Interview Transcript

Intro:

Welcome back to CCL’s podcast Lead With That, where we talk current events in pop culture to look at where leadership is happening and what’s happening with leadership.

Ren:

So, what does leadership look like when you’re 250 miles above Earth, facing an unexpected 9-month extension to your work trip? NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams didn’t plan to spend nearly a year aboard the International Space Station, but when technical failures grounded their return vehicle, they adapted, preserved, and led with resilience. This episode, we’re diving into their experience — not the spacecraft, not the mission logistics, but the astronauts themselves. How do they cope?

How do they lead, and what can we learn from their ability to stay focused, motivated, and mission-driven in the face of uncertainty? Both Wilmore and Williams demonstrated what leadership under pressure truly looks like. Rather than frustration, they chose optimism. Rather than isolation, they leaned on teamwork.

Williams put it best when she said, “We don’t feel abandoned or stuck up here” during her interview last year. They tackled scientific research, station maintenance, and the psychological demands of an extended mission with unwavering commitment. It’s truly a masterclass in adaptability, trust, and the kind of leadership that transcends gravity. So, what can we leaders learn on Earth from their experience?

Today, we’re breaking down some lessons around the high-stakes problem-solving, mental endurance, and teamwork under extreme circumstances. So, whether you’re leading in an office or orbiting the planet, Wilmore and Williams’s story proves that the best leaders are steady, and stay steady, no matter how long the mission lasts.

Welcome back, everyone. I’m Ren Washington, and as usual, I’m joined with Allison Barr. Allison, what’s the longest you’ve had to work with someone on a job, like a single person stuck on one gig?

Allison:

Single person stuck on one gig? Well, we run 5-day programs all the time, but I suppose we leave at the end of the day, so maybe that doesn’t count.

Ren:

You get to go home.

Allison:

So prior to CCL, in my past life, I was in charge of getting retail stores open from both a training perspective and an ops perspective. There was one occasion in which I had to open a very small store in a very, very small space that me and another teammate spent all hours of the night working. So, that was probably 7 am or earlier, to about 3 or 4 am, give or take. What about you?

Ren:

I don’t know. Yeah, maybe like a 12-hour stint, 7 to 7 in some of our programming, maybe on a work trip internationally, spending more time with someone. I was always able to clock out and go home. Considering that long stretch, how did you manage your space with each other? What were ways that you were able to work better together? What were some of the things that you took away from a “leading yourself and leading the situation” experience?

Allison:

Well, I think, gosh, there’s so much to say there. The root of our success was that she and I had, and still have, a very good relationship and were able to communicate transparently and effectively with one another. So, just to be clear, there were no windows. It had to be private, for some reason that I’m still unsure of. So, they didn’t want anybody looking in the window, so they barricaded everything. So, there were no windows, which you would think wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it does have an impact on you.

I think we were just able to communicate and had lots of caffeine, and we knew what we were getting into. We knew what we were getting into, which is actually something that these 2 astronauts said, too. We knew it was going to be a trek. We knew that in advance. So, I’d say that, and the communication, and us having a very solid relationship was helpful.

Ren:

Yeah. Well, I think you highlight some of those things that maybe Suni and Butch have to lean onto, or Wilmore and Williams. I’m going to call them all sorts of names, hopefully the polite names, but let’s run it back because I think it’s such a wild story.

I didn’t really pay attention until the astronauts were coming home, and then I saw a meme. Imagine you were told that you’re stuck up there, and then they were like, “Hey, actually, let’s wait a day” because the return ship was delayed for a day once it was planned. So let’s first look at who they are.

Butch and Suni, both Navy test pilots, they’d served as Navy pilots and they both were astronauts. They’ve been up multiple times. You’ve probably seen Butch on all those NASA clips. He’s one of those faces that they put on TV when they talked to the astronauts. So, they’ve both done a lot of work in planes and in space.

And, as they’re test pilots, this was Boeing’s Starliner. That was the space shuttle that they took up to the space station. That was Boeing’s first pass at taking astronauts. NASA, for the past decade, has been using this commercial flight program where they rely on private industry, or private companies, to take their astronauts up there. That’s why SpaceX has been involved, and we’ll talk a little bit around the return capsule. So, we got these Navy test pilots who are astronauts who were asked to fly the Boeing Starliner up to space for the first time ever. It’s the first manned flight for this pod.

So, they go up, and as they’re going, there’s some hydrogen leakage issues in some of the thruster engines, especially as they’re getting close to the ISS, and they were able to stop the leakage. But as they began to dock with the ISS, some of the thrusters failed. So much so, that both Butch and Suni had to re-engineer, get this stuff back online, get the computer activated, and for them to safely dock. But it’s just such a wild thing to think of. They finally can see it, and then they have these issues. It reminds me … Was it Apollo 11 or Apollo 13? Which one is a Tom Hanks movie?

Allison:

Oh, I think it’s 11, right? Oh no, I don’t know now. I’m questioning myself.

Ren:

Oh, did I ruin it?

Allison:

I think it’s 11.

Ren:

People are yelling into their microphones. They’re like, “Idiots, it’s Tom Hanks.” But anyway, so they get up there and so they’re the only 2. I think the plan was supposed to be 8 days, and they were going to fly up to the space station just to see how it went and then come home. But after the thruster issues … it was June 2024 when they flew up there. After the thruster issues, NASA and them said, “Okay, we’re going to try to figure it out.” And for 3 months, they waited for a plan. So, it was June, and then in August, NASA was like, “We’re not sending you home” and that “We’re going to bring it home unmanned. Also, we’re just going to keep you on board until the next crew arrives,” which was going to be in September.

But after more and more conversation happened, they say, “Well, you know what, what we’re going to do is …” And the crew that usually come up, they come up in groups of 4. So, the crew, instead, they dropped 2 people off of the September crew, and then they brought up those 2 other people, a cosmonaut and the other US astronaut. His name was Nick Hague. So, those 2 arrive at the space station in September, and then they all stay and work together until March, when they were finally able to go home. So, it’s a wild day. Wilmore and Williams ended up spending 286 days in space, 278 days longer than anticipated. They circled the Earth 4,576 times. They traveled 121 million miles by the time they splashed down.

And Williams and Wilmore quickly transitioned from being guests to full-fledged station crew members. In fact, Suni Williams became the station commander once they decided that she was going to be up there, and, wildly, they did 62 hours over 9 spacewalks. Williams specifically set a record for the most time spent spacewalking over a career among female astronauts. So, it’s like this super-duper wild story. They get up there and there’s a lot of things to unpack too around, “Were they stranded, were they left?” NASA and the astronauts both made a conscious decision, and probably a financial decision, that they’re just going to roll them into the squad.

But the thing that got me really thinking about this is you got an 8-day trip and it turns into a 286-day trip. And I asked you, like, “Should we talk about this?” Maybe just how they didn’t freaking kill each other. So, I think I want to dig into some of the tension that could have happened, some of the characteristics that they leaned into in themselves, some things that came out as they talked about it when they arrived home, But it’s just this wild trip with so many factors at play. So, I wonder, as you observe the story, listen to the astronauts, hear about the details, what sticks out to you about any of this?

Allison:

A lot. I think 2 things. One was just interesting to read about some of the health ramifications about being up there for such a long duration, that I thought about, but didn’t really consider deeply until I really started reading about it. Even on just a typical engagement — we can probably agree this is atypical, but — astronauts in general usually experience, or can experience, bone and muscle loss, vision impairment, shifts in brain structure — I just want that to land, a shift in your brain structure — immune dysfunction, and others. So, again, you and I are not in the medical business, but I would be really curious to just know how they’re doing. They both said they had experienced a lot of dizziness, a lot of balance obstacles as you might imagine.

But I think from more of an organizational perspective, there was a quote that stood out to me that I want to read as a direct quote from Wilmore. That quote is, “The plan went way off from what we had planned. We prepare for any number of contingencies, and you cannot do this business without trust. You just can’t. You have to have ultimate trust and for someone to step forward in these different organizations and say, ‘Hey, I’m culpable for part of that issue.'” He’s referencing the obstacles that they faced and the major delay in their return. So, for someone to say, “I’m culpable for part of that issue,” that goes a long way to maintaining trust.

“And if I was given another opportunity to fly,” Wilmore said, “We’re going to fix it. We’ll make it work. Boeing is completely committed, and NASA is completely committed. With that, I would get on in a heartbeat.” That was really telling to me. What do you make of that, given everything that you just said, plus the health issues, and they’re saying, “Yeah, we would do it again”?

Ren:

Yeah. Well, it made me think, too, about, so the only way this works is because they have 2 of the hardest-nosed, hard-skinned Navy test pilots who just get into planes to test them. They’re just the biggest risk-takers. And I’m thinking, “Could it work with a normal human?” So part of me goes, okay, but yeah, that makes sense because that’s what you do. Your identity, I wonder how wrapped up it is in being a pilot and doing really tough stuff.

But I think there’s a couple of things. One, it reminds me of the nature and nurture conversation around human development, but also around leadership. At CCL, we firmly believe and have for decades that leadership can be developed. And I think there’s some truth that some people are naturally born into it.

So, it’s interesting. Butch said something, too. He’s like, “We plan and we prepare.” What an interesting sentence. And Suni says, “This is in our hearts, it’s in our heart.” I’m not surprised to hear … yeah, sign me up. I don’t know if Suni’s going back. I mean she’s done almost anything you could possibly imagine for an astronaut. I think this is her 5th or 4th time, maybe. And for prolonged amounts of time; she’s had long stays at the ISS before. So, it’s like I don’t know if they would go back. Some of it makes me wonder, are you just being a good soldier, you’re not trying to blast Boeing?

But it is interesting to say, from an organizational standpoint, someone in Boeing’s got to say, “I know what the problem is, and we were attached to it.” Because if they’re not honest about it, then they have a much bigger headline about the thrusters not working and the thing crashing into the ISS. So, I did think it was interesting. Like, “We trust Boeing, they’re going to get it right.”

It reminds me, too, mistakes happen. Even with SpaceX, I mean, the SpaceX Dragon brought everyone back. SpaceX has been, I think, flying up there for 10 years or something, but even they recently had a pretty large explosion across the sky.

So, these things happen, but there’s something around the trust, trust that you planned, trust that you prepared, trust in yourself, that you were made for it, or trust in yourself that you could hack it. So, that’s probably I think the thing that you’re talking about right there is one of those things too that they had to rely on, which was that notion of trust.

Allison:

And the knowing: “We plan for this.” Now I’m not quoting either one of them, but loosely paraphrasing what they both have said, which is, “We know there are risks to doing this, major risks. We know that. We’re aware of that. Yes, we’ll do it again.” So, you’re right. I think it takes, well, a specially trained person to do what they do, of course, but also a special type of human to be in literal outer space for that long and then to come back and say what they said.

And I’m just going to take them in good faith, although you’re probably right, there’s probably a little bit of being a good corporate citizen, so to speak, and not blasting their partners. But I just wonder what kind of adrenaline junkies either one of them might be, to want to do something like that again. But it did get me thinking about contingency planning and risk taking, calculated risk, and how all of that also partners with trust and plays out at the workplace too.

Ren:

It’s interesting when we look at our organizational culture, sometimes at CCL, we use a lens where we look at … There’s 4 dynamics about risk taking, decision making, conflict, and feedback. We often get leaders into a room and talk about, “Hey, where is your organization today, and where does it need to be? Where are you in this room, as a team or executives, and where do you need to be?” So it’s an interesting lens to look at for these folks around how do these things play out? I think some of what I’m thinking too is, “Well, would a normal person have been okay? How quickly would’ve a normal person reacted or rebounded?”

We know too, there’s so many personality assessments that … some of us take a longer time to rebound. Some of us are really, really stressed out when something doesn’t go to plan. So, I think there’s something about that cultivated skill, or something that really stuck out with me is a growth mindset. There’s more than a few times that there was no time to do “Woe is me.” There was no time to be like, “Well, crap.”

I mean, even like Suni said, “Did I think I was going to not be there for my daughter’s high school year?” Oh no, sorry, that was Wilmore. That was Butch. Butch missed his high school year. But even through that lens, when he was in the Navy, he was saying, “When I was in the Navy, they never got to experience me being away or me being at missions that were risky.” So he was actually kind of glad because, he said, “My daughters, my family, they got a chance to build resilience too.”

Yeah, it sucked, but also think about the resilience they’ve cultivated. Think about the story that they have now. Think about when something shocks them in their world again, they’ll be able to say, “Well, my dad was up in space for 200 days when he was supposed to be there for 8.” So there’s something, too, around the idea of that growth mindset, that preparation, and then too, can a normal person inhabit that space and succeed? I think there’s a couple lessons here for normal people, too.

Allison:

Yes. And I think, too, that the story highlights the complexities they faced and, really, the collaborative efforts that you alluded to earlier that were taken to ensure their safety. We probably could call this a crisis situation, and success in crisis can often depend on collaboration and trust, as you already mentioned or we both mentioned. Really among those who are in the field, so to speak, and those who provide the support, like you mentioned earlier, I think it’s a good reminder too that, when hardship or crisis falls on a team or an organization, that cross-functional efforts and cross-functional teams really need to work together to solve the problem rather than become siloed.

I think it’s human nature sometimes that when crisis occurs, some of us can go into silo mode, and it’s almost just a protective reaction. Hopefully, most of our listeners won’t go through anything like this at the workplace. But crisis can be defined in a lot of different ways, which we call it hardship. Anytime there’s hardship, which a lot of organizations are facing right now, it’s really important to have that cross-functional collaboration to work to solve problems together.

Ren:

That always makes me think too, because I think sometimes silos, and for those of you who maybe don’t use that language a lot, I feel like sometimes I take for granted that corporate speech, but it’s like if you are working in an organization or a funnel or a team and all the communication or all the conversation just stays in your little vertical, like a tube, like a grain silo is what the image looks [like]. There’s all these grain silos around the organization. And the goal is to not just have that work happening behind walls, undercover, where we don’t see or know what’s happening there.

I remember I was doing this work with this team, and they worked in the energy space, and they were saying, “I don’t know if silos are bad. For us, we are all on top of each other because of the emergent nature of the work. Sometimes we have to know whose sandbox is whose.” They’re like, “Sometimes we have to draw borders.”

It made me think, I was like, I don’t know if there’s an implicit issue with silos, so much as when we put a lid on the silo, that’s the problem, when information can’t get out or is not openly communicated. It’s like, how do I then build bridges between my silos? Because NASA is an interesting point of view. I love the movies or the shows, where they’re about to take off, and they go through the final check, and the whole room — subject matter experts, flight engineering, temperature — go for launch, go for launch, go for launch.

These people have to have boundaries in their work. The jet propulsion team doesn’t really need to engage, frankly doesn’t have time to engage, with the weight dispersal team. They have to do some collaboration around thrust and velocity.

I love that you brought in accountability on the front end, and that’s one of the words that’s shouted out of the silo. It’s like, “My bad, this is what happened.” So we can fix it. So, it’s really interesting, even if you’re in an environment where you’re saying, “Ren and Allison, you don’t understand, we have to have boundaries.” I would say, “Great, just make sure that you’re communicating outside of your boundaries.” Because it was Apollo 13, I think, the film, and I was thinking —

Allison:

Yes, I was going to say that it is 13. So, for my movie buffs, I’m sorry. It’s Apollo 13.

Ren:

Well, I mean I failed us too. But I think there’s such an interesting sign, because they have an air filtration issue wrong, and then there’s a scene down on Earth where they got the engineers in a room and it’s like, “We’ve got to make this circle thing fit into this square filter with only these parts,” because they can’t mail them parts. That’s that collaborative conversation, where a group of subject matter experts get together into a room, bring their subject matter expertise to bear. Sometimes I think that’s your job as a leader, if you’re listening, formally or informally, it’s how do I get all the right people in the room so we can have a conversation about solutions?

Allison:

Yeah, exactly. You’re making me think about boundary spanning too. Me and a colleague, we’re working with a senior team of a tech company a few weeks ago, and they’re integrating new top leadership to the organization. It’s one of those scenarios where half of the group has a very long tenure with the company and half is “brand new.” So, there’s the old and the new. How are we going to work together? What does culture look like? There’s all of that.

And when we talk about boundary spanning leadership at the Center, one of the most important things to do is something that you alluded to, Ren, which is clarify who’s responsible for what. You can call it creating boundaries if you want, but it’s really about clarity, so that when there is a crisis, you can go from one end of the spectrum to the other pretty quickly and how people respond to it, from chaotic to being underreactive. And one of the ways you can navigate that spectrum is to be very clear on who’s responsible for what.

It doesn’t mean that they don’t have a say or input in other parts of the project or the “crisis,” but it’s a really good idea to know, okay, Ren’s been doing X, Y, Z for 10 years, so I know I can come to Ren about whatever that is. I think a really interesting way to look at spanning boundaries, too, is to put the container off of it so that you’re not completely isolating people, but to also keep it contained so that you know who, in essence, is responsible for what.

Ren:

Yeah. Well, that’s why I like the sandbox metaphor, because what I love about boundary spanning is the first step of boundary spanning is qualify your own boundaries. Tell someone about your boundaries or your team’s boundaries or whatever, so that they know.

And then it makes me think about systems thinking, right, Allison? It’s like the more I know about your experience, the better I can ease the condition of your experience. So, I like the sandbox because you can see a border, but there’s no walls. I can talk to you, you can talk to me. You’re like, “Look at my sandcastle.” You’ll be like, “Cool, look at my truck over here.”

I think that’s a fun metaphor because, again, borders aren’t the problem. It’s opaque borders that are a problem; things that we can’t see through or get through are an issue. But if borders are just existent in a flexible, fluid space where the border is like my sandbox, but you could walk through it, you could speak to me through it, you could see what I’m doing in it …

I think that’s a really interesting idea around when we span boundaries, again, we’re talking about opening options as opposed to restricting them. Part of that, too, starts with a recognition that these are areas that I operate and play in, and these are areas that you operate and play in.

Allison:

Yeah, definitely. I think it might be helpful for our listeners to know, who might be new to this type of language around boundary spanning, is that traditionally within any organization, there are 5 different kinds of boundaries that exist. So, there’s horizontal, which is between functions of the organization; vertical, which can be hierarchical; stakeholder, external groups; demographic, so gender, generation, etc., and geographic. So, depending on the company, different regions, different markets, and different distances.

I would say when it comes to being effective at the organization, it’s important to be able to navigate all of those boundaries, but especially when there’s a crisis or a major hardship, you are going to need to get a lot of those players involved. The ability to span those boundaries, by the way, was cited by senior executives as, 71% said that it was absolutely crucial to their success for the organization, not just for them as individuals.

Ren:

I think boundary spanning, too, helps us navigate those crisis spaces, because when I think about the best people who deal with the crisis in the moment, they’ve prepared for crisis. Organizational resilience, there’s all this narrative where they were stuck or they were abandoned.

Pretty quickly, NASA and the astronauts and all of the space community, they made decisions, functional decisions about what they were going to do and why they were going to do it. Every time, there’s always a lifeboat on the ISS. So, had something traumatic or dangerous happened, they could have left. But they decided, “Hey, for a variety of reasons, we’re going to ask you and rely on your service to stay up there and rotate into the next crew and then finish that part of it.”

So it was all really intentional, but I have to imagine, when Butch and Suni talk about planning, there is probably some page in their pamphlet that’s like, “If you’re marooned on there, you’re going to work on the station for us. That’s just the way it’s going to be and we’re going to appreciate your help and then we’re going to bring you home.”

Allison:

Sure.

Ren:

So there’s this being ready for everything. That’s what makes a resilient organization and might cultivate some personal resilience when you anticipate things that could go wrong. And then you start to say, “Well, I’m here now. What can I focus on?”

Allison:

How do you get from point A to point B, right? A lot of organizations have risk mitigation, but not all of them do. This is rhetorical, Ren, unless you have an answer, but how does a leader know when to focus on one or the other, and how to plan for contingency based on situation A, B, or C?

It’s tricky, right? But I do think what we were talking about a few moments ago is that first step in boundary spanning is to create and actually strengthen an understanding of skillsets, expectations, values, etc., so that you do know how to do collaborative work, period.

Ren:

Yeah. Well, I think I do have an answer for you. How does one or an organization manage that crisis preparation and preparedness? It reminds me of that phrase that we talk a lot bit here, polarity management. How do I do both things?

I think at any one plan, or if any of you are working on major projects or there’s real risk out there, you’ve got to do the work. You can’t just prepare for the risk. But if you never prepare for the risk and something goes wrong, you’re stuck holding the bag. I think this is a great polarity that they manage. It’s like a both/and. We have our mission preparedness, which is an 8-day test flight, but we’re also deeply prepared pilots and astronauts. So, we know, too, that we got a valuable skillset that we need to keep cultivating and then ready to deploy.

So, I’m thinking, if you’re listening out there, how do you plan and do the work that you need to do, and how can you carve out time in your project plan to talk about worst case scenarios? Now, maybe not for every job or for everything, it makes sense, but I think there’s certain spaces, especially when the stakes are really high, having someone say, “Okay, so what do we do when things go wrong?”

So making sure that there’s time for both, I think, is how someone would functionally balance crisis preparedness versus analysis paralysis, where if you think about crisis too long, everything looks really horrifying and then you don’t do anything. So, yeah, we don’t want that, but we also don’t want complete ignoring of it, but instead being ready for it.

Allison:

I would imagine, for some people, when you get to that point of over-planning, could almost generate a freeze response. But I want to come back to something that we both mentioned earlier, which was this trust, this concept of trust. And I want to tie it to boundary spanning here in a moment.

But when I think just as a human being, just as a human, regardless of title, job, etc., being stuck in a small space with somebody for that long, I would imagine they had to have had some trying moments. I would imagine. I think about my sister, who’s probably the closest person to me in my life. If you put my sister and I in a small space for that long, we would probably be at each other at least a few times, if not more than that. Don’t you think, Ren, for you, for most people?

Ren:

Yeah, 100%. I think that’s why I asked you, how do they come back alive, not fly back, but how do they end up not beating each other up? So yeah, I think that’s completely reasonable.

Allison:

But to bring it back to the workplace, hopefully none of us are going to be sent out into space unexpectedly for that long. But another part of the ability to span boundaries, especially in a crisis, and something that people can think about now before crisis happens or hardship, is really about cultivating and nurturing relationships.

And I don’t know the history of those 2. I’m not sure how long or how often they had worked together in the past. Regardless, something that leaders who are listening can take away from this is, when you’re able to connect on a personal level with folks, I’m not saying you need to share diaries or anything like that, but just simple, “How are you, Ren? What’s going on in your world?” Those types of things, basic human decency, right? Connecting at a personal level does help to build trust and enable more candid communication.

So, you’d ask me earlier how me and my prior coworker were able to navigate that. Part of it was because we had connected on, not on a deeply personal level, but enough to have trust established so that we could talk about obstacles, we could identify priorities, we could identify challenges, and collectively build and almost mobilize towards a new strategy or a different direction based on some of the unexpected turns that happened.

Ren:

I’m going to say one word, so we come back to it, so I don’t forget, but then I want to talk about some of what you said. So, one words can be compartmentalized or compartmentalization, but maybe another side of that polarity is what I’m thinking and you’re talking about is this idea of leadership disclosure.

As we are famed at the use of Johari window — classic American psychologists Joe and Harry getting together writing a 4 by 4 or 2 by 2. Folks, when we talk about leadership disclosure, it’s like you’ve got an opportunity, when working with people, to expand how you work together. One of those ways is asking feedback, how am I impacting you, so I can identify some blind spots for me, so I can treat you differently, that works?

The other one is sharing some more of that hidden information about you, things that I would keep private. Again, like Allison saying, it’s not like your diary, but hey, why am I making that decision, or what of my experiences have made me act the way that I do, or why do I look at challenges the way that I do? So often we make decisions, especially if you’re in a close, personal dynamic with someone, you’re stuck in a piece of metal above space.

It’s easy to see someone’s behavior and then make up a story about it. “Oh, why didn’t Suni say hi to me today? We’re stuck in this tin. We ran into each other.” When it could be like, “Oh, I know that, in the beginning of Suni’s day, she stay super focused. She doesn’t engage with anyone. She’s head down, works on her tasks.” The moment I know about someone’s experience or their personal mechanisms for operation, the easier it is for me not to take their behaviors personally.

So you, as a leader, if you’re listening, you’ve got to model that behavior. It’s like, what’s some information that you don’t tell your team that maybe they could learn? And then definitely be asking for feedback about how you’re impacting people to determine how you can operate better.

Allison:

I love that. I love that so much. It does start with the individual level. It almost always will. I was just talking to some clients yesterday about this. We went orienteering and we’re out in the Colorado Rockies. It’s a no-risk environment; at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. We’re not playing with real money, but they’re achievers and they want to achieve their target. One of the things that we talked about was this notion of disclosure, too, around, “Where do you go when you’re under stress?” So we did a power pause, if you will, right in the middle of the session to talk about, “What’s going well? What do we need to do differently?”

And one of the leaders said, “I am really much aware when I get into high achiever mode, I get very granular and honed in on a singular task, and I stop listening. I just want the 2 of you and my group to call me out on that. Feel free to be like, ‘Hey, you’re doing that thing. You’re doing that thing. With love, come back to us. Stop doing that thing. You’re not listening. Come back to us.'”

So then, one by one, the 3 of them just shared where they go under stress, and they were all different. So, we might make assumptions, like you were just saying, in the way that you shared and also in a different way, of okay, I can stop listening, so I might assume that everybody does the same thing.

But another group member said, “I just check out. I just assume my opinion’s not valued. So, I don’t share at all, and I just check out. And people might read me as being calm and cool, but I’m boiling inside because nobody’s listening to me.”

So, again, I’m just underlining that, in partnership with what you just said, in that disclosure can be so helpful, especially when it’s high stress. And you really do want to be collaborative together. It’s knowing yourself and knowing where you go under stress, and having the courage to share that and ask people to hold you accountable.

Ren:

I think it’s like you said, it starts with the individual, but then it’s about us very quickly. Because I always tell people, involve people in your development. If you’re working on something, tell someone you’re working on it. If you’re trying to shift the behavior for the benefit of the team, tell them that you’re doing that. Not so you have more people busting your chops about it not working, but so you have a community of people that are helping you try to be your best. Because I know a leader who’s willing to say, “Hey, I know when I go to stress, I do X, Y, or Z. Please, you have permission to say, ‘Hey, Ren, snap out of it.'”

That’s, I think, a generative, positive experience. When someone’s like, “Hey, you’re doing that thing you said you didn’t want to do,” I’m not going to be mad at them. I’m not going to hold it against them. I’m going to be like, “Hey, thanks for calling it out,” because I know I want to work on it.

And so, there’s something about that recognition of what I need, and then involving people in it. It’s like, “Hey, I’m trying to accomplish this,” or “I know that we spoke about this is how we’re going to interact, but this is how I’m feeling now.” I think, too, leaving space for that flexibility, but always leaving those lines of communication open … really, really critical.

Allison:

Yeah, indeed, indeed. Well, there’s probably so much we could talk about in this story, but I’m wondering, too, Ren, we just gave a bunch of tools, but if there was one standout from this story that you wanted leaders to take away, just one, what would it be?

Ren:

Yeah, I’m going to cheat. I can’t, because I’m going back to the word compartmentalize, and then it attaches to something else.

Allison:

Oh, yeah, please elaborate on that.

Ren:

No, I think it’s a good segue into some of what we’re talking about, because what I thought was interesting, and Butch said this in an interview too, is like, “Hey, sometimes we have to compartmentalize. It’s like, I can’t let my life at home or our experiences interfere with what I’m called to do at that moment.” He said, “It’s not about me. It’s not about my feelings. It’s about what the human space flight program is about. It’s our national goals.”

Now it sounds totally great, like a person who served the US, our national goals, but also it’s not about me, it’s not about my feelings. There’s something there, too, like you were saying when you get into a room with someone, even your sister, the closest person in the world, you’re going to get into fisticuffs maybe sometimes.

I think the perspective-taking of being like, “Oh, wait, this isn’t about me. It’s not about you. It’s not about our feelings.” And 2, I love the psychology and philosophy around like, “Are you your feelings, or are feelings just a symptom of whatever?” So there’s something about the ability to recognize that part of yourself and then put it in a tiny little box and say, “Cool, that goes over there. We’re in space. I need to do station maintenance.”

So I think the biggest thing, then, that connects for me for leaders, and something that was really clear, and maybe I don’t think it’s just reserved for Navy test pilots, is this idea there was no abandonment narrative. We often talk about, like we were just talking about here, it’s easy to fill in the gaps for storytelling. When you don’t have information, it’s easy to feel like you’re the victim or make yourself the hero.

One of the biggest derailers I [see in] people in their relationships is victimization, where they feel victimized or they take on a victim narrative, especially when they don’t know what’s happening behind someone else’s wall. Some project gets thrown on them, or they’re stuck here, and it’s like, “It’s X, Y, Z’s fault,” or “I wouldn’t be here if not for those people,” or “I can’t believe this is happening to me.” And I imagine there were moments of that for these folks. And hear me, Allison and everyone else — there are moments where people are legitimately victimized.

I’m talking about when we create a story of victimization in our own head, where I don’t know what’s happening, someone’s just like, “Hey, Ren, you got to do this new project.” I’m like, “Oh, no, these people, they’re torturing me on purpose.” I might just ask like, “Hey, Allison, is there a reason that you gave me this project?” And like, “Oh, you said you wanted to go to Cabo and it’s in Cabo.” I’m like, “Oh, yeah, I’m not a victim here. Actually, this is a benefit.”

So there’s something around they just didn’t say, “Oh, I’m stuck here. I’m abandoned.” They were like, “This is the mission. This is the job. We’ve been trained for this,” and they got to work. So something about your circle of control, stemming the narrative, and too, because they’re not the only heroes, they needed to rely on a whole bunch of people on Earth. So, it’s like, we all have to work together, we’re not abandoned here, stuff happens. I mean, even the SpaceX Dragon, like I said, they were delayed almost a month from coming home because it messed up a little bit. So, there’s these things where we just have to go, “Okay, nothing’s functionally happening to me. No one woke up today and said, ‘Butch, Suni, you’re stuck in space. Ha-ha.'”

So I think that’s probably like, all of those things are likely their takeaway, but the interesting thing is how do we cultivate that strength to leave the abandonment or victim narrative alone and find out the real information? Really find out if you are being victimized before you embrace that, because it might be disempowering.

Allison:

We always do this. There’s so much to talk about in what you just said, and we’re nearing the end. So, 2 things that immediately came up for me. One is the sphere of control, which is something that we talk to our leaders a lot about, which is … if you can imagine 3 circles, one is what can you control as a leader? What can you influence, would be the next circle. And what do you need to accept?

In a situation like that, I would imagine, it sounds like, too, those 2 leaders got to, “I need to accept that this is happening. This is the reality right now, and work on or focus on what I can control, which is probably not a lot.” But the ability to get to that quickly, I think, underscores the importance of that awareness, and what you’re referring to, in a crisis or hardship situation. I was going to say at the workplace, but probably in life too. But I suppose we’re not here to be therapists, but same, same.

I think the situation that we’re talking about really underlines that leadership is not just about command. Sometimes it is, but it’s not holistically about command. It’s about adaptability. It’s about trust. It’s about teamwork in the face of uncertainty, which can be really hard for people. Again, these folks are probably used to some level of uncertainty, and most of us are not going to be sent into space like I mentioned, but uncertainty is a reality for some people right now. Again, that adaptability, the trust and the working with your team and your people, can be so important in handling hardship thoughtfully.

And I would also state that it can help protect company morale, too. And how an organization handles hardship can also really indicate what their long-term reputation might be — as you and I have talked about in prior podcasts, different stories — but just as NASA didn’t abandon or try to avoid or evade responsibility, leaders also have to guide their people through turbulence with, I would say, clarity, compassion, and sometimes a little bit of creativity.

So, perhaps we can leave it at that for today. Again, I feel like based off of where we just went, there’s lots of other things to talk about, but perhaps in the next episode.

Ren:

We could stay in orbit, but I don’t think we have to. Let’s go home.

Allison:

Well played. It’s your dad joke for the day.

Ren:

It sounds like it really worked for you. Yeah, I killed it. I crushed it. You’re welcome. You’re welcome, everybody.

Allison:

Well, Ren, thanks for the conversation, and to our CCL team who works behind the scenes to make our podcasts happen, we thank you. To our listeners, you can find all of our podcast episodes and show notes on ccl.org and find us on LinkedIn. Let us know what you think about this story, and let us know what you’d like us to talk about next. We look forward to chiming in with you next time. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Ren.

Ren:

Thanks, Allison. Thanks, everybody. See you next time. Find Allison on Amazon’s TikTok.

Interview Transcript

INTRO:

Hey, welcome back to CCL podcast Lead With That. We talk current events and pop culture to look at where leadership is happening and what’s happening with leadership.

Ren:

Disaster often strikes without warning, leaving devastation in its wake. But what defines the human spirit is our ability to rise from the ashes to rebuild and to come together as a community stronger than ever before. And leadership and leaders are critical to making that happen. Starting in the beginning of August and running through just this past weekend here in the second week of September, 3 massive natural disasters have devastated the communities and cities of Lahaina and Maui, the Atlas Mountain region in Morocco and coastal eastern Libya. These places have experienced the fury of wildfire, earthquakes and floods, testing the resolve of these communities and their people.

But it wasn’t nature alone that contributed to the devastation we’re seeing in these places. And it won’t be nature at all that pulls these communities back together, but the people and the leadership uniting to do it. Through the darkness and the dust, we want to shine a light on some of the things that are happening in these places with these leaders and with the people who have to live through all of this.

Today, we’ll look at how leaders navigated the chaos when disaster struck, what lessons we can learn from their experiences to avoid catastrophe in the future, what conversations and actions could have happened and been taken to avoid these things in the first place. And most importantly, how can we empower individuals and institutions to lead effectively during these critical moments?

Welcome back everyone. I’m Ren Washington, and as usual, I’m joined with Alison Barr. Alison, have you ever experienced a natural disaster?

Allison:

No. The closest I came to it was in July leading a program here in Colorado Springs, and there were 18 people in that group, I think, and all of our phone alarms went off at the same time for a tornado warning, a severe tornado warning. And it had been ominous looking outside, but if you’ve ever been to Colorado, you know how quickly the weather can change. So that was the closest I ever came to it. During that time, someone sent me a photo of the tornado that was in question, and it was maybe 20 miles from campus and just decided to go east instead. So that was the closest I ever came.

Ren:

What’d you all do when that happened, when the alert beeped and everyone’s phones started chiming in the room?

Allison:

Well, people were very casual. I won’t lie. People were very casual and sort of turned off their phones and went about their business. And I said, “Hey, y’all, we likely have to take this seriously, but keep doing what you’re doing, and I’m going to contact our point of contact,” who was Lisa at the time, “…to make sure I know what the right process is.” And they said, “Okay” and just kept on going about their business. Sure enough, as I was looking for Lisa, naturally, Lisa was on her way upstairs to give us some information. So the information was, “We don’t suspect it’s coming our way, but here’s the plan if people are uncomfortable. If people are uncomfortable, here’s the plan. And should it come this way, keep your phone on you, I will text you. And if I text you, that means it’s go time for the plan.”

Ren:

Well, today I think that some of what we’ll talk about how in any kind of situation or emergency, whether it’s an organization or a team or a person, the most resilient entities out there are prepared for disasters. Sometimes we say things like anti-fragility, where despite what happens, there are plans in place to mitigate things. And even if we can’t plan for everything, are the right things in place to help us be successful?

Allison:

Yeah, and I think, well, and kudos to Lisa, if you’re listening. I’m sure we’ll talk about this, but Lisa was calm, and that’s one of the keys that I think we’ll get into, when you’re communicating plans for a disaster or that there’s about to be a disaster. She was very calm and very clear in her communication. “Here’s what we will do if we need to do it, and you hear a text message from me, that means we’re doing it. What questions do you have?” Pulled me off to the side. She’s not panicked. As I think about organizations and people that we’ve worked with, I’m pretty sure that every single workplace probably has an emergency response binder. How often does that get looked at? So in theory, in theory, most organizations are probably planned in terms of, “Do we have a plan for this?” “Yes, we do. It’s in a binder somewhere.”

Ren:

I wonder then even if there’s a section in that binder that says, “And when everything is broken and everyone’s yelling at each other and everything’s crashing around it, turn to page six and then throw this thing out the window.” Because it’s interesting when we think about human stress and strain in these situations, because you said she was cool, she was collected. And staying calm, cool, and collected in these things is not only challenging during, but then in the wake of these things, incredibly hard to stay present.

When we look at these disasters, which some could easily and I think they’re fairly, say, catastrophes, I think part of what we’ve got to navigate is that real human element of, it’s easy in theory to say, “We’ve got a plan,” but what happens when you watch someone’s home get swallowed up right in front of you by fire or water or by the ground, or you know that your family member is elderly and stuck in that building and there’s nothing you can do. I think then we can’t lose sight of how easy it is for humans to fall prey to our body’s natural mechanisms of survival. And then that might cloud some of those mechanisms of higher thinking and then maybe that calmness.

Allison:

Right. It’s interesting too, isn’t it? Again, I was in a situation where it was, there might be a tornado, which is very different from an earthquake happening in the moment. It’s not even remotely close. And people’s responses were very blasé about it. Mine was too. And I admit that because maybe elementary school failed me, I don’t know, but I learned at a very young age that it’s very rare for tornadoes to happen at high elevation. My brain went to, “What are the chances of a tornado crossing over Pike’s Peak, which is 14,000 feet? Probably not likely. Could happen, though.” So anyway, it’s interesting-

Ren:

That’d be a scary image.

Allison:

Right? I know. I know. It’s interesting, as you say, people’s natural responses. And again, I acknowledge there’s a big difference between this might happen between we’re in the midst of an earthquake right now.

Ren:

Yeah. Then I just can’t help but think, and we’ve broached this in a few areas, someone’s desensitization to these things can naturally inhibit their behavior. I don’t know if it’s just your general awareness of nature phenomenon. It might just be, we are so inundated with high stress situations that we’re thinking, “Oh, a tornado 20 miles away.” I’ve had much more frightening things closer to me, and then maybe we’re not concerned, or we’re surrounded by these things so often that I think we might lose sight and take for granted of it.

But I think when things happen like Lahaina and Morocco and Libya, and you see the things that happen, it can really snap it into focus. So maybe taking a look at these 3 disasters separately, there’s some themes that come up around what happened, why it happened, both manmade and naturally made. But maybe before we go into there, has any one of these natural disasters been one that’s been more forward in your mind, something that you know more about? Is any one of them not that much about? What’s been your general awareness of these things and what’s been happening?

Allison:

My gosh, my knowledge and I’d say my alarm went off with the Maui fire. My alarm went off for all of them, of course. But I live in an area where forest fires are very common, very, very common. The Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs, I can’t remember what year that was, but it devastated. You lived here, I think at the time, right, Ren?

Ren:

Yeah, I was there.

Allison:

Yeah. So it devastated how many lives? I don’t know. It burned entire, how many acres? Thousands, right? Thousands of acres.

Ren:

Yeah. Yeah.

Allison:

It was so devastating,

Ren:

The whole front range and then the next year, the Black Forest. Yeah, so it was wildfire seasons there for a couple of years.

Allison:

I of course immediately thought of one of our colleagues with the Morocco earthquake. I’m not sure how or when I got pushed to news of the flooding in Libya, but I also wondered why I hadn’t, so that was curious to me. So, to answer your question, I know bits and pieces about all 3. What about you? Is any one more interesting or more alarming or…

Ren:

Well, there’s a lot of alarming things around Lahaina, and that’s probably the most I’ve seen because of all this controversy and then conspiracy swirling around Maui. It’s America and social media is wild. The Libya thing, it just happened this weekend. It kind of just happened too around Morocco. I think you asked questions, “Well, why don’t we hear about third world, brown countries and the travails of them?” Well, I think probably because of what I just said.

I think Lahaina’s been really curious because of the, and I don’t even want to dignify some of the wild things that I’m hearing about it. But when I really dig into a lot of what happened and why it happened, nature, and not just the fact that these were natural disasters, but things that are happening in and around our climate and to our natural world were huge components of it. For the Lahaina drought, that regional drought for a long time, commercialization of wetlands, and then winds brought on by Hurricane Dora, which then had all this high pressure air that was already in a super dry and droughted area, that super high winds came in, and all of a sudden there’s fires in the highlands and then power poles are being knocked down. Then before we know it, and the story of Lahaina in just a day, in just a day, that fire started happening from a neighborhood north on the hill all the way down to the water.

It’s wild to think, on the eighth I think it started, and then by Wednesday, just a day later really, Lahaina’s nothing more than ash, 2,700 buildings destroyed, hundreds more damaged, more than a hundred deaths confirmed, more than a thousand people still unaccounted for. And you see the people, the locals there, who are talking and they’re talking about how they don’t have internet, they don’t have power. I saw this one woman say, “Everyone knows what’s happening here except us.” So how do you lead through crisis when the people who you’re trying to lead can’t hear or see you?

Allison:

Right. Yeah. I want to clarify that CCL is not in the work of environmental crisis at the moment. So I don’t know that I can speak to what they specifically should do differently, but we can speak broadly to it. We talk about crisis leadership at CCL. There are 5 components of crisis leadership we’ll get into later, I’m sure, but communication is number 2. So even if you don’t know, you have to communicate and you need to be visible with people.

What’s interesting too about Hawaii and digging a little bit deeper, they went from averaging 1 federally declared fire disaster every nine years, and that was since 2004. I was reading an article by a scientist named Clay Trauernicht, and I might have butchered your name, so apologies.

Ren:

We’re sorry, Clay.

Allison:

He’s a nature and a fire scientist in Hawaii who was quoted saying that Hawaii has had fires, small, small fires, for the past 20 or 30 years. However, climate change of course is making all of this harder. His prediction is that Hawaii will be having explosive, I’m quoting him, “Explosive fire behavior,” and it’s the perception of risk in Hawaii that’s been generally low that needs to shift. So I think there’s something in there about looking at trends and looking at data and trends of what’s happening. You can look at that at an organizational level too, and if things are escalating, even if they’re small things but they’re starting to escalate and get bigger and bigger, that’s something to look at and prepare for.

Ren:

Yeah. I think that preparation is exactly a big trend that we start to see here, is a recognition that there might be trends or issues that are occurring. Should we create some SOP, standard operating procedures, that we know that are abundantly clear or have a series of redundancies? Something that happened in Lahaina was that without power that people’s cell phones and energy was down, there was no TV, there was no radio, and there was a reticence then to blare the sirens, which typically, you may have seen, the director of the emergency response responded to a reporter, or rather just a community member, saying, “Hey, why didn’t we put the sirens on?” And he said, “We didn’t turn the sirens on because those are tsunami sirens. People go to high ground when we do that, and we didn’t want people to run to the mountain.”

When I look at the timeline, and then that guy also later, he since resigned, he also said, “I wish all the sirens went off.” But it’s interesting, if we just had a backup plan, let’s pretend that in an event where there is a natural disaster, we blow this when there’s no other form of communication, what would that look like? How could we prepare and communicate so we can fill in that gap even when communication can’t happen?

Allison:

Right. It’s tricky, isn’t it? Because Hawaii hasn’t historically been known for mass forest fires. So when I think about it from an organizational level, or even my example of tornadoes, Colorado is not known for tornadoes. They lose speed. There’s too many mountains. But given the nature of things that are starting to trend and patterns that are changing, is it something that we need to take more seriously? So even if those alarms sounded, and I don’t know. Even if those alarms sounded, I just wonder if people still would’ve been slightly casual about it, because they’re not necessarily known for having devastating forest fires.

So I only offer that to consider how do we change people’s reactions but also not cause a panic if there doesn’t need to be a panic. I acknowledge that in Hawaii there needed to be a much bigger response, of course. But if you look at patterns, organizational patterns, how do you get people to respond to something that they consider to be very low risk for their area or their organization?

Ren:

Yeah. I think you’re highlighting the real tension that exists in this space, where hindsight is 20/20. People were saying, “God, if we only had a little bit more warning,” but you raise a really interesting point. It’s like, but how would you even know what the warning was to mean? Especially as fast as things were moving. People in the morning. So the Lahaina fire, I’m doing air quotes, our favorite thing, everyone. The Lahaina fire was known, was a small fire up in the northern part of Lahaina in a neighborhood after a pole had fallen. And then later in the afternoon the fire had jumped the fire line, and then before the night was out, neighborhoods were engulfed. So there’s this all of a sudden, this sudden urgency that caught people so unaware, and there is something to say about that or see about that where it’s not even what we’re doing in the moment, but how do we manage afterward?

That’s sort of what happened in Morocco, where we got a 6.8 magnitude earthquake. There’s no siren that you’re going to put off when that’s happening. Then 20 minutes later, in the high Atlas Mountains in the Marrakesh area all the way to the coast, there was a 4.9 aftershock. So out of a 10 point scale, they had a seven and then they had a five. Immediately out of almost… the death toll now is up to almost 3,000 just in an area near that high Atlas region. Then another maybe 1,700 in the Al Haouz, I can’t say that exactly the right region, but just so much life in a moment gone. And what we’re seeing in Morocco, I was listening to one scientist reflect, or rather a civil engineer, and she was talking about where there aren’t earthquakes, you don’t prepare for earthquake.

Allison:

Right, exactly.

Ren:

That’s just what you were saying.

Allison:

Yeah. Right. So it’s tricky, right? See, it is such a tension. I want to be cautious how I frame this. There are communities who don’t believe in certain things, and they do perceive messaging, and I’ll leave it at that, messaging to be a fear, fear-mongering. So it becomes really, really tricky. It’s very, very tricky. I think the root of all of that is trust. So if I trust my leader, I’m going to believe them when they say It’s time to go hunker down in the basement. I don’t care what you believe right now, it doesn’t matter, go to the basement. It doesn’t matter what’s happening out the windows right now, I’m telling you this is what we’re doing. So it’s tricky.

Ren:

Well, very tricky. And trust is gone in Lahaina now and Maui. There’s no trust of the mayor. There’s no trust of the governor. Trust in Morocco is interesting, because the country and other countries have pretty quickly united, because earthquakes aren’t entirely uncommon in Morocco, just very uncommon for where it happened here. It’s more typical to happen in the northern part. So there it’s just these ideas of could there be more preparation in environments where we know earthquakes are happening? They lost ancient buildings, but a lot of modern buildings after I think a big earthquake in 2016 in Morocco, they’ve been built differently. A lot of them are still standing.

But Libya is interesting, because you talk about trust. We know Libya since 2014 has just been a splintered, ruined country, fractured government. They’ve got an internationally backed government, and they’ve also got a local supported government, an extremist part. But it’s hard to trust these entities, especially when infrastructure is key to survival. A big thing that happened in Libya was a tropical storm, or a big storm cell, another storm cell. It’s just so wild. Storm Daniel comes in, and a massive amount of rain falls over the whole region for a long time. Then it turns into I think a smaller version of a hurricane, hits the edge of Libya, this rainfall, insurmountable rainfall comes, and then these 2 dams break one after another at 3 o’clock in the morning. So there’s just these individual reports of being woken up by this loud crash and then a wild, high, 23-foot wave of water washed through this city Derna in Eastern Libya.

The pictures from the satellite of where there were buildings and where they’re not, it’s massive. There’s over 11,000 people that died almost in an instant. 30,000 people are displaced. So you talk about trust, and I’m a person in Libya thinking, “Oh, I’m going to trust this broken group of men here?” And make no mistake about, it’s a broken group of men up there, who have no idea what the hell they’re doing and who aren’t really interested in me. But then someone’s like, “Hey, we should fix these dams,” and we’re like, “Sure thing. You’re just going to put money in your pocket. So how do I trust somebody that’s untrusting when I’m in crisis all the time?”

Allison:

Right. Yeah. That’s a question that goes much deeper that we probably won’t get into, I don’t think, but it’s putting the right people in leadership. Again, and I’m simplifying, this is very complicated when it comes to government. But if we translate that to the workplace, you’ve got to have the right people in the right places.

So if we could, again, I know we are not comparing apples to apples here, but if we translate that to an organization, the right leaders have to be in place. And trust is part of that skillset, of course, as well. A lot of organizations by design have risk management that looks at risk in a lot of different ways. But when we’re talking about crises in organizations, these are relatively low probability but high impact situations that threaten competitiveness. So we’re not talking about swallowing 11,000 lives over the course of an evening. It’s different.

Yeah, I wish I could answer the question that you asked directly regarding specific countries and locations, but I can’t. But when you think about it from an organizational level, people who are going to have to handle crisis better be trustworthy people.

Ren:

Yeah. And I think you say something that’s interesting also, the right leader in the right place. For these areas like Maui, Morocco, Libya, they require different leadership, they have different cultures, they’re going to need different things. So I think then we implicitly understand that. So when I think we cast the vision forward, the question is going to be, how do we lead in a couple of different places?

When I think about leadership development, I think one of the first things that leaders need to do in a situation like this, and this one might be pretty broad, and it’s even some of our newest framework at CCL, this idea of human-centered leadership. Now, we’ve always been a human first organization, but we’ve got this great frame and reminder around the premise that leadership is the interaction of people, that the world is the interaction of people, and human-centered leadership drives outcomes.

So I think anything that a leader can do in these situations is control that part of them that gets defensive and wants to fight. It’s the hardest thing in the world, I think, for a leader to have that aggressive accountability that manifests itself as quietly listening and just taking the feedback. No one needs to hear the governor of Maui, when they’re trying to talk about how people are hurting or dying, this push-back, challenging the idea. I think that maybe at first we need to seek understanding in areas of crisis so we can start to identify where people are hurting so we can start to address what we might do to ail or to aid in their pain.

Allison:

Yeah, I think you’re right. When leading through crisis too, I think that most leaders are probably forced to think and behave in ways that feel pretty unfamiliar. Whether it’s a technological crisis, natural disaster, health crisis, et cetera, these types of crises demand that leaders take an emergency response plan. That is different from my boss leading us as a team. His ability to have to take an emergency response plan is not in his day-to-day. That’s understandable. And he very well might have to adapt it as new evidence unfolds and things constantly change. So it’s hard. I think that’s okay to acknowledge that, right? But at what point do you need to equip leaders to be prepared for emergencies? I don’t think a lot of organizations spend time on this.

I just want to clarify too, some of the examples of organizational crisis that are not environmental in nature, it can be something like a data or security breach, a failed product campaign. There’s a really good example that we can talk about from Johnson & Johnson, where they put out Tylenol, this was in the eighties, they put out Tylenol and their containers for the Tylenol at that time were not tamper resistant. So someone at this grocery store put cyanide in with the Tylenol. So anyhow, their response was textbook and actually has led some of the research and has led some of the responses that companies take now.

But anyhow, I think we need to ground in what this can look like aside from an environmental. It can also be a really big fail in a marketing campaign or an ad campaign. Pepsi’s an example of that, Kendall Jenner from, I think that was 2017 maybe.

Ren:

Yeah, I remember that.

Allison:

Yeah. But anyhow…

Ren:

Yeah, diversity. She was hip.

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

Yeah. Well, yeah, I think you’re right. I don’t think we need to sit in the natural disaster thing necessarily. I think now as we shift our attention to leadership, something that I think is important, I’m curious to hear your point of view on, is it important to have emergency charisma? I think about command and control. In these instances, there’s no time to do, “Hey, let’s have a quick conversation about how we should address this emergency.” No, we have emergency systems. We get into action.

It’s actually one of the things I think we in leadership development talk about all the time. Sometimes dependent cultures, we call them, people, which is there’s a boss up top and they say it and then you do it. You can think defense and army and military structures or police and emergency systems. So I wonder if it’s appropriate sometimes to turn those dials on. There’s an emergency, the Coast Guard needs our help. We don’t need to debate. Is it also a time to turn on emergency charisma? Because sometimes I need a leader who is not the most bland, uncaring, disinterested, or disinteresting person, to remind me about how cold and sad and how miserable this is. It’s a combination of all the executive presence, but maybe you should lean into your humanity in moments of sadness as opposed to make yourself sterile. So, I don’t know. What do you think about emergency charisma?

Allison:

I like the sound of it. Tell me, what would that look like? I do. I’d never heard it phrased that way. What would that look like behaviorally to you? You gave the opposite, but what do you think that would look like?

Ren:

You know what, I appreciate the challenge as we do behaviorally driven. I think it would probably be practicing the skills of active listening, of focused and heartfelt restating of what you’re hearing, emotion first language probably. Probably inspirational first language too, I bet. I would say that when we talk about influence, we talk rational persuasion, we talk inspirational persuasion, and then things in between. Sometimes inquiry is really important, seeking requests and asking what people need, but maybe it’s an advocacy first posture, where your charisma preparation is having something, being ready to not have to rely on your influential or inspirational muscles once, but to have working them out so when the time calls, you can tap into the human part of your communication. I don’t know. How does that work? Does that sound okay or…

Allison:

That sounds great. I think that sounds great. I think that can go missing. We work with clients who have had some crises, some of the types that we’ve mentioned already. I think being present and available too is very, very important. Some of what I’m about to mention comes from CCL’s research, and also a gentleman named Gene Klann, who wrote a book on crisis leadership. But that research states that, this won’t be a surprise to you, Ren, but employees have a need to hear from their leaders frequently. So I think sometimes leaders get worried about, “Well, I already said that thing, and I don’t want to over-communicate.” Actually, it’s the opposite. You need to do opposite of that instinct and over communicate.

Additionally, when leaders appear concerned, like you just mentioned, have some emotional intelligence and appear to be knowledgeable and calm, that is when workers will feel inspired and encouraged and more likely to have confidence that things are under control. So I think to resist the temptation to just communicate once, and you actually do need to over communicate, and those employees who don’t need to hear it just probably won’t read it or won’t listen, but there will be people who need more communication than you’re used to giving.

Ren:

Yeah, who appreciate it, who are expecting it. And there might even be people who don’t need it normally but then need it when crisis happens.

Allison:

Right.

Ren:

You’re so right. No one has ever called me and been like, “Ren, we talk too much. Help us talk less.” So it is interesting when we think about that kind of communication or that over communication. But then too, something you said reminded me, I don’t want anyone to pretend to be emotional or pretend to be human when they’re not. I would never tell someone who’s a cold and calculated robotic person to pretend, “Do your best Mark Zuckerberg and look like a robot trying to inhabit a human.” That’s what Mark gets in trouble for, because he’s not that kind of guy, but his handlers say, “Mark, try to smile,” and then he’s like, “Boop, boop, beep.” So I don’t know. I don’t need a leader to be like, “I’m sad” when I’m not sad. But I do think you said something interesting.

It’s the recognition, the emotional intelligence. It’s this idea that, hey, when people lose everything or when I, for instance, lose my entire city overnight, and maybe I just happen to be across town at a friend’s sleepover and that’s the only reason I made it. In that moment, the leader just needs to demonstrate some understanding. Then I think even in the exercise of understanding, part of the human-centered leadership I think is a recognition of the human at the center of these things. Even the most hardened of us I think have the capacity for that human first approach.

Allison:

Agreed. And transparency is also crucial. I remember one of my clients, who I won’t name, was, this was last year, going through a very big riff and massive layoffs. And in one of our calls, he said to our internal client team, he just said, “I just need everybody to know. I need my leadership team to know that this is going to be hard, and it’s okay. This is going to be hard and we’ll get through it, and we just need to admit that.”

Something else you made me think of also comes from the book that I’ve already mentioned, and I really like this because it’s easy to remember, for me at least, the 3 Rs of communication in crisis are review, repeat, reinforce. You and I have talked about this before, Ren, but when information is scarce, people will fill in the blanks, and then they’ll talk to each other, and that’s when problems really can happen. So when those types of assumptions surface and then start to spread, that can cause a lot of problems that didn’t need to happen.

Ren:

I was just talking about this with a group of leaders and just how easy it is to misinterpret people’s behavior. And that’s in the best of circumstances. Just like even if everything’s going right for me and you wrong me, oh man, the Lord knows, well, we already know, I’m the hero or I’m the victim. But when I’m actually the victim and I don’t have information, good luck recovering. That’s I think we’re actually seeing, it’s been a month since Lahaina. Basically it feels from an outside perspective that misinformation, disinformation, a lot of static, unmoving things, and it’s really interesting when we start to say, “Well, how do we get some clarity on what’s happening? What does real transparency and communication look like? And can we just be honest about the shortcomings that can come up?” I think part of the way that we can stop telling stories about each other is just to admit where we lost sight of things. A lot of these leaders need to say, “I’m sorry.”

Allison:

Yes.

Ren:

And “We need to do better,” and they need to freaking do that and then keep moving.

Allison:

Yeah, part of all of this, like you’ve already said, is relationships. Let us not forget that we work with other human beings. You’ve mentioned human-centered leadership many times here. During crises, leaders who have built those personal relational, a foundation that’s relational, can then focus on the immediacy, right? Because they’ve already built that foundation of trust and then they’re not having to backpedal. So that becomes really important to… This is well before a crisis happens, is that leaders need to be somewhat relational. I know there will be people who listen who cringe at that, but I’m not saying you need to be best friends with people. What I am saying is that you need to make sure you have a culture of trust at your organization, because inevitably, at least once, your organization will have a crisis, at least once.

Ren:

If anyone’s in a relationship you care about, you know how important trust is.

Allison:

Absolutely.

Ren:

So when we’re involved in places where we live and work, it’s critical for our general success. I don’t know if this is a direct segue, and I know we’re rounding towards the end, but I’m curious about this with you, as we think about organizations. Because I know we’re talking about environmental disasters or rather natural disasters. We shifted a little bit to the org focus, but the environment and the trends happening in and around our climate are things that are going on, and organizations in certain industries are going to really need to consider it. Real estate is a perfect example that, that’s a serious consideration. Power, energy, these things are all going to have to navigate the shifting tide and sentiment of the environment around us. So what do you think are ways to leverage the crisis leadership or just any awareness that we have of leadership that, how can a leader prepare for the environment?

Allison:

Gosh, that’s tricky, Ren, isn’t it? I think doing due diligence. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to stay up to date on external factors that impact businesses. There are a lot of leaders who do that already. But I would say to take that very seriously and to look at some of the things that have gone on, maybe not in your immediate location, or maybe for some people it is in their location listening at this point, right? Flooding, tornadoes, those types of things have been happening for years. So what is your plan? Aside from having your binder, how are you going to create that foundation of trust?

I would encourage people to really take seriously these, I’ll mention them, they’re the five components of crisis leadership, but we’ve mentioned almost all of them, if not all of them, actually. The first one is to seek credible information. By the way, this book was written in 2003, a very long time ago. So as a leader, it’s your responsibility to make sure you’re up to date on trustworthy information. So that means avoiding things that have a bias of varying degrees that might have inaccuracies. So number 2 is communication, which we’ve already talked about at great depth. Number 3 is, within that communication, explain what the organization is doing. So even if you haven’t had a crisis yet, there’s a lot going on in the world right now. It might be time for you as leaders to talk about that and think about what will we do? What will we do? It’s better to be ahead of those things.

The fourth one we’ve talked about, which is to be present and available. And the last one is maybe if you have not been through a crisis at your organization may be the most important, which is to dedicate resources. That would include a budget for future crisis, because you might not need it, you might not need it, but chances are you’re likely going to have a crisis at your organization at least one time.

Ren:

I think that’s probably the trick and the challenge, is to ingrain that truth into our realities and then create reflex responses to it. As we’re talking about this, there’s an interesting comparison around our general human imperative. A lot of us who are afraid of snakes, typically we’re afraid of snakes, because they can cause us demise very quickly. That’s why out of the corner of your eye, especially as a Coloradan, and when you’re on the trail, you see a stick, it looks like a rattlesnake, you move. You don’t wait to check it out, you don’t walk closer to it, you move away from it very quickly, and then you reevaluate. But really, and the reality is that we see a snake maybe 1 out of a 100, but a hundred times we’re jumping, and we’re jumping for that 1 time.

So how do we, I think as an organization, measure your appetite and run the calculus for how do we react when we don’t need to? What’s a reaction, so we can build it in our system, that’s not disruptive to the business, but a real reaction that we can ingrain in ourselves so when real crisis happens, we’re not grabbing our hair and like, “What the hell do we do?” But we know what’s going on. You see this in a lot of defense communities too, where they run drills, where they go battle stations, people, and they practice this over and over and over again. Now, granted, those environments are different because we don’t necessarily need battle stations at CCL, but I wonder how to balance that tension between repetition so when disaster strikes, we reflexively know what to do.

Allison:

Right. You’re reminding me of childhood, right? Stop, drop and roll. We had to practice that. We had to know that. We had to know where to take cover. I grew up in Pennsylvania. There actually were tornadoes, not in my area, but in school we had to know where to go. So we just knew those things because it’s inevitable. Again, it might not happen. Like you said, Ren, you might see a snake. Unless you live in my house, where there are lots of snakes frequently. Don’t come to my house if you don’t like snakes.

Regardless, it’s important to know what you should do. And there’s a lot of this that is an individual’s responsibility to know, because I guarantee you, if organizations put forward a mandatory training for emergency response, even if it was a recorded webinar, people are very busy. They probably won’t take it very seriously. They might watch it, but are they going to retain it, to your point? So how do you create a culture where these things become ingrained without creating panic at the same time? It’s tricky.

Ren:

Yeah, and maybe that too is a practical thing right now, is if you all haven’t yet as listeners or leaders or working in the organization, start to ask yourselves not what the emergency plan is, but what’s our appetite for building in habits where we could respond? Are there habits that serve the business that we could start to ingrain that would also serve us in times of crisis? And reminder too, folks, it doesn’t have to be a natural disaster, like Allison’s saying. It’s like real financial crisis, or what happens when all of a sudden our systems go down and we have to execute on a product or a contract? It’s these things that we go, “Oh, no.” So can we build the muscles where I use it in times of good and in times of bad?

Allison:

Right. It’s again, it comes back to me to just that awareness. So it is a leader’s responsibility to have that awareness, know what’s happening in the world around them, and those external factors that are starting, unfortunately, to become a little bit more common. And just because it hasn’t happened to your business doesn’t mean that it won’t. So I think there’s a bit of realism that needs to occur and general awareness and starting there.

Ren:

That’s right. Realism. Something’s coming for you. To pretend that it’s not is a disservice to you and your people.

Allison:

Yes, indeed, indeed. Again, not to create panic, but just we know what to do. We know what to do. Wouldn’t you rather be prepared so that you’re not like me, who did kick a stick recently, and it was a snake. I thought it was a stick. I was walking the dog and I kicked a stick. Air quoting, “stick.” It was a snake. My dog didn’t care. I freaked out. Anyway, everybody’s fine.

Ren:

Well, stay vigilant, people.

Allison:

Everybody’s fine. So Ren, what’s 1 takeaway you think you can leave for leaders today?

Ren:

Yeah. Don’t get discouraged. I was thinking about all this stuff and I was like, I don’t know if anything’s going to change. I don’t know if anyone’s incentivized to not let things like this happen, because it seems to always damage the people who can handle it the least. And the people who benefit, or the people who can handle it the most, don’t seem to be touched by these things.

So when I see all of this, for instance, the Libyan government, for instance, I don’t think they care, because they’re still fighting over power. The Moroccan systems of structure, I think, you know what, actually, maybe if it is only 1 bright spot in all of this, it’s the fact that because the country is familiar with these things, there are some signs of proactivity. But when I look around at what can sometimes be construed as maybe failures of ignorance or apathy, it can be really discouraging. But then I’m reminded of, like I said in the beginning, that I see people working hard. Everywhere I go, people rolling up their sleeves for one another and taking care of each other. So try not to get discouraged. I’m trying not to get discouraged. Trying to, taking care of each other, I guess is my takeaway.

Allison:

Yeah, that human-centered focus. So, I’ll add to that human-centered focus, which is so critical, is the communication piece. Revisit those five steps of crisis leadership if you want. However, I would underline the communication piece. People have varying levels of need to knows, if you will, and there will be people who will panic if they don’t hear from you. And when that happens and people fill in the blanks, your problems are about to get a lot worse. So over-communicate, be transparent, and just tell people what’s happening and what you’re up to as a leader. I just think we could, as always, talk about this for a couple of hours. It’s just a big-

Ren:

Especially this one.

Allison:

Yeah, it’s a big topic. With that said, I know we have to wrap, but you can find all of our show notes and all of our podcasts on ccl.org. And a big thank you to our CCL team behind the scenes who work very, very hard to get our podcasts up and running.

Ren:

Yes, yes.

Allison:

And to our listeners, thank you for being here. Find us on LinkedIn. Tell us what you want us to talk about next. As always, Ren, I’ll look forward to our next one. Thanks everyone.

Ren:

That’s right. Thanks Alison. Thanks everybody. See you next time. Bye, Alison.

Interview Transcript 

INTRO:

Welcome back to CCL’s podcast, Lead With That, where we talk current events and pop culture to look at where leadership is happening and what’s happening with leadership.

Ren Washington:

These last few weeks have been, they’ve been interesting. Tragic, sad, intense. Frankly, every week we get together to record, something tragic, something horrible, something we’re desperate to discuss comes up, but we try to find something else to talk about. And I guess it makes sense. We’re a leadership development company at CCL. We want to look at the world and talk about leadership, find ways to help you as a leader and our listener to feel empowered in the face of all that’s happening.

So we pivot, but so much of the world, so much of its tragedy deserves recognition. Maybe more than recognition. It probably deserves some discussion. And so maybe leadership isn’t so far away from all of this. Maybe it’s a leader’s job to create an environment at work where we don’t have to pretend things are just okay. At CCL, we believe organizations must prioritize the wellbeing and belonging of their employees. And so with so much happening in the world, we wanted to honor that. And we wanted to explore how tough things in the world can teach us about difficult conversations at work.

Welcome back everyone. I’m Ren Washington, and as usual, I’m joined with Allison Barr. Allison, what’s one of the hardest things you’ve had to work through on the job?

Allison Barr:

Well, I want to admit that you asked me this last week and I thought about changing my answer because it’s difficult. And then I realized, to your point, a lot of these things are worthy of conversation. And before I answer your question, I want to give our listeners and people a content warning that I will refer to some violent events. And so giving people a chance to opt out should that be upsetting or triggering for you.

Ren Washington:

Yeah. Thanks.

Allison Barr:

And to answer your question, when I was a manager, this was prior to my work at CCL, I managed at a time when there were two mass shootings. The first one was two miles from where I worked.

Ren Washington:

Wow.

Allison Barr:

And then the second one, a few years later, was at large for a few hours on the street where I worked, so that was very intense.

Ren Washington:

Yeah. And how did you all deal? What did management, what did leadership say or do when that was happening?

Allison Barr:

Well, the first time was on a property where there were several other businesses and we knew their protocol for this kind of thing and were able to respond quite quickly. However, we were still expected to be working during that time and I made the executive decision not to mandate that. However, there were a few people who said, “You know what? I would like to continue working to keep my mind off of things,” which is certainly understandable. And the rest of us really bonded together, some called their families and so on.

And the second time was a different location. I was in a huge office building with only one other person because people had left for the day and it was a Friday. And my boss called my cell phone and she was wonderful and just asked if I was okay and if I wanted to stay on the phone with her. And she clarified many, many times that the work did not matter in that moment.

Ren Washington:

Thank God.

Allison Barr:

Yes.

Ren Washington:

Yeah. First takeaway of the day, everyone, if you’re a leader or a manager and there’s something horrible going on, staying on the phone and being like, “Cool, by the way, you still going to make your deadline?” Don’t do that.

Allison Barr:

Right.

Ren Washington:

That’s not what we’re here to talk about. But I do think those are really interesting examples of what we are going to explore today, which is this idea of how do we compartmentalize these things or do we even? You mentioned something, that we still had to work, and I couldn’t help but wonder, what kind of work is happening when these things are going on?

Allison Barr:

It’s not effective, right? Not your best work. Although, when I think about those people who said, “I want to continue working,” perhaps for them, it was, right? People channel their emotions in different ways and I think that prioritizing people when there is something like a mass shooting happening feels so obvious to me. And whether or not you are directly impacted, there’s still an impact. And when I think back to that moment, for me, it was much like, have you seen those cartoons where the cartoon has their finger stuck in a light socket and their hair is, they just look like they’re completely shocked.

Ren Washington:

Yeah. You see their skeleton? Yeah.

Allison Barr:

Yeah. Yes, yes. And feeling electrocuted. And once you have your finger in the socket, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. And that’s, in some ways, how it felt. Just unsure of what to do, feeling a lot of energy in that moment and unsure of what the right direction is to take. And I would say, I wouldn’t change that decision of telling people they don’t have to work because it was the right one. There’s a difference between having something difficult happen at work and having a tragedy. And tragedy, of course, causes an emotional response that should be prioritized, in my opinion. What do you think?

Ren Washington:

Well, I can’t help but think around this idea of prioritizing, because one might say, “Well, Allison, your experience was horrifying and scary and it happened live to you.” Even those who said, “I’d rather work,” I can’t imagine if you’d be able to focus if you’re also getting email pings around the location of the active shooter or what’s going to happen if someone goes onto your floor. And I don’t know if I’m going to be diligently punching in the numbers if then too I’m getting my Outlook chime that’s a movement locator.

Allison Barr:

Right.

Ren Washington:

Now, maybe too though, I wonder, okay, well, fine, that’s just a really unique example. And no one, I think, is asking people to, in those circumstances, just suck it up and work. But zooming out a little bit, you talk about the tragedy and tragedy being something that should be honored and maybe thinking of the person is the right thing to do, as you said.

And so what about tragedy that’s a little bit further away from us? Where things are happening in and around the world, but we always hear leaders or organizations say, “We come to work, we come to work. We leave everything else at the door.” I wonder what kind of work is happening if you, my friend, Allison, I know you’re in that building when this is going on. And I’m not in the building, I’m just at my office. And I think, “Oh man, my friend’s over there. I hope she’s going to be okay.” What kind of work’s getting done there? And I wonder, how do you manage the person who’s not in the experience, but who’s next to it, adjacent to it?

Allison Barr:

Sure. Well, I think this becomes tricky because individuals have different responses to tragedy and traumatic events, right? So this becomes complex. And I think the first step is understanding that people are complex and that should you be concerned about me and my safety, at least an acknowledgement of the situation from leadership would be helpful, right? “Hey, we know that part of our team is in this scenario right now and we want to give you the space to do X, Y, Z.”

And that could look like, “We want to give you the space to talk to your manager,” or, “We want to give you the space to step away from your work for a few hours.” There has to be some sort of strategy around communicating in a crisis and crisis management that’s different than how we have it now. And that’s because we have, unfortunately, major events like this happening frequently.

Ren Washington:

Well, I had two questions that came up for me as you’re thinking about why do we have to, and then what does it look like now? And so you’re saying maybe start there, what is a typical response to crisis management? And then why does it need to be different?

Allison Barr:

There’s a framework to leading through a crisis. And it’s my understanding that crisis was defined as perhaps their company’s in some financial distress or crisis could mean a mass reduction in force, which sure those are crises, but now we’re looking at this from a different lens.

So I read some research last week that stated that, sure, burnout is a problem right now, however, there’s an increase in stress levels, an increase in diagnosed PTSD. I want to pause on that because do you know how many people go undiagnosed with that as well? So I would argue that the number’s a lot higher than we see in the research. And a decrease in overall team morale.

So considering crisis management to include a little bit more about mental health is going to be very important. And it’s complex, I know that, it really, really is complex. And I know that companies have made great strides in attempting to normalize mental health conversations. And unfortunately, what I also found is that most employees don’t use mental health benefits. And so it makes me wonder how much society needs to change or the stigma around mental health and wellness first being the first step.

And so I do think it’s a leader’s responsibility to do their best to reduce that stigma around mental health, because your response to half of your team being in an environment where there’s a mass shooting could be very different than Susie Smith who’s sitting next to you, whose child was unfortunately a target and got harmed in a previous shooting somewhere else, right? It’s very complicated.

Ren Washington:

Well, let’s move even further away from that person who’s channeling that event that happened to them or close to it. And I’m a manager who is operating a workshop and we’re spread out around the world and our team’s getting together. And then all of a sudden on the news we see on the ticker that protests have moved closer to the White House. And then before we see it, we see a conversation where now some protestors are trying to breach the White House. And then you hear about people being overrun, and all of a sudden these things are escalating, right?

And this isn’t hypothetical. I think for many of us, when January 6th happened, that was a circumstance. I know it was for me where I was actually in a training that we were doing at the center around equity, diversity, and inclusion. And it was such an interesting experience because, for me, it was a manifestation of all of the conversations that we’ve been having and some of my biggest concerns.

And so I looked at that and that one derailed me. I couldn’t help but talk about it and I couldn’t help but stream it as it was happening because I thought, “This is close to me.” And I can empathize with a manager who says, “Why are you watching the news at work? Also, we don’t talk politics here, get back to work.” And so maybe I think you were saying, so as a leader, my job is to facilitate an environment where we put a premium on mental health. But then you also said, as a society, we’re kind of ill-equipped for that. So what if an organization shrugs its shoulders and says, “No, we want you to get a physical, but we do not comp your mental health. So manager, get them to work.” I don’t know.

Because I wasn’t experiencing a personal trauma. My home had never been insurrected. I’d never heard or seen in person the kind of, I guess, attempted overthrow by a group of concerned citizens, I guess, is whatever. So it was just tapping into other things for me. So I don’t know, there’s a lot there.

Allison Barr:

Yes. So first and foremost, you asked me if an organization does not have essentially the benefits of protecting mental health, right? And I wish I could answer that question, but I’m not a benefit specialist, right? So an organization who decides not to opt into benefits for mental health, well, I wish I could. I wish I had something to say as to what to do there. I don’t know a lot of organizations that have opted out of that, but I do know a lot of organizations who have opted out of, “Here’s a list of the things we’re not going to talk about here.” And that’s tricky. That’s so tricky. That’s so tricky.

The example that you’re referencing specifically, people were murdered and there was attempted murder to people who run our country. And so sure, don’t watch the news while you’re at work, I guess. I don’t know. As long as you’re getting your work done, I don’t really care what you’re doing. However, it keeps bringing me back to this environment of a leader being responsible to have trusting relationships in the workplace. If I was your manager, Ren, which I’m not, but if I was your manager at that time, I would hope that you would know that you could call me and be like, “Hey, I’m feeling rattled right now. I need to step away.” And I would say, “Absolutely,” because I trust you and you trust me. And at the end of the day, I know you’re going to get your work done or communicate with me what you need to be able to get your work done. And that’s very important when we’re thinking about mitigating crises at the workplace.

Ren Washington:

What if we’re on deadline?

Allison Barr:

Right.

Ren Washington:

Yeah, what if it was due? I was calling you, so this thing’s due in an hour, I’m rattled, I need two hours.

Allison Barr:

Yeah, again, it’s hard because I don’t know what we’re talking about, right?

Ren Washington:

Talking about January 6th.

Allison Barr:

No, no, no. I mean what kind of projects we’re talking about.

Ren Washington:

It’s a high profile project. Our jobs are on the line.

Allison Barr:

Okay, sure, but what I mean is it all depends.

Ren Washington:

Okay.

Allison Barr:

And if you’re calling me, you, Ren, you.

Ren Washington:

Me personally, yeah.

Allison Barr:

You are calling me and saying, “I need two hours.”

Ren Washington:

Yep.

Allison Barr:

I know you. I know that’s what you need. And I would say, “Okay, we’ll find a way to make it work.” To me, if we have a client who’s not going to give us an hour, I don’t know. I think there’s a way to navigate those conversations with clients or other team members and just say, “Hey, you know what? We need extra hour. Here’s why. Here’s how I can support you, Ren. Or here’s how we can pull in Sammy Smith who I know has an extra hour to support.” It’s really a leader’s job to pull in support when needed.

Here’s the thing, regardless of what the environment is, these types of things could happen every day. You could quit after we record this podcast and not give any notice. So a manager also has a responsibility to be agile when the unexpected happens, to practice leadership agility.

Ren Washington:

Yes. Agility too, because come on, Powerball, fingers crossed everyone. I’d still do the podcast with you, Allison.

Allison Barr:

Thank you. I’m glad.

Ren Washington:

From my yacht. The wifi would be really good because it would be paid for by taxpayer money. So you raised something interesting there, “Ren, I know that if you asked for it, I know you’d need it.” It made me think too, around the culture that we have around mental health. And then saying tough experiences out there, is work the place to have these difficult conversations? I don’t know. Just take a mental health day.

So what if we got into a patterning where we started to prioritize mental health and it looked like not just every once in a while I was seeking that kind of retreat or respite, but it was more irregular. We’re talking about the world and how we can barely find anything to talk to that doesn’t involve destruction or dismay or a disheartening thing. And so let’s say I am channeling and managing my mental health, and every week, reasonably so, I call you, Allison. I’m like, “Yo, I need two more hours, man. I just can’t take it.”

Allison Barr:

Yeah, in that specific situation, we might have a different conversation, right? And at that point, it is always going to come back to leadership trust for me. Because of the stigma around mental health, employees have a fear of disclosing those types of things, right? Because they fear that they’re going to lose their job or they fear that they’ll get retaliated against or won’t get these same opportunities, right? And so if you and I have a trusting relationship and you call me and you say, I don’t know, “I have PTSD,” or whatever, I don’t know, whatever it is that you’re struggling with, then it is absolutely my responsibility to probably work with HR and provide reasonable accommodation for you.

I get what you’re getting at here, and there’s unfortunately not a black and white answer to navigating this, but I can share, what CCL has found supports creating change in these types of situations in an organization. And again, we’ve already said this, they need to promote and prioritize overall health, which of course includes mental health, physical as well. And financial stability and equitable access in those last two, I think are where a lot of organizations might be lagging a little bit. Past research on wellbeing has leaned pretty heavily toward individual actions and behaviors to generate wellbeing, like, “Here’s our meditation room.” And that’s great, I’m happy to use a meditation room, but it also assumes that individuals have autonomy to choose activities to support.

So if we’re talking about COVID-19, for example, the COVID-19 disease has had a disproportionate impact on minority and low income populations. And mental health in general has a disproportionate impact. And so more recent events in the US are taking their toll, again, disproportionately so on women and minorities. And the notion that individuals have the same access just isn’t true. So how can an organization support? It’s complicated.

Ren Washington:

Yeah, and I feel like that could bridge us into so many places, but when I think about some of the things that you said, and maybe too around the data that’s out there, is what does it look like to standardize some kind of conversation around what are we here to talk about at work? What can we discuss in a free flowing conversation around? What does it look like when things are happening around the world? And do we have a psychologically safe environment where we have the abilities, the processes, the policies, to raise our hand and say, “I need help.”

And so I wonder if, regardless of fair access or wellbeing, if I can’t shake the expectation of, “Well, I’m not allowed to be real here or I’m not supposed to be emotional,” then I think we’re operating with a hand tied behind our back. And I wonder too, because I have some clients and they were just talking about the competitive nature of their work. They said, “Ren, it’s too competitive to admit that I’m tired.” And so how do we admit in a society that doesn’t really appreciate or understand these emotional things to say, “Well, January 6th happened,” by the way, someone who could have seen that and then been like, “Sweet.” And then I tell them, “Hey, this is really messing with me. I need to take a break.” And they’re like, “Great, more for me.” So how do I then, I guess, manage someone to say, “Well, when someone’s taking a pause, this is your chance to take a pause,” or do I have to do that?

Allison Barr:

Well, there’s a lot in what you just said. And I want to back up a little bit because, and I’m going to paraphrase what you said, that you’re not allowed to be emotional. And when you were experiencing the feelings that you had during that day, what would have been beneficial for you? What would’ve helped?

Ren Washington:

Well, maybe I shouldn’t have put myself in there. I am encouraged to be emotional because we’re at a human-centered organization, but I keep on channeling, remember those Frito Lay workers, and the local union 851, and they had just got four more cents an hour.

Allison Barr:

Right.

Ren Washington:

And I wonder, are they encouraged to be emotional? For me, I was given what I needed. It was in an environment where we do this work and there were people in the room and we all paused and we gave space to talk about it. But for those cultures that are like, “Every minute matters. If I’m not doing the job or selling or having the right conversations about the right kind of formulas with the right kind of people, then I’m left in the dust. I can’t afford to have tough conversations about tough things happening in the world because no one cares.”

Allison Barr:

Well, first I think it’s important to talk about, there are very few people who are void of emotion. So when we say to our teams, or we say, “There’s no crying in baseball,” or what have you, I know there are some cultures that exist like this. Anger is also an emotion. Frustration is emotion. So let’s say what you’re really saying. Not you, right?

Ren Washington:

Yeah, not me personally.

Allison Barr:

What are we really saying here? What are we really saying?

Ren Washington:

That’s really interesting.

Allison Barr:

The culture that you’re describing then is that you’re not allowed to, vulnerable is not even the right word. You’re not even allowed to be who you are. You’re not allowed to express yourself. And this could be a rabbit hole that we don’t need to get into, but then there’s a whole other path that we could look at here. When a man raises his voice at the workplace, that’s okay, right? That’s all right.

Ren Washington:

What are you talking about? I’m sorry.

Allison Barr:

Right? But if I did, I’d probably be pulled aside and told to be more likable or something, right? So there’s a whole other thing that we could talk about there, but it’s all important. It’s all important. So there are cultures that will say, “We’re not going to do this here.” And, “Okay, well it’s every person for themselves and every second counts.” If that’s the workplace culture, that’s going to be a very difficult place to have healthy workers.

Ren Washington:

Toxicity is the thing that pops up for me. As you’re talking, I’m like, “Toxic workforce. Toxic bosses,” throw in toxic masculinity as you were channeling there, but it’s the toxicity. There’s even toxic achieving in some of our things where it’s like, “Win at any cost. We’re here to work.” And it’s funny, it makes me think of so many times leaders talk about the need for these parts of the continuum that are more assertive or authoritative or even demonstrate toxic. And I sometimes pause, I’m like, “What we do is we’re here for leadership development. We’re here to better ourselves. We’re not here to sharpen saws that marginalize and diminish. We’re here to sharpen saws that bring people up that flourish.” I often tell leaders, all of us have an opportunity to be the tide that lifts all ships.

And so I think about how do we curb toxicity? And maybe the conversation that we’re having now is looking at people honestly, reminding ourselves that we’re people. Looking at it through the world, it’s tough out there, man. Things are hard when you have real conversations that are impacting people’s lives and conversations that they have to have with their kids and talking about, “Well, what if that happens to you? What if you’re in the grocery store? What if you’re at a salon? What if you’re outside or walking to school or walking to work?” And then looking at the people that we work with and saying, “In an effort to maximize your potential and our bottom line,” altruism, we talked about that, does it exist?

Allison Barr:

Right.

Ren Washington:

I think organizations don’t have to be altruistic. The mass shows us that when someone feels supported and given the space to mourn or work through their stresses, they’ll feel belonging. And then when they feel belonging, their effort turns up. So you’re going to get more out of someone if you say, “I hear you. I’m supporting for you,” like your boss, on the phone. “Do you want me to stay with you? Forget about the work. Are you kidding me?” Versus someone who’s like “Let’s not talk about this stuff. We just want to get to work.”

Allison Barr:

Right. And there’s something to be said about learning the skillset of empathy in the workplace, which we’ve talked about before.

Ren Washington:

Yeah.

Allison Barr:

And sometimes leaders, and human beings in general, let’s be real, can feel paralyzed because they don’t know what to do when somebody is experiencing this kind of strife, right? And so leaders, you can say, “I don’t know how to help you right now, but I’m here to listen to understand, and I want to help you. So can you just tell me more about how you’re feeling?”

And a lot of people don’t do that because they don’t know how, right? And they want to help so badly and want to be so solution oriented, which is great, however, sometimes all people need is for you to understand what’s going on, right? “I need you to understand that this has really shaken me up and I can’t focus right now. Can I please take two hours off?” “Yes, of course.” Right? “Tell me what you’re working on. Tell me what your urgent deadlines are right now. And to let me see what I can support with.” You don’t always have to have a solution. Sometimes it can look like, “I do not know how to solve this for you, but I want to listen. Let me just listen. Tell me what’s going on for you.”

Ren Washington:

It’s so funny. I feel like leaders are listening to you going, “Allison, yeah right. That’s a pipe dream.”

Allison Barr:

Why?

Ren Washington:

Yeah, I hear you. “If I give people an opportunity to do that, everybody’s going to do that.” Right? I feel like leaders tell me that all the time.

Allison Barr:

Then what? But then what? Play this game with me. So all of a sudden you listen to people, God forbid, then everybody’s going to want to talk to you. Why is that a problem?

Ren Washington:

Well, that sounds like, for some managers I know, they’re like, “Holy shit. I didn’t sign up for that.” But no, I’m thinking like, imagine if someone’s like, “Oh, I need two hours.” I think a leader is concerned everyone’s going to do it at the same time. And then people are going to abuse it. And I see your face right now. I wish everyone could see Allison’s face. She’s like, “That is the biggest pile of horse.” And I’m like, “I agree,” right?

Allison Barr:

And that’s not what I said either. And that’s not what I said. So sometimes it could sound like, “Right. I don’t have time right now to talk. Can we talk about this tomorrow?” It might sound like, “I hear you. Can you power through for 30 minutes? Could you do that?” It’s about having conversational skills. It’s not about being a dumping ground. That’s not what I’m saying.

Ren Washington:

Yeah. And moreover, I think too, people aren’t going to take advantage of it. If you’re a leader and you’re worried that someone’s going to take advantage of it, if you’re leaning into the hypothetical character that I was just playing then, I can typically assure you that people aren’t trying to do that. There’s even people, as you implied in your stories, that actually would rather work through it. So it’s kind of like the fear I recall, “Well, we can’t let people work at home because no one’s going to work.” And then what we found out is, no, we can’t let people work at home, because all they do is work.

Allison Barr:

Right.

Ren Washington:

If we create an environment for someone to say, “The news about this horrific thing is making it hard for me to focus on work,” I think the takeaways for these tough conversations that can happen is giving people the space to be honest about those things so that they can have the mental bandwidth or emotional bandwidth to do the work that you’re paying them to do. To pretend like that’s not happening is just, it’s funny. It’s a false paradigm. So I would encourage you, if you’re at all concerned about, “Well, if I give an inch, they’ll take a mile,” is people are trying to do a good job. People are trying to do a good job. Yeah.

Allison Barr:

Nothing that we’re saying is this or that. You can still be directive. If your culture has a grind mentality, I’m not saying that you necessarily need to burn it all down right now. That’s not what I’m saying. You can still have a very highly focused, highly competitive team, if that’s what your culture is. You can also, at the same time, be empathetic and human-centered like we were talking about.

So a lot of times people want to talk about policy and such. “How can we change our policies?” And that is helpful and that can certainly help. However, I think a few more tangible things that you can do if you’re a manager or a leader that come to mind, the first one that’s always going to come to mind for me is to simply educate yourself around the issues that are impacting these groups, right? So we’re creatures of habit, human beings are, and we get used to talking to the people who agree with us, or we get used to reading things that we agree with or reading things that we like or reading things that are happy. And it’s very, very helpful to educate yourself around the issues and listen to people who are feeling a real, true, deep impact. You don’t have to do that at work either. You can do that at home.

And I spoke to a client two weeks ago, who said to me, “Allison, this is so overwhelming. There’s just so much happening.” And she said, “My overwhelm, I know, must be nothing compared to the pain that others are going through. It’s not directly impacting me.” And so that’s the first thing that I think can be very helpful is to educate yourself and listen to those who are struggling. And understand that in order to support, you don’t necessarily need to share the same opinions, but it is helpful to have a perspective on the impact.

Ren Washington:

Yeah. And I’m going to add, because I’m going to go the policy route here, because I agree, I love the combination of how do all of the tools at once? And so yes, really, does anything change if no one’s doing that work of educating themselves or just willing to listen, like you’re saying.

Allison Barr:

Yeah.

Ren Washington:

But also, I think a structural thing is, let’s say you do have a grind mentality where you can’t say, “Hey, I need to beg off for this thing for an hour or two,” but maybe it is a space then you set up ground rules, just really simple ground rules. My wife and I went to a marriage success training, shout out Dr. Kuhlman, Brooklyn, New York, down in this brown stone on the bottom floor, books everywhere. I felt like I was in a weird like psychiatrist’s dream or something. But anyway, we were there and one of the lessons he said for successful marriages, and I think relationships, connection, work, is when there’s a tough conversation, put a time limit on it. If we have something hard to talk about, well, how about we talk about it for 30 minutes and let’s see where we are after that? And then we’ll just put a book on it.

So maybe part of the tactical thing you’re doing, manager, leader, as you’re educating yourself or encouraging people around you to stay educated, all of us, it then too is, “Hey, if something happens, sure, we can talk about it by an agreed upon, we’ll give a little bit of space to explore it what people are feeling, what they’re thinking. And then we’ve got to get back to it or we’ve got to then make a plan for when next we’ll talk about this.” And so I love finding the space for a little bit of both/and, doing yours and then too putting in some of the infrastructure to facilitate the safe space. Not only the groundwork by the human part, but also some of the structural support.

Allison Barr:

Yeah, absolutely. And did you say your doctor’s name was Dr. Coolman? C-O-O-L? Cool? That’s a great name.

Ren Washington:

Kuhlman. Kuhlman, but not C-O-O-L, but he was a pretty cool dude, but that’s how you said it. Yeah, Dr. Kuhlman. And he was not my general physician. No, he’s just a guy who’s convinced that the brain and the heart united equals strong marriage.

Allison Barr:

Okay. Well, that’s a podcast for another time.

Ren Washington:

I’m telling you what. Google him.

Allison Barr:

However, you are highlighting, again, for me, a lot of times people are very resistant to talk about the interpersonal at the workplace. And, A, we all work with human beings, most of us, I suppose, work with human beings. And the team needs model by Dr. Fred Morgensen states that the interpersonal is one of three pillars.

Ren Washington:

Yeah.

Allison Barr:

And it is often the most overlooked. And so I do think that people overlook it because people are complicated. And so within that pillar is trust. There’s also conflict management, and psychological safety, as well as motivation. So trust is always going to be the standout for me. And if you can develop trust on your teams, it’s going to be so crucial during these really difficult times.

And one other thing I want to say is that it’s okay to recognize that some of these things that we’re suggesting may come more naturally to some than others.

Ren Washington:

Yeah, right.

Allison Barr:

That’s okay. Just like any other skill set, challenging yourself to grow into more inclusive leaders will elevate your ability to lead through crisis period. And being more inclusive with your leadership, it hurts nobody. It helps your organization. It helps everybody in your organization. So I think along with self education, ground rules and norms, which I love, it’s important in crises to be able to challenge yourself to grow into being a leader who has these additional interpersonal skillsets.

Ren Washington:

I love it. And I know we’re heading out of here, but I just want to echo, if you’re doing something uncomfortable, if you feel uncomfortable and you’re saying, “Ah, this feels awkward. I’m asking someone how they’re feeling or I’m giving people the space to explore it,” that’s usually a good sign.

Allison Barr:

Yes.

Ren Washington:

Yeah. Comfort indicates that you’re not doing anything new. And so if you’re feeling uncomfortable or on unfirm ground or you’re feeling a little awkward, because you’re trying to give a new space to these new things, lean into it.

Allison Barr:

Yes. That’s so well said. Discomfort.

Ren Washington:

Yeah.

Allison Barr:

Discomfort can be a sign of learning and growing for sure. And just remember, you don’t have to know all the answers, especially when there are true crises happening.

Ren Washington:

Yeah.

Allison Barr:

You don’t have to. You, as a leader, can also go to somebody else and say, “Hey, Ren, I actually don’t know what to say here.”

Ren Washington:

Right.

Allison Barr:

“Can you help me out?” Right?

Ren Washington:

100.

Allison Barr:

So as always, Ren, I appreciate the conversation.

Ren Washington:

Absolutely, my friend. It’s good to see you.

Allison Barr:

Thank you. Yes, always good to see you. And thank you to our team behind the scenes as well, who work diligently to make our podcast happen. So to Emily who’s overseas and the other Allyson and Ryan, thank you. And to our listeners, you can find our show notes and links to all of our podcasts on CCL.org. You can also find us on LinkedIn and most other social networks. So connect with us, let us know what else you’d like us to talk about. And we look forward to tuning in next time. Thanks everyone.

Ren Washington:

Thanks everybody. Thanks, Allison. See you next time.

Allison Barr:

Thanks.