October 12, 2023 • 51 mins
In today's episode, I welcome Faith Clarke again to the podcast. In last season's episode, we discussed the decolonization of work.
In today's episode, we discuss how crucial the intersection of team dynamics and inclusivity is for our workplaces. Drawing on Faith's extensive experience and her latest book, we delve into the necessity of cultivating a work environment where everyone feels they belong.
We look at the systemic issues marred in our workplaces and their impact on team trust. We talk about the importance of investment in internal capacity, fostering interpersonal bonds, and acknowledging the value and privilege of each individual in shaping a supportive and adaptable work culture. We put the spotlight on homogeneous teams, scrutinizing how their dynamics can breed an 'extractive relationship' and provide insights on fostering more open conversations in team meetings.
Further, we turn our attention to meetings and how to transform them into breeding grounds for engagement and innovation. We touch on the essence of valuing people's voices, nurturing creative thinking, and discussing the cost of a lack of creativity in the workplace.
I hope you enjoy our conversation!
Connect with Faith here or
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If something you heard today brought a smile to your face or a spark to your heart, and you’d like to connect with me, here are a few ways you can do that.
One is my newsletter, it’s where I put most of my time and energy when I’m not working with clients or on this podcast. Sorry social media! It’s a mix of real life stories, tips and tricks and of course updates on what’s happening with the podcast. Whenever something is going on with me or in my business, it always comes out there first.
Another resource that I have for you is my Guide to Doing Work Differently. The guide takes you through four inquiries into how you can build a more sustainable and equitable work environment for yourself and your team. It's a great place to start.
Last, if you’ve got a burning question, a comment, or a situation you’d like my eyes on, you can email me at candice@fortressandflourish.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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
(00:26):
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
(00:49):
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
(01:14):
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,
(01:35):
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
(01:59):
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.
Welcome back to the hearth.
(02:26):
Brave souls.
Today I am so excited to sharewith you my conversation with
Faith Clark.
Faith Clark is a CEO and teameffectiveness specialist.
She did this amazing seriesabout decolonizing work last
year that you can check out.
(02:48):
We'll link it in the show notes.
And then she and I did a greatseries on YouTube that was about
rituals in the workplace andbasically the things that we can
do to create safe space for ouremployees at work.
So, without further ado, I amjust going to take us over to
(03:11):
the conversation with Faith, andI hope you enjoy what we talk
about.
Faith, thank you so much forjoining me on the podcast today.
I'm really excited to talk withyou, especially about your new
book that's coming out.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I'm looking forward to chatting with you, because I
think we always touch on suchintricate, interesting aspects
of this work.
And, yes, hopefully by the timethis is live, my book will be
at least the first draft will bedone.
We'll have free sale going.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So tell us what is it about and why did you decide to
write a book now?
It's such a big thing to decideto undertake.
I'm curious about.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well, so I have been delaying the gratification of
writing a book.
So I wrote my last book, myfirst book, which was my last
book in 2018.
And almost immediately after, Ishifted more into this how do
we help humans feel like theybelong to their work, with their
work, in their work?
(04:17):
Because, as a parent of kidswith complex needs who are
neurovariant, I just like how dowe help my kids feel like they
have meaningful work outside ofme?
But I was doing a PhD inorganizational performance and
organizational psychology and Isay was, and I felt like the
(04:37):
writing of the book would be thecarrot I would dangle in front
of myself and I would say, whenyou're done with the PhD, faith,
you'll write the book.
And then recently I decided tofree myself from the burden of
the PhD and I stopped.
So it was almost like, well,what's the thing you're going to
create?
The creative in me was askingthis question, and I had just
(04:57):
completed the series a yearbefore called Decolonizing Work,
and as I did that series,there's just so much goodness
that I found in thoseconversations.
I really wanted to marry someof what I learned with what,
some of the stuff that I wastalking about before in terms of
inclusion, and I thought well,just just write the book, faith,
stop, stop holding it as acarrot in front of you and just
(05:19):
do the thing you want to do.
So that's the story of writingthe book.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Wonderful.
Yeah, I love that you decidedto stop doing the PhD because it
wasn't the right fit anymoreand then went on to the thing
that you really wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
My heart was saying do it, do it.
You know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So people know you to talk a lot about teams and also
inclusion, and I'm curious howdo those two things connect?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, so when I was part of my own doctoral,
research was on has been on newventure teams, but it was on its
new venture.
A new venture is just abusiness that's not yet resolved
to crises that businesses haveto resolve.
The first crisis is do I havesomething that the market wants
(06:12):
from me and you prove that byselling it?
And if you sell it, if there'smoney, if you sell the thing and
money comes in and you're like,oh, I do have something the
market wants.
And then the second crisis isdo I have the capacity to
produce that thing for themarket in a sustainable way?
And the new is not a good word,but there's so many of us in
business that kind of stay inthe cycle of those two
(06:35):
conversations 80%, 90% ofbusinesses.
There is nothing like that'snot a state of immaturity, that
just is what it is.
So then you have some otherbusinesses that shift into a
more static I would call itstate, and I love this the
dynamics of that new venturestage, because it's a stage
(06:56):
where the context is constantlychanging, the internal business
landscape is constantly changingand what I noticed in exploring
those teams that were effectiveis that those teams needed to
be scrappy.
They almost needed to be likesports teams and like emergency
medicine teams and like firstresponder teams.
(07:16):
They needed to have such analertness to the environment and
an awareness of each other sothat, regardless of what came
their way, regardless of whatchanged, they could just jump in
.
And when I looked at how thoseteams worked with each other,
there was a really deep level ofinterpersonal awareness and
(07:40):
interpersonal and knowing and asense of belonging with each
other and to each other that Ihave seen as similar.
When I look at the research orinclusion, I'm like, oh, that's
what they're doing.
They're actually.
They create community, whethertemporary or longer term.
They create community with eachother.
They create a sense ofbelonging with each other.
(08:02):
They create really deep knowingwith each other so that they
can improvise on the spot whenother demands come their way.
And, like I realized that theteam is the perfect place to
build the behaviors aroundinclusivity and belonging and
thriving and all the things thatwe tend to talk about when we
talk in the DEI space about howto help the workplace be more
(08:26):
human.
Now we're trying to talk aboutit in this macro way, but I
could see it happening in thesescrappy teams and they may not
be including all the people, butthey learn how to include the
people who are in front of themFor them to work.
Well, for the most part,they're including the six of
(08:47):
them, the eight of them.
They figure out, throughwhatever processes, how to read
each other and be with eachother and accept each other for
who they are.
And so I think that for me,inclusion has to be brought down
to the interpersonal for it toactually work.
And now we're talking aboutimplicit bias, we're talking
about microaggressions, we'retalking about all these things
(09:09):
as ideas, but it has to comedown to how does it affect, in
the relationship, the workingrelationship between me and
Candice, what's showing up inour interactions around this
work, and what's in the airthat's acting as a barrier
either to faith or to Candice,that's preventing this work from
moving forward.
(09:29):
And as we look at this at thatlevel, we'll start to see oh, I
have a whole judgment aroundCandice and the orange wall
that's behind her, because wholoves orange?
You will start to see where thebiases are and where the
judgments are and where theprejudices and privileges are,
and then we can bring it down tothe ground and say how do we do
(09:50):
something about this so thatthe work isn't affected?
So that was kind of how Ibrought the two together when I
started to do the research and Ijust feel like that's the place
.
The team is like a hostageaudience for this work, like
they are all ready together andthey're already working on a
thing.
So then it's an opportunity forall of us to do some of the
(10:13):
healing work that we know isneeded in the workplace.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I work with a lot of businesses that are in that kind
of cycle of the emergingbusiness figuring out something
that works for the market,trying to have the capacity to
meet the market demands, and inthat tension there can be a
prioritization of getting likegetting a lot of work done and
(10:39):
not so much prioritizing theteam being able to have these
interconnected relationshipswith each other.
And so what are your thoughtson creating space for that and
why it's important to do?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, well, I think those the teams, the businesses
that you're referring to andwe've seen it a lot nonprofits
are a great example of this.
It's lean, there's not a lot ofmoney to go around and so we
have to, and then the fundersare insisting that we have
program goals being met.
So you focus on that and not onthe internal capacity.
(11:19):
And what you see is the moreyou do that, the faster the
internal capacity is eroding,the faster the revolving door is
happening.
One nonprofit I was talking tothey had it was last year 103
job openings.
I was like 103, how are you, vpof HR, navigating that?
(11:40):
And she was like poorly, it'schaotic, right.
So we already have a lot ofdata about how much that's not
working.
But we have to kind of noticethat there's something
underneath.
That's like me and my constantfreaking out at I don't know,
spiders or whatever.
I know that there's nothing tobe, it's not gonna harm me, but
(12:00):
there's something underneaththat I would need to explore to
deal with my reaction.
So we're having a reaction inthe workplace to the demand and
instead of nourishing theresource that's actually the
most adaptable, we keep at the.
But if we only made enoughmoney then we could nourish the
resource, and if we only we keepon that and we have to
(12:21):
understand what's going on thereand there are lots of systemic
issues that feed that thoughtprocess and that feed our fear
of know what we have to makeenough money.
My solution, though, is alittle bit longer view, like, if
you know that you will be inthe cycle, you've been in the
cycle, it's not just ending,it's not ending tomorrow Then
you can kind of give yourself alittle bit of permission to say
(12:43):
what actually will change thecycle.
Internal capacity means buildingthe skills and power within the
individuals for that scrappyadaptability we were talking
about before and the ability toreally harness the interpersonal
power humans have with eachother.
And one of the things that hasmade humans so effective in some
(13:06):
ways and harmful in other waysis that when we get into synergy
with each other, our power ismagnified.
So this a lot of the burnoutwe're seeing in the workplace is
a result of the relationshipsactually feeling extractive.
The work is extractive and therelationships are extractive,
(13:26):
and if the relationships arenourishing around hard work, the
work is so much less extractivebecause the combined power of
the humans together gets it doneand it gets it done in a way
that suddenly the hard feelslike a good type of hard.
And so I think part of theswitch has to be if we invest in
(13:47):
internal capacity, just likeback to my favorite teams, the
first responder teams and theeven military which I have
issues with military but thoseteams are constantly working on
the individual people's capacityall the time, even when they're
not out doing quote, unquotework.
And there's something aboutthat model that says build the
(14:11):
human so that when there is workthey can respond to whatever
shows up in a landscape that'sgonna change right in front of
their eyes.
I think that has to be, and youhave to just know that the
human is the most adaptable.
Hate the word resource, butlet's just go with it.
Resource that any business hasgoing on for it.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
My husband was in the military and when we talk about
his time there, part of what hetalks about is that it is a
family.
It was a family and so whenthey got into combat situations,
they knew that their brothers,their sisters were there with
them, defending them, and soit's like when there is this
(14:55):
existential threat like iscoming towards you, if you have
a team that's strong, that knowseach other and is very
interconnected and has verystrong bonds, then you can
respond to that.
And yes, I also have otherthings about the military that
are a lot of problematic thingsabout that.
(15:15):
But that kind of brings me backto you.
Had brought up systemic issuesthat show up in the workplace
and I'm wondering if you couldexpand on that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Well, let's look at that interconnectivity for a
second.
There's something aboutinterconnectivity that creates
these bonds of trust and there'sa value that's put on the
togetherness and the systemicissues.
If we wanna go into them likesupremacist systems basically
(15:48):
said I know what's better, Ihave whoever the I is, I've
determined that this is betterand you don't have the value or
place or power or privilege todetermine what's better.
So you do what I say is better,even if you don't understand
that that's good for you.
And to control the systemsupremacist systems controlled
(16:12):
the whoever's were not in powerthrough fear and for fear to
work for that reasoning, to workI know what's better and then
for fear to work as a mechanismof control, then the
interpersonal bonds can't be.
You have to break up therelationships Like the
togetherness can't work.
Which kid's movie was it whenthere was like ants must have
(16:35):
been ants being controlled bythe grasshoppers or something.
And there was a line in themovie where it says if they ever
figure out that they're morethan us, then we're in trouble.
And so there is something aboutthe low trust that we have in
the workplace, the way that weyou find that people are, they
(16:57):
have to be in little pockets.
I remember years and years agoI was applying for a job in a
place that a friend of mineworked and she was in a
reasonably senior position.
She said to me I mean, shereally wasn't supportive of me
applying for the job.
But she said to me you know, wecan't have two black women,
because there's going to be agood black woman and a bad black
(17:19):
woman, cause we have to bepitied against each other and
that's not going to work.
And we both in the conversationwere like we want our
friendship more than we wantedthis situation to, you know,
financially or whatever, and sowe both kind of just leaned back
from it.
And I remember, but I rememberthinking about how much, how
(17:40):
many forces against relationshipexist in the workplace.
And that is a part of thesystemic struggle that is in
place that we can't trust,because we don't believe whoever
we've trusted will have ourback, because there is this
hierarchy that is implicit,invisible, but we don't want to
(18:02):
lose our place and we don't wantsomebody else to hurt our place
and whatever we're getting fromit to prevent us from moving up
the hierarchy.
So the whole thing is really,really broken.
And I think when we look at whatbrought us here, when we look
at some of the history ofcolonization as part of what I
(18:25):
talked about, what came up inthe decolonizing work, when
really and truly there arehundreds of years of this idea
where human bodies werecommodities, like the value of a
human body was X, whether itwas slavery or indentured labor,
whatever it was.
So this number assigned to thevalue of a human body.
(18:47):
So we have in the workplacetoday a person saying are you
worth this thing?
When people come to work for me, I tell them immediately that
the number that we agree on hasnothing to do with your work.
This work that you do for me ispriceless.
It cannot be.
I mean, we could try to put itinto formulas, but it cannot be,
(19:09):
because you as a human cannotbe put down as a number.
But for so much we're like, I'mworth 15 an hour, 20 an hour,
150 an hour.
And then for those of us whoare, you know, like, am I really
worth 150 an hour?
All of this is tied to thesystemic placing of value on
different human bodies throughwhatever that human's effort is,
(19:32):
and that value is placed bysomeone, it's not
self-determined.
So that whole thing of value,that whole thing of knowledge
somebody else knows what's goodand tells us what is good, all
of that is playing into what wesee as a lot of people harm in
the workplace.
And then I think the beauty ofthe pandemic if there's any is
(19:54):
there's anything to be calledbeautiful about the pandemic,
but going through something hardtogether and surviving those of
us who are here at this site,at this point it's like I don't
think I want to put up with thatanymore.
So there is a whole reawakening, an awareness of what is my
value and do I want to put up,you know.
(20:14):
And so there's been a whole lotof questioning of all the
systemic structures, not justwork, because education is
getting pressure.
Places of worship and faith andall that's getting pressure
because of the same things thatwait.
There was some kind of rigidstructure that told me what I
was supposed to do and who I wassupposed to be and what my
value was, and that entitywasn't asking me, that structure
(20:39):
wasn't asking me.
And so, even when people say tome, how do we do equitable
compensation, I'm like ask thepeople you're trying to
compensate.
I can definitely give you lotsof ideas and you're like talk to
us some of them, butfundamentally, you have a human
sitting right in front of youthat you want to offer equitable
compensation too.
That person is the absoluteexpert on their situation and on
(21:01):
their needs and what would beequitable for them.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, and when you have a group, it's that what
does that group specificallyneed?
Yeah, it's what's coming up forme around.
This is, I think, a lot ofpeople who start businesses or
who start nonprofitorganizations or become the
(21:25):
leaders of these organizationsit's not necessarily that they
see that the organization is away to, it's like a way of
creating a culture of its ownwithin a greater society, and
that there is this.
I mean, it's an opportunity,but it's also a responsibility.
(21:48):
And so in creating anorganization, a team of people
that are working together, Ithink a lot of people just kind
of go with what they have to door what they came up in, what
they learned through their ownwork experience or what they
(22:09):
learned from their parents' workexperience or their work in the
community, and that there arechoices that we have that people
kind of default to operatingwithin these systems that are
really unjust and unfair andperpetuating those systems when
(22:29):
really there's it's a time for ashift.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I mean, and we're not aware of that right.
So I think about myself as aparent.
I made some really deliberatechoices to be a different parent
than my mother was.
As much as I've loved my mother, I love my mom and how she
parented.
I saw how she parented asdifferent from my grandmother
and I see how my parent isdifferent.
(22:54):
And yet, as one of my favoritetherapists was also a friend,
said to me, the moment I decidednot to be my mom, I already was
, and that's the thing, that'sthe humility that is needed for
all of us right now.
Like the moment you've decidedthat you're not going to be
racist, you are.
(23:15):
The moment you've decided thatyou're not going to be
misogynist, even as a personidentifying as a woman, you are
right, because there is thisenvironment that we've been in
and these implicit thoughts thatwe've had fed to us that have
just been fed as normal.
So then you're starting abusiness to offer some solution,
nonprofit agents, evenvolunteer situation to offer
(23:37):
some kind of support out therewithout addressing in here, and
that's fine.
I don't think any of us shouldtry to be the perfect parent,
the perfect business leader,before doing the work.
But the work is an invitationto our own transformation.
And so I think part of thething has to be now that I have
the actual human that I'vebirthed, now that I have the
(24:00):
actual business that I'vebirthed and I acknowledge that I
cannot do this on my own thenwhat's my moral, ethical
responsibility to other humansin the place?
And do I find myself saying,well, I just want a person to
help me do this thing, or am Isaying I'm inviting a person
(24:21):
into this mission and is itmutually beneficial?
And it's like, what kind ofcommunity do we want to start
creating?
I think that it becomesimportant for us to be answering
that question when we arebringing in the first bookkeeper
, the first virtual assistant,the first, because at those
moments we're not thinking that,we're just thinking oh my
(24:41):
goodness, I'm overwhelmed bythis schedule or these bills of
paperwork.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I just need some help .
Can I hire someone across theworld for a couple of dollars an
hour to do that?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yes, get rid of it.
And regardless of who we hire,where they are, we're inviting
someone into our orbit and therelationship that we have with
them is going to be a reflectionof our beliefs, implicit and
explicit, about how we treathumans who interact with us
around work.
So it's really an opportunityto kind of look at it deeper and
(25:12):
just say, hey, what are mybeliefs about this?
And even write them down.
I'll say to people who haven'thired anybody yet If you were to
have a successful business infive years with I don't know 20
staff, 50 staff, what kind ofculture would you want it to be?
What kind of place?
How do you want people to feel?
How do you want them tointeract?
Imagine that and write thatdown.
(25:34):
And then write down what willit take to be there with your
first two people?
How does that begin?
What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (25:42):
When you're working with these smaller teams six
people, maybe eight people whatare some of the ways that that
the kind of extractiverelationship can show up or that
?
What are some things thatsomeone who already has a team
(26:03):
might have going on that theydon't realize are tied to these
kind of systemic issues, but ifthey're seeing them it's kind of
a clue to think about this,creating a more interconnected
culture among the team.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I'm gonna just give that personal title.
I'm just gonna make them eitherfounder or CEO, just the person
in charge, right.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
And so a couple of things that they might be seeing
.
But first of all, if the teamis homogenous in any way so all
women, all one gender, all onebackground, racially, ethnically
or something like that then beaware of that.
That's the first thing, to kindof say that that's a thing here
(26:51):
.
There is a we that's beenestablished in some way right
Within that sameness.
I would start asking somequestions about what's the
difference that's showing up.
So if there is one person whotends to be on time I'll use the
time one, because that's me,one person who tends to be on
time and others tend to be late,what's the impact of that
(27:17):
lateness or on timeness on thecollective, and how is that
showing up?
Is there some angst about it?
Is there some judgment that'sshowing up?
Is there a little bit of snark?
Is it not snark?
But somebody feels like themeetings they're waiting, so
meetings are a waste of time.
These are really small things,but the small things lead to big
(27:38):
things silos, conflict thatdoesn't resolve, launch,
business launches or programsthat are ineffective, funding
that doesn't show up, and so on.
So I'd start to look at wherethe differences are in a team
and how that's impacting.
And then who are people talkingto about the effect of this
(27:59):
difference?
So for me, when I show up late,as a person that has a
different, it's just I don'tknow.
I feel like I can do 15 thingsin five minutes.
Apparently.
I'm still in a 50-something.
I still have this notion.
So then I'm like it's and Irush off to the place.
When I do that, I'm running thescript of everybody's judgments
(28:24):
, even if you've said nothing,and my preoccupation with the
negative stereotype about meimpacts the quality of my work.
All the research says that.
Whether it is that it'simpacting me because I am
worrying or I'm being defensiveand arguing because I've done
that too, quarreling with you inmy mind, how dare you not
understand?
Why are you so rigid?
(28:44):
So I'm judging you back for theimagine.
All of that is happening in ameeting where we want to be
innovative and creative andthat's just a thing about time,
right?
What about this, since I havekids who are neurodistinct?
What about a team where peoplehave neurovariances, somebody's
(29:05):
really visual and all thecommunication comes by email?
Or somebody's very auditory andall the email is in voice notes
?
All of the messages are invoice notes, all the messages.
Like I have worked on teams.
I've supported teams where theteam leader it just sends them.
It's like an essay that comesthrough and he has a judgment
(29:28):
about whether people are readingthose messages or not.
And then a person is just nottaking it in fully and but
doesn't want to ask a question.
So what are some of thedifferences that actually exist
and how are those things playingout?
So a person who feels free toask questions in a meeting or a
person who does not feel free toask questions in a meeting, and
(29:49):
then what are the implicationsof that?
I've seen teams, small teams,where the meeting is silent.
The team meetings are a greattesting point for anything.
The meeting is silent, peopleare afraid of conflict, or there
is so much conflict thatthere's just 10 silence, so
there isn't on the conflictitself, which is just difference
(30:12):
inside.
That conflict is the new,innovative, creative solution
that includes everybody'sdifferences and integrates
everybody's brilliance.
But we can't go through that.
So what do people do?
They discuss the possiblebrilliant solutions in the
corridor or at home or by text,like that was so dumb.
Why did we do that?
You know that kind of thing.
And the team leader feels thatthey're holding the structure of
(30:34):
the organization all on theirown.
So their response of they'redriving the thing, they're
making the thing happen, thething is not shared by the
entire team.
A lot of that is also.
The team doesn't feel like theyhave permission to really give
themselves fully.
They have to kind of stay intheir place.
The stay in the place thing isso systemic Stay in your place,
(30:55):
stay in your lane, pay attentionto your thing, mind your
business.
All of that is permission thatpeople feel they don't have or
it's not safe to have that power.
If they were not to stay intheir place, something bad could
happen, and when bad thingshappen, that's your income
that's being affected.
So those are some examples ofthings that will be happening in
(31:17):
a small team.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
I've had people ask me this question about, like we
have this team meeting.
I don't understand why no oneis talking.
Why is it and it's almost likethere's this assumption that the
team isn't able to grasp thequestion that's at hand or the
issue that's at hand and thenalso from the team side not
(31:42):
feeling really comfortable to beable to really talk about
what's going on, especially ifthey're really formal agendas?
I think Sometimes team meetingsare just very you have five
minutes to talk about this hugething and so you don't actually
really have the time to get intowhat you need to get into in
(32:03):
order to resolve it.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
For sure, at the top of meetings, like we do need to
revamp just how, why we havethese meetings.
We have so much technology.
There is no need forannouncement type meetings.
Half an hour of announcementswe can roll that out on the
visual screen in the corridor orsend that to people.
So we do need to rethink.
How are we using the resourceof people's time?
(32:28):
But then also, participation inmeetings is about voice and in
hierarchical structures, peoplewho are lowered on in the
hierarchy.
No, they don't have voice, likeyou, you know.
So if people aren'tparticipating, then whether
experts are, implicitly, theyfeel they don't have voice.
The voice doesn't matter.
(32:48):
It doesn't matter why would Isay something when it either
will have no impact or negativeimpact?
So that needs to be shifted.
How is decision makinghappening?
How is the responsibilityfeeling shared?
How are people's voices beingvalued?
All of that needs to be thoughtabout.
If the meeting isn't, themeeting needs to almost be rock
(33:09):
us, I mean, you know, inalignment with the teams, like
sensibilities and stuff likethat, but there should really be
.
I need to say something.
Oh, wait, wait, but have wethought of the?
Have we?
Okay, you and Lucy, you and Iwere gonna talk afterwards,
because I have a thought thatthat when humans get together,
that synergy should be creatingsomething.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
It shouldn't be that we're all just like sitting
there or listening to the leadersaying all the things,
dictating all of the things thatneed to be happening, and just
being receptive.
It reinforces that extractivekind of relationship.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I don't think any humans are ever just sitting and
taking things in like that.
That's not what we're actuallydoing.
We're either in the room orthere is an internal thing
that's not coming out.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
There's like this internal struggle that's
happening.
Yeah, that wears you down, Ithink.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I mean when I've been in that situation.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
It's just over time.
It just you can't keep doing itanymore, and the longer it goes
on, it's almost like the harderit is.
Yeah to get back from it.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
The cost of the load of not being connected to the
people you work with is so muchmore than the value of a
paycheck, and what happens isthat it shows up in the business
as a cost on medical insuranceand time off.
It shows up as a cost in therevolving door of employees.
(34:42):
It shows up in the 50% ofpeople that leave within two
months of being hired.
It shows up in how hard it isto find people that feel like a
good fit.
It shows up in how manymanagers feel like they don't
have time to be reallysupportive to the people that
report to them.
All of this is showing upsomewhere and it's costing the
(35:03):
organization.
When they say that engagementis down to some ridiculous
number like 30% 30% yeah.
Right.
I mean, if engagement even cameto 60%, that's double the
productivity that we'd begetting for the same dime.
I'm not saying I think weshould pay people more, of
course, but let's just thinkabout the loss to businesses in
(35:26):
terms of innovation and justoverall everything, if we have
all of this weight that peoplecarry while being in the process
of doing the work that we'veinvited them into.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
It makes me think, too, about just the amount of
creativity and innovation thatisn't happening because people
aren't able to be in that spaceand their work.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I think creativity and innovation, it's both a
skill in these reps and it'ssomething that happens.
It's synergistic, like when youare wrong creative people,
you're more creative.
And both of those require youto have in the workplace,
require you to have permission,because so many people have said
(36:12):
, hey, look at this, andsomebody has shot it down.
So you quickly learn that workis not the place to be creative,
which is such a shame, sincethe business problems that we're
facing in this massivelyshifting context that we're in
require a ton of innovation, aton of borrowing from unrelated
entities and bringing thingstogether to create something new
(36:34):
, which is what innovation andcreativity is.
But at work we don't get topractice that because we're just
like head down, pay attentionand do things, and even in the
quote, unquote creativeoccupations you're seeing the
formula.
Like I worked.
One of my clients works with alot of digital creatives and
(36:56):
video people make media andyou're starting to see the
formula and how the products arebeing creative.
I got people aren't stopping tosay like, hmm, I wonder, no
wonder, like there is a way.
Somebody has already shown usPixar or whoever, and my boss
will be happy if I show themthat way.
(37:17):
I think that we have to figureout, otherwise we'll just all
end right here and then some newperson is going to recreate the
wheel again with starting somenew businesses.
We all have to figure out howto shift what's happening at
work.
So humans feel free to do whathumans do really well, which is
synergistically create the newfuture.
(37:39):
Over and over again.
This is what we've done.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yeah, I think about that, especially in different
teams that I've worked with ingovernment and then also
architects in government Sorry.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, government is, isthe creating systems and
upholding systems and thenrequiring everybody else to
(38:06):
participate in those systems andoften not not looking at them
again.
You know, like a lot of thesystems that are in place were
created 50 years ago or 100years ago and, yeah, and there
isn't an understanding of howthe changing dynamics that are
happening in the world affectpeople and so then, how those
(38:27):
systems should change to betterserve the community.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yeah, I think a lot of our building of systems also
was built on the industrialmodel you know of a system is a
rigid thing, you know, like adesk, and but the systems
contain humans, support humansand respond to a context that's
(38:52):
changing because of humans, sothey can't be static, and I
think that figuring out how tobuild a system that responds I
remember the first time I triedto redo my website and I said is
your website responsive?
And I was like responsive,what's responsive?
No, it should change accordingto the type of monitor, type of
browser, type of, and the thingthat makes a particular website
(39:15):
powerful is this ability torespond to the actual setting
it's in and to be able to dothat for settings that it
doesn't yet know about.
Like we don't want to use toolsthat's going to break on the
new version of whatever this isBig Sur or whatever I have on my
Mac, and it's a similar thingthat we're building systems like
(39:35):
.
This is the way the world is.
Build it X million dollars, thisis the way, but actually what
we need to do is build a systemthat can listen for how the
world is now and offer that andthen keep listening and adjust
itself, which means the systemhas to be built with humans who
have this capacity.
We're saying what's going onand what's needed right now and
(39:58):
adjusting accordingly.
That we can't do that if, backto the systemic things, if we
haven't acknowledged oh, thesystem is built to support
people with privilege versuspeople who do not.
The people who are marginalizeddo not get as much value from
the system.
Or the system is built to makepremium one particular type of
(40:23):
knowledge and ignore all theother voices.
Or the system is built to sellhuman bodies and their energy in
a way that's similar to sellingapples and car parts, like we
have to own those things becausethose elements don't help us
build responsive systems.
We have to be willing to say,yes, that's what's going on and
(40:46):
then we have to stop it.
But we can't stop something wedon't even acknowledge.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
There's the community health centers in Mac County
have a new rule that if peopleare late for their appointments,
they can't attend theirappointment and they have to
reschedule.
And so I mean, obviously therewas a problem happening with
people being late for theirappointments, but instead of
(41:11):
acknowledging OK, people havebusy lives, people are late for
their appointments, let's buildcapacity within our system to be
able to handle the lateness ofpeople.
It's like no, we're going toput that back onto the
individual, that they have to behere early in order to be able
to get this appointment.
And a lot of people are dealingwith kids, bringing them to
(41:36):
these community centers.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
And my doctor's appointment today.
The doctor was I was late too,but the doctor was late and it
turned out that we all live inboth myself and the doctor live
in the same area.
There's construction on the 84lanes are blocked, and I was
just thinking that this is, thiswas the doctor's reality, and
so they explained it to me.
(42:00):
But they didn't explain it tome first.
First they said, well, you are15 minutes late and so we don't
know what time.
And so I went back to them halfan hour later and they're like
you know, you were 15, you werelate.
And I was like, yeah, 15minutes, it's been 45 now.
And then they said, well, also,the doctor was late because of
the same reason that you werelate, and I just thought it's so
interesting.
(42:20):
I'm like it's cool.
How do we build the capacity, asyou're saying, in all our
systems?
So I gave her some feedback.
I was like you could have justtold me that things are a walk
and you have no idea.
So you don't know how long I'mgoing to be here, because when
you tell me that, that gives meinformation, that then I can
make some decisions around, andI think so much like hidden
(42:43):
inside there is all of this.
No, certain people have theinformation, other people don't.
You need to feel lucky thatyou're here, receiving whatever
knowledge this person is givingyou, and it's versus the system
being a system that embraceshumans all of our humanity, you
know, not just the doctors.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
It's helping.
I think people like the personwho works at that desk right to
understand how to communicatewith patients about what's
happening, so that you know theyhave the information that they
need to make their decisions to,because Right, right, because
everybody has decisions thatthey need to make.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
But I mean it's, you know, like you're saying, it's
the fundamentalists.
They're like there's underlyingthings that we have to address
to even notice that, right,she's being perfectly polite and
the doctor feels he's beingperfectly polite, and still
there's a not valuing of me, mytime and my, my place in the
world, really, my child who'swaiting on me, and so on.
(43:46):
There's a not valuing of that.
And so when people say Faith,how do we build these workplaces
that value, all the things thatyou're talking about?
That sounds impossible.
And it sounds impossible fromthe perspective of a system that
does not.
It does not become the systemthat does not, you know, assist
at the desk.
(44:06):
It does not become a tree, it'sthe distance.
There is no sideways transition.
There is only transformation.
There's alchemy, you know thereis.
How do we take these fivepeople and redesign our culture
so that we honor all ourhumanity, leader and clients and
(44:29):
us, all of us get honored.
And that's not going to, it'snot going to happen overnight,
because we have so much learningon learning to do.
But if we stay with thatquestion, we'll get the answer
for those five people, and thebetter we get at answering the
question for those five people,the easier it will be to expand
that when they becomesupervisors, to their five or
whatever, to their other spacesthat they have influenced.
(44:49):
The, the practice of the yes,yes is what we need to start
doing, because the systems havetaught us yes, no, and most of
us are on the no side.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
But once you start working with those kinds of
teams, it is kind of like you'redescribing it's like a fractal.
It starts in one place but thenit moves into all these other
areas, because people aren'tjust in their work team right.
There are other kinds of teamstoo, and when this is the way of
creating relationships andworking together, then it goes
(45:22):
into these other places.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah, and Sima was talking to a nonprofit leader
recently, a funding organizationleader recently, and just
challenging where we put money.
And so if we put money intocapacity building, we meaning
whoever the we's are that havemoney please put money into
capacity building.
Yeah, they want to be where thechange is happening.
(45:46):
But again, that's a reallyindustrial model of looking at
things, because when we buildthis human's capacity, even if
that program fails, that humanhas gone to another organization
doing other work or their teamgot invited into something
transformation and they movethat along.
(46:07):
Like.
It's not like 15 people in aprogram out there learn to X, y
and Z.
It's every human whose capacitywe build that splinters out
exponentially into all the areasof their lives, all their
future work, all their presentor all the people who report to
them directly.
It's so powerful it may bedifficult to measure, but it is
(46:30):
so powerful when we invest inhuman capacity.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Well, thank you so much for this conversation.
Was there anything that wedidn't get to talk about that
you wanted to share?
Speaker 2 (46:42):
No, I think this is it.
I think, if we bring it back tothe book, I don't I'm calling
it the art and science ofbuilding a restorative team.
I think I'm using art becauseso much of it, like science, is
limited and when we think aboutart, we give ourselves
permission to lean into ourintuition and into our
(47:04):
creativity, and I think that'swhat's needed for the healing of
work and therefore the healingof humans.
If we can, we've always.
Whoever DaVinci and all thesepeople were both artists and
scientists, because we didn'thave those false separations,
and I think if we can return tothat more integrated self, we
(47:24):
will find that we already havethe ability to create these
spaces if we give ourselves thefreedom to do so.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Yeah, I have always been living in those different
worlds.
For me it's never really beenseparate.
I feel like spirituality andbusiness and art and science and
all of these things areinterwoven Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
And if people want to get intocontact with you, what's the
(47:56):
best way for them to do that?
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Email.
Faith at faithclarkcom is thebest way.
I am on all social media asFaith Clark or Faith A Clark and
the book has a culture designassessment and the assessment is
done even though the book is inearly stages.
So the culture designassessment is at
(48:20):
restorativeworkculturecom and Iwill probably be in the show
notes.
I'll give it to you.
But that's just an easy way topersonally interrogate the
culture you're creating as abusiness leader.
Or if you have a team that youwant to involve in it, have
those questions be discussedamong the team and just like
(48:42):
what are we doing and what areone or two practices we could
put in place?
That would just shift theneedle a tiny bit, because
capacity building is anincremental game, it's a long
game, it's not the overnighttype of thing.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
I am always so inspired by ourconversations and the depth of
knowledge that you have and theamount of research that you've
done.
And yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Hit subscribe to know when the next episodes come out
.
And, if you're feeling generous, please leave a review.
Reviews help other like-mindedfolks find their way to this
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If something you heard todaybrought a smile to your face or
a spark to your heart and you'dlike to connect with me, there
(49:37):
are a few ways to do that.
One is my newsletter, where Iput most of my time and energy
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(49:57):
and, of course, updates onwhat's happening with the
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Whenever something's going onwith me or in my business, it
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Another resource that I have foryou is my guide to doing work
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This guide takes you throughfour inquiries into how you can
(50:19):
build a more sustainable andequitable work environment for
yourself and your team.
It's a great place if you'relooking for somewhere to get
started.
Last, if you've got a burningquestion, a comment or a
situation you'd like my eyes on,you can email me.
All those links are in the shownotes.
(50:40):
Take care, brave soul, catchyou next time.
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
(00:26):
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
(00:49):
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
(01:14):
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,
(01:35):
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
(01:59):
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.
Welcome back to the hearth.
(02:26):
Brave souls.
Today I am so excited to sharewith you my conversation with
Faith Clark.
Faith Clark is a CEO and teameffectiveness specialist.
She did this amazing seriesabout decolonizing work last
year that you can check out.
(02:48):
We'll link it in the show notes.
And then she and I did a greatseries on YouTube that was about
rituals in the workplace andbasically the things that we can
do to create safe space for ouremployees at work.
So, without further ado, I amjust going to take us over to
(03:11):
the conversation with Faith, andI hope you enjoy what we talk
about.
Faith, thank you so much forjoining me on the podcast today.
I'm really excited to talk withyou, especially about your new
book that's coming out.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I'm looking forward to chatting with you, because I
think we always touch on suchintricate, interesting aspects
of this work.
And, yes, hopefully by the timethis is live, my book will be
at least the first draft will bedone.
We'll have free sale going.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So tell us what is it about and why did you decide to
write a book now?
It's such a big thing to decideto undertake.
I'm curious about.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well, so I have been delaying the gratification of
writing a book.
So I wrote my last book, myfirst book, which was my last
book in 2018.
And almost immediately after, Ishifted more into this how do
we help humans feel like theybelong to their work, with their
work, in their work?
(04:17):
Because, as a parent of kidswith complex needs who are
neurovariant, I just like how dowe help my kids feel like they
have meaningful work outside ofme?
But I was doing a PhD inorganizational performance and
organizational psychology and Isay was, and I felt like the
(04:37):
writing of the book would be thecarrot I would dangle in front
of myself and I would say, whenyou're done with the PhD, faith,
you'll write the book.
And then recently I decided tofree myself from the burden of
the PhD and I stopped.
So it was almost like, well,what's the thing you're going to
create?
The creative in me was askingthis question, and I had just
(04:57):
completed the series a yearbefore called Decolonizing Work,
and as I did that series,there's just so much goodness
that I found in thoseconversations.
I really wanted to marry someof what I learned with what,
some of the stuff that I wastalking about before in terms of
inclusion, and I thought well,just just write the book, faith,
stop, stop holding it as acarrot in front of you and just
(05:19):
do the thing you want to do.
So that's the story of writingthe book.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Wonderful.
Yeah, I love that you decidedto stop doing the PhD because it
wasn't the right fit anymoreand then went on to the thing
that you really wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
My heart was saying do it, do it.
You know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So people know you to talk a lot about teams and also
inclusion, and I'm curious howdo those two things connect?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, so when I was part of my own doctoral,
research was on has been on newventure teams, but it was on its
new venture.
A new venture is just abusiness that's not yet resolved
to crises that businesses haveto resolve.
The first crisis is do I havesomething that the market wants
(06:12):
from me and you prove that byselling it?
And if you sell it, if there'smoney, if you sell the thing and
money comes in and you're like,oh, I do have something the
market wants.
And then the second crisis isdo I have the capacity to
produce that thing for themarket in a sustainable way?
And the new is not a good word,but there's so many of us in
business that kind of stay inthe cycle of those two
(06:35):
conversations 80%, 90% ofbusinesses.
There is nothing like that'snot a state of immaturity, that
just is what it is.
So then you have some otherbusinesses that shift into a
more static I would call itstate, and I love this the
dynamics of that new venturestage, because it's a stage
(06:56):
where the context is constantlychanging, the internal business
landscape is constantly changingand what I noticed in exploring
those teams that were effectiveis that those teams needed to
be scrappy.
They almost needed to be likesports teams and like emergency
medicine teams and like firstresponder teams.
(07:16):
They needed to have such analertness to the environment and
an awareness of each other sothat, regardless of what came
their way, regardless of whatchanged, they could just jump in
.
And when I looked at how thoseteams worked with each other,
there was a really deep level ofinterpersonal awareness and
(07:40):
interpersonal and knowing and asense of belonging with each
other and to each other that Ihave seen as similar.
When I look at the research orinclusion, I'm like, oh, that's
what they're doing.
They're actually.
They create community, whethertemporary or longer term.
They create community with eachother.
They create a sense ofbelonging with each other.
(08:02):
They create really deep knowingwith each other so that they
can improvise on the spot whenother demands come their way.
And, like I realized that theteam is the perfect place to
build the behaviors aroundinclusivity and belonging and
thriving and all the things thatwe tend to talk about when we
talk in the DEI space about howto help the workplace be more
(08:26):
human.
Now we're trying to talk aboutit in this macro way, but I
could see it happening in thesescrappy teams and they may not
be including all the people, butthey learn how to include the
people who are in front of themFor them to work.
Well, for the most part,they're including the six of
(08:47):
them, the eight of them.
They figure out, throughwhatever processes, how to read
each other and be with eachother and accept each other for
who they are.
And so I think that for me,inclusion has to be brought down
to the interpersonal for it toactually work.
And now we're talking aboutimplicit bias, we're talking
about microaggressions, we'retalking about all these things
(09:09):
as ideas, but it has to comedown to how does it affect, in
the relationship, the workingrelationship between me and
Candice, what's showing up inour interactions around this
work, and what's in the airthat's acting as a barrier
either to faith or to Candice,that's preventing this work from
moving forward.
(09:29):
And as we look at this at thatlevel, we'll start to see oh, I
have a whole judgment aroundCandice and the orange wall
that's behind her, because wholoves orange?
You will start to see where thebiases are and where the
judgments are and where theprejudices and privileges are,
and then we can bring it down tothe ground and say how do we do
(09:50):
something about this so thatthe work isn't affected?
So that was kind of how Ibrought the two together when I
started to do the research and Ijust feel like that's the place
.
The team is like a hostageaudience for this work, like
they are all ready together andthey're already working on a
thing.
So then it's an opportunity forall of us to do some of the
(10:13):
healing work that we know isneeded in the workplace.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I work with a lot of businesses that are in that kind
of cycle of the emergingbusiness figuring out something
that works for the market,trying to have the capacity to
meet the market demands, and inthat tension there can be a
prioritization of getting likegetting a lot of work done and
(10:39):
not so much prioritizing theteam being able to have these
interconnected relationshipswith each other.
And so what are your thoughtson creating space for that and
why it's important to do?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, well, I think those the teams, the businesses
that you're referring to andwe've seen it a lot nonprofits
are a great example of this.
It's lean, there's not a lot ofmoney to go around and so we
have to, and then the fundersare insisting that we have
program goals being met.
So you focus on that and not onthe internal capacity.
(11:19):
And what you see is the moreyou do that, the faster the
internal capacity is eroding,the faster the revolving door is
happening.
One nonprofit I was talking tothey had it was last year 103
job openings.
I was like 103, how are you, vpof HR, navigating that?
(11:40):
And she was like poorly, it'schaotic, right.
So we already have a lot ofdata about how much that's not
working.
But we have to kind of noticethat there's something
underneath.
That's like me and my constantfreaking out at I don't know,
spiders or whatever.
I know that there's nothing tobe, it's not gonna harm me, but
(12:00):
there's something underneaththat I would need to explore to
deal with my reaction.
So we're having a reaction inthe workplace to the demand and
instead of nourishing theresource that's actually the
most adaptable, we keep at the.
But if we only made enoughmoney then we could nourish the
resource, and if we only we keepon that and we have to
(12:21):
understand what's going on thereand there are lots of systemic
issues that feed that thoughtprocess and that feed our fear
of know what we have to makeenough money.
My solution, though, is alittle bit longer view, like, if
you know that you will be inthe cycle, you've been in the
cycle, it's not just ending,it's not ending tomorrow Then
you can kind of give yourself alittle bit of permission to say
(12:43):
what actually will change thecycle.
Internal capacity means buildingthe skills and power within the
individuals for that scrappyadaptability we were talking
about before and the ability toreally harness the interpersonal
power humans have with eachother.
And one of the things that hasmade humans so effective in some
(13:06):
ways and harmful in other waysis that when we get into synergy
with each other, our power ismagnified.
So this a lot of the burnoutwe're seeing in the workplace is
a result of the relationshipsactually feeling extractive.
The work is extractive and therelationships are extractive,
(13:26):
and if the relationships arenourishing around hard work, the
work is so much less extractivebecause the combined power of
the humans together gets it doneand it gets it done in a way
that suddenly the hard feelslike a good type of hard.
And so I think part of theswitch has to be if we invest in
(13:47):
internal capacity, just likeback to my favorite teams, the
first responder teams and theeven military which I have
issues with military but thoseteams are constantly working on
the individual people's capacityall the time, even when they're
not out doing quote, unquotework.
And there's something aboutthat model that says build the
(14:11):
human so that when there is workthey can respond to whatever
shows up in a landscape that'sgonna change right in front of
their eyes.
I think that has to be, and youhave to just know that the
human is the most adaptable.
Hate the word resource, butlet's just go with it.
Resource that any business hasgoing on for it.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
My husband was in the military and when we talk about
his time there, part of what hetalks about is that it is a
family.
It was a family and so whenthey got into combat situations,
they knew that their brothers,their sisters were there with
them, defending them, and soit's like when there is this
(14:55):
existential threat like iscoming towards you, if you have
a team that's strong, that knowseach other and is very
interconnected and has verystrong bonds, then you can
respond to that.
And yes, I also have otherthings about the military that
are a lot of problematic thingsabout that.
(15:15):
But that kind of brings me backto you.
Had brought up systemic issuesthat show up in the workplace
and I'm wondering if you couldexpand on that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Well, let's look at that interconnectivity for a
second.
There's something aboutinterconnectivity that creates
these bonds of trust and there'sa value that's put on the
togetherness and the systemicissues.
If we wanna go into them likesupremacist systems basically
(15:48):
said I know what's better, Ihave whoever the I is, I've
determined that this is betterand you don't have the value or
place or power or privilege todetermine what's better.
So you do what I say is better,even if you don't understand
that that's good for you.
And to control the systemsupremacist systems controlled
(16:12):
the whoever's were not in powerthrough fear and for fear to
work for that reasoning, to workI know what's better and then
for fear to work as a mechanismof control, then the
interpersonal bonds can't be.
You have to break up therelationships Like the
togetherness can't work.
Which kid's movie was it whenthere was like ants must have
(16:35):
been ants being controlled bythe grasshoppers or something.
And there was a line in themovie where it says if they ever
figure out that they're morethan us, then we're in trouble.
And so there is something aboutthe low trust that we have in
the workplace, the way that weyou find that people are, they
(16:57):
have to be in little pockets.
I remember years and years agoI was applying for a job in a
place that a friend of mineworked and she was in a
reasonably senior position.
She said to me I mean, shereally wasn't supportive of me
applying for the job.
But she said to me you know, wecan't have two black women,
because there's going to be agood black woman and a bad black
(17:19):
woman, cause we have to bepitied against each other and
that's not going to work.
And we both in the conversationwere like we want our
friendship more than we wantedthis situation to, you know,
financially or whatever, and sowe both kind of just leaned back
from it.
And I remember, but I rememberthinking about how much, how
(17:40):
many forces against relationshipexist in the workplace.
And that is a part of thesystemic struggle that is in
place that we can't trust,because we don't believe whoever
we've trusted will have ourback, because there is this
hierarchy that is implicit,invisible, but we don't want to
(18:02):
lose our place and we don't wantsomebody else to hurt our place
and whatever we're getting fromit to prevent us from moving up
the hierarchy.
So the whole thing is really,really broken.
And I think when we look at whatbrought us here, when we look
at some of the history ofcolonization as part of what I
(18:25):
talked about, what came up inthe decolonizing work, when
really and truly there arehundreds of years of this idea
where human bodies werecommodities, like the value of a
human body was X, whether itwas slavery or indentured labor,
whatever it was.
So this number assigned to thevalue of a human body.
(18:47):
So we have in the workplacetoday a person saying are you
worth this thing?
When people come to work for me, I tell them immediately that
the number that we agree on hasnothing to do with your work.
This work that you do for me ispriceless.
It cannot be.
I mean, we could try to put itinto formulas, but it cannot be,
(19:09):
because you as a human cannotbe put down as a number.
But for so much we're like, I'mworth 15 an hour, 20 an hour,
150 an hour.
And then for those of us whoare, you know, like, am I really
worth 150 an hour?
All of this is tied to thesystemic placing of value on
different human bodies throughwhatever that human's effort is,
(19:32):
and that value is placed bysomeone, it's not
self-determined.
So that whole thing of value,that whole thing of knowledge
somebody else knows what's goodand tells us what is good, all
of that is playing into what wesee as a lot of people harm in
the workplace.
And then I think the beauty ofthe pandemic if there's any is
(19:54):
there's anything to be calledbeautiful about the pandemic,
but going through something hardtogether and surviving those of
us who are here at this site,at this point it's like I don't
think I want to put up with thatanymore.
So there is a whole reawakening, an awareness of what is my
value and do I want to put up,you know.
(20:14):
And so there's been a whole lotof questioning of all the
systemic structures, not justwork, because education is
getting pressure.
Places of worship and faith andall that's getting pressure
because of the same things thatwait.
There was some kind of rigidstructure that told me what I
was supposed to do and who I wassupposed to be and what my
value was, and that entitywasn't asking me, that structure
(20:39):
wasn't asking me.
And so, even when people say tome, how do we do equitable
compensation, I'm like ask thepeople you're trying to
compensate.
I can definitely give you lotsof ideas and you're like talk to
us some of them, butfundamentally, you have a human
sitting right in front of youthat you want to offer equitable
compensation too.
That person is the absoluteexpert on their situation and on
(21:01):
their needs and what would beequitable for them.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, and when you have a group, it's that what
does that group specificallyneed?
Yeah, it's what's coming up forme around.
This is, I think, a lot ofpeople who start businesses or
who start nonprofitorganizations or become the
(21:25):
leaders of these organizationsit's not necessarily that they
see that the organization is away to, it's like a way of
creating a culture of its ownwithin a greater society, and
that there is this.
I mean, it's an opportunity,but it's also a responsibility.
(21:48):
And so in creating anorganization, a team of people
that are working together, Ithink a lot of people just kind
of go with what they have to door what they came up in, what
they learned through their ownwork experience or what they
(22:09):
learned from their parents' workexperience or their work in the
community, and that there arechoices that we have that people
kind of default to operatingwithin these systems that are
really unjust and unfair andperpetuating those systems when
(22:29):
really there's it's a time for ashift.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I mean, and we're not aware of that right.
So I think about myself as aparent.
I made some really deliberatechoices to be a different parent
than my mother was.
As much as I've loved my mother, I love my mom and how she
parented.
I saw how she parented asdifferent from my grandmother
and I see how my parent isdifferent.
(22:54):
And yet, as one of my favoritetherapists was also a friend,
said to me, the moment I decidednot to be my mom, I already was
, and that's the thing, that'sthe humility that is needed for
all of us right now.
Like the moment you've decidedthat you're not going to be
racist, you are.
(23:15):
The moment you've decided thatyou're not going to be
misogynist, even as a personidentifying as a woman, you are
right, because there is thisenvironment that we've been in
and these implicit thoughts thatwe've had fed to us that have
just been fed as normal.
So then you're starting abusiness to offer some solution,
nonprofit agents, evenvolunteer situation to offer
(23:37):
some kind of support out therewithout addressing in here, and
that's fine.
I don't think any of us shouldtry to be the perfect parent,
the perfect business leader,before doing the work.
But the work is an invitationto our own transformation.
And so I think part of thething has to be now that I have
the actual human that I'vebirthed, now that I have the
(24:00):
actual business that I'vebirthed and I acknowledge that I
cannot do this on my own thenwhat's my moral, ethical
responsibility to other humansin the place?
And do I find myself saying,well, I just want a person to
help me do this thing, or am Isaying I'm inviting a person
(24:21):
into this mission and is itmutually beneficial?
And it's like, what kind ofcommunity do we want to start
creating?
I think that it becomesimportant for us to be answering
that question when we arebringing in the first bookkeeper
, the first virtual assistant,the first, because at those
moments we're not thinking that,we're just thinking oh my
(24:41):
goodness, I'm overwhelmed bythis schedule or these bills of
paperwork.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I just need some help .
Can I hire someone across theworld for a couple of dollars an
hour to do that?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yes, get rid of it.
And regardless of who we hire,where they are, we're inviting
someone into our orbit and therelationship that we have with
them is going to be a reflectionof our beliefs, implicit and
explicit, about how we treathumans who interact with us
around work.
So it's really an opportunityto kind of look at it deeper and
(25:12):
just say, hey, what are mybeliefs about this?
And even write them down.
I'll say to people who haven'thired anybody yet If you were to
have a successful business infive years with I don't know 20
staff, 50 staff, what kind ofculture would you want it to be?
What kind of place?
How do you want people to feel?
How do you want them tointeract?
Imagine that and write thatdown.
(25:34):
And then write down what willit take to be there with your
first two people?
How does that begin?
What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (25:42):
When you're working with these smaller teams six
people, maybe eight people whatare some of the ways that that
the kind of extractiverelationship can show up or that
?
What are some things thatsomeone who already has a team
(26:03):
might have going on that theydon't realize are tied to these
kind of systemic issues, but ifthey're seeing them it's kind of
a clue to think about this,creating a more interconnected
culture among the team.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I'm gonna just give that personal title.
I'm just gonna make them eitherfounder or CEO, just the person
in charge, right.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
And so a couple of things that they might be seeing
.
But first of all, if the teamis homogenous in any way so all
women, all one gender, all onebackground, racially, ethnically
or something like that then beaware of that.
That's the first thing, to kindof say that that's a thing here
(26:51):
.
There is a we that's beenestablished in some way right
Within that sameness.
I would start asking somequestions about what's the
difference that's showing up.
So if there is one person whotends to be on time I'll use the
time one, because that's me,one person who tends to be on
time and others tend to be late,what's the impact of that
(27:17):
lateness or on timeness on thecollective, and how is that
showing up?
Is there some angst about it?
Is there some judgment that'sshowing up?
Is there a little bit of snark?
Is it not snark?
But somebody feels like themeetings they're waiting, so
meetings are a waste of time.
These are really small things,but the small things lead to big
(27:38):
things silos, conflict thatdoesn't resolve, launch,
business launches or programsthat are ineffective, funding
that doesn't show up, and so on.
So I'd start to look at wherethe differences are in a team
and how that's impacting.
And then who are people talkingto about the effect of this
(27:59):
difference?
So for me, when I show up late,as a person that has a
different, it's just I don'tknow.
I feel like I can do 15 thingsin five minutes.
Apparently.
I'm still in a 50-something.
I still have this notion.
So then I'm like it's and Irush off to the place.
When I do that, I'm running thescript of everybody's judgments
(28:24):
, even if you've said nothing,and my preoccupation with the
negative stereotype about meimpacts the quality of my work.
All the research says that.
Whether it is that it'simpacting me because I am
worrying or I'm being defensiveand arguing because I've done
that too, quarreling with you inmy mind, how dare you not
understand?
Why are you so rigid?
(28:44):
So I'm judging you back for theimagine.
All of that is happening in ameeting where we want to be
innovative and creative andthat's just a thing about time,
right?
What about this, since I havekids who are neurodistinct?
What about a team where peoplehave neurovariances, somebody's
(29:05):
really visual and all thecommunication comes by email?
Or somebody's very auditory andall the email is in voice notes
?
All of the messages are invoice notes, all the messages.
Like I have worked on teams.
I've supported teams where theteam leader it just sends them.
It's like an essay that comesthrough and he has a judgment
(29:28):
about whether people are readingthose messages or not.
And then a person is just nottaking it in fully and but
doesn't want to ask a question.
So what are some of thedifferences that actually exist
and how are those things playingout?
So a person who feels free toask questions in a meeting or a
person who does not feel free toask questions in a meeting, and
(29:49):
then what are the implicationsof that?
I've seen teams, small teams,where the meeting is silent.
The team meetings are a greattesting point for anything.
The meeting is silent, peopleare afraid of conflict, or there
is so much conflict thatthere's just 10 silence, so
there isn't on the conflictitself, which is just difference
(30:12):
inside.
That conflict is the new,innovative, creative solution
that includes everybody'sdifferences and integrates
everybody's brilliance.
But we can't go through that.
So what do people do?
They discuss the possiblebrilliant solutions in the
corridor or at home or by text,like that was so dumb.
Why did we do that?
You know that kind of thing.
And the team leader feels thatthey're holding the structure of
(30:34):
the organization all on theirown.
So their response of they'redriving the thing, they're
making the thing happen, thething is not shared by the
entire team.
A lot of that is also.
The team doesn't feel like theyhave permission to really give
themselves fully.
They have to kind of stay intheir place.
The stay in the place thing isso systemic Stay in your place,
(30:55):
stay in your lane, pay attentionto your thing, mind your
business.
All of that is permission thatpeople feel they don't have or
it's not safe to have that power.
If they were not to stay intheir place, something bad could
happen, and when bad thingshappen, that's your income
that's being affected.
So those are some examples ofthings that will be happening in
(31:17):
a small team.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
I've had people ask me this question about, like we
have this team meeting.
I don't understand why no oneis talking.
Why is it and it's almost likethere's this assumption that the
team isn't able to grasp thequestion that's at hand or the
issue that's at hand and thenalso from the team side not
(31:42):
feeling really comfortable to beable to really talk about
what's going on, especially ifthey're really formal agendas?
I think Sometimes team meetingsare just very you have five
minutes to talk about this hugething and so you don't actually
really have the time to get intowhat you need to get into in
(32:03):
order to resolve it.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
For sure, at the top of meetings, like we do need to
revamp just how, why we havethese meetings.
We have so much technology.
There is no need forannouncement type meetings.
Half an hour of announcementswe can roll that out on the
visual screen in the corridor orsend that to people.
So we do need to rethink.
How are we using the resourceof people's time?
(32:28):
But then also, participation inmeetings is about voice and in
hierarchical structures, peoplewho are lowered on in the
hierarchy.
No, they don't have voice, likeyou, you know.
So if people aren'tparticipating, then whether
experts are, implicitly, theyfeel they don't have voice.
The voice doesn't matter.
(32:48):
It doesn't matter why would Isay something when it either
will have no impact or negativeimpact?
So that needs to be shifted.
How is decision makinghappening?
How is the responsibilityfeeling shared?
How are people's voices beingvalued?
All of that needs to be thoughtabout.
If the meeting isn't, themeeting needs to almost be rock
(33:09):
us, I mean, you know, inalignment with the teams, like
sensibilities and stuff likethat, but there should really be
.
I need to say something.
Oh, wait, wait, but have wethought of the?
Have we?
Okay, you and Lucy, you and Iwere gonna talk afterwards,
because I have a thought thatthat when humans get together,
that synergy should be creatingsomething.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
It shouldn't be that we're all just like sitting
there or listening to the leadersaying all the things,
dictating all of the things thatneed to be happening, and just
being receptive.
It reinforces that extractivekind of relationship.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I don't think any humans are ever just sitting and
taking things in like that.
That's not what we're actuallydoing.
We're either in the room orthere is an internal thing
that's not coming out.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
There's like this internal struggle that's
happening.
Yeah, that wears you down, Ithink.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I mean when I've been in that situation.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
It's just over time.
It just you can't keep doing itanymore, and the longer it goes
on, it's almost like the harderit is.
Yeah to get back from it.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
The cost of the load of not being connected to the
people you work with is so muchmore than the value of a
paycheck, and what happens isthat it shows up in the business
as a cost on medical insuranceand time off.
It shows up as a cost in therevolving door of employees.
(34:42):
It shows up in the 50% ofpeople that leave within two
months of being hired.
It shows up in how hard it isto find people that feel like a
good fit.
It shows up in how manymanagers feel like they don't
have time to be reallysupportive to the people that
report to them.
All of this is showing upsomewhere and it's costing the
(35:03):
organization.
When they say that engagementis down to some ridiculous
number like 30% 30% yeah.
Right.
I mean, if engagement even cameto 60%, that's double the
productivity that we'd begetting for the same dime.
I'm not saying I think weshould pay people more, of
course, but let's just thinkabout the loss to businesses in
(35:26):
terms of innovation and justoverall everything, if we have
all of this weight that peoplecarry while being in the process
of doing the work that we'veinvited them into.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
It makes me think, too, about just the amount of
creativity and innovation thatisn't happening because people
aren't able to be in that spaceand their work.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I think creativity and innovation, it's both a
skill in these reps and it'ssomething that happens.
It's synergistic, like when youare wrong creative people,
you're more creative.
And both of those require youto have in the workplace,
require you to have permission,because so many people have said
(36:12):
, hey, look at this, andsomebody has shot it down.
So you quickly learn that workis not the place to be creative,
which is such a shame, sincethe business problems that we're
facing in this massivelyshifting context that we're in
require a ton of innovation, aton of borrowing from unrelated
entities and bringing thingstogether to create something new
(36:34):
, which is what innovation andcreativity is.
But at work we don't get topractice that because we're just
like head down, pay attentionand do things, and even in the
quote, unquote creativeoccupations you're seeing the
formula.
Like I worked.
One of my clients works with alot of digital creatives and
(36:56):
video people make media andyou're starting to see the
formula and how the products arebeing creative.
I got people aren't stopping tosay like, hmm, I wonder, no
wonder, like there is a way.
Somebody has already shown usPixar or whoever, and my boss
will be happy if I show themthat way.
(37:17):
I think that we have to figureout, otherwise we'll just all
end right here and then some newperson is going to recreate the
wheel again with starting somenew businesses.
We all have to figure out howto shift what's happening at
work.
So humans feel free to do whathumans do really well, which is
synergistically create the newfuture.
(37:39):
Over and over again.
This is what we've done.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yeah, I think about that, especially in different
teams that I've worked with ingovernment and then also
architects in government Sorry.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, government is, isthe creating systems and
upholding systems and thenrequiring everybody else to
(38:06):
participate in those systems andoften not not looking at them
again.
You know, like a lot of thesystems that are in place were
created 50 years ago or 100years ago and, yeah, and there
isn't an understanding of howthe changing dynamics that are
happening in the world affectpeople and so then, how those
(38:27):
systems should change to betterserve the community.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yeah, I think a lot of our building of systems also
was built on the industrialmodel you know of a system is a
rigid thing, you know, like adesk, and but the systems
contain humans, support humansand respond to a context that's
(38:52):
changing because of humans, sothey can't be static, and I
think that figuring out how tobuild a system that responds I
remember the first time I triedto redo my website and I said is
your website responsive?
And I was like responsive,what's responsive?
No, it should change accordingto the type of monitor, type of
browser, type of, and the thingthat makes a particular website
(39:15):
powerful is this ability torespond to the actual setting
it's in and to be able to dothat for settings that it
doesn't yet know about.
Like we don't want to use toolsthat's going to break on the
new version of whatever this isBig Sur or whatever I have on my
Mac, and it's a similar thingthat we're building systems like
(39:35):
.
This is the way the world is.
Build it X million dollars, thisis the way, but actually what
we need to do is build a systemthat can listen for how the
world is now and offer that andthen keep listening and adjust
itself, which means the systemhas to be built with humans who
have this capacity.
We're saying what's going onand what's needed right now and
(39:58):
adjusting accordingly.
That we can't do that if, backto the systemic things, if we
haven't acknowledged oh, thesystem is built to support
people with privilege versuspeople who do not.
The people who are marginalizeddo not get as much value from
the system.
Or the system is built to makepremium one particular type of
(40:23):
knowledge and ignore all theother voices.
Or the system is built to sellhuman bodies and their energy in
a way that's similar to sellingapples and car parts, like we
have to own those things becausethose elements don't help us
build responsive systems.
We have to be willing to say,yes, that's what's going on and
(40:46):
then we have to stop it.
But we can't stop something wedon't even acknowledge.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
There's the community health centers in Mac County
have a new rule that if peopleare late for their appointments,
they can't attend theirappointment and they have to
reschedule.
And so I mean, obviously therewas a problem happening with
people being late for theirappointments, but instead of
(41:11):
acknowledging OK, people havebusy lives, people are late for
their appointments, let's buildcapacity within our system to be
able to handle the lateness ofpeople.
It's like no, we're going toput that back onto the
individual, that they have to behere early in order to be able
to get this appointment.
And a lot of people are dealingwith kids, bringing them to
(41:36):
these community centers.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
And my doctor's appointment today.
The doctor was I was late too,but the doctor was late and it
turned out that we all live inboth myself and the doctor live
in the same area.
There's construction on the 84lanes are blocked, and I was
just thinking that this is, thiswas the doctor's reality, and
so they explained it to me.
(42:00):
But they didn't explain it tome first.
First they said, well, you are15 minutes late and so we don't
know what time.
And so I went back to them halfan hour later and they're like
you know, you were 15, you werelate.
And I was like, yeah, 15minutes, it's been 45 now.
And then they said, well, also,the doctor was late because of
the same reason that you werelate, and I just thought it's so
interesting.
(42:20):
I'm like it's cool.
How do we build the capacity, asyou're saying, in all our
systems?
So I gave her some feedback.
I was like you could have justtold me that things are a walk
and you have no idea.
So you don't know how long I'mgoing to be here, because when
you tell me that, that gives meinformation, that then I can
make some decisions around, andI think so much like hidden
(42:43):
inside there is all of this.
No, certain people have theinformation, other people don't.
You need to feel lucky thatyou're here, receiving whatever
knowledge this person is givingyou, and it's versus the system
being a system that embraceshumans all of our humanity, you
know, not just the doctors.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
It's helping.
I think people like the personwho works at that desk right to
understand how to communicatewith patients about what's
happening, so that you know theyhave the information that they
need to make their decisions to,because Right, right, because
everybody has decisions thatthey need to make.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
But I mean it's, you know, like you're saying, it's
the fundamentalists.
They're like there's underlyingthings that we have to address
to even notice that, right,she's being perfectly polite and
the doctor feels he's beingperfectly polite, and still
there's a not valuing of me, mytime and my, my place in the
world, really, my child who'swaiting on me, and so on.
(43:46):
There's a not valuing of that.
And so when people say Faith,how do we build these workplaces
that value, all the things thatyou're talking about?
That sounds impossible.
And it sounds impossible fromthe perspective of a system that
does not.
It does not become the systemthat does not, you know, assist
at the desk.
(44:06):
It does not become a tree, it'sthe distance.
There is no sideways transition.
There is only transformation.
There's alchemy, you know thereis.
How do we take these fivepeople and redesign our culture
so that we honor all ourhumanity, leader and clients and
(44:29):
us, all of us get honored.
And that's not going to, it'snot going to happen overnight,
because we have so much learningon learning to do.
But if we stay with thatquestion, we'll get the answer
for those five people, and thebetter we get at answering the
question for those five people,the easier it will be to expand
that when they becomesupervisors, to their five or
whatever, to their other spacesthat they have influenced.
(44:49):
The, the practice of the yes,yes is what we need to start
doing, because the systems havetaught us yes, no, and most of
us are on the no side.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
But once you start working with those kinds of
teams, it is kind of like you'redescribing it's like a fractal.
It starts in one place but thenit moves into all these other
areas, because people aren'tjust in their work team right.
There are other kinds of teamstoo, and when this is the way of
creating relationships andworking together, then it goes
(45:22):
into these other places.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah, and Sima was talking to a nonprofit leader
recently, a funding organizationleader recently, and just
challenging where we put money.
And so if we put money intocapacity building, we meaning
whoever the we's are that havemoney please put money into
capacity building.
Yeah, they want to be where thechange is happening.
(45:46):
But again, that's a reallyindustrial model of looking at
things, because when we buildthis human's capacity, even if
that program fails, that humanhas gone to another organization
doing other work or their teamgot invited into something
transformation and they movethat along.
(46:07):
Like.
It's not like 15 people in aprogram out there learn to X, y
and Z.
It's every human whose capacitywe build that splinters out
exponentially into all the areasof their lives, all their
future work, all their presentor all the people who report to
them directly.
It's so powerful it may bedifficult to measure, but it is
(46:30):
so powerful when we invest inhuman capacity.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Well, thank you so much for this conversation.
Was there anything that wedidn't get to talk about that
you wanted to share?
Speaker 2 (46:42):
No, I think this is it.
I think, if we bring it back tothe book, I don't I'm calling
it the art and science ofbuilding a restorative team.
I think I'm using art becauseso much of it, like science, is
limited and when we think aboutart, we give ourselves
permission to lean into ourintuition and into our
(47:04):
creativity, and I think that'swhat's needed for the healing of
work and therefore the healingof humans.
If we can, we've always.
Whoever DaVinci and all thesepeople were both artists and
scientists, because we didn'thave those false separations,
and I think if we can return tothat more integrated self, we
(47:24):
will find that we already havethe ability to create these
spaces if we give ourselves thefreedom to do so.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Yeah, I have always been living in those different
worlds.
For me it's never really beenseparate.
I feel like spirituality andbusiness and art and science and
all of these things areinterwoven Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
And if people want to get intocontact with you, what's the
(47:56):
best way for them to do that?
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Email.
Faith at faithclarkcom is thebest way.
I am on all social media asFaith Clark or Faith A Clark and
the book has a culture designassessment and the assessment is
done even though the book is inearly stages.
So the culture designassessment is at
(48:20):
restorativeworkculturecom and Iwill probably be in the show
notes.
I'll give it to you.
But that's just an easy way topersonally interrogate the
culture you're creating as abusiness leader.
Or if you have a team that youwant to involve in it, have
those questions be discussedamong the team and just like
(48:42):
what are we doing and what areone or two practices we could
put in place?
That would just shift theneedle a tiny bit, because
capacity building is anincremental game, it's a long
game, it's not the overnighttype of thing.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
I am always so inspired by ourconversations and the depth of
knowledge that you have and theamount of research that you've
done.
And yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Hit subscribe to know when the next episodes come out
.
And, if you're feeling generous, please leave a review.
Reviews help other like-mindedfolks find their way to this
resource.
If something you heard todaybrought a smile to your face or
a spark to your heart and you'dlike to connect with me, there
(49:37):
are a few ways to do that.
One is my newsletter, where Iput most of my time and energy
when I'm not working withclients or with my family or
working on this podcast Sorry,social media.
The newsletter is a mix of reallife stories, tips and tricks
(49:57):
and, of course, updates onwhat's happening with the
podcast.
Whenever something's going onwith me or in my business, it
always comes out there first.
Another resource that I have foryou is my guide to doing work
differently.
This guide takes you throughfour inquiries into how you can
(50:19):
build a more sustainable andequitable work environment for
yourself and your team.
It's a great place if you'relooking for somewhere to get
started.
Last, if you've got a burningquestion, a comment or a
situation you'd like my eyes on,you can email me.
All those links are in the shownotes.
(50:40):
Take care, brave soul, catchyou next time.
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