January 29, 2025 • 50 mins
Fear doesn't have to be the enemy at work. Join us as we unravel the complexities of fear with Mark Minoukas and Gaurav Bhatnagar, authors of "Unfear," a book that challenges conventional views on fear in the workplace. Discover how fear often lies at the core of organizational dysfunction, but through a shift in understanding, it can become a catalyst for growth. We'll explore how fear influences decision-making and how HR professionals can transform fear narratives to boost workplace well-being and effectiveness.
Navigating fear isn't easy, especially when it can lead to inaction in high-pressure environments. Our discussion dives into the physical markers of fear and how awareness, combined with meditation, can help you manage those emotions. Learn how to become the director of your life story, transforming fear into a tool for personal breakthrough. Witness the transformative power of breaking free from unproductive patterns and gain insight into the role of meditation in cleaning up your mental "Velcro."
Explore workplace dynamics through fascinating archetypes like the Fight Club and the Nice Club, understanding their strengths, pitfalls, and how they relate to common fears. Gaurav shares his personal journey from skepticism to embracing mindset and human potential, emphasizing HR's vital role in managing workplace anxiety and trauma. Connect with our guests through CoCreationPartners.com and UnfearBook.com, and join the ongoing conversation to foster personal and organizational growth.
Rebel HR is a podcast for HR professionals and leaders of people who are ready to make some disruption in the world of work. Please connect to continue the conversation!
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http://www.kyleroed.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-roed/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is the Rebel HR Podcast.
If you're a professionallooking for innovative,
thought-provoking information inthe world of human resources,
this is the right podcast foryou.
Rebel on HR Rebels.
Super excited for our guests.
(00:22):
This week.
We've got a couple of wonderfulguests.
I have been tearing throughtheir new book.
It's called Unfair Transformyour Organization to Create
Breakthrough Performance andcrossed off or employee
well-being.
With us today we've got MarkManoukas and Gaurav Bhatnagar
(00:43):
and we are also joined by MollyBerdess, so super excited for
the conversation today.
Mark and Gaurav are theco-founders of Co-Creation
Partners.
Gaurav has dedicated more thantwo decades to helping companies
thrive and achieve breakthroughperformance.
Since founding Co-CreationPartners in 2010, he has
(01:04):
designed and led programs andworkshops for a number of
different clients acrossmultiple sectors names such as
Procter Gamble, pepsi-cola andso on and so forth.
Mark is an engineer by training.
We're going to get along justfine.
I work with a lot of engineersand began his career as a Navy
(01:26):
officer and a member of the USNaval Construction Battalion,
also known as the Seabees, andhe brought his experience and
insights into the performance ofengineered systems to McKinsey,
where he was a consultant andhas also worked with a number of
different industries andwonderful companies.
Welcome to the show this weekguys.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Absolutely Well, super excited for the
conversation and, before we hitrecord here, I was just
commenting that I've got a copyof this book Unfear and I get a
lot of books in my role as apodcaster but this is one of
those that I started readingthrough it and it was just like,
oh, that's good stuff.
(02:07):
Oh, that's good stuff.
So thank you for writing thebook and I encourage our
listeners to check it out.
But why don't we just startwith what prompted you to write
a book about fear?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
We wanted to convey to the world what we saw as a
primary source of waste anddysfunction in organizations.
So our company co-creationpartners, we help organizations
improve their performance andemployee well-being.
And fear always sat at theheart of what we worked on with
(02:42):
clients, and it's often, youknow, it's an element in an
organization that people youknow don't fully acknowledge or
don't really see, and so wewanted to create a book that
helped people see what wasreally going on in their
organization with respect tofear and what they could do
about it.
What would you say, Gaurav?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, so all of that.
But the other thing I would sayis that I'm a recovering fear
addict, and so writing a bookabout the stuff that I'm
recovering from made sense.
I think I've written this bookin my head about 20 times before
I actually got down to writingit with Mark during the pandemic
(03:21):
, so it's been a long timecoming it with.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Mark during the pandemic, so it's been a long
time coming.
Elaborate on that a little bitmore.
So you've found that fear holdspeople back.
Fear of what?
Is there one or two things, orwhat does that look like?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Sure.
Well, so then you know it'sinteresting, because the one
thing I'll tell you is that Ihaven't met a single human being
who doesn't have fear.
Now, there's some commonpatterns.
The top three or four that Ioften run across in
organizations is fear of failure.
The second one, which isespecially true for senior
(04:05):
people in organizations and CEOs, is fear of being an imposter
and fear of being found out.
The third one is the fear ofnot being appreciated or
validated, and the last one isthe fear of being disliked.
Those are often the four whichI find to be the most common.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
There are many, many more, but those are the ones
that are quite typical.
Well, I was just going to say Iwas at a seminar yesterday
actually, and one of thespeakers was talking about
imposter syndrome and I learnedthat that coin or that was that
phrase, I guess really came outin the 70s, 1970s.
It's been around for that longand I think it's a real thing.
(04:43):
And you know the speaker's likewhy are we still talking about
this?
And it is, it's because of fear, it's real.
So I just found that reallyinteresting.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yeah, and the important idea we want to get
across in the book as well isthat fear itself is not the
problem, and we all have thesefears and it's more about
changing the story we hold aboutthe fears that we have.
So we'll still experience fearas human beings, that's just,
that's a natural thing.
But if we can shift how werelate to those fears, that's
(05:15):
where, you know, people havethose breakthroughs and can be
more effective.
And I think that's importantfor HR professionals as well,
because I think there's atendency to say look, fear is
bad, let's figure out how wealmost eliminate it or, you know
, suppress it, and so thatcreates its own dysfunction.
And you know, we think there'sa false dichotomy between using
(05:36):
fear and suppressing fear.
It's really doing somethingcompletely different.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
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Thanks for listening.
One of the things that I thinkis so powerful in this content
is the fact that we can allrelate to this.
So, gaurav, I reallyappreciated throughout the book.
You used personal examples andyou were you were really kind of
(07:11):
you know, honestly prettyvulnerable and I and I, as I
reflect on that and the commentthat you called yourself a fear
addict.
Obviously you overcame that insome way because you were able
to be vulnerable in a bookthat's going to go out to
thousands and thousands ofreaders around the world.
So what tactics did you use to,first of all, to just kind of
(07:35):
identify oh you know I've got anissue with this and then figure
out how do I actually overcomesome of these challenges?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, so that's a brilliant question, because I
thought fear was a good thing,that the fact that I felt fear
was a great thing, because itgalvanized me into doing things.
And this is a long time ago.
So this was 2002 and, uh, I wassitting in a workshop which I
(08:08):
did not want to be in.
Um, it was.
It was being run by thisbritish woman who had called it,
called herself gita bellen, andgita is an indian name, and I
used to tell everyone she's afraud and because her real name
is margaret and she's just takenan Indian name to convince us.
And I'm Indian, so I'm allowedto say that.
(08:31):
And as I was in that workshop,what I realized was that I was
in a pattern where I was socaught up with success that I
had lost my connection to joy.
And this lady helped meunderstand that.
(08:51):
And when she opened that gap,it forced me to really, really
reflect on all the things, allthe stories that I had created
in my head about success and thefear of failure that was
holding me in a very, verydysfunctional pattern, and the
(09:14):
fact that I was able to thenreframe all of that through the
help of many, many people.
After that, it just felt thatit would be intellectually
dishonest not to share thatjourney and to make it about
everyone else when ultimately,you know, I am just like anyone
else.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
And so, admitting to that fear and you have that
self-realization, how we have alot of people walk into our
office in HR and a lot of peopledon't have, how do we help them
get to that moment that you gotto?
How do we help them realizethat, hey, fear is the issue or
this is a fear?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, so.
So this is a great question.
So I think for most people whoare not ready to engage in a
conversation about fear, youdon't start with a conversation
about fear.
You start with a conversationabout behavior, and what you do
is you help them understand thatbehavior is not something that
(10:17):
just happens, because most ofthe time people think, oh, I
have a behavior, someone willtell me another behavior and
I'll go to that new behavior.
But my experience is that youknow you do that and then stress
happens and you ping right backto your old behavior.
So the conversation that welead people through to help them
understand the fear is weactually have them understand a
(10:39):
whole process of what are thestories, what are the thoughts
and feelings, what are thebelief systems that are driving
that behavior.
And as you go through that, italways leads to our inherent
unmet needs and our fears.
So you get people to that pointthrough them understanding
themselves rather than startingwith fear, because fear is a
(11:00):
taboo topic in organizations,right, I mean, it's amazing how
everyone talks about how there'sfear, but when you go into the
corporate boardroom, oh, no, no,no, our organization is no fear
and I never had fear To befearful or to have fears is to
be a weak leader is often whathappens, so you can't directly
(11:21):
engage in that conversation.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
You know I'm thinking through my own organization and
I'm in sales, so I see this allthe time.
Right, and people have heard mesay this before.
But it drives me crazy when aleader comes to me and says all
of our people just suck, they'relow performers, they don't want
to do the job, they just won'tdo.
It says all of our people justsuck, they're low performers,
they don't want to do the job,they just won't do it.
And as I was hearing, you knowyou guys talk about this, I do.
(11:45):
I think that most of the peopleit comes back to they are
fearful of something.
So if we change thatconversation, I think it could
be so impactful.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's so true and, Mark, I'm sure you have a
perspective on that.
But what I?
What I believe is most peopledon't come to work with an
intention to underperform Right.
They don't come to work to sayI'm just going to collect my
paycheck and screw everythingelse.
Most people have goodintentions, but they have
stories which hold them back,and then they get reinforced in
(12:18):
the organization through thesearchetypes which are either
aggressive, defensive or passive, defensive.
That then makes them becomesuboptimal and then it becomes
completely embedded and thenpeople say there's no way out
and they start asserting it asif it's the truth.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, and just to build on that there's you know
Gaurav mentioned the aggressive,defensive, passive defensive
sort of patterns.
There are some people who,driven by fear, actually work
themselves to burnout.
You know, those are people whoare super competitive, perhaps
they're perfectionistic, youknow.
So that's one general pattern.
The other are maybe thosepeople who just don't really
(12:59):
show up.
They just keep their head downand they're just trying really
hard to not make any mistakes.
So that's sort of the otherpattern.
So you see both, but they'reboth signs that there's some
underlying fear that's drivingthat dysfunction.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
You know it's really interesting because you know and
I'm reflecting on, you know, myorganization's we're a
manufacturing organizationDefinitely some machismo in the
leadership ranks Admitting thatyou're afraid or that fear is
(13:34):
interacting with yourdecision-making process.
It would be very surprising ifthat were to occur.
I think now we have a greatleadership team and I think we
have some very intellectuallyand emotionally intellectual
people, but they're not going tocome out and be like, oh yeah,
I'm really terrified of this.
But I think what was sointeresting in that and I'm just
(13:58):
reflecting on myself is, Ithink you know what, what was so
interesting in that and I'mjust reflecting on on myself is,
you know I can, but I canabsolutely uh, relate to the, to
the fear of failure or the fearof looking like an idiot, you
know, or or the, you know, thefear of of losing my job Cause I
just completely screwed up aproject.
And you know the moments thatyou know I, I remember distinct
(14:21):
moments in my career where I'vejust I've I've been driven to
inaction because I, and you knowand it really is kind of now
that I think about it in thiscontext it's almost like being
petrified because of that fearresponse as opposed to, you know
, working, working through that.
And, molly, it was funny whenyou mentioned the people coming
into my office.
It's, you know, I don't know ifit's as much for me about
(14:44):
somebody else working throughtheir fear.
A lot of it comes back to meand, you know, you get that pit,
you get that feeling in the pitof your stomach when someone
comes walking in that door andit really is.
It's a fear of what's coming innext, right, and you don't know
, especially in HR sometimes.
Sometimes this stuff is youcan't, you couldn't write a book
(15:06):
about it.
So, so as as we cope throughthat kind of personally, I kind
of reflect on that and in our,in our world, you know how, how,
as an individual, uh, can I,can I be aware of that and kind
of work through that when I getthose feelings, the kind of like
the cortisol coursing throughmy veins, and then how do I find
(15:30):
mechanisms to cope with that?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean we kind of describe alearning process that starts
with awareness and then moves tochoice and practice, that
starts with awareness and thenmoves to choice and practice.
So step one is just helpingpeople become aware of where and
how they feel fear.
You know even just the somatic,you know markers of where that
(15:52):
fear shows up in your body, sojust noticing it and not
necessarily judging it.
And it's also getting people tobecome more aware of how their
current responses to fear areserving them and helping them,
and also where it's not helpingthem be effective.
Most of the responses that wehave have served us in some way
at some point in life, but we'vekind of forgotten to question
(16:15):
those patterns and thatconditioning and so we bring
those patterns into the presentmoment and it may not actually
allow us to be effective.
So, kyle, you were mentioning asituation where maybe you're
holding back and not sharingsomething.
Maybe that served you well inthe past but maybe it's not
particularly effective at thispoint.
And so getting people to justrealize that go through that
(16:36):
thought process so they can makemore active choices to be more
effective, through that thoughtprocess, so they can make more
active choices to be moreeffective.
And then practicing that.
You know it takes practice.
It's not.
You know there's no quick fixthere.
Necessarily awareness andchoice are the start of it, but
you really have to practicestepping out of your comfort
zone and working into these newpatterns of behavior.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, and we talk about in the book that fear.
So you know, in our brain, alot of our decisions are
emotional decisions that wepost-rationalize.
Right, and the emotional brainhas two parts the pain complex
and the pleasure complex.
And the pain complex is likeVelcro, so it sticks to us,
while the pleasure complex islike Teflon, so you get a high
(17:17):
and you forget it.
That's why my wife stillremembers the one time I forgot
her birthday, even though I tellher I love you every day.
Right, but, but it's but, but,but that's.
That's the interesting thing,right?
So?
So how do you get conscious ofknowing that that thing is about
to happen?
And the other problem is welive in our heads, and this is
(17:40):
about the first step is to getto learn to live in our body.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Where in our?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
body, do we feel it, and then deliberately create a
point of choice.
But that's just a short termthing, because the next time it
happens it'll happen again.
So the other thing we talkabout and people think it's
pretty woo-woo, but it isn't iswe also recommend meditation as
a practice.
And the reason why we recommendmeditation as a practice is
(18:07):
because, over time, whatmeditation allows us to do is it
allows us to clean up thoseVelcro things that are reference
points for our fear.
Velcro things that arereference points for our fear,
and if you don't clean up thosereference points, there's
(18:28):
nothing transformational thathappens in terms of your
relationship to fear.
So there's a short-term thing,which is in the moment what do
you do?
But there's a longer-term thingas well, which is how do you
engage in practices that allowyou to cleanse your system of
your patterns of connectionsthat you have built over many
years?
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I know a lot of people who think meditation is
great for the mind, body, soul,all of that stuff.
And when I first started, youknow hearing these things in my
head, I just pictured, okay, I'mgoing to lay on the floor for
an hour quiet, like who has timefor that, but I don't think
that's what meditation is or hasto be.
(19:09):
Am I right?
Am I wrong?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah.
So I don't know if meditationis lying on the floor for half
an hour, but the fundamentals ofmeditation are twofold.
Fundamentals of meditation arethe ability to observe while
you're in the act of doingsomething Right.
So the most simplest form ofmeditation is to notice your
(19:31):
breathing when you have yourthoughts, notice your thoughts.
So why is that so important.
The reason why that's soimportant is because meditation
actually gives you the practiceof understanding that you're not
just an actor in your lifestory, in your organizational
story.
You're also the director ofyour life story, because you can
(19:52):
observe yourself in that moment.
And when you're a director, youcan shift things.
If you're just an actor, thenyou are.
You know, when I started my life, my career, my journey, it was
I used to say I'm an angry kindof person.
That's just the way I am.
And if you don't want to getinto a bad situation with me,
just don't hang out with me whenI'm angry, because that's who I
(20:14):
am.
And what this work has taughtme meditation has taught me is
is that I'm bigger than my anger, because I can observe it and
from there I can shift it.
And to be both the director andactor is such an important idea
and that is the core ofmeditation, if you really think
about it.
To be meditative in everythingyou do is the intention, rather
(20:40):
than to meditate and just liedown.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, and I know a lot of people.
I know a lot of people, myselfincluded for a period of time
are very skeptical of meditation.
It seems like one of thosewoo-woo things like I don't need
to do that stuff, like I'meffective enough already and
that's just kind of a soft,touchy-feely thing to do.
I personally, over time, havecome to appreciate that it
(21:06):
doesn't have to be this weirdwoo-woo thing.
It really is this process ofbecoming more aware of
everything that's happening,whether it's changing body
sensations and your emotions andyour thought processes and just
not being so lost in thought,and it just gives you a lot more
flexibility about how you canshow up in any given moment to
(21:29):
be effective.
You're not so fused with youremotion and your thoughts.
You can step back, like Lauramentioned, and be more of that
observer.
It's just.
It's a more powerful way tolive life.
You know, if you're nervous ina meeting, like a podcast
meeting, you can sort of noticethat and how it's showing up in
your body and you know justshift your breath a little bit
and how you're um, how you'resitting, and it just allows you
(21:52):
to to shift in the moment.
So that's something I'vediscovered over time.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
It's.
It's it's really interestingand and I am, I probably should
be, but I I'm not a meditationpracticer Um, and I think part
of it's just because, yeah, Ijust I don't know enough about
it.
But it's interesting that youknow you'll consistently hear
that feedback from experts whohave studied.
You know the brain andemotional responses and you know
(22:20):
a great example of an unhealthyapproach to this.
And now, as I, you know, afterI read the book and as I'm
reflecting on the conversationhere, it was really a fear
response.
But you know, earlier in mycareer, I used to, as opposed to
, approach conflict or, you know, my fear of what might be
walking through my door in ahealthy way.
I would flip a switch in mybrain and become like an
(22:43):
emotionless jerk, because then Iwouldn't have to deal with it,
right, I wouldn't have to takeon the emotional burden of
somebody else's problems orhaving to terminate somebody's
employment or something alongthose lines.
You know the unfun part ofhuman resources.
But eventually I did have tofigure out okay, how do I cope
with this and retain my humanitythrough the course of my, you
(23:07):
know, essential job functions,otherwise I'm going to have a
mental break, right?
And so I think that goes to youknow the burnout and it wasn't
meditation, but it was, I wouldsay it was community and it was
getting connected with wonderfulprofessionals like Molly and
like-minded folks.
That helped me understand Iwasn't alone and kind of,
(23:29):
building that community for mewas the antidote for that.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah, and Kyle, that's meditation too.
When you engage in deepreflective conversations with
other people with intentionality, that is being meditative as
well.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah, and that story resonates with my life
experience as well, kyle,because you know, growing up,
you know, and being trained asan engineer and being in the
Navy, you know I was sort oftaught that to be a man in the
world you have to suppress youremotions.
You know, anger is an okayemotion, but pretty much any
other emotion is suspect, itmeans you're not effective.
(24:04):
But there's a, there's a costto that and you know, carrying
all the stress, you know, andthe Velcro that Gaurav mentioned
, you know that's still therebut it just it sort of sits
inside and that it sort of eatsyou from the inside out.
And so I've learned over timethat I can actually, you know,
be okay with my emotions andshare those emotions and be
vulnerable, and it doesn't meanI'm not effective and I can
(24:27):
still, you know, be who I am,but just be it in a way that's
more open.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Yeah, sometimes, I think, with fear, you just have
to do it to overcome it,otherwise you have so much
buildup in your head.
For me it used to be like hardconversation.
I just had this internal fearof oh my gosh, what if I don't
do this right?
What if it doesn't go well?
What if I don't do this right?
What if it doesn't go well?
What if I don't say the rightthings?
What if I offend this person?
What if I make it worse?
And it was just creating moreconflict.
(24:58):
And then you know, once youstart having those hard
conversations, it's like aninstant weight off your shoulder
and it's like, ok, that wasn'tso bad, I can do this, sure.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
And it's like, okay, that wasn't so bad, I can do
this.
Something bad is going tohappen.
And what a lot of my work withleaders is about is being right
is not the same thing as beingeffective, and when we get into
the right mode, then we get intoa right and wrong mode and we
make other people wrong, and thejob of leadership is actually
(25:42):
to inspire and buildfollowership, and the more you
you make people wrong by beingright, you actually end up being
more ineffective rather thaneffective.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Yeah, and I imagine that just creates like this
defensive, toxic culture.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
It's such a good conversation and I've taken away
so much.
One thing I do want to talkabout.
That that was was a definitelya light bulb moment for me as I
was reading through the book wasthe fear archetypes.
And you know there's I meanthis is scientifically backed,
you know I I love the fact that.
(26:19):
You know it ties back tovalidated, peer reviewed studies
and and you know this isn't a,this isn't like, hey, let's
throw, let's throw some darts ata board and see what names
sound good that we can put inhere.
So, so, and and what.
What really resonated with mewas the difference between the
(26:39):
fear archetypes and the, andthey're separated by the fight
club and the nice club.
And as I was reading through it, I'm like, oh, yep, I know one
of those, I know one of those, Igot one of those.
Yep, we got one of those too.
And it was just so funny thatit allowed me to kind of put
that all into context.
And then, in my seat, one ofthe biggest challenges is
working through organizationalchange and trying to get people
(27:02):
aligned and, you know, trying tomanage through COVID when 50%
of the United States feels oneway and the other 50% feels
another, and you could go downthe list.
Over the last 18 months, someof the turmoil that's been
brought in the workplace.
But can we just maybe take astep back and walk us through
(27:24):
what some of those archetypesare and how fear plays into them
?
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Yeah, we should first acknowledge that the archetypes
are based on the work from anorganization called Human
Synergistics International andthe work of Dr Robert Cook book,
so the archetypes very closelyalign to some of the survey
(27:52):
tools that they use and that weuse in a lot of our client work.
But there's two primary campshere to the fear archetypes.
One is the fight club and thebasic response there is people
see threats and they try to staysafe by standing out and being
special, and we can go throughthe four archetypes there.
The second is the nice club andthe way in which this group
(28:18):
stays safe in the presence ofthreats is they keep their head
down and they sort of hide.
And so I can list these offreal quick and we can jump in as
needed.
But within the Fight Club you'vegot perfectionists.
These are people that need toget everything right, dot all
the I's, cross all the T's.
There's the competitors, sopeople who are ultra competitive
(28:39):
and need to win at all costs.
There's the controllers theseare people that need to be
controlled and they tend to bevery hierarchical.
And the fault finders.
These are people that need tobe controlled and they tend to
be very hierarchical.
And the fault finders.
These are the consultants ofthe world.
They're constantly findingfaults and seeing problems
everywhere, including withthemselves and with other people
, and so you can see thatthere's benefits and those
(29:03):
archetypes or those patternshelp people be effective in some
ways, but they also have theirdownsides.
Then, on the nice club side,you've got the likables.
These are people who just tryto be nice and minimize conflict
.
You've got the sticklers.
These are people who throw therule book at you anytime
(29:24):
something's going on.
That happens a little bit inthe HR world, from what we've
seen.
You've got the minions.
These are people who you knowtheir only customer is their
boss and they're constantlytrying to serve the hierarchy
upwards.
And then you have the avoiders.
These are people who, just youknow, shy away from conflict,
and so you know we're often, youknow, a mix of these archetypes
(29:47):
at any given time, and itchanges by context and we can
ship these.
These aren't like personalitytraits that are immutable.
These are just patterns ofbehavior that we've come to
adapt over time, based on valuesthat are actually quite
important, but they've justbecome dysfunctional in some
ways, and so we try to shine alight on that and help people
understand how these patternsserve them, but how they don't
(30:10):
serve them.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, and another really interesting thing is that
when you engage with the peoplewho have the fight club
archetypes, often they would saythe reason why we are in the
fight club is because if wedon't use any one of those
archetypes, all those nice clubpeople are just going to just
not do anything and they are thereason why we are in the fight
club.
(30:31):
And then you talk to the peoplein the nice club and the nice
club people say the reason whywe just hide is because those
guys are always fighting andscreaming at us.
So these two categoriesactually mutually
dysfunctionally reinforce eachother.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yeah, and you bring up a really important point,
gorvin.
There's a question about well,how do these relate to fear?
There's just a certain story.
The fears are essentially allthe same fear of being an
imposter, fear of not belonging,fear of failure.
The same fears sit beneath allthese archetypes, it's just
different stories that we tellourselves about the threats that
(31:07):
we're experiencing lead todifferent, you know, patterns of
behavior, and so the theintervention point here isn't to
get rid of your fear.
That's not realistic.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
it's just to shift the story that we have about
this threat so, kyle, if I everfind that that book on my desk,
that must be an intervention.
I'll know I gotta.
I gotta change some of mybehavior.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
You know that's funny , molly, you know I'd be happy
to give you the copy of the book.
But you know, I think, for me,as I was reading on this and
reflecting on this, you know,the context for me was thinking
about it and relating it toworkplace interactions.
And you know, I think that youknow, personally, I can see a
(31:55):
little bit of all those in me.
But I've also, you know,reflected on my upbringing and
as well as my kind of where Istarted my career and where I am
now upbringing, and as well asmy kind of where I started my
career and where I am now, and,and you know, it was interesting
(32:16):
to read through those andreflect and think.
You know, a lot of thesearchetypes, you know, were
helpful in the moment, like yousaid, mark, where you know it
worked for a period of time butthen I had to adapt and I had to
change and it got uncomfortable.
But had I not, I would havejust been kind of stuck.
And one of those for me is likeit's the it's, it's it's
(32:36):
wanting to be liked by others,you know, and I was raised,
raised in a small town in Iowa,you know, you're, you know, when
there's only 5,000 people intown.
You gotta be nice becauseeverybody knows everybody, and
so being liked is really reallyimportant.
But obviously if you overusethat, especially in a strategic
(32:57):
human resources role, eventuallythe drive to be liked could
actually set you up for somepretty serious failures and if
you're not balancing that, youknow, that desire appropriately
could be a really big pitfall.
So I think just having thatawareness and then, Molly,
almost to your question earlieryou know, when someone comes in
your office and they'reinteracting with you in a
(33:19):
certain way, if you can tie thatback to the archetype and kind
of understand okay, this is theperspective they're coming from.
Now, how do I help them workthrough that in a way that
doesn't, you know, jack up theircortisol anymore, but helps us
channel that into somethingthat's actually productive For
(33:41):
me, that was kind of one of theinsights that I think you know
it's like a playbook, right,like okay, how do I play this
one?
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, and just your reflection is kind of what we're
hoping people get from the bookis, you know, to see themselves
and the archetype, not beatthemselves over it, you know up
about it, but just you knowseeing how wow.
This may have served me for aperiod of time, but it may be
limiting me in this particularmoment.
So that's a great insight, kyle, and we can share some of ours
as well, from our own lives.
But I think if somebody doeswalk into your office and
(34:15):
they're displaying some of thesebehaviors, I think it's
important to note that behindthese behaviors are really good
intentions, so likables.
They value harmony and strongrelationships and having people
get along that's actually reallygood stuff.
It's just maybe the way inwhich they're expressing those
values just isn't effectiveright now, and so just helping
(34:38):
people see that may be enough tocreate a breakthrough.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I think the other thing that was really
interesting and I was readingthis book.
The context here is I had areally rough day.
I was, you know, and it was alot of conflict in the workplace
and I tend to kind of soak thatup.
I tend to, you know, that'sjust kind of part of, I think, a
lot of us in HR kind of.
We kind of get those emotionsstuck on us a little bit right,
(35:08):
kind of like we were talkingearlier, um, but thinking about
that in the context of thatperson coming from a different
uh perspective than myself andand thinking that they had to
come from the fight club and andbe uh.
In this case they were, theywere being fault finders and, um
, you know, that was a reallygood mindset shift.
(35:30):
And then the other insight was,you know, in that nice club, a
lot of these likables or minions, or avoiders, they're probably
really top talent.
That's not tapped becausethey're just kind of, they're
just in this mode and we haven'tdrawn that out of them
intentionally either, right, andso you know, it was just kind
(35:53):
of an interesting, it was aninteresting read.
I was very emotional when I wasreading this, if you can tell,
and so it was.
It was, it was a timely book toread.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I'm so glad that you found it useful.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
So so I think you know one of the things that, um,
you know that we we've talkedabout is is.
You know the book and, um, youknow, I think one thing that
that, uh, I'd like to understand, um is is a little bit about
kind of your personal journeys.
Um, you know, and and there's alot, of, a lot of examples in
the book, but you know um lot ofexamples in the book, but to go
(36:35):
from the McKinsey, the goldstandard, and confront your fear
and go and do somethingdifferent and go through that
journey, I'd just like tounderstand that path a little
bit more, because I think that'dbe really valuable for our
listeners.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, my path.
I mean I guess I've taken aninteresting path.
I mean I'm not the typical sortof person to be talking about
fear and culture andorganizations.
You know I've got anengineering background and so I
was quite steeped in, you know,the technical aspects of
creating stuff in the world andin making it work.
But I'd say earlier in mycareer I did study human factors
(37:07):
in engineering.
So I was, you know, early on,taken in by this idea that it's.
You know, it's not enough tojust have your mathematical
equations be right.
You have to get the human andorganizational factors that led
(37:33):
to that failure, not poorengineering.
So that was an idea that satwith me From the Navy I went to
McKinsey Company.
I was really deep into, you know, the technical aspect of
transforming organizations, butI was, you know, constantly
feeling like we're missingsomething on the mindsets part.
We would talk about it.
I think there was goodintention there but I would come
(37:54):
back to clients six to 12months later and just see all of
the brilliant ideas that thesegold standard consultants came
up with and they just didn'tstick.
And at some point in my careerI crossed paths with gora.
If he had started co-creationpartners.
I was still at mckinsey and hewas running some you know
woo-woo workshops withmeditation.
(38:15):
At one of the clients I wasdoing the hardcore you know sort
of lean transformation at and Iwas like who's this joker, you
know couldn't hack it atmckinsey and um, I need to go,
you know drop into this workshopto check in on him.
But but I saw in that workshopyou know just the impact you
know that the ideas had on meand I was like wow, this was a
missing piece.
You know it's not enough justto have the technical piece.
(38:36):
You really need to have thehuman dimension and the you know
the way in which Gorg wasworking with culture really
really stuck with me, reallystuck with me.
So when I left McKinsey sevenyears ago, we partnered up and
we try to bring both the humanand technical dimensions
together.
So that's kind of been myjourney.
I think it's been kind of asteady progression of getting
(38:57):
deeper and deeper into thisstuff, which may be a little bit
different than Gaurav's story,which was this burst of insight
I sort of have little insightsalong the way and I think both
are quite valid.
How about you, gaurav?
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, listen, I'm the son of a physicist and I was a
proud card-carrying member ofthe fight club and for me it was
all about.
Life is difficult and you kickass by overcoming that
(39:34):
difficulty.
Yeah, and I was a nightmare tobe with and I ended up and I did
market research, right, sothat's what my.
I was statistics guy and Iended up just by chance in South
Africa with my, because becausethe US had just had its first
dot-com bust in 2001 and I waslooking for work.
(39:56):
And with Mickey I was still inMcKinsey and I moved to McKinsey
, Johannesburg, and I walkedinto my mentor's office and he
said hey, Goddard, I didn't tellyou our office is doing, not
doing too.
And I said dude, why did youcall me?
Are you crazy?
And he said no, no, no, thatdoesn't matter.
You know.
All that means is you need tobe a generalist.
But the other thing is there'sthis newfangled thing coming in
(40:17):
from Australia around mindsetand we're going to try it on
ourselves because nothing hasworked.
I said, great, do it?
Why are you telling me?
He said no, no, because we wantyou to lead this effort.
And I looked at him and, likehe was crazy, I said I don't do
touchy-feely stuff, that's forHR people to do.
And we had a long argument, longargument, and finally I gave
(40:39):
him my killer argument.
I told him dude, I'm from India.
And he said what does that mean?
I said I know people who dothis kind of stuff.
They sit on top of mountains,they go, not going to do it.
And, as Mark said, I wentcreaking and screaming into this
workshop and I realized thatthere was so much I didn't know
(41:05):
about things and, being the sonof a physicist, I said, okay,
I'm going to crack it in fourmonths and that's it.
And the more I engaged with it,the more I realized I didn't
know.
And it became my life's passion, and I was lucky enough that
helping people unlock theirhuman potential, their true,
true potential, their angel, issomething that not only did I
(41:30):
love, but it allowed me to helppeople connect with something so
essential that I could make acareer out of it.
And so the last 22 years of mylife has just been committed and
dedicated to helpingindividuals, teams and
organizations realize theirpotential and realize that
(41:51):
well-being and performance areso interrelated, because it all
ultimately comes down to meaningand being authentic with
yourself.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Your passion is inspiring and I've only known
you for about what an hour.
You seem like the nicest guy,one of the nicest guys I've ever
met, so that right there weshould get into meditating, kyle
.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yeah, I'm sold, I'm sold.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
Me too.
Hey, I have one more topic, orquestion Kyle, before you cut me
off.
I know that's what you'retrying to do and Kyle didn't
share the book with me.
He was keeping it for himself,so I don't know if you talked
about this or not, but one bigissue in the workplace right now
is individual people's anxiety.
It's just a real hot topic,especially in HR.
(42:40):
We're trying to help, you knowthese individuals who come into
our offices and help these teams.
Do you feel like there's acorrelation between fear and
anxiety?
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yeah, in fact, I think they're oftentimes one in
the same or they're very, veryclosely linked.
So you know, the story you haveabout your fear is you're
perceiving some threat and thatthreat is sustained and it
continually gets reinforcedthrough your thought processes.
Then, yeah, it becomes a moodof anxiety, low level fear that
(43:18):
just sits around all the timeand that, under just about every
single circumstance, willdegrade a person's wellbeing,
their health and well-being, andso I think it's a tremendously
important topic that needs to beaddressed in organizations.
We can talk about some ideas onhow to do that, but I think it
(43:41):
is tough, and I do think justthe general state of the world
is intersecting with just ageneral stressful state in most
organizations to begin with, andit's just making it worse.
So I think there is a trend tosee increased anxiety in
organizations these days.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
And Molly, I was shocked to read the statistic
that in America today, 50% ofadults have experienced some
kind of childhood trauma.
Today, 50% of adults haveexperienced some kind of
childhood trauma.
And trauma is entrenched deeply, deeply entrenched.
(44:20):
And working with that kind ofentrenched fear and anxiety is
real hard work and you can'tjust tell people don't be
anxious or don't have fear,right, you have to take people
through a deeply experientialprocess for them to be able to
unlock it.
You know choice is deeplypersonal and therefore the
process cannot be just.
(44:44):
It's not a mathematical equation.
Often people come to us and sayjust give me the formula, just
give me, just give me the rightMark likes that.
But you know, but it's sodeeply embedded in you that you
have to experience your way outof it.
And that's what I would adviseHR professionals is that it's
(45:06):
not a system process solution,it is a experiential solution.
And as much as you guys areamazing at your craft, you need
to also become amazingfacilitators of human beings,
because that is what is neededto address anxiety and fear.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
I couldn't agree more , and I think so often we just,
you know, oh, you have an issue,let's send you to our EAP, and
it just doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
So I think we definitely need to dive more
into this 100%, and I think youknow, maybe to put a punctuation
mark on it.
You know, I think that that isit.
And who else is going to dothat in an organization if not
human resources?
Right, we need to takeownership of that.
We need to become experts inthat, become educated and
(45:56):
reflect that inwardly and makesure that we can help our
organizations overcome that aswell.
So just great stuff.
We are readily coming up on theend of our time together, but
I've got.
I could talk for another threehours, but we're just getting
warmed up.
Yeah, I know Right, it's like.
It's like uh, one of theexamples was uh, you talked
(46:16):
about a jazz band and you weretalking about improv, um, and I
used to play jazz back in theday, so, like that one was like
cool, but but it's like.
It's like the jazz band justgot warmed up and we're like now
we're just starting to hit theright rhythm and the solo
starting, and now we got tofinish.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
So but better put part two on the books?
Speaker 1 (46:35):
yeah, absolutely so.
Shifting gears.
We're going to go intosomething we do with all of our
guests called the rebel hr flashround.
So three questions that we askour listeners.
So because we have two gueststoday, I'm going to ask each of
you one question and then I'llhave you both answer the last
question.
How does that sound?
Speaker 2 (46:56):
I think we should give them all to Mark.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Give them all to Mark .
Okay, well, I'm finding out.
Mark probably already had themwritten down and documented in a
workflow before we started.
Just take a while, guys take awhile, all right.
All right, I'll start with Mark.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
How's that All right?
Question number one what areyou reading?
Right now I am reading theOverstory.
It's a fiction book about justtrees and nature.
It's really, really fascinating.
One thing I haven't done asmuch as read fiction because
I've been so entrenched inreading, writing a business book
.
So the Overstory, by RichardPowers, I believe, is the author
(47:38):
Very, very deep reflection onjust the interconnectedness of
everything.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Awesome.
All right, Gaurav.
Who should we be listening to?
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Who should we be listening to?
You should be listening to me.
No, I think this is a crazyanswer, but I would strongly
encourage.
If people really want to getsome deep reflection going, is
(48:11):
this gentleman called SwamiBodhananda and he is based out
of Kalamazoo, michigan, and hehas some great videos on YouTube
about the essence of life andabout what does it mean to live
a wholehearted life.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Swami, how do you say that?
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Bodha Nanda, which is B-O-D-H-A-N-A-D-A.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
And I have heard him speak as well and he is pretty
amazing and very thoughtprovoking.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
That is probably a first that we've had somebody
like that recommend it, so thankyou for expanding our thought
process a little bit.
All right, last question, I'llpitch this to both of you how
can our listeners connect withyou?
Speaker 3 (48:59):
Yeah, really easy.
Cocreationpartnerscom.
No dashes, Just one wordCoCreationPartnerscom.
And if you're interested in thebook and some of these ideas,
you can go to unfearbookcom aswell to learn some more.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Yeah, and I am really happy if people want to reach
out to me on LinkedIn as well.
I will respond because I dobelieve that conversation is the
way to move forward.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Absolutely, and we will have all that information
in the show notes.
So open up your podcast player,click in.
Check out the book.
Like I've said a couple oftimes, highly recommended
reading.
Just want to thank you bothagain for being so generous with
your time and for putting thebook together.
Really great work and, I think,really helpful for me and Molly
(49:47):
.
So thank you so much thanks forhaving us take care alright,
that does it for the Rebel HRpodcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook at RebelHR podcast, twitter at Rebel HR
guy, or see our website atrebelhumanresourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by Rebel HR podcast
(50:08):
are those of the authors and donot at RebelHRGuy, or see our
website atRebelHumanResourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by RebelHR Podcast are
those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany of the organizations that we
represent.
No animals were harmed duringthe filming of this podcast.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
Baby.
This is the Rebel HR Podcast.
If you're a professionallooking for innovative,
thought-provoking information inthe world of human resources,
this is the right podcast foryou.
Rebel on HR Rebels.
Super excited for our guests.
(00:22):
This week.
We've got a couple of wonderfulguests.
I have been tearing throughtheir new book.
It's called Unfair Transformyour Organization to Create
Breakthrough Performance andcrossed off or employee
well-being.
With us today we've got MarkManoukas and Gaurav Bhatnagar
(00:43):
and we are also joined by MollyBerdess, so super excited for
the conversation today.
Mark and Gaurav are theco-founders of Co-Creation
Partners.
Gaurav has dedicated more thantwo decades to helping companies
thrive and achieve breakthroughperformance.
Since founding Co-CreationPartners in 2010, he has
(01:04):
designed and led programs andworkshops for a number of
different clients acrossmultiple sectors names such as
Procter Gamble, pepsi-cola andso on and so forth.
Mark is an engineer by training.
We're going to get along justfine.
I work with a lot of engineersand began his career as a Navy
(01:26):
officer and a member of the USNaval Construction Battalion,
also known as the Seabees, andhe brought his experience and
insights into the performance ofengineered systems to McKinsey,
where he was a consultant andhas also worked with a number of
different industries andwonderful companies.
Welcome to the show this weekguys.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Absolutely Well, super excited for the
conversation and, before we hitrecord here, I was just
commenting that I've got a copyof this book Unfear and I get a
lot of books in my role as apodcaster but this is one of
those that I started readingthrough it and it was just like,
oh, that's good stuff.
(02:07):
Oh, that's good stuff.
So thank you for writing thebook and I encourage our
listeners to check it out.
But why don't we just startwith what prompted you to write
a book about fear?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
We wanted to convey to the world what we saw as a
primary source of waste anddysfunction in organizations.
So our company co-creationpartners, we help organizations
improve their performance andemployee well-being.
And fear always sat at theheart of what we worked on with
(02:42):
clients, and it's often, youknow, it's an element in an
organization that people youknow don't fully acknowledge or
don't really see, and so wewanted to create a book that
helped people see what wasreally going on in their
organization with respect tofear and what they could do
about it.
What would you say, Gaurav?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, so all of that.
But the other thing I would sayis that I'm a recovering fear
addict, and so writing a bookabout the stuff that I'm
recovering from made sense.
I think I've written this bookin my head about 20 times before
I actually got down to writingit with Mark during the pandemic
(03:21):
, so it's been a long timecoming it with.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Mark during the pandemic, so it's been a long
time coming.
Elaborate on that a little bitmore.
So you've found that fear holdspeople back.
Fear of what?
Is there one or two things, orwhat does that look like?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Sure.
Well, so then you know it'sinteresting, because the one
thing I'll tell you is that Ihaven't met a single human being
who doesn't have fear.
Now, there's some commonpatterns.
The top three or four that Ioften run across in
organizations is fear of failure.
The second one, which isespecially true for senior
(04:05):
people in organizations and CEOs, is fear of being an imposter
and fear of being found out.
The third one is the fear ofnot being appreciated or
validated, and the last one isthe fear of being disliked.
Those are often the four whichI find to be the most common.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
There are many, many more, but those are the ones
that are quite typical.
Well, I was just going to say Iwas at a seminar yesterday
actually, and one of thespeakers was talking about
imposter syndrome and I learnedthat that coin or that was that
phrase, I guess really came outin the 70s, 1970s.
It's been around for that longand I think it's a real thing.
(04:43):
And you know the speaker's likewhy are we still talking about
this?
And it is, it's because of fear, it's real.
So I just found that reallyinteresting.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yeah, and the important idea we want to get
across in the book as well isthat fear itself is not the
problem, and we all have thesefears and it's more about
changing the story we hold aboutthe fears that we have.
So we'll still experience fearas human beings, that's just,
that's a natural thing.
But if we can shift how werelate to those fears, that's
(05:15):
where, you know, people havethose breakthroughs and can be
more effective.
And I think that's importantfor HR professionals as well,
because I think there's atendency to say look, fear is
bad, let's figure out how wealmost eliminate it or, you know
, suppress it, and so thatcreates its own dysfunction.
And you know, we think there'sa false dichotomy between using
(05:36):
fear and suppressing fear.
It's really doing somethingcompletely different.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
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(06:47):
link in the show notes.
Thanks for listening.
One of the things that I thinkis so powerful in this content
is the fact that we can allrelate to this.
So, gaurav, I reallyappreciated throughout the book.
You used personal examples andyou were you were really kind of
(07:11):
you know, honestly prettyvulnerable and I and I, as I
reflect on that and the commentthat you called yourself a fear
addict.
Obviously you overcame that insome way because you were able
to be vulnerable in a bookthat's going to go out to
thousands and thousands ofreaders around the world.
So what tactics did you use to,first of all, to just kind of
(07:35):
identify oh you know I've got anissue with this and then figure
out how do I actually overcomesome of these challenges?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, so that's a brilliant question, because I
thought fear was a good thing,that the fact that I felt fear
was a great thing, because itgalvanized me into doing things.
And this is a long time ago.
So this was 2002 and, uh, I wassitting in a workshop which I
(08:08):
did not want to be in.
Um, it was.
It was being run by thisbritish woman who had called it,
called herself gita bellen, andgita is an indian name, and I
used to tell everyone she's afraud and because her real name
is margaret and she's just takenan Indian name to convince us.
And I'm Indian, so I'm allowedto say that.
(08:31):
And as I was in that workshop,what I realized was that I was
in a pattern where I was socaught up with success that I
had lost my connection to joy.
And this lady helped meunderstand that.
(08:51):
And when she opened that gap,it forced me to really, really
reflect on all the things, allthe stories that I had created
in my head about success and thefear of failure that was
holding me in a very, verydysfunctional pattern, and the
(09:14):
fact that I was able to thenreframe all of that through the
help of many, many people.
After that, it just felt thatit would be intellectually
dishonest not to share thatjourney and to make it about
everyone else when ultimately,you know, I am just like anyone
else.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
And so, admitting to that fear and you have that
self-realization, how we have alot of people walk into our
office in HR and a lot of peopledon't have, how do we help them
get to that moment that you gotto?
How do we help them realizethat, hey, fear is the issue or
this is a fear?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, so.
So this is a great question.
So I think for most people whoare not ready to engage in a
conversation about fear, youdon't start with a conversation
about fear.
You start with a conversationabout behavior, and what you do
is you help them understand thatbehavior is not something that
(10:17):
just happens, because most ofthe time people think, oh, I
have a behavior, someone willtell me another behavior and
I'll go to that new behavior.
But my experience is that youknow you do that and then stress
happens and you ping right backto your old behavior.
So the conversation that welead people through to help them
understand the fear is weactually have them understand a
(10:39):
whole process of what are thestories, what are the thoughts
and feelings, what are thebelief systems that are driving
that behavior.
And as you go through that, italways leads to our inherent
unmet needs and our fears.
So you get people to that pointthrough them understanding
themselves rather than startingwith fear, because fear is a
(11:00):
taboo topic in organizations,right, I mean, it's amazing how
everyone talks about how there'sfear, but when you go into the
corporate boardroom, oh, no, no,no, our organization is no fear
and I never had fear To befearful or to have fears is to
be a weak leader is often whathappens, so you can't directly
(11:21):
engage in that conversation.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
You know I'm thinking through my own organization and
I'm in sales, so I see this allthe time.
Right, and people have heard mesay this before.
But it drives me crazy when aleader comes to me and says all
of our people just suck, they'relow performers, they don't want
to do the job, they just won'tdo.
It says all of our people justsuck, they're low performers,
they don't want to do the job,they just won't do it.
And as I was hearing, you knowyou guys talk about this, I do.
(11:45):
I think that most of the peopleit comes back to they are
fearful of something.
So if we change thatconversation, I think it could
be so impactful.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's so true and, Mark, I'm sure you have a
perspective on that.
But what I?
What I believe is most peopledon't come to work with an
intention to underperform Right.
They don't come to work to sayI'm just going to collect my
paycheck and screw everythingelse.
Most people have goodintentions, but they have
stories which hold them back,and then they get reinforced in
(12:18):
the organization through thesearchetypes which are either
aggressive, defensive or passive, defensive.
That then makes them becomesuboptimal and then it becomes
completely embedded and thenpeople say there's no way out
and they start asserting it asif it's the truth.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, and just to build on that there's you know
Gaurav mentioned the aggressive,defensive, passive defensive
sort of patterns.
There are some people who,driven by fear, actually work
themselves to burnout.
You know, those are people whoare super competitive, perhaps
they're perfectionistic, youknow.
So that's one general pattern.
The other are maybe thosepeople who just don't really
(12:59):
show up.
They just keep their head downand they're just trying really
hard to not make any mistakes.
So that's sort of the otherpattern.
So you see both, but they'reboth signs that there's some
underlying fear that's drivingthat dysfunction.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
You know it's really interesting because you know and
I'm reflecting on, you know, myorganization's we're a
manufacturing organizationDefinitely some machismo in the
leadership ranks Admitting thatyou're afraid or that fear is
(13:34):
interacting with yourdecision-making process.
It would be very surprising ifthat were to occur.
I think now we have a greatleadership team and I think we
have some very intellectuallyand emotionally intellectual
people, but they're not going tocome out and be like, oh yeah,
I'm really terrified of this.
But I think what was sointeresting in that and I'm just
(13:58):
reflecting on myself is, Ithink you know what, what was so
interesting in that and I'mjust reflecting on on myself is,
you know I can, but I canabsolutely uh, relate to the, to
the fear of failure or the fearof looking like an idiot, you
know, or or the, you know, thefear of of losing my job Cause I
just completely screwed up aproject.
And you know the moments thatyou know I, I remember distinct
(14:21):
moments in my career where I'vejust I've I've been driven to
inaction because I, and you knowand it really is kind of now
that I think about it in thiscontext it's almost like being
petrified because of that fearresponse as opposed to, you know
, working, working through that.
And, molly, it was funny whenyou mentioned the people coming
into my office.
It's, you know, I don't know ifit's as much for me about
(14:44):
somebody else working throughtheir fear.
A lot of it comes back to meand, you know, you get that pit,
you get that feeling in the pitof your stomach when someone
comes walking in that door andit really is.
It's a fear of what's coming innext, right, and you don't know
, especially in HR sometimes.
Sometimes this stuff is youcan't, you couldn't write a book
(15:06):
about it.
So, so as as we cope throughthat kind of personally, I kind
of reflect on that and in our,in our world, you know how, how,
as an individual, uh, can I,can I be aware of that and kind
of work through that when I getthose feelings, the kind of like
the cortisol coursing throughmy veins, and then how do I find
(15:30):
mechanisms to cope with that?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean we kind of describe alearning process that starts
with awareness and then moves tochoice and practice, that
starts with awareness and thenmoves to choice and practice.
So step one is just helpingpeople become aware of where and
how they feel fear.
You know even just the somatic,you know markers of where that
(15:52):
fear shows up in your body, sojust noticing it and not
necessarily judging it.
And it's also getting people tobecome more aware of how their
current responses to fear areserving them and helping them,
and also where it's not helpingthem be effective.
Most of the responses that wehave have served us in some way
at some point in life, but we'vekind of forgotten to question
(16:15):
those patterns and thatconditioning and so we bring
those patterns into the presentmoment and it may not actually
allow us to be effective.
So, kyle, you were mentioning asituation where maybe you're
holding back and not sharingsomething.
Maybe that served you well inthe past but maybe it's not
particularly effective at thispoint.
And so getting people to justrealize that go through that
(16:36):
thought process so they can makemore active choices to be more
effective, through that thoughtprocess, so they can make more
active choices to be moreeffective.
And then practicing that.
You know it takes practice.
It's not.
You know there's no quick fixthere.
Necessarily awareness andchoice are the start of it, but
you really have to practicestepping out of your comfort
zone and working into these newpatterns of behavior.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, and we talk about in the book that fear.
So you know, in our brain, alot of our decisions are
emotional decisions that wepost-rationalize.
Right, and the emotional brainhas two parts the pain complex
and the pleasure complex.
And the pain complex is likeVelcro, so it sticks to us,
while the pleasure complex islike Teflon, so you get a high
(17:17):
and you forget it.
That's why my wife stillremembers the one time I forgot
her birthday, even though I tellher I love you every day.
Right, but, but it's but, but,but that's.
That's the interesting thing,right?
So?
So how do you get conscious ofknowing that that thing is about
to happen?
And the other problem is welive in our heads, and this is
(17:40):
about the first step is to getto learn to live in our body.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Where in our?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
body, do we feel it, and then deliberately create a
point of choice.
But that's just a short termthing, because the next time it
happens it'll happen again.
So the other thing we talkabout and people think it's
pretty woo-woo, but it isn't iswe also recommend meditation as
a practice.
And the reason why we recommendmeditation as a practice is
(18:07):
because, over time, whatmeditation allows us to do is it
allows us to clean up thoseVelcro things that are reference
points for our fear.
Velcro things that arereference points for our fear,
and if you don't clean up thosereference points, there's
(18:28):
nothing transformational thathappens in terms of your
relationship to fear.
So there's a short-term thing,which is in the moment what do
you do?
But there's a longer-term thingas well, which is how do you
engage in practices that allowyou to cleanse your system of
your patterns of connectionsthat you have built over many
years?
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I know a lot of people who think meditation is
great for the mind, body, soul,all of that stuff.
And when I first started, youknow hearing these things in my
head, I just pictured, okay, I'mgoing to lay on the floor for
an hour quiet, like who has timefor that, but I don't think
that's what meditation is or hasto be.
(19:09):
Am I right?
Am I wrong?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah.
So I don't know if meditationis lying on the floor for half
an hour, but the fundamentals ofmeditation are twofold.
Fundamentals of meditation arethe ability to observe while
you're in the act of doingsomething Right.
So the most simplest form ofmeditation is to notice your
(19:31):
breathing when you have yourthoughts, notice your thoughts.
So why is that so important.
The reason why that's soimportant is because meditation
actually gives you the practiceof understanding that you're not
just an actor in your lifestory, in your organizational
story.
You're also the director ofyour life story, because you can
(19:52):
observe yourself in that moment.
And when you're a director, youcan shift things.
If you're just an actor, thenyou are.
You know, when I started my life, my career, my journey, it was
I used to say I'm an angry kindof person.
That's just the way I am.
And if you don't want to getinto a bad situation with me,
just don't hang out with me whenI'm angry, because that's who I
(20:14):
am.
And what this work has taughtme meditation has taught me is
is that I'm bigger than my anger, because I can observe it and
from there I can shift it.
And to be both the director andactor is such an important idea
and that is the core ofmeditation, if you really think
about it.
To be meditative in everythingyou do is the intention, rather
(20:40):
than to meditate and just liedown.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, and I know a lot of people.
I know a lot of people, myselfincluded for a period of time
are very skeptical of meditation.
It seems like one of thosewoo-woo things like I don't need
to do that stuff, like I'meffective enough already and
that's just kind of a soft,touchy-feely thing to do.
I personally, over time, havecome to appreciate that it
(21:06):
doesn't have to be this weirdwoo-woo thing.
It really is this process ofbecoming more aware of
everything that's happening,whether it's changing body
sensations and your emotions andyour thought processes and just
not being so lost in thought,and it just gives you a lot more
flexibility about how you canshow up in any given moment to
(21:29):
be effective.
You're not so fused with youremotion and your thoughts.
You can step back, like Lauramentioned, and be more of that
observer.
It's just.
It's a more powerful way tolive life.
You know, if you're nervous ina meeting, like a podcast
meeting, you can sort of noticethat and how it's showing up in
your body and you know justshift your breath a little bit
and how you're um, how you'resitting, and it just allows you
(21:52):
to to shift in the moment.
So that's something I'vediscovered over time.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
It's.
It's it's really interestingand and I am, I probably should
be, but I I'm not a meditationpracticer Um, and I think part
of it's just because, yeah, Ijust I don't know enough about
it.
But it's interesting that youknow you'll consistently hear
that feedback from experts whohave studied.
You know the brain andemotional responses and you know
(22:20):
a great example of an unhealthyapproach to this.
And now, as I, you know, afterI read the book and as I'm
reflecting on the conversationhere, it was really a fear
response.
But you know, earlier in mycareer, I used to, as opposed to
, approach conflict or, you know, my fear of what might be
walking through my door in ahealthy way.
I would flip a switch in mybrain and become like an
(22:43):
emotionless jerk, because then Iwouldn't have to deal with it,
right, I wouldn't have to takeon the emotional burden of
somebody else's problems orhaving to terminate somebody's
employment or something alongthose lines.
You know the unfun part ofhuman resources.
But eventually I did have tofigure out okay, how do I cope
with this and retain my humanitythrough the course of my, you
(23:07):
know, essential job functions,otherwise I'm going to have a
mental break, right?
And so I think that goes to youknow the burnout and it wasn't
meditation, but it was, I wouldsay it was community and it was
getting connected with wonderfulprofessionals like Molly and
like-minded folks.
That helped me understand Iwasn't alone and kind of,
(23:29):
building that community for mewas the antidote for that.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah, and Kyle, that's meditation too.
When you engage in deepreflective conversations with
other people with intentionality, that is being meditative as
well.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah, and that story resonates with my life
experience as well, kyle,because you know, growing up,
you know, and being trained asan engineer and being in the
Navy, you know I was sort oftaught that to be a man in the
world you have to suppress youremotions.
You know, anger is an okayemotion, but pretty much any
other emotion is suspect, itmeans you're not effective.
(24:04):
But there's a, there's a costto that and you know, carrying
all the stress, you know, andthe Velcro that Gaurav mentioned
, you know that's still therebut it just it sort of sits
inside and that it sort of eatsyou from the inside out.
And so I've learned over timethat I can actually, you know,
be okay with my emotions andshare those emotions and be
vulnerable, and it doesn't meanI'm not effective and I can
(24:27):
still, you know, be who I am,but just be it in a way that's
more open.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Yeah, sometimes, I think, with fear, you just have
to do it to overcome it,otherwise you have so much
buildup in your head.
For me it used to be like hardconversation.
I just had this internal fearof oh my gosh, what if I don't
do this right?
What if it doesn't go well?
What if I don't do this right?
What if it doesn't go well?
What if I don't say the rightthings?
What if I offend this person?
What if I make it worse?
And it was just creating moreconflict.
(24:58):
And then you know, once youstart having those hard
conversations, it's like aninstant weight off your shoulder
and it's like, ok, that wasn'tso bad, I can do this, sure.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
And it's like, okay, that wasn't so bad, I can do
this.
Something bad is going tohappen.
And what a lot of my work withleaders is about is being right
is not the same thing as beingeffective, and when we get into
the right mode, then we get intoa right and wrong mode and we
make other people wrong, and thejob of leadership is actually
(25:42):
to inspire and buildfollowership, and the more you
you make people wrong by beingright, you actually end up being
more ineffective rather thaneffective.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Yeah, and I imagine that just creates like this
defensive, toxic culture.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
It's such a good conversation and I've taken away
so much.
One thing I do want to talkabout.
That that was was a definitelya light bulb moment for me as I
was reading through the book wasthe fear archetypes.
And you know there's I meanthis is scientifically backed,
you know I I love the fact that.
(26:19):
You know it ties back tovalidated, peer reviewed studies
and and you know this isn't a,this isn't like, hey, let's
throw, let's throw some darts ata board and see what names
sound good that we can put inhere.
So, so, and and what.
What really resonated with mewas the difference between the
(26:39):
fear archetypes and the, andthey're separated by the fight
club and the nice club.
And as I was reading through it, I'm like, oh, yep, I know one
of those, I know one of those, Igot one of those.
Yep, we got one of those too.
And it was just so funny thatit allowed me to kind of put
that all into context.
And then, in my seat, one ofthe biggest challenges is
working through organizationalchange and trying to get people
(27:02):
aligned and, you know, trying tomanage through COVID when 50%
of the United States feels oneway and the other 50% feels
another, and you could go downthe list.
Over the last 18 months, someof the turmoil that's been
brought in the workplace.
But can we just maybe take astep back and walk us through
(27:24):
what some of those archetypesare and how fear plays into them
?
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Yeah, we should first acknowledge that the archetypes
are based on the work from anorganization called Human
Synergistics International andthe work of Dr Robert Cook book,
so the archetypes very closelyalign to some of the survey
(27:52):
tools that they use and that weuse in a lot of our client work.
But there's two primary campshere to the fear archetypes.
One is the fight club and thebasic response there is people
see threats and they try to staysafe by standing out and being
special, and we can go throughthe four archetypes there.
The second is the nice club andthe way in which this group
(28:18):
stays safe in the presence ofthreats is they keep their head
down and they sort of hide.
And so I can list these offreal quick and we can jump in as
needed.
But within the Fight Club you'vegot perfectionists.
These are people that need toget everything right, dot all
the I's, cross all the T's.
There's the competitors, sopeople who are ultra competitive
(28:39):
and need to win at all costs.
There's the controllers theseare people that need to be
controlled and they tend to bevery hierarchical.
And the fault finders.
These are people that need tobe controlled and they tend to
be very hierarchical.
And the fault finders.
These are the consultants ofthe world.
They're constantly findingfaults and seeing problems
everywhere, including withthemselves and with other people
, and so you can see thatthere's benefits and those
(29:03):
archetypes or those patternshelp people be effective in some
ways, but they also have theirdownsides.
Then, on the nice club side,you've got the likables.
These are people who just tryto be nice and minimize conflict
.
You've got the sticklers.
These are people who throw therule book at you anytime
(29:24):
something's going on.
That happens a little bit inthe HR world, from what we've
seen.
You've got the minions.
These are people who you knowtheir only customer is their
boss and they're constantlytrying to serve the hierarchy
upwards.
And then you have the avoiders.
These are people who, just youknow, shy away from conflict,
and so you know we're often, youknow, a mix of these archetypes
(29:47):
at any given time, and itchanges by context and we can
ship these.
These aren't like personalitytraits that are immutable.
These are just patterns ofbehavior that we've come to
adapt over time, based on valuesthat are actually quite
important, but they've justbecome dysfunctional in some
ways, and so we try to shine alight on that and help people
understand how these patternsserve them, but how they don't
(30:10):
serve them.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, and another really interesting thing is that
when you engage with the peoplewho have the fight club
archetypes, often they would saythe reason why we are in the
fight club is because if wedon't use any one of those
archetypes, all those nice clubpeople are just going to just
not do anything and they are thereason why we are in the fight
club.
(30:31):
And then you talk to the peoplein the nice club and the nice
club people say the reason whywe just hide is because those
guys are always fighting andscreaming at us.
So these two categoriesactually mutually
dysfunctionally reinforce eachother.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yeah, and you bring up a really important point,
gorvin.
There's a question about well,how do these relate to fear?
There's just a certain story.
The fears are essentially allthe same fear of being an
imposter, fear of not belonging,fear of failure.
The same fears sit beneath allthese archetypes, it's just
different stories that we tellourselves about the threats that
(31:07):
we're experiencing lead todifferent, you know, patterns of
behavior, and so the theintervention point here isn't to
get rid of your fear.
That's not realistic.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
it's just to shift the story that we have about
this threat so, kyle, if I everfind that that book on my desk,
that must be an intervention.
I'll know I gotta.
I gotta change some of mybehavior.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
You know that's funny , molly, you know I'd be happy
to give you the copy of the book.
But you know, I think, for me,as I was reading on this and
reflecting on this, you know,the context for me was thinking
about it and relating it toworkplace interactions.
And you know, I think that youknow, personally, I can see a
(31:55):
little bit of all those in me.
But I've also, you know,reflected on my upbringing and
as well as my kind of where Istarted my career and where I am
now upbringing, and as well asmy kind of where I started my
career and where I am now, and,and you know, it was interesting
(32:16):
to read through those andreflect and think.
You know, a lot of thesearchetypes, you know, were
helpful in the moment, like yousaid, mark, where you know it
worked for a period of time butthen I had to adapt and I had to
change and it got uncomfortable.
But had I not, I would havejust been kind of stuck.
And one of those for me is likeit's the it's, it's it's
(32:36):
wanting to be liked by others,you know, and I was raised,
raised in a small town in Iowa,you know, you're, you know, when
there's only 5,000 people intown.
You gotta be nice becauseeverybody knows everybody, and
so being liked is really reallyimportant.
But obviously if you overusethat, especially in a strategic
(32:57):
human resources role, eventuallythe drive to be liked could
actually set you up for somepretty serious failures and if
you're not balancing that, youknow, that desire appropriately
could be a really big pitfall.
So I think just having thatawareness and then, Molly,
almost to your question earlieryou know, when someone comes in
your office and they'reinteracting with you in a
(33:19):
certain way, if you can tie thatback to the archetype and kind
of understand okay, this is theperspective they're coming from.
Now, how do I help them workthrough that in a way that
doesn't, you know, jack up theircortisol anymore, but helps us
channel that into somethingthat's actually productive For
(33:41):
me, that was kind of one of theinsights that I think you know
it's like a playbook, right,like okay, how do I play this
one?
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, and just your reflection is kind of what we're
hoping people get from the bookis, you know, to see themselves
and the archetype, not beatthemselves over it, you know up
about it, but just you knowseeing how wow.
This may have served me for aperiod of time, but it may be
limiting me in this particularmoment.
So that's a great insight, kyle, and we can share some of ours
as well, from our own lives.
But I think if somebody doeswalk into your office and
(34:15):
they're displaying some of thesebehaviors, I think it's
important to note that behindthese behaviors are really good
intentions, so likables.
They value harmony and strongrelationships and having people
get along that's actually reallygood stuff.
It's just maybe the way inwhich they're expressing those
values just isn't effectiveright now, and so just helping
(34:38):
people see that may be enough tocreate a breakthrough.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I think the other thing that was really
interesting and I was readingthis book.
The context here is I had areally rough day.
I was, you know, and it was alot of conflict in the workplace
and I tend to kind of soak thatup.
I tend to, you know, that'sjust kind of part of, I think, a
lot of us in HR kind of.
We kind of get those emotionsstuck on us a little bit right,
(35:08):
kind of like we were talkingearlier, um, but thinking about
that in the context of thatperson coming from a different
uh perspective than myself andand thinking that they had to
come from the fight club and andbe uh.
In this case they were, theywere being fault finders and, um
, you know, that was a reallygood mindset shift.
(35:30):
And then the other insight was,you know, in that nice club, a
lot of these likables or minions, or avoiders, they're probably
really top talent.
That's not tapped becausethey're just kind of, they're
just in this mode and we haven'tdrawn that out of them
intentionally either, right, andso you know, it was just kind
(35:53):
of an interesting, it was aninteresting read.
I was very emotional when I wasreading this, if you can tell,
and so it was.
It was, it was a timely book toread.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I'm so glad that you found it useful.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
So so I think you know one of the things that, um,
you know that we we've talkedabout is is.
You know the book and, um, youknow, I think one thing that
that, uh, I'd like to understand, um is is a little bit about
kind of your personal journeys.
Um, you know, and and there's alot, of, a lot of examples in
the book, but you know um lot ofexamples in the book, but to go
(36:35):
from the McKinsey, the goldstandard, and confront your fear
and go and do somethingdifferent and go through that
journey, I'd just like tounderstand that path a little
bit more, because I think that'dbe really valuable for our
listeners.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, my path.
I mean I guess I've taken aninteresting path.
I mean I'm not the typical sortof person to be talking about
fear and culture andorganizations.
You know I've got anengineering background and so I
was quite steeped in, you know,the technical aspects of
creating stuff in the world andin making it work.
But I'd say earlier in mycareer I did study human factors
(37:07):
in engineering.
So I was, you know, early on,taken in by this idea that it's.
You know, it's not enough tojust have your mathematical
equations be right.
You have to get the human andorganizational factors that led
(37:33):
to that failure, not poorengineering.
So that was an idea that satwith me From the Navy I went to
McKinsey Company.
I was really deep into, you know, the technical aspect of
transforming organizations, butI was, you know, constantly
feeling like we're missingsomething on the mindsets part.
We would talk about it.
I think there was goodintention there but I would come
(37:54):
back to clients six to 12months later and just see all of
the brilliant ideas that thesegold standard consultants came
up with and they just didn'tstick.
And at some point in my careerI crossed paths with gora.
If he had started co-creationpartners.
I was still at mckinsey and hewas running some you know
woo-woo workshops withmeditation.
(38:15):
At one of the clients I wasdoing the hardcore you know sort
of lean transformation at and Iwas like who's this joker, you
know couldn't hack it atmckinsey and um, I need to go,
you know drop into this workshopto check in on him.
But but I saw in that workshopyou know just the impact you
know that the ideas had on meand I was like wow, this was a
missing piece.
You know it's not enough justto have the technical piece.
(38:36):
You really need to have thehuman dimension and the you know
the way in which Gorg wasworking with culture really
really stuck with me, reallystuck with me.
So when I left McKinsey sevenyears ago, we partnered up and
we try to bring both the humanand technical dimensions
together.
So that's kind of been myjourney.
I think it's been kind of asteady progression of getting
(38:57):
deeper and deeper into thisstuff, which may be a little bit
different than Gaurav's story,which was this burst of insight
I sort of have little insightsalong the way and I think both
are quite valid.
How about you, gaurav?
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, listen, I'm the son of a physicist and I was a
proud card-carrying member ofthe fight club and for me it was
all about.
Life is difficult and you kickass by overcoming that
(39:34):
difficulty.
Yeah, and I was a nightmare tobe with and I ended up and I did
market research, right, sothat's what my.
I was statistics guy and Iended up just by chance in South
Africa with my, because becausethe US had just had its first
dot-com bust in 2001 and I waslooking for work.
(39:56):
And with Mickey I was still inMcKinsey and I moved to McKinsey
, Johannesburg, and I walkedinto my mentor's office and he
said hey, Goddard, I didn't tellyou our office is doing, not
doing too.
And I said dude, why did youcall me?
Are you crazy?
And he said no, no, no, thatdoesn't matter.
You know.
All that means is you need tobe a generalist.
But the other thing is there'sthis newfangled thing coming in
(40:17):
from Australia around mindsetand we're going to try it on
ourselves because nothing hasworked.
I said, great, do it?
Why are you telling me?
He said no, no, because we wantyou to lead this effort.
And I looked at him and, likehe was crazy, I said I don't do
touchy-feely stuff, that's forHR people to do.
And we had a long argument, longargument, and finally I gave
(40:39):
him my killer argument.
I told him dude, I'm from India.
And he said what does that mean?
I said I know people who dothis kind of stuff.
They sit on top of mountains,they go, not going to do it.
And, as Mark said, I wentcreaking and screaming into this
workshop and I realized thatthere was so much I didn't know
(41:05):
about things and, being the sonof a physicist, I said, okay,
I'm going to crack it in fourmonths and that's it.
And the more I engaged with it,the more I realized I didn't
know.
And it became my life's passion, and I was lucky enough that
helping people unlock theirhuman potential, their true,
true potential, their angel, issomething that not only did I
(41:30):
love, but it allowed me to helppeople connect with something so
essential that I could make acareer out of it.
And so the last 22 years of mylife has just been committed and
dedicated to helpingindividuals, teams and
organizations realize theirpotential and realize that
(41:51):
well-being and performance areso interrelated, because it all
ultimately comes down to meaningand being authentic with
yourself.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Your passion is inspiring and I've only known
you for about what an hour.
You seem like the nicest guy,one of the nicest guys I've ever
met, so that right there weshould get into meditating, kyle
.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yeah, I'm sold, I'm sold.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
Me too.
Hey, I have one more topic, orquestion Kyle, before you cut me
off.
I know that's what you'retrying to do and Kyle didn't
share the book with me.
He was keeping it for himself,so I don't know if you talked
about this or not, but one bigissue in the workplace right now
is individual people's anxiety.
It's just a real hot topic,especially in HR.
(42:40):
We're trying to help, you knowthese individuals who come into
our offices and help these teams.
Do you feel like there's acorrelation between fear and
anxiety?
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yeah, in fact, I think they're oftentimes one in
the same or they're very, veryclosely linked.
So you know, the story you haveabout your fear is you're
perceiving some threat and thatthreat is sustained and it
continually gets reinforcedthrough your thought processes.
Then, yeah, it becomes a moodof anxiety, low level fear that
(43:18):
just sits around all the timeand that, under just about every
single circumstance, willdegrade a person's wellbeing,
their health and well-being, andso I think it's a tremendously
important topic that needs to beaddressed in organizations.
We can talk about some ideas onhow to do that, but I think it
(43:41):
is tough, and I do think justthe general state of the world
is intersecting with just ageneral stressful state in most
organizations to begin with, andit's just making it worse.
So I think there is a trend tosee increased anxiety in
organizations these days.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
And Molly, I was shocked to read the statistic
that in America today, 50% ofadults have experienced some
kind of childhood trauma.
Today, 50% of adults haveexperienced some kind of
childhood trauma.
And trauma is entrenched deeply, deeply entrenched.
(44:20):
And working with that kind ofentrenched fear and anxiety is
real hard work and you can'tjust tell people don't be
anxious or don't have fear,right, you have to take people
through a deeply experientialprocess for them to be able to
unlock it.
You know choice is deeplypersonal and therefore the
process cannot be just.
(44:44):
It's not a mathematical equation.
Often people come to us and sayjust give me the formula, just
give me, just give me the rightMark likes that.
But you know, but it's sodeeply embedded in you that you
have to experience your way outof it.
And that's what I would adviseHR professionals is that it's
(45:06):
not a system process solution,it is a experiential solution.
And as much as you guys areamazing at your craft, you need
to also become amazingfacilitators of human beings,
because that is what is neededto address anxiety and fear.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
I couldn't agree more , and I think so often we just,
you know, oh, you have an issue,let's send you to our EAP, and
it just doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
So I think we definitely need to dive more
into this 100%, and I think youknow, maybe to put a punctuation
mark on it.
You know, I think that that isit.
And who else is going to dothat in an organization if not
human resources?
Right, we need to takeownership of that.
We need to become experts inthat, become educated and
(45:56):
reflect that inwardly and makesure that we can help our
organizations overcome that aswell.
So just great stuff.
We are readily coming up on theend of our time together, but
I've got.
I could talk for another threehours, but we're just getting
warmed up.
Yeah, I know Right, it's like.
It's like uh, one of theexamples was uh, you talked
(46:16):
about a jazz band and you weretalking about improv, um, and I
used to play jazz back in theday, so, like that one was like
cool, but but it's like.
It's like the jazz band justgot warmed up and we're like now
we're just starting to hit theright rhythm and the solo
starting, and now we got tofinish.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
So but better put part two on the books?
Speaker 1 (46:35):
yeah, absolutely so.
Shifting gears.
We're going to go intosomething we do with all of our
guests called the rebel hr flashround.
So three questions that we askour listeners.
So because we have two gueststoday, I'm going to ask each of
you one question and then I'llhave you both answer the last
question.
How does that sound?
Speaker 2 (46:56):
I think we should give them all to Mark.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Give them all to Mark .
Okay, well, I'm finding out.
Mark probably already had themwritten down and documented in a
workflow before we started.
Just take a while, guys take awhile, all right.
All right, I'll start with Mark.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
How's that All right?
Question number one what areyou reading?
Right now I am reading theOverstory.
It's a fiction book about justtrees and nature.
It's really, really fascinating.
One thing I haven't done asmuch as read fiction because
I've been so entrenched inreading, writing a business book
.
So the Overstory, by RichardPowers, I believe, is the author
(47:38):
Very, very deep reflection onjust the interconnectedness of
everything.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Awesome.
All right, Gaurav.
Who should we be listening to?
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Who should we be listening to?
You should be listening to me.
No, I think this is a crazyanswer, but I would strongly
encourage.
If people really want to getsome deep reflection going, is
(48:11):
this gentleman called SwamiBodhananda and he is based out
of Kalamazoo, michigan, and hehas some great videos on YouTube
about the essence of life andabout what does it mean to live
a wholehearted life.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Swami, how do you say that?
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Bodha Nanda, which is B-O-D-H-A-N-A-D-A.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
And I have heard him speak as well and he is pretty
amazing and very thoughtprovoking.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
That is probably a first that we've had somebody
like that recommend it, so thankyou for expanding our thought
process a little bit.
All right, last question, I'llpitch this to both of you how
can our listeners connect withyou?
Speaker 3 (48:59):
Yeah, really easy.
Cocreationpartnerscom.
No dashes, Just one wordCoCreationPartnerscom.
And if you're interested in thebook and some of these ideas,
you can go to unfearbookcom aswell to learn some more.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Yeah, and I am really happy if people want to reach
out to me on LinkedIn as well.
I will respond because I dobelieve that conversation is the
way to move forward.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Absolutely, and we will have all that information
in the show notes.
So open up your podcast player,click in.
Check out the book.
Like I've said a couple oftimes, highly recommended
reading.
Just want to thank you bothagain for being so generous with
your time and for putting thebook together.
Really great work and, I think,really helpful for me and Molly
(49:47):
.
So thank you so much thanks forhaving us take care alright,
that does it for the Rebel HRpodcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook at RebelHR podcast, twitter at Rebel HR
guy, or see our website atrebelhumanresourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by Rebel HR podcast
(50:08):
are those of the authors and donot at RebelHRGuy, or see our
website atRebelHumanResourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by RebelHR Podcast are
those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany of the organizations that we
represent.
No animals were harmed duringthe filming of this podcast.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
Baby.
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