Rob:

Our culture is built on the Greek model, one of adversity that if you

Rob:

challenge and you fight ideas out the best one will live, but I think

Rob:

we've come to a stage where it's not about being gladiatorial anymore.

Rob:

We have to look at the real problem is a lack of acceptance.

Rob:

We need to move instead of being adversarial to work

Rob:

from a basis of acceptance.

Rachel:

I agree with you a hundred percent.

Rachel:

And I've been thinking about that a lot.

Rachel:

My facilitation style comes out of learning acceptance and commitment

Rachel:

training and the organizational development arm of pro social.

Rachel:

That's the group format of acceptance and commitment training.

Rachel:

That was, developed by Paul Atkins and a lot of that is about acceptance in

Rachel:

how can we be with challenging feelings, challenging thoughts, and then notice.

Rachel:

I can tolerate these and be with them because we all have a goal together.

Rachel:

We have a goal to accomplish a mission, we have a goal to change

Rachel:

something or impact something.

Rachel:

Can we together see what behaviors are causing us to not achieve that

Rachel:

goal, where they come from, and then make group choices to say, I can

Rachel:

tolerate a little bit of discomfort.

Rachel:

Or maybe not total agreement in honor of moving towards

Rachel:

this bigger mission or goal.

Rachel:

There has to be an element of willingness.

Rachel:

I think about how do we build that willingness as facilitators?

Rachel:

How do we create the space?

Rachel:

I also, have found, and I don't know if you found this.

Rachel:

I think this is part of that mediation component, that

Rachel:

skill that you have learned.

Rachel:

It's sometimes about the how.

Rachel:

People are arguing about, how do we get it done?

Rachel:

How do we get it To happen and I think that's this Greek system

Rachel:

that you're talking about.

Rachel:

I have the right way instead of can we have the right way?

Rachel:

We're not as communal as I believe other, I'm not really sure totally how other

Rachel:

cultures are fully communal because I'm in all honesty, versed in very few cultures.

Rachel:

But we're not as communal as thinking altruistically, like if we all go

Rachel:

for what the group wants, we will have our needs met as well, which

Rachel:

is what pro social facilitation and organizational development is built upon.

Rachel:

It's built upon the evolutionary biology that if we work towards what the

Rachel:

species need or what the group needs we do get our individual needs met.

Rachel:

But that acceptance is huge.

Rob:

I've heard of acceptance and commitment, but can you

Rob:

just break that down and just give us a quick summary of that?

Rachel:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Acceptance and commitment training is a personal approach.

Rachel:

a third wave cognitive behavioral therapy that has you begin to notice that you are

Rachel:

always present, you are always here, and there are parts of you that can witness

Rachel:

other things going on inside of you.

Rachel:

So the goal is to develop psychological flexibility so that you can become

Rachel:

more dialectical inside so that you can say, Yes, this is occurring

Rachel:

and this is occurring and that's occurring in me at the same time.

Rachel:

I might have challenges that come up in my life And sometimes,

Rachel:

we get taken up in them.

Rachel:

So if you have a relationship that goes in a negative direction, right?

Rachel:

We easily can start to say I'm not worthy.

Rachel:

I'm not lovable.

Rachel:

I'm pick bad people.

Rachel:

But we try to train people to say there's a part of me that feels this

Rachel:

way, or I'm noticing that right now, this relationship didn't work out,

Rachel:

and I'm still all these other things.

Rachel:

This person did find attractive you also look at what makes your life meaningful

Rachel:

and you look at valued behaviors.

Rachel:

So not Family values or religious values, but I really value being kind

Rachel:

or I really value having integrity.

Rachel:

I really value living in a adventurous lifestyle so that as you go along, you're

Rachel:

looking through the lens of life towards honesty or integrity or adventure.

Rachel:

So when choices come up for you, you can say, here's a challenging situation.

Rachel:

How will I address this in the most honest way that I can?

Rachel:

And sometimes it's can I be honest with myself?

Rachel:

And that's the challenge.

Rachel:

That's the direction you're moving in.

Rachel:

Sometimes it's, I'm going to be honest with this individual or I'm going to

Rachel:

sit back and see it in an honest manner.

Rachel:

Now that grew into an organizational development model called Pro

Rachel:

Social and Pro Social is based off of Ellen Ohlstrom's work.

Rachel:

She got a Pulitzer Prize in economics, and she looked at how do

Rachel:

groups protect or use the commons?

Rachel:

Common grazing areas, common water rights and what are the stages that

Rachel:

the group has to go through or what are the rules that the group has to have

Rachel:

or qualities and it's multiple groups.

Rachel:

So she studied an area where people were using general

Rachel:

lands for grazing and saw, wow.

Rachel:

They really can do this well, and she discovered eight principles and then David

Rachel:

Wilson, who's an evolutionary biologist, worked with her to make those principles

Rachel:

a little bit more understandable and generalize able, can't say that word and

Rachel:

I'll tell you what those principles are.

Rachel:

And then Paul Atkins said those are great, but now we have to actually

Rachel:

put behavioral rules in place.

Rachel:

Components so people could actually do them and learn how to do them.

Rachel:

And that is The realm that we work in.

Rachel:

So they're very basic and simple, right?

Rachel:

i'm not denigrating anybody's hard work, but this is us as humans

Rachel:

Sometimes it's right there in front of us, but it's really hard to do.

Rachel:

So groups need shared purpose and identity and really have real conversations

Rachel:

about what is it that we have in common and that we're doing together.

Rachel:

And how do we hold to that so that we don't start to splinter off and come back

Rachel:

to have fast and fair conflict resolution.

Rachel:

To be able to have equitable benefits so that everybody in the group feels

Rachel:

that there's fairness across who puts the efforts in and and even if somebody

Rachel:

puts more effort in and someone puts less efforts in, as long as the benefits

Rachel:

that they receive are equal, that's okay.

Rachel:

There's an agreement on help, what are helpful behaviors.

Rachel:

for the group and what are unhelpful behaviors.

Rachel:

Both are recognized.

Rachel:

So helpful behaviors are not just praised, but they're models

Rachel:

and mentored and unhelpful behaviors aren't just sanctioned.

Rachel:

You have a discussion about it and talk about why did that happen?

Rachel:

So you just don't get thrown out of the group.

Rachel:

You say, hey, what was going on for you and try to help somebody

Rachel:

begin to have helpful behaviors.

Rachel:

But also we all know hey, that's not a great behavior for the group.

Rachel:

And then there's also the ability for you to feel like you're a tight component of a

Rachel:

group so that you can interact with other groups well and you know how to do that,

Rachel:

the ability so that you can self govern.

Rachel:

And then the other one that's really important that and I would love

Rachel:

to hear what your perspective is on this and the team's works that

Rachel:

you do, but it's about transparency and being able to be transparent so

Rachel:

that we can see What is happening?

Rachel:

Why is it happening?

Rachel:

And they call it monitoring of behaviors and actions.

Rachel:

But really, it's about transparency and not monitoring like a negative way.

Rachel:

But transparency so that we can understand.

Rachel:

Also how do we really understand clear decision making?

Rachel:

Groups have really believed consensus Is the way or consent is the way and

Rachel:

sometimes not everybody wants that.

Rachel:

Not all human people like that.

Rachel:

Sometimes people like somebody makes a decision for me and I get to do it.

Rachel:

And so this is where that complexity lies right of do we like decisions made

Rachel:

and who wants to be a part of it and who wants to understand why it's made.

Rachel:

How do you get your voice in there?

Rachel:

So having those eight elements being really clearly defined and talked about

Rachel:

is, as I said, sometimes they seem very simple, but they're very hard to do.

Rachel:

And when you have a group that's been established for a long time

Rachel:

then it has to do, how do you bring people into that culture?

Rachel:

And with what they're bringing into the culture.

Rachel:

And this is where that complexity that started our conversation happens, right?

Rachel:

If generations are changing, how do we bring their needs and wants and

Rachel:

viewpoints into a team, into the culture, so that it feels like a good

Rachel:

fit or that they're being seen or heard?

Rachel:

Their needs are met that it's an adaptable organization, but a lot

Rachel:

about willingness and about acceptance.

Rachel:

Not like I accept it and take it, but I know that I need that.

Rachel:

I'm going to have some discomfort here as well as comfort.

Rachel:

And sometimes you just have to ride that out.

Rob:

Yeah.

Rob:

That's quite a similar.

Rob:

basis to my model which is basically that relationships have a purpose.

Rob:

And the purpose that they have defines the context of the relationship.

Rob:

It's getting to that core of it.

Rob:

For me, the core of it is people are naturally bad at conflict.

Rob:

They're naturally afraid, naturally stresses them.

Rob:

If you can change the context so that they can cope with the conflict,

Rob:

then that develops the relationship because normally relationships lose

Rob:

connection at the point of conflict.

Rob:

That's where they splinter their purpose.

Rob:

It's about being able to share a purpose is about a higher level

Rob:

of communication, which depends on an honesty and a transparency.

Rob:

When you don't have the transparency, it's normally because someone has a

Rob:

separate agenda who doesn't want to share their purpose transparently.

Rob:

When you don't share transparently, what we don't know creates rumors

Rob:

and gossip and that's where you get division and in the same way,

Rob:

having clear decision making.

Rob:

I don't think people necessarily need the decision to go their

Rob:

way, but they need to feel that there was a logic and a fairness.

Rob:

I find fairness really interesting because it's probably one of

Rob:

the deepest human assumptions.

Rob:

It's where so much conflict comes from because people feel something

Rob:

isn't fair and yet life isn't fair.

Rob:

You only have to look at life.

Rob:

Some child is born now in Africa in poverty, maybe with AIDS in

Rob:

some conditions that they're going to really struggle for life.

Rob:

Someone else is born with a silver spoon in the perfect environment.

Rob:

So nothing in life in nature is fair.

Rob:

And I often ask where does that belief in fairness come from?

Rob:

I

Rachel:

think it's a great question.

Rachel:

I do.

Rachel:

I think it's a great question.

Rachel:

I, sometimes wonder if it comes from a biological drive as a species to,

Rachel:

to want to be comfortable, to want to write the situation that they're in.

Rachel:

But I very much have an ecological framework the way that I view life.

Rachel:

I seem to always go back to what's the purpose?

Rachel:

As a species and as an animal.

Rachel:

Oh, that's not fair.

Rachel:

I didn't get that.

Rachel:

If I had that, then I'd survive more or I'd feel more comfortable.

Rachel:

In compaction focused therapy, they talk about three different zones.

Rachel:

There's the soothe zone, the drive zone, and then the threat zone.

Rachel:

And we're really always wanting to be in the soothe zone.

Rachel:

But most of the time we're bouncing back and forth between

Rachel:

the threat zone and the drive zone.

Rachel:

The drive zone is when we're functioning really well, like

Rachel:

we're just living and doing things.

Rachel:

I guess I always resort to that's not fair is I didn't get that and if I had

Rachel:

that would make me feel better and I'd survive more or I'd feel more soothed.

Rachel:

But you're absolutely correct.

Rachel:

It is always about fairness.

Rachel:

I'm curious.

Rachel:

I want to go with you mind going back to talking about the context.

Rachel:

You had said that if you can change the context, is it of the relationship

Rachel:

or of the conflict that so could you talk about that component?

Rachel:

Because I'm very

Rob:

At the core of relationships is conflict.

Rob:

They break down when we're not speaking.

Rob:

And I think is biologically or at least socially evolved in us

Rob:

that difference equals danger.

Rob:

Because if you look back like evolution takes 200, 000 years to change anything.

Rob:

So back then different meant a different tribe or it meant a different species.

Rob:

Both were life threatening.

Rob:

So I think when we have a difference over what strategy we're going to

Rob:

use or what our priorities are in the next quarter, the biology that's

Rob:

linked with that is the same as there's a tribe coming to invade us.

Rob:

There's a saber toothed tiger that's coming in.

Rob:

So immediately in our makeup of the brain.

Rob:

It's conflict.

Rob:

And that conflict is life or death but conflict now isn't life or death,

Rob:

conflict is just a misunderstanding, it's working on different assumptions

Rob:

that we're unconscious of, really.

Rob:

We've talked about the cultural context of huge problems in

Rob:

nations, huge problems in society.

Rob:

And within all that people are every day going to work and trying to make their

Rob:

organizations function as effectively and to do the best that they can.

Rob:

And that's your work isn't it, helping people work within organizations.

Rob:

So can you give us a an insight into what you actually do?

Rachel:

Sure.

Rachel:

From the bigger picture, I work on culture because I do believe that if

Rachel:

we have a culture that people feel comfortable in, that individuals

Rachel:

thrive and the mission thrives.

Rachel:

I mostly work with mission driven organizations.

Rachel:

That could be nonprofit organizations businesses that are mission driven,

Rachel:

not necessarily financially driven, but more mission driven and then

Rachel:

government agencies, whether that's state, local, or federal agencies.

Rachel:

And I work on three different levels cause this is how I see culture.

Rachel:

Culture is comprised of the individuals that are in there.

Rachel:

So I do coaching with individuals and to me, we have this term leadership, but I

Rachel:

really call it peopleship because anyone in an organization can be a leader.

Rachel:

I don't see it just as a title.

Rachel:

So peopleship, then there's the team that's, that you're working with in

Rachel:

larger places, we have multiple teams.

Rachel:

But so I do work with teams to help them communicate better to help them

Rachel:

be effective in what they're doing.

Rachel:

Sometimes that's a strategy element.

Rachel:

Sometimes it's communication.

Rachel:

Sometimes it's learning about each other so that they can function well.

Rachel:

And then there's the larger organization, which in nonprofits is made up of a

Rachel:

staff and a board, and I consider the staff and the board, the organization,

Rachel:

and so like to work with both of them at the same time to create this culture.

Rachel:

Often I see groups that will do the board will determine the

Rachel:

culture and do strategic planning.

Rachel:

And then there's the staff that just doesn't fit in with that.

Rachel:

So I really want to work with the whole entire group.

Rachel:

So with the individuals, I have individual programming where I do executive

Rachel:

coaching and leadership development.

Rachel:

I run a course called the engaged leader series.

Rachel:

Then I have teamwork where I do a program called engaged communication

Rachel:

called epic teams, which is basically building engaged teams that are based

Rachel:

on their engagement level purpose.

Rachel:

What's their impact?

Rachel:

And then how do they communicate that back to each other?

Rachel:

And now to the larger group in larger organizations, I do staff

Rachel:

and board retreats, strategic planning, things of that nature.

Rachel:

And I do a lot of coalition work, which is multiple players from

Rachel:

different organization types whether it's nonprofits, community groups.

Rachel:

agencies, federal, state, or local agencies, and they're coming together

Rachel:

around an issue, whether it is.

Rachel:

I've done a lot of work with migratory songbird coalitions in the past few

Rachel:

years, to substance use coalitions local land trust coalitions where

Rachel:

they're trying to save public lands food coalitions where they're looking

Rachel:

at farm to table or local agriculture.

Rachel:

Those are more straight facilitation that I bring in design of the process so that

Rachel:

kind of going back to what you and I've been talking about so that relationships,

Rachel:

which I agree are primary, we're building good relationships and that's what

Rachel:

that engagement component is to me that word of, can we engage with each other?

Rachel:

Can we make a commitment to each other to let us take that moment

Rachel:

to get to really know each other?

Rachel:

And to build trust, to build understanding with each other, and that for them

Rachel:

from there, we do the discussions that they want, but I'm always basing it

Rachel:

on everything that we've been talking about, relationship building, safety,

Rachel:

understanding, the mitigation component, how can we learn to make decisions.

Rachel:

Do you ever use the gradients of agreement, Rob?

Rachel:

It's called the gradients of agreement.

Rachel:

It's a neat tool that I use a lot with coalitions in particular.

Rachel:

Where basically you learn that you don't have to 100 percent

Rachel:

fully agree with something.

Rachel:

You can have small gradients agreements to the point where no, I just can't

Rachel:

work with you like to a veto, but it's on a scale of zero to 10.

Rachel:

That is what I do.

Rachel:

And I do think at the heart of it all, it is that what we've been talking

Rachel:

about, can we shift to a new way of being where we can see that we are

Rachel:

one and we need, we are different and have diversity and yet can benefit

Rachel:

from learning how to have diversity.

Rachel:

relationships where conflict is not seen as a negative or something to

Rachel:

be afraid of, but as a growth point and to learn from, and that we can

Rachel:

still be friends after conflict.

Rob:

So what I see in larger organizations, it's about

Rob:

facilitation and conversation.

Rob:

and getting people talking so that they can find points of agreement

Rob:

and gradients of agreement so they can move forward to make a decision.

Rob:

Okay.

Rob:

So there was something I got sidetracked and, but I wanted to

Rob:

bring up because you talked about it.

Rob:

And I think it's relevant to that talking about the larger organizations.

Rob:

Is you talked about the commons.

Rob:

I think it was.

Rob:

When you were talking about the eight laws from pro social facilitation.

Rob:

I often come back to the tragedy of the commons.

Rob:

Are you familiar with the tragedy of the commons?

Rob:

A hundred percent.

Rob:

Often what we're dealing with is the problem of human frailty is that

Rob:

People won't live up to what they say.

Rob:

People will be selfish.

Rob:

People will look out for their own interests.

Rob:

And where everything breaks down is where people don't keep their word,

Rob:

where people aren't transparent, they aren't honest because they

Rob:

think they're going to gain more.

Rob:

And I guess that's the premise of the pro social facilitation is you can gain more.

Rob:

Like I always think, how ridiculously expensive war is.

Rachel:

Yeah I believe that, you definitely picked up on what pro social

Rachel:

is the basis of it is, which is what David Sloan Wilson in his evolutionary,

Rachel:

perspective he's a professor at SUNY Binghamton, and that is his specialty.

Rachel:

What he studies is, and has proven, is that altruistic groups can

Rachel:

have selfish individuals in it.

Rachel:

And still be okay.

Rachel:

But a selfish individual cannot really rule a bunch of altruistic people,

Rachel:

it just doesn't happen because of who they are, their narcissism, their need.

Rachel:

Pro social also is very much based on self determination theory,

Rachel:

which is People want to belong.

Rachel:

They want to feel competent and they want to be valued.

Rachel:

They want to be valued and seen right there.

Rachel:

There's these three components and teams or leaders can

Rachel:

Really take advantage of that.

Rachel:

I think this is that component of pro social facilitation where acceptance

Rachel:

and commitment training comes in to play because and it's why I say I work with the

Rachel:

individual, the team and the organization, because we have to teach people, both.

Rachel:

Something that goes against the way that we're raised goes against the

Rachel:

way that our human mind is built.

Rachel:

And you talked about that, right?

Rachel:

You talked about that part of us that is always trying to

Rachel:

survive and feels threatened.

Rachel:

So we go through a training process where we help people begin to go against the

Rachel:

negativity bias and start to say yes, I can see that negative thing happened.

Rachel:

And can I also see the 80 percent of the good that's going on?

Rachel:

Or can I see the other components?

Rachel:

How we do this in organizations is to begin to slow down and to break down.

Rachel:

Really, it's a cultural shift in organizations where the

Rachel:

person is at work, right?

Rachel:

It used to be there's the work and then there's your personal life.

Rachel:

We bring ourselves to work and this is what Brene Brown talks about.

Rachel:

This is what, Sheryl Sandberg talks about leaning in.

Rachel:

We can go on and on of lots of different people who've started

Rachel:

to say We bring our whole selves.

Rachel:

Patrick Lencioni talks about it in the Five Behaviors of a Dysfunctional Team.

Rachel:

So what pro social does and in this process is we first start

Rachel:

with the individual to say can you begin to start noticing?

Rachel:

And then can we begin to speak up to step in and I talk a lot about intention.

Rachel:

People don't see your intentions, they see your behaviors and

Rachel:

intention is I'm going to be scared.

Rachel:

I'm going to be a little vulnerable.

Rachel:

I talk about a different kind of vulnerability than Brene Brown does.

Rachel:

I talk about vulnerability within.

Rachel:

You're going to be vulnerable to yourself and you're going to try to push

Rachel:

yourself and feel that uncomfortableness.

Rachel:

If I say in this meeting, my idea, or that right now, this isn't

Rachel:

feeling incredibly comfortable in here is why I'm exposing myself.

Rachel:

I'm doing that.

Rachel:

Potentially setting up a conflict, but I'm also building a relationship.

Rachel:

I'm letting people know who I am.

Rachel:

And if we don't do that, then we do get these individuals say,

Rachel:

like they don't necessarily always have the best relational skills.

Rachel:

And I think this is a little bit why organizations blow up

Rachel:

because we need this balance.

Rachel:

We need someone who knows how to do that.

Rachel:

And that's why I talk about peopleship and not leadership because it's

Rachel:

every single one of us in the group.

Rachel:

I just worked with a group going on for 35 years, and they have had a lot

Rachel:

of transition in the past four years.

Rachel:

The only way I basically said that you're gonna get through this, is for

Rachel:

each and every one of you to step up and to step out in intention to say,

Rachel:

this is how I'm going to help you.

Rachel:

This is how we are going to do this together.

Rachel:

This is the culture that I want.

Rachel:

And that's the culture they named what they want.

Rachel:

And it is a culture of relationship and support and what it looks like.

Rob:

A lot of the times, the problem of societies is that we have a

Rob:

minority and it's a small minority.

Rob:

So when you look at, there's certain people that, just aren't capable of

Rob:

being pro social, just aren't capable of being healthy members of society.

Rob:

When you look at 1 percent of the population are psychopaths,

Rob:

2 percent are sociopathic, and 4 7 percent are narcissistic.

Rob:

And these are people that are broken and unable to maintain

Rob:

and sustain relationships.

Rob:

We've had a history where those people have over indexed.

Rob:

When you look at when we've been a conquering society, we wanted

Rob:

Psychopaths, we wanted, those people that were so driven for glory, that so

Rob:

driven for attention and needing to be adulated, they have been, they've over

Rob:

indexed in leadership, in politics.

Rob:

So we have a culture that's been damaged because of that.

Rob:

Often the problem Of working in groups is that we have good people, but they

Rob:

don't know how to navigate around that because good people treat everyone.

Rob:

Bad people treat people badly and so there's an unfairness

Rob:

in the way that they work.

Rob:

A lot of organizations and a lot of things that we put in place don't work when

Rob:

they meet that, because the, those people won't be transparent because they don't

Rob:

want everyone to see the machinations that are going on underneath the surface.

Rob:

And so I think what you're doing is teaching people how to

Rob:

navigate Around those people.

Rob:

So those people aren't the ones dictating because often the unfairness of the

Rob:

group means that those people get to dictate and they know how to manipulate.

Rob:

A lot of the problems currently in that we can't have an honest conversation because

Rob:

you'll get cancelled and that way silences people from having that conversation.

Rob:

What we need in organizations and in society is to have that conversation.

Rob:

So yeah that's my read on what you're doing.

Rachel:

Oh, Rob, I really love how you say and it's true that these

Rachel:

individuals who don't necessarily follow the social norms or have good

Rachel:

in their well that have the social skills that the rest of us see as good.

Rachel:

They don't.

Rachel:

I agree with you.

Rachel:

And it's interesting because it's like they don't see the bounds.

Rachel:

They see ways around things.

Rachel:

They don't even see the normal rules of what Feels right or wrong.

Rachel:

And it's very true.

Rachel:

That people who feel sensitivity to others.

Rachel:

Don't want to be seen also as rude by putting that person in their

Rachel:

quote unquote place and most likely it's because that person is very

Rachel:

unmanageable in the conversation.

Rachel:

They will go in lots of different ways that feels harsh, that feels painful,

Rachel:

and really, it is a challenging thing and that's why, I don't know if you get this,

Rachel:

there's always the request Of how do I deal with difficult conversations or how

Rachel:

do we, how do you pull someone in that's unruly or that won't, that keeps going.

Rachel:

I get that request as a facilitator often.

Rob:

It also comes in like the Dunning Kruger principle and imposter

Rob:

syndrome where people the people who know the least will shout the most.

Rachel:

I think also Rob, that has to do with what we were,

Rachel:

started this conversation.

Rachel:

About I think where my mind has been really digesting into the

Rachel:

different levels of culture.

Rob:

I think people in organizations feel like that, they've had

Rob:

leader after leader and broken promise after broken promise.

Rob:

And that is the context in which we're operating in.

Rob:

I think in organizations that we see it in how resistant people are to new changes.

Rob:

There's constantly some new change.

Rob:

And people are like, Oh, I've heard it all before and I don't want to change.

Rob:

And so that's the context that all that leaders are operating within.

Rob:

So I'm interested in how do you help leaders navigate into that?

Rob:

Is it for new leaders or is it existing leaders?

Rachel:

It is for new leaders, existing leaders.

Rachel:

People that want to become a leader many of the people take it who are the way that

Rachel:

I define leader is that you're out there helping to organize a group of people.

Rachel:

So sometimes there's individuals who are running a program that are going

Rachel:

out into the community speaking.

Rachel:

So anyone who's taking action on something.

Rachel:

working to gather people to have an impact and to move.

Rachel:

The majority of people that take it, I noticed were people that are in middle

Rachel:

management that are not necessarily the executive director or the top

Rachel:

leader, but I do have, seems like there's always two or three in a cohort.

Rachel:

I try to keep the cohorts small and run them often so that we really can

Rachel:

have good intimate conversations.

Rachel:

I do a lot of skill building.

Rob:

What are the skills that you focus mostly?

Rachel:

The skills that we focus on are really about how to have conversations

Rachel:

that are meaningful and that are deep or that deal with the Conflictual

Rachel:

area that you're talking about.

Rachel:

I use a lot of Adam Grant's work and Adam Grant talks about

Rachel:

different kinds of conflict and there's task conflict, relationship

Rachel:

conflicts and values conflicts.

Rachel:

We learn how to bring the conversations at work away from a relationship

Rachel:

conflict to a task conflict, so that people, instead of saying, you did this

Rachel:

to me, or you did not do X, Y, and Z.

Rachel:

It's more about, we're looking to get this product or this Message out

Rachel:

and I noticed that we're having some challenges meeting those deadlines.

Rachel:

Let's sit down and talk about what do we need to do in our team or in

Rachel:

our organization to make sure we have everything set up to move that forward.

Rachel:

Rather than you're not meeting your deadline, what's happening with you.

Rachel:

You're taking too much time off.

Rachel:

And really bringing it up to this higher level of kind of what

Rachel:

you talked about that context.

Rachel:

How can we look at the context and say, Hey, what's happening here?

Rachel:

And a lot of that is really training on how do we have these conversations?

Rachel:

How do we look at as an individual every day?

Rachel:

We have our emotion, we have our logic, and how can we put those

Rachel:

together to use the wise mind?

Rachel:

Where I can balance my emotional response of, Oh my God, if we don't get that done,

Rachel:

the board is going to come down on me.

Rachel:

Or if we don't get that done, we're not going to get this money.

Rachel:

And if we don't get that done, then here are all the other problems.

Rachel:

That's the emotion that can come up or the frustration.

Rachel:

Why does this person always have to blah, blah, blah.

Rachel:

So can I notice that emotion and why I'm getting that emotion?

Rachel:

What's the value?

Rachel:

What was it?

Rachel:

What's the meaning?

Rachel:

What is not happening that I feel needs to happen?

Rachel:

And what's that reflection on me if it doesn't happen or that team?

Rachel:

And then the logic component, which is often we say you just have

Rachel:

to do it this way, which doesn't give that person agency right?

Rachel:

We want to mentor individuals to grow.

Rachel:

It doesn't give that person agency to grow.

Rachel:

So can we put those two together and speak from the wise mind, which is about putting

Rachel:

in the values of here's the importance.

Rachel:

Can I hear from you?

Rachel:

What's happening?

Rachel:

Can we look at the context and fix the context?

Rachel:

Because sometimes the person needs training or more support or the

Rachel:

freedom to say I needed help.

Rachel:

So we learn skills like that.

Rachel:

In this and talk about as a group, some of the challenges and scenarios that come up.

Rachel:

And so every week we focus on something different, whether it's first

Rachel:

identifying what kind of leader are you?

Rachel:

What comes up for you that has given you in your life strength to be this

Rachel:

individual or what barriers have come up?

Rachel:

What are your values like?

Rachel:

How do you want to behaviorally lead?

Rachel:

What do you want to lead with?

Rachel:

And values are always shifting and changing.

Rachel:

And so we I talk about that and teach people how we play with those.

Rachel:

We look at the role of emotional intelligence, the role of mindset, and

Rachel:

how mindset is very important for you internally to set that with your group.

Rachel:

We look at the art of mentoring, and what is mentoring nowadays.

Rachel:

How can you be a mentor?

Rachel:

And we also create a map of your engaged leader style.

Rachel:

And you start with what's your driving purpose in the center?

Rachel:

And then begin to look at a variety of different components.

Rachel:

What is your best self?

Rachel:

We all have our yin yang, our light dark, and what is our dark side telling

Rachel:

us what's our light side telling us?

Rachel:

So really creating a whole person perspective as a leader with the goal

Rachel:

of also creating a culture that reflects the organization that you're in.

Rachel:

It's interesting when I ask people why do you want to take this?

Rachel:

I like to learn how to start non judgmental conversations.

Rachel:

I want to gain confidence in my communication skills to guide my team.

Rachel:

This one is interesting.

Rachel:

I want to learn how to be comfortable with taking credit for what I

Rachel:

do or say and that one, I think, speaks to what you're talking.

Rachel:

You mentioned before the imposter syndrome.

Rob:

There's so many people that are underselling themselves.

Rachel:

Yes.

Rachel:

So there's people that are coming and saying, I want to learn how to navigate

Rachel:

communication and relationships.

Rachel:

They want to be on a team, like a Ted lasso team.

Rachel:

I love Ted Lasso as a person that works on teams and training.

Rachel:

There's just so many components of that that are really helpful to seeing models

Rachel:

of how people can learn to get through difficulty and stay together with a

Rachel:

shared purpose and shared identity.

Rachel:

They have it easy.

Rachel:

Football is life, so they have a lot of confines that help build teams, right?

Rachel:

They have a uniform.

Rachel:

They have a game that they get to play.

Rachel:

They each know their roles clearly.

Rachel:

They have a communication.

Rachel:

It's just interesting.

Rachel:

I think sports teams sometimes can have an easier time than our organizational teams.

Rob:

It's interesting because have a football group.

Rob:

Thomas is working in Saudi Arabia now, so he hasn't been

Rob:

able to join us for a while.

Rob:

But Thomas and Tony were football coaches.

Rob:

So they've grown up footballers and then football coaches.

Rob:

But it's interesting that they're, Talking about the same things.

Rob:

I know soccer isn't huge in the States, but the best manager Pep Guardiola he

Rob:

said it like it's 90 percent of his work is relationships is the human element.

Rob:

And it's still the same same issue.

Rob:

I haven't seen a lot of Ted Lasso.

Rob:

I've watched a couple of episodes.

Rob:

Yeah lot of people have spoken about The lessons and it's basically he's

Rob:

a nice person and he bumbles along, but then he makes it work what

Rachel:

he does.

Rachel:

And I've thought about this a lot, especially, when we go into teams, there's

Rachel:

so many different kinds of formations and different ways to pull a team together.

Rachel:

I think this is what I've thought about with sports teams.

Rachel:

So they have the skill.

Rachel:

They know what their roles are.

Rachel:

They know have clear rules.

Rachel:

They have their shared purpose on what he does is he rallies them around

Rachel:

the idea of believing in themselves, believing that they can do it.

Rachel:

And that is another way to organize and create a shared purpose.

Rachel:

Our shared purpose is to believe in ourselves and to believe that we can

Rachel:

be a winning team, which is different than if you're working for a group

Rachel:

that is working for climate change or migratory bird coalitions, or,

Rachel:

substance use prevention or domestic violence, or a bit, I mostly work in.

Rachel:

I call it healthy people, healthy planets, because, I work in those realms.

Rachel:

And that's different because you're usually fighting towards

Rachel:

something to fix something.

Rachel:

And no one focuses the way that he did on the believe.

Rachel:

And when they start to believe in themselves and believe in

Rachel:

each other, they are successful.

Rachel:

And he is a master at Being humble.

Rachel:

I don't know if you ever watched it is it's called The Last

Rachel:

Dance and it's Michael Jordan.

Rob:

Yeah.

Rob:

I haven't seen it.

Rachel:

There are parts of it and components of it that Phil Jackson,

Rachel:

the coach, I think I got his name correctly when he became coach, what

Rachel:

he started to do with the team and how he started building the relationships.

Rachel:

He's actually from Montana, which I didn't know.

Rachel:

There's a part where he talks about learning from the Native Americans in the

Rachel:

influence that he had from them helped him think about how to build this team.

Rachel:

Of course, Michael Jordan is a huge influence on what he did.

Rob:

Now I'm just going to give you another my, like

Rob:

my poster boy for a unifier.

Rob:

My soccer team is Liverpool.

Rob:

And they were like the best when I was growing up.

Rob:

And then we've had 30 years of being a poor team.

Rob:

Being an also ran.

Rob:

Not having the money, not having the big players and all of that kind of thing.

Rob:

And this coach came in nine years ago.

Rob:

He's just left last season.

Rob:

And Jurgen Klopp.

Rob:

And he came in and he said, my job is to turn you from doubters to believers.

Rob:

Basically what he did and there was the humility because there was another

Rob:

coach that he'd won the European cup and he came into this team and he

Rob:

said, in his first press conference, he said, I am not one out of any.

Rob:

I am the special one.

Rob:

And he did well and then, but he only lasted like two or three years at every

Rob:

club and every club he's been sacked at.

Rob:

He creates such animosity and he leaves them like in a state of disarray.

Rob:

Whereas Jurgen Klopp came in and his first thing, he said, I am the normal one.

Rob:

I am not the special one.

Rob:

I am just one.

Rob:

He said, it doesn't matter what you say about me now is what

Rob:

you say about me when I leave.

Rob:

The players didn't believe, the players didn't think they were good enough to play

Rob:

for the reputation that Liverpool had.

Rob:

They didn't have confidence in themselves.

Rob:

He came in and they thought, Oh, this is it.

Rob:

We're going to get rid of us and find better players.

Rob:

He said no, I want you.

Rob:

And he built the players.

Rob:

He made the players better.

Rob:

And he made everyone in the back room work together.

Rob:

One of the things that led to their success was in their transfers

Rob:

in bringing in new players.

Rob:

The previous manager was like I bring in who I want and they were fighting and they

Rob:

were bringing in halfway people that waste their money, whereas they now brought

Rob:

in the best players, they made them better and he brought the fans together.

Rob:

So they all came as one.

Rob:

And that's what turned them in.

Rob:

Okay.

Rob:

So for someone who's looking being a leader what would they be like?

Rob:

What would they expect?

Rob:

And how might they find out more about your course?

Rachel:

Like I said as far as an individual who wants to be a part of

Rachel:

the engaged leader series is really someone who has willingness to go to

Rachel:

places that might be a little hard.

Rachel:

Who really wants to learn the skills, not just read about things.

Rachel:

You get paired up with another individual in the group and you

Rachel:

practice in between each meeting.

Rachel:

You're someone who wants to grow, wants to strive.

Rachel:

They can learn about and sign up by going to rachelgooen.Com and you click

Rachel:

on engaged leaders and on there, there's an application and it says apply.

Rachel:

And the only reason I have you apply is because I want to, there are questions

Rachel:

that I have so that you can make sure this is the right time for you to take this.

Rachel:

That you have the amount of time to make the commitment and also to see

Rachel:

what is it that you're looking to grow?

Rachel:

I put different cohorts together so that they can be matched appropriately.

Rachel:

And it's really, I've had people in it from Italy, like across the world.

Rachel:

And that's also a nice richness of diverse organizations, diverse places

Rachel:

that people live and it just seems to be a real growth experience for everyone.

Rachel:

Six weeks long 90 minute sessions.

Rachel:

And then you also get one on one coaching with me.

Rachel:

And in between I'm also available.

Rachel:

I've had people write to me and say, I just had this

Rachel:

interaction with a supervisee.

Rachel:

I'm not quite sure how to handle it.

Rachel:

And then I'll just, hop on a call and we'll discuss it and pull on

Rachel:

skills that we're learning in class to help you navigate that situation.

Rachel:

And so that's a nice thing too.

Rachel:

It's like for six weeks, I'm there for you.

Rob:

Once people have been through it, what typically is the result

Rob:

that they get the outcome for them?

Rachel:

Yeah, the result and the outcome.

Rachel:

They said, yeah, I have these right here.

Rachel:

Actually, they said that they learned how to be more resilient.

Rachel:

They learned how to build a work atmosphere that's based on trust.

Rachel:

They learned how to give really good feedback and develop growth mindsets

Rachel:

in their team, how to avoid burnout.

Rachel:

They have learned how just a lot about themselves as a

Rachel:

leader and their work style.

Rachel:

To

Rob:

be more confident.

Rachel:

Yeah, they learned confidence, they learned how to, as I said before, how

Rachel:

to really raise the level of conversation so that it was more about tasks.

Rachel:

And not like a person to person negative conversation and

Rachel:

that really helped Transform.

Rachel:

Okay team was working.

Rob:

It sounds great.

Rob:

Okay, so i'll put the links in for that but thank you for this.

Rachel:

Thank you rob.

Rachel:

It's so wonderful.