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Welcome to another episode of the HRDQ-U In Review podcast, where we bring you the latest insights and practical tools for enhancing soft skills training in your organization. This podcast is brought to you by HRDQU.com, and I’m your host, Sarah, learning events manager at HRDQ-U. And in this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Lisa Alvarez to discuss the webinar she presented, The Practice

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of Leadership Empathy within the Workplace. Lisa shared extremely valuable information during this event. So if you haven’t had the chance to listen to the webinar, click the link in the description after this episode to check it out. So thank you so much for joining me today, Lisa. Of course, thank you for having me. And just to catch everybody up and get to know you a little bit better, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do and how you got to where you’re at today? Sure, sure. So I am an

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organizational psychologist, and that was very lumpy. But really what that means is I help businesses achieve their results by helping their employees thrive and perform at their best. And this interest grew from a place of wanting to be a part of a movement.

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The Trevon Martin, which happened, I believe, 2015, 2016, I was in graduate school. And I just remember having this existential reflection of, how do, what do I do? Like, how do I fit in this change in this movement?

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ah How can I change in a way that fits my persona? so rallying, protesting wasn’t really my fit. And so I thought, okay, well, where are my skills? Where are my abilities? Well, engaging with people, training, listening, viewing different perspectives. And so that’s when I thought, okay, well, that’s my skill. So what do I want to bring? And then I thought, well, empathy.

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empathy. Like, if individuals had more empathy, would we view this much hostility, violence, race, you know, racism and all of these other isms. And so that’s where empathy sparked. And that’s where my my love for for training development began. And as it relates to leaders, I believe that leaders have a huge and

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over the work environment. They have the power to shine light or the power to break an environment. And so I thought, I want to be able to engage those, those individuals who have that power and help them engage in empathy to uh shine more light. So that’s where my interest began. And that’s where I…

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I am today is I just have a passion for building leaders so workers can work and environments of joy, inspiration and passion. I think that’s great. And just really collaborating with you on this webinar event and learning more about your work and what you do and hearing you speak during the webinar, could really see your passion for creating such meaningful impact in the work that you do do. So I think that’s great.

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Thank you. And so what changes do you see happening in the LND space right now? AI artificial intelligence. Right. It’s so ubiquitous. And honestly, I’m a millennial. But honestly, at times I feel, oh my gosh, like this world, it’s becoming unfamiliar to me even. And so I have a daughter, she’s

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almost two years and I’m thinking, I don’t know the world that you will be entering because oh my goodness, it’s changing. So AI is changing the landscape of L and D learning. So on a positive note, I feel that it’s making learning more reachable for individuals who have, you know, for instance, neuro

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divergence, right? And so it’s becoming more diverse, right? People who learn better and more visual ways, know, and tactical ways, like they can engage in different varieties of uh learning. On a more critical point, I believe that this instance

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gratification is making learning, it’s shifting the way we want info, meaning that we want it fast. We want it right now. And I believe learning takes time. Right. So once we receive data info, we don’t just receive it openly, right? Like we’re biased. And so what we do is

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That info comes in, but it comes in in our filter. And so we take in what aligns with our values, our preference, our beliefs, and then, you know, we let go of what doesn’t. And so once we then receive it, we then have to reflect on it. Well, what does this mean to me? Right. What is what is a purpose?

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And then from there, that’s when we choose, well, do we act or do we not? And so learning is a process. And I believe with AI, which is usually input, output, input, output, we think that, oh, that’s how it works. And it doesn’t. what I’m hoping is that it doesn’t replace human experiences. And so I think that it has its…

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location, it’s fit, and we just have to know when to use it as a compliment and not as our main source of guidance and learning. That was going to be my next question here that as you were talking about AI and with the speed that it is becoming so popular and used in our everyday life and just kind of how it pulls away from the human touch and do you have

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you have you thought of ways or things and how to combat that to still keep it, you know, personal? Yeah, no, that’s a great question. And I haven’t. think like that’s that’s the number one question is how how are we as psychologists? How do we keep that human experience and use this machine learning?

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as again, a compliment. And I believe, you know, it takes people to understand it, meaning understand the value of human, you know, engagement. So we can’t do it on our own, right? And so I just think it’s just, gosh, it’s just people wanting it, people being aware, like, okay, this is great. However, I still need this, right? And so maybe it’s…

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It’s really for us to show people the need, the value of human experiences. So, but yeah, I’m still digging into it. Yeah. And so before we get into the nitty-gritty of the webinar and all of the questions that we received during the event, I’d love to know what exciting things are you up to next?

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Oh, goodness, so much. So my core is EQ, meaning that I develop EQ trainings and workshops for leaders and teams. And so I help them establish more awareness of their thinking, their beliefs, their preference, and noticing how this impacts their work environment and their teams.

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And so I develop experiential workshops where leaders and teams don’t just learn, but they do it and practice. uh And reflective workshops where they actually have to think about, oh like, how do I respond in this space? And so, yeah, you my trainings are very, very engaging and transformative.

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Um, and as a follow up to my webinar, I am facilitating a empathy and meetings trainings, and that will begin in three weeks. And basically I’m teaching how do we integrate empathy within all of our meetings? So we have a space where, you know, employees can risk.

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their thoughts, ideas, so then that can then result in innovation. And so that’s what I’m working on right now. Great. And so with this webinar that we did recently, just the other week on the practice of leadership empathy within the workplace, can you let us know what were the key takeaways for the registrants at that event? Yeah. So I think one

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myth about empathy is it’s a one time event and it isn’t it’s an ongoing experience. And I think a takeaway is once again, like empathy, empathy is a it’s it’s an experience. It’s a process that always happens. We’re always responding to someone some thing, right. And so it’s

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it’s a joining of the experience and then it’s a response. And so again, there’s not a, oh yes, now I’m empathetic. I got it right. Right? Like we don’t want to enter in with the ego of, I need to get this right. Because it’s so interesting. Our want to be better human beings blocks us from really being real human beings. Right? And so empathy is really just about being authentic, being, being, being,

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real with your own feelings. And then in that response, joining in the reality of your team, your peers, your employees. And so that’s one takeaway. um Another takeaway I would say is empathy begins from you. I believe that people, when they think of empathy, they think of

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other individuals, which yes, that is a component. But empathy first begins with you. How are you relating to your own, again, thoughts, your feelings? How are you connecting with that? And then from that experience, that’s when you can then respond. So for instance, if I’m not in tune with my

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anger, there’s no way that I can join you and yours. Right. And so again, it’s knowing that, oh I have to be in tune with my own, um, internal environment to support my peers or my, team. Um, so I would say those are the top two. Oh, and mindfulness. I don’t think people think of mindfulness when they think of empathy, right?

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But mindfulness, where does that come in is, well, I have to once again be first mindful of my own response. Like, how am I reacting? Because as humans, we are social beings, right? Like, we absorb the energies of other individuals. And so we have to ensure, especially as a manager, uh a leader, our team absorbs what we are not.

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owning. And so we have to be mindful of what am I experiencing? Right? Like what, like what’s happening with me? And so that’s how mindfulness fits in to empathy. And what about myths? What are some myths about empathy? I would say one myth is, um, hmm.

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You know, I’m thinking sympathy, sympathy, people think about sympathy when they think of empathy. And I want to describe between what those two means. Sympathy is looking down on a person. So think about like walking past a homeless individual and saying, oh, I feel bad for them. uh

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Whereas empathy, you are joining in their experience. Oh, I wonder a time or I’m thinking about a time where I was in need or when I was lacking, right? And so there’s a power dynamic there. Empathy is being with, sympathy is being above. And so I think that’s a myth. um What else is a myth?

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Um, goodness. Empathy is a touchy feely experience. I hear that a lot. Well, that’s a bit too fluffy. And it’s interesting because in order to be empathetic, you actually have to engage your intelligence because it takes, there’s a cognitive component within

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empathy is I have to understand your perspective. And for me to do that, I have to uh suspend my own, again, preference and biases, enter into your reality, and then look at the world through your lens. That’s a process that is very difficult. And that’s not

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touchy feely, right? And so I think that’s a myth as well as, know, empathy is a fluffy and touchy feely. And it can be, but to get there, there’s a cognitive uh journey. So I think those are the two main myths. I think that was a really great way of kind of describing the difference between sympathy and empathy, because I think that they can so commonly get mixed up and used interchangeably. Definitely. Amongst people.

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And so during the webinar, you hosted a meditation session, which was really cool. And some people spoke about the length of that. What are your thoughts in regards to those comments? Yeah, no, it was so interesting. I think there was one feedback about, this was pretty long. I wasn’t I wasn’t expecting that. And it was interesting. It was only four minutes. It was only four minutes. And so I think for me, it’s it’s it’s really informing people that

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When we tune in, it’s so uncomfortable because we’re not used to doing it. We are used to producing, executing, performing. And that’s the Western way of working, right? External labor. But when we are requested or challenged to tune in, even four minutes seems so long and so, so, so, so difficult.

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And so for me, it was interesting, like, oh, you know, but had we performed for four minutes, I’m sure that would have been, you know, okay. So it’s really challenging us to take at least five minutes of our day and tuning in. And it can seem long and painful, but think about the majority of our days.

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we are usually tuning out, right? And so it’s really challenging us to say, hey, let me spend a bit of time of just noticing, noticing how I feel, noticing how I’m reacting um and just being able to connect because once I’m able to connect to me, I’ll be better able to respond in a thoughtful way to

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my team. And do think that there’s a shift in patience that people have with now the way that we receive information so fast with, you know, things like applications like TikTok or all those videos that are such a feed like loop of information that you receive so immediately, your attention span just isn’t the same anymore. Talk about that. And I mean, I’m a victim of that. Like my attention span, like even uh

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before we met, my computer was not working. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, hurry up. like this expectation for things to always fall into place fast. Right. And which is why I mentioned the impact on learning. Right. So that’s one instant feed. I need it and I want it.

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Amazon, get my packages like within a day and that’s like the expectation, right? So definitely. And I just lost my train of thought because I got so passionate about it. But yeah, I definitely think that our attention span is now so, so short. Right. And so I wonder the implications on that and and learning and empathy.

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and an empathy because empathy is not instant. It takes time. It is a journey. Right. And so, yeah, I definitely think that that is there. And again, I’m not sure how to overcome that. um But I know what I do know is I’m not um a doctor. But what I do know is that our brain needs pleasure and pain.

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to be balanced. Sometimes that pain comes with patience. Sometimes it’s so painful to wait, but if you really think that’s actually what our brain needs to be balanced. And I think that we live in this, again, overindulgence of pleasure because everything is there. It’s so reachable.

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You know, and so with that, it’s like we need to balance with, you know, a bit of pain, which means meditation, mindfulness, being patient with ourselves as well as individuals around us. Absolutely. But just becoming more more intentional beings overall. Exactly. so what is necessary for reading the emotions of others?

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Ah, yes, reading the emotions of others. So I do want to note there is a cultural component in that, right? Because, for instance, I’m Nigerian-American. And at times, you may hear my parents speak, and they’re loud. Their tones are loud, right? But again, loud is subjective. And so a person from a Western world may think, oh, they’re

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angry and mad. And so they may read it as that. And so I just want to note that there is a cultural component to reading emotions. But in general, what does it take? So in general, takes curiosity, right? Like we can’t just jump and say, oh, they’re angry or oh, they’re mad. Because usually when we jump into that uh interpretation, we are reacting. We are projecting our

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own emotions. remember I was in a talk with my husband. I’m like, Oh, you’re angry. He’s like, actually, I’m not angry. I think you’re angry. And I’m like, I am angry. So maybe you should deal with your own anger before you project that online. I’m like, Oh, my gosh, and I’m here teaching this and I’m still in that, you know, see. So what it takes again, being aware of our own emotions.

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How do I feel to make sure that you aren’t projecting out? So again, awareness and to curiosity. I wonder, it’s really inquiring about that. I wonder how they feel. And it’s just being, I would say,

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curious and also open, right? Because emotions, it’s so fluid. It’s a range of emotions. So it’s being able to invest and just be open. And I would say don’t be afraid to just ask. At times we don’t know. At times it’s hard to read. And sometimes we just have to just ask them.

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How do you feel? How is this landing? How does this resonate? And I think that’s one thing that is so hard for most of us asking because it’s very vulnerable because what if we get a response that we don’t like? And then as a leader, what if we get a response that makes us uncomfortable? Yeah. Then what do we do?

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Right? So there’s so much vulnerability in asking. But what I think it’s being able to say, yes, I’m a leader, but I’m also a human. Right? And sometimes, yeah, you’re right. I won’t know what to do. But we also need to understand that most of us just want three things to be seen, heard, and understood.

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We don’t need you to rescue us. And I think in this expert driven worlds, we think that we need to know everything, the answer. And at times our teams and our people just want you to be there. I just want you to support me. I just need you to hold a space for me. And that’s it. Yeah.

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Wow, well, think that was a great way to wrap up our conversation today. so before I let you go, Lisa, where can listeners go to learn more about your work and connect with you? Yes, please go to my website, is theemotivelab.com. That is T-H-E-E-M-O-T-I-V-E-L-A-B.com.

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Great. Well, thank you so much, Lisa, for your time today. Of course. And thank you for having me. I had fun. I had fun too. This was a great conversation. And thank you all for tuning into this week’s episode. We hope you enjoy listening to the HRDQ-U In Review podcast, available on all major streaming platforms. And if you did enjoy today’s episode, make sure to give us a follow and leave us a review. It helps us out a lot. And I will see you all next week.