Ep. 047 - Stephanie Robinson - Learning from moments of discomfort
When was the last time you felt discomfort?
Did you notice how you reacted? Was it subtle shifts in your body? Or major knee-jerk! How did it feel? What level of discomfort was it? 1 out of 10? 10 out of 10? Regardless of the situation. What's clear is we have a reaction. Sometimes subtle, other times more profound and impactful. This is where the learning and growth opportunities exist in these moments and how we reflect and react.
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EP. 047 Transcription
[00:00:00] Steve: So Steph, welcome to the experienced designers.
[00:00:23] Stephanie: Thanks. Great to be here.
[00:00:25] Steve: Yeah, look, just before we jump in yeah, look, I just want to say I'm so grateful for you sharing your time and joining the podcast today.
We, we're going to talk about a very specific topic, which I've, I'm so curious to explore with you today and just get your perspective on. But before we do that, before we share what it is, we're going to talk about a bit of an introduction to yourself who are you? Where are you? And a very specific point I'd love for you to share is also what kind of house you've recently built.
[00:00:57] Stephanie: Haha. Hi, it's really great to be here. Thank you so much. Yeah, so who am I? God, wow. What a difficult question, isn't it? To sum up really short I'm a queer woman. I am an English settler in Cymru, which is known by the English as Wales. I built a house here, as you rightly say, Steve, which was An eco house.
It's actually the first one in the world to be built in this way. It's a bit of an experiment and it's made out of miscanthus, which is like straw. So that's been a rather interesting experience over the last few years. It's done now. It's built, but learnt a lot. in the process, as you can imagine, building a house.
And I didn't do it on my own. There was a lot of people that I did it with and maybe if we get time I can talk about how that was a sort of a community build and very much part of bringing people together. And the kind of problems that it brought up are the kinds of things we're going to talk about today, I think.
[00:01:49] Steve: Yes. Oh I was actually making a link immediately on that for sure. So just, can I also ask as well, cause this is a podcast about human experience. And I just wanted to ask, what does human experience mean to you?
[00:02:04] Stephanie: What does human experience mean to me? That's pretty broad, isn't
[00:02:08] Steve: is, but just your own, yeah,
[00:02:10] Stephanie: yeah, I guess there's two parts of what that means, maybe in the context of what we're talking about today, which is if we think about it in terms of like power dynamics, maybe it's helpful to think of it in terms of what we do when we're playing and what we do when we're working, because they're quite different, aren't they?
And I think maybe a lot of what we talk about in, or what you talk about in your podcast is that relationship at work and those. those dynamics that happen there. But also maybe it's the crossover of how we relate to people more generally. And I think probably relationships with other people is the most difficult part of living.
Everything else you can get a flow chart for it or there's an app or whatever and it's maybe it's predictable but the human relationship part is the most tricky and that's probably why it's the thing that we talk about. So much and why we need good friends and why we need also people who aren't perhaps friends, but people who are prepared to give us feedback on how we're doing there.
And as well as that human experience, I guess it's like how we respond to those relationships does it. bring us joy? Does it bring us sadness? Does it bring us regret? Do we find relief? All of those myriad feelings that we might have is the human experience in response to those kind of stimuli.
[00:03:29] Steve: Amazing. I love that. I love that. And just to work lens. So to apply a work lens what's your, what's been your kind of focus, your passion your area of contribution from a work point of view?
[00:03:42] Stephanie: Like you, because I think you've had a bit of a transition as you've set up. One that in the last year, I've also been going through a bit of a transition myself. So I spent about 25 years in, in human resources and people teams at the start working in recruitment, but then in the last sort of 15 years working in diversity and inclusion.
And just lately I've. decided to scale that down a little bit and use, do that part time whilst I am a founder for a community composting project. So very different. We're taking what is essentially food waste, a bit of a taboo subject, perhaps for some people this kind of yucky output from our food industry and turning it into beautiful compost that we can then make food out of.
And for me, this is like a really healing project to be involved in. And it's something that I find is a really helpful metaphor for taking something that perhaps we consider to be bad in inverted commas and turning it into something really powerful and nutritious and important for us all.
yeah,
[00:04:46] Steve: Let's not get into regen farming conversation either. Cause it's, it is in the soil. It's all about the soil.
[00:04:52] Stephanie: is. Yeah.
[00:04:53] Steve: so that's, so I'm sensing there's two follow up podcasts already. One is on your house build, the other one is on composting. So let's see how we can connect that back into like human experiences, some level, and we can yeah, I'd love to do that.
Okay. So look, let's let's share with the audience. Like what are we here to talk about today? What do we want to explore and dive into?
[00:05:13] Stephanie: We're going to talk about discomfort, aren't we? We're going to have a little dalliance, a little dance with discomfort today. And this is my first podcast, so I'm absolutely feeling this viscerally right now. It's what does that feel like in my body to be uncomfortable? So it's quite helpful in a
[00:05:34] Steve: Oh, we're actually playing it out right now. We're having a discomfort experience and feeling it anyway. So
[00:05:40] Stephanie: Yeah. Are you feeling any discomfort? Are you just so relaxed with this? Is this like your happy place?
[00:05:46] Steve: This is my happy place. I
[00:05:48] Stephanie: lush. Great.
[00:05:49] Steve: love it. similar to you. I did recruitment for many years. And when I started doing podcasting a couple of years ago, I suddenly realized like, Oh my God, actually I've always asked questions and interviewed people for the last, probably 20 years of my life.
This is quite a natural place for me. So no, just feeds my curiosity and my yeah, my
[00:06:10] Stephanie: So like you, I think, Steve, that's my happy place as well. I'm a listener. I'm not a talker. So I think this is one of the reasons that this feels perhaps uncomfortable for me. And I think maybe there might be people listening to this who, who perhaps resonate with, there's all sorts of reasons why perhaps we don't.
do the talking, or we feel that listening is a bigger part of what we do, and it might be to do with maybe we don't feel that we have a voice, or that our voice is not important enough, maybe there's been some experiences in our past that tell us that we would be better off being quiet and listening.
And so this is actually a really good thing for me to do, so I'm really grateful for this opportunity, because it's something that I've been trying to do over the last couple of years, is making more space for that. For saying, I do have something to say, how do I want to talk about that thing? And I think sometimes that's just about taking the time to really think about something and be, okay, this is how I want to do that.
So this has been a really good exercise for me.
[00:07:05] Steve: Steph, it's a privilege to join you on your first podcast and let's, and doing that together. Amazing. Amazing. So let's get into discomfort. Let's do this. Where would you like to start? What, let's just start with a little bit like what, why are you curious on this topic, what's driven you to explore this today?
[00:07:22] Stephanie: So I think it was really helpful that you you talked about the house build there, because that's where. This sort of investigation in my mind began. When I started building the house, it was a process of involving lots and lots of people, mainly people who'd never built a house before as well, so that we could give them an opportunity to find out how does this happen, but in that process, I involved a lot of Teachers, people who are happy to work with volunteers, people who are happy to work with unskilled people, so that we could train each other, so we could learn from each other. And one particular person that was involved in the house build was M Appleton and they were the lead carpenter and project manager on the second half of the build.
And they have written what's called 100 Ways. So their part time job when they're not building houses is talking about The unhealthy state of building sites, you probably won't be surprised to hear that, and they're unhealthy in a lot of ways, like from a health and safety perspective.
But also from a care for people perspective and they wrote a hundred ways to make a building site more Supportive and healthy. I think they called it transforming building sites. You can find it online hundred ways dot site anyway as part of M's birthday a group of her friends We said we pick one of these a hundred ways and we get it emblazoned on a jumper and we'd surprise them with this and I picked number 65 which was understand that a feeling of discomfort Whilst listening is at the root of all growth.
So I'll say that again. Understanding that feeling of discomfort whilst listening is at the root of all growth. Anyway, there's something about putting that on a jumper, which really makes it like a present for you in the everyday. And I was thinking about it for about a year and a half, like really unpacking it because I found it so fruitful.
This idea of. Even all the different words within there, but particularly this idea of discomfort leading to something really great. So that's why we're talking about that
[00:09:18] Steve: I love it. I love it. Okay. Isn't it amazing that we just get this one nugget. Of something that just resonates with us and it causes us to then go into the rabbit hole and just to really go into, and
[00:09:32] Stephanie: What a gift.
[00:09:33] Steve: Yeah, it is. Humans, mate. Okay. So look let's delve into it. So what's some of the what is discomfort?
[00:09:40] Stephanie: That was, I was going to ask you, what do you think is discomfort? What do you think when you think of discomfort?
[00:09:47] Steve: Yeah, great question. So I'm now immediately comes to mind, I think there's either a, there's a physical element.
[00:09:56] Stephanie: Yeah.
[00:09:57] Steve: There's a mental element. There's a mindset piece.
[00:09:59] Stephanie: Yeah.
[00:10:00] Steve: And I think the, an example I can share with you. Actually, I've got a great example of one where I two years to one and a half years ago experienced both was when I did the Wim Hof training and did cold ice dipping.
[00:10:19] Stephanie: I. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:24] Steve: Yeah, and fascinating in that because it's completely mental and it's also physical and also breaking your beliefs systems of what you believe to be true. So we seek comfort in warmth. We've always been told wrap up warm, put a hat on, don't be cold. And because it's comfortable, yet what I've learned and broken down a belief system now as part of that journey is actually, there is an element of cold that is also good for you just as much on the other side, which is warm.
And of course, too much heat will kill you and too much cold will kill you. But there is a variance in the minus in the cold that is tremendously good for you and enables you to be, create clarity in your mind, good for your health body and absolutely for your mind. And I think that's something which I, it blew me away actually.
I was like, wow, and maybe start to question other beliefs. Maybe what other beliefs do I feel or think to be true? And yeah, actually, yeah, so that was that's one I would say was would be that came immediately to mind when you asked me that question
[00:11:34] Stephanie: Yeah. That's so great. I, and I think that's pointing to where I was trying to get to, which is discomfort is not supposed to be something that kills you.
Discomfort is like not supposed to be pain and suffering. It's a level down from that, right? died from discomfort, hopefully. Obviously when you die, you probably are in, you may be in discomfort if you're not sufficiently supported with medication or something, but the idea that you would die of discomfort, very unlikely.
So what is it? It's like you said, it's a physical and it's the mental discomfort, isn't it? It's the mental bit of the catastrophizing that you might go to, for example, of what does this mean and where might this get me to, and what might be the pain or the suffering that this will lead to.
And that kind of loop that we get caught in, but also the physical part. When you think about how your body responds to discomfort, I'm sitting here, my body's starting to calm down a little bit now, which is nice, but like a couple of minutes ago, I was definitely, and my hands got a little shake in them, for example.
I can feel that. I can definitely feel like a constriction in my throat a little bit. There's a slight hoarseness, perhaps a dryness of my mouth. There's a speed up in my heart rate. There's definitely a change in my breath. There's a, like an aliveness, which I like in my body that feels really good, actually, even though it's like this weird discomfort.
Association. So that can be quite pleasurable as well. And I talk about that pleasure here at this point because I think it's important for us to to potentially transform how we feel about discomfort in our minds. So it might be like, Oh we currently associate with that nervousness, that kind of anxiousness or discomfort in that particular kind of discomfort with potentially something bad about to happen, but what we can potentially talk to ourselves about is actually maybe we're on, we're in an exciting space here.
This is this in increasing pulse or this agitation or aliveness might actually be an indicator that something exciting is about to happen. And so we can discharge it perhaps and make ourselves then mentally, emotionally, physically more able to then step into that. Learning edge, for example, we might think of it as in a positive mindset and we, we can then control that catastrophizing that we might be doing.
[00:13:59] Steve: Yeah, sorry, I was going to just build on that. So there's this what was coming to mind as you were sharing that I was thinking, okay, so there's more like a an element around like in the moment. Things that happen to us on a daily basis that are always occurring situations or scenarios with colleagues or friends, or whether it's a situation or whatever it might be that's that in the moment, natural piece.
So I think there's an element of how do we become more aware of that and bring our awareness to how we're reacting because you were just sharing there about how you're reacting to coming onto the podcast and your physical reaction to that being that discomfort.
[00:14:37] Stephanie: yeah.
[00:14:38] Steve: And of course. Sometimes we just don't even think about that on, and in the moment, or we have a connection with our body or even think about, Oh, my heart rate is actually increasing.
Now, if you get an aura ring, you can see that actually you are definitely some of the impacts it's certain things and mood have on your on your on your heart rate. But of course, a lot of us just get on with it and don't really think about this, think about it in that way. So
[00:15:00] Stephanie: We're so trained, aren't we to just focus on what is happening in our mind. Our body is entirely separate, but it's actually a really helpful tool, if we think about it, for us to say, how am I feeling about this? Maybe I am feeling a bit of discomfort or anxiety or excitement about this particular thing, and what does that then mean about how I might respond intellectually to this?
situation to this stimulus. I don't, yeah, I don't know. We just, we seem to be really trained out of this. I went to I had a therapy session probably about five or six years ago. And at one point the therapist, we were talking about something that was really quite upsetting for me, like a memory that was quite upsetting.
And she said to me, where is it in your body? And I was like what do you mean? Where is it in my body? And that was like the first time that someone had said to me. Separate to the thing that you are communicating that is intellectually in your brain, where are you feeling this in your body? And I, that blew my mind, the idea that I could, that it would be somewhere else in my body.
And I think actually we're seeing a lot more conversation about, or research and writing and theory about how our bodies can help us like really tap into what is going on, and I would love us. to start making those connections more, use our bodies to respond. One of the things I love doing is dancing and I found that dancing can be a really great way of tapping into perhaps a feeling or an experience or something that's difficult for us that we might not be able to verbalize, we might not be able to communicate that to somebody else like a therapist, but actually when we move our bodies we can find a huge sense of relief that we have somehow communicated this thing to somebody else and you can let it go.
It's like a wonderful therapy. So more dancing as a side note.
[00:16:46] Steve: I agree. And also, we hold, we hold a lot of stuff inside of us, and, I had a journey which was my father passed and I think the year after that, the grief and the sadness that I encountered and experienced was so bloody deep. I'd never felt anything like it in my life.
And. I struggled so hard to deal with it and I ended up, I actually sought help and I got six months. I did six months with an amazing coach and I remember how taking that like such sadness and being able to almost extract it out of me to a certain degree, put it into a ball and just be able to hold it and feel it.
and be okay with it. And it took me a while to get there, of course, but it's a thing that's, yeah, just, and that was of course in my heart center. It's like unbelievable. But of course, that, that term hot headedness, when people react, that can sometimes be in the head a lot, just that.
Just the way people sometimes react, or it can be deep, really deep into the stomach where we hold a lot. We tend to hold an awful lot of emotion as well. Yeah, the physical form. We can't forget that. And it tells us a lot on how we hold and process emotional discomfort or scenarios that could be yeah, I think, yeah just feeling that I think as a start point, it's a really good thing.
[00:18:09] Stephanie: Thanks for sharing that. I appreciate that. It's probably not an easy thing to share on a podcast, so huge courage, bravery for you doing that.
[00:18:17] Steve: Learning, huge growth from that
[00:18:20] Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Really
[00:18:22] Steve: what's so look, what's just from your perspective what have you learned from your reflections from discomfort? What are some of the things that I guess some of the listeners, if they're now thinking about this topic, this word, this label, what's some of the things like in terms of, yeah, maybe I don't know whether it's advice or we want to get into what would.
It play out in a work scenario, as an example, in the, in, in the, in a business environment?
[00:18:46] Stephanie: yeah. So I guess the first thing to say would be let's get it in relative to what is happening. So the phrase itself, understand that a feeling of discomfort whilst listening is at the root of all growth. So if we look at a comparison, imagine some scales there, you've got discomfort on one side and you've got growth on the other.
So little bit of discomfort. Maybe it's a feeling in the body, you're uncomfortable in a work meeting, for example. Maybe you're not sure, you just said something that might have upset someone. That feels a bit uncomfortable. It's not going to kill you. We've established that, right? It's just this sort of physical feeling of, oh my god.
Verses growth on the other side, which might mean that you are a more capable human who is able to care and be compassionate and be supportive and have deeper relationships with the people that you love and the people you work with and you can feel less discomfort about potentially hurting them as well.
You know if you look at those two things Which one would you rather go for? Discomfort on the everyday or like a bit of growth so there's a bit less discomfort? It's it's not, it's a no brainer really isn't it? You, it's much better to be in that learning space and be starting to feel more confident about I, I can take this on, I can feel the discomfort so that I can use it as a tool to do better next time.
So that's like my primary. learning from that is let's just get this, in, in the size that it is. And also I don't want to sound like some sort of Instagram person going, it's all about the growth of me, and centering myself here. Actually the real point of the growth is that you are a happier human and you have.
better relationships with other people. So it's good. It's good for everybody. This is not just about, so I can say, Oh, I'm such a perfect person who never makes any mistakes and I never do anything wrong. It's not about that either, because we will all make mistakes all the time. We're doing things that we're, not doing deliberately, perhaps.
Through the media that we're receiving, perhaps we're, we're regurgitating particular tropes or narratives or frames about how the world works and maybe we're just not, haven't got enough time or haven't spent the time to unpack those yet. So yeah it's great to have. A life set, I've just made that up.
I don't know if that's a thing to like a mindset, but like a way of approaching life that says you're open to feeling a little bit of discomfort so that you can continue learning and you continue growing.
[00:21:23] Steve: Okay, what I'm thinking here is. They've got this kind of scenario where there's some discomfort being felt in an individual. Is there like a, an element of how you then flip that into growth? And of course I know it's very contextual, but of course, is there something in there to weave in okay, look if there is a scenario.
There are some, maybe some principles or some things to be aware of, because the fact you're, or you're recognizing or feeling discomfort means you are aware. So you're in a place of awareness, which is part of the journey for learning anyway. So you're already on that. So if you're having that reaction, you're already in a good, you're already in the final first step to the growth anyway, from a reaction point of view.
What's your thoughts on that? What's the like to
[00:22:08] Stephanie: Yeah. So what I was thinking about this and I was thinking like, what's a useful example to think of? So maybe in a work context, it's someone giving us feedback on something that we might have said. So maybe we've been in a meeting and we've said something that has perhaps hurt someone else.
This, yeah, isn't it on both sides, I'm sure we all experience it both, on the receiving end and the thing if that person is, the person who's been harmed in some way or hurt in some way has the compassion and the time and the care and the trust in you to give you some feedback then they might arrange a conversation with you, right?
Thank you to that person if they are and so they might sit you down or have a chat with you and say hey You know when we were in that meeting you said this thing and that was hurtful to me So I think the first thing to acknowledge there and I said it before is like that's a difficult thing for them to do That's a scary thing for them to do.
You've already hurt them once, and they now have got the guts, the bravery, to come to you and say that was hurtful. Hugely vulnerable for them to say that. You hurt me, and this is how. So they're essentially giving you the tools to do it again. This is a thing that you could do. So hugely vulnerable for them.
To give you that feedback. So it's really important to acknowledge the position that they are in. I also think it's important to acknowledge that they, yeah, I mentioned trust there because they are, rather than just going, I believe they did that, and going off and talking to a friend and which absolutely they would be in their full rights to do, like not to do the extra emotional labor to take it on with you and just try and get that support and healing from somewhere else.
But what they've done is they've said, I think it's worth speaking to Steph about the thing that Steph said and trying to. ask Stef not to do that again, and I think that's extraordinarily generous of them to take that time and effort to do that. And it also makes me think that they think I'm able to change.
Okay. So maybe that's a question for you at this point is, do you think people can change? Do you think you can change?
[00:24:08] Steve: Just shove this in there. Cool. Cool.
[00:24:10] Stephanie: Yeah. Can't they? Yeah.
[00:24:12] Steve: but learning. Yeah, of course.
[00:24:14] Stephanie: Yeah. And I, the reason I ask that is because there's been a study in if people believe that change is possible in themselves and other people, then they are more likely to do these kinds of things. They're more likely to reach into discomfort. They're more like to have challenging conversations both on the receiving and the giving.
Because they have more confidence that they or the other person is going to take that on the board and change. Now there's all sorts of reasons why we might think that change is not possible, experiences that we might have in the past, but it is helpful if we'd, if they have that as a starting position that both ourselves or other people are able to change.
It gives us hope that this conversation is worth it.
[00:24:53] Steve: There's the saying goes, feedback is the mother of all learning and yeah, it's critical. I want to throw a lens into this
Hierarchy.
[00:25:02] Stephanie: yeah,
[00:25:03] Steve: Okay.
[00:25:03] Stephanie: Absolutely. Go on.
[00:25:06] Steve: let's build on this scenario. What if that feedback is perceived upwards to the boss or to the manager or to the leader? That is a tricky one.
Colleague to colleague, a perceived equal level, or from manager to down as it were, I hate using this, but you get my point. It's a thing is this upward feedback perspective.
[00:25:29] Stephanie: And that's what most of these conversations are about, right? They're about power. They're about the power dynamic. It's about someone saying something and them not being challenged in the moment, potentially, or them perhaps not living a life where they have to constantly check themselves. So for those of us.
Who live with some sort of marginalized identity, we often live in discomfort all the time because we're constantly managing what this microaggression or whatever this person has said to us. And they just haven't thought about the ramifications of that for us. And so we're constantly like learning about those, dominant identities and how to navigate around them.
So we actually live in discomfort a lot of the time. But if you're perhaps a CEO who maybe is not getting challenged that much these days, it might be very difficult for you to receive feedback. You're that muscle of receiving challenging feedback is maybe a little bit floppy.
Yes.
And you do have to work harder.
I think the more senior you get to make sure you are still like actively inviting feedback and that when you get it, you're acting in a really good way so that you're like really rewarding that person for giving it, you're making it easy for them to give you the feedback, but you're also like doing something about it.
You're responding in the moment and also following up with an appropriate response. And I think how we do that and in my role as a diversity and inclusion manager in the past, there's been a lot of that focusing on inclusive leadership. So it's not about, developing marginalized people.
They're already amazing. They are doing a job. And they're doing it in the context of like massive discomfort and discrimination. What we want to focus on is the leaders to help them think about, Oh, how can I be a better leader? How can I invite that? How can I be learning still, even though the context I'm in says I have to be super confident and never make mistakes.
Yeah. So what we're looking for is for them to for them to feel in that moment of I'm receiving this feedback. Is not to be centering themselves necessarily. Oh my god, what does that mean? I've made this huge mistake. That means I shouldn't be in this job because I'm not good enough.
That I, cycle. But rather staying with the listening. So what is this person telling me? What do they need? How do I need to respond to this? What's the impact to them? So it's not Oh, I didn't mean to do that. Oh, that wasn't my intention. It's Ah, yeah. Have you ever been apologised to like that?
Oh, it's terrible, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, so it's that flipping. It's, I think this is the the kind of the superpower actually that comes with managing discomfort is the flipping of that relationship. So when someone says something to you about maybe a thing that you did that was hurtful to them, rather than going, Oh, that means I'm a bad person.
Or, Oh, I did something wrong. I must be terrible. I'm no good or whatever that kind of cycle might be. We're going to switch and we're going to flip and we're going to focus on that person. We're going to focus on how generous it was of them. How much they must trust us to take on this power dynamic, particularly for a senior leader.
This person is taking a risk, not only personally, but for their career. to have this conversation with you. You should be promoting them. If they've got the guts to talk to you about this and in a sensitive enough way, they've obviously thought about it a lot, to have this conversation with you, they're probably very skilled, at having that conversation.
So listen to them. So that's the point. I think by flipping it, not focusing on the self, but focusing on the other, we can actually manage that discomfort. All of a sudden we are in a relationship. We're in partnership. I should say with the person who's giving us the feedback. We're no longer the target of this is the thing that happened.
We are now standing beside them saying. What can I do about that? Okay here's a suggestion about what I might do in the future. I might not do that thing again, and I'm going to take time to understand what happened there and not do it again. So then we are, yeah, we're essentially side by side with that person.
We don't need to feel the discomfort anymore. The discomfort was useful because it told us, ah, there's something to pay attention to here. There's something that I need to change, and perhaps that discomfort will stay with us for a little while as a little reminder of how we want to change our behaviour.
So it's useful again, it keeps coming up. Maybe we feel that little bit of, Oh God, wasn't that terrible? It's so embarrassing, I can't believe I did that. But that is a little useful prompt, a little reminder for ourselves of, Ah yeah, what am I going to do about it? Maybe I'm going to read some bell hooks,
[00:30:06] Steve: yeah, look, just that, just listening to that, I'm just like that's a more human experience. Also as well, the. I love that just remove the scenario and put it very much on that individual, how it's impacted them
Also as well. Let's do 360 back for 180 back for a second is also that individual might also on a more holistic human experience in that moment might be having some challenges, which.
Cause that reaction in that moment, which made that other person feel X, Y, Z. So then that dialogue is actually then created on a foundation of mutual empathy rather than on the topic, which I think is extremely powerful and nothing but growth in that as well.
[00:30:51] Stephanie: Yeah.
[00:30:51] Steve: I think, yeah,
[00:30:52] Stephanie: Yeah.
[00:30:53] Steve: interesting. Okay.
Where, that's in, in the moment. And we I wanted to also explore around, we've got this kind of discomfort piece around inputs. So we've got these like micro macro things that are also going on because discomfort can be, we can say attract, or we can be impacted by various things that are going on in time and life right now. I think another lens in this as well is like the hybrid side as well, because I think given what's happening and the disruption we've had, we go back to this kind of leadership dynamic is scenario and the environment has shifted tremendously, less physical, more online and digital. And so how do we deal in that level as well?
Because, creating this like level playing field, maybe digitally versus physically in a room together, I think that shifts, does that shift things some, somewhat as well in terms of maybe how we respond or how we create the environment or a safe space to have that conversation?
What do
[00:32:02] Stephanie: you
I guess I just want to challenge actually this word of safe space at this point,
No, but I'm,
because I think it's such an interesting conversation around a safe space. I think for people who potentially receive. In the work scenario, all of us can potentially receive hurtful situation, hurtful statements to us. Those of us who have got marginalized identities probably receiving that more. But we all potentially can be taken down a notch or hurt potentially by the hierarchical system perhaps.
And so it's probably. helpful to actually say you've probably heard the term like a braver space where we can be in the space where we're saying, actually, we're going to have quite challenging conversations. We're going to be, we're going to be aware that we are going to feel some discomfort and actually probably the people that feeling discomfort, the people who don't usually feel discomfort.
So that's why it's a brave space. The people who are experiencing micro inequities and microaggressions all the time. They're used to feeling discomfort at work. So that's, you can't, you're not really, it is not true to say that you can offer them a safe space. It's just not possible.
You can say, we're going to go into the space where we're going to talk about this stuff and we're going to try and resolve some of these things. And we're going to try and work through some of these. A comment I had or A position I heard yesterday, which I thought was really interesting, was an exploding space where actually it's deliberately about that.
You're like saying, let's blow this stuff up, let's actually talk about it, let's really take it on. And that's frightening for some people, particularly for people who are not used to feeling discomfort, or perhaps are not connected enough in their bodies for whatever reason, to know that they're feeling discomfort all the time.
Because they might be numbing it, for a variety of reasons. So I think that's my point on safe versus maybe exploding, which I love. But the other bit about yes, please go on.
[00:33:58] Steve: what you have in that room and it has to be physical is you have it with the it's the Greek tradition of smashing plates. So you let you go before we get into this, let's smash some plates and whatever, how there's a tremendous release in that, believe you may.
Yeah, anyway, sorry. I just had a random idea
[00:34:16] Stephanie: That's such a great, yes, I love that, because this is the point, if we're actually going to create anti racist, anti sexist, anti ableist spaces, we do actually have to get into the messiness, we have to get into, the composting, we have to get into the muck of this. It's not pretty, it is difficult, and if we try and keep it...
nice and safe, we're not actually going to get into it, we're just going to keep those, we're going to handle it from a distance and we're never really going to appreciate the beauty that is getting into it so that we can transform it. So that would be my invitation is let's get messy with it.
That is the point. Otherwise we are, otherwise
[00:34:59] Steve: Yes. There's something I just want to also raise. Because you've mentioned this a couple of times. Some of them, from a marginalized groups as an example. I wrote here normalising discomfort.
[00:35:10] Stephanie: we're it's lip service,
[00:35:11] Steve: and for those that are in environments where there is a constant discomfort, what's the ramifications of that on the, on, on a human level that they are in an environment where they are constantly in discomfort and also then get to a point where they think that's just the equilibrium of just how it is.
And of course, if we think about maybe a slightly different context, which is say stress, we know that certain stresses. Good for you perceive, but then sometimes when you're in a high level of stress for too long, you then normalize that as your baseline. I've personally experienced that and, but actually anything above that is just a critical red DEF CON 10.
So I'm just maybe just want to touch on that maybe around. For those that are maybe in constant discomfort, what can they do to maybe take some of those steps? And that might be seeking maybe coaching or support or something, but I'm just, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is,
[00:36:09] Stephanie: It's such a good point. Yeah.
[00:36:11] Steve: there are people out there who are absolutely in a normalized discomfort state, but actually there's nothing bloody normal about it,
[00:36:17] Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:36:19] Steve: so yeah, I just wanted to just pick
[00:36:21] Stephanie: It's a really, it's a really good point and something that Really resonates for me having worked in diversity and inclusion. There we are, trying to recruit people of all sorts of different backgrounds so that we can, they can come in and they can transform our business. For example, they can give us the ideas and they can really challenge us and all of that.
But what actually happens is we. We hire people and then we ask them to assimilate, in a kind of a Borg kind of way. If you're going to belong here, then you need to look and act and talk in a very particular way. You need to not challenge, for example. And if you are going to challenge us, then you do have to do it in such a way that we can handle.
tone police you're probably familiar with that, you have to challenge us in a very particular way that doesn't really take on the systems of oppression that are at work there, we'll just make it look like it. So what happens for you as an individual is a variety of different things.
You'll cope with that in a different way. So you might actually do the assimilation because you know what you need, you want a job and actually this work is really interesting for you. And may, that's. Part of us as marginalized people is that we have to do that to some extent, to even get in the door.
But then there's a part of ourselves that we are always leaving behind and that's really sad, isn't it? And if we're there for a long time, that part might be lost to us. We don't get to feel that joy of like really being seen and really getting to express all the brilliant ideas that we have. And so that's really sad.
It's really sad. And to talk about like the way that feels in the body. Yeah. You're potentially, you can't, as you said, Steve, you can't live in that state of discomfort or disappointment all the time. So you probably end up numbing or you or in some way affects you like physically in the longterm, maybe, giving you all kinds of health problems.
It's bad, isn't it? It's bad. Much better to let people to come to work and be their whole beautiful selves in whatever that looks like and how other, however uncomfortable that feels to other people who are not used to seeing that version of a self. And yeah, super important.
[00:38:26] Steve: really important. And yeah, that's really sad. We talk about proportion anyway, is the environment shapes us and, or certainly impacts us. And of course, just when you said that, I actually got quite sad when you said it genuinely. I was like that's really sad is losing part of yourself because you're not engaging in it.
If you don't engage. I don't know if you don't engage in driving for a while, right? So you don't drive a car for five years. Then of course, when you jump in the car, it's going to feel pretty weird initially. I don't know. I just for me, it's yeah, you lose just to not engage part of your identity that you've been so used to because of the work environment.
Yeah, and then what a loss to the business in terms of just, unlocking and using that for the benefit of business or also to the team or to the, yeah, to innovation or to perspective or to all of the good stuff that can come
[00:39:23] Stephanie: yeah. And I think this is a journey I've been on. Certainly, I'm quite a femme straight looking person, even though I'm queer, and I think I often have been understood in the workplace to be a straight woman. And that has definitely I think at the early part of my career really helped me. And so I decided that stealth was all right and I wasn't very out at work.
And, that doesn't make me feel great in terms of how I was standing up for my other, for my fellow queer family, in, in that. And now, over these last few years, I've been trying to explore this is what I, I'm now 46, this is what I look like, but, and I'm comfortable with my gender expression, but how then, how in other ways might I be able to like, be in solidarity with my queer friends at work, so that they know that, so they can spot me, they know that I'm there, they know that I'm with them, or when I'm in a meeting room that I've that, that there is a similar experience or perhaps a lens that I am bringing to that conversation that they, we can perhaps, work together on.
So there's that sense of not being alone. I think that's one of the problems with assimilating. And it's not just for a queer experience, which could be very invisible, but it might be like a disability, for example, that might not be visible is if you're assimilating to make yourself look like the dominant identity.
Then it's difficult to find your, your fellow radicals in that room who are there together. And it's difficult to organize and then it's difficult to drive that. And it's also more difficult to spot allies. How is an ally going to spot you and go, Oh yeah, I want to be with you.
Hopefully allies just do it because they want to be great allies, but it's really helpful. If there's, if there's somebody in the room and it's reminds you like. Oh yeah, what about women or what about people of colour in this, thing, this app that we're designing or whatever it is that you're doing.
So yeah, assimilation can be really damaging for everybody who isn't of a marginalised identity as well. You just, yeah, you lose out on that beautiful kind of illustration of what life actually is. You miss all of that diversity of experience and insight. So yeah. Down with assimilation, man.
Yeah.
[00:41:38] Steve: Thanks for sharing that's very cool. I, for me, I get my design hat on now. Like, how are you expected to design and enhance the better, improved, more human employee experience without bringing everyone to the table? And. To design with all of those different labels, groups, tribes, humans, whatever level of kind of granularity we want to segment or think about or consider people, how are we meant to design better employee experiences without actually listening and really gaining understanding of those needs and to, yeah, and to build, or to, just to unlock that.
Just imagine unlocking that and amazing that would be. That's my mission. And I think that's something which, yeah, I think we need now more than ever,
[00:42:27] Stephanie: Yeah. How do we? We just end up building things that aren't very good, don't we? If we don't.
We end up building things that are just for a small number of people. And even those small number of people, they've, they've got, they're multifaceted. Everybody is multifaceted in their identities and their needs and wants and the things that they make visible and the things that they don't make visible.
Yeah, what a shame it would be not to make the most of that. And yeah, what a dull and well, just not properly functional thing we would be creating. If we don't harness all of those ideas. Yeah.
[00:42:57] Steve: this is the new paradigm. And I think, for the wrong reasons, COVID accelerated it, but that's the disruption in this. I think there's been huge opportunities to make some forward steps in this, in saying, we've been in this hamster wheel for so long, this industrial system, a systemic thing, and it's the fact we were just through this experience of COVID all wrong, of course.
What's the learning in this, in an extremely discomfort moment in working life and working history, but actually coming out of it with new perspectives. And I'm in, I'm very certain the human element. Really kicked in our ability to react, our ability to survive, our ability to grow and just be resourceful was to be seen.
And yeah, I'm not saying he was perfect, but I do think there was some goodness that came out of it as well that I hope
[00:43:51] Stephanie: yeah. And I want to come back to your original question, maybe a couple of questions ago to answer this point, you talked about, how are, how is hybrid working different or how has that potentially enabled a more like inclusive place to be. Absolutely. And my experience is I was working in a very large company over COVID, we were in, we're in over 70 different countries around the world.
It was, very diverse. And all of a sudden we were completely online and it really transformed how those meetings happened and the power dynamics. So we were headquartered in London, which meant that if you were in London, you had access, ordinarily before COVID, you had access to all the senior leaders if you happened to be in the office, right?
And so it was like unprecedented access to people of power if you were in the London office. If, however, you were in Bangalore, Bengaluru, sorry. You probably didn't have that same access. Moved to hybrid, moved to entirely online, and all of a sudden, whoever it is needs to be in that conversation is in that conversation, and you've all got the same size box.
Nobody's in a meeting room with anybody else, having a side conversation before or after. Everybody is being heard for what they say. I say that. Obviously, there's all these other lenses of, racism and sexism and that affects how people hear. what is being said. That aside, you have at least got everybody on that call is in there getting the same amount of time.
So whilst it doesn't solve everything, it does actually create some equality in terms of how much time and how much you like FaceTime is available to people. So I really enjoyed that. I liked that a lot. Yeah. And we saw some changes as a result of it.
[00:45:36] Steve: I love that. I haven't thought of that perspective actually. We all just, what you tended to do is a complaint of how many digital like zoom meetings there were back to back. But I love that perspective. I hadn't, we genuinely hadn't considered that. Steph, what can we leave the audience with in terms of any advice or guidance
[00:45:57] Stephanie: Oh, can I just talk about apologizing just for one minute? Is that okay? Because I feel I've talked about all this discomfort and I haven't really said what you do about that discomfort. I've talked about the flipping, but I just think. A really massive way to transform how we feel about discomfort and how we feel about ourselves in terms of like feeling shame or guilt about the things that we do wrong.
First of all, it's an acceptance that we do things wrong. We're trying really hard. But we do things wrong sometimes and so if we have the power of knowing how to apologize, and not everybody knows how to do that, it's not an innate thing that we're born with. If we know how to apologize then we actually know how to transform that into something good and it makes us feel great, it makes us feel like we have a sense of agency about making that change and and making a difference and then we can look at that person, we can make this apology and they can feel it and that's where the healing starts, that's what's possible and we can have this totally wonderful relationship then with this person that, maybe 10 minutes ago it was, not so great.
So there's been some research on what makes a great apology and I know I'm going to keep this really short but there's Six top things that you want to get in an apology. The first one, expression of regret. I'm really sorry that I did that, that I hurt you. So it's, I did this to you, the impact to you.
An explanation of what went wrong. So this requires you to have had a little think about why that might not have happened. That's why you don't do a great apology in the moment. You go away and you have a little bit to think about it and you're like, Oi! Yeah, that was bad. I think I might've done that because of this thing.
So it's, the third one is an acknowledgement of responsibility. So you're taking on, yeah, I did that thing. I hurt you. And I'm, I am really sorry about that. That was on me. And then there's a declaration of repentance. So yeah, I want to make up for this. I do. It's important for me that that, that this is better. And what I'm going to do is an offer and fifth one, which is an offer of repair. I'm going to do something about it. So it might be, for example, that you're going to promise or commit to, trying a different behavior in that meeting from now on. And then the last one is a request for forgiveness, but that is not essential.
The first five are more important. You don't have to request that forgiveness. And actually, I would say personally, maybe you shouldn't. It's up to that person how they accept or receive your own apology and they do not have to accept it. So I think, disconnect the apology from the forgiveness if you possibly can.
You're offering it to to repair any harm done, to build that relationship between the two of you. And so you can go on and be like more confident that you're not going to do that. To them or somebody else in the future.
[00:48:37] Steve: Yeah, and also God, when some things happened and it's affected you deeply. On an individual level, or you've inflicted it, or you've been the cause depending on your pro, who you are and how your mind works, that can really go deep with you. And you could lose sleep over it.
You can be, it can make you feel like shit basically for quite a while. And it's always in the back of your mind. There's all of these scenarios that happen. So I like the fact that there's this kind of, I love this six steps cause it's a process in order to acknowledge a number on a number of levels, but also accept there's a, there's a change or a shift and you've reflected on that, it's a meaningful, more intentional.
Communication
[00:49:21] Stephanie: Yeah
[00:49:22] Steve: and a way of expressing it. I love that. What happens, can I just ask the request for forgiveness, why would that be not necessary or necessary and don't expect forgiveness
[00:49:36] Stephanie: yeah, so that person might still be very raw about the thing that you said and They may not whilst you might be saying it to them there. You might be giving a really good apology It just might take some time for that to land for them. You know you saying it and you actually Doing it are two different things.
And they might have had a lot of people say to think, say to them in the past, Oh, I'm not going to do that again. And they just did it again. So there might be some skepticism in their mind about whether you will actually do it. So you can only really properly apologize in your behavior moving forward.
You're not actually doing the thing that you said you were going to do. So asking for their forgiveness in the moment might be too much for them. They might be like, yeah let's see. Let's see. And it might be that in a couple of months time or, maybe you are an ally to them in a meeting and somebody else says something, or you offer to give feedback to somebody else on their behalf, so they don't have to do the emotional labor.
And then they know that you are actually, you get it and you're there with them. And you can, you're up for supporting them. Maybe that's the moment when they say, thank you. I, I really appreciate it. I see. that you did it, and that's gorgeous.
[00:50:43] Steve: How lovely is that? I just about to say how lovely is that? It's yeah. And also that's a relationship building potential, your relationship level, I hope in scenarios, some scenarios, not all, but is that all it's going to do is either deepen or heighten and either of those are good.
My God. Wow. Steph, can I give you a piece of advice? You podcasting.
[00:51:06] Stephanie: Thanks.
[00:51:07] Steve: Yeah, honestly.
[00:51:08] Stephanie: I really enjoyed it. It's great.
[00:51:10] Steve: It's amazing. Do you know what? Lovely perspective, great passion. Your arms have been waving left and center during the conversation. And no, it's amazing. And also your voice is really good for
[00:51:21] Stephanie: Oh, that's
[00:51:22] Steve: You've got a good package there in terms of podcasting.
Let's see who else we can connect you with in, in the podcasting world with you if you're open to sharing your voice in these really cool perspectives out there. So I'd, I'm happy to to support you with that. Steph,
[00:51:35] Stephanie: been a pleasure.
[00:51:36] Steve: how can people connect with you
[00:51:38] Stephanie: Oh. Probably LinkedIn, I'm not really on social media. I find it better for my mental health not to be on there.
[00:51:45] Steve: Yeah,
[00:51:46] Stephanie: But I am on LinkedIn. So I'm Steph Robinson
[00:51:49] Steve: Steph Robinson, and is it Stephanie Robinson
[00:51:51] Stephanie: It is on LinkedIn. It's Stephanie. Yeah. Stephanie Robinson.
[00:51:55] Steve: a P H. P H?
[00:51:57] Stephanie: P H A N I E.
[00:51:58] Steve: Cool. I'm a Steven with a pH, even if I do call myself Steve. The pH crew, love it. And yeah, great to connect. And yeah, please reach out to Steph. If any of these topics or what we've discussed resonates with you.
And if I'm sure if you want to learn how to build a house in or composting that's also a great way to to reach out to Steph as well. That's
[00:52:18] Stephanie: Yes.
[00:52:19] Steve: Steph, thank you so much.
[00:52:21] Stephanie: Thank you. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Bye.