[00:00:31] Speaker A: Hello, my name is Noora Al Masri. Welcome to Echoes of Impact with Noora. We believe that everyone is capable of making an impact and changing the world around them. So we challenge limitations and uncover stories that inspire a greater impact for you and the world.
We have a great episode ahead of us. We're going to be talking to my guest today about psychological safety in an organization. Have you heard of that term yet?
Whether you heard about it or not, we're going to talk to the guest today, Dr. Maria, and she's going to explain it. She's going to talk a lot about safety, psychological safety. Today I asked her a lot of questions I'll ask and I will wait for her to answer in the show. And you'll be watching. And if you want to hear more, let me know because this is a very important topic. And as you are watching today, you're going to discover and uncover what's going on and what is psychological and safety in an organization and how would you implement it?
And my opinion like that can be applied to your personal life as well.
Anything in leadership, anything that you, any human skills that you're gonna learn, you will be able to apply it to your personal life. So stay with me. This is what we're focusing on on this episode.
Don't go anywhere. Stay with me. And let's dive in to our recurring segment, save Taxes with Noora, especially now we are in tax season. You need to hear me out. And hopefully what I am sharing with you is easy to comprehend and easy to understand.
Now, this segment is sponsored by Nourish Books tax and accounting firm, which is my company. I want to talk to you about like a challenge. A lot of people are afraid to talk to an accountant because they feel like, they feel ashamed. They don't feel like they can express their questions. They feel like, oh, I, I, I had, I spoke to a lot of people saying, oh, I feel stupid, but, and they ask their question, whatever that question is. Well, I want you to understand there's no stupid questions.
And no one is expecting you as a business owner or as a taxpayer to, to know the tax law or to understand even not only everything about tax law or accounting. We're not expecting you to know anything. Literally, we're not expecting you to know anything. That's why some people have that type of business, whether you are doing in any business like having a project or having a consulting company or whatever that you have, if people should know about it and they can do it on their own, you wouldn't have a Business.
So you shouldn't feel ashamed if you don't know tax law. If you don't know what should you do in your finances. Or maybe you know basics, but you don't feel comfortable sharing that how and organized your financial is. Believe me, most of people, most of business owners start and organized. Very few people start organized.
Let me tell you a story. Years ago, like maybe over 10 years ago, I started a business with my family and I worked in finance departments. I've been in accounting my entire life. But I was new to the US and we started a family business and supposedly like I went to accounting school and I know how to do taxes.
But tax law in the U. S was new to me and I did not do taxes before and I did not know the law on how would you pay yourself in different setting and different structures, structure or business structure.
So at that time we were partners in this business.
And when you are in a partnership, if it's an llc, you cannot really pay yourself a salary if you are one of the owners.
In general, an LLC you cannot pay yourself a salary. You have to kind take to take a withdrawal. There is no payroll taxes for that there maybe you can have what do you call it, guaranteed payment. That's a different than salary. And you shouldn't pay payroll taxes because in this type of business you would be exempt from payroll taxes. But you have to pay self employment taxes later.
I did not know that. So I put all of us in salary.
I did not know how, how many taxes I should file during the year and what's the correct way to file taxes.
So that's years ago when I started learning. And even some tax professionals did not know at that time.
I figured out like I was doing everything wrong after I became an enrolled agent. So enrolled agent, if you're not familiar with the term is someone who went and took three tests with the irs. One about individual tax law, one about business tax law and one about representation, meaning representing the client in front of the irs. And then the IRS give you designation that as enrolled agent. And that's the highest elite designation given to from the IRS to any individuals. It's just like a CPA and a tax attorney.
You can definitely do everything that a CPA or a tax attorney does. Except you cannot represent the client in front of the tax court. You cannot go to court. So you go in depth to study the tax law and you have to do continuous education always, continuously. So you will always keep learning. And let me tell you like when you start learning that you cannot Stop. Because you feel like you don't know anything yet. The more you learn, the more you discover that you don't know anything. So when I started, when I got my enrolled agent and started my tax business, I realized what I did wrong at that time.
But the thing is like a lot of people who does taxes, who might not study the law because anyone can do taxes, you might have heard me do saying that before.
Tax industry is not regulated. Anyone technically can go do your taxes. They shouldn't. They, they might not know the law. Most of the people out there, they do not understand the loan. Sometimes even they could be a cpa, meaning they took the test for the cpa. Not someone just you call the cpa. Because I know a lot of people call anyone who does taxes a cba, which is not the case.
So but that doesn't mean the person that don't know. But a lot of people who are cpa, they don't know even to do how to do taxes. And they don't want to do it because they might be specialized with other type. Like maybe they, they are specialized with bookkeeping or cfo. Like they want to be just a fractional cfo. That's what they want to offer. Some people, they just want to offer audits. So different people ncba like they offer different things. So a lot of people did not know about that and they're not expected to know.
So don't feel ashamed that you don't know what's the right thing to do. But make sure when you ask people, ask the right people. Don't take your advice from TikTok, especially if on TikTok that's another business owner who is not a tax professional or who is not an educated tax professional.
So make sure you get a consultation for your specific business from someone who knows what they're doing. It's very important because changing your structure, the business structure is, does change the way you get paid and does also affect your tax liability. Because most tax structure, and I mean company structure, unless it's a C corporation, they are passed through entity.
So every information passes through to your personal taxes, which results into a tax liability. Or you may be overbait on your taxes. But if you know the law, if you know how to navigate the tax law, you'll be able to save so much in taxes and you'll be able to get control of your money and sit on the driver's seat to build your empire by keeping your hard earned money with you and never overpay in taxes.
So remember that you need a customer custom strategy in order to avoid overpaying in taxes. If you need help with that, make sure you connect with me. You can book a call to talk to one of my
[email protected] contact.
It's a Zoom meeting. You can talk to my team or myself and we can help direct you to this next step.
Can't wait to talk to you. Yes. Still have appointments during this tax season and still taking a client doing a lot of tax analysis and tax strategies.
I can't wait to talk to you. But now let's end this segment and go to my friend to talk to Dr. Maria. Back to Dr. Maria to talk about psychological safety in your organization. Stay with me. This is your host, Noora Al Masri, and this is Echoes of Impact with Noora. We'll be right back.
Welcome back. This is your host, Noora Masri, and this is Echoes of Impact with Noora. I'm very excited today to talk again to my guest, Dr. Maria. We had an episode last week. We spoke about leadership and here we are. Today we are going to talk about psychological safety. Did you hear that term before? If not, stay with us because you're going to learn a lot from this topic from Dr. Maria. Dr. Maria, welcome back to Echoes of the Impact Hours thing.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Hi, Nora. Thanks for having me. It's so great to see you. I love talking with you and just sharing all kinds of leadership things and also hearing about how awesome your business is going. So such a great person. Thank you for having me.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you for being here. I, I really enjoy having you and I'm sure our audience learned so much from you very important topics. So when you mentioned like psychological safety, I did not quite understand what you mean with psychological safety. So I'm sure a lot of people don't know what that means. So can you explain to us what is psychological safety?
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Sure, absolutely. So the term came up quite a while ago and it was Dr. Edward Shine and he talked a lot about and researched a lot about organizational culture. And part of that is he noticed a little bit about when people spoke up in organizations or not and whether it was okay to speak up in organizations. So as time kind of went on, Dr. Amy Edmondson, who's a Harvard business professor, focused more on team psychological safety. So what that term means is you have a voice in the organization so you can say and talk about things without any repercussions. So that's something that's really important for thriving organizations because you want to get the whole picture of what's going on?
[00:13:52] Speaker A: Absolutely. And is that like just inside meeting or just giving feedback in general about anything in the organization?
[00:14:00] Speaker B: It's really anything in the organization. So it's really kind of part of the culture if you can do that or not. So you kind of learn as you come into a new organization.
You watch how communication flows and see if they allow the space for other everyone's voice to be heard.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: So that takes me to when I first started my career, back when after graduating from college, I used to be very shy. Like, if you tell me you're gonna have a TV show later on in life, I was like, no, you're crazy. I will never be able to speak.
So I remember like sitting on a, you know, staff meeting and I know the answer or I have an idea or anything. I was just terrified of voicing that or speaking versus some people, they just speak and they don't really add any value. So does that connect to.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: So, so yes. So yes, because there would be, there would be a way to be able to work with both of those voices. So the leader or the culture would facilitate an opportunity to be able to get your ideas, you know, you're really good ideas. And they would figure out a way to have communication that was allow you to bring those ideas forth. And on then the flip side is the person who's consistently talking all the time and not adding value to be able to have a conversation with them too about shaping the contribution that they're giving.
So maybe with some coaching.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Awesome. So like, can you give us an example? Like how would the leadership you mentioned already like coaching. But like I remember at that time, no matter how much coaching you give me, like, I wouldn't be speaking because I feel it in my body. I felt it in my body. Like I can't talk in front of people. I can talk to you one to one, but I can't talk like in front of like the entire team, more than one person in front of me, like I won't be able to talk.
So is there something that the leadership can do to facilitate that? Like you said, there's some tools. Like can you give us example about like what type of tools, like you would help the person that who cannot communicate or who cannot exchange the idea, give their opinion on something to really express what they think that might be adding value or not, but at least like to start having that person talking and voice what they think or how can they contribute to that meeting.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: So I have to let you know, I know we're on a TV show. But I want you to know that I was terribly shy when I was growing up. So you and I were Pinky Promise friends. We were in the same boat. So some of that and the coaching, well, not coaching is I ended up getting some mentors. So I think if there's a possible way to find a mentor for the person who's not speaking up as much. Also helping someone prepare for meetings before they come to meetings. So if a lot of times you'll get, hopefully you get the agenda beforehand. And so I know for myself as I was working through that I would get the agenda beforehand and I would kind of think where could I, what could I contribute and how could I contribute? So I would do that before the meeting so I would have some ideas ready. So when it came to that topic, I had something to contribute if I. And it worked. It took some time to get over the fears, but it was just a matter of testing that out and just sharing my ideas on the agenda topic.
So getting a little more pre prepared for meetings helps someone move through that.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Absolutely. So would, would also writing maybe like just came to my mind. Like if we have a channel where everyone can at least type what they think or what like getting feedback and writing. If someone like still struggle with voicing their what they think or their feedback.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Oh yes, I think that's a great idea too. Just a way where they can. There can be. So some organizations use. And the software I'm thinking of is they'll use electronic whiteboards or the software I'm thinking of is a tool called mural. And so you would actually put the whole project out there on this electronic whiteboard and then people can contribute their ideas just by taking an electronic sticky note and putting it on the whiteboard just to share the ideas. And that's another way to generate more. And so how I've seen that done and as part of design thinking is at the start of the meeting we would have a topic and we would be wanting to work through it. And at the very beginning of the meeting, instead of talking about it, we had to write down our answers on sticky notes and then added it that way and then went to the conversation. So that was drawing more people out with their ideas because they had to contribute to all the different questions. So you could do it electronically or you could do it with sticky notes in person.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: So like what's what if, what what I was going to say. So how would you say this organization have psychological safety versus the other organization doesn't have? Like are you able to identify that from. And how would you identify?
[00:19:45] Speaker B: So I think if you went to a meeting, you'd know right away.
You'd pretty much know right away if people felt like they could express their opinions or not.
Just watching the interaction between people, that's another way. So I think the key thing is really as a leader taking it on like, how can I build trust? Because that's a big part of it in the organization that people will feel that they can speak up and give their ideas.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: So, and also when someone gives an idea, there has to be a culture to receive it. So instead of you giving me an idea and I say that's a terrible idea, I mean, what is that going to do? I'm never going to say anything again. Right. So I think that, I mean, I know that sounds silly, but it's true. I mean, some people just don't, you know, are not ready to hear other ideas beyond their own. And so you have to kind of train that kind of communication in the organization. There's a great term because there's always 10% of something right in every single idea is you say yes. And so you're like, yes to this. And. And then you continue their idea. So that's one tip, to keep the ideas flowing.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Nice. So how much do you think the organization can get effective in a negative way if they don't have that environment in their. Between their team?
[00:21:24] Speaker B: So this is when I think the conversations of. You've watched possibly other organizations fall apart. And that would probably be related to psychological safety because they could see, I think, the long ago 1989 crash of the Challenger where there was a defective part and the person kept speaking up and no one was listening or people ignored it. Well, that was a major disaster. And so that was a situation where there were compelling forces to not listen to this innovative idea. Then you can also take a look at some of the, and my favorite, some of the film. Not film, but camera companies, film companies. How they didn't. They saw digital photography coming forward, but then they didn't take action. They were so convinced that film and print photography would continue. So they must have not had an innovative conversation about that, otherwise they would still be a leader in that area.
So, so that's where you're missing the piece is you're not going to get to the innovation because people could be seeing different ideas and you're not hearing them. It's just doing business the same way. The same way, the same way. And never thinking ahead to what could.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: Change yeah, that's really important. And that takes us to our previous episode, the Change and leadership of Change. And you guys, if you missed that, you want, go ahead and watch that on NOW Media tv. That's just the previous episode we spoke about leadership change. We're going to come back to Dr. Maria and talk more about the topic. But now let's take a break. This is your host, Noor Al Masri. And this is Echoes of Impacts with Noora. We'll be right back.
Welcome back. This is your host, Noora Masri. And this is Echoes of Impact with Noora. We're back with Dr. Maria. We're talking about psychological safety. If you just joined, you want to make sure to go back to the first segment so you can learn what psychological safety means because me personally didn't understand it until Dr. Maria explained it to me. Now we were talking about how some organizations missed out on change and on staying in the markets before because they were not listening to the innovation of their team. So Dr. Maria, can you give us more example of organization? They did not have the psychological safety culture in their organization. And that did affect their organization.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: Oh yeah, exactly. I mean, I think another organization to think about is Blockbuster. So it was great. Okay, so you'd go and you pick up your movies and who thought that would ever go away way. But now, I mean, they're not around now.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Even the TV almost gone.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah, almost the TV is gone because I mean, really never. I mean, that's what's interesting about culture today and how we relate to each other because we're not watching the same TV stations at all because there's so many different streaming services. Well, Blockbuster wasn't ever thinking that streaming would ever take off. You know, they just continued doing business as normal. And then streaming took off, you know, and so now, I don't know, unless we talk to each other, we don't know what anybody's watching. Absolutely. I mean, even the news, you know, so there's not even this, we're not even getting the same news. So. Because there's so many streaming options and who would have thought about that? So, you know, and I, I think too. Oh, I think too is even the whole idea. I have a friend who's an engineer and he's been in the cellular like mobile phone engineering for his whole career. And he told me many, many years ago, he goes pro. He's like, marie, I promise you, you're gonna have a, you're gonna have a phone number that stays with you the rest of your life. Well, if you keep your phone and you keep your number, it's attached to you and it's with you all the time, you know, and who thought people would be getting rid of their landlines, you know? Yeah, I remember like, thought about that.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember in the past, like, you change the company, you change your number, you cannot keep it.
Now we change back.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Have the same number.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Right, Exactly. You know, and it's so interesting because I. I mean, who would have thought we could be watching TV if we're taking public transportation?
You know, I. There's your own little TV right in your pocket. So that's certainly a change, you know, and so all those different companies had to think, you know, or they either had psychological safety where they allowed innovative conversations or. Or the other part of psychological safety that people need to know about is how they deal with failure. So sometimes organizations don't take risks or leaders don't take risks, but when you know, if they take a risk and they fail, what's the consequence? So you have to build a culture that allows for what's called failing forward.
So it's okay to try something new, fail, and then you have an intelligent failure because you learn from it.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really important topic concept because especially people on smaller organization, which is mostly our audience, they have small business or small organization, they feel like they cannot pay for mistakes because they cannot afford it. While like, yeah, I don't think there's anything you can learn without having a mistake. Like not having a mistake. Really, that means you're not working. But also, like, how would you convince those small business owners that even in your industry this could happen? Even like it's not only with the cell phone. Like, because we cannot comprehend what might come because we didn't see it. So they might say, oh no, it doesn't. It's not gonna come to near to me. Like, as you know, I am immune or my business is immune. So how would you. What would you tell them technically?
[00:28:12] Speaker B: Okay, so I'll give you an example. So I've been doing. I'm always learning. So I was in this entrepreneurship class and one of the pieces of the class was to making was to make sure I was in line with what's happening with my customers. Like, are they really having the problems that I think I want to solve for them? So I had to go out and do some interviews. So originally when I even first started my business more recently, I had more of a wellness focus. Well, a lot of people didn't understand wellness and Then they couldn't relate a problem to wellness. So I had to do a pivot there to find out a little bit more and interview more people and customers to understand what are the true problems and how I can truly help people.
So that can change because like not having a blockbuster for going back to the example, that isn't a problem anymore because we have so many streamings. But it's just a matter of staying open to continually learn what people need and you know, interviewing customers to see if you're on track.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: Awesome. So how can business owners like have that balance between. Yeah, they're open to the change. Like they also have that psychological safety in their organization, but also like they're not, they're not investing a lot that they cannot afford.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: So, so I'm trying to say, think if I heard the question right.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: So about not investing so much because you could, you don't want to spend too much money because like, for example, they might.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: Okay, like you, me might need this person to help you do something. Some like let's, let's go to that topic. Like one of your employees say, hey, we need to hire someone who can do this thing and the business. But then the, the leader would say, well, that employee really know what's going on.
But I cannot afford that.
So that's, that's an example I can think of. Like, so how can they navigate between, oh, okay, I want to stay relatable, I want to listen to my employees. I want to really take that into consideration. But also I don't want to spend ton of money that I don't have.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: So I think the first part is to making sure your employee feels seen like you heard them and you understood. And then it's really just being open and curious about what they're thinking about. And maybe you can't hire an additional person, but is there a way we could look at our system to maybe shift it a little so everybody's needs get met? So not a lot of money is spent. But still that employee gets that additional skill or help that they need to do their job well. So that's something to think about because it's really about allowing people to talk about what there's needs, but also keeping it in a frame of this is what's realistic. So you do have to have boundaries. So you can't say everybody gets a brand new car working for us. I think that's a good idea, right? Yeah, that's a crazy idea. But, but it's just, you know, having the conversations and also Having the boundaries, but that goes into, you know, like, as you're planning out for the year and say, you know, here's what we see future forward, you know, and, you know, maybe in quarter three, we can look at that.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Awesome. So I know you coach a lot of people, like a lot of leaders in the organizations and their team. So what's the. Did you find any resistance, like, having that psychological safety environment with the people you have been talking to so far?
[00:32:19] Speaker B: It's a skill set.
It's a skill set that people have to really work on, on how to facilitate. So some people call it leading with a coach approach. So then you're able to kind of draw out the conversations from your teams. So. And some schools have that when they're teaching leaders. But I think that's an important skill that people need to build on, is how to ask the right questions, keep the conversation going. Because naturally, I don't think we ever thought about that before. Like, should we have a coach approach or should we just tell people what to do? Right. In leadership roles? So that's kind of different. And that. And sometimes it could be scary to give your power away. So by running a psychologically safe organization, sometimes that can be scary. So absolutely. A lot of learning and growing with that, but definitely a skill set and also for the team, because they probably would be like, what happened to our leader? They want to know what we're thinking about.
So that's the other part too. So it's a whole learning for everybody.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: It's like voting. Right. Like, we're not in a country. So. So I want you to explain to our audience what's the difference between coach approach and telling people what they should do.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: So coach approach. Well, first, telling someone what they should do is really just giving them the instructions, telling them exactly how they should do it, and just have that as more of a transactional kind of leadership role. So it's just. I give you this. It's back and forth. And so coach approach is different because it's more of a conversation. And so it's really asking the right questions of the leader, asking the right questions to help the person in the role come up with the best answers. So we usually like to pay attention more to what we think about how it should be done instead of always told what to do. It gives us more autonomy. You know, we feel like we're heard or that we can. We're effective because it's already it.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: So awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Maria. We'll be right back with you. To talk more about psychological safety and organization. And guys, stay with us for the last segment. You don't want to miss it. This is your host, Noora Al Masri. And this is Echoes of Impact with Noora. We'll be right back.
Welcome back. This is your host, Noor Al Masri. And this is a cause of Impact with Noora. We're still with Dr. Maria. We're talking about psychological safety and how does it affect your employee, your organization?
We're going to focus now about the leaders. How can you implement that psychological safety in your organization? And before we get into that, I want to ask Dr. Maria a question because, well, I worked with nonprofits, I worked with business owners. I, I've been an employee in a company.
So most of the time the founder of any organization, they have that, they call it like the founder syndrome. They don't want to let go. They don't, don't want to give control. And when you start a business, you really, like, do something, everything yourself, and you think the best way is done. Is the way you do it the same thing for organizations because you don't have a lot of resources. So you start doing everything on your own. But then you start hiring, but you don't want to give control that might scares you, that might go, oh, okay, what if? What if? So how would you, how would you, how would you solve this problem? Problem?
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Okay, that's a great question. It's a great question. So not everybody can be great at everything, right? So I think part of that topic is to really dig into as the founder is hiring new people, identifying their true strengths, like, what do they do really well and what are some things that they can delegate out? So understanding that and getting people, you know, say, for example, myself, I'm not that fond of doing Excel spreadsheets. Now, some people love those. But for me, I would like to pass that on to somebody. So it's just a matter of being able to have the courage to let that go and really focus and put the energy towards strengths for that individual. So that's one piece of it is just really, it's difficult because you're the founder and you created everything and you did it all on your own. But then it's, it's taking the risk and letting go and focusing on your strengths because that's going to flow so much easier for you and then you'll find the right person who has the strength that you don't have and they can delegate. So I think recently I know somebody who I was working with and she has her own insurance agency and she was controlling everything. And when I first met with her, she was just extremely stressed and just overwhelmed and her family was getting concerned about her. And so with working with her, we worked on her strengths and then areas that she could look at. And she ended up hiring a sales manager. So then that took a ton of pressure off of her so she could do what she's really good at. And she's good at sales and relationships and she loves that. But this way, this other employee now takes over the sales role and she did a nice job description for him. So now she gets to spend more time with her family and she's not stressing as much.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: Nice. And let me tell you, sales position is one of the hardest to hire for.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: Yes. Because I feel like no one understands the product, whether it's a service or a product, like the owner. But. Well, there are people who are, you know, they can't sell. They are, you know, they can sell just one of these positions that you bring someone who's gonna bring their salary. So you shouldn't really be concerned about how can I afford paying that person? Because he should bring that in.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: Yeah, they'll bring in enough money, revenue to pay for themselves, really. You know, and then there's more freedom, more growth.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. So how does a leader, can, how does the leader build a psychological safety in their organization?
Are there steps 1, 2, 3 to do that or like, is it just like being coach? Like how does it, how do they build it?
[00:39:45] Speaker B: So I think there's a couple. Well, there's really about four things that you can think about. So the first thing is being really encouraging more conversations or communication, like having a pattern for the communication. And that would be check ins on a daily basis if you could fit that in. But getting a pattern where you're getting more people talking to each other. So that's like establishing. That would be a first step. Then a second step would be taking a look at how you learn from mistakes. And so taking a look at how did you deal with them before and is it okay to make a mistake so you can learn. So then you're building that next culture thing. So you're really building cultural elements. First with checking in on a daily basis, second with then looking at how people can be innovative and try things. And it's okay to learn if you make a mistake and that's. You're not going to get in trouble or fired for that. That's important because you grow from that. Then you're making sure everybody feels seen. So sometimes I'll talk to people that are working in hybrid or remote situations, and they don't even talk to their supervisor for a month or a couple weeks. So they don't feel seen in the organization. They're probably not going to stay very long. So it's a matter, you know, knowing that person, not only knowing that they work there, but also that they're seen. And the last part is really taking a look at how you can encourage curiosity and the questions. And that's kind of working on the coaching approach is coming to situations instead of saying, why did you do that? That way you could say, tell me a little bit more about this project. So coming with more curiosity questions so a leader can find definitely a couple of questions to be curious and start testing them out with their team.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is really a skill, and you can. You can mess up with that. But I want to get back to making sure.
Making your employee or the team member feel seen. Feel seen. Like you're seeing them. Like, how would you do that? Especially in an environment, a virtual environment.
[00:42:06] Speaker B: So I know this sounds silly, but know their name and know how to pronounce it. I know that that's so silly, but it's real. It's real. So that's one part of it. If people love their name. People love their name. They love their name. I mean, this is not. This is not a remote environment. But I was just working with somebody, and they are owner of a franchise cleaning business. And I went to their office and he told this story about how other people in the building were wondering why his employees were so happy. And he invited him into the office. And it's a cleaning company. They could be really ignoring their employees, but not when you walk in there. They have a whole chart with all the different teams and all their names are up there. So it's not like they're numbers at all. And then he has a great recognition program. So they. They feel pride in working for him because they feel seen. So, and I, I think with the scene in a remote environment is making sure that there's a good communication pattern. I mean, not talking to someone that you work for for a month, that's challenging to make it seem like what you're doing is valuable.
[00:43:25] Speaker A: Absolutely. You know what? We often miss planning on how to recognize our team. Like, because, oh, we're busy. Let's do that. Let's do this. Like, we think about outside, but we tend to forget. Like, how really can we recognize our team Sometimes maybe people feel like it's a waste of time or like I don't have time for that, I don't have an HRR person yet. Or you know, I'm still a small company, like how can I do that? So are there like some tips that you can give to people especially with a virtual small environment? Even like not virtual, like just small environments where the leader don't have that much time. But yeah, they have like few people.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: So I mean I think where there's at least a little bit of dedicated time even if it's for 15 minutes, where the leaders interacting with someone. 15 minutes is good, you know, so it's just something where there, there's definitely an effort where they know this is my time. That's one way to think about it. Or if you do something.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: Are you talking about.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: Yeah, like a little, A little check in meeting. Yeah, a little check in meeting for 15 minutes. Or, or maybe it's even just a conversation electronically back and forth like how's it going for you today? Or you know, you know, is there anything I can do to help? Or you know, those kind of. Any way you could communicate, even if it's texting or something. So just staying connected with or should.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: It be like one to one conversation?
[00:44:57] Speaker B: You could do a staff meeting, staff meeting. But sometimes people are like, oh, another meeting. But when you have intention and you create a good meeting setting where people know what's going to happen and how it'll happen, that's important too. And in a virtual environment, sometimes people set up a little bit of time at the beginning for icebreaker conversations.
So that's one way to keep people connected in a virtual environment and then start the meeting.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean in my company we have like two staff meeting a week because otherwise I would feel disconnected. Like I'm like, I don't know what's every thing going. I don't like slack. Like I mean we do use slack, but I, you know, I don't want to keep just slacking conversation like because you know, I want to see the share the screen and watch like go over the core value and just like make that human connection with people.
But I wasn't sure like if this is something like that can be considered like the personal touch. I was like, maybe like there is something else we should be doing.
[00:46:06] Speaker B: I think if you're running the meetings well, so make sure that you're intentional about it so that it's meaning for them meaningful for them to come to the meeting. Right. Because you could tell. Sometimes people are checked out in meetings and that's because they don't feel like they're seen or they're valued or all those different things that come along with it. So meetings is kind of how you set up the culture for your meeting, for it to go well.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well. Thank you so much, Dr. Maria. Like the time passed really, really quick. I just want you to mention your website so people can connect with you before.
[00:46:43] Speaker B: Oh yes. Oh yes. Thank you so much for the opportunity. My website is docmaria.com and you can reach out that way or connect to me on LinkedIn.
I would love to talk to you and help you with your leadership in your organization and psychological safety. So thank you so much, Nora.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Maria. I really enjoyed talking to me guys. Stay with Echoes of Impact next week on Tuesday at 5pm Central again. And if you missed this episode or any prior episode, go ahead and watch at NowMedia TV. Go to Echoes of Impact. You can watch all prior episodes and make sure you send me an email at hello and let me know what you think. What would you like to see in Echoes of Impact?
Until next time, keep making an impact.
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