Please like, share, and subscribe!
TRANSCRIPT
Kelly Meerbott: Welcome to this space where we reveal our personal humanity or reconnect with our shared humanity. I am literally so excited to talk to you not only my friend, but brilliant, brilliant colleague, Kristin Donnelly, founder of ABI Research and co-author of the culture of burnout, which is a brilliant book and anybody that’s feeling a little crispy around the edges by this, because it’s I mean, everybody’s experiencing it. Kristen, welcome to hidden human, thank you for being here.
Kristen Donnelly: Oh, my gosh, thank you for asking me. This is a delight.
Kelly Meerbott: I know. I’m so excited. Okay. So talk to me about like, how did what happened to have you found ABI Research? What was the defining moment that triggered that?
Kristen Donnelly: The short answer is I earned my PhD and knew I didn’t want to be in academia. And I wanted to take all of that training that I had for 15 years in research, question asking, writing analysis of people in particular, and figure out a way to then help other people with it. And the one of the things that drives me particularly crazy about higher ed is that there’s really brilliant people producing really brilliant research that no one will ever read. And very few folks within that system are taught to create practical applications for that brilliant research. There is such a divide between commercial enterprise and academic research, in general, and in particular, the social sciences, which is what my training is in.
I know that because the longer answer is that I am part of a family business and have been for 33 odd years. I’m the second generation co-owner, my brother, and I took it over from our dad. What I have heard my whole life is that if it doesn’t feed or clothe people, it’s not an idea worth having. So how do we take these ideas and make them practical? My training is in social work and anthropology, psychology, and sociology. All that means is that I really, really love figuring out how people live the way they live, why they live that way, and how they all work together. My dad and I figured that that would work really well to help companies figure out how to treat their employees better, which then makes them more money. But the most important thing is to treat their employees better.
So I moved, emigrated home after my doctorate, which I earned overseas, and I joined the family company, and we started this division of it. About a year later, I hired my best friend to help me do it, which was very delightful because doing it on your own is always hard.
Kelly Meerbott: Aaron, we were going to give her a shot.
Kristen Donnelly: So that’s kind of the journey. It was a two-fold thing. It was a real heart desire on me to stop creating, well, honestly, for other people to stop making money off my ideas and my labor. And then also that I did have, and I always want to acknowledge that privilege, I did have this existing umbrella to step under and figure that all out.
Kelly Meerbott: And I’ve known this story, I’ll be transparent. But what I was thinking about is the word research and how since like, 2016, that has been bastardized and twisted and people are like I did my research. So could you in a way, maybe a six-year-old could understand explain the process. As a PhD, Dr. Kristen? What, what does that look like? What does that require?
Kristen Donnelly: So you might remember back in elementary school, we were all taught the scientific method, that there is you have a hypothesis, you conduct research to test the hypothesis, you decide if the hypothesis is true or false, then you move on from there. That’s generally the way it works. That’s research. You have a hypothesis, you gather data for that hypothesis, and you decide if that hypothesis is true or false. Some of the issue is not the process all the time by which these people are doing research. The process is where they’re gathering the data.
So we as academics, gather data from sources that are you know, we use the phrase peer-reviewed, but like people who they’re not talking out of nothing, they are coming to you with research. So you know that if they are making a statement, their conclusion is scientifically based. When you just do research based on like Facebook posts, that all that is doing is gathering a group of people who probably already agree with each other, and may or may not have citations and/or receipts for that, and kind of moving on.
Research is, and I will say like, it’s been really bad, like, you know, as you use the word bastardized for the last 10 odd years, but when I look back at like some of the histories of the academy, like, it’s been that way for a long time, like lots of people that will say, I did my research, and I’ll be really honest, academics will tell you, they did their research, and all they did was talk to their friends. So it’s, it’s very, it’s a fluid word in that way.
The best way I can help you understand it is that everyone is curious. And that’s wonderful. You should always chase curiosity, you should always be willing that you could be wrong. And if you are gathering all the data agrees with you double check, you’re getting data from neutral sources.
Kelly Meerbott: Okay. Yeah, that’s, I mean, I think that that’s part of it. I mean, I also believe that critical thinking has gone out the window. Like for me, this is the way I do my research, I see something that piques my curiosity. And then I’ll go to the original source. So like, for instance, if a New York Times article is quoting the World Health Organization, I’ll go find that press release to make sure that again, they’re not taking things out of context, because what I’ve found, at least with your research and other PhDs that I work with, and our colleagues is there’s a lot of nuance and context that is often missed by pulling a headline from Facebook.
Kristen Donnelly: The thing that’s always important to remember is that people make money off your fear. And that’s the driving force of so much of information right now is that people make money off making you afraid of something. Our book has more citations in it than my doctorate does. Because we were even more careful here to make sure that everything was covered because we wanted the context. And I remember when we started writing, we’re like, oh, this can just be like, a 100-page book, like, sure we can do it. And the more we started unpacking it, it’s, it’s, you know, 250, 300 pages, depending on your Kindle size.
Kelly Meerbott: To kind of backup what Kristen is saying, not only are they citing, but they’ve got a QR code to give you the citation list. So they are backing up their stuff. So this is research in a source and a source you can trust, because they’ve done their work.
Kristen Donnelly: We certainly did the work and we hope you can trust us for sure. And that’s the difference. I think in some ways. I don’t know, I was just reading a book that was published, supposedly by an Academic Press about the history of music fandom in the UK, there is not a single citation, she quotes people all the time, she’ll quote books, she’ll quote everything, there’s not a single citation. And I’m just like, but I can’t chase that up, I can’t double-check that that’s what you’re doing. I can’t make sure that it’s okay. So I’ll take some of your conclusions because they sound logical based on your chain here. But I’m gonna put a little asterix in my brain as to I know that you’re quoting this thing correctly. And that’s when people make money off of fear. Fear demands immediate reaction. So when the whole process of media is to make you afraid of something, it discourages what you do Kelly of like chasing up the sources because I have to make a decision right now. I can’t sit with something I’ve been I’ve not been given the permission to find cognitive dissonance. I’ve not I’m not encouraged to be curious about things because you’re right.
Some of it is that when we moved to teach the test in the American education system, we started to punish kids for a lot of critical thinking and a lot of creative thinking. And some of it is that the more we consume news via headlines instead of news via content, the more we are programmed to simply react out of fear.
Kelly Meerbott: I’ve told this story many times, but I started my career as an associate producer at WPTV in West Palm Beach as the NBC affiliate. And I remember walking into Pat Burns’ office who was the news director, and he didn’t want to these, right, and you know, as a Catholic like what I do, right? So that was kind of my mindset, and I walk into his office and he’s like, we’re glad you’re here. We want to welcome you and I want to give you two tips to let you know how you can be successful on local news. And I was like, okay, and he said number one, if it bleeds, it leads, meaning if it’s in a block, so just for context, a news block is the news and then the block ends when the commercial start reading, right? So bleeds it leads.
The second one is we need to scare our viewers enough. So they’ll stay for the five, 5:30, and 6:00 broadcasts. And if we roll them into 11:30 at night, we’ve done our job. And it was at that moment that I was like, nope, nope. And I also and I would love to hear your thoughts about this. And then we’ll pivot into leadership questions is follow the money. We were talking with our producer Taylor, who’s on to that I did a stint of 11 years at Clear Channel, now iHeartMedia. And they were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, you know, a publicly traded company owned by three white men and of San Antonio, Texas. And what you need to do is look at who the major shareholders are, or the major advertisers, because even though they say it’s church and state between sales and programming, it’s not. It’s not It’s driven by advertising dollars.
Kristen Donnelly: A great example is like literally happening right now, as you and I talk, there’s a they’re an ice hockey team, and the Arizona Coyotes were just abruptly sold and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. And like, two weeks ago, so after years of a whole lot of back and forth, and a lot of a lot of lying on behalf of ownership to the fan base and a whole lot. Even like earlier this year, they said, Don’t worry, the coyotes aren’t moving. And about two weeks ago, they got news that they’d be moving right after their final game. And it was none of the players like the players found out from Twitter, like no one knew anything like, Oh, it’s just mismanaged. But the whole time I kept I was a you know, I’m on some hockey discourse. And I just kept saying, who in Utah has the money to do this? Like that? No, no league moves this fast. No giant multinational organization moves this fast without a ton of cash.
It came out that it’s the ownership of the Utah Jazz basketball team that wanted that wants a franchise in Utah immediately. Now, let me say really quick, Utah, Salt Lake City makes a lot of sense for a hockey franchise. They’ve wanted one for a long time. So the problem is not the movement. The problem is not the creation. The problem is not any of that. The problem is the speed. And money makes things happen really, really quickly. And money makes things happen quickly to have the emotional, financial, and structural deficit of individuals. And that’s what’s happening in Phoenix right now. And there is no reason to do it the way they’re doing it right now, except that somebody with a lot of money wants it to happen.
Kelly Meerbott: So let’s take that a step further. Money covers an assortment of cruelties. I mean, I don’t really want to get into P Diddy, but like,
Kristen Donnelly: If there’s any number of people we can get into in that category. Yeah. But yeah, no, P Diddy today, even though we are not fans of that going on. And there are too many similarities to Jeffrey Epstein. And we’ll leave it at that.
Kelly Meerbott: So Kristen, share a pivotal moment in your career that significantly shaped your leadership style.
Kristen Donnelly: No, because I don’t, it’s been all tiny, little things. So I don’t think this is like significant, necessarily. But a big chunk of it for me is that I was raised in the evangelical church movement. And grew up in that world. I did a lot of leadership in that world. That was my first taste I did. Like I was one of those kids who was like volunteer youth worker, while I was a youth, like, I’ve always been in leadership positions in some way. And I was growing up at the time where people were starting to have the conversations about a lot of different leadership styles. So I was born in 1983. So I’m kind of coming of these conversations in the late 90s, which is around the time when John Maxwell was about to hit the height of his power. It’s all right there.
The big thing at that time was servant leadership. Huge. And it was a phrase I had never heard before. When I looked back at the history of leadership, it wasn’t used a whole lot before the late 90s. It certainly didn’t have the public traction, it started to get in the late 90s. And I remember hearing this idea of that a leader should be the person who makes everyone else around them better. And like that was the thing I grabbed on to it wasn’t a moment, it wasn’t anything else. I just marinated in it for so long that I was like, Oh no, this is what leadership looks like. And then whenever I would hit up against other kinds of leadership, I would get the kind of arrogance that only comes from like your early 20s and get really grumpy and believe it or not but what my way is better like Excuse you.
It is now that I have been in a lot of very varied, I believe very, very leadership roles. Not necessarily a lot of them but they’ve all been different. The more I am convinced that the only way I know how to lead the only way I know how to call on our company is servant leadership. There are so many other kinds. And that works. And we all need other kinds. But I don’t have like a moment or an experience. It’s just that that’s where I marinated as a teenager. And it has since then been continually confirmed for me that it’s what works best for my personality.
Kelly Meerbott: I love that. And it reminded me of a quote from Lao Tzu where he says, to lead the people walk behind them, and that’s really, I see it as a rudder, right, that’s kind of in the trenches, and really, kind of driving things, but not, to me, I’m not a big fan of influence, like I want people to come to it on their own, because it’s just more sustainable.
Kristen Donnelly: The way I think about it now a lot is that as an owner in particular, and I will, so we’ve been legal owners for about three years now. And I knew I was going to be a legal owner for about four years before that, like we knew we were moving towards that. And I will tell you, that being in charge and owning it are very different emotions, very different emotions, similar, but different. The way so the way I view it now is that it’s my job in this building to keep my employees safe. Physically safe, emotionally safe, economically safe, my job is to keep them safe, so that then they can do their jobs, the jobs I have hired them to do. And so if they are not physically emotionally, financially safe, that is my fault. My job is to support them. And that’s how I understand servant leadership. Like they have no idea what I do every day all day, and I don’t want them to they don’t need to. But what I want them to understand is that everything I do is to support them. They do not need details, they do not need any of that, but they whatever I do is to support them. And that to me, that’s the enactment of servant leadership now, like that’s how it puts be on it in a way. I just I think a lot about especially since lockdowns, I’ll admit. But and we are in manufacturing. So I have to think you know, why file OSHA reports. But I think a lot about what does safety look like, and when people feel safe, that they can thrive. And so how do we do that? And that’s the servant. That’s how I now interpret it.
Kelly Meerbott: I think what Kristin really models and embodies and and acts really well as a leader is psychological safety. You know, that’s, and that’s part of the safety that you need at a workspace you to show up fully as yourself, you know, and you do that so beautifully. And even though they don’t know what you’re doing, you’re really modeling the way So bravo. I just, you know, I love the way you you model an example of leadership. So in your perspective, what are like the key indicators what has to show so that you know that your servant leadership or the embodiment of Your servant leadership is successful?
Kristen Donnelly: I’ll be very millennial for a minute and say, like, some of its vibes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, some of its vibes. If, if they’re if my employees are willing to joke with me and or make fun of me, that’s important. Give me nicknames that’s important. So I have I kind of have two sets of employees that are really important. So I have my little ABI research team that it’s Erin, who technically like I signed her paychecks but like it’s it’s a unique relationship. And then we have a third member named Eleanor, who’s who’s one of my other best friends. And so we kind of work that way together. And so the way I know that I’ve created safety for them is like that they’ll pop in the slack that they’re taking like a mental health day, or like, hey, something’s really bad, can you take this meeting for me or things like that, where they don’t have any, any even breath, have a thought that I would be punitive about them doing that, that there would be anything like that the other the other manufacturing place where I share with my brother, and he does a lot more of the day to day management of that particular side of things, lots, lots more. And so I know the way he creates, I can tell he is creating safety, they are willing to come to him with frustrations about other employees instead of just talking to each other or about each other. And that they expect that if he can’t fix it, he will address it. And that’s and same with like, you know, I’m just physically not in the building a lot. I travel a lot. But if I’m here and something happens, that also occurs, you know, we get to know some of their personal lives and that’s their choice. We, you know, we don’t ever in assume, but we had an employee a couple months ago with a family crisis out of state. And, you know, she has said like we, you know, told her take as long as she needed, figured out how to help her get down there financially because it was, you know, a big financial jump to get down to get to where she needed to go, and that she knew her job was waiting for her. And that wasn’t a question like there’s just no way that we would have ever punished her for her family member being sick. I think yeah, we eat we had a couple employees a while ago they’ve since moved on to other roles, which is amazing. I love it when people move on to better pastures for us. But like they were both fired from bigger companies, like while they were on mat leave. And I remember that the attorney leave for maternity leave Sorry. Yeah. The first time they got pregnant after like with us, they were both terrified. And like, just kept saying, like, whatever you want to give me whatever you want to do. It’s totally fine. I was like, No. And I wasn’t fully with the company at the time, I was just talking to my dad on the phone. He goes, so what do I do? I was like, just ask them what they want. Because they’re not telling me what they want. Because they’re so terrified. I was like, well, then, oh, my gosh, like it didn’t even occur to me that it would be that terrifying. But I can see from their perspective, that like, they’re assuming we’re going to behave the same way. And so then it just became a negotiation. Like, here’s what we think can happen in our framework. How does that feel for you kind of thing, and it was a, the way listening to how they talk about the difference between how we handle their pregnancies and how past people handle their pregnancies is another indicator that I have that we’re doing our job.
Kelly Meerbott: I mean, it’s that’s clear, you know, and what it reminds me of, as I’m reading this book that my mentee recommended, because I’ll be real, I am not great at rest. And I’m trying to like, and you know, that about me, I’m type A shocking. But she says, Trisha, it’s a great book. It’s called “Rest as Resistance” by Trisha Hersey. She founded the Nap Ministry, and she was talking about how rest and the workplace it’s driven by capitalism. Again, I know you’re shocked, started in the fields of the plantations. And she was talking either about a something she read or a relative, who was an enslaved male who had a head wound that they sent back out into the fields. Fast forward to her Tricia, working in corporate or working, and she got into a car accident that ended up her her in the hospital emergency room with a pinched nerve. And her boss called her and was like, Yeah, but can you muster up the strength to come in? And I was like, um, do we not see that this is a fundamental problem with our society?
Kristen Donnelly: It goes farther back even in the plantations because she’s totally right. Like, that’s where a lot of it started. But there’s this other piece of it, where we have decided we decided a long, long time ago, like when the Puritans came over in the 1600s, that hard work is a moral value. Like you are only a good person if you work really hard. And then I mean, the plantation system is translated that where it’s like, I worked really hard for two days when I was four. And now I can enslave people. And that’s working really hard. So like, there’s a there’s a lot of a lot of mis-permutations in that phrase. But there’s still the fundamental difference. I mean, like in Bezos will tell you that he works really hard, like, Yeah, but if you’re not a hard worker, you’re not a good person. And so then what you fast forward that to corporate and asking for time off means you’re lazy, which means you’re bad. That’s how we’ve structured everything where we only want to work with good people, and we want to fire bad people.
So when you ask that kind of question, what he’s not asking if she’s hurt, he’s asking if she’s a good person.
Kelly Meerbott: I was in San Diego, let’s see the 17th of March through the 20th. I mean, came back the 20th. As we like five o’clock. The next day around, I’d say seven o’clock. So 21st I start getting this dry cough, like with head ended up sleeping all weekend, like 16 hours. I’m like, this isn’t going away. So I go in get and my my primary care is starting her own wellness center. So it’s not open to June 1. And I was like, of course. So Urgent Care tests me and they’re like, well, we’ll swab you for flu, strep and COVID. And I was like, well, it’s not flu or COVID because I’m vaccinated and boosted. And he goes, Do you want me to show you the results? And I said, No, I went through the pandemic never got it. So it was like a badge of honor. Fast forward, I clear my day, Tuesday, which you know me and my team was like, Wait, what’s going on? You don’t ever clear your day? What’s what’s that about? And I rested that Tuesday, but the whole time I felt guilty. I felt wrong. I felt, you know, and I only took that one day off one day with you know, and it’s, I think your point is, it’s it’s not just, you know, something we talk about it is infused in our DNA and has been reinforced generation after generation. And thank God for millennials and Gen Z’s because y’all are like, nope, nope, that’s not working. So thank you for that. And sorry for messing up the world and please let us know. We can help you because I’m a member of Gen X, but I’m curious because you know, talking about the mat leave and what you all did, which didn’t, doesn’t surprise me at least. Because Roger, your dad is like, really? You know, he’s, he’s a great leader too. But how do you approach conflict resolution within your organization?
Kristen Donnelly: Stories. That’s how we approach stories. So when something happens, kind of the first I mean, so first of all, if it’s very heated emotions, and or physical violence is possible, people are removed from each other to calm down, immediately. If somebody throws a punch, if there’s physical violence that person has sent home immediately that day. So if there is that kind of level of escalation, it is immediately handled, very, very clear cut ways. Because, again, safety is paramount at all times. If it is a more kind of common low-level conflict, or it’s very emotional, but not to physical violence levels, what happens is that we ask people to tell us their perspective on what happened. That’s the start of it. That allows us to gather data, honestly, this is, again, the scientific method, we gather the data that we have because perception is reality. It doesn’t matter necessarily what happened all the time. What matters is how people feel and perceive what happened. So starting with asking that question, tell me what happened allows us to gather that kind of data. We do that with as many parties as possible.
Very key for me in particular is we ask them, What do you want to be done? Is this a formal complaint? Are you filing a formal complaint? Do you need to blow off steam right now? Is this something that you need me to step in and take care of? What do you want to do as the injured party as it were? Often, both parties feel very injured. And so that becomes the negotiation. But once we know what they think happened, how they feel about what happened, and what they want to happen next, then decisions can get made.
Kelly Meerbott: I’m going to throw out a scenario to you because I know that you’ve probably experienced this. So when I do organizational change within an organization, sometimes what I hear is, yes, we go through all that stuff, those steps, but we don’t complete the process meaning, okay, somebody tells you, Kristen, I want a new policy changed. You hear it? And you go, okay, okay. Okay. And don’t do that, which is the opposite of what Kristen and her family do. Just be clear. What is the impact of literally not doing anything?
Kristen Donnelly: Trust is broken. You haven’t resolved the conflict. You haven’t shown the person that their voice, their experience, their emotions, or perhaps even their physical safety matters. Let me also say that if you there’s a lot of ways to handle this not doing anything is not the way but let’s say this person wants a policy change, and you go through and in the moment, you’re like, I’ll explore that which feels like blow-off language. But it’s also just from a leadership perspective. True. I can’t make you a promise right now. So you go through and you look and you realize the policy can’t be changed. The ramifications are too big. It just doesn’t work that way. So then you go back to that person, and say, Hey, we explored this. And we took your suggestion on board and we did as much as we could, it’s not going to be possible. But I want you to know that that you were heard. We regret this incident. And we agree with you that what happened was wrong. I can’t change the policy. Because what really happened isn’t the policy or if I change the policy, it’ll happen again, or whatever. People deserve context and transparency as much as you can give it to them. So when that happens, just tell them what’s going on. When you don’t, you break trust and people start updating their resumes or they go on Glassdoor. If somebody resigns out of nowhere, you are part of the problem.
Kelly Meerbott: Yeah, I mean, I tell people that all the time. You can lose trust in a second, and then taking the time to rebuild it. I’ve got a leader right now of a huge organization. And he’s like, I don’t know why trust is impossible. And now that you’re putting a new context on it, I’m like, Oh, yes. I go back to that Ted Lasso scene in the very beginning when Roy says, So you want me to tell you if the snacks are tasty in the shower, stay and what happened is they changed the snacks and fix the showers. And while that may be comedic, it’s really makes a huge impact
Kristen Donnelly: The dictum that people will lose trust in a moment, I’m not always sure that happens. Let me offer slight encouragement. Humans are people of pattern. That’s why apologies are so important in the beginning. They want to hear that you’re sorry, only say it if you actually are, but then the behavior has to change. One time that does it, if it’s a really big deal, could lose you trust immediately. But if it’s a tiny thing, it’s just going to make them ask questions. They’re going to question if your behavior is a pattern or one-off. The more evidence you give them of how you behave, that’s when trust crumbles.
Kelly Meerbott: I say this to my clients, you know, an apology without a behavior change is manipulation. It’s just, you know, I mean, and I’ve seen it so many times. And my philosophy as a coach is to be honest, transparent, and truthful up to the point of liability. So you don’t want to put the company in a position where it’s, you know, if you’re working in a government contractor, you’re not going on below top-secret clearance. If you’re working in a healthcare agency, you’re not violating HIPAA, things like that. But for me, the more a leader can be honest, transparent, and truthful, the more you’re going to bond. One of the things I heard a lot, and I’d be interested to hear what you heard. But I had a lot of CEOs during 2020, calling me and going, I don’t know what’s going on. And I don’t know what to tell my people. And I said, tell them that. Because you’re going to bond in the ambiguity. If you sit there trying to predict what’s going to happen, which none of us could people know you’re lying. And then you talk about trust crumbling, I mean, that is just the first way to do it. So you and I are big advocates of diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging. Why is that so important for an organization? I mean, you and I both know, because it’s part of our Heart Walk, you know, because I mean, I just believe everybody needs to be included, however they show up. But from a PhD standpoint and a business standpoint, why is that important?
Kristen Donnelly: The data shows that the more inclusive your organization is, the more money you make, the more inclusive your organization is, the more stable it is, the less conflict you know, kind of thing. Getting to that point is conflict and mass and a lot of stuff. I get frustrated when CNBC headlines are like hire a D&I board, that’s not going to do it. There’s work around that there. But once you get to that point, where everyone can show up as their full selves, it’s always more stable, more creative, more innovative, all of that all the data shows it around the world. Getting there is hard, I’m never gonna say it’s not. But if that’s your end goal, and you’re willing to put in the work, your company will thrive. So that’s that. Why is the more fascinating question to me and the one I like to talk about more. And part of that is because you never actually know who people are. And if you decide who a person is, and how they should show up to work and the role they should have before and I’m not talking about job description, I’m talking about role.
If you’re not sure of the difference between those things, I would love to have that larger conversation with you.
Kelly Meerbott: Can you make a brief distinction for the audience?
Kristen Donnelly: So a job description is the tasks they do. A role is the emotional position they play within the company, it doesn’t matter if the person is the custodian or the CEO, you need to know who’s in charge of knowing everyone’s birthdays. That’s what I mean by role rather than position. When you allow people to have roles and not positions in a certain way, they bring more of themselves. The more of themselves they can bring, the more willing they are to bring ideas from those other identities. I was in academia for years, I was in ministry, I am now in rooms with manufacturing often the girl in the room. A couple of things all happen within a pattern. If I speak my mind, that doesn’t go well all the time. A couple of times, especially in ministry, I would get asked to do the tea and coffee, which I did because I just didn’t want to have the argument I will admit just didn’t want to have it. And then sometime but always at some point in the meeting, somebody would say as a woman, will you here are the other things they could have asked me. They could have said, you know, in some circumstances, they could have said as an expat, they could have said as you know, as somebody with as a neurodivergent person, could you give us your perspective as a fat person? Could you tell us what you think about as somebody who has more degrees than any other human should have? Can you tell us like all this kind of stuff? Or they could have just looked at me and said, Kristen, what do you think?
If in that conversation in that meeting, it had been communicated clearly that I was allowed to be who I was supposed to be in that meeting, I could have brought up any of it. I will say if when we say things like, bring your full self to work, and that doesn’t resonate with you listener, and you don’t understand what we mean, my guess is going to be that every room you walk into you are welcomed and safe, or the majority of them are, and that there’s not pieces of your life that other people question, or would feel weird asking you about. That’s not the case for a lot of other people. I have a friend who uses a wheelchair, and she is either always, she is always the disabled woman in the room. There isn’t an understanding of her as a full person who also has this thing happening. She would also like to bring it up sometimes without feeling like the token disabled person in the room.
This nuance is weird, I admit it. It’s hard to always design policies around it. But it’s not hard to design postures around it. If your organization has the posture that we want all humans to show up on their terms. We want messy humans here. Because mess is where innovation comes from. Then that’s the kind of folks you’re going to attract. You are going to have more conflict. But if you have it at the beginning, especially, there’s also a difference between conflict and like, I don’t know, like disagreeing chairs or throwing deer on the board on talking real housewives or talking about ideological conflict, you’re gonna have it. If you’re not prepared to have that don’t do this work.
Kelly Meerbott: The other thing is, you’re gonna have ideological conflict, but you might have policy conflicts, like for me, people are so afraid of that word. The way I design it, the way I explain it is it’s like a risk assessment. Don’t you want to know if you’re walking through a field of landmines? Wouldn’t you want to know where they are? That’s what conflict does. As long as there are agreements made, like, we’re not going to get personal, we’re not going to use violent language, we’re going to agree to disagree, if we need to, we’re going to attack the information on the people. Conflict is really very productive. If you’ve created that environment, and people are having conflict and able to walk away, still respect each other and do their jobs. You’ve done it. When Kristen was talking about being the only in the room, which has happened to me many, many, many times. I was smiling and laughing, it’s because it’s happened to me. It’s not I’m laughing at her. It’s so interesting, the questions that get thrown at me or resistance, and I will literally go would you ask a man that? Or would you say, like, I had somebody say to me recently, when we’re kicking off a strategic plan, you know, don’t talk to me, like, I’m a first grader. And I was like, we are we’re just conveying the information. And he said, you know, we’re, you’re pandering, and I was like, why are you first of all categorizing me as a first-grade teacher? Number one, number two, I don’t have a tone. I’m just very flat. Like, it’s not about me, it’s really about what’s going on with you. So yeah, it’s interesting. It’s very interesting. And I often think about you in those rooms and wrap you in a lot of light and love. So I’m just really curious what and you may say that, you know, you had a bunch of along the way, which I have, but what’s a mistake that you’ve made in leadership that, you know, help that you learn from and helps you pivot?
Kristen Donnelly: I assume way too many things. And I think I know somebody and I will make decisions about how I’m going to handle something based on who I think they are. Sometimes that’s fine, because I do know the person or it’s a thing that has already happened, and this has been how they’ve reacted in the past and I can make some tentative plans and I can do that. But more often than not, it absolutely bites me in the butt. I need to we tell our clients all the time to ask more questions and make fewer assumptions. That’s the baseline of our company. I fail at it on a regular basis. So much of it is my is expediency, I want the decision quickly, and they might not be able to provide the information or meet with me or whatnot. I will sacrifice excellence for expediency. Far too often especially when it comes to people, never when it comes to a product, but definitely when it comes to people. I have to remind myself and teach myself that routinely. For a whole host of reasons, I’m really grateful that I keep getting the trust to make that mistake. I’m really, really, really grateful for it. But especially in circumstances where people make a lot of assumptions about me. It’s my job to clearly communicate exactly who I am, and how I’m going to respond and how I see the world. What that looks like so that they can also make intelligent decisions about how to interact with me. We traffic in assumptions far too much. That’s my real sad.
Kelly Meerbott: Just a little tip, the way I do it is slow it down. Even if I have like a head of a pin kind of doubt. I’ll say, Kristen, I know what that means, in my mind. Can you bring me to the situation and give me the context and nuance so I can understand it?
Kristen Donnelly: I’m good at doing it when they’re in front of me because that’s the social work training. I can do that. What I’m really bad at is when they’re not there, and I’m trying to solve the problem at 3 am. And then I decide what they’re going to do. That’s my real issue. I’m much better if they’re in front of me.
Kelly Meerbott: Listen, I hear you. Are you okay with some rapid-fire questions?
Kristen Donnelly: Absolutely.
Kelly Meerbott: Okay, so what’s your favorite comfort food?
Kristen Donnelly: Salmon Pokeballs.
Kelly Meerbott: Where is there a place you like to frequent?
Kristen Donnelly: Yeah, there’s a chain but there’s a Poke Brothers by my house and they make it exactly how I like it.
Kelly Meerbott: Nice. Is there like tell me how they how you make it how they make it.
Kristen Donnelly: Sushi rice. Salmon, sushi rice, edamame, a seaweed salad. Salmon and yellowfin tuna? Raw salmon, raw tuna. Wasabi sauce. And Masako. That’s how I like it done.
Kelly Meerbott: That sounds delicious. So go poke brothers. Awesome. Okay, what books are on your nightstand?
Kristen Donnelly: Almost entirely romance. Then a couple of nonfiction I’m working on. We’re working on our next book. So nonfiction I am reading I’m gonna turn my head to look for the title. I’m reading “Beauty Sick” about the process of how the marketing of the beauty industry shapes how people think about themselves. Specifically, I believe it’s specifically like in the 90s looking at that. I just started it yesterday. Everything on my personal nightstand is everything on my personal Kindle is all romance.
Kelly Meerbott: Do you have a favorite author for romance?
Kristen Donnelly: The one I would recommend if you’ve never read a romance novel, Nora Roberts is a really good place to start. She’s the queen of she’s the queen. Historically, I still love Julia Quinn if she wrote the Bridgerton series, and then modern wise my two favorite are Serena Bowen and Rachel Reid.
Kelly Meerbott: Nice. Okay. Get some romance in your life. What songs are on your playlist?
Kristen Donnelly: Noah Kahan is a big one right now. I’m listening to Stick Season on repeat. In about 12 hours Taylor Swift’s new song new album will come out and that will become my life.
Kelly Meerbott: Are you a Swifty?
Kristen Donnelly: Total Swifty.
Kelly Meerbott: So I’m a toe in toe out toe and toe out Swifty like and I don’t even believe I earned the title like I’m afraid to even say that. But I will tell you i i love her. I love Beyonce. But I look at them from business perspectives like they’re geniuses. That decision to go direct to AMC was genius.
Kristen Donnelly: I’m not a Swifty in it. Like I don’t do the deep dives into all the easter eggs and like anything else like that. I went to the Eras tour one of the best nights of my life. I listen to her a lot. So I’m a Swifty in that way. I’m not a Swifty in the way that creeps anybody out I promise.
Kelly Meerbott: I’m not adding numbers and doing Oh by
Kristen Donnelly: When that kind of happens Aaron I will text each other and be like please just go outside and take a deep breath guys. You’re gonna be okay, please go touch grass. You’re gonna be okay.
Kelly Meerbott: But I think the reason why so many people resonate with her and resonate with Beyonce is they give us they give our inner world as humans voices.
Kristen Donnelly: 100% The musicians that you resonate with full stop do that. Speaking of Noah Kahan, one of his songs has the line, the doc told me to travel, but there’s COVID on the plane. Aaron, I’ve had so many conversations about how that’s the first song we can think of that captures 2020 and 2021 in a line. There’s COVID on the plane, I can’t get on the plane. That’s where COVID lives. We resonate with that so much. When that line comes up, when it’s in my Spotify, and I’m driving down the road, the emotions that come with screaming that line and the memories and what it looks like. All music does that, I think specifically to take your point about Beyonce and Taylor, they are also radically honest about a female experience. That is rare, and they are radically honest about a female experience even outside of romantic relationships.
My favorite Taylor song is “The Man” which is on the album “Lover” that talks about how hard it is to be a woman, it is literally impossible to be a woman in song form. She has a line in that that says, when everyone believes you, what’s that like?
Kelly Meerbott: Every time that hits me because I’m a survivor of sexual assault. Still to this day, people don’t believe me, and it’s a trigger. The other one I like is “Mad Woman” where she’s talking about every time you call me crazy. It makes me crazy. I’ve been labeled that too. Even as I’m talking about it, I’m getting chills. What are you most grateful for in this moment right now?
Kristen Donnelly: My family. Always in forever, both the ones that both the one I was born into and the one I’ve chosen my family.
Kelly Meerbott: Hopefully I’m part of that.
Kristen Donnelly: Absolutely.
Kelly Meerbott: If somebody wants to connect with you and Aaron’s genius, and about the book about work about the next book, how do we get in touch with you?
Kristen Donnelly: The simplest way is cultureofburnout.com. That’s the book like that’s it and it’ll have all of our links on there. Our company is ABI Research. It’s spelled with an EY at the end of ABI ABBEY research. My name is Kristin Donnelly, you can find me on LinkedIn, we’re kind of all over the place. But the fastest way to find the most information about us is cultureofburnout.com.
Kelly Meerbott: It’s an amazing book, make sure you go do so a lot of fun writing it. I love Kristen, Kristen wrote a great quote for the back of my book, too. Thank you, Kristen, for taking your time because time is currency and we really know how valuable it is here at Hidden Human. Thank you to our audience for listening. It’s our intention here on Hidden Human to inspire you to go out and have authentic conversations to deepen the connections in your life. Thank you so much, and make it a great day.
