Episode Intro:

2023 and oh, what a year! Reflections – everything changes but so much stays the same – using excerpts from my book Leadership Inside Out: Effecting Change from Within on improving communication and conflict resolution. And more!

Interested in learning more? Hope you will join me!

About the Host:

Susan has worked with people all her life. As a human resource professional, she has specialized in all aspects of employment, from hiring to retirement. She got her start as a national representative for a large Canadian union. After pursuing an undergrad degree in business administration, Susan transitioned to HR management, where she aspired to bring

both employee and management perspectives to her work. Susan holds a Master of Arts degree in Leadership and Training. She retired from her multi-decade career in HR to pursue writing and consulting, and to be able, in her words, to “colour outside the lines.” She promises some fun and lots of learning through this podcast series. 

Susan is also the author of the book Leadership Inside Out: Effecting Change from

Within available on Amazon – click below. 

Leadership Inside Out: Effecting Change from Within: Ney, Susan G: 9781777030162: Books - Amazon.ca

If you wish to contact Susan, she can be reached through any of the following:

Website:          Home - Effecting Change from Within

Email:               susangney@gmail.com

Linked In:         www.linkedin.com/in/susan-ney-197494

Facebook:        www.facebook.com/susan.ney.5/

Phone:            (604) 341-5643

Thanks for listening!

It means so much that you listened to this podcast!  If you know of anyone else who might find this series of interest, please share. If you have questions about this episode, please send me an email at susangney@gmail.com

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Hi, welcome to the podcast HR inside out. I'm your

host Susan day, and I can't believe it. Another year has

gone by and oh my goodness, what a year it's been. In 2023. We've

delved in delved into subjects of ageism, psychological safety,

simplicity, customer service, and we talked what attributes of

leadership. We enjoyed learning with such phenomenal guests as

Sharon Summerfield, on nourishing your well being and

preventing burnout was important. samp, the Aaronic

knighting the dream Aleister mousse on anger management that

enhance our creating better relationships at home and at

work. And Lisa Wilson on leading with ease. As I contemplate

podcasts for 2024, I'll be touching on things like building

resiliency, power of the paradox, more on dealing with

conflict, and interviewing individuals able to share what

it's like to work in a recruiting firm, a search firm,

to learn more about AI, and to explore what it's like to work

in some of those fascinating occupations that are perhaps a

little bit different. And maybe not maybe some of those ones

that aren't with specific regard to the organizations that we

work with them. My goodness, in my consulting work, I continue

to see the same challenges that have plagued organizations

throughout my career, desire for more communication, wishing to

understand the why of decisions, internal conflicts, writing

challenges between colleagues, and certainly recruitment and

retention concerns and workloads being described as not laughable

that they're so unreasonable often because of those

recruitment challenges and not being able to fill vacancies.

Lots organizations are continuing to struggle to find

the balance between working from home and working remotely or

working at the office. commutes, of course, are getting crazier

certainly for those of us living in the Lower Mainland of British

Columbia. Balancing family needs with work life balance, and

everyone wanting more for last message that's not been heard by

our grocery stores, that's for sure. But you know all of this

already. And reflecting over the past year, and what I felt,

focus this podcast should be I decided to pull my book

leadership Inside Out effecting change from within off the

shelf, and share some of my writing and reminders of the

part that we can each play in helping make our lives better

and in doing that, often making organizations better as well.

Now I start with a quote from a town show rare when we realize

that we are the choosers and that we have the power, we need

not wait for others make decisions about our life. We

cannot possibly be a victim. No such that I strongly support

throughout my book. Now communication is something that

I'll continue to polish. I'm going to start here and I'm

going to start with a reflection on a YouTube video. It's one of

the more powerful ones that I've seen. How goes a blind man who

was homeless is begging for coins. A woman stops and instead

of giving money, she takes out a black belt pen and changes the

message on the mountains cardboard sign. And as a result

of her action, many more people put coins into this man's cup.

When the woman walks past man at the end of the day, she stops in

front of him. Now he recognizes her footstep and asks what she's

done. She tells them she has done nothing, but use different

words to communicate this message. Instead of helped me

I'm blind. The sign now reads it's a beautiful day and I can't

see it. The video concludes with a powerful message. Change your

words. Change your world

Our our day to day perhaps instead of telling someone that

they look nice now from what it is about how they look, that

prompted me to say that I was very fortunate to work with

communication expert, Joe Schaffer. In the course that I

was involved in, he had, the cohort group formed small

groups, and we were each given the same number of stones. We

then took turns placing these as we wished, on a mat in each of

our small circles. It was an exercise that we did in silence,

you can only place one stone at a time. And by each person, the

group having an equal ability to influence the outcome. It was

fascinating to see whether diverse designs that were

created by the different small groups. So really powerful way

of helping us understand that as one testimonial to Joe states,

creating conversation, and for ending patterns of domination in

our relationships. If you're interested in learning more, you

might want to pick up Joe's book, the stone people living

together in a different world. She talked about throwing stones

as metaphor for words is akin to yelling. But carefully placing

those stones creates a very different outcome. through play,

we were able to see different perspectives, we were able to

influence outcomes, and we actually were able to create and

resolve conflict. The experience reminded me of the childhood

chant sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will

never hurt me. Now as I grew older, I understood that a

broken bone with mend words, actually had the power to grow

exponentially in the damage that I allowed to my psyche. Now I do

emphasize the loud, although rationally, I realized that I

chose to accept the comments made by others. Recognizing that

any content might not be deserved, it's always more

difficult for me to accept. We often don't pay attention to the

words that we use and how we communicate with one another. So

it's really no wonder that there are so many interpersonal

conflicts, linking our environments, we don't

communicate well on an individual basis. So when you

multiply that there are larger and larger numbers of NGOs, NGOs

working well together or not, we can all suffer the consequences

of that. The personal experience is that this is an area most

organizations and we as individuals could improve on.

Certainly the results from organizational engagement

surveys confirm that communication is viewed as

critical and is frequently done poorly. Messages must be sent in

a multitude of ways through numerous channels, before

information is actually received. It's also about the

quality of those conversations, which is skillfully explored by

Susan Scott and her book fierce conversations, achieving success

at work, and in life, one conversation at a time. Much of

communication is actually through your tone of voice and

facial expressions. We tend to trust what we hear when we can

receive the full picture of the delivery. And in our very busy

world. The ability to receive messages this way, is quickly

becoming less available to us. A video messaging certainly helps.

But unfortunately, the human touch required is just that

touch that handshake, a smile of furrowed brow of concern, all

important and quickly becoming lost arts. So take the time as

the woman in YouTube, the YouTube video did make a

positive difference through the use of your words. Change your

words, change your world. So the conversation that you have had,

or the oral message and the message being conveyed through

the person's body language, we're not in sync. How can make

you feel if you oversee people in any capacity, can you think

of ways that you might be able to move to big have a better

communicator and make that difference. In my book, I also

write about conflict. And they start with a quote by Albert

Einstein, in the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.

Now, I suspect at some point in our careers, we've all offered

our skills in conflict laden situations. Individuals not

getting along someone not pulling their weight, dealing

with tardiness, excessive absenteeism, bad behavior, rules

not being followed. You know, enough, all the examples. And

all too often these get tolerated, ignored, excused, and

basically not dealt with. I've been in situations and allowed

me to address many of these issues issues, often

successfully, not always. Are they others where I've been

stymied in doing so. I've also been the avoider giving far too

much leeway to individuals who didn't require that yet another

chance, have been the leader who didn't act in a timer timely

manner. I've also been the leader who coached another only

to watch the required action never happened. Why? Well, I can

speak to my own difficulty when conflict management and where it

comes from. I grew up in an environment where there was one

type of punishment and there was no talking involved. As a

family, it was basically do as you're told, we didn't yell. But

it was also not taught how to resolve conflict in a healthy

manner. my Bachelor of Business Admin degree didn't touch the

subject. So I probably like you learned through experience, that

a lot of mistakes along the way, and have benefited from

individuals like conflict specialist Gary Harper, who

helped me put a different light on the subject of conflict. And

as I shared in the last podcast, he has an excellent book the joy

of conflict resolution. And he talks about conflict being a

signal that something needs attention. He also talked about

every conflict, always involving a victim, a hero and a villain.

And we experience all three of these have been different

points. He had us do a role playing exercise that helped me

see conflict from the perspective of all three roles.

And it really helped me understand the part that I was

playing in conflicts that I was dealing with the time being

willing to see a situation from the others perspective, is

really helpful and understanding where they're coming from. And

it's also super helpful in building empathy and finding

collaborative resolutions. To read and it wasn't through Gary,

that many of the things that trigger us are also signs for us

to heed. There might be something in ourselves, that

means looking at mirrors to our blind spots, and we all have

buttons. So building our comfort and capability and dealing

appropriately with conflict needs constant polishing. I'm

reminded of a situation where I was working with a union rep

that I felt quite challenged by I found him rude and

disrespectful, unwilling to listen and unhelpful in a

situation that requires both to tackle things together. Yet Prix

racing, a matter that I've felt has been resolved. It's only

dawned on me recently, that he probably could have said the

same things about me. Perhaps if I'd given him the respect to

hear him out on the matter, that was obviously still a problem

for him. You might have provided me with the same we were both

being bullheaded. We're both so intent on being right, that we

lost the opportunity to find a better way of working together.

Thomas Crump provides us with wise words, in a conflict, be

willing to change allows you to move from a point of view to a

viewing point, a higher marks bounce of place, which we see

both sides. conflict avoidance happens all the time. We want

people to like us having to call someone out on their behavior

leaves many of us anxious. This is where teaching moments are so

so valuable. So addressing an undesired action when an

individual is just exhibited that action means the learning

is timely and the required Word changed behavior, it's so much

easier to reference.

There are lots of excellent courses available will help us

with the right words, process and timing for those required

conversations, because when we don't have them, the individual

is sometimes unaware of the need to change. And our inaction

creates ripples because others are also likely experiencing the

undesirable situation, and may also be suffering as a result.

It's important we learn to do this well. So the one our life

circumstances, necessitate conflict resolution at home, in

our sports teams, or their families, or their friends, we

can appropriately step up. When you deal with conflict, are you

really able to listen to what the person is saying? without

interrupting? Are they finished? Might complex situations be

indicators of your own blind spots that get in your way? Have

you ever considered but they these might be indicators of

your own unmet needs. So excerpts from the book,

leadership truly is from the inside out. And we do affect

change from within us. First within ourselves, and as we

change that can't help but change our organizations as

well. You know, if you've listened to the podcast, that I

encourage you to dare to soar, because I truly believe that you

can. I conclude the book with the use of acronyms. As we move

into the next year, you might find these helpful. When you

wish to soar. Start with s for silence. Take time to be quiet

and to reflect. Oh are open. Remember to keep yourself open.

A are aware. Use them using all of your senses, including your

intuition. Are for reflect might be the ripples. Think about what

might happen. When you dare to take action, there's a fair

word. Be for decide, make that decision, a per act. Act on that

decision are for regard the potential and the actual

ripples, feedback on awareness that paying attention and E. Re

engage and expand, encourage and energize and embracing the real

you. I wish you success. I wish you strength as you choose to

build your own wings and to find the thermals that will take you

where you wish to go. Finally as Michael Suor Alex's Tueller

reminds us the bad news is Time flies. The good news is you're

the pilot. So just do it. There to soar. Thank you for listening

and for supporting HR inside out. And if I piqued your

curiosity, my book leadership Inside Out effecting change from

within is available on Amazon. It's a fun read. And the link is

in the show notes to the podcast. wishing you and yours

the very best of the holiday season. Good health, happiness

and much success in 2024 to help you learn with you again next

month, Susan signing out. Bye for now.