Summary

Niki and Natalie discuss the concept of compassionate workplaces, emphasizing the importance of treating employees as whole individuals and fostering a culture of mutual respect. They explore the differences between niceness and compassion in professional settings, highlighting the need for honest feedback, self-awareness, and recognition of each person’s impact on others to create a more positive work environment.

Transcript

Natalie: 

Welcome to the A Better Paradigm podcast, where we inspire individuals from all walks of business to create a better workplace. I’m Natalie Lorenzo and I’m joined by Nicki Fielding, the founder of A Better Paradigm. 

Niki: 

Hey Natalie, I’m glad we’re talking today about hostile workplaces and how we can heal them. I think the blog post that we did very recently on this was well received. But before we talk about that, I actually wanted to thank you again for everything that you’ve done and are doing to make A Better Paradigm successful and really bring it to life. I’m still amazed at what you did in such a short period of time. So before we dig into everything, I just wanted to thank you for that. 

Natalie: 

Well. It’s a group effort, Niki. It’s definitely been concocted out of your years and your experience in the workplace and how you’ve used all those experiences to create a really wonderful workplace for me and all the other people that we work with. S,o thank you for that. 

Niki: 

It’s a thank you party here! All right, well, let’s talk about workplaces that aren’t so enjoyable. That’s the reason that we’ve created A Better Paradigm. It’s to help people see what constitutes a hostile or toxic workplace, and if they find themselves in one, what can they do? But as we start to move into that conversation, when you hear the expression, hostile workplace, what comes to mind for you? 

Natalie: 

OK, I’ve worked in a few myself. And for me, what it meant was not being recognized as a human being. 

Niki: 

Hmm. Yeah. 

Natalie: 

It’s where people are treated as an end goal. When they were treated like that, they gave you a really bad attitude and even worse output and outcomes. So, some hostile workplaces, I’ve noticed, are just giving this cookie-cutter treatment to everyone and they aren’t recognizing that people work differently like. 

For example, it’s been stated in different like sleep studies and different books, specifically thinking of Matthew Walker’s book, Why We Sleep, people run on different circadian rhythms. Everyone’s a little bit different and people are different at different points of their lives. So some people I know work better between 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM. I know somebody who works from midnight to 2 and that’s their bread and butter. They work really well at that time. 

Niki: 

Yeah. 

Natalie: 

And the fact that some workplaces just don’t allow flexible hours or or don’t allow people to move around their schedules for something like that just decreases the amount of output that they get. The company is not homing in on the optimal working hours and time that they can really, truly put in for the company. So. I feel like this initiative and other initiatives like the Compassionate Workplace movement, is helping us to recognize that people are not the same, and they need to be treated equally yet differently. 

Niki: 

Yeah. And as we’re talking about that, one of the things that keeps coming back to me as I listen to what you’re saying is that business was, for a very long time, even in professional office spaces, run as if it were a factory. It was as if everything were the same, as if everything were mechanical. You know, historically workers just — I’m picturing people working in the field — they were all expected to show up at the same time, do the same work, leave at the same time. And I think we’ve just carried a lot of that into the modern world of work. I don’t think that as a species we’ve stopped to think how much has changed and how work needs to change, too.  

One of the things I wanted to talk with you about today is how we talk about hostile workplaces. We know from doing our research that “hostile workplaces” is the most searched phrase around what we’re trying to help eliminate. I actually like the term “toxic workplaces” better because whenever I hear the term “hostile workplace,” I think of physical aggression. I feel hostile is an overt aggression while toxic makes me think of poisoning something. It can happen when you’re not even fully aware of it, before you start to realize the symptoms. We know that so many people are suffering in the workplace. They have mental health challenges emanating from the top. How do you feel about the word exchange? They’re toxic versus hostile. And I’m just curious that is it just a “me” thing? How do you feel about the words? 

Natalie: 

Niki, that’s an excellent point. Toxic widens it a little broader to cover not only the hostile part of it, but if you go outside the circle a little bit, toxic includes mistreatment. It would be something that you experienced in the moment and you think about it later and say to yourself, “Huh, that wasn’t very nice. What they said or that was very unfair.” It’s little things, little microaggressions. Toxic covers microaggression shown by people or different groups in the workplace. 

Niki: 

Yeah, yeah, that, that’s that. That microaggression is a really important word because they think it helps us focus on. We’re not talking about people physically beating each other up, and we’re not necessarily talking about people yelling at each other. It could just be the unfair or the unkind activities that go on that diminish people as people throughout the workday.  

Speaking of kindness, one of the things about this whole compassionate workplace movement is that we’re just tapping into it to amplify the work that others are doing. A Better Paradigm is all about amplifying what others are doing to basically eradicate workplace toxicity.  

But there’s this other thing: the difference between kindness or compassion versus niceness. Tell me what you think. 

Natalie: 

OK so. For me, I’ve been told a lot. “Oh, you’re so nice.” “Natalie’s really nice.” But the thing is, there is a huge difference between being nice and being compassionate or kind. Nice is wonderful and people should be nice to each other, but we shouldn’t do it at the sacrifice of honesty. Compassion and kindness are being aware of another person’s humanity. It makes room and solutions for the imperfections and differences between us. Oftentimes, niceness glosses over the issues and doesn’t make way for sustainable solutions. Niki, you have a really great way of explaining compassion versus empathy. Could you dive into that a little bit more? 

Niki: 

Sure, yeah. I love that we’re talking about all these words that play against each other. This movement that’s taking place. It’s a new movement and we’re collectively looking for ways to describe things, so that we don’t have to over-explain every time.  

So, to me, the difference between compassion and empathy.  

Compassion is to note that you’re in a position to recognize that something isn’t being handled properly. Something needs to be done differently, and you’re staying in your position of strength to then help make the change that’s necessary. Whereas with empathy, we talk a lot about people who are empathic. They’re sensitive and they feel things. For me, the word empathy means that you’re in the struggle with the other person, like you’re empathizing. You’re feeling all of it with them. I think it’s more important for this kind of work to not get into whatever it is and to stay outside of it so that you can be an objective solution provider. If someone were to come to me in an organization where I worked and say that they’re having a problem with a colleague. It would be empathetic to say, “Oh yeah, that I understand what you mean. That’s awful. I feel that with you.” Then maybe even start to say that person can be really difficult, and you start to be in it. Whereas if I were being compassionate, I would listen. I would make sure I really understood. And then, I would work with them from a position of objectivity and strength to help them find a way to solve the challenge. Does that make sense? 

Natalie: 

Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me because you’re keeping that line between professional and being that person’s friend. That’s just important to be able to retain that. You retain yourself because you know it is a business. It is a place of work. You have to acknowledge that work is not personal life, and work will never be that. Unless that person invites you into their personal life, you are out of it. You have to remain this impartial person.  

Niki: 

Yeah, yeah. Good. Yeah, it’s interesting. I think another thing we wanted to chat about here today is this idea of 360° respect or full-circle respect. I jokingly say, I feel like I’m in the movie Mean Girls trying to make “fetch” happen. I keep wanting to get people to latch on to the concept of when we’re talking about compassionate workplaces or respectful workplaces.  

It’s not this idea of the boss demands respect from their direct reports, or that the direct reports demand that the boss respect them. It’s about everybody needing to be respectful all the time. It’s not that hard if you create a culture where everybody is showing and receiving respect. It just helps facilitate.  I see coaches and consultants and all of these amazing programs that are starting to see come out. A lot of it comes down to helping people learn to listen better, so they’re not making assumptions. They’re using active listening skills to say, “I heard you say this to me. Let’s talk about it.” And really it comes down to communication, communication, communication — not talking at people, but talking with them.  

I would love to see 360-degree respect to catch on as a phrase or some variation of it. I have no ego in this. I really want people to understand that not only are we looking for that full-circle respect within organizations, but also the idea that this movement isn’t being driven just by leaders and it’s not just a grassroots movement. It’s everybody recognizing that the way we approach business is often very unhealthy, and we need to make changes. If we can get on the same page about what some of those changes look like, w re all going to be much better off. 

Natalie: 

If you’re interested in learning more about A Better Paradigm and what we do, find us at ABetterParadigm.com and follow us on social media. You can find us on Instagram @abetterparadigmabp and on LinkedIn at A Better Paradigm. Hope to catch you on the next one! 

Niki: 

Great. Thanks everybody.