Jannette Whitcome and Stacy Keating are employees for the City of Aspen in Colorado. In this podcast, they join Adam J. Salgat to talk about how the two of them became a dynamic duo the likes of Batman & Robin, but instead of fighting crime, they fought something each and every alumnus can relate to – losing focus and forgetting the skills that had such an impact on them in the 3-day training. Jannette and Stacey banded to together to continually practice the skills with each other and on each other. They became each other’s learning partner.
As you listen, you’ll hear how this relationship has gone beyond a learning partnership. You’ll notice how these skills have brought the friends closer together and made a significant impact on their lives outside of work.
AI-generated dictation of the podcast audio
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Adam Salgat:
Hello and welcome to the Our Community Listens Podcast. My name is Adam Salgat and joining me today are alumni, Jeanette Wickham and Stacy Keating, employees for City of Aspen in Colorado. In today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about how the two of them became a dynamic duo, the likes of Batman & Robin, but instead of fighting crime in Gotham City, they fought something each and every alumni can relate to: losing focus and forgetting the skills that had such an impact on them in the three-day training. Jeanette and Stacy banded together to continually practice the skills with each other and on each other. They became each other’s learning partner. Before we go any further and get deeper into their story, I’d like to invite them in to speak and tell us a little bit about the work they do. Jeanette, why don’t you go first?
Jeanette:
Thanks, Adam. So both Stacy and I work for the Aspen Environmental Health Department. We work to protect the health and environment of our community. We do things such as restaurant inspections, air quality work, waste reduction, and whatever the Aspen community wants of us as far as relation to public health and the environment.
Adam Salgat:
I see.
Stacy:
So I’m going on seven years as the department’s admin assistant, and I support our programs through community outreach. I do a lot of customer service with our constituents and support the program managers like Jeanette.
Adam Salgat:
Sounds like you guys interact with a lot of different people, and I’m sure that Our Community Listens class has really helped you find a way to communicate with those individuals. How did you end up taking the Our Community Listens class to start with?
Stacy:
When I joined the organization, there was already a really strong culture of Our Community Listens and everyone in my department has taken the class and even was using the language. So about five years ago, I did my training and my disc profile and took the class and just kind of went from there.
Jeanette:
Yeah. It was something that our organization, the city of Athens, really wanted as many people to attend a three-day training. It was such a gift to our community to the organization that once people started taking it, it became like a wildfire. When our managers took it, they were like, we all need to take it so that we could all have this language and work through problems. So I actually was the last one before we hired Stacy to take the class and I felt like I was kind of out of touch with some of the language that they were using. So it felt good to finish that class and have my aha moments and be a part of that culture.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah. I was going to ask, Jeanette, what was it like seeing all these people come back and talk about it and see this experience that they’ve been through and think, “Oh man, what am I missing out on?”
Jeanette:
Well, it’s funny because we have other leadership programs that I’ve done in the past. So I’m like, “Oh, I know what I’m doing.” And then I realized like, “No, I need to be a part of this.” So I think that’s where my hesitancy was, was I didn’t think I needed it and boy, did I need it. It was wonderful skills and aha moment with disc, with coworkers and realizing I was banging my head against a wall trying to communicate to them as I like to be communicated, and that was just not working and I realized now why and it wasn’t personal.
Adam Salgat:
Right. I think that is definitely one of the biggest learning experiences through our community lessons is seeing that people aren’t necessarily doing things on a personal side. It’s just the way that they choose to communicate. It sounds like there was a culture within your organization that really took Our Community Listens very serious. Can you tell me a little bit about that development and the different steps that, as an organization, different classes you were going through that eventually led to you guys becoming learning partners? Stacy, why don’t you take the lead on that?
Stacy:
Sure. Yeah. We’re just so fortunate that we have an organization that really reinforces this type of learning. So I think in 2016, we were able to take a style flexing class and we realized at that time, “Wow. These are skills that you can learn, but they don’t necessarily stick that easily.” We really thought, “This is an amazing opportunity.” Jeanette and I took that class together along with at least one other coworker in our office. Then from there, realizing the importance of that continuous learning, we decided to do, I think in the spring of 2016, a 90 day challenge. We got our little booklet. A lot of that was really focused on confrontation skills, of course, a lot of reflective listening and reinforcing the listening skill. Then that was really great for us. Then we decided, “Well, wow. We really could use a more regular way to continue practicing essentially,” and our director was really supportive of that.
Jeanette:
Yeah. I think the 90 day challenge gave us an opportunity to see if we were the right partners for each other. So that’s something that if Our Community Listens promotes again, it’s a good way to practice with a learning partner and see if you’re a good fit. But I think the really was great for us to have our director be okay with us spending work time because at the time, Stacy wasn’t full time and so her time was precious. So having that approval and support really made it comfortable for both of us to take… I think we started with a half hour and then we built it to an hour.
Adam Salgat:
It sounds like there is some major support in your organization to continue these life skills and that’s wonderful. That’s just awesome.
Jeanette:
Yeah. Made it easier for us to take the time. I think that when an organization is supportive of it and can take work time, just because they see the value of us growing with our listening and communication skills to our customers, being a government agency, that is a number one priority is customer service. So if you work in a private entity and customer service is a priority, that’s another way you can pitch having this time at work because we’re all busy. So if we had to rely on our personal time to do it, it would not have been as successful.
Stacy:
Right.
Adam Salgat:
You got started in that 90 day challenge, but that’s been roughly three years ago from the sound of it. What kind of curriculum and what kind of studies have you developed for yourselves in the meantime?
Jeanette:
Well, this is Jeanette. I can start. We decided after the 90 day challenge that we had some conflict resolution or difficult customer issues at work. So we decided that we wanted to continue with the learning partnership to help us build that skill. So we started meeting, but to be honest, we kind of call it free form because we really needed to practice listening. It’s so long ago as you pointed out, but things come back talking about it where we would try to bring up a conflict that we dealt with and run through that with some of the steps, but then it really morphed into, “I need to practice listening.” So Stacy would talk about something that she was dealing with, that she wanted to listen to her for. So I practiced reflective listening and empathetic listening, and that’s hard, but then I would get feedback from Stacy that she felt heard and I saw it. So then we set on each other with that.
Stacy:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it was really relevant to our work. I deal with a lot of customers. Oftentimes, they can be upset or stressed and sometimes you can’t even solve their problems. So realizing that, okay. If I become a more effective listener, that is a really great skill. Sometimes people just want to be heard even when you’re not solving their problems, which is kind of the foundation of those effective listening skills. So we got buy-in again from our manager to do these… It really was just practicing over time. We would do an hour every two weeks-
Jeanette:
Yeah, every two weeks.
Stacy:
… I think. Yeah, I even built it into skill building for some of my goals and objectives as a part of my job. It was really relevant and very helpful.
Jeanette:
Yeah. So we did that for about a year, year and a half. Then we realized when we had to re-up our personal goals, that we needed to step up our game and kind of challenge ourselves. So we reached out to Shirley and our coworker, Ashley, who’s a teacher as well for Our Community Listens and they gave us a suggestion of the podcast. So this podcast is actually helping us come up with new curriculum and new discussions.
Adam Salgat:
Very happy to hear that we’ve had the opportunity to help spur some of that. Stacy, why don’t you touch a little bit on the importance of putting this on the calendar and making it a priority? I think a lot of people say, “Well, I’ll get to it and we’ll come around and maybe we’ll talk about it at lunch,” but this sounds like you guys took it very serious, put it on the calendar and made sure you were going to do it. Can you touch on that a little bit, Stacy?
Stacy:
Absolutely. Yeah, very simply, we got the buy-in from our director and so we scheduled it. We just have a regularly scheduled meeting, shows up on our calendar. Usually, we created a space for ourselves in an office, made it happen. So it’s a regularly scheduled event that we have. I think you really do need that in order… It just isn’t easy, I think is the bottom line, and we’d like to think it is, but it just isn’t. So the practice, practice, practice is so incredibly helpful and really building it into your schedule. So we literally did that. It also helped that we made it part of our personal performance goals and objectives.
So we had higher accountability than just each other that we would meet. I think it actually was once a month. At first, we scheduled it right before our weekly work meetings. Then we realized that we were getting into some nitty gritty or things that really needed some separate time. So we were running over a half hour and so then we made it into an hour and we checked again with our supervisor, but he was seeing the value. He was seeing us grow. So he’s like, “Absolutely.” So that’s how I remember making it happen.
Jeanette:
That’s right. It’s very organic, isn’t it? I’ve forgotten that. But we did realize that… Because we meet weekly anyway to talk about programs, but this really helped focus us in on specific Our Community Listens skills, and we did get support for that.
Adam Salgat:
So working those into your performance reviews, what are some specific measureables that you had, if any, that were a part of that and that you’ve seen change over the last three years? Either one of you have any comment along those lines?
Stacy:
Oh, that’s really interesting because I checked in with our supervisor before doing this podcast just to get his perspective on it as well because I wanted to feel that confidence that we had something really to put out there. We know that it feels right and that you get better at dealing with customers and dealing with different styles and all the things that Our Community Listens does, but I did want some of that feedback. He just said that he could definitely see an improvement, I think, mostly in the way we sometimes manage difficult situations personally and are able to navigate that a lot better with confrontation skills, then also again, with the listening. At least for me, he did mention that in dealing with difficult customers, he’s seen improvement. So that was one of the real goals that I had starting out in dealing with that type of conflict.
Jeanette:
For me, I had an immediate improvement just from the class as far as dealing with a person that was a D and I’m an I, and that we were able to work better together and productively get things done. But with the learning partner, the art of listening really helped me be able to have a way to tell somebody that I wasn’t going to be able to solve their problem. I deal with air quality and having to talk to people about their complaints related to the exhaust from buses and they live above a bus stop and we can’t move that bus stop. So it was the biggest aha for me was listening to them and being empathetic with them and being able to say, “I’m not going to be able to move this and give you everything you want, but I’m here to be a voice for you and your concerns.” It actually had improved her situation, but that initial conversation was a lot easier for me being able to let that person know that they weren’t going to be heard, but I wasn’t promising something that I couldn’t deliver.
Adam Salgat:
That’s a wonderful story because it just makes me realize that many times when people maybe call and make that type of complaint, they may know that there’s nothing that can be done, but they just kind of want someone to hear them out and that’s what you have developed in your skillset. Is that sound about right?
Jeanette:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. That is absolutely right. Yeah. That’s something that I feel that our organization probably honed in on as far as a good customer service skill because we just can’t, as government, we can’t do everything. We only have a limited budget. So at least our department, we have definitely modeled that behavior.
Adam Salgat:
Stacy, you touched on this when you mentioned initially the 90 day challenge, that you got to kind of test out your partner. That got me thinking as I was listening to you guys a little bit about, what if I chose somebody, like my wife, for example, who’s been through the class and we’ve had discussions about the class and she’s the person in my life who I want to improve my communication skills the most for, but I find that in discussions that we have, sometimes it’s difficult to come back to her and maybe give her constructive feedback or vice versa. If she gives it to me, it might be hard to receive it. So it was interesting when you said you kind of got to test out your partner and I want to ask you, what do you believe is important about having that learning partner and getting the opportunity to find the right person?
Stacy:
That’s a great question. I think first, it started that we had attended some of the continuous learning classes. So we both had the value. We both understood the value of continuing to practice these skills. So that’s the first thing is those shared values with someone. Secondly, we’re also both very passionate about what we do in public health and environment. So we’re constantly dealing with some of the same conflicts that come up that are similar. So we’re able to see from the same perspective, “Oh…” look at different ways of approaching work problems that we have and kind of testing our skills through that light. So there’s that mutual intent, if you will, that we have. Then also, just quite frankly, Jeanette and I care a lot about each other. We work together, so we have a great interest in doing a good job for our jobs, but we also do care for each other and want each other to be better as human beings, is really, at least my intention. I know Jeanette supports me in that and I try to support her as best I can in that.
I guess the other thing is we were talking before this podcast, the real thing you can take the class and you can learn the skills, but you really need to practice. It doesn’t just stick with you and for whatever reason, it’s so effective, but it’s not easy. If you don’t practice and have someone who you can be honest and vulnerable and interested and intentional with all of these things and these skills, I think you’re not going to get that full benefit.
Jeanette:
Yeah. I concur with what Stacy says. I think the trust is what you need and the desire to genuinely learn and practice and grow as a person. If you don’t have anyone in mind, I think going to those continuing education classes is a good way to try and approach that with someone that you don’t know. But if you’re in an organization that is like ours where a lot of people have taken it, finding someone through your work as a good way, but you need to have that desire to continue and learn and trust. It’s not easy. We don’t have a ton of learning partners in our organization.
Stacy:
Yeah. I think you’ve touched on the fact of say participating or practicing with a spouse or a partner that you have at home, I would say that I think sometimes in those intimate relationships, it can get just really, really hard because you kind of can’t go home, if you will. You’re in it. So Jeanette and I have created this space that we have, and then we can go home. I don’t know that it would be as effective. I’m sure some people could do it with a spouse, but I think it’s helpful to have a little distance maybe from some of those more intimate, personal relationships because this is hard stuff. Sometimes you want to be able to leave it at work or wherever it is you’re practicing.
Adam Salgat:
Yeah, and that is exactly the kind of thing that I was wondering about what you just covered there, Stacy, the ability to you guys can have these tough conversations, but you still get to have that space because you go home to other people. So you do get to kind of leave it at work, but you can also, when need be, pull from everything that they just gave you. You can pull from the feedback they gave you about how you either felt listened or didn’t feel listened and what you could do better and what you did really well. So that’s a little bit of what I was curious about. I think having that space is pretty important.
Stacy:
Absolutely. I will just reinforce that. With my husband, I feel like this has helped me be a much better listener and it’s really valuable for that relationship as well.
Adam Salgat:
Stacy, you mentioned your husband and how these skills can make a difference in our personal lives. I certainly want to get to that with the two of you, but before we get to that section, I do want to touch on just one more time, any major highlights of working with a partner consistently and curious if there’s anything more you’d like to say about that? Stacy?
Stacy:
Well, I think when you practice with someone, you obviously get a lot better. So there’s that consistency and then you do see results. I would say it helps so much when I am heard in the exact way that I would like to be heard and actually watch Jeanette execute those amazing listening skills. It’s a reinforcement. It’s a feedback mechanism that you don’t get if you’re just haphazardly trying to practice these skills alone. I think that is something that I’ve really gained that I often don’t even think about before, but just actually seeing someone. You can feel it when you feel heard and you go, “Okay, I see now. I can do that same and I see how I can do better to give that to someone else.”
Jeanette:
Yeah. I think, Stacy, the feedback, you don’t get feedback on your own.
Stacy:
That’s right.
Jeanette:
You’re practicing it. It’s kind of like, “Am I doing it right? Are they feeling heard?” Because you can’t, without having a learning partner, you actually don’t know maybe the signs from that person that you are listening to, but we actually know the physical bodies subconscious… Just that the nonverbal time that you show when you actually feel heard. Your face lights up or you get less tense. So I’m glad you brought that up as far as that physical observational feedback. For me, it really comes down to accountability. This is hard stuff. If I didn’t have Stacy and our appointments, I would slack and we aren’t. After a while practicing it, then it does become partly second nature. But in this culture of where we live in, in this fast paced, social media type of thing, I think I would fall back on.
So for me, really, the ultimate thing is I’m holding my feet to the fire and I have someone else that is holding my feet to fire. We’re at a staff meeting… We have endless fodder for our session and we have a safe place and I can ask her, “How did I do? I feel like I could have done better?” Or, “I think I did well,” or I’ll tell Stacy, “Wow, that was awesome what you did at the staff meeting,” and that’s what is the beneficial of having a learning partner, especially in your own department because they can watch you in a safe way, not in a got you way.
Stacy:
Absolutely.
Adam Salgat:
Well, you guys mentioned that feedback and it really got me thinking, if I was in a meeting with people who have not been through it, and then I happened to ask them at the end of it, “Hey, did you feel listened to? How did you feel?” that could [inaudible 00:23:25] really awkward conversations and they don’t understand why you may be asking it.
Jeanette:
Correct.
Adam Salgat:
So I love listening to the two of you chat about this because it really inspires me to consider finding someone within my organization who has been through Our Community Listens. The organization that I work for, a lot of our managers have been through the training, but right now ,it is not a focal point, even though many of us do live by a lot of the teachings. So you’ve really inspired me to go out and maybe locate that learning partner for us in our organization.
Jeanette:
Well, the podcast is already serving its purpose.
Adam Salgat:
Is there anything else that you guys would like to add about working with a learning partner?
Jeanette:
I think for me, one of the things I wanted to add was I wanted to be Stacy’s learning partner because she was sharing with me how she was having crucial conversations or difficult conversations with a neighbor. It was exactly what I wanted to do. She was explaining how she went through the process of setting up your message. I was like, “Wow. I want to work with that person to get better at that,” and it’s something that I have… It’s the hardest thing for me to do is to have a conflict, a conflict with somebody. I try to avoid it, but over the years, I’ve gotten a lot better. It’s still my journey. It’s still what I work on, but I have a learning partner that models it. So it helps me aspire to do better with that.
Adam Salgat:
Stacy, how does that make you feel, knowing that she saw what you were doing and wanted to emulate it?
Stacy:
It makes me feel great. We’re so fortunate this all happened the way it did. Really, I would also like to reinforce what Jeanette just said as another thing we maybe haven’t mentioned, but that skill of really trying to craft your message and understand the way other people want to receive information based on your idea of what their communication style is. The platinum rule is, I learned it in my class five years ago, really helps because it’s so easy to think that your own style is just the way to go. Let’s just keep talking about this and let me just keep telling them exactly what I think is the right thing to do, and that should work. Right? [inaudible 00:26:06] … really trying to understand, okay, who’s receiving this message? How do they receive information is also incredibly helpful, and getting your own message heard and really having effective communication, conflict resolution, whatever it is.
Jeanette:
Yeah. I think as a motivating factor to find somebody with your organization also helps because then you can test out your message before you talk to a supervisor or a department head or a manager. So you can be sneaky about it in practice because you’re putting them in a box and making sure that you’re crafting that message that’ll be received well, instead of defensively.
Adam Salgat:
If you don’t mind, I’ll use the word strategic instead of sneaky.
Stacy:
Good word. Yes. Yes. Having a learning partner helps you be strategic when you get a message. I think those other things this, sorry, this just popped into my head, but those other things that it’s impossible to see. I know one of the things I needed to work on was my body language because I would maybe get upset about something and I didn’t know that I was showing it so obviously. Okay. Everybody, just leave me alone right now or whatever it is. But then again, having someone you trust someone who sees you in difficult situations consistently can help you understand, and I’m more [inaudible 00:27:40] … to that. Oh, I could have really improved just my posture and then again, usually it’s a listening situation where you want to be really paying attention to how you’re having those reflective listening skills, even in your non verbals as they say.
Adam Salgat:
That it truly is some great advice because many of us, when we get focused on a project and maybe we’re working and someone comes and has a question for us, we might reply short, but honestly, it’s not anything to do with them. But if they don’t know and if we don’t know that we’re doing, that could create hostility. So I think that’s really great advice to say that I have someone who can kind of watch what I’m doing and give me some advice on my body language.
Stacy:
Right? It’s not an easy thing to acknowledge in someone, but we as human beings feel it. We just can pick up on all those things so easily, but you really need someone to tell you that you trust that, “Oh, Hey, you’re doing this,” and Jeanette has told me that and it’s helped me because I’m more aware of it.
Adam Salgat:
Awesome.
Jeanette:
I guess another aspect of a learning partner is if you pick somebody that you care about and that you might have problems with communication, since that’s something that Stacy and I wanted to improve as well that we were having some hiccups with our own interpersonal communication at work and we’re like, “We’re friends. What’s going on?” So that was something that also was a motivating factor. We both wanted to learn, but we also were like, “We are going to personally benefit just as coworkers and friends,” and we have.
Stacy:
Yeah. So true.
Adam Salgat:
Let’s go back a minute and just talk about Our Community Listens skills in general and how you have seen them make a difference in your personal life. Jeanette, why don’t you talk a little bit about that and just how you’ve seen it make a difference at home or in relationships you have outside of work?
Jeanette:
The biggest impact that Our Community Listens have and also because of my learning partner with Stacy, the time I got to practice was with my parents. My mom was suffering from an illness that was a form of dementia. It was really a struggle for her leaving her identity. The biggest thing I realized was nobody was listening to her. Everybody was saying, “You got to do this,” or, “You should try this,” or, “It’s okay. We can help you.” And I said, “Mom, that’s got to be hard for you to not be able to be the helper,” and I reiterated things that she was talking about and who she was. That was a big gift that I could get her because nobody else is doing that. Then it was a gift for me because I got to do that for her. I got to help her and have her be heard.
So that is probably one of the biggest messages that I tell people about when they’re struggling with their parents is my story with mine. And now my dad, I have a stronger relationship with him because I see him. I’m not trying to fill in the blanks or fix things or be angry about him not doing this or that. I just listen to him and it’s so much more enjoyable and we have so much more fun together. So I’ve shared that with people. I know other people who have used that skill with their parents and it’s made a big difference with them and they’ve actually gotten their parents to do something that they’ve been struggling with because they came at it in a way of just listening instead of telling.
Adam Salgat:
It sounds like you’ve created a real strong space for peace and connection between you and your parents.
Stacy:
I’m so proud [inaudible 00:00:31:45]. She’s really just done an amazing job.
Adam Salgat:
Stacy, is there any story or any connection you’d like to talk about that you’ve made in your personal life and how these skills have made a difference?
Stacy:
Absolutely. I am a mother of teenagers and especially with my daughter and watching her go through some difficult things that I think are just, unfortunately, the way things go with personal relationships, especially at young ages. As a mom, you want to get in there and you want to fix stuff. You want to find out exactly what’s going on. You want to ask a lot of questions and it’s not, certainly not the first inclination to be a good listener. One time in particular with my daughter, she had a really rough day with some relational things on the playground and she was very upset. It took all of my strength just to not do those things that I mentioned and just to help her really feel, just to really kind of be there with her, ask her questions and be able to absorb and feel with her those things that she was going through and acknowledge that because boy, I don’t know, at least for me in my life, you just don’t want to see your kids go through pain.
You want to do everything you can to prevent that. The truth in life is that you can’t. So I had this one experience with my daughter where I felt like I really helped her feel that what she was going through and that it was okay and that I was there with her and she wasn’t alone. So that was not easy. It is not the easy thing to listen in that, but it is really a gift. She hugged me and she said, “Thank you, mommy,” and it was beautiful.
Adam Salgat:
As a father of two very young girls, that story means a lot to me and it’s a very good reminder. So thank you so much for bringing it up and sharing it with us.
Stacy:
You’re welcome. Well, ladies,
Adam Salgat:
I want to thank you so much for taking your time to talk with us today. I really appreciate it. And like I said earlier in the podcast, you have inspired me to go find someone that I can continue to practice these skills with so I can hone them and make all of my relationships, including the one with my wife, even better than they are today. So for our listeners, what are some key takeaways you’d like to reiterate at the end of our conversation? Stacy, why don’t you go first?
Stacy:
Well, I think the main thing is practicing. I think you can go to the class, learn all the skills, maybe even be an expert, and I just don’t think, because these are such difficult things that don’t come naturally and they are so valuable, I don’t feel that I could continue to integrate them into my life unless I continued to practice. Again, they don’t come naturally. You can forget. So for me, having the practice has been invaluable to doing it, to being a good listener and to embodying all of these messages that are so wonderful.
Jeanette:
The key takeaway for me is if you want to improve your relationships, if you want to touch people’s lives and have them feel what you feel when you know that you were listened to is just practice and to find that person that you can get feedback from and grow with. If you find that learning partner, that’s going to be a really special relationship and it’s free. It’s not paying a counselor to listen to you. It’s finding that person that’s going to help you grow and you’re going to help that person grow and it’s fulfilling.
Stacy:
Oh, she said it so perfectly. What she said.
Adam Salgat:
She absolutely did. Thank you both again, the Colorado tag team of Jeanette and Stacy. I really appreciate the time today.
Jeanette:
Thank you, Adam. This is a growing moment for us to do this podcast.
Stacy:
Thank you.
Adam Salgat:
If you have any suggestions about subjects for our podcast, feel free to reach out through our Facebook page. And if you’re interested in taking a class, visit ourcommunitylistens.org. Thank you again for listening to our podcast and don’t forget each word, each action, each silent moment of listening sends a message. Therefore, you are the message.