Identifying and Mitigating Burnout

More and more women are considering switching roles or leaving the labor force in general as a result of burnout. This burnout is in large part due to caregiving responsibilities. In fact, caregiving responsibilities are the number two reason (behind retirement), that people, mostly women, leave the labor force. This negatively impacts our nation’s workforce availability as well as women’s lifetime earnings. Making this not a women’s issue, but an economic one.

So what do we do about it? 

In this episode we talk with Adriene Prentice and Claudia Naim-Burt, founders of Keep Company, a ventured-backed company helping employers reduce burnout and turnover of employees with caregiving responsibilities. Join us as we talk about ways to identify and mitigate burnout, as well as how we can maintain productivity levels without driving ourselves and employees to feel depleted. 

Keep Company is now part of VEST Her Ventures portfolio. 

About Adrienne Prentice 

Adrienne Prentice is the co-founder and CEO of Keep Company, a group learning platform that helps employers care for, and keep, the parents and caregivers on their teams. After a successful career as a technology attorney practicing at top law firms, including Cooley and Pillsbury, Adrienne was recruited to build a global team of attorneys at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). While at HPE, Adrienne experienced firsthand the unique challenges of being a working parent and the power of coaching. She then shifted her career to talent management at Hogan Lovells and later became a leadership coach specifically for working parents and caregivers. After supporting countless clients battling loneliness and self-sacrifice, Adrienne leveraged her experience as a mother, coach and community builder as well as her background in talent management to build a solution that not only supports parents & caregivers, but positively influences the systems they live in. Adrienne holds a BS from Cornell University’s School of Industrial & Labor Relations and a JD from American University, Washington College of Law. While not working, she devours non-fiction and keeps company with her husband, two children and silver lab in Bethesda, Maryland.

About Claudia Naim-Burt

Claudia Naím-Burt is the co-founder and COO of Keep Company, a group learning platform that helps employers care for, and keep, the parents and caregivers on their teams. Previously, Claudia was a member of the leadership team at Framebridge, a direct-to-consumer custom framing company, where she led Brand and Communications. As the 10th employee to join the company, she helped scale the business to over 400 employees, retail locations and past $82M in venture funding. After Framebridge, Claudia served as an entrepreneur in residence at NEA, and as a strategic advisor to several high-growth businesses, including Poppy Flowers. Claudia has held marketing and communications roles at American Express and Edelman Public Relations. She holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a BA with honors from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Originally from Caracas, Venezuela, Claudia lives in Washington D.C. with her husband and two boys.

Show Notes

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hey everyone, this is Erica Lucas, your host and founding member of Vest, an organization connecting women across industries, regions and career levels so that together we can expedite the pipeline of more women in positions of power and influence. Welcome to another episode of the Vestor podcast, where we explore the investable barriers holding women back in the workplace and share stories of women building power collectively.

Speaker 2: 0:38

When we think about what drives sustainability, or a lack thereof, that leads to burnout. What we hear from parents and caregivers I think this is particularly true for women, given that caregiving disproportionately lands on women's shoulders for lots of reasons we can talk about is that I'm taking care of work and I'm taking care of my family, but I'm not taking care of myself.

Speaker 3: 1:05

Back to the stats. You gave it the 77% versus the 22%. So 77% of high potential men had support network. It reminded me when I was practicing attorney back in the day. Everybody was in the office and everyone would talk on speakerphone and it was so annoying. But it was at 6.15 to 6.30. I had my door open. I was the only woman on the entire floor and I would hear almost every man around me call their wife and ask what's for dinner. And I'm sitting there and I'm like who am I going to? Oh, oh, it's me. Oh, I'm the one I have to continue to do the job that they're doing and I have to make the dinner.

Speaker 4: 1:45

More and more women are considering switching roles or leaving the labor force in general as a result of burnout. This burnout is, in large part, due to caregiving responsibilities. In fact, caregiving responsibilities are the number two reason only behind retirement that people mostly women leave the workplace. This negatively impacts our nation's workforce availability as well as women's lifetime earnings, making this not a women's issue but an economic issue. In this episode, we talked to Adrian Prentice and Claudia name Bert, founders of Keep Company, a venture-backed company helping employers reduce burnout and turnover of employees with caregiving responsibilities. Join us as we talk about identifying and mitigating burnout. We also discuss how we can maintain productivity levels without driving ourselves and employees to feel disengaged and depleted.

Speaker 4: 2:41

This episode is brought to you by Vestor Ventures, our venture capital arm investing in women-led companies, building solutions for the intersection of the care economy and future of work. Also by Vest Peer Network, a network of professional women across industries, regions and career levels, helping each other navigate careers and working together to build a future of more inclusive workspaces. Excited to share that, keep Company is now part of Vestor Ventures portfolio. This conversation was part of a more intimate coaching session with Vest members and has been repurposed to accommodate this episode. If you enjoy the episode, share with a friend and don't forget to leave us a review.

Speaker 3: 3:25

First, erica, thank you for the opportunity to meet this powerhouse group. Really excited to be here. So at Keep Company, as Erica mentioned, we are a group learning platform specifically for parents and caregivers, so we are only available through employers. Part of the reason is that, yes, we want to support individuals in helping them prevent burnout and be more strategic, but we also know their systemic changes aren't necessary for families to feel like they belong and have a sustainable path forward as so what we do is we gather small groups of six to eight parents and caregivers.

Speaker 3: 3:58

We've developed a patent protected technology that helps us get kind of the right folks together. We look at them on a whole person analysis so then, when they're there and they're similarly situated enough, everyone can feel really comfortable in what we call a safe and brave space to share. So we get the group together, we pair them with one of our expert coaches and then the coach guides the group through our behavior science based curriculum. So the number one thing that we often heard from parents and caregivers was that they felt alone in the struggle, like, why does everyone else have this figured out except for me? And so once we can get them in that group, what we have found is it really unlocks the potential to build skills largely around effective communication, also social, emotional skills, and then also change behaviors, and it's much more fun and productive to do that in a group than to do it by yourself.

Speaker 2: 4:51

Yeah, I'm happy to add kind of connect the dots between the bios and how we got here a little bit more, which is that we had both been, you know, by a lot of measures, successful at work. We had felt equipped and resourced, and then both of us separately, and then we kind of came together, had kids and felt ill equipped for really the first time in a lot of ways, and both of us became really obsessed with this question of what would help and certainly started to see friends and colleagues, particularly women, as they started taking care of a kid or an aging parent or a spouse with cancer, whatever life throws at you or whatever, whatever caregiving season you're in. We started to see women in particular downsize jobs or leave the workforce. And as soon as you pushed into those conversations, what I found was that really you would say, you know what did you want to leave? And often the answer was no, it was. I just didn't see a path forward.

Speaker 2: 5:53

And so we came really kind of fixated on this question of what is leading, you know, really well equipped women in particular to feel so ill equipped, and it is that loneliness and that isolation and the stuckness that it creates a feeling like you're the only one and that it's somehow your fault, when we all know you know if you feel like you're failing, you're not failing, you're being failed by a lack of that systemic support, right, and so how do we make sure that people know that it's not just them and it's not on them? And then the second piece in that gap between feeling equipped and all of a sudden ill equipped is that emotional skills. So how do you ask for help? How do you say no? How do you effectively hold a boundary with your boss or your spouse or your mother in law, whatever that looks like? And those are skills. They're skills that none of us are really taught and that everyone in the workforce needs, but when you become a parent or caregiver, they become it really becomes exacerbated. And so that's really where we focus our attention on making sure people don't feel alone. That's the power of the group and then in moving them into action and skill building so that they can think more strategically about home and taking care of themselves, the way we do think strategically about work.

Speaker 2: 7:13

I became kind of one of the things I said over and over as after I had my first child was how do I apply my MBA to motherhood. What would that even look like? It feels like we're so reactive and in we're so strategic at work, like you would never start a new job without a budget and a plan. What are my resources, what are my goals? But we do that at home every single day. So what would it look like to give women, in particular, the tools to be more strategic about their decisions? And then, of course, we need more systemic support, right, and we think employers have a vested interest in providing it.

Speaker 4: 7:50

As a reminder for those of you that are new to VEST, vest has a peer network. We also have an investment firm that exclusively focuses on investing in women led companies that are building solutions to fix our broken care infrastructure, which is what we're talking about the systemic barriers that get in the way of not just women but working parents in general to succeed both at home and at work. And this problem is actually really vast as over a $6 billion market in opportunity. Missed opportunity because, unfortunately, when you look at investors and investments or leadership at the public level because this is going to require public-private partnership, investments right. But when you look at who is at the top making decisions of where to put money, where to put resources, where to fix the system, primarily has been, you know, it's mill dominated. And when you look at the data, 77% of high achieving males have a support system at work or at home. I'm sorry, compare that to only 22% of high achieving women that only have a support system. So when I talk often about investments in LPs, trying to get them to invest in our funds so we can invest in companies, it's often hard for a lot of these decision makers who've never really paid attention to how big the opportunity is, because they never have to Right, and so that's why we're so excited to invest in companies like Keep Company that are providing these services but also are trying to challenge the very systems while giving employers the tools and platforms they need to be successful while doing it. So, again, really excited that you guys are part of the portfolio.

Speaker 4: 9:34

Well, this month we are talking about burnout. You know, I feel like, while during 2020, during the COVID pandemic, there was a lot of awakening, if you will, at corporate that people started paying attention of how burnout affects productivity, but I feel like we've gone back to business as usual in a lot of ways, and that is very unfortunate because you still see, you know, I talk also often about yeah, we should be proud that now women finally represent 10% of women CEOs at S&P 500 companies, but what a lot of people don't look at also is that 50% of those high achieving women are considering and what you just mentioned, claudia leaving the workforce in general, because they're just burned out, right, or they feel lonely, as you often say, claudia, and one of the best definitions I've ever heard of burnout is emotional fatigue. Right, we're just emotionally, you know, fatigued and that affects everything that we do, not just at work but at home. So I thought that it was. We thought it was an important topic to discuss, at best during the month of February, but curious or January we're still in January, geez, but curious.

Speaker 4: 10:45

Claudia and Adrienne, how would you define burnout and why should we as individuals, but also as team leaders and employers, care about it?

Speaker 3: 10:53

So I think there is actually, like a World Health Organization, very specific definition and cynicism and apathy, and I do think it's a great question to start with, because there is a fine line between stress and burnout, and what we talk a lot about with our members is the resources and a feeling of helplessness.

Speaker 3: 11:16

And so I, you know again not articulate let's not put this in stone but essentially I feel like it is a level of stress that feels completely out of control and there's a helplessness, and the helplessness comes from the fact that there's either not the resilience, there's not like basic care of yourself, right, and there's also not the support network, there's no outlets, and so it feels that's where the apathy and the cynicism comes into the World Health Organization definition, because it feels like, no matter what I do, this is my situation, there's no light at the end of the tunnel, and so it is different than than we'll call it every day.

Speaker 3: 11:57

Stress, and it's something that we again work with a lot of our members and like one just even building the awareness of where, where am I today? We do a check-in in every meeting, in personhood work and then parenting or caregiving, and that like five second exercise of just checking in with yourself on a scale of one to 10 rank each of these things really does help people to start to become aware of like, oh I'm teetering, my personhood is zero and you know, my work is zero, or all my energy is going to work and it's not going towards anything else, and really helps create that awareness to then know, okay, what are your levels to you can pull to bring yourself back up.

Speaker 2: 12:34

Yeah, and when we think about what drives sustainability, or a lack thereof, that leads to burnout, what we hear from parents and caregivers I think this is particularly true for women, given that caregiving disproportionately lands on women's shoulders for lots of reasons we can talk about is that I'm taking care of work and I'm taking care of my family, but I'm not taking care of myself. And taking a level even further, I don't even know what taking care of myself would look like anymore. I feel so far away from myself. And that is a really consistent thread that we hear. And so that is where just building awareness that sustainability looks like putting yourself back on the list and building skills to take care of yourself and protect that time and space, not because it's indulgent or you know or anything like that, but because it is core to sustainability. And I think that Adrian talked about burnout being connected to apathy or feeling like resignation, like you're out of control. We really try to move people into a space of agency, and that is what the power of coaching really is. It is what's here today on a scale of one to 10, how has worked, how's family, how are you, and so what's here today? And then let's move you into action.

Speaker 2: 14:03

And when we talk about choices in terms of career and we talk about, you know, people leaving the workforce or downsizing jobs or making changes, I was saying to a friend the other day I don't care if you want to leave the workforce, I don't want to care if you want to leave your job, if you want to go part time, if. I just want to know that it's your choice, right? What we want, what we're trying to do, is make sure that people are making decisions strategically based on what they want and what is their choice. And turns out you need support and skills to do that. It's really hard to carry that alone and sit in a room by yourself with no tools or support systems and say what do I want?

Speaker 2: 14:40

It turns out that's really, really hard when you are carrying so much pressure, and so a lot of what we try to do is give employees the space, the skills, the support, the facilitator, to really sit down and zoom out and say how am I? And the cool thing about people is, if you give them the space and the tools they know, they know the answer to what would make things a little bit more sustainable, and so they're able to build a path towards it. But what I would say about burnout is that a lot of what drives the if you are not on the list, that's not sustainable, and so you can push through for a while, but eventually it will catch up, and certainly we know that you know. Again back to the systemic piece, a huge driver of why we're not on the list is because we're carrying too much and we need more support, and so I think releasing yourself of the weight of it's on you can actually free up some space to say OK, given this, what is available to me and what choices can I make?

Speaker 3: 15:47

One last thing. Back to the stats that you gave the 77% versus the 22%. So 77% of high potential men has support network. It reminded me when I was practicing attorney back in the day. Everybody was in the office, everyone would talk on speakerphone and it was so annoying. But it was at 6.15 to 6.30. I had my door open, I was the only woman on the entire floor and I would hear almost every man around me call their life and ask what's for dinner. And I'm sitting there and I'm like who am I going to? Oh, it's me. Oh, I'm the one. I have to continue to do the job that they're doing and I have to make the dinner, and that you know.

Speaker 3: 16:28

And then the statistic that you shared about executive women wanting to leave is the McKinsey did the study and they said the reason that a lot of the drive for executive women to leave is because they are overworked but also under-recognized.

Speaker 3: 16:44

And so women tend to do the non-promotable work. We're on the committees, we do the recruiting interviews, we plan the holiday parties, we're mentors, all of it and we say yes, and we care about the emotional well-being of our team more than men, the data shows and we at least take the time to do that, and that is hurting us, it's costing our health and our careers, and so when we talk about burnout, it's so much more than just stress. It's like what's your foundation? But then what are you being recognized for? What are you saying yes to that you could say no. So that's what we try to do is get people out of the state of stuckness and more into a strategic, proactive management of it, by maybe saying no to the committee, or maybe having dinner and deliver that night, whatever that might look like, those sorts of things, yeah, and I would say in terms of building skills, learning how to hold a boundary effectively, how to say no at work and at home, is one of the most important skills.

Speaker 2: 17:45

But it is a skill, it is learnable, it just requires practice. And we often hear from our members great, give me a script, literally what do I say? And so we often do that. So it is building that awareness that when you say yes to everybody, you're saying no to a lot. So when you say no, it can be really overwhelming to think about holding that boundary.

Speaker 2: 18:07

But when you think about it in the frame of, I am strategically deciding what is most important to me and in this moment I'm going to say no to this one thing, which is often non-promotable, or other things, I am making a strategic choice. It is not reactive. I am choosing to value taking 10 minutes for myself or doing this one thing that is important to me is aligned with my goals. That feels really different than just walking around saying no and again it comes from this place of what are your values, what's important to you? And making a choice rather than just saying I'm going to say no to everything because I feel like I'm going to fall on the floor today, because it's been a snow day for 17 days.

Speaker 4: 18:50

It feels like I think that this all resonate with most of us. Vest members are. You know, we range from C-suite to emerging leaders, but I know personally all Vest members and I know that we're all doing too much, so I know that this is definitely something that resonates, but curious to see what are employees, employers, saying, and I want you to share a story about employers that get it and that understand how this fundamentally affects productivity. And then I want you to give us a story without names, of employers that still don't get it.

Speaker 3: 19:24

Okay, I can start with the positive one, and this is specific to keep from the one thing I will say. To zoom out a little bit, the organizations we have the most traction with are the organizations that already have a laundry list of supports for parents, which is somewhat counterintuitive, because you would think, oh, they've already got breast milk delivery or they already have care coordination, and we obviously fill a different gap in terms of the group learning, but you would think that would be a harder sale, but it's a quick indication to us that the organization does care, and so I would say, like very, very baseline, you can tell by looking on their website. What kind of offerings do they have then, like they're walking the walk to a certain extent. More specifically, we are available to not just attorneys or consultants at our clients, but to all business professionals, so it could be administrative assistance, marketing, the chief diversity officer, everyone is eligible for keep company and they can opt in if they're a caregiver.

Speaker 2: 20:23

So, but by the way we fought for right yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:29

So one issue came up where one client and this is maybe the both sides are good and the bad one client said well, what about non-exempt employees? They're hourly and your meetings are 90 minutes bi-weekly and sometimes your meetings are during the day, sometimes during the evening, just depending on scheduling preferences. Are we gonna pay them for that time? And we were like, yeah, like absolutely again, and part of what we're doing is training. So if you need to go code it somewhere, go do that.

Speaker 3: 20:59

And this particular firm was like can we talk to other clients and how they've handled this issue? And so I just put out like a call to my top three clients and I said would any of you be willing to talk to this other organization about how you treat non-exempt employees? And somebody actually wrote and was like I'm happy to talk to them, but we're not, I'm not gonna be much value because it's just part of our culture and ethos that every benefit is available to every single person in the firm. And I was like, nope, you're exactly who. I want to go talk to them, right?

Speaker 3: 21:29

Like that kind of just distinction between haves and haves not in organizations of any type corporate professional services is really terrible and antithetical to what our core is is to create belonging right. So I would say that kind of hits both sides is we have this one client who it's like so such a no-brainer. They didn't even recognize that they're being a leader in that sense. And then we have the other firm that's like wait a second, what are we gonna do? One Z, two Z for the people that might have a meeting during the workday? How are we gonna treat that?

Speaker 2: 22:04

Yeah, I would say from an employer perspective. So, as we've shared with our stories, it started for us with new moms. It started with how can we support people through this really critical inflection point that has such a massive long-term impact on how they design their career and their life right? And then as we got deeper into this work, it became clear that it wasn't just new mom struggling, it was all mom struggling, it was it doesn't get easier as your kids get older, just kind of changes, right. And then it opened us up to dads really really struggling, looking for connection, also feeling hugely isolated, like they don't have a model for how to take care of work and family and be a present father the way they want to be, the way maybe their parents weren't, and a lot of kind of hunger for that. And then we opened up to caregivers and all in there are many seasons of care over an inflection, that many inflection points in a career. You may have a new child and then you might have a teenager struggling with mental health, which so many are today. It's one of our biggest kind of cohorts, right, is parents of teenagers right now that are really struggling. Or you might have a spouse going through a cancer treatment and navigating that, or you might have a parent with dementia. This is all of us, and it is many times throughout the course of a career, and so I think for us it's really been a game changer to build awareness with organizations that this isn't just moms of new babies, this is up to 73% of your workforce, so why aren't we talking about it? And, by the way, it's often you're most senior leaders that you're leaving unresourced, because they're the ones, teenagers, that aren't covered in the new leave stuff. They're the ones taking care of a parent or a sandwich generation, taking care of both, and so building that awareness that this problem is so much bigger and expansive than you think it is, I think for a lot of them is an aha moment that oh my gosh, I've had a blind spot. And so when that moment comes, for us it's often that is when we can walk through the door and say, okay, so what are we gonna do about it? And so for us, it often starts with just knowing how many parents and caregivers you have and that awareness. Once they see the numbers, there's really nowhere to go but forward. And I would say, erika, to your point about taking a step back, which I don't think is wrong. I think that in the pandemic there was a lot of awareness built. I'm gonna go jargony here for a second, but stay with me.

Speaker 2: 24:42

So in social work there is a term, kind of there's this idea of how you grow somebody's willingness to change right, or their readiness to change personally and in other ways. And the first step is awareness right. It's just building awareness about what your challenges are, what's hard for you, what you need to work on, and then, once you integrate that awareness, you prepare to take action and then you take action and then you refine right. That is true at the individual level. It's also true at the organizational level. Once you have built awareness of how big this problem is and how crazy the numbers are around, how this impacts people's productivity and their long-term longevity at work, you can't fully go back.

Speaker 2: 25:30

And so, while I do think we're having some steps back now, I think that you know leaders that are saying you know, in the return to office negotiation last year, it felt like a lot of senior leaders were saying are we going back yet? What are we going back? Are we going back yet? And we kept saying there is no going back Like this. Awareness is here. Your employees have different expectations of you and of themselves. That is not changing, and so, while I think now we're going through another renegotiation, I think that that has not changed and I would say that the many generations in the workforce right now and as we all know and have experienced they have very different expectations. So I think that what the pandemic didn't do, gen Z is really pushing forward, and I think that is going to take more creative leaders that are willing to redesign work expectations, because I don't think there is a going back as much as we're going to have to push a little bit harder now.

Speaker 4: 26:32

Okay, so I have a lot more questions regarding employers and the benefit of changing the system, but I want to go back to the individual person a little bit, because I know I've experienced burnout many times in the past and when you're in that state it's hard to pause and acknowledge that you are in fact feeling depleted, right, maybe because you are going so fast and you know and I grew up as an immigrant, first generation immigrant in our family it's like there's no such a thing as not working hard and you know victim. You know like, oh, you're being a victim, just get up and do what you have to do and blah, blah, blah. And self care is kind of like privilege, right. And so I struggle with taking a step back and identifying that I'm in that state of feeling depleted and having emotional fatigue. So what are some of the systems or signs that you coach people through so that they can identify when they are in fact in that state?

Speaker 3: 27:31

I love this question, yeah, so I think stress burnout shows up differently for different people, and so I'll talk about how we coach our members. But just personally, between Cli and I, when we did the Techstars program, we had the opportunity to do something called an IMAP assessment and it's, like you know, similar to Amir's Briggs or something, but one of the specific questions or you know results in the output was how stress shows up, and so now we have shared the results with each other and lean on each other to call out, and I will share mine is I'm typically a pretty friendly person, but I will get like short and, like you know, when I'm stressed, like there is no time for chit chat, like it stings, you know, and so when Claudia is on the other end of that, she'll be like waving a flag, you know, and that's been so incredibly helpful and I'll share.

Speaker 2: 28:28

I'm the literal opposite, which is that when I am getting into that space of exacerbated stress and burnout or I would say importantly cumulative because, right, the impact of it is cumulative I think that's important to have awareness of I can get really sensitive. I can take things personally that are personal and so I can like it can just kind of cloud my judgment, I would say in that way where it feels like it's about me but it's not about me. And so that is when Adrian starts to say heads up, this is where I'm coming from. But it's hugely valuable. And this is again where that personal and professional start to intertwine, because it's really valuable to know that, because it allows us to be better teammates, it allows us to say because can you imagine if we didn't have that awareness?

Speaker 2: 29:17

And guess what? We're co-founders, so you know when one of us is stressed, who's also stressed? So we're going into the same at the same time, into those what they call basement behaviors or stress reactions. So that awareness again, this word keeps coming up right, building that awareness, I think. Also I heard in the pandemic there was a lot of stuff about rage and how rage can surface for people when they are super, super exacerbated and stressed and that is a feeling that often feels very unfamiliar and you're like whoa, where did that come from? It's really overwhelming. And somebody said that is your engine light going on, and I found that so helpful that like learning what your burnout or stress behaviors are and thinking them as the engine light and then thinking about what can get you back to baseline is really valuable. But I think you were going to talk a little bit about how we coach people through that.

Speaker 3: 30:12

Yeah. So I think that the baseline would be one. It's very common to not recognize it in yourself, but if you can at least start to become aware of the engine light and the indicators whether that's in your body we have one coach who is very into somatic healing, so like, notice how stress shows up for you but then tell someone about it so that they can help you, whether that's somebody at home or somebody at work, that's really helpful. Going back, like social emotional learning I don't know for those of you who have children, you might notice that our kids are learning about this now. It's part of curriculum in schools where you have to name your feelings and then manage your feelings and then take mindfulness breaks and move your body, and these are all basic things our kids are learning that we did not in school.

Speaker 3: 30:58

So one thing that we really do coach our members on, and it's really woven throughout our curriculum, is social emotional learning. Like just that connection to yourself, your actual body, your emotions, where you feel physically, mentally, emotionally, is like very foundational to be able to manage the stress or even recognize it first. And then, of course, it's the group right. So knowing that you're not the only one, the number one testimonial we get in some form or fashion is I'm bummed to hear other people are struggling, but I'm really glad to hear I'm not alone, right. And so once you know that you're in that zone of stress but you're not alone, and this is hard, what you're doing is hard then that can be a huge unlock too.

Speaker 2: 31:46

So talking about it with other people, yeah, I wanna connect these skills to how they show up at work. So when we talk about emotional skills at work, often that looks like our kind of glossary or our kind of language around. Emotional skills at work is so limited. Often we talk about they're a good manager, they're a bad manager, and that's pretty much the extent of it. But what drives somebody being a good manager or a bad manager often has to do with emotional skills. It has to do with are you an effective communicator? Do you hold a boundary effectively, with grace and with awareness? It has to do with do you say no, with context, which is deeply motivating, or without it, which is deeply demotivating and leads to vast performance issues. And so when you build skills in communication which we do when you build skills in self-awareness which we do, turns out you show up better at home and at work. And we all know that right, because we have had managers who don't have those skills right and we see how it affects other people around them. And similarly, one person who doesn't have these skills and has the power to create a toxic environment has ripple effects that go far beyond that person to the performance and the wellbeing of the team. Similarly, if you have these skills, the impact goes so far beyond you, and so what we hear from our members is okay, I'm taking these skills and I applied them with my teenage daughter and I applied them with my boss and I applied them with my colleague, and what we often say is it expands what's possible for the people around you.

Speaker 2: 33:34

One interesting kind of tool that I love we both became kind of in this process. We both found coaching and found it really helpful and became coach, trained coaches ourselves, and one of the tools that I find really helpful in coaching is everybody has kind of this. There's lots of different words for it, but in kind of the coaching that we did, it's called your Savitur, which is kind of that like inner negative dialogue. Right, we all have it. Sometimes it's really loud, sometimes we can quiet it a little bit more, but we all have it, and so if you think about that inner negative dialogue that's your Savitur, when you are coming from that place of your Savitur or your negative place a small place, an insecure place it often calls forth other people's Savitur. So when you show up from that place, often other people in response do too, and they don't even notice it. The opposite is also true. When you show up steadier, more self-aware, that calls that forth in other people without even noticing it.

Speaker 2: 34:34

And so that is the impact of emotional skills at work. It expands what is possible for your team. And so we have certainly sold into HR teams because this is a people issue. We've sold into DE&I because this disproportionately impacts women and people of color, but we've also sold into learning and development teams because we're building these emotional skills which hugely affect how people can be resilient at work and expand what's possible for their teams. So I could talk all day long about how important this is at work. Because I think again back to this like are we going back this world where I think, this pre-pandemic world?

Speaker 2: 35:17

I would argue, where I put on my work hat and then I seamlessly take it off. And I put on my mom hat and I seamlessly take it off and I put on my caregiver hat and then I put on my Claudia hat where I am myself. Like that's not real and so the expectation that we could all do that seamlessly is false and it's hurting us.

Speaker 4: 35:36

You know there's a saying in venture capital or private investments in general, that investors are only excited to make an investment the day they made the investment and then after that, like the excitement kind of wears off. And the opposite is true for me and I'm sure that for the rest of the best membership, as we continue to talk to you guys, because I can't stand venture capital. To be quite honest with you, the whole industry in itself. I think it's a broken model. I don't think it's the solution to a lot of things, but it's there, right, and it fuels companies and unfortunately, it has some fuel companies that actually need to exist. We see a lot of investment often going to like even in AI, right, like who the hell asked for? Like fake celebrities, like as if we needed more, you know stuff like that, but instead of funding the care infrastructure or funding things that we actually need desperately, I read a report recently by BCG that if we don't fix the care crisis, we're looking at a $209 billion deficit in GDP consecutively. So cumulative, like you said, claudia, year over year, that's a huge loss in GDP as a nation and the fact that we're not talking about it to me is very troublesome in a lot of ways. So again, just to say I'm get more excited about this investment and the opportunities to build the future of work in a way that really enables women and working parents and general caregivers to stay in the workforce and be prosperous. But with that, I wanna talk to you about something that's very unique to women.

Speaker 4: 37:12

Right, as women, we've been programmed particularly at work, particularly in leadership roles and or particularly if you're in a toxic work environment or in an environment where it's looked as a weakness.

Speaker 4: 37:28

If you share that, you know you don't have the capacity to do more and as a result of that, I feel like sometimes we're not comfortable talking about it. And as leaders, I know that I've recognized sometimes when I have team members where I've said, hey, you need to take a break, like, just take a break, go be with your family, go do what you enjoy doing. But it's sometimes it's hard to address that if you know that the person is not ready to your point. I think, claudia, you mentioned you have to be aware you have to be ready to receive, to want to receive help. How can you coach? Some of us have teams, some of us are leading teams, some of us are employers, how would you coach us to have those conversations that can be uncomfortable, particularly with women, or anybody that's not comfortable, yet accepting that they're in that state of stress or state of feeling depleted?

Speaker 3: 38:19

I think the most powerful thing leaders can do is model. So, instead of it being a conversation where you are pushing in to someone and saying seems like you're really. I know this is how you exhibit stress, this is your stress. Seems like you're really stressed, I think you should take a day off. I think that leaders should do that themselves and be explicit about it. I think it can be whether it is someone who's particularly stressed that needs a mental health date, saying hey, I'm out tomorrow, I need a break. This is, I have this, oh, and even brownie points.

Speaker 3: 38:54

I would say, if they say we're in crunch time at work and I have a lot going on at home right now with my family, the level of specifics will depend on the individual right. Some people are more comfortable sharing details about what's going on at home than others. But just saying I have a lot going on at home right now, in addition to what we have going on at work, I'm gonna take a moment or a day or a day or whatever it is. That is implicit permission for other people to do it. You don't have to have a conversation directly with them. There are more explicit things and we actually, in one of our quarterly insights, shared this with our clients a script that managers could send saying hey, it's May.

Speaker 3: 39:36

I expect everyone to take vacation over this summer. I'm going to be taking it on these days. I will not be available. Therefore, a week before my vacation, I'm gonna have one-on-one meetings with each of you to make sure that you have what you need while I'm gone, because I won't be available. So, again, exhibiting the drawing, the boundaries, but doing it in a professional way that it's not just like oh I'm out, you can't call me. It is making sure that they're setting themselves up so that they can be out, and so I think that would be. My suggestion is it's the most powerful is just to model it.

Speaker 2: 40:12

Yeah, I think that is top-down, and we hear every day the impact of people seeing that from their leadership. I would say bottom up, or employee up. I think there's a lot of conversation right now about psychological safety and bringing your full self to work, and if you feel like you can't bring your full self to work, that's okay and that's reasonable, right. And so I think this expectation that we bring all of us everywhere we go is not realistic, and so I think that we gotta free ourselves up from that and say, okay, where are opportunities to show my whole person and model that? And what am I choosing strategically? Again from a place of choice, where can I say you know what? This is a place where it's really important that they know this, and so I'm gonna create a container where I know I can best do that. So some people communicate most effectively in email.

Speaker 2: 41:08

So, if you feel like you, it's something you're not gonna be comfortable sharing in person, because you know how you're gonna get the pushback, put an email, that way you can think about it and you can be more in control of that mechanism. Or do it one-on-one. Some people are not as comfortable, or you know less, to take it off of the onus off of them. They're not in a culture where that is really reasonable and so have those conversations one-on-one. I think it's really coming from a place of leadership and making those choices. But I would free ourselves up from this expectation that you're gonna be your whole self everywhere. Sometimes that's not what you want and sometimes it's not the most strategic choice, and that's okay, right. You can still click into your whole person and now feel this pressure to be at all the time everywhere.

Speaker 3: 41:55

One other cultural system level thing that is recommended and we are starting to implement even within Keep Company, is the micro, meso and macro breaks. So, like brain, science shows that during your day, being in back-to-back zooms is not good for your health and it's only going to lead to or exacerbate burnout. So five minutes are your micro breaks throughout the day, and then the meso is, I think, one hour a week blocking your calendar, and this is to do, not to go run errands, but to do something for yourself Take a walk, go get fresh air, exercise, call a friend, whatever that might look like. And then the macro is like a half day a month, and so there's things like that where it might feel hokey and forced, but from a leadership or a cultural perspective, it sends the message that this matters.

Speaker 2: 42:45

Yeah, and again to building the skill of accessing personhood. The first time you take that hour or that half day, you're going to be like I don't even know what to do with myself if I'm not running errands or taking things off of my to-do list. But the second or the third time we find people saying I called my sister, or I took this class I haven't taken in five years, or I just sat in silence at a coffee shop, whatever, and so it's giving yourself some space to reconnect with that stuff that fills you up.

Speaker 5: 43:18

Yeah, thank you. After listening to you guys, I don't know how old are you. I think that you guys are very young, but I've been in a leadership situation in the past few weeks that I never thought I would be feeling like I don't belong in a group of Latinas which I thought I belong. But I'm talking about generational. It's because maybe I'm the older Latina in the room and this younger generation is so hard to communicate and you use touch about it when you said maybe they can text, maybe send them a text, maybe send them an email, and I think our generation is more. We just say it like it is.

Speaker 5: 44:00

We don't sugarcoat anything and we can do it all and we just have a tough kin and just on a way, I've been feeling like, wait, I'm the only one here that I don't feel offended by anything. So leadership is to a level where, even when you have generations on people that I work with that they're under 20s, it's exhausting to try to, even if they're coming from the same culture, even if they are Latina, but try to accommodate the way they communicate. And I don't try to be rude with the people in the room that are under 20s, but I mean I just definitely it is like an imposter syndrome that I never thought I would have it with my own group of ladies, because you were like I'm too old, you know, and my ideas are not that you know bright anymore, so that it just my guess. My question is how do you deal with that stress level of becoming a leader with different generations in your office?

Speaker 3: 45:05

So I'm not that young, but I love you for saying that and this will show. Because when I was at HP, the CEO at the time was Meg Whitman, and she was concerned about millennials. So I actually helped spearhead an initiative because she was like why is it that millennials come to work asking what's work going to do for me, when my generation was grateful to have a job and constantly think about how we could make the company better? And so it was a true quest that she had, and so I think what it came down to in the research that we did, we did reverse mentoring was really a popular program, but what it really came down to was communication, and what we do before we kick off any group is we train people and how to supportively listen, and what that means is putting your views or your opinions inside and holding what we call a safe and brave and judgment free space, and so it's okay that you have different views than the other women on your team.

Speaker 3: 46:08

And it should be okay with them as well, and so it's really creating an expectation in a norm around we don't have to necessarily agree on everything to be able to hold space, connect, support and lift each other up. Even so, I don't you didn't say this at all, but there's no right or wrong and I think it is reductive for anyone to put a person of a generation in a box. It's about people and it's about communication and respect, and so I think, like, in terms of what does that mean for you and this group? I think it could be a really hard conversation.

Speaker 3: 46:45

We always say a lot of the remedy to the challenges our members bring is a hard conversation. It can be at work or it could be at home, and apologies if this is not the answer or like is unrelated, but I think it could be a hard conversation with your coworkers to say, hey guys, this is how I'm feeling. I'm feeling like I don't belong because we're of different generation, we have different views, but I want you to know that, like, I love and respect you and I'm here to support you and we are a team and I just want you to, you know, be sure that you feel the same way. And what are some things that we can do, what are some norms that we can co-create together to make sure we all feel included? And I'm sorry, like I said, I know that's a hard conversation and putting it on your shoulders is, like not necessarily what I want to do, but I do think, otherwise it might just fester and calcify.

Speaker 2: 47:36

Yeah, and I would just say, to extrapolate that for people that also lead groups.

Speaker 2: 47:42

So we kind of specialize in the behavior science and mechanisms around creating psychological safety in a group, like the magic of bringing people together that are similar enough and different enough.

Speaker 2: 47:52

And I will say one of the biggest challenges is feeling like you're the lonely only something in a group, which is, again, a lot of what you're talking about here is really really difficult.

Speaker 2: 48:04

And so and you know, as women, we are often the only woman in a conversation, especially at the leadership level, right, and so I think that is an exacerbator. And so I would just say to pull from that to the whole group just a little bit of awareness that if there's somebody on your team who is the lonely only something, building awareness that opening up those lines of communications with that person in particular is really critical for pulling their voice into the room. Because I think that you know how powerful would it be that you walk into that conversation tomorrow, elian, and somebody says hey, elian, I want to make sure that you're feeling included in this conversation. Is there anything you want to talk about? And just giving you that opening right would be so powerful. And so I think, to the extent that us as leaders, that we can model that to Adrienne's earlier point and do some of that, it's a huge opportunity. It's a huge opportunity.

Speaker 4: 48:59

One of my favorite sessions at VAS was during COVID. We had a Gen C member that was actually in DC, and then we had a C-suite member I think she was based in Oklahoma and they were talking about their very different experiences dealing with COVID and dealing with remote work, and the member the Gen C member felt like she felt like she wasn't living up to the job, that she wanted to do more, but she wasn't hearing from her employer, and so she was given her perspective, and then the C-suite member was given her perspective, not hearing from them. Anyway, I love what you said about just listening with a mindset of support. It's not about me right now. It's about me hearing you and hearing what you have to say and how you feel, and then we can come together with a solution. By the same token, elian, I want to tell you that I support you.

Speaker 4: 50:01

I am becoming that older Latina and Latina groups when we meet, and I also have a Gen C girl that challenges my and I think I'm very progressive, you know and she challenged me each and every day, but I think for the better right, even when we disagree. So I love this question so much I'm going to give it to Amy. And then I also want to remind us we have five minutes, so I'll give it to Amy for a quick response. And then I really want you, claudia and Adrienne, to close us with what are three things that we can do if we identify that we are in that state of feeling depleted.

Speaker 6: 50:41

I thought I was going to work with young people and many of you on the call who know me know forever and I'm 45, I'll be 46 this year and just to the point of now I'm like having to transition to like, really and this goes with what you just were saying, erica really I put my hand up before but learning how to sort of translate that generational gap and not just look at it as a challenge, but like there are ways that we, you know, there is wisdom in what we have. So I really appreciate this conversation. I haven't been with this group for a while. I went through a career change of my own, so I'm excited to be back and committed in 2024 to be participating more so.

Speaker 4: 51:25

Welcome back, amy, and congrats on the career transition. Let's close with that. If we are feeling depleted, if we are identifying the way or we're getting ready to like we're starting to fill the symptoms that you mentioned before, what are three things that we can do to get out of that state?

Speaker 2: 51:42

Yeah, I have two in my night, so I'm going to start with two and then we can ping pong a little bit. My first is try to build awareness of what makes you feel depleted, and so that looks like I'm an introvert, and so I joke that when we go to conferences and things like that and I'm talking a lot and very external I run out of words by a certain point of day. I know I will be exhausted at the end of the day. So what can I do? And with that awareness, how can I manage my schedule a little bit differently and things like that.

Speaker 2: 52:15

So just awareness of the things that drive stress and exacerbate things for you. That's the first one. The second one is build a list and write it down of five things that fill you up and put it on a sticky note on your desk and reference it when you need to. So note to self taking a 10 minute walk always helps. Note to self call this one friend. Note to self, right, Like what are those things? Because in the moment it can feel really overwhelming. But you know yourself, right, you have more tools than you realize. So when you are feeling resourced, write them down so that when you are feeling a little less resourced, you can be a friend to yourself in that moment right and help yourself out. So those are my two Build awareness of what tends to exacerbate things and then manage accordingly, and then to write a list of things that can help.

Speaker 3: 53:16

Mine are ask for help, ask another human being for help. We often think we have to do everything ourselves. We don't want to impose on others, whatever it might be. I had a situation last week where school closed at half day because of rain and I had meetings. I couldn't pick up my son and so I asked another mom who I actually wasn't that close with and she's like, yeah, sure, I'll pick them up, and she said to me thank you for asking me. So people want to help. So ask for help in whatever arena of your life, it would be most impactful. And then the other one is saying no. And this is my challenge. You can't always. A nudge from a coach is for everyone to take the next whatever 30 seconds after this call and think about one thing you could say no to.

Speaker 1: 53:58

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