Good, good. So, hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn. I'm your host, Claire Pedrick, and today I'm in conversation with Elaine Lynn Herring. So I was on LinkedIn ages ago and I was really thinking about silence. And I saw somebody write a comment about Elaine's book, Unlearning Silence. And straight away, I just went, will you come on the podcast? And Elaine, you said yes. And I'm so delighted. And I had a whole week of sewing with your audio book.
So you've vicariously made a footstool cover and some curtains. it's my first footstool cover. So I hope you appreciate that. You were very good company, thank you very much. So silence is one of the most important things in coaching, but also we're talking, aren't we, a lot to people about finding their voice. So absolutely fantastic book, Shamelessly Plug. And I can see you've got your shamelessly plugging copy behind you. Elaine, welcome to The Coaching Inn. you for having me, Claire.
if it's possible without rewriting the entire book. Can you just give us a sense of the journey that got you to writing it? I love any question that comes with those caveats. The short version is I spent, I'm trained as a lawyer, fell into leadership development, never intended to coach people, found myself doing it. And I was teaching concepts that my colleagues at the Harvard Negotiation Project had created, difficult conversations, getting to yes, how to discuss what matters most.
And I found, while I found those tools and frameworks valuable, I also started to see, we introduce them to a lot of people, we teach them, we coach to them, and some people still don't negotiate. Some people still don't have the difficult conversations, no matter how much their manager, HR, their spouse, their coach tells them they should, what gives? And that question, what gives, is what led me to focusing, researching, and then writing on silence.
Because the advice I got and that I turned around and gave others was, If you're not getting heard, it must be that you need to be more direct. You need to be more assertive. You need to be less assertive, know, fit into the box. And that was wholly unsatisfying. And so I looked at, why, why is it that we don't speak up? We don't negotiate. What's the root cause? And that led me to silence.
In what ways have we learned silence from the time that we were born and raised, family of origin, all of that, the way our education systems are structured, the ways that our teams and our managers treat us right now. So in what ways have we learned and benefited from silence? And I know we can unpack that. And in what ways do the people, even the well-intentioned leaders around us continue to silence us? So to me, the question became, what is my relationship with silence.
What role does silence play in my life and in my leadership? And if I can better understand that, if I am aware that silence is learned, then I can unlearn it. I can negotiate a new relationship with silence, a new relationship with the habits, unconscious habits that otherwise may have calcified in my life, both from how I show up and how others treat me, and I can make intentional choices going forward. And as a coach, how do I help someone else do that?
Which starts with what is my own relationship? What are my own assumptions? What are my own habits and patterns? What might I be doing in this coaching relationship that silences them, even if I don't intend? That's how we got here. Wow. Want the shorter version or the longer version? In a minute, I'm going to ask you a bit about your human journey, because that's your professional journey.
The thing that struck me as I was reading the book, well, listening to the book, and the thing that struck me as you were talking then is there's a huge amount in this about having been othered and being othered and othering, I think, isn't there? Absolutely. I mean, there are expectations placed on each of us, whatever different identities we hold, whatever different roles we play in a family, family system, in a workplace, in society. And often I say this as an Asian American woman, right?
Those identities mean that I am expected to stay silent, that I am a good woman. good Asian American if I just shut up and perform. Maybe that's a teaser to my personal journey. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I'm the youngest daughter of an immigrant family from Taiwan to the United States. I grew up in the Christian church. I share all of that because as the youngest daughter, I was expected to be docile, expected to smile, right? This is children should be seen and not heard.
And also in that paradigm, boys or men are more important and more valued than girls and women. And a lot of the Christian church says, be the bigger person, turn the other cheek. And I think that gets spun out of its original intent and weaponized in a way that really does not value each of us as humans. So my own journey was those habits actually served me really well. You know, work hard, put your head down. You're the person that everyone wants on your team.
It led me to Harvard Law School as a student and then as a member of the faculty. It made me the person that people wanted on the team because I didn't have any needs. I wasn't demanding. I was in support of other people's priorities, doing the work and letting them take credit for it. And what was lost in that was a sense of self. a sense of what do I care about, what do I need?
I mean, it's only sustainable for so long in a relationship, professional or personal, if silence is what's required of you in order to stay in the relationship. Mm-hmm. And so I had a moment where I thought. First, if voice looks like being assertive or in ways that other people would then say I'm combative, right? I can't fit into the stereotypes, assumptions, expectations that you have of me. If I don't look like the white male figurehead of the CEO of the company, then do I not have a voice?
And that really struck me off, but we're all wired differently. So of course our voices would look and sound different. And by voice, I don't just mean the words you say in a meeting or don't say in a meeting. Voice is how you move through the world. We're all gifted in different ways. Why would we try to shoehorn ourselves into one narrow mode of showing up in the workplace or in the world? And I looked at my life and thought, I've really benefited from staying silent.
because it made me easy to work with. There are times where I can see, that's why they picked me, because someone else was more difficult to work with. Someone else had too many opinions. And I presented as happy to go along with and supportive of the team. I'm not anti-team. I also believe that teams are stronger when the members of the teams, your needs are met or sufficiently met. So that was the personal journey of a, I think we've got this all wrong.
I think mainstream leadership development that says speak up more, just do it, essentially is missing a really big piece of this. And we've got to honestly wrestle with silence because certainly I have learned silence and benefited from it. But the way that my well-intentioned team members, business partners treat me actually also continue to silence me.
not because they intend to, but because to be human is to end up silencing each other if we're not attentive to who they are, what they need, what's working for all of us, and the unspoken expectations we have of each other. Do you know, I'm just reading, having been recommended it by somebody here at the Coach again, I'm just reading Tara Westover's Educated. Have you read that? not. Say more.
So she was brought up in a Mormon family in Idaho and was silenced and was not educated and ended up, in fact, where she is now on the bit I'm listening to, she's now at Harvard, having not had any school education or homeschooled education at all, apart from learning to read. and learning numbers. And there's something huge having listened to that story about, I think I'm feeling very kind of immersed in that story of being silenced as I hear your story.
But I'm really interested that you talk about the payoff of being silent as well as the cost of being silent. It makes sense why we do it. And this is chapter three of the book, which is, I think, what sets it apart from anything else in the market. Chapter three is when silence makes sense. I want to be clear that I'm not anti-silence. We know there's a lot of purpose to it, particularly in coaching. Let them think. Let them have time to think. Don't insert your own thoughts.
And silence also can be strategic. We live in the real world and the real world still has expectations of who we should be, what we should do, not do, that we're constantly navigating. We all only have, I mean, people often say we only have 24 hours in a day. Each of us has limited bandwidth. So there is really a sense of picking your battles, right? So often using your voice is translated into you've got to say something otherwise you're the problem.
versus the agency, my voice is my agency to choose which battles I'm going to fight, what I'm going to take on. And for me, this is also deeply personal of it is easy for other people. I mean, we all sort of backseat drive and say, you should be doing this, you should be doing that, but only the individual knows what they're carrying. What demons they're fighting, whether they slept last night, what loss they're grieving, what... what weight they're carrying.
And as a result, what's left in terms of bandwidth to interact with all of the different stakeholders in your life at home, at work, whenever you step out of the door. And so to me, silence can be strategic, it can be additive. I unpack that it's a key element of self care and self preservation, at times survival.
And so I don't want to discount the value of that chosen silence, but the difference is agency, that you're choosing it rather than it, you are defaulting to it, or it is the only choice in order to stay in the relationship or the workplace. agency versus feeling being experiencing being othered. Yeah, yeah, and othered, part of being othered is not having an identity of your own, right? You're here to do someone else's bidding.
You're here to play a role in support of them versus you are a thinking, feeling, human being worthy of love and respect, not because of what you can do, but just because you are. So in this journey, what's changed for you? Mmm, I discovered I had a voice. you know, the meta of it is all a little too much. to fully parse. But it really was a process of my finding that I had thoughts and insights of my own that might actually be valuable to the world.
And it was very much in the ethos of the Harvard negotiation program of, OK, how do we continue to add? How do we continue to learn? How do we continue to get better? What's missing? And let's add to that. And to me, the discussion around silence both for each of us and how we silence each other was missing from that canon of really rich material around communication and conflict management.
But it wasn't until I signed off the final draft of the book, when I read it as a book, that I thought, I guess that's what my voice sounds like. It is backed up by research because it needs to be given the identities I hold. It is conversational. It is personal and professional. It also talks about Queer Eye and cites the Golden State Warriors in sort of a, what people have told me is a relatable tone.
But I didn't know that was my voice in terms of how I sound, much less the values until I did it because I spent so much time in my career trying to imitate someone else. You have these models of what good coaching is, of what being a good professional is. They're tried and true approaches that have worked for someone else. And it can be easy to think, well, I just need to imitate them. But what do you lose in that?
You lose your own insight, the things that you could add, the things that only you can be you, right? So you lose that. So it's really been a journey of self-discovery and a voice and a renewed commitment to what was theoretical, right? I always believed that everyone had a voice and had things to offer in this world. And to not hold a double standard to that, but to really experience that for myself has been a really profound change. finding that you have a voice and then finding what it is.
And then choosing to use it. and then choosing to read your book on Audible. so that you can keep me company while I'm sewing. is the greatest honor of my life to be in people's ears. and hearts and minds. You're the first one that has taken me on a sewing journey. Usually I hear people, and I went for a walk with you in the woods. Or I ran on the treadmill. But there's something about the writeability.
You know, you've written a book that is deep and easily accessible and just naturally... I just felt like you were talking to me. I think I kept talking back to you. My husband was going, what's going on? I've got my headphones on. I it, I love it. I mean, the aim is to be in conversation with one another, right? Sure, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, but it doesn't make me the be all end all.
My hope is that we provoke a conversation around silence and really examine it because understanding and choosing our relationship with silence going forward unlocks a whole new world. So the UK subtitle, is Unlearning Silence, How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Lead with Courage. The US version is the same book inside, but How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully.
There's a whole backseat conversation, behind the scenes conversation about why we landed with both of that. But for me, the unlearning silence is how do you get to live more fully, live more fully into your potential, into who you are, into what only you can bring. And so that's the hope of being in conversation with ourselves and with each other.
really struck right early on in this conversation, you kind of, can't remember if you said or sort of suggested that there was something about accidentally silencing people. And I just think I, that's a phrase that I use and I, you know, when somebody says something similar, you go, yes, like that.
But there's something in that, that I think that all of us and particularly, you know, for coaches, we can accidentally You know, we're all in the business of supporting people to find their voices and we can accidentally silence them. yes. I mean, this is chapter five of the book, How We Silence Each Other. And in it, I parse nine different ways that we end up silencing each other accidentally. Right. And this book is written for well-intentioned leaders.
I think there are some leaders who aren't trying to engage people's voices, who much more command and control do what I say. and we'll just move on. if that's you, you're not the target audience of this book. But if you are someone who cares about the people that you are leading or that you love and want to support them as most coaches do in finding and using their voice, then what are some ways that we unintentionally end up silencing each other?
One that I know coaches work a lot on is changing the subject. So you're saying something, I think I've understood what you've said, so then I take us down a path versus you're thinking, well, well, that's actually not where I was going or what I meant. But as the coachee, I'm thinking, well, you're the coach. There's a deference there. Maybe you're, I'm thinking you're wiser, so let me follow you. And as the coach, then we've missed what the coachee actually intended.
And you could say that that's active listening, but that's a really... subtle moment based on our assumptions of what we think it is rather than checking for the understanding. Another is our assumption of what voice should look and sound like.
you know, my favorite example is in corporate workplaces, it feels like voice needs to come in three succinct bullet points with no ums, just the right amount of emotion to show that you care, but not too much that people don't take you seriously, particularly if you present. as a woman? And is that our expectation? Is that what we coach too? Because, and there's a utility to it, right? Because that's often what's expected and what gets traction in a workplace.
But are we really coaching to and helping someone find their actual voice or helping them present in a way that will get them a certain ROI pretty quickly? And I often have that explicit conversation. with coaches of, you want me to coach to this white male team and what works there? Or do want me to coach you to be you? And to me, again, agency belongs with the coachee, either is okay.
I do want us to be really clear about what we're doing here though, because it's a different series of questions and different course of action for us. based on your agency to choose what matters to you now in the short term and then in the long term. So a nice explicit choice. But we silence each other when we assume there is one particular way that successful people, impactful people, need to show up. So I can't leave the thing you dropped in a few minutes ago on it just to sit there.
What's the story behind the different titles? marketing, marketing, and where we're, mean, I think I was so relieved to hear you say that the book is accessible, because silence can be a deep, dark, heavy topic. You when I speak on it, when I teach workshops, I'm really paying attention to the emotional arc of the individual.
Otherwise, I mean, we, we intersect with trauma, we intersect with childhood, we intersect with your current relationship or your current marriage and people have said you either saved my marriage or you know what I got fired and I'm like but read past page 17 right there are real implications here and so part of the struggle of the book is trying to encapsulate and we're doing this with the German edition right now to capture all the different facets. It is the silence I've learned.
So there's a, do I use my voice? How can I be heard? And I think the book is equally balanced in how do we silence each other? Because there's a joint responsibility there. What I really wanted to avoid was people saying, leaders saying, hey, employee, read this book, go fix yourself. That's only part of... the equation that I can own and I need you, people around me to do the work as well to change your contributions to this relational or systemic, the system.
So it really was a debate of on the US side, live more fully, trying to go more in the self-development personal growth category, being told live more fully feels a little too squishy. let's try to anchor this as a business leadership book, you serious book in the UK. Although the, hence the cover also reflects that the paperback of the UK version has a completely different look and feel because we're also trying to move in a different way.
So this is all, how do you take an idea that to me impacts every aspect of someone's life and distill it down in a book cover? to try to get someone to pick it up and read it. I love courage. say more about why you love courage and then I'll share my thoughts on it. I'm going to send you a copy of my book, by the way, that's got a chapter on courage and a chapter on silence in it.
I love courage because a lot of the things that you're describing are risky behaviours because you're inviting people to stand in a different place in the system and name some things in a beautiful, gentle, lovely way. But that's not easy, is it? It takes a huge amount of courage to say, actually, I choose to be heard and I choose to hear others. Yeah. And choosing to hear others is a huge risk because we don't know what we're going to hear. Mm-hmm. You also don't know what you might learn.
Isn't that a beautiful thing? Mostly, but it might not be. a question. You know, that's, you know, as we've talked, obviously, this journey is so woven for me professionally and personally. So my thoughts on courage reflect that as well. I deferred to the team in choosing to go with lead with courage. I don't. disagree that courage is required. But so often it feels like courage is a replacement for the accountability of each of our contribution. And what I mean by that is...
If you're not getting heard, you know what you need is more courage. Be more courageous. But that absolves me of the responsibility and the liability or the accountability to change the way that I'm contributing to the relational dynamic that then requires you to have courage. If we knew that when we said something, it would be well received, that it would not damage the relationship. then we wouldn't need so much courage. And so my question in provocation is, yes, courage is necessary for life.
And how we each show up for each other fundamentally changes the calculation of whether it makes sense or is worthwhile for me to use my voice. So as I was writing this book, part of writing this book and standing for equitable treatment, meant that my time at my former global leadership development firm ended. And people said, wow, Elaine, that's so courageous of you. It's so much courage. It takes so much courage to speak up, to say the thing.
And I thought, I have never at any point in time felt courageous or felt like I was choosing to exercise or channel my courage. It really was a matter of calculation. Look, I have traveled the world teaching. I have worked with name brand companies. I have taught at Harvard Law School and a bunch of other names that people recognize. I have a skill set that allows me to make a living. I have the privilege of education and insight. How could I not take the stand to do what I think is right?
How could I not take the stand to ask the question, what's missing from most leadership development books? Even if it keeps a marketplace going. This is that there's been a lot of money made off of telling women that they have imposter syndrome versus looking at in what ways has there been imposter treatment. Mm. Unlearning silence is a paradigm shift because it is an invitation for each of us to look at in what ways might I actually be silencing my co-chees?
In what ways might I be silencing the people I lead that I love? And that's deeply uncomfortable. It does take courage to ask those questions, but as a matter of living fully and speaking up, We each have the opportunity to change the calculation for someone else, right? For them to know I will be well-received. I am willing to learn something new. It doesn't threaten me. It doesn't make me question who I am just because you think differently.
And we end up with this beautiful tapestry of different perspectives and insights and the potential that we need to solve the really gnarly problems that we all face. as humans today. That's my soapbox stance on courage. Yes, necessary, but not sufficient. And courage should never be a replacement for how we contribute to someone else's experience of the world. the book writing was a calculation. I love that. I had never written a book.
I'd never written anything longer than a 30 page term paper. And I thought, okay, apparently this is 10 chapters, 10, 30 page term paper strung together that need to talk to each other. Okay, right? One bit at a time and it comes together and the beauty that we don't do this alone, right? So who has done this before? Who knows books? Who can I? How can I build my team? to help bring forth an idea that I think is valuable. Yeah. Our live audience is loving what you're saying.
I know that our audience who listen to this when it goes out will also be loving what you're saying. If anyone in the live audience right now has got any questions, just pop them in the chat. Other ring.
Yeah. I'd just love to talk about that in this space because as you were talking when you were talking about women and being impostered, I was also thinking about people who are neurodivergent, from other, you know, who aren't born in the country they live in, all of those other, those other things. And then of course, the intersections. Yeah, any subordinated identity, right? There's a dominant norm.
And if you're not that norm on any number of factors, then you tend to be othered, left out, more likely to be doubted, having to work uphill. It's an uphill battle just to be accepted, which takes me back to calculation, right? Takes me back to how can we show up? to bring out the fullness of who someone else is or make it safe for them such that they can choose whether to disclose their identity or not, right?
There are the apparent and the non-apparent identities and how we treat each other really changes someone's experience of life. Now there are... policies and practices as well. we talk about those in chapter 10, but fundamentally it is our interactions, right? Even if a policy treats you one way, me as your neighbor or me as your colleague. That is how we experience life. And the connection, the affiliation, that we're in it together, I care about you.
You not in the perfect version that I get of you off social media, or that I get of you, because this is what coworkers are supposed to look and sound like, but you, raw, imperfect, human, brilliant, that I care about you. And how can we do that for each other? So you're describing an invitation to be human. Which should not. It shouldn't be a thing, right? thanks. I was trying to figure out how to... It should not be novel. This, again, has struck me.
Lots, we could have a whole other conversation about how we got to a point where to be human and allow ourselves to be human, allow each other to be human became a novel idea. But here we are, which begs the question, what do we want to do about it? Yeah, and unlearning silences, maybe I don't need to present in the ways that Instagram tells me I should. Maybe I don't need my spouse, my coworkers to present in the very narrow box image of what, you know, whatever label I think they should be.
And then we take all the energy that we spend trying to contort ourselves to fit into those molds into being and doing the things that we care about. That's the world I want to live in. What a beautiful thing. Me too. Yeah, and I think it is not just the world I want to live in, but the world that I think we're both, and so many coaches who are listening, are looking to contribute to and to co-create together.
Yeah, there's a great question here from Chris who says, why do you think people often feel uncomfortable with staying silent to allow others to think or to find their voice? Habit is the first thing that comes to mind. Second is what we were talking about earlier of what does it mean to you if someone else thinks or acts differently than you? meaning some people often will fill the space just because it's uncomfortable. I'm not used to it.
because social norms say that we should have this banter that goes back and forth. And if that's not happening, then there must be something wrong, right? That's an assumption. That's a habit that can be built. Another is if I give airspace to someone else's thought, does it then validate it? What do I then have to do with it? So if I just don't hear it in the first place, then I can at least pretend that it doesn't exist.
But it's a farce because we all know it does exist anyways, and it's just gonna creep up later and bubble up in unexpected and usually unproductive ways. So a big difference there is just because someone says something doesn't mean you have to agree with it. Just because you hear it doesn't mean that it's true. But it does mean that we can address it and engage it rather than have it color everything but in an under the surface way.
And then there's a whole series that's related to habit of what role does silence play in your upbringing, in your life, right? With silence when dad got mad or your uncle did, you know, that really, that is all part of the learned behavior and the habit over time that is deeply uncomfortable. And are we willing and wanting to uncover that for ourselves or do we want to continue to operate out of that habit? More of the autopilot there. So there's something about doing our own work.
Doing your own work doesn't mean you have to do it alone. Right? So doing your own work to unpack with a coach. Because none of us can do this alone. And when we're alone, the voices of, I'm crazy, it's just me. If I were just this or that, then I wouldn't have this issue are much louder than when you have someone or someone's walking with you to clarify what are the things I care about.
right, my values, and from my values, I derive my actions and my behaviors, which then drive the, you know, in corporate speak, the results, but really how life works and that's double loop learning to go back to what do I really believe and value, and from there, we also act from a place of agency. and the I am valued and I value you. And they're not mutually exclusive. There is enough room in this world for both. talked to you all day. Thank you so much. Yeah, definitely.
So the book, everyone, is Unlearning Silence by Elaine Lynn Herring with a varied subtitle depending on where you are in the world. Thank you, Elaine, so very much for coming to the coaching in today. you for having me. It's been a joy. And I do recommend that you listen. If you've loved listening to Elaine talking, then the book is also available on Audible and you can see what you can make sewing or walking or whatever. Please ping me to let me know what you've made and what journey.
mean, footstool cover is a new one and it is the most crafty I've ever been in my life. So thank you, Claire. a pleasure, it's a pleasure. Thank you for coming and thank you everyone for listening. Bye bye.