Latest / Authentic Living / Leading with a Positive Mindset with Mary Ann Boynton
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
- 0:08things that really matter in our lives.
- 0:11And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
- 0:36Hi, everyone.
- 0:36It's Roxanne Derhodge of authentically being with Roxanne.
- 0:39Thanks for tuning in again this week.
- 0:41This, today I have a a special colleague, Marianne Beaton with me.
- 0:45Hi, Marianne.
- 0:45How are you today?
- 0:47I'm great, Roxanne.
- 0:48Thanks for having me here today.
- 0:50Thanks for taking the time.
- 0:51I know what your busy schedule, you know, and, with you always not being home, it was that you
- 1:01go to accommodate.
- 1:05And, you know, in because I'm thinking of when I met Marianne would would have been, way back.
- 1:12I was with Morneau Chappell at that time when Chappell and, she worked, or was affiliated at
- 1:17that point with Greek West Life.
- 1:18So Marianne said, works with work with mental health, psychological safety, and she works
- 1:23predominantly the areas of resolving resolving conflict and building resilience.
- 1:26And she also is the director of strategy and collaboration for workplace strategies for
- 1:31mental health which provides free resources, through Canada Life.
- 1:38And she's re written multiple books around the the area of, mental health and well-being in
- 1:43the workplace.
- 1:45So, Marianne, kind of, I I know we just started to talk.
- 1:48And, Maryne, just talking about what's happening with, people having a lot of
- 1:53cancellations with the coronavirus.
- 1:56What are you finding with the fear that you're you're hearing around the elements of what's
- 2:01happening out there in the workplace with, with the coronavirus.
- 2:05Well, it's interesting because I look at, the fear around the coronavirus with the fear
- 2:12around so many things in life, whether it's climate change or it's politics or it is,
- 2:21injustice.
- 2:22And all of these things are serious concerns, and yet the level of anxiety, can be
- 2:31debilitating for some people And for other people, they can put it in perspective.
- 2:37They can say, what can I do about this?
- 2:40And if I can't do anything about it, which is usually, not the case.
- 2:46It's usually some things you can do to protect yourself or to make a difference in the world.
- 2:51But if there's nothing I can do about it, then I'm not gonna worry.
- 2:55And if there is something, I will do it, but, well, I'm not doing that particular thing
- 3:01washing my hands or making sure I stay out of crowded places then I'm going to say it is what
- 3:09it is and live my life.
- 3:12I think some people where the anxiety gets so great.
- 3:16They actually put their life on hold and spend the time with repetitive negative thought of
- 3:23fear that really take away from opportunities, for enjoying life.
- 3:31Absolutely.
- 3:32And fear is such a thing.
- 3:33Right?
- 3:33Like, you know, whether it's a there's a right sizing or a downsizing or an merger and
- 3:38acquisition or issues at home, you know, we we're all always juggling things on an ongoing
- 3:43basis, but to your point, when people start to catastrophize, And, you know, you hear about
- 3:48the things the stories about Costco and people are like they're running out of toilet paper
- 3:53and, you know, people are like having bunkers full food and all those things.
- 3:57I I, to your point, you, yes, you have to get prepared, but to what detriments are you kind
- 4:02of putting that pause button on on your life and what needs to get done until this happens.
- 4:08And, of course, it's gonna unfold like it needs to.
- 4:11Right.
- 4:11And we know of people that almost their entire adult life has been spent in fear.
- 4:18People in their 80s, in their 90s, that from the time they were very young and went through
- 4:23the depression, went through the war.
- 4:25They just believed that any minute now, the world was gonna collapse and their entire life
- 4:33was spent in fear.
- 4:35Whereas you can look at some of their peers who instead said, yeah, we went through some awful
- 4:42things, so I'm going to embrace life.
- 4:45I'm going to love people.
- 4:46I'm going to enjoy while I can.
- 4:49And I think Roxanne, that's the difference between being resilient and not being
- 4:55resilient.
- 4:56We are going to experience scary things.
- 5:00We're gonna experience tragedy or loss or all sorts of frustrations and disappointments in
- 5:09life.
- 5:10But what we want to do is when we're not having to deal with that in the present moment, we
- 5:17want to be able to lift our eyes up, lift our attitude up and enjoy what we can.
- 5:25And it's so it's so interesting.
- 5:27Right?
- 5:27Because we know with with neuroscience, like, I mean, all of us go into that fight flight or
- 5:31freeze at any given point.
- 5:32Right?
- 5:32We get triggered.
- 5:33You know, oftentimes when I will see clients, they'll say to me, help me learn how to get not
- 5:37get triggered.
- 5:38And I said, okay.
- 5:39Well, short of you and I being kinda 6 feet under, we're always gonna get triggered.
- 5:43It's kinda what we do with it and how long we kinda stay in that that fear based mode of
- 5:48protect So there's nothing that's gonna, you know, obviously healthy preparation to your
- 5:54point is very important.
- 5:56But what what happens to a lot of people, and whether I've been a manager through my life,
- 5:59and I know you've been in lots of management or director roles, and you see the differences in
- 6:05personalities of how people kind of absorb fear, and they get almost catatonic to the
- 6:10people that just kinda able to to take it in and just go with the flow.
- 6:15And, of course, with a lot of stressors that we're seeing out there, it's it's it's
- 6:19cumulative, and, we have so many things that kind of wear down at us on an ongoing So it
- 6:24really becomes our, like, the, our individual responsibility, but also within companies for
- 6:29companies to kind of think about what can they do around the issue of resilience.
- 6:34Well, you know, Roxanne, I talk about the, common enemy mistake that's made in a lot of
- 6:42organizations where in order to bond with their, directory reports, leaders may start
- 6:50saying, yes, this thing, the coronavirus is really scary.
- 6:54Yes.
- 6:55Corporate head office is really bad.
- 6:58Yes.
- 6:58The economy is sinking.
- 7:00And they believe that they're commiserating.
- 7:04But what the research shows is that if the leader is expressing hopelessness.
- 7:11If the leader is expressing victimization, then it actually depletes the energy and the
- 7:19hopefulness of their direct reports and that we, as leaders, have a responsibility not to
- 7:26whitewash, not to pretend that this new directive or policy that came down is the
- 7:33greatest thing, but rather to say it is what it is, how can we make the best of it for us and
- 7:41to really redirect the fear to positive action to minimize risk, to minimize the negative
- 7:50impact.
- 7:52And that's such a good important point because, obviously, I often, when I talk about authentic
- 7:57leadership, I talk about the awareness and that leader knowing themselves.
- 8:01Of course, they're human beings, but the more aware that they are, the more aware of how they
- 8:05understand their coping mechanisms and their stressors and how they kind of process
- 8:10information and how they relate to people, all those things become very, very vital so that
- 8:15they could take the time for themselves.
- 8:16So when they do go deliver a message arms, you know, things let's use the current example of
- 8:22coronavirus.
- 8:23They may have some things going through their head, but they have to put that face, front
- 8:27facing positive spin on it as much as possible so that because people, we expect that from our
- 8:32leaders.
- 8:34Right.
- 8:34But I think that what the leaders get mixed up with is the difference between being authentic
- 8:42and putting that brave face on.
- 8:44And We're not asking them to pretend like they it doesn't matter to them.
- 8:50We're asking them to say, I can't control it, but let's talk about what we can do to manage
- 8:59the risk for ourselves.
- 9:01And not to pretend like it's ridiculous.
- 9:05There's should be no reason for fear.
- 9:08We're all fine because it's just not true.
- 9:11Right?
- 9:11There is there is some level of risk, but it's manageable, and there's ways to do that.
- 9:18And I think, you know, through the years of management and stuff like that, would you say
- 9:22that things have gotten better where managers are not, like, on the auto and where they
- 9:27perceive that I have to be this well put together individual that always has it in
- 9:32control.
- 9:33And now that people are able to kinda Give us a bit more of a vein into to kind of them as a
- 9:38person, but also delivering leadership.
- 9:41Yeah.
- 9:41So to, borrow from Renee Brown.
- 9:46I think vulnerability is the new strength.
- 9:50It is when a leader can say Yes.
- 9:53I struggled when I started to do that too.
- 9:57I had a challenge in interacting with this type of person in the workplace.
- 10:02Here's how I dealt with it.
- 10:05It's a lot better than saying.
- 10:07You what's the matter?
- 10:08Why aren't you getting this?
- 10:09You know, you should have this by now.
- 10:11Why do you have problems with these coworkers is be authentically vulnerable.
- 10:17That doesn't mean weak.
- 10:18It doesn't mean that your crying and whining.
- 10:22It just means that you're honest about the fact that you're human too and that there's days,
- 10:28for instance, when somebody comes and says, I need to talk to you.
- 10:32This is going on, and you can say, You know what?
- 10:35That sounds important to you.
- 10:37I'm not in the right head space right now.
- 10:39Can you give me a half an hour to get organized and then I'll talk to you?
- 10:45To be vulnerable just means you're being more honest.
- 10:50And I absolutely agree with you.
- 10:53Based on
- 10:54the sum of the sectors, based on the industry, would you say that in certain industries, and
- 10:59you and I, I've worked in a lot of different industries also some environments, you know,
- 11:05are more open and to that element of the leader can be a bit more authentic.
- 11:12Some,
- 11:13they talk about it, but I'm not sure that they deliver that.
- 11:16Yeah.
- 11:16And you know what?
- 11:17I almost see it across every sector now that there are more enlightened leaders.
- 11:26And we used to say Oh, well, you know, they're old school as if it was tied to an age.
- 11:32And what I'm finding is that People are leading at every level in every sector.
- 11:40It's just a matter of their personal evolution.
- 11:44Their personal awareness, their ability to have emotional intelligence, and it doesn't matter
- 11:50how old they are.
- 11:51Doesn't matter how long they've been in the industry, and it doesn't matter what industry
- 11:56they're in.
- 11:57Of course, some of the more traditionally macho patriarchal, sectors, maybe a little slower to
- 12:09evolve to something that is considered to be more feminine.
- 12:15It doesn't mean it's more girly.
- 12:17It just means that it's more emotionally aware.
- 12:21But I see it everywhere.
- 12:23That that we are making that change, that we are doing better when soldiers see their,
- 12:32colleagues crash and burn.
- 12:37They want to help.
- 12:39They want to make it better.
- 12:41And in order to do so, they have to tap into their own emotional impact from the work that
- 12:48they're doing.
- 12:49And that need to help others is often what's fueling their own self awareness and their own
- 12:57evolution.
- 12:59Absolutely.
- 13:00I think, you know, in my work and dealing with different leaders in different sectors compared
- 13:05to say 20 years ago when I started in the field of
- 13:08VIP, it it definitely has shifted.
- 13:11And now people are recognizing, I may not be, you know, what should I share first of all?
- 13:16You know, so how authentic should I be?
- 13:18That's the other thing.
- 13:19A lot of leaders go, Well, I'm not really sure.
- 13:21You want me to be this authentic person, and they'll say that they're they're afraid to get
- 13:25so authentic that then there's no separation, not that there should be separation, but to
- 13:31some degree, people have to take direction from you.
- 13:34Yeah.
- 13:35So I know
- 13:36I talk about oversharing.
- 13:38And when are we oversharing?
- 13:41If you think being authentic is telling everybody everything about you, then you you're
- 13:46off base.
- 13:47Being authentic is don't tell a lie.
- 13:50Don't view the truth in order to make yourself look better.
- 13:56Yes.
- 13:57You share because you think it's going to help the other person not because of how it will
- 14:03reflect on you.
- 14:05And there's there's a huge difference between the 2 approaches.
- 14:12Absolutely.
- 14:13And I think that's what happens.
- 14:14Right?
- 14:14Because people start to listen to things and they want to be you know, they go to courses
- 14:19and they're thinking, how am I gonna do this?
- 14:20And maybe they kind of do the pendulum swing so far that they're like, okay.
- 14:25Now I need some coaching to be able to find the middle a little bit more.
- 14:29Right.
- 14:29So let's let's talk a little bit about some of the, you know, resilience, obviously, we all
- 14:35wanna learn more about it.
- 14:36We all wanna make our our our environments where it be that whole, we're at, you know, in
- 14:41workplaces.
- 14:42We all wanna be more resilient.
- 14:43And to your point when we, just got out of it before we were talking is that In life, we're
- 14:48gonna see things.
- 14:49We're gonna deal with things on an ongoing basis.
- 14:52What are some of the key resiliency factors that you know from being out in in kind of the
- 14:58research world and working with Gather Life and just in, your work that are some of the things
- 15:04that are important for people to think about implementing either at work or, I mean,
- 15:08obviously, we bring ourselves to work so that they could be a bit more resilient out there in
- 15:13the world.
- 15:14Yes.
- 15:14I I I think there's, definitely specific elements that are valuable to know.
- 15:20One is self awareness.
- 15:22If I believe that all of my emotions are caused by external factors, by you, by my work by the,
- 15:32you know, the news station, then I feel out of control all the time.
- 15:37When I understand that my emotions are based on my thoughts, my reactions, that I have a lot of
- 15:46control over them I don't have control over what happens to me, but I absolutely have
- 15:52control over the way I react to it.
- 15:55So that's the first thing.
- 15:56Become self aware.
- 15:58And then you can drill down even further.
- 16:01If I know that I do react to certain things in certain ways, start to name them.
- 16:08If I know that every time somebody criticizes me, that I get flooded with shame that results
- 16:15in me being angry, then if I know that's going to be my reaction, I can stop and think, where
- 16:22does that shame come from?
- 16:23Where's that anger come from?
- 16:24What do I think is unfair?
- 16:27Because anger is a reaction to what is a perceived or actual injustice.
- 16:33So when I'm angry, what do I think is not fair, and what can I do about that?
- 16:39So that's that's the next step that I think is so important.
- 16:42We need to know why we're reacting.
- 16:45So you talked about triggers.
- 16:47Why why do we have these involuntary reactions?
- 16:52Then we talk about our reaction to stress in general.
- 16:56And we have physiologic.
- 17:00We have emotional and we have behavioral to stress.
- 17:04But if we don't know what they are, especially the early warning signs, we continue usually
- 17:11until we crash and burn.
- 17:13We don't know what the source of our stress is because we've been stressed so long that we now
- 17:18think it's just who we are, which is another phrase that always, amuses me.
- 17:25That's who I am.
- 17:27No.
- 17:27It's not.
- 17:28That's what you do.
- 17:30It is not who you are.
- 17:31Who you are is this perfect being, but what you do is stress or overreact or withdraw or
- 17:40whatever.
- 17:41It's what you do.
- 17:44Another element that is important is to understand what stressors are in your life
- 17:50right now.
- 17:51And that may sound counterintuitive.
- 17:53Let's sit down and think about all the things that stress us.
- 17:56But if we're not aware of them, They have a tendency to build up.
- 18:01Even things called micro stressors that there's so much they seem insignificant, but it bumped
- 18:14my knee on a table every day because it's just in the way of me walking.
- 18:20And I'm irritated by this every day.
- 18:23My, coping skills are going to be depleted dealing with that pain, that physical pain and
- 18:29that annoyance.
- 18:31So eliminating these little things that we have control over make a lot of sense because then
- 18:38when we're dealing with a stressor that we have less control of, like being a caregiver of a
- 18:44family member who's dying.
- 18:47We can't say, okay, don't die.
- 18:49Or, you know, don't be sick, we have more energy to cope with that in a way that we won't
- 18:57regret in the end, which is important, right, to behave in a way that is consistent with our
- 19:03love for that person.
- 19:05And it's not taken up being annoyed with bumping my knee.
- 19:09Right.
- 19:10Right.
- 19:11Yeah.
- 19:11What a
- 19:12what a good way to look at it because you know, like, to your point, a lot of people say I'm
- 19:16I'm stressed.
- 19:17You know, it's it's a tough quarter.
- 19:19I've been traveling a lot or, you know, my kids, you know, have been, going through a lot.
- 19:24And we all have multiple balls to your point, but it it's a small microscopic things that
- 19:29people could address that they can take a hold of.
- 19:33But I think a lot of people don't, and it becomes that cumulative effect.
- 19:37You know, it's kinda like you know, I'm I'm a little bit mildly irritated to explosive anger.
- 19:42If you if you don't kind of address it along the way and kind of try to figure out what
- 19:46what's putting me in that state before you know what you're kinda along the continuum.
- 19:50And then maybe you have an interaction at work that ends up being a performance related
- 19:54concern that goes to a manager or supervisor versus kind of trying to figure out some of the
- 19:59things that you can do.
- 20:01Yeah.
- 20:02So in reference to, psychological safety, which is your your your space and, stress.
- 20:12What are some of the things that, you know, people listening, you know, out there that they
- 20:17if they are stressed and, you know, they're like I often say that when we're stressed, we
- 20:23might misperceive potential things and We might kind of, you know, I might perceive that if
- 20:29you've raised your voice, Mary Anne, that you're screaming at me, but in fact, you're
- 20:32maybe not doing that because we kinda look through a different lens.
- 20:36So for the frontline employee that maybe is potentially going through some things and
- 20:40thinking, you know, I think I'm being psychologically harassed.
- 20:44You know, what what kind of guidance would you give them?
- 20:47So in our plan for resilience, we have something called the 4 a's.
- 20:53And they come from the University of Chicago, and we adapted them a bit for the workplace.
- 20:59And it's that you look at a stressor and understand when we're stressed that our
- 21:06executive functioning or decision making is compromised because we're stressed.
- 21:12And when we look at a stressor through the 4 a's, what we're forcing ourselves to do is
- 21:18consider the pros and cons.
- 21:20So I haven't looked at it from the point of view of feeling harassed, but let's try it.
- 21:25So one of the a's is avoid.
- 21:29Now a lot of people will say, well, if you're avoiding a stressor, you're just in denial, but
- 21:33I've got a colleague who is a recovering alcoholic who when they travel, they call the
- 21:41hotel and say, empty the minibar.
- 21:43I want no alcohol.
- 21:45In my room.
- 21:46And it's like we talked about with the micro stressors.
- 21:49Why should that person have to deal with that stressor when they can avoid it altogether.
- 21:54So in this situation where you feel like you're being harassed or bullied, The first question
- 22:01is, could you avoid them?
- 22:02And what are the pros and the cons of doing that?
- 22:06And and to really look at both sides so they you don't make a decision that is difficult.
- 22:13The next a is accept.
- 22:16Can you accept that this person is going through their own stuff, that it maybe isn't
- 22:22even about you and that you can put them in perspective.
- 22:27It's their issues.
- 22:28It's their challenges.
- 22:29And you're not going to bother with them.
- 22:32You're not gonna react them.
- 22:33So that's another a.
- 22:36The next one is to adapt.
- 22:38Can you change the way you interact with them?
- 22:41Could you sit down with them and say, you know what?
- 22:45Roxanne, you're a good person.
- 22:47I've worked with you for years, and I've seen who you are And lately, it seems like we've
- 22:54been having a more difficult relationship.
- 22:57I would like that to change Can we talk about how we could do that?
- 23:01And you can take control of trying to adapt that relationship.
- 23:07The next one is alter, and that is, can you change the situation altogether?
- 23:13Can you alter the external environment?
- 23:15Could you move your office?
- 23:16Could you get a different job?
- 23:19And all of this isn't to say any one of those is the right answers.
- 23:23But what it does is it takes you out of your emotional approach to the stressor, puts you
- 23:29into a much more objective approach as you look at the pros and cons.
- 23:34And when you go through this exercise, sorry, and that resource, by the way, is free online.
- 23:42But when
- 23:42you go through this exercise, you may, come up with a different idea altogether than what you
- 23:49do in the exercise, but it's because you've shifted from an emotional reaction to it, to a
- 23:56more rational reaction.
- 23:59Executive functioning because, like, you know, I often say once our logical prefrontal cortex
- 24:05goes off, then we kinda have a bit of a street party in our brain with all the things kind of
- 24:11pinging off each other.
- 24:12And, So that's that's an amazing resource.
- 24:15I will I will put the link to, you know, the Canada Life resources in our show notes.
- 24:22Because that's a nice approach.
- 24:24So avoid.
- 24:27Accept.
- 24:28Alter.
- 24:30Or adapt.
- 24:31Awesome.
- 24:32So I think that's something that people can apply today.
- 24:35Whether it's at whether it's at home or whether it's at work, that's something that's really if
- 24:40you could kinda go through that logical exercise, that would be able to you know,
- 24:44unless you kind of go through and then you realize it's an ongoing issue.
- 24:48At which point, I would say you have to kind of decide if it's at work, how are you gonna
- 24:52address it?
- 24:52Like, you know, what next steps you could take to maybe go to, maybe your supervisor, have a
- 24:59conversation with somebody in HR, those types of things.
- 25:01And, obviously, there's policies and procedures accordingly free to be psychologically safe at
- 25:06work.
- 25:07Right.
- 25:07And all of those hopefully will come up through this exercise that those are options.
- 25:12Right?
- 25:12Do you file a complaint?
- 25:13Or how do you go about managing this for yourself?
- 25:17There's another resource I just wanna mention.
- 25:20For those who are listening who are in that place right now, and it's called protecting
- 25:25yourself against bullying.
- 25:27And it was written, along with people who were also dealing with depression.
- 25:32And that that bullying just was a straw that's breaking the camel's back.
- 25:38It's that thing that's just too much And it's about how to protect yourself until it's
- 25:43resolved.
- 25:45Right?
- 25:45Because in the moment, you still have to take care of yourself.
- 25:49And, the 4 a's are great to think about what you could do about it, but what are you doing
- 25:56right now to protect yourself?
- 25:59Absolutely.
- 25:59Because you have to continue to be able to function and do your job, you know, run things
- 26:04outside of work and those types of things So being able to protect yourself, to be able to
- 26:09continue to function.
- 26:10And if it's a bigger issue, obviously, having the steps to go out and take that next step.
- 26:15Now, Mary Anne, in reference to leaders, right, which, you know, we have obviously the the
- 26:20employee and then we have leaders.
- 26:22What are some of the things that leaders could have, you know, in their in our work
- 26:26environments, you know, I know when I was in corporate, stressors were there, and I know
- 26:31it's just quantified as as we've gone.
- 26:33And we've really had to to your point, really step back and recognize, how we need to take
- 26:39care of ourselves because the stressors and the rapidity of our economic you know, an economic
- 26:44world and with the digital economy.
- 26:47All those things aren't going away.
- 26:49They're happening and the impact of AI.
- 26:51All those things are gonna coming at us.
- 26:54And with leadership, you know, what kind of things are you seeing out there with leaders?
- 26:59What are some of the pressures that they're talking about in this acknowledged economy,
- 27:04that they're having to adapt or pivot to.
- 27:07Yeah.
- 27:07I think there's several things that happen.
- 27:09One of them is that people often get promoted to a leadership position, a manager, a
- 27:17supervisor, because they were really good at doing the job.
- 27:21So what that means is first of all, they don't understand, the struggle to learn something new
- 27:29to, uh-uh, you know, create good habits at work because they never had to do it.
- 27:34And secondly is that they're not trained in many cases well enough to manage the emotional
- 27:42reactions of other people.
- 27:44And so for some, leaders, whether they're union reps or they're, on the management side, they
- 27:51go to help someone and they get attacked or, told that they're part of the problem, and they
- 28:00become traumatized, not in the big post traumatic stress disorder, but that now they
- 28:07are dealing with anxiety about saying or doing the wrong thing.
- 28:13And it's tough place to be.
- 28:15I don't envy people in management positions.
- 28:19I know it seems like, oh, they got promoted.
- 28:21It must be great.
- 28:23It's a whole different level of responsibility.
- 28:26It's a whole different level of self doubt.
- 28:30And while they really want to do the right thing, their fear and their frustration can be
- 28:39that the people that are leading them are just giving it to them in a very concrete way.
- 28:46This is what you have to do, get it done.
- 28:49There's no room for but this is how I feel about it, or can we talk about it?
- 28:55And if you are not emotionally intelligent enough for yourself.
- 29:02You turn around from a fear base and try to direct your employees.
- 29:08What I try to say to leaders is because you're given something, it doesn't mean that you
- 29:17shouldn't know how to question the way that it's gonna be applied.
- 29:22And that's not to say This is ridiculous.
- 29:24I can't do it.
- 29:25But to go away and say, let me think about, how I'm gonna get that done.
- 29:30Is it okay if I come back to you and we can review it?
- 29:33And you simply look at how many people do you have?
- 29:37What are they asking?
- 29:38How many hours will it take?
- 29:39And you go back to your boss, the senior leader and say, okay.
- 29:45What you're asking me to do takes, you know, a 100 hours what we're already doing takes 500
- 29:51hours.
- 29:52That's 600 hours.
- 29:53I have this many people that leaves us with about a 150 hours unaccounted for.
- 29:59How would you like me to prioritize?
- 30:01Just Right.
- 30:02Very concrete, very straightforward.
- 30:06The thing is that many leaders think if they do this, they will either be accused of being
- 30:13insubordinate or not a team player or ineffective, my experience has been that's
- 30:20never true.
- 30:21If you can actually show the numbers and be in that very straightforward approach, most
- 30:29leaders are appreciative and we'll say, okay, this will go.
- 30:33We'll let that go for now.
- 30:34We'll just focus on this, or let's see.
- 30:37We'll get you some more help.
- 30:38It's because then it's a business decision.
- 30:41It's a numbers game.
- 30:43It's not emotional.
- 30:44How could you give me this much?
- 30:46You don't care.
- 30:48Absolutely.
- 30:49And then you're not so taking it from a pragmatic, perspective and kind of saying,
- 30:54okay.
- 30:55Well, I'm overwhelmed.
- 30:56I'm a set.
- 30:56My employees are upset at b.
- 30:58We're not we have this much more being pushed down from upper management and the frontline
- 31:03are freaking out and the, you know, the The middle manager oftentimes gets sandwiched into
- 31:07that pressure cooker, I call it.
- 31:09And that was something that I dealt with all the time when I was in my executive role was
- 31:13that managers always felt like they hadn't they felt like they were a no man's land oftentimes,
- 31:18and they wanted to find some safety.
- 31:20So this pragmatic kind of steps makes a lot of sense because you know, when we we come from an
- 31:27emotional part of our brain where we're we're being reactive, then we kind of get gray in the
- 31:32way we communicates.
- 31:33And then, of course, if you're going to senior leadership, you need to be more, like you said,
- 31:38you have to come from a business perspective to say, This is what I'm seeing.
- 31:43This is how we this is what I see will happen.
- 31:45If we kind of proceed in this end, we're gonna burn out people.
- 31:49We're gonna lose our good staff.
- 31:50Those of things based on the numbers and those.
- 31:53So I think definitely from a business model to look at the business case that you could
- 31:58present, versus kind of like you said, being reactive and I'm I'm so upset and people are
- 32:02screaming at me.
- 32:03And then there's, you know, it becomes harder to come to a pragmatic solution from that
- 32:08space.
- 32:09Mhmm.
- 32:10So, Marianne, this this is always a pleasure.
- 32:12I'm sure you and I could keep keep going on and on and on with a lot of things, you know, based
- 32:16on, or or backgrounds and things like that.
- 32:19So with, with yourself, if people are wanting to get ahold of you, I will do put all the
- 32:26links to the free resources through Canada Life.
- 32:29What where can people get a hold of you if they're interested in, having you speak or do
- 32:33some work with you?
- 32:36So my, they can get in touch with me through the workplace strategies for mental health
- 32:41website through the contact us.
- 32:43Or atmarian@marianbeaten.com.
- 32:47Okay.
- 32:47Perfect.
- 32:48So I will put that in the show notes.
- 32:50So, again, what did I learn?
- 32:51I think I I like the concept of the 4 a's.
- 32:54Right?
- 32:55That really is it's quick, and I'm sure people listening and were thinking the same thing.
- 32:59So again, in my day, I'm thinking, you know, whether it's, you know, having to deal with,
- 33:04one of my customers, and I, you know, we all get into that you know, issue sometimes of
- 33:08something coming up to maybe sit back, try to reflect on it, think about how could I react a
- 33:15little bit differently and then approach it after.
- 33:17So I love that tip.
- 33:18So thanks for you so much, and I will put the link for that for anybody wanting to, you know,
- 33:24kind of apply it and learn a little bit more about some of the other things that, Marianne's
- 33:28provided.
- 33:28So for everyone, thanks so much again for tuning in.
- 33:31It's Roxanne Derhodge.
- 33:32You know, I work in the arena of mental health and wellness.
- 33:34And if you're needing any, information on leadership, please go to roxanneverhodge.com.
- 33:40So, Marianne, thanks so much again, and take care.
- 33:43And thank you for being a role model for what resilience looks like.
- 33:47Well, thanks so much, Marianne.
- 33:49Bye.
- 33:50Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
- 33:56healthy change.
- 33:57Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit
- 34:03rocksandirhaj.com/blueprint.
- 34:07We'll see next time on authentic living with Roxanne.