Episode Eight - Be Yourself? Navigating Authenticity in the Workplace

In this episode, Mary and Katie discuss the concept of authenticity in the workplace. They explore the idea that authenticity is not about expressing every thought and emotion, but rather about aligning with one's larger values and brokering self-expression in a way that serves those values. They also discuss the potential risks and trade-offs of being authentic at work, including the need to make concessions and regulate emotions. The episode highlights the importance of emotional regulation, self-awareness, and professional maturity in navigating authenticity in the workplace. The conversation explores the concept of authenticity in the workplace and its implications for individuals and organizations. It highlights the trade-offs and challenges of being authentic, as well as the need for self-awareness and accountability. The discussion also touches on the cultural shifts and expectations surrounding authenticity, and the importance of maintaining healthy boundaries between personal and professional lives. The conversation concludes with recommendations for individuals and companies to consider when navigating authenticity in the workplace.

Takeaways

• Authenticity in the workplace is about aligning with one's larger values and brokering self-expression in a way that serves those values.
• Being authentic at work may require making concessions and regulating emotions to effectively function and connect within relationships and groups.
• Authenticity does not mean expressing every thought and emotion, but rather understanding and contextualizing them within a larger picture.
• There are trade-offs and potential risks associated with being authentic at work, including the need to balance self-expression with professional expectations and goals.
• Emotional regulation, self-awareness, and professional maturity are important in navigating authenticity in the workplace. Authenticity in the workplace requires self-awareness and accountability.
• Being authentic may lead to polarized reactions from others, and it's impossible to please everyone.
• It's important to recognize the separate social norms around work and professionalism.
• Individuals should find a job that aligns with their true selves and not try to fit their authentic self into an old environment.
• Companies should consider authenticity as part of their overall strategy and evaluate it through data and metrics.
• Clear expectations and consistent messaging are crucial when implementing authenticity initiatives in organizations.

Keywords

authenticity, workplace, values, self-expression, emotional regulation, concessions, professional maturity, authenticity, workplace, trade-offs, self-awareness, accountability, cultural shifts, healthy boundaries

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Personal Updates
• 5:00 Defining Authenticity in the Workplace
• 10:00 The Importance of Emotional Regulation and Self-Awareness
• 15:00 Making Concessions and Aligning with Larger Values
• 20:00 The Journey of Discovering Authenticity
• 25:00 Authenticity: Trade-offs and Reactions
• 30:00 Authenticity and Personal Development
• 35:00 Cultural Shifts and Workplace Authenticity
• 36:00 Boundaries and Personal Information in the Workplace
• 38:00 Incorporating Authenticity into Company Strategy
• 42:00 Being Uniquely Authentic

Transcript

Mary (00:04.397)
Welcome to Business Psychos, where we discuss how to navigate the complexity of corporate culture and modern life without becoming a psycho. I'm Mary.

Katie (00:14.51)
and I'm Katie.

Mary (00:16.973)
And we are the business psychos.

Hey, Katie, what's up? How was your weekend? What's going on?

Katie (00:23.662)
Hi Mary.

Katie (00:30.222)
I had a great weekend. It's beautiful weather right now in Boston, and this is my favorite time of the year. There is no question about it. Just, I love spring and in Boston, especially in Back Bay, there's just plant life and animals and all sorts of kind of like beautiful stuff sort of springing into bloom right now. So it puts me in like a super happy mood as I...

kind of wander around. And this weekend, I spent some time, I went for a walk and had a podcast or two in my headphones. So yeah, so that's what I was, that's how I was immersed.

Mary (01:14.701)
How's your allergies? You say that as the view of someone who does not have a pollen allergy, because I'm dying. How are you doing with your allergies?

Katie (01:23.502)
Yeah, I, my cat, my cat is sneezing up a storm, but I am. So it's actually good to hear that it is allergy season. Cause for whatever reason, I am absolutely allergy free right now. I don't know why I used to take, I used to take like Zyrtec and like what's that stuff that you snort the Flonase. So yeah. So, or maybe, I don't know.

Mary (01:43.405)
You had that in the back of your car with all your POSAC?

Katie (01:49.262)
Yeah, well, look, this part will get edited. But, you know, one of the things when you're a pharmaceutical rep is that you would walk into the sample closet. This is definitely getting cut. And you would steal the other samples from the other manufacturers. And, you know, and your friends, like, because your friends would start asking for you to, like, do hauls for them.

Like people, like one of the ones that was really popular is people would be asking to score Valtrex. Cause they didn't want to get prescriptions. You know, what are some of the other ones? Yeah. And so I'd be in there scooping it up. So yeah, at the time, you know, this gets cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Do not talk about this. It's like, absolutely not. But yeah. Well, so, so speaking of podcasts. So I've been,

Mary (02:31.693)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah.

Mary (02:36.909)
Yeah.

Katie (02:43.886)
And I don't know if this is going to go too far into the topic of AI, because I think both of us are very interested in it. And I'm working on a research project around AI. And I'll lead with my conclusion, which is the more you understand generative AI, the less you're afraid of it as a principle. But the fear that robots will be running, you know,

our lives and our new masters can be immediately overtaken with the understanding and the concern about the motivations and the implications of the tech hype cycle around AI right now and the potential economic impacts of the bubble bursting. I mean, I won't go into length here on this. There's a great podcast by Ed Zitron called Better Offline that does an awesome job in covering this 

Mary (11:23.999)
 me. I just want to call out a fellow podcaster because I'm a big fan of the Modern Wisdom podcast. It's Chris Williamson who's hit 2 million subscribers recently. And I'm just a fan of people who are curious, intellectually curious of like a, you know.

a generous worldview or a worldview of like, you know, knowledge and understanding can maybe help. And I love his show and I thought that was a pretty significant milestone. And he's been mentored under some other of the old big names of other podcasters out there. So now that we have our headsets on and we're part of that cohort, I thought I would give him a call out. I think he's got a wide range of guests and...

Katie (12:14.35)
you

Mary (12:21.709)
What I appreciate is that he encourages healthy discourse. I think we're in a culture right now where we want to kind of, shows like his, we're kind of more business focused, but like shows like his want to veer on, you know, which team are you on? And what I appreciate is that he kind of goes away from that and just says, like, let's just do some research and understand it and have a conversation. And he has people on from, you know, the spectrum of political.

bent and so yeah I appreciate that so that's what's going on for today.

Katie (12:57.07)
I work definitely, I think I'm speaking for you as well, but you know, once you're actually producing a podcast, it's a level of respect for people who have built and are producing and running podcasts successfully has, I don't know if like exponential respect is too small. Like the way that I look at.

people now who are really effectively and successfully building audiences and running podcasts is, you know, I, you know, I was just thinking the other day that now I listen to the closing credits on podcasts because I want to hear about all the roles that they have in their production. Whereas before it used to be like, skip moving forward. But yeah, I mean, so just quickly, one other podcast and, and, and I'll get off the topic of other podcasts and we can get to ours.

Mary (13:44.397)
Yeah.

Katie (13:52.59)
But one other podcast I listened to it this weekend while I was sitting in the Boston Common watching the Swan boats, looking at tulips is that, and this actually relates to what we'll talk about today and how collaboration, self -awareness, self -regulation and compromise matter in authenticity was the podcast is called the Price of Paradise about a British woman who moves her entire

family to an island of indigenous land in Nicaragua that she purchased from an American business owner and how like there's this theme throughout the podcast about the fact that like everyone else's kind of needs and desires get really ignored as she just kind of plows forward with her idea of what it's like for her to live in  her quote unquote truth. So podcast, we love them.

Mary (14:53.293)
Love them. So on to ours for today. And speaking of buzzwords and things that are out there, vague and kind of misunderstood is this term authenticity. So it's jumped from personal development into the professional world. So these days it's not surprising to see posts on LinkedIn entitled Authenticity at Work or...

Be your true self and build a compassionate culture. When I was doing research, I saw one that said, embracing authentic leadership. It's like, okay. So on today's show, we're gonna talk about authenticity. Next on Business Psychos.

Mary (15:42.957)
So starting with the definition and for me, the problem statement, we always like to ground on some sort of general definition. Authenticity today we're talking about in a business context. And the simple definition for this is the quality of being real or genuine. And so Katie, you and I talk about these types of things a lot. And I think you know, I believe that knowing oneself fully,

is a critical part of personal development, self -actualization, growth, all that good stuff. It underlies the basis of psychotherapy and even some spiritual practices. I fully agree that self -work or personal practice is important. And I feel that this is a critical component of professional development. That all said in my mind, I don't feel that this all equates.

to people feeling that they should be their real self in the workplace. And I feel this way regardless if we're talking about someone working at a 200 ,000 person company or whether they're self -employed. So I could have shared this at the top of the show, but as some of our listeners know, I love standups. I've mentioned that on a couple of shows already. And I just happened to catch the recent Colin Quinn comedy show called Our Time is Up.

And in it, he had a great line. I'm like taking notes now for the podcast. I'm walking around with a notebook wherever I go, but he has this great line in the show. It goes, nobody mentions that your authentic self isn't your best self. We have to keep, he said, we keep trying to achieve something that's not the best you. And it was funny. And of course there's lots of this stuff around it, but it struck me because I knew we had this episode coming up and I thought, well, yeah, we all have our, our shadow and the things.

which make us rough and also human, but not of all of it's good, right? If you watch someone's behavior in traffic or when their flight's canceled, authentic, sure, but not always good behavior. And I'm there too. I've certainly experienced this. And I think the fact that we can all be jerks sometimes is a point which is notably absent in most of the discussions around authenticity.

Mary (18:05.549)
that I'm seeing, particularly at work, right? I think that in interpersonal realm, it's somewhat different. I view it as like the point is to see your authentic self and where the improvements are necessary and then to focus on them. The destination isn't to stay a jerk. And I just wanna underscore that if this is missing from the conversation, it's possible authenticity could be used as an excuse for.

not addressing aspects of ourself that are still a work in progress. And maybe we don't fix all these things, but we're still required either by law, policy, or social contract to be accountable for our behavior. It's almost like, Katie, I almost have this reaction that I think authenticity at work to be sort of oxymoronic.

You know, we talk a lot about the game on this show and knowing what your role is in a business context. And so employment is a contractual agreement. Companies may have expectations which are not aligned to who you feel you are. And so starting with something that's very generic and sort of not so controversial, you may feel uncomfortable wearing business attire.

I actually have a number of my friends who have kids going out into the workforce or internships and their kids are really frustrated by the dress code. They may not feel it represents who they really are. They want to wear t -shirts and jeans or whatever. And they might even feel that in order to feel that they're being authentic, they always have to dress in a style that's consistent with who they feel they are. But in a work environment,

the company takes precedence over authenticity. And that's sort of a simple, easy one. I think generally, I feel that it can be risky to be authentic at work. Your company is not your family and your colleagues are not your friends. And it can feel tempting to express yourself without reserve or self -censure, where it may actually be in your better interest to protect yourself.

Mary (20:22.733)
by keeping some of your personal self in your personal life. And I wanna be really clear here, cause I can imagine someone can pick up on some extreme examples. I'm not suggesting that you feel ashamed of who you are or that it's okay to accept or collude with bad behavior in the workplace. That's not what we're talking about here. So as another example, that's ratcheted up a little bit higher from the dress code.

Let's take the example of sharing information about your family with your work colleagues. On one extreme, you can have an employee who doesn't feel comfortable sharing anything about their personal life, even if they have a partner. And I've had some people on my teams who have felt this way actually. And on the other end of the spectrum, you may have someone who is so comfortable being open and honest that they share all the personal details like divorce, healthcare issues, financial problems.

My sense, Katie, is that most of us fall somewhere in between these extremes and that it might be worth employees considering whether sharing too much personal information could possibly negatively impact the reputation, whether that's fair or not. And then last point would be that this is even more important for leaders. Yes, being genuine and honest and empathetic are all important.

But leadership isn't friendship. And too much self -disclosure can weaken your credibility, undermine your efforts, and create political risks down the road. So I would say carefully consider the balance between being genuine and accessible, but also recognize sometimes that sharing too much with others can actually create burdens on them that they may not want to deal with.

Katie (22:14.766)
Yeah, that is so, that's such an important, like so many important points there. And I imagine that similar to our listeners, I, as you were talking, very evocative, a lot of real like kind of ahas and like, yeah, like here's, you know, and even examples of being like, yep, yep, yep. to what you're saying. I mean, authentic authenticity, you know, while, you know, although it's a buzzword is not.

well understood and it isn't about allowing every thought and emotion you have to be expressed. In fact, authenticity is about your larger values and being able to contextualize your feelings and beliefs in a larger picture that serves them. I mean, how I view my authenticity,

is that it's the active expression of my integrity. It involves the brokering through, you know, the brokering between self -expression, my self -expression and allowing others to do the same, which means there are concessions that ultimately need to be made, which can feel like self -censoring, hiding important parts of who we are, controlling our emotions, not causing harm through snap reactions.

I mean, these can all feel like restrictions, but they're necessary as we broker self -expression as individuals, along with effectively functioning and connecting within relationships and groups of people. And a reason authenticity is more fun to talk about than do is that there are trade -offs.

When we advocate for ourselves or offer contrary opinions to the status quo, there are people and institutions that will not like it. There's a reason you hold back and it's related to safety. And there's no process of revealing our truth that doesn't involve the excavation of the concessions we were taught to make before we could consciously broker them. So allowing ourselves to express frustration,

Katie (24:31.534)
Anger, the vulnerability of fear, big emotions that are painful or excruciatingly pleasurable is a first layer of accessing authenticity, especially if doing so has been suppressed, which it often is. And I think this is what Colin Quinn may have been talking about, but this is not the final state of revelation. I mean, I often...

process my thoughts and feelings outside of work and relationships through my Parinama Method practice, it's why I can provide clear thinking and leadership instead of focusing on how a situation serves or impacts me specifically. Lack of emotional regulation impacts our ability to lead. Excuse me. I have like a little burp.

So to be effective with people, to be effective with people, I don't want to burp into the microphone. Okay, hold on. Can Luke come over and pat me on the back? Is that his little grape? Yeah, he's gonna put me over his little shoulder like, my God. It's like, it's like right there. And I'm like, I don't, the time's up.

Mary (25:37.613)
It's got a burp. Is it time for your burping? Do he need to be needs to throw you over his shoulder?

Katie (25:51.278)
I've audibly burped in my life. I can count on one hand. So it terrifies me that this could actually happen while being recorded. Yeah. my God. Okay. But so, and we're back. So to be effective with people, we need to meet them where they are, which involves adjusting our approach from one that prioritizes whatever is arising by way of our feelings and emotions to having the ability to expand our capacity and literacy with our thoughts and emotions. This is,

the kind of thing that becomes really clear, especially like if you're responsible for like stewardship of a child's development is the importance. And being a boss ultimately is that you have to be capable of putting the needs of someone else before yours, especially when you're feeling highly charged by a situation. But so part of...

this brokering is making the professional concessions for our larger values. So in the case of dress code, in office policy and work environment that are not aligned with our personal preferences, these can be concessions we make in the service of larger goals that align with our integrity. I think it was Oprah who said, do what you have to do until you can do what you wanna do. If you are not.

about your larger values, making concessions with things like dress code and in office policies, they'll be overly wrought And if a work environment is not a fit, like it isn't a fit. And rather than becoming bitter about it and becoming toxic for people who need to make it work, you know, like we want to focus on the path forward. And this is a level of executive functioning.

that really separates people relative to their seniority and professional maturity. So, you know, also like as far as authenticity and integrity at work are concerned, I don't think I was capable of playing the game effectively until I understood my underlying behavior patterns and could recognize patterns in others and regulate my emotions. Before I was capable of these things, I had a lot of emotions which I rationalized with beliefs.

Katie (28:09.838)
the kind of stuff that can be easily mistaken as authentic in air quotes, opinion, these authentic air quotes opinions, just because they're overwhelming and strong, but are actually just emotional dysregulation. And just as a side note, like I've negotiated or been clear about my dress code and other lifestyle considerations in the last three full -time roles. And,

and also with clients. And for the most part, I'm really clear about what they can expect from me. For example, that I'll wear high -end athleisure if when I'm not client facing, I've set the expectation that I don't clock in until 9 .30 because of my practice. I've set limits on the complexity of the advising I'm willing to do on a project and I've required furnished housing to be provided.

within walking distance of the office. And, you know, I mean, whether this is relatable or not on the other side of that, I have invested tremendous sums of money to have very expensive clothing to attend pitch meetings and be able to project the type of level of success and composure for, for, for enterprise level clients. So, you know, the idea of being authentic.

as far as stepping into a boardroom and being like, look, I've got to be me. And you're wearing a sweatsuit. It's like, sure, you can be you. But the fact of the matter is, is back to the accountability for what the outcome is. It's like, you have to realize you're just not going, like you're going to pay with how seriously they're able and willing to take you.

Mary (29:56.269)
And can we look for a picture of an athleisure outfit in the eight box this week, Katie? For our listeners who haven't picked up on this brilliant marketing that Katie has put together, we drop an eight box. It's a bunch of clues about what's in each of our episodes. And yeah, play along at home. It's really good, but I'm just gonna drop a little hint that there might be a little picture of a really trendy tracksuit in there this week.

Katie (30:04.846)
The third.

Katie (30:25.806)
Yeah. And I think there's a potential, you know, business psychos after dark, the confessional series talking about the level of angst that has been experienced by some investors and companies I've worked at and their interest in investing in my professional garb.

Mary (30:34.605)
Yeah.

Katie (30:54.83)
Stop it! What?

Mary (30:55.757)
I thought you were about to propose a line of business Psychos athleisure work clothing line. Is that next for us? We don't need an energy drink. We've got a clothing line.

Katie (31:01.71)
It's sponsored. my gosh. I think athleisure is anywhere, like athleisure is definitely in the move and at least merch, no question about it. Yeah, we've got like, yeah. I mean, I think you roll into work wearing anything that says Business Psychos on it. And you've certainly stepped into your authenticity in a major way and you're ready to see.

Mary (31:15.789)
Yeah, that's our merch.

Katie (31:31.47)
what the repercussions are for expressing yourself.

Mary (31:35.661)
You're just walking around the hallway going, if you know, you know, business psychos. The little DeNiro thing in there, you know.

Katie (31:39.054)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I've got to say wearing that, you know, at this, at this point in time, I would, I would advise against wearing anything  that says Business Psychos to your job. But you know, listen, you know, it's, I think we're all professionals here. So yeah. All right. So do I have something I have to say here?

So case for being authentic. I'm coming. I'm dropping back in. So here I go.

All right, I'm dropping back in. So we have, so we have chan - so, okay, I'm gonna like say this like a person that's speaking naturally. So we have chances to learn how to better professionally align ourselves as our career progresses. If we choose to take them. For example, I worked for a massive pharmaceutical company. Okay. Okay. Coming back. I'm going to start from the top. That was the -

Mary (32:42.061)
Looper reel.

Katie (32:42.959)
That was the burp. Okay, for example, I worked. Sorry, I was bloopers. Okay, for example, I worked for a massive pharmaceutical company and found the focus on following orders over being effective to be infuriating, especially since my income was tied to it. I was in sales and following a call list that didn't work in my territory drove me.

nuts. And it meant more work for me, which is my pet peeve. because in order to succeed, I had to follow the company call list and also make the calls that my analysis was showing would actually get me a result. And even after that led me to being number one in the country, I was still met out of 500 plus people. I was

still strongly instructed that I still had to follow the call list that they know didn't work. Yeah, see, I still get mad about it. You can see me still getting steamed. So, but, so like I went to a small, like after, after that, I went to smaller companies where I had more freedom. Then I moved to tech growth companies, which was a natural match for my drive and innovation.

Like, and every time I left a company, I would iterate. I'd create a list of around three qualities my next company had to have. Always having learned something about how to identify the best possible fit for myself from what I didn't like about my previous roles. Things like size and stage, certain qualities of the culture, what I needed for my development, qualities in my boss and leadership.

as I learned more about myself through my professional experiences, I would get better at identifying alignment. And our authenticity and integrity are alive and they're constantly revealing new facets as they shift in the changing context of life. But I'll say it again, there is a trade -off that is not often discussed that being true to yourself and speaking honestly from your perspective,

Katie (35:05.774)
tends to be polarizing. And if you are not consciously aware of making this trade, it can feel unjust when people respond negatively to us expressing ourselves. Like authenticity is alive. It means we need to adjust and move as we learn more about what's right for us. But we also have to realize that we may not be everybody's cup of tea. And this is actually an excerpt from a chat that I had with someone last week is that, you know, I said, I'd written, you know, I'd written,

As you express yourself more authentically, there is a push -pull where people who are aligned with you will feel closer to you and others will go the opposite direction. It's hard at first, but there's no way to be authentic and please everyone. In fact, when we think we're reaching a wider audience by being safe, very few people in it feel strongly about us either way, which...

isn't safe at all if you think about it. It's kind of like, well, like nobody really gives a crap versus, well, people give a crap, but not all in a positive way. So, you know, authentic, you know, so authenticity is, you know, it's a big part of personal development, but social norms around work, professionalism, customer service, workplace etiquette are separate from this. If at some point during your professional development process, you come to realize your job is misaligned with your true self,

the answers to take control and find a better fit situation. I would dissuade people from trying to make their new self as they begin to come into greater levels of authenticity to make that new self fit into an old environment. And this relates back to our show on outgrowing people and places. Like wisdom is knowing what you can and cannot change.

Mary (37:00.525)
I love that. I'm hearing so much, which very consistent with how I experience you, Katie, is I'm hearing a lot about accountability as you speak. And of course, my sense of you is that you're very deeply aware of and in tune with your inner nature. And I think the other thing that struck me as you were speaking is what you just said, how you have clarity around what you can and can't control relative to your inside and outside world.

and that it's healthy and balanced to reason with yourself about the trade -offs. Like that's where the maturity and the equanimity sit and how you speak to it in the story you tell yourself about how you're experiencing the world, right? This is kind of like next level stuff, what we're all trying to do. And it also ultimately makes you a more reflective and reasonable person to work with, which I think kind of makes you more likable and...

and more successful. So that was awesome.

I think one of the things that occurs to me, which we didn't talk about is, well, why are we talking about this? And sometimes we react to things that are out in the world and you sort of wonder who's actually talking about this. I'm not actually sure how much of this is based in reality, kind of to the point you were making about AI, right? Everyone's talking about it. It's just like, are we reacting to what everyone's talking about and everything that's in the media? And then sometimes...

that's intentional because we, they just put something unsubstantiated out there and it almost becomes real. I'm not actually sure about this. I'd love to hear from our listeners if this is something that you're getting, you know, beaten over the head with at work. Sometimes it just becomes a marketing thing where everyone's talking about it, but that's just the whole point of it. I think for me, because I'm such a big proponent of authenticity,

Mary (39:01.645)
in my personal work, my self -work, that I'm having more of a stronger reaction to it when it's applied in a professional setting. And maybe that is very representative of how I operate in the world, which is I keep those things kind of separate. So there might be a bias for me here. And so while I think I believe we should ascribe to the idea that we're here to deeply know our true nature and create meaning for ourselves,

because this is a business podcast, I'm going to shift perspectives and I'm going to take maybe a slightly more cynical pop, possibly unpopular view is that it almost feels as though it's become somewhat fashionable to use therapy terminology and apply personal development ideas into all areas of our culture. And I don't get me wrong. I think in many ways, this is great. We've just de -stigmatized a lot of things, which is really helpful to.

address honestly and compassionately really difficult topics. But possibly sometimes we can maybe go a little bit too far. We take something that's good and we over -index on there. So my sense is that the last 10, 15 years, there's been a number of shifts, many of them positive, but in some cases increasingly more extreme that have brought along with it new expectations or entitlements which weren't there before.

doesn't mean it's wrong, I'm just kind of introducing change, that there's a shift going on. Maybe some of these have started at home, there's been a number of books and research papers written about this. Certainly there's been a lot written about cultural shifts occurring in schools and universities. And now as these generations get older, we're starting to see these cultural shifts impact the workplace. So I almost...

In my mind, think that authenticity in the workplace, this theme is an offshoot of a broader shift to incorporate some of these things. For example, therapeutic terminology or self work terminology into non -therapeutic settings and possibly to apply it in a broader context. So I think that businesses are trying to stay relevant. They're trying to stay modern.

Mary (41:24.205)
Like what's everyone talking about? And so my sense is that they're starting to address some of these cultural shifts and you start to see them to show up in things like employee engagement programs.

Going back to authenticity, the risk in my mind is that employees, possibly new employees who haven't gone through the ranks and learned and been mentored and all that.

might potentially think that they should or it's okay to act the same way as they do on say, TikTok or a Thanksgiving dinner when they're traveling, as they do in a conference room in a meeting. And irrespective of my personal feelings about any of these cultural shifts, I think it's beneficial for employees and companies when healthy boundaries are maintained between personal lives and work environments.

And so I'm gonna use mental health as an example, because I'm kind of ratcheting up my examples, starting with something really benign like dress code, and we're getting more and more possibly provocative. But this is, you know, this is a good debate. So we did an episode on how mental health shows up at work a number of weeks ago. It was, I think, episode two.

And I want to underscore that I think mental health awareness and talking about mental health is a really good positive thing. I think we need to provide more free information and resources about mental health. Frankly, I'd love to see companies have better benefits packages for behavioral health right now. I think that's like a real area of opportunity instead of talking about it at work, like give your employees a benefit package where they can get the care they need.

Mary (43:13.485)
Many, if not most of the clients I see in my advisory work have programs on mental health awareness. I forget which month it is, but usually there's like one month dedicated to it. They'll bring external speakers in, panel discussions, all that really good stuff. Especially if you think that even with just depression, 8 % of Americans are suffering from depression. But let's use this as a case study or as sort of an example.

when we're talking about authenticity, when disclosing a mental illness like depression. Going back to our samples, I didn't put any names in here, Agnes or anybody, and Sally, but on one end of the extreme, you have an employee who doesn't want anyone to know anything about their diagnosis. Completely understandable, no one would argue with that. On the other extreme, you may have employees who...

really, really want to share and talk about this. They may even, based on someone's perspective, overshare information about their condition in the work environment. They may possibly reference it when they don't meet professional expectations. And here is where I think we get into this kind of gray zone where I would say employees need to be thoughtful, if not careful, about sharing too much information about themselves.

Is it right or wrong that that could be potentially held against them? That's not what this is about. If you have an amazing boss and you trust them and you want to tell them all this stuff, great, that's fine. I would just offer a word of caution, particularly for maybe younger employees, not in age, but in tenure, that disclosing this amount of personal information could potentially come back to.

to bite you at some point in the future.

Katie (45:08.622)
Yeah. So, so I will say that as you're talking, it's like a cascade of, and I imagine that listeners are probably feeling the same way. It's a lot, it's so thought provoking because it's actually sparking a lot of considerations as far as experiences.

In other companies. And I think we have an episode coming up that I think will be in our second season that has to do with your relationship to your job. And I think one of the things that has become unhealthy for people is not understanding what a professional role is. And it's something that's been used to make employees have blurred lines, work harder and longer.

have emotional ties to their work that are, is not healthy for them. And so a lot of this, you know, you know, we're family stuff. a lot of this, tell me everything about yourself. it's not in the service of, I think an employee's longer term interest. And I consider myself to be an extremely like almost like ridiculously empathetic.

leader but I will also say in the no spin zone here I will say that if somebody discloses something to me it will impact what I think their capability is. Very unpopular thing to say out loud but I will say that it's like you really want to control what you're disclosing to your boss.

and understand that that relationship is very different than what it seems. Because ultimately, if you are a leader, your fiduciary responsibility ultimately is to be making decisions that are in the best interest for this group. And this goes back to this notion of authenticity, which is the mistaken...

Katie (47:24.142)
I believe mistaken belief that being authentic means that you're just like radically yourself You know that you know devil may care everyone you have to take me as I am I don't care. You know fuck your feelings kind of shit It's like no that like authenticity as far as I'm concerned is just much more related to integrity and integrity has to do with larger values and so my what I've seen and I

You know, having worked and advised in some pretty young companies, and by young I mean tech, and skewing with new to the workforce as being sort of predominantly represented, it happens a lot in tech. You have a younger workforce. Shout out to our ageism episode that'll be coming out in a couple of weeks. But my experience has been...

In these companies that I've worked in in recent years, there seems to be larger issues with employees, first of all, like not being engaged, like not being engaged in the work, but being highly engaged in the personalness of their connection to the job. Explain that one another time. You know, being entitled and yes, you know, I'm not being dramatic here.

Mary (48:45.517)
interesting.

Katie (48:52.27)
You know, and also with that entitlement, you know, creating the creation of these pockets of toxic dissension, specifically, you know, directing negativity to the company for, you know, not doing enough for them in ways that to me have become like really outside what I think is a reasonable expectation for an employer. And just to like,

Backtrack to me as a reference point anyone who has ever worked for me would say like god I am probably on the outer limits in terms of being really interested in the deeper drives and getting a person to higher performance so you know with that being said I think that That is an area where I personally have overstepped some what I consider to be some boundaries and You know, that's something for me to think about

and consider as, you know, as I mature. But, you know, when I work with an individual or an organization, like my first conversation is about longer -term goals and objectives and finding what matters to the person or the organization. This way it's easier for me to steer the behavior in the direction of what serves the larger motivations and align with the organization's goals. But I...

once worked, I was once brought into a company where the CEO was sitting down with all of their reports and being like, what are your dreams? What is it that you want to be? Every person, it was like, what are your dreams and what are the skills you want to develop? And this is an example of this like authenticity thing where it's like, no, we want to, people want to be on a winning team. And so everybody doing their disparate dream work.

you know, to build the skills for their this career that they don't even really understand what it is. Let's be honest. It's just sort of a notion of something they picked up along the way. You know, everybody was like so fractured in that organization. It was it was like an organization that literally couldn't get out of its own way because every single person was kind of like working in the direction of the thing that mattered to them individually. So, you know, when we're talking about authenticity, it's like,

Katie (51:17.938)
There really is this notion of individuality versus the integrity and the larger picture values and even having accountability for what the experience is for the people that are working around you. And I do think that entitlement is part of this discussion because we're talking about what it means to be part of the greater good of a group or organization, which means making concessions.

And this is in response to when authenticity and air quotes as being, you know, true to yourself, you know, where you when authenticity and being true to yourself can just be code for being a jerk, you know, AKA, you know, me before we, and also, you know, to note at a recent company I worked for, and this is just sort of a, like sort of in response to something you're talking about, cause you know, with the mental health month.

being May, I think this will be really, actually this will come out in June. So we're just missing it for our release. But, you know, at a recent company I worked with, I supported bringing speakers in, but ultimately, you know, there wasn't a sense that leadership was in fundamental alignment with the messages being given. And the dissonance between the speakers and the lived experience of the people working in the company actually did more,

Mary (52:23.245)
That's it.

Katie (52:47.342)
harm then good.

Katie (52:53.95)
my god, am I still talking? Holy shit. Fuck. I can't take it anymore. Okay, so. Alright.

Katie (53:08.142)
Okay, so what's the topic here?

Mary (53:12.717)
There might be some compression areas or some points that we can.

Katie (53:16.206)
Yeah, this might get like boopity boopity'd around. So yeah. Well, so in sales, let's talk, so my career having been in sales and sales being a front facing role where who you are actually is, you know, people say, don't take it personal, it's business and sorry. I have a really bad news for you. It is absolutely personal, but you just have to learn how to find better a life.

with clients and accept the fact that there are times where they just don't like you. And especially if you're a leader, know how to divest deals and move them into the right places for people. But as far as being authentic, confident, larger than life personalities are usually considered comfortable in their own skin versus a more introspective, introverted salesperson, they might think they will come up short without those kind of big

expansive qualities, but the truth is sales is not about putting on a show. It's about persistence, observation, problem solving, consistent execution, effective communication. It's some of the most elite sales professionals I've worked with were quiet, competitive, hardworking engineer types.

I often say when you see a loud person holding court at a party and someone says like, wow, they must be in sales. If they're, you know, if they're focused on getting attention and, you know, being the center of the, you know, the whatever it's called the center of attention. You know, my response is like, sure, but I don't think they're good at it. You know, and it, cause an important part of being authentic is being uniquely who you are.

and not hoping your strengths are the ones that are traditionally recognized, and in some cases mistakenly being considered to be more desirable. You know, we're in an era where big personalities get a lot of professional press, but there are a lot of folks you've never heard of who are running laps around those people. They are busy working. And to know yourself is to understand the trades.

Katie (55:41.038)
in the service of authenticity, in the connection and how it like, so to know yourself is to understand the trades we make in the service of connection and safety and to be able to consciously process them. And with all things being, with all things that are nuanced, and you spoke to this earlier, is our strengths will be naturally occurring. And then there are the qualities that don't come so naturally to us where we either have to surround ourselves,

with people who can supply those deficiencies, I do that a lot, or we have to put ourselves in the position where we're doing the extra work to do this stuff that doesn't come naturally, otherwise suffer the consequences. I mean, this is a topic that may come up when we discuss shame, the idea that you're supposed to be good at everything.

Mary (56:33.229)
I love all of that. I personally, I think this has been my New Year's resolution for a couple of years, which is like be yourself and see what happens or see who stays. I've also seen if you pretend to be who you aren't, your people can't find you. I really like that one. So many people feel like, I don't know where my people, you and I talked about this in the past, if your book is, where are my, no one else thinks like this. Where are my people? Where's my tribe? And like, well, if everyone's pretending, you're not gonna find them.

so yeah, we're all work in progress. the authentic, authentic, not perfect us. And to your point, making concessions and also understanding yourself probably more deeply and honestly than you do today. knowing which situations to put yourself in that are going to bring out the best qualities in you and, or provide you the nurturing and support for the areas you're still trying to grow in.

That was awesome. So when we come back, we're going to talk about what people and companies should consider about authenticity in the workplace.

Katie (57:47.47)
shit.

Mary (57:49.377)
That last lap.

Last lap!

Katie (57:59.694)
hold on. I need to drink a water.

I was like, please, Mary, you've got more to say, please. Okay, so.

Mary (58:09.805)
Tell us what you really think, Katie. Don't hold back. Come on, I feel like you're holding back on us. What do you think about this? You always keep your cards so close to your chest.

Katie (58:22.03)
Mary (58:30.349)
Listeners, if we can only get Katie to open up, I think the show, I think that's, we're gonna get there, don't worry. Gonna get her there, get her.

Katie (58:38.478)
Yeah, if he just bust me out of my shell, you know, who knows what would happen? Who knows what? Who knows what? Who knows what would happen? my God. Well, so.

We're back. So we're back. We're talking about. I can't do it. Okay. Wait, hold on. All right. I'm watching. I'm like, how do I get one of those? No, I already saw it. And I was like, I want a bird now. Yeah. I was. Yeah.

Mary (59:05.741)
Angus McBangus.

Mary (59:10.637)
Wait, I sent you that video, you'll see it. Did you see it? you saw it. He's awesome, I guess.

Katie (59:18.414)
I was like, that looks like a lot of fun, but my problem is I have a cat who is, you know, he'd eat them. He'd play with them and then he'd eat them. All right. Okay. Hold on. I'm here. Serenity now. Okay. We are back talking about what employees should consider about authenticity at work. So Mary, I agree with what you said earlier. Like, yes, spend time on yourself.

Mary (59:24.653)
would eat him.

Katie (59:48.622)
Get to know yourself, get to know your bruises and scars, do the self work to address things that were holding you back possibly from early life adaptations, which don't always serve your best interests in our current circumstances or environments. Choose a company that aligns to your moral and ethical compass. If something changes and causes an untenable misalignment,

which it often does, especially if you work in tech, things change really quickly and unexpectedly, develop a plan to address it. So also, I think it's worth recognizing that it is a normal part of adult society for us to have different aspects of ourselves for different areas of our life. We will act differently and have different levels of disclosure with our parents.

to our sibling, to our spouse, to a coworker, to an employee. This is appropriate, not just for you, but for others who play different roles in your life. You should be selective about sharing your real self based on the level of co -created intimacy with other people. This is an area where I can be challenging. I'm an intense person that I can blast.

people away without realizing I'm doing it because my internal environment is, hi, is calibrated to high voltage. So my recommendation is for people to start by focusing on yourself, focus on being authentic with yourself. This can take a long time, years, decades. Master this first and then practice sharing.

this new awareness of yourself with your closest and safest personal relationships, be protective of your authentic self. Mary, it reminds me of what we talked about in the show we did on outgrowing people and places. As you grow into your more authentic self, you need to be aware of the people who may not yet have the emotional capacity and emotional intelligence to see and accept you. And if they aren't authentic and don't know themselves,

Katie (01:02:07.95)
They may not be the right person to know you this deeply. Like keep a healthy boundary between your authentic self and your closest intimate relationships and your casual friends, acquaintances, and professional colleagues.

Mary (01:02:22.733)
That's awesome. I love how these different topics are tying together. It's just all these little puzzle pieces and it is complicated and nuanced. It's not so straightforward as one would read on LinkedIn in a blog post. So I just, I love that you've called that back. It was actually dropped this week, that episode. We've got a lot of positive feedback about it. I think.

Katie (01:02:37.742)
Right.

Mary (01:02:49.645)
I think we're all figuring this out at the same time and we're talking about it, which is great. And of course in companies, we're talking about it as well. And from the company's perspective, they're hearing everyone talk about it. They're experiencing different things in the workplace. Their employees have different questions, concerns. I think that this is just one example.

of those aforementioned cultural shifts where they're starting to collide with other profound changes in the workforce and in the labor market more broadly. And my view is that this is a top of the house issue. And I say that coming from, you know, really, you know, sort of larger environments, but sort of your senior leadership team needs to be engaged in this topic.

And it needs to be discussed as part of an organization's overall strategy and evaluated through data and like everything else with data, right? Evaluated monitor continuously improved over time. This is an area where companies should look holistically at their culture, HR policies, procedures, your employee engagement programs, ensure expectations are clear and consistent across all of those different things.

So for example, I think you mentioned, you hinted at it earlier, Katie, employees could become confused if their company is heralding the importance of authenticity while also having prescriptive in office requirements, dress codes, behavioral guidelines. Employees are, and they will continue to be vocal about any contradictions. So organizations should be proactively ironing these things out.

make sure there's no confusion before they could potentially become larger issues. One of the things, Katie, I've seen in both my advisory work and at organizations where I've seen large scale change programs that have cultural or a lot of behavioral impacts is underestimating the difficulty of what we're talking about. So any changes in the space, these initiatives.

Katie (01:05:07.022)
Mm -hmm.

Mary (01:05:11.949)
They should be run and sponsored at the operating committee level, your senior group, with participation across strategy, HR, risk, legal. And the programs themselves, they should be run by people with organizational change experience in particular. So related metrics like employee sentiment, adoption, sustainability.

They should be tracked and managed at the top of the house with all your other key business metrics.

Katie (01:05:45.038)
Amen.

Mary (01:05:47.341)
And I have, you know, I won't get too tactical. I love it. I love getting really tactical. So I'm going to, I'm going to hold off, but one quick word to make sure you really think these things out in advance and iron them down before you, you start running with them. Sometimes there's so much pressure. People are responding on LinkedIn and Hey, we need to do something. Let's, let's push some initiative out really quickly. You do not.

want to stumble out of the gate on this one. You want it really buttoned down. You want or have a really detailed, extensive training and communication plan. You want everyone to be on board. Not doing so can really undermine efforts. I really see this as very similar and potentially the next return to office controversy. I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned there.

Every organization, every industry certainly went through their version of this issue. Employees were, and in many cases continue to be strongly opposed to the revoking or scaling back of work from home policies. In some cases, those changes were not implemented very well. And some of that had to do with the pandemic. So the pandemic was a big surprise for us all. And then we had to react. And then...

There was this rush to return to normalcy and in some cases, changes to in office expectations occurred on the back of the return to office from the pandemic. And where that, I mean, there was obviously lots of very strong opinions, but where in particular, where those changes were not implemented well, it only fueled the bitterness and discontent.

And so you start to see in your metrics spikes in employee assistant program activity, accommodations requests, leave of absence, and certainly even regrettable attrition. But in addition to that, and this is another episode we're going to do in the future, there was a lot of quiet quitting behaviors and impacts to productivity and work quality. So this is something that companies should be thinking about and have ironed down.

Mary (01:08:12.653)
I think, Katie, that this is going to be another topic that's going to continue to unfold and evolve over time. And it will be interesting to see how.

Katie (01:08:25.166)
Awesome.

Katie (01:08:34.208)
Well, Mary, I completely agree. And honestly, I'm like soaking that in because I think this conversation is having it this way where we're being really candid about the reality of it without kind of glossing it over or sugar coating it. I can't wait to hear what our listeners think.

So thank you for, Mary, thank you for another amazing conversation. So yeah.

Mary (01:09:12.813)
Thank you, Katie. I love talking to you. I always learn every time we have one of these conversations, you have a great perspective. And I too am really excited to hear what our listeners think and where people are coming from. And maybe there's some nuances for different industries or different roles. I'm really curious to know more.

Katie (01:09:35.694)
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it because if the listeners experience is anything like mine, and I will say that I, you know, we prepare for these episodes quite a bit. And while we are talking, well, while you are talking, Mary, there is like a whole new flood of like thoughts and insights and recollections that come through. So I would imagine for folks who are just coming into this without.

having, you know, sort of on some level prepared or considered their position on these matters that it would be particularly evocative. So we really want to hear from you. It means so much to us to know how people are responding. And also we just recorded our first episode, which was a listener suggested topic. So we also want to hear what you want us to be talking about. So.

That's it for today, bye for now.

Katie (01:10:39.406)
Bye. See you on the other side.