Sharon Taylor:
So thank you both for being here and welcome. So Heather, you have talked about what some of the barriers are to sharing our authentic voices, and I know some of those areas that you've talked about are imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and people pleasing. So can you dig a little bit deeper into that? Maybe give us some definitions of those terms and just explain about those barriers?
Heather Whelpley:
Absolutely, because those are three very real things that can get in the way of us sharing our voices, especially in the workplace. But honestly, it applies to all of life. So let's start with imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is feeling like you don't know enough or aren't qualified enough or don't have enough experience, aren't smart enough, all of those things, even when you are. And you can probably already see with that eight-second definition, how that can get in the way of sharing your voice. If you don't feel like you know enough to share your voice, you might not share that idea. So imposter syndrome can be a huge barrier that can get in the way of sharing your authentic voice, sharing ideas, also advocating for yourself for your next career move and different pieces like that.
Perfectionism is another category which is feeling like something has to be perfect before you can share it, or you just need to research that idea a little bit more or read the email a fourth time before you hit send or walk through that PowerPoint an eighth time before you give it to that next person to review or present it to someone. It can also show up, perfectionism, like some deeper fears of making a mistake like, "I'm not allowed to make a mistake, or what if I do speak up and I get a question I don't know the answer to? Or what if I flap on my face? What if I say the wrong thing?" All of those fears can get in the way of us sharing our voices.
And then people pleasing is this interesting third category in that it is one that tends to apply more to women. It gets handed down as this definition and rules about how women are and are not supposed to show up in the world. And of course, we're challenging those and they are evolving, and yet a lot of us still feel them. And so those can feel like, "I'm not allowed to disappoint anyone. I can't say no, I shouldn't upset people. I shouldn't rock the boat. I need to look like I have it all under control," and all of these people pleasing rules that can absolutely, and honestly, this is the category that's probably impacted me the most in sharing my voice and that I've had to really learn how to unwind some of these rules around like, "Ooh, I shouldn't have upset anyone with my voice. I shouldn't be too direct."
And these rules, I want to be really clear, they don't come from inside you. They feel like they do. They show up in that inner critic, they show up in those scripts in our minds, but they didn't originate from inside of you. They come from your childhood experiences with your family and school and how your voice was and was not allowed to be used. Were you allowed to disagree with authority or not? They come from your past work experiences. Did you have a not so good boss a few years ago who called you out for making mistakes? And if so, you might still be working hard to make everything perfect even if you're on a more accepting team now.
And also, bias and microaggressions and discrimination play into this as well, which we can talk more about if that comes up, but both related to being a woman and also intersectionally. So white women and women of color are going to be handed different sets of rules and expectations and those barriers really can get in the way and they're real. So I don't want to downplay them. They are real and we can let go of at least some of them as we look forward and think about how do you want to be using your voice?
Sharon Taylor:
Thank you for that. I think that's a great way to set the tone for this conversation. Do you have any actionable advice in thinking about how to overcome some of these barriers?
Heather Whelpley:
Yeah, absolutely. And some of it is starting just to recognize that those barriers do exist and to not blame yourself. This isn't about feeling like we have to know everything or that you do know everything. That isn't the goal, but it is to recognize where some of those rules, those barriers, that bias can get in the way. And to start to notice that and to stop the self-questioning and start questioning everything around you and to know yourself better, but also to see the impact of the rules around you.
The one thing that has helped me so much, I'm going to give two different things. The first one is around knowing what is more important than those barriers. This has gotten me through so many things. So many times I wanted to share an idea, but I wasn't sure what the feedback was that I was going to get. It's gotten me through my second book, Grounded Wildness is very vulnerable and it shares a lot of personal items. And I was like, "Ooh, do I really want to share this?" But when I stopped back and said, "What's more important than that?" There was a lot. There was a lot of why? There was a lot of purpose. And I think when you know what's important to you and what's more important than those barriers, you can use that as motivation. So like what's more important than the fear that you're feeling? What's more important than the nerves?
And that might be, "I want this idea that I have to potentially impact others." That might be, "I need to advocate for myself so I can move ahead in my career or so I can set a boundary and have better work-life balance." There's a million different possibilities for what that could be, but getting clear for yourself in situation by situation or some undergirding, bigger lines of purpose of what you bring can help to find the motivation to speak up even when those barriers are there. So that's one that has been... I ask myself that question all the time, whenever nerves come up, whenever the barriers are there because they're real. And I was in corporate jobs for over 10 years and I experienced them as well. I got feedback that I could be too direct and it really made me question my voice. And so I've had to come back to this, what's more important over and over again.
The second part that's been so helpful is grounding myself in my own body. So when I feel like my mind is being a little hijacked or I get thrown off my game is just coming and putting my feet on the ground, putting my hands on my legs or on the table and taking a breath all the way down into my lower belly and letting it out. And that's something that anyone can do in the middle of a meeting and no one even has to know that you're doing it. So that combination of knowing what's most important and then grounding yourself physically in your body, I've found to be a really magical combination in getting through the barriers and speaking up.
Sharon Taylor:
Great, love that. So let's talk a little bit about feedback and how feedback can contribute to improving our communication, but how do we go about soliciting feedback and what do we do with it once we get it?
Joyce Longfield:
As someone similarly consulted for a long time with a number of companies and then transitioned with a company in a full-time way, the styles and the types and the variety of feedback is all over the place. And one of the things that I've learned, and you really just touched on it, self-awareness. Self-awareness is just really such a key goal to becoming better at communication. And really, what I learned was that in the moment of receiving some kind of feedback, you are going to be triggered in some way. Oftentimes when we hear that word trigger, we typically associate it with a negative reaction like, "That triggered me in a way that made me feel bad about myself." But really, truly, you could be triggered and you feel really good about yourself, like they just gave you a really great compliment and stuff.
So it's a trigger either which way and really in that moment when you are triggered, where is that coming from? How is that making me feel? What is that? Especially if it's a negative trigger, right? That person most likely is not trying to be harsh or mean or hurt your feelings, but yet it's triggered something in you. So really, it is our responsibility to go inside and identify where is that coming from? Because as you mentioned, a lot of the way we are comes from our childhood. And so that is one thing that I've learned in becoming better at communication is really to identify what was the skill set that I was born or raised with, and now, what do I have control of? Because we don't have control of the other person, we can't force the other person to think a certain way or respond to you a certain way. You only have control of yourself. So that's where I try and manage and improve on my skill set for communication.
And even to this day, I still... Actually, I think even more so now today, especially having a teenager in the house, I've really learned how valuable it is to be able to effectively communicate with her, to not fight. And I have noticed that that work that I'm doing in that area of my life is actually improving a lot of the work relationships. And not that there were bad things, but I just noticed that it's making it that much better, how I'm speaking to my colleagues. And so I think that it is important to self-reflect on why are you feeling this way? Where does this come from? Can I address it in some way or can I be aware of it that the next time I get some feedback from someone, not to feel hurt? Right?
Because you can tell your brain like, "Hey, that's coming from a place in my past and I'm no longer that person. I'm this person and what this person who's given me this feedback now is offering me an opportunity to work on this." So just because it's something that you were raised a certain way doesn't mean that that's how it's going to be for the rest of your life. And that's how I look at feedback is, "Oh, here's something that's an opportunity for me to now change about myself." So I just would encourage people to reflect on why it's making them feel the way that it's feeling inside?
Sharon Taylor:
And Heather, do you have anything to add either on how to solicit feedback or maybe taking one step further from what Joyce is talking about of what do you do with that feedback and how do you put it into practice?
Heather Whelpley:
Yeah. The thing about feedback is that every single piece of feedback you get, praise, constructive criticism, anything across the spectrum is coming from that person's perspective, and that doesn't make it any more less right or wrong. It's just from their perspective. So it can be really helpful to take a step back and say, "What's useful here? What's not useful? What do I want to carry with me and what don't I want to carry with me?" And to do so in a way that hopefully isn't defensive either, because sometimes, "Oh, I don't want to listen to that," is different than, "Oh, I need to listen to that. I just don't really like it." Sometimes that's the hardest feedback that we do need to listen to. So be discerning in your feedback and know that it can be really, really helpful.
Sharon Taylor:
And so that comes to my next question is how do you approach communicating with people that have different communication preferences?
Joyce Longfield:
For me anyways, and this is how I started when I was consulting and I'd have to go into a boardroom, which was mainly with a lot of men, to listen for a while, to really listen to how people speak, what their body language is like. So be very observational, ask some questions about them, get curious about them to start to build that connection between them because again, being able to get someone to be vulnerable with you starts to build trust, and trust is a huge component to having successful conversations.
The other thing that Heather mentioned, a lot of times when things start to get to an emotional place, it's now not about the subject anymore. So having control of your emotions. And if you see someone that is getting upset in the middle of a conversation, to try and calm that down. You can even say things like, "I see this is really upsetting you. Can you tell me more? What's coming up for you? What is it about this decision that you're not liking?" Just be curious with them and try and have that emotional connection. But if you walk into a room full of strangers, you do need a moment to read that room, gauge your audience. So listening, asking questions before you start speaking and dictating, I think is a really important factor.
Sharon Taylor:
Yeah. So Heather, what can you share with us about maybe some of those differences, if it's gender or generational? And then just how to balance? How do we then still show up authentically for ourselves while balancing, knowing how others might have different communication styles?
Heather Whelpley:
Yeah, it's such a good question because there is a balance there. There's no way that you can just force, "Everyone's going to listen to me in my own style forever." And also, I don't believe that we should have to twist and turn ourselves into someone that we're not in order to get heard. So I think there is a balance there between those two. And I like what Joyce was saying too about reading the room and observing and seeing where people are coming from. And for me in my career, I've seen that mostly on a cross-cultural basis. So we obviously in the United States have many cultures, but I've also worked across the globe living in Latin America and Australia and just working for global companies where I was interacting with people who had both a very wide variety of cultural expectations around communication and often weren't operating in their native language, which makes it more challenging as well.
And there was absolutely a give and take there of me trying to listen more, to learn more, to understand where people were coming from, to see what other people's triggers were, and hopefully them doing the same for me. I love what Joyce said, "Can you tell me more?" And I think that is such a magical question to just learn more about where people are coming from, what ideas they're sharing, what feedback it is? Whatever it might be, and I think you can dive into that.
I'd also say there's not an easy answer to this question of when you stick to your guns and really be authentic or be direct or whatever it is for you. And sometimes it's the opposite too. I got that feedback that I was too direct. I've had a lot of women tell me when I've done the speaking engagement that that wasn't their challenge. They've gotten feedback that they're on the more introverted side and they basically need to become an extrovert and be more forthright and to share their ideas and to put themselves out there more. And you get to decide to a degree. You get to decide what is going to work for you, knowing that, of course, there are always outcomes to what you decide, but you get to decide, "How much do I want to change myself? Where am I not willing to just be quiet?"
I had a friend once who was sharing an idea and she noticed that whenever she shared an idea that her boss didn't agree with, he said, "I want you to your battles. It's really important for you to pick your battles." And she was like, "I am. This is the battle that I'm picking." And it was a very interesting observation that he was giving her that feedback whenever she spoke up against something that he disagreed with, and she got to decide in that moment, "Am I going to take that feedback and I'm going to be quiet here, or am I going to stick to it and say, 'No, this is a battle that I've chosen. This is something I'm going to speak up about. This is important to me?'" So there's not a right or wrong answer for anyone here who's listening. It's a personal decision to weigh where you're coming from, where others are coming from, and the importance of the situation at hand.
Sharon Taylor:
Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on how one might think about that in say, manager relationships versus peers? I know I took a training course long ago, so long ago that it was on managing millennials, which I know now we've got a new generation coming up, but it talked about a 70/30 of manager sets 70% of the communication, but then they need to come down 30% to the people they're managing, their level. So that's a very precise way of thinking about it, but do you have thoughts on just that balance between communicating with managers versus peers or anyone else in the organization?
Heather Whelpley:
Absolutely. I think so. I've never heard it quite that precise, the 70/30, but I do think there is a difference. And one of the questions I've found to be helpful to ask is not just how important is this feedback or is this expectation, but also how important is the person that's giving it to me? What level of influence does this person have over your career, over whether you're going to get promoted, over whether your idea is going to be heard to other people, and how important is the relationship at hand? And again, those are questions that you have to answer on a personal level, but I do think they are things to take into consideration.
If your boss, who has great influence, is an influential person in the organization and is your direct manager, if they're giving you some feedback, again, you get to decide whether you agree with it or not. And at the same time, if you choose to totally ignore that feedback, there might be consequences of that. And you get to decide whether those consequences are worth it, but knowing the importance of the relationship of the person, of the influence they have can be a great one point of consideration in that.
Sharon Taylor:
Agree. Well, thank you both so much, Joyce and Heather, for sharing your tips, your experiences, your vulnerability. We appreciate you. So thank you all.
Joyce Longfield:
Bye guys. Have a good day
