Transcript: Collaboration Now: Unity

How to Create Empathy in a Distant Society: Dr Giovanna Brasfield

is Dr. G. She is the Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion of Flatiron Construction and Lynx JV Inclusivity Manager. Dr. Brasfield, commonly known as Dr.

G, serves as the Senior Supplier Diversity and Community Inclusion Officer for Flatiron Construction as the Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion and also serves as the Inclusion Manager for Lynx JV on the Los Angeles World Airport's Automatic People Mover APM project. She assists the Southwest District Manager and the Division Manager in meeting contractual requirements on current projects and upcoming projects pursuits that engage women, diverse businesses, local workforce, and youth management. She's a true advocate, leader, and change agent within construction who is passionate about inclusion of others within construction and construction related trades.

So without further ado, we're going to bring Dr. Jeannie Ine. Hi, Dr. Ine. Hey, good morning.

Good morning. How are you? Oh, I am good. How are you doing? I am adjusting, but I'm so thankful that you invited me to participate in today's conversation and I appreciate all the work that you're doing out there just to make sure that more and more people are informed and educated about so many different facets that can improve their own self.

So I, you know, I'm adjusting because it's still all too new and every day I'm learning something new about myself and this whole personal journey. Yeah, I love your artwork there that says take chances. You know, I think we're all in this world of having to navigate through uncertainty right now and we have to take chances. We have to almost deliberately choose to fail. So I love that artwork because we just got to work through these blenders.

We got to figure it out. Inspire. Inspire, right? Yup. Yup.

All right. So with that, thanks for sharing a little bit about who you are and that you're adjusting. You know, we touched base a little bit earlier today and we talked about maybe some of us need a little bit of a vacation because it's crazy. But, you know, before we get into your personal journey here and some of the things that you might be digging into to improve, you know, your life as it relates to connecting with diverse groups, we're going to jump right into this question.

How do we create empathy in a distant society? I think that conversation is always evolving, right? Because now you have to deal with not only the distance society, but each personality and each learning style. So for me, what's helpful for me is that education, you know, starting with understanding and putting myself in someone else's position. For example, I was talking to one of my fellow colleagues and we were, I was like, I have this, I have this to do.

And I was like, I lean on my family for support to help me be that mom role and balancing everything that I have to do. And so she asked me to stop, press pause and think what it's like to be my mom and having to juggle the day to day with the making sure my son supported, making sure he's in his class, learning what he needs to learn, and also balancing my father. So for me, it was just that education, like, wow, you're right. Because we don't take time enough to think about how the other person's impacted and all that they're balancing, all that they have going on.

And so these kinds of conversations where you're able to step back, reflect, and then be able to really assess and help the other person. I think that's how we grow together as a group. Yeah, there's a interesting approach to how you talk about introspection for yourself first. And you really have to know deeply and almost put yourself in the other person's shoes before you can educate. And, you know, you're talking about your family dynamic.

How does this work and work for you? How do you help facilitate those kind of discussions at work? Wow. That same conversation, the listening and the learning, right, especially when it comes to more of these diversity and inclusion and belonging type of conversations, is really starting with the foundation of, okay, let's figure out how we can do listening. For example, our CEO for Flatiron Construction had the opportunity when faced with change and more of this diversity and inclusion space is he took on a listening tour throughout the whole company and wanting to understand what the problems, what the issues were, how can we be a better inclusive organization, and what does it look like in a transformative type of industry, meaning the now with all this pivoting, the virtual platforms.

And so from there, we're able to look strategically at how do we not only recruit, retain, grow, but also our business strategy of how to be a better organization. So it's these kinds of conversations that are happening for us internally. And then also, when we're talking about just going out to the community, having that foundation for understanding. For example, on the Lynx Automated People Mover project, which is that joint venture comprised of Balfour, BD, Drogatos, and Flatiron and Floor. And so as we have the inclusivity efforts under this particular joint venture team, we're listening to the workforce, hearing about how there's a need in the local community for more resources, for more training, for more engagement on this particular project, we're partnering.

So it's that conversation that creates the foundation for understanding, the empathy, and also those resources that we're able to filter back in the project. We have an amazing job coordinator on this particular project that we have a chance to work with to make sure that we are at the forefront of change. And her name is Pam Penn with PDA Consulting. She's amazing. And she's a great expert and a resource, but it's that empathy.

Because I don't claim to know everything, but what I do claim to do is know or find those resources that are out there that can help me connect and educate myself of how being a better resource in the space of D&I. Yeah. Do you have specific resources that you lean on particularly? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Not only my team. So I have an amazing team for the Lynx Automated Joint Venture project, but also the resources and the community benefits programs that are out there, those resources that are able to provide various workforce initiative, supportive services, or even small business resources. And even our new pipeline that we've taken on is youth engagement, because we identify that there's a huge pipeline of people that are retiring in the near future. But what does it look like as far as engaging more young adults and seeing what they can become?

Because a lot of us don't know what we don't know. So how do we make sure that we are engaging more like Compton Unified, Englewood Unified, the various school districts that are heavily saturated with more minority populations, making sure they're engaged in construction earlier on so that they can see in order to become. Yeah. And you know what? That's what we talked about when you and I happened to have been on the Construction Progress Coalition panel, I think it's a little over a month ago.

So shout out to Nathan and the Construction Progress Coalition. I think Sacha Reid has also participated in pursuing this conversation on behalf of CPC. And I think it's to your point, showing up and being yourself and allowing people to see the diversity in the work population so that there is encouragement for students, for people of color, to just see themselves in an opportunity. At all levels. That's great.

That's the big thing. Because usually we see one focus within construction, right? The job site, which is great. That's how the work is built and that's how it's done. But there's so many other positions that you can go into as a young potential inspiring adult to go into construction.

From design, construction, pre-construction, surveying, analysis. There's so many different roles and there's a need. Yes, yes. That's excellent. And I think I really like the part about just being there, being close to the individuals who you want to influence.

That's the part that I've been hearing is beneficial for people to do. Being proximate. And it's difficult to do that in this distant society. What does that mean for you? It means a lot more time.

I think from my perspective when it comes to engagement and inclusion in regards to construction projects is making sure we are very transparent in our intentions. Meaning that we are building these relationships. We have a three-tone collaborative approach. We listen. Listen to the community.

Listen to our partners. We learn because we're not perfect. We're trying to learn how to build these relationships. And of course we're looking to partner. So there's that three.

Listen, learn, build. And so that's everything we do as far as moving forward. And then also just really being the authentic self, right? Because my passion is to make sure that I have maximum inclusion on this particular project. And I have the platform and the support of service, support of assistant from my organization such as Flatter to make sure that we're maximizing.

Making sure we're out there at the forefront of how do we engage more diverse certified firms or diverse workforce in our projects. So I have that executive team. So it's a great opportunity, especially for the now. Here we are at this point where there's not only the industry is changing, but it's a requirement to change. Yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome. All right. So I promise I would ask you about how you're doing that personally. So, and you touched on it a little bit, but please just share like, what do you do in your daily life? What do you do to collaborate?

I mean, do we calibrate here so that you can show up fully, you know, within your personal relationships and just come into work? I think when we spoke this morning, I was working out, right? So every single morning I take my own personal time for me, just for me. And that's my workout time. I get up about 430 specific status, because every day like that and get up and workout.

So from 430 to about probably six o'clock is my time just to focus on the workouts. And it's just amazing transformation. And then I, if I have time, I might get a jog in depends on, but I like to lift the weights, do the cardio and just clear my mind. Even breathing, just sitting there and thinking about nothing, just really focusing on the breathing and the intent. That's so good.

Thanks for that nugget. Oh my goodness. So I think we're at our 10 minutes and I'm looking for our next guest here. It may take a little bit for her to, for her to chime in, but thank you so much, Dr. G.

We appreciate all of the value that you're, you're doing at Flat Iron that you're doing on the project, your intentionality, how you show up. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you.

How to Create Empathy in a Distant Society: Ailiana Denis

Eliana Dennis is the Managing Director of Axia Amplified Consulting. Her professional experience spans across tech, non-profits, legal and educational sectors, where she uses research-based change management approaches to design value-aligned organizational systems and cultures. She serves on the HR committee for the Chicago Freedom School Board of Directors. In 2019, she was a Chicago Women in Philanthropy Emerging Leaders Fellow and currently serves on the CWIP Racial Equity Committee. Between 2016 and 2019, she served as the Race Equity Oversight Committee Chair at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, where currently she serves as a senior affiliate consultant and as faculty for the Racial Justice Institute.

So without further ado, we're going to go ahead and bring on Eliana Dennis. Welcome, Eliana! Hi! So glad to be here. Oh, excited to have you finally on the Constructor brand.

We're doing collaboration now. It's our first series. I'm excited you're part of it. Yes, I'm excited to be here. And then thanks for all the inspiration for the idea and helping with planning of it.

So first and foremost, how are you doing? Today's a good day. It's Friday. I can't complain. I really can't.

I'm here like it's happening. Everything's good. Good. You know, it's been a, oh man, 2020. It's been a roller coaster year.

Okay. And I mean, that's one of the reasons why we're having this conversation. You know, we have to, again, address how we show up and identify as ourselves. But in that, we have to decide then how do we show up and how do we create empathy in this distant society that we're in? So you know, you do consultancy.

You are teaching organizations how to do this. Can you share a little bit about what your approach is to facilitate these types of conversations? These are not easy conversations to have. It can be really tough. But when we're trying to create empathy, I start by acknowledging that that's scary, because we don't always know where that vulnerability and where that openness is going to take us But the beauty of empathy is that it has this power to usher us into this experience that's bigger than ourselves, right?

And so when I'm facilitating a conversation or if I'm just participating in a conversation and I want to participate in a meaningful way, I try to start by sparking curiosity. Curiosity is so, so, so, so, so, so, so powerful. I mean, just think about it. If you're going to carve out a little bit of your time to pay attention to someone, unless you're just like walking down the street and you see a person who appears to be homeless, you could say, I'm busy and going on with my day, or you could stop and be curious.

I wonder if they're hungry. I wonder if they're cold. I wonder how they got there. I wonder if they have family. There's a level of respect that comes just from positioning yourself as a curious person.

But at the same time, it's not like curiosity is like the super secret, right? Because you can be curious and you can allow that to loop you right back into your way of seeing things and doing things. You don't have to let that take you into a new worldview or to a new perspective. But you can do that at the same time. Conversations where you ask people, huh, have you ever thought about, or what do you think it's like for, or why do you feel this way?

Why do you think this way? Where did that come from? Where did that start? And just helping people begin to explore with curiosity. You can be intentional about driving them towards trying to be curious about ways they might have points of commonality or driving them to be curious about ways people are different and try to find things about those differences that they appreciate.

And that can really be a powerful starting point. Wow. It's so simple yet so profound. Just really going down the path of being curious. And I like what you said about asking those questions of another person so that you can inspire curiosity, but also look at the differences, but look at the commonalities.

I think that's truly powerful too. Yeah, it can be. And oftentimes it's not just about what you're trying to spark in someone else. It's also helpful in those conversations if you start with that for yourself, because when you're listening to someone and they say something you don't like or that rubs you the wrong way, it can be easy to shut down and get locked into your way of feeling and interpreting. But if you pause and say, I wonder, even while you're listening, that can be powerful to keep you engaged too.

We've talked about this from a facilitation perspective, but how do you personally now think about your own development? How are you thinking about how you can engage into more empathetic conversations, especially in this distant society so that we can stay connected and continue to collaborate? How does that show up in your life personally? So since I can't be out and about in the world the way I used to be, maybe meeting people in the same ways, I say if you can't go out, go within. This is a great opportunity to do the inner work we need to do so that when we're on the other side of this, we're better for it and we're ready for it.

And I think of like your intercultural development is a bit like therapy. You know, you think it's about sitting on the couch and having a hard conversation and then you get there and they're like, read this book, do these reflective writings, try out these activities, watch these videos, maybe join this group online, you know, and so that you get these new ways or you're exposed to new ways of thinking and of being and of communicating and making sense of your world. And so this is the Internet age.

It's 2020. You don't have to leave your house to broaden your horizons. You can do that from home. There are so many resources. You know, there's movies, shows, documentaries on Netflix.

You can go on YouTube and Google new concepts. You can read a book, you know, Trevor Noah, Born a Crime. Like you can learn so much at home. And so that when those opportunities to connect show up, you're doing it from a more aware space. And you got some things you're curious about and we can practice when we get those chances.

But in the meantime, do the work with it. I like that a lot. That's really fresh. You know, I think I think we're in the zoom fatigue world, whether it's zoom or teams or whatever it is where we're always on calls. And, you know, and we have to manage our time.

We have to manage our mental energy, our physical energy. We have to manage these things. Do you have any specific things that you do to kind of manage yourself? Oh, specific things. Just give us one.

One thing that you help to kind of manage your energy, mental, physically or whatever. Yeah, I think the truth is that these are really tough times. And sometimes I don't cope well. And the reason is because subconsciously, you know, I have this belief that the best way to cope is to stay, you know, unemotional, stay productive, stay functional, because that's what our culture teaches us. Like, you're OK as long as you're still functioning.

You're still doing. But I have found that since that's not working super well, I just recently noticed that when I am coping well, it's because I made a choice to prioritize what's meaningful over what's urgent. And so that might look like I am going to wake up and I'm going to pray instead of ruminating over my to-do list as soon as I wake up. Or I'm going to take 30 minutes to talk to my best friend instead of 30 minutes to answer all these emails that are never, ever going to stop anyway.

I'm going to take a walk instead of working through my lunch break. I'm going to sit down with my family for 40 minutes instead of, you know, spending that extra moment perfecting this pitch for a client or a proposal. And it's not like I always make those choices, but I give myself permission to do it because I know that, you know, I'm doing the work where I want to help human beings treat other human beings with dignity. But how can I do that if I'm not giving myself permission to be kind and gentle and generous with myself?

And so that's my birthright. And that's my responsibility. And so Mike drop. I think that's excellent. Oh, man, I'm so happy to have you on.

I feel like, you know, since we're at time, we have to extend this conversation. I talked about a little bit earlier that we can have three hour long conversations. This is just do. But thank you so much, Aliana. Thanks for blessing us with your, your thoughts, your ideas, your, your suggestions on how we can create more empathetic environments.

Thank you for having me. This has been great.

How to Create Empathy in a Distant Society: Felipe Engineer Manriquez

Felipe De Niro Manriquez. He is an international lean speaker, a serial entrepreneur. Felipe is committed to lean practitioners and with two decades of construction industry experience. He's also an active contributor and member of the Lean Construction Institute and is an approved instructor and facilitator. With that, we're going to bring Felipe on.

Welcome, Felipe. Hey, Brittany. How's it going? Oh, it's going well. And you know what I didn't mention, Felipe has a podcast.

Yeah, you did. And my favorite part of what I do is I'm a respect for people enthusiast, Brittany, as you know. Yes. I love it. Yes.

So tell us, how are you doing, Felipe? I am struggling like everybody else. And that's exactly where I want to be. I want to be in it. So every day is not perfect.

Every day is a challenge, something new. And I work with quite a few people in and around the construction industry. So there's a lot of people in the same boat. And that's when you sent me the note on what this was going to be about, I said, yes, I barely even stop reading it to the last sentence. I became my own.

But I always say that people don't have a lot of time to read. But it was so short. It was just a sentence. And I thought this would be really good to share and hear from other people, too. I've been listening to the previous guests.

And it's been inspiring. So thank you for putting this together. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited about what I'm going to learn and what this can turn into because I don't think it stops here. I mentioned earlier that we are doing a Collaboration Now series.

So we're going to be having conversations about how we can continue to collaborate every other week on Friday at this time. So I'm really excited to have you on, Felipe. And I think you have such a great perspective. I'm going to jump right into the question. How can you, how do you facilitate creating empathy in a distant society?

OK, so where I start with is just like Eliana said, start within. And I thought, reflected on this when the pandemic first hit, how is this going to change how I work? And what's going on where we are in the United States and in the world, too? We're seeing things that we've never seen before. And I thought connections make my experiences better.

And that's where I started from. So when things happened, I was able to pivot right away because feeling with people is something I know from my own experiences definitely had massive impact on me. And luckily for me, I got into Brene Brown like seven years ago. And I wanted to share my favorite of all time Brene Brown quote. And I'll just put it there on the screen so people can read it.

And that's what exactly resonated with me. And when I heard her say it in her talk about the power of vulnerability, I thought the best experiences in my life have not always been thought of as the best experience while I was having it. And the cool thing is with people, you get some different perspective. And with people that you trust, you can know that you're in a caring environment. And the difference between empathy and sympathy, and I think I used to confuse it way long time ago, but thank you, Brene, for helping me understand the difference.

Empathy connects. You have to be in the person's shoes. You have to put yourself in their place. That means that something inside of you knows what they're going through. Whereas sympathy is you're giving someone pity or you're feeling sorry for them.

And I've got a story to tell about that. But when I thought about this, getting ready for this talk, I remember what Brene taught in that power of vulnerability speech. And she said, you have to be able to recognize the other person's truth and their emotions, and both of those together. And in the construction industry, often emotions are like, there's no emotions in construction. Like there's no crying.

There's no emotions. We just go to work and do the job. And that's far from the truth. I can't tell you how many times people have broken down and been real. And it's been for the better.

It's made people tighter and closer together. It's made project teams work better together when they see, oh, the leader of the project is struggling too. It's not just me. It's not just me. The part that Brene also brought, and this was research based on, I believe it was a woman that was studying nursing fields and other care fields where care was critically important to the job.

She said, you can't judge. If you're in a situation where someone is being emotional or struggling with something, you can't judge. And if you put yourself in their place, you're there with them. So how do you treat yourself? I think one of your previous guests, it might have been Dr.

G, was talking about what she does for her own self-care so that she's ready. And you're going to have Rex on later. I don't want to steal any of his thunder, but Rex is famous in my mind for telling people the importance of sleeping. If you're in my own family, they know that there's two types of us, right? Yeah, you got your track in it.

There's two me's. There's the well-rested me, and there's the lack of sleep me. Oh, my goodness. You don't want to sleep me. You don't want to sleep me.

And then the third thing that I learned from Brene, and again, seven years ago, wisdom that's still true today, even with all the things that are happening, she said, you have to communicate that to the person you're with or the group of people you're with. So one of the examples I want to share is like, in a big group setting, oftentimes, project teams bring me in to facilitate and do like a pull planning session using last planner system production controls or a Scrum session more recently.

Get to use Scrum with project teams. And what I do is I have to first understand who am I talking with? Yes. What's their state of mind? And then quickly connect.

And it could be like 10 people, 30 people. I've had as many as 50 people. And make those connections with each of them individually and not think of them as a big group, like a one mass thing. Because they're not. They're all individuals.

They just so happen to be working on this project. And when I do that and approach it that way, I get different results than when I tried doing it the other way, which I learned a decade ago. Like don't one size fits all is not right. And the same is true, especially with creating empathy and connections with people. You have to connect with them right where they are, at the moment they are, for exactly what they need.

And don't put yourself in it. So a story I want to share quickly. A friend of mine I had met earlier this year, or no, before the pandemic hit. So we met in person. And they were in one of the sessions where I was just creating awareness around a lean methodology.

And the person was in the room like this. Change, yeah. Rejecting the idea body language. Yeah. And I looked at the person and I said, I need to talk to you.

Like when this is over, I'm going to come and talk to you. So don't leave when this is over. And so we talked afterwards it was over. And they were expressing doubt. And how could this work?

How could this thing that we're showing actually work? Even though the session was hands on interactive and people can get their hands dirty with what we were doing. And I said, the change has to happen here. So if you don't think it can work, it won't. I was like, let's go, we can always go somewhere.

And then I said, I don't even want to convince you. If you're getting the results you like with what you're doing and your teams and people, don't change a thing. Teach me what you're doing. But if you're dissatisfied, which it looks like you are, you've been frowning for an hour and a half, just thinking like this is too hard. I said, that's how we're talking now.

And that ended up turning into a mentoring relationship. Wow. And now that, yeah, and it was voluntary. It wasn't like I forced myself upon them. So that created further conversations and dialogue.

And then probably by the second or third conversation, Brittany, they opened up and they told me this like scarring experience that they've had in our industry. I mean, it was like one of the worst stories I'd ever heard. And I saw myself in that story. And I said, I've had, and when the person was telling me, I listened and made the space and paused. And when they were sharing some of the very hurtful things that they experienced like within the last 12 months even, it had a series of bad things happening over the course of a decade.

And even just 12 months ago, people had lied to them in our business and they were dealing with how do I navigate? How do I trust again? Because all I see is this pattern of people being dishonest. And I didn't give any advice. I remembered what Brené said, don't judge, communicate, connect.

Don't solve the problem. And I just paused and I listened. And the person even said, aren't you going to tell me what to do? I said, heavens no, no way. Oh man.

If you're interested, I'll share a story of something that happened to me. And I said, but not to tell you what to do or to do what I did, was just to show you like, you look at where I am now. And I went through that myself 12 years ago and I'm still here. Wow. Felipe, you're another one that we could do a long form podcast with.

I know you have long form too. How long my show could be? I tried to go around that 45 minute mark, but sometimes it gets up there. But yeah, I mean, I think you dropped a ton of nuggets. Can you throw that quote, your favorite quote of Brené Brown again?

Yeah, for everybody, this is what Brené taught me. Empathy fuels connection. And it was coincidentally 2013. 2013, man, it's timeless. It's perfect.

Timeless. So with that, Felipe, we have to move on to the next one, but thank you, thank you, thank you. We're gonna have to continue this conversation with you.

How to Create Empathy in a Distant Society: Brent Darnell

Brandt now he is a best-selling author and leading authority and emotional intelligence I've had him on the constructor podcast We've talked about emotional intelligence and I've actually gone through the the Geist AI Assessment a couple of times and we too were on the CPC construction progress coalition D&I discussion a couple of times but with that Brandt You are here. You're here to show up and tell us tell us a little bit about what you know about how to Facilitate and create empathy and in this distanced society well You know what it's gotten down to I've been doing a lot of work Lately with diversity and inclusion and introducing it and furthering it in companies and organizations And I've got an online course about it through CMAA And I think the thing that really keeps resonating with everybody is is your origin story It's so connecting and if you can take the time to number one

Understand what your origin story is, you know Go back through your past and see maybe what was a challenging time for you and how did you overcome it? that's a good sort of way to frame it and You can do it even in the context of diversity and inclusion if that's what you're trying to achieve but what we found is everybody has that story and And if you can take the time to develop yours and you can take the time to really be curious and not Judgmental and ask others about their stories those stories connect us and they create This really safe space because everybody has struggles everybody has things they've overcome Everybody has things in their lives that have shaped who they are today and their outlook on various, you know Initiatives that we're trying to expand and cultural changes and Industry changes and if we can take the time to listen it creates this great connection and empathy

So Start so so learn your origin story So, you know, we've been talking already a little bit about curiosity and we've been talking about you know, reaching inward You know, how important are those things since Felipe hit Brene Brown? I'm gonna hit it a little bit harder Go for it. She says that nothing ever That's heroic or life-changing or worthwhile ever happens without vulnerability And see this creates that vulnerability and she gives the example of like if a marine is going on a battlefield to grab an injured Warrior, you know other marine to bring him back and he's under fire That's a heroic act But if there was no fire and a guy was just out in the field somewhere He just walked over and picked him up and brought him back that that's not a heroic act.

So That's not a heroic act so That guy has to be placed in a very vulnerable position to create that heroism And I think the same is true for us in our in our you know We don't have to be warriors on a battlefield but the vulnerability creates that heroic action and creates that connection and and It's tough in the construction industry because nobody wants to be vulnerable It's a real macho tough guy kind of culture and you can't be vulnerable and you can't ask for help you can't be struggling and so it's it's really tough for some of these folks to to Buy into that's why I use the the marine special ops kind of you know Example because I think they get that in a different way than they would if we were talking just about the psychology or the you know behind the

But the I think it it hits a little bit more home for them yeah, I mean and that that completely makes sense, you know when I first did the Emotional intelligence assessment, you know one of my one of my profiles came out as alpha Because because I needed to in my mind, you know at the time I needed to be Pretty much just just a hard person somebody who was very task oriented and you know, it's almost demonstrative And I think to your point about vulnerability and that is so key because That that exposure there man just of understanding yourself and exposing yourself just a little bit And and coming coming to the table with that curiosity man.

It's so So poignant especially now in these times, right and you brought up a great point It is slightly different for women in a male-dominated industry because It's so unfair, but a woman shows vulnerability and well She's you know, she's weak and she's a woman and she's emotional and a guy shows vulnerability and he's the big hero Dude, you know, so and the other thing is, you know, I've coached a lot of women a lot of women leaders in this industry and Sometimes they they say you know what I need to hold on to that alpha Without that I feel like I'm not I'm not making the progress I need to make with my career in my life And I told them then hold on to it, you know, it's all about creating that balance but sometimes I think women in this industry do need to err on that side of of

The the alpha to be effective, you know, so it it's it's dicey because it ends up being you know What's the culture of the project? What's the culture of the company? What's the personality and the the emotional profile of each individual so it gets more complicated but We and we have to just stumble through and figure this out as we go and make mistakes and get uncomfortable Get comfortable being uncomfortable. I think that's the the mantra for for now for Kofi 19 2020 You know, here we go What do you do personally Brent?

What do you give us one one one tidbit that you do to to read? Energize and and or get yourself so that you can be in a place where you can facilitate these empathetic discussions Well for me, it's yoga. I I'm a certified yoga instructor. I've been doing yoga since the 70s So I've been doing a long time yoga meditation mindfulness and I have a morning routine of reading some Buddha quotes and some roomy and some yi-jing and some Bible devotional and then You know, I try to do yoga at least two or three times a week and That kind of keeps me sane and then I try to do a meditation daily Usually I end up averaging about four or five times a week, which is enough, but it's a it's a deep It's a pranayama different breathing exercises meditation that really calms the mind and calms the nervous system and and

we need that energy to be able to to bring ourselves to these discussions and conversations and You know, I tell people all the time human connection is more important now than it's ever been So it's about taking care of yourself first and then reaching out and helping to take care of others you know because we do have the second highest suicide rate of any industry and People that are struggling and have anxiety and depression. This is exacerbating it So it's about really reaching out and having some frank discussions and really seeing how people are doing Wow Wow I did not know that stat Brent Wow Well, thank you so much for sharing both about you know, how you recommend facilitating those those empathetic environments, but also what you do and to To reset reconnect those are very valuable and thank you so much Brent.

Thank you, Brittany. It's my pleasure

How to Create Empathy in a Distant Society: Rex Miller

Rex Mellor is the author of the healthy workplace, Nudge, which I've read, Humanizing the Education Machine and Change Your Space, Change Your Culture. He's a speaker and consultant. And he does very many things. I feel like I can't do him justice with the list. But I will tell you that how I got introduced to Rex was really a training about how to work in high-performance teams.

So with that, you have to understand team dynamic. You have to understand how to collaborate well. You have to understand empathy in order to engage in those things. So I think he's an awesome resource to tap into this discussion. So with that, welcome, Rex.

Thank you, Brittany. Yes. So how are you doing? You're doing back to back. How are you holding up?

I'm doing good. I have my tea over here. I have my smoothie. I have some water here on the side. I have to figure out how I'm gonna regenerate myself.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So on our side, life is good. March started out with 95% of all my engagements and clients canceling for 2020. Wow.

So we reinvented. And it's been good. And what you see here with the studio is part of that pivot. And we're doing a lot of work with teams that can't be face-to-face. And what it's showing is it's really exposing the misalignments that were already there, but now they're becoming even more exposed.

So it's been an interesting time. Yeah. So let's jump right into the question we've been asking everyone else. How do we create those empathetic environments, create empathy in this distant society? That's good.

And those who know the Strengths Finder or the CliftonStrengths, it's interesting. There's 34 of them. Empathy is number 34 for me. Harmony is 33. And so the joke in the household is, dad wants to care.

He just doesn't. And so, you know, and I think that kind of mindset also fits into the construction world and job sites. It's about getting it done. It's the get-er-done mentality and suck it up. But what we found, what we do is we begin all of our team sessions with a humanizing part.

And we use a story template, and it was actually developed through our education work with a group called Journeyman Inc. And they work with at-risk kids. And they have a whole process. It's like a four-year process where kids that come in who are really shut down are very angry. The first thing to do is create a very safe way of telling their story.

And what we found is that the first part in creating a high-performing team is to see everybody as an individual and see them in a human nature. So we have what Journeyman Inc. calls this low-risk, high-value story template. And everybody fills it out. It is high energy.

People get to know each other. Sometimes they'll post, you know, use painter's tape and post their stories. And that's the first one. The foundation of it is we use the CliftonStrengths. Some people use disc or others, but it's understanding how you are wired, appreciating how others are wired.

And just as an example, there's more opportunities for us to disconnect than to come together and just natural wiring. There are 33,600,000 different combinations of the top five strengths in StrengthFinder. And if you add life experience and all of that. So to me, the question isn't, why are we having trouble communicating? The challenge or the interesting thing for me is, how did the teams actually overcome all that?

And then that comes to, and I've heard you having this discussion with some others, is that psychological safety. And Google says that's the number one criteria for a high-performing team. And also what they call hedonic balance. And hedonic balance is that no one monopolizes the conversation. So a good manager, some people are naturally quiet and will be reflective and taking in.

Some are naturally outgoing. But having a balance where all the voices are in is one sign of an effective meeting. For those who know the Patrick Lincione five dysfunctions of a team, we use that assessment. I'm currently on two teams now that are not getting along. So part of our job is to provide adult supervision for teams that can't get along and to teach everybody how to play well in the sandbox.

So having these assessment tools, having people understand who they are at their best, that's that emotional intelligence piece we bring in through an evidence-based way. And some of the teams I've gone to, one of them said, we don't believe in any of this fuzzy wuzzy horoscopy kumbaya psycho babble bullshit. We have to do a little bit of a magic trick and the magic trick is say, okay, I don't know you, but let me take the profile and see if this is close. And so a few of those magic tricks people buy in, then they learn how to appreciate the difference in others.

Then they learn where the trigger points are, the natural wiring. Then we begin to bridge the communication with common language. And then the beginning of the first part of trust, it just doesn't happen. You have to have some common features, humanizing story, common understanding, language, beginning to know each other. Then you can begin to build the elements of how teams perform, how they perform at their best, mostly how they perform under pressure.

So we take them through all these different kinds of exercises for how are we going to respond under pressure before they go out into the construction world and you have something. If you don't practice and rehearse it, doesn't matter what you know up here, it's only what you practice and rehearse. Man, that sounds like a huge toolbox of different resources that you can pull from. But I hear common themes. I hear getting your personal story, getting a good understanding of that personally.

I hear making sure that you can communicate that, making sure that you have an assessment tool to kind of at least start having these conversations. Address the skeptics, right? I've been hearing that throughout this entire conversation and it seems like you've been pulling a lot of those parts and pieces together, which is awesome. I do wanna call out because you have inspired me to get the loop. Oh, got the loop, yay.

Yep, yep. And I think you posted earlier this week how bad your sleep was. Mine has been bad since the time change. But here we are. I made sure I got an extra hour in before hosting this just so that I got in the green and I did.

But I did wanna ask, how are you personally, how are you personally recharging, showing up so that you can help to engage and facilitate these empathetic and high-performing team discussions? Yep, so when all this hits, it took me about a month to just go from this equilibrium. The very first thing I did is got a routine, a daily routine. And it starts out in the morning with quiet, reflective time. I've been reading Ryan Holiday's book, Stillness is the Key.

I do some meditation, some Bible reading and I do a lot of listening. Then I journal, just capture the key thoughts. I then manage my energy, not my time. So I take the first hour or so during the day doing the most valuable things that I can be doing with my head. It's either creative writing, proposal writing, whatever takes high cognitive load.

And so I got that from Cal Newpert's book. And then through the day, I take breaks. So my meetings are typically only 45 minutes with a 15 minute break in between. So that's been built in. So instead of an hour, one of the posts last week showed that doing this virtual stuff instead of using 20 to 30% of your calories, so it's all blood flow to the brain.

And so that blood flow keeps your brain healthy and it consumes 20 to 30% of your calories. Doing this, it's 40 to 50%. So just being aware that, and some days I'll take a power nap, no more than 25 minutes. 430, I cut it and I go out and I hit some tennis balls against a wall. And then we have what we call a digital shutdown.

So at eight o'clock, we either put our blue blocker glasses on or we shut down completely, no digital stimulation before bed to get that good quality sleep that the whoop tells you you need. Light dinner to help sleep. And I mean, it's scripted out because without the normal structure that we had, what I found in coaching is that a lot of people are having the challenge because they just haven't reestablished a rhythm. They haven't gotten their structure and they don't realize that this environment is wearing on you.

I mean, people are sitting longer than they were at work. I'm at a standup work service, so mine is sit to stand. So just being intentional about your brain, what it takes to have a healthy brain, your body, and having a little bit of a sense of humor about all of this. We have to, man. I tell you.

Man, I've been making sure to have my, at least my weekly intake of comedy just to keep things light, man. But I will tell you, I appreciate you. I appreciate the value that you've been able to share. Again, you're another person we can go on a long podcast with, but this is not the, this is just the beginning. This is not the end.

We're doing collaboration now, a series, and we're gonna be hosting these conversations every other week on Friday morning. So you're, every one of my guests, you're more than welcome to jump in and onto our future conversations. And that includes you, Rex.