305 - From Limiting Beliefs to Inclusive Leadership with Aim-on Wongsaparn

What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that sticks and leads to results? My name is Miriam Hadnes, and with the Workshops Work podcast, I'm on the mission to find the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Today with me on the show is Eamon Wong-Sapan, and we speak about limiting beliefs and their impact on psychological safety and inclusion measures of organizations. We speak about the team leader perspective as well as a facilitator and what we can do as individuals, as leaders, and facilitators to help individuals to overcome limiting beliefs so that we can thrive together and create an inclusive environment for all. And please check out the show notes with more links about the matter and sources for inspiration. And don't forget to click the subscribe button if you like conversation. And now, enjoy the show. Hello, Aymaan. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you for having me here.

Yes, I'm looking forward to this conversation on the impact of limiting beliefs and empathy.

Yes, me too. It's a topic that I really am passionate with. So definitely.

Yeah. And I'm extremely curious about your insights from having worked in the corporate world for so long, because I think there are a lot of differences when it comes to our mindset when we're self-employed. We come in as external facilitators to a space, or whether we are internal to a large corporate. And before we're getting there, I always start with the same question for 300+ episodes. When did you start calling yourself a facilitator? And actually, do you?

I totally am a facilitator and a leader by profession. Facilitator by profession, leader who facilitates. I grew my career from training, being a training manager. And that's when I quickly realized that imparting knowledge and skills through training alone doesn't really make a lasting impact. So we need facilitating, learning, and insight. And later when I grew up to be HR leader and diversity and inclusion lead, I also leveraged these facilitation skills to come up with vision and strategies. I don't think vision and strategies are something that leaders would just sit in the room and do it, right? We need to facilitate the insights to get into the really right A place where it's aspirational, inspirational, and engaging. And facilitation is key. Well, I always find it's a fun challenge to have so many diverse perspectives at hand and synthesize it into a compelling vision. That's a challenging one. Yeah.

Oh, thank you for clarifying. What I hear is, one, the distinction between So when you describe the facilitative part in the work of you as a leader, I hear the mindset on the one hand and the skill set on the other hand.

Totally.

And then I hear the challenge of the synthesizing. So you get all these diverse opinions, but at the end of the day, as a leader, you sign it off. So how do you make sure not to be biased in your conclusion? Or maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it's your job.

I don't think we can get away from being biased. Like, we are always biased. We have brains, so we have bias, right? And as a leader, you see big pictures as well. You see the big organization directional where we are going, and you get the key insight. I think it's more of a bridge. And definitely we need— it's not just getting insight and synthesize that insight. You need to bridge that with the Corporate North Star, if you may. Yeah. So definitely biased a little bit.

Yeah. And as you say, we have a brain, so we are biased. I love that. And as long as we're aware of the bias and know when it's serving us and when it's not serving us.

Totally. Yeah.

Where did you learn to facilitate or where did you grow the facilitative mindset?

Where did I grow to facilitate the mindset of having this facilitation mindset?

I don't know. Did you grow it? Where did it come from?

I think it comes from, like, I started as a training manager at a young age, right? When I finished my master's. So then they put me in a role of training manager. Luckily, they gave me education. So they gave me train the trainer. And during the train the trainer, it was taught to, you know, doing the presentation skill and all that. And later it was more of questions that you ask, right? It's more of, I don't know, I just feel like it grew on you because when you see the impact of your questions, then you add it in, you learn to add it in because you know that's what makes impact, right? So you just learn to add questions in here and there just to poke challenging thoughts at them. So that they have that, oh, I didn't think of that, that kind of stuff. So it's kind of like accumulated over time, I would say.

Learning by doing. And I have one more curiosity on the topic, knowing that you are Thai, so you, you worked a lot in Thailand with Thai colleagues, and from what I understand is that there's quite I'm German living in the Netherlands, so where hierarchies are relatively flat, I would say.

Yeah.

So in a context where you do face hierarchical differences, how did you get your teams to actually follow you on this facilitated leadership approach?

That's a really good question because National culture has really— and I'm always on the lens of this limiting belief— and also Asian and Thai also have a bit of a reputation to be a bit shy and quiet, right? And hierarchical, right? So culture has a big role to play. National culture has a really big role to play in shaping our behavior and our belief system. Coming from a hierarchical culture myself, I know it so well. Well, people from hierarchical culture, the good thing is it comes with structure, clear law and clarity with decision-making. And people from this culture tend to know how to read the room quite well. You know, you need to go in and you need to know who's the decision-maker, right? So you know how to read the room quite well. Limiting belief actually starting from a young age, from the culture from our upbringing and some of the past experience. So oftentimes with the hierarchical culture, it's more of like you don't speak loudly or you don't talk back to your elder. And when you share your opinion, you need to know when and how to share it.

Right.

So this is where I would say leaders bring the weather. A lot. So when I am in that role of leader, including my own team and the organization that I co-lead with my leadership team colleague, it's so important that we talk about how leader brings the weather. And we talk about safe space. We talk about inclusivity in our culture a lot, even though in Thailand it's quite homogeneous. still, there is an underlying exclusion. If you look closely, you will see that there is an in-group and there's an out-group. So how do you bridge that to make it inclusive? And how do you talk about safe space and definitely vulnerability? Vulnerability. I think it's so important that we talk about it. And on this concept, I see leaders interpret them Quite differently. You know, vulnerability means different things to different people. And we need to ensure that it's done right in a very genuine way.

Yeah, thank you for clarifying. What I hear is the need to make the implicit explicit. So, yes, you do have— I haven't actually thought of that, that the benefit of a strong hierarchical culture is the clarity. You know exactly what are the rules, what are the boundaries, who makes the decision. And then if you want to break with these standards, you really have to break it down and make it very explicit of what is expected.

Totally, yes.

And how this shows.

And leaders need to role model that, right?

Yeah.

So there are times that I will see leaders talk about them, they want to show vulnerability, But at the end, it becomes they are showcasing their struggle and how good they are at overcoming it. And I think that's kind of like, yeah, yeah. So it's a bit, it's a bit of a, some, a myth that we need to clarify as people leader and as facilitator. Definitely when we contract with leaders that, or the sponsor of the session that we facilitate.

Yeah, that's such a good point. And I wonder, to what extent, what is a misunderstanding or almost wrong education in the sense of what vulnerability and what psychological safety actually means, and what is culture? Because I often have the impression that people think when they hear psychological safety or vulnerability, they think of sitting in a circle, singing Kumbaya, being best friends, and only being kind of nice to each other, although it actually means the opposite, right? Psychological safety means that we can be tough to each other without taking it personally.

Yeah.

So this concept of vulnerability, do you think it's because it's a misconception of psychological safety, or is it really a cultural aspect?

Maybe there's no word for vulnerability, or they think it means just pretending to be When I said, you know, because I get out of the local context for a while. So when I say vulnerability and leaders showcasing that success in overcoming and presented that as vulnerability, I'm not talking about in a Thai context, just to be clear. I see that from totally like all cultures.

100%.

Right? You saw that too, right? Yes, yes, yes.

There's a misconception of it.

Yes, it's totally— and I think it's still in the mind of our leaders and us ourselves as well, right? We all want to look good, and it takes courage to be vulnerable. It takes courage to talk about your fear and your uncertainty, and that's different from I think that's kind of universal. And in terms of psychological safety, this is where I, you know, it's one of my favorite things to do as a DE&I leader is talking about demystifying psychological safety. Because inclusion means like provide environment where people feel belonged, respected, and can thrive. And psychological safety is one of the enablers. And if you want to have a psychological safety, it's not about you can talk about anything or just being nice. It's about saying things that matter with respect. You're not being respectful. You're not providing the safe space for anyone. So for me, psychological safety means exactly what you said. It's not just about being nice. When you talk about courage and one person in the team in the organization didn't feel safe, it means you don't have psychological safety.

Yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you for saying that.

I see that you feel resonant with that so well.

So much. That's what I also always say, that psychological safety reduces to the least safe person in the room. If one doesn't feel safe, nobody feels safe. Yeah.

And that's a missed opportunity of intelligence in the room, right? If the environment is not safe, you don't get that intelligence, that juice that you want.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because we are always holding— if the moment where we are not feeling safe, we're in the fight, flight, freeze, we're just trying to be safe, to remain safe. Um, no creativity and innovation can happen in that space.

Yeah, yeah.

And when we had the pre-discussion for today's interview, we spoke about limiting beliefs and that this is your passion. Sounds maybe weird, but your curiosity.

Well, I'm just going to go with passion. I'm super passionate about this topic. I want to spread the word to the whole world.

Tell us, where does your curiosity or your passion about limiting beliefs come from? And what do you understand by limiting beliefs?

So let me share my experience first. I am actually a victim of it myself, and that's why I feel very strongly about it. When I first joined my previous organization, I am from a non-scientific background. I joined my previous organization, which is very scientific. I was exposed to a very different environment, different type of product, different type of people that I used to interact with. And I didn't know why. I felt like everybody was smarter than I. Everybody understands each other except me. And I was under a lot of stress. I went into self-doubt, self-criticism. Luckily, I plowed through and I gained some achievements under my belt to regain my confidence. Much later though, that I found out that it was not that I was not good. It was that I was different. I have lateral thinking, and lateral thinking comes with creativity, comes with spontaneity, and it could be quite disorganized. And scientific people prefer structure and organization, right? So that's where the difference comes in. And at the time, I didn't know, and I connect dots totally differently than people that I'm surrounded with. And that was why I felt so stressed and felt like no one understands me. I couldn't understand anyone. It was the dots were connected differently. And I, at the time, because I didn't understand, I couldn't articulate it in a way that they would understand. So now I'm on a mission to spread the word. I learned about this in my 40s. I think my life would have been much better if I learned about it like way before. So that's why feel like everybody should know that this is a fundamental human being. We all have it to a certain extent. We just have to learn how to mitigate it.

Yes. Oh, thank you. And I am— it is so true, this kind of imposter syndrome, believing that we are not as smart as we should be or how everyone else thinks we could be. And I also, I was lucky actually to to realize in my mid-30s that everyone had it because I had a beautiful mentor and he was a very successful professor and entrepreneur. And one day he admitted over dinner that he was wondering when his colleagues would find out that he's a fraud. And we're like, if you have imposter syndrome, everyone has imposter syndrome.

I know. You know, I was reading the book, I think it is A Promised Land by Obama, Barack Obama. his first chapter, I declare I have something in common with Obama. And I'm like, I go around talking about it with people. I have something in common with Barack Obama, with the President of the United States. He talked about his self-doubt as a president too. So I was like, President of the United States can have it, I have it too. I'm proud to have it.

Yes, yes. And I think it's indeed, it's something that we don't speak often enough And I will come to your lateral thinking in a second. I think it's also so connected with the concept of psychological safety.

Totally.

Because the moment where we have self-doubt, and we will have self-doubt, if we have it as a leader, and someone asks us a question where we are in doubt and we feel like a fraud, we will snap back and we'll be defensive because we think that it's an attack. But the moment we admit that we are available, we cannot know everything, then we are open to questions like, oh, thank you, good question. I don't know, maybe you have an idea, right? So I think if there was enough safety at work to at least admit that we all suffer from self-doubt, no matter how high we are in the hierarchy, I think many problems would be solved already.

Totally. I remember one time, it was funny. I was in a charter at the time. And my team came to me for answer. And I was like, I don't know. I don't have the answer to this. And you know what he said? But you are the HR director, you should know. And I'm like, wait, I'm a human too. I'm allowed to not knowing and we can figure it out together. I think that's a learning for him. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's a moment of vulnerability.

Totally.

Yeah. And of courage to say, I don't know. And then even to be faced, but you should know, you're my boss. And then an opportunity, as you say, for growth and for learning. And to come back to what you said about the— sorry, did you want to say something?

I feel like we might want to touch base a little bit on what I mean by limiting belief. I feel like it would help us pave the way of what it means moving forward. Is that okay?

Absolutely. Please go ahead.

Okay. So when I said limiting belief, I'm referring to opinions or ideas that holds us back from taking action. It may or may not be true. I'll give you some examples. It could be some small things like not reaching out to a certain senior leader because I feel like she's busy and I'm too small, she might not want to talk to me. It may or may not be true, but it's holding me back from reaching out and get that connection I needed to succeed, right? Or it could be life-changing decision like When my dream job opens, I don't apply for it because I think that I don't tick 100% of the box in the job ad. So I don't apply. It may or may not be true again, but it holds me back from taking that action to apply. I self-reject without trying.

And is this always out of fear, fear of rejection? So we reject ourselves first so that we don't get rejected by others?

Exactly. Fear of failure, fear of not feeling belonged, fear of not good enough, and definitely fear— oh, there are 2 more fears that I want to add to. Fear of rejection that you mentioned and fear of being judged. I know that I had it. It was like, shall I say this? If I say it, how would people perceive what I say? Right? Yeah.

And fear of success could also be.

Fear of success? Would you elaborate on that?

I've heard a couple of times that there is some self-sabotage at play, not because we are afraid to fail, that we might not be successful, but if we are successful, then we will feel overwhelmed. So for instance, someone who is internally afraid of being in the spotlight, taking the stage, being famous, So they would self-sabotage because they're actually afraid to succeed.

Oh, wow. I can see that at play. I can see that at play. Yeah.

Thank you for the definition of the limiting beliefs. So it's to reject ourselves before we even try.

Yeah. Or judge ourselves. Yeah.

Yeah. And where do you see this playing out? At work, and why does it become a problem?

The number one word that I hear a lot in terms of this lens is, oh, number of words, I can't. So I can't, and it's always followed by their own assumption that pretty much self-fulfilling, you know, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah. So for example, I can't do that because I have never been in front of the seniors. leaders before, already self-reject. I won't be able to compete with that project because there are people who are more qualified than I am, right? Or even, I was told that I can't. I'm like, that's kind of even worse. I mean, like, you could challenge that at least. Yeah. So I see, I see that that's a lot. And so I can't is like number one that I heard a lot. And then this self-doubt, those imposters that you talked about, also a lot. And the impact are at 2 levels. First, when individual— at individual and organization. Individual level, when they feel like they can't, they don't have what it takes to achieve the goal, they feel like they lose confidence because they they can't succeed, I do not have what it takes, it has impact on their career, on their motivation, on their engagement. And to me, very importantly, it has impact on the individual's well-being and mental health. I think I really want people to overcome this. And because of that individual impact, organizations suffer, right? Because creativity, innovation, and even productivity can suffer. And that could be like in day-to-day loss of opportunities. It could be fatal as well. Have you heard of the, um, shuttle space, Columbia shuttle space? Amy Edmondson talked about it in Psychological Safety. She said there was a shuttle space that went up And there was something happened at the launch, but the engineers didn't speak up.

Yeah.

So when it came down back to Earth, it went down totally and we lost astronauts from there, lost life. So it could be fatal disaster when it had that impact, right? And if organizations suffer, individuals suffer, I would say society as a whole are not healthy.

Yeah. And I, and I wonder to what extent, because there, there are cultures that would support the limiting beliefs to keep people down.

Yeah.

So that it functions. Because if we would remove, if we removed all the self-doubt, this means that an intern, an intern who's overconfident at the, joins the first team meeting, I have an idea. Why don't we do it this way?

Yeah.

What we often observe, because it's usually those who are very low in the hierarchy and those who are very high in the hierarchy, they have less limiting beliefs or more courage, so to speak. And then something happens that they stop speaking up, right? Something happens that they get the eye roll, they're told that you don't know anything anyway. And then this becomes a learned behavior. And I wonder whether— so I'm curious about the impact of organizational culture on the spread of limiting beliefs, because there may be— that's a vulnerability that's punished or rewarded.

100% agree with you that corporate culture and individual beliefs have like a delicate balance there, right? So if it's aligned, it can totally be A boost of morale, productivity, creativity, and innovation. But when it goes the opposite way, it's even worse because everybody will be under a lot of pressure to perform. They do not speak up because they fear being judged or fear consequences. And I think this is a bit sad and very much loss of opportunities. So, this is why my passion in diversity and inclusion come in, right? Diversity means differences, and differences can be both visible and invisible. And diversity brings different perspective. Different perspective brings innovation, and innovation and these productivities can't happen if you don't have an inclusive environment. Safe and inclusive environment is really important. So that you really enable people to explore and fail forward. I think it's important that both corporate culture and national culture for me has really impact on shaping individual beliefs and it could be limiting or enabling. We as leaders and facilitators has a role to play to shape them.

Yeah. So what would be your advice to a team leader or an internal facilitator, maybe a team leader? How can we shift? How can we improve or disable the limiting beliefs of our team members, colleagues, groups?

For leaders, I will share 3 strategies that I see working quite well. First, put the oxygen mask on themselves first. The way the leaders handle their limiting beliefs speaks volumes. Their team looks up to them. They are seeing the way the leaders are handling this thing and learning from the leaders, right? So I will share with you an example of my former manager. She is so cool. She was one of my best. I learned a lot from her. I've grown so much under her leadership. She was, and I think she still is, a global talent. Okay, so competency is not an issue. She is very competent. Okay, it's given. I want to get that out of the way first, that you know that I'm painting a good, very good picture of her. And when it was— we were— she was leading APAC, she would talk about the situation very transparently, talk about what she struggled with, talk about her fear, the estimation of what she's facing. And, you know, she has no— claim to be perfect, and she would ask for help. She even asked us for help sometimes, like, can you help? And, you know, I put you into this too much, can you help, like, not getting there so other people can get in? So she'll be so transparent that I've never seen this type of transparency before. What I learned from that is that leaders are human too. It is okay to ask for help. It is okay to Struggle and talked about it and venting even to a certain extent, right? But very importantly, all that you still have to deliver. It's not— right? You still have to deliver and be human at the same time.

Yeah.

Oh, that's my first strategy. So let me recap. First strategy, put the oxygen mask on yourself first.

And just to double down on that, I think it's so important. And that's what makes a good leader, right? That they can be vulnerable and deliver at the same time. So empower the team so that they are stronger together. Yeah. And congratulations. So happy for you that you had such a leader. I think, yeah, there's so much to learn if they are transparent and vulnerable.

Yeah.

Thank you.

We learn from the way she thinks as well, right? It's like, It's like, in a way, she walked us through her psychological emotions and everything in there.

And there's so much learning because if we see how a leader deals with a specific situation, then this also, assuming that it's aligned with the general values of the team or the organization, that it also educates every single team member on how to apply the values and the ways of working to very specific challenges. And I think to model this level of integrity and vulnerability is a fantastic learning opportunity.

I was lucky. So the first strategy is how the leader handle their own limiting beliefs. The second one is helping your team, right? And this is where your question actually also come in. So when it comes to helping others, and I'm not just talking about the team, uh, that you are like, you in charge of. I'm talking about people around you as well. I go back to basic trust. Trust is really fundamental for team success or any relationship to flourish. Having mutual trust and respect is so important. As leaders, I would hope that they get to know their team, genuinely knowing who the teams— your teams are and all that, and get to know their strengths. their aspirations, and let them know that you believe in them. And then, and only then, that you can help them challenge their fear, their limiting beliefs, so to prove to themselves that they can. And I think it's important you have that fundamental. I recall when I was— one of my former team members, I see a global opportunity for her, a project, And I think she would do well in it. It will be a stretch, but she definitely can do it. So I shared my thought with her. I called her and I shared my thought with her. I highlighted her strengths, and definitely I told her that I think you can do it, and I leave that decision to her. At the end, she decided to take that lead, and she has done it beautifully well, and she grew and learned so much from it. I was so happy and proud. I was happy because she can prove to herself that she can. Like, not about anyone else. She proved to herself that she can. I think that's very important. Secondly, I was so proud that I was able to provide her with that experience. It was a great feeling. It was great.

Yeah. And, um, what I often do when I spot a limiting belief, I ask one question, is this true? So if someone said, if someone says, I can't because I've never done that before, is it true that you can't? What else have you done that might have prepared you for that? And just the question, is it true? Make them like, I'm always— are you telling me that I'm a liar? But this kind of really shakes them up a little bit.

Totally. It's like, You actually shook them with your questions.

Yeah.

And the third strategy. So the first strategy is the leader handling their own self-limiting belief. Second strategy is helping others, helping their team with trust. And the last one, leaders are responsible for corporate culture at a bigger level. at that team level, at the bigger level. I think you may have heard the phrase say leaders bring the weather, and it is so true. Leaders need to be able to talk about their own limiting belief, shortcoming, providing support and inclusive environment, sometimes at the team level, but sometimes if you are higher up enough, You can modify, or how do I say this? You can work with the system to shape process and interactions in the organization to be open and inclusive and safe to all. Yeah.

And I think this might be where then the friction and the difficulties start, right? Because especially managers who are in the middle, if they don't have this leader, this manager themselves who believes in them, who trusts them, who pays them forward, who challenge their limiting beliefs, then it costs a lot of effort to be this strong role model for their team.

Totally.

So, and that's something that I always wonder and struggle how to solve this puzzle. But if there's something lacking on the very top?

I don't know whether I'm going to get into trouble for saying this, but I don't know anyone who would refuse or disagree to provide inclusive environment to the people that they are in charge of. What I feel is competing priorities. That's something that is always like everybody has competing priorities. And sometimes it's, well, it's coming to the last priority to build that, shaping that corporate culture. Unfortunately.

Yes. And it's such a misconception because how we do one thing is how we do everything. And if we neglect the corporate culture and shaping it, Then we'll lose the, as you stated in the beginning, you will lose this glue and this everything that makes a team work. And if the team doesn't work, the individual doesn't work and the organization doesn't work eventually. So yeah.

You mentioned something about the tone at the top. I trust that it's always there. The tone at the top is always there. And as leader and facilitator, I would invite us to also look at our circle of influence, where we can influence. Definitely we can't like do everything for the whole world, but at least what we can impact, we do our best with intention.

Yeah. And I think And there might be a general misconception, and maybe that's controversial. I believe that managers get a higher salary not to do more work, not to do the micromanagement to manage their people's work, but to actually absorb the pressure and create this kind of safe environment container of trust and commitment to their team.

So true.

And I think many misunderstand that. So, it is a responsibility. Yes, they are taking the hit if there's a mistake, and they're protecting their team. It's not that they necessarily need to do more work or to control their team members. It's rather the opposite.

And this is where the fear comes in, right? Some of the fear of not being good enough, fear of, like, not appearing like I am in charge. So that's why they went into micromanaging and instead of empowering and shaping what really matters, which is like how to set an environment where people can be innovative and productive, right?

Yeah, it was— I only recently learned that and it blew my mind. It's one of those things where I'm like, it's so obvious, why didn't I know that before? That when we are in When we get into fight, flight, freeze, everything that is already in the core of us will just get blown up. So if we are usually very much into— want to deliver the clear results, we're into details, we're into controlling. So we are rather— is it the blue type that is more in the analysis and the small things? Then if we get stressed, if we're in fight, flight, freeze, if we're Afraid, if we're in fear mode, then we'd go into this micromanagement to even control more the details, the small things. And if we are people pleasers, or we really care for relationships, and then we go into fear mode, then we'll overdo that.

Yeah.

That we'll just grasp for, do you still like me? Do we still have a good relationship? And then become clingy. And all of that is very toxic in the end. And it's all by fear.

Yes. And you know, you talked about this. It reminds me of a work by Shazad Jameel on positive intelligence. Shall I share with you a little bit on that?

Yes, please.

So I love his work. He talks about there are 2 types, 2 regions of the brain. One is the Surviving mode, which is the fight, flight, freeze that you talk about, and the other is the thriving mode. And he also introduced the concept of judge. Like, everybody has this inner critic, this judge. To a certain extent, everybody has it. He goes as far as to claim that 100% of our stress are from this judge and saboteur. And what is the concept of saboteur? Saboteur is accomplished. So how the judge works is that the judge will say, you're not good enough, you need to prepare more, you shouldn't have done that. So the judge will critique you, right? And they will bring some accomplished saboteur. And this accomplished saboteur will come in different shapes and forms. Like, for example, if you have that tendency to be a people pleaser, you'll be totally always pleasing people. And my high is hyperachiever. I always want to achieve things so that I feel like in control. And my judge tells me that I need to do a lot, a lot, a lot so that I feel successful. And there are people who went into the flight, I think it's flight mode where you avoid, you avoid things and becomes a bit too hypervigilant. To us, to everything. So if you— I don't know whether we can share this link with the audience. It's a free assessment that he offers us to do and help us understand our tendency to react to this type of judge and self-critique. I find it's very revealing. And I love his analogy too, because the judge or the inner critics will I hear it like they mean well. You know, you need to do that so that you're good. You have to prepare a lot and all that, right? But his analogy, I love it. His analogy, it was saying that it's just like you put your hand on a hot stove. The judge will tell you that it's hot and you should remove your hand. And leaving your hand on a hot stove is like staying with the judge for too long, hearing and staying with that ruminating, with that self-critique for too long. It's just like You put your hand on a hot stove and leave it there.

Yes, very dangerous. You don't want to do that. Yeah, that's a very good image. I'll put the link into the chat.

Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. And it's free. It's free self-assessment. I, I think it's quite useful. Very useful.

Yeah. What remains your facilitation challenge?

Facilitation is all about bringing different perspectives to the table. And personally, I love hearing those. I like hearing different perspectives. I always get a, oh, I haven't thought of that, you know, like that aha moment in me. I love that. So professionally, it's also required. But where is the balance, right? I need to always self-manage to ensure that this is good enough and we shall move on. We have limited time. We have outcomes that we need to achieve. So we need to, well, we, I need to self-manage on that. Otherwise I enjoy different perspective too much.

Yeah. Especially when we're in a leadership role, right? So it reminds me, I had the situation, I was working for a German boss in a multicultural multinational environment. So in Germany, it's very normal to get different experts around the table to hear their opinions, and then the leader takes a decision. In other cultures where others' opinions are not invited officially and explicitly, they have never experienced that before. So they would be invited around the table to express their opinions and their advice. And at the end, when my boss took a decision, the Germans knew, oh, that's absolutely normal if my advice is not heard. But there were some others who felt overruled. Why did he ask me in the first place if he doesn't follow my opinion? And this I found very interesting about this, again, either cultural differences, but also the clarity in which we communicate about decision-making and the process.

So, yeah. So this is where the role of facilitator and leaders Also comes in, right? We need to also make it very clear of the decision-making process. Sometimes with different cultures in the room, we need to make the implicit explicit. Yes.

Yeah, I can see that we can get lost in collecting different opinions, perspectives, and especially if we are people pleasers or if we have tendency of people pleasing. Then it's difficult to take this decision or to stop the brainstorming, collecting ideas mode.

And to say, that's good enough. Like, you need a bit of courage to call it good enough and move on. You need that because there's always that self-doubt to say, is this really going to be good enough for everybody or is this just good enough for me? Well, you need someone to call it. And as a facilitator, you need to do that.

That is so true. And it's funny, I'm just thinking of an internship that I did a long time ago. I was a student and my boss over there, and I had to do some research and write some reports. And I remember that my supervisor at some point said, Miriam, may I give you one advice for professional life? There's no time for perfect. Learn to see what's good enough.

Wow, you are so lucky you have surrounded yourself with really good mentors.

Yeah, I was really lucky, and I didn't really understand what he meant back then. And even there, there's a— it's very difficult. And then again, the culture, the corporate culture makes such a difference. A, what is good enough? And B, if we have different standards of good enough, how do we deal with mistakes, if it's maybe not good enough, so that we also allow to align and make sure that actually everyone can grow without wasting time on overthinking it, double-checking, or overworking.

Yeah, and I like it that lately this word comes up a lot more in the corporate world. It's called experimenting, right? So we use experiment when this language matters so much, right? So when we use the word experiment, it allows room to fail. It allows room to play with it. And I used to have a manager who always said, you need to get it right the first time. That was always really painful to— it was always under a lot of— I was always under a lot pressure just because I need to get it right the first time. That mentality was such a difference between experiment and see how we learn, what we will learn from it. That's totally different world.

And it's very interesting. Thank you for sharing that case. Because by putting this pressure on you, what actually happens is that it's no longer an option for you to ask him or to double-check with him. So the outcome will be that you will reach out to either— you hide in your own office to try to make it perfect yourself, or you will reach out to other colleagues and then only use your time but also their time to brief them, to get their feedback, to reassure you.

Lobby, lobbying.

Yeah, to cover your ass that he might not be aware of. And then this costs much more resources.

Totally.

In terms of time and energy. Yeah. And I think many managers are not aware of the language they use and what they actually say. And I remember a supervisor of mine, when I asked a question because I didn't understand the calculation during my PhD phase, he would say, oh, Myriam, that's so easy. Just do this, just do that. And every time he said, oh, that's so easy, I felt like a total fraud.

You felt like you, you're stupid because this is easy. If it's easy, you could have solved it already, right?

Exactly. And then recently I was, um, together with my mom, we were helping my niece with her homework and she's in 2nd grade. So it's, it's definitely not rocket science. And so she was, she's good. And still she was struggling a little bit with using all of her 10 fingers to do the calculations. And my mom said, oh, look, it's so easy. And I cringed. And I remembered this one time. So afterwards I said, Mom, please do me a favor. Don't say that it's so easy. She's like, oh, I wanted— I just wanted to encourage her. So I think my mom is 75. But, um, and I think that many team leaders, managers, supervisors use that language, say, oh, that's so easy. Because they think it's encouraging and they're not aware of their words.

Yeah, I think intention is always good. The intention is there, a good intent, but then the implication of that is what we have to be mindful of.

And then again, to your limiting beliefs, I think if I have had the self-confidence of being so smart, I wouldn't even have doubted. I wouldn't have felt like a fraud.

I am going to say, you know, we learned about growth mindset for a long, long time. And I finally get around to read her book. And, you know, this topic of limiting beliefs is something I'm like super passionate with. And definitely I'm putting it in together. So when you label, like if someone label themselves, I'm smart, that's fixed mindset in a way, because then you will always try to do things to confirm. that you're smart and you won't get out of that comfort zone, or even to a certain— in some experiment, they even lie about the result they get so that they still appear smart to keep that identity. So I felt like there is insecurities at play to a certain extent, because even though If you are like, you are really smart, Myriam, and you don't always know the answer, right? There is no way you know all the answers. So I'll be very careful about that.

That's a very good point. And yeah, there's a good reason why the very smart people usually, they know their limitations. I know what I don't know. Yeah. What is it that you would have wished you'd known before, or your advice to your younger self?

As a facilitator?

Or as a leader?

Actually, both as a leader or as a facilitator, it comes down to the same thing actually. It's listening and asking questions. And you notice I put listening first. I don't put asking questions first. I put listening first. For a reason. And, you know, when I think about this from a role of facilitator, right, when I was much, much younger, I always see facilitators say something very cool, sound so smart, and I wanted to be like that. I thought that was expected of me. Now I learned differently, you know, that it's never about me being smart, or it's never about me. It's our listening. And questioning skills are what makes the conversation successful as facilitator and as leaders. And it's always about them, the participant and the leaders in the room. Never about us as a facilitator.

Yeah.

What do you think?

I like how you frame it and that you said listening first and asking questions second, because I think, and there's a nuance here, and I had a conversation recently with someone about that. That asking questions, then it's all about our prompt. Oh yes, I remember I had an exploration call. So he will be on the podcast soon to discuss that. When we ask questions first, then it's about our prompt. It's our preparation. We are so smart. We can come up with such good questions. But when we listen first, we make it about them, and then we ask a question that is actually that they want to answer. And I think that is the main difference so that we can serve and just be curious a little bit longer.

So true. So true. Curiosity gets, well, you know, you get in trouble with curiosity quite a bit, but also curiosity helps you grow so much and learn so much. And, you know, judgment and curiosity can't be in the same room. So at the beginning of the workshop, I always set the scene. That if you want to, if someone says something that you find odd or like totally not resonate with, put a question mark on it. Once you're curious about why that person say that, you leave the judgment out. So add a question mark at the end of your sentence will help you not being a judgmental person and provide safe space for your colleagues.

Yeah, yeah. And it's easier said than done, right? Because we do have the judgment. And very often, especially as leaders, we are under so much time pressure.

Mm-hmm.

And conversation with many leaders when we're in a workshop to learn about psychological safety, it all sounds nice, but I don't have time for that. The act of slowing down to make time to actually listen and listen to the challenges. Because we talked about, I think, yeah, the trigger was, yes, but. Yes, but there's no budget. Yes, you have a nice idea, but there's no budget.

Yeah.

Which is a very efficient way to close the conversation. As opposed to, yes, and where will you get the budget from? To implement your idea. And I think there is a, as you said, a missed opportunity not to take the time to be curious and then open the conversation to actually— because I think we— that's where I wanted to go— we assume that we already understand. We assume that we understand the idea that they're coming up with. But if we let them speak a little bit longer, then we will realize that actually they were saying something very different from what we Assumed. And that was Akshay's point, who will be on the podcast soon. Yeah.

And I think it's important to understand and be aware that we always listen with our lens on, whether we are aware of it or not, right? We have that own paradigm, that lens that we view the world, and we make that judgment in a way. But the way we respond or not respond to what's being said in the room really speak a volume. So, and I'm totally— I resonate with you so much about balancing. Like, you have a 60-minute, 30-minute call, this person says something totally irrelevant, but I don't want to dismiss that either because it might come from— I don't want to feel like put out an air of judgmental. I, you know, I'm a leader or a facilitator, I need to You know, keep my non-judgmental view on. So the way we address this is very important. As a leader, sometimes I do that. I do— sometimes I will not have time to address that person, but I go back to them and ask them, like, that was interesting, would you elaborate a little bit more? I just said, put that in the chat. I got a lengthy explanation out. I learned from that person, and then I now I can respond. So, and, and they know then that if I don't have time to respond at the time, at least they trigger my interest and I listened. Yeah, it doesn't have to be always in that room.

Yes, it reminds me of the parking slot that we use in, that we use in workshops. Okay, so we don't have time for that for now, we put it on the parking. And I think the Problem or the challenge with the parking lot when you're an external facilitator is everything that's on the parking lot will end up in the garbage. But as a leader, you really have the opportunity to use it to follow up and then to show them that they are heard.

So interesting you say that, because at the end of the time, if we have that luxury, we will always, like, as a facilitator, we will always, like, Let's come back to the parking lot, right? But sometimes we don't have that luxury. Shall we? If it's a mixed group, that's different. Because when I facilitate internally, it's always pretty much not such a mixed group. It's more of a team facilitation. So you can always assign someone to, could you take a look at that backlog?

Yeah.

If it's a mixed group, that's different.

Yes, absolutely. And then it depends on where the parking lot goes. I, at some point, I just made it explicit. I'm like, from my experience, we can have a parking lot, but unless someone adopts either the entire parking lot or every idea on the parking lot, I call it the garbage lot. So if you want to put something there—

How is that received? How is that received?

They laughed and they understood. And then either they adopt something, so they put their name next to it, And then it's their responsibility to follow up, or it goes into the garbage.

That's bold. I like that. I'm going to steal that.

Yes, please.

Totally. Put the pressure on them. If they like that idea so much, take it. If you feel like it's not worth taking the time, put it back to the garbage.

Yes. And I think that's part of the responsibility of an external facilitator to Let them know, I won't be there on Monday morning. It's nice that you have me here now to apparently solve all your problems and to synthesize and come up with ideas. But if you don't take responsibility and action, nothing will happen.

Totally. Yeah. Can I also talk about limiting belief a little bit more? You know, I'm passionate. I think we talk about the role of leaders in helping their team mitigating it. I also want to talk about what we as an individual can do. Shall we?

Yes, please.

Yeah. So, you know, I talk about judge, I talk about our inner critiques, and it comes into totally different shape and form when it comes to mitigating or overcoming limiting beliefs. There are so many ways to go about I will recommend 3 strategies that work well for me and my coachees. The first one is pay attention to your self-talk. Everybody self-talks, and we need to be kind to ourselves. I would like to invite us to treat ourselves like we treat our best friend, because we have that tendency to listen to our judge, our inner critic, and They can be very mean to ourselves. So when we hear the judge talking, the inner critics talking, we need to be able to differentiate that this is the judge talking and the judge is not you. So once you can make that differentiation, you can make informed decision, take the right course of action for your goal. So that's one. The second one also come back to curiosity. Be curious and avoid jumping to conclusions so fast. We as humans tend to bundle things together, and most of the time in a negative way, not in our favor. And we need to be mindful of that and avoid jumping to conclusions so fast. For example, if I just finish a presentation with a big group of senior leaders, and they asked a lot of questions and the questions were really tough, I might walk away thinking I didn't do well, I was not clear, that's why they had to ask a lot of questions. Yet another possible example is an interpretation of that situation is that my presentation was good, it was interesting, that's why they were engaged and they asked a lot of questions, right? which evaluation of the situation is true then if you don't explore further?

Yes.

So I would say take your time. Yes, go ahead.

I would even go further. I think if they dare to ask questions, even critical questions, it's a sign that you are able to create the psychological safety that they dare to do so and that they take you seriously as an expert, because otherwise they wouldn't even bother asking. So they assume you have an answer.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. So that could be a good sign, right? So again, it depends on how you would like to take that interpretation. It could be interpreted either way. But the key thing is be curious and explore, avoid jumping into conclusions so fast. And the 3rd strategy, this is the most fundamental one, very, very important. is mindfulness. Meditation or mindfulness practice of any kind will help strengthen your self-awareness muscle. And once you're self-aware, you'll be able to respond rather than react to the situation, right? And mindfulness has a lot of scientifically proven benefits that we all can enjoy, not just on the topic of limiting beliefs, so many others. And I know you're a fan of mindfulness and meditation as well. You want to chime in on that?

Well, I'm a meditator and I just recorded a SODA episode after my last Vipassana retreat on the impact of being self-aware of our body sensations. Yeah. So 100%. Because our body speaks to us before, usually before we react, before we speak. There's this itch, this knot in the stomach. Or the tickling in our shoulders. Um, yeah.

And in Buddhist, we have a saying, you know what you are thinking, but do you know that you are thinking? And I say this again, you know the content of what you're thinking, like the content of your thought, but are you aware that you are doing the act of thinking? Once you are aware, then you can make that informed choice. Of playing along with the thought or asking yourself, is this thought helpful? What can I do about it?

Yeah, because it might not be— it's not you, and it might not be the truth. This reminds me of when I started meditating and something I observed with many beginner meditators. The first time that I sat for 1 hour, I remember my friend asking me, so how did it go, your meditation? I was like, it was amazing. I didn't have I didn't have a single thought. I was just focusing on my breath. So I didn't even realize. I didn't even— I wasn't even aware of my mind going wild and shifting. So I was focusing on my breath while my mind was totally crazy, but I didn't realize. And I think the beauty of meditation, to become aware that we can then suddenly observe our thoughts, and I think that's where it becomes frustrating When we practice more, that at the beginning, oh, it's so easy. And then, and then you continue, and then suddenly you're like, oh no, I cannot do it anymore. And it's not that you cannot do it anymore. Suddenly you're aware that it's happening. Then the shift happens.

Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Yeah, thank you for this wonderful conversation.

I really enjoy it. Thank you.

And the hands-on advice to both team leaders and individuals. We've covered a lot of things.

I forgot something important at the individual. When you talk about it earlier, you actually talked about it earlier at the individual level, when you talk about, is this true? Like when you said, when someone said you can't do it, is this true? And I find it so impactful. My go-to question is, what are the facts and what are the assumptions? Right? So we need to be able to separate fact from assumption, what we know for sure and what we think we know. Because most of the time, we assume a lot as a human.

And we interpret a lot.

Yes, that's how our brains work, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And then to double-check what is an interpretation of the fact and what is really a fact.

Yeah.

Because we usually act upon our interpretation or our assumptions, and that's where the, where the shit hits the storm.

Usually. Yeah.

Yeah. Good one. Thank you. We spoke for over an hour. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention that we haven't touched upon?

I'm hoping that by the end of our conversation, our audience will be able to ask themselves if, or answer, or be curious about their belief system. Are their belief systems enabling or holding them back? I would love that they ask themselves that question and are aware of their belief system and being able to at least explore to answer that question. Is this enabling or holding back? And can I share a few resources? I would love, you know, I'm a learner. I would love that people want to know more about it and be curious and want to learn more about it.

And you know what, let's put them in the show notes.

Send me the links.

We'll put them all in the show notes. So if you're listening to that, scroll down on your podcast player to find all the links. Yes. And I want to also reiterate on something that you mentioned earlier. The limiting beliefs means that we are rejecting ourselves before we have even tried. And I just realized how absurd it actually is. As you mentioned, also, we often have limiting beliefs because of our fear of rejection. So, so isn't it healthier to— so if we are afraid of rejection by others, why would we reject ourselves?

Yeah.

And I think, yeah, if we can ask ourselves what would become possible if we, if we would liberate our beliefs instead of limiting them.

Yeah. We have a phrase in my previous organization. We have a global community called Reimagine My Belief Community. So we want to enable everybody to be aware of this belief system that we all have this at a certain extent and enable, like, change the way our belief system to be enabling so that we can make bold career decisions because we can.

Yes, and we'll put the link to this community in the In the show notes.

Oh, it's internal community. I'm not sure I could put it in, but it's internal. Okay.

So then maybe the encouragement for others to create their own internal communities.

Yes. Yes. I would love that every company has this kind of community to just help people be aware of it.

Yeah. Thank you, Aman.

Thank you. Oh, can I, you know, I have this quote and I really love to share that.

Yes.

Can we end with a quote? Is that okay?

Please.

Okay, let me find it. I don't know where I have it. Huh, this is my dream that everybody is like having a really good relationship with themselves. And I would like to end in a way with the quote from a Belgian fashion designer. I love this quote and I'm going to read it out to you. The most important relationship in your life is the relationship you have with yourself, because no matter what happened, You will always be with yourself. Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much. Thank you for staying tuned and for listening until the very end. I hope that you found the inspiration and the wisdom that you are looking for. And I hope that you will subscribe to the show so that you never miss any of the interviews with another inspiring facilitator from across the world. I'm devoted to continue this podcast and to deliver weekly an episode that maintains the quality that you expect and you deserve. And if you would like to help me to maintain this quality and to keep the podcast free, please help us visit workshops.work/support to make a small donation to keep the podcast free. Thank you so much. I hope to be in your ears next week.