On the second episode of Superpowers at Work, host Sissy Siero is joined by trauma expert and author of The Empathetic Workplace, Katharine Manning, to unpack invaluable insights on creating a trauma-informed workplace. Sissy and Katherine dive into why trauma-informed leadership is crucial, unpack institutional betrayal and why psychological safety is everything in creating compassionate, safe workplaces. 

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Learn more about Katharine Manning at https://www.katharinemanning.com/. 
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Sissy Siero: Trauma is never easy to discuss, especially at work. But we all know the toll it takes on our well being. Today on Superpowers at Work we're talking to one of the leading experts on trauma in the workplace.

Katherine Manning: I'm Katherine Manning. I'm the author of The Empathetic Workplace, Five Steps to a Compassionate, Calm, and Confident Response to Trauma On the Job. 

VO: Katharine has worked in the field of trauma for over 25 year, helping guide the Justice department through its response to victims in historic cases like The Boston Marathon Bombing, the Pulse Night Club Shooting.

KH: You know, I am a lawyer, but a lawyer who has worked with crime victims for most of my career. One of the things I began to realize was that people didn't need different things based on what they were a victim of. Everybody needs to be acknowledged as a victim. Everybody needed referrals to resources. And I think it finally kind of dawned on me, there was one day where one of my coworkers came in. And he kind of stormed into my office. He had just left one of these giant government meetings where you have like 30 people around a huge conference table. And in that meeting, his boss had belittled him in front of all these people and he was so embarrassed and angry and he was pacing back and forth in front of my desk and talking really, really fast and kind of venting.  I just started to realize that these issues of trauma are much more widespread. It’s not just in the criminal system that we're working with people in trauma. We are all around us all the time. And I thought, you know, that's maybe something where I could be on the front end.

SS: hmm.

KM: Getting involved in helping organizations to better support their employees, their clients, the communities they serve through these periods of trauma and distress. And so that is the work that I do. In general, we start first with the C-suite with the leaders and help them understand why this is so important. I do have a legal background, right? So I’m very used to making the case. (laughter) So I come armed with all my statistics and charts and I will show you this is the cost of the unaddressed trauma in your workplace.

This is how it's affecting turnover, this is how it's affecting engagement, productivity, you know, psychological safety, and on and on.

And then what is fascinating is once we get through that, once they hear the business case, the leaders, they almost always have their own story. They will be quiet for a second. And then there is a, you know, we almost fired one of my best friends. And, the friend whose performance had really taken a nosedive and they were about to fire him when finally somebody was willing to go to him and say, what's going on? And they found out that his wife was dying.

SS: Oh gosh. Oh.

KM: But he thought, well, that's not appropriate. It's my personal issue. I shouldn't be bringing it into the workplace.  

SS: Sharing our traumas can be uncomfortable, especially when we’re taught to keep our private lives separate from the office. But acknowledging our personal experiences can foster a more empathetic and supportive workplace culture.

KM: A man I spoke with who is the head of, uh, he's like a CTO, a chief technology officer at a, at a big company. And he said one of his employees came to him and said, I need you to know that I'm in the midst of a severe depression and in fact am suicidal.

SS: Wow.

KM: And he said, I had no idea what to say. And his impulse was to go right, to fix-it mode. Like, well, what do we need to do? How do we make this better? And that was not what this, this employee needed. The employee just needed to feel heard and, you know, well, how can I help you? What do you need from me? And I just think it's really tough, if you've been taught your whole life that that's not enough, that you're not enough unless you can fix it.

SS: Yes, yes. I have to say, I, I identify with that. I'm a real fix it person, and I have to constantly with my wife, I have to constantly say, no, what can I do to support you right now? Instead of let's get in there and do this, and I got that and I know what we can do. And she's like, no, I don't want you to fix it. And I was like, oh. So I, I totally understand. 

KM: It feels really vulnerable.

SS: It does. Oh, that's a, isn't that interesting? I didn't really… I really didn't peg that as feeling vulnerable. I appreciate that. 

SS: Can you talk to us about some of the terms, um, such as institutional betrayal, you know, and, and you hit on psychological safety, you know, things like this.

KM: Yeah, absolutely. I really see, um, institutional betrayal and psychological safety as kind of two sides of the same coin. Institutional betrayal, the idea that when we align ourselves with an institution, we will look to that institution for support and protection. And when the institution fails to provide that support that creates a second injury on top of the first. And that second injury can be very long lasting. Um, one of the interesting pieces of research that found that for women who were sexually assaulted while they were serving in the military, they had worse outcomes than women who were veterans who were sexually assaulted at around the same age but after they had separated from service. There was this concept of I am a member of the military. The military is supposed to protect me. I should be protected because I am a part of this institution.

Colleges and universities is another common one. Any place where you're really creating this concept of this is, this is who you are, and we are, we are all here for each other. We have a very strong community. Then it can be very, very difficult to come forward and share something that, you know, maybe you've been harassed, maybe you've experienced bias. It makes it harder to come forward and it makes it when those, responses are not supportive, not what you're hoping that can create a negative impact on you personally, your healing from the, what you've experienced, but also on your trust of the institution as you can imagine.

SS: Yes. Oh my goodness. 

KM: So, that's institutional betrayal. And I really think of psychological safety as what happens when you get it right. So when you have an organization that is, has a great culture where people feel comfortable coming forward and talking about what they're experiencing, and then the reaction is what they would want and hope for. So there's transparency, there is support offered. People understand what's going on, their expectations are met. When you have a fair and transparent process, that's where you create a sense of psychological safety and psychological safety is associated with pretty much every positive workplace outcome you can imagine.

SS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

KM: It builds trust and it builds, um, ethical behavior, better communication, more creativity, you know, less turnover, on and on and on. All comes out of psychological safety. So that's why it's so important, the ways that we respond to people during these periods of trauma, of upheaval, of distress, because regardless of which way you go, if it's a positive outcome or a negative one, that that is going to have a, a long-term effect on the individual and on the organization.

SS: Trauma affects each of us in our own ways, and navigating its impact as a team is crucial. So where do we begin?

KM: The definition of trauma that I use in my work is that it is a psychological injury that affects performance.  And just to unpack that a little bit, I'm, I'm trying to get away from some other definitions of trauma where they focus on what the person has experienced. The reason that I wanna get away from that is because we all can have very different reactions to even the exact same incident. If you have four people who are in a car accident together -

SS: Yes.

KM: They’re gonna walk away with four very different experiences of it. 

SS: Right. 

KM: There isn't one experience that's better than another, right? I don't wanna say like, oh, well you, you didn't really experience trauma and therefore you're not entitled to the services and the support. Instead, what I wanna urge workplaces and supervisors and colleagues to do is just look at the person in front of you. Do they need help to be able to perform in the ways that they want and need to? And if so, then let's get them some help. So I don't want us to delve too deeply into does this count

SS: As trauma. right, right.

KM: Just is something affecting their ability to perform? 

SS: So that's so interesting. You know, which takes me to another question that I had.  What do you think is a difference between empathetic leadership and compassionate leadership? 

KM: Yeah, absolutely. So empathy is about, in a lot of ways it's curiosity. I’m willing to, to sit, I want to try to understand you, and then once I have that understanding, that is where compassion moves me to help you.

SS: Hmm. I love that. I think about, what's been diversity, equity and inclusion and belonging. I'm just wondering how that relates also to the workplace, like trauma and fear, you know, anxiety.

KM: One piece of it is I really think of biases and stereotypes as barriers to empathy. There is a fascinating series of studies where they found that people tend to feel stronger empathy for people of their own race. Like they did a study where they hooked people up to machinery to measure their brain activity and then showed them pictures of people who looked like they were sick or hurt. And they found that stronger, empathetic responses for people who were of the same race, which is disturbing for sure.

SS: Oh boy. Yeah. 

KMg: But then there was another area of research where they found that in general, we wanna be on a team like we are a tribal people. 

SS: We are. Oh boy. 

KM: And they found that if they just give us a team, we feel stronger empathy for our teammates. Even if they are of different races. Like they said, you know, you are the blue team, you are the red team, and you would feel a stronger sense of empathy for people who were on your same blue team than people of the red team. Even if the people of the red team were the same race and the people on the blue team were of a different race.

SS: Isn't that interesting.

KM: funny!

SS: Yeah. No, but it, it totally makes sense though. 

KM: So then to me, one of the cool things is we can overcome some of those barriers to empathy just by finding small connections.

SS: hmm. 

KM: Like you are a runner too or you also do the crossword puzzle or you also like craft beer or whatever it is. 

SS: (laughter) Right, right, right, right, right, right.

KM: You find some area of connection, you can really build these ties that help you in a lot of different contexts in the workplace for sure. So that's one of the things where I think empathy and inclusion are really tied to one another. And also it's the, are we making an environment where people are able to talk freely about what they're actually experiencing? You just create an open space where people are allowed to talk. For some people, it's a, um, we do a check-in at the beginning of our staff meeting. Everybody goes around and just says like, you know, I'm, I'm above the line or below the line today. Meaning like, I'm, I'm operating at a deficit, or I'm doing okay. Or they rate themselves red, yellow, or green. So, there are a million different ways to implement it, but it has to be something that works for your organization. Like, I've worked with an organization that, that does food security work. They're so cool, they were doing amazing stuff. For them, what made sense is on Thursdays they have a potluck lunch (laughter) and they all have this amazing, you know, fabulous food that they're making and they bring and share with each other. Like that's what is, what makes sense for their culture. So, that implementation piece, there's a, uh, one of the leaders that I'm working with, he says, the implementation of the trauma-informed work, it will always be in beta. Like it is always going to be iterating. 

SS: Chanting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Because I wonder about that with work, uh remote workforces too. When they can't just go and share food and they can't, you know, it's a, I think it's a little harder. 

KM: It’s harder. Yeah, definitely. I remember talking with one leader who said, if I'm in person, I can walk into staff meeting and know, oh, there's something wrong with Dan.

SS: Right, right.

KM: I just, I can feel his energy in the room.

SS: Yep, yep, yep.

KM: When you're remote, you don't have that, so it really does require you to do more of those check-ins and, you know, all of those Slack conversations and just other ways of trying to, to see how people are doing.

SS: Yeah. So you talk about this in your book. Okay. Can you talk to us more about the laser method?

KM: Absolutely. So the question was, what do I think people should do when they hear a story of trauma. When a colleague comes to them to share something heavy that they're dealing with. And to me there's really five steps. And so that was the laser method. So step one is listen, and this means active listening. Show them that you care, that you actually wanna hear what they're saying. Two is acknowledge, and this is the step that I think gets skipped the most often, but it’s also the one where a conversation goes poorly, it's usually cuz the person needs more acknowledgement.

So acknowledgement is just I hear you. So it's thanks for letting me know. I had no idea or, that sounds really awful and I'm really sorry. Just something that shows you heard what they said. Step three is share information. One of the things I saw in my work with crime victims was everybody craved information.

And I began to realize that when we are in those periods of life where it feels like the whole world has been turned upside down, we feel very out of control. And so if we can share information, you know, imagine a colleague comes to you and says I'm experiencing racism. You…thank you for sharing that. That sounds really hard. Did you know that you can file a complaint? And here's how. So you're just giving them some information. The fourth step is empower. And this is both about boundary setting. Like recognize that your job is not to empower yourself, it's to empower them. So, you know, the person who is experiencing this trauma or distress, they're gonna have to go on, they have a path to walk without you.

So recognize that this is their path to walk. So don't try to take it over. Don't try to fix it. Don't say, I know exactly what you have to do. Please listen to me. Instead, just how can I help? And then try to give them what help they're looking for. So for some people it might be mental health resources. I hope everybody knows about 988, which is the national mental health crisis here in the US. Free and confidential, available 24 hours a day by phone or text. So make sure that you know about services that are available that might be useful for people. And then the final step is both checking in on the person, literally returning to the person to see how they're doing.

But it's also, importantly, a return to ourselves, and that is getting at that issue of compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, recognizing that we need to ourselves time to recover as we're supporting others.

SS: That’s beautiful. That’s so great. Thank you for going into that. Yes.

KM: You know, I was speaking with a leader recently who is trying to help her organization through a really difficult time. one of the things she's talked about is, I don't know what is wrong with me. I am exhausted all the time. I feel like I can't function in the ways that I'm used to. And it just makes me realize that when you are supporting others through something really difficult, it's important that you take almost an equal amount of time to support yourself.

So if you sit and talk with somebody for 30 minutes about a sexual assault that they've experienced, you're probably gonna need to give yourself at least 30 minutes of just recovery. Go for a walk, listen to music,

SS: Hmm.

KM: Do something for yourself to help you get back your own presence and equilibrium, because it's really hard to continue doing this work if you are not supporting yourself. So that's something that I prioritize quite a lot. I have my own morning routine and my evening routine. I also go for a walk in the middle of the day. I make sure that I'm, that I'm doing what I can to take care of myself, because otherwise I'm not really going to be showing up for others in the ways that I want to.

SS: Oh boy. Wow. That's such a powerful share. Thank you for saying that.

KM: You know, if we feel like we are valued, not just for what we can produce by Friday afternoon -  

SS: Right.

KM:- um, you know, not just for our salary or our awesome job title or whatever it is, but we feel like we have intrinsic worth, that is, that is world changing. Because then we can show up so much more authentically as ourselves. We have more energy, more creativity. When we value ourselves, we have so much more power to do more. And to me, that's really the importance of acknowledgement and holding space for each other, is we are showing I care about you. 

SS: Mm 

KM: I have a friend who's a supervisor and she says if she has a 30 minute check-in with her team member, they might spend 25 minutes talking about all the stuff outside of work because she said if, if they feel heard on all of that, if we can get through that, we can handle the work stuff in five minutes. The work is such a small piece of what we are bringing into the workplace. And so if we can all get better at I see you, I hear you. I care about you and how can I help? I mean, my gosh.

SS: Oh yeah.

KM: Yeah the change we could make, the change that we are making is incredible. 

SS: Thanks so much to Katharine Manning for sharing her story with us. Trauma is a hard subject to navigate, but conversations like these help break down barriers and support those who need it most. Thank you to our amazing crew, groovy producer and sound designer Rae Kantrowitz, our far-out assistant producer and communications expert, Ilana Nevins, and our mixing and mastering guru Samantha Gattsek. So don’t forget to like, please just like us, and subscribe to Superpowers at Work, wherever you get your podcasts, we’re not asking much. I’m Sissy Siero. Thanks so much! Be Well. 

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