Transcript
Annalisa Holcombe (00:00:10):
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the 92,000 Hours Podcast. I'm so excited about today's episode. We will be speaking with my friend, Natalie Murray, and we will be talking about culture. We delve into organizational culture, societal culture, even family cultures. And we talk about how we all contribute to the cultures that we are already in. And Natalie has so much to share with us here. She is a strategy and innovation consultant, a student experience expert, and a doctoral student, and she studies transformation. How cool is that? So let's begin.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:00:58):
All right. So you know, because I gave you a head start that I have my standard first question for every person.

Natalie Murray (00:01:04):
Yes.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:01:04):
So let's ask it, if you remove work, school, volunteerism, I'm going to say research for you, all of those things that we do. If you take that away, what's your greatest accomplishment or what are you most proud of as a human?

Natalie Murray (00:01:21):
What am I most proud of as a human? It's such a remarkable question. And just thank you for asking, there's a few things that I cite for myself and I was actually just having a conversation with a colleague, that this came up around something that I was really, really proud of. And it's my relationship with my husband. It's not perfect, but it is honest and real and we're both in it. And I just love that piece, of how that's developed. So it's something I invest in, I've been very intentional about. And just to see it five years after we met, it's remarkable.

Natalie Murray (00:02:10):
There's two other things that I'll mention to you that I think, equally important as my relationship with my husband is the journey that I'm on, the recognition that I'm on a journey of development and integration and understanding, and who I am today is not going to be who I am tomorrow or a month or a year, or many years in the future. And I look forward to that. I'm curious about those things and what I'll learn and who I am today and who I will be. So those are the two major your things. Just on a silly note, I have an uncanny ability to collect office supplies. I am cleaning out my office, it's the end of the year. So I'm doing some pre spring cleaning, and I found five staplers, no one needs five staplers.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:03:10):
I love that so much, you know that there are people that are listening to this podcast that are like, "Ah, she gets me." I know for sure that our producer of this podcast is going to be in love, because she talks all the time about, the best place to go shopping is staples.

Natalie Murray (00:03:29):
I know, that's wonderful. Well, we can connect because I have all the pens and all the post-it notes of various sizes.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:03:41):
And the highlighters for the different reasons.

Natalie Murray (00:03:44):
Highlighters. Yes. The many colors. Yeah, absolutely.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:03:49):
I love that so much. I love that you gave me three examples and it's so funny when you bring those up, just because I'm just so happy about this podcast, because as you brought up the relationship with your husband, in a past podcast, we had Alana Dunagan talking about communication. And one of the big things she talked about was, how important and how hard communication is in terms of your marriage and it's different than the communication you have at work. So it's just really interesting how much we have to invest in that with our spouses.

Natalie Murray (00:04:21):
Yes.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:04:22):
And then just last week I interviewed a principal of a Title I school, who has been in the news recently about how she's been incorporating... She's at an elementary school, and she hung flags of where all of the students countries of origin are, but she also hung Black Lives Matter flag and a trans rights flag, or support flag. And she talked about being on a journey just like you did, that she said, "In some ways, we all have this idea, like we're going to get somewhere." And she said, "I think that presence right now, you might see that the meaning and purpose in your life is already here and that you're doing the thing right now, that you're supposed to be doing", which is super interesting.

Natalie Murray (00:05:13):
Right. Yeah, absolutely. And to have that presence, to realize that there's value and meaning in this moment, and it can contribute in this moment, and that this moment has the lessons and the learnings to propel you for the next. It's just really powerful.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:05:29):
Yeah. I totally agree. Well, you've told me that you were willing to talk about the subject of culture and of course, I'm super interested in culture and as I told you before, I have fan girl pieces about it that I dive into sometimes. And so of course I always start out, okay, so what is the definition of culture? So if we were to just talk about it generally, and of course we'll get into work culture, but overarchingly, culture itself, what is the definition? I have, it's basically the behaviors and norms within human societies. So that might be within a community and it might be within a household and it might be within a workplace. But what do you think of that definition of behaviors and norms within societies?

Natalie Murray (00:06:19):
Yeah. The behaviors and norms I think, are the manifestation of the underpinning of culture, but I guess I'm seeing culture as multidimensional, and as you describe that there's big picture culture of society, and then there's micro societies, or mini societies in which are embedded in the larger and it's all a system. So I love that definition and behaviors and norms. There's also, what is driving those behaviors and norms and those kinds of assumptions or beliefs can get at what's the changes there. Because you could change behavior, you could change a standard, and you might not change the actual assumption behind that.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:07:23):
Right, that's so deep. If we really peel it away, it's super deep. And at first, when I was reading just the standard definition of behaviors and norms, given the type of person I am, gives me a little bit of, "Well, I don't don't know if I like that." Just because in some ways that sounds passive, you have the culture you're in, and it is what it is. And the person that I am is like, no, I want to have an effect. I don't like passive anything. I like active stuff. And I think we work around the margins of that, especially if you're in any kind of a leadership role, in fact, leading from wherever you are, you might be doing that. So I'm interested in your ideas about, all right so if culture is behaviors and norms, then how do we influence it?

Natalie Murray (00:08:16):
Yeah. Okay. So I love that you just brought this up because it's something that... We have to remember that we're people, that culture is something that happens through from interactions of people and that you are a in person or being in that. So you're a player in that. And I think that, that's part of what you have to assess is, who are you being in the larger organization or the larger society, and that you still have agency in determination of what you're going to do and what you're not going to do. And that's so important. The other piece of that though, is not just what you do, but your mindsets and it was something that-

Annalisa Holcombe (00:09:06):
Hmm, that's interesting.

Natalie Murray (00:09:10):
Right. Okay, I'll give a couple of examples, because I really love this work. And it's something I will say, frankly, that I have just really observed in myself and then wondered about others is that, what are my assumptions and ideas coming into any given situation and how does that influence how I show up, how I respond to others, how I interpret the situation? So if I'm assuming that a standing meeting that can be contentious, is going to be contentious, and I put on my battle armor and I put on my protective gear and I get other people to help me. I'm going into that with the assumption that it's going to be a certain way and likely, I'm going to show up in a way that then, influences it. That's a mindset that I have. Also, there's on a different level, I've done a lot of work with The Center for Positive Psychology at University of Pennsylvania.

Natalie Murray (00:10:17):
And they do a beautiful job of talking about mind traps, which are cognitive dysfunctions, ways of thinking that are not necessarily helpful. So things like, am I breeding someone's mind or am I in the present, understanding a situation? Am I ruminating and catastrophizing? Those kinds of things also influence what I'm doing, also influence the larger culture. And it doesn't necessarily help me make the best decision on what to do next. So there's millions of examples, but for me, going back to your point, I have agency about how I act in any given situation, whether the culture is pushing me one way or the other, but also I have to recognize that I'm part of creating that culture. And I have that accountability and responsibility to foster what I want to be true for myself and others.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:11:18):
So interesting. I love that you brought that up and even got deeper into the mindset about it. As you talk, I think of my own life. So I'm always using this to think through, "Wow, I just learned something." And so, for example, I have my own team that I lead and we are doing some work on, here are our operational tenants and what are the behaviors we expect in them. And I asked the team to work on, help me do this, let's do this together. And I got some anonymous feedback across our team when we started to work on this, that this isn't appropriate for us to work on. And HR, or PNT should come in and do this for us. And for me, it was shocking because I was like, nobody's coming to save our culture. We have to do it, this is us.

Natalie Murray (00:12:11):
Yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:12:12):
And I think that we might have a society or workplace cultures that make us think that somebody else is going to come in and tell us how to do it. But the doing of it is the actual culture.

Natalie Murray (00:12:27):
Right. To have the culture of which you tackle hard problems together.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:12:33):
Yeah.

Natalie Murray (00:12:33):
And you agree and disagree and work together to decide a path forward. That's a culture it sounds like you're trying to cultivate, and no one's coming to save any organization. And certainly no consultant is a perfect silver bullet because these things are complex. They're really complex. And it's so important that the people in it are participating and see themselves as active in that.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:13:05):
Do you have suggestions based upon your life or your work experience and this... I love that you brought up that mindset thing, because I think that doesn't come up in culture conversations very often. How important are every single member of whatever group, their mindset is so important in determining what the culture actually is. Do you have experiences of that or ideas of how any one of us could be thinking about either how we show up, like you talked with our mindset, or how do we even talk about that?

Natalie Murray (00:13:44):
Yeah. I'll just share a couple of things. Something that I'm working through and have for gosh, years. I was first introduced to the work by The Arbinger Institute four years ago, around outward mindset. And then that's been reinforced by a psychologist that I follow, Scott Kaufman, who has a great book called, Transcend. And he talks about people as being ins of themselves, and not ins of, means to an end. And essentially the outward mindset work is very much aligned with this idea that, treating people as people and not as objects, to accomplish goals. And I have definitely been guilty of that and of not really seeing people as people, and trying to accomplish whatever it was that I was trying to accomplish. And that work hit me really deeply in understanding situations and understanding variety of perspectives on situations.

Natalie Murray (00:15:01):
And I bring this up because it's a fundamental assumption about what you're all doing together as a team, that you're a group of people working together, collaborating to accomplish the goal, but that you're not the means. People are not objects to accomplish the goal. They're people, all working together. And I guess that's a place where I would start is, how do you understand each other as humans? And is everybody all on the same page with that? I don't know if that resonates.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:15:42):
It totally does and one thing is that, those are the types of conversations we don't have at work.

Natalie Murray (00:15:47):
Right.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:15:48):
Right? We talk about goals and outcomes. Even when we talk about culture, we talk about, here are the goals we're trying to accomplish. Here are the results we want to get to, but we don't say, "So here are the people that truly matter and how we work together." I brought this up a little bit to you before, but I loved, how Ed Schein describes culture, because it is about how people... And I got to make sure I quote it, "A shared pattern of assumptions that group members develop over time, as they work through problems." There is so much in that definition to think about, because culture is, assumptions developed over time by people who are solving problems together. What?

Natalie Murray (00:16:39):
Yes. There's so many facets to that. And also then what happens when new people come in and it's okay that it shifts and all kinds of things. But yes, the development over time and that, that's not necessarily something that clicks in, like you can say, "Okay, here's our social culture." Yeah, do it. It doesn't work like that. The other piece I think that's really lovely about that, is the work through problems. If you think about my family, my family works through problems and challenges. Our community, our neighborhood works through problems and challenges. And we might even extend to see how people celebrate in triumphs. That might be another way of understanding how those norms, how those patterns solidify, is not just working through problems, but also celebrating.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:17:49):
In some ways, it just occurred to me that if culture does have to do with how we work through problems, then I think sometimes, those of us who don't think about this stuff regularly, might think that if there are in fact problems, that we have a bad culture. But this definition has to do with, as if problems are of course going to happen. And it's what you do with them, not that they exist that's a problem with your culture. It's how you handle them, that makes your culture strong or not, probably. I don't know, what do you think?

Natalie Murray (00:18:26):
Yeah. That's a great insight. What are our assumptions about problems that come up? What do we believe? I do think that there can be this approach of, just keep everything chill and there's no problems and tamp down any issues, or not acknowledge things that are there. And that's a way of stifling the actual, real rumble, to use Brene Brown's word, around something that's juicy. Yeah. I love that. That's a great insight.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:19:05):
Can we talk about that? Because I think we're talking a bit about it a little bit, getting down into that. I think this is really important, because we all know that the Peter Drucker culture eats strategy for breakfast, but I think we have taken that to mean something different than, really talking about culture. And so I wanted to talk about that, the different levels of culture, that whole Ed Schein iceberg model, where the tip is the stuff that the leaders say, here are our mission values, vision, culture, statements. And so that's the artifacts that we point to all the time and the stuff we say we're doing. I think it even has to do with the expected behaviors, as a result. It's the stuff that we can all point to and say, "This is the culture of my workplace."

Annalisa Holcombe (00:20:00):
And then the next level is starting to be underwater and you can look at it, but still it's underwater, meaning, it's the stuff about how people feel about the culture. And you can tell, usually, even if you're the leader, even if you moved, if you're coming in new, you're like, "Ooh, I can see that people are frustrated by this", or "I can see that people love it." And then, way underneath the depths, the iceberg, which is the stuff that will sink your ship in the iceberg, is all of that murky stuff, that is those underlying assumptions that people aren't even saying, but we're making, as we do this, as we know people in the culture over time, you're like, "Okay, I can see this. Nobody says it out loud, but we're all doing it." Or "We're all understanding that this is the culture that I'm in." Does that make sense to you?

Natalie Murray (00:20:57):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to dive into it.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:21:02):
Yeah. Please do, talk to me about anything that has anything to do with that stuff because I just love it and I'm really interested, and I think it's so important to how we think about culture.

Natalie Murray (00:21:13):
So it's interesting. I'm going to go to that next level down of how people feel about the culture, and then we can go even deeper because it's all so juicy. The piece with that, that I think is really interesting is, organizations define all the time, their mission, values, strategies, all kinds of things. But then what do people actually do? Even though, if those definitions are misaligned with the actual culture, then people are doing different things, and maybe even senior leaders are doing different things in an organization which can create all kinds of strife and issues. The how people feel and how they act and then do they stay, do they thrive? It's just so powerful.

Natalie Murray (00:22:20):
And even that's going to be different across an organization or across a community, given those micro cultures of a team, might offset-

Annalisa Holcombe (00:22:35):
The larger organization.

Natalie Murray (00:22:36):
The larger culture-

Annalisa Holcombe (00:22:37):
Culture, yeah.

Natalie Murray (00:22:39):
So I think in that case, we talk about toxic cultures, an organization might have a toxic culture in parts of it, in pockets, but there might be pockets that are pretty neutral or protected. So I'm careful to say, okay, an organization has this overall culture, great. There's gradients across that or differences across that. I don't know. Personally, I have been in great cultures and problematic cultures, and it's definitely impacted my... I think that in some... Well, I definitely know in some cases, that it was very jarring for me personally, because I was like, "Is this really happen?" It felt like it was a lot of gas lighting, where I'm just like, I don't know.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:23:35):
That's so fascinating. I feel like gas lighting is something that I only, really understood that we, as a society can talk about in the last several years, 10 years ago, I'm sure I experienced it, but I didn't have any language or understanding of it.

Natalie Murray (00:23:55):
No, not at all. And I think it's such a good word too, but giving language to things is really powerful, labeling things, it gives us power. You talk about bringing your whole self to work because this is our life. It's just... It's our life. And I could go on and on about that, but I'll just bring up a piece here is that, I feel like, that in some of our organizations where we're really just very focused on, and I'll speak for myself, I sat in super cognitive, ignore my emotion, not helpful, those kinds of things.

Natalie Murray (00:24:42):
But in a lot of cases where situations good for me or good for others, that I wasn't listening to my Spidey sense. I wasn't listening to that gut. And those are the situations where I wasn't bringing my full self. I wasn't acknowledging, hey, this is wrong, and thus participated in this culture. So I would say that feeling piece, that second layer of culture around how people feel about it, we have to get really honest about, are we allowing ourselves to feel, are we allowing ourselves to be a feeling being in our workplace or in our communities?

Natalie Murray (00:25:29):
That's the first, most important question, because I think, regardless of whether we're allowing ourselves to, it's happening, whether we're allowing ourselves to acknowledge it or just bottle it up or pretend... We might be gaslighting ourselves.

Natalie Murray (00:25:46):
Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:25:51):
I'm really interested in, do you have either examples or suggestions about, what we as either leaders of a team or members of a team, even if we're not the big, giant organizational leader, what can we do when it comes to how feelings are happening about our culture?

Natalie Murray (00:26:15):
Yeah. I'll tell you something that I worked really hard on and something, I would say the last year and a half, that I've been more and more, and even the last six months recognizing just how this is affecting me. So when we're experiencing something emotional or something very stressful, our bodies react. Our physiology changes, our heart rate quickens, our breathing is more shallow, literally not getting enough oxygen to our brain. And recognizing that there is a bodily impact to whatever is super stressful. So I realized that, for years I had been just living in this heightened state of stress, and calming yourself down and taking a minute... And I'm going to say, as leaders, generally, we're not good at saying, "I need a minute", and taking it, that's almost unheard of, the pause is not necessarily a good thing. But something that I've tried to do, that has helped me better understand my emotions, is to actually calm myself down physiologically, help my heart rate regulate.

Natalie Murray (00:27:54):
And it's just breathing, just slow breathing. There's all kinds of breathing techniques. And I took a class, summer of 2020, and I actually studied all kinds of breathing practices and their impacts on your bodily function. I think that's step one, is we have to actually recognize that we are triggered or in a heightened state of emotionality. And before you can even really, get real about what's going on, you've got to bring it down a notch. So literally, taking a minute, a minute and a half to breathe, to put your head between your knees, there's all kinds of things you can do. That's been helpful to me to actually get to the heart of whatever emotion is going on, because it's in those pause moments that you can check in and like, is this about this situation? Or is it about something else?

Natalie Murray (00:28:59):
And especially when you're carrying a lot of work, or I guess, stress, it's probably an avalanche of things. And until that's dealt with, it's hard to deal with the now, but that could show up as a, less than productive interaction with someone on your team or a colleague that, there's stress and other things happening. And somebody says something that isn't triggering, but then it should not be assumed that, that gets rid of all negative emotion because it doesn't at all. What I'm trying to get at is that, it helps you clue into what's really going on. And I don't know if you've seen the... Oh gosh, I forget his name. There's the Permission to Feel, book.

Natalie Murray (00:29:56):
And I forget the author's name. He's at Yale.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:29:59):
Right. That's awesome.

Natalie Murray (00:30:01):
It's awesome. It's a great book. And in it, has this matrix of emotions and they have them color coded of red and green and yellow and blue, and then there's all kinds of different emotions. And so the whole point of Permission to Feel is, giving people emotional literacy. And that's something I do think that is very powerful and something we all need to work on and being a GenX'er was not necessarily a thing that I grew up with. And so building emotional literacy to actually getting into, "Yeah, I'm kind of numb", or "I'm overjoyed", and how that might sometimes look anxious, those kinds of things, but giving ourselves those tools to be emotionally literate, can be powerful in understanding what's actually going on.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:30:59):
I love the idea that you're even talking about that because at work, we don't, we pretend like we don't have emotions at work.

Natalie Murray (00:31:05):
I know.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:31:06):
But we're human. And I think about that, the fact that we can be triggered. We talk about it in our personal lives, and in the culture of our communities and families and friendships, where we're like, "Hey, this thing reminds me of this thing that happened to me five years ago. And so I need to take a minute because I have heightened anxiety right now." Can you imagine if we actually acknowledged that at work?

Natalie Murray (00:31:33):
It would be very powerful.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:31:36):
Yeah.

Natalie Murray (00:31:37):
Really powerful. And it's happening anyway.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:31:42):
Yeah, we're just not talking about it. It's that murky stuff, way underneath.

Natalie Murray (00:31:46):
No one talks about it. What's what's coming into play or this reminds... It can even be an organization level of, this situation reminds me of this thing that went down two years ago. And so I'm triggered by that. It's like, "That's not good." And we're such pattern secreting beings, we're so good at that. It's so interesting that we don't talk about it. I think it was two weeks ago, there was a webinar that I attended with Arianna Huffington, and she was talking about various things around work and how to really flourish.

Natalie Murray (00:32:35):
One of the things that she brought up, which I've heard it in other places, I just heard it most recently from her, was that we've made assumptions about the human operating system and that we have assumed with the industrial revolutions, that we're like computers. And so we optimize for uptime and we optimize for rationality and all kinds of things. And we have completely discounted rest and emotional wellbeing and emotions in general. And so I think that, that's one of those things we don't talk about, but is one of the drivers of our work assumptions, is that humans are computers, and we're not.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:33:18):
We're not at all. I'm interested in what you think about, as we think about work cultures during... And I know this only happened for people who are in many ways, privileged to have the opportunity to work from home, for a long period of time. But I do think that at has, maybe changed the way that we think about culture or at least opened up. I just feel like this culture conversation is so important right now. And maybe there's an opportunity for us to talk about it more generally, because we got to see people a little bit more as people, sometimes, instead of just their work persona. Do you know what I mean?

Natalie Murray (00:34:02):
Yeah. The entirety of people, if you were in a position where you could transition to home, you then had... You can see the picture behind me.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:34:15):
Yeah. You get to know about who people are.

Natalie Murray (00:34:20):
You do, yeah. And their families. I've actually loved seeing people with their kids run in, oh, that just makes me so happy. I love that. And I think it's actually reset how we think about, that it's our life, that there's not a separation between home and work, although there was a physical separation and that then meant sometimes, mental separations. But we're just spending a lot of time...

Annalisa Holcombe (00:34:56):
Yeah. It's still, just life. And I'm interested in how different, because I feel, if we understand culture to be those definitions that we've had, we often talk about culture differently when we talk about it at work or when we talk about it in society or community, and even at home. And so I'm just interested because that blends, I feel like, that really blends both. It gives us an opportunity to maybe, understand that given that we can see people's home lives a little better. And now that we are more often working across lots of community boundaries, we're not all from one community, we're from all different places. And as we think about well, so what's going to happen with our society as it becomes more and more global? Those murky, cultural assumptions that we're making, no longer serve us because we're made up of lots of different types of cultural assumptions. So I'm just super interested in how you feel that is affecting either our workplace, or even our own personal psyches right now.

Natalie Murray (00:36:19):
Yeah. It's so interesting because I think there's others that have had this experience is that, it's only been the past few years that I've recognized even, culture outside of work. I absolutely know and realize it, but I will say, frankly, I don't have a culture. Well, sure I do. And recognizing that has actually given me a lot of perspective on other cultures and other ways of being, and even some of the mindsets and assumptions that I work with. As we all get to know each other, I think what's really powerful is that, if you're going into an office every day and you see people only in that dimension-

Annalisa Holcombe (00:37:13):
That curated work self that we create.

Natalie Murray (00:37:15):
That curated work self. Yeah. We're mad at creating the uniform, whatever we're wearing. Our work clothes, our work persona. I have work hair, curl my hair, that kind of thing. But we see each other in that. And then I think that's the image is coming to me like a paper doll, it's one dimensional. Remember paper dolls, a long time ago?

Annalisa Holcombe (00:37:51):
Yeah.

Natalie Murray (00:37:52):
Very one dimensional. And that the experience of seeing people and hearing about what's going on, because I think that's also what the pandemic and work from home has really offered. It's not just seeing people's offices or bedrooms or basements, whatever it is, and then hearing their dogs or their kids or their families. But also then, hearing people talk, I think we're talking more about what's going on in our homes or in our lives, like I needed to do this to help my child or such and such is ill. So it's even the conversation has opened up, not just what we're visually seeing.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:38:40):
Do you think that has to do with the whole idea of why our news right now, is always talking about the great resignation. Is that aligned for you? Is that even a thing or are we hyping it? I don't know.

Natalie Murray (00:38:57):
We have had quite a few resignations, and I'm part of that resigning an executive position six months ago to really focus on my PhD. I believe it's Harvard, does a study about women at work. And the latest one had, up from a quarter, one third of women were considering either, taking a step back or leaving the workforce. So it feels real. I don't know what criteria we decide, it's real or not, but what feels very real to me is, people are making different choices about how they pursue sustaining their livelihoods and pursuing their purposes. And that corporate, I'm going to work for someone and work in an organization, is perhaps shifting.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:39:58):
Yeah. And I think it has to do with that too. I even think so, I feel like after 9/11, I saw a lot of people changing their lives. I think after a pandemic or during a pandemic, I'm not sure there's an after, that people are reevaluating their lives. And my prior work was as a divorce attorney, I would see people doing that as well. When something big and traumatic is happening, in some ways it makes you take stock.

Natalie Murray (00:40:32):
So I'm going to put my little academic hat on for a second because I love this. It screams to me of transformative learning, and transformative learning is all about our shifting or changing the assumptions or the paradigms in which we function. It's a very individual thing, but there's a few articles out about collective transformation and certainly, 9/11's a great example. And the pandemic's another one, of people having some sort of experience in which they basically have this dilemma of, this doesn't fit my template. I need to better understand this. And it's that reflection and critical reflection that allows you to reassess those and make changes, which then just cascades through your entire life. If you're underlying, that murky stuff, if it gets changed, it's going to manifest itself in behaviors and in patterns, in relationships, in ways of thinking and being. So your examples are perfect with divorce. I offer that these big shifts at organizations also, can have a transformative impact on individuals. And I love that. I love anytime that we're questioning what's going on this doesn't fit, or can I understand this better? So yeah, I feel like that's happening.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:42:06):
That's interesting. I've never thought about, at big organizations or smaller organizations, when new leaders come in, there's always a transformational effect, but you generally think it's because of a leader, but the leader is probably just the reason that everybody's now questioning how we operate or what matters. That's why people launch into strategic plans probably, is just because we're trying to get to the underneath of what really matters here.

Natalie Murray (00:42:38):
Yeah. Absolutely. The new leader comes in with different ways, different ideas. And it's true, whether it's the CEO or president or any other visible leader, they have new experiences, new ideas. They're of course learning about the organization and honoring what it is, but they're hired to bring some of that perspective in, so of course things are going to shift and challenge. And if they don't, it's a missed opportunity. So I think that's a really powerful thing. It can be positive or it can be seen as a negative. I think it really depends on the person coming in or the influence of the change.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:43:28):
If you like this conversation and you're interested in understanding more about The Great Resignation, and how women have been affected by the pandemic, I encourage you to read the report and learn more, by going to www.womenintheworkplace.com. You can also hear one of our past podcast interviews, featuring our guest, Sylvia Castro, talking about priorities and how she juggles them as a working mom, in season one of 92,000 hours. But until then, let's jump back in.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:44:19):
So I love this underneath assumptions that we're making about culture that I think are really important, especially right now. If we are able to take, here's community culture and you don't even know that you're attracted to it, but then you're there and you're in it and you're like, "This feels like home." But then there's the... I don't even know how to talk about it, but I'm feeling it a lot where I think our national culture feels like it's changing and it feels really scary to me because I feel like the murky underneath assumptions that we're making about each other, that we're making about how we solve problems together, are becoming a culture that I don't know how to operate in.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:45:10):
Even how we fight with each other, this is ages me, but as I grew up, I was always like, "Okay. So at some point the grownups in the room are going to make smart decisions." Because that's what we do in the United States. We make smart decisions, we handle things. And then this pandemic scared the crap out of me, because I was like, we're not solving this. And the people that I thought were the grownups in the room, even now, are not solving things. And it's shocking. Anyway, what do think about how culture plays into that?

Natalie Murray (00:45:52):
Oh my gosh. It absolutely plays into that. It's interesting, I feel like we're even arguing about the problem, not just how to solve it or that it should be solved, but just that there is a problem. It feels very uncomfortable to me. And it definitely also scares me. And it's hard to unwind my PhD journey a over the last 18 months or 20 months, with what's gone on-

Annalisa Holcombe (00:46:39):
Yeah, absolutely.

Natalie Murray (00:46:41):
In society, because just thinking about the role and assumptions of capitalism in our society. And that's not getting into the heart of who we even believe we are or what assumptions I have about you or what value I place, just on the other person, that's tricky. That's very tricky work. I don't feel like we're aligned. I think before, my assumption was that... And I've been guilty of this before, was that everybody believed that we were all of value. And I think what's really scary is seeing that, that's not the case. It's really scary.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:47:38):
It is. It's so jarring because the implications are massive.

Natalie Murray (00:47:44):
Massive, massive.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:47:46):
And then, doesn't it make you think also, this is what I think about it, where I think about societal culture. I'm like, wow, this has been murky assumptions that I didn't even know were existing, that I was making assumptions about how we all operate and what assumptions we're all making as we are part of this greater society, that are very different than someone else in this greater society. And it feels big enough that I don't know how we solve it, but it's certainly worth calling out that it exists and it's worth trying to solve.

Natalie Murray (00:48:24):
Mm-hmm (affirmative) Absolutely. And it's so interesting because there's... I'm searching for words, sorry, but I guess the recognition that each of us are unique beings, we have a variety of experiences that shape our perceptions, our beliefs, our assumptions, generally, most of us have this template that we can either agree with or not agree with and work within. But I guess, honoring the absolute and being about what someone else believes and what someone else thinks, without it threatening necessarily you, asking the questions and being curious and truly listening without feeling like I need to change it or I need to solve it.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:49:38):
The whole fear and judgment and that we come with.

Natalie Murray (00:49:41):
Yeah, absolutely. The fear and judgment, instead of approaching it with empathy and interest, true curiosity. And I think that takes work to get there. I guess what I'm wrestling with is, I so want that and I see value in every single person and then it's hard when some of those beliefs make my skin crawl and just see how damaging and life threatening they can be. And I don't know quite what to do with that. So that's part of my journey. And that's where the role of our society, of what's okay and what's not okay, might come into play. But ugh, it's a tricky topic and I'm definitely not someone who is versed in speaking about it. I'm just talking about my own perspective.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:50:55):
It totally makes sense. But I think it's something that most of us are thinking about, regardless of where we sit in our society and within the micro cultures of our society, we're still thinking about it because it's everywhere around us right now, that we are in this place that is challenging our assumptions and making us think about them. And in some ways it reminds me, my go-to is, I grew up very isolated in Utah. And my first trip to Europe, I always remember. I was on a train and I was in my early twenties before I'd ever left the country. And I was on a train looking outside the train as it goes across the countryside, at people waiting on platforms for the train. And I remember thinking that I had grown up with an idea that people were other, that I didn't know. These are the, other people. I don't know them. They're different than me. And as I watched people standing on the platform, at the time, it was just the... And I think people have this when they travel, you're just opened up to, everywhere, people are people, everywhere.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:52:08):
For example, as my daughter went through her surgery last week, the level of people reaching out to me was enormous. And I think it's because we all have empathy. We all love someone. And the idea of someone that we love being vulnerable, can make us have compassion for other people. And I just don't know how we get back to that. But I think it has to do with all the fear that we're experiencing, fear about things and we're using blame and shame and all that stuff, rather than curiosity and empathy, like you talked about,

Natalie Murray (00:52:43):
Mm-hmm (affirmative) Oh, that's so beautiful. Yeah, trips, international trips can be so amazing in that, opening our eyes. I saw this sign. It was probably a sign that had been photographed and then put on Instagram, to be honest.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:53:03):
Like we all see.

Natalie Murray (00:53:06):
We all see that. But it was a question like, "How do you treat other people?" And the answer was, "There is no other."

Annalisa Holcombe (00:53:16):
Love it. Just people.

Natalie Murray (00:53:18):
Yes. Just people.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:53:19):
Gosh. Yeah.

Natalie Murray (00:53:23):
Just people. Yeah. So beautiful. And if we can remember that we all love someone. I've used that in my own irritation with someone, like there's someone at home that loves this person that thinks that he's amazing. And that's great. And I'm so glad yeah. We all recognize that, that's beautiful. And it's so wonderful that you received the sport that you needed and that's a piece of culture and society. That's just beautiful. I think sometimes we talk about culture as, all of its negative things and it definitely absolutely has it, but there's some positives.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:54:15):
Certainly. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, it challenged my assumptions because I had made assumptions, even about my own workplace culture, where I had made assumptions that I didn't even realize I was making, that I thought, I'm not going to be fully supported in this experience I'm about to have, and I'm already sad about it. I already was sad about it. And then when I went through the experience, it wasn't that, it was the opposite of that. And people were lovely to me from all types of situations at my workplace. And I'm embarrassed about the fact that I thought that way, but I love that, that challenged me and in some ways I'm so grateful that I had such a difficult personal experience, that also allowed me to have a different workplace experience.

Natalie Murray (00:55:04):
Yes, yes. And you were open to that being, which is really... Sometimes when we make those assumptions, we're only seeing the things that align with our assumptions. So the fact that you were open enough to really receive the gift of that support and then recognize, "Hey, this challenged what I believed."

Annalisa Holcombe (00:55:26):
And now I have to hold onto that.

Natalie Murray (00:55:27):
Yes.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:55:28):
Because the other assumptions I've been making, are going to keep happening and I'm going to have to actively remember that there's more to it.

Natalie Murray (00:55:37):
Yeah. So, learning one thing on learning the other.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:55:41):
Yeah.

Natalie Murray (00:55:42):
Do you mind if I ask you a question with that? Because-

Annalisa Holcombe (00:55:44):
Of course. Yeah.

Natalie Murray (00:55:45):
So how do you unlearn something? What do you do to remind yourself?

Annalisa Holcombe (00:55:52):
Reflection, reflection, reflection for me. And being active about it. I have to actually do this work, listen to this podcast, remind myself, "Okay, at the end of the day, what was good that happened in today." And I'm trying right now, really hard in all of my interactions with coworkers, to really come into it without my armor. And before I go into a meeting, I actually say those words, "What armor do I have right now? How can I put it down?" And that sounds crazy and hoohoo, because we all don't normally do that. But it's how I'm trying. I don't know if I'm successful yet, but boy, am I trying,

Natalie Murray (00:56:39):
I love that.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:56:41):
Well, I want to finish up by asking a question that I didn't let you know I was going to ask you, so I'm just going to get an off the cuff answer.

Natalie Murray (00:56:48):
Okay.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:56:49):
I am a deep believer in the power of mentors in our lives. And I think mentors show up in lots of different ways for us. Someone might be a mentor in that, they don't know that they're your mentor. So I'm interested in telling me about a mentor in your life that has had some influence on you.

Natalie Murray (00:57:12):
Okay. In reflection about culture. I had somebody who had a big, it was an organizational culture, but it had a big impact on me individually. And that was a former president of the division that I was working for, at Pearson. And this is 2010, and I guess I was there about four months, but there was a big meeting and he was talking to the whole group. And I will say that I was two naive to think that, maybe he wasn't telling the truth. I think about it, if I was sitting there today, I'd be like, "Do you really mean that?" But at that point I'm like, "Okay." So what he said was, "I'm giving you all a hundred feet of rope to hang yourself with, and I expect you to use it.

Natalie Murray (00:58:07):
And I expect you to learn from it. And when you do, I'll give you another a hundred feet of rope." And I can remember, I don't know what hotel it was, but it was in a hotel conference. It was a very memorable experience. And he meant it. He really proved that that was true. I saw that from my colleagues, with me, many failures and would always ask me what I learned from it and send me on my way with more trust. It was remarkable how that taught me how to risk and how to be brave, courageous in my role. And it was incredible. Those years learning that, I think it gave me the tenacity to go after really hard problems that I was solving.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:59:06):
Awesome.

Natalie Murray (00:59:06):
Yeah. And so that's somebody who... We have still relationship today and I continue to learn from him, but he created that culture, that organization, he's definitely a mentor to me and a powerful, powerful figure in my development, in that way.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:59:25):
I love it. And I would imagine that early experience that informs you, especially of a good culture, a good work culture, of what to both expect and now, demand in your future cultures, right?

Natalie Murray (00:59:38):
Absolutely.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:59:38):
When we have those good experiences, we know they can can exist. I so appreciate you spending your time with me recording this. You didn't have to do it. And what I learned from you is amazing. And I knew that I would, and I'm really grateful, and I hope that we can continue to have these types of conversations in our lives with each other.

Natalie Murray (00:59:57):
I am so thankful. I was completely honored that you asked and I appreciate what you're doing. I appreciate the mission that you have with this podcast, as well as what you're trying to create the conversation, elevating the conversation in this world. So thank you so much.

Annalisa Holcombe (01:00:13):
I want to thank my guest, Natalie Murray. I'm so looking forward to my own additional conversations I plan to have with her, after having just scratched the surface here. You too, can connect with her on LinkedIn. Next week, we will be joined by my guest, Dr. Michael Bassis. Michael Bassis is an educational consultant, sociologist and a past president of several different universities. Above all, he considers himself a Maverick, and we'll be talking about vision. I hope you join us.