Getting to know One Another Again (or for the First Time)

Foreign. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us at JLC Media. This is a conversation among some really wonderful people about everyday leadership conversations. Today's topic is about post anything, but especially post Covid. And I'm looking forward to hearing their perspectives through one or two provocations about how to return to what used to be normal but really isn't anymore, effectively as leaders. Let me get everybody introduced here. Colleen, who are you? You're not just Jorgensen Learning Center. Who are you? I don't know.

That's my identity. I ask myself who I am every day and I continue to fall back on. I am very fortunate to have been to be an associate with the Jorgensen learning center for 12, 13 years. Something like that, huh, Ray? Every time we chat, it seems to grow. And I'm also a mom. I love it. I've got three kids, one of them headed back to college here soon. And I am an avid skier. Love being in the outdoors.

So tell us about you a little bit. Julie.

Hi, I'm Dr. Julie B. Wise, and I have been with the Jorgensen Learning center as an associate as well for the past. This is my starting my fourth year and I am also a mom. I have two girls, one is in college already and I am an avid yogi.

I love the idea of a yogi. That's really cool. Very nice. I live with a yogi, so very nice. Hi, Nicole.

Great. I'm Nicole Lyons. I've been with the Jorgensen Learning center for the last two years. I think a little over two years now. Excited to be a part of this group and a part of this team. I'm also a mother to two boys, four actually, if you count our blended family. And they're all grown almost. I have teenagers, one who just started driver's ed this week. So teaching a brand new driver, good thing. I like adventure, which is one thing you might want to know about me. And I am an avid hiker and backpacker.

Cool. Since we're doing family stuff, I'll be happy to do that, too. I'm Ray Jorgensen. I have five kids, blended three biological adopted daughter and an adopted surrogate kid in Tampa. So I have them everywhere. I have 13 grandkids and it is a pleasure to hear them, work with them, talk with them. One of my grandkids is out on a ship in the Pacific. He just left a couple of days ago. He's on the Essex and should be back in about seven or eight months, so it should be his final deployment. And what do I like to Do I like to be with these people? I love the work that we do. And if you're looking at my office, you can see I have some stringed instruments behind me. So I do my best to muddle along on a guitar on occasion. Once again, thank you all for being here today. And thank you for taking a few minutes of one of your most valuable assets in this century. And that's your time. I set the stage a little bit, but I'm going to do it a bit more. Covid is coming to some shift or change for some people. They think it's an end. I think all of us have talked about there is some continuing Covid impact on us. We want to make sure that we take a minute 25 roughly to talk about what can we do to help people that joined the company that we're in right now during COVID or people that have been with us in our little companies that we have for years. The other thing that happened yesterday is as we were preparing for this, Julie made the comment, how to get to know one another again. So that's kind of what this podcast is about. What can we do as leaders to help people get to know one another again? And I added or for the first time. So we're going to develop today a common understanding about some behaviors that you can, should you choose to again, we make invitations, recommendations, you make decisions, some behaviors that you could actually choose to do very intentionally that may assist in developing the quality of relationships among the people that you lead and certainly among the people that you work with intimately. At the end of this, each of you will have a way forward, should you choose it, to help provide the necessary leadership to enable people to continue to develop and in many cases, sustainability, high quality relationships. So, Julia, what are you hearing me say we're working on today?

I hear that we're going to model a couple different ways to have everyday leadership conversations so that you can continue to have quality relationships with those people that you've all continued to be around. And for those people that are new, how do you build relationships with new people?

That's beautiful. Thank you. Somebody add more, please, or something that I might have said that Julie didn't bring up.

Yeah, I will. I heard direct application. I heard an application piece. It was invitational. If you choose to shift or change your behavior, hopefully at the end of this short little podcast, you're going to walk away with a few things that you can do to sustain these relationships given a virtual environment or a hybrid environment and or enhance the existing ones or really bring people on board, make them feel connected.

Thank you. Thank you both. That's actually where I was headed about connectivity and connections because it means so much to us going forward. Nicole, anything more to add?

I think what's standing out to me in this conversation is really that idea of getting to know people, but also re getting to know people. I think this has been an experience and it has changed people. And I'm looking forward to our conversation and exploring how we can connect not only to people we've known for a really long time in a new or different way, and to those that may be new to us in our lives.

Yeah, thank you so much for emphasizing people we do know already. We work with already. And what about people we haven't really gone? We haven't helped them get through an onboarding process. We really. We just said here, let's go. And your Zoom call or your Google Meets is next week at 9, so see you there. And hopefully you send the link and they can get on technologically. So I really think that's a really nice way to refine and clarify in your own voice what we just set the state, what I set the stage for. So those of you that are listening, notice the check in. Tell me something about yourselves. And they chose to tell us things about themselves as moms. I told you something about myself as a dad. And they also told you something about themselves that they enjoy doing personally. See, so even in a check in, it's an opportunity to redefine, energize again, think again about why is it that I enjoy the scarfs that Nicole wears. You know, what, what, what is that all about? Or what is this whole thing about getting my hair right before we have a podcast? You know, and they. It wasn't even hard. Tell me a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your. Your family and what you enjoy doing. Boom. All of a sudden, people start telling you things. If you're worrying that a meeting's too big, put them in pairs, let them chat just for a couple of minutes. The leader does not have to hear everything. Not a requirement. The requirement is to get voices in the room right away. So notice that. And then I did a very quick is the intention of today's podcast? And then I did what we call in our little company Close the loop. I started with Julie. What did you hear me say? And then I was silent to see who would go next. Colleen went next and she built upon what Julie said. And finally Nicole added to that. We did a simple check in, listened to everybody. I acknowledged each of the people responded respectfully, went to the intention of the podcast, or in your case, if you're listening to us, what's the intention of this meeting? And then I close the loop on that by asking them what they heard and what they were thinking. These simple processes. And it does take some intentionality, but. But it actually allows people to get back in the game again that maybe haven't seen anybody in a while. So let me hear what you guys. What are you guys thinking right this second? What's rising for you and what's stimulating your thought right now?

Nicole, it's about the practice. So if someone wants to start a meeting, like we started a meeting, thinking about the ways in which they could implement something, I think you explained it really well. Like, we're going to talk a little bit, we're going to focus the conversation, and then we're going to get the voices into the conversation. And I really like what you said about it doesn't have to be. If I've got a meeting of 20 people, whether that's online or in person, I don't have to hear from every single person. I can pair people up and have them have conversation in small groups. It doesn't matter if everyone hears them. It matters that someone hears them.

That's beautiful. It matters that someone hears them. That's a beautiful phrase. Thank you. Julie, what are you thinking? What's resonating with you right now?

I think the ease of what it's like. Some people may call it small talk or personal information. And to always have a provocation or a check in in your back pocket. It doesn't have to be a big formal thing where we define it and this is what it is, that sort of thing. It's just simply, you're walking down the hallway and you see somebody, and that in itself could have a check in. And I'm thinking about over the weekend, I was at a street fair and someone came. I hadn't seen them for a really long time, and they came up to me and they were like, are you still at your college? And I was like, no, I'm not. Which led the door to open all of these things. But I didn't know anything about her. And so I was sort of like struggling, like, how do I now turn it and find out about her? You know, is she expecting that I'm supposed to, Like, I didn't say, are you still a teacher? Because I don't. I couldn't remember if she ever was a teacher, you know, What I mean, so I was like, I was having a little bit of a stress, and I wish I would have had this little, you know, thing in my back pocket to always, you know, if I would see somebody during that day to just sort of say, hey, tell me what's going on with you? What's, you know, what. What's new that. What is something that's new that you're working on? Or what are you learning about right now? Or, you know, that sort of thing. And that little bit of finding out about people I could already be prepared for so that I wasn't thrown off guard and. And just talking all about myself because I didn't want to talk about myself. I wanted to find out more about her, too. Oh, you're muted, Ray. I don't hear you.

One of the things that I wanted to say in response to what Julie just said is I have. I struggle with casual conversation. So I am actually taking a course in how to get better at it. So I'm working on it. And what Julie just described is that there's a kind of conversation dance floor. And how do you enter the dance floor, first of all, and then how do you dance with someone else? Well, Julie said it perfectly. You ask a question, how are you? I think I remember working with you. Where was it that we worked together? Or let me know what's going on with you in your life right now. What are you learning? What are you finding interesting in this kind of post pandemic environment? These are all potential provocations that allow you to enter and be in a dance with somebody on the conversational dance floor. So although we are very disciplined as a community of leadership, communication coaches, that's who we are. We're very deliberate in how we do it. And these practices can be utilized in a moment at a street fair, in a bar, at a family gathering. Just doesn't matter. What's resonating with you, Colleen?

Yeah, well, I'll just build on. And they could be used in a zoom call with your team. I was just speaking to one of my clients. I think we're supporting senior leaders across the country. And one of the things that they're negotiating and navigating is they came back to work. Well, now some people are going back. And even though they're all in the same building, they can't all be in the same room, perhaps. So now we've got. We're using video conferencing. And so I think the biggest thing that resonates with me is people continue to Say how, how do I connect with people? How do I connect with my team? How can I make people really start to develop these quality professional relationships even when we're not in the same room or I haven't met them yet. And I think what you modeled already in this brief opening are such incredible ways to quickly and easily. Right? It's a choice. You can choose to do a check in. You can choose to begin a virtual call or a hybrid call by saying, hey, in a 30 second conversation with the person sitting next to you, go ahead and just share really what's top of mind for you and why these simple things people go, oh, I don't have time for that, Ray. That's going to take up too much time. Didn't you see my agenda? Damn, there's a lot of stuff on there. So my invitation is as we're kind of sharing these, be thinking about how can you implement them and that having these casual or informal conversations really is so useful, especially now when maybe you haven't met these people in person or not everybody's in the room.

That's beautiful. We're rebuilding in some cases, but certainly building for new people social capital. How do we actually get to know the people that we work with a little bit better? Why does that matter so much? Well, one of our truisms in our work is that the quality of your conversation produces a quality relationship and these opportunities to get people in conversation, like Colleen said, there's another provocation. What's top of mind for you right now? What's distracting you? I mean, how many meetings have the four of us gone to where we started them that way? What's bothering you? What's upsetting you? What's distracting you? And then how do you intend to deal with that so you can stay focused with us today? So we hear your voice because we really want to hear your voice. We need your thinking. We are always moving toward collective wisdom.

Well, Andrea, how many times have we attended a meeting where somebody hasn't started with the focusing statement, got the voices in the room and checked in and so you can feel and see the difference, right? And they're turning off the videos. People aren't offering their thinking now. It's a one way push of information and I'm just sitting back waiting for me to hear something that might be interesting.

So one of the pieces that you just laid on the table is the very first thing. We've all read a little bit of what's being published right now and we really enjoyed one of the Forbes Articles on post Covid communication. And one of the first things that they recommend is that you over communicate intention. So, like, for example, if I want all the voices to be in the room, I need to say that multiple times. And as Colleen was speaking and everyone spoke here as they spoke, I did my best to acknowledge them and respond respectfully. Well, I couldn't do that if I was not listening, so I needed to listen. We teach certain disciplines around listening, and the one we. The one we lead with, which we do think is probably the most important one, is not listen to wait for the person to pause so I can jump in with my idea, but listen, listen, listen, listen. So I can actually understand the other person's perspective or point of view. And then once that happens, my job as the person in communication is to say, let me make sure I got that right. I heard you say this, this, and this. I get that right. So that's like acknowledging the speaker list. Acknowledge the speaker and confirm that you understood it. Absolutely. I mean, it's not. At some level, it's not really hard. It just feels awkward. If you don't behave that way, then people are going, what's wrong with you? Did you go to a seminar? Did you watch a podcast? You know, what the hell is the matter with you? And the truth is, we're simply trying to be more intentional with the way we let people know, over communicate. We need you. We need your thinking. We need your wisdom. We. We need your practical knowledge. We need you. And this space is safe for you to tell us, I made a mistake. I don't know. I was confirmed. I didn't get it. I missed my deadline, My kid got sick, whatever. If we can make those things happen by over communicating the need for listening and interaction, all of a sudden, something shifts in the meeting room. Julie, what are you thinking now?

I'm thinking that oftentimes we have the intention of a meeting to push information, like Colleen said, and we. But yet we take courses or we invite consultants in to say, how do I improve the trust? You know, we did a survey and nobody trusts anybody. Or, you know, how do I get people to be more. Take more ownership? Well, the way you do that for either of those is by getting the voices in the room. And, you know, a lot of times they'll say, yeah, but we have. We have Zoom calls. And I'm like, yeah, Zoom has a technology and you can put them in breakout rooms. A lot of people don't know that you can put them in breakout rooms. Or when I work with The Navy, we can't use Zoom. So if people are at different commands and things, I, before my meeting, ensure that they have a partner that they're going to be emailing back and forth or texting back and forth during the meeting. So everyone is talking. You can do that, but it's pre planning. But realize that that's where it happens. And so if you look around the room and you're the only one talking in your meeting, it's very possible you're missing a really easy way to build that trust, build that safety, build that ownership. Because once people talk about it, they naturally take ownership and they think much deeper. And plus, you get the opportunity to hear other ideas.

So at some level, you just reminded me of something that I was hired to do 15, 18 years ago. This one group had an annual meeting and they asked me to do what they called the putting the community together. They had a fancier phrase for that, but that's what I was supposed to do. And so what I did is I showed up with all the attendees that came to that opening session. I think was called Weaving the Conference Community. So I gathered them all together and I put them in first pairs. Find somebody that you don't know very well, stand next to them, introduce yourself. Then I put them in fours and I made a deal with them. I said at the end of every session, have a 5 minute or 7 minute or 10 minute conversation with the four of you about what were your big takeaways. And at the end of each day, stop together for another 10 minutes. So get a drink and just talk about the impact that that made for you that day. So all of a sudden we're focusing on teams. Focusing on teams. People that didn't even know each other were having these extraordinary conversations. And each year that I did that for that gang, they said that was phenomenal. Blah, blah, blah. And whatever happened, I didn't do the next year or the year after. And they I actually got a nasty gram saying, where are you? We needed to do the weaving of the conference community thing. Okay, well, you know, anybody could do that anyway. It was one of those really interesting learnings for me that the simplest ad hoc, in the moment structure allows people to learn in a way that's just phenomenal. So the third thing in Forbes article was about teams. And Julie just teed it up. If we are not developing the capability for our teams to learn together, we miss any opportunity to develop sustainable, strong teams. Anybody can do a team building. We can do trust walls, and we can do all Kinds of stuff like that. Fun. I like it. I've done them all right? So I feel good in the moment. This is about sustaining a very, very capable, powerful team. It is through this environment of learning in teams like we are right now. Colleen, what are you learning in this conversation that I just had with Julie.

What I'm learning is the importance of being intentional and pausing. I think that was what was really resonating with me. I think sometimes as a meeting leader, we think we need to be the one talking. And I will also reflect on it. Do it. A quick little story. I remember when I first started facilitating the work and I was debriefing with you, Ray, and you said, well, geez, Colleen, 80%, 20%. Which one are you right now? And I'm like, I'm 80, man. I'm the subject matter expert. Coming in there, sharing all this information. And you're like, oh, no, we have a problem, right? It's like, no, you're the 20. And so, you know, I think it's critically important when you're holding these meetings, especially if you're not in person, is, are you creating this space for a conversation to take place? And I clearly wasn't.

All of us have learned together and the little stories that you hear from my colleagues and see the other piece here, then Brene Brown would be happy with us. We do our best to be very vulnerable with each other because we know that's where creation and opportunity live. We admire Bernay's work, and our work definitely conflates with the interest that she has in building an environment that is so vulnerable, it is safe as could be. So the big thing you just gave us, too, I think around that, Colleen, was sometimes we just need to pause, take a breath. What did I hear from Colleen? What did I hear from Julie? What did I hear from Nicole? And notice how I pivoted to Colleen. Julie and I had a little interaction and I said, what are you getting from that? And something happened there. Nicole, what are you learning listening to this set of interactions? What's resonating?

I'm going to bring us back to the start or the focusing of our purpose of our conversation today, which was around Covid, around the reactions to Covid. And as any of you used the language post Covid, I got uncomfortable. From my perspective, we are not post Covid. Covid is still ravaging areas of our country, areas of the planet, the world. We are still, right now in my area. Our caseload is higher than it was this time last year. We are still struggling. Kids are going back to school, people are going back to work. There's Deb around. Masks or no masks, or what are you requiring or vaccine requirements? I was talking with a leader the other day who was like, well, once it's FDA approved, is my company going to require the vaccine? And how am I going to have conversations? Is it going to be me? Do I have to enforce it? Am I the person who's going to be having the conversations with an individual saying, hey, are you vaccinated? Where's your vaccine card? Is that going to be me? Or is HR going to take care of that? There are complex conversations that leaders are going to need to be having right now, in this time, in this space. I think everything that we've talked about are tools and ways in which you can have those conversations. I think Julie mentioned, I don't know if she used the specific words, but the ability to hold space for difference. Because I'm going to feel differently about this space than one of my colleagues, one of my colleagues being like, I'm vaccinated. I'm fine. I don't need to wear a mask.

I'm good to go.

And then I'm looking at the data and the science and I'm like freaking out. So it really is going to be incumbent upon leaders to hold space, to have conversations where we're going to have people with absolute differing feelings, strong feelings about what is occurring right now. The idea of even coming back to work, like, I did just fine in my virtual environment. I performed for you. I got the best ratings I've ever gotten this year in this virtual environment. Now you're telling me I have to come back into the office in order to do the job I've been doing for a year and a half outside of the office.

Why?

And so there's going to be all of these complex conversations that need to occur for leaders. And these are the practices. I know we gave other examples, but these are the practices that are going to allow you as a leader to have this level of conversation that is going to bring you together versus divide you in your conversation.

So this is what I mean. I didn't prompt her to do this, but what she did is she actually talked about the development of incredible and powerful social conversations. So I did a start today with a simple check in about who are we? And tell us about your family, that kind of thing, what just happened? And those of you that are listening, you could do this in your next meeting. If I say the phrase post Covid, what rises up in you. What happens inside of you when somebody says post Covid. And I believe you will begin to get more and more interaction and build more and more social capital. Now, remember, we said listening to understand is critical. As you develop safe space, people need to recognize we don't all see this the same way, nor should I expect you to. I'm not trying to force an opinion down your throat. I simply want to know, what does this post Covid thing mean to you? Please tell us. Tell your partner, if it's a small meeting, tell us all, what does post Covid mean to you right now? That was absolutely incredible. Thank you all. This was really a great podcast. From my vantage point. I think it gets at this sense of how do we stay together and how do we lead effectively in the post Covid environment? I'm going to just say the four things that we talked about and then I'll have each of my team members do a checkout. Now, checkouts are another way to build social and professional capital. What I laid on the table today was really four things. One, over communicate, Build ways to talk about how do we get all the voices in here and make sure that people are hearing messages. And you can find lots of ways to communicate. Before COVID we were coaching people to do little short videos, little newsletters, all kinds of things that help people see how leadership is orienting themselves toward whatever problem or situation they're facing. And how to help the people in the system win, how to help people win over communicate significant messages. Listen to understand. Listen to understand. And today I hope we modeled that for you. This is an incredible team of professionals that really understand deeply what leadership communication looks like. These people can coach you when you are struggling. Like, how do I start this? How do I make this work? Listening to understand is one of their coaching points that they'll help you with. Always remember that team strength comes from team learning. How do we build the capabilities for us to learn effectively as a team? And finally, use your check ins, your checkouts, and even it could be a topic. We need to talk about the impact of COVID 19 on us right now and what are our expectations moving forward and what resources need to be brokered so we can deal with it. This is really powerful. Over communicate, listen deeply, learn as a team, build social capital. Those are the four things we brought to you today, which was stimulated by a Forbes article that just came out this month that was really very, very lovely and gave us content to box our conversation today. So what is your biggest takeaway from this Conversation gang. And then we'll say goodbye to those of you that are listening who'd like to start.

I think what stood out for me, Ray, as you were recapping those four things that we talked about was that reminder to listen. I think we can get wrapped up in our own feelings. When things are emotional, we can shut down our ability to listen, and not only to listen, but to really hear. One of my favorite quotes about listening is that listening is to lean in with a willingness to be changed by what you hear. I don't know how often I operate in a space where I'm really willing to be changed by what I hear. So I'm going to take that away today. Thank you.

So there's a lady that was one of my coaches that said, everybody, everybody has something interesting to tell us if we give them the space to tell us. So it matches that comment perfectly. And I can't. I mean, I'm after myself all the time about I'm hurrying to a conclusion or you need to hear this, or that's all me inhibiting that ability. That's really excellent, Nicole. Thank you. Who'd like to go next?

Yeah, I will. I think the one thing that when Nicole was making her comments that kind of rose for me was this sense of, you know, we want to have a common understanding, not necessarily a consensus or agreement. And those are completely two different things. And, you know, we all do. We feel very strongly about masks on our children going back to school. What does it look like when we come back to work? How do you share whether or not you are vaccinated? Right. And so all of these different types of things very much bring forward some emotion. So how can we realize that, yeah, these are some of the conversations that we are currently having and probably will continue to have. And yet how do we show up in that conversation where we're just developing a common understanding and trying to learn from that perspective, not advocate a position or really kind of force towards a consensus. Just a couple of things to remember when you're having these types of conversations.

That's beautiful. So Colleen has held us in a space of balancing my advocacy with inquiry, curiosity, inquiry. They're our friend through all of this. And we really had to be careful because sometimes when you start saying something Colleen, I don't agree with, I begin sitting in my judgment mind going, no, no, no, no, no. And I start to block you out. I can't even hear you anymore. So that's really the balance between, I have a position, I have an opinion, how Do I balance that with true inquiry, true curiosity? It's magnificent, Julie. You get to be last.

All right.

So the thing that I think overall with all this, when you say building social capital, is we need to practice and we need to the leaders to build these structures in place to make them happen. So many times I work with clients and they say, well, I did a check in or I said, does anybody have any questions? And everybody just sits there, you know, and so we've got to start to think about how can we lower the risk by putting them in pairs? How can we, you know, call on people? So sometimes you call on me, sometimes we call on Colleen. We don't just sit there quietly and, you know, giving them different ways to practice, getting their voices in the room, whether it's talking to everybody, whether it's talking to a partner, whether it's writing something down, finding alternative ways. If you're doing something now and it isn't working, there's probably another way to do it. And if you would like to brainstorm some ideas, we at JLC offer a discovery call. And we'd love to brainstorm with you some ways that you could possibly apply these to your meetings.

I love it, love it, love it, love it. So there's a piece there that Julie laid on the table. It's the distinction between safe space and creative tension. When we're on these calls, they all know I may say so Colleen. So Julie. So, you know, Nicole, what are you thinking? And because it's safe, they can even and have said to me, right now, I got nothing. I'm processing what was just said. Come back to me. That's very safe space where I can be that vulnerable to admit to somebody. I lost track. I lost track. I lost my train of thought. I want to come back. Ladies and gentlemen, Julie said it beautifully. These women are phenomenal. Coaches, if you want to improve your capabilities to lead effectively through high quality conversation, through everyday leadership conversations, please call us. We think you'll enjoy the discovery call and we think you'll get a lot out of it in developing your own personal mastery as a leader. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for spending time with us at JLC and in listening to this JLC media production, you can find us@gojlc.com or just put Jorgensen Learning center into any of your search engines and you will definitely see us pop up for you. Thank you very much spending time with us. Take care. Be well. Be well, listeners. Be well. Take care of your families. Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode. Of the Everyday Leadership Conversation Conversations Podcast, the Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our Events page at gojlc. Com.