Introducing Daniel Oestreich

Jean 0:11 

Hello, everybody. I'm Jean Latting. Do you know people who are afraid to speak up in the workplace… or anyplace for that matter?

Dan co-wrote two books about this topic: Driving fear out of the workplace and The courageous messenger.

Dan 2:47 

We decided to write a book about what Chris Argyris described as “undiscussables,” i.e., what people might be talking about that they don’t bring to those who could actually do something about the problems.

Jean 3:50

[Discussion about brief, one-hour sexual harassment training in response to a complaint. Research says that this type of sexual harassment training often backfires.]

Dan 6:04 

One-shot programs don’t work. They’re just enough to raise people's prejudices and not enough to begin to actually address what needs to be addressed.

Jean 9:22 

What should people be aiming for?

Dignity

Dan 9:39 

We should be treating each other in a way that reinforces dignity of whoever you are.

Donna Hicks wrote Dignity: Its essential role in resolving conflict. What does dignity look like? And what takes us away from dignity?

Dan lists Hicks’s 10 temptations that violate dignity:

• Taking the bait
• Saving face
• Shirking responsibility
• Seeking false dignity – which is about just looking for approval
• Seeking false security – so if you feel like you have a relationship, that's enough
• Avoiding conflict
• Being a victim
• Resisting feedback
• Blaming and shaming others to deflect your own guilt
• Engaging in false intimacy and demeaning gossip

And her 10 characterizations of dignity:

• Accepting the identity of others
• Inclusion
• Safety
• Acknowledging people
• Recognition: validating other people
• Fairness
• Giving benefit of the doubt
• Working to understand
• Encouraging people to act on their own behalf
• Accountability

Dan 13:56 

Unless you feel deeply accepted for the identity that you have, you’re not going to get very far in building dignity into a relationship.

Can you drive fear out of the workplace?

Dan 18:13 

Mistrust is actually closer to the actual thing we're working with. Mistrust is a form of fear.

Jean 19:36 

What does trust mean?

Dan 23:14 

What other explanations might there be for this behavior? What does it mean to speak up across that boundary where there is not a lot of trust?

What we authors did with The courageous messenger is try to figure out a way to help people feel more comfortable speaking up without having a very supportive, trust-based relationship.

Jean 25:23 

How did you get into all of this?

Dan 25:54 

I was the kid who loved poetry, still do, and enjoyed being in nature, just because it was nature. And that didn't really fit very well in the rural family that I was part of.

My dad escaped from Germany during the rise of Hitler and was a refugee in Europe for a long time before coming to the United States. But I was aware from a very early age that his connections with other people were different.

Dan 31:33 

Growth means that sometimes you just have to consciously choose pain.

[Dan discusses a client who is a really wonderful, warm, smart guy with an Asian background. What he would love to talk about with his boss is his career development and growth.]

He comes right up against his own conditioning: Be really careful about sharing anything here. Are there people that look like you in this organization? If not, you're going to have to be extra special careful about what you say and do.

Dan 35:37 

How would he do that talk? Rehearsing that very carefully, knowing what words he wants to say, what words he doesn't want to say. Being open and relaxed, not tense, not jammed up.

The first thing is to be tactful. "I want to talk to you about career development. We've had some conversations in the past, but I need to know where I stand now."

Think about this as not "I came, I told you, you didn't give me what I wanted, and I dumped and ran" versus, "Let's have a dialogue about this."

Dan 39:38 

My suggestion for the client’s default backup was to have another conversation at a later time.

Dan 40:23 

Make this a private, confidential, more comfortable conversation. Picking a good time, picking a good place, can you do this over zoom or would this be better over a cup of coffee or in an office?

What is that person's communication style? What do they like? What works for them? It's kind of how do I land in their airport?

Dan 41:15 

Let them know in advance, but don't allow too much time between the letting know and the actual conversation.

And you don't want to have it all at once. You want to give them a chance to think through it.

Managing undiscussables

Jean 42:56 

What are the most scary undiscussables?

Dan 43:10 

Management practices of some kind. The big taboo here is talking to managers about management systems, actions, decisions, anything that could come back to that person.

How does my immediate boss treat me. Why are you scared to talk about this stuff:  Fear of repercussions and it wouldn't do any good.

The number one thing was not I'll get fired. It was I'll lose credibility. And if I lose credibility, it'll affect my career and my capacity to survive, to succeed here over time.

People being afraid of being labeled, we work off stereotypes. If I speak up, and it's not successful, I'll be seen as a…?

Jean 45:36 

Troublemaker.

Where does the courage to speak up come from?

Dan 46:35 

Some people have been through very difficult experiences. And there are people who just naturally feel like their honesty is acceptable, just as it is. And they're willing to go forward.

Jean 47:17 

When I was a pre-tenure, I contradicted a faculty member. A faculty member told me, "Jean, you shouldn't do that, you know, you're up for tenure." And I said, "Look, if I can survive the segregated South, I can be at an institution of higher learning and talk and speak my mind. I survived the South, I can survive."

Taking risks

Dan 47:54 

If you take a little risk, and that seems to pay off, then you take a little more and a little more and a little more, and over time, and at some point, you do begin to absorb it into your identity, that I'm a good messenger. And that then is a kind of a way of being at work.

And, if it is built into your identity, then you're actually serving as a change agent, and a model for other people.

Dan 49:26 

And others will see and hear about this. There is nothing like a reward for speaking up like seeing change happen.

Jean 49:45 

You don't go in into it expecting the person is going to hear you and suddenly the world will open up and birds will start singing. You have to be prepared for a slow progression of change.

Dan 50:07 

And you have to be able to be as good a receiver as you are a sender in the process.

You have to be available to the feedback that might come your way.

Jean 50:41 

What would you say to someone who's thinking of their boss?

Dan 51:17 

I would say this is about your choice and your growth. The choice is really critical. And the more you home in on this as a challenge that's been placed in your path, you might find an amazing set of rewards on the other side.

Jean 52:04 

So the problem is there to be an opportunity for growth?

Dan 52:17 

That's right. And we all need to grow.

Jean 53:36 

We have a ton of work to do, and I am so glad you're in the world doing it.

How should people get in touch with you?

Dan 53:49 

My website: Danieloestreich.com. Email dan@danieloestriech.com.

Summary

Jean 54:49 

Dan gave us so many nuggets in this conversation.

The first point:

*we respect people's dignity when we respect their identity

I hadn't really thought about how so much conflict really boils down to a clash of identities.

Claiming you don't care what ethnic group or color a person is may be violating something that's core to their sense of dignity.

Second point:

 *“dignity” rather than “respect”

As I think about it, the word dignity reflects something that’s more core and central to a person than the word respect.

The third takeaway:

driving out fear in the workplace

He and I both agree you cannot remove fear. What we can do is reduce mistrust. And the way to do that is to have the willingness and courage to bring up the very things that are generating mistrust.

I'm aware this is more than a notion; it's scary to bring up stuff that's hard to talk about, the “undiscussables." But if we surface the things that are hard to talk about, we grow as human beings. We become better people for having faced our fear and having taken a step to generate a stronger relationship. If we stay silent, we stifle our own selves and our potential for growth.

That's all, glad you joined us. I'm Jean Latting of Leading Consciously. Our next book is coming out in July 2024. It's called Conscious change: How to navigate differences and foster inclusion in everyday relationships. And if you're interested in any of our programs, go to leadingconsciously.com. You can learn more about Dan in the show notes below.

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Dan Oestreich For the last 30 years, Dan has been a consultant, coach, facilitator, and trainer to a wide variety of organizational leaders, including those in healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, utilities, government, research, and academia. He states his engagements have all been driven by the desire to support leaders in their inner work to grow and develop and their external work to build trusting, authentic relationships. Earlier in his career, he co-authored two books, Driving fear out of the workplace and The courageous messenger, about speaking up in organizations. For ten years he co-facilitated a leadership workshop, Beyond the Edge, in Jackson, Wyoming. He attended Yale University as an undergraduate and later the University of Colorado for an MA in guidance and counseling. He and his wife Carmen reside in Washington State, where he grew up.

Questions to ask yourself Do you see a difference between dignity and respect? Which do you think plays a greater part in making interpersonal communications work? Do you have a need to surface a specific undiscussable in your workplace? Rehearse how you would go about it.

Conscious Change skills
covered in this blog post:

• Build effective relationships
• Engage in powerful listening
• Develop skills in inquiry and openness
• Learn how to give, receive, and seek feedback
• Initiate change
• Commit to personal change
• Surface undiscussables
• Set direction, not fixed outcome
• Learn from resistance
• Cultivate radical patience through the time lag of change

#Undiscussables  #Dignity   #Respect