Transcript

Michelle

I think we're live.

Ahmed

I believe so. We are. Let's give people a few minutes to join.

Michelle

Absolutely. And we're gonna Yeah, we are alive. I got confirmation. Oh, we did it. Yeah. All right. So I'm just playing with the layout here a little bit there and that might be better that. 

Ahmed

 I liked it.

Michelle

I like that. Okay. So I think we could just do start with our intro here and, and tell people why we're here. What Mindful Mondays on Fridays is all about. What? Wait? Mindful Monday's on Fridays?

Ahmed

Yeah, I mean, what better day to start something fun like this than on a Friday even though we are going to be doing this on this is the third Monday of every month.

Michelle

That's the intention. Yes. Working with other people's schedules, of course. But the intention is Monday, at a minimum, it's going to be a Monday.

Ahmed 

Awesome. And it definitely will not be a mundane, Monday.

Michelle 

No, no, I'm, I'm expecting engaging, fun. And a lot of curiosity and a lot of questioning for sure.

Ahmed 

Yeah. And I'm excited for the questions that we're going to roll in from people. And so you know what, we'll go over this again, as well as we officially kick off in two minutes here, but I'll be moderating questions as they come in and, and trying to read those out. But But no, I'm excited for everything that we're gonna be talking about, not just on this call today. But as we continue mindful Mondays into the future. I know we have a few lined up already with great content and great topics.

Michelle

Yeah, that's right. So I'll, I'll back up the bus a little bit and just talk about why I'm doing this. They think that there's a lot of folks out there who are looking for additional support, HR support. And that's my background in human resources. And the intent with mindful Monday’s is to engage with subject matter experts on all all things related HR, whether it's workplace wellness, which is a passion of mine, whether it's a career related stress, whether it's, you know, conversations around the thing that we've been living with this, this thing called a world pandemic. But ultimately, it's about having conversations where we can create healthier human beings and sustainable workplace cultures.

Ahmed

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's so timely now. And not just, you know, with the pandemic and everything. But I look at how, where we are as a corporate world today and where we are in 2021, and how things are just progressing and moving forward. And I think it's so timely now to be having a lot of these conversations for organizing organizations and helping leaders navigate some of these murky waters at times.

Michelle

Yeah, absolutely. It is really murky, right. I was just talking about with a group of human resources professionals. I'm a member of the Charter Professionals of Human Resources of British Columbia and Yukon. And we were just talking about, you know, vaccinations mandating not mandating what do we how do we manage this as HR professionals and leaders in the workplace like it's a big, big, like, it's a big deal. And, frankly, we don't have all the answers so how can we learn from others. Are you there Ahmed? We may have lost you Ahmed. Are you are you here, Tara?

Tara 

Oh, there we are. Yes, I am here so I can back up on that. Not nearly as eloquent but I could.

Ahmed 

Can you guys hear me okay.

Michelle

Now we can.

Ahmed

Yeah, okay. That was weird. I don't know what happened with the audio there. Let's jump right into it. It's 10:01am in Calgary, Alberta over here from Mountain Time. 9am over a BC for yourself, Michelle. What do you think? Should we give everyone another minute? Are we ready to rock and roll?

Michelle 

Yeah, let's Let's rock and roll. Let's do it. Oh, well. I think we might be having some tech issues with with Ahmed, but that's okay. He'll he'll join us when he can.

Tara 

I think we can just introduce what is Mindful Monday's really quickly and then introduce Ahmed. So if he's frozen, we can easily keep the ball rolling. No worries.

Ahmed

Am I still frozen.

Michelle 

No, no, you're good.

Ahmed 

I'm good enough. Okay. Yeah, it was the audio interfering if I need to I will stop my video and maybe that'll help. Sorry about that.

Michelle

That's all right it. Technology, right. Yeah.

Ahmed

Okay, so what I was saying is Hello, and welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for joining today and taking the time out to be with us. This is mindful Mondays. I'm your host Ahmed Rammay. And we have Michelle Precourt with us here today, who is the mastermind, if you will, behind all of this. And today's topic is going to be Managing Self and Others; a Discussion on Leadership Responsibility. So before we actually jump into the content, Michelle, do you want to do a quick intro of what is Mindful Monday's? What are we doing here? And what is this all about? And maybe address the elephant in the room? Today is Friday, not Monday?

Michelle

Thank you for pointing that out my friend. Yes, thank you. So the intention was to just pivot off of my my business name, Mindful HR Services. And let's let's have a conversation on Mondays, Mindful Monday's, let's make it a Mindful Monday conversation. While we were supposed to go live earlier this week, technology won that battle, has not today, because here we are folks we are live. And the intention is to meet with subject matter experts on a regular basis, we're looking at, you know, maybe the third Monday of every month, it might be more than that. It will, you know, work with other people's schedules. But ultimately, the intention, the intention is to bring in subject matter experts like Tara to talk about things that they're passionate about. And all of this is in and around HR related topics. And they can be really, really broad. So things like career related stress, things like healthy workplace cultures, things like you know, the big thing like the pandemic, and managing masks and vaccinations and these these really, sometimes what can be really big, but I think the more that we talk about these things, we can recognize that a, we don't have all the answers, we can leverage collective wisdom, which I'm hoping to do today with you two, and share knowledge, share knowledge to create healthier workplace cultures, and one that we can really sustain for long term. We're all here for the long term.

Ahmed 

That is amazing. I love the idea behind this. When Michelle approached me I thought it was really timely and really great for everything that's going on, kind of not just in the pandemic, but I was saying earlier in that it's 2021. And it's high time we talked about a lot of this stuff and help our leaders navigate some of these murky waters. I'm going to jump into some quick intros here for both Michelle and Tara. So Michelle Precourt of Mindful HR Services is an HR consultant and workplace mindfulness facilitator based in Squamish, BC. In her private practice, Michelle offers mindfulness techniques driving employee engagement, productivity and workplace success. In addition to studying various yoga and meditation teachings, Michelle's educational highlights include University of Manitoba, a certificate in human resource management, Royal Roads, university, neuroscience and leadership and Career Professionals of Canada, a certified work excuse me, sorry, work life strategist. So welcome, Tara, who is our lovely guest today, Tara Adams is the owner of Abridge Consulting her specialty is bridging the gap to achieve workplace mental health. And her motto is "let's get more people, more help sooner". Tara has been working in the workplace mental health space for almost 10 years. And you have myself here as kind of a I say talking head, but I'm being called a host today. My name is Ahmed Rammay. And I'm with Marketing by Rammay and I help small and medium sized businesses leverage their internal knowledge to tell her brand story and to really develop a marketing strategy and be able to reach their marketplaces. So so that is us. Let's jump into the content and we have a lot to discuss today and a short window so for everyone here, the chat is open, please drop your questions in the comments. So you can join the conversation with us today by doing so.

Tara

Okay, we have the questions.

Ahmed

Did you lose me again?

Tara

It was a quick one.

Ahmed 

Okay. I'm back my back. Yep. I'm gonna call Telus after this. Let's jump into the questions as a leader what tactics do J To manage emotions, and does that matter? So Tara, why don't you take this one away.

Tara

And I'm going to try to be less descriptive and ramble on because of our short time. So I have three bullet points for this. And if anyone wants to elaborate, you know, reach out to me afterwards and keep the conversation going. So, in leadership, we're talking about emotion and workplace mental health. The first is a mouthful, leaders need to create psychological health and safety. The simple way to say that is everyone on your team feel safe and feels heard sound simple takes time. The second one is to really have clear and honest conversations, and I'm asking leaders to be a little more obvious than they might need to be. If you think your team knows that you support them. If you think your team knows they have permission to take care of themselves, try being really explicit and see the reaction you get in my third thing is to notice and initiate one on one conversation, especially the informal ones, there's a lot of research coming out. And it's exciting around the small moments that matter in your own life, try to reflect back on the moments or the things that someone said to you. It might not be in a formal one on one meeting with my leader, it could be a casual comment. So psychological health and safety, being more obvious and clear with your team, giving them permission, and initiating one on one conversations, particularly the informal ones.

Ahmed

Awesome, I love that you hit on the psychological health and safety as well, because I think, you know, as you said, it's a mouthful, but it's so important to organizations and leaders to really take that into account. And it's actually kind of a nice time to what Michelle might talk about. And so over to you, Michelle, what do you think about this?

Michelle

Yeah, emotions do matter. We are human beings, we can't extract we can't have one without the other emotions do matter. And the other part of this is leader vulnerability. If a leader can demonstrate that emotions are okay, and there's a balance there, 100%, there's a balance there, we need to be professional, we need to be respectful. But when a leader demonstrates that maybe they're having a bad day, it opens up the door for others to say that they're not having a good day either. The other big part of this is, and I'm a big promoter of this is prevention. So what do you need to get through your day, you know, something as simple as this before I came live here, I sat back and I just like, took a couple of deep breaths like grounding, before going live, grounding before entering into what might be a difficult conversation, or doing the things that you need to do to take care of yourself, whether it's getting out into nature, whether it's playing with your dog, whether it's you know, frisbee, skiing, hiking, whatever it is, working that into your life and taking care of you so that you can present your best self.

Ahmed

That's amazing. I love that perspective there of doing things for yourself. And, you know, really elaborating on what that self care can look like. And it can come in so many different forms. So let's jump into our next question here. And it's how can organizations create a culture that allows for pausing so I know you kind of just alluded to taking that moment to pause maybe can build on that further, Michelle, let's have it, have it over to and maybe you can also address to that it's okay to stop and reach out and ask for support when you need it.

Michelle

Yeah. Again, this goes back to positive leader role modeling, that if your leader if you see your leader doing these things, like stopping, like pausing, like stepping away from their desk, like shutting shutting down at the end of the day, then employees are going to follow suit. So on the flip side, if you say that, you know, it's okay, you don't have to work this weekend, but I'm going to send you some stuff. It's like it's probably mixed messaging, right. I I've seen some, some some great comments from people that I've worked with in their organizations where their manager has said, guys, I gotta go. I have a therapist appointment, or I've got to go, this is my gym time, or I'm stopping now because it's now time for me and my family. Simple things like this. It's like the real life conversation stuff. of not what's in the policies, the policies are important, but it's the real life stuff that people can relate to and resonate with. And then it just becomes second nature.

Ahmed

Right. And, you know, that whole idea of, you know, what you just said there about it becoming second nature. I think that's something that we need to incorporate into everyone's being not just leaders, but the people as well that are a part of those interactions and the people that they're managing or, you know, leading as a team, or if they're just even informal leaders, or what have you in someone's life. We are getting some comments in the chat here. I'm just gonna list a couple before we go over to Tara here. But one, one person has said, even leaders who want to practice emotional intelligence have little if any time to practice emotional intelligence themselves. And I think that's kind of key to this whole conversation in terms of that self awareness. You know, it's one thing to talk about being need to be a role model for it, as well. Anyway, so, Tara, what are your thoughts are on this? How can organizations create that culture that allows for pausing?

Tara

Well, I agree with the comments in the chat, and I agree with Michelle. So just to bullet point, quickly to the culture of pausing, first of all, all of our behavior is contagious. It's a fact, every one of us is a role model, and in particular, people leaders. So if in fact, you are saying you should pause should log off, but you're not, it's simply it's more than a mixed message, it's advertising your credibility, because you're saying do one thing and you're not doing the other. The second is bigger, harder takes some time. You have to change your mindset that a break a pause, whatever you want to call it, fuels productivity. Taking a break, pausing, is good for business, productivity, retention, engagement, mental health, physical health, and everything else. So if you still are of the mindset that when people take a break, they're less than or weak, flip that to my highest performers, take breaks, and model it. And then my last thing on this culture of pausing is, how would your team feel if you did or said some of the great examples Michelle had. It's 330 and I'm heading to the gym. What if you said that to your team? How would that feel? How would they feel? And so that's my rhetorical question.

Ahmed

You know, I want to hit on what you said earlier about the well being in the workplace kills productivity. And that kind of goes back to that rhetorical question as well. And I love that idea of, if we're feeling good in the office, then you're having less of those head down moments, those face in the palms, the head scratchers, the moments of pause, where you're not feeling well, but you're actually having a flip of a, you know, because if we're not having well being in the workplace, and that way, we can take a pause, you're taking a pause another way, which is going to negatively impact you, and it's not going to increase productivity. So that's really important that we hit on it. There is personal accountability and responsibility when it comes to emotions in the workplace. But what about those that need external support? Can you talk to maybe tell me what are some of the telltale signs that it is time to bring in help?

Tara

Well, this is usually a seven hour course. So in my head, as a leader, your accountability, responsibility is to notice changes the Delta, if you don't know your staff, you can't notice a change. So that's four hours into one sentence. And then the next thing is, if you haven't had a lot of workplace mental health training, notice changes and notice the timeline. So if you do know me and things have changed, is it a one off? Has it been a couple of days, versus you know, me, things have changed, it's been a few weeks, it's not changing back towards a more healthy pattern. So my advice is notice changes and notice the timeline. And also, by the way, if there are parameters and guidelines within the workplace, so when I talk about workplace mental health, everything falls within a company's code of conduct. And so accountability for leaders is to maintain and uphold a code of conduct, regardless of any mental, physical or other illnesses that may happen. So I know that's eight hours into 80 seconds, but those are my top three.

Ahmed

Got it. I think we're all certified now. But no, definitely that I mean, not to put in a plug here. But I think that course would probably be very meaningful. And I love what you said there about the Listen, connect and basically check in because that is so important. I know it sounds so basic, but it's something that really speaks to what leaders can be doing. And it's very easy. It's not something hard to do, you know, as long as you do it inappropriately. Michelle, what are your thoughts around this? What do you think?

Michelle

Yeah, there's a big part of listening here. And so listening for or any anecdotal information that is coming through if the last three people that you talked to said, you know, such a busy time, feeling a lot of pressure. Going back to what you were saying there, Tara about is this a cyclical thing, because there are certain business cycles that are busy. And so how can we prepare for that? What can we do? Again, going back to this prevention, to prepare for that, you know, the big push? The other part of it is, is look at your data and your metrics, look at any data around usage of sick time, your EAP programs, information, like, are people actually taking vacation, a lot of people haven't been doing a good job of that. And I understand why they haven't been doing a good job of that in these last 18 months, because there's nowhere to go. Right? So why am I going to take vacation if I can't go anywhere, but stepping away, that could be a cause of, you know, an uptick, in sick time an uptick in these anecdotal conversations that you're hearing about how people are we really here feeling overwhelmed, look at your data.

Ahmed

The data is so very telling. And you know, I think those assessments are something that can be so helpful and meaningful, not just for yourself, but to inform those around you as well. Because of those results. You can maybe if you're comfortable, share some of that, if this is what I need from you. And it's so important to say that statement, this is what I need from you, as opposed to staying silent and hoping people can read your mind. And maybe you know, you expect them to know or what have you. If you could only do one thing to support mental health and workplace well being, what would that be Michelle,

Michelle

Start with the leaders. Let's get the leaders on board. Let's help them understand what a positive role modeling looks like. Let's start there.

Ahmed

I love it. positive role model and all the way. Tara How about you?

Tara

And and not to put undue extra pressure on leaders throw them a life raft? How do you do that? So don't just say it and then leave them out on their own drowning in the work and the leadership and the people responsibilities. And also, by the way, I'm fixing workplace mental health, throw them a life raft. Sorry, I had one. My final comment was going to be try to keep us keep it simple. It's not easy, but do keep it simple, do lesson do it well. And if we ever do another Mindful Monday, my answer would be onboarding. But that's a whole another at least 15 minutes.

Ahmed

You know, one thing that comes to mind with this, when I think of the just the general workplace, well being side of this is there's such a huge business impact, you know, when you think of the costs that are associated with either sick time, or employees not being productive, or whatever that might be, but there's so much cost that can be associated that can be positively affected by doing some of these things that we've talked about today, that would eventually or essentially help the bottom line of some of these companies. I'm just going to check in on the comments here and see if there's any additional questions or comments that have come through, there's been a few. So I love the engagement and the conversation that's happening in the chat here, just reloading the page. So let's see if anything's coming in.

Ahmed 

Jeff says, I like Adam Grants comment. "Resting is not a waste of time. It's an investment in well, being relaxing is not a sign of laziness. It's a source of energy. Brakes are not a distraction, they're a chance to refocus attention. And play is not frivolous activity. It's a path to connection and creativity". And I love it. I can wholeheartedly agree with that in terms of that, it helps us synapses you know, when you have a clear mind, you can get more creative, you can get more productive, you can do way more with that. Do either of you want to take a quick comment on that before we even time here?

Michelle

Yeah, just 100% agree. And thank you for for sharing your, your, your insights, Jeff, because I think we need more people to say it's okay to take a break. So thanks for that, Jeff.

Tara

Awesome. We are at time, we tried to keep this to a short window. We went over a little bit. And we will tighten that up I think for the next one. But I just want to say thank you for everyone who joined today who took the time out to go live with us. Thank you to Tara for being here with us today and taking time out of her busy schedule and rescheduling with us as we experienced some technical difficulties. Michelle, of course, thank you for putting this together and bringing all of us together. We're looking forward to the next Mindful Monday which is September 13. That's with Alison Graham, author of Take Back your Weekends. I need to be a part of that session for sure. So good thing. I'm both energy management versus time management. So I'm excited to have that conversation with all of you. And yeah, looking forward to the next one. Thank you so much.

Michelle

Thank you. Thank you both. And there's one. I don't know if you saw this comment and hear about resources at the end. Yes. So we could probably throw in Tara's contact information in there, that would be great. And a bit of a plug, I do have a newsletter that I publish once a month. So we could throw that information in there as well so that we can all stay connected and continue the conversation around leader responsibility. Thank you once again. Pleasure speaking with both of you, and until next time, be well.