RHR 156: Psychology for HR with Dr. Leann Pereira

Dr. Leann Kang Pereira is an organizational psychologist and Senior Director of People and Learning Sciences at Emtrain. Leann is responsible for advancing the development and application of Emtrain’s Workplace Social Indicator™ model and skills-based learning architecture. She incorporates research and scholarship from positive and social psychology to reveal employees’ emotional, psychological, and social experiences as they move through the employment journey. Leann’s strategic focus areas include recruitment, onboarding, goal-setting, performance management, cross-functional team-building, new manager and manager training, civility and DEI training, and ongoing leadership development. She aims to provide insights and tools to leaders that augment and strengthen their culture, talent, and DEI strategies. 


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Transcript

Leann Peirera: 0:00

Human Resources folks are really used to measuring things on a human capital, if you will, or financial systems terms and not social systems terms. So we'll look like a Kyle, you're a vice president, you went to this school, this is your compensation. And those things are awesome and important, but it doesn't help us get to the idea of psychological safety, or any of these other social dynamics and social concepts. So it really is this new body of knowledge that is adjacent to traditional human capital measures.

Kyle Roed: 0:36

This is the rebel HR Podcast, the podcast where we talk to HR innovators about all things people leadership. If you're looking for places to find about new ways to think about the world of work, this is the podcast for you. Please subscribe on your favorite podcast listening platform today. And leave us a review revelon HR rebels Welcome back revelations, our listeners extremely excited for the conversation today with us we have Dr. Leanne Peddanna, the Senior Director of people and learning sciences, at M train. We've had a number of wonderful conversations, and I'm excited to bring that conversation to all of you today. Welcome to the show. Leann.

Leann Peirera: 1:18

Thanks, Kyle, very excited to be here.

Kyle Roed: 1:21

Well, I said before we hit record, I'm just looking forward to just nerding out on industrial organizational psych stuff, because I just find this really fascinating. But before we get into that, I want to understand a little bit more about your background, what got you interested in this world? of psychology?

Leann Peirera: 1:41

No, no, that is an interesting question. So I had, I think my interest in psychology stems from my need to make sense of the world. So just to not without getting too deep into it. My background is that I'm Korean and Portuguese. And I was born during the Vietnam War. My parents had a lot, they have this tremendous love affair. My dad was in the military, who was stationed in Korea, in the US military station, Korea fell in love with my mom, during the Vietnam War. They had me so I'm a war baby. But one I thought brought back to the States, I was in the thick of all this tremendous racial and social unrest. And I think just from birth, I was kind of like, set on this path to make sense of my identity, role and place in the world. So that's kind of it in a nutshell.

Kyle Roed: 2:46

That's, you know, it's fascinating. And I think, you know, I, I also, think about it like trying to figure out how the world works, like why the world works the way that it does, and why sometimes it doesn't seem to make sense. And, in, in, in our jobs, Molly and I, sometimes just trying to figure out why in the world, somebody would do that. So one of the things that we wanted to talk about today is, is some of the tools that are out there for us to understand this without being a doctor in psychology.

Leann Peirera: 3:27

Right. Yeah. So just to continue to continue the story a little bit. There's, I had trouble fitting in, you know, I had trouble fitting in, I was the only Korean kid in a very Portuguese Catholic school. And, you know, there was trouble on the playground, the, the, you know, I wasn't, I was distracted a lot, you know, so I wasn't thriving. And none of this made sense to me. Throughout the course of my life, I was always trying to fit in understand how to relate to others. And I think not until I got to college, did all the pieces come together? See my, my family? My dad is we're working class and they were farmers. So nobody was really talking about psychology, that wasn't a thing. You were either a good person or a bad person. And that was it. You know, you either did things well, or you didn't and that was it. And so I was very much in that modality and mentality thinking I must. I didn't necessarily think I was bad, but I was really kind of shy and not really sure what was going on because things weren't going along the lines that I would hope that they would oftentimes, right. So when I got to college, I began so I got into this Women's Studies program. It was That's interesting to me. And I started to learn about social dynamics. And now at that time, we were looking at things like the intersection of gender and race. And that really spoke to me. And I started to be able to go back to my history and understand why I might be feeling like pinning, would the way I did, why I wasn't necessarily being acknowledged the way I wanted to be acknowledged or heard, and so on, and so forth. And so, you know, I realized that there was knowledge and learning out there to help me figure out the world around me. And it wasn't just me, you know, there were other people in the world that that were experiencing that. And so that started my whole life's work, where I really started to look at, you know, in my undergraduate work, looking at women's studies and gender, then as I went into graduate work, I started to look at how those dynamics happened within organizations. And I realized that we could help people understand this better, not just by talking about it, but by creating some metrics and measurement around it.

Kyle Roed: 6:22

Absolutely, so it's, it's, I think it's a fascinating area of human resources. And it's also an area where many of us are learning as we go. You know, and, you know, I think, I think we're all trying to do our best. And I think many of us are drawn to, you know, some of these Principles of Psychology, within our jobs and human resources. But, but, you know, we throw around these words like psychological safety, emotional intelligence, those were a couple of things we were talking about before hit record, without necessarily understanding all of the science behind it, honestly, and quite frankly, there's just a bunch of like, these things just become like buzzwords, right, you know, and then they, they tend to lose their meaning. So as soon as you think about some of those those principles at work, what are a couple key concepts that we should be thinking about in human resources as it relates to the work that you focus on?

Leann Peirera: 7:26

Right, so coming back, let's step and talk about psychological safety for a second. That is an amazing concept made very popular by Amy Edmondson over at Harvard. And basically, it's, you know, who can say whom are who can say what to whom? And when raves the idea of, can you speak up and say something or, and what we're actually looking at, are the very interactions between people on a day to day basis. I think when we say things like we weren't throw words out, like psychological safety without understanding that, you know, the genesis of all this stuff is is us the very words that we're saying, I think that we lose the whole, the value of what that concept brings. And so you know, what I would, I think the first important thing for folks to realize is that psychological concepts are really about how you and I express ourselves on a daily basis. They're extremely personal. And we have this ability to change, change how we show up. And also to understand how we've been showing up, I think a lot of folks are, are in the I can't see the forest for the trees, or like the fish in the water, where we don't quite understand that where we're in, you know, what's what we're doing is right in front of us in the very words that we're saying. Now, human resources, folks are really used to measuring things on a human capital, if you will, or financial systems terms and not social systems terms, right. So we'll look like a Kyle, you're a vice president, you went to this school, this is your compensation that ended up and those things are awesome and important, but it doesn't help us get to the idea of psychological safety, right? Or any of these other social dynamics and social concepts. So it really is this new body of knowledge that is adjacent to traditional human capital measures?

Kyle Roed: 9:49

That's a really interesting concept. I hadn't ever really thought about it that way. But yeah, the like the language that we use in you know, in our art, it's dollars and cents. It's, it's expenses, it's, you know, revenue, those sorts of things. It's not. Yeah, it's not social systems at all at all. In fact, if I started to use that type of terminology with my, you know, CEO, he looked at me like, What would you have screw loose? Like, what are you talking about? Like, this doesn't make any sense. So I thought,

Leann Peirera: 10:21

yeah, go on.

Kyle Roed: 10:24

I've just said, but But we, in order to be effective in the system, we need to be using the appropriate terminology and, and, and thought structure. So So what advice do you have for us as we kind of navigate the kind of fundamental difference? So, so,

Leann Peirera: 10:42

so there's been this like sea change. And I think in one of our prior conversations, you brought this up. So I definitely want to revisit the idea that HR is having a heyday or renaissance in the way that marketing dead, so. So I don't want to put words in your mouth. But I'm like, can you just refresh what you said? Because I really loved it. Yeah.

Kyle Roed: 11:07

Yeah, I did. And had the opportunity to join you on LinkedIn, live with M train. And that's where the, the the dialogue came from. So if any listeners want to check out, check it out, it was a, it was a ton of fun. The the point that I was making is, you know, in human resources we are, we are at a point, a point where our organization, ie human resources, we're being asked to step up and take a broader role within our organizations, you know, things like, you know, psychological safety, emotional intelligence, diversity, equity and inclusion, are now being thrust into the forefront of our organizational leaders minds. And they're looking to us, and human resources to help them work through that. So I think about it not too dissimilar from from what happened in marketing where this thing called the internet came along. And now, now they got to figure out how to leverage this and how to grow and, and became a much more strategic business partner than they were prior. I think I view a human resources right now, in that same type of intersection, especially as we look at, you know, these these social concepts, but also the technological aspect aspects that are changing within our, our jobs, right? I mean, AI, right like that, that is going to completely change our jobs. At some point. In the near future, we're not exactly sure how yet, but you know, they're gonna look to human resources to figure out, how does AI impact our people? And how's that impact our jobs? And how does that impact job structure? And, you know, that's just one small, tiny example. So that's that that was my, my point on that topic.

Leann Peirera: 12:53

Right. And so and so way back, when I think when folks were navigating through the new wave of marketing and capacity and commerce that the internet enabled, there was a tremendous learning opportunity. And folks, we took a very discovery oriented approach, right, I remember working with startups, and it was just a ton of fun. And this is a little bit more challenging, because there's so much social threat going on in the world, and but it's very much an whole new domain of knowledge that business folks aren't typically versed in, and what is a mistake. And so the very practical point that I want to make here is that leader shouldn't assume to know, this domain of knowledge. And I think that's what happens a lot with psychology because we're all psychological creatures, and we're all emotional creatures. And then we make assumptions. Well, I know that because I can think and I can feel, and I and that's what I caution against, you know, take a step back and diversity and inclusion, it may seem like a very friendly thing to say, hey, we're all the same. We're all created equal. So, you know, it's in our Constitution, we're all equal. So we should all have the same values and morals and all of that stuff. But the, that becomes very problematic, because not everybody sees it that way. Right? Whose morals are we going to take? Really? It's and so my advice is don't make huge massive generalizations. And then really all the madness is difficult, but it's important it's it's difficult to understand what others need but it's important to do so it's difficult to understand you know, what's going on psychologically within you know, this business unit or you know, morale, but we like to do that and You know, talk about intent rather than a y'all all get get over it buckle up everybody, we're all the same. You mentioned metric when and measurement earlier with regarding social dynamics, and I'm just sitting here, what what does that look like? Yeah. So we develop a list of questions that we asked folks, it's a survey, but it's a little bit different from a survey, because we do a lot of analysis behind it to see whether or not this is what we would call a validated instrument. And so basically, we asked a bunch of questions, you know, hey, do you feel that folks in your business unit or team are listening to you? Are they asking leading questions? Or do or? Or do they sit back to reflect with you, you know, we, we try, we try to ask at the level of social interaction. And when we do that, we gather a bunch of data, and then we can present those data under what we call a workplace fill indicator. So that one would be around curiosity. And our folks exhibiting curiosity, can love that word, curiosity? I think it's so powerful. Okay, so then, you know, you get this feedback, you get data. And as an HR, right, usually, we're only one person or one unit. What do we do with that? How can how can we an HR drive, not just like the checkbox show we're going to in training, right, but how can we really drive that, that change in our in our social dynamics within our organization? Yeah, so we all know that, you know, five minutes an hour of training as nothing. And when you get survey results, you look at it and throw it on your desk, and five minutes later, you forget it and but what we're saying is, we accept all of that I know, that's true. We provide you with a survey, we would recommend a sort of training afterward. And then we would recommend to HR groups to follow up with strategic interventions like, you know, do you have a flex time policy to help people who are you know, parenting and all those things. So we're trying to address problems at a systems level, at team level and interpersonal level, and, and to tell you the truth, there's just, you know, there's no, there's no way around it, there's no automation button, like there's just no automation by and we were giving you the tools to do the work, but it's very much a lot of work. There's just no way around that. That's not good news for this thing. Well, here's the other thing. It's not the HR person, job, per se. I mean, it's like as HR, you could recommend the best tools, and you can help draft the policies, and you can look at compensation and time off. But every single person in that org, especially every manager needs to do that job. It's their job to manage the people, right. And so when you provide the tools, and the resources and the guidance for them to do it, measurement is very much a part of that. And so it's education. Teaching intervention. I love that concept,

Kyle Roed: 18:37

too. Yeah. Yeah, like that. That's a very HR branding of that. Of that. Yeah. So, you know, I think it's, this is a, this is a really interesting topic, and it's, and you set it yourself, you know, this is work, this is hard work, right. And a lot of times, you know, you talk about doing the work, quote, doing the work. But so often, we don't know where to start. Right. And so, you know, I'm curious as, as you look at some of the data that you can gather, with this approach, and as you as you think about, you know, the, the limited capacity that some of us have to do this type of work, where would your, where would your advice be? Yeah, as far as, okay, should, should be at and where we should really be spending our time and energy.

Leann Peirera: 19:37

You know, I, I think it depends on whatever. So if you look at whatever is currently in front of you, I know all managers always have to work with conflicts in their teens. Right. And, and so I would, I would think that they could take a step back. First of all, I think everybody needs some baseline of training and awareness of of these Are these topics and issues especially if you have a diverse team, right? You have men and women, on your team, you have Blacks, Asians, whites on your team, you know, take a step back and realize that your assumptions are probably wrong about what's going on. I mean, they're, it's not that they're completely wrong, but they're probably not fully right. And so I think that humility, you hear that again, another word that gets bandied around a lot with emotional intelligence is humility. But that humility is that, you know, if you have diversity, and conflict on your team, chances are you're not going to have the full information. And it's going to take more analysis than you think and you know, more conversations than you would not necessarily do to get that situation, right. So prepare to put in, you know, put prayer to put the time in, when you see something coming up, prepare yourself.

Kyle Roed: 21:06

Absolutely. It's funny the word, the word humility is funny to me. And it's because when I hear that word, I always think about somebody who shall remain nameless, who is like, I am the most humble person you will ever meet. So yeah, don't be that person. But I do think it's powerful to admit you have no idea. Like, your context is probably wrong, like my, you know, white guy from the Midwest, my context is probably wrong from somebody who grew up in Brazil, it's

Leann Peirera: 21:45

right for you. And then the hard part, the hard part is that, you know, people think that diversity is gumdrops and butterflies, right? Like, oh, we're gonna have a bunch of people together, it's gonna be Kumbaya. But the minute you have your perspective, and then you add in people with different backgrounds, they're gonna, they're gonna be suspicious of you, first of all period, just on the basis of race or gender, or whatever. And that suspicion is going to lead them to critically think about what you do even more. So they're going to be more critical of you. And they're going to and because they're smart, and working with you all together, they're gonna find problems. So what we're finding is that diversity breeds the willingness for people to, to actually critically review other people's work more, and then find problems more, raise problems more. And, and so what you're doing, are they being more critical? Yes. Is it because they have a different point of view? Well, that's what there are studies are saying, right, it's not necessarily personal. But there's not the general tendency towards norming. Like, oh, Kyle, and I were buds, we, I could just accept what he says, you know, whatever. It's not that social distance is there, the social distance is real. And that breeds, more critical thinking, and more conflict. And so that's actually the good conflict that people want. The problem is people take it personally. So you know, there's a, there's a, there's an interesting dynamic.

Kyle Roed: 23:26

I think it's probably one of the most challenging things that I've had to learn in my career. And typically, the hard way, is how to how to take that conflict, that maybe in the beginning, is neutral, and could be good, or could be bad. And try to make it healthy conflict, good conflict, without, you know, without getting the ego involved, right. And that's really, really easy for me to say, here on this podcast. But it's really hard to do in the moment, especially when, you know, we are emotional, messy beings, and we've all got our own baggage and reaction to things that can be challenging to our norm. Right. So. So as, as we think about the impact that some of these these data and these principles can have on our workplace. What how do we handle that? Ya know?

Leann Peirera: 24:24

So, I mean, right there, like, like you said, there's something that you got a conflict and right there that the concept of psychological safety comes in, boom, what are you going to do? Right? And there's no one I think people people assume there's one right way and there's none there are there are as many right weighs is there are people and but to your point is like the awareness that this is the challenge that this is actually the work this is what psychological safety is about what your response There's going to be when you face that conflict is the first step. Right? And and to realize you could make it personal, but that's probably not going to get what you get you what you want. Right? So what are other ways of seeing this?

Kyle Roed: 25:20

Yeah, that's it's really, I don't know, it, I learned that the hard way. And I'm an I'm a very I'm just an emotional person. So you know, it's like controlling that is really hard. And like, compartmentalizing, that is really hard. And it's trying to find the balance between, you know, how do you how do you not take things personally, when you when you naturally feel like you? Should?

Leann Peirera: 25:48

I totally, I know, I totally think that's awesome. And sorry, I like jumping in because I'm excited. So that's the next horizon that that I'm personally exploring and through our content, team at M train is that it's important, it's so ridiculous for people not to get personally involved, and they get upset, and the negative feelings and that the social conflict is very much part of the journey. And so that's another thing. That's another concept is Yeah, somebody's gonna get mad if you challenge them, and they take it personally. But if we build that expectation and awareness in, then people start to be able to self regulate a little bit more, because there's this awareness, this meta awareness, if you will, right. They're aware of their reactions. And they start to see it as normal. And we normalize the conflict so that people can not avoid it right to really like lean in, stay present. Think through it, because the conflict is very real and very normal. Yeah, and it's going to happen, and it's going to continue to happen. So if we can help our team navigate through that, and in a productive and healthy way, think that's so powerful charge if the organization of the whole, right. And I think, especially when it comes to things around diversity and inclusion, the idea is, hey, let's just shut it down. And Kumbaya and the facts matter, that's not going to happen. No, people want to be acknowledged, they want their race and their gender to be acknowledged. Right? So we can't pretend that a no, we're just because everybody's the same. There is no right answer other than, Hey, hang in there, and acknowledged the trouble and commit to doing the work. And, and I tell you, I'm, I say this, and, you know, as as a people leader, this takes time, and you have so much other stuff to do your CEO is like, where are the numbers, and you know, and although this No, may not articulate and use these psychological terms, I don't think a person gets to be in such a position of influence and leadership, if they don't live these things, right. Like, generally, they probably have a pretty good idea of what you're gonna be talking about to them as an HR person, when you bring these ideas up.

Kyle Roed: 28:25

So that's why it's fine. Absolutely, I do think, you know, this is also one of those areas where if you aren't educated on these topics, if you aren't, you know, doing, doing the work to truly understand what psychological safety means, to truly understand what emotional intelligence looks like, and how to help your leaders with that, than who in your organization is. Right, you know, that like this, I view this as like this is this is how you get the the respect and support from your team is by being a subject matter expert, or as close as you can get to it on some of these topics and thinking about the the workplace in this lens, because I can guarantee you that most individuals are probably not. And that's again, I think that's a differentiator for our for our function, right that we can we can work on.

Leann Peirera: 29:24

I completely agree. Colin, I think that's the next horizon for for HR, folks. I mean, you can start out in HR and you're maybe an analyst or an admin, but as if you really want to progress as leader, you need to know this stuff and you need to it's not just academic, right, it's you have to be a practitioner of it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and take action. I mean, I've walked away from several conversations in my career, you know, where I've witnessed to people maybe not engaging in a healthy way and I'm like, Oh, I didn't like that that happened. But then I'm like, you can address that. The FCB me. I think I know, one that should probably haven't paid something. So I think taking action to make changes is crucial. And the humility because like, how do you know you're taking the right action, right? So it's especially when it's a very complicated situation, and you have multiple identities and all kinds of things going on. It's like, you never know if you're doing the right thing. I think HR folks need a community of practitioners around them to, to, you know, talk this stuff out, which is why you have Joe.

Kyle Roed: 30:44

We're trying to make his psychologically safe. You know, I guess there's probably nothing safer than you can talk at this at the podcast, and nobody will hear you. But you can talk to us if you'd like to know, I'm just gonna open it up, okay, listeners, just, you know, yell, yell, whatever you want at us, you know, just let it out. Let's work through this. Rex awesome. You know, I just think, you know, we're just barely scratching the surface here. I think this is just such a fascinating topic. But uh, you know, I think we've kind of come back to this theme here. And here, here a couple different times. It's, it does take work. It takes, you know, intentional work. And and it's really complex. There's not, there's not, there's really not a right answer. There might be a wrong answer. But but you know, you don't necessarily, you don't necessarily know, you know,

Leann Peirera: 31:43

I love it. I love it. And Terrell, the right answer is if it's like, you just take the next step, and you listen for feedback. And if you're better, if you're doing better than worse, then you're on a good track, right? I mean, this is about development. Right? Yeah.

Kyle Roed: 32:00

Right. And, and I think the, you know, the opportunity to have a little bit of grace with ourselves, you know, we're not going to be perfect in these interactions all the time, either, you know, and, and, but if we can be, you know, have some self awareness and accountability and humility, you know, we can we can do this, we can do the work,

Leann Peirera: 32:19

and advocate and recovery, because like, I know, from personal experience, sometimes you get in it, and you really don't know if you're doing the right thing, and you don't know if you're making it worse, and sometimes people tell you, hey, Leanne, you make it worse. No, there's no wrong. You just have to find a way you have to really be able to take care of yourself and personally recover because this stuff is hard work. It's really hard to learn. Absolutely. All right.

Kyle Roed: 32:48

Well, this has been an amazing conversation, we are going to shift gears, we're going to go into the rebel HR flash round. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay, perfect. Question number one, where does HR need to rebel?

Leann Peirera: 32:59

HR needs to rebell in knowing that in assuming that her hair I'm messing up your flash round, I'm sorry. We can't, we can assume that we can take care of all of this stuff. With a policy or, you know, with a quick turnaround. This is not transactional, low HRV to rebel and really stepping up and owning that this is a whole new area and whole new domain.

Kyle Roed: 33:31

This came up on last week's episode to the Yeah, a handbook. never drove employee. No, no, no, but it feels good when we check it off the list. Right? But that's not the work. All right. Question number two, who should we be listening to?

Leann Peirera: 33:51

Everybody including yourself? Right? So I think that you really do want to reach out and connect with somebody who doesn't agree with you. Make it a point. I love that idea. Any question on that? I've been wanting to ask if he's I think Oregon Ave ProClick ology so interesting to me. What is one thing in that realm? That almost nobody agreed with? You on? With me personally? Yeah. Paula? Gosh, that's hard. Yeah. Do you have like, can you help me out with that? I've got to find a friend here. Like can you give me an example? Just anything in the in Organizational Psychology wrap? So whether or not you know, psychological faith, the Caribbean anything? Oh, um, you know, I'm gonna say. I think as a practice, I'll tell you where, where I face the most Challenge. As a practitioner, when I come in to diagnosis situation, it's very hard for folks who don't have my perspective or lens to understand what I'm saying. And the first thing I often from busy executives, the first thing I get is pushback. What do you mean? Why are you saying that? And I think that's true for any HR leader, anybody in this room? And so I think a lot of people will initially disagree, especially if I, if, if I feel like I'm giving them a little bit of criticism, too. And I think it's a natural reaction. I mean, we all do it. And so it takes a lot of patience and persistence, and framing to be able to communicate it right and have it land in a way that it's productive. If it's hard to do, it's super hard to do. That's why we need you in this world. So it's the winning more practitioners, everyone, please read up on it.

Kyle Roed: 36:16

Well, we're doing our live our best right now to try to help people with that. So appreciate that. All right. So you know, just wonderful content, I know that you you, you put out a lot of content with M train and and are very active in that space. So how can our listeners connect with you learn more and continue to build this? This knowledge,

Leann Peirera: 36:36

Nick? Definitely. So why the whole raid on existence, if you will, whatever the whole my whole thing is, I spent all my time. Even free time trying to find ways to get to make it easy for people to learn these concepts. I'm trained.com has a ton of content. Companies can buy it. People we have videos that model the best, the best practice so you can go youtube.com and train and look at some resources there or you can email me l Pereira. l Penita. p e r e IRA at m train.com.

Kyle Roed: 37:18

Absolutely. We will have that information in the show notes. So open up your podcast player. Click in Leanne. It's just been absolutely wonderful reconnecting with you. Thank you for sharing some of this wonderful work and knowledge with us and I guarantee you help some folks today.

Leann Peirera: 37:33

Awesome. Thanks, Colin. Molly's super fun to talk with you. Always a pleasure.

Kyle Roed: 37:39

All right. That does it for the rebel HR podcast. Big thank you to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at rebel HR podcast, Twitter at rebel HR guy, or see our website at rebel human resources.com. The views and opinions expressed by rebel HR podcast are those the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent. No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast. Baby