Your questions answered – Body Odour

Rona Steinberg: 0:00

I'm not going to put you into a victim, a couple pull you and I really don't want to upset. It's like, let's keep this private, for sure, yes, but let's not prolong the agony or make it bigger than it needs to be. And maybe having sort of got the bigness of it and then say, okay, I know this is big, but it doesn't have to be so big. It's just, I'm just giving you some information. And I hope it's helpful. And let them take it rather than try and make it better for them because it's also very different.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 0:39

Welcome friends to unsaid at work, the podcast where we have a look at conversations that we typically avoid that are hard that are crunchy, and I'm your host, Catherine Stagg messy, and executive and team coach along for the ride with you. This week's episode takes a practical turn as we tackle a listeners workplace dilemma, someone wanting to seek advice on how to address the issue of a newly hired direct report. He has offensive body odor. And as always, with these listener questions, I invite my friend and coach extraordinaire to work through this with me, my friend, and my guest is Rona Steinberg, who is the outloud coach. And as you'll spend time with her, you'll realize what are we called her this, her work is centered around helping clients become more self aware, more self accepting, and ultimately more self expressed, and therefore, out loud, she brings a more a slower and more reflective angle to our coaching conversations, which I think is a lovely counterpoint to my style. And remember, this isn't a coaching session, our dear listener is not here. And so our approach is to ask lots of questions as doorways into a deeper understanding for all of us about what's really going on. And whether you've experienced this or not. I know there'll be nuggets in here for you like the difference between kindness and niceness, and why that might matter a topic like body odor, some practical tips for approaching the conversation, like keeping it private and being straightforward. And just as an existential conversation about what is it without discomfort about bad smells. If you'd like your problem answered by Ryan and myself in a future episode, share that with us. There's a link in the show notes. It's anonymous. Tell us as much as you can, or you want to, and tell us how we can help. And we will do our best just to do that. Let's see what we can learn about giving feedback to someone with a bad odor. How are you doing overall,

Rona Steinberg: 2:35

I was having fun. If I'm really checking in, I would say I'm in a sort of place of discovery, which is often a place I find myself when I start to really reflect on topics or issues or anything. I might start by having a lot fun. And then as you go deeper, feels like was really dropping into some profound thinking here. So I'm certainly appreciating every second of this interesting discussion.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 3:11

I feel like we're working on our dance. Yeah, there's a rhythm that we're finding in this. Yeah. Hi, Dee Potter share the conversation. Go.

Rona Steinberg: 3:20

What's the remit? What's the ambit?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 3:22

Yeah, how deep do you go down that rabbit hole coming out? And

Rona Steinberg: 3:25

how much do we give our own examples? How relevant is yeah, actually very relevant?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 3:30

No, I think so. Yeah. personal examples are relevant completely. So I think is the gift and that there are anonymous submissions that we can like you we wouldn't send it on ourselves, perhaps in a coaching conversation or city filter at Brown. This is a bit of Cerrone. We've got a topic here for conversation from our listeners, a listener. Would you like to read out this topic that we have in front of us today?

Rona Steinberg: 3:53

Okay, so this topic is headed, offensive body odor. The listener writes, I have a newly hired direct report that suffers from offensive body odor. It's a hygiene issue. A combination of things hot climate, polyester shirt, no deodorant, or under shirt or T shirt, wearing the same shirt over more than one day. As their manager, the team are escalating to me and asking me to talk to the person. It's been going on for a couple of months. It's affecting my team and me, perhaps others, but they've not said anything to me yet. I dropped subtle hints about my use of deodorant and aftershave. And I've talked about the importance of being ready for impromptu client meetings. What will be a kind and compassionate way to highlight the problem in inverted commas without causing offence or damaging their self esteem or confidence? Oh

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:58

well, it goes out like this.

Rona Steinberg: 5:00

So everybody really hard, everybody

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 5:05

in the challenge of really wanting to be kind, and just noticed that attention to not want to damage their self confidence, right,

Rona Steinberg: 5:12

Catherine, as we've done in the past, before we sort of jump in, is it about someone's smell? What is it about that, that has the potential to be such an emotive topic?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 5:27

I wonder this plays into the thread about what's professional. Like if I'm, you know, if you and I are playing sport, I'm a bit stinky, like, I would feel this permission to be stinky as I play sport with you, or we'll go for a walk or something like that. I'm sweating, and it's hot. And there's an idea of what's professional in the workplace. Right. So

Rona Steinberg: 5:46

I love that, especially because what came up for me was that we have permission to smell when we are being human, like playing sport, or going for a walk, that's an activity. But we definitely don't have permission to be human and exude odors. When we're being professional.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 6:10

Well, I think there's like, there's rain, like if there was like, I have this image of a continuum of, like, smelly as a dog's armpit. On the bad side to Rose Garden on the other side. After playing sports, you can be on either end of the continuum, like you're welcome to be human. But in work, you have a little third in that continuum. You have permission to occupy a theater that continue on on the on the upside towards rose gardens. Yeah. If you ever want to get into office politics to ask people about who, who puts their lunch in the microwave to warm up at lunchtime and heart and hope that's not the office like.

Rona Steinberg: 6:53

To get a reminder of being human eating,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 6:57

it's the tuna salad. It's the egg mayonnaise. It's the spicy foods with certain aromas. It was like, Oh, my God, that stinks. shouldn't be in the office, yet isn't as interesting. It is a what's human, what's

Rona Steinberg: 7:09

not? What's it called the doll who said Hell is other people? Or was that somebody? Dropping the coin, because we don't really want to be reminded of our humanity or indeed other people. Maybe our humanity is okay, but other people's humanity.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 7:27

But it's reasonable to not want to be around yucky, yucky smells are thrown. Yeah.

Rona Steinberg: 7:32

I notice my judgment on that is reasonable. So if we agree, it's reasonable. What is reasonable about not wanting to be around yucky smells? Oh.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 7:46

I know. It feels like a question.

Rona Steinberg: 7:50

Well, I feel like we're sort of knocking on our natural disinclination to be you with anything that disgust sauce. And that's ingrained in us. We are primed to Oh, something smells bad, move away from Get away. Get away. It's not healthy. It might be dangerous. It feels like this is a sort of primitive or primitive reactions, which is how we are supposed to react. Dislike Ooh, this is the smell good.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 8:24

Are you calling me that? I just thought we acknowledge that rather than suggesting that we accept

Rona Steinberg: 8:30

by calling it out so that we acknowledge it. Yeah. Okay. I'm getting to the, what really might be going on for us in our bodies? Yeah, what's the sort of that physiological base response going on a bit like the fear response? We last time we were talking about our fear of public speaking. And so it seems a bit ridiculous. But actually, it's a natural response. Because we're visible, there's danger that we're hot, we make ourselves highly visible. And it's an ancient primitive response to perhaps the theory is being out on the plane, being separated from our tribe, being observed by another tribe or a pack of wild animals, it doesn't feel safe. And so we have what we describe as an amygdala attack. The primitive part of our brain has this fight flight or freeze response. And so I suppose what I'm thinking about here is that we have responses which are in our bodies. That doesn't mean that there that's all of the story, because we have other things that go on in our brains that counteract our bodies, which is actually no, this is completely safe. This is not going to harm you. It's perfect. You're fine. You're alright, actually, you're in a market.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 9:49

Yeah. It took a talk to clients about being triggered. And somebody sent me it sends you an email and all of a sudden, I don't know what you read the email and you're incensed. with rage, the person has asked you to do something like your response is disproportionate to the email. What is the limbic brains interpretation of the threat response in that email, and that sort of talking yourself down like, there is no threat to my survival. And then email, they asked me to do something, I just find that very annoying. In the same way, the smell, that's the analogy I'm making. I have this visceral body response to a certain smell. It's not cyanide, or it's not sarin gas, I'm not going to die. Got a horrible feeling they can't smell those gases.

Rona Steinberg: 10:37

My point is, some of this is the same. Yeah, it's an interesting thing of I quite like that separating out your initial physiological response. And then challenging yourself is really a dangerous situation. And variably is not much not to dismiss your response. Like there's something going on here for you. Like, that's interesting. Yeah. But let's take this a step further. So Nevertheless, we can work out the system. It's natural for us to have a visceral response, a body responsive that Oh, yeah. And we can think twice. It's not dangerous, it's not going to harm me. But nevertheless, it feels it is unpleasant. I wonder if our discomfort and that feeling of oh, no, but I don't really want to say that to that person. Or, actually, it's quite funny. We tend to joke about it because we are uncomfortable amongst this topic. Yeah. Yeah.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 11:33

Because it feels a personal right. It's not what I don't like your red shoes Rhona. Like, it's, I don't like the way you smell like that feels much more about who you are as a human being, rather than your choice of shoes much more primal. I don't like the way you smell and belonging. If you think back to a social needs around belonging and certainty and fairness, the sort of basic survival needs that we have the conversation about you not smelling in the way that fits in our grouping, as opposed to whatever that means is, feels quite threatening. There's the belonging aspects. I'd also thought of the here that hasn't been kindness and niceness. Our listener said what would be the kind compassionate way. I think the nice way is to not say anything and the kinds of ways to say something good argue with me just chillin chan in an earlier podcast and said, If I go into the bathroom and the bathroom and have my dress code, and when it goes, there is an awkwardness around Catherine, you're slightly disrobed. And you might want to know about it. So the nice thing is not to say anything, because it might embarrass me might embarrass the person telling me but the kind thing is to save you for the rest of the day, walking around looking like that.

Rona Steinberg: 12:45

The nice thing is to not say, but the kind thing is to say, if you've got your neck, if you've got your dress,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 12:52

yes, it is kinds, let me catch it up for editing. The niceness centers, our action on how we feel and to avoid our discomfort, the kind thing centered on what is right for the person, or what you feel to be right for the person. And in spite of your discomfort, in delivering the message, I find that a very powerful way that you're gonna use it, I think you might just

Rona Steinberg: 13:16

get it now. I get where you're looking. I was failing to see the distinction between nice and Chi. But I think the difference for me is the second one is around being in service of that person.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 13:31

Yes, yeah. So kind, kindness is being in service of the

Rona Steinberg: 13:35

person and putting our own discomfort to one side, the embarrassment we might feel about all having to tell. But actually seeing the bigger picture and thinking actually, I'm not in service. I'm doing a disservice to that person if I let them wander around.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 13:51

Yeah. Because the list of talks about the things other people haven't raised it. It's affecting my team and me perhaps a little bit not saying anything. So as I listen to it, absolutely. If you smell the person, everyone else's smelling them like you can I absolutely guarantee there are conversations going on about this person's body odor.

Rona Steinberg: 14:09

Absolutely. In the spirit of kindness, then I think we can all understand how this might be holding back the newly hired direct report from progressing, because it's getting in the way of relationships, yes, isolating them because everyone's gonna give them a bit of a wide berth. They may not be invited to social events. And the risk is that put them in the client or meetings and they're going to be emptying the room pretty swiftly and not really understanding why and so it's not going to go well for our newly hired direct report. So there's a kind of real, purposeful thing at stake here.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 14:51

I like the framing. Yeah, this is about this person, what's at stake for them and their career, their progression, how people behave around them. Huh,

Rona Steinberg: 15:00

yeah. So how do we manage this in a kind of way? Or maybe the in a nice way was so we know it's kind tell them but how can we do it in a nice way?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 15:13

Well, I think preparation is useful. As with all hard conversations, I would say, getting your thoughts straight, writing it down having a conversation with someone else about them, you just say this out loud, I listen to clearly wants to do this in a kind, compassionate way. So when conversations are hard, I think we need to give ourselves a bit more opportunity to practice. What would you add to that?

Rona Steinberg: 15:37

Let's not over prepare. But the reason I say that is because I think we might veer into the realm of over emphasizing how difficult this conversation needs to be. So that if we've taken a lot of care planning what we're going to say, because we're really worried it's going to hurt their feelings. Get into the atmosphere, whereas, yeah, we can. Okay, I've worked out what I want to say. And I'm gonna say this in a straightforward way. And I might name that it's in bit embarrassing, but I'm not going to overemphasize how embarrassing it is. And I'm not going to put you into a victim, a couple pull you and I really don't want to upset, it's like, let's keep this private, for sure. But let's not prolong the agony, or make it bigger than it needs to be. And maybe having sort of got the bigness of it and then say, okay, I know this is big, but it doesn't have to be so big. It's just, I'm just giving you some information. And I hope it's helpful. And let them take it, rather than try and make it better for them. Because it's also very difficult.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:58

Don't center the conversation on yourself, because it's harder for you to give this person the feedback. I've done that. It's like, because I'm so uncomfortable, and embarrassed. And like I have to tell this person, you have to tell Rona, that she doesn't smell nice. And I can only recommend I'm so sorry. This is really bad news. And how do I tell this to you? And like, Stop, it's

Rona Steinberg: 17:19

not about you

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 17:20

just stop. It's sort of exactly. If you're giving the few giving the feedback. It's not about you. So don't become the drama Exactly. Doesn't get don't make it a drama, because it's not a drama, but you can make and I'd like to call home so brave and soft, so long and hard about doing it. And gosh, I didn't I lost sleep. Stop. Not least the wish the person having to receive this feedback. So I like that. Yeah. Overdose plan. Don't overplay. So don't over. Yeah, centered on the person who's receiving it's not on you and your emotions and discomfort.

Rona Steinberg: 17:58

What's coming up for me is, it might be through talking to your children about sex. So if my children are listening to this, I'm not talking about you. To make that completely clear. But for me, I don't so much anymore. But in previous iterations of myself, I used to be kind of embarrassed about absolutely everything. Especially six. But I knew and I not much I knew that when I discussed, or when one discusses sex with one's children. You really don't want to be putting that on there. And I probably have so but I knew that I had to be a bit more direct than anyone was with men. And thank you. For me, it was important to say, I know this is a bit embarrassing. But that's okay. We can get through it together. Again, it's that peace around.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 19:09

I like that framing.

Rona Steinberg: 19:10

Yeah, like it's let's not deny that it is a bit embarrassing, but it doesn't have to be more embarrassing than it is. And it doesn't mean that because something's embarrassing. We can't talk about it. Yeah. In fact, we absolutely have to talk about it. That's kind of the key, you do have to have a bit of courage for these conversations.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 19:33

So what I think what we're saying as question was how to highlight the problem without causing offence is actually to have the conversation

Rona Steinberg: 19:40

and to risk causing offence, brisket. You might call the firm before we will cause offence by the offended if I I'd be mortified. It's awful.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 19:53

But if I then found out that this has been going on for six months, and you hadn't told me even worse, I'd be 100 times more Right. Yeah, that you mean for like six months? I've done this is? Yeah. This is what I've been in the situation you haven't told me for six months? The matter enough to you? Yeah, I think there's maybe this is a linking to nearly one about perspectives like, I wonder if you could hold the idea that this might be the greatest that's ever played, this may be a great gift that you are offering to have the courage and tell this person of the unintended impact they're having through their body odor. Maybe you're the only person has had the courage in their life to do that. And this might be impacting their dating life, their home life, their relationships, their career progressions, I mean, this is potentially a really big thing. So back to like a theme that you and I always come back to about what's the stake here? Like, what is this? What how do we make this bigger than you? And your discomfort in this in the immediate time of feedback?

Rona Steinberg: 20:56

And who knows that person might have some awareness? Because we make up that or they don't know. But maybe they do. Maybe they do know, maybe assumptions. They don't use the group. And it's not enough. Yeah, maybe they really do need some help with that.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 21:19

So we wishing you courage, dear listener,

Rona Steinberg: 21:23

courage, compassion, compassion. Keep it clean.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 21:31

That's a funny use of word. Keep it real. Make it bigger than about yourself. But not

Rona Steinberg: 21:41

too big. Not too big. Yeah. Straightforward. Don't use funny words. Don't be hints. You know, all those hints? Oh,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 21:52

gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I find Yeah. I've listened has used subtle Yes. Suddenly, things haven't worked. Surprise. They might have worked. You don't know I'm not averse to a subtle approach is my first go at the problem. But if they haven't worked, now's not the time. Not yet. It's very clear and direct. And the other thing I would say is don't say, oh, people have told me that they didn't like Like, no own owners. Yeah, yes. Absolutely. Don't farm it out to some mysterious person

Rona Steinberg: 22:25

who doesn't only icon standard, but everybody. Oh,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 22:34

yeah. Just keep it between you. And I think that the specificity of yours. Like if it's maybe late afternoons, it gets pretty bad. Like that sort of specificity might help the person understand what's going on how to make changes if they choose to make changes? Yeah. I'm sorry for that slide. Why are we loving it? You bought six and earlier? Right? Is it different conversations? Any final thoughts are pondering thrown out on this topic of how to give feedback around body odor?

Rona Steinberg: 23:24

Well, no, I think we really have covered it. I think actually, I want to commend the listener for bringing this topic into visibility because I think you could really broaden it out personal habit, Barbara. That's another one. Yes. Habits chewing and a or Yeah, chewing gum slipping your tea was such animals are way. Smelly sandwiches in the fridge. Yeah. Being in relationship with one another. And it comes on the back of the pandemic. We've all been separated, haven't we? We've all been in our little spaces, and we haven't smelled or breathed each other. We are now beginning to again. Although I'm sure that even on screen I have noticed I get triggered by people eating when I'm on realize me. Why?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 24:26

Yeah, the messy business of being in relationship or all exacerbated in the workplace in the workplace, either remote or in person. Yeah. Rona, thanks for your wisdom. Thanks for inviting your willingness to come along. It's been

Rona Steinberg: 24:39

really interesting. And I've really enjoyed it. exploring these topics

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 24:44

and to our listeners, Rona and I will be available again, for those who make submissions if you're feeling energized on listening to Ron and I and you'd like as Ron and I to tackle one of your work conundrums. The link is in the show notes to make your submission And if one of yours has been covered, yeah, we'd love to hear how that went or how that land review what was useful what wasn't. Thank you for listening to this episode of unsaid at work, I hope you've enjoyed it and learned something new, may perhaps opened your perspective on dealing with bad smells or body odor at work. So many listeners have left us lovely reviews on the podcast, like MJ at 17 01. Who says so much of this resonates with me. I've always wanted that friend on my shoulder who could help assure me and guide me when I needed it. What a fabulous resources will be to both leaders and those who simply lost their mojo. It's definitely worth watching and tuning in to the space. Thank you MJ at 1701 for your review, and if you feel cold, I'd love to have a call to leave us a review. That would be amazing. You can leave a review on Apple podcasts or the podcast website and your feedback really helps me improve the show and reach more listeners like you and it's only going to take a minute and would mean an awful lot to me. So thank you for your support. Thank you for listening. And until next time, this is your wing woman signing off