Latest / Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby / Hostile Work Environment? Why HR May Not Be On Your Side | Success | E553

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Hostile Work Environment? Why HR May Not Be On Your Side | Success | E553 · Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know, many organizations will talk about we're like a family,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: which I would never.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I hate that.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I hate that, too. And especially as a clinical psychologist,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I work with so many toxic families like this is not,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: you know, yes, you are like a family, but not
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: in the way that you think. I'm feeling all right.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I'm holding on tight. I'm feeling all right.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I'm holding on tight.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: So here's the conventional wisdom about toxic workplaces.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Which is get out, leave, save yourself.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Don't bring me down with your words, don't need that stuff.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I'm here to take on the world, enough is enough.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: You can't change a culture.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: You can only try to protect yourself from it and
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: then find a better place. And sometimes that's absolutely right.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: It is better to cut your losses and go.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Many times this has the effect of hurting the junior
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: people who get cynical, who get burnt out, who really disengaged.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: But there are.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Also situations where you have more power than you know,
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: and you can create positive change.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: And my guest today is going.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: To challenge maybe some of your thinking about this and
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: light the way towards a middle path.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Because it turns.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Out there's actually a lot more that you can do
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: than maybe you realize.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: You just haven't yet been given the framework.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Is this.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: tolerable? Is this not tolerable? Is this illegal? And it
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: could be some combination of those three, which can impact
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: how you want to proceed.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: And that's why today we're talking to Dr. Jennifer Wisdom.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: She is so many things, you guys. She is a
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: licensed psychologist, public health researcher, and an organizational consultant who
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: spent more than 25 years in some of the most
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: complex institutions on earth, including military organizations, government healthcare systems,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: academic medical centers, and even non-profits. She started her career
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: as a military photojournalist, someone documenting how organizations tell their
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: own stories under sometimes very chaotic situations, and then earned
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: a PhD in clinical psychology, is now the founder of
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Wisdom Consulting, and she's here today to share her wisdom
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: with us.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Dr.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Jennifer, you've done so many different things and you've been
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: in so many different environments and, you know, experienced from
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: the inside out these environments and now are working to
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: change organizations in such positive ways. And I could not
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: think of a better person to get into this topic
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: with because you have like the whole picture.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Ah, thanks. Yeah, I... My goal is to experience everything
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and I'm doing it.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: You're doing it for sure.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Well, so let's just start here. I'm wondering when you
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: scroll back in your mind, maybe before you were a
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: consultant coming in to partner with business owners to transform organizations,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: I'd love to hear a story of your own experience
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: of being in a very difficult work environment and what
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: that was like for you and how you managed that.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Sure. So when I started in academia, I told myself
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: very naively that I wasn't going to do academic politics.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I had first generation to go to college, but I
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: read a whole bunch of stories about academic politics and
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I swore I would never do it. But then the
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: first week, of my academic position, somebody tried to steal
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: my staff, they tried to steal my space, and they
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: tried to steal my equipment.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Did they steal your lunch out of the refrigerator too?
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: My gosh, it's like, take everything.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And I just thought, I need to reassess here. And
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: so I thought that while I just, I don't have
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the heart to be real power broker, shark or anything
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: like that, that's not who I am. but I needed
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: to at least practice defensive politics. So when things at
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: that workplace got a little extra crazy, the entire floor flooded.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: And I was the, as a professor, as an assistant
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: professor of maybe six months, I was the senior non-retired
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: faculty member. And I ended up working with the organization's
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: insurance company. I was partnering with other people on the floor.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I was trying to get things done. All the while,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the chair of the department was actively undermining me. And then,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: of course, I had pretty substantial allergies because everything started
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: molding pretty quickly. It was a crash course in figuring
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: stuff out and not being a victim. That's not quite
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the right phrasing on that. But in making sure that
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: you can find your own way, making sure that I
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: could find my own way. in a situation where the
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: support I expected was not there and the challenges I
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: did not expect definitely were there.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: And so in this situation, I'm so curious to know what,
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: What did you do? Is this a situation where you
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: were able to create positive change, which I know is
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: something that you teach others now, or at this period
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: in your life, was it different? Was it this, I
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: just either need to cope or I need to get out?
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Seems like you have three doors in front of you.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Which one did you go through?
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, I worked on coping. So I handled the mold situation,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: replacing the carpet situation, dumping water out of surge protectors situation,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: which was crazy. And worked with the rest of the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: floor on getting their pieces done. I continued forward for
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a while until something happened where there was a harassment situation.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: And the person who was being harassed finally told a
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: supervisor who kind of blew it off and pretended like
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: it wasn't a big deal. And somehow I got pulled
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: into it because she had talked to me about it.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: And then I started getting senior people saying like, you know,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: you really should drop this. And I said, I'm not,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying, I'm not doing anything. I'm just here.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: But that said, this is clear harassment and you need
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to take care of it as a leader. So after
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: a while, push came to shove. They did reluctantly address
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the situation, made sure that the offender got off with
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: a slap on the wrist. And that made it really
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: clear to me that this is not the kind of
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: place I want to be working.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: It also made it clear, to be honest, it made
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: it clear I'm not getting promoted in this place because
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I ticked him off. I was glad that I had
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: to some extent protected someone and to some extent helped
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: at least a little bit of justice move forward. But
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: it became clear that's not the kind of place I
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: wanted to work. So I ended up leaving. Yeah.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Well, and I know, you know, from your work and
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: you have a book that I'd love for you to
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: talk more.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: About, but.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: One of the foundational pillars of what you do with
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: organizations is first help them get very clear about their values.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: And I'm wondering if that was perhaps a moment when
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: you realized that that your fundamental core values were out
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: of alignment with those of the organization and that that
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: was part of what you indexed when you were like, yeah,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go ahead and go rather than trying
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: to improve this. Yeah.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: You know, it's really interesting, Lisa, that when you think
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: of an organization, their values, so big university, academic medical center,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: federal government agency or whatever, they usually have pretty clear
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: values that focus on helping their clients or customers and
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: doing the right thing and so on. The way that
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: gets implemented, however, throughout the organization can be quite variable.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And I think the organization as a whole, meaning the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: senior leadership of the organization, anyone asked would say, yes,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: we do this. But at the same time, they were
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: not either, they weren't, paying attention or they weren't interested
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: in holding their mid-level and senior leaders to those values.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: And I've seen this over and over again. So I
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: think many times this has the effect of really hurting
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the junior people who get cynical, who get burnt out,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: who really disengage because the senior person comes in and says,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: you know, we're here to help people and we're here
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to support you. And then they see the mid-level managers
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: and the district managers do the exact opposite and cover
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: for themselves, treat their favorites differently, do all kinds of
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: things that are directly counter to the values of the organization.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: And that's what makes people want to not have anything
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to do with this.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: Would you say that that is one of the defining
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: features of a toxic, just fundamentally irredeemable workspace situation is
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: where there's that disconnect between what people say are the
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: values and then what's actually happening on the inside?
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Are there other things?
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great way to put it. You know,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: many organizations will talk about, we're like a family.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Which I hate that.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I hate that too. And especially as a clinical psychologist,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I work with so many toxic families. Like this is not,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you know, yes, you are like a family, but not
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: in the way that you think. And everyone, every individual
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: person is coming into an organization, with the general idea
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: of we're trying to do something bigger together than any
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: of us could do alone. And at the same time,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: every single person is coming in with their own family
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: history and experiences of trust and distrust and loss and
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: different types of communication and different experiences. And so sometimes
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I say, it's a wonder anybody gets anything done at
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: work because everyone's working out their mommy issues, their daddy issues,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: their family issues. their friend. Everybody's working everything out with
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: each other. So it's amazing that we can keep moving forward.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Anything gets done at all.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: So then when you throw into that some toxicity around
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: leadership that plays favorites or undermines or scapegoats or gaslights,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: that is likely hitting people differently. Some people who may
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: have grown up with, let's say, healthier families are may
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: have one reaction. People who grew up in less healthier
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: families may have a different reaction or people who had
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: a dad just like that or a mom just like
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: that or whatever have their own reactions to that. So
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: then everyone's trying to figure out how to survive in
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: this environment, either by supporting the lead, that's some roles
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: that some people take on. They'll support the leader no
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: matter what. Some of them keep getting kicked. and stay
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: there anyway. Some people say, I'm out. Everyone reacts in
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: their own different way based on their own history, their
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: own current experience, and of course, the logistics and reality
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: around if you have kids, you can't do without a
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: break in your pay, whatever your financial situation is that
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: you need to make sure stays the way it is,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: or whether you have the wherewithal to be able to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: take a break and leave this toxic job while you're right?
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: So all of this is integrated, working together. Again, it's
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: amazing when you get anything done.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: It's so much and so layered, you know, it's our
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: own reactions to relationships and our own history and response
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: to stress and all of these different variables. And then,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: of course, I mean, being able to just leave is
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: such a privilege. And I think especially, you know, in
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: this day, the economy is getting weird and sometimes people
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: feel in a very real way, trapped in a situation
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: that isn't.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Good for them, like mentally and emotionally.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: And so I guess, you know, what would you say
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: to someone who is trying to figure out that first question, right?
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Is this a truly hostile, irredeemably dysfunctional work environment? And
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: do I need to do whatever I need to do
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: to get out of here before this really starts to
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: impact me mentally and emotionally versus what I think is
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: also possible to do of like, well, you know, it's
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: not that bad. And, you know, some days are better
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: than others. And maybe I'm just being too sensitive. And
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: maybe I need to try a little bit harder. I mean,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: I know that I've been in so many situations and
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: working relationships where I'd be like, well, you know, and
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: kind of like keep things going for longer, but long-term.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Often at the expense of myself.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: So what would you say to someone who's like trying
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: to sort that out.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: When to hold them, when to fold them?
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So first just a terminology clarification. So you
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: mentioned hostile work environment and toxic work environment. Toxic work
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: environment is kind of a a casual way that people
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: can talk about it. It doesn't feel casual, but that's
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: not a specific term. The hostile work environment can be
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a legal term.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't realize that.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: So if you're talking to your boss, for example, and saying,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: this is a toxic work environment that comes across very
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: differently than this is a hostile work environment. Hostile work
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: environment raises the red flag of This is a legal
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: issue and someone is claiming discrimination or harassment or something else.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: So hostile work environment has that specific meaning. Now, it
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: could be you're talking to your boss about this and
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: they don't know any of this either. And so it
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: goes right over their head. But I just wanted to
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: just to caution around being precise when you're using hostile
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: work environment that has a very specific meaning. It could
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: be that you want to use that term because you
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: want to escalate this issue and let people know how
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: serious it is. But just want to take that terminology
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: part out of the way.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Thank you for explaining that to me.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize that. But that also makes sense that
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: there's like overt hostility, abusive behavior, sexism, racism. Right.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: That takes it to a different level. OK.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: And it's as a legal term, it's not just someone's
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: being sexist. It's that someone is violating your civil rights
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: in your work for a healthy and safe work environment
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: or that they are attacking you or hurting you because
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: of some aspect of identity that's protected because of your
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: gender or your race or religion or something like that. Now,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I do work with a lot of people who are
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: leaving or considering leaving. And one of the issues is
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: that people have to work out. Back to your question is,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: is this tolerable? Is this not tolerable? Is this illegal?
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And it could be some combination of those three, which
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: can reflect how you, it can impact how you want
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to proceed. I think similarly, as we're clarifying things, Clarifying
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: that HR is there to protect the organization. I love
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: my colleagues in HR. They are wonderful people. And technically,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: they're there to help the organization, not to help the individuals.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Many of them are wonderful. And if you have a
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: question about whether you are being illegally discriminated against or
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: harassed at work, it's usually better to get your own
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: legal read on it. hire someone private just for a consultation,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: at least. Usually that can happen at a pretty low
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: cost way. But just to have an outside opinion, because
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: everything that HR is looking at is going to be
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: filtered through the lens of how responsible the organization may
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: be for this behavior and how to make it go away.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So again, I love HR. They're valid work that they're doing.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, as an individual worker or
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: as a leader, making sure sometimes it's really helpful to
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: get your own outside opinion.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for saying that, you know, you're,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: you're such an expert in this space. And of course, like,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: as you say this out loud, I'm like, yeah, but
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: I actually hadn't thought about that before. And I'm glad
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: that you are saying this out loud because I think
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: sometimes the, um, story that people tell themselves is that
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: HR is like kind of the adult in the room
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: and might advocate on their behalf.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: And you're like, yeah, they're not your friend. They're not
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: here for you. And not that they wouldn't try.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure that there are lovely people, but at
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, they're on the company dime
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: and it's okay. Well, then additionally for our friends here
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: in this conversation, and you've been in so many different
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: organizational environments, Can you paint us a picture or provide
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: a couple of examples of the actual hostile workplace behaviors
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: that you've seen that do rise to the significance of
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: being illegal, just in case somebody listening to this might
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: be in that situation so that they can begin to
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: build that?
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay. Yeah. Sure. Sure. So there's sexual harassment, which
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: could be quid pro quo, meaning if you do this
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: sexual act for me or whatever, then I will promote
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: you or not get you in trouble or fire you.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Super gross. Yeah. There's also sexual harassment that's related to
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a hostile work environment, like having pinups around or a
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: lot of raunchy language. That kind of thing can be
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: considered a hostile work environment. And then there's also unlawful discrimination. Again,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: not a lawyer. but unlawful discrimination related to your identity.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: So if you are, as a woman, if you're not
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: being provided the same opportunities as men are, if there's
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: significant pay disparity that's not associated with experience or performance,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: but seems only to be associated with your gender or
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: your race or your religion or something like that. There's
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: also restrictions on what companies can do related to pregnancy
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know this part very well because I have
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: not had that experience, but there are certain times that
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: a company can't fire you solely because you're pregnant. Now,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: this is going way out like There's a whole lot
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of this that I don't know and would love to hear.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: You have a podcast with a lawyer on this kind
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: of thing. These are the kinds of things that come
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: up when I'm coaching with people. And kind of like
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: as a clinician, you have to be aware of, oh,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: is there a point at which I need to call
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Child Protective Services or 911 or someone else as a
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: consultant and as a coach? I have that perspective as
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: well as what's ringing the bell or raising the flag
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: for being a potential legal issue that I may feel
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to address it because I'm not a lawyer,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: but I can say this is a potential legal issue
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and I would recommend that you seek legal counsel at
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: minimum to understand an external point of view on it
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: from someone who's on your side. And then second, to
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: understand your options better. So what's happened a lot, what
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: I see a lot is I think, so a client
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: comes in and says, all right, I think my workplace
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: is hostile. And they describe all kinds of awful things.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Someone told me about their department moved to a new
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: building and somehow all the junior people who also happened
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: to be women were put in the basement. And then
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: all the senior people who also happened to be men
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: were on the top floor. And they complained and said,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: this isn't fair. And they said, no, it's just junior senior.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: That's all. Until a junior man was hired and miraculously
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: he showed up on the top floor.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: He ascended.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, by magic. So, you know, is that actionable? I
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: don't know. You'd have to talk to a lawyer about that.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: But that kind of behavior is something where I see
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: that a lot where people are thinking, is this kind
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of is this illegal or not illegal? Step one. Step two,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: do I potentially have a case? And then step three,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: is it worth bringing up a case or should I
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: just leave?
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Meaning leave that department and go to a different department
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: or leave the organization altogether. And again, as a coach
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and a consultant, I can only help with part of
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: those questions. But I think identifying the issues and raising
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: them and advising my client to look into some of
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: those pieces can often be helpful.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Well, and so helpful just, you know, to hear you
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: articulate these examples, because I think like, you know, relationship
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: red flags, like what are, you know, like, no, that's
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: actually really not okay. Is that I think many times
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: workplace issues and workplace relationships just don't get enough as
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: much airtime in our culture.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: And I think many.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Times when people are dealing with a very challenging occupational situation,
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: I don't hear this kind of thing discussed as openly.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: And so even just to like bring, bring it into
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: the light, just, you know, while we're on this topic
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: and then we'll move on, but you mentioned a couple
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: of times that it can be helpful to bring up
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: outside legal counsel.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: And as a.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Middle-class kid, the first thing that comes to my mind
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: is like, you know, that in itself.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Can be so expensive.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: And especially if you're not in a role where you
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: get paid a lot of money, are there organizations that
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: exist that connect people? workers, I mean, I know that
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: there's like professional unions that somebody might be part of
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: that have legal opportunities, but are there legal funds or
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: organizations where like anybody can go to for this kind
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: of support that you know of?
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: So one of the best, it's a great question and
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: this comes up a lot. So one of the things
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: that I recommend is Google best employment lawyer in your
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: city or your area. Most of them we'll give you
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: either 15 or 30 minutes free consultation.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: And I think the way to use that consultation the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: best way is to focus on what is, is there
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a legal issue here? Do I have a case? And
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: then what can I do about it? Rather than the
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: emotional experience of it, which can be shared with your coach,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: with your friend, with your family, But when you're talking
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: to the lawyer, the focus is not on, and another thing,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: not on processing it, it's on saying, is there a
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: legal case?
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And then if the answer is yes, then
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: they might be able to help you move that forward. Right.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: And help you find representation if you decide you want
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: to move forward with it that you can afford. And
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: there are places like a lot of law schools have
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: low cost clinics or provide free services that can help.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: There are other places that support different groups, like some
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: services that work with pregnant and parenting women. There's some
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: services that work with Latinos in the workplace, like different
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: kinds of groups like that, that, that can be sought.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: But the first question is, is there a case? Can,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: should I consider, can I consider moving this forward? Whether
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you want to or not is a totally different situation
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: because many times I would say just about everyone that
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I've worked with, thinking back, has declined to do any
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: legal action whatsoever. Kind of the most level would be
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: file a union grievance if they're in a union organization.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: But most people do not want to sue the organization
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: because of a perception or reality that's going to make
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a target of them for getting a new job, for
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: additional leadership roles and things like that. And I can't
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: say that's true, not true, but the perception is definitely high.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: There will be consequences and to future opportunities. But I
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: think also in the short term, I mean, my gosh,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: just putting yourself through all of that. And, you know,
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: I could understand being like, you know what.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: I'm just moving on.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you for talking us through this. And we
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: need to take a quick break. But on the other
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: side of this, I would love to hear your thoughts.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: About this other gray area, you know, you're in a situation,
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: it is not feeling good. It is not working well.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: And it is not a hostile work environment. And there
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: might also be opportunities to improve the situation that you
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: are in by pulling some of those levers of power
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: that many people don't even realize they have. On the
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: other side of the break, can we talk about that?
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Amazing.
• 26:47
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• 26:50
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• 26:52
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• 26:55
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• 26:58
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• 27:00
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• 27:20
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• 27:40
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• 27:48
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• 28:47
  Speaker 1: So, Dr.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: Jennifer Wisdom, we were just talking about, you know, genuinely toxic,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: like next level glaring red light employment situations that are
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: like not okay.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: You need to get out.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: But there is also this whole other category of workplace
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: experiences that can be very difficult, certainly even distressing.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: But.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: that are maybe not actually a sign you need to
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: push the eject button and get out of there, but
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: rather an opportunity to exercise some of your personal power
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: and work towards positive change. Can you give us some
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: examples of those?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So whenever you're faced with the example, a
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: messed up work situation, to use the technical term here,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: messed up work situation, you can start withdrawing to either
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: just clock in, clock out, do your job, and maybe
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: even leave or move to another department or move to
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: another organization. Or there's the opportunity to do the things
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: that you're talking about, which is try to fix the
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: situation in some way. So people have a lot more
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: power than they think they do. And especially if someone
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: is a supervisor at some level, there's even more power.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: So the first set of power is if you're a supervisor,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: you can't control the whole organization, but you can create
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: a nice little bubble of your team that is respectful
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and kind and fun and whatever you want to create
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: for your culture. So I have been in organizations and
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I've coached people where There are five people, them and
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: their four direct reports have a tight team, even if
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: everything else is chaotic and crazy. So that's one thing
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: you can do. Second, even if you're not a supervisor,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: you can still improve the culture of where you work
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: by doing some simple things. So, for example, one of
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the things I always advocate doing is say something nice
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: about someone else in front of someone else. So I
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: could tell our mutual colleague, oh, hey, Lisa, Dr. Bobby
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: did this thing and it was wonderful and it was amazing.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: So then that person feels really good and they're probably
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: going to tell you and then you're going to feel
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: good and then everybody feels good. You can really change
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the culture that way by changing it from, did you
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: see that thing Dr. Bobby did? She really screwed up.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: That's a very different culture than pointing out good stuff.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Even if Even if things are chaotic and crazy, making
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: it a point to identify good stuff and to say
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: good things about people, it gets back to them and
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: it really does have a positive impact on the culture.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: So those are two things.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: And you know what you're talking about too, though, is
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: just like small things any of us can do that
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: just changes the vibe.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: And that you're saying that that actually goes a long
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: way in making people feel better about the situation and
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: just being kind and pleasant and fun and looking for
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: the positives and emphasizing what's good.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's reframing basic clinical psychology stuff, but
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: it works in a workplace too.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: That's really cool. Thank you for sharing that.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Some other things you can do, regardless of your role,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: are around asking questions and trying to obtain clarity. You
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: have to walk a line with this because you don't
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: want to be the one asking all the pointed questions
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: and stirring up too much stuff. But you can always
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: ask questions. Help me understand what it is we're specifically
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: trying to accomplish. Can we walk through what you expect
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: to see from us? What would success look like on
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: this activity? How can we get everybody in the same
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: room to be on the same page about this issue?
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Can we go over the strategy again? Things like that
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: help essentially clarify to everyone what the ideas are and
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: what the assignment is, what success looks like. Those things
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: can be really helpful. Again, you can be the most
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: junior person in the room and ask that question. Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: That giving someone in a leadership or management position the
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: opportunity to articulate their hopes and goals just to create
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: clarity for you, but also for other people on the team, particularly.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: Let me not assume this.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Let me just ask. Would you say that that.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Is oftentimes one of the hidden culprits that create difficult
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: work environments is maybe people in a leadership or a
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: supervisory situation not fully articulating or communicating clearly?
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: What is it they want?
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Is that part of it? Yep. So I worked for
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: someone who would say, I'd like you to do X.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: And I would do X to the best of my
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: ability and give it back. And he would say, no,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: that's not what I was looking for. And so I
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: would say, help me understand what you're looking for. And
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: he would say, well, you're the expert. You should know.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: So after going around in circles for decades, quite a
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: few times on that situation, we weren't able to get
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: to a place where he could articulate what he wanted
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: so that I could do it. I was happy to do,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: just tell me what you want and I'll do it.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: You asked me to do what I thought I should do.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: So I did that. I am the expert and that's
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: why I gave you what I gave you, but you
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: didn't like that. So that's an example of a, of
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: a communication challenge and potentially a specificity challenge on the
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: part of the senior person where If they don't know
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: what they want, it's going to be really hard for
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: the staff to be successful. And if I switch places
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: for a moment, I have had times when I'm the
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: leader and I'm faced with realizing I didn't communicate very
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: well to the staff what I wanted because I'm not
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: sure what I want. But when that's the case, I
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: have to make sure that I don't kind of punish
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the staff for not reading my mind. If I don't
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: know what I want, how are they supposed to do it?
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: So that's on me as the leader in that situation
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: to increase my own clarity. But a lot of people
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: don't do that. They just operate under this operant conditioning of,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: how's this? No, not what I wanted. How's that? No,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: not what I wanted either. Okay, what do you want?
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Quit asking me questions. You know, it can be a
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: real challenge. And we come back to, depending on how
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: we grew up and what our families were like, that
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: can be really harmful. It can also make us want
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: to withdraw. It can make us really angry. It can
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: make us blame ourselves. There's all kinds of ways that
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: people react to that particular unhealthy dynamic.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Okay. So say that you're in that situation that, well,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: and I can see this from a few different angles.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: And I think that We could certainly talk about people
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: who are employees in this dynamic, but I think also,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: you know, sometimes people that are in a supervisory role
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: or employers, because I feel like, I mean, so much
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: of certainly America, I mean, it is powered by small
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: businesses and people oftentimes in these business situations who frequently,
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: you know, were good at a job, but maybe didn't
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: have leadership training or management training, right? So that there
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: could be a skills gap there. But so what would
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: you say to an employee who is in that kind
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: of crazy making dynamic? They don't know exactly what to do.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: So they try to do their best and no matter
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: what it is, their first is like, no, that's not
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: right either. But I don't know what I want. Just
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: do it.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Do something else.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: What do you do for that? Just Is it asking
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: someone to articulate their hopes and asking questions or are
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: there other strategies?
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: So you can try asking questions around, like naming the issue.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: And I think of this, so for psychologists, we would
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: say we have the content of the conversation and we
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: have the process of the conversation. So switching from content,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: what you want in this report, to the process. I
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: notice we're doing a lot of back and forth and
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: what I'm providing you doesn't seem to be helping you.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: but also I'm not understanding how I can meet what
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: you need. Can we talk about this going back and forth?
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Because it seems like it's frustrating for both of us.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: So kind of moving from content to process. That's hard.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Not everybody is open to that. It's definitely not the
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: most comfortable conversation to initiate, especially as a junior person,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: but sometimes senior people aren't really open to it and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: they would shut it down. Like, Well, it's not about
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: we don't need to talk about this. It's just you
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: need to do the thing or whatever. So that can
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: be a challenge. Yeah. Other things that would be helpful
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: for a person in that situation would be find support
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and ask some questions of your colleague or a mentor
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: or someone who's not in your chain of command around.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Here's what I'm doing. Here's what's happening. Help me understand,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: you know, do you have any suggestions for how I
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: can think about this differently? Because it's very possible the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: junior person's missing something major. They don't see the context.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Something else is going on. So getting an outside point
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: of view can be helpful. And then similarly, I would
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: say if there are more people than just you experiencing this,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: see if there's a way to have a conversation together
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: that's not a complain fest. That's not what this is about.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: But are we having the same kind of conversation? Is
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: there a way that as a group we can focus
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: on this or that we can support each other? So
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: I'll give an example. When I was in a work
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: environment where all the senior people were men, all the
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: junior people were women, and the boss of everybody was
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: pretty sexist and gross, the women in the group, which
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I was one, we would defend each other. So if
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the boss attacked one person, one of us would step
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: in and say something and defend them or ask a
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: question or divert the attention to something else. And then
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: if someone attacked someone else later, somebody else would. So
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: it wasn't always the same. It wasn't always each of
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: us individually having to defend ourselves. It was all of
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: us collectively protecting each other. Now, it's beautiful.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: How awful that you were in that.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Sorry, I'm like having a reaction to even hearing this story,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: but okay.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is awful. It is awful. And this is
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: a person who, one of my least favorite lines was,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: you know, we did an interview with this candidate. We
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: did an interview with these two candidates. The guy seems
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: like he's ready to go, but you know, the woman
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: has a bun in the oven. So, you know, how
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: able to get started is she going to really be?
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I think we need to consider that, which is technically illegal,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: but whatever. So that kind of thing. Or when someone
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: was pregnant with their second child, this person said, oh,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I thought you were serious about your career. Just drippingly
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: gross stuff. The guys in the room didn't help. They
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: didn't do anything or stand up when they saw these things.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: So I would add one more thing that you can do.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: If you are in a position of power as a supervisor,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: as a dude, as someone who has Any kind of
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: cultural power, if you're the white person in a room
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: full of people of color, speak up.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: Speak up.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Because you may think that it doesn't mean anything, but
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: it means so much to people who are getting harassed
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: or bothered or treated poorly. And I think you don't
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: have to, you know, punch them in the nose or anything,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: although sometimes that would be appreciated. But I think at
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: a minimum saying something like, hey, I don't understand what's
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: going on here. can you help me understand? That's always
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: a good kind of neutral way to stick your nose
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: in the situation. Or saying, hey, that didn't sound right.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that's not what you meant. Or something. And
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: you could go to be even more direct of, whoa,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: not okay, which I have said in a work environment.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: We don't talk like that here. That's not okay. So
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: when you are in a position of power, doing your
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: best to A, notice, and then B, protect and try
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: to help the other people, the junior people.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because I could also see in a lot of
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: workplace situations, there's that bystander effect where people are all
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: standing there witnessing something really crazy happening, but sort of
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: that group paralysis and just the silence. And what you're
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: saying is to have courage in those moments. And even
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: if it doesn't feel like you have a ton of
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: power to consider the fact that you may have more
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: power or privilege than some people in that dynamic and
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: throw your weight behind, you know, the doing the right
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: thing and be brave about it.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And as long as that's consistent with your values.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: And I think the challenge comes up when people are afraid,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: which happens. We see this in our current political situation.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: People are afraid that if they stand up, that they're
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: going to be the next target. And that may be
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: the case. But to me, when I'm in that situation,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I think I'd rather stand up than let this more junior,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: more vulnerable person get hurt. Because I can take it
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: and they can't. Or it means it's less hurtful to
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: me than it is to them because they're in such
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: a vulnerable position. And I've had bosses say, why are
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: you doing that? Don't stand between someone who's a client
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: who's complaining and your staff. Just let the client have
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: at the staff. And I thought, no, but the staff
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: didn't do anything wrong. So it depends on your value
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: system and what is important to you. Right.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: Right. Well, in so many situations, can you live with
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: yourself at the end of the day and almost the
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: moral injury that can happen when you don't and that
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: in that silence are complicit in something bad happening to
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: someone else? Yeah.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I imagine there will be a lot of people who
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: work in politics that are seeking therapist support for moral injury. Yeah.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: So... Dr. Jennifer Wisdom, I have heard you say that
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: you don't need permission to improve your organization.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: On the other side of this next break, will you.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: Tell us more about that?
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: So You guys, especially this time of year, there is
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: way too much going on for any of us to
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: keep track of unless we are using tools. At my house,
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: it's Skylight. We have it sitting on the kitchen counter.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: All those school emails, you can just forward them to
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: the Skylight account and it will put them in your
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: calendar for you.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: And even better.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: you get a notification pop up right where everyone sees it.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: And this is a whole system.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: It is a smart calendar that syncs seamlessly with all
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: the things Google, Apple, Outlook, and more, giving you customizable
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: views for daily, weekly, or monthly planning. And you can
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: manage chores, grocery lists, menus, while assigning colors for each
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: of your family members. Families are better when they're working together.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: And right now, Skylight is offering our listeners 30% off
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com slash LHS. Go
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: to myskylight.com slash LHS for 30% off your 15-inch calendar.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: That is myskylight.com slash LHS for 30% off your 15-inch calendar.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: I sat down to record a promo for our valued sponsor, Quince,
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: and realized once again, I am wearing a Quince dress
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: to work. These are my favorite clothes. They're fantastic because
• 45:02
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• 45:06
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• 45:09
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• 45:28
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• 45:30
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• 45:34
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• 45:42
  Speaker 3: That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash L-H-S. So we're back with Dr.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: Jennifer Wisdom, organizational psychologist, founder of Wisdom Consulting, and truly
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: an organizational expert. And Dr. Jennifer, just before we took
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: this last break, you were about to tell us how
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: you don't need permission to improve your organization and what
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: that means to you and how it is practiced. How
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: do we embody that? Yeah.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I strongly believe you don't need permission to
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: ask questions. You don't need permission to try to identify
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: mismatches or misalignment or miscommunication to fix a process that
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: is not working very well. Might need to work with
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: some other people on that. But in general, there are
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: ways to make progress without asking permission. You don't need
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: permission to make an SOP, standard operating process. to make
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: a checklist of these are the things we're looking for
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: and then share it with your colleagues if you want.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: You're not saying everyone has to use it, but you're
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: creating a tool that can be helpful for people. You
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: don't need permission to do any of that. You also
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: don't need permission to improve yourself. A lot of people
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: get very frustrated that their organizations don't offer more professional development.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: There is tons of professional development opportunities available online from
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: online courses to workshops plenty of books and podcasts like
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: this one about improving how you understand yourself, how you
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: operate at work. You don't need anybody's permission to do that.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: Well, just then on that note, what are some of
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: your favorites? And give us some use cases. What would
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: be an example of a professional development that someone could
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: just access?
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: And for what?
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: Because I think there's sometimes a skills-based professional development. How
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: do you become better at whatever specific thing it is
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: that you do? But then there are also these more
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: macro things.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: What are some of your favorites? Sure, sure. So I'll
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: use a couple of examples from my life. So one,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: when I realized I had an interest in academic administration,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: I started reading everything I could find on academic administration.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: How do I know what works? Understanding what the provost
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: office does as an assistant professor. I didn't even know
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: what the provost was. kind of how are organizations structured
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: and how do they work? Where do things go wrong?
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: I could read all about that. When I was in
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: another sticky situation, I read everything I could get my
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: hands on, on negotiation, because that seemed like a sticking
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: point for me. I went to trainings whenever I could
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: go to trainings, a leadership program or training for managers
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: or whatever, many times there are programs available online. If
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: you have any funding that your organization can provide, even
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: if you only get $ 100 a year or something, you
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: can use that to buy some books or go to
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: a training online or do something to make that training
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: worthwhile for what you're dealing with. So I would say
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: the first part is identify what skills do I need
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: skills or knowledge do I need? Do I need to
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: learn to code or get better at Claude or get
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: better at negotiation or get better at saying no? And
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: then how can I find resources with those? And again,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: there's books, there's podcasts, there's Coursera, there's plenty of places
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to find that information once you identify it. And then
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: just dive in. I mean, six months from now, you
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: could do nothing and you'll still be stuck. Or you
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: can read a bunch of stuff and six months from now,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: you'll be much better than you were.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And that whether or not you stay in
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: that position and work to improve that organization from the
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: inside out, or take all that and, and bring it
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: with you into the next situation, you will still benefit
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: from that.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: That's really good advice.
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Okay. So then, you know, before we end, let's talk
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: about this from the other perspective, because I think we've
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: been talking about what, you know, perhaps lower level or
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: kind of mid-level people can do to improve the organization
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: around them. But I know that so much of your
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: work and and maybe you could even share more about
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: this in our last few minutes, but is coming in
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: as an organizational consultant that's been hired by an owner
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: or a leadership team to talk about how to create
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: systemic improvements that arguably are easier for someone in a
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: leadership position who has more authority to change the system
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: to do. But what are some examples of ways that
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: you have seen leaders need to develop themselves in order
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: to create a better environment for everyone and.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: Probably better outcomes for their business as well.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Where do you start? Sure, sure. So one way for
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: leaders to improve things is to get some data. So
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: this could be in a large organization. It could be
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: getting a pulse survey, they're sometimes called, or an employee survey.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Many times organizations or leaders don't want to do this
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: because they're afraid of what it's going to show. better
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: deal with the devil, you know, than having to guess
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: at what the situation is. And then you'll be able
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: to have some identity, be able to identify what the
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: main issues are. Are we looking at an engagement issue?
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Are we looking at a culture issue? Are we looking
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: at a skills issue? Because those are very different things.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: Another way, especially for smaller organizations or for smaller teams,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: would be to have the leader just talk to the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: people that are involved. Sometimes I don't see this at all.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Like I see leaders who have never talked to all
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: their staff, who don't necessarily know their staff's name. Now,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: of course, if you have thousands of people reporting to you,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: that's a different situation. But you can ask the people
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: below you or the people below them to have these conversations.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I recommend when people take on a new leadership position
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: with a medium-sized group, like under 100 direct reports, have
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: a conversation with each of those people. It might take
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: a couple of months, but... Have a 30 minute conversation.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Tell them what's coming. Just want to meet for a
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: half an hour. I want to hear about what you do.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: I want to hear about what's working well. I want
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: to hear about what's not working well and how I
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: can be most helpful. That conversation, I took over a
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: position that had about 60 or 70 direct reports. It
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: took a few months. And my assistant had administrative assistant
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: pushed back and said, why don't we just do this
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: in a group? And I said, no, individual, individual. I
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: learned so much. Most people had never had the opportunity,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: even if they've been there for 10 years, to talk
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: to the person who was in my position. They never
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: got asked what's working and not working. They never had
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: that kind of connection. And at the end of each conversation,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: I'd say, if there's anything you need, please talk to
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: your supervisor. If you don't get what you need, feel
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: free to continue to escalate. And I'm happy to hear.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: And people did not abuse that at all. But multiple
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: people said, I really appreciate it. that you took the
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: time to talk to me, to hear about what's going on.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: And then it became pretty clear, you know, that was
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: just talking with staff. And then I also talked with
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: customers and I talked with our collaborators and colleagues. I
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: started putting all the problems on a whiteboard around things
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: we needed to address. And then I needed to get
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: a bigger whiteboard because there were so many.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: Things, but then so many problems.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: And then I was pretty transparent about it around. I
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: started going out to the different customer groups and, And
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: with a slideshow and say, all right, here's who I am.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Here's who we are. Here are things we know are
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: wrong that we're working on. And that was because it
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: was a lot of stuff that was wrong. Here's who
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: we want to be. We want to be the best
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: customer service in this organization. That when you think great
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: customer service, you think of us. And usually when I
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: said that people would laugh because it was laughable because
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: we were at the bottom. But after a while. We
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: got it up there and people did start saying, wow,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: you have good customer service. There are lots of things
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: to do to be able to make that change. Too
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: many for us to talk about here, unfortunately, but there's
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: so many things that leaders can do to make the
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: environment better. And that's not just a pizza party or
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: a wave or something like that. Seeing people as they
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: are and trying to help them be successful is really helpful.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: That's where it all begins.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: And so I know that our time today has come
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: to a close. And so thankfully, you have written a
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: book that goes into all of this and.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: More in great detail. So why don't we end there?
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: If people want to go even deeper into this and,
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: you know, as either employees or leaders, start figuring out
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: how to turn this around. Where would they go to
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: learn more about you and your work?
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: So this is, I realized right as you were talking,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: this has been a lifelong passion for me. So I
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: actually have three books that address these before. So the
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: one that's coming out in August is called Administrative Intelligence,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: The Leader's Guide to Operational Clarity and Scalable Change. And
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: that one's focused on people who are interested in making
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: change in their organization, regardless of what their role is.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: So that one contains a lot of stuff that we
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: talked about. I also have a book coming out this
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: fall in, I think, November around what goes wrong. It's
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: called When Leading Hurts, Understanding and Healing from Traumatic Experiences
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: of Leadership. So things like harassment and being discriminated against
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: and being undermined and things that may not meet that
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: legal threshold that are damaging to your sense of self
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: and your sense of yourself as a leader as well.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I'll put two more that are oldies but goodies, oldies
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: meaning like five years ago, But I wrote a book
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: about leaving because I have left a lot of places.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: It's called Leaving Revolution, How We're Learning to Let Go
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: and Move On. That talks us through the process of leaving.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: I interviewed more than 100 people about their experience considering
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: leaving or leaving. And one little nugget that I especially
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: love is not a single one of them regretted leaving.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: They might have regretted not leaving earlier, but nobody regretted leaving.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: So there's that. And then finally, the Millennials Guide to
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: Management and Leadership and Millennials Guide to Work. And there's
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: a Gen Z Guide to Work. These were some pandemic
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: project books that I put together that have a lot
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: of aspects around how do I do the nuts and
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: bolts of leadership? How do I build a team? How
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: do I manage if my team members are really gossipy?
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: What do I do if my boss doesn't mentor me?
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Things like that. So thanks for letting me pitch all
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: those books. Everything's available.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: But you're such a wealth of information. I mean, all
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: this personal experience, but everything that you've done.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: Dr.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: Jennifer Wisdom of Wisdom Consulting. I hope all these books
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: are available on your website.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: They are on my website at the Administrative Intelligence and
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: When Leading Hurts are coming out this fall. As soon
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: as they're available for pre-order, that'll be on my website too,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: which is leadwithwisdom.com.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: Leadwithwisdom.com.
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: This was such a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: for sharing your, am I going to say it? I'm
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: going to say it, sharing your wisdom with us.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: If you are feeling inspired by what we talked about today,
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: if you're ready to go deeper, whether it's in your relationship,
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: your own personal development, or maybe even your bigger sense
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: of purpose, I would love to help you. Come visit
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: me at growingself.com. I have so many free resources for you,
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: but you can also just schedule a free consultation. with
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: one of the amazing licensed therapists on my team who,
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: like me, specialize in evidence-based coaching psychology.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: You can do that.
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: You can also explore the programs that we have designed
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: for you to create real and lasting change in your
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: life in a structured, step-by-step way. And do not forget
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: to go into my blog and podcast, my content collections.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Where you can find.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: Exactly what you need to support your journey of growth.
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: And hey, let's also stay connected. If we're not already connected,
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: come track me down. I am on Instagram periodically and
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: would love to hear from you. Or if you have
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: a question or comment about the show, just email me.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: Get in touch.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: Hello at growingself.com. All right, until next time, you take
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: care and keep growing.