#17 - Redefining Workplace Communications

Welcome to the Women's Career Mastery Podcast, the show that's dedicated to empowering women to redefine success and break through barriers. I'm your host, Christine, and my cohost, Laura, along with our amazing guests and experts. We are here to shatter the myths that has been hindering Women's career fulfillment for far too long.

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 In this episode, we take a deep dive into the ever-changing world of work environments. Here fostering open dialogues and effective communication.

isn't just a nice addition? It's absolutely vital. However, a typical method we use to encourage people to speak up. Often fall short. Instead of empowering employees, they can sometimes create culture of fear and silence. Join us as we navigate the complexity of workplace communication. From the hurdles it presents. To the solutions it offers, our guest would lead us to the shortcomings of traditional approaches and introduce us to the concept of Speaking IN®. Providing actionable strategies for instilling trust, collaboration and innovation. Within any organization. Without further, do I hand it over to my cohost, Laura?

Thanks Christine. Hello listeners. We're back with you again on another episode of the Women's Career Mastery Podcast.

We're here today with Lauren Mooney. She's the founder of Be Highly Reliable and Speaking IN®. She's on a mission to solve the speak up problem, after doing a deep study of high reliability organizing, Lauren was convinced we are never going to have a safe, reliable, inclusive workplace.

If employees are silent and leaders aren't listening. So, she created Speaking IN®. And that's trademarked a science-based complexity friendly communication strategy to support inclusive leadership, psychological safety, and open knowledge flow, meeting the needs of individuals and organizations at the same time.

So, I articulated that very slowly because I really. Hope you're listening to all that she has to offer. I also want to share that Lauren is a former ED nurse and hospital supervisor. She has navigated over 7, 000 unclear and unexpected situations and is committed to helping people and organizations adopt new ways of working that reduce risk and increase learning and adaptation in our modern workplaces.

I don't know You all listeners, but I am excited to start talking with Lauren on this topic. So, Lauren, we're so happy to have you here with us on the podcast. Are you ready to jump in and are you ready to share a little bit about yourself and why you agreed to join us today?

Sure. So, through my work and personal life and a deep study of modern safety sciences, I've just become convinced that the employee experience is the next frontier, in organizational performance.

It's absolutely imperative that we start figuring out how to take care of people at work, and that we're never going to have thriving people or thriving organizations until everyone knows it's always. Safe and worthwhile to speak and leaders are really ready to hear what people have to say. So that's, that's my mission and my, and the big piece of my mission is to show people how our outdated speak up strategy is holding us back in creating healthy, thriving workplaces.

I think it's really important for you just to tell a little bit about your story. Like, how did you come to this? Cause that I think is pretty valuable. Okay. Yeah. So, my life story, I'm a healer and a helper. I started with animals when I was very little, spraying bactine on a snake on my ping pong table.

I don't like to see unnecessary suffering. So, I think that led me into nursing. Working in the ER was my passion where we were discovering in real time what was happening, within the first year I started my master's in healthcare administration because I said something is wrong with the system.

I don't know what it is but I wanted to look deeper. Later I supervised a hospital for 10 years off shift and there my job was to respond when either something was outside of the system or completely unexpected and the amount of crazy things that could happen at a small community hospital is quite shocking.

But we had trust. And we had adaptability and I worked under leaders where I could be authentic, and they were always helping me grow. So, I know it's possible. So now, later, I had a brother-in-law who was very sick. I had been out of health care for a bit then and I watched, doctors gather around him at a prestigious medical institution in New York.

And he ended up having a very rare disease. But I saw such a culture of fear and people being unwilling to speak. And I, I knew the impact that has not just on the people, but on the outcomes. And I said, I want to get back into healthcare. I want to look at culture in healthcare and safety. I started really with safety and thinking safety was boring, but realizing safety is about love.

Ultimately, and that's what keeps me going. And, after studying higher liability, organizing what the nuclear Navy uses to stay safe in a lot of unclear and unexpected events. I knew that this is something that needs to be more available to the average organization.

So, I made it really, easy to understand and actionable, but I realized I created these questions that would help anyone bring high reliability organizing to life. But I said, what good's a question if people are afraid to answer it? So I shifted and I said, you know what, we got to tackle the employee silence problem.

If we're ever going to get to high reliability and that one day on my front porch, I'll never forget it. I realized. Oh my goodness, this whole speak up strategy. It's horribly flawed. And until we get around this, we're, we're not going real far. So that's when I, developed Speaking IN®.

So, you saw this issue, creeping up and, and in the worst places, like Yeah. in healthcare, right? If people aren't speaking up about situations that are going on with people's healthcare, that's life and death situations, right? That's probably one of the worst places to see it. But it's everywhere.

So, I just want to recognize that like that you saw it somewhere where it's really critical for people to be able to speak up and you're doing something about it. So. Just want to recognize that and you, thank you.

Yes. And now I have been mentored by many safety greats around the world and we're always out there.

You know what happened with the space shuttle what happened at Boeing. You can see industry after industry that these dynamics will eventually catch up with your, performance. Yes,

it's very interesting what you're saying because, lot of leaders. Telling their team members to speak up.

 And you said something wrong about speaking up. It's not. Right. And you kind of coined a term of speaking in. So, what's the difference and between speaking up and speaking in, and what make people afraid to speak?

Sure, well, the main drivers of the silence are feelings of fear, futility, or powerlessness.

So, I don't know, I'm uncertain if I speak whether I'm going to be helped or harmed. Or I'm feeling like, well, I did speak so many times now I'm going to conserve my energy because nothing ever changes, or especially in where there's a real strong hierarchy. Well, that's just not my place. So that fear of utility and powerlessness, that's what holds people back.

But in terms of the message itself. It has massive flaws.

It's been quite a bit of time digging deep into what I call the fatal flaws of the speaking up model. But essentially, the big issue is it doesn't align with actually how people work, the nature of people, and it doesn't align with how complex organizations work.

So, for example, we spend all this time and money telling people, you know, to speak up. Meanwhile, we know only the leader can create the conditions for people to feel safe. So, we're directing a message to the wrong people. Secondly, saying speak up repeating this imperative over and over.

does nothing to overcome the reasons why people don't speak up. And that's feelings of fear. If I speak, will I be helped or harmed? My survival instinct is going to take over and I'm going to protect myself. Feelings of futility. Well, we have spoken up and nothing has changed. People will eventually conserve their energy and remain silent or powerlessness.

So, when you have a really strong hierarchy, people at the lower level, so you picture like a, secretary in a hospital. So, you know, this is not my place to share. So, we need, a strategy that overcomes Speaking to the wrong people that embraces all the reasons we need voice.

One of the, I call it a narrow purpose. Speak up, is based in, we have a whole lot of plans that we've made for you and just work the work. And if you made a mistake or someone else or something really crazy is happening, then you go ahead and speak up. Otherwise. Put your head down and keep going. And really, we need voice for so many more reasons, right?

Collaboration, innovation, especially the more uncertainty you get into, the greater is your need for diverse perspectives. Finally, one of the key flaws I see in the system is that it's completely unfair. What we're doing is we're Taking in a very passive way. We're going to do some training and put up some posters where I leader tell you to speak up.

Now my work is done. We've placed all the responsibility for that upward knowledge flow on the people of lesser power. We have not done our job as leaders to make sure that it's safe and worthwhile.

So, what's Speaking IN® different than speaking up?

Sure. So, Speaking IN®, the reason I made it active with the ING is because we need a continual flow of knowledge in a complex modern work world.

 in is because I wanted to change the purpose and direction of voice. So right now, we're speaking up to a person, right? So, it's about Bob. Oh, I'm going to have to go tell Bob his plan isn't good. Meanwhile, with speaking in, we're taking as foundational that we are gathered around an important purpose.

Okay. And that, as we work on our purpose, we have dynamic work. And we have emerging risk, and we're going to have unclear and unexpected events. So now we're speaking in to a situation, so that's one of the differences. Most importantly, let me break it down this way. It's intentionally.

Including inviting and appreciating diverse perspectives. So, it means that as leaders when we know that we're the person in power in the room, which does shift during the day. We take responsibility to create the climate where people know now that it's safe. I say include because so many times we have forgotten Okay.

To bring the write people to the table and later our project fails. So first we get intentional and we say, you know what I need you to know. Number one, we're here to learn. Number two, we've got the right people, the people with insight and the people who will be impacted. So then the leaders, need to start asking the questions.

Amy Edmondson, we could fill this office. Um, and we're using a fraction of them, so now leaders have to step up and ask the questions very directly and then finally, leaders need to realize how powerful they really are when they respond to what has been spoken, both verbally, nonverbally, and then how does the organization respond? So, Speaking IN®, because of the four actions that I included, overcome the power dynamics, create a cycle of trust, and stimulate leader curiosity. The other problem in, in complex systems, in a hierarchy, is that while the powerless are defaulting to silence, leaders drift towards overconfidence, and they tend to forget to be curious.

So, Speaking IN® is about Equipping leaders with the right question for the right space to get that knowledge flow going and then the action so that it stays, the knowledge flow stays open.

I love that. Is there something that happens though like, I understand everything you're saying, but I'm going to put myself in the leader's shoes.

And I think I've set the environment and the culture that people can speak up. And talk and I get feedback on my apps that we have out on the organization and like, I think I'm doing the right thing. But when does a light bulb go on for me that? No, I'm not like, I need to be doing more.

What, what are some signals? That's a really, really, really good question. I think 1. Well, one signal could be the quiet quitting. Wow. Gallup just, had the 2023 state of the global workplace and 59 percent of the employees are quiet quitting and only 23 percent are thriving. And I love this quote from another article they put out called like, why so quiet?

And they, they basically went ahead and said, you know, at the heart of quiet quitting are these two thoughts. One, it's not safe to speak or two. If I do speak, it won't make any difference. So the information is out there. What I'd say to leaders. If we're going to ever get to this place of psychological safety and thriving employees, we have to have psychologically safe leaders.

All it is an outdated sort of work mindset that I have to know everything. we have to have perfect plans. , and if we create enough perfect plans and link them all together, and the people just follow the plans, we're going to be fine. You could sort of get away with in the olden days in a factory.

You cannot get away with that in the amount of complexity and knowledge work. So, it's that linear mindset and where you know what? You, human, you're almost like a threat. Like if you screw up, you are going to mess the whole system up and we're going to have a bad outcome. Versus what the truth is when you embrace, well, we have imperfect plans, imperfect, uh, information and imperfect people.

But 99. 9 percent of the time people are adapting to, sometimes variability. We didn't expect this to happen this fast. So, you know, the modern safety sciences, people are not. The problem with people is the answer to coping with the needs of a modern work world. Of course, they should be appreciated just because they're human, but the modern leader needs to realize that, and I don't blame them because I want to say that.

When I started with high reliability organizing, all we talked about was the system. The system, the system. Let's make it lean, let's make it effective. And I'm like, but what about the people? And finally, we have squeezed the life out of the modern employee to a point that they're, physically and mentally unwell.

And to me to see why it's not clearer that healthy, happy employees are the fuel, are the lifeblood of an organization. I haven't unraveled all those factors, but for the leaders that realize, you know what, we're going to take care of you, we're going to meet your needs, and understand the building blocks to meet people's needs, I think it's a game changer.

Yeah.

They're, they're really the legs for the stool, right? So, if the organization is the stool and the employees are the legs to support that organization, the client needs to sit on the stool. But if it's unstable, they're going to fall off the stool. So, like there's a ripple effect here.

 I get what you're saying. And actually LinkedIn, at the beginning of the year said 87 percent of employees are preparing to leave their organizations. So, the numbers are getting even stronger

and, and with that, you're losing valuable expertise. I was talking to, you know, Okay.

A very high-level government type of operation and they're like, this turnover is not safe. We need people who stay, who have that, wisdom, right? Also, yesterday I was talking to people that help long term caregivers in another country and it's, it's dire because the conditions there are not livable.

Well, who is going to take care of the elderly? You know, it's real impact where surgeries can't happen because. There aren't the doctors aren't there. So, uh, to me, it is it is. The question of this year and forever forward, and I'm excited to hope that Speaking IN® can be a part of a shift.

To start healing the employee experience and boosting outcomes because these organizations have important purposes. The key shift in a leader's mind. Is to understand that when you're working in complexity, your superpower, real true power is your ability to learn and adapt.

But that is not what leaders have been handed down. They have been handed down the idea that we will write really good plans and then we will control, and we will comply. So. It's really a huge mindset shift. So, I went from, yeah, I went from the operating room to the, to the leader's head. And we're getting there. Um, but that's the shift and it's going to need to be taught in schools. And it's going to need to be tried bravely, and there are certain places that are like U. S. Forest Service, airlines, that they're pushing the edge of how do we treat people at work.

What you're saying, it's so needed right now, because what I found, Missing or lacking, I think the, the way of saying it differently with the paradigm shift is, organizations was made. This is, this is the old way of, creating control and it's always based on the way machine work. And if it's about machine, we know it's always worked in the same way. Function for the same thing.

But as you said about complexities, about relationship, it's always changing. And relying on control, dominance, is not conducive for the changing world. And, and I felt like besides speaking in, or in speaking in, the way of speaking, not about, but including all aspects and having a encompassing perspective.

It's about listening.

And I think we, have a near have, a way of listening, for example, listening of not being said. That's, a skill that is needed for leaders to listen to what's not being said, at the same time to listen to what's being said, and what's needed, what is the need behind what is said or not being said.

One thing that I'm Very curious about because you mentioned about next frontier in organization performance of employment engagement is. So what do you mean about next frontier in organization performance and what is have to be changed in order to have a better performance. If the old

system is that doesn't work anymore.

So safety, is sort of our basic, right? That's like, okay, at least like, let's be safe. Organizational performance has gone through, you know, how do we achieve the outcomes we desire has, has gone through some shifts. And we thought, well, we'll get the system right.

 We'll karate chop our processes into submission. , well, that's good, but it doesn't cut it. So one of the surprises that I got, uh, when I studied high reliability organizing was the. What I call the pitfalls of plans and how plans can actually set you up for failure.

So that, that really surprised me because they, they do three things to us, we thought they were our comfort, but what they do is kind of create a type of complacency, and also a, , well, it worked yesterday. It's going to work today. And also, our plans are very limited. To only what has happened before.

 So we're not imagining new things. So, I call them limited. And, then we see what we expect to see. So they're limited to what we've seen in the past. They're limiting because they close our vision and they're lolling. They kind of lull us to sleep. That's how I like to think of it.

So having leaders realizing that Real time knowledge flow to respond to surprise, I wish I had kept the quote, but they're like the people that are going to be most successful in our modern work age will be the organizations where people can notice. Unexpected things and adapt the fastest and that plans take, you know, we are mired in bureaucracy.

 It's, it's a scary thing because you, you'd have to say, oh, wow, this, this is not what I was trusting. I was trusting the opposite of this. So, it is a lot of work. And one of the things we're working with a great adult. Education designer and really from day one. We're about we're going to help you adopt some skills that are going to get you comfortable with the amount of uncertainty with news.

You didn't want to hear. We're going to learn how to receive it. Grace graciously being okay being imperfect and really embracing the type of attitude. So if you're what holds steady if we're working in such uncertainty and things are changing, one of the things that will always serve you is the right attitude, right?

So that's what we focus on. Okay. Humility, curiosity, open mindedness. These are the leadership strengths that serve you in, in the modern workplace. And how do I get comfortable with that? Because I thought I was supposed to be so, so sure. I didn't know I was supposed to be curious. But modern leaders are stressed.

So this isn't just about the workforce. This is about saying to a leader, there is no way that you can know it all or plan for it all. Everything is actually going to hit a fail. The question is, how soon can you see it? Can you talk about it? And do you have people ready to work together? So, one of the key things they do in the nuclear Navy is something called deference to expertise.

And that's leaders in authority getting comfortable saying, I'm not the expert. This person needs to make the decision right now. And that's really, you know, yeah. Elevating for the employee and maybe scary at first for a leader. But once you can walk through these scenarios a few times and they work, you can start to trust them, and you can start fueling.

I always laugh because it seems like in health care, we have a new this is the new thing you're going to do. Oh, by the way, it's going to make you work harder. So, when leaders realize, you know, my job is to go out there and make Their job easier. My job is just to go out and tell the truth and get it to where they can tell me the truth.

My job is to show them how they fit in. My job is to make sure they're learning. Suddenly, maybe leadership is a little more exciting when you realiz, you have this resource at your fingertips, waiting to share their expertise and their energy and you are not tapping into it.

It's. It's crazy.

It's very interesting what you're saying, because I feel like I'm in a workplace. They’re still not in a workplace in our society. This this mentality of victims and hero. So, we are victims. So, we need to be here. And it's a leader. You'd be a hero.

And to be a hero. You need to know everything. You need to save everyone. Everything is in your hand. And otherwise, everything is crumble. And I think that, very stressful to have that kind of expectation to yourself as a leader. But when you allow yourself to kind of spread those responsibilities, like just own your, decision and your choice, your behavior attitude, but then spread that solutions and have other helping you that it's make it more, easier. But one thing, I don't know if this, Question related or not, because I think as a leaders, what they are experiencing is also, the fear of the performance, the fear that they're not seeing as a good performers, , as any other, you know, team members. And as a leader, when you're in the top, not to perform, it's even worse, right?

Like, you will be seen where everyone else will blame their leaders, but as a leader, there's nobody to blame. It's you. Do you have any tips on, or at least from the system perspective? , because I think if, if we are measure of a performance measure by a certain criteria, that actually cause fear and all the outcome that you have to have, you have to, feel this expectation, even though you don't know and the situation is always changing, that makes you as a leader afraid of, Oh, can I achieve this?

So, from the system perspective, how do organization can change the system so that the performance review or performance criteria of leaders change to support what you're saying? The change of, our, employment engagement.

Oh, absolutely. So, this is a topic, that is really hot out in the organizational performance world.

For me, it sort of looks like this, like, well, we're going to train these nurses. Oh, well, no, it's going to have to be the whole team. Oh, the CEO. Well, now what I've seen time and time again is an organization that is moving in the right direction. And then they get a new CEO, and they say, well, I really was happy with the control and compliance.

And now I'm like, you know what? This is actually a board thing. And it is a measurement thing. And it is an interesting new time situation. So, we are measuring the wrong things. A lot of times it's the tick, the box. We had the conversation. Well, how was the quality of the conversation? And we literally, I, we just had this conversation where we were talking about, because let's say the KPI is we're just going to look at the money.

Okay. So, the new leader comes in, he has a survival or she a survival instinct. So, what I'm going to do is go for the biggest profit. Okay, that looked good. But during that time, the changes that I implemented meant our turnover went crazy, but that's a lagging. Okay, we're not seeing all that cost yet.

That's coming next year. But this year looked really great. So when you have leaders turning over so quickly. , what you're measuring really matters. And what about when we start to measure, the experience of the employees, we know how much it costs for people to say the silent, the numbers is like 30 percent of employees are very confident that their silence costs the organization 30, 000 or more, like a third.

So do the math. I think we're measuring, Okay. Definitely measuring, the wrong things. , and they're very short term. And so, the long term things like the stability, like the knowledge. You know, retention of expertise aren't valued enough. So that's where the board has to think. I think a little more strategically.

 A lot of the methodologies are good. What you really need is the right recipe. Okay. We need some root cause. You need some imagination. You need, you know, past, present, future. We have to address in an organization.

And of course, that foundation of the employees.

I just want to say that is what you're describing because I've been in the workforce a long time. What you're describing is. The way we've operated is now become toxic, right?

We hear that word. It's very toxic. It's outdated and we know we're shifting into the future of work and your model is perfect for that You know, how do we change from the speak up to the speak in way of working, , it kind of gives me hope for the future, like that we can transform, that we can. And again, you're working in some of the most, um, toughest industries, like healthcare, like you're talking about.

, government, right? Like, like some serious areas where these things are critical. Imagine the impact you can make there. And then imagine the impact you could make in an organization. I think leaders just need to like step back. And rethink things, even just read one of your articles, like listen to this episode, like start thinking just a little bit differently.

Then you can see that there is potential to do even better, even more. , and it's not just by your employees for the employee experience, but then that relates to what you've been describing, Lauren, is the bottom line. Right? So, if I have an employee that's really engaged in doing well, he's making 30, 000 more for me a year than less.

So, it's proven you're right. There's lots of results everywhere on this. , and I love that you have this model, , to help us get there.

, on that note, that's what I wanted to say back is when you're flipping CEO so fast and they're switching strategies. Nothing gets traction and the employees just kind of sit back and say, you know what?

It's going to be different next week. Speaking IN® is not an initiative. It's a foundational way to communicate in an organization. , and I strongly believe two things one Anything that's brought into organization has to work for operations. Otherwise, it will get spit out as an annoying initiative This is not just to make employees to open their mouth.

This is so we can learn what needs to happen for work to go Well, because they know but they're not telling you because for whatever reason your culture finds it threatening To know the truth. Um, and it's

real. Like I coached a client yesterday. She said they had three CEOs in the last four years. Yeah.

So, relationships, you can actually contrary to what people, cause I, I know that it's been done. You can build trust quickly in an organization, and as soon as you start helping people , do their jobs and telling the truth, I mean, you're already light years ahead. ,

How long is your pro like if you were to, if I was a leader and I wanted to bring you into my company, how long does it take?

Yeah. Well,

sure. So, well, one of the things we want to respect is how individual people are. But right now, we're starting with an eight week transformation experience. And we've addressed that. You know what? One leader that maybe the attitude I have to work on is different than the attitude the person next to me.

So, we do a lot of self-reflection and saying, okay, where am I missing the mark here? And what if I did more of this, what kind of good things would happen? Secondly, the number one step of Speaking IN® is making it clear. My intention is learning. So, the first key is convincing leaders that that's their power.

And then as simple as saying, So, how did I structure that meeting? Did I leave? Did I, say we were here to learn? Or did I, was everyone afraid we were going to get a talking to? Did I leave any time for people to speak? Did I individually, like you can start very simply. And the other thing, um, this is a key thing that I developed is learning how to ask a fear reducing question.

So simple. When you're in a board meeting and leader says, So, what do you think? Okay, that's very broad. But what if I said instead said, Christine, you've been with us 20 years. You've seen us overcome a lot of these other challenges. It's really going to help me from your perspective. What would you like to have happen?

Okay, so the key is in the question, signal to your listener, I'm going to appreciate it. I'm not going to get mad because they're, they're sitting in uncertainty and if they're at all unsure, they're going to stay silent. So say, you know what, you know, what's going to help me. Are there divergent opinions here?

Can someone give me a reason not to do this? That's what's going to help me right now. Oh, it's going to help you because we thought it was going to tick you off. So now I've changed my mind about speaking and then follow through verbally and non-verbally. I want Speaking IN® to be like an iPhone.

We didn't have to convince people. You really didn't have to sell people on cell phones because they work so well. You pick them up and it starts working, that's how I've designed Speaking IN® to be, for a leader. So eight weeks, we have a, learning transformation session. We have an amazing reflective, guidebook.

And then you meet on Tuesday. You practice it on Wednesday, Thursday you can drop in and talk about it went great or I need more support and then we take a break and then, we'll be talking next Tuesday, just a simple rhythm of, of incremental steps.

Thank you, Lauren. I think that's a simple practical tips as well, how to start, because I think the way we learn it. It's very social learning. You learn, you know, we have a way of responding to something, and if we see examples of a different way of responding that make us feel better, then that's the way to learn about it. And we're all here to learn. Even as leaders, we are learning to communicate. We are learning to be more human, not just machine. Uh, where can we find you? If listeners want to find you, where can they find you?

Sure. I have a website, www.speakingin.org, like it sounds. I am on LinkedIn and Speaking IN® has a LinkedIn page. So those are the three best places, please, reach out to me, there's places, you can see my calendar on the website and I'm happy to talk about this. This is to me, where work can get fun and exciting, and we can stop being stuck.

So, I use a model just to put this in people's minds. I'm trying to help people realize. We're on a journey. We're on a hop journey. We're on a lean journey. We're on a journey. We're all on a journey, except there's this elephant in the road, this huge elephant. And the reason you cannot move is because of the silence or the not listening.

You can't learn and you cannot move forward as organization. If you're learning, so it's not going to be as hard to move that elephant as you might think. And if you do, the forward motion is going to feel really good for everyone.

Awesome. Laura, you want to wrap up. We have our lightning round of questions.

And if you're ready, take a deep breath. Ideally one-to-three-word answers, and it's just a way for us to get to know more about you and maybe. Get some good advice as well. So, question number one, where do you go for inspiration?

Okay, three things. One, my faith, which would inform me that, you know, the greatest of all things is love.

Two, definitely nature. , can't get enough of the beautiful way the nature has been designed. And three, YouTube. Um, I love to watch. America's Got Talent, because what I see is people that are so brave and, and you would never expect that they have this gift, but they push past the fear. , and I've had to do a bit of that.

Awesome.

I love that show too. Um, what is one habit you adopted that has greatly improved your career?

Sure. So that's definitely journaling in the morning. And I like to use the question, what is needed now?

What is one thing that keeps you moving forward each day? Oh, definitely knowing the harm that not solving this problem is unnecessarily inflicting, not just, sorry, this is more than three words, but we, we need to solve this problem, not just for our organizations and our employees.

We are sending home parents. In a terrible state. So, for me, this is, is also about the next generation and even healing the world and showing people good things that work.

Yes. Your passion and purpose. We felt it through the whole episode. No, thank you for that. And what is the most valuable piece of advice you ever received?

I'm going to cheat here again and do two. One when I was 23 years old, and they hired me to. Supervise the whole hospital, I asked the CEO, what should I do? He said, just do the right thing for the patient. So, I worked without fear. Secondly, Zig Ziglar, saying that if you have a product or a service that fulfills a true need, you have a moral imperative.

To sell it because I'm a healer, and selling ideas was never in my, in my plan.

And look at you now, great. Amazing work. All of Lauren's information can be found in our show notes.

Thank you so much, Lauren, for this talk, and for what you're doing, and I hope the listeners, wherever they are, whatever role they have, can take benefits from these conversations, because this is not just the work of a leader, this is the work for everyone, because we are here, being human, everything we do, about work, at work, at work.

It's about working with other human and for human as well. And stay tuned for our next episodes. And if you like, please put some comments visit Lauren's websites and, like and follow us in our podcast. Thank you everyone.

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Also, if you want to learn more about us and our guests, please make sure to check out the show notes for this episode. Thank you again for listening, and we look forward to connecting with you on the next episode of Women's Career Mastery.