Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The hearth is for you
if you're a business leader
with a team.
Here we have conversationsabout how to keep growing.
When you feel you've reachedyour capacity, when what you're
doing is working but you'restarting to see the cracks, when
there's a gap between whereyou're at now and where you want
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to be, here we find ways totransition through the struggle
of survival toward creating athriving business that supports
you and your team as wholehumans.
Your host is me, candiceElliott.
I'm a business strategist andmentor who specializes in
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working with business owners whoare going through periods of
growth.
Especially when you're addingmore people to your team, the
practices and systems thatworked when your team was
smaller just don't seem to fitanymore, and when you're caught
in stress and reaction, it'stough to reimagine the way that
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you created your world of work,both your own personal one and
the one that you created forothers.
I help people align theirvalues and business practices to
build practical, sustainable,thriving work ecosystems and no,
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this isn't just some workutopia talk.
To do this, I bring forward mydecade-long professional
background in human resourcesand organizational development,
working with growing businessesacross many sectors, and my
decades-long search for meaningand wholeness, which includes
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researching the history of workand how it came to be what it is
today, practicing atrauma-informed approach to
business and integrating work,life and spirituality into a
meaningful whole.
Let's take this journeytogether.
Hello, welcome back to theHearth.
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And today we're going to be.
I'm going to be talking aboutbuilding inclusive and
respectful workplaces.
Over the years of working withso many different workplaces and
then also digging into someresearch around inclusion and
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respect at work, it occurred tome that there might be an entry
point for this right Inworkplaces where things are not
inclusive or where things aredisrespectful.
What can we put in place?
What's an idea that we can talkabout which can help to make
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that shift towards inclusion andrespect?
And I came across the work ofDonna Hicks, and she created
something that's called thedignity model, and this idea of
dignity being that entry point,I think is really powerful.
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Donna Hicks defines dignity asthe glue that holds all of our
relationships together and themutual recognition of the desire
to be seen, heard, listened toand treated fairly, to be
recognized, understood and tofeel safe in the world.
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I think this is what is missingin those workplaces where there
isn't inclusion and respect.
It's like we're not seeing theother person, we're not
recognizing their whole humanity, we're not making fair
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decisions.
We might be making decisionsthat make sense to us or that
are informed by our society ordata or what have you, but they
may not actually be fair.
I think, also this piece ofbeing understood and feeling
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safe, these are not necessarilythings that we spend time
creating time for in theworkplace Recognition as well, I
think in a lot of workplaceswhere, just like you did the job
, great, let's move on to thenext thing.
Not even great, you did the job, here's the next thing.
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You did it, here's the nextthing.
Or I guess this is good enough,let's keep going, or I mean
that'll work, but we have tokeep moving forward.
We can't spend any more time onthis, let's do this.
So, instead of stopping havingthe conversation of recognition,
giving feedback, providingtraining, providing mentorship,
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you know, helping people to feelseen, to feel understood and to
feel safe, we just have thisnever ending cycle of things
that we need to do.
And so Donna Hicks looked atinternational disputes and
organizational cultures thatwere dysfunctional, and
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experiences of indignity were atthe heart of many of these
things, and so introducingpractices that affirm dignity
actually helps to create a morehealthy culture.
So actively redressing pastviolations is especially
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important.
So recognizing the ways inwhich people have not been
treated with respect and not notrecognized and then taking
action to correct is a huge,important part of this.
There are a lot of differenttypes of dignity which I
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actually didn't even realizebefore I started getting into
this and learning more.
I think there's like 10.
I looked at some of the onesthat seemed more applicable to
workplaces that I work with andthen also the human resources
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kind of intersection with work.
So one type is social dignity.
Social dignity is how feelingsof dignity or indignity can be
influenced by socialinteractions.
So either like people approvingor disapproving of different
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kinds of cultural conventions.
When we think about culturalconventions, these are like the
behaviors that we kind of don'teven think about them because
they're so much a part of ourculture.
Like it could be the way yougive like a thumbs up.
You know, in one culture thumbsup is like things are good and
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then in another culture thumbsup is like an insult, you know.
So it's like things like thatthat people do because they mean
something, but they can meansomething in a different
cultural context.
So other social things relatedto social dignity are experience
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related to inclusion orexclusion.
So whether you feel like you'rebeing included as a part of the
group or excluded, you knowwhether you feel like you're
being included or excluded.
You feel like you are a part ofthe group, you are a part of,
like, the majority, right.
Or if you feel like you are notreally a part of the group, if
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you are like on the fringes orthe edge or not even included,
and this can be as small as likeinviting someone to go to lunch
with the group, right.
So it also includes respect ordisrespect If a person is just
behaving respectfully towardsyou or not, is in this realm of
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social dignity.
And then also culturalacceptance or discrimination.
So let's say, you know I have acultural practice, I celebrate
a certain holiday or somethingright, like I celebrate
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solstices and equinoxes and fullmoons and things like that, and
so if I can bring that to thegroup and have that feel
accepted, that's a part ofsocial dignity.
But if I bring that to a groupand it's discriminated against
or criticized or any of thesethings, then that is decreasing
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the dignity that I'm feeling inthe social environment and
that's not to say that you can'tdisagree with a cultural
practice, so like if, forexample, there are practices
that are associated with a waythat something is celebrated and
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you disagree with them, itdoesn't mean that you can't have
a respectful conversationaround that or inquire into why
or ask questions.
It's just that there has to bea respect and dignity.
That's a foundation for it,right, like I have been in
conversations with people whohave vastly different belief
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systems than I do and we havebeen able to talk about how we
think about each other'sdifferent beliefs without
disrespect, and it has beenrespectful and it has actually
grown and made our relationshipsstronger.
And then I've been in otherconversations like that where
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it's polarizing and it'sdisrespectful and it is harmful
really.
And so this is that part ofsocial dignity that I think is
really important is that we canbe agreeable in our disagreement
.
Another type of dignity thatexists is economic dignity, so
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the feeling of dignity orindignity being influenced by
the experience of wealth orpoverty, employment or
unemployment, prejudice orprivileges based on
socioeconomic status and theability or inability to purchase
basic life necessities.
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And so economic dignity, Ithink, is just so wrapped up in
the world of work, because wework in exchange for money, and
so our ability to participatefully in society, to be able to
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provide our own life necessities, to be employed or unemployed,
and to have what we feel forourselves to be an acceptable
socioeconomic status is soreliant on our work and our
ability to earn.
And so this is why I thinkpractices around pay and around
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the economics of your businessand what it is doing, not just
how well the business issupporting itself, which is
essential, right but also howwell the business is supporting
all of the people that are apart of the business, and we
have to build businesses that ithas to be a reciprocal exchange
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, right.
So people have to have economicdignity in their work in order
for them to be included and forthe workplace to be a respectful
workplace.
If people are unable to supportthemselves with the work that
they are doing because they'renot earning enough, it is the
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responsibility of the businessto look at why and how to create
jobs that will actually supporta person in their needs, not
just basic life needs, but also,you know, their ability to live
the kind of life that they wantto live.
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Another type of dignity,especially that relates to the
human resources mess of how Ihelp with businesses is legal
dignity, and so this is feelingsof dignity or indignity that
are influenced by just or unjustlaws, the existence or absence
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of legal protections and fair orunfair treatment.
In this work by Donna Hicks,she talks about that as it
relates to police officers andcriminal justice systems, but I
think that this also is a partof our businesses, and fair and
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unfair treatment by HR or themanager, the CEO, the COO, also
falls into this realm, becausethere are so many legal
agreements that are a part ofwork.
There are so many laws that areenacted through our businesses
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or not enacted through ourbusinesses, and so many legal
protections that exist foremployees in different kinds of
ways that having anunderstanding of all of those
things, being able to upholdjust laws, to recognize unjust
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laws, to understand the legalprotections that employees have,
and then to be able to treatpeople fairly based on the
agreements that you have withthem this is all a part of legal
dignity.
So there are some steps thatyou can take to bring dignity
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into the workplace if it isn'tsomething that's already there
or if there are some pieces thatyou're struggling with.
One thing that's recommended ispracticing acceptance Accepting
others for who they are andwhat they're doing, and not
putting the pressure to be more,do more, take on more.
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Another is being inclusive.
So you know, intentionallyreaching out to community
members that are historicallymarginalized.
You know doing that throughyour work.
There is also ensuring physicaland emotional safety.
So you know, just creating safespace both for the body and for
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the emotions at work.
If you want some tips onemotional safety, listen to my
last solo episode.
It's all about mental healthand the workplace, and then with
physical safety and work.
There's so many differentthings that can come up, but
just I guess a main one ismaking sure that all the
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equipment is working the waythat it should, that people feel
safe.
You know, entering and exitinga building If there's a building
that people have the ability towork with another person
instead of alone.
Those are some kind of basicnot basic, but those are some
foundational ones to think about.
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Establishing and practicingfairness, so coming to an
understanding of what fairdecisions are, what those look
like and this can look like.
Including more people in thedecision-making process.
That's often a very effectiveway of establishing and
practicing fairness.
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It's sort of decentralizing theleadership and including others
in decision-making.
And then also going along withthat is supporting and
developing autonomy orindependence.
And I don't mean that in theway of like a person should be
like self-sufficient and doeverything on their own.
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I mean it more in like aninterdependence kind of a way
where each person has their ownpiece of the work, that they're
given full responsibility andownership over it, that they
have all the tools that theyneed in order to do it well, and
that their work isinterconnected with the work of
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others, so that they're not likefeeling fully off out on their
own, but they know how theirwork impacts the work of other
teams and then also the work ofthe organization as a whole.
That sort of brings me to theend of this little discussion
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about inclusive and respectfulworkplaces.
I have just so many.
I could go on for a lot longerand I think that this is
definitely a topic I'm going tobe coming back to.
It just touches on so manyimportant things like having a
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sense of belonging at work andhow important belonging is for
people to feel like they areincluded.
Friendship, and how friendshipand work intersect.
I've worked with some teamswhere you can just tell there
are such strong friendshipsamong people outside of work.
It really helps, especiallywhen times are hard.
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When there are thosefriendships and that
understanding of people outsideof just the work that you're
doing together, then it alsoeven gets into the whole
productivity and learning space,because when people are feeling
respected and included, whenpeople feel safe, they're much
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more likely to speak up if theyhave an idea or they want to try
a new way of doing something,or they heard about this thing
and they want to check it out.
I'm excited to continue downthis road with you all.
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Take care, brave soul, catchyou next time.