#123 - The Empathetic Workplace: How to Handle Workplace Trauma - Katharine Manning

[00:01:19] Episode Introduction

Henry Suryawirawan: Hello again to all of you, my friends and my listeners. Welcome to the Tech Lead Journal podcast, the show where you can learn about technical leadership and excellence from my conversations with great thought leaders in the tech industry. If this is your first time listening to Tech Lead Journal, don’t forget to subscribe and follow the show on your podcast app and on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. And to support my journey creating this podcast, subscribe as a patron at techleadjournal.dev/patron.

My guest for today’s episode is Katharine Manning. Katharine is the President of Blackbird DC and the author of “The Empathetic Workplace”. In this episode, we discussed how leaders can deal with traumatic experience in the workplace. Katharine described what she means by workplace trauma and explained the impact of such trauma on employees’ performance and organizations’ productivity. She shared the importance of leaders showing trust whenever employees come forward and share their trauma, and why leaders should avoid problem-solving in response to their situation. Katharine also touched on the importance of empathy and gave a few tips on how we can be more empathetic towards others. And towards the end, Katharine shared her framework called the LASER method, the five steps we can do for a more compassionate, calm, and confident response to the workplace trauma.

I really enjoyed my conversation with Katharine. Personally, I’ve experienced a few cases of employees having workplace trauma when I was the manager or the leader. And even cases when the employee had a severe depression and suicidal thoughts. And in most of those situations, I was never trained on how to deal with the situation compassionately and empathetically. So this episode is my attempt to share a great way to educate ourselves on how to deal with such workplace trauma. And learning from Katharine, someone who is highly experienced in this, is something that I really appreciate.

And if you also find this episode useful, please help share it with more people, so I can reach out to many more people like you to benefit from this episode. Also leave this podcast a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It will help me a lot to make this podcast easily discovered by others. Before we continue to the conversation with Katharine, let’s hear some words from our sponsors.

[00:04:55] Introduction

Henry Suryawirawan: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another new episode of the Tech Lead Journal podcast. Today, I have with me a guest named Katharine Manning. She’s an author. She published a book titled, “The Empathetic Workplace: 5 Steps to Compassionate, Calm, and Confident Response to Trauma On the Job”. So based on this book, we will be talking a lot about how to handle traumatic situations in the workplace. What is traumatic experience? So maybe later on, we will discuss about that. And I think this topic has become much more important, and it’s also personal to me, because at my workplace, I have to handle these kinds of situations. So I find many leaders probably are not equipped to handle these kinds of situations. And I find this important to have this conversation, so that we can learn at least the basics of how to handle that, and then also maybe avoid or reduce the stress that we have to deal with when dealing with such situation.

So Katharine, thank you so much for this opportunity. Really looking forward for this conversation.

Katharine Manning: Me too. Thank you, Henry. It’s such a pleasure to be here.

[00:05:53] Career Journey

Henry Suryawirawan: So Katharine, before we start with the conversation about traumatic experience in the workplace, maybe if you can introduce yourself, maybe telling more about your career journey, any highlights or turning points.

Katharine Manning: Absolutely. I’m a lawyer and have spent most of my career working with crime victims. I started when I was in college working at the local domestic violence shelter as a volunteer. I did domestic violence and rape crisis hotline work for many years. And then after I went to law school, I ended up at the US Department of Justice, where I was a senior attorney advisor on victim rights. And what that meant was I would advise the department on how it worked with victims in a wide array of cases. Anything from a huge fraud case to terrorism to child exploitation. And one of the things I began to notice was that everybody needed the same kinds of things. It wasn’t like the way that you would support an identity theft victim was wildly different than the way you would support a human trafficking victim. Everybody needed to feel heard and acknowledged. Everybody needed referrals to supports.

And then I began to realize that it wasn’t just the victims in our cases who needed those things. If I had a coworker, for instance, who had a father who was dying, or maybe a boss who was abusive, or an ex-boyfriend who was maybe stalking her, those were situations where I realized I was pulling on the same skills that I had used to support crime victims. It made me realize that these issues are not only in the criminal justice system. People are dealing with traumas all the time in the workplace. It’s just, often, we don’t talk about it.

One of the things I also began to realize was that while it can be difficult and unnerving when somebody comes to you in the midst of a crisis, there’s really just some basic things that we need to do to support them. We don’t have to become their therapist. We shouldn’t become their therapist. It’s really just what can we do to help them get through that moment. I think of it as almost like the CPR skills. Like, you see the problem, you give them immediate support, and then you send them on to the experts to get more of what they need.

So I began realizing that there were these overlaps in what kinds of support people needed and started thinking through what I would say those supports were. And that’s when I really began working on my book. It was honestly the “Me Too” movement in 2018 that made me start to think a lot about how these issues came up outside of criminal justice, and how a lot of workplaces were dealing with them. In some ways though, I’ve got to admit, I was frustrated by “Me Too”, because I felt like “Me Too” put so much on survivors to come forward and share their story. Everybody needs to hear your story. But without an understanding that when somebody shares their story with you, you have an obligation to really listen and provide support in a compassionate and empathetic way. So that’s what really propelled me to start thinking about, what would you say people should do in that moment? And that was when I came up with this idea of really five steps that people should take when somebody comes to them in that moment of trauma or distress.

So I left the Justice Department in 2019 and that was when I launched my company, Blackbird, and started working on the book. Now, it’s funny, Henry. Publishing takes a really long time, right? It takes about two years from when you sell a book to when it actually gets published. And in that time is when we had global pandemic, huge economic uncertainty, lots of racial violence, here in the US at least, and I know around the world as well. The beginning of the book is all these statistics to help people understand, hey, you should know there’s trauma in the workplace. But what I’ve found now is I almost don’t need to tell people that, because it has been so clear, over the last few years, almost everybody has been touched in some way through the different crises that we’ve been facing. So, what has been, I think, fortuitous is the timing that people are really needing this just because it’s been so clear. But the reality is that these traumas have always been in our workplace and always will be. So what I really hope is that organizations will take this moment and recognize that they have to develop these skills that will help them get through this moment and also be prepared for whatever else is coming down the lane.

Henry Suryawirawan: Thank you so much for sharing your story. First of all, I think I really need to appreciate your effort in writing this book, because I think it’s not easy to deal in such situations. I think you have dealt with so many difficult, traumatic experience, things like even Boston Marathon bombing, the Me Too movement, and what other terrorism that you have to deal with, right? So having someone who is an expert in dealing with this, and giving us the basics, the advice, tips, how we can actually deal with such situations, I think, is going to be really helpful. So really thankful for your effort in writing the book.

[00:10:50] Trauma in the Workplace

Henry Suryawirawan: We have been talking about the traumatic experience. So for people who are probably associating trauma with something like a childhood, past trauma, or fear, maybe you can clarify a little bit what do you mean by traumatic experience at the workplace?

Katharine Manning: Absolutely. The definition of trauma that I use is a very practical one and focused on the work that I do, which is trauma in the workplace. So what I use is a somewhat slimmed down version of the definition of trauma from the US SAMHSA, Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration. And that definition is a psychological injury that affects performance.

So just to unpack that a little bit. There are other definitions of trauma where they look at a list of events and they say trauma is when you have experienced one of these events. I don’t like using that definition, because we are all so different and we can respond so differently to the same event. Just speaking personally, when my father passed away, I was in my late twenties, and at the time I was working at a big law firm. I took maybe a day off and then I came back to work, and all day long people were coming up to me and saying, “Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. This is so awful. I can’t even believe you’re here. Please go home. You must be devastated”. The reality is I hadn’t seen my father in many years. He’s not the person who raised me, and I had a wonderful childhood, but not with him. While it was sad that he died, I didn’t feel that sense of devastation that maybe somebody who had lost a parent who raised them might have felt. So, for me, all of those expressions of, “Oh, I’m so sorry,” just made me feel kind of bad and like I was reacting wrong. So, I think the key is just to see the person in front of you and what they need, and not judge based on what they’ve experienced. Whether you think they are in trauma, just really analyze what it is that the person in front of you is going through and do they need support.

And then the other piece of it is, it’s an injury that affects your performance. This is the workplace, so we don’t need managers going in and sitting down and saying, “Oh my gosh. So I understand you’ve been through something really difficult. Why don’t you tell me about it?” Again, you’re not the therapist. The issue is, is this something that’s affecting you and your ability to do the things that you want to do? Are you struggling to keep up with your deadlines, to pay attention in meetings? Are you having difficulty managing your workload and the ways that you want to be at work? Maybe it’s affecting your communication, for instance. That’s another common thing that can happen. People are maybe more short-tempered, for instance. So, what we’re looking for are those kinds of traumas that are affecting people’s ability to perform in the way that they need to perform in the workplace. And those are the issues that we want to figure out how to address in a supportive way so that people can continue to thrive and do their jobs well.

Henry Suryawirawan: I really like your simple definition. So it’s like a psychological injury that affects performance. Psychological injury means it could be anything that affects maybe mental health or mental wellbeing. So, I guess, these days we experience a lot of situations, be it from pandemic, economical situations like inflation, high interest rates, and layoffs. Massive layoffs happening in the past few weeks. And you quoted in the book, if we work with people, we are actually working with people in trauma. So, like everyone has this kind of a traumatic experience. I think nobody these days has been immune to such situation, right? I think everyone has their own story, and I think it’s very important to quote some statistics, which you also quoted in the book, so I’ll just read it here. The percentage of those who suffer from anxiety is increasing at an alarming pace, especially these days, particularly young people. And suicide rates have also gone up 30%. And recently, yeah, we also have gone through pandemic situations, which might affect a lot of families. So I think, yeah, these things is definitely real and we have to be able to somehow cope with it.

[00:14:47] Impact of Trauma

Henry Suryawirawan: So you mentioned things about affecting performance. Maybe for managers who probably know there are people who are not performing based on their capability. What will be some impact that you can start noticing whether people have trauma?

Katharine Manning: I think some of the things that managers should be looking out for are changes in people’s behavior. I remember I spoke once with a CEO who told me about one of their top performers. It was a guy who was the head of sales for the organization, and he had always been somebody that they could rely on. He was really kind of part of the backbone of the company. And then one day, his performance just fell off a cliff. He started showing up late, missing deadlines, zoning out in meetings where he normally would’ve been very engaged and on top of things. He was really gone. The CEO recounted to me that they were thinking they had to fire him, because they thought we can’t have somebody in this position who is not up to the task. This is a really important role. But finally, they said, well, maybe we should just talk to him and see what he has to say for himself. When they had that conversation, the man disclosed that his wife was dying, and he hadn’t wanted to bring it up, because he thought it wasn’t appropriate to talk about that kind of thing in the workplace. But once they knew that, they were able to get some supports around him. The other thing that was amazing is even before those supports were in place, the man’s performance completely turned around.

The reason for that is there was so much stress, right? He’s already got the stress of the job and they can’t take that away. There’s the stress of his wife dying and they can’t take that away. But then on top of that, there’s this third kind of stress, which is the stress about what is work going to say about the fact that I’m struggling with this issue and they were able to take that away. And because they took away that third source of stress, he was really able to focus on the first two, and that really affected his performance immediately.

So I think that’s the main thing is noticing changes in somebody’s behavior if suddenly they are much less engaged, they’re taking a lot of days off. Sometimes people will tell you, and that’s really helpful when they do. But if they are not doing it, it can be worthwhile to just do a quick check-in. So maybe you have a regular staff meeting and you notice, gosh, James is not really participating. You know, normally he’s like laughing with everybody else and offering up suggestions or questions, and he barely said a word this time. So then maybe just quickly afterward, like, “Hey James, just wanted to check in. See how things are going? I noticed you were a little quiet in that meeting.” Now that can do a few really good things. One is it shows him that you care and gives him an opportunity, if maybe like this guy who was the head of sales, he feels uncomfortable talking about something, afraid that maybe people don’t want to hear it. You’ve kind of opened that door and allowed him to express it if he wants to. Even if he doesn’t want to, he now knows that you are somebody that he could go to whenever he is ready, if he gets there.

And then finally, one of the most fascinating pieces of research that I came across in the last year showed that even where James is fine, it’s still helpful to ask that question. They trust you more. They feel closer to you. When you’re willing to ask that question, “Are you doing okay?” Even if they are, even if they were totally fine, there was nothing wrong. And he is like, “Ah, I just was up late playing video games. I’m just a little tired today”. Just that question really builds trust, in particular where it’s a manager asking it. That really demonstrates to people that you are a trustworthy person. A leader that they want to rely on. So it’s a really, really helpful thing to do. Even where you’re wrong.

Henry Suryawirawan: So I think for managers out there who probably notice your people behaving differently. First, maybe it’s the loss of productivity. Second is they are not much involved as they are used to. So you call this absenteeism. And also maybe if they’re thinking of quitting or maybe they’re just not performing as what they used to do before that. So I think you also touch on an important point. Sometimes when people are in a stressful situation, not just stress with the workload, stress about personal, but they also stress, how can I share this situation that I’m dealing with? Because sometimes they don’t have trust, or they don’t know if they share something, whether someone will have a bad stigma about you telling that story. So I think having the trust, I mean, the go-to person to share this information, I think it’s also very important. And that’s why when you say about check in or just asking the person, “Hey, are you doing okay?” I think that also builds trust, right?

[00:19:29] Showing Trust

Henry Suryawirawan: So maybe if you can share a little bit more about this trust. How can a manager show that they are trustworthy for people who are in this situation? Is there any kind of tips that you want to share with us?

Katharine Manning: Absolutely. First and foremost is make sure that you respond well when people do come forward. So when somebody has that conversation of my spouse is very ill, that kind of conversation, and “Hey, I just want you to know I might be taking more time off in the coming weeks”. A few things are, one, how you respond in the moment, and that’s the five steps to an empathetic response to trauma on the job. So make sure that you are responding in an empathetic way in that moment. That’s going to help both that individual, but also everybody else that is observing this. Some people are going to talk about it with their colleagues and friends, you know, “Hey, listen. He was really, really great”.

There was a guy that I worked with at the Justice Department whose job was investigating crimes on a Native American reservation. When he first took the job, they said to him, “Oh, like, every now and then you’ll get something serious like a fight, an assault, but for the most part it’s like speeding and drunken disorderly conduct. There’s really nothing much going on. Maybe once in a really long time you’d get something like a sexual assault”. One of the first things he did was investigate a cold case, a really old one, that had been unsolved. A claimed sexual assault. He talked to the victim. He talked to everybody he could find, any witnesses. He gathered as much information as he could. Ultimately, he said, I can’t do anything about this. It’s too old. There’s no way to prosecute it. But he explained that to the victim, “Here’s why I can’t. You know, if anything else comes up, please let me know. I’m still open to it. But just understand. Here’s everything we’ve done and I’m so sorry for what you went through, and we’re not going to be able to take it forward”. That year, he had seven sexual assault trials after them telling him you’re not going to have any for, like, maybe one in seven years. He had seven in one year. And the reason was because that victim went and told all her friends he is trustworthy. He is willing to take you seriously. He will listen to you, and he will provide you support through this process. So it’s like everybody came out of the woodwork once they knew that he was somebody that they could trust.

I think the same thing happens in the workplace. When somebody comes forward with, “I feel a little uncomfortable about the way that person talks. He’s using language that makes me uncomfortable”. If you take that seriously and you acknowledge, “Yes, I hear what you’re saying, and I’m sorry about that, and let’s figure out what we can do”. That moment where you’re taking it seriously is going to have ripple effects through the entire team, because now other people will be willing to share their stories with you as well, and you’ll uncover a lot of the challenges. And I know sometimes people say, “Well, I don’t necessarily want to hear all this stuff”. But the reality is those issues are happening whether you know about them or not, and they’re already affecting your engagement, productivity, creativity. All of the things on your team are already being affected by those unresolved, untalked about issues. So much better to bring them out in the open where they can be dealt with. The goal is not a quiet morning. It’s a healthy team. So that’s one is make sure you’re responding well when people come forward.

The other thing is have supports available and talk about them a lot. A lot of teams have done just amazing things in the recent years in terms of coming up with great ways to support people who are struggling. Everything from mental health days to miscarriage leave, to transgender medical support or providing mental health resources that are culturally specific. So if you want somebody of your own cultural background to talk to, you can get it. There’s just been some incredible things that people have done, and that’s amazing. But they’re only helpful if people know about them. If you have a fantastic policy to support people who are experiencing violence in their intimate relationship, that’s only going to be helpful if the people who need it know that it’s there. And so, you have to talk about it widely because you have no idea who needs it. And you have to talk about it repeatedly, because you may mention it the first time it comes out, and maybe there’s somebody on your team who at the time doesn’t need it. It goes right over her head. She’s not paying any attention. But then two years later, boy, she really needs that. So if you’ve only mentioned it the one time, she’s not going to even be aware. So you have to make sure that you are talking about these supports widely and repeatedly.

And then the final thing, I think, in terms of leaders making it clear that it’s okay to talk about these issues is you kind of have to walk the walk. You have to be willing to talk about these issues yourself. I have a friend who is the Head of Ethics at Walmart. Giant global company, Fortune number one company in the world. She is a black woman, and she had an experience where she was traveling for the company to do an investigation. She flew into this other city very late at night. She went to check in and the person gave her the room and she went up to the room and it was terrible. Like dripping in the corner, wallpaper peeling. It was really musty, like just gross. And so, she went back down to the front desk and said, “You know, this room is in really awful shape. Is there any other room available in the hotel?” And the man at the front desk said, “No. This is the very last room that we have”. And she thought, well, that’s kind of strange. It’s not like that crowded a city, and it’s a weeknight, but okay, fine. So she went. She spent a very uncomfortable night there. Leaving early the next morning to go to her meetings. As she was walking out, she noticed that there was a black woman at the front desk and she thought, “I’m just going to ask”. So she went, and she said, “Were you all full last night?” And the woman said, “No, we had plenty of rooms available”. My friend said, “Ah, yeah, interesting. Cause I was told that you didn’t”. The woman said, “Well, what room were you put in?” And she told her and the woman said, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. That’s awful. No, we had plenty of other places.” And she said, “So who was it who told you that we were full?” And my friend described the man, and she said, “That’s our manager. He’s the head of the hotel”.

So my friend just thought, well, this is just something that happens, you know. She certainly experienced a lot of racism in her life. It wasn’t something that she was going to allow to kind of knock her off her game all day, and she just kind of filed it away. It wasn’t something that she really thought about. But then a couple weeks later, she was talking to her boss, and he said to her, “Gosh, I’ve just found out that some of our associates feel uncomfortable in certain cities.” And she said because of their race, and she said, “Well, it’s not a surprise and here’s something that happened to me”. And he said, “I’m so horrified that happened to you. That is awful”. He instantly went and put that hotel on their “do not stay at” company wide. Like, that hotel is off the list. They are not allowed to stay there anymore. He called the manager and told him why, and he asked my friend, would you be willing to share your story on a big call with all of our people who do these investigations around the world? And she said, “Sure, yeah, I’d be happy to”.

Now think about the difference that makes when you have the person who is the Head of Ethics for the entire company saying, not only it’s important to bring these issues forward. We want you to talk about the bias that you’re experiencing. It’s important to say that, right? We want to hear about it. But then, think about the impact when she’s able to say, “I’ve experienced bias myself and when I told the company about it, here’s what they did”. That’s going to have so much more power than just saying it alone. It’s one thing to say, oh, we have great mental health resources available in the company, and they’re free and they’re confidential. It’s another thing to say, we have great mental health resources available in the company. They’re free, they’re confidential, and they really helped me when I needed it. So this is the, I think, crucial piece of leadership is recognizing that it’s not enough just to tell other people that it’s okay. We have to be willing to model that ourselves.

Henry Suryawirawan: Thank you for sharing such great examples. Stories from the real world, and how much impact it made if we handle this kind of situations well. So especially for managers, right? I think we are not trained, maybe in the school, maybe in the university or in a previous workplace, but sometimes when it happens, we are struggling, like, okay, how should I deal with this? And I think your first tip is actually to respond well if you see this kind of traumatic experience in the workplace. I think that’s for manager, right? Because sometimes there are managers who want to avoid difficult conversations or difficult situations, simply because, yeah, they just never navigate that before. And I think the first tip here is like, try to respond well. Ignoring the problem will not make things better. The person themselves will probably not get better by themselves. So having that options for the managers to talk with the person will actually help.

[00:28:35] Avoid Problem Solving

Henry Suryawirawan: And I think one other important thing is that you mentioned the manager is not there to be like a psychiatrist, a psychologist, to help fix the problem. So maybe tell us more about this. Because some managers want to be a problem solver, right? They always want to find solutions, but maybe this is not a good idea in this situation. So maybe tell us more how managers should react not as a problem solver.

Katharine Manning: Yeah, absolutely. It is tempting. Often the ways that we became managers, the ways that we became leaders, is by being really good problem solvers. And so, we have learned to do it almost instinctively. So somebody comes in and says, “I have a problem”, and your brain is instantly going to, how do I solve this? Or at least reframe it, so it seems a little better.

But the reality is, what people want in these moments is somebody to listen to and acknowledge them. So when somebody comes to you and says, for instance, my spouse is very sick. Yes, it’s important that they understand about leave that’s available to them. Before you get there and sharing that, you first have to let them know that you heard them. So just say something like, “I’m so sorry”, or “Thanks for letting me know”, or “That sounds really hard”. So just something that shows them that you heard them and it’s incredible, Henry. I hope that people do try this because you can almost watch it happen, like their shoulders will drop. You just see this sense of calm come over them, like, “Oh good. You heard me”.

One of my favorite quotes is people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Just letting them know I care, I hear you, I acknowledge that you’re going through something hard, is often the most helpful thing that we can do. Especially, I would say, for people who are leaders. When leaders, in particular, people that are viewed as being in positions of authority, are supportive and show people that they’re believed, it really makes a tremendous difference in their healing.

Henry Suryawirawan: So thanks for sharing this. I was myself trying to be a problem solver when people came with this kind of situations. I must also say it’s a wrong thing. Don’t do that consciously. So first is just listen, acknowledge. If you have some tips, some support, maybe you can share. But yeah, don’t try to solve their problems, because some of these probably are difficult, and maybe only professionals are able to help. So we don’t want to worsen the situation as well by giving the wrong tips, or worse, it’s like triggering their emotions further. They will spiral to the worst situation. So thanks for sharing these tips.

[00:31:07] Empathy

Henry Suryawirawan: Your title of the book actually mentioned about empathetic workplace. So the keyword here is empathy. What kind of things that probably you would suggest to managers here to actually improve their empathy? Because I think one of the most important skills when handling this situation is actually to have empathy. So maybe if you can share a little bit more about empathy.

Katharine Manning: Absolutely. So one of the things, I think, is so essential to empathy is curiosity. Just a willingness to observe and get curious about what’s going on. So imagine you’re in your regular staff meeting and you ask David about a project that he’s working on. But you notice as soon as David starts talking, Jill and Jessica look at each other. Like, just notice that, and then curious, right? Like, I wonder why? What’s going on there? Maybe it’s just one of them has a crush on him or something completely irrelevant. Or maybe it’s that one of them is actually the one doing the work that David is taking credit for, or one of them is frustrated that she was supposed to be on the team doing it and David is cutting her out. Or maybe it’s that they know that David is lying to you about what he’s saying that he’s gotten done on this project already. Just notice that and get curious. So I think that’s one of the keys for any kind of managers and any kind of leadership position is just being willing to watch what’s going on around you.

You can practice that in non-work situations. Go out to a restaurant and just observe a family sitting at the next table and notice who does a lot of the talking and who doesn’t. Notice one of the kids is really acting out and get curious about why. Maybe she’s jealous of her brother about something. Just start to observe behaviors of people around you and get curious about what’s going on.

And then the next thing is to take the step of asking. So you’ve observed this is what’s going on in the meetings. So now is a good time to maybe follow up with Jessica or Jill and ask an open-ended question. Just one-on-one, maybe at a weekly check-in or something like that, or an easy conversation. “Hey, Jill. I noticed in the staff meeting when David started talking, you and Jessica were kind of looking at each other. I just wanted to see is there anything going on? What’s going on with that?” Just open-ended question and then listen. And listen to understand. Not to tell them why they’re wrong or explain how to solve the problem. Just listen to understand. So I feel like if you can just work on those few skills, just practice them over the next couple of weeks. Observe and then ask and listen.

Other things that can be really helpful, I think, for leaders in terms of building up empathy are to educate yourself. All of us have teams filled with people who have very different backgrounds from our own. We don’t know much about the life experiences of the people that we are working with every day. So another good thing to do is start to educate yourself. If there’s somebody on your team, for instance, who has a disability that you don’t know much about, learn a little bit about it. There’s lots of great information. Everything from TV shows to movies to podcast, blog posts. A million different ways to learn more. So educate yourself a little bit about different backgrounds and experiences just so you can know a little bit about it. Maybe somebody is of a religion that you don’t know much about.

That’s something that happened on one of my teams. There was a woman who was of a religion where they didn’t celebrate holidays. I mean, I worried about this for longer than I should have. I usually gave people presents at the end of the year, and I thought, what do I do? Like, do I not give her a present but give everybody else one? Which seems offensive. Or do I give her one even though I know she doesn’t celebrate a holiday? And like, maybe that’s the offensive thing. So I’ve really struggled with this for so long. I finally did a little bit of research on it, but it didn’t feel like it gave me the answer. So then the key was, I just went and asked her. And I said, “Hey listen, this is my usual practice. I don’t know what would be appropriate for you. How would you like me to handle it?” And she said, “Well, if it’s a Christmas present, I don’t want that. But if it’s just a gift to acknowledge all the work that I’ve done over the year, well, that would certainly be welcome.” And I thought, “Oh, that’s not that hard. I don’t know why it was so hard for me to think of that!” But I feel like I’m so glad that she was able to tell me that. That year, you know, I gave plants out. Some people got a red one, if they celebrated Christmas. Some people got a blue ribbon, if they celebrated Hanukkah. She just got a white ribbon and a general thank you note. It was not hard to do, but I had to be willing to ask and learn.

So I think that’s the final key in terms of empathy, is just make the effort to really try to understand people, and not just their cultural backgrounds either. Learn about what sports they’re into. What do they do in their spare time? Have easy connection conversations, just learn about who they are. Those little connections that we make over just silly things, like, oh, you like cats. You like crossword puzzles. Those little silly connections can help so much. In particular, later on, when something is challenging, you know you’re going to have hard conversation with somebody. If you have that solid foundation of a lot of easygoing conversations already, it’ll make the harder ones a lot easier too.

Henry Suryawirawan: Thanks for sharing your funny story on how to deal with these situations. So I think the last part here, educate yourself is really important because nowadays we work in a remote team setup, or maybe people with a lot of diversity, right? Be it cultural, religion, sexual orientation, whatever that is. So I think sometimes if we haven’t experienced it, we are completely clueless. Sometimes you can research on the internet or even ask a few person about it.

I just want to add one more thing. Also maybe to empathize with ourselves, right? So when you talk about observing, maybe sometimes you can also observe our own behavior. Things like our breath, our five senses, which I like when you mentioned in the book. Seeing whether you actually also experiencing the same kind of stressful situation or burnout, and maybe you also need help yourself and talk to somebody who can probably help you.

[00:37:17] The LASER Method

Henry Suryawirawan: Maybe let’s go to the important thing that you mentioned in the book, the LASER method, the five steps to deal with this situation. So maybe if you can explain what is LASER method?

Katharine Manning: Absolutely. So, as I mentioned earlier, I had this moment of frustration back in 2018, where I thought we were asking all of these survivors to share their stories as part of Me Too. But not recognizing that you have to respond in a certain way when somebody shares a story with you. So that’s really what got me thinking about how I think people should respond.

I came up with an acronym for it in part because I spent so many years in government. I just think in acronyms at this point. But also partly because I know, as you were just talking about, Henry, when somebody comes to you with something heavy, you know, they’re in a crisis. It’s stressful. Like it causes us to maybe feel a little bit elevated. I’m afraid I’m not going to handle it right. I don’t know what to do. So it can be helpful to have just a little guidepost to follow. And I will say I have had a lot of luck, in particular, with people in the tech space responding really well.

I spoke with this guy once. He’s a Chief Technology Officer, and he’s probably in his early thirties and he said, “You know, I’ve never dealt with any trauma in my life”. He’s like, “I’m still married. My parents are still married. I haven’t even had a like significant breakup. My grandparents are still alive. Like I have, I’ve had like no trauma in my life”. But what he was doing, he had this great project where he had developed an algorithm that could search out news stories about anti-Asian hate here in the US, which is really skyrocketing through the pandemic. What he was doing was reaching out. He would find the victims and he would send them an email and say, “I understand you’ve been the victim of this horrific crime, and there are supports available. If you want, reach out. Here’s how to reach me and I’ll share them with you.” But he thought, I don’t know how to have those conversations. I don’t know what to do.

So we talked about it. We talked him through LASER. He read the book and he called me about a month later, and he said, “You know, I got to tell you. I reached out to somebody who had been a victim of a hate crime. A neighbor had been driving by her house and spraying paint gun at it. So it was this real feeling of not safe in her own home. Her neighbors are attacking her. I mean, that’s a really scary, awful feeling. And he said he talked to her for about an hour, and he walked through the LASER technique with her. He said at the end of it, she said, “You know, I’ve spoken to the police and prosecutors. I’ve talked to journalists, and nobody has made me feel heard and understood like you did”. He was so proud of himself, and I was proud of him, too. What an amazing thing, right? I raised this just to say, if you follow it, it really does work and it’s not that hard. So I’ll talk you through it now.

So step one of LASER is Listen. What I say with listening is, it’s active listening. So it’s not just be quiet and let the person talk. It’s create the circumstances where the person feels comfortable opening up. One way to do that is ask questions, ask open-ended questions. How are you doing? Where did you go next? What’s happening now? Open-ended questions let people know that we want to hear from them. And then you don’t just sit there silently, of course, you nod. You say, “Aha. Yes”. You encourage them to go on. Another one of my favorite active listening techniques is looping, which is where you just say back a few of the words that the person just said. So maybe they say, “I’m just so angry about everything my father is going through right now”. And you say, “Gosh, you must be so angry about everything your father is going through right now”. It sounds like a trick. You’re literally just mimicking the same words back. But in my experience, people are like, “Ah, yes, finally somebody understands me”. I think the key is that we’re using the exact same words. So angry is a little different than frustrated or upset. When we use their words, we demonstrate, first of all, that we’re listening cause we couldn’t use their words if we weren’t. But it’s also really validating.

Another thing to remember, as you talked about a little bit earlier, is as we are listening, we have to be managing our own response. Sometimes when we are in that stressful moment of, gosh, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to support this person, or what they’re talking about is really hard, and I feel scared for them, or sad for them, or angry for them, we start to have our own emotional reactions. We just have to be mindful of that, keep breathing through it.

Another technique that I really like is engage one of your five senses. So, notice the smell of coffee in the next room, or look around the room and count a few, you know, three blue things that you see, or put your hand on the desk in front of you and notice does it feel smooth or rough. One of those techniques can really ground you in the present moment and help you feel a little bit calmer as you’re hearing that story. Helps you to stay present. So that was all step one.

Step two is Acknowledge. We talked about this a little bit earlier, but it’s this idea that when they finish talking, you know it’s great that you’ve been listening the whole time and that’s really important. But they also need to feel heard. It’s like a second piece of it is making sure they feel heard. That can be just a simple statement of, thank you for letting me know that, and I’m sorry for everything you’re going through. The key is to avoid statements that either deny or distract from what they’ve shared with you. So a denial is something like, oh, I’m sure it’s all going to be fine, or it’s probably not as bad as you think. A distraction is something like, oh, a friend of mine went through something similar, so let me tell you about what he did and how he was just fine. A distraction can also be, well, really, you just need to focus on your kids right now, or you have to make sure you’re taking care of yourself. What are you doing to take care of yourself? Those are all maybe important things to share. Down the line, it may be great to talk with them about how they’re taking care of themselves, but in that moment, what they mostly need is just to feel heard. So make sure you don’t skip that step because, I will say, every time I’ve seen one of these conversations start to go badly, it’s been because the person needs more acknowledgement. So acknowledge what they’ve shared.

And then the third step is Share information. This can be any information you have about the incident. If this is something, for instance, like an incident of workplace violence. People are going to have a lot of questions about what happened? Who was involved? Has the police been called? There’re going to be a lot of questions. So you can share any information that you have. That’s a great thing to share. Sometimes, though, you don’t have any information to share. This person coming to you is the first time you’ve heard anything about this. There’s still other types of information you can share. So you can share process information. Here’s what happens next. Here’s who’s involved in these types of investigations. You can share values information. So things like our organization takes employee safety very seriously. We have no tolerance for bullying at our school. That kind of statement, a value statement, can be very helpful as well. And then finally, even sharing what you don’t know but hope to learn. So say, I don’t actually know how these complaints are handled, but I’ll find out and get back to you. When you admit that you don’t know the answer, it actually builds trust. It shows that you’re somebody who’s not going to pretend that you know more than you do. So even sharing that you don’t know the answer can be helpful.

And then the fourth step is Empower. This step is about recognizing that this person is going to go on after this conversation, and they have a whole path ahead of them, of their own healing from this incident or experience. We can’t walk that path for them. We have to recognize that they’re going to go on. They’re going to take the steps that they need for healing. We can’t take that away from them, but we can give them some tools to take with them. And those tools can be some of the things we talked about earlier, like having mental health supports around, having a leave policy for domestic violence is a great thing to have. So letting people know that there are supports out there and then letting them decide whether to access them. It can be tempting, particularly if you are a very empathetic person or a real problem solver, to say not just, “Here is the support out there”, but also, “Let me set up that appointment for you and then make sure that you went. In fact, I’ll drive you to the appointment”. Just try to put a reign on that. Remember, your goal is just to give them tools and let them decide what steps they want to take on their own. That’s why it’s called Empower. You’re giving them those tools and let them take those steps themselves.

And then the final step is Return. So we’ve done Listen, Acknowledge, Share, Empower, and now we’re on Return. And return is, really, it’s kind of two facets of it. The first is literally returning to the person to check in and let them know that you’re still a resource. Answer any additional questions. I actually like to calendar that, because you’ll forget even if you think this was such an important conversation. Of course, I won’t forget everything he’s going through. You will. You get busy. We all get busy. So I will just put it on my calendar two weeks as circle back. I do CB James Ray. What’s going on with his dad? And then I just send him a quick email or text or message. Letting him know I’m thinking of him. Hope everything’s okay with his dad. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. So just quick check in. It really means a lot to people.

And then finally returning to yourself. Recognizing that this is hard. There have been a lot of statistics lately on leadership fatigue, that leading through this time has been really hard and taking a toll on people. And part of that, I think, comes from the fact that we’re trying so hard to support people, our teams, through these really challenging experiences. We have to take care of ourselves along the way, or we’re not going to be any good for anybody else who needs us. So my best advice on that, and this is speaking of somebody who’s not always been very good at self care. I think that you should try to have a daily reset to something that you do every day that’s just about taking care of you. Burnout, compassion fatigue is one of those things that sneaks up on you over time. So it’s one of those areas where the best defense is a good offense. You have to affirmatively protect yourself from burnout. So a daily reset could be something like going for a walk every day at lunch or playing the piano for 30 minutes after dinner, or saying a prayer before you go to bed. Just something that you do that’s just a little reset for yourself everyday. Another great one is gratitude. Listing three things that you’re grateful for every morning can be a good one. So just something that you do every day, that’s just for you.

The second thing is lean on others. Just right now, I would challenge you. Can you think of five people that you could call when you’re having a bad day? And then once you have your five, remember to reach out to them. I think we often worry that we’re burdening people when we reach out and share the things that we’re struggling with. But I imagine that the people that you’ve named are not people that if they called you, you would feel like, oh, what a burden he is for calling me. You’d be grateful, right? And so, recognize that they feel the same way about you calling them.

Finally, know your warning signs. So by that, I mean the signs that you’re beginning to suffer from burnout. Those can be things like you’re a little bit more short-tempered than normal. Maybe a little bit more sarcastic. I’ve got to admit, Henry. One of mine is I start swearing more. I’m not somebody who swears very often. So if suddenly I start sounding like a sailor, I know that like, oh, there’s something going on with me. Another one is the things that normally are fun for you start to feel like a burden. So normally maybe you’re somebody who really enjoys cooking or drawing or anything. If suddenly that starts to feel like another thing on my to-do list, that’s often a sign that you’re beginning to suffer from burnout. And when you notice those signs, that’s an indication that you need to double down on those first two. So recommit to your self care and then also reach out to others for support.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow. Thank you for such comprehensive walkthrough of the LASER method. So let me just repeat one more time. LASER stands for Listen, Acknowledge, Share, Empower, and Return. So I just want to mention also another thing, right? So for people who are not in the probably authority situation. Even by listening and acknowledging when maybe peers or friends are trying to tell about their traumatic experience can actually be helpful. While share, empower, and maybe return, right? Sometimes, when you are in a place of authority, you can have more options to help these people. Like, for example, creating a policy to help these people. So I think listening and acknowledging, although sounds simple, but it’s actually very difficult, and it’s actually very useful to the person who conveys their traumatic experience.

So I just want to make sure that people know about this listen, acknowledge. It is really important. And I really love when you mentioned at the end about return. So many things that you mentioned about daily reset and things like that. I think the job of a manager or leader these days has become really challenging. Maybe in the VUCA world, having to deal with so many kinds of disruption, people issues as well. So I think leadership fatigue or, you also mentioned in your book, compassion fatigue. Having to be able to always show compassion is actually really difficult. So I think the key here is always have a daily reset. Try to also feel, you know, acknowledge what you’re going through. And find the support. Don’t forget that leaders also are human and we need support sometimes as well, so don’t forget about that. We are not always have to be tough.

[00:50:48] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

Henry Suryawirawan: So, Katharine, it’s been a really pleasant conversation. Really love this. I hope people also get a lot of tips and advice on how to deal with this situation, because I’m sure one day, you as a leader will face this situation. Although maybe the challenge or the level will be different. I guess everyone will have to go through this. Before I let you go, actually, I have one last question, which I always ask to all my guests. So this is something called three technical leadership wisdom. But, I mean, we can forget about the tech. So maybe, Katharine, if you can share your three versions of leadership wisdom for people to learn from you.

Katharine Manning: Absolutely. So, you know, with my background, of course, it’s going to be focused on trauma. So mine is, number one, recognize that people that you’re working with are dealing with challenges that you may have no idea about. Number two, know that the way that you support them through that challenge can have a long lasting impact on their individual wellbeing and also on the health of your team. And then, finally, take the steps to support them and always to support yourself as well as you’re doing so.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow! Really beautiful. Thanks for sharing this wisdom. Very, very concise, but it’s really meaningful.

So, Katharine, if people want to learn more about you or maybe follow up on this conversation, is there a place where they can reach out or find you online?

Katharine Manning: Yeah, absolutely! So, I’m probably most active on LinkedIn. And it’s just Katharine Manning. Katharine is spelled k-a-t-h-a-r-i-n-e. It’s a little unusual, a-r-i-n-e. So LinkedIn, please reach out. I would love to connect with people there. You can also go to KatharineManning.com and see all of the different ways to get in touch with me through my website.

Henry Suryawirawan: Sure, I’ll make sure to have that in the show notes as well. So, Katharine, thank you so much for your time. Really love this conversation and I hope it can help so many leaders out there who’re faced with this situation. So thanks again for that.

Katharine Manning: Thank you.

– End –