Know the Weight of Your Words: Communicating with Integrity and Emotional Intelligence

Ever wondered how your good intentions might unintentionally cause harm, especially in diverse and inclusive environments? Join us as we unpack this crucial topic with  Dr. Margaret Barrow, a seasoned professor, author, and small business owner. Through her enlightening insights, we explore the delicate balance between intent and impact in communication and why it’s essential to be mindful of how our words and actions are received, irrespective of our good intentions. 

We also navigate the complexities of workplace relationships and miscommunications. By diving into a real-life example of a contentious nine-month relationship with a colleague, we reveal how differing backgrounds and personalities can shape professional interactions. This discussion also touches on societal hierarchies and personal sensitivities, highlighting the importance of understanding these factors to improve workplace dynamics and foster better relationships.

Lastly, we delve into the art of handling difficult conversations with empathy and emotional intelligence. Learn why "calling in" rather than "calling out" can lead to more constructive dialogues and how maintaining integrity during conflicts can transform your communication approach. Dr. Barrow shares valuable strategies for emotional growth, emphasizing the role of empathy, compassion, and feedback in nurturing our interactions. Whether you're aiming to enhance your workplace communication or personal relationships, this episode offers rich insights and practical advice to elevate your emotional intelligence.

Show Notes:
Dr. Margaret Barrow,
Founder and CEO of It's Nola
IG, LI, and FB: @itsnolasnacks 
www.itsnola.com

Want to know more about implicit bias? Choose from among several tests developed at Harvard University to uncover biases you may not even think you have. 
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
Drop a comment when you get your results and let us know what surprised you.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Hello and welcome to the podcast Emotional Intelligence your greatest asset and key to success. I'm your host, dr Jamie Carlaccio, coming to you from the Greater New Haven, connecticut area, as a positive intelligence, or PQ, coach. I'm committed to helping people develop both emotional intelligence and mental fitness. That is, you'll come to regard problems as situations that help you learn and grow. Pq is a way of being and doing in the world that enables you to develop and sustain a positive relationship with yourself and others, at home, at work and everywhere in between. Please subscribe to this podcast and tap the like button so more people can enjoy the benefits of PQ. And now here's the show.

Speaker 1: 0:57

And before we begin, I just wanted to give a shout out to the Arthur Murray Dance Studio of Guilford, connecticut. It's along Connecticut shoreline. They're a new supporter and I have to say I was feeling kind of blah and I needed to spice up my social life. So I said, heck, I'm taking dance lessons and I signed up and it has been a game changer for me. Not only do I take private lessons with a very patient and upbeat and wonderful instructor, but I go to dance parties and I have dance lessons every week and I have met a ton of really nice people people who are single, people who are coupled so everyone comes of all ages. It's been just amazing and of course, there's been some stepping on feet, of course, but nothing big and they're very patient. So, whether you are single or coupled and you just want to get out and move around, you can come and learn from the best in the business Tango, swing, waltz, foxtrot it's all there. So check out their website at arthurmurrayguilfordcom or call 203-458-9000 and tell them Jamie sent you.

Speaker 1: 2:04

I'm Jamie and I am here with a very, very dear friend, Dr Margaret Barrow, and today we are going to talk about impact versus intent. So first thing I want to do is introduce Margaret to you. Margaret and I have known each other since 2013. We used to teach together in Manhattan at Borough of Manhattan Community College, where she mentored me. She was the associate chair of the department and I used to go to her office with all of my SOP stories and Margaret would share her experience and pet me up and pat me on the back and send me on my way, and so we have been friends ever since. I no longer teach there. As you might guess, I'm a podcaster now and I live in Connecticut, but anyway, margaret is awesome. So Margaret is. Hold on there, sister. I'm going to say a few words about you. Okay, she is Margaret.

Speaker 1: 3:04

So Margaret's been a professor for I don't know for a long time more than 20 years, almost 30. Almost 30 years, oh my gosh. And she is the author of a book called Karen teaching a complicated relationship. And she is also the author of an essay called sweetest Candy Education for the Love of Teachers and the Love of Teachers in a book called Gumbo for the Soul Liberating Memoirs and Stories to Inspire Females of Color. And she co-authored an article called Students' Attitudes on Social Network Sites and their Actual Use for career management, competences and professional identity development, and that is incredibly mouthful. And most of her writing and research is founded on the ethics of care and teaching, and let me tell you, she lives those values. She is probably one of the most popular teachers at the college and clearly the most amazing one.

Speaker 1: 4:06

And in 2017, she created granola bites and I have had them and they are awesome and for health reasons and she focused on creating a granola that was not full of junk and, as you know, if you read the back of a package, it usually has stuff that you can't pronounce and it's probably got high fructose corn syrup in it or something terrible, but these are completely natural ingredients. So she brought these to the college to share with her students and, of course, they raved about them. And then, in 2018, when she was encouraged by them to sell them, she started a company called it's Nola and she is one of our supporters of the show and her information will be in the show notes and I guarantee you you will love these things. They are like little granola bites, they're round and they come in lots of different flavors, but it's a plant-based snack and Margaret lives in Brooklyn, so that's where the company is based. And Margaret lives in Brooklyn, so that's where the company is based.

Speaker 1: 5:04

And now what I really like about this? This is really important. Margaret uses her profits. You know she gives back to the community, so she supports mentoring relationships and inspiring community college students to follow their dreams. So it's NOLA was born out of that need to eat healthy and a desire to make a difference. And welcome, welcome, welcome Margaret my dear friend, thank you.

Speaker 1: 5:30

Thank you so much, jamie. Yeah, so the topic has been on my mind for years. Actually, when I started doing a lot of anti-racism trainings and I did some DEI work, I came up against this. Trainings and I did some DEI work, I came up against this and I have to say that, as a white person, in interacting with people in minoritized groups or people who identify and it doesn't just have to be people of color, it can be anyone of you know a person in the LGBTQ community or you know any other, you know the disability community or whatever and I didn't understand that your good intentions don't always matter if the way that the thing you said or did landed on somebody in a way that was harmful or hurtful, and this totally relates to emotional intelligence and positive intelligence. So, just for those of you who are wondering well, what do you mean by intent and impact? It's a distinction that really helps us maintain inclusive environments, and intent is what you meant to say or what you intended it to mean, and impact is how it landed or how it affected the other person. So, regardless of the intent, we have to recognize our behaviors, our language, our actions and how they affect other people, and it's not just recognizing it though, it's really taking ownership of it and being accountable. So, in terms of emotional intelligence, this is about self-awareness and understanding how to navigate the world and navigate complex relationships, because we do live in a world where we are all connected and we are very different whether it's culturally, ethnically, nationally, religiously, politically, it doesn't matter and so we want to just try to think of ways to resolve conflict, and for me, what's really important is trying to see what's good in other people too, because if we other people all the time, we're never going to be self-aware, we're never going to get to that place of you know, we're actually.

Speaker 1: 7:42

We all bleed red blood, right, and we all have hurt feelings.

Speaker 1: 7:47

And one thing that I'll just say this and then I'll ask you to comment, margaret it's often the case and this has happened to me that when somebody takes offense, maybe, or reacts in a way that shows that that was a hurtful thing, that we say, well, I didn't mean it that way, or you're just being really sensitive, or you know, I don't even know, I don't know how come, you didn't get that.

Speaker 1: 8:16

So we end up getting really defensive, and then it makes us right and it makes the other person wrong. And that has happened to me many times and I have. I've been paying attention to that and I had a workplace situation where a person and I didn't get along. I actually mentioned this in the first couple of podcasts last year and we had a really contentious workplace relationship for nine months, really contentious workplace relationship for nine months, and it took me eight months to realize that, even though I hadn't quote unquote done something the fact that I was who I am and he was who he is neither of us you know were terrible people, but how I affected him.

Speaker 1: 9:01

It didn't dawn on me that I affected him in the way I did, and so basically what it meant was I didn't see him. I didn't see him and he experienced me through a particular filter his own upbringing, his own, you know, socioeconomic status. His own color. He's a person of color. He's an older man, you know, kind of a little bit more traditional, and I'm very non traditional and obviously I'm white. So, it was a really good learning experience for me.

Speaker 1: 9:35

And the good news is I was able to really repair that relationship and that that made it. He, I know that made a huge difference, so so that's so. That's just for kickoff starters. Do you want to add your two cents or four cents?

Speaker 2: 9:49

Well, sometimes those relationships can't be repaired. And I had a situation at work where one of our colleagues said to me first he walked over to me and he said oh, could you proofread this for me? And I said I said sure, no problem. And then we started talking and then he made a flippant comment like oh, you have an EDD. And I said to him what is that supposed to mean? And he's like no, no, no. And I said to him what is that supposed to mean? And he's like no, no, no. And I said to him no, you, you said something. I think you meant what you said. And he said no, no, no, that's not what I meant. And I said you know, in this case I think that the intention landed exactly the way you know, the impact was exactly what you wanted it to be. And I said to him you need to be careful in a situation like this, because sometimes that level of toxicity that's involved, sometimes with an intentional comment that's made, and then you try to cover it up Like, oh, that's not what I meant. I said to him you know, let me take a step back for a second, let me see, let me try to understand this. Maybe it is me Right. So let me think about it for a minute. Did I receive that information?

Speaker 2: 11:23

Because throughout the years, my understanding of the EDD and the PhD, you know, and those kinds of intellectual arguments have rested in a really negative space inside of me and I said I'm thinking about that. But I think in this case I was like I think in this case I'm going to go with the impact that I think that you meant and he insisted that it was not so. So I'm saying this to say it is possible, it is absolutely possible in this case, that his intention, while he thought perhaps maybe it was not the way that I received it right, Perhaps it wasn't, but we live in a world where this happens this is a case that kind of highlights that I am so adamant about him that his intention was to have this kind of negative impact. But perhaps it wasn't, perhaps it really wasn't. Perhaps what resonated with me was all of those conversations, those intellectual arguments that have been going on for decades about the PhD and the EDD, that I was overly sensitive about it, that I was overly sensitive about it.

Speaker 1: 12:50

So it sounds like there's two filters going on. But just before we move on because that is a really important thing is a lot of people might not know what EDD stands for. And that's a doctorate in education. Is that right? That's right. And then, of course, a PhD is doctor of philosophy, which can mean like a million things. So what I like about the EDD is and I have the PhD is that you specifically got your doctorate in the realm of education and my doctorate is in rhetoric and I just happen to also focus on teaching. But a lot of people with PhDs didn't really learn how to teach, but there is still a seems like there is a lot of people with PhDs didn't really learn how to teach, but there is still a seems like there is a hierarchy of some sort. So what I heard in that comment and I'm not sure who you're talking about, but I probably know the person is the thing I heard is it was a little bit of a slam.

Speaker 2: 13:46

Yeah, that's what it did. It felt like a slam, and, but over the years, I've really had to think about it. You know, was this I do. I think as communicators, right as people who talk to other people, we do have a responsibility to when we receive an idea or words, so we do have to think more mindfully about okay, what am I bringing to this? Am I understanding this in this particular way? Because of and I know that we talked about sensitivity, but that's still important, right? That's, acknowledging one's sensitivity helps us, I think, to understand whether that impact is coming from the person who said it or from me.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Absolutely, and so it isn't just that I would say, ouch, when you might've said something. It's that. Where is is my filter? What is my background, what are my experiences? And have I got some kind of maybe implicit hostility yeah, toward a certain person based on, you know, the, the identity group that they belong to?

Speaker 2: 15:08

very true, or just in terms of like, especially if you're at work and you you kind of get to know people over time and so you hear certain things. I mean, there was a, there was someone at work used to say things like he I gave I think it was a report about something at the college, and so this person said, oh it's so. You speak, the two of you eloquently, that we're both women, minority women, and both of us were livid. We were livid and we let him know.

Speaker 1: 15:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:44

He said well, that wasn't my intention. And we were just like are you sure you speak so eloquently? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 15:59

What I asked him was and I said let me. I said this is important for me to understand your, the, your intention. Ok, I said why didn't you say the same thing to the other speakers who were not people of color? Yeah, and he was silent and I said it hurt. Yeah, I said it hurts. It's like you know, you may have thought that was a wonderful thing to say. You may maybe. I said I don't know what's going on in your mind. I don't, I'm not going to pretend that I do, but you do have to understand that what you said was hurtful and it took him days, but he did come to my office and he said I'm so sorry, days, but he did come to my office and he said I'm so sorry, that wasn't my intention, I am so sorry, that's definitely worth a lot, even if it took days, at least.

Speaker 1: 16:54

It sounds like he had to process it, yes, and maybe he had to speak to other people and get some perspective, because it sounds like again, when I didn't mean it. That way is defensive, it's like over explaining, and I learned about that. You know, I was just actually talking to somebody a couple of days ago. I had talked to the wife In fact, I'll tell, I'll tell you who this is and she said yeah, yeah, my husband and I agree. This is good, but you should probably talk to him, because it's like a game of telephone and what I said to him may not be exactly what you want to say to him. And it just reminded me of how language and communication are triangulated there's always an intermediary, and so what I think I said and what you heard and what was actually said might be three different things, and so it's important the feedback that you get from someone.

Speaker 2: 18:08

For example, I had written that my daughter. I said something to my daughter yesterday and she said, oh, is that what you think? And I said no. And she said, well, that's how I received it. And I said, well, that was not my intention. And then she said, well, can you just say that you hear me? And I said to her I do hear you. And then I said to her is it solely my responsibility or is it our responsibility to understand each other? I said you know I would never. I said my intention is never to harm you or to say something to make you feel you know in any way that you are less than you feel you know in any way that you are less than, or you know. So I said she said, mom, I already know that, but it doesn't mean that the words you're using doesn't hurt.

Speaker 1: 18:56

And I said I hear you, I will do better. And that is it I hear you and I see you. Yes, because we all want to be seen and heard. We all want to be seen and heard and you just reminded me of sometimes yes, it's always through his feeling of, you know, a lack of self-worth or a lack of self-confidence, and so I might say you've missed a comma here, because you know mom's a writer and so he's afraid to show me his writing, and he's like see, you just think it's awful to say, no, I don't think it's awful, I think it's awesome, but he hears it that way.

Speaker 1: 19:46

So I have to remember that how I speak to him is going to be received in a certain way, and my son is a brown skinned person and so he also hears things. In fact he's been, he's been, subject to a lot of racism at his school. His school 78% white and and he has quote unquote friends that say things like oh, go mow lawns or go back to the border and they think it's funny, it is incredibly hurtful.

Speaker 1: 20:12

I said to him one day I said, Hav, why don't you, you know, go get a summer job, Maybe you can mow some lawns. And he's like I will never mow a lawn. And I'm like why I would mow a lawn. And then I found out why. But the other thing I really like about you in particular is you are an excellent communicator and you are able to say ouch, or you are able to call somebody on their stuff. Not everyone does.

Speaker 2: 20:41

So what do you do about that? Well, I don't think it's easy. You know I don't think it's easy. You know I don't. I try here's. Here's what I think about when I'm calling someone out. I've been calling someone out to me sounds too like I'm trying to harm them, so maybe not calling someone out when I want to bring attention to something. So I always think about well, how, what kind of relationship do I want to have after this conversation? Do I want a relationship after this conversation? If I want a relationship, I need to be careful with my words, and so that's so critical.

Speaker 2: 21:23

And when I'm teaching, I talk to my students who are having problems at home and I'll say to them what kind of relationship do you want to have with your mom? I said you're angry with her, she's angry with you. What kind of relationship do you want? I said that will dictate the words you choose to use when you have a conversation with your mom. And I said if you don't want to have a relationship with someone, then you know, I guess you go for it. I don't know. I said, even then you still have to think about. Well, what kind of what does that say about your own self-worth and integrity. Yeah, you know. So it's not just attack someone if you don't want to have a relationship with them because you don't want someone to change who you are, to change into something that you're not, or for you to call you outside of yourself, which is horrible. It's a horrible, horrible experience for someone to give someone that kind of power.

Speaker 1: 22:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I'm going to go back to the calling out thing. I think what I should have said is calling in, because calling in means I want to bring you into this conversation.

Speaker 1: 22:35

I don't want to shame you. I'm not here again to create more friction than maybe already exists, but I would like to say ouch. And and that's why the podcast cover has the word out it took me like half a day to design the darn thing because I just had this image in my mind. So there's an arrow with a heart and there's like one thing with the thought bubble saying something that he or she thinks is innocuous, and the other person is like, ow, that really hurt. And I think ouch is one of those words that instead of well, you big jerk I can't believe you just said that it's ouch. That makes it a little bit easier for maybe somebody to say oh gosh, I didn't even realize that.

Speaker 1: 23:20

I said that in that way and thank you for telling me, is a better, a better way of handling it, like the guy that apologized to you the other day, you know three days later. Whatever it's better to say, I didn't realize that what I said impacted you that way. And the other thing, which takes a lot of courage and a lot of emotional intelligence and positive intelligence, is to say how could I have done better or how could I have said this another way that wouldn't offend you, right?

Speaker 2: 23:53

And that's not always. I mean doing that kind of metacognitive thinking. You know where you're trying to figure out. You know what should I say, how should I say it? And getting that advice from the person you've offended is sometimes not easy.

Speaker 2: 24:09

Not easy, you know, because then I think sometimes our egos get in the way and then we can't really have the kind of conversation that we want, the kind of vulnerable conversations that we need to have in order to do better. And so then we get stuck in a rut and we continue to make those mistakes, because we have excuses for why someone might be impacted a certain way based on what we've said to them. Oh, they're too sensitive, oh, you know they're too. It's always their fault, Always right.

Speaker 1: 24:44

Always making the other person wrong makes you feel superior and right, saving face and I love that you talked about vulnerability because it does. You have to basically take off that outer skin and expose your you know, your, maybe your ignorance about something you know because it's not in your, it's not in your realm of experience.

Speaker 1: 25:07

You know, if if I make an offhand, you know I grew up in a household with fairly insensitive parents who used a lot of racial slurs and used other kinds of negative language toward other groups of people, whether it was people with different abilities or people with different gender identities, and so I learned those words and it wasn't until I got older that I learned those aren't. That's not how you talk about people. That's not how you address people. That's not how you. You know you don't pigeonhole people with these stereotypes in that language.

Speaker 2: 25:48

Oh, right, right. Yeah, it's funny because I had a student many years ago. My brother was visiting from California, so he was in the classroom when this happened, and so one of my students said she wanted to share an experience that she had with another professor. And she, because she didn't understand why the professor was upset with her. And I said well, what happened? And she said well, um, my professor, who teaches speech, is Asian, and so she asked us to raise our hand if we had any questions. And so I raised my hand and I said to her where did she learn how to speak English? And the professor said to her I'm not answering that question, I'm very offended by what you just asked me. And so the student asked her well, what did I say? That was wrong? And she said you know, you need some time to think about it, I'm not going to answer it. So she asked me well, what did I do wrong? And you know I'm not going to answer it. So she asked me well, what? What did I do wrong?

Speaker 2: 26:46

And you know, we had a discussion in class about it and we talked about how she had she had, by asking someone who looks a particular way, you know, making a comment about their, their ability to speak English. What you have done is you've. It's offensive because of the assumption that comes with it. You know the racist assumption that comes with it and I said can you imagine someone saying that to you? You're a Black woman and someone says to you oh you speak English pretty well. How do you feel about that? It assumes that you don't. You come from a group of people who don't speak English and you try to identify them in a very racist way. That's offensive to, should be offensive to you, but it's offensive to this person who has a different identity. I said you're trying to re-identify people based on your limited understanding of them.

Speaker 1: 27:51

Oh, I love that Re-identify. Oh gosh.

Speaker 2: 27:54

Yeah, and I said to her I said that's painful, it's very, very painful. And we gave her other you know other examples of this happening, just like in New York. You're walking down the street and you see a bunch of people who look a certain way and you don't ask them for directions. But you go to this person asking directions because you assume that this is the person you should talk to and not these other people. And I said you know, it's like we have this. I said it's this implicit bias that you have and so it's really understanding. Well, where is that coming from? And she said I have no idea that. I, I'm, I feel terrible.

Speaker 2: 28:34

And I said well, she's, you know, go talk to her, let her know that you understand why she was so upset with you. And I, I said she'll appreciate that you, that it bothered you so much that you had a discussion with other people. And I said that's what we do when we really want to honor other people, when we really want to treat other people with dignity. And I said so, then go and speak to her she, she came back. She's like oh my God, I was just so, she was so.

Speaker 2: 29:02

To her, she, she came back she's like, oh my God, I was just so. She was so happy that I had had this conversation and that had bothered me so much and I said I said don't be afraid to ask. You know, have those those conversations. Sometimes you have to because she was so upset with you she couldn't speak to you Right, and that's okay. I said you should be okay with that. But seeking other people out to help you understand, I said that's the hard work we have to do is to seek other people out to help us, to give us another perspective, right, and we're almost out of time.

Speaker 1: 29:38

But one of the things that I heard in there that you didn't say but is, I think that stops people from apologizing or going back and making an amend is shame. You know, we don't we all of a sudden we've directed all of it to us, so it's all about us, and if we feel ashamed, that's that makes it less likely that we're going to come forward and say, wow, I really screwed up. Like this woman could have learned English in California, exactly Right, so she's from California. Then you know. And that's like saying, where are you from?

Speaker 1: 30:16

And maybe this person is Muslim and you know, wears a hijab and has a slight accent, but that person was born in Nebraska, yeah Right. So not everybody is, you know, from somewhere else, and we do make that assumption. But one of the things that I think we all have to work harder for and this is why emotional intelligence is so important, whether it's in education, the workplace, at church, on the street, right how can we start to see each other and practice empathy and compassion and try to be a little bit more outer directed?

Speaker 2: 30:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't be afraid to listen to feedback. Stop being defensive. I think we really have to work on our egos if we want to have a better relationship with others.

Speaker 1: 31:10

Yeah right, I heard a great quote. It was somebody quoted Rumi and it made so much sense. It was actually in my meditation this morning and I'm going to paraphrase it because I don't have Rumi in front of me. But he said it because I don't have Rumi in front of me. But he said how will you ever be a polished?

Speaker 1: 31:30

gem if you don't have your edges rubbed. So the idea is right that we all have edges, we have growing edges and if we don't have them rubbed, ie make mistakes and have other people say, hey, wait a minute, that hurt or that wasn't nice, then we will never be that polished gem and I don't think we'll ever be perfectly polished, but at least we won't have as rough of the edges, agreed.

Speaker 2: 31:57

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:58

Yes, yeah. So again, margaret is the founder and CEO of it's NOLA. They are awesome. I'm going to include that in the show notes and I will say that, if you want to find out more about how you can be a more emotionally intelligent person and practice positive intelligence, my information is also in the show notes and this is a good time to say thank you, margaret Barrow, and I'll see you all at the PQ gym. Thank you, bye.