Unlearning Silence: Embracing Authenticity and Unleashing Talent in the Workplace w/ Elaine Lin Hering.

Jackie - 00:00:10:

Welcome to season 10 of Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox, proudly presented by The Diversity Movement and part of the Living Corporate Network. I'm your host, Jackie Ferguson, author, business leader, and human rights advocate. In this podcast, we're diving deep into the stories of trailblazers, game changers, and glass ceiling breakers who share insights and professional success and personal development. Thank you for being part of this amazing community. Enjoy the show. Thanks for listening to Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox podcast. Today, I'm talking with Elaine Lin Hering. Elaine helps people build communication, collaboration, and conflict management skills. She's worked on six continents, taught at Harvard, Dartmouth, Tufts, UC Berkeley, and UCLA, and is a former lecturer on law at Harvard Law School. Elaine is the author of Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully. Elaine, welcome to the show.

Elaine - 00:01:14:

Thanks for having me. I'm delighted to be here.

Jackie - 00:01:17:

Well, I'm excited to talk to you. Let's jump right in and talk about your work. The center is, as I said, around communication, collaboration, and conflict management. That's something that sometimes we all struggle with. Can you share what inspired you to focus on these areas and how your journey has led to where you are today?

Elaine - 00:01:40:

This journey started as one of personal pain. I grew up in a family where we didn't talk about things. We swept the issues under the rug. Kept the peace on the surface. Everything was fine. Everything's fine. It's fine. Except we all know it's not. And it turns out apparently it wasn't just my family. The more I share this story, the more people are like, oh, me too. And I'm like, oh, you were part of my family too? So I went to Harvard Law School intending to be a litigator, but came across a classic negotiation book, Getting to Yes, Interest-Based Negotiation. And it was this light bulb moment of, wait, we can actually talk about things. Now, I grew up as the youngest daughter in an immigrant family from Taiwan. Asian household. You don't express a difference of opinion because that's disrespectful. You comply. You defer. That, in essence, is what it means to love and respect your elders. So I learned a very expensive lesson in law school of, wait, emotions are a thing. We can talk about them. We could navigate through conflict. It could actually be productive. And of course, the skill set around communication is one that you don't typically learn in school in an academic setting, right? You sort of figure it out on the playground or when the team projects don't go well. You maybe do the postmortem, but maybe not. You just get through it and move on. So for me, it really was a journey of, wait, this is a skill set that seems really essential. And that was underdeveloped for me. How can I learn as much as possible? And then realizing, wait, other people struggle with this too. And had the opportunity to then coach other people, facilitate workshops in this area. Turns out I had some good skills in it and never looked back.

Jackie - 00:03:46:

I love that, Elaine. And you mentioned it being a cultural thing for you, but this is also true of women and of parents and of other cultures as well, where you don't get the opportunity to really share, like, I don't understand, or I disagree, or, you know, this doesn't make me happy. And learning that skill is, like you said, it's not taught in school. It's often not taught in the family based on, you know, the norms for, for lots of cultures, for women, for parents, right. Who are sometimes burning the candle at both ends and, and don't have the opportunity to say, hold on, I need to take a minute for me, right. Me is the last word in the vocabulary.

Elaine - 00:04:34:

Completely. And having renewed new empathy for that as a parent now, right? As a kid, it's easy to judge your parents for what they did or did not do. And now it's like, oh no, yep, you. You had that two-hour commute each way and still had to raise us. No wonder you were snippy. Right, right. And I love that you said, this doesn't make me happy, right? Happy wasn't even part of the consideration.

Jackie - 00:05:02:

That's right.

Elaine - 00:05:02:

Happiness is a luxury good. This at times is so much about survival. And so are we asking those next level questions? Are we developing maybe those next level skills, getting out of survival and starting to think about what does it mean and look like for us to thrive? To even ask the questions, what are my needs beyond Maslow's basic food, shelter, water? To what are the things I care about? What do I want to do? It's not what I want to do in life. It's what do I need to do in life.

Jackie - 00:05:39:

Right. And we're not asking ourselves the question, what's going to bring me joy?

Elaine - 00:05:45:

Mm. Right.

Jackie - 00:05:47:

So Elaine, knowing that that's a struggle for so many of us. What kind of tips or what advice do you give us for how we tap into that? How we... Expect that for ourselves, and then how we communicate that to others as the expectation.

Elaine - 00:06:09:

Well, it took basically an entire book to answer that question. So I'll try to go top level right now. One is, I mean, I'm a big believer in double loop learning. So Chris Argyris organizational design, meaning so often when people see a result and they don't like the result, they look to change the action. That's a single loop. So don't like the result, change the behavior. But double loop learning says what actually drives our behaviors or actions is our mindset. So if you want sustainable change, you actually need to start from the mindset. So that's me going a little nerdy because I think it's useful. The mindset shift around this is to say, I am human. Therefore, I have needs, goals, hopes, and concerns. It doesn't make you needy. It doesn't mean that you're taking up too much space. It doesn't mean that you don't care about other people. It just means that you are human. And if you are human too, not just superhuman, but human, then you have needs, goals, hopes, and concerns, and they're valid and legitimate because you are human. So I'd start with that truth. Because there's so much noise. You mentioned being a woman. I would add motherhood to the mix, right? You are supposed to be unflappable. Unwavering in your giving, caregiving, do it with a smile, and it's all got to look like an Instagram reel. That is not real life.

Jackie - 00:07:43:

That's right.

Elaine - 00:07:44:

That is not real life. And in that expectation, there is no room for what do I need. What do I want? You think about birthing a child and those hazy newborn days. It's not about what do you need in recovery as a mother. It's like there's this crying entity that I don't know what to do with, but apparently I'm supposed to feed it, bathe it, learn how to communicate with it. And there's very little room for what do I need? What do I want? So I'd start with the mindset that if we are human, which I'd argue we are, we all have needs, goals, hopes, and concerns. Don't need to debate whether you do or you don't. You just are. And... Then there's this really disorienting moment of, shoot, I'm a grown-ass woman. And I don't know who I am. Shoot. If I'm supposed to have a voice, I'm supposed to teach the next generation of women, girls, children, whoever, to have a voice. I don't even know what my voice is. What have I been doing? That is an incredibly disorienting moment that I and so many have lived. And I want to orient that in the why. If we have spent all this time solving for everyone else's needs, because that's what's expected of us, either to stay in the relationship, keep our seat at the table, or keep the peace, of course we wouldn't know who we are. We're just there to solve for everyone else. So we don't know who we are. We don't know what our needs are. I'd argue not because it's not there inherently, but it's just buried. Under the layers of patterns and expectation. So to me, the unlearning part is the excavation. To notice what has become unconscious habit and pattern, bring it into the consciousness to wrestle with it, to say, what do I actually think about this? Do I believe in it? Is this how I want to live? Or is it just what I've learned over time that very likely benefited me to get to where I am today? But does it serve who I am today and who I am becoming? And if not, we have the opportunity to choose a different way. And a very tactical way is to ask yourself two questions. You're sitting in any meeting, listening to any podcast like this one. The news and ask yourself, what do I think? Not what does my manager think. Not what does my mother think? Not what does my partner want me to think? What do I think? And what do I need? Do I need a break? Do I need peace and quiet? Do I need empathy? Do I need information? Do I need a nap? Right? That awareness of what do I think, what do I need, which is all internal work. Reminds us that there actually is a me. And then we have the third part of your question of, well, then how do you communicate that with others? I'd start with experimentation, particularly if you haven't been. Used to making those asks, making your needs known. To realize this is actually a shift for everyone in a family or organizational system. If Jackie has always been easy-go-lucky, go-with-the-flow, doesn't have any needs. You saying that you have some, which makes sense because you're actually a person, actually human. Means that you're now taking up space and other people aren't used to that. And so to expect the friction or the confusion or the different way we need to think about you, like obviously we should, but our patterns are such that we're so used to not having to consider you. And if no one else is going to anticipate and consider us, which in an ideal world they would, then what can we do in terms of sharing what we are aware of? Of what we need and what we think to add to the conversation, add to the data set of things that we collectively need to solve for.

Jackie - 00:12:04:

Wow. And you know, it's. It's a challenge because one, it's uncomfortable for us to feel. And excavate, as you said, and then also uncomfortable for us to communicate. And uncomfortable for us to receive the look of like, You need what? You want? Right. So it's, but it's so important because that's how we find. Our own fulfillment, which is important. And so many of us are navigating the world and moving from this thing to that thing to that thing. And realize I'm not as happy as I want to be. And really be able to, you know, take time to understand what that even means, because it's not the same for everyone.

Elaine - 00:12:56:

Completely. I mean, there's so many layers to that. One is happiness or wholeness is not going to look the same for everyone. We are not here to try to live our cookie cutter's life, cookie cutter lives. Number two is, I have to go on record with this because you noticed all of the discomfort and it is true. That analysis is also... Incomplete, because it focuses, I'm so glad you said it because it is how our brains work. Our brains focus on the discomfort, focus on what is different, embedded in that is fear and uncertainty. And what our brains don't do is do the second part of the analysis, which is, what are the possible benefits? The discomfort are the costs and we see them and they are real. They are real and perceived, meaning part of the cost is I anticipate they're going to react that way because they're not used to it. But what if they actually were like, yes, Jackie, of course, you know, we want to support you. We just didn't know how. Thank you for giving us something concrete to do. Our brains don't go there. So there's that factor of our perception versus how it translates into reality. And there's a double click there also of we each have the opportunity to make it better for everyone else. If we actually listened to each other, actually considered each other, even if the other person sounds different, says something we never would have thought of, we can lower the risks and the costs for someone else sharing what they really think. That is power we each have in how we receive each other. So there's costs, but there's also benefits. There is the benefit of being seen, known, heard. Even celebrated? There is the benefit of living in alignment with who you are. And if we each have one life to live, actually living a life that we want rather than going on autopilot and living the life that we've been told we should want or that we should live. And then there's the broader impact of co-creating a world. In which each of us gets to thrive. Because we're creating that space and creating new norms of who gets to actually be who they are versus who we're expected to be. So I want to call out the benefits that we over-index on because there's short-term discomfort, there's short-term cost, real and perceived, and there's long-term cost and benefit, right? The long-term cost is nothing changes. 20 years later, you're still unfulfilled. You're still walking around as if you're walking on eggshells. Versus the potential benefit of some game-changing experiments and conversations. That allow you and the people around you to live differently.

Jackie - 00:16:03:

I love that, Elaine. And thank you for that extra piece, right? Because we often, our brains stop at this makes me uncomfortable. I'm afraid of what they're going to think or say, but what if we get the benefit? What if they get it? What if I understand myself and I'm able to live in that happier place?

Elaine - 00:16:25:

Absolutely. And I want to be really clear, when I say experiment, start wherever you are and start with low-risk experiments, right? So that could be with a group of friends. You don't actually care about what you have for dinner, but you're all standing around and people are like, where do you want to go? And saying, you know, I want Thai food. And they're like, I was thinking pizza. And then you can decide whether you want to go another round to push for a tie. And maybe you're like, I don't really care, so let it go. But the simple act of expressing a preference is building a muscle in terms of awareness. What do I think? What do I need? And communicating it to someone else. And if it's a low risk context where it doesn't really matter to you, the stakes aren't high, you are learning and getting those tangible data points that say, oh, I can express a preference or a need and it will be okay. Which most of us don't have.

Jackie - 00:17:23:

Elaine, I love that because it's a practice, right? You're not going to automatically be good at something you haven't done, but just like with any skill set. So you've got to practice. You've got to work on it. I think that's amazing. Elaine, you've had the opportunity to work with diverse groups of people all around the world. What are some universal principles or techniques that you found effective in improving communication and resolving conflicts across different cultures and contexts?

Elaine - 00:17:54:

I love that question. To me, one of the biggest takeaways of working with people across industry, geography, seniority, culture of every definition is actually anchoring back to that mindset we talked about earlier, which is, oh, people are people. You could be in the C-suite, you could be middle management, you could be on the front lines. Still a person. And so all the anxiety, all the fear, all the discomfort of trying things on. We're just people at the end of the day. And I think that mindset really helps because so often in organizations, we forget each other's humanity and we focus on the utility of what we bring. And in terms of talent engagement, employee retention. If I'm just here to build widgets and I am disposable because you'll kick me out and just fill the spot with someone else to build widgets, I'm not particularly motivated to show up and much less bring my best ideas to work. But if we can remember that we each are human with so many different things that we carry at work, at home, different passions, interests, we start to see each other as human. Rather than just for the function or the role that we play. The technique that is most helpful, I would say is twofold. One is humility. And the other is curiosity. And I pair those two together because I don't think you can have genuine curiosity without humility. If you think you know everything. There's no reason to be curious. Except none of us are omnipotent. Each of our views is legitimate and limited.

Jackie - 00:19:52:

Correct.

Elaine - 00:19:53:

Right? So my favorite, if you're talking about a way to enter a conversation, one of my favorite catchphrases is from where I sit. From where I sit, that deadline doesn't make sense. From where I sit, I don't understand how the resourcing is going to play out. From where I sit, I don't know how engineering is going to pull that off. It may make sense from where you sit because you see things, know things, have been in conversations that I haven't. And so I want to honor that. And from where I sit in my little zone, it doesn't make sense. So there's a help me understand or add to my data set. And also let me not discount what I see and what I think, because I might not be able to anticipate what everything looks like from a different vantage point.

Jackie - 00:20:42:

I love that, Elaine. You know, that's one of the things that I learned. Later in my career. Right. Because I have a perspective and it's generally a pretty good perspective, but it's limited no matter what. And so I've, you know, my phrases from my perspective, right. And, but I've used that now because it's like, well, we, it's not, the answer is not, well, we can't get that done. Right. From my perspective, that seems aggressive. Right? It gives space for someone to say, well, we could do this. We have this option, right? And it's so important because you don't want to close yourself off to how you could make something work or how you could connect with a person. Right? Because you see through your own lens. And they see through a different lens. And having words like you're saying from where I sit to open up that conversation is so important. Because when you say, well, this is what I think, you're not leaving the conversation open to learn something, to gain something, to solve something. I think, Elaine, if I had learned that at 25, I would have been further fast.

Elaine - 00:22:01:

Well, and we learn it whenever we learn it.

Jackie - 00:22:03:

Yeah, right, right.

Elaine - 00:22:04:

We share it with everyone so that we learn different things rather than having to learn the hard way. And whether it's from my perspective or from where I sit, it's a balance. Because it is maintaining that curiosity, but so often curiosity can be weaponized. Senior leaders say... People lower in the org, you need to be curious because you don't understand what's going on. It's like, sure, we do. And what about the other way or the other direction? You know, it goes all directions of senior leaders. Your view is legitimate and limited. And if you want to avoid every corporate scandal in the last 200 years, you need candid perspectives from people who are differently situated within the organization. Absolutely. And so that curiosity goes all directions, not just downward or upward.

Jackie - 00:23:04:

Absolutely. Absolutely spot on. Elaine, your book. Unlearning Silence, How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully offers insights into finding one's voice and embracing authenticity. What are some practical steps that individuals can take to overcome barriers to effective communication and express themselves more confidently?

Elaine - 00:23:31:

The first question I would wrestle with is... What is my relationship with silence? What role does silence play in my life and my leadership? And I start there because silence isn't something we talk about. And so often the problem statement has been framed to all of us as you're not speaking up. You need to have more courage. You need to have more confidence. Go take some assertiveness training, but don't be too assertive, right? Smile more, smile less. You just can't get it right. But the advice essentially boils down to go fix yourself. Then you might be heard. And there is benefit to preserving the status quo with that problem statement. I think it is fundamentally the incorrect, it is fundamentally an incorrect problem statement. The problem statement is what role does silence play in my life? In my leadership, and how is silence baked into the systems that we're all implicated by? Threefold, right? So in what ways might I need to unlearn? The Ways I Silence Myself. And that could be, I'm not as clear as I think I am. It could be, I actually didn't have that conversation with that person. I just told everyone else in my life about them. And then the illusory truth effect kicked in where because I've repeated the narrative so much, I think I actually had the conversation with the person, even though I didn't. Right? Have I noticed and expressed my own needs? So In what ways can I own the ways that I silence myself? Not because it was intentional, but because it was habitual. And chapter one of the book goes into the ways that we learn silence in school, in our families of origin, in the workplace, and in society. We're constantly scanning the world for how do things work around here. And if we don't see other people speaking up or if we see other people using their voices and it being really costly. We inherently intuit that it's not safe or worth it to do it. And that's often without interrogating for ourselves. Is that true of how I want to live my life? That's one bucket. How do I unlearn? The Ways I Silence Myself, which we have a lot more control over. Then there's the bucket of, in what ways do the people around me, even well-intentioned leaders in my org, silence me? So if you lead people... Chapters five and nine of my book are for you. It's a checklist of in what ways might you be silencing the very people. That you say, I'm here to support you. I want you to thrive. And you have no idea the impact you're actually having. And even if they've tried to give you that feedback, you haven't been able to hear it. And then let's take a good hard look at our practices and policies, how silence is baked into that. In what ways does a policy or practice support a group of people? Or people who carry a certain identity, or silence them. I am so sick, as I think everyone is, of talking about return to office. But why is it such a lightning rod conversation? Because it is a policy that disproportionately supports the people who are used to leading in person. Have shorter commutes. Don't carry caregiving responsibilities. And silences people who benefit from flexible work opportunities. And we're not having that honest conversation about it, right? There are so many levers and options, like you're talking about earlier of. One option is for leaders who are used to leading in person to develop a new skill set about how to lead remotely and hybrid. We're not having that conversation because... Because it doesn't benefit certain people.

Jackie - 00:27:29:

Right. Yeah, that's right.

Elaine - 00:27:32:

Right? So to me, the place to start is what role does silence play in my life? Can I notice my own patterns and instincts? And the interrogation is... Are those the patterns and instincts I want to perpetuate? And if not, how might I try something different? And I'm saying try because trying is an experiment that will get you a data point. It will teach you something. Trying does not commit you to doing it for the rest of your life, which feels so onerous and impossible. But that next conversation, do you say, from where I sit? That doesn't make sense. Help me understand. Something that is different than our normal patterns, but to disrupt those patterns, we need to first be able to notice them.

Jackie - 00:28:23:

Elaine, that's such good advice and so powerful because it's something that we don't naturally think about. So you bringing that out to the fore for us to think through and really determine what that looks like for us, what that looks like. For us externally is so important, so important. As a former lecturer on law at Harvard Law School, you've likely encountered high stakes communication scenarios. How can professionals, especially those in legal or leadership roles, navigate those difficult conversations and negotiate with grace and effectiveness?

Elaine - 00:29:09:

I will start with the premise that Harvard Law School or any other big name institution is still fundamentally filled with people. Which means, that, like we talked about, we're just people. We are people who are flawed. We are people who are skilled. We are people who are flawed in our skill sets. And I always start with awareness. Awareness of what are your strengths and skill sets, what do you bring, awareness of the things that are not your strengths. And how do you build a team? Where you leverage each other's strengths and together are stronger. So there's a lot of really strong thinking, solid frameworks, tools that have come out of that institution that I think are very useful. And how do we continue to interrogate, not take any of that, whatever the institution is? As gospel. As unshakable truth. You know, one of the premises of the program of negotiation is continuous learning. So you had getting to yes that said, be hard on the problem, easy on the people. And then difficult conversations answered the question, well, what if the people are the problem? And then I looked at getting to yes in difficult conversations and work on feedback and said, despite those tools being really sound. Why do some people still not negotiate? Still don't have the difficult conversations. Still don't give or receive feedback. Why is that? Oh, silence. If we want to unlock any of those skill sets, we actually need to unlearn, silence, and interrogate that relationship that we each have with it, the role that it plays on our teams and in our systems. So, you know, I have the beautiful benefit of having been on the inside of the institution to remember. We're all just people. We can be brilliant and flawed. In our humanity and to have the humility to say, what are we missing? What might we continue to learn, particularly as we steward the power of the name or the brand, right? The benefit of coming from that institution is that there is some, amongst some circles, some instant credibility. People are at least willing to listen. Well, how do I steward that power carefully and thoughtfully to have honest conversations to shape the landscape of what we're talking about and how we're working together?

Jackie - 00:31:58:

So important. And, you know, especially with the state of the world right now, right. Understanding how to navigate. Those difficult conversations and how to have. Strong communication exchange with people who are different from you, people who think differently than you based on their experiences and identities. So important. That's so helpful. Elaine, collaboration is essential in many aspects of life and work. What strategies do you recommend for fostering a culture of collaboration within teams, particularly in today's remote and hybrid work environments?

Elaine - 00:32:39:

Mm-hmm. Let me actually start with the last part of that question, the remote and hybrid, and why is that more difficult? It is more difficult in part because we don't see as much of each other. And we don't, in terms of our aperture, our lens of the world, there's less overlap, right? I can't physically see what is in your room or on your plate right now. Unless we make it visible. So in terms of collaboration, there is an over-communication and also an intentionality required to build what might otherwise be a baseline level of trust when we're all going mini-golfing or whatever corporate bonding sessions used to look like.

Jackie - 00:33:24:

Right, right, right.

Elaine - 00:33:24:

Right? Yeah. Where it's, oh, we've done this. We've eaten nachos together or something. We've laughed at our inability to get the golf ball into the hole. There's utility to that, and I don't want to minimize that. And how do we develop the trust, the understanding, the human connection in a remote context? Some of it is disclosing more, right? I love when people's cats walk by on their Zoom screens because, oh, you're a real person.

Jackie - 00:33:58:

Right.

Elaine - 00:33:58:

And then you can talk about your cat. And those glimpses help remind us of it. And then practically on the work front is, here's what I'm wrestling with, right? Here's what came out of left field today that I am juggling. Otherwise, we assume, based on what we can see, we assume we know what's going on based on what we can see, and we really have very little insight. Into what someone's actually carrying. And then in terms of collaboration, it is how do we create an environment such that people can share? Because if it doesn't feel like I can share, feels like I'm going to be penalized for sharing, you know, you think I'm here slacking off because the Amazon delivery guy rang the bell while I was working and I went and got the package so that someone wouldn't steal it off my porch.

Jackie - 00:34:52:

Right.

Elaine - 00:34:54:

Then I feel like I need to hide all the parts of myself that really are just real life. And that, to me, goes back to... Can we listen across difference? Can we be curious about the different ways that we work? And lower the barriers to communication and engagement. Collaboration doesn't mean, and this goes back to lots of definitions and debates about inclusion and belonging, right? Collaboration doesn't mean here's the way things are done and you now need to comply with the way things are done. Collaboration to me means we all need to work together for a common goal or purpose or output. How can we together best do that? Which is going to take into consideration, hey, Jackie, what makes it easiest for you to communicate? What do you need? How do we solve for that together rather than fit into this system? And replicate the patterns that are already there. And if you can't do that sufficiently well, well, we'll just replace you. Really different mindset, really different experience that leads to very different outcomes, whether it's collaboration or just compliance.

Jackie - 00:36:13:

Wow. That's, you know. That definitely gives us something to think about because that's not the natural way that we're navigating our day, right? And so having to take that pause and really slow down and think about how are we interacting? Are we... Are we giving off the right signals and communicating properly where people want to collaborate with us? Right? Do we have that kind of... Top-down command and control. This is what my expectations are, but we're not communicating in a way that allows people to give back to us. And so that's so important, Elaine. Thank you for that.

Elaine - 00:36:58:

Sure. And for listeners who are like, I don't have time to do navel gazing. Right? I got to go, go, go. Let me break it down very practically.

Jackie - 00:37:06:

Please.

Elaine - 00:37:07:

Okay. Number one, in your next one-on-one, it's a 30-second conversation. Hey, Jackie, or direct report team member, whoever you're having the one-on-one with, right? What makes it easiest for you to communicate your thoughts and feelings? Because I care and want to make it as easy for you to bring your best thoughts forward. If they are a post-processor, better yet, put that in Slack, that question in Slack or email on the agenda ahead of time so they can pre-process and aren't caught off guard. If they don't have an immediate response, pick it up in your next one-on-one. But it's really a 30-second conversation that gives us so much intel. That we don't often pause to have. If you've had that conversation when you were onboarding, starting the relationship, still worth checking in, right? My assumption is that it is easier for you to talk things out than to type. Is that still accurate? If not, what can we do about it? If you want to go broader and sort of team, when I facilitate workshops, this is an exercise I walk people through of doing a design audit. What happens is that if we are not actively designing the way that we communicate, we default to the pre-existing patterns. Usually serving the people with the most institutional and organizational power. And we don't even realize we're doing it. And it's not to say that there's a perfect time zone because I've tried to find it in this global environment. It does not exist. You know, Bangalore is still 12 and a half hours from San Francisco ahead. And that's rough for everyone. But are we being intellectually honest? That if we are asking someone to show up on a meeting at 4 a.m. Their time, it likely inclines them towards silence. Rather than optimizing for their voice. And who's taking the hit? Because we normally have the board meeting at the time that is prime time for the CEO, and anyone who has auxiliary decks is doing it maybe 2 a.m., 4 a.m., 11:30 p.m. It's not the same playing field. And that may be okay, but let's be intellectually honest about it and optimize where we can. Also, so many different dimensions to how we work, what makes it easiest for us to communicate asynchronously, real time, video, in person. And do we know? Are we still having our team meeting at 9 a.m, when no one on our team? Is a morning person. Have we stopped to enter? Or is it just we've always had that meeting? You know, the sales check-in has always been 9 a.m. So it's always going to be 9 a.m. Does it actually optimize for voice? And by voice, I mean the expression of different ideas, insights that make things better. It is the heart of innovation and collaboration. Have we interrogated that? Which to me is asking a fairly simple, straightforward question. That doesn't have to be hours of meditative silence. Just, hey, Jackie, what best supports your voice? And also knowing that, having that intel, how might we change the way that we collaborate? Let's try it for two weeks and see what happens.

Jackie - 00:40:31:

I love that. You know, Elaine, one of the things that I love about what you're saying is. You don't have to make a final decision on something. Just try it.

Elaine - 00:40:40:

Totally.

Jackie - 00:40:41:

Just give it a chance. Just test it. If it works, great. If it doesn't, you can always go back to it a different way or try something else. I think that's so important. I think people try to solve too many problems in their head. And not just try it. See if it works. Throw it out there and see if you can have a good response. And if not, dial it back. It doesn't have to be permanent.

Elaine - 00:41:07:

And this is not because we're afraid of commitment, even though we might be.

Jackie - 00:41:10:

Yeah.

Elaine - 00:41:12:

But because that spirit of experimentation, a successful experiment isn't because of a certain outcome. An experiment is successful because we've learned something. So the stance of what might we learn and also give yourself social cover, meaning tell people what you're experimenting with or about. Right? For the next two weeks, I'm really going to try to offer my perspective in a meeting. And I might not get it right and I might struggle, but I want to let you know that's what I'm working on. Better yet, and here's what you can do to help support my experiment, right? Depending on the relationship. But in doing that, we're also building this culture that so often is a catchphrase of continuous learning. We are not stagnant. We collectively are learning together. We are getting better together. And exactly what you said, it may not be better. And if so, we can always go back to status quo. We don't lose much and we might really learn something.

Jackie - 00:42:18:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. Elaine, in your experience, what are some common communication pitfalls or misconceptions that hold people back from reaching their full potential?

Elaine - 00:42:32:

I always go back to mindsets, right? This is the double loop learning because there's so much prescription about what you should do. And Your mindset drives your action and behavior, which drives our results. One pitfall is assuming that you don't have power. That's closely related. To my voice doesn't matter. And we didn't just make that conclusion or mindset up. Often that is part of how we learn to stay silent because we said something and it did not go well. We spoke up and then we didn't get invited to the meeting or that manager shot us a look, we all have those data points along the way. But as human beings, we tend to focus on the power that we don't have rather than the power that we do have. And I'd argue that we each as colleagues, whether we are whether we hold formal leadership titles or not. We have the ability. To profoundly change how other people experience work and life. If we all knew. That when we spoke up, someone would hear us, appreciate us, recognize that we took the risk to do it, how much more likely would we be to use our voice? And we can create that. For anyone based on how we receive them rather than a jacket. I don't know, Jack, what the hell are you talking about? Being like, huh, I've never thought about that. Thanks so much for sharing. Can you parse that out a little bit more so that I can wrap my head around it? Right. Really different affect. So I would start with a pitfall. I don't have a voice. I don't have power to, how do I utilize the power I do have? And if you need a little bit of space between... You know, this is my voice, I'm going to fully own it. Answering the question, if I had a voice, what would I say right now? That little bit of a hypothetical doesn't commit you to it, but starts to get you to think, if this were true, what would I do or say? And you're essentially, it's a technique often used in therapy. You're channeling that voice and honing it even while releasing some of the pressure or taking some of the pressure off yourself. Those would be two pitfalls I'd start with. On the flip side, the biggest pitfall I see with leaders is fundamentally underestimating how hard it is for other people to speak up. And the mindset behind that is... A natural human brain condition of assuming that. Other people experience the world as we do. So if you have never had the experience of getting shot down, if your voice has always been normed and welcome, if you've never struggled with speaking up, it is easy for you to turn around and say, speak up, just do it. I do it. And we forget not everyone is like, we are all different. Not everyone is like us. We are not equally situated. We have different life experiences. So to me, the pitfall is that we forget. Other people are different. We forget that other people are not us. And that plays out in terms of how we communicate too. If we communicate most effectively in real time, then it is easy and quick. And our instinct is to pick up the phone and say, hey, let's just talk this out. It'll be more efficient versus someone else who is wired as a post processor, meaning things get more clear after the fact rather than in real time. You are putting salt on the wound. By saying, let's just talk this out right now. Versus how do we design a way to solve this issue that optimizes for voice and not just my voice or my defaults.

Jackie - 00:46:34:

Absolutely. Elaine, that's so important because a lot of leaders, and especially leaders who don't look like me or you, right? Are the ones that say, I want to hear your voice, speak up, right? But they don't have those same experiences with being silenced, with being talked over, and all of those things that women experience, culturally diverse professionals experience. And so how can individuals cultivate the courage to speak up? And how can leaders support that, even in environments where they might feel intimidated or marginalized?

Elaine - 00:47:17:

I'm going to push back on the question a bit because to me, courage is necessary, but not sufficient. So all the calls to action of women, people of color, be more courageous. I have so many things, some that are not nice things to say about that, right? Just showing up day to day when you are the first, the few, or the only takes a tremendous amount of courage that is fundamentally underestimated by people who carry the dominant identities and are normalized in any context. All right, I went a little ranty.

Jackie - 00:47:55:

I love it. I love it.

Elaine - 00:47:57:

And. Courage is necessary, but not sufficient. To me, whether we use our voices, whether we speak up, whether we lend our best talents at work comes down to calculation. And to me, that is where the responsibility of the leader comes in. If our calculation doing that cost-benefit analysis, which is also broken down further in chapter three of the book, if we see the costs and we see the potential benefits more clearly and have the agency to choose in light of those costs and benefits, what do I want to do? And the calculation makes sense for me to speak up. Then I think we would more often. That was going back to the interaction we talked about earlier of how can we create that for everyone, whether we are a leader with a formal leadership title or a peer, that if we can listen across difference, if we can appreciate the perspective, if we can be curious and exhibit that humility of your view is legitimate, just as my view is legitimate, and both of our views are limited. Then we're not relying on courage. We're fundamentally changing the calculation as to whether it makes sense for someone to speak up. Do we appreciate, do we recognize, do we reward when someone takes the risk to speak up? If so, it changes the calculation. If not... It makes far more sense for that person to stay silent. And we as leaders have a fundamental contribution to how someone's calculation goes. So can we as leaders own the role and the disproportionate impact we have rather than saying, go take some assertiveness training, have more courage?

Jackie - 00:49:56:

I love that. Thank you for that. That's so important. And, you know, I, I, I asked the question the way that question gets asked.

Elaine - 00:50:04:

Exactly.

Jackie - 00:50:05:

And so I, I love that. And it really gives us as leaders. A way to think about it that puts the onus on us in how we lead and not on the individual. Where we have no control over the experiences that they've had that led to that moment. We can only control the current environment. And so I think that's so important. Elaine, looking ahead, what do you envision as the future of communication and collaboration and how individuals can prepare themselves to thrive in an increasingly fast-paced and interconnected world?

Elaine - 00:50:47:

I hear in that question that you're giving me a magic wand, so I'm going to wave it. Yes, please do. What I imagine, what I hope, and what I work toward is work environments, community environments, a world in which belonging, dignity, and justice are true for every human being rather than just a select few. What does that mean in terms of collaboration going forward? You know, there's this big looming question of AI and what role does it play in? To me, curiosity never goes out of style. Curiosity drives innovation in a way that machine learning and big data sets are always going to be playing catch up.

Jackie - 00:51:30:

That's right.

Elaine - 00:51:32:

And also anchoring to our humanity, which is the differentiator.

Jackie - 00:51:36:

Mm-hmm.

Elaine - 00:51:38:

Right? What are the things that we can do that make us human rather than make us machines? And how do we leverage machines to do the work that very few of us want to do in terms of rote learning or analysis? So rather than seeing it as a threat, leaning into what makes us different, keeps us relevant, keeps us whole, keeps us human together.

Jackie - 00:52:06:

Elaine, as we wrap up, how can listeners learn more about your work and connect with you?

Elaine - 00:52:12:

I am on LinkedIn pretty much every day. So Elaine lin Hering there or on Instagram. I have a free monthly newsletter with tips on how to use your voice. You can find that on my website, elainelinhering.com. And of course, the book Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully is available wherever books are sold. If you are not sick of the sound of my voice, you can also opt for the audio book, which I narrate. And if you're sick of the sound of my voice, no offense taken, hard copies are available.

Jackie - 00:52:49:

Elaine, thank you so much. This has been such an important and enlightening conversation about what our responsibility is to ourselves and others. Thank you so much.

Elaine - 00:53:00:

Thanks for having me.

Jackie - 00:53:05:

Thanks for listening to this episode of Diversity Beyond the Checkbox. If you loved this show, please take a moment to share it with a friend, leave a rating and review, and subscribe so you'll be reminded when new episodes are released. Become part of our community on Instagram, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and TikTok. Or subscribe to our newsletter at beyondthecheckbox.com. This show is part of the Living Corporate Network, sponsored by the the Diversity Movement, and edited and produced by EarFluence. I'm Jackie Ferguson. Take care of yourself and each other.