Dr. Joey Faucette, host of the Work Positive podcast and HR coach, joins the podcast to talk about the landscape of empathy in today’s workplaces how giving employees more autonomy can help support mental wellbeing and drive more ROI for your workplace. Dr. Joey shares his transformative 5-step framework for fostering a positive work environment, emphasizing the importance of perceiving, conceiving, believing, achieving, and giving.
Marcy Klipfel
Well, I’m so excited to be here today with Dr. Joey and I’m Marcy Klipfel. And so we are going to dive right in because this is such an exciting topic.
So, thank you so much for being here today, Dr. Joey, to dive into this. I mean, just incredibly meaty topic. I’m just blown away at the fact that with our empathy study that 55% of CEOs are even reporting that they have mental health issues, up from 24 points from last year.
What do you make of this? Is this something that surprises you as well?
Dr. Joey
Oh, what do I make of this? Finally, some CEOs are getting honest about this. And I must say that that’s an amazing study. My friend, Joshua Friedman, helps work with that study every year. And he’s just an amazing expert in the field of emotional intelligence. And of course, Rob Volpe is another friend of mine. I’ve had both those guys on my podcast and empathy is, has come front center now.
The provocateur of all this, in my humble opinion, that really crystallized it and brought it as a tour de force into our current conversation really has two components.
Number one, everybody blames everything on the pandemic, right? So, I’m giving credit to the pandemic for forcing us to look at what’s really important, or perhaps I should say focusing on us, what’s really important. And that is human beings are the ones doing the work in our companies.
We’re not automatons. We’re not fully augmented intelligence. So, resistance may be futile, ala, Star Trek, right? I’m not Captain Picard, but we’re not all cyborgs yet.
So, we’re human beings who are doing the work. So, thank goodness that one of the positive outcomes of the pandemic was, hey, we recognize you as a person now, or some of us do.
So, that corresponding increase that you noted so well, which is highly dramatic, is simply because of that. We’ve begun to regard people as people now.
The second thing is, to their credit, Gen Z is coming on the workforce scene with a fury. And it’s absolutely marvelous. They have, I mean, these are my children, OK? I’m a boomer.
So, they are coming into—I actually have one who’s a millennial and who’s a Z.
But they’re coming into the workforce now saying, hey, there’s certain non-negotiables for me and here they are.
And frankly, Marcy, it’s because they’ve watched my generation. I mean, we’re a dumpster fire when it comes to relationships, right? Because we burned ourselves up and out at work and we have the highest divorce rate of any generation prior.
We have the highest addiction rate. I mean, we, literally are a dumpster fire.
So, kudos to them for looking at it and say, looking at us, their parents in many cases and saying, ‘Nuh uh. I’m not selling my soul to the company store. There’s a better way to do life and gain meaning, satisfaction, and align my purpose with the company purpose and, really enjoy this journey called life.’
That generation’s destined to live longer than my generation as well.
So, I think there’s a high level of intentionality. Those are the two factors, I believe, that’s caused those numbers to go up so much.
So, finally, CEOs are getting it.
Marcy Klipfel
So, not to state the obvious, but it’s not as though perhaps CEOs haven’t experienced mental health issues in the past, just they wouldn’t cop to it perhaps, or it wasn’t perhaps safe to do so.
Dr. Joey
Yeah.
Or maybe Marcy it’s just, they didn’t know what the hell to do with it. Right?
Cause I mean, I’ve had these say to me before, I’m not a therapist. I’m not a psychotherapist. I don’t know what to do!
Because they’re problem solvers by and large. Right? Bring me your problems and I’ll fix them for you. That’s where analytical, we get to fix stuff. Fixing people ain’t that easy. It’s, it’s a messy business.
And so they’re like, ‘Well, if I can’t fix it, then I can fire it.’ Or, ‘If I can’t fix it, I can deny it or turn away from it.’
So, denial just ain’t the river in Egypt. You can’t deny this because it’s just that big an issue today. And, rightfully so. I mean, for our podcast, I got a note from a guy today about mental health issues and he’s having these experiences, you know, want advice, what to do.
The cool thing is that while CEOs may be a little slow to the show, man, HR directors and leaders, they have done an amazing job in the midst of a rapidly changing landscape of pivoting and really dancing their way through this and beginning to get that to the attention of the C-suite.
Marcy Klipfel
Absolutely. And I think this has really also opened the door for HR leaders to bring data to something that has been perhaps viewed as squishy or feelings based or hard to bring, you know, facts to the table to get particularly your CEO and your CFO to pay attention.
And in prior lives I’ve had, it has been something around maybe that goes something like, ‘Well, these types of programs, employee-facing or public-facing, I’m gonna say the right thing, cause it’s for those people. But then behind the closed door, it doesn’t really apply to our high performers or to certainly not to our executive team, right?’
There was sort of this, what you say publicly versus what you say behind closed doors. And so, what I’m really proud of in terms of what’s staying after this from a data perspective and from tying it out to results is that as an HR professional, I can bring that to the table to make a business case about why this is so important and sort of bring it out of the squishiness, if you will.
And perhaps that is what inspires these CEOs to say, finally, I am going to come forward because if I do it, then it will bring this really important topic so that it might inspire someone else. If I can do it, others might do it because they kind of expect your HR person to do it, right? But perhaps that that’s some of it from an inspiration standpoint.
Dr. Joey
Yeah.
Marcy Klipfel
But I love what you also brought up about Gen Z, because the other piece that we’re finding is, you know, Gen Z really is saying that 52%, so over half, are saying that their workplace is toxic. And that word just sears into my ears.
So, when I hear toxic, particularly if it were my employees saying that, it hurts. I mean, that one stings because toxic is just layered with issues that you have to peel back and it’s not something that you can fix overnight. So, we’d love to hear what you believe that that means for our workplaces.
Dr. Joey
Yeah, by the way, thanks for using the word squishy. That’s one of my favorite words.
And we do, we do regard it as squishy so often or woo woo. That’s another favorite one.
And that’s because our primary metric is financial, right? And I get it, particularly in large enterprise sized companies. It’s a quarterly.
Empathy is, you know, you’re getting yourself exposed quarterly and so you’ve got show profits quarterly because you’ve got to keep the stock prices up. I mean the amount of pressure there is inordinate. And with the C-suite we’ve almost come to expect a landscape that’s littered with divorces and affairs and alcoholism and drug abuse which is part of that definition of toxic that you’re getting.
And again, Gen Z’s grown up watching that happen in their parents and associated others. So, there’s got to be something more to life than that.
So, kudos to them for, I have a friend who’s a local therapist, you know, for really searching out the meaning in life and wanting to make sure that we’re doing it the best way possible so that I can, I guess to quote Brene Brown, be the best version of myself that I can be, right?
And so that inspiration comes from negative examples, but at the same time, we know that toxicity lowers productivity. We know that productivity lowers profitability, right? So, the new equation that feeds the bottom line is we’re going to grow, it’s additive. We’re going to grow people and profits.
And when you grow people, your profits grow.
Now, of course, augmented intelligence now, and I prefer that to artificial, augmented intelligence now is bringing all that up into the mix. Okay, what’s AI going to do? What are people going to do? Are people going to be replaced by AI and all that kind of conversation? But for me, that’s another intersection rather than caving into the toxicity of technology.
Let’s use that as a springboard. Let’s use that as leverage to discover the joy de vivre of work and the indomitable human spirit. Let’s make our competitive advantage around innovation and creativity so that the more mundane routine kinds of tasks that augmented intelligence can do best. They’re doing that. That leaves us open to solving problems that we have yet to solve.
Marcy Klipfel
Absolutely. And it dovetails nicely into another layer in there where you start with a bombastic word like toxic, but then very close to that is sort of this negativity that can then breed.
Dr. Joey
It does breed. Yeah, it’s a cess pool.
Marcy Klipfel
And so, when you’re working against that and you’re in my seat and my team’s seat and the engagement, which is what we call human resources at Businessolver, but you’re sitting in the engagement team and you know, there’s this air of negativity which, which you can just feel, right?
You know, what are those factors working against us when it comes to that negativity in the workplace? And how do you, I love what you said about using augmented intelligence as a springboard, but when that negativity has taken hold, like what are those factors? And then how do you, how do you name them? And then sort of go after them to eradicate them?
Dr. Joey
Thanks for asking Marcy. You know, you’re, you’re, all up in the five core practices of the Work Positive culture journey, which for me started out of my own story back in ‘07, ‘08 during the Great Recession. I mean, that’s, you know, start doing the math. It’s been a little while
But then we, really had to re-examine our businesses and how we’re doing, what we’re doing and why we’re doing what we’re doing, what brings success because the typical economic factors, those waves that just boost everybody’s economy were gone.
And so, I had heard my grandparents talk about the Great Depression. They were all born, actually one grandfather was born prior to, but the other three were born during the Great Depression. You what was that like? What was, you know, what was going on? So, I began some research is looking for people, amazing people who created businesses during the Great Depression.
What was it they did? What were their habits? How did, and those companies are enduring and thriving today. How do you do that? Because that’s a legacy kind of piece that must be built on some enduring quality there. So, what were those?
So, I’ll just quickly tell you, so we’re going to name it. Negativity takes on a mindset. So, the first thing we want to do for ourselves as leaders, but then also we want to create a culture that encourages. I refer to it as the perceive core practice.
We want to discover ways to lead our teams and lead ourselves and each other to focus on the positive and filter out the negative. Now, this is not some Zen mind trick or anything where I’m pretending the negatives not there. No, that behavior is negative. And so, we’ve got to find some ways to address it, but it all starts and stops in your head. since you see what you look for in most cases, because perception is reality, then we want to begin to focus on the positive and filter out the negative.
So, it starts and stops in your head and that’s the perceived core practice.
That leads to the relationships that we have, which I call the conceive core practice. And in conceiving, we’re talking about a social dynamic.
So, we want to—Jim Rome, my favorite business philosopher once said that we’re the average of the five persons with whom we spend the most time. Well, if 70% of our waking hours are spent working, right. Yeah. I mean, most days I spend more time with them than I do with my four-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter or my wife. Both of them I’d much rather be with in some cases.
So, I’m going to, you know, import whatever that experience is, whatever that average is right into my personal relationships as well.
So, discovering how to focus on positive people and building into those relationships, more time and energy and attention and how to deal with negative people without becoming one ourselves. Because Jane and John Q Public are going to walk through our doors and they’re going to be negative. The people we work with are going to be negative at times. ‘Cause I mean, everybody has a day when the dog pees on your favorite pair of shoes and you know, your day starts out crappy like that.
That’s not what I’m talking about. That’s just situational. I’m talking about those people with chronic, mental negativity. I call those your vampires and, and we’ll be talking more about that later.
Third thing is I perceive it mentally, I conceive it socially, then I believe it emotionally.
And here you refer to your team as the engagement team. That’s what we’re talking about here. Where’s the alignment of my passion with company purpose so that I understand I belong here, my daily task, contribute to the accomplishment of the company mission. So, that’s the emotional engagement.
The fourth core practice is the achieve core practice. And that’s the physical nature of the work we do. It counts when we take action, sit and have intentionality all we want, but you’ve got to act on it. So, we give attention to positive thoughts and positive people, plus our intentions, which grow out of our engagement. Then we take action on those. And that’s when productivity goes at the roof.
Positive work cultures produce 30% increase in productivity. That’s when we see revenue growth increasing 28% year over year operating income, 19% year over year because of that positive work culture.
Now, Marcy, the fifth and final core practice that I discovered among these great depression gurus was, which was absolutely amazing to me because I thought, okay, after you’ve popped the bottom line with your positive work culture, what else could there be? These people were some of the most philanthropic, generous people you’ve ever met in your life.
I mean, they were, they recognized that saying thank you is more than lip service. That these customers are the people who keep your lights on. These team members are the ones who solve the problems of your customers. And so just spreading that around and saying thank you and serving others, recognizing that, you know, you really can meet the needs of other people as an act of gratitude, not as a means of getting more, but as an act of gratitude. That was huge for them.
And the authenticity of gratitude today, as my friend Chester Elton talks about it, is huge, absolutely huge, because people can sniff out, especially Gen Z, they can sniff out that lack of authenticity. If you’re just, you know, acting grateful to me or sending me a little something, just keep me coming back now. But if you’re showing a genuine interest in me as a human being out of gratitude for the relationship we have, that’s huge.
So, those are five areas, Marcy, in which we can name it and claim it and they’re demonstrated tactics out of those core practices that really help build a positive work culture and move the needle forward away from toxicity and into positivity.
Marcy Klipfel
Absolutely. To quote or to cite the return again, back to the bottom line, back to what that can return as an organization, that’s impossible to ignore in terms of, again, hard data-driven outcomes for a business. And on top of it, again, being the right thing, the right thing to do.
Dr. Joey
Yes, yes, as a human being.
Marcy Klipfel
Right.
You know, I think one the other pieces that we found from this study, and I’ll sort of set up this question because I do think it’s interesting to layer some of these findings together.
Something that was found was 81% of CEOs, 72% of HR practitioners, and 67% of employees all agree or strongly agree that companies view someone with mental health issues as weak or a burden. Okay?
But then you go into a 90% agreement across those three constituents that it’s important for senior leadership to openly discuss mental health issues to create a safe environment for other employees to follow suit.
But then you layer on top of that, that CEOs are admitting that they are facing challenges to demonstrating empathy.
So, you mix all this up and yeah, it’s difficult to understand, know, how is our understanding of workplace empathy changing when it’s sort of like, well, I know it’s the right thing to say and I need to be empathetic about it, but I’m still going to view it as weak or a burden.
Dr. Joey
Yeah, quite a few.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. absolutely. I’m not a therapist. I’m not even the son of a therapist, but that’s passive aggressive right there. That’s the classic definition. Yeah. It’s like, ‘I know I should be doing this, but ooh, I’m doing this. Right. So, so what is it?’
Hey, can I just offer up one tactic that somebody listening who’s a leader? I get it. We, I wish we regarded mental health issues the same way we regard diabetes, for instance.
I just wish we could say, you know, ‘Hey, here’s insulin for this person.’ And I mean, there’s still some, still some persons offering health coverage out there that exclude mental health, right. And so, it’s, it befuddles me too.
But look, here’s one thing you can do if you’re a CEO or you sit in a C-suite and you’re trying to figure out what’s one low hanging fruit? What’s one easy, I’m all about do one thing. So, what’s one thing I can do the next time you blow it, and you’re going to blow it, the next time you screw it up and everybody knows you screwed it up.
Just say, I screwed it up. Let’s work on this and put it back together better.
Just admit that. Be authentic. Be transparent.
Now know that’s going to be a massive blow to somebody’s ego that might have just listened to that. ‘Aw crap, I can’t do that.’ And I know you think you have this Teflon veneer that this might be your kryptonite to admit you made a mistake. It’s okay, man. Just be human. Come on, just say, I screwed it up. I need your help. Help me.
That one thing will do more to remove stigma from mental health issues and humanize you so that you can begin having genuine conversations that will open up the culture. mistake.
Marcy Klipfel
Mm -hmm. Vulnerability.
Dr. Joey
That’s right. That vulnerability, just some transparency around really all you’re saying. It’s like the emperor’s not wearing clothes, right? So, you’re just being the kid talking about yourself. Okay. I’m there. I made a mistake.
Marcy Klipfel
So, I think one of the topics that I’ve been very fascinated by and that’s in the news quite often. So, you probably saw Amazon saying, ‘Okay, people are coming back in the office.’ They’ve got people picketing about it. And then you have our data that shows 89% are saying flexible work hours along with remote work, which is 84% options, are perceived as the primary health benefits.
So, on top of the fact that only 14% of organizations are fully remote at this point.
So, just interested in your perspective with all of this data, plus the outpouring of employees who are very passionate about how, and again, it’s not for everybody, but large passionate population who are juggling everything, again, on top of mental health issues, right? Or mental health issues of family members, but yet are being forced back into an environment that is not conducive to how they have structured their lives and just the disconnect between the C-suite and the average employee and just interested in your thoughts about how that will manifest itself relative to what we’re talking about, empathy and displaying that and mental health.
Dr. Joey
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, first of all, this is not a new disconnect.
I said it. Like I’m a business owner. I sit in a big chair too.
It’s not the first disconnect we’ve, we’ve known about it. We’ve seen about it, but because so many social factors, we’ve just continued to go with it.
So, I don’t want to geek out on neuroscience, but our brains love the familiar, even if it’s miserable. We love the familiar. I mean, that’s what status quo literally means. What a mess we’re in. We’re going to choose status quo 9.9 out of 10 times.
It’s only when a crisis occurs, or the pain gets so great that we’re going to move. That’s what the pandemic was. It just forced us to move.
So, we moved, and by the way, we moved in March of 2020. Well, by August of 2020, we were seeing studies come out—first one I saw was out of Australia—saying productivity is way up because—I mean, just within the last week, I was talking with somebody who does internal comms in the procurement division for a major company, international company in the hospitality industry, being made to go back in, being made to three days a week and said, I can’t generate the kind of content I need to generate because of all this going on around me now.
You know, my workspace is open, it’s exposed and it just wasn’t fitting. So, we kind of got in a groove there where we could be more productive. Go to this website right now if you’re listening: Go Rowe, G-O-R-O-W-E dot com.
My good friend Jody Thompson years ago when she was with Best Buy began to make this shift which unfortunately has not come all the way through yet. It’s kind of like we’re in a wormhole, but we’re stuck in it. We’re not able to come out on the other side, where it’s a result-only work environment.
But it’s so familiar to our brains to manage certain tangibles. Like you got to be in the office by eight o ‘clock and you can’t leave until five. Sounds kind of like a prison to me. Right?
And okay. We’re assuming that a manager needs to stand over my desk to make sure I’m not on Instagram or YouTube, right? In order for me to get my work done.
Autonomy, Dan Pink has proven this as well as Jody. Autonomy is where productivity gets turbocharged. So, if you’ll start treating me like an adult, guess what? I may actually act like an adult, which to Jody’s credit also means not everybody has to go to meetings.
I think most meetings, I’m going to just make up a statistic and say 83.7% of all meetings could be handled by email. I mean, we put people in cushy chairs with good coffee and I mean, with Starbucks coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts. And we wonder why they don’t want to go back to work. Well, you’re sitting there having a social hour, right? And then if it’s at the end of the day, you add a little McCallan and you just having a wonderful time, right?
So, if we could just let people be autonomous, focus more on belonging and becoming, which connects again, those daily tasks with the company mission, right? My passion as a worker and the company purpose, if you could just do that. And then if you can give me a clear path of how I can develop grow and learn skill sets. Boom. I’m there.
So, I know Amazon CEO makes a bazillion more dollars than I do every year or ever will, right, in my lifetime. Okay. I get that. But dude, come on to stand up on your, at, on your desk and say, everybody’s got to come back to work here. And if you don’t want to come back to work here, right. Then you don’t want to work for Amazon.
Cool. Because they are A million other companies, some of which are just starting up that want me to be a part of a distributed network. That want me to be productive. That want me to have a life. That want me to be able to go walk my dog when I’m going to lunch. Maggie Mae wants that when I do that. You know, there’s just so many. I’m back to what Gen Z wants. They’ve seen my generation screw it up and they want a life.
Marcy Klipfel
Sure. I have my own theory that’ll probably lock me out of ever getting hired at any of those companies in my whole career, which is probably okay, because I would be horrible there, miserable.
Dr. Joey
You wouldn’t want to work for ‘em, Marcy.
Marcy Klipfel
Yeah, I don’t think so.
But I just don’t think they like their home lives. So, I think when they were forced back home, it wasn’t right. I just think it was, ugh. And so, I don’t know, you know?
Dr. Joey
Or Marcy, maybe they don’t have a life.
Marcy Klipfel
Or they don’t have, yeah, that’s another great, probably very true.
Dr. Joey
Get a life, right? Well, yeah, and it can be done differently. And I’m not, I don’t mean to diss everybody in the baby boom generation.
Marcy Klipfel
Sure, for some people in office is for them and that is awesome and it’s great that they have choice.
Dr. Joey
I mean, yeah, yeah, it really is. And it’s familiar and they like that. The cooler and coffee pot talk is good. A lot—there are some things that you need to be, you can do better in person. I think there’s a lot of jazz that happens in the human chemistry that Zoom just can’t quite capture. And I was an early adopter of Zoom, by the way. So, nothing wrong with them.
But you need to be together for that…we don’t have to necessarily get together in an office building to do that. In fact, I think it’s better done offsite. I think it’s better done in the nature setting where you can get out among the trees. then there I’m getting into my… the ways that I’ve seen people grow in productivity half and best, you know.
Marcy Klipfel
Yep. Most of my network who’s been forced back in tells me that they just go sit and then they just sit in a cube on Zoom with people because they don’t end up meeting in person anyway. They just have to go sit there so that their IT department can register their network.
Dr. Joey
Yep. Hey, we can do that in the dining room at home too though, right?
Marcy Klipfel
Sure, yes we certainly can.
Dr. Joey
I mean, without the commute, right? What was it? Saved a couple hours a day from no commute. mean, but.
Marcy Klipfel
For sure. Well, Dr. Joey, what question should I have asked you that I did not today?
Dr. Joey
You didn’t ask me how long I’ve been married
Marcy Klipfel
How long have you been married?
Dr. Joey
And, and see, cause I’ve been, I’ve been dissing my generation rabbit, these, you know, being serial marriers, right?
Marcy Klipfel
Yes, let’s help save you from that.
Dr. Joey
Well, her name should be Grace. It really should be married to me for 42 years.
Marcy Klipfel
42, that’s awesome.
Dr. Joey
So, yeah, but it’s meant together. as partners have made some significant decisions, right? About this whole life, work, harmony.
You also didn’t ask me what’s one thing that most people don’t know about me, you know.
Marcy Klipfel
What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?
Dr. Joey:
That, yeah, you do well unscripted by the way. That sounds really good.
Marcy Klipfel:
I pick it up quick.
Dr. Joey:
Yeah. Back before dancing with the stars was a thing. I was a Dancing with the Stars person because in sixth grade, now that was about 98 years ago. In sixth grade, I won best all-around dance, dancing trophy.
Deborah Batts was my partner. And if I’d known who she was going to marry, I probably would have paid more attention to her. No, sweet girl. She was a year older than me. We won for the Cha Cha, the Waltz, and the Bop. And I’ve got a trophy around here somewhere. My granddaughter probably knew that.
Marcy Klipfel
Wow! Okay. Well, I was going to say prove it more with like actually showing us this the dance like.
Dr. Joey
Okay. It’s hard to dance by myself, but I guess the microphone would be a willing partner.
Marcy Klipfel
Well, do you and your wife dance? You go out dancing?
Dr. Joey
We do, Marcy, we do. We absolutely love it.
In fact, as we’re recording this, Hurricane Helene is pummeling the Florida coast, but Friday, tomorrow night, we’re supposed to go dancing to one of our favorite bands and that’s the Embers. I grew up in North Carolina. She grew up in Virginia, both in the Eastern parts of the state.
And so, there’s this whole thing called Carolina Beach music that we just love. And so we go shagging, not in the British sense of that word, although that does happen occasionally too.
Marcy Klipfel
This is a PG-rated podcast, doctor.
Dr. Joey
42 years, you just kind of lose a filter around some things, but the dance is called beach music shag. it’s a lot of fun. It’s a thing. Just go on YouTube. You’ll find it. It’s a lot of fun.
Marcy Klipfel
So, my grandparents were both married over 50 years and they danced. Now they went to more like, they were farmers and they would go more to like the, I don’t know what you would call them, like the town hall dances or the, yeah, the VFW dances or things like that. they, yeah, so I think there might be a secret to marriage and dancing.
Dr. Joey
HODOWN!
You’d a hoedown, so you’d have a hoedown. Yeah, there you go.
There is. Well, the first official date my wife and I had was October 5th, 1979. We still celebrate the day in addition to our wedding anniversary. And we went to a dance and the embers played at that dance. So, I’m really looking forward to Friday night. It’s going to be fun.
Marcy Klipfel
Meant to be.
Well, that’s great. Well, I so loved our time today. So, thank you. I hope we have another chance to talk. I feel like we could really dive into much more. So, hopefully there’ll be another chance for us to connect on many more topics. And thanks again for your time.
Dr. Joey
Me too, thank you.
