Month: April 2018

Courage and being human: Dispatches from #WorkHuman

Still at the WorkHuman conference, sponsored by Globoforce. Lots of cool stuff going on, so I’m writing about it whilst I’m here.

So when I woke up this morning, I had this great idea about a blog post, highlighting some of the things I saw yesterday that tied into the theme of “courage.” You had Brene Brown (who has a little ‘ over the e, but I can’t get WordPress do to it) talking about the relationship between joy and fear, between vulnerability and courage. You heard from Salma Hayek Pinault share her #metoo story and why she felt she needed to speak up after not doing so for so many years. Her personal story – of always being an immigrant, of doing more as a Latina than others had but still being ignored – was impressive and moving. She’s amazing.

And then this morning, we had the opportunity to see Adam Grant moderate a #metoo panel of giants – Tarana Burke (my new personal hero), Ronan Farrow, and Ashley Judd. It was an in-depth, meaningful discussion about the #metoo movement with people who helped make it viral (even through Tarana Burke launched it long ago). The panel discussed how the conversation needs to move from “can I hug women” to “treat all people like human beings, dammit” and was a real look at what comes next.leap-before-you-think

And throughout all of this, the concept of courage kept coming up – the courage of victims sharing their stories; the courage of allies supporting and not making it about them; the courage of employees saying “we aren’t going to tolerate this at our company”; institutional courage and individual courage.

What struck about this is that all people are capable of courage and it doesn’t always need to be on an epic scale. For every Salma Hayek or Ashley Judd article, there’s a person struggling with anxiety who manage to go into work every day and say hello to their coworkers. For every Tarana Burke taking over the world, there’s the HR professional standing up to her CHRO for non-values based behavior. For every Steve Pemberton overcoming his childhood to become an author and executive, there’s the person who sits down next to a stranger to make a connection.

I am in awe of the courage I see every single day.

One of my takeaways from this conference will be to find ways to celebrate and support displays of courage. I want to make room for the courageous – to provide a space that amplifies the messages to be amplified. Like Tarana Burke said, I want to center on the marginalized and let their stories drive the change.

I’m not sure how – but I’m going to try. We all need to.

We owe it to the courageous.

Shout out to the staff: Dispatch from #WorkHuman

A reminder that I am attending the WorkHuman conference put on by Globoforce this week in Austin.

The first day of any conference is typically about getting your bearings. You wander through the conference space, figuring out where all the rooms are, how to find the expo hall, and – most importantly – where the afternoon snacks and coffee will be, and WILL THERE BE DIET COKE????

There are typically some pre-conference sessions, too. And while some may be tempted to skip them, the ones held yesterday were PACKED. Cy Wakeman kicked it off with her guidance on eliminating drama from the workplace; Steve Pemberton (Globoforce CHRO) followed with his remarkable personal story of resilience and triumph; and David Rock brought home Pre-Day (can we call it Day One? I don’t know!) with information on feedback and why we’re struggling so much with it. (Full disclosure: while I love David Rock’s work and like him as a speaker, I went back to my room to take a nap. I got up WAAAAAAY too early for a flight. Sorry, David! Heard it was great!)

Prior to all of this, though, was registration. You know, pick up your badge, get your conference schedule, conquer the world. Normally this is a pretty sedate process – people come in little packs, but seldom descend as one. Except for yesterday. When we descended like a pack of locusts upon an unsuspecting group of WorkHuman helpers. It seemed every attendee decided to pick up their badge RIGHT BEFORE Cy’s talk. As you can imagine, it overwhelmed the staff. People got a little fussy. People were worried about missing the speakers. People don’t like not getting stuff IMMEDIATELY. (People are weird.)

I bring this up not to admonish the staff but to congratulate them for their perseverance. Two workers (one from Ireland, one from Denmark) went up and down the line, talking with folks and offering to get water or hold their place if they needed to step out for a moment. They made the choice to allow people into the sessions without their badge so no one would miss content. They extended the check-in hours to alleviate pressure. They stayed positive. They stayed focused. They stayed friendly.

At a conference focusing on the human side of work, this was refreshing. Attendees weren’t super jerky. The staff stayed strong. There was a collective realization that the world won’t end if you don’t get your badge. The time spent in line was time spent connecting. People were able to reframe and no one got yelled at.

How about that? We can be nice – even when inconvenienced.

So shout out to the people who are helping make this conference happen. It’s hard to coordinate this many moving parts. And shout out to the attendees who remembered why they’re here – to connect and to slow down a bit and to remember we are all just people trying to make it work in this crazy world.

I’m looking forward to today’s sessions. And I look forward to high-fiving some hard-working staff who keep a smile on their face and do what they can to make this conference memorable. Let’s all try to make sure THEY have a good conference, too!

Heading to Austin: #WorkHuman again!

This week, I’ll be sharing dispatches from WorkHuman, put on by Globoforce. I’ve been to all of them, and have been grateful to “officially” cover all but the first one (even though I still wrote about it a lot because it was cool).

If you’re curious about the conference, or can’t be there and want to know what’s going on, there will be a bunch of people tweeting with the #WorkHuman tag. And there will be a bunch of bummed people who couldn’t make it tweeting with #NotatWorkHuman. Or something like that. I don’t think they know, yet. They’ll figure it out – it’s Monday, cut them some slack!

Anyway, I’ll try to summarize my observations each day so you can get a sense of the conference for future attendance consideration. I’m very much looking forward to the speaker line up, as well as seeing some of my dear friends from around the world. And they say you can’t connect online. 🙂

Stay tuned! Should be a fun, informative, challenging, exciting week!