28. Build a Better Team through Empathetic Storytelling with Janna Browning

Also available on YouTube!

Have you ever thought team building was cheesy and a total waste of time?

But what if it could be truly impactful for your business and team (minus the cheese factor)? 

If it could help your team understand one another better, be more empathetic, collaborate more effectively, and problem solve together, without always running to you?

What if it could be thoughtful, intentional, and even fun? Yes, I said FUN!

If that sounds like your cuppa tea, then join me and my dear friend and colleague, Janna Browning of Integrative Storyworks for this exciting episode of The Impact Ripple podcast! 

In this conversation, Janna and I explore the essence of trust-building, what it is and how to build it, while sharing a unique team-building experience that you’ve likely never seen before.

I recently experienced Janna’s powerful team-building workshop and I couldn’t wait to share it with you, so I’m thrilled she agreed to join me on the show for a chat!

We discuss the importance of avoiding surface-level interactions by going deeper with our teams to build long-lasting, empathetic connections through Janna’s work with her fascinating interactive storytelling process.

We also dive into how this work is so important in the ever-evolving landscape post-COVID, as well as how it applies to diverse groups, from leadership teams to companies dealing with silos and cross-functional challenges.

Together, we help you envision a workplace where your team is more empathetic and engaged, able to resolve conflict on their own, and are no longer leaving for something better. 

In this episode, you’ll:

• Discover the art of empathetic listening and its role in reducing turnover.

• Explore the concept of embodied empathy and its transformative effects on workplace culture.

• Learn about cross-cultural conflict resolution and building lasting connections within your team.

• Uncover the secrets to creating a positive workplace culture through the magic of storytelling.

Mentioned in This Episode: 

• Integrative StoryWorks Website: integrativestoryworks.com

• Integrative StoryWorks on Facebook: facebook.com/integrativestoryworks

• Integrative StoryWorks on Instagram: instagram.com/integrativestoryworks

• Book a Free Call: www.sprouthr.co/call 

Transcription for Episode #28 - Build a Better Team through Empathetic Storytelling with Janna Browning

Ashley Cox (she/her) (00:01.214)

Welcome to the Impact Ripple podcast, the go-to source for hiring and leadership made simple, doable, and fun for visionary female business owners. I'm your host, Ashley Cox, author, certified HR expert, and founder of Sprout HR. And I believe that you don't have to change who you are to be a great leader because you already are one.

Join me as we kiss uncertainty and overwhelm goodbye and say hello to the tools and support you need to grow a profitable, sustainable, impactful team with more confidence and ease. On today's episode, Janna Browning joins me for an enlightening conversation about the power of our stories in team building and creating belonging in our businesses. Janna Browning is a seasoned drama therapist, director and co-founder of Integrative Storyworks, a company that uses personal story to build community. 

In California, Janna worked with Armand Volkas in his work Healing the Wounds of History, which uses expressive arts therapy to work with groups that share a common legacy of historical trauma. Janna also worked with Community Performance International, a company specializing in community building across lines of difference using the stories of a community in large-scale theater performances. In this episode, Janna shares why stories are an integral part of creating belonging, the importance of cross-cultural conflict resolution, and how businesses can reduce turnover, quiet quitting, and a host of other challenges through embodied empathy. 

My favorite part of the conversation are all the ways in which our stories allow us to build empathy, and understanding as humans working with humans. So you are definitely not going to want to miss this conversation. So let's get started with Janna Browning.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (00:02.033)

Welcome, Janna I am so excited to have you on the Impact Ripple podcast today. Thank you so much for being here.

Janna Browning (00:08.674)

Thank you so much for having me.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (00:10.321)

You are so welcome. So for our listeners, Janna and I actually met earlier this year at an International Women's Day luncheon. So we're still in 2023. It's November when we're recording this. And I think that luncheon was in February, right? February or March? Yeah. I know it was still chilly outside. I remember having a jacket on.

Janna Browning (00:27.371)

Yes, yes, I think it was March.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (00:33.945)

And we just hit it off right away. We sat at the same table and as soon as I started asking Janna what she did, I was enthralled. And we actually went and had coffee later and we've done a couple of collaborations since then and we've just really continued to be in each other's orbits and I am so pumped to be able to bring her and her brilliance to the Impact Ripple audience today. So today we're talking about how stories can build teams and belonging. And if that doesn't hook you in, I don't know what else will, because it combines two of my favorite things, storytelling and the art of connecting through our shared experiences, and team building and belonging and company culture. 

So over the summer, I actually hosted a one-day retreat with Janna, and she came and taught us her story process. And I tell you what, every single woman in that room,continues to talk about this. I think we had that event in June or July, and I still have women saying, you know, that workshop that we did with Janna, it was brilliant. It was amazing. I got so much value from that. So thank you, Janna, for bringing that experience to us live and allowing us to experience and participate in it.

Janna Browning (01:45.974)

Yeah, thank you. It was so much fun. It was an honor.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (01:48.497)

Yeah. So I told Janna, I was like, oh my gosh, this process was too brilliant to keep to ourselves. And so that's why she's here with us today. So I'm not going to steal too much of Janna's thunder because she is going to share all about, you know, the work that she does with us. And I think she's probably better positioned to tell you exactly what it is that she does and how she helps to build teams and belonging. 

But I'm going to pop in with my own experience as well, so that you can kind of see from a participant side, what I was going through and what I was experiencing throughout this workshop with Janna. So let's dive in. Okay, Janna, I always like to start off with the same question, which is just tell us a little bit about your journey and how you came to be doing this incredibly fascinating work that you do today.

Janna Browning (02:37.65)

Okay, thank you. So I started off as an actor and really loved theater and film. And I got my undergraduate degree in acting. And I guess that was really when it started, when I was in college, I took a performing arts class. And I was it was it was theater for social change. And so we were learning about projects where performing arts was being brought into different situations. And one particular one was a prison in Barcelona, a female prison in Barcelona. And this project that they started doing around the stories of the women and how those related and the impact that it had on these female inmates. And I was sitting in the middle of the front row of the classroom and by 10, 15 minutes in it, I was sobbing. I was like the only one in the room that was just like, just could not contain myself. And it moved me so deeply.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (03:56.126)

Mm.

Janna Browning (04:05.966)

And I decided that was really where I wanted to go with my work was to use the performing arts to make people's lives better. So I didn't know how to do that. And so after I graduated with my undergrad, I was sort of in this little panic of what am I going to do with my life and how I'm going to make this happen. But then I stumbled on drama therapy and it was the perfect fit. And as I was looking into how I was gonna get my graduate degree, I found Armand Volkas, who ended up being my mentor, and he works in a company that he created called Healing the Wounds of History. And his story is amazing, and I have to share it, I'll give you the very short version of it. But his parents were resistance fighters in the Holocaust. And they actually met in Auschwitz and fell in love. And so they were separated, sent to different camps and then found each other after the war ended and moved to the LA area of Southern California, which is where Armand grew up.

And he was struggling with how to deal with this legacy of trauma that he had inherited in this place like LA, which has got, it's a very surface oriented place. And so he ended up creating a theater group with children of Holocaust survivors and children of third-rate officers and they created theater pieces, kind of processing the shared legacy. And so his work came out of that. And that was really what interested me, which was the cross-cultural conflict resolution through theater and performing arts. So I ended up going to the California Institute of Integral Studies and I got my master's in drama therapy.

And I started working with Armand doing cross-cultural conflict resolution. And we would do these projects where, like, I'll give an example. This was, gosh, this was 20 years ago or something, a long time ago, but it was a, it was a group with Turks and Armenians. And so the Armenians were descendants of the Armenian genocide that happened around World War I. And then Turkish folks who were actually from Turkey, where at the time, someone had gotten assassinated just in the months before because a journalist, because they were talking about the genocide. It's illegal to discuss the genocide in Turkey. 

Janna Browning (07:31.242)

So there was real repercussions around coming to this workshop. They walked in and there was so much tension. They immediately went to opposite sides of the room, would not talk to each other. And through this process of sharing stories, within one day, they were friends and hugging and crying together and had totally transformed. And so that's how I got started in seeing the power of story and working in groups that have really extreme conflict and history of conflict that are walking into the room, really dehumanizing each other and the way in which story broke down those barriers so quickly.

Janna Browning (08:31.986)

That was where I began. And then I began working with Jules Courier, who's my partner in our company, Integrative Storyworks. And we began working in communities doing large scale theater performances with the community stories. So we'd gather the stories of the community and write a play and cast the community in the play, telling the stories of their neighbors and their grandparents, and then perform them for this show, these theater pieces for the community. And that's where we started. And as things have evolved, we're moving into organizational aspects of creating community building, culture building, team building, like you said, because we've seen amazing transformations happen with this work.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (09:32.021)

Oh, I love this. What a powerful story and journey in and of itself to where you started and so uncertain about what am I going to do with my life? What am I going to do with this degree and the knowledge that I have already? And then that transpiring and kind of evolving through, you know, working with Armand and then starting with community stories and then bringing that into organizations.

I promise that if you ever go through a workshop with Janna, you will cry, 100%. I don't think there was a dry eye in the room that we went through this story process because it really gets to the root of our humanity. It gets to the ways in which we live and have experienced and have learned in this world. And it's really confronting when you are talking to other people whose lived experiences are very different. And not confronting necessarily in a bad way, but in an eye-opening way, in an awe-inspiring way, in a shock. And sometimes, wow, that's really what happened. That's your experience. 

So I think that that's one of the things that was so profound to me and to I know a lot of the other women in the room was even though we had a certain level of familiarity and comfortability with one another, we all were surprised by the stories that were shared. Can you talk a little bit more about how stories help us to connect and to empathize and why that feels like such an emotional experience?

Janna Browning (11:20.714)

Well, we're storied beings. So our experience in the world is all about the stories we tell ourselves about our life. And it's about the stories that were passed down to us from our parents or the culture. And when something happens and you're thinking about it, you're telling yourself a story about what happened.

And so that's how we process information, it's how we process our emotions, it's how we process our experiences. And so it's really the building blocks of who we are. And I think what's really special and unique about this process is that it's it is giving us an opportunity to really hear each other. 

You know, when you were speaking about the workshop and you were saying how you kind of knew each other, but there's some way in which it brought something deeper out and a way in which you heard each other. Did it really, did that really happen? Or, oh my gosh, I haven't thought about it that way. 

Janna Browning (12:46.126)

There's something about the way in which we build this sort of container and process that we're, a lot of times I think when people come in and they have this agenda, like I want you to hear me, especially when you're talking about DEI work or differences, there's a way in which it can kind of bring up an initial defense, like I have to protect my story. And if your story's right, and that did happen to you, then my story's wrong. So I think the key is creating an environment where it's not about whose story's right, or my story versus your story. It's let's listen to each other and step into each other's story. 

Janna Browning (13:43.05)

And it has a when you actually are really putting yourself in someone's story, something changes. That's the act of empathy. That's what empathy is, is stepping into someone's shoes, taking a walk in their journey. And so by that very nature, we start to empathize with each other, we start to humanize each other. And it's really hard to hate or be defended against somebody you start caring about. And part of that key is that you're also, you're hearing their story, but they're hearing your story. And it's that mutual exchange, I think that's really important. It's not one story that's being elevated. Everyone has a story, and everyone's story is worth listening to.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (14:35.305)

Yeah. I think one of the things that was so important about the workshop was that we sat and we listened to other's stories without interruption. And how often do we as human beings do that with anyone, let alone the people that we work with? And so I think so much understanding of others is lost because we don't have or we don't create the opportunities to really listen and hear other people's stories. Would you agree with that?

Janna Browning (15:12.494)

Absolutely. It's funny, in therapy, when you're learning about therapeutic communication, for me one of the first huge lessons I learned was the importance of silence and letting someone else speak. It's not the way we naturally talk to each other. We are adding in our own experiences or clarifying with questions which is all great, but when you sit quietly and without interruption and really let somebody go into a story, you're giving them the space to really go deeply into an experience that we don't often have those moments to really go deep. And it's always a surprise what comes up.

Um, you know, I, I don't, I think that our question, um, was a pretty easy one. I don't think it was something about, you know, um, we often do stories about overcoming or resilience. Um, they don't have to be about trauma. We like to have a kind of a positive. How did you get through something? Um,

Ashley Cox (she/her) (16:40.181)

Yeah, you don't want to necessarily go in with the most trauma-filled experience you've ever had in your life because chances are that you're probably, number one, not going to be comfortable sharing that level of intimacy with people that you sort of kind of know, maybe you're familiar with. But I think the other thing is too that it built a level of comfortability with us having shared stories. I think our question revolved around, you

Janna Browning (16:44.021)

Right.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (17:08.517)

It’s like a time where you overcame a challenging hurdle or something. And I remember my story that I shared was about starting this podcast, because from a young age, I was always in trouble for talking too much. In class, I was forever sitting by the teacher. I was at the whiteboard. I was in the corner. I had comments on my report cards home. And my ninth grade teacher was probably the kindest about it where he said, Ashley is a very sociable young lady, which just basically meant she talks too much. 

And so for years, I've fought that battle of you're talking too much, you're too much, you're too much, you should be seen and not heard. And so for me to have started a podcast was overcoming a huge lifelong battle of sharing my voice, of feeling like what I had to share was important enough to put out there. Um, and so it was, it was not the same story that other people shared, but there was a similar thread of how something that happened or was told to us in childhood was holding us back in some way, shape or form and how we had gotten up the courage or the gumption or the, you know, the resiliency or the tenacity or the perseverance or whatever it was to be able to say, and I'm not gonna let that story continue to define me.

Janna Browning (18:33.194)

Yes. And it's amazing how themes bubble up from a group organically. When we work in communities, the stories we get are different, but it's, they're, they, from community, from community to community, they're different stories, but they, they're stories that reflect what's happening in that community. And the same thing in an organization.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (18:40.541)

Mm.

Janna Browning (19:01.258)

It's amazing how our unconscious minds work. We end up telling the stories that need to be told and the stories that are connected to the people around us. And there's sort of this collective energy that happens and it's, every time it's miraculous. It's always just so interesting and exciting to see what bubbles up in any given group.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (19:28.289)

Yeah, I think one of the themes that really felt prominent in our session, and this was a session for those who obviously weren't there with us, it was a session with women business owners. One of the themes was that silencing, the silencing of women's voices, the silencing of women's experiences. I remember we had someone shared about their parents silencing their ambition someone shared about a racial silencing, where their voice wasn't welcome in a forum. And so it was a very broad range of experiences and stories, and our backgrounds and our racial ethnicities and where we grew up and where we lived in the world. And it still came down to, wow, we're all feeling silenced. And so it's like, our stories while vastly different, allowed us to have this founding point or this grounding point where we could all come together and say, yeah, I understand that.

Janna Browning (20:36.51)

And then we start, when we feel that, that energy of, yeah, that's me, I feel that it's, it was different, a different flavor of the same thing. And you heard me and my flavor, and I heard your experience. And then it creates this connection and this understanding, and that becomes a foundation that then really amazing things can be built from. I think it's really, I think that's one of the things about this addition of belonging to DEI work that is really vital. We have to start with our relationships. We have to start with that humanization, that connection, and then we can build on that and go amazing places. But if we don't start there with that basic connection,

Ashley Cox (she/her) (21:22.294)

Mm-hmm.

Janna Browning (21:44.754)

all those interventions aren't going to do much. I think that's really important. And the way we connect is through story and through empathy.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (21:47.841)

Yeah.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (21:55.148)

Yeah, for sure, for sure. What do you think is the most challenging part of the work that you're doing?

Janna Browning (22:03.654)

Um, I think the thing that I constantly am coming up against is this like kind of elevator speech, um, trying to, to put all that happens in the process into a sentence or two, or trying to, to communicate the vastness of it. Um, it's a very experiential process and it's hard to describe. Um.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (22:11.653)

I'm sorry.

Janna Browning (22:32.966)

It's something definitely that's best communicated through experience, experiencing it. And so I think for us as a company, the challenge of trying to express what we do in a concise way, in a way that people get, it's been really hard, it continues to be hard. I think that

Ashley Cox (she/her) (22:39.425)

Mm-hmm.

Janna Browning (23:01.726)

If people have an opportunity to experience even a short version of it or talk to someone who's experienced it, then that seems to work better. But yeah, it's definitely a challenge for us.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (23:16.349)

Yeah, I know, you know, it was interesting because I've been on both sides of this now. I've been on the, what do you do, Janna? And, you know, Janna trying to go, oh, well I do this thing and it's really amazing. And like, you just have to experience it and I've experienced it. And yes, it is very much something that you have to experience. And I also think that this is exactly what we need more of within Teams.

And so if I could distill this down into a sentence or two, it's very much an opportunity to share stories to create common ground and bring people together. Like that might be one of the simplest ways I might just off the cuff, cause I did not plan this in preparation for our conversation today.

Janna Browning (24:09.026)

Thank you.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (24:11.313)

But just kind of thinking about it over the past few months. And I think that that's the part where if you've not been involved in drama or acting or storytelling in some way, shape, or form at some point in your life, you might have a harder time grasping what exactly that looks like, what exactly that entails. There might be some maybe fear. Like this this feels too nebulous, I can't get my arms around it. So I didn't tell you that I was gonna ask this question because I didn't know I was gonna ask this question. But I would love if you might be able to give our audience some insight into what a workshop day looks like. What might they expect? So that way it kind of pulls down some of those fear barriers that we put up when we're like, whoops, that's unknown, I'm not sure I wanna go there and just kind of walk us through what one of your typical story process workshops looks like.

Janna Browning (25:14.602)

Yeah, I wanna, I will say that I wanna, I'll answer the question and I'm also going to be purposefully maybe not fully disclosing because I think there's something in the magic of the way you don't know what's going to happen. And it.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (25:21.825)

Mm-hmm.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (25:39.721)

Yes. Give us enough of a teaser to be like, here's kind of what to expect, but don't give away all the goods. Yeah, don't give away all the goods. Because it very much is like, wait, what? We're going to do what now? But that's part of the fun and part of the breaking down, I think, of the barriers.

Janna Browning (25:42.058)

I'll give you a teaser so that because I think I don't know what too much out. Yeah.

Janna Browning (25:51.142)

Exactly. And then, yeah, I would say I'm gonna give it kind of an analogy. So,

Ashley Cox (she/her) (26:03.047)

Oh, perfect.

Janna Browning (26:06.466)

So team building is historically you do share task work, like going and doing a ropes course together or right now there's these escape rooms, right? That's a big, we're solving a problem together and studies show that really does create

Ashley Cox (she/her) (26:25.653)

Yes.

Like we're solving problems together. Yeah.

Janna Browning (26:36.618)

some connection and it makes people, there's this, you've got a certain amount of time, so you've got that pressure cooker of the time and you've gotta get through it. So there's an element of that in our process. And it's a game, so it's fun. And I think that's another part of what is.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (26:47.173)

Kind of that pressure. Yeah.

Janna Browning (27:05.678)

unique and exciting about it is that it's not, it doesn't feel, it's not a lecture. It's not something where you're just like, oh, can I get to the other end of this? Yes. Exactly.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (27:18.793)

Yeah, it's not like a webinar training. You're not going to have a quiz at the end. It's not that typical sort of DEI checkbox activities, which is why I kept telling Janna, I was like, this is beyond DEI. This is way beyond DEI. And I think that's where the belonging really comes in. It's the community building aspect.

Janna Browning (27:34.423)

Hehehehe. Yeah.

Exactly. Right. It's really what I feel like the first step of DEI work needs to be, is that relationship building. But it's a... We're... Play is how mammals learn. We all have played as a kid. Yeah. And it's so important that we still play.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (28:00.657)

I still play. I don't know about all y'all, but I still play lots.

Janna Browning (28:07.01)

And so the thing that, so what we're asking people to do is to kind of step into their imagination, to step into their memories and play together. And that in and of itself can sound pretty scary. Adults often are like, we play together? What does that mean? I don't know. Yeah.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (28:28.757)

It's really fun. I'm not going to give away all Janna's secret sauce here either, but it's really fun. And it's also interesting to watch everyone around the room as they respond and react to the prompts that Janna's giving. It's like, you know, you've got some people who are like, wait, what? We're doing what? And then you have some that are like, oh my gosh, this is so fun.

Janna Browning (28:34.114)

What is fun?

Janna Browning (28:43.21)

Right.

Janna Browning (28:50.026)

And there's room for all of it in the process. You can just bring yourself. And that's really all you have to do is just show up. And so what we're doing is creating that time pressure, that shared task. And then we're asking people to share stories. And everybody.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (28:51.899)

Mm-hmm.

Janna Browning (29:19.234)

gets to share a story. People are in complete control of what story they share and how they share it. So we're not asking people to share things that they might not feel comfortable sharing or going places they don't wanna go.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (29:35.913)

Yeah, there was a lot of comfortability built into the process. And I think that was something I was acutely aware of because there's times where you find yourself in situations where you're kind of being pressured to share things that you're not ready to share or talk about stuff that's not comfortable for you to talk about. Or, you know, maybe you don't get to participate, maybe you wanted to share, but you didn't get the opportunity. And I think that that's beautiful the way that you've built this.

Janna Browning (29:40.203)

Right.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (30:04.309)

to include all of those things in a super non-pressured way.

Janna Browning (30:08.786)

Yeah, it's so important. You've got to move at the speed of trust. And part of what we're building is trust. And to come out right off the bat and ask people to tell their most heartbreaking or vulnerable stories is not what we're doing and wouldn't be appropriate. Because you don't get to that until you've done those first.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (30:17.025)

Mm-hmm.

Janna Browning (30:37.434)

of sharing and building that trust. So that's really important to us, that people feel that they're able to speak their truth in the way and in the time that they're ready to. And if it's a short workshop, we're not gonna get to that. We don't wanna go to those really vulnerable places. We're just looking to build connection.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (30:38.37)

Thank you.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (30:58.974)

Yeah.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (31:02.981)

Yeah, I think ours was 90 minutes to two hours. So it's a perfectly easy time. It doesn't take days and weeks and years to have this massive transformation and these big aha moments and this profound understanding and deep learning. I think that's one of the coolest things about your program work is that it can have such transformational change in such a small amount of time.

Janna Browning (31:05.73)

Yeah

Ashley Cox (she/her) (31:32.381)

it just gets to compound over and over and over. The more you do the work, the deeper that you go. And I think too often, a lot of DEI programs and other team building programs, not just DEI programs, but team building programs in general, they're either too surface level and they don't get down to any of the meat of what makes us tick as humans, or they try to go all the way in.

Janna Browning (31:50.039)

Mm-hmm.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (31:57.977)

and they scare the bejesus out of everybody and then everybody's defense mechanisms and walls go up and they're like, not me, I'm out. I don't wanna do this. This is too vulnerable. And I think this was such a beautiful balance of just enough to start building that empathy and that understanding and that belonging and that hey, me too sort of feeling.

Janna Browning (32:21.27)

Yeah, I'm glad that you felt that way. That's really what we are intending. Um, and like you said, it's kind of one of those things that depending on the time that you're, you have available, um, if you have 90 minutes, we can make that work if you have six months, we can make that work and, um, the more time, the deeper it'll go and the bigger.

Obviously, this final product is, which is sort of that task that we're alluding to, that you're working towards something. And that something depends a lot on the time and the resources and what you can put into it. But as little as 90 minutes and as, you know, we've had projects that have lasted years.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (33:18.921)

Yeah.

Janna Browning (33:20.848)

And there's a way that we can work within that timeframe and within those resources.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (33:24.617)

Yeah. Well, and team building doesn't just happen once, and everybody's copasetic. Team building is an ongoing opportunity, because what a lot of folks don't think about is that your team is going to always be evolving, even if your team members never change, because they're going to have different experiences. They're going to have different.

Janna Browning (33:33.439)

Exactly.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (33:51.973)

you know, lessons that they've learned, they're going to have different exposures, they're going to have different challenges and successes that they've faced in every single instance is going to create an evolution in that person, which is going to bring more stories to the table, right?

Janna Browning (34:04.618)

Hmm.

Exactly. And we're, what we do is we create relationship and connection and relationships take effort and they take maintenance. You don't just have one experience with a person and no more and maintain that connection. You have to continue to invest. And so yeah, absolutely. And I think it's particularly

Ashley Cox (she/her) (34:18.784)

Mm-hmm.

Janna Browning (34:38.03)

a great model for people in organizations right now with the amount of turnover that's been happening since COVID, creating, maintaining a culture in your organization when you have such people coming in and out. I think that I've seen that a lot with people that, you know, they're

Ashley Cox (she/her) (34:56.915)

I had.

Janna Browning (35:07.13)

what was their culture pre-COVID has really shifted for various reasons. I mean, we've all went through this massive collective trauma together and it's still shaking out. So being able to maintain those connections, maintain the culture of belonging, I think is really vital, whether it's an organization or a community or...

Ashley Cox (she/her) (35:12.842)

Yeah.

Janna Browning (35:36.318)

a group of friends, whatever, you know, we've got to keep investing in those relationships and connections.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (35:43.297)

For sure, for sure. I think this work would be so beneficial for leadership teams to go through together, to really hone that culture, and to get on the same page, and to really understand how one another works. It would be great for colleagues to go together who are working side by side or cross-functionally in different departments. I know one of the biggest challenges, especially when I was in the corporate world, I don't see it as much in the small business world because, well, you know, everybody's doing everything. But in the corporate world, you know, you very much had those silos. You had teams that were working independently on projects that were interdependent. And there was a lot of you know, well, we own this and stay out of this and don't talk to us and we need to get this done and we need your part and you don't want to give it to us. And, you know, there was a lot of that very contentious sort of, I don't know, almost like territorial behavior. And I think this could be such a beautiful opportunity for companies that are struggling with those silos or they're struggling with team members who don't want to work together or they've been challenged in working together to build some bridges and to build some community. And just like you said earlier, oh gosh, I wrote it down and now I can't read it. You might have to remind me of what this actually says. Cross-cultural...

Janna Browning (37:11.086)

conflict resolution.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (37:12.145)

Yes, that's it. Cross-cultural conflict resolution. I was trying to write notes and not look at my notepad. It did not work for me. But I think that just kind of goes back to if you have a team that is struggling to get along, regardless of whether you're a team of four or five people or you're a team of 4,500 people, it doesn't matter how many people you have working together. Anywhere there's more than one person working, there will be conflict.

Janna Browning (37:19.523)

I'm sorry.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (37:41.541)

some point, always. But if you're having and experiencing a greater level of conflict within your team, or you're still trying to figure out like, why can't I get people to work together? Why are people, you know, turning over? Why am I losing so many people? Why am I having a lot of turnover? A lot of these problems and a lot of these challenges that you're facing, number one, aren't unusual. So don't feel like you're bad, you're wrong, you're

Janna Browning (37:41.902)

Absolutely.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (38:10.305)

not cut out to be a leader. I don't want anybody to think that. But there are things that are easily diagnosed, and we have a really amazing solution here with Janna and with her program and with building stronger teams with empathy, with understanding, with belonging. And I just think that this work is so, so powerful. And every single company in the whole world needs to go through it. I'll just wrap my thought up with that.

Janna Browning (38:37.849)

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think I, yeah, when I look at like an organization and I know, I mean, it just, it can get so complicated. I mean, I'll, like, for an example, you know, in healthcare, you know, you'll have a, like emergency room. You have so many layers of different people, like you said, who are on different teams, whether it's the nurses and the doctors and the people who are cleaning the rooms and you know that and they're working in the same place, but they might be kind of just missing each other and they're coming from such different tasks and backgrounds. So taking, being able to take this process and connecting the doctor and the person who's cleaning the room and the nurse and the CNA, like all those people coming together and being a family is really kind of what it does. The way that we, when you come out of the process, you're connected with people. You care about them, you know their name, you know a little bit about who they are.

And that's essential for anything, any kind of working group of people, whether it's working as a community or a family or a company, you've got to have those connections. And when I hear stories of organizations that are really having these big problems I remind myself about that cross cultural conflict resolution piece.

Janna Browning (40:29.866)

I've seen it with Palestinian and Israelis. We are having, I've worked in that group and talk about a hard problem. We're seeing that right now in a really awful way, but to be able to get people that polarized in a room and come out in one day.

Janna Browning (40:59.274)

as friends, that's pretty impressive and magical. And that's what it can do. And that kind of thing has to happen before you can solve those issues. Because it's humanizing, it's creating this foundation of we're humans together and we're human.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (41:00.437)

Mm-hmm.

Janna Browning (41:27.614)

we recognize each other at least on that basic level and care about each other on at least that basic level. And until you've got that foundation, problem solving is, it's not going to really work. You've got to have that mutuality as a foundation to be able to problem solve and to work together as a team and collaboratively.

Janna Browning (41:56.33)

You've got to care about each other at some basic level.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (42:00.673)

Oh, so important. So important. It reminds me of something I say all the time. We are humans doing business with other humans. And I think a lot of times we forget that. We see each other as task doers, task makers, robots or cogs in the wheel of the business. And when you step back and you see the humanity behind...

Janna Browning (42:17.149)

Yeah, as a job.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (42:29.653)

whatever it is that you're doing, whether you're a service provider, you're a therapist, group practice owner, you're an attorney running a firm, you're a product-based business selling widgets and doodads and whatevers. If you're having a problem with your team, just pause and step back and remember, this is a human on the other end of this conversation, this decision, this task, this job.

And I just think it just will lead to so much better results all around. You know, not only will we be better humans to each other, we'll run better businesses, we'll create more impact in the world, we'll, you know, dissolve that conflict that might always be bubbling under the surface. Because if you don't address the conflict, I promise you it will not go away.

Janna Browning (43:24.151)

I'm sorry.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (43:25.309)

It's not just going to disappear because we stopped thinking about it or we stopped acting like it was there. That conflict will only build and build and build. I think that if we can head it off before it has a chance to really snowball into something catastrophic, we'll have a better chance of building stronger teams, of building more collaborative teams. I think there's nothing more beautiful than a team that can work together without needing you to step in every second of the day. And I know so many leaders that I talk to will say things like, I'm just stuck in the weeds of the business or I'm always putting out fires or why can't my people just get along? This is a great solution to helping build a stronger conflict resolution capable team that is truly concerned about one another as humans first which will then lead to them being able to do a better job together.

Janna Browning (44:24.75)

And then when we feel like we belong somewhere, that our team members are people who care about us in those basic ways and even more, if we're like really actually friends, then we wanna go to work. We wanna put our energy in, we want to excel and we do a better job. And

Ashley Cox (she/her) (44:29.088)

Mm-hmm.

Janna Browning (44:54.054)

you won't get the turnover or the silent quitting when people are invested in each other and working together. And then, like you said, problems absolutely are going to come up. But the solutions can be found in a way that people feel good about on all sides when you have that basic foundation of connection with each other as human beings.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (44:57.588)

Mm-hmm.

Janna Browning (45:24.766)

It leads to being able to solve those issues in ways that can sometimes be miraculous, that you would never get to unless you had all the pieces, all the parties invested in finding a way that works for each other. And they do it because they care about each other.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (45:41.057)

Thank you.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (45:47.037)

Yeah, yeah. So many benefits to doing this work. Like you mentioned, reducing turnover. Let's get rid of quiet quitting because nobody wants to come to work and be miserable all day. People don't actually want to quiet quit. They quiet quit out of necessity because nobody cares about them because nobody is making them feel like they belong or like they're heard or validated in their work.

99.9% of people want to come to work and do a good job. We have a responsibility as business owners and leaders to create an environment that supports the whole human. And I think this is a beautiful way to do that. Yeah. So what a conversation, Janna. Oh my gosh, we have covered so much ground today. I cannot wait to get this conversation in the earbuds of our listeners.

Janna Browning (46:26.766)

Thank you.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (46:39.705)

But as we're winding down, it's time for our final and favorite segment of the show, which is called Imagine the Impact. And Janna, I would love for you to help us paint the vision for the kind of impact our listeners could create through one key thought, a takeaway, an action item from our conversation today. And it could be something that you've already shared as a reminder or reinforcement or something new, maybe that you haven't had an opportunity to share yet.

Janna Browning (47:10.576)

I think a takeaway is that we all have stories. Everyone's story is worth listening to. And when we feel that, when we feel heard, and we feel that our stories are important, it changes relationships. And that the quality of our listening makes an impact. So when we were speaking at the beginning about silence or letting somebody really tell their story, I think if you, if you're in any kind of relationship that's having conflict or struggle, being willing to give that person time to tell their story. And it doesn't have to be the story that's related to the conflict. It could be a story about something completely different, but just being willing to sit down and listen to each other and taking the time to do that can really have a profound impact on your relationships and how you move forward and can get through hard times, because we're always gonna hit hard times together. That's whether we're family, communities, or organizations, we're gonna hit hard times together. And when we have those connections, we can get through it and we can get to the other side and then we're even stronger for that. Yeah, I think so.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (49:02.941)

I love that. I love that. Imagine the impact that everyone having the same opportunity to share their stories and not just share their stories, but be heard, be listened to, be validated in that sharing.

Janna Browning (49:20.222)

I want to you said it's something let me let me say this one thing real quick too. I think one thing that we I don't think we've really touched on that is an important part of our process is the embodiment aspect. One of the magical pieces of our process is that we're not

Ashley Cox (she/her) (49:24.477)

Yeah, go for it!

Ashley Cox (she/her) (49:37.964)

Mmm.

Janna Browning (49:48.394)

just hearing and listening, but we take it to the next step, which is an embodiment. And we utilize this concept of embodied empathy. And the empathy is when you step into someone else's shoes, but when you do embodied empathy, you're really stepping into the experience of that other person and you're feeling what it's like to be them in a full body way. And that, when you are being heard, when you are being listened to in that embodied way, it goes so much deeper and the connection is so much stronger. So yeah, if people could listen to each other and step in each other's shoes in a very deep way and it goes both ways, man, I mean, the world would be a very different place in all. Yes, it would change the world.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (50:58.109)

literally world-changing. Yeah. So Janna, we're going to need you to get on some bigger platforms here and take this message and this process out to the world because we need it. We need it. We all need it. We all need it. Even if you feel completely self-actualized, I think there is just something about stepping into someone else's shoes and stepping into their

Janna Browning (51:10.73)

I'm ready.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (51:26.881)

that adds so much more depth to your own understanding of the world around us and how much we still have to learn about one another.

Janna Browning (51:36.386)

Yeah, and that's exciting. It won't ever be boring.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (51:38.929)

It is. Never, ever, ever. And we'll always have, I mean, imagine how many stories one human contains. Imagine how many stories 7 billion humans contain. There will never be a period without story. And I think the more stories that we can share, the more we can listen, the more we can embody, the more we can impact our businesses, our communities, and the world. So.

Janna Browning (52:04.556)

Yeah.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (52:05.981)

All right, Janna, people are definitely gonna wanna know where can I connect with you? So tell us, where can we connect with you? Where can we learn more? Where do you hang out online?

Janna Browning (52:17.326)

So my website, our company is Integrative Storyworks. So our website is integrativestoryworks.com. You can find us online on Instagram and Facebook under integrativestoryworks as well. We're, I'm not quite a millennial. I'm like almost a millennial. So Facebook is kind of my jam.

I'm in that older generation. So that's where you'll see the most of us on social media. But yeah, and I'm also, Janna Browning is my Facebook profile. And I also post a lot of stuff on there. So yeah, I'd love to connect with people. And my email is Janna at integrativestoryworks.com.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (53:16.385)

Perfect. I will put all of that in the show notes so that way it's super easy for folks to find you, connect with you, shoot you an email. Definitely follow them on Facebook and Instagram and follow Janna on Facebook. I always love seeing your posts. They're inspiring, they're thought provoking, they're comforting. There's just so much goodness that you share in the world in all the different ways and platforms that you have. So thank you so much Janna for being here on the Impact Ripple today.

Janna Browning (53:45.098)

Yeah, thank you so much. It's been a delight.

Ashley Cox (she/her) (53:47.877)

Absolutely. And thank you, dear leader, for tuning into our conversation. I hope that you found it enlightening, inspiring, thought-provoking, and interesting. Maybe your curiosity has been piqued. There's so much goodness, I think, that came out of this conversation today. And so many wonderful resources and tools that Janna and her team at Integrative StoryWorks has to offer. So please go, go and check them out. And as always, it is an honor and a privilege to be here with and for you on your leadership journey.

Janna Browning (54:25.218)

Thank you guys.