How to Handle Disagreements in Business and Relationships with Justin Jones-Fosu

Even when we're closed minded, we should never stop being open hearted. And that's the unique distinction that I think that we can make is just because you believe something doesn't mean that I still can't value you as who you are in your humanity.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Earn your Happy podcast. You guys, I've got a great episode for you today and I was just sitting here at my computer about to record and I had checked on as I do several times a day. I went to the glossy site and read some of the new reviews and I wanted to read you this incredible review that we just got from Cheryl W. It says I just received my second order of gloi today and I'm thrilled to keep this as part of my daily routine. I initially tried it because I read about the digestive support it provides and I'm happy to report that after 30 days I've already noticed improvements in my digestion along with other gut health practices, I'm seeing positive changes and I'm excited to see how much progress I'll make in the next 30 days. I highly recommend for anyone looking to support their digestive health naturally, nothing makes me happier than reading these reviews. Cheryl, thank you so much for your review and you guys, especially through the holiday season. If you want to give Glo a try. I'm telling you, of course one stick a day is amazing, but I am on that two stick lifestyle. Let me just tell you, it's incredible. So go to getglosi.com get 25% off with code happy. And today on the podcast I have Justin Jones, fasu, who is the founder of Work Meaningful, a workplace development company focusing on employee experience and inclusion. He's a speaker and an author, including his most recent book, Respectfully Disagree. This topic is just a topic that's never going to get old in this era that we live in. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to have him on because I think that having open conversations is one of the most important things we can do in our friendships and our family and in our workplace. And Justin shares about how being voluntold at his corporate job to join a diversity committee at work sparked his journey into diversity and inclusion from a whole different approach. Instead of focusing on race, gender and identity, Justin emphasizes seeing diversity as simply difference and inviting everyone and their differences to the table. He shares so much wisdom on how to have meaningful, respectful conversations, especially especially when we disagree. Whether you're applying this to communicating with your team or even with friends and family and Let me tell you, I have so I have so much practice in this. It's such an important perspective and skill to be able to have productive conversations with people on topics that you disagree on. Like so many of the conversations on this podcast, and on the journey of becoming an expert, there are mistakes and lessons that we all learn along the way. And Justin talks about how in the beginning, he used to focus on all the things people are doing wrong before learning about what motivates and inspires people going on to get his MBA in leadership. So we talk about the power of leading with curiosity, seeking to understand others perspectives and finding the common ground, even if it's just caring about some of the same core values. He challenged us to be more interested than interesting and to keep the door open for dialogue, even when setting boundaries. So Justin also shared practical tips like starting meetings with a positive focus to build connection. And he shares how he navigated a tough conversation with his dad that wasn't in his life growing up. And how we can have the conversations with others we disagree with about polarizing topics like politics. So much of life in business comes down to our relationships, and our relationships are only as strong as our ability to have tough conversations. So whether it's your personal relationship with your team or your community, this episode is full of ways to communicate powerfully. So let's get into it.

Justin, welcome to the earn your happy podcast. Thank you so much for coming on.

I'm so thankful to be on today.

I'm gonna make him sing multiple times throughout this. There might be a full answer to one of the hardest questions that I'm just gonna make you sing. I'm kidding. I'm not gonna throw you.

Yeah, I love it. Thank you.

Maybe I will. Well, I just got to. I was telling you, you know, when I get to do research on people, it's so fun when I have people who are speakers or great on video. And I would definitely say you have massive performance bone in your body. Which do you come from a performance background?

Not really. I mean, my mom considered me performing a lot when I was growing up, which is why I got like the living room. Yes, living room. I'm like, hi, mama, can I get off punishment, please? But no, no. I did theater a little bit, but it was. I was mainly a sports person. I was a nerd. So I was always in the books and playing sports.

Well, it is paying off for you now because you speak all over and that truly is, you know, as when you speak, you are full on performing. It's like you go into a different. You go into a different part of your brain. You have to be up there and entertain people. And that's a whole conversation that I'll probably bring up towards the end of this. But why don't you tell me what you're up to right now? You just wrote a book called I Respectfully Disagree and what caught me on, this title is just so appropriate for the timing in the world of so many different things going on and, you know, the election and everything like that, where I'm like, how can we, like, learn to respect each other through all of our differences and beliefs?

Yeah. So that's what I have going on. It's been amazing. A whirlwind. It's, you know, we've done, I think, 51 to 52 media appearances and podcasts since the beginning of this year. We just found out we won our first book award, so. Which has been pretty cool. New York City, big book award in the career section. And just been on all these great shows. La, you know, good day la, Good day, Dallas. Oprah Daily just found a way featured in Time. And so it's been fun. But the best part of this is just trying to be a dad who respectfully disagrees with his kids. And that's been the bigger piece of for me. So I love all the stuff I've been doing. The things like practicing these habits even at home has been something I really enjoy.

Okay, so you tell a story. You told a story on your TED Talk, kind of about your background in just learning about diversity and your mom being your first hero mentor in that. I would love for you to share part of that story because I loved it.

Yeah. So I'll even expand it. What I didn't talk about. So growing up, you know, we as my mom and my brother and I, so single mom, rambunctious, rambunctious little boys. And I remember, you know, my mom would go to Salvation army to get our clothes before it became cool. And she would get like little sweater vest and bow ties because I swear she was trying to create a Boyz I Men group. But the interesting thing that we always had, she made us go to experience things that were different. Right. And so we went to Oktoberfest and Polish festivals and first people's powwows and. And we would, you know, had exchange students from France and Germany and Japan and Brazil. But she would also make us go to things that we disagreed with. And I remember sitting there and honestly, like, mom, why are we here? Like, we don't Even agree with this. But what my mom was doing was she was planting these seeds of humanity that everybody is worthy of value, dignity and respect. And it really carried over. And so when I interviewed my mom for these last two books, I asked her like, where'd you get this from, mom? And so my mom was one of the first black female air traffic controllers in the Air Force. And she shared that there were some time she'd be stationed in Japan for two years and there were some soldiers who in that same two year time frame that never left base. And she was, she was so inspired to make sure my brother and I never became like that, that we never stayed at our metaphorical home base and didn't get to experience the beauty of people and cultures around us, even those that we disagreed with. And so that's been kind of the underpinnings of why I feel like I lean out in this way is because of those seeds planted from my mom.

I love that. You know, I was, when I was listening to that story, I thought, what a beautiful, you know, advantage that your mom was giving you to open you up to so many different experiences and people. I grew up in a really religious family where actually I wasn't allowed to hang out with anyone outside of that religion. And they were called worldly and like, we weren't allowed to talk to them. They were bad to the point where I was scared of anyone outside of that religion. So I was just kind of like thinking about all of the. The different ways. And I'm so glad that you had that experience so you can be the person to talk about it, because it really held me back for so many years. It can still hold me back sometimes because it. It shows up as fear and we don't know how to, like, handle that fear, you know. So tell me about kind of the first realizations for you that you're like, huh, I'm not really like other people. Because maybe you had this, like, advantage or the way that you thought about it.

Yeah. So funny enough, I was in a diversity and inclusion session, all right, when I was an intern at Organization. And I still remember. It's almost like I can out of body experience. And it was a U shape and I was sitting in the back of the U and they were talking. It's something, for some reason, something that they said just clicked. And I started weeping like I'm getting. I'm talking about now. But I started weeping almost uncontrollably because it finally unlocked for me why I always felt the way I did. Because growing up I never felt like I was a part of any group, right. I didn't feel like I was black enough for the black kids. I wasn't obviously wasn't white. I was a nerd. While I was an athlete, there still was like, you know, just all these different things and I never really fit in. And at first finally hit in that moment that I was never supposed to fit in because I was called to be a bridge. And bridges don't have that underneath support that the regular ground does. And I finally realized like that's why I've always felt that way. I was never supposed to feel like I fit in or just with this one group because I was supposed to be a cross path for other people. Now what's been interesting is that still evolved for me. So even, you know, and going back to Ghana because I take people to Ghana once a year.

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I realized in this moment that I'm even a bridge there because my dad's from Ghana, my mom's from America. That makes me African American. You get that joke later. But the interesting thing is that I was like, wow. Like I'm actually a bridge for many people who are from American and from Ghana. And as I take them, I'm able to understand the nuances of both cultures and kind of speak to the gray areas that may exist. And so that was the first moment and it continues to evolve as I continue to live.

Okay, so you have that information. You're like, wow. You have that moment that kind of brings you to your knees and do you kind of activate right away from there or do you just start exploring? Like, what did that look like to start getting into this work?

Yeah, so getting this work. And there's no desire to get in this work. To be honest, to be real with you, I had no plans. I was working for Pfizer and Coca Cola and I was like, I'm going to be a chief marketing officer of a Fortune 50 company like that was my goal. But a couple of things happened. One, I had opportunity to interview three of their top level executives when I was at Coke. And you know, I asked them a question that my mom would challenge me in terms of ask something that's meaningful. So I was like, if you had to live it all over again just the same, would you? And two out of three said no. And short. One said he pursued his hobby. One said he would have spent more time with his family once it done it the exact same way. And I was like, wow, like I want to be them. And so two out of three of them would have done it differently. So I was like, I don't want to wake up years from now realizing I'm not living a life that's meaningful for me, living a life that's purposeful. So that was one small pivot. And the second piece is I was working in corporate for a top financial firm and I was voluntold to be a part of the diversity committee. And you can tell why, because I'm bald. And so the interesting thing is, and throughout all of that is in getting involved, I was doing it the wrong way. It was coming from a deficit approach of all the things that people are doing wrong. And I started looking at things like motivational theory and what inspires us. And I did my MBA in leadership and or change and all these things. And I realized, like, there's a different way to talk about inclusion. There's a different way that we can inspire people to this where it's not something they have to do, it's something that they're inspired to do because they realize the benefits of it just existing all around them. And so that became my foray of kind of like, as I dug deeper into it, but I still was hiding because I didn't want to be the black guy doing diversity and inclusion work. And it wasn't until two things. One Toyota. One of my clients challenged me, one of the heads of HR there. It's like, Justin, I think you're doing a disservice because I wasn't talking about that work. You could hardly even see it on my website at the time. That was just by word of mouth. The second, May 25, 2020. And then I was George Floyd. And why that had even deeper significance is because May 25th is my birthday. And so as I processed that, I was like, I have to come out of hiding. And so I came out of hiding to really help people in practical ways and be a bridge in the conversation.

Okay, so what, what do you think when people hear, you know, when they hear diversity and inclusion and it's like, compared to the message that you are giving, does that make sense? Like, what do you think they expect when you walk in the room? Because I know not. I mean, some people are like, oh, gosh, what is. Like, how are we going to feel? What is this going to be about? Yeah, tell me about some of those experiences compared to what you actually feel. The messages that happens in that room.

Yeah, I'll tell you in reverse. I have people come up to me and like, wow, like, I had a whole different perspective of what this was going to be. And I actually call it out as I'm talking about the conversation of what diversity inclusion really is. For me, it's not just the big three, right. I'm not talking about, you know, LeBron James and Chris Bosh, and I'm not that big three. I'm talking about the big three of race, gender and identity. And oftentimes people think that's what it is. And that's why I love today when people say, oh, I don't like diversity and inclusion. And I'm not, I don't go crazy. I'm like, I love that statement. Because my first retort back or question is, well, how do you define it? Because for me, diversity and inclusion at a simplest form, it just means difference, diversity, just as simply different. And every single one of us is different in a unique way. And it's how do we include, how do we respect, how do we engage each other in unique ways? And so everybody, no matter what you look like, what your background is, is a part of it. Now there are these micro areas that are very important and rise up in our society at times that we need to focus on. But every single person is invited to the table and that's the approach around diversity inclusion. The second piece for me that's really important is I challenge people with like, hey, y', all, I mess up, I make mistakes, I'm learning, I lead with vulnerability. And like, I've been doing this work for over 20 years and I still think wrong thoughts. I still have wrong thinking. And that's why I'll encourage people to apply it for what we call the tortoise approach. Right. Remember the fabled tortoise and hare. And there's a lot of hairs in our society, people who look good initially, but there's no long lasting sustainable foundation to build on. So be the tortoise. Not slow, but strategic, do you think?

I'm sure, because I'M just thinking of different experiences and people in my life too. But why do you think people are so closed off to this? Is it because they're like, oh God, if I talk about it, you're going to try to change my beliefs and I'm not going to change my beliefs. So just, just, we'll just keep it right there so we stay away from each other. I'm a Midwestern girl. So let me tell you, let me just tell you how.

Yes.

You know, it's so isolated in how they think. Even just like becoming an entrepreneur there is like, what are you, what are you doing? Let alone all of the other conversations that are going on right now. So what is the main thing when you get in these rooms, especially to people who are really committed to their beliefs? What, like what are the obstacles and the blocks?

Yeah. First of all, shout out to be a Midwestern. I was born and raised in Michigan.

Oh, I'm a Michigander, I forgot to tell you. But I'm up here.

Look it, you're up there. I like that. I've never seen that.

Really? So you're down, is that right?

I'm over here. Yeah, yeah, There we go. And so I think there's a couple of things that impact people. One is fear. You know, I love Carol Dweck's work on mindset, you know, and I talked about earlier and I think we've conditioned people to be fixed based mindset people. And so when we're fixed mindset, we want to look good compared to others. And when we approach this place of concept called ignorance, we think of ignorance as failure. We think if we don't know something, we've been made to feel stupid and that happens and pervades our educational system rather than what if it's the power of not yet? What if I just don't know something yet? And it can be inspiring to learn and grow and look at something as opportunity to expand my knowledge base. And so just that subtle shift. But because a lot of what our systems and things in place condition us to, it's growth based. Excuse me, it's fixed based mindset. The second thing is we often don't expand beyond our circles of grace. And so in my last book and kind of our learning experiences on inclusive mindset, I started asking like, why do we see people and events the way that we do? What do we do about it? And I realized that we confine ourselves to our circles of grace. What my mom talked about, right? She was like, we don't leave home base and so we don't leave home base. It's scary out there, right? And when you try to leave home base and somebody else has never left home, basically like, why are you doing that? This is good right here and allows us not to. And I'm perfectly fine with people sticking to their beliefs, but how do we engage others? The statement I often make now because I'm also kind of sick and tired of people just the solution being it's just, just be more open minded, Lord, just be open, more open minded. There are things, Lori, that you and I are close minded on and our value system, things that mean something to us. But my statement is that even when we're closed minded, we should never stop being open hearted. And that's the unique distinction that I think that we can make is just because you believe something doesn't mean that I still can't value you as who you are in your humanity. I had to come to this understanding of that, one, I'm the only person I can control and two, I just have to model the behavior. And in modeling the behavior is that I can't convince anyone to do anything that they don't want to. But I can be curious, I can ask questions, I can show them I'm interested. And that, and that's, oh my gosh, that, that statement. One of the statements often I often make is that we should seek to be more interested than interesting. And oftentimes we get caught into this cycle of being more interesting to people or trying to impress people. Right? And I think when we're interested in people, it pays off. Will they ever change their perspectives? Maybe not, right? But maybe we're just simply a seed planter. Maybe. Let me give you a great example. One of my former colleagues, the former skinhead, who had very harmful views about a lot of different things. And I was curious about like how he got in and got out. And he's like, Justin, we loved when people called us names. He's like, that was a big thing that fueled us. He was like, it was the same people that they demean and disrespected that still chose to show him respect that were part of that catalyst of change for him. And it just, it blew my mind because I was like, what if it's not about that one conversation? What if it's simply planting seeds of goodness and kindness that you have no idea when they will germinate? And so if you're struggling with, hey, this is somebody who just seems to be close minded and not hearing a perspective or not Even valuing you. What if in that moment it's just for you to plant a seed that may germinate later?

I love that. Okay, let's talk about. You talk about the dotted line dilemma. Tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, so dotted line dilemma is where we start filling in the gaps with conclusions rather than curiosity. And you know, we're so good at that. Yes, we are. Right.

That's all we do.

The TedX I did don't take the exit. We talk about how the brain does that for us. Right. Is that Monday through Friday, we take this exit. One day we're supposed to go straight, but what do we do? We end up taking the exit. Why? Because our brains want to conserve energy for things it thinks, it doesn't know. And so as we get in all this information, whether we know we're getting it or not, second and third hand information, it's categorized for future use. And so right before we get to know somebody, we hear something or they say something, I believe in this or I stand by this or I think this. And we start taking the exit based upon all the things that we stored. And instead, wouldn't be cool for us to intentionally drive forward towards some really amazing humans. How do we do that? By hearing people's story, by asking their journey. And you start to see the nuance. Oh my gosh. In our learning sessions, I put people that, they're like, oh yeah, we're at odds and things. And they start asking questions and hearing people's stories and they're like, wow, we have more in common than we ever thought. And it's because we're not choosing to hear people's stories. And part of that is we're taking the exit on people. So the dotted line is when I can fill in the gaps with, Let me, let me ask this of you. Let's do a practice round. When you drive on the right side of the street, you are driving.

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When I drive on the right side of the street, I'm driving correctly.

Right. I love that. Right. But guess what? What if you live in Jamaica? Oh, what if you live. You see what I'm saying? It's like we fill in the dotted lines based upon our own experiences and what we've had versus, well, let me hear that person's experience because it challenges that dotted line dilemma.

Got it. Okay. That's funny.

Our brains just literally.

I didn't even take into account anyone else. Re edit that and be like, it depends on which part of the world I'm in. Okay, so when you're going into something like this, like, what are some of the exploratory questions that you're like, you arm yourself with?

Yeah. Let me ask another question. When you say, when I'm going into something like this, is it more like a conversation or.

Yeah, when. When you're going into something where you are not feeling connected to the person, your beliefs are different, you're not loving what you're hearing.

Yeah. All right. So one thing I want to preface it with, my hope and goal is that people are doing this before they get into these types of conversations in the first place. And so our pillar number one of our five pillars, bridging the divide, is the challenge of perspective. And so we're encouraging people. How are you intentionally putting yourselves in positions where you're learning about people and things that are different than you, that you disagree with intentionally? And so we created the Circles of Grace Challenge as a way to lean into that. And the Circle of Grace Challenge is Simply this. Every six to 12 months, I go to events, experiences, or I engage with people, either which I don't know a lot about, or I disagree with. And I go asking two questions. One, what did I learn about this event experiences and the people? And two, what did I learn about myself? Because the more and more I arm myself with those muscles of hearing, perspectives that diverge from my normal bubble, it allows me to hear it in a different way. When I'm actually in that conversation. So I always tell people most of the conflict resolution stuff. It normally starts with the conflict, but we have to start before the conflict. We have to start with the internal conflict that we engage. The second thing I would encourage people to do is to operate in the pillar 2, which is be the student when you have a learner's mind and ask, what can I learn from this? What is something new that I can gain from this experience? Oftentimes we're trying to win, right? We're trying to lecture the other person. But what if the new winning was learning? What if in each conversation we won because we learned something new, whether about the ideology, the idea and. Or learned about ourselves or even them? And so the last piece that you asked about, what if you don't like what they're sharing? I say that's okay. For us, it's not about liking what a person's sharing. It's still about valuing the humanity. And so our big statement, kind of the umbrella statement for the book, is that we can vehemently disagree with someone's ideology and still passionately pursue their humanity. And so asking the question, even if I disagree vehemently with them, what are ways that I can actually pursue their humanity? Passion.

That is so good. What if the new winning is listening? That is so good. So if you're already. I mean, if you're already in a conversation where, you know, nobody's beliefs are going to sway to the other side, what if you could just learn more about why they feel that way? That is just such a immediate. Like, it even makes your body relax more instead of being on the defense. It's just. That is such a great reframe. Okay, tell me about Seek the gray. That's number four.

Yes, pillar four. We know there's 50 shades. Okay. I don't know. We've added one more shade. But Seek the Gray is that the world is more nuanced than we ever thought. All right? Even in our book, when people look at it, they normally don't see. They see the black and white, but there's a thin line of gray between the black and white. And it's very intentional because we often just want to see black and white rather than seeking the gray. And this is the interesting concept is I remember when I was doing my mba, I had an amazing professor who was like the Dead Poet Society, the late Robin Williams. And he would have us sit in the middle of the room for 10 minutes, say nothing, and then we had to write a 10 page paper. And I remember just in that moment of, like, talking about, like, wait a minute, like, where did this whole process come from? And. And one of the things that we had to read is this book called Dialogue, the Art Thinking Together. And in Thinking Through Dialogue, the Art of Thinking Together, one of the things that really came forward is it's not about A and it's not about B. It's how do we create C together? And that was the beautiful thing about this concept around dialogue is coming to C together. Now, C is often not 50, 50. And that's why I don't like concepts like middle ground, because often things aren't middle, they're common ground. I like the termin terminology of common ground. Instead of give you an example, gun rights and gun control. Well, what if instead we started the conversation with, oh, you're stupid. Why would you believe that? That's dumb. Why would you have guns out? Well, you have guns out. What if we started off with, you know what? I really appreciate that we both really care about the safety of our families. That's the critical piece. And gun rights and gun control, that conversation, instead of stupid, dumb. You're wrong. I don't think it's like, well, you know what? I really appreciate that we both really care about the safety of our families. That's a place of gray, that's a place of power. Because you're like, oh, there's this common ground here. Would you be open to me telling you a personal story, Lori? Okay. So in 2019, I was going to go back to Ghana to confront my dad for not being in my life. And when my parents divorced at four, I see my dad every other weekend. And then it became one weekend a month, and then sometimes two or three years where I didn't see and or hear from my dad. And it didn't bother me when I was little, at least not as much as I thought it did. But as I got older, I remember sometimes I'd just pull off to the side of the road and just start weeping because I felt like I missed something. And what I'm not saying is that people who have both parents live the perfect life know, because I've heard those horror stories, too. But for me, I felt like I lost something, so I was going to go confront my dad Will Smith style, right? And not. Not the Chris Rock version, not you.

I'm like, which version?

Not the Chris Rock version, but the Fresh Prince of Bel Air version.

Okay?

And there was an episode where his dad came into his life and he was just super excited and pumped. And, you know, he hadn't spent time with his dad. And then his dad, unfortunately did what his dad did. He left and didn't tell Will. He told Uncle Phil, like, hey, tell Will I love him. I'll see him next time. And then Will. And I'm getting goosebumps talking about it. Will, in this episode, he's like, it's cool. I'm gonna get married without him. I'm gonna have kids without him. And what most people didn't know was an unscripted moment. He falls into Uncle Phil's arms, and he's like, why didn't he love me? And so I was going to go do that. I was like, dad, like, why don't you love me? Why don't you fight for me? Why didn't you? And because I have a great therapist. Still do. And a great leadership Charlotte cohort. They challenged me from, instead of going to confront my dad to going and hearing his story. And I heard one of my participants in one of my presentations came up afterwards, and she said it more eloquently than I could. She said, justin, they helped you turn a confrontation into a conversation. And I was like, wow. So as I heard his story, I'm like, wow, Like, I learned so much. Rather than going to tell him, well, you know how you hurt me and da, da, da. As I heard his story, I better understood how he got there. And that's that place of empathy. That's that place of nuance. Did I agree with the outcome still? No. But it helped me to better understand his journey and why he took the path that he did. And so that's seeking the gray. And if we go into conversations asking, what's to see? What's the gray in this? It allows us. Frees us up from trying to defend our position and rather learning what our position is.

I love that. That's been one of. One of the only ways I've been able to get, like, heal certain things in my life where it's like, why did that happen? Why did they treat me this way? Especially when it's, you know, your. Your close family. And the only perspective that changed that was, what were they going through when that happened? Like, and sometimes we don't always get to have that conversation with those people. So, like, really digging in and. And figuring out what. Imagining what they could have been going through and that just. Man, it's the most, like, freeing thing. But getting to have the conversation like that is even more beautiful. And listening, it's powerful. It frees you.

It does. And that's why I love Oprah's book. She did with the Neuroscientist, what happened to you? And it changes the whole narrative from what's wrong with you? And really saying that most people want to be good people, most people want to be great parents and great siblings and partners and all these things. But there are things that have happened to us, that have shaped us through trauma, through past experiences, through lived experiences. And that's even what I bring up in our chapter three, A picture of the Past is our past impacts how we disagree with people. It's not just about learning new tools. So one thing we often ask people is, how did you see disagreement modeled for you growing up? Because it might have an impact on how you engage. I mean, for me, I was bullied, physically abused, and all these things. And as I leaned into the conversations, I was like, wow, I am a very big disrespectful disagreeer because I was no longer going to be that little kid who couldn't fend for himself. So I would verbally attack you. But I've had other people who actually align with what we call disrespectful agreement. And it's because they may have grown up in cultures or other places or even taught as young women that children should be seen and not heard. And then sometimes it's taken that into the workplace. And I've had so many conversations with people that they just are now conflict averse and they don't. They just want to keep the boat going steady rather than sharing their perspective. And they end up agreeing, but they're disrespecting themselves in the process. And so our path really does shape how we end up leaning into these disagreements.

Let's talk about the agree to respect. Yeah, Especially, you know, just everything that's going on online right now. What do we do? Like, when it comes to how, how are you feeling about the conversations online? Are you just like blocking everything out or are you, especially if somebody maybe comes to you on your stuff, what does that look like for how to respect people who have no respect for you?

Yes. And I love that you just said that. That's brilliance personified. Because respect is a choice. And I want to be very clear because often I hear people say things, well, I lost respect for you. Well, really, what we talked about in our 10 characteristics of golden Respect is that you might have lost honor for them or high esteem for them, but respect is a choice. It's not something that has to be earned it's something that you choose to freely give. It's almost like forgiveness. You finally realized that forgiveness is not about the other person, that's about me. And so how do you engage? Well, one way is that online is really not the best place to engage in constructive disagreements. It's the worst place because you can't read into tone unless a voice aspect of the online version is happening. Number two is agree to respect means I choose to humanize you. Whether you choose to humanize me or not. Does it make it easier? No. I'll give you a great example. I posted online on my Instagram. That's that quote that we can vehemently disagree with someone's ideology and passionately pursue their humanity. And Lori, I thought everybody would love it. Yeah, right. They, you know, just like a whole bunch of likes and comments. But then there's like 20 or so that were like, this is stupid. Why would you ever do this? This is toxic positivity. I mean, all of these things. I was just like, where'd this come from? And so I'm like, okay, well let me practice what I teach. So I was like, oh, why do you think it's stupid? Right? Or why is this toxic positivity versus just block, block, block, block, block. And as I engage, there's some people who just wanted to continue to go off in the trolling way.

Yeah.

And even when I asked, hey, can we take this a direct message? They were like, no, I don't want to, I don't want to talk to you. And so guess what? I blocked them from that post. And here's the key thing about greedy respect. Boundary setting is also a part of agreeing to respect. And that was a boundary. But I want to be very careful here. Boundaries and barriers look the same initially. And this is the distinction. So boundary is, hey, I'm going to block you from this post. But I direct message them and say, hey, if you ever want to have a productive conversation about this, I am open and willing. Barriers would have just been like, bye, bye, never again. And that's where we get, is that we sometimes just completely excommunicate some people. And sometimes there's good reason of psychological safety and all those pieces. But what if we spend more time boundary setting about what's meaningful for me, what can I engage in? And they didn't want to engage in real dialogue for me. That's. We don't. That's not the purpose of my post. The purpose of my post is, yeah, you can disagree with this statement, but let's have a productive. And you'll see on my Instagram, there's a lot of people who were like, hey, what do you mean by this? Or da, da, da. And it was great. And they still walked away disagreeing, but I still created the boundary rather than the barrier.

How do you handle if this is somebody that you really care about or you love or you had like a great friendship with? And maybe they take the boundary that you absolutely need to set because it's no longer feels respectful on your end. How do you make peace with being misunderstood by the boundary?

One, I have to keep coming back to that. I'm the only person I can control. And I leave the bridge open because oftentimes what ends up happening is say, somebody creates a boundary. I feel like I'm misunderstood. I can now operate in superior self. They just don't get me, da, da, da. And now I'm like, you know what? I'm done with them anyway. Rather than, hey, I think what might have been communicated may have come off the wrong way. And my intent may have been a little bit different than the impact that it had. If you're ever open to having a conversation about this, diving in deeper, I'd love to have it. And I know that this may not be the right time, but I'd love to have that. And so I keep the bridge open because I ask, I do what psychologists call cognitive dissonance or elism, because oftentimes we're in a heated moment. At that moment, it's not so easy that I'm thinking logically. And so cognitive dissonance is where I can talk in the third person to myself. And I'll say, justin, what would the equal self Justin do? Not the superior or inferior self, but what would equal self Justin do? And I like equal self Justin would apologize or listen more or take responsibility for my part. And so I go into those in those ways. The second thing that I lean into is also this thing by Sean Zhao, a Stanford professor. She came up with this concept called thank you because. And it's one way that we can fully acknowledge people. And oftentimes we've conflated full acknowledgement with full agreement. And the way that works is, you know, Lori, thank you because you shared something today that was tough and I really appreciate you leaning in or Lori, thank you because three things you said and number two really stood out. And I want to dive in deeper. Simply, thank you because you chose to have this conversation. Not once did I say I agree with you. But I always had an Opportunity to fully acknowledge. And so when we talk about agree to respect, that's one way that we can agree to respect. Whether they're respecting us not or not and or even if they've created the boundary for us is leaving the bridge open.

Do you feel like there's a, like a major benefit to if something is heated with someone you care about, like getting on the phone or getting in person?

Oh, yes. So interesting enough, the research shows that just voice alone, there's not a significant statistical difference with voice and face, but voice alone allows people to have a better understanding of what you mean, your intent, your heartbeat behind it. And so you don't have to wait till you're in person with the person. You don't have to wait. It's getting on the phone. Even asynchronous voice they found in the research is I could leave a voice message and say, hey, Lori, what we shared earlier was really tough and I really appreciate you. That is as effective as being in person or having a visual cue with someone and so don't feel like you have to wait. But the voice does matter.

I love that. So even starting out the hard conversation with a voice note is like game changing. That's literally what I have found in my life. So I have a brother who's 14 years younger. So whenever we have something like maybe like that even isn't hard, but could get misconstrued or something because not only are we brother and sister, but he also works for us. So I'm always like, let's get on a call. Let's do, let's. Because in that, you know, his generation is just like text, text, text, text. And I'm like, do you love me? I need to know. I need to hear you.

And it's.

It's life changing. Like even just so talking to people a lot, you know, younger than myself right now, if you're listening, like even just starting out those hard conversations with a voice note or if you start with a text and saying, hey, let's move this to voice note or whatever that looks like there's something about that, that immediately you're going to get to the end sooner and it's going to be a much more positive outcome. Okay, there was something on here that I wanted to ask you about. I didn't. If you could fill me in on the illusion of asymmetric insight. What does that mean?

Yeah, so illusion of asymmetric insight is a term or phrase that. That is. I understand you so clearly. Like, you're just. You're just easy to understand, Lori. But me, I'm complex. It's just hard to get me, right? And it's like, say you're. You're a dog lover, right? And your friend's a cat lover. And you're just like, oh, I understand why you love cats, but you just don't understand why I love dogs. And that's. That's how we operate. That's the way our brains work, is that we think we're complex and everyone else is very simple. It also kind of leads into this naive realism. And naive realism is, if you just had the exact same information I had, you would come to the exact same conclusions I did. And so that's why you hear people saying things over again, because they operate from those places. Like, oh, you just have to. You just have to hear what I said here. Did you hear what I said? Because. And they're like, yeah, I heard you. Like, I still don't agree with that. And so when we challenge the illusion of asymmetric insight and realize that we're all complex and all of us operate with a sense of complexity, of leaning in, of learning of differences, of things that have shaped who we are and how we approach things, then it allows us to have deeper, more meaningful conversations. That's why I love Pillar 3 of Cultivate your curiosity. Because when the curiosity is cultivated and you ask questions, you engage in the power of three, where you listen at least into the third level, you say, tell me more. Right? Those are the opportunities for us to break down the illusion of asymmetric insights and realize that, wow, not only are people complex, but when you can communicate a better understanding of the complexity, people are more willing to continue conversations with you. When you make people feel like they're very simple, that's when defensive walls come up and when they really don't want to have deeper and more sustainable conversations.

I love this. So we do a lot of entrepreneurial events, and I do one for women that I always like in the beginning. We break them out a lot to. To meet each other, like, just to make them know you guys are way more alike than you think. You don't have to walk in here being so nervous or thinking like, oh, only those three women over there are for me and nobody else is, or no one's for me, right? And you talk about how easy it is to only go up to the people who, number one, look like us or make us feel comfortable. And it's. It's like this idea of kind of like, going to the exact opposite person that you. I actually say to them, I'm like, we're gonna do a really uncomfortable exercise, but I want you to go up to the person right now that you actually think you have nothing in common with, that you think you know everything about them already and you're not interested. And, like, that's probably the person who has your answer. Because God works in a really funny way. Linger longer until you find what they, like, find the gold. Like, you know, and even if the gold is just going, wow, I totally didn't find gold. And that was great to, like, learn about them and be interested, but didn't. And that's gold in itself, I think, is just like making some form of connection, even if it wasn't something that you wanted to find. You know, one.

I think that's brilliant. I wish more people would do that. It's one of the reasons that, you know, when I did my first book release, we had a negative two happy hour and a negative two happy hours. You couldn't ask the two questions, what do you do? And where do you work? We gave people a list of like, 10 other questions. If you've taken a vacation, what's been your best vacation? I even had this happen recently. I was speaking at Leadership Charlotte, bridging the divides thing, and I started noticing these guys go into the normal transaction mode about, oh, so what do you do in Charlotte? And da, da, da. And I share briefly. But instead of asking them back the same question, I was like, hey, you know, you all seem to been in Charlotte for a while. What's one thing in Charlotte that you've never done yet that you've wanted to do? And they were like, huh? And it took them aback because they were like, wait a minute, it's not just going in the normal small talk perspective. And they actually thought for 10, 15 seconds, one guy was like, I've done everything. I've lived here. And then, you know, the other guy shared something. And then one guy, when they asked me that question, I was like, oh, yeah, I've never been to nascar. One guy's like, oh, yeah, I've never been to nascar. That is something I want. And it changed the dynamic of our conversation, and it made it more rich. And I felt like there's a deeper sense of connection, so not only in connecting with people that are opposites, but asking more meaningful questions I think can help us.

I love that. Yeah, that's way more interesting because right away I was like, what did they want to do? Like, what do they want to do?

Tell me.

I want to know if I want to go there. Why do you want to do that?

Like yes.

Yeah. That's amazing. Okay, so speaking to all of our, like coming from a business perspective with all of this, what are we missing out on if we don't start really exploring. Exploring these edges?

Yeah. I will speak as entrepreneur because one of the things that I found from a leadership perspective is that we miss out on great creativity and innovation in the workplace. We found over and over again that when people feel like they can bring their full selves to work, not feel like they have to hide or walk on eggshells, that it allows for greater sense of creativity and innovation. Number two, if I operated from the place of being conflict averse and as a leader, I didn't open my team up for this. Right, so give you two tips for leaders. Actually your three, number one is tell your team that you actually want conflict, you want people to disagree with you, you want. And that it actually makes you better. You would have no idea. Just saying that is the first step. Number two, reward people when they do it because they're going to test the waters to see if you really. Did you go to a workshop and learn this? Did you listen to earn your happy and had one of those great people that told you to do that? Right. Like and. But they'll test the waters to see on something small and see if you'll immediately smack their hand or if you'll draw them in. So when I say reward them is. You know what, Sally, thank you so much for disagreeing with me on that. It actually made me think about this in a different way and I think we're going to come to something even better. But here's, here's the kicker. Number three and this is why I love ad cars to change management model. It's that last R for ad cars reinforcement. So if you created something, if a change came from that conversation and it's two or three months later come back to it, it will have a magnifying impact where you're like, you know what, when we were talking about three or so months ago and we were talking and we had great conflict and disagreement and friction. Wow, what an idea came from that. That just was astronomical that we would have never had had it not occurred. Now you're priming the culture of the team to operate in that space of creativity and innovation. And last but not least is people want to have positive relationships where they work and the people who don't, it's because they've probably been burned in experiences or places that they've worked, whether online or in person. And so if we can create these spaces where people can share, can be themselves, can share their views in respectful ways, it creates an opportunity for people to have more respectful and long lasting relationships.

Love that you go into a lot of different rooms with, you know, for business and entrepreneurs. What have you found is just maybe one of the biggest messages that you want to leave with people when you're in those rooms.

I often hear this statement and you've heard this, I'm sure, Justin, this sounds all good, but I don't have time. I don't have time. I'm already busy. I feel like I'm underwater already. I'm drowning in the things, responsibilities. And I can say that the same thing as an entrepreneur of almost 18 years, it feels like it's just not enough time. And that's why we're very intentional, to strategically help people with practical ways to get there. So, so give you a great example. So we're challenging the open door policy. Let's stop the open door policy, y'. All. We've actually created it while the doors have been closed. We even have virtual open door office hours now. I'll be on Microsoft Teams from Tuesday to Thursday, 3 to 5. Like, but what if we moved instead of from an open door policy to what we call an out the door policy? Open door implies passivity. If you need me, I'm here. Out the door is where we're intentionally going out to hear the stories and the experience of our people. Now you may say, Justin, how does that solve be already being busy? I'm glad you asked me. We created a framework to help people of a mathematical formula called 1MC over W. And that's one meaningful connection per week. What if you built into your calendar the rhythm of 15 to 20 minutes where you would leave your office, you get on a call, you do a zoom teams, whatever. And just like, hey, you know Tanya, I never heard your story before. Like, I'd love what brought you to our company, what initially inspired you, what brought you to our city, how did you get into this industry? And if you're like, Justin, that's 52.14 times a year in a leap year, that's too much. Then flip the W upside down and make it one meaningful connection per month. Maybe it's a longer lunch and that's just 12 times a year. But it's about making meaningful progress, not just simply checking something off the list. And so that's one practical way that when leaders are struggling with, I don't have time to building in a framework where they can say, you know what? I've had many leaders say, I can do one, I can do an hour a month. And I'm going to pick people that I normally wouldn't have lunch with and I'll hear their story and as they ask mine, I'll share mine as well. That relational capital helps us to disagree better because we're already building in what Stephen Covey talked about, the emotional bank account.

I love that because it takes the times that you have to have the hard, you know, conversations and it's going to make them easier because you, you actually, like, you've actually shown too that you do care about that person. That's. That's huge. And we forget that. And it can feel, I think about, you know, team meetings, it's like, it can feel like we just, we have such important things always to cover and these meetings are too long anyway. One, one of the things that, that we do that used to feel that way to me, I was like, why are we doing this? Oh my God, does anybody care? But like taking just like five minutes at the beginning of a team meeting to actually ask like a better question of, you know, what did you actually do this weekend? What was exciting, what, you know, felt fun, what felt hard, like, whatever. And it's like, it's, it's a game changer because that door does feel more open and you're connecting as a human, not just, you know, like wanting them to get things done and, and you end up caring more about them, which I just think creates such a better. It creates such a better workplace.

Lori, when I tell you, you are spot on. So. And I, I stole this in a good way, right? I give it credit from one of my mentors, Dan Sullivan. And I remember just talking to Dan and Babs and I was just asking questions about like, hey, like, where'd this whole thing a positive focus? And here's talking about the physiological impact. And so we start off, every single meeting, we borrowed that from Strategic Coach with what's been a positive for you, whether professionally or personally, since our last meeting. And I would see, even when, when I would work with Strategic Coach as a client, like they would have hundreds of people on the call and they would break them into breakout rooms and still start off that same way. So it wasn't even about the amount of people. There was just a part of the fabric of who they were. And so we've done the same thing. So every meeting we start off, it helps because you don't know what people are dealing with right before the call. You don't know what they're going through. And you also get an insight into their lives, right? They're like, oh, yeah, you know, my I just had a baby or oh, my gran was sick and then she got out the hospital or all these things and you're like, oh, wow, so guess what? Now I can follow up in a week. How's your grand doing? Right? These are the things that allow us. So I love just as a practicality, what you shared in terms of, hey, what's been great, what's not, and even simply from Dan, Dan and Babs is a positive focus.

Love that so much. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I have truly love this conversation and it just makes me think of spots where, you know, I can improve as a human just in the workplace. And yeah, I think it's such an important conversation. Where can we find your book? Follow you all the fun things. I'll also connect everything you guys down in the show notes so you can just scroll down and check it out. But tell us all the great spots.

Yeah. So number one, how to respectfully disagree dot com. We're putting a lot of the new stuff, new videos, even our respectful disagreement quiz is coming out soon where you'll be able to see where you are in the continuum as well. Workmeaningful.com is the big umbrella organization where we're at the intersection of meaningful work and inclusion. I just love LinkedIn. So I'm Justin Jones Foso on LinkedIn. If you see this bald guy with nice colorful lapels on a suit, it's me.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much and you guys, we would love for you to share this episode with a friend. If you loved it as much as we did, go follow Justin. Justin, what's your Instagram handle? Are you on Instagram?

I am. Remember, I have the challenging moment on Instagram. I Work Meaningful, the letter I and then Work Meaningful is my Instagram handle.

I'll make sure that's in the show notes too. But what we also love to do here, you guys, is give him a tag. Give me a tag and let him know what your biggest takeaway was from the podcast. We love to see who is listening. You guys know that I share those and until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone.