Podcast: Donna Hicks, Dignity and Truly Human Leadership

And it was explosive, honestly. And I thought, ooh, as a psychologist, I'm thinking we better explore that. We better figure out what was going on there for that person that he got so upset. And so, one day I said to the guy, I said, look, would, could you just explain to us what happened there? You had such a big emotional reaction. And he said, emotions. This isn't about emotions. This is about injustice. This is about identity. I said, okay, sorry. So, I knew you can't, because people thought emotional meant weakness and everything, so they didn't like that. And then I thought, okay, well, how can I get them to talk about this big reaction that they had? And eventually, after several tries, I finally came up with the word dignity, and I finally figured out that what I could say to them was, hey, look, you just had a big explosive reaction here. I have a feeling that it had something to do with your dignity and not being treated fairly or not being treated well. 

That was the word. And they would sit up straighter and they would say, yeah, this is about our dignity. Yes. And then they were willing to talk about it. So, my entry point into getting them to focus on this deeply human dimension of these conflicts, what it felt like to be treated as if you didn't matter, and what it felt like to be dehumanized by the other side. And so, it opened up doors, honestly, it opened up doors that were shut closed because nobody wanted to appear weak. But when you're talking about dignity, that was legitimizing, you know? It kind of validated their reactions. So that was a turning point for me because I realized, wait a minute, we can't talk about the political divisions until we reach down and get into this human experience of having one's dignity trashed and assaulted. And so from that point on, that's what I did because everybody loved the word dignity and felt, as I said, validated by it. And they would tell stories about ways their dignity was violated, and it wasn't just about them. They would say, it's about my ancestors. My ancestors were treated badly too. So it honestly opened up that deeper human dimension of conflict, and one they were unwilling to talk about before, but there's magic in that word, dignity. There's magic in it. And people, even if they don't really know what they're talking about, they'll be curious about dignity, about what it means for conflict. 

Brent Stewart: Yeah. As that kind of revelation moment happened for you and the more studying and research that you did on it ultimately to apply it to these situations, did your notion of what dignity was change? How did that concept evolve in your mind? 

Donna: Well, I didn't know very much about it at all, but I had an instinct that it was about the way they were being treated, the dignity issues where they weren't even seen as human beings. And so, I guess initially I was thinking that maybe dignity and respect were the same thing, because people always say, oh, yes, we are going to treat them with dignity and respect. And I said, eventually what I learned from doing research is that dignity and respect are two different things. That dignity is our basic value as human beings. We come into the world with dignity. It's part of our birthright. We have inherent value and worth, but respect I learned has to be earned. So, when the parties would say to me, we demand respect, I would say, wait a minute. You can't demand respect. It's a bridge too far. Respect is something reserved for people who have done really great things. 

And I said, what you can demand is to be treated with dignity because you're a human being. And simply by being a human being, you deserve to be treated as if you matter. So that I learned early on. Early on, I learned that distinction. And it's really helpful because so many times the parties in conflict, and I'm not just talking about international conflicts because eventually I started going into the corporate world because when my first book came out, people in the corporate world read it and said, oh my gosh, this is what's happening in my organization where I think my people don't feel like they're being treated with dignity. But the thing is, they didn't feel good about saying, oh, well, we have to respect everybody. And if somebody harms you and really assaults you, you don't want to respect them. I mean, that's too much to ask. But you can, as I said earlier, you can ask to be treated with dignity, even if you don't agree, even if the conflict has some really valid points to it, it's still too much to say, we're going to try to get you to respect each other. It doesn't work that way. 

Brent: Could you expand a little bit more on the differences between respect and dignity? 

Donna: This is a belief that I have and that is fortified by my mentor, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who told me that everybody has dignity, every single human being on the planet, whether you've done bad things or good things, you still have dignity. And I was telling him this story about how working with parties in conflict, where they would say to me as I said that they had their dignity stripped from them by the other side. Their dignity was stripped. And I said, oh, okay, yeah. Well, now I understand why you're fighting to get, regain that dignity. And I was telling Archbishop Tutu that story, and he said to me, what are you talking about? Nobody can have their dignity stripped from them in really angry tones. And I just met the guy and he's scolding me, and I said, what did I say? 

He said, nobody can strip you of your dignity. He said, how do you think we got through apartheid in South Africa? How do you think we made it through when we were dehumanized, treated as less than, they treated their pets, better than they treated us? And how do you think we got through that? And he said, we knew that our dignity was in our hands, in our hands only, and it was the only thing that helped us get to the other side and get through that horrible, horrible time, apartheid time. And so that's what, I learned that part from him, that dignity is something nobody can take away from you. It's in your soul. It's part of your birthright. It's part of an essential part of what it means to be human. But again, if I say, I respect Archbishop Tutu, I thought he was an extraordinary human being, but I don't respect somebody who harmed him and treated him badly in South Africa. I don't think that is deserving of respect. So, it's just a distinction that most people really haven't thought about except when I say it and I tell them, it's like, oh, yeah, right. I get it now. We can even treat our enemies with dignity, but we don't have to respect them. 

Brent: That's an interesting story in his, Bishop Tutu's reaction to that is very interesting. And I think it's because dignity seems like sometimes it's kind of a tossed-around word like freedom, where it's like you have it or you don't have it, or whatever. And so people kind of don't think about it because it is tossed around like that. It just kind of seems like one of these words that freedom, liberty, all this stuff that you think about being used or abused or you get or you have. Dignity is a little bit harder to pin down. If somebody said to you, what is a textbook definition of dignity? What would you say to that? 

Donna: Well, I have one.  

Brent: Awesome. You wrote about it.  

Donna: Yes, I wrote about it, that dignity is our inherent value and our inherent vulnerability. What I mean by that is that, again, as I said, dignity is something we come into the world with. All human life has dignity, and that other vulnerability piece of the definition is, but we're also vulnerable to having it assaulted and vulnerable to injury, to our dignity. When someone mistreats us, I honestly believe it's a universal human phenomenon. That dignity is something that no matter where we come from, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, this is what is the unifying and defining characteristic of what it means to be a human that we all yearn for, yearn to be treated with dignity and yearn to be looked at as something of value and worth. And Bob Chapman always says that you matter. Everybody matters. Well, everybody matters because we all have dignity. We're all part of the human experience. And what's great about dignity is that also it enables us to get beyond all of our differences. As I said, I've worked all over the world and people everywhere want to be treated this way, and I call it our highest common denominator as human beings. It's just a fundamental aspect of our shared humanity that we all deserve to be treated as if we matter, and that we have inherent value and worth. 

Brent: One of the things that Bob has said that I think frames things in a certain way that helps people visualize that is when he talks about everyone as somebody's precious child. 

Donna: Precious child. Yeah. I love that. I love it. 

Brent: It's such a simple way for somebody to reorient their thinking in somebody that they viewed as an enemy or even somebody that they're angry with or whatever. Because when you think of a child, I mean, you can get angry at kids, but then you sort of feel bad about it after a little bit. 

Donna: Yes, the guilt comes in. 

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's almost a good representation of thinking about dignity as well, too, because almost like you're orienting your thoughts to picture that core orb that we were talking about before. 

Donna: So when I give my presentations, I have a slide of two infant babies, and I say, okay, if you don't believe that we're all born with dignity, take a look at these precious little things. Would you really say that they don't have value and worth? And I continue on saying, not only would we say they have value, but I think we'd say they're invaluable. They're priceless and irreplaceable. So that then just showing the photo of these little precious ones, they're newborns, the ones that photos I have. And so everybody just kind of melts when they see these little babies. And I say to them, look, my goal is to try to see that preciousness even in us, each other as adults, because we still have it. We're no less precious, but it's harder to do when we're all grown up. And can I tell you a quick story about John Lewis? 

Brent: Oh, sure. 

Donna: John Lewis, he was a representative in the house, Black man who lived through the civil rights era, and he worked with Martin Luther King, and they were big proponents of love and nonviolence, and we were trying to not violate the dignity of the people who, even people who were beating us up, we didn't want to. And I heard him interviewed on this topic, and the interviewer said, well, look, you crossed the bridge in Selma during that period, and you got to the other side, but when you got to the other side, somebody was there beating you with a baseball bat, and you had a concussion, and you were lying there unconscious. And she said, the interviewer said, where's the love there? How can you feel love for that? And you know what he said? 

He was quiet for a few seconds, and he responded by saying, when somebody treats me like that, that way, what I try to do is imagine that person as a little child. And I ask myself, what happened to him that he thought it was okay to treat me this way? What happened to him? So, he believed that there's probably some trauma that person went through and he said, one, I can regain my empathy for that person if I imagine him as a little boy being having some bad parenting or whatever. So I just thought that's talk about your precious child and how seeing the children can really help us if we can. I told them, this group, I said, look, you all have name tags. Why don't you get name tags? Because a lot of companies, you do have to have name tags to get in the door. And I said, take your current picture off your name tag and put your baby picture in there so they can see how precious you are. So I still think that's a good idea. We should be wearing our baby pictures around our neck. 

Brent: Would mattering be a result of dignity? What's the relationship there? How would you connect the two? 

Donna: That's a good question. I think if a person says, if you were to say to me, I feel like I matter here at this company, I matter. And I think if I were translating it into my terms, I would say, well, you feel like you're being treated as if you have value and worth. That is your claim to humanity is to be treated that way and feel like you are treated as if you matter, as if it matters how you feel in, well, if we're talking about a workplace in your work and in your job, it's just another way of saying the same thing. I mean, I think what's unique about dignity is simplicity. And that simplicity is that we're just talking about an aspect of our shared humanity. 

It's deep, it's way deep and it’s important to all of us humans. So it is about as deep as you can get in soul work to be treated as if you are a human being that's vulnerable, to have your dignity violated. Cus there’s nothing worse than that feeling of having somebody like humiliate you or embarrass you. Our bodies, our brains respond to a dignity violation in the same way as it responds to a physical injury. There's research to show that this is why this dignity work is so important, because in the corporate world, when I first went in there, they would say to me, oh, this dignity stuff is nice. It's touchy feely. It's just about being kind. I said, it's way deeper than that. And then I bring out this research, this neuroscience research that shows that the brain experiences a wound to its dignity in the same area, the same ancient pain center, the amygdala, it's called, as if they experienced a physical wound. So it matters. And we would never allow people going around beating each other up in the workplace. We've never allowed that. But we have to feel as that the evidence shows us that wounds to dignity create the same reaction in the brain as a physical injury. So the brain doesn't know the difference, it just feels miserable, and we end up feeling terrible with a dignity violation. 

Brent: I really like the way the phrase that you used, the dignity is a common denominator. 

Donna: Highest common denominator. 

Brent: Highest common denominator. But it's like that one thing that's shared. It's one thing that's always there. It's like a foundation. And I think that's interesting to me because it's almost like using science fiction lingo or something like that. It's like an orb inside of you, that is what it is. And things around it can be corrupted or whatever, or things could be good around it or whatever, but it's an orb that remains there. Just kind of like your soul or your spirit or something.  

Donna: Exactly.  

Brent: Yeah. If I'm thinking about it, it's almost like thinking about it in terms of the hierarchy of needs where you've got, you've got dignity at the, I don't want to say the bottom, but the foundation. 

Donna: The core, maybe. 

Brent: The core. And then mattering is one of those needs that is built upon that foundation. And then there's other things like respect. And another thing in terms of those things above the foundation of dignity is care and the care that you receive and the care that you give as a result of your dignity, feeling like your dignity has been honored. Could you speak to that a little bit? How dignity affects care coming in or coming out? 

Donna: I think I can care about my enemies. I can care about them because they're fellow human beings, and I know I don't want to treat them with indignity, but do I care about them the way I care about my husband or somebody in my family or my friends? I think it's a deeper kind of caring, but it's like I think I aspire to care about even my staunchest enemies so that I don't mistreat them and I don't humiliate them. I want to be able to disagree with dignity, with the people that I, but how much do I care about them? Do I care that they get another new job? I don't know if I would say that I spend as much time caring about them as worried about how their dignity is being honored by me. 

Brent: Feeling cared for. How essential is that in honoring dignity or feeling like your dignity is honored? 

Donna: I think it's really part of the same. I think it's on the same trajectory that we want to do both. We want people to feel cared. It's another way of talking about the same thing, honestly, I think it is. We want people to feel cared for. Absolutely. And just being able to define what it would mean to care for somebody. And I think that's where the 10 elements of dignity that I came up with in my research, I think that's why it's helpful to articulate those 10 elements of dignity. People want their identity accepted, they want to feel safe, they want recognition. They want understanding and accountability and all of that. And when that happens, I think people do feel cared for. So it's interwoven, I think. I think it's all on the same trajectory that we want this along with just treating them as human beings with our shared desire to be treated with dignity. We want to tap into that highest common denominator, and that's where we go when we are even working with our enemies. That's one. I think it's one pathway to peace, is to find higher ground, go up to that highest common denominator where we all want to be treated well. And so I think it's all complicated and it's all interwoven, and we're trying to take it apart. And I appreciate the exercise. It's really kind of a fun mental exercise, so thank you for that. That's good. 

Brent: Well, we don't want to give you softballs all the time. 

Donna: No way. Yeah. 

Brent: One of the things that we talk about a lot here, which I know you know because been familiar with us for a long time, is the impact of empathetic listening. Let's talk about that a little bit, especially with the work that you've done in workplaces. How essential is that in terms of honoring dignity? 

Donna: Well, I think in my books anyway, I talk about dignity and empathy as essential parts of honoring our shared humanity. And what happens though, when you're in a conflict with somebody and you're really angry and upset at the person, I mean, just think about this as you're with people, your friends or partners or whatever, it's really hard to empathize with somebody to create, oh, I want to know what you feel when you're angry. When you're in that triggered state, you're upset, you're angry. Empathy is the first thing to go out the window. So as an antidote, as an antidote to that reaction that you're feeling inside, because that's a very normal reaction to have empathy, lose empathy for people in times of conflict. But if you can create a, if you want to try to repair the relationship, I think it's very, very important to try to really understand what the perspective is of that other person and in order to gain empathy for why the person reacted the way they did. 

And if we can find that kind of empathy. I mean, there's several different kinds of empathy in the literature, but if we can find that, at least that emotional empathy where we’re feeling what the person was describing, let's say we're listening carefully to that person's story, somebody whom we lost empathy with. If we're listening carefully and trying to understand, I mean, gaining a deeper understanding is one of the elements of dignity that we emphasize in trying to regain empathy, try to go deeper, ask deeper questions, try to understand. And we say in the business, in my business, we say, in the conflict resolution world, we say that we want to listen to understand and to speak to be understood. So it's listening is critical component of it. And it's also the way you tell your story to get the other person to connect to you, the empathy with you. 

We have so much running against us. It's a wonder we humans get along at all. It's really a wonder because even though we were all born with dignity, we're not born knowing how to act like it. And so all this stuff we have to learn, we have to learn empathic listening. We have to learn to go deeper and to get a deeper perspective on the people. We have to learn to push the pause button inside us when our anger gets triggered and we're all righteous and take the bait and want to get even. And those things are really hard. 

And it's possible to do it, but not without education. Fortunately, I have several schools that are teaching this stuff in both grade schools, at elementary schools, and in high schools, and it's working beautifully. Kids respond to this in an amazing way because let me tell you, they know when they're not being treated well, and they know when somebody isn't empathic with them, and they know when they're not being listened to. So the good news is that I know we have to learn this stuff. And in fact, I think we have to unlearn some of our reactions, our wanting revenge and wanting to get even and getting angry and resentful and all that. But it does take learning. 

Brent: One of the reasons why you're in St. Louis this week was to, you did a couple sessions where you talked to Barry-Wehmiller leadership. What were some of the topics that you guys talked about? What were some of the things that they were asking of you or that you had to contribute to? 

Donna: I mean, I basically introduced the Dignity Model, which is what I call my approach to conflict resolution and so on. I introduced it for about maybe 45 minutes. I talked about the basic building blocks, about what the definition of dignity is, what the neuroscience of dignity, which I just described to you, where the brain doesn't know the difference between a wound to its dignity and a physical injury. We talked about the 10 elements of dignity, the 10 ways people, the research that I did that showed how people want to be treated if they were treated with dignity, something else called the 10 temptations to violate dignity, our own and others. And when they heard all of this, and I think it's pretty overwhelming to hear it for the first time. And because there's so much there and there's so much to be conscious of and aware of about your behavior and how you're treating other people. 

And I think that one of the common reactions was that, geez, I'm afraid, what if I'm treating somebody with indignity and I don't even know it and I'm not even aware that I'm doing it? So that was a lovely response I thought, because the fact is most of us do that. We haven't learned anything about this. And that's why I said I'm so happy that it's in schools because these kids are learning it early on. And I think they really wanted to emphasize how grateful they were to Bob Chapman and Kyle and everybody else who's made this company, one that I call a dignity honoring company. And when I wrote about them in my book, I said, they're leading with dignity. They might not think of it that way, but I can tell you they are dignity leaders at Barry-Wehmiller. And that's how I got to know Bob, was I told him, hey, look, you're a dignity leader. 

And so they were very happy that they are part of an organization where so much of this, of what I presented to them was embedded in the culture, embedded in Bob and Kyle's leadership approach, and everybody there, because those guys and women, they were all the leadership team, the executive leadership team, and they were open. They were really open, and they made themselves vulnerable at times about talking about certain things. And that's the best I can hope for. That people have an open mind about this and realize the benefit of learning about this realizing, because the benefit basically is we get better at human connection when we learn how to honor each other's dignity. When dignity is present in a relationship, it grows stronger and stronger and stronger. We love it. I told them at the end that one of the things, we're hardwired for a lot of very emotional reactions. 

We want to take the bait, we want to save face when we make a mistake and all of that. But the good news is we're also wired for human connection. We humans, we thrive on human connection. And that's what is the consequence of learning about dignity is, wow, this can take a strained relationship. If we learn how to honor each other's dignity in those 10 ways that I just described to the 10 elements, then even a really tough relationship can flourish if we treat each other this way. And so I just was really impressed with their curiosity. I guess that would be another word, their curiosity. Well, how did you do this? How did you do that? 

And at the end, we did a little cert questionnaire about, well, how good are you at doing? Because I have the 10 elements. And then I ask them, well, how good are you at honoring each individual one. Do you treat people fairly? Do you honor their identity no matter their race, religion, et cetera? And a lot of 'em, they were kind of joking, saying, well, it depends on who I'm doing this with. If I'm with my wife or my husband, then I might be not so good at it, or they probably would say, I'm terrible at this. But it's so true. We treat people differently depending on what our relationship with them is. So we might be better at treating our coworkers with dignity than we are when we go home with our families and our friends. So yeah, like my husband always says, I can't believe you're talking about dignity because you know how to violate it. And I said, sure, I am. And I'm in recovery. I'm telling you, I've got an organization in Boston called Dignity Violators Anonymous, and you can all come and join us. But it's hard. It's hard to do this. And I'm the first to admit that I've slipped up, even though I have this aspiration to treat everybody this way. I slip up, I do, and I have to go back to the person and say, hey, look, I had a bad day. I'm sorry. I should have never said that to you, and I'm going to try my best not to do that again. And so people usually, once they get an apology that's genuine, that feels genuine, usually you can resurrect the relationship. But no, it's tough. It's tough, but it's absolutely essential if we're going to evolve as a human species, because I mean, the world is in a pretty desperate place right now, and we need human connections more than ever, and really solid connections. 

Brent: When you were talking earlier about how you had said to Bob, that was it that you said that Barry-Wehmiller has this dignity-preserving culture? 

Donna: Yeah 

Brent: So in the things that you had learned about Barry-Wehmiller, what made you say that or think that? 

Donna: Well, I read the book. I read the book, Everybody Matters. When I was writing my second book, the Leading with Dignity book, part of my research was every week I'd go to the bookstore and look what was new stuff coming out. And when I went to the Harvard Book Store, there was this book that, and the title of it was Everybody Matters. And I thought, whoa, this is amazing. So I read the book. It didn't take me but the afternoon to read it because I was like this a page-turner. And Raj Sisodia also was the co-author of that. And I read it, and I said, yeah, they're dignity leaders there. They're doing it. As I said, they may not be calling it Leading with Dignity, but in my book I said, they are because they are treating their people with dignity. So that's how that relationship with Bob got started, that he was thrilled that I called him a dignity leader, that he was doing dignity work. And then we've been friends ever since.