Latest / Workplace Confessions: Behind Closed Doors / Meet the Author of 'The Myth of the Fearless Leader'

Transcript

Meet the Author of 'The Myth of the Fearless Leader' · Workplace Confessions: Behind Closed Doors

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Elsa Barbie.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Don Andrews.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: We have been friends since sixth grade.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between a car wash job, a few questionable boy choices, and 40 years of friendship, we became the kind of people who always want to know what was really going on, including at work.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Don spent 25 years as an employment lawyer digging into workplace drama from the inside out.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: I built a long career in the beauty industry as a brand educator with a few TV cameos sprinkled in for fun.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: We came up in very different industries, but we have the same passion.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Meeting new people and asking how they got their jobs, what they love, what they can't stand, and what happens behind closed doors.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Every episode, we talk to a new guest about their lived experience in the world of work.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: And because our guests stay anonymous, they can spill the truth without the fallout.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: We get into the choices they made, the tiny cruelties, the surprise kindnesses, and some of the moments that never make it into human resources reports.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Equal parts informative and titly.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: This show stirs up all the tea while honoring the incredible, complicated, often messy work people are doing across the industries and across the map.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Let's get into it.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Let's start at the beginning.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: What was your first paying job?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember my exactly my first job.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: What I can tell you is I had a couple different starts as a teenager.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the job that I remember as a part of that path was a place called Lee Ward's.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I totally remember Lee Ward.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: What is that?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a department store ish kind of thing, isn't it?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so think about what's the name of so think about Michael's or think about what's the other one?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Holly Hobby or Hobby Store.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hobby Lobby.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hobby Lobby.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or Joanne's Fabrics.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so it was like a combination of that.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember being able to buy clothes there, but that was the store.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was a place I worked.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I also worked at Burger King and Taco Bell.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the three probably first jobs I had.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember what order.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us what do you do now?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So now I am an organizational development practitioner, coach, motivational speaker, and convener.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And convening being bringing individuals together to have dialogue about some of the stuff that's a little bit harder to talk about, but creating a safe place for people to have that conversation in groups.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's awesome.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: And now the next question would be tell us about your journey to your current position from Burger King, babysitting, Taco Bell.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was a truly a zigzag path.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I another one of the earlier things I did was I helped my mom.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't smart enough about what I was necessarily doing until later on in life and how it tied to my in life.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I helped my mom and dad with our family newspaper.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what that entailed was me folding up bills for customers or vendors so that they would pay us.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it was an invoicing process.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that also required tearing out ads from the newspaper to put it in with the invoice and sending that to the client so that they saw their ad as well as understood the bill.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I bring that up because different parts of my life since then, whether it was Burger King or Lee Wards or other earlier on jobs, put me in a place where I established a foundation of responsibility and loyalty.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: That being more or less the connectivity that I had to the work that I was doing for mom and dad in order to support the business.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't our direct business.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was a business that was created by my grandfather.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then my grandmother inherited it.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then so forth.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then now it's owned by, or not owned, but CEO is my cousin.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that I will say that I learned later in life was just the importance of education.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was really ingrained in my head.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And while I wasn't a fabulous high school student, I did figure out as I went into my undergraduate studies, my last two years, because I had my first two years at a community college trying to figure things out.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I then transitioned to a historical black college in Atlanta, Georgia, and finished relatively okay in terms of grades or GPA.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the time, I what thought I would go to law school.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And instead, I became a paralegal, worked in a law firm for a period of time, and realized that practicing law was not what I wanted to do, more or less because of the time commitment.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a mentor who really was observant in terms of my interests, my likes, and she encouraged me to pursue or look into human resources.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I later got a fax document from her.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that gives you a little bit of understanding of how old I am.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: But she gave me a piece of paper with a job on it, and it was a paralegal position in a in Honeywell.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the person that I would be reporting to was the chief ethics officer, but she also led up the HR council.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was an opportunity for me to get into HR indirectly and still leverage my paralegal experience.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got the job.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I applied for it, got it, and worked there for about two years.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Would have been there perhaps longer, but unfortunately or fortunately, because I think there's always opportunities out of the things that you didn't think that you would get an opportunity out of.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: The company Honeywell merged with a company called Allied Signal.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: They kept their name Honeywell and they headquartered in New Jersey.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And my former boss decided that it was best for us to part because she anticipated that at some point we would be asked to go to New Jersey.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we were laid off.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was pregnant at the time.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: I panicked.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, oh, what am I going to do?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: But actually it was a blessing because after my daughter, or excuse me, my son was born, my daughter was already born.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: After my son was born, I was able to take some time off between so for maternity leave and then up to me getting my new job.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And my new job was at Best Buy.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was, that was my first HR official job.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was hired into the shared services department and responsible for what I didn't know at the time, change management and organizational development.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: My role was that I developed the organization's second or first code of ethics, and then utilized that to help build HR policy and the employee handbook.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then eventually it became helping the organization to define its new culture by starting with mission, vision, values, behaviors, training and developing the HR professionals at Best Buy.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So pretty, I guess, impactful time for me, both from a developmental perspective, and then just it opened up places in HR that I hadn't thought that I would have the opportunity to do.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I was new in HR, but yet being a coach or partner to HR business partners, helping them to do their job better or more effective.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was given a special project that I worked on.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: They identified top talent in the organization.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was one of the fortunate folks to go into a project that was about a year and a half long.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we were responsible for looking at processes within HR that had a leader within it already, but giving them recommendations for how to improve.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so that created a transformation project or initiative that I was responsible for.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I co-led with another individual our total rewards redesign.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I decided to take a position over at Ecolab.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was a HR business partner role, an official HR business partner role.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that created then the path forward for me to continue to operate in that HR business partner capacity with a couple interruptions along the way.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So Ecolab was a business partner role.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I went from Ecolab to Medtronic and spent about six years at Medtronic and was in a variety of different roles that were both either or that were either business partner or shared services.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So operating like I did at Best Buy, but the difference was Medtronic was a global company.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was responsible for global change transformation across the organization.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't the title, but the underpinning of the work was the transformation work that I did.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then in between different stops of working in that HR business partner capacity, I also worked as a consultant.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so whether that was me starting my own consulting practice while working, and I'll get back to that in a minute, or I worked for Accenture and was an internal consultant, had clients where we were essentially doing innovative new work for HR, where they were outsourcing processes that no organization had ever done before.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I was in that early age of HR starting to outsource their work.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So did that with Accenture.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then later down the road, I worked for a company called Cook Ross, three different types of consulting companies: my own, Accenture and Cook Ross.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I started to build the path of what it was like to be a consultant.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I had the internal consulting capacity, like a HR business partner would have, and then the external path.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Frankly, this sounds very artful at this time, but during the moment, it was just things that happened, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I was intentional in terms of what positions I took.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I didn't see the pat the pattern, the two patterns that were being created until hindsight.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I'll say is that there were themes that came out of my journey that land me in today.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the themes are internal, external consulting, organizational development and transformation, leadership development, culture design, mergers and acquisitions, and leading teams.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say advising executives and from manager and above, because eventually I, for about 10 years in different organizations, I was the chief human resource officer.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the last thing I'll say about the piece that was a theme is I spent a good majority of my time in healthcare.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so now the healthcare, the internal, external consulting, coupled with being an organizational development practitioner, because eventually after I got my MB and HR, I also then went back and got my doctorate degree in organizational development.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I took all those things, bundled them up, and now I'm a consultant.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Here you are.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm a consultant of my own practice.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was at Cook Ross, one of the things I learned is I was responsible for about a dozen internal consultants.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then also I managed about 110 99 consultants.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so today I feel confident in that foundation to be able to say yes to work because I know I can partner with other people.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't say that in a way that I'm headed about it, but more or less I'm confident that I've got a network that I can identify different people to collaborate with.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Collaboration is actually one of my strengths and passions.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we can do more work together better.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is one of my sort of core principles.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I, for the last little over a year, I have now been in my own practice coming out of corporate America and loving life by design.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like literally get to design my life the way I want to.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if I can have all four of those buckets filled evenly, then I feel like I'm operating on my four wheels.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes people say, What is your niche?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And who's your ideal client?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm slightly agnostic to that.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like by by trait, because I grew up during most of my career in healthcare, that right organically and naturally fits.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a passion for healthcare.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I stayed in it for so long.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I also have another principle related to the work is that anybody that is wanting to do the work around developing themselves, their team, or their organization, I'm in for it.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm in for people who really are committed.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen both.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen even someone in between.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen them nudged to the right or the left, meaning they really want to do it or they go away.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, my next book might be about ghosting.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't do it.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I've tried to make a habit of not doing it myself.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So no is a is one is a complete sentence.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you can follow it up by thank you, and you can offer a suggestion to the person.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then hopefully that will be enough.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But saying nothing, I think illustrates that we don't value one another's time.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And on the other side, by saying no, it makes you a stronger person and uh an honest person.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So at any rate, I don't know why I got off on that tangent, but nonetheless, that ends.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I got to where I'm at.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, I'm exactly happy about that.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: I failed the book, the book that you did write already.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that book, yeah.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, but how did I write the book?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: The book, I was telling somebody else's story a little bit earlier today, actually.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the book was generated as a result of my dissertation and my doctorate program.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the impetus of it was I was a leader at the time, and my grandmother was dying of ovarian cancer.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to know how the heck other leaders felt about their fears, how did they respond, and what was their relationship with their fears?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so those literally were the questions for my dissertation.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result of being encouraged by my advisors, when I told them that I want to write a dissertation about no fears, not N-O, K-N-O-W fear, they said, do it.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I, those are the questions.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: What are your fears?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: How do you respond?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what is your relationship?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I interviewed 25 leaders at the time, myself included, because the type of research, which was grounded theory, required me to do that.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wrote it to also finish, of course, to graduate.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was a requirement.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I put it down.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, the other thing to know about my grandmother is she's the same grandmother that inherited our family newspaper, and she's the same grandmother who connected with my aunt and my parents to consider how to support my undergraduate education.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I am the benefactor of their great thoughts.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt pretty bad, frankly, with her passing and not knowing in my mind that she would not be able to see me graduate to get the final degree.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: What do they call it?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why they call it a terminal degree.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so anyway, I don't even know learning.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they call it.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 17:32
  unknown: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: You look at some applications that say, What is your terminal degree?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't exist.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, so yeah, that's that's why the dissertation was written.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then fast forward five years later, I decided to publish my book or write a book.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was encouraged by my publisher, who I met twice or fell all connected with twice.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: The first time I told her heck no, because I didn't want to write ever again.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: The second time she convinced me, obviously.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And during the time I was finishing the book, I was going through my own cancer journey.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I had been diagnosed with breast cancer, now survivor of six years.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: I always have to give that end date because people are like, How are you doing now?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm good, thankful, thankfully.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I unconsciously, I didn't know that the book was a method that helped me through my own journey.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And now that I know that or came to that realization, I have decided that I want to spread the model that comes from the book more than it being on pages.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went through a trademark process and created the trademark.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the main model is three E's, not literally, but so three you can't like trademark three just the letter E.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I trademark three E-A-S-E and then fear transformation method and model.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: What three E's is instead of fight, flight or freeze, which is how our brain operates, we are hardwired to keep ourselves safe.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so fight or freeze is there, it's present.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: We can't much do much about it, but we can create a revert mechanism in our brain where we pause to reflect, to determine how to do something different than flight or freeze.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the path that I offer is for people to engage, explore, and execute.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And engage is about acknowledging your fear, naming it, living in it, understanding it.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: The explore part is about looking at past experiences.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: What lessons can you learn?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: What successes have you had?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Have conversations with other people to create a set of things that you could do differently than flight or freeze.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And execute is about prioritizing that list of activity, action items, and executing your plan.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it actually can be used on an individual, team, and organizational level.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth kind of path that I am elevating for the world is to put it in the hands of people that are experiencing healthcare challenges so that they can expedite their path as I was fortunate to do to address my health care.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was diagnosed with breast cancer in August of 2020 or 2018 and I or excuse me, 2017.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I then went to the to get my first surgery in October.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: I had my second surgery in December.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: I decided shortly after the diagnosis and getting my team that boobs are overrated and they needed to go.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I made that decision up front.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I recognize that's a privilege.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I talked to actually not quite a year ago, a woman who was going through her breast cancer journey, and she was much younger than I was.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And for her to say that her boobs needed to be removed was much harder because she hadn't had children yet and wanted to be able to breastfeed.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's there's a different set of thoughts that you have to go through to make your decision in that situation.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: At any rate, in my experience, I was able to decide that pretty decisively.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I, as I said, my second surgery was in December.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: I had another final surgery in May.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I went through a process where they reconstruct your nipples.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I say this so candidly and transparency because it's important for the world to know these things and we don't talk about them.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I do believe that I was able to engage in the fears and worries and doubts that I had.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I gradually talked to other people when I was in that explore phase, and it's not linear, even.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Though I'm describing the steps in a linear way.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I gradually did it is because sometimes I, from an emotional perspective, I can't take on my emotions plus everybody else.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I appreciate and feel humbled when people care for me, but it's just hard when people ask you and you have to repeat the story over and over.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's taken me some time to get to a level of explaining it as I am.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then I came up with my plan and executed it.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I do believe I was the alpha test for the three E's.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I went through last year a design of a beta test for a I'll call it a convening for a hospital system and their patients to participate in it.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't able to execute it because of the funding that got pulled back.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I have a nice design that can be utilized.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then I will be creating the workshop for coaches as well as for the just anybody that would like to utilize it.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Was there ever a time in your whole career path where you regretted a decision that you made and then you pivoted the a different way?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say regret, but I have had situations where I've had a position and something in that that the role came to an end.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And surprisingly.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I and I've had that more than once.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so yes, I think your question was, have I ever had?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I was about to lead into how did I respond?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know if that's where you're gonna go.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Part B, how did you respond?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, part B, how did I respond?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, I I think every one of them I think of yeah, every I think every one of them, I cried.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was my initial reaction.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not an emotional person.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: What happened?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And people say that I actually am, but I'm not because we have emotions.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that I don't usually go there first.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: But because those experiences were like blankets pulled from underneath me, I think there are times when you can anticipate change, but I didn't anticipate any one of them.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was the part that was the hardest, is it felt like a gut punch.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: But what was great is by the time I got the fourth or the fifth punch, I'm not counting, right?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't remember how many there, there was at least four.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was bad at the end.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was able to figure out how I can how I could move on, how I would respond, what questions I needed to ask, how could I design a better way forward, even if it wasn't going to be inclusive of that job.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just got smarter.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I just am grateful that I also have a circle of people that support me.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was that a like a conference or a I think it was a conference, an organization had put on a Black History Month event, and the speaker said, always do good because you will imagine yourself or you will wind up in places that you will never imagine that you would be in.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I always tried to practice doing.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And while I've had those challenges in the past of losing a job, whether it was through a merger and acquisition or misalignment, I have landed on my feet.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about a motto, I call them also Matros.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a couple of them.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is my mom would always say, keep it moving.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: My team back at one of the companies I used to work at, a healthcare organization, created that for me.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Love that.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that was one.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I to your point of leaning in, uh, I just have been taught to keep moving.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And another one is my mom, when I graduated from my doctorate program, she got me a card.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations! Yes, I have these things handy.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, Tanya, you've shown the world that you are not going to let anyone stand in your way.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then it says, You have always made us proud.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: We have been blessed with the opportunity to love you.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, geez, my mom has to step up her game.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you need to step up your game.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: I need to step up my game, get cards like that.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: So your mom can say that to you.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're no longer present.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: I actually lost my dad in October, and mom passed in 2016 on Christmas Eve.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: But they taught me to keep it moving.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: They taught me to make sure that I don't let things stand in my way.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then the final thing is I would always hear from my mom when I'd call her with the challenge.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: She'd say, Everything's gonna be all right.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I later in life, when people would pass, for whatever reason, I started singing Bob Marley's song, The Three Little Birds, Every Little Thing is Gonna Be Can't S.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I did.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And my aunt, when my mom was in the hospital, she hadn't been talking for two or three days.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And my aunt encouraged me to go to her bedside and sing to her.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: I uh started singing the th the verse, Every Little Thing is Gonna Be All Right.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time I got to the end, the first time I said it, she sang it with me three more times.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: So lo and behold, I have a tattoo on my wrist that says, Every little thing is gonna be all right.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: The three little birds are in the tree.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about the what are the best things about what you're doing now, and then what are some of the challenges with what you're doing?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's easier to always start with the challenges, right?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll go there if you don't mind.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: The challenge is the selling part, right?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like to sell.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so alternatively, I get to build relationships, and so that's the positive side of it.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I really try to do more of that than I do with the sell part and have partners to help me with the sell piece.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing is it's one that I have more of a solution to.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think the challenge is creating structure for yourself and abiding by a path, right?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: So setting goals for yourself and actually executing because you could do nothing.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's the alternative.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I get antsy when I'm doing nothing.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I actually do less productive things when I do nothing, unless it's sleeping.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sleeping is actually pretty productive.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have I have the traditional to-do list with check boxes, and then at the beginning of every year and periodically throughout the year, I will refine my goals and make sure I'm on track with what I said I would do.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think probably the final thing, only because I'm thinking about it at this moment, is you could easily sit in a chair all day, you know, and different from working, I think, in an office and meeting with people where you're getting up and moving around.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so you just have to, or at least I've had to figure out what's my activity that I do.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a pretty avid runner, but also still I can sit in a chair for three, four hours.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what's not productive, which I find myself doing, is getting up to go get something to eat, sit back down.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so you keep it moving.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: I keep it moving, yeah.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just like you were doing if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about your industry, what would you do?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: The immediate thing that comes to mind is we just need savvier leaders.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the savvy that I'm talking about is high integrity, able to have both positive and opportunity-focused type conversations and dialogue, and a society that is receptive.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because it does it's not just a leader, but being willing to hear from people the good, the bad, the not so great, and still be in relationship in a way that honors them and the things that we do to make the lives of one another better.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that every system actually has that as an outcome.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: What they do is somehow impacting a life.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're gonna do that, we might as well try to do the do it the best way we can.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And part of that is being in better relationship with one another, just changing and just as a big word, but trying to influence people so that they can do better with respect to how they show up for one another.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now for the juicy part.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: What is the wildest, weirdest, or most unforgettable thing that you've witnessed at any of your jobs?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've dealt with a lot of employer relations issues, and I think A1, I don't know if it's the one, but A one that always got me was people who have engaged in activities that are inappropriate at work, whether it was cyberloafing and looking at pornography or saying something to someone that was not anything you would even say to your best friend.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to think if there was a specific I senior leaders, individual contributors, male, female, or however they identify have said offensive things or touched somebody inappropriately.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: These are things that just and they continue.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Part of that is sure the individual, but the other part of that is the system stuff.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere I I've not studied family and marital relations, but some of the behaviors that we see in the world are a result of what happens at home at a very young age.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's passed down from generation to generation in some cases.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's just we've got system challenges and mental health challenges that we're dealing with as a society that impact how people show up in their work environments and create those wild and crazy things.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: What would you ever consider writing a book about your cancer journey?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: There is a little bit of it in my book that I've written.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: Which is the name, what's your what's the name of your book?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's called The Myth of the Fearless Leader.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: And is it available on Amazon and wherever we have my book?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you can Audible?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: You it's coming.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now you got a listener.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll be available in the next say month or shorter, is my hope.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I hate to say the time frame because you're not quite sure what's going to happen the next day, but pretty very close.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: It there is a workbook companion.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and then the book is already out, and there's a Kindle version.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe driving.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very grateful.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't had a perfect life by any means.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has that.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I've been fortunate enough to have difficult things that have happened, and I've been able to figure out a way to see a better way forward.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the initial shock factor hurt and stung, but I don't sit in stuff too long.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think about what did I learn the hard way, I don't know.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: It comes pretty light.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that might be just how I the outlook that I have on the world.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm a definitely a glass full person.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And there are days that I have not so great days.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's generally as of late, probably the last couple decades, the days that I haven't exercised.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Other than running, how do you practice your self-care?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: I do walk and I also occasionally do yoga, but running is my vice because it's easy.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to pay nobody for it.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: I can just go outside.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: What is a myth or myths about working in HR or organizational development that makes you crazy?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I wish the field of HR could get over is the comfort that leaders have with HR being in the room.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the myth is that you can't trust HR.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: But some of that is generated by some of the practices that HR involves itself in.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's either on an individual basis or a department basis.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to tear my own practice or field down.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you an example.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes as an HR business partner, I've seen people unable to push back with a leader that's doing something that's not right.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so making decisions that are for the organization, but not for the betterment of keeping the company legal, but more or less saving face, so to speak.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: When in fact I've always prided myself andor tried to coach other HR business partners on how do you straddle the line so that you are both an advocate for the organization and an advocate for the employee.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one for sure.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And another myth might be that HR just needs to have a seat at the table.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it we it might very well have a seat at the table, but as a result of the lack of trust, there's uh challenges with HR actually being a part of or the architect with the business leader.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: As far as being an author, though, when uh what would be a myth that you would want to dispel on anybody who's listening?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll just use the title, the myth of the fearless leader, right?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like life is not about being fearless.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: We fear is a mechanism within our brain to keep us safe, and we're hardwired that way.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I've said if you're not gonna bleed or die, you might as well try.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to dispel the idea that people needed to be fearless, and so that's why the another reason why I wrote the book and give people strength and additional courage to do some things that they wouldn't ordinarily do.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: If someone's interested in your line of work, they think they might want to go into it, especially coaching.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: What would you tell them?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: How would you advise them?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have a strong opinion that I think you need the certification, or at least be a person that has worked in conjunction with someone else to learn.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: My basis for that is we wouldn't see a doctor if they weren't a licensed practitioner.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we're working on people, and so some of the things that you might do with a person while well-intended can be harmful, and so being aware of technique is important.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so being a coach is not just being a coach, and it's important to get the training and build experience, whether that's through the development of a program or with someone that can you can be an apprentice to or do some fellowship type work.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I would say.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's also too to protect the integrity of the work, right?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that people don't just all of a sudden wake up and say, I want to be a coach.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's it's more than that.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: We want to thank you so much for sharing all of the stories that you've had with us today from all your different journeys, versus personal or and professional.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: And with that, you've joined the ranks of the brave and the bold.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Tom.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're welcome.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: That was awesome.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's it for this week's confession.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: We've laughed, cringed, and maybe questioned our own career choices.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: Big thanks to our anonymous guests for keeping it real and reminding us that behind every job title is a story worth telling.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: If you've got a workplace confession of your own, we're all ears.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: Hit us up at our email address.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: Your support helps us keep the secrets flowing.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, keep your badge clicked, your coffee strong, and your stories wild.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors.