John Blomster: Hello, and welcome to Discovery an all new podcast presented by the University of Washington School of Law. I'm your host, John Blomster, and today we're speaking with Dr. Rhea Settles. She is an expert in conflict resolution and founder of The Civility Zone, a transformative agency focusing on civility, engagement, education. And she's here today speaking with us about civility-based conduct programs in the workplace.
Rhea, thank you so much for joining us.
Rhea Settles: Thank you, I'm very grateful to be here, John.
Blomster: Can you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to found The Civility Zone and the work that you're doing that?
Settles: Great, thank you. So my experience with being with the three lens perspective in schooling systems, both college and schools K through 12 schools, and what I noticed as a student, both K through 12, and all through college and graduate school, even doctoral program, as a student, I noticed a reoccurring theme. And then as an employee working in schools, K through 12, and as a teacher and a school leader and then also at the post-secondary level, I noticed the same thing. And then I noticed also just in our daily interactions, that adversarial competing and divisive conflict arose from the fact that we did not know how to share resources, share space, and engage with each other without causing harm. And in doing research, I first started off, really focusing on workplace bullying, but then I thought it had to be a beginning origin, it just doesn't start with bullying. And the more research I did, then I discovered the word civility, and created a definition out of experiences and the traditional word of the meaning of civility, to help guide this work that first in all of those spaces that we need to learn how to share space, share resources, and engage with each other without causing harm.
Blomster: So you work with a wide range of clients from individual levels, organizations, companies, what's more challenging? Where do you, where do you find the?
Settles: So when I think about it is what's challenging is when maybe an individual approaches me and wants to, for me to work with them, is one, if they're not willful. And they're believing that the reason I'm coming in is to help them either win, or to help them be right. And it's the same with organizations, and particularly with organizations or employers, if they approached me about working with them, but they're saying only one group of employees that they want to focus on. And they won't don't want to look comprehensively at the entire organization and do a culture shift. And they're not willful about that, that's when it becomes challenging. But often what I do is I pull back, and I will not provide services, because in order for it to be evolutionary and transformative, and really do the work that it's designed to do, people have to be willful, they have to be willful to accept what might come out of my coaching and guidance.
Blomster: We've all seen challenging, divisive, toxic work environments, what are some telltale signs that you identify when you are coming into a workplace, that maybe this is not the most nurturing environment.
Settles: There's a couple of, many factors and many considerations, but one is, the language folks use in the workplace. And so one is, if I hear employees referring to other employees as a possession. So for example, if I hear “my secretary,” “my manager,” “my team,” that tells me that the person possibly, either consciously or unconsciously, really believe that these people are their possession. But the tricky part in that is, you're talking about another fellow employee who may not have the same position you have, but they're all employees. And so as humans, what I've discovered is, we cannot use the possessive language without thinking in terms of I have dominion over you, and I can subjugate and subordinate you. So if I hear that language, then I know that they need some guidance and help. And then there's some other tools and strategies that I use to begin to determine is it conscious or unconscious, but that's really across the board is the language and how people use that language in that space to engage and refer to each other.
Blomster: Speaking about unconscious behaviors, what are some other unconscious behaviors that we as employees may not even realize that we're doing and could be causing harm to our to our colleagues and not even know it?
Settles: That is an excellent question. And that's one of the considerations that I also look for. And one is referring to someone who may be in a leadership role as the employer, and you hear this in labor relations all the time. So you have the HR lead, you have maybe the manager, or in cases of schools, the school principal, you may have the school superintendent or assistant superintendent, but you have these people in leadership roles. And then other employees refer to these people as the employer, especially in negotiations. But really, what you have are groups of people who are all employees, you just have decision making employees, and then you have just employee, okay? And the decision making employees have the privilege of being able to make decisions about other employees, but it's not reciprocal, other employees cannot make decisions about decision making employees. Hence, this whole adversarial conflict, and divisive conflict, and competing conflict, generates and permeates throughout the workplace.
Blomster: One would imagine, in a collaborative environment, working with other employees, you know, you're all working towards the same goal. So you would think we would all be supportive of one another. But how big of an issue is employee on employee mistreatment and the effects that it can have on other individuals?
Settles: Absolutely. So in my work and research, I have three oppressive elements that are embedded in workplace culture. And the three are rankism, which is a term coined by Robert Fuller.
And rankism means that the system the workplace systems, and the structures are created in such a way that it means that a person's rank, or position, gives the impression that they are better than the people with a different rank or a less valued rank. And because of that, that person has a license to subjugate and subordinate, the other employee. So rankism.
The second one is otherism, which means that I really only value those people who belong to my group.
And what that does is, then the person begins to devalue a person within the workplace.
The third one is, which is the one that when I was trying to craft it, and think about it, I said, “This is it.”
It's affinitism, which is, I really promote and give access and opportunity and resources to those employees I like. The employees that I do not like are the ones that I'm not going to give those opportunities to. And the tricky part of all three of them being embedded in workplace culture—rankism, otherism, affinitism—is it's all deriving from the human mind. And you can't legislate, you can't collective bargain, there's no way to transform the human mind, unless someone's willful about transforming that. So it's pervasive, because those elements, what would that look like to go and grieve because someone doesn't like you?
Blomster: I feel that, yeah, at some point, we all have an experience with that, how do you go about making someone willful or fostering them into an environment where they can be more willful and start to break down those barriers when you're working with different clients and companies?
Settles:I love the word “foster.” And whenever the first intake or meeting that I take with someone, it's really critically important that I let them know. I'm going to coach you with a methodology that I created. So I know all the elements of it, I know how it works, but you have to be willful. That's first and foremost, you must be willing to openly receive what I'm about to share with you and guiding you. Because what's going to happen if you don't, you're going to go back to your loyalties, which you're more loyal to making decisions based upon your affinities. So after the wheel is there, then the method that I have developed is called mindful civility. And it's really about teaching people to be intentional about how they engage in the workplace in a willful way. And so I have five elements of mindful civility.
And number one is knowing and monitoring your biases, assumptions, and privilege. And what I'm working with groups of people, everyone's going to have a different element that they need to work on. And sometimes it's all five.
The second element is knowing and monitoring your motives. What is the reason that you are saying and doing and writing and making the decisions that you're making in the workplace?
The third one is knowing and staying in your lane.
Blomster: That's a good one.
Settles: That's a really good one. Because, oftentimes in workplaces what I have noticed is
someones lane is not very interesting to them, but somebody else’s lane is. And so they find themselves going over without signaling the other person, and they are they are in your lane, and they've left their lane unattended, but now they're in your lane, and they're causing all kinds of crashes and chaos.
The fourth one is one that I really came up with from family relationships and my oldest sister laughs because it derived from that. So we're having a family gathering and maybe I leave to the store, when I come back someone at the family gathering: “Oh, so you went to the store, and you bought some bread.” And so we always say, “Uh, not your story to tell, do not tell other people's stories.” So the fourth one is to not tell other people story. And so that so that there's not gossiping, and people creating narratives in the workplace about other people when we're applying it to workplaces.
And the fifth one, which is really important, is preserve dignity in the workplace. Be very mindful of that. And really, all five of these elements are for the areas that we frequent the most, which are schools, and colleges, and workplaces, and then just our living spaces. And so they are applicable to all of those. But in this case, this is how I work with and coach folks in the workplace.
Blomster: What is a practical action that we can take back to our offices and our desks and start practicing today, right now?
Settles: So the first one is the definition of civility that I wrote from just the years of work that and data collecting about what civility is, and its first and foremost, civility is: being mindful of what you do, say, write, and make decisions to cause no harm. So that's the first presentation that anyone should bring to the workplace and let allow people to sit with that, and see if they're willful about learning about what that is, what it looks like in their workplace in their own actions, and then moving forward with that. So it’s first starting with that definition.
Blomster: And finally, the legal profession in particular has a reputation as being very fast-paced, cutthroat—whether that's warranted or not. So why is it important for young and emerging lawyers to think about their actions and think about the profession through this positive, conduct-oriented lens and really develop the skills that you help people develop with your work?
Settles: Great question. So I believe formal, legal education, more traditionally trains people, and educates people to have a mindset of adversary. Win. Lose. Win. Lose. So with that, if you're going to have the mindset of adversary, what that means is, you're going to always have casualties on both sides. Always. Whether you get the W. Definitely, if you get the L. So you're going to have wins.
And so an uncle of mine always said this, which I think is really, so you have a skunk. And you get in a fight with the skunk. And you're going back and forth with the skunk and you're fighting with the skunk. The skunk is skunking you and you’re skunking the skunk. And you’re skunking the skunk. Skunking the skunk. And then after a while you say, “Whew! I won.” But you just out skunked a skunk. So how do you smell?
Blomster: Not great (laughter).
Settles: Not great (laughter).
Blomster: Doctor Rhea Settles is an expert in conflict resolution and founder of The Civility Zone. You can learn more about her work at the civility zone dot com. Rhea, thank you again, so much for being here with us on Discovery.
Settles: Thank you. I'm grateful.