Episode 228 Transcript:

0:00:00 Ramona Shaw: Welcome to The Manager Track podcast. In this episode, I have the pleasure of introducing my colleague Moe Carrick to you. Moe is an internationally recognized expert in workplace culture with her innovative frameworks being adopted by top brands like Nike and Amazon to enhance work environments and employee satisfaction. She’s also a well known speaker on the future of work and a very strong voice about creating positive work environments.
0:00:28 Ramona Shaw: I’ve met Moe a few years ago in an incubator and we had so much in common, but also she was an inspiration to me to really hone my message and get really clear on what I stand for and what I don’t. And you’ll see this come through in this conversation because we’re going to talk about workplace connection, vulnerability, masculinity in the workplace, and how that is changing and evolving in combination with feminine energy or feminine leadership.
0:00:56 Ramona Shaw: We’re going to talk about team dynamics and team leadership versus just people leadership and so much more. Moe is also a bestselling author and she is the founder of Momentum. We will link to her book and to her company in the show notes so you can check that out and learn more about Moe. She’s active on social media too, so check out her links. If her message resonates with you and you find this valuable conversation that we’re going to have, I’m excited to share this with you. You’ll notice quickly how much experience Moe brings to the table in helping leaders nurture strong workplace culture and employee satisfaction.
0:01:37 Ramona Shaw: Okay, without further ado, let’s dive in and welcome Moe to the show. Here’s the question. How do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role? Build the confidence and competence to lead your team successfully and establish yourself as a respected and trusted leader across the organization? That’s the question, and this show provides the answers. Welcome to The Manager Track podcast. I’m your host, Ramona Shaw, and I’m on a mission to create workplaces where work is not seen as a source of stress and dread, but as a source of contribution, connection and fulfillment.
0:02:09 Ramona Shaw: And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leaders who know how to lead so everyone wins and grows. In this show, you learn how to think, communicate, and act. Ask the confident and competent leader you know you can be Moe welcome to The Manager Track podcast. I am so grateful that you’re here and that we’re getting to spend some time together talking about a lot of things related to leadership.
0:02:37 Moe Carrick: Thank you so much for having me, Ramona. It’s always fascinating to talk to you about this topic that I know matters to both of us so much so thank you. Happy to be here.
0:02:46 Ramona Shaw: Great. Well, we’re going to talk about four specific topics. We’ll talk about people leadership. We’ll talk about emotional stirring, which is going to be a choosy one. We’ll talk about authentic vulnerability and building teams that care, or who care. As we’re diving in, let’s start with the people leadership topic. When we are or when as leaders, we obviously care about how we show up and how we build a connections and relationships with people.
0:03:14 Ramona Shaw: But what is it in your experience that really makes people thrive at work versus disengage? And we see this often right where someone was really eager, but then slowly but surely they start to disengage. In your work with your clients, where do you see the biggest hiccups?
0:03:32 Moe Carrick: You know, there’s so much research on this as you know, and I’m always amazed at how consistent the research is, which is pointing to the fact that when we leave organizations, whether they’re small, large, for profit, nonprofit, we’re actually leaving our boss. Like most of the time, people report that the number one reason that they’re leaving their employer is due to a poor or deteriorating relationship with their immediate supervisor. So to me that’s a strong indication of no matter how great the CEO is or the C suite of leaders or the business owner, in terms of having employees feel engaged, if the person I’m working directly for doesn’t connect, if I don’t feel seen, I think that it’s going to be difficult for me to stay. Now, sometimes in a larger organization, there might be opportunities for me to go and work underneath another manager or leader and feel perhaps more satisfied and engaged.
0:04:29 Moe Carrick: But I think it just matters so much to employee retention for people to feel that they have a positive and connecting relationship with their immediate boss. Do you see that as well with your clients?
0:04:42 Ramona Shaw: Yeah, a lot. And it gets tricky if you are in a team where your manager isn’t necessarily doing something bad, like micromanaging or is heavily biased or is disrespectful. But what if you don’t quite get them? You don’t quite feel like you can relate, or there’s an opportunity to share and build a relationship. And it could go both ways where the manager might feel that way about an employee. How do we then engage employees? That’s what I find always interesting.
0:05:13 Ramona Shaw: And I think a lot of leaders feel like they need to like everyone in order to demonstrate care.
0:05:19 Moe Carrick: And, you know, liking someone, it definitely helps. And we can think of liking someone as having social fluidity, you know, feeling like, oh, I can relate to you, I can talk to you, I can, you know, we have maybe the same interests, or we can connect on things outside of work, and I certainly think that that is desirable. But again, when we look at high performance, the likability of relationships is actually less significant to the pure. I would call it like, unadulterated connection, which usually has to do with feeling seen.
0:05:55 Moe Carrick: Even if I don’t like someone, if I feel like they get me, if they accept me, if they believe me, if they support and uplift me, even if they don’t necessarily like me in a socially compatible way, it usually increases my engagement. Which reminds me of the definition I’m using these days. You know, employee engagement or engagement at work is one of those expressions we bandy about. It’s sort of like teamwork. You know, we say it often, but we don’t necessarily get grounded in what does it actually mean.
0:06:19 Moe Carrick: I saw a definition recently that I’m using a lot. I love it. And it describes employee engagement as the emotional and psychological connection we feel at work and with our work colleagues. So the part for me that’s powerful, there is emotional and psychological connection that we feel, because for me, that’s possible. Even when I may not feel social fluency with someone, I can still feel like I’m connected to them in a positive way, that I feel seen that I belong, which I think is more important even than that social fluidity.
0:06:55 Ramona Shaw: Interesting. So how does a leader demonstrate that? How does a leader not just demonstrate, actually, how does a leader create an environment where people have that emotional and psychological connection, which I assume when you say that, or how I would interpret this, is not just between the employee and the manager, but also between the employee, other team members and employee and the organization at large?
0:07:20 Moe Carrick: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And yet the manager tends to be primary because that’s where they’re taking direction. That’s where they’re having usually the most frequent performance conversations. But you’re absolutely right. Well, I’m sure we’ll talk about that later in terms of how important the team health is as well. I think how managers facilitate that, and I’d love to know what you think, because I know you teach a lot of managers at variety of levels, especially the front line, how to build these chops, you know, because we would think, we always think that they’re just natural, like we’re just born to be a good leader and I should just show up at my job and I get promoted. That’s what often happens. I get promoted from being an individual contributor to being a manager, and then I’m expected to be good at it.
0:07:55 Moe Carrick: And I think that sometimes we’re just not. We’re often promoted because we have other really good skills, our technical skills, or our knowledge and wisdom. The connection is largely about the capacity to build trust, which we know takes vulnerability. It takes a willingness to show up in an authentic way for leaders in a way that people can feel that this is a real human. I think that’s one piece, the other piece that comes up. And of course, there’s many things that go into this dynamic of how we build connection. But I think empathy, the capacity to demonstrate empathy, is a critical skill for every people leader, because that’s one of the primary ways that we feel seen, is that somebody is capable of holding empathy. Does that ring true with you?
0:08:39 Ramona Shaw: Yeah, I think that rings true. And with being seen, I think that is also something like, how do you actually. I like to make things practical. How do you actually make someone feel seen? And that may be, well, I’m giving them credit for where credit is due. I will advocate on their behalf, like, okay, these are all good things, continue doing those. And then I think the aspect of building awareness, which is something that our work is definitely deeply grounded in, building self awareness and an equal amount building awareness of everyone around you to understand what are they motivated by, what are they seen as their own strength, how do they think they can contribute and what do they value in the organization? And then when I can let them know that I see that or ask them about it, and then being able to at times even pivot or adapt or call that out, that is, to me, another aspect of how do I make that make them feel seen?
0:09:38 Ramona Shaw: And on the receiving end, I know that for me personally, in my experience, has led to huge psychological and emotional connection.
0:09:47 Moe Carrick: Yes.
0:09:48 Ramona Shaw: With the organization or the manager when.
0:09:50 Moe Carrick: They did that, absolutely. Yeah, I love that. And when we, in my research, we talk about seven needs that we have of work, one of which is to feel seen. Right. And so I love that you named that. And it’s very interesting to me because the surgeon general’s report in 2023 on workplace mental health and wellbeing, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, if any of your listeners haven’t seen it, you can just google it. It’s really an excellent report, I think.
0:10:17 Moe Carrick: But their research points to five needs we have of work, and our seven fit nicely into those five, because that need to feel seen really matters. And I love your question about how do we demonstrate that, because it can seem overwhelming, especially if we’re supervising a lot of people. You know, I’ve got ten people or I’ve got twelve people. How do I see them all? They’re unique. They have different characteristics.
0:10:37 Moe Carrick: And I think it happens in what I like to think of as micro moments. And I have two examples that come up that I recently heard about just even this week. One was from a friend who has worked in her company for ten years. She’s in the financial services industry, and for all those times, most of those years, she’s had one boss. And she recently had a change in her boss. And that boss that she had previously. One of his ways of acknowledging her was to give her a gift certificate every year to go to a restaurant. She and her husband go to restaurants. It was a generous offer, you know, a nominal amount of money, but it was also to a restaurant that I would call somewhat generic. It was just a nice restaurant in our town. Her new boss, who’s been working with her now for two years, the first year that he was there, the bonus that he gave her at the end of the year was actually a subscription to a fitness app that she had mentioned really wanting. It was the peloton.
0:11:30 Moe Carrick: She doesn’t have a peloton bike, but she was doing. She was wanting to be a member about the same cost, but so much more valuable for her in terms of what she’s interested in, what she cares about, what she talks about. And that boss, he didn’t make any big waves about noticing that she had this different hobby. It just sort of naturally happened that he gave her a little bonus, a little fun gift at the end of the year that really spoke to who she was.
0:11:56 Moe Carrick: I think that’s a powerful story. Another example that comes to mind for me is an example recently where a client was telling a story of an employee that come into work really looking not very well, sad, and kind of looked distraught. And when the manager asked about what was happening, the employee had been very triggered by some global events that were happening in her home country. The manager did not know about those global events. They weren’t tracking the news of this smaller country that was having a lot of unrest at this particular moment. So the manager didn’t know the details of what was happening. But for that employee, it was heavy for them to come to work. And what I love about that example of being seen is that that manager really stood in empathy, believed them that this was an impact.
0:12:42 Moe Carrick: I understand, coming to work today must be hard because you’re listening to the news and you’re hearing what’s happening in your home country and also was asking, you know, tell me more. Like, tell me more about this because I don’t know as much and I’m curious about what this means to you. The whole conversation, when they played it back to me, the manager played it back to me, it probably took about eleven minutes.
0:13:02 Moe Carrick: But it was extremely impactful both for that employee to sort of center themselves after an emotionally tough morning and get focused on work, hence higher productivity. But also for that employee to really feel seen by that manager as what they were carrying that day that’s happening out there, that does come to work here mattered. And just feeling seen in that way allowed it to have less of a feeling of distraction for her from work that day. So I think those are good examples of like two different micro ways that an employee can feel seen by a manager’s behavior that is somewhat small but very, very significant.
0:13:41 Ramona Shaw: I love that you call those microwaves or micro moments because, of course, when we think about people leadership and figuring out what does it take for people to thrive, there is a foundation there of like, what is the person naturally wired to do? Why are they coming to work? How good are they? Are they really intrinsically motivated to progress and to learn? What’s their mindset and all that? Of course we understand that that’s part of the package. But then as a leader, there’s so many low hanging fruits like these moments that literally take a handwritten cardinal, a ten minute conversation that are all around us that when we don’t pay attention and don’t recognize the significance of those micro moments, we just breeze right by them.
0:14:31 Ramona Shaw: And even in our work, we often talk about systematizing things because we don’t want to rely on memory as an individual contributor. We can all rely on memory. Then we get promoted or we have kids and other responsibilities, and suddenly we realize the life and all responsibilities are too big. And that manager who remembered the peloton conversation, I don’t know when that happened, but let’s say that happened in July.
0:14:58 Ramona Shaw: He may, we don’t know. Right. But he may have tracked that somewhere and written down notes about that person and remembered like, oh, Belladon, a thing, because they know that at some point this may be useful information and like really hone in on that. I love that you call this out. And I think there’s so much leverage that a manager has to build those connections.
0:15:19 Moe Carrick: Well, yeah. And sometimes it’s as simple as not multitasking when you’re meeting with an employee?
0:15:25 Ramona Shaw: Yeah.
0:15:26 Moe Carrick: You know, I think of. And I. I’ve been caught in this myself. You probably have, Ramona. I was on a call a couple of months ago with my chief of staff. It was a really busy day. I was feeling overwhelmed. We were on Zoom because we work remotely, and he was sharing something that was important about a project he was working on, and he said, hey, is now a good time? It looks like you’re busy. And he could see from my eyes, probably heard my keyboard, that I was multitasking. And so in that moment, I was really embarrassed.
0:15:57 Moe Carrick: But I also was so glad he said something, because he was right. We had 30 minutes that week for one on one conversation, and I was not actually paying attention to him and what he needed, which instantly caused him to feel less seen and less valued. In our culture at momentum, we have agreements that govern how we behave. And so I think he felt empowered to name that for me as a manager. You know, in that case, even though I’m also the CEO, we’re a small company.
0:16:26 Moe Carrick: I was tempted to be defensive. I was also tempted, by the way, to deny it. Oh, no, I’m paying attention. And luckily, I was in my higher self, and I was like, oh, gosh, you’re right. I am so sorry. I am distracted by this thing. I was multitasking. I really want to be present. What I actually said was, would it be possible to reschedule in 1 hour because I’m on a deadline and I should have claimed that this morning.
0:16:50 Moe Carrick: That’s me being real. Like, I mess up, too. And it’s a courage based conversation that then allowed me to be much more completely present for him in that supervisory dialogue. So again, another micro instance of doing it wrong, but on the path to doing it right.
0:17:08 Ramona Shaw: Yeah. And I bet that the way that you responded actually probably built connection.
0:17:12 Moe Carrick: It did. I think it built some trust. It created a way to validate that. We should call it out with each other.
0:17:19 Ramona Shaw: Yeah. Thank you for sharing these great examples. Let’s talk about emotional stirring. What is it that you. What do you mean by that?
0:17:29 Moe Carrick: It’s a good question. It’s a good question. Well, you know, I’m sure you teach. I know you teach because we’ve talked together about our leadership programs, emotional intelligence, as do we. We measure it. We teach it. It’s another term that we talk about. What does it mean to be emotionally intelligent in schools? We know that schools are working hard to teach social and emotional capacity with students. Social and emotional learning. And so I feel like we have the words, but for, for me, it’s different than understanding what actually is going on that makes emotional intelligence so significant.
0:18:04 Moe Carrick: And that’s where the expression of emotional stirring comes to mind for me, because emotional stirring is just that. We’re activated emotionally. We’re noticing and naming what it is that’s happening in the emotional realm of our work experience. And when we allow ourselves to notice the ways in which we’re emotionally stirred, we become more effective as people, leaders, but also really as employees, too, because the emotion is such a strong source of data for our interactions.
0:18:39 Moe Carrick: It’s such a strong source of data. And I’ll give an example. Before the podcast today, you and I had a little bit of a personal touch in, because we do know each other in other environments. We were in a women’s incubator together. We took a few minutes to just catch up personally, that personal connection caused me to feel some emotional stirring, because we have some dimensions of our background that are very similar.
0:19:02 Moe Carrick: So I’m like, a little farther along in some of my journey around both, like, our parenting role and our professional roles. And so it only took us, like five or six minutes, but I could feel a connection to you even over video, due to my emotion being stirred a little bit around our shared experience. And it created for me, I can’t speak for you, but for me, it created even more interest in the conversation we were about to have because I was reminded, oh, yeah, Ramona and I have a lot in common, and I know some of the feelings she’s describing, and she may know some of mine. And so that’s important. And it would have been very easy for us to have turned on the zoom.
0:19:39 Moe Carrick: Let’s start the podcast. Let’s not connect personally. Let’s not let our emotions show up here at all. And then we’re down to brass tacks, which we’re getting to brass tacks for sure, but it helps that we also had emotional engagement. So I think emotional stirring is just really feeling. It’s allowing ourselves to notice our feelings and to use them as a powerful source of data, which is very different, by the way, than just being emotional.
0:20:07 Ramona Shaw: Okay, I was just going to ask you that, what is the difference between the two?
0:20:12 Moe Carrick: Yeah. So, emotionality is where I’m acting from emotion. It’s where I’m triggered to feel something intense, and I act from that space. Emotional stirring, which for me is a type of emotional intelligence, is where I’m using the emotion as a source of data. I’ve metabolized the intensity of that feeling, and I’m able to progress forward at work coming from that data. And let me give you an example, because the one of us talking this morning is probably not as good an example that was more like relationally focused. But let’s imagine that I work for you, and I’ve made an error, a big one, and I decide to tell you, and I come to you, and I say, hey, Ramona, I messed up. I made a pretty big mistake with a client, and I’m really.
0:21:02 Moe Carrick: I’m really sorry. Right. And I’m feeling, like, really bad about it now. Imagine I made the mistake yesterday. I went home, I took a run, I processed with my partner. I off gassed my own shame about making a mistake, because I don’t like making mistakes such that when I came to tell you about it, I was grounded, and I was able to be in my rational self. By the way, I also probably had forwarded a plan in my mind, like, okay, here’s how I think I’m going to fix it.
0:21:27 Moe Carrick: So when I share with you what happened. Gosh, this is really hard to share with you, Ramona, I’ve made a bad mistake. I’ve talked to the client. This is my thought on repair, but I wanted your input. Right now, you are able to connect to what’s happening. You can see that I’m being accountable, but you also understand what it’s like to make a mistake, because you’ve done that, too. So we’re emotionally connected, but I’m not emotionally reactive, nor are you.
0:21:53 Moe Carrick: I’m not in emotionality. I’m not saying to you, oh, my gosh, Ramona, I’m such a loser. I’ve done something horrible. I’m sure you’re going to fire me. This is the worst thing. I’m not in that space where now you have to pick me up off the floor. But it also helps you to not be in that space where you’re like, that darn Moe, she’s so incompetent. I can’t believe she made this mistake. Because I’ve worked. I’ve metabolized that emotion to the place where I can use it as data.
0:22:14 Moe Carrick: I’m sorry. I did make a mistake. But also, here’s my plan going forward. So we have to get to all that at work in order to be high performing, because if we’re not recognizing emotional stirring and we’re not processing the emotion in a way that gets us grounded, then we’re likely going to be very reactive. Against each other in the moment when it comes up. Did I explain that adequately?
0:22:40 Ramona Shaw: Yeah, 100%. And I think it’s really important to, to, or emphasizing the two points of this. Like, one is how you show up and the effectiveness of your communication.
0:22:51 Moe Carrick: Yeah.
0:22:52 Ramona Shaw: Also the reputation you’re building by doing so. Because if I feel you were overwhelmed, you were flustered by it. I’m going to look at you and your competence a bit differently than if you come within a constructive dialogue and a path for a solution. And then, second, even just in this quick example, I could feel. Tune in that if you had come with all this self blaming and being flawed, I would have felt emotionally, it would have been harder for me to contain my emotions. Right. And respond effectively than if you can come to the conversation in a calm, composed way.
0:23:29 Ramona Shaw: Because we’re mirroring those emotions. We’re definitely influenced, even over zoom or screen, and that changes the dynamic. And then, you know, I walk out of that conversation into another conversation, and there we go with the ripple effect.
0:23:43 Moe Carrick: Well, and let’s imagine that I don’t navigate the emotional realm of that situation, right. So let’s just play it forward with a non self aware employee and a manager. So I make a mistake. I get triggered because I don’t like making mistakes. So I try to fix it on my own, and I pretend that it didn’t happen to you. I come in the next day, and we have our one on one, and I say nothing about it because I think I’ve fixed it.
0:24:07 Moe Carrick: And I don’t want to be vulnerable with you and tell you what happened. And so that meeting goes, okay. But then an hour later, you get a call from the client who says, hey, I had a great conversation with Moe. She owned the mistakes she made. And I wonder when you’re going to refund us the $10,000, right? And now you’re like, whoa, this is the problem. My employee is not self aware, nor did she tell me about a significant error that has repercussions for our bottom line.
0:24:35 Moe Carrick: Now your trust is eroded. I’m also because I probably was feeling something akin to shame. I didn’t want to own that I wasn’t willing to be brave with you when you come with me today, that now I feel caught in making a mistake, I’m very much at risk of being triggered myself and moving into self protection. Self protection and defensiveness. We’re off to the races with a pretty non productive conversation about performance.
0:24:59 Moe Carrick: Completely different outcome, very same scenario.
0:25:04 Ramona Shaw: When is it ever okay for someone to be emotional? Like, not this emotional stirring that’s already been processed or the sharing of feelings, but be actually emotional in a conversation with a manager or vice versa.
0:25:19 Moe Carrick: Yeah, I love that question so much, because I think as women especially, there’s a lot of messaging that comes to us about the expression of emotion. And I have a whole. I have a whole rant. I won’t say I will spare you from today about the ways that men and women are inculcated differently around emotion, because I think it harms both gender binary identities in that way. But I think. I personally think that it’s. It’s really okay to express emotion when we have to.
0:25:49 Moe Carrick: What I would hope is that we would all work. What we try to teach in the workplace is to help every employee have the emotional intelligence to manage the potential ripple effect of their intense emotionality. So what I mean by that is I personally think that tears can be handled. I think being angry can be handled. I think even raising your voice can be handled. But what we want to be mindful of, if we’re going to be expressing emotionality, is that we don’t want it to do more harm.
0:26:20 Moe Carrick: And I say that partly because sometimes we can’t contain our emotion. Sometimes we get triggered in the moment.
0:26:25 Ramona Shaw: Right?
0:26:25 Moe Carrick: You know, let’s say you and I are having a meeting, and I just am sharing something that’s personal at home, and I get teary about it. I can’t. I’m not likely going to be able to control that. I just. I’m having a strong feeling my pet died, or I have a child who’s ill, and so my emotion may come up at that moment. I think that one of the things that’s very helpful for menta managers is when they have the capacity to handle the emotionality that comes up in their employees without being overly reactive to it.
0:26:53 Moe Carrick: Because emotion is very ephemeral, isn’t it? It moves through, usually pretty quickly. And so we need skills at work to handle when people’s emotionality shows up. And of course, we also need ways to end or terminate emotionality or separate if it’s causing harm. You know, if someone’s ranting, yelling. I heard a story the other day about somebody who threw a chair in an office. Like, that kind of emotionality. No, that’s harming someone. That we need ways to contain that or to remove ourselves from those scenarios. When do you think emotionality is okay to express?
0:27:29 Ramona Shaw: I think it’s only when it just happens. Like, maybe this speaks a little bit to the authentic vulnerability that we’re going to talk about next sometimes.
0:27:36 Moe Carrick: Yeah.
0:27:36 Ramona Shaw: I think we’re just vulnerable, and we get into that space where whatever is going on, for whatever reason, kind of the water overflows and we have an emotional reaction. I don’t think that shaming will help in those situations and that in a positive work environment, there’s actually space to deal with that, even with someone being frustrated. And I think when we have emotional, intelligent people around us, one of the principles that we teach is taking emotional responsibility.
0:28:08 Ramona Shaw: So that means I. My emotions are mine because of the way that I think. But at the same time, if I truly believe that, I also have to let someone else’s emotions be theirs because of what they think. And when we can separate, like, I can be. Actually, can be a lot more compassionate with you if I believe that your emotions are about you than if I think I have so much to do with it. And, of course, if you are upset with me and you’re like, I’m so upset with what you said and find so disrespected, I cannot just lean back, be like, oh, we don’t.
0:28:44 Ramona Shaw: I’m sorry you feel that way, right, that I let you be angry? That’s not the right response, but internally recognize, I see that you’re angry, and I see that what I did had something to do with this. So, one, let me give you the space to express yourself and, like, the tolerance to do so. And two, then let me look at. Yeah, what is it that I. I can want to own here about what started up? But I look at this as like, two different, you know, two parallel roads that we’re going.
0:29:18 Moe Carrick: I love, love, love that expression of emotional responsibility. I love that because we do own our emotions, just like we own our ideas. You know, ideas are the cognitive side of our brains. Emotions are the emotional side. Now, it’s also helpful sometimes. I’ll just add this for listeners, because it sometimes seems like a no brainer. But I don’t know. It hasn’t been a no brainer for me to differentiate and discern between feelings and emotions, because both emotions and thoughts are brain activity. But emotions are felt in our body because we have neurons and neurological sensors throughout our body, which is why oftentimes, when we’re feeling a strong emotion like anxiety, we feel it maybe in our gut, or we’re feeling love and we might feel it in our chest. That’s because the neurons related to that emotion are elsewhere in our body.
0:30:03 Moe Carrick: What happens first is we feel something, and it’s usually a physical sensation, a tightening of the throat, a tear in my eye, a flush to my face. That’s an indicator that’s our body’s primitive response. It’s just happening inside. I mean, usually related to our actual biology of survival by perceiving a threat, then what happens with our powerful brains is we need to find a way to make meaning out of that physical sensation, which is what we call emotion, to say, oh, okay, wait, I’m feeling like tapping my feet, or I’m having an urge to leave the room right now.
0:30:39 Moe Carrick: I wonder what I’m feeling. Gosh, I’m feeling annoyed. I’m feeling disappointed. I’m feeling embarrassed. Now we can put words to it, which is part of emotional intelligence, is learning how to describe what we’re feeling. So that’s just a little bit of a micro way to help understand all this that’s happening, because, well, the thing we really don’t have control over, to your point, is we don’t have control over the feeling it’s just gonna happen. But we do have control over everything else, which is like, what am I going to do with that sensation?
0:31:06 Moe Carrick: That’s the part that I own, that emotional responsibility I own. If I. If I feel wounded by you at work, I own how I respond to that. Right. You don’t own that.
0:31:17 Ramona Shaw: Yep.
0:31:17 Moe Carrick: You know, and so that really helps us to repair and to move more productively in partnership, I think.
0:31:24 Ramona Shaw: Because otherwise it’s going to turn into, like, a, whose fault is it? And everyone gets defensive and we’re not really able to have a useful dialogue. Let’s talk about authentic vulnerability. And this talks a little bit about the vulnerability of showing imperfections. Like, we are all, none of us is perfect. To which degree do I show it and to which degree do I hold it back? And actually, especially for people moving into leadership roles for the first time, where they know they don’t know it all yet, and they often feel like, you know, I’ve never been here, so I’m learning as you’re learning. And some people may actually say that, and other people will just pretend to the outside that they kind of know and are secure with their decisions or their behaviors.
0:32:09 Ramona Shaw: So when is it useful to be vulnerable, and when is it actually impacting our credibility?
0:32:21 Moe Carrick: Another great question, especially around the gender binary, right? Because, again, I think the messaging is quite different for men at work than it is for women around how high the stakes are and what we’re enculturated to do. So I think that when I get on the balcony and I think about your question. A couple of things come up. One is that when we unpack the meaning of vulnerability at its heart, for me, vulnerability is another emotion. It’s a feeling, and it’s the feeling we have when we step into uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.
0:32:53 Ramona Shaw: Uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.
0:32:56 Moe Carrick: Yeah. Which is like in a new job or in a new role. If I’m a new manager, I feel that every day, probably because it’s. I’ve not been here before. So I feel uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure all the time. If I only show that part of myself all the time, it is going to be hard for others to believe it is. Right. Because I’m constantly revealing what I’m seeing and feeling around uncertainty, risk, exposure. On the other hand, we know that vulnerability, which is a brave act to show uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure, takes courage.
0:33:31 Moe Carrick: We know that courage is quite contagious. So the way we do it, I think, for me, is a paradox. We do both. We do both at the same time. And I’ll give you an example. Even from my own practice, when Covid hit, I had an established consulting practice. I think at that time I was in business 19 years. Now it’s 23 years. And I had never experienced a global pandemic. Right. I had four staff, but I watched my business die, as did you, which for any CEO is terrifying.
0:34:00 Moe Carrick: You know, I did not have an ion business at that time. I did some virtual work, but not much. Mostly we were traveling around the country with our coaches and consultants, delivering work to clients. So event after event came off the calendar. I began to get alarmed come April, like, ooh, this isn’t a six week problem. I knew I had to talk to my staff about this because the question that was at stake for me was, can the business continue?
0:34:24 Moe Carrick: And I afford to keep everybody on payroll? Are we going to survive? I knew they were worried about that, but I was also worried about that. Now, I was pretty aware in some of those early meetings that if I only spoke to my vulnerability, my fear about that, I would just terrify them, right. If I said what was probably true in my heart, like, I think the shift’s going down. This is terrifying. I’ve never seen anything like that. They would have been like, well, so what I had to do instead was to stay, basically.
0:34:53 Moe Carrick: This is hard. I’ve never seen anything like this. Right? I too am scared. And also, I believe we’re going to persevere. And I have ideas on how. And I want to also know your ideas because we’re in the boat together. So I showed both. And I remember one of my employees asked, are we going to be laid off? Very early. She spoke her fear, are we all going to be laid off? And I said, what was true for me, I don’t know.
0:35:21 Moe Carrick: Now, as a CEO, I would have much rather said, absolutely not. No way. I’m not going to lay anybody out. But I run a successful business, and that would have been a lie. And I don’t lie. I’m not going to lie, even if it makes you feel better. So it was important for me to both stand in my vulnerability, but also to go to the front of the line around solutioning and around optimism to show my leadership chops.
0:35:49 Moe Carrick: And I think that’s some work that leaders at every level can really think about, is can I reveal what’s real for me around my vulnerability and while also showing the other parts of myself, my confidence, my surety, my experience, my curiosity, so that we’re getting both at the same time. Because we do know that the vulnerability humanizes us. It is contagious and it builds a high degree of followership.
0:36:16 Moe Carrick: Anxiety is also contagious. So if we show only our vulnerability, I sometimes fear that we’re just causing more anxiety. So I think leadership, a lot about living in that ambiguity, isn’t it?
0:36:32 Ramona Shaw: Right? And I love that you’re talking about combining the two and demonstrating that when you’re vulnerable, you’re either gonna, and we probably can’t pinpoint it down to a b and a c, but it’s something along the way of either I have a positive outlook, we’re going to persevere, there are solutions. Let’s focus on that solution, or here’s the lesson that I’ve learned, I’ve made a mistake. Here’s the lessons that I’ve learned, or here’s what happened since, or here’s what I’m going to do, you have to step into those.
0:37:06 Ramona Shaw: So balancing the vulnerability with, like, a statement of confidence.
0:37:10 Moe Carrick: Yes, absolutely. And you know as well as I do, and I’m sure a lot of your listeners, maybe they’ve thought about this, maybe they haven’t, but it’s something that I think a lot about, is that the higher we rise in organizational authority, the more ambiguity we face, not the less things don’t get more clear, the closer you are to the top. They get less clear, they get more ambiguous. So you actually don’t, as you grow in your career and you move towards the C suite, you don’t get more answers, you get less.
0:37:38 Moe Carrick: To me, the skill of navigating both is a higher order leadership skill. To be able to stand in both. Yes. I don’t really know all the answers right now. I don’t know where we’re going to go. And also, I know that it’s my job to lead us through this, and I will, and I’m ready. And, you know, it’s both. I just had a CEO I was talking with this morning who’s been in a turnaround situation, and she was speaking about her board and speaking about how she named the truth of what she sees as their three scenarios.
0:38:09 Moe Carrick: And she was aware that it was vulnerable to state all three scenarios because some of them are really terrifying for the board, but that’s also her job. So she had to be in both at the same time, bravely coming forward with a recommendation and then also saying to them, there is no guarantee that this strategy will work, but this is what I think is the most likely to work. And that was reassuring for them. It also was perhaps slightly anxiety producing, but that was what was real.
0:38:38 Ramona Shaw: Yeah. And I agree with you that ambiguity gets bigger. And also, at that higher level, people are very good. The good leaders are very good at noticing when someone is pretending or portraying a. A fairy tale, an untruth, something that isn’t actually predictable or likely or like well thought through, where they’re overly biased to think about or present at least one option or one solution, or then on the negative, overly focused on one particular outcome.
0:39:20 Ramona Shaw: And once they recognize that that emotional part starts to weave into the communication and what they present or their strategy, that’s when people really start to question your ability to lead through this, because they feel like you’re not actually able to distract yourself from the vulnerable or the courage or the risk and the insecurity to still think in a balanced way.
0:39:44 Moe Carrick: Absolutely. And you just said something really important that I want to underline in case people missed it. Right. Vulnerability is not the same thing as insecurity. Right. They’re different vulnerabilities, emotional experience. We are sitting in uncertainty, risk, emotional exposure, uncertain. Or insecurity is self doubt. It’s a lack of self confidence. Those are different things. So I can be both at the same time. I can feel insecure, I can have self doubt, but I also can have confidence, and I may feel vulnerable in either one.
0:40:17 Moe Carrick: So I think that there’s a tightening or discernment that comes with how we share what’s real for us while also staying in our own grounded confidence.
0:40:28 Ramona Shaw: Yep.
0:40:29 Moe Carrick: Yep.
0:40:29 Ramona Shaw: Thank you for calling that out. And we’re going to move on to the last part. So we talked about people, leadership and how to make teams thrive. We talked about emotional stirring and what that looks like. We talked about authentic vulnerability. Now, to wrap it up, let’s talk about how to build teams who care, who really genuinely care. And I know in the beginning we talked a little bit about manager employee relationships, and then how do you do that for an entire team?
0:40:57 Moe Carrick: Yeah, it’s complex, isn’t it? I know you see that in your work as well, because teams just multiply the number of complexities that each human brings. We have this equation that we use at momentum a lot. It goes like this. Self care plus team care equals a healthy, cohesive community. And the self care is all the stuff we’re talking about. Emotional intelligence, self awareness, the capacity for empathy, grounded confidence. All of that is about how do I take care of me to bring my optimal performance to work right.
0:41:25 Moe Carrick: Team care is like, how do I take care of we? And knowing and understanding that is important for the leader, but it’s also very important for every member of the team. And of course, the leader plays a key role in creating the conditions in which the team takes care of one another. A couple of things that I would say. One is that we are more responsive to peer feedback than we are boss feedback, which is why gossip, triangulation, rumors can be so destructive in a team.
0:41:53 Moe Carrick: Because when we talk about each other, not to each other, we erode the trust of the team, which really flattens and decreases performance. So it’s in the team’s best interest. Define ways to have strong relationships with one another in addition to having strong relationships with their boss. And to do that, we have to build trust, which we do the same way we’ve been talking about. We build it through vulnerability based trust. But we are seeing, especially today with so many remote teams, that teams don’t have the time together. They don’t have the informal reactions together as much to form those vulnerability based relationships. As a manager and as a leader of a team, one of the things we can do to build high team care is to make sure that some amount of time, whether it’s virtual or in person, is dedicated to relationship building, trust building within the context of the team.
0:42:43 Moe Carrick: And secondly, I think it’s on the leader to find a way to help the team have some agreements for behavior. Because when I think about team care, I’m also thinking about psychological bravery. Are teams comfortable? Or you can think of it as psychological safety, too. Sammy Edmondson’s terminal. Do we have a way that we can speak truth in our team without fear of recrimination. And that is a behavioral construct that can be well facilitated by coming up with agreements that govern how we act together.
0:43:13 Moe Carrick: We know from research that old models of team performance, such as Tuckman’s, which was the norming, storming, forming, performing model, like, if you put a team together in a petri dish and just let them be, they’ll eventually become healthy. We know that that’s actually not true, right? Like, it will happen sometimes, but not usually. What helps teams be productive is when they have vulnerability based trust with each other, which means they need to be in conditions and have time dedicated to building those kinds of relationships, where they get to show up authentically and build those chops.
0:43:47 Moe Carrick: So that’s a lot. I just buy a house, do with a lot. But clearly it’s a topic I care a lot about.
0:43:52 Ramona Shaw: Right? And I think to emphasize, we look at it as in our world, at ACova, we look at it as there’s leadership, people leadership, where we look at the dynamic between an employee and a manager, and then there’s team leadership. And those two things, they’re overlapped. But we need to, as leaders, like, look at how do I lead a person and then how do I lead my team? And they require different practices and different routines that we built.
0:44:18 Moe Carrick: Yes, I love that. And thinking of the team as its own thing to tend to is powerful because we also know that anytime a team member adds or leads, that changes the concept of the team. So we have to kind of revisit those same practices to honor and acknowledge the way the team changes as membership changes.
0:44:36 Ramona Shaw: Yep. Yeah, exactly. Moe, thank you so much for all the wisdom that you shared, and you’re so sophisticated and elaborate and clear in how you present those ideas. And I took a lot with me from this conversation, and I will reflect on some of the things that you said as well, and I hope so did our audience. So thank you for the time that you made to join us. We will link to your social media as well as to your website momentum in the show note. And I highly recommend everyone watching us or listening to us to check those resources out.
0:45:07 Moe Carrick: Thank you so much, Ramona, so lovely to have you to join you on the podcast, and thanks for the work you do with our Covid. It matters. I often say it’s all hands on deck to create the kind of workplaces where people thrive. It’s good for business, it’s good for the world. So thank you for all the work you do in that space. And I really enjoyed the conversation. We could go on for hours.
0:45:26 Ramona Shaw: We could. Yes, thank you. Thank you as well. So I’m sharing all that right back to you. If you enjoyed this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader people love to work with. This includes my best selling book, the confident, incompetent new manager, which you can find on Amazon or@ramonashaw.com book and a free training on how to successfully lead as a new manager. You check it out@ramonashaw.com
0:45:56 Ramona Shaw: masterclass these resources and a couple more you’ll find in the show notes down below.