Looking at Your Work/Home Culture

Today, I want to talk about culture, but not your national culture or your racial culture. I want to talk about the culture in your home or in your work environment, in your office, in your school, in your store. Confused yet? Let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario, Canada. And like I said in the intro today, I want to talk about culture. Now, in an earlier video this week, I referenced the culture in your office. And I know that might have confused some people. So the reality is, as was explained to me years ago, culture. We are all multicultural. There is a culture that is your family. It involves things like, everyone knows where dad sits at the kitchen table or where you even eat dinner. What celebrations, what holidays you celebrate and which ones you don't, and how you celebrate those. Who cooks the meal, where do you go? What does it involve? Right? So that's the culture of your home. You have a culture with your friend group. You use words with your friends that you don't use anywhere else. That's the culture. You can say a sentence or a word with your friend group and they know what you mean, and no one else would. There's a culture if your children are in school, there's a culture of that school. If you belong to a church or that kind of setting, there's a culture that belongs there. There's a culture in your workplace. So we're all multicultural. We all have the ability to adapt and shift and behave in a way that fits the culture we're in. I know a lot of people that behave a certain way in their office, and as soon as they get into their car or walk into their home, totally different person. They shifted their cultural. Cultural practices. They shifted their culture. So I have some questions to ask you, and I want you to answer them. If you're employed, answer them as it relates to where you work. And if you're not, you can answer them as it relates to your home environment or your neighborhood, whichever you prefer. But these are going to help you define your culture. Because the more efficiently you can define your culture, the more you can explain it to a new person coming into that culture. If you don't explain it to them or the expert expectations, you're setting themselves up for a fall. And then you're going to be upset with them or think they're disrespectful. But they didn't even know the rules. That's not really fair. That's not building a bridge. So the first one is, what do you celebrate and how? What do you celebrate and how? In an earlier video a couple weeks ago, I guess I referenced the fact that HR policies tend to honor Christian holidays and they're just so starting to adapt and include other cultural celebrations. I mentioned how I could care two beans about working on Christmas Day, but I'm not working on June 21st with it, which is National Indigenous Day. So those kind of things. We don't celebrate Christmas in my family. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in my family. Those days would not be important to us. We celebrate solstice. We celebrate powwow season. Right. So what do you celebrate and how? Is it private? Is it a huge family gathering? Is it potluck, or does someone do all the cooking? Where does this take place? Is it a morning thing, an evening thing? Is it right on the day or just somewhere around that time? What do you celebrate and how? The second one. Now, this really applies. I'm going to back that up. I was going to say it really applies to a work environment, but with the age differences in families, it really applies to families as well. The second question is, how do you communicate? Or how do you prefer to communicate? I was having a conversation with someone the other day and we realized it's changed now in the last week. But at that point we realized how long it had been since we had actually had a phone call with someone. Not a video chat, a phone call. So you're talking to someone and hearing their voice but not seeing them. How do you prefer to communicate? I know a lot of youth that they don't want you calling them. Their stress level goes up if the phone rings. But texts work. Some people really love to use voice messages. Other people absolutely cannot stand voice messages. Some people prefer to email. I know with the people I work with, I'm always asking them, email me, don't call, don't text. Because if I'm in seminar, that phone's on silent. I'm not going to see that. But every evening and every morning I go through all my emails. So email me if it's important. Tell me to call you when I have a second. But you're not going to get anywhere otherwise. Now, with my children, I text all the time. My children are adults. They're in their mid to late 30s. But we don't do phone calls. Often we do voice messaging now, or if it's something that's really urgent, we may do the odd phone call. But 90% of the time we're texting. So how do you communicate? What's your preferred method? Do your family members or your office colleagues know that? That might help, right? The other thing about I just noticed I have a note here when we're talking about how do you communicate? Do you have an open style of communication or a more guarded. Now I'm pretty sure you can guess which one mine is. I'm like, hey, how you doing? Isn't it an amazing day? Hope you have a phenomenal day. Open, very friendly, very conversational style. I don't like the coldness of formal emails. When someone sends me that, it's like, wow, who put you in that box? Like instantly I'm on guard instantly. There's a challenge in trusting you or getting close to you. There is a harder, there's a challenge to us, the chance of us building a relationship. Keep that in mind. Are you assertive if you need something? Not demanding, not rude, but assertive, or do you just sit back and hope they're going to ask something? I see this with new entrepreneurs all the time. They're scared to have the money discussion. But I learned really hard, really quickly. If you don't ask for the money, you're not getting the money. And, and if you think someone's going to pay you what your worth if you don't ask them, they're looking after their budgets. They need to. If they can get you for 500 bucks, they're going to pay it. By the way, as a speaker, if you're only charging 500 bucks, they assume you're either brand new or horrible. Don't do that to yourself. Go off on a tangent there. Are you passive aggressive? I have zero respect for passive aggressive people. The joke that isn't a joke. Or are you just direct and can say like, sorry, that really doesn't work for me. Right. Can we get past these challenges? So how do you communicate? I have a total of six questions. Yes. So number three, now this is something I sit down and consider this, please. Especially in your office or in your family, definitely. I guess in both cases. How do you handle challenges? So is there a process if something goes wrong? Is there like the first thing you do is ask for clarification or the first thing you do is get upset and start screaming like, what is your process? Do you admit that there's a challenge? Do you acknowledge that? Or you just dig your head into the stand? Do you involve your team for guidance and support? I'm not talking about gossiping behind someone's back or do you just do it all on your own and try to handle it and hope that no one else figures out there is a challenge. I can remember when I worked my last job before I started my own business. So I was an executive director of a $4 million company and I had my assistant who was my right hand. And I came into work early, usually, excuse me. I would get there about 6, 6:30. Office didn't open till 9, so what would happen? That poor woman, she handled it so well. I would have a piece of paper I need you to. Yes, this is in the day of faxes. So I need you to fax this or can you file this? Or, you know, I'd written notes on a piece of paper. Can you do up an invoice for this or whatever the case may be? And I put a sticky note on the top with the directions of what I needed her to do. And I would pile them on her seat. I would put it on her seat. So I didn't want to put it on her desk, it might get lost with the other paper she had on it. So I put it on her chair so that she would see it and I would just start stacking them. By the time she came in, she could have seven, ten things on her chair. And she always just handled that so beautifully, like she just expected it. But one day in particular, I can imagine, or I can remember, I was working away at my desk and suddenly she kind of poked her head in around the door, which was adorable. And I was like, okay, hello, can I do something for you? And she explained that one of the documents I had asked her to fax that the fax number didn't work, it wasn't going through, and she wasn't sure what to do. And I thanked her so much for bringing that to my attention. And I explained to her that I trust her. I don't lose any sleep over the fact that when I asked her to do something, it's going to be done. And when I put those things on our chair, I know without a doubt they're going to be done. So the fact that she came back to tell me she couldn't just increased my trust in her. That that had no reflection on her. Wasn't her fault the number didn't work. Work. Maybe I wrote it down wrong, but at least I knew that one thing she wasn't able to complete and that all the other stuff was done. So that's communication. How when there's a challenge, do you admit there's a Challenge, who do you tell? Do you try to hide it and fix it yourself? And is that helping your team? So how do you handle challenges in your home and in your office? Number four. Now, this one is really personal, but it definitely comes into the office space. So how do you handle loss? Whether it's a colleague that lost their job and you miss them, or you've lost someone and you're now grieving, how do you handle that? So the culture of your family, do you talk about it when people are open to talking or is talking not acceptable and you just stay quiet because you don't want to upset other people? Do you dedicate time to the healing process or do you just as it comes up, whatever. And do you make time for it when it comes up, or is it just brushed under the carpet or just quick acknowledged? So how do you handle loss? Different cultures handle loss very differently. And you have to make sure if you're an employer that your culture accommodates your employees. I know Indigenous. Nothing freaks us out more than that three day grieving process that are in so many HR policies. I am so thankful that I was working for an Anishinaabe agency when I lost my mom because it took 18 months to get past that grieving. And I'm not saying I was off for 18 months. I think I was off for probably three or four weeks in the beginning because the grief was just so overwhelming. And then when I started coming back, I had about a 45 minute commute from my home to my office. And I can remember sometimes anyone who's ever grieved knows the waves of grief. You think you're okay and all of a sudden, poof. You hear a song or someone says something and you hit with this wave and it's like right back to step one. There were several times I was in my car on the highway on my way to work where I called my boss and said like, who was the chair of the board of directors and just said, I can't do it. I thought I could today and I just can't. And the response was always the same. That's okay, you tried. We got you. Let us know if you're coming in tomorrow. And you know, those days became farther and farther apart. But it's the reason I can talk about my mom without crying now, because I grieved and took the time to grieve. And there is no set time. Every person grieves differently, but you have to go through it, you have to grieve it or you're going to be stuck. You're going to take so much energy trying to keep that grief in. So many people, in my humble opinion, end up physically ill because they don't realize how much energy it is taking to keep that pain and hurt inside. Why do you think we're such advocates for healing whatever the pain is? So how do you handle loss number five? How do you lead? Or how does the person in your family lead? So are you the condemning judgment, military type boss or you be encouraging? Give me suggestions. This is a team effort type. So how do you lead or how does the person who is leading lead? And then the last question is just. I'd be really interested in what's the first answer that pops into your head? You don't need to tell me, but you need to know what's the first answer that pops into your head? The last question is, are you proud of your culture? Are you proud of the culture of your workplace or your office or your home? Are you proud of the culture of your family? And if you're not, what are you going to change? I just added another question because don't just stay with, no, I'm not proud. Put in the processes, have the conversations. Have the reconciliation conversation. Fix it. Because silence is acceptance. And if you're not proud of it now, you never will be unless something changes. So there's our conversation on a location culture or anything besides the national culture or racial culture. We're talking about the culture of the place you work or the family you live in. What is your culture? I hope that helped you clarify things, maybe even identify some rough spots. And maybe, just maybe, you now know the conversations you have to have. I hope you do. My name is Sandy Boucher and I will see you tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.