Summary
Thirty years in education taught Jennifer Eisenreich, professional speaker and founder of Shift Show Communication, that people simply want to be seen and heard. In this candid conversation, she reveals how small interactions make lasting impressions and genuine connection creates company cultures where both hearts and minds can thrive. She reminds us that everyone carries hidden battles, and leaders who recognize this can inspire their teams to move beyond compliance to commitment.
Learn more about Jennifer Eisenreich and Shift Show Communication.
Get the free Kinder Workplace Journal for 52 weekly thought-provoking prompts to boost self-awareness and empathy in the workplace.
Transcript
Natalie:
Welcome to the A Better Paradigm Podcast, where we inspire individuals from all walks of business to create a better workplace.
How can leaders make sure they’re bringing both their head and their heart into every conversation and situation? On top of that, how can company leadership set examples and teach conscious, heart-led communication?
I’m your host, Natalie Lorenzo, and I’m joined by Jennifer Eisenreich of Shift Show Communication to answer some of these questions. Hello. Welcome, Jennifer. Thanks for coming on to the A Better Paradigm podcast. We are so happy to have you!
So, I know that you spent over 30 years in the education system, rising from teacher to principal and now you run Shift Show Communication as a leadership consultant and a professional speaker which is amazing. How did your years in education impact your path and where you are now?
Jennifer:
Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
As an administrator and a teacher in public education, you can’t help but learn about leadership and life from the people you serve. So, as I was a teacher, I learned how to listen to the kids. And they were the ones who really taught me what they needed and helped me learn that when I gave them what they needed, they were able to learn and do well.
Then, as a principal, there were many different groups of people. There were upper administrators, teachers, parents, kids’ associations… and you learn something different from each one of them. But being a principal was a job, for me, that felt very natural, and I think the reason was because when you learn how to connect with people, they understand how seen and heard they are, and they’re so much more willing to work with you.
Natalie:
Yeah, I can only imagine. I remember my school years; the teachers that impacted me were kind-hearted and willing to talk. I can only imagine what you did when you were a teacher and principal, because even your presence here today is very warm. It’s wonderful to see that there are people like you that were in education and are helping people in business now.
Jennifer:
Yeah, as as a principal, I just wanted to be a person who the kids could come to school knowing that they had someone they could lean into for a hug, if that’s what they needed or to tell me what happened the night before. They just really need someone to listen to and it’s the same with leadership no matter where or who the people are. They just want to be heard.
Natalie:
Shift Show’s mission is inspiring. On your website, you say “We teach skills leaders need to tackle any situation by using their hard to reach out and their brain to reach in.” Can you explain your approach further?
Jennifer:
Sure, sure. Well, we all lead in some aspect of our lives, even if it’s just leading by example. We rely partly on our brains, which is great because our brains do a nice job most of the time. We all have a different set of neurobiology. We all have different lived experiences, and different chemicals that are racing through our brains at different times and those affect us all differently. Our brains can second guess. Sometimes, we think we know what to do even though we’ve read about it, talked about it… we may have even done it before. But, we can get tripped up by the different things going on in our brain when we allow our hearts to speak into the conversation. Then whatever comes out of our brain will be spilled out, tempered with a little bit more wisdom with some empathy. Even if you have to have a really hard conversation, you’re still being humane and kind and talking to the soul of that person. It’s about understanding who they are and that they have a really hard battle that we probably don’t know anything about. And by doing that, you can handle even difficult conversations. I don’t know how you can do it without engaging your heart first. Although many people do.
Natalie:
Yeah. Yeah, I I think there’s this big concept going around now about responding versus reacting. Responding is more thoughtful about what you’re going to say, how you’re going to say it before it comes out. Reacting is more instantaneous – saying whatever comes to your mind. You’re not thinking about the future and just thinking about now. All people have the choice to react either to that first instinct or respond with that grounded clarity like we talked about. How can leaders make sure they’re bringing both their head and their heart as you discuss into each conversation and situation?
Jennifer:
Yeah. The space between what happens and how you respond is where your power lies.
Natalie:
Oh, I love that.
Jennifer:
We’re very conditioned to have what we refer to as a knee-jerk response when we see something and react without thinking.
If we’re irritated, we’re going to react in a way that sounds irritated. If we’re in a bad mood, then somebody else will be on the receiving end of that. Every situation is different based on who is in front of you, because, like I said before, everybody has a battle in them that they’re fighting that we probably don’t know anything about. It could be health. It could be something in their past. It could be something that they’re dealing with in their family. It’s an inner demon that they’re wrestling with that we don’t show other people. The stuff that we keep hidden away in our little junk drawer of our personality.
Everyone is different and when we’re having those conversations – perhaps we have to let someone know that they’re being transferred, or that they’re about to lose their job or be let go – we have to have those conversations respectfully. We have to base our conversation off what we know the other person needs – not based on just how we have to look or what we have to do – but what the other person needs to walk away from that conversation, feeling respected and valued as a human being. That is something that’s missing from so many workplaces. I read a study yesterday that said 37% of CEOs believe that empathy has no place in the workplace.
Natalie:
Yikes.
Jennifer:
That’s super yikes.
That’s super scary to know that there are people who feel that way, and those are the people I most need to talk to. I think it will be very difficult to convince them otherwise, because other things in business take over, and they steamroll everything else. However, if you cannot lead with empathy and allow people to be seen and heard and feel like actual humans when they’re working, you can’t accomplish the big things that you want to accomplish. Empathy has to be there in order for you to reach the biggest goals.
Natalie:
Right ’cause people are going to want to work for a leader that’s working for them. You don’t want to be working for somebody who’s just using you or you feel like you’re being used.
Jennifer:
Every boss has a different way of leading and some people lead through fear. And that will get you people will comply with what you want them to do, but they won’t be free thinking. They won’t bring you the kind of ideas that will really improve your business, and they will do the bare minimum for you.
For people who are stuck in a job with a tyrant or someone who just can’t see people empathetically, you’ll get the bare minimum from them unless you learn to treat them differently.
The other thing that is very important for leaders to think about is the absolute power of their simple interactions with other people. There is a study from the Fred Rogers Institute, and the schools where I was principal actually participated in some of the research. It’s true that the small interactions that you have with people are often the only way they know you. They don’t know you in meetings. They may know you through a website or through what people say, but they only really know you through those small interactions. So, it’s really important to make those count.
And the first thing that people are terrible at doing is just putting down their phone as they’re walking around. That cuts off those small interactions. You can’t make eye contact with someone when you’re buried in your phone, which is the very reason why many people do walk around buried in their phones, so they don’t have to make eye contact and see other people.
However, as a leader, it’s absolutely crucial for you to look your people in the eye, to see them, give them a smile with friendly eyes, and maybe ask a simple question that will stick with them. You may totally forget about it, but the conversation that you have with them may just be so important. Those are some really important things that leaders can do to make a better impact on their people.
Natalie:
What you’re saying makes me think of role models. Let’s say you meet somebody who’s your role model. You meet them once that imprints on you forever.
Jennifer:
Totally.
Natalie:
But, to that person who’s the role model, they’re meeting another person that thinks they’re their role model. The interaction may seem so small to that role model person, but it’s so big that person who got to speak with them.
Jennifer:
Absolutely. And as a leader, you may feel like “I’m so busy right now. We have so many initiatives. I have so many things to do. These people just don’t understand I don;t have time to talk.” But you make time anyway, because if you’re not interacting with people in a way that matters, you’ll deal with more difficult issues down the line that you’ll have to solve. You’ll have to solve problems, but when you know your people and you take the time to interact with them, a lot of those problems take care of themselves and dissolve. It’s an investment that is absolutely worth it.
Natalie:
Yeah, definitely. Leading us along the path here. We know that leadership has the responsibility of ensuring company culture. How can a company’s leaders set examples and teach conscious, heart-led leadership and communication in the business setting?
Jennifer:
The way that they do that is through connection, and it is by connecting with other people. So many businesses and schools have culture committees or social committees. They want to try to make people feel good at work, so they recommend things like wearing jeans on Friday or having a theme day or putting candy in the mailboxes or having cake in the break room. Those things are great, but that’s trying to backdoor the culture. Those are just things that make being at work nice.
Culture is how you regularly respond to things. As a leader, the entire leadership team and really the entire organization, the focus is connection. I want to connect with you as a person, so that I can understand you and the role you’re playing in the organization. That’s what creates culture. People get to know and trust one another. They can ask about little things going on in their lives. Those little breadcrumbs are the ones that lead you to want to interact with other people and know them better, and then to do a better job at your work.
The other things are… well, you should never stop putting candy in mailboxes and you appreciate them, and allowing jean Fridays, but that’s not what builds the culture.
Natalie:
Right, it’s deeper. It’s showing trust. It’s having fun conversations or being supportive of different people. It’s more about adjectives instead of events. The actual underlying culture is the adjectives you would use to describe a company.
Jennifer:
It’s how you treat people. You’ll always have somebody at work who completely gets under your skin. Maybe it’s the way they always leave a jam in the copier or the way they chew. Or the way they smell, they wear a really nasty fragrance or something. Or just the way they respond. You’ll always have someone who gets under your skin.
But they are still a person. They are not that thing that bothers you. When you treat people like they’re less than you or when you have a leadership culture where there’s a clique who makes fun of people or sends people away in tears after a meeting or they pick on people who they perceive to be weak, there’s no place for that anymore. That may have been the culture at one time of strong companies and businesses. That’s not how it is now. You have to see people as people and treat them that way. They all have lives. Those people who you roll your eyes at and make little comments under your breath … they absolutely see it and hear it. It becomes a cloud around them that they have to carry around, so when they come to work, they don’t feel safe. They don’t feel protected. They’re going to be more defensive and less likely to be focused on the task at hand. Seeing people for being human and seeing a little glimpse of their humanity is what it takes.
Natalie:
Right, my father, always said, “You never know what goes on behind closed doors.”
Jennifer:
Ever.
Natalie:
Ever. You can’t possibly know what somebody is going through, even if you’re in their shoes for a day, for a week, for a month. It doesn’t matter.You have not been in their shoes for their entire life.
Jennifer:
Yeah, I used to say to the teachers. That it was important for them to understand that the kid sitting in front of them may have witnessed something horrible the night before. Their parents may have fought bitterly. There may have been abused. They may not have eaten last night or this morning. When they walk in in the morning and the first thing you do is jump down their throat about something or not having their homework, that can really be hurtful.
It’s the same with people at work. You don’t know who has a parent they’re caring for or a problem in their life that they’re dealing with. Why would you want to be the person to stack onto that and make them feel worse?
Natalie:
Exactly.
Jennifer:
It doesn’t make sense.
Natalie:
And talking about education and extending further into business professionals, what do you notice about the challenges facing leadership in both these spaces? Are they having similar issues?
Jennifer:
Absolutely everything is super uncertain right now. People are worried about funding, about job security, about legislative issues that affect their workplace. There’s so much uncertainty, and leaders are worried about protecting their people. They’re worried about the future of their organizations, and it doesn’t matter if you’re in business or in education. It’s the same: it’s finding qualified people to do the work, who are willing to go the extra mile or above and beyond, because those are places people aren’t crazy about going anymore. With the simple difference that in education you’re working with actual children and in business you’re working sometimes with people who act like children, the challenges are very, very similar.
Natalie:
Yeah, it sounds like it. Switching to a little bit more of a fun note. We discussed previously that you are an avid theatre lover, and you have classical training in both singing and acting. As one theater nerd to another, I’d love to know how your theatrical training has impacted the way that you teach others?
Jennifer:
Well, one of the ways that it has been really helpful is when I first became an administrator, I wasn’t very comfortable with conflict. If there was something really big going on, I would say to myself, “OK, you are stepping into the role of a person who has to deal with an angry, abusive parent who swears a lot. You have to be strong and get your point across. If I could prepare that way, I could step in and do it. Whereas if I just had to rely on myself and not really prepare, it was more difficult.
Playing a role is important because we all have to wear different hats. The problem becomes when you are so preoccupied playing the role that you forget about the people in front of you. So, that kind of comes with a little caveat.
People like to be entertained. People like to have energy and the kind of things that you bring on stage to a performance at work.
Natalie:
Right. To the point you mentioned about having to wear different hats — that’s so, so, so true with. When you’re when you’re in theater, you might have different roles. Some ensemble members play multiple characters throughout one show. Learning how to differentiate each character from another and from yourself is it helps to further solidify your confidence in the show and in the whole project as a whole because you’re able to differentiate who you are and who they are.
As a leader, you might have to put on this confident hat, even when you’re not feeling confident. You have to be able to switch something on and make people feel comfortable even when maybe something going on in your life doesn’t make you feel comfortable.
Jennifer:
You may have to do that quickly.
Natalie:
Yes.
Jennifer:
So you may come out of the meeting where you are just so fired up about something that happened, like raving about it with your coworker, and then you get to your office and there’s somebody who needs you to be caring and kind — someone to listen. You have to switch that hat. Then, you may have to go into a classroom or have a visit with somebody that is a little bit more formal. Then, you have to put a different hat on. You have to flip very quickly, and you cannot take those things personally. You just have to wear the hat that’s needed to be worn at the moment.
Natalie:
Exactly. And then this question is one of my favorite questions to ask: what is your favorite part of your job?
Jennifer:
Gosh, the favorite part of my job right now is being on stage and performing and speaking to educators and businesses about the simple ways they can make people’s lives better. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.
I saw a speaker in my first year of teaching in Arizona. Her name was Susan Kovalik, and she was such a great speaker. I ran up to her after she came off of the stage and said you just spoke to my heart. This is what I want to do. I want to make the biggest difference possible. She said start where you are and make the biggest difference there and at some point, you’ll know when you have enough to share. So that took a long time, but yeah, now it’s time to share. I love it.
Natalie:
I’m reading a book called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love. Something that I absolutely love is that people are finding ways to be their own creative self, whether it’s speaking or singing or teaching as a creative artist. It’s wonderful to see people finding their own creative voices and living their own creative lives in the most interesting ways possible, and I feel like the way that you’ve created Shift Show Communication you’ve been able to integrate so many really beautiful parts of yourself and make the world better at the same time.
Jennifer:
Natalie, do you know why I think people are so keen to do that right now? Because they’re not being seen and heard by enough people in their lives.
So, when you find that part of yourself that most wants to be expressed and you find a way to do it, it just feeds something in you and it allows others to see that part of you. If you take the time to get to know someone you know what’s in there, you know that that they have a bent towards artistry or you know that they love to read and write or it’s somebody who has a little bit more performance in their nature. You can see that and recognize that about people. When it goes unrecognized for so long, we just feel lost and like our real selves aren’t being put out into the world. So, I 100% agree with you. It’s so important for you to express yourself creatively, whether it’s dance, writing, speaking, music, whatever you can find singing in the shower. Just finding time to be your own extra self – it will just heal your soul.
Natalie:
That’s beautiful. Thank you so, so much for sharing your insights on leadership, creativity, and communication. How can people find you and Shift Show Communication?
Jennifer:
Well, my website is www.completeshiftshow.com. Make extra sure to add the “f” in “Shift”. I would love to speak for your organization and for anyone who would like to hear more.
Natalie:
Great – thank you so much for coming on!
Jennifer:
It was a pleasure.
Natalie:
Hey, are you interested in making your workplace better, but don’t know where to start? Check out our free Kinder Workplace Journal. It offers 52 weekly thought-provoking prompts to boost self-awareness and empathy. If you’re interested in learning about a better paradigm and what we. Visit us@abetterparadigm.com and follow us on social media. Can find us on Instagram @abetterparadimABP and on LinkedIn at A Better Paradigm. Catch you next time!