0289 | The Business Of We: The Proven Three-Step Process For Closing The Gap Between Us And Them In Your Workplace With Author, TEDx Speaker & CEO Laura Kriska

Hi, this is Laura Kriska@laurakriska.com and you're listening to EA interviews.

EA interviews episode 289, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week. Join Mario Ficcini for today's expert Authority Effect interview. Every business needs a book, including yours. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's free businessbook publishingcourse.com Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Laura Kriska. Laura, how are you feeling today?

Hi Mario. Thanks for having me.

I am excited to learn more about what you're doing because I know it's so vitally important because so many people feel left out regardless of whatever level it's on. Tell me about how you're helping people, specifically in the workplace.

Well, my job is helping people build lasting trust across any us versus them dynamic and doing it without spending a dime.

Oh really? How do you do it without spending a dime?

Yeah, because it's been my experience that to bridge any us versus them gap and we can talk about what those gaps are, we really need two things. One is a genuine wish to, to close a gap, to be really interested in that. And two is having the honesty to reflect on yourself, to think about the choices you have made in your life, maybe long ago or maybe yesterday. But if you have those two things which are free and available to anyone today, you can start bridging gaps and having an immediate and positive impact on your organization, on your departments, on your customers, on your revenue. All of these things about the way.

We do business, why would you say that is important? Why not just leave everything as is?

Mm.

We all know that divisions in a workplace, maybe it's, you know, marketing versus sales or manufacturing versus engineering. When we have these divisions, they cause a negative impact. They interfere with communication, they slow down productivity, they definitely interfere with problem solving. And so when these departments and the individuals in these departments are not moving together toward the common goal.

We'Re not getting, we're not operating at optimum, our peak efficiency. And these type of divisions can be small or they can be large. And what I've noticed is that it seems like people are willing to tolerate this. They feel like, well, there's nothing we can do. There's always going to be this group. Yesterday I was talking to a client who is in compliance and her job in the company is to pay attention to how other people are doing their jobs. And she said nobody ever wants to talk to her. And they fail to recognize that if she does her job well, it helps the whole organization. Now I understand they don't want to talk to her because she might say, well, you can't do this or we want you to do that. But when we look at things so much like me, as you just said, me or my job, my department, only that viewpoint, we limit the optimum performance of our organization.

Where do you think this stems from? On a. I don't want to say personal level because I think some people don't even know about it. But how does this translate into the workplace? Where does it stem from? From a psychological level. Why do people do this?

That's a big question, Mario. First of all, it's a great question. I don't think I'm definitely qualified. I'll tell you my opinion. I think culturally speaking, especially in the United States, we are taught from a very, very young age to be self reliant, to do things on our own, and to make choices all the time. And this is in drastic contrast to other cultures. I'll give you an example. I've spent a lot of time in JAP and I've noticed how mothers in Japan don't ask the same kind of questions of their children. I'm the mother of three children and since the time my kids were young, I would ask them so many questions, oh, do you want milk or juice? Do you want potatoes or rice? Just constantly asking for their personal preference. This is just a small example of the way that we really highlight and value individuality in the United States. And, and as we grow, we are rewarded for being self reliant, you know, take the dishes to the dishwasher or, you know, have a job. And these things are really valued to the point of, you know, when you're finished with school, you're supposed to move out and live on your own and be, you know, an independent person. And these are great traits. I think it's one of the very attractive things about our culture. But sometimes it goes so far that we only think of ourselves and we only worry about me and mine. And so compared to a country that is like Japan, where there's a very strong group emphasis from the time you're young, there's a group orientation, people really think about the common good much more than they would here in the United States.

Well, I appreciate the insight there. And you're saying you're not the one to ask on it, but I thought that was a great answer.

Thank you.

What have you seen in, in your experience from someone who changes the culture of the company from the me to the we?

What have I seen?

What was the end result of, you know, someone that was probably fighting you and didn't want to do it in the beginning? Because I know anytime you implement change, some people are very averse to it, like beyond very averse to it. And they might do it begrudgingly. But yes, I want to know about afterwards. How excited were they afterwards?

Yeah, it's great to see a transformation. And one of the ways I used to work was doing a lot of in person exercises. I've been doing an exercise called the Team Machine and it's a simulation that really shows that when departments don't work together in coordination, the entire company, the entire organization is not going to be as competitive as they could be. And this is an awakening for some people. It's kind of shocking to them to see this play out in a kind of game like environment. But it's not that hard to help people see that if your company is not operating at its peak potential. And I mean everybody, you know, building trust with one another, having great communication, excellent cooperation and note, I don't mean you have to like people, you don't have to agree with them, but you have these common goals and you have a common understanding of how you're going to reach those goals. And so when you do that, the whole organization is much more successful. Your customers are easily drawn to you, you find new revenue streams. Innovation is much more possible because people aren't being stingy with their ideas. They look at it as a group win. So it's exciting when people can change their viewpoint from me to we.

And who would you say is your biggest success story of accomplishing this that just stands out the most to you?

That's a really good question. I worked with a small company. It's a subsidiary of a very large multinational company. And one of the people in the organization was relatively new and he was trained in the rebuilding process that I teach. And he took this practice back to his organization and he changed, for example, the way people sat. Let me back up a little bit. Because he was a newcomer to a very established company, there was a culture established in that company. Right. Every organization has these cultures. But as a newcomer, he had kind of a fresh approach. He wasn't ingrained in certain groups. I mean, this is not that much different than high school. You know, there are cliques in high school and there are cliques in organizations. And these cliques can Be very damaging to business, but also to people and how much they feel like they belong. And so, as a newcomer, this man could see that these clicks inside the organization were preventing people from sharing information, from solving customer problems. You know, one person would get the information, but they wouldn't share it with a group that could solve the problem. And it was awful. But people had tolerated it, and they just were very kind of separate in the way they operated, falsely thinking that they alone could take care of what they needed to take care of. And he started slowly making some changes. He started cooperating with people that he had, not that, you know, he helped people facilitate cooperation who had kind of traditionally not cooperated. And they discovered an entirely new revenue stream for their business. It was something that was related to the old way of doing business. It's actually a story in my book. It has to do with seafood in the way that they had certain markets that were very separate. But when these different market people representing the markets talk to each other, they recognized that they could create a whole new revenue stream that has generated millions of dollars in revenue because these different groups were now cooperating.

Well, that's not too bad now, is it?

I think it's a really important motivator for building a we culture, but it's also about inclusion and making people from diverse backgrounds feel like they belong. And as we all know, most business places are much more diverse today than they were, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. And so we have people from various backgrounds working together. And I think there's a false notion that proximity to people who are different from you is enough, that knowing somebody's name, you know, just sitting nearby them, or, you know, this kind of acquaintance style relationship is enough. And I disagree with that, Mario. I think it's really important to do the work to build relationships. And I mean, like trusted colleague resilient relationships that can sustain the hard work of running a business. And this is one. This is where the idea of being an outsider. You mentioned this at the opening. One of the things I always ask people is the question, when have you felt like an outsider or a them? If I'm talking about the us versus them dynamic, I say, when did you feel like a them? And almost every single person can tell me a situation in their lives when they felt like the outsider, which means they know what to do to help other people feel included.

That is so enlightening because I think on there's always some degree of people feeling left out. And I'm sure it's mainly as kids but that's what you carry with you. And even if it's not, I mean, I know some people that, you know, they were, they didn't have it as a kid growing up, but then they got into a job or they were forced to do something. Maybe not even a job, just career and later in life where it just, they weren't in their zone of genius. And anytime you're not, it's just gonna be harder to begin with. And they just felt left out or to your point, they were talking about earlier with everyone in the company, it's like they just always felt like they were on the outskirts and that's not their personality type. I know there's some people who, they'll do what they want. What do they call them? Extrovert. Extroverted introverts. They're totally fine on their own, but they can get along with a group if need be. But they don't feel like they always have to be the life of the party just to survive. And it's interesting because I think we're all a blend of each of these. I mean, sometimes it's nice to just take a break. Like, hey, no responsibilities today. What do you want to do? Probably not add more on your plate. Just saying. But at the same time, when you're working with the team and you do want to be included, it is a horrible feeling like you're left out. So I think it's great you're talking about that. Because the world is more diverse than ever. The businesses, everything we do, we're more connected than ever. Let me rephrase that. We're more accessible than ever, but I'd say we're less connected.

Would you agree?

I agree. Yeah, I, I think that's an important distinction and thank you for making it. And it's. Instead of being connected, we're just together. We have more diversity in many workplaces, but we're not connected. I just was speaking with a colleague who is a black woman, a young black woman, and she quit her job recently because she was the only black young woman and she felt invisible. When you're the only, the only lonely, sometimes it's called, in an organization it's easy to feel left out. And this is why it's so important for people who do belong, who have that sense of belonging, to take action, to build trusted colleague level relationships with people who might not feel like they belong. This is the central feature of we building, taking action, noticing when people might not feel like they belong. If there's an only lonely in Your organization because of their. Their age, their gender identity, their race, their religion, you know, whatever it is. It could be many things. They could belong in the sense that they look and sound like, you know, the majority of the people, but they don't feel like they belong. And so this is the work of we building. And guess what? It's not that hard. It's not hard to include people. I mean, if you think about times in your own life when you have been the one excluded, maybe unintentionally, maybe intentionally, and we think about, you know, what would you have liked someone to do? I'd love to hear what you think about this, Mario. But when, you know, if you think about what would have been a simple gesture someone could have done to make you felt included in some search, some circumstance.

Yeah. I would have to say just genuinely care and have an interest. To your point of. It doesn't cost anything to be a nice individual. And no matter what the background is or where they work or anything, it doesn't cost anything. You know, I. I've joked ever since middle school, high school, they're like, how can you just talk to anyone? And then at the time it was like, well, how do you. They were implying her or a woman? Like, how do you just talk to them? I go, well, generally I start with, hi, hello, or how are you?

It's like, what more do you need than just.

What'S going on? And if you have a shred of common sense, in my opinion.

And maybe 1/2 a percent to 1% of looking beyond yourself, all you have to do is just look at people for about four seconds in a room, and you can tell who's happy and who's not. And maybe you go to the happy person and be like, tell me what's going on? Why are you so excited? But maybe, just maybe, you go to the person who doesn't look so happy and say, hey, how's it going? And maybe it's just the fact that they're dealing with all kinds of stuff, and maybe you don't need to solve it for them, but maybe just care enough to notice, and now they can flip the switch out of, okay, I can deal with this later. There's actually opportunity to hear, to have a good time. I mean, I hated it in grade school, high school. Everyone's like, oh, where do you want to go to college? Where do you want to go to college? Where do you want to go to college? What do you. You know.

No one ever asked me if I even wanted to go. And I didn't really want to. I still don't have any degrees.

And some people just don't want to. Some people really want to. But instead of assuming, I always ask questions, you know, or in, or you turn it into a joke. It's like you can tell they look miserable. Be like, oh, it looks like you're having a good day. Hey, maybe you can make them laugh. I mean, when you can say it from a place of humor and not like, sucks to be you. I mean, there's a difference in there. And not just what you say, but how you say it, but sometimes it just makes someone laugh.

And I want to point out one other thing that is an important part of my book, which is in any organization there is what I call a home team. So one of my first jobs was working in Japan. And the home team in the organization is the one that has access to power and money. And so if I were to describe the home team in the organization in this job in Japan, it was basically middle aged Japanese men. That was the home team. I was not middle aged at the time. I am now. I'm female and I'm not Japanese. So I did not belong in my identity to that home team. And so it was easy to feel left out and overlooked and marginalized. So every organization has a home team. You know, in corporate America, a lot of organizations have a home team that we could pretty much sum up as saying middle aged white men. And it's not, I'm not saying that's bad. First of all, I married a middle aged white man and I've created two more white men for the planet. So I'm not saying it's bad. I'm saying that if you belong to, through your identity to the home team just by default, and I almost belong as a middle aged white person, I'm female. So if you're part of that home team and your organization, I feel that we have a bigger responsibility to look for ways to broaden who is included. The definition of who is included. And that's the idea of who is we instead of just hanging out and spending time and consulting with other people who look like us, sound like us, pray like us, we have an obligation to look out and see who might not feel included. Just like you were describing, you know, in the situation where there are a lot of people standing around. So looking for those opportunities is part of being a we builder.

What do you think it would take for a company to go from, oh, geez, I'll just ask you what percentage do you think companies are at now on generally? And what do you think it would take to even break 50%? I was gonna say 80 or 90, but I mean that would literally change the world. Even to break 50 though?

Yeah, yeah, it takes some work. But again, it doesn't have to cost a lot of money. It can cost nothing. You know, someone could buy my book, which is not a lot, and follow the principles, follow the processes. It takes ongoing work, which is important. One of the most important tools that I have developed in my entire career is called the us versus them self assessment. It is ten simple questions. They are yes or no questions. This self assessment would take you 60 seconds to fill out. But what it does is provides an immediate measurement to show you how integrated, how familiar you are with a them group. Now the them group could be as specific as one other human being or as large as an entire country. It's up to the person taking the self assessment to decide. And I always say this should be voluntary. So an organization could start a we building initiative on their own for the price of my book. And if they did ongoing work, I would say in six months time with regular check ins. Again, this doesn't have to take a lot of time. But people need accountability. It's not that different from trying to start any new habit trying to exercise. If you have someone checking in with you and saying, hey Mario, did you do your exercise? You know that there's an app called Noom which people are using for weight loss and things like that. It's an accountability, it's a method of accountability. So there are many ways to foster a we building culture. But it does take time and effort and accountability. The steps are not hard. They're not hard, they're simple steps. But you have to put time and effort into it.

Well, I love that you're providing the structure for people and.

That'S the thing, like you're saying the accountability, but having that roadmap to just follow makes it so much easier. And I think every business needs it. Everyone needs it. I mean like we've been talking about this whole time. It cost exactly nothing to be a good decent. And here's what's sad.

It's like with the fact that we even have to talk about, like here's how you treat people. You don't leave them in a corner to sit there and rot. It's like really.

You know, I think it's sad, but I will say go ahead, go ahead.

I will say to people's defense, some people notice the person, but they're worried. They don't want to say or do the wrong thing. I think this is, for example, if we talk about race and the gap between white and black, white versus black. There are lots of white Americans who care deeply about social justice and equity but have done exactly nothing. They think about it, they feel stuff. They might put a sign in their window or even march in protest, but that's the end of their action. And that is simply not enough. And when I ask people about this, they tell me I don't know what to do, I don't want to do and say the wrong thing. And so I advise them to start off with what I call safe actions. Safe actions are ones you do in private. They cost nothing. There's no vulnerability. It's things like reading an article, checking out a web news resource called the Root, watching W. Kamal Bell's CNN TV show called United Shades of America. Things that just give you information, give you information about stuff you may never have learned about. You've never been aware about it because you never lived, you know, as a white person. You've never had the lived experience of what it's like to be black in America. And you never will understand that fully. But we certainly can do much more in terms of our education. So these safe choices are excellent starting points. And then we have to move to challenging actions. Challenging actions are face to face interactions of increasing depth. This can be, we can do this even now, virtually. It's going to be much better when we're all back in real life person again. But challenging actions require a little bit of vulnerability, a little risk. You might feel uncomfortable, somebody might say no. But it's things like asking someone to have lunch, putting yourself in a situation where you might be able to have a small talk conversation, or even joining a group where you are in the minority in terms of being a white person. These are the things that will fundamentally change the trajectory of equity and justice in our country. And I believe it's one of the reasons we haven't made the progress we should have. You know, the civil rights legislation was passed over 50 years ago and still there's been negligible progress. And it's because in part I believe many people on the home team like me have not taken the actions to vet to develop trusted relationships with people of color. And I don't mean again, not acquaintance, not like, you know, you know, their first name, but I mean resilient, trusted relationships that can withstand important conversations that help people understand the way the world works in a completely different way, from a different perspective.

And it sounds like you're saying on an ongoing basis as well, not just a one time deal. And I'm just going to go out on a limb and say probably not through social media.

As the starting point.

No, unless. Unless you just start learning. You know, I've learned a lot from following people on Twitter.

Yeah. Like you're saying it's a resource just to gather the information, but I was making a joke about just because it seems like unfortunately whether it's, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really seem to matter what the topic is. There could be someone that's listens to this and watches it and is like, I don't like her, I don't like him. And then they'll just go to town as to why I'm the worst person on earth. Or maybe you, or maybe someone in the comments. And it's always interesting, I'll put a joke out or something. Someone leaves a comment and then someone else who's very serious. The one that comes to mind is when I travel, there's this picture of a duck on the wing. It has nothing to do about anything. And I've seen people get in arguments because they're like, well, no, I was a pilot and you know, ducks can't fly as fast as a plane and this and that and, and I'll go on to, to a speaking event and three days later I'll come back, forgot I even did the thing. And there's like 96 comments about people arguing about the velocity of the duck and the wind shear. And I'm like, dude, this was a joke. So I was saying that in jest, but yeah, and it's just, I'm glad we, we can have conversations like this and we should be doing more, but I think people also have to realize, like have a 10 or 20% buffer to realize the context. And you know, if someone's page is all memes and they put something out, it's probably a joke. And if not, and if it's all serious, then maybe this isn't a joke, even though it might sound like it. You know, there's always that flip side too. So thank you for sharing that and bringing it to businesses. What was that?

Well, and I think it was important for you to mention that the social media avenue is not a great one. And this is why face to face interactions of increasing depth are the solution. Because people will behave very differently face to face than they will from behind a screen and a handle. Yeah, yeah.

Many And I don't know about you, but I'd definitely rather have food involved in this situation than be typing away on a keyboard.

Yes, it's a great idea.

So I have one more question for you before we thank the sponsor and come to the imperfect action round. And it's the.

Wheel of whatever you want. Yellow or black?

Yellow.

Okay. Wow, that's a real good spin. Is it yellow? I'll make it yellow. There we go. It's mine. So my question for you is, what do you think it would take to have this on a global scale? How many years before we're making a dent in your experience?

What year? Give me a year.

I want to say five years from now.

Five years from now. So it is my personal mission to inspire a we building revolution.

Awesome.

But I cannot do this by myself. I need your help. I need your listeners help, your viewers help. This is what we need in this country. We need to move away from division and toward unity. And we can do it without a lot of effort. We can do it with virtually no cost. And can you imagine if we stopped bickering and worrying about all these ways that we're different and instead put our resources, our skills, our energy, our time, our creativity and instead focused toward common problems that humanity has. Climate change, hunger, poverty. I mean, we could accomplish so much as a country, as a people. And that's the world I'm working toward.

Excellent. And I'm glad you are.

We're going to thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why you should Visit free businessbook publishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having.

An idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice.

What he got done for me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable.

John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books.

Rosio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past, it didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner.

I can't make a higher recommendation for than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario. Hey, their words, not mine. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started now. And I look forward to hearing your transformation as the next video success story. Once again, that's freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Laura, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I don't know. Am I? What are we going to do?

I got three questions for you, 60 second or less answers and the first one is what is the fastest path to the cash?

The fastest path to the cash is working successfully together in coordination in a way that everyone belongs with a clear set of rules toward reaching the calming goal.

Excellent. That is correct.

Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

The biggest problem is tolerating us versus them gaps in the workplace and substituting cosmetic integration with thinking that cosmetic integration is enough. You know, a checklist, things like that. We need substantive integration meaning people from all different backgrounds working together, not just sitting next to each other but really working in trusted colleague relationships. And again, it's not hard to achieve this. It takes some self reflection, it takes some genuine interest and then accountability.

Excellent. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

What is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Hmm, I'm not sure I fully understand what that means.

So the people you're serving like your clients, what's the best way to not just make it transactional like a one time deal.

Maximize it long term?

Well, I think.

Promoting the rebuilding culture is useful inside an organization and outside the organization. The skills and tools that I teach people and to use in their companies can be applied anywhere in our communities, in our kids schools, in places of worship. So these skills should be and can be applied by anyone at any time, anywhere. And I have worked with thousands of people on four continents and one thing I can tell you for sure is that anyone can become a we builder and it's easy to start.

Excellent. What books would you recommend to Expert Authority World that have helped you?

Oh boy, I have learned so much from so many authors. Diversity Inc. Is a book written by Pamela Newkirk in 2019. It's a really valuable study of diversity and the business and how there's, you know, billion dollar business, yet negligible success in terms of real integration. So that was a very important book to me in the past, recent past.

Excellent. Where would you like people to learn more?

Well, they can go to my website@laurakriska.com I'm on many social media platforms and especially on LinkedIn. I'd say that's probably the best place.

Excellent. LinkedIn is a good place. Well, Laura, it's been a pleasure. I thank you for your insights and thank you for your time.

Thanks, Mario.

All right, Expert Authority world, we have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day. God bless.

You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate and qualify leads while increasing profit for you 24? 7 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With the Expert Authority Effect publishing method, it's easier and faster than ever. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit FreeBusinessBookPublishingCourse.com to get started. Now once again, that's FreeBusinessBookPublishingCourse.Com.