The Communicative Leader
On The Communicative Leader, we're making your work life what you want it to be. Do you need years of training or special equipment? Not at all my friends. Simple, yet thoughtful changes in your communication can make great strides in displaying your leadership ability. And why the heck should you care about leadership communication? Well, communication is the yardstick others use to determine whether or not they see you as a leader. Ahhh don't be scared, I got you. We will walk through common organizational obstacles and chat about small, but meaningful communication-rooted changes you can integrate immediately. No more waiting for the workplace to become what you hope it will. Nope. You, my friends, will be empowered and equipped to make those changes. Let's have some fun! Can't get enough?
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The Communicative Leader
Embracing Compassionate Leadership: Transforming Workplace Dynamics with Maria Arpa
"Growing up in the slums of London taught me resilience, but it was in the art of compassionate communication that I found my calling," Maria Arpa.
This episode features an enlightening conversation with Maria Arpa, who shares her transformative journey from a tumultuous childhood to becoming a pioneering voice in workplace dynamics. We unravel the profound impact of trauma and why traditional hierarchies often foster a damaging culture of domination. Maria makes a compelling case for compassionate leadership as a timely antidote to rising workplace incivility, urging us to embrace our shared humanity and challenge outdated norms.
Maria and I delve into the essence of compassionate leadership, emphasizing that our personal histories shape our leadership styles. I recount my journey from being a mediator in a harsh environment to understanding the power of proactive compassion and effective communication. Together, we explore how traditional debate-based conversation models can hinder understanding and connection. By fostering genuine human connections and prioritizing self-awareness, leaders can create cycles of support that reduce human suffering and build inclusive environments.
We also explore the transformative power of compassionate dialogue. Rather than approaching conversations as debates to be won, we focus on dialogue as a means to connect meaningfully. Inspired by thought leaders like Carl Rogers and Marshall Rosenberg, we discuss the significance of language and energy in communication. This episode offers practical insights into setting compassionate boundaries and creating environments where accountability and trust flourish. We conclude with the enriching practices of silence, reflection, and intuition, illustrating how these can lead to more authentic leadership and meaningful change, ultimately enhancing the lives of both leaders and their teams.
Hey leader! Thanks for listening. For more leadership communication tips, check out https://www.thecommunicativeleader.com/
Today on the Communicative Leader, we're chatting about compassionate leadership with Maria Arpa. Maria is a leading expert in workplace dynamics and compassionate communication, and she uses this approach to transform the way organizations address conflict and build relationships. She believes in creating workplace communities that transcend traditional hierarchies and embrace diverse cultures, belief systems and generational differences. Her innovative dialogue roadmap facilitates heart-centered communication, reduces unnecessary suffering, fosters mutual respect, and this is what helps make her a sought-after advisor for senior management and C-suite executives. Folks, I learned so much and had such a great time in this conversation, and I know that you will too. Let's dive in.
Dr. Leah OH:Hello and welcome to the Communicative Leader hosted by Le. a, dr . My friends call me Dr O. I'm a professor of communication and a leadership communication expert. On the Communicative Leader, we're working to make your work life what you want it to be. Thanks for joining us today on the Communicative Leader, maria. I'm really excited to learn more about your take on compassionate communication and, of course, compassionate leadership. Can you give us a little bit of your background and what led you to where you are today, an expert in compassionate leadership.
Maria Arpa:Thank you, yes, it's a really interesting question because I've done so many things and sometimes I can only answer that question really looking back and in the moment, you know, so in the moment, what really comes up for and in the moment you know, so in the moment, what really comes up for me in the times we're living in is thinking back to being a child of immigrant parents who were completely traumatized by world war ii. So my family are Maltese and you know, not many people know that even today Malta stands as the most bombed place of anywhere that's ever been bombed in the world during World War II, and my mother was a teenager during that. My father there's a whole nother story. My father was 30 years older than my mum but and they didn't meet in malta but, um, you know, it was only when I probably got to the age of about 50 I realized that my mum actually had complex ptsd, um, but, and she was nobody's victim. I mean, my mum could start a fight with air, I mean literally.
Maria Arpa:And you know, in some ways it was funny because back then I was uneducated. It was also incredibly frightening to watch my mum picking fights with people as a child, and, of course, it's your normal. When you grow up, it's your normal. When you grow up, it's your normal. So I think, if I reach right back, knowing somehow that something wasn't right about the way we lived, and then over time into my own adulthood, looking at what I was repeating, asking better quality questions, going into my own therapy, and then realizing that there is a way that we are in this world that I call it's not my title, but I call it domination culture. There is a programming or an indoctrination of hierarchy, of punishment, of everybody knowing their place, of implied threat in our systems. And something in me said I think as humans we can do better, and there are examples of that.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, excellent, how powerful. Maria, Thank you for doing this work that you do. We were just saying before we started recording that incivility in the workplace, among all of these other counterproductive and just destructive behaviors, have been continuing to rise. So taking a compassionate leadership approach, I think, and modeling that, is going to go a long way in changing some of these norms go a long way in changing some of these norms and and, interestingly enough, you know um, there's a necessity for this change.
Maria Arpa:Yes, yes, because those old systems of um know your place and um and secrecy around you, know things that go on the dark stuff in the shadows, you know and people are being called on to speak up about these things.
Maria Arpa:Yeah, and so that superficial layer of ethics and morality that you know we all had to pretend was the way we were all living, when actually, underneath it, all sorts of stuff was going on, it's all being exposed. Yes, you know, people are being encouraged to talk and and, of course, when we encourage people to say what they've been through, then they don't want to put up with it anymore. So, you know, even if I was not in a compassionate heart space, there's a kind of intelligence that says we are actually now going to need to do things differently.
Dr. Leah OH:Yes, yes, and how wonderful that you're here, you know, bringing in this new view. So with that, Maria, I was getting ready for our conversation and I was just thinking about you know, what does compassionate leadership mean to you? And then how does it differ from kind of other common approaches that we kind of grew up learning about in terms of leadership?
Maria Arpa:Thank you, yes, it's a good, it's a really good question, because the word compassion, you know, has so many connotations. I mean, you know, if you take a sort of dictionary approach to it, I think it comes from compati, the Latin, which means to suffer with, and so that's not the extent of the place I want to go to, but there's something in to suffer with which, for me, means accepting our common humanity as the starting point accepting our fallibility, accepting that imperfect is perfect, accepting that nobody has all the answers, accepting that we're, all you know, lurching from one crisis to another.
Maria Arpa:We're all trying to do our best. Some of us are making a mess of it, others are doing slightly better and it's all. It's all part of the pot. It's all part of the mix. So compassionate leadership for me means an acceptance of our humanity and a starting point that says, actually we need to begin with honesty and kindness and mercy.
Maria Arpa:Gosh, that differs amazing yeah to other structures, you know is is to think about hierarchical structures of leadership. You know which, which were really more based on the military. If you've life and death at stake, then you need someone to make a decision in the moment. You know, and the rest of it. But the idea that we absorb these ways into, you know, workplaces has no sense in it whatsoever you know, unless you believe you know.
Maria Arpa:I mean this kind of industrial revolution stuff that whatsoever you know, unless you believe you know. I mean this kind of industrial revolution stuff that you know, you, you, you took people off the fields and you trained them into being obedient and to operate to the clock, and and you know, so you don't get your hands chopped off in the machine. You know, and but but the other dark side of that was, you know, telling people that they were indispensable because you broke the tasks down to such an extent that you took all the meaning out of everything.
Maria Arpa:So you took everything out and you had, you know, one person just doing that all day. Yeah, and they were replaceable, and so that kept a kind of power structure going. And although I know things have come a long way since then well, maybe not, some people were talking there's still an underlying sense of that hierarchical thing that somehow, because I have additional responsibilities, I'm a better human being than you.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can still feel that kind of sense that comes with many titled leaders and that idea that because they've gotten there, yeah, sometimes it means that they're a better person, not necessarily just the one who wanted the, that they're a better person, not necessarily just the one who wanted the role or is a better fit for the role, not about their overall assessment of their character or was in the right place at the right time, with the right bingo, yes, the right friends, because it brings up all sorts of things.
Maria Arpa:but but you know who? Yeah, who do you know? Yeah, and also I mean we could get really deep into this. You know what trauma is someone working out by needing to have power over other people?
Dr. Leah OH:Yes, exactly yeah. So that leads us. This is a really nice segue. So I was thinking then about the inspiration, and you shared your background with us and you've kind of defined compassionate leadership in your own words. And I'm wondering you know, from kind of the background and your early professional experiences, you know what led you to where you are now? We're saying that this compassionate leadership, this is the core of the way that I approach work and the way that I approach helping others do their work um.
Maria Arpa:So I've been on both sides of the coin like feeling powerless, you know, in my upbringing, in, you know, in the slums of london, um, and then you know working my way, upbringing in you know, in the slums of London, and then you know working my way out of that and running my own business and becoming, you know, in my own mini world, you know the powerful, if you like and finding that none of that actually had. You know that was a spiritual desert, that there was nothing in there that would take me into community, and I think I've always had a long desire to feel that we're all part of something and that there is community. And so I started to understand, I got into conflict resolution and became a mediator. Understand, I got into conflict resolution and became a mediator, um, because I started to see that actually we're trained to fight each other I don't know.
Maria Arpa:We've been trained to fight each other. But we have been trained to fight each other because all of our models of conversation are based on debate and nowhere you know, you may have done um english language, where you learn the technical side of the language, and you may have learned english literature, where you understood the art of the language, but where did?
Maria Arpa:you ever have a lesson in how to have a conversation, a heart-to-heart conversation, with another human being, using language to meet each other in true human connection. So we had to pick that up and pick it up really badly using the debate model of conversation in which the idea is that one argument prevails over all others. The idea is that one argument prevails over all others. So, as you're speaking, I'm preparing what I want to say in retaliation or defence.
Maria Arpa:And this just doesn't work. So I started to understand that there's this need for us to you know, if I'm talking to you, then the biggest need for both of us in this moment is to be heard. That comes before anything else. Even if I'm calling 911 or 999, the need is to be heard. Yes.
Maria Arpa:And we do so little of that. So I got into mediation. I loved it, and then I realized that mediation is still reactive, not proactive. I was still waiting for the poop and the fan to make contact, and then you're cleaning it up afterwards. And again I come back to I definitely I feel and I've proved and I have seen that as humans we can do better.
Maria Arpa:So, I got into the idea of being more proactive around our compassion for each other, the way we talk to each other, the way that we see the world the lens through which I'm looking has a huge part to play in the outcomes and seeing that actually we could alleviate unnecessary human suffering because, a certain amount of human suffering is birth to death whatever but we create so much unnecessary human suffering, and that's what I'm interested in, in working to prevent that and working to heal it.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, that's fascinating. When you were talking, I was thinking about how the traditional model, where many of us weren't taught to have these conversations and we're just modeling it on debate or a zero-sum game we go round and round. But if we learn how to take a more compassionate approach from the start and how to really listen and not just hear, that becomes a different cycle too, and a positive one that we want to see continuing becomes a different cycle too, and a positive one that we want to see continuing absolutely.
Maria Arpa:And, of course, that starts internally. I've got to learn to listen to myself, you know. I've got to listen to those voices, you know, it's amazing. You know, I still have voices that you know from my childhood that will pop up and, you know, could take an amazing experience and a few days later, start telling me how rubbish it was. Now I've learned to laugh at that. Yep, I've learned to go you know, you've got no place here in my life.
Maria Arpa:You used to do that and you used to make me believe that things that I'd experienced weren't what I thought they were, but actually you're long retired.
Dr. Leah OH:Yep, yep, I love that. Like you're not driving anymore, get out of the driver's seat. Yeah, so, ria, with this and you've kind of touched on these, but if you were to pull out, I don't know. Three to five, whatever you see, key principles of compassionate leadership that every leader should try to embrace and then model Kind of what is what's that on ramp? What is that? You know, what are those things that they can start thinking about in really tangible ways now to start changing their approach.
Maria Arpa:Oh thank you, I love that question. Changing their approach. Oh, thank you, I love that question. So the first one is the one that everyone ignores is where are you? Getting support.
Maria Arpa:Where are you getting support? You're a leader, you're supporting people. You cannot support people if you are not getting support. If you feel unsupported, you're rapidly heading into martyrdom. You head into martyrdom. Everyone's going to smell it on you, right? So so the first thing is where are you getting support?
Maria Arpa:Now, interestingly enough, I was talking and this comes up a lot, you know when I'm mentoring people or working with people. You know, I love to give, I love to support my people, I love to listen, I love to do this, that and the other, and everything pushed outwards, everything pushed outwards. And isn't that amazing and isn't that wonderful? And always running around and giving people the shirt off your back if you have to. You know whatever. Running around and giving people the shirt off your back if you have to, you know whatever? And one of the things that I always point out or that I work with, is, if you always give people the shirt off your back and you're always fixing everything and you're always running around making sure that everybody's okay, how are you giving people, how are you giving your people the opportunity to show that they love you? Yeah, you're actually depriving them of the opportunity to show you love and care, and for me that's really important.
Maria Arpa:Like we have, everything in life is an exchange giving and receiving, giving and receiving, giving and receiving and those things have to be in balance. So that's the first thing is about support and reciprocation of love. And then the next thing for me is about embodiment learning to actually feel my feelings in my body.
Maria Arpa:You cannot feel your feelings in your head, even if you couldn't tell people I'm angry or I'm sad or I'm upset it's actually like it's a, it's an embodiment that goes down the body and and we need to make contact with our body because that's where compassion comes from. And I'm particularly reminded of um, a gang leader that I worked with years ago, and um, and I asked him you know what this work done for him? And how things had shifted in him working with me and us doing. We went on this big journey together and what he said was um, you taught me how to feel again.
Maria Arpa:And when you feel. You feel for yourself and for others and you can't hurt people.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, yeah, wow, talk about powerful.
Maria Arpa:Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely Just amazing. And it was an amazing time because, um, I wanted to show him he was in my local area and I wanted to show him ways in which the gangs could have their sit downs and perhaps not murder each other, because it was out onto the streets and uh, and he said, um, for every hour I spend learning your stuff, you have to spend an hour shadowing me and seeing what I have to work with. And it was, uh, it was quite an amazing couple of years yeah, I can't even imagine yeah, I learned something.
Maria Arpa:He, he, he passed away during covid, but, um, I learned some amazing things from this man. Like he was a giant. So that embodiment, learning to feel, and what that brings up. And then of course it's going to bring stuff up.
Dr. Leah OH:So then you need support you know.
Maria Arpa:And then the other thing is use of language. You know, and I would say that you know, given the work I do. Oh, you would say that. But language is the software in our brains that we use to tell ourselves what to do. So if we're using a violent language internally, if we're using the debate model internally, if our inner judge or inner police officer is active and our inner mediator is gone to sleep, we're going to have very different outcomes to to how we use language and what people receive from us and what we receive from ourselves.
Maria Arpa:And then finally, conscious awareness, and for me that's vibrational. You know we can now. You know I'm a Reiki master and I never get to talk about it in this field. You know people thought you were some tree-hugging lunatic. That is changing yeah, now I can talk about energy and that everything is energy everything is vibrating and we need to connect with those vibrations and and learn to read and sense and become more sensitive to the vibration and learn how to master those vibrations. You know those things are really important.
Dr. Leah OH:And I imagine that ties in with the embodiment as well, because when you're able to feel those emotions and process them in healthy ways, then your body is more keen and open for sensing and connecting.
Maria Arpa:Yes, and you can rely less on rational logical thinking, which is very tiring, very tiring it has its place. But the problem for me is that that is running the show now. You know I worked in advertising years ago, when it wasn't a science.
Maria Arpa:When the creative team you know, got in a room with, you know, bottles of alcohol and cigarettes and sat up at night and and a creative thing and came up with ideas and worked with clients in an energetic way. Now it's, it's become scientific and and you lose something. Because, yeah, because you lose connection.
Dr. Leah OH:Yep, yep, which is the heart of everything, isn't it? Yep. Absolutely so, maria. You have this dialogue roadmap that I have learned with your work, and I was hoping that you could introduce us to this idea and help us to kind of see how we could apply this in our own lives. Thank you, yeah.
Maria Arpa:So, as I said to you, what I realized is that the model of conversation that we've all learned and it's how we entertain ourselves. It's in big business, it's in our governments, it's everywhere you look, it's in our schools, it's a debate model of conversation and at its worst, it's debate plus enforcement so debate plus enforcement is the most toxic version of that um so I started to realize that what we need is dialogue, and in dialogue we understand that there isn't one argument that prevails, that everyone's got a piece of the answer.
Maria Arpa:Yeah, and I was really very moved by Carl Rogers' work, carl Rogers being the kind of inventor or developer of person-centred therapy.
Maria Arpa:Marshall Rosenberg's work in non-violent communication. But then I started to look for what you know, how do you have a dialogue? And it didn't exist. There wasn't lots of people talking about dialogue, but no kind of real how-to manual, and so that's what I've spent the last sort of 30 years creating is a manual on how to have a dialogue. And so the first difference is that a debate is you're having a debate from your brain, you're having a debate from your head and you're logicking out and you're weaponizing and you're looking for weakness and you're trying to get you know what you want out there.
Maria Arpa:yeah, and you may end up at some kind of compromise or whatever, but you know, essentially it's not a connected conversation and in the dialogue roadmap, what I learned is there are five states of being, so this is not something I'm doing from the head, it's something I'm doing from my heart. This is part of the embodiment, and I'm using words to let you know the state that I am in, and not using words to get a result okay and this is really important.
Maria Arpa:So I'm using words and and in the, in the training. You know, we've got particular ways and reasons which we wouldn't go into in a podcast, but I'm letting you know that I am in the state of receiving, I am in the state of hearing you, and then I'm going to be in the state of curiosity or inquiry it's a state of being it's not an investigation.
Maria Arpa:I am not a detective. Then, another place, in another part of this conversation, I'm going to be in the state of empathy, and empathy is a state, and I use words to let you know I'm in that state and I'd like you to join me in that state so you can have empathy for yourself, or we can have empathy for each other, or we can have empathy for the state of the world, or the state of our team, or the state of our workplace, our family, and then you know it's giving and receiving.
Maria Arpa:So if I've been on a state, of receiving then there's a point where I'm in a state of giving. I want you to hear me. Now, I may have to do some work to prepare you to hear me. And then, finally, we come to the state of support. What are we going to do about this? How are we going to do this? How will we know if it's worked? What will we do if it doesn't work? What happens if we don't know? And these are states of being. They're not a chess game.
Dr. Leah OH:Yep.
Maria Arpa:Yep, and my role as a facilitator is creating the conditions in which I can shift our debate into a dialogue, creating the conditions in which we can have that kind of conversation.
Dr. Leah OH:Yes, yes, I found myself giggling when you're talking about a state of curiosity, because you're right. What traditionally happens then is rebuttal right, the mental list making of what are the shortcomings, what are potential consequences, what is that we haven't already done? Done, you know? And curiosity seems like such a healthier and more helpful place to be in order. You know, even if we're solving the biggest of problems or concerns, we're likely to have a lot more bandwidth to be innovative when we're coming from that place of curiosity than, you know, kicking the tires and trying to chip away at someone's argument.
Maria Arpa:Yes, because one of the things that I find is that we're so avoidant of the whole feelings. You know we're now we're talking about emotional intelligence and all of that.
Maria Arpa:I'm talking about the embodiment and the vibrations and the feeling of it that what we do is, when we go to fix things prematurely, what we're doing is we're actually being conflict avoidant and the conflict is not really wanting to sit with the upset or the grief. You know, one of the things I talk about is the grief of being human, even if I'm having the best life imaginable. You know, somewhere there's a counterbalance where some days, you know I mean I forget which comedian it was, but somebody I was listening to something that made me absolutely laugh. He said oh, you know, my doorbell went at 5.30 am on a Sunday morning and I thought God, isn't it a pain being alive?
Dr. Leah OH:Yep, yep, yep. So much truth in that.
Maria Arpa:Yeah, yeah, I just thought, yeah, it doesn't matter. There's always a sort of grief or a downside, or a shadow work, or whatever it is. And what we're doing is learning to play in that sandbox, you know.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, oh, I love that. So we've talked about this dialogue roadmap and we've talked about embodiment and support in the shared space, and I love your use of we language, and that leads me to thinking about some contemporary executive leaders or those in the C-suite. What are some misconceptions that you have encountered that some individuals, especially in these highest ranks, have about compassionate leadership?
Maria Arpa:So the biggest misconception is that this in any way is soft or stretchy or unboundaried, and you know for a lot of people who've held things very tightly for a long time in their lives. It's a scary prospect of you know, cutting that ribbon you know allowing it, because there's so much backed up that's going to flow. But that's your inner work. That's not what I'm talking about you know it's interesting.
Maria Arpa:You know that I say. The most compassionate thing I can do in a situation is tell people what the boundaries are and how they will be held accountable to those boundaries. Yeah, but not wait for them to fall over and then punish them.
Maria Arpa:But in our contracting, in the conversations where we're setting things up, in the conversations where we're in the middle of things, telling people what the boundaries are the limits and the boundaries, whether they're fair or unfair that's a whole other. You know, we could have a whole thesis of fairness, right. That's not the point, for where we are now, with the resources that we have today and the investment that either of us or any of us are prepared to make into this situation, these are the boundaries. This is where we all stand in this.
Maria Arpa:And, you know, unless we're chaining people to the wall and giving them bread and water, we all have choices yeah so so, but then you know, what I don't do is throw people away what I want to do is work on their resistances. So if people have and that's part of compassion part of compassion is understanding and working on the resistances you know because are those resistances real, because it's about something inherently that isn't going to work in this situation, this moment, that I haven't thought of? Or is this somebody's stuff from other parts of their life that are bringing, coming into play of?
Maria Arpa:their life that are bringing coming into play? Yeah, well, you know, I do that too. So we're all in this together so for me that's, you know, a misconception is definitely the idea that compassion is um stretchy and elastic and and and that you're going to lose control. Well, you are going to give up control, but you're giving up control in order to unburden yourself from having sole responsibility because everyone's watching you and going that ain't my problem.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, that's really. I love that idea of looking at boundaries as compassion, and it made me think of designing my syllabi for students. I've known as being very rigorous, but I'm telling them this is how I show you, I care, these are the things that you will need, these are guardrails, here are the expectations. So it's really helpful to have more of that language surrounding it, because I could definitely take a much easier path for myself and it wouldn't be as helpful for my students. So thank you, maria. So let's think about impact and measuring success, impact in measuring success. So are there some either metrics or certain indicators that someone's saying hey, I've been trying to do this, you know how do I know if it's working?
Maria Arpa:So this? I'm sorry to laugh at the question On LinkedIn. I keep getting asked to contribute to this, that and the other. You know how does this work? How does that work? And I keep getting asked to contribute to this, that and the other. You know how does this work? How does that work?
Maria Arpa:And I keep coming back to the same thing. You ask the people if it's working, the idea, that I can, kind of behind everyone's back, measure something and the whole PowerPoint presentation and a few graphs with some percentages on it, and the people themselves didn't tell me that. So, it's literally about the way I measure. Impact is literally to have regular check-ins. Create the conditions in which people can actually tell me the truth.
Dr. Leah OH:I like that and that is can actually tell me the truth? Mm-hmm, I like that.
Maria Arpa:And that is missing in so many workplaces. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, who can tell the truth in most workplaces?
Dr. Leah OH:Oh, almost no one without fear of repercussions, serious repercussions.
Maria Arpa:Yeah.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah.
Maria Arpa:And so for me, you know, when I work in the prison system, for example, and, um, you know, someone coming into work, you know, may just want to say oh god, I feel so unwell today, but you can't say that because someone's going to write it down and hold you, hold it against you but you want to be able to just that's what compassion is about. I want to be able to say I feel like crap today doesn't mean I can't do my job, yeah yeah, my right head on.
Maria Arpa:Nobody has to panic yep, yep, that's right.
Dr. Leah OH:I think that's so important because I think we have been conditioned for so long that if I came in and said, like it's just not my day, look, it is all wrong, then it would be seen as an emergency, like it would be a like a clear cry for help and like maybe just the alarm didn't go off and the kids were having a moment, which meant I had a moment and yeah, but you're right, it didn't. It wouldn't mean I couldn't necessarily teach my content or have a conversation and be fully engaged. It would just be nice to unload and unburden.
Maria Arpa:yeah, so I have in um you know my workplace I've you know I've got a few people and what we've you know. You probably tell I'm not like a shrinking violet.
Maria Arpa:You know I've kind of got quite a good person. I mean, this work's been really great for me because the opposite of most people it's. It's shown me what I miss in being larger. It's helped me to kind of pull back. But you know, the whole point of this for me isn't so that we tread on eggshells and we're all lovely and compassionate with each other. It's so that I can build enough trust and demonstrate that the trust you know materializes into real things, so that we can speak in shorthand to each other and nobody gets upset.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, yeah. And then we're seeing real change in the workplace, right? So for those who want to think about outcomes and retention and satisfaction, they're likely going to see increases in all of those areas.
Maria Arpa:Well, the whole point is you know people I'm not saying anything new you know people don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers. Yeah, but you know, the whole point is, if we're spending so much time in a workplace and with people that we didn't necessarily choose, you know, we need to believe that there's some authenticity. You know, there's got to be some level of fairness. And if there is no fairness. We need to speak about it and be really honest.
Maria Arpa:You know, need to be really honest about where the resources are going and why they're going that way and what fairness and unfairness is in certain situations and I need to feel like I can be human. You know, that's the key thing, and then you get the best out of people.
Dr. Leah OH:Exactly so, Maria. I was wondering about these personal insights from what you do and how you integrate this approach to all of your life. So how do you practice self-compassion and compassionate communication? So what are some insights that you found, and I don't necessarily want to say tips or tricks, but what are things that we can start doing today to to practice this with ourselves and with others?
Maria Arpa:So number one is get support. Getting support once my levels have risen, that's too late. It's like using thirst to determine that you're dehydrated. That's late. To determine that you're dehydrated, you know it's. That's late, right? So having support and and understanding and trusting that I want to be supported in my, in my calm and beautiful state.
Maria Arpa:Not I deserve support once things have escalated you know, that's really important and where you're getting that support, and that that support is compassionate and loving towards you, not teaching you how to be better, not stretching you or challenging you. That's a different time training. You know that's not what I'm talking about um silence and reflection, really, really important really important to find moments of silence and reflection.
Maria Arpa:There's, um, there's a group of people near where I live and I can't remember what their, what their religion is called, but if you go to their building they have something called the global spiritual university.
Maria Arpa:And if you go to their building every hour, on the hour for four minutes, comes this meditative music and whatever you're engaged in, whatever you're doing, everybody just stops and reflects at the same time to realize how attached we get to things. That sends you know that there's nothing to be attached to. So there's something about that silence and reflection and breathing. I do a practice where I practice trying to feel my heart beating in my body. That's a really nice one, try to become really conscious. And you know I talked about vibration and energy and the opening of intuition, which is, you know, it's a learning journey. It's like, you know, if you wanted to learn the piano or something, you have to learn the steps. But for me, opening intuition is a blessing because it's less stressful. I can remember that. There's the way I talk about intuition is it's like the cloud, all this universal knowledge in the cloud, and I need to learn how to stick my USB into it and download and remember that it isn't all on me.
Maria Arpa:So those are the things that I do and what I find is the more I and I don't get it right all the time, you know, and I don't get it right all the time, you know but the more I become in harmony with that and I'm more recently practicing something called non-resistance, I get more done with less resources.
Dr. Leah OH:That's incredible. Yeah, thank you for sharing that with us. So, Maria, our last question is a two-parter and this is the way that we end all of our communicative leader episodes. So it is thinking about a pragmatic leadership or communication tip. It can be advice or a challenge, and the first part is that you know what we want to leave our titled leaders with, and then the second part is kind of that advice or tip or challenge for employees of all ranks.
Maria Arpa:Thank you. So, for titled leaders, I've got this lovely phrase that I borrowed from somewhere that I love using, and it's connection before correction, connection before correction before correction. And you'll never connect with anyone if you're not in a compassionate state, and only at the point of connection can we then start to address. What are the things that we would like to be different, how, what, what needs to change and how and what are the resources that we need to enact those changes. And alongside, connection before correction, because when you spread.
Maria Arpa:That can sound like you know. Say hello, how are you, and then tell you what I want, you know? The other thing is, if you go into anything in life with a single-minded purpose and you are not open to the fact that you are in a sea of other people who may have other ideas, then you should expect conflict. Yeah, yeah.
Maria Arpa:And then on the other side, for you know, employees everywhere I like to think about, I like people to think about. You know, a big thing in workplaces are power imbalances and power imbalances exist, okay, and that's usually around the weight of resources, yeah, but the power imbalance only exists when the person with the least amount of power plays their part in the power relationship. So if I see you as having power over me, then I'm playing my role in the power relationship. If.
Maria Arpa:I understand you to be a human being trying to get a job done, and you might be doing it really badly, but it doesn't mean that I'm a lesser human being. I can still meet you as an equal in our humanity. I can still meet you as an equal in our humanity as long as I'm not doing that out of defiance, retaliation or resentment.
Dr. Leah OH:Yeah, that's a really helpful reminder because I think a lot of times people just assume this is the way it is. But when recognizing there's a choice, it can be really freeing.
Maria Arpa:So I have a lovely example of this in the prisons I work in and I train people to do the work I do. I train prisoners to work with prisoners who are struggling to share compassionate communication, that's amazing.
Maria Arpa:And our team of facilitators are prisoners and yet time and time again, I have demonstrated how, when the prisoners find that self-compassion and therefore they're demonstrating something about care for everyone, including the officers, my facilitators end up sitting in senior management team meeting with the leaders of the prison to talk about what could make things better, and nobody believes that.
Dr. Leah OH:Incredible, yeah, that is phenomenal. And kudos to those leadership teams that say, wow, I can learn from you. And I don't understand this and I need your help.
Maria Arpa:Yeah, it's an amazing thing. There's so many examples of where this works, but it doesn't work if you treat it as a technique to get what you want. That's just plain manipulative and you know, this is about a journey of discovery. It's about a way of being in the world that is about making life more wonderful for yourself and everyone around you. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Leah OH:I love that, maria. Well, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for sharing your perspective and your experiences, and you've left us with so many thoughtful, concrete things that we can start practicing today that are not only going to help make our workplace what we want it to be, because that's one of our goals here, but to make our lives what we want it to be. Well, thank you, maria, I truly appreciate you.
Maria Arpa:Thank you. This has been really lovely. Thank you for having me and thank you for the work you're doing.
Dr. Leah OH:All right, my friends. That wraps up our conversation today. Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose. I'm looking forward to chatting with you again soon on the Communicative Leader.
