Creating Peaceful Workplaces | Dr. Sujata Ives of the Book, Activate Success

Welcome to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. We are here to inspire creative ideas and connections for entrepreneurs and advocates working

to address our mental health crisis.

As you listen, I hope you will

experience new ideas and motivation to innovate

in your business, your community and in your life. Hello and welcome back to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. I am your host, Rachel Harrison, and with me today is Dr. Sujada Ives, who is a career therapist, an author and a speaker. Welcome, Dr. Sujada.

Thank you so much for having me.

Of course. Let's begin by talking about what you refer to as the elephant in the room, which is your vocal condition. What would you like people to know about that?

Great. I'm so happy that you're starting with that because I want the listeners and the viewers to know there's nothing wrong with your audio. It's my vocal cords do not close and so my voice wiggles and jiggles a little bit. And so I hope you don't mind. And I just want to thank the listeners where there is support for who I am.

I love that you've got that support for sure. And I'm glad that you've agreed to come and talk to us today. I can't wait to dig in a little bit more. So you, as a professional, focus a lot on people's careers and career counseling and I'm very curious how did you get started with this? What got you interested in that piece of working with people?

Well, when my parents brought me here from India, I was in grade school and just like many immigrants, we were going after the American dream. And I watched my father having two or three jobs at a time, my mother having two or three jobs, and when I was able to, I was a student during the day and evening I was going to school. That was my second job. And my third job was I worked in part time retail during the weekends. So all this just equated to a very strong conscious and subconscious message that work hard work was very important and it was a value of my parents. And that transferred to me. So I decided that I wanted to go into psychology. First of all because of the body culturality, since I was balancing the Indian culture with the American culture. But the next thing was I think I would stop destined to help people through efficient workplaces and especially creating peaceful workplaces through peaceful relationships.

Oh, that is so major. I think of all the people that I've known in my life as well as clients, and sometimes having a stressful work relationship is something that takes a whole lot of energy from people and causes a lot of unrest. Sometimes causes people to leave even work that they love doing. So you saying like a peaceful workplace, that is the ideal for everyone? I think yes.

You know, you're so correct in that because people leave people, they won't necessarily leave their passionate work. You know, it takes so long to attain that degree to job search, to write the resume, to write the COVID letters. And so once you, you know, go through that interview process and you finally land that job, it's almost like fingers crossed that you're going to work peacefully and work amicably with your colleagues. And many times that doesn't and due to two reasons, leadership styles and also personality preferences.

So it could even just be a bad fit from a personality standpoint. Like to me, when you say personality style, that's not a changeable thing. If your boss is a particular personality and you are another one and those don't jive, there's probably not a lot that can be done about that. Correct?

To an extent you're absolutely right. Because that person is an authority fig and that person has the authority to fire you, so to speak. Right. So what I did reach once I decided to put pen to paper. And through my book Activate Success, I've delineated the different leadership styles that you encounter in the workplace and how to adapt, how to work with that particular leadership skill. Style. That's what I've done at the management authority level for you. The second thing that I've done with regard to the personality and the colleagues issue is I've put a link between your values, your stressor. So if you link your stress, stress and mess, as I call it, at the emotional level, I want you to directly link it to your values. So, for example, if you value, and this is a really simple example, but it's the mosquitoes that get you in the workplace, it's not the Bengal tigers. So this, this example is a little mosquito that could just break your day. Let's say that you value cleanliness, but every time you go into the company break room, other people leave it a mess and they don't clean up after themselves. And so each day, this is like a little mosquito. You're going in there, it's just breaking you down day by day because you value cleanliness. And you're saying to yourself, why can't people just clean up after themselves? It's so easy. But here's the link. Cleanliness is not a value of theirs, right? So that's where these workplace relationships start to break down at a very sort of mosquito level. And then that transfers into the boardroom, that transfers into the teamwork, so, so forth.

Yeah.

So I've given this tool that has been used in the past, but as a reminder, I say to people, use I statements that have your values. Get in touch with a really good feelings list and a values list. And instead of saying, you make me so mad, because that's going to create workplace conflict right off the bat, you have to work with these people. So rather than you make me so mad, I feel disappointed when people don't clean up after themselves. And so what you value is being communicated. So we want people to communicate with each other. We want your needs to be met. Some people have essentials, you know, that they can't do without, like coffee. So it's an important thing in the workplace.

I think the question that's coming up for me is when we think about people's satisfaction in the workplace, I think about COVID and how much that has drastically changed the place of work to more of that online space. So I'm really curious what you are seeing as maybe some trends in more remote work and how that's creating maybe different issues or the same issues differently. I'm just interested to hear your feedback on that.

Yes, what a great question. Because you know what? I believe that we just can't go backwards. Covid was A historical momentous thing that happened worldwide.

Right.

And as a consequence of that, people became caregivers to ill parents that caught Covid or that even perished from that. Also think about the 23 million pets were adopted. Wow. Between 2019 and 2022. So the fact that this newer model came about, that human resource officers and career practitioners endorsed the two days a week having remote work and of course, you know, make no bombs about it, you can't be lazy. You have to put forth your work. You know, the company is trusting you to do your work remotely. So you know, there's an empathy ethic here that's involved too. So you have to follow the empathy ethic. So if we're all on the same page, we all have empathy for each other, but we have to follow our ethics as well. So I personally want to see the remote work continue for two reasons. One, it has this work life balance where the person feels like they are in touch with their loved ones, their family and their pets. And this is huge, huge for her feel unison safety and self esteem and caring for aging parents and pets and so forth. This is huge and it's huge for morale. It is a real morale booster. But again, you have to prove to your boss, whatever style they have, micromanagement or macromanagement or conscious leadership for co elevation, whatever style they have, you have to prove that you are doing your work. The competencies have to be there. You have to be competent and get your job done. But definitely I'm a proponent of the new hurdle. Now, you may have heard that our new government is mandating that federal employees will no longer have remote work, that they have to get back into the buildings. And so to that my response is I do believe the morale is going to plot. It's the business model that was prior to Covid and now going backwards, I think is going to be a typical thing because people are going to now have to search for caregivers for their aging parents and caregivers for children. My goodness, daycare is so expensive.

It is. That's interesting too. And when you're talking about that feeling of belongingness that can come from working from home, I'm also thinking about, though it can also create a difficulty in connecting in the workplace, in the work environment, when it's virtual instead of in person. So are you advocating for more of a balance of both of those two things or is it case by case or how, how do you encourage somebody to navigate those things?

You know, that is such a good question too is how do you Balance this. So I think that being virtual, I think is a really good thing. Twice a week. I think that this works. Now we're getting into something called netiquette. And because there's etiquette in the virtual space. True. One thing that I do require when I have the online virtual meetings or group counseling is that you cannot black screen.

Oh yeah.

Do not black screen. We, we need to see your face and we need to see those non verbals because 80% is about nonverbal communication. 20 is your words. We need to see you, we need to feel you, we need to see who you are. So that's just a very important piece that you know, is a requirement. Many, many companies don't think about the nugget of things and you know, they'll be black screens except for two people. And you just can't have a relationship with a black screen. So I'm encouraging viewers to please show yourself. Nobody cares if your hair is not done or if it's in rollers or whatever they are. At least I don't. The fact is you're there, you're there to make that connection, to engage and to, you know, create those workplace relationships. And I think that's what it's about.

You know, that's interesting. I'm thinking about the training space because I do some virtual training and we always start off saying that the expectation is for everyone to have their camera on the whole time. They're usually very interactive trainings where we're practicing things and having discussions. It's not just a delivery of material. And it is interesting because for a lot of people that feels shocking. And I think it's because they're so accustomed to just doing that black screen kind of thing and just absorbing the information. Maybe like they would be listening to a podcast and they're driving places and cleaning their house and whatever else. And so it is a very different action to be sitting in one place in front of the screen in order to interact rather than taking the meeting wherever you might go without being present yourself.

That is so key. Being present, I love that word. Because you know, the other thing that I also mentioned is stop the multitasking, please. Because that also has to do with netiquette. So we really want you to be present without doing your email or doing some other task at the same time. You know, just like you would show respect in person, come with your full self and immerse yourself in this experience, whether it's presentation or a training or what have you.

You know, that that concept of Multitasking makes me think. I think I see that even in person because everyone has a device now or whatever. I think even if you're standing in line somewhere or if you're on mass transit or something like that, people are no longer like, hey, we're on the bus, so we're either going to chat or we're going to sleep or whatever. It's, it's. Everybody's got their little universe right in front of them. But it is interesting, I think, that temptation to multitask everywhere, all the time. I certainly notice it more in myself than ever. And I, I do wonder, like, the more we get attached to screens, does that. It makes it feel like, oh, I'm just doing my little text over here and nobody necessarily knows, I guess. What do you think makes it easier to do that virtually versus in person? Although I, I do think people do it in person too.

Yes, that's. You know, it's unfortunate that people are doing it in person too, because that eye contact, I mean, all people want at the end of the day is to be heard. And so when you look at them eye to eye and eye contact and, you know, showing them nonverbal, that you care. But Rachel, I think that this picking up the phone so much, whether, whether it's like 500 times a day or 600 times a day day, it's become a process addiction. And you know, we have, of course, alcohol addiction and so for gambling and so forth, but this computer, and especially the phone, the devices, is really a process addiction. So before I get on Zoom, like, for example, today I'll just send a quick text to my family and I'll say, look, I'm in a Zoom session from X time to Y time. And so just text me after 4pm or whatever, unless it's a dire emergency. You know, people have that awareness and you bring it into their awareness.

I like those boundaries. I really do. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about something that you were mentioning to me, and that is the idea of, of the intercultural movement. So I would love to hear more about that and your piece of that.

Sure. So first I want to thank all the people that started the awareness of different cultures. And that movement started in the 50s, 60s time frame of multiculturalism. So multiculturalism really paved the way for interculturalism. And so I want to thank all the researchers and the publishers because they really got us aware. I'm from different culture. She's from a different culture. He's from a different culture. Okay, beautiful, beautiful. Start and so now the United nations and UNESCO were the very first people to take its from multiculturalism to interculturalism. Now, the buzzwords for interculturalism are two things. First is dialogues. They've brought that into the picture. Whereas multiculturalism is just, I'm aware, you're aware, they're aware. Now we take the next step up, which is let's dialogue. How can we have these dialogues? And so UNESCO formulated a storytelling model. So I am in the arm of UNESCO, which is the World Council for Interculturalism of their community coordinator. And so what do we do is we are proponents dialoguing with people and listening to their narratives. So I think this is a beautiful thing, especially for mental health entrepreneurs who are working with different populations in different cultures. And I'll tell you, the United States is a melting pot of people. Everybody in the United States. States has come here from some other place.

Except for native peoples.

Except for indigenous. Yes, yes. And we recognize them. We adopt their seven generation philosophy. We understand it, we adopt it. We care about the land, and we are so grateful to that population. And I thank the people who are working with the indigenous populations. And so different schemas and our experiences will bring us to helping those different populations. Right. And so being bicultural myself, the fact that I had to balance those two cultures and it was difficult because am I valuing the East India values and traditions? Am I valuing the American traditions more? So it was a balancing act for me. And before I learned to speak English, my first teacher here in the United States put a connect the dots game in my hand. And of course, numbers are numbers everywhere. And so the dots had numbers and I knew exactly what to do with it. I'll just never forget, you know, and it had a picture of a bear. And so I term myself as the connect the dots. Dr. Because we need to connect the dots between the logos, the pathos and the system and the group and the individual. We've got to connect those dots for everybody. And Maslow gave us a beautiful model hierarchy of needs. And this doesn't only pertain to a race or a size of a demographic. Maslow's theory applies interculturally to everybody. And so interculturalism is based in that theory. They're rooted in Maslow's theory and also empathy.

Amazing. I am so, so glad to learn from you about different things in the career space as well as the intercultural movement. I just want to highlight for our listeners that everything that you want to find out about Dr. Sujada is in the show. Notes so you can find her book. You can find more information about where to find her and how to connect. So we want make sure you have that opportunity. And Dr. Sujada, I just want to thank you so much for what you've brought to us today. It has been a true joy.

My pleasure, Rachel. This is about women helping women. This is about this world coming together peacefully. I hope that the fifth wave of psychology is going to be perspicacity, which is discernment.

On that note, we'll see you next time.