Joanna: I think women would want men to know like, hey, you bring a gendered presence and perspective into the workplace that you’re not even aware of, and so, stepping back to really listen, stepping back to examine your social patterns is huge.
Narrator: This is the Called to Flourish podcast, where leaders and cultures grow.
Robert: Welcome back to the Called to Flourish podcast, where leaders and cultures grow. Today I am excited to have a first-time guest with us, Joanna Meyer, welcome to the podcast today.
Joanna: It’s great to be here.
Robert: Great to have you. For our listeners, Joanna is the Executive Director of Women, Work, & Calling at the Denver Institute for Faith & Work. She’s also the author of Women, Work, & Calling: Step Into your Place in God’s World. From everything that I’ve gathered, we’re getting to know Joanna. She is just an expert in equipping leaders to recognize how vocation, culture, and theology can shape women’s work, engagement, and contributions in the workplace. This is an important topic that I’m excited to have you on, Joanna. A bit about the Denver Institute for Faith & Work, it equips Christians to live out their calling at work in ways that transform workplaces, communities, and culture, and then your division, Women, Work & Calling, that initiative, Joanna, helps leaders fully engage the gifts and contributions of women in the workplace. This could not be a more important topic. We’re going to jump into some of this, but I want to set the stage here a little bit because our audience and myself and Joanna, we all have our own theological perspective when it comes to women and men and roles and all of that, so what I want to underscore first and foremost here is this is not a conversation debating complementarian versus egalitarian. That is not the conversation. You know I think men and women choose their workplace, they choose the church they attend, and likely they align with the theology of those different organizations that they choose to associate with, so that is not the space that we’re talking from today. Where we’re coming from today is a focus on culture and leadership, in other words, how are women engaged in their workplace and how can we equip leaders to better engage, develop, and ensure that women in the workplace are contributing in a life-giving way to their highest level of contribution and optimizing all of that, and of course, that is the heart behind all of this, and we’ve got Joanna here to hear from her and get her insights in this field of expertise. I want to start the conversation, Joanna, and bring you into this because I feel like perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong questions or focused on the wrong thing. I’ve kind of been looking through a lot of the work that you’ve done. I think regardless of the theological perspective, any good leader would agree that we want a culture where women are engaged, they’re growing, and they’re contributing in a meaningful way to the mission. So with that, what does it look like to create a healthy culture where women feel valued, trusted, and able to contribute well? What – just some of your initial thoughts to this conversation to get us started?
Joanna: Yeah. I think before you even get down to the practicals of how do we do it, you have to ask, what is the undergirding framework Biblically that we think about work? Like at Denver Institute, we are deeply committed to the idea that work is central to the mission of God, that often we treat our spiritual activity like it’s the core expression of our faith, and when you see your whole life as something to be stewarded and you see work as one of the fundamental tools God entrusts to us from the opening pages of Genesis, that it’s a tool that God entrusts to us to steward and develop the earth, suddenly work is a place with deep spiritual import, even if it’s just the substance of the things that we do, and so often I find in faith-based workplaces we have to get those big questions about how work fits into God’s broader purposes out of the way. That changes our motivation and the way that we think about our work. So starting with a powerful foundation Biblically of thinking about the work that you do and the work itself, not just the mission, but the way that you’re managing spreadsheets or the way that you’re doing performance reviews are part of that broader equation of caring for people. That’s part of God’s design for human flourishing. So we start there, but then I would ask, when I think about a healthy workplace for men and women, I would ask - look at the numbers. Are you actually recording and tracking the level of advancement that you see between men and women in the workplace? When you’re looking at your team meetings, is there equal participation? Not even equal, but is there free and balanced participation? I don’t think the goal is necessarily 50/50 as much as thoughtful representation and full engagement is a better way to measure it. What do women say about your organization behind your back would be a big question to ask of like what’s your reputation on the street for how you treat women? I know some amazing faith-based organizations that if you actually listened to women that used to work there, they would tell you a different story. That’s another factor that’s part of it. Is it the kind of place where people are eager to work? I think of a woman on our team at Denver Institute that recently had her second child and we bent over backwards to keep her involved with the organization because she’s such a valuable contributor, and she wanted to be able to come back because the work feels meaningful and it’s also been tailored to be able to support her whole life. So that’s a big question too. How are you supporting the full life of your employees, either a man or a woman? If you have an employee with caretaking responsibilities, that can have a profound effect in the way that they show up on site at work.
Robert: I love that. So, you’re kind of getting into some tactical things that I think are really helpful in leadership, and all of that really does tie into employee engagement, how you’re leading your organization and those things, and you kind of also mentioned, you know, if somebody leaves an organization they might have a different conversation of how they really feel, right. So can I just ask? I would just love to ask a very plain question, okay. Perhaps this is for the male leaders who need to hear but, what do you think women in Christian workplaces wish the male leaders better understood about their experience?
Joanna: Okay. That’s a million-dollar question. I don’t know if anyone’s asked it so. Here are a few thoughts. You had mentioned earlier that workplaces, especially if they’re faith based, may have a unique theology about specific ways that gender plays out, often in church leadership and marriage. I would argue that wherever you fall on that continuum of complementarianism or egalitarianism it relates to specific roles, but outside of that, you see a much greater fullness, an invitation into co-stewardship and the full engagement of people’s gifts, and so, it’s helpful to understand what are some of the subtle cultural factors that play into the workplace and how you show up as a man or a woman because women would say, this guy may say that he’s fully committed to my development but the way that he moves in the world, how he thinks, how he acts, how he socializes, communicates something very different. I have men in my life who are self-acknowledged feminists and yet they have behaviors that actually are not helpful, that are heavy handed masculine in how they interact, and so I think women would want men to know like, hey, you bring a gendered presence and perspective into the workplace that you’re not even aware of, and so, stepping back to really listen, stepping back to examine your social patterns is huge. Are you only hanging out with guys, or are you not realizing in some ways that the bro culture, that seems so fun and seems very casual, actually is uninviting to women and can have some negative affects? So that would – that is what I would want Christian male leaders to know, and it doesn’t mean that you stop being male. That’s the beauty, which I hope we’ll talk about, like the alliance of men and women that God has put together, we need you to be men, but we also need you to be self-aware and to be really thinking about how you show up and how you partner well with the women in your circles at work that you collaborate with. Sometimes it could be a simple as all the men are going together to a basketball game in town after work, and it’s just normal. It’s social. You’re going to invite the guys to go watch the game with you. But it has an effect there because women are in that circle. There’s not an equal opportunity to be included. There are even more layers that we can get into, but just that invitation towards greater self-awareness is a powerful place to start.
Robert: Yeah. Because – I think that’s good because one of the things that I noticed in our – we put out an annual State of the Christian Workplace Report. That’s what we call it, the State of the Christian Workplace Report, and it’s where we take all of the data from our - kind of de-aggregated data from all of the organizations that we’ve surveyed over the past year, and we aggregate it together and we look at things, and part of what we’re looking at is kind of demographic data, you know, how are males and females experiencing culture differently? One of the things that stood out to me is that from our data, it wasn’t necessarily showing up around pay or titles and those kinds of things, but it was around involvement in decisions, having their voice heard, communication, you know, and perception of influence within the organization. Is that kind of what you’re talking about? You know, the subtleties around that?
Joanna: Yeah. There is definitely a structural component of that, and so it forces you to ask, are the tables around which decisions are made truly open and balanced? Is it a place where women – and that can be the downstream effect of promotions and hiring decisions. Like I think of a faith-based community that I worshipped at that didn’t have any women in the higher levels of leadership, and part of it was that in their job descriptions they had created an expectation that anyone who filled certain roles would be in a preaching and teaching role and even though it didn’t have to be included in that job description, they had chosen that that would be a skill that they needed, and that automatically eliminated women from being able to fill that role. Maybe it was like a small group leadership role in a church setting and realize that if you’re not aware of the impact that choices like that can make – I’m not saying they weren’t entitled to define some roles as having a teaching responsibility, but when you consistently do that in a way that’s not examined, all of a sudden you realize like, oh, every senior management role in this organization has a teaching responsibility tied to it, that means that women will never be able to fill those, and so you think, oh, suddenly a woman isn’t at the table for those decisions, or it could be - maybe it’s a social pattern that it’s natural for a male leader to invite a younger staff person or a middle manager out to lunch and if you’re men relating to men, there’s no hesitation about having that kind of conversation, and a lot of shop gets talked over lunch, a decision is influenced, somebody’s idea gets more airtime because that person is having lunch with the CEO or the director of their division, and it’s not a formal leadership structure, it’s soft networks of influence and opportunity that if you’re not intentional about inviting women to those spaces or aware of the spaces where they might be excluded or not present, all of a sudden women don’t feel like they have their opinions or they are at the places where decisions are made.
Robert: Yeah. That’s interesting because it does show in the data, as a mentioned, that the decision making, hey, my voice isn’t being as considered, and that really is showing up in our hard data, and so, perhaps if this could be of benefit to some of our leaders and listeners, is being a little bit more structured around and, I guess, process oriented around decisions like this, so these decisions are not happening from conversations maybe that happened, you know, in a different setting or, in other words, there is a cadence and there’s a structure to decision-making processes and collaboration that makes sure that all the voices that need to be brought in to that conversation are brought into that conversation, and of course, those kinds of things are going to happen, right, if you’re in the men’s bathroom or something.
Joanna: Oh, totally.
Robert: It’s not intentional, but you have to be aware and have awareness of, you know, okay, there still needs to be a clear intentionality to the collaborative process that involves those voices and those decision makers so that – and ultimately we know that that’s going to end up to be, you know, usually you get the best outcomes when you involve those voices and those perspectives.
Joanna: Yeah.
Robert: Our data also suggests that leaders often experience – they’re more positive, I should say, about their cultural experience, leadership, lower roles, right.
Joanna: Yeah. Yeah.
Robert: . . . than roles. So, it’s not exactly a male/female demographic. It’s a role demographic, but . . .
Joanna: Yeah. And if women aren’t in those senior roles, of course, they’re not going to feel like there is decision making. You know, I want to say too that you measure what matters. So I have a good friend that was a senior HR leader in a global faith-based engineering ministry, and they knew that they wanted to be seeing numbers around women’s involvement shift, and so they began to define very clearly, what will be the markers for our organization that would reflect growth in this area? And they consistently measured it. Sometimes that can be the first step, is just becoming more aware of why women might not feel like they’re being included in decision making or defining what – defining – I hate to use this word because it’s politically charged but it’s a functional word – defining what equity looks like. What will it mean for you? And it’s not the same for every organization, but for your organization, what will it take for women to be heard or feel like they are decision makers? And then track it. Good organizations have highly defined metrics and know how to follow them.
Narrator: Leading well starts with listening well. At Best Christian Workplaces, our Employee Engagement Survey helps you collect honest, anonymous feedback from your staff so you can lead with clarity. When you understand what drives team engagement, you retain top talent, increase productivity, reduce turnover, and uncover cost savings. We equip Christian leaders with research-driven insight to strengthen culture and lead with purpose. Because when your people flourish, your mission impact multiples. Visit workplaces.org to learn more today.
Robert: Exactly and that’s - but you’re preaching to the choir with us at Best Christian Workplaces. That’s where everything begins is measurement, that the data becomes your best friend. If women are experiencing your culture in a way that causes them to be less engaged, right, then you are – you’re not only, you know, not creating an environment - which leaders are responsible for that environment - that is not bringing the best out of the women contribution to the organization, but you’re also putting a drag on the whole organization and the kingdom work that we’re called to steward, right, so we always say, you know, we’ve got to start with measuring. Take the ambiguity out of it. Have some true, scientifically backed datapoints and criteria that takes the guesswork out of it, takes the gender bias out of it, right, so you can, oh, wow, I didn’t realize that the females were experiencing this and males were experiencing this, and then you have a basis to go deeper and to explore that further, particularly when you see demographic differences in the data that are outliers and meaningful to explore, so I couldn’t agree with you more on that. Yeah. Do you feel like there is – when you’re working with organizations that are kind of trying to be more aware of this and attempting to move in a way that is, you know, I guess, helpful, more helpful, is there a risk of overcorrecting or where it can feel performative, I guess, or not genuine?
Joanna: Yeah. And I think, to be honest, I think that’s, in this cultural moment, I think that contributes to some of the backlash against diversity efforts, is that people feel like it’s performative and not genuine. So I do think that definitely is a risk, but I would say this conversation has significant overlap. The postures that you adopt to be a better learner, consider the broader organizational and social structures that help employees thrive have overlap with other conversations and learning about people that are different than you, so it could be gender. It could be someone who has economic differences than you or is from a different racial or ethnic background. Like the same postures of being a continual learner, that this isn’t formulaic, that’s what helps you not be performative, is that it’s not figuring out the one perfect thing that you do and checking the box. It’s a continual journey of self-awareness, of seeing how you show up in relationship to this other person or this other group of people. A willingness to try and get it wrong and be teachable, that keeps you from being performative, and just a sense of this is an ongoing journey, and that’s the beautiful picture. In the organizations that you are studying, these are faith-based organizations, so not only are they workplaces but they should be reflective of both the family and kingdom of God, and so that sense of love for our brothers and sisters who are different than us should characterize our commitment to being an organization. So when I think when your heart is centered around those things, it helps you avoid the performative thing because your motivation is different. It’s not just satisfying some social expectation. It’s genuinely desiring to accommodate and support the diverse perspectives of people on your team.
Robert: Yes. And is that – I think, I think on some of the literature that I’ve read from you, is this, is this aligned with the blessed alliance terminology?
Joanna: Yeah. You know, it is a little bit. That term comes from an author named Caroline Custis James. She’s written a number of books on women in the church and women in culture, and she describes the partnership between men and women that we see in Genesis as the blessed alliance, and often we think about Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 and 2 being brought together for the purpose of marriage, and I would argue it’s much broader than that. The cultural mandate that is in Genesis 1:26 through 28 is God asking them to bear His image through how they steward the earth and entrusting the cultivation and care of it to them, and so you see that the partnership between men and women goes well beyond marriage. It’s the system God designed for caring for and developing the earth, and so that raises questions of, how will we really value that? Like we know from the very beginning that the world is designed and goes better when men and women work together, and when that’s our conviction, that changes the motivation that we have for showing up in some of these conversations about how men and women can thrive better.
Robert: Yeah, so like you mentioned, it’s about bringing the strengths, perspective, experiences together for a shared mission, right, and so talk to me. How does an organization benefit when we can collaborate better together between men and women?
Joanna: Well, and it’s not just my opinion, academic research shows that organizations, corporations, perform better financially and they have less ethical violations when more women are in senior leadership and board roles, so you see greater balance, you see greater accountability, and stronger perspective. Literally an organization will perform better financially when you have a greater representation of men and women at the table. I think we all like to hear that, right.
Robert: Absolutely, absolutely. Yes. So another thing that I kind of was - summarizing some of our data in the State of the Christian Workplace Report – is the idea of being heard and involved and aligned around the mission, you know, and so, trust declines, communication begins to erode when we fail to address this exact thing of bringing all of these different perspectives and experiences and backgrounds to the table. And so, I guess, I just want to ask real practically . . .
Joanna: Yeah.
Robert: If you had to you know look at, okay, this systemically, okay, working with faith-based organizations, Christian-led organizations, if you just had to list out maybe one, two, or three, very clear tactical, practical, you know, I don’t want to say processes, but you know, habits.
Joanna: Okay. One is going to be personal, one is going to be relational, and one is going to be structural. I’m going to have to think about the structural. But the personal one starts with examining your own perspectives on this issue. One of the challenges is that we may never have thought about that, and it may start with your theological perspectives on the issue, just teasing it out. Often cultural practices or ways of relating to each other are downstream of our theological perspective, and we don’t even realize that it’s happening. So you may have learned a certain way of showing up in the world as a woman or a man that’s been profoundly shaped by the culture that has evolved around your theological convictions, and so you don’t realize you’re doing it and yet you move a certain way in the world based on that. Or it could be, a very practical example, maybe in your family structure, you made it a high priority for – I’m speaking to a man or a woman, but especially for men – you made it a high priority to earn enough so that your wife did not have to work by choice. It was a high value. I’m going to give you the option of staying home. And that may be a value from your own family unit. So when it comes time to think about what a female employee, who may have younger kids in her life, what she will need, you can be so well intentioned and think, I’m going to do as much as possible to support her in her mothering. Her priority should be mothering, and her work could be a potential threat to that. See, this is a cultural conviction that’s downstream of theology, but suddenly it changes how you treat a woman and her promotion opportunities, or maybe there’s a role that involves travel. I know of workplaces where managers have decided on a woman’s behalf, she wouldn’t want this job because she has young kids and it involved travel, and so instead of entrusting the employee to the stewardship of their own life, you can hold an employee back because of the decisions that you make based on your own values, so examining them and really considering like, where does my thinking on this come from?, is a huge place to start. That applies for women or men. I’ve had to do that in my own life. I’ve inherited some things from my own spiritual and theological background that affect how I show up at work, and it wasn’t until I really identified what they were and began to work on them that I found greater freedom in my own leadership, so that’s personal. A second one to be watching and being aware of is relational, and that is understanding what are the unspoken or sometimes subtle relational dynamics that are playing out around gender in the workplace. I can think of an example of a major nonprofit here in the Denver area and they would allow me to share this story, a major player in our community and known nationally for the poverty alleviation work that they do. The men in the organization had a very well-intentioned standard that they would not meet alone with female colleagues, and I challenged them on that. I’m saying, you know, I know your hearts are good. You want to have proper relationships between the men and women of the organization. You don’t want any hint of impropriety around this organization, and we can commend that. But the consequence socially for women was that they consistently did not have access to male leadership because the guys weren’t willing to meet with them alone, and they weren’t – the men were not being proactive to create other structures in which relationships could form, and so women were being deprived of mentorship opportunities. They were consistently missing out on gatherings that were primarily male, and what that meant was that when it comes to feeling like you’re involved in decision making, as we hinted at earlier, or literally getting promoted in the job, it happens less because they weren’t identifying the subtle social structures and values that were at work. To commend this organization, some of their leaders told me a couple years later, we had never considered how we were systematically excluding women from equal access to relationship and opportunities because of this policy that was well intentioned, that we created, and they shared some ways that they had practically changed that. Sometimes it’s both identifying how those structures can be limiting and being proactive to develop new opportunities. A book that I would recommend, it’s a secular book – actually two. One is Christian and one is secular. The Christian one is Kadi Cole’s Developing Female Leaders. It’s very good. It’s primarily for church settings, but I’d commend it to anyone. She has some really good proactive, practical strategies. But the other one is called Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace by David Smith and Brad Johnson. They’re both academics who have had long military careers and one works at the Naval Academy doing leadership development, and they have such great solutions. To say like, hey, to mentor a woman doesn’t have to mean you’re going to get in trouble with HR. There are a zillion practical things that you can do that if you’re thoughtful and creative you’ll be serving both the men and women in the organization well.
Robert: So let’s go a little deeper on that. What are some of those practical things? If we have listeners right now, it’s like, okay, that’s us. We had this great intention. We don’t want to – you know, we want to be above reproach. I don’t want to have the impression that I keep meeting with this female, an employee, and I’m in a position of authority and power and structure, you know. What are some of those practical ways where you could meet in a professional way, you know consistently, just addressing that. You know you talked about there were solutions and it kind of opened up like, oh, wow, we didn’t realize how this was impacting, you know, the females in the workplace. How do you mitigate? How do you navigate that?
Joanna: Smith and Johnson have a great expression where they say, make mentoring such a part of your brand identity as a leader that you do it so broadly and so intentionally, regardless of a person’s gender, that if you were to have a conversation with a woman in a public place they wouldn’t be fodder for the gossip mill. So they’re saying like, be proactive about serving men and women broadly and equally and then think of ways you can do it. Maybe it’s inviting people in pairs or groups. You know, if you have two female interns that are on your team, or a male and female intern, do lunch together as a pair with them. There are just lots of practical ways you can avoid it, or don’t take the easy route of meeting – if you’re handling this meeting individually with someone, don’t take the easy route of just consistently meeting with men one on one. Put a little more effort into it, so you make a point of like, I’m not going to show favoritism through just simple social opportunities like going to Subway. I’m going to go out of my way to include two or three people on this conversation. That’s one.
Robert: So it’s not always necessarily saying, I’m going to always meet with somebody one on one. It can be let’s start a habit of pairing people up, and you know, making that the norm so that you know it’s not a situation where you’re unknowingly sort of excluding people with equal access to time. Okay.
Joanna: One thing I’ve noticed in evangelical circles is that there can be a pathway of promotion for male, for men, where you see a promising young man and you’re drawn to that person. You say, “That’s a promising young man. I want to create opportunities for him to advance.” I’ve seen that happen innumerable times, not just in church settings. It’s just a cultural gender bias that can be at work. You know, another thing that I thought about is really thinking about what it looks like to create workplaces where an employee’s caretaking responsibilities are normal. Secular research that we see from LeanIn and McKinsey’s annual massive study of women in the workplace just shows that the perception that an employee has caretaking responsibilities will affect their ability to be a high performer at work, it really lingers. And so often – one thing that’s encouraging is that we’re seeing more and more men step into more caretaking responsibilities in their households, but often women more clearly show up at work visibly with the caretaking responsibilities that they have. So, for example, if a child gets sick, who’s going to get them at the doctor or take them home from school? Not always the woman, but often it is, so we can have a subtle flexibility bias. The best workplaces create some flexibility for employees that have those responsibilities, but there can be still a gender-based stigma around the people that use it, and so, my challenge would be for Christian workplaces is to say, because we care about the whole life of our employees, we will consider that their caretaking responsibilities are meaningful in addition to their performance at work. How can we truly create an environment that supports that and doesn’t stigmatize people that need to use that? And I would say flexibility also goes with accountability. You’re not giving somebody a free pass, but you are understanding that employees’ presence and the way that they’re working may need to be different when they have those intense seasons of caretaking.
Robert: I’ve got one more question. Because the work that we’re all about is engagement, so how do we create a workplace culture that drives higher levels of engagement, a Christ-honoring culture, people have life-giving work, they’re experiencing, you know, their work to the fullest and making this a meaningful contribution? And you’ve probably heard of the term, quiet quitting. You know we call it – it’s disengagement, lack of engagement, and I want to just two or three insights, however many, whatever you want to say on this subject, but to leaders, male or female leaders who are in positions of authority and leaders, what are some ways that women begin to quietly disengage before other leaders, you know, the leadership may recognize that it’s even happening? Because it often happens that way where disengagement is usually happening quietly, but what are some of the ways that women will quietly disengage before, you know, leaders even know that it’s happening?
Joanna: Yeah. That’s a great question. I’d say, are you hearing them in meetings? Are they – when I think about women at their best, many of them will be verbal. Or even if they’re quiet, are they showing up in a way that looks right and engaged? And if you stop hearing from them, that’s worrisome because women will hold onto their jobs. You know, they need that paycheck, and so they’ll get the work done, but they won’t show up with any kind of brightness or energy or creativity. I also would say, are you seeing them offer any creativity in their role? Are they coming up with new ideas? Do they seem excited about the work they’re doing? You can watch and just tell if an employee is putting in, you know, is putting in minimal effort, and I think asking some honest questions that won’t cost a person their job but are genuinely inviting them to speak into culture. Is this a place you’re proud to work? What motivates you to come back every day and saying like, I don’t want a buttered-up answered. I genuinely want to know. What would make this a place where you would not – never want to quit? Asking some of those questions and find honest answers.
Robert: I like that, and you’re talking about specifically – because those kinds of questions are in an engagement survey.
Joanna: Yeah.
Robert: But really, we’re talking about those in a meeting, you know like face-to-face meetings, coming back to the meetings.
Joanna: Yeah.
Robert: Let me get in front of this person, really hear and ask these questions that are safe questions and you can really get some insights into where they are.
Joanna: Yeah.
Robert: I love that.
Joanna: Where do you want to be two or three years from now? Is this the kind of organization – even asking, is this the kind of organization where you could see your career growing? If that’s a question, if you want every employee to feel like they’re doing meaningful work and their career can grow, which can be hard in small nonprofits because they’re sometimes not much of a ladder to climb, but asking, you know, is this the kind of place where you could see your career growing? And if it isn’t, what would it take to help do that for you, to get that hopefulness for your career?
Robert: I was going to ask another question. Let me ask you another question. Can I throw one more?
Joanna: Absolutely.
Robert: Okay. What would you say to women who are feeling these things and they don’t feel heard, you know, some of the data that we’ve already talked about, and they don’t see leadership or an organization that is willing to actually consider that, look at that, measure that, and it just, it’s just no light at the end of the tunnel in terms of, okay, these folks are so set in their ways, this is not – I don’t see life coming from this. What do you say to women who maybe in a situation like that?
Joanna: Okay. This is going to be an answer your listeners probably don’t want to hear, but I’m going to quote my good friend, corporate coach Sarah Evers, who says, “Quit. You can find another job.” So often, I think when you’re thinking about a faith-based space it has a big missional component where you think, this work matters, and so I’m going to give my all. God wants me to do this. But if this is truly a place where you are not thriving and you have looked at the landscape at work and think, they are not – they are not curious, they are not invested, I think these doors towards change or even being heard are closed, then get out. Get out.
Robert: Yeah.
Joanna: Because there are workplaces that will have those opportunities for you.
Robert: Yep. I agree with that completely, 100%, and that’s what we see with turnover and that’s why engagement and looking at these things matters so much, because that is the ultimate outcome of what’s going to happen is turnover and then you have a whole another bigger problem which is an organization that may not be able to even survive, so I think that’s an honest answer that people might not want to hear, but they need to hear.
Joanna: It’s playing out.
Robert: I appreciate that.
Joanna: Yeah, and it’s playing out in the corporate sector too. That McKinsey LeanIn report I referenced is seeing that women are climbing to a certain level of the corporate ladder and just dropping out because, for various reasons, they look ahead of them and they don’t see the life they aspire to reflected in those steps ahead, and so they’ll drop out. They are getting really curious about entrepreneurship. They’ll start their own nonprofits because they have a passion that is getting tapped into in their workplace.
Robert: Gotcha. Well, I am very, very grateful, Joanna, to have you on the podcast today and to hear your insights. This, I think, has been very eye opening and encouraging and insightful. What I’d like to do, because you’re new on the podcast, a first-time guest here, can I ask you a couple rapid-fire questions just to . . .
Joanna: Absolutely.
Robert: Just so we can learn a little bit about you and who you are outside of these important topics. Okay. We like to do this from time to time to have fun on the podcast. But I’d love to hear from you. If you had to choose between a long mountain hike or a long conversation with a friend?
Joanna: I’m going to say both. I’m a Coloradan so you’re asking the wrong person about that. So, I put on my cologne. I’m afraid of bears and mountain lions, so I will always be hiking with a friend, and long drives up into the mountains, climbing to a mountain lake and seeing the wildflowers, ideal opportunities for conversation.
Robert: You know, I guess those two options fit well together, don’t they?
Joanna: They do. If you live in Denver, they do.
Robert: They do. I got one more for you.
Joanna: Yeah.
Robert: What’s your preference? Do you lean towards encouraging somebody one on one or speaking to a room full of leaders?
Joanna: I love encouraging people one on one. But I’ll give you two answers. I cut my teeth professionally in campus ministries, so I have an internal clock of 60 minutes. I can sit across from you over coffee for almost exactly 60 minutes and focus entirely on you, so I love those one-on-one conversations. But one of my colleagues says I’m great in a room when I need to like galvanize people and call into action to a noble cause, so I have a little of both in me.
Robert: Amazing. Well, Joanna, it’s been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. For our listeners, I encourage you to subscribe to the podcast, and if you have heard something that you think would be beneficial to a friend, a colleague, another leader out there, please just send this over. You can share the podcast, forward it on, invite somebody else to take a look at the content and get blessed and encouraged and inspired with the topic today, which is an important topic. So until we see you next time, God bless. Joanna, thank you so much for being with us today. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to have you back on the podcast and to all of our listeners, we’ll see you next time on the Called to Flourish podcast. God bless you.