Melissa Robinson-Winemiller on Empathy as a Leadership Strategy: Reducing Burnout and Turnover

Speaker A: I cashed out my entire 401k thinking someone stole my identity.

Speaker B: A fake email cost me my dream home. After I sent my personal information to a scammer, my AI agent wired thousands

Speaker A: to an account I'd never seen.

Speaker C: When billions of people feel unsafe, that's no longer a security problem. It's an economic one. At Jenn, we're building the trust layer for a more fearless planet with products and technologies from our global brands, Norton, Lifelock, Avast and Money Lion. See it in action@gendigital.com waiting for coffee,

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Speaker B: Welcome to the Breakfast Leadership show, where we explore the realities of leadership, decision making, and building organizations that perform under pressure. Your host, Michael D. Levitt, is the creator of the Breakfast Leadership Operating System, a, uh, framework designed to help organizations improve decision clarity, strengthen leadership alignment, and reduce the execution friction that slows teams down. Each episode features conversations with leaders and experts navigating the challenges of leading in today's complex world. Let's get started.

Speaker A: Welcome back. I've got Melissa Robinson Wein Miller on the line. Melissa, how are you?

Speaker E: Uh, I'm doing well. Mike, how are you doing?

Speaker A: John? Really good today and I've been looking forward to this conversation and shout out to Todd the Bolt and you know, everybody know. I'll put a link in Todd's show too, and yours and everybody else's. Any link. Anybody want to put links in the show notes, just send me links. We'll just, uh, in the show notes will just be links. Now why don't you share a little bit about yourself and then we'll jump into the conversation.

Speaker E: Sure. So I, I'm an expert and a trainer and a coach and a writer. And what I talk on specifically is empathy and leadership. And I talk about how empathy relates to emotional intelligence. But the big thing that I do talk about is how empathy is really needed in leadership right now, all leadership. And I don't care if it's a leader of many or just a leader of yourself. We're missing this piece and I care about it so much that I'm actually doing a second doctorate, which is crazy to begin with, in interdisciplinary leadership. And my dissertation work is on empathy and leadership leadership. And like you and I were talking, you know, just before the show, right now I'm doing A ton of interviews and conversations, uh, especially with people in mid management positions about their experience with empathy both with themselves and with their leaders and with their employees. And some of what I'm seeing is, like I said, it doesn't give me optimism, but it does convince me that this is a conversation we need to be having.

Speaker A: It flushed out quite a bit from the pandemic. Pandemic. As much as we hated it, I don't know too many people that enjoyed it, maybe some introverts that didn't have to go in the office. But uh, and I'm married to one, so she didn't enjoy it, but she didn't mind it, let's put it that way, to a certain extent. But you know, obviously the other parameters around it, including the tragic loss of life, which is obviously a huge, huge component of it, but it's from a work standpoint it really kind uh, of opened up the eyes of a lot of people and they kind of took a look at things and realized I don't like what I'm doing at work. And there could be a variety of reasons. And I know that a ton of people that listen to this show are in management roles. Mid management, maybe mid upper or even C suite. And there are many a day where we don't feel heard, uh, we don't feel like we belong. We feel like we're a component or a tool and there's no concern about our physical or emotional well being and that, you know, those little dings hurt and what happens is they start to collect. You keep getting hit day after day after day, figuratively speaking, of course. Hopefully you're not physically getting hurt, but mentally you are, which is in many cases worse. Uh, because it, it, you get, you get hit in the arm or something, you know, it hurts for a few and then the pain kind of goes away. Mentally you get hurt that can linger with you for your entire life. And we're, we're seeing that workplaces and it's impacting every aspect of everything in society and a lot of people don't think about that. But the products and services that you and I buy on a daily basis, the quality I have noticed and uh, it's noticeable has dropped dramatically in a lot of different things. And you're like, it's just the quality is not there. And, and why is that? It's not because there's less people working on it. It's just the people that are working on it aren't. Well, there's, there's issues and we've seen it in the workplace. You, you know about it, you see it, uh, you're, you're doing your doctorate on it. And there's just, for some reason people don't act like. And especially in leadership or all levels, doesn't matter, you know, they, they just short fused. We see it in social media, we see it in the us against them type of situation. We see it with the conflicts around the globe and everything that's happening. It's just, there's no, can we stop and kind of just get along? I know that's an old Rodney King quote from LA way back in the day, but can't we all just get along? And there's so much power in that statement and for some reason we, we bring all this baggage and we just, we bring it into work, home, um, every aspect of your life. And quite frankly, that's no way to live. They'll live here with us on that.

Speaker E: Well, I think you make a really good point, Mike, because when I go and I talk to these leaders, you know, because I, I do some coaching and that sort of thing, they're usually confused. They don't even realize, you know, that. Because, uh, so let's start by defining empathy. Because, because that's, you know, there's a lot of myths out there about what it is and that it's all feelings and it's not, it's about being able to take the perspective of the other person. And a lot of times there isn't any feelings involved. So when you go to leadership and you say, well, you're not really using empathy, the two responses I either get are, uh, well, it's all feelings, it's all soft and I'm not doing it, or, but I thought I was. So it means that this perspective taking isn't happening in both directions, you know, and that's why we have 35% burnout rates for leadership and why there's, you know, alcohol abuse and substance abuse and problems with families and all of this. I mean, it's not just a breakdown at that level, it's a breakdown at all, all levels, you know, and I think you're right, I think a lot of this did come out of the pandemic. That's where one of the first big studies from Ernst and Young, well, it wasn't a study, it was a survey came out specifically looking at empathy in the workplace. It was in the wake of the great resignation. And what they found were leaders that could actively use empathy strategically raised their productivity by 87%, innovation by 86% and profit by 84. 4%. Now, I don't know any leader or anybody in any organization who wouldn't like those numbers if they knew what was behind them and could apply it to be able to consistently get those.

Speaker A: I've shared, um, on my show several times. I took over a healthcare organization. This was over a decade ago now, which is alarming, but my original career is accounting. So I can kind of do math. And so it's. Yeah, it's been over a decade. I don't like doing that math. But it's there that this organization was quoting the boat. The board chair that interviewed me, he said, it's a talk successful here. I'm like, oh, that's the way to upsell me to apply to work here. Cool. I like that. But, uh, I knew what I was going into because the organization had reputation and I was aware of it. And the opportunity to lead the organization opened up and I'm crazy. So I decided, hey, let's do this. So. And they were averaging close to 90% annual turnover. So 9 out of 10 people leaving. These are master's level and above clinicians. And this wasn't, uh, just, you know, frontline 17 year olds that, you know, bounced around from job to job to job. No, these were clinicians and they were leaving because it was just such a horrible situation. And after my first year, that was reduced to 6%. Now I've shared this too. I didn't give a single dime in raises. I didn't improve benefits. I didn't buy them new computers or new desks or chairs or a fancy new coffee machine or anything like that. Didn't spend a dime on any quote, unquote perks. I just, I listened. I literally just listened and asked them, what, from your viewpoint, would make this better? And I took a lot of notes and I asked them, if you were in my seat, what would you do first? And just listened and took those notes and sat down with the board and said, okay, of, um, this list and put it all together. These are a handful of things that you probably implement right away. And we should. Do I have a permission? Do you have your permission to do this? Yes, they did it, so implemented a bunch of things right away. And that got the attention of people. They're like, wait. He listened, huh? Uh, and I just. And it wasn't. I didn't stop there. I'm like, okay, thanks, bye. And ignored them. No, I continued that and was there for, you know, well over four years. And we went from a tax Success pool to a place where everybody was trying to apply to work there because the, that it was a great place to work. It wasn't because of me. I mean, and I. In that 6% annual turnover, you know, I don't. There was only a couple people that, you know, I felt weren't a right fit. So, you know, gave them, you know, the nice little parachute and helped them find a new role somewhere else. But for the most part, I kept the people that were there because they were good. And there's still some people there that I brought in or were there before me that are still there. And you just lay down the framework, you create an environment where you care, you take their viewpoints, you listen to them, you ask them like, how do you see in this? And all of a sudden they go from feeling like they have this reporting responsibility to a conversation and more of a collaboration type of thing. And it's subtle, but, uh, boy, oh boy, does it make a huge difference. The work still gets done. You know, turnover went way down, performance went way up. We were recognized, we were able to expand. We brought in new doctors, we brought in additional staff, we got additional funding, all because we just kind of started working well with each other. And it's amazing what you can do just by listening to people.

Speaker E: Yes, well, let me ask you a question, because one of the pushbacks I get is, oh, it takes too much time. I'm busy, I don't have time to listen to my people. And okay, leadership. I mean, yes, if it were easy, everybody'd be doing it, right, but did you feel it took an inordinate amount of time, especially considering what you got back?

Speaker A: It didn't take anywhere near the amount of time that a lot of people thought it would take. Yes, I allocated the time. Yes, I put in the hours. I made sure to have boundaries around when I work and when I didn't, because, come on, I had my own burnout journey. Don't want to ever go down that road again. That was not fun. And I don't want anybody to do that either. So I had to walk the walk. But for me it was, yes, this is going to be a time consuming endeavor in the short term, but what am I going to be saving by reducing the number of fires that I got to put out day after day after day after day, or constantly just interviewing people because you're just having a turnstile of people coming and going. So, yes, the amount of time that I put in the first few months was a lot. But you know, it, it Laid the foundation. It created a system. It created. This is how we're going to operate here. And leveraging the people that were there, their strengths, finding out what they like doing, finding out what they didn't like doing. If we have somebody else do it, great. If not, okay, well, let's. Let's come up with some ways to kind of minimize the pain of whatever you don't like doing. We still have to get it done, but, uh, let's see if we can shift some things around a little bit, maybe minimize that a bit. And just being creative, it's like, let's design the ideal workplace for you. What does that look like? What can we do? And majority of the time, people say, well, this, this, and this. And it wasn't cost prohibitive or quite frankly, didn't cost anything in some situations. But ultimately, uh, it's an investment you need to make because you can spend all your time just putting out fires and interviewing and, you know, trying to navigate and onboard people and figure out, okay, who does what, who knows how to do what. Oh, they used to know, but they left and now nobody else has picked this up. So I didn't want to have a place like that. I didn't want to run because that's how it was. Like, uh, no, we're not going to do it this way. We're going to do it a different way. And yes, it takes time to lay the foundation, but once you do it and you get a system in place, it's not autopilot, but it, it kind of drives itself to. And you let the people kind of steer the ship and you just kind of say, okay, let's go over this way. Let's go over this. It's a whole lot more fun to run an organization that way than constantly firefighting.

Speaker E: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you think about. I mean, just in terms of attrition, I mean, 90%, that's like, wow. But Society of Human Resource Management says that organizations spend 90 to 200% of every employee's wages when they have to hire somebody else in. Now take that by whatever that number of employees are and think about that money that's being hemorrhaged for no good reason. You know, I mean, it's just. It's kind of insane. And it's the fact that you, yeah, you do have to put some time in and you do have to listen to them and you do have to pay attention. Just in attrition alone, it can pay for itself.

Speaker A: Well, lost knowledge is, uh, it's such A hard thing to gather.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker A: Someone's been with an organization for a long time. Yeah, it's difficult. And one of the organizations that I help out, Helping out. Returning to my bean counting roots a little bit with this organization, which thankfully accounting hasn't changed much since the Mad Monk created accounting in the 1400s or whenever it was, I think it was 1400s. Anyway, debit, SQL, credits, uh, so still rings true today for all you people that dropped out after the first year of accounting and were like, I can't do this. Get it, I understand. But I'm going into this place and their previous person that counted things left, you know, a few months earlier and no one knew how or where or anything, so had to put on my, you know, forensic hat. You know, felt like I was in an episode of csi trying to figure out, okay, where is this, who did this, why, how is this? What about this? And again, that's, that's time consuming. But I'm also helping them kind of create some SOPs. And like, okay, here's this, here's this, here's some documentation on how to do this. So basically when I'm removed from the picture, someone else can pick up and have what I didn't have going in. I want to, I want to. It's, it's like a camp. If you ever go camping, you know their drill. It's like, leave the campsite cleaner than you found it. Well, it's the same thing whenever I go to organization. If I leave an organization, I want it to be better than what I found it. That's just my own personal preference. Everybody's different. I'm not saying you have to be that way, but what it does is it you, you create this environment. It's like, okay, this place is running, it's smooth, everything is good. Okay. For some people, they're like, okay, now I want to take on another challenge. Other people are like, wow, actually, I've set this up nice. It's pretty nice here. I like it here. It's, it's working now. Now I can kind of get into a flow and everybody's different. You know, there are people that go in and they kind of clean things up and help them get to be better. And they're like, okay, now you can, you can fly out of the nest and you can flap your own wings and you're going to be a good bird. But other people, like, you know, I'm going to clean this up. And like, you know what? I like this nest. This nest is actually pretty comfortable. It's got, it's got good views. I'm going to stay here for a little bit. And again, everybody's different. But for me and for, you know, many, many leaders, that's what they want ultimately. They want the place to be better. They want. They want to use their skills and their gift. They want to grow. They want to feel like they belong. They want to feel a part of something. Because when you feel that and you create something in a work environment, there's something about that, you know? And I know you've had this experience. I have too. You know, in many of the companies that I've been a part of over my career, a few stand out because the environment had some common elements of that. Like, they cared about me, they knew about me, they allowed me to do some great work, they helped me grow, I helped them grow. And it just, it's such a better experience for everybody involved. And unfortunately, as you have discovered in your research and the stuff that I do as well, it's, uh, not as many companies are like that as there should be. And it's easy to fix. It's easy to do. Quoting the late Jim Rohn, it's easy to do, but it's also easy not to. And unfortunately, people are choosing the not to more often than not. I, uh, cashed out my entire 401k thinking someone stole my identity.

Speaker B: A fake email cost me my dream home. After I sent my personal information to a scammer, my AI agent wired thousands to an account I'd never seen.

Speaker C: When billions of people feel unsafe, that's no longer a security problem. It's an economic one. At Gen, we're building the trust layer for a more fearless planet. With products and technologies from our global brands, Norton Lifelock, Avast and Money Lion. See it in action@genndigital.com your whole neighborhood

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Speaker E: Yeah, well, I think it's kind of a case of this is how we've always done it, you know, and it's easy to stick with the monster, you know, than the monster, you don't know. And you know, the thing is too is to be able to get into leadership positions. Maybe these are the things that have gotten people there. They've proven to be successful in the past. But that kind of command and control style leadership is only going to take you so far, especially in the current climate. So you're going to have to either evolve or go extinct. Especially with the advent of AI and big tech and all the other stuff coming down the road.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's those, what's the phrase? The, the phrase that just came to mind is shenanigans. Okay? Those shenanigans of, you know, lead with a carrot or a stick kind of thing. Well, people are tired of the stick and they're grabbing the stick and they're swinging it back or they're taking the stick and they're busting it in half and then they're leaving. And all of a sudden you've not only lost your stick, you've lost your people. And now you're like as a leader, you. Everybody's got a boss, they got to report to their boss and eventually people are going to go, mhm. We're seeing a trend here. What is that trend? Seems to be this particular individual. We see it in sports all the time. You know, coaches get fired all the time and then another coach comes in, they get fired, and all of a sudden they're like, wait a minute, general manager keeps bringing in these coaches and we're not getting any better. Maybe it's the gm. And so you see the cycle time and time again and again. It doesn't have to be this way. That's know. And I realize why it is. I understand. But it still frustrates me. I go, uh, why are you doing it this way? All just change the temperature a little bit and let go a little bit of trying to control everything. You know, for me, a uh, you know, mentor of mine years and years ago, and he told me, you know, make sure you hire people smarter than you. And I said, well, that's not going to be a challenge. I got that one. Check that box. We're good. Donut, you do not not have to worry about that. And he laughed. He says, you know what? I.

Speaker E: Me too.

Speaker A: You know what I, you know what I Mean, it's like, hire people that are better at things than you are.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker A: It doesn't mean. And we see this a lot with managers to get promoted because they. Nobody teaches a manager how to be managed. And no one teaches a, uh, director how to direct. It's like, here you go. Congratulations. Here's the title. Okay, what do I do? Well, at least AI, you can ask, how do I be a director? You know, and it's. It's going to give you some good research, but it's all in the application and understanding who you are, because, yes, you can. There's nothing wrong with mimicking other people. But, you know, find a mentor, find a coach, find a consultant that can kind of guide you to find out who you are and how you lead. Because, uh, I don't. I mean, I lead the way that I lead. And it's, you know, I've borrowed pieces from all kinds of different managers and leaders that I've had or people that I admire, and I study them and I go, okay, what, you know, what's their secret sauce? What. What's making them successful in what they do? And I see a lot of commonalities in there. And usually it's a, yeah, they're driven, they're successful, and all of that, but they also recognize that they're people are critically important, and without them, there's nothing. So treat them very well. And how does, you know, how do you treat them? Well, it's not a cookie cutter approach. As much as everybody say, okay, we're just going to apply template B. And that's no, uh, you have people that are introverted, extroverted. You have people that are dynamically just super intelligent, and they want to be, you know, really tasked with all kinds of different things. And other people, like, no, um, um, I want this level of work, and I'm good. And I'm, uh, going to m. Churn it out. You can't have a team full of All Stars. And a great example of this is the New York Yankees before they started winning all the World Series again in the late 90s and early 2000s, in the early 90s, you know, they. From 1 to 9, they basically had an All Star team. You know, the Steinbrenner just dumped a bazillion dollars, got All Stars across the board. They didn't win a thing. They didn't win. So all of a sudden, they change. They bring in this manager named Joe Torrey. They happen to get really lucky in drafting a guy named Derek Jeter. And I'm not a Yankees fan by any stretch, but I just, I, It's a system that I admire. They brought in, they had some superstars, but then they bring in guys like Scott Brocius and Paul o', Neill, who, great players, but not like upper tier. You know, some might be in the hall of Fame, most not. You get a dynamic of these players. All of a sudden they congeal and all of a sudden they create, you know, quite frankly, a dynasty. For a few years they just won and won and won. And on paper you go, this shouldn't work because there's more talented teams over there. But they, they figured out a system and they knew how to support each other and pick each other up. And it just, it just, it's beautiful to watch, you know, if you're a sports fan, of course, you know, unless you don't like the Yankees, if you're from Boston, that was the, that was a wor. That was the worst period of time in your life. And you don't. And I get that, I completely understand that. But you take a step back of it and you go, okay, let's look at this in a system way, in a workflow way, in a team dynamic way. How does this work? And you see the different components and the pieces and comes down to trust, belonging. They're listened to, encouraged, challenged. You know, there's all little levers that you move around. And as a leader, yes, you have to move those things around. But if you do it in a state of flow, it's a whole lot easier than playing whack a mole and trying to, you know, put out all of the different challenges that pop up every day.

Speaker E: Oh, absolutely. I mean, the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts, you know, plus once you put, you know, because you're talking about belonging and collaboration and systems and teams, once you put everything into the big stew, you know, and you let it simmer, it becomes completely different than if you've just got a potato here and some hamburger here and some tomatoes over there or whatever you're throwing in there, you know, putting it together is where the magic is. But if you, you can't understand what you're putting together, good luck. When you accidentally throw some salmon and some whatever else into that chili and you wonder why it didn't turn out the way you thought it was gonna.

Speaker A: And that's why we have Doordash ladies and gentlemen, to cover for our screw ups. Thank you, Doordash and Ubereats who don't sponsor my show. But I'll throw you a shout out because you give me money. If you want to sponsor the show. I'm more than happy to have a conversation. But no, I think that is a great analog. You know, I think of, of stews and chili and things like that. Uh, time after time, you recognize the second day it tastes better. It's because everything's had time to kind of figure each other out and come up with this combination that separately would never happen, you know, uh, but you put it together, that's when. That's when the magic happens. So plus, I love this conversation. Where can people find out more about you and this amazing work that you're doing?

Speaker E: You can. The easiest place is probably my website and that is eqvia and that's via victoria empathy.com and you can find kind of everything there about me, the speaking that I'm doing, my TEDx is there. We're up to about 140,000 views in four months. So love to get more views on that. That one's about self empathy, so that's a good one. My book is up there. It's called the Empathic How EQVA Empathy Transforms Leadership for Better Profit, Productivity and Innovation and actually talks about how the soft skills lead to the hard bottom lines. So yeah, that's probably the easiest place. And of course I'm on, you know, LinkedIn and Facebook. LinkedIn mostly, so. But you know, the usuals.

Speaker A: There you go, man. I'll definitely have that in the show notes. Melissa, thank you for being you really loved our conversation today. Thanks again for being on the show.

Speaker E: Thank you.

Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the Breakfast Leadership Show. If today's conversation resonated with you, we invite you to explore the Breakfast Leadership Operating System. A structured approach that increases decision velocity, clarifies accountability, and stabilizes execution across leadership teams. Leaders can learn more and schedule an executive diagnostic by visiting breakfastleadership.com until next time, keep leading. With clarity.

Speaker A: I, uh, cashed out my entire 401 thinking someone stole my identity.

Speaker B: A fake email cost me my dream home. After I sent my personal information to a scammer, my AI agent wired thousands

Speaker A: to an account I'd never seen.

Speaker C: When billions of people feel unsafe, that's no longer a security problem. It's an economic one. At Gen, we're building the trust layer for a more fearless planet with products and technologies from our global brands, Norton, Lifelock, Avast and Money Lion. See it in action@genndigital.com.