Click here for this episode’s show notes.

This transcript was created using an automated transcription service and may contain errors.

Susan 0:08
Welcome to The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast, where we talk about embracing humanity in the workplace. I’m Susan White, a national HR consultant. With me is my good friend and co-host JoDee Curtis, owner of Purple Ink, an HR consulting firm.

In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about a book that JoDee and I have written with five of our favorite people: Erin Brothers, Peggy Hogan, Denise McGonigal, Laura North and Liz Zirkelbach. And with the wonderful help of our editor, Emily Miller. Our book is called “The JoyPowered® Team,” and it’s available on Amazon or on our getjoypowered.com website. It certainly took a team of us to write this book, JoDee, didn’t it.

JoDee 0:47
It sure did.

Susan 0:50
JoDee, this is not your first book, nor is it your first book writing with others.

JoDee 0:55
Right. So my first book was called “JoyPowered®: Intentionally Creating Inspired Workspaces.” And then the second book I wrote with Denise McGonigal, one of our other authors for “The JoyPowered® Team,” and we wrote “The JoyPowered Family®.”

Susan 1:10
Oh, that’s great. You know what, why don’t we bring in our co-authors and get a chance to hear from them their experiences as we wrote this book together?

JoDee 1:18
Sounds great.

Susan 1:19
So JoDee, what inspired you to write the original “JoyPowered®” and then write “The JoyPowered® Family,” and now “The JoyPowered® Team”?

JoDee 1:26
Well, the original book “JoyPowered®,” I had been a recruiter for 30 years and it was fascinating to me how many people that I talked to who were unhappy in their work or in their job, whether they were looking for a new position because they chose to or sometimes because they didn’t choose to be looking, but their company moved away or they moved with a spouse or they, the company downsized, whatever might be the case, but so many times I heard people say, oh, well, I wasn’t that happy anyway, I didn’t really like my job, or I didn’t really ever look forward to going to work. And I was fascinated by that. Not that my career has always been perfect, but when I got to the point where I didn’t look forward to going to work, I did something different, either internally in my company I was with, or looking outside for something else, so I felt sort of compelled to tell that story. Right? I felt like that was something that people would find interesting. And then as I started sharing, or thinking about writing another book, Denise McGonigal and I talked about the importance of really finding joy in your life, not just at work, right? And especially in today’s world, where our families and our work are so integrated, that it’s not like we can find joy in our work and leave that at the door and come home or even vice versa, that we find joy in our family, and then walk in the door and be glum and not looking forward to that, because it’s difficult to make that separation on a daily basis. So we wanted to tell that story as well. Then we’ve had so much fun and so much success as a team with Purple Ink that we thought the third book would be fun to write about “The JoyPowered® Team.”

Susan 3:29
That’s terrific. I know when I first met you, JoDee, you were talking about trying to be joyful and making sure that you were doing joyful work and making businesses more joyful. It just really resonated with me because I really feel like the only kind of work I want to do with whatever I have left in my life needs to be joyful, or why bother? So I love the fact that you’ve made this a trilogy so far, and yeah, who knows how many more JoyPowereds are in you?

JoDee 3:53
I was – I think I’ve got a few more in me, so watch out.

Susan 3:58
Well, good. Well, why don’t we turn to one of our other authors, and Erin Brothers if I could ask you a question? So Erin, at a high level, what is “The JoyPowered® Team” about?

Erin 4:10
Hi, Susan. Thanks for having me. For me, “The JoyPowered® Team” is about teams in general, it’s about our team, and it’s about the teams we serve. Our book focuses on our roles as a team, our diversity, how teams succeed, and how they can fail. We talk about how teams can be turned around and teams in transition, so it really focuses on teams all through that lifecycle.

Susan 4:35
Cradle to grave, right?

JoDee 4:37
Yeah. Very good. Denise, you and I wrote the second book together, but how did you approach switching from your writing style when your audience moved from people focused on their families to business leaders and workspace team members?

Denise 4:54
I love that question, JoDee. And it was so much fun writing that book with you, “The JoyPowered® Family.” What I think I did was not so much intentionally changed my own tone, as I simply pictured who it was I was trying to speak to. So my audience was mostly parents, family members, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. So when I was working, I would picture myself with my four little girls around my knees, or my four teenagers all at once living in my household, and so I could be a little more familiar, a little more colloquial, and a little more personal when we wrote that book. Then when we switched to “The JoyPowered® Team,” I think the audience that I was picturing was more a professional audience, people in offices, people, obviously, working on teams. And so I think you can draw from your personal insight and your personal experiences, and at the same time, we needed to do more research and back up what our conclusions were with what the experts tell us. And so to be able to bounce it off of what the experts are telling us. So it wasn’t intentionally changing styles as much as intentionally focusing on one audience I was writing to, and you know, we have at JoyPowered® so many different forms of communication that we put out there. So we’ve written three books, we do blogs, we do podcasts like this. We do lots of tweets and things like that. So I think when we do articles, each time, it’s a little bit of a different audience that you’re writing to, so your style changes a little.

JoDee 6:38
Right. Well said.

Susan 6:40
Yeah, it makes sense. So Denise, did you enjoy writing the first book or the second book more, or was one harder or easier than the other?

Denise 6:48
For me the second book was a little harder.

Susan 6:50
Okay, how come?

Denise 6:51
I think because I had always wanted to write a book on parenting, so for years and years I had kind of all these ideas floating around in my mind about what if I wrote a book? What would I like to say to parents on how, what my experience has been, what I did wrong, what I did right and why it turned out right?

Susan 7:16
I think my kids want to write that book about me.

Denise 7:19
Tell them to call me.

Susan 7:20
You got it.

Denise 7:21
Okay.

JoDee 7:22
“The JoyPowered® Mother”?

Susan 7:23
Yeah.

Denise 7:25
There’s our next one, JoDee! So, then with the business end I just felt like I had to be more formal, I guess. And I did a whole lot of research in a short amount of time. Whereas I think I was doing research for “The JoyPowered® Family” for 36 years, you know, because that’s how old my oldest daughter was when we wrote that.

Susan 7:54
Yeah, well, that’s great. Well, thank you so much. I really enjoyed your chapter as well.

Denise 7:58
Thank you, Susan.

Susan 7:59
So Peggy, your chapter is about team roles. What is challenging about finding your role on a team, and what can people learn from reading your chapter?

Peggy 8:08
Well, thank you for having me. I think sometimes people get jobs and get into roles that aren’t really a good use of their strengths. Maybe they even chose a major that wasn’t the right major in college, and something that just wasn’t a great fit for them, and then once they’re hired, they don’t always have complete control over their role. They might need to do what’s needed for the organization and not necessarily what best use their strengths. So in my chapter, we talk a little bit about leaders and how they can impact the assignments and the roles of the team leaders, and just to hopefully recognize their talents and strengths so that they can deploy them in a way that best use them on the assignments that they’re getting energy from, and where they can really shine. And then we also talk a little bit about developing people’s strengths so that they can do a better job in their role. Also mixed in some stories about being in the right role, or maybe being in the wrong role, and addressing some times of transition. For example, there might be a time that we’ve got a temporary role that’s filled on a team, like consultants or contractors, and how do we best use their expertise and kind of take advantage of their perspective on our team? And then you really do have a personal responsibility to be in the right role as well. So how can you assess whether you’re using your talents in the right type of role? And then also, there are some external sources that we can use in terms of assessments to make sure that we’re in the right roles to talk about that. And I think at the end, where we’ve got some of those action steps, that’s the really helpful part for people who really do wonder if they’re in the right role or if they’re looking at the right roles.

Susan 9:50
So tell – what are – tell us a little bit about those action items. I know that’s a critical part of the book is we want people to take some of the thoughts we have and actually put them into action.

Peggy 10:00
One of the things that I asked people to do is sort of start making a list of all the jobs that they’ve had, everything from when they were in middle school all the way up to their current experience and write down the things that kind of they ran from, the things they procrastinated on doing, and the things that really drew them in, and just sort of see if there’s patterns there. Are you more interested in doing work that’s more social, or is it more tactical, and just start assessing that. And then there are some other things that we point to too, like you could do a StrengthFinders or there’s some other assessments that you could do, like a Strong Interest Inventory, to really get more details in terms of the actual career that you might want to pursue or consider.

JoDee 10:45
Peggy, I know when you first mentioned that, Susan and I actually did that exercise as well about writing down former jobs we had had, and I always I tell people all the time, I spent 21 years in public accounting and then I started Purple Ink. But when I really sat down to do that exercise starting with, you know, my four year job at the Dairy Queen in high school, it was really a fascinating experience for me to, to think through that whole progression, and I’ve had a few more jobs than I thought I did.

Peggy 11:18
Yeah, yeah.

JoDee 11:19
So, you think about jobs you had in college and or even, you know, I had a couple of different roles within the same company or within public accounting. Right? So that’s a powerful exercise.

Peggy 11:31
Yeah. And I know a couple of my jobs came via my dad, you know, coming home and saying, hey, I got you a job today, you know, cleaning in the office, and…

Susan 11:39
Thank you, Dad!

Peggy 11:40
Right, and several of those, you know, I think really did teach me things that I enjoyed, maybe I liked hands on, I didn’t mind cleaning, but maybe cleaning the toilets weren’t necessarily the type of productive work that I wanted. So.

Susan 11:54
If I recall right, one of your favorite jobs was a bartender and now that you’re an HR consultant, you see a lot of similarities, right?

Peggy 12:00
I do, actually! There’s a, you know, a lot of relationship building.

Susan 12:05
Yes.

Peggy 12:05
And so yeah, that was that was kind of a fun job, and the day went fast just like it does now.

Susan 12:10
Oh, that’s great. And people tend to share problems with you.

Peggy 12:13
Right. Right.

Susan 12:14
It all makes sense.

Peggy 12:15
Yeah.

JoDee 12:15
Alright, now, just remember, how many thousands of people just heard you say you know how to clean?

Peggy 12:21
I know, right. I’m gonna keep that in mind.

JoDee 12:26
Alright, Laura, you wrote about why teams fail. So tell us, why do they, and do you have any quick tips for us or our listeners on how to avoid that team failure?

Laura 12:37
Sure. Um, just a little bit about my initial feelings about this topic. I was trying to figure out how I could write about a team or company that had failed and I mean, like, big time, like Borders Books, right? Just talk about how they actually failed, and then I’d educate our readers about how to avoid it. But when I started doing research and talking to several team leaders, I changed my viewpoint and discovered that all teams fail, even, yes, our JoyPowered® team. I know, I know. The most critical details seem to be identifying quickly that you may be headed toward failure and how you handle that failure, move past it and learn from it are the most important and going to make your team successful in the end. So, again, admitting defeat, or that maybe what we thought was a bright idea wasn’t so great. It’s so much more of the internal battle, so if you can get through that, so I do share several warning signs in my chapter about failure in the book, which include team members. So a warning sign could be they go silent. There’s tattling, venting, avoiding accountability. The list kind of goes on and on and taking ownership of asking people for help and being willing to reprioritize goals are keys, as well as what I think might be the most important is putting your ego aside and making sure your team succeeds regardless of who gets the credit. So I learned a lot about the topic, tips and warning signs that I hope people will put forth in their work and their personal lives.

JoDee 14:05
It’s a good reminder to us, Laura, I think when we think about teams failing, we think about final failure, right, or long-term failure, like a Borders bookstore, right, or Blockbuster chain, right? Not about the moments when we might all be failing, failing individually, as a, as a good member of our team, or having short-term failures, right, where we don’t get the job we wanted, or we don’t get the proposal or, or the, or the client projects that we had hoped to get.

Susan 14:38
Sure.

Laura 14:39
I like what you had said before, about, you know, if you’re not JoyPowered® in your work, you identified it and moved on. Right? So that’s this with failure is that we don’t just keep failing, we change, we change something, we change our job, or we change our outlook. And so that was really kind of eye opening.

JoDee 14:55
Yeah.

Susan 14:56
I think that when you think about startups, that in order for for somebody to go out and do a startup and actually get investors to invest in your, your idea, often they want to see what other companies have you started and failed, because without having had failure, you really are a much riskier person to invest in. So, you know, I guess we have to embrace failure. Right?

Laura 15:16
Right. Yeah.

JoDee 15:17
Right. Very good.

Susan 15:18
Thanks, Laura. So Liz, as our youngest author on the team, what was that like, writing a book with some of us who are several generations ahead of you? Feeling old, JoDee, I’m feeling old.

Liz 15:29
So it was overwhelming at times knowing that I had the least HR experience of anyone writing the book, and it was really overwhelming knowing that I was 23 and writing a book. All of my friends were like, you’re doing what?

JoDee 15:42
Ironically, you probably had the most writing experience, certainly the most recent writing experience of any of us.

Susan 15:49
So to our listeners, whenever we needed a grammar question or punctuation, we would go to Liz because she knew, the rest of us did not.

JoDee 15:55
Right. Or bibliography, I think Liz did all of our bibliography for us.

Liz 16:00
Yes, I did a lot of that. But I truly love working with my teammates from earlier generations, because they have so much to teach me. I try to be like a sponge.

JoDee 16:09
I think she’s talking about us when she says “earlier generation.”

Liz 16:14
No, I tried to be like a sponge and soak up their stories in order to become a more seasoned professional myself. One way I think that my youth helped me with writing the book was, like JoDee said, having the perspective of being just out of college, being a millennial, and kind of knowing a lot about the grammar and the way that you cite these days, things like that. Much of our book was centered around the millennial workforce, and they’re becoming kind of the focus of leaders’ attention, so yeah, I think it was great.

JoDee 16:41
Good. Well, we were glad to have you as a part of our team.

Susan 16:45
Indeed.

JoDee 16:46
Rounding out those generations. So Emily, as our editor, how did you herd us cats to produce this meaningful book?

Emily 16:56
Well, I think it was a meaningful book when it got to me, but…helps to have a great team. I know a lot of us are kind of gushing about each other, so listeners are probably rolling their eyes, but it’s true. And it helps that each of our authors had read every chapter already and it had already gone through edits by the time it got to me. So I don’t think when I got it, I read it and thought, this is just all over the place. It was it was pretty cohesive when it got to me. And then I also, while I was editing, had this, like, epiphany, kind of, where I stopped thinking about it as a business book as much as a collection of essays. I mean, it’s still a business book, don’t get me wrong, but… and it’s definitely one that everybody planned together and we all edited each other’s chapters, so it is pretty cohesive, but there’s definitely a different voice to each chapter. And when I started thinking about it as a collection of essays instead of one book, that kind of helped with, kind of, the instinct to try and make everything sound the same, which, of course, I didn’t want to do because you all have great voices, and I don’t want you to sound like someone else.

JoDee 18:18
Well, Emily, we certainly owe a lot of thanks to you that you don’t always get the credit for. Emily actually was the editor of the first two books as well and got zero credit for that, and she also is the producer and editor of this podcast, which she, so she makes Susan and I sound good or…

Susan 18:37
Absolutely.

JoDee 18:38
…or better than we are.

Susan 18:39
That’s true.

Emily 18:41
Very weird to be talking on this.

Susan 18:42
Yeah.

Emily 18:43
I’m usually sitting silently in the back.

Susan 18:45
And we love you on it. So thank you.

JoDee 18:47
You know, speaking… Emily mentioned the word of that we each wrote with a different voice, for the first time this book will also be available as an audiobook. So you can watch, watch Amazon for the, the audiobook. I’m a huge fan of audiobooks, but we didn’t do that the first, first two times around, so we’re excited to roll that out to our audio listeners as well, where we each, literally, will be speaking in our own voice.

Susan 19:16
Great. So JoDee, we’re going to ask some open ended questions here. And hopefully our authors will just jump in and answer the ones that resonate with them. So who should be reading this book?

Erin 19:28
That’s a great question, Susan. I think that the book resonates with a large audience, because it doesn’t matter whether you’re early in your career or whether you have years of experience, you can relate to different roles on the team, you can relate to that team that has succeeded or failed, or maybe your team is in a time of transition right now. So you get that “yes!” moment that we’re all looking for in books as you read “The JoyPowered® Team.”

Susan 19:57
That’s great. You know, Erin, I think it is important, sometimes there’s going to be one chapter that’s going to be really helpful to you in that point in time, but it may be that a different chapter, depending on where you are in your career or with your team, that might resonate with you. So I’m really hopeful that people will decide that it’s a book you want to keep on your shelf and pull it out as needs arise.

JoDee 20:17
Yeah.

Erin 20:17
I agree, I think it can have a great shelf life.

Denise 20:21
I also think that one of the messages that JoDee tried to hit hard in her first book on “JoyPowered®,” creating engaging work spaces is that you can choose joy and that joy begins with you. It was important as we wrote the book for all of us to recognize that no matter who you are in your workplace, you can be the president, the CEO, the leader of your team, or you can be the lowest person, person on the totem pole, but all, everyone can choose joy, and joy can start with them. So I think in answer to your question, who are we directing this to, is everybody.

Susan 21:02
Thanks, Denise.

Peggy 21:06
I also think that really there’s hardly a scenario where you’re not on a team. So whether it’s a sports team or a business team or a board that you’re on, or even as the leader of your family, there’s principles in the book that apply to all those different team scenarios. So it really is beyond a business book, too, from that standpoint.

JoDee 21:27
Yeah.

Susan 21:27
Makes sense, Peggy.

JoDee 21:28
Susan, I think our listeners want to hear the real scoop behind this, though.

Susan 21:32
Ooh, behind the curtain.

JoDee 21:33
Let’s put it out there. What were the best and worst parts of working with a team to write this book? I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you one of mine. One of the best parts was that I didn’t have to write near as much. The first time I had to do the whole thing, the second time, I had to write half of it. So I like just writing a chapter. If that gives you any indication of my future involvement with books.

Susan 21:56
Yes, well, I would – I’m going to give you my worst. My worst was that I had to write a book. I’m not really a big writer, I’m a big talker, as you can tell, that’s why podcasting is so fun for me. But when you tell me that I need to put it down in writing, I honestly, my palms start to get wet and I start thinking, can I pull this off?

JoDee 22:16
Well, you did.

Susan 22:17
Yay, good. Laura, how about you?

Laura 22:19
Yeah, the best pat for me, I thought it was, it was so helpful for me to have several team members challenge me on my chapter, because the finished product evolved from my original thoughts and I’m glad it did. Like, it didn’t… It helped to have so much collaboration and, and being able to think through, through it.

JoDee 22:37
Yeah.

Laura 22:38
The worst part, I would say, I’ll have to admit, at our first meeting, I thought, oh, boy, I’m gonna jump ship now.

JoDee 22:45
I remember that!

Laura 22:46
The timeline was really aggressive. And I thought, well, we’ll just, you know, look for JoDee and Denise they’ve done it before, and they were like, oh, we can – well, we didn’t really do this last time, and, oh, yeah, this is a great idea, but, yeah, sure, you know, they were so open to any of our suggestions I thought, oh, no, like, we’re kind of doing this for the first time. So I did get a little worried. But I feel like getting past that and making sure that, again, being vulnerable as a group was so important. It made it us all stronger and the book better.

JoDee 22:48
And then, you know, too, we did set out, or maybe I pushed a little hard, on that aggressive timeline, and we killed it. We exceeded our initial timeline by over a month.

Denise 23:29
And that was the worst part for me. I kinda like to do slow research, slow writing. I think I only just about hit every deadline JoDee gave me for “The JoyPowered® Family,” and this group set the bar so high that I was like, oh my goodness, I have to have that done in three days. I thought I had three more weeks to do that!

JoDee 23:55
And you nailed it.

Denise 23:56
Aw, well, only because I was shamed into it.

Susan 24:01
I do think that having group dynamics, that it really does cause all of us to lift our game, doesn’t it?

JoDee 24:06
Yeah.

Susan 24:07
It’s that we don’t want to let anybody down. Right?

JoDee 24:09
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

Erin 24:11
The part I was least looking forward to was the accountability partner, and not because my partner was Susan. But it actually turned out to be the best part for me, because she was always ahead of deadline and also helped push me to get on it when I was falling behind, so a lot of great encouragement.

Susan 24:31
And I loved being your accountability partner, Erin. It really was fun.

Peggy 24:34
Well, I thought it was a challenge, too, just to get to our word goal, and then it was a challenge to get back to our word goal.

Susan 24:44
So, listeners we have to tell you, Peggy is prolific. When she starts writing, she really writes.

JoDee 24:51
That’s right. So for all of our authors, if there is a listener who is on a team or responsible for a team where they are struggling to be a JoyPowered® team, do we do intervention, and what does that look like?

Peggy 25:07
We do have those action steps at the end of all the chapters, so to me, that would be the first place to look, would be the action steps. Well, I think the first place to look is inside. So what can I do within my own ability, in my own world, and then maybe look at some of those action steps, and even bring them before our team.

JoDee 25:29
Right, right.

Denise 25:31
And I also think that as a Purple Ink team, we can do interventions from the point of view of leadership training, because one of the biggest things that zaps joy from a team is putting people in positions that they’re not really trained to do, and we hear that over and over again,and so the leadership programs that we have, the leadership workshops, etc., I think really help to solve that problem for many different businesses, being able to train people in management or upper level.

JoDee 26:06
Erin, you specifically are working with a couple of our clients right now where you’re coaching members of their HR teams through some initiatives that maybe they, in thinking of Denise’s example, not just from a group training perspective, but a one-on-one coaching, where you’re helping them to learn some things that maybe they, they weren’t really ready for, but they brought you in to help be coached through it.

Erin 26:34
Absolutely. I think one of the biggest things for teams to learn, or especially in those individual coaching is trust. And it’s not something that can be manufactured, it has to be done real, it has to be, you know, on that, that deep level, and then what comes out of that is communication. So when we think about writing this book and “The JoyPowered® Team,” sometimes we had that conflict, but we knew that inviting it early on would help us succeed. And JoyPowered® doesn’t mean being happy, you know, people equate joy and happiness so closely together, and joy can come from the struggle. And I think that’s such a thing when we think about diversity, that that joy is that, that deep down, you know, feeling that’s a deeper meaning. So when we think about things like trust and communication on the team, it’s really transformative when you think about joy.

JoDee 27:27
I love that. I, there’s a Seinfeld clip that I use a lot in some of my trainings that Jerry is talking, Jerry Seinfeld is talking to his girlfriend about the loss of a mentor, and he’s trying to convince her that he should be the mentor and he says, I can tell you what to do. I can tell you what to think. And she says, but I need someone I can trust. And he says, oh. But that’s exactly right. We can all tell people what to do and what to think, but we can’t always create that trust. So well said.

Susan 28:03
I do think that really coming in and helping a team get their mojo back if they lost it or to build capabilities is so very important. I really love about this book that we’ve created kind of a how to take it from here guide at the end. Denise, I know you drafted that, would you be willing to kind of share for our listeners how will this book actually be an action planner for them?

Denise 28:29
Well, we actually provide a worksheet for everyone to use, all of our readers to use, and on that worksheet, it asks questions like, what were the greatest insights or takeaways you received from this chapter? And then what are the action items that you can put into place immediately, or maybe in three months, or maybe in six months? So there’s a little bit of strategic planning as far as how I can little by little immerse our team into greater joy.

Susan 29:02
That’s great. I think it’s gonna be very helpful.

JoDee 29:04
Yeah. Susan, I also like your earlier comment where you said this is a book that you might want to keep on your shelf, right? You might not be struggling with your role right now or you might not be thinking that your team is failing right now, but in six months or you know, a year, you might be rethinking, ouch, what do I do about that again, and go back and read that, reread that chapter for some ideas.

Susan 29:30
You know, JoDee, I just want to take this opportunity, since we have all the authors here, to really express my gratitude, first of all, for you allowing me to be part of your JoyPowered® series, and all my other co-authors for really helping me do something that I was not naturally comfortable doing. This journey has really helped me appreciate how important it is when you put your thoughts in writing to be disciplined and intentional about every word that you use, so I just want to say thanks to all of you for helping stretch me.

JoDee 29:58
Yeah, well, thank you for being part of it. You know, I have to admit, even though I feel, like, very strongly that we have a JoyPowered® team, I was nervous about this, right? I mean, I just opened up the question to the whole team to say who wants to write? And I wondered as, as people volunteered like, wow, how are we going to do this? And I think it was a lesson for me. Not that I set out to prove that we were a JoyPowered® team, but I felt, I felt I proved as we went along about what a JoyPowered® team we were that we, Peggy, I think, mentioned the word vulnerability, right, that we weren’t afraid to be vulnerable. We weren’t afraid to challenge each other. We weren’t afraid to ask questions. We weren’t afraid to push for deadlines, right? And that’s, all those things are part of what a JoyPowered® team can really do.

Susan 30:52
Yeah. Well, thank you all for coming today.

Denise 30:55
Thank you for having us.

Erin 30:56
Thanks for having us.

JoDee 30:58
The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast is sponsored by Purple Ink. Purple Ink’s customized HR services will help you make your workspace JoyPowered®. Whether you’re looking for help with recruiting, compliance, or leadership training, we listen to what you need and tailor our solutions to you. What we won’t change? Our positive approach. Check out purpleinkllc.com, that’s purple I-N-K LLC dot com, to find out how we can help your business.

We had a question from one of our listeners who sent it in when they sent us an evaluation for one of our SHRM credit eligible podcasts. He or she asked, “how do we as HR leaders find ways to vent about issues without violating confidentiality?”

Susan 31:53
Oh, man, just think of all the times that we as HR professionals do need to vent, right? Crazy stuff happens in the workplace, people who we are trying to influence or persuade to behave in a certain way are not buying it, for whatever reason, we – we get into the competition loop on something that, that causes us to want to scream, right?

JoDee 32:14
Right. Right.

Susan 32:15
So it is extremely important, obviously, that we don’t vent in the workplace, or we don’t share really with anybody who’s not on a need to know basis about any situation. I think it’s really healthy to have friends that are in the HR profession that you can call or go have a cup of coffee with and without sharing names, or any identifiers, say, you know what, I’m facing this particularly hairy situation, and I would just love to talk through different alternatives or ways to approach it. Being a SHRM member I’ve found very helpful because I’ve gotten to know a number of people through the local SHRM chapter. I’m thinking that our listeners, wherever you are, you probably have a network there that hopefully you could tap into. But I do think it’s healthy for you to get to talk about it. I don’t think it’s healthy to talk about it at home, because unfortunately, your family does know where you work. They may even know your coworkers, your bosses, and things like that. So I do think it’s, it’s tough. JoDee, what do you think?

JoDee 33:11
Yeah, I totally agree. I think another – maybe not so appropriate to vent, but to just to share or get advice on questions. If you’re a member of SHRM, you can call the SHRM Knowledge Center, which is a free resource available to all SHRM members. Susan, as you well know, I have one of the best coaches around that I go to, her name happens to be Susan White. And we actually just had a meeting earlier today, where I – not, again, not so much venting, but was sharing some situations that I had and needed advice from Susan. So I think we need those mentors or coaches in our life that we can go to to, to vent. It’s sort of the unofficial HIPAA rule, right? Where it’s not the names that are important, but how can I deal with these situations? Or here’s what’s going on with me right now.

Susan 34:09
Yeah, I do think it’s healthy. So I’m hoping that you’ve got a friend out there or you can make one by going to the next SHRM event in your town.

JoDee 34:16
Yeah, yeah.

Susan 34:18
So JoDee, periodically, we will have a best practice sharing. So I inserted this one today, because I really think you have a best practice that can help a lot of our listeners, I know could help me. I’ve watched you make a number of really effective presentations, and what slays me every single time is that you don’t have those pre-presentation or pre-delivery jitters that I have lived with my whole life. What is your approach to preparing, being confident, and delivering great presentations?

JoDee 34:47
Well, it’s funny you ask, because, Susan, I sort of think the other way, like, I read so many articles, I’m a member of the National Speakers Association and they a lot of times have have articles or blogs on this topic about what to do, but yet they talk about how important that is to have them, and I honestly don’t have them. And I think part of that comes from I have Self-Assurance in my in my top 10, which is not always a good thing, right? Many times I go into a presentation, I think, overconfident about what I know. I do try and prepare, but I know a lot of people that prepare a whole lot more than I do. I think generally I feel I don’t do a presentation where I don’t feel very comfortable about… where I don’t feel totally comfortable about the topic itself. But I do like to go with the flow or go with the audience. I can teach the same course, I could teach it four times a day back to back and tell different stories every single time I do it. I sort of just channel different experiences I’ve had or different comments that are made in the audience. So I’m not sure that’s really helpful to anyone else. I will tell you that the one, one time I had to give… I, it was a six minute presentation, and it was the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life. Like, literally the week before I gave that presentation, I had presented eight hours a day for, for three days in a row, and I prepared more for the six minute presentation than I did for the three, for the 24 hour one that I did, where I had to really be intentional about having such a short period of time and what is it that I want to tell people in a six minute period? So the more time you give me, the more I can tell my stories, the less time you give me the more nervous I’m going to be.

Susan 36:49
Wow, that’s amazing. Well, good. Well, thank you for that. I know that I’m one of those over preparers. So my personal goal right now is I need to prepare less and be in the moment more. So that’s, we’ll see how that works out.

JoDee 37:02
All right, well, good luck! Share, you’ll have to share stories back with our listeners.

Susan 37:07
Thank you. Alright, so in the news, Courtney Moran posted on December 3, 2018 the five major HR trends for 2019 as part of G2 Crowd’s 2019 digital trends. JoDee, why don’t we share those?

JoDee 37:24
Yeah. So the first one is engaging all employees. I think that’s interesting they included that word all, right, as if sometimes, I do think we think about certain people or certain teams or certain groups.

Susan 37:38
You know, the, the best definition that I’ve seen of engagement was everyone feeling like they could bring their authentic self to work, feeling that they have work that matters, and that they have the tools and resources to accomplish their goals.

JoDee 37:51
Nice.

Susan 37:52
Yeah, I believe that and I think that’s a good self-check for all of us. Are we providing those those three things?

JoDee 37:58
Right, right. Very good.

Susan 38:00
Well, and number two really piggybacks on that, because the number two trend is fighting unconscious bias. Boy, we’re certainly reading, hearing, and even podcasting about unconscious bias, aren’t we, JoDee?

JoDee 38:11
Yeah, no kidding. That is, I’m not surprised at all that that is one of the top trends, and I think it’s important for us to be aware of that. The third one is improving essential people training. Of course, we love to hear that one, right, because both of us love to train and we understand the importance of doing that. I do think a lot of organizations think about training only for their leadership teams. Right? And that it can really be about they use that word essential people, that that could be essential people at, at any level in the organization.

Susan 38:49
Oh, yeah. I think it’s Richard Branson from Virgin Airlines and Virgin Hotels, whole Virgin brand, who said we should train our people so they can leave us but treat them so well they won’t want to.

JoDee 39:01
Yes.

Susan 39:02
I believe that. Number four trend, expanding our concept of wellness. And that certainly rings a bell when you think about how much companies are really working at trying to make sure their employees have wellness programs that are in place, that the mindfulness that we’ve talked about in prior podcasts, giving people the opportunity to be really healthy and balanced is really, truly is a trend.

JoDee 39:27
Yeah. Honestly, I was surprised to see that one at first, because I felt like that was a trend maybe 10 years ago. I think the key word there, and you mentioned an example of this, is expanding our concept of what that means, right? It’s not just about Biggest Loser contests or, you know, having a pedometer on your ankle, which is what we did 10 years ago. It’s about things like mindfulness or financial wellness or lots of things we didn’t think about 10 years ago. Mental health as well.

Susan 39:58
Absolutely.

JoDee 40:01
The last one is streamlining HR operations with artificial intelligence. And certainly that’s been a topic in all areas of our lives, right, so not surprising to see that connected to HR operations as well.

Susan 40:16
Absolutely. Listeners, if you’re in charge of people in the workplace or in charge of human resources for your firm, we encourage you to be playing in these types of sandboxes that we’ve been talking about. They are very relevant in today’s workplaces and with our workforce. Thank you.

Please tune in next time. Thank you for listening today. If you’ve missed any of our podcasts, you can catch all episodes for free on iTunes, Google Play, Podbean, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts by searching on the word “JoyPowered.” If you like our podcast, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes. And we’d love for you to rate and review us on iTunes. It helps people find our show. If you have any questions on any HR topics, you can leave us a voicemail at 317-688-1613 or email us at joypowered@gmail.com. We’re also on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter @JoyPowered. We welcome listener questions and comments.