GA 551 | Knowing Honesty and Listening to Understand with Grace Gavin

If you're walking through life only being heard 5% of the time, can you imagine how lonely you feel, how isolated you feel? And that's a, that's an epidemic. It's been declared a public health epidemic by the US Surgeon General because in part because of that. I think we're just not willing to understand people, to actually hear them. And again, you don't have to agree with them, but are you actually listening to them?

Today, I am excited to welcome Grace Gavin to the show. Now let me open by saying this isn't your normal Lean, Six Sigma sort of podcast. We don't talk about really lean or Six Sigma at all or anything like that. But man, does the topic that we talk about today resonate with all the things we're trying to do within our continuous improvement world. So Grace, her sort of, her specialty is to work with folks to help with what they describe as open and honest communication and written some books and that sort of thing. We'll link to everything in the show notes. But we kind of get started with like, just like what is open and honest communication? And like, what does that look like? And then we kind of had a plan of a direction we were going to go. We had talked before the interview, but honestly, it went in a completely different direction. I just got genuinely curious and so I just started firing random questions at Grace and she responded like a champ. And it was such a fun conversation. I think you're going to get a lot out of this episode, so please give it a listen all the way through. And then this might be one. You don't normally asked this, but like share this episode with like five people that you know, because if the world learn how to communicate with one another better, you know, we're coming into an election here in America and you know, the divisiveness is through the roof, right? And but as Grace says, we often, we don't actually really ever listen to people. What we're doing is we're listening to respond instead of listening to understand. And so I feel like this is a meta skill that if the whole world learn to, you know, get, we still won't all agree with one another and that's fine. But being able to at least communicate with one another, hear each each other, I think will just be such a better place to be. So I got a lot out of this episode and I hope you do too. Show notes can be found over@gemba podcast.com look for episode 5:51. Again Gemba podcast.com Look for episode five hundred fifty one. Also, please be sure to scroll down on the app, whatever you're listening to, and connect with Grace over on all the social media platforms. And then be sure to check out her website and the new book coming out. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Grace, welcome to the show. How are you?

Thanks so much for having me, Ron. I am excited for this conversation.

Yeah. So where are you calling in from?

I am just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Yeah. And our mutual friend Steve Kane introduced us, so I'm sure Steve's listening, so. Hello, Steve, and thanks for introducing us. So how do you know Steve? You just kind of just come across each other.

We kept running into each other at different events, and eventually I was like, well, okay, if I keep running into him, we should probably have a conversation. And then didn't really know any of Steve's background, but the. Just the. The leadership training and his perspective and things that he's gone through. I was like, wow, I understand now why we kept running into each other. Yeah.

Very cool. Very cool. All right, well, Grace, I know you've listened to the show a few times at least, and we do like to get things going out of the gate with our guests sharing a quote. So do have one.

Yes. I'm not going to get it perfect, but it's a Maya Angelou quote, and it goes something like this. Do the best that you can until you know better, and when you know better, do better.

Gosh, I love that, man. She's got so much wisdom. I thought you were going to go with the. The way people, they remember how they made you feel kind of when I. That's also one of my favorite ones.

Oh, she's so good. If you ever listen to the audio version of her books that she reads, it's. It's like you're in. In the. In the room with her in poetry. It's just beautiful. So, anyways, love that quote.

That's awesome. That's awesome. All right, well, hey, Grace, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background and, you know, how you got into this line of work that you're in, and then tell us about what you're up to these days.

Yeah. So our company is called no Honesty, and it's a little bit of play on words there. And this is a podcast, so that makes it fun. But it's K N O W. Not. No. So no honesty. The reason being there, though, is because there is a lack of honesty. And we'll get into that in the conversation. But My business partner and I, Ken Bogard, we were working with leadership teams and just kept seeing this lack of communication that was happening between teams and how much slower they would move. And working with over 300 plus leaders, seeing this happen again and again and again, and knowing that we had to help, we had to help solve this issue of communication. And so looking at it more deeply and figuring out, okay, what is it that's missing here? And as we were researching and talking to people, what we found is that quite simply, there was a lack of open and honest communication. So people might have been talking, but it wasn't real. There was no real communication happening. And I'll give you the definitions because I think it's really important. A lot of times people think about the phrase open and honest and they just kind of skip to the honest side of things and miss the open part, which is the really important part and why we're moving more slowly, I think. So I'll start with honesty because that's more fun because it's about us. But honesty is being truly and freely yourself, speaking into what you want and how you feel. So if you think about the, the hot topics of authenticity, vulnerability, transparency, all of those big words wrapped into honesty, keeping it as simple as possible and really important, that's what we want right out of people. We want them to be able to show up as themselves, to be able to perform well and not have to project a facade and be fake because that's going to take more of their energy. So the question is, why doesn't that happen then? Why doesn't everybody show up being 100% honest? And it's because on the other side, people are not open or we don't think they're open. And the really important distinction here is that openness is listening without reservation, putting your needs and wants on pause for someone else. And as human beings and as people in teams, as leaders, we kind of suck at that. And I say that including myself in there. But these are skills that we can continue to build. And that's really at the heart of everything we do, is helping people be open and helping people be honest. Because especially in teams, those are the skills. Skills you have to build to be able to do anything effectively together, to move quickly and solve your real issues.

I'm curious, like, what do you, what's your take on, like, how does something like we were talking before hit record about the respect for people? Pillar of lean. And you know, in there we, we often talk about, like, there's a misnomer Sometimes people think, oh, this means, like, you know, stand in a circle, holding hands, singing Kumbaya. And it's like, it's not always that. Like, that's not always, like, if you're raising teenagers, for example, you know, like, I am. And, you know, sometimes there's got to be accountability, but there's. So how does, like, something like that play with that whole idea of open and honest communication?

Yeah, that's. That's a good point to bring up, because it's not. It's funny that you say it's not all about standing in a circle and holding hands and all that, because I say that exact same thing to my clients. It's about actually being able to hear what somebody is saying, though. So the difference here being listening to respond versus listening to understand. If I'm just listening to respond to whatever you're saying, Ron, I'm actually starting to multitask. And unfortunately, we know that humans are not good at multitasking. I'd like to think that I am, but I am not. And so if I am listening to you, but I'm already pre populating my response, I'm not actually listening to you anymore. And so we're doing that all the time with people. And I think that's where we're missing the respect part. We're not actually listening to understand them. And the key part here is that openness doesn't mean that you agree with somebody. It's about how do we have that conflict productively actually hearing each other. Because so often we see leaders completely missing each other. They might be saying the exact same thing, actually, but using different words. And because of that causes a really. A really serious conflict. And then they can't move forward because now they're stuck on the conflict rather than the resolution. So the question is, how do I actually hear you understand what you're saying? Maybe it'll change what I think, maybe it won't, and that's okay either way. But how do we move forward together? And the way that we do that is by actually listening to somebody and not just trying to win all the time with our thought, with our opinion. Because then you might as well not even be in a team. You're more in a dictatorship at that point.

I actually heard, I was listening to. It was actually a debate online of two people, and it was like a sort of like a religious debate. So religion A versus religion B kind of thing. And they're going back and forth on who's right and who's wrong and all that and then one of them said something outside was so brilliant. He said, we're actually quarreling about words right now. And it wasn't necessarily meaning it was words. Right. And I thought that was such a powerful statement that, you know, don't quarrel about words per se and. Because I think that can happen when you're listening to respond. Would you agree?

Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes when you get into conversations and they're tough ones or they're heated, what you'll say what bubbles to the top first. And that might not actually be what you mean. So you have to be really clear on what. What does it mean to be truly and freely you. What are the. What are the opinions, the beliefs, whatever it is, all the things that are attached to you, what is that? And be really clear on that. Because when you're more clear on that, your words come out with a lot more clarity too, rather than just saying whatever bubbles to the top first in the heated, heated discussion and then also having the ability to. To kind of turn the. The heat back down in the conversation of like, no, that. That's not what I said. Here's what I meant instead of. Or here's what I heard you say.

Yeah.

Is that what you meant?

Yeah, I think that one there, like. Okay, so if I heard, like for me, like, because I constantly listen to respond. I'm sorry, I just do. And I'm working on it. But a trick that I will use with my wife in particular, if we're talking, even if it's not a difficult conversation or any word, is at dinner, having a chat or whatever, and be like, trying to really listen to her and respond back. So not necessarily say, well, if I heard you right, here's what you said. But it is. That is sort of repeating back to make sure I got it right, you know, and it's a very powerful trick for me to. It's a tactic almost to make sure that I'm not listening to respond. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. And I heard this. I almost can't believe it. But this crazy stat. It was actually another podcast I was listening to, but they did some studies and we. Most people feel like they're only being heard 5% of their day. Wow, isn't that insane? 5% of the day you actually feel like you're being heard. The other times, people are just listening to respond or not listening, period. Right. They're talking over you. They're interrupting. Like I kind of just did to you. So sorry about that, Ron, but 5% of the day for people, that is insane. So how do we be that 5% for somebody or how do we help increase that 5% to 10%? How do we really listen? How do we actually hear what somebody is saying? Because if you're walking through life only being heard 5% of the time, can you imagine how lonely you feel, how isolated you feel? And that's a, that's an epidemic. It's been declared a public health epidemic by the US Surgeon General because in part because of that, I think we're just not willing to understand people, to actually hear them. And again, you don't have to agree with them, but are you actually listening to them?

I get a good friend in Arlene World named Brandon Brown and one of the things, a tactic that he uses and he's so brilliant at it and it can feel awkward at times, I'm not going to lie. But it's very powerful. He encourages people to embrace silence. So when he's talking to someone, he's coaching them or whatever it might be, then they say something and he'll just sit there and not necessarily looking back at you, making you feel weird. Like, do you like kind of look down on the ground or whatever? He'll just pause, even for 2, 3 seconds, which seems like an eternity, right? Like, like say something, you know, but he pauses and he says, you have to be comfortable with silence, embracing silence. And that's also very difficult. But boy, if you can do that, then it forces you really to like replay what did I just hear, you know?

Yes, absolutely. The power of the pause right there. Because even if it's a second, two seconds, what that tells somebody is that you're actually listening to them and then you're processing. So you're not processing as they're talking. Again, getting back to that multitasking. And how do you then, how do you have a better response for that? To just actually hear what they said? Okay, let me process that and respond back. That pause is okay, but we've gotten so, like you said, uncomfortable with it and I think it's hurting our conversations. And the reason I think we're uncomfortable with it is because we've, we're in such a fast paced world these days, right? We've never moved as fast as we have today. And we're also never going to move as slow with the advancements in technology, AI, you get into all that conversation. So we're constantly in a, in a state of hurry, in a state of busy. So that, that one second, that two second, that three second pause feels really uncomfortable, but you're going to have a better conversation for it. And so can you handle. Can you step into that discomfort a little bit, have that pause to have a better response to the person rather than just whatever comes up? And I'm just trying to get my word in.

Yeah, yeah. So. So we've talked a lot already about things that. That we get wrong. But are there other. Other things that you see folks struggling with as it relates to being open and honest with one another?

Yeah, I think we struggle with the relationships that we have that are not open and honest and we want them to be. And I see that happening in, in teams, but also in. In our personal lives. And the longer the relationship is, the harder that it is to switch into this way of communicating. And the question always is, how do I do that? And so actually, I'm going to give the audience one of our six practices and carry this with you. But what we created is the agreement to help solve this kind of issue. And again, it's going to feel the first time you do it a little foreign or a little awkward, but bear with me and walk through it, because quite simply, what the agreement does is it begins a conversation, it begins a relationship with openness and honesty so that you can continue to work on to build those skills there. So Ron and I, if we're meeting for the first time, right. Here's what I would say. Will you agree with me on how we're going to communicate? I want you to be 100% honest, meaning be truly and freely yourself, speaking into what you want and how you feel. And I promise that I will be 100% open to it. I will listen without reservation. I will put my needs and wants on pause for you. And in return, I will be honest with you, and I ask that you be completely open to it. And that's. That's the whole simple script right there. But you can. Can you imagine what kind of relationship you have if you start with that and then also recognizing you can use that in any relationship you have now to change it? What, What I think we get wrong all the time is we get stuck in these ruts. But. And part of that's neuroscience that our brains kind of want to run on autopilot. So this is the way it's always been. So this is the way it's going to be. Great. But we can make a choice to have better relationships with people. And it takes a little bit of discomfort. It takes some learning. And part of the magic of the agreement is having it in Place means that we can point back to it and we go back to it. So Ron, you can say to me, grace, I feel like you're not being honest with me. And we have that agreement in place. Right. So what's going on? Or Grace, I feel like you're not hearing what I'm saying. I feel like you're not open to what I'm sharing. What's, what's going on there? Or can you lower that wall down and hear what I'm saying? So we have that agreement in place and then for those relationships that have not been acting that way, it's a great practice, a great tool to come back to over and over again. So yeah, I think we get stuck in, in the ways that things are and think that that's the way it has to be. And I just, I think that's a, that's a tough way to live.

What, what is the sort of. So you and I, if we just met, we could have that agreement that we're going to be honest, but it's just, it's words at that point. Right? Like if I'm not inherently honest, I could just say, sure, but really I'm like fingers crossed behind my back kind of thing. Right. Like, how do you work through that? Because if someone is not naturally honest, I don't know how to say that. Not that they're bad people, but. Well, maybe there are some, you know, like how do you, how do you navigate that? How do you practice it? Maybe is a better way of asking.

Yeah, there's some self awareness that has to happen. So let me just give you the whole kit and caboodle of what we do, Ron. We think about it in terms of, of fake you and the wall. So fake you is on the honesty side of things and it's the facade we project rather than being 100% honest. So thinking about for you, when is fake you showing up and why? Sometimes it's a pattern, sometimes it's with certain people, whatever it might be, starting that awareness. And then when you're in the conversation, being able to rid yourself of it, when you feel it coming over, it's kind of like a, it's like a film or like an ickiness or Maybe it's a 10 pound weight on your shoulders. There's some physicality to it for people, but having that imagery in mind is helpful. And then on the other side of it is the wall. So this is the openness side of things and the wall comes up. It's the divide we create between Ourselves and others, rather than being 100% open. So for me, when the wall is up, my fists clench, and that's a physical way that I notice, oh, I'm not listening. I'm quite literally, if you look at my hands getting ready to fight and defend my position, or sometimes I stop breathing, like, I'm just, ooh, self protective, got to put up the wall. I'm not hearing what this person is saying and what. We're in a conversation, right? We're not on a battleground, so we got to recognize that a little bit and fig how to lower those for ourselves. And also when you're in that relationship with the person helping them do the same. So again, I feel like there's a wall up here. Can you bring it down and just hear what I'm saying? We use it in our teams all the time. I was actually at a networking event with one of my friends and talking about the ways that we kind of get into ruts of interacting with people. She said, hey, how are you doing? Like, oh, good, I'm great. And then I had to pause and say, hang on, let me go back. Because we have this relationship where it's a real relationship, we have real communication. And that wasn't a real answer. So let me try again. And I said, it's kind of a crazy day. I feel like I've been running everywhere, but I'm really excited to be here and I'm glad you're here. And we got to hang out a little bit. And that's a real answer there. And so the question also is, are you asking real questions that you want real answers to? If I'm say, ron, how you doing? Am I actually asking that because I want to know how you're doing, Ron, or am I just trying to do pleasantries and get it out of the way? So those are a couple of ways to think about how do we begin to do this together.

Yeah. Yeah. And I liked what you said. A lot of it is about self awareness because we all have a bias, right? We carry our biases with us everywhere we go. Whether we like it or not, we're biased. And if we're not careful, those bias. Those biases can really just ruin relationships. Right. And the ability to collaborate with other people.

Yes, absolutely. Especially in the tougher conversations. And the way that we change people's minds and hearts is not by yelling at them and to show them all the ways that they're wrong. The way that we actually change minds and hearts is by proximity. So if you And I are closer together, and I hold different viewpoints than you do, but we can have conversations about that. You can see a little bit differently. Again, you might not change your mind, but you have a little bit more appreciation for where I'm coming from. You're not trying to fry me. I'm not trying to fry you. Because we have that relationship. There's proximity there, and we're actually understanding where the other person is coming from.

Yeah. I think it's so important, like, you've mentioned it multiple times now, that you don't always have to agree with the other person, but it doesn't mean that that person's bad because they don't agree with you. I'm big on, like, here's what I believe and why, and I'd love to hear what you believe and why. And if we really listen to one another, we could be like, I totally get it, Grace. I understand why you believe what you believe. Me personally, I don't believe that way, but that's okay. We can be friends and we can work together. We can collaborate and, you know, because I think that's what's wrong partly in the world, you know, left, right, middle, all the rest of it, nobody. Nobody listens to each other. Right. And that's one of our passions. With continuous improvement. Like, I believe it's the. It could be a beautiful Uniter. Like, you know, no matter where you lie on the spectrum of left, right, middle, you know, we all want better. Right? Like, so let's figure out a way to get better. And we can use this toolkit called Lean and Six Sigma and, you know, different. The things that you guys are doing and. And sort of unite the world. And, I don't know, because otherwise we're just yelling at each other, really.

Yes, that's exactly right. And that's not. It's not a world I want to live in. I don't know that it's a world that anybody wants to live in. But again, it gets back to that idea of. Of being isolated, of being lonely. And a real problem with belonging when we take it to companies. And then extrapolating the idea of belonging comes into the question of what does our retention look like? How are we attracting people? If we have a place where people feel like they're belonging, they're not as apt to leave. They're gonna stay because they feel like there's a place they belong. And that's so rare these days for people that your attention is going to naturally rise because of that. And then when your Retention rises, guess what happens? People are more attracted to your company. They want to come be with people who are practicing being open, who are practicing being honest, and continually, to your point, continually improving their lives.

Yeah. Yeah. So what are some of the obstacles, or what are the blockers, if you will, that are really getting in our way? And, like, maybe what are some practical things that we could consider to sort of overcome those obstacles?

Yeah, Well, I think two of them that I mentioned are fake you and the wall. So where are those happening for you? Starting to build some awareness around that are huge. But then also, just why I'm talking to you here today, Ron, is the education piece of this, because we don't. We don't think about communication in terms of being open and honest. Again, we've. We think about ourselves a lot more than we think about others. And in our society, our culture kind of encourages that. Right. It's about me, myself and I. Well, the reality is, is that we share the world with 8 billion people. And so if it's only always about me, that doesn't leave room for anybody else. And especially when I'm working together with people, how in the world is that ever going to work? Organizations are made of people first and foremost. So how do we work together to make that happen? And I think that's a huge barrier that gets in the way is just a lack of awareness and a lack of education around this and having conversations about it. And then the other one that we've already talked about a lot, but is this avoidance of conflict, avoidance of disagreement. It's really. I think it's an avoidance of discomfort, of being willing to be in those tough conversations, because again, it's all me, myself, and I, but also a comfort culture to a certain degree. And so if. If we have differing opinions, I'm going to walk away from you because that feels really uncomfortable, to be challenged in my opinions, but also to hear yours that I don't agree with. And then again, that's where it's coming in, where you're talking about before. That divisiveness that's happening between people, that's not helping us. It's hurting us, man.

Not to get too personal, but like. Like, for me, like, I am. And I think I've probably said on a podcast before, but, like, I hate conflict, you know, like, ask my wife, you know, like, it's very difficult for me to sort of, like, punish my kids. I will, you know, because I have to. I'm their dad. But I hate it. Right? Because I just don't like conflict. I like peace, you know, but there comes a time, especially when you're raising kids or even in the professional world, there might be a time to. Where there needs to be accountability. There needs potentially be punishment of some sort. If someone's doing something bad or dangerous, that's got to be stopped. Right? That's very difficult for me personally. And so I have to work on that and, and be conscious of that because I will avoid, you know, to, to. I will avoid a situation or allow things to probably go on longer than they should because I don't want that conflict, you know, but it's. It so easy to sit here and say that, but to be able to actually do it, it's very difficult, at least for me. Thank God my wife doesn't have that problem, you know, she will, she'll do it, right. She doesn't have that fear like I do. So, you know, it's a balancing act, I guess, but it's real.

The way I think about that is, I hear you. I'm being conflict avoidant because I, I've been there and sometimes I still go back to that point, but it's might feel conflict avoidant, but that conflict is going to come up somewhere else. So whether it's internally or with another person. I remember I was working with a client. It was kind of funny because it was a larger group, but these, it was the same team. And these gentlemen were on kind of opposite sides of the room. And it's very similar to you. This guy was telling me, he's like, what do I do with conflict? I'm very avoidant of it. I don't like to. If I'm working with a client and they say something that's not correct, I'll just, I'll just let them think what they think. And I'm not going to get into that conflict, that argument with them. I was like, yes, absolutely, I hear you on being conflict avoidant. I understand why that happens, but I'm betting that that conflict comes up somewhere else. And then a second later, the guy across the room pops his hand up and he goes, yep, the conflict comes out with me. Because he'll have that conversation where he's conflict avoiding and then he'll come to me and he'll hash it out and we'll have, we'll talk about the conflict and we'll have that conflict with each other. And what's interesting to me is I'm like, okay, so in avoiding it here, you're having the conversation over here. But the conversation that you're having with the person on your team is not actually solving that conflict with the client, so you're still living with it. The next time you go back to them, that conflict is still there. The next conversation that you have with them is still there until you have that conversation and resolve it. So between Ken and I, I remember there was one morning he. He had a. A team in, was going to do a session with them. I was going out to do a talk, and Ron, I swear we've bought 20 HDMI cords, but somehow we only had one in the office. And I had it packed in my bag already ready to go. And, you know, I'm kind of rushing around. He's kind of rushing around a little bit of hectic day, and he's like, hey, where's the HDMI cord? I need it for this client. I was like, well, I need it for this talk. And he's like, okay. He's like, this can't happen again. And to me, I'm like, oh, no, he is. He is so mad. This is not going to go well. This is going to be an argument type of thing. I'm holding that conflict in myself. So I go to the talk and it's. It's great, it's fine. But at the back of my mind, I'm holding on to this the entire time, like, oh, no, this is not going to be good. He's mad at me, all these things. So then I come back, I'm like, hey, sorry about that. Already got three ordered, they're coming, and we'll figure this out. But sorry about that. That was a little bit of a problem. And he goes, oh, no, it's all good. These are just things we got to work through and figure out. So imagine if I didn't have that conversation with him, how long I would hold that conflict in, and in my mind think, oh, he's. He's mad. And how that's going to impact every single conversation we have from there. Instead of just taking that moment to walk into that difficult conversation, into that conflict and resolve it there, and then we're good, and then we move on. And I think that's how you make stronger teams, is addressing it rather than just holding it onto it yourself. Or worse yet, taking out and having the conversation with somebody else and not actually resolving it between you and the other person.

What's your take on social media and communicating behind the keyboard where bravery is amplified greatly?

Oh, I could go on a whole tangent about this, but I think social Media is part of the driver of division, and I'm not the first to say that by any means, but when you're not face to face with somebody or you're not on the phone with them, or you're not talking like you and I are over, over a zoom recording type of thing, and I don't see your face and I don't see the human on the other side of this scathing comment that I'm leaving, I am not open to what you're saying at all. The likelihood that you're going to be open to what I'm typing, yeah, very, very minimal. And it gets us into this kind of drop in, leave a stab somebody with a dagger, if you will. I know that's very graphic, but that's kind of what it feels like. And then leave. There is no, there is no staying in the conflict. There is no staying in the tension there. And I. Most times the comment section is this. That's what it is.

Yeah.

When somebody responds, very rarely do you see thoughtful responses back and forth with each other. I've seen it a few times, but it does not happen that often because when we're typing away, type, type, type, type, we're getting into that anger response and not actually recognizing there's a person on the other side of that who's going to read that and they're going to take it a certain way and we're just trying to win at that point. We're not trying to collaborate with anybody. And social media doesn't have the agreement in place with everybody that gets on there and they kind of. Not to point fingers there, but a little bit, they thrive upon that because the scathing comment section, people go through that, they read that, they spend more time on the platform because of that. And so it's almost kind of designed that way, which is unfortunate. And then we start to see people that way offline too.

Yeah, yeah.

And then that's a real problem.

Yeah, it for sure is designed that way. I mean, I don't know if it's true or not, but I've heard, you know, executives at these various companies, you know, they don't even let their own kids use the product. I don't know if it's completely true or not, but, boy, if there is any truth to that, that's. That' that's what's really scary, you know, so.

But yeah, definitely. And, and, and tells us something too, if that's true. I, I'm not very active on most social media platforms besides LinkedIn because I think it's not perfect. No platform is. But there's a little bit more willingness to have a discussion there.

Although I'll tell you, even in our little lean world, you know, you were talking about lean, it's pretty boring and like whatever, you know. But you know, there's a few people who just thrive on. Somebody will post something and then they gotta find a reason to say why they're not right or they miss something or whatever. And I'm just like, just like negativity just live in your body and you just need to get it out on your fingertips or like I've tried to understand that, you know, like why we always have to have something to say, you know.

Yeah, I think it goes back to that 5% again now that I'm kind of. You're helping me connect the dots here, Ron. But if we feel like we're only being heard 5% of the time and we leave a comment and everybody reads it and likes it and even if they respond to it in a terrible tear you down type of way, at least I've been seen.

Yeah. Maybe that's why people are so worried about how many likes they got on their Instagram picture or whatever, you know, because, oh wow, people think I'm good looking or whatever it is, you know.

And yeah, and it's a false sense of connection. It doesn't actually satisfy that human need. It's a, it's a superficial way of doing it. I'll say.

Yeah. Wow, this has been so good. I, I know we had some questions designed to get kind of gets going. I don't know if I asked any of them, but it was, it was fun talking to you. Do you have any maybe final words of wisdom for folks that are, that are listening and maybe some advice that they can, they can actually just take action on today?

Well, I think the big question here for people is where are you open and where are you not open? Where are you doing that well? Where are you not doing that well? And then the same for honesty and actually we designed the Pursuit of Honesty assessment to put some numbers to that because you know, as, as much as we're in conversations, people also want a way to measure, they want a tangible way to see the data. And so what the Pursuit of Honesty Assessment does. And you can find it on our website, noonesty.com assessment again, link to it. Yeah, O W and having the numbers is really, really powerful. We talk about it with our teams and things like that. But what's more powerful is having the Conversation afterwards. So, Ron, if you and I both take it, and we're in a close relationship together, whether that be a colleague, whether that be, you know, a friendship, whatever that is, and having the conversation of what gets in the way of you being 100% open, and what gets in the way of you being 100% honest, it's that awareness, having that conversation with people, because sometimes we can figure it out for ourselves and we can see pretty clearly where we're struggling to communicate. But sometimes we need that mirror, we need that conversation with somebody to spark the different ideas like you and I are having here today.

Wonderful. Awesome. All right, well, yeah, we're going to link everything up in the show notes. Everybody just scroll down your LinkedIn. We'll put your LinkedIn profile on there and people can connect with you that way. Any other. Aside from your website, LinkedIn, any other ways to connect with you?

Yeah, LinkedIn is fantastic. I love talking about this. Obviously have a whole business around it for that reason. So reach out, continue the conversation. There's something I said here today that you disagree with. Let's have a conversation about it. I want to hear what your perspective is. Maybe there's something I'm missing or we just see it differently, but let's talk about it and have that conversation. And then if you're like, wow, I really love this. I want to. I want more. I want. I want to figure out this in my life. We have a book coming out, so that'll be October 18th, and it's titled no Honesty, Eliminate the Divide, Become a Masterful Communicator and Connect with anyone. So would love to have people, people reading that, having conversations with us, working through this together, because this is really our mission, Ron, is to change how the world communicates. And how we do that is conversation by conversation, team by team, individual by individual.

Nice. We're recording this towards the end of August, so I'm trying to do the math. I think this, the book may be out by the time we're many weeks ahead. So anyhow, we'll link to it in the show notes. So I can't. I'm gonna buy it and read it. So I'm excited. But, yeah, we'll get everything linked up. But this has been a blast. I really appreciate you carving out some time, Grace.

Awesome. This is such an illuminating conversation for me. So thank you, Ron.

Oh, you're welcome. All right, take care. Thanks for listening. Whether you've been on the continuous improvement journey for many years or perhaps you're just getting started Gemba Academy is here to support you. And while we're best known for our more than 1500 Lean and Six Sigma teaching and virtual tour videos, we also have a team of experienced Lean and Six Sigma practitioners available for one on one coaching, as well as a variety of Lean and Six Sigma certification options. To learn more and to schedule a demo, head on over to gembaacademy.com.