Intro:

Shelly Elsliger, founder of Linked-Express, is a celebrated LinkedIn Trainer and Social Connection Maker. Founder of the #decidetobekind movement, she tackles online bullying and promotes a culture of kindness.

Recognized by the National Women Speakers and a Forbes contributor, Shelly is a voice for diversity and psychological safety in the workplace. In her personal time, she enjoys pickleball and supports animal welfare in Nova Scotia.

Writing a book, almost done, "From Connections to Protection: combating bullying on linkedin" - coming out in early 2025!

Stay in Touch with Shelly: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/selsliger

To learn more about Shelly and her Services: https://linkedexpress.ca/

Bullying on LinkedIn is a little bit more discreet and it's not in your face like it is with some of the other social media sites you have to be very diligent. If you're dealing with a bully, don't think anything goes past them. And just remember that they can just come up like a chameleon and, and, and change their spots.

Welcome to weirdos in the workplace. The podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work today. I'm your host, Erin Patchell, and welcome to Shelly Ellslager, my friend.

Hi, Shelly. Hi, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Uh, Shelley Elsliger is the founder of linked express. She's a celebrated LinkedIn trainer and social connection maker, the founder of the decide to be kind movement, hashtag decide to be kind. She tackles online bullying and promotes a culture of kindness.

She's been recognized by the national women's speakers and is a Forbes contributor. She's the voice for diversity and psychological safety in the workplace and in her personal time. She enjoys Pickleball, uh, and supports animal welfare in Nova Scotia. And Shelley, I was so excited just right before the show that you're going to be an author soon in early January, February 2025.

Um, book called From Connections to Protection, Combating Bullying on LinkedIn. That's amazing. You're so cool. I love you. It's great to talk about it, actually. Thank you. Getting it out there early. I like that. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, no, no, no. Um, I mean, you're probably one of the most prolific LinkedIn, uh, trainers that I've ever met.

Um, so, you know, that's pretty, I think that's pretty neat. You know, you're, you've deep dived right in. Yeah. I don't know my life without LinkedIn, to be honest. I, I, it's just such a big part of what I do and what I help other people to do and achieve. So I just feel it's just a part of my regular everyday life.

Every day, but. I've been using and promoting LinkedIn for a long, long time. Yeah, I actually love LinkedIn. I am not a fan of other social media platforms, mainly because I think, you know, the discussion kind of we're, we're going to be talking a little bit about bullying and online bullying today and, you know, and just being a, just a.

Big, big jerk all around, you know, people being jerks. Um, but I find like, like Twitter or X, you know, even like Instagram, Facebook, uh, Twitter, YouTube's terrible nowadays. You know, you can't look at a comment section without. Without just having it turn your stomach anymore, you know, um, anyways, we're going to go down that rabbit hole, uh, further, but I want to know, like, how did you get so invested in LinkedIn?

Like, tell me what that journey was like for you. So it's interesting how you know my relationship with LinkedIn became more than just the average person I mean I, I was an educator as a career development specialist I mean still am in many ways but that took up a big part of my career so there was.

LinkedIn had, like early on, had a contest and about what would you do, you know, if you were a LinkedIn trainer, how would you take LinkedIn and, and make LinkedIn something that would, um, improve, uh, somebody's, uh, life or a group of people's lives. You know what I mean? What would you do? And I had the idea that I.

Would create this workshop or series called LinkedIn and High Heels, and there's a story behind that by Hilton, but that I would create something for women business leaders called LinkedIn and High Heels and, um, to, to get them to rise up. So, you know, you can wear anything you want, but to rise up to the occasion, and how you could brand yourself effectively.

On LinkedIn and get over imposter syndrome and really create a space, um, as a woman leader on LinkedIn. And so when I presented this, and the funny thing is, is that I really didn't have an idea. So I presented it, won the contest, went to Calgary, ended up, you know, at this conference, which was kind of like the, what I won, um, ended up at a coffee shop.

I'm standing in line. I see somebody with the LinkedIn. jacket on. And of course, I know everything there is to know. So I decide that I'm going to pay a latte forward. And I'm going to, all of a sudden I got this idea, I'm going to call it a LinkedIn latte. So person orders and I come up and I say, I'll pay for that, you know, I'll pay that forward.

And so then I said, and here's your LinkedIn latte. And then anyway, we ended up sitting down and had an interesting conversation. Two hours later, when we should have been at the conference and networking, we were kind of like chatting. And then this whole idea came up that I, about what I had presented and why I had won and all of this.

You know, the whole story behind it, and it, it just, let's just say that coffee, and I think coffee is so powerful in creating relationships and opportunities, and I, I use the LinkedIn Latte thing ever since, but, don't trust anyone who doesn't drink coffee, by the way, yes, but it doesn't even have to be a coffee, it can be anything.

It's just that whole idea of social, like I call LinkedIn Latte everything, um, you know, but the whole idea of just. Using something to create connection. And with that coffee, I ended up being introduced to some key players at, at LinkedIn and people who liked my ideas and people who supported me and, and I ended up.

Just becoming kind of this. I don't, I don't want to say I was part of the LinkedIn team I wasn't at that point but it was somebody that they were looking at as you know somebody as a speaker somebody they could trust, because at that time we got to remember this is quite a ways back it doesn't happen today.

But they were looking for people who needed, who could, you know, spread the word and help people learn about their LinkedIn, uh, learn more about their LinkedIn experience and their LinkedIn profile and optimizing their profile because that's not really what LinkedIn Canada does. It's not what they do either.

Right. They're for sales. That's how they make money. So anyway, so it transpired and it grew. And then I ended up actually working with LinkedIn, like working with LinkedIn as an external liaison for University of Toronto for, um, uh, for a three, a three year period and actually working on LinkedIn learning and optimizing your profile.

And so that was a significant, um, three year stint of working with LinkedIn, like working in that capacity. So, yeah, so that's how it all transpired. So that's quite a ways back. And ever since then, ever since being. Having the opportunity to present what I would want to do with LinkedIn, um, ever since then, I, I've been a believer and I, I am just promote it wherever it can go.

And right now in 2024, it's no longer optional before it was, it's no longer optional today. No, I agree. I'm shocked that When I see people that aren't on LinkedIn, um, and I don't know how they, I don't know how they, they support their own careers, you know, I guess they're just happy with the job they have.

And that's great for them. And I hope that they never lose it. No, like that. And that is the issue because many people think that they only should be on LinkedIn for a job. If they're not looking for a job, then hey, let me get off LinkedIn and then go back if I need a job. And that creates so much havoc with your space on LinkedIn.

Mm-Hmm. , your, your algorithm. Mm-Hmm. , um, how your algorithm runs on LinkedIn and, and actually you're not, you're doing yourself a disservice because LinkedIn is actually a networking site. So if you're only on there to find a job, then you're taking away all of the, all of what has to happen on LinkedIn to lead up to, to that, you know, you're not building those connections.

You're not building trust. You're not showing your expertise. You're not working with the LinkedIn algorithm by, you know, only coming in when you think you should. And that's just totally like a myth. It's just because LinkedIn is at the end of the day, a net, a networking site and everything is grounded in.

You're like, let's put it this way. You're like ability score on LinkedIn is how well you network. Right. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Um, and it's, it's, it's like, you know, demonstrating your expertise anywhere else in the world to, you know, LinkedIn is just, you know, it's, it's, um, Kind of like a microcosm of the rest of the world, right?

It's just like condensed into one space. Um, so the opportunity is huge if you can take advantage of it by demonstrating your expertise and like sharing knowledge and ideas with people, you know, connecting with interesting people, getting curious. Um, I do find like, this is why I love LinkedIn so much.

It's because it's, it feels like the majority of people there, Have like kind of that growth mindset that you, you want to cultivate with your, in your network, or at least I do. The people in my network, you know, tend to be doing interesting things. They're curious. They're starting businesses or starting interesting projects or volunteering.

They're getting involved in their communities. Um, and I think that's amazing. And so when you told me that there's actually, um, this, this rather, you know, surprisingly large group of people that are actually using LinkedIn as like a tool for bullying, um, and then there's sort of like a dark underbelly. I was so surprised.

Um, can you, can you lead us into that a little bit? Yes, I mean, it's not, you know, I wish I could say that LinkedIn could hide itself from bullying. I, and I don't say this, and I talk about bullying on LinkedIn a lot. Um, and I don't say it to discourage people from using LinkedIn. I mean, I'm such an advocate for LinkedIn.

But I, you know, LinkedIn is one of those sites where people Go in sometimes blindly like they they want to go in believing that we're everyone's professional and everyone is going to take that professional space seriously. And, um, lift each other up and it is nice to believe that and for the most part, bullying on LinkedIn is a little bit more discreet and it's not in your face like it is with some of the other social media sites.

So, because of that, many people don't suspect it there. And, but it's, it exists, because at the same time. Naturally, there are people, jealous people, um, angry people, um, frustrated people and LinkedIn can be kind of a really good place for them to, um, take out the, those feelings. And, um, bully or harass people is a way for them to, um, gain power.

I mean, bullying on LinkedIn is no different than bullying any place. Um, bullies are, have, um, a need or a desire to, um, lash out at others as a way to mask their insecurities. And when you're dealing with LinkedIn in a professional site. You're dealing with a lot of power players, you're dealing with jealous colleagues, these are just the potential.

You're dealing with people who are very opinionated, and I mean that in a very exaggerated way. And you have people who are wanting the attention and not knowing how to get it in any other way. Right? And then you have what I call podmasters. And they are the, the ones that look like they're your best friends and act like they're your best friends and look like they're really looking out for you, but they're not.

And they, they go after you and control you in a way to, to, that looks to you like support or feels like support and inclusivity, but it's actually not because as soon as you make a wrong move. You're also from the group, and that can be very difficult for many people. So it exists. It can just be not as not as visible to people looking in as like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram.

Right. They can be much more visible. So, you know, my idea is that we have to know about it to do something about it. We don't have to know about it to run away from it because bullying exists everywhere. Um, but we have a chance by learning and opening ourselves up to understanding how it plays out to do something about it when we're in that situation.

And I think that that's what's important to me because I've had bullies in my life. And when I became old enough to, to understand it and to do something about it, I decided to become a true advocate and do something about it. And because LinkedIn takes up so much of my life. Learning about some of the stories that I have over the years, just kind of like those stories kind of did it for me like they kind of like the like where I was going with LinkedIn and kind of just created another space that I could that I found myself in been very passionate about because It's not something that's talked about that often when it comes to LinkedIn, but something that's really important to talk about.

A hundred percent. And I think it's, it's, you know, when you go on Twitter, when you go on YouTube, it's, you see the comments, it's kind of easy to ignore them in a way because you're ready for it. You know, you're ready. They're there, you're, you're kind of your guards up, you know, and I know sometimes I've posted some, you know, YouTube videos, like weird as in the workplace videos, uh, and there have been quite a few, usually they're in the DEI or, you know, inclusion space.

Which is very sad. And those are the videos that get targeted the most, you know, by online bullies and dissenters and people who are just philosophically opposed, you know, to, to being kind to others, essentially, you know, and actually including others and considering others. So, um, which it sounds crazy, but, um, you know, they're, they're, they're out there.

So, yeah, but, so, but, but the, the point is, um, you don't expect that on LinkedIn. Right. So, you know, I think that it is. harder to handle when you're not expecting it. You know, when you're, you feel like you're, you know, in a space where you can be authentic and let your guard down and then, you know, then it hits you and then something happens.

Um, and that's probably even, that's probably that much more traumatizing, I would think. It is. And, and it's happened to several people and, um, it's, it's so, um, impactful that I mean, you know, I could tear up at some of the stories that I've heard over the years because you, you know, most of us go into LinkedIn with so much trust and we're remote.

We're doing is we're going on LinkedIn because we want to open that open our, how do you say that? Our circle of trust. We want to open that by going on LinkedIn. And then what happens when we do encounter a bully, our, our, our power, our trust. Like it, it, we suddenly, suddenly something happens and we're just not expecting it.

We're not expecting that that's going to happen. Right? So, so what happens is it just may, it, it, everything it, that we've gone into LinkedIn with thinking about and imagining and, and that, that, that circle that we want so badly to, In large suddenly has been disintegrated with with with a remark or, um, with bullying or harassment and it closes people down it.

It it's sometimes unrecoverable for some people, they just can't come back, they leave the platform like it because it's so they just went in there with a sense of trust and they didn't suspect anything. So when that happened, it was so devastating that the result was devastating as well. And that's why I'm happy to be talking about it and writing a book about it.

Because. Awareness will is key awareness is that you go into LinkedIn, but you still have to have kind of and I call it like, you know, a bully alert system. And just be aware that it can happen because LinkedIn is not immune to bullying, LinkedIn is not immune to it. It's just. It may show up in different spots.

It may hide its ugly head. And it's easy to hide. Bullies can easily hide on LinkedIn because they can use What's there for them, like direct messaging, they can put things in like a really crowded, like, um, let's say a post does really well and they can take that post and manipulate it in some way, shape or form.

So there's just little, little way, there's, there's more ways to do it on LinkedIn that is not as outward as you would see on some of the other sites. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think it's very interesting, especially if you're someone who's new to LinkedIn, you know, that that phase that those first several weeks or months when you're on LinkedIn, or if maybe you're coming back, maybe you've had an account for a while, but you've never really been active, you know, and you decide to become active on LinkedIn, those are like really vulnerable moments, you know, like it's usually people are stepping way outside their comfort zone when they begin to become active on LinkedIn.

And so, you know, I can see that that would, that would be very difficult. Um, I have a lot of experience with bullying as a younger person. Um, we were bullied, bullied pretty profoundly, uh, you know, in, in, um, you know, when, in the younger years, um, And, uh, yeah, so I, I mean, I, I've never tolerated it with anyone.

It's one of my major triggers. You know, even I've, we've been walking with my husband on the street, you know, seeing kids bullying another kid and I will lose my shit, Shelly. I will literally like, I will, I will go off, you know, and, and I'm not like saying we should go yell at other people's kids or whatever, but it's happened once or twice.

You know, like it's just it's just such a big trigger like you should never treat people with disrespect. You know, I get it. I get it. Yeah. I don't I don't sit back and I, I can be pretty quiet, Matt, like my manner is kind of quiet. But when it comes to that I become somebody different. I, I, because I was bullied, um, and that's how the LinkedIn and High Heels came out, which you can talk about later, but I, um, yeah, it's a trigger for me as well.

And it's a trigger for me on LinkedIn as well. It's, it's like when I see it, because I became a CSI on LinkedIn for a year and reached out to people who had no, who were no longer active because I did a changemaker series for about three years where I, Every month, pretty much every month, I had a change maker series on people that I had become acquainted with or even friends with on LinkedIn.

And suddenly I saw people dropping off and not being there anymore. And so reaching out to them or finding them through another method and then hearing their stories. It just broke me. It really broke me because, you know, what happened when I was younger broke me as well. I mean, I recovered. I took that adversary and, you know, that adverse situation when I was, you know, 12 and 13, and I, I turned it around so that I could, you know, That I could do something good.

Um, but it breaks me when I see it. So when that happens, I, I become a different person because I can't just let it happen. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a psycho. Like they will never do that again. I guarantee you. I'm yeah, for sure. Um, and we're in it, you know, if my kids, if I see my kids even, cause I've got three, they're teenagers now and they're very well adjusted somehow.

Um, but, uh, you know, if I ever saw any of that behavior from them, even to each other or to other people, that was the last time they ever did that. Believe me, I can be scary. Like, you know, nothing scarier than a person who's been bullied and who's an anti bully. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we have to, anyway, I think they need, they need people like us.

Yeah. So how can everyone kind of keep an eye out for this kind of behavior? And what do you do if you notice it? So there, uh, so there are different things that can show up on LinkedIn, which is a form of bullying. You know what? I always say, go with your gut. Cause I've been told that over the years, if it doesn't feel right, then it probably isn't right.

You know, if somebody, so I had a bully recently, people would not call that person a bully, but I am calling that person a bully. And the reason I say that is because I really don't put out anything on LinkedIn that I don't know something about, you know, I mean, they don't go there to be anybody else or I don't, you know, I have the, the things that I've honed the, the, you know, my expertise that I've honed.

And I usually really am very aware, and I plan what I'm going to share. And I share from the perspective of, of knowledge, like I, like I, I know, or it's an example or a story or some expertise. Sure. So anyway, this one person I've been in, you know, career development, like I said, a long time over 20 years.

And I put out something about, um, a resume and I, I told people not to post their resume on LinkedIn. And I'll tell today, do not post your resume on LinkedIn. Anybody can download your resume on LinkedIn, and that is a great way to say, okay, take my identity, you know, if you want to, that's it, you might as well just invite people post their whole resumes, like with their addresses and everything.

Yes. Okay. Yes. And they posted in the featured section or they posted. Now, if you post it for a recruiter in the private section, that's different. Nobody accesses the private place to for jobs because that's private. That's only between you and the recruiter, which is you're sending your resume in for a particular, you know, job that I'm not meant.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about like the featured section, people featured section to post the resume. And for people now, if you want to do a resume, but you with the understanding that none of your contact information are on there are no identity of work, you actually like work because that can go back to something like, you can't leave, you can't put a resume up there that could lead to any anywhere like you know, so.

But most people are not aware. So the majority, I can go on and if I find somebody with a resume, chances are that resume has not been edited in any way or docked any way to make it, um, okay, confidential, confidential and private. And you're just basically putting it up there, but you don't need to put it up there.

Somebody's going to ask you for your resume. If you're a job seeker, they're going to ask you, they need to, I mean, your resume, like your LinkedIn has, I mean, most of the qualities of your resume anyways, I would say, you know, of course your resume, I mean, it's your story, it's your journey, but at the same time, you're still doing your work experience.

You're still. Um, and you don't need to put your resume up there so I, I gave this advice. This one person who told me that's not true. People can put their resumes up there. And at first that was fine. People can have their opinions.

LinkedIn is built for sharing opinions, of course, but she was inviting people into the conversation, her, her friends, she basically telling me, no, it's not that way, and then it turned into. A direct attack at my knowledge. That's where it started to feel uncomfortable. Yeah. No kidding. I can't even imagine.

I didn't do anything at that time because bullies want you to react, right? So I know this, but sometimes it's so hard not. So I got caught up in reacting at the, at the beginning. And then as people came to support, um, her, uh, I kind of like, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Backed away a little bit. Okay. I could see that there was, you know, a bit of, um, unhappiness around the fact that I wasn't responding.

Okay. But I didn't respond. I let it go. I didn't block anybody at that point. I didn't report anybody at that point. I didn't really do anything about it. I just eliminated myself from the conversation. Hmm. Skip a week. I put out something else. Same thing. Challenging me. The same person? Same person.

Challenging me on another issue. That's so weird. Like why? So weird. But I was not surprised because as I said, if it feels that it's not right, you know, it's not right. And I wasn't surprised when she came back. So basically it got to the point that anything I posted, um, she would come back. With, with some kind of attack on what it was her, like, what were her qualifications?

Is she like a competitor or something? Like, what's the deal at all? Like any ter, which I was surprised about because like, you know, if you're in human resources, I would really never work with. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I mean, you're kind of like announcing that you're, you're a big old jerk, you know, you're a big old jerk.

And why would you be looking on LinkedIn in the featured section for somebody's resume? Like if you want somebody's resume, you know that that's private, that's private information. I mean, of all people. You know, of all, of all backgrounds. So it was really surprising for me, but I think it was more personal than anything.

And for, and not that there's any personal relationship, I don't have a personal relationship. I just don't think that either. She didn't like what I said, or just, I was the target that she decided to target. And, um, I became a target and I could see it. And so there came a point when I. Started to be feel very anxious when I would go and post on LinkedIn and I feel very comfortable on LinkedIn.

It's not a space that I feel. Uh, I feel good on LinkedIn. And so right away I said no. As soon as I feel like that, no, I can't go any further. So I decided to do what I had to do and I, I had taken screenshots I had taken because I was gonna block and, and, and, um, eliminate all the, those conversation.

Mm-hmm, . But you can't do that until you. Record everything, because LinkedIn will take, it'll only take seriously as much as you can provide, as much as the evidence you can provide. So I did all of that, I took all kinds of screenshots of the conversation, what was said, even, and so then at one point I even got a DM, a direct message from that person, saying that I should stop putting things out on LinkedIn that are wrong, I'm going to ruin my credibility, and it was horrible.

So I thought, no way is this going to be my experience on LinkedIn, so I'm going to get my, you know, I'm a bully advocate. I know what to do, and this is a perfect example to do it. And I just went about, I, I reported her. I sent in all the documentation, because when you block somebody, they can't see anything from you, and you can't see anything from them.

And so it's great. It's a lot more effective than just unfollowing or, um, you know, discontinuing the connection. Um, so that was important and I reported to LinkedIn and I do know that she got a warning of what she was doing. Because it started off with that one post, but then it ended up being three or four before I did anything about it.

And that was long for me, but there was kind of a reason why I let it go, I normally wouldn't, but I wanted to use it to teach people. And I wanted to, uh, and I, I'm using it as a, as a teaching moment, but when, you know, it didn't feel good at the beginning. And as much as, just as I expected, it became something and the more that it happened, the more, um, aggressive the, the, the conversations became the more, um, like, I'm going to say Sally, you weren't doing what you were told.

So, you know, yeah, like just really, really, it went from being just challenging to, um, To being aggressive. And that's what you understand a bully and behavior. And so I, um, and then I put a stop to it after, after that, but that was my most recent encounter. Yeah. I'm really sorry to hear that you had to have that experience.

Yeah, it wasn't pleasant, but at the same time, I know how to handle it. Right. Like I, I, and that's. I guess that was another reason why I started the book. I had been putting information away for the book. Um, that incident there told me that I had to start writing the book, get it out there because unlike, I mean, there are a lot of people being bullied and much worse than what that example much worse than what I was harassment.

Like that's legitimate harassment. Yeah. Yeah. People have been. You know, and we can talk about that, but there have been other, other examples that are much worse, um, in the end, some have been taken offline, some have been taken offline, the bullying continued offline, and so that could, that can be. You know, pretty, pretty detrimental and friend as such.

So if someone feels like they're being bullied, obviously, like if you feel like you're being bullied, reach out to somebody like Shelly or even myself, like I'm always happy to jump in and, and support people as well. But um, what, where, where do people actually report? Like how, how, what's the process look like if we're actually reporting something?

On your profile, there's actually different places that you can go to, but we'll give one for example. So if, so in my case. When that person, um, sent that, sent that message, as soon as she sends the message in the, the, the conversation, there are three dots on the top corner, right? If you hit that, those three dots immediately, you can do something.

So there will be different options. You want to report this? Do you want to block this? Do you no longer want to follow this person? It depends on what your relationship is with this person, but they'll ask you a different answer. Um, or do you want to block, uh, do you want to report? So I hit at that point, I hit, I want to report and then it'll give me different, different options.

Okay. And you have to pick the option that relates to the situation. Okay. So record, record everything first, like take screenshots. Um, but I asked you for it. Okay. They're going to ask you for it. Okay. So take, take the screenshots you need to take, report them through LinkedIn. Um, and then what are the consequences through LinkedIn if they're reported?

So LinkedIn will either. So there's different things. I mean, I think LinkedIn has a long way to go in, in terms, but I mean, you've got to remember that there's a billion, over a billion people, right? So it's not like they can implement anything and it. I just want to say that the blocking, I have to say this because a lot of people don't know this, but the blocking feature didn't come originally when LinkedIn started.

Blocking feature came in about 2014 when a woman who was being harassed on LinkedIn won a lawsuit against LinkedIn. Okay. And because of that lawsuit that she won. Um, LinkedIn had to implement the block feature, right? So, every time LinkedIn does something, it's, it's huge. It's big. So, they, it doesn't happen overnight.

So, the more that you have, the more they will respond to it. And, many people have been disappointed. You know, when I talk to people who feel that they've been bullied, they've been disappointed with some of the responses that come from LinkedIn. Like, it doesn't meet. The requirements. Mm-hmm. Of being considered bullying or harassment. And so then when that happens, if LinkedIn is not gonna support you, that means LinkedIn is not going to do anything on, on the end of that individual. Right? So that means it's in your hands to do something and that's when the blocking and anything like that else that you can do. Um, because if LinkedIn doesn't make a move and sometimes they don't.

Then it's up to you to just protect yourself in that way, and I think the blocking feature at this point is basically the feature that you have to not engage with that person. Now there have been some people, you know, there are people that go above and beyond real heavy duty bullies who will make fake profiles.

And when it's a fake profile, then, and you don't know, that's why when, when it comes to, um, weeding out these fake profiles, again, you can report it to LinkedIn. If it's a big profile, if you feel it's a big profile and there are really like, you can spot a big profile. If you really look. Because if that person has built a profile and they have two connections, uh, you know, there's certain little things like that that you can, that you can kind of get an idea if you look close enough.

So, you know, if you have had a bullying experience, and you just feel that that person may be somebody that's not going to stop or, and maybe you won't even know. Just remember when these invitations to connect are coming through, make sure to do your due diligence by looking at that person's profile, because you, you can be you, you can be responsible and you can find those spammy.

Um, those spammy connection requests and the, and, and, you know, there, I, I'd like to just give an example of what I mean. So there was a rabbit hole there. Sure. So there was a connection of mine. Uh, who is, you know, I was quite close to and a friend as well when I was living in Toronto and there was a situation, uh, with an ex and, um, the ex was stalking her on LinkedIn, New Worship, obviously, um, and it got pretty bad because there were comments made in order to have her fired from her job.

Um, there were all kinds of, like, insults and, um, DMs and, and as soon as she would block, um, him, he would just do a new account. So, um, she did screenshots of all of these accounts and eventually LinkedIn listened to her, but at the beginning they were not listening to her. So she took it in her, in her own hands, like she reached out to me, which I was happy about and said, You know, this is happening to me and it's, it's, it's ruining me like I, I can't sleep, I can't eat.

And I said, this is what you're going to do. This is what you're, you know, you have to make sure you're being diligent. You know, some people just accept connection requests, like, you know, they're falling from the sky and, and don't, It's not a, you know, connection request when you're dealing with bullying behavior, you have no choice, but to be diligent when you're looking at the connection requests that are coming your way, unless, unless you know, or unless you're pretty, unless you can look at the profile and know immediately that, that it's fine.

But if you're kind of doubt, then you don't want to do that. Use your gut instincts, have a bully because you know, bullies are smart. And even if you have mutual connections, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Cause like, you're right. Some people just accept anyone, you know? So even if you've got mutual connections, that might not mean anything.

So you have to be very diligent. If you're dealing with a bully, don't think anything goes past them. And just remember that they can just come up like a chameleon and, and, and change their spots. And it's just the same bully just in a different, just in a different profile. But if you look deep enough, if you look, Diligent enough.

Most of the time they haven't had a long time to build their connections. So if you just look at that one piece of evidence alone, you know, and just, you'll get it. You'll get it. You'll feel it. And I think that that's just one thing you can do. Um, and, uh, anyway, that the person that I was referring to that had that bullying case, you know, Went off of LinkedIn for a year and a half after being bullied so much that she couldn't handle it, and it was so sad to, to, to see that happen to that degree.

And, and it's just so it's just important to be aware that it exists and it happens and, um, and people take it online because they can use something like your job, something that you're close to something that's important to you. They can use that and what they're going to go after. And that's what makes LinkedIn attractive for bullies in that way, especially when it comes to using your.

professional, the professional side to dig in and throw that knife or whatever you want to call it into the, uh, into the steak. I love it. I'm the worst metaphor person in the world, by the way. I mix up every single metaphor. So I was just waiting for what you were like, what's she going to say? Which, what are we throwing the knife into?

Um, I love it. Um, if there's, okay, so You, you work with a lot of people who are, you know, new to LinkedIn, you work with folks to get them from, you know, kind of a basic level to kind of an expert level. What is the best reason we've, we've talked a lot about like, you know, some trials and tribulations here with LinkedIn, but what is really the best reason to use LinkedIn in your opinion?

Community, the, the power of community. I mean, LinkedIn for me, well, it's all about community. I think. Communities are powerful. Um, and it's an incredible place to build community and I mean a global community. I'm a person who, you know, I've traveled, I, I just, I'm in diversity, equity, inclusion is another part of my, you know, portfolio, my, my expertise.

So it's so important for me for that global community and even moving, like, when you think about it so I've been, you know, Since I'm on LinkedIn, I've moved probably four provinces, and I don't have all contacts, even coming to, you know, I'm in Nova Scotia now, from Toronto to Nova Scotia, I didn't have a community here.

So what I did was I reached out. On linkedin and built that community so that when I came here, I could have some linkedin lattes with people and build at least that professional side and, and, you know, some have turned into be to be good friends and that provided me with the support because I'm a people person.

So, you know, it. Take that out of the equation and you're suddenly moving in moving somewhere where you don't have that community like I had an awesome community in Toronto, and an awesome community in Montreal and etc etc like, I mean I had my community. And so moving here with a business. And, you know, what do I do so actually LinkedIn was.

The key player in setting up that community for me, um, because I was able to come here and already schedule those kind of meetings and already feel like I know people like when we actually like, I think I had seven copies lined up when I got here. And when we actually met. It was like, there was no awkwardness, there was like no, we just, it was like we knew each other.

So there's a power in that, and when you're working with new grads like I have, you know, in university and college, like, I, They may be moving if they open their opportunities to moving to different places, this opens their opportunities for jobs. And so, but many fear going to the unknown that they built community.

And that's how I get them to break that fear of not moving somewhere else by building that community on LinkedIn so that they can continue building that community. offline once they get there. And so for me, it's, it's the power of, of community. Yeah. I think people need people like people need people. We are wired to need people.

We are wired to connect, um, and to support each other. And I think You know, people who don't think they need people probably you need, if you're out there and you're listening right now and you think I don't need people, I'm great on my own. I call bullshit because you will be a hundred times better if you have a good community around you to support you.

Um, I, yeah, I think that's true for everyone. Maybe you need community even more than everyone else does personally. Um, Yeah, and you be successful on LinkedIn, you need community because it's the community that's going to, to help you to grow. You know the power on LinkedIn isn't is really the second. So, you know your first connections.

Yeah. , but the power is really in the second connections because I can introduce you, I can tell somebody else, just like I was telling you earlier about different podcasts and, and, and yeah. And you know, I, it's the power of being able to share. It's the power of being able to, um, introduce It's the power.

It's, it's, it's, it's the power in building community for each other. Like, and so, yeah, it's just, it's so powerful. It's just, yeah, it's, yeah, it reminds me almost of that quote. Um, the more I know, the more I realize I know nothing at all. Right. The more people you connect with, the more you learn, the more you realize, like, wow, like my world, your world is so small.

There's so much out there. You know, so many, there's so many people, like a billion on LinkedIn. And you can't be successful on LinkedIn if you, if you go in with the idea that you're going to do it alone. Right. LinkedIn was not meant for that. It's a networking site. So they base everything. On your ability to connect and engage with people, they they based everything that like ability score that I told you about.

It's all based on on the power of community. It's based on the power of helping others. Um, that's what it's based on. So if you want your profile supported, if you want, you know, um, a stronger likeability score and to have a a, a stronger space and in LinkedIn, then the power is gonna rest. And how good you are with building those relationships, not doing it alone.

Yeah. It's just not the platform that was built in that way, you know? Uh, I mean, the mission of LinkedIn was for professionals to help professionals advance. So, uh, right there in itself, and that mission statement has never changed. Some people create their own mission statements for LinkedIn, but LinkedIn actually has its own mission statement.

Of course it does, yeah. They're, yeah, they're a business. And the mission statement is grounded in community. Um, yeah. Just before we wrap up, for starters, thank you so much for joining me today. Um, is there any way for people like, we're going to obviously add all your websites and your LinkedIn connection, like everywhere you could possibly get a hold of Shelly, we're going to put it in the show notes.

So never fear, you will be able to find her. Um, but do you have any actual like public trainings coming up or do you have any like information sessions or how can people learn more about how you can support them with LinkedIn? Yeah, I mean, right now, I mean, the best way is to, you know, to reach out on on LinkedIn, I have a services page there.

And, um, I mean, right now I'm in the thralls of this book and getting that done. So, yeah, I mean, and I've been visiting podcasts like this. And, you know, I, yeah, I mean, LinkedIn is always the best place to, to, I guess to connect. And because that's where I am and that's where I spend the majority of my time on social media I mean I know a lot of people will ask me what are your social media handles and.

I have to think for a moment to actually get there because on LinkedIn, I mean, among the other ones, maybe for social or connecting with family in New Brunswick, but other than that, LinkedIn is where I, you can get to know me without even Yeah, you can get to know me before we actually even speak. So, uh, that's the place to connect.

And I'm always happy to connect with people. Fantastic. Okay. Um, any, any final words, any, like, you know, just one more, a Columbo moment, just one more thing. I just want, you know, LinkedIn is, uh, is very powerful. And this, you know, what I talked about in regards to bullying and harassment is just a precaution.

It's just to say, you know, Don't go there blindsided. If you're looking for a job, it could show up with a potential employer. Uh, it can show up within your community. It can show up from a disgruntled colleague. It can show up with somebody who's just pure jealous of all your wonderful attributes. And just remember, it is a place with a lot of people, with a lot of diversity, which I think is amazing.

But at the same time, things can happen. It has a life of its own. So I just give that one piece of advice is that whether it's LinkedIn or any social media site, just go in with knowledge and go in with the idea that you're just gonna, that you know and understand what is there. And you're not going to go in and be blindsided, you're going to feel powerful.

And so if something comes your way, you'll do be able to do something about it just like I have and just like many people have. And now those people that have come back after being bullied are much stronger for it and much more confident and much more and much better at living LinkedIn life with that awareness.

And so it's actually something that is a good thing to know it's not something to be scared about it's something to say, I'm empowering myself I'm building confidence, and I'm educating myself. Thank you With all of the things that I need to know to navigate LinkedIn successfully and securely. And that's really what it comes down to.

And you're never alone. And you're never alone. And reach out. And reach out. You know, it doesn't have to be Aaron or it doesn't have to be me. There's lots of people within your community that will be helpful and, um, be, be able to just be there if you, if you need to, to answer or need some answers or need some guidance.

I mean, there are a lot of people on LinkedIn that have been there a long time, um, and, and know, uh, the ins and outs of. Getting help on LinkedIn. And so just use it. Um, and don't, and, and do use LinkedIn. Just remember that if you are, they just expect you to have it put the work in to, to provide any evidence or anything that can help your case.

And that, that would, that's not different from anywhere else. So if you're listening to this and you are not active on LinkedIn, consider this your sign that you need to be active on LinkedIn because everyone's got a cool story to share. That's true. Yes, and it's a great place to, um, brand and I, and, and as I said early on in the podcast, uh, LinkedIn is no longer optional.

It's, um, it's expected. So yeah, I mean, unless you're my husband and all you want to do all day is program and then everyone's just very happy for you to just sit in your little cave and program for 24 hours a day and that's fine. Nobody wants him on LinkedIn. Yeah, there are some people that will go on LinkedIn or don't believe they should have it should be on LinkedIn, but for the majority of us, we can benefit it benefit from it.

Right, right, right, right. It has been a pleasure, my lady. Thank you very much for joining me. I always enjoy spending some time with you. Thank you very much. Chat soon. Chat soon. Thank you.

Welcome Laurie Fenske to "Weirdos in the Workplace"!

Laurie embodies a lifelong philosophy of learning from every experience, embracing each challenge as an opportunity for growth. In 2016, Laurie pivoted her professional focus towards her true passion—coaching. Today, as a MCC level ICF certified coach, she offers bespoke solution-based coaching across North America and Europe.

Laurie's coaching sessions are energized and focused, aimed at significantly boosting productivity, enhancing leadership capabilities, improving team dynamics, and refining communication skills.

Stay in Touch with Laurie:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefenske/

https://www.instagram.com/fscgroup/

For more on Laurie and her Services:

http://www.fscgroup.ca

https://www.facebook.com/FSCGroupIncorporated

Welcome to Weirdos in the Workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work today. And I'm here with the lovely Lori Fenske. Say hi, Lori. Hi, Erin. Thank you for having me out here today. This is awesome. Awesome. Yeah. I'm super excited to have you on the show.

Um, so Laurie embodies a lifelong philosophy of learning from every experience, embracing each challenge as an opportunity for growth. And in 2016, she pivoted her professional focus towards her true passion coaching today as an MCC level, ICF certified coach. She offers bespoke solution based coaching across North America and Europe.

So I just want to pause there for a minute, Lori, because. As an ICF certified coach myself, you know, as part of the board of the ICF Ottawa, I'm extremely passionate about coaching. And you know, that cause we've worked working together and we've been supporting each other and have known each other for almost eight years now.

So almost since you started coaching, um, I just want to take a minute. To say congratulations for achieving that MCC level, because I know how difficult that really is. I've known people that have been going through that process and it is probably one of the harder things that you'll probably do, I think.

for recognizing that. Yeah, it was tough. Um, it, it is what it is and I'm glad to be on this side of it for sure. Yeah, definitely. Um, and the, for those of you who are listening who don't know what we're talking about, MCC is a master certified coach level with the ICF, the international coach federation. Um, and you re you need at least 5, 000 hours in order to achieve that.

2500 hours, 500 coaching hours. Yeah. Um, I feel like it's 40 continuing education credits. It's working with a mentor coach for at least 10 hours, um, for preview, previewing your, your client, uh, recordings, how you show up and then an exam at the end of it. So yeah, it was, it was, um, it was a long journey, but, uh, completely worthwhile.

I'm so grateful that I, that I've completed that. Yeah. And I know from a few other people, friends who've, who've gone through it, they say that the 2, 500 hours is like the easy part, you know, that's the easy part. It sounds like a lot of hours and it is, but really it's, um, it's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to getting that certification, because you have to be like, so good at demonstrating those competencies.

And, um, just, you know, in that same vein. So, after I got through it, I had some ideas on how to set people up for success, because it is, you know, grueling isn't an exaggeration. And so I actually put together an MCC mentorship program that isn't just about. The recordings, because that's often what mentor coaching is, is listening to the recordings, giving you feedback.

But I've made it about everything, right? About the hours, the recordings, the exam, the competencies, all of it. Because I think that people should go in with eyes wide open. And I, I didn't necessarily, which I think was part of the, part of the big mountain to climb. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Your expectations need to be set, I think, in order to have the resilience you need to keep going.

Yeah. Right. It's like, I don't know if I remember when I was like pregnant with my first child example, some people can relate to maybe, um, I, you know, they say it's going to be nine months. And so, you know, you think that's the end date and then all of a sudden you're overdue and then like those last two weeks are literally torture.

Right. But if anyone, everyone told you it was a 10 month process that nine and a half weeks wouldn't feel or nine and a half months wouldn't feel so bad. Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. Setting expectations. Yeah, 100%. So, um, okay. So folks, we're going to really talk today about Um, coaching, coaching leaders specifically, um, Laurie, I, I, you know, I, I introduced Laurie, but I really didn't introduce Laurie.

So, you know, I've known Laurie for quite a while. We met, um, like I said, almost eight years ago. And Laurie, I think you're one of the most competent, um, driven coaches and resilient coaches that I've ever met, honestly. And I'm, I'm. I'm just, I'm not just saying that, you know, I don't just say stuff, right. Um, you have like a persistence and a, like, it's like a focus that very few people have, and I know that that's why your clients love you so much.

So, um, I really look forward to hearing what you, what all your thoughts are around leaders of leaders. Absolutely. Thank you so much. That means a lot. I have a huge amount of respect for you, Aaron. So that means a lot coming from you. So thank you. I appreciate you. Um, okay. So, you know, I'd love to like, let's begin with like the landscape right now, you know, um, we have a very complex world that feels like it's going very, very fast.

Um, I think a lot of people out there will resonate, you know, with that, like, You know, kind of like the constant scramble and we're always told, we're always like told that, you know, if we're not achieving some kind of work life balance, we're doing it wrong. Right. Um, what are the, what are the challenges that you're seeing leaders come in to you with, like, what are they struggling with in their core?

Well, um, you talk about work life balance and actually, um, I call it work life harmony because I don't know that those two are ever in balance, but if they can work harmoniously, so giving a little bit this week, getting it back again next week, and that for sure is something, and, and, um, You know, the craziness of remote.

So I'm sitting here in Sherwood Park, you're sitting there in Ontario, um, and yet I feel like you're across, you know, my desk from me. With that, um, with that remote work comes just this expectation of never turning it off, right? Never turning it off. And, and so I do see work life harmony a lot. And, um, I, I talk to people about, you know, um, Getting selfish, right?

Like, pre COVID, nobody expected you to work 14 hour days from, from your home office. You know, you were commuting, you were socializing, you were doing all of this. So, we do talk a lot about, about slowing down to, to kind of get forward. But as it relates like to the executives or the leaders of leaders that I'm seeing, you know, there's kind of, um, I guess, five top competencies or skill sets that people seem to be really gravitating towards.

Emotional intelligence and, um, emotional intelligence isn't just a buzzword. You know, it's, it's something where people really need to know, um, how to manage their personal emotions. They, they need to know how they're showing up. They need to understand the dynamics of those in their, in their, in their life.

In their circle, um, communication, you know, being a visionary and, and not only having the visionary, the vision in your own mind, but being able to communicate it transparently and get people energized by it, um, elevating performance, nobody wants to do poorly, but how do great leaders get the best out of themselves, their team, the organization as a whole.

Um, I think self awareness is huge. The ability to really understand, um, ourselves, but, but also how do we interact with others, then how are we showing up with them? Um, and then the resilience, uh, you know, I talk a lot about, you know, You want to work with a leader who can get through a storm, but not not know what to do after the storm is a fail, right?

They need to have a strategy. They need to be forward thinking, um, nimble, flexible to to really come out the other side with a plan in place that they can then communicate and, you know, get embraced and continue and continue forward. What kind of feelings do leaders, um, at any level, any of your clients have when they're coming to you for support?

Um, I think a lot is humility, understanding that, um, there is, you know, coaching is not psychology. I mean, it's, it's, it's not therapy. It's a partnership. And my style of coaching is, uh, you know, through powerful questions, finding solution. So people, I think first come with a sense of humility, um, having to reach out a bit of vulnerability, which I think is actually a very attractive characteristic in a leader.

Um, and I wouldn't say hopelessness, but an, an awareness, like I can't keep doing what I'm doing. How do I find something new to do? Right. Yeah, they found they've hit, they've hit the end of their capabilities or the capacities in some way. Yeah, they know they need help. Uh, do they always know they need help?

Not necessarily, not necessarily. Um, in some cases I'm brought in to an organization and people are chosen to be part of a coaching program. Coaching programs are often part of a reward system, a merit system. You're seen as an overproducer, um, you're seen as a high producer or high achiever. And so coaching, you know, is put in front of you to just elevate you even more.

But sometimes people come to it not understanding that, not understanding it's a time of celebration, but rather it's like, Oh, are you the principal? Cause I feel like I'm at the principal's office. Um, and they're, you know, what coaching. My style of coaching is not for any, for everyone. Um, and so there's a lot, some coaches call it a chemistry meeting, um, but that get to know you, you know, I want to hear about them.

I tell them my background. I tell them my belief, what, how I see coaching, my belief in coaching. Um, How I got to be, you know, on this side of the desk, and if it's not a fit, then I'm grateful. I have quite, um, a network of coaches that have different styles than I, and I introduced them to somebody else, because if it's not a fit, it's not going to work for anybody.

No. Um, yeah, definitely. Like with a positivist group, we have a coach fit guarantee, like a coaching guarantee. So, you know, if, if it's not a good fit, you know, we'll restart your program with a new coach, or if we don't have a great coach for you, we'll find one. Right. Um, and I think, I think it's so important and I think it's.

Um, and I feel like we learned this the hard way, or I've learned this the hard way that if you don't get a good fit coach fit, then it, it, it really, you, you can't have a successful program at all. I think it's yeah. Like second only probably to the client's own desire for coaching, I think. Um, yeah, yeah, I always tell my clients, like, we're going to work hard, we're going to do some heavy lifting and we're going to have some fun because I never want a client to be like, Oh, my God, I'm seeing Laurie today, like, you want it to be something that they look forward to that they're excited to share their achievements with.

And I have certainly, um, hung on to clients too long. I know that it's part of the learning and building out a successful coaching practice. So, um, yeah, that fit is just so important. So important. And, uh, usually it's better to quit too soon than too late. It's something I've learned more recently and still probably going to be learning, you know, for the rest of my life, most likely.

Yeah. Yeah. There are some clients that just coaching isn't for them. That just isn't. They don't, if they don't believe in the value of it, um, it's not going to work. Not because it's, you know, um, um, like a magic wand, but you have to, I don't push it. I don't pull I'm shoulder to shoulder with my client in their coaching journey.

And some people need to be pushed or pulled. And that just, I don't think that that works as well either, but yeah, there's a real element of autonomy and self determination when it comes to coaching. And the client has to drive the process. And that's definitely part of an ICF mindset as well. And I see if, um, Certified coaches mindset.

So, um, do you have any good stories? Like obviously not naming any names, but I'm so curious, um, to hear a little bit about, you know, some of the experiences you've had with clients and I'm sure folks listening to this would love to hear, you know, what, what are the kinds of, you know, Developments that you've that you've observed.

Yeah. Great question. Aaron and the one that comes to mind and I have her permission because as you know, coaching is 100 percent confidential. Um, but I do have her permission to share this story just because I think it's really cool. So I often, um, at the onset of. coaching. We'll ask a client, you know, what's the legacy you want to leave?

Like, how do you want to be known? Because I think we get so committed to like the here and now we forget to think longer term. And, um, she worked in a, in a male dominated, more seasoned male dominated environment. And she was the only female at the C suite table at that point. And so I asked her the question and, and invited her to reflect on it.

That was kind of, you know, an action item for her between now and, and when we met the next time. And she came back into the, into the meeting. Um, and, and she was so excited and which made me so excited. And she said, Lori, I came up with my legacy. I know what I'm building. I know what I want to build. And I was like, okay, what is that?

She said, I want to be known as a powerhouse. And, and I just thought that that was so cool. And, and so as we got talking, you know, as the only female, she would be asked to get coffee or take notes or, you know, whatever, just not, I don't think from a mean perspective, but it just made sense to the other people around the table and she said, I want to be a powerhouse and I want to work on characteristics that would build a powerhouse.

She said, because. I don't want them to be scared of me. I don't want them to say I'm scared to ask for coffee. She said, I wanted them to respect me so much. It wouldn't even cross their minds. And, um, she's still an existing client. She's, uh, you know, been with me typically coaching programs or, you know, about a year.

Um, so she's, she's been with me for that length of time. And it is so exciting to see. I think that's a really beautiful thing. And that's why I'm so happy that, you know, her show up as a powerhouse and the success that she's having because of her mindfulness and intention. I'm being seen as a powerhouse.

That's beautiful. What a transformation for her. Um, I I would love to be a fly on the wall in one of those meetings and watch her in action and see what, like, what kind of behaviors are she demonstrating, you know, as a result of that coaching with you, that would be so interesting. How do you make someone respect you so much that they wouldn't even think about asking for coffee?

It's beautiful. And of course, you know, we dug deep into what characteristics. How are those characteristics displayed and how do you know that you're displaying them, you know, coaching? I mean, we, we like to take one piece to set people up for success and really focus on that, um, change of that one habit of how she was showing up and then change something else about how she was showing up.

And yeah, it's been a lot of fun, uh, really a lot of fun to watch her for sure. And it probably takes you back to the five, uh, your five. Yeah. Um, top five behaviors or what are we, what are we calling that? Um, I think the leadership competencies. Okay, sure. Yeah. Um, you know, I, I recently was doing some research for a project that I'm doing in my private practice and, and Forbes even has, you know, like research on this about, you know, what leaders are struggling with and, and it felt affirming that the people I work with.

Yeah. This is, you know, global, right? I don't just hear it from one or two clients, I hear it from every client in my portfolio or most clients in my portfolio, but this is like a global thing. Oh, it totally is. Yeah. This is a human thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're all experiencing the world right now. And I don't know.

Like leadership is leadership almost anywhere. I don't know. I mean, obviously there's certain cultural competencies that you need to learn if you're interacting interculturally or in, in different cultures, but, um, but the like people are people, right? Like emotional intelligence is emotional intelligence.

It doesn't matter where you live. Well, and I think we're all leaders, and that's why, you know, I kind of articulate, um, the clients most prominent, um, or most predominantly in my, in my portfolio are executive, like C suite, um, or leaders of leaders, because I think we all lead. I mean, I, as an individual contributor, I can still lead, I can still impact.

But I think it's leaders having to be mindful of their own selves. But also, you know, all of those around them and how they are leading them to greatness. Now, you, we started to talk a little bit about respect in that previous client example that you had. Um, something I think a lot about lately and you know that I've been a kind of evangelist of leadership development, um, since certainly since we've known each other, uh, and something that crosses my mind every now and then, and I'm kind of curious what you think about this is do we know how to lead leaders?

You know, do. Do leaders know how to lead people? If every single person's a leader, do we know how to lead leaders? You know, and where does the, you know, one of the things, one of, I can't remember what the quote was, but it's something like to be a great leader, you need to be a great follower. And I think sometimes, you know, there's a tension that I, that I see a lot of the time, um, in organizations around, you know, the, you know, receiving feedback.

So leaders are receiving feedback. Sometimes they're really good at taking feedback. And they're very, um, empathic, right. They're trying to serve everyone and stretching themselves then. And, you know, we know that we can't make everyone happy. Right. Um, and then people who are at the individual contributor level, often younger employees have a lot of ideas, you know, and I remember I was the same when I was a younger employee.

You know, I, um, I thought I could do everything better than my bosses. And then it's only through experience that I realized like the actual complexity of decision making within organizations is way harder than you think it is. Probably there's a lot more that you need to consider, um, than, than you realize you do.

And so are we teaching people to become leaders too soon? Do we know how to lead people who believe that they are leaders? That's kind of the So my background was completely in financial services, where I spent my, my corporate Canada career and, and there was a tendency in financial services because financial services is so much about sales that people can sell really well, well, obviously they can manage, they can lead and that's not always the case.

Right. Um, you can have some of the top sales people in the world who are promoted into roles of, of, you know, people responsibility and and they don't do it, um, They don't do it. Well, or it takes them a while to get up and running with it. A bunch of different scenarios. Um, so I think, you know, are we are we getting people to be people leaders too soon was kind of your question.

And I think we are if we aren't setting them up for success, we can be if we aren't setting them up for success and really understanding the expectations made what's expected of me as a leader. Um, and, and being, um, being so involved in their success as their leader. That that you really you're you're.

You're, you're training the habits that, that they'll need, but they also have to have that internal desire to build out those habits as well. Yeah. And context, like, I feel like we need so much more context now than we used to in roles. How do you feel about that? Um, from, you mean the roles, responsibilities, expectations?

At every level of the organization. I feel like context is, is. Um, much more necessary than it used to be. Not only because people expect it, you know, people expect, you know, I want to know why everything, every decision made, but like they need it almost, you know? And I think that you can offer people an understanding without having to divulge because I mean, transparency, yes, you, you need transparency, but you can't be transparent about every single decision.

Right and and sometimes there is stuff that can't be talked about. Um, but I think if I and again, it comes down. Really? I hate to keep, you know, bringing it back to those top 5, but if if I'm a leader and I'm communicating and I'm helping my teams understand this is all that I can communicate, but this is legitimately.

I think that people will respect that and, and they'll be okay with, we don't know more because there's that trust and credibility that's been established through all of those, you know, different, um, relationship building exercises as well that a leader has to go through. What's the best way for a leader to, you know, to, to actually get the true respect of their team?

Um, there's so much that, how much time do you have? Um, I think it's a little bit, I think it's a little bit around, uh, you know, understanding themselves. So self awareness. Understanding their strengths and areas of development. Um, but I think it's, it's really building that trust incredible relationship right out of the gate and getting to know people.

They're not just a team member. They're not just an individual contributor, but. How do they fit the overall mold or the overall necessity or needs of the organization? I think it's relationship building first and foremost. I worked for a brilliant man one time, just a brilliant, brilliant guy. It was like my first day.

And he said, okay, Lori, just help me understand when I send you an email, do I have to be all like fluffy and ask how your day is? Or can I just tell you what I need? And, and, you know, as silly as it sounds, If he had spent a bunch of time asking, like how my day was, I don't need that. I don't operate well under that.

And so he just kind of cut right to the chase. And I think if I know that someone needs a bit more, how was your day as a leader? I should, I should give them that so that I can help them show up as the best version of themselves. But I think it's okay to ask the question. How do you want me to communicate with you?

Right. Yeah. It's like, what is it? The, um, the platinum role. Treat people how they want to be treated, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, something you just said there triggered something for me. Oh yeah. You're not like a super touchy feely person necessarily. Like you don't need that. The fluff it's like, let's just get to the point.

And that is something I've always appreciated about you because I'm the girl who has, who writes the email out and it's like super direct. And then I have, before I press send, I have to go back and put. all the fluff in to the email so that I don't seem like a cold robot, um, or whatever. But, and there's very few people that I can just, you know, de mask, I think, right.

Because it's not an attitude. It's not, um, for me, it's not, um, it's not a negative. It's just, it's just, it's just my first instinct. And I, I'm, I'm like a pretty chill person, you know, that. But the whole point I'm making by this is you're not a fluffy person. I'm not a fluffy person, necessarily. Although I pretend to be one on TV and, uh, we are both huge proponents of emotional intelligence.

All that to say, well, intelligence is not fluffy, you know, and I would love for you to just say a few words about that. Well, I think that, um, there's a difference between being emotionally, um, intelligent and, and, um, hugging people, right? Like, like, I think you have to show up emotionally dynamic enough to the people that you're speaking with.

Yeah. But you don't have to put, you know, flowers at the end of an email. And, um, my style and, you know, there's a million different kind of, um, assessments out there. My style is very much Uh, in one assessment, it's called a pioneer. So if you think of the word pioneer, what is, what does that look like?

Right? And that's, that's entirely me. And obviously, coaching is not about directing. It's not about leading. It's not about bossing. It's, it's about partnering. And so I do have to, and I don't waver on my own belief system. But I do have to temper my directness with certain clients. Um, and, but we talk about that, right?

Um, I had sent an email to a client and after I sent it, it was like, Oh, that might've been a bit, that might've been a good one for Aaron, not such a good one for this client. Right. And so I just followed up and said, look, like, sorry, if that sounded, um, abrasive or whatever word I used, I said, I just, I wanted to get my thoughts over to you.

And I just did it, you know, perhaps not as completely as I could have. And I apologize if that was offensive. And let's talk about it the next time we meet, because why would I run from that? Right? And, um, she actually wrote back and said, no, no, that's that works for me. That works well for me. But I think if I was in a leadership position and I did that, and I didn't have the vulnerability to go back and say, oops, sorry, let's talk about this, or the self awareness to even know that you did it in the first place.

Well, okay. Yes. Yeah. But that's where leaders can fail. Yeah. I know that wasn't right, but let's not talk about it. Maybe it didn't go noticed. Oh, it went noticed. All right. Right. Your team is going to notice stuff, but you notice everything by the way, but step in pretty much. Yeah. Have the conversation, right?

Have the conversation. And I think that's what, that's what leaders need to leaders of leaders, executive, they need to do better at having conversation.

Holy moly. Well, I mean, it's so, it feels like especially certain sectors, uh, and certain industries that can be really difficult for a lot of people. Like I've heard from men in particular. You know, and, you know, I feel like this is just sort of like a, a matter of context and maybe some training and whatever, but, you know, I've, I've, I've heard from men who say that they're actually kind of afraid to say something wrong.

You know, they're afraid they're going to step on a landmine. Um, I don't think, I think it's, you know, we need practice. We need to, you know, um, what, what do you, what do you say to people who are worried about stepping on a landmine in the workplace. Um, my go to is always what's the best possible outcome from that conversation.

What are you looking to achieve? Yeah. And if you can articulate that at the onset of the conversation. So this is what we need to talk about. Um, does that make sense to you getting agreement? That's going to keep you focused on what you do need to talk about and and potentially not always, but potentially keep you away from the landmines.

Right. Um, it is, it, it is, I would say, a far more, uh, sensitive time in, in corporate wherever. Yeah. Um, and, but I, I think it's, it's the talking about it, right? And if, if you do stand on a landmine, don't run, talk about it. Wow. Don't know where that came from. I. Apologize. Be sincere. Right? Yeah. I don't think anybody I know, I can't imagine people going into a conversation wanting to stamp on landmines.

So when it happens, take responsibility. Oops. We're all leaders. We're also all human. We've already talked about that. Right? And so how do you recover from that? I think communication is, you know, a powerhouse diamond that isn't utilized enough. Yeah. Mm hmm. And I sometimes wonder like reputation, like, you know, I think this is probably a time where reputation is so important, like your professional brand, because if you have a reputation for honesty, transparency, for being direct, like direct, but kind, you know what I mean?

Like those. There's no question that you're giving those things, those qualities. Totally. You can, you know, when, when you, when you screw up. Because we're all apt to at some point, you're probably gonna give you a given a little more grace, you know? Yeah. Well, it comes down, I think you're into that trust and credibility.

Yeah. So if you have, and we have a. a solution focused selling program that we facilitate. And it talks a lot about building trust and credibility. If you've got that trust and credibility set up. Build with a client, they'll tolerate some errors. Yeah. If you don't, they'll have like, uh, just a zero tolerance.

And so spending more time and that's what I said about, you know, leaders, like stepping into leadership, step, spend time communicating with your team, understand them, build that trust and credibility. Cause with that will come some grace. Yeah. Absolutely. plane. So how do you know if someone calls you and they're like, you know, I'm thinking about coaching, you know, how, how can it support me?

Whatever. You're having that initial conversation. How do you know, um, when the coaching, when they're, whoa, why, where am I talking? How do you know if, if they're at the right place, um, in time for coaching, like, how do you know that they're ready? Um, there's a lot of, um, information that can be gathered in that initial phone call or initial email.

Um, but we have a, we've just come up with just, we've, we've just completed this coaching readiness assessment tool, and it's an online assessment tool that that really digs into more, but specifically those 5 areas of focus. And if there's a gap and I have people way, I'm surrounded by people way smarter than me that could do the coding on this.

So it was not me. Um, but it'll, it'll come back to you and say, okay, here's where you, you scored here. Here's your assessment results on those 5 areas and click here to, to, you know, set up a 30 minute conversation with Lori. And that, you know, That tool partnered with that 30 minute conversation is eye opening for both myself and the prospect of prospective client.

Yeah, totally. Um, so I think that's amazing for starters. So we'll definitely have that in the show notes. So folks who are listening, um, make sure that you look in the show notes and take Lori's evaluation, especially if you're curious about coaching. Absolutely. And, and by the way, I think, I think that, uh, this is probably like a fair warning.

Everyone has gaps. Like everyone. No, no. Remember I met that person. She had no gaps. Oh yeah, yeah. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Sorry. Laurie met one person who had no gaps whatsoever. Yeah. Um, there's one person. But if you're not that one person, then you, um, by the way, you have gaps. And so do I, my first, the first leadership 360 that I ever did was like soul sucking.

I'm not perfect. This is awful. You know, and then you sit with it and you process it and you realize, yeah, maybe there's some truth in this. And, you know, people like the 360s, I love those because golden nugget after golden nugget after golden nugget. And if you can get the perspective of others in a, in a respectful and honoring manner.

Why wouldn't you take that? Right. Yeah. Um, I've done some 360s that were, they were, they were tough. And, and people will respond one of two ways. This is a dumb idea. Why did we even do it? Or what am I really seeing here? What can I do? Laurie, let's build out and that's, you know, the 360s build out a lot of coaching conversations because what do we know now about the perspective of others?

Whether it's your truth or not, that's not what's here. It's the perspective of others and how do you have to show up slightly differently to change that perspective. It's a powerful conversation. I love those. Well, I love all the conversations, but I really, really, really like the 360. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the 360s are a lot of fun.

And I know sometimes they get like kind of a bit of a bad reputation because they can be done poorly. I think there is. That is possible. Um, so if you're out there thinking like you either hate 360s, you probably have just experienced a bad one. Um, and if you're thinking about a 360, make sure you do your due diligence and ask some questions about it first in the process.

And if you have any, uh, questions, obviously Lori and I are happy to help with that. Yeah. Um, but yeah, no, I think it's a super eyeopening, uh, conversation for sure. All right. So my final question for you, Laurie, is, um, if there was one thing that you want people to know about a co taking a coaching program, and especially if they're a leader, what's the most important thing they need to know to prepare themselves?

Only one. That's what I'm trying to sort through. Okay, I'm going to say one, but I'm going to filter in like 14 other ideas. Okay. Right, right, right, right. No, no, no. So you have to understand that coaching is really about changing a habit system. So how do you habitually show up as a leader today? What slight adjustments do you make to show up slightly different tomorrow to have a slightly different outcome?

Um, it's not losing 20 pounds in a week. This is a slow and steady and very intentional. process with unbelievably huge ROI at the back end of it. Yes. Um, unbelievably huge ROI. I've personally gone through that. Uh, I hate the T word, but transformation, you know, it's overused. Um, but that personal development process and coaching literally changed my life.

Like, yeah, literally changed my life. Yes. There's a quote by Michelangelo. And I don't have it right in front of me, so I'm going to butcher it a little bit, but it's something like I saw an angel in the marble and I chiseled to set it free. We all have angels within us, but it's meaningful conversation.

impactful discussion that will allow us to find it to really impact others. And, and what a powerful position that is. Absolutely. If you can believe, like truly believe to your core, you know, that you are a valuable, beautiful, powerful human being, like, you know, how much is that worth to you? Right. How much could that be worth?

Yeah. Um, yeah. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much for inviting me, Erin. I was very excited not only to reconnect with you, but just to be part of all the beautiful work you're doing. I, I watch you from the side and all the things, all the balls you have in the air. You just continue to make impact daily.

So thank you for what you do. Oh, I appreciate you so much. Thank you, Lori.

In this #throwback episode of Weirdos in the Workplace, Erin interviews Eleanore Eaves, a brilliant strategist, writer, and coach, about executive presence.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction and upcoming podcast announcement 2:00 - Eleanore's background and introduction to executive presence 5:00 - Building and nurturing executive presence 9:00 - Eleanore's personal evolution and role models in leadership 13:00 - Diversity in executive positions 15:00 - Advice for accessing leadership positions 16:00 - The role of appearance in executive presence 17:00 - Closing quote and final thoughts

Key Points: - Executive presence is about personal brand, confidence, strategic mindset, authenticity, and personal power - It's not just about appearance, but how you present yourself as a leader - Building executive presence requires honest self-assessment and identifying areas for improvement - There's no one-size-fits-all approach; executive presence should be tailored to individual strengths and organizational fit - The importance of diversity in executive roles and strategies for accessing leadership positions - The value of finding a sponsor who speaks about you in rooms of power - While character is crucial, appearance still plays a role in executive presence

The episode concludes with a powerful quote: "She remembered who she was, and then the game changed,"

Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble!

Contact Eleanore Eaves: Website: eavescoaching.com

Stay tuned for Erin and Eleanore's upcoming podcast on modern leadership and decision-making!

Script

Erin: [00:00:00] Welcome my friends to yet another episode of weirdos in the workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our wacky and wonderful world today. I'm your host, Erin Patchell. And this week we're doing things a little bit differently. We are going to have a throwback episode.

Back in 2023, your favorite episode was on executive presence with Eleanor Eves, the wonderful, inspiring. Amazing. Eleanor Eves, my friend, also one of my colleagues on the ICF international coach federation, Ottawa board amazing person. And we dive into the strategic side of executive presence how to be your full self in today's complex business environments.

And I'm really even more excited to share with you that Eleanor and I are starting yet another podcast to be titled a couple months from now. We're going to be launching this and it's all about our modern [00:01:00] and complex leadership environments, how to make really hard decisions as leaders, and how to avoid the kind of herd mentality or echo chambers that, that sometimes As human beings, we can tend to fall into and really elevating the thinking and the context through which we're making really good decisions as business leaders.

So that's what we're doing. I'm really excited about that partnership. And we're just going to be dripping out a little more information leading up to the launch. And I'll leave you with a quote as I often do on Weirdos in the Workplace. This one is by Lily Tomlin, the amazing Lily Tomlin.

And Lily says, the road to success is always under construction. And isn't that true? So without further ado, stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't ever stay out of trouble.[00:02:00]

All right, folks, let's get started. So Eleanor is one of the most interesting people that I know. She's a brilliant strategist, writer, and coach. Her resume includes 15 years working For profit and non profit organizations, London School of Economics, King's College London, and the Government of Canada.

Eleanor founded her own consultancy, Eve's Coaching not that long ago. Hey? Correct. Yeah. Yep. And I like to think you do things a little bit differently. I like to think so too. So I'm really glad that you're here to talk about the subject executive presence, because, between my blue collar upbringing and my ADHD, I feel like I've definitely had to learn the hard way about the subject.

And to be honest, I feel like I [00:03:00] still struggle with it a little bit, even though I've been in, and been in business development sales for a long time. To me, it is still, it's still like putting on a bit of a mask. So I love to just hear, how did you learn about this and how did it become such a strong focus for you?

Eleonore: Oh, darling, come on down. No. You would be the perfect person to be covering this topic. In a nutshell, executive presence is not just about how you look or your background or any of that, right? It's your personal brand. It's your confidence. It's your strategic mindset. It's your authenticity. It's your personal power.

It's everything combined and your background and anything, you might have experienced in the past That shouldn't really play into it unless it has made you who you are today in the form you want to be. So that's what we're going to be talking about when we discuss executive presence, is what kind of person do you want to project?

What kind of leader do you [00:04:00] want to be? And what does that look like for you? Because everybody has to do this a little bit differently. And as you said, how did I come about today? to doing this? I always thought, growing up that executive presence was about a look,

less

Eleonore (2): about the character and less about the individual.

But what did executives look like? To be perfectly honest, when we were growing up, not to age us, at that point in time, neither of us would have really made up the majority of executives. Unfortunately, we still do not today as well, but we're making some changes.

Erin: Definitely. I want to

Eleonore (2): be.

Erin: Yeah.

No, I was just going to say I'm really glad to hear you talk a little bit about like authenticity and bringing your personality into it because I feel like that's something that I definitely preach about a lot and I'm glad to hear that it's not just my imagination that this is, that this is [00:05:00] scaling into positions of power.

Absolutely.

Eleonore (2): Absolutely. This is why you'd be a great coach in this. I'm serious. You've absolutely mastered it from the very first day I met you. I remember just being in awe, right? You have this natural way of communicating with people and connecting. And that's all part of the executive presence.

It's how you're presenting yourself.

Erin: You are so sweet, honestly.

Eleonore (2): No, I'm just very honest. I call it how it is.

Erin: I appreciate it. Yeah, so obviously it's no secret that executive presence is really important to building a leader's credibility and, people listen to you differently and consider your opinions differently.

So tell me a little bit about how to, how do you build that? How do you nurture that in yourself?

Eleonore (2): First, take a look at your current state. Really have a very raw sense and understanding of who you are, [00:06:00] right? It really does require some honest self assessment and awareness. Because at the end of the day, you're only kidding yourself.

Then with coaching with myself or any other executive coach, what we would really look at is to identify areas of improvement. And by that, who do you want to be? How do you want others to view you as a leader? And even if you're not a leader today, what does that look like for you down the road?

Right?

Eleonore: So

Eleonore (2): even if you're not in an executive role today, but you want to be in the future, how do you project yourself so other people intuitively view you as the right fit? Not because of your gender, or your race, or anything like that, because I know we, that, that could be a completely different conversation as to, the executive makeup of all of that.

But in terms of how you present yourself, what does that look like? Not just in terms of your clothing as well. [00:07:00] But what kinds of words are you using? What's your strategy? When people look at you, do they view you as being diplomatic? As being out there? What is the approach? So then we, based off of that, we find the areas that you could improve upon.

We develop a strategy to get you there, an approach. We practice it, we tweak it as needed. Then we celebrate your successes once you get to that point that you are truly satisfied with it.

Erin: That's very interesting, actually. I like I'd never really thought about. Aspiring to an executive role in terms of, your personal style.

So just to clarify I've got a very unique personal style, so that I may not be suited to every executive role in the world or every. Organization in the world, but as a career coach I'm not a career coach, but I've worked with so many career coaches and I [00:08:00] know they're really focused on a best fit.

So does that apply in this space as well? I assume.

Eleonore (2): A hundred percent, right? No one is going to be a hundred percent great fit for everything. You have your friends, you have your nemeses, you have your allies, you have your detractors, you have different spheres of people. A person who could, a person like, let's say, Steve Jobs.

Great at Apple. Fantastic. Might not be the best field hockey coach. You never know. Yeah.

Erin: He's not alive anymore, so we'll count him out now. But maybe you never know. But yeah, I totally hear what you're saying, for sure.

Eleonore (2): So it doesn't mean that one is right or wrong. And that's the other thing we need to take apart is there is no right or wrong.

Our person shows up in an executive sense. Even if it's completely different, that might be what the organization needs at [00:09:00] that point in time. Because what have worked in the past won't always work in the future. And in fact, probably shouldn't. That means you're not evolving. That means your organization isn't changing.

So every once in a while, you do need to shake things up. You need a rebel in there.

Erin: I feel like that is so true now more than ever.

Eleonore (2): So it's being true to yourself at the end of the day. And being really honest with who you are, what you want that to look like. And what is the right fit for you?

It's not just about what is the fit for the organization, but is this really the right fit for you?

Erin: That makes a lot of sense. So I'm curious, how did, like, how did this come to be for you? What was your evolution of your thinking around this? Did you have Great role models in the past or?

Eleonore (2): Yes.

I was very lucky to have had one of the world's best leaders ever as both a former manager and as a friend now, I'd like to [00:10:00] say her name is Laura Kenny and she was one of the higher ups at Raytheon. She was one of the execs and I absolutely adored everything about her, in a healthy way, right?

Of course. But for the first time ever, I saw that you could really be your true self. She was as graceful as Audrey Hepburn, smart as a whip, and just kind and empathetic. And that was her executive presence. She showed that you could be all of those things and also have incredible style. Just an absolute fashionista and, working in a realm that was very much male dominated.

Raytheon is a defense company. Yeah. But again, this was a woman who could command the respect of any room she walked into. It was intelligence. It was empathy. It was wit. It was a sense that if you [00:11:00] were on her team, you wanted to do better. You wanted to be better. She encouraged you to.

improve not just your output for the company, but your personal development as a human.

Erin: Holy crap. This is like an amazing testimonial. Like Laura, if you're out there, I am a huge fan now. And yeah, no, that's like seriously though. But don't you want everyone? I know as a lead, like as a leader, that is how I wish people, or I hope that people will someday.

Speak about me. And that is the tension. I feel like that's the intention we need to put out in the universe

Eleonore (2): a hundred percent. And we luckily we're starting to have some of those conversations now.

Eleonore: So

Eleonore (2): when we're looking at executive fit, we're also looking at emotional intelligence.

We're starting to really look at the full package of what a person brings. Because that, you're absolutely right, a person like her [00:12:00] could really motivate a team to outperform every other team, and we did. And we took pride in that, but it didn't feel like a horrible endeavor to do that. It didn't feel like we were working overtime.

Overall, we had that energy to continue to work that hard because work was enjoyable. For the first time ever, Mondays were fun. Yeah, it wasn't just a paycheck.

Erin: And teams get set back so much when people leave. So if you have a leader who can keep people on the team and keep them, not just keep them motivated, but just keep them there present, that's everything these days.

Eleonore (2): Absolutely. And we could definitely go into the whole financial chat about what that costs an organization,

Eleonore: both

Eleonore (2): in terms of intelligence, labor, money for onboarding all of that. You're absolutely right. It is a huge loss to any organization. [00:13:00]

Erin: So the conversation about getting women or getting more diversity into leadership positions and executive positions.

Because, it's still male dominated the majority of executives are still men, white men. And if they're not, if they're not white men, then they're white women, I'm just curious what your thoughts are around, getting more diversity around the executive table.

Eleonore (2): Great question. And I think the approach needs to be very specific to the region right in Nordic countries and Scandinavian countries, we definitely see that the quota system works very well for them. It's well adopted. But there's also to a, we could talk about the differences within the demographics of those regions versus ours, but I think the important thing is finding out what your actual goal is, if you're actually committed [00:14:00] to those goals and it's not just a checkbox, then having some very hard and serious conversations.

within the organization to try to see what that means. It's going to be different things for different organizations. And we could talk about the merits of having the quota system in place, but you're absolutely right. One way or another, things need to change. It's not just the right thing to do. It is the strategically right thing to do.

Erin: So if I'm a person of, I'm not a person of color, but if I was a person of color, What would you recommend them to do? Like, how would you recommend that they, they access those positions?

Eleonore (2): I would urge everyone to get a sponsor. So very quickly, a mentor is someone who speaks to you,

Eleonore: and a

Eleonore (2): sponsor is someone who speaks about you in rooms of power.

So time and time again, we see that women Blacks, Indigenous, people of color We are [00:15:00] overly, and I say we because I know your audience can't see me, but I am a black woman we are overly mentored and not sponsored enough. And you can see why this wouldn't yield the results we want. If someone is just speaking to you, it doesn't actually move the needle.

Whereas if they are actively speaking about you and promoting you, yeah, that's when we start seeing changes, right? So get a sponsor.

Erin: Yeah. Good advice. So we've talked almost exclusively about character, character of executives. So I guess we could probably conclude that these days character is more important than appearance or does appearance still play a factor?

Eleonore (2): Yes, definitely. Appearance still does play some level of a factor, right? As much as we would like to believe that it shouldn't or it does not. It does. And there are some amazing style coaches out there too, [00:16:00] who really help you with that, because it's not just about the clothing you wear, but it's also to how confident you feel in that clothing.

So if that makes you put your best foot forward, you speak more eloquently, more strategically you're more of your authentic self, then yeah, get a style coach. If you need help with your presence. And then yes, an executive coach like myself would be more than happy to work with you. And they're speech therapists as well, and I highly recommend them.

I had a massive lisp for the majority of my life. So I fully understand how that could both limit your confidence, as well as,

Erin: Yeah. We're just about at the top of the hour, and it wouldn't be an episode of weirdos in the workplace. If we didn't close the episode with a little bit of a quote or a story, Eleanor.

Eleonore (2): Yeah. And, maybe I'll send it to you as well. One of my good friends, another executive coach Out in Switzerland focusing on [00:17:00] emotional intelligence.

If you need that sort of service, definitely contact her and her wonderful business partner Thomas Grom at Cofuturum. So her name is Anna Maria Zumsteg, and I remember one day she had sent me this lovely little picture of a lioness about to sprint. And the caption read, she remembered who she was and then the game changed.

So really and truly remember your inner confidence. Remember who you are. Bring that forward and go after your goals.

Erin: Amazing. I'm so glad you were able to join me and I cannot wait until you come to join me again. So there I can't wait. Fantastic. That's all for today. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Eleanor and you can find her at Eve's coaching.

com E A V E S C O A C H I N G. com. I love that we ended on authenticity. She remembered who she was and then the game changed. Brilliant. [00:18:00] Thanks for joining me on this journey. I look forward to our next adventure next week. Until then stay weird, stay wonderful. And remember don't stay out of trouble.

With over 30 years of experience in high-tech sales and marketing, Kim Tofin shares insights on the critical roles in forming high-performing and high-impact teams.

Through personal stories and professional insights, Kim explains how creating a safe space for authenticity and unique contributions can transform organizational culture and drive unparalleled success.

Don't miss this in-depth discussion on fostering collaboration, bridging gaps, and unleashing the untapped potential within your teams!

Stay in Touch with Kim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-tofin-38b0846/

For more on Kim and his Services: https://breakoutcx.com/

Within a team dynamic, the weirdos, the one or two or the three can start to feel psychologically safe because everybody allows that weirdness.

Welcome to weirdos in the workplace. The podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work today.

My name's Erin Patchell. And today I'm super happy to bring on Kim Tofin. Hello, Aaron. Nice to see you again. Nice to see you as always, Kim. So to introduce Kim, after 30 years in high tech sales and marketing, Kim began Breakout CX and has thrown himself extensively into the art and science of team coaching and team infused leadership, which I think is something that you coined.

Is that right, Kim? Yes. Yeah. Awesome. So now Kim works with national and international companies to develop high performing teams and introduce and build a teamship culture. And today we're going to talk about how curiosity and maybe even a little bit of weirdness can make teaming possible among some other things that we'll get into as well.

So nice to have you on the podcast finally, Kim. Yeah, finally, we got past the weirdo point. We got past the weirdness. Yeah. Um, I'd actually, let's, let's let, I want to ask you that question for sure, uh, because I think it's kind of, it's kind of cool, like the evolution of your thinking around the word weird.

Um, but I'd love for people to hear from your mouth, like what you do, who you are, just a few minutes about, um, what you care about, why you care about this so much. Yeah, that's a good question. It's a good place to start. I mean, I, as you said in the introduction, I worked with teams, uh, in my career for the part of three decades.

And, um, I've worked with good teams, not good teams and terrible teams. Um, but I didn't know about a teaming culture. I certainly didn't know about team coaching or a team ship. And along the way, I began to understand the importance of collaboration and it just stuck with me in every aspect of the work that I did.

And so this started to define me and I became sort of enamored with, um, with coaching as it began to emerge. And that was with leadership coaching. And it just has became, become a part of what I really Um, stand for it. In other words, we could say it's my stance of life, both personally and professionally.

It's amazing. So you've made it sort of a calling or it's become a calling for you. I did. And, and, you know, um, not to dwell on the matter, but I had a life changing event, uh, three years ago, my partner passed away. And it, and it just opened up an opportunity for me to, to reset, recalibrate my life and focus on what really matters to me and, and grab a hold of my passion and, uh, in a way, give back to, you know, my community, um, our country, um, and, and, you know, all the organizations, whether they're institutional, private, government, um, educational, not for profit, um, you know, It's just, I, I'm so committed to, um, sort of unleashing this potential around teamship and, and that's what I'm doing and I'll keep doing it, um, uh, even with people calling me weirdo.

Absolutely. And we're turning that word into, you know, that's the best thing you could possibly be as a weirdo. For the record. So, um, but yeah, there's no question that, um, something like that, like a life change in the death of a partner, you know, and I'm obviously I'm so sorry about that. Um, but there's no question that that changes the way that you think about things, right?

A traumatic situation like that, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you, you start to, um, you go, it's a choice, but I found myself going inward. And tapping into my presence, my core, my strengths, um, it's still a work in progress. Like I haven't got it all figured out, but I would rather be in that process than. either masking the grief or the healing or the pain, um, because it doesn't serve the teams that I coach very well if I'm not true to myself and authentic when I walk in those rooms or when I'm coaching a CEO one on one.

Um, it reminds me actually when you, when you just said that, uh, there was a quote from yesterday. I was in a grief and loss workshop, um, with an amazing coach from Ottawa, Dina, uh, Bell or La Roche. And there was a quote that she said, and I'm going to see, I'm just going to do a little search here because I want to say it.

Uh, we can't accompany our clients when we are where we ourselves dare not travel. Um, you know, yeah, in fact, I've come across that recently in the last few days and I think it's very powerful. Absolutely. Yes, it is. Yeah. Okay. So today is all about team ship and specifically, you know, the power of curiosity, um, the The power of collaboration, the power of, uh, development, um, Tell me a little bit more about specifically the work that you do like what is teamship?

Sure. Um,

initially, um, you know, through all my training, my team coaching training, I was chasing down teams that were either dysfunctional or starting up. Or going through a lot of changes, a lot of, um, changes in personnel or changes in ownership and working with those teams became very clear to me that, that teams have such power and such potential.

That it's more than just the team, it's organizational impact. And so in the last year or so, I've sort of described myself as a systemic team coach. In other words, it's more than just the team. Of course it is the team and every team has a starting and ending point. No two teams are the same as if the same as no two individuals are the same.

Um, and so with that, um, teamship, this term started to evolve in my mind that teamship really should be at the same level as leadership. Um, but it's not and and so it the time is right. I think to introduce this concept now. Teamship itself is being, um, introduced and and exploited very positively by, uh, a handful of organizations, consulting firms in the U.

S. And in Europe. Um, and I think there's a couple in Canada, but it's still relatively new. Um, and I just coined this term. Um, Of teamship infused leadership because because leaders are are struggling today. You know, it's not working as it used to. And so my approach is to come in to the organization and and look at what we can do with the organizational health.

Um, through empowering, uh, teams and getting teams moving from fundamental to high performing and ideally to high impact. So it strikes me that, you know, your background in sales and marketing probably has a lot to do with the way that you think about business in general, and then how, how the team itself can be impactful.

Would you say that's accurate? Yeah. It's, it's an interesting, It's an interesting statement and question. I think, I think we are all kind of salespeople. We're all trying to, to, um, promote or push or sell our, our value, our brand, our ideas, our thoughts. Um, so, so I think that in sales and marketing and how we position those, those, um, services or deliverables, um, yeah, has given me a lot of insights into the real fast movement of organizational dynamics, because everything happens around revenue in the private sector, but it's equally, it happens around government, for example, in, in service delivery.

Thank you. Or not for profit in stakeholder value education as in education for the students, et cetera. So, um, and in sales and marketing, there are a lot of teams because you're working directly or indirectly with all kinds of teams, operational teams, customer experience, teams, um, R and D teams, engineering development teams.

And, and in my experience, most of that were, you know, those teams were all working in silos. There was very little cross functional, um, value or benefits happening. And, um, the leaders weren't, you know, they weren't paying attention. And so it's, uh, yeah, it, it, it weighs heavily on me and it's great to draw from all those experiences.

And I'm actually quite happy that I worked with incredibly, incredibly successful companies, um, and not so successful companies because I know what doesn't work. Right. Yeah. And it's good to draw from that. For sure. I feel like we're kind of leading, you're leading me down a path here that I like, which is towards the The conversation around weirdness, you know, especially, um, you know, when we start to talk about strengths based teaming, uh, or collaboration or breaking down silos, part of me says, you know, well, the authenticity, you know, and having, having different people on a team, having a, um, a cross functional team, uh, makes a lot of sense, you know, and you can't have a cross functional team without a little bit of weirdness and authenticity.

Um, tell me, tell, tell everyone, like, if you're comfortable sharing the story about like when I first approached you as a podcast, you know, weirdos in the workplace is definitely there's reasons why we decided to call it weirdos in the workplace, right? Because it does rub people the wrong way a little bit.

And, and tell me a little bit about your evolution in like the last, you know, while, you know, as, as that's been kind of evolving. It's a great story. And I'm, um, I've come out the other end of it in a, in a much more informed, um, content, uh, sort of, you know, situation. Um, as you pointed out, to be a weirdo or to be claimed or called a weirdo was a little bit uncomfortable, but that's also a generational interpretation or definition.

Um, and, and I, I couldn't sort of get past that. Um, then. In my desire to come on this podcast. I thought, well, I've got to, I've got to work through this. So in one of my team coaching sessions, I actually, uh, used the question. What is a weirdo to you and how important is it to be used or not to be used in this particular team?

And it was a check in. It was expected to be, you know, several minutes in a team of seven people. And, and four of the team were under 30 and three of the team were over 55. So there was a big gap in the middle. Um, the conversation went on for 40 minutes. And this is what I love about team coaching is that you go to where the conversation needs to be.

And just the, the very topic of weirdos in the workplace. just opened up such enriched and textured dialogue between not just between the two age groups but amongst everybody in the team and everybody had a different perspective of what a weirdo was and it settled down into Someone who's bold, someone who's creative, someone who's not, you know, on the beaten path, um, you know, some, some, someone that can potentially drive change and, and then it morphed into, and then I, I sort of facilitated this conversation a little bit that within a team dynamic, um, the weirdos, the one or two or the three can start to feel psychologically safe because everybody allows that weirdness.

to unfold. And suddenly this is where the magic of a team starts to appear. So it's just a wonderful story. And, um, yeah, I think, I think it's the absolute right name for the podcast. I absolutely love that you did that, that you actually went out and kind of workshopped it almost. Yeah. Yeah. I was, it was for selfish reasons, but it, it now is, is part of my routine, right?

Because I, I think it, It really helps move the psychological safety bar, right. And the thing is, like, why are we why are we sometimes resistant to words, and I'm the same right there are certain words, but I'm like, it's a struggle for me to feel like I'm that could be part of my identity. But I think the same thing happens if you, you know, maybe you're taking a personality assessment or something and it tells you, Oh, this is, you know, this is your result.

This is who you are, you know, and you're looking at it going, I don't think I'm that person. And it rubs you a little bit, right. But it's, it's processing that and opening yourself up to that possibility. That really, um, helps us develop into. like a new identity, right? Uh, or broadens our identity or makes us more agile or adaptive.

So, um, yeah, I'm amazed that you did that work. That's so brilliant. Oh, thank you. And you mentioned, you know, the assessments and, you know, we, whether it's something very simple, you know, Myers Briggs or whatever, you know, there's a month there, but, um, I find that doing individual personal assessments In a team coaching environment, um, does set up some risks because people do exactly what you said.

They get attached to their own identity and really the secret of a, of a well performing team is that it's about the dance. It's not about the dancers and we don't care what orientation the dancers are. We don't care what ethnicity they are or whatever. It really doesn't matter. We're only focused primarily now there's growth individually, of course, but we're focused on the dance.

And how is the dance going to look? in front of the audience or the stakeholders. And, and so we, we, sometimes we have to, I find that we have to spend time in, in team coaching sessions to get those individual assessments on the table and put them through the shredder. Yeah. Sometimes get sort of going in that collective energy.

Yeah. I mean, if you're getting, if you're like, I'm a yellow and You have a really rigid, you know, idea of that. That's not promoting the kind of flexible mindset that we need in a team. Yeah. Right. We need a flexible mindset. Um, would you say how, how does team ship and how would team ship in a flexible mindset?

How, how, how do you help develop that? Well, I guess, you know, it's, it's a good question. There are a lot of approaches, but I think what I can do is distill down. This is that in a, in a team coaching environment. In the beginning stages. There's more facilitation on the team from the team coach. We're putting together the structure where I'm helping them pull together their charter, their working agreement, and um, so that there's buy in, there's sign in, but everything is flexible.

And so no matter What are the stages that we initially set up? I mean, I lay out a template and sort of a shell and I populate it, but it's, it's for them to deconstruct and rebuild it for themselves because they need to own it so that that flexibility, which then brings in trust and psychological safety and candor and all those things start to play all those dynamics start to happen when.

They are now in ownership. Um, and yet, um, I'm not just sitting back watching. You know, I'm holding their feet to the fire on accountability. Like they have a charter, they have a working agreement and I won't call them out, but I won't tell them what's wrong is that I will tell them, I think we might be in breach of what you, what the team has agreed to.

Is it just me or, or how does the rest of the team. Do you that I should just sidebar that to say that, you know, in team coaching, there's both team coaching sessions where we're working on, uh, development issues and going through their, their development stages. There's success traits, et cetera, but there's also live action coaching.

where under very tight NDAs, I'm just a fly in the wall, and we agree upon how I will interact, if at all. But, but that's very, very powerful, because you witness them, and I'm observing them in, in their, in their usual active meetings, right? And they're going through their tasks and everything like that.

And it's, it's a good test to see how they're taking how, you know, the same dynamics. And bringing them into their, their day job or into what their team is expected to do. And what are the objectives and what are the tasks? Hmm. Very interesting. Do you find that they bring their best selves to those sessions when you're watching?

Or do they kind of like, are you like the, the furniture after a while? You know, it, it's, It's always different and it depends on the issue. And of course, in the beginning, everybody's all suited up, but it only takes one spark and, and then I'm, I'm invisible. Um, and, and I really try to let that go.

Sometimes, You'll see everybody, what's the team coach think right now? Because they're already sensing there's a, there's that dynamic tensions, but you don't need me. You already sense it. So what, what's going on? What do you feel? Is it, is it uncomfortable? Do you feel stressed? Has your heart rate gone up?

Let's talk about it. Yep. Red flags, red flags. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So teamship. A teamship culture. I'm curious about that. And also high impact team. Um, and I know these things go hand in hand. You probably don't have a high impact team without a team culture, a teamship culture rather. Um, what, can you paint us a picture?

So what, what is a team sh a high impact team? What do they look and feel and sound and smell like? Yeah. Okay. So maybe not the smell. And it's a good way to frame the question, Aaron, because, you know, we touched on the stages of team development. Um, a high impact team is really at the second to last stage.

Now the last stage being The, the team coachings program is really complete and we recalibrate, we reset, we team out. Um, but if we're dealing or if we've developed or we've evolved into a teamship culture, then we're going to look at that and, and see how we can raise the bar within the whole organization.

So a high impact team. You know, within my definition and use of the term is a team that has gone beyond high performing. This team has become a catalyst there. Um, they're creating a ripple effect. Of all of the dynamics of what, you know, radical collaboration can do the organization and they're driving change.

They're, they're incubating a lot of other, um, you know, either teams, they're influencing teams, or they've got a lot of people that now want to be on a team because just through osmosis. people in the organization, they want to be a part of that positive movement. So that's a high impact team. Now, is it a rites of passage or a milestone that one goes from one to the other?

No, it's not like that. But, um, it's a, it's, it's more of a horizon that, you know, we can, the team can aspire to reach. So that's what a high impact team can really do. This notion, it sounds like it's something that kind of goes viral. Like people are noticing, um, they're, you know, there's a positivity, there's, um, an impact, there's an influence, and there's obviously like a high performing aspect of it, I'm sure as well.

Yeah, it can be viral. It's, it all depends on, well, depends on a lot of things, but I'll, I'll focus on it depends on leadership, right? Leadership has bought in, or maybe leadership is still at that experimental stage. You know, they don't really have a team trip culture. They're not totally into it, but.

They're willing to give it a go because they know that it's work is not working to the level they want it. The organizational health is substandard. And, and so if they're supporting it, then, um, they will remove the barriers to whatever's happening and, and then begin to see or witness for the first time what real corporate culture can be and, and how it grows organically.

And so, you know, your, your term of viral, you know, is. can be actually very, very true. In some cases, there's skepticism and, and people are like, you know, what, what are they drinking? Like, what are they putting in their coffee? You know, they're all so excited and hyped up. You know, we see them through the fishbowl boardroom and, and they're kind of going, Oh, you know, but, but because they haven't really experienced it yet.

So it all depends on really the team lead, which is really the liaison between leadership and the organization and the team. And how they want to, um, exploit that energy. Right. Um, and I'm, I'm going to make it probably clear for everyone, like, it sounds like the description, you know, the excitement and everything sounds like very extroverted energy, but I think that doesn't matter what kind of personality style you have.

You can be part of a team within a teamship culture that has that kind of energy. Is that true? Absolutely. Yeah. And, and, and it's also in resolve. Because at the end of the day, um, you know, every conversation I have in the early stages with the sponsors and the and the stakeholders or the executive leadership, it's all about, um, you know, um, performance results, growth, um, You know, so we're not losing sight of the fact that if it's a, if it's a private company, it's about profit and return shareholder value and these kinds of things.

So, so in buried in that performance. Uh, those KPIs are showing that the, the M& A initiative or the new product release happened amazingly quickly and amazingly effective. And so while people are still kind of looking normal, you know, they're not, you know, they're not bouncing off the ceiling. People are looking at just what's going on within the organization.

They're looking at results and that, you know, certainly not just private sector firms, but in all types of organizations, results matter. Yes, they do. And this is the main driver, uh, uh, and outcome of effective teams, right? So, so this is also part of the, of the ripple effect is that we've got, we've got things happening in this organization.

And people are are happy about it. And people are saying like, Oh, God, yeah, that's, you know, I, I'm not going to work more than 40 hours. They want to work an extra few hours to finish this and drive this home. And then, you know, you hope that the organization says, you know, that was really good. Okay, so let's everybody take, take the Friday off everybody on this team.

That's good. Like we, we beat this timeline by a month. Right. Yeah. Yep. Um, and right now I don't think any company can afford to, you know, to be complacent. I would say, um, teaming is going to be especially important, putting together strong teams, knowing how to manage strong teams, support strong teams and build that culture.

Um, because, you know, the better. We, we can do a lot more together than we can separately for sure. Um, and there's so much context to know now, like, Oh my gosh, you know, try doing anything without consulting the others, like all of, all of your stakeholders, right. Um, so expensive to go in the wrong direction.

Well, it is. And these interventions, while they're still always going to be important, like consulting and advising and training, you know, we need all that. But what's happening is that those initiatives are not connecting to organizational health or success. They're there under contract. They're in, they're out.

They're important. They're important at a certain points in time. But if you have a team ship culture, which is cloaked, not only the executive in the boardroom, but all the whole organization, then teams, the power of teams now are connected inherently to the organization. And so the outcomes, the positive outcomes, the performance, the effectiveness.

Is now capacity and, and it's, it's part of the organization. And I think this is where, um, you know, I'll make this bold statement. You know, I think that generally, there are certainly are a lot of exceptions. There are some really, really progressive firms, organizations in Canada, but generally, for whatever reason, we're, we're kind of behind embracing team ship.

In compared to the US and the UK and other European countries. No, I mean, I have some suspicions why that is, but, um, we need to embrace that. And we need to do this right now because it's, it's an investment and it doesn't mean we have to go hire more people. It doesn't mean we need to engage expensive consultants.

We need to identify and, um, unleash the potential in our own organizations. And, um, those people that we've identified as well, they, they don't seem to participate. They're always quiet. They, you know, we don't hear for those people. You bring those people into a safe, powerful, engaged team environment. And, and it happens often that within.

months, those sort of disengaged people are deriving the agenda of the team. They just emerged. It's, and it's, this is what is inspiring for me to see this, um, transcendence. Um, and, and the, and the people who are typically sucking all the oxygen out of the teams are now kind of like, Oh, yeah. Okay. I guess I got to do things differently now.

Yeah, there's balance in the team. Hmm. Interesting. Okay. So, um, let's see, how do we want to wrap things up here? Um, I mean, obviously with that, I was going to say, Aaron, you, you did ask another question about like teamship in general and, and how does it sort of mesh into leadership? And I, I wanted to just touch on that and maybe this is a good way to sort of, um, bring it all together.

And yeah, we look at, you know, the success of leaders is distinguished by their, their leadership skills. Acumen, uh, and commitments to, uh, you know, people, power, organizational health and stakeholder value. Well, it's the same thing with teams. The effective effectiveness of a team is exemplified by the team ship operative framework.

And it's, it's also, um, exemplified by the collaboration, rigor and the systemic co elevation, um, in pursuit of, um, results around a unified or, uh, aligned purpose. So when you, when you look at teamship and leadership in that same context, You see that they belong together. They really, they really need each other.

And I think today they need each other more than ever. And, and I think this is where the, you know, the understanding has to sort of come into play from leaders because they need to, they need to realize that Uh, a teamship culture is absolutely necessary in, in all organizations right now. Yeah. So I talked to a lot of leaders and especially leaders who are looking to improve their teams, although we don't do the kind of work you do, Kim.

And I find that leaders don't have a very good or very strong language around leadership, period, just leadership. Yeah. Um, I think teamship is like another layer, right? Uh, how do you find, is like the, do you find the leaders that you're talking to have any kind of common language around teamship? Um, well, it's, it's, um, If they do, they've already got high performing teams.

They understand that. And so you're coming in to take them to the next level or they've slid off the road and you're trying to bring them back for different reasons. Um, I think a lot of it is the discussion centers around organizational health. What's the state of the organization, you know, um, and I'm saying that generally, cause it doesn't matter whether they're private institution or whatever the, the leader, um, needs to recognize that.

And if you're having an initial conversation, they probably are looking for something to make a difference, something to help them move the bar, but they don't really know, know what. And they've heard all the, you know, they've heard the pitches before and they, you know, they've heard all the leadership training and the workshops and, and all the kinds of things they've heard about team building.

They've heard about, you know, team dynamics and teaming, and they send people off to a weekend retreat and they climb a. A wall and they fall down and people catch them and now there's trust, right? Well, okay, well we check that box off. Um, and when you have a candid conversation with them about collaboration, about a holistic approach to working together, um, and dealing with conflict, dealing with, um, decision making, and breaking down, now I know this is another cliche, but breaking down silos, Or, you know, getting past groupthink.

Um, you know, if, if you have the conversation so that you're not pointing it to them, but, but they're kind of acknowledging that, yeah, these are issues, but I have no idea how to address this. I know why this is a problem. I know what I have to do, but the common question is, well, I just don't know how to do it.

And there, that's a, that's a place to start a conversation, a rich conversation around the potential of teams. Um, team ship and of course it requires and and there's statistics and reports and research done that the best highest performing teams are coached. That's, that's pretty, pretty known today. Um, certainly in the UK.

And, and so, um, systemic team coaching is important, um, but it's an investment and it's long term. You know, we're not searching for fixes. We're searching for capacity, building, um, empowerment. Absolutely. So you need a healthy business model probably before you're engaging in team coaching.

Well, and what would a healthy business model be one that's, you know, profitable, profitable or delivering services and, and, and benefit to your stakeholders. It could be that you don't have a profitable or healthy business model because you don't have trust in your teams or you don't have a collaborative mindset.

Um, so. So I would, I would say, no, it's, it's not a criteria. I think the discussion can happen, um, because of that. Okay. All right. So, um, so that's, that's very good. That's very interesting. Okay. Uh, so worth talking about, worth reaching out to Kim, if you have teams who need support, um, organizations that, you know, you're doing some investigation on what the root causes is, because maybe it's your teams.

Yeah. If there's some issues. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and it's, and if you're really just, the discussion can be around, how do I get the best out of my people? You know, there's a big aspect around, you know, people power, you know, EQ, for example, you know, a lot of organizations, traditional organizations will still call this soft skills performing, you know, high performing teams.

inherently develop the EQ of their people. So, so leaders are saying, well, I know I got to do this. I have to retain my people. I have to make them feel more psychological safety. I've got to focus more on DEI, but I don't know how to do that. And I, I give my, give those problems to HR and they just bring some consultants in and, but some of them really know what they're doing, but I don't, I don't want to.

bash the HR departments, but, but that's not their wheelhouse. And so the leaders are going like, I just don't know what to do. And so, um, the conversation has to be around, what are we doing with the team? Um, and, and we're using, we're tapping into, and we're, we're uncovering this. Enormous potential that it already exists in the company of how to meet the requirements, the objectives, and the goals of, of the organization.

And maybe we need to actually design some cross functional teams within the organization to better execute upon those goals. I mean, that could be a great conversation in itself. And, and many teams that I coach, I spend the first several weeks. In the first phase, which is called alignment or designing or direction, um, talking with sponsors and stakeholders around.

So how do we, how do we build your team? And then who's on the team? And do the teams want to be coached? And, you know, And does this make sense? Um, um, and if you've had teams before, are they working groups? Are they pseudo teams and let's tear that apart and let's look at what might make sense, um, and let's experiment.

So it's not always about, Oh, there's a team. It has a tail and a nose. Let's go coach it. Yes. It could be an organization with the wheels coming off and a teaming mindset could make the difference between success and prolonged agony, you know, towards failure. I think the thing that I love about this the most, or not the most, the thing that I love about maybe the most is the fact that it's such a tangible outcome.

Right. It's the kind of thing that you can say, you know, let's just try it and see how it works for six months. I don't have to, you know, it's not like a hope and dream, right? It's not like, oh, let's, you know, spend money on this, this program. And, um, The, the results are so intangible that they're impossible to measure, right?

With, with teaming, uh, literally in six months, you should be seeing some results. Your team should be happier, more motivated, more productive. Like there's so many tangible outcomes of what you do. And, you know, at a, at an individual level, that's the other thing with teams. Even though, as I said earlier, we're focused on the dance, not the dancers.

But the members, the individual people are growing. They're learning how to, um, associate and coalesce and relate. With other people, that's a, that's a, that's a life skill, right? It's it, so they take this away and this starts to sort of spill out into, you know, into the pizza parlors and the pubs after work, right?

I mean, it's like, wow, you've changed. Like I heard that so much, like. You know, person A has really changed, and person B, I've never heard that person talk so much. And, and so, they, the confidence starts to build up. And, and so if, if nothing else, I mean, and maybe the team starts out as a core fundamental team, barely just past working group, but they do have a compelling reason to do it.

To get together to form a team and maybe they only go to a certain level, um, because they're highly functional and, and, you know, they're, they're not in decision making, a decision making capacity, and they can only influence the direction of the organization so much. They'll never become a high impact team, but they will have strong influence.

On the organization and and so you, you know, the team coach serves that purpose of 6 to 12 to 18 months, but then the team coach withdraws and I, you know, I, or the team coach does not need to come back every time there's a problem. A wheel falls off because now the team is empowered. They have their own charter, their working agreement, they're empowered.

They can now drive this through the organization. I don't want to be a consultant. I have consulted and I hate it when I got to be called back into, you know, rinse and repeat of something that they should have known they should have built the capacity to resolve themselves. But it's much easier to just bring in the consultants again.

Yeah, it is sometimes. It is sometimes. It is sometimes. Oh boy, Kim, thank you so much for the amazing conversation around this. It's really interesting. Uh, it's so deep though. I feel like there's so many layers that it's almost impossible to be able to just, you know, it's, it's so broad. It's really hard to focus on like, you know, one specific aspect of it, but I think we did okay.

I think we did. I think you're Um, you're right. I mean, it is, it is very complex. It's messy. Uh, yeah, we didn't get into cross functionality. We didn't get, like, there's so many, so many layers, you know, there's, um, I think you, you pulled out a lot of really good themes to discuss and I thank you for that.

And I'm really appreciative of, uh, You know, the opportunity to come onto your podcast and just share some ideas. Honestly, come back anytime you want. Maybe next season we'll have you back again. If you want. Absolutely. What you're up to. Yeah. Absolutely. We'd love it. Awesome. Thank you very much, sir. Weirdo.

I'm good. You're going to get a t shirt.

Intro:

Jennifer Robb is an enthusiastic and strategic finance leader with over 15 years of experience in various public and private industries, including transportation, construction, and energy. A few years ago, Jennifer experienced burnout caused by what we would call "old school toxic management".

Through recovery, Jennifer discovered hidden insights about herself and the workplace. She embraced mindfulness, ignited her passion for coaching, and developed innovative strategies to motivate teams in a positive way. Her story is a beautiful reminder that even our hardest moments can lead to valuable lessons and transformative change!

Stay in Touch with Jennifer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-robb-cpa-cma/

For more on Jennifer and her Services: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-robb-cpa-cma/

Welcome to weirdos in the workplace. The podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work.

And I'm here with the lovely Jennifer Rob. Say hello, Jennifer. Thank you. Hello everyone. Awesome. Jennifer is an enthusiastic and strategic finance leader with over 15 years experience in various public and private sector roles, um, including in, uh, different industries, such as transportation, construction, and energy.

And a few years ago, Jennifer experienced a burnout caused by what we might call, uh, old school toxic management. We're going to talk about that and the process of recovery has led her to discover herself for mindfulness and coaching practice and win win ways of motivating teams. So welcome Jennifer to weirdos in the workplace.

Thank you. And thanks for having me. Yeah. My pleasure. Um, so let's share a little bit about yourself, please, so that everyone here can get to know you, get to know your background a little bit, and, you know, especially regarding this burnout, just if you can, if you can kind of lead us, um, on the journey a little bit.

Mm hmm. So, I am a CPA. Um, I also have a I studied and worked abroad in different capacities. I'm also a mom of two, which is important, because, you know, everyone has a life outside of work. Everyone is a full and complete human being. And sometimes a lot of these worlds collide, uh, for better or worse.

And I went through this period of, um, intense work where I was very capable of doing the work and unfortunately the work just get kept getting piled on. So through COVID there were some, you know, everyone had challenges, right? People were leaving the workplace. They were quitting through vaccine mandates.

There were so many changes that were going on and that led, um, me to a position of covering a number of jobs. And it went on for such an extended period of time. It was really hard for me to let go because I loved what I was doing. And I love doing things like innovating and process improvements and making things better.

And I didn't see it coming. I just eventually got to this place where I was so burnt out and I was frustrated and cynical and I just didn't realize where I had backed myself into a corner. And I really needed to make some personal changes, to take a break, to let myself heal. When you are clinically diagnosed with burnout, which I was, it's, it's a tough situation.

You know, we, we overuse burnout. Um, you know, we say at the end of the week, oh, it's Friday, I'm burnt out. But when you are clinically burnt out, that that's just a different level of burnout. It's one where you need, um, like psychological support and it's one where you need even, um, Rest and recovery, not just physically, but for your brain.

And that's really different place to be in. And I didn't realize what it meant until I was in it until it was too late. I think that that's actually really important. And I think you're totally right. We use burnout often. I think people are tired. And they use the words burnout, you know, and I try to, I try to hold a strong line there myself.

A lot of people are constantly concerned that I'm going to burn out because of the number of things, number of hats that I wear. Um, and I, what I always say is I might be tired sometimes, but I'm really good at managing my energy. I'm really good at making sure that I'm eating well. I'm exercising, I'm drinking water, I'm sleeping, you know, I'm seeing, I'm seeing my friends and, and I have support, like I'm okay, you know, um, and yeah, I might be tired sometimes and I'll let you know if I'm tired, but I'm not burnt out.

Um, but I do think I, and I have, I have also experienced burnout in my twenties and it is very different. It's debilitating. Um, and so I, I, I do know the difference personally, but I don't think a lot of people do. How did you experience burnout? What was the experience for you? So unfortunately it was, it was quite sad because I'm a very goal oriented person and I have a lot of grit, which is great.

Like I can, I can like. really dig my heels in, be determined, accomplish my goals. But grit doesn't always serve you well. And what I learned was that, uh, there was a book by Annie Duke called Quit. Yeah. And she, in a way, really changed my life. So thank you, Annie. Um, because she, In her book she talks about when is it worthwhile to grit through something and to bear down and get it done, and when does it not serve you enough, and for me, having my eyes set on these goals, because I wanted to accomplish them.

It meant. Then I had to cut away everything else. So sleep, you know, I don't, I don't have time to sleep right now. I've got to get this done. I don't have time to, you know, make sure I'm fed with nutritious foods. I've got to have like protein bars in my drawer. And that's what I would eat all day long. I had an espresso machine in my office like, and come on, it's great coffee.

Um, And I, I started working out really intensely as a coping mechanism and it wasn't healthy. When I look back on it, I did it because it was just so intense and it just allowed me to, to just release that energy, that negative energy I felt, but looking back on it now, it was just a coping mechanism. And what happened was at the end, um, you know, I left my job and I kind of collapsed and it was like this.

Collapse of physical tiredness, mental tiredness. I literally just stayed in bed for like days on end and my husband was quite worried about me and I tried to, you know, hide it as much as I could for my kids because I didn't want them to, you know, feel as if their mom was going through something traumatic, but it really was trauma.

In a way, because I had pushed myself to the extent that I had lost control of my mental composure. I, I, I lived almost on a different planet and I was so hypervigilant, you know, everything had a deeper meaning, everything was sort of out of control. And when I saw the psychiatrist who diagnosed me with burnout, you know, initially I thought I had something like.

Um, I was on the spectrum somehow, like I had ADHD or something and he's like, no, you are so burnt out. You need time and space to just calm your brain down, calm your body down and just stay with it. And it's been a long road. It's been. Yeah, it's been like two years, and I'm still, you know, learning new techniques and learning new tools to keep me grounded.

And through that experience, I did a lot of coaching, I did a lot of journaling, I did a lot of learning about mindfulness practices, and just being in tune with your body, and learning, you know, some painful lessons about what do I value. Does this serve me or does it not serve me? And it's, it seems quite simple.

It's also like a hard lesson to learn when you get there. Yeah. And I find that burnout often, um, it often happens to people who are high performing. You're high performing, you know, that those type of personalities, right. And, and I wanted to be, I wanted to achieve those goals. Like I'm a capable person.

If I don't know how to do it, there's nothing that can stop me from learning how to do it. Um, I was, I was very much a person where I would say. Okay, this is my task. I may not know how to do it, but I'm certainly going to figure it out. And I would be really happy with those big challenges. So it was really hard for me to take that step back.

Uh, but what it, where it led me to was it, In the end, I wish I hadn't gotten so burnt out, but it led me to a place of learning about, you know, how all these things can benefit me and my leadership skills. So, you know, mindfulness, being, um, being aware and seeing people through not just their eyes and not their viewpoints, but seeing them through their whole lives and what's going on and having more compassion for other people and thinking.

You know, that person doesn't seem themselves. They didn't react very well. There's a logic to that and there must be something going on in their life. That's. You know, and, and looking at people as other humans more than employees or, you know, team members, you know, there was a book that I read and I think it was called how, how to be human.

I'll, I'll look it up so you can put it in the notes but it really talked about the human side of, you know, understanding what's behind everyone. And even the people that we know really well, we only know about 30%. of what's going on in their life. So there's this whole iceberg below the surface that we're unaware of.

And keeping that in mind allowed me to be kind to myself because I realized, you know, other people don't know what's going on with me and likewise. So it allowed me to approach a lot of things with more compassion and kindness and patience. Yeah. And it also gave me permission to forgive people, not, not because Of what they did necessarily, but in the act of forgiving people, I'm not saying I for said it was right what they did, or I'm not judging them.

It allowed me to let go of that negative energy. And that was really key for me. I don't forgive people for them. I forgive them for myself. You sound very self possessed, like you feel like you have, you know, you have more control over, you know, your boundaries, um, your, your, you know, your own emotions, um, how your, you know, your interpersonal relationships, um, would you say that that sounds accurate?

Um, and it was, it was a journey to get here, uh, used, I had two fabulous coaches that I worked with and I worked at it. You, you can't fake the work. But the work was so rewarding. Right. And that is what led me to really want to do more things in terms of helping people. So, as part of that healing journey, um, I volunteer with the Royal Canadian Marines Search and Rescue.

And they offered up this critical incident stress management course. So what we would do is when there's been a particularly traumatic incident, uh, so for example, these are volunteers who go out and rescue people. If they've suffered some sort of emotional trauma, we are trained to go in and help them process that trauma.

And I think Getting involved with that was so key in helping me process my own grief and trauma from being burnt out and in the workplace. And then that led me to the new spot about, you know, really wanting to take the executive coaching and become an executive coach, not necessarily to go out and start my own consulting business.

That, that may happen, but to also bring that in house to organizations, because I think organizations do lack that skill. And a lot of organizations don't have the money or, you know, the consulting budget to be able to bring that in house. And so, Yeah. And I really believe, you know, I, I really believe in making the world a better place.

And that's, that's a big, uh, commitment from an accountant. So I'm not saving people's lives and, you know, I'm not like rescuing people from all these different, um, you know, traumatic situations. But I believe that in whatever capacity you have, you can make the world a better place or not. Yeah. Yeah, total 100 percent your actions have a ripple effect for sure.

And we really believe in coaching cultures here. So anytime someone can learn the skill of coaching and bring it into their organizations. That's what I did originally. You know, I didn't. go out. I didn't become a coach and take coach training because I wanted to be a coach like an independent coach. I did it because I wanted to be a great manager, you know, a great people manager.

I wanted to be able to serve my team to the best of my abilities. Um, and I knew that coaching was a valuable skill. And so that's, that was the reason why I took coaching. And I think that that is one of the better reasons, honestly, to become a coach, to learn that skill. Yeah, definitely. Um, So obviously you didn't get here on your own, you know, you, you didn't burn out in a silo.

Um, I do think that, you know, we have more autonomy than we sometimes know that we do, or we have the skill. We don't always have the skills, right. To set those boundaries, to have those difficult conversations, to like, you know, to, to, you know, You don't have the personal power necessarily, um, in every situation at work that you need to have in order to protect yourself properly.

Right. Um, but, but you certainly, you don't get there in a silo, you know, um, and what, um, sometimes the only thing you can do is leave. And I think that you've demonstrated that, but tell me about, you know, without obviously, you know, being discreet about it as you can, um, tell me about the scenario that, how, how did this evolve in the workplace?

Yeah. So I, I think I was very naive. Um, and I believed that I could show how important finance and accounting wise and how beneficial it could be for an organization. And I really believe that finance is a strategic business partner. We can serve the organization. We can help the organization. You know, we are service providers to give good quality information that people can make the best possible decisions with.

And I was, I was fooling myself. Um, and I didn't realize. That this organization didn't value that. Um, one of the also things like, and I, so I, I do value my own profession and I am, um, biased, of course. I also believe in innovation and being really authentic and, What's really important to me when we talk about innovation is it really starts with diversity of thought.

And if people aren't willing to come to the table to discuss and brainstorm different ideas, then they really don't believe in innovation at all. And, you know, there's, I also feel there's a link between DEI initiatives and Diversity of thought. You know, we're really great at saying, you know, we believe in diverse cultures, but do we believe in diverse ways of thinking?

Not so sure. In the organizations I've worked at, um, I think we could have done better and, and maybe part of that was, was my fault and I, I own that, but I, I think we need to also open our minds a little bit and realize that brainstorming and diversity of thought Is that first step towards making things better or making meaningful, intentional changes in the workplace?

I 100 percent agree with you. Um, yes, I think that there are so many different ways that the brain works in different people. And the only way that we can solve the world's problems that we have today, I think, is to think differently. Um, I think that becomes kind of tricky in a larger organization. I've worked with a few holocracies.

Um, which are very, very, very interesting, dynamic organizations, very flat organizations, um, or teal organizations and, uh, they, they have their own challenges, you know, um, there are, you know, and, and, and the teal organizations, the whole holocratic organizations, they really value this as well. Um, It's interesting.

Like, I think that we have to take everything in balance. This is where I'm coming. Like, I feel like as I, as I've learned about diversity and inclusion, it's like the pendulum kind of swings all the way one way, and then you realize, you know, if I'm working, for example, if I'm working with a creative team, you know, a lot of creative teams.

strongly value collaboration, innovation, diversity of thought, you know, they're chaotic, they're beautiful and they're a chaos. Um, and then often they'll come out with a product that's very interesting if they can work together. Um, but the, it's almost like the more they get to know each other, the more comfortable organizations get.

There's so many, there's so many challenges that, that come up with these types of teams as well. Um, so I don't think there's a perfect. Perfect solution, all that to say. I think it's, I think that, you know, we need to manage people's expectations, um, through the process. It's like valuing people's experience, valuing their ideas, but then also someone needs to be able to make decisions, right?

Yes. Yeah. And those first ideas, they may not be the right ones. Uh, but they may, they may spur someone's creativity to get you to the right one. And, you know, I think if you're going to pick up a bow and arrow, and if you're going to shoot at the target, I don't think you're going to hit a bullseye the very first time.

I think you have to be prepared to miss the mark in the process of hitting that bullseye. And, you know, Making mistakes and making suggestions that ultimately lead to a better place is, is part of the process. And I think it's a really great thing when an organization can be open and they can have brainstorming sessions and keep things moving.

Because I think we live in a world where change is so constant and it's so fast. We have to become, we have to figure out a better model. And Right of how to organize things into how to, how to think of these things quickly and efficiently and not, not waste time, so to speak, um, in, in one organization I worked for, we would do these, like, very well intention, intention sessions where, you know, we take a day.

The management team would work on certain projects, and we were all just so nervous and apprehensive to share, and because of that, the organization didn't progress. And this was an organization that said they valued innovation. And. I wish I could tell the senior leadership that, you know, when people are not participating, that's a message, right?

That's, they, yeah, they're afraid to put forward these ideas, and they just weren't, I don't believe. It was intentional. I think they truly believed they thought of innovation, but that's where I get back to the diversity of thought and having these open, robust discussions that are used to generate like new ideas or new products, new services, new processes.

Those are really important. And, um, I totally agree. It's about trust. I mean, trust is the foundation for everything, right? If you can't trust the people that you work with, um, it's going to be very difficult, but people are also very, um, attached. to their own thoughts, especially strong minded people.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it didn't really hit home. Like after, after I got really burnt out, I started taking courses and I took this one change management course and it was so valuable to me because the instructor was incredible. And this was at Royal Roads University. And She told us and, and taught us through like literature and, and different research, all change begins with a loss.

And I had never thought of it that way. And it is so true because whether it is a small change or a big change, everyone loses something right off the bat. So for example, if you're implementing a new software system, you have to lose your, um, capability, so to speak, and your expertise in that software system.

You could have worked with that software system for five years and you were really good at it. And now you have to lose. That that part of you that knows what you're doing and step into a new program where you don't know what you're doing. And I think it's that loss that really holds us back. And yes, that new software system may be wonderful and 10 times better than the last one.

But I think people forget that that loss. It's what holds us back from change. Now, do you think there is hope in an organization, um, where, you know, there, it's a very command and control environment, um, you know, maybe the trust isn't, isn't very high, uh, and folks are starting to feel burnt out, like, Where would you as a, um, maybe a, like a mid level manager or a director, uh, where would you start?

Would you, would you think there's hope to make change within the organization and to manage upward there? I'll always believe in hope. I know. I'm a hopeful person and I do believe it. I just think there has to be the right conditions. So, and I, I do really believe that the culture over the organization.

Has to come from the top and if you're pushing the culture from the bottom up, it's going to be a lot more taxing on people emotionally. It's going to be a lot more work. It's going to take a lot longer. I do believe that there is hope because even in your own work group. You can have your own microculture, so to speak.

Um, and you can start building up that microculture, and hopefully that will spread to other cultures, and here is how we apply it. And there is strategy involved, so, you know, you can speak to your own VP, you can speak to, you know, the executive management, you can try your best, but ultimately, And this is, this has been a really hard lesson for me to learn.

If people aren't open to having the conversation and they're not willing to listen, it's going to be a really hard, long road. And maybe it'll take some creativity to think, you know, who can we get on our side to help bring on the executive management? And I know they have different priorities and different stresses, and that's part of the nature of the game.

And when you think about doing the right thing and sustainability, it doesn't just mean the environment, right? You need to have sustainability in your workplace. You need to, um, think about how much it actually costs your business. So, um, when I listened to a previous episode of yours with Eleanor Eves and corporate trauma, it, it really costs the business.

the organization a lot. And I think if it were easier to measure, we would do it and we could see it. It's, it's a tough thing to measure. And I've thought about this being an accountant, but turnover, there's a cost to that. Um, and those are very, Very easy to track costs. So you've got like you've got a post for new positions.

You've got an interview. There's all that time. You've got to get that person up to speed training all of that. And if you look at

Are we trapping our employees? And what I mean by that is, are you paying them so much that they're never going to leave? And I believe in paying people what they're worth, but I also believe in having, having freedoms and autonomy so that they are able to speak their mind to help enable those changes. I mean, I would be seriously interested in how transparent that organization is, um, organizations that don't want to measure, you know, their HR metrics, um, change over time.

Um, they tend not to be very transparent in general. And there's a reason for that. It's not difficult to measure these things, like you said. So what's the reason why we're not measuring them and publicizing those details? Yeah, and you can measure a lot of metrics that make you look good. Oh, sure. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's, it's This is what I always do when I go on Amazon, like I've learned, I want to buy a product. Yeah, I could, I could read the good reviews and make myself feel better. I'm like, yes, but no, I want to read the bad reviews and I want to take those bad reviews seriously. And when, you know, companies are doing survey after survey after survey, put the, put the positive responses aside.

And take a look at those negative responses. And of course, there's going to be jaded people, there's going to be ones that, you know, don't really have any merit to them, but there's also going to be patterns. So look for the patterns. And there's also going to be, um, grains of truth in there. And I think you have to mine for that.

Yeah. And you have to ask the right questions, like a yes or no question. That's not going to give you the answery answer that you want. Sorry. It it's going for these like non binary questions and asking them that the hows and the history and, and getting to those situations where you're mining for that gold.

And you have to be prepared to hear something that you don't potentially like because what else is growth then taking your, your faults or your shortcomings and building them up, and there's nothing wrong with it we all have. You know, shortcomings, but, um, Adam Grant, um, in his book, Hidden Potential, he talks about how organizations should build scaffolding systems.

They are a support, they're meant to be temporary, they're meant to get people to where they need to be. Right. And then when they're there. You remove the scaffolding. And I thought that was such a great way of, you know, introducing a support system because, you know, you want to keep people, you want to grow people, you want to make things better.

And I couldn't think of a better way of saying it than a scaffolding. You put it in place when you need it, take it away when it's, when you're done. Yeah. It's a great, great metaphor for sure. Um, yeah, there should be specific interventions Uh, specific phases of an employee's career, you know, like when they're onboarding, there should be specific interventions for onboarding with mentoring support, with training, um, to get them up to speed as quickly as possible, make them feel like they belong, help them, you know, integrate into the culture of the organization, um, when they're advancing in their career, same thing.

If there's a new responsibility or accountability. They're the same thing. Right. You know, there are phases, very specific phases where there should be some kind of intervention. And if there's not, then, you know, organizations is why organizations become chaotic, because there is no continuity. Right.

People are having to learn things on their own, which is, you know, it's not a bad thing, but, um, yeah, it's not a bad thing. Um, and it can be a good thing because you have a sense of accomplishment to sit down and figure it out. It's just that, uh, for me, um, I also did not take responsibility for all the things that was going on like outside of work as well.

So there is just so much like. All at once. And, um, I really needed, um, boundaries, which I didn't hold to very well. And I remember when I was in the thick of it, um, I did tell my boss, you know, I'm really tired. I need the weekend off. I just need to rest. And because we were in budget season, I was the only one who was, Who is doing it.

I was the only one who knew the software program. So it wasn't really great in terms of like continuity or, uh, backup. It was just, you know, it was sad because. You know, my boss said to me, sorry, I really need you to come in. I know you need to rest, but come in. And, you know, I was like, okay, I'll do it. I'll like rip my teeth.

I'll come in. And, you know, I think. Looking back on it, not that I wanted to ever say no, but I would have been better off to say, actually, let let me just take one day off. Let me come in on Sunday. Let me have that day of rest and I'll be able to serve you better. And yeah, um, I do think in a lot of organizations too, there's a lack of focus on the internal departments.

The ones that serve the people. So, you know, it's funny. Certain departments always have certain sort of, um, reputations. So the legal department, the accounting department, you know, the marketing department, you know, so like the marketing departments are the fun ones. And so it's been valid. Yeah. Public relations.

They're great. But accounting, uh, like they have so many rules and, and it's true. We do have a lot of rules, but we're doing it for the good of the organization. Right. And there are reasons for it. And it's, it's just a shame that, uh, there isn't that, um, sort of recognition that all departments are really needed in a business and we need to focus on the internal as well, much as the external.

Yeah. And often, um, that sort of, that sensibility or that, you know, That vibe, I guess, comes from the leader. You know, the, the person who has the most power within an organization office often sets the tone. Um, so you'll see organizations that, you know, some organizations highly value sales and that's all they care about to the detriment of almost anything, everything else and other organizations value governance almost to the detriment of everything else.

And you can, you can usually guarantee that that's where. Their leadership, you know, started from is, is, was one of those things. And I think that's really interesting. So I think, you know, as leaders, again, allowing yourself to be influenced, right. We're going back to that, allowing yourself to be influenced and taking in many different points of view in order to make decisions and really valuing other people's perspective.

It's super important. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there are lots of, lots of companies out there and one, um, would be Workday. Um, they have co CEOs. And I think that's fantastic because it's, it's a heavy burden for one person to hold. And especially when you have such a large corporation, like having co CEOs, it's great.

You can bounce ideas off of each other. You can cover for each other, you know, like it's much more balanced approach. Um, and I think, uh, the more we look at different ways of doing things, I think the healthier companies can also become. Definitely. Um, yeah. Each company can do things that fits their model and their culture.

And, you know, employees can also do things that fits them, their needs and their schedules. I mean, COVID, if COVID taught us nothing, it was that we needed flexibility and the ability to have individuality, um, and, you know, Cover their needs, right? 100 percent Um, and yeah, and I think that you know, some people want to be in the office and some people don't want to be in the office but the vast majority of people want a little bit of both like the flexibility just to be treated as an adult You know, um, and I think that's, you know, that's certainly, uh, one of the motivations that I had for, you know, starting a business that values those sorts of things is, you know, you can bring on better employees.

Awesome team members. Um, you know, and just people are drawn to that, right? That, that, um, that culture. Um, so if there's nothing else, if there was one thing that you wanted people to take away from this conversation, uh, what, what would that be? I would like people to be kind to themselves and to realize if you're feeling in a workplace that you're the odd person out, I guarantee you're not.

There are other people like you all over the place feeling the same way. And perhaps, you know, it's, it's a good way, or it's a good jumping off point to investigate coaching or getting a thinking partner because there's so much value in doing the work and if you're in a financial place that you know you can't afford it, there's lots of opportunities to to join or to take part in coaching programs.

So when people are learning how to coach, they need to put in, uh, you know, a certain amount of hours to become accredited. And that's a really great way of getting the benefits of the coaching, but not necessarily having to pay for it. And there's coaching programs all over the country and you can find them.

Um, like for example, Royal Roads, that was just one of them. They have, you know, You know, tons of coaching programs always going on and if you keep your eye open for when they need people, you can sign up that way or you can investigate how much it would cost for certain coaches, but I, I really highly recommend the value of having a thinking partner.

It doesn't have to be long term. Um, can be short term. And if that doesn't work for you. Look at all the resources out there. So for example, your podcast, um, you put out lots of great episodes on different things and you get people thinking there's so many different, uh, resources out there to help people feel better, right.

Um, and to work through their problems. Yeah. And I think the kinder you can be on yourself, uh, and just do the, know that you're doing the best you can. knowing your values and recognizing that, you know, potentially if I don't fit in here, it's a, it's a value misalignment. And you can realize, you know, maybe this isn't the place for me forever.

And when the right opportunity comes up, then I can, I can realign myself with the values in a different workplace. It, it's a lonely place to be when, you know, you're feeling That you're the crazy one and that people don't believe in you. And. It's not true. There will always be someone who believes in you, you just haven't found the right place for you yet.

Yes. And the more authentic you can be, the more yourself you are, you'll naturally find where you fit. Um, it might take a little longer, you know, the weirder you are for the weirdos out there. It certainly took me a while to figure out where I fit, you know, but, um, eventually the people find you, people find you.

Yeah. Yeah. And I liken it to wearing a really tight, uh, cotton shirt, like a cotton dress shirt, you know, we don't give everyone the same size dress shirt, you know, um, yeah. And when you're unable to move your arms and when you're uncomfortable and when you have to constrict yourself to fit in. That's when you can't perform at your best.

You're, you perform much better when you, you know, are comfortable, when you feel like you fit in an environment. And yeah, that's, that's the, the best thing you can do for yourself. And it, it doesn't always work out when you want to, but just be patient and know that eventually do some work on your values and you will find.

Where you need to be absolutely more is more when it comes to getting support. I think, you know, literally more is more, more of everything, just, you know, try different things, see what works for you. Um, you know, for myself, uh, in my personal development process, it was like, you know, literally everything, YouTube videos, um, you know, podcasts, um, coaching, mentoring, audiobooks, literally audiobooks, like.

Book club, by the way, I wanted to mention this earlier, Annie Duke's book, um, if anyone is listening and they're interested, we have the, um, small business book club through positivist group. So it's positivist. ca slash book dash club. And actually Annie Duke is our next book that we're doing, uh, any Duke's quit and it's, uh, in September sometime.

So yeah, we're meeting virtually in September, so maybe you should join us, Jennifer. I will. Yeah. In that book, she does talk about how people who are very successful, they're practice quitters. And that sounds really counterintuitive, but they're very good at looking at what serves them and what doesn't.

And they're quick to move on to something that serves them. So, uh, take a good read of that book because she has some great advice in there. I can, I can imagine. I haven't read it yet. I'm going to, I've got three weeks, I think. Better get on that. Uh, but yeah, no, I can definitely resonate with that. People say, Aaron, don't you do everything?

I'm like, actually, no, I don't. There's a lot of things I don't do and, and, and on purpose, you know? Um, and, and so we need to decide what it is that we love and what it is that we don't need. That's not serving us. It's not giving us energy. Um, there has to be some kind of energy exchange. If it's just sucking the energy out of me, that's going to be a hard note for me.

Yeah, absolutely. And she does talk about how the common sayings of, you know, quitters never win and winners never quit. That's not helpful. And it's not true because, um, good poker players, for example, they fold more than, um, people who lose a lot of money. So they're very quick and recognizing is that hand going to win?

No fold, fold, fold, and they move on. And then when they do have a winning hand, so, um, quitting is a skill. Um, and it's not something to be ashamed of. It's just recognizing, is this going to work for me? Yes. No. Do I want to spend my limited emotional energy on it? Yes. No. Move on. Yeah. In my previous job, um, we used to say hell yes or hell no with like with clients.

It's like when someone come to us for, for a service. You know, do we want to work with them? Is it a hell yes or a hell no? And there we wanted to make sure there was no gray area, right? No, that's great. I love it. Because if you're, if you're on the fence and you're thinking that's a no, that's a no. It's a no.

Yeah. A hundred percent. Awesome. Thanks so much for coming, Jennifer. It's been great. No, Yeah. Thanks for having me. Um, and if anyone out there wants to get in touch with me, I'm all ears. I love meeting people and talking to them and just hearing their stories and if I can help them out in any way possible, I'd love to do that because like I said, I do believe in we're all put here to make the world a better place and whatever skills and capacities we have.

Amazing. Well, and everything will be in the show notes. So if you need to get ahold of Jennifer, everything will be there. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.

With 25 years of experience in HR, Sarah has dedicated her career to empowering leadership teams and coaching emerging leaders in competitive industries. Her unique approach combines bold leadership with kindness and compassion, creating environments where individuals can truly thrive. Get ready to be inspired as Sarah shares her vision of using compassion and humor to unlock the potential in others. Join us as we explore her insights and learn how we can all lead boldly in our own lives!

Stay in touch with Sarah: www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-boardman

To learn more on Sarah and her services: www.lightstonecoaching.com

Script:

Just putting put love out into the world and it's not about being perfect it's not about not using your horn or rolling your eyes it's about you know the intentionality of of looking and saying okay you know what there's a better way.

Welcome to Weirdos in the Workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work today. And I'm very excited to have Sarah Boardman on the show today.

Welcome, Sarah. No, very excited. Wonderful. Okay, so I'm going to just do a little intro for you first. Sarah Boardman has spent 25 years in HR and now works with leadership teams to take their organizations to the next level. Her particular passion is coaching emerging leaders in competitive industries who wish to lead boldly, yet with kindness and compassion. Thanks for joining.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

Fantastic. Okay. So why don't you tell everyone out there exactly who you are, what you do, your life story and your purpose all in 30 seconds. All in 30 seconds.

So actually the purpose part is actually the easiest part. So as part of the coaching process, you know, you do your work on yourself first. And, and the thing that they're sort of the two purposes that have emerged for me, there are my initial one was to be the light that illuminates the brilliance of others. So I love seeing that growth. And then as I started my master's journey last year, the first part of that program was, okay, what is your higher purpose? Like what is your research higher purpose? And, and what sort of came to me and like literally almost a bolt, a bolt of lightning was, um, to create understanding around the link between love and profit. So like love is, is, is the thing it matters.

It's, it's not a dirty word at work it's not a four-letter word uh so those are really my purpose and if I actually look back at my life um it's it's been there since the beginning so my parents emigrated from the UK as sort of specifically to have us they had a technology here to fix my mom's infertility that they didn't have there. So, you know, they made this, this giant leap, a large part of it was so that they could have a family. So even though we were separated from our bigger family, we were, you know, we had this unit and my parents, I was just saying to a girlfriend this morning, like, I think my mother created the concept of chosen family. Like they just really created an environment for us where we had that.

So we grew up, we were so privileged, you know, we grew up being extremely loved and, and talking about it. And, and again, love was, was always set, you know, every time we hung up, every time we leave the house, every time you, you know, it just was. And, and so I think, you know, the, the, the weirdo part for me, which is why I love the name of this podcast is, is that didn't always translate to, to corporate. And, you know, if I had a dollar for every time that I was told you're too much, I, I would be doing this you know from the Caribbean or you know Vancouver Island or you know somewhere like you know real estate unattainable because that's that's the weirdo part is that you're too much you're too much you're too much you're too much you're too much and so the the inner battle has been that no I'm not I'm not um even something is as you know simple as as being enthusiastic about something like it's it's sort of surprising to me how many people in in corporations are offended by enthusiasm it's like really just saying yeah so it's it's it's just that so that's the the weirdo part and and so five years ago I left I never thought that I'd be an entrepreneur I never thought I'd have my own business I'm like like staunch like employee roots like I'm you know I'm an early adopter I'm someone who wanted the the front of the bus getting people organized but I realized I had to leave to be able to step into that too much and when you do work for yourself and you're you know I I only work with nice people .

I have the great privilege of working with some truly truly truly amazing organizations they bring you in because of the too much yeah because of those things right it's like all those things like you're told to stamp down for you know 25 years of my career all of a sudden they're like oh you're so enthusiastic we just love it it's so great you know you bring so much humor to this and I'm like it's interesting actually um I it's something I've mentioned to a few people who've been on the podcast who are also like consultants it works really well as a consultant to have that passion and drive but it doesn't always translate as well into your everyday you know work environment for whatever reason um it's interesting. But I also do think the world of work is changing. And I think maybe businesses are a little more open, you know, to adopting. They're definitely getting there. They're getting there for sure.

And that like we've talked about, like, that's what gives me the hope. Yeah. And I think the Gen Z, like you were saying on our previous call, I think they're really starting to drive the bus here. I think they're starting to drive the bus. And I think they're starting to recognize that someone else, so they can drive the bus or they can let someone else drive the bus or they can get off the bus and on the bus. And it's like, hey, it's just a bus. The bus is a construct.

It's not the thing anymore. And then, I mean, Gen Alpha is going to do like incredible things as well so you know getting the privilege of seeing that um and just working with emerging leaders who get it like they just get it and they get why and they're very intentional and very purposeful about the way that they want to lead which is really really like it's it's inspiring and humbling but also like yeah like it's about time so it's awesome right yeah I mean I I know I've talked to a lot of people about this there's a few of coaches in Ottawa who really believe that like love is what you know is is the concept is the thing that is going to you know if we can change the world and have like world domination for good like I always say you know love is what's going to change it right um and I know I was never hesitant to to say I love you like to my employees and I know you were mentioning like that's kind of an HR nightmare earlier that might be an HR nightmare um and that's okay it depends but when you when you're in an environment and again love isn't just like I love you it's it's attention it's listening so um in May I went to the IOC conference in Boston and Dr. Robert Waldinger, who's leading the Harvard study on on happiness and life is like an 85 year study.

And, you know, he quoted John Tennant, who said, you know, attention is the most basic form of love. So even if we show our team's attention, if we listen, if we regard, if we're caring, all of those things are in this like love bucket that we're, you know, however we choose to say it, it is the only thing that will change things. I think it is taking the hard path though in a lot of organizations, right? Like if you choose to take this path, you're taking the path less traveled. You're taking the path, you know, your competitors may not be taking this path. And so there are pros and cons, right.

That we should probably elaborate on a little bit. You know, if you're an organization that wants to take this love approach, this caring approach, the empathy approach, the know the um the grace approach giving people grace and time and space and health and wealth you know and all these things um you may be shocked at how your competitors treat your their employees and that they may be actually getting further ahead of you because of it sometimes yeah again i think it depends what matters to the organization so um like last year at royal roads we were really fortunate to be there on indigenous people's day so we had an indigenous scholar that came in and talked to us and robin ward and she said you know she often gets asked like what is decolonization and what she, she's like, I'm going to give you the really simple example.

It's moving from fear-based and command and control to a love-based leadership. And, and I think that what is going to happen is maybe the command and control gets a little bit further ahead for a little while, but it will, it will get stuck or it will, you know, everyone's going to go, oh, wait a minute. I want to be treated better over here. This will slowly, but surely, you know, it is the, the, the tortoise and the hare.

I, I just, I can't live in a world where love doesn't ultimately win. And when you, when you treat people with respect and you listen to them and they know they're valued and you know you're you're you're holding you know you're ensuring accountability there's productivity there's effectiveness it's not that it's just this big like you know love circle anything goes done right yeah it's it's how you choose to treat people most people will take that over an extra ten thousand dollars because we're starting to realize the impact it has and and not everyone will and that's okay and that's what makes the world go around but i just i can't live in a world where it doesn't ultimately win or it doesn't ultimately get at least the same because people want to be there they're they're proud of the work they do they love their co-workers they love their passionate what they do they love their job we spend more time with our co-workers than we do with our spouse yeah that's true for sure so like why would I want to work with a bunch of jerks no I'm curious what do you think like love looks like as a business process I I think it looks like asking questions and actually listening and acting on the responses I think it's being compassionate and seeing people.

So one of the things I would say in my leadership development is we are a stew, not a bento box. So we show up as a stew. We've got, you know, home, family, kids, parents, you know, society, all these things in this, you know, big, beautiful bowl. We're not like, oh, now it's nine to five I only think about work or this or that like understanding that people have things going on and when you um you know building trust and building relationships and knowing people so that when someone says hey you know what my dad's not doing very well you say okay what do you need to do and somebody goes to work for six weeks from their dad's house right like yeah it's not it's not that hard and so that's that's why I think that even though like the love word has this like big like romantic and you know groovy connotation it's actually the roots of it are, you know, attention, intention, and respect and just respecting the person.

So what does love look like at work? It looks as, you know, acting with integrity and, you know, all of the trust things like speaking, you know, not speaking of someone when they're not in the room or, you know, list like really listening to what people have to say, letting people finish a sentence yeah saying what do you think and then actually listening saying oh oh here's a big one that's love apologize i'm sorry i need to i didn't i didn't mean to hurt you i didn't realize that i'm really sorry and here's like love next level make amends right you got the acknowledgement how can i win you trust back i'm really sorry i didn't mean to do that what like how can i help you and then respecting what the person says if they're like i'm just really mad right now i can't deal with it okay you say okay let me know when you are like whatever the case is all of the things that we talk about love are actually just being a good human right and that's where like that human-centered leadership I think that's where emerging leaders are are like absolutely kicking ass and taking names yeah so far above and beyond for sure so far and they just they get it we talk about this stuff in leadership development nobody ever bats an eye I've never once I've I have a leadership development program that I run and I've done it with probably 300 people.

And not once has anybody said, well, they should want to do it because I asked them to. Okay. No, people just want to be good because they know how they want to be treated so it's it's really it's really powerful it's incredibly hopeful like and and so energizing like i it is it is honestly the privilege of my life to get to work with these individuals you know across north America so far who want to lead intentionally and they think about things oh have you seen um one of my favorite books is actually called Against Empathy uh The Case for Rational Compassion yes um because what it talks about is when empathy goes bad um the ruinous empathy like the um when empathy goes into its shadow right and so i think it's a really good book uh because it's very well balanced uh you know because we do have a generation of gen zs right now and then Gen Alpha after that and I've got three Gen Zs right that I'm raising I've got 19, 17, 15 year olds and a couple of them have very high empathy levels and so and we're encouraged it's not that we're we don't want to discourage it right and like you're saying you, you're seeing this in your Gen Z emerging leaders, you know, how, you know, how intuitive and empathetic and they've just grown up with specific values and very open-minded, right. Very willing to adapt and willing to accept other people's perspectives.

My, my concern sometimes is that, you know, we're not prepared. We're not preparing them necessarily for how hard the corporate world and how cutthroat and ruthless it can be because not everyone has empathy. In fact, the episode that came out this week was literally about psychopaths in the workplace and how prevalent that can be, you know, so we're not necessarily preparing them well for the psychopaths in the workplace. Although one of the things Amy Davies, the guest this week said is that this style of culture, the empathy culture, this like gratitude culture is very difficult for psychopaths.

So anyways, I'm curious what you think about that. How can we also prepare? I think it's an and like, how can we also prepare them for this? Right. That's, I mean, it's such a great question because we still have to get stuff done. still have to make the widgets we still have to you know like all of the things need to be done and so i think we're still figuring this piece out but you know empathy isn't at the exclusion of of ensuring accountability and it's not it's not looking at that but what i do see which is really interesting is, is a, I'll call it like a broader self-awareness where people show empathy to themselves. So, so I'm Gen, I'm Gen X. So we just put up with shit. Like we got, we got yelled at, we got, you know, told we were stupid. We got, you know, like, like harassed up the like it's just it just was right it was different it was different in the 80s and 90s and we're like okay i guess this is just the way that it is so no that's wrong and i i have to wonder if if we'd had empathy and there were situations that I left like there were situations where I was like no I'm not dealing I'm not doing with this I'm I'm worth more than this but I think that's that's the balancing piece is is people who who know what it feels like to be led well and with empathy and, and with passion and purpose, they will, they will leave.

They will, they will, you know, vote with their feet and get you, you out. So if you treat people like crap, they're going to leave. And so at some point, all the bullies just end up together when it's like, no, I'm not going to do that I'm not going to be treated that way they they will leave and and like my dad you know was at the same organization I think for like 20 something years and before that it was like 15 years we don't see that anymore we do see you know transitions more but from what I'm hearing and what I understand is people are leaving for that leadership culture they're leaving you know for promotion more.

But from what I'm hearing, and what I understand is people are leaving for that leadership culture, they're leaving, you know, for promotion, but they're also leaving for like, this is more aligned with how I want to live my life. So we're understanding that the roles that the ingredients of the stew, like you can't have stew without onions, and you can't have, you know, work without challenge, but what kind of challenge? So I think that, you know, the concept of ruinous empathy, that's radical candor, right? We're like, like, everything is okay. It's like, no, not everything is okay. We do have to, we have work to do. And so people are more aware. So they're, they're making intentional choices of what I'm moving to. And so even like I haven't worked in corporate for five years, but even like the last couple of years of that corporate, people are starting to say, okay, what is the management team function like? What is this like? It wasn't necessarily, they were asking questions about the work, but it was more about like, what's the leadership? What's the culture? Like, how does this work?

So people are becoming aware of it. So I think, I think people are aware that there's a balance, but I also think that people are internalizing what that balance means to me. So self-awareness is a part, part of the protection I think as well. Right. Oh my gosh. So I have said a thousand times that self-awareness is the most important leadership skill. Yeah, it absolutely is because if you are not self-aware, you can't improve. No, you, it just, it just doesn't work. So that self-awareness and again, that's a journey that never ends. And awareness, it's self-awareness, but it's also just awareness in general, right? It's the external awareness and the internal awareness. We need to be sensing, we need to sense into the environment. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and I think that's where, I think that's where, you know, later generations are just better at that. And, and folks, folks who've done the work too.

So like, you know, when I say emerging leaders, some of them are my age, some of them are, you know, like mid fifties and, and it's just, that's where they're in their career or, you know, they made a change or whatever, but it's still that same idea of, of, okay, how did I do? Did I do that? Okay. Yeah. You know what? That went well, that didn't, that didn't like that self-assessment is just become a critical leadership skill. And I, I see people being able to do that. And that's really exciting. So I mean, the leadership anxiety has never been higher. And I wonder how much of our like, this like necessity for awareness and sensing into everything. You know, there's so many variables. And now we're we're you know we're taking it all on ourselves all this complexity we're taking inside of us you know and trying to parse it out as best as we can uh how much do you think that's contributing to the levels of anxiety today for leaders so i have a little bit of a different thought on that and it's it's interesting because as soon as you said leadership anxiety I thought oh fear so you know it's interesting because one of the first things I say in the program is okay I'm gonna like spoiler alert most of leadership is being a good person right yeah and go and be Oh, it's like, you're going to make mistakes.

Yeah. You're going to do things wrong. You're going to screw up. You're going to hurt people unintentionally. You're going to completely mess up something to tell you, but that's what's going to happen. But how we react to that and how we treat people after is, is, is the true leadership piece. So I tend to think that most of that leadership anxiety comes from that fear based leadership. Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing this? Am I going to get in trouble? Am I going to get in trouble? If I give that person the day off, their mom died, can they take an extra week? Oh my gosh, you know, their mom died and their dad's not doing well. Can I give them an extra week? What's going to happen there? I feel like a lot of the, the, the anxiety comes from that fear. And if we're able to just lead authentically.

And again, we all have like, I'm HR, like God knows I love a policy. I love a, you know, I love a standard, right. It's like, okay. But there's, there's a human approach to, to all of that. And so it's, we, we need and want, I think, to be flexible. Yeah. And I think part of the anxiety comes from not knowing how much give things have and not knowing that flexibility. So I think when I look at leaders who are anxious, I see a lot of fear there, a lot of fear, making a mistake, fear of doing the wrong thing fear of getting in trouble fear of what their boss is going to say fear of the shareholders you know right like like a lot of it is fear-based yeah what it's a you know how how can they make a decision i'm almost we're at the point where almost any decision is the right to just make a decision which is interesting because coming from from people looking at their leader um when google did their um what makes a good leader like ability to make a decision like make a decision and stand in it i think we've all had that leader that's like okay we're gonna all wear orange t-shirts tomorrow and they're like oh well no oh sorry i told him blue and i told him yellow and like well orange like yeah make a decision yeah yeah yeah and feel confident to to stand in the decision right it's that that confidence yeah and and sometimes we have it and sometimes it's beat out of us and sometimes we have to do all the work to get it but I I see a lot of the anxieties coming from fear yeah I am I'm i'm with you 100 do you see the same fear in the gen z's as you do as they're as you do in their their more mature leaders i i would say emerging leaders have less fear in their cocktail that way so i'm going to say that I'm not going to say there's no fear, but I'm going to say there's what, what I see again, this is just in my practice and my business and the people I get to work with, I see less fear.

And I, the, the, I think the less fear comes from knowing that you're not going to get um I don't know why I just had this memory but like in French class if we said something wrong like we'd literally get like chalk chucked at our head totally yeah sometimes it hit sometimes it didn't and and when you grow up thinking you know it can't make a mistake, you know, teachers in, in the late nineties and two thousands weren't allowed to throw chalk. So, so they kind of like, that's, I think where it came from. And that's why there is absolutely fear and there's anxiety. And we know that, you know, anxiety rates among, you know, millennials and younger generations are skyrocketing. But I, I think the fear of leadership is less because they haven't been conditioned as much yet. Maybe they just have so much overall anxiety that doesn't even register. Oh God, right? And the loneliness epidemic.

Oh, I know. Oh my God. Like the Surgeon General of the US has actually declared a loneliness epidemic. And I think it's like 24 to 35 is the worst heartbreaking when you're supposed to be, that's your prime party time. Yeah. I have so many questions around that and I don't have enough information to be able to even ask the question. Like I, you know, I have to have the conversation properly. Really? I am, I am, but scratching the surface and I'm sure you could do the podcast. They would do an amazing job of talking about the loneliness epidemic. That's interesting. I only, cause I don't see that in my children. Right. I don't see that. And I'm not seeing that in a lot of people. I'm like, I'm trying to figure out where that is like like call me I'm open give me a call I'll always answer um yeah I mean I know one of the hangovers from COVID and when I was at the IOC conference they were talking a lot about the loneliness epidemic and were saying that loneliness uh again not sure where it came from I don't know where to cite it but it was loneliness was the same as smoking 15 cigarettes a day oh yeah that sucks like the same impact on your wow your body yeah it's like whoa but even like like I don't know about you but like when I was a kid I wanted to do something I picked up the phone and I was like hey can Natasha play I was probably the loneliest child in the entire world I didn't oh really oh yeah no I didn't even talk outside of my house basically until I was like 11.

You had said that in yeah you had said that in an earlier one yeah so my like really my first like really good well she's my best friend she's my co-founder now, Sarah, I met her in grade five and I had a couple of playmates before them, but nothing really like nothing that really stuck or anything that I was comfortable with. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I was, yeah. Talk about lonely. Like, you know, that was, that was awful. So if anyone's feeling that, like, please, I'm not even kidding when I say, so if anyone's feeling that like please I'm not even kidding when I say call me please you know talk about it right because there's no reason to feel that way like I I did feel that way for my entire childhood and learned how to learn how to be a I always say Sarah taught me how to be a person right because I didn't know I didn't know how to socialize I didn't know how to be a person. Right. Cause I didn't know, I didn't know how to socialize. I didn't know how to talk to people. I couldn't talk to people literally. Yeah.

And I look, I do a podcast now, so I think, you know, we can learn these skills. Yeah. And run a successful business and do all these other things. That's actually a really interesting point though, is they can be learned. Totally. They can be learned and we can, like, there is a cure to loneliness there is there is no reason for people to be lonely yeah I believe that yeah yeah yeah wow it's just it's I'm really sorry to hear that but amazed that you were able to like overcome it but yeah like when we just I mean god we have lonely days or whatever but like imagine being lonely yeah yeah yeah that's and and lonely when you work right like you you know you you go to work you do remote you do whatever um you know it speaks to hybrid and remote you know then the extra need for connectivity but um I know a lot of people are really big fans of remote work and I am sometimes one of them, two minds of it, you know, and, and one of my, one of my, half of my brain says, you know, people need to be in the office. Sometimes people need to see other people. And see you know work is is such a big part like you said before we see our colleagues more than anyone else in our lives pretty much unless we're literally at home isolating ourselves at a desk because we don't want to go in the office you know and it takes some get up and go some motivation and so maybe it's painful I remember coming back to the office after the pandemic I was like like, I don't want to do it.

You know, but then I went in and I was like, I forgot how fun this was. Yeah. My, my brother-in-law has was off for a number of years with some health concerns and he goes back five days a week. He works for the feds and he's like, Oh, I want to be with the peoples yeah the adults especially yeah right yeah well I mean that's it and like someone to confide in yeah right and someone to to say things out loud like you know when you don't talk to somebody like till like 10 in the morning you're like like just like does your voice stop working if you don't talk to anybody like oh my gosh when I first had my son, I was 20 years old when I was pregnant. I just turned 21 when I had him. And I remember that first year, I hardly talked to anyone. I didn't know how to be a mom. I didn't know how to socialize. I like retreated right back into my shell again. And I came finally when I was like, okay, I need to do something about this. I need to get out of the house. I need to talk to people. I literally forgot how to talk. I literally had forgotten how to communicate with people completely. I was like a bumbling idiot. I had no idea what I was going to say or how to say it or do anything. I was, it, you can lose it. You can lose it. And that's, so when I was working with organizations organizations sort of as we were coming back into the office, they were like, people are forgetting their manners.

They're forgetting like table manners, like all these things. But we do forget when we, you know, isolated and lived in our family little bubble. It's a muscle, it's a muscle that needs to be flexed and needs to be worked out and, and needs to be stretched and, and, you know, paid attention to, but yeah, I, I'm, I have no issue. Like, yeah, absolutely. We would forget. Yeah. With others. Yeah. I think this circles back really nicely to the, the love conversation where, you know, we can kind of summarize with like, people need people. People need people. They need to feel listened to. They need to feel valued. And they need to be connected. Whatever form that looks like, whatever you want to call it, love is connection and connection is love.

Yeah, totally agreed. And I think that you can do that virtually, but I think it's really hard and I don't think people do it very well I think you have to work harder at it and there's that intentionality piece I have to reach out to my people every day yeah just a quick check-in I we have to have videos on videos on for meetings I want to see your face I want to you know I want to see your expression I want to ask you about the plant in your background yeah yeah absolutely it's it's it's harder for sure yeah yeah yeah well did you have anything else that you wanted to say any words of wisdom or goodness any words of wisdom keep looking for the hope and looking for the love because you will see it a thousand times a day. And, you know, to everyone that I get to work with, profound thank you. And thank you, Erin. This has been amazing. Just putting, put love out into the world. And it's not about being perfect. It's not about not using your horn or rolling your eyes. It's about, you know, the intentionality of, of looking and saying, okay, you know what, there's a better way. And it's not a word.

Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble!

Meet Jaya Kaushik, a trailblazer whose journey began as a new Canadian immigrant and transformed into a powerful force for change in Canadian society.

As a Talent Management Professional and because of her lived experience, Jaya is integrating numerous components of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in her work.

Her story is one of resilience and ambition, weaving together her experiences from transportation, retail, banking, and leadership development, which has led her to the incredible role of preparing for Canada's first ever Hard Rock Hotel and Casino!

Stay connected with Jaya:

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jaya-kaushik

Script:

If you receive a roadblock from one person, always look outside the box. That's what I do. Do not hinder yourself just because you received one no. If there's like one no, there could be four yeses. So just think outside the box. The world is a beautiful place. People are willing to help you if you are willing to receive that help, love and compassion from them.

Welcome to Weirdos in the Workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work today. And what a crazy world it is. My name is Erin Patchell, and I am your host, and I'm here with Jaya Kaushik. Thank you so much for joining us, Jaya. Pleasure.

Thanks, Erin Erin for inviting me here to your podcast. Thank you uh okay so folks Jaya is an immigrant a person of color if you can't see Jaya if you're not looking if you're not watching this on YouTube but you're you know watching this on the podcast she is a person of color and a woman who believes in fostering impact through diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. She is the talent management lead at Hard Rock Ottawa, developing strategies around recruitment and training initiatives to prepare for the launch of the first Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Canada, which is really exciting. And I'm really curious to learn more about that as well, Jaya, if you have a few minutes. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Definitely. I mean, a quick snapshot is I relocated my entire life from Winnipeg to Ottawa for this exciting thing that is coming into existence in April next year. We are going to have the first Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. It's right now in 74 countries across the globe. And finally, Canada is going to have its first one. So we've taken over Rideau, Carleton Casino, and we are building a hotel. So it's going to be, the racetrack's still going to be there. We're going to have like 10 restaurant outlets. So, you know, it's going to be a whole new entertainment business with the tinge of gaming added to it. So it's going to be fun, exciting. But the best part about it, Aaron, is, you know, bringing in all those folks.

So we're going to be hiring for around 500 folks. So, you know, going to have massive recruitment initiatives. We are starting right now in August up to April next year. So it's going to keep all of us quite busy. No doubt. No doubt. How exciting. I cannot wait to actually see this in action. It sounds like it's going to bring a lot of value to Ottawa for sure. That's great. Well done. Yeah. And also congratulations to you for like uplifting your whole life and moving here. You know, I think that's an extremely brave thing to have done. That's an extremely brave thing to have done. Yeah, I moved quite a bit. So I came as an immigrant in 2019 here in Canada, and I was back there in Nova Scotia. And then, you know, I've always moved for my career. I moved to New Brunswick. And then, you know, there was some readjustments within the family. So I relocated to Winnipeg. And finally, when this opportunity came knocking at my door, I'm like, I cannot say no to this.

I mean, I did not have experience in the casino or entertainment industry, but I thought that this is exciting. This is something which I believe in because I really value constant learning involvement, along with bringing innovation through continuous improvement mindset so I'm like what impact can I bring when something is not built but is in the transition phase so that was my motivation to come and join as a talent management lead here and you know move my entire life from Winnipeg to Ottawa. It's been quite a few months. I relocated in February this year, but I'm loving Ottawa so far. That's good.

I'm glad because it would be kind of unfortunate if you didn't like it. So because it sounds like you're going to be stuck here for a little while longer. But, you know, I love Ottawa as well. I think that the community here is lovely and the it's so close to so much nature as well if you love nature and um now it sounds like we have a new director of nightlife in Ottawa um so maybe we'll even have some exciting things to do you know after dark at some point uh it sounds like Hard Rock Cafe fits right nicely into the strategy. For sure. I mean, Hard Rock is keeping busy. The amount of professional networks. I mean, I met you at the social HR camp, Erin, and, you know, building that professional network within the community is so amazing.

Just inviting all those community partners and building that strategic relationship and just people have been just so nice and kind and they are so open to any opportunity sometimes even if the partnership does not work they're always willing to keep that connection and that's that's really inspiring for me well I think your energy is amazing And I know the last conversation that we had around, we were talking more around, you know, DEI and B and a little bit of the accessibility, because that's kind of more in my, in my purview these days. But your energy around this is amazing. I think that, you know, you have a really interesting perspective on it, that you have a really interesting perspective on it, mainly because it sounds like you've really thought about how to integrate DEIB into the business processes, which I think is really interesting. And one of our previous podcast guests, Kathleen Johnson, a few weeks ago, we were talking about how important that really is, you know, to integrate DEIB as an operational process.

It's not just a philosophical values driven thing anymore. What do you think about that? is professional or me being interested in DEIB is what that motivates me. I think when you feel or when you've been through something over a period of time or through your professional journey, that kind of lets you in as in, okay, why am I feeling this way? And if I'm feeling this way, maybe someone else, my peers might be feeling the same way. You know, they could belong to different race, religion, ethnicity, maybe a different gender, LGBT community. But if I am feeling a certain way at workplace, we're in a workplace calls it more most diverse. And, you know, they've won so many awards just because on paper or in reports, they show, oh, we did, you know, this event, we did this awareness day, but they do not know, like, you know, it's not just a checkbox. It's basically how your employees are feeling in the moment.

Have you ever, you know, there's always one-on-ones with managers and there's performance evaluation, there's employee engagement surveys, but has anyone gone down that pipeline and asked, hey, has your manager ever, you know, looked down upon you in a certain way because of your culture or because of your identity, or, you know, you've been laughed at by your team members, just because you have a different pronunciation, because you just came from a different country. So, you know, those things get ignored in the process, no matter how many surveys we do, no matter how many one-on-ones we do, no matter how many lunches we do. So it is so important to integrate that. And again, I would say it's not just checking the checkbox or meeting the criteria or winning some awards. It's more about how you're feeling, how you are, you know, how are the employees embracing that culture of the organization. For me, when I join an organization, the values, the, you know, we talk about values, we talk about models and mission statement. It's good we talk about that, but do we actually implement it?

You know, when we say we believe in, you know, authenticity or we believe in bringing your best self forward, and then you are actually doing it, but then your manager's like, oh, why are you dressed this way? That's against the, you know, the dress code policy. Or, you know, if I am a Muslim, and I do not want to attend a meeting in the afternoon, just because I'm'm fasting and I want to have my prayers. Why, you know, my manager is not able to understand that or, you know, why am I not feeling, why am I not being felt included? You know, I've told my manager a month ago that, oh, I'm going to be fasting during Ramadan, but still we have a week-long potluck during that same week or same month. It's just those small examples which a lot of folks at works do not realize. And for them, it's quite normal. And you know, that normalization, Erin, passes on to employees like us where we are like, oh, we cannot make any change maybe that's how we are supposed to be or that's how the culture here is specifically for immigrants like I can speak because I am an immigrant myself you know we have a different culture back in our country and we embrace a new culture here but when we are embracing the diversity, we tend to forget that we can raise voice for ourselves, that we cannot say yes to any, you know, wrong actions or any microaggressive behaviors that have been hurled upon us.

Right. So the question that the world's becoming more multicultural, right? I mean, there's, there's literally no question. The only reason the Canadian population grew last year was because of immigration. And yeah. And I mean, even the most staunch conservatives that I know who are business owners, you know, you know, some people quite close to me, in fact, they admit that, you know, sometimes immigrants are actually the hardest workers that they can actually employ. And so I think that, you know, if you're a business owner and you're not thinking about how can I make my work, my employees, all of my employees, especially people who are immigrants or, you know, have maybe felt like they didn't belong in some way.

How can I make them feel like they belong, like there's a place for them here, like we're taking their culture, their sometimes their religion as well. culture, sometimes their religion as well, and any of the elements that we're not used to, that we don't have experience with, how do we take that into consideration? So how do you do that? My question for you, the big question I think a lot of people think about is how do you find the middle ground when there's so many variables? So one thing we need to realize is that we need to be patient. Right. I cannot, you know, walk into a room one day and be like, OK, you got to understand my culture. You've got to understand, you know, I like this and I don't like this.

And this is not part like no it takes time like that's one thing that both the parties need to realize and we need to be really we need to like have that mindset that okay like people are not going to know that I belong to a certain religion and things are done in a certain way in my culture or in anyone's culture I mean I learned so many new things when I came to Canada so that is one thing is realization and acknowledging the fact that it's not going to be perfect you know it's it's it's you know we we always say it's a journey and it's not a destination so how smooth and how empowering that journey can be. You know, what can you take and what can you leave during that journey? You know, we talk about unconscious biases.

We talk about microaggressive behaviors. How can we make sure that those can be eliminated during this journey? It could be in the form of a conversation. It could be in the form of sensitive training, right? But a lot of it comes down from leadership, you know, how effective the leadership is at your organization, how inclusive, progressive, or how embracing that leadership is. Because I feel that, you you know leaders have a really really really big impact in terms of how it trickles down to managers supervisors and in general all the team members so leadership representation plays a huge role sensitivity training and just in general, like, I feel that whenever, like, if I'm joining an organization and I know I'm going to have, I'm going to be the only person of color there, right? So maybe kind of educating or, you know, generating awareness through lunch and learn or through coffee and chat, but taking that initiative, being bold enough to take that initiative.

And again, I say it, that not to think of yourself as a victim because I feel in most of the cases, like the places I've worked, they have been quite open to the feedback. They've been quite embracing. I mean, I've worked at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and I think I am the only person of color in my team and probably at site like we do not have, we will soon have a lot of representation. But it's quite fascinating, you know, when I talk about my culture, when I talk about a strategy that can impact someone who is more diverse, or, you know, who has a different representation or an identity. So I feel like there are so many steps, but you got to be, you got to start somewhere. You need to take that initiative and you need to realize it, that it's going to take time. I mean, I came here in 2019, it's 2024.'s 2024 it has taken time you know I was a person who would be like oh why did my manager say that to me and I would be a person who would like who has cried in the washroom and be like why am I feeling that I do not belong here there have been times when you know I want to just run back to my country because I feel I belong there and not here. But then always there is a team member resource group, there are your mentors, there are people who encourage you.

If there are some people who are going to pull you down, there are always going to be people who will lift you up. There will always be like-minded people. There will always be people who really want to think from an inclusive perspective and who are going to understand what you're going through, even if they do not have the same skin color or they do not belong to the same culture, they will be there for you. Right. So whose responsibility is it and whose responsibility should it be? Maybe those are different answers. Maybe it's the same answer. I don't know. To really drive the education on this within an organization. As I mentioned, it's a two-way street, right? I mean, in my case, I was bold enough to be like, well, I know I'm not perfect and this is what I do and this is how I was brought up.

So being vulnerable from, and I know it takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable and a lot of people cannot do it or are not comfortable doing it but even if you do it with your manager or one level up it can have a drastic change but again it needs to be a two-way street the organizations you know a lot of them I think I was talking to someone from our education group and they were saying that how they incorporate sensitive training or like cultural amalgamation training into people coming into the country or you know who are still adapting to the Canadian way of culture or the Canadian lifestyle so that's a great way we're in you know they can be made aware of certain like say business or professional like educates that we follow here and you know like one one basic thing was like back in my country we'd call everyone sir and ma'am right and like it's it's it's a common thing you know sometimes people laugh at you like why are you calling me sir and ma'am whereas it's it's a cultural way it's a way of respect in our country, right? So just for small time things, if they are trained and if even the managers, supervisors and everyone, like I believe it should not be limited to managers and supervisors.

I mean, all the team members, they should go into this cultural immersion training wherein there needs to be a culture that's diverse, there needs to be one company culture that needs to accept. And so I didn't hear human resources anywhere in there. And I know you're an HR professional. So like, a lot of I feel like a lot of managers, sometimes, like, you know, they believe this is an HR core responsibility. You know, the HR should drive all of this. What's your opinion on that? HR, definitely. We build policies. Like right now in my current job duties and responsibilities, I'm responsible for training. So HR has a huge responsibility, but, you know know as HR professionals or like for the outside world we need to realize that we get a lot of pushbacks and challenges as in why do we need it you know what's what's the purpose of this um does it fit into our revenue or does it fit into our budget like what's what's one thing we're going to get out of it you know HR is always thought of like you know we spend money on things right whether it's DEIP initiatives whether it's recruitment whether it's training it's not thought of how we are bringing money back into the organization.

So I would say HR has a role, definitely, Erin. And we have a role in bringing this to life or like coordinating this, but this really needs to start from that awareness standpoint view. I mean, what can HR do when we launch a training, we say that it's mandatory and there is a manager sitting there, and what they're doing is basically click, click, click, click, click, and not even learning what is being told them in the training. So how can we force them to do it until unless they themselves do not realize that it is important for them and the other team members? I mean, that's a huge challenge when you think from a learning and development perspective. How can we make it interactive? How can we make it engaging?

And at the end, how can we make sure that this learning stays with them? You know, I've seen that, like, you know, when I see some of the training courses, like people complete it like a 30 minutes course probably in five minutes skip skip skip skip skip and I'm sitting there and I'm like what's what's the whole point like you know you you pay the vendors you put this entire training but what if like the other person doesn't want to learn? Yeah. Yeah. We have to teach them or like, you know, we have to engage them in the conversation around why it's important and provide that business case.

And that has to, you know, if your leadership can make that case for you even better, because people are much more likely to listen to them. Yeah. I think, why do we have to do that? You know, why do we always need to have someone higher up, right? You know, you got to do this just because I'm your boss. Like that is the mindset I feel as an HR professional or as a DEIB, a person who's really passionate. I just feel how we can, you know, switch that mindset. And, you know, Aaron, sometimes I feel it's simply through a conversation. It's simply through, you know, letting them know that, you know, I know you believe in equality. I know you want the right fit and not a diverse pool of candidates but just think about from perspective of what struggles they've been through or what resources they have not had that is hindering them from like applying to whatever positions we are open I say this because I'd worked with a leader and I was like, you know, we need to do diverse recruitment, as in we probably should focus on LGBTQ, we should focus on women representation, we should focus on this and this community. And he looks at me, he's like, no, we should focus on the best fit. And I'm like, okay, but how's that fair? He's like, because we believe in equality.

And I'm like, what about equity? Right. Like, you know, there is that, there's that picture, which shows that there are two people who are standing on a pedestrian and they both like, you know know they've been provided equal opportunities but one is taller and the other is shorter right so he needs to give be given a higher pedestrian so that the vision is the same for both of them so you know we we say we want the right fit we say that you know like i i just feel that sometimes I missed all this um um you know profit making or revenue generation sometimes we lose that basic human touch the fact that you know not everyone has like you know we were talking about we need to create our own privileges but not everyone has had the same opportunities as everyone else I mean according to a recent yeah according to a recent stats like we talk about representation of women in leadership positions so in Canada women hold about just 35 percent of management occupations and 30 percent of like senior management positions right like that that that really tells like why why we are not doing it it's not that women don't want to go up there or look at the representation of of um like bipoc women it's much much smaller yeah exactly fraction right um and so the representation is is very weak in those cases so um or lgbtq you know uh communities as well um yeah so yeah we've got a lot of work to do i think in those areas and I think it does a lot of the time boil down to like what are the opportunities that people are given to learn yep and um I think from a personal like my personal experience again you know you asked me who's who's role who's who's responsible for this and I say it again and again and I've learned this the hard way that you know if you want it go get it like you know there's like you need to push yourself again like even you know Erin you are you are looking for a job I'm looking for a job just because I feel that I am a visible minority and like you know I'm I'm going to have an upper edge or over you.

No, like I need to strive as hard as you would have to, you know, to get that opportunity. It's just that, you know, you, you got to grab it. You can't just like, I think that is also very important to learn that, you know, we need to strive. We need to have that. We need to learn that you know we need to strive we need to have that we need to take that initiative you know even if I you are my manager I'm like okay Erin like you know you say something to him I'm like okay I'm not okay with it so I need to voice my concern and more and more people need to start doing that rather than like shutting themselves because yeah what if you are willing to learn what if you are the best manager but in my head because of my past experiences I've just made a whole vision of you that you're gonna be the most bitchy manager the most you know like a manager who's not gonna support me being a visible minority at workplace and I'll just because I've heard stories or I've been through some previous experiences so even I as a visible minority need to give you a chance and need to like you know open my spectrum as much as you're gonna do it for me yeah yeah that's I think that it's interesting um that you know, a lot of hard work accumulated over a whole lifetime, I think can balance things out quite a bit.

But I think there's also a lot of truth in that it is a, it's really hard for people to find jobs right now. There's, I mean, you guys have 500 jobs, which is amazing, by the way. So 500 new jobs, like in the Ottawa area. So awesome. But it is actually really tough right now. The economy is really tough right now for job seekers. And I think sometimes immigrants, it's easy. It's kind of easy to feel like it's because of you, like you're the problem. And it's not, I don't think that it's like, I hear this from other people who are immigrants and like when I explained to them that they're, they're struggling to get immigrants.

When I explain to them that they're struggling to get jobs, and I explain to them it's a really tough market for everyone right now. They're like, oh, I feel so much relief because I thought it was because of a bias. I don't know that that's always true. It's hard to know what is the reason that something's happening, right? You're not getting a job. What's the reason you're not getting a job? Maybe it's bias or it could be, you know, it's your resume or, you know, it's, you know, the really tough job, job market, or, you know, maybe it's, you know, it could be any number of variables. Right. And so I think exploring all of those and really being like thoughtful about how you're presenting yourself and working and working really hard. And that's the thing. It's hard for everyone to get a job right now.

Yeah. And I think, you know, we just got to give things the benefit of the doubt sometimes too. I, because when I say that sometimes your past experiences impact your future, you know, observations or your future expectations. I remember I was in Sydney back in Cape Britain in Nova Scotia. And at that time, like that was the truth because I knew the manager at the retail store. And I'm like, why is there not like a diverse representation at your stores and she's like I'm gonna be very honest when we get the resumes we look at the names and if it's a non-white name we do not consider it and I'm like oh I'm like and who has that who gave you that power it's like just because you know there's such a huge influx of immigrants we just wanted to make sure that our current population or the people who've lived like in this town for quite a long time they do not feel disassociated or you know they don't stop coming to our store so and when then these stories start getting passed along every even if you know I'm if I'm scanning through resumes I do not look at like I look at your experience I look at you know how connected you are how much you're trying you know if I get 100 resumes for one position and then there is this one person who's applied who's reached out to me in LinkedIn who's following up through their interview process of course like that that person's gonna remain in my mind so but like stories like this where you know there were some biases in the recruitment practices they did exist and then when other people hear it then they're like oh there is discrimination in the hiring practices or the recruitment process or you know they gave the name that oh that's a white organization just because we do not see any person of color working there so sometimes like it's it's also hard because I've I've personally seen that like you know like that that uh hiring manager was uh pretty open to me I'm like well like you know I'm not seen and what was funny I had a friend who had the same skin color but her name was like a white name like Amy or Anna and she got the interview and I'm like oh like you know so there was a point wherein they started joking around you gotta change your name to a more white name if you wanna get an interview like within the city so there there are things that happen like that for sure.

Yeah. And I can see like one story like that would, you know, would go far, you know, the story would, would go far. So people would hear about it. And I hope that that's not, I hope that that's kind of a one-off, but you know, you hope that people aren't judging people by their names and that, but we know that that's true we know that bias exists of course 100% yeah 100% and talking about biases like I was gonna segment into like you know again like I've been very lucky that I've had a great professional network I've got all these mentors but there were always uh, you know, there were times when you would second guess yourself. So like, you know, whether I belong here or not. And one of the instances was about the name, right?

Like I never, I don't think I'm ever going to change my name, even after my marriage. I love my first name. I love my last name. I love who I am. And I like, yeah, I like how my name is pronounced. Like I just love my identity and I love who I am and I like yeah I like how my name is pronounced like I just love my identity and I love my skin color I love everything about myself I'm not gonna change but then you know like in the past I think like it's it's important because we're talking about weirdos in the workplace right um there there have been situations wherein like you know I've I've been lucky that I've had an impetus to my professional or career growth as in you know I've did mentorship at TD got into like like transportation and leadership development I've I've been like really lucky that way but it comes with its own challenges. For instance, like I was working at an organization and, you know, they select a pool of employees like who've shown their skills or who are really good in terms like great education, great skills, great work.

And there's a specific, you you know leadership program for them so I think my name was taken out a day prior to that you know that training or that whole event and uh my managers like uh I've been here for you know 10 years and my name was never uh you know put into that program so and I had just been in that organization, maybe for two months, I hadn't even completed my probation. So, you know, you get that imposter syndrome, like, okay, like, what's wrong?

You know, I am young, but I am capable as well. And the fact that I've reached here is because I've got that in me but she's like well because I have not been a part of the program and you're fairly new to the country and to the organization I think you need to learn more so you know you face those challenges I think within the same organization, it was a team of, I would say, a different segment. I would say like much older or much mature professionals. I was the youngest in the team. And I was the only person of color in that team. And when I say that I don't want to change anything about myself that would also mean that I wouldn't want to change anything about my dietary preferences so I'm vegetarian and I love Indian food and I would bring lunch and Indian food has a certain smell so I could see people rolling their eyes and you know like those facial expressions like when you talk about how do we integrate that into our culture right like you can just see like people getting uncomfortable or like like you know and I'm like someone came up to me like I think I'm allergic to this smell and I heard that same person mentioning that how much they love butter chicken and they went to the Indian restaurant. And I'm like, how can you justify that?

And just because of that incident, Erin, I started using heavy cologne on myself, just making sure that I belong. And like, you know, no one gets uncomfortable because the, the food I bring smells. That's disappointing actually, that someone would, you know, this is where something like a sensitivity training would be appropriate because you need to know, you know, like what, how, how to be a person, like, it's really like, it's just how to, how to be like an emotionally intelligent, empathetic person, tolerant person, you know, you wouldn't ever do that to anyone else with any other food, would you? I mean, I don't know. It just seems it's exceptionally rude is what it is. But then, you know, you got out, like for me, I was like, you know, that moment I'm like, okay, I got into trouble even for wearing heavy cologne, of course, you know, sometimes you have the same environment.

So, you know, sometimes like just these small things, they deviate your mind from the regular tasks and responsibilities you're supposed to do just because your mind gets stuck in somewhere where it should not be right like you you just keep thinking about it and then you do not know what the right thing is do you approach HR do you like you don't want to be that bad person like and start an investigation specifically when you're new and you're still fostering those professional relationships with your team members but I think in those moments it's very important for you to take a stand for yourself I think I did not take a stand like you know I did not do anything immediately but after a week when it wasn't stopping I was like okay this needs to stop and I think I was very brave enough. I did go to whichever representative I had. And I'm like, I am being made feel this way.

And I think it's against your company's policies. And, you know, it's also a form of bullying because it does lead into all those sub-interactions. And here it's very important, Erin, that some of the employees do not even know what rights they have as a worker or an employee for an organization. During orientation, we tell them, these are the policies, these are the procedures. No one reads them. No one knows what to do. Like I'm a nature professional. I see people in orientation. They are just so excited to be a part of the organization that they do not go through or they do not know what employee rights they have. Yeah. You know, some people will watch us and they'll probably be thinking to themselves, well, you know, that person who complained about the smell, what if they have a sensory, you know, sensitivity or something like that, you know, but, you know, what we have to understand is, you know, for starters, we can't make everyone happy. You know, I don't think we can make everyone happy.

Tolerance is really important in the workplace. And there are different ways that you can go about problem solving, and that's not the way to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, like, you know, not having any preconceived notions or prejudices in your mind. You know, I was hearing a podcast which said that, you know, being nice, kind and compassion is the new thing which the world needs to learn. Earlier, we used to be like, oh, every, you know, everyone is nice, kind and compassionate.

But these days, it's a thing which we need to start incorporating into our trainings or our culture I mean I always go by the quote I always tell it to my new hires or the people I meet like be a rainbow in someone else's cloud like it's Maya Angelou's quote and I'm like why would you want to do something like you know it's it's okay to do something when you know like when you see unconscious bias like you know every you say something to me and I'm like okay like you know it's not this it's this but you are willing to learn you're willing to be aware of that but it's not okay to do something or make someone feel a certain way when you know that, you know, it's not right. And you also know that the person does not have the power to, you know, say anything. Because that's usually the case, Erin.

Like, what gave me the motivation or what inspired me was, like, if it's being done to me, it's going to be done to many other jayas out there. There's not always going to be me. There is influx of people coming here and, you know, no one deserves to be, you know, made feel that way. Everyone needs to be felt that, yes, I deserve to belong here. Amazing. Thanks so much for joining me today, Jaya. You're very welcome, A Erin. It was a pleasure. Did you have any words of inspiration for anyone who's, you know, who's listening to the podcast or anything like just a little thing you want to leave them with? I would just say that, you know, it's, you know, put yourself in someone else's shoes. Put yourself in someone else's shoes when you are making any preconceived notions.

Just think from other person's perspective. And also, if you're trying to influx any DEIB initiatives into your strategies or workplace, don't stop. Keep going. is a right place don't stop like keep going if you receive a roadblock from one person always look outside the box that's what I do do not hinder yourself just because you received one no if there's like one no there could be four yeses so just think outside the box the world is a beautiful place people are willing to help you if you are you know willing to receive that help love and compassion from them

oh so good such good yes thanks so much yeah perfect

Thanks erin

Don't forget to stay weird stay wonderful and don't stay out of trouble!

Kevin Judge is the CEO and Founder of iNOBL, a strategic business advisory firm with a global reach.

A best-selling author, international speaker, and strategic business advisor, Kevin leads a team of professionals that senior leaders trust, to turn strategy into sustainable success.

Join us for an insightful conversation on how to go from chaos to clarity, to best guide organizations to harness their potential, and excel beyond expectations!

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Script:

When you're in a moment, one, have that sense of curiosity for yourself, but also if there's somebody that is coachable around you to say, hey, hold on a second, I hear you, you're concerned about ABC. What would happen if you were to stop and think of this in this different way?

Mm-hmm. What other possibilities could there be? Welcome to Weirdos in the Workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work today.

My name is Erin Patchell, of course, your lovely host. And I'm here today with Kevin Judge. Say hello, Kevin. Hello, Kevin. No, hello, everybody. Nice to be here. It's great for you to be here, Kevin. Okay, so for those who don't know Kevin yet, Kevin is the CEO and founder of iKnowBull, a strategic business advisory firm with a global reach. Kevin leads a team of professionals that senior leaders can trust to turn strategy into sustainable success. He's also a best-selling author, international speaker, and strategic business advisor.

Welcome, welcome.

Thanks very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

All right. So what are we talking about today, Kevin? Just give me broad strokes.

Well, you know, one thing that's caught my attention recently was how crazy our brains are in making up stories about what's going on in our worlds, whether it be driving down the road and somebody cuts you off or the way a coworker responds to an email or the way your boss treats you. Like all of these things, our brains tell us stories and that can get us in a lot of trouble. So what is interesting for me right now is how can we have a little bit more of a view of curiosity to solve some of the problems that don't need to be problems in our lives?

And of course, if you want to tie that to strategy and execution, it's about getting away from conflict and better communication and that type of thing to help make the world go around a lot better. Yeah, that'd be nice. There are a few existential crises in the world at this time. So I think I use that word almost every single podcast right now is like existential crises. And it's not surprising that people are trying to find ways to both like predict, analyze, compartmentalize, and like, just, you know, try to like kind of survive through, you know, what's going on today at a micro and macro level.

So, you know, humans be humans, right? Well, exactly. And whatever's going on around us, like if you think, And whatever's going on around us, if you think, probably heard this example before where a caveman sees a saber-toothed tiger and they go into fight or flight mode and it's all about survival. Well, first of all, we wear more clothes nowadays, but also, well, many of us do. Some of us. Yes, right. But also, we don't have saber-toothed tigers coming at us. But on a day-to-day basis, our brains don't know the difference between the perceived physical threat of a saber-toothed tiger and a perceived psychological threat. So let me take it into a work environment.

You walk into a meeting room that you're expecting to have a meeting with your boss, and HR is there. Oh my gosh, Right. So perceived psychological threat of why is HR here? I'm going to get fired. And if I get fired, everybody's going to look at me and be ashamed of me. My family's going to leave me. I'm going to lose my house. I'm going to end up on the street and I'm going to starve to death and die. I'm going to end up on the street and I'm going to starve to death and die. Now, I know that sounds ridiculous, but that can be where our brain goes very, very quickly when it's not necessarily the fact. Right.

Well, I think you've given us an amazing intro to the topic. Let's come up for air. And I just want to ask you first, the first like real question, the most important question, what makes you a weirdo? What makes me a weirdo? When you asked me that the first time I was like, well, I don't know. Am I really that weird?

But I'm going to focus in on, it's taken a lot of work for me to not appear as weird as maybe as I, as I was many years let your freak flag fly that's there you go I have a very strong sense of right and wrong and in my younger years there was no gray area like it's either right or wrong the rules are rule you follow it or you don't follow it etc uh and that led to me having super high expectations for myself as well as super high expectations of other people. And I think in my terms, what makes me weird is I really struggled to understand, well, how is it that people are not as serious about these things as I am?

And how can they be comfortable with the lack of performance and, and just getting by and not really caring, et cetera. And so it took a lot of work for me to understand people and how they, how they actually think and process and that not everybody's like me. And thank God they're great. Like the last thing that people need is another me uh and thank god very great like the last thing people need is another me like we we need everybody to be who they are i mean not to like go down a huge rabbit hole here but i'm very i'm kind of curious like if you've ever detangled like why you were so motivated like what was it in your dna or in your upbringing or whatever that like drove you in that way that that is interesting that could be an interesting conversation yes yes uh should we get the virtual couch out no it's not my not my thing but yeah um you know what i'm not 100 sure because when i when i look at i have two brothers and i look at them and we're fairly different uh than than each other um but also similar in some ways but my father was in the military my mom was a nurse there was a strict household um but i i think some of it's just maybe it's because i was born in january right? Like I, I, there's a thing, that's a thing, you know? Well, yeah. Right.

So I really don't know other than our behavior as we learn behavior, we are either rewarded for it or not. And perhaps how I behaved in the decisions that I made. I had rewards for it either intrinsically or extrinsically was rewarded for those behaviors. And that worked until it didn't work, right?

Once I got into my career, that rigidity wasn't helpful all the time. Yeah, no, for sure. Especially in the world today when things are, you know, you need to be more agile and adaptable in a lot of ways. I can see how you would have had to learn that probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's for many people, that's not something that comes easily. No, no. For most people that doesn't come easily. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, interesting.

Okay. So maybe, maybe another rabbit hole for another day to go all the way down. Yeah. But you're a strategist at heart. Okay, so you and I, we're both strategists. We kind of work in different areas. We're not like conflicting at all or competing, really. We work with different kinds of clients. But we're both, you know, more on the strategy side, strategy execution. I also do some coaching. Do you do coaching as well? Are you a coach? Yes. I don't do a lot of the coaching myself anymore, but I do coaching usually with executive CEOs. Right. Okay. So you do a little bit of coaching as well or have done coaching as well. Yeah. So the world's basically like it's on fire on fire, you know, and everyone's terrified. Business leaders are terrified. Doesn't matter, you know, small business, medium sized business, large enterprise government, you know, nobody knows what's going to happen next.

There are lots of different mega threats, you know, in the world. mega threats you know in the world yep um what are you seeing like just like on a what what are you sensing right now in the world like what are you sensing as like some of the biggest things that people are concerned with day to day that is affecting their behavior i think um and and that's a very broad question. So I'm going to give you a very broad answer.

I think one of the biggest questions that people have today is anything that's happening, anything that they read in the news, anything that they see happen on the street, et cetera, is how does this impact me and my future and my ability to be successful in whatever it is that I'm doing, right? To thrive in this ecosystem that we're in. And it sounds like a very selfish question, but it really, I don't think is, right? We're no good to anybody else unless we are strong ourselves.

And then once we're taken care of, it's easy to help the rest of the people around us in the world, et cetera. So I think that's the big thing for people is, hey, how are things going to help? So let's take Canadian politics right now. I'm coaching a CEO right now around the strategy for his organization, and he requires some funding through government grants. Okay, great. But what is going to be happening in our political environment come September?

Is the opposition going to say, hey, we want a non-confidence vote? Yeah. And that's going to destroy the current government and all funding is going to come to a screeching halt or do we have another year year and a half etc right so those sorts of things are a concern um even what's happening in the u.s for for their politics it's a concern for canadians uh and people in the U.S. alike. So I think for most people, it's like, how are these things going to impact us? And it can be the smallest little thing that puts people into turmoil.

How do you see this sphere reflected within organizational behavior? Prime example, and this one's really, really fresh. CEO just let go two of his employees, small organization. Yeah. For various reasons, right? And the story start. Well, why were those people let go? And of course, the CEO can't be very specific on what those reasons are, because you have to value the privacy of those individuals. So there's a generic answer as to why. But people start making up stories. Right. Is it because employee A was no good, they were stealing, or is it because there isn't enough money in the company and we're going to go bankrupt?

All sorts of things come out. And so people see this information and start processing, okay, well, how does this impact me? Is there longevity in my career in this company? Should I start looking for work? Or, hey, I'm a survivor. I didn't get canned, but now I've got all this extra work. Or am I going to have all this extra work that I have to do to make up for the people that have left? Right. And when they don't have the answers to those questions, they make up answers to those questions. And I tell you, our brains are masterful storytellers.

Our brains, unfortunately, focus in on fictional horror instead of, hey, everything's going to be great. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. And it seems like in times of stress, you know, that becomes even more true that we fixate on, you know, trying to create certainty out of uncertainty, whether or not it's actually real. It's like a mass there's things we cannot control and we try to control. We spend a lot of energy on that instead of what we should be doing, right? We should be focusing on as an individual, what can I control? Focus on that.

And from that organizational perspective, get the work done that you need to get done to continue to perform well, to help the organization advance, to maintain the view that people have on your value to the organization, right? If you start spiraling out of control and become cynical and stop performing because you're just giving up, et cetera, it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?

You kind of end up putting yourself out of work. Yeah. It strikes me that you're kind of the perfect person to help in this scenario someone who you know came from was probably very it was certainly probably still you're still very um disciplined but there's a difference between discipline and rigidity you know yeah um so but someone who was like very disciplined and maybe a you know verging on having too much routine perhaps once upon a time to having to learn how to adapt, being potentially a very good person to lean on in times like this when people have to learn how to adapt.

Yeah. Well, thank you for saying that I seem to be a good person for that. So I'll agree with you. Please do. It's also not only for the individual who's impacted, but also for leaders of organizations. Right. So earlier I said when people don't have the answers, they make up their own answers. Well, the answers need to be shared by leaders across the organization. the organization. So what is it that a leader can do to communicate, hey, there is a future and this is how bright it looks and you're part of that.

Or, hey, the future is uncertain. I'll be honest. But I really value you. That's why you're still here. And I need your help to figure out what it's going to look like. And let's make this work. Let's rally together to survive this. Right. So whether it's good news or bad news, those leaders really need to communicate with conviction and belief in that future and the people that report into them. Yeah. So we're kind of we're edging towards we're kind of like on the edge of the curiosity cure now, right? Yeah, yeah. We're starting to edge towards that.

And it's interesting, because, you know, what you're talking about that balance between like reality and faith, essentially, is what we're talking about, you know, a belief that we're going to get through this, if we can do together and we're going to be honest and blah, blah, blah, right? All the way through. It's like, you know, you want to be honest, but can leaders really be honest?

You know, like how much honesty and transparency do you usually recommend? As much as possible. Yeah. Without sacrificing confidentiality. without sacrificing confidentiality. Okay, perfect. So there are times where a leader will be asked questions.

They may know the answer, but can't share it. And instead of saying, oh, I don't know, perhaps they should say something like, you know what, that isn't an area that I'm able to speak about now, but as soon as I can, I will share that information with you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you want to have, they want you to, they want to know, people want to know that you do know the answer, right? Not that you don't know the answer. That's terrifying, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We want to know that we're, we want to be confident that our leaders know that the answer is, and it's okay. Maybe if, if it's a need to know that we're going to want to be confident that our leaders know that the answer is and it's okay maybe if if it's a need to know at this point right yeah but the curiosity cures the same you know how much like where's the balance right between the hallucination and the reality when it comes to like you know we're leading with curiosity, how, how far into curiosity do you go?

This is a question that I ask myself a lot because I have ADHD and I have a lot of things that I'm curious about. I need some restraint, you know? I am, I'm curious. Okay. Let's, let's back up for a second. Talk about the curiosity curve. So people know what the heck we're talking about. Okay. Yes. Because we've said curiosity cure a few times a couple times yeah right so that that really is about pausing in the moment and asking yourself what you know this something happened and this is why i think it is pausing in the moment and thinking is there an alternate reason why this has happened is there an alternate potential outcome um one one thing i like to do so let's take the example of um uh you're driving down the road and somebody all of a sudden cuts you off right and many people have a negative reaction to that right right?

Once they get over the adrenaline rush of swerving out of the way or the near miss. And there are reactions typically are not all that friendly, whether it was yelling or gestures or speeding and catching up to the person at the next light, getting out of your car and hitting their window, like all that road rage stuff. Right.

So let's stay away from that. Um, but asking yourself in the moment, what if that person that cut me off actually had positive intent? Right. What could have possibly happened that they would cut me off with positive intent right yeah so you know maybe they were avoiding a squirrel which you know okay but or maybe they were avoiding a child or their steering wheel stopped working i don't know right there's yeah sure so many potential opportunities or maybe it was just a dumb accident that they, they just cut you off and they didn't do it intentionally. Like I know I've cut, I've cut people off by accident without thinking about it. So right. We got to give people a break. Totally. Like I spent like my twenties, I was a little angry and most of my teens actually. Like I spent like my twenties, I was a little angry and most of my teens actually. Yeah. Most of us are at that age. Pretty angry. I was angry, angry at the world, you know?

Um, and I, I think I remember like specific moments in my life where it was like all of a sudden the light turned on. It was like, I don't have to live this way. It's only affecting, it's only, the only person that it's impacting in a, in a negative way is me, you know, and I have a choice that I can decide to look at things like you can decide, you know, to look at things through that negative lens, or you can decide to look at things through sort of some rose colored glasses, if you will, you know, my company name is literally positivist group. So, you know, the being positive, it's actually not, it's the name that came from something else. But okay, the fact that it's named positivist, there's layers here, right? The it, you know, it makes me want to commit to constantly looking at things and giving people grace and make and not making assumptions right yeah you know that's funny because both of our company names have a sense of that so i often get asked well what is i noble like where'd you come up with that name?

That's a play on two meanings of noble. So noble being how can we do the right thing for people? Of course. And then the other part is noble as in no BS. Oh, okay. So there you go. So both of us, our companies, are really about trying to think of things from that positive perspective yes looking at the world not making it not assuming ill intent but assuming you know either neutral or positive intent right yeah yeah and when we were talking we when we had our like pre, you know, podcast conversation, it just struck me how impactful that mindset is. You know, the folks who I think really try, because it's hard, right? It's hard to maintain that mindset. But there's such a trickle down effect that it just like instantly shot into my brain. Like it affects literally everything in your organization. If you take that approach.

Absolutely. Right. It, it impacts, uh, well, I'll step back for a quick second and just say, it is natural for us to have negative thoughts that come into our head right away. So, you know, if you were late for this call, my mind might have immediately said, oh, you know, it's not going to happen. She doesn't like me. She doesn't care, et cetera. And that's natural. That's where our brains go. Yeah. What we need to do is step it up a little bit as individuals and say, okay, I've had those thoughts. Let's push that aside. Yes.

And start thinking about what could possibly happen, right? Maybe you're Zoom updated or Windows crashed across North America, right? Right? Like that just happened. Yeah. So that's all we have to do is push those things aside for a moment and start to think about what are some of those alternatives. When we can do that, we increase the trust that we have with other individuals that we work with. We increase the quality of communication by simply asking questions of people. And that's where that curiosity cure comes in is asking questions of people. So, Hey, I'm making this up, but Hey, you were, you were, you were late for our call today. That's not like you. What, what's going on. Right.

And then I about ABC and it's like, Oh, okay. But so it's, it's really about trying to shift that mindset and escaping the tragedy that our brain can easily, easily create. Yeah. I think just making sure that you're not impressing your own worldview on everything, like not that, you know, like how am I going to describe this, but just walking through the world with a sense that, you know, just what's coming into our minds isn't necessarily the truth. Right. So just trying to find, it's like the search for truth, essentially, you know, what is the truth? It's not my truth. It's not your truth. It's, you know, something in between the truth literally exists something in between everything. Right right and what that is it like exists in the gaps really yeah yeah exactly yeah and we want to make sure that we don't become the driver of what i call the bitter bus right oh yeah right that's you know i'm upset i'm cynical i don't believe in my co-workers my, everybody's out to get me. And, you know, it's too bad if an individual thinks that. But what they typically end up doing is start talking more, wasting lots of time and resources and energy.

So, I mean, I guess that begs the question, when does our optimistic, positive mindset turn into toxic positivity? Because we hear about that word a lot. It's just a buzzword. It's not like a, you know, a professional term or anything. Um, but what do you, what do you think about that? Do you think toxic positivity exists? We'll start there. Well, okay. So sure, sure it does. But is it prevalent? I don't know. I don't think so. To me, some visuals come to mind. When you talk about toxic positivity, I think of a doormat that everybody wipes their feet on or a big heavy wet blanket or somebody that's always saying yes to everything, even if they don't believe in it. So I don't think there's all that many people like that out there, but sure, there are some. Somebody can identify someone like that. But yeah. The way that I've heard it used is almost like an abusive term where it's it's more correlated almost with like gaslighting, if you know what I mean, where the leadership is like, no, fine. Like, you know, just be positive. Keep, you know, doing those 500 phone calls a day. And, you know, it's it.

Or are they hiding something from the front line? In both instances, you break that trust, which isn't a great thing for the organization, right? So, and I acknowledge there's things that the leadership team can't tell employees because they might be worried there'd be a mass exodus if they say some things, right? But yeah, there's an interesting stat that I saw recently that said the number of, what was it, the percentage of problems that a CEO or executive team knows about in an organization is something like 5%. The next level down, so mid-level managers know about 25% of the problems that are happening in an organization. The front line knows about 78% of the problems going on in an organization. So we need to make sure that we're listening all the way up and down and across the organization. Otherwise there's things that people just won't know. down and across the organization.

Otherwise there's things that people just won't know. Yeah. And okay. So obviously the way that you help your clients execute on strategy, that would be one of your recommendations, I assume is listening like the Gamble Walk kind of, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So there's, there's really three core areas that I find, three intersecting ideas for an organization to have the momentum they need to be able to have sustainable results. And that's focusing in on both talent and execution and alignment in the organization. So for the talent, it's about having the right people, about developing those skills. It's about the culture of the organization, those sorts of things. On the same wavelength as to what our priorities, where are we going with that. Right. And we know in like practice, it doesn't like we, it sounds very neat and compartmentalized, but it kind of like, it's kind of like test, learn, test, learn, test, learn, test, learn.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Is there such thing as like, the more information you have as a leader, the more difficult it becomes to make decisions a lot of the time, because there's more complexity in the decision making. And obviously, there's like a balance between, you know, we want and we need information to make good decisions, but is there such thing as too much information? Do you see people freeze? Yes, me. I'm a prime example of it. So I did an assessment recently, and I forget what assessment it is, but one of the characteristics is, are you a fact finder or not a fact finder? So there's some people that will make split second decisions based on just a gut feel. And there's other people that want to find out all the facts about it. This is something I have to personally manage is how much data do I need before I just make a decision. And so that's a challenge that a lot of leaders have is being able to make the decisions based on both intuition and analytics and finding that balance. And is that something that you typically coach people through? Is that like a coachable moment?

Yeah, it absolutely is a coachable moment, right? And especially as you move up in an organization, you're going to know less and less and less about the detail information and you need to rely on the people around you who should be smarter than you to be able to help you make that decision, right? So a lot of leaders make the mistake of trying to make decisions in isolation. They need to communicate with their teams yeah so leaders don't be alone is the message if you're that might be problematic don't be alone it's lonely yeah yeah well a lot of leaders are lonely it's always here right well absolutely right and think yeah think of the person at the top, the CEO, as one of the loneliest places to be in an organization. Yeah. And we know that, I think we've seen that CEOs or leaders who try to be friends with all their employees, it doesn't always go so well either. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've said this to many aspiring managers who have been moving from a team member are now all of a sudden supervising or managing their team. And like, it's not the same relationship.

It cannot be the same relationship you had before. You can still be friendly, but you're no longer best buddies at work because you're not the boss. at work because you're not the boss. Well, and, and, you know, you, you, there's a real temptation. I remember I succumbed to this early, early on when I first became a manager and it wasn't anything that was critical, but it didn't, it only took me a few minutes to realize, oh, I probably shouldn't have told that person that thing that I told them because they're my friend. You know, I've got another level of responsibility now that, you know, I need to keep things to myself. Like I need to figure out how to do that, you know, do that better. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to age myself here, but it's like the, uh, uh, the amazingly, I know the date, the 1984 Fabergé shampoo commercial, which was, hey, I love the shampoo. And I told a friend who told two friends who then told two friends who told two friends. Exactly. Right.

So you've just told your friends something and they're going to tell their buddy something in confidence. And actually, that can be a very useful tactic if you're looking to promote information somehow. Yeah. Or shampoo, right? Or shampoo. That's exactly it. Awesome. So what's next for you, Kevin Judge? What's next for me? Well, I'm, in terms of what I'm doing, I'm taking a little bit of time off for July. I'm going to try and slow down a little bit and take care of myself physically and mentally. But then big plans on the business side of things as I'm continuing to ramp up, speaking with organizations, going in and chatting with them specifically around, hey, what do you need to do in the last 90 days of the year to actually get those results that you, that you want to have. So looking forward to doing a number of executive power hours is what I love. Okay. So a little motivation, education, little discipline from Kevin judge. It sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. Helping them to be as successful as they can be. And is there a specific message that you like to share or is it all individualized depending on the business?

It's very tailored to individuals and to the company itself and what they're doing on. But I guess if I were to summarize it, it's about really be clear on what is it that your organization needs to do to achieve that success? What are those priorities? And then aligning both your people and money and equipment resources against those priorities and communicating. And that kind of comes down to the whole topic that we've had today. It's about communicating effectively with people. So everybody's on the same page and they're not making up stories in their head and going down the wrong path. Yeah.

Going down those rabbit holes, Alice's rabbit hole. One final question. How do we save the world just kidding can you imagine yeah right no but seriously like how do we get more people thinking about curiosity because i do think that's what um is is i don't know if we can save the world but you know what i mean like yeah get more people thinking about things yeah i you know what it it it i think the easiest thing that you can do that i can do that every individual listening to this podcast can do is just when you're in a moment can do is just when you're in a moment, one, have that sense of curiosity for yourself. But also, if there's somebody that is coachable around you to say, hey, hold on a second, I hear you, you're concerned about ABC. What would happen if you were to stop and think of this in this different way? What other possibilities could there be? Right.

So just to take a moment to coach somebody along to help them with it. Right. So I think that's probably the best, the best way that we could do that. Get people to start thinking differently. Excellent. Excellent advice.

Thank you very much. You're welcome.

Thanks very much for having me.

Yeah, it's my pleasure.

Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble.

"You don't need to be healthy to be worthy human being"

Fierce, hilariously honest, and an A-list advocate, Vinny Welsby is a fat activist and diversity, equity and inclusion leader. They are a world-leading expert on dismantling anti-fat bias and diet culture, a TEDx speaker, podcast host and best-selling author.

Vinny is trans-non-binary and is dedicated to shifting how society views fat and queer bodies through education and compassion.

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Script:

My first real job, the head boss called me Miss Piggy behind my back and to everyone for two years. I only learned of it after I left and a colleague finally came clean.

Almost daily during lunch, there was talk of eating, quote, healthy and statements that made me feel paranoid about what I ate in public.

There were definitely jokes made by my boss about fat people. were definitely jokes made by my boss about fat people one of the most memorable ones for me experiences was the time i cheered during a meeting and my boss responded with hey you burned a calorie no Welcome to Weirdos in the Workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose in our world of work today.

And you know me, I'm your host, Erin Patchell. And today I'm here with Vinny Welsby. Welcome, Vinny.

Hello, hello, Erin. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk about fat stuff with you today. I am so excited to talk about fat stuff because, you know, very near and dear to my heart, literally and figuratively.

Yeah. Vinny is a fat activist, in case you didn't notice and a diversity equity and inclusion leader they are a world-leading expert on dismantling anti-fat bias in diet culture a TEDx speaker and I watched it it's fabulous podcast host and best-selling author then he is trans non-binary and is dedicated to shifting how society views fat and queer bodies through education and compassion i already love you so there you go thank you oh my gosh where do we even start um i was listening to your tedx and there was one moment i mean there's a few moments that stood out for sure and a surprise towards the end for anyone who's going to watch. I won't say anything more about that. I'll just leave the intrigue right there. But when you said you don't need to be healthy to be a worthy human being, that literally just brought so many tears to my eyes because it transcends everything it's not about being fat right it's about being a person and all the work that we've been doing lately at positivist group and at the train to help project um maybe we'll talk about that at some point i think people who've been listening kind of know a bit about it but um i i just want to just kind of lay that out because um you can be healthy and fat right but you don't have to be healthy what what are we what are we even talking about why are we bringing this you know why is this even a conversation in in this day and age so i just wanted to say when you shared that I it really really struck home with me yeah because I think like that that line of it's kind of the I don't want the right word for but that zinger or the like the full stop because um people like to say it's not okay to say it's okay to say that it's okay to be fat uh because uh fat people some fat people are unhealthy and some people will say all fat people are unhealthy well it that doesn't matter even if every single fat person is super super unhealthy it doesn't mean that they're a less worthy person and so where people go from there that's kind of like well okay well what can I say to that there's not that much you can say to that really apart from okay yeah you know but some people will say no if you are unhealthy then you're a terrible person or whatever but uh that's their stuff oh yeah I don't know let's let's back up a little bit because I feel like we're going I just I brought it really deep really fast so let's come for air um tell me about how in the world this became your focus uh yeah so it is out of out of necessity out of selfish desire of of uh needing this in my life most of my life

i thought that fatness was uh the worst thing that i could be um and i would do everything i could to not be fat i thought that becoming smaller would change my life would make me more confident would make me more lovable would make me uh you know money rain down from the sky and have hunky celebrities calling me up asking for a date and um when i did temporarily become thin and it's most people's stories that they temporarily lose weight because diets don't work for the vast majority of people when i did temporarily become thin none of those things happened uh yes I experienced more privilege because I had a smaller body however the way that I viewed myself um wasn't changed and my abilities to do the things I wanted in life didn't change um and it was really really painful for me as it is for many people and then one day after many years of dealing with this stuff i saw a message on the internet this is about 10 years ago that said it's okay to be fat and i was like get the fuck out of here what do you what do you mean it's okay to be fat um this was so revolutionary for me i had never considered um that this was an option and i continued reading it was reagan chastain's blog dances with fat i remember exactly where i was sat in my bed with my then boyfriend who had told me that he was less attracted to me because i had a slightly bigger body um and turning around to telling him like did you know this did you know that fat people could be healthy and did you know that uh that you can accept yourself the way that you are and that fat people deserve like dignity and respect? And, you know, it was life changing.

From that moment onwards, everything shifted. And it's been my mission and it's been my life's calling since then to share that same message that you're worthy. You always were. You always will be. Having a bigger body does not mean that you're worthy you always were you always will be having a bigger body does not mean that you're less worthy wow oh I wish that I could internalize that message you know it's going to be a struggle for me to get through this conversation without crying I'm just going to let everyone out there know because like I've been a fat girl my entire life yeah I've been a fat girl and everything that comes along with that you know all of the social rejection that comes along with that like you can tell it's very hard for me to say this and you know it is it is so painful for so many people because we've been told what fatness means is abhorrent is disgusting is a failure and how is that not so painful it is it really is especially imagine being a child oh i'm sure that you know how this feels right yes oh it's just life fucking up stuff these these and all that is is anti-fat bias because those things aren't true it's not true that you're uh you know this terrible human or i am or anyone else who has a bigger body or anyone who has a body that's outside social norms it's just not true it's an opinion it's a dominant opinion um and the moment that we can start unlearning that bias that we have internalized we can be free and that freedom from anti-fat bias oh oh my goodness it's so fucking good honestly i gotta say it's it's really good it's so nice it. It's interesting because, like, you know, I watch you. You know, like, I watch you and I've seen your TED.

And, you know, I've been kind of following some of your social media stuff. And you do seem so free. And I feel like people think that I feel that way. You know? Like, I will go to the beach. Like we went skinny dipping at a resort, you know? Like, you know what I mean? Like there's like these things, like I'll do them and I will be unapologetic about it. But it doesn't mean that I act free, but I don't feel free. How do we go from, I mean, a lot of people don't even act free, you know, it's like fake it till you make it. I'm in that phase, I think. Yeah. What do you think that people around you are thinking when they see you skinny dimping or at the beach or whatever? Like, are you thinking about what they're thinking? I hope that they think that I don't care you know I hope that they think that like there is a person who is having fun you know and being herself and that's what I want that's what I believe that they are seeing um so it's not them it's not me thinking it's them it's really me like yeah so what's your brain saying then um in the in that moment I don't care you know it's in the other moments that um when I'm in the change room and something doesn't look the mirror is like you know it's like whoa that looks really bad or you know when you look at all the cute things that you would want to wear if I look at my daughters who are literally perfect um in the stereotypical sense of the word you know and you're just like thank god that they're perfect you know it's so much easier for them yeah yeah so you're it's that internalized like uh you saying oh I don't look right and my body's wrong or whatever it is that's coming up. But you're you're hoping that people outside are are saying good for her. You go you go and do your swim thing. And so it's.

Yeah, I have I have very optimistic ideas of what people think. Yeah. I live in a little optimism bubble. But you know what? I don't think that's a bad thing. No, no, I think so. So when I'm talking to people doing like one-on-one stuff, I'll ask them like these questions I was asking you because, because, because a lot of times people, it'll be people have different stages of, of, of unlearning anti-fat bias. A lot of times people will say, people are looking at me and saying that i'm disgusting and um then when you when you've worked on anti-fat bias stuff that will start to fade away and you'll have a more generous view of how people might be looking at you because you're also looking at other people with a generous lens when you're really really deep stuck in anti-fat bias you're thinking about other people being like, oh, gross that they are unattractive. And you're looking at yourself.

Oh, gross. I'm unattractive. Once you start unlearning anti-fat bias, you begin by looking at other people with love and compassion. And then the next stage is looking at yourself. So from what you've told me, it sounds like you've already done a lot of work on this stuff and you're taking action. So if anyone listening is kind of in a similar position or if they're thinking other things about other people, wherever you're at, it tells me that you've done so much. And also there is the possibility for that shift so that you can take that compassion you're giving to others and give it to yourself in those moments of like what in the changing room what would if i was stood next to you and i and you said oh i don't look good like what would i be saying i'm like what the heck you know i mean sometimes it's valid sometimes it's like oh you know what maybe that's not the right fit or whatever it is like color yeah yeah yeah yeah maybe that's not the right style for you like I think there's some validity to it do you think I would say you if you said oh I don't look good I'd say yeah that's valid I mean I hope if it were true you would say that I don't know because I wouldn't look at I wouldn't look at someone's body and say, oh, that's not right, or you don't look good. Like, it just wouldn't come. I couldn't, in my brain, I couldn't see it. So anyway, anyway. But this happens at work, and that's the thing. It's like, I strongly believe, and I have heard this story from other people just before you and I started chatting this story from other people just before you and I started chatting.

I had a friend text me. I'm like, oh, you wouldn't believe, you know, what I'm doing next, like podcast with you. And we, you know, a lot of, it's funny how people who are overweight often attract other people who are overweight. And a lot of my friends are a little bit overweight, a little bit fat. And they're okay. You know, we're solid, like we are like confident fat ladies, and that's fine. But they were saying that they had a wicked story about a boss, they had lost 50 pounds in the workplace. And it was like wild, you know, how, how differently they were treated all of a sudden. It was very obvious. This is a real, this is actually, I think, a huge problem in the workplace. And I strongly believe that I was, I've been held back because of my weight, you know, and that's a problem because I'm smart. Like, you know, like everything else aside, the way I look aside, like I'm a hard worker and I'm smart and worker and I'm smart and diligent and I give a shit. And I think those qualities should far overweigh what I weigh, you know?

Exactly. And I feel like a lot of people in bigger bodies, they're actually harder workers than people in smaller bodies because they have to prove themselves. So they're just working their fingers to the bone and being perceived as lazy because they have a bigger body which is which is really unfair and what's really driven this home for me is recently i have i've just completed it and i can send you a link to it um is a fat at work report did i tell you about this before oh no remind me yeah it's so i've done a survey with 336 people asking them about their experiences at work and these are all people in bigger bodies um and i've done an analysis and report from that survey and the the stuff that the stories that people have shared are horrific heartbreaking unbelievable when i say unbelievable 100 believable but still you're thinking how do people like this exist in the workplace it's so cruel right um so what we learned from this this report was that um the percentage of fat people that have um said that they've experienced anti-fat bias in the workplace is 95.65 percent oh wow yeah now that is gargantuan. It's just every fat person has had shit experiences in the workplace.

And then if we put on top of that the marginalized identities, people who are over the age of 50, people who are racialized, people who are disabled and have a lower economic status they are all experiencing this anti-fat bias more more in their life and had have had feel like they've had a greater impact on their career so um this is this anti-fat bias in the workplace a lot of people say does it exist is this a thing not only does it exist but it's a huge thing it's a massive problem and no one's talking about it which is not literally no one's talking about it when I saw what you do I was like oh my gosh yes like we talk about diversity equity inclusion and accessibility and i think people with disabilities also it's not talked about enough so we're talking about that more as well but this is literally never talked about and first person i've ever heard talk about i know isn't it weird and the thing is fat people are the largest marginalized uh group in most societies so it's you know the statistics something like 68 percent of women are plus size so if we're thinking 68 percent of the workforce depending on the company um 68 percent of those people have experienced uh almost all of them have experienced anti-fat bias in the workplace and not just like a little bit these stories are egregious really really not cool wow yeah so what do you do i know that you're working hard obviously you're trying to enlighten people get the word out you know you're you're you're like becoming an influencer you are an influencer but i can see that you're like, you've, you're on a mission. Oh my goodness. Yeah. What do we do? What do we do? It's hard. It's really hard. You know? I don't know. What do we do? Go and have a nap or something. Watch some Netflix. Relax. But actually I ask people like, what, what do they need? What makes, what would make things easier?

like what's the most essential things it's really really sad but this most like the beginning stuff is uh really basic human uh necessities like having access to a washroom that they can use um having a place to sit having um if they wear uniform clothes to wear so that's the first thing really basic really like basic stuff and so you know how have we not already got the these basics covered but that's the first thing is making sure that we've provided basic amenities if we're in the workplace um the next thing that we need to do is we need to gather data because um almost every single um workplace that asks demographic data will not ask about people's body size they have no clue how many fat employees they have unless it's for wellness initiatives or or for the insurance and then they're not using it as a demographic for for diversity reasons um and they don't know what the fat people's experiences are um and so we need to be asking this this question like what's your body size and if you feel comfortable sharing and how, how's your experience in the workplace?

So once we've got that data, then we can provide training and start shifting attitudes. Um, and what I do is I start with the DEI team or company leaders because so often a lot of, uh, shit is coming from people's bosses um is uh let me do you want me to tell you some of these stories from like people's bosses yeah okay let me let me let me go let me go to the bosses section because i've so with the stories i've kind of um put them into different categories um so many bosses saying like terrible shit so uh an office manager once said to my face that she would rather die than be fat one of the most memorable ones for me experiences was the time i cheered during a meeting and my boss responded with hey you burned a calorie no um i once worked for a men's health organization and i was told i needed to be smaller from the executive director to reflect men's health i am a woman it made me feel terrible most of the discomfort i experienced at work was pressure to diet and to keep weight off almost daily during lunch there was talk of eating quote healthy and statements that made me feel paranoid about what i ate in public there were definitely jokes made by my boss about fat people um this one person my first real job the head boss called me miss piggy behind my back and to everyone for two years i only learned of it after i left and a colleague finally came clean um yeah so the stories go on and on and on uh about you know food shaming and commenting on people's bodies and on an employee's bodies it's just fucked up it is it's totally fucked up um what do you think people are specifically afraid of like these bosses in particular like what is it that they're so afraid of fat bodies um i think it comes down to, are they a lovable, worthy, worthy human? Because if they're not maintaining a smaller body, then they are out of control and they are bad and they are not lovable.

They are, they are to be rejected from society. Because of all of this anti-fat bias we've internalized we see fatness as this almost death sentence so why wouldn't they be terrified of being fat or becoming bigger it makes total sense and because everyone else not everyone but most people also have that same fear of being fat or being fatter, that we all bond on this communal shame of, oh, I'm being naughty. I shouldn't eat this like sliver of cake. And, oh, I had a bad weekend eating this or I should really lose weight or whatever. That really is for many people very bonding because we all have those same fears so yeah it's a very very normal part of our culture as we all know and what can we if you're a leader if you're a leader listening to this you know and you want to be more inclusive um so Vinny what would you say to the leaders listening to this who do want to be more inclusive?

How do they like notice those moments and change the script? Yeah, it's hard because so many people, it's so normalized in workplaces, right? So this really is about a culture shift within organizations. So we spoke about those like those basic things like basic amenities um asking questions and training but the um the big thing is is making a culture shift and how we do that is complicated but putting in um policies to protect people with with bigger bodies um so within your hr um within your dei policies mentioning that size is a protected class um size is a protected class in a number of locations in the us um it will be coming to a city a state a province near you this is going to happen so you you should get on the the front end of this making so making in your statement your diversity statement we protect people um due to their size and so you would say height and weight um realizing that i don't think we have done that on a positive histogram so i'm just gonna go because you don't you don't think about it yeah no you don't think about it um you could also just say uh due to uh the way that your body looks when someone's body looked if you don't want to mention height or weight um we also want to make in uh the same way that we have policies protecting those protected groups like what would you do if your colleague came in and started saying oh i hate i hate people with adhd i'm someone with adhd oh people are adhd blah blah whatever they were saying ableist stuff there would be a plan that hr has in place to deal with that type of behavior is if someone's being a bigot in the office yeah we don't just let it fly well i said we don't let it fly a lot of places do um and so we don't let anti-fat bias fly we don't let diet talk fly um that's not who we are as an organization culturally that's not our values we're an inclusive organization if that's who you are so um that has to be a learning process people overnight are not going to understand if you just say hey everyone we're changing the rules you're not allowed to talk about um diets and and hating your body people are going to be like what the fuck um this is really strange and why not and also we don't and um they won't know that the stuff that they're saying is really harmful and based in bias. So there needs to be education.

So I wish that there was a simple kind of, oh, just do this, like put something at the bottom of your email signature or something. But it's a cultural shift and changing norms in the in the organization right but it can start with the particular leader so like as an individual you have the autonomy to change the way that you do things yeah yeah for any person yeah call something out or call something in however we're saying that yeah yeah yeah yeah so you could be saying like hey by the way uh in our team we have a uh no body talk um policy and uh talking to you know if someone says something like hey by the way we don't talk about bodies in that way la la la um so you could definitely within your team have that but unfortunately you wouldn't be theoretically backed up by policy within the organization unless that's changed right it would be a microculture that yeah yeah yeah yeah that's what i would do like if i if uh if i had a team a team and i worked in an organization and someone started talking about this stuff i would take them aside and very gently call them in um yeah and um and then influence upward i suppose you know yes it's not already company policy yeah that's what exactly what happens is when i go into organizations um it's because a fat person has influenced upwards and said we need this now right and it's happened because the straight size people in the organization will say it's not a big deal. And the fat, the fat leader will say it is a big deal.

I know because I've lived it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that doesn't necessarily change how we perceive ourselves, but it helps, you know, so it doesn't absolve us as a like if you're a fat person like I am, you know, out know out there you know it doesn't absolve us for doing that work ourselves either because i don't know if you recognize that quote i think i sent you an email with a little quote in it it's from the dao of steve and they're talking about like how he won't date thin people or something yeah i looked it up i hadn't recognized that i looked it up and i was like what is this what is going on i love that movie and he says um i'm the worst kind of fattest i'm a fat fattest and i always feel that way too sometimes i'm like so it certainly doesn't absolve me from um the work that i need to do to detangle my own biases yeah yeah because we will we will cause harm we'll always no matter what we'll always call cause harm and so um it's a lot easier to advocate for this work and do this work um in organizations if you deeply believe that all fat people including yourself deserve um everything in the world and are wonderful humans. And, you know, you've got rid of that bias. It's harder to advocate when you're agreeing with the oppressor and you're like, oh, I'm kind of disgusting. So it just makes things easier if you think that you're right in some ways. Yeah, absolutely. Yes.

And I think people should feel confident to just live their lives without judgment you know and be able to do what they want to do and be who they want to be i mean you know i think that would be a beautiful world to live in oh wouldn't it oh and i i know when i was in really in in anti in diet culture and anti-fatness i couldn't imagine that that being a reality because everyone speaks about this stuff you know hating themselves and diets and how can they get thin and um but i want to let people know that it is a reality to um maybe not for everyone because of different dynamics and stuff but it is a reality that there are people out there who are not going to be judgmental towards your body, that you can create relationships and community with people who are, who are like-minded, who are fierce fatties and who will call you out. If you try and talk shit about yourself. And luckily after, you know, 10 years of therapy and all that type of stuff that's where i'm at in my life and it's i'm almost like this is unbelievable it's very strange and so wonderful and it really supports my mental health because here's the thing is you can't stop doing this work um we are bombarded by anti-fat stuff all the time going like go and watch you know a tv show bikini babes on the beach dating show immediately your brain's like oh maybe i should be a bikini babe and maybe i should be younger and maybe i should be thinner maybe i should get botox and maybe i should targeted advertising now on the media and everything constant it's constant so it's a constant kind of balancing of yeah i want to watch bikini babes on the media and everything constant it's constant so it's a constant kind of balancing of yeah i want to watch bikini babes on the beach show because it's i love trashy tv but you know i want to protect my mental health and how can i do both and can i do both and yeah well we have a lot of work to do yeah and that's the thing is i i i teach both sides right i teach help individuals and organizations because you it's really hard to do one without the other yeah and we're going to post you know every possible way that people can get a hold of you vinny in the show notes so folks out there um i know that you do have education that you do public education so people can like buy a ticket to a class um you know, and you do obviously corporate education as well. So if there are corporations out there looking for this type of support, you know, you are fabulous. And I can only imagine how good you must be in a small group.

So, yeah. Well, I think, well, I think I, yes. i yes thank you i'm just gonna take the compliment i was like not everyone likes me god erin no but everyone come on thank you yeah and um the uh the report that i was i was quoting from and talking about it's uh 58 pages of juicy stuff and so um i've got it i've got a link for people to download it amazing amazing yes i cannot wait to look at that that sounds so interesting it is i've been nerding out about it okay when did that was when was that released it hasn't Oh, it's brand new. It's, uh, I'm wait, I've, I've, I've just finished it like last week and I'm like, when should I release this? But everything's live. So people can get, can get, I just haven't shared the link with anyone. So I can, you know, obviously share it with you. And, um, it's amazing. Yes. I can't wait. Hot off those presses.

If there were presses. Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you coming on and chatting with me Vinny it's been a pleasure thank you Erin thanks for uh talking about fat stuff with me I really appreciate it oh yeah no it's it's been good we I need to talk about this more I think it's one of those things where it's like you need to shine a light on the dark areas of your life and have you know brought you shame and then that's how you dark areas of your life and have, you know, brought you shame. And then that's how you get out of it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's a quote from a controversial vigor, Brené Brown, but I like the quote, shame cannot survive the light. Oh yeah. Perfect. Yep. Yeah. So shine some light on that shame. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Don't forget to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble!

From the challenges faced to the victories celebrated, your host Erin Patchell, shares valuable insights on the good, the bad, and the ugly of her entrepreneurial journey so far. Stay tuned to find out what it takes to be an entrepreneur in today's world, and how to celebrate the small milestones on the path to success!

Stay in Touch:

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/erin-patchell

For more on Erin, her services, and her entrepreneurial journey:

https://trainedtohelp.com/

https://www.positivist.ca/

Script:

We're helping businesses become more inclusive and prove that and demonstrate that every single day. So it's not just a checkbox. It's actually real.

Welcome back to Weirdos in the Workplace workplace the podcast where we celebrate authenticity transparency passion and purpose as entrepreneurs and business leaders i'm your host erin patchell and today we're diving into the exciting milestones for the positivist group which is my company and our software software platform we're developing called cludi which is my company, and our software platform we're developing called Cludee, which is formerly known as the Train to Help project. And the reason why I'm sharing all of this, I'm a huge believer in transparency. And I think it's really important, especially for new entrepreneurs to hear from other entrepreneurs along their journey. And I'd love to share a little bit about the good, the bad and the ugly as we go along in this journey. And I'd love to share a little bit about the good, the bad and the ugly as we go along in this journey. And it hasn't been easy.

So I hope that comes across when I'm chatting. It is not an easy process. It is a constant, constant learning as you go and, you know, seeking and sensing into the environment and asking a lot of questions and asking yourself a lot of questions. So without further ado, today we're going to talk about where we are now, what it's been like to pilot the learner side of our platform with 40 live participants, and what is next on the horizon. And yes, I said pilot with live participants. And for those of you who have done this before, you may know how completely insane that really is. So why did we create Cludee in the first place, just to take a step back?

Our mission at Positivist Group has always been to make it profitable for businesses to do the right thing. It's a tough economy out there and we need to accept as business owners, every possible strategic advantage that we have. And one of those strategic advantages is to create business models that are built around and clearly demonstrate business as a force for good. And I know I, my friends will probably laugh because I always say this, but I joke around a lot about like world domination for good.

You'll probably hear those words come out of my mouth almost every single day, world domination for good, but it's not really a joke. It's our philosophy. world domination for good, but it's not really a joke. It's our philosophy. So if you take two customers who want to purchase a good or service, let's pretend you're going to buy a fridge and you give them two options. So two fridges, two different companies, identical variables, the quality of both fridges is the same or good. The warranty is the same. The investment cost is about the same. They're both convenient to purchase from. The service is accessible. The atmosphere of the business is nice. But the only factor that changes between these two fridges at these two different businesses is that 50% of the profit that they get from one fridge and one of the businesses is going to the food bank, let's say. Meanwhile, 100% of the profit from the other fridge and the other business is going into their shareholders' pockets. So I think it's pretty obvious that unless you're one of those shareholders, the decision's kind of a no-brainer.

Almost every time when I explain this to people, they're like, obviously I'm going to pick, I'm going to buy the fridge where 50% of the profit's going to a charity. Business as a force for good makes sense. Business is a force for good makes sense. So if you've heard me talk about this in the past, you know, also, probably that I have physical and neurodevelopmental disabilities, and I'm fairly public about them. I have other disabilities as well that are suspected, but not officially diagnosed. So I don't really talk about those. But even before I recognized that I had disabilities, I was kind of treated like an outcast. And I don't know, it was kind of chicken and egg. I don't blame anyone. I think it was, I didn't know how to be included just as much as people didn't know how to include me. But I was treated like an outcast and it took me many years to understand how I belong and where I fit in and how to be a social person. So something I do care about deeply and something the team, a positivist group cares about deeply as well, because we all have lived experience with this, is disability inclusion.

I also strongly believe that people need people. And I think that's a fact. People who are excluded socially probably need people even more than everyone else. People with disabilities also generally just want what everyone else does and what everyone else takes for granted. Like just to go for coffee with a friend, to go to the store, to buy a gift for a loved one, to socialize without causing a disturbance or to be made to feel welcome and not made to feel like a burden. We know that small businesses particularly struggle with accessibility, even to the level of basic compliance, which is frankly a pretty low bar. With how competitive it is in the market right now for businesses, particularly retail business and brick and mortar business, it's even more important for people with disabilities to feel included and respected in every single customer interaction. For one, they make up over 27% of the Canadian population over the age of 15, if you can believe that. And that's a true fact from Statistics Canada.

People with disabilities also spend $55 billion every single year. And that number is going to be increasing. Why? Because we are making it easier and easier for people with disabilities to work. People with disabilities have disposable income. They are consumers and they want to spend their money. They want to live like everyone else, you know? So let's let them, let's help them and give them a great experience, you know? And that's exactly what Cluedy is designed to do. When you become a Cluedy, you know, we're helping businesses become more inclusive and prove that and demonstrate that every single day. So it's not just a checkbox. It's actually real. We're providing transparency around that. We're helping businesses get the training and resources they need to provide an exceptional customer experience while also making it easier for people with disabilities to navigate the world with more confidence. So we're about four and a half months into the actual development of this platform, which is like, sounds like nothing. We're moving extremely quickly. And the last five months have felt like a whirlwind.

We surveyed first like back several months ago. I think it was just about the time I did episode 11. So episode 11, I also talked about this project as well and where we were at that point. Around episode 11, we were surveying customers with disabilities. We surveyed over 50 customers with disabilities and we're still talking to people constantly. This is a never ending learning. But at this time, we've surveyed 50 customers with intersectional disabilities to understand the good, the bad, and the ugly of their customer service experiences when they go and finally venture out to the world. We interviewed a couple of dozen business owners as well to understand their thoughts around accessibility and whether they were AODA compliant and they weren't. In fact, 97% didn't even know they were supposed to be. These are small businesses, by the way. Larger businesses over 20 employees, there are huge fines if they're not compliant. But the smaller businesses under 20 employees, while there are still fines, they kind of fall through the cracks because it's not really monitored as much. So in the past five months, we also completed the Invest Ottawa Ignition Program. And I went on stage and we did our pitch.

Every single one of the program participants did a pitch. And that was really fun pitch competition. Now we're taking advantage of the Flex program, support for business startups. We participated as a vendor in the Adaptive Living Expo. And it was extremely validating to talk to so many people with disabilities about this new venture, Cluedy. And they had huge enthusiasm for what we're doing. So that is really heartening. We attended the Collision Conference, which is North America's largest tech conference, talked to numerous founders and funders, understanding, you know, getting understanding of the lay of the land, how does this work, as we're becoming a technology startup, becoming a CEO of a technology company, there is a lot to learn. And we took away so many insights and growth opportunities from that. And just this Wednesday, we finally launched our pilot phase of Cluedy with almost 50 participants. The goal was to test the learner side of the platform in a real world setting because this platform includes the AODA compliance training that we're calling it Disability Inclusive Customer Service. So that was the platform, the side of the platform that we were testing.

And we wanted to see how our training would perform, how users would interact with the content, and most importantly, whether Cluedi could truly make a difference in enhancing accessibility and inclusion. So what does the pilot look like? Like I said before, the largest pilot, I've run many pilots in my life so far. This is by far the largest. Normally I have up know 12 to 15 participants um we had over 40 participants almost 50 participants employees business owners from retail stores restaurants and service-oriented businesses uh we decided to do it live so they were all doing and testing the platform together, providing feedback in numerous ways. We actually basically updated the platform. We had a little button so that any time throughout the entire journey on the platform, as they were exploring through the platform, they were able to provide feedback at any stage. And we knew exactly where that was within the platform. They also were able to write their feedback on a card. And then we held table conversations as well with a facilitator. So we gathered even more feedback that way. These people are on the front lines of customer service and they interact with the public every single day.

So getting their feedback was really critical. The pilot did involve that comprehensive training program that I mentioned, covered everything from AODA compliance to practical strategies for engaging with customers that have disabilities. The training was totally mobile based, which is the reason why it's mobile based, at least right now. And that's going to be the primary modality going forward is because people in those brick and mortar businesses don't often have access to computers. Although we are creating different versions so that, you know, there's different contexts that can be used. And not everybody has a phone, we learned. In fact, quite a few people said that they have quite a few employees who don't have phones, which means that they probably won't actually have access to a computer either. So we're going to need some kind of analog method of doing the training as well to make sure that we're including everyone. So that was definitely something we learned. And I honestly, I think I was a little bit naive because I had absolutely no idea there were so many people that still didn't have phones these days. So that's a learning. Yeah. So, but busy employees need convenience factor. After the, it had been something on our minds, but we definitely decided to do an audio only version as well. And we think that will be very popular, uh, especially for employees who are, you know, rushing around, they can pop the audio version in and, uh, do, do some training in between, you know, or when, when they've got a free moment. Um, but the feedback we received overall was incredibly insightful. So many people reported that the content was engaging and informative. They had new perspectives on how to approach customer service.

A lot of people mentioned how to communicate with people with disabilities. That was extremely insightful, that module that we did. So, you know, all in all, some really amazing feedback, positive and constructive. People really liked the real life scenarios as well. We took actual real life scenarios from real people with disabilities that they encountered in customer service environments and, you know, kind of like a what not to do. And I think that was very enlightening because there's quite a few scenarios like not moving a person's wheelchair. That isn't always necessarily common sense, you know. It doesn't, it's not instinctive. We don't understand it until we've learned it. So we also discovered some major areas for improvement. A couple I mentioned already. Some people wanted more interactive elements and case studies specific to their industries. So anyways, all of this feedback is extremely valuable. The good news was that the actual technology itself, everyone found to be really easy. So that's good news. The actual software was really easy to access, even for some of the older adults in the audience felt that it was super easy and straightforward. So that was good news. So we've already had several stories about employees who felt more confident and prepared to serve customers with disabilities once they've completed the training.

I followed up with a few people already, and they have really great things to say. So this is only the beginning, and they're going to be getting even more and more out of this platform as we continue forward. And I'm really excited to see how this continues and how the trajectory grows and how they're growing as people through the process. But of course, it was not without its challenges. We definitely had a few glitches, mainly related to the Wi-Fi in the building, which we knew was going to be a problem. And we had created some, we had managed that as best as we could, but we still had some challenges around the wifi. But, you know, everyone typically understood and we were able to manage it without any issues. But I would say if you're, if you're listening to this, cause you want to do a live pilot yourself, I would definitely find somewhere that has a very strong wifi connection or limit the number of people in the pilot and make it a bit of a smaller pilot. Because there was a bit of an overload despite the fact that we had, like I said, done everything we possibly could to mitigate the fact that the Wi-Fi wasn't as strong as it probably should have been.

So, okay. What is next for Cludee?

So we are in the process of refining the platform based on the feedback of the pilot participants. We are looking for at financing options now in order to fund the next four to six months of the project. I'm really hoping to bring there's one person, especially who's currently working as a contractor. And I'm really hoping to bring them on as a full time employee because they're extremely valuable. And they're just such a great fit for this project. But we'll see how it goes. Hopefully in the next update, the next, you know, I'm doing every 10 weeks, I'm going to provide an update on the Cludee platform. So hopefully the next update, I can say like, hooray, we've secured some financing, you know, and we're full steam ahead. So, but because we don't have the financing or funding right now, so we're, you know, either a loan or equity funding from investors, we are planning on getting this to market ASAP. So that's really our focus right now is creating the administrative side of the platform so that people can actually go on the website and purchase this product. It'll be the training just to start with adding features. We have so many amazing features that we're going to be adding over the next six months that we're really excited about.

But AODA training is really important and a lot of businesses are not currently compliant. So we figure there's a market for that even without the rest of the platform completed. So that is how we're handling, you know, needing to get to market really quickly is really like what is the increment that is valuable that people will be willing to pay for. And that's what we're starting with, you know, and if anyone out there is also bootstrapping a company, you know, that might be a good way to think about things. So, but yeah, we're, we're also in the meantime, we're enhancing the content, we're adapting it to different provincial legislation across Canada. We do intend on moving to the United States as well, but we're going to launch across Canada first. We're improving the user interface just a little bit, a few little tweaks, and then preparing for a broader live launch across Canada, hopefully in October.

Our next steps also include expanding the pilot to more businesses. And we're interested in bringing on another pilot, a separate pilot for people who have lived experience with disabilities. And that will be a paid pilot just to make sure that the content is as inclusive and effective as possible. And we're also intending on adding on new modules as well. So this is the Disability Inclusive Customer Service course and then micro learning modules. We'll be adding at least one a month as a value add for all of the members, for all of our Cludees out there, our Cludee businesses. We're also adding new features like the ability for businesses to track their accessibility improvements over time and receive personalized recommendations for further enhancements, as well as the Cluedy grant, which is our own grant to enhance accessibility in small businesses. And we are funding that from the profit of the company. So as a social enterprise, I think I've mentioned before, Cludee is a social enterprise, which means that half of our profit will be going towards a grant for small businesses.

So in closing, I want to thank our pilot participants for their enthusiasm, honesty, and commitment to make Cludee a success. This is just the beginning. I keep saying that, but really it is. It is like, you know, getting to market is literally the beginning. So we're even like pre, we're still pre-revenue. We're really, really at the beginning. But I'm kind of excited for you guys to come along this journey with us. And by the time we have our last episode, at the end of January 2025, we should be getting some traction, you know, so that would be the that's the plan. But we're super thrilled to have such passionate businesses and individuals becoming Cludees. And we're excited about the future of Cludee and the impact that it will make in making our world more accessible and inclusive.

So stay tuned for more updates. And as always, we welcome your feedback. If you're interested in joining the Cludee community or learning more about how we can help your business or possibly partner with us in other ways, visit our website or reach out directly to me at erin at positivist.ca, E-R-I-N at P-O-S-I-T-I-V-I-S-T dot C-A. And I'm on LinkedIn pretty frequently. So feel free to ping me on LinkedIn. That would be linkedin.com slash I N slash Erin E R I N dash patchell P A T C H E L L.

Thanks for listening until, until next time, stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble!