Creating Felt Safety: The Foundation of a Thriving Workplace (with Wendy McMahan)

Renae: Renae, hello, Wendy, thank you so much for saying yes to participating with us for our first TraumaWise workplace Summit. Thank you for being here.

Wendy: Oh, such a pleasure to be here. Renae, I am a huge fan of TraumaWise and what TraumaWise is doing. You are just filling such a needed place. And I think many of us have just felt out there trying to figure this out on our own, especially in the workplace, and you're now giving voice to that and giving some training. So just grateful to be with you, so grateful to be asked to come on today, awesome.

Renae: Well, I'm equally as grateful. We are grateful and awesome together. And I would love for you to know that, for those who have not met Wendy before, you're going to hear from a breadth of experience. She's worked in a lot of Human Services, direct services, ministry areas, and support for people. So she's very people-focused and holding that balance of, how do we do business things? Well, how do we run this organization, have a workplace, and how do we see the human in front of us? And so I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about your current role and what you're doing, and you'd like to share about yourself too.

Wendy: Sure, I'd love to. So I'm the president of the children's organization, which is a nonprofit. If you've heard of Royal Family Kids Camp or Royal Family Kids Mentoring, those are our programs. And my national office team is a small team of 16 people, but we work with 200 chapters across the US and another 30 or so around the world, all of whom are run by volunteers. So our network is very large, although our staff team is small. And in the past, I've worked at other nonprofits in other nonprofit capacities, managing at a local human services, Foster, adoption, and all things child welfare organization, and prior to that, in an International Christian ministry that worked all around the world,

Renae: wonderful. And when we talk about things that are trauma informed, TraumaWise, an approach that understands the impacts of trauma, and wants to make sure that's creating spaces and places and opportunities and engagements with people that are aware of and are not causing more trauma. What do you think is a marker for you for how? Do you know a place that is TraumaWise? Trauma informed? Yeah.

Wendy: Okay, so that's a great question. As you're asking that question, Renae, I'm thinking of the show Severance, which I think, like a lot of people, are watching right now at the time we're recording this. So this might be a very dated reference, if somebody grabs the recap here, but the severance. The show is about this. It's the idea. It's a sci-fi really saying that there's been this invention where you can basically be a different person at work, where you walk into work and you don't remember anything from the outside, and then when you walk out, you don't remember anything from the inside. And I think a lot of times like, I think that show is so salient for us, because that's sometimes how we feel at work, like we've been asked to show up and let go of everything else that has happened to us in the past, or just happened to us this morning. And when we come into work, as we, you know, as those elevator doors open, we are just the worker. You know, I know you're fond of talking about how we're not robots, but we're kind of expected to be sometimes at work. And so, you know, to say, how do you know if a workplace is trauma informed, it's a workplace that recognizes that you bring all of who you are to work. You bring who you were this morning before you came. You bring the thoughts and feelings you have about what's going to happen this weekend. The relationships that you have at work are also very important and impact the rest of your life as well. So I think some of the signs that you have a trauma-informed workplace would be when feelings come up for people. Instead of everybody getting uncomfortable or trying to change the subject, we lean into those feelings, and then we're ready to talk about them and understand where they need to help lead us as we're making decisions or as we're interacting with each other. And then I think, you know, another really basic one for being trauma informed is when there's behavior that's unacceptable, whether it is from a co-worker or from upper management, we don't think that's okay. We don't ignore that. And sometimes that means there are policies in place that say these are the things that happen when. Acceptable behavior happens, and sometimes it's simply the approach that we take when we see that.

Renae: Absolutely, yeah, I'm reminded of an encounter at one of my speaking engagements, where afterwards someone had asked me about how, what do you do when you're in a meeting with someone, and they're it feels like they're yelling at you and they're not being kind. And the response I had is, well, it's okay to leave. It's okay to get up and leave. It was brand new information for this particular person, because culturally, from where she, her country of origin, that it was not necessarily how you responded in those situations that that she's like, I know I'm supposed to just keep my emotions in, I said, no, no. In fact, when you're not feeling safe, it's actually okay for you to leave the space and then come back in, and if you need another person in there with you, that's okay. But it feels so challenging to this, that workplace norm of you're here to do a job, and I hear that from people a lot in the workplace, of you're here to do a job, I don't care about the other stuff, right?

Wendy: Yeah, yeah. And when we have that kind of approach, then we're going to end up burning people out, or we're going to end up with some really unhealthy patterns, absolutely.

Renae: well. And what you know, the three pillars of our TraumaWise approach to things are looking at felt safety, connection, and co-regulation. And we talk about co-regulation, it's really about how we are creating the container so that people can be successful in the thing that they're trying to do with other humans? Right? So it's that co-regulation. I'd love to hear from you, what is an example of felt safety in the workplace that you've either been able to be a part of or you've witnessed, what has that looked like? Where you've lit up, you've been able to say, Oh, yeah, that aligns with what we think of as trauma-informed. Yeah. You know, when we think of felt safety, I think for me, I first learned about felt safety, as in parenting classes as a foster parent, and the idea that a child might actually be safe, you know? I know that my home is a safe place. I know there's a fire extinguisher, you know, I know all the things are in place for you to actually be safe, but that's different from helping that child to actually feel safe, and so I need to be the detective of what helps that child feel safe. Now, when we translate that into the work environment, for me as a manager or as a supervisor, I know that this is a safe place to bring to say something like, I don't understand or I need help,

Wendy: But the employee might not know that they might not feel that way, and so that's something that we have to demonstrate. So, you know, I think it's a really good indicator when I am in a staff meeting and somebody is able to say, I don't understand what you're talking about, or I disagree, or, Hey, that's really hard for me. Whenever somebody is able to voice those things, or to voice that with me as a supervisor, that tells me that they're having that felt safety. You know when you've all been in that place where we're leading a meeting, or we're explaining something, and we say, Are there any questions? And we know there are questions, because we haven't given enough information for you to really understand what I'm saying. I'm just trying to create conversation. But nobody asks anything. It's like, oh no, we totally understand what you're trying to say that to me indicates, okay, we don't have felt safety, at least not in this meeting. You know, there are all sorts of different ways that we combine staff or constituents to feel safe or not safe, but whatever it is in that moment somebody's not feeling that safety, to actually raise their hand and say, I don't understand. Yeah,

Renae: I really appreciate that I've translated that in the way I've translated it in my brain. What I'm looking at is, is this a place where it's okay for me to fail? Right? That, to me is like, if I can, if I if it's if it's safe, and I used to, when I was in supervising positions and in leadership positions, I would say, you're there is no mistake that, short of someone dying, there is no mistake that you're going to make that. We can't fix, and I am here to make, create the opportunity for you to try as many things out as I did with my interns, too, as many things out as you possibly can. And this is a safe place to do it like I will make sure that you, that you have the things that you need, and it's, it's my job to support you and I, and I think that you're that you touched on too, is the is the is a leader, as a supervisor, as a person, you're there, serving the people that are part of the team, right? And I think that that's a piece of that safety too, is the, how do you create that felt safety in yourself to be okay as a supporter versus a commander?

Wendy: Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point, because I think, you know, we have this idea that if we betray the fact that we don't know something, or that we don't necessarily have the right way, or if we show a willingness to learn or be flexible, some of us, especially based on the way that we were raised, might have this tendency then to think that showing that that shows weakness in some way, and that weakness then is going to take an advantage of and so many of us come into leadership that way, when really it's quite the opposite. If I'm able to say to someone who reports to me, What a great question, or I hadn't thought of it that way, let's talk that out, or even I'm going to take that and make some changes based on what you said, like, that's so empowering for the staff that we're working with to recognize that they have a voice. Yeah, absolutely,

Renae: My voice is really important, because we need to be able to show up as ourselves. There's been a lot of discussion with other speakers and people participating in the summit for this week about the the subjugation of our, of our, of our core selves to fit into a workplace, and how that's the opposite trauma informed it's not what we want, and so that that that voice, that investment, the the opportunity to co create the conditions, takes A lot of trust on both sides of the equation.

Wendy: Totally does it. And it takes, it takes lack of ego, you know, it takes me being willing to admit that I don't have all the answers. And then it also takes the confidence that I can lean into that and still be the boss, if you will. You know that I'm still leading here, and in fact, this underscores my leadership even more,

Renae: Absolutely, absolutely, well, that it leads me to this next piece of the connection, right? That there's a connection, not only amongst the team members, but also, I think, with us, with ourselves. The fact that you brought up severance, which I did watch this season finale last night. Yeah, last night, I was like, I don't wait till Friday. And this the this concept of disconnection, which, for those of us like you and I who've done some psycho education, we know that's actually dissociation is not a safe place for us to be as humans, either individually or collectively, and so part of that connection that's important is our connection with ourselves, so that we're not ignoring our own internal wisdom, our needs. All you know, those are the things that make us who we are, the things we have to contribute, the things we need from other people. And so I think that's an important piece of the leadership puzzle of, how do we do this? Well, we need to start with ourselves, and then there's the connection, or we create an environment where people feel safe to connect, so that we have a good, healthy reciprocal relationship. That's appropriate and healthy. So, what are some examples, or an example of connection that you've seen done well in the workplace?

Wendy: Probably the best example I've seen is. He is a former boss of mine at my previous agency. Now, you know, we worked with children in foster care, and most of the people I worked with, I was not, I'm not a therapist, but most of the people I worked with were either therapists or social workers. So they were very, for the most part, pretty in tune. I know I don't want to like paint with that broad brush, but for the most part, everybody I worked with, many people I worked with, had that. And my boss, her name is Carrie. We had a scheduled one-on-one every week, and she's probably as far as the schedule goes, the busiest person I've ever known. She really packs the schedule very full. There's never a moment when she would be the last person you would think would be able to be really connected with her staff. However, I was going through some significant challenges at home, and every time, every day I saw her, and then every time we had a scheduled meeting, she would start out with, How are you doing? How worth is going at home? And you know, you can tell when somebody just wants the yes or no answer, you know, just the great kind of answer. Even when I would provide that, she would probe a little bit more because she knew that I wanted to talk to her about it, and she would sit with the best eye contact and the most engaged demeanor, showing me that she really wanted to hear and then she would she would even go deeper. You know, it was like time didn't exist in this half hour that we had together, and sometimes it meant that our time was up, and we, you know, we needed to find another time to talk about the actual work stuff, but that was her posture with me. So fast forward a few years, and I, right now have a co worker who has some significant, very similar problems at home, and in talking with this, this co worker who reports to me, I had a moment sitting with her where I realized I am channeling Carrie right now, and I realized what a gift I had been given, and then I had the opportunity to now give that to somebody else, to give that unconditional gift of my time and energy. So she was just such an example of being willing to connect and set aside whatever, you know, rat race we were in that day, to be able to really connect with me before doing the work. I also thought, in relation to connection, I've been going through again with my team, a great book called The Five Dysfunctions of the Team by Patrick Lencioni. And I wish it had a more positive name, like the five positive functions of a team, but it also talks about those. But one of the first exercises in there is about trust, because the first dysfunction is the absence of trust. And so the presence of trust is the first function that a team has to have in order to work well together. So there's some exercises that that he suggests that I think are really helpful in regard to connection, if you have a willing team, the very first activity that he recommends is sitting with the team and just going around and sharing something very simple, which is, where did you grow up, and how many people were in your family and what was your biggest challenge as a child. Now, of course, that's with felt safety, you want to make sure that your team is ready for that, and you also want the opportunity to opt out of someone you would rather not share with. But I just did that with my executive team last week, and it's just those small steps that go toward building that connection.

Renae: builds trust, and how beautiful it was, what do you love about your job? What is your favorite thing about your job? What's your favorite task you'd like to do? It was, Who are you? Who are you that you know where, where? Where did this person emerge from? And I think that piece of coming back to humanity is the rub, because what you just described as some of the most significant impact for you with someone where time disappeared in a certain way, and then you get to give that gift. And I think of that poster that I've had in my house before, which is the word relationship and then a line, and then the word task. And it's the relationship over task every single time we have things to do, but we know we're not going to get there if we don't have the relationship.

Wendy: that that is. So, right? And it's the baseline for us to be able to effectively work together. You know, I even think of all of my work context as being in the relationship to Christian ministry. And I'm sure that you have viewers here of all different kinds of faiths, and maybe no faith for us in the Christian world, one of the common things that we'll do is to pray for each other. And if that is part of your tradition, that is such a significant way to build connection. But so, like with my executive team, we'll do prayer requests every week. But there's a difference between really connecting and not. The way to not connect is to pray for your aunt. You know, who has a recent diagnosis, your aunt needs prayer, but I bet a lot of people are praying for that diagnosis, and honestly, it's a little bit of a cop out right, to share that as your prayer request, as opposed to and I think the leader is to lead the way in this, to say, I really need prayer, because, you know, this weekend, I'm going to be speaking, and I there, there's, you know, this facet of this group that I'm speaking to, I have a fear, or I feel inadequate, you know, to be able to actually Voice those things to a core team, really opens up the opportunity for everybody to share that vulnerability and experience the acceptance and the connection, and then the felt safety from

Renae: it. Absolutely. What a beautiful example of that. And I think the the modeling of this, the modeling you've touched on the vulnerability piece a couple of times without saying the word vulnerability, and so that the vulnerability of leadership, when done in a authentic way, can be fearful can bring up a lot of especially if that was not something that's been modeled for you in the workplace and family of origin, in other leaders that you've had in we're often taught to be fearful of it like I have to have I have to have all the answers. I have to know the things. I have to show that I'm strong, and so it feels counterintuitive. It's counter-cultural. It's not counterintuitive. Actually, I'm gonna back-up. It's counter-cultural, um, to show up and say it's okay for me to be part of a collective versus trying to be the end-all be-all is the individual.

Wendy: Yeah, that's what resonates so deeply with me. When you talk about counterintuitive, and then you hedge back on that, it's because we try to retrain our intuition, right, to go, oh, well, this is, this is a different place. This is structured in this way, when really, everything inside of you knows you're this whole person. You bring your whole self to work.

Renae: Absolutely! Well, in speaking about that, bringing that whole person into those types of environments with co-regulation in the workplace. And I've joked with you several times, but it's also not a joke that you have often been my co-regulator in certain settings, that I can turn to you as an incredibly passionate person who has very, very deep feelings and very deep thoughts about things. And I will, I will have big expressions of those feelings, and it's not that you stifle them, it's that you give space for me to do that and a quiet perspective. If that's not the full story, it's not the, you know, it's, it's, it's because we have that trust, and we've developed that in in collaborating on things together and then in our friendship over the years, that it's your presence lets me know that it's safe for me to say the things that I need to say. I know it's being heard without judgment, and I know that there's going to be this safe boundary, this safe containment of our, of our, of our interaction, so that I don't go too far, like you wouldn't let me go too far and say so maybe we're going to take a second and breathe here, or pause or recognizing that you might be in a little distress or dysregulated thing might happen to be, but I can trust you to provide that can that container for me, and that's that regulation. And so what are some ways that you? Have you experienced that, or seen that, or implemented that in your own workplace

Wendy: history? Well, those are kind words, and I love being your co-regulator. I know that emotions are difficult for a lot of people, and some of us have trained ourselves for emotions to be difficult, and some just depend on the household that we grew up in and how others have led us before. We might have differing views on this. I will say that for me, co-regulation. The clue to me that I need to help somebody else regulate is when I don't want to. So I'll often be in a moment and some emotion will come up and I don't want to hear it, and I probably don't want to hear it because I'm being task oriented, or because I it's going to reflect poorly on me, that there's something going on that's going to reflect poorly on me, and a lot of times it's not bad at all. It's something entirely different that's happening. And so that's a cue when you feel that way, that it's probably a moment to lean in instead of falling away. I've got a couple of tricks about co-regulation that I've found to be really helpful, and then these might be the only thing some of your viewers take away from this conversation. One of them is the tissue box. So I make sure that we have tissue boxes around the office. What does that communicate? What communicates that you might have snot, right? But I hope what it communicates is you might cry here, and that's okay. I hope it doesn't communicate that we're gonna cry here, but it for me, when I see a tissue box in a room, it tells me that that emotions are okay in that room, and so – actually my husband taught me this so early in our relationship – he was learning that my tears are okay. If you know tears for me doesn't mean I'm going to jump off the diving board. It just means that I'm experiencing some emotion. And what he learned to do was, whatever we were doing, he would go find the tissue box, usually in that room, and just bring it over to me. And I think that's something that I've started to do at work, because I know how good that feels for me. And so when I'm in a conversation and I see emotion welling up, this is a two-step process. I go and grab the tissue box, and then as I'm setting it down, I take one for myself. So for me, what that communicates is, you know, some people, sometimes when you bring the tissue box over, people are thinking like, “Oh, I don't want her to think I'm going to cry.” But if I'm setting it down between us and then taking one for myself, it kind of communicates, I'm, I might have some emotion here, and you know that that that might be based on something that you that you're going to say, and I'm, I'm bravely saying that that's okay, and that will frequently help us to have that that conversation, or to just have that moment together, and then the other one is super simple, but it's eye contact. You know, I think a lot of times, when somebody is feeling dysregulated, the last thing we want to do is to look them in the eyes, and the thing that they need most is that. And so just to remember, that's another time where I'm going to do the opposite of what I'm feeling based on my own history, where if somebody is expressing hard stuff, if they're feeling angry or sad or whatever it is, hurt, I'm gonna not demand eye contact, but I offer warm eye contact whenever they are ready for it or available for it.

Renae: That's beautiful, and I and I appreciate that example of the tissue box so much, and that it's the ways that we set up our physical spaces and the cues that we give people for how much they're able to bring themselves into them, is like, a really important piece, I think, of of how we create those environments, because it's not just the things that we do, it's how we make people feel. And I know that there's this, this piece of the therapy world where it's like, well, people don't make you feel anything and, um, I'm just here to say that's not true, because I can have a biological impact on any human being at any point in time. There are different things I can do. So I do make people feel things all the time, for better, for worse. And so we are responsible for that. We may not be responsible. We're not responsible for the stories that are told based on how they're feeling. But there's that quote from the Roy Institute of the way I am creates an atmosphere in others, and that they then make mean something about themselves. And so how I'm I. How I'm intentional and how I'm thoughtful about the way I'm communicating, or the web setting up the space, or the parameters I'm putting around something, or the communicating expectations. All of those create a message and a story for people, and as leaders, we get to be part of crafting the atmosphere. We're setting the tone. Well, you know, it's the thermostat versus the thermometer, often when we're in those leadership positions. And so when you think about bringing together that vulnerability piece and that openness and that curiosity. We want people to bring their best in their roles, because we have a common goal. We have a common goal, wherever, in that workplace or that organization, and to be able to know what their best is, and to help to create the circumstances and the environment that they can bring that we need to get to know who they are. Yeah, right, we're not. I keep having this conversation with people every once in a while where it's like, we're not, we're not, again, we're not robots. That term. Often we're not robots, but we're often treated as robots. And lots of people like it, but it's very McDonald's. Hey, listen, I was a manager at McDonald's, and people are people, and it's still, yes, I need to make 1000 hamburgers for that lunch rush. I hear you, and so the thing I would, I'd love to hear about is, have you, can you speak a little bit to those practices of cultural shifting from how do, how, what are the checks that we can have put into place? Or what's a flash point for a wait a minute, like we need to remember that relationship is actually central to us doing the task, in a sustainable and respectful way for everyone involved,

Wendy: Yeah, well, I think you just said what it is. And I wish there was like an easy, quick tip or trick to just, you know, recognize the relationship. But it really is that, and I think for each of us it is. It's in we talk about zone of proximal development, right, which means that you're not going to get out here like, that's that whatever's out here that's too far for you individually to go. So you know, maybe when I say, pick up the tissue box and take one yourself. Whoa, that might feel like a lot, like that's too far. But what is the small step that you can personally take to make yourself, and this isn't just growing your workplace like this is growing yourself, you know, to be able to become that person who can be attuned with other people. So, identify what those are? What are those small things that I can do personally, and then if I am part of management in the organization, well, then we're talking about systems and processes. And maybe there are some systems and processes. And I use those words intentionally, because I'm very task-oriented myself. I've learned that this is very helpful for me to be TraumaWise in the workplace, because I would love to just have robots. But you know what, with AI now we have robots, so use AI as a robot and then use people for people things, right? And so, let's challenge ourselves to grow. And what I want to say about the systems and processes is that I believe we find that more work actually does get done when we are TraumaWise, and that might be the thing that we should have led with in this conversation. Literally, the question is like, how do you get more productivity out of people? And it turns out, it is to sit with them for 25 out of your 30-minute meeting and hear about what's happening at home and in that relationship, that person actually ends up being more productive than if you had just talked through the issues happening at work.

Renae: Absolutely. Yeah, it's, it's biologically proven. We access our creativity, our decision-making, our all, our collaboration, our connections, and patterns. You can't get all of it online if we don't have our needs met, felt, safety, connection, and co-regulation. So we need those. And if it sounds like a formula, found sounds like a checklist, but it's just a framework for helping us to understand this very beautiful. Organic, biological, social relation, spiritual relationship, because it feels so mushy. And I think that's what can be so fearful, like it's so, it's for people, it's so it can raise that fear, the fear of, what if this job doesn't get done? I don't know if I can stay regulated all of these different things, so I really appreciate that salient point of releasing some of that fear and that need to control the outcome and recognize that me control like me working on my regulation, my awareness and connection to self, what I need for my felt safety allows me to create that experience for other people, and then together, we'll get to the outcome. And it actually probably has a lot more fun,

Wendy: It is a lot more fun, right? And more tissues, but more fun,

Renae: Absolutely. Wendy, thank you so much for your wisdom, your experience, and for sharing the skills that you've developed and in the ways that you've seen things done well, and that you've been able to share that with the world completely.

Wendy: My pleasure. I'm so grateful for you and everything you're doing at TraumaWise.