Andrea Goulet is the founder of Empathy in Tech, Lovelace Communications, and a seasoned keynote speaker. In this episode, Andrea and Zhou talk about Empathy as a technical skill (vs. a soft skill), empathetic communications, and the SCALE framework (systems, capacity, alignment, leadership, empathy).
Learn more about Andrea Goulet's work and work with her:
https://andreagoulet.com/
https://www.empathyintech.com/
https://lovelacecommunications.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreamgoulet/
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Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
Ready. We are recording.
Hello everyone. Welcome to The Intersection, a
podcast program about intersectionality,
intersectional identities, and intersectional journeys, both
professionally and personally, individually.
And they are very, very intertwined.
(00:31):
And part of intersectionality for me is empathy.
I think empathy is a really big component of this intersectional
life. And today I have the perfect
guest for the program. My other guests are also
perfect. I, I don't want to upset people,
(00:55):
but I really do have a perfect guest today.
Her name is Andrea Goulet and she's the founder of Empathy in
Tech and she's also the founder of a newer organization called
Lovelace Communications. And Andrea and I connected a few
(01:15):
years ago via Katie, I think, and at the time, I was very,
very hooked by the concept and practice of empathy.
So years passed and today I'm just so happy and honored to
have Andrea on the program. So, Andrea, please introduce
(01:36):
yourself. Yeah, empathy.
So thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here.
And I think just to I love your focus on intersectionality and I
think it, it makes a lot of sense probably to talk about how
empathy and tech came to be by focusing on actual and
intersectional identity. That truly was a crisis.
(01:58):
So for me, I went through schooland my friend Scott, we went to
high school together. I went to school for marketing
and business communications and Scott was your traditional
engineer. We reconnected our high school
reunion and I had been posting alot of stuff on a blog and
(02:21):
things like that around businesscommunication.
I had run my own business beforeand at our 10 year reunion,
Scott was like, I really want tostart a software company and I
know you from high school and I know your work and you are the
person I want to be the CEO of my software company.
I was like, I don't code, I don't like I'm not a programmer.
(02:47):
And he was like, no, you may notthink you are a programmer, but
you sure do think like a programmer.
And what was so interesting was that I had this very averse like
identity piece to it that I had to really overcome.
So we did some due diligence. MY1 stipulation was if I was
going to do this, empathy had tobe at the very core of
(03:09):
everything we did because that was how I had created
communication systems for, you know, large organizations and
small businesses that were actually effective.
And I didn't think that softwarewas any different.
So we go to create our branding and our strategy.
(03:30):
And like, I was really surprisedbecause we had so much pushback.
We had consultants who literallytold us you cannot say the word
empathy and software in the samesentence because you will be
laughed out of the industry. There was this huge pushback
that empathy and software are oil and water.
They do not belong together. And this was really confusing to
(03:52):
me. And I think this is one of those
things where being, you know, having a fresh perspective was
really a strength. But there was a key moment
during all of this where we werestarting to speak at conferences
and share a little bit more about our ideas.
And Scott and I also ended up getting married a few years
(04:13):
after we started running the business together, which gave us
even more motivation to figure out this stuff and to really
find ways to, you know, I'm yourtypical salesperson.
He's your typical engineer. Like, there are, you know, very
strong miscommunication challenges.
And we had to figure some of those out.
(04:33):
And so to me, what was really, really transformative around
this in terms of identity and intersectionality was Scott and
I were on our way to, you know, kind of his grandma's house for
Thanksgiving. We had he had just gotten on
like the first podcast and was like, we were so excited.
(04:55):
Oh my gosh, let's listen to it. He gives, you know, this great
interview. And then at the end, it's like,
well, tell us about your origin story.
He talks about the high school reunion and he said, you know,
and Andrea is my non-technical founder.
And when I heard that I was so angry because at this point we
(05:16):
had been working together for three years.
I had, I had learned to code, I had worked on production
projects with him. And I was like, what do I have
to do? Seriously.
Like how dare you say I'm non-technical?
What do I have to do? Do I have to get a computer
(05:37):
science degree? Do I have to like take a test
and get some kind of certification?
Do I have to change my gender because I don't look like the
people? Like, what is it that I have to
do to be technical enough in your eyes?
And Scott is very calm and like,just listen to me rant.
And at the end, he said I listened very intently because
(06:03):
we had a sales meeting right before I recorded that podcast.
And so I paid attention to how you describe yourself and I
tried my best to say verbatim what you say.
So when you call yourself technical, that's when I'll call
you technical. And it was like mind blow.
(06:24):
And then I had to go through allof this like exploration of
like, why don't I call myself technical?
And I wrote about this on LinkedIn and it blew up.
And just this is an area where it's like soft skill, hard skill
and all of these things. And what was interesting to me
was that I was struggling with this identity, but Scott was
also struggling with what I think is the flip side of it,
(06:46):
which is I'm good with machines and I suck with people.
And to me, I was like, that doesn't make any sense to me
because you're one of the kindest, most compassionate
people I know. I wouldn't have married you
otherwise. Like, how in the world do you
think you're bad with people? And there is all this cultural
expectations and like, so it hasbeen just a whirlwind over the
(07:12):
past, you know, 1520 years around exploring this topic.
And my goal was because Scott was saying, I think like a
programmer and my, my emphasis is in empathic communication and
how it drives results and how itreduces technical debt, right?
And I was like, well, I think about empathy in the same way
(07:35):
that you think about code. How do I articulate that?
Because I think his, you know, as I started speaking at
conferences about this, you know, the big thing is that
empathy is also is often expressed as this sentiment of
just, it's being nice to people.It's all, or it's a psychic
ability where I can walk into a room and kind of know how you
(07:59):
feel. And the more I learned about
this, I realized that I had always identified as an empath.
But really what I was doing was I was operating out of hubris a
lot of the time because I would say, oh, I know how you feel
better than you do, right. So in my attempt to, to really
(08:19):
help Scott and and help myself, it's this question like, what is
empathy? Because I had known it in terms
of like, OK, there's myself, there's someone else, the
customer, you know, the employeethat you're writing a handbook
for, like whatever that is in terms of business communication.
(08:39):
So I need to understand my message.
I need to understand what their needs are.
And then I need to take that perspective and align them in a
way that messaging so that we can actually achieve the
outcomes that we're looking for.So to me, that's why empathy was
so critical. And as I started learning more
about like what empathy is, justputting it in terms of
(09:01):
metaphors. So for example, active
listening, right, in all of the protocols, like the HTTP that
you see in front of your website, right?
The way that that runs is what'scalled a three-way handshake,
right? So information gets sent and
then it's received. And then the receiver is like,
(09:22):
hey, this is the information I got.
And then, you know, it's like, Yep, that's it.
I'm like, that's active listening.
That's right. If we're talking about like the
steps of it, that's what it is. And you know, if you're playing
a game of charades, there's different, you know, Internet
protocols. So if you're gaming playing a
game of charades, that's more like UDP, which is streaming
(09:44):
music, right? I'm just putting information out
and I don't have to double checkthat everything was received
exactly as it was intended. And so being able to frame
things in, you already know about this stuff.
It just hasn't been presented inthis way.
And as I started learning that and really trying to, you know,
(10:05):
articulate that, a lot of peoplereally resonated with this and a
lot of software developers were like, Oh my gosh, I feel seen.
I feel heard because so many times when I'm like, I don't
understand, the response is either, well, you knew what I
meant or, you know, stop splitting hairs.
(10:26):
It's just semantics. And so many people felt
dismissed by people who identified as empaths.
And again, this, I'm like eatinga huge piece of humble pie,
'cause I, you know, so I think to me, the empathy and tech
really came out of all of that experience.
And just, we need to demystify this thing because it's so
(10:50):
important. Like this is, you know, empathy
from all of the work that I've done, the way I've learned to
understand it is that empathy iswhat humans have evolved to help
us in species survival. It helps us communicate.
It helps us find creative solutions to problems, right?
(11:13):
It helps us organize ourselves into social groups.
It helps and you know, this is how we survive.
We find problems, we work together as a hyper social
species to come up with a creative solution to it.
We can't do that without empathy.
That's why so much of our brain is dedicated to language and
(11:35):
like emotions and feeling and all of these different things.
It's all very related to empathy, but just knowing,
knowing what it was and just thinking about more in terms of
a system and infrastructure and mechanics.
So that's where I'm really passionate right now is, you
know, empathy and tech really, it's on a mission to, you know,
(11:56):
help the world understand empathy in a more technical way,
but then also bring empathy in to the technology sphere.
Because so many people have justsaid, oh, I'm not good at this.
And that's not right. So it's it's the double prong
approach, so. Yeah, there's definitely like a
misunderstanding or like a myth about empathy is it's empathy
(12:24):
and tag. They don't work together.
Like there's like a very common myth.
People just don't connect the 2 with each other.
And I feel like your work in this field is just like, like
you mentioned, it makes technical people feel seen and
heard. Otherwise it's just so difficult
to communicate for I'm using airquotes here and non-technical
(12:46):
and technical people. So how can we connect these two
populations? Because we have to work
together. Yeah.
Are we going to work together, you know?
Yeah. And I can tell you, like I'll
tell you another story that was hugely insightful because here's
the thing, when you understand empathy and you approach some of
these communication challenges from this perspective, it
(13:08):
changes everything. And this is the core of our
creative problem solving. So, you know, like, many people,
right? I'm sure this is a very common
experience. You know, Scott and I were
working in the same room. He had his headphones in.
I really needed to talk to him about an urgent client issue.
I was trying to figure out, OK, how do I respectfully interrupt
(13:31):
him? Like, I really need him.
So I kind of tiptoed over and, like, waved my hand and was kind
of sheepish. And I was like, you got a SEC?
And he nearly flipped the table.It was like, right.
And I think a lot of us have seen these kinds of responses.
And at that moment, like he, he snapped at me and was like,
(13:53):
well, I do now. And so at that moment, I had a
choice, right? I could either rage quit, be
like, this isn't working. I can't.
I can't with you if you can't answer a basic question that no
one else in the that I've ever worked with has a problem with,
(14:14):
you know, or I could lean in andsay, no, I'm, I'm gonna figure
out what what's going on here. And so that's what I did.
I took a deep breath and he said, I don't know what
happened, but I clearly did something to offend you and I
care about you and I don't want this to happen again.
And I'm gonna have to interrupt you in order for this business
(14:38):
to work. So, you know, what was it?
I, I care, right? And so starting from that place
of compassion. And Scott took a deep breath and
was like, you know, that movie, Inception, Chris, the
Christopher Nolan movie. Had just come out.
There's this. Scene where, you know, there's
(14:59):
two people and you know they're in a dream and they're sitting
at a cafe in Paris. And then all of a sudden one of
the characters realizes they're in a dream and the whole city
starts folding in on itself and everything comes crashing.
He said in order for me to do myjob, I have to build elaborate
Crystal Palace mental models in my mind.
(15:22):
And I have been trying to suss out and work on this problem for
three hours. And I was so close to figuring
it out. And when you asked me the
question, you got a SEC. I didn't know how to answer it
because I know a second is not asecond.
And so it's like, is this a 2 minute?
The answer is this 20 minutes, right?
(15:44):
How how likely is it for me to get back?
So the cognitive load that he had to carry to even answer that
question it he said, I experienced that like my whole
mental model just came collapsing down just like it did
in the streets of Paris in that movie.
And then I understood, I was like, Oh my gosh, I had no idea
(16:08):
that that was what was going on in his mind.
But then once I knew and I had that data, I was like, well, how
do we solve this problem? And so we collaborated together
and like figured stuff out and like, what do you need?
What do I need? And eventually we came up with,
well, what if we just said inception?
And if like that's what I'll text you instead of you got a
(16:29):
SEC or that's what I'll send youand you just give a number.
If it's zero, then awesome, you're available.
Now. If it's a 5, then you're like,
it's OK. Expect that I'm not gonna be
able to talk to you for a while,but you know that I need you.
This was magical. It was so game changing.
But the only way that we could get there was by understanding
(16:51):
each other's perspective and demonstrating that we cared
about each other. And it was all of these kinds of
small moments that really LED upto things.
And I think that's where there'sso much opportunity.
And the more different the perspective, the more innovative
(17:12):
the ideas. I love that.
Yeah, you, I, I really resonate with that.
My boyfriend is also a programmer and I feel you just
described a different version of.
It's a very common experience, yeah.
Yeah, I spent so much time trying to communicate better and
better, and I think we're getting there.
(17:33):
But the work it takes, really, it takes empathy from both
people. And then when you apply, when
you apply that to an organization, you know, you can
imagine how much work and how much care you have to put into
it in order to make it work for your team, really.
Yeah, yeah. And I think, like, you know,
(17:55):
there's a misconception, the empathy and compassion, it's
like, oh, it's just this fluffy feely nice to have.
Like compassion is caring. Like, if I can swear, like just
giving a shit about somebody's feels and not wanting to make it
worse, right? And saying, OK, well, how can I
help, like make you less miserable?
(18:17):
Like compassion is a motivation construct.
Jamil Zaki is a great researcherout at Stanford, and he's got
the motivated theory of empathy.And that's really what this is,
is that we don't empathize the same way all the time.
The context that we are and who we're empathizing with, like,
you know, the amount of stress that we're carrying, like that
(18:38):
has so much to do with how we respond, whether or not we
respond with empathy or not, more so than like a, you know,
individual attribute. Like whether or not you're born
with empathy. He shows that it's a skill, It's
something that you can develop. It's something that you can
learn to be motivated by. And I think that that's so
empowering. And I think that's really where
(19:00):
there's there's a lot of opportunity too.
So, you know, for me, I started really speaking around empathy
as a technical skill that is onethat like a lot of conferences
liked. And, you know, just really
approaching it from this, like, let's just look at what it is in
terms of mechanics. And the great thing is that over
(19:24):
the past 10 years, there's been just so much amazing research,
especially in the field of neuroscience, that's giving us
answers and insights that we could never have had before.
Because as humans, we're not really good at figuring out why
we behave the way we behave. We rationalize a lot.
And so we've been able to get some more objective
(19:45):
understandings and some more empirical findings around what
is this thing and how can we, you know?
And that's where a lot of the demystifying and, you know,
debunking has come from, which Ithink is so exciting.
It's really cool. Yeah, Yeah, I think it would be
just so cool. Like if and when there is a time
when we 100% understand how empathy works and how can we
(20:10):
practice it, You know, like everyone has different level of
empathy. But like you said, it's more
than just a sentiment. I think people need to act on
it. People need to practice and
actually kind of apply this skill set at work and in life in
general. So I guess my follow up question
is you shared with me you know about your scale method before
(20:39):
and I would love to invite you to perhaps share a little bit
more about how scale works and how does it connect to empathy?
Yeah, Yeah. So, you know, Scott and I exited
last summer our, you know, the software company that we ran for
15 years. And so I've had this opportunity
(21:02):
to kind of move to exploring thenext phase of my career.
And so now it's like, OK, I really want to double down and
help organizations understand this.
And so one of the things that, you know, I experienced as a
business owner, we grew to a team of about 25.
(21:23):
And it was so hard. And there were some very
specific points along the way that, you know, having to change
the way I think or like, completely unlearn things that I
had learned. So, you know, scale is really
this, it's, it's a framework forwhat are the different things
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that I had to learn to cross what in the business world is
described as the valley of deathphase of growing a business.
That's literally, you can look it up on Investopedia.
That's the that is the terminology and that was
absolutely how I felt. And it's this phase between when
you are generating revenue and, you know, your product market
(22:09):
fit, but when you have a sustainable business, right?
And that's where most businessesdie, like, and we have, and we
have so much emphasis on the finding it, you know, figuring
out what you want to do and the pitch competition's all
important. We have a lot of like once
you're a manager and once you'vegot a sustainable business, how
(22:31):
do you lead teams? There is like not a lot during
this phase. Yeah.
So, so really it came out of that.
And so, you know, it's an acronym.
I'm just going to pull pull it up real quick.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Scale is a systems capacity
(22:53):
alignment. That was it.
And empathy. I've got it now.
So OK, so systems, right? So this is about creating
structure without creating rigidity.
So when we think about structure, especially in a
business, it is, you know, how do we, you know, create
something where we're making progress, but we're not
(23:16):
instituting all this bureaucracyand all these impediments,
right? And so, you know, an example,
you know, of a system that we implemented like is the
inception framework, right? OK, When I want to interrupt
you, I am going to do so in thisway.
(23:36):
That is a system that is a protocol that we're agreeing on
so that we can work together more effectively, right.
So the best systems are the onesthat are Co created instead of
being imposed on. And you can get inspired by
other systems and methodologies.There's so many different
(23:58):
frameworks out there, but you know, at its core, it's how do
we create the, you know, conditions that are agreed upon
where we can interact in a way that is functional, right?
And whether or not we're interacting with our our Co
workers or, you know, the tools that we have or, you know, our
(24:19):
customers, whatever it is, there's so many different
interactions. But really figuring out the
right kind of structure for thatcapacity is how do we prevent
burnout so that we can sustain momentum.
And this is both on a personal like level and also on an
organizational level, because asindividuals, we need to
(24:45):
recognize how big of a role stress plays.
You know, I was hearing, you know, it came across a statistic
today from someone at Harvard who studies stress and it was
about that 70% of people today are operating from chronic
stress in the workplace. And that is detrimental because
(25:12):
then we don't show up as our best self.
We can't problem solve, you know, and when it comes to
empathy, like when our stress response is activated, we become
self focused. We we like physiologically and
neurologically cannot take another person's perspective.
(25:33):
So being able to recognize our own capacity to be able to
communicate when we're not well resourced, right?
Like, so something huge that's personal, being able to
describe, like, I am struggling to think about this right now
because, you know, I've got thisother thing.
(25:53):
And the more aligned and the more of, you know, we create
these conditions where people can share about what their
capacity is. They don't necessarily have to
share all the details of their private life, but how, how is
that impacting your ability to show up?
And as managers and as leaders, how do we recognize that the the
(26:16):
more data that we can get. And like, when people are able
to share about what is impactingtheir capacity, you know, that's
a lot where you're getting operational effectiveness
because people know what is frustrating.
They can tell you right in frontof you.
And being able to solve those challenges right away is
(26:37):
important. The next one is alignment, which
is about clarifying goals and miscommunication.
So this gets to the critical importance of mission vision,
core values. And the way that I define those
is the mission is like what is the thing we're trying to
accomplish? The vision is what does the
(26:57):
world look like once we've accomplished it?
And that helps create the emotional connection for why
should we even bother trying to do this thing.
And then core values are how will we agree to behave while we
are achieving our mission? So when it comes to core values
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and things like that, I think one of the biggest mistakes that
I see with businesses is that they often conflate an outcome
with a value. So I see, so innovation is a
great one, right? Innovation is an outcome.
Innovation is something that youget when you've created the
conditions for people to effectively collaborate and have
(27:38):
these really interesting collisions of ideas, right?
Then it then innovation happens,but to tell people to behave
innovatively like, you know, something else would be more
like, you know, approach, you know, new ideas with curiosity,
(28:00):
right? Just.
And so those are the types of things where it's like this.
It's almost a statement or a mantra of a tagline like here is
how we will behave while we are doing this.
And then even, you know, a few sentences that give context, I
think that those things are so, so, so powerful.
(28:21):
And then also communicating, where are we going?
You know, where have we been? How do we know what success
looks like? All of those important things.
And I think as a business leader, that is the hardest
thing. Like as ACEO, that was, I felt
like I was trying to be clear and like I was repeating myself
as more like over and over again.
And, you know, you never feel like it's enough.
(28:46):
So, yeah. So alignment's really important.
Yeah, I mean the soft skill, right?
People think soft communication,soft skill.
It's not. It's a hard, hard skill.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think there's so much that
goes into it from a mechanical like just process perspective.
(29:06):
And the more we can get good about it, like the better we'll
be. Leadership is the next one,
which is learning how to improvesystems without controlling
people. The way I think of a leader is
anybody who steps outside of their own experience and takes
on the perspective of someone else and then figures out how
(29:27):
can we improve the way we work together or the way we
communicate. That is a leader.
So it's, it has nothing to do with role.
It has to do with perspective taking and ownership, like where
I'm recognizing that I'm part ofthis communication breakdown.
You know. How can we work together?
Like how can I understand what you need?
(29:48):
How can I? And you're negotiating a better
way of working. If you're doing that, then
you're a leader. And then it's just a matter of
how many people you're trying todo that with, right?
And then empathy, which is abouthow do we mobilize groups
through human connections so that we can do that creative
problem solving. So to me, those were some of the
(30:09):
things where it was like, you know, mind blowing, you know,
how, how do we do that? So, and over the years, there's
just been so many frameworks that have made sense to me, you
know, around how do we create productive conflict?
That's another one around and, and a lot of these frameworks,
their, their empathy is really at the center.
(30:31):
So with productive conflict, it's a cycle of restore and
explore. So I don't know about you right
now. I am in a place where I need a
lot of restorative time because I'll put myself out there and
it's just like, Oh my gosh. Like a small interaction can be
(30:51):
really energy draining, right? I have to protect my capacity.
Yep. And you do that in a lot of
hits, like different people havedifferent things.
But a big way we do that is through affinity.
We find like minded people and that helps us feel not alone and
it helps us feel like we've got us some people on.
But if we stay and we only hang out with the people that think
(31:13):
like us, you know, have the samevalues as we, we don't get that
collision of ideas that we had. Like what I was talking about
with God, where I was like, you know, you're different from me,
so therefore I won't work with you.
We once we, once we're restored,we have to go out and learn
about other people's perspectives.
(31:35):
We have to have the courage and the capacity to, and the
curiosity to say, OK, I, I want to learn about your experience
and I want to figure out where there's common ground and where
we can find ways to collaborate with each other.
And that is really hard when we're under resourced and when
(31:55):
we're not regulated. So, you know, that's why I'm
like, it's a cycle because you go out and you're like, Oh my
gosh, I'm now stressed out. I have to go back and restore
again. But you know, make sure you
don't stay in that place 'cause otherwise things are too
stagnant. Yeah, I agree.
And I really think, you know, when you say we restore and then
we can go out and again and justto learn from other people and
(32:18):
work with other people, it, it just kind of shows without kind
of prior, without prioritizing ourselves, it's, it would be
impossible to do what we really want to do, like say, make an
impact, right? Like improve systems or build
new systems. Without that restoration,
(32:39):
especially in times like these, everyone is running around all
the time. We wouldn't be productive at
all. So thank you for sharing.
You know, the scale framework and from my perspective, you
know, I, I study intersectionality and I think
scale is one of a holistic system or like a holistic
(33:02):
framework. It focuses on multiple things.
It's not individualistic. It's it's it's, it's a network
basically. Yeah.
And I think that's one of the things like, that's where my
brain naturally works and where,you know, all of the different
programs that I'm coming up withand ways to really integrate
(33:23):
empathy into. How do we actually mobilize
people to get stuff done right? That's like, I am so driven by
impact and it's like, all right,we got some big problems to
solve. How do we get everybody to work
together? And that doesn't mean we all get
along, but how do we become productive so that we can come
(33:46):
up with these great ideas and wecan actually, like, solve these
problems? And that's not gonna happen when
we're bickering. That's not gonna happen when
we're exhausted and infighting. Like, how can we understand what
we're working with and move pastsome of those things?
So, yeah, So all of the work andframeworks and programs that I'm
putting together, that's naturally how I'm thinking about
things. It's, I love that word holistic
(34:08):
'cause that's exactly where it is.
And then it's also looking at there's individual
responsibility, but there's alsolike organizational
responsibility. One of my favorite quotes is
from West Edwards Demings. And it's a bad system will beat
a good person every time. And like, you can be the most
empathetic person, but if you are in a culture or a system
(34:31):
that doesn't support your efforts, like you're gonna have
a really, really hard time, which is why, yes, we need to
focus on interpersonal skills. We also need to focus on the
organizational systems that support people.
So that's culture, that's operations, that's all of that
stuff that it typically is, you know, oh, that's the hard stuff,
(34:55):
right? But it, it really makes a
difference in terms of how well people can show up and how well
they can regulate. So.
Yeah, it definitely needs to be systemic.
And so we talked about empathy and empathy in tag and then we
expanded it a little bit to scale.
(35:17):
And I know you have again, usingthe word holistic, you have a
system in your practice that helps you know people to
communicate better, to collaborate better and build
better cultures. And what I learned is there are
six programs to help with that and includes creating agile
(35:39):
culture, collaborative communications again and scale
with chaos, productive conflict.You mentioned that already,
technical empathy and then leading through change.
So I think these six components,these six kind of programs,
yeah, work together. Could you tell a little bit more
about how do you make them work together?
(36:02):
Yeah. So I think, you know, the
biggest thing is that recognizing that these are all
starting points, right? So like the best way to
implement things like this, it, it's really demonstrating kind
of what's the challenge you're looking through.
So like the leading through change, for example, that's
really for, you know, more executives where it's like, I
(36:25):
don't know how to make decisionsright now because everything is
so volatile. I made this like, for example,
right now there's tariff challenges, right?
So like, I made this big order and now in order for my stock to
get off the boat, I have to pay 1 1/2 times of what I placed the
order for. Like, how do I even make
(36:46):
business decisions through that?How do I navigate when when just
everything is so dynamic and it's changing so fast, right?
You know, that is an example of like, OK, you can't come in as a
consultant and say, I know, here's how you do it.
Here's the framework. Boom, we're done.
(37:10):
Like it's really about understanding someone like, OK,
here's the challenge you're facing.
You know, what is the challenge in front of you?
And then, you know, giving toolsand very practical, like here's
something that you can try to implement.
So when you're in this situation, you have a tool in
your tool belt that you can try to use, right?
(37:33):
So it's really about equipping people with different frameworks
and tools and communication systems so that they can think
differently. But yeah, I believe strongly the
consultant never has all the answers.
And like it's less about tellingpeople how to do and it's more
about asking the right questions.
(37:55):
So, yeah, so for me, the the programs that I've created are
really based on those, you know,experiences that I've had from
being ACEO, from leading, you know, large organizations and
seeing this communication reallyhave a huge positive impact at
scale. But then also working with
startup founders and things likethat and, and really addressing
that Valley of Death phase because I think it's so
(38:18):
underserved and we can't afford as a society to let great ideas
die. Like, like there are so many
amazing people who know how to solve problems and, you know,
helping them understand that there are functional challenges
(38:41):
that, you know, are are workable.
But a lot of times I know for meit was like, well, I'm a bad
leader or like, I can't do this.And it was, I had so much
imposter syndrome or things. And so being able to recognize
like, OK, where's an individual skill that I can develop, but
then also where is a systemic thing that I need to navigate
around or I need to influence orchange.
(39:05):
And so to me, it's really like, OK, we're getting ready to go
through the valley of death. Like, let me be the person who's
gone through this desert. And I know I can help you figure
out some of those oases where it's like, OK, you can stop and
rest. Or here's where there's water or
you need to pack these differentthings Because, you know, there
(39:26):
are so many, so many people who just have such good intentions.
They are so talented. They are so skilled, and you
know, when we have the tools foreffective communication not just
with the people who agree with us, but for the people who are
(39:46):
skeptical of our idea. Like.
Learning from that, finding waysto collaborate, like that's
where we get real traction. And so that's what motivates me
to, you know, work with different people in a variety of
different ways and just helping people solve problems.
I think there's just that's whatwe need right now and that's
what people are craving. And I know that's what I want to
(40:08):
see. I'm like, let's let's shift into
solution mode and and. Yeah, I agree.
I agree with you. People are hungry for IT.
People are ready for IT. People want tools.
People want to be equipped with the right tools to help them
navigate the the very like very chaotic systems right now.
(40:31):
Yeah. So I totally agree with you.
So, and I think for me too, likejust one thing is there, you
know, there's a lot of people who are attacking, you know, the
values of, you know, diversity and inclusion and empathy is
getting put in there too. Like there are books that are
coming out around toxic empathy.And it's like, well, actually,
(40:51):
you're not talking about empathy, right?
So the more that we understand what some of these things are,
the more we're able to engage indiscussions with people who are
also criticizing our work and threatening the way that we are
approaching things. And some of that is, OK, yeah,
maybe the way we did this wasn'tquite as effective.
We can learn. But on the whole, this is just
(41:15):
is necessary because we can't move forward on some of these
things if we don't have productive conflict.
And you can't get productive conflict unless you have
diversity of perspectives. And, you know, just like this
just is right. And let's just get to some of
the mechanics of it. And I know for me, it has been
so helpful having a better understanding of just some of
(41:39):
the research and like how this stuff just works.
That's allowed me to kind of emotionally detach when people
are criticizing and like, thingsfeel really threatening for our
industries. And just like, no, it's good
communication. And at the end of the day, it's
(42:00):
about solving problems. And, you know, you can sling
these words around if you want, but it's not accurate, you know?
And, you know, maybe this piece is valid and I can see maybe
where you got there. So I know for me that's been a
really important piece for my own ability to restore and have
(42:25):
capacity is just feeling very anchored in the research, having
a good understanding of what I'mtalking about so that I can have
more productive conversations with people who disagree with
me. I think that's very brave.
I mean, I try to do it, but I don't think I'm doing a super
great job right now. But I think that's a really,
(42:49):
really timely and important conversation.
We just had, Andrea, is empathy and how do we practice it and
how do we apply that to leadership?
You know, you don't have to be ACEO to be a leader.
You could be a project manager and you can lead.
You can be a community person and then you can lead your
(43:10):
community through trying times through, like you mentioned,
collaborative communications, productive conflicts.
We can all have these very meaningful conversations and
figure out together. So I'm really appreciative of
that. So thank you and I want to
(43:31):
invite you to share your like website, contact information and
you mentioned you are a keynote speaker.
Yeah. So how do people find you, work
with you, invite to speak, etcetera?
Thank you. Yeah.
So Andrea goulet.com is the, youknow, website that has all the
different programs. That's the fastest way to get in
(43:51):
touch with me to, you know, learn more about speaking, kind
of engage me as an individual. And then my company, Lovelace
Communications, that once we've got kind of one of those
programs off the ground, you know, I, I describe it as the
spark phase where we're, you know, getting people to think
differently. But then also, I've got such an
(44:13):
amazing network of people who can then move into systemizing
some of these insights. So once you have the spark,
right, like there's only so muchthat can be done, but we then
bring it into the operations. And I have a whole amazing team
of people that I bring in on that.
And then we scale it. So we build these, we, we engage
(44:37):
people in terms of solving thoseproblems that are right in front
of them, like introducing them to the productive conflict
framework, helping them like identify opportunities to make
genuine improvements. And then when we figure out
what's working, we bring it to the rest of the organization.
(44:58):
And so that's kind of the differentiator between like me
as a, you know, hiring me as an individual and then also
engaging, you know, kind of a larger project that I've got.
And so that's the Lovelace communications one.
Yeah, I'm really active on LinkedIn, so you can find me
just by looking at my name. And then you'll see like empathy
(45:20):
driven organizations will changethe world as my like banner.
So yeah. And then also empathy and tech.
So we are now a non profit, which is very exciting.
Oh. I didn't know that.
Yeah, Yeah. So we are fiscally sponsored non
project. We are a fiscally sponsored
project of Super Bloom design, which is just amazing.
(45:42):
They're such amazing people. So we'll be doing kind of more
of a formal launch. It started as just a grass roots
community and kind of a discord and we'll put some like webinars
together. And so my business partner
Katie, we had gone through some different iterations.
So now she's the executive director, I'm the founder and
kind of the chief mouthpiece to just talk about like how
(46:05):
important this is. Yeah, so there's more stuff and
empathy and tech podcast as well.
So you. Can refer to that.
So yeah, my Co host Ray and I, Ray Myers, we have some great
discussions both with interviewing people, but then
exploring like, you know, we hadone on there was a paper from
the 1970s by a philosopher talking about techno ethics.
(46:27):
And so reading that pepper and like, OK, this was written in
the 1970s, but how important is it today?
So like nerding out but also learning.
Yeah. So those are some of the
projects and the ways to get in touch with me.
That's a lot and that is plenty.And thank you so much, Andrea,
(46:48):
for all you do. You are fabulous.
I think you are too. Yay, fabulous together.
Yes, and. With that, we're going to stop
recording here.
Ready. We are recording.
Hello everyone. Welcome to The Intersection, a
podcast program about intersectionality,
intersectional identities, and intersectional journeys, both
professionally and personally, individually.
And they are very, very intertwined.
(00:31):
And part of intersectionality for me is empathy.
I think empathy is a really big component of this intersectional
life. And today I have the perfect
guest for the program. My other guests are also
perfect. I, I don't want to upset people,
(00:55):
but I really do have a perfect guest today.
Her name is Andrea Goulet and she's the founder of Empathy in
Tech and she's also the founder of a newer organization called
Lovelace Communications. And Andrea and I connected a few
(01:15):
years ago via Katie, I think, and at the time, I was very,
very hooked by the concept and practice of empathy.
So years passed and today I'm just so happy and honored to
have Andrea on the program. So, Andrea, please introduce
(01:36):
yourself. Yeah, empathy.
So thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here.
And I think just to I love your focus on intersectionality and I
think it, it makes a lot of sense probably to talk about how
empathy and tech came to be by focusing on actual and
intersectional identity. That truly was a crisis.
(01:58):
So for me, I went through schooland my friend Scott, we went to
high school together. I went to school for marketing
and business communications and Scott was your traditional
engineer. We reconnected our high school
reunion and I had been posting alot of stuff on a blog and
(02:21):
things like that around businesscommunication.
I had run my own business beforeand at our 10 year reunion,
Scott was like, I really want tostart a software company and I
know you from high school and I know your work and you are the
person I want to be the CEO of my software company.
I was like, I don't code, I don't like I'm not a programmer.
(02:47):
And he was like, no, you may notthink you are a programmer, but
you sure do think like a programmer.
And what was so interesting was that I had this very averse like
identity piece to it that I had to really overcome.
So we did some due diligence. MY1 stipulation was if I was
going to do this, empathy had tobe at the very core of
(03:09):
everything we did because that was how I had created
communication systems for, you know, large organizations and
small businesses that were actually effective.
And I didn't think that softwarewas any different.
So we go to create our branding and our strategy.
(03:30):
And like, I was really surprisedbecause we had so much pushback.
We had consultants who literallytold us you cannot say the word
empathy and software in the samesentence because you will be
laughed out of the industry. There was this huge pushback
that empathy and software are oil and water.
They do not belong together. And this was really confusing to
(03:52):
me. And I think this is one of those
things where being, you know, having a fresh perspective was
really a strength. But there was a key moment
during all of this where we werestarting to speak at conferences
and share a little bit more about our ideas.
And Scott and I also ended up getting married a few years
(04:13):
after we started running the business together, which gave us
even more motivation to figure out this stuff and to really
find ways to, you know, I'm yourtypical salesperson.
He's your typical engineer. Like, there are, you know, very
strong miscommunication challenges.
And we had to figure some of those out.
(04:33):
And so to me, what was really, really transformative around
this in terms of identity and intersectionality was Scott and
I were on our way to, you know, kind of his grandma's house for
Thanksgiving. We had he had just gotten on
like the first podcast and was like, we were so excited.
(04:55):
Oh my gosh, let's listen to it. He gives, you know, this great
interview. And then at the end, it's like,
well, tell us about your origin story.
He talks about the high school reunion and he said, you know,
and Andrea is my non-technical founder.
And when I heard that I was so angry because at this point we
(05:16):
had been working together for three years.
I had, I had learned to code, I had worked on production
projects with him. And I was like, what do I have
to do? Seriously.
Like how dare you say I'm non-technical?
What do I have to do? Do I have to get a computer
(05:37):
science degree? Do I have to like take a test
and get some kind of certification?
Do I have to change my gender because I don't look like the
people? Like, what is it that I have to
do to be technical enough in your eyes?
And Scott is very calm and like,just listen to me rant.
And at the end, he said I listened very intently because
(06:03):
we had a sales meeting right before I recorded that podcast.
And so I paid attention to how you describe yourself and I
tried my best to say verbatim what you say.
So when you call yourself technical, that's when I'll call
you technical. And it was like mind blow.
(06:24):
And then I had to go through allof this like exploration of
like, why don't I call myself technical?
And I wrote about this on LinkedIn and it blew up.
And just this is an area where it's like soft skill, hard skill
and all of these things. And what was interesting to me
was that I was struggling with this identity, but Scott was
also struggling with what I think is the flip side of it,
(06:46):
which is I'm good with machines and I suck with people.
And to me, I was like, that doesn't make any sense to me
because you're one of the kindest, most compassionate
people I know. I wouldn't have married you
otherwise. Like, how in the world do you
think you're bad with people? And there is all this cultural
expectations and like, so it hasbeen just a whirlwind over the
(07:12):
past, you know, 1520 years around exploring this topic.
And my goal was because Scott was saying, I think like a
programmer and my, my emphasis is in empathic communication and
how it drives results and how itreduces technical debt, right?
And I was like, well, I think about empathy in the same way
(07:35):
that you think about code. How do I articulate that?
Because I think his, you know, as I started speaking at
conferences about this, you know, the big thing is that
empathy is also is often expressed as this sentiment of
just, it's being nice to people.It's all, or it's a psychic
ability where I can walk into a room and kind of know how you
(07:59):
feel. And the more I learned about
this, I realized that I had always identified as an empath.
But really what I was doing was I was operating out of hubris a
lot of the time because I would say, oh, I know how you feel
better than you do, right. So in my attempt to, to really
(08:19):
help Scott and and help myself, it's this question like, what is
empathy? Because I had known it in terms
of like, OK, there's myself, there's someone else, the
customer, you know, the employeethat you're writing a handbook
for, like whatever that is in terms of business communication.
(08:39):
So I need to understand my message.
I need to understand what their needs are.
And then I need to take that perspective and align them in a
way that messaging so that we can actually achieve the
outcomes that we're looking for.So to me, that's why empathy was
so critical. And as I started learning more
about like what empathy is, justputting it in terms of
(09:01):
metaphors. So for example, active
listening, right, in all of the protocols, like the HTTP that
you see in front of your website, right?
The way that that runs is what'scalled a three-way handshake,
right? So information gets sent and
then it's received. And then the receiver is like,
(09:22):
hey, this is the information I got.
And then, you know, it's like, Yep, that's it.
I'm like, that's active listening.
That's right. If we're talking about like the
steps of it, that's what it is. And you know, if you're playing
a game of charades, there's different, you know, Internet
protocols. So if you're gaming playing a
game of charades, that's more like UDP, which is streaming
(09:44):
music, right? I'm just putting information out
and I don't have to double checkthat everything was received
exactly as it was intended. And so being able to frame
things in, you already know about this stuff.
It just hasn't been presented inthis way.
And as I started learning that and really trying to, you know,
(10:05):
articulate that, a lot of peoplereally resonated with this and a
lot of software developers were like, Oh my gosh, I feel seen.
I feel heard because so many times when I'm like, I don't
understand, the response is either, well, you knew what I
meant or, you know, stop splitting hairs.
(10:26):
It's just semantics. And so many people felt
dismissed by people who identified as empaths.
And again, this, I'm like eatinga huge piece of humble pie,
'cause I, you know, so I think to me, the empathy and tech
really came out of all of that experience.
And just, we need to demystify this thing because it's so
(10:50):
important. Like this is, you know, empathy
from all of the work that I've done, the way I've learned to
understand it is that empathy iswhat humans have evolved to help
us in species survival. It helps us communicate.
It helps us find creative solutions to problems, right?
(11:13):
It helps us organize ourselves into social groups.
It helps and you know, this is how we survive.
We find problems, we work together as a hyper social
species to come up with a creative solution to it.
We can't do that without empathy.
That's why so much of our brain is dedicated to language and
(11:35):
like emotions and feeling and all of these different things.
It's all very related to empathy, but just knowing,
knowing what it was and just thinking about more in terms of
a system and infrastructure and mechanics.
So that's where I'm really passionate right now is, you
know, empathy and tech really, it's on a mission to, you know,
(11:56):
help the world understand empathy in a more technical way,
but then also bring empathy in to the technology sphere.
Because so many people have justsaid, oh, I'm not good at this.
And that's not right. So it's it's the double prong
approach, so. Yeah, there's definitely like a
misunderstanding or like a myth about empathy is it's empathy
(12:24):
and tag. They don't work together.
Like there's like a very common myth.
People just don't connect the 2 with each other.
And I feel like your work in this field is just like, like
you mentioned, it makes technical people feel seen and
heard. Otherwise it's just so difficult
to communicate for I'm using airquotes here and non-technical
(12:46):
and technical people. So how can we connect these two
populations? Because we have to work
together. Yeah.
Are we going to work together, you know?
Yeah. And I can tell you, like I'll
tell you another story that was hugely insightful because here's
the thing, when you understand empathy and you approach some of
these communication challenges from this perspective, it
(13:08):
changes everything. And this is the core of our
creative problem solving. So, you know, like, many people,
right? I'm sure this is a very common
experience. You know, Scott and I were
working in the same room. He had his headphones in.
I really needed to talk to him about an urgent client issue.
I was trying to figure out, OK, how do I respectfully interrupt
(13:31):
him? Like, I really need him.
So I kind of tiptoed over and, like, waved my hand and was kind
of sheepish. And I was like, you got a SEC?
And he nearly flipped the table.It was like, right.
And I think a lot of us have seen these kinds of responses.
And at that moment, like he, he snapped at me and was like,
(13:53):
well, I do now. And so at that moment, I had a
choice, right? I could either rage quit, be
like, this isn't working. I can't.
I can't with you if you can't answer a basic question that no
one else in the that I've ever worked with has a problem with,
(14:14):
you know, or I could lean in andsay, no, I'm, I'm gonna figure
out what what's going on here. And so that's what I did.
I took a deep breath and he said, I don't know what
happened, but I clearly did something to offend you and I
care about you and I don't want this to happen again.
And I'm gonna have to interrupt you in order for this business
(14:38):
to work. So, you know, what was it?
I, I care, right? And so starting from that place
of compassion. And Scott took a deep breath and
was like, you know, that movie, Inception, Chris, the
Christopher Nolan movie. Had just come out.
There's this. Scene where, you know, there's
(14:59):
two people and you know they're in a dream and they're sitting
at a cafe in Paris. And then all of a sudden one of
the characters realizes they're in a dream and the whole city
starts folding in on itself and everything comes crashing.
He said in order for me to do myjob, I have to build elaborate
Crystal Palace mental models in my mind.
(15:22):
And I have been trying to suss out and work on this problem for
three hours. And I was so close to figuring
it out. And when you asked me the
question, you got a SEC. I didn't know how to answer it
because I know a second is not asecond.
And so it's like, is this a 2 minute?
The answer is this 20 minutes, right?
(15:44):
How how likely is it for me to get back?
So the cognitive load that he had to carry to even answer that
question it he said, I experienced that like my whole
mental model just came collapsing down just like it did
in the streets of Paris in that movie.
And then I understood, I was like, Oh my gosh, I had no idea
(16:08):
that that was what was going on in his mind.
But then once I knew and I had that data, I was like, well, how
do we solve this problem? And so we collaborated together
and like figured stuff out and like, what do you need?
What do I need? And eventually we came up with,
well, what if we just said inception?
And if like that's what I'll text you instead of you got a
(16:29):
SEC or that's what I'll send youand you just give a number.
If it's zero, then awesome, you're available.
Now. If it's a 5, then you're like,
it's OK. Expect that I'm not gonna be
able to talk to you for a while,but you know that I need you.
This was magical. It was so game changing.
But the only way that we could get there was by understanding
(16:51):
each other's perspective and demonstrating that we cared
about each other. And it was all of these kinds of
small moments that really LED upto things.
And I think that's where there'sso much opportunity.
And the more different the perspective, the more innovative
(17:12):
the ideas. I love that.
Yeah, you, I, I really resonate with that.
My boyfriend is also a programmer and I feel you just
described a different version of.
It's a very common experience, yeah.
Yeah, I spent so much time trying to communicate better and
better, and I think we're getting there.
(17:33):
But the work it takes, really, it takes empathy from both
people. And then when you apply, when
you apply that to an organization, you know, you can
imagine how much work and how much care you have to put into
it in order to make it work for your team, really.
Yeah, yeah. And I think, like, you know,
(17:55):
there's a misconception, the empathy and compassion, it's
like, oh, it's just this fluffy feely nice to have.
Like compassion is caring. Like, if I can swear, like just
giving a shit about somebody's feels and not wanting to make it
worse, right? And saying, OK, well, how can I
help, like make you less miserable?
(18:17):
Like compassion is a motivation construct.
Jamil Zaki is a great researcherout at Stanford, and he's got
the motivated theory of empathy.And that's really what this is,
is that we don't empathize the same way all the time.
The context that we are and who we're empathizing with, like,
you know, the amount of stress that we're carrying, like that
(18:38):
has so much to do with how we respond, whether or not we
respond with empathy or not, more so than like a, you know,
individual attribute. Like whether or not you're born
with empathy. He shows that it's a skill, It's
something that you can develop. It's something that you can
learn to be motivated by. And I think that that's so
empowering. And I think that's really where
(19:00):
there's there's a lot of opportunity too.
So, you know, for me, I started really speaking around empathy
as a technical skill that is onethat like a lot of conferences
liked. And, you know, just really
approaching it from this, like, let's just look at what it is in
terms of mechanics. And the great thing is that over
(19:24):
the past 10 years, there's been just so much amazing research,
especially in the field of neuroscience, that's giving us
answers and insights that we could never have had before.
Because as humans, we're not really good at figuring out why
we behave the way we behave. We rationalize a lot.
And so we've been able to get some more objective
(19:45):
understandings and some more empirical findings around what
is this thing and how can we, you know?
And that's where a lot of the demystifying and, you know,
debunking has come from, which Ithink is so exciting.
It's really cool. Yeah, Yeah, I think it would be
just so cool. Like if and when there is a time
when we 100% understand how empathy works and how can we
(20:10):
practice it, You know, like everyone has different level of
empathy. But like you said, it's more
than just a sentiment. I think people need to act on
it. People need to practice and
actually kind of apply this skill set at work and in life in
general. So I guess my follow up question
is you shared with me you know about your scale method before
(20:39):
and I would love to invite you to perhaps share a little bit
more about how scale works and how does it connect to empathy?
Yeah, Yeah. So, you know, Scott and I exited
last summer our, you know, the software company that we ran for
15 years. And so I've had this opportunity
(21:02):
to kind of move to exploring thenext phase of my career.
And so now it's like, OK, I really want to double down and
help organizations understand this.
And so one of the things that, you know, I experienced as a
business owner, we grew to a team of about 25.
(21:23):
And it was so hard. And there were some very
specific points along the way that, you know, having to change
the way I think or like, completely unlearn things that I
had learned. So, you know, scale is really
this, it's, it's a framework forwhat are the different things
(21:46):
that I had to learn to cross what in the business world is
described as the valley of deathphase of growing a business.
That's literally, you can look it up on Investopedia.
That's the that is the terminology and that was
absolutely how I felt. And it's this phase between when
you are generating revenue and, you know, your product market
(22:09):
fit, but when you have a sustainable business, right?
And that's where most businessesdie, like, and we have, and we
have so much emphasis on the finding it, you know, figuring
out what you want to do and the pitch competition's all
important. We have a lot of like once
you're a manager and once you'vegot a sustainable business, how
(22:31):
do you lead teams? There is like not a lot during
this phase. Yeah.
So, so really it came out of that.
And so, you know, it's an acronym.
I'm just going to pull pull it up real quick.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Scale is a systems capacity
(22:53):
alignment. That was it.
And empathy. I've got it now.
So OK, so systems, right? So this is about creating
structure without creating rigidity.
So when we think about structure, especially in a
business, it is, you know, how do we, you know, create
something where we're making progress, but we're not
(23:16):
instituting all this bureaucracyand all these impediments,
right? And so, you know, an example,
you know, of a system that we implemented like is the
inception framework, right? OK, When I want to interrupt
you, I am going to do so in thisway.
(23:36):
That is a system that is a protocol that we're agreeing on
so that we can work together more effectively, right.
So the best systems are the onesthat are Co created instead of
being imposed on. And you can get inspired by
other systems and methodologies.There's so many different
(23:58):
frameworks out there, but you know, at its core, it's how do
we create the, you know, conditions that are agreed upon
where we can interact in a way that is functional, right?
And whether or not we're interacting with our our Co
workers or, you know, the tools that we have or, you know, our
(24:19):
customers, whatever it is, there's so many different
interactions. But really figuring out the
right kind of structure for thatcapacity is how do we prevent
burnout so that we can sustain momentum.
And this is both on a personal like level and also on an
organizational level, because asindividuals, we need to
(24:45):
recognize how big of a role stress plays.
You know, I was hearing, you know, it came across a statistic
today from someone at Harvard who studies stress and it was
about that 70% of people today are operating from chronic
stress in the workplace. And that is detrimental because
(25:12):
then we don't show up as our best self.
We can't problem solve, you know, and when it comes to
empathy, like when our stress response is activated, we become
self focused. We we like physiologically and
neurologically cannot take another person's perspective.
(25:33):
So being able to recognize our own capacity to be able to
communicate when we're not well resourced, right?
Like, so something huge that's personal, being able to
describe, like, I am struggling to think about this right now
because, you know, I've got thisother thing.
(25:53):
And the more aligned and the more of, you know, we create
these conditions where people can share about what their
capacity is. They don't necessarily have to
share all the details of their private life, but how, how is
that impacting your ability to show up?
And as managers and as leaders, how do we recognize that the the
(26:16):
more data that we can get. And like, when people are able
to share about what is impactingtheir capacity, you know, that's
a lot where you're getting operational effectiveness
because people know what is frustrating.
They can tell you right in frontof you.
And being able to solve those challenges right away is
(26:37):
important. The next one is alignment, which
is about clarifying goals and miscommunication.
So this gets to the critical importance of mission vision,
core values. And the way that I define those
is the mission is like what is the thing we're trying to
accomplish? The vision is what does the
(26:57):
world look like once we've accomplished it?
And that helps create the emotional connection for why
should we even bother trying to do this thing.
And then core values are how will we agree to behave while we
are achieving our mission? So when it comes to core values
(27:17):
and things like that, I think one of the biggest mistakes that
I see with businesses is that they often conflate an outcome
with a value. So I see, so innovation is a
great one, right? Innovation is an outcome.
Innovation is something that youget when you've created the
conditions for people to effectively collaborate and have
(27:38):
these really interesting collisions of ideas, right?
Then it then innovation happens,but to tell people to behave
innovatively like, you know, something else would be more
like, you know, approach, you know, new ideas with curiosity,
(28:00):
right? Just.
And so those are the types of things where it's like this.
It's almost a statement or a mantra of a tagline like here is
how we will behave while we are doing this.
And then even, you know, a few sentences that give context, I
think that those things are so, so, so powerful.
(28:21):
And then also communicating, where are we going?
You know, where have we been? How do we know what success
looks like? All of those important things.
And I think as a business leader, that is the hardest
thing. Like as ACEO, that was, I felt
like I was trying to be clear and like I was repeating myself
as more like over and over again.
And, you know, you never feel like it's enough.
(28:46):
So, yeah. So alignment's really important.
Yeah, I mean the soft skill, right?
People think soft communication,soft skill.
It's not. It's a hard, hard skill.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think there's so much that
goes into it from a mechanical like just process perspective.
(29:06):
And the more we can get good about it, like the better we'll
be. Leadership is the next one,
which is learning how to improvesystems without controlling
people. The way I think of a leader is
anybody who steps outside of their own experience and takes
on the perspective of someone else and then figures out how
(29:27):
can we improve the way we work together or the way we
communicate. That is a leader.
So it's, it has nothing to do with role.
It has to do with perspective taking and ownership, like where
I'm recognizing that I'm part ofthis communication breakdown.
You know. How can we work together?
Like how can I understand what you need?
(29:48):
How can I? And you're negotiating a better
way of working. If you're doing that, then
you're a leader. And then it's just a matter of
how many people you're trying todo that with, right?
And then empathy, which is abouthow do we mobilize groups
through human connections so that we can do that creative
problem solving. So to me, those were some of the
(30:09):
things where it was like, you know, mind blowing, you know,
how, how do we do that? So, and over the years, there's
just been so many frameworks that have made sense to me, you
know, around how do we create productive conflict?
That's another one around and, and a lot of these frameworks,
their, their empathy is really at the center.
(30:31):
So with productive conflict, it's a cycle of restore and
explore. So I don't know about you right
now. I am in a place where I need a
lot of restorative time because I'll put myself out there and
it's just like, Oh my gosh. Like a small interaction can be
(30:51):
really energy draining, right? I have to protect my capacity.
Yep. And you do that in a lot of
hits, like different people havedifferent things.
But a big way we do that is through affinity.
We find like minded people and that helps us feel not alone and
it helps us feel like we've got us some people on.
But if we stay and we only hang out with the people that think
(31:13):
like us, you know, have the samevalues as we, we don't get that
collision of ideas that we had. Like what I was talking about
with God, where I was like, you know, you're different from me,
so therefore I won't work with you.
We once we, once we're restored,we have to go out and learn
about other people's perspectives.
(31:35):
We have to have the courage and the capacity to, and the
curiosity to say, OK, I, I want to learn about your experience
and I want to figure out where there's common ground and where
we can find ways to collaborate with each other.
And that is really hard when we're under resourced and when
(31:55):
we're not regulated. So, you know, that's why I'm
like, it's a cycle because you go out and you're like, Oh my
gosh, I'm now stressed out. I have to go back and restore
again. But you know, make sure you
don't stay in that place 'cause otherwise things are too
stagnant. Yeah, I agree.
And I really think, you know, when you say we restore and then
we can go out and again and justto learn from other people and
(32:18):
work with other people, it, it just kind of shows without kind
of prior, without prioritizing ourselves, it's, it would be
impossible to do what we really want to do, like say, make an
impact, right? Like improve systems or build
new systems. Without that restoration,
(32:39):
especially in times like these, everyone is running around all
the time. We wouldn't be productive at
all. So thank you for sharing.
You know, the scale framework and from my perspective, you
know, I, I study intersectionality and I think
scale is one of a holistic system or like a holistic
(33:02):
framework. It focuses on multiple things.
It's not individualistic. It's it's it's, it's a network
basically. Yeah.
And I think that's one of the things like, that's where my
brain naturally works and where,you know, all of the different
programs that I'm coming up withand ways to really integrate
(33:23):
empathy into. How do we actually mobilize
people to get stuff done right? That's like, I am so driven by
impact and it's like, all right,we got some big problems to
solve. How do we get everybody to work
together? And that doesn't mean we all get
along, but how do we become productive so that we can come
(33:46):
up with these great ideas and wecan actually, like, solve these
problems? And that's not gonna happen when
we're bickering. That's not gonna happen when
we're exhausted and infighting. Like, how can we understand what
we're working with and move pastsome of those things?
So, yeah, So all of the work andframeworks and programs that I'm
putting together, that's naturally how I'm thinking about
things. It's, I love that word holistic
(34:08):
'cause that's exactly where it is.
And then it's also looking at there's individual
responsibility, but there's alsolike organizational
responsibility. One of my favorite quotes is
from West Edwards Demings. And it's a bad system will beat
a good person every time. And like, you can be the most
empathetic person, but if you are in a culture or a system
(34:31):
that doesn't support your efforts, like you're gonna have
a really, really hard time, which is why, yes, we need to
focus on interpersonal skills. We also need to focus on the
organizational systems that support people.
So that's culture, that's operations, that's all of that
stuff that it typically is, you know, oh, that's the hard stuff,
(34:55):
right? But it, it really makes a
difference in terms of how well people can show up and how well
they can regulate. So.
Yeah, it definitely needs to be systemic.
And so we talked about empathy and empathy in tag and then we
expanded it a little bit to scale.
(35:17):
And I know you have again, usingthe word holistic, you have a
system in your practice that helps you know people to
communicate better, to collaborate better and build
better cultures. And what I learned is there are
six programs to help with that and includes creating agile
(35:39):
culture, collaborative communications again and scale
with chaos, productive conflict.You mentioned that already,
technical empathy and then leading through change.
So I think these six components,these six kind of programs,
yeah, work together. Could you tell a little bit more
about how do you make them work together?
(36:02):
Yeah. So I think, you know, the
biggest thing is that recognizing that these are all
starting points, right? So like the best way to
implement things like this, it, it's really demonstrating kind
of what's the challenge you're looking through.
So like the leading through change, for example, that's
really for, you know, more executives where it's like, I
(36:25):
don't know how to make decisionsright now because everything is
so volatile. I made this like, for example,
right now there's tariff challenges, right?
So like, I made this big order and now in order for my stock to
get off the boat, I have to pay 1 1/2 times of what I placed the
order for. Like, how do I even make
(36:46):
business decisions through that?How do I navigate when when just
everything is so dynamic and it's changing so fast, right?
You know, that is an example of like, OK, you can't come in as a
consultant and say, I know, here's how you do it.
Here's the framework. Boom, we're done.
(37:10):
Like it's really about understanding someone like, OK,
here's the challenge you're facing.
You know, what is the challenge in front of you?
And then, you know, giving toolsand very practical, like here's
something that you can try to implement.
So when you're in this situation, you have a tool in
your tool belt that you can try to use, right?
(37:33):
So it's really about equipping people with different frameworks
and tools and communication systems so that they can think
differently. But yeah, I believe strongly the
consultant never has all the answers.
And like it's less about tellingpeople how to do and it's more
about asking the right questions.
(37:55):
So, yeah, so for me, the the programs that I've created are
really based on those, you know,experiences that I've had from
being ACEO, from leading, you know, large organizations and
seeing this communication reallyhave a huge positive impact at
scale. But then also working with
startup founders and things likethat and, and really addressing
that Valley of Death phase because I think it's so
(38:18):
underserved and we can't afford as a society to let great ideas
die. Like, like there are so many
amazing people who know how to solve problems and, you know,
helping them understand that there are functional challenges
(38:41):
that, you know, are are workable.
But a lot of times I know for meit was like, well, I'm a bad
leader or like, I can't do this.And it was, I had so much
imposter syndrome or things. And so being able to recognize
like, OK, where's an individual skill that I can develop, but
then also where is a systemic thing that I need to navigate
around or I need to influence orchange.
(39:05):
And so to me, it's really like, OK, we're getting ready to go
through the valley of death. Like, let me be the person who's
gone through this desert. And I know I can help you figure
out some of those oases where it's like, OK, you can stop and
rest. Or here's where there's water or
you need to pack these differentthings Because, you know, there
(39:26):
are so many, so many people who just have such good intentions.
They are so talented. They are so skilled, and you
know, when we have the tools foreffective communication not just
with the people who agree with us, but for the people who are
(39:46):
skeptical of our idea. Like.
Learning from that, finding waysto collaborate, like that's
where we get real traction. And so that's what motivates me
to, you know, work with different people in a variety of
different ways and just helping people solve problems.
I think there's just that's whatwe need right now and that's
what people are craving. And I know that's what I want to
(40:08):
see. I'm like, let's let's shift into
solution mode and and. Yeah, I agree.
I agree with you. People are hungry for IT.
People are ready for IT. People want tools.
People want to be equipped with the right tools to help them
navigate the the very like very chaotic systems right now.
(40:31):
Yeah. So I totally agree with you.
So, and I think for me too, likejust one thing is there, you
know, there's a lot of people who are attacking, you know, the
values of, you know, diversity and inclusion and empathy is
getting put in there too. Like there are books that are
coming out around toxic empathy.And it's like, well, actually,
(40:51):
you're not talking about empathy, right?
So the more that we understand what some of these things are,
the more we're able to engage indiscussions with people who are
also criticizing our work and threatening the way that we are
approaching things. And some of that is, OK, yeah,
maybe the way we did this wasn'tquite as effective.
We can learn. But on the whole, this is just
(41:15):
is necessary because we can't move forward on some of these
things if we don't have productive conflict.
And you can't get productive conflict unless you have
diversity of perspectives. And, you know, just like this
just is right. And let's just get to some of
the mechanics of it. And I know for me, it has been
so helpful having a better understanding of just some of
(41:39):
the research and like how this stuff just works.
That's allowed me to kind of emotionally detach when people
are criticizing and like, thingsfeel really threatening for our
industries. And just like, no, it's good
communication. And at the end of the day, it's
(42:00):
about solving problems. And, you know, you can sling
these words around if you want, but it's not accurate, you know?
And, you know, maybe this piece is valid and I can see maybe
where you got there. So I know for me that's been a
really important piece for my own ability to restore and have
(42:25):
capacity is just feeling very anchored in the research, having
a good understanding of what I'mtalking about so that I can have
more productive conversations with people who disagree with
me. I think that's very brave.
I mean, I try to do it, but I don't think I'm doing a super
great job right now. But I think that's a really,
(42:49):
really timely and important conversation.
We just had, Andrea, is empathy and how do we practice it and
how do we apply that to leadership?
You know, you don't have to be ACEO to be a leader.
You could be a project manager and you can lead.
You can be a community person and then you can lead your
(43:10):
community through trying times through, like you mentioned,
collaborative communications, productive conflicts.
We can all have these very meaningful conversations and
figure out together. So I'm really appreciative of
that. So thank you and I want to
(43:31):
invite you to share your like website, contact information and
you mentioned you are a keynote speaker.
Yeah. So how do people find you, work
with you, invite to speak, etcetera?
Thank you. Yeah.
So Andrea goulet.com is the, youknow, website that has all the
different programs. That's the fastest way to get in
(43:51):
touch with me to, you know, learn more about speaking, kind
of engage me as an individual. And then my company, Lovelace
Communications, that once we've got kind of one of those
programs off the ground, you know, I, I describe it as the
spark phase where we're, you know, getting people to think
differently. But then also, I've got such an
(44:13):
amazing network of people who can then move into systemizing
some of these insights. So once you have the spark,
right, like there's only so muchthat can be done, but we then
bring it into the operations. And I have a whole amazing team
of people that I bring in on that.
And then we scale it. So we build these, we, we engage
(44:37):
people in terms of solving thoseproblems that are right in front
of them, like introducing them to the productive conflict
framework, helping them like identify opportunities to make
genuine improvements. And then when we figure out
what's working, we bring it to the rest of the organization.
(44:58):
And so that's kind of the differentiator between like me
as a, you know, hiring me as an individual and then also
engaging, you know, kind of a larger project that I've got.
And so that's the Lovelace communications one.
Yeah, I'm really active on LinkedIn, so you can find me
just by looking at my name. And then you'll see like empathy
(45:20):
driven organizations will changethe world as my like banner.
So yeah. And then also empathy and tech.
So we are now a non profit, which is very exciting.
Oh. I didn't know that.
Yeah, Yeah. So we are fiscally sponsored non
project. We are a fiscally sponsored
project of Super Bloom design, which is just amazing.
(45:42):
They're such amazing people. So we'll be doing kind of more
of a formal launch. It started as just a grass roots
community and kind of a discord and we'll put some like webinars
together. And so my business partner
Katie, we had gone through some different iterations.
So now she's the executive director, I'm the founder and
kind of the chief mouthpiece to just talk about like how
(46:05):
important this is. Yeah, so there's more stuff and
empathy and tech podcast as well.
So you. Can refer to that.
So yeah, my Co host Ray and I, Ray Myers, we have some great
discussions both with interviewing people, but then
exploring like, you know, we hadone on there was a paper from
the 1970s by a philosopher talking about techno ethics.
(46:27):
And so reading that pepper and like, OK, this was written in
the 1970s, but how important is it today?
So like nerding out but also learning.
Yeah. So those are some of the
projects and the ways to get in touch with me.
That's a lot and that is plenty.And thank you so much, Andrea,
(46:48):
for all you do. You are fabulous.
I think you are too. Yay, fabulous together.
Yes, and. With that, we're going to stop
recording here.
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