Welcome to the gothamCulture podcast where we talk about any topic you’d like so long as those topics are organizational culture, leadership, and people strategy. In each episode, we talk with industry leaders and discuss culture opportunities and challenges in their workplace, providing you with actionable tips and strategies that you can implement in your organization.
The Great Resignation? Reshuffle? Reimagination? Renegotiation?
In this episode, guest host Conrad Moore from MAiUS Learning talks to Marcelo Dias, a Talent Performance & Development Leader about how being burned out actually changes your brain chemistry resulting in exhaustion, cynicism, or just lack of effectiveness. Once employees reach this level of dissatisfaction with their jobs, it just ends up taking up a lot of their mental space. What can we do to get back to flourishing at work?
Production note: This interview was originally recorded in January 2022.
Released: December 20, 2022
Kate Gerasimova, gothamCulture:
I’m happy to present to you a series of episodes involving culture gathered over the past year, asking experts in the industry for their advice and recommendations for leaders of organizations in this always-changing environment. These three episodes touch on how organizations need to be resilient in these vulnerable times. Each guest has a unique background and brings their own expertise and experience to what organizations, leaders, and employees need to do to be successful.
Conrad Moore:
All right. Hello, this is Conrad Moore from MAiUS Learning. I am happy to be back today on Gotham’s podcast as a guest host. And I’ve brought with me Marcelo Dias, who is a learning professional with over 15 years experience leading learning and development teams and supporting digital tech transformations. He spent most of his career at Intuit and Visa and since then, has been an independent learning consultant for about three years. Marcelo, first of all, thank you for joining.
Marcelo Dias:
Thank you. Yeah, really happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Conrad Moore:
Yeah, and one of the things I’m excited, you don’t have to name any names, but I think it’s interesting to talk to you, because I actually don’t know the names per se, but I know that you talked to some folks, as a coach, who have some interesting perspectives when we’re thinking about this whole great resignation right now. So what are you hearing from some of your clients about what’s going on?
Marcelo Dias:
Yeah, this is a very popular topic. Some people are calling it the great reshuffle. I hear great reimagination, great renegotiation, even in the media, a lot of conversations around it. What I’m personally hearing is that a lot of people are either burned out or numbed out. And being burned out actually changes your brain chemistry and you see this exhaustion, cynicism, or just lack of effectiveness. And what I’ve learned from some of my clients is that once they reach this level of dissatisfaction with their jobs, it just ends up taking a lot of their mental space. And actually, I have here some notes as one of my clients, the way she described it is I might be done early for the day, but it’s difficult for me to be present with my kids, because I am still caught up in the politics of what’s going on at work.
And this, I’m hearing a lot. People are just having a really hard time disconnecting from that. On the other hand, I’ve also talked to a couple people who are kind of numbed out. They’re basically disengaged from their jobs. I’m thinking of a learning professional, he’s mentally done with his job, but continues to hang in there because the pay is good, honestly, and he couldn’t afford to go a month without that income. So yeah, he’s miserable, but he’s still managing to do the bare minimum to get fired. That’s kind of what I’m seeing right now.
Conrad Moore:
Yeah, and I think that makes a lot of sense, because I think that was always people’s experience, but then you layer on top of that a pandemic and it kind of just amplifies some of those feelings, and brings them into focus perhaps, which is maybe what we’re seeing here. So what can people do if they’re feeling burned out or disengaged? Is there anything that you’ve advised people to do?
Marcelo Dias:
Yeah, and what I’ve seen is there are people who are getting out of these situations. They’re even flourishing right now. And I think a big first step for them is just taking a hard look at their priorities, right? And he mentioned the pandemic, it’s hard to get away from that, and that’s, I think, forced a lot of us to face our own mortality. And there’s this phrase in Stoic philosophy, you may have heard Memento Mori, right, which roughly translates from the Latin as remember that you have to die, right? And I think consciously or unconsciously, this is driving a lot of people to reprioritize what’s important in their lives. And for work, you can see that as no longer wanting to be tied to a company office. And so I talked with someone who moved closer to his kids after a year into the pandemic, because that not knowing, somebody was getting sick, somebody not getting sick, they really wanted to be together, and he was able to do that by just going to remote.
And fortunately for him, he liked his job, he got to keep his same job, and that was how he find that ideal work-life balance. Able to stay in the same job, but having the opportunity to be closer with families. But for others, they may be they were just tired of the 60-plus hour work week. And so I know former colleague of mine, when she decided she needed to look for another job, and she knew what kind of questions to ask in the interviews, because she was really looking for a well-resourced team. She wanted a laid back team. She didn’t want this craziness anymore, of working nights, working weekends. And so thankfully, that’s exactly what she found. But it’s interesting that that was the mindset that she had going in, where she was asking the questions. Is this, we’re all going to be the kind of thing that I’m looking for?
So maybe what we’re really seeing, in my mind, is this great reprioritization, right? For a lot of people, they’re not saying I’m done with work, they’re just reshaping it in a way that fits in with the rest of their priorities. And I can tell you from my own personal experience, actually, I’m kind of in the midst of this still, but I started my consulting business and for a while, I was kind of saying yes to anything I could possibly get. And fortunately enough for a while, there actually was getting more hours than I wanted to, which started getting me to this other side, where I decided okay, I just need to be more selective about the engagements that I’d taken on.
So yeah, this reduced my income, but on the plus side, I gained a lot more time back, and even that mental space that I was talking about before, right? Because sometimes it’s not just the hours, it’s also how much of that mental space is taking up your day. And so I was able to deepen my relationship with my kids, my partner, even my parents, having more time with family, which is really, really important for me. And it kind of brought me back to some of that foundational stuff. And finally, it’s given me an opportunity to reflect of what kind of impact at this Memento Mori. I took it seriously. What kind of impact do I want to have before I die?
Conrad Moore:
That’s a very deep thought. And can I also ask you maybe if you’re trademarking the great reprioritization?
Marcelo Dias:
No. I’m sure somebody out there has used it, but it’s just what’s really resonated just based on my experience, yeah.
Conrad Moore:
All right. Well I heard it here first.
Marcelo Dias:
Okay.
Conrad Moore:
And so I think you said it. I like that kind of thought process though. And I do think you’re right, people are doing a lot of deep reflecting and thinking about the prioritization of their lives and their families and work, and so I think that that resonates with me in terms of what I’ve seen out there in the world and conversations with other people. So let’s flip that around and look at the other side of that equation. If we’re thinking about organizations who we know, obviously, are working hard to either retain the top talent that they have or attract new top talent now that people have left, and so if that’s what we’re seeing in the labor market is people who are really looking deeply at what maybe their purpose in life is, what do you think organizations can do to align to this new set of priorities?
Marcelo Dias:
Yeah. And I mentioned this earlier, I mean, there’s no question, flexibility goes a long way, right? The ability to live where you want to live, it’s a really important benefit. And I know there’s a lot of organizations debating this, what does this really look like, but time and time again, I hear this is really important. The other one is just a flexible schedule, right? It’s very important, especially for parents, caregivers, the ability to kind of shape their work around other responsibilities.
But I think if companies really want to stand out, they need to do some more of this, of what you just mentioned, right? How do you create the space for employees to gain that kind of clarity, what’s important for them personally, and then to kind of help them achieve that balance in their lives. And I see very few companies take an active role in supporting their employees’ wellbeing. I mean, maybe they provide EAP, right, the employee assistance program where you might get eight free counseling sessions. But right now in the pandemic, it’s nearly impossible to access, right? So you may have other benefits like apps and services, but I’m not seeing a genuine commitment to help their employees live their best lives. So I think that’s a really big opportunity for companies to stand out.
Conrad Moore:
Yeah. As you were saying that, I was just reflecting in my head that that actually feels right. All of these additional extra benefits, EAPs, maybe a monthly gym membership or something like that, it all feels almost more in service of can we trick them into wanting to work here for our bottom line, versus how can we actually provide space for them to find deeper meaning in the work that they do, and see an alignment with a larger corporate mission, or even if it’s not a corporation. So that all sounds interesting. I’m wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about what we can find from you out in the world, if people want to learn more about what you do and what you’re working on.
Marcelo Dias:
So lately, I mean, I’ve been asking this question many times. I’ve been asking myself, what does this look like, really? And one way, I think, is to give people the tools they need to find the healthier, more balanced kind of foundation that they can work from. So, you mentioned the coaching practice, right? So I think this has been one way to do it. I’ve been able to provide that kind of support on a one-on-one basis. But really, I think there’s an opportunity to scale that more to kind of a larger audience, more of a classroom base, and that’s something a lot of organization can do on their own. I mean, in my case, I’m basically applying my skills as a learning professional just to create a curriculum. I’m starting with three classes around this 8foldlife framework, but there’s many other frameworks out there. But in this case, it’s body, emotions, and mind, right?
So sort of the foundational areas from a self-care standpoint, and I’m calling it the 8foldlife School, and each class is peer supported, it’s a hybrid, flexible model, but it’s also very much focused on developing helpful habits, while letting go of some of those unhelpful habits. So as an example, for the body focus class, there’s three primary areas that we’re looking at. One is sleep. That’s such a critical piece in ensuring people’s wellbeing. Nutrition, which can look very different from one person to the next. And then movement is also another thing that can look very different.
But the idea there is that we discuss the benefits and we commit. We, as each, individual person commits to making a change in their lives in each one of those areas. And then my eventual goal is to actually scale this to all eight dimensions, which includes relationships, career, finances, self-fulfillment, and then beyond self. And this to say, any organization, if you have people passionate about any one of these areas, I would encourage you to run with it and be able to create a program like this that, again, helps people to take that step back and feel like they’re more connected to the work that they’re doing, and that they’re better able to coexist in all the other priorities in their lives.
Conrad Moore:
Great. Well then I have one last request for you. We’ve got an upcoming guest and I’m wondering if you can ask that person a question, so we can continue the conversation.
Marcelo Dias:
Absolutely. Yeah. And they’re difficult, challenging times for organizations. I guess my question is, what can leaders do in this current environment?
Conrad Moore:
Great question. Well, thank you Marcelo Dias.Thank you so much for your time today.
Marcelo Dias:
Thank you, Conrad. It was a pleasure. All right. Till next time.
Leading With a Learning Lens
In this episode, Kate Gerasimova, Senior Associate at gothamCulture talks with Brooke Rufo-Hill, Head of People and Culture at Rippleworks about what it means to be a learning organization. How can we focus on improving everything instead of proving anything? Brooke offers examples and strategies about how to move away from focusing solely on productivity and more on learning and how it improves performance as an organization.
Released: December 13, 2022
Kate Gerasimova:
I’m happy to present to you a series of episodes about culture gathered over the past year, asking experts in the industry for their advice and recommendations for leaders of organizations in this always changing environment. The three episodes touch on how organizations need to be resilient in this vulnerable times. Each guest has a unique background and brings their own expertise and experience to what organizations, leaders, and employees need to do to be successful.
Kate Gerasimova:
Hi, my name is Kate Gerasimova and I’m a host for today’s podcast. Here I am joined by our guest, Brooke Rufo Hill, head of People and Culture at RippleWorks. RippleWorks Foundation brings the practical support social ventures need to scale faster and improve more lives. Brooke, thank you so much for being here.
Brooke Rufo-Hill:
Kate, thanks so much for having me. I’m really looking forward to the conversation and I’m excited to talk about a topic that is near and dear to my heart and something that has been incredibly inspiring and motivating to me in my first six months with RippleWorks. So thanks so much for having me.
Kate Gerasimova:
That’s wonderful. Well, today, the big surprise, we’ll be speaking about how leaders can show up with a learner’s lens versus performance lens. Generally speaking, the learning organization is a concept first described by Peter Senge as an organization where people continuously learn and enhance their capabilities to create. So Brooke, in your experience, what does a learning organization look like?
Brooke Rufo-Hill:
Well, I think something that our CEO, Doug Galen recently shared really articulates this well. He talked about, at a recent company meeting, that in a learning organization we focus on improving everything instead of proving anything. So I’ll say that again, improving everything instead of proving anything. And at first it just kind of rings as a nice little slogan, but when you really start to think about what the kind of core message is in that phrase, there’s actually a lot of unlearning that is required and encapsulated in that slogan that helps to lead us towards wholeheartedly becoming a learning organization.
So when I think about learning organizations, maybe it’s a bit obvious, but learning, and maybe the new pieces and unlearning, is absolutely at the center of all that we do. One example of this might be, at my current organization, we are in the process of really moving away from a more traditional performance management context and moving towards a learning and growth framework where you no longer need to try to prove anything to yourself or your manager or anyone else, but instead, when you enter into these twice a year conversations with your people manager, it is really about focusing on improving everything, and getting into an open and honest conversation with your manager as a partner around progress and ongoing or future opportunities related to learning and growing and acquiring additional skills.
Another example of this in our organization is that when new hires join, and all of us have been new hires at different points in our career, we often feel, when we join an organization, like we need to prove something. And so one of the things that we’re actively encouraging all of our new hires to partake in from an unlearning standpoint is to really embrace a learner’s mindset rather than a performance mindset from day one. So actually this morning I was with a group of new hires and doing an onboarding training as part of their kind of first month with us at RippleWorks. And one of the things we talked about is listen, we have an understanding within our organization that you absolutely have what it takes to do the job you were hired for. That is why we selected you through the hiring process and brought you into this role.
So please set aside this need to prove that you have every right to be here doing the work, sharing in the work with us, and instead just embrace from day one this mindset and focus that is all about improving and not proving.
Couple other quick things I’ll offer around a learning organization with maybe a bit more concrete examples from our organization is that in a learning organization, everyone is regarded as both a teacher and a student. And this really does not matter or depend on your tenure in the organization, the number of years you have in your career, the job level that you are at. There’s really this shared belief that no one ever fully arrives and we all have something to learn and teach one another.
And the final thing I’ll mention, we are also kind of actively going through this unlearning within our organization, is that while of course experimentation is encouraged, and this idea of not overthinking things and really testing and learning, so doing experiments all over the place, one of the kind of concrete outputs of that is that we as an organization are moving towards more wholeheartedly embracing this idea of iterating in public. So no longer kind of doing all of this design at the whiteboard by ourselves or within the team, but rather starting to iterate out in the open.
And a really simple way to do that is as we are coming up with ideas, crafting projects, crafting proposals, rather than kind of the disclaimer that we all feel a bit more comfortable is when we put a WIP in the title of the doc, that means work in progress. A commitment that we’ve recently made is that we will be removing work in progress from all the docs, because if we are trying to create and really shape an organization where iteration is embraced and this idea that really we never fully arrive and the work is never over, then there really isn’t a need for a label such as WIP. So Kate, those are just a few examples around learning and unlearning and this idea of a few hopefully practical examples of what you might see in a learning organization.
Kate Gerasimova:
That’s wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing those practical steps and you’re definitely changing a lot of behaviors there. Well, in preparation for this conversation, I also did some research and I came across the Harvard Business Review where David Garvin was saying that the rate an organization is learning is the only sustainable factor for organizations these days. So my question to you is really what needs to be in place to continue learning as an organization?
Brooke Rufo-Hill:
Yeah, great question. I think of these as the ingredients in a recipe for an organization that is striving to create a culture of continuous learning and really establish themselves as a learning organization. So a few things, and I’m sure the listeners will have other ideas, but a few core things that I have found to be critical are one, first and foremost, psychological safety. And there are a lot of different definitions out there of what we mean by this. And I think the most kind of simplistic but poignant way to describe this that’s really stuck for me is employees need, and all team members, again, regardless of how long they’ve been in the organization, their level, et cetera, really need to believe and feel in their bones that they can make mistakes without retribution. That I can put myself out there, try something new, not do it perfectly the first time, maybe even make a big mistake, and that I will be given grace around that, and that I’ll be supported in the learning that can come out of that mistake. So psychological safety’s a big one.
Okay, so a second ingredient, I would say, that is absolutely critical to building a learning organization or creating a culture of continuous learning, is a culture of continuous feedback. Feedback is absolutely our greatest tool to help facilitate not only our own growth by asking for feedback, but also certainly as leaders and people managers, it is the greatest tool we have to help our people and other colleagues learn and grow.
A third critical ingredient is, we’ve talked a little bit about this, but it’s really beginning to understand and frankly honor the role that unlearning plays in learning new ways of doing and being, in the workplace or frankly anywhere in our lives. And another kind of more practical way to think about this is in order to be convinced to try something new or to do something in a different way, I have to really understand that why what I have learned previously, or the narrative I hold in my head based on previous learnings, is no longer serving me or the organization. So that’s really kind of one of those first critical steps in understanding how unlearning plays such a significant role in the learning that we are striving to achieve, both for ourselves and for our teams.
And finally, I’d say one additional ingredient critical to learning within an organization is really creating a culture that celebrates mistakes and the lessons learned from those mistakes, and ensuring that that mindset and that practice are integrated into the fabric of the company. And when I say the fabric of the company, I’m talking about not the things that happen once or twice a year, but those daily or weekly rituals, practices that we have, within our organizations. So anything from team meetings to company wide meetings to presentations or fireside chats done by leaders. When we think about what gets rewarded, how are we compensating people, what are we celebrating, maybe through formal awards programs, how do we bake learning into our projects by creating post action reviews or moments to pause and debrief and to collectively learn with one another?
So those would be the four things I’d say, Kate. Psychological safety, culture of continuous feedback, understanding the role unlearning plays in learning, and finally, celebrating mistakes and the lessons learned.
Kate Gerasimova:
This is great. And while the organizations have these all four components and is continuing being a learning organization, I’m curious how do you measure the success so you know that you’re continuing being that organization, whether it’s on an organizational level or at the individual level?
Brooke Rufo-Hill:
Yeah, it’s a great question and this is kind of the hump, I think, some folks need to get over when they think about doing something outside of the box. The example I gave earlier was kind of moving away from a more traditional performance based culture and systems of performance management, where we’ve learned one way to measure success. And so how, I would say, in a learning culture, or where we are really putting learning at the center of all we do, I’d probably change the word success to progress, because what we’re actually measuring is not the ultimate accomplishment, but where someone is within a continuum of growth in their current job level. So for instance, within our organization, we have within each job level, there are three growth milestones and we articulate those as exploring, delivering, and mastering. And at first glance you might think like, ah, that’s just another way of articulating performance ratings, but it’s not.
And we’re really clear about this with employees and talk about how what this is measuring is not the output, and what they are being invited in these learning and growth cycles, and learning and growth conversations with their managers to focus on, it’s not coming in with a proving mindset where I have to show you and tell you about all of my accomplishments, all of the outcomes, everything that was kind of the end result, but rather it’s quite the opposite of what many of us have learned professionally growing up in a variety of organizations where, where we focus is more on the inputs and the process itself. And so great, it’s understood you’ve accomplished these things, but how did you get there? What has been that learning progress over the past six months? What are the skills that you either have built that have progressed or maybe new skills that you’ve begun to acquire?
And then ultimately for us, in lieu of a performance management system with ratings, we leverage these growth milestones as a way to both celebrate kind of the incremental growth along the way, as well as then we tie our compensation framework to these growth milestones. So in essence, the more you learn within our organization, the more you earn. And what makes this fundamentally work for us is that we have an inherent belief that if we focus on the learning and growth of employees in ways that are relevant to the work that they are doing, to the mission of the organization, that the performance will take care of itself. That if people are engaged, if they are growing and learning and acquiring new skills, that then that will translate into the impact that we are hoping to deliver, in our case to social ventures that are out doing incredible work in the world and improving lives.
Kate Gerasimova:
Well that’s wonderful, Brooke. Honestly, RippleWorks sounds like a really innovative organization with the practices that you’re doing, so thank you for sharing all of them. Brooke, one of our podcast guests has asked, what can leaders do in their environment? Meaning, what can leaders do tomorrow to move towards more of a learning organization?
Brooke Rufo-Hill:
I love this question because when we think about what can you do differently tomorrow, it feels highly practical and very actionable, which is something I feel like we’re always striving for. So yeah, maybe just a few things, a few suggestions. One encouragement or nudge I would give is really starting with yourself, start to reframe feedback. I think we all know that feedback, in many cases kind of comes with a lot of baggage for folks. And often we hear feedback described as either good or bad or positive or negative. And so the reframe that I would offer you to kind of try on for size and kind of squirrel around in your head a bit is this idea that it’s all positive and good. All feedback regardless of if it’s reinforcing feedback where you’re telling someone that was amazing XYZ and I want to see more of that.
Or if it’s more developmental where you’re pointing out where maybe someone’s behavior had some unintended negative consequence on someone or impact, and here’s what they might do differently. So I think there’s this reframe and an opportunity around feedback that really all feedback is positive because it is the greatest tool we have, and the gift we can give to each other is to help them grow. Of course, as long as it’s done with kindness and with care. So that’s one I think reframing feedback.
A second one is something we talked about earlier in terms of an ingredient, or what you might see in a learning organization, is this invitation to see every person in your workplace, regardless of their age, tenure position level, as having something to both teach as well as something to learn. And so I think it is seeing the youngest employee or the newest employee in your workplace as having something to teach and learn just as much as your most senior leaders, your CEO.
And it almost works in reverse when we think about senior leadership. And frankly, for many of us may provide a bit of relief in this idea that if we never fully arrive, no matter how much knowledge, experience we amass, there is always something for us to learn. And so kind of just seeing that in others and honoring that and all the folks you work with.
A third opportunity I would say that you could start tomorrow is really as leaders, and in your leadership role, getting into the practice of being the first one to acknowledge when you don’t know what to do, or you actually don’t know something, or you see an opportunity for you to learn something. Probably goes without saying, and I think in our minds, we all know that this is a helpful thing to do that it really invites, then, others, especially when this is coming from someone in a position of leadership above you in the organization, invites others to do the same. But I think it’s one of those that sounds nice in theory and can be much more difficult in practice. So just that nudge to be brave and to really start to model that it’s okay that you don’t know everything, and acknowledging and being honest about that.
And finally kind of ending where we started at the beginning of this podcast, this idea of improving everything instead of proving anything, I would just encourage you, on an individual level, start to try that on for size. The next time you’re feeling nervous, you’re going to possibly give a big presentation, or you’re meeting with a group of folks that you haven’t engaged with before. Think about really entering that situation, that meeting, that conversation, through a learner’s mindset where you’re there to improve everything and invite others to do the same, instead of showing up with more of a performance mindset where you come in ready to prove anything and everything.
Kate Gerasimova:
Yeah. This has been great really Brooke, and to give you the part of the feedback to say is this has been amazing. Thank you so much for being here and I’m hoping our learners will get to learn as much as I did today. And it’s really great to hear about vulnerability and how brave you are and how brave people at RippleWorks are. And it’s a lot about what I’m hearing is being vulnerable and being able to change their mindset because we’re so engraved in the behaviors day to day and what we’re used to do and this little change is a lot. And so it’s really great to hear some of the practical tips and things that people go through as really their own evolution to be there and to learn for themselves and for the company. So thank you for your time today. And last question, how can our listeners get a hold of you?
Brooke Rufo-Hill:
Yeah, I think probably the best way to connect is on LinkedIn. My name is, again, Brooke Rufo Hill. And feel free to send me an invitation to connect, and message me with any questions or anything you’d like to go into further. I would love to learn from you all as well, and happy to connect, and look forward to continuing the conversation.
Kate Gerasimova:
Thank you so much, Brooke. I really appreciate speaking with you today.
Brooke Rufo-Hill:
Thanks so much, Kate. It’s been fun and really grateful for the opportunity.
Leadership - Balancing the Act of Doing and the Art of Being
In this episode, Kate Gerasimova, Senior Associate at gothamCulture talks with Kimberly Penharlow, Certified Leadership & Performance Coach and Organization Psychologist, about leadership which is a delicate balance between the act of doing and the art of being. The act of getting things done is very transactional. This year’s focus should be the art of being. The art of being a leader, in relationship with your team and culture, and understanding the importance of resilience.
Released: November 29, 2022
Kate Gerasimova:
I’m happy to present to you a series of episodes about culture gathered over the past year asking experts in the industry for their advice and recommendations for leaders of organizations in this always-changing environment. The three episodes touch on how organizations need to be resilient in these vulnerable times. Each guest has a unique background and brings their own expertise and experience to what organizations, leaders, and employees need to do to be successful.
I’m Kate Gerasimova and I’m joined here by Kimberly Penharlow, who is a certified leadership and performance coach and organizational psychologist. She brings 20 years of professional experience as a trusted advisor for C-suite executives and non-profit startups and Fortune 500 companies. Kimberly is also on the board of directors for the award-winning creative network, SheSays, which helps women to achieve personal and professional success. Welcome, Kimberly.
Kimberly Penharlow:
Hi Kate. Thank you for having me today. I’m thrilled to be here.
Kate Gerasimova:
Thank you for being here. I’m so curious to learn more from you about what would you recommend for leaders in 2022.
Kimberly Penharlow:
That’s a beautiful question. It’s so juicy. So I think about this quote, which is, “Leadership is the delicate balance between the act of doing and the art of being.” So as I coach leaders, the act often is how you get things done. And it could be anything from how fast, how under budget, how many people were involved, so it’s very transactional. When I think about the new year, I think about the focus on the art of being. The art of being a leader. The art of being in relationship with your team. The art of being in relationship with culture and the importance of resilience. So it’s unfortunate, but it’s the reality. I don’t actually think there’s ever going to be a new now. I think the reality is we are going to continue to be in a VUCA world, in which leaders are going to be challenged to figure out if and when, and hybrid here and there, and this VUCA environment, which is Volatile, Uncertain, Complicated, and Ambiguous also just means it’s a time of constant change.
So the art of being, I want to give a couple of tips because most staff, most leaders that I’ve worked with in the past year and a half through COVID have not seen many of their teams. Maybe people have been hired, maybe people have transitioned out, but maybe they’ve never gathered. So with this art of being, a couple of things that I think about is resilience, and as you think about resilience, there can be four kinds of resilience muscles that leaders can build for themselves, but also for their teams. Part of it is psychological, part of it is emotional, physical, and community. And when I think about the emotional piece, that’s like how are you as a leader handling stress? How’s your team handling stress?
So tactically, right? Who wants to be on Zooms all week long? A tactical change for a leader to do is to look at the number of Zooms that they have. If it’s a 60-minute Zoom, cut it down to 45. Ask the critical question, is this actually a Zoom video needed conversation or can I make a call? So I’m encouraging leaders to do 25% less of meeting time, whether it’s on video or whether it’s on the telephone, to restore and to kind of start to recover. Some other pieces that I like, I think it’s important is this physicality, right? So if people are still working from home, it’s looking at their home setup and maybe moving a light, moving where your desk is facing, maybe moving a picture so you’re looking at something different. Maybe it’s doing walking telephone meetings with your staff. Again, building that kind of physical resilience.
And then this art of being is also so connected to relationships and culture, right? And community. So when I think about culture, there’s work by Daniel Coyle around safety, vulnerability, and purpose. And when leaders slow down and allow themselves to be open in different ways, whether it’s doing open office hours, knowing people can just drop in. Or whether it’s a leader making a list of people that actually inspire them because leaders are burnt out just like their staffs are tired, but if you create a list of 10 people that inspire you and then take half an hour every single week and have those calls, you’re going to show up with a tighter community, a sense of community outside of your organization. You’re going to show up inspired and invigorated for your teams.
I think there’s also ways to encourage that with your staff, right? Where I’ve been using a lot of Brene Brown’s work with Dare to Lead, and one of the two tools that I use a lot is this idea of permission slips. So what permission slip, I’ll use myself, do I need to give to myself today in order to show up for my clients? And maybe it’s not having all the answers, maybe it’s asking a challenging question, or maybe it’s realizing that I’m tired and I’m going to tell my client that I’m tired and we’re going to be real with each other. So what are those permission slips that can often be a way for staff to feel less stressed, which is I’m going to be on this Zoom. I’m not going to feel forced that I have to contribute during the call.
Those are some of the things that I think about. I think that culture is critically important, relationship is critically important, and focusing less on what is getting done, but how it’s getting done and what is that art of relationship and that art of culture that leaders can really focus on. And part of that is really slowing down and taking care of themselves and restoring themselves.
Kate Gerasimova:
That’s so beautiful. I love how we say do less, take more walks and your mention of art of being and slowing down. This is beautiful. I wish we can all do that.
Kimberly Penharlow:
I wish we all could too. I think it’s really challenging and I wish that leaders could turn down their expectations on themselves a bit more, knowing that there is an immense amount of stress that they’re experiencing, that their teens are experiencing, and so much of it is out of all of our control, right? So I think there is a real need for leaders to be graceful with themselves and graceful with their teams and having one or two things that they do new this year to allow this art of being could be sufficient, right? I think leaders who approach this year as I have to reinvent everything, most likely they are going to fail, right? There are things that people … That they’ve been doing really well and making some minor changes in the area of culture and restoring and resilience can have a huge impact, right?
And I think the other thing that I would … The other advice is this is a perfect time for leaders to slow down and ask their staff what’s bringing them joy? What’s bringing them happiness? Why are they still in the organization? Because as we know, about 33% of people are actually looking for a different job. So if you have people that you want to make sure are staying with your organization, it’s time to ask them directly what’s keeping you here? And that’s the role of a leader, right? And then to hold onto those gems and to honor those gems in the culture.
Kate Gerasimova:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a great question to ask and know what people want and help them to be inspired. As you mentioned, be inspired more yourself and inspire others.
Kimberly Penharlow:
Yeah, that inspiration piece is so important, especially when most of us are not roaming around the world in a way that we might have two years ago, right? So that connection to people at different points in your life, whether it’s professional or not, those people who inspire you are important to reach back out to.
Kate Gerasimova:
Yeah, absolutely. And then one more thing that I wanted to ask you more about, you mentioned something about the culture. So why is it still critical to focus? We keep talking culture, culture, but why now again?
Kimberly Penharlow:
Yeah, why now? Because they’re still creating their virtual culture, right? And most organizations and leaders have led through all of COVID virtually, and this is again, a great time to punctuate what has been working really well in the virtual world and what are some … What’s one change that maybe the leaders want to see, maybe the staff want to see, in order to stay more connected to the purpose of your organization? We know through research that most people are driven by being connected to whatever the mission of the organization is. And by the sheer nature of working remotely, oftentimes that connection can get deteriorate … Can begin to deteriorate, right?
So culture and mission and purpose is part of those leadership skills around safety, purpose, and vulnerability that if leaders focus on, it increases retention, increases engagement. So you can build an inclusive, safe, innovative culture virtually. It takes as much attention, if not slightly more than if you were in the office. It cannot be overlooked. And the impact of doing it is about keeping the people in your organization that are inspiring, that are innovating, that are producing, and that are connecting with each other.
Kate Gerasimova:
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for providing those tips.
Kimberly Penharlow:
You’re welcome.
Kate Gerasimova:
And hopefully, it will definitely help all our readers and listeners.
Values and Organizational Justice at Work
In this episode, Kate Gerasimova talks with Conrad Moore, Owner of Maius Learning, about values and organizational justice in organizations. They discuss the impact of values pushed down from top leadership to the workforce and whether those values are reflected in employees’ daily work and personal lives. They also talk about how to spot an alignment or a disconnect between the lived and existing values and things leaders can do to close that gap. Moore emphasizes the importance of having an ongoing, cross-organizational discussion around what it is like to work at the company and how it connects to daily work.
Moore defines organizational justice as feeling like you are treated fairly and are valued in the organization. He says that decision-making is a big part of organizational justice and warns that there could be trouble if decisions are made by leaders in a vacuum and are imposed on the organization without context. One suggestion to remedy this is to include individuals in the decision-making process early on, even when onboarding. Also, provide resources to employees to help them express their experience at work.
Released: September 3, 2021
Chris Cancialosi:
Welcome to the gothamCulture Podcast where we talk about any topic you’d like so long as those topics are organizational culture, leadership or people strategy. Each week we talk with industry leaders and discuss cultural opportunities and challenges in the workplace, providing you with actionable tips and strategies that you can implement in your organizations.
Kate Gerasimova:
Hi, my name is Kate Gerasimova. I’m a senior associate at Gotham culture and I have a pleasure today, Conrad Moore is joining us. Hi, Conrad.
Conrad Moore:
Nice to see you and hear you.
Kate Gerasimova:
Nice to see you too. Conrad Moore, he’s an owner of Maius Learning and he had a career that exposed him to different workplaces’ styles and structures and beginning first as educator in San Francisco before cofounding a nonprofit and eventually moving to adult learning organizational development. He worked with a variety of organizations from nonprofit to governmental agencies and Fortune 500 companies with very different places and industries. He’s focusing on enhancing community connection and culture at work. So I have a pleasure speaking with you today, and I’m very curious to learn more about your work. And can you tell me in our listeners what excites you the most about the work you do?
Conrad Moore:
Thank you for that lovely introduction. I think the thing that excites me about the work that I do is connecting with people. The story you told about my career is very winding. So I’ve been in a lot of different workplaces, work environments and taken on a lot of different roles. I’ve been a frontline worker. I’ve had some VP roles. I’ve started a couple companies by now. And so it’s really interesting to hear the different stories and where people are at work with culture, with connection with community and then to reach into my grab bag and think about, “Which of these experiences that I’ve had helps me relate to where they’re at and do I have anything in my grab bag that might help them move beyond any places that they’re stuck?”
But also, it’s a great way for me to connect to them and take learnings from them. Every client that I’ve worked with gives me a story that I can then learn from and tell to future folks that I work with. So I think the people in the end really make the work, fun and exciting and always new and interesting.
Kate Gerasimova:
That’s great. Absolutely. I can relate to that as well. And I know when we met and we were talking about some of the work that you do, specifically two topics were brought to my attention, were the values, the work that you do around the values and organizational justice. I thought it would be really great to talk more about both.
Conrad Moore:
Please.
Kate Gerasimova:
Well, let’s start with values and I think it ties in back into organizational justice. Starting thinking about the work, do organizational values define what’s really important in the organization?
Conrad Moore:
Yeah, and I’ve experienced that in a few different ways and I think a lot of places … You can feel the values in a work environment come through one way or another and sometimes you’ll see them on the wall. These are maybe top down values that were bestowed upon the people. And they may or may not be reflected in the work that people do. So there’s that value set that I think, especially in enterprise-size organizations and agencies, there is these marching orders that are values. And then there’s the lived values that we express every day. It’s the personal values that people bring to work, how those interact and overlap with other values and value systems that people have.
And so the workplaces that I’ve seen where values are really core to the identity of that place, that really shows up positively everywhere in the relationships, of course, in the ways that people communicate and connect to each other, but also the bottom line. When people really see a part of themselves in the work that they’re doing, I think it’s a lot easier for them to commit and really give their all towards producing. And so I think that that’s always to me when I think about doing values work like, “What am I dealing with? Is it a gap between the expressed values of the organization and the live values of the people working there or is there a more harmonious connection between the two?” And so I’m always looking for that first. It’s like, “What do you say you do and how are you actually feeling that?”
Kate Gerasimova:
What happens if you see a disconnect?
Conrad Moore:
Then we have to talk and those conversations are tough. The place says where I see, so I can even tell a story from my own personal working experience. I used to work for an organization where we did this whole month-long exercise as an organization that involves both facilitated conversations between leadership and frontline staff and then also a leadership retreat where we were really trying to focus on, “What are the values of this organization?” So it was fun. We did a trip to Vegas and Zappos was there and they’re very famous for their culture and how they think about their core values and that was supposed to inspire us.
And so we went in toward Zappos and learned about their culture and how they produced their core values and the way that they did that was they talked to everybody there and said, “Well, what do you think it’s like to work here? What are the best parts of what we do?” And that informed ultimately what became their core values. And so we were supposed to be taking a page out of that book, but what I experienced in my own story with this was there were folks on the leadership team, in frontline staff who were really committed and really inspired by that thought like, “Well, can we cocreate our values together and really create an identity together as an organization?”
And then there was a certain layer in the leadership team that it seemed like was just maybe checking some boxes here like, “Well, if we give them the chance to write the values, then maybe things will be okay,” but there wasn’t really any buy in from them. So that’s what I mean by hard conversations because I think that what they were really hearing were values that they didn’t feel represented their own. And so that’s where and that created a huge disconnect. In that moment. And ongoing in that company was there was one set of values that the top brass lived and worked by and those seem to cascade down from the top in ways that the folks who were living and breathing the rest of the work couldn’t identify with, didn’t understand and seemed to be in competition with the values they all cocreated together.
And so to me, when you have that disconnect, we need to have a cross organization discussion about, “What does it really like to work here and what do we want it to be like? And the values shouldn’t just be things that we put on the wall. It should be ways that we connect to the work and find it to be important to us.” Usually, those conversations can be a little prickly, but also if people come in with good intentions and openness and vulnerability, then you really can create values that are meaningful and actually impact the work, I think.
Kate Gerasimova:
Absolutely. There’s definitely evolution of values as well. So sometimes what I’ve seen in the work that we do, companies started long, long time ago was a certain set of values and then grow, evolve from a small startup to large corporations. And sometimes when you see the values that the founder created, let’s say 10, 15, 30 years ago no longer work because it’s a different work environment. And the follow-up question would be like, “At what point would you recommend them refreshing those values or what point do you know that they’re no longer working what they have?
Conrad Moore:
That’s an excellent question. I personally feel, and this is something I’ve practiced in my own organizations, that that needs to be just an ongoing conversation. That doesn’t even mean we need to every month come up with a new set of core values necessarily, but we do need to have an ongoing discussion about the work experience, “What is it like here? What are the stress points that people run into and where do those come from? And are we doing the work the way that we say that we’re doing it or we intend to do it? And if we’re living out of alignment with those values, what’s causing that?” To your point, it could just be, “We’re bigger now. Those don’t apply,” or it could be that those were never real. I just recently worked with a small startup business unit in a larger organization and so that larger organization had its values. They’ve been around since the ’90s.
This new unit was comprised of new employees who bring their own experiences in automatically just by virtue of being new or creating a new shared value system and so I came in to do a team building exercise. And that was largely the discussion that we had, “You have a parent organization here that has all these values. Is that how you feel your work is and what it shouldn’t be like for you?” There are some values like there was one that stood out to me which was urgency. That’s, to me, I don’t want to say a scary value, but a very particular value.
Kate Gerasimova:
A lot of pressure comes to that, when you-
Conrad Moore:
Exactly, and to have them be a startup entity within a larger context, there’s already pressure to begin with, to succeed, to grow, to prove that you should have been an investment, this company made in the first place. And then to feel like … They had that startup vibe. So there’s already urgency going on anyway. And so we talked about that. And so what we ended up doing was creating a team mission statement and a set of core values, and laid them next to the larger company’s mission statement and core values, but find a way for you to have your own identity that reflects who you are and what you do and complements the work that the larger company is doing and in a way that doesn’t set up a competition between what you’re doing, acknowledges where your starting point is which is them, but also really leans into who you are and what you want to build.
And so I think I’m still working with them, so we’ll see how that evolves over time. But I think that it was really interesting way to try to intervene in values that weren’t really applicable for them.
Kate Gerasimova:
So interesting, especially it’s always a question, “Where do you start? Do you start with the bigger values and you tried to figure out what you have as a subculture fits in that or is it the other way around?” I don’t know if this is the right way to do this. What’s your point of view?
I am very much interested in the idea of giving folks as much autonomy and self-governance as we can. I think you can stray too far in one direction or the other, right? If you’re too top down, then people have no freedom of expression and creativity. I think that hinders innovation and you can go too far in the other direction where like, “Okay, you guys are doing really cool things over there, but how does that connect to what the main company is doing?” And that’s a delicate balance, but I do think, especially from a leadership perspective, it’s helpful to have an ongoing, I think, like even just a mental exercise, but really a discussion of, “How can we delegate our decision making power and ownership further down the org chart?”
It takes great amounts of stress off of you because you’re not really responsible for everything anymore. It also lets people know that you trust them, that you’re willing to invest and have faith in what they can do. And so, I think having that be an ongoing discussion and working towards letting people control or have input on as much of their work experience as you can, so that their values come through and your values mean something. That’s not just words on the wall. You’re living values, you value your people, you value diversity, etcetera and then you express that by having trust and faith in your people.
Kate Gerasimova:
Also the question comes to mind is, for example, you’ve been in an organization, but you know that your values are not completely aligned, well, one, can you find an organization that completely aligns to your value? And two, what do you do if you feel like you’re not aligned?
Conrad Moore:
Well, to your point, first of all, I’ve never met that organization, big or small. To me, it’s a global thought process starting from hiring, right? You want to hire, of course, that talk about cognitive diversity, right? Diversity of thought. So you don’t want everybody to have the exact same values and everybody went to the same school or came from the previous company because you’re not really getting that diversity of thought that you want. But if there’s a misalignment within an individual or a team, I think there’s a couple ways you can approach that. You could explore like we’ve been talking about. Do we need to reboot their core values? Are they no longer relevant or add some nuance to them?
You could also do what I think some of the more innovative companies do is highlight those differences and try to celebrate and integrate them into the larger system. So rather than creating an environment that says, “We have seven core values. If you aren’t living into those, then you don’t belong here. We have these seven core values. We tried to embody them as much as we can and we have an openness to new ideas. We accept that this isn’t actually the way that it’s always going to work. And so I think a company that famously does this really well is Google where they’ll actually, because they have the money, fund projects where the people seem to have ideas that are out of the mainstream, but they might be a good idea if you just let it evolve and grow a little bit. And I don’t know that we all have the resources that Google has to let everybody run away with their competing values.
But I do think there is … If people seem committed to the work, but they see it from a different angle, I think there can be beauty and innovation in that. So I think the question is just, “What am I looking at here? Are we out of alignment because these values just don’t work for us or is there something of value in this difference? And how can we work with that to really build a more diverse and interesting workplace?
Kate Gerasimova:
That’s very beautifully said and it was a very hard question to answer.
Conrad Moore:
I got there.
Kate Gerasimova:
I think also one of the biggest value that they bring to the company is promoting the desired behavior. So me as a leader, I would know if there is a set of values created. They’re basically created for the purpose of promoting those behaviors. What’s your view on that? How do companies usually use those values to promote desired behaviors?
Conrad Moore:
Well, the short answer is I don’t know if they do. That’s how I feel so often when I do values work with folks. More often, I feel like, that’s probably why they come to me, more often I’m running into, “Oh, yeah, we just talking about these things. We haven’t really checked to see if people are behaving in this way.” And so a lot of that, again I think you can start with the hiring process and make sure that you’re trying to recruit and hire people who come in predisposed to behave in that way, but something I’ve also done comes through in the development of job descriptions. So if we’re looking at all of these different duties, I would sit with groups like I had to one of the companies I used to work at, where I was VP of operations. I had to restructure the whole sales and operations team.
And part of that process, well, actually, most of that process was not me coming in and saying, “Here’s how things ought to be.” It was talking to everyone and asked them what they thought things ought to be because they were doing the work. I think that from there, you can say, all right, so then a new job or this job has these duties to it, “What does it look like to be performed in accordance with our values? What behaviors would we see? So let’s say we value open communication.” So we started to go down all the different bullet points of each job role that we were building and looking at all the different duties and saying, “Okay, these are the systems that people interact with. These are the soft skills that they’re going to need to have, the communication skills, the customer service skills, say, the relationship building skills.”
And then if we were to see somebody performing this job and living up to our values, what would that look like? How would they perform this particular duty according to our values? And then, we turn that in interview questions where we would pose different problems that either we had already encountered and solved in one way and wanted to see if they agreed with that or just hypotheticals to see if we could hear like, “Oh, are we hearing that same value that we’re looking for in a way that they are theorizing performing the work?” So we’re really trying to look at the job duties themselves and then the associated behaviors and value connection that we would want to see and then have conversations about that with folks.
Kate Gerasimova:
So that helped to see specifically like what behaviors that the company have right now or what people are seeing and are they’re aligned with the desired behaviors that originally thought up?
Conrad Moore:
Yeah, precisely.
Kate Gerasimova:
And how would you measure those behaviors as a company? So some of the things you mentioned like during maybe performance management process or starting all the way from the hiring process?
Conrad Moore:
Yeah. So I think again part of behavior analyzing is just having these values be present in all of our conversations from the hiring and interviewing and training and onboarding when we talk about like, “Hey, this is how you do this thing, but also this is why you do it and why we think it’s important to do it this way.” And so then you have those ongoing performance check ins and you have the formal review at the end of the year. Some organizations are dropping that now, but have that really be woven into all of the “official conversations” that we have. We talked about it in meetings, right? If these are really values that we truly care about, then we should be referring to them often and trying to connect with them.
It’s like the way that mission-driven organizations, I hope, are connecting with the mission when they do the work like, “Those doing this work fulfill our mission.” And it might be the same way that we talk about core values like, “How can we do this work in a way that really represents who we say we aspire to be?” Because we’re not living out our values all day, every day. I always think of it as a horizon that we’re sailing towards. And if we take our eyes off the horizon, then we’re not going to ever get there. So as we do this work ongoing, we should keep talking about, “Is this the way that we feel about how we’re supposed to be doing this work?”
Kate Gerasimova:
Absolutely. That’s a great point. And some of the things that you mentioned is always bringing it up and having that conversation about it.
Conrad Moore:
That’s how you can see to like, “Oh, that value is not here anymore. We keep saying it, but we don’t really see it represented anywhere in the work, so we can’t measure that.
Kate Gerasimova:
Is it an extensive period of time? Have you ever put a timeline to that or is it, “We’re not seeing it for a while, let’s-“
Conrad Moore:
That’s a great question. Usually, when I’m talking to people, it’s been out of alignment for a while. That stuff shows up to me and like what we’re seeing right now, I think, is a gap in a lot of the expressed values of organizations and the lived experiences of the people working there with this whole great resignation and everybody’s either quitting or thinking about quitting and employers are having a harder time bringing people back. I think some of that is just fundamentally our employees feeling valued in the first place, but it shows up in those types of places like turnover, retention, engagement surveys and those things where you can just tell like, “Do people really want to be here?” because that’s some measurement or expression of either displaces at least out of alignment with the employees values, but probably even out of alignment with their own expressed values.
Kate Gerasimova:
That makes sense. We’re going to take a very quick break and we’ll be right back.
Chris Cancialosi:
This episode of the gothamCulture Podcast is produced and sponsored by our partners at Blue Sky Podcasting. Communicating with your customers, stakeholders and employees can be challenging at times. The team at Blue Sky Podcasting provides high-end production and postproduction support to organizations looking to leverage podcasting as a tool to increase transparency and engagement with their customers and employees. If you’re interested in learning how podcasting can provide your organization with a highly engaging communication tool that’s easy to scale, you should check out our partners at Blue Sky Podcasting at www.blueskypodcasting.com.
Kate Gerasimova:
We’re back and we were discussing values with Conrad and talking about values, and especially now in this day and age and then last year, companies specifically started to express more deeper value towards diversity, equity and inclusion. Conrad, in your opinion, how do values connect to organizational justice and diversity, equity and inclusion topic?
Conrad Moore:
I think this is such an important question to ask. I’m really excited first and foremost to see those types of conversations enter into the workplace more consistently and I think that the world is replete with examples of those conversations going poorly of large organizations, especially paying lip service to diversity, equity, inclusion and then not really living that. And some of that is I think we’re at the beginning of a cultural shift, just in general, but then also at work and then you add on to that, a pandemic and now this move towards hybrid work.
So there’s all this stuff happening that’s shifting conversations around and I think we’re far past the time … We can’t ignore this stuff. and so if companies are going to say, “These are our values,” then we really have to see where the rubber meets the road and that’s what organizational justice is about. It sounds a little bit like social justice and there’s actually, I think, a spirit in there that is similar. Organizational justice at its core, and this is a topic that started out in the ’90s even before I was in the workforce, frankly, but I think now it’s starting to become more relevant again. It’s just the perception of how fairly I’m treated and valued at work.
And so I think that’s the easiest and quickest way to describe this is, “How fairly am I treated and how valued do I feel?” There’s some more academic definitions we can get into, but I think at its core organizational justice, it’s just that.
Kate Gerasimova:
And what could be a couple examples would you see in organizational contexts?
Conrad Moore:
So this came up pretty extensively for me with a recent client. We were doing a leadership program. They’re a medium-size nonprofit and they were in year two of their DEI journey. They had a DEI steering committee and brought me in to complement the work that they were doing. Extensively, I was just doing a leadership program. And usually, the way I work is all broadly outlined based on our conversations like, “Here’s what I’m hearing. Here’s what I think we ought to do and let’s build in some space because we’re going to hear things that tend to only come out when a stranger is in the room and they think management’s not around and they can say stuff.”
That’s always been my experience is you hear things in trainings and facilitations that might be new to managers and leaders. And so I said, “We’re going to leave some space in this program for what comes up and we’ll generate content around that.” And a lot of the stuff that came up was around organizational justice topics like decision making. So in this particular organization as well as media organizations, I’m sure you’ve run into this also, there was a propensity for big impactful decisions to be made at the C-suite level, unbeknownst to everyone else and then leaders would come from on high and say, “Here’s the decision we have made that we didn’t tell you we were making and now you all have to follow this order.”
And you can imagine that really wrinkled people. And it was big stuff like hiring and firing staff where actually in some instances, there were like, privacy and legality reasons for why leadership wasn’t being 100% transparent about what they were doing, but still the feeling of the average employee in that organization is that they have no input on these decisions, that their opinions aren’t valued, that their knowledge and expertise isn’t valued. And so it just comes off as though you are not trusted or respected by the folks who mean to lead you. So that was an expression of a part of organizational justice which is basically called procedural justice and then it’s like, “How are decisions made? How are people given input into those processes?”
And again, you can’t always give people input, but then there has to be a followup outside of that where you say, “Hey, we made this decision,” like for example, “We had to let this person go. We know this person was well liked. There were some activities that just for fundamental reasons, we could not allow it to continue. We have spoken to this person several times. And while we can’t give you full view into how and why that decision was made, just understand that there were legal implications for why we did that.” And that’s what they could have said afterwards, so people go, “Oh, I understand now. I wish I had known about that, but I see why you can’t tell me,” and that never happened. It was just, “Wow, we fired that person. Everybody liked her. Why?” and that was it.
And then there’s this distrust that builds because it feels like there’s an unfairness that has happened. And again, it’s the perception of fairness. Sometimes we are actually being treated fairly, we just don’t have the full viewpoint, but it is the perception that’s going to drive the morale of everybody.
Kate Gerasimova:
Absolutely and there is a people perception of what actually happened. And then this particular situation that you’re describing, what are some things that leaders could have done or could do now to improve the situation and could rebuild the trust because the trust is broken?
Conrad Moore:
Those revelations started to come to me. This was a six-month program and that stuff came out in month two. They came through so strongly like the emotions. I think we were talking about some of these was like new manager training or training for managers who never had manager training and we were just talking extensively just about decision making, but those conversations became so charged so fast that I turned around to my point of contact and said, “Hey, I think we should start talking about organizational justice here,” and we should start having an open … I’ve explained the topic to them and all the things that entails, but actually what I did with them was help facilitate their solutions to these problems and acted as guardrails like in the example that I just gave to help them understand like, “You can’t have full transparency into every decision for a number of reasons. And so with that, what are the reasons, right?”
So we started to talk about who makes what decisions and we use this tool called the decision tree. It’s just not like the tool that you see in project management with all the splintering off of different nodes and that sort of thing. It’s actually just a metaphor, a visual metaphor for different types of decisions that are made and who has the authority to make what decision. And the idea was they would keep this and I’ll explain it in a second, but they would keep a running log of different decisions that were being made and then categorize them. And so a leaf decision is a very small, low impact decision that you as an individual, you don’t need to tell your manager like, “Hey, I’m going to go take a bio break. I don’t need to check in with anybody about stuff like that, right?”
But then you might have a branch decision, which is something a little more important where I still get to make my decision, but I do need to notify my manager that it happened. And so this might be, I don’t know, like closing down a particular customer complaint. That’s part of my job. I’m supposed to do that anyway, but this particular customer complaint was pretty serious. And so even though it’s within my authority to handle all of it, I’m going to still let my manager know what happened, what I did, so that there’s some record. And if the organization ever needs to do more with it, I’ve communicated that.
Then you have trunk decisions and that’s where I have the power to come up with a solution, but I really need to run that solution by my manager before I actually execute on it. And then you have root decisions which actually need to be escalated up the ladder. And so the idea there was to have them start logging down all the different types of decisions that were being made in different parts of the organizations and then look at those and go, “Okay, could we do anything with a higher level decision that would allow us to essentially delegate or offload it.” Right now, I might have the authority to make a route decision because I’m senior, but is that in the best interest of transparency, collaboration and inclusion? Maybe not. Maybe what I should be doing is making this decision, but also exposing the decision making process to people underneath me, so they understand how it works, and then over time, they can actually start taking part in those decisions.
And so that became a tool that a lot of different managers and leaders started to use and it’s just an ongoing. There’s like the decisions that that are named for us to make in our job descriptions and then there’s all the stuff we’re doing all day long that we’re not really tracking. And that was an opportunity for them to see like, “Oh, these are the different decisions that we’re making. Right now, we’re making them this way. How else can we make them so that we can include more people in that process?”
Kate Gerasimova:
What a great solution.
Conrad Moore:
I thought it was fun.
Kate Gerasimova:
It is. Can anybody in the organization see that tree or is it also visibility defined by the level?
Conrad Moore:
It would depend on … So the way that I set it up with them was just between managers and direct reports, but then it’s like now where everyone has that awareness. And so we didn’t get into that with them because the nature of their work in the populations that they were serving, there were medical things. There were things that I didn’t feel confident in advising them on. In terms of best practice, I would say the more open and accessible you have, like if you have, say like an intranet like SharePoint site and you can showcase that process decision making and how it’s made and how it evolves, I think that’s great because that helps everybody understand things better, but also there’s some stuff, like I said, you can’t share all of that with everyone for legal reasons and other stuff.
Kate Gerasimova:
That’s tough. And one thing that came to mind while you were describing this is sometimes there are different pockets of organization and then they are very different pockets, so there could be different subcultures or the work that they’re doing or some of the work that they’re doing could be disclosed from other sections of organization just because the confidentiality of that work. And then the decisions being pushed from top down and I understand they’re all made was being as fair and equal as possible, but at the same time, what is the best way for organization, and I know it’s tough, to make the differences?
So not everything will be fair and equal, but at the same time, there are differences that needs to be addressed because the differences between departments, the work they do, they’re not going to be all the same. So how do you draw the line between being fair and equal and allow for that innovation or difference to happen?
Conrad Moore:
Well, something, stay on that one client for a minute, that I thought they did really well and that really resonated with me because since you can’t always be fair and transparent, what then do you do when you can’t be? And they had a practice of circling up when somebody felt like a serious harm had been perpetrated against them. And so that was helpful for me as a facilitator because they already had these practices where, “Oh, we have to have a tough conversation. We’ve already got these ground rules for how we do that.” So that would be my recommendation for any organization, especially when you make that and I shouldn’t say when you make bad decisions, when you make unpopular decisions. Just to be ready-
Kate Gerasimova:
[crosstalk 00:35:11]
Conrad Moore:
Yeah, right, that’s diplomatic, is to be communicative about those. We understand that this was a hard decision for us to make. We knew that not everybody would feel happy or served by this decision and we want to talk about that. We know that even though the decision has been made, the experience isn’t over and we want to find our way to heal the culture as best we can, so that we can all move forward together and we can actually execute this unpopular decisioning. Because that’s the other thing is when you come out from on high and bestow upon the people, this new direction that you’ve decided on unilaterally without their input, it’s also a lot harder for people to execute that decisioning because they don’t understand the context in which it was made. So if you come in afterwards and say, “All right, we know how you feel. Here’s as much of the process as we can share with you in our reasoning, and we want to hear from you your feedback so that maybe in the future we’ll both consider that when we make this type of decision.”
Kate Gerasimova:
That’s a great process that you just described. I wish I’ve seen those more circle or in place. What do would you call them?
Conrad Moore:
Well, so they were following a particular restorative justice. I don’t know how familiar folks are outside of education and nonprofit that work with that, but restorative justice is a particular field of work that tries to look at harm that was that has occurred, bring the parties together who committed and experienced the harm and to have the party who is responsible for that harm find a solution that restores the relationship that brings trust back into the relationship that acknowledges that, “You’ve been hurt and the person who unwittingly or no cause that hurt and try to find a way for me to make it right with you.” And so the classic example they use in a lot of restorative justice circles is, “I hit a baseball over the fence and it broke your window and I help pay for the window, right? Because I understand I’ve damaged your home and I’m going to do my best to make it right for you.”
Kate Gerasimova:
That is a good example and a very simple one, but going back to the example that you provided, there is a lot to do with trust and rebuilding trust which takes time.
Conrad Moore:
It does.
Kate Gerasimova:
And then just thinking about organizational justice overall, what are some criteria given to organizations or if there is any that helped them decide whether this organizational justice is assured or if there’s anything individuals can do to raise their concern?
Conrad Moore:
Yeah, well, so I feel like we spent so much time on the part of that work which is procedural justice and decision making. And it is not all decision making. That’s a huge part of it, but the other dimensions of it are the feeling I get of being valued and heard and seen and appreciated. So that’s like a soft skill cultural professional skill element, right? So some of that, for example, is like, “How do we onboard people? Do we just give them a checklist and they run through the checklist and take a bunch of eLearning and now they’re on boarded or are we actually really taking very personal steps to welcome them, to introduce them to people, to integrate their voices and views and meetings and even decisions early on if that’s appropriate or possible?” So there’s kind of an energy of inclusion and belonging that is a part of organizational justice as well that really comes out in business processes like hiring and meetings and things like that.
And then the other part, again, it’s like the perception of fairness, “So how are rewards distributed in distributive justice?” It’s like this other pillar. And so looking at things like, “How are we promoting people? Who’s getting promoted? Does it appear?” Sometimes, for example, we’re promoting the right person who also happens to have really strong relationships with the layer that they’re getting promoted into. And so that can give the perception that they got the job because they’ve got the right friends and so, “How are we talking about promotion and what is the criteria that we’re using to promote people so that we can talk about that messaging and what people’s perceptions of fairness are? What about raises? Are there other particular perks that come with working at this organization and does everybody get those or do only certain people get those and then why?”
The one thing about organizational justice that’s hard is its perception. And so you might actually objectively be engaging in fair decision making and processes, but someone else can perceive it. From where they sit in the organization is unjust. So like I was saying about values, I think that organizational justice is a horizon that we’re sailing towards, that we’re always trying to aim to reach and we understand that we’re going to fail sometimes. We’re going to miss something. We’re going to make mistakes and then it always has to come back to, “How do we talk about that? Do we acknowledge it? Especially this is so hard for leaders, a lot of leaders sometimes, but do you admit mistakes in attempt to atone and change your behavior or do you just soldier on and pretend like it didn’t happen?” And I think a lot of people do that.
Kate Gerasimova:
For sure. And one last question for you is what can I, as individual in a corporation, organization or startup or whatever company I am in, do to help the company see or be better aligned with organizational justice?
Conrad Moore:
Especially if you’re new, I think that can be a really intimidating pursuit, right? Because you really just want to blend in and hope that everybody likes you and that you can keep this job and succeed in it, but the first thing I would start looking for is what resources do employees have like employee resource groups or affinity groups. Are there places where, I don’t know that I want to paint this fully as like a power struggle between the top of the org chart and the bottom of the org chart, but what avenues do employees at any level have to express their experience at work?
Oftentimes, it’s like an HR survey or something or maybe to a manager, but I would just try to identify first like, “What are those channels, frankly, for a dissent? If I have an opinion that might ruffle some feathers, is there a place for me to channel and express that opinion? If there’s not, this is going to be a tough place to work.” Most places have something somehow and then some places are really well resourced. Like I was saying, they have employee resource groups or affinity groups, groups of people with particular social identities or particular interests where you can go into a community of people within an organization that are like you, that have similar experiences and you can commiserate about the bad stuff and you can celebrate the wins.
And so as an individual, I would look for those things first, and then over time, you’ll know it based on how everyone’s talking and how you experience it. You can tell that grumbling around the watercooler is probably some dimension of organizational justice, “I don’t like how that decision was made. I disagree with it. Nobody values my opinion,” that sort of thing. So you can see it in the ways that people behave. I don’t know that I’m aware of, if you walk into an unjust organization and you’re the one person blowing the whistle, I’m not aware of anybody succeeding at that. That’s an unhealthy toxic work environment. And then fortunately, there’s a lot of those out there, but I do think you can just ask yourself the question like, “Do I feel valued? Do I feel important? Does it feel fair to me? And if it doesn’t, why not?”
Kate Gerasimova:
Thank you, Conrad and thank you for those resources. And thank you for the time today. It’s been a great conversation. I think I can continue talking to you for a while on both topics.
Conrad Moore:
Thanks, Kate. It’s been such a pleasure chatting with you. And I’m sure we’ll do this again sometime.
Kate Gerasimova:
And one last thing is how can our listeners find you?
Conrad Moore:
Sure. Well, you can find me at Maius Learning which is M-A-I-U-S, learning, dot-com and see all the fun trainings and other activities that we have going on there.
Kate Gerasimova:
That’s great. I hope to stay connected and enjoy your weekend.
Conrad Moore:
All right, you too. Thank you.
Kate Gerasimova:
Thank you.
Chris Cancialosi:
Thanks for joining us this week on the gothamCulture Podcast. Make sure you visit our website gothamculture.com where you can subscribe to the show, find show notes or contact us for support regarding your organizational culture challenges. Special thanks to Blue Sky Podcasting for producing and sponsoring this episode. To learn more about producing custom podcasts for your organization, check out the folks at Blue Sky at www.blueskypodcasting.com. Until next time, this is your host, Chris Cancialosi and I look forward to our next discussion.
Return to Work Anxiety? You're Not Alone
As COVID vaccines become increasingly available, the work world is beginning to think about the future. Most of that thinking revolves around questions rather than definitive answers at this point. What will work look like in the coming months? When might I need to go back to an office? What expectations will my employer have of me? What flexibility might exist?
Chris Cancialosi discusses these questions and tips for navigating the associated anxiety with guests Tracy Nathanson, LCSW, a licensed psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of anxiety, depression, relationship issues, life transitions, low self-esteem, career challenges and stress management, Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa, a Licensed Clinical Psychologist who works at Columbia University’s counseling center and maintains a private practice in NYC, and Dr. Michael J. Provitera, an executive leadership trainer and Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Barry University in Florida.
Released: April 2, 2021
Return to Work Anxiety? You’re Not Alone – gothamCulture Podcast Transcript
Chris Cancialosi:
Welcome to season 2 of the gothamCulture podcast. This season, we’ll be exploring a variety of interesting topics. But there’s one topic that seems to be top of mind for many folks nowadays, and that is the return to work. As COVID vaccines are making their way into arms, and as employers attempt to figure out what work looks like in the months to come, many people are feeling anxious about what that means for them. Now that they’ve completely adapted their lives for remote work, what if I can’t go back to the office full time? What if I don’t want to? Will my career growth be stymied as my colleagues who do go back to the office secure all the promotional opportunities? These are all legitimate questions, and many employers simply don’t have the answers at the moment. So now what?
Today I’m joined by three very special guests who are going to share their perspective on this important topic. Tracy Nathanson is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in depression, anxiety, relationship issues and stress management. She provides fresh ways to engage and talk therapy by taking your clients out of the office and getting them into fresh air, providing psychotherapy with the known health benefits and wellness benefits of being in the great outdoors, and Tracy is the founder of Pace of Mind Therapy.
Also, joining us today is Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa, he is a licensed clinical psychologist from New York City who works at Columbia University’s Counseling Center and maintains a private practice in the city as well. He also serves as a consultant to businesses and organizations looking to strengthen diversity initiatives and working to improve mental health and well being of their employees. Finally, Dr. Michael Provitera, he’s an executive leadership trainer. He is also president of Motivational Leadership Training, where his focus is on improving organizational effectiveness and enhancing individual success.
During his career, he’s worked with over 1000 executives, and his executive leadership certification runs 18 hours and covers six factors of leadership. Thank you all for joining us. Tracy, why don’t we start with you? Tell me from your perspective, I mean, what is at the root of a lot of the anxiety that’s floating around for people in terms of what return to work might look like?
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
Well, first of all, I think it’s helpful to go and look at what the past year has been like for everyone. Everyone has had different experiences around COVID and quarantining. As we know, maybe 30 to 40% of adults in our country have experienced stress, anxiety, depression. So we’re starting with that baseline. People, in addition, this past year have had to adjust their schedules, their routines, there’s been a lot of unknowns, and they’re kind of been getting used to that and trying to have as much control of the routines and schedules as possible.
Now we’re throwing into this a return to work and a new transition, what is that going to look like for them? I’m hearing a lot of people feeling anxious about vaccine, no vaccine, what is the workplace going to require? Am I going to have agency and power to decide? Or is that going to be decided for me? So that alone is creating a lot of stress right now for people, what is that going to look like?
Chris Cancialosi:
Absolutely. Thanks, Tracy. Ernesto, from your perspective, what do you have to add to that? Because I imagine that everyone’s unique, I mean, there’s a lot of different situations and people are grappling with this in different ways.
Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa:
Yeah, I think as Tracy was saying, there is the sense of a collective trauma we all have experienced as a result of this pandemic, and we’re still experiencing, and things may be getting back to normal. But there is a lot of this anxiety and fear of what this normal is going to look like or new normal. Again, anxiety is just something that is an emotion that we all experience, and it’s a normal response to something that is a trauma. So, a lot of the things that I’m also seeing with clients or talking to people is about what will this look like in terms of just workplace setting, in terms of physical safety? If people still have to social distance, they have to wear masks. Is the vaccine going to be required or not?
I think a lot of these fears and anxieties can really have an impact on our physical health as well, and a lot of people may be coming back to work physically but may not feel grounded or centered. Because they may be worried about what is going to happen in the workplace, what kind of policies are going to be put in place, and if it’s going to be a uniform or universal policy. So there is a lot of fear and anxiety still, but also particularly for those people that maybe did contract COVID-19, and we still don’t know a lot of the effects of what this can have on people’s physical well-being and also emotional well-being.
So, what is that going to look like for people that maybe have contracted the virus and are experiencing some residual effects? If someone does get COVID-19 while they’re back at work, what does that mean for the rest of the people that are in place with their coworkers? So there is a lot of this anxiety that is normal. However, it does look differently for everyone and can have physical effects, physiological effects, and also impacts our mental health well-being.
Chris Cancialosi:
Absolutely. Yeah, thank you for your perspective on that. Mike, you take this from a little bit of a different angle professionally as somebody who works with leaders and executives, what are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Michael J. Provitera:
That’s an excellent question. We’re looking at people that are apprehensive about going back to work, while they were always worried about how they’re going to even keep their jobs. That was the first … the first objective was, “Can I keep my job?” So they all rushed to the computer and learned how to use Zoom and became on camera shy like this, and then what happened was, everybody started to realize that they weren’t going to lose that job, and this remote setting’s not bad. Then we invented the hallway highway. So within 15 minutes, you could be showered and sitting in front of a screen like this.
Then people started to say this isn’t so bad, people are still worried about their job stuff. Many corporations and organizations are not making any drastic moves right now, they’re putting their arms around people, telling them that they love them, and that they’re not talking about letting go people even though before the pre pandemic, there was people on the chopping block, but it’s kind of reverse now. So, some people are actually having work that they’re going to continue staying home. They just say, “Your job is a remote type job.” So when people get back to the office, how are they going to feel? And that’s where the anxiety comes from, which is what we’re talking about now, people are saying, “Am I going to be able to go back to Manhattan? Is there going to be internet?”
Then when I say … for people say like on college campuses, you have to make this a unique approach where people want to go back, they feel they’re going to have beach volleyball, they’re going to be able to rub elbows with others. That’s the thing, because this thing that we’re doing right now, this electronic communication has been enhanced, because people were isolated. So we feel more intended to want to be online right now and talk. So we want to rub elbows, but we’re rubbing elbows electronically. We like it, it works, but we really want to be in front of somebody again, and in the near future we will be.
Chris Cancialosi:
Absolutely. What I’m hearing from you all is that there are so many compounding stressors, and that it’s a chronic situation. Right? It’s not a stressor that happened in one point in time, it’s gone for a year. Ernesto, you brought this up, which I think is really interesting. It’s a collective trauma. Everyone has a frame of reference about this topic, and there’s very few things in life where everyone has a frame of reference, or a similar experience, although each person’s experience is unique. We’ve all gone through this in some form or fashion.
So, knowing that there are people in various phases of trying to move through this process in trauma, and in terms of their work life, which inevitably impacts their home life, what should people be thinking about or doing in order to help manage that anxiety? Mike, why don’t we start with you on this one?
Dr. Michael J. Provitera:
Thank you. Yes, that’s really a great question, because our whole mindset changed. In other words, for me to drive 40 minutes to the beach, all of a sudden now, do I really want to go? Do I want to spend the gas? Do I want to pay the tolls? I go out, I come back, we become accustomed to our lifestyle. The key is, a lot of us couldn’t go to gyms. I have an executive that built a gym in his garage, and I helped him. I work out at home. I can’t go to the gym, I have to make an appointment. So we have to get up, we have to walk around. It’s the intention that drives us.
So you have to say, “I intend to exercise today.” Not I’m going to exercise because you’ll find every ice cream in the refrigerator and every cookie in the cupboard. So you just say, “I intend to work out today.” And you just do it, just get up and go. It’s like the Asian mentality, is that, we intend to do something? We do it. So people are trying to break out of this new normal, which you can’t really say that anymore because it’s almost over. I’m writing about post pandemic recovery. We’re almost there. If you look at, like say a milestone, look at the cruise lines. If the cruise line jumps in June, we’re pretty much almost back to normal. If it doesn’t, then we’re still back into the remote thinking of when is it [inaudible 00:10:14] So, Disney opened. Now, is Disney going to open the cruise line?
So, these things that we’re thinking about, people taking off masks, masks not being mandatory. All of these things are psychologically making us change. So that physical ability that everyone’s talking about here, and being able to exercise and exercise our mind, think about mindfulness, meditate, we can’t stop doing what we always did just because of a pandemic, we have to reinvent ourselves and find new ways, novel ways of approaching life. I don’t want to promote myself, but I’ll just say, “I wrote a book with my daughters because it was about the pandemic, because they were feeling so much stress. That book has help them deal with their own stress.” Thanks for giving me the opportunity to go first on that one. That’s a tough one.
Chris Cancialosi:
Yeah, I mean, these are really complex issues, and everyone’s got their own unique reality and experience here. I know that the question I’m asking is very broad. Ernesto, from your perspective, what should people be thinking about, and how might they help manage this anxiety that they might be feeling?
Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa:
Yeah, I think a really wonderful question and important topic to consider. One of the pieces that I tend to think about when talking to people that are having these anxieties and worries is, increasing the awareness around just what anxiety is, and how it can manifest differently for everyone, knowing more about how it comes up for you, and also finding some practical skills to be able to manage the anxiety, whether it be mindfulness skills, like Mike had mentioned, but also rebuilding these new cognitive connections to work, having time to reflect on what has changed in the last year, getting organized, creating to do lists when you’re out work, to be able to help you stay organized as on track, setting up priorities, setting up different weekly goals.
But I think there needs to be a sense of reflecting on what has happened and what has changed, and also just looking at how we can come back and ease our way into the workforce, into the workplace, and also keeping it in mind, being mindful of our anxiety and how it’s manifesting within each of us so that we can find things that can help us reduce that anxiety or the intensity of it.
Chris Cancialosi:
Absolutely. Tracy, I want to get your input on this, but something you said, Ernesto struck me, question for all of you to consider is, is it appropriate for people to position this reality as “back to normal,” or is it healthier, perhaps for us to acknowledge that what was in the past will no longer be necessarily and to begin to framing our mental process around the possibility of the new? So Tracy, I know I’m hitting you with two questions here, but I’d love your perspective on that.
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
Well, thank you, I think that’s a really good active reframe. Return to a new normal, this is going to be different, just like working during the pandemic was different. This is going to be a transition, it’s not going to happen overnight. Each workplace is going to be very different, some may be hybrid, some may be remote, some may require you to go in full time. So each one is going to be very different. I think healthy communication in the workplace is going to be incredibly and being transparent, and normalizing this level of anxiety and stress that everyone may be feeling. So that it’s okay if you’re not feeling well, talk to your boss, talk to your supervisor, to really be transparent and know that it is okay and that everyone’s going to be experiencing that at a different level.
Because I think that’s going to look different than before, and that type of communication of what’s going to work in the workplace. So I think that is going to be incredibly important. And as Ernesto said also, there are going to be people that have had COVID, we’re seeing some research now that may be one in every three people may have long lasting neurological or psychological effects that may be invisible, we may not see. So they may be going back to work, and then those who haven’t had COVID may have had a family loss, so they may be mourning or grieving. They may have experienced job uncertainty, they may have been isolated, feeling really lonely.
So there are going to be many kind of stresses and experiences that they have had that may be invisible, so to speak, that they are going to be bringing into the workplace, and we really do want to normalize that experience for them and really create an opportunity in this new workplace, I mean, environment for people to be able to talk about it, share these concerns with each other, with their supervisors, and feel okay with that.
Chris Cancialosi:
Yeah, thank you for that perspective. What’s striking me as I’m listening to the three of you is, there are things that people can do in terms of reframing, in terms of actual tactics that they can use to help kind of, in my words, not yours, take some control of the situation. I’m curious, from your perspective, at what point should someone say, “Jeez, I’m really not dealing with this in a healthy way, I really need to go out and get some external support.” What are the warning signs that someone should really be tuned to? Ernesto, why don’t we ask you to kick this one off?
Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa:
Yeah. Some of the warning signs could be just looking at our sleep and appetite. Those are usually some of the places that we begin to see some changes in our well being when we’re under a lot of stress or anxiety or not feeling well. Additionally, there’s also the sense of looking at how you’re feeling in terms of, are you feeling happy? Are you feeling anxious? Are you doing things you enjoy doing? Are you losing interest and motivation? When you begin to notice maybe a decline in some of these things that did bring you happiness, pleasure, or excitement, and they’re not there anymore, and you’re spending a lot more time just worrying, thinking about things that have happened, I think those could be considered warning signs that maybe it could be helpful to talk with a professional or seek outside support.
That could also come in the way of just making sure you’re talking to people in your life, friends and family. Social support is really important. I think perceived social support is particularly important, that we may receive support, but if we don’t perceive it as helpful, then it’s not really support. So I think in some ways, making sure that we’re reaching out to people, when we’re noticing that we’re just not feeling ourselves. Again, that could be more of these day to day things like sleep and appetite. Just kind of, if our minds are preoccupied, and not being able to stay in the present moment, or just a reduction in our happiness, in our mood, can be some warning signs.
Chris Cancialosi:
Absolutely. Thank you for that, Ernesto. Mike, again, from your perspective, you come at this from a little bit of a different lens, working with executives, what are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Michael J. Provitera:
Well, there’s one way to think about this from my perspective, and that is, following what Tracy and Ernesto are mentioning, it’s like an emotional intelligence. So, people have to be self aware, and then there’s the psychological component, what’s their attitude? What’s their moods like? Are they staying up late? Are they sleeping less, because of this pandemic, watching movie? Whatever it is, entertainment, what are their beliefs and underlying beliefs of the recovery. You had mentioned about the new normal, there really is no new normal, it’s the future, it’s whatever happens.
Organizations maybe little bouncing balls and couches, and people may only go to the office in teams, and they may stay home, and they’re taking desks out of offices now, they’re changing real estate. Then there’s that self-regulation component. We talked about the psychological and then the physical components of the exercise, people are becoming more sedentary, or some people are getting into a regimen of exercise. Those things are very important. I do certain things every day, it’s like a COVID habit. But if I was going to challenge myself, they are not much. Running around the block is nothing, but my brother in law could run 12 miles in one time. Right? So everyone’s going to look at the world differently.
Then there’s that regulation, looking at how are you regulating yourself, are you exercising? Are you eating well? Then we have empathy, right? So once we get through emotional times, once we control our own empathy, then we could look at how we’re controlling our own emotional intelligence. Then that social skills comes into play. Being in this kind of environment, we’re at level playing fields. I have all the respect in the world for you, Chris, Tracy, and Ernesto, but think about if we’re in a meeting of 250, and the CEO has a little box just like I do. I respect him. I have respect for authority figures, but when I get to talk, I may be on the screen just like he is. Or she is.
So, we have this whole new way of thinking. This way of trying to break away from our own internal thoughts that are holding us back, what are we oppressing ourselves with? I have friends that say, “Well, you have your two daughters, I’m alone.” There’s other people that are saying, “I’m alone with somebody, I don’t want to be alone with.” Or there’s somebody who would say, “It’s hard for me to meet people. I just turned 21, and I can go out to the bars but there’s no bars to go to.” It’s just relaxing with yourself and understanding that this is a time for you to reflect, improve whatever you want to work on, and then channeling that energy into writing or taking up a guitar or whatever you wanted to do, art, channeling those energies into things that are productive.
So when the pandemic is over, you’ll come out with new muscles and new ways of thinking, and you could now look at the world in a new perspective, looking at what did you do during the pandemic, did you create anything? Well, this is what I created. I was talking a little bit about people taking a year off before going to graduate school. Well, then what are you doing? Are you volunteering? Are you helping others so that … that empathy to help. Coming from Tracy and Ernesto, and they’re in the business of helping, and you’re helping right now by running this podcast.
So, imagine the people that we help that help others and the trickling down effect, you try to help those above you, help those below you, and then hope that people want help. Because some people do not want help. Ask an 18 year old, if they want help, they’re going to say no, but when they come to you, you better roll up your sleeves and help. Thanks, thanks for giving me the chance [crosstalk 00:21:14]
Chris Cancialosi:
Yeah, thank you for that perspective, I can say that, personally, I tried to make the most of my COVID experience, but I’m a really fortunate person that’d be privileged to live in an area where I’m not in a very densely populated area, I can go outside, but I did master the art of smoking a barbecue brisket over COVID. So I feel like I put that time to good use. Tracy, from your perspective, you’re working with clients all the time, and undoubtedly, COVID is a part of your work, because it’s such a part of everyone’s experience. What point should somebody really be saying, “Hey, I think I really need to reach out for some professional support here?”
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
That’s a really good question. Are we talking about that in terms of working, what the work life looks like, and trying to balance it and feeling that stress? Or the anticipation of going into the office? Or just in general? When you ask that question, I’m curious.
Chris Cancialosi:
That’s a really good follow up question. When I had asked it, I was originally thinking in general, kind of what are the signs that someone could say, “Hey, I really need to think about this.” But if there’s a different way to approach that, I’m certainly open.
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
Well, so there are people and individuals who have been living alone, working remotely, feeling incredibly isolated. This has been a very challenging time for them. So when I work with them, we really do talk, as Ernesto spoke about assessing the quality of life. They’re eating, they’re sleeping, ruminating thoughts, what they’re thinking about, are they able to reach out to friends and family and talk to them, because that is very, very important. I keep going back to isolation and feeling lonely, because there are young adults who live alone, and then there are plenty that are living with their families too, and that is very stressful.
So this has been a very interesting time for us. But I think for those, as Ernesto had spoken about before, if they’re really seeing a change in their eating, and they’re sleeping, and enjoying pleasurable activities, they’re ruminating a lot, they’re really worrying, then that’s time, you talk to a professional to reach out to a family member or a friend, to share your concerns, to feel validated, to feel that you’re not alone, because it really isn’t a singular experience, it’s really is a collective trauma. It’s a collective loss, we have all experienced some type of loss, loss of our freedom, loss of our routines, of our schedules, of predictability.
I think moving forward in transitions, people can be very vulnerable. I think we’re going to still be grappling with that transition and what that looks like in terms of that predictability and not knowing for a while, that’s going to be very, very challenging for many people.
Chris Cancialosi:
Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for that perspective. We’re going to take a quick break right now, when we come back, we’re going to flip the script a little bit. We’ve been focused on employees experience and people in general, I’d like to flip the script when we come back and talk about employers, and how our employers, number one, working through this, and number two, how can employers think about supporting and proactively supporting their employees through this transition? So we’ll be right back.
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Chris Cancialosi:
Welcome back everybody, this is Chris Cancialosi, and I’m joined today by three fantastic panelists, Tracy Nathanson, Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa and Dr. Michael Provitera, we’ve been talking about the anxiety and the collective trauma that people have been going through over the last year with this COVID pandemic. As we’re getting shots in arms and people are beginning to look forward to what the future may hold, there is some level of anxiety beginning to creep into people’s realities around, what does work look like in the future? And what is my life going to be like, now that I’ve completely up ended my existence and recalibrated to the pandemic reality?
So, what I’d like to do at this point everyone is, flip the script just a bit and talk about employers and organizations, because employers are not immune to this reality. They are at some point in their journey, trying to figure out what will the future hold for work? Are they going to go back to an office full time? Are they going to … as some organizations are doing just say, “Hey, we are fully remote from here on out?” Or is there something in between?
All of these decisions or lack of decisions impact the people that work in their organizations, which can obviously lead to anxiety and stress. So, from an organizational perspective, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on what should employers be mindful of as they are, A, developing their plans, and B, communicating and interacting with their workforces? Ernesto, why don’t we start with you?
Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa:
I think in terms of the employer side, it is a difficult challenge right now to think about what we’re going to be expecting or anticipating. But it can be helpful to just consider the effects that the pandemic has had on all of us and their employees. So thinking about the individual worker circumstances as they come back, thinking about flexibility in terms of schedules, in terms of mental health benefits, or other access to health services, even childcare services, just because we’re all returning back to work, does not mean that other things are open, like schools, hopefully they do stay open.
But I think considering individual needs for their employees, and making sure that their employees are feeling supported, that the employees also know what are the policies, who can they go to if the policy maybe does not apply uniformly to all of them? I think individual supervisors can be very helpful in this regard, in being go to individuals, of understanding policy and being able to advocate for their employees as well. But I think in some ways, it’s just making sure that employers are considering how best to support their employees and thinking about not only the productivity with work, but also the well-being of their employees that are back in the office.
Chris Cancialosi:
Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for that. Tracy, from your perspective, what are your thoughts on that, and what can employers be doing, or what should they be thinking about?
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
I was also thinking about what that workday schedule is going to look like, and how important it will be to be able to take mental health breaks, to walk around a little bit, get outside, get some water, because adjusting to that work environment, again, in those hours, when had more flexibility working from home or remote locations, that may be very emotionally and physically exhausting. I think that’s going to be important to discuss that in the workplace and what that break is going to look like to be able to-
Chris Cancialosi:
Yeah, so giving people the space and kind of permission to readapt because now going back to an office is abnormal for people in their life experience
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
Exactly, and we haven’t even talked about the commuting and what that transportation looks like, whether they’re taking public transportation, and the stress that goes with that and being around other people, or if you’re driving and again commuting. So that’s a whole other level, putting that into your day, and what is that going to look like? [crosstalk 00:30:09]
Chris Cancialosi:
Absolutely. Yeah, and I certainly want to circle back on that. Mike, I want to hear your perspective on this before we jump to that, though. So, what should employers be keeping top of mind as they’re trying to figure this out?
Dr. Michael J. Provitera:
Well, executives in the C suite, they changed, they’re actually more authentic now. It used be, they start a meeting and everybody has their information, and they just thought, “Boom, here’s the meeting.” Now, they open up the meeting and say, “How is everybody doing? Are you feeling okay?” They hear dogs in the background, they hear people. When the pandemic first came, I was cooking, I showed a video, so they came into my kitchen, right? So, people are actually seeing things happening that they never had before. The corporations and the executives are accepting that, and they really care.
So, you’re looking at building better relationships with your bosses, with your colleagues, even though we’re remote. And how this is going to be in the future is what we’re thinking about, modeling this new communication, we may still have Zoom, we may still have work, we may have reduced work weeks, we may have people not going back like I mentioned, but they may want to go back and there’s people that do not want to go back, but they have to go back. So, we’re looking at this, treating each person the way they would like to be treated. So the golden rule is, I treat people the way I want to be treated. Well now, I think it was Tony Alexander, some pop psychologist said, “Treat people the way they want to be treated, the way they want to be treated is the Platinum Rule.”
Get into the flow, get in sync with people, find out where they are, and what they’re doing. I mean, people very rarely care. Now they have to, they have to care. Some people are working from home but their children are home, so they have to cook meals and be there with their children, but still work. So now they’re developing this new work style, where they’re opening up this emotional contact with people as, if you need help, if you want us to adjust something … we used to talk about the four day week, now we’re talking about the two day week, the no day week. Right? Then people that are home, it’s so funny, organization to seeing people work 12-hour days, you get up at nine o’clock, you might be working till 9:00 PM, maybe you took a four hour lunch, and organizations are accepting all of this.
This is the interesting point that we’re looking at going into the future, organizations are accepting you as you are, not as they would want you to be. That’s that flow, and security. As Tracy mentioned, security is so important. If I know I’m going to keep my job, I’m going to work 10 times harder, if I feel that I might lose my job, I may work 20 times harder, because I don’t want to lose it. But that’s the stress Dr. Ernesto is talking about, that Tracy is talking about. We’re feeling so much pressure on our back. We need to have convertible cause, put the convertible back and let all the monkeys fly off our back.
Chris Cancialosi:
Thank you for that. So what I’m hearing from all of you is, it sounds like there is no one size fits all solution for employers, we as employers need to be taking into account individual needs and differences, which sounds like a great leadership challenge for direct supervisors, as opposed to a CEO trying to make a sheep dip solution for everyone-
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
Can I interject a second?
Chris Cancialosi:
Please do.
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
I was just going to ask a question about the boundaries and the roles that have been blurred during this time, and how do we reestablish that. If you see me and I’m working, and I’ve got the dog in the background, and this, how do we go back to the workplace now? People got to know us better, boundaries have been blurred, how do we reestablish that or we don’t or there’s a new kind of normal? I’m just curious about that.
Chris Cancialosi:
Yeah, perspectives?
Dr. Michael J. Provitera:
Well, I would say that, you have to develop a high self esteem. I hate to look at movies, but I do it all the time. Look at the Godfather. When the cat came across, Marlon Brando grabbed him and went like this, “Everybody got the cat was part of the scene, but it wasn’t.” All of a sudden a dog comes by, we pick up a dog. “Hey, meet Buddy.” So we have to have a higher self esteem, feel good about ourselves on the screen. The way we look, the way we feel, the way we communicate. This is all changed now.
Before pre pandemic, I wouldn’t want to go on the screen. I don’t know, now you have to. So, what Tracy’s talking about is, we’re accepting people, we’re getting to know people more. There’s positive things that are coming out of this pandemic, really positive. People are saying, “I love you.” I could say, “Chris, I love you for doing this.” There’s nothing wrong with that. Pre pandemic, people might say, “We shouldn’t be talking about love at work.” That’s an interesting perspective that we’re taking here.
Chris Cancialosi:
It sounds like everyone’s going to need to do a little learning and a little realignment, because everything has been shaken up. Ernesto, what are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa:
Yes, I do definitely think about all the distractions that we all may have and have maybe adapted to, and how they may feel strange. I’ve gone back into an office, just to work and it just feels so different, even though I’m not with anyone, just myself. Just getting up and doing the routine that I was used to doing feels so different and strange, and that’s going to take some adjustment in terms of that piece, but also the boundaries.
Something else that was coming to mind about employers and organizations is considering, again, the pandemic, but also what has happened in the last year, and how there’s a lot of health disparities and the pandemic has shed some light into health disparities for Black and Brown individuals, and also for people in the LGBTQ community, how they have been disproportionately impacted by either job loss, coming sick with COVID, or maybe working in jobs where they’re considered essential workers.
I think that’s something that is important to consider for employers, especially as they bring back employees of diverse identities, and one, making sure that they are accounting for how these disparities and these impacts in the pandemic may also be impacting their employees, what are the messages being conveyed about the well being of employees that maybe are of color, or are part of the LGBTQ community, making sure that they are also being considered and that it may be different for some of these individuals, the stress may be higher for some of these communities.
Chris Cancialosi:
Thank you for bringing that up, and that really leads to my next question around inclusion and equity. Everyone’s coming from a different background. Some people are already historically before COVID, dealing with stressors based on their personal situation that others are not dealing with, COVID only adds on top of that, stacks on that, from my perspective. I’m curious, how can employers be intentional about not only understanding that and acknowledging it, but really being able to proactively address some of that. I mean, there’s so many individuals situations. As an employer, what do we do? Ernesto, why don’t you kick us off since you brought that up?
Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa:
Yeah, no problem. I think in some ways, it comes down to the organizational culture, and looking at just, what does diversity look like in the workplace in terms of people that are in managerial positions, supervisor positions? And seeing if there are opportunities for people that are not part of the majority to make it more diverse, additionally, making sure that there are benefits that are extended to individuals that may have different health care needs, and making sure that these are in insurance benefits, things like that.
I think there also could be some more emphasis on providing more workshops or presentations or other resources for individuals in the company to know more about, what are some of the unique stressors that some of these communities may be experiencing and how it translates into their identity at work, there is a professional identity and also personal identity. One of the unique things about, I think, stress is, there is a minority stress theory that just states that, “On top of everyday general stressors, people with minority identity experience additional and unique stressors to their minority identities.” So in some ways, it’s like a double whammy.
So just being aware that sometimes these things are different for individuals that are having minority identity can be useful for employers, and just thinking about how does that actually translate into our organizational culture? How are employees impacted similarly, but also differently, and what can we do to make sure we’re meeting their needs as well?
Chris Cancialosi:
Absolutely.
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
I think we want to destigmatize … I’m sorry. I think we want to destigmatize mental health and getting those resources and that access as well for that.
Chris Cancialosi:
It feels like if there was ever a time for employers to be intentional and be thoughtful of the differences that people are bringing to the workplace with them, it feels like now is that time, with all of the social awareness and work going on in our communities over the last couple of years, on top of it COVID. Mike, you alluded to this earlier, it feels like the general culture in the United States, and it’s a huge sweeping overgeneralization is one of trying to be intentional and learn about the differences that people are bringing into work, and I’m sure some will be better positioned to actually serve as allies to their employees than others. But Mike, what’s your perspective on that?
Dr. Michael J. Provitera:
Well, I think it was Al Pacino that said in Any Given Sunday, “If we can’t work together as a team, we fail as individuals.” What organizations are doing for people of all different types of walks of life and making sure that they’re promoting them, that they’re accepting them, that they’re acknowledging them, we never want to disparage any kind of benefit or anything. So, whenever I talk to somebody, I’m always saying, “Your husband or your wife, or your significant other, or your partner, you throw them all in.” Because if I’m sitting somewhere and someone says something like that, I don’t want to get offended, and I don’t want to offend anyone.
So the executives in the world have been very careful of what they say, and they’re being very careful with what they do. So, they’re joining Big Brothers, and they’re going out to the community. Each one of us, every executive, every business manager, every business woman, everyone is trying their best to make sure and ensure that they’re giving back to the community in some way. We try to tell people not to carry any excess pressure on your back. There’s a story about a frog and a scorpion that came to the river at the same time, the scorpion said to the frog, “Listen, I see you’re about to cross the river, can I jump on your back and you deposit me on the other side?” The frog said, “No, you’re going to sting me.” Then scorpion says, “No, if I sting you, then I’ll drown, and you’ll drown, and I’ll die.”
So according to the story, the frog says, “Jump on.” They hop on, halfway across the pond that, the frog gets stung. He turns to the scorpion and says, “Wait a minute, why would you do this? Why would you sting me and die, we’re both going to drown and die.” After they came back the third time, scorpion says, “Because I’m a scorpion, and it’s my nature to sting frogs and kill them.” We have to get rid of anybody that’s negative in the workplace. It’s like a cancer. If somebody is a scorpion in the workplace, we have to not tolerate that behavior. Organizations and executives are now saying, “We’re not tolerating that.”
So we need to accept all diversity, accept everyone where they are, where they’re coming from, whatever zip code, whatever type of nationality, no more stigmatized ways of thinking, we have to eliminate that. That’s where the organizations are going in the future. The ones that are not, are going to fall short, and they’re going to lose people. I write about the no jerk policy. A lot of organizations say, “If you’re a jerk, we don’t want you anymore.” When did they ever say that? Well, they’re saying it now. So they hire people and they have a no jerk policy. Then if they find you’re a jerk, they get rid of you. They can literally say, “You failed, I know jerk policy, you’re a jerk, you’re gone.”
Chris Cancialosi:
That’s one approach. On this topic, what comes to mind for me is, wow, this is really going to be a challenge for employers, because, A, many of them are not used to thinking about individual needs as much as their organizational needs, and number two, even if at their best, there are bound to making mistakes. So, what’s the secret to success here? What is the secret element that’s going to get us all through this in a productive and healthy way? Tracy.
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
I was just thinking about community, Mike, when you were talking about before, and people who live in communities, where they look after each other, care about each other, have each other’s backs, their sense of well-being, they feel really good. So, I think feeling in your work community that it really is community, and again, normalizing our feelings, really de stigmatizing mental health needs, sometimes we’re in a culture where people don’t want to reach out for help, but letting people know that that’s okay offering those resources, because there may be organizations now that really don’t have access to even to online behavioral health resources that are there, letting people know, making sure multi language that it’s available for diverse communities, and that that is available and that it is really …
So, having those conversations, but I like the feeling of community because during this time when I was working from home I was looking for whether it was through yoga or other things I did, that sense of community not feeling alone, feeling that we could share our issues and problems. I think when we go back into the workplace, that community is going to look different, and there is going to be that emotional mental health well-being, that’s going to be very important.
Chris Cancialosi:
Ernesto, I’d like to give you the last word on this one. I mean, employers are going to be having challenging time, they’re going to make mistakes. What’s it going to take to get us through this?
Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa:
Yeah, I think this is really an opportunity to be able to take all of these things, and while they may be challenging, there’s also opportunity for growth here. Reenvisioning, reimagining the way that we can all maybe come back and do things a little differently. I tend to look at this more from the perspective of, there’s a lot of opportunities here. It may be difficult and challenging, but we can all get through this together, and maybe try some things that are different, taking into account that this pandemic has really forced us into considering things that maybe we weren’t thinking about before in the workplace.
But especially think around just all these changes that, this is the time where we get to make some changes and bring in more people into the fold and making these decisions to build that community, that these decisions will not only impact the individual, but also the organization as a whole. So, it has benefits for everyone involved, and taking into account these individual differences, that actually will have very significant impact, positive impact on these workplaces and organizations overall.
Chris Cancialosi:
Thank you for that. Thank you for that. I have one final question for you all, and it’s a question I ask all of my guests, regardless of topic. Mike, I’d love to kick this one off with you. What have I not asked you today that I should have?
Dr. Michael J. Provitera:
Well, I think that the one thing that we could have talked about more is this resistance to change. People do not want to change, they’re failing to embrace new ideas and new changes that will help them, help the community, help the society, help their organizations. When organizations are trying to develop this tacit knowledge that people have that they don’t want to talk about, or they don’t even know subconsciously they have it but they want to talk about. Then there’s that turf war where someone brings something up, they say, “Don’t bring that up.” Or they say something to the executives, and they think the executives do not act on it, but the executives did act on it, but they didn’t tell the people.
So there’s all these different issues that we face. The one thing that we have is that, people are always worried about their next career, instead of focusing on the career that they have now, we cannot create the future and worry about what’s going to happen until we cross that bridge when we get to it. We have to say hello to the goats until we get across the bridge. So, let’s not worry about our next career, let’s worry about a current career and our current organization, and how we could all get back to working to promote our organizations to be successful, so we all keep our jobs.
Then as we make these decisions that impact not only us, but everyone, then we make the right decisions. Because as executives, we’re making decisions not only for the corporation, or our employees, but the customer, the stakeholders, the grandma, whoever it is, their children, we have to make the right decisions, and we have to really think about that. Then the emotional component? Yes, we have to make sure we’re letting people know that we’re here to help you if you have a concern. Almost every organization has some way of getting help, and now it’s second nature to say, “My therapist gave me the advice that I should.” Which we wouldn’t say that in the past. It’s okay.
We’ve to think, if you need a tax advisor, you go to a tax expert. If you need stress reduction, you go to an expert, like Ernesto or Tracy, and you talk to them about it. And you say, “Look, I’m feeling a lot of anxiety right now.” Then people will know, they say, “We know you’re feeling anxiety, so is the rest of the world. We have to cope, we have to look at what we’re doing, how can we help ourselves and others and the people around us.”
Chris Cancialosi:
Thank you, Mike. Tracy, what are your thoughts? What should I have asked you that we didn’t talk about today?
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
I’m thinking maybe about the vaccine and what that looks like for people and going back to work, and how stress-inducing that is for people. What the workplace requirements are going to look like, are they going to mandate it? Are they not going to mandate it, and if they don’t, am I going to be working next to someone who has it, who doesn’t have it? And the inequity in terms of the access to it, some people aren’t able to get it. Some people because of their beliefs, they don’t want to get it.
So there’s a lot going on around the vaccine and the return to workplace. So that’s maybe something that … as I think as the days and months go by, maybe we’ll get some more clarification, or wherever you work, that policy, you’ll have a better understanding. But everyone has a different relationship to the vaccine. So I think that’s really very stress-inducing for people and also their power of agency and being able to make that choice, and will that be taken away from them if their workplace requires them to do that?
Chris Cancialosi:
Sure.
Tracy Nathanson, LCSW:
How are they going to feel about that?
Chris Cancialosi:
Yeah, no, thank you. I think that’s a really important point. Ernesto, final word, what should I have asked you that I didn’t?
Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa:
Yeah, I think in some way we were talking about this, maybe that is directly but the rule I think of mental health in the future of work place [inaudible 00:50:00] organizations. I think particularly, we as clinicians have seen an increase in people reaching out for help during the pandemic, and how many of us are also feeling overwhelmed, because we’re also going through this in addition to everyone else, but also just the usefulness and making sure that we are including mental health professionals in these conversations and discussions, particularly as organizations are thinking about revamping and reworking and making changes, that there could be such an added benefit of just having me think of individuals to consult with or have these conversations with someone.
Just best practices or just throwing around ideas of what could be helpful for everyone, but just acknowledging that a lot of us in the mental health field are actively also working through this ourselves and trying to figure out how do we continue to have conversations around mental health, because it is important, and it is something that is impacting all of us.
Chris Cancialosi:
Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks to all of you for your perspectives. This has been a fantastic discussion. I feel like we’ve just begun to scratch the surface, and there’s a lot of depth that we could dive into, and a lot of these different areas around equity and inclusion and around vaccine, and this is a moving target. So, Tracy, Ernesto, Michael, I really appreciate you spending time with us today. Thank you so much for sharing your perspectives.
If you’d like to learn more about our guests from today’s episode, be sure to check out the episode notes. If you enjoyed today’s episode, we welcome you to check out some of our other content, and be sure to take a moment to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the great conversations we have slated for season two. Thanks for joining us.
Cultivating a Culture of Feedback and Accountability
In this episode, Kate Gerasimova talks with Harrison Kim, CEO of Pavestep about cultivating a culture of feedback and accountability in organizations. Meaningful feedback develops and motivates employees and keeps them accountable to the organization and team objectives. Unfortunately, many people are unsure about how and when to give feedback. In this discussion, you’ll learn how to enable a culture of feedback in your organization and become better at giving and receiving feedback, especially in today’s virtual environment.
Released: October 12, 2020
Cultivating a Culture of Feedback and Accountability – gothamCulture Podcast Transcript
Chris Cancialosi:
Welcome to the gothamCulture Podcast, where we talk about any topic you’d like so long as those topics are organizational culture, leadership or people strategy. Each week, we talk with industry leaders and discuss cultural opportunities and challenges in the workplace, providing you with actionable tips and strategies that you can implement in your organizations. My name is Chris Cancialosi and this is the gothamCulture Podcast. Today’s episode will be hosted by Kate Gerasimova, senior associate at gothamCulture.
Kate Gerasimova:
Hi, I’m Kate Gerasimova, I’m a senior associate at gothamCulture. I have a great opportunity today to interview Harrison Kim, the founder and CEO of Pavestep, it’s a 360 feedback solution to enable culture of feedback and accountability. Welcome Harrison.
Harrison Kim:
Hey, how’s it going?
Kate Gerasimova:
Going well. Thank you so much for being here today.
Harrison Kim:
Absolutely. No, thanks for having me.
Kate Gerasimova:
I’m curious to hear a little bit more about you, and then if you can tell us a couple of words about you and Pavestep for our listeners.
Harrison Kim:
Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Harrison, I’m the CEO of Pavestep and we’re a performance management solution that really activates the culture of feedback and accountability. Simply put, we help managers and employees share better feedback with each other and align goals more effectively. And at the same time, we act as a single place to store all of this data, right, feedback, goals, and anything related to performance so that managers and leaders can understand their employees and make better decisions when it comes to development. Prior to Pavestep, I was an investor in the HR services sector and a consultant at McKinsey.
Kate Gerasimova:
Oh, perfect. Well, I’m so glad that you’re here with us today and we’re here to talk about the culture of feedback and accountability, so I can’t even imagine a better person to talk to about this. So, thank you.
Harrison Kim:
Awesome.
Kate Gerasimova:
Culture of feedback, accountability, this topic comes in so many times and with each client, I hear it in one way or another, whether it’s how to, or what to do or what is feedback, how to give it. So, tell us about what is the culture of feedback and accountability and how do you define it?
Harrison Kim:
Yeah. So let me start with how I think about what culture means. I think there are many definitions. It’s one of those things that everyone can feel and understand intuitively to a certain extent, but sometimes it’s a little hard to describe it specifically. I think personally, about culture as the aggregation of behaviors of a group, whether that’s a company or a country or a team or whatever the group may be. And when I think about specifically the culture of feedback and accountability, I define that as an environment in which employees feel empowered and almost the need out of good intentions, of course, to share feedback with one another and keep each other accountable for their goals and objectives directly. That’s how I would think about it in terms of the definition for culture of feedback and accountability. And tactically speaking, this would likely translate to employees receiving structured and meaningful feedback from their team members on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, and definitely not once a year or twice a year.
Kate Gerasimova:
And, with changing environments, and I think we’re moving away from a former how we used to give feedback or receive feedback maybe once a year, as you mentioned, like a performance management cycle, that’s where it used to be, and I feel like it’s been changing a lot now.
Harrison Kim:
Absolutely.
Kate Gerasimova:
You mentioned, it’s great to have a definition of what the culture of feedback and accountability is, but how do you enable that? Where do you start?
Harrison Kim:
Yeah, it’s a big question. So, when I think about enabling the culture of feedback and accountability, I think there are four big drivers, one sponsorship, two, education, three, experience, and four, process. So when I think about sponsorship, I’m not just talking about having the executives and the leadership sponsoring and leading by example, right? Of course, that’s table stakes. I’m also talking about the high performers and influence throughout the organization and getting their buy-in and them being empowered to really carry the torch throughout the organization and putting money where their mouth is, right? I think that’s really important. Sponsorship when it comes to any kind of culture shift in my mind, you have to have it both top-down and bottom-up. So, that’s number one.
The second is education that I mentioned. So the reality is that most people want guidance, want alignment and want feedback, they just don’t know how to execute it well, and this is especially true with new managers and feedback. They need to be just equipped with the right knowledge. So, as managers and leaders and executives of these organizations thinking about enabling this culture of feedback and accountability, you need to provide them with the right education so that they can get started. So, that’s number two.
The third thing that I think about is experience. So, make it as easy as possible for teams to share feedback with one another. I think digital tools help in many cases, but just don’t give them excuses not to do it, right? It’s already really difficult. And then the last component is I think personally one of the more important things, process. So as you can imagine, right, creating or shifting culture takes time. And just because your leader says so, or just because you have some cool tool within your company, it doesn’t mean people are going to start all of a sudden sharing feedback with each other and holding each other accountable, et cetera. You need to set the right processes in place so that you can enforce the right behaviors, and over time, these behaviors become habits and rituals at these companies, which shape culture, right? And this is how you need to start thinking about shifting culture from X to Y. So those are the four things I would think about conceptually when you’re trying to enable the culture of feedback and accountability.
Kate Gerasimova:
Thank you for sharing that. Definitely those four things are super important components, and I see them in my work as well. I’m curious because in every company culture of feedback could mean a different thing as you mentioned or a feedback accountability could mean different thing. So for example, there will be a company that has a model for giving feedback and they have HR mandated process on how to, but for example, feedback is inconsistent or non-existent even though there is a process and there is established guideline for it and people are just being nice to each other. Maybe they’re not saying things, or they’re just being like, yeah, yeah, thank you so much. This has been great. Or they’ve been giving feedback as, yes, this is great, but nothing behind that. What are some steps maybe leaders or employees can take to change them?
Harrison Kim:
So I think there are some tactical steps that I’ve seen work well. The first one is making sure that everyone’s on the same page when it comes to feedback. I mentioned education already on the last question. I mean, the fact that people need to learn how to share feedback and receive feedback. There is a real science and research behind what makes feedback effective at developing and motivating employees. And usually it’s not just high fives and great jobs, right? You’ve got to do a little bit more to make sure that it’s specific to behavior, specific to efforts and it’s forward looking, and all this good stuff. And you’ve got to give them that education.
When people know how to share feedback effectively using the behaviors and observations, negative feedback or constructive criticism, doesn’t actually sound so negative, right? For example, Kate, if you were to tell me right now that I’m talking too fast, or my answers are hopping back and forth, that would be a really helpful pointer for me, right? It’s just facts and I’m totally okay with that. So, education I think is important. There’s actually another benefit to making sure that people are educated on how to share feedback, because it gets everyone on the same page as to how feedback will look between you and your colleagues, right? We can speak the same language of feedback and that can minimize miscommunication, right?
So for example, when you give me feedback and tell me how I can improve, I know that you’re not saying that just because you think you’re better than me. I know that you’re saying that because it’s part of the healthy feedback that we’ve explicitly agreed upon, right? So, that’s one big benefit also from an education perspective. And then separately in order to create a culture where people feel comfortable being direct and candid with others, especially when it comes to negative or constructive feedback, we need to have psychological safety, right? And tactically speaking, I’ve seen organizations that we work with do the following. One is actually mandating constructive or development upward feedback. So this helped everybody get comfortable over time sharing direct feedback with each other. And it helps significantly that the leader was willing to step in and be vulnerable first, right? So, that was a really cool process that we’ve seen.
Second thing that we’ve seen is having this philosophy around employees owning their own performance and feedback, meaning, let’s say you and I are working together and you give me feedback, nobody else has access to that feedback. It’s completely confidential. It’s purely for me and for my own development. So, that’s something that I’ve seen as well that I think is quite unique.
Kate Gerasimova:
And I know you’ve been CEO for Pavestep for quite some time, I’m wondering if there are any stories that come to mind in terms of creating that psychological safety or being vulnerable.
Harrison Kim:
Yeah. I mean, the first example that I gave just now, that was really, really cool where literally what they did was the leader decided to mandate one negative or constructive feedback week or every two weeks from all of his team members, right? And he did that for a few weeks and then he rolled it out to his direct reports. So everybody was supposed to give his direct reports negative or constructive feedback, and then he rolled it out to everybody else. And that really made them understand, okay, this is how you share feedback and this is how you actually receive feedback, regardless of whether it’s positive or negative. And it has created a really interesting culture where people truly have this radical candor, right, environment where they’re totally okay being upfront and being direct with each other because they know that this is for each other’s development. And that was really cool to see.
Kate Gerasimova:
Yeah. It’s almost like you seeing a bigger picture while you’re doing that there’s almost absolutely nothing bad about constructive feedback. It’s not that you’re going to take it personally, right?
Harrison Kim:
Right. Right.
Kate Gerasimova:
Well, this is a great example. And it would be interesting to see how else would you frame feedback? As you mentioned, giving and receiving feedback is a skill, how would you adjust it based on situation? So for example, if you even know that somebody may take feedback personally, or they would be a little bit hesitant to receiving constructive feedback, how would you deliver feedback with confidence and how would you give that feedback?
Harrison Kim:
So I think when it comes to sharing feedback with somebody, I don’t think you necessarily need to be confident or come off confident actually. I do sometimes think that it’s actually helpful to be vulnerable when you’re sharing feedback, be like, “Hey, I want to share some feedback with you, let me know if there’s anything that I need to improve on, because I’m still new to this. I’m still learning.” I think that’s totally okay. In fact, I think that might actually make it more relatable and it gets across the message a little bit more effectively in certain situation.
But more tactically speaking, when you’re giving feedback, we think there are three aspects to making the feedback more effective. The first one is making sure that the feedback is behavior based, not trait or intention based, right? So make sure the feedback focuses on the specific behaviors, which are observable and changeable, right? So you want to make sure that you’re focusing on those things that the person can actually control. The second aspect of it is that the feedback should be effort based not results. So what I mean by that is you got to make sure that the feedback that you’re sharing with someone is focused on the strategies, the effort and the processes that this person took in order to complete a task or solve that problem. Because typically those things are under that person’s control, right? You don’t want to be giving feedback on anything that’s outside of that person’s control. So you’ve got to focus on things that they can control. That’s the second piece.
The last piece is pretty straightforward. You want to make sure that it’s forward looking not just backwards, right? When we don’t do a good job at work, it’s not because we don’t want to, right, usually it’s because we clearly don’t know how, and we usually know when we’re underperforming. So, just being forward looking and providing some suggestions or brainstorming with that person, I think goes a long way. I think those are the three things that we think about when we think about giving feedback, and of course, do it real time, not six months later.
Kate Gerasimova:
Great. And you just mentioned those three things, behavior based, effort not results and forward-looking. So, how do you measure all of this? Is there a way you suggest doing that or how have you seen doing that?
Harrison Kim:
Yeah, I mean, from a company perspective, there’s multiple ways that you can measure the level of feedback both from a quantity and quality perspective to a certain extent. So, there’s a few ways. One is just purely looking at the frequency of feedback, right? I think, if your team members are sharing feedback, once, twice, three times a year, it’s clearly not enough. I mean, one of my close friends said this a long time ago, which was pretty awesome I thought. He said, you don’t look at your bank account once a year, why do you look at your employees once a year, right? So, frequency of feedback is something that we will look at.
The second thing that we will look at is the quality of the feedback, right? Like I said, the quality of feedback is very important. One possible way to measure that is just looking at the length of feedback, right? Whether it’s, hey, great job in high five or something much more specific and behavior based and relevant for this person, right? You’re able to look at that just by looking at the details and the length of the feedback that this person is providing. And then, a few other ways are engagement surveys, the feedback and development are often a metric that they will gather scores, survey results on, as well as you can run periodic 360 assessments and see how the team has changed over the course of six or 12 months before and after feedback, basically. So, those are some ways that you can establish those metrics and keep everyone accountable.
Kate Gerasimova:
Have you seen any of them that you mentioned being more relevant than others or more helpful than others?
Harrison Kim:
I think there isn’t a silver bullet metric, every metric will … You need more context and you need to compliment it with other things. Because for example, if you just looked at frequency of feedback, that’s not necessarily super helpful, right? Let’s say you have a company and everyone shares feedback once every week, which sounds great, but unless you actually look into what kind of feedback that they’re sharing, you’re not able to get the full picture. So, I don’t think there’s any one silver bullet metric, I think you need to think about it from multiple angles.
Kate Gerasimova:
Yeah. And you also mentioned the frequency of feedback would be different depending on … What I’m hearing you say is more frequent you receive feedback more frequently you can apply it or learn about it. But I’m wondering, if there is a guideline to follow on what’s the best way of giving or receiving feedback, or for example, if I’m an employee and I haven’t heard anything about my performance in a while, what do I do? How do I go about it?
Harrison Kim:
Yeah. I mean, think from a frequency perspective, I do think twice a month, three times a month is quite healthy. And if you’re an employee and you haven’t received much feedback, call it in a month or two or three months, I think you’ve got to speak up and talk to your manager, right? You’ve got to let the manager know, hey, I would love to sit down and get some feedback from you and going forward, I would love to get it more frequently than once every quarter or once every six months, right? This isn’t a dang on the manager. Most people want more frequent feedback and more transparency, and sometimes just time gets away, there isn’t a tool or process set in the organization or the culture isn’t really aligned with it, whatever it may be. But if you just talk to your manager one-on-one, I think they would be more than happy to help.
Kate Gerasimova:
Okay, that’s great. And then, looking from a manager perspective, so for example, if I’m a leader or a manager and I’m in situation where I don’t usually give feedback and maybe that’s because there’s so many things happening, there are so many things flying my way. I don’t even have time to pause, I don’t know, 15 minutes a day because I’m working all the time. And in this virtual environment, I could see that happening very often. What would you recommend for a leader or a manager to do in this situation to give more frequent feedback? Or how would you recommend changing those behaviors?
Harrison Kim:
Yeah, the way I think about that scenario is I’m going to sound a little direct here, but if you’re a people leader or a people manager, a very, very core component of your job is to coach and develop and motivate your employees through guidance and feedback, period. This isn’t something that you do on a Friday at 4:00 PM because you’ve got five minutes before the end of the day. This is a very core component of your job, and it should be a very top of mind, especially in difficult times and uncertain times that we’re living through right now. So that would be what I would recommend is just really look at what your priorities are and think about what your roles and responsibilities are. And this sharing feedback and coaching your team members is truly a core component of that and it should be a component of that.
Chris Cancialosi:
This episode of the gothamCulture Podcast is produced and sponsored by our partners at Blue Sky Podcasting. Communicating with your customers, stakeholders, and employees can be challenging at times, the team at Blue Sky Podcasting provides high end production and post-production support to organizations looking to leverage podcasting as a tool to increase transparency and engagement with their customers and employees. If you’re interested in learning how podcasting can provide your organization with a highly engaging communication tool that’s easy to scale, you should check out our partners at Blue Sky Podcasting at www.blueskypodcasting.com.
Kate Gerasimova:
What do you think about just-in-time feedback, the possibility of it, how important it is or any thoughts on that?
Harrison Kim:
I think just in time feedback is important, but it depends, right? I mean, I think the worst version from a time perspective is doing it once or twice or three times a year.
Kate Gerasimova:
Yeah.
Harrison Kim:
I think anything within the week or two is totally healthy, because some people don’t, depending on their personality and what their workflow looks like, a lot of people just don’t want to be bothered, right, every time they do something well or something not very well. So, I think it just really depends on the team dynamics, their workflow and the person.
Kate Gerasimova:
So you shared those three main things about measuring feedback and about framing feedback. So you mentioned behavior base, so observable behaviors, you mentioned efforts not results and forward-looking suggestions.
Harrison Kim:
Yup.
Kate Gerasimova:
Is there a model that you use for any of this, the components or how did you come about those three components?
Harrison Kim:
Yeah, I think, so the aspects, those three aspects, the behaviors, efforts and forward-looking, that’s based on different research, mainly one of the main research backing that is the Growth Mindset by dr. Carol Dweck. I think that is one of the best things that I’ve seen from a feedback perspective and how to make sure that you’re creating a dialogue that actually develops and motivates people. I think that’s number one. And when it comes to a framework, we’ve used our own acronym when it comes to feedback, it’s BIN, B-I-N, Behaviors, Impact and Next steps. So you want to make sure you focus on the behaviors. You want to make sure you describe the impact those behaviors had on yourself or others, and then make sure you follow up with the next steps and close the loop. So, that’s the framework that we would use.
Kate Gerasimova:
Great, I love the framework. I hope it’s okay that I’m challenging you on that, but do you have an example that you can walk us through? Anybody who can take anything and provide any feedback in that format? That could be anything simple.
Harrison Kim:
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll give a … This is an example that I use all the time, so you may have heard this before, but a classic example of a bad feedback is something like, “Hey, Kate, I don’t have much feedback for you. You’re really smart and you’re really diligent. Keep at it.”
Kate Gerasimova:
Great, I’ll take that.
Harrison Kim:
That sounds nice, right?
Kate Gerasimova:
But what do I do with it, right?
Harrison Kim:
Right, right. It sounds nice, it’s not helpful at all. Whereas, if I were to say something like, hey Kate, when you did your presentation to client X, Y, and Z last week. On page eight, you used these three examples to make our philosophy and our process much more relatable for them, right? And the way you laid out the philosophy was really, really clear and concise because of A, B and C, right? That’s a very specific behavior and very specific thing that you did that you can improve on, correct, and repeat over time. And that’s how you create high performers is through these types of behavior modifications. So, that’s what I would say is a better example of a feedback.
Kate Gerasimova:
Great, I love that example. And I think it’s so useful because coaching clients or being on-site with clients and just learning about how people give feedback, there are so many questions about models or there are some helpful models or not, or there’s like, what do I do next with this? So I am grateful to hear also forward-looking and an effort not results and that’s why I wanted to emphasize it a little more because what I’m often hearing is feedback is based on what they’ve seen or what is a result of a former behavior sometime way back. And, I find it even harder for myself to reflect and seeing how can I be improving because I’m not in that situation again? And it’s like, it’s in the past and it’s so hard to even put yourself in that shoes again to understand.
Harrison Kim:
Right. You don’t even remember what you had for dinner two weeks ago.
Kate Gerasimova:
Exactly, exactly.
Harrison Kim:
How am I going to remember that over the last six months or 12 months?
Kate Gerasimova:
Yes. But if you constantly, as you mentioned, it’s behavior based. So, if you constantly repeat the same behaviors, there’s nothing you can change your shift. So, it’s almost not only shifting behaviors, it’s shift in mindset and how you look at things.
Harrison Kim:
Absolutely.
Kate Gerasimova:
And as you mentioned, it’s so important to have psychological safety and it’s so important to be vulnerable to receiving and giving feedback and it’s okay not to be perfect.
Harrison Kim:
Yeah, it takes time. I mean, it definitely takes time. It takes practice. It’s not the easiest thing. Even though I preach this stuff, when people talk about, hey, Harrison, can I give you some feedback? I get nervous time to time and I’m like, okay, give me two minutes to settle down and get myself in the right mindset, right? It takes time and practice, and it’s all good.
Kate Gerasimova:
Yeah. When you give and receive feedback, do you … So, you mentioned there is a model, but do you frame it in any way or? So, I know sometimes just being as direct as possible, for example, if I have to give feedback in a moment, as you mentioned, I also take a couple minutes to think about it, how I frame it, but do give a couple of positive first and then you go to constructive or you don’t massage it in a positive way, so you just give it straight?
Harrison Kim:
I think it depends on the relationship you have with that person, but my personal preference and I do think best practice is to be more direct. I don’t think … I mean, if there are things that you want to praise, right, that’s totally fine, but I don’t think you should be praising people just because you want to soften the punch, right? I think it’s better to be candid, better to be direct because being direct doesn’t mean you’re not being kind, right? You can be direct and kind at the same time, so I prefer that.
Kate Gerasimova:
That’s wonderful. I love being direct and kind, I think it should be a new logo, slogan. What’s the word? Well, thank you, Harrison. I know right now in a virtual environment, it’s so much harder, sometimes we don’t see each other or sometimes we see each other too long in the video and we have certain expectations about things and how we look on camera and all of that. Then, sometimes we may misinterpret certain things, the way the person look at us on camera, or when we think they are not paying attention, whatever it maybe like. Do you have any recommendations or what’s the best way to provide feedback in virtual environment or to receive feedback in the virtual environment?
Harrison Kim:
Yeah, I don’t actually think it needs to be too different. Just like any other communication in a remote environment, I think you need to be more proactive and over-communicate, I think that’s number one. One other thing I will mention is, a lot of people spend the time to prepare, right, for feedback, they write it down and they’ve got this great script or prepared feedback for the other person. And then, what they do is they practice, practice, practice, and then when they deliver the feedback to that person, they don’t get all of the things right, right? Because it’s hard to memorize or rehearse a whole bunch of things. And what I would recommend there is, and this is something I do as well, especially when it comes to more constructive or negative feedback. I, sometimes what I’ll do is, hey, I have prepared some feedback for you. Do you mind if I just read it because I don’t want to miscommunicate or say things that I don’t mean, right? And just give that feedback that way.
When the person is receiving the feedback, he or she is really not going to care whether you’ve written it down and you can’t remember this feedback, all these words, right? What they care about is the fact that you prepared and the fact that you want to make sure that this person gets the right and the right message. So, I think that’s something that a lot of people shy away from because they think it’s scripted or not authentic. But, I don’t know if I agree with that. I think, it’s totally okay to let the other person know, hey, I’ve prepared something. I don’t think I can deliver it memorizing, do you mind if I just read this for you, then we can have a conversation? I think that’s totally fine.
Kate Gerasimova:
Yeah. So, there are no verbal or nonverbal clues to look for.
Harrison Kim:
Right. Right. Let’s not muddy the message with those things, right?
Kate Gerasimova:
Right, let’s not overthink this.
Harrison Kim:
Right, exactly.
Kate Gerasimova:
It’s like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Your mind is going too far, no, it’s simple as it is.
Harrison Kim:
Right. Let’s not make it harder by you having to perform.
Kate Gerasimova:
And I found myself through my working career, that the easiest way for me to receive feedback or to give feedback is when I’m not overthinking, [inaudible 00:28:17] not trying to make too far out of it, but it’s just taking situation as it is and just seeing as you mentioned a greater picture of why I’m doing this, for what reason then. And also coming at it from this vulnerable place, from your heart. And then when I’m honestly caring about the person and I do care about people I give feedback to, I’m thinking almost first from their point of view. And then two, if I have any assumptions I’m making, I’m clarifying those assumptions as well. So that’s been just personally experience with helping me and then it just feels right. When you give or receive feedback, sometimes I take indication of feeling, if it feels right, then may be that one’s right.
Harrison Kim:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah. And frankly, if you’re receiving some negative or critical or constructive feedback and you’re feeling heated up, I mean, it’s human nature. And if you’re really heated up and you can’t really digest the information, just ask for some time, right? It’s totally fair and mature for you to be like, hey, I appreciate your time, but can we revisit this in a few minutes, because I want to have a productive conversation, but I’m definitely getting a little heated up. I think that’s totally okay.
Kate Gerasimova:
I love that approach, it’s very direct, but at the same time it gives you an opportunity to process it versus so many times you would hear somebody yelling at each other. You’re like, you don’t want that behavior in an organization, that’s inappropriate and unprofessional, so that’s a different way of taking some time just to process it and to thinking about it.
Harrison Kim:
Right, absolutely.
Kate Gerasimova:
Great. I know we talked about feedback a lot, but there’s one more question I had for you, and it’s going back to the beginning of our conversations and about culture, what does culture of feedback and accountability mean? And you mentioned that sponsorship is a very important component. It’s coming also top down and bottom up, from high-performers and from leaders, let’s imagine a scenario that feedback is not part of the culture yet, but people really would enjoy it. They keep asking for it. How would they ask for sponsorship inside of their organizations or how does it start?
Harrison Kim:
Yeah. So, I’ve seen it multiple ways. One way that I’ve seen it is finding an executive leader that cares about mentorship, apprenticeship and feedback and coaching and things like that, right? I think, I mean, if you’re able to find that kind of executive sponsor, starting that conversation with that person from the get-go I think is very, very important. So that’s the best case scenario, right? You’ve got a sponsor already in place, you just need to socialize the idea with them and start planning with that person. That’s I think a pretty easy scenario.
The other scenario is if you are working in an environment where you don’t have that executive sponsor, if that’s the case, and if you are in the more manager or director level or VP level, what I would recommend is try to run a small pilot program within your team, right? So basically what I would recommend is, and it doesn’t have to be something fancy, right? What you can do is start literally just putting together some very simple tools, even you can do it with Google Sheets or Google forms or Excel or whatever it is and some small processes around with your teams on sharing feedback and receiving feedback and requesting feedback. And just start there and see what change in terms of productivity, morale, and engagement that you see with your team members and have that as your “business case,” right?
Create that, and then start socializing within your organization. I think that is one tactical way to do it. And the reality is most people understand that feedback is good for employees, right? It’s just figuring out, making sure that you can get the capacity and you can get the business case down. And I think having that small testing type of pilot program within your own group, I think is low risk and an easy way to start that fire.
Kate Gerasimova:
Oh, I love this. I love it. Thinking about it, taking it small and seeing what works, what doesn’t and going bigger with this.
Harrison Kim:
Absolutely.
Kate Gerasimova:
Well, thank you so much for sharing with our listeners your experience about the culture of feedback and accountability. Any other last minute suggestions or helpful nuggets for our listeners?
Harrison Kim:
No, I think I’ve basically told you everything I know.
Kate Gerasimova:
Love it. Thank you so much, and let’s keep learning from this. Where can our listeners find you?
Harrison Kim:
Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me on LinkedIn, Harrison Kim is the name and or our websites www.pavestep.com.
Kate Gerasimova:
Wonderful, thank you. And the one last question before I let you go is, what are you most grateful for in this last month?
Harrison Kim:
In this last month? Wow. The thing that I’m most grateful for is that I have been healthy. I didn’t get sick. I did hurt my ankle randomly, but outside of that, healthy body so far, so I’m grateful for that.
Kate Gerasimova:
That’s great. Well, I’m grateful for that too. And thank you so much for coming and speaking to our listeners and sharing your wisdom.
Harrison Kim:
Absolutely, thank you for having me.
Chris Cancialosi:
Thanks for joining us this week on the gothamCulture Podcast, make sure you visit our website, gothamculture.com, where you can subscribe to the show, find show notes, or contact us for support regarding your organizational culture challenges. Special thanks to Blue Sky Podcasting for producing and sponsoring this episode. To learn more about producing custom podcasts for your organization, check out the folks at Blue Sky at www.blueskypodcasting.com. Until next time, this is your host, Chris Cancialosi and I look forward to our next discussion.
Going Slow to Go Fast
In this episode, Chris Cancialosi talks with gothamCulture’s Shawn Overcast about her experience realigning teams after disruptive events. LIke those of us who keep way too many applications open on our computers for too long, slowing our ability to get things done, sometimes our teams can experience the same effect when grappling with mounting priorities and disruption. When that happens, it may be time to reboot.
Released: June 17, 2020
Show notes and transcript: Shawn references an interview with Storied CEO Michael Margolis titled Storytelling in the Age of Disruption.
Going Slow To Go Fast – gothamCulture Podcast Transcript
Chris Cancialosi:
Welcome to the gothamCulture podcast, where we talk about any topic you’d like, so long as those topics are organizational culture, leadership, or people strategy. Each week, we talk with industry leaders and discuss cultural opportunities and challenges in the workplace, providing you with actionable tips and strategies that you can implement in your organizations. My name is Chris Cancialosi, and this is the gothamCulture podcast.
Welcome everyone to the gothamCulture podcast, this is Chris Cancialosi. One of the things that we’ve been talking about a lot lately, are how individuals, teams, and organizations are struggling to readapt to these disruptive times. And every time there was kind of the demand of new operating environments, and it creates the need for organizations to really take a hard look and re-examine what right looks like for them, to really re-examine what things may serve them well moving forward, and what things they may need to think about doing differently, not only in order to survive, but in order to thrive, in the new operating environment. When being forced to reinvent the way teams bring value to their customers, it really does, in many ways, pay to go slow to go fast. And what I mean by that, is taking some time upfront, taking a short pause to understand the new reality and the new requirements, and for individuals and teams to really realign around a new way of bringing value to their customers.
Today’s guest has worked with a wide variety of teams at all levels, prior to and throughout the COVIT pandemic, and she’s been working lately with teams to do what she calls rebooting, really taking time to pause, to understand the new operating environment, and to come to alignment around things like roles and responsibilities, systems and processes, and ways of working to be most effective in these dramatically new working environments. Shawn Overcast is with us today. She’s a partner here at gothamCulture, and she’s here with us to discuss her findings, her work, and some tips on how you might reboot your own teams, in order to survive and thrive in this new chapter. Hey, welcome to the show, Shawn.
Shawn Overcast:
Thanks. Great to be here.
Chris Cancialosi:
And this is kind of a unique episode, because for the first time on the GC podcast, we’re actually interviewing a team member from GC, but I felt it was really important that we talk to you, Shawn, because of your depth of experience within the topic that we’re going to talk about. Obviously, over the last few months, we’ve had quite a few episodes talking about how individuals and teams cope with, survive, thrive, within the new pandemic era, and one of the things that we haven’t talked about in depth, is how we can restart things. There’s a lot going on in society about restarting, realigning, and what the go forward is. So Shawn, you work with a lot of teams in terms of team alignment and group process. What have you been working on lately?
Shawn Overcast:
So prior to the pandemic, and the change of work, the world of work, as we knew it, earlier in 2020, we had been working with a number of teams on doing what we would refer to as team alignment. So getting teams to work together better, more efficiently, to collaborate in a more streamlined fashion, to improve relationships, and most of that work was done together in person. Just as the world of work has changed and moved to a more virtual environment, we’ve been working with our clients, whether it be related to teams, or related to culture, or related to professional development, is how do we pivot to continue to offer support in a way that works in this new virtual world?
And for a couple of weeks, I’d say, in the March/April timeframe, that was very much the focus is, how do we do so in a virtual world? And it wasn’t too long that we began to consider, is this a long-term solution? Do we look at the virtual world as the long-term, it’s here to stay? Or do we start to think about what do we need to be planning for when we return to work? And as you can imagine, that raises all kinds of questions that people are still grappling with across the world, is will return to work? When will we return to work? What will it look like when we do? And so, we took those questions and some of those broader concepts about how work gets done, and applied to the conversations we were having before, about the teams meeting to still be aligned, to get work done in a very different way, with a whole lot of uncertainty.
Chris Cancialosi:
Got it. So it seems like there are a lot of things that you’ve been supporting clients with, in terms of team alignment over the years, and a lot of that still holds true, but it seems like there’s a bit of a different laser focus on some topics, specifically related to how work gets done in this new environment. And I imagine that looks different for every single team, and based on your industry or sector, your functional area, there’s just a lot of variability in how that works. There’s really no cookie cutter solution.
Shawn Overcast:
Yeah, and a lot of the initial conversation as we responded to this most recent disruption to how work is getting done, has been consistent though, across industry, across size of team, or level of team in the organization. And what initially was shifting to working from home conversation, became one about reclaiming and redefining our purpose as a team, and there was a lot of discussion about, are we essential, or what is it that we do that is essential, and how do we maintain our focus, or become laser focused on that purpose, as a team? It wasn’t just the shift of how work gets done, but also all of the societal context that we’re working within, with the public health crisis, with the increased stress of everybody now working in their living rooms and kitchens, surrounded by their families and their children, perhaps being unable to go outside, a lot of disruptions that we weren’t planning for, nor prepared for. And so, in that, as we had that common collective experience across the globe, there was a common collective desire, or need to reclaim our purpose as a team.
Chris Cancialosi:
Yeah, that’s fascinating. So I’m wondering from your perspective, since you work with so many teams, and this is a generalization, but as folks are beginning to think about moving from kind of the defense, to more of this kind of go forward, and what is it going to look like, reclaiming purpose, I heard you say is kind of a key topic, what are most teams struggling with from your experience, as they make this transition into this go forward posture?
Shawn Overcast:
It seems that what most people are struggling with, is taking the first step to figure that out. Everything feels overwhelming. The work, getting the work done differently feels overwhelming. The team that comes together looks different. We’re coming together from different locations. We don’t have the common experience of necessarily sitting around a table, or even the common experience of what’s going on in the background of our work life at home. And so, it’s finding that what is that first step that we can take, and how do we work to reclaim our purpose? And the teams that have been very effective with that, have found ways to communicate, leveraging technology, balancing across time zones, but also with the words that they say, leaders finding ways to communicate, to bring a team together and acknowledge the current situation, and band together to plan a course of action, a way forward.
Chris Cancialosi:
Really interesting stuff, Shawn. Hey, we’re going to take a really quick break. When we come back, we’re going to continue our conversation with Shawn Overcast. She’s a partner here at gothamCulture. She’s been working with a variety of teams across industry and sector for a number of years, and she’s sharing her experiences working with teams throughout the pandemic, and throughout this transition to reopening the economy. We’ll be right back with Shawn.
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Welcome back, everybody. You’re listening to the gothamCulture podcast. Joining me today is gothamCulture partner, Shawn Overcast. We’ve been talking about Shawn’s work with teams over the last years, and particularly, over the last few months, as teams were initially grappling with the disruption associated with working from home, social distancing, et cetera, and now, how it’s evolving as the country reopens, how teams are going to kind of be productive moving forward in this new environment.
And I’d really love to kind of get practical here. I’d imagine that most business leaders want to drive action, have a sense of urgency to get back to full productivity, whatever that means for them. But one of the things that you’ve been talking about, really sounds like the need to go slow to go fast, taking some time to really be intentional about where teams are, where organizations are within the market, and what they need to be thinking about doing differently, or doing the same. So in terms of your work, I’d imagine that although every team is unique, I’d imagine that there’s some similarity or commonalities that you might be seeing, and I’m curious to get your take on that. What are you typically working on in these alignment processes with clients?
Shawn Overcast:
So, it’s been interesting, you mentioned how do we get teams to continue to work together? How do we maintain productivity and efficiency of the work getting done, in response to this disruption? And one of the ways that we’ve been thinking about this, and how we’ve repositioned the team alignment process, is more of a reboot. And I think this came up from just personal experience, I leave my computer running with all different kinds of things open, apps, and tabs, and over time, things start to slow down, and I keep trying to force it, keep doing what I’m doing,, and make it work the way it’s always worked. And then something happens, something breaks down and I end up having to reboot my whole computer.
And when I open it back up, and take stock of what is it that I needed to have open, what is it that I truly need to focus on, I can move much faster. I don’t have the distractions of everything open, things are moving faster. And just that act of taking stock of what was it that I was supposed to focus on, what was it that was most important for me to have open on my computer, drives so much greater productivity and efficiency, of how fast just the operating system of the computer works. And we-
Chris Cancialosi:
I love that. I love it.
Shawn Overcast:
Yeah.
Chris Cancialosi:
You don’t want to keep things open to the point where you get the blue screen of death, that’s for sure.
Shawn Overcast:
Oh gosh, no. Nobody’s aiming for the blue screen of death. And so, it resonates with teams. Gosh, we are, I think even within our own teams here at gotham, we’re trying through all of this chaos to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Just keep doing what we’ve always been great at, and things will go back to normal, and that’s not what’s working. Things are slowing down, systems are crashing, tabs that used to be there don’t work anymore, their processes have totally changed, you’re redirected to other sites, or other departments, or other people, and it’s become really inefficient.
And so, as we’re working, shifting from the realignment, we are rebooting teams. And I talked earlier about we need to reclaim our purpose, but even more fundamental than that, we need to look at what is it that we need to focus on? How do we need to work together to collaborate most efficiently? What distractions can we get rid of, can we close down on? Where can we work together to problem solve? How can we better resolve conflict as we’re moving in this new environment? And how are we going to make decisions with so many different ways of working, and that they are counterparts that we need to interact with companies, or other departments, or other functions, how are we going to work together differently in this new environment? And so, this concept of a reboot has really resonated with [inaudible 00:15:05].
Chris Cancialosi:
Yeah, I love that. I love it. I keep thinking back to this concept of going slow to go fast as you talk, Shawn. As a business leader, trying to adapt quickly, I think many people might want to just put their foot on the gas and kind of figure it out along the way, but what I’m hearing is, hey, taking a little bit of time to press pause and reevaluate the situation, you can kind of remove a lot of the roadblocks before you kind of step on the gas again. It seems like a lot. So, you’ve mentioned a lot of really specific topics that you’re working with teams through. I mean, as a leader, it seems a little overwhelming. Where do you start?
Shawn Overcast:
Yeah, there’s a couple key concepts that I encourage leaders to keep in mind, and it doesn’t have to be a big step, or a big effort, or heavy lift. What’s more important is consistency, that whatever it is we choose to do, that we do so consistently. We’re building a new muscle for the team, and in any building of a new muscle, it just takes consistent action, consistent effort. So consistency of effort, of bringing the team together, with the focus on rebooting that team.
Another is communication, and there is more than you could ever research about communication on the internet, but the very basics is communicate, communicate, communicate with consistency. And the way that we’ve looked at this from a team reboot, is with consistency, that we are consistently modeling an effort of bringing the team together for conversation. It’s less important what that agenda is, more important that we are gathering in a regular and consistent manner. So maybe that looks like a 15 minute meeting, or a 30 minute meeting once a week or every few weeks, to only focus on the team. No other distractions of what work is getting done, or what the priority of the day is, but to truly focus on this team, and how is this team functioning.
With regard to communication, as I mentioned, consistent communication and over-communication, and there are many different channels in which to do that. The scheduling of the meeting is one way, but just looking to communicate about the importance of the team’s interactions and the team’s collaboration, the more we communicate about what is important and what is necessary for the team to work together, the more that that resonates and becomes part of the daily interactions of teams working together.
Chris Cancialosi:
Right. So it sounds like there’s some core common elements across teams, but that the way you actually manifest this type of process can look really different from team to team, based on their situation. Is that correct?
Shawn Overcast:
Yeah. And so, in some cases, there may be a reboot process that we coordinate in a half day, and there are a handful of conversations we want to talk about. We’re going to reboot, we’re going to remove distractions, we’re going to reclaim our purpose, we’re going to address topics of trust, and how are we engaging, where do we need more transparency? How are decisions being made? How is collaboration happening? But with the idea of consistency, we might want to spread that out a bit. So we’ll have these meetings, say, every two weeks, every three weeks, to focus on protecting time for focus on the team. That’s one way that our clients have been addressing the reboot, is it’s not something that we’re trying to check the box on, but something that we’re trying to do over time.
Another question I get a lot from leaders is, “How do I talk about it? What are the things that I say? What’s okay to acknowledge? I don’t want to focus too much on all of the negative and the stressful components, I want to focus more on the hope of the future, and just, gosh, we can’t wait to get back to normal, or even back to the new normal.” And one of the things I want leaders to be really careful not t