Strengthen relationships, transform teams, shape the future for mutual success.
Giving Voice to Your Personal Identity -
How developing your identity increases your Conversational Intelligence®.
|
Look up the word "identity" in a dictionary and you'll find definitions which reference such things such as a person's beliefs, life-facts, personality, etc. Identity is something that can be uncovered. There is power in this sort of excavation.
In this podcast, we discuss the topic of identity in terms of the words we use. Words which might support individuals and businesses to better understand who they are and what they stand for. "Words," as Judith E. Glaser writes, are not just things. Words are representations and symbols we use to view, think about and process our perceptions of reality. Words are used as a means to share our own reality with others. In this episode you will hear more about how words can support you to anchor into a deeper sense of your own identity as well as learn more about:
Be sure to look at the show notes above for a free online course that will support your own "identity" quest, as well as a copy of Judith's work with the Talking Typewriter at Drexel University. |
|Episode Transcript|
Judith (00:01):
Here’s the bigger story, the core reason why Conversational Intelligence® is so powerful. There are few educational experiences, and few parents who know that if you start with building character, building identity, helping kids know who they are, not shoving things from the past, from all of the experiences. It's really the reason why this work is so different.
Lyn (00:21):
One fine morning in September, September 1982, I picked up my fussing little two-month-old son from his bassinet. And I carried him to a comfortable arm chair, so that I could listen to the morning news while I fed him. I remember this date in time explicitly, because the tragic news of the death of a 12-year-old girl, Mary Kellerman, hit home for me. Here I am, a new mother, holding a brand new child that I had great hope in, hope that he would grow beyond 12 years old, hope that he would continue to grow well into adulthood. And this particular death hit me as a mother, and it also hit me because . . . well, the suspected cause of death was sitting on a shelf in my very own medicine cabinet.
At that very moment in time, Johnson & Johnson’s most profitable product was Tylenol. And Tylenol was the suspect in the death of Mary and six other people in the Chicago area.
Johnson & Johnson was reported to owning about 37% of the market at that time, and Tylenol was one of the leading products that they owned. Later, It would be discovered that Tylenol was not the culprit; that indeed someone had tampered with several bottles and placed cyanide in them.
But before the tampering was discovered, Johnson & Johnson needed to decide what they would do; how would they respond. This was a complex situation. On one hand, they could do damage control from a P.R. standpoint. Meaning, they could do what ever they needed to do to spin the story in this unraveling situation with a message that would be designed to keep shareholders from dumping their stocks. Because, if the shareholders dumped the stocks, Johnson & Johnson’s stock would plummet. On the other hand, they were considering their first priority being a full-swing effort to console and compensate the families of the victims and responsibly pull Tylenol from every store shelf upon which it sat, and then turn around and request that all of us with a bottle do the same thing.
What to do? What would you do with millions of dollars at stake? Would you see the importance of saving a life or the importance of saving millions of dollars?
Fortunately for Johnson & Johnson, back in 1943 the chairman, Robert Wood Johnson, had written a credo, a statement that literally was carved in stone and still hanging around in the headquarters.
It said customers come first, shareholders are last. As a result, Tylenol was recalled, which probably cost Johnson & Johnson at least 100 million dollars. But as time has played out, there is a clear sense of self from Johnson & Johnson. We look back and see they made the mature decision, and this played a huge part in their ability to exist beyond this tragic experience. In the moment, they found words that translated direction and reminded this company what their deep identity truly was. They were a company that put the customer first, before the stock-market.
Standing today, looking at that event, we as a human race can discover that this is the epic moment that moved us all into the era where tamper-proofing or tamper resistant packaging became a must.
What Johnson & Johnson discovered is a lesson for all of us—that we can find our deep identity, and that there is power in uncovering it, to knowing what our core values and beliefs are, to anchoring into those beliefs with behaviors that provide much needed wisdom in a time that could be debilitating and that is definitely a time of uncertainty and high risk.
Lyn (04:30):
Hi there! I’m Lyn Christian and you are listening to What’s Your Conversational Intelligence®, a podcast where we recognize that words can create a world or reality that we attach to the the things we experience in our physiology. The 6 words Johnson & Johnson reflected on to make their grueling decision are similar to the words you might need to lean into during times of critical decision points. With Conversational Intelligence® as our tool, we know that words are not things. They are the representations and symbols we use to view, think about and process our perceptions of reality. Words are also a means by which we share this reality with others, that help us support ourselves to have confidence when everything else seems dark and uncertain.
On this podcast, we illuminate this fact, that words can create a world or reality, as reflected so well by Judith E. Glaser, the organizational anthropologist who has opened up the world of neuroscience with her work known as Conversational Intelligence®.
Let’s pull up a chair with Judith and discuss the topic of identity and how words play a role in uncovering identity:
Judith (05:51):
Oh my goodness, you picked the core reason why Conversational Intelligence® is so powerful. Because here's the bigger story—As we grow, we are born, we have parents, our parents teach us. They teach us language; they teach us how to do all sorts of things. Then we go to school, they teach us. So much of the teaching from parents is what they believe is good and right, from their experience, from their life experiences. Then you go to school and you have teachers who teach you knowledge. They store all sorts of things and ideas that you're going to be able to use in your life. But there are few educational experiences, and few parents who know that if you start with building character, building identity, helping kids know who they are. Not shoving things into them from the past from all of the experiences that you've had and everybody else has had. But instead you pull who they are, what they believe in.
It's really the reason why this work is so different. So, when I was a graduate, in one of my fellowships, I worked in a program where we had kids who were 3 to 6. And they were in all different economic levels. So, we had high income, and very low income, black kids, white kids. And we were funded for this research. And the research was to look at: Is it possible to elevate their IQ? (Now, nobody has ever believed that that was possible!) Is there a different way to teach children so that they grow into healthier smarter human beings? It was all these questions that are behind identity, that you're talking about, right? And so, what we did is we designed a program where instead of giving them Dick and Jane books, which are about other children, we asked them to create their own books, pulled from their pictures. We said, what is that story about that you love so much? “Well, it's about this little girl, and she used to go to school, but she fell down and she broke her leg.” Whatever the story is. And we’d say here’s some paper, here’s some colors. Why don't you draw a picture of what you see in your mind? So now we have her movie. We have her story, which we record. And the computer program, the typewriter, had five levels that we could program. It was designed especially for us, by GE. We programmed it so it started out like a regular typewriter, or a computer. Then it was [programed] so that every time you pushed a letter, it said the name of the letter, so she could learn the letters. And then it started to program little words, so she could learn small words, and then bigger words. But they were her story! We never had to force kids to go into the Talking Typewriter. They all raised their hand. There were lines of kids waiting, because it was so much fun. Imagine! They created a book out of their story. And they learned to read on their own book, in their own story. And their character development was extraordinary. It said to them: You are so smart! You have something to contribute! All the things that they communicated built identity. And we did something nobody ever did before. We tested their IQ afterwards to see what happened. And every child had an increase of 15 points!
Lyn (09:04):
Oh, my goodness!
Judith (09:06):
Nobody had ever studied that!
Lyn (09:07):
Right!
Judith(09:08):
Right! We said IQ is set, right?
Lyn (09:10):
Yes!
Judith (09:11):
Done at the beginning of birth, never changes. And so these kids went on. We have 10 years of research following them in school with anecdotal stories (you can still find it on the web) talking about how mature these kids are, how confident, how much character they have, how they have an identity, how they are comfortable with who they are. Imagine what we have been missing by feeling and thinking that education is taking everything from history and shoving it into our brains so we're going to know how to handle situations. The world is changing rapidly. We have technology! All that old history is getting in the way of developing more of this beautiful identity.
Lyn (09:51):
Judith, I remember you sharing a story with me of how you grew up in a geeky family at a time when geeky was anything but cool. And because of this you mentioned that you put on some armor. You actually hid from yourself, maybe even from the people around you. I would love for you to talk about that story where your identity was brought forward by a poetry professor.
Judith (10:18):
So yes, I grew up in a geeky family. My father and his brothers were all scientists, and their children were, and they went to MIT, and that kind of thing. So, I was very comfortable in that world. But it's not an accepted world if people want to put you in the “in” crowd. It's just not the “in” crowd, right? And so, I used to dress, I’d go out and make clothes so that I could put an armor around me. And I’d buy beautiful clothes, you know, and look like I just matched everything . . . my pocketbook and my eyes, or whatever. And I remember I had a professor, Llewellyn. He would spell his name all the time: L–l–e–w–e–l–l–y–n is my name, right. Llewellyn. And one day in poetry class, I gave an answer to something. That blew him away, because he always saw me as this girl that dressed beautifully and really didn't have the inside depth, right. And so he said, “I need you to stay after class”. And I thought, “Oh my God, what did I do this time?” And he said to me, he said, “This is the first time I heard your real voice.” (I get chills thinking about it.) He said, “I would have never known that someone who thinks as beautifully as you do was sitting in that chair and never expressed it before. I want to give you the freedom to do that.” He said, “That part of you is magnificent and needs to grow and grow. And you need to find a way to bring your voice into the world, because I've never heard anybody interpret poetry the way you did. And for you not to speak up . . . I need to change in order to create the space for you. Then please promise that you share.” So, isn’t that a wonderful thing?
Lyn (11:54):
I agreed, Judith. This is wonderful. Every individual could benefit from having somebody reflect their magnificence back to them as your professor did with you.
We all can become smarter, more confident. We can act with maturity and be more comfortable with who we are, and be more connected with our deeper identity.
Lyn (12:25):
If you’d like to experience, even explore, this topic of identity and the relationship it has with words, I invite you to excavate your plumb line. One of the most important aspects of your character might be your core values. Go to the show notes for this episode and find the link to my Be True online course. And of course, if you haven’t picked up your copy of Judith’s book, Conversational Intelligence, do that today.
If you’d like to have Judith speak to one of your groups, or work with Judith E. Glaser, visit her website at creatingwe.com. If you’d like to have me, Lyn Christian, speak or work with one of your groups, please visit soulsalt.com. What’s Your Conversational Intelligence® is produced by Benchmark Communications, inc., and SoulSalt, Inc. Research and writing for this episode were completed by myself and Judith E. Glaser. Editing and creative direction was performed by Jessica Draper. Logistics and scheduling were handled by Shannon Dee and Anna Polak. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and subscribe to What’s Your Conversational Intelligence®. It can be found on our related website as well as Spotify, iTunes, Google Play and iHeartMedia.
Here’s the bigger story, the core reason why Conversational Intelligence® is so powerful. There are few educational experiences, and few parents who know that if you start with building character, building identity, helping kids know who they are, not shoving things from the past, from all of the experiences. It's really the reason why this work is so different.
Lyn (00:21):
One fine morning in September, September 1982, I picked up my fussing little two-month-old son from his bassinet. And I carried him to a comfortable arm chair, so that I could listen to the morning news while I fed him. I remember this date in time explicitly, because the tragic news of the death of a 12-year-old girl, Mary Kellerman, hit home for me. Here I am, a new mother, holding a brand new child that I had great hope in, hope that he would grow beyond 12 years old, hope that he would continue to grow well into adulthood. And this particular death hit me as a mother, and it also hit me because . . . well, the suspected cause of death was sitting on a shelf in my very own medicine cabinet.
At that very moment in time, Johnson & Johnson’s most profitable product was Tylenol. And Tylenol was the suspect in the death of Mary and six other people in the Chicago area.
Johnson & Johnson was reported to owning about 37% of the market at that time, and Tylenol was one of the leading products that they owned. Later, It would be discovered that Tylenol was not the culprit; that indeed someone had tampered with several bottles and placed cyanide in them.
But before the tampering was discovered, Johnson & Johnson needed to decide what they would do; how would they respond. This was a complex situation. On one hand, they could do damage control from a P.R. standpoint. Meaning, they could do what ever they needed to do to spin the story in this unraveling situation with a message that would be designed to keep shareholders from dumping their stocks. Because, if the shareholders dumped the stocks, Johnson & Johnson’s stock would plummet. On the other hand, they were considering their first priority being a full-swing effort to console and compensate the families of the victims and responsibly pull Tylenol from every store shelf upon which it sat, and then turn around and request that all of us with a bottle do the same thing.
What to do? What would you do with millions of dollars at stake? Would you see the importance of saving a life or the importance of saving millions of dollars?
Fortunately for Johnson & Johnson, back in 1943 the chairman, Robert Wood Johnson, had written a credo, a statement that literally was carved in stone and still hanging around in the headquarters.
It said customers come first, shareholders are last. As a result, Tylenol was recalled, which probably cost Johnson & Johnson at least 100 million dollars. But as time has played out, there is a clear sense of self from Johnson & Johnson. We look back and see they made the mature decision, and this played a huge part in their ability to exist beyond this tragic experience. In the moment, they found words that translated direction and reminded this company what their deep identity truly was. They were a company that put the customer first, before the stock-market.
Standing today, looking at that event, we as a human race can discover that this is the epic moment that moved us all into the era where tamper-proofing or tamper resistant packaging became a must.
What Johnson & Johnson discovered is a lesson for all of us—that we can find our deep identity, and that there is power in uncovering it, to knowing what our core values and beliefs are, to anchoring into those beliefs with behaviors that provide much needed wisdom in a time that could be debilitating and that is definitely a time of uncertainty and high risk.
Lyn (04:30):
Hi there! I’m Lyn Christian and you are listening to What’s Your Conversational Intelligence®, a podcast where we recognize that words can create a world or reality that we attach to the the things we experience in our physiology. The 6 words Johnson & Johnson reflected on to make their grueling decision are similar to the words you might need to lean into during times of critical decision points. With Conversational Intelligence® as our tool, we know that words are not things. They are the representations and symbols we use to view, think about and process our perceptions of reality. Words are also a means by which we share this reality with others, that help us support ourselves to have confidence when everything else seems dark and uncertain.
On this podcast, we illuminate this fact, that words can create a world or reality, as reflected so well by Judith E. Glaser, the organizational anthropologist who has opened up the world of neuroscience with her work known as Conversational Intelligence®.
Let’s pull up a chair with Judith and discuss the topic of identity and how words play a role in uncovering identity:
Judith (05:51):
Oh my goodness, you picked the core reason why Conversational Intelligence® is so powerful. Because here's the bigger story—As we grow, we are born, we have parents, our parents teach us. They teach us language; they teach us how to do all sorts of things. Then we go to school, they teach us. So much of the teaching from parents is what they believe is good and right, from their experience, from their life experiences. Then you go to school and you have teachers who teach you knowledge. They store all sorts of things and ideas that you're going to be able to use in your life. But there are few educational experiences, and few parents who know that if you start with building character, building identity, helping kids know who they are. Not shoving things into them from the past from all of the experiences that you've had and everybody else has had. But instead you pull who they are, what they believe in.
It's really the reason why this work is so different. So, when I was a graduate, in one of my fellowships, I worked in a program where we had kids who were 3 to 6. And they were in all different economic levels. So, we had high income, and very low income, black kids, white kids. And we were funded for this research. And the research was to look at: Is it possible to elevate their IQ? (Now, nobody has ever believed that that was possible!) Is there a different way to teach children so that they grow into healthier smarter human beings? It was all these questions that are behind identity, that you're talking about, right? And so, what we did is we designed a program where instead of giving them Dick and Jane books, which are about other children, we asked them to create their own books, pulled from their pictures. We said, what is that story about that you love so much? “Well, it's about this little girl, and she used to go to school, but she fell down and she broke her leg.” Whatever the story is. And we’d say here’s some paper, here’s some colors. Why don't you draw a picture of what you see in your mind? So now we have her movie. We have her story, which we record. And the computer program, the typewriter, had five levels that we could program. It was designed especially for us, by GE. We programmed it so it started out like a regular typewriter, or a computer. Then it was [programed] so that every time you pushed a letter, it said the name of the letter, so she could learn the letters. And then it started to program little words, so she could learn small words, and then bigger words. But they were her story! We never had to force kids to go into the Talking Typewriter. They all raised their hand. There were lines of kids waiting, because it was so much fun. Imagine! They created a book out of their story. And they learned to read on their own book, in their own story. And their character development was extraordinary. It said to them: You are so smart! You have something to contribute! All the things that they communicated built identity. And we did something nobody ever did before. We tested their IQ afterwards to see what happened. And every child had an increase of 15 points!
Lyn (09:04):
Oh, my goodness!
Judith (09:06):
Nobody had ever studied that!
Lyn (09:07):
Right!
Judith(09:08):
Right! We said IQ is set, right?
Lyn (09:10):
Yes!
Judith (09:11):
Done at the beginning of birth, never changes. And so these kids went on. We have 10 years of research following them in school with anecdotal stories (you can still find it on the web) talking about how mature these kids are, how confident, how much character they have, how they have an identity, how they are comfortable with who they are. Imagine what we have been missing by feeling and thinking that education is taking everything from history and shoving it into our brains so we're going to know how to handle situations. The world is changing rapidly. We have technology! All that old history is getting in the way of developing more of this beautiful identity.
Lyn (09:51):
Judith, I remember you sharing a story with me of how you grew up in a geeky family at a time when geeky was anything but cool. And because of this you mentioned that you put on some armor. You actually hid from yourself, maybe even from the people around you. I would love for you to talk about that story where your identity was brought forward by a poetry professor.
Judith (10:18):
So yes, I grew up in a geeky family. My father and his brothers were all scientists, and their children were, and they went to MIT, and that kind of thing. So, I was very comfortable in that world. But it's not an accepted world if people want to put you in the “in” crowd. It's just not the “in” crowd, right? And so, I used to dress, I’d go out and make clothes so that I could put an armor around me. And I’d buy beautiful clothes, you know, and look like I just matched everything . . . my pocketbook and my eyes, or whatever. And I remember I had a professor, Llewellyn. He would spell his name all the time: L–l–e–w–e–l–l–y–n is my name, right. Llewellyn. And one day in poetry class, I gave an answer to something. That blew him away, because he always saw me as this girl that dressed beautifully and really didn't have the inside depth, right. And so he said, “I need you to stay after class”. And I thought, “Oh my God, what did I do this time?” And he said to me, he said, “This is the first time I heard your real voice.” (I get chills thinking about it.) He said, “I would have never known that someone who thinks as beautifully as you do was sitting in that chair and never expressed it before. I want to give you the freedom to do that.” He said, “That part of you is magnificent and needs to grow and grow. And you need to find a way to bring your voice into the world, because I've never heard anybody interpret poetry the way you did. And for you not to speak up . . . I need to change in order to create the space for you. Then please promise that you share.” So, isn’t that a wonderful thing?
Lyn (11:54):
I agreed, Judith. This is wonderful. Every individual could benefit from having somebody reflect their magnificence back to them as your professor did with you.
We all can become smarter, more confident. We can act with maturity and be more comfortable with who we are, and be more connected with our deeper identity.
Lyn (12:25):
If you’d like to experience, even explore, this topic of identity and the relationship it has with words, I invite you to excavate your plumb line. One of the most important aspects of your character might be your core values. Go to the show notes for this episode and find the link to my Be True online course. And of course, if you haven’t picked up your copy of Judith’s book, Conversational Intelligence, do that today.
If you’d like to have Judith speak to one of your groups, or work with Judith E. Glaser, visit her website at creatingwe.com. If you’d like to have me, Lyn Christian, speak or work with one of your groups, please visit soulsalt.com. What’s Your Conversational Intelligence® is produced by Benchmark Communications, inc., and SoulSalt, Inc. Research and writing for this episode were completed by myself and Judith E. Glaser. Editing and creative direction was performed by Jessica Draper. Logistics and scheduling were handled by Shannon Dee and Anna Polak. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and subscribe to What’s Your Conversational Intelligence®. It can be found on our related website as well as Spotify, iTunes, Google Play and iHeartMedia.