 Hello I am Brittany Aker and we're gonna get this wrote on the show I want to thank all of y'all for joining me for this talk I hope that we can share some ideas share some thoughts on how we can infuse ourselves back to the workplace and I welcome all the conversation so don't be don't be shy the talk is called authenticity is contagious being real and showing emotion builds a long-lasting client relationships so in January of this year me and my husband became new parents to two twin boys thank you thank you that's Xavier on the your left on your left and that's Jackson on your right and we just hurtled headfirst in all of the newfound parenthood things we now affectionately called it the beautiful awful and I'm sure a lot of parents can relate my husband went back to work after three days America and so I was at home with my mom a blessing to do all of the snuggles and the spit-ups and the getting food on all those things all the sleep deprivation you know all the fun stuff for quite a bit while longer so we also you know I had hope so we had little photo shoots right they were so cute they got changed every day and so they looked like this and I mean they were just adorable so naturally I looked a little more like like like this lady and it was looking like this probably a bit on the inside as well as the outside and that was the me that went back into the office and though I was ready mentally for the challenge that the office brings that you don't quite get at home physically forget about it right but it was with that that I started going right back into all the things all the client interviews that's part of my job at Palantir.net is to do a little worrying and work on our client experience things like that part of that are what I call feedback sessions with the clients just to see how we're our engagements going so I had one of those I think the second week back we had some information we wanted to to to get from clients we were on a bit of a timeline so I woke up that day that woke up that day woke up the middle of that night and I was up and I washed my face and I put on some makeup because for some reason post part of me was always a little green I don't know and I got on the call and I was killing it I was full of life that really didn't exist I was laughing I was chuckling I was making jokes and somewhere in the middle of that conversation our client for the sake of this I'm gonna call her Susan not her name she was talking and it's like my brain shut off and suddenly I don't know if you guys know Charlie Brown it was I was just want want want want I couldn't I couldn't understand anything and she paused probably because she asked me a question or because I don't know we were having a conversation and I had nothing I had absolutely nothing and I had this choice in front of me do I pick back up and lean into the mask of professionalism that I've been carrying with me since 14 when did we enter the workforce or do I let it go and I I don't even know if it was a choice I let it go here's what we're learning professionalism is having a negative impact on the way that we're doing work let's talk about that a little bit traditional professionalism and the effect that it's having on us today so this is from the encyclopedia Britannica it's the definition of professionalism professionalism was kind of invented in North America and Western Europe shocker in the 1800s and it actually didn't sound half bad professionalism was characterized as collegial cooperative and mutually supportive sounds kind of nice the definition wasn't perfect it also included things like the assumption that competence was guaranteed through education we all know that that is not not only not true but it's quite exclusionary but you know inclusive conversations are not happening back then so the fact of the matter is that the groups of people that this definition was created for and a lot of us are not a part of that group but for those people it worked really well for for quite a while but then what happened in like the 70s or 80s so this wasn't even a long time ago in the 1970s and 80s the definition of professionalism that traditional suit of armor that we put on in the workplace it changed it got I don't know a great deal more sinister as a lot of things kind of did in the 70s and 80s let's look at the differences between the beginning of those that the beginning of that definition and then what it became so 1800 professionalism was like we said collegial cooperative and mutually supportive in the 70s and 80s it largely became a tool of dominance and control we saw that in 1800s it was constructed within that meant that the professionals within that group the devs or the project managers they created that definition from their own expertise and knowledge hugely beneficial so it was practitioner led in the 70s or 80s businesses took that over so it was constructed from above by managers by supervisors by business heads that didn't have the same expertise as the people that were running it before in the 1800s it was hugely successful because these working groups got to create and define their own working identities they got to create and define the ways that they worked and interacted with them between themselves and with their clients in the 70s and 80s that control was completely taken away and instead what we saw was that there were huge limits placed on the discretion of the people that were part of these working groups and it really undermined the ethics of the way that they served any of the groups that they served so I put here bottom line rules all and when bottom line rules all we know that we get into some some hinky territory ethics wise or or even just the way that we when we know something is is better done one way bottom line may say something else and that also resulted in lack of communication I do want to hone in a little bit more about constructed within versus constructed from above the benefits of constructed from within are are vast there's more autonomy there's more trust and enablement in the people that are creating these definitions and doing the work so this positively impacts not only the workers but also the clients that we work with the workers are seen as the experts the the way that people escalate later on in life because they don't think the worker themselves is the expert in that in that thing that wasn't really happening there was a mutual respect there when things are constructed by managers and business leaders in star contrast what you see is that it usually rings a bit false and it just becomes a little bit of an issue and that's what it means to control the people the way we work in the bottom line of those projects so organization organizational objectives which are usually rooted in money start to take over all of the good karma the good juju that we built with our with our clients and within our working teams and you really start to see that those organizational objectives are what start to control the working group or the practitioner client and I'm sure we all know that when those things happen when you take control from the team you really start seeing a decline in service across the board but also an engagement so let's talk about some of the unspoken rules of professionalism that we all live by these this this list is tidy but we're gonna we're gonna start here how about everything is awesome that is a Lego movie reference but it's essentially everything is awesome all the time so we are all in the workplace pretending we are we are all acting in some kind of communal theater that there's no problems or no stress no stressors that we're all dealing with no emotion in the workplace no problems in the workplace no life outside the workplace no humans in the workplace right and these things they don't even scratch the surface I mean these are the things that impact all of us but how about how it negatively impacts the groups that these things weren't made for or the groups that these rules were made to be excluded by right so this doesn't even scratch the surface of when women enter the workforce or when POC enter the workforce and how things like that really impacted or it still impacts all of us that leads to some unintended consequences I like to think they're unintended because I like to think that nobody's in the background like Mr Burns from the Simpson pulling evil strings so we'll just go with that the biggest one for me is a lack of connection but then more applicable to us right is how about project team burnout when you can't be yourself and can't be honest you just see team spiraling a lack of psychological safety no space for being human or making errors you can't speak candidly to your clients to your bosses to your team to anyone that you work with experiments a risky business and we are not in the business of being risky right so there kind of stifles innovation so in essence we were intentionally or unintentionally erecting walls between ourselves our colleagues and our clients leaving us feeling that disconnection that disconnection weighing on us and this is particularly impactful because we spend so much of our lives in the workplace so much time away from our families and our children and our hobbies right all the things we'd rather be doing and investing in our livelihoods the good news is these days we're seeing them we're seeing them in our rear view mirror nowadays attracting our ideal clients and building strong lasting relationships is consisting more and more of open and authentic communication and we'll talk a little bit later about how layering emotion into that can add clarity to those communications and the good news is is that these things are are more and more attractive to the types of clients that we are looking to attract to our businesses and to our projects we were already seeing kind of that shedding of the business persona right we were seeing that before COVID but COVID I mean it blew us light years ahead in a very short time suddenly it was impossible to pretend that we were weren't human with dogs barking in the background with babies on our laps and meetings with the world literally falling apart and getting monkey pox and lots of things are happening but here's the thing the the world the world fell apart but it didn't fall apart because we were shedding our professional personas we had all been taught that if we let those things go everything would implode and it absolutely didn't and collectively we all realized that traditional professionalism was the weight that we were no longer willing to carry despite everything that we had been told these things wearing I don't know shorts at the bottom half because nobody could see it anyway right wearing t-shirts to our meetings it became very clear that we were all baseline human we were we were people and this brought us together it was COVID was a horrible time is a horrible time but the way that we saw connectivity and new and innovative and interesting ways really changed the game for all of us and what we found was that the answer to disconnection the disconnection that we are experiencing and unknowingly perpetuating with this idea of what professionalism should should look like we found that the answer to that was authenticity our clients and our colleagues were looking to be genuinely a part of a team we were looking for partners and they were looking for partners to partnerships that would share in their values sharing their visions we were looking for companies that we could invest in they were looking for agencies and consultancies that would truly invest and be a part of their successes and we were all looking for honesty and transparency and kind of the license and permission to be both in all of these spaces that we worked in and so here's what I say I say it's time that we bring ourselves back to our workplace interactions it's time that we bring more and more of our true selves back into the workplace so what we're going to talk about is how can authenticity lead to better and deeper client relationships also with our colleagues how can we layer in emotion and our emotional response to build trust and rapport into the foundation of these relationships with our clients and in our working teams so authenticity and emotion as tools for change so in Brene Brown's daring greatly I don't know if we have any Brene Brown fans she has this this I like that fist pump she has a great quote she's talking about vulnerability for the sake of this I'm going to switch out the word to authenticity but she says authenticity is not weakness it is our willingness to own and engage with our own authenticity authenticity or emotion that determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose so we really need to let go of all of the things that have been ingrained in us about perfect traditional professionalism about being professional about what that looks like when you show up in professional settings we need to learn to kind of harness our emotional reactions we'll talk more about that for the good of the project here's the thing authenticity begets authenticity so when we show up as our honest and true selves we are unwittingly inviting others to do the same it's kind of a chicken and the egg thing right we want to feel safe to be ourselves and to to show up in that way candidly and awesomely and often we feel like we need permission but it goes both ways so if we are a little bit brave we start a little bit small we can start kind of start that that chain reaction that ripple also our business personas can be closer to our true selves than ever before I don't think anybody will disagree that at times COVID pushed us probably a little too far in the other direction from professionalism so as we kind of level set and come back to a baseline the fact the matter is we can still leave a whole lot more of ourselves and bring a whole lot more of ourselves back to the table than we have been able to in the past next we want to let go of the notion that emotions are for the weak and buy into the idea that emotion can add layers a layer of authenticity to our interactions emotional response is key when we are talking about better communications so what does that look like it looks like leaving the robot at home in the closet attic to get dusty it's about being able to not just deliver the words of our messaging but using our intonation and our feelings to add color and to add meaning to the things that we are trying to communicate authenticity and emotional response can also deepen our connections because of how we talked about that symbiotic relationship of what we give we get it also has a humanizing effect and the humanizing effect is imperative because traditional professionalism did everything that it could to take that away and so we are saying let's be empowered and start taking that back it also positively impacts psychological safety in our teams which in turns it just helps us to be better teams and do better more innovative work so again emotion adds color to the way that we communicate with each other so we want to use emotional and emotional responses as a tool for good and what this looks like is like it's a strategic revealing of emotion to add a much needed layer to the things that we are trying to say to our client emotion can often express our thoughts and our concerns better than simply the words that are coming out of our mouth genuine emotion is part of authenticity and authenticity is part of building that foundation of trust so let me give you an example we had a client that we had a fantastic relationship with but over time there just were some institutional changes on their side that meant that we couldn't work together the best way that we knew how and then they got an edict and the edict was cut our contract by more than a third that happens churn happens change happens with our clients unfortunately this was a major site so it's not as if we had just fun things in the backlog we had things that were integral to the stability of their website and we already were struggling to keep up even though it was a massive project strategic being authentic and showing that strategic bit of emotion looks like first empathizing with the client I'm so sorry you're going through this I do not envy that you are the person that has been tasked with this with making this change and we're here to help right but letting that emotion into my tone using those onomatopoeias every once in a while authentically really relays that I'm with you we are in partnership we are in community what we then followed up with some curiosity do you have the staff to take over the things that we're going to have to let go we knew the answer was no the answer was no do you have the skill set on your team to take care of x y and z the answer was no so then I'm concerned now look at the difference between when I can say well that's concerning because you're going to fail or that's concerning because this is difficult work and I don't know how you're going to handle it and I could feel empathetic I could feel true concern but that's not what's coming across it feels a bit more like a days ago a bit like well this is where we're at so how do we layer in an emotional response to better convey how we're feeling and the way you do that is with your tone with your gestures we can still see each other on zoom I know not everybody does cameras but I often do for that purpose and we can say I'm worried we have some head shakes right I'm a bit worried about the direction that you all are going but we're here to support you in your work we're going to take it back to the team and see what we can do and what we did is we gave them two options we gave them one that got them to their goal and we said not suggested big fat bold letters but if this is the direction you choose we will support you we will do our best we gave them one that got them about halfway there it wasn't ideal because ideally we would have increased the contract right this is our suggested proposal so you know these are the things that you will lose in the transition but again we are here we're your partner we're here to help they ended up going with the lesser of the two evils so we eventually ended up sunsetting that project anyway but we were able to leave with a fantastic client relationship you will absolutely revisit work together again in the future if it makes sense and that's always the goal projects end true and genuine connection does not so the consequences or benefits of showing up like never before we are able to build trust and honesty into the foundation of these working relationships clients and colleagues do not have to guess at our intentions when we show up authentically and honestly there is that assumption of positive intent right if I have to say hey that's not great there is no mmm does she mean that is she only trying to get money is she only trying to we've said it from the beginning the standard of we are going to show up to authentically support each other in this work that we do I am engaged I am empowered I am excited to support the success of of the work that we do together also a small tidbit that talks about how we want to be as much a part of a client team as possible project teams that are seen a theme of project teams that are able to retro authentically with a client see greater success we have much better client engagement we have much better project outcomes but all of that is built on this idea that we authentically show up to that space and we have the psychological safety to be candid so why does the ability to be authentic in the workplace what does that mean to you I would like a little audience participation I'll start and I'm going to start with something it's not silly but it's maybe smaller I started to bring my hair curly to work for the first time maybe five years ago applause I think people might I don't know if everybody understands that that's a big deal we now have this thing called the Crown Act in the first time in our nation women are people people of color are being protected by being able to wear the hair that comes out of our head to the workplace and not be discriminated for it it's major I was taught from a very young age that curly hair is unprofessional so I have my entire life straightened my hair if I went to an interview I straightened my hair and if you talk to this is not exclusive to just black women but if you talk to a lot of women who have curly hair or other textured hair you'll find that that's the case so that for me is hugely empowering this job at Poundture.net was the first interview I ever went to with curly hair and clearly I haven't turned back would anybody else like to share what it feels like to them to show up authentically in the workplace yes beautifully modified I love that I'm going to paraphrase for the recording so she's saying that she's heavily modified and I said beautifully modified and that means that she can't show up as anything other than herself but like we're saying that also gives our clients the permission and the license to do the same I love that I love the example that Jenna gave of being a Disney adult you don't always know where those connections are going to happen sometimes it happens in parenthood because so many of us are parents sometimes it happens with being Disney loving adults I'm also a Disney loving adult you never know and unless we are showing up with authenticity and curiosity we're never going to find out anybody else I love that being open and authentic and honest about mental health issues is kind of one of our last frontiers we're busy tackling different racial ethnic issues we're busy tackling LGBTQIA and I think that some of our disabled friends have been left behind I applaud that, thank you anybody else that's beautiful I what's so amazing about that is that we all just want to be great team members we for the most part genuinely care about each other and each other's well-being but we need the opportunity to do it so if I'm on your team and I have no idea what you're going through I would think to myself well Tracy's sucking recently right I don't know what's going on there but by giving me and it doesn't mean that we have to impart all of our business to provide the T for everybody to mull over but just by saying hey I can't show up the way that I really want to right now it allows everybody to step up in ways and it builds such stronger connections amongst us and that so carries forward I'm going to move on but I'd love to hear more stories later okay so there we go so this practice helps us attract and keep our ideal clients so how is that the case I do as we get into this kind of section want to acknowledge that there's a lot of privilege in this practice tech has a lot of privilege in this way to start out with we are all very much allowed to show up with different colored hair and sweatpants and all the things not everybody has that kind of safety but we can also talk about some smaller ways that we can go against the status quo so not everyone is safe to be themselves I also want to acknowledge that we are talking about revealing of emotion use of emotion as a layering communicative tool we are not talking about leading with emotion when I say leading with emotion I don't know about you but I immediately can think of several times where I've just even just been in the room and a part of some kind of communication or witnessed it that was awful and that's not what we're talking about leading with emotion can often be dangerous often it's about losing control in that moment that's not what we're talking about we still very much want to be in control of ourselves and our persons in the workplace to the best of our ability we're human but the other thing is this is not I mean I cannot talk today this is authenticity right we this is not a manipulation tactic I am not looking our clients are not looking for the fabrication of caring they're not looking for us to create emotions or things that aren't really there this is really about if this is really about attracting our ideal client then we are looking for genuine interaction so this is about building genuine connections and creating a foundation of trust and sincerity I also want to add that this is an additive practice so if we go about trying to implement some of these things in our day to day working life and it is taking away from our message in our work then we're not doing it right but the difference between showing a little frustration and a call to get our point across is one thing bursting into tears is another could we burst into tears sometimes sometimes we get off zoom and go cry a little bit maybe maybe but that's not what we're talking about we want to add to the foundation of these relationships we're not looking to detract from the great things that we're doing together we just need to learn to kind of lean in strategically to those emotional reactions in ways that are business appropriate and then remember again it's just the chicken and the egg somebody's got to go first so this is a quote from Margaret Heffernan who's also really awesome this is from her forget the pecking order at work is it a TED talk it's on YouTube she's a really awesome speaker and she says what motivates people are the bonds and loyalty and trust they develop between each other what matters is the mortar not just the bricks in my mind the bricks are the things that we're all going to do anyway our deliverables are going to be excellent we're going to hit those KPIs our clients are going to be heard we're going to set goals together that we're going to knock out of the park but the mortar all those soft skills that we sometimes forget about and authenticity and emotion are absolutely those things we can do all the things all the great projects deliver a fantastic website but if we are horrible to work with if there is just no connection on that project team when that project is over the clients gone and for the most part they're not really looking to see us again when they go out for more work they're going to go out for more work they're not going to call us up and say hey we're doing this cool thing and we want you back our clients may be attracted to us for various reasons I have street cred on here whatever I propose to approaches or pricing things like that the mortar that holds us together that holds those engagements together are the reasons they keep coming back or that they never leave because we've all hopefully we've all had those clients that they get in the door and they just they love us and they never want to go so these connections help us begin to build with our clients and it can often tip the skills in our favor so connection won't always win us everything especially if we don't have as much experience or maybe we're missing the mark but it will keep us top of mind when they have other opportunities I had the opportunity to submit a proposal for an end-to-end web redesign for a university in the Midwest it was one of the best most connected just examples of a sales process that I'd ever dealt with I still see her at triple con I'm looking at her she might be here I can't see that well we still run into each other they ended up going with somebody it wasn't her choice but we still like rejoice when we see each other it's one of those things that and you never know when those things come back right you put that out in the world and it can be this job it can be the next job it can be one after that but that's the type of connectedness that we're talking about so a foundation of authenticity benefits everyone so when we show the world who we truly are we become more attractive to those who are like us and are looking for the things that we have to offer clients don't know what they know and they know it it's a huge position of vulnerability on their part especially because often these things come with massive price tags so acknowledge that and provide somewhere soft for them to land and a lot of these engagements will go a lot more smoother our showing up gives license just like our friend here said gives license to our colleagues our clients and everyone around us our ability to work as true partners with our clients is really predicated on being able to meet on common ground and common ground only happens when we are navigating those relationships with authenticity think about think about how we have clients that are not navigating our spaces with authenticity and how that negatively impacts our teams think about clients that are maybe abusive borderline abusive maybe they are dealing with pressures of their own that just kind of gets passed along our way these are not great projects and though we will deliver our bricks our mortar is non-existent and so the strength of the foundation of that relationship will continue to be shaky until we are able to bring those things together so can you think of an example where you could have used this technique to better communicate we will take that as a thought exercise but think of different examples of I could have layered this in that way I didn't communicate this as well as I could a good example could be I heard them and I knew that was going to be bad later on in the project and I said okay and they never knew if I go back in time to the conversation how could I have layered in some nodding shaking of the head up down shoulders how could I have conveyed with a layer of emotion that this wasn't going to work well in a way that would give them pause in the conversation that I had with Susan at the beginning of my return from attorney leave when I dropped the mask what that really led to was my human connection it wasn't long but we talked about sleep deprivation my new found sugar addiction we talked about the beautiful awful that is parenthood but what happened was really magical because when we came back to the conversation about feedback there was it's almost like we relaxed and now instead of an interview it was a conversation which is always the goal and we tend to talk about the ways that we were kicking butt for them but also about the ways that we could improve and that is so important to the customer experience and to retention so how can we be the change make honesty your policy and stop selling pipe dreams authenticity starts in your sales cycle we've got to stop selling things that don't exist or we know our project teams can't do won't do, don't want to do over to these poor PO's and then backing away slowly it just results in disappointment for everyone involved we want to set goals and expectations early and often when things change and they will we want to reset them again and we want to be honest about the why we want to communicate often with clients clients should never be surprised about things that come up if we can help it and often we can help it and they're gonna be surprised but often we can see things coming we are awesome at our jobs we can often see the calamity so communicate that and then charter together this is a good one and charter authentically make agreements about how we want to work together how we want to navigate our conversations and our relationship and then stick to it we also want to be able to model the behavior that we want to see remember chicken and the egg somebody's got to go first let's be those people that enter our rooms authentically and with integrity and that will encourage everyone else in the room to do the same and then this is another one from a place of privilege but don't work with people you don't respect and often we know that from the sale cycle if we are in a position to turn down work then turn down work know that our ideal clients are out there we are looking for them they are looking for us and if we can hold firm if we have the privilege of doing so we'll find each other how am I doing on time we are doing great we are going to do an activity together I think we are pretty even so we are going to chat together in my head I thought we were going to be at the roundtables it's okay we can turn around and make some friends but we are going to chat together and I want this side of the room you are going to be scenario one so your client has given you information about the impact on your project and we are going to talk about how we can respond authentically in that conversation and how we can layer in emotion to better communicate what we are trying to communicate and then on my right here we are going to talk about you have to tell your client that our team is going to miss a deadline not fun gave you guys the hard one how can we do the same I'm going to set a timer and we'll see how we do oh and to make your life easier maybe nominate a spokesperson that can share some of our aha moments yeah okay I just looked at the time in my head I started it too I did not so we are running a little out of time hopefully we have some things we can share I saw lots of great engagement going on so we have some spokespeople that want to anybody want to share any of our aha moments go Jenna so the the star standouts for me were validation empathy active listening before I think that's great thank you Jenna anybody else I love that more intimate meetings that's key how do you build connection with 30 people at the same time you can't right do our best to whittle that down thank you anybody else awesome that's perfect and it's a perfect way to approach it I've seen great success with sending a leading email hey let's chat this is what we're going to chat about so you're kind of saying get your mind right because we're going to have it out together but we're in this together so we're going to talk about it it's going to be rough but we're partners and we're going to figure it out great thank you anybody else I love it ownership not blame y'all are experts I don't know why I'm up here you can be over here with me that's fantastic so the last thing I'm going to end with is what's next and it's practice practice practice let's look for safe ways safe spaces and situations to try these techniques let's start small one of the liberating structures that I really lean into is 15% so what can I do in this interaction or in this situation to make it 15% better and then just chicken and egg it remember be brave and we'll all do great and thank y'all for coming I would love to answer some questions we're a bit out of time I have a couple minutes so we can talk here but then also I'd love to welcome you back to our booth Palantir.net we're right across from the Drupal organization booth and it's super cute come sit and chat and get some swag and join us thanks guys did anybody have any questions in our last couple seconds yes I often don't think it's about the authenticity itself it's sometimes finding common ground isn't always common so sometimes you may try I didn't realize how much people love babies and I didn't realize how much people love twins my goodness it's been like I've been riding that wave since I came back but I did try it with one client and they weren't mean or anything but it was clearly not the path to success so I had to pivot a little bit so you know sometimes you just have to you have to work around it and then also you know what sometimes people are awful it is what it is right and we like to think that everyone has something redeeming but we're not always going to find it on a zoom call so sometimes we just got to do our best anybody else oh and then there's so many different reactions so she said that some people aren't authentic or maybe they haven't been safe to be and people have different reactions to that sometimes when people see you being free in a way that they are not free they may attack that thing it becomes a threat it triggers like their fight or flight response and then sometimes they embrace it and for the first time then they feel that freedom and they embody it through you that's the one we're really hoping for but you don't know that till you try and if they're the first one then maybe they're not your ideal person and that's okay because there's someone out there for them too it sounds like it's a love connection very good alright thank y'all visit us at the boo oh and connect with me on LinkedIn I'd love to continue our conversation