359 - Untangling the Communication Knot: Mastering Emotions in Leadership with Maria Garaitonandia

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my The foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. Why don't you start off and tell us a little bit about you and your background and the work that you do?

Okay, thank you so much. And again, you're giving directions to go right to Nandi.

There you go.

There you go.

Oh my God.

It's a long one. I was the last kid to learn how to spell that in kindergarten or whatever, first grade. But anyway, my story is basically child of an expatriate finance executive who lived abroad for most of my childhood, having to be that new kid every time, learn new rules, be embarrassed a lot of times when I put my foot in my mouth or made mistakes. Seeing my dad suffer a bit when we moved to Mexico, and he just had a hard time of it because he just didn't get, you know, people, and people didn't get him. And being an adolescent at the time, I got it because I picked up on certain things. And when you are an international kid, you learn languages, and you also learn that communication isn't just about the words, it's about tone and nuance, context. So I think that communication became one of those fascinating mysteries to me from a very early age. I think part of me wanted to help my dad. In retrospect, he's not around anymore, but in a way, working with my clients, working with leaders and teams to help them untangle all of those difficulties and communication knots is, I think, subconsciously my way of helping out my dad when he was having such a hard time of it. And back then, they didn't do any kind of cross-cultural training or anything of the sort. So that's, I think, how I decided that I wanted to be a communication untangler.

Wow. So that's what you call yourself, huh? Communication untangler.

I just thought of that right now.

There you go. That's your book in the background, right?

Untangling Communication.

So when we talk, I mean, that's such a great metaphor. When we were thinking about untangling communication, where do people get hung up around this idea of communication?

There's a few different things, and, and of course there's different reasons for getting tangled, right? It can be anything from generational differences, and that's a whole— that's a whole in and of itself, right? And technology and habits and how that has taken us down different paths. There's the cultural element, which many of us are working cross-culturally now, but we can't assume that everybody's Lens is the same color. That's another one. But I would say in general, what I have heard most among my clients is the struggle to disagree or the struggle to give feedback or to make a request or to persuade all of these because they potentially can cause conflict. So you are very, very familiar with.

That's right. So what, what that which translates to me as it has to do with emotions. And when discourse, to not use communication, but when discourse becomes emotional, it becomes tangled and difficult.

Yes, absolutely.

And I absolutely agree with you. And what's interesting to me is that as children, we are learned to listen for comprehension, but we're never taught all the other dimensions of listening. And so we end up as adults being literally incompetent to hear each other at these deeper levels, these emotional levels. And that's what creates problems. What do you think?

I absolutely agree. And as a matter of fact, when you talk about your framework and that importance of not listening to the words, but rather sitting back and listening to that emotion behind the words, it takes a lot of self-reflection and emotional intelligence to be able to do that.

I'll tell you a story about that.

Okay, I'd love to hear it.

It actually doesn't. What I learned in working in prisons for 10 years with people who are, by definition, zero emotional intelligence, probably negative emotional intelligence, is that when they started to learn how to listen to emotions by paying attention to other people's emotions, their emotional intelligence grew through the roof rapidly. So the way that I talk about it is that we can— we grow our emotional intelligence by developing emotional competency. And emotional competency is composed of emotional self-awareness, self-regulation, and empathy. And when we teach people cognitive empathy or the process of affect labeling, they automatically develop emotional self-awareness and self-regulation, and their emotional intelligence grows without them having to do anything. It's really amazing to watch.

That's great. And how do you teach them to be able to do that? Kind of like that separation and not—

So first thing we do is teach them that there's no such thing as rationality, that every human is emotional and every decision is emotional. And then what we do is we teach that emotions are data and all you have to do is build a database of emotions and that's your go-to data when you watch people, because people, the same patterns repeat over and over again. And so emotions come in layers. At the top, it's anger. Disrespect, fear, and then usually disgust, shame, and humiliation come next, and then sadness, and then abandonment. And these are the same emotional experiences that people have over and over and over again. And in each layer there are different variations of that, different flavors. So you learn these layers, and basically what you learn is you take the layer that presents. So if somebody comes to you and is very angry, then you go to the anger layer. You're really frustrated and angry. You're pissed off. And then you go to the next layer. You feel really disrespected. You feel invisible and unappreciated and unsupported. And then you go to the next layer. You feel concerned and worried and anxious about this. And then you go to the next layer. You're disgusted and offended. And you just keep working your way through the layers. Eventually the speaker will get it subconsciously and you'll get, "Yeah, thank God somebody finally listened to me." And it's all, the de-escalation is over with. You're done.

It's being able to define it. And I think that that first layer of self-awareness and being able to describe it to the other person.

That's right.

And sometimes be challenging because a lot of people don't even have the language to describe it.

And that's exactly right. They're alexithemic. And in Lisa Feldman Barrett's words, they have very low emotional granularity. So by teaching people that emotions are data and then having them learn this emotional database, they now have the words to associate with the feelings. And so when they're confronted with somebody who's emotional, they have a place to go. And we follow a script. We don't ask questions, don't use an I statement, only use you statements. You're angry, you're frustrated, you're disrespected. Don't say that whole active listening stuff. What I think you're feeling is angry, which doesn't work, never has, never will. The you statements seem to be very powerful. And this is getting people used to the weirdness of it all, right?

Yeah, I hear a lot among my clients, they feel uncomfortable touching upon subjects of emotion in a workplace environment.

I know I have my opinions of why that is. Why do you think that is?

I think they feel a little too vulnerable when they speak about it. They don't want to let their guard down, and they might be afraid of losing control because they might not have the skills to be able to manage it.

I completely agree with you, and there's fear. They're fearful of emotions. And the reason all of this goes back to our childhood programming Because we all were emotionally invalidated as children. You know, you're out running outside and you run down and you skin your knee. What are you told? Boys are told, "Suck it up." "It's alright." Girls, "Don't be a sissy. Don't be a drama queen." And that is the most pervasive and insidious form of abuse that exists, is this emotional invalidation. And as a result of that, we shut down our emotional maturity at about 6 years old. So we never learn how to deal with strong emotions as adults. And of course, we're going to be afraid of them.

Very philosophical points here.

So how do you help people overcome all of this? I mean, we're working with leaders and they're successful, but they have these tangled communications, right?

And conflict is just one of the things that get tangled up. That's right. Even from the beginning, like, for example, the teams in different functional areas not knowing how to have the clarity, how to make sure that they are conveying what they need from one area or the other.

How does finance talk to sales? It talks to engineering, to Doc— Doc Tax, to production, right?

Yes.

They're all talking different languages.

Absolutely. And a lot of that, of course, has to do with assumptions that are made or starting off conversations by determining what needs to be done, how they want it to be done, without giving a bit of context beforehand. Which can make it so much easier for people to align from the get-go.

So how do you go about teaching people to listen and not make assumptions?

Well, one of the frameworks that I use, which I call CLEAR, it's very, very simple framework. It absolutely starts with conveying context. That's the C. Conveying context is the most important thing because if you are able to start off with that vision, with the clarity of why you are about to make a request, or why you foresee something going in a different direction. If you can establish that first, you are providing the other person the courtesy of coming along with you in your reasoning. I like it. Before jumping right into what you want or how you want to go about it.

So you would start off with something and say, okay, folks, we got a problem here, but let me give you the context of the problem from my perspective.

Yes.

And this is the background and this is how I'm seeing things.

Yes. It doesn't have to be a thesis. It can be a couple of sentences. It can work in both domestic environments with family or it can work in an— you know, it's just giving the other person the courtesy of this is what I'm thinking. I found that, for example, in service-related interactions, when you tell the person who is providing you a service, why you are here, you will find usually that they're more willing to collaborate with you, to help you out than if you just say, hey, you know, this didn't work for me and I want a refund or whatever it is that you're asking for. Giving them a little bit of the background helps them have more empathy towards whatever it is that you need. Interesting.

So C is for context. I just learned something today.

Very good. Oh, thank you. Yes.

Take us through the rest of the steps. What's L?

Okay. So you convey context, try to seek that alignment. As you open the dialogue, you obviously listen and empathize. And the listening happens through open-ended questions. That's where you obtain that empathy by asking those deep what and how questions and obtaining new information that you may not have had going into the conversation. Obviously, You have to be open also to change your perspective as you are having the dialogue with the other person.

So the way I teach that is through TED. Tell me, agree to me, describe for me.

Oh, there you go. There you go.

Simple open-ended questions.

Yes, yes. Once the conversation is flowing a little bit better and you obtain new information that you may not have had before, that's when you can adjust because you are adjusting maybe your understanding of what is important to the other person or what is needed.

Let's back up a second though. That's the A.

Yes.

The E is empathy.

Yes. All right.

How do you teach empathy? Or do you?

A combination of many different things, which includes, well, for example, in a cross-cultural environment, it's very easy to jump to judgments because when people start behaving in ways that seem disrespectful to you, you will usually jump to a value judgment saying, These people are so X, right? So rude, or they're so hypocritical, or they're so this or that, without understanding that there may be cultural values that are the foundation for driving that behavior.

Absolutely.

And you don't know what you don't know. It's like the Johari window. There's stuff people know you don't know. And if nobody tells you, you'll never know, right? So a lot of times I tell people, especially in cross-cultural environments, especially when people are triggered so easily, it's like, wait, stop, don't get so triggered. Wait a minute, because there may be a very reasonable explanation for what you are considering disrespectful. Could it be a cross-cultural element? Could it be, you know, and so that's where— Exactly. And I always go back to that story. I don't know if you remember in Seven Habits by, by Steve Covey, where he talks about how he's in the subway and this guy and his kids are misbehaving, and he taps the guy on the shoulders like, "Dude, control your kids." And the guy's like, "I'm so sorry, we just came back from the hospital. My wife just passed away." And he was like, "Oh my gosh, I am such a jerk. I was really judging this guy and he's totally traumatized." So you don't know what could be behind certain behaviors that you are not privy to.

That's right.

So I mean, coming— and that was just the cross-cultural example. How many other things could we be thinking about?

Right.

And a lot of times those open-ended questions will bring you into that understanding mode where you can understand a little bit better if you're willing to, you know, open up, ask the questions, put yourself in that mind frame, and then adjust because that's where you're going to adjust. Kobe did it when he adjusted when the guy told him, He made a major adjustment in his mind. And then, of course, after that, the last step is the reframing. That's where you're ready to establish a solution or a proposal or move the conversation along so that you are continuing in that alignment.

Okay, let's go back to empathy since that's the topic of my next book.

You love it.

Okay. It's only been on my mind for the last 9 months since I've been writing this book. Book. So I define empathy— I found a lot of people really don't know what empathy is, and they get empathy and sympathy and compassion all mixed up. And leaders especially— there are all kinds of studies that show that leaders really are afraid of empathy for the reasons you mentioned earlier. They're afraid of being vulnerable, losing power, being weak, being manipulated, all kinds of stuff. Um, all wrong, but that's the belief structures they have. Empathy— I'm going to be really precise— cognitive empathy is— I define it as the learned ability to read and name the emotional experiences of another human being. Very precise and very narrow. And if you can do that, you engage in cognitive empathy. If you feel what somebody else is feeling and can name the other person's feelings through your own feelings, that is called affective empathy. And then you have predictive empathy. Boy, if this happens, you're going to be feeling really excited. So we're predicting into the future how you're going to feel. And then there's behavioral empathy, which is the actual act of reflecting and naming the emotions of another person. So we've got all these different variations on empathy that people never talk about. And it's so interesting to me to read, and I'm curious about your experience, I read all the stuff from Harvard Business Review and Inc. and all these journalists are talking about empathy and yet nobody defines it and nobody talks about the how. How do you do it? What's been your experience?

Well, as you were speaking, I thought of an article that I read, a couple of articles that have brought to light that being an empathetic leader doesn't mean not touching upon difficult conversation. It doesn't mean not giving feedback and it doesn't mean tolerating misbehaviors.

Absolutely.

The word has been used to a degree that it's like, okay, I just have to accept anything and everything you want to do, how you want to do it, because I have to be empathetic. And I think that's probably where you're finding some of the pushback in leadership, right? It's simply generational issues.

That's right. All it is, to boil it down to its simplest idea, it's validating another person's feelings without agreeing why they have those feelings or legitimizing those feelings. You're just validating what they're feeling. And once you do that, it calms down the other person's brain, and now you can engage in problem solving. In my mediation training, my mantra is de-escalate, then problem solve. And so the de-escalation is the empathy part. But you're right, again, this is just a real failure of our culture. We're not teaching people to be emotionally competent, and so they make up all this stuff That is just nonsense. I argue that learning empathy as a leader makes you more powerful, not less. And the studies show that leadership empathy, for example, it's the number one skill that determines success or failure in leadership. And yet 72% of CEOs say they won't use empathy because they're afraid it's going to make them weak. What a paradox.

Very much.

What a paradox.

But I think it's that. I think they think that it means that they have to become a pushover.

Yes.

I think that's probably what they think.

And you and I are here to tell everybody, We're here to tell everybody, not true.

Not true.

Not true.

I think that there's an element of vulnerability when you can be empathetic in the sense that it's like, look, I get it. Maybe there's a big change, a big restructuring. How do you manage the message?

I think the first thing you do is you've got to acknowledge the room. You're all really upset. You're really angry and pissed off and you feel disrespected and unappreciated and unsupported. And you're all really worried about this. That's the first thing you do.

And that's it.

And that's it. And that's all you have to do. Because once people feel heard, they're willing to listen. You know, when you think about an argument, people start talking, and the other person starts talking, and pretty soon the voices get louder and louder and louder until they're yelling. What are they really doing? The paradox of argument is that the reason we yell is because we're not being heard. And so we yell louder. If I yell louder, maybe you'll hear me. And the other person feels exactly the same. And all one person has to do to stop the argument is listen and validate the feelings. And then there's no more argument.

Exactly.

It's amazing. I love talking about this stuff and I'm really—

I can tell your eyes are all like—

Oh yeah, I get really passionate about this. And I mean, to talk to somebody like you as a pro who totally gets it is really fun.

I love it. I love, but I love people, you know, it's, and I don't say that as a cliché. I really, I'm a natural extrovert. So I get my energy from hanging out with people, talking to them, seeing if I can find something in common with the story. Stranger. And by the way, I heard a young woman on— I think it was on LinkedIn, I can't remember where it was— but young woman in her 20s, and she was saying, guys, everyone who's my cohort, Gen Z, I know it's a little cringe, but we have to learn how to do the small talk thing.

Well, I mean, when you think about it, they're all raised on phones, right? And so none of them know how to communicate. They don't know how to engage in small talk. What's interesting, you're an extrovert, I'm an introvert. So I pull my energy from the inside, but when I have a choice, I prefer to be alone. Interesting. So tell us a little bit about your company, your coaching company. You've been around for quite a while, 26 years, I think.

Global Bridges Training is my company. I have been working with expats. I lived in Mexico for 20 years, so I worked a lot with global companies, helping them out as far as the cross-cultural piece. Leadership, persuasion, you name it, all of those interpersonal skills that are so vital for leadership. You might be wonderful in your technical skills, but if you don't have those interpersonal skills, you're going to get stuck real fast. And that's basically where leaders need to be at their best because that's where they're going to have the biggest impact.

And we're talking about intercultural, but what we don't realize, culture is a very broad word. And one of the big cultural divides that we have is between the four working generations right now.

Yes. And that's, that's chapter 5 of my book.

And it's chapter, chapter 10 of my book.

Oh, there you go. Yes. Because it's so fascinating. You look at it and you think, okay, what changed? There's a huge divide between baby boomers and Gen Xers, and then this millennials and Gen Z. And what happened?

Technology.

Asynchronous communication.

That's right.

Asynchronous communication. And that changed the rules of the game.

That's right.

Big time.

That's right. And I think that when we're not trained to be comfortable around emotions, asynchronous communication becomes really easy and really safe.

Uh-huh.

And so we're going to go and we can scream and yell on text and on social media. We can get, and then social media amplifies anger. Big time, and civil discourse goes out the window.

Absolutely. Amen to you.

And part of the problems we have in our society today is technology has not amplified civil discourse. And as I said, it amplifies anger, it amplifies the outrageous. And so people learn they can be outrageous, they can be mean and cruel, and that's going to get amplified. And kindness and decency and dignity do not get amplified. And so that's what kids learn. And here we are. All we can do, you and I, all we can do is go out and scream into the wind.

Hopefully we can do more than that, Doug.

Well, I hope, but I mean, how many people are there out there really talking about this sort of thing? I don't think there are that many. I mean, people are so caught up in their lives that they don't have time to sit back and think about what's really going on culturally that is causing so much chaos and unhappiness. Us. But there are solutions. You got it clear. I love clear context. Listen, empathy, adjust, adjust, and then reframe.

A little preventative medicine there. Yeah.

How does that work for people when they get that framework down?

You know what, that first step makes it so much easier just starting out, you know. And once you do that, the other things seem to fall a little bit better into place because you've created that goodwill from the very beginning.

Wow. I really never thought about that until our conversation. I'm gonna, I'm gonna start stealing your stuff. Go Well, this has been a really great conversation. Thank you so much, Maria. It's been really fun talking to you.

Oh, thank you, Doug. I really appreciate it.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast. DougNoll.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up, ratings, and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.

Show.