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Oct 19
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908: How to Work Across Differences and Overcome Polarization with David Livermore

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David Livermore discusses how to engage and get along with people who strongly hold opposing views and beliefs.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why we’re better off when we address our differences
  2. How to overcome the discomfort of discussing differences
  3. The one question that helps bridge divides

About David

David Livermore PhD is a social scientist devoted to the study of cultural intelligence (CQ) and global leadership and the author of several award-winning books. He is a founder of the Cultural Intelligence Center in East Lansing, Michigan, and a visiting research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Prior to leading the Cultural Intelligence Center, Livermore spent twenty years in leadership positions with a variety of nonprofits and taught in five universities.

He is a frequent speaker and adviser to leaders in Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and governments, and he has worked in more than one hundred countries. He has been interviewed and referenced by myriad news sources, including The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, CBS News, Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, Forbes, NBC, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Financial Times.

Resources Mentioned

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David Livermore Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
David, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

David Livermore
Thanks, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into the wisdom of your book, Digital, Diverse & Divided: How to Talk to Racists, Compete With Robots, and Overcome Polarization, to help folks become more awesome at their jobs. But, first, I want to hear a cool story from you about maybe a time you and a friend had some opposite views but came to a really cool mutual understanding.

David Livermore
Oh, wow, we’re going right in, right? Yeah, so there are many. I’m thinking about a conversation that I had with someone right after the first Trump election, so to jump right into politics. And without me really getting too far into the weeds of it, we voted differently, and we were having lunch together the next day, and kind of started around, like, “I can’t believe this,” and, “What, because you didn’t get your candidate to win?” And so, we were kind of bantering for a while.

And then we started to talk about, “Okay, let’s put everything on hold here for a moment. What’s most important to you and me?” And we were both dads – we are both dads – we started to talk about that. And, thankfully, by the time we ended the conversation, I think we both decided the world wasn’t going to come to an end, though we still retained some of the concerns that each of us had related to our politics.

So, that was the first of many conversations with him and other people about kind of my feelings about politics and issues related to diversity, reproductive rights, and on and on, the list could go.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And you remain friends to this day?

David Livermore
We absolutely do.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Okay. What I found troubling during some of those contentious elections were the proclamations, like, “If you voted this way, then you can unfriend me right now because we have nothing in common.” I was like, “Ooh, that feels like the opposite of what we need to do here,” is kind of my intuition. It sounds like you’re on my wavelength.

David Livermore
Yeah. And, Pete, name the issue of the week, we kind of get some kind of that. I’m watching it right now as we’re…watching, at least the time of recording, the atrocities going on in the Middle East, and it’s the same kind of rhetoric that’s been there, “Just unfriend me now if you believe X.” I’m like, “Okay, how does that help any of us move forward?” So, yeah, I think you’re right. Our unwillingness to even be “friends” on social media with someone who has a different viewpoint is clearly a problem.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. Well, to counterpoint that, David. The social media friendship is one of the most intimate and sacred relationships that we have, so, in all fairness.

David Livermore
No, fair enough that you say that because when the book first came out, people were often asking me about, “How do you work through some of these, like, conflicts you have with people?” And I’m like, “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, it’s not on social media.” And I swear, a couple weeks later, I suddenly found myself in a very cantankerous debate with someone on social media, I’m like, “I just violated my own principle.” So, yeah, you’re absolutely right. Part of the problem is if we assume there’s going to be meaningful constructive debate on social media, we’re probably already off on the wrong foot.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, maybe before we get too much into all these fascinating alleys and corridors, could you make the case, David, for why does understanding this stuff help a person be more awesome at their job?

David Livermore
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because most of my work has actually been oriented around how it helps people be awesome at their job, and then I kind of backward-designed it into how does it also relate to personal relationships. So, a little bit of context to that, that response. Most of my work is in the field of cultural intelligence, so, “How do you understand people who come from different cultural backgrounds?”

So, in the job context, usually what that has meant is, “Hey, you are part of a team that’s scattered across Europe, Asia, and the US. How do you just deal with some of the frustrations of not only time zones but different ways of getting work done, etc.?” And the longer that I got engaged in that work, the more I was observing, just at a personal level, some of these increasingly polarizing conversations that happen in our own neighborhoods, maybe even in our own extended families.

So, I started to say, “How can we actually use some of these same principles that you might work in the work sphere in personal relationships?” So, I would say you’re hard-pressed today to be engaged in a work environment that isn’t going to be working with people who have different viewpoints than you and different backgrounds than you.

And we can try and stuff it for a while but, particularly under stress and time pressure, it’s going to start to surface. And the better that we learn the skills for how to actually lean into our differences and use those rather than ignore them is going to be helpful for all of us to become more awesome at the work that we’re doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’d love to get your take in terms of these sorts of conversations, if they are a political or other sort of hot button or divisive controversial matters. To what extent ought we not talk about them at work, versus, absolutely, engage, bring your whole self, your whole person? How do you think about that ball of wax?

David Livermore
Yeah, I’m a classic academic so I’m going to say it depends on the situation, because, in part, we’ve been told, particularly in US work culture, more the first point, like, just leave it alone, don’t go near politics, don’t touch. But that’s become harder and harder to do, particularly when some of the politicized issues are around unionization, or around reproductive rights, or whether or not people should be working from home or not, etc. So, it’s not realistic to say that this is never going to come up.

And in the wake of some of the atrocities that were happening after the George Floyd murder, like, sometimes people of color were sitting there on a Zoom call, going, “Everybody’s asking how my weekend was. I don’t even know how to engage in this conversation because I’m still reeling emotionally.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I hear you. It’s like, “Well, this thing happened and it was horrifying for me. Am I supposed to say that or am I supposed to not say that?”

David Livermore
Yeah, exactly. So, I think it comes down to what a lot of our friends in the DEI space say of creating psychologically safe environments where we’re not walking on eggshells, where it’s okay to voice our viewpoint but being mindful that there may be someone on the other side of the table who has a very different opinion, and it takes a special kind of leader to know how to create awesome teams who can handle that kind of intellectual honesty with each other.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now we settled that. Thank you. So, can you share with us any particularly surprising or fascinating discoveries that might be sort of counterintuitive as you dug into this work and put together the book?

David Livermore
Yeah, a couple things. So, the first would come more from our broader realm of research in cultural intelligence. One of the things that was surprising to me is sometimes those who know a lot about the other side, whether the other side be how a German works versus an American, or whether it be a Republican versus a Democrat, actually, sometimes do worse than those who don’t know a lot.

And what emerged in the research in that is if I think I know a whole lot about you, then that can tend to make me arrogant and close minded, and think, “I already know how people like you think.” So, it was a bit counterintuitive for someone like me who’s in academic to go, “Actually, knowledge by itself can be dangerous.” But when combined with the other facets that we look at in cultural intelligence, “To what degree are you open and motivated? How do you actually strategize? How does that actually help it?”

The one that was more specific to the book in looking at, “How do we actually use these ideas to help us around some of these polarizing issues?” was surrounding an issue that we call, in the academic arena, perspective-taking. So, your listeners can certainly wrap their minds around it pretty quickly. Perspective-taking is just when I stop, and say, “Let me see this through your point of view.”

And so, there was some interesting research where Adam Galinsky at Columbia University, a colleague of mine, wanted to look at what happened when he asked a group of students to examine an elderly gentleman sitting outside on a chair in New York City. And the first group of students, he just said, “Write what you see.” The second group of students, he said, “Write what you see but avoid negative stereotypes.” The third group of students, he said, “Write what you see but I want you to write it in the first person as if you’re the elderly gentleman.”

And what happened? The first group of students with no parameters, they wrote all kinds of stereotypical things about this poor dithering man who’s been here and he’s losing his mind, he’s lonely.” The second group of students, it was relatively clinical, “He sits here every day. He’s been here for lots of years.” The third group of students who were asked to view it through the first person, they wrote the most humanizing, positive view of, “Ah, I’ve had such a rich life, and I’ve watched some of the same kids grow up on these blocks, etc.”

And so, it became a very useful kind of somewhat surprising finding of a simple trick to say, “What if I actually enter the mind of someone who views vaccines as the best or worst thing ever, and start to think about, ‘Could I argue their point of view from their perspective?’”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that really is powerful for just about any issue in terms of…because it’s easy to judge, to demonize, but then if you put yourself in a position of a mother, had triplets, they got vaccines, and then they all developed autism days afterwards, like, what is she to conclude? What is she to think? And she’s terrified, and so that’s going to be the perspective she’s going to have. It’s like, “Hey, vaccine is horrific.”

David Livermore
Great example. And shouting at her with the science isn’t even addressing the fear that she feels at that point as a mother.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly.

David Livermore
But it’s also super hard, right, because the minute we start to view that other viewpoint, we immediately start to, “Yeah, these clueless sheeple who think blah, blah, blah.” Like, “Hang on, just you’re them right now. How do they view it?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right, “I’m a clueless sheeple.” That’s not what they’re thinking.

David Livermore
Right, probably not.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so then lay it on us, is there a key theme or thesis that enables us to both talk to racists or compete with robots and overcome polarization? Is there a master key, David? Teeing you up.

David Livermore
Well, thank you for that question, Pete. I would say that one of the solutions to it is coming at it through this research-based work that I’ve done on cultural intelligence, and that is if we were to exercise with our racist uncle the same kind of perspective that we might exercise being with someone on the other side of the world, maybe we would get a little further along. And to be a bit more concrete about it, the first thing we know about just being more effective when you’re traveling or working with someone from a different cultural background is just openness, “Am I open to considering a different way of doing things?”

So, one of the tangible things that I suggest to people in the book, but just more practically in my interactions with my own friends and people that I’m working with in organizations, is if somebody has a strong opinion that differs from yours, like my friend did, related to the example just a few minutes ago, just simply asking the question, “Are you willing to consider a different perspective?”

And very rarely will someone go, “Hell, no.” And if they do, then there’s really no point in going any further because if someone has just said, “No, I’m absolutely closed-minded here. Anything more you have to say?” then don’t waste your breath. You might actually make it worse. But if there’s at least, “Okay, sure. I’ll, at least, listen to a different perspective,” that’s kind of an inroad. And, of course, coming back to the perspective-taking, it requires that I’m willing to do the same, “Am I willing to do that?”

And then the other key thing I would say that really try and bring out in the work that we do with people to be awesome at their jobs, and the kinds of things I write about in the book, is to find a shared problem that we both care about. Like, if it’s in the work setting, we both have to meet this deadline for this client. So, you might think the best way to go about is A, and I think it’s B, but, at the end of the day, we got to figure out how to get this done so that they’re pleased and they want to continue to do business with us, etc.

So, zooming wider than a my-way-versus-yours, to, “What’s the shared problem we’re trying to solve?” and then actually trying to use our different viewpoints of, “Can we actually come up with a better solution by both of us contributing to it?” Found that that can be a way that helps unlock people’s kind of close minded nature toward it to actually getting fixated on something that’s a little bigger than just our individual differences.

Pete Mockaitis
And, David, could you share a cool story of some teams, some folks in the workplace using some of this stuff to have some cool breakthroughs?

David Livermore
Yes. So, one example that comes to mind is we did quite a bit of work for a while with Goldman Sachs, and, in particular, there were many of their individuals in their Asian offices in Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore, etc., who felt like they were continually being passed over for promotions by people in London and New York. And so, they were hitting what often gets talked about as the bamboo ceiling. They weren’t being assertive in the way that perhaps their Western counterparts wanted them to do so.

So, we began to design a whole four-month program that would talk about, “How do you take on a different perspective? How do you kind of change the way that you voice things?” And so, a really concrete way that we worked with them on it is they had to leave a voicemail leaving the same information for three different individuals, sort of the caricature of somebody who was in New York, the caricature of someone who was in London, and the caricature of someone in Japan. Same information but how do you communicate it differently?

Of course, we cautioned against stereotyping and all that, but then gave them some feedback on, “Okay, if I’m your stereotypical New Yorker, here’s the way I heard that message sound.” So, this goes broader than just the, “How do you work across polarization?” but how do you actually develop this skillset in your job to be able to more effectively communicate in ways that people are going to hear things differently based upon their background and perspective?

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. So, in this exercise, they were delivering it in a way they were imagining a stereotypical New Yorker or Londoner would want to receive it.

David Livermore
Correct.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I’m just hearing accents in my head as I’m imagining such and such. Can you share with me some actual content? Like, what might that sound like and how that difference goes?

David Livermore
Yeah, no, fair question. Well, I’m speaking more about the words that are spoken and the level of assertiveness. So, with New York, no surprise, it’d be very direct, to the point, succinct, get the word out quickly. Whereas, in the UK, London, still not overly obtuse but perhaps a little bit more deferential, showing a little bit more respect for authority, and then all the more so with the Japanese example, all kinds of deference, more indirect.

So, it was more than nuance of how you communicate this in a way that you would be perceived to be competent, confident, assertive, and all those kinds of things but not over the top, or like, “Who is this dude that’s leaving me this voicemail that sounds like they’re arrogant or something else?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. And I’m thinking about your magical question there, “Are you open to considering another perspective?” And I can hear it’s rare they’re going to say, “No way, no how, not ever.” Although, I think if I’m being honest and I’ve got a good relationship with someone, I might say, “You know, I’d rather not do that today. I’m not in that space today for that.”

David Livermore
And I think that’s actually a super mature response in some cases, like, “Yes, some day but today is not a good day for that.”

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Do you have any other favorite or least favorite words and phrases that are very productive or very destructive in these contexts?

David Livermore
Yeah, another, well, least favorite but then I’ll counterpoint it with what I would add to it. The minute you say, “That makes no sense.” Like, that’s just derogatory. It’s dismissive. And so, I just encourage people to say, just add “To me.” Like, “That makes no sense to me.” We don’t need to be super, like, we’re walking on eggshells, and, “Oh, Pete, I’m not sure I entirely get that.” But, like, it gets fair for us to banter then, “That makes no sense to me. Help me understand it.” But to just, “That makes no sense” sound like, “You’re not logical,” “You don’t make any sense,” etc. So, that’s another one that I like.

I think I already said this in our interview earlier but another favorite phrase of mine, and it’s one that I’m often known for, is “It depends.” When somebody is, “Should it be this or this?” “Well, it depends on so many different factors.” I think it’s fair for people when I’m facilitating a session in the workplace or something for them to say, “It depends on what?” Like, it’s not fair for me to just walk out of the room, and go, “It depends.”

But there’s far too much of our workplace advice, our advice for how you overcome polarization that’s super dogmatic, and it’s like, “What’s the nature of the relationship?” You just mentioned it. You said, “Well, it would depend on the friend and the relationship I have with them.” Exactly. There’d be some individuals where you might say, “Not today. I’m not open, okay? I’m shooting straight with you. Like, this is not a good day for me to enter the perspective of how you’re feeling about this.” So, those are a few of my favorites.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, okay. And so, generally speaking, cultural intelligence, what are your pro tips for how folks go about cultivating it and improving in this set of skills?

David Livermore
It won’t surprise you that there’s no substitute for developing cultural intelligence other than direct experience, so actually interacting with people who have different backgrounds than you. And so, to come back to your example, when we unfriend someone, whether virtually or in real life, just because they have a different perspective, like there’s very little hope we’re going to develop the skillset if we don’t purposely put ourselves in places where we’re interacting with people who are different.

We could say that when we’re talking about the more full-on cultural standpoint. The same would be if I’m not interacting with people from different races, ethnicities, as well as people on other sides of the world. Along with that, there is all kinds of research that says that formal education. We tend to see that as people get engaged in higher-level thinking in that, that it actually does have a link to cultural intelligence.

Many of your listeners may be very familiar with the idea of emotional intelligence, that is the ability to monitor and detect my own emotional state and the emotional state of another person. We know that that’s a key part of how you develop cultural intelligence because if I’m not, first, self-aware, or aware of the emotions of people from similar backgrounds, there’s very little hope that I’m going to do it with other individuals.

So, those are a few that are there. One more that I should just mention, obviously, absolutely key, is just starting with a self-awareness of, “What’s my own identity? What’s my own ideology? Can I transcend a little bit, again, engage in a bit of meta cultural intelligence, if you will, to take a look at myself, and say, ‘How am I, myself, shaped by my background, my upbringing, the profession that I’m in, the people I hang out with, etc.?’”

Pete Mockaitis
I’m curious to hear your perspective when folks, they hear, “Yeah, that probably is a wise move to talk to people who have the opposite point of view than me and some things?” And maybe they’ll make the determination for, “That’s kind of too risky to start at work,” or with this team, or with this individual. But if there’s a sense of terror associated with putting forth a perspective and hearing another person’s perspective as the opposite, like, “I actually think that abortion is murder.” It’s like, “Okay.”

If people feel terrified to voice their view, or the opposite view, it’s like, “I think that is oppressive to say abortions are forbidden,” then how do you recommend folks dip their toe in? Like, I think in some ways, these muscles, these skills have sort of atrophied in recent years as folks see the fireworks fly, and they shrink from that, say, “Okay, duly noted. That results in very spooky conversations and consequences. I’m not going to go there.”

And if we want to develop the cultural intelligence, it sounds like go in there is part of the game. So, how do you recommend we do that in a way that seems lower risk and higher safety?

David Livermore
I think one part of it is realizing we can’t go there with everyone. So, because someone just says it in line in the supermarket behind us doesn’t mean that we’re not being true to our convictions if we don’t engage it. And a more realistic example, like you said, just because someone might quip about that in a team meeting, now may not be the time.

So, it’s kind of say, “Who are the people with whom I really want to engage in this?” And then it’s probably an offline conversation, “Hey, let’s grab a drink together. Let’s have a meal together, and I’d love to talk about this further.” And this is where I would suggest we take on some of these tools that I’ve mentioned throughout of, “Okay, would you be open to considering a different perspective rather than just automatically assuming that it’s oppressive or assuming that it’s murder?”

Could you voice a perspective that somebody who is religiously similar to you and has a similar view of life, how they could actually arrive at a place that makes abortion legal as compared to you? So, sort of coming at it that way of forcing each other to not go to these soundbites. So, I realize it’s easier said than done, but I think finding a few individuals with whom we can go deeper on is probably going to be a lot better than us thinking that, on an offhanded comment or a quick social media post, we’re really going to get people to either change their perspective or get us to rethink ours.

Pete Mockaitis
And what sounds so powerful about this in terms of the cultural intelligence, if you engage in this practice multiple times, then you’ll have a greater confidence, courage, capability to disagree with folks about issues that may not be hot button cultural issues, but just like, “You think your boss is absolutely headed down the wrong path with this initiative.”

It’s, like, you have developed some reps of going there with folks in terms of saying, “Hey, are you open to considering a new perspective on the trajectory of this project?” And then a lot of that emotional stuff you’ve worked through a number of times.

David Livermore
I love that example, Pete, because I think that does bring it closer to home because, for many of us, it may feel daunting to dive into the deep end of reproductive rights, or Hamas versus Israel, or whatever the timely issue is. But clearly starting with some kind of, “Hey, on a team when we have a different view of how quickly should we be out to market, or how much time shall we spend consulting with 75 other people before we decide which campaign we’re going to roll out as a marketing team,” practicing some of these within a team on lower stake in terms of emotionally lower-stake issues is a great way to think about it.

And, to your point that the two are connected, that’s why I talk about cultural intelligence, which may seem a drift to people, of like, “Wait, why are you talking about Germany versus Americans at the same breath as you’re talking about Trump versus Biden, or January 6?” Well, some of those same muscles get exercised of, “Okay, I have a very different perspective that I’ve been socialized into seeing the world, as do you. How do we use some of these same kinds of techniques that can be used whether we’re talking about cultural issues or whether we’re talking about ideological ones or political ones?”

Pete Mockaitis
And, David, zooming into the heat of battle, if you’re hearing some things, or having a conversation, and you can feel yourself getting riled up, your defensiveness or judgment, “This guy is an idiot,” like whatever that internal voice sounds like, do you have sort of a stop-drop-and-roll or an immediate prescription for when you’re in the moment, and you’re starting to feel some intense feelings that are at risk for derailing your logical thinking abilities, what do you do?

David Livermore
A couple thoughts. One is, this is why I said emotional intelligence is a piece of it, is I do have to know myself enough to know, “Am I going to be able to engage in this in any kind of constructive way?” And if my heart rate is going, and I’m starting to think about four-letter words that I want to call you, then probably better to be, like, “You know what, kind of back to your strategy, now is not the day for us to talk about this, but I’d like to engage it.”

The other thing I think is really important for me to acknowledge, people can’t see me, but if they look me up at all, I’m a white, straight, middle-age guy. And so, some might say, “Okay, fine day for you to say that I should confront a racist bigot or whatever else. But what if you’re the person who’s continually on the receiving end of discrimination, bigotry, bias?” I absolutely give people an opt in or opt out of saying, “Hey, it might not be your job to say ‘Today is the day that I’m going to school the manager on how what they just did is a microaggression in that.’”

So, I think this does need to be something that is opt-in. I’m not campaigning for everyone that you all need, every time you hear something, you need to come up and challenge it, and have a culturally intelligent conversation. There may be times where any of us are not in an emotional state to do that, and all the more so if you’re somebody who has a very visceral reaction to this because of something in your own identity or a personal life experience. You may need to opt out and let someone else be the one who jumps in and takes the flak for it.

Pete Mockaitis
And, well, I was just going to ask, if you are on the receiving end of some, I don’t know, just rude, ignorant, discriminatory just bad news comments, what do you recommend you do in response? It sounds like it depends. But if you could share with us maybe some of the different contexts that suggest different responses.

David Livermore
Quick story, if you will, and I’ll come at it that way initially. So, a number of years ago, the university where I was, I was on a taskforce, and one of my colleagues also on the taskforce was a woman who always advocated for the importance of opportunities for women in leadership, staff, faculty, students, etc. And this taskforce I was on, the individual chairing the meeting, he knew that that was sort of Cristy’s, like, hobby horse even though it wasn’t her formal role.

So, he was just making every sexist statement in the book to just sort of push her buttons, “Oh, Cristy, why don’t you take the minutes for us? And how come you didn’t bring us cupcakes today?” And I’m just like, “Dude!” And she didn’t say a word. So, kind of coming back to, “What is your response?” She engaged in the meeting professionally in light of her role at the university but she didn’t engage in this banter at all. She’s a pretty good friend so I walk out of the meeting with her when it’s done, and I’m like, “Cristy, I can’t believe you took that.” And she’s like, “Yeah, I was hoping you would say something.” I’m like, “Duh!”

Yeah, so now I feel a little defensive, I’m like, “Wait a second, how is that not like the white male riding into, like, ‘Dude, don’t say that to my friend Cristy.’” She’s like, “No, I didn’t need you to defend me. I needed you to speak up on your own behalf of how you feel about that kind of banter and the role of women, etc.”

And so, it was a real reminder to me of when we hear all this buzz about allyship but that was a moment of what allyship would look like is, hopefully, there’s somebody else who can speak up. And it shouldn’t have been on her to have to speak into it. And sometimes people will say to me, like, “Isn’t it a little awkward being a white straight middle-age guy talking about all this stuff?”

And I’m like, “I don’t pretend for a moment to know that I have the lived experience of many of the groups that I care passionately about, promoting inclusion and equity for, but there’s a role for me to play, leveraging power, etc. in ways that others might not have it.” So, I guess it’s to think about that you’re not in it alone. Who are others that can help you with it?

And if you’re on the receiving end, it’s back to where I go. Opt in carefully. And if your mental health can’t handle it, you have my full support if you say, “It’s not on me to challenge the bigotry that’s going on right now. I need to just protect my own sanity in it.”

Pete Mockaitis
And I suppose then, in that context, there’s multiple ways that you can engage that challenge. You might bring that up right then and there in the meeting, or you might chat with the boss afterwards, like, “Hey, the cupcakes stuff is, like, some people will probably think it’s funny but other people would really don’t, so just heads up.”

David Livermore
I think that’s a great point. And I would say my preference overall, based upon my personality but also what I think helps people be awesome at work, is to do it offline rather than shame them. I guess the counterpoint I would offer to it is there’s also a message that’s being sent to everyone else in the group. If perhaps I was the leader and somebody else on the team was doing that, I think there would be some. And not necessarily shaming but some kind of intervention that’s needed right in the moment that demonstrates to the team, “This is not the kind of behavior that we want to be part of what we’re doing.”

And I think you could still do it in a way that isn’t like, “Shame on you, individual,” but, “Hey, we might all, like, be tired and sarcastic, and think we’re doing funny but we’re about an inch away from when it’s funny and when it’s actually offensive to people.” So, to your point, it depends as there are myriad ways you could confront it. But for those of us who at work are in leadership roles, I think there’s a different level of responsibility on us to call it out even publicly for the benefit of what everybody else is observing and learning from them.

Pete Mockaitis
And, David, if you do feel sort of excluded in the sense that it’s clear that your views or identity or whatever is not welcome or respected, I guess there are some environments where it’s just sort of like, “Don’t you dare wear a MAGA hat in this room,” or the opposite, “Don’t you dare wear a Biden shirt in that room.”

So, I guess I wonder about the extent of, and it probably just varies person by person, like, is that just sort of okay or should we speak up, which is like, “Hmm, something that I believe strongly is completely unwelcome in this room, and that’s just how it is, and I’m just going to live my life, and not bring that up”? Versus, do you think we miss out on a lot of good people engagement, whole self at work stuff when we’re in that vibe?

David Livermore
I think we do miss out. Like, I realize it’s idealistic for me to say that in every case you ought to just speak up, and be your whole self, and be authentic. And there are certainly cases where I would say if you don’t have the right power or if you just feel like this is just going to be misconstrued and it’s pointless, I give people all kinds of agency to figure out what bringing their whole selves to work is.

But I do think the team and the organization is missing out because the example you used, the Biden and Trump, look at the polls. Regardless of whether or not you think they’re legitimate, the fact that we can even be close to a margin of error of 50/50 on Trump versus Biden shows that if we have a whole room of people that thinks somebody of the other perspective is not welcome here, well, then we’ve just cut off half the country.

So, wouldn’t we be better to somehow be informed by that perspective, whether it’s from a business idea, whether it’s a way of developing a better product for people, or whatever it might be. So, I’m going to very much lead on at least the ideal is it’s better if we can speak that up, at least in certain cases. But I recognize that, as individuals, we have to pick our battles wisely, and may say, “I just don’t have the energy to go at this again if I’m the lone one on debating this with everybody else.”

Pete Mockaitis
And I think you brought up a wise point there with regard to the 50/50, is I guess I’m surprised at how often people seem to say things, which suggests they’re assuming everybody in the room holds their same views, or they don’t care at all, and they’re just going to say it loud and proud and deal with it.

David Livermore
I think of this often even, which no surprise, but even when you hear it on media interviews, “Americans want…” Which Americans? But then, likewise, like sometimes even I’ll meet a stranger in an Uber, the driver, or on an airplane, and the assumptions that they’re making of me, after like three minutes of talking about my presumed agreement with them about their political perspective, I’m just like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

So, it’s actually one of the things I’ve mentioned to you before we started the interview, I recently moved to San Diego, and I came here from the Midwest, a very conservative sort of community, politically conservative, and I think everybody there was like, “You’re moving to the left Coast. Are you ready for this?”

But San Diego actually has quite a bit of political diversity, I think, because of the military presence, and it’s actually one of the things I’ve really enjoyed here is most social gatherings, as well as professional that I end up with, you can’t just assume that because someone lives in this town, they vote one way or the other, or even because they’re military that they might feel one way or the other about Trump or Biden.

So, I think we’re richer people, communities, and workplaces when we create space for that, but I’m with you. It’s amazing to me how a lot of people just…you couched it by saying either they think that or they just don’t care. And I think both are probably viable hypotheses of why individuals do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, David, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

David Livermore
I think I would just encourage people to have the difficult conversations because I think we learn so much from that and it’s much easier to just default to people who think, believe, vote the same way we do but there’s this vast fascinating country, or world, that’s out there. So, have a conversation with someone who views an issue differently than you and see what comes of it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

David Livermore
So I’m going to have to use one that I actually used at the very beginning of the Digital, Diverse & Divided book. It’s from the great Martin Luther King, Jr. who says, “People fail to get along because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.” For me, that kind of says really well what I’m after. A lot of this is driven by fear, and fear of people that we don’t really know at a deep level because we aren’t talking.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And could you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

David Livermore
For someone like me, a favorite bit of research is a tough question, but one I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is there’s this whole body of research around you see what you pay attention to. And so, just this kind of idea of I’m paying attention to certain things in my life, and that directly impacts the way I view life. There’s all kinds of research on if you pay attention to negative things, you tend to have a more negative orientation. So, that field is outside my own expertise but is one that really fascinates me.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

David Livermore
So I’m actually going to say Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone which is just a brilliant novel that I love.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

David Livermore
I am an obsessive journaler, and it’s something that I do almost every morning. It’s the way that I work through problems. It’s the way that I reflect on things, make meaning out of things. So, for me, journaling is an absolutely essential skill for both productivity and just making sense of my life.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite nugget you share, something that really seems to connect and resonate with folks that they quote back to you often?

David Livermore
I think I would say that amid all of our differences that I’m really keened in on helping people pay attention to, but that, at the end of the day, we’re all human beings. And so, calling people to our shared humanity, not instead of our differences but alongside our differences, that’s something I found that has really resonated to people.

And polling from the Human Genome Project that tells us we’re 99.9% the same DNA, I find that that, in the space of talking about differences, polarization, diversity, and working around the world is a piece that really sort of resonates with people, like, “Oh, yeah, as Livermore says, we have the shared humanity that needs to shape the way that we interact and live.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

David Livermore
DavidLivermore.com is the easiest place to start.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

David Livermore
Thanks so much, Pete. It’s really great to be able to interact with people who are thinking deeply about how they just do their work better and live better. And my challenge is going to hearken back to what I said to you earlier. Have a conversation with someone who has a different opinion to you, and see what you learn.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, David, thank you for this. I wish you many enriching conversations.

David Livermore
Thanks so much, Pete.

Aug 21
0

892: Tools for Thriving amid Change with Curtis Bateman

By | Podcasts | No Comments

 

Curtis Bateman shares simple tools that make uncertainty less frustrating and more rewarding.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The simple model that makes change predictable and actionable
  2. The critical first step to introducing any change initiative
  3. How to keep poor results from discouraging you

About Curtis

Curtis Bateman is one of FranklinCovey’s lead change experts and the author of Who Rocked the Boat: A Story about Navigating the Inevitability of Change and co-author of Change: How to Turn Uncertainty into Opportunity.  He is also the Vice President of International and a Senior Change Consultant.

Resources Mentioned

Curtis Bateman Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Curtis, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Curtis Bateman
Hey, thanks, Pete. It’s nice to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to be chatting about your book, Change: How to Turn Uncertainty Into Opportunity. And I’d like to kick off by hearing about one of the biggest changes you’ve made in your own life.

Curtis Bateman
Well, one that I love to talk about was a few years ago when I was deciding to either leave a business or stay, and the change that I ended up making was I offered to buy the business. So, the journey was pretty interesting because I was realizing I wanted to be doing more, and the whole fear notion got in the way for me and I was stuck for quite a while, thinking, “I want to do more. I think I could do more with this company. Should I leave? Should I stay?”

And then my wife, one day, quoted a line from Who Moved My Cheese, and she said, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” And, suddenly, the realization of answering that question meant, “I’m going to make a change. I’m going to buy this business versus staying in the employee situation,” so it was a massive change for me.

And, frankly, the reason I like to mention is because it transformed my career and my life, that one significant change and decision that I made.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s awesome. Okay. Well, tell us, what’s the big idea with the book Change?

Curtis Bateman
Well, there’s two big ideas in the book. The one is that there’s a predictable pattern, and that this pattern applies to personal change, work change, teams going through change, even organizations taking their whole organization through change. So, it’s this idea, there’s a predictable pattern, and if we can learn it, then we can start to drive some opportunity or some advantage from it. The second big idea is that individuals have more choice even though they don’t really feel like they do when the change is being imposed on them. And so, pattern and choice.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, tell us, what sorts of benefits or goodness is on the other side of understanding and mastering this stuff?

Curtis Bateman
In some research I’ve done, we found that as many as 88% of people think that a change is going to lead to something worse for them.

Pete Mockaitis
No kidding?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah. Now, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute.” But the data, over time, with thousands of respondents says a lot of people really think change is going to lead to something bad for them. Now, I’ve asked that question mostly in an organization context where change is a decision made somewhere else and I’m living with the consequences of it.

But what happens is most people start from the paradigm of, “Oh, this is going to lead to something worse for me and I don’t like it because I’ve had experience after experience where that’s the case.” And so, we’re trying to help people recognize that that doesn’t have to be the case. So often, it ends up being a lot better than they think, and so we’re trying to help people frame it differently, see it differently, and use some tools to get better success from it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that really is interesting, and I don’t think it’s even occurred to me personally until you cited this, is that that is sort of my default reaction, like, “Uh-oh, here it is.”

Curtis Bateman
“It’s happening again.”

Pete Mockaitis
“Okay. All right.” And it’s like, in terms of, “This is going to be a big hassle. It’s going to be difficult. This is going to upset…” whatever. And, boy, maybe that just speaks to that human nature in our very, I don’t know, biochemistry or nervous system.

Curtis Bateman
It does. It does because we’re programmed as humans to protect ourselves. And so, often what happens is because we have experienced bias that says, “Change is cruddy for us,” and it feels threatening, it activates this, “I’m going to protect myself.” So, we immediately revert to, “How do I fight or flight on this?” rather than “How do I get something better from this?” So, it’s part of what we’re trying to point out and help people realize there is a choice in there and we can do some things to help you have a better experience with it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true. So, 88% percent of folks think going into it, “Okay, this change is going to be bad for me,” and yet it’s true, if I objectively assess, “Changes imposed upon me historically,” it’s probably more like 50/50 in terms of, “Yes, that was more of a pain,” or, “Actually, I’m so glad we made that change. It’s way easier now.”

Curtis Bateman
Yeah, and if it’s a change that, as an individual I’ve initiated, like, let’s say I buy a new house and I have to move, that’s a massive change, and you dread it, and you hate it, but there’s a reason you did it. You want something better. And when you finally settle into the new circumstance, you think, “I love this,” yet you take all that stuff in the middle, and you think, “This is going to be lousy.” And it may be difficult, to your point, but maybe there’s a little more joy in the journey if you realize it’s going to lead to something better for you.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, tell us about this journey of the change model.

Curtis Bateman
Yeah. So, there’s two variables, two axes. One is results, up and down or vertical, and horizontal is time. And we have this space where we’re achieving outcomes that we’re really comfortable with. We call that the zone of status quo. And then a change is introduced. Either we introduce it or it’s introduced to us. And when that happens, we start to see this decrease in outcome. It might be our engagement. It might be a financial outcome. It might be a relationship outcome. But whatever it is, there’s this negative impact that starts to create this downward path.

And what’s happening is we’re looking to understand “What’s changing? Why is it changing? And what’s the real impact on me?” And so, we stay in that space, this space of disruption until we really feel like we’ve got some answers. At which point, we pass through a decision point where we choose to opt in. And then we start working on, “How do we make this change come to life? How do we implement it?” It’s called the zone of adoption.

It’s a messy space. That’s where most changes really fall apart. They fall apart organizationally. They fall apart individually because it requires some determination, some acceptance if things didn’t work right the first time. And as we move through that, then we start to get back to a level of outcome that we’re happy with, then there’s last zone, which often gets overlooked, and, hopefully, we’ll get a chance to talk about that.

But it’s the zone of innovation where we take everything we’ve learned, and if we can really get curious about it, we actually can create higher, stronger, better extended outcomes from the change that really create even more value from the change rather than just making it through the zone of adoption.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, is it fair to say that this is the pathway of all or nearly all or the vast majority of changes of all flavors?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah, I’ve been asked that question for years and years and years, and I keep looking for exceptions. Leaders often want exceptions. They want to jump to that third zone and skip the other two zones. It doesn’t happen as much as they want to try, push, cajole, encourage, whatever the right adjective is. So, all change follows this pattern. All change personal, professional, nonprofit, kids, teenagers, it goes through this pattern. And if you can learn that and appreciate it, it instantly starts to create awareness that you can do something about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so just to make this all the more real, I’d love it if you could walk us through three examples. One would be a personal initiative, maybe it’s fitness, maybe it’s a hobby, or something, “I’m going to get organized,” or something, a personal initiative, a relationship, maybe a friendship or close romantic relationship but kind of one on one. And then an organizational team situation.

Curtis Bateman
Yeah, good. Let’s get practical. So, on an individual basis, we experience this pattern with so many things that happen, and we give them other labels. So, to your point, let’s say we’re going to start a fitness program. Status quo is where we are, what we’re doing, how we’re eating, our weight, our health, all of those things just kind of maintained at this level. And then what comes along, the New Year’s resolution, “I am going to eat healthier and be fit, or more fit.”

And we start to change our behaviors, and so it pushes us from the status quo into a different set of behaviors: eating patterns, exercise patterns, even thought processes, and that creates disruption. It takes us in this downward slope, which we’re just trying to figure out, “Is it worthwhile?”

Now, if we start a little differently, if we start with a vision of, “What is it that I want as the outcome?” and we stay focused on the benefits of that, it actually helps us move through this process. But if we don’t, if we just say, “I have to be more fit,” and we don’t really have a connection to the outcome that motivates us, what we find is we start to exercise a little bit, we start to eat differently, and we’re attempting to move through this dip part of the curve.

And this is where, in the zone of adoption, it gets messy, it gets squishy because we miss exercising one day, or we go out with friends and we eat differently, and we think, “Oh, I’ve lost it. I failed.” And what happens is we can get stuck in the bottom of that change process because we’re not pushing through the difficult part.

So, if we do, if we start to move through that, and we develop a new set of habits, those can take us either back to a new status quo where we’re eating a little differently, exercise a little differently, or they can take us continuing up the curve to a point where we get better and better outcomes.

And what happens often with individual New Year’s resolutions where we lose that momentum, is we get stuck in the bottom of the curve and we drift back to our old status quo. So, the vision, the focus on the value, to me, is what will help you move through the dip part of that curve towards the top, at a better pace and with some success. So, that’s an individual example.

I love that you asked about a relationship example. Take a parent and a teenager relationships are interesting, and if we think there is our normal reactions to each other, for example, I have a teenage son, he loves to challenge everything.

And so, if I’m thinking I want to improve my relationship with him, my status quo is he challenges everything, so it’s easy to say, “I told you so. I’m the parent. You’ll do it this way,” and we maintain the status quo, which is perhaps a lower level of relationship result than we would hope for.

And if you think, “What’s the result I want in this relationship with my teenager? I want to have a friendship. I want to be able to influence. I want them to trust me.” But if my status quo behavior is, “Gosh, this kid really pushes my buttons. I’m going to tell him what to do,” I’m stuck in that space between, “This is my result, and the result I’d like is up here. I’d like this better relationship.”

So, I say, “I’m going to change.” The person with the most responsibility in the relationship has to initiate the change. So, I initiate the change, and say, “I’m going to behave differently.” Well, I have to figure out, “What does that mean to me? What is it that I need to do differently?” And that’s that zone of disruption, “Why am I doing this? What does it mean to me? And do I really want to do this? Yes, I do.”

So, then I jump into the zone of adoption that says, “I’m going to behave differently. I’m going to choose different behaviors that will increase the nature of the relationship result.” And it’s going to be hard because I’m going to have a moment where he pushes my buttons, and we start to really feel some friction, and I think, “Okay, what’s the new behavior I want? I didn’t do that right last time. How am I going to do it better?”

And I have to work through that. I have to have some failures. I have to recommit to the change I want. I have to recommit to the relationship I want. And as I do that, and persist with it, I find myself moving up the change curve towards a different style of relationship. In my example, I’m saying, “I want higher trust. I want better friendship. I want higher levels of influence, and I don’t want to be activated by that behavior.”

And so, that’s where you commit and you recommit, and you start to see even better ways that you can improve your relationship. And so, that change journey is real, and I love that we can see the application that the result is the nature of the relationship. It’s not economic or anything else. It’s a relationship result. So, that’s a second one, Pete.

And the third one is an organizational change. Let me approach this from a different angle, and this is the angle where the change feels like it’s happening to me. In the other two examples, I might’ve been the one driving the change. But in a professional context, I might show up to work, or at a charity where I volunteer, whatever the organizational situation is, and they say, “Hey, this is what’s happening.” And I think, “Wait a minute. Why are you doing this to me? I like it the way it is.”

So, they’re saying something about my status quo is going to change. They introduced that change. Maybe it’s an organizational restructuring. Maybe I’m reporting to a new leader. Maybe it’s I’m being asked just to take on different things in my role. All of those represent changes, and it’s happening to me. Somebody else is telling me, “This is the change.”

So, that launches me over the edge of the change, and this is a little bit trickier because we have to figure out, “Okay, what is it that they’re saying that’s changing, and why?” And understanding the why in this context will really help. It will in the others, “I want a better relationship, etc.” “So, why is this happening? What does the organization need?”

Well, as I come to grips with what and why, I start to piece together a storyline that says, “What does it mean to me? And am I okay with that?” So, I reach the point where I say, “Yes, I am. I get it. I like being here. I like this job. I like the work.” So, I start to engage in implementing the change. Well, I have to learn new skills. There may be some new skills I have to learn. There may be some new relationships I have to develop.

And so, the process of doing that leads to starts and stops, successes and failures, and so that’s why this third zone, the zone of adoption, causes us to really feel like, “Argh, I’m not going to get the full outcome we want.” But as we work through that and we accept moments that don’t work, and moments that do, and we trial and error, and as a boss or a leader helps clear some of the obstacles out of the way, we find ourselves moving through that zone of adoption. And then we might even start to realize, “Hey, this can lead to something great for me in the zone of innovation.”

Here’s what’s interesting in all three scenarios that I think is really important for listeners to pay attention to. The middle two zones, the zone of disruption and the zone of adoption, represent a cost to the change. There’s an emotional cost, a relationship cost, a productivity cost, perhaps an economic cost. And the more we can do to shrink those two zones, move through them at a better pace, and move through them with less severity, we decrease the costs that we experience with change, and we get to the point where we’re starting to experience the benefit of the change.

And the better that we can become at that, that’s where the book title comes into play, “How do we turn that uncertainty into opportunity? How do we shrink the costs and increase the benefits?” So, tell me what you think.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I think it’s handy and, one, I’d recommend folks, in the show notes, you’ll find a link to the Amazon page for the book, which I think is so useful, because as we talk about these zones and these axes, you want to look at the picture. So, that’s the audio medium. Hope that you could visualize that. We see a straight line, and then a dip downward, like a U, and then a nice big high level, so like a ladle, if you will. A ladle with a handle facing to the right is kind of what we’re visualizing, so check that out if you want the visual reinforcement.

But I think, one, it’s just so handy to know upfront, “Hey, just expect there will be a phase unavoidably in which your results dip down. This is worse, it is less than what we had before, and the way it will look, sound, and feel will vary based upon the nature of the change you’re making.” So, in terms of fitness, it’s like, “Actually, I’m exercising. This hurts, I hate it,” “I’m eating healthier. This doesn’t taste good. I don’t like it,” “I am eating less to lose weight. I am hungry and sleepy and cranky often. This sucks.”

And so, just to know straight up that is the nature of change and how it goes down. There will be a trough in which you think, “This sucks,” and you actually seem to be worse off than you were before. And now, boy, I’m thinking, biblically, just like the book of Exodus, it’s like, “Hey, I know we were enslaved before but, actually, we prefer that. We’re hungry out here and it sucks worse than being slaves back there.” And I think you can find this in sort of many bits of literature or great story. This is what‘s going on.

Curtis Bateman
When we wrote the book, we actually talked about that, that there are so many examples in literature where this model plays out. And once you recognize the model and know it, you start to see it in places in your life and in what you’re reading. Even what you’re reading in the news “Oh, there’s a change going on here. Here’s what it means.” It’s fascinating and, hopefully, really helpful to people as they learn to recognize the pattern. It does not make the change like a magic wand but it makes it 20, 30, 50% better, and it makes you more capable of approaching it because you know what to expect.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And in those relationship areas in which you’re making a change, it won’t look like or sound like, “My body hurts,” but it might sound like, “Why is dad being weird? This is really kind of odd. Like, okay,” and then it feels like, “Oh, it feels like we’re more distant because he’s giving me weird looks, and says I should stop being weird. But what’s weird is just the fact that I’m doing something different than what I have done before, by definition, weird.”

Curtis Bateman
That’s right. And I think, as an observer of somebody going through change, we need to give people permission to try it because we usually change to get a better outcome, to be better, to become better, to have a better circumstance. And so, one of the things we can do if we’re watching change from the outside is to recognize where they are in the process, and give people support, to say, “Hey, it’s going to be worth it if this is a change you want,” because there is a funny space in the middle,” just like you’re saying, Pete, in that we have to recognize.

Pete Mockaitis
And so then, how do we make that space in the middle less brutally unpleasant?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah, that’s a good question. And we had spent a lot of time exploring this, so let me give you a few ideas here that highlight what you can do. So, in each zone, we have a really clear one-word idea that we need to be looking at. In the zone of status quo, before a change starts, we should be thinking about preparing. What can we be doing to be ready for the change? And that actually helps with the middle two zones, this idea of preparing, developing our capability, whatever that might be.

In the zone of disruption, what we’re looking to do is clarify because mostly what we’re feeling there is uncertainty. And the more we can disambiguate, the more we can clarify what’s going on and what kind of impact it’s going to have. That clarity, that information starts to help us get traction and feel like we can make some decisions. So, prepare, clarify.

In the third zone, most of what we talk about in the book are ways that we can persist. How do we keep at it? How do we take something that didn’t work and do something better with it? And there are a lot of different tools that we provide to help with that, but if you’re going to remember one thing, “Hey, I’m in the zone of disruption. I know the thing I need to do is persist. It might look different in each circumstance, but if I persist, it’s going to make a difference.”

And then, as we get into that fourth zone, there’s a lot going on there but I would say curiosity is one of the best things we can do in that last zone. So, in the middle two zones, clarify and persist, and we’ll provide…if you take a look on Amazon, we’ll provide lots of specific tools on how you do that. But from a radio, from a podcast point of view, if we just listen and think, “Okay, I’m in the zone, I need to clarify. What are the questions I want to have?” You’re going to find it will help you a long way down the path.

Pete Mockaitis
Could you give us some examples of tools or key clarifying questions that make a world of difference there?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah, I’ve mentioned a few in one of the zones, so I’ll just restate those, and then I’ll mention a tool that can help in the zone of adoption. So, in the zone of disruption, this is largely a personal space even in organizational change. So, we’re trying to clarify what’s changing, and we’re actually looking to understand, “What are we moving from?” so this is a tool, just to list, “What are we moving from – behaviors, actions, and results? And what new behaviors, actions, and results are we moving to?”

And if we can clarify that with our leader, with our peers, our colleagues, or in an individual circumstance, like my teenage son, “What is it that I want to change from? What are my old behaviors when I interact with him, and to?” So, from and to statements is a great tool there. And the other thing that I should mention in that zone, I can’t say it enough, is we need to really declare what we believe is happening for me, “What’s the impact on me?” so we’re clear about that.

In the zone of adoption, what often ends up happening is we discover there’s this list of 30 new things we think we need to do to make the change work. And, as a result, two things are happening. One, we’re feeling overwhelmed, and, two, we’re struggling to know what to do with all the ideas. So, there’s two sorting tools that I’ll tell you about, easily just write these down on a piece of paper. They’re really easy.

The first sorting tool is, “What’s my stop-doing list? There are all these new things I want to try with the change. What should I stop doing so I create space to work on it?” And that’s really difficult, particularly in an organizational change because we have this accumulated list of stuff we just believe we need to do. So, we need a stop-doing list.

The next thing we need to do is we need to sort through all of the new ideas, and we need to say, “Which ones are hurdles, meaning I can jump over these? They’re in my path. And what kind of obstacle is this?” The next one we need to look at, “What are the quicksands? Where am I going to get stuck on these new ideas? And where do I need help?”

And then the last one, the last bucket to put things in is, “What are the brick walls? Where is it that I can’t solve this but somebody else can – a leader, a change sponsor?” And so, as we look to sort, “What can we stop doing?” and then we look to sort through obstacles and opportunities and hurdles, quicksand, and brick walls, it lets us know, “Here are the ones I can focus on. I’m in complete control of these, and here are the ones where I need other people to help.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that’s great clarification. And then for persisting, any pro tips there?

Curtis Bateman
Well, on the persist part, in an organizational context, if I’m an employee and I’ve got a leader, one of the things I need from my leader is for them to stay engaged in the change. Why do I say that? A lot of leaders think that once they announce the change, people will just go make it happen. So, I need a leader to stay engaged. If I am a leader, I need to stay engaged so that I can help clear the path, and I can help acknowledge successes. That’s one of the things.

The other thing that I need is the leader, like I said, to clear the path to understand where they can take obstacles out of the way. And if I’m an individual contributor, and I’m thinking, “Wow, I’m really stuck here,” what’s happening is I’m giving you a language that doesn’t threaten anybody, “Hey, team or leader, we’re stuck in the zone of adoption. We’re working hard, putting a lot of energy into it, but this seems like an obstacle that we don’t know how to get out of our way. Who can we go to? Or, boss person, can you get this out of the way?”

And so, the language pattern I’m giving is a non-threatening way to talk about it, that’s one way to persist. A leader clearing the path is another way to persist. And then the third thing I would say is if we really feel stuck and that we’re sliding backwards, one of the things we can do to persist is reconnect with, “Why are we doing this? Why are we even going through this change?” And the why can create energy and motivation to recommit and keep pushing ahead.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now I’m curious, any super favorite examples of how you’ve seen this play out beautifully that really illustrates it and inspires?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah. Let me tell you from an organizational perspective first, and then I’ll hit a personal one. Here’s what normally happens with a change. We have leaders working together for months on a change they want to introduce. They’re going through the data, they’re understanding what’s going on in the market, and they have all of this run-up to when the change is going to be introduced.

And a normal pattern is they’ve been working on it performance, they stand up in a town hall, and they say, “We’re making this change,” and then they think their work is done. And the problem is they’ve been on a journey of understanding why we need to make a change, and what we’re asking the organization to do.

And if you just stand up and make this proclamation, what happens is you don’t give the people the space to come on the journey with you. So, from a leadership perspective, and this can be a team leader, this can be a senior leader, it’s any level of leadership, what happens is if you’ll just capture some of your thoughts and some of what you’ve been learning into a story, and say, “In our organization, we’re seeing this and this and this happen in the marketplace, and so we need to make these changes to stay competitive.”

Maybe that’s, “We need to upgrade our technology.” Maybe that’s, “We need to modify how we go to market with our commercial model.” Whatever the case may be, we need to explain how we came to that conclusion, and then that’s the ‘why’ behind it. It becomes a storyline so the people can say, “Oh, I get it. I understand why you’re asking us to go through a change.”

And so, it’s not a super complex thing. What makes it complex is we usually skip it. That’s where the complexity comes in, Pete. And so, we’re telling leaders, “Don’t skip it. Bring your people on the journey,” and so it’s really the art of storytelling. And then let’s take a personal example about a change and why we would need to have that case for change. So, I’ll go back to the relationship example with my teenager.

If I say I want a different level of relationship, why is that? Well, somewhere in there, I see value in having a better relationship. Now, talking personally, I would say, personally, for me, Curtis, “Why does that matter?” Well, there’s going to come a point, because I’ve seen it with older kids, where my ability to say, “You will do this” goes away, and my ability to influence and help him is based on my relationship. So, the more that I can do to move from, “I will tell you…” to we build a trusted relationship, the more likely it is that I’ll have influence with that child long term, that relationship long term.

So, that’s the why, that’s the compelling why, that matters to me. Now, that may not matter to everybody. I’m just telling you; you need a compelling why. You need a compelling why.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I don’t know if it matters to him, not to dig too deeply into your personal family dynamics, it may not be of interest to him.

Curtis Bateman
And it may not right now. That’s right. But for me, it has value, and so it’s a compelling why, and that compelling why is what gives me the motivation to go through the cost of change. Now, that same thing could be true on just an individual level. Let’s say…I was talking to a friend who is mid-career, and he’s really stuck right now, and he needs to make a fairly significant change.

And so, the reason he’s not making a change right now is he doesn’t have a compelling why. Every time he starts to make the change, he’s told me about two different times he’s really started to make this professional change, and he gets stuck because his compelling why isn’t there. And I think that’s really one of the obstacles, because once we have that, it helps us have the courage and the tenacity to move through the cost part of the change model.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And I guess I’m curious in terms of the case or the story, so you’ve got a great why for you, but how about a great why for the other stakeholders who were up in it?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah. So, when we do organizational change, hopefully, whoever is sponsoring the change has a compelling why and what’s changing, and examples of what we’re moving from and to at the top of that change. What’s special then is if the next group, let’s say there’s four teams that are underneath that, if each of those teams go through that compelling case for change, and they say, “How do we take this case for change and create a version of it that’s aligned but it’s our story, making it our story, our compelling why, aligned with what’s being put forward, helps us engage and connect with it?”

And I’m not naïve. That doesn’t always become possible. Some changes are really just they struggle to create that alignment, but a lot are, and a lot do. And so, as we can create our own case for change, and sometimes there’s two or three tiers of organization, if at each level we can create our own aligned case for change, it connects us to what’s going on, and it allows our people to connect to our substory.

And I’ve seen that work at large scale. I did some work with a call center in India, offices in Mumbai and Pune, about 5,000 people, and we started with leadership, and we took it all the way down to the front-level team supervisor, and we wrote this case for change. They’re short, they’re brief, they’re one page. But as we did that, and as we’ve reviewed them, what we found is it created the engagement top to bottom. Even the frontline workers were aware of what their case for change was.

And we were looking to move them from a kind of a mid-tier ranking in the JD Power for ranking for customer service, and they wanted to get to number one. And over a period of 18 months, they moved all the way to the top of the charts because we were able to take that story, that case for change, and help everybody be aligned. Then they started to align their behavior and their work in that zone of adoption and persisted through it to get the kind of outcomes they wanted.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m also curious to hear, when it comes to, we talked about persisting, and the disruption, and the adoption, and there’s a dip, and we’re in the middle of it, I think it’s also quite possible that you learn once you’re in the midst of it, it’s like, “Oh, shoot, this was the wrong change.”

Curtis Bateman
“Wrong change.”

Pete Mockaitis
“And it’s not a matter of us being resistant to change, or having a messy middle, but, like, for real, we probably should have never embarked on this, or new stuff has come to light, and probably the best course of action is to abort or change in a very different strategic direction than the one we did do.” How do you distinguish that in terms of noting, “Oh, no, seriously, that was the wrong change, and we need to switch it up,” versus, “Hey, we’re just in the midst of disruption and that’s how it goes”?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah, what a great question. The model supports that. Now, there has to be some courage, as a leader or an individual, to say, “Oh, this isn’t it.” How do you know? So, if you’re looking at the costs in the dip part of the model, if you start to realize that no matter what you do, you’re not going to be able to offset the costs of that change, and it’s just back-on-the-envelope math, whiteboard math, saying, “What is it costing us to work and we’re getting this kind of outcome?” or, “What is the impact on our employee attrition because we’ve got low engagement from this?”

You just have to look and ask a couple questions like that, and you think, “Oh, I can start to just do some back-of-the-envelope math, and realize I don’t think we’re ever going to create an outcome that offsets that.” And that’s where having the framework says, “Okay, that means we’re stuck with a lower outcome. That’s not okay. What do we do? Do we go back to where we were? Or, do we just initiate a modified version of the change based on what we’ve learned?” And once you know that framework, you can realize where you are, and analyze what the cost impact or the implication is of the dip. You can make those choices.

The other thing you can do is, knowing the model, I really encourage people to think through while they’re in the zone of status quo and they’re considering a change, “What is the cost here? How significant is it? Is that cost worth it for the outcome we think we’ll get?” And I think if there’s more intentionality before we initiate changes, you can head off some of those mistakes. You can get to them before you ever get to the scenario you described. If you do get to that scenario, use the model, the framework to analyze cost and make a different decision.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And any quick do’s and don’ts associated with conversations and word choice when announcing and sharing a change with folks?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah. So often what we find when we’re announcing a change is we initiate a monologue, “I’ll do all the talking. I’ll tell you what to do.” And if the change gets announced, and that’s the end of it, and it’s all monologue, you have set yourself up for failure. You have to create a mechanism or a forum for dialogue because it’s very unlikely that I will understand all the consequences of a change for an entire team or organization. So, you need to give people a place to have that heard.

So, the second key to that, which is a tool, leaders don’t like that sometimes. They get a little nervous, because they think, “Well, what if I don’t have the answers?” I usually encourage people to make a list of all the questions I don’t have answers to so that you just acknowledge it upfront and work together on it rather than avoid the dialogue. And when that’s the case, it makes it a lot easier to engage in a dialogue. So, that’s a massive, “Don’t do this. Don’t just monologue.”

The second thing I would say is a big no-no, we talk about common reactions to change in the book. There’s a parable and we talk about some common reactions. Sometimes people use those common reactions as a label of “You’re this kind of person,” and labeling is not the intent of those reactions. Those reactions are to say, “These commonly appear. They’re not right or wrong. Recognize it in yourself and in a colleague, and then if it’s not the best reaction, use the non-threatening language to talk about what is the right reaction and how do we help people get to that space.”

So, don’t label people so they’re stuck there. It takes away their permission or ability to go through the change, and make sure you engage in a dialogue so people have input.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Curtis, any final thoughts before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Curtis Bateman
Final thoughts are it’s a really easy to understand model. If you can learn, share it, draw it, talk to people about it, you’ll find that it’s stuck with you forever, and it’s really easy then to reference it. So, rather than have it be an idea that you hear about and goes away, the minute you just draw it on a napkin and share it with two or three people, you’ll find that it becomes part of your thinking, and it’ll be a great tool for you to use the rest of your career and your life.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Curtis Bateman
Actually, I have this thought I put on a wallet. It’s from an Indian philosopher, and it talks about the need for silence because silence gives you space to consider, reflect, and get better. And, for me, I don’t know if you read Susan Cain’s Quiet, I’m a lot like some of what she describes there. And so, for me, the idea that comes from that thinker, that thought leader, is this notion of giving yourself space to reflect, and think, and to discover. So, that’s kind of what comes to mind.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And can you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just recently read Dan Pink’s book, When, and it’s a research-based book. And what I love about it is he’s explored what’s going on with startings, middles, and endings, and our energy. And I love all of the research that’s gone in there to understand how to be and put forward your best self, your best effort, your best energy.

So, I use that a lot when I’m coaching people or working with employees, is energy management and timing management. So, that’s an area of research that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, is Dan Pink’s When.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And any other favorite books?

Curtis Bateman
Well, I mentioned a couple business ones. I’ll give you a non-business one. I love books. So, Great Expectations, I’m a big Dickens fan. And maybe the reason is because there’s so much change that goes on in some of the characters, but, yeah, Great Expectations is one that I absolutely love.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah, I’m a productivity junkie, so I use Evernote. I use it to organize, to plan, to think, to create, so productivity tools. You could probably list 20 of them and I would love them all but Evernote is a good one that I use.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, I’m curious. So, Evernote. What’s maybe also on the top five for you?

Curtis Bateman
I use a journaling tool called Day One that I love. I use it for reflection, for when I’m doing mindfulness, or when I’m reading, I’ll capture learnings, and I do it in Day One. Also, what I love about that is it pulls from my Instagram and my LinkedIn, and so it creates this comprehensive journal of everything I’m thinking about on days and weeks, and I love to go back and reflect on it, so another one.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Curtis Bateman
Planning. Weekly planning. This is a very Franklin Covey, in which is where I work, a Franklin Covey answer but it’s been part of my whole life. I love to reflect each week at the start of the week on my mission, my vision, my personal values, the people that I want to impact, and then incorporate that into my daily and weekly planning. That’s one of my favorite habits. I really look forward to that time every Sunday evening.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Curtis Bateman
I was looking through on Amazon where people make quotes or in my LinkedIn and other places, and I was looking to see what that’s like. And I had somebody recently say from the book how much they valued understanding the human reaction and the human part of change, and I get that a lot. One of the things we’ve endeavored to do is acknowledge there’s all that change process stuff which is important but that there’s a human component to it, and how much the work we’ve done really helps people as an individual and a human move through change, not just having a checklist or a process.

And I’ve had several people, just recently on social media and other places, make that comment to me. So, I love that, I love that that’s the case that really gets a lot of value for people.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Curtis Bateman
So, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn. I continue to write blogs. I do keynotes and other speeches. And as I learn more and I think about more, I write blogs to update that and to the books, and that’s at Curtis A. Bateman on LinkedIn, you’ll find me there. And then FranklinCovey.com, there’s a Speaker’s Bureau link, and I’m listed there with bio and information and videos and things. So, FranklinCovey.com, Speaker’s Bureau, or Curtis A. Bateman on LinkedIn.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Curtis Bateman
Yeah. I’m going to say it again, and this for everybody – individual contributor, teenager. If you’ll learn the little change model that we’ve talked about, just how to draw that ladle-shaped curve, you just said, Pete, and you just explain it to somebody, I guarantee, 100% money-back guarantee, if you’ll learn it and teach it to people, it will start to make a difference in your work and in your life. You’ll find connections and it will help you.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Curtis, this has been a treat. I wish you much luck with all the changes in your world.

Curtis Bateman
Thank you, Pete. Nice to talk to you today.

Aug 07
0

888: How to Get Results without Damaging Relationships with Dr. Nate Regier

By | Podcasts | No Comments

 

Dr. Nate Regier reveals his process for practicing compassionate accountability that builds relationships.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The three switches for greater compassion every day
  2. A handy template for dealing with any conflict
  3. Why lowering standards doesn’t help those struggling

About Nate

Nate Regier, PhD, is the CEO and founding owner of Next Element Consulting, a global leadership consulting and training firm helping build cultures of compassionate accountability. Dr. Regier is a former practicing psychologist and expert in social-emotional intelligence, interpersonal communication, conflict skills, and leadership. Recognized as a Top 100 keynote speaker, he is a Process Communication Model® Certifying Master Trainer. Nate is the author of four books: Beyond Drama; Conflict without Casualties; Seeing People Through; and his newest book, Compassionate Accountability. He hosts a podcast called “On Compassion with Dr. Nate,” writes a weekly blog, contributes to multiple industry publications, and is a regular guest on podcasts.

Resources Mentioned

Nate Regier Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Nate, welcome back to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Nate Regier
Pete, it’s great to be here. Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to get into some fresh wisdom from your latest book, Compassionate Accountability: How Leaders Build Connection and Get Results. But first, I think we need an update on the barbecuing situation. Are you still competing? Where does that stand?

Nate Regier
Well, that’s a good question. I got some good news and I got some kind of sad news. Yeah, the competing continued and, in fact, I’ve taken on helping organize a local barbecue competition in my own community as part of a festival. So, we’re doing that but, sadly, the team that I talked about last time, we’re kind of on a hiatus.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, the butts.

Nate Regier
Yeah, my brother-in-law and the pit boss and the main organizer and the main impetus behind it all, he passed away from cancer last year.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m sorry.

Nate Regier
Yeah, thank you. So, we’re barbecuing in his memory these days but not quite the same level of competition.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Well, I’m glad to hear you’re continuing to stay involved and good things are happening in the community and with barbecue. I was recently on a camping expedition, and someone brought their smoker with them. It wasn’t backpacking. That would be a whole nother level of commitment.

Nate Regier
Oh, yeah, they make tabletop ones but, man.

Pete Mockaitis
And, yes, it was exceptional. So, tell me, any best practices for meat that you think normal folks who are not 100% committed at competition level should know about?

Nate Regier
Man, I tell you, I am such a fan of the Big Green Egg and you can give them almost anywhere now, and it’s just really hard to mess anything up in those things. So, that’s what I need. And they make little tiny ones. So, that’s what I’d recommend if anybody wants to get started in the smoking business.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now we know. We put it on the record. All right. Now, let’s talk about the book here. Any particularly surprising, or counterintuitive, or striking discoveries you’ve made about accountability as you did your research for your book Compassionate Accountability?

Nate Regier
Yeah, a couple, actually. This whole notion that accountability is not contrary to compassion and is not in competition with compassion is really the biggest thing that we’ve been discovering in that people really seem to think that they’re different. And that when push comes to shove, most people will choose one or the other, thinking that they’re somehow opposite. And it’s just an interesting phenomenon, and leaders struggle like crazy with that dilemma.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, how would you articulate the perceived disconnect?

Nate Regier
The word accountability is really loaded. This whole idea of, “We need to hold people accountable,” or, “They need to be held accountable for their actions,” it’s a huge word, it has somewhere, I think, people mean something like owning up, or maybe being punished, or maybe having consequences, or somehow need to have it pinned on somebody.

And so, the word has really negative connotations, it’s loaded. And so, it’s kind of like a hot potato, yet in leadership, as in most relationships, accountability is incredibly important for trust, for consistency, for integrity, and yet we don’t see a lot of people that are comfortable doing that in a way that preserves dignity, that preserves relationships. It isn’t kind of a gotcha kind of a mentality. And so, that’s where we’re kind of at that nexus between those two.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re right. The word accountability, it often shows up in criminal, like, law and order proceedings, “We need to hold them accountable,” which is a very different vibe, “We’re going to collect evidence and prosecute this person and send them to prison” than “Oh, hey, you didn’t quite do some of the things you committed to doing earlier in the workplace.” Very different charge and yet the same word pops up there.

Nate Regier
Well, the way you just said it invites me to clarify something that I should’ve said earlier, which is accountability isn’t something we do to people, and that seems like kind of the way you and I describe it, it’s like, “Oh, we got to go do this to them, make sure they own up and pay.” Accountability truly is something we do with people, so it’s really a process that happens within relationships. And so often, accountability, in today’s world, seems to be such an adversarial kind of a thing.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a good one. Thank you. So, it’s collaborative process, not so much an intense, “I’m doing this to you. I’m inflicting accountability upon you.”

Nate Regier
“Oh, you’re going to pay.”

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, so before we dig into some of the details, I’d love it if you could get us fired up by sharing an inspiring story of someone who adopted some of your compassionate accountability perspectives to see some awesome results.

Nate Regier
Yeah, I’ll tell you one. I’m not going to name names because we’re kind of right in the middle of an engagement with this organization but the president shared with me the other day on one of our leadership team consulting sessions, she said, “Man, this template you’ve developed for compassionate accountability, it’s no joke.” She said, “I kind of was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll try it, I’ll try it.’” She goes, “I used it with my kids and it’s magical. Like, I couldn’t believe how we just resolved the situation.”

And she goes, “And so then I started using it with my employees and it just works.” And she goes, “I never really thought, I never really conceptualized that you could build a relationship at the same time that you’re trying to pursue accountability, and it’s really pretty cool.” She said, “I’m enjoying what it’s doing with my relationships.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Nate, we’re going to have to immediately go to that. Tell us about this magical template, what is it? Where can we get it? How does it work?

Nate Regier
Well, we’ve been teaching a process for engaging healthy conflict. I think I visited it with you on the last time but we’re really trying to make it simpler and simpler and simpler. And what we’ve identified is what we call the three switches of the compassion mindset. And it’s a way of thinking about ourselves and others that embodies the fullest intention, the fullest meaning of compassion. Compassion which means to struggle with.

Remember we talked about it’s a collaborative effort, these are hard things. And so, we’ve identified these three switches that we call value, capability, and responsibility. And we can give people some basic kind of guardrails and guidelines to say, “Are you keeping your switches on?” And if you have all three switches on when you’re engaging with somebody, you can really have pretty transformative conversations. And if you need more help, then we can get down to the nitty-gritty about some of the templates and formulas for how to actually do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, the three switches: value, capability, and what?

Nate Regier
And responsibility.

Pete Mockaitis
Responsibility. So, then what do we mean exactly by having these switches on versus off? Could you maybe go into some demonstration of what that sounds and feels like in practice?

Nate Regier
You bet. So, the metaphor switches we chose carefully because, I’m right here, I’m actually holding, you can see these, I’m holding some switches.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, there you go.

Nate Regier
And we have them in our house. Imagine a three-switch wall played on your house, each one runs a different light or a different appliance or whatever, and behind all these switches is this incredible amount of energy, electricity, just waiting to be used. And when you turn on that switch, you complete the circuit and you give, you intentionally free that energy to go do its job.

And so, each of these switches is an intentional choice we make on how we’re going to spend energy in order to light up the world. And each one of these switches, the switch of value is powered by this fundamental belief that human beings are unconditionally worthwhile. We are valuable because we’re humans, not because of anything we do or say. And nothing can diminish our innate human value.

And so, that invites and imply certain behaviors. Same is true for the capability switch, which is powered by…well, let me just stop there. So, anything you want to know more about there, about this whole metaphor of the switches?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. I dig it in terms of we flip it on or off, and the electron can flow to light up something when we’ve got it on versus it can’t if it’s interrupted, so understood there. And then when it comes to value, yes, I think that’s fantastic as just sort of a fundamental reorientation reminder maybe for every day and every human interaction that human beings have unconditional dignity just cuts.

Nate Regier
Right, just cuts.

Pete Mockaitis
Not because they perform well or poorly but just intrinsic to their humanity, whether you draw that from a religion, or wisdom tradition, or the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. I think that is a foundational notion that is just great for all mankind to get down with and to recall.

Nate Regier
And, Pete, it doesn’t mean that anything goes. Saying that you are unconditionally worthwhile as a human doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want because the person and the behavior are two very different things. And this is where we really start to talk about what accountability means. Because if I treat you as unconditionally worthwhile, what that means is I take seriously your humanity, I take seriously your emotions, your experiences, the way you see the world. Your innate differences are a beautiful part of who you are.

And so, I see that for what it is and I don’t judge it, but that’s very different than behaviors, performance, goals, those kinds of things. And those are addressed in the other two switches.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Got you. So, let’s talk about capability.

Nate Regier
So, capability is the next switch. So, if we turn on the switch of value, it’s like, “Hey, I’m worthwhile, you’re worthwhile. Nothing we could do or say is going to change that, so let’s level the playing field on our humanity.” Then, capability is powered by the fundamental belief that anyone can contribute under the right conditions.

Now, that’s kind of loaded, anyone can contribute, meaning everyone and anyone can and should be part of the solutions in their lives, should be agentic beings participating in their own future, in the solving the problems that they’re dealing with, and that everyone has a capability of doing that. So, that means we look for gifts, we try to apply strengths, we teach people things, we mentor, we get curious, we learn and grow.

And when we fail, we pick ourselves up, and say, “What can we learn?” instead of saying, “Well, see, I know you couldn’t do it anyways,” which is a grave thing you would say if your switch was off. So, capability is about nurturing capacity because people are capable, and looking and finding ways that they can be part of the solution.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And responsibility?

Nate Regier
Responsibility now, if human beings are valuable and they’re capable, then they’re also responsible, meaning that we make choices, and we live in communities where our behaviors matter. And so, the switch of responsibility is powered by the fundamental belief that everyone of us is 100% responsible for our thoughts, our feelings, and our behaviors, no less and no more. So, what that means is, “No matter what happened before, I am 100% responsible for what I do next.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, then when we talk about the switches being off or on, what does that mean on a daily basis? Because in some ways, these are sort of beliefs or assertions, and I think that I can imagine they’d say, “Yeah, I believe those three things, so I guess my switches are on.”

Nate Regier
Sure. Yeah, so let’s talk about specific behaviors. So, let’s say I claim that my switch of value is on, and, Pete, you come to me in a moment of darkness and a moment of struggle, and you’re my peer. And you say to me, “God, Nate, I just don’t know if I feel comfortable sharing this with you but I’m just really feeling uncertain about this task that’s been put before me. I don’t know if I can pull it off. And I would hate to be embarrassed in front of my boss.”

You shared something really vulnerable that’s just kind of about what you’re struggling with. How I respond in that moment will let you know if my switch of value is on or off. Am I going to see you as less than because of what you’ve shared by saying something, like, “Dude, suck it up”? Which means I completely discounted your struggle.

Or, am I going to say something like, “Pete, thank you so much for sharing that. I’m really touched that you trusted me. I see you”? Or, maybe with my switch of value off, I would say something like, “Well, everybody feels like that at first. You’ll get over it.” Like, I just kind of say, like, your feelings aren’t that serious, and I’m not taking seriously your experience.

Or, I could turn my switch on and empathize, and say, “Man, I remember what it was like being new in my job. It sucks. I’m here for you, man.” Do you feel the difference between those two ways of responding when you kind of showed me your humanity?

Pete Mockaitis
I do, yes. And so then, I guess if someone does give a suboptimal response, like, “Oh, suck it up. It’s part of the job. Deal with it,” I could see how that’s inconsiderate, invalidating, although I’m not sure if I see how that is saying, “You do not have dignity,” or, “You do not have value as a person.” It comes off as, “I don’t care about your experience,” I guess. So, if we bundle the human experience within the human person, fundamentally, we’re getting real philosophical here, Nate.

Nate Regier
Well, you know, you’re getting at something real deep and it’s really important but I’ll let you finish.

Pete Mockaitis
So, yeah, I guess that’s what I’m thinking about in terms of distinguishing or uniting these concepts. Help me out here a little bit.

Nate Regier
So, when I say, “Suck it up,” or I say, “Oh, you don’t need to feel that way,” what I’m doing is I’m saying that I’m not comfortable with the way you’re feeling and I want to change it. I want it to be different than it is. You didn’t ask me for that. You didn’t say you wanted to feel different. I am now judging the value of your feelings and trying to change them or fix them, good or bad.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, value of feelings.

Nate Regier
Right, when I say, “Suck it up,” I’m basically saying, “Look, I’m uncomfortable with this. You need to change how you’re feeling in order to be okay for me.” Like, somehow your worth is now conditional on you being tough or being non-emotional. Or, let’s say I just shut down.

You shared something with me, and I’m like, “Look, I can’t handle this. I don’t got the bandwidth. Like, don’t bring your crap to me.” What I’m saying is, “I can’t handle your feelings, which means they’re too hot for me. Like, I’m not comfortable, which means I don’t see them. I don’t want to see them. Like, keep them out of my sight.” And those send really important messages about who’s okay and under what conditions that really contributes to psychological safety.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, then the value is perhaps broader than simply the human beings’ intrinsic dignity and value and worth but rather the entirety of their human experience. You are acknowledging the value therein and appreciating it and not rejecting it.

Nate Regier
Yeah, definitely. Well-said. And some of the traditions, like the self-compassion, mindfulness meditation kind of practices, they really try to be able to experience things without judging. They call it a nonjudgmental observation, nonjudgmental presence. That’s cultivating this capacity to see myself as worthwhile, independent of what I’m experiencing, and see my experiences as really useful teaching tools that are part of who I am but they’re not good or bad.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so now let’s hear about responsibility.

Nate Regier
If we want to talk about, like, specific behaviors. Can we take your scenario and take that through the switches?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, sure thing.

Nate Regier
Because, let’s say you come to me with that, and I’m like, “Oh, man, that sucks. I remember that,” well, you’re still an employee, you still have responsibilities. Just because you’re anxious and not feeling good doesn’t mean you get a free ride today. Just because I care about you doesn’t mean that you’re off the hook. So, the capability switch now starts to get curious about, “So, what are the resources at our disposal to help deal with this?”

So, I might say things like, “What have you tried?” or, “I’d love to learn a little more about what’s going on with you,” or, “What are you struggling with?” or, “How can I help you?” So, now we’re starting to get kind of dynamically engaged in problem-solving, and I’m kind of owning that you’re capable of dealing with this situation that you’re in. I don’t have to fix it for you but I’m certainly happy to be helpful if you want.

But then, at the end of the day, to your responsibility switch now, the reality is you still have to get your work done no matter how you’re feeling today. And so, the responsibility switch sounds something like, “Okay, so our deadline is still Friday. How are you feeling about getting that done on time?” or, “How can I support you in meeting the deadline under these conditions?” or, “Can I still count on you n having it done?”

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And so then, the switches, they really do seem to want to go in that order in terms of value first, then capability, then responsibility. Because if you jump right into responsibility, that says not feeling great on the other side of that.

Nate Regier
Oh, no, it’s not feeling good. And if you want to know what that feels like, talk to any of my daughters about their sports coaches. That’s pretty much where they like to hang out, is, “Here’s what you got to do. Here are the goals. Here’s what you’re doing wrong. You’re breaking the rules.” That’s all they ever do but they never acknowledge the value of the players and they never acknowledge the capability of the players.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, that was a useful example. I’d love it if maybe we could roleplay some more. Let’s just say that someone doesn’t even come forward to you in the first place. Like, you discover it, like, “Wait a second, this thing is not done or has lots of mistakes. Now, I got to have this conversation.”

Nate Regier
Wow. So, now I’m Pete’s boss, and Pete hasn’t told me anything is wrong, but I’ve discovered he’s behind. And I’m his boss, so it reflects on me. I’m accountable to my peers for your performance even though I’m not the one that’s supposed to do it. And if you don’t get the stuff done on time, it kind of lets the whole team down. All right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Nate Regier
So, now I’m the one having a difficult experience. I’m the one that just noticed something. Maybe I’m surprised. Maybe I’m anxious. Maybe I’m angry at you. Maybe I’m, like confused by, “How come I didn’t know?” So, if I’m going to turn my switch of value on for myself, what I have to say is, “This experience is relevant. I have to pay attention to it, and I got to own it. I got to do something about this.”

So, I would probably come to you and I would turn on my switch, and say, “Hey, here’s what I’m experiencing. I just want to let you know that I’m kind of anxious about something, or I’m kind of shocked about what I just found out yesterday, and I want you to know.” Well, then I have to go to the capability switch, and say, “Because I’m also capable of handling my feelings and solving my own problems,” so what does that mean?

Well, maybe I need to start asking some questions. Maybe I need to get curious with you, and say, “Hey, can I check an assumption with you?” or, “I want to tell you what I saw and see if you can shed light on this,” or, “What do you know about what happened?” So, I’m getting curious and we’re learning about it.

But if my switch of responsibility is on, what I also have to realize is that, at the end of the day, I’m ultimately accountable to my team, I’m ultimately responsible for my feelings, and I have to be a leader, so I need to do what I need to do to get this corrected. It doesn’t mean doing your job for you but it means having a hard conversation, realigning priorities, figuring out what needs to happen, getting new commitments from you, removing barriers, whatever I need to do so that you can get that job done. Or, maybe I’ll learn something when I’m curious that I had no idea, and I have to completely change my frame of mind. Maybe it wasn’t you. Who knows?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And could you give us some examples of actual verbiage you might use?

Nate Regier
Yeah, I might come to you, and I might say, “Hey, I’m really anxious about something I just found out the other day, and I want to tell you about it. Here’s what happened. So, I was going through the reports, and I noticed for three consecutive weeks, you’ve missed the numbers by 20%. The reason I’m concerned is because here’s what this means. So, I’m just curious if you could shed light on this. Let me know what I need to know, because, at the end of the day, this puts you in, whatever, 50th percentile, and you’ve got to be in the 70th in order to continue to get your performance raises.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. And then we just sort of see what happens.

Nate Regier
See where it goes, and we never know. As long as my switches are on, I can keep mobilizing responses that affirm your value, your capability, and your responsibility.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so tell us a little bit more about the compassion side of this in terms of what are some of the do’s and don’ts for ensuring that the compassion part comes through?

Nate Regier
Well, the good news is the switches are, turning on the switches is how we manifest full compassion because our definition of compassion is it’s the practice of demonstrating that people are valuable, capable, and responsible in every interaction, so we have to demonstrate this through our behaviors. And so, the compassion part means keeping our switch on and open by affirming your value. Keeping our switch on of capability by affirming your capability, and also by taking ownership over our stuff, and letting you do the same at responsibility.

In my book, I give a lot of examples of narratives and what you actually say and how you address these situations, but that is the compassion part, it’s making sure our switches are on.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And you say people are these things. And I’m curious, what if folks are not, like folks are just not taking responsibility for their stuff?

Nate Regier
Well, they are responsible for the behavior whether they want to own it or not. By function of your job, you are responsible to get that stuff done. Now, whether you do or not, you might be shirking your responsibility but it’s still your job, and it’s still your thing to do. And so, that’s the conversation we have about that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, your client who mentioned that this template is magical, what unfolds on the template?

Nate Regier
So, the template is something we teach in our leadership trainings, it’s called ORPO. And it stands for open, resourceful, persistent, open. And ORPO is a four-step process where when there’s conflict, when there’s a tough situation, where there’s a gap, and we got to talk about it, we go in, first, being open, which means touch the humanity, kind of like I did. I came in and I said, “Hey, I’m really struggling with something here. I want to check it out with you.”

Then we go to resourceful, which is where we get to being curious about what’s going on, let’s understand the problem. Then we go to persistent, and we get crystal clear about what’s at stake, what are the boundaries, what are the non-negotiables. And then we circle back to open, and finish back at a human connection point.

So, I might really shorten that example I gave earlier, I was using that template, where I said, “Hey, Pete, I’m concerned about something. I want to share it with you,” that’s open. “Here’s what happened. And I’m curious about how you saw it,” resourceful. “At the end of the day, we still have to have this in by Friday,” that’s the persistent part. Then I might finish by saying, “How are you doing with this?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. And then any particular verbiage, thoughts, things to say, things to not say when we’re doing this stuff?

Nate Regier
What we see is most challenging for people is to get vulnerable by letting people know how they’re actually doing, how they’re actually feeling. And people have all kinds of reasons that they don’t want to, “And I’m going to be judged,” “They’re not going to take me seriously,” “No one’s ever been through this before,” “I don’t want to burden you with my stuff.”

And so, that’s one of the hardest things. And so, if I could say anything, I would say, “Look, don’t share it because you know the other person isn’t going to take you seriously. Share it because you matter and because it’s on your heart. And you got to take ownership for yourself and share that stuff because that’s the only way you could start working with other people, struggling with other people, to start doing something about it.”

Pete Mockaitis
And so, what are some examples of this stuff that gets not shared, withheld often?

Nate Regier
Putting a lot of pressure on myself to deliver because I need to impress people, maybe, for example, which is legitimate. Why don’t we talk about it? Needing to please people. Trying to be perfect in order to, somehow, be okay, and then just getting yourself tied up in knots because you’re just never good enough. So, when we talk about those things, we can get reality checks, we can get support, we can get people in there with us, helping us figure it out.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then, I’m curious, how often do folks abuse our compassion or kindness?

Nate Regier
I’ve never heard that question before, and I love it, so I’m going to take a beat here. I don’t know that anyone has the power to abuse my compassion. I would never give that to them. I can choose to be compassionate. I can choose to have my switches on, and they can choose what they’re going to do. They may not accept the invitation. They may do their own thing. But my compassion stays my compassion. They cannot change it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Maybe I am comingling some ideas inappropriately. I suppose I’m thinking about compassion in the sense of if there is maybe you might call it lenience or mercy in a certain context, like, “Hey, I understand that some stuff came up and you couldn’t get it done on time. Let’s revise the deadline and make it this,” and then that’s sort of taken advantage of in terms of, “Aha, so this guy is a softy. I can walk all over him. I can make excuses.”

Nate Regier
If I did that, I would only have one or two of my switches on so that wouldn’t really be compassion. So, if I‘m not holding firm to boundaries or being reasonable, and if I’m not upholding the highest standards throughout, then I’m not doing my job and that’s not compassionate. So, I wouldn’t say that that’s a person abusing my compassion. That would be me not really being compassionate in the first place.

Pete Mockaitis
I see.

Nate Regier
And sending the message that, somehow, because you’re struggling, then the standards are lower for you. Why would we treat someone as less capable of meeting the goals just because they’re struggling? I would say we’d come around them and work with them to meet the standards. Now, yeah, there’s always opportunities where I might say, “Wow, this is a pretty extenuating circumstance. Look.”

My partner got all his flights delayed, and his family ended up in a hotel, didn’t get home till 4:00 a.m. in the morning, and we had a 9:00 o’clock meeting that day. And I was like, “Dude, let’s cancel the meeting. Let’s reschedule the meeting.” But I might’ve just given him a break for…? No. That’s kind of a one-time thing. We worked it out. We still have to get it done by the end of the week. But I guess you have to keep all three switches on or there’s no compassion on, really.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, I think that feels fresh in terms of looking at you’re being…in your worldview, you are not being compassionate if you allow someone to lower their standards.

Nate Regier
Yes, I am. I agree with you because what I’m saying is, “I don’t believe you’re as capable. I’m lowering my estimation of their capability, but I’m also shirking my responsibility to uphold the standards of the contract, of the family, of the company at the same time.” So, I’m letting my team down when I do that.

Pete Mockaitis
And what happens if we discover that, hey, sure enough, someone really is not capable of executing to the standards after all?

Nate Regier
The fundamental belief behind the capability switch is everyone is capable of contributing.

Pete Mockaitis
Contributing.

Nate Regier
That may not be in this job, it may not be today, and it may not be with this skillset. And so, what that means is we invest in them, we invite them to stretch, we are alongside them when they fail, and we don’t set them up to not be able to do stuff. It may be a different position, a new training. It might be even letting them go because this job is asking things of them that just set them up to fail. But that’s really not an indictment of their capability. It’s an indictment of their competence, and it’s commenting more on their skillset and competence for this job, so we look for places where they can thrive.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you. So, they’re certainly capable of making a contribution. However, it may be that the particular responsibilities of a role are poorly suited to them, and, thusly, they would be doing some bigger contributions in a different context.

Nate Regier
Yeah, I think sometimes we let people down because we either don’t equip them with the skills and training to do the job so they fail, or we just move them around in an organization, hoping something will work. And by doing that, we tell them we really don’t care about them as a human being anyways. And in both of those situations, the end result is the switches of capability and responsibility get turned off.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Nate, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Nate Regier
Well, coming through COVID, I tell you what, compassion and accountability were on a wild rollercoaster ride through the last three or four years. Which one are we going to pick? And one day, we’re all in this together because everybody has COVID. The next day, we’re all trying to hold each other accountable for who’s wearing a mask or who’s not getting a vaccine.

So, I think what this has proven is you can’t treat these two things in isolation. They have to come together. Never before in our history have we needed both in full measure, together, to deal with the kind of stuff that we’re having to deal with. So, that might be my last thing I really want to emphasize.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Nate Regier
I’ve loved this quote, this has been my favorite for years, and it’s a quote by Wayne Dyer. I used to think Albert Einstein said it, but it’s actually from Wayne Dyer, and it says, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Nate Regier
I’m a fan of the research that’s reported in the book Compassionomics. It’s a wonderful book about the power of compassion in the workplace. And there’s some research, neurobiological research on brain scans showing that when people are experiencing empathy, the pain centers of the brain are triggered, but when people are experiencing compassion, the reward center of the brain gets triggered. And that is critical. Different places in the brain, different things, and it shows you that compassion and empathy are not the same thing, and that compassion is actually energizing and intrinsically rewarding.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is intriguing. Well, now could you expand upon the distinction between compassion and empathy?

Nate Regier
Yeah, empathy is a really important human trait, where the mirror neurons in our brain, they kind of sense how other people are doing, and they replicate those sense in us. And it’s really important for humans that we can kind of sense how people are doing so we can support them. But also left unchecked, empathy becomes we just take on pain, and it just, like, fills us up, and this leads to what we call, well, it’s misnamed compassion fatigue but it’s really empathy fatigue, and burnout, and depersonalization.

But compassion, in the way that I’ve been demonstrating it throughout our conversation, that’s a dynamic, active, generative, creative process. It’s hard work but the results are great, and I feel so good afterwards.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And a favorite book?

Nate Regier
Right now, I can’t get enough of Brene Brown’s book called Atlas of the Heart. It’s a really cool book. And for kind of technical people like you and I, we like to see things organized, it organizes the whole gamut of human emotions. It helps give you the history of it, how it came to be, why that emotion is unique from other emotions, how to talk about it, how to express it. It’s amazing. It’s really helping me improve my emotional fluency, and I’d recommend this book to anybody who wants to get more compassionate.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Nate Regier
I can’t mention my favorite cordless drill?

Pete Mockaitis
You can.

Nate Regier
I am awesome at woodworking with my favorite cordless drill. But at my job, I love Calendly. I love that app for scheduling, and it’s just awesome. It makes it so much easier for people to find a place on my calendar and it takes care of the business. It was so cool that someone had just learned it the other day, called it Calendar Lily. And I’m thinking, “That’s kind of cool. It’s a calendar lily.”

Pete Mockaitis
It is. It’s like a refreshing flower in a landscape of weeds.

Nate Regier
I know, right? Makes my life easier, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Nate Regier
I stretch every morning. I’ve been doing it for about 35 years. I have a routine, a series of stretches. It keeps me kind of limber. And then I love to go on walks with my dog, and with my wife, or both of them at the same time. It’s a wonderful time to process, to clear my mind, and I need the exercise.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Nate Regier
One of my favorites is not so much related to compassion, but we do a lot of work with personality, diversity, and communication. And I like to say that personality is not an entitlement program, and people seem to like that, especially if they’ve been burned by being trained in a personality model that puts them in a box, and stereotypes them, and people are thrown labels around, and all that stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Nate Regier
I’d just say LinkedIn. Look me up on LinkedIn, Nate Regier, and that’ll take you anywhere you need to go.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Nate Regier
Yeah. I started using the hashtag #compassionateaccountability about 18 months ago. And if you go use that hashtag, you can find so many nuggets, daily tips, little things to be awesome at your job, to practice more compassionate accountability. So, yeah, just search hashtag #compassionateaccountability and see if something doesn’t pop that you can use today.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Nate, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck and much compassionate accountability.

Nate Regier
Well, thank you. It’s our mission. I appreciate this opportunity to be with you and your guest.

Aug 03
0

887: How to Navigate Conflict and Find Clarity with Marc Lesser

By | Podcasts | No Comments

 

Marc Lesser shows how to navigate difficult emotions and conversations to build thriving relationships.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why we shouldn’t be afraid of conflict
  2. The one question you need to ask when dealing with difficult people
  3. How to assess any relationship in 4 words

About Marc

Marc Lesser is a speaker, facilitator, workshop leader, and executive coach. He is the author of four books, including Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader: Lessons from Google and a Zen Monastery Kitchen, and CEO of ZBA Associates, an executive development and leadership consulting company. Lesser helped develop the world-renowned Search Inside Yourself (SIY) program within Google and was director of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the oldest Zen monastery in the Western world. He lives in Marin County, California, and leads Mill Valley Zen, a weekly meditation group.

Resources Mentioned

Marc Lesser Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Marc, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Marc Lesser
It’s great to be here. I think it’s really important to be awesome at your job.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And I think you’ve got something to say that will be helpful in that quest with your latest book, Finding Clarity: How Compassionate Accountability Builds Vibrant Relationships, Thriving Workplaces, and Meaningful Lives. That’s stuff that we’re into over here.

Marc Lesser
Yeah, and I think it’s no small thing just to have the aspiration to be awesome at your job. I’ve noticed it’s easy, cynicism is easy. Awesome requires work.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you know what’s funny, when I was doing the original research to put this together, I was using some survey tools and trying to get a sense for, “Does anyone care about this thing I might want to make because I don’t want to build something nobody wants?” I’ve learned that lesson about four times. And, yeah, it was about 4% of people were ten of ten extremely interested in listening to such a show.

And so, that means 96% were not, and I don’t blame them. There’s a lot of different domains of life to focus on or to be awesome at, and sometimes people just want to leave work at work, and that’s okay, in certain times and seasons.

Marc Lesser
Yeah. Well, I’m not saying anything everyone doesn’t know, it’s that we spend a lot of time at our work. And any place where we spend a lot of time, man, we should be awesome.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. And that’s the vibe, I think, with me and listeners that it’s just more fun being awesome discovering how to be more awesome, contributing to awesomeness in others, and it’s a beautiful thing.

Marc Lesser
Yeah, it is. It is. It’s a great word. It’s a great word – awesome.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you know what’s funny, you just got me going. I almost deliberately chose it because it was a little bit radical even. Because I remember one of my first speaking engagements, I was talking to the Illinois CPA Society, so a bunch of accountants, and there was this partner who was talking about professionalism, and she said, “I, for example, would really not appreciate it if a youthful member of my staff were to say that something was awesome, for example.”

And I thought, “Really? Because I love that.” So, I guess I’m sticking it to her. No, I wish her the best. I really do. But I think it conveys a little bit of a vibe. It’s like we’re going to be ever so slightly irreverent and would be professional enough to pass along with your teammates and colleagues but, hopefully, edgy enough to keep your interest.

Marc Lesser
Yeah. Well, awesome is way up there on the continuum of aspirations. Awesome is pretty high up there, but I think it’s good, too. I’m a big believer in the importance of being aspirational.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Yes. Me, too. And, Marc, it’s funny, usually we spend the first couple minutes of me learning about you. But look at you, you’ve got some compassion and some vibrant relationship-building action going on over there.

Marc Lesser
Yeah. Well, it took us some time to get past the title of the podcast but I think we’ve almost achieved that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so speaking of titles, you’ve got a fun one. You were once the director of a Zen monastery. What’s the story here and maybe some cool experiences from that role?

Marc Lesser
Yeah, that was kind of an amazing experience. My one-year leave of absence from Rutgers University when I was back in my college days, that one year turned into 10 years of living at the San Francisco Zen Center. And five of those years were at this amazing place called Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, which is in the mountains in Central California, and it functions as somewhat, I have to be careful, traditional Zen monastery.

Very traditional in certain ways in terms of the schedule based on kind of some ancient processes and formations of Zen practice but also California, men and women living together, children living at this monastery. But traditional in the sense that, man, we got up early in the morning, 3:40 a.m. wakeup bell, and a lot of meditation, a lot of study, a lot of ritual and being together, but also a lot of work.

And it was there in that role as director that the lightbulb went off for me, and I realized that I thought of myself as a Zen student but I was leading, I was in a leadership role, I was managing. So, this Zen monastery turned into a conference center and resort in the summer time. So, very quiet and chill, secluded all winter but very much like any other conference center, workshop center, 70 or 80 overnight guests, gourmet vegetarian meals served, three meals a day, so it was pretty intense kind of workplace.

And the aha I had was that I was in a leadership role, and that I loved it, and that I got to get the experience, very much the full-on experience of integrating meditation, mindfulness, spiritual practice with running a small business, managing a staff, dealing with money, dealing with all the problems and opportunities of any small business.

And I wondered, “Why isn’t everyone integrating these, what looks like these two different practices?” And that kind of set me on the path of this whole wonderful world of mindful leadership, and it was why I got the call several years later from Google, saying, “Hey, we want you to come and develop a mindful leadership program for Google engineers,” and that was also another amazing opportunity.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, when we talk about mindful leadership, is there a key way you would articulate what that is and how it differs from normal or sort of mainstream traditional leadership?

Marc Lesser
Well, now we’re going to go back to where we started. Yes, it’s an aspiration to be awesome but awesome, I think, I’m kind of teasing but I’m also being real that I would say that mindful leadership is about bringing one’s full heart, mind, body, spirit into your work, and that all those things really matter, and that it’s great aspiration for results and effectiveness and doing things at the highest level possible, and bringing in a great sense of one’s humanity and emotional intelligence into leadership.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that sounds swell. Tell us, along the way, any particularly surprising or counterintuitive discoveries you made in researching this or putting together the book Finding Clarity?

Marc Lesser
Yeah. Well, this has been my life. Finding Clarity is actually my fifth book, and all of my books, in some way, have been about, I’d say, this integration of one’s whole life, that everything in your life alignment, and a wholeheartedness. I know you’re going to ask me this later but I’m going to give you the answer to this right now.

One of my favorite quotes is from the poet David White who says, “The antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest. The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.” And I would say that, like, “Well, what is it that makes one’s work awesome?” One answer that I have is about to be wholehearted, meaning that your work is fully aligned with what you believe in, with what your values are, with some aspiration that you might have of doing good things, doing important things. Your work is an offering that you’re making to the world. So, to me, these are all ways of talking about, again, whether you use the language of mindful leadership or wholehearted leadership.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Well, then tell us, what’s this concept of compassionate accountability?

Marc Lesser
Yes. So, compassionate accountability, I’d say, is maybe a subset of that. It’s a focus on holding oneself and others accountable. It’s interesting, accountable is a word that’s used a lot in the business world, as it should be. But generally, often people have sort of a negative connotation with this word accountability. So, I sometimes substitute the word alignment, which is maybe a softer, gentler form of accountability.

But accountability, people usually think of it as obvious things like doing what you say you’re going to do, like having goals and benchmarks and being accountable to them, like actually being able to look at and report on how is it going, but, really, accountability is about aligning about what success looks like, but also, I’d say, aligning around how we’re working together, how we are dealing with success and failure, with conflict, what happens when things are difficult, when there are challenges. Then what?

And the compassionate piece is marrying accountability and alignment with a sense of care and trust and compassion. Compassion is kind of one step up above. Empathy is talked about and the importance. There’s a lot of studies on how important empathy is. Empathy is feeling the feelings of other people. And compassion is feeling other people’s feelings and wanting the best for other people, wanting to heal people’s suffering and stress and anxiety.

So, compassionate accountability, it’s beautiful. They seem like they’re contradictory but they are two, I think, essential practices in the workplace, and I think important practices toward working with more awesomeness.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, could you perhaps paint a picture with some examples of, “Here’s an approach that we would consider compassionately accountable,” versus some other common approaches that are lacking either in compassion or accountability that are rather common?

Marc Lesser
So, I think what I’ve noticed is that accountability is hard in the workplace because it means dealing skillfully with conflict. And dealing skillfully with conflict is, well, it takes skill but it also takes emotional intelligence. So often, whenever there are gaps in people not meeting certain goals, they might be financial goals, they might be product goals, they might be you’re trying to build a team or roll out a particular product.

And accountability means paying attention and checking in and really looking wide-eyed and with as much clarity as possible about, “How are we doing in meeting those goals? What’s working well? What’s not working well? Where do things stand?” and having those conversations where you’re not overreacting or underreacting.

So, compassion is I think of compassion as the sweet spot of being able to be direct and clear, and, at the same time, to be caring and to be building, to seeing anytime where there are gaps between what we’re trying to accomplish and where we are, that those gaps are opportunities to build trust and connection as oppose to eroding trust and connection.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, could you maybe give us a demonstration in practice if, let’s say, someone was underdelivering on a goal or commitment, how might you approach and articulate some messaging to that person?

Marc Lesser
Sure. Yeah, I was thinking of an example that I often use, and maybe this is close to what you’re saying. An example is you’re carpooling with someone. And day after day, they’re late. You’re standing there in the corner and you have an agreement that they’re going to pick you up at 8:00 and it’s, sometimes, 10 after 8:00.

And most days, you just get in the car and you don’t say anything. But, at some point, you say, “We need to talk about this. There’s a gap between what we’ve agreed to do and what is happening. And here’s what I’m seeing, and I’m kind of feeling not so good about it. In fact, I’m a little angry. I don’t feel respected. What are we going to do to close this gap to fix this problem?”

But then you have to listen because you might find out some things that surprise you about what the other person’s experience and story is, having to do with either family matters, or some sickness, some health issues, that, “There was construction on the road that wasn’t supposed to be there, so I went another…”

But it means being able to have such a conversation. Now, these conversations and these gaps are very much affected by context and by role and relationship. The one I was just talking about was kind of equal people, one person just picking up another. Now, if I’m the person in charge, and you are regularly late with handing in the accounting information that I needed, that might be a different conversation.

That might be, “We have a problem. Here it is. I hear there’s a lot of reasons why your reports are late but this is really important and this needs to be fixed.” And it might be, “Do you need some support? Is there something you’re missing?” So, the compassion piece might be caring enough to ask, “Hey, do you need some support?” understanding what the problem might be, understanding why these accounting reports are regularly being handed in late, maybe being willing to help support and fix them. So, that’s the compassion piece.

The accountability piece is bringing it up and talking about it, and having the clarity and the skill, the directness to say, “We’ve got a problem here. We need to talk about this.” And it’s amazing how often that doesn’t happen.

Pete Mockaitis
It certainly doesn’t. Can you share some key drivers as to what’s behind that happening so rarely?

Marc Lesser
I think people don’t like conflict. People are often afraid, “Is this person going to be mad?” I think we all want to be liked. We all want to be loved. We’re afraid, “If I bring this up, is it going to make it worse? It’s not really going to fix the problem anyhow.” Or, any set of stories about, I think, fear of making it worse or I’ve noticed often people just give up.

You might bring up a conversation and it didn’t go the way that you wanted it to, and you stop having those conversation, and just go home and complain to your spouse, or just let that ulcer build, let those stressors. And I think this is how not to create an awesome workplace, is to not face into the gaps. I think this is such an important…and not just in work. I think in all our relationships.

Like, not only do I want to be awesome in my work. I want to be awesome in my marriage. I’d like to be awesome as a father. I’d like to be awesome as a brother. And it means, actually, leaning into, “What does awesome look like? And what are the gaps between what I’m feeling and observing and seeing now and my own desire, my own aspiration, my own vision for what awesome look like?”

So, there’s the kinds of examples I’m giving. Awesome looks like agreeing on when we’re going to get picked up, and it actually happening, or agreeing on when those reports are going to happen. But there are also, I think about, that we’re working together in a way that feels supportive and energetic and clear, maybe even fun, at least enough fun.

Yes, so being able to hold those aspirational visions and to work skillfully with others in working to close the gaps in order to make things if not better, maybe even awesome.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And I’m curious, do you have any pro tips if someone is having that thought, like, “Okay, I probably got to say something about this issue but I’m scared. I want them to like me. We might make it worse. Last time that didn’t go so well”? If we’re in that loop of self-talk, do you have any, I don’t know, statistics, or data, or reframes, or wisdom to help us get over the hump?

Marc Lesser
Yeah. Well, yeah, there’s many, many pro tips. Here’s one, one of my favorites. A really easy way to find a way into such dealing with some of those gaps or some of those conflicts is to start by saying, “You know, the story that I’m telling myself is that you’re late every time you’re supposed to pick me up, and, therefore, you don’t respect me. You’re not respecting me and my time. That’s the story that I’m telling myself.”

So, it’s a way of, “I’m taking responsibility. This is something I’m experiencing and seeing. I’m not blaming. I’m not coming after you, saying you, blah, blah, blah, you don’t respect…No, it’s like this is something, this story I’m telling myself is really…” Again, this isn’t for every situation but it’s one way to start the conversation is by leaving the blame.

And often what happens is, by the time we have these conversations, there’s some anger built up, there’s some resentment built up, and you don’t want to…it’s usually not very skillful to start these conversations with anger or blame, but to start with, “Here’s what I’m noticing. Here’s what I’m feeling. Here’s what’s happening with me.”

“And I’m curious, what’s happening with you? What story are you telling yourself? What’s happening with you? And what do we need to do? What do we need to do to close the gaps?” Or, “Here’s a request I have for how I think it would go better in the future.” Any one of those. Those are all a few different tips there.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. And I imagine when you open that way, with, “The story I’m telling myself is that you don’t respect me that’s why you’re late,” it’s probably pretty rare that your counterpart says, “You know, you’re right, Marc, that’s exactly what’s happening. I don’t respect you and that’s why I’m late.”

Marc Lesser
Yeah. Part of the other answer, I think you were asking about, like, “Why don’t we have these conversations?” I think most people are incredibly vulnerable, and we all have, I think, a pretty well-developed inner critic, inner judge. We are hardwired to be very cautious and careful, and we don’t want to be hurt. It’s almost like a kind of death that to be vulnerable enough to show how we’re really feeling, to show our vulnerability, to show that we feel disrespected or we feel not seen. All of that comes up.

And so often, it’s not actually what’s happening. It’s not real. So, it’s a little bit unnerving, a little bit vulnerable to come forward with things where we feel where we’re being let down or hurt or challenged, any of those things.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s beautiful. Thank you. Well, you’ve got a number of great tidbits in the book, and so I’d love to hear your view on how we could shift our thinking associated with “difficult people.”

Marc Lesser
Yeah. Well, this is where, I think, I tell the story in the book of, often, in public trainings and workshops, it’s not unusual that someone will ask, “How do I deal? Give me some tips for how to work with difficult people.” And I often will wonder if the person asking the question is one of those difficult people. Now, I think I have to say, of course, there are difficult people, there are people who are toxic, just go around leaving trails of stress.

But those such people, I think, are very, very rare, are very small miniscule percentage of the population. Mostly what we’re talking about is our bosses who just don’t act the way that we want them to all the time, our coworkers who, again, are doing things differently than, in some way, we’re not as comfortable with, or many, many situations where anytime things don’t go the way we want them to, we can then label those people as difficult people.

Now, I’ve been CEO of a few different companies, and I make it a habit to do anonymous surveys of my employees. And I’ve learned that I’m perceived, hard to believe, but some people find me difficult. So, what’s interesting is that some people who work for me feel that I don’t include people enough, and that I’m making decisions too quickly, not being inclusive enough.

And other people find me too inclusive, too slow, asking for the input. So, it’s like, man, we all see the world through different lenses. So, I think this is the key to, I think, working with so-called difficult people, is to start by being curious about, “What lens am I seeing the world through? And what lens are these other people seeing the world through that’s making it difficult and challenging for me?”

And this is chapter one of my book Finding Clarity, is entitled ‘Be curious, not furious.’ And this, I think, is maybe step one about working with these so-called difficult people is noticing if you’re furious, noticing feelings and anger and emotions that are coming up, and to start by being curious about yourself, start by being curious about, “Huh, wow, this has a real charge for me. I wonder what that’s about.”

And, also, a key thing about working this issue about difficult people is to not confuse impact and intention. This is one of those classic rules of thumb in having difficult conversations. So, impact is you do something, Pete, and I’m like, “Ouch! That hurt. That didn’t feel good.” Well, we humans are wired, we go right to thinking, “I know why, that I know your intention, that you must’ve had some bad intention.”

But instead of going right from impact to intention, to be curious, “Hey, that hurt. What just happened there, that didn’t feel good to me. I’m curious, what was that about? What were you thinking? Why did you just do what you did?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. That’s good. Well, you talked about the anonymous surveys for a moment. In practice, how does one execute that? You just, anything, Google Forms, Typeform, or a specialty consulting 360 feedback company that you engage? How does one execute that if they say, “Ooh, I want anonymous surveys”?

Marc Lesser
Well, there happens to be one in the back of my book that when I was CEO of my last organization, I was doing a lot of work with Google, and my friends at Google were happy to provide me with a very well-developed anonymous survey that they used at Google. And I took it and I worked with my team and we customized it and worked it to be as useful and effective for our environment.

And so, yeah, I think it actually takes some thoughtfulness to develop what are the things that you want to measure, what are the things that you want to know from your employees. And, yeah, so it’s designing just the right questions, and it can be a handful of questions, or, I think, the one that I have in the back of my book is about 60 questions. It’s pretty thorough because it gives you a benchmark around culture, around management, around the CEO.

And once you have it, yeah, you just put it out there as any. There’s a bunch of different platforms you can use for forms, and collect the information, and spend a lot of time looking at the results, and it’s hard. I wanted, I’ve always aspired to have awesome workplaces, and, generally, the results of those surveys can be surprising to find out that a lot of people might find the workplace awesome, but a lot of people maybe don’t find it so awesome, and to get more information about what are those gaps, and what can we do to close those gaps.

One of the things that I found out was that things like spending time with employees’ personal and professional development was something that mattered a lot, and that it wasn’t, as CEO and in the last company that I helped grow, there was a gap there. We were not spending, we were not prioritizing really making sure that people felt that their personal and professional development was a high priority, and that we had to put in different systems and mechanisms for being able to support employees more in that way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. You’ve also got a good tidbit. You say that there are four most important words to assess a relationship. Lay them on us.

Marc Lesser
Yeah, I think the four most important words are, “How are we doing?” And I tell a story in my book about having that conversation with my adult daughter, where I think there’s just something about, again, I think especially if there is any tension or anxiety or gaps in any kind of relationship, the tendency is to not address it and to not talk about it.

And my experience is that’s usually a bad idea. It’s a bad idea in the workplace. It’s a bad idea in our primary relationships with our partners, with our children, with our parents. So, just being able to check in, like, “How are we doing?” But it takes some skill and some presence, actually, to ask that question and to ask it in a way that is real and where you’ll get some real feedback.

Because, usually, I hear this a lot, and I’m sure especially with young kids, “How are you?” “Everything’s fine.” It’s always fine. In the workplace, generally, “Everything’s fine.” So, you might have to dig a little deeper and ask, “Well, what are some things that aren’t fine? Tell me, there must be one thing or a couple things that could be improved in how we’re working together because I want this workplace to be awesome, and it sure doesn’t look to me that you think this is an awesome workplace. What could be better?” And I think it starts with the, “How are we doing?” conversations.

Pete Mockaitis
And if I may ask, where did the conversations with your adult daughter go in terms of highlighting ways to be doing better?

Marc Lesser
Yeah. Well, it wasn’t easy. I got to hear, which I really wanted to, about some things that were bothering her. There had been some challenging miscommunications that happened between me and my daughter, so I suspected there were some lingering feelings, some gaps, some resentments, and I got to hear about those things.

But I felt like talking about them and airing them was really important as opposed to shoving them under the rug or pretending that they didn’t exist. And I also got to express how much I appreciated my daughter being able to tell me about things that were bothering her, and I let her know, “That’s really important to me. I want to know that.”

And I got to express my own sense of how important that relationship is and how much I loved her, and how much all that good wonderful yummy stuff that we get to do with them, our children.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I’d also love to get your view of when it comes to storytelling, if that could be an effective means of producing compassion accountability and awesomeness in environments. Any perspective on how we can share and receive stories all the more effectively?

Marc Lesser
Yeah, I’ve been working with a few different leaders on the importance of storytelling as a way of expressing. I think it’s a really important skill to be able to express a vision, to be able to tell stories about things that were awesome, things that were successful, specific stories about what customer engagement, employees that went above and beyond what was expected to do, things that were amazing, and to tell stories about failures, and breakdowns, and what happened, and what we learned.

Yes, storytelling, I think, is, I’m surprised there aren’t more MBAs, more business school classes on the art of storytelling, such an, I think, important competency and skill for leaders.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so it’s important. Any tips on doing it better?

Marc Lesser
It’s funny, I used to do and I still do it, a fair amount of keynote speaking. And being able to be a good storyteller, I remember years ago, hiring a coach and consultant. And part of it is practicing, practice telling a story. Take specific events and talk about them. I think the typical arc of any story is describing what’s happening, what’s the challenge, and how we overcame that challenge, and what we learned from it.

It’s like the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey starts with that we’re all heroes in the journey of life, and it starts maybe with the aspiration for awesomeness, the aspiration to find our true home, to find meaning, to find connection. And then there’s always the challenges and how we find our own power to meet and overcome these challenges. Star Wars, apparently, according to George Lucas, was based on his reading of the traditional hero’s journey process of stories and of life.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell me, Marc, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Marc Lesser
I think we’ve accomplished a lot here.

Pete Mockaitis
I think so, too. Well, so now you gave me it before, but I want to hear it again. It’s so good. Favorite quote, drop it on us.

Marc Lesser
Well, I’ve got many favorites. I started and ran a greeting card company for 15 years so I am a professional quote collector. But one of my all-time favorites is Wendell Berry, who’s a fifth-generation Kentucky farmer, who said, “Be joyful though you’ve considered all the facts,” which I think is great on a hard day in business or reading the newspaper. Like, don’t shy away from the facts but practice with joy.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Marc Lesser
Oh, man, favorite study, bit of research. Yeah, I love some of the studies on meditation and how studies showing how meditation will, over time, change the gray matter in your brain, and studies showing that meditation, the relationship between meditation and developing one’s own leadership skills and emotional intelligence. Lots of studies out there, thousands of these people studying meditation and mindfulness.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Marc Lesser
Well, the book that I was thinking about while I was talking today is a book called Difficult Conversations. And it’s a book that’s one of the best edited books. Every word in that book matters. Yeah, it comes out of the Harvard negotiating team and it’s simply called Difficult Conversations.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Marc Lesser
I love my MacBook Pro. It faltered as I was starting it this morning, I said, “Oh, no, I depend on this computer so much these days.” So, yeah, I love my MacBook.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Marc Lesser
Getting up every morning at 5:30.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Marc Lesser
Yeah, the four most important words, “How are we doing?”

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Marc Lesser
My website, MarcLesser.net with lots of my writing and audio and video. Yeah, worth a visit.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Marc Lesser
Yeah, don’t avoid conflict. Learn to get awesome at noticing and working skillfully with the gaps between what is and what would be awesome.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Marc, this has been a treat. I wish you much fun and clarity.

Marc Lesser
Thank you, Pete. It’s been a pleasure.

Jun 29
0

878: Saying No Masterfully to Reclaim your Life with Vanessa Patrick

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Vanessa Patrick shares the science behind why we struggle to say no—and what you can do to get better at refusing.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The three competencies of empowered refusal.
  2. What to do when someone’s being pushy.
  3. Why it’s better for your reputation to say no.

About Vanessa

Vanessa Patrick, PhD. is the Associate Dean for Research, the Bauer Professor of Marketing, and lead faculty of the Executive Women in Leadership Program at the Bauer School of Business at the University of Houston. She has a PhD in business from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She is the author of The Power of Saying No: The New Science of How to Say No that Puts you in Charge of your Life.

Resources Mentioned

Vanessa Patrick Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Vanessa, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Vanessa Patrick
Hey, Pete, lovely to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to dig into your book, The Power of Saying No: The New Science of How to Say No that Puts You in Charge of Your Life. This has been a challenge that many of our listeners are facing so I think this is going to be so cool to get into it. But, first, I wanted to start with is there a particularly memorable no-story you could share with us to kick things off?

Vanessa Patrick
Well, I start the book with a didn’t-say-no story that motivated this whole stream of work. I’m happy to tell you about that.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s do it.

Vanessa Patrick
Well, it all began when I spent my 24th birthday staring at a fax machine, and it was a memorable day because I spent the evening at the office waiting for a fax. It wasn’t even an important fax. It was just a fax, which said that the client had received a fax that we had sent earlier. And I spent the whole evening waiting for the fax because my boss told me to do so.

And it was a moment where I realized that we very often, in work and life, get stuck doing very trivial things, pretty meaningless things some of the time, that we could easily say no to. And that moment made me realize the importance of learning to say no when the situation merits it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, tell me, how late was it when you left?

Vanessa Patrick
So, I wanted to leave at 5:00 o’clock. It was a Tuesday. The fax arrived at 9:30 in the evening. And so, I basically spent four and a half hours just staring at a fax machine waiting for that white paper to spew out of the machine, and all that white paper said when it arrived, was, “Received with thanks.” And I remember my 24th birthday and that crinkly white paper so distinctly because it was so trivial.

And, Pete, if I had to redo this all over again, if I were me when I was 24, if I was me, the me now, when I was 24, I would’ve negotiated that ask. I would’ve said something like, “Can I come early tomorrow morning and pick up the fax and put it on your desk? Or, can I ask a friend to please stay back and do it if it was that important?” It didn’t have to be me, and I did not have to spend my time doing that, and yet I did.

Pete Mockaitis
Wait, I’m sorry. You said you were 24 years old, and then you said birthday. This was, in fact, your 24th birthday?

Vanessa Patrick
And I missed the birthday party.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, my goodness.

Vanessa Patrick
It was quite sad. I’ve recovered. Don’t worry.

Pete Mockaitis
But it is definitely seared. We could tell that memory was really seared into you because you remember it was a Tuesday and the exact text of the fax, and the time that it arrived. Now, these are some details.

Vanessa Patrick
Yes, because when you’re sitting over there for four and a half hours, knowing that everyone in your house is having a party, people are coming and going, people are eating dinner, they’re leaving, you think about these things and you realize, “Why am I doing this? Is this worth it?” And those are the feelings that we need to kind of capture and memorize so that we don’t make those same mistakes again.

So, I talk about, in the book, the importance of learning from our mistakes, and the fact that when we say yes when we want to say no, we sometimes have to pause and actually let ourselves feel bad about that because we naturally, as human beings, have this coping mechanism, something called the psychological immune system, which jumps in as soon as we feel bad and tries to repair the situation, trying to find the silver lining, trying to look for something good out of that bad situation.

And that is why we don’t learn very well from bad situations. We need to stop, embrace that horrible feeling so that we learn from it, so the next time we’re in that situation, we can manage it a little bit better.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And what’s interesting is because of the drama of this particular instance, like it’s a task that is so trivial, I don’t know, maybe there’s lives on the line associated with this fax.

Vanessa Patrick
There were not.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, there weren’t. So, it seems super trivial, and it’s four and a half unnecessary hours in which you’re not actively engaged, and you’re missing out on something really cool, all really come together. So, in a weird way, I like the notion, the psychological immune system, this was kind of a blessing because you had an epiphany that, I believe, has served you well over the subsequent years, and now you’re enriching many thousands with this work. So, indirectly, I guess we can thank that boss for this request.

Vanessa Patrick
Yes, I do think that it did kind of change the trajectory of my life. You start questioning. It was my first job, you start questioning, “Is this the kind of job that I want? Is there something more meaningful and important I could do?” And, also, the curiosity about “Why do people do this? Why do people behave in certain ways?” which has shaped my career as a consumer psychologist.

Pete Mockaitis
And for many of us, when we say yes when we should’ve said no, the pain we experience is more minor. It may not be enough for us to really rewind, evaluate, and make some changes.

Vanessa Patrick
But we do feel resentful very often. A lot of the people in my studies often talk about the fact that they’ve said yes when they want to say no, and they feel very resentful towards the other person, and really wished they did not do that. And so, in many ways, but we also search for reasons as to why we said yes and come up with the fact that it might be a growth opportunity. It could open doors. It could lead to a promotion. So, we make up these things to make ourselves feel better but sometimes we need to just see it for what it is and not make the mistake again.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s interesting how we resent them, and, though, I guess we’ve got at least 50% responsibility as to having said yes.

Vanessa Patrick
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, you’ve done a lot of studies, you’ve engaged a lot of people here. Any particularly surprising, fascinating, counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made here when it comes to us humans and our relationships saying no?

Vanessa Patrick
Yes. It’s no surprise that, of course, human beings have trouble saying no, but one of the things that come out consistently in my research is the fact that no is a gendered issue, that women struggle way more to say no than men do. Women are more likely to say yes to a workplace request than men are. Women are more likely to be asked to do unpromotable work, or unpaid work, or the office housework, but they’re also more likely to take those things on.

One of the most interesting things in my studies is something that I call the spotlight effect. And the spotlight effect is this feeling of being in the spotlight when someone makes their ask of you. So, in a study, I put people in different conditions. In one condition, I told them that they were asked to do something that they didn’t want to do, and there was a crowd of people who had already agreed to do it.

And based on the research of social psychology, we know that we are more likely to conform to that ask. The spotlight is going to shine way more brightly on us when we know that other people are watching and expecting us to say yes. So, of course, both men and women are more likely to say yes when there are lots of people watching even if they want to say no.

I also do another scenario where that request is an interpersonal request. There’s no crowd, it’s just one person versus another person, the asker and the askee. And in that situation, you find that men are significantly more likely to say, “No, this is not going to work,” if it’s a one on one, but women still respond at the same level as if there was a crowd watching.

So, women, it’s almost like women have conjured up this imaginary crowd that is watching them, and the spotlight shines brightly on them, whether it’s a one-on-one interaction or whether it’s a group. I, personally, think that’s a super interesting finding, and it’s fascinating to think about why that is, and why women feel that pressure to say yes, feel more intense spotlight regardless of whether it’s a one-on-one ask or it’s a crowd.

Pete Mockaitis
And can you share with us a rough sense of these figures here, the crowd effect versus the one-on-one effect, that is at stake here? Is it a smidgen more pressure and probability of saying yes, or is it like double, triple, quadruple?

Vanessa Patrick
So, when it was a social ask, and when both men and women responded equivalently, so about five on a scale of one to seven, on, “How much attention did you feel was on you?” That drops to four for men, which was significantly different, statistically significantly lower compared to women who remained at around 4.5.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, got you. And I guess I’m curious about the percentage of percent of time said yes and didn’t want to.

Vanessa Patrick
The number of times they said yes, so we don’t have that. In the experiment, we didn’t look at that. The scenario required everyone to say yes or no.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, got you.

Vanessa Patrick
So, everyone wanted to say no. It was a clear scenario when no one wanted to do it.

Pete Mockaitis
What is our scenario?

Vanessa Patrick
Yeah, so it was something like spending your spring break doing some volunteer work for a friend who just caught you. So, it was the first day of spring break and someone pulled you aside, and said, “No, you need to help me with this volunteer work, and spend your entire spring break doing this, making calls on my behalf,” which is something we pre-tested no one wanted to do, no one wanted to spend their spring break doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it would have to be some pretty, meaningfully interesting, powerful calls. It’s hard to dream up the scenario where that would be a win, like, “Oh, yeah.” Okay. Cool. Thank you. All right. So, there we have it, interesting tidbits there. So, then, overall, what would you say is sort of the main thesis or big idea behind the book The Power of Saying No?

Vanessa Patrick
So, a lot of people, successful people, and, in general, most people know that it’s a good thing to say no to the things that you don’t want to do. The question is how. So, the big idea behind the book is the way in which you communicate your refusal and something called empowered refusal, which is the basis of my research.

Empowered refusal is a super skill of being able to say no in a way that’s effective. And what effective, essentially, means is that you are able to communicate a no response while maintaining your relationship with the other person and securing your reputation.

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds perfect.

Vanessa Patrick
It does.

Pete Mockaitis
How do we do that?

Vanessa Patrick
So, I talk about the fact that you need to develop three competencies to develop the skill of empowered refusal but, essentially, empowered refusal requires you to say no by looking inwards. You need to say no by giving voice to your values, priorities, preferences, and beliefs. So, it’s a no that stems from your identity. And when you say no that stems from your identity, giving voice to what you believe, the way you believe things should be, people are less likely to give you pushback and more likely to be persuaded by your no.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us, what are the three competencies and how do we develop them?

Vanessa Patrick
Right. So, the three competencies, I call the ART of empowered refusal, A-R-T, awareness, rules not decisions, and totality of self. So, your empowered refusal begins with self-awareness. It begins with you looking inwards and developing a sense of what you uniquely bring to the table, what you care about, what do you value, how do you want to find meaning in your life.

So, an awareness of your preferences, your beliefs, your values, forms the foundation of step number two, which is setting up a system of rules, and not having to make decisions all the time. So, once you understand yourself, then you can set yourself up with a set of personal policies or simple rules that guide your actions and decisions. So, if you have rules in place, or policies in place, it’s much easier for you to say no because you already have a very firm stance on what you believe and how you want things to be.

And the final piece of the puzzle is the way you communicate your empowered refusal, which is using your whole self, using not only your language but also your nonverbal cues. Nonverbal cues that both convey empowerment but also secure your relationship with the other person. So, I can give you a few examples.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Vanessa Patrick
Let’s imagine that someone asked you to fly somewhere. Unprepared, unannounced, you’ve got fly over the weekend to do something that is not part of your job, and you don’t want to do it because you do not work on weekends, or weekends are family time as far as you’re concerned. So, you have a personal policy in place about how you’d like to spend your weekends, and you are able to better communicate your refusal based on that stance.

What usually happens when people ask you for something that you want to say no to is that we grasp for the first available excuse. And excuses are much less effective than policies. Policies reflect a long-standing stance which stem from something that’s important to you, something that you value. And when you use a policy, you are more likely to get compliance than if you use an excuse.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting. You say compliance, as in the requestor just overrides you.

Vanessa Patrick
No, the requestor will either push back or they will respect your refusal. Those are the two main options. So, when someone asks you something, they typically expect a yes. It is societally expected that an invitation, an ask, a favor, is going to garner a yes response. There’s a ton of research that shows that we say yes to the most ridiculous requests because we are socialized and hardwired to help.

We are conditioned to be cooperative. We are psychologically poised in many ways to say yes than to say no. And because of that psychological makeup and that socialization, when we say no, we often get pushback from the asker.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s intriguing on so many levels. One, I’m thinking that’s kind of absurd that that’s in us humans. Two, I’m thinking I guess there’s probably a set of contexts that make that true versus not true. So, the majority of my emails are pitches from publicists and authors, etc. to want to be on my podcast, maybe the plurality of emails.

And so, I would imagine they don’t really expect that I will say yes because, in their own experience of any sort of recruiting, sales, business development activity, the majority of people say no. And I find it a little funny when they say, “I’m just making sure you got my email. Like, this is the weirdest thing that you didn’t reply.”

Like, in some ways, I find that a little bit irksome because there seems to be, like, almost dishonesty there. It’s, like, “You don’t really expect a response. Of course, you would like one.” So, I guess that’s what I’m thinking. Like, in the context of a stranger who’s asking hundreds of thousands of people the same thing via an impersonal platform, email, I don’t imagine they expect a yes. But you tell me, maybe they really do.

Vanessa Patrick
You hit the nail on the head in terms of the impersonal platform. So, we are 34 times more likely to say yes to a face-to-face request.

Pete Mockaitis
Thirty-four.

Vanessa Patrick
So, email is actually the best way to say no to people because it’s impersonal, as you just mentioned. You take away that face-to-face concern. I also think that if you think about the studies that people have done, like Vanessa Bohns, for example. She has people ask people to do the craziest things: defile library books, “Can I play in your backyard?” “Can you mail this for me?” completely crazy things, and she finds that people are much more likely to say yes, even to those completely ridiculous requests than say no.

And there’s a lot of evidence out there that people do struggle with saying no, and so it’s just easier to say yes. And so, I talk about it in terms of the fact that society favors the asker. So, if you’re the asker, you get to ask and then everybody feels really terrible about saying no. But we have to remember that an ask is just an ask. We don’t have to say yes to every ask that comes our way. And for a lot of people, they struggle with that.

Pete Mockaitis
Thirty-four times. Well, now I’m intrigued. Do we know where phone calls stack up, because in a way it’s live and real time, but there’s not a face? So, I imagine it’d be in the middle. Do you have the numbers on that?

Vanessa Patrick
No, I do not. But I’d imagine that it’s somewhere in between the face-to-face and the email. But I think, because it’s technology-mediated, it becomes easier to say no even on a phone call compared to a face-to-face request.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s powerful right there.

Vanessa Patrick
Yeah. So, one of the things that I mentioned is the importance of putting technology in between you and the asker when it becomes a very difficult ask, or when you’re dealing with a very pushy asker. Convert the conversation to a digital medium or put some technology between you. It’s easier to text, it’s easier to phone, a phone call converted to an email than to handle people face to face.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I’m reminded of I’ve got a buddy who’s a priest. He tells me that after church, there’s crowds of people, and they shake hands and say hello. Well, it’s a good way for people to have a little bit of a relationship exchange, community-building there. And he said that he was inundated with requests, like, “Oh, you should come over have dinner. We should hang out in this way or that way.” And he used to say yes all the time, immediately, and schedule, he’s like, “Oh, my gosh, my calendar is out of control.”

And so, he decided his new policy was, when they make an invitation, assuming he doesn’t want to immediately do it, he says, “You know, that sounds great. Please call the office on Monday and talk to Debra, or whomever, and she owns my calendar, and she’ll find a good time for us.” And he said, invariably, like way over 90%, he told me, of the incoming requests just disappear because it’s quite a difference to say, “Hey, I had this fun idea. Why the heck not?” versus, “Okay, I’m going to actually have to remember to put into my calendar, to call the administrative assistant, and get that sorted out.”

So, I thought that was brilliant in that you’re continuing to show interest and it’s not blowing them off.

Vanessa Patrick
I think your priest friend has got two principles right in the book, that I talk about in the book. Never say yes in the moment, like always buy time. And second is, if you have the opportunity to delegate to someone, and that person says no on your behalf, it’s a win. So, Debra from the office, if she says no to the person, it’s not going to feel as bad as when your friend has to say no.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And just the dramatic reduction in terms of folks who even do that is huge.

Vanessa Patrick
Will follow up, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
So, now, tell me, when it comes to the rules, I don’t know who, if this is from a TV show or a movie somewhere, but someone was hiring a nanny or a housekeeper, and they just laid it like, “I don’t do dishes, I don’t do laundry, I don’t do cooking, I don’t do diapers.” And it’s sort of like, “Okay. Well, this isn’t going to work, is it?”

And so, I think that emotional side of us, in terms of a rule, that sounds like, “Ooh, that sounds awesome.” Like, you can communicate a rule, you have some extra conviction, they understand not to ask again, so that has a lot going for it. But it can feel a little more scary, “I’m not just saying no once. I’m saying no to a potential hundreds of future requests in one fell swoop.” And that’s even scarier to say, Vanessa, so how do you think about the articulation of rules?

Vanessa Patrick
So, these rules are just simple rules that you set up for yourself to increase things like your productivity, to enhance the quality of your decision-making, to make your relationships better, to advance yourself in your career. These are things that all of us care about in working life, and these are all the things that we need to think about, setting small rules.

It is not this rule, like the nanny you were talking about, not to do the job that you were hired to do. It’s about doing the job the best possible way you can. And sometimes you have to protect your time to be able to do that job. I think one of the things that we see in the workplace right now is the tyranny of the number of meetings that you’re dragged into. You don’t actually have time to do what you were hired to do.

And so, sometimes just setting up rules around when you meet and when you work, or when you can take some time to do some deep work that needs to be done and protect that time, these are simple rules that just enhance your productivity and actually make you a more valuable member of the organization.

Pete Mockaitis
Now that sounds awesome. Do you actually articulate some of that stuff if you were to, say, have this conversation with a manager?

Vanessa Patrick
Yeah. So, think about what your priorities are, what the job is, what do you need to do? So, one of the conceptualizations that I really love that I use in the book is this notion of, “What is good work?” And Howard Gardner from Harvard University, he’s an educational psychologist, comes up with a lovely definition of what is good work, good work that is meaningful.

Good work has three main dimensions, kind of like a DNA strand. It is excellent, it is emotional or engaging, and it is ethical. And so, when we do good work, we are essentially devoting ourselves to work that brings out the best of us, that leverages our strengths, that showcases what we bring to the table. When we do good work, it is emotionally gratifying. It feels good to do. We feel as if we’ve achieved something meaningful. And, finally, is that it does good, like it has an ethical dimension. It makes the world better. You leave the place better than you found it.

And so, when you think about work, and when we think about work, if we can think about this framework of work, and then try and achieve on a daily basis that sort of quality work, and in order to do that, we do need to set up these personal policies that facilitate that sort of activity.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, to tackle the fears head on, if we fear that, “Oh, I’m going to be perceived as not a team player, or I’m lazy, I’m not manager or executive material because I’m not truly committed with my rules and my no’s,” do you have an answer, or even better, some real data on what it’s like on the receiving end?

Vanessa Patrick
So, this is the concern for reputation. So, there are two main concerns for why we say yes when we want to say no. One is we want to be liked. So, one is a concern for relationships, and the other is a concern for reputation. The concern for relationships deals with the need to be liked, to be included in a social group, to have friends, to be part of something.

And our reputation is the other thing that we’re really concerned about, the notion that we want to be seen as competent, on the ball, a team player. Reputation is, essentially, what people say about us when we leave the room, and we want people to say good things.

And so, these are two key drivers for why we say yes when we want to say no. So, your point about, “Oh, I’m concerned about these things that people will say,” is the reputation concern. And I always say, of course, you should take on things that you can handle and that you can fit into your schedule, but I call it the house of cards trap.

Essentially, if you think about every ask that comes your way, and if your goal is to be a team player and to be seen as competent, and you just keep saying yes to that stuff, you’re essentially adding more and more cards to an increasingly fragile house of cards that is going to collapse if you do not, at some point, essentially.

And so, thinking about your reputation in the short term, like, “If I say yes right now, they will like me, they will think I’m competent,” as opposed to thinking about your reputation in the long term. If you keep taking more stuff, you’re going to drop the ball, you’re not going to be able to deliver, you’re not going to be able to deliver quality.

And so, I always argue, “Is it better to say no up front, because it is just something that is not in your wheelhouse or doesn’t leverage your strengths, or you simply just don’t have the time to do it? Say no now or drop the ball later, and have your reputation take a hit, or a bigger hit perhaps.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now could you give us some example articulations of the no that is artful and it’s an empowered refusal? And I say, “Hey, Vanessa, I would love it if you could stay late. We got this really big client presentation coming up on Friday, and I think we’re behind, and there’s really a lot at stake. So, could you stick it out for a few hours?”

Vanessa Patrick
That may not be the best time to say no.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Vanessa Patrick
So, one of the things I talk about is deciphering the ask, like, “How do you decipher to say yes to and what to say no to?” If it’s a high stakes, really important thing that you need to pitch in for, it may not be the best thing to say no to. But if someone asks you, “Hey, can you organize the retirement party because someone is retiring?” That is something that is not urgent, not terribly important, and anybody can do it. That may be the thing to be saying no to.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s good. Well, I was going to ask, in terms of we’ve got our rules, how do we think about bending rules and under what circumstances?

Vanessa Patrick
I think they are your rules and they are meant to be meant. But if you bend them every single day then it’s not a rule. You need to have rules, and you need to have contingencies, and you need to have a sense of, let’s say, “I never work in the evenings because 6:00 to 8:00 is family time.” Assume that that’s my rule. But as you just said, if someone says, “Hey, Vanessa, can you pitch in because we have this really important thing, and can you make an exception and come just this Thursday evening because Friday is this big deadline?” By all means, you can break your own rule if you choose to.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you recommend articulating that in a special way?

Vanessa Patrick
So, I often talk about saying things in terms of using very absolute words, “I don’t,” “I always,” “I never,” “It’s my policy.” These are words that communicate that you are speaking from a place of power, so they are empowered language. They also reflect your stance on the matter. So, “I don’t,” “I never.” So, one of the research studies that we did was compared words like, “I don’t” versus “I can’t.”

So, whenever you frame a refusal, you can always say, “I’m really sorry, I can’t do this,” or, “I’m sorry, I don’t do this.” So, let’s imagine you’re at a party and someone is offering you chocolate cake. You can say, “I’m sorry I can’t eat the chocolate cake.” It comes across as disempowered and you’re most likely going to get someone saying, “Why not? It’s just a piece of cake. Go ahead and eat it.” You’re going to get the pushback.

Imagine that you say, “I’m sorry, I don’t eat chocolate cake.” No one pushes back. This is your rule, “I’m not a chocolate cake-eating person.” It implicates the identity. And using language that implicates the identity is less likely to get pushback.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true. It takes an extra level of courage and curiosity to dig into that. And I think most people probably wouldn’t feel comfortable saying, “Well, why not?” but rather is just, like, it’s almost you have to do more mental work to think about how I engage that conversation further if I were going to, such as, “Oh, that’s interesting. What led you to adopt this policy?”

Vanessa Patrick
Yeah, and most often you don’t get that conversation continuing. Most people accept a refusal when it stems from your identity because that’s who you are, that’s the kind of person you are, right?

Pete Mockaitis
I remember when I was at a party, and someone said, it was a husband and wife, and she said, “Oh, Ricky doesn’t drink anymore.” And so, I’m so full of curiosity, I was like, “Well, now I really want to know what happened with Ricky’s historical drinking.” It’s like, “I’m not going to.” I just met the dude and he’s friendly and cool. I hope we get to maybe have that conversation later. But not the time or the place for me to dig into his history of his relationship with alcohol, though I’m so curious now.

All right. So, I hope Ricky is doing great. Now, you also recommend that we frame our refusal using more nouns instead of verbs. What’s the thinking here?

Vanessa Patrick
So, research shows that nouns, again, implicate your identity. When you say, “I am a writer,” “I am a teacher,” “I am a mom,” these are nouns. They describe your stable stance. Whereas, verbs, like, “I write,” “I teach,” lots of people write, lots of people teach, you are just one of them. And so, verbs, essentially, describe an activity, whereas nouns describe who you are, again, implicating the identity.

And so, if you have to talk about yourself, and there’s research that shows that when we talk about ourselves in terms of nouns, we come across as more authentic and, like, stable individuals who can communicate what they do. And so, there’s some work that talks about how we should talk about these things in our resumes and in job interviews by using more nouns than verbs.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And now, Vanessa, we didn’t quite do a demo because you wisely mentioned, “Maybe this is not the time to say no,” but now let’s say it is the time to say no, and I’m saying, “Hey, Vanessa, could you pick up my drycleaning this afternoon? It looks like I’m not going to be able to make it there after all.”

Vanessa Patrick
“I’m sorry, I go to the gym every afternoon between 3:00 and 5:00.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, and that’s that. There’s no elaboration.

Vanessa Patrick
Yeah, know it’s a complete sentence.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. There we go. Let’s try again. “Vanessa, could you scan these documents and email them to me?”

Vanessa Patrick
“I believe we have someone who does those kinds of things. I’m not the person.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, this is fun. I can do this for a while.

Vanessa Patrick
Are you just going to do this all day?

Pete Mockaitis
Maybe. Maybe. I don’t know. Okay. “Vanessa, could you look over this proposal and make sure I didn’t make any silly mistakes?”

Vanessa Patrick
“Sure, absolutely. I’m really good at looking at proposals, and it leverages my unique strength, and I’m happy to strengthen your proposal for you.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so that’s a yes, and that’s cool?

Vanessa Patrick
Yeah. And so, when you’re talking about this, the deciphering the asks, it’s really, I come up with this framework where you can use this mental model to help you to figure out what you say yes to and what you say no to. So, all the things you asked me, I, essentially, looked at them through that framework, and said, “What is the cost to me and what is the benefit to the other person?”

So, there are some things that are low cost to me but huge benefits to you. Like, looking over a two-page proposal and scanning it and making it better, that’s my strength. I’m good at it. I can make it better. I know it’s not a huge deal. I’m going to say yes because it’ll benefit you. But this, “Pick up my drycleaning,” and, “Check the weather and do this rubbish,” that is stuff, no, you shouldn’t be asking anyone to do.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do we know, from the person who makes a request, and they received a no done artfully, do we have a sense in terms of their thought about you, like the relationship and the liking that we’re worried about that’s at risk? To what extent is that a boogeyman of our minds versus that’s real?

Vanessa Patrick
I think we exaggerate the impact that our no’s will have on others. Most often, when you say no to somebody, they simply go ahead and ask the next person. If it’s something that anyone can do, they just go down the list. We do that ourselves. If someone says no to us about something, we just find somebody else to do it. You don’t really think that much about it.

If it’s something that is meaningful and important to you, then, by all means, think about taking it on after you’ve asked the necessary questions, “Is it important? When does it need to get done? How can I contribute? Why did you ask me? Is there something unique that I can do?” By asking questions, we can figure out what to say yes to.

So, I call these the hero’s journey asks. The hero’s journey asks are the ones that are high effort on our part but hugely beneficial to others. And so, we should say yes to those hero’s journey asks because those hero’s journey asks is what makes work life meaningful.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Vanessa, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Vanessa Patrick
I have this concept in the book that most people seem to like, which is called the walnut trees.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s hear it.

Vanessa Patrick
And so, there are some people, despite your artful no, will not take no for an answer. And so, we need to figure out how to deal with these pushy askers. And in my book, I talk about these pushy askers as walnut trees. There are several descriptors of these kind of people in the literature – pushy people, bullies, etc. – but I choose to call them walnut trees, and I can tell you why.

A walnut tree is, essentially, this big tree with a luxuriant canopy, and it has a root system that spreads out 50 feet. But what it does is that it exudes in the soil a chemical called juglone and it stems the growth of everything around them, and so that’s why I call it that. It’s easier to deal with people when you can recognize walnut tree behavior, and say, “Oh, that’s walnut tree behavior,” when someone is being an exceptionally pushy asker. And there are strategies that you can develop to deal with walnut trees when they are being pushy, including, like we talked about, bringing in technology, delegating the ask, etc.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Vanessa Patrick
My favorite quote, and one I say to myself almost every day, is, “Be in demand. Stay in control.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Vanessa Patrick
I read a lot, so it’s hard to choose. But my favorite book of recent time has been Lessons in Chemistry.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Vanessa Patrick
QuillBot.

Pete Mockaitis
And what does that do?

Vanessa Patrick
It’s an AI-writing tool.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Vanessa Patrick
I wake up every morning at 5:15 so that I have some alone time. I thrive on the solitude of the morning and the serenity of the morning.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate and they quote back to you often?

Vanessa Patrick
“It goes the way you say.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Vanessa Patrick
I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Twitter @vpatrick23, and on Instagram vanpat23, and my website is VanessaPatrick.net.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Vanessa Patrick
Yes, don’t be afraid to say no. Invest in the art of empowered refusal and say no to the things that don’t matter.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Vanessa, this has been a treat. Thank you and I wish you much luck and fun in all of your refusals.

Vanessa Patrick
Thank you. You, too.