better connect with your customers. What does that look like from there? Do you sort of, I mean, I would think that the tendency for organizations is to sort of rest on their laurels. But what would be, what’s next for an organization like that that’s already sort of working. It standard, yeah. Where do they go from there?

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 38:24

Yeah. One of the things that I think is really important, that I don’t think enough people do in general, is continuous benchmarking, I think, especially because this is such an ever changing, dynamic world. And whether you’re in the US, whether you’re in, you know, North America as a whole, or anywhere across in Europe or the United anywhere, it is so dynamic, so nuanced in all the places and spaces. So to be able to say, I know what’s happening in all those spaces, especially the ones that are relative to me, is very important. Once you get to that space, it’s easy to say, I’m done, because we did a good job, but there’s always more to be done, and we know that, and you know that, right? So the way that you can do that is by leveraging your research, leveraging your benchmarking and leveraging your visibility to say, how do I now bring these other people along? Be a leader in the game, right? Say we are now going to partner with other organizations who believe in this work, that are committed to this, but maybe don’t have either the visibility, the buy in the budget, whatever they’re missing. How can you support them? And that’s not just organizations as in, you know, corporate entities, thinking about even small businesses, especially for a lot of the companies and businesses that I support, they are local organizations, or they have homes in local organizations. You know, it’s like. How do we impact the communities that we are sitting in, the people that reflect the population that we support, and it’s going to those places and spaces and using your privilege to do that work on the ground? So there’s lots of ways, but I think it really comes down to just bringing other people along in any capacity that you can well. And

Maria Ross 40:25

I would imagine that too, when you get to that level, it’s sort of like, okay, where else impacting the business? Can we have an impact? We can have an impact on our supply chain. We can have an impact with our vendors. We can have an impact with our you know, maybe a different market, reaching a different customer market. So sort of like, once you sort of, it’s kind of like what I always say about empathy, once you get your own house in order, you can start to look at where, where you touch, and where, what other groups are in your sphere of influence.

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 40:54

That’s exactly right, and that’s why, you know, I shared with you, I designed my organization as a collective, because there are things that I can’t do, or I don’t know how to do, or I don’t want to do, right? So working with my network of people to say, what do I touch? That you also touch, but you do it differently, or you you love this or that. You know that’s the whole point. It’s that web that works, and especially when we think of companies and businesses and in educational institutions, you have your hands in everything. Why are we not sharing those experiences? Right? We’re not sharing the strategy, which is just wild to me. If you really believe in this and you’re committed to these things, and these are your core values, share that with the world so that those people can do the same thing?

Maria Ross 41:41

Yeah, absolutely, I love it. Collaboration is one of my words for 2025 so I love it, inclusion. Okay, I’m gonna ask you a curveball last question. But again, given the climate we’re in, if you could choose the way we rebrand this work, what words would you use? I do like

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 42:00

inclusion. I think that inclusion is it’s easy to swallow for people that don’t understand equity, but it kind of can encompass diverse perspectives, thoughts, experiences, and it can include equity if you know how to make it happen, right? But another word that I really like, which I have been seeing a ton of, and this is probably just the scientist in me. I do love I love culture. I think that culture is very reminiscent of an individual’s lived experience, but it’s also relative to their current, actual physical experience. It can be relative to their ethnic background. It can be relative to the food they eat, the employers, cultural experience in that bubble. And I think that it’s just a it’s a very good word to be able to have anybody understand what you’re saying, right to know when I say culture, yeah, that’s what I mean. Well, I talk about

Maria Ross 43:08

yogurt exactly and inclusive and culture. This is what I love about those words. When people really understand what they mean, it leaves room for the overrepresented populations too, like, I’m just gonna be really crass. Like, yes, you too. White Guy, cisgender white guy. Like, yes, we want you to feel included too. It’s not about excluding you. It’s about including everyone else within the culture. And so yes, we want to meet your needs as well. And I think that’s the fear of people is Dei, if I am a cisgender white person, is going to take something from me when we have to understand that actually creating that inclusive culture includes you too, yes, and you know your background in mental Health like that creates a better environment for everyone.

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 44:02

Absolutely. I get and I have this conversation a lot, yeah, because they’re like, What do you mean? And I’m like, yeah, the rich, educated, affluent, Caucasian man is absolutely included in all of these things. Yes, yes, his experience is also not his fault if he was a trust fund baby that got college for free because his dad was a legacy that is not his fault, right? Right? Like, that’s kind of the whole point is that,

Maria Ross 44:31

and it is a perspective, it is another perspective, a diverse perspective, right?

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 44:36

You know, it’s funny, because in my, in one of my workshops, the power of storytelling. That’s exactly what we talk about. We talk about sharing your story to develop empathy, to impact inclusion, whatever it is you’re trying to do, how using personal narratives really can do that. And what I find is that you’ve got this whole. Whole group of people from, I mean, visibly, visibly. You can tell these people are not from the same spaces and places. However, what we see is during the story, excuse me, this storytelling part, all the faces and the eyes and the head nods and the shifts where they’re like, oh, wow, that happened to me. Or oh, my sister experienced that things that bring that relatability between cross culturally that they don’t expect. And that’s where it’s like, Oh, wow. This person can absolutely understand my perspective if I tell it to them in a way they need to know. Because maybe this guy over here doesn’t know, because he’s never been around it, he doesn’t know how to process it, right? But if you help him get there, yeah,

Maria Ross 45:53

I love it. Okay, well, gosh, we’ve gone long, and I don’t care, because this has been awesome.

45:57

Every time we talk, we talk

Maria Ross 46:00

forever. I love it. So we are gonna, of course, have all your links in the show notes, and of course, a link to your organization, cultural outreach and racial equity collective. And for folks that are on the go, maybe listening on their exercise bike or whatever, what’s one good place that they can find out more about your work.

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 46:17

We are pretty active on Instagram right now and then, of course, our website, if you want to connect on LinkedIn, I’m usually we’re usually sharing back and forth, but we will be planning a newsletter soon, so keep an eye out on all of those platforms so that we can stay in touch.

Maria Ross 46:36

Great. Yeah. And on Insta, you guys are our core underscore, collective. NFP, yeah, and folks looking for you so great. Ashley, thank you so much for sharing your insights today and having this great conversation, especially during these you know, very turbulent times, and just reorienting us to the fact that this is not about exclusion at all. It’s about inclusion of everyone, whether you are underrepresented or not, but it’s about lifting the voices of everyone and giving them that opportunity. So thank you so much for sharing your insights today,

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse 47:10

absolutely, and thank you for having me. I always enjoy listening to you and just chatting with you back and forth. I think that having the perspective that you share with the world is just It’s heartwarming. So I appreciate you, and it’s so wonderful to see you. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Maria Ross 47:25

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

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

Bridgette Boudreau: Choosing an Ethical Coach to Transform Performance from Within

Self-awareness is the first pillar of effective empathetic leadership in The Empathy Dilemma. If you don’t know what’s going on for you, you will never be able to make room for empathetic leadership.

I highly recommend working with a leadership or executive coach to guide you in this self-discovery process. But the world of coaching is like the Wild West, with so many people promising the moon, engaging in unethical tactics, and giving the industry a bad name.

Today, my guest, Bridgette Boudreau, talks about effective coaching relationships and how to embrace empathy to get the results you want.

We had a meandering and meaningful conversation about false confidence, tips to find and work effectively with a coach, red flags to avoid, and how to recognize certain behavior patterns that are stopping you from getting the results you want. We also talk about the coaching industry and how ethical, genuine coaches can lean into marketing and selling with integrity so the right clients can find them.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Try doing some changes internally and seeing what changes about the situation – everybody at work that we’re disagreeing with is not the enemy.
Don’t write off coaching forever if you have had a negative coaching experience.
Vibes are important – if you are feeling in the flow, an openness, and like you’re energetically on the same page, that’s what you want in a coach.
Take what you want and leave the rest. Be curious, try new things, and see what works for you.

“Never give up your discernment. If something doesn’t feel right, bring it up in the session. And if that doesn’t feel safe, then that’s not the right coaching relationship for you.” — Bridgette Boudreau

Episode References:

Three OG Coaches Podcast

About Bridgette Boudreau, Master Certified Coach

Bridgette Boudreau is a Master-Certified Coach and Business Consultant with a passion for helping people at midlife+ figure out what’s next, small-scale entrepreneurship, and mentoring other coaches. Bridgette’s coaching philosophy is rooted in compassion and finding one’s intrinsic motivation versus pushing or hustling. She acts as a strategic thought partner, providing a safe and supportive environment for her clients to grow. With over 16 years of coaching experience, she has developed the Mosaic Framework to help people create a fulfilling next act on their terms.

Bridgette’s coaching style is like the love child of Bob Ross and Mary Poppins: She’s going to love and encourage the hell out of you to do it your way, and you’re going to get it done.

Bridgette lives in Seattle with her partner Stephanie and their dog-son, Mr. Beverly Wiggins.

Connect with Bridgette:

Bridgette Boudreau Coaching: bridgetteboudreau.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bboudreau

Facebook: facebook.com/bridgette.boudreau

Instagram: instagram.com/bridgetteboudreau

Threads: threads.net/@bridgetteboudreau

Connect with Maria:

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

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

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

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Bridgette Boudreau 03:32

Yeah, but it feels full circle, because I think we’re gonna talk about how I came to the coaching industry, and that’s when, yes, first met, for

Maria Ross 03:40

sure, we met back in my Seattle days, at the time, you were working for Martha Beck’s organization. And so tell us a little bit about your story and what got you to this work, doing the coaching that you’re doing right now. Well,

Bridgette Boudreau 03:53

really, love of this work is my Touchstone and but I fell into it initially, you know, I was typical story working in corporate. Just kept banging my head against the wall, bullying bosses the whole nine yards, you know, I kept trying to fit into that structure and fold myself into different shapes. And then I finally realized, like, Oh, I just don’t fit here. This is not for me. Even though I love marketing, I love people, I cannot do this. It doesn’t make any sense to me. And so I had worked with coach, and honestly, that was the only thing that sounded better than what I was doing. And so I got into coaching. Went to kind of this little bit wacky weekend workshop led by Martha Beck to do a coach training. And then I, you know, became a coach. And because I had no idea what it was involved in starting a business, I just dove in. And that was, I guess maybe it’s kind of like having children I never have. But maybe. Just good, you don’t totally

Maria Ross 05:00

I was just gonna say none of us would do it if we knew what it actually entailed.

Bridgette Boudreau 05:05

Yeah, same. But I did it. And, long story short, ended up running Martha’s company and then left that endeavor after a few years, and have actually been working on my own now for, I don’t know six, eight years of pandemic time. Who knows? I know

Maria Ross 05:23

it’s like three years or three months. Who knows how long it is and what? Who are the type of people that you serve

Bridgette Boudreau 05:29

I work with. So there’s a couple different types of people that I work with where there’s a huge Venn Diagram of overlap. So because I’m one of those multi passionate, just like my clients, that refuse to be pinned down. And so I have several things that I do. I do business advising and consulting, and that’s with service based businesses, usually mostly women at midlife, plus what I call it, because what are we calling ourselves? I don’t know. And then on the other side, I do personal coaching for that same population, but really about being at a crossroads in life, and how do you want to move forward? And I have a mosaic framework that I use in that work. So those are the two parts of my work, but it’s really primarily women, although I do work with others at this stage of life. And the reason why, I mean, I’ve always loved business, but the reason why that fits is because, I think, with the ageism and between the post menopausal giving no F’s and the ageism in corporate and the why are we even climbing this ladder? A lot of women that age end up starting their own businesses, yeah, so that’s where the Nexus is. And, yeah, yeah, there’s definitely

Maria Ross 06:45

an environment there that is not always conducive to supporting women. And you know, we talk about empathetic leadership on this show, and we’ve tried to shine a light on how we can be more empathetic, not just to women, but to other underrepresented groups in the workplace, whether it’s neurodiversity, whether it’s ethnicity, whether it’s gender or sexual orientation, whatever it is, it’s understanding that you do have this patchwork of people with different life experiences, and the more successful leaders are the ones that can learn how to harness the value of those different perspectives and give those people room to show up as who they are, and they actually will benefit. The bottom line will benefit, you know, that’s my whole jam. Is talking about the ROI of empathetic leadership, amen.

Bridgette Boudreau 07:29

And, you know, I work with empathetic leaders. I think that’s the Venn diagram between, you know, the two of us, and exactly that. And then the the thing that I find with empathetic leaders is that everybody has their patterns and their shadow aspects, and so people that naturally are high in empathy can be have people pleasing tendencies or a little codependent. And so it’s also helping people with those inner pieces, and not just what’s the strategic plan, and how are we going to elevate your leadership team? We’re doing all of that, but talking about the inner stuff. And the other thing is, is that you know, whether you’re a coach in your own business or you’re a business owner or just a, honestly, a woman at this age who is thinking deeper thoughts, is it can be really lonely, and we don’t always have these spaces where we can show up and be vulnerable and say what’s true for us and sort of be our messy selves. And so for me, it’s really important, because I didn’t have those spaces in corporate to create those spaces where women can come and let their hair down and talk about what’s real, and they’re

Maria Ross 08:45

not always going to be created for us. And that’s why, you know, we’re really looking to women that are able to rise in the leadership ranks to change the conversation. And I truly believe that’s why we’re understanding why the leadership paradigm is changing. We’re seeing that the way that many women, not all women, there are very un empathetic female bosses out there. I’ve worked for some of them, but the way that, yes, women lean into their collaboration, and they’re not getting soft on people, not giving people what we want, what they want. I talk about this all the time. That’s not empathy. That’s like you said. It’s people pleasing. But the aspects of how successful women lead is actually the paradigm that the 21st century needs. I’ve seen studies that show that empathy is the success trait for leaders in the 21st century. So we as women are sort of having a moment, and there’s a lot of men that want to come along on that journey too, who are actually very thankful that they can start to align their own values with success in the workplace, because they have felt like they had to be someone else at work.

Bridgette Boudreau 09:46

Absolutely. I mean, we’re all showing up at work with our, you know, trauma and our fears and our unhelpful patterns, and you know, not that you can I mean, there’s a certain approach. Appropriateness at work, but we’re all pretending like none of that is coming into play, right? And I think the more that you can be conscious within yourself what’s going on and conscious of what’s going on with other people, and just have a space to still, yes, be a professional and appropriate. We have coaches and other helping professionals, but yeah, to also be more real. And I agree, the men that I’ve worked with, and the gay men and non binary folks I’ve worked with are Everybody’s hungry for this space where they can relax and be real. Yeah, so that’s super important to me in my work. Yeah, I was speaking at a

Maria Ross 10:38

very high level leadership coaching circle yesterday. I was like an invited speaker, and I could tell one of the men in the room was really curious, but really struggling to get his arms around. I need to understand what this empathy business looks like at work, because of all the false narratives that he’s heard, because of thinking it’s one thing when it’s actually another. And so it was really great. It’s sort of like conversation by conversation, educating people on it’s okay, like it’s not. It doesn’t mean you’re crying on the floor with your employees every day. That’s not what we’re talking about,

Bridgette Boudreau 11:11

and we’re not holding hands and singing Kumbaya Exactly,

Maria Ross 11:13

exactly. So I want to get to because I think your perspective on just the coaching industry and the industry that’s there to support leaders in their roles. You know, it’s a growing industry. Many people are finally understanding that having an executive coach is actually a sign of strength, not of weakness. And so in your working with clients, can you share more about how they might mistake certain behaviors as confidence, and what clues actually reveal a lack of empathy beneath the surface. So sort of when you’re assessing them and you’re figuring out what their challenges are, how might they mistake those behaviors for confidence, when actually it’s just masking a fear or a lack of empathy within them? How do you get how do you assess that, and how do you get them to that realization for themselves?

Bridgette Boudreau 12:06

Well, I’m going to conversate by telling a story. I love it, and then bring it. Then we’ll see. But when I was a new coach, I I saw there were a lot of shiny coach, you know, coaches that were more experienced than me, and I just thought, Oh, these are, you know, and I would see that I’d be at a live event, and I’d see them over in the corner of the room, and I’d be at the center of the room, and I’d be like, oh, I want to be there, right? It was just like my high school self. And of course, I wanted that, because it’s, you know, I’m going into this new experience, and it’s incredibly vulnerable, and I’m what are the geese do they pattern on to the little goslings? They imprint, imprinting. So in that vein, when there is uneven power dynamic, right? When other people have more perceived or actual power, you’re coming I’m coming into this situation, and I’m new and vulnerable, and I don’t know anything about coaching or how to be a great coach. So I’m taking in what’s told to me, and I also want to make a living and make money at this so there were a lot of messages I got it first that I had to spend a lot of time unwinding like this huge focus on money making. And, of course, we all want to make a living, but there’s a place where it turns into a get rich. Quit scheme. You know, you’re going to be able to be a successful six figure seven now, seven figure coach in six months and all these promises that are not grounded in reality. And so there was that about how amazing this is going to be and how fast I’m going to become successful. And if I’m not doing that, I’m not doing it right. So that’s the other piece that I learned. You know, I picked up myself, and I spend a lot of time unwinding in other coaches, is the reality of what it takes to start a business. And then there’s the you know, we were taught in my coach training, well, you want to go in there and cut them off from talking and identify what the problem is, and if you can’t make a transformation in the first 20 minutes, you’re not doing it right.

Maria Ross 14:24

Wow. Yeah. So there

Bridgette Boudreau 14:28

are these messages out there that people who are learning are taking in, and I think we dial down, either we don’t have the discernment because we don’t know, or we dial down our own discernment because we’re like, oh, this is the leader. This is the best selling author telling me this. This is the most successful coach telling me this. And so that’s a place where folks become vulnerable and then they pick up and replicate these behavior. Years with their own clients or with others in the coaching group. So I think that’s part of what I see, is that we’re picking it up from what people were taught. So it’s important to have other voices out there, but the other voices aren’t always as loud, because these are what I call the coach influencers, right? These are the ones with the big Instagram followings and the splashy photo shoots and the splashy clothes and making big promises and just sort of dripping with confidence and wealth as a way to draw people in.

Maria Ross 15:35

Yeah, and I think what you’re talking about more is about coaches. I’m actually, yes, my question was, actually, when you’re working with a client, with a leadership client, they’re masking they’re setting patterns for themselves of trying to act confidently. And you know, this happens a lot with many leaders that equate false confidence with this is going to show my authority, this is going to show my proficiency, right? And what that actually, when you start to work with a client like that, how do you uncover that they’re hiding behind this mask of false confidence, and where that might be their inability to access their empathy or their unwillingness to access their empathy, like, how do you get to assessing where are diagnosing, I guess, where part of their issue might be. They’re so hanging on to this persona of leadership that they’re unwilling to be empathetic, because they believe that if they show empathy, they’re showing weakness. Have you seen that in clients? And what does that often look like when you’re able to kind of turn the mirror on them and get them to realize and I’m asking this because, as you know, in my new book The Empathy dilemma, the first pillar of effective and empathetic leadership is self awareness. So I know that you do this work a lot where you’re helping leaders unlock self awareness, but what happens when they come to you and they don’t even realize that that’s the thing getting in their way. There’s a lot of questions in there, but yeah,

Bridgette Boudreau 17:05

it’s, it’s a great question. I would say, primarily, I end up working with people who are feeling victimized by people like that. Okay, these are their peers or their direct reports, yeah, because I don’t do the type of coaching, executive coaching, where people get sent to me, and I think that’s a little bit more but that would be a little bit more apropos. But what, what I do with anybody is I’m asking them a lot of questions and also starting to point back to, are you getting the results that you want right there? Yeah, I think that is always, you know, you had got the hand one thing to doctor, Phil, how’s that working for you? You know that, but that, you know, if I can tie back what outcomes the behavior is driving and start to show them those connections, and also build trust with them over time, so that I can start to get to if they’re going to share with me what’s going on underneath here. What were you taught to believe? Right? So starting to get into that role and giving them other tools that they can try that may work better, like you don’t have to put somebody on blast in a meeting, or you don’t have to fire off, if you don’t do that, you don’t have to fire off passive aggressive emails. Deal first with what’s coming up for you. For you,

Maria Ross 18:37

yeah, what are your emotional triggers in this situation. Yeah, and

Bridgette Boudreau 18:41

actually build a resiliency and a tolerance so that you’re not firing off and so how do you buy yourself that space? Say you’re in a meeting and say, Wow, that really to what you said there. That really took me by surprise. I am going to need a minute to think about that one. Let’s put a pin in that and come back to that and either stop the meeting, move on. I mean, depending on the severity of how much that hits you, it’s okay. The, I mean, the, and I didn’t learn this either. It was just like a flash of illumination when somebody I was coaching with said, you know, you can take a beat, yeah, can take some time to think about that. And I think that’s another thing. Is organizations value that immediate response, you know,

Maria Ross 19:34

yeah, that’s even if it’s not the right one,

Bridgette Boudreau 19:36

yeah, and I’m that way. I quick start. I love to brainstorm in the moment, but part of this is learning to not lean into your go, to move and create space between stimulus and response. I mean, I think that is one of the biggest things that you can do. And so I see people all over corporate and. America just firing off slacks and emails, and everybody’s just trying to discharge the feelings that they’re feeling and the discomfort, and so there is just like, hot potato, yeah, creating more controversy, more crisis, you know, more issues that need to be resolved.

Maria Ross 20:18

And I get it because I am that kind of person where I want I have to deal with the issue right away. And it’s almost, for me, it’s physical in that, like I just have to get rid of this feeling of being wrong, this feeling of not being believed, this feeling of like, seeing that the person didn’t understand my intention. And it leads me in really bad directions sometimes, because it’s I am going to fire off the email response and actually send it and not save it in my drafts, like I told myself I would, right? And, you know, like one of the this is just like a small example, but I get so frustrated as one little example, when there’s an error on my charges on my credit card bill, and I’m like, I need to deal with this right now. Like, I don’t care what I’m in the middle of any and their customer service line is closed or their chat bot is closed for the night, that will leave me spinning because I can’t do something about it to get rid of the feeling of anxiety and the feeling of like, I said being wrong, and that can go really sideways When you’re leading a group of people, when it’s absolutely so I and that’s the thing, I’m so empathetic to, that feeling of like I just want to resolve this right away so I can get rid of this feeling

Bridgette Boudreau 21:31

me too. I mean, I am also a number one feeling discharged. Let me get that off my plate. But what I’ve been doing over the years is building a resiliency. So the minute that feeling happens, instead of pushing outward, I’m literally coming into myself. I’m even just as corny as it sounds. I’m putting my hand on my chest and coming into myself and getting curious about what is driving that feeling, and if you and that’s empathy to myself, right? Yes. And if I don’t do that, I am forever getting jerked around by the mouth and hooked by whatever comes my way, by credit card companies and this and that, right? And even going to my partner or my coach or somebody, and saying, Oh, I just did this earlier, like, I just saw something on, you know, social media that kind of hooked me. And I just sat down with her for a few minutes and was like, hey, this kind of hooked me. And I’m just having some feelings about it. And I just, like, had a couple tears and and it was just, I didn’t even need to do anything about it. It’s just something that needed to come up, and I think that’s what you find, is if you create that space, first of all, applying the 8020 rule, I think 80% of the stuff gets resolved, especially at work like, do not just strategically, do not be the first one to respond to that email or that slack, right? Let somebody else. If you are always running into the fray first, let somebody else run in there. See what happens. Right? Be curious. Like I was the classic conflict avoider, like just and I still don’t relish it, but I have gotten to the point where I’m like, clearly, things need to fall apart a little bit. Let’s see what happened,

Maria Ross 23:20

yeah, looking at it with a sense of curiosity instead of dread, yeah, yeah.

Bridgette Boudreau 23:25

And I think it worked. You can have a little bit more of Hmm. Something’s gone awry here, right? Let’s see what happens a little bit. Let me see what unfolds, and what information I can get from that while I’m taking care of my own feelings about this, and it’s also like being willing to let yourself be misunderstood, especially as a leader, because guess what, nobody’s ever going to understand who you really are. Yeah, I always say to leaders, it’s like imagine that you are behind a cardboard cutout of yourself, and that cardboard cutout which everyone is projecting their own stuff onto is what they’re responding to. They don’t even know who you really are, and that’s just human nature. Yeah, you know, it doesn’t mean that we can’t be known as a leader or you don’t have relationships, but just by the nature of the thing, it’s always, you’re always going to be a little bit behind that cardboard cutout. And to me, that is a way to take it less personally. And on

Maria Ross 24:30

the flip side of that, it’s, you know, in bosses that I’ve had and managers that I’ve had that have been just outright psychologically abusive to keep myself grounded is sort of like remembering like there’s someone that loves them, like they have parents, they have sisters, they have a boyfriend, they have, you know, whatever it is. So this is probably not the whole of who they are. And then it becomes an interesting

Bridgette Boudreau 24:56

thought experiment to kind of well. Your Own,

Maria Ross 25:00

maybe hatred or resentment of that person, because then you start to think, wow, what is going on for them that they can’t show up as that person, that other people love when they come into the office? What’s actually going on for them that they feel they have to be this other version of themselves? Because I’m sure their family adores them, and I’m sure they go, you know, when they go to Disneyland, or they go out to dinner with their friends, they’re probably not behaving that way. So something, it’s almost like a moment of empathy for them, of like Something must be going on for them that makes them think they have to act this way at work. And you know, my younger self was not this enlightened to cope with bosses like this, but now looking back, I’m like, I wish I had the wherewithal to just be like, what’s going on for you? And to your point, from earlier, getting them to understand the impact of their behavior, not from a You’re hurting my feelings perspective, but this is how you’re impacting the work. This is how you’re impacting the results that we are achieving because of your behavior? Because

Bridgette Boudreau 26:02

I know for sure if somebody is being a complete jerk at work, they are not in some way, they are not getting the results that they need to get. Absolutely not. So if you’re meeting the numbers people, their turnovers high, morale is low, you know, there’s something that’s not working because that style doesn’t work. And I love what you said about just taking a moment to see where they’re coming from. I mean, isn’t that the empathy superpower and not dismiss what they’re doing? But it’s really for you to do that, because I think underlying all of this is if somebody you know you’re not performing at work, or you’re not getting along with your boss, or they’re bullying you, I think underlying that is some form of i Oh, I’m doing something wrong. Either I am wrong or I’m doing something wrong, because if I did it right, this person would not be doing this to me, and so you start to look at, where are they coming from, what’s going on from them? It’s a way to depersonalize it from you, and that is how you know you build up your own self esteem.

Maria Ross 27:16

Yeah. I mean, we’re both not proposing that people stay in horrible situations, Horrible Bosses. But if you’re able to at least try that approach and take a beat and see if it improves things, and then if it doesn’t, you know, you need to go find somewhere else. But I love what you’re saying there about that we don’t often, you know. And I know why we don’t do it, because we’re in self preservation mode at that point. Yeah, yeah. And I

Bridgette Boudreau 27:40

think too, yeah, if somebody is a horrible Boss, please just and if somebody is a narcissist, like, that’s just a game that you’re never going to win, and the sooner you realize that, get out, yeah, but the tendency too is to vilify people that we’re just disagreeing with. And I think that’s where this can really come in, yeah, is look, everybody at work that we’re disagreeing with is not the enemy. Doesn’t have a personality disorder. You know, all of these things that we do to preserve ourselves, like you were saying, and just letting go of some of that and seeing what happens, you know, again, that’s another place where it’s like, let me just do some changing internally. Yeah, see how that plays out in the situation. Yeah, I agree.

Maria Ross 28:29

I think we throw around the terms toxic manager a little too freely, where it might just be someone who has different expectations. It might be someone who thinks about the work differently than we do. And that’s about, you know, that’s about like you said, that’s about disagreement, that’s not about abuse at work and understanding that we can have empathy and we can have an empathetic interaction with people we don’t agree with. You can actually be empathetic, and you don’t have to agree with someone. It just means you see the situation differently than them. Empathy is about connection, not conversion, and so that person is doing the best they can, and they really believe that is the best way to solve that problem. You have a different perspective. Now, you know, I’m sure one way might be better in the end than another, but, you know, always calling it out as a toxic workplace. That’s why, you know, when I use the word psychologically abusive about two of the bosses that I had. I don’t use those terms lightly, because that is literally what that was in the workplace. Okay, let’s switch gears here a little bit and talk about leaders that are working on their self awareness. They want to understand their strengths, their blind spots, their emotional triggers, and so they want to work with a coach. They know that there’s more that they can learn about how they’re operating. What makes them vulnerable to coaches who lack empathy?

Bridgette Boudreau 29:48

Yeah, important issue. So anytime that we turn off our own discernment and become too deferential to somebody that. That we think has more insight, more power, like I was talking about earlier. So if you’re giving up your authority to the coach, and then you get somebody who is manipulative or who just enjoys being right, or, you know, is throwing something out, and you’re just accepting that, instead of, you know, pushing back into in the coaching conversation. So the way that I see it in the coaching conversation is, I personally, I’m always seeking to even the power structure right? So I don’t want to have power over and but I want to throw out hunches or things that I suspect are going on. An ethical coach will invite the client leader in this case to reflect on that, does that fit? Does that land? Tell me, and I want to know, does it land? Does it not land? And it’s not about me as the coach being right or wrong. It’s about let’s see, let’s get to what’s really going on for you. So if there’s a coach that doesn’t do that and enjoys being more performative in what they’re doing, or is even less skilled and less experienced, but the way to combat that is always to have your own discernment. So leaders that are, you know, let’s say somebody really had their confidence shaken, and they’re going to work with a coach and they’re feeling very shaky in their own self esteem, that’s somebody who could be vulnerable to that. And what I would say to that person is, even in that situation, never give up your discernment. If something doesn’t feel right, bring it up in the session. And if that doesn’t feel safe, then that’s not the coaching

Maria Ross 31:58

relationship. I was going to say, then that’s probably not the place you need to because safety is

Bridgette Boudreau 32:03

fundamental. You and the coaching relationship should be a safe place where you can, if you are conflict avoidant, or that feels difficult, or you can bring those things up and say, you know, that didn’t sit right with me, or I don’t feel like we’re going in the direction that I want to go, and a great coach will pivot with you. And that’s just another point of conversation. It’s not about my hurt feelings or whatever. And

Maria Ross 32:31

I want to just put a plug in here that there are just like, there are not so great therapists, not so great coaches, that hopefully, I would want to encourage people that if they have a negative coaching experience, not to write off coaching forever. It’s just about it’s like dating. It’s like finding the right fit with you know, it’s just like with therapy. I know people that have had horrible experiences one therapist and they will never go back to therapy again. And there are therapists, there are coaches, there are, you know, people that work in different modalities and with differing levels of empathy, differing skill sets. And so I really want to encourage anyone listening who’s really seeing themselves in this scenario to not write off coaching completely, to still try to find the right match. There’s other fish in the sea see if they can find someone that they vibe with a little bit better, and who’s actually providing them the support they need. You

Bridgette Boudreau 33:30

know, I was just going to say vibes like, it’s a weird thing to say, but vibes are so important, because if you are feeling in the flow and you are feeling an openness and like you’re just kind of energetically on the same page. That’s actually really what you want in a coach. And then if you are looking for certain skills and experiences that they have, ask about that I don’t think people when they’re hiring coaches, I don’t they don’t always know what to ask, and I think it’s you can ask about their experience, but what you’re really trying to do is have a conversation. And the best thing to do is I have my prospective clients, just tell me a little bit about what’s happening for them, and then I have a conversation with them about that. Well, here’s my perspective and how I could help. And I’m not just but I’m not just dating them. Well, once you sign up, you know, I will, yeah, everything is available to you, like it’s a miniature coaching conversation. So I would say that’s something to look out for is, do you feel like you actually got a little something even out of this consult that was helpful. Do you feel like the vibes are good, and do you feel like they have whatever skills and experience that you’re looking for that feels relevant? Why do you think

Maria Ross 34:50

it’s common for clients to overlook or excuse some of these unkind behaviors or unempathetic behavior? And then only recognize them later. Is it because they may be in a place where they think, like you said earlier, they’re doing it wrong.

Bridgette Boudreau 35:07

Yeah, I think they’re doing they think they’re doing it wrong. They’ve given up their sense of autonomy to this person. And also there are, sadly, again, talking about the bad actors. But I think it’s important, you know, in terms of coaches, if a coach is so, one of the patterns that bad actors, bad actor coaches, have is they’re great on the sales and marketing side, and then they’re pretty dismal on the service delivery. And so if you got a big song and dance going in, and once you’ve paid the money, you notice a marked change in how you’re being treated. That’s a huge red flag coaches treating people with disdain. Huge red flag coaches who are doing the manipulation tactics. Big Red Flag. Coaches that won’t put up with any disagreement, you know, say you’re you might be part of a mastermind or community as part of your coaching arrangement. And if people are getting shut down or kicked out of the community because they’re raising issues, that is also a big red flag. So I just wanted to point out some things people can look out for that I think can also be really confusing people.

Maria Ross 36:28

I think that’s great advice, because as you know, as hopefully people leaders reading my book are going to engage in some self awareness and try to find a coach. I think understanding the red flags are super important. I’m going to just flip back to the industry for a second and just talk about these genuine coaches and why they might feel, you know, they’re good coaches, they’re genuine. Why might they feel reluctant to promote their work, and how can they move forward without feeling, without feeling like they’re compromising their integrity?

Bridgette Boudreau 36:59

Yeah, so there’s a couple things there. That last bit about how can they move forward without feeling like they’re compromising their integrity? Is a big one, because I think I see some of these good hearted coaches leaning too far back, so they’re overreacting to the bad actors in the industry, so they don’t want any part of that. And so then it’s like, well, I won’t market at all, or I hate all marketing, and they have to come out of that reactionary stance and engage. And the tricky part is you’re probably not if you’re a good hearted coach, cookie cutter solutions and funnels and all of that may or resonate for you, but what is really important to do is take what you want and leave the rest. So don’t entirely throw all of funnels away, because resonate with that. Don’t entirely throw anything away, be curious, maybe try some things out and see if there are bits and pieces. Because what you’re going to do is cobble together something. Yeah, that works for you, but you’ve I mean, the work I do with coaches, the business side, on the business side, is always, how do we find a way for you to connect fits with who you are. And I think that’s critical, and I fall into that trap all the time too. So it’s not a one and done. I think this is a constant, yeah, evaluation that has to happen. So there’s that piece of it. I just want

Maria Ross 38:33

to interject, because, you know, my work is when I do my work as a brand strategist, that’s absolutely the lesson I try to leave entrepreneurs and coaches and consultants with is that you have value, and you want to bring your story and your value to the surface. You want to you don’t want to lie. You want to elevate the truth of your story so the people for whom it resonates can find you like that’s the whole point of marketing. And so I’m just going to put a little plug in here. I have a free master class that talks about the way to construct your brand story in a way that feels authentic and not sleazy and not cookie cutter, because there’s a process you can follow, but you’re going to inject your own personality and values and philosophy and way that you work into that process so that your outputs going to look very different from someone else’s. The vibe of your brand story is going to sound different what you decide to tout as your main points of value. I always use the example of, like Porsche and Honda, they both sell cars, but they lead with different value. And so it’s all about, you know, when we get discouraged about, I don’t want to enter this industry where there’s a bunch of charlatans, you know, that’s, quite frankly, that’s the marketing industry too, right, right? But you can come through, and that’s actually how you can cut through the noise, is just say, here’s what I have to offer. Here’s how you as a client will benefit from working from with me, and here’s how I approach the work. And. How it’s different from how other people approach the work. Does that sound good? Great. Let’s work together. Does that not sound good? Great. You can go find someone that works, you know. So that is the whole thing about the you know, dipping into my brand work again, and I’ll put a link to the free master class that I have, but it’s and that’s even the thing I talk about in the master class is, yes, yes, I have a way that you can work with me when you go further, but if you just get value from the free master class, that’s the way I work. I’d rather have people doing genuine, honest, non snake oil sales, marketing out there and making our world less noisy with junk, then, you know. And if not working with me, moving forward from there is not for you. Totally cool. There’s other people that use pressure tactics to move you into that, like your business will fail if you don’t do business with me. Nobody’s Business is going to fail if they don’t do business with me, necessarily, right? So that’s, I think that’s the important thing, and that’s what I love to talk about coaches with because, especially because their heart is so in their work, and there’s so much about service, they feel like marketing and selling lacks integrity, and that’s only because they’re seeing so much marketing and selling that lacks integrity. But when we shine a light on the marketing and selling that’s genuine and authentic, and actually, in a way, can’t be replicated by anybody else, because Bridgette’s approach to coaching is going to look different than every other coach that’s out there, and the way that you talk about it can look different than every other coach that’s out there. And that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone, it just means it’s going to connect and engage with the right people. So I’m going off on a little bit of a brand rant here, but you know, like you said, you definitely want to encourage those coaches to lean in to promoting their work and if for no other reason, someone needs the impact that you can provide. Someone needs the transformation. It’s kind of your duty to make sure that they can find you in this noisy world exactly rant over, but yeah,

Bridgette Boudreau 42:07

I’m feeling it box girlfriend rolling over here. No, I you hit it so on the head. And I think I love the free resource. I’m going to actually go, yeah, because it’s about

Maria Ross 42:17

empathy. Yeah, it’s about bringing empathy into your marketing and your business model, and that means that Empathy means some people are right for you and some people are not, and you need to have the courage to be able to say, I, even though I want this business, I don’t think this is a good fit. And that is integrity, that is showing that you’re living by your values. If you can be able to say no to someone that’s not a good fit,

Bridgette Boudreau 42:43

yeah, yeah. And, I mean all of that. And the reason why I came up in marketing, and what I love about it, before it gets bastardized, is it’s connecting, yeah, connecting and engaging, and engaging and telling your story. And it doesn’t have to be neat. That’s the other thing. You don’t have to have this perfect elevator pitch. It doesn’t. And as a matter of fact, that’s not optimal. I think just being able to talk naturally about what you do, and so helping people get to that place, and I think that’s, you know, that’s kind of the first part of the question about coaches and where they struggle and the good ones. I mean, they mostly want to do the work. Yeah, I’m a lot the same way. I just want to host my groups and, you know, deliver for my clients. And yeah, focus mostly on that. But then this just happened to me too. So it’s not like this never happens, even if you’re years down the road, but yeah, I kind of fell into that, Oh, I gotta do this technique and that technique, yeah. And then when that didn’t work, it’s like, come back to what I know is Yeah, is, which is me just doing the things that I do, naturally connecting in the ways that work for me. Because that’s always where I’ve succeeded. And so with all of this, everything that we’re talking about, is it empathy included? I think is all about, how do we come to know ourselves, war to know and then be true to ourselves and express that in our business, in our work, in our relationships, you know, express it authentically. And I love that. That’s what we’re talking about here, exactly. That’s kind of the full circle of this whole conversation, is understanding how you show up, and just being able to show up as you are in a way that will actually get you the results that you want. So I love all this. I would love to just have, like, a last question for leaders that are listening, that are like, yes, I want to pursue more of this pillar of self awareness, and even it dips into a little bit of self care. I really believe having a coach or having a therapist or having is actually an act of self care as well. Agree, what are maybe two or three tips you would give a leader who hasn’t embarked on a coaching relationship? For what are two or three quick bites you think they should be looking for in assessing whether a coach is right for them or not. Look for that vibe match, first and foremost. Okay, um, then I would ask some, you know, ask a couple questions and just see what like, how do you Hey, perspective Coach, how do you manage it? If things aren’t going well? You know, tell me about your ideal clients and what those qualities are. Just think about some questions that maybe get them talking a little bit. And then the third point would be, give yourself time to think. That’s what I’m going to say. So back to those pressure talk tactics. Huge red flag, if the coach is like, you’ve got to decide today, or they start belittling you, if you want to talk to another person in your life about it, any semblance of that like you do not want to hire that person personally you want to hire is going to say, here’s all the information. Send you a little follow up, whatever. Go, have a think about it. And you know, here’s what you need to know to make the decision. Let me know if you have any questions, something like that. Yeah,

Maria Ross 46:11

I love that. So we talked about red flags, so I had to bring that up, of like, what are some tips for what you should be looking for? So I wanted to give that counterbalance Bridgette this has been such an insightful conversation. I know we meandered a little bit, but I loved where it led. And I know listeners will get a lot of value. All your links will be in the show notes. And we also want to mention your podcast that you have going on three OG coaches talking shop. Yes, a link to that in the show notes as well. But for folks that are on the go or exercising with us, in their ears right now, what’s one good place that you can send them to find out more information? Bridgette boudreau.com,

Bridgette Boudreau 46:47

and it’ll be in the show notes. Because yes, spelling is hard. Spelling is hard. I love it. I love it. Well. Thank you again for spending so much for having me. It’s so good to see you again, and thank

Maria Ross 47:01

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

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

Courage to Advance: From Digital Overwhelm to Mental Clarity with Timothy Swords

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

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

In today’s always-on business culture, how can leaders cut through digital noise to regain mental clarity? Kim Bohr sits down with Timothy Swords, a mindfulness-focused executive coach who blends Harvard MBA-level acumen with over 2,000 hours of mindfulness practice. Timothy reveals how simple grounding techniques transformed executives from being the “scary person in the room” to creating harmonious relationships.

This conversation explores why self-awareness might be more valuable than an MBA, how stress contagion undermines organizational performance, and why working beyond 50 hours delivers diminishing returns. Timothy shares practical “mindfulness hacks,” including a grounding technique for meetings, plus how 10 minutes of practice increases self-awareness by 35%.

Whether you’re struggling with digital overwhelm, managing stressed teams, or seeking authentic leadership approaches, discover how mindfulness becomes a competitive advantage. Learn why emotions last 30 seconds unless we feed them with thoughts.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Mindfulness is “lucid awareness from paying attention on purpose in the present moment”
A leader’s emotional state directly impacts team performance through stress contagion
Working beyond 50 hours shows diminishing returns; 70-hour weeks produce no more than 55-hour weeks
Simple grounding technique: Feel your feet on the floor during meetings to interrupt anxiety cycles
Just 10 minutes daily mindfulness practice increases self-awareness by 35% in 6-8 weeks
Authentic leadership starts with clarity on personal values aligned with organizational values
Two types of self-compassion: tender (being kind) and fierce (setting healthy boundaries)

“An emotion on its own lasts like 30 seconds. But if you’re feeding it with thoughts, it goes on and on—it gets worse and worse. If you want to do anger management, you’ve got to stop that cycle, because you’re actually creating your own anger.” — Timothy Swords

About Timothy Swords: Timothy Swords blends corporate acumen with mindfulness training to guide senior leaders in integrating mindfulness into decision-making and leadership effectiveness. His experience includes CFO and strategic transformation roles at Fidelity Investments, MUFG Union Bank, and PwC. Timothy holds an MBA from Harvard University and is a certified mindfulness instructor with over 2,000 hours of practice, including training with renowned teachers Jack Kornfield, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Sharon Salzberg.

Connect with Timothy:

Website: MindfulLeadership-Coaching.com

Email: Timothy@MindfulLeadership-Coaching.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timothyswords

Free Resources: mindfulleadership-coaching.com/free-videos

Connect with Kim Bohr & SparkEffect:

SparkEffect: sparkeffect.com

Courage to Advance recording and resources:

sparkeffect.com/courage-to-advance-podcast

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/sparkeffect

LinkedIn for Kim: linkedin.com/in/kimbohr

Connect with Maria:

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

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

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Kim Bohr 01:29

What if I told you that the most successful leaders aren’t just smarter or more experienced, they’ve mastered something that has nothing to do with their MBA or industry expertise, while our competitors are drowning in digital overwhelm, making reactive decisions under pressure, are you watching their stress infect their entire organization? There’s a small group of executives who’ve discovered how to find clarity and chaos, and they’re not just surviving today’s volatile business environment, they are thriving in it. Today, we’re revealing the leadership intelligence that Harvard Business Review says can help you more than any MBA can. It’s the practice of mindful leadership. I am excited to be here today with Timothy swards. He brings a rare combination of C suite experience and deep mindfulness expertise to executive coaching as a former CFO and strategic transformation. Leader at Fidelity Investments and MUFG Union Bank at PwC, he understands the intense pressures that are facing leaders today with over 2000 hours of personal mindfulness practice and training under renowned teachers like Jack hornfield and Jon Kabat, Zinn Timothy, guides senior executives in integrating mindfulness into their decision making and leadership effectiveness. His Harvard MBA and certification as a professional mindfulness instructor uniquely positioned him to help leaders find clarity and resilience in today’s chaotic business environment. Timothy, welcome to courage to advance Podcast. I’m so excited. You’re here today.

Timothy Swords 03:01

So excited to be with you. Cam,

Kim Bohr 03:03

so before we dive into all the leadership challenges we’re seeing today, I’d love to hear about your journey and bringing forward the mindfulness focus of your coachee,

Timothy Swords 03:16

sure, there’s kind of two paths that come together at some point, right? I was a pretty ambitious kid, I guess, and studied accounting, worked for a CPA firm, was very fortunate in working for a little startup in my 20s, where I became essentially the Chief Operating Officer and CFO, though we didn’t call it that, because it was this tiny little company heap. So it was a lot of fast growth, and then I wrote about all the mistakes I made to get into Harvard Business School and got into management consulting and consulting, when I was working with leadership teams, they asked me to start coaching them, and I was like, I guess I could sort of do that. Don’t really know what that means. Went to school at night for two years at a Graduate School of Psychology, which I’d always wanted to do. Actually, I always had this interest in psychology and being a therapist, potentially, but I didn’t think I’d be satisfied as a therapist. I liked the coaching part more. And then I also worked in big firms like Fidelity Investments and Union Bank and doing strategy and so very kind of corporate traditional route, but at the same time, somewhat behind the scenes, I had started practicing very intensive meditation. Starting at college. I had done various things like Transcendental Meditation early on in college, and then got interested in Buddhist practice and being somewhat ambitious spiritually, but also because I could experience these bliss states of meditation, I sign up for a 10 day silent retreat when I was a senior at college, which was very intense and very difficult in some ways, because the first few days, you’ve gone from 100 miles an hour to zero, right? But after about three days, one can also experience these amazing bliss states, because the busyness of the mind and the thoughts is settled down then, yeah, there’s. Definitely Joy available through these practices as well. And then somehow people started to notice, like I would be asked in an interview, do you meditate or something? And I never talked about it, because when I talked about early in my career, they thought I was crazy. You’re going on a 10 day silent retreat. Who does that, you know. But then people started to notice that maybe I was a little more calm than the typical corporate person. So then you would ask, What do I do? I see you meditate. Then they started asking me to teach. I was teaching the Young Presidents Organization. And then within the bank, I set up a national program at uni bank. When I was there,

Kim Bohr 05:38

I love that. And was there an experience for yourself in particular where you talk about this as is this journey. But was there anything that where there was this more pronounced experience at some point in your life that you were called on this work for yourself?

Timothy Swords 05:54

And yeah, for many years, there was my meditation practice and my work, and then I think a few things happen. One is, I mean, I certainly noticed in my work that I was managing stress better. As a corporate consultant, you’re working on super intense projects, traveling all the time, you’re working 10, 1214, hours a day sometimes. So certainly the meditation practice helped with that, just keeping up with those challenges. But then there were a few things. I was on a coaching assignment where I was doing a lot of development plans for executives one after another, and as part of that, I was doing it with a colleague, and we were needing to find homework assignments for these executives with their new development plans. And one of them I came across was the Harvard Business Review article called The Making of a corporate athlete. And it’s still one of my favorite articles for my clients. And it talks about two main things. One is, well, a little context, they talk about a corporate athlete as working, you know, 5060, 7080, hours a week with no breaks, versus like an actual athlete who maybe is on the field once a week or twice a week, and the rest of the time is training and recovery time. And this article was written by a executive coach and an Olympic level trainer, and so they meant emphasize two things. One is recovery time and how important that is, and literally, every 90 to 120 minutes taking at least a five minute break. And then the other thing was these four capabilities that said you need to be a corporate athlete. One is a physical strength, emotional strength, mental strength and spiritual strength and spiritual they defined as purpose. And I thought, Oh, that makes a lot of sense. I’ve been an athlete, and certainly through the mindfulness, I got the emotional and mental part and some of the purpose part. At that point, I started to get more in touch with just how important purpose is and where that can come from, which in my studies, and what worked for me was on my values, like being super clear, what are my top three or five values, and how do I live from those each day and each moment, if I want to be a connected person, right? If that’s a big value for me, and say, I’m meeting a friend for a hike, is the hike like the point to get to the peak as quickly as possible, or is it to have a good connection with my colleague or my friend while we’re hiking and in the workplace? If I say being a kind person is important to me, if something comes up that’s challenging in a meeting, like, how do I maintain being kind? And then I started, as part of my teaching mindfulness in these corporate settings, I started to teach people how to do that, and now I start any coaching engagement with that, like, why are you here?

Kim Bohr 08:42

That’s such an important question. And I think it’s something that we don’t ask ourselves enough, and sometimes maybe the quick response is maybe more surface level and not as thoughtful, because of how much we’re moving through these busy days. I think I want to take this a little bit into something that you and I talked about prior, which is really this idea of, with so much of the uncertainty and so much of just the fast paced nature of our, at least our American business culture, there’s this sense of control. Where do we have control? Where do we have agency? And one of the things you and I had talked about that I would love for you to speak to a little bit more for our listeners, is we talked about, you use this term as, like mindfulness, as kind of this activity with agency, and I think explaining that a little bit more and how it differs from this casual understanding. I think you were mindful. We say we need to be mindful, and it’s just this very passing comment, and I feel like it doesn’t really carry the weight or understanding of what you’re speaking of. I’d love for you to just talk a little bit more about that.

Timothy Swords 09:44

Sure, yeah, maybe I’ll talk about what the definition of mindfulness is, yes, and then maybe talk about why it’s so helpful in terms of having agency. Actually, I would say mindfulness is a lucid awareness. Mm. That arises from paying attention on purpose, in the present moment and in an open and curious way. It’s not about stopping one’s thoughts or just accepting what’s ever going on one’s fate without agency, but if one’s paying attention at that level, we also tend to be in touch with your values, right? Am I actually acting from my values? In business, we talk about measurement and feedback loops, right? Performance management, we’re really kind of measuring our own mental activity, emotional, yeah. And then, just because, in meditation, your nervous system has calmed down more than the typical person might be you have more mental space so you’re able to respond more wisely. Well, let me talk about stress for a minute. Maybe when we encounter a stressful situation, right, our amygdala starts getting activated, and we cannot get into a fight or flight mode, yeah, which takes our prefrontal cortex, where our executive functioning happens offline, right? If you’re really stressed, you literally can’t have a logical thought. Many people have experienced this with their spouses, right? People the closest to us can trigger us the most, right? Yes. So when one practices meditation, you’re in an alpha state, which is this both relaxed and alert mode, which is actually more restful than sleep, and that’s we practice this regularly, then we just don’t get as upset as much when a stressful situation comes up, we still have the spaciousness to respond. That’s what

Kim Bohr 11:35

it brings to mind for me too, is there’s the instrument we use in a lot of our work with executives, is called the Harrison assessment. This is behavioral based assessment, and it very much identifies those behaviors, and we talk about these flip behaviors that happen when we’re under stress and unintended consequences. And what I really appreciate about what you’re sharing here is the ways of bringing in a real, deeper understanding of mindfulness in a way, to help you manage the sensation of those flips and the situations and the scenarios you have of how you might be able to a really useful tool to perhaps get ahead of it and also maybe smooth out some of that those behaviors in when we think about it, from that Harrison term, it’s because we favored a particular behavior over another that would more likely be complimentary to smooth it out, we have these imbalances, which all of us have in some degrees. We need to have these tools in ways that can help us work through them in because we can’t have the high level of favor of all these different behaviors and be perfect. And so I think what you’re saying is it just brings so much clarity to what leaders need to be incorporating into their toolkit. And I know that you’ve talked about C levels, that you’ve coached you, and I’ve talked about the work that we’ve done with many executive teams, and how this constant sense of always on is inescapable for many of them. One of the things we talked about, too was you and I had talked about, hey, what are some of the biggest challenges we’re seeing in the work that we’re individually doing? And we talked about things you and I both said, across industries, right the policy changes that are coming from just federal government right now are just very impactful for many throughout our country, looking at this constant digital noise that we’re all experiencing, this always on the one thing that really stood out to you was we were talking about the stress that contagion that exists where the stress where these tools and understanding aren’t in place, really do bleed over into teams and other aspects of the organization you started to talk about this a little bit earlier, the personal values conflict that many leaders have in trying to navigate with all of this going on. And so I think when you think about that list, what does stand out most profoundly to you? I think you had mentioned the values is that kind of where you feel like is the foundational aspect of where people should be beginning?

Timothy Swords 14:06

Well, yes, I think individuals should begin there. And if one wants to live an authentic life, be an authentic leader, I’m not sure to me, that’s the starting point, right? Yeah, are my personal values? How do they sync or not with the organizational values? I do think that’s where you start, for sure. And then what are the ways the strategies or tactics, if you will, that enable me to lead as an authentic leader in that sense. I mean, I think to me, those different areas be hard to say for me, like which is more than effective in, you know, business at large more than the other. But I think maybe what, what they have in common is is like an organizational stress contagion, right? Whichever particular thing it is like the policy changes or just the digital overwhelm, all comes down to this level of. Stress and how a leader or leaders or organization is dealing with the stress overloads, stress contagion.

Kim Bohr 15:07

Oh, completely. And what’s coming to mind is some of the work I’ve done in organizations as well. And one of the things that I think is so challenging and so critical for leaders to think about is whatever those stressors are. When you have each of your members of your executive team experiencing them and experiencing these imbalances that can happen that can cause these, you know, the flip behaviors or the reactions, that is a really dangerous situation for a leadership team in the organization, because that does filter down. It’s bad enough having one leader in that situation. It’s a terrible situation when your entire leadership team is experiencing that on an ongoing basis. It’s hard to imagine. How do you get your footing under you in those situations, to stabilize the group so that it can lead Right? Right? So I think one of the things that when we talk about kind of more of this digital overwhelm that we all in some fashion, you know, are navigating. I was talking with an executive recently that works with the team across multiple time zones, and one of the things I found really interesting is that this executive was finding it very challenging to set boundaries out of fear of disappointing others. Yeah, and that is very common for many leaders, given the reality that leaders today are bombarded with all of this information from all these different directions, whether it’s deadlines or data, whatever the case is, yeah, how do you find mindfulness helping executives cut through that noise and being able to regain some of that mental clarity and confidence in their decision Making?

Timothy Swords 16:39

Going back to that now, kind of ancient article on the corporate athlete, part of it is just like basic physical realities. There’s in some cultures in particular, there’s a lot of emphasis on working a lot of hours. But if you look to the research, like it’s done at Stanford, for example, like, after like, 50 hours, it’s pretty quickly, very bad return on investment of time, right? And very much so I think there was one by an economist there actually, who looked at this, and if you’re working 70 hours a week, you’re actually not getting anything done more than if you were doing 55 hours a week, because those extra 15 hours is just really ineffective, right? Yeah. And I know, personally, I experienced this in consulting, you’d be working very hard, almost to the last minute for a presentation, because there’s so much data, and you’re trying to figure out how to present it well and all that. And we’d find ourselves working kind of into the wee hours, and hey, we called it the witching hour. At a certain point you thought you were making progress, right? And you’d be stacks, and then you’d look at it the next morning. You go, oh, yeah, you Yeah, we should have stopped at 6pm not Yes, midnight, because those last six hours were just a joke. Yeah,

Kim Bohr 17:49

it’s interesting how that sheer will can push us through but yet not guarantee any better production. Right in that diminishing return is such a real thing.

Timothy Swords 17:59

I’d say there’s maybe three things, intentional awareness, which I talked about, the foundation of that, and maybe strategic prioritization, which kind of has a big overlap with more traditional like how to prioritize, and then what I call sustainable practices. So maybe I could talk about the first and the third, yes, intentional awareness and the sustainable practices a bit, say, but I’ll back up a little bit. So I studied in this tradition. I studied as a Buddhist lineage, if you will, going on for 1000s of years. And there’s three main practices, concentration, mindfulness, which I’ve talked about, and these heart practices, which are around cultivating kindness and compassion, joy and equanimity, like a calm mind, right? And the last one, I know, the heart. One can sound a little Woo, woo, but it’s used today, for example, in treating PTSD. It’s these are very powerful practices harnessing the power of the mind and the heart. So going back to the concentration practice, in any meditation practice, there’s concentrations involved. You’re bringing the attention in a focused way, back to your breath or on your thoughts, whatever it is. And within emotional intelligence, right? There’s four quadrants. The first is self awareness, and that has two components, according to Daniel Goldman, one is the self awareness piece itself, and the other is focus. Meditation practice is a great way of increasing focus, so that’s super helpful for an executive that improves his or her focus. And then the second thing from the mindfulness aspect is clarity, right? If you’re doing regular practice, you’re starting to see those Remember, I said you were paying attention to our thoughts this intentional way. And what mindfulness practice enables is to see those thoughts as like data points. They’re not my thoughts necessarily, just what the mind is doing. It’s creating thoughts, and some are going to be really useful. Some are just what conjured up today. And according to National Institutes of Health Study, something like 75 or 80% of our thoughts are negative because, you know, we survived at. A species, because we’re on the lookout for threats and respond quickly. Not so great for thriving in positive ways, but really good for surviving. And we can take these thoughts less personally. We don’t have to believe them, all right? So quick little sidebar for a second. So I was trained in how to teach secular mindfulness, right? And part of my training was done at San Quentin Prison here in the Bay Area. And if you think about who’s in a prison, this is a men’s prison, there are men that just believe their thought, I gotta rob this store to survive. I’ve gotta shoot this guy because you disrespected my girlfriend or whatever it was, right? And you know, we all have a little bit of this inner felon in us, of like, I just got to respond right now, yeah, by meditating, we’re seeing these thoughts, and it’s more of like a bit of a passing show. And the other thing that happens is actually very positive, which is we can sit in this mindful state, this lineage I’ve been involved in is called Insight meditations, because insights arise, but they’re not just on this left side of the brain. They’re actually come from this intuitive place. They’re tapping into our subconscious much more information than we would get by just trying to think logically so we can actually have breakthrough insights. And Steve Jobs talked about this. He was a Zen meditator and credit a lot of his great ideas with being in this more expansive kind of a state. So to kind of bring it back to your question, though, so I would say clarity is something that can be available to a mindful leader, because you’re not reacting so emotionally to things, and you’re kind of seeing thoughts in this broader perspective.

Kim Bohr 21:39

I was talking with somebody recently, and one of the things that we were discussing was this place that coming from a very defensive place, right, but not inherently being always holding a defensive posture. And one of the things we were talking about was with the busyness and the constant information inflows and on and all this that there’s this part of it is this reaction, because of exhaustion, because of feeling like I’m having to have a conversation that I felt like I’ve already had, or it’s fighting these little battles that feel like, why are we even talking about this? And I think so much of what you’re saying is one of those tools to help, you know, to bring that clarity. Part of what we were saying is it’s when we don’t have the space to just think, you know that I love that show on I think it’s one apple tv shrinking and the theme song that is just, I just want to be able to hear myself think again. I think that is such a powerful statement. It is something that has gone through my mind on days of realizing it’s usually those days when I have not been disciplined in my own meditative grounding. Yeah, one of the things you brought to my attention, which I thought was a great article, and I want to have you just speak to how you used it in helping some of the executives you worked with, was you mentioned this HBR article. I’ll make sure we also put it in the link along with some of the other resources you’ve mentioned. That it was called self awareness could help leaders more than an MBA can. I was really impressed when I went and read it. Just for our listeners, the CEO discusses finding himself more leading from his head than his heart, and this really certainly resonates with the work we also do at Spark effect, and know the work you’ve done with your clients around the power of bringing those two together, and so how have you seen that tension play out, maybe in some of the executives you’ve worked with, where they’re trying to navigate reconciling that those two have a place together. It doesn’t have to be separate.

Timothy Swords 23:37

Sure. Sure. No, I appreciate the question, because the third thing I had wanted to mention around the leadership practices and is actually compassion. So compassion is an interesting thing. If you’re doing sort of pure mindfulness practice, you kind of need to be compassionate to yourself, because you’re seeing these thoughts and emotions come up, and not every emotion your experience is so pleasant, right? Right? One can feel anger, one can feel anxiety, one can feel frustration, disappointment, when those are coming up like the challenge is to be open and curious, right? It’s hard to do that if you’re not having some compassion for yourself, right? So it’s part of the practice, inherently. And as I mentioned, there’s these other heart opening practices where you specifically do things to have compassion for yourself and others. I mean, that’s a big part of being a, what I call a mindful leader. Is when these situations come up that are difficult for you, like, give yourself a little break. Like, oh man, this is tough, and I’m not going to let it be a contagion, right? I’m going to take care of myself. If I’m about to drown, I’m going to dip my little water wings in the pool, right? This is pulling somebody else down with me, right? Right, yeah. So that’s one aspect of it. I would say,

Kim Bohr 25:04

Do you have an example of a leader you’ve worked with where you could describe for people,

Timothy Swords 25:09

sure. So imagine a very smart man had grown up in tough circumstances. So I would say this maybe self worth was a little challenge, but he went on to go to an Ivy League school on a scholarship, studied medicine, decided not to go into medicine, but went into finance. Super successful guy burnt through one marriage because he was traveling all the time. It’s married again. He now has two families. So a lot on his mind, it’s a CFO Life Sciences firm. Technically brilliant guy knows the field really well, right? But we do his 360 people are scared to talk to him. He’s literally the scary guy, because he’s very confident about his technical skills and where the company should go based on a financial perspective. We started working together, and I did this exercise with him on his values. We did that, and then I did this sort of repeating question exercise of, why do you want to be here working with me? And his answer was, harmonious relationships. Interesting, right? So he’s a softy inside. Wants to connect with people like we all do, right? I love that we started working on a couple of things, right? So it around emotional intelligence, right? About self awareness, self management and managing relationships better. From a self awareness perspective, we started doing these mindfulness practices, and he could see when he would because part of what was generating his behaviors that weren’t being received so well was he was anxious, and he would respond to his anxiousness by being too strong or not sharing that he was anxious, right? Not being vulnerable at all, which is art for a lot of men anyway. And then we also worked on these little hacks, if you will, that had a like, little mindful moments in the middle of everything. And so for him, one that was really useful was he’d be in like an executive committee meeting, and he would ordinarily feel anxious and then overcompensate by coming on too strong. So what worked for him was just feeling the sensations of his feet on the floor the start of this meeting, or in the middle of these meetings, and that would be enough for him to call in the formal practice, and you could relax, because so here’s one of the tricks of the trade, right? If you’re experiencing the sensations of your body, you’re not in your head. You’re not in the thoughts. And what happens with thoughts, or my cognitive behavioral perspective, is an emotion on its own, lasts like 30 seconds. But if you’re feeding it with the thoughts, it goes on and on. It gets worse and worse. So if you want to do anger management, you got to stop that cycle, because you’re just going to get angrier and angrier. If you keep feeding the thought, you’re actually creating your own anger, right? Yeah. So you get in the body and you’re like, oh, sensations of feet on the ground. That’s just on its own. It’s very relaxing, very much. So this totally worked for this guy. That’s amazing. Yeah, within a few months, people were saying, I can’t believe the change for this guy. I mean, that’s how powerful it works for him. I’m not saying it’s that powerful that quickly everybody. He’s a motivated student. Shall we say? What I love

Kim Bohr 28:23

about that story is that it’s the tips are subtle in that case, right? It was a subtle tip that, you know, I think when one of the things that I hope with our conversation, people take away is that there’s a varying degree of what it means in this mindful practice. There’s there’s so many places that people can start to get to a place for more discipline. It doesn’t mean that they have to suddenly, in the middle of a meeting, go into a meditative state. And I think there’s a misconception around what this is. And often, I’ve heard so many people just say, I can’t even begin to meditate. I just can’t. I just can’t for all these different reasons. And list goes on and on, and I think what I appreciate about wanting to have this conversation with you is that you have really tapped into people who would have maybe had that type of belief system and been able to show them that there are some things that can bring them into a more attentive space and have a real change for themselves and that they can actually perhaps, then that lays the seeds of wanting to go deeper into other ways. There are really powerful tools, as you’ve described.

Timothy Swords 29:30

Yeah, no, that’s right. No, I appreciate that. I like that term, like to tip, like, from flip to tip, maybe, yeah, but your question earlier was around these limiting beliefs, right? And so sometimes it’s just crucial to work with those, right? So I was working with a woman, kind of senior level, and she was stuck on the corporate ladder a bit, but she was also not taking great care of herself. So we spent a number of sessions just really diving into that. And then. And we started talking about why she was doing that, and she said, Well, for me to take off, I really need to have it planned so that can really make the most of it, but I have this whole list of things to do before I would do the things for myself. And basically, because we went through the list, it was like taking care of the house, taking care of stuff for the husband, taking care of stuff for the son. She had this belief that she couldn’t do anything for herself, including taking care of her health, seeing her friends and looking for a better job before she got this whole other list. Then, wow. I suspect she’s not the only woman who was in that situation, right? The way our culture, you take care of other people first. But it was so interesting. We had two sessions where that was really the main focus. The day after the second session, I got a text from her. I made plans with my friends. I reached out to two other companies that talked to me in the past about wanting me to work for them and I’m going on a hike. Powerful. Yeah, right. She sits probably 10 or 20 minutes each day in meditation. So, you know, she got to see these thoughts too at a little more granular level. Well, why am I not taking care of myself? You know? Yeah, these kind of things work together. I think

Kim Bohr 31:11

what’s interesting about that example is that we’re told put your oxygen mask on first before you help others. And so we intuitively like, yep, that’s the right thing. And yet, in daily practice of our professions, we don’t always inherently think about that we think about, and I don’t know if it is more biological women versus men or whatever the case is, but I will tell you that I do relate to that story of feeling and others I’m around on a regular basis that feel like, well, there’s so much dependent, or maybe it’s perception or belief of not wanting to let somebody down, that story just keeps getting reinforced in ourselves, and the idea of putting the oxygen mask on first is completely out the door for anything in the day to day world, right,

Timothy Swords 31:57

right? And your question was about this man who didn’t want to disappoint people, right? Which is why, yeah, let’s circle back to that, because clearly she didn’t want to disappoint people. Was inner person that was driving her to this.

Kim Bohr 32:09

Well, it’s so common I think in a lot of the work I do, too. I see this in our at least again, in our American culture, this idea of asserting ourselves to say what we need is really low, it’s frowned upon. It’s there’s some interesting dynamic there that we carry, and yet it doesn’t have to be in conflict with being a team player or being successful or contributing and stuff. And so I think that also that idea of this work life balance, what I think people are trying to really get at is being able to figure out, how can I have permission structure for that to be acceptable as well as be then be able to say and so this is what I need to fulfill that. And yet, there’s some conflict in that, depending on a certain type of organization and things. I think a younger generation, this Gen Z, that’s coming into our workforce today, has a different view of that, which maybe could help all of us in some fashion,

Timothy Swords 33:03

right? Right? Yeah, no, I think that’s likely. So now I’m glad you brought that up as I wanted to talk a little bit more about compassion. Actually, typically we think about compassion. Probably the dictionary definition is, when someone’s suffering, we want to help them, right? That’s compassion, typically is, which is fine, and I would say there’s, within the mindfulness tradition, there’s something called Mindful self compassion, which is well, scientifically researched and supported by evidence, which says how important that is, first of all, yeah, but defines two types of self compassion. So one is, what I think we’re traditionally think of is, oh, man, this is tough, and I’m going to be kind to myself, right? In whatever that looks like, giving myself a pat on the back, or taking care of myself, go to the gym or whatever we need, in the moment, being kind to ourselves, right? There’s also a fierce self compassion, which is like the mama bear, right? Which says, No, I’m not doing that. That’s not good for me. I need healthy boundaries, like this client I was talking about, she needed some healthier boundaries around taking on everything for the whole house and the whole household and her whole family, versus putting on that oxygen mask. Yeah, right. And it can look like defending oneself physically. I’m in a dangerous situation. I need to get out of here or defend myself. Those are also self compassion.

Kim Bohr 34:27

I like that. That’s an interesting reframe, too. We don’t think about that as a compassionate connection as well. Yeah, that’s really very insightful

Timothy Swords 34:37

or or encouragement. Like, yeah, go see you know, yeah, exactly, yeah. Go for it.

Kim Bohr 34:43

Absolutely. Change is constant. And one of the things that you have talked about the past is that it’s interesting to me that we can say that change is constant, and yet we could have this sense of, once this thing is done, I’ll be able to find time to. Be more mindful, or to meditate, or to go to on a vacation, whatever, right? And we hold these things in parallel which are completely at odds with one another. So for listeners who are by themselves in one of these challenging situations, you know, but haven’t either create a formal mindfulness practice or aren’t sure where to start, what would be your recommendation as just even a first

Timothy Swords 35:20

step, yeah, so, I mean, there’s so many resources now as first step. There’s all sorts of apps, for example, but honestly, I was teaching last night at a Harvard Club of San Francisco on clarity and community in times of chaos that’s around mindfulness and in your life and at work and so forth. And one of the participants who had done some meditation, but mostly on apps, and she said, you know, having you lead, this was so much more powerful, right? And she felt more accountable, actually, to pay attention. There’s something actually just energetically that happens where it’s easier to go deep and to get it. So I would say some kind of regular group meeting where you get instruction, and then, because you can’t learn it all in one session, and it also helps in a group to be accountable to actually practice. So when I started out all the research, I started because I was just interested. But then the US and Western science started to catch up, if you will, starting in those late 60s, early 70s, and in those days, the research was on people who were meditating probably at least 40 minutes a day and doing these long retreats and things. I thought, oh, that’s how long you need to meditate for anything to happen. But more research, more recent research, points out that, like 10 minutes a day can actually make a big difference for self awareness. I think in that article you mentioned our Business Review, they talk about like, 10 minutes a day, for six or eight weeks, your self awareness goes up 35% or something like that. I do think just starting to learn, ideally live, if not live online, if not on an app, there’s some great apps out there, super useful, and then just trying it every day, even if it’s not for a long time, can be super I called it like micro moments many times, right? I

Kim Bohr 37:10

like that micro moments many times. That’s very good. So the final question a bit of a combination, so you could answer it, how you choose, what’s your vision for how business leadership might evolve with more mindful executives. And is there any kind of final thoughts you want to make sure you impart on our listeners that we haven’t necessarily talked about or you want to emphasize

Timothy Swords 37:33

in my perfect future of leadership, mindfulness would be a core competency, right along with strategy and operations, marketing and all that, because I think that would build emotional resilience, emotional regulation, so that contagion wouldn’t even start as much as frequently, right? Greater empathy for oneself and others. You know, I actually think it’s very powerful to that people feel included in decision making and done a lot of work with leadership teams, and when they’re working as a group together on something, they’re all way more committed. And so it’s a lot less bumps in the road going forward and strategic clarity actually, like more clear decision makers, people would be more grounded.

Kim Bohr 38:20

I love that. It’s such a great you’ve really talked so much about the head and the heart coming together, and how the power that’s really a superpower when we really embrace both those things and recognize that they really should be aligned. And I think that’s something that we obviously why you and I are talking, we have that same belief. We have that belief with Spark effects. So I really, really thank you, Timothy, for your time, for your insight. I want to just remind our listeners, as we wrap up that we will have free resources relevant to our conversation today that you can download at courage to advance podcast.com which will take you to that spark effect podcast page. We’re also going to have some pieces of from Timothy, some of the demonstration of some of the mindfulness work that you’ll be able to access again. Timothy, thank you so much for sharing your journey and your insights with us. It’s been tremendous. I want to thank our empathy edge podcast listeners and the podcast sub series into everybody for tuning in to courage to advance where Transformative Leadership isn’t about having all the answers, but it’s about having the courage to find them. Timothy, thank you so much again for joining

Timothy Swords 39:34

us. Thanks for having

Maria Ross 39:38

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

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

Garrett Delph: Operationalizing Happiness

Unhappiness at work causes poor performance, disengagement, mistakes, absenteeism, mental health issues, and ultimately poor customer experience and anemic sales.

But defining happiness at work seems so squishy. Is the leader’s job to make people happy? Garrett Delph looks at happiness the way I look at empathy – as an intentional business strategy that can be operationalized and scaled.

Today, we talk about the causes of unhappiness in a business culture, why increasing happiness and decreasing stress are good for the bottom line, how clarity plays a huge role in engaging your people, and what it looks like from a process and operations point of view. He shares why culture is operational and that people need a structure that enables them to understand expectations, communicate easily and safely, and collaborate – or they will just leave. We had a great conversation about how empathy is linked to happiness and why it needs to be modeled and discussed from the top. Lastly, Garrett leaves you with two paths to take if you suspect your business could be more effective, so you can take the next right steps to improve results.

To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.

Key Takeaways:

Clarity is a form of empathy at work – when we are clear, we help people avoid anxiety, stress, and confusion, which leads to greater happiness.
You have to balance the load with your managers – if you don’t know what they are doing or who they are managing, you cannot understand where the workflow bottlenecks are.
We are all needed for the business to function. And people need direction and instruction to ensure we’re all on the same page.

“As leaders, often we hire great people and we buy the lie ‘hire great people and set them free’ not realizing you can’t do that, or you fail the people.” — Garrett Delph

The Empathy Edge Episode References:

Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer

About Garrett Delph, Founder & CEO, Clarity Ops

Garrett Delph stands at the forefront of business transformational solutions for the new generation of leaders. He is the Founder and Chief Clarity Officer of Clarity Ops, LLC. A serial entrepreneur, he has established a track record of founding three successful international businesses that have collectively generated over $50 million in revenue. Garrett’s new-generation business solutions are created for leaders who need faster, easier, and more profitable step-by-step ways for scaling businesses.

Connect with Garrett:

Clarity Ops: clarityops.co

X: x.com/garrettdelph

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/garrettdelph

Connect with Maria:

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

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

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

Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy

LinkedIn: Maria Ross

Instagram: @redslicemaria

Facebook: Red Slice

Threads: @redslicemaria

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Garrett Delph 03:16

so much, Maria. It’s great to be here. I’m looking forward to the conversation so you are

Maria Ross 03:20

founder and chief clarity Officer of clarity ops. We heard that in your bio, and we do in a second, need to talk about what a chief clarity officer does. But how did you get into this work? How did you get into this work of helping growth organizations align their systems and their leadership in order to deliver great results? What’s the passion there for you?

Garrett Delph 03:39

Yeah, great question, and thank you for asking it. I built a couple of global companies in last 15 years, and I did that really, probably, like many people, not knowing what I was doing, starting out and learned a lot.

Maria Ross 03:54

Yeah, raising my hand,

Garrett Delph 03:58

I learned a lot. And but as I exited those businesses and began to think about like, Okay, I’m at halftime, and what does, what does the future look like for me? And what was most important to me is to bring value. And so I started thinking about, what am I good at? What do I love? And it turned out that one of the biggest drivers of success in those businesses turned out to be operational infrastructure, which brought clarity to the people, the process and ultimately, the outcomes of the business and but what I noticed in my networks is most people were focused on leadership in silo. How do you help leaders be great leaders, but we’re always missing the other part, which I thought was vital, the other side of the coin, which is operational infrastructure that empowers leaders to be great. And the more I thought about that, the more I realized, number one, I love it. Number two, I think it is a huge strategic advantage to any. Business that’s looking to grow and scale in perpetuity, that is sorely ignored, in my opinion. And so I was like, Okay, well, this is like Disneyland for me. I have evidence based proof that, you know, if you get architecture right in a business actually works really well and have this whole cascade of amazing benefits to the people in the culture right, which really is well aligned for your professional acumen, your focus, your love, your passion, which is why I’m happy to be here, and that’s a big deal. That’s yeah, because, from what I can tell, there’s no great business out there without first them figuring out how to have great people. And, you know, great people who are empowered and are happy. I like to call it, you know, low stress, high happiness, yeah, inside of a well oiled machine. So that really, you know that backstory was the impetus to launching clarity ops and trying to make a dent in the historic stat that nine and 10 businesses go out to fail, or go to business and they fail.

Maria Ross 05:57

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you’re speaking my love language, because in the new book The Empathy dilemma that came out last fall, my third pillar of empathetic and effective leadership is clarity, and the fact that you know, often in the name of empathy, in the name of trying to make people happy, speaking of happiness, some leaders think They’re being empathetic by delaying a difficult conversation or overlooking an issue and hoping it will go away, or thinking that they’re being clear in their communication and in their expectations, and then trying to hold people accountable to an expectation that wasn’t clearly set right and so helping people to understand that clarity is a form of empathy at work, that when we’re clear, we help people avoid fear and anxiety and stress and confusion, and that ultimately, kind of, leading into your topic, makes us unhappy at work when we don’t have that. And sometimes it’s the leadership potential, the human potential of the person in charge. But to your point, sometimes it’s the hindrance of the operations or the systems or the structures that are enhancing the confusion for people you know, like a game of telephone, so to speak. So first, tell us, how do you define happiness or unhappiness in an organization? So

Garrett Delph 07:17

I’ll go in reverse order. Okay, I think unhappiness is reveals itself through symptoms that we see in business culture. In fighting, you have blame games, you have dissension, employment, churn, I think, is a great symptom of people being unhappy, gossip. So there’s you probably go on and on. So I think those are symptoms of unhappiness. People have frustrations, right? And so I think happiness. Want to be careful here, like, how you define happiness in a business of people and culture, it would be, might be systematic, I think an accurate alignment with managed expectations, you know, and so happiness sometimes, if we make it about feelings, could be misinterpreted as is, you know, if you always have joy. But you know, work can sometimes suck, right, right? No, it’s not always fun, but if it’s calibrated, where expectations are managed and people understand what they should be doing when things are due, what the outcomes are, how success is measured, for example, then I think that stress goes down tremendously, and like just feeling good perhaps, is maybe another way to put it, becomes a standard. Yeah, so those would be my two answers to your two questions. Well, I love

Maria Ross 08:41

this because, I mean, I feel like you’re teeing this up for me, because the fifth pillar and the five pillars is joy, and not that I would love for us to parse out a little bit. Because you hear people say, well, levity is important at work, and being able to relax and be who you are and show up as who you are is important. But how important is it to, quote, unquote, make people happy. Because I think sometimes that’s where empathetic leaders can dip into people pleasing versus empathy, because that’s their goal. Is like, let’s make them happy. But what I hear you saying is that you’re using a broader definition of happiness at work, more probably aligned to what I’m calling joy, which means that the work could be hard, but you could be finding enjoyment in the hard work. You could be have great relationships with people at work. You can have, you know that you have each other’s back. You can have moments of levity even when the work is hard. And so, you know, we don’t want any leaders to misinterpret that the goal of your leadership is to make everybody happy. Because what makes people happy is different, depending on each individual person, but there is, there are, like you said, there’s symptoms or markers of an effective culture, where you can probably make an assumption that, because all those markers are there, all those boxes are checked, there’s engagement, there’s camaraderie, there’s trust. Psychological safety, there’s clarity that probably leads to more joy and happiness at work. So let’s talk about that in terms of, how does if you’re not looking for the if you’re not working to build a culture like that, if you’re you know, drowning in unhappiness in the business, yeah, how does that actually hurt the vision and the performance and the profit of the company from what you’ve seen? And I know you come at this looking at their operations and their structures and their systems, how does that manifest as to bottom line impact? So

Garrett Delph 10:35

I have a little framework I call p3 which is a stands for people process and performance. Earlier, I think you’ve mentioned people process and tools. So you know, very similar in nature. And ultimately, if you know going back to this idea of when people have joy, you probably have a ton of really great strength there too. I think also another recipe or ingredient to the recipe of joy in people is aligning their strengths and capabilities with what they’ve been hired to do as well. I think that is critical path to this sort of, you know, formula of creating a great culture full of empathy. And so going back to p3 I think you know, if the end goal of the business is to succeed, however they define success, you have to demonstrate, in my opinion, care in an organized way. And so how do you care for people systematically in the business, so that it produces joy, where it gets rid of all of the sort of the cancerous behaviors? And so I think that the best way to do that is go after things like, Are you clear about your org chart? Within that org chart, Are you clear about job descriptions and reporting mechanisms? Are you clear about leadership agreements? Have you published? Have you gotten leaders together and have they all agreed? Hey, when we lead our teams, whether cross functionally or in silo, this is how we’re going to treat our people, and this is how we’re going to manage expectations about what we do, how we do it, and the people that we lead. And so are we all agreed on how we want to play. It’s our playbook. Some of the things is in terms of caring, demonstrating to the people that you care, because I think this produces Joy career paths, yes, and so like, imagine if the business valued career paths. And when you showed up as a brand new employee, and you get on ramp, they spend a half an hour or maybe 20 minutes, saying, Listen, you probably joined our company because you don’t want to be in the same spot making the same amount of money forever. You probably want to grow, get a better title, learn advance. Here’s how you do it. And in order to get from A to Zed, you need to follow this path, do these certain things, and as you do them, we’re going to help you grow and succeed more together. Yes, so there’s some examples of how does the business win and produce joy in people, so that the business gets the productive outcomes it wants, but also cares for the people, lifts them up and sort of supports and locks arms with them as they move forward. I think that produces joy and you get two really great outcomes. You know, joyous people. Yeah, happy people, I would contend stress goes way down, and the business gets it outcome, its outcomes as well.

Maria Ross 13:25

Absolutely. Yeah. I often talk about when I’m talking about empathy at work and what that means. It doesn’t mean always crying on the floor with your employees, but when you tell people tactically things like career progression maps are empathetic, they sort of do a double take, and it’s like, no, that’s a very operational thing. It is. But what it does is it answers questions. It gives people accountability to know how they need to advance to the organization. And often that kind of clarity can limit entitlement, because entitlement, in my opinion, comes from people not knowing what’s next or not knowing the path. It’s interpreted as entitlement, when it’s really just I don’t know, and you’re not telling me, and I need answers, right? So I love that, and I want to ask like a question off of that. You know, a lot of your work is around operations and systems and processes and structures and tools and all of that, right? What are, what are some examples of that being a lever to scale that kind of clarity and happiness in an organization? Can you give me an example of, maybe, with a past client, some sort of, some sort of function or process or technology they implemented in order to increase clarity and increase happiness in their in their organization,

Garrett Delph 14:53

totally Absolutely, and I appreciate your thoughts about sort of my i. Yeah, I like, I like the term work because it really is, you know, it is a work in progress. But I do believe that even culture is operational if it’s going to be effective, yes, and so maybe, to make that point, I’ll give a couple of examples to absolutely. So had a construction company here on the West Coast that I worked with in 2024 and they were bleeding 2 million bucks a quarter because of a bunch of problems internally. So as I went in as suspected, found that their org chart was in disarray, so they had no mechanism for how to set up reporting structures to managing leaders. And so first thing I said is, hey, let’s you know, where’s your org chart? What’s your org chart look like? And so they didn’t have one, but what we were able to do is map out who their leaders were, which functions they belong to, and how many people ultimately were reporting to each of these heads, right? And within, I kid you not, within an hour and 45 minutes, the CEO president, his jaw was on the floor because he had never seen this imbalance of people reporting to his leaders. One leader had three people reporting to them. Another leader had 27 people, oh my gosh, reporting 27 in their production division. Yeah, right. And so immediately he could see this imbalance of workload distribution. And so I just want to make a quick note, because I think this is fascinating stuff. If you know what we do as leaders often is we hire great people and we buy the lie, hire great people and set them free, yeah, really, not realizing you can’t do that, or

Maria Ross 16:52

you fail the people. And you have to give them an environment to function in. Do right? You have to

Garrett Delph 16:56

give them a framework, structure, scaffolding, you know? And so to this point, this President did not understand the idea of workload balancing. Just like the best computers of the world have figured out you have to distribute your workloads. This is why you have RAM and cache. It’s why you have, you know, processing optimizations inside of computers to load balance so things don’t crash right? So within hour and 45 minutes, we identified this. The next step is I brought to him a framework I built called the quad core management framework. And one thing we noticed as we broke apart his org chart is that he had leaders that were sort of all over the map in terms of their focus, yet leaders that were driving vision, but they were also managing people who were also project managing projects, who were also building process, right, goodness. And so again, you gotta, you know, maybe use a vehicle. For example, you have a truck that can bear one ton of weight, and you’re putting three tons of weight in the back of the truck, it can’t deliver. Yeah, all right. And so between those two examples, what we did is we redesigned the org chart, which load balanced their reporting structures and the people who report to whom, so that immediately, within, you know, two weeks that gave back, restructured focus to his leaders. And then another thing we did is we realigned where they actually focused so leaders that were were in charge of vision and strategy. We systematically removed from their plate managing people, and we systematically removed from their plate, being in charge of managing projects, and those were delegated to other people within the org. And over two months, their repair, in profit, in speed, in controlled outcome was, you know, began to have positive ramifications to the business, and now I think it’s been eight months, and they’re on their way to recovering that 2 million bucks in profit. Yeah, amazing stuff. So there’s a, you know, a quick three, four minute example.

Maria Ross 19:11

I love that so much, because there’s so many things in there. Number one is just you telling that story. I don’t know if this is my empathy coming through. I’m just feeling a sigh of relief for those people, like just the lightness in being able to to remove the sluggishness, like the mud in their tires, to enable them to go faster, and that ability to accelerate impacts the organization’s performance. It’s not just it. You know, I hate when I hear this like, well, I don’t want to coddle people, or I don’t want to, you know what? We have to spend time figuring out what what they’re doing and what they want, yes, because then you’ll go faster. So I love that, just this idea of, like, shedding the weight from that, and I. Why do you think that that’s so I think it’s kind of like when I do brand strategy work, right? I always tell my clients, it’s not rocket science, because I’m actually pulling the answers out of you. I’m shaping it, and I’m asking the right questions, and I’m I’m giving an objective point of view on this, representing the voice of the customer, but ultimately, you have the answers inside you. Why do you think it’s so hard for businesses to do this for themselves, without an outside guide, Sherpa, consultant? I mean, I kind of know the answer. But what have you seen be the issue? Why do they get in their own way of being able to sought to see that and solve their problem themselves?

Garrett Delph 20:39

Yeah, I’ll tell you, I have an advantage here to this question, because I’ve worn the shoes the CEO, yeah, right, and I did it for a lot of years, and so having been there, my experience has been you’re so busy chasing revenue. And I see that positively, right? Of course, yeah, that’s your charter. Yeah, you’re so busy innovating. You’re so busy trying to just protect the business for growth and from going under. You have so many things coming at you, as if you don’t as a business, if you don’t value change management, if you don’t value continuous improvement, if you don’t value infrastructure, then over time, these things begin to, you know, grow negatively internally, and you don’t see them, you know, because we’re just looking at our P and L and our balance sheet, and we’re looking at, you know, customer acquisition, customer churn. And we’re looking like, in general, in general, are we going in the right direction? But suddenly, when you start to have an opportunity to hockey stick and growth, or you actually begin to grow these things, these cracks that have been happening underneath, they show up out of nowhere, and they begin to bite, right? But I just think there’s so many moving parts in the business, and most businesses don’t think about these things. You know, I was in mastermind group recently, and I brought up this topic, and there’s a real estate guy in the meeting that owns a flourishing company. And I said, What do you think? And he goes, honestly, man, I’ve never even thought about continuous improvement. I’ve never even, never even thought about organizing the business internally so that we don’t break. Never even thought about it because I’m so busy focused on everything else, and you know that that’s been my experience?

Maria Ross 22:43

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m wondering if you also part of it, you know there’s, there’s all these changing paradigms we’re dealing with at the same time, right? We’re dealing with workplace culture change. We’re dealing with just a leadership paradigm shift from command and control to more partnering with your teams and supporting them and and being more about being an empathetic leader, which is why I do this work. And so I wonder if another thing that might get in the way is these organizations. I see this a lot with young founders, the desire to build like an anti organization, the desire to be like we want to be completely flat. We want to be completely democratic. We want, you know, we nobody’s had, nobody has job titles. I mean, I just hear that and I cringe. I would think I would be so unhappy in a work environment like that, where I didn’t know who I was supposed to be going to, who I was supposed to be reporting to, who was supposed to be reporting to me, who was I responsible for? What was I responsible for? So it sounds great in theory, and I know that there are people working on these sort of managerless organizations and org charts, but you still need the clarity for everyone to understand why they’re there and what role they play. I’m with you. So what do you think about that?

Garrett Delph 23:58

Well, I think they’re contradictory terms. I don’t think they can coexist. Yeah, I just, I actually don’t think it’s possible to coexist, to have a flat org chart with no rules, responsibilities, and everybody feels their way through right and simultaneously succeed. I mean, look at sports, look at art that has, you know, art that’s attached to systems. Look at, I don’t know we could go on. I can’t think of anything where that would work, by the way, didn’t Tony shade do this. He experimented. He’s the founder of Zappos, yes, yeah. Experiences, experience, experiments with a flat org, and it totally failed

Maria Ross 24:42

well and yeah, and there’s, there’s ways to do it correctly, but it always, always a part of it has to be a clarification of roles and responsibilities and operational systems. So what happens is, you get people that think it just means everyone just show up. No one has a title. What do you want to do? What do you want to do? Great it. There’s still a structure within the non structure. I actually interviewed some folks on the podcast a few years ago that talked about manager, manager lists, organizations. But there’s even rules around how you make that work. So there’s still a system. There’s still a structure that enables you to have that kind of environment, if that’s what you’re looking for. But I think a lot of people are misguided and think it just means you take away everything, you take away all the scaffolding, and then just see what happens. Let people be creative, right? And that’s never gonna work.

Garrett Delph 25:35

So it’s almost like a bunch of ICS that are razor sharp clear about what they should be doing, how they interact with other people, yeah,

Maria Ross 25:44

kinda, I’ll put a link to that episode. Okay, it was with Brett and Susan, and I’ll put a link to that episode in the show notes, but it was fascinating, and they wrote a book about that and but my point being, the plot twist is there’s still a structure within that. There’s still what you’re saying. There has to be operational excellence, there has to be a route to continuous improvement. There has to be clarity, and even more so in that kind of environment, and it has to be supported by systems and tools and structures and technology that will enable that to happen in a way where people are not freaking out every day, yeah,

Garrett Delph 26:25

yeah, right. It would have to, it seems like, if things are flat and not vertical, right? Probably even more so then, yeah, even more so systematic infrastructure for right? Yeah, yeah, fascinating stuff. So so as we kind of wrap up, I just want to ask, you know, generally,

Maria Ross 26:48

how do we increase happiness and decrease stress in a business culture? And I want to just inject in here, what is the role that you think empathy plays in all of this.

Garrett Delph 27:01

So I’ll start with the empathy question. First of all, empathy has to be valued at the top. And when I say valued, you know, you and I both agree this isn’t some a writing on the wall, right? So there needs to be some deep thinking about, like, what does empathy mean? And it has to be valued at the top and defined, and then and modeled and bottled and distributed. As the the chairman of LinkedIn said in a really great interview, this is when he was the CEO of LinkedIn. He said, My primary job is to be the chief reminder officer, and I, primarily, all I do is continue to remind our leaders where we’re going and how we’re going to behave, which is rooted in their values. And so if it doesn’t, if it’s your point, if it’s not thought about, defined, bottled up and then constantly served as water to the team, always so they constantly remind, are reminded with each other about how to behave. It doesn’t happen, right? So want to see, it’s got to start there, right? And then the the beauty, I think about empathy, that’s valued by leadership, is part of that is you’ve recognized, number one, the people you work with, they’re no better or worse than you. They’re fellow humans, that’s critical, right? And when you realize that there’s no sort of on better than you type thing. This is we all need each other. The Business engine, you know, in a vehicle, in a gasoline a gasoline engine vehicle, if the spark plug goes out, one spark plug, that engine ceases to operate. This is the truth. And so when a leader, from an empathetic perspective, understands that they’re going to value everybody, because everybody’s really important, I think another great thing empathy does is it constantly recognizes that people need direction. They need instructions. An empathetic leader, somebody that values empathy. They realize how important it is that they as a leader, be very clear, very clear to the people that they lead, and they recognize that there could be miscommunication and misinterpretation and clarity and so an empathetic leader, I think would make provision for, did you understand what I said? And do you have questions, right? Did I misspeak? Was I not clear? Give me that feedback too. And I think empathy recognizes these, you know, inherent exchanges, right, that need to take place in order for the joy and the happiness to show up. You

Maria Ross 29:47

know, absolutely, absolutely and so, you know, and a lot of that, you know, this is kind of where our work overlaps. Is talking about when you’re able to give that environment to people, when they’re able to operate you. Without fear and anxiety and stress, and engage their their cognitive skills more effectively because they’re not in self preservation mode. They have room to be more innovative, to creatively problem solve, to have more patience to collaborate with each other and listen and that ultimately, you know everything we’re talking about here, not only is it the right thing to do, it’s actually this is what I always say. Empathy is not just good for society. It’s great for business. Great for business. It will enable your business to flourish. And I think combined with that viewpoint that you so eloquently talked about, which is that much of this is operational, and I love that you talked about the fact that culture is operational because it’s a belief system, it’s a mindset, it’s it’s a mode of of action, it’s a mode of behavior. And so, of course, it’s operational, right? Yeah, and this is, this is also why good cultures can scale. That’s because, just like any good operational system, it should be able to scale. That’s right.

Garrett Delph 31:04

Yeah, that’s right. I mean, any business owner recognizes it would be foolish to pay people to stress out,

Maria Ross 31:14

to compete. Don’t all realize that, though, is the problem. I’m like, I always say they don’t. They’re walking around with resources operating at 25% capacity. How is that smart? Right? You wouldn’t. You would never invest in a capital expenditure that only worked at 25% capacity. Would

Garrett Delph 31:33

never? I love it. Never. Yeah, no, I’m so with you. And like, you don’t have to look far to find a plethora of studies about how stress is counterproductive to productivity and right and so all of this stuff. Yeah,

Maria Ross 31:55

I love it. So, so let’s, let’s leave folks on an action step here. So let’s say they sense. They’re having some operational challenges. They’re having some they think that there’s room for improvement around clarity, around how everything works together. What is a great first step, or first few steps for them to even start to tackle this? Hmm? Yes,

Garrett Delph 32:24

let’s see. So I’ve sort of two paths here. Number one, number one path would be, do we have enough time energy and resources internally to explore how to solve chaos in the culture and or chaos in the organization. And if the answer is we have the resources to do it, then I would, I would go back to the kind of are people being cared for? Do they have process to follow? Is that positively affecting their performance outcomes based on our vision and mission? They can do it like that’s like, that is simple ABC you can follow, and you’ll find a ton, a ton of stuff that you can fix just through that simple exercise. If not, go to an expert, find somebody that does this for a living, and have them do an audit, you know, have them do a quick, Swift evaluation of those components, and have them deliver to you a report on their findings and how to fix it right.

Maria Ross 33:35

And if you want to choose to work on that on your own, you can, and if not, you can hire folks to you know, not that we’re a commercial for both of our services, but it is true, like sometimes the easiest answer is the right answer, right? It’s, it’s really just taking the time to what I heard there was, be willing to explore what’s going on, and be willing to explore, especially if you have the resources and the capacity to really explore that. And then secondly, do an audit? Do figure out how to how to audit and get everyone involved in that audit. It’s not just an audit of the executive team, right? We’ve got to actually talk to the people that are being impacted by this every day. And I will say, you know where, where empathy ties into your ability to do that effectively is creating psychological safety. So if you have an environment where people are fearful, they’re scared to voice, they’re scared to fail, they’re scared for their jobs, they don’t feel safe expressing themselves, you’re going to have a very biased audit when you do that, and that’s not actually doing you any favors. So if you really want people to be honest with you about what’s going on in the business and even what are some of their ideas for improving how it’s going, it’s got to start with an environment of empathy and trust and psychological safety. And so if I you know, one thing I would say to folks listening is, if you run this audit and. You, you have a you have a spidey sense that something could be working better or is not working right, and you somehow get results from this audit that everything is hunky dory. Yeah, I would take that as a sign that, yeah, actually, maybe we need to go even further back and start to establish trust and psychological safety, because then I’m not getting the answers. I need to run the business effectively. Yeah,

Garrett Delph 35:22

yeah, that’s right. And if you don’t mind, I’d love to add to that you know, your your your data on feedback from, you know, top to bottom, left to right in the org chart is going to get really muddy if going back to the top has not declared that we value psychological safety, and more importantly, how are we going to how are we going to architect psychological safety? And the only way to do that is to get buy in from leaders and then have leaders agree this is how we’re going to behave as leaders, to create psychological safety, and create some exercises and time to establish that so that when you’re ready to start asking the tough questions to employees who are going to have to maybe give challenging answers to the people that pay them their sustenance, their paycheck that pays for their mortgage and puts food on the table for their kids. This is real stuff, yeah, and so it behooves the business that they really want it to go through those steps to prepare for it, because it doesn’t happen overnight. You know, this is transformational exercises that need to really be methodically thought through. It’s kind of it’s not heavy lifting, except for the architecture. You just got to understand how to framework it. But if you follow the framework and you’re committed to it, like you and I both know magic happens. What did Danny Meyer say? He wrote setting the table. He’s the founder of setting the table. He wrote that book. He’s got a really bunch of really great restaurants, but really great stuff. He said, a lot of businesses put their customers first. I put my employees first. Yes, when you put your employees first and you care from them, and you demonstrate with your behavior that you care for them, then amazing thing, things happen. And the very thing that you wanted happy customers, happens automatically.

Maria Ross 37:29

Absolutely, you said, auto, magically. And I know that that was a Freudian slip, but I love it. It’s so great. Yeah, automatically. I love that. But yeah, I mean, it’s true. It’s I have profiled successful leaders who are winning with empathy because of that philosophy. It doesn’t mean they’re not client focused, right? It means that they do everything they can to make sure their employees needs are met, that they feel they’re being treated fairly and safely and equitably, and their voices matter, and from that, they’re able to knock it out of the park for their clients, because their employees are 100% engaged versus 10% right? Yeah, so so much good stuff. We could keep talking forever, but Garrett, as we wrap up, we’re gonna have all your links in the show notes. We thank you so much for your time and your insights today. Where’s for folks on the go, where’s a good place? They can find out more about you and your work.

Garrett Delph 38:24

Yeah, thanks so much. Maria website, it’s probably a great place. Clarity ops.co, great. I think.com was like 50 grand or something. So

Maria Ross 38:34

smart. Clarity ops.co, wonderful. And then,

Garrett Delph 38:40

yeah, I’m on LinkedIn. Yep, great.

Maria Ross 38:42

And if you reach out, as I always say, folks that you know my PSA about this, if you reach out to Garrett on LinkedIn, personalize the note and say You heard him on the empathy edge podcast so he doesn’t think you’re trying to sell him something. Garrett, thank you so much for your time today.

Garrett Delph 38:55

Yeah, thank you so much for you. I really appreciate the conversation, and thank you everyone

Maria Ross 38:59

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

Archives: Podcast Episodes

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

Shilpa Alva: Non-Profit Leadership Lessons to Drive For-Profit Success

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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

Steve Durbin: How Empathetic Leadership Strengthens Cybersecurity and Risk Management

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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

Laura Camacho: Developing Your Empathy and Executive Presence

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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

Courage to Advance: Why AI Can’t Call BS: The Irreplaceable Human Edge in Executive Coaching with Rod Bacon

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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

Robin Dreeke: Spy Lessons for Leaders: Forging Unbreakable Alliances Through Empathy

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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

July Hot Take: Empathy Under Attack: Leading with Heart in Hostile Times

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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

Asheli Mann-Lofthouse: The Nuts and Bolts of DEIB, By Stage

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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

Bridgette Boudreau: Choosing an Ethical Coach to Transform Performance from Within

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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

Courage to Advance: From Digital Overwhelm to Mental Clarity with Timothy Swords

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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

Garrett Delph: Operationalizing Happiness

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

The Empathy Dilemma Free Resources

Brand Breakthrough Story Course