Respect in the Workplace
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Respect in the workplace [clapping] Andre Koen: If you can hear my voice, clap four times. [four claps] That always works a little better than saying, "Hey you guys! It's time to start." Audience Member: If you can count to five, clap five times. Koen: Yeah. If you can count to five, clap five times. Typically we don't have to go that far so people are pretty safe. My name is Andre Koen and I'm the cultural coordinator for Anoka County and I know that sounds like I'm Julie McCoy from "The Love Boat." [laughter] And some of you are old enough to get that joke which is a good thing, which is a good thing. A lot of times I tell the joke and they're like, "Really? Who? What?" For Anoka County I do a lot of their diversity stuff, from looking at the EEO stuff, to affirmative action stuff, to Americans with Disability Act stuff. I do a lot of training and development with them. I also do some consulting and so I end up doing the same kinds of things outside of the county for organizations such as yourself and it was so funny because someone met me in the hallway and they said, "Aren't you the guy on the neo gov commercial on our website?" And I said, "As a matter of fact, I am!" So I guess I'm famous in government.I have my own paparazzi, if you will, of government workers. And government worker paparazzi's a whole different kind of animal than that other stuff. But I don't have to tell you because I'm sure there are tons of people who love you and are asking for your autographs and your supervisor's numbers all the time! [audience laughter] So that's a little bit about me.
We're going to talk about respect in the workplace, tips for avoiding diversity scurvy and how to stop walking the diversity plank, if you will, keeping in line with our theme. I just want to make sure everyone got a copy of the handout. If you don't I have other copies. [murmuring from audience] So just make sure that you get that.
Just want to talk a little bit about the outcomes of the session. One is to create a positive impact on others with words and actions. So how do we create supportive environments for folks, both with our words and with our actions.
Understanding how we can help to self-monitor the respect that is displayed in all ways that we communicate. Understand the triggers and the hot buttons that we have for ourselves that don't necessarily allow us sometimes to be open to respect in the work place, and also practice self-restraint and anger management skills in responding to potential conflicts. And I know that sounds really heady and that kind of stuff. Hopefully we'll approach it in some ways that are different and unique and actually don't sound as boring as those outcomes.
But when you submit to do these kinds of proposals, that's the kind of language they want to hear, all right. They don't want to hear that this is going to be fun and engaging and all that kind of stuff. They just want to know what are those outcomes, all right?
So before we start, I was a high school student and I may have not been the best high school student, I mean high school teacher, because I taught to the test. I was one of those teachers who taught to the test and I would always give pop quizzes on Fridays.
[audience murmurs]
Koen: Pop quizzes on Fridays, right. Most of my students didn't pick up on that, didn't quite, "Man! We got another pop quiz." And I'm like, "Yeah! Every Friday!" [laughter] Right? So not only were they surprised by the pop quiz, they were also surprised that they actually knew stuff on the pop quiz. They were surprised by that. And why do you think that they knew the answers to the questions on the pop quiz that they had every Friday? Because I taught it to them, right? I told them. I taught them all this stuff and then I gave them a pop quiz.So in that same vein, I'm going to do the same with you. I'm going to give you a pop quiz, but in order for me to live up to my standards of teaching I must first give you what?
Audience Member: The answers. Koen: The answers. All right? I have to give you the answers. So the answers go like this. Fantastic! Terrific! Great! All day long! Huh! [woman laughs] That's the answer. [laughter] All right? So please stand up. [audience murmurs and stands] So the answer goes like this: Audience Members: Fantastic. Terrific. Great. All day long. Huh! Koen: All right, now, safety first... [laughter] If you've got a back problem, safety first. So that is the answer and the question is: Metropolitan Transportation Counsel, how do you feel! Audience Member: Fantastic. Terrific. Great. [laughter] All day long. Huh! [laughter] Koen: OK, it is very clear that there are Lutherans in the room. [audience laughter] I'm an evangelical. I'm excitable and all that kind of stuff and Lutherans are exactly the same--except they contain all that excitement, all right? So what I'd like for you to do is, I'd like for you to pretend to be, to be one of these excited evangelical type people and express your emotions. All right? So I ask the question again, how do you feel? Audience Member: Fantastic, terrific, great, all day long. Huh! Koen: All right, good job! Whoa, I heard that "huh!" [laughter] Have a seat please. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Give yourself a hand for that. [applause] You guys really got into that "Huh!" part. [laughs] He's like, "Yeah!" Right? So how many people felt a little bit silly or goofy doing that particular activity? Be honest. Cool, cool, cool. I like to do that because that mirrors, often times, how our staffs feel about some of the mandates that are given to us that we have to give to them. [laughter] I think understanding that feeling keeps us humble. At least it keeps me humble. And so I get to focus on...Sometimes I'm asking my staff to do things that they don't understand or they think are goofy or things that aren't usually what they usually do when they go to workshops or come to work. I'm asking them to do new and different things and so I try to put myself in their shoes. Thank you for participating in that little game for me.We're going to talk a lot about human motivation. There are some very specific ways that I think people get motivated to do things. All right? Are there any fishermen in here? Any people who fish? Sports fisherman? OK. When you go out and fish, how is it that fish get caught?
Audience Members: Bait. Koen: Bait, OK. So do you go out to the fish and you say, "Fish, get on my hook!" Do you say that? Audience Member: You can say that. Koen: You can say it. [laughter] And when you say it what happens? Audience Member: Nothing. Koen: Nothing. So a good fisherman knows that if you want that fish to get on your hook you must have the right what? Audience Members: Bait. Koen: Bait or lure. And ultimately, ultimately, how does the fish get on your hook? Audience Member: Dumb luck. [laughter] Koen: What's that? Audience Member: Dumb luck! [laughter] Koen: Dumb luck, OK. [laughter] Audience Member: He bites it. Koen: What's that? Audience Member: He bites it. Koen: He bites it. Which means that he wants...? Audience Member: The bait. Koen: The bait. Right? And I like to think about that in terms of our human relationships particularly when we're in the work place. Are we offering people things that they really want in order to get things done. I'll expand on that in just a little bit. We understand that there is your left hemisphere and your right hemisphere and that your left hemisphere controls your right hand, logic, facts, numbers and language. That is the logical side of your brain. And then there's the right hemisphere which is your left hand. It handles art, imagination, it looks at 3D and music and that is the kind of emotional part of the brain. So we have the logic and we have the emotion.We have the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere and a lot of times people talk about those two hemispheres as if they are separate brains. What I'd like to offer is that they are in fact one brain that is complimentary. Some of us are more right hemisphere dominant and others are more left hemisphere dominant, but it's that combination when we bring those two together, we get something called personality. We get our individual personalities. We can have twins with the same genetic make up, but because of this make up in their brain they get different personalities.
So let's keep going. I'm going to show a video and maybe you've seen this before. [Baby crying] [audience laughter] [sounds of baby crying then not crying, continued laughter]
All right. What's obviously happening in this video clip?
Audience Member: It's a training session. Koen: It's a training session. OK. Speak more about that. Audience Member: The child is trying to train its mother. Koen: The child is trying to train its mother. OK, other thoughts? What do you notice what's happening or do you see in this... Audience Member: He wants attention. Koen: He wants attention. The child wants attention. What else? Audience Member: The mom could be trying to train the child. Koen: OK, the mom could be trying to train the child. Audience Member: But it's not going to work. Koen: It's not gonna work. OK, what else? Audience Member: The child [inaudible 13:03] Koen: We can see the what? Of what's going on with the child. The child is falling out. We see him falling out. Can we make the assumption that this probably is not the first time this has happened? [laughter]Can we make the assumption that this is probably not the 17th time this has happened? And the interesting thing is, and it was interesting that you brought out that the child was trying to train the parents, it is very clear that the child has been successful in training the parents. Because obviously, the child knows that if I fall out, I will get whatever it is that I want. You know, unfortunately, he's probably not as articulate about his emotions as he could be, so he expresses them this way. And why does he consistently do that? Why does he continually do that?
Audience Member: Worked in the past. Koen: Because it's worked in the past. And so part of our human psyche says, if it's worked in the past, so it's reasonable that it will work when? Audience Members: In the future. Koen: In the future. So when does human behavior change? Audience Member: [inaudible 14:18] Koen: When you discover that what you're doing no longer works. Now it's really interesting, because people can tell you that it doesn't work, but until it's a discovery that you had, you won't change your behavior. It's funny, smokers, my uncle Rick was a smoker for 20 years, and people would tell him, smoking is bad for you, you should stop smoking, smoking is blah blah blah. But it was until he decided that he had a revelation on what smoking was doing to him, that he stopped. So human behavior is goal-directed. We'll talk later about some of the truths about humans. The first truth is that humans can learn, change, and grow. Part of the reason that we're here and the dinosaurs aren't is this one principle. We can adapt. We can change. At any point that we as supervisors and managers stop believing this about people, it is time for us to quit our jobs. Even in the face of people consistently doing the same things. People also do what they think works, even if it doesn't. They think it works, so they continually do it. And why do they think that it works? Audience Member: [inaudible 15:51] Koen: Because it's worked in the past. Right? All human behavior is goal-directed. Everything that we do is moving us and driving us towards our goals. And part of our conversation should be about what is it that holds our goals. What is it that we want? Here's an example. So I picked this up real early. So my parents were pretty traditional parents. Their parents were extremely strict and formal, you know, yes ma'am, no ma'am, spank you if you stepped out of line, all that kind of stuff. So my parents were kind of toeing that line as well. So my parents would say, "Andre, I want you to take out the trash." So, what I knew about my parents was, if I talked back to my parents, I would get punishment for talking back. So I figured that out. So my parents would say take out the trash, and I would say stuff like, "Aw, I don't want to take out the trash." And so what did my parents do? What'd they do? Audience Member: [inaudible 17:01] Koen: They punished me. They gave me lectures. "Don't talk back to me boy!" And so we started focusing on my talking back, which meant that I didn't have to do what? Audience Members: Take out the trash. Koen: Take out the trash. Shiny object, right? And so I kept doing that, and one day that got hip to the whole thing and they were like, they said take out the trash. And I said, I don't wanna take out the trash. And my dad would say, "Boy..." And then I'm like, "Man, why do I have to take out the trash?" So I'm still trying to bait them. "Man, why do I have to take out the trash." But the whole time, I started what? Complying and taking out the trash. But I kept trying to bait them. And a lot of times what we don't understand or forget about people, is that everything that they're doing is trying to achieve some kind of goal. The last part is that attitude is a reaction to a goal. What have you been taught or have people talked about an attitude. What is an attitude? What is it?[pause]
Koen: It's a state of mind. What else? [pause] The way you react. What else is an attitude? Audience Member: Perception. Koen: It's a perception. It's what you project. And typically people talk about it being an external response to stimuli. Right? Stuff like that. What I want to offer you is something that's a little bit different in terms of how we look at attitude. All right? So, my father was my pastor. And I told you we were a kind of evangelical kind of church. Because we were the first family and all that kind of stuff, we opened up the church. So we'd open up the church on Sunday at 7:30 am. for Bible school and that stuff, and we didn't finish with cleaning up and all that kind of stuff until about 11:30 at night. So from 7:30 am to 11:30 pm We'd stop at three o'clock for chicken, not because we were black, but because chicken is delicious.[laughter]
Koen: We would be in church all day. So I'd ask my father on Friday night, say, "Dad, can I use the car?" And because my dad loves me, what does he say? Audience Members: No? Koen: No, he says, "Yes!" All right? [laughter] So I take the car out and have a good time. And I say my dad has what kind of an attitude? A good attitude. A positive attitude. All right? Consequently, what would you say about my attitude? That it's a good attitude. A positive attitude. So Sunday comes, and at one o'clock my friend Dexter calls and says, "Andre, can pick me up at the movies?" What do I know about Sunday? Church all day. I'm busy. But I'm feeling a little gutsy. So I'm going to gamble on Jesus. So I go to my dad and I'm like, "Come on, Jesus, come on, come on, come on." So I go up to my dad and I say, "Dad, can I use the car?" And what does my dad say?He says, "No." And not only does he say no, he gives me a lecture about how I'm being irresponsible about asking him for the car. So I say my dad has what kind of an attitude? A bad attitude. And he says what about my attitude? That it's a bad attitude. All right? So what is it that actually determines an attitude?
Audience Members: [inaudible 20:44] Koen: Starts with "g" and ends in "oal." Your goal determines your attitude. So when you achieve or reach your goal you have what kind of an attitude? You have a good or positive attitude. But when you don't achieve or reach your goal, you have a bad or negative attitude. So when you encounter an employee, a customer, a client--when you encounter someone with a bad attitude, what do you know for sure? They're not reaching their goal. So if you want to be helpful, or you want to help move them, you must understand what? What their goal is. All right? You have to understand what their goal is. What I'm going to do right now is, on your handout, there's a square that's broken into four other squares. What I'd like you to do is to write down one thing that you value, or one thing that is important to you, in each one of those squares. All right? So one thing that you value in each square. It could be a concept, it could be a person, a relationship. It could be something like justice or peace. One thing that you value in each one of those squares.[pause]
All right. It looks like most people have three, if not all four. It's a very low-stakes test.
[laughter]
Koen: All right. So what I'd like to do is play a game. The game is very simple. What I want you to do is to find two people who are not at your table, two people who either share or have as a value one of the things you have on your paper. All right? So I want you to find two people who are not at your table--who are not at your table--who share one of those values. [audience talks amongst themselves] Koen: Two people for each box... [audience talking] Koen: If you can hear my voice, clap once. [audience claps] If you can hear my voice, clap twice. [audience claps] If you can hear my voice, clap three times. [audience claps] If you can hear my voice, clap four times. [audience claps] If you can hear my voice, clap five times. [audience claps] [pause]So, was there anyone, as you were going around the room, were there things that you saw in someone else's paper and you said, "Oh man, I should have thought about that," or, "I wish I had one more square"? What was that?
Audience Member: Health. Koen: Health. OK. Health. OK. Anyone else? Was there something else that you were like, "Oh, I should have put that there"? OK. Was there anyone that was not able to find anybody who had anything that they could agree with or like that was on their sheet of paper? OK. Oh, really. So you weren't able to find anything that you agreed with? Audience Member: Oh, oh, agreed with, yeah, I agreed with [inaudible 26:36] . Koen: OK, that's all good. Audience Member: I agreed. Koen: OK. OK. Was there anything that you were actually surprised that you weren't able to get someone to sign on as you were going around? Audience Member: No, but I had to work really hard to find matches, because I thought of characteristics... Koen: OK. Audience Member: ...as opposed to things... Koen: OK. Audience Member: ...or family. And so I felt kind of bad that some of these people put family. I was like, I care about my family! [laughter] Koen: Oh, that's odd. So what was one of the characteristics? Audience Member: Creativity, I had. Koen: Creativity. Please raise your hand if you value creativity, even if it wasn't written on your paper. If you value creativity. OK. What was another characteristic? Audience Member: Loyalty. Koen: Loyalty. Please raise your hand if you value loyalty, even if it wasn't written on your paper. OK. Other things that folks had that you were like, "Oh, why didn't somebody sign this," or, "I couldn't find anybody to sign this"? Audience Member: I had respect. Koen: What's that? Respect. All right. Please raise your hand if you value respect even if it wasn't written on your paper. All right. Why would I take important time to do an activity like this? Audience Member: We all share values. Koen: Yeah, we all share values. And a lot of times particularly, my background and the work that I do on a regular basis is around diversity stuff. And so oftentimes, in that work, other people have done the work, and focused on how much we are dissimilar, what we don't have in common. As opposed to really looking at and honing in on the things that make us more similar and the things that we do have in common. All right? And I also would like to offer that I believe that many of those things that you wrote down probably fall in one of these three categories. Which is, the things that drive people, the things that motivate people, the reasons why we do things.And typically people want a sense of significance. In some way they want to feel like what they're doing matters, either to someone else, to themselves, or in the wider world. Right? And sometimes we get this sense of significance when it gets too obtuse, when there's too much focus on that, people become narcissistic. Right? But there's a healthy amount of significance that people want to have.
For example, in our families, there are some very specific ways that we get significance. All right? Please raise your hand if you are an oldest child. OK? Please raise your hand if you are a middle child. [indecipherable29:34] Please raise your hand if you are the youngest child. Please raise your hand if you are the only child. Significance. Those things mean things in our family systems. So we're all striving for significance.
We're also looking for a sense of belonging. We're always striving to connect with other people. Sometimes those connections are very good, and the strategies are good, but sometimes they're faulty. But we're all striving for some sense of belonging. And how is it that you belong to your family? How do you become a member of your family?
Audience Member: You're born into it. Koen: You're born into it. Right? Some of us, like myself, have wished we were born into different families. But that's what we get. We get who we're born to. Right? In terms of the workplace, how do we get this sense of belonging? Audience Member: You're hired. Koen: You're hired. You have a contract. And you say, as long as you keep paying me, I'm going to keep working. You stop paying me and what? I'm out the door. I mean, as much as I would do it for free, I won't. So you have that sense of belonging. We also look for some kind of sense of safety. The interesting thing is typically these two things, significance and belonging, offer us a sense of safety. It's funny because no matter what you do in your family they can never what? Audience Members: Fire you. Koen: Fire you. They can never kick you out of the family. You're always going to be related to Uncle Joe. No matter how crazy he is, you're always going to be related. But in the work place how do we get this sense of safety? By what? Audience Member: By rules. Koen: By rules. Yup. So rules help keep it safe as well as the fact that we perform according to those rules. All right. So those are some of the things that motivate human beings. So what I want to tell you, and this is a little bit of what's that game where you spin the wheel and the letters pop up? Wheel of Fortune. So I'm going to give you just a couple of seconds to look at this Wheel of Fortune puzzle and tell me what you think the answer is to the puzzle. [hums "Jeopardy" theme song] Oh, that's the wrong game! [laughter] All right. So what does it say? Audience Members: There is dignity and honor in being human. Koen: There is dignity and honor in being human. All right. So what is dignity? What is dignity? Audience Member: Respect. Koen: Respect. OK. Self-respect. What's dignity? Audience Member: Self-worth. Koen: Self-worth is dignity. All right. Is dignity something you have or something you get? Audience Member: Both. Koen: It's in fact both, right? So you can give dignity to folks and you can have dignity yourself. I don't know if you've seen this folks, and I know that you have now that I think about it, there's these folks throughout the city, particularly when I lived in South Minneapolis, and they're on the on-ramps and and the exit ramps and they have these signs, these cardboard signs, saying will work for whatever. Have you seen these folks? It's so funny because I give those folks stuff all the time, but guess what I don't give them? Money because if you feed stray cats they keep coming back. So I don't give them money, but what do I give them? I give them dignity. How do I do that? I make eye contact with them. I have conversations about their situation. Part of dignity says I recognize you as a living being. Dignity.Because if you don't give people dignity they'll try to take it. You would think, at least I would think, with young people's youth and their energy and their excitement for life that they would cross the street a little bit faster. [laughter] Have you ever noticed like when I'm at a stoplight or a stop sign and there's a group of teenagers, they move so slow. I thought it was because their pants were sagging so low that they couldn't move any faster, but that tends not to be the case, right?
But as soon as they get to my car, and it's funny because they will look at me, eyeball to eyeball, walking slow. Does that happen to anybody else? What are they saying? What they're saying is as an adult you don't see or recognize me or my kind any place else, but you will recognize and see me right now. You will give me dignity and I dare you to hit me. What they don't know is I don't have any points on my license and I have really good car insurance. So what is honor? What is honor?
Audience Member: It's elevating. Koen: It's elevating. Honor. It's what? Audience Member: Integrity. Koen: It's integrity. All right. Audience Member: Pride. Koen: Pride. Honor. What's that? Audience Member: It's a promise. Koen: It's like a promise. OK. All right. Senator Obama, Senator Obama, Senator Obama is downtown Chicago. And I see Senator Obama, and I call him OB. I'm like, what's up OB! So I see him and then I go over and I give him a high five and we do the fist thing he likes to do and we do the exploding fist at the end. I just gave Senator Obama respect. So give Senator Obama respect. Senator Obama becomes the highest officer in the land. President Obama. So how do I greet President Obama? What's that? I missed it. Audience Member: I said very carefully. Koen: Very carefully now, right? So yeah. What if I try to go and greet him like I would Senator Obama? If I look like this, hey what's going on? [mimics gunshot noises] . Right? Unless I was in Florida, but that's a whole other conversation. So why do I have to treat President Obama differently than I did Senator Obama? Audience Member: The honor of his position. Koen: The honor of his position. I gave Senator Obama respect. But now I have to give President Obama, honor. Right? And what we said in our society, that we will give honor to. Our parents, we'll give honor to our parents. Who else? Soldiers, service men and women. We will give honor to them, because they are fighting wars on our behalf. Right? Our grandparents, our elders, we said these are folks that we will give honor to.So, honor is respect at a high level. Please raise your hand if you can answer yes to either one of these questions. Raise your hand if you've purchased a ticket, or you've passed a test that has made you eligible to be born on this planet. As great and wonderful as we all are, none of us have brought ourselves here.
We've all accepted an invitation to be born, I don't want to think about how the invitation came, it's disgusting. [laughter] But we accepted an invitation to be here. And we're all trying to figure out what it means to be human. And it's funny, my mom and I used to talk about current events, we talk about what's going on with popular media. And now we talk about the hospital cafeteria. We talk about what's falling, failing, we talk about her heat flashes, her hormones shifting. We talk about all that kind of stuff, and it's kind of depressing, for me. Right?
So one day I stop my mom, and I say, Mom, can you stop talking about that? And then she just breaks down on me. She says, "Andre, you don't understand, I've never been 60 before!" Right?
And I look at her and say yeah, you're right. Because 59 was so different, right? But, anyway, I start analyzing myself, and I said you know what? I've never been 40 before. So, I'm trying to figure out what it means to be 40 in today's times. It was funny, someone that sent me on Facebook, they sent a conversation with Bryant Gumbel, Katie Couric, and someone else on the "Today" show. And they were discussing, and it was off-camera. Right. So they weren't willing to show, but this was like an out-take.
And they were having a discussion about this thing called the Internet. And they were... Katie was like, what is that Internet? And one of his producers was talking off-camera about the thing, and Bryant Gumbel was like, and I don't get that thing, the A with the circle around it, what is that? What is that about? He was like, this thing will never catch on. And it was just so funny. And that was like '84, or like... something like that.
But at any rate, we're all trying to figure out what it means to be in this current time. And then I looked at the work that... I looked up, I looked in the dictionary for the word human. And what I found was that human has two definitions. The first talks about being a biped, having opposable thumbs, having a big brain, a belly button. If you ever encounter someone without a belly button, be concerned.
And a human is homo sapien sapien, the ones that know that they know they exist. Right? But the other definition was that of an adjective. And what do adjectives do? They describe. So, before I go any further, I did this presentation in front of some attorneys, there was an animal rights lawyer there, and she straightened me out on a number of things, and so I have to do this caveat before we get to my next part.
So, this next part. I'm not suggesting that animals don't have feelings or emotions. I'm not suggesting that they don't have souls. I'm not suggesting that they don't have their own thoughts, I'm not suggesting that. What I am suggesting, though, is that there are ways in which human beings, I expect, human beings to interact with each other, that if my dog did, I would be surprised.
So, what are some of those ways that I expect human beings to interact with each other? That if pigeons did, I don't know.
OK, communicating with language. What else?
Audience Member: To show compassion. Koen: To show compassion. What else? Just so you know, that back table, I do see you. [laughter] All right. Anytime you want to jump in. Audience Member: Make decisions. Koen: To make decisions. What else? Audience Member: Show empathy. Koen: To show empathy. These are things that it means to be human. Now, I want you to just think about this. If you have an employee that you're giving dignity, honor, for being human. Not because they've earned it, not because they're doing something, but just because they exist. Are they more likely to comply with what you're asking, or less likely to comply with what you're asking. Audience Members: More likely. Koen: I was at a chief of police meeting the other day and we were talking about some stuff. And I shared with them one of my stories in my young career. I went to work at a residential treatment center with emotionally damaged kids. And I had the little kids. And when I say little kids, I mean, eight years old... I think they were eight to 12. And for eight to 12 year olds to be in a residential treatment center, they have to be really sick and abused. Because usually they try to get them into families, and that kind of stuff. So these kids were really severe. And I walked into the situation saying you know what, I'm going to give this a year, that was my plan. When I worked with a supervisor who understood this stuff, he said, "Look, I know you're only going to be here a year, but what kinds of things do you think you would have learned while you're here.Guess how long I ended up staying? Three additional years. I spent four years on the job, and I thought I was only going to spend one. Because my supervisor helped me to achieve this for myself and through others. All right. So, there's dignity, honor and respect. So, this is a really interesting concept, because as a high school teacher, my students would say things to me that I thought were really funny.
Like, "You have to earn my respect." And it's so funny, even with this concept, people say, "Well they should earn this. I don't just give this stuff away." And one of the things I told my students is, you can never earn respect. It can never be earned. And I'll explain why in just a second. One of the reasons we don't get respect is, we typically tell people, do as I say, not as I do. And so as supervisors, if you don't think that your employees are watching what time you come in, go out, who you're talking to, how you're talking to them, all that kind of stuff, then you are delusional.
People are constantly watching this. And the other reason that we don't get respect, is because typically what happens is people say, do this without giving an adequate reason. And the reason may be there, but not sharing that reason gets people to a place where they hear "because I said so." Even though you may have a reason, if you haven't shared that reason, they get stuck here.
Three is, people say you have to earn my respect, I'll get back to that in just a second. And number four, a lot of times people say, "It's not my responsibility for this." It's not my baby, this is somebody else's stuff. When we're working in an organization, anything and everything that happens in that organization impacts everybody.
I don't know if you've heard about this, but apparently there's some kind of economic downturn. [laughter] And that economic downturn for me, really made it clear how much we're connected together. Because when it first started happening, they said it's the poor people. They've got bad mortgages, and bought houses they couldn't afford, and didn't report their stuff, blah blah blah.
And then as it progressed, we started finding out that what, the rich people were creating these Ponzi schemes, ripping people off, said... so it's happening at both ends, and we're so connected. And it's funny, that's why I like doing that square exercise. Because you can at least find one person that you share a value with, in a way that you're connected. And lastly, what we forget is that disrespect is violence. And people say, what are you talking about, disrespect is not violence.
What is the aim of violence?
Audience Members: Control. Koen: Control. What's that? Submission? What else? Inflict harm. Violence is designed to inflict harm. When somebody is disrespected, do they go, "Oh, thank you, I appreciate that!" Is that what happens? No. When they're disrespected, what do they feel? Like they've been harmed. So, violence is harm, and one of the things I would tell my students, because they would say this all the time, only because their family structure said this, and they see all the time in the media, they would tell each other to shut up. First act of violence. Because they said, what you have to say does not matter at all, so please go away and I do not want to hear it. Right. It's disrespect, a form of violence. I'm going to go back up to this, number three, which I think is very important because I said respect can never be earned. Because my students will say, "You have to earn my respect." So I ask them, "Where is the final exam on respect? Is there a checklist that I can fill out so that I know I've done enough to earn your respect?" How do we get respect? You give it. And who do you have to give it to, for it to be true respect?People who are being disrespectful to you. It's easy to respect somebody who's being respectful. Mike Tyson said it best. Everybody can box, until they get hit. Right? It's easy to be respectful to people who are being respectful to you. But true respect doesn't happen until someone has been disrespectful to you and you are still respectful. Why? Do they get it? Did they figure out that they are being disrespectful to you? Probably not.
But those people who are around you, who are watching you, and they see you in that encounter. They see that person being disrespectful to you, and you are consistently being respectful, what do they say about you? What do they say? Oh, my goodness, I can't believe that she talked to him like that, and he still took... wow. Because then, you start...How we interact with other people says more about us than it will ever say about them.
You know, there's this thought, or this kind of maxim, old cliche, that says integrity is what you do when nobody's watching. What you do in the dark, behind closed doors, that's who you really are. And in the face of disrespect, we have to be respectful if we want to get respect. Does that make sense? And I know, and I can hear it. People are saying, well that's really easy to say, that's really easy to say. But what I want to say, is it's easier to do.
A lot of the things that we've gotten caught up in our world, is that we try to make things more complicated than they need to be. But, I'll keep going. All right, so on your paper, I want you to... you should see a circle that looks like this. And I want you to cut this circle into three parts. The first part of the circle is, let's say this is the pie of all human knowledge. All right. So, the first piece of pie, that I want you to cut, in this pie, is a piece of pie that's the size of what you know. Of everything that there is to know.
All science, all math, all history, all religion. All music, everything. All art, everything that there is to know. I want you to cut yourself a piece of pie relative to the size of what you know. All right. So what were some of the things that were in that piece of pie for you? Three things. Give me three things that you know, that's in that piece of pie.
Audience Member: All 50 states. Koen: OK. You know all 50 states. Two more. Audience Member: The sun will come up tomorrow. Koen: The sun will come up tomorrow, and? Audience Member: Primary colors. Koen: Primary colors. All right. Cool. So those are things that you know for sure. All right. So what I'd like you to do now, is to cut a piece of pie relative to the size of what you know you do not know. All right? Now, some of you will say, well that's the rest of the pie. I want to say that it's quantifiable. For example, I know that I do not know Mandarin Chinese. I know that I don't know that. I know that I don't know how to fly a space shuttle. So, I want you to cut yourself a piece of pie, that is relative to the size of what you know you do not know. What you're aware of. All right. So, what are some examples of things that are in that. Give me three examples of things that are in that, I know that I don't know. Audience Member: String theory. Koen: What's that? Audience Member: String theory. Koen: String theory. She knows she doesn't know string theory. Two more. Audience Member: What you're thinking. Koen: What's that? Audience Member: What you're thinking. Koen: What I'm thinking. Right? So, you know that you don't know what I'm thinking. All right, one more. Audience Member: What will happen next week. Koen: What will happen next week. You know you don't know what will happen next week. So, we have what we know, we have what we know we don't know, and what do you think is left? What you don't know you don't know. And give me an example of that. Audience Member: Don't know. Koen: You don't know. It's a trick question. You also might want to call that third piece, a blind spot. So just write that in that third piece, a blind spot. Blind spots are not your fault, but they are, however, your responsibility. All right. So, I'm going to show, we're going do another game. Another activity. And what I'd like for you to do, is in this activity, there are... and some of you may have seen this before, so I don't want to make that assumption that you haven't. So, please play along if you have. So, you will see kids in white shirts, and kids in black shirts. And I want you to focus on the kids in white shirts. And I want you to count how many times the kids in white shirts pass or bounce the ball to other kids in white shirts. All right? So, what are my directions? Audience Member: [inaudible 54:13] Koen: OK. So, count how many times the kids in white shirts bounce or pass the ball to other kids in white shirts. All right. So, here we go. [pause] All right. So how many passes. Audience Member: 16. Koen: 16. Anyone get a different number than 16? Audience Member: 13. Koen: 13. 19. OK. What was written on the wall? S? Two S's. Raise your hand if you saw two S's. Raise your hand if you saw one S. OK. Raise your hand if you saw, no I'm just kidding. How many doors? Two doors? Six doors? OK. All right. Was there anything else that was interesting in the video clip? The what? The gorilla. Raise your hand if you saw a gorilla in the video clip. [laughter] Or a person in a gorilla suit. OK. So we just talked about what you know, what you know you don't know, and your blind spot. All right. Your blind spots are not your fault, but they are your responsibility. We'll get back to the gorilla in just a second. How many people have ridden in a car or a vehicle? Does that vehicle have blind spots? Audience Members: Yes. Koen: Yeah. Typically where are they? They're on the sides. Where else? Audience Member: In the rear. Koen: In the rear. OK. Right on the column. And if you drive a Hummer the whole thing is a blind spot, right? Are those blind spots your fault? Audience Member: If you drive a Hummer, then yes. [laughter] Koen: If you drive Hummer, then yes. No. The drivers of those Hummers are typically on the design team of Hummer. No. Right. So it's not our fault, but it is our responsibility. Now there are two ways in which you can find out about a blind spot. What are those ways? Audience Member: Crash. Koen: You can crash into something, or you can what? Audience Members: Look for them. Koen: Look for them. Now this is going to be weird. You have to look for stuff you don't know exists before you can find it. Let's take a look. How many doors? Audience Members: Three. Koen: Three. Elevator doors. How many S's? Audience Members: Two. Koen: Two S's. Audience Member: I was focused on the fact that there's a second ball it looked like. Koen: You were focused on the fact that there's a second ball. Audience Member: Right before the gorilla came out. I didn't think there were two balls. Koen: OK. I believe that when we started there were two balls. Yeah. So why do you think folks missed the gorilla? Audience Members: Focusing on the ball. Koen: You were focused on bouncing and passing the ball. And why were you focused on the bouncing and passing of the ball? Audience Member: Because you told us to. Koen: Because I told you to. Audience Member: Because you said so. Koen: Because I said so. Is it possible sometimes that the people who are telling us about the world are creating for us these things where we know the stuff we know don't know and the blind spots, which we will call paradigms. Is it possible that people are creating paradigms for us around certain groups of people? About how we should interact with folks? And those people who are creating those paradigms are doing that to whose benefit? Audience Members: Theirs. Koen: Their benefit. Right? So we have to break out of sometimes what we've always done because if we do what we've always done what do we get? The same thing. So I'm going to do a quick activity with you. I want to tell you that at the center of every human's behavior is a goal and that when we're moving towards that goal we're said to be proactive. When we're moving away from that goal we're said to be reactive. As managers, part of our job is to move people towards their goal. All right? So we have to do an activity. What I'd like for everybody to do is to get a partner. If we can get one on one that'd be great. Three on one is a little awkward, but if we can get one on one and if you can turn and face that person. So we're going to practice grouping people towards their goals.[audience talking amongst themselves]
Koen: Does everybody have a partner? It looks like everybody has a partner. What I'd like for you to do is I want you to plan a party, but I want you to plan this party in a very specific way. I want your answers, so once you've given an idea and the next person's giving an idea, I want you to answer with before you say your idea no buts. OK? So here's an example. I think that we should have a party at downtown Minneapolis. My partner would then say no, but I think we should have something in St. Paul. So I want you to do that. We'll do that for just a couple of minutes. So before you respond to what your partner said I want you to answer with, "No, but." All right? Ready? Is everybody clear about what I'm asking? So before you respond to your partner you're going to answer them, "No, but," and then respond. OK? So we'll do this for about a minute or so. On your mark, get set, go.[crowd chattering indistinctly]
Koen: All right, stop! Right where you are. [talking subsides] Koen: What I'd like to do is now change how you are to respond to your partner. Now what I'd like you to do is to respond to your partner with "Yes," and what your comment is. So now I want you to say yes, and your comment. Go for it. [audience talking resumes.] Koen: And stop! [talking subsides] Koen: Can anyone tell me, was there a difference between the two conversations, and what was that difference? Audience Member: Volume! Koen: What about volume? Audience Member: There's a lot of us, and everybody was like... Koen: So on the second time, there was a lot of volume. Audience Member: Much more creative answers. Koen: Much more creative answers, the second time, with, "Yes, and." OK? What else? You were able to get somewhere! Audience Member: We were able to build something. Koen: You were able to build something. What else? Audience Member: Accommodating. Koen: You were accommodating, it was more positive. The energy in the room became very interesting, right? Because the indication of...the building of something was the noise. And its so funny, particularly in western society, anytime there is something that is happening that's exciting and good, there is noise associated with it. Think about parties. The best parties are the ones where the police are getting called. [laughter] Koen: So there is noise, a sound. What I would like to encourage you is that often times, moving people is about finding out how to motivate them in ways that benefit--and it sounds very narcissistic, but benefit them. And I think you saw in that example when it was the "No, but," that really shut people down and moved them away from a goal they had. And creativity, and excitement and energy was dying because of that. But when we got to the "Yes, and," and said these are possibilities that we can create, we started building something together. One of the biggest misnomers about relationships and about how to negotiate is that people always talk about that we need compromise. We have to compromise on things. And will tell you that compromise is death. Because to come to a compromise, it means what? No one's happy, and you're talking about what your giving up to make this happen. And in the root of that, that compromise is resentment. Because at any point, when I feel--it doesn't have to be documented or anything--when I feel like the other person hasn't done enough, then I feel that this exchange is unfair. So instead of looking at compromise, we should be looking at collaboration. How do we build things together.Here's a little bit about reactive motivation. Reactive motivation is coercive motivation. People say things like "I have to," "you made me," "I hate it." And it's based on fear, lies, and violence. Some of the symptoms of reactive motivation is that people are lazy, they procrastinate, they come up with excuses, their work is sloppy and sloven, and their rewards are extrinsic. I'm looking for some kind of extrinsic reward when I'm in reactive mode. So you better pay me more. You better add to me in some way as an individual more.
When folks are proactive, it's constructive motivation, and people say things like "I like to," "I love to," "I want to," it's based on priorities, goals, and desires. And some of the symptoms, is that people are self directed. They lack excuses. They're optimistic, and their results are focused, when they are proactive. And some of the rewards are both extrinsic and intrinsic. So yeah, you can pay me more but not because I'm doing this for the money I'm doing this because I'm proud of this. This is something I want to do. So any questions about this?
So teleology, plus inferiority, plus superiority is discretionary effort. All of us are trying to achieve a goal, which is teleology. We have things that make us feel inferior. There are things I know that I don't do well. But there are also things that I know that I do well. And when I combine my goals into things I don't do well and things I do do well, I get this thing called discretionary effort. And discretionary effort is the amount or quality of work that I'm going to do that is at my discretion. Yes ma'am?
Audience Member: What is teleology? Koen: Teleology is being goal-oriented. "Tele" means distant, and then the study of at a distance. So teleology is the study of being goal triggered, goal setting. So, discretionary effort. Micro-inequities decrease people's discretionary effort. And it's the small things, micro, and inequities, the small things that happen, that aren't just...some things you can say, well, that was racist, or that was prejudiced, or that was bigotry. But then there are these small things that you go, what was that? Right? So those are micro-inequities. So I'm going to show a clip of micro-inequity.[video clip]
Koen: In that clip, is dignity and honor being added to him or taken away from him? Taken away from him. Right? That's a micro-inequity. Did she say something that was illegal, did she do something that was wrong? No. But what she was doing was dehumanizing him into something else. Yes, sir? Audience Member: [inaudible 68:42] Koen: OK. That may be. That may be. All right? Let's look at another one. [video clip: "How was your weekend?"] Koen: What happened? All right. So he was not looking at her face. Right? Does that increase someone's discretionary effort, do they say, you know what, I want to give more, or does that decrease someone's discretionary effort? It decreases. Right? So as managers and supervisors, and I've got to tell you, I was really surprised when we did this that, we did this based off of some actual situations at work. And to hear the stories of my female coworkers that I didn't know was going on. Because I would wonder why some people were wearing jackets. I'd be like, why, it's kind of hot, why are they wearing a jacket? To defend themselves. There were women who were coming into meetings with clipboards that they would sit the whole meeting like this.And I thought it was kind of odd, but I just kind of wrote it off as that's who they were. What I didn't realize was that they were experiencing things just like this from folks who were sitting at the table. And so if we want to drive human behavior, we want to figure out this kind of stuff, we can't allow this kind of stuff to happen.
And whose behavior do we have to check? Our own. Right? We have to look for our own blind spots. So discretionary effort is the quality and time and the manner in which one chooses to give resources based on a subjective rationale in order to fulfill a contract or an assignment. And so that's the stuff that's up to me to decide.
So we have these micro-inequities, but we can also have micro-boosters. And these are small ways in which we show individuals that they are appreciated and valued. Most of these do not involve money. So how can you create a micro-booster for your employees, for the people you supervise? You can say thank you. What else can you say? Yeah, small little things that they can appreciate that don't cost any money.
What else? I'm sorry?
Audience Member: Ask them how they are. Koen: Yeah, ask them how they are. I mean, you don't have to get all in people's business, but just having a civil conversation that's not work-related really helps to build a bond between you and your employees. Because those micro-boosters can add to macro-boosters. And these are the large ways in which organizations show individuals that they are appreciated and valued. Typically, these do involve money. Right? So raises and appreciation, you get five-year awards and that kind of stuff. And these all help to build people's sense of significance, belonging, and safety. So lastly, I just want you to look at the mules that are on your piece of paper. And decide which of those have good attitudes.And in my last two minutes, we'll talk about which ones you think have the best attitudes. But I want to talk about what the real answer to all of this stuff is. How do you motivate folks? And I want to say that the answer is love. And I know it sounds kind of goofy. But I want to hip you to three different types of love. Right? So there's the Philadelphia love. Right? And that's love for your brother or your sister.
And that's usually based on some kind of relationship or contract. If you do this, I will love you. That's Philadelphia. Right? Then there's this love called Eros. And Eros love says that I don't really love you, but I'm doing this because it feels good to me. I don't really care what happens to you. But it makes me feel good, so I'm going to do that.
And then there's a third kind of love, called agape love. And agape says, even if you are disrespectful to me, even if you don't earn it or deserve it, I will love you anyway. I will give you what you deserve even if you haven't earned it. All right? And so as supervisors, it's important for us to understand which kind of love that we're talking about.
And there's a lot more things that I can go into, but unfortunately, our time has ended. And I thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you...
[audio ends]
Transcript by CastingWords
We're going to talk about respect in the workplace, tips for avoiding diversity scurvy and how to stop walking the diversity plank, if you will, keeping in line with our theme. I just want to make sure everyone got a copy of the handout. If you don't I have other copies. [murmuring from audience] So just make sure that you get that.
Just want to talk a little bit about the outcomes of the session. One is to create a positive impact on others with words and actions. So how do we create supportive environments for folks, both with our words and with our actions.
Understanding how we can help to self-monitor the respect that is displayed in all ways that we communicate. Understand the triggers and the hot buttons that we have for ourselves that don't necessarily allow us sometimes to be open to respect in the work place, and also practice self-restraint and anger management skills in responding to potential conflicts. And I know that sounds really heady and that kind of stuff. Hopefully we'll approach it in some ways that are different and unique and actually don't sound as boring as those outcomes.
But when you submit to do these kinds of proposals, that's the kind of language they want to hear, all right. They don't want to hear that this is going to be fun and engaging and all that kind of stuff. They just want to know what are those outcomes, all right?
So before we start, I was a high school student and I may have not been the best high school student, I mean high school teacher, because I taught to the test. I was one of those teachers who taught to the test and I would always give pop quizzes on Fridays.
[audience murmurs]
Koen: Pop quizzes on Fridays, right. Most of my students didn't pick up on that, didn't quite, "Man! We got another pop quiz." And I'm like, "Yeah! Every Friday!" [laughter] Right? So not only were they surprised by the pop quiz, they were also surprised that they actually knew stuff on the pop quiz. They were surprised by that. And why do you think that they knew the answers to the questions on the pop quiz that they had every Friday? Because I taught it to them, right? I told them. I taught them all this stuff and then I gave them a pop quiz.So in that same vein, I'm going to do the same with you. I'm going to give you a pop quiz, but in order for me to live up to my standards of teaching I must first give you what?
Audience Member: The answers. Koen: The answers. All right? I have to give you the answers. So the answers go like this. Fantastic! Terrific! Great! All day long! Huh! [woman laughs] That's the answer. [laughter] All right? So please stand up. [audience murmurs and stands] So the answer goes like this: Audience Members: Fantastic. Terrific. Great. All day long. Huh! Koen: All right, now, safety first... [laughter] If you've got a back problem, safety first. So that is the answer and the question is: Metropolitan Transportation Counsel, how do you feel! Audience Member: Fantastic. Terrific. Great. [laughter] All day long. Huh! [laughter] Koen: OK, it is very clear that there are Lutherans in the room. [audience laughter] I'm an evangelical. I'm excitable and all that kind of stuff and Lutherans are exactly the same--except they contain all that excitement, all right? So what I'd like for you to do is, I'd like for you to pretend to be, to be one of these excited evangelical type people and express your emotions. All right? So I ask the question again, how do you feel? Audience Member: Fantastic, terrific, great, all day long. Huh! Koen: All right, good job! Whoa, I heard that "huh!" [laughter] Have a seat please. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Give yourself a hand for that. [applause] You guys really got into that "Huh!" part. [laughs] He's like, "Yeah!" Right? So how many people felt a little bit silly or goofy doing that particular activity? Be honest. Cool, cool, cool. I like to do that because that mirrors, often times, how our staffs feel about some of the mandates that are given to us that we have to give to them. [laughter] I think understanding that feeling keeps us humble. At least it keeps me humble. And so I get to focus on...Sometimes I'm asking my staff to do things that they don't understand or they think are goofy or things that aren't usually what they usually do when they go to workshops or come to work. I'm asking them to do new and different things and so I try to put myself in their shoes. Thank you for participating in that little game for me.We're going to talk a lot about human motivation. There are some very specific ways that I think people get motivated to do things. All right? Are there any fishermen in here? Any people who fish? Sports fisherman? OK. When you go out and fish, how is it that fish get caught?
Audience Members: Bait. Koen: Bait, OK. So do you go out to the fish and you say, "Fish, get on my hook!" Do you say that? Audience Member: You can say that. Koen: You can say it. [laughter] And when you say it what happens? Audience Member: Nothing. Koen: Nothing. So a good fisherman knows that if you want that fish to get on your hook you must have the right what? Audience Members: Bait. Koen: Bait or lure. And ultimately, ultimately, how does the fish get on your hook? Audience Member: Dumb luck. [laughter] Koen: What's that? Audience Member: Dumb luck! [laughter] Koen: Dumb luck, OK. [laughter] Audience Member: He bites it. Koen: What's that? Audience Member: He bites it. Koen: He bites it. Which means that he wants...? Audience Member: The bait. Koen: The bait. Right? And I like to think about that in terms of our human relationships particularly when we're in the work place. Are we offering people things that they really want in order to get things done. I'll expand on that in just a little bit. We understand that there is your left hemisphere and your right hemisphere and that your left hemisphere controls your right hand, logic, facts, numbers and language. That is the logical side of your brain. And then there's the right hemisphere which is your left hand. It handles art, imagination, it looks at 3D and music and that is the kind of emotional part of the brain. So we have the logic and we have the emotion.We have the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere and a lot of times people talk about those two hemispheres as if they are separate brains. What I'd like to offer is that they are in fact one brain that is complimentary. Some of us are more right hemisphere dominant and others are more left hemisphere dominant, but it's that combination when we bring those two together, we get something called personality. We get our individual personalities. We can have twins with the same genetic make up, but because of this make up in their brain they get different personalities.
So let's keep going. I'm going to show a video and maybe you've seen this before. [Baby crying] [audience laughter] [sounds of baby crying then not crying, continued laughter]
All right. What's obviously happening in this video clip?
Audience Member: It's a training session. Koen: It's a training session. OK. Speak more about that. Audience Member: The child is trying to train its mother. Koen: The child is trying to train its mother. OK, other thoughts? What do you notice what's happening or do you see in this... Audience Member: He wants attention. Koen: He wants attention. The child wants attention. What else? Audience Member: The mom could be trying to train the child. Koen: OK, the mom could be trying to train the child. Audience Member: But it's not going to work. Koen: It's not gonna work. OK, what else? Audience Member: The child [inaudible 13:03] Koen: We can see the what? Of what's going on with the child. The child is falling out. We see him falling out. Can we make the assumption that this probably is not the first time this has happened? [laughter]Can we make the assumption that this is probably not the 17th time this has happened? And the interesting thing is, and it was interesting that you brought out that the child was trying to train the parents, it is very clear that the child has been successful in training the parents. Because obviously, the child knows that if I fall out, I will get whatever it is that I want. You know, unfortunately, he's probably not as articulate about his emotions as he could be, so he expresses them this way. And why does he consistently do that? Why does he continually do that?
Audience Member: Worked in the past. Koen: Because it's worked in the past. And so part of our human psyche says, if it's worked in the past, so it's reasonable that it will work when? Audience Members: In the future. Koen: In the future. So when does human behavior change? Audience Member: [inaudible 14:18] Koen: When you discover that what you're doing no longer works. Now it's really interesting, because people can tell you that it doesn't work, but until it's a discovery that you had, you won't change your behavior. It's funny, smokers, my uncle Rick was a smoker for 20 years, and people would tell him, smoking is bad for you, you should stop smoking, smoking is blah blah blah. But it was until he decided that he had a revelation on what smoking was doing to him, that he stopped. So human behavior is goal-directed. We'll talk later about some of the truths about humans. The first truth is that humans can learn, change, and grow. Part of the reason that we're here and the dinosaurs aren't is this one principle. We can adapt. We can change. At any point that we as supervisors and managers stop believing this about people, it is time for us to quit our jobs. Even in the face of people consistently doing the same things. People also do what they think works, even if it doesn't. They think it works, so they continually do it. And why do they think that it works? Audience Member: [inaudible 15:51] Koen: Because it's worked in the past. Right? All human behavior is goal-directed. Everything that we do is moving us and driving us towards our goals. And part of our conversation should be about what is it that holds our goals. What is it that we want? Here's an example. So I picked this up real early. So my parents were pretty traditional parents. Their parents were extremely strict and formal, you know, yes ma'am, no ma'am, spank you if you stepped out of line, all that kind of stuff. So my parents were kind of toeing that line as well. So my parents would say, "Andre, I want you to take out the trash." So, what I knew about my parents was, if I talked back to my parents, I would get punishment for talking back. So I figured that out. So my parents would say take out the trash, and I would say stuff like, "Aw, I don't want to take out the trash." And so what did my parents do? What'd they do? Audience Member: [inaudible 17:01] Koen: They punished me. They gave me lectures. "Don't talk back to me boy!" And so we started focusing on my talking back, which meant that I didn't have to do what? Audience Members: Take out the trash. Koen: Take out the trash. Shiny object, right? And so I kept doing that, and one day that got hip to the whole thing and they were like, they said take out the trash. And I said, I don't wanna take out the trash. And my dad would say, "Boy..." And then I'm like, "Man, why do I have to take out the trash?" So I'm still trying to bait them. "Man, why do I have to take out the trash." But the whole time, I started what? Complying and taking out the trash. But I kept trying to bait them. And a lot of times what we don't understand or forget about people, is that everything that they're doing is trying to achieve some kind of goal. The last part is that attitude is a reaction to a goal. What have you been taught or have people talked about an attitude. What is an attitude? What is it?[pause]
Koen: It's a state of mind. What else? [pause] The way you react. What else is an attitude? Audience Member: Perception. Koen: It's a perception. It's what you project. And typically people talk about it being an external response to stimuli. Right? Stuff like that. What I want to offer you is something that's a little bit different in terms of how we look at attitude. All right? So, my father was my pastor. And I told you we were a kind of evangelical kind of church. Because we were the first family and all that kind of stuff, we opened up the church. So we'd open up the church on Sunday at 7:30 am. for Bible school and that stuff, and we didn't finish with cleaning up and all that kind of stuff until about 11:30 at night. So from 7:30 am to 11:30 pm We'd stop at three o'clock for chicken, not because we were black, but because chicken is delicious.[laughter]
Koen: We would be in church all day. So I'd ask my father on Friday night, say, "Dad, can I use the car?" And because my dad loves me, what does he say? Audience Members: No? Koen: No, he says, "Yes!" All right? [laughter] So I take the car out and have a good time. And I say my dad has what kind of an attitude? A good attitude. A positive attitude. All right? Consequently, what would you say about my attitude? That it's a good attitude. A positive attitude. So Sunday comes, and at one o'clock my friend Dexter calls and says, "Andre, can pick me up at the movies?" What do I know about Sunday? Church all day. I'm busy. But I'm feeling a little gutsy. So I'm going to gamble on Jesus. So I go to my dad and I'm like, "Come on, Jesus, come on, come on, come on." So I go up to my dad and I say, "Dad, can I use the car?" And what does my dad say?He says, "No." And not only does he say no, he gives me a lecture about how I'm being irresponsible about asking him for the car. So I say my dad has what kind of an attitude? A bad attitude. And he says what about my attitude? That it's a bad attitude. All right? So what is it that actually determines an attitude?
Audience Members: [inaudible 20:44] Koen: Starts with "g" and ends in "oal." Your goal determines your attitude. So when you achieve or reach your goal you have what kind of an attitude? You have a good or positive attitude. But when you don't achieve or reach your goal, you have a bad or negative attitude. So when you encounter an employee, a customer, a client--when you encounter someone with a bad attitude, what do you know for sure? They're not reaching their goal. So if you want to be helpful, or you want to help move them, you must understand what? What their goal is. All right? You have to understand what their goal is. What I'm going to do right now is, on your handout, there's a square that's broken into four other squares. What I'd like you to do is to write down one thing that you value, or one thing that is important to you, in each one of those squares. All right? So one thing that you value in each square. It could be a concept, it could be a person, a relationship. It could be something like justice or peace. One thing that you value in each one of those squares.[pause]
All right. It looks like most people have three, if not all four. It's a very low-stakes test.
[laughter]
Koen: All right. So what I'd like to do is play a game. The game is very simple. What I want you to do is to find two people who are not at your table, two people who either share or have as a value one of the things you have on your paper. All right? So I want you to find two people who are not at your table--who are not at your table--who share one of those values. [audience talks amongst themselves] Koen: Two people for each box... [audience talking] Koen: If you can hear my voice, clap once. [audience claps] If you can hear my voice, clap twice. [audience claps] If you can hear my voice, clap three times. [audience claps] If you can hear my voice, clap four times. [audience claps] If you can hear my voice, clap five times. [audience claps] [pause]So, was there anyone, as you were going around the room, were there things that you saw in someone else's paper and you said, "Oh man, I should have thought about that," or, "I wish I had one more square"? What was that?
Audience Member: Health. Koen: Health. OK. Health. OK. Anyone else? Was there something else that you were like, "Oh, I should have put that there"? OK. Was there anyone that was not able to find anybody who had anything that they could agree with or like that was on their sheet of paper? OK. Oh, really. So you weren't able to find anything that you agreed with? Audience Member: Oh, oh, agreed with, yeah, I agreed with [inaudible 26:36] . Koen: OK, that's all good. Audience Member: I agreed. Koen: OK. OK. Was there anything that you were actually surprised that you weren't able to get someone to sign on as you were going around? Audience Member: No, but I had to work really hard to find matches, because I thought of characteristics... Koen: OK. Audience Member: ...as opposed to things... Koen: OK. Audience Member: ...or family. And so I felt kind of bad that some of these people put family. I was like, I care about my family! [laughter] Koen: Oh, that's odd. So what was one of the characteristics? Audience Member: Creativity, I had. Koen: Creativity. Please raise your hand if you value creativity, even if it wasn't written on your paper. If you value creativity. OK. What was another characteristic? Audience Member: Loyalty. Koen: Loyalty. Please raise your hand if you value loyalty, even if it wasn't written on your paper. OK. Other things that folks had that you were like, "Oh, why didn't somebody sign this," or, "I couldn't find anybody to sign this"? Audience Member: I had respect. Koen: What's that? Respect. All right. Please raise your hand if you value respect even if it wasn't written on your paper. All right. Why would I take important time to do an activity like this? Audience Member: We all share values. Koen: Yeah, we all share values. And a lot of times particularly, my background and the work that I do on a regular basis is around diversity stuff. And so oftentimes, in that work, other people have done the work, and focused on how much we are dissimilar, what we don't have in common. As opposed to really looking at and honing in on the things that make us more similar and the things that we do have in common. All right? And I also would like to offer that I believe that many of those things that you wrote down probably fall in one of these three categories. Which is, the things that drive people, the things that motivate people, the reasons why we do things.And typically people want a sense of significance. In some way they want to feel like what they're doing matters, either to someone else, to themselves, or in the wider world. Right? And sometimes we get this sense of significance when it gets too obtuse, when there's too much focus on that, people become narcissistic. Right? But there's a healthy amount of significance that people want to have.
For example, in our families, there are some very specific ways that we get significance. All right? Please raise your hand if you are an oldest child. OK? Please raise your hand if you are a middle child. [indecipherable29:34] Please raise your hand if you are the youngest child. Please raise your hand if you are the only child. Significance. Those things mean things in our family systems. So we're all striving for significance.
We're also looking for a sense of belonging. We're always striving to connect with other people. Sometimes those connections are very good, and the strategies are good, but sometimes they're faulty. But we're all striving for some sense of belonging. And how is it that you belong to your family? How do you become a member of your family?
Audience Member: You're born into it. Koen: You're born into it. Right? Some of us, like myself, have wished we were born into different families. But that's what we get. We get who we're born to. Right? In terms of the workplace, how do we get this sense of belonging? Audience Member: You're hired. Koen: You're hired. You have a contract. And you say, as long as you keep paying me, I'm going to keep working. You stop paying me and what? I'm out the door. I mean, as much as I would do it for free, I won't. So you have that sense of belonging. We also look for some kind of sense of safety. The interesting thing is typically these two things, significance and belonging, offer us a sense of safety. It's funny because no matter what you do in your family they can never what? Audience Members: Fire you. Koen: Fire you. They can never kick you out of the family. You're always going to be related to Uncle Joe. No matter how crazy he is, you're always going to be related. But in the work place how do we get this sense of safety? By what? Audience Member: By rules. Koen: By rules. Yup. So rules help keep it safe as well as the fact that we perform according to those rules. All right. So those are some of the things that motivate human beings. So what I want to tell you, and this is a little bit of what's that game where you spin the wheel and the letters pop up? Wheel of Fortune. So I'm going to give you just a couple of seconds to look at this Wheel of Fortune puzzle and tell me what you think the answer is to the puzzle. [hums "Jeopardy" theme song] Oh, that's the wrong game! [laughter] All right. So what does it say? Audience Members: There is dignity and honor in being human. Koen: There is dignity and honor in being human. All right. So what is dignity? What is dignity? Audience Member: Respect. Koen: Respect. OK. Self-respect. What's dignity? Audience Member: Self-worth. Koen: Self-worth is dignity. All right. Is dignity something you have or something you get? Audience Member: Both. Koen: It's in fact both, right? So you can give dignity to folks and you can have dignity yourself. I don't know if you've seen this folks, and I know that you have now that I think about it, there's these folks throughout the city, particularly when I lived in South Minneapolis, and they're on the on-ramps and and the exit ramps and they have these signs, these cardboard signs, saying will work for whatever. Have you seen these folks? It's so funny because I give those folks stuff all the time, but guess what I don't give them? Money because if you feed stray cats they keep coming back. So I don't give them money, but what do I give them? I give them dignity. How do I do that? I make eye contact with them. I have conversations about their situation. Part of dignity says I recognize you as a living being. Dignity.Because if you don't give people dignity they'll try to take it. You would think, at least I would think, with young people's youth and their energy and their excitement for life that they would cross the street a little bit faster. [laughter] Have you ever noticed like when I'm at a stoplight or a stop sign and there's a group of teenagers, they move so slow. I thought it was because their pants were sagging so low that they couldn't move any faster, but that tends not to be the case, right?
But as soon as they get to my car, and it's funny because they will look at me, eyeball to eyeball, walking slow. Does that happen to anybody else? What are they saying? What they're saying is as an adult you don't see or recognize me or my kind any place else, but you will recognize and see me right now. You will give me dignity and I dare you to hit me. What they don't know is I don't have any points on my license and I have really good car insurance. So what is honor? What is honor?
Audience Member: It's elevating. Koen: It's elevating. Honor. It's what? Audience Member: Integrity. Koen: It's integrity. All right. Audience Member: Pride. Koen: Pride. Honor. What's that? Audience Member: It's a promise. Koen: It's like a promise. OK. All right. Senator Obama, Senator Obama, Senator Obama is downtown Chicago. And I see Senator Obama, and I call him OB. I'm like, what's up OB! So I see him and then I go over and I give him a high five and we do the fist thing he likes to do and we do the exploding fist at the end. I just gave Senator Obama respect. So give Senator Obama respect. Senator Obama becomes the highest officer in the land. President Obama. So how do I greet President Obama? What's that? I missed it. Audience Member: I said very carefully. Koen: Very carefully now, right? So yeah. What if I try to go and greet him like I would Senator Obama? If I look like this, hey what's going on? [mimics gunshot noises] . Right? Unless I was in Florida, but that's a whole other conversation. So why do I have to treat President Obama differently than I did Senator Obama? Audience Member: The honor of his position. Koen: The honor of his position. I gave Senator Obama respect. But now I have to give President Obama, honor. Right? And what we said in our society, that we will give honor to. Our parents, we'll give honor to our parents. Who else? Soldiers, service men and women. We will give honor to them, because they are fighting wars on our behalf. Right? Our grandparents, our elders, we said these are folks that we will give honor to.So, honor is respect at a high level. Please raise your hand if you can answer yes to either one of these questions. Raise your hand if you've purchased a ticket, or you've passed a test that has made you eligible to be born on this planet. As great and wonderful as we all are, none of us have brought ourselves here.
We've all accepted an invitation to be born, I don't want to think about how the invitation came, it's disgusting. [laughter] But we accepted an invitation to be here. And we're all trying to figure out what it means to be human. And it's funny, my mom and I used to talk about current events, we talk about what's going on with popular media. And now we talk about the hospital cafeteria. We talk about what's falling, failing, we talk about her heat flashes, her hormones shifting. We talk about all that kind of stuff, and it's kind of depressing, for me. Right?
So one day I stop my mom, and I say, Mom, can you stop talking about that? And then she just breaks down on me. She says, "Andre, you don't understand, I've never been 60 before!" Right?
And I look at her and say yeah, you're right. Because 59 was so different, right? But, anyway, I start analyzing myself, and I said you know what? I've never been 40 before. So, I'm trying to figure out what it means to be 40 in today's times. It was funny, someone that sent me on Facebook, they sent a conversation with Bryant Gumbel, Katie Couric, and someone else on the "Today" show. And they were discussing, and it was off-camera. Right. So they weren't willing to show, but this was like an out-take.
And they were having a discussion about this thing called the Internet. And they were... Katie was like, what is that Internet? And one of his producers was talking off-camera about the thing, and Bryant Gumbel was like, and I don't get that thing, the A with the circle around it, what is that? What is that about? He was like, this thing will never catch on. And it was just so funny. And that was like '84, or like... something like that.
But at any rate, we're all trying to figure out what it means to be in this current time. And then I looked at the work that... I looked up, I looked in the dictionary for the word human. And what I found was that human has two definitions. The first talks about being a biped, having opposable thumbs, having a big brain, a belly button. If you ever encounter someone without a belly button, be concerned.
And a human is homo sapien sapien, the ones that know that they know they exist. Right? But the other definition was that of an adjective. And what do adjectives do? They describe. So, before I go any further, I did this presentation in front of some attorneys, there was an animal rights lawyer there, and she straightened me out on a number of things, and so I have to do this caveat before we get to my next part.
So, this next part. I'm not suggesting that animals don't have feelings or emotions. I'm not suggesting that they don't have souls. I'm not suggesting that they don't have their own thoughts, I'm not suggesting that. What I am suggesting, though, is that there are ways in which human beings, I expect, human beings to interact with each other, that if my dog did, I would be surprised.
So, what are some of those ways that I expect human beings to interact with each other? That if pigeons did, I don't know.
OK, communicating with language. What else?
Audience Member: To show compassion. Koen: To show compassion. What else? Just so you know, that back table, I do see you. [laughter] All right. Anytime you want to jump in. Audience Member: Make decisions. Koen: To make decisions. What else? Audience Member: Show empathy. Koen: To show empathy. These are things that it means to be human. Now, I want you to just think about this. If you have an employee that you're giving dignity, honor, for being human. Not because they've earned it, not because they're doing something, but just because they exist. Are they more likely to comply with what you're asking, or less likely to comply with what you're asking. Audience Members: More likely. Koen: I was at a chief of police meeting the other day and we were talking about some stuff. And I shared with them one of my stories in my young career. I went to work at a residential treatment center with emotionally damaged kids. And I had the little kids. And when I say little kids, I mean, eight years old... I think they were eight to 12. And for eight to 12 year olds to be in a residential treatment center, they have to be really sick and abused. Because usually they try to get them into families, and that kind of stuff. So these kids were really severe. And I walked into the situation saying you know what, I'm going to give this a year, that was my plan. When I worked with a supervisor who understood this stuff, he said, "Look, I know you're only going to be here a year, but what kinds of things do you think you would have learned while you're here.Guess how long I ended up staying? Three additional years. I spent four years on the job, and I thought I was only going to spend one. Because my supervisor helped me to achieve this for myself and through others. All right. So, there's dignity, honor and respect. So, this is a really interesting concept, because as a high school teacher, my students would say things to me that I thought were really funny.
Like, "You have to earn my respect." And it's so funny, even with this concept, people say, "Well they should earn this. I don't just give this stuff away." And one of the things I told my students is, you can never earn respect. It can never be earned. And I'll explain why in just a second. One of the reasons we don't get respect is, we typically tell people, do as I say, not as I do. And so as supervisors, if you don't think that your employees are watching what time you come in, go out, who you're talking to, how you're talking to them, all that kind of stuff, then you are delusional.
People are constantly watching this. And the other reason that we don't get respect, is because typically what happens is people say, do this without giving an adequate reason. And the reason may be there, but not sharing that reason gets people to a place where they hear "because I said so." Even though you may have a reason, if you haven't shared that reason, they get stuck here.
Three is, people say you have to earn my respect, I'll get back to that in just a second. And number four, a lot of times people say, "It's not my responsibility for this." It's not my baby, this is somebody else's stuff. When we're working in an organization, anything and everything that happens in that organization impacts everybody.
I don't know if you've heard about this, but apparently there's some kind of economic downturn. [laughter] And that economic downturn for me, really made it clear how much we're connected together. Because when it first started happening, they said it's the poor people. They've got bad mortgages, and bought houses they couldn't afford, and didn't report their stuff, blah blah blah.
And then as it progressed, we started finding out that what, the rich people were creating these Ponzi schemes, ripping people off, said... so it's happening at both ends, and we're so connected. And it's funny, that's why I like doing that square exercise. Because you can at least find one person that you share a value with, in a way that you're connected. And lastly, what we forget is that disrespect is violence. And people say, what are you talking about, disrespect is not violence.
What is the aim of violence?
Audience Members: Control. Koen: Control. What's that? Submission? What else? Inflict harm. Violence is designed to inflict harm. When somebody is disrespected, do they go, "Oh, thank you, I appreciate that!" Is that what happens? No. When they're disrespected, what do they feel? Like they've been harmed. So, violence is harm, and one of the things I would tell my students, because they would say this all the time, only because their family structure said this, and they see all the time in the media, they would tell each other to shut up. First act of violence. Because they said, what you have to say does not matter at all, so please go away and I do not want to hear it. Right. It's disrespect, a form of violence. I'm going to go back up to this, number three, which I think is very important because I said respect can never be earned. Because my students will say, "You have to earn my respect." So I ask them, "Where is the final exam on respect? Is there a checklist that I can fill out so that I know I've done enough to earn your respect?" How do we get respect? You give it. And who do you have to give it to, for it to be true respect?People who are being disrespectful to you. It's easy to respect somebody who's being respectful. Mike Tyson said it best. Everybody can box, until they get hit. Right? It's easy to be respectful to people who are being respectful to you. But true respect doesn't happen until someone has been disrespectful to you and you are still respectful. Why? Do they get it? Did they figure out that they are being disrespectful to you? Probably not.
But those people who are around you, who are watching you, and they see you in that encounter. They see that person being disrespectful to you, and you are consistently being respectful, what do they say about you? What do they say? Oh, my goodness, I can't believe that she talked to him like that, and he still took... wow. Because then, you start...How we interact with other people says more about us than it will ever say about them.
You know, there's this thought, or this kind of maxim, old cliche, that says integrity is what you do when nobody's watching. What you do in the dark, behind closed doors, that's who you really are. And in the face of disrespect, we have to be respectful if we want to get respect. Does that make sense? And I know, and I can hear it. People are saying, well that's really easy to say, that's really easy to say. But what I want to say, is it's easier to do.
A lot of the things that we've gotten caught up in our world, is that we try to make things more complicated than they need to be. But, I'll keep going. All right, so on your paper, I want you to... you should see a circle that looks like this. And I want you to cut this circle into three parts. The first part of the circle is, let's say this is the pie of all human knowledge. All right. So, the first piece of pie, that I want you to cut, in this pie, is a piece of pie that's the size of what you know. Of everything that there is to know.
All science, all math, all history, all religion. All music, everything. All art, everything that there is to know. I want you to cut yourself a piece of pie relative to the size of what you know. All right. So what were some of the things that were in that piece of pie for you? Three things. Give me three things that you know, that's in that piece of pie.
Audience Member: All 50 states. Koen: OK. You know all 50 states. Two more. Audience Member: The sun will come up tomorrow. Koen: The sun will come up tomorrow, and? Audience Member: Primary colors. Koen: Primary colors. All right. Cool. So those are things that you know for sure. All right. So what I'd like you to do now, is to cut a piece of pie relative to the size of what you know you do not know. All right? Now, some of you will say, well that's the rest of the pie. I want to say that it's quantifiable. For example, I know that I do not know Mandarin Chinese. I know that I don't know that. I know that I don't know how to fly a space shuttle. So, I want you to cut yourself a piece of pie, that is relative to the size of what you know you do not know. What you're aware of. All right. So, what are some examples of things that are in that. Give me three examples of things that are in that, I know that I don't know. Audience Member: String theory. Koen: What's that? Audience Member: String theory. Koen: String theory. She knows she doesn't know string theory. Two more. Audience Member: What you're thinking. Koen: What's that? Audience Member: What you're thinking. Koen: What I'm thinking. Right? So, you know that you don't know what I'm thinking. All right, one more. Audience Member: What will happen next week. Koen: What will happen next week. You know you don't know what will happen next week. So, we have what we know, we have what we know we don't know, and what do you think is left? What you don't know you don't know. And give me an example of that. Audience Member: Don't know. Koen: You don't know. It's a trick question. You also might want to call that third piece, a blind spot. So just write that in that third piece, a blind spot. Blind spots are not your fault, but they are, however, your responsibility. All right. So, I'm going to show, we're going do another game. Another activity. And what I'd like for you to do, is in this activity, there are... and some of you may have seen this before, so I don't want to make that assumption that you haven't. So, please play along if you have. So, you will see kids in white shirts, and kids in black shirts. And I want you to focus on the kids in white shirts. And I want you to count how many times the kids in white shirts pass or bounce the ball to other kids in white shirts. All right? So, what are my directions? Audience Member: [inaudible 54:13] Koen: OK. So, count how many times the kids in white shirts bounce or pass the ball to other kids in white shirts. All right. So, here we go. [pause] All right. So how many passes. Audience Member: 16. Koen: 16. Anyone get a different number than 16? Audience Member: 13. Koen: 13. 19. OK. What was written on the wall? S? Two S's. Raise your hand if you saw two S's. Raise your hand if you saw one S. OK. Raise your hand if you saw, no I'm just kidding. How many doors? Two doors? Six doors? OK. All right. Was there anything else that was interesting in the video clip? The what? The gorilla. Raise your hand if you saw a gorilla in the video clip. [laughter] Or a person in a gorilla suit. OK. So we just talked about what you know, what you know you don't know, and your blind spot. All right. Your blind spots are not your fault, but they are your responsibility. We'll get back to the gorilla in just a second. How many people have ridden in a car or a vehicle? Does that vehicle have blind spots? Audience Members: Yes. Koen: Yeah. Typically where are they? They're on the sides. Where else? Audience Member: In the rear. Koen: In the rear. OK. Right on the column. And if you drive a Hummer the whole thing is a blind spot, right? Are those blind spots your fault? Audience Member: If you drive a Hummer, then yes. [laughter] Koen: If you drive Hummer, then yes. No. The drivers of those Hummers are typically on the design team of Hummer. No. Right. So it's not our fault, but it is our responsibility. Now there are two ways in which you can find out about a blind spot. What are those ways? Audience Member: Crash. Koen: You can crash into something, or you can what? Audience Members: Look for them. Koen: Look for them. Now this is going to be weird. You have to look for stuff you don't know exists before you can find it. Let's take a look. How many doors? Audience Members: Three. Koen: Three. Elevator doors. How many S's? Audience Members: Two. Koen: Two S's. Audience Member: I was focused on the fact that there's a second ball it looked like. Koen: You were focused on the fact that there's a second ball. Audience Member: Right before the gorilla came out. I didn't think there were two balls. Koen: OK. I believe that when we started there were two balls. Yeah. So why do you think folks missed the gorilla? Audience Members: Focusing on the ball. Koen: You were focused on bouncing and passing the ball. And why were you focused on the bouncing and passing of the ball? Audience Member: Because you told us to. Koen: Because I told you to. Audience Member: Because you said so. Koen: Because I said so. Is it possible sometimes that the people who are telling us about the world are creating for us these things where we know the stuff we know don't know and the blind spots, which we will call paradigms. Is it possible that people are creating paradigms for us around certain groups of people? About how we should interact with folks? And those people who are creating those paradigms are doing that to whose benefit? Audience Members: Theirs. Koen: Their benefit. Right? So we have to break out of sometimes what we've always done because if we do what we've always done what do we get? The same thing. So I'm going to do a quick activity with you. I want to tell you that at the center of every human's behavior is a goal and that when we're moving towards that goal we're said to be proactive. When we're moving away from that goal we're said to be reactive. As managers, part of our job is to move people towards their goal. All right? So we have to do an activity. What I'd like for everybody to do is to get a partner. If we can get one on one that'd be great. Three on one is a little awkward, but if we can get one on one and if you can turn and face that person. So we're going to practice grouping people towards their goals.[audience talking amongst themselves]
Koen: Does everybody have a partner? It looks like everybody has a partner. What I'd like for you to do is I want you to plan a party, but I want you to plan this party in a very specific way. I want your answers, so once you've given an idea and the next person's giving an idea, I want you to answer with before you say your idea no buts. OK? So here's an example. I think that we should have a party at downtown Minneapolis. My partner would then say no, but I think we should have something in St. Paul. So I want you to do that. We'll do that for just a couple of minutes. So before you respond to what your partner said I want you to answer with, "No, but." All right? Ready? Is everybody clear about what I'm asking? So before you respond to your partner you're going to answer them, "No, but," and then respond. OK? So we'll do this for about a minute or so. On your mark, get set, go.[crowd chattering indistinctly]
Koen: All right, stop! Right where you are. [talking subsides] Koen: What I'd like to do is now change how you are to respond to your partner. Now what I'd like you to do is to respond to your partner with "Yes," and what your comment is. So now I want you to say yes, and your comment. Go for it. [audience talking resumes.] Koen: And stop! [talking subsides] Koen: Can anyone tell me, was there a difference between the two conversations, and what was that difference? Audience Member: Volume! Koen: What about volume? Audience Member: There's a lot of us, and everybody was like... Koen: So on the second time, there was a lot of volume. Audience Member: Much more creative answers. Koen: Much more creative answers, the second time, with, "Yes, and." OK? What else? You were able to get somewhere! Audience Member: We were able to build something. Koen: You were able to build something. What else? Audience Member: Accommodating. Koen: You were accommodating, it was more positive. The energy in the room became very interesting, right? Because the indication of...the building of something was the noise. And its so funny, particularly in western society, anytime there is something that is happening that's exciting and good, there is noise associated with it. Think about parties. The best parties are the ones where the police are getting called. [laughter] Koen: So there is noise, a sound. What I would like to encourage you is that often times, moving people is about finding out how to motivate them in ways that benefit--and it sounds very narcissistic, but benefit them. And I think you saw in that example when it was the "No, but," that really shut people down and moved them away from a goal they had. And creativity, and excitement and energy was dying because of that. But when we got to the "Yes, and," and said these are possibilities that we can create, we started building something together. One of the biggest misnomers about relationships and about how to negotiate is that people always talk about that we need compromise. We have to compromise on things. And will tell you that compromise is death. Because to come to a compromise, it means what? No one's happy, and you're talking about what your giving up to make this happen. And in the root of that, that compromise is resentment. Because at any point, when I feel--it doesn't have to be documented or anything--when I feel like the other person hasn't done enough, then I feel that this exchange is unfair. So instead of looking at compromise, we should be looking at collaboration. How do we build things together.Here's a little bit about reactive motivation. Reactive motivation is coercive motivation. People say things like "I have to," "you made me," "I hate it." And it's based on fear, lies, and violence. Some of the symptoms of reactive motivation is that people are lazy, they procrastinate, they come up with excuses, their work is sloppy and sloven, and their rewards are extrinsic. I'm looking for some kind of extrinsic reward when I'm in reactive mode. So you better pay me more. You better add to me in some way as an individual more.
When folks are proactive, it's constructive motivation, and people say things like "I like to," "I love to," "I want to," it's based on priorities, goals, and desires. And some of the symptoms, is that people are self directed. They lack excuses. They're optimistic, and their results are focused, when they are proactive. And some of the rewards are both extrinsic and intrinsic. So yeah, you can pay me more but not because I'm doing this for the money I'm doing this because I'm proud of this. This is something I want to do. So any questions about this?
So teleology, plus inferiority, plus superiority is discretionary effort. All of us are trying to achieve a goal, which is teleology. We have things that make us feel inferior. There are things I know that I don't do well. But there are also things that I know that I do well. And when I combine my goals into things I don't do well and things I do do well, I get this thing called discretionary effort. And discretionary effort is the amount or quality of work that I'm going to do that is at my discretion. Yes ma'am?
Audience Member: What is teleology? Koen: Teleology is being goal-oriented. "Tele" means distant, and then the study of at a distance. So teleology is the study of being goal triggered, goal setting. So, discretionary effort. Micro-inequities decrease people's discretionary effort. And it's the small things, micro, and inequities, the small things that happen, that aren't just...some things you can say, well, that was racist, or that was prejudiced, or that was bigotry. But then there are these small things that you go, what was that? Right? So those are micro-inequities. So I'm going to show a clip of micro-inequity.[video clip]
Koen: In that clip, is dignity and honor being added to him or taken away from him? Taken away from him. Right? That's a micro-inequity. Did she say something that was illegal, did she do something that was wrong? No. But what she was doing was dehumanizing him into something else. Yes, sir? Audience Member: [inaudible 68:42] Koen: OK. That may be. That may be. All right? Let's look at another one. [video clip: "How was your weekend?"] Koen: What happened? All right. So he was not looking at her face. Right? Does that increase someone's discretionary effort, do they say, you know what, I want to give more, or does that decrease someone's discretionary effort? It decreases. Right? So as managers and supervisors, and I've got to tell you, I was really surprised when we did this that, we did this based off of some actual situations at work. And to hear the stories of my female coworkers that I didn't know was going on. Because I would wonder why some people were wearing jackets. I'd be like, why, it's kind of hot, why are they wearing a jacket? To defend themselves. There were women who were coming into meetings with clipboards that they would sit the whole meeting like this.And I thought it was kind of odd, but I just kind of wrote it off as that's who they were. What I didn't realize was that they were experiencing things just like this from folks who were sitting at the table. And so if we want to drive human behavior, we want to figure out this kind of stuff, we can't allow this kind of stuff to happen.
And whose behavior do we have to check? Our own. Right? We have to look for our own blind spots. So discretionary effort is the quality and time and the manner in which one chooses to give resources based on a subjective rationale in order to fulfill a contract or an assignment. And so that's the stuff that's up to me to decide.
So we have these micro-inequities, but we can also have micro-boosters. And these are small ways in which we show individuals that they are appreciated and valued. Most of these do not involve money. So how can you create a micro-booster for your employees, for the people you supervise? You can say thank you. What else can you say? Yeah, small little things that they can appreciate that don't cost any money.
What else? I'm sorry?
Audience Member: Ask them how they are. Koen: Yeah, ask them how they are. I mean, you don't have to get all in people's business, but just having a civil conversation that's not work-related really helps to build a bond between you and your employees. Because those micro-boosters can add to macro-boosters. And these are the large ways in which organizations show individuals that they are appreciated and valued. Typically, these do involve money. Right? So raises and appreciation, you get five-year awards and that kind of stuff. And these all help to build people's sense of significance, belonging, and safety. So lastly, I just want you to look at the mules that are on your piece of paper. And decide which of those have good attitudes.And in my last two minutes, we'll talk about which ones you think have the best attitudes. But I want to talk about what the real answer to all of this stuff is. How do you motivate folks? And I want to say that the answer is love. And I know it sounds kind of goofy. But I want to hip you to three different types of love. Right? So there's the Philadelphia love. Right? And that's love for your brother or your sister.
And that's usually based on some kind of relationship or contract. If you do this, I will love you. That's Philadelphia. Right? Then there's this love called Eros. And Eros love says that I don't really love you, but I'm doing this because it feels good to me. I don't really care what happens to you. But it makes me feel good, so I'm going to do that.
And then there's a third kind of love, called agape love. And agape says, even if you are disrespectful to me, even if you don't earn it or deserve it, I will love you anyway. I will give you what you deserve even if you haven't earned it. All right? And so as supervisors, it's important for us to understand which kind of love that we're talking about.
And there's a lot more things that I can go into, but unfortunately, our time has ended. And I thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you...
[audio ends]
Transcript by CastingWords
