Do you ever freeze up a little when someone shares with you the complex story of a terrible situation they are experiencing? Maybe you aren’t sure how to respond, or maybe you are overwhelmed by what they may be experiencing.

Difficulties and challenges are feeling more common, or perhaps there are more shared experiences of bigger traumas that are bringing the conversations to the surface. Our guest today, Katharine Manning, has been working alongside traumas and supporting the individuals left in the wake throughout her career. The insight she has on ways to respond is valuable to both businesses and to individuals and we have the gift of her knowledge as part of our conversation today. She has a fabulous acronym LASER that will help guide us through our response, useful resources, as well as perspective on things like boundaries and our role that make this an exceptionally valuable episode.

Katharine Manning is the author of The Empathetic Workplace: Five Steps to a Compassionate, Calm, and Confident Response to Trauma on the Job and the President of Blackbird DC. She has worked on issues of trauma and victimization for over 25 years. As a Senior Attorney Advisor with the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, for fifteen years Manning guided the Justice Department through its response to victims in cases ranging from terrorism to large-scale financial fraud to child exploitation. Some cases she advised on include the Boston Marathon bombing, the Pulse nightclub and South Carolina AME church shootings, the uprising in Charlottesville, the Madoff investment fraud, and the federal case against Larry Nassar, doctor for the U.S. Women’s Olympic Gymnastics team. Manning now uses her expertise to help organizations prepare for and respond to the challenges they face involving employees and clients who may be in trauma. Her work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Thrive Global, and CEOWorld. A member of the bar in Washington, D.C. and California, Manning also served as an attorney with the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop in San Francisco, where she represented Fortune 500 companies in class actions, insurance, and media cases. She is a graduate of Smith College and the University of Virginia School of Law and teaches at American University and in the Master’s in Trauma-Informed Leadership Program at Dominican University. 

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Resource mentioned in this episode:

National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (United States) Dial 988

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[00:00:26] Shawna: We'll also learn the acronym LASER and some great tips on drawing boundaries. Just stick around to the very end.

[00:00:49] Shawna: Katharine Manning has a gentle voice that makes you want to lean in and listen. She is the president of Blackbird DC. Which provides training and consultation on empathy at work. She also teaches at American University and in the Masters and Trauma-Informed Leadership Program at Dominican University.

[00:01:26] Shawna: She has worked on issues of trauma and victimization for more than 25 years, including 15 years at the Justice Department where she was a senior attorney advisor consultant on victim issues in cases like the Boston Marathon bombing and the Pulse nightclub shooting. She has done some exciting and important work and we get to learn more about her perspective and what she has to offer in our conversation today.

[00:01:55] Katharine: Thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure.

[00:02:06] Katharine: When I first got to college, I actually, one of the first things I did was start volunteering on the hotline of the local domestic violence shelter, and that was really what pushed me to go to law school, was seeing all of the challenges that those victims had in the legal system all through law school I continued to do that kind of work, domestic violence, rape, crisis work, then I went to a firm for a few years, but then when I got to DOJ, I was able to focus fully on working with victims. One of the things I discovered is I was not very good at the frontline work, working directly with victims. You know, particularly in my twenties, I had really a lot of trouble with boundary settings, so I just kind of wanted to bring everybody home with me, which is not a great way to be, you know, when you're working with lots of people who are victims of domestic violence.

[00:03:14] Katharine: And one of the things I started to realize was that victims all needed the same things. You know, it wasn't like you needed wildly different things if you were a victim of identity theft versus domestic violence. Everybody needed to be heard and acknowledged. Everybody needed access to supports to help them heal.

[00:03:48] Katharine: Another was a little concerned that her ex-boyfriend was maybe stalking her. And I realized the same skills that I had developed in working with victims could be applied a lot more broadly. it was really when Me Too Happened, I would say it was sort of a turning point for me because on the one hand, I was thrilled that the whole world was talking about these issues that I've been thinking about and working on for so long.

[00:04:28] Katharine: It just seemed like everything was put on the shoulders of survivors, and I found that really frustrating. So, you know, when you find something, Frustrating. That's your sign. You're supposed to do something. So that's really when I started working on the book like, well, what is it you think people should be doing?

[00:05:04] Shawna: And that is such a unique area to be looking at because I think a lot of organizations don't know how to respond and don't know their role. And especially that unique perspective you has with the legal aspects of that, I'm sure is comforting for organizations to kind of know that this is how they should approach it.

[00:05:27] Katharine: Sure. I mean certainly here in the 2020s, traumas like the air were breathing, right? We've got everything from Covid to George Floyd to anti-Asian hate and war in Ukraine and mass shootings.

[00:05:55] Katharine: I define trauma in my work as a psychological injury that affects performance. And the reason I use that definition, which is sort of a slimmed down version of the SAMHSA definition, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. I like their definition because in contrast to some others, it doesn't require that you have experienced a certain type of life experience to qualify Yes. Who's experiencing trauma? Yes.

[00:06:26] Katharine: Exactly. Yeah. I really wanna get away from trying to figure out what you have experienced and then deciding whether or not you've experienced trauma.

[00:06:41] Shawna: That's wonderful. And do you mostly work with the managers, or HR or the organization as a whole? Is this for how colleagues can respond to each other?

[00:06:56] Katharine: You know, usually I do work with the leadership because I find that this is one of those areas where it's important that the leadership is on board with it. But for instance, there's a company that I do work with, it's called Ketchum.

[00:07:25] Katharine: So if you work in accounting, if you work in sales, if you work in, you know, Anything you will get this training in how to respond to trauma on the job. Because the reality is we never know when these issues are gonna arise and who is gonna be the one who picks up that phone call from somebody in crisis.

[00:08:01] Katharine: You realize there's a problem, you provide some immediate support, and then you help them get over to the additional more holistic support that they need next.

[00:08:21] Katharine: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:08:25] Katharine: Yep.

[00:08:31] Katharine: It's really for anybody. And the goal is that you should walk away with the practical skills to be able to handle that conversation with somebody in crisis whenever it happens.

[00:08:58] Katharine: Can we just rewind and pretend that never happened? Like, is there any, is there somebody else that can call in here? You know, um, yes. It, it is really hard and so that's the goal is to make it less scary when that happens cuz you know, okay, I've got this path to follow. I know what I'm supposed to do to get through this in a way that doesn't make it worse and hopefully makes it better.

[00:09:29] Katharine: It can be, you know what I have found is there are people who are naturally givers and caretakers, and sometimes that can, you can run into problems with that because you can see somebody in pain and you start to almost take over for them.

[00:10:03] Katharine: But it might be that for this person, therapy is not where they're at right now. They're just not ready. And when you do that kind of taking over for them, it can. One, make them feel more guilty that they're not doing what you think they should. And also it can actually damage your relationship with them.

[00:10:37] Katharine: And honestly, we can't even really see the path. They're the only ones who can do this, who can walk this path for themselves. So what we can do is just give them some tools, some help along the way. A great place to start is always, what do you need? How can I help you? And then listen to them and try to provide the support that they're asking for.

[00:10:58] Shawna: And understand what that is. That is great. And our organization's really receptive you think, to understanding what they can do and providing that when you work with them.

[00:11:17] Katharine: They're seeing a lot of turnover. A lot of people who are still really struggling engagement levels are at like all time lows right now. And I think it's. Burnout. People are just so tired having come through these last few years. So companies are eager to try to find ways to support their teams right now and giving them a little bit of understanding of how to do this work with the recognition that, again, we're not trying to turn you into a therapist, we just wanna give you some tools to support your team. People are often really grateful for that.

[00:12:00] Katharine: Yeah, I mean, there are different things that we work on. So we do the one-on-one conversation and we talk about boundary setting and self-care through that. But I also do some work around what kinds of resources are available in the organization. So we'll talk about different types of supports that people might need, making sure that people know where to get help when they need it.

[00:12:38] Katharine: And then what are you doing to make sure that you're living your values? So if you say, for instance, we have a culture of care here, but you're ignoring the screamer down the hall, then you actually don't have a culture of care and everybody knows it. I've heard it said that your workplace culture is defined by the most toxic behavior you tolerate.

[00:13:18] Shawna: Don't know how to respond to toxic behavior and to those things, cuz they're very non-confrontational and so then they don't understand the true messages that they're getting across. So I think that's a really important way to look at it. That's very powerful.

[00:13:37] Katharine: You know, what if the person yells, what if they cry? We have to be willing to have those hard conversations, whether it's with somebody who's in grief or somebody who's really angry, or somebody who's behavior is unacceptable. We all have to get better at having those difficult conversations.

[00:14:12] Shawna: If you go to them I have this policy you have, tell me more about it. How can I utilize this? And they don't know about it, they don't support it. They're not helpful in that way, and then you have nowhere else to go and that's how they lose good employees and continue to perpetuate those challenging cultures.

[00:14:30] Katharine: Yeah, thank you. You know, it's really important the ways that we support each other during those hard times, and I think it can be a difficult position that HR is in. You know, often they don't have the authority to provide what it is that the person is asking for, or they're concerned they don't have the backup from the leadership if they did take action.

[00:15:18] Katharine: So I think it's really important that everybody understand how best to support people who are coming to them in crisis. Again, regardless of your role, you never know who's gonna get that phone call. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:34] Shawna: Do you have any examples of some great changes that have happened in organizations that you've worked with?

[00:16:05] Katharine: So it's been really rewarding.

[00:16:17] Katharine: Absolutely. So the five steps are listen, acknowledge, share, empower, and return. The acronym is laser and I have an acronym in part because I worked in government so long.

[00:16:48] Katharine: So you know, you're nodding, you're asking questions, you're, you know, encouraging them to go on, letting them know you actually do wanna hear what they're saying. Watch your body language, make sure you're facing them, all of that stuff. And then the next step is acknowledge and. That one is the step that I think is most often skipped.

[00:17:25] Katharine: And that's all fantastic and maybe do that later. But first, just let them know you heard them and it's really simple. Just say, thanks for telling me that. Or I'm really sorry about everything you've been going through, or that sounds really hard or scary or awful, or whatever it sounds to you. Just that little sentence I feel like is the fulcrum of the whole conversation because if they feel heard, they're much more able to hear everything that you say going forward.

[00:18:14] Katharine: So sharing information back to them. And then after that is Empower, and this is really where we get into some of the boundary setting, recognizing that your role is to empower them not to take over for them. This is their path to walk, but you can give them a few tools along the way, and those can be things like, here's where to find our mental health resources, or you can call the security desk.

[00:18:48] Shawna: Oh wow. Yeah, I did not know about that. We're gonna put that into the show notes. So 9 88 is that number That's very important.

[00:19:15] Katharine: And you can call them and get some advice and they can give you some really good tips on what you can do to take care of the other person and also to take care of yourself as you're supporting them. So that was the empower step. The last one is return, and that is both a literal return to the person to check in on them later, let them know that you're still there for them and see if they need anything else from you.

[00:19:52] Shawna: That's wonderful. That 9 88 is wonderful. So we do have some international listeners, but that's for the United States that works everywhere. Cause I've never heard of that. That's so valuable.

[00:20:10] Shawna: 9 88. That's an important thing for folks to remember, and you don't have to be in crisis yourself.

[00:20:26] Katharine: Exactly, exactly.

[00:20:42] Shawna: How can I respond instead of how can I make sure they feel heard piece of it. So that's really important that A is very important.

[00:21:05] Katharine: It's funny, I've seen this, and maybe you will see it as well, the person finishes talking and they're a little bit tense because they've just now shared something and they're not sure how you're gonna respond. And when you say, Thanks so much for telling me that like their shoulders will drop.

[00:21:28] Shawna: Yes. And I think I've noticed that when I have a family member who's telling me a story and they keep going with a story, but it's because I haven't done that acknowledged step.

[00:21:56] Shawna: Clues me back in that I maybe didn't do it. Acknowledging cuz they keep going with the story and I was like, oh, I didn't let them know that. Yes, I did hear, I did take in that information. So yes.

[00:22:16] Katharine: it's really validating for them and it it shows them like you were literally demonstrating that you heard them because you wouldn't be able to repeat it back if you didn't.

[00:22:24] Shawna: exactly. It's an important piece of that skill. That's very helpful.

[00:22:33] Katharine: Totally,

[00:22:56] Shawna: I was in my early twenties. I just didn't want her to be in this situation anymore. And all we could do was problem solve the closest phone and what windows she could climb out, of or how she'd get outta the house if he was ever there and whatever else to get to safety and who to call and how to do that was what we could do for her.

[00:23:24] Shawna: And the 9 88 resource is a great resource you could give to somebody on a bus or at the dog park as well.

[00:23:42] Katharine: The solution that you come up with might not be the right solution for them, at least right now. And you have to give them time to get to the right answer for them. You know, I spoke with a woman once, so Wise, and she had done a lot of work with women who were leaving incarceration and she was a caseworker.

[00:24:27] Katharine: That she couldn't get overly invested in a certain outcome, that this mother is gonna be reunited with her kids, or she's gonna stay off drugs. All she could do was give them the tools and let them take their next steps themselves. I mean, one of the things that I saw in working with crime victims for so many years is that the way the person is right now in front of you is not where they're gonna be in six weeks, or six months or six years.

[00:25:11] Katharine: Just give them what it is that they're needing in this immediate and what we are able to provide, and then trust that they will find the right answers for themselves.

[00:25:33] Katharine: I do. Yeah. It was something that was not originally part of my work, but everybody kept asking for it and it's an important piece of the work that I do around laser. But now I do separate sessions just on burnout and resilience. I think so many people are so burned out right now after these last few years.

[00:25:57] Shawna: That's actually one of our segments that we do each week on The, Grit. Show, is we actually have each of our guests share with us about self-care, and I'm actually going to eventually change it.

[00:26:24] Shawna: And if you have a family, it's family maintenance. Cuz if I don't do this, then I can't be part of this family and help support and be a member of this family. So what do you do? That's what we do, is we share examples of what they do, take care of themselves as part of this reminder and conversation of examples of ways that people care for themselves.

[00:26:43] Katharine: I like to have what I call a daily reset, which is a time period every day where I am just doing the daily maintenance, right? Like the self-care piece of it. So for me, that's a little bit of yoga and a little bit of meditation every morning.

[00:27:17] Katharine: Do you know what that is?

[00:27:22] Katharine: yes. Yeah, it's like a little app where you create a closed group. So it's just the three of us and you record short video messages for each other and it's really nice, you know? So I'll get a quick check-in with a friend, like while she's on her commute, and I'll say, oh, that's a really cute new haircut she's got.

[00:27:53] Shawna: Oh, that's wonderful. That's great. And then as a thank you for the time you spent sharing with all of us and being here with us, we actually give each of our guests a copy of one of our coloring books.

[00:28:16] Katharine: That is so incredibly kind and I am not an artist at all, but I do love coloring books.

[00:28:31] Shawna: All right, well we will definitely send you a copy of that. That's perfect then. Thank you. Wonderful. And then the other thing that we do each. SH time on our shows, we actually make sure we have something really practical and applicable that people can just walk away with and apply to their life immediately.

[00:28:55] Katharine: If it's all right, I'm gonna tell a story. Yes. That has a good takeaway in it. I was doing a training one time and I have a slide up that's about boundary setting, and I say, who here thinks they have good boundaries?

[00:29:27] Katharine: It would be very normal for her sister to say to her, hang on, hang on. I'm at a 10 right now. If I am the last person on your list, I can give you about 15 minutes, but if you have anybody else that you could reach out to, I think you should probably call them first. Nice.

[00:29:45] Katharine: yes. I love that and I love every bit of it.

[00:30:07] Katharine: It's not the sister's fault for calling and needing some help. It's really fine that she needs help. It's just I'm not the one today. And then finally, I love that little bit of grace in it that if there's nobody else, I can give you 15 minutes. You know, that just clarity and the grace in that I think is so wonderful.

[00:30:48] Katharine: And a lot of us don't even check in to see that we're stressed. So just come up with an easy way to think about it and talk about it with others. No,

[00:31:10] Shawna: Because I was actually supposed to go visit, uh, friends on a way, on a trip, and when I contacted them, they're like, Oh, I have guests that stayed longer than they were supposed to. They're still here, but I still have room for you, et cetera, et cetera. And I was like, I can't, like we had these plans and I still have to do work and I can't do work when there's other people at your house and I don't blame you.

[00:31:59] Shawna: I'm like, I'm okay with it. I just had to have my, I had to protect my work and I had to protect my stuff. So, and that's a hard thing, right? So once you start doing your boundaries, then other people get, Upset and hurt because you're having boundaries. And my mother was the one, she would just be miserable just so other people wouldn't be miserable.

[00:32:34] Shawna: Let me tell you where I'm at. And so that we can normalize it before we ever need to use the, so I can't listen right now cuz this is where I'm at. yeah, that's a hard thing. Cause I do tend to be somebody with boundaries and I probably have friends that will tell you that they've been miffed by me and my boundaries.

[00:32:49] Shawna: I need them.

[00:33:00] Shawna: Yes. That's all you can do. And to understand that that's a good thing and it gives you permission to also have boundaries and to do that. So hopefully, People take it as modeling, that's okay for them. Oh, that's excellent. Love them to have boundaries too. And they can do the same to me. And it's okay for them to not be able to come and to not show up because I've changed the circumstances too, and it's okay. And I still love them.

[00:33:27] Shawna: Yes I love that person shared the rating and you're like, oh, that is, she's like, wow.

[00:33:35] Shawna: Yes. . It makes you want to do that with everyone. Now, with the kids that come to my house, what number are you at? Where are you at today?

[00:34:01] Shawna: Mm-hmm. Because that's definitely, there's so many people that I feel that way about. Is there anything else that we didn't cover that you wanted to check in about?

[00:34:28] Katharine: That's 8 3 3 9 7 5 1 9 4 5. The word blackbird, and I'll start sending you nice messages about breathing techniques and showing up for each other and taking care of ourselves.

[00:34:52] Katharine: I'm on Instagram and Facebook, both as at Empathetic Workplace, and I'm also on LinkedIn, just Katharine Manning, so you can find me on all the socials.

[00:35:08] Shawna: Yes, exactly. Well, again, boundaries. You're allowed to have boundaries around that sometimes too, so that works. Thank you. This was so valuable and I think the LASER is something we're all gonna take away with us as well and definitely have the book to look at to have even more insight around that.

[00:35:25] Shawna: Thank you.

[00:35:46] Shawna: You can put reviews on Facebook. We also appreciate that. Or if you go on to Apple Podcasts, they have a place for you to leave reviews there, and I'm gonna read you a couple of those, but I really appreciate them. We have one that says I'm in love with this show. It's funny, witty, encouraging, and educational.

[00:36:28] Shawna: Every episode is engaging, gritty and full of purposeful guests. That is awesome. Another says, so glad I found this show. Super helpful topics. Thank you so much for taking the time to leave your words. We appreciate it. We love hearing from you, and we appreciate the support. A lot of love and effort goes into this and it's nice to get feedback that you guys are enjoying it.