{"href":"https://api.simplecast.com/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthe-foreseeable-now.simplecast.com%2Fepisodes%2Fthe-power-of-empathy-at-work-8faG1H06","width":444,"version":"1.0","type":"rich","title":"The Power of Staying Present, Listening, and Building Empathy at Work with Katharine Manning","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/656eb7c9-0635-41ed-bbee-e6d836add118/9452b871-103c-4778-bc9a-14d604091b42/49.jpg","thumbnail_height":300,"provider_url":"https://simplecast.com","provider_name":"Simplecast","html":"","height":200,"description":"My guest today is Katharine Manning, an attorney and victim's rights advocate for the past 25 years training and consulting on effective empathy in difficult times, and the author of the acclaimed book \"The Empathetic Workplace: Five Steps to a Compassionate, Calm, and Confident Response to Trauma on the Job\" (HarperCollins Leadership 2021).\n\nIn this timely, grounding and generous conversation, she shares some of her deep insights on the perils of fear-based leadership versus the generative effects of empathy-based leadership. \n\nShe explains how the vulnerability of sharing our difficult stories with others is not necessarily in the content of those stories, but in the need for reciprocity. We need people to bear witness to us, to listen. That’s the L in her powerful LASER Method. And as you’ll hear, that’s not a skill many of us have in our back pocket. We talk about MeToo, the necessity of a response to our story, and what gets in the way of truly seeing and hearing other people in their pain.\n\nAnd when we are listening to people’s stories, she describes the challenge of trying to stay present, to quell our own anxieties, and why it’s so hard to hold off on jumping in with quick fixes and solutions they didn’t ask for and don’t need from us.\n\nWe discuss why it's so important to shift the workplace mindset from trauma denial with an exclusive focus on productivity to trauma literacy and the need for us to be more proactively curious about people as human beings. What does a workplace look, sound and feel like when we trust that people know what they need…when we trust that we can respect those needs enough to trade defensive barriers for good healthy boundaries? \n\nAs a Senior Attorney Advisor for fifteen years, Katharine guided the US Department of Justice through its response to victims in cases ranging from terrorism to large-scale financial fraud to the exploitation of children and domestic violence. \n\nKatharine Manning is a beacon of wisdom and compassion, a voice of grounded empathy and tireless advocacy. She has witnessed how the power of story can help people reclaim voice, restore a sense of safety and dignity, return us to ourselves and each other...and recognize the possibilities for healing and growth that can emerge through empathy.\n\nShe is the founder of a company called Blackbird, DC in Washington - as the Beatles lyric goes… \"take these broken wings and learn to fly…\""}