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We need a new definition of success—one that harmonizes meaning and money.
Imagine diving into your workday with renewed energy, leaving behind the exhaustion or dread of a monotonous grind.
Traditional beliefs about success and the root cause of burnout are the same:
Prove yourself.
Work harder.
Take care of the business, and it will take care of you.
We’re recycling the mindset and practices that keep us stuck. Our souls need a jumpstart into The Age of Humanity.
Tune in for a new way of working that honors our nervous system and the bottom line, using knowledge of the brain, the Bible, and business. We’ll discuss timeless truths that amplify growth, ignite change, and reshape the world of work. No corporate speak or business BS. Let’s get to the heart of a rewarding career and profitable growth.
We speak human about business.
What’s in it for You?
Value, Relevance, and Impact (VRI): No, it's not a new tech gadget—it's your ticket to making your work genuinely matter to you and your company.
Human-Centric Insights: We prioritize people over profits without sacrificing the bottom line. Think less "cog in the machine" and more "humans helping humans."
I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hesson, your thrive guide leading you into the new Age of Humanity. I’ve navigated the highs and lows of business and life, from achieving over $40 million in sales, teaching thousands of people around the world about leadership, trust, execution, and productivity to facing burnout, divorce, raising a couple of great humans (one with ADHD), and navigating the uncertainty of starting a business.
I’m committed to igniting change in the world by jumpstarting business into profitable growth with the timeless truths of our humanity.
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Want insight and advice on your real career and business challenges? Connect with me on social media or email me at rebecca@wethrive.live. Your story could spark our next conversation.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:00:10]:
Welcome back to the Business Is Human podcast, where we discuss strategies to increase our VRI value, relevance, and impact. We're here to blend meaningful work with profitable success. I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, here to steward what we call the age of humanity, to transform the way we work so we can transform the way that we live. As always, my friendly request, if you like what you hear, hit subscribe so you don't miss any episodes, and then leave a review to tell the other humans that they might like it, too. Always looking to help you and connect with others. Let's get into it, shall we? Today's show, we have Liesel Mertes, who is a workplace empathy consultants. On one hand, you think, oh, my gosh, what has happened to our world that we need empathy consultants? On the other hand, I think, oh, thank God we have empathy consultants. Lisa's business is called Handle With Care.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:01:10]:
She teaches people empathy in the workplace, and I invited her on the show. We are long time friends. In fact, she's my neighbor. I invited her on the show because I am fascinated, obviously, that business is human and about our human traits, but fascinated with why empathy doesn't come more naturally when we're at work. And we have a robust conversation about that, including some things that you can use as takeaways. All right, here we go. We're talking to Lisa Murtez, who is my neighbor, as well as an executive coach, facilitator, expert in empathy, so much so that you started a business called empathy at work from your tragic human experiences as a wife and a mother. But you took that and packaged it in a way that said, I don't want others to experience what it felt like to go back to work after tragedy.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:14]:
And so you're bringing all of this to training rooms and facilitating keynote speeches and conversations with leaders. And I am in love with what you're doing. And I know it's transforming lives because I know some of the people that you have transformed their life, their life and business. So thank you for being here.
Liesel Mertes [00:02:31]:
Love being with you. And we both share a deep value of helping humans thrive in life and in business with other humans. So glad to be talking with you, my neighborhood.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:43]:
And so I encourage people to go to your website and look at all that you have to offer because it is rich and far more than we can cover in a podcast episode with lots of practical, tactical ways that you've taken a squishy kind of concept and put it into practical, tactical. You could teach it, which is, like, amazing. But I invited you on today because I'm fascinated with business as humanity. Obviously, I'm fascinated with this idea, as I said, of why empathy seems so much harder at work, because I've literally had people say to me, they'll tell me this really rich challenge or story that they have about work, and they'll just say it to me like it's, you know, we're just talking, you know, I'm a coach. I'm not the one who pays them. I'm not work together. And then they'll say, well, how do I say that to either my boss or the person that I want to go talk to? And they've said it to me in a very human way that I'm, you know, they're explaining it to me and I'll say, well, what about the way that you just said it to me? And they pause and they look at me and they go, huh, I guess I could do that, couldn't I? And I'm like, I think so. But is there something about that person or that environment or that whatever you're experiencing that's making it difficult for you to bring that human conversation into that? And so I want to talk about why empathy is harder at work than it is at home.
Liesel Mertes [00:04:12]:
That's a great example. And I do have some of my own thoughts on it. But as you're seeing it in your clients, what is your leaning inclination that makes you think, huh, this is happening because of, do you see common through lines that tend to crop up?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:04:27]:
What's difficult for me is I don't know the other side usually. Now sometimes I'm working with teams and entire organizations and I have greater context of the environments that they work in. And then I can guide, it's easier for me to guide. Right. And when I don't know that, I have to just ask more questions. So I first start out by asking, do you feel unsafe having the conversation? Is there something about the environment that says if you speak like this, you'll be seen as fill in the blanks, weak, soft, not businessy enough, whatever it is. So that's the first place that I go. And then the second place that I go is, is it just that you've never done it before, therefore, it feels uncomfortable.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:05:18]:
Patterns of the past guiding our future. And those are really the two, I think the, that surfaced for me immediately when you asked me that question.
Liesel Mertes [00:05:27]:
Yeah. As you share, it strikes me that there are two sides to the equation. One is with the people you're talking to in a coaching context. Are there blocks for you? Are there reasons why you don't feel comfortable sharing? Some of those could be cultural. There is culture of origin, but workplace culture, some are specific to I've tried to do this before and I've been horribly burned. That person is not trustworthy because the other side of the equation is the context into which they are sharing both organizational and the person on the other side of the conversation. How do they, before a moment of conflict, before a moment of disclosure, show that I want to be a place that can receive what you bring. And that's a lot of where I do consulting and work is how do we create? Because sometimes, sometimes they can all land back on the person who has the problem, the person you know, that's with air quotes, the person who has the issue, and it is important to coach them up.
Liesel Mertes [00:06:34]:
And how do they say things? Or even in areas with questions of race or equity or access or bias people from this minority position, how do you position yourself? Well? How do you say it? Well. And thinking, how do we have a culture of trust where people think, you know what, I might not do it perfectly, but I'm going to show up with this. And cultures aren't knocking it out of the park on that. And part of it, as we mentioned at the top, is we really reward getting things done and just moving through checklists and especially in high churn and high pace environments. And we have this impoverishment of not giving managers and teammates a foundational skill set that they can draw from is they're just in the churn of efficiency and they don't know how to switch gears. And even if they do switch gears, they don't have much in the way of tools. You referenced part of my formative story is my daughter Mercy only lived for eight days. She was born and died in my first year of business school.
Liesel Mertes [00:07:32]:
And part of the reason that I can do the work that I do is I actually had a really pretty robust, like, well skilled, not perfect. There were still some people who said some really tone deafenhouse, like, dumb things, but I had a lot of great people, both at the Kelley school and in my personal life that showed up, but also looking structurally and being like, we're not training on this. This is a two year program where we're getting into a lot of nuance. We're talking about in granular detail, how to scale people up. And we didn't talk about it at all over two years, and it's changing. I do work now in business schools, but there's a lag that is catching up to people. They don't know what to do in those situations. How do we scale them up?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:08:15]:
I have a real heart for the matter of, like you said, the industrial age model was very much based on efficiency and what you can get done and quality movements and measuring how much productivity in a period of time. And so this idea of pausing and having a human empathic moment seems counter to that. Agreed. What if, and I've seen it, and I'm sure you have, too, that industrial age model of work became so ingrained in us that we couldn't even have the empathic moments at home when we needed them, because work so firmly shaped our belief system about who we are or who we were. And I hear that from friends and clients and my kids, where they talk about people's parents or their parents who have never had, and I didn't. I grew up like this. I grew up in a family of farm and factory workers, and we didn't have emotional conversations unless it was anger or hostility.
Liesel Mertes [00:09:23]:
Right.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:09:24]:
And it wasn't that there was a lack of love. There was a lack of ability to have that. And so I believe that work has the power to change the way we live, because we are already ingrained pretty heavily in our belief system being tied to our work. So if you can get around to the whole world pretty quickly and teach.
Liesel Mertes [00:09:42]:
Everybody how to do it differently, change the world.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:09:47]:
Lisa, we can't. Just let me know when you, when you're all caught up with it.
Liesel Mertes [00:09:52]:
Well, you know, it's. People come. The image I like using is it's like workplace first responders, the same way emts show up. And their goal is to help stabilize someone to a next level of care in the social and emotional realm. We can help be stabilizers. You don't have to take on the burden, and you should not, of being counselor, of being prescriber, of being rabbi or a pastor or a mom, have a basic skillset just like a paramedic. But what you said is we come pre loaded with the values of the time, with our formative experiences with those farmworkers. Are they factory workers? With the cliche that somebody told you that God just needed another angel and that's the only thing you know how to say, and you trot it out every three years.
Liesel Mertes [00:10:36]:
Cause you're doing your best. And just to actually invent that to you, people say, yes, someone who's losing a child. And people say that to people, all that. This is the cheer up, Cheryl. When I help teach people about empathy, avatars. And actually, who knows? If someone is listening to this podcast two years from now, in 2026, I think we'll still be noting the industrial revolution. But we are rapidly moving into the age of the primacy of human centric skills, because anytime we talk about artificial intelligence, we are by necessity talking about what are the human centric skills that we cannot optimize or upskill or offload, because humans are going to demand them from other humans. And we have had a paradigm of increased efficiency.
Liesel Mertes [00:11:27]:
And that's why you go into math and engineering, and that's how we do things, that whole thing. There's a massive realignment, like computers will do it better, faster than many a job. And what we will hire on, what we will promote, what we will pay at a price premium for, is actually people who deliver on the humanity that the AI can't deliver on. And it's very exciting. It's a perfect reason to be skilling up in the things that we already would equip us to thrive both at work and in life. But it's under threat because actually, I was just doing a talk on this earlier this week. The fact that we all have our phones that we're constantly looking at actually keeps decreasing our ability to do things like read emotions and look at granularity. And I was just reading a research study that was saying they took a group of 6th graders and they ran them through a test of just looking at human faces to be able to denote emotion, and they did middling to pour on it.
Liesel Mertes [00:12:32]:
Then they all were going to this five day retreat where they were going to be away from their phones, away from any screens. They're doing swim time and capture the flag and time around the fire. And in just five days, when they ran them through a similar battery of tests of just your ability to read another person, their skill level and competency increased by something like 50%, actually. We've had thousands of years of developing as these highly evolved herd animals that we are, to be able to read other people. We're stymieing ourselves with our technology, but it's a fascinating dynamic that just as it's becoming more important than ever, we're kind of hamstringing ourselves, and we can really lean into the practices and the training that make us better at these things.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:13:20]:
I'm encouraged by the quick response of it only has five days. That's, I know, hugely encouraging because many of us parented at a time when we didn't know the detriment of these devices to our loved ones. And so now my kids are 22 and 26. I can't go back and fix it or change it, but I can now start to share. And I have been sharing these types of stories and the evidence of how this is impacting their nervous system and their ability to really engage in life in the way that we were designed to do so.
Liesel Mertes [00:13:58]:
We're wired. We are wired for connection. And as much as the brain can be harmed and can take in difficult brain can heal, the brain can grow, especially towards relationships that is safe and affirming. That's how we always grow.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:14:13]:
I am also encouraged by the more people, parents especially, become aware of this dynamic. We're seeing an influx of parents saying no to technology against a lot of frustration from their kids because they're getting the pressure at school. But I have also seen some kids on video saying, I don't want a phone. I've seen what it's doing to my friends, and I don't want it. And so I love this idea. You and I both believe in higher power. I do believe that God is tapping on the shoulders of many and starting to help make this movement real. In fact, one of my business partners, Eliza Kingsford, she has a middle school daughter.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:14:57]:
Oh, lord have mercy that we all survived middle school. And the school has decided that phones will be locked up in the morning and they will not be available to the children.
Liesel Mertes [00:15:08]:
It's like, that's Indiana legislation just this year. And I think six other states have had statewide bans on phones in classrooms. Yeah, statewide. So it's. It's everybody adjusting. And whether it's AI or technology, it's a powerful tool. And part of their success in the workplace is to be able to utilize this tool without being shaped at the core of their being in ways that don't serve them.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:15:35]:
Say that one again. Using.
Liesel Mertes [00:15:37]:
To be able to embrace and use the tool in ways that I think are beneficial, but don't shape them at the core of their being.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:15:45]:
In ways that don't shape them at the core of their being.
Liesel Mertes [00:15:49]:
Right. Well, and it's like, good. Thank you. Neil Postman wrote a great book in the nineties. It was called amusing ourselves to death, and it was about television at the time. And his point was, we always embrace the technology, and the moral, ethical, legal framework follows ten to 15 years behind. And we have so many trim, but faster, more efficient. Does more.
Liesel Mertes [00:16:15]:
Yes, we want it. And then the spiritual leaders, the people gathering the data, the lawmakers, they come on the back end to say, wait a second. And part of that conversation successfully with kids also is taking a good look at who you are as the parent in the midst of that. You know, as Luke and I talk, we are the parents, but any conversation about technology also needs to necessarily be like, and what are we modeling when I have just four minutes of time that I could sit in silence and just enjoy the presence of my child or look up is really going on in South Sudan right now? Are they still in the middle of the civil war? Well, I can read all about it. Informative, you know, all those little things. And I think, well, I'm not on Snapchat, I'm learning, but it's the exact same social, energetic impact. And I also tried talking with my kids, and I do not put it on them as though they are inherently flawed. I say you have people who are so smart, who are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure that you are on this all the time, and they're working every day and they have the best tools and the best science.
Liesel Mertes [00:17:26]:
I am weak with this. You are weak with this. Like, no wonder we want to be on it all the time. It's absolutely what it's designed for. So we have to be super purposeful to not embrace that. Like, you're not flawed. This is exactly what they're designed for.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:17:40]:
Yeah. No, it is so true. It's so true. So I'm leaning into the belief and the faith and the hope that we're seeing this shift. I love knowing that about the statewide mandate. Yeah. Exciting.
Liesel Mertes [00:17:55]:
I know the New York Times just covering it as a. It's more and more of a movement. And so hopefully the data scientists will be gathering good data on the impact of why it matters.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:18:06]:
Amen. Amen. Well, let's. Let's bring that back to the why empathy is. Is difficult at work. So work and life are, and I've always said this, they're intertwined. So sometimes I'll say to somebody, how are you? Like, one of the practices we do in my coaching practice is we start every conversation with, what's your number? And it just gives me a little bit of a gauge on where we at on scale. One being the pits, ten being bliss, five being meh.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:18:36]:
And then I kind of can read, like, what are we dealing with here today? And then I watch for patterns. And so it's a. It's a practice. And inevitably, when I first start working with people, they'll say, I'll say, what's your number? And they'll say, personally or professionally?
Liesel Mertes [00:18:50]:
They'll say, well, this is our first.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:18:52]:
Bit of teach, because you are one person. You go to work, you go home. We don't get to separate our identity, really, between work and home. And so it's that first teach of realizing that everything that happens at work does really go home with us, and everything that happens at home really does go to work with us some way, either. It's spinning in the back of our mind, it's impacted our moods. It's dysregulated our nervous system. It has heightened our sense of safety, and all of it is just a human experience. And so if we've got this work and work is impacting home and home is impacting work, what can we do at work that starts to bring empathy more to the forefront that may be able to shape us more at home? Because I do think that there is a large number of people that have been so shaped by work that starting there might be a better path.
Liesel Mertes [00:19:59]:
Yes. Well, I like what you do of a check in at the beginning that's not just for coaching. I would say one of the stickiest things that I do in every facilitation session that I have is I talk about the stoplight check second, which is, what energy are you bringing today? Are you red, yellow, green, and just equipping people? Like, start all of your meetings with this. It's so easy. It can be as high level or as low level this, but also it's a cue for you to follow up. There's always a power dynamic that exists in these conversations. If you're on the top of the power dynamic, somebody says they're red or yellow, follow up with them afterwards. Hey, is there anything you want to talk about now, you said you're red, yellow.
Liesel Mertes [00:20:38]:
Also, there is follow up.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:20:40]:
Not in a room full of people, ask a red to talk about this.
Liesel Mertes [00:20:45]:
Yeah, you don't do a red in the middle. Oh, you're red right now. Do you want to let us know?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:20:49]:
Do you want to talk about that afterwards?
Liesel Mertes [00:20:52]:
It's also a great way to seed a little bit more humanity into it again, especially if you're at the top of a power dynamic, because this always exists. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. Within standardized norms that we've just taken on almost like a second skin with expectation. And there are so many studies that show that the higher up that you get organizationally, actually, your empathy decreases based on self reporting and actual hard data. And some of that is you've had to make hard decisions. It's lonely at the top. You think you had to struggle, so why don't they? So it's not just your perception in many places, that's real. And to say, especially when you're at the top, whether you're only middle management, but you're still at the top of that meeting.
Liesel Mertes [00:21:36]:
To be able to have not leaky sharing, but just a little bit more humanity, you might say. Leaky sharing, that's oversharing. So I could say I'm yellow because all my kids went back to school last week and I had to buy so many new pairs of shoes, and I don't know if I have the right folders and I have the wrong highlighters, and the eraser was too big for my fourth, you know, and what that signals to people is, oh, we can talk about that. We can acknowledge that tool that it takes. Leaky sharing, by contrast, is I'm red because my partner is the worst and he never empties the dishwasher. And he's such a jack, you know, that's leaky sharing. That's too much. That's, go to your coach or your counselor.
Liesel Mertes [00:22:18]:
You don't want to do that, especially at the top. And I do want to take maybe two big steps back in just talking about why it's hard at work. I mean, I come to this conversation as an upper middle class, cisgendered white woman who can say, you know what? I've been supported. Well, I want to create a safe space where other people can share. I can't demand that other people step into that. And I have to always acknowledge in my practice and something that I'll probably do for the rest of my life, that there are different challenges for people, that even if we say we're trying to co create a space that's safe, it's like generational trauma of how showing up as your whole self has only gotten you and your mother and your mother's mother penalized, labeled, pushed into a corner. Sometimes that is along the axis, definitely of a race in the United States. I have no idea what it is to be a black professional and to be like, are you kidding me? You're telling me you want me to show up? You cannot hold that.
Liesel Mertes [00:23:21]:
And I can't demand. I can't say, I'm trying so hard. Why won't you? It's an acknowledgement that sometimes it's not just, wow, productivity. Like, there has been real violence trauma and penalties given on gender, on sexual orientation. And we can't demand that people step into it. We can be doing the work in the areas that we shape to say we want to make it better, safer, and maybe it won't even be in this workplace, maybe it'll take ten or 20 years, but that we are generationally co creating places that get incrementally safer and better, that those hurdles are reduced year after year after year.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:24:00]:
And you mentioned trauma. I have evidence in many people that I've worked with that a traumatic childhood experience separate from even race discussion. A traumatic childhood experience shapes many leaders that we have leading successfully today, because they've used that experience to say, I'm going to prove myself to be better than that. And then they get there. They're a leader, they're successful, but also a little short on the emotional development that allows them to be empathetic. And then on the other side, I have clients that are successful. And so far, because on that side of emotional development, because of their traumatic childhood experience, I say that in conjunction with what you said to say, we all show up as our past, our present and our dreams of the future, no matter what experience that has been for each of us. That's messy.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:25:07]:
That's way different than saying, I am the manager of the csms and I'm here to improve productivity by 23%. Bye. The 31st of this year.
Liesel Mertes [00:25:17]:
Ready?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:25:18]:
Go.
Liesel Mertes [00:25:18]:
Right. Well, and some of the reasons that empathy doesn't show up at work is we're not measuring it, we're not promoting on it, we're not like, maybe in an ad hoc way, because we're doing employee engagement surveys. No, wait, backtrack. This was inside. This was an Indiana university researcher who I heard earlier in the day, doctor Gorner and Sheila, saying that if you are an empathetic manager, your superior rates you as better at your job. It was that if you connect better with the people underneath you, that actually your boss will think you're a better manager. So there's data points that show, yeah, I thought that was fascinating success in that, but it's happening in an ad hoc way, and we haven't had a great capture. I mean, you don't want to reduce the subtle, nuanced human art of connecting with other humans to just to check the box.
Liesel Mertes [00:26:14]:
But it's not as easy to gauge as your turnover rate or your sales numbers. So I think people are doing great work in how to quantify that. The other aspect of empathy in the workplace is we also have what some people term ruinous empathy, which are people that they care, and they will hold your stories, and they're the people that everyone goes to, and they can only do it for so long before they just have to shut down or burn out. And there are some people that are wired for a lot more empathy. And if they don't have good practices on the other side of dealing with the compassion fatigue of it all, you lose those people as well. They think I was empathetic in my first three jobs, and it just. I can think of a HR professional here in town that I love for the last couple of years has worked just one function of HR in a really big company. And she would still say, she's like, I'm recovering because I gave everything in my small shop, HR to people all.
Liesel Mertes [00:27:14]:
And she's so good at it. She's so good as a human, as a friend. She's so good professionally, but she has needed years of just being fairly limited. These are my boundaries, and who knows if that could be just the right path of growth. But she had to go through a period of just quiescence where she was like, I've had nothing to give to anybody anymore. You suckers drained everything out of me.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:27:39]:
I'm glad that she recognized that in herself and took that step to do that, because some people will do that to their demise, where you end up with physical challenges from that. And I understand that as a coach, I can only schedule so many coaching sessions in a day, and I make sure that I have a walk in the woods break between those to reset, because it is. It is a taxing thing to be listening with that level of intention to hear people's hearts.
Liesel Mertes [00:28:07]:
Absolutely.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:28:08]:
What can we do at work to create more empathy, more conversations around this that then can help us spill over into that, even at home, connecting with.
Liesel Mertes [00:28:21]:
People apart from their hard times or their conflict or disruptive life events, you need to have that foundation of knowingness and connection that people, it's like a trustworthy matrix that they can plug into when they do have conflict with you or a hard time. And that just takes intention at a leadership level. It is often one of the first things that gets pushed to the side when you have a big project, whether that is in physical space, walking in and seeing people, whether that is being rigorous in your calendar of saying, I'm not just monitoring to do's, I'm asking these people, how are you feeling about your work? What excites you? Where do you really want to grow? We promote high performers. We don't train them to be managers. And then we're just baffled as to why they're not managing well, because it's a different skill set. Something that I did hear Cy talk about, this one actually, is to the lovely Cy Waikman. She talked about the identification in empathy, of connecting with the feeling and also asking, what's next for you? What would great look like? What do you think?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:29:27]:
Moving them into action?
Liesel Mertes [00:29:28]:
Yeah. And I want to make a little bit of a distinction. I even talked with her about it because there are disruptive life events where it's like, I'm going through a divorce right now. That's a different part of your brain that if someone's like, well, what are you going to do next? Can feel like, don't. Like, I'm just telling you about a disruptive life event. Don't push me into suddenly, like, I'm.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:29:51]:
Not in action planning problem solving right now.
Liesel Mertes [00:29:54]:
Right. But there's a different category of this person's always the worst, and they never do their job. And I hear you are really frustrated right now, not tipping into the drama matrix of let's gossip about this. Now you're going to just vent for the next 20 minutes, which can oftentimes be really organizationally toxic, but to be able to get the high level structure. What has made you feel this way? What are you feeling? And then I. What thoughts do you have about what comes next? Then? I'm not trying to fix it. This is the fix it frank that I talk about in empathy avatars. Here are all of my suggestions.
Liesel Mertes [00:30:31]:
Because that short circuits actually your own problem solving skills, which as a manager, I want you to develop, because our goal is not to do the same song and dance every time you have an issue like this.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:30:43]:
And as a human, we want that. So when I was talking about things learning at work that spill over into home, we would do well to not fix everything for our children. I talk about this a lot in my work with ADHD children. And then in my book, I wrote about the fixer, because that's inefficiency. We want to just fix it and move on. Tying back to what you said earlier, so that, like, if I just do it for you, it's going to be fixed, and that's not helpful.
Liesel Mertes [00:31:12]:
And I have so many good ideas. You know, if I'm honest, I'm like, I have so many good ideas for.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:31:17]:
You, but I so stop being. Yeah. And asking them what they do.
Liesel Mertes [00:31:22]:
And sometimes people have great insights that I've never thought about in the 20 seconds that I've pondered the problem and, you know, maybe especially with children, maybe that I'm gonna hit him. Okay, let's keep.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:31:37]:
That's an option for the consequences.
Liesel Mertes [00:31:39]:
That's an option. And then following up on the backside, so someone goes off from you in the workplace, they've talked about what they're going to do. Then as a manager, you also want to try to close that loop. End of that day, the next day, hey, what did you learn about yourself as a result of this? What did you learn about when things like this happen in the future? And again, I'm not interpreting it for them. I'm giving them the space for reflection because people want to feel like they're being helped and trusted and empowered. And lots of times managers are either sending them out, like, just figure it out yourself, or they give them an idea and then just want them to. But doing that interpretive, like back end, I'm here with you to find out how you're integrating it moving forward is one of the most forgotten steps that people don't engage in.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:32:31]:
It says, I care about you as well. Yes, I care enough about you to come back and see how it's going.
Liesel Mertes [00:32:38]:
And frankly, we know that time and intention is one of the greatest gifts that we can give people. It's one of the first things to go out the window. It's one of the first things that we'll just sell to our devices in, like those in between times. But that's the kind of stuff that people want to state where they actually, when they're being asked on some survey, does my manager care about my growth? You're giving them a deep reservoir of saying they do. They're in it with me and they're invested in my growth and they're not doing it for me.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:33:12]:
I love that. Giving them the gift of reflection through a conversation, not just saying figure it out, but asking the more pointed question is, well, what are your options? What do you think you could do?
Liesel Mertes [00:33:24]:
And in my work, I really like talking about these empathy avatars which give people a lens in which to see where they tend to go off the rails. So having that language which gives you some identification and psychological distance, oh, I'm a buck up, Bobby or Barbara or I'm commiserating Candace. You know, when somebody comes to me with their stuff, I'm trying to identify, but I'm going to just take over. I know exactly how that happened to me and all kinds of. And just when you know where you tend to shunt, it allows you to be more purposeful. I will be a commiserating Candace or a fix it Frank all day long. If I'm not aware. I have to really purposefully think and coach myself.
Liesel Mertes [00:34:08]:
It's still your time to listen. Like, don't jump in with your own story. Don't jump in with his suggestion. I purposefully say things like, tell me more a lot, because I know that I just want to rush in and I will too early. And even when I think it's the right time, it's probably still too early. So I I've developed my own, like, private stop gaps that happened just in my head to be like, this is where you normally go off the rails. So, yeah, I think that's self awareness.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:34:37]:
Let's walk through those avatars and app self awareness. That's a whole episode in and of itself as a starting point for this. Right, well, I'll note that for future lifelong practice, walk through the avatars for our listeners.
Liesel Mertes [00:34:51]:
Yes, I'll start with some of the most common fix it frank or Francine, really quick to jump in with a suggestion. Or have you tried, or have you thought about this? Especially insidious at work, because we love this trait. We really celebrate it if you're somebody who gets things done. So it's, again, that switching of gears. Great resonance question, do you want me just to listen, or do you want to troubleshoot right now? Work and life, use it all the time. Cheer up. Cheryl, always looking on the bright side, wants to say at least a lot, my story. At least you still have Ada and Magnus, who are my two living children, after our daughter died.
Liesel Mertes [00:35:31]:
And it just causes somebody to think, like, I'm not talking to you anymore, or, I've just got to paste on a smile. And for the cheer up. Cheerleade. And with a number, just acknowledgement is really powerful. What people want more than anything is to feel like they are seen and their reality is grasped. And it seems so basic. But even just listening for emotions and saying it back instead of like, well, you're so strong, you'll be okay. To say that sounds devastating.
Liesel Mertes [00:36:00]:
It sounds so sad. And someone will go, like, I have been heard. Commiserating. Candace, who we mentioned rushing in with their own story. Really practice radical silence. I'm leaning, you know, say, tell me.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:36:14]:
More, Bobby, or one of my colleagues used this. She didn't know this about herself, that it was, that was her avatar, but she knew it enough about herself that she would take a piece of fruit into the meeting if she knew she really needed to listen and not fix it. And, you know, obviously, you can only do this if it's a friendly meeting. You can't just walk in with strangers without apple or banana. But she would say, if my mouth is full and I have to chew on the apple, I'm less likely to interrupt and say things. And that's sit and listen, right? Isn't that amazing?
Liesel Mertes [00:36:46]:
Yeah, well, I like it. Sometimes our stuff only lives in the life of the mind and in the reality that we are embodied. Like, that's a very embodied cue. I can't. I'm not just thinking about keeping my mouth shut again. I keep chewing. You go, that's great. Buck up, Bobby or Barbara.
Liesel Mertes [00:37:03]:
Very task focused. It's a little bit like, fix it, Frank. But they're the ones that it's just so hard for them to shift out of efficiency mode. I mean, at its most brutal, they'll be like, why are you even telling me this? There's a job to do. Let's just get back to it. And realizing for them, the growth path is that emotions and productivity don't have to be binary. It's not one or the other. And in fact, actually, when we get back to, people just want to be seen and responded to simple acknowledgement.
Liesel Mertes [00:37:34]:
Literally, if we were talking at the level of brain science, of reintegrating the amygdala and the fight or flight with your cerebral cortex, which is what you want, free flow of information between the survival and the cognitive part of the brain, that empathetic resonance activates our mirror neurons. That helps get that part of the brain back online. Even just talking to them about the science, like, it doesn't take that much. If you want them to get back to producing, acknowledge it. Don't just bypass it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:38:03]:
Amen.
Liesel Mertes [00:38:04]:
Joking. Julie, sometimes known as jackass Jared. Humor is great. Humor is such a gift. We need to laugh more. You can be a great colleague and really funny, but it is so hard to stick the landing when it is in the midst of these really fragile human moments. You really shouldn't joke and don't do it to yourself. A lot of times these people, if they do ever share something vulnerable, they automatically undercut it with some joke about themselves and how that also short circuits you being able to receive care.
Liesel Mertes [00:38:35]:
Defensive dentists that oftentimes shows up specifically at work where somebody comes with something, maybe a little bit like what you were talking about at the beginning, this coaching client who has to go to someone. If your response to someone's need fragility hurt sometimes it is implicating you and if your first posture is always, well, you don't understand, or that wasn't my intention, you will shut down communication so fast. You might think because I'm a workplace empathy consultant that I'm particularly good at this, but I have really had to just receive coaching and coach myself because I so desperately. I try really hard, and I want people to mirror that back to me all the time. And I feel like you're saying I'm doing a bad job. I want to tell you the 20 ways I've been working so hard and you haven't even seen. And I just, like. I see the carnage that and how it becomes a fight when it doesn't have to be.
Liesel Mertes [00:39:29]:
Thank you for sharing that with me. I'm really gonna consider that. Can we talk again about it? You know, if you can't do it in the moment, it's okay, but to tell people, let's talk about that tomorrow, I wanna integrate it, you know, I think that's most of them. Those are the big ones, interrogating, Edward, tons of questions. Sometimes these are people that they are. Sometimes it's even people on the spectrum of neurotypical that emotions are hard for them to read, they're hard for them, and they respond with a lot of questions and, well, why did you say that? Have you ever? It leaves the other person really feeling like they're being interrogated and thinking about, what's the one question I have? What's the one that's really important? What is the emotional mirroring that I can do within my capacity, even? Just thank you for telling me that. Before you just jump into, I don't understand. Why did you say, makes it a softer landing place for the other person.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:40:23]:
Oh, that's good. That's good. When I hear all of those, which, again, I love how useful and helpful they are, right. To be able to read that description. And most people have a high enough level of self awareness to be able to go, oh, yeah, those two are my tendency, right? And then to develop an awareness in the moment back to that. To say, okay, what am I going to do to not lean towards that particular avatar? That's my preference, my flavor, if you will. And as I look at all of them, the underlying purpose, and this is more this, I stated it like a fact, but it's a question to you. So is the underlying purpose to keep an exchange going versus inadvertently cut it off? So we're looking for a free flow of exchange of information, communication, emotions, acknowledgement.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:41:24]:
And for each one of those avatars, there's something about it that cuts off. Like, if it's a garden hose that's supposed to be letting the water come both ways. Something about each one of those cuts off the water supply or air supply or something that says, we're no longer exchanging because we are wired for connection, as we've. As we've said, as humans. So there's something about each one of those avatars that stops the flow of us being humans together. Is that fair? Like, I just. That just came to me as you were describing them.
Liesel Mertes [00:41:57]:
I like some of the dynamics of that metaphor. It's a great question. What are we trying to avoid? I think what we're trying to avoid is someone shutting down and saying, I am never going to share something like that again. You know, that's an agreement. Our brains want to make sense out of situations and protect us from pain. I have encountered this in modalities of marriage counseling that I have gone through with my husband, which is why we're still married. Super helpful. But these things that happen early on when you're married.
Liesel Mertes [00:42:26]:
I can remember one time we unearthed this in counseling, and we'll get back to your question. But we were living overseas. We had gone to live for a year in Nairobi. We're doing microfinance development. My husband was super excited to head over, like, in transitions. He's super excited, and I'm like, oh, the things we're leaving behind. And then about two weeks into it, he has come back closer to reality. And I'm doing great.
Liesel Mertes [00:42:48]:
I'm like, look, this is so great. Yeah. So we were on that curve, and there was a moment where he told me, and he has a ton of internal strength, really self possessed. There are spectacular qualities about him. But he's telling me, we've got to go home. And he's someone who says everything he feels really strongly. We've got to go home. I can't do it.
Liesel Mertes [00:43:12]:
And for me, I'm just trying to get to our next meeting with my little baby in arms, and I go, what are you talking about? We can't go home. We just got here. We're supposed to be here for a year. And then I'm like, we have to get to the meeting. And so I leave, and he doesn't come. And by the time I come back, I can see he has been crying. And I'm like, what happened? And he goes, that's fine. No problem.
Liesel Mertes [00:43:36]:
We'll stay. I don't want to talk about it. And what we realized was there was this moment where he was like, I made a bid, I needed something from her and she just shut me down entirely. We can't go home. What are you talking about? And the way he interpreted that Washington I'm not ever going to get the support that I need if I'm vulnerable. And that is something that we have really worked hard to build different practices. But that was a belief that stretched through a decade. And that sort of stuff happens so easily at work.
Liesel Mertes [00:44:07]:
You have so much less on the line. People are trying. You're doing that all the time. And if somebody shares something with me and I mishandle it and they say I'm just not going to share anymore, I am depriving myself as a manager of valuable information because you might think it's a little bit of a burden to emotionally, but it really is. It's human. It's also good information as to why they're performing the way they are, what could help them. You don't want to deprive yourself of that information flow and that human connection, which is why people stay or not. And it's not to have people in a fear based posture, but it's to say, don't you want to be well equipped to handle those moments well? Because if they're handled well, that's a sort of reputational people will talk about four years ago.
Liesel Mertes [00:44:53]:
You really want to work for that company. They care about their people. It's not just words on a wall. It actually is not expensive. It doesn't take that much time. It's just intention.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:45:05]:
That's a great illustration, a great story. Thanks for sharing that. Because I have clients and people that I've worked with that can tell you something that was said from a 6th grade teacher that sticks with them in the way that they move through the world today. And so, absolutely how we interact with one another starts to have impact on what we believe about ourselves. And I think in this time of business, as we wrap up today, gosh, we could do like three more episodes, so we probably need to. But as I think about the challenges in business today coming off of the 2020 experience, and now people, business leaders, trying to figure out how to increase employee engagement when it's a dumpster fire, the lowest it's ever been, and people are still trying to figure out who they are after that traumatic experience, saying things like, well, we just got a mandate that everybody comes back to work and if we all get back in the office together, that's going to solve the problem, or whatever it is, is not a collaborative. We heard you were having a conversation with you. And I think this efficiency, productivity, we just got to get back.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:46:24]:
To quote unquote work and be productive again, is shutting down all of people's need to be seen, heard, felt, understood. But let's just set our bar reasonable and see if we just did a little more of that. I think people would just be shocked at the positive impact that comes from a little bit of empathy, of why.
Liesel Mertes [00:46:50]:
People want to stay, also of why people want to buy from you. Sometimes people act like, oh, this is nature. I think it's internal thing. You know who can be really good at empathy? Marketers and salespeople and customer service. It's not just an internal thing. You get good at this, it is going to keep having a virtuous overflow or maybe youre bad at it internally and you think nobodys going to buy into this. You start talking language and being like this is what you already do when youre marketing or crafting the customer experience. Its not even a language were accustomed to.
Liesel Mertes [00:47:23]:
Its just deployed without balance in our organizations.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:47:29]:
Which is why when I work with clients, I have one company story that illustrates who you serve externally and how you're going to serve internally. I don't buy into that value proposition for sales and mission vision values right inside. We are one company serving outside and inside and one story is going to illustrate both.
Liesel Mertes [00:47:53]:
Your first customer is your employees first and foremost. Then they get to overflow that experience to the next customer down the line.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:48:03]:
Amen.
Liesel Mertes [00:48:04]:
Depending on the complexity of your organization, you could have thoughts.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:48:07]:
Oh girl. How can people get in touch with you? Because I would love for listeners to call and say, come in and talk to us about this keynote class, please. I mean it when I say go out and teach the world so we all can be better for it. How can get a hold of you?
Liesel Mertes [00:48:26]:
I still have space in my schedule so Handle With Care Consulting. You can find me at lieselmertes.com so that's just my name. But all of our offerings are there. I have half day and all day events that I do. Those are great first touches for people to come in to get their feet wet and learn a little bit more. The bulk of the work that I do is interior to companies. I will do a one and done. It's always great to start somewhere.
Liesel Mertes [00:48:52]:
Some of my favorite ways to work and see impact are with some bundled trainings where we have survey data and we touch on changing compassion fatigue and how to cultivate fortitude. And you learn your empathy avatars and we've got an online course that's dropping in October of 2024, so people can do it in a self paced online way as well.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:49:10]:
Well, that's exciting. Okay.
Liesel Mertes [00:49:12]:
Yeah.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:49:12]:
Excellent. We'll include a link in the show notes. You put out fabulous content on LinkedIn. I highly recommend that people follow you on LinkedIn. I always love the way that you incorporate a really profound message in a story. So it's not your typical business y kind of talk. You, you do a great job of storytelling and tell how to do this in a beautiful way. So thank you for being you for.
Liesel Mertes [00:49:37]:
Thank you, Rebecca.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:49:38]:
The call to do this kind of work, it's changing lives. And I appreciate you.
Liesel Mertes [00:49:42]:
I appreciate you. See you on the trail.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:49:50]:
Thanks for listening to this episode. I would love it if you would go to Apple Podcast and leave a rating and a review, and then you can go to rebeccafleetwoodhession.com and join the Badass Women's Council. And if you really wanna take a deeper dive, join the movement of a thousand thriving women. There's amazing thrive tools there for you today. Love you.
Liesel Mertes [00:50:10]:
Meaning I'm not coming down.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:50:15]:
Hey, y'all, fun fact. If you like the music for the podcast, that is actually my song son, Cameron Hession, and I would love it if you would go to Spotify and itunes and follow him and download some of his other music. My personal favorite is TV Land.