HANDOUT Build Inclusive Teams
HANDOUT Build Inclusive Teams
HANDOUT Build Inclusive Teams
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Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Workshop Questions..................................................................................................................................... 5
Discuss and Define: Build Inclusive Teams ............................................................................................... 5
Which are you most likely to go to: Fight, Flight or Freeze? .................................................................... 5
What are 3 UNMET needs you experience on your team? ...................................................................... 6
Feelings When Your Needs are Satisfied .................................................................................................. 7
Feelings When Your Needs are Not Satisfied ........................................................................................... 8
When am I most likely to need support? .................................................................................................. 9
What can I do for myself to get support? ................................................................................................. 9
What is trust? ............................................................................................................................................ 9
Which is your “GO-TO” zone when you’re stressed? ............................................................................. 10
When am I most likely to distrust others? .............................................................................................. 10
What guardrails can I put in place? ........................................................................................................ 10
What is engagement? ............................................................................................................................. 10
Appreciation Self-Assessment ................................................................................................................ 11
Housekeeping rules for meetings ........................................................................................................... 12
What inclusion looks like at the office: ................................................................................................... 12
Trust ............................................................................................................................................................ 13
Psychological Safety ................................................................................................................................ 15
Relating to Others ....................................................................................................................................... 16
Family Culture ............................................................................................................................................. 17
Boundaries .............................................................................................................................................. 17
5 Types of Boundaries: ........................................................................................................................ 18
What Makes Boundaries Hard ............................................................................................................ 18
Attachment Styles ................................................................................................................................... 19
Secure.................................................................................................................................................. 19
Anxious/Ambivalent............................................................................................................................ 20
Avoidant .............................................................................................................................................. 20
Building relationships is the foundation to creating inclusion and trust. What people sometimes forget is
that the ability to build relationships requires BOTH a mindset AND a skillset. Having this resource is
essential for anyone working in any role; it helps you get your job done while simultaneously providing
support for others. Everyone knows this and yet, so many of us struggle with how to respond during a
conversation, let alone a difficult conversation.
When we experience moments of conflict, misalignment and disconnection, we may often feel
confused, frustrated or uncertain in how to show up, what to say or how to react. And we may find
ourselves attempting to explain our way out of a misunderstanding rather than slowing down to gain
clarity on how the misunderstanding initially occurred.
When we experience these places of being misunderstood, it ultimately boils down to not having our
needs met. Whether it is our need for being seen for our idea, or perhaps our need to be valued for our
contribution, or maybe our need to be appreciated for our efforts, our own feelings discomfort or
discontent, serve to indicate that our needs are not being met. I call this experience a rupture.
Because ruptures are often hurtful, they may dictate our behaviors in ways that may not be optimal in
the moment. And we may find ourselves reacting defensively or aggressively, or even shutting down
altogether. What’s more useful is to repair the hurt from both parties.
At iRestart, we focus a great deal on what we call empathic communication. Empathic communication is
the tool to repair the rupture. It allows us to stay connected both to ourselves and others while inviting
us to continue building relationships in the workplace. This skillset helps infuse your conversations with
action. It also helps bridge unmet needs by standing in a place of “seeking to understand, before
needing to be understood”, as Stephen Covey’s 5th habit states in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People.
More importantly, empathic communication can immediately create a place of safety and belonging for
everyone involved. Additionally, employing this technique is as effective in the moments following a
rupture as it is a week after the conversation occurred.
We also help teams and individuals discover their own zones of exclusion, helping them to redesign and
recreate their mindsets dynamically. As we’ll discuss today, this level of awareness in the moment
invites all involved parties to move toward inclusion through language and behaviour.
I welcome you to begin using these powerful tools in your everyday experiences, from the workplace, to
your interactions with family and friends, and with the larger world around you. You may notice
dramatic shifts in how quickly you connect with others and create a welcoming space.
Sincerely,
Rajkumari Neogy
Write a few sentences on what it means to your group. You’ll be asked to share to the larger group.
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Circle the response that you most often go to during moments of stress or when you’re triggered.
Use the list below to find your UNMET needs. Circle the ones that stand out to you. Highlight the main
three.
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What is trust?
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ENTITLEMENT VICTIMHOOD
NEEDINESS RIGHTEOUSNESS
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What is engagement?
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3. When you feel discouraged at work, what actions by others encourage you?
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4. When you want to communicate appreciation to your colleagues, how do you typically do so?
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5. How well do you believe you and your coworkers know how to express appreciation to another?
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In early 2017, Atlassian launched its playbook Great Teamwork. Thanks to this publication, we now have
some terrific data on the pulse of teams and what it shows us is that team dysfunction is still dominated
by a lack of trust.
Why are we continuing to experience such high levels of distrust with each other?
Trust is a funny concept. We totally know when we trust someone. We totally know when we don’t trust
someone. And we totally know when we don’t know if we trust someone.
Trust is defined as a:
and
“confidence placed in a person by making that person the nominal owner of property to be held
or used for the benefit of one or more others.”
Lots of jargon. To be honest, I don’t really know what either of the above definitions mean.
In the video, The Anatomy of Trust, by Brene Brown, I was struck by her simple, yet profound definition:
“Trust is about choosing to make something important to us, vulnerable to the actions of
someone else.”
“What I have with you that is important to me is not safe with you.”
“The most compassionate people that I’ve ever interviewed were the most boundaried.”
Paul Zak is a neuro-economist and wrote a fabulous HBR article titled, The Neuroscience of Trust. He
starts the article by asking,
“Why do two people trust each other in the first place? Experiments around the world have
shown that humans are naturally inclined to trust others—but don’t always.”
He goes on to discuss the impact of oxytocin, mice, research, and experiments with money and
strangers and describes the experiment here:
“To measure oxytocin levels during the exchange, my colleagues and I developed a protocol to
draw blood from people’s arms before and immediately after they made decisions to trust
others (if they were senders) or to be trustworthy (if they were receivers). Because we didn’t
want to influence their behavior, we didn’t tell participants what the study was about, even
though there was no way they could consciously control how much oxytocin they produced. We
found that the more money people received (denoting greater trust on the part of senders), the
more oxytocin their brains produced. And the amount of oxytocin recipients produced predicted
how trustworthy—that is, how likely to share the money—they would be.
He continues with really interesting data points around team dynamics and organizational culture in
relation to trust:
“both an emotional and logical act. Emotionally, it is where you expose your vulnerabilities to
people, but believing they will not take advantage of your openness. Logically, it is where you
have assessed the probabilities of gain and loss, calculating expected utility based on hard
performance data, and concluded that the person in question will behave in a predictable
manner. In practice, trust is a bit of both. I trust you because I have experienced your
trustworthiness and because I have faith in human nature.
We feel trust. Emotions associated with trust include companionship, friendship, love,
agreement, relaxation, comfort.”
Psychological Safety
In an often-cited New York Times article addressing the 180 most effective teams at Google, there were
two main traits that drove the overarching essential value to foster effective teams. These two traits
were:
● An equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking
o “As long as everyone got a chance to talk, the team did well. But if only one
person or a small group spoke all the time, the collective intelligence
declined.”
● Average social sensitivity
o “a fancy way of saying they were skilled at intuiting how others felt based on
their tone of voice, their expression and other nonverbal cues. They knew
when members were feeling upset or left out.” Whereas the less effective
teams seemed to have less sensitivity toward their colleagues
“These two traits are aspects of psychological safety: a shared belief held by members of a team
that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.
1. “A sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for
speaking up.”
and
2. “a team climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect in which people are
comfortable being themselves.”
“The behaviors that create psychological safety – conversational turn-taking and empathy – are
part of the same unwritten rules we often turn to as individuals, when we need to establish a
bond. And those human bonds matter as much at work as anywhere else. In fact, they
sometimes matter more.”
So, in a nutshell, letting people speak and having empathy for them communicates trust and creates
connection. In other words, saying verbally and non-verbally, “You matter to me.”
Trust is about creating relationships from an oxytocin drip rather than from a dopamine hit.
Relating to Others
Imagine for a moment a workplace relationship with someone that you have difficulty trusting. Now
imagine a workplace relationship where you experience significant trust? Make a mental note of the
difference. What does it feel like? What does it look like? When you’re in a powerful and lasting
relationship that is built upon trust, imagine what you are able to accomplish.
An HBR article from March 2016 titled: Why Leadership Development Has to Happen on the Job says
that, “60% of people coordinate with at least 10 people daily in their work.” As technology has opened
up collaboration with more people, encompassing more departments and business units, more of us
work on cross-functional teams or across time zones. Working effectively in teams requires us to excel in
relationship building.
In order to become the best inclusive leader possible, we must start to understand what drives exclusive
leadership. What makes people behave like a jerk, act unresponsively and rudely, dismiss others or are
just plain mean? And why do they do over and over again. To the point where a teams’ culture is at risk
of becoming dysfunctional. That their behavior becomes normative and they get labeled as a ‘bully’ or a
‘micro-manager’.
Family Culture
How we build relationships with others is engrained in us from childhood. We learned how to connect,
engage and trust from when we were wee little ones. We may have learned that one parent is safer
than another. We may have learned how to get one parent to give us what we need, like staying up
longer. Or we may have learned how to make sure we avoided either physical or emotional pain.
Understanding our own rules of engagement allows us to more broadly understand how we either
hinder or cultivate relationships. As humans, we are meaning making machines. So, we are
constantly scanning for patterns, trends and connections in order to fully understand what is
happening both to us and around us.
Boundaries
Boundaries are guidelines for how we relate to the rest of the world. They are the rules of
conduct built out of a mix of beliefs, opinions, attitudes, past experiences and social learning.
Your personal boundaries are bidirectional: impacting both incoming and outgoing messaging
and communication. And most of the that communication and messaging is unconscious. How
you identify you is by identifying likes and dislikes – what is wrong for you and what is right for
you. This allows you to write your very own standard operating procedure. And it defines how
you will and won’t be treated by others.
The biggest issue is NOT that others violate our boundaries. It’s that we violate our own
boundaries. When you find that you did not stand up for yourself in a way that you wished you
Your boundaries are defined as and are no different than your feelings. Your feelings always tell
you if your boundaries have been violated. The role of boundaries is for us to have the ability to
define a clear line that uniquely separates us from others.
This line defines your happiness, integrity, desires and needs. And ultimately, your personal trust
and purpose from the rest of the world.
5 Types of Boundaries:
1. Physical boundaries
2. Emotional boundaries
3. Mental boundaries
4. Spiritual boundaries
5. Sexual boundaries
When we don’t listen to and respect what we’re feeling, we might very likely be violating our
own boundaries. When we don’t listen to and respect others’ feelings, it’s very possible that
we’re violating their boundaries.
The essence of belonging is to be known for who we are what we want. And when we’re able to
feel our feelings, we can protect our boundaries. When we can protect our boundaries, we begin
to feel safe. And when we feel safe, we can only know what it is like to feel that we belong.
What humans needs most is to be warmly accepted, understood and cared for.
When we have arrived at a place of not trusting ourselves, we have placed barriers within
ourselves. These barriers either permanently or temporarily block the ability to cultivate a
relationship to ourselves. These barriers limit our levels of intimacy because as we are less
connected to ourselves, we teach ourselves to be less connected to others.
Starting to build self-trust is key. How you begin to re-trust yourself is to start with
strengthening the ability to tune back into how you feel, and search for the unmet need. Get
really good at this!
Attachment Styles
Depending on how our boundaries have been either crossed or respected has had direct impact
with how we learned to build relationships in order get our needs met. Whether it is the need for
love, attention, respect, safety, etc.
Attachment is the way our brains and bodies are wired to understand and predict relationships.
We relate to others in the ways in which we were related to in order to form a bond and survive.
Secure attachment breeds trust. Anxious, Avoidant and Disorganized attachment can, over time,
dismantle trust. Here are the 4 types of attachment in greater detailer and their respective
relationship building strategies.
Secure
▪ Trust people
▪ Trusts the self
▪ Enjoys an easy flow between being with others and being alone
▪ Has an easy time with transitions
▪ Enjoys easy self-regulation
▪ Has high levels of psychological well-being
▪ Enjoys ease with self-care
▪ Appraises stressful events in less threatening terms
▪ Has more optimistic expectations about being able to cope effectively
▪ Holds more favorable views of human nature
▪ Reports higher self-esteem
▪ Ability to negotiate both similarities and differences
▪ Openness to the other’s states across an entire range of emotion
▪ Attempts to comprehend the state, goal or reality of another
▪ Predictable and discernable patterns and rhythms of reaction
▪ There is the experience of “being experienced”
▪ Relies on others for support
▪ The nature of each partner’s contingent coordination with the other affects the ability to attend,
process information and modulate behavior and motional states
▪ The brain continuously anticipates changes in the environment on the basis of incoming
information
▪ More resilient in times of stress
▪ Experience more frequent and prolonged bouts of positive feeling
Anxious/Ambivalent
▪ No room for freedom or autonomy or creativity
▪ Have self-doubt about worth, capacity and value
▪ Have the sense that no one ever gets us
▪ Are taken over by sudden negative outbursts and expressions
▪ Are angry or hard to soothe upon a reunion
▪ Have feelings of intense sadness or anger when what is wanted is in fact not provided
▪ Exact mirroring MUST occur or else anxiety happens
▪ Unregulated right hemisphere dominance
▪ * 5.5% are ambivalent/anxious attachment
Avoidant
▪ Connecting without connecting
▪ Distressed by inclusion
▪ Very transactional
▪ Want to out-perform their partners
▪ Maintain our independence because people really aren’t that reliable
▪ Denies, suppresses and deactivates attachment circuits in order to cope
▪ Increased anxiety when anticipating receiving negative emotional information
▪ Don’t know when they are stressed
▪ Define success by how well we are carrying out our function
▪ Dampen another’s positive emotions
▪ Discourage expression of emotional distress
▪ Disregards other’s needs, especially during a crucial time
▪ Have difficulty enjoying social interactions
▪ Succeeds in computer science and professional tennis
▪ Left hemisphere dominance
▪ Disconnected to body and bodily needs
▪ “I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely
and difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close.”
▪ * 22% are avoidant attachment
Disorganized
▪ Perceiving danger everywhere; having no “safe haven” with people
▪ Resorting to a variety of self-destructive behaviors
▪ Having no ability to be soothed by others or to feel compassionate towards own self
▪ No coherent strategy for copying with closeness
▪ At high risk for using soothing chemicals substances and thus developing substance abuse or
addiction disorders
▪ Thought to be suffering from unresolved loss, abuse or trauma and to be in a continuing state of
fear
▪ A lack of responsiveness to a reach for connection
▪ Difficulties in managing their own distress
▪ 44% more likely to be passed down if mother was abused or experienced trauma
How we build and maintain relationships is programmed into our cellular structure.
The New York Times article, How We Inherit Our Parents’ Traits and Tragedies, talks about narratives
from our parents impact our behavior:
If parents don’t resolve the trauma they experienced, their kids can inherit it. It’s partly
genetic — trauma can alter genes, which get passed down to the next generation. And
it’s partly behavior, usually unconscious.
Team Culture
When individuals learn to relate to others based on fear as a child, this becomes embedded in their
neurobiology (the biology of the nervous system). If not addressed, this style is carried over into the
workplace. And if fear is in the driver’s seat, over time it is possible to end up with dysfunctional team
culture.
If safety and trust are not a priority for the team, then the team is motivated be fear. Fear drives people
to execute based on the need to survive and avoid pain. Purpose, however, drives people based on the
need to contribute.
Exclusion
Good feelings are designed to feel good. Their prime directive is to indicate that one or more of your
needs are being met. Bad feelings are designed to feel bad. Their prime directive is to indicate that one
or more of your needs are not being met.
If over time, if we experience more UNMET needs than MET needs in a given situation, it can lead to us
to feeling unsafe. And if we’re not yet fully equipped with the mindset and skillset to address the unmet
need(s), the concern is that we might enter into a state of blame. And eventually, feel excluded.
Exclusion is the experience of not feeling safe and trusting in the moment. It can happen from the
smallest gesture of being interrupted to the most conspicuous of being berated or humiliated in front of
others. When people experience exclusion, it registers in the brain as physical injury and the pain
centers in the brain light up, mimicking physical injury. Having the experience of exclusion is like being
kicked in the shin – it hurts that much!
Zones of Exclusion
We define dysfunction as an impairment or a deviation from the norm. Remember, our brain is designed
to belong and form relationships. Dysfunctional team behavior is that which is deemed deviating from
the norms of social behavior and not conducive to forming safe and trusting relationships.
If over time, members of your team feel excluded, they are operating in the team as if they are
physically injured. They are impaired in some fashion. Think about stubbing your toe and pain throbbing
around that area. Now imagine attempting to focus on strategy, project management or product
development. Just listening to someone’s point of view becomes challenging!
People have different flavors of exclusion. And through my work as an executive coach, working with
teams, I have noticed four specific types or Zones of Exclusion:
ENTITLEMENT VICTIMHOOD
NEEDINESS RIGHTEOUSNESS
Our attachment styles define our zones of exclusion, how we relate to others and how we build trust
and safety along the way. Secure attachment is the only type of attachment that is not associated with a
zone of exclusion.
1. The BULLY
2. The COMPLAINER
3. The CARETAKER
4. The MICRO-MANAGER
Dysfunctional roles are often seeking to blame others. Each role builds and maintains relationships
through they own style of relating.
What is really important to remember here is that they are attempting to build relationships from a
place of pain.
Entitlement
▪ A distortion of power.
▪ They lose their sense of people altogether.
▪ They are essentially alone.
▪ A constant forward motion; never pausing to take a breath or connect to body or humans.
▪ Power over stance from self.
The Complainer
The Complainer may build relationships through a state of VICTIMHOOD and experiences hopelessness.
The Bully communicates: “You’re at fault. I am innocent.”
Victimhood
▪ A sense of powerlessness.
▪ A need for agency (the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free
choices).
▪ A need for acknowledgment.
▪ A longing that our contributions matter.
▪ Power over stance by others.
The Caretaker
The Caretaker may build relationships through a state of NEEDINESS and experiences helplessness.
The Caretaker communicates: “You criticize me. I praise you.”
Neediness
▪ “It’s YOUR job to meet my needs.” Using others as tools to get our needs met.
▪ A stance of inferiority toward others.
▪ We are entirely dependent on what other people do or do not do.
▪ Constantly measuring if what they do is enough for us.
The Micro-Manager
The Micro-Manager may build relationships through a state of RIGHTEOUSNESS and experiences terror.
The Micro-Manager communicates: “You’re wrong. I am right.”
Righteousness
▪ “You are the reason why I am hurting.”
▪ As humans, we become morally superior in order to address this problem of hierarchy.
▪ It’s unbearable to be less than, so we shift to make the other person wrong.
▪ Wanting something from others + blaming them if it doesn’t happen.
The HBR article, In the AI Age, “Being Smart” Will Mean Something Completely Different, gives us the
answer on how to shift from Exclusive Leadership to Inclusive Leadership:
What is needed is a new definition of being smart, one that promotes higher levels of
human thinking and emotional engagement. The new smart will be determined not by
what or how you know but by the quality of your thinking, listening, relating,
collaborating, and learning. Quantity is replaced by quality. And that shift will enable us
to focus on the hard work of taking our cognitive and emotional skills to a much higher
level.
The new smart will be about trying to overcome the two big inhibitors of critical thinking
and team collaboration: our ego and our fears. Doing so will make it easier to perceive
reality as it is, rather than as we wish it to be. In short, we will embrace humility.
-- HBR
The article talks about ego-based mindsets impede critical thinking and fear-based mindsets impede
collaboration. It’s important to understand that both the ego-based and fear-based mindsets are
attempting to heal their own versions of hurt and neglect. They are simply each coming from opposite
polarities on a spectrum. Memories from hurt and neglect can come in the form of pain, abandonment,
suffering or cruelty.
Collaboration Inhibitors
▪ A Fear-based structure is fed by believing that it is less than in some way.
▪ They think they are less than others.
▪ They are intimidated by others.
▪ They are afraid of others.
▪ They want to be validated by others because they are afraid of being rejected by others.
▪ They doubt their own intuition.
▪ Their true liberation is learning to stand in their own power and feeling worthy.
We feel feelings for a reason. They are clues to what’s going on for us. Feelings are like breadcrumbs.
They lead us back to ourselves. In the moment that we’re having the experience, our feelings give us
information about the moment, the person, the situation. This information dictates our reaction, our
behavior and influence our decision-making process.
Our nervous system is constantly scanning for safety, whether it’s people, places or experiences and
determining what we gauge to be safe or less safe. If we detect a threat in any capacity, this is called the
Fight/Flight or Freeze response. And feelings fall into specific categories. When we might experience
anger, impatience, annoyance, or frustration, we might be driven to feel defensive and maybe escalate a
conversation. These types of feelings let us know that we’re in a Fight State.
When we’re feeling worried, nervous or insecure, we might begin to doubt if we made the right
decisions, or whether we’re competent. That may lead to anxiety and uncertainty and often the reaction
might be to leave the scene or walk away from a conversation. These feelings are found in the Flight
State.
And finally, if we’re feeling confused or stuck or even hopeless, then we might find ourselves in a place
of analysis paralysis. This is the Freeze State. Many of the clients I coach that say they don’t seem to
have a sense of purpose in life, career, etc., are actually in this state.
Feeling your feelings is how you understand the way you are wired to form and maintain relationships.
When you feel good, it means you are aligned with the other person, feel safe and trusting and are
easily able to step into inclusive leadership and secure ways of relating. When you feel anything other
than a good feeling, it is essential to both unpack and unlearn that particular attachment style that is
driving the experience.
#1 FBI negotiating tactic with kidnappers is to get them to name their feelings.
The next page has a much more elaborate diagram in understanding Social Engagement (safety and
trust) versus the Fight/Flight or Freeze response.
Needs
When we talk about culture, whether in teams or organizations, inevitably, we find ourselves in a
conversation around values. Companies espouse their values left and right. SmallBusiness.chron.com
says that:
“every organization has a set of values, whether or not they are written down. The
values guide the perspective of the organization as well as its actions. Writing down a
set of commonly-held values can help an organization define its culture and beliefs.”
Values drive purpose. When we find value in our work, we feel good. When we experience something
that doesn’t have value or doesn’t bring us a sense of value, then we feel less than good.
In the workplace, we talk about core values. With individuals, we talk about core needs. Max St. John
differentiates the two by saying,
“I usually describe Needs as dynamic and contextual, and Values as long-term and core.”
I define a need as something that is essential or very important TO YOU. And needs are the roots to our
feelings. When we have a need that is MET, it feels good. When we have a need that is UNMET, it feels
less good.
Tools
Empathy
Marshall Rosenberg is an American psychologist and author. He developed a process for supporting and
resolving conflict within people and in relationships called Nonviolent Communication. This body of
work stems from Ahimsa, one of the core tenets of Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism.
“a humble attitude of genuine respect and concern for the well-being of others.”
“In nonviolent communication, no matter what words others may use to express
themselves, we simply listen for their observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Then
we may wish to reflect back, paraphrasing what we have understood. We stay with
empathy, allowing others the opportunity to fully express themselves before we turn
our attention to solutions or requests for relief. We need empathy to give empathy.”
When we seek to give advice or immediately turn to solving the issue at hand, it might be that we
ourselves are feeling discomfort and are seeking to assuage it. If we find ourselves uncomfortable in the
moment that someone is sharing, the very best thing to do in the moment is breathe. No, seriously. This
allows for the person listening to arrive more fully into their body and regain the ability to be present,
Empathy is allowing someone to be exactly where they are. And by allowing them to be exactly where
they are and see them for exactly where they are, gives them a sense of accompaniment. When people
have the experience that they are supported, their pain significantly diminishes. And they now have the
option to shift into another experience.
To have an unmet need acknowledged allows for us to be valued, respected, welcomed and seen.
Empathy Guessing
Empathy guessing is the ability to show compassion for the other person by guessing their unmet need.
Often times, in the moment of sharing our strife, we might be so caught up in the pain, that we are
unable to locate the unmet need. Having a person help sort out the nuances of their experiences gives
them the relief and support in the moment while continuing to fully honour their current state, rather
than attempting to change their inner state through problem solving.
Remember, any feeling that is in the Fight/Flight/Freeze state is letting us know that we are currently
experiencing an unmet need.
An Empathy Guess allows a person to be fully seen in their pain so it can be released.
3 Types of Empathy
Cognitive Empathy
“Simply knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking.
Sometimes called perspective-taking, this kind of empathy can help in, say, a
negotiation or in motivating people. A study at the University of Birmingham found, for
example, that managers who are good at perspective-taking were able to move workers
to give their best efforts.”
Affective Empathy
“When you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were
contagious. This emotional contagion, social neuroscience tells us, depends in large part
on the mirror neuron system. Emotional empathy makes someone well-attuned to
another person’s inner emotional world, a plus in any of a wide range of callings, from
sales to nursing – let alone for any parent or lover.”
“One downside of emotional empathy occurs when people lack the ability to manage
their own distressing emotions can be seen in the psychological exhaustion that leads to
burnout. The purposeful detachment cultivated by those in medicine offers one way to
inoculate against burnout. But the danger arises when detachment leads to
indifference, rather than to well-calibrated caring.”
Compassionate Empathy
“With this kind of empathy, we not only understand a person’s predicament and feel
with them, but are spontaneously moved to help, if needed.”
This third type of empathy is key. And the main ingredient in allyship.
3. BREATHE AND CREATE ROOM FOR THE OTHER PERSON TO MOVE INTO THE CONVERSATION.
4. Then express concern and desire to connect:
a. “My biggest concern is…” (e.g. “that I don’t know what you’re thinking and what you’re
doing.”)
b. “What I mean by this is…” (e.g. “I feel sad we haven’t spent more time together, how
can we do that?”)
Empathy is driven by the level of oxytocin present in the body. Compassion is ability to act from a place
of concern and follow the 3 steps of empathy.
Self-Soothing
Self-soothing is self-compassion. I love this quote from Brene Brown’s book, Daring Greatly, which says,
“The most compassionate people that I've ever interviewed… happened to be the most
boundaried. They happened to be the people who had very, very clear boundaries
about what they were willing to do, what they were not willing to do, what they were
willing to take on, and what they were not willing to take on.”
Language
The language centers are largely in the left hemisphere (LH), but the right hemisphere (RH) is used as
well. As soon as we open our mouths, we shift to the left hemisphere. But the right hemisphere is about
We definitely need both hemispheres when we speak. And interestingly, each hemisphere speaks its
own language. The RH speaks relationally, and the LH speak transactionally. We absolutely need to
become fluent in both hemispheres.
The key takeaway is that the LH language distances us from others. RH brings us closer to others. As
with some many things in life, balance is essential!
It is critical to remember that one form of language is not better than the other. We need both.
The skillset here is the ability to fluidly vacillate between both types of language dynamically.
As you gain awareness of what others might be experiencing around you, choosing which language
style best suits the situation that creates trust, invokes risk-taking and inspires higher levels of
performance.
Inclusive Language
What changes the brain’s wiring is our language and the relationships we surround ourselves. Learning
to speak inclusively is key in becoming an inclusive leader. It allows us to stay connected both to
ourselves and others while inviting us to continue building relationships in the workplace. Empathic
communication is having the awareness to access all types of verbal and non-verbal language in every
situation, surface the met and unmet needs and acknowledge the feelings associated to the moment.
Empathic communication is the foundation to Inclusive Leadership.
Our use of language and how we engage in relationships change the brain.
Research compiled over a four-year time span by one of the leading third-party exit interviewing
firms in the US found that only 12% of employees reported leaving for money. Out of the 88%
that left, the most cited reason for departing was more psychological in nature – including not
feeling trusted or valued.
Gallup reports that almost 70% of the people in the US say they receive NO praise or recognition in the
workplace.
1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Acts of Service
4. Tangible Gifts
Words, both oral and written, can be used to affirm and encourage those around us. Some people
prefer personal one-on-one commutation, while others value being praised in front of others. It’s
important to note that relatively few people like to receive public affirmation in front of a large group.
By Quality Time, we mean giving the person your focused attention. The key element of Quality Time is
not proximity, but personal attention. One of the most common dialects of Quality Time is that of
quality conversation: empathic dialogue where two individuals are sharing their thoughts, feelings, and
desires in a friendly, uninterrupted context.
Quality conversation is quite different from the appreciation language of Words of Affirmation.
Affirming words focus on what we are saying, whereas quality conversation focuses more on what we
are hearing. Quality conversation means that I am seeking to create a safe environment in which you
can share your accomplishments, frustrations and suggestions. I will ask questions with a genuine desire
to understand your concerns.
• Stop by, sit down and check in with me about how things are going
• Come “hang out” with the team at the end of the day
• Get together and partake in events, sporting, cooking, escape rooms, etc.
• Go to dinner
Acts of Service
Assisting in getting a task done can be extremely encouraging to a colleague. Helping a teammate “dig
out” from being behind, working collaboratively on a project that would be difficult to do a alone, or just
working alongside with them on a task, are all ways to demonstrate appreciation for their efforts.
• Serve voluntarily
2. Offer to do a menial task so the team member can focus on a higher priority
4. Help get a team member’s computer or electronic device to work more efficiently
The key to an effective gift in the workplace is the “thought”, not the amount of money spent. Taking
time to notice what your colleagues enjoy (chocolate, coffee, cashews) observing their hobbies and
interests, (crafts, books, music) and buying them a small related gift shows that you are getting to know
them as a person and understand what is important to them.
While we acknowledge that physical touch is less important in work-based relationships, and the
potential for abuse exists, we still find that appropriate physical touch is meaningful. Usually, it occurs
spontaneously and in the context of celebration – a “high-five”, fist bump, slap on the back or a
congratulatory handshake. To not touch one another at all often leads to a cold, impersonal
environment.
Research
The workshop you experienced draws from 6 core authors and their life work.
Additionally, extensive research has been done to validate our points throughout the presentation.