Handle with Care: Empathy at Work

- Mark Vroegop

I mean, it's just so private and so painful and so isolating at so many levels. And that's why I said grief isn't tame, because part of the viciousness of it is its unpredictability. Yeah, something can remind you, something can be a trigger. And it's just it's it's not controllable. It's not tameable. And I think understanding that is actually really helpful

INTRO

Grief can rob you of language. The feelings are so totalizing, so big and unwieldy. You don’t know when or if the pain will end and the people around you seem to have little more to offer than trite platitudes like “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

If you have been that grieving person, feeling so very alone with no one to listen or respond to your cry of pain, or if you have been that awkward friend or colleague, fumbling around for the right words and finding none, than this episode is for you. Because this episode is all about lament.

Lament is a language of pain, of giving voice to the sorrow. And my guest today is no stranger to lament. In fact, Mark Vroegop has written a book on the topic called Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy.

The book is borne out of his life experience and the death of a daughter. But I will let him tell you more about that in the course of our interview.

Mark Vroegop is the Lead Pastor at College Park Church, a church on the northside of Indianapolis. And, on a personal level, Mark has powerfully intersected with my own journey of pain and grief. He was the one who stood graveside when our daughter, Mercy’s, body was lowered into the ground. Sharing our pain and giving voice to our grief. His honest reckoning with his own struggle and, ultimately, hope has ripple effects into my work as a Workplace Empathy Consultant. So I am glad to welcome him to the show today.

And, just to note, Mark’s story is deeply intertwined with his Christian faith. For those of you who do not share his faith, there might be language or concepts that are foreign to you, I welcome you to listen, as we listen to all of our guests, with a welcoming curiosity, embracing the concepts and wisdom that finds resonance with your spirit and letting anything else pass along.

And for those of you that are rooted in the Christian tradition, I believe that Mark’s writing and story could deepen your understanding of how the language of lament allows you to hold both grief and sorrow without having to just plaster a happy, religious platitude over your pain.

A little bit more about Mark: he has taken up roasting his own coffee beans in the midst of the pandemic. He loves the outdoors, although his is quick to clarify that he and his family no longer sleep in tents.

- Mark Vroegop

Yeah, we love the outdoors, love anything exercise related outside of a big park nearby. Here you go. Creeks, my favorite place to go, kind of my happy place. And we are big campers. So when I say camper, think glampers.

- Mark Vroegop

So we have a travel trailer that we now have that we've upgraded from a pop up. And we love just taking that thing out on a Friday, Saturday and enjoying the outdoors and some quiet. And we're looking forward to more opportunities to do that here soon.

Mark is the father to four living children.

- Mark Vroegop

Yeah, so we have four children. We have three boys who are adults, twin boys. Our number one number two are out of college and one is married and two others are getting married soon.

Mark Vroegop

We have a daughter who's in high school and mother in law that lives with us and a dog named Stella.

- Mark Vroegop

So we have a really full and vibrant home with people coming in and out all the time and just love the opportunity to be in their lives and are thankful that they live in close proximity here to Indianapolis. So we can see them quite often.

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah, what a robust household and what a number of transitions you guys are collectively standing on, on the brink of.

- Mark Vroegop

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we are in the middle of all kinds of transitions, that's for sure.

Yeah. Tell me a little bit.

- Liesel Mertes

We're going to be talking about disruptive life events, the comforters that come alongside as poorly and the moment.

- Liesel Mertes

And I know that your journey into that, both as a writer, pastor, speaker began from a really personal place. Would you set the scene of that story for us?

- Mark Vroegop

Sure. So our first children were twins, so pregnancy wasn't a problem for us. In fact, the problem was we were too pregnant and my wife carried our twins to thirty nine and a half weeks. So she was a college athlete and twins were born six pounds, seven ounces, six pounds, 11 ounces. Kendall came on three days later. Just beautiful, fairly easy pregnancy apart from enormous discomfort. Third sons born, no complications whatsoever.

- Mark Vroegop

Healthy bab...

- Tegan Trovato

There's an awakening happening in corporations and people are now choosing their jobs based on values. And that will force organizations who aren't already inclined to that thinking to really start rethinking their approach to caring for their people and the beautiful thing.

NEW INTRO

Today, we talk about the awakening that is happening in the workforce as a result of COVID, change, and choice. How workers are choosing jobs based on values and what top leaders are doing to welcome and nurture the whole person at work.

And I am excited to have both a colleague and a friend on the show as a guest: Tegan Trovato is the Founder of Bright Arrow, a premiere Executive and Team Coaching firm supporting clients nationally.

Tegan is an HR industry veteran specializing in Talent Acquisition, Talent Development, and Organizational Learning. She has served as an executive or leadership team member for companies like Levi Strauss, Zynga, Xerox and Cielo.

At Bright Arrow, she and her team offer executive coaching, leadership team coaching, and group workshops. All of Bright Arrow’s coaches value authenticity, confidence, courage, growth, and leadership and make these values a priority in every interaction.

Tegan is also the is wife to Brian (a fellow entrepreneur), mommy to Athena (who is really, really bute), and mom to her two fur babies - senior kitties Pascal and Dedier (pronounced D.D.A).

She loves nature and we began our conversation hearing about her recent break from work here in the Indiana summer.

- Liesel Mindrebo Mertes

I would love to hear some of your favorite things that you've gotten a chance to do on your staycation so far.

- Tegan Trovato

Oh, you know, just being outside and my husband and Athena and I all being together as a family is everything, because with the pandemic, we still don't have child care yet. We do have someone starting soon. But we've just been like ships passing in the night, just handing Athena off for for one of us, one entrepreneur to have a meeting and the other one goes and takes care of her and then we switch off again throughout the day.

- Tegan Trovato

So just being together has been and I don't even know what the word is, heart filling.

- Liesel Mindrebo Mertes

Have you have you gotten a chance to eat some good food? Are you finding your being outside a lot? It's been raining and muggy that you know,

- Tegan Trovato

That doesn't stop us. I'm from the South, from the real South where it is always rainy and muggy and we just go do your thing anyway. So, no, that hasn't stopped us. And there's been enough breaks in the rain and we've spent a ton of time. Yeah. Walking on the trail and jogging and setting up the little kiddie pool outside for her.

- Tegan Trovato

So, yeah, that's been that's part of what nourishes me is being outside and and yes. Eating healthy food. So we always eat relatively healthy, but we've been doing a little more of the salads because we've had time and all that good stuff so.

- Liesel Mindrebo Mertes

Well, and who wants to be slaving over their oven or stovetop too much in the high heat of summer? The salad is a great option.

- Liesel Mindrebo Mertes

One of the things I would love to talk with you about is how you've seen the need for empathy grow and change specifically over the last year and a half within your coaching practice. Give us a little bit of a 10000 foot view of what your typical client looks like.

- Tegan Trovato

Hmm. Thank you for asking that. It does help set the stage a little bit for who is seeing what inside of the businesses and from where they're seeing this all unfold. Right. So the clients that we typically work with at Right Arrow are executives. So VPs and above inside the organization, they tend to be very driven, pretty holistic leaders, meaning they do want for their employees to feel good and be healthy and often at their own peril. Right.

- Tegan Trovato

So they're not often not taking care of themselves and trying to pour out for others. The organizations they work for tend to be in either hypergrowth or undergoing major change.

- Tegan Trovato

And that's often why we're brought in is to act as a support mechanism. And sometimes when it's a hypergrowth situation to help the leaders stay on track with the organization's growth so that as the leaders that got the company to where it is, they may also be the leaders that get them to the next growth level.

- Tegan Trovato

Right. Everyone has to grow in tandem with the organization itself. So so we tend to be working with leaders that have been working really hard already. And now with the pandemic, it just folded in multiple other layers.

- Tegan Trovato

On top of that,

- Liesel Mindrebo Mertes

What is the biggest change that you experienced in in the presenting needs of your average client as a result of COV...

– Adam Weber

One of the I think keys to genuine empathy is through consistent one on one and how you display empathy, like, structurally inside of an organization. So, for example, a one on one is that place where as a manager, you can create safety with your team and with your direct reports and create a vulnerable relationship where you really do know what's going on inside of their world in their life

INTRO

Sometimes, when you hear from leaders, you are inundated with their success stories: their key tips to making your life or company just as successful as theirs has been. And the whole thing can kind of seem a little unattainable and aspirational.

Which is one of the things that I love about today’s interview with Adam Weber, the Senior Vice President for 15Five. Adam is one of those highfliers whose work is marked by successes, whether that is leading HR professionals in HR Superstars or successfully growing and then selling Emplify as a co-founder.

But my conversation with Adam isn’t just a series of success stories. He is going to tell you about moments where he was NOT his best self, where as a young founder under tons of stress, he created distance instead of connection...and what he learned from it. Along with a lot of other great content.

Adam is a structure guy, so be ready for some really actionable suggestions. Adam is also the author of “Lead Like a Human”. Great title! He has a wife, two sons, and a dog named Poppy and he loves spending time in nature, camping, and bird-watching. I hope you enjoy today’s conversation as much as I did.

- Liesel Mindrebo Mertes

Adam, I'm so glad to have you as a guest today. Welcome.

- Adam Weber

It's good to be here. Liesel. Thank you so much.

- Liesel Mindrebo Mertes

Yes. So a question that I oftentimes get in my work is defining what empathy looks like in the workplace. And I know that you're someone who has worked a lot professionally and written and thought about connection in the workplace. How would you define empathy at work? What does it look like?

- Adam Weber

I think it work. Empathy at work, I think, is seeing your employees as whole people as their whole sales and just in recognizing that they have things that are moving in their life that are outside of work, they have aspects of things that work that are impacting them that maybe you're unaware of. And so just taking that holistic perspective of each person and the unique experience that they're having and translating that and how you relate to them.

- Liesel Mindrebo Mertes

Thank you for that. I have found as I work with different companies as I meet with individuals that oftentimes when people like get it, when they feel really resonant with the importance of empathy and connection in the workplace, it comes out of a place of personal experience. They've had some touch points with either needing empathy and care or being in the position of giving it in a way that was really impactful. I'd love for you to share a story of when you've either really needed care in the workplace or when it's been really important for you to give it.

- Adam Weber

Yeah. I think I have two stories that come to mind. The first is maybe how early in my career I was able to practice empathy in a way that helped me see the value in it. I started in my career when I was 22 to 25. I was the pastor of a Church, and it's a story for a different day, but basically became the head pastor when I was 25, never given a sermon in my life. Wow. And was trying to support and was really the only staff person for two to 300 people and was trying to support them when in reality, like, I was just still really young myself.

- Adam Weber

And I think through that experience, a lot of people opened up to me about their lives. And you got to be a part of some of those high moments, like weddings, but also you're very much in the midst of really, really difficult situations. And so during that season, I think I learned a lot about just the value of sitting with people through hard things. It was during that time that one of my very best friends had ALS and he passed away and over an 18 month period.

- Adam Weber

But, you know, every Tuesday and Thursday, we sat together that entire time and have lunch together. And I think just being with him and watching him go through that experience was something that really built empathy with me. So that's may be on just like, the personal side of, like, really early. I got a little bit thrown into the fire of empathy and being just being with others.

- Liesel Mindrebo Mertes

Yeah. And I know that you have a second story, but I love it. Could I just interrupt you for a second? Because I'm struck with the dynamics of that story, something that I find myself facilitating a lot around is compassion, fatigue and talking. Or even Adam Grant use the term languishing recently. That sense of like, I don't know if...

This is the Handle with Care: Empathy at Work podcast. I’m your host, Liesel Mindrebo Mertes helping you build a culture of care and connection through empathy at work. MUSICAL TRANSITION Welcome to Season 2. Empathy matters. It isn’t just some squishy personality trait, it is a set of skills and a capacity for connection that you can develop, if you have the desire. And that is what season 2 is all about. I am going to introduce you, in each episode, to a leader that is purposefully building connection and engagement at work. They will share best practices, the ways that have grown and their occasional failures.

My guest today is Scott Shute. Scott is the Head of Mindfulness and Compassion at LinkedIn, which is this great role that sits at the intersection of ancient wisdom traditions and a technology company. He is also an avid photographer, a musician, and, most recently, a published author. His book, “The Full Body Yes” launched in the middle of May. His mission is to change work from the inside out by “mainstreaming mindfulness” and “operationalizing compassion.”

This was a deeply enriching conversation about how to build up mindfulness...and in a year of so many distractions, don’t we all need a little more attention and mindfulness? And how to operationalize compassion, which is right up my alley.

We began talking about his book. I got to read an advance copy and enjoyed a passage so much that I called my 13 year old daughter into the room one morning to read it aloud to her. It was that spot-on.

Scott Shute

I was saying what you just said about response is what has been typical, like what I'm not getting is I send the book to my friends and they're like, oh, hey, cool. Got your book. Thanks. Not getting that. What I'm getting is like, oh, my God, Chapter eight, like, we got to talk about this because blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And and there is at least one story in there for everyone that's been super meaningful and has moved the needle on their life just a little bit or something that resonated with just a little bit or a lot.

Scott Shute

And so that's been super gratifying.

Liesel Mertes

Absolutely. Well, and as someone who prizes the craft of storytelling, I enjoy just all the places that the full body. Yes. Took me from Japan to Kansas to dealing with bullying in your adolescent years and back again. So I enjoyed both the wisdom but also the delivery of it. And I I have some questions to ask about certain sections of the book. I can't wait to jump in.

Liesel Mertes

What is your personal connection to why empathy matters and why it specifically matters in the workplace?

Scott Shute

And thank you for that question and thanks for having me. It matters because we don't work in isolation. We work with others, we live with others. And so to me, empathy, I talk a lot about compassion and I'll separate the two a bit. So I define compassion, is having an awareness of others, a mindset of wishing the best for them, and then the courage to take action. And some people say that compassion is empathy plus action.

Scott Shute

And so if you're talking about these first two pieces, it's first being aware of others and then having a mindset of wishing the best for them or a mindset of kindness. And why that's important in the workplace is, yeah, we don't work by ourselves. We work in teams. And what we've discovered, what science has shown us Project Aristotle at Google has shown us is the number one factor in creating a high performance team is, well, it's not their IQ, it's not what school they went to.

Scott Shute

It's not even the level of diversity in technology or overall diversity. It's psychological safety. This ability to say, hey, can I can I be myself in front of you guys, can I can I fail in front of you and know that you have my back, but actually even harder? Can I succeed? Can I win in front of you and know that you have my back? So if we're on a sales team and I just made two hundred twenty percent a quarter with two weeks to go and my friends at eighty five percent of quarter, are they really going to help me out.

Scott Shute

Are they going to look at me the same way. Am I going to look at them the same way. So this idea of empathy, this idea of being aware of others and having a mindset of wishing the best for them, really putting ourselves in their shoes builds powerful work environments where we end up being more creative. We end up with better solutions. We end up delivering something much better for our customers.

Liesel Mertes

I love that. Just touching on the data points, some of the business case that's there, I'd like to dig a little deeper. Would you tell me about a time in your work experience where you think, man, I was not OK? I was really going through a hard time and this person's care, attention, what they did or said really made a difference and paint that picture for us.

Scott Shute

Sure. G...

- Peter Kline

I'm never doing enough, never doing enough of working enough with them and never doing enough therapy outside of therapy hours with them and knowing the importance of that, but also trying to manage the responsibility and guilt that comes along with that while also, also being clear on. But every day with him is a gift and every day is enough. That's it. It's it's holding those two things together that often feels very difficult, but that's kind of what we're given to manage.

INTRO

My guests today are Janice McRandal and Peter Kline. They are here to talk about their son, Leo, what it is like to raise him and love him as he lives with cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is the most common motor disability in childhood, it affects the ability to move and maintain balance and we will hear about how CP impacts their lives.

We also talk about baseball, rugby, sharks, and you will have the joy of listening to the particular lilt of Janice’s accent.

As always, I want you to know Peter and Janice as more than just their role as Leo’s parents. Peter and Janice live in Queensland, Australia and, when I spoke to them, they had just returned from a trip to the Barrier Reef.

- Janice McRandal

Oh, yes, just you know, it's one of the world's beautiful spots, so it was really quite a stunningly different experience to the pandemic apathy that set in to go our beautiful rhythm and just have these days in a day or two in paradise.

- Liesel Mertes

Are you snorkelers? Are you divers? Do you do some of both?

- Peter Kline

No, that was the first time I have ever snorkel.

- Janice McRandal

Oh, really? I didn't know that.

- Peter Kline

Yeah, I know. Never snorkel before.

- Janice McRandal

Oh, well that's the way to do it. That's the way it is if you're going to be the first time.

Peter Kline

Go. Go big.

You might have gathered that Peter is not a native of Australia. Peter was born in Houston. He traveled to Chicago, where we overlapped at Wheaton College for our undergraduate work. And, after marrying Janice, he moved to Australia where he teaches and works with young ordinands at the Charles Sturt University in Australia, a theological college that helps those seeking ordination in the Anglican Church. When he is not working, Peter enjoys a few hobbies.

- Peter Kline

When I'm not teaching. So I, I love to paint. That's probably the number one thing that I that I do when I find the time, which is difficult these days to sneak in time to paint. Yeah, that's what I, I love to make art and paint. So that's, that's kind of my main thing that I try to do outside of my professional life.

- Peter Kline

And I also I have also taken up or re-entered rather playing baseball. So, you know, moving to Australia, you know, you have to find ways to stay connected to your American roots.

Janice is also a theologian. As you will hear in a little bit, that is acutally one of the sparks that brought Peter and Janice together. Janice works at the University of Divinity and is the director of the Centre for Discourse, which does public theology. She, like Peter, also loves sport.

- Janice McRandal

So I'm a big lover of sport, so I am part of that clichéd Australian sport loving lifestyle. So I play by play sport. I play touch football, which is touch rugby, I guess would be the way to say it.

- Janice McRandal

I played that for twenty eight years, so since I was 12. So I just play weekly in a more and much more social team. Again, not super serious, competitive and I really enjoy that.

- Janice McRandal

I will only give it up when my body says I absolutely have to.

Janice also loves to cook

- Peter Kline

One of Janice's skills is actually to clean as she cooks. Yeah. So so it's often like to get to the end of a cooking session and you have this amazing, delicious, beautiful food and a clean kitchen here. And it's like what, what did you do that.

- Janice McRandal

It is my superpower in the kitchen. I am that rare cook that like is always cleaning as she goes. And there's nothing makes me happier.

- Liesel Mertes

And would you give us an overview of your origins story?

- Liesel Mertes

Did you get together?

- Peter Kline

Oh, the two of us? Yes. Yeah,

- Janice McRandal

Entirely by accident. Certainly not. Certainly not something one would plan for. So we both work in the same field in academia. We're both in backgrounds, in and teaching in theology. And we had connected over a number of things.

- Janice McRandal

I think we first met at a conference in 2012 and we had mutual friends and sort of knew each other in a very friendly way. And then a very good friend of mine was moving to Nashville to start a Ph.D. in the same similar program, same school as where Peter was at Vanderbilt.

- Janice McRandal

And I was I had about a year before going thro...