Jerks in the workplace: unmasking toxic behaviour with Dr. Katie Ervin

Dr. Katie Ervin: 0:00

Oh, you're talking about the behavior or the task or the activity and not me. And it allows us to not take it personally. Once you get good at it, you can't have the difficult conversations or the kinds of conversations with people that you don't have a deep relationship with. But you've just got to really be able to practice stating the facts and understanding and reading people's emotions, but you can get really good at it. It just takes work.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 0:27

Hello, and welcome back to unset. At work, I'm your host, Catherine Stagg Macy, and I'm an executive and team coach and I'm really interested in the conversations that we don't have at work ones that were avoiding one of those, the Dirks in the in the workplace, and every workplace I've ever worked in, you come across a few jerks, maybe many jerks. These individuals are often tolerated for a number of reasons. And today's conversation is going to take an unexpected turn as we consider that might not be entirely be the fault of the jerk that they are do what I know stay with me, my guest today is Dr. Katie Ervin. And she is founder and CEO of catalyst development. Her research into workplace motivation resulted in a book and her book is you might be an asshole, but it might not be your fault. So you can see where we're going in this in this episode. The book was released in April this year and was number one best seller in the human resources as well as the Educational Leadership categories in Amazon. So our conversation with her is really delving into the realms of feedback, uncovering blind spots, fostering culture change, and navigating those really important but often challenging, Crucial Conversations, we also have a little diversion about the sandwich approach to feedback. And we'll hear what the two of us really think about the effectiveness of that approach. I want to thank you for being a listener to the show. I am so grateful to have you here. And with no further ado, let's go listen into my conversation with Dr. Katie Irvin, about jerks in the workplace. Dr. Katie Ervin, welcome to unset at work, so nice to have you here.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 2:08

Thank you, Catherine, for having me. I'm excited for our conversation.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 2:11

And we're going to be the theme is really driven by the book that you wrote, called, you might be an asshole, but it might not be your fault. I like the permission. And that might not be great. A little time. Kudos for the book. I mean, it's it was number one in the new release bestseller and human resources pen and education sector on Amazon. That's a hell of an achievement.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 2:32

It was amazing. I like to say, you know, my, my community showed up for me. I mean, when we asked people on the opening day to buy the book, they showed up and bought multiple copies, and it was overwhelming.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 2:46

That's a cool. That's a real credit to the community that you've that you've built. Right. Yeah, that's amazing. So what inspired you to write the book?

Dr. Katie Ervin: 2:56

Yeah, you know, it's funny, too, I should say, when I was writing the book, I kept telling people, oh, I might need a book. And they'd say, what's the name? And I said, Oh, it's it's be the catalyst. And that's the name of my company, catalyst development. People were like, Oh, that's lovely. And I'm like, oh, no, that's not the I don't want to write a lovely book, I want to write an impactful book. And so I was telling my husband one day, I'm like, he said, Tell me about the book. And I said, you know, it's a story about a guy who everyone thinks he's an asshole, but we've actually find out. He's really not he just has no leadership skills. And so he's really not an asshole. And my husband said, so you might be an asshole, but it's not your fault. And I'm like, Yes, brilliant. That's it. And then every since I started telling people that title, it's like, Oh, I'll take multiple copies. But the story was really inspired. Because throughout my career journey, so often, people are just not given the leadership skills they need. And so I tell people all the time, early in my HR career, like we hire people, we think they're fantastic. We promote them. We put them in a position, and we give them no training, no support. And then they fail. And we get mad at them. And it's like, Well, did you set him up for success?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:14

I think of the conversations I've had with people talking about someone else's, not who they think is an asshole, and then like, Have you have you told them? Like, oh, yeah, no. And that's really one of the threads that you follow through around feedback. Yeah. And the importance of inside.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 4:29

It is it's so important to because I firmly firmly believe and there's no scientific data behind this. I haven't done the research, but I really believe 97% of people don't want to be an asshole. Like, I think people want to be good. They just don't know. And then there's those few people that Yeah, I know. I don't care. I it serves me well. Okay, well, then. This book is not for you. My work is not for you. Good luck. Yeah.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:56

What do you think gets in the way of us giving the candid feedback that would help the person? Yeah,

Dr. Katie Ervin: 5:04

there's so many things. I think part of it is the fear of, you know, what if, what if they don't like what I'm telling them? What if they don't think I'm nice, we tell people all the time, stop being nice and be kind, like, you've got to tell them the truth. And so it's never easy to hear that feedback. And I will thank people when they give it to me, even if it hurts my feelings, because I want people to get used to giving feedback and for it to be normalized. But if you're not used to it, if you're afraid of hurting people's feelings, if it went poorly, one or two times, you will just hold back. And then I know too, when I'm coaching clients, sometimes people are just terrified of, you know, someone in their bad behavior. And so they don't want to put their neck out there to be mistreated, especially

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 5:56

if the person is in a position of power over them in whatever, whatever form that looks like. Yeah, can seem career limiting. Mike

Dr. Katie Ervin: 6:04

the character in my book, he comes off very, very mean, and hateful and hurtful. Even when he got the feedback, the first couple of times, he didn't hear it, it took a kind of smack in the face, lose your job kind of scenario where it finally hit him. And so even feedback at first, it may not be received the right way at first. Yeah,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 6:30

when you speak to the whole problem of Pete, you know, you're you're really nailing people's fears that like I have given them feedback and nothing happened, or it would seem to escalate things. And also, I think what I'm hearing you saying is that there's a skill, people don't feel skills. I mean, I was never taught any form of framework and giving feedback when I was in the corporate world.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 6:49

Yeah, it's, it's so true. And that's one of the most important things we do when we're doing leadership training and skill building is how to have these difficult conversations, how to approach even the scariest individual, you know, this person's a jerk, or whatever. And so I always try to reframe it, what if they don't know? Like, what if they genuinely don't know that they're an asshole? What if nobody's ever told them? And so trying to flip that mindset to more of a growth mindset, what if you're giving them the gift of knowledge? What if you're giving them the gift of growth, and I'm always afraid if we don't tell them, and they never know how that is going to limit their career growth. And so I want to make sure that I have the tools that I need to grow in my career, and that the people that we're giving feedback to so even just flipping that switch of, don't be afraid of what ifs, and give them the gift of clarity and honest feedback,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 7:51

or comments, or know that you've done your side of the deal, because that's all you can't control how people respond to it. But you can say to yourself, I had the courage to give them the feedback what they do that is their responsibility. Absolutely.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 8:06

Absolutely. And be there to support them if they're willing to make that change, if they're willing to go through the growth, stand by their side and continue to give them that feedback. But if they're not, you can go to sleep at night. Now, Wayne, you gave that honest feedback to you spoke the facts, you spoke the truth. You shared with them, what could help them in their career growth? Or what might be limited in their current growth, I found some of these really challenging conversations I've had have been with people that are like, I've been up for a promotion 22 times, and I've never gotten it, or I don't even get to the interview stage. And it's like, well, let's, let's do some real hard reflection on on why. And it might be that you're coming across as a jerk, and it's unintentional. And so how do we get past some of those things?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 8:55

That's that speaks to how do we identify those blind spots? But before we go there, I want to ask you, you know, for me, one of the foundations or the things that need to be in place before I give someone feedback is like that I care about them. And if you've been an asshole for a long period of time, the chances that I care about you are a lot lower. Yeah, because I can't get over my frustration, anger, whatever it is, I feel about what would you advise someone like me who's like, yeah, this, this person has blown up holes in my career. I'm, I'm so angry at them. I don't how do I give them feedback? Because I don't actually care about them anymore.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 9:33

Yeah, oh, that's so powerful. And it's so true. And it's, you know, it's really the first step in giving feedback. Why are you giving the feedback? Are you giving the feedback because you want to feel better? Are you giving them the feedback because you truly genuinely care about them? I think that that's an important distinction to make at the very beginning. Because if you're just doing it, quick story, I have a 19 year old daughter and she is just Fanta stick but she's finding her voice and figuring out who she wants to be when she grows up. And she calls me and says, Mom, I need to walk there, I need to have a really difficult conversation with a friend of mine. And I said, Okay, but why? And at the root of it is she didn't really want to have a difficult conversation. She just wanted to let that person know that person was wrong. And then that person, quite frankly, was a jerk. And I'm like, okay, no. But think about that in our career. There's so many times where it's like, oh, I just want to put you in your place. Yeah, well, that's

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 10:33

not feedback. No. Feedback from a growth mindset. From a gift perspective. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 10:40

It really is that root of why you're having the conversation if you're having the conversation to just make them feel bad, or to win the conversation, that that's not a conversation to have. There.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 10:54

And you made the distinction between kindness and niceness, which I think is an important one. How do you help people understand the difference between kindness and niceness?

Dr. Katie Ervin: 11:03

Yeah, I just think it and so I live in the middle of the United States. I live in Kansas City. And so we always say here, it's Midwest, nice, but it's really not. It's everyone wants to be nice. Everyone wants people to like us. And so when we find ourselves just trying to be nice, so we soften things, we leave out facts that might hurt their feelings. We tell them oh, my gosh, you did so fantastic. Today, you just knocked it out of the park. And then they walk out of the room. And we think, oh, boy, that was just not good. Or they say something in a meeting. And everyone just nods their heads and agrees, and then they walk out of the meeting. And then everyone looks at each other. It's like, what an idiot. That's not very nice. But we think it is because we didn't hurt their feelings. And so really going in with that kindness, you're still being nice, but you're sharing all the facts. You're sharing what you see, you're really having that conversation for growth. And leaning into it, as opposed to leaving out some of the hard things that need to be said.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 12:08

If a me kindness is always more of a long term, lens, and doesn't center on my discomfort. Because I think niceness enters in my can I reduce my discomfort in this conversation? Yeah, I can have great Mac about around the edges of that. Good day today.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 12:28

Yeah, yeah. I always tell people, like, you know, when people say, Well, I don't want my partner to, you know, I never asked my partner how I look in an outfit because I don't want them to say and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I would rather my husband be like, Are you going out like that? Than to me, like catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror after I've been out a couple of hours? And it's like, Why didn't anyone tell me?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 12:51

The story of my family around kindness was niceness. And it's, it's my aunt and uncle. And for every wedding anniversary they have. She serves them up liver and onions because it's his favorite dish. They make it to their 50th wedding anniversary, and he comes clean. He hates liver and onions. But I love it because it's like, you know, he's being so nice that he can't be kind and then what he ends up suffering for 50 years having deep liver in liver, because liver and onions or liver and kidney and onions. I don't know something? Yeah,

Dr. Katie Ervin: 13:21

it's I know. People are appalled when I'm like, oh, yeah, my husband will. He's my biggest critic, but it's also my biggest cheerleader. But because

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 13:32

of caring, by the way back to the kindness as I care about you, I want you to grow or be better or shine and in the way that I know you can. And this feedback helps you do that. Yeah.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 13:43

And I've really tried to create that atmosphere around myself, like I had a client, call me after I made a LinkedIn post. And he said, I know that transparency and kindness is really important to you. So I just wanted to share my thoughts on your LinkedIn post. And I'm like, Okay, here we go. And, and I had to keep reminding myself, like you invite this by inviting kindness. And so you have to be open with a growth mindset. And it was such a gift. And we had such a great conversation. And I ended up not changing my LinkedIn posts because it was about belonging, and inclusivity. And it was really important to my heart, but it really opened a cool conversation. I think it took our relationship to a deeper level because I was open to having a conversation and hearing his input

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 14:30

when you stayed for the difficulty of that awkwardness of receiving it not not getting defensive and being open to just really letting it land. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. What's your view on the the should sandwich

Dr. Katie Ervin: 14:46

method? i I hate it. I hate it. I mean, don't tell me I'm prettier and tell me I suck and then tell me like I have good eyes at the ends like just and I will When I go into a conversation, I will always say, you know, I want to have a really difficult conversation with you. And I want to have with you because it's so important to me to share this with you because I care about you. And so it kind of prepares them. But it doesn't soften it. But I've only in in my 24 plus years of doing this, there's only been one time where it came back. And the person was like, I hated the way you started that and I said, I'm sorry, sorry, but I care about you. And that's why this conversation was so important. When I

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 15:35

work with teams do the six sides of an acknowledgement round. And the feedback is often they are primed to not hear that positive acknowledgement and to hear their shit coming afterwards. It just feels like it's so baked into how it's delivered. And maybe it's the kindness niceness thing. It's like we sort of soften it up with niceness deliver the thing we really want to say and then try and mop it up again at the end. And it's just, it just becomes a very traumatizing process. And you can't hear acknowledgement without going okay, now you're going to smack me in the face with something horrible.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 16:09

Well, and I found when I was doing HR full time, I would sit in with managers who were giving either feedback or coaching or even in terminations, and they would meander all the way down this road of feedback, and they get to the end. And I'm like, I mean, did we land the plane? Like what was the point and I knew that they get it and, and also, you just open yourself up in legal situations, because you're going to say or do something that maybe you didn't mean, because you're trying to soften up the message. And so even just saying to people like, this isn't going to be easy to hear, but it's important for me to share it with you think it releases that? You don't have to do that shit sandwich.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:57

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna Yeah, we're completely on the same page, I want to have an anti shit sandwich campaign or something. Maybe we should start a hashtag?

Dr. Katie Ervin: 17:07

Yes, please, for both sides of the

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 17:09

pond and like, see if we can change the corporate culture that you know, in our own way. We wouldn't want blind spots a little early. And I want to kind of go back to that about how do you how do you identify your blind spots? You gave a little example earlier, what else would you say on how to identify blind spots?

Dr. Katie Ervin: 17:27

I think that's such a challenge. Because I mean, their blind spots because you're blind to them. But there are things you can do. You can surround yourself with people and create this level of psychological and safety and trust, where people are open to giving you feedback, I invite feedback from the women that work for me, from our clients, my family, like, I know I'm not perfect. And I know that there's growth. And so I think even just putting that out into the universe of I'm open to growth, I know I'm not a perfect human. And so please have these conversations with me, you know, please help me grow. I think that allows for people to give you feedback. And then you have to be open to that feedback. If I say, I want to grow and get better. And then someone comes to me and says, Do you know that you said this and it can be seen as insensitive. And if I start trying to defend myself, or push it back, I had a situation where a male peer of mine asked me, you know, hey, I'm hearing that there's a conversation about toxic masculinity. And, you know, have you ever seen that from me or from anyone else? And I'm, like, just a second, let me pull up my notebook of 47 different points or times where, even if it's microaggressions. And, you know, I started kind of sharing like, I know, this wasn't intentional. Here you go. And he said, Yeah, I don't see that. Katie, I don't I don't see that. And I'm like, and for that. You don't really want to hear, I just want to feel better.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 19:03

You want to say that I've asked that and validated my assumption that I'm my account. Okay. And this? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's some there's something about really sitting on your hands. If you invite feedback to it, then it's uncomfortable to sit on your hands and just keep your mouth shut and to say thank you for stop and go home and rage with your journal or something like that, right, but not a person who dare to give you feedback.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 19:26

And it takes that self awareness and that humility to let it sink in. Because whether we see it or not, our people have seen it. And so whether it's intentional or not, that's an opportunity for growth and we do a lot around acceptance. I have people all the time that say, Well, now I feel guilty and it's like, no, don't feel guilty because you had a blind spot. Now that you know, just be better to better do the work. And so it's not about making someone feel bad. It's about helping them be better and do better.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 19:59

You'll framing he's reminded me I've just started doing rock climbing, indoor rock climbing, and have been half a dozen times. And now I'm at that place where I can get to the top. But it's a it's a real scramble I'm like this little, you know, under what I can't see my hands like when a crawling up the wall. And then I was watching some videos with a friend of mine with a rock climber, trainer. And she's all like we you twist your ankle up, you turn your knee and you and you sideways and you stretch this way. I'm like, wow, I didn't have I didn't have any idea of that. With a bit of feedback. I could be I think, like 10% better and therefore less likely to hurt myself, which is really what I'm worried about. But that's what I'm sort of doing parallel here of like that little blind spot. I don't know what I don't know. Right? And what a gift it is to like, I could be not crazy about numbers, but I could be 10% better or have an ease, have more confidence or have more ease in my life, work a little less and feel a little not be on the path to burnout like this and wonderful outcomes of we can embrace what that gift is offering us. Yeah, and

Dr. Katie Ervin: 21:04

I tell people all the time, common sense isn't common unless we talk about it. And so my husband and I, when we first started dating in my family, the F word was a term of endearment. I like to tell people to eff off in my husband, sweet, well, family, you did not do still don't do that. And so he was teasing me one time, and I tell them to eff off. And I mean, he looked me square in the eye and said, you don't say that to people you love and I'm thinking, Oh, I do to people I love. And you know, it's like that in the workplace. We think people come into the workplace with common sense, we think people come into relationships with common sense. It's only common to us, because it's how we grew up. That's what we know, until we have those conversations, the way people behave in the workplace. And that's why the reason why I wrote the book, the way I did was I wanted my character to come up under a really bad leader. So people understood, common sense. Like, that's all he knew, that's all we know, is what we've seen until someone is kind enough to tell us to be better and do better.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 22:11

That's so true. It's back to like with how little we get taught or trained or given about how to have difficult conversations and how to give feedback. It is modeled for us primarily. And you can bet your bottom dollar it's not done on a most of us not done on it in healthy way. Great. You have a model around crucial conversations that you refer to you want to share with more about that for our listeners. Yeah,

Dr. Katie Ervin: 22:36

I love Crucial Conversations. It is actually a book that I read several years ago. And we recommend it to all of our clients. We do a lot of work around it. But it's a really easy model where it's kind of like we talked about before, like, start with a heart. Why are you having these conversations? What are you doing? Why are you having it? What's the intention? What do you hope to receive out of it? Understanding the facts of the conversation? Because that's the other important thing, whether it's a really emotionally impactful conversation, or even if it's just like, What are we having for dinner, like decisions that need to be made conversations that need to be have? What are the facts? What's the mutual outcome that we want to get out of this? Why are we why are we doing this? And then knowing that not everyone's good with giving feedback or having difficult conversations, practicing preparing, putting ourselves in a situation where we are in a safe environment, to have the conversation, and then to be there at the end to support the people. So we've given the feedback, what does that look like? How are we going to support them? What are we going to do and so it just for me, and for the people, we have recommended this too, it really helps them have these candid and honest conversations, but be prepared for them. Because I know from my emotional intelligence, I am wildly passionate and wildly emotional. And if I don't prepare for a conversation, if I don't have the facts, if I don't let my brain catch up with my tongue, I will say things that I don't mean or that I regret. And if we're uncomfortable in a situation, we can do that as well. So this is really a model to help us prepare for the conversation and then to actually have it so I should look around I'm sure I have the book around here but it's it's crucial conversations is actually the name of the book. We just recommend it to everybody and and to use the model because it's just so basic

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 24:44

up with incentives for people. Yeah, it's um, I like the preparation angle of that as well. I think that's vastly underestimated. And

Dr. Katie Ervin: 24:51

the majority of the work is the preparation like that's the cool thing too is it's even Brene Brown you know the the story I'm telling myself And if really, as you're preparing for this conversation, it, it requires you to reflect, is this really a crucial conversation to be have? Is it really a problem? Is it my history and my noise and my past that is coming up? Am I having a reaction to this? That is unnecessary. So it allows us to really state artifacts, understanding where we're coming from, and then really go into that conversation with the best intention and the heart and mind. So I will say, really 60 to 70% of this is the preparation, and then it's the conversation and the follow up. Yeah,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 25:39

that makes so much sense. I think, yeah, the peppers is underestimated. And would you suggest to people practicing this in more low key or low stakes, you know, like, feedback over the dinner that somebody made, you didn't really like? It's not at a high stakes business conversation? It

Dr. Katie Ervin: 25:57

is, it's so important, you know, because it in any difficult conversation, there has to be relationship and trust for me to go in and say, Hey, Catherine, we've never met before. But I care about you, and I want to have this difficult conversation with you. You feel like, wow. You don't even know me. And so that relationship is so important. So building that relationship, building that trust level is so critical, because then people can realize, Oh, you're talking about the behavior or the task or the activity and not me. And it allows us to not take it personally. Now, I will say, once you get good at it, you can't have the difficult conversations, or the kinds of conversations with people that you don't have a deep relationship with. But you've just got to really be able to practice stating the facts and understanding and reading people's emotions. But you can get really good at it. It just takes work.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 26:55

Yeah, so practice, practice practices are a key takeaway from this conversation. It's a muscle, right? I think hard conversations, your capacity for them or is it is a muscle it is

Dr. Katie Ervin: 27:04

and don't avoid it, because you're uncomfortable. Lean into the uncomfortableness, you're uncomfortable because you care. Or you have other emotions, because you care. And so don't shy away from that. Of

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 27:17

that. Yeah. And you talked a bit about your example early with some got defensive and you just sort of draw to a close very quickly. Any other tips around somebody getting defensive once you've given them feedback? Yeah,

Dr. Katie Ervin: 27:30

I mean, the best example of this is it, of course, it was 2020 COVID. So we're on computer screen. But it was an individual that worked for me that I really valued. He had wildly important technical skills. But also I just knew deep down that he was a phenomenal person, just nobody had really cared for his career, and supported him in it in his career. So he didn't know how to accept feedback. And he didn't know what to, to do with it. And so he's the one that actually told me like, I don't like the way you said that. But I wasn't willing to give up on him. And so we got on the computer screen, you know, I had him turn on his video, which he never liked to do. And I kept stating facts. And he kept trying to blame other people. And he kept trying to bring it to a close, and I kept having a say, we'll call him, Bob, Bob, we're going to have this conversation because I care about you. And it's important. And if we don't change this, it's going to limit your growth, I had to keep coming back and reminding him why this was so important. And let him feel all the emotions of it. And it took about an hour and a half. But I will proudly say that he turned himself around. And quite frankly, the promotions that he continued to get passed over for, he got the promotion, he built the relationships, the toxic masculinity that people thought he had was really that insecurity of what he didn't know and what he was afraid of. And so it took work, and it was exhausting. But it was probably the most important critical conversation I've ever had.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 29:10

Wow, thank you for sharing that. I'm sure. Bob and his colleagues, thank you as well, if they didn't know that he was up there that people do not work with him and probably love working with him. And he was brilliant. Yeah.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 29:24

And he is brilliant. And he's kind and he's loving. And he just, he was coming in scared with insecurities. And all of the times he'd been passed over. It just made him more and more angry. And so this weekend, I was holding a friend's grandbaby and when you're trying to get a baby to sleep, and they're just fighting you and you just hug them tighter and make them feel secure. Like for me that was just what I needed to do for Bob is I needed to figuratively

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 29:52

just hold my arms around

Dr. Katie Ervin: 29:54

him. Right? Yeah, and actually hold him. Yeah,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 29:57

that's a that's a beautiful metaphor, Ananda. Do whatever it is of coming from a place of caring really, really giving a damn. playing the long game with him, it would

Dr. Katie Ervin: 30:07

have been easier to just hang up on Zoom and be like, alright, well, in four weeks, when this doesn't change, we're going to fire you. But when you really care about people, and you really care about being a strong leader, you don't take the easy road.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 30:20

Somebody told me recently about a friend being put on a performance improvement plan. And it feels like, particularly in this country in the UK as performance Britain plans, our methods of avoiding the hard work that you did with Bob. And so at a sort of superficial level, you can you can attribute some bad lacking performance or not meeting requirements. And you're like, Well, what role did you play to a tee, you know, to be part of the outcome that you say you don't want? Like, that's what frustrates me so much with being here with leaders, you created the circumstances. And as another person gets thrown out and unemployed and feeling like shit and feeling there's another another reason why I can't do this job. And yeah, it's terrible, because human consequences are significant when we get when we don't do this. Right. Right.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 31:04

And I even changed when I was doing HR full time, I changed it from performance improvement plan to coaching for success. I mean, just that growth mindset that I don't want anyone to walk into my office and think, okay, Katie just wants to fire me, you know, I want them to walk into any leaders office and think we're partners in this, you want me to be successful. I may make missteps but you're going to help me down this road. And it doesn't mean that at the end of the day, some people don't get let go. But my thing is, I always want to make sure that I can look them in the face, I can look my family in the face, you know, I could tell a judge and I can tell the morning news, like I've done everything I can to set this person up for success. And I did it with my whole heart and with my full integrity and and that's kind of always been my, my guiding light.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 31:56

Or you get a sense of we don't know each other already get a sense your compassion for humanity in this conversation. I love it. Yeah, if someone's listening and going, we have a bit of a challenge, we have a higher than average level of ourselves in this organization. That suggested something cultural, let's say it's imagine they have some degree of influence, we would you suggest they start to unpick the assault culture that they might find themselves in?

Dr. Katie Ervin: 32:22

Yeah, this is such a fun question. Because I love working with clients and companies, that sounds sadistic, but that have this really bad culture, because I firmly believe that people don't want this. It's there. Again, they're living in fear, they just don't know. And so what we do is really try to go in and work with organizations to understand what are their true core values? Are they living those true core values? And if not, why, and how. And so we actually do a six month program, with companies and with leaders, because if you want to know why you should be a good leader just go out. There's, there's TED talks, there's great stuff out there. That inspirational piece is not what's going to change your culture, it's having those leadership development skills, it's having that self awareness, it's having all of the humility and emotional intelligence behind it. And so to really change the culture, you have to do really hard work. And you have to be really willing to open yourself up. And so what I have learned with my company, as we start with executive teams, because we've made the mistake a couple of times where they're like, oh, come work with our emerging leaders. And I didn't ask the question, what are the executives doing? What is the senior leader level doing? And not that they have to work with our company, but they need to be doing something? Because there's nothing worse than working with a group of emerging leaders? And they'd be like, Oh, no, we're not the assholes. It's, it's our bosses that are. And so really holding them to the leadership team. And doing that work is so critically important. You can change the culture, but you have to first create a culture of trust, and a culture of transparency, and a willingness to admit your mistakes, and all of this and, and when you do that, and you lay that really strong foundation, everything else comes together. But you've got to have that, again, that common sense of expectations. I'm

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 34:24

completely aligned with you. I'm so bored of a we'll get HR to bring in some outside consultants to psychological safety. I don't know. I mean, the second list I went for our listeners, was it just like no start with yourself, you and the leadership? Don't look at yourselves, as if you didn't create this context. Maybe you inherited it, but you have allowed it to continue. That feels a lot harder, doesn't it? I think for leaders to say start at home.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 34:48

Yeah, it's it's so challenging, because we don't want it to be our fault. Like we don't want to acknowledge it. And so I tell people all the time i i used to work for a company and We had someone call one time and they were yelling and screaming about how horrible Debbie screwed everything up. And the woman that worked for me, Denise hung up the phone and Denise, I said, what was that? And she said, Oh, she is pissed at Debbie. And I'm like, who's Debbie? I don't know who Debbie is. And so we started blaming everything on Debbie, because then it doesn't feel so personal. So, you know, people are always like, this is my baby, like, I'm responsible for this. I don't want to take credit for it. If it's bad, don't take it from me if it's good, like, This is mine. And so moving from that culture of me, too. We and like that ultimate, like how do we succeed as an organization? And how do we remove guilt and shame and blame from the organization, and that really takes really hard work.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 35:50

You put up Brene Brown earlier makes me think of her work around shame. And we don't we don't make the changes we want. If we're living in any we're in a place of shame. Yeah, so true. Very true. I want to end by putting you on the spot about a time when, when you're a joke and what you learned from that. You know, it's so fun to go dig into my archives, as you say, What a minute go for it.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 36:18

I love this question. And the reason why I love it is because we live in such a world of shiny and pretty and social media worthy, filtered behaviors. And I want people to know, we all make mistakes. We're all a jerk at one time or another people say to me, like, who's the asshole in your book, it's all of us. We've all made mistakes I have, early in my career. I was so selfish, and so unaware that I thought every time someone was whispering, every time a door was closed, it was all about me, it was all about me, and I would start getting defensive. You know, if someone asked a question, it's, you know, well, I didn't do this. And it's not my fault. And I would blame everybody. And I was the young supervisor, and I was bringing my team down. I was not inspiring the people that worked for me. And finally, my boss pulled me into his office and said, I don't know who has told you, you're the most important person in the world, the world does not revolve around you. And you need to figure this out. Because it is going to stunt your growth and your career if you don't stop thinking about yourself. And I still think of him all the time. Because there's times where we might feel insecure, or we might feel unsafe. And we our reaction is to blame or to be super protective of our work. And it's not about us the work we do, whether it's the leadership space, whether it's it, whether it's engineering, whether it's finance, it's for the greater good of the organization, it's for the greater good of the world and for our communities. And so to find ways to be unselfish, and to quiet, the history that you might have is so important. So I still couldn't see his face when he said, You're not that important.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 38:14

It must have been so hard to hear. But he clearly has had such an influence on the path that you've led since then.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 38:21

It was it was heartbreaking. But it was it was life changing. And it's allowed me to make really difficult decisions in my career that have gotten me to where I am today. And so I'm so thankful for him too. He could have probably said Hello, nice.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 38:39

I can see both of us as coaches going to talk about how you might give that feedback a little differently. Like, right, but let's sort of,

Dr. Katie Ervin: 38:48

we don't need a shit sandwich. But you also don't have to tell a 32 year old like, you're not that important. Yeah, I

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 38:54

mean, it's talking about a sense of identity being crushed in a single moment. Yeah,

Dr. Katie Ervin: 38:59

I had another time where someone gave me feedback. And it was really messy feedback. And I had to say to her, like, Thank God at the time I was 45 years old. I said, thank goodness, I'm a 45 year old, self confident career woman because if you were to say that to a 22 year old early in career, you would crush who they are. And so it's important that we give them feedback, but we also don't want to just destroy someone either. And

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 39:26

I think a lot of it's about how you give that back to your point of electrics, just practicing this, you know, maybe having an ally or to dichotomize this landing my story by being a jerk because I can't be with you on the spot or not or not. It's back in my 20s my identity was so built and being right being the smart person being the right person, which I'm very capable of, but I over index that on relationships. And so I remember wasn't a direct boss it was putting the bosses sweet right? Put up this plan for change, which is fundament anti flawed and I was right, it was fundamentally flawed. But there I am as a cocky 24 year old. And I criticized his plan to other people, not to him to other people. And he called me in and he did it to us, Jeff, I don't actually remember what he said. But I remember going I am really, I mean, it was a blind spot that was revealed in chaos that ensued. And Mike, I've really screwed up on the site over indexed because feedback wasn't helpful. And I didn't stop giving my opinion altogether, because I didn't trust how to do it. And, you know, I've been on I've been on a different journey to, to come out of that, that it ends he was formed in my childhood of I was given love and reward because I was the smart person, and very direct and to the point and ever, and that got me grades and awards. But the answer back to like, at Unity, we aren't ourselves at the core. It was our programming as in our upbringing, that era and a strategy that probably worked quite well in perhaps academic in university or at school, that doesn't work in a more collaborative relationship based environment like the office.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 41:04

It's so true early in my career, I would have people just celebrate, Oh, we love how blunt you are. We love how you just say what's on your mind. And, and this and that, and people loved it until it was directed at them. And they didn't like it. And it was like, I had to figure out throughout my career, like, you can be kind, and you can be honest, and you can be straightforward. But you can also be nice about it, as well. And so figuring that out was a messy, messy, messy path. And I burned some bridges, I've lost relationships. But it's, it's important for us to figure that out

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 41:40

for you. And I'm on a very similar career. And I give back to the world. And I you know, I want to I want to acknowledge, you know, you and your book. And the work you're doing is is using your burned bridges and dead relationships, as inspiration for the work you do around helping others to be better at, you know, at these crucial conversations. So, Katie, it's been it's been a blast. Thank you very much for coming on and spending your time with me here.

Dr. Katie Ervin: 42:08

Thank you. I've enjoyed it so much. I appreciate being able to share it all. And you're right, I think we're a very parallel paths. So I'm excited to continue to learn from you,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 42:17

we're gonna have to have a few hashtags and change the world from both sides of the pond back to that point again. That was fun, Katie, thank you. So what a refreshing conversation about feedback, you really can feel Katie's wisdom from years of, of experience at the front line. And she's really delivered the gold around feedback, I think. And it's such a reminder about how preparation is key. I think this is really underestimated, especially if you're not used to giving difficult feedback, how useful that especially and also if the stakes are really high. And how each of us has a lifetime's worth looking at the gap between how we think we show up in the world, and actually how other people are perceiving us or receiving us than that. See. And that's the the work of our Ron blindspots Rooney. We've had some real talk today about jerks and office culture. And if you're itching to keep this momentum going and creating a better workplace, I'd love to invite you into my weekly newsletter if you aren't already on it. And here's three reasons that I think you might want to sign up my tell funny stories until they're funny most the time, the email is full of leadership tips, and you get access to my coaching offers, which I rarely talk about on socials or on the podcast. So if that sounds like something worth trying out, the sign up link is at the bottom of the show notes and the weekly newsletter and I'd love for us to be in each other's inbox. And if you do sign up if you just know that hitting reply in any of the emails that resonate with you is one of the highlights of my day. I just love to be in conversation about these topics. So until next week, my friend, this is your wingwoman signing off.