Civil Conversations - The Work Wire

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[00:00:31] Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of The Work Wire. I'm Bob Goodwin,

[00:00:36] president of Career Club. Joined by my good friend, the president CEO of SHRM, Johnny C. Taylor Jr.

[00:00:41] Johnny, good morning. How are you? I'm doing really well, Bob. So good to see you. This

[00:00:46] wonderful spring day. I actually think today is the first. Now yesterday was the first day

[00:00:51] of spring. There you go. Happy spring to you as well. Spring is sprung. I'm in Cincinnati and

[00:00:57] I can see the trees starting to bud and blossom. I think I got to cut my grass this weekend.

[00:01:05] But anyway, it's great to see you. I hope you've had a great week. I have and you.

[00:01:08] Awesome. So today's topic, we talk about workplace issues and all that kind of stuff.

[00:01:16] But at the end of the day, it's a people to people endeavor. Right? And it's one on one.

[00:01:22] And SHRM has launched a new initiative around having 1 million civil conversations.

[00:01:31] And I would love to unpack that with you. What is civility? What is uncivility?

[00:01:38] Why this initiative? Why now? But do you mind just sort of kind of at least

[00:01:42] introducing the topic to folks? Yeah. So it's really interesting in 2019,

[00:01:48] pre pandemic, which sounds like 100 years ago, right? It was we started doing some research

[00:01:56] on workplace toxicity. And for those of you know, SHRM has a big research team and we're one of

[00:02:03] the themes we get some insights was that people were describing work as toxic. And we thought

[00:02:09] toxic was sexual harassment, race discrimination, ACE discrimination. We kind of thought that would

[00:02:14] be it. But back in 2019, an interesting new insight sort of popped up. And that was people were

[00:02:21] having problems at work around political discourse, in particular political affiliation,

[00:02:28] diversity of perspective. And they said that was the new area, not of discrimination, although

[00:02:34] what they described as discrimination, but in civility. When someone did not share your beliefs

[00:02:41] or your worldview or your perspective, they would become outright uncivil. So we started to pull

[00:02:48] that thread and follow the research. Well, of course, we want to do it year after year to see

[00:02:52] if there was some trending, especially as we entered an election year, but the pandemic

[00:02:56] happened. So a whole bunch of things played out in complicated life. Well, we came back

[00:03:01] this year and we have been capturing the data. But in 2023, no surprise, the in civility increased,

[00:03:09] the toxicity in the workplace increased. And we were curious about why so we've done a lot with

[00:03:15] some data on what we think is going on and the what exactly is occurring. But more importantly,

[00:03:22] what are we going to do about it? Out of that came this idea that the human resource

[00:03:26] profession where we have essentially 161 million people every day who go to work,

[00:03:32] even if it's working remotely as a captive audience, that's half of the US society. So

[00:03:39] the idea is we can actually influence perhaps the broader society around civility, respect

[00:03:46] the ability to agree, disagree rather, but not be disagreeable, that we can do that in the workplace

[00:03:53] because it's one of the few places where, aside from the courts, we actually have jurisdiction

[00:03:57] to penalize you. If you don't engage in this kind of behavior, then we have the ability for

[00:04:03] there to be consequences, whereas you can typically be rude, disrespectful,

[00:04:09] uncivil to people without consequence. So that's where the idea was born and we said,

[00:04:14] just imagine, imagine if we could have, it's the beginning 161 million people in a 335

[00:04:21] million person country and globe of $8 billion, 8 billion people. We know that one million may

[00:04:28] actually seem like a small number. But I think it's significant because you're building a new

[00:04:33] behavior in people. And the idea is that be civil to each other, especially in my mind,

[00:04:39] when I heard about million civil conversations, one, I thought the number was small,

[00:04:43] I said, why not do 100 million? Surprise, John and Taylor thought that. But then what I really

[00:04:47] thought was important was if I could qualify and I'd say have a million civil conversations with

[00:04:54] someone you actually know you don't agree with, that would, that's the real driver here is having

[00:05:01] conversations. We all, I can talk with Bob, you forever, love you. I agree with you 99.5%.

[00:05:09] But what if we could have conversation, what if I found someone who I thought was actually very

[00:05:14] different than me and saw the world differently and made myself develop the muscle, that muscle that

[00:05:21] can have a civil conversation. Yeah. So let's kind of, you said, I really wanted that data driven.

[00:05:29] And so we, and I really, really liked that it was a surprising data point. Yes. It wasn't just

[00:05:35] confirming kind of what we thought we would find in the data, but something new kind of popped up.

[00:05:42] As we talk about incivility, what does that look like? I mean,

[00:05:47] I know it's not a test I've got it written down, but like on your website, there were five different

[00:05:52] kinds of behaviors that were identified as incivil or uncivil. What's the negative of civil?

[00:05:58] I often say, I like incivility as a word. I think the word might be uncivil.

[00:06:05] We'll go not civil. Not civil. How about that? But what are some of the things that we,

[00:06:10] let's just double click on that for a minute and help people see what's below this term of

[00:06:14] not civil, uncivil behavior. So you're looking at the website, you tell me.

[00:06:20] I know them up, but yeah, I mean the first is, well, you tell me, but obviously we all

[00:06:25] know this idea of you literally shut someone down. Like you, you talk over them, you are

[00:06:32] disrespectful, downright rude to them. You are minimizing their humanity, right?

[00:06:38] That's one. Secondly, one of the ones that we talked about is the opposite of that, which is

[00:06:43] you don't hear them at all. You literally silence them. You cancel them. You shut

[00:06:48] them down as if they don't matter. So either I talk over you or I ignore you. We see that

[00:06:53] play out. We've also seen literally people get into physical disagreements at work.

[00:06:59] That's arguably the most uncivil of all is to actually play that out in, in

[00:07:05] fisticuffs and there are others I'm sure. So there was just being disrespectful, interrupting,

[00:07:12] excessive monitoring and micromanaging, which I think is really interesting.

[00:07:16] The one that you just said with ignoring and then the last one, I guess fighting would

[00:07:22] fall into its definition, but unprofessional body language.

[00:07:25] How about that?

[00:07:29] So, so, you know, as we're in a presidential election here, I read a statistic yesterday.

[00:07:38] I think this is a Gallup poll, but the broad number is like 25% of people would not want

[00:07:44] to work at a company that does not share their political views. And then with Gen Z,

[00:07:50] that was 45%. Yes. Which to me is sort of like seeking, seeking homogeneity rather than,

[00:08:00] you know, and I love how y'all do this. You don't say DEI, you say IED, but inclusion.

[00:08:06] And like, no, I want to be around things and I want to include people who don't necessarily

[00:08:11] see the world the way that I do. And yet we see that there's a pretty big chunk of people

[00:08:17] out there like, no, I'm very tribal. I really kind of only want to be around people that see things.

[00:08:24] And does that drive some of the instability that we see? Do you think?

[00:08:28] Well, of course it does. And it's interesting because it's, I've challenged people who sort of

[00:08:35] respond that way. I respect and understand the point of view, but I explained to them,

[00:08:40] I thought you were the very person who said you value diversity.

[00:08:43] Diversity isn't, is by definition about difference, right? And so you should, we're valuing people who

[00:08:52] actually see the world differently. We make that case all the time. It's why we think diversity is

[00:08:57] so great for business is because having people who have different points of view, different ways of

[00:09:03] seeing the world will make you have a better product, a better service, be better, but to

[00:09:06] your customers, et cetera. So that's the very thing that we all thought was like the thing,

[00:09:12] right? All of a sudden you don't want that, but here's a more interesting one, at least from my

[00:09:16] perspective, when we talk about this. When you say you only want to be in a place that with which

[00:09:24] you are aligned with its political values or what have your any number of values,

[00:09:29] you do so because you were seeking belonging. And you know where we're gonna go, right?

[00:09:36] In some ways, all of this work about making people feel like they belong

[00:09:44] is the opposite of diversity. Right? Because if you own, yeah, I naturally belong or feel like I

[00:09:56] belong better when I'm with my family members because I know that we have shared values,

[00:10:00] experiences. That's an easy one. I am not unhappy when I'm outside of my family,

[00:10:07] but I feel like I belong less and I think all of us have been on. So the problem is the pursuit of

[00:10:13] belonging could in some ways run afoul the goals of diversity. And that's what you've described to

[00:10:21] me is, and I got one other fact to it, I find fascinating ABC News did a poll now

[00:10:27] a year, maybe two years ago, about a year ago where they found that college sophomores

[00:10:33] said that they mean more, it was right at about a half or a little maybe, maybe more than half said,

[00:10:39] I would not want to room with someone who is of a different political viewpoint and affiliation.

[00:10:45] Now just think about that for as many victory laps we take right about how great

[00:10:53] this new generation is and how they embrace diversity, etc. Yeah, in some ways different

[00:11:00] dimensions of diversity, they're better on race, they're better on gender, but they're not so good

[00:11:04] on this other dimension of diversity called viewpoint diversity. Yeah, but that's to your

[00:11:11] point, that's the irony of the whole thing. And it's what I appreciate about kind of

[00:11:16] unpacking this with you, Johnny, because it's not linear. It's much more complicated.

[00:11:22] That's right. And so we say we want diversity, but the kinds of diversity we're already comfortable

[00:11:29] with that, which is why we're forcing these conversations are trying to force people to

[00:11:35] have civil conversations. And as I said, my modifier, this is not sure, sure,

[00:11:39] has a million conversations, no matter what some conversations, I actually am challenging

[00:11:44] people really push it right instead of doing five push ups do 10. Right? We want to do

[00:11:49] push ups, but do 10. And the 10 is when you go have a civil conversation with someone who you are

[00:11:56] likely to want to be uncivil with, right? That's that's a real test. You know,

[00:12:03] we haven't said this word yet, but I think that's very relevant to this, which is empathy.

[00:12:08] And seeking to understand another person's point of view, not just to have a platform for my point

[00:12:15] of view. Right? And what is the I think it's Stephen Covey, but you know, if you seek to be

[00:12:22] understood, seek to understand first, it's like, I want to understand where you're coming from

[00:12:26] first, okay. And then maybe that will I get new information, a new appreciation,

[00:12:33] but something that then I've kind of, you know, earned the right now to share maybe where

[00:12:38] I'm coming from, but this this belonging, I am so glad you brought this up because

[00:12:44] as I said earlier, we tend to be tribal. I mean, just like a human history, we are a tribal species.

[00:12:51] Right? And so we do all species generally are. Yeah, fair enough, right? Birds with feather and

[00:12:56] all that. But but in the workplace, you have got a heterogeneous group of people together.

[00:13:07] And it's interesting. It's sort of the intolerance of tolerance used to be an

[00:13:12] expression. But I can't I like it when you're different, except when I don't like it when you're

[00:13:16] different than and I think that what you're saying is this viewpoint issue is really important. So

[00:13:22] let's let's activate this a little bit. How would that conversation so I know that my colleague

[00:13:30] is for the let's just talk about the presidential election because that's easy

[00:13:34] is for the other candidate, whoever I'm for, therefore the other person.

[00:13:39] And how do I engage in a quote civil conversation when I feel like I'm actually just lighting a fuse

[00:13:48] for a bomb that's going to go off? Context matters and literally place matters, right? So one of

[00:13:57] the things that we have been I've encouraged to show him a couple of things, even in my own

[00:14:02] workplace, I've said, I will actually buy you lunch. The company will buy you lunch if you'll go

[00:14:09] to lunch with someone you don't know. So just something as small as that. See, the temptation

[00:14:14] is if I said we'll pay for your lunch today, we go to lunch with someone we know and we

[00:14:20] generally go with groups of people we know. And so thus the belonging thing yet you come back

[00:14:25] from lunch feeling better, but we haven't advanced the organization's goals of inclusion,

[00:14:30] which is making us this diverse workforce work together so that everyone feels like they're

[00:14:36] included. So just a tactical thing I've done is encouraged employees if you go to lunch with

[00:14:41] someone who is different than you, and, you know, on viewpoint on gender and race name it,

[00:14:47] I'll actually pick up the tab. People managers can do that. I've done that. It's not a

[00:14:53] sure and wide thing I've encouraged it. We do it in our departments where go to bed and so

[00:14:58] something as simple as that going to dinner, going to lunch with someone who is different

[00:15:03] than you and you're going to learn frankly about those differences. The other thing that

[00:15:09] that we strongly encourage people to do that I think is to actually if you know where someone

[00:15:14] stands, go have a walk, go grab a cup of coffee, walk around, go see, I just want to

[00:15:20] start with make me understand how you feel about X. You're going to vote for Trump,

[00:15:25] I'm going for Biden or vice versa. Let's talk about it. Why? The question why is so powerful,

[00:15:32] that little three letter word is so powerful and listen to understand not to respond, right?

[00:15:40] To really to repeat that Johnny, that is the whole thing. Hey, you can all of it unless

[00:15:47] you can't hear, you're going to hear it. So the question is so tell me why are you going to support

[00:15:53] Biden and not with judgment, not with anything and not with interruption, but hear the person out.

[00:16:00] There may be a very logical reason that that person's voting for candidate A,

[00:16:05] but that you won't because you don't have the same value systems in that regard. This

[00:16:09] doesn't matter to you. It matters to that person. Got it. Check. But hear them out

[00:16:14] so that you can actually understand. That's the root of this empathy thing that I've been talking

[00:16:19] about for a long time, the empathy gap, the empathy deficit is that we don't do it. We're ready to tell

[00:16:25] you and we always want to respond, right? Like, yeah, but no, hear them out. And then to be there,

[00:16:33] explain why you're not trying to win them over just explain why you select a different

[00:16:40] candidate and go a different path. And that goes a long way. Now you've got to have guardrails and

[00:16:45] rules and that's some of what you'll see on the website on that, that, that microsite where we

[00:16:50] tell you, you know, you have to have rules of engagement like right, including listen to,

[00:16:54] to learn and understand, but also no matter what someone says is appalling as you might find it,

[00:17:01] you cannot take this personally or defeats the whole game. And I'm going to,

[00:17:05] can I just tell you very personal? I didn't plan to tell you this, but I'm going to tell you.

[00:17:08] So I had an employee who wants, I, I learned that he had made some really negative comments about

[00:17:19] African-Americans on his own time. You know, so it wasn't at work. It wasn't the subject of an EOC

[00:17:26] complaint or whatever. But I learned that this is who this person was and or at least what they

[00:17:32] said online. And I called them and they said, you know, I really understand what prompted you to say

[00:17:39] that online about black people. I thought you and I were good, right? What's going on here?

[00:17:47] And it wasn't the conversation wasn't your horrible for saying that I can't believe you

[00:17:52] did that. I felt that when I first read it, actually when I felt when I first read it was

[00:17:57] disbelief. I thought maybe this is a deep fake scam. There's no way you said that, but I took it for

[00:18:03] what it was and I approached them and I said, not from a place of judgment or power as your

[00:18:07] CEO. I'm not threatening your job. I want to understand where that comes from. And without

[00:18:13] giving you all of the gory details, I walked away, not justifying how this person felt,

[00:18:20] but understanding after having been beaten up several times as in, you know, growing up by

[00:18:28] people who looked like me. One or two particular bullies and by the way they could have looked like

[00:18:33] you. They could have looked like my sister. There's not a thing. But that framed his world view.

[00:18:41] And we began to talk and have conversations. And I said, got it. Those two were bad guys.

[00:18:47] Happen to be that they were black, but they could have been anything else. I'm a good guy. You've

[00:18:50] experienced me for four to five years and I've been nothing but good and you've been good to me.

[00:18:55] So what can we do together to get past? And when we are all products of all of our experiences,

[00:19:02] right? So I'm not going to pretend like that didn't occur in your life and that you don't have

[00:19:07] some deeply, deeply rooted issues and anger issues with people who look like me. No judgment

[00:19:14] here. What can I help you do? If I'm just kind to you, and I got to tell you this person said

[00:19:21] that was such a defining moment for them. I don't know how this all worked out, but I know for that

[00:19:28] moment we were more civil and that very conversation could have gone quite sideways. I could have

[00:19:34] received the data so much. I'm not on social media, so someone told me about it and I

[00:19:38] could have lost my mind. You know, if you're off and righteous and you're out of here and

[00:19:42] we don't hire people like that, instead it took a very different approach. It was about civility.

[00:19:48] Again, for those who are out there, oh, John, you're just rational, rational. No, I'm not

[00:19:52] rationalizing anything. I'm saying I have my own issues and we all have our issues. All of us

[00:19:58] have biases and frankly some prejudices and we have to work through those and grace and

[00:20:04] mercy says if I have some things I need to work on then clearly I need to be willing to let

[00:20:10] other people work on things. Right? Yes, so I'm sorry that I went off, but it was

[00:20:18] that was amazing because it's real and it was exactly what we're talking about. It was a very

[00:20:25] polemic kind of a thing in the workplace environment that you could have attacked him.

[00:20:31] Yep. Yep. I'd just been purely emotional, righteous,

[00:20:35] and didn't. And so back to your word, why? Because I think so much of this hinges on that. This is

[00:20:42] seeking to understand. It's assuming good intent. Yes. Right? Like you're not a bad person.

[00:20:51] Right. Which and I think that understanding like how do we understand? But it's like being

[00:20:59] a two-year-old, it's asking that like two and three layers deep. That is really interesting Johnny. Now

[00:21:06] where did that come from? Tell me more about that. And be ready to hear where it came from. What you

[00:21:11] don't understand is my mother when she first came to this country experienced X. Oh right. But we

[00:21:21] live in an MSNBC Fox News kind of a world where it's not a conversation if it's not a debate

[00:21:29] right? And it's not, you know, interesting unless you're at some extreme of it. And yet what we're

[00:21:36] talking about is, no I want to understand you like and then we will likely walk away from this

[00:21:43] conversation. Not agreeing on that issue. But at least I now understand better. There's a book,

[00:21:52] this guy's Roger Fisher. He wrote the book Getting to Yes. You're the lawyer on the call.

[00:21:56] You know, are you familiar with this book Getting to Yes? Right. And I think they were originally kind

[00:22:01] of coining win-win and all that stuff. But what I took away from that a long time ago is that rather

[00:22:09] than be focused on the person's position, understand their principles. Oh, I like. I like. And so if

[00:22:17] you like this is what I want. Okay. Can you help me understand why that's what you want?

[00:22:24] Well, you know, I've got this pressure that pressure this other things happening. I did this before I got

[00:22:29] burned. So this is why I'm demanding what I'm demanding. But when you can unpack it and kind of

[00:22:36] get past the surface and really back to why tell me why you feel this way. Tell me why this is

[00:22:44] what you want. There you find that there's maybe a creative solution. And again in a civil

[00:22:50] conversation, we're not trying to persuade anyone of anything. That's the talking over.

[00:22:56] Wait a few days be quiet so I can say what I want to say because I'm actually ignoring you.

[00:23:01] But this getting it that just helped me understand because they genuinely want to

[00:23:08] understand. I think it's huge. I think that's really kind of what revolves around.

[00:23:12] Well, and that's at the crux. I mean, the root of this entire you cannot have a civil

[00:23:18] conversation. I'm going to say something that I'm thinking through as I say it. So guys,

[00:23:23] you're all the same me live ID. You can't have a civil conversation if it isn't rooted in the why.

[00:23:34] Because otherwise, I'm just here to win the debate. Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

[00:23:38] Exactly. Louder than you. I'm going to be rudeer than you. I'm going to be more dehumanizing

[00:23:45] like that's how you take someone down in a fairly brutal battle. And our society has really

[00:23:53] devolved into that on almost every issue. See, it's not just politics. In fact,

[00:23:58] everything has become politics. I mean, race is politics, religion is politics. This is politics.

[00:24:05] Everything has become political that we know how you think because you're right or because

[00:24:10] you're left. And so everything has become political. And in that context, it's the gloves can come off.

[00:24:17] And let's let's face it. You and I know that over the last several years, it's gotten worse.

[00:24:22] Like there's a way to actually have a debate but not resort to name calling,

[00:24:30] not resort to mischaracterizing intentionally something that occurred in both sides have

[00:24:36] done it, right? Both sides are remembered, you know, former president Trump's name calling if you

[00:24:42] want to childish, plural, totally out of order. I also remember Vice President Harris taking the

[00:24:48] context of now President Biden than candidate Biden's supporting busing at the time and turning

[00:24:55] that into like you can totally, totally take any situation and flip it. And both sides have done

[00:25:01] it. And all that does is lead to more incivility. So we really have to step back and say, first of all,

[00:25:09] reasonable minds can disagree. In fact, reasonable minds oftentimes do disagree.

[00:25:15] It's all in the house. So went from the why to the how if we solve for those two things,

[00:25:22] how do we like speak to each other as human beings? We're not animals where I love watching

[00:25:28] television, you see two I'm a big Nat Geo guy. And you see the two rams that disagree and they lock

[00:25:34] heads and they fight until or bear and one walks away all sliced up. We're better than that.

[00:25:40] We're at the top of that chain, right? Human beings should not have to walk away with you

[00:25:45] showing scars from a disagreement. But we've gotten there and we've gotten there because

[00:25:50] of media, we've gotten there because of culture in organizations where we allow as CEOs that

[00:25:56] behavior to occur. We have to do better than that period.

[00:26:01] So let's, I want to be mindful of the time, but let's just sort of imagine I walk into the

[00:26:06] coffee room. It's sure. And two other people are making coffee and they make some very

[00:26:14] derogatory comment about Trump's a criminal. Biden is out of his mind like whatever the

[00:26:21] issue is. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, anybody would vote for them. So,

[00:26:24] feeling your favorite curse word is an idiot. How would, how would in one million civil

[00:26:32] conversations could we diffuse that or redirect that kind of a conversation to be more civil?

[00:26:40] Yeah. So I, and I've actually been in that situation when I've heard someone going off on,

[00:26:45] you know, Biden's age. And I walked him and I said, you have grandparents?

[00:26:52] You know, at some point they are a little bit more forgetful. It might be 70 for some,

[00:26:57] 90 for others, whatever. Yeah. I start, I appeal to empathy to say, how would you like if someone

[00:27:04] were attacking your grandpa or your grandma who's doing their best? And again, this is

[00:27:11] this is about vote for whom, whatever you want to vote that's on you, vote on the issues,

[00:27:16] but to make generalized statements about older Americans and to mock them for getting old,

[00:27:22] something all of us hope we get to write. You know, the alternative is not particularly

[00:27:26] attractive. And it was really interesting because you just, and it wasn't judgment filled. I

[00:27:31] could have said I'm going to report you to HR for it. It wasn't. It was like, dude,

[00:27:36] really thought about that. Is that the, is that the right way for us to talk about and

[00:27:40] treat other people? And you get these aha moments from people. They're like,

[00:27:46] I guess so. So that's what I do is I confront it and I found that in confronting, it's not about

[00:27:53] judging the person. They're going to judge themselves, believe me, whether they do it

[00:27:57] openly or back home that night, but it's making them see the other side of it,

[00:28:02] see the other human being on the side of, on the other side of it. And it may be your colleague

[00:28:06] who's standing there, who's got a grandparent, for example, who's experienced, experienced

[00:28:11] in dementia, Alzheimer's. And so you don't even know that in the process of you attacking what

[00:28:16] you think is just a political figure, you're now really creating angst and anxiety for your

[00:28:23] colleague. And so when you put it that way, it's amazing how you diffuse it. So it's not

[00:28:30] again, it's not a power play of the CEO telling me, oh, he must be a Trump or if he's

[00:28:34] must be supportive of Biden, if he comes in defense and attack, like, no, no, no,

[00:28:39] it's none of that. It's about the humanity in us and whether that, and one day, just keep waking up,

[00:28:46] my grandmother would always say, keep waking up all of the things that you're one day,

[00:28:50] you will find yourself having to live upfront with all of that. I was in Birmingham, Alabama,

[00:28:55] I tell you real quickly yesterday, and we were, it was a big discussion on exactly Wednesday,

[00:29:00] the days of blurring together about the formerly incarcerated. And I have to tell you,

[00:29:04] it's real easy in this environment where the headlines remind us every day that crime is out

[00:29:08] of control in various cities around the country to get really, really tough on crime and not see

[00:29:14] people who've made mistakes as people. And to forever want to resentence them, including not

[00:29:19] giving them opportunities to find new jobs. It was amazing just sitting there listening to

[00:29:24] the conversations. And I said, you know, maybe I should think a little differently about it.

[00:29:29] I'm a law and order guy. And I told the audience that when I was there, I said,

[00:29:32] to me, if you commit to crime, you serve the time. I'm real simple. But as I listened

[00:29:38] to these people and understood from there, and I had to truly listen because it was literally,

[00:29:45] it was against everything that I fundamentally kind of believe in law and order mentality,

[00:29:51] that I left there changed. And I was able to allow them to express themselves. And I

[00:29:55] expressed myself but always civilly, this is possible, but you've got to commit to doing

[00:30:01] one of the word that pops in my head and we'll wrap up in just a second is humility.

[00:30:06] Maybe I don't know everything. Oh, fancy that maybe there is another point of view here that's

[00:30:13] worth taking into consideration. And I do feel strongly about X issue, whatever it is.

[00:30:20] But I'm open to learning something different. And humility seems to be, you know,

[00:30:27] equality that is actually viewed as weakness. Right? And unless I'm just like, you know,

[00:30:34] loud and proud on whatever my issue is, well, you're not a true believer and whatever.

[00:30:39] It's like, no, I may not have all the information to be honest, or maybe there's

[00:30:43] a different way of seeing this. But you know, humility and empathy, I think go really hand

[00:30:49] in hand. Yeah. And so if people want to learn more about how to drive one million

[00:30:56] civil conversations, what can they do? Well, you're same site you're looking at shirm.org.

[00:31:02] We have a grid and I'll just get to shirm.org. I could give you the one million. So just

[00:31:06] shirm.org click on it and this is available to anyone, not just members or HR professionals,

[00:31:12] but anyone too. And we have as you pointed out, we resource it. So we have data that tells you

[00:31:17] what we know is happening in your workplace. We have research to tell you what you can

[00:31:22] do about it. And then tools that you can actually use to implement where we have the one million

[00:31:27] civil card, the conversation cards, mugs, where you actually sit down and have tea or coffee

[00:31:33] or whatever you want. But yet just tons of resources to unpack it. I would just say

[00:31:37] to you and thank you Bob for giving us the opportunity to talk about this. It feels like

[00:31:40] a big shirm commercial, but it's not. It's about our society. Exactly. It's about

[00:31:45] humanity and that word that you mentioned at the end humility is everything. It's everything.

[00:31:52] So again, I appreciate it. It's so easy to provide the platform for this because it's such an

[00:31:58] important thing. We spend so much time at work and we want to enjoy our time at work. We want to

[00:32:05] enjoy the people that we work with. And at a time when there's artificial or augmented intelligence

[00:32:12] and all that, this is the real human intelligence piece that you guys advocate to get to ROI.

[00:32:18] And so I appreciate everything, all the resources and the prestige that shirm brings to the workplace,

[00:32:26] getting behind something that makes it just more civil. And that's a high order good that you

[00:32:32] guys are seeking. So thank you. Absolutely. Good to see you. Good to see you, Johnny.

[00:32:38] Thanks everybody for checking in. Nothing new. Come on now we got to be the W.

[00:32:43] Thanks everybody for taking a few minutes out of your day and we hope that our conversation today

[00:32:49] motivates you to maybe just ask a couple more questions, give a couple less answers, seek to

[00:32:55] understand and be the model, the leader at your company, wherever your workplace is,

[00:33:01] to have more civil conversations when you see something to defuse, potentially volatile situation

[00:33:09] and just model the kind of behavior that is a society that we would all want to live in. So

[00:33:13] again, Johnny, thank you so much for your leadership in this. Thank you everybody for listening and

[00:33:18] we appreciate your time. We'll see you on the next episode of The World Wire. See you then.

[00:33:22] Check out career.club for personalized help with your job search. Visit shrm.org to

[00:33:28] become part of the largest human resources organization worldwide.