Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, it's Steve Indig at sport law.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Leave me a message.
[00:00:03] Speaker A: I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: Hey, Steve, it's Dena. You aren't going to believe what just came across my desk. We need to chat. Give me a call.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Welcome to the latest episode of Sportopia. We're so excited to share our knowledge and have conversation about healthy human sport today.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: Another one of our sport law colleagues is joining us to discuss workplace well being. Before we get to that, though, Steve, what's coming across your desk this week?
[00:00:52] Speaker A: As usual, I just look at my calendar to see what conversations I've had this week or what's coming up next week. And things always do seem to come in threes. And just yesterday I had multiple conversations about employment and employment law. And one of the first questions that I asked when approached by a client or an organization about an employment issue is, you know, of course, my favorite line is, what does your policy say? Or what does your employment agreement say? And what I've been finding with the last couple calls I've had is that they can't find the employment contract. They're unaware of it. They're pretty sure one was signed years ago with a previous board, with a previous executive director, but they can't find it. And of course, when we can't find policy or agreements that we want to rely upon, we end up in what I call the gray zone. What is that? You know, what direction do we go into next if without direction from that policy or agreement? And it makes it very challenging. So really I'm talking about, of course, the importance of agreements and having agreements, but also maintaining them and having record retention and policy retention and document retention. And of course, in today's technology environment, there are multiple platforms to do that. Of course, the cloud, the hard drive, the external hard drive, and I do recommend multiple layers. I actually had my external hard drive die last week and sent it to a technician who told me very unlikely I will be able to save what's on here.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: I have multiple layers, so I'm not too worried about it. But it was one of three that I have that failed. So again, make sure that you can back up and find your documents in perpetuity. We have been looking also for one client's insurance policy from 1985.
[00:02:48] Speaker C: I remember that story, and we were.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: Able to track down the policy to 1986, but unfortunately we needed the 85 policy. So again, PDF, everything. Save it in a file and hopefully you never need it, but if you do, it'll be there. Dina, what's happening in your world?
[00:03:06] Speaker C: Well, it's interesting. I love hearing what's up with you and what are you doing to support our clients, and it's always so different than the work that I do. But what I really appreciate about, I'm going to call it Le grand menagerie, know, the house cleaning that we must do to ensure the wellness of our people, because when we can't find, you know, these agreements that we've signed, that can create all kinds of unnecessary stress. So I love that, you know, you're speaking about maybe basic administrative practices that in the seventies and eighties and nineties, when sport, you know, modern day sport in Canada was first reconceived, we were relying on all these practices that made sense at the time. Now we can use, wait for it, modern practices to scan information and to be able to access it.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Right. Steve, I was going to say, if your files are still in a box in somebody's basement, chances are they will get wet in a flood at some point or disappear as board members change over, staff change over. So, absolutely, Dina, I'm totally in agreement with you. When I first started practicing law a long time ago, everything print, print, print, and the files would grow, grow, grow, grow. And that's how I learned. And then one day, those boxes were also in my storage facility. And I'm like, why am I doing this when I can fit my entire practice on a USB key so you won't find too much paper lying around my office anymore?
[00:04:37] Speaker C: Well, you know what's interesting for me when I think about your question, we need to modernize sport. And one way is all the administrative stuff, but the other part of it, which is we're so delighted to have Stephanie Potter join us, is how are we ensuring that the people that we're here to serve, that their wellness is being taken care of? And what's coming across my desk this week is I've supported 64 coaches from around the world in deepening their understanding of the losses that they carry as coaches.
And we were noticing that we get attached to our clients because we usually accompany them in journeys that maybe other people have never witnessed that person before, and they haven't talked about the things that they talk about with what they talk to us about as coaches.
And so we were noticing that we, too, as coaches, carry the loss of the relationship when it comes to a closure. And I'm just finding, as I extrapolate that to the work we do in sport, being able to ensure the wellness of the humans that are inside this very divisive culture right now that they are doing what they need to do to take care of themselves first, right beyond the oxygen mask. It's like seeing the care of ourselves as an ethical imperative. So that's what's coming across my desk. And I'm just so delighted to be able to welcome Stephanie Potter to this podcast. I've known Stephanie, oh, gosh, now probably about 15 years or so. We've had lots of time and have traveled parts of the world together. Actually, we have this beautiful experience in Nicaragua, building a classroom together. So I have a very special place in my heart for Stephanie. Thrilled that she works with us at sport law when she's not doing her other work, which she'll share with you. And so, Stephanie, maybe tell us a little bit more about what you know, who you are and what's coming across your desk this week.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Thanks. Oh, my gosh, I'm loving this conversation so much because it's all the bits about well being that I would love to shine a light on at least a little bit today. So, yeah, I am a mom of four humans. That's maybe my most favorite job in the whole world. And I am trained, let's call it, as a researcher and also as a coach. And so I have this dual evaluation research thing happening. And what I do a lot of right now, if we think system is change management around workplace well being. And so I have the coaching muscle of being able to accompany people through change and maybe ask some questions and see some things because I'm in it, but I'm not in it that I think are a bit different. Right. We need somebody to help us see things that we can't see.
And then using data as an excuse for really, really important conversations. Those are kind of my two schticks. Sometimes people laugh when they realize that I'm an evaluator. I have this research background because they don't always present as the. The geek that I am. But I'm happy to geek out with both of you today in this topic. And I know already that there's. I could talk for hours on this. And so I know I'm going to feel like we're speed dating a bit. And so for those who are. Who are going to be listening to this, yeah, maybe there'll be. Maybe there'll be some follow ups or maybe we'll have some. Some part, you know, mores.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Steph, when you talk about workplace well being, I'm going to ask you a two part question. One is, what's the difference between well being in the workplace and just well being as being a human?
[00:08:32] Speaker B: That's an awesome question. It's funny, when we were talking, as we were opening up together, Dina, you're talking about self care as the moral imperative and the mental health of me, the well being of me, and what is my responsibility in. In this workplace? Right. To hold that and to take responsibility for what I can hold. When I flip the words from well being in the workplace or mental health in the workplace. And when we talk about, we flip it to workplace well being, what I'm trying, or what I like us to think about is where are we putting the emphasis and the responsibility for things. So when we start with the individual and self care is a moral imperative, I totally agree with it. And what happens often is people feel like, okay, blame the victim. I'm the problem. I'm the problem that I have a burnout. Pardon? And really what I want us to think about is the system that we're all living in. And so when we shift from an individual perspective about talking about mental health, Steve, I'm kind of. Hopefully I'm answering your question or well being, like, just in my life, to talking about the workplace well being, we shift from trying to focus or fix the person to fixing the workplace so that I can only do so much yoga if I live and work in a toxic environment. I can do that. I can do that. I can manage my emails, I can do all those things. But if you put me in a situation where I'm being repeatedly exposed to crises, stressors, etcetera, I can't do enough yoga to really.
[00:10:11] Speaker C: You can't yoga your way out of it?
[00:10:13] Speaker B: I can't yoga my way. So, you know, I'm going to maybe push us. Yes, self care is a moral imperative, but some of the work we've been doing is to actually beyond self care. Beyond self care. What do we have to talk about when we're talking about workplace well being? And it goes to some of what you guys, we were already kind of laying down at the beginning, the system part. So workplace, for me, well being is like there's, I think, in layers or circles or balls or whatever. So there's the individual part, there's the team part, the we space, and then there's the system part, like how we work together. So some of what we already talking about was the system part. Right. Managing agreements, information management, all that kind of stuff. And one of the things that I'm noticing, because I don't know that I said this earlier. What's coming across my desk is a lot of the clients that I have with sport law, they can handle the work work. What they can't handle is the junk that the difficult system stuff brings to them. Because it gets in their way of being able to execute the beautiful big ideas because they know how to do all that, right? So it's the system part that's getting in their way.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: So you're really drawing a distinguishment step between the workplace well being. So that's work. You know, am I happy working as a lawyer, as a coach, as a sport executive versus well being when I leave the office?
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Actually, I'm not. I love your question though, because, you know, for me, I'm a human and everything happens inside this envelope of skin. I don't actually, my well being is. I think that's very typical, isn't it, Steve? Like in the past, we would have had to put on a mask, come to work, put aside whatever you were dealing with at home. There's like a wall, right? So you have your well being at work and then you go home and then you have your well being in the two spheres. Anyway, I don't know if you've heard people talking about less about balance now, and there's a little bit more thematic around integration. I don't know if you've picked up on that in some of the writing. So talking about workplace and work life integration so that we're not trying to separate them. But maybe I can answer your question a bit differently, Steve. When I'm talking about workplace well being, what I'm talking about is what are the factors in the workplace? What are the levers that we should pay attention to so that the humans in it are. Have as best chance as possible of being well.
So that's things like clear leadership and direction, things like low, like workplace civility, sense of connection, sense of purpose and meaning, autonomy. So recognition and a reward. So there's this thing called the 13 factors for psychological health and safety out there. And this voluntary standard has been in place since.
I'm going to get the dates wrong, but let's say early teens in the 20 teens. So 20, 1514, something like that. And this is a set of factors that workplaces are being invited to look at, measure, and know, are we healthy in these? Because there's a connection between those things and the experience of our people. You know, some of the factors, some of the things in the workplace, they drain us. Like stress, like workload, that's too high a pace. That just never stops. And we know that that's very much the case for our people in sport. And then there's things that can mitigate risk of those things. They can help us, and they might buffer us from some of the negative things, like having a you know what kick, you know what team. Like, an awesome team that is. I feel connected and supported. Like I said before, clear leadership, like having a sense of autonomy. So when I'm feeling burnout, when I'm. This is what I'm unpacking with people, is when they say, I think I have too much work, and so we can unpack that to go, okay, do you have too much work or do you not have role clarity? So you can't win your files, you can't move in the thing. And this goes back to, you know, talking about our eds, who may be working with a board or partners, and if there's no clarity between who's doing what, then there's all this energy that's trying to go, but we can't go. Nobody can go. Every stuck, and then that feels, like, heavy, right? And then the workload feels like more. That's what I'm talking about, is how do we unpack our experiences in the workplace?
See, like, where is the actual problem? Is it a problem of role clarity or a lack of leadership or something happening interpersonally with people? And how can we actually make those as healthy as possible so that we can be with the. What is. Some of. Some things are what is. Sometimes there's just things that happen in our jobs. You can. Sometimes it's easy to think about a police officer or somebody who is exposed to toxic or difficult traumatic events. That's a. What is. That's the job. But how do we help them meet that in a healthy, human way so we can apply that in all of our workplaces?
[00:15:35] Speaker C: Actually, it's really helpful, Stephanie, because when I just heard you speak to the what is. So I think a couple of things.
One is leaders in sport. Their assumption fundamentally, isn't that they're going to be exposed to the toxicity that we're all now being exposed to and the overwhelm and the missed expectations, the lack of clarity, the lack of autonomy, that many of them is contributing to their general sense of unwellness. So I love that you framed that, because when you're a police officer, you have the requisite training, and then you're also accepting the job with maybe going in eyes wide open in sport right now, I would say at all levels, the athlete, the coaches, the leaders, the volunteers are all coming in, I think, with false expectations. And so when their expectations aren't being met by a depleted system that wasn't designed to deal with the complexity of today's reality. And so right now, what I love about what you're sharing is that a lot of the emphasis right now is on the individual in sport. You know, getting rid of the bad individuals, holding the. The individuals accountable to bad behavior, training the individuals to be more, you know, resilient so they can carry more and more weight and swim in the toxic waters that is sport right now, as opposed to. And I'm hopeful now that with the commission into the future of sport, we're going to have an opportunity to be able to look at the structural limitations. I might say these limitations are actually are harming the individuals inside the ecosystem that is sport and looking to modernize the system so that the culture of sport, the work that you and I do in and on behalf of the organizations, when we talk about these ten factors of what it means to thrive inside our sport culture.
So thank you for all of that.
That's helping us kind of. I'm sure our listeners will hear and receive this. And I want to talk a little bit more about burnout, because burnout is a topic right now. The language is being thrown around. And because of the nature of the work I do in the healthcare field around grief and loss, I'm also exposed to other language around compassion fatigue because of the nature of the work we do. And I'm seeing the symptoms of compassion fatigue. I'm actually seeing show up in coaches as well as leaders, and then vicarious trauma, these instances now where leaders are afraid of what's going to be reported, how it's going to be shared, and then athletes as well. So everybody's kind of like walking on eggshells right now. And I'm curious, with what, you know, and the work that you're doing around workplace well being, what are some of the ways that you might advise our clients who are experiencing either burnout or vicarious trauma or compassion fatigue?
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Such a great question. And, yeah, it's all tied together, isn't it? So I guess the first thing I want to say is, let's think of our well being as being on a continuum. And it fluctuates from day to day, right? So that's just life. So some days we're up, some days we're down, and that's normal. Right? So when we talk about burnout, this is where. And there's a mental health continuum and we can maybe figure out a way of sharing that link out for people is we can do a self assessment. I mean, am I in the green? Which is. I'm thriving? And then it goes from green to yellow to orange to red, which is ill, you know, in. Right. So this is where somebody would need some kind of professional intervention of some kind so we can be on that continuum. It's interesting, the word burnout. I was listening to somebody talk, or a teacher talk about how they're noticed. I mean, noticing some of their students are saying, man, I'm burning out. Like, I. You know, and burning out is like, burnout is a word that's just getting tossed around. And sometimes it means, like, I'm tired. Some. Some people are using it to mean, yeah, like, I've just had enough. And there's a whole bunch of science around burnout. So I'll just maybe slide a little bit more on that with us is like, there's three dimensions that we can think about and that if we're interacting with somebody, maybe we want to start listening or watching or feeling for these things. So cynicism is one of the aspects of it. So the more closer we are and more unhealthy we're getting, our cynicism can go up.
Our sense of accomplishment, our self reported, how great are we in our work? And things can really be affected. And then there's the whole dimension of physical and emotional exhaustion. So it's a syndrome. Let's call it. Let's say that. And there's multiple dimensions to it. And you may notice that some of these things are happening for you and others aren't. And so that may, you know, those are some early warning signs about what can I pay attention to? So if you're a leader in the workplace, if you're just a person in the workplace and you're noticing behavior changes in your people, the peeps around you, those are some things to start to watch for, is. And some days we all get a little snarky. But what happens if it starts to become like, oh, my gosh, this person that I know has really started to change in how they're showing up like this. The glass is never half full anymore. It's always empty. And there's an edge. That's the edge. Right. And so those are some things we can start to watch for. I don't know if how much people know about some training we can do. So there's mental health first aid, which is a great training to be out there and becoming aware of what to pay attention for to. Sorry. In our folks, the working mind is another good training out there. And these are all on the mental health commission's website.
So maybe I'll just pause there and ask you, how am I doing in terms of responding to the question that you posed?
[00:21:55] Speaker C: Well, it's really good. And, Steve, I know you want to ask another question, but I'd like to actually make this really practical, and I'm going to be vulnerable here for a moment. So probably about 18 months ago, I had lost. I was losing my passion in sport. And Steve, who, you know, we're kind of, like, tied to the hip. We talk almost every day. He could feel it. And I said, I don't know how long I can stay inside, inside the system that I've grown up in. So this, I'm taking you back to 2022. And then Steve, as he always does, very pragmatic, says, well, what do you need to do to get yourself out of the rut that you're in? And I loved that he asked me that question, because out of that question came, why don't we go across Canada and have conversations with all the people that we love? Because we love our clients, all the provincial and territorial leaders and some of the community leaders. Why don't we go down where sport is hitting the roads in community and have conversations about healthy human sport? Why don't we do that? And, Steve, what did you say?
[00:23:08] Speaker A: No, guess what? We did.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Sign me up.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: 13 stops, at least, and can, right?
[00:23:16] Speaker C: Yeah. And what I love about that story is I actually was vulnerable enough to let Steve know. I don't know if I have it in me anymore to stay. And then he, the kind, you know, human that he is, said, well, what are you going to do to get yourself out of it? Which gave me a sense of resourcefulness. I'm like, oh, he thinks I can do something about this. And then I felt like I had agency stuff. And then I was able to get clear on what I wanted my next year to look like. And so clarity and agency and my sense of belonging right where I was feeling so fractured and split apart between this deep desire to serve in sport. And I've been advocating for healthy human sports since I first started in sport in 91, I was able to reclaim that. And so now my hope buckets runneth over. And it's because of this feeling of, okay, I can actually do something. Not everything, but I can do something. So thank you, Steph and Steve.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Thanks for sharing that, Dina.
It's important to share that. It affects all of us. And that kind of leads Steph to my next question. So we talked about burnout, the signs of burnout. I wonder if you can provide some strategies to be proactive and, of course, reactive. So sometimes it creeps up on us. And I know for me, my workload is excessive, and sometimes I do have to stop and think and try not to have it rollover into my personal life and my family life. So I wonder if you could share some thoughts on that.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So, first of all, what I love about what we've been talking about is how, Dina, you just modeled. The very first thing we want to do is, can we create space to be aware of our own? So creating self awareness. So let's talk like, as an individual right now first, and then we'll talk a little bit about what can I do for someone around me. So for myself, what can I do?
You just said it, Steve. I have to pause. Sometimes. That's hard. That's hard for some people to do at all is pause. Take a moment, take a beat, and self reflect. So how am I doing? Can I ask myself that? Do I have any self awareness at all? If I have zero self awareness, I can't do anything because I don't even know there's an issue, right? So the number one thing we can all do for ourselves is create little, have a little micro practice, little micro pauses once a day, if that's too much to start, once a week, something where we can pause and just go, huh? How am I doing? Go inside, have a little check. We have little tools for that in sport law that can help. So that's one thing. If I don't ask and I don't look, and it's the same thing, we start to look at the system, right? If we want to know whether the workplace is healthy, if we don't ask and we don't check and we don't measure, we're never going to do anything different. So it's the same thing. Individual or system?
There's a few things, you know, we've been talking about me, we, and then the system, right? So I would say that, Steve, for somebody like yourself, who might, what are you doing to self manage, or are you using any tools that exist to help manage some stuff? A lot of people are experiencing information overload, too many emails, that kind of stuff. I don't know. And I, this is not meant to be an ad for a particular software. Thank you. Flavor of software. However, one that we have access to is Microsoft. And it has something called Microsoft Viva in it. And in Microsoft Viva, there are a whole bunch of things that they've now embedded into it to help people use the technology as opposed to the technology using us. So it has to do with creating blocks of time in your day that where you can focus, right? So that's no go zones. So that's also something we need as individuals and leaders, is time to think where we're not only doing right, we hear that all the time. I need some integration time, some pause time. So it's leveraging a tool like Microsoft Viva even has a little thing that you can turn on that asks you a question, how are you doing? And you have little faces and you can choose. And if you do this as a team, you can actually start to share, oh, how are we doing? And are there peak times in our weeks where our well being goes up or down? And, huh, what does that mean? And what might we do differently if there are times like that in our month or whatever? So it's leveraging stuff like Microsoft Viva, something else. Well, as a coach, I think having someone to talk to is really important. So whoever that is, whatever that is, whatever the form that takes, whether it's a friend, a buddy, you could set up a little buddy thing. Pick, pick somebody that you are comfortable with. Could be a friend, it could be a family member, could be a co worker, or you could go again on the continuum side to something a little more formal and have, have a coach where you can talk or even have something even more therapeutic. Right. If you're noticing that you know what, something's happening, I need to go down that road of some talk therapy. And the thing about that is that there's such a threshold, a barrier for many of us, like, oh, my problem's not that serious. I don't need to call Eap.
I mean, EAp is for people who really have a problem, right? And no, it's not actually employee assistant programs where you can call somebody to talk is actually meant to be preventative as well. And many of our clients have employee assistant program stuff that they have access to. So the encouragement is, don't wait till your house is on fire. Right? But what we have to do is get out of our own way and this competition around, am I bad enough, is this serious enough? And getting out of our own way in terms of not wanting to think that maybe we're not coping as well as we want to, right? It's such a human thing to not want to fail, instead creating that muscle. If we embed it in ourselves and in our teams around, we normalize pausing. We normalize recovery time. Like we said, police officers or people who go overseas and are part of an army or whatever, they actually, when they come back home, they have a decompression program.
We need decompression for us, for people in our space. Right. So there's lots of little things, big things that we can do. We can leverage systems. We can go and seek help externally. And, Deena, you want to jump in there?
[00:30:08] Speaker C: Well, what I would offer, you know, you got me thinking about something that we did with. With a bunch of sport leaders. Through the sport leaders retreat, we have these peer to peer circles where we bring leaders together in a shared experience. And when you give them some literacy, we use the Nova profile as that common language and framework to help people normalize, Stephanie, not pathologize their lived experience. Right. And not minimize. So there's so much minimization, as if I'm doing this leadership thing wrong, because I can't present as being stoic and brave and courageous and got all my stuff together. So one thing that I'll offer is this peer to peer experience where we've witnessed leaders who open up, come together, share some of the things that feels heavy for them, and people are not invited to fix the problem, but rather to show up and listen and ask really beautiful questions about what the leader is already doing and before they offer maybe something in addition. And those experiences of peer to peer support where we feel like we're being companioned can be incredibly therapeutic. So I love that you've talked about therapeutic alliances and whether that's with nature. I do a lot of my healing and nature. Right. Forest bathing. Thank you very much. Whether it's moving our bodies, running, or yoga, and then these systems, you can intentionally create these healthy cultures by normalizing the we space and then having these. These systems that encourage that and using technology in a much more elegant way. So I'm really very grateful, Stephanie, that you filled out a lot of the things that I hadn't really considered before. Steve, what about you? Before we say goodbye, and we'll ask you, Stephanie, is there anything else that you want to say before we come down the mountain together?
[00:32:12] Speaker A: I just want to say thanks, Steph. It's great to have. Sometimes it's a difficult conversation to recognize that a person needs help, that maybe their work space well being is not where it should be as well as their personal well being is. So I like the distinguishment between the two.
And if anybody else wants to learn more from Stephanie, her contact information will be in the show notes below.
And again, really just thank you, Steph, for taking your time to talk about really something that can be a difficult conversation for people to acknowledge that they need help, or they need at least an ear to listen to, or some tools to rectify those difficult situations.
As I said in the episode notes below, you'll find some sport law blogs where you can find more information related to our conversation today and Stephanie's contact information. Thank you to all our listeners. We are so grateful to share our vision of Sportopia with you and to elevate sport.
[00:33:18] Speaker C: As always, to have your say in Sportopia. Email us at helloportlaw, CA or on social media atlawca to let us know what you want to hear about next. Stay tuned for the next episode, and until then, be well.
