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Adriana Robertson:
And within organizations, have we actually created an organization, a space of belonging, or are we inviting conformity? And part of that exploration requires us to take a step back and say, if we look at the norm structures and systems that are in place, who created them? Who's benefiting from them and who's not?

Niko Skievaski:
Hello and welcome to The People Everywhere Show where we explore how remote companies build thriving cultures. I'm Niko Skievaski and my co-host is Andy Kitson. And what a show we have for you today. When we came up with the idea for this podcast, Adrianna Robertson was one of the first people I knew we needed to talk with. Some quick background on Adriana. She's the co-founder and chief product officer at PRDX. PRDX is a collective of entrepreneurial leaders committed to co-creating more belonging and flow in their lives, relationships, and teams. PRDX holds multiday retreats and ongoing programs, teaching the skills required to generate and facilitate belonging and flow. My co-founder of Redox, Luke, and I have been a part of this collective for the past few years, and I can attest that it has fundamentally changed my career path as a leader precisely when I needed it the most. And we've brought many of the practices back to the company holding retreats for our team that really act as our cultural leadership training program at Redox. Adriana has a background in international development, youth development, psychology, she was a life coach, a yoga teacher, a mindfulness educator, and most recently worked at Harvard as a leadership trainer before co-founding PRDX. She'll share a little more in the episode that nicely links all of this work together under the single thread of belonging. Belonging is a term that comes up frequently in workplace culture these days. And in this show, we dive into what blogging actually means, its key characteristics, why it's fundamentally important, a basic human need, as Adriana describes it. And we get into really tactical discussions about the behaviors and methods that you can use to build more belonging for yourself, as well as the teams that you're part of. And with that, I am so excited to welcome Adriana to the show. What do we mean when we say belonging and why does it even matter, especially in the, in a working setting?

Adriana Robertson:
So first of all, I think it's worth noting that the need to belong is a core human need that's hardwired into the DNA of all social animals, including humans. So much so that, like psychologists and researchers, have found that the need to belong actually follows the same neural pathways as the one of physical pain in our system. So it's actually been named the neural alarm system. So when we feel excluded or when we feel like we don't belong, it actually activates the same neural pathway as if we were experiencing intense physical pain. So that just goes to show the importance of this. In terms of our evolution as humans, we, we had to belong. We had to be a part of tribes in order to continue existing, and that need hasn't gone anywhere, it might look different in terms of how it shows up today, but I think that's really worth establishing from the get-go as we enter this conversation. And I also just want to mention a framework or a model that's been used to understand belonging that I think can be really helpful when we talk about this. So Dr. Marilyn Brewer, who's a prominent social psychologist at UCLA, she spent the vast majority of her career studying belonging. And through her research, she found that belonging, when we talk about belonging, we're really talking about this optimal intersection between inclusion and distinctiveness. So we want to feel distinctive, we want to be able to show up authentically, to be ourselves, to express freely, and at the same time, we want to be included. We want to be a part of something bigger than just ourselves without losing our freedom and power in the process.

Andy Kitson:
I love that intersection/definition. Do you have an example that would maybe make that a bit more concrete for folks?

Adriana Robertson:
Absolutely. So an example of inclusion and distinctiveness, right? So let's say that the three of us are part of a team meeting. Like, I feel respected, I feel cared for as a human being, I feel like you want to know what my ideas are, and at the same time, I feel like I can show up to a meeting and express dissent, I can express concern if there is an opinion or a direction or a vision that's being shared that I have concern about in terms of how it might impact our colleagues or our organization or our finances as a team. I'm not afraid to speak up, at this. Another example that would be I feel comfortable in the context of this group sharing different values and beliefs I hold. And I'm not concerned that if I'm honest about my beliefs, that it's going to be at the expense of my inclusion. So I see this a lot in organizations, just to give an example, without naming names, I worked with a lot of companies and one of the things that I found right around the time of the election, when Biden won the election was that the day after the election, people went into a meeting space and everyone was speaking, everyone was celebrating, everyone was talking as though every person on that meeting felt the same way. And if there was anyone in that meeting space who didn't vote for Biden, you bet they did not feel comfortable speaking up, they felt silenced. And a lot of this was implicit. And so in the context when we talk about belonging, there is a respect for the differences and there is an ability to recognize and bridge across those differences, which we can speak to more later. But that's just one example that hopefully paints the picture of how this can look within the workplace.

Niko Skievaski:
It's a great example. What are some of the qualities of belonging? Like what are we actually looking for here?

Adriana Robertson:
So Howard Ross, who's a leader, lead researcher, and he's a well-known thought leader in the world of unconscious bias and belonging. He actually published five core qualities of belonging, and his, one of his latest book, Our Search for Belonging: How the Need for Connection is Tearing us Apart, and I think that these five qualities are really relevant when we think about any group dynamic. And so one of the first that he list is a sense of shared identity. So these are qualities that we see are highly developed within groups that have a high level of belonging. So a shared sense of identity, so that, what that refers to is that we see people in the group we belong to as a connected community. So that's where company identity can come into play, like do teams, has their quote-unquote internal brand been developed? Do they feel a part of something? It's why if you look to sports teams or sports fans, oftentimes there's such an identity around that and yet a mistake that a lot of teams and company make is that they actually haven't taken the time to develop this. But when it's developed, people feel bought in, they feel a part of something. The next key quality that he talks about is a shared destiny, and that's the belief that what happens to you might also happen to me. So it's, in an organization, our success as a company, like we have a shared destiny, right? Like Redox is either going to grow or it's not, and if it doesn't grow, then what happens to you could happen to me. If there are going to be layoffs, I might be one of those people that's impacted just like someone else on my team might be. If there going to be promotions like I want that for someone else as much as I want it for me? And it's this sense that we see this shared human experience that we're having and it helps us feel connected, it helps us feel a part of something. So the third key characteristic or third quality that he speaks to is a sense of interdependence, so this is that we rely on each other in the same, in some way, whether that's directly or indirectly, so in an organization that has 200 people, if I work in product, I may not be interacting on the day-to-day with sales team, but that I understand how our work is connected, how the work that I'm doing is actually setting the sales team up to be successful, and how the work they're doing is actually, and the data they're collecting is actually enabling me to create a better product. And it's really helpful to understand that at the very least on the macro level. But the places where we can actually connect to that on the micro level within our teams really helps us show up with more compassion, with more empathy, with more understanding, all of the which are essential for really fostering and spaces where there's a strong culture of belonging. And, there are two more, the fourth is a general sense of shared values. So this can look a variety of different ways and we can talk about ways that we can foster these things within teams. But when we talk about a general sense of shared values, we believe that we actually are operating on humans with something that's anchoring us, something that's tethering us in terms of the values we hold. And it can be very helpful, it's really important that teams and organizations have core values, that employees can really feel a sense of connectedness to. It doesn't mean that the way that we all express our values is going to look exactly the same, but that there are these core human values that are driving us and connecting us. And there are ways that we can do this in our teams as well, because at the end of the day, we're humans, We're not robots performing tasks. We also want to know who are the people we're working with are, and so, I'll try not to get too ahead of myself and going into strategies, but they're very, very basic ways you can help team members get to know each other's values by just facilitating discussions about things that we care about, things that matter to us, not saying what do you value and why, but instead you could ask two individuals to, to share with one another and break out, describe what you want, if your colleagues and family and friends were all to be gathered in celebration of you and the impact that you've had on the world, what would you want them to say about you? And through their response, their colleagues have the opportunity to actually hear the things that matter for them, to mine for their values, in a deeply personal, deeply intimate way that can be tied traded such that, you know, you're working with people's level of comfort when it comes to vulnerability. So that's just an example of how you could do that. Niko, I'm seeing a big, big smile on your face. What are you thinking right now?

Niko Skievaski:
Oh, I'm just, I'm pumped and ready for number five.

Adriana Robertson:
So number five is an ability for people to feel fully able to be themselves. So what does this mean, right? So at the end of the day, it's like, yes, in an organization are there going to be some agreements in place, right? Like it's, it's not appropriate in the workplace for someone to start throwing furniture across the room because they're having a fit of anger, right? Sure, yes, there are some agreements and guidelines, and can we welcome the fact that all of us are experiencing a wide range of human emotions on a day to day basis. And that means that I might have anger show up, right? And is the environment such that I feel like it's even okay for me to acknowledge that I am navigating some anger and I'm doing my best and I'm trying to figure out how to process it? Or is the environment such where people are expected to have refined perfectly eloquent solutions and answers when they propose them? Or is the environment such where people are encouraged to bring their ideas in whatever form they are to a brainstorm so that the group can build on them and get the essence of what's in a space and ultimately come to whatever's best for the group? Those are very different environments I've been in both of those, those where I felt like I needed to show up in a state of perfection and those where I felt like I actually got to show up as the human that I was in the state that I was, and take responsibility for that, not project it or throw it or blame it on anyone else. But that's really what I'm speaking to is like, can we bring the essence of the various aspects of ourselves into the workplace and feel like it's okay for us to do that and that it's welcome? As you can see, I don't feel passionate about this at all.

Andy Kitson:
This is amazing. When I look at that list of the five qualities that you just went through, building a shared identity, making sure that the team understands they have a shared destiny, making sure people understand their interdependence with each other, expressing our values and seeing where we're similar, and being able to fully be ourselves in all of this, like taking the word belonging out of that, I feel like that's just a great way to build a great team. Like when I think about leadership and even things like metrics and stuff that helps us understand our shared destiny, it helps us understand interdependence, and so when we look at a company dashboard, those are like things that can help build belonging. And then I'm a big fan of Swag, like company Swag for shared identity. Huge fan of Swag.

Niko Skievaski:
It's the best fit. Yeah.

Andy Kitson:
But these are things that are certainly intuitive to leadership, but when they're lumped together under the term of belonging, I don't know, it just makes belonging feel so much more important, more real as a goal, when you get down to the details of what it actually means.

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah, I love what you're highlighting that. I think it's worth mentioning that if you take this list, the vast majority of the things on this list to leadership teams, they can recognize, at least some of them, hold value. I think some of them come easier to companies to see the value in, but I love, and so we can, I think being able to break it down, Andy, I know you mentioned you want really tangible things that people can walk away with, but when we can break it down and speak to the tangible benefits, both in terms of the business bottom line and in terms of the human experience, I think it really creates more understanding in terms of, one, why do we want to invest in this, and then two, how can we actually take the next step of building these into core business metrics like, it likes the ways that you're speaking to, Niko?

Niko Skievaski:
Yeah, Well, can you, can you dive in a little bit to the benefits of belonging and then also contrast that to like, what if we don't have these things? What if we don't have a strong sense of belonging and what happens in teams when, when that's missing?

Adriana Robertson:
Absolutely. So there's a lot of research on this at this point thankfully. And what the research shows is that some of the key, when we create a high culture of belonging within organizations and teams, what you see as one, authenticity goes up exponentially. So this means when we're more authentic, we're way more likely and able to bring more creativity, more innovation, and more contribution because we're more willing to take risks and going hand in hand with that, we're also more willing to speak up in moments of risk and uncertainty. So this means that if you're in a meeting and people are, and it looks like the leadership might be accidentally taking things in the direction that could have an unintended impact, people aren't going to silently nod their heads just because the leadership has made a decision and said to them, people are going to speak up, so willingness to speak up. Other benefits include increased cognitive performance because when people feel a sense of belonging, they are not at risk of having an amygdala hijack at any moment in going into fight-flight-freeze. So that frees up a tremendous amount of mental capacity to have more clarity, more sharpness, more focus, and also what you see is a huge increase in emotional, physical, and mental well-being. And just to speak to one research study of many. So in 2019, Better Up, which you may, many of you have probably heard of, they're a leader in learning and development. They actually conducted a study to look at the value of belonging at work. They did this with over 2000 employees across diverse industries. And what they found was that in environments where there was a high degree of belonging, there was a 56% increase in job performance, 56% increased, then there was 167% increase in the employee-promoter score. So if you don't know what that is, it's how likely is an employee to recommend you as an employer. So that went up 167 degrees, and then there was a 75% reduction in sick days. Just that alone in terms of the impact on productivity is huge. And then the last thing that they found through the research was that there was a 50% reduction in turnover risk. So for a company of 10,000 employees, the equivalent annual savings for this is $52 million dollars, that's pretty massive, right? Pretty massive. And that's not even speaking to the innovation and out-of-the-box ideas that were generated through that productivity and extra energy and focus.

Niko Skievaski:
It can wonder, if maybe like running through those, like the five characteristics and just even using those as a framework to see like are we.

Adriana Robertson:
Absolutely.

Niko Skievaski:
Following the conversation around that might help.

Adriana Robertson:
Yes, for sure.

Niko Skievaski:
Okay. I feel like we're getting into the juicy bits now, that we went over what is belonging, what are the qualities of it, what are the benefits of it. One thing you mentioned earlier that I kind of want to dig into more with inclusion and distinctiveness, and it reminds me of when, in one of Berné Brown's books she called Belonging and Conformity near Enemies. And I would love it for you to shed some light on the difference between belonging versus conforming to fit into a group and why, why the, what those differences are and why they matter.

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah, so one of the reasons that conformity is thought of as the enemy to belonging is because it's, it's like someone wearing a very compelling costume that looks like belonging. And on the surface it could even be thought or perceived as belonging, but it's actually not, because what's under the surface is people choosing to go along in order to get along because they don't actually feel safe enough to be themselves in the workplace. They might fear, I mean, there are a variety of things that can get in the way of this, but they might fear retaliation, they might be concerned about power dynamics, race plays a huge role in this. And I think it's worth noting, like, you know, there's so many different ways that people choose to conform on a day-to-day basis, many of which we're not even conscious of because we've been doing so well for so long that we don't even realize that if we consciously chose what we wanted or what we believed was actually integrity with ourselves, we would choose something different. So some of the ways that we can form, that many of us conform in various ways that can be, you know, by censoring what we choose to share about ourselves, whether that be which beliefs do we share publicly and which do we actually either lie about or just not bring to the table? Same with our values. What clothing do we wear? How do we speak? What do we choose to talk about in the workplace? What attitude do we present based on what we believe is rewarded and accepted in the workplace that we're in? What body language do we use? How do we communicate? How do we make decisions? Do we choose to speak up or not speak up? And do we express dissenting views or not? And a lot of these decisions are made, like I said, either consciously or unconsciously, because we're checking in with ourselves and asking ourselves questions to determine whether or not we actually belong or whether or not we need to conform. So just to give a few examples of the types of questions we ask ourselves, we might be asking what is it actually safe for me to say right now? How much can I agree without being disagreeable? Will my job be in jeopardy if people find out what I believe or what I believe in? Will there be negative consequences if I dress a certain way, talk a certain way? Are diverse opinions actually welcome to the table, or is that just words? Do my insights and commentary actually matter? And then lastly, like, what's the cost of me showing up authentically? And if we believe that the cost is like emotional distress or like lack of mobility or lack of vertical mobility opportunities within an organization or exclusion, it makes sense that a lot of us would choose to conform because it's an act in many cases of self-preservation. So, you know, so much more that I could say there, but I think it's so important that we pay attention to what is driving our decisions, who is driving our decisions. And within organizations, have we actually created an organization, a space of belonging, or are we inviting conformity? And part of that exploration requires us to take a step back and say, if we look at the norm structures and systems that are in place, who created them, who's benefiting from them, and who's not? What ways of being or approaches end up being suppressed or marginalized unintentionally by those that we have in place? And is that actually in service of what we're looking to create?

Niko Skievaski:
This reminds me a lot of this concept of covering. I think it's kind of a, the same concept really, just with a different term. And I was looking into Kenji Yoshino's work recently, and the thing that really struck me with that is he looked at when people have to cover in the workplace as in hide a piece of their identity to try to fit in more. And of course, the types of the groups you would expect did a lot of covering, you know, marginalized groups and females and Hispanics and LGBTQ and all of that. But he also found, which I think was the most interesting part, is that according to the research they did, even 45% of straight white men cover in the workplace, which means that creating a stronger sense of belonging where people can show up authentically, it doesn't just help these marginalized groups, which I think a lot of people look at and see it as like a DEI initiative, but it actually helps everybody become a little more authentic in the workplace, which will help everybody capture all the benefits that you described around being more creative and vulnerable and not letting errors go into the product or into the workforce.

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'll give a very, very simple kind of silly and ridiculous example of how this showed up for me when I started my role at Harvard. I think it's funny, and I've also heard a lot of colleagues since then resonate with this. So I remember when I got to the organization, keep in mind, I have a very unconventional professional background. I stepped into my role at Harvard after being, working and running my own business for a while. I'd also been a life coach, yoga, there's a whole language that's very different in a lot of the spaces that I'd been in, from a lot of the language that I was finding in Harvard. So I entered the role and I found myself, like when I go into meetings, like people were speaking in a very formal way, when people were writing emails to one another, it was always like greeting so-and-so or Hello, regards, best wishes. And I had a team of four people and literally for the first four months every single email would sign it regard, best and, I remember thinking like and I, by the way, love emojis so much, I love emojis, and I would just want to express my care for my colleague sometimes by including an emoji. But I would write the emoji, and then I would delete it because it'd be like, no, this is too formal, too traditional of an environment, it's not appropriate here. And one day at a meeting because I really helped set the culture of the team that I was on, I brought it up, and I said, hey, I've noticed that we all have a very formal approach to our work correspondence with one another, and I feel like we're a small, intimate team, I'd like to get to know you as humans, I'd like to remove the formalities and trust that we are professional, and we can also be silly and be playful and actually interact as the human beings that we are. And the sigh of relief that there was, was enormous and something that small had a real impact on the way we started showing up and interacting far beyond just those, those email correspondences. And so I share that as an example, because that's not just affecting a person of color on the team, that's affecting everybody's level of comfort in showing up and taking risks and being casual and just letting things be on the bright and shiny show a little bit more, in the workplace and trust that that can be held and that can be welcome too. So I wanted to just name that, that's one tiny, tiny way, Niko. But if we go to more, to more significant ways, the impact is massive. Not for everybody, as you said.

Niko Skievaski:
So I think this might lead us there. But before we get into actually some of the ways to build more belonging, I'd love to just explore the, the problem a little bit of like what gets in the way of belonging? Like how did you end up in a situation where the culture of that team was very formal and not, not to take that example down a rabbit hole, but like, what are some of the aspects that get into the way of belonging that make us feel like we have to cover or conform or not show up as our authentic selves?

Adriana Robertson:
So to answer in terms of what's making us feel like we need to conform, I think there are things like people are considering will my position be harmed in some way, right? Like, will I experience a reduction in career opportunities if I don't conform? Will it limit my salary potential? If I don't conform, will it affect the visible opportunities I get within an organization, right? So let's just, let's make that a little bit more concrete. Okay, I'll give you an example. There are two really phenomenal unconscious bias trainers that I've worked with, and I went to their training, both really incredible, intelligent black women who've been doing this work for a very long time. They gave an example. They've been leading these trainings across the country for years and they've done it in a variety of different contexts. They have collected data on one key ingredient that changes. Sometimes they leave these trainings and they leave them with their hair straight and or slicked back in a ponytail, and sometimes they choose to lead the trainings with their hair natural and kinky. What they have found consistently is that when they wear their hair natural and kinky, the ratings and the evaluation surveys, the results drop significantly. Even though it's the same trainers, it's the same content, they've delivered this training hundreds of times. That's the one difference, right? So it seems natural that if someone thinks that it's going to affect their business, their bottom line, because they're consultants and they run a business, they are going to choose to conform most likely in that situation because they don't want it to limit their own potential, or maybe they choose to go against it, but they understand that there is a real cost to that. So those are just some examples of things that get in the way. But I also just want to say, like from a business perspective, businesses often don't feel like there is the time to invest in belonging, like there is urgency, there are too many things to do, some people think that, you know, who really cares about the soft skills or like this, what are we doing talking about belonging? People just need to get their jobs done. There are a lot of perspectives that exist that can be really harmful from the top down, but also from the bottom up. They're very real threats at times when people choose not to conform, and they have to really consider those and the choice of whether to show up authentically and as they, as they really are or whether to cover parts of themselves. So as you said.

Niko Skievaski:
Yeah, what a powerful example. And I find it even more ironic that their training people on unconscious bias, then measuring the unconscious bias in the classes that they're teaching, it's wild.

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah, it is.

Andy Kitson:
Adriana, I'd be really interested to hear kind of like how belonging is like a, a concept I thing to observe and be aware of and kind of like use as you navigate the professional world and your career and all of that, like how did it enter your consciousness? And like, what's your own story, kind of like viewed through the lens of like getting to know, belonging and getting fluent with it as a concept and a frame to view your experience in the world?

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah, I appreciate the question. It's something I think a lot about and it's definitely something that's very near and dear to me. I think there are a variety of different ways. So one, I'm Peruvian-American and I grew up bi-culturally here in the US and, you know, a variety of things from the age of six years old, Spanish was my first language. I was living in Missouri and there were no other Latinos. And so I just started refusing to speak my mother tongue at the time and feeling like I don't want to speak a language that makes me different from other people because people look at me differently, to having experiences in high school where I had my white friends who often I was like, too spicy for them, I was a little too different for them, I always, like something different, like something different, totally fit, even though we loved each other. And then I had my Latino and Black friends, and with them I was always too white. I always made I can't even tell you the man I was made fun of so much because I spoke like I was quote-unquote, white. I took honors levels classes, my parents made me a, packed me a lunch. And so suddenly, like, I didn't fit in with them. And I often felt much of my life like I didn't fully fit in in a lot of different spaces. It's when I moved to Latin America, I was thinking I was the American living there, and despite the fact that because I stopped speaking Spanish when I was younger, I'm now fluent, but I have this really funny getting an accent that's mixed with like an Argentinian accent, or Puerto Rican accent, all the places where I've lived and spent time, and I felt a lot of shame. And I felt like I remember for so much of my life just feeling like, why don't I feel like I, like, fully fit in anywhere? And in addition to that, you know, my mom is, I'm white presenting, my mom is a brown woman. And I remember having experiences with her just like four or five years ago where we entered the space, and this old man told her that she looked like she should be sitting in the back of a bus. And this was, this is four years ago. This is someone, this was a family, an extended family friend, and these experiences have happened such that they've just like left this imprint on me of like, I can't be alone in this. And from the outside, a lot of people would look at my life and say like, well, you've had a lot of friends in your life, like, how do you struggle to belong? And yet I think for so many of us, this is such a, it's, it's so nuanced and it's subtle. And so for me, the added layer, to answer your question to this, is I, in my years of self-study and personal development, one of the things that I've gotten really curious about is looking at the different aspects of myself and what aspects of myself I have welcomed and accepted and what aspects of myself I have rejected and locked away and suppressed and marginalized and shut down. And I believe that in my healing, if I can learn to welcome all aspects of myself, if we as humanity can learn to welcome all aspects of ourselves, inevitably we bring so much more grace, compassion, empathy, and understanding, and acceptance to one another. And that doesn't mean that we don't hold each other responsible and accountable, but it means that we're showing up in service of the relationship and of our growth, not from a place of like pointing the finger or separation. And that has put me on a path of really looking to all areas of my life, whether it was working with indigenous communities and grew to working with young youth in D.C., to working as a coach, to working in companies and teams, everything that I do is the heart of it, is how, how do we help people reclaim themselves and their power and their ability to show up in alignment with their values so that we can have much more harmonious relationships that benefit us and benefit our communities and our organizations and everybody in our lives. Yeah, that was a lot of words, but that's, that's in a nutshell how I got here.

Niko Skievaski:
One thing that you've touched on in a few of the responses that you've given us is the need to take responsibility and you've kind of brought it up as like, yeah, we can be ourselves, we can show up fully, but we have to take responsibility for that. Can you say more about what you mean by that?

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah. So when I talk about responsibility, what I'm referring to is owning both our intention and our impact. And I think oftentimes when it comes to how human beings show up. Many of us are really good at acknowledging our intention, right? Let's say that I interrupted you in a meeting five times, Niko, and you felt like I was dominating the conversation and not giving you time to speak. A lot of people, I've seen so many times, myself included in my own ways, and those instances can be like, oh, I didn't mean it, my intention, like, I was just excited, I was in a really creative mindset, I just wanted to make sure that I didn't forget. But we can forget to take responsibility of our impact, and responsibility to me is when our intention and our impact align with one another. And if it doesn't, we clean it up. We own the fact that we're adults and we have tools and we can communicate and make amends and clean up our messes. And I think that's the difference between people who are consciously engaging in this work and people who, you know, don't really want to look in the mirror because this is big work. We're asking people to, to look at themselves and say, where are the places where you are not showing up in alignment with your values as it relates to belonging? And none of us want to think that we're bad people. But in order to really get to the place where we create thriving cultures where there is belonging, it actually requires of us collectively and individually that we be willing to look at ourselves in the mirror and to create the shifts that are going to support us and creating the environment that we want to be a part of and that others want to be a part of as well.

Andy Kitson:
I love that intent and impact equals taking responsibility. That's actually a very helpful way to think about it, because people often kind of fall back on one or the other and really looking for both, it's important.

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah, well, and it's just as important when someone, we've been hurt or when we feel wronged, oftentimes we do the opposite, right? When we're the one that's accidentally hurt, many of us are like, but that wasn't my intention. But as soon as we've been hurt, if you're like most people, most of us, the first thing we focus on is the impact. And we often forget to be generous in our interpretation of the other person's intentions, and instead we often assume the worst. And once we have assumed the worst in someone's intentions, it's as if we're putting on a pair of glasses and just looking through this lens that's looking for every time that person does something like they're coming with that negative intent, it actually creates an unconscious bias, that becomes much harder to override. And so we actually also have a responsibility as the person who's been harmed to check, are we actually checking for the other person's intentions? Are we being generous, not naive. There's a big difference between being naive, but being generous and willing to at least consider the other reasons this person might have done or said what they did, and to clarify that.

Andy Kitson:
Yeah, and all is how, you know, we can explore someone's intent without saying that the impact wasn't there. Like, you could acknowledge the impact is there, it was bad, and that's just like a more complex place to be.

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah. So one of the ways that we teach that is actually and you know, I lead a workshop on microaggressions, but this is a framework that is really well suited in general for one intention and impact on the line. It's a five-step process, and it's, you know, step one is stating what happened. Like, what did you observe? Step two is inquiring about the intention of the other person. This is like if you were hurt by someone. Step three is sharing what the impact was, right? So just because the person clarifies their intention was something different, it's still important that we speak to the impact. Step four is owning our own experience, right? How did, what happened? What thoughts and feelings do I have as the result of that impact? And then step five is making a request. It's like, what would I like to see different next time? What can we agree to? And that's a really powerful framework that actually allows us to both acknowledge the impact and inquire about the intention in a way that creates a bridge for understanding. And when we're willing to engage in these conversations again and again, I find that the relationships deepen and come out far stronger than they were beforehand.

Niko Skievaski:
I love that. Thank you so much for sharing those, those five steps. To get tangible on them, so if you have a conflict with someone, do you sit and go through those five steps like in your journal or do you do that as a conversation with them? How does that tangibly work out when you're, yeah, when you're working through a conflict?

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah. So I, I'm someone who needs time to journal, especially if it's a high-stakes conversation or if it feels like it's a sensitive conversation, or if I feel like I was triggered by what happened. I want to make sure first and foremost, that I get myself into a clearer state and that I make sure that when I approach, I do my best in these moments and I am far from perfect. I do my best to make sure that I'm coming to the conversation from a place of, like, really wanting to get on the same team and, and be in service to myself, to the other person, and to the relationship. And so reflecting ahead of time is, for me, super helpful to make sure that I'm able to stay connected to what's important to me. And of course, the dialogue is going to unfold as it is. It's just a guide, it's a framework. It's not perfect, it's not rigid. We're humans having a conversation, but it can certainly help and supporting the conversation moving in the right direction.

Andy Kitson:
How can leaders effectively like help people on their teams, like have these conversations or facilitate them. I'm sure like if you're on the receiving end of like a lot of these well-intentioned, but the impact is off things like the just the cumulative impact, like having to like have these conversations is pretty burdensome. And like if leading a team and like seeing this kind of dynamic, like I'd like to help out, but I also don't want to insert myself in a place where it's going to, you know, people should be talking together, ideally, like, how do you think about the role of a leader who might not be involved directly in one of these interactions in making sure that overall it's just like a healthy dynamic?

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah, I think that establishing shared agreements and shared language go a really long way. So, you know, in one of our programs at PRDX, we talk a lot about like how do you create an environment where people are willing to lean into these conversations? These are not easy conversations and it in far harder if we don't feel like these conversations are welcomed or like there's an invitation to have them, or if there are agreements or guidelines on how to have them. And so I think things that leaders can do are, one, share the intention for these conversations to be happening and then help give teams the building blocks to effectively engage in these conversations. One of the books that we use a lot and that we reference in our trainings is Aaron Meyers and Reed Hastings' book No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention. And they have four A's that they work by when it comes to any sort of feedback conversation, which at the end of the day we're talking about a feedback conversation. And that can be positive feedback, it can be constructive or developmental. And just to name those four A's, two of the A's are for that feedback giver and two are for the feedback receiver. For the feedback giver, the two keys that are required in the culture are aiming to assist, so giving feedback with a positive intent and making the person aware of how you're intending to assist, right? And the second is to make it actionable because it requires us to focus on feedback on what the recipient can do differently. Because oftentimes people say things like, you were so loud in that meeting, it's like, okay, do you have a request for me? Or we make these broad, sweeping statements. And so it's really important that we aim to assist and that we're actionable. And from the receiver standpoint, to create a culture where we are asking, we're taking responsibility for our state so that we can one, appreciate like we can overcome the inclination to defend and instead listen in for the gift, even if it was delivered horribly, and then we listen for the gift, and so that's appreciate. And then the second A for the feedback receiver is accept or discard, this is, we're talking broadly speaking, this is different than performance management, there's feedback coming from a manager, that's a different conversation. But in terms of a culture of feedback, it can also be really helpful to help people understand that they also have a responsibility. At the end of the day, they get to decide, they can save the person for the feedback, but at the end of the day they get to decide what to accept or discard unless it's coming down as a performance issue. So those are just a few things that I think can be really helpful, and the last thing that I want to say that I believe goes a long way is to hold informal feedback conversations. So, to, like one of the things that we do with teams, as we get teams together, we actually give them a framework, we give them language, we give them a framework for actually having the conversation and then we pair them up with different team members and we have them give real-time feedback to one another, both positive and constructive. And they have the opportunity to do this with multiple people because we need to build the muscle. If you're like most people, it's like going to the gym and never having picked up a 5-pound weight before and being asked, now, like it feels like you're being asked to take 120-pound weight and start lifting it and you're like, if you're like me, you're like, I can't even pick that thing up. Like, how am I going to do that? And so this is saying, we got you not only as this isn't an expectation, but we are going to support you in building the skill set and the capacity to effectively engage in these conversations and to take ownership for because it's not, it's not an top-down thing. Like we all have to choose to own this in order for the culture to truly change.

Niko Skievaski:
One of the big unlocks for me as we started diving into this and to give some context, we, Adriana and I have talked about this type of feedback years ago, and the thing that unlocked for me was in the past I had looked at feedback is my opinion versus their opinion and me being like, well, I think it should be done this way, but they did it that way. And so it felt like a sort of battle of like I needed to be right and therefore I didn't want to give the feedback because I'm like, who am I to tell them I would have done it differently, but what the unlock was with this framework for me was, that it's not about being right, it's about sharing what I saw, and then the story that I told myself around what I thought their intention was, and then what the impact that I perceived was. And so it's basically just sharing my experience. And my experience is theirs to take as feedback and change from or not. And, and that is something that's wildly valuable in any culture with any relationship that you have to, to share that. And I realized that I had not been providing that because of my, my fear of creating conflict around being right or wrong.

Andy Kitson:
It is much easier if they accept that, like, if they're on the receiving end, thinking about it in the same way and not seeing it as a demand to change, but you share your experience.

Niko Skievaski:
Yes. So I love this, super tangible, something that people can take away right away and start practicing. But what are some other tangible skills or activities or things that we can do to foster belonging within our teams? And I'd love you to, you know, our audience here is trying to focus on building remote teams and remote culture. So if you could take that sort of spin on it of trying to build belonging within a remote setting where oftentimes these people have never even met in person. So it adds another element of, of challenge in that.

Adriana Robertson:
Sure, yeah, absolutely. I'd be happy to speak to this. I'll give some very concrete ones and then I'm going to give a couple that most of you are going to be like, that's so simple, why is she saying that? And I'm going explain why. It's simple and yet 99% of us are not doing this well on a daily basis. So the first one I want to speak to you is giving people your full presence and attention. And so research shows that 55% of our communication is nonverbal. So that means that words are just a small fraction of how we're assessing whether someone is really with us, whether they're understanding us, whether they're present with us. And as I mentioned at the start, belonging is a core human need that's hardwired into our DNA, we want to feel like we belong. And one of the ways that we feel this is by feeling seen and understood. And I would encourage everyone to just take a moment to consider for themselves everyone who's listening to this, right? Like when you're on a Zoom meeting with a colleague or with your team, how often are you texting or emailing other people, or how often are you thinking about other things when you're actually having a conversation with someone who's on the zoom meeting with you and consider what's the impact of that? We are very attuned human beings, we sense things, we can look just at the different curves in someone's eyes, we can easily track where someone's eyes are going, we can feel whether someone's engaged or disengaged, right? And this has an impact on whether or not we feel open or close, whether or not we feel willing to lean in and be vulnerable and take risk and be creative. And whether it's physically or more subtly, kind of like put our armor on and are less receptive to engaging with people. And our ability to be present with someone has a profound impact on how much someone feels at ease in our presence, how much belonging they feel with us, and so that's the first piece that I want to speak to. The next is also seemingly so simple and yet something really difficult for a lot of us, and that's connecting on a human level. Because when we connect on a human level, it helps us build trust, it helps people feel seen, it helps them feel understood, it allows us to know their values so they can feel like their values are actually being invited and welcomed into the space, and you know, conceptually, the strategy is simple. But like I said, it's quite difficult because many of us have a habit of asking questions like how are you? And the norm is usually to just be like, good, great. You just learned a lot about the person. Like you have a lot of information you can work with now, or we might say, how was your weekend? Great. But because these questions have become so the norm in our day-to-day when people hear them, they often don't actually feel like the person who's asking the question really cares or really wants to know. The number of times I've been asked that question on a meeting and then the person basically just launched into the agenda while I was like opening my mouth to respond, have you all had that happen? Just out of curiosity?

Niko Skievaski:
Totally.

Andy Kitson:
Yeah.

Adriana Robertson:
It's like, oh, and so there's some really simple ways that we can take time to connect on human levels. And I know that this is a big one that I see a lot of resistance to because a lot of leaders or managers are like, we don't have time, we have so much planning to get through, we're a start-up, like we're stretched too thin, we're understaffed, whatever the reasons are. Here's the deal, it doesn't actually need to take that much time. You could take 5 minutes at the start of meetings to genuinely connect. One of the ways that we do this and we found huge success in this, is to have, at the start of a Zoom meeting, the first thing that happens when some people come in, they know there's a, there's a norm or there's a ritual where we start with 5 to 10 minutes of social connection. And we, someone always has brought 1 to 2 questions to find personal opening connected prompts. And people go into breakout rooms and they have 3 minutes, 3 minutes in the breakout room with one other person. Each person has a minute and a half to share the response to the question and the response to the question could be something like describe your perfect day, what would you be doing and why is that meaningful to you? It could be tell a story about a time you failed in the last week and what you learned from that. It could be described something that you're like, describe a growth edge that you're currently working with and in your work or in your personal life. It could be tell me about a hobby that you love and why you're passionate about it, right? There's a whole, we actually, at PRDX, have a list of like 150 questions that we put together that I could share the link with you, that if you wanted to share it with a group that just help guide people, because a lot of people get stuck in terms of what are the prompts I could ask. But like I said, it only takes, you could do one round and it takes 4 minutes and then you're ready to jump in. But then the difference between how people feel coming into a space where they had a moment to genuinely connect is different. You just welcomed more of them into the space and now they're able to bring more of their values, more of their creativity, more of their innovation online. Brené Brown has found through her work that one of the things that when people talk about feeling accepted and feeling a sense of belonging, that some of the things that people ask that leave them feeling that way, it's the questions like, hey, I know you were out taking care of your kid yesterday. How are they doing? Or I heard you mention a month back that your mom was struggling with illness. How are you? How is she? It's remembering someone's birthday and like, actually taking a moment to appreciate them. They're not complicated, like their simple ways of doing this. But the difference in terms of how, what fostered and how people feel, it's extraordinary, so that is connecting on a human level. And there's a couple more strategies that I would love to share, but I want to just check in and see how we're doing.

Niko Skievaski:
We're doing great.

Andy Kitson:
I always find, like with the whole we don't have time, like kind of an objection, really interesting because for me at least, I'm always like, I'm an introvert. I often hesitate to, like, kind of talk to people I don't know, and all of that. And it's like these little personal questions, they kind of like lay down this groove where after that happens, I can talk to someone and there's none of the startup effort to get that going, and it can be like business related things or it can be more personal things, but it's like laying down that track is, like it speeds up everything else after that. And I just feel like if you have the experience of like having gone through that like the whole time question, it's like it obviously pays off as long as people are actually having that experience in it.

Adriana Robertson:
I totally agree, it makes a huge difference. There are some other really simple ways to connect on a human level too that are, that we, we really encourage people to weave things into the structure of meetings so people also just know to expect it. A couple of other things that come to mind, you know, two strategies. One is what we call a two-word check-in, where at the start of the meeting, let's say it's a pretty short meeting and you may not have time to do a 5 to 10 minute breakout. So we do two-word check-ins where everybody takes a moment to write in the chat, two words that describe their current state of being, right? Maybe it's frazzled and frustrated, or it might be curious and engaged. It could be anything for anyone. But what it does is it allows us to get a, if you're getting the pull, if you're hearing from your colleagues, you're getting a pulse of where are people at, which makes me much less likely to take it personally if so-and-so seems a little bit disengaged and it's clear that they're coming in having a hard time, it also helps me know, like what might be needed to bring people in. So we create more cohesion, we create more flow, we create more belonging in the context of the time that we have together. And, you know, a second way of basically doing the same thing that's just a little bit different, for some people, connecting to their emotions is really challenging for them and actually can be a huge turnoff. Like I've had to learn that within organizations where some people are just like, do not ask me to talk about my feelings. And so one way that you can similarly get a sense of where people are and it leave people feeling more connected to one another, feel more of a sense of shared destiny, shared values and all these things is to engage in what we call a weather report. So we say to people, oftentimes we'll have people take a moment to close their eyes and just bring their attention inward, they could also just reflect on it with their eyes open. But we essentially ask if your state of being, if your mood were the weather, what would it be right now? And then they write that into the chat. And some people you might see, you see everything from like dark clouds and stormy with no end in sight and torrential rain, and you might see like right clear sky and the birds are out singing. And it similarly gives you the sense of where people are at. And without needing to take 20 minutes to hear everyone's story like, why is that person in a dark store right now? Just like we got you, we're in this together, we're going to support us all in figuring out how we move forward, but we know what the collective state is going in, and that in and of itself can create a huge sense of belonging. So those are just a few examples of the human connection. And, you know, there are two other things that I just want to speak to are, one, sharing personal stories. So there's a lot of research that shows that one of the number one ways to foster belonging is through storytelling. And the reason for this is that when we tell stories that our brains release oxytocin, which is the bond, it's like the bonding neurochemical, it leaves us feeling a greater sense of connection, it leads us wanting to lean in to the relationship. It's like the love drug, if you will, that our bodies produce naturally. And so when we hear stories, we can suddenly relate to people who are very different from us. So let's say that we have a colleague who has a very different work style than us, or maybe a majority of extroverts, and there's like one introvert on the team, storytelling is a way that, that can help us create those bridges so we feel our interconnectedness, we feel our shared destiny, we can connect to the shared values that we have. And two of the most basic ways to start these stories are by having people share about a time that they felt a strong sense of belonging and to share a different story about a time when they've not felt a sense of belonging, when they felt excluded, when they felt marginalized. Because all of us have had these human experiences, and we can connect to this. We can, we all want, as I said, it's a core human need. So it really opens up the potential to connection. I have seen people across companies come together and have these conversations and drop into a level of vulnerability that they've never experienced and come in their corporate environment or in their workplace cultures ever before. And it's a game changer. So that is, and I mentioned stories about failure earlier, talk about normalizing belonging. If we can create a culture where we regularly acknowledge the mistakes that we've made and what we're learning, we can eliminate shame and we can really allow ourselves to receive the support of the people on our teams, which is going to yet again lead to so much more creativity, innovation, connection, engagement and all the things that we've already spoken about. The next one I'll share is like a pretty practical one within meeting structures. So a really valuable way to foster belonging within team meetings is by soliciting input during meetings from a variety of people. So oftentimes you'll find that there is like a 2 to 3 dominant voices in a group, and those are often the people who are more extroverted, who are really comfortable, maybe they're fast processors, they're fast thinkers. Those are people who are going to be like much more likely to quickly engage, quickly speak. And so it can be really helpful when you, in order to foster belonging, to actually explicitly invite and ask for the input of different people in the space, ask for the members of different marginalized groups' perspectives, call on their expertise, call in their opinions, ask the introvert, like let the introvert know you want to hear from them too. So really intentionally creating a structure where people's voices are too, of course, this is with the assumption that you have the right people at the meeting to begin with, right? But assuming you have the right people at the meeting, the right stakeholders and decision-makers, then it's critical for the success of the company that you get their opinions and at the same time, by really intentionally welcoming the different opinions, you're also going to foster belonging in the process.

Andy Kitson:
Could you expand a little bit on the, actually how you go about that? Is that like you're calling on specific people or you're more just like asking kind of more open-ended? Like who has other ideas or wants to take a different approach, or?

Adriana Robertson:
That's a great question.

Andy Kitson:
Like recording ideas in a documentary, like yeah.

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah. So first and foremost, I think, you know, acknowledging upfront at the start of the meeting, like it's really important that we hear from everybody. We want to get all of the ideas on the table, so we'd like to make sure that everybody's perspective and opinion has, has space to be shared during this conversation. So that's one. Two, that, creating a shared responsibility within the group. So if you're the leader, then absolutely there's a, there's an added responsibility there to make sure that you're living this intention. But hopefully with that agreement up front, then the onus falls on the entire group to say, let's say that Niko hasn't spoken up all the meeting. I might say to Niko, Niko, what are your thoughts? I'd really love to hear your opinion on this and anyone could say that, or I might as the leader say, like, I know there are a couple of you that haven't spoken yet, we'd love to hear from you. Or I might say, I'm noticing that there are a few really dominant voices in this space and, as we said, shared at the start of the meeting, we want to make sure that we want to hear from everyone, what other ideas are here, right? So there are a lot of different ways that this can happen. You could also end up rotating who's facilitating the meeting as one strategy for making sure that this happens, but those are few examples of how that could come into the conversation.

Niko Skievaski:
Another example that I've seen you do before, Adriana, and a lot of times when we're brainstorming or something like that, is having people quietly write down their thoughts first and then, so it kind of primes people and gives them some quiet space to come up with their thoughts to allow them to process before we go into a discussion about it, which I think I've seen it really help people share what they've written down because everyone writes something down.

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm an example, someone who's a slower processor. So even if ideally I think in meetings to, to foster a sense of, of inclusion and belonging in a meeting, there are people who really do best receiving the agenda ahead of time. So I highly recommend having agendas shared in advance so that people can take the time to feel like they're able to fully come prepared. You have the people who aren't going to look at it and are going to show up because they're just ready to go. But you have people like me who are going to be able to contribute so much more if I just have a few minutes before the meeting or at the start of the meeting to reflect and gather my thoughts. So I love that you're bringing that up, Niko.

Niko Skievaski:
I was going to observe that a lot of what we're talking about is, is things that happen in meetings. And I think that's an important thing to call out because in a remote setting, the majority of interactions you have with other people are in meetings. And so you've discussed a few strategies that are sort of structural within the meeting where kind of part of the agenda, we have prompts, we break people into groups, we have them discuss things, but then there's a lot of things in here that are also behavioral that really anybody, even if you don't own the agenda, can implement right away. And, and you know, these are things that can even happen in one-on-ones. And so even people who don't own large meetings can can implement these things in one-on-one meetings. And so I think that in a remote setting, we have to kind of go above and beyond to do a lot of this because we talk about connecting with people on a human level, a lot of that when I remember working in in-person settings that would happen on the walk back from the meeting, it would happen at the water cooler or the coffee pot, it happens over lunch or over drinks after work. These are all things that we don't get in a remote setting, so we have to intentionally make time for them. And where we connect, sadly, is on little boxes in Zoom and therefore we can, we can adjust the way that our Zoom meetings run to actually bring this element in. And it requires intentionality as well as the sort of shift in the culture to make these sorts of behaviors really normalized and accepted in the ways that we run meetings.

Adriana Robertson:
Absolutely. So the next strategy I want to speak to is about fostering inclusive language. And this starts with the very basics. Are you pronouncing your team members name correctly? All right. My name's Adriana in Spanish and Adriana in English. I had a boss who for multiple years called me Adriana, despite me repeatedly correcting her and introducing myself again and despite hearing all my colleagues call me by the correct name. That has a real impact on how connected I feel with this individual. It seems like something simple, and yet if someone can't take the time to learn my name, that to me is an indication of their level of investment in me as the team member and in the level of care that they're bringing to the relationship and the level of presence they're bringing, right? So learning your colleagues names, very simple, checking for gender pronouns, right? Not making assumptionsm and once you've been told what someone's gender pronouns are, making the best effort to use people's gender pronouns correctly. And this, you know, for some of us, I know this is a, this can be a contentious conversation because people have different feelings about this, and yet gender pronouns just like my name, it's part of my identity. And if the simple act of using someone's correct gender pronoun can make a huge difference in how safe they feel, how much belonging they feel, how much creativity and productivity and focus and energy they're going to be able to bring to their role because otherwise, on some level their nervous system is going to feel unsafe and be on alert, on alarm, which is going to detract from their ability to contribute. The other thing is when it comes to inclusive language is a lot of folks have the tendency to use language, still use language like you guys or you guys is probably the main one I want to speak to. And it can be much more inclusive and help across genders and across different identities to use language more like, hey everyone, or hey folks, how's everyone doing? Right? So simple changes that can go a really, really long way, really long way.

Niko Skievaski:
It's going to be tough in the Midwest, there's a lot of you guys going on.

Adriana Robertson:
Yeah, I've had to work on that myself. And, you know, I think the important thing is to know, like, are we aware of, again, intention versus impact? What is our intention and what's the impact? And if the intention doesn't match the impact, what are we willing to do about it? It's a really real question that we have to ask ourselves. So two more strategies I'd love to introduce. One is appreciation and sharing appreciation. So one of the ways that we encourage at PRDX teams to really bring this in to their their meetings or to their in-person retreats or to their one-on-ones is to take just 3 to 5 minutes at the end of a meeting for appreciations, right? What can we appreciate about how this meeting went, how we collaborate? And maybe there's someone you want to shout out because of this really incredible, out-of-the-box idea that they brought to the table. Or maybe you want to acknowledge someone for being really thoughtful and inclusive and making sure that everybody's voice was brought to the table and had the space to be heard, or someone advocated for a colleague. It's so simple, but when we build in this practice, people end up feeling seen and appreciated, and that goes a long way in terms of fostering belonging. And the last thing that I want to recommend or like a strategy that I would encourage team leaders to consider bringing to their teams is a conversation around the five key qualities to belonging, where there is a dialogue with the team, where we ask the team to share what are the ways that we are really living these qualities? Like what are the behaviors that are present within our team culture that signal that belonging is present, or that we are contributing to building a culture of belonging? And once that has happened to similarly have a conversation around where are the places where we're actually unintentionally detracting from the belonging within the team or where we're actually getting in the way of the belonging that we want? What behaviors are creating the opposite effect? And depending on the sense of safety within the team, right? If trust has been eroded within a team, sometimes people aren't going to be willing to actually have these conversations live and be honest until more trust has been built or until agreements have been made. And so there are a few different ways we can do this. You could do this through a survey. You could have people write on sticky notes anonymously and then compile all the sticky notes, and as a team and I mean virtual sticky notes or in-person sticky notes, and then review the results together and have a conversation about it. So there are a lot of different ways that this can happen, but what's so helpful about this practice is that it paints the picture of where the team is already really contributing, powerfully contributing to a culture of belonging and what's needed to take the culture of belonging to the next level, it basically helps you create a roadmap for what behaviors need to shift and get established. So those are some simple, but meaningful strategies that I believe that I have seen again and again when implemented, create deep sense of belonging within teams, so I hope you'll try them out.

Niko Skievaski:
So just, just as a recap, I, I've loved this episode. I feel like we got in deep about why belonging is important, what the benefits are to a team, how do we actually define it, how can we figure out if we're doing it appropriately? And then some really tangible specifics on things that we can bring into our meetings, into the way we get feedback into our interactions with everyone we work with in order to build more belonging. So I have taken a ton of notes and I'm going to be implementing many of these things. But we are at the point in our episode where we hit the questions that we ask all of our guests, of course, our rapid fire questions. And so Andy and I will trade off in bombarding you with these. But question number one, can you share a story that illustrates what culture means to you personally in your own career?

Adriana Robertson:
I love that question. So what comes to mind for me is, at PRDX we have a, we have members who come together for different programs we've taken, and one of the programs that we lead is called the Flow Facilitator Training, and it's for entrepreneurial leaders who want to learn how to really create powerful workplace cultures where people experience psychological safety, belonging, flow states and all of these things together. And the story that's coming to mind right now is that the last facilitator training that we did, we set the intention, we said we are going to co-create the most transformative culture you've ever been a part of right here, right now, over the next three days together. And what I witnessed was a shared responsibility, like people just leaning in and saying like hell yeah, like I am a leader and every single person here is a co-creator in this. And we are responsible for making sure that we create this vision that we want to bring to life. And what I watched over the course of these three days just completely blew me away because what I saw was people bringing parts of themselves forward that they had never felt comfortable enough bringing to a group environment before, sharing vulnerably, I saw people having courageous conversations about places where they'd been offended and hurt and felt disrespected by one another. But coming from a place of aiming to exist and coming with love, coming with honesty and kindness, and having these what in so many instances would create maybe more conflict or more separation when done on skillfully, these conversations led to shared tears and connection and vulnerability. And this inspiration, this fire that I saw in all of these people to both stand independently within their teams and organizations to have an impact, but also to know that they were supported and they were a part of a community that also had their back. And when I think about culture, that's really, at the heart of it is co-creation, it's transparency, it's honesty, it's courage, it's vulnerability, it's being daring to show up and to do the hard thing, even when do what's right, even when it's hard, and to be willing to really take responsibility for the culture we want to be a part of. So that's, ah, it like lights me up, just remembering that and thinking about it, so thanks for the question.

Andy Kitson:
Right, next one. What book do you want everyone on your team to have read?

Adriana Robertson:
I, the book that immediately comes to mind for me is Daring Greatly by Brené Brown. I, I think that that book does a phenomenal job looking at how to be an authentic leader and leader, not just positionally, but just leader in your life. How to stand with integrity and vulnerability and become trustworthy, and to do so in a way that really brings everyone to the table.

Niko Skievaski:
A lot of Brené fans, fans around here on the People Everywhere show. Okay, next question.

Adriana Robertson:
Not surprising.

Niko Skievaski:
Yeah. What do leaders too often under emphasize or overemphasize when it comes to remote company culture and said another way, what's over or underrated?

Adriana Robertson:
Well, I think, I think again and again what I see, especially because we work with a lot of startups, is that there's an overemphasis on speed and going fast in order to get to the ultimate outcomes that they're looking for and a lack of understanding that sometimes you need to go slow in order to go fast, and that in the slowing down and in the focusing on things like belonging and, and the human beings that make up the organization that you actually get to the results you're looking for far faster than you could have otherwise.

Andy Kitson:
Last one, what work changes have you made since the pandemic started that you plan to carry forward?

Adriana Robertson:
The main change that I love is that I don't start my work days before 10:30 a.m. anymore. And of course I work for myself so I can do that. But that, I mean, I have started getting up at 6:30 in the morning every day, I go on an hour-long speed walk to get my sweat going. I come back, I meditate, I journal, I cold plunge, and by the time I start my day, I'm like, I'm on fire. I'm ready to go because I've taken the time to get myself into a state where I can really see clearly what's needed and that I won't, I won't go back. I can't.

Niko Skievaski:
Well, Adriana, thank you so much for sharing all of what you've learned and gathered and tested over your years with all of us in our audience. It was truly beautiful having you here, and I appreciate it so much.

Adriana Robertson:
Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure.

Niko Skievaski:
And there you have it. That was Adriana Robertson on The People Everywhere Show. Adriana referenced a few books and studies, we'll have links to those in the show notes as well as a link to the PRDX website, which is PRDX.CO, where you can get in contact with her or learn more about how to get involved with PRDX. Thank you so much for listening to the People Everywhere Show, please reach out to share any feedback, suggestions or questions, Hi@PeopleEverywhereShow.com and if you like the show, please subscribe. Leave us a review, tell your friends. We have some amazing episodes coming your way in the next few weeks. Thank you so much for listening. Have a good one.

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