Transcript: How to Show Up, Speak Up, and Inspire Action (EP73)

 

Intro (with music): Welcome to The Culture of Things podcast with Brendan Rogers. This is a podcast where we talk all things, culture, leadership and teamwork across business and sport.

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Brendan: Hello and welcome to The Culture of Things podcast. I'm your host, Brendan Rogers, and today we are recording episode 73. Today I'm talking with Heather Hansen. I'm going to read a little bit of Heather's biography so you can learn a little bit about her, and then we'll get into the conversation.

Heather is a global communication consultant, TEDx speaker, trainer, and author. She helps top global leaders show up, speak up, and inspire action in a changing world. She focuses on fostering unmuted communication cultures where every voice is heard resulting in greater inclusion, innovation, and efficiency across remote and global teams. Along with private leadership communication coaching, Heather facilitates group training courses and consults on a number of topics related to global communication. 

Heather is also an external industry expert for the National University of Singapore Business School's Executive Education Programs where she runs modules on communication, presentation, and storytelling skills. Today we'll focus on how we use our voice in business and life. Heather, welcome to The Culture of Things podcast. 

Heather: Thanks so much, Brendan. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. 

Brendan: How about a bit of immediate feedback? How was my pronunciation through your intro? Was it passable?

Heather: Wonderful, very articulate. 

Brendan: Thank you very much. 

Heather: It's funny you mentioned it, though, because as native speakers, we have to be the most careful with our articulation when we're in a global setting. We're the ones who usually come in, drop our word endings, and mumble through things. We are more of the problem than non-native speakers that we're talking to. We think they're the ones with bad English. No. We actually have really bad English when we go out into the world. It's not a bad question that you asked.

Brendan: Absolutely, mate. We sure are pretty ordinary, us Aussies? We got all sorts of slang, Heather. 

Heather: Even here in Singapore, when I ask my clients here what's the hardest accent for you to understand? Australian is normally at the top of the list. I'm very sorry to tell you. 

Brendan: Is that right? Is there something particular in the accent and way we pronounce certain words that is challenging? 

Heather: I think it has to do with the vowel shift that happens in Australian English that they might not be used to that, but it's also primarily due to the amount of slang. It's slang and how you reduce a lot of your words. Even with my Australian friends, I can't understand them half the time because all the words are different. You've made up all these other words and I'm going, what is that? What is it? Avo or something for the afternoon? What do you say?

Brendan: Where do you go this avo? 

Heather: Exactly. I go, what's an avo? Avocadoes? Avocado toast? What are we talking about?

Brendan: [...] could. 

Heather: Even as two native speakers talking together, we can have so many miscommunications, and I think we forget that when we go out into the world. We think we all speak English, but our English is so different from the broad. So great way to start, Brendan. 

Brendan: Thank you, Heather. 

Heather: I think it dives right into the topic today. 

Brendan: I'm sort of well prepared I suppose. Again, I always say to my listeners and guests we are going to get into this topic. I like to ask you about some stuff I read about you as I do with every guest, but the TEDx opportunity you had in Odense in Denmark, I'm not sure if I pronounced that correctly to be honest. 

Heather: Yeah, Odense. In English, I think it's probably Odense. 

Brendan: That had 140,000+ views on YouTube so people can go listen to it. It's called 2 Billion Voices: How to speak bad English perfectly. I want to ask you about the TEDx experience you had there. Tell us a little bit about that. 

Heather: That was a fantastic experience. That team in particular is amazing. The way that they organized the event. I spoke in 2018 and I hosted that event in 2019. Both were just so professionally done. They're amazing. You first have to send in your audition video. 

I have spoken to them for about three years before they accepted me and brought me in. They plan ahead several years in advance and they need the right people that fit whatever theme they're thinking about. It takes some time.

I was paired with Adam [...] who is an amazing storyteller and coach. He helped me to work through the storytelling and put together the scripting, and I hate scripting. I absolutely hate it. I had to actually write the script, memorize it, which I also hate. I'm very much about bullet points, being authentic, and speaking off the cuff, but you can't do that in a TEDx because it has to be so fit in the 18 minutes, which mine didn't because I think I still went off at a point. 

It was an interesting experience and it was the most nerve-wracking experience of my life. The night before the dress rehearsal, I was up on stage, and I was blanking after every sentence. I'm going, what is going on with me? I've spoken in front of so many audiences, thousands of people all over the world—14, 16 countries—and this TEDx was just in my head like oh, it's so important, and just taking myself too seriously. 

I think it would be interesting to talk to a lot of people about their TEDx experiences. I wonder if it's similar for others, but it was big for me. That was a big deal and it still is a big deal. I was just very honored and excited. I had the opportunity and the stage to tell that story and that message, something that I've been talking about for a really long time. It's not really until now that I think it's starting to gain more traction that people are listening to this idea of bad English. It was a great experience. It really was. It'll be something I remember forever.

Brendan: That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. I've watched it and I certainly encourage our listeners to go and watch it and listen to it. It's fantastic. You've done a fantastic job. Adam, who was on your call last night, he's obviously a fantastic coach as well and helped you. Thanks for sharing the experience and well done, I really enjoyed it. 

There are a lot of things I watch on YouTube. A lot of videos I put to 1.25X–1.5X of that. Normally I start them and then speed them up, but yours I did not speed up. You held my attention the whole way and I really enjoyed it. 

Heather: I'm surprised because I feel like I spoke so slowly on that as well. I think I would speed it up just to keep going.

Brendan: Do you know what, Heather? When I present and when I speak, I'm quite measured in my approach, so I think I just really like it. I value those pauses that you make and you had some nice humor through it. Your hand gestures and just the way that you walked around, not too stupidly, but just moved around the stage. It just kept the story flowing, which as I said was really good. I enjoyed it so much. I'm not saying that just because I'm interviewing you. It was fantastic to watch, so well done.

Heather: Thank you for that. That's really nice of you. 

Brendan: You did have Unmuted launch last night. I love what you said about how we spent our time like hey, you're on mute on zoom. It's such a catchy phrase, the unmute and this book. Tell us the name of the book and it's just recently been released. I bought it last night. I've scanned it through. I'm not a speed reader so I didn't have time to read it before this. Tell us a bit about the book, what it's about, and then we'll dive into that a bit further.

Heather: Yes, the book is called Unmuted: How to Show Up, Speak Up, and Inspire Action, and yes, it launched last night, yesterday. Actually, I'm not sure what kind of copy you picked up because I don't believe the paperbacks are available in Australia until may so you have to get online versions. 

Brendan: I got it on Kindle. 

Heather: Good. You can get it on Kindle. There's an audiobook available and you'll just have to wait a couple of more months for the paperback, which smells so good. I love paperback books. It smells good. The papers are nice. It's really, really well done. 

Brendan: I will expect a signed copy by that stage, Heather.

Heather: You've got it. It's in the mail. The book is kind of my manifesto for better corporate communication. And not even corporate communication. It's how we show up in the world. It's in our business, it's in our communities, it's in the world and our families. How can we be fully present, understand ourselves, and be conscious communicators when we show up in the world. Then how do we speak up with confidence and how do we inspire action by being connected communicators? By building rapport and good relationships that people want to follow us and they're inspired by us. 

That was the framework that came together as I was writing this, which is really a combination of all the things that I've been speaking, teaching on, and everything for the last 15 years in multinational companies, primarily headquartered here in Singapore and working across the region here in Southeast Asia. It was a real process putting it together. It was my own unmuting in writing it and a lot of learning went into it. 

It's funny. People look at authors like they have all the answers. Like oh my gosh, wow, you're an author. Listening, I'm an author because I was trying to figure this out. I'm simply passionate about a subject, really interested in it, and I want to figure it out. I've done so much research because I'm passionate about it and I talk about it. I talk to people and my clients and I learned from them. It's a journey of discovery when you write a book. 

I'm not sure I have all the answers in this book, but the goal of it was to start this new conversation around how we can be better communicators. I think it underpins everything in leadership and life. We have to be better communicators. That's, I guess in a nutshell, what it's all about.

Brendan: Heather, you mentioned passion. Where did this passion come from around communication and the importance of communication for you?

Heather: I think it's always been there. I grew up in the States. I'm from California originally. In America, public speaking—I don't know if it might be the same in Australia—we put so much emphasis on showing up and speaking up in our class, starting with the show and tell in kindergarten. Here's my teddy bear and this is why I love him, and it continues from there. 

In high school, I was very involved in speech and debate competitively and competed at the national level. I was all-American, which means I was in the top 20 high school students out of 100,000 kids. I was very, very passionate from the start about that. It wasn't until I came to Singapore that I found out I could make money talking. I thought, wow, okay, well, that's like my one natural talent, so I'm going to go with that. 

It's always been something that was important to me. I've always been a big reader growing up and I was growing up at an interesting time as well. I was very young when the Berlin Wall fell, the end of the Cold War, and the Iraq war that America was involved in. This was all happening in my pre-teens and early teen years, and that made a big impression on me. I was very interested in international relations. I went to university very interested in international studies and wondering how we can create a better world. 

I really truly felt and still feel that communication is at the bottom of that. If we could just sit down around a table, talk to each other, understand each other, and realize that there's so much more in common than different, can't we create a better world? That might be naive to think that—I'm still holding on to that dream—but I do believe that we could get a lot closer if we had more people speaking up, sharing their ideas, if we heard more global voices, if we heard all of the people who don't speak English. 

We're having global conversations around the future of our world with only one-third of the world's population or less than that. I guess this passion has always been there and underlying that is if we could just do it better, maybe we could make our world better. We sure need that right now in our world.

Brendan: Absolutely. You make some really good points. I learned last night through the presentation event you held that you actually had a deal to write a different book and you had to put that on hold. I think the term he uses is broken relationships or something like that, that this book, Unmuted Inspiration, is obviously very very important to you. Why is this book so important where you felt you had to stop that other agreement and move on to this I guess somewhat a pet project?

Heather: I did have a different contract with a different publisher to write a different book, and it was around a similar subject. It was going to be an update of my first book, actually, which is about people skills and moving it into the digital age, which was also very fitting for what was happening in the world as we went into the pandemic. Then when we started all muting ourselves, literally online, and everyone was on mute and were in all these virtual calls, I saw this massive shift happening around the way we were communicating, the way we were building our relationships. 

I saw more and more people who maybe weren't muted before who were beginning to mute themselves because they didn't want to be on camera. They weren't comfortable in an online call and I could just see everyone silencing themselves. We've always been muting ourselves in this way long before the pandemic and virtual calls, but it just really hit me quite hard as we went into the spiritual space that wow, this is the real issue right now. This is the real problem. 

How do we get people to unmute, gain confidence, go out in the world, and share their message and their brilliance? We need these ideas. I think that combined with watching all the problems happening in our world, the pandemic was one thing, but then so many people losing their livelihoods, our environment is a mess, war. Everything seems to be piling on at once and we just need strong leadership more than ever before. 

We need inspiring leadership and people who have really something to say, not just people who are loud and sound eloquent, which plays into our biases and makes us think that they're great leaders. No, there's no correlation there. We really need to hear from people who have important things to say. If I can inspire just one of them to speak up and share that message, then that will be a complete success for me.

Brendan: Here's a number of factors involved in helping people be unmuted. Actually pre-recording, you said let's wait till the recording happens there. There's a model you've come up with in the book. It's an early stage, but we're sort of starting to overarch the rest of the book. Do you want to explain the process you went through of coming up with this model after years of experience and then maybe just go into what the model is about and how it works?

Heather: That model was difficult to put together, to be honest. I knew that our communication is so much more multifaceted than presentation skills training, articulation training, assertiveness, and negotiation skills. For 15 years, I've been running these training programs and workshops, and HR calls me and says this person needs better presentation skills. Can you do this? We just dump all this training on people and I feel like it's just treating the symptoms and not the underlying cause. I've seen it time and time again with all of my work. 

It was also this frustration of being a frustrated trainer going in, doing a day program, going out knowing that it is not making the impact that it needs to because we aren't talking about what really matters, the fact that there's zero cross-cultural understanding, the fact that it's a totally toxic work environment. I can give you all the presentation skills in the world, but if your boss is going to sit there staring at you with the evil eye throughout your entire presentation, you're not going to do it any better. That's not going to change anything. 

I was really trying to figure out how to pull together all of the elements that are absolutely necessary for us to communicate well with each other and build strong relationships. That's where I came up with this Venn diagram. 

Imagine the three circles of the Venn, we have conscious communication, which includes cross-cultural elements, the self-awareness. We all beat our chests around authenticity and yet nobody knows who they are, nobody knows what they stand for. What do you mean you're being authentic? Do you even know what your values are? I think it starts there. We have this conscious communication piece. 

Then we have the competence, which we have to have. It's both skills and confidence, sometimes it is a training gap, and we need those skills. A lot of times, it's the self-worth, the self-confidence, knowing that your ideas matter, and that you should share them. That holds so many professionals back. 

The last circle is connected communication. This is looking at the psychological safety of the environment. Do you feel safe in that environment? What kind of relationships have you built? This is where the people skills element comes in that I'm also very passionate about and have written about. 

The human skills and the connection, it's so funny. We move online like we have all forgotten how to be human. People are saying I don't know how to connect with my team. I don't know how to be human in this digital world. It's that feeling of connection, of how we build those relationships, because when we can do that's when we have the rapport and we inspire action and people. 

I finally kind of landed on those three and then when I put it into the Venn, I realized okay, what are these overlaps? I think that's more interesting than actually the three circles—the overlaps on those—because that's when you go, yeah that's so true because you see the connected person who also has confidence, but they have no consciousness in their communication. 

Their voices are too loud, they're dominating the meeting, they're coming in, they're telling everybody what to do, they're interrupting, they're the only ones who have good ideas. A lot of times, they don't mean to do this at all. They just simply are not aware of the impact of their personality, ideas, and voices on the group. They usually don't even realize that they're offending or stepping on people's toes, they don't. 

Then if you have the confidence and the consciousness, but you are missing that connectedness, you're in a toxic environment, you're typically on mute. You might have tried speaking up and you've had so much negative feedback, or people have cut you down, or they've made fun of your accent or your language, or whatever it might be and you just say you know what? I'm done. I'm just not going to raise my hand anymore. 

That silence is not a good thing. If you're a leader and your people are silent, you think everything's going great and they're just diligently working away, no, you've got a really big problem, a much bigger problem than you think. 

The last overlap is conscious and connected, but not confident. Those people are just turning down their voices. Maybe they get the courage to speak up from time to time, but their voices are too soft. I think we need all these elements together to be truly unmuted in the workplace, in our families, and in our communities. 

That's how the framework works, and it makes a lot of sense to me. I'm excited to see how readers react to it. When I brought it up with my clients and we've been going through these unmuted experiences, it's really been a helpful way to think about oh, I'm being too loud right now, or I'm too soft, or why am I feeling muted right now? I think it's also important to realize it's not like a personality test where you're always one of these things. I think depending on your context, who you're with and the situation, you can move around.

I have the tendency as I'm going on and on right now to be a bit too loud, dominate the discussion, not give you a chance to come in and say, so Heather, another question, let me stop your rambling. That happens to me and I'm aware of it. I know that I need to be conscious in certain situations. 

If this was an interview in Danish, it would be completely the opposite. I would probably be putting myself on mute. I never raised my hand to speak. I don't want to give presentations in Danish even though I'm fluent. I have lived there for eight years, am married to a Dane, speak Danish at home, part of the Danish community in Singapore, but I don't have that confidence because every time I open my mouth, someone mentions my accent. They have to point out that I'm always the other, always different. They don't mean any harm by it. When you hear it over and over and over again, it's like you know what? Forget it. You just want respect.

If I was doing this in English, you would respect me and you would see how smart I am. When I do it in Danish, I sound like a child, they call me charming, and your accent is charming. We're in a business meeting, I'm not trying to be charming. We move around in this, so we need to be aware of all of these areas and know where we are in it in every context, if that makes sense. Thank you for letting me go on and on about it.

Brendan: A couple of things. First of all, my Danish is very ordinary. The only Danish I know is Christian Eriksen. I hope he's doing well, by the way. 

Heather: A legend. 

Brendan: An absolute legend in Denmark. I'm actually not sure how he's going. Do you know how he's going?

Heather: He started back up with an English team, I believe. There were rumors that he will go back to Odense. He's from Odense where I live. He said if he comes back to Denmark, he would only play for Odense, and we were all like yes. Then my understanding was that he started up again with an English team under close supervision and all of that. 

Brendan: That's fantastic to hear and certainly a great player. I was watching the game when that happened, it was scary stuff. The other thing is, it is an interview, you're allowed to just talk for as long as you want to talk and I'll butt in occasionally. 

Heather: You just butt in and interrupt. 

Brendan: If you think you're going on too far, the idea is that we want to extract as many gold nuggets out of you as we can. 

Heather: Wonderful. 

Brendan: Then the other thing more importantly around the model, how long had you battled-tested the model with your clients?

Heather: I hadn't presented it in that form, but I had been teaching all of the elements combined for many years and it was just about how do I get this into a framework that makes them realize this is all equally important? Because I was always pulling in all of these elements into my programs, kind of without them knowing it, and now I've just put it in front of them going okay, look at this. Now, do you get it? This is what I'm trying to tell you. 

I wish I came up with this a lot earlier, but everyone who's seen it now is going ah, okay. It's like the aha moment of now I get it. Now I understand why you've been going on about the cross-cultural piece when I didn't think that was important, especially that one. I believe that cross-cultural is the same as interpersonal. Our interpersonal differences are the same as dealing with across cultures and we fail to recognize that. We think that just because we grew up next to somebody they think, behave, and act like us have the same values and it's not necessarily true. 

When we talk about dealing with difficult people, it's really just dealing with different people. The skills that we learn in cross-cultural communication are the same ones we need to apply to our interpersonal relationships even from the same national culture because we have so many micro-cultures we’re a part of. Your favorite football fan club is a culture and you share the songs and you share all of it. It's a massive culture. Even things as small as that, we need to be thinking about. 

As far as battle testing the actual framework in that form, not so much, it's coming out now. I've kept it a little secret, but the elements of it, yes, I've been doing forever with all of my clients. Now I think they're just seeing it more clearly.

Brendan: That's certainly what models do and it's such a journey that process and getting to this point. I personally love them all. I think it's fascinating because it reminded me so much of the one that I use around what they call the ideal team player. What I love about yours is not just the fact that it's not similar, but it's a Venn diagram as well. It's so behaviorally-focused. 

A lot of people can learn the technical side of things and I'm sure you are very good at what you do and then teaching people the technical side. But if you're not creating the environment to leverage that technical skill, you don't have a really solid foundation to go from, which is basically how I understood your model.

Heather: It's exactly that and that's what I mean when I say I can give you the technical skills of articulating, presenting, how to move, how to talk, and how to use your voice but if all the other pieces aren't there, what does it help? What does it do? If you haven't built your confidence, or you're in a toxic environment, or you aren't conscious enough to know how to connect with your audience, those technical skills mean nothing, they get you nowhere. 

That was the frustration I was having when HR basically calls to tick the boxes. We have performance reviews, and can you come and do a presentation skills course? It's like yeah, but what about the cross-cultural piece? What about the culture in the company and the leadership? What about this? What about that? No, no, no, just coming into a presentation skills course. 

I would sneak in the other elements as best I could because I knew that you're not going to be successful with these skills without the other parts of the puzzle. Now I'm happy that I can just go in and go, nope, here's the framework, this is what we're doing. You're going to have to look at all of these pieces and that's the way it is. Everyone loves a Venn diagram.

Brendan: Again, it gives the safety around these models, makes it memorable, and therefore easy to learn. Don't get me started on HR, though, please. 

Heather: I'm sorry HR in my clients, I don't want to bad mouth HR. Now it's much more learning and development and I think we're getting much better into inclusion. They are definitely thinking further. I feel like a lot of times, the HR people I deal with know all of this, but they're within structures that are not supported. 

It's like no, I don't have the budget for this, or they're just stuck. They have the boxes they have to tick, and they do what the company culture has taught them to do. I don't mean to badmouth HR in any way, but it's just the systems we have in place don't give them the freedom to tackle the problems in the way they need to be tackled.

Brendan: Absolutely. I get it as well as HR, some of my clients also, but I guess that it's no different from many other departments in organizations. They get caught up in the bureaucracy of things and a lot of them sort of forget why they've actually joined in wanting to do those roles. There's so much red tape in things, particular in HR, unfortunately. 

Anyway, that's another side issue. I want to just touch on the cross-cultural thing because you mentioned that a bit. You're a person that knows this stuff, I assume you've written the book, so you make a good living from it. When have you experienced your own personal challenges given that you've lived in Denmark, you grew up in the States, and you spent a lot of time in Singapore as well. What's that one challenge that you have come across regularly around this cross-cultural challenge?

Heather: Oh, wow. I have so many stories I could tell you about. I've been abroad for 20 years now. Before I moved abroad, I spent much of my university time studying abroad and working abroad. I met my husband in Switzerland. I really wanted him to be Swiss. I want to move to Switzerland. I was looking for a Swiss husband and he's Danish. I thought oh no, I have to learn another language.

Brendan: Have you told him this? Do we need to edit this bit out?

Heather: It's a huge disappointment. We met in a bar, I was sitting on a barstool, he came over to me, and so we were eye-level talking. Then when I hopped off the barstool, I realized how tall he was. In the good old days when we met people in bars and not on Tinder. What was the question, cross-cultural? 

Brendan: Cross-cultural story. You've got many, so you tried to choose one.

Heather: I do. I have many. I'll tell you a little bit about the last time I lived in Denmark because I really, really struggled. I really struggled. And I know all of this stuff. I know the ups and downs of moving into another culture, trying to connect with the people and everything. I lived in Denmark for four years, then we came to Singapore for eight, then we went back to Denmark for four years. It was so difficult (I think) because we had been in the big city of Singapore, very international, with constant energy, movement, and action. 

We went back to Odense, Denmark, the third-largest city in Denmark with a whopping 300,000 people. The same size as my hometown, which we consider teenie, and a much more insular mindset. Danish culture is very different. We think of it from the outside looking in as this big utopia. It is in a lot of ways, a very strong social structure, people are taken care of, but there are some very different mindsets that as an American were very difficult for me.

The biggest one is around something called Jante law. It's actually a fiction piece that was written hundreds of years ago. It was about this fictitious little village and the laws that they had. It's very similar to the tall poppy syndrome. Is that what you have in Australia? Do you call it that? 

Brendan: Yeah. 

Heather: It's the same concept, but the laws are written. Do not think you are better than anyone else. Do not think you deserve more than anyone else. It underpins this very social welfare society. Coming from the US where the upbringing is be the best, you can do anything, reach for the stars, that's what I grew up with. Star charts, getting my gold stars, achieving, being top of the class. I was groomed from a young age to believe that I needed to get good grades to go to a good school, get a good job, and be successful in life. It's a very, very different mindset in Denmark. 

That for me is a huge constant struggle where I can come across as too loud, too self-absorbed, how dare I talk about my accomplishments, market myself in any way, or think anything good of what I'm doing, which is soul-crushing for me as an American who has been given positive feedback my entire life and worked so hard, then to not have people share in my success. 

A good example is my husband and I were the first in our friend's group to buy a house. Big deal, right? It's this little crap house. It's old, it needs to be painted. It had the wooding on the walls from the 1970s that had to be taken. There was so much work that had to be done in this house, but we loved it. We saw the potential and we were so excited about it. 

All of our friends that came over, all they could do was tell us what a piece of crap this house was. It was like oh, there's so much work, you're going to have to do this big project. We're excited about this. Why can't you just be happy for us? Why can't you share in the success? For me, it was really, really difficult because it goes so against my core of, I don't care if I like your house. If you like it, I'm just so happy for you. I'm so excited for you. I express myself in a very different way. 

The Danes would turn around and say that's really superficial. Why aren't you being authentic with me? Why are you pretending you like my house when you hate it? Why are you telling me that with all smiles and oh, it's so wonderful when really you don't think that at all? 

For me, that's not what it's about. For me it's about no, I just want to be happy for you. It doesn't matter if I like your house. What does that matter in any of this? That's a really good example of that disconnect that can happen and that's just one example. I have a million of them. It's very different here in Singapore as well. Can I tell you another story? 

Brendan: Absolutely. 

Heather: The Singapore one that just popped into my mind now, because Singapore has a lot of this old, kind of colonial mindset where I come in as this white person from the west, educated in the west, and that somehow puts me on a pedestal. There are a lot of this remaining. I struggled with it quite a bit because I knew how strong this bias was. 

I was like 26 going on 27 when I started my company and I was walking into offices of CEOs who are saying coach me. I'm thinking, do they realize I'm only 26? What the heck do I know? I've never even had a corporate job and these guys want to hire me? What's going on? 

I felt like if I was local, if I was Asian, would they be giving me this opportunity? They were willing to pay me multiple times more. They wanted to work with me. Yes, I'm good at what I do. If I wasn't good at what I did I think they would have figured me out really fast and then will be like get out of here. But I was able to deliver. That cultural piece, I have a lot of that in my business where I feel like I'm walking this line of hypocrisy, where I've had so much privilege and have built a successful business based on privilege.

I think that's why I speak out so much in the world to lift and raise global voices, to inspire them, and to have more confidence because I see what's happening in these multicultural teams, specifically in Singapore, where this colonial mindset is still there, where the Westerners able to walk into the room and dominates with the louder voices, either because the Asians in the room have so much respect and they feel like that's my boss, and I'm not going to interrupt, and I'm going to say yes to what he says. A lot of it is around respect.

If we aren't understanding what's happening there, and if we aren't inviting people into the conversation, and if we're getting a big ego around the fact that everyone's bowing down to me and look at me the big leader, and, no, they never challenged my ideas because my ideas are the best. Why would they challenge them? We just forget that there are really important cultural elements that are going on there that are stopping those communication channels from flowing the way that they should.

I think that would be an example. That's just what popped in my head first from Singapore as an example in this kind of context. Because what we experienced in Europe versus Asia versus the US, I mean, three different continents. The cultures are so very different. The elements and dynamics that are happening are so different.

Brendan: Yeah, great stories. Particularly, again, sharing one from Europe and one from Asia in very different contexts. A little bit closer to home, Heather. As you said, your hubby is Danish, you're American. Where are these cross-cultural challenges? You explained a bit about the Danish mindset and the American mindset, very different sort of mindsets around from a social view. Where has that been challenging?

Heather: That's a really good question. I almost can't remember anymore because I feel like we've blended together so much.

Brendan: You've changed him now.

Heather: Yeah.

Brendan: It's not often that we get to change our beautiful partners, but our partners change us and make us better.

Heather: I think that might be true. I was hoping that he would rub off on me little more than I've rubbed off on him. I do think that I brought that fire in the belly, the achiever mindset, and in some ways have maybe pushed him. This is getting a little personal. I don't think I've shared this publicly, but okay, Brendan, let's do this.

Brendan: Thank you. I'm honored that you feel so safe here.

Heather: I'm hoping your listeners are as safe as you are. Let's see. When I met my husband, he was traveling all over Europe as a welder and fitter. He worked in the factories. He was doing pipe work, welder, and fitter. From an American perspective, that is not a very respectable profession. That means you did not go to college.

You either go to university or you work in McDonald's. If you're a welder and fitter, you probably did a six-month trade school course. We just simply do not have a lot of respect for that. Now remember, I was top of my class. I was valedictorian, the whole nine yards. I was supposed to marry a doctor, a lawyer, somebody very, very successful, a CEO, and I brought home a welder.

What the Americans don't realize is that that was an extremely respected job in Denmark. The trade school system is as intense as a university education, if not more. He had an education that was longer than mine, that included two years apprenticeship. The Danes workmanship is of another level. They are respected worldwide for what they do.

His father was in the same line of work. They worked in the same company. I remember when I first met him, I heard what he did. All of my bias growing up in America, I thought, oh, wow. That was a shock for me and I had to kind of get around that.

I said, do you think this is what you'll always do? He said, I don't know. Maybe one day I'll be a supervisor. I thought, okay. It really jarred me at first and I feel awful. I feel really, really horrible saying this out loud and publicly, but this is quite authentic sharing here.

The real culture shock came when I brought him home to America. That was really tough. It was very tough on him because of the reactions of family and friends. I brought him to my university and everyone's like, oh, so what are you studying? Where did you go to school?

The first question we ask in the US is like, what do you do? Where do you study when you're a student? He's like, oh, no, I didn't go to college. Everyone looks at me going, what? What do you mean? Heather, he didn't go to college? What are you talking about? It was just so foreign of an idea.

Fast forward 20 years, now he's director of operations for an engineering company here in Singapore for all of AIPEC, and in charge of engineering, and he doesn't have an engineering degree. He will also say this, that if I was not in his life, he probably would not have gone on that course.

Sometimes I wonder, did I push him? Did he think he had to do this for me? He'll come home from a stressful day and he has so much in his mind. And he's like, God, I went to work, I did some pipes, I came home, I turned off. There was nothing. There was no email. He could barely use a computer when I met him.

We're talking about the year 2000. It was a little different. But he didn't write emails, he couldn't type. It was very, very different. We were coming from very different worlds, both national culture, but also those educational cultures, business cultures, all of that. I do sometimes wonder, would he have been happier if he just became this installation supervisor, and traveled the world, and got to just do his job, and come home?

If maybe I put a little too much of that achiever into him, I like to think that I was encouraging, to be like, you have so much. I saw that in him when I met him, that, wow, he had so much potential. He was so smart. His people skills are just beyond belief. He can read a room like no one I've ever met.

He feels the energy. He knows where people stand. He's a good listener and has to be with me. I talk so much. I wonder, but that would be the big cultural difference that we had, that goes a little deeper than probably what you were looking for. That's a big one.

Brendan: Absolutely not. It's fascinating and I appreciate you so much for sharing that with myself and our listeners. I think it really hammers home a point of judgment versus curiosity, being more curious rather than judgment. Can I ask you this? Has that played a part in not being in the States?

Heather: Not necessarily, no, because when I left the States, I had no intention of ever going back. He has had opportunities come up in the States and I've put the brakes on that. It hasn't been so much that.

Actually, my senior year of university, my final year, he was sent to the states for work for the very first time. He was working in Kentucky and I was in California. That was so nice because we were long distance the first two years of our relationship.

He was working all over the world, I was finishing my studies, and then I went to Denmark right after graduation. That was kind of nice and that was his first real experience being in the US, sitting in Kentucky and experiencing that.

He always really, really liked the States. He enjoys it every time we're there, but it was quite a shock. I don't think he expected that kind of reaction from my family and my friends. He always had this feeling he had to prove himself.

I've always felt so awful about that, that maybe I needed to stand up for him more. Maybe if I could have done it differently. But I think I was still coming to grips with it as well of, am I fully accepting of this and learning?

It's scary that our cultures can impact us so strongly that here's the man of my dreams, and I'm questioning our relationship because of the school he went to? Looking back, it's like, how do you even have that thought? That's how deep culture runs. That's how deep it runs.

Brendan: Absolutely. The systems that influence, I suppose, in our thinking. I'm a big believer that everything happens for a reason in their journey. I'm sure you've used those experiences and that reflection in what you've shared with us today to make this book even better than what it would have been, had you not had that experience. What's your hubby's name?

Heather: Peter Hansen, probably the most popular name in all of Denmark.

Brendan: But he sounds so ordinary. You've just explained this unbelievable, fantastic guy, but he's got an ordinary name. I'm sure Peter is an absolutely fantastic guy based on what you're saying. He's obviously doing great things in his own career as well, so fantastic.

Heather, back to the model again because we went deep dive into that and the conscious side of things. I know from the book and the model conscious, that relates to the showing up. Again, I'm not about sort of bastardizing your book. People need to go and look at it because it is, again, from what I've seen, absolutely fantastic. What's the key thing in this be in the conscious and the showing up part that we need to unpack?

Heather: The main concept there is to know yourself. Know your values. Know the stories in your life that have shaped your beliefs. I really do believe in this identity narrative. When you asked me, what led to this passion? There are these certain stories, moments, and decisions that pop up in my head. Those were defining moments and events in my life that really showed what my values were and who I am as a person.

We really need to do some digging here. I'm not even close to understanding myself as much as I would like to. But figuring out, what is it that we stand for? How am I showing up in the world? That is based on our cultural experiences, our background, our education, our parents, the groups and clubs we were a part of growing up, and into adulthood.

Who am I? The very first chapter of the book. Who are you? That is the core fundamental of that entire section of the book, that it starts with you. In every conversation, in every relationship, how are you showing up in the world? That is the key concept of conscious communication.

Brendan: From an actionable item perspective, what would you recommend to somebody who say, okay, that makes sense, I need to understand myself better. And really, what do I stand for? What is that first couple of steps that you'd suggest for people to start that journey if they haven't already?

Heather: Actually, since you bring up the actionable steps, just to mention, in this book, I wanted it to really be a learning journey and for it to be actionable. With every chapter, there's a short video at the end. There's a QR code you follow and there's a discussion guide that goes with it to ask you these questions and have you reflect on it. I hope people won't just stop with the book. I hope that they will continue to the discussion guide and do the deeper work. 

Some of the things that are coming up in that around the Who are you, for example, is to think back to those stories, those moments where you had a big choice. Maybe it was choosing which school you were going to go to. For me, it was choosing to move to Denmark. It was choosing to come to Singapore. It was choosing to start a business, instead of getting a corporate job.

When you think about those big choices you made, that is when you were living your values. Your values can be uncovered. It's funny because when I've worked with coaches myself, they always want to start with this. I think it's pretty typical in leadership coaching and everything else. What are your values? This isn't anything new.

They'll give me this long list of like a hundred values and say, pick the ones that resonate. I'm going, I don't even know what these mean. What is integrity? Everybody values respect and integrity, but what does it mean?

I'd like to turn this around a little bit and say, go back to those big life choices. Why did you choose that? What does that say about you as a person? What was the value you were living in that moment, in that choice? That's how you discover your values.

It's great to look at those lists, but you tend to choose the ones you want to be living and not necessarily the ones you are living. It's like, oh, yeah, that sounds good. I'm sure I'd do that. But no, go back in your life and think about the choices. Why did you choose this over that?

My parents are divorced, for example. If you've been through a divorce, if you were the one who chose to leave, what was it that you were valuing in that choice? That's a really huge life decision and you were choosing something over something else. Were you choosing freedom? Were you choosing self-respect if you felt that you didn't have that?

What was it that really was defining that moment in that decision? When you see that, it's like, okay, now I know what integrity means. Now I know what respect means because I did this in my life and it is defined for me in that moment. I think that gives us a much deeper understanding. Those are the very first steps.

We're just in chapter one. You don't lose more as we move through the next four chapters of that section. Those are some of the actionable steps that I ask people to really dive into after the book. They start exploring and reflecting on the theory and the concepts that we talked about in Unmuted.

Brendan: Once again, I love the way you think and what you've just articulated. It's so true. The value is a filtering process for decisions. Getting back and looking at stories, I'm 100% on your page, absolutely. 

Flipping that part on its head, though, as far as showing up on that conscious part, what's not showing up? What's the flip side of this when somebody's not showing up in this part of the package?

Heather: For me, I would say it's when they're showing up inauthentically and they may or may not be aware of it. If you're showing up to please others, if you're showing up with the wrong intentions, if you're trying to manipulate or use your privilege to your advantage, that's when we aren't truly showing up as our real selves, when we're showing up in the world without having our values alongside us.

I think for people who don't know what their values are, they could be showing up in a way that actually isn't them. This is where you want to be a part of a group, so you just start acting like everyone else in the group. That's not really showing up, is it? You're not being you, you're being the clone of what you think will be accepted so that you can be liked and you can belong.

Of course, we all want that. We all want it. I've been in a million situations. I can be that chameleon that can sit with the expat wives, and then can go to the PTA meeting, and then can sit in the boardroom, and then can drink with friends. We all do this, but it's about not losing yourself in the process and not acting inauthentically or out of alignment with your values or doing behaviors that are not fitting with who you really are as a person.

I think there's a long process that has to happen of understanding yourself to know if you are showing up as your true self or if you're letting those around you kind of dictate who you are in the moment. Of course, we do want to adapt and we want to build that bridge of connection, but we want to remain true to our core values as well. I think that's what real authenticity is.

That's what authentic adaptability is. I think that's chapter three, where I talk about remaining true to the values, but being able to then adapt in these situations, but without losing yourself in it, because that's not really showing up if you've lost yourself. That's how I define it.

Brendan: When you look at conscious, confident, and connected, and what you've just explained to me, there's always more important to less important. I get the fact the Venn diagram, yeah, it's the balance of these things, which makes us unmuted. Where does conscious fit if you had to put these things in a one-two-three as most, most important?

Heather: That's hard because I do believe they're all equal. That's really hard, because it's looking at it from different angles. If you don't have the self-confidence and self-worth to know your ideas matter, you're not going to speak up in the world. I think the one that's probably fundamental is the connected piece because that's the one that will mute someone.

If you're in a toxic environment, if you don't feel psychologically safe, if you haven't built strong relationships where you feel safe in those relationships and can express yourself, that is what creates a muted voice. That is probably the most important element, that piece of, do you feel like you can even show up? Because if you can't, then the showing up piece doesn't really matter. It is that.

At the same time, though, however, you can't build those relationships if you don't have that consciousness and that understanding of self. Of course, you need the confidence. It goes back to that circle of, we need all of them to make this work. But if you're going to make me choose one, I think I would have to say the connected piece is going to be the most important. That would null and void the others if we don't have that.

Brendan: I'm going to ask the question in a slightly different way, not because I'm not happy with your answer. I'm very happy with your answer. If you were making a decision to coach somebody and there was one of these three that you just felt they're really going to struggle and actually it's maybe beyond your level of training—because I know coaching certain people and I think if they don't have certain things, I'm not training that. I need to recommend some other help to them—what's the one that stands out for you? If they don't have that and you feel not comfortable in their ability to develop that, that it's a no show for you?

Heather: That I would refer it out, you mean?

Brendan: Yeah. In my terms, I would say, at this stage, they're not coachable because I believe there are people that aren't coachable.

Heather: That would go to the conscious piece. If they were absolutely not willing to figure out who they are, if they were so blind and had so little self-awareness and such a lack of curiosity in seeing the world in different ways, then that's a no go, absolutely. There has to be that curiosity and interest in looking at the world in a different way and wanting to change or want to build the bridge, want to meet people halfway. If that isn't there, there's really nothing I can do with that person to help them.

In that sense, going back to the connection, the consciousness would be the key piece there, absolutely. There are also those situations where somebody will call me and say, we need you to work with this person. And I will say, well, this person is only half the problem, we also need to work with these people. If they're unwilling to do that, then I might also say that's a no go. That's pointing more to the connected side of the equation.

If this is actually much more of a leadership issue, a discrimination, a linguistic bias, or something else and not truly a communication skills problem, then I need to also be working with this other part of the team. If that's not an option, then there's not a whole lot I can do.

Brendan: I understand. Heather, thank you very much for explaining that. It makes a lot of sense. 

Let's talk about the speaking up and the confidence side. Again, I want you to give a bit of refreshers around that, what that's about, what that means, and where that most important thing is.

Again, you've helped me with the line of questioning around connected. I want to spend a little bit more time unpacking that one. Let's spend some time on confidence speaking up at the moment.

Heather: The speaking up piece, the confidence piece, is actually split into two. It's the self-confidence and the skills confidence. The self-worth issue is a big one, especially when we talk about speaking anxiety, which I've rephrased as expression anxiety because I think that anytime you're trying to voice your ideas in the world, whether it's in writing or speech. You could be writing an email and spend an hour and a half on it because you're so concerned with how that's going to come across and, oh, can I write it this way? And oh, my language, and, oh, this and that and the other.

That's true of native or non-native. That doesn't even matter in writing a book. How much did I deliberate over some of these chapters? Oh, did I write it well and is it good enough? The self-worth around expressing ourselves and the confidence around expressing ourselves is a big piece.

That's usually the bigger problem with people who I'm working with. They come to me because they lack skills confidence. We can build some of that self-confidence by enhancing their skills. Giving them those technical pieces. We can absolutely help them to feel more confident in themselves when they've built that skill set. That is an important part.

The self-worth piece is one that is deep learning. Talking about referring people, when I see that, that's not something that I'm going to handle. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not trained to help you find your self-worth. That's another kind of help. I do try to give some basics around that by looking at how you react in these situations, where your expression anxiety is coming up.

There's a wonderful book called The Confident Speaker that talks about these four areas of anxiety. They talk about the biological reactions, like the shaky hands, the sweating, and shaky voice. These are all biological things that happen when we're nervous. 

Then we have behavioral. Those are hard for you to spot yourself, but everybody else sees it. It's like rocking back and forth, dancing on stage, and gripping your hands. I have a whole list of them, the cage tiger, the pieces of stage, and I lost my keys. This is usually men with big pockets that are fiddling in their pockets the whole time. They've got change in keys and God knows what’s down there.

Brendan: That was me.

Heather: Was that you?

Brendan: When I first went to my first Toastmasters meeting, that was me, hands in the pocket. That was the first bit of feedback I got. Brendan, just put your arms by your side and relax.

Heather: Yup. It's that. But we feel so weird with our arms at our sides. It's like, that's normal. It's normal to put your hands at your sides. We feel like we have to be doing something. These are all behavioral reactions, but then we also have mental and emotional.

The mental is the big one. It's that negative self-talk. It's, oh, this isn't good enough. This idea is stupid. They're going to think I'm awful. This isn't good enough. I shouldn't be the one talking about this. There are other people they should have asked, why did they ask me to do this?

I'm sure everyone can relate to this. We all do this. I do this, where it's like, oh, why did they ask me to do this? This is good enough. Second guessing ourselves and thinking that maybe our ideas aren't good enough.

That leads to the emotional turmoil of maybe you say no to these opportunities and if they asked you to speak and you say, you pass it up. No, I'm not going to. Then you beat yourself up about it later. Or you do it and then you beat yourself up about it later because, oh, it wasn't good enough and, oh, I don't think it was good.

You watch the video, heaven forbid, and you realize you're fumbling in your pockets the whole time or, oh, that just wasn't good enough. Then you get depressed. You have really negative feelings and those sit with us. We equate those feelings to these events. It's really hard to come back from that. That's where the self-worth just goes down, down, down, down, down. 

I do talk about that in the book and we run through some exercises around, how do we reframe that negative self-talk? How do we go from, oh, my ideas aren't good enough to, yes, they are? They asked me to speak. There must be a reason for that. They want to hear my ideas. They wouldn't ask me if they didn't want to hear it. Why wouldn't they ask me?

Reframing some of the mental talk, also being aware of your behaviors. I'm definitely an avoider. I can't tell you how many times I sat down to write, and then I would get up from the computer, and I'd go dust the furniture. Suddenly, there was a pressing issue. I'd had to rearrange the books in my library.

I could come up with a million excuses to avoid that uncomfortable feeling of, wow, I really have to unmute here and share my ideas. Are they good enough? How are people going to react? How are they going to respond? There will be people who pick up my book and say, ah, garbage. I have no control over that.

I can't be obsessive about that. I have to focus on all of the people who say, wow, this is really great stuff and I relate to this. Remember that it's a conversation we're starting. Thinking about your behaviors, what you do when you have this stress, but this self-confidence piece is huge. It's going to take a lot of work for a lot of people to do that.

It's an ongoing process. It's not like you wake up one day, like, I'm confident now. In the context, the situation, you're always going to have nerves. I welcome them because I think if I don't have those butterflies in my stomach, there's something wrong, like really wrong.

My content is stale. I'm not challenging myself enough. I'm doing the same thing over and over. Or I'm not taking my audience seriously enough. I'm not taking the opportunity seriously enough. I think it's scary if I don't feel nervous.

I have been in a few situations where I think, why aren't you nervous? You should be a little bit nervous, at least. Are you getting too comfortable or are you not respecting your audience? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

I think that it's about managing those butterflies. Getting them to fly in formation instead of completely throw you off course. That confidence is huge. 

Then we do touch on some of the technical skills as well in that section. I want to balance that. We talk about how to show up on a video call, how to do your framing, the before and afters, to help you feel more confident showing up and speaking up in your meetings, a bit on your voice and how to use inflection, and the power of your voice. We talk a lot about articulation from a global English perspective. How can we speak in ways that are best understood? There are a lot to unpack in that bit, but it does try to balance the technical skills and confidence with the self-confidence.

Brendan: Out of interest given what you shared about the avoidance side of things, how long did it take you to write the book?

Heather: We signed the contract. It's actually a very fast process. You put in that proposal, and then when that contract is signed, they expect you to turn that thing around in three months. And I'm going, I've just put the outline together. I don't know if it's just me or if this is true for a lot of authors, but I've been carrying this book inside of me for so long.

Even though it struck me at the beginning of the pandemic, it just crystallized them. I've had this. I've wanted to write this for so long that I felt like it was already written in my head when I signed the contract. I think we signed in January or February. They wanted the book by the end of April. That's the amount of time that I had. A lot of that was spent avoiding.

When I finally sat down to write, it really flowed. I'm the type that I really need to block out time and only do that. I blocked, basically, a full month where I didn't see clients, I didn't do anything else, and I just wrote. 

But I had already done all the research. I had already spoken with done interviews. All of that part was finished. All I needed to do was put the words on the paper, but that can be so difficult sometimes. Especially when it's something that you're so passionate about and you feel so connected to, you have to know how to remove yourself from the content.

I am not the content of the book, I am a different person, and that is not my identity. As I mentioned on the launch last night, I can change my mind tomorrow. There can be something that I wrote that when it meets the world and people start having discussions with me about it, I might say, that's a really good point. I think you're right about that. Let's dig into that more. The next book I write, I'll have a totally different opinion. You don't know, we all change. We develop, we're growing. 

That's true (I think) of authors as well. Just because it's in a book, it isn't set in stone or the final answer. It's just ideas. It's just sharing ideas. The avoidance behavior is tough. I like to avoid.

Brendan: It sounds like you'll have some space for a 2023 edition, potentially, that that's the way to do it, isn't it?

Heather: Yeah, I already have the next book written in my head. I'll go through the same process again, but I think I'm going to take a year to talk about this book first.

Brendan: You're prolific, Heather. On the self-confidence side of things that you mentioned—and it's such an important piece; I want to put us into it these boxes, male, female—do you see anything specifically that is more male-orientated around self-confidence versus female self-orientated? Any differences there?

Heather: We know that there are a lot of differences. There have been so many surveys, studies, and everything else. The example that stands out to me is when people go to apply for a job, and the man will maybe tick 3 out of the 10 boxes, and he'll walk in with full confidence, like, you need to hire me, I am the best man for the job. Then the woman who takes 9 out of the 10, it's like, I don't think I should apply for this because I'm really not what they're looking for and no.

I think we do know on a grand scale, that there are really significant differences, at least in the Western world, around the male-female levels of confidence and how we express our confidence. That shows up in meetings. It shows up in the way we're communicating.

We also know that men do interrupt more often than women. They are generalizations, but we have numbers to back it up and studies to back it up that men do tend to do that. It doesn't mean women don't. I think I interrupt people all the time and I probably am just as bad as a man. We can't over generalize here.

We're going to see things happening both ways. But according to statistics, yes, men are dominating discussions, men are interrupting more often, and they will interrupt women more often than men. It's actually the same for women. Women will interrupt women more often than men. It does come out. There's a huge element of the male-female dynamic in the communication as well.

It starts from socialization as a child. We see this happening in our groups. Look at little boy play groups versus little girl play groups. The boys were out there fighting, chasing each other, and running around. They're learning how to stand up for themselves, they're learning how to be assertive, and they're learning to be confident in their skills. Then our little girls are pampered and they're with their dolls.

We're still in culture rating our children without meaning to, without wanting to, but we still see it. How do we break these patterns? How do we empower the girls? I was a real tomboy growing up. I did lots of sports. I hung out with a lot of guys. I thought that was fun and I was encouraged by my two younger brothers.

The house was always full of boys. I had close, close girlfriends as well, but I think I was always a bit more comfortable around the guys for some reason. I don't know why. We don't have to unpack that right now. But as far as the male-female dynamic goes, we definitely see this playing out in business, in life, in how we're raising our kids, and how we're teaching them to communicate.

Women aren't expected to speak up all the time. Women, I think, do feel more than men that they don't have the voice. I'm just trying to find speakers for my event. It was so easy. It could be my personal bias as well. I was working with a team of women. Of course, our minds go to, oh, we know so many women who have been silenced.

That's also a generalization. There are plenty of men who are silenced, too, in different ways. These are all issues we all deal with, but are we comfortable talking about them? Are we comfortable being vulnerable about them? I think there's a lot at play there, male versus female.

Brendan: Just what cast my mind back last night, Adam shared a fantastic story. You're a TEDx speaker and coach. The ladies that also spoke were absolutely fantastic. It was such a good diverse example of the different stories and how they've been muted at different times. The confidence and the energy in not only your speakers, but in the virtual room last night was really fantastic.

Once again, it reiterated that we've chosen the right person to be our next guest on The Culture of Things podcast because of the energy you bought. I was just reflecting on it when I went to bed last night. There was love in the room.

People obviously had that great connectedness, to use the term from your model, that I really felt that people that were there supporting you were generally supportive of you and loved what you do. You'd obviously helped many of them and had such great relationships. It was fantastic. I had energy, even though I needed to go to bed. I had energy from that experience last night and hearing those stories.

Heather: Thank you for that. That means a lot. That was what we were trying to create as well because that's the safe space of feeling that you're in an environment that is supportive and is not going to attack you for your story, or for sharing, or for opening up, or being vulnerable.

How do you create that online? We've really spent hours, and hours, and hours trying to decide how this event should be structured. I wanted to hear from as many voices as possible, as many stories as possible. But I realized that the stories are so special and important that it takes time to really give them the space they need.

I only gave the speakers five minutes. It was such a short amount of time. We could still only fit about four speakers while we had to fit a recorded speaker. Then to have a little bit of Q&A where I could acknowledge their story and talk to them about it. That's where we came up with this idea of people could call in and leave a voice note. We could do really quick little clips just to get other small stories and hear other voices.

We were really trying to figure out how do we create an environment where people feel comfortable to unmute. Because when we go on these virtual calls, we typically want to keep the camera off, keep ourselves muted. There's a lot of anxiety around showing up online, your face pops up on the screen, it's full focus on you, and you can't see people's reactions. There's so much going on.

It means a lot that you felt that. I'm very, very happy and pleased that you felt that there was an energy there. It goes to show that we can do this if we try, if we really are thinking it through that we can create spaces like this, whether it's a business meeting, or catch up with family, or meeting a new connection over LinkedIn and having a call.

You and I are talking for the first time and I feel the connection. It is possible if we make it that way. I think sometimes at work, we're just like, no, we have a meeting, we need to get the job done. We forget about all the other elements of making the team work.

Brendan: I think you've led us really well into this final part of the Venn diagram, the connected bit. Again, refresh our memories around connected. Why is this part what you consider to be the most, most important of the three parts of the model?

Heather: This is the one. It's creating this environment. It's exactly that because if we don't, then people won't share. They won't speak up. They won't get vulnerable. It has to do with our human skills. How do we show empathy? How do we build trust? That's what we're trying to do in this connected communication piece.

A part of that is how, as leaders, we create a company culture that is psychologically safe. It's Amy Edmondson from Harvard Business School who has set the gold standard in this. Her book, Fearless Organization, is an absolute must-read by everyone. I only highlight very small pieces of that in the short chapter on psychological safety.

Google took a lot of her research to show this in Google as well, that the most efficient, effective highest producing teams were ones that were psychologically safe. It had nothing to do with the diversity or anything else. It was psychological safety.

We have to get that piece in place. We have to start measuring it. We have to look at how we are connected. We have so much data and I think we're measuring the wrong things. We're measuring what are the different ethnicities, we're measuring absenteeism, we're measuring male versus female, and we're measuring demographics. What we aren't measuring is connection.

One person who was also on the call last night was Jeppe Hansgaard. He runs a company called Innovisor in Denmark. It is a data analytics firm that is looking at the social connection within companies.

They run very different analyses. They run surveys where they ask you, who are the four people that you would go to when you have a problem? Who are the four people that you trust the most? Who are the four people who inspire you? Then they're able to take that data, just the names, and you'll be able to find out who are the influencers in that company. Who are the people who are most connected?

What they found, they call it the 3% rule. Three percent of the organization through that amazing trust they've built and the connections they've built, they can influence up to 90% of the organization. These influencers are never in the top leadership. 

It goes to show how much power you actually have within an organization to create change, to influence culture, because if you have those human skills, and you can build those connections, and you can create safe space for others, you are actually going to be influencing the entire organization more than you can possibly imagine. When a company knows who these individuals are, wow, that's magic. Because you want to create change in your culture, you start with them. 

One CEO that Innovisor have worked with said, yeah, if you wanted to spread a meme in the organization, you ask them to share it. That's the concept. If you want something to take off and light a fire in this organization, you start with those influencers, because if they are on board and they believe it, they will champion that cause throughout the entire company. 

But we aren't looking at these things. We aren't focused on that. We're so focused on, do we have an even number of male and female? Which is also very important. We need the diversity, but we need to go deeper than that. We need to look at, okay, we got the diversity, but is it working? Are we actually being inclusive? Are we creating the relationships? Or are all the men still in their silo and all the women in theirs? 

When we look at the social connections, we can see that. We can see exactly what's going on between departments, between any of the demographic perspectives. We can see where the communication is failing. 

I think this connected piece is, when you do push me and say what's most important, I really do have to say this is probably it. Because it's underneath everything, the way the organization works and the culture of the organization. And have you used your human skills, your people skills in a way to build trust, show empathy, reframe failure so that it's okay to have intellectual failure? Are you curious? Do you celebrate failure? Do you learn from it? Do you have a learning mindset in the company? This is all part of this connected communication piece. It's something that I see a lot of organizations overlooking or not paying attention to.

We have to have it, even more so now after the pandemic. I think the last two years have really put this into focus. We've seen everybody's leaving. They aren't going to put up with toxic environments anymore. They're not going to put up with leaders who do not inspire them. They want human connection at work.

There is no work-life balance. It's one thing and we want it all the time. We want to feel something at work. We want to feel that we're doing something good in the world. We want to be inspired and we want to have purpose.

If you aren't focused in this area now, you're going to lose your people and heaven forbid, you lose one of your influencers. When they leave, there are multiple times larger chances that those connections directly related to them, they're going to follow them right out the door because that's the main reason they're there, those connections that they've built.

When their best friend leaves, chances are, they're going to say, yeah, I don't think this is the right place for me, either. I think that, yeah, she's right, he's right. I'm going to go, too. You'll see that happen. That's basically what is happening right now in most organizations. These floods of people leaving because the influencers finally said, you know, I'm done. I'm out, and then others follow.

Brendan: What you said at the start is a company in Denmark. I can't remember the name, but they've got something in place to actually identify this, so it's not so much of a dark magic thing anymore.

Heather: Right, exactly. Yeah, the company is called Innovisor. I partnered with them to bring their analysis into clients that I work with. I'm really saying this is the first step. If you want to unmute your organization, this is the first step. We need to get a picture of what's going on right now.

Where are the connections? Where are the silos? Where are people not communicating? We need to see that and we can map it on paper. We can map it out in black and white. They've developed all the algorithms and everything to do this and to process the data.

They run the surveys. Everyone replies, and puts down those names, and then they can do the full social network. It is so eye-opening when you see it done. They've done it with so many companies that they've developed such an enormous database of content, of patterns. They can really see what's happening with gender, diversity and discrimination. They can see what's happening, the way we're connecting and socializing within the companies.

I think this is really the very first step. When you go in and you say, I want to unmute my workplace, well, you better figure out what's that map right now and where do we need to change it. Then you can work from there to say, okay, let's build the connections here, we need to get these two departments doing more together and building better relationships because they're completely not talking to each other. 

Or there's that one person who's the connection between those two departments, probably someone in the leadership team who's overseeing those two departments and running them as two separate organizations.

How do we get the company working together? We don't know that until we map it and see it. A lot of times, we just go in and we think we have the solution. We think we know the problem. It could be something very, very different. I think measuring the right things is super important now.

Brendan: Is this something different to the Global DISC Assessment that you're involved in or is this what we're talking about?

Heather: No, very different. Global DISC is more focused on our communication styles and intercultural communication. It is combining personality and culture together. A lot of people have used the normal DISC assessment along with Myers-Briggs. There are a million of these, Strengths Finder.

You can do all different kinds of assessments that are more personality based. I've never liked them because they don't incorporate the cultural beliefs and background. Cultural assessments, I've never liked, because they're so focused on stereotypical national culture, which really does not play a huge role when it comes down to it.

If you try to treat me the way you think an American should be treated, you're probably going to go way off base. I haven't lived there for 20 years. Yes, I was raised there. Yes, I have a lot of the ideals and I carry a lot of the values, but I really don't relate to American culture much anymore. I've spent half my life outside of it and have changed in a million ways.

National culture is not an end-all be-all. That was my problem with the cultural assessments. What Global DISC does is it tries to combine the two to show how your culture is influencing you, as well as personality traits are influencing you and your communication styles, your involvement with others.

I am a big fan of all of these kinds of measurements. I do talk about many in the book, from the data analysis to measuring psychological safety, to measuring the cross-cultural communication. There is so much that we could be doing to get more information, knowledge, and understanding.

Unfortunately, what a lot of companies want to do is just jump to the solution. But how do we solve the problem that we don't know what the problem is? We have to do that groundwork and invest in that groundwork before we get to the last piece of the puzzle, which is filling in those last little training skills gaps, those little technical things. That's actually the last step. It shouldn't be the first step.

We're doing things a little bit backwards, at least that has been my experience over the last 15 years or so. We tend to do this backwards. We need to be going at it differently. A lot of this is just restrictions, budgeting, and not looking at a training budget as including all of these things. There are different mindsets we need to shift around it.

Brendan: Once again, I couldn't agree more. It's very much my own experience as well that we don't yet understand the problem, but we're already trying to put in the solution. Then we wonder, scratch our head, why the solution hasn't worked. 

I want to bring Peter back into the conversation.

Heather: Oh, my gosh, I'm never going to tell him about this.

Brendan: I just want to mention him a few times, so he actually listens to the episode. He probably listens to it more for how many times he gets mentioned. Again, back to the connectedness or the connected. You explained Peter's journey and how he's not actually technically skilled, educated for the role that he's doing. How much has connected been a part of his success and where he's at in his trajectory?

Heather: 100% of his success. Another book in my head that I've wanted to write for years and years has a really fantastic title in Danish, but it doesn't translate very well. It's this idea of from apprentice to director.

Nobody go out and steal this idea now, now that I'm saying this. What I would love to do is interview lots and lots of people who have started at the very bottom of a company, at apprentice level, and have managed through their career trajectory to take over the entire company.

It's basically the story of my husband. He hasn't taken over the whole company, but he's up at C-level now. I've been by his side watching that trajectory when he does not have a business degree. He does not have an engineering degree. He doesn't have anything on paper that you would typically be looking for if you were hiring someone in this role. It's like, how did he do that?

There are many people in the world who have done this. How did they do that? I think they make the best leaders because their understanding of the company and the industry is so deep. He can connect with every person on every level. He has so much respect for everybody in his world.

He surprises people. He'll show up on site in his dress shirt. He hates that he has to dress up, by the way, his dress shirt, his nice pants. There will be one of the workers and he'll say, this weld, it's not good enough, we need to do this. And the worker will say, no, I cannot, we can't do that. And he'll say, give me the tool.

He will lay down on the ground in his dress shirt and he will show them how to do it. And they're shocked. They never expected that he would even have that knowledge or skill to be able to do that.

They love him because he has so much respect for them. He doesn't come in from on high thinking he's better. He understands what they're doing on a personal level. His ability to connect is amazing, just really amazing.

There's nobody in the world that does not like Peter. I mean, truly. Everybody loves him because he's just so authentic, he's gentle, he listens, and he wants to know about other people. He's curious. He's always curious and that, I truly believe.

If I were to ever write this book and if I were to interview all of these people, I really think that I would find this across the board, that it's the people skills, the empathy, the being able to connect with other human beings and build trust, that allows people like Peter to rise in organizations. I do think that that is the key to the puzzle.

You've just given us another reason why the connection piece is so important because as an individual, you can embody that in every relationship you have. I think through those relationships, you rise.

We had Jiak See Ng on the launch show last night. Kind of a similar story in a way that she is very much focused on relationships. She has gone from being raised in this little Chinese-speaking village in Malaysia to becoming the Head of Financial Advisory for Deloitte in all of APAC. I know that she's slated for even higher positions in the next few years.

Her ability to connect with people, to listen, to show empathy, and build relationships. She's done it the old school way over 30 years without the Internet, having coffees, meals, talking with people, and building trust. That skill is going to be needed, whether we are online or offline.

If you're able to translate that skill into the online space to build that warmth, connection, and trust in your online persona as well, I think that's going to be the most successful leaders moving forward. It is the core of that human connection, relationship-building, making others feel safe, and wanting to open up.

Look at how well you've opened me up on this call. I've sat here and told you the most personal stuff about my marriage. I can't believe you got that out of me. That takes a lot of skill to make someone feel so comfortable and safe, that they're willing to share things like that. You're obviously an excellent podcast host. You're able to build that connection, even over a video call.

Brendan: Thank you, Heather. I do appreciate it. For one, I would definitely read the book if you did that. I would listen to a podcast that I think would be an absolutely fascinating story. Hold that thought for not too long. Go and do something about it.

Heather: I had that book in my mind. Wow. I think that's since 2006 when we came to Singapore. I remember saying at the time, I said, I have this idea. I see what you're doing, but I can't write it until you're the director. Once you hit that mark, then I'll go and write the book. He's actually has done it, so I need to go write it.

Brendan: It sounds like you're not so subtle while you keep pushing him.

Heather: I know. I sound like a horrible, horrible wife, like I'm that nagging wife.

Brendan: Who we absolutely know you're not.

Heather: I do really do it out of love because I see so much potential in him. It's always from that space. It's really not a you-need-to-perform-for-me sort of thing. It's not all that, but I know it sounds awful, though.

Brendan: That has not come across at all, Heather. You don't even need to worry about that.

Heather: Everyone's like, oh, poor Peter, and he's going to be the star of the show.

Brendan: As I said before, he sounds like a fantastic guy. I couldn't really think of any better place to start to wrap this up, to be honest. That connectedness, and what you've just explained in the stories, and linking back to Peter's own journey, which is obviously very personal for yourself. Thank you for that.

Let's just go into this, what's normally my last question is your own leadership journey. What's had that greatest impact on you?

Heather: That really is a story of unmuting, of showing up in the world and inspiring people. It's only recently that I have started building a larger team in my organization. It's really throughout the pandemic that I did this.

It's testing me in a lot of ways in a formal manager leader role because I think that we can be leaders at every level. We can have influence, we can show up, and we can impact. But from a more traditional sense of leader, this is something that I feel like I've been developing a lot the last few years.

I think I fail in a lot of ways, to be honest. I'm trying to find that balance. Coming from the other perspective of, as you show up more in the world, and you unmute yourself, and you let your voice be heard, you naturally become that leader that people look up to, and respect, and say, wow, you're really inspiring.

You have to be able to be vulnerable and share those stories of failure as well as success. I think it's about getting comfortable with that. It really is a long journey, even in the course of promoting this book and writing the book, of course, massive unmuting.

Even in the promotion of it, I have this young creative team who are brilliant, but they spend most of their time on Instagram and Tik Tok. And I'm like, no, that's where I draw the line. No, I am not going on Tik Tok. I refuse, kicking and screaming. I'm not doing it. I'll be on LinkedIn.

They think I'm the most boring old lady in the world and it's amazing. I don't think I'm that old, but to them, I am. But they've really been pushing me. They're like, okay, Heather, fine. Okay, you're going to do LinkedIn, that's fine. But you've got to tell more stories, you've got to open up, you've got to be vulnerable. And it's like, nobody cares, you guys, no one cares.

To prove a point, I posted a picture of my shoes on LinkedIn. It was because, for the first time ever, I was leaving my home to go to a meeting. We've been working from home in Singapore for over two years.

I love high heels. I have got the most gorgeous shoes and I haven't worn them for two years. So I thought, okay, let me prove these young kids wrong by showing them that this is not going to fly on LinkedIn. I take a picture of my shoes and I'm like, going out for the first time. I get to wear my nice new shoes, blah-blah-blah. It was like the most popular post I've ever done on LinkedIn.

It completely shot myself in the foot with my gorgeous heels. Then my team's like, see, Heather, see? They want this. They want to hear this. They want personal stories. And I'm going oh, man.

That is leadership, though. It's about understanding that we're all human. It's about showing our personal side. It's about inspiring people with the real you, the showing up as you, not the professional. Look at this wonderful article and what I learned from it, here are my top highlights. We see all that on LinkedIn.

I think we are seeing a massive shift now to people being more open, vulnerable, and personal. Those really are the posts that are taking off that people do really want to hear about, that inspire people and show you as a leader. 

That's what leaders have to remember in their organizations, by telling their stories of success and failure, of opening up, sharing more about their family, sharing about the challenges they're facing. That's really what leadership is now.

I think, for me, looking at my leadership journey, it's also been that transition of growing up really respecting elders, really never questioning authority. I was very much a goody two shoe. Follow the line, follow the rules, don't upset any adults, get good grades, go to a good school, get a good job, meet all expectations. That was my goal.

That's really kind of shifted now to where I'm realizing to be the leader I want to be in the world. I need to release a lot of that, unlearn it, and show up as me. Not the picture that I've been told I need to be, but as who I am with the faults and sharing the success, but also remembering I'm human, and letting that side also be shown.

I'm finding, my team of 20 somethings is right, that as I'm showing up in this way, it's resonating much more. People are feeling much more connected and feeling the energy that is me. Even over the internet, even on social media or a video call, not even face to face. I guess that's how I would crystallize that journey, if it makes any sense.

Brendan: Yeah, it does and I 100% agree with that vulnerability piece, whether it's on LinkedIn or any of these platforms, which is actually why it surprised me a little bit. You'd been pretty successful in my view around your YouTube channel. You're so good on video and so connected. You seem so warm and tell great stories. You haven't done much on YouTube for some time. I find that surprising for a woman of your talent.

Heather: Yeah, it's a good point. I know. People are always like, why did you stop doing your YouTube videos? It's funny, I was listening to a friend on another podcast recently. She was doing YouTube at the same time as me. She brought up such a great argument. I think it was the same thing for me.

She was doing makeup tutorials before that was even a thing. She, at the time, was in her 40s. She was representing, I don't even want to say middle-aged; I'm in my 40s. At the time, there was nobody on YouTube doing this. She would just show up and she was with her built-in camera. She would just do her thing and it took off like wildfire.

One day, she decided, I want to up my game, like I need to do better. I need to get the camera and I need to get a better microphone. I needed to get the right lighting and then it all became so complicated. It became so pressure-filled that expression anxiety became so high that it turned to avoidance.

When she put that into words, I thought, maybe that's what actually happened. Why did I stop my videos? I was really building a massive following on YouTube and it was moving along really well. I had also moved back to Denmark at that time. I was struggling a lot personally in that cross-cultural experience again.

The business was in a different phase again. There were other things going on as well, but I think a lot of it was very similar to my friend when she said, suddenly, I made it so hard for myself to show up that I just stopped doing it. Like her, I also hugely regret that I stopped doing it.

I think that's what's also stopped me from restarting, stops me from doing a podcast. I mean, look at how professional you are. You've got all your setup, and it's so good, and the quality. It takes a lot of work and you need help. Do I want to do all this? It's so much work and I still have my job I have to do.

I really think that was a big part of it of, oh, are people still going to like my videos if they aren't perfectly done with the right camera and the HD quality? Really, what we're seeing on social media is that, yes, actually, people want the most unprofessional videos you can do. They want it on your phone. They want it natural. They want an authentic.

The perfect camera and the perfect microphone isn't as important as we'd like to believe it is. I think we use it as an excuse for muting ourselves, turning off the camera, and going off of YouTube. I don't know. You're inspiring me again that I need to get back on it and do more.

I do have plans in place now to get onto more LinkedIn lives because the podcast is up and running, even though I know you put so much work into this. It is a big job, but it's a way to show that leadership in the world and be kind to ourselves, that we don't have to reach for perfection.

My own mantra is connection, not perfection. It's about creating that connection and not putting so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect, which is difficult with the upbringing that I have had, where there was a lot of focus on perfection.

You can see how your personal struggles, your personal stories have so much impact on how you show up in the world. Even I struggle with it. I've read my book about nine times now because I was forced to move through all the editing, and doing the audiobook, and everything else.

Even as I read it myself, I realized, yeah, Heather, you still need to work on that. I'm teaching myself in that book about where I need to go next and how I need to show up. I have a lot of people around me as well who are pushing me a little bit more and more. We're all trying to work through it.

Brendan: Aren't we? That's the beauty of each of our unique journeys, isn't it? I guess all I would say on that is that myself and my business partner, Mark, you've met, he's also the producer of the show, we're very early in our journey and we're putting a lot of time into YouTube as well. But you have, what I believe, so much to offer to the world in what I've seen of your stuff and obviously spending some quality time with you today. Unbelievably pleasant person, a fantastic human being.

I would say, even to be harsh, be more respectful to the audience that you have and the audience that you will get by putting yourself out even more in the world. Unmuting yourself on YouTube, if you were to put one bit of effort into a channel, then that would be my advice to you because you have a lot of good stuff to give.

Heather: Thank you, Brendan. That's so nice of you.

Brendan: It's a pleasure. I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed it. I say it a lot, but we've actually spoken for an hour and 45 minutes.

Heather: You're going to have to do so much editing of this.

Brendan: No. I'm very much around the quality of conversations and it's very much a big part of my business, that leadership journey in the culture. We can have the conversation. This is why I don't like to put in maybe an hour, but when you're unpacking stuff and that's why I always ask you at the start of the show, you haven't got any time restraints, unless you plan for it to go this long.

When we're having such a good conversation, you've shared so much value today, and being so vulnerable about your own journey, and being vulnerable for Peter as well. Whether he likes it or not, I'm not sure.

Heather: He's not going to like it at all.

Brendan: Heather, you can blame me. It's on camera, you can blame me. I want to say a massive, massive thank you. Thank you so much. Things do happen for a reason. We're very, very fortunate here at The Culture of Things that we do have a long list of the guests waiting lists.

For some reason, you were there. I clicked on you and it was like, yeah, we got to have this person. I'm so glad and so on that we did so. Once again, thank you so much for spending an hour and 45 or over with us today on The Culture of Things podcast. I appreciate you.

Heather: Thank you so much, Brendan, for giving me the platform. It's so lovely to meet you. I hope we can continue this conversation another time as well.

Brendan: Absolute pleasure. We certainly will. Thanks, Heather.

“You’re on mute! After hearing and saying this phrase for the millionth time, it finally struck me that many of us really are on mute. Not just in the confines of virtual meetings and breakout rooms, but in our lives, our careers, and even in our families.” These words are taken directly from the first paragraph of Heather’s outstanding book, Unmuted - How to show up, speak up and inspire action.

Have you ever been in a meeting and not spoken up because you thought your idea wasn’t good enough? Maybe you wanted to share something with a family member, friend or partner and didn’t? You’ve MUTED yourself.

Why?

The world has the potential to be a much better place if we UNMUTE ourselves. Checkout Heather’s book, learn the UNMUTED framework, and take the first steps to UNMUTE.

Can the world afford not to hear your voice? These were my 3 key takeaways from my conversation with Heather. My first key takeaway: Leaders are conscious communicators. At the heart of being a conscious communicator is how you show up in the world. Do you know your identity, your values, the stories in your life that have shaped you? 

Heather put it perfectly, “You live your values through your big choices.” Go back in your life and think about the big choices. What did you value in that choice? This is the starting point to being a leader who is a conscious communicator.

My second key takeaway: Leaders are confident communicators. Becoming a confident communicator isn’t just about developing technical communication skills. It’s about believing in yourself. Believing your ideas matter.

We all have negative self-talk, but can you control it, understand it, and reframe it? Can you control your imposter syndrome? Leaders who have the communication skills and believe in themselves, are confident communicators.

My third key takeaway: Leaders are connected communicators. They understand and can create a psychologically safe environment built on strong human relationships. Connected communicators know the importance of their relationships. They develop strong interpersonal skills and understand the social connections inside organizations, who the influencers are, and most don’t have a title. Leaders who are connected communicators, know connectedness underpins everything.

So in summary, my three key takeaways were: Leaders are conscious communicators. Leaders are confident communicators. And leaders are connected communicators.

If you want to talk culture, leadership, or teamwork, or have any questions or feedback about the episode, leave me a comment on the socials or you can leave me a voice message at thecultureofthings.com. Thanks for joining me. Remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.

 

Outtro (music): Thank you for listening to The Culture of Things podcast with Brendan Rogers. Please visit thecultureofleadership.com to access the show notes. If you love The Culture of Things podcast, please subscribe, rate and give a review on Apple podcasts and remember a healthy culture is your competitive advantage.