S4, E3: Low-Morale Experience in Libraries, Community Care and Glimmer Gathering w/ Kaetrena Davis Kendrick

In this episode, Kaetrena Davis Kendrick—an award-winning librarian, researcher, and the 2024–2025 Follett Chair at Dominican University—joins the hosts. Kendrick, renowned for her research on the topic of low-morale in libraries, sheds light on the systemic systems and structures that enable these environments and  how BIPOC library workers and administrators grapple with this.

Together, the trio explore enabling systems, problematic behaviors, and the emotional toll of library work—while also discussing pathways to healing through collective care, glimmer gathering, and workplace empathy. Kaetrena offers practical takeaways and inspiring book recommendations for those working toward more inclusive and supportive library cultures. 

Hosts: LaRee Dominguez & Brittany Young

Date of recording:  May 29, 2025

Mentioned in this episode: https://renewalslis.com

Book recommendations:

Critical Hope by Kari Grain 

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke

Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey

Transcript

Unedited transcript. Corrected and complete transcript to be uploaded soon:

:: Opening Music ::

LaRee (she/her) (00:01.313)
Hello and welcome to Overdue, Weeding Out Oppression in Libraries, a podcast produced by the Oregon Library Association's Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism Committee. My name is LaRee  Dominguez, my pronouns are she, her, and I am a librarian working in Oregon.

Brittany Young (00:21.6)
Hi, my name is Brittany Young and I am the Lane County Law Librarian in Eugene, Oregon and my pronouns are she, her, hers. In this episode, we have the pleasure of chatting with Kaetrena Davis Kendrick.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (00:35.31)
Hello.

LaRee (she/her) (00:39.415)
Kaetrena Davis Kendrick earned her MSL from the historic Clark Atlanta University School of Library and Information Studies. Known for her work on ethics, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and communities of practice in libraries, Kendrick's research on low morale experiences in library workplaces is recognized as groundbreaking and validating for library employees at all levels.

In her daily and long-term work, Kendrick has transformed library programs, services, and culture via creativity, leadership, and advocacy. She is committed to centering well-being, creativity, and empathy in the workplace and promoting career clarity and rejuvenation to workers.

In 2019, Kendrick was named the Association of College and Research Libraries Academic Research Librarian of the Year. Yay! And she is the 24-25 Follett Chair with the Dominican University School of Information Studies. We'll be including a link to her website with the podcast where you can learn more about Kaetrena . Welcome. Thank you for joining us.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:56.494)
Hello. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Good to see you. Can't hear you. Thank you.

Brittany Young (02:03.052)
It's fantastic to have you here. Yes, and hear you. I guess the podcast people that are listening, you can't see us, but we can see each other.

Brittany Young (02:15.95)
So I have the pleasure of hearing you present as part of the fall at chairship with the Dominican University School of Information Studies on the low morale experience. different, see now I'm gonna mess up the words. Now I'm gonna able to say different, different, different. Low morale experience.

Why can't I say this word y'all? Differ...differi...differi...differentiated! Thank you! Differentiation! The low morale experience, differentiation, and continuing research.and you shared some awesome book recommendations at the end of the presentation. Some that I really, really love. And I was like, well, obviously if we love some of the same books, I need to read the other ones.

Brittany Young (03:15.32)
So to kick this off, would you mind sharing some recommendations with us?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (03:21.72)
Yeah, I'm probably going to share some of them that I shared at the talk that you mentioned. Shout out to Dominican University. Hello, stars, Dominican stars. One that I always recommend is one by Dr. Kari Grain, which is called Critical Hope. It's a really great opportunity to learn about the framework and practice and praxis of Critical Hope, which allows us to recognize things that are going on through a lens of social justice and equity, while also being able to look to the future and determine our role in making things, moving things along a continuum that.

helps us through those goals of social justice and equity, community building and things like that. So that's central text that I always share. Another one is I really found that My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem, I'm sure I'm mispronouncing his name, Resmaa Menakem, he is a licensed counselor and a somatic experiencing practitioner. And his book, My Grandmother's Hands,

He looks, he's talking about racial trauma through the lens of internal family systems and race and body trauma and things like that. He's an, I think he's an internal family systems based counselor, but his book talks about racialized trauma. But, and it sounds like it's not connected to my research, but when I read it through the lens of how people interact with each other in groups.

It is a very timely work and plus we could all use some healing in our bodies for racialized trauma just in general. there's also some things I'm like, my gosh, this has applications for the work that I'm doing when it comes to how people are interacting with each other in workplaces and organizations.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (05:23.758)
Another one that I often recommend is a book by Annie Duke called Quit and that is not what you think it is. It doesn't necessarily mean quit your job or quit everything.

Annie Duke is a world-renowned poker player and so she knows how to make decisions. And her book is about why people delay decisions and what keeps us from stopping things. What are those things that delay us from making decisions that when we have evidence in front of us what makes us not take on that.

that evidence and make the decision. Why do we delay decisions? And so once you know the lots of ways that we the stories we tell ourselves about why we delay decisions even when we know we need to make one this is a great book to consider reading. So those are some that I like to share that I'm sharing today. Resmaa's book, Dr. Kari Grain's book, Annie Dukes and and another one is always I'm gonna anything that Tricia Hersey writes

Also follow The Nap Ministry. So of course then Rest is Resistance but also our second book, We Will Rest the Art of Escape. Okay so that's fourth one.

Brittany Young (06:29.825)
Yes.

LaRee (she/her) (06:36.631)
Hmm.

Brittany Young (06:39.47)
I love Nap Ministry. I saw that on the presentation that you did and I was like, yes! But my grandmother's hands, I'm feeling that one because of the somatic experience and the IFS part. I can totally see how it's tied in there. And I appreciated your very diplomatic way of saying that we all need therapy.

LaRee (she/her) (06:56.469)
Yes.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (07:03.255)
Yeah.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (07:08.846)
Everybody has some things, you know, everyone has something and even if it's what we call ordinary trauma, which is an ordinary, but sometimes we call things like things that feel like, like for instance, workplace trauma, because we have to go to work so it's every day so people discount it. So even if it's quote unquote ordinary trauma, we still need some support, and it builds on each other unfortunately.

LaRee (she/her) (07:35.295)
It... Yes, it does.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (07:36.322)
Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, so.

LaRee (she/her) (07:40.897)
So, Kaetrena , your studies have highlighted the prevalence of low morale experiences among librarians. Would you define what a low morale experience is?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (07:52.43)
Sure, so when I was looking at it traditionally, know, and I was looking at the literature, so I started doing this work in 2016 with the first study being published in 2017, and there was no one, people are talking about low morale, certainly at that time in businesses, but when I was looking in the literature, it was like, you know, they would present these things that cause low morale, but they sounded like, well, if this one thing then could be mitigated, then no one would have low morale. So for instance, low pay,

job creep, not being sure what you're doing, lack of communication amongst leadership. So when you read it like that it sounds like, well, if I would just get more pay then I wouldn't have low morale. So then how do you explain people who make lots of money still having low morale? So anyway, I was like, I'm gonna ask around, I'm gonna ask the librarians.

So I'm going ask the librarians to see. Hey, this is what the literature says it is. Hey, tell me about your experiences. And some of these things certainly came up, but they didn't start out. When I called and did these interviews, hour long, 90 minutes, sometimes two hours interviews, people didn't jump on the line and say, Kaetrena , let me tell you about the Lopez friend. They started telling me about all these other awful things that were happening.

And so certainly low morale is connected to those discrete factors. But when I was talking to colleagues, I was realizing this isn't these discrete factors. It's this larger context. It's something that's happening to them. So it's an experience. And so the low morale experience is one that is marked by repeated protracted exposure to abuse and neglect in the workplace. And there are several types of abuse that.

continuously show up as I've been doing these numerous studies. I did four more studies after that. So that's the definition when people talk about the experience they don't lead with I'm getting paid crap. No they don't lead with my supervisor doesn't talk to me. They don't lead with I'm not sure what I'm doing at my job or have mission creep. They start out by talking about things that they have a timeline with things that happened to them and these other things were showing up perhaps while it was happening to them.

Brittany Young (10:20.854)
just mesmerized by how your brain works because you must have been like hearing these stories and then you're like yes I'm seeing these patterns

LaRee (she/her) (10:31.947)
Right? That's what I feel like.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (10:33.23)
Well, well actually...

What I started thinking was...

this is happening, this is why I wrote this, because something had happened to me before, that's what really prompted the study. And I went to the literature and I said, okay, I don't see it anywhere, so guess this is what low morale is, so let me go ask the librarians. And then when people started talking, was, the first person that talked to me, in my mind, I was like, they didn't read, I thought they read the, they didn't read, they signed the informed consent, but they're telling me this thing, that's not what I'm asking about. But of course,

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (11:13.696)
in phenomenology I was like I'm let it ride but my first my first person I was like this is gonna be an outlier because the literature says it's supposed to be about low pay and all this kind of stuff but then people started like so actually what I was thinking was I'm not by myself you know well

LaRee (she/her) (11:32.929)
Yes.

Brittany Young (11:33.292)
Yes!

LaRee (she/her) (11:38.807)
I could see how people would do that too because I would if somebody asked me of course you're asking you're interested and you're gonna hear it all.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (11:48.844)
Yeah, yeah. So that's what I was thinking. I wasn't immediately thinking, ooh, this is, ooh, cause I had to get the date. The first few people, was like, everybody's just misreading my, misreading my invitation. Really? But it was like over and over again, everybody, everybody that I talked to never led with those discrete factors. They led with awful, awful thing that happened to them or several awful things that happened to them.


Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (12:17.07)
through a span of a certain period of time. And so as I went through the data, that's when I was realizing and phenomenology, you and it was the same. The first person I talked to was a male cataloger in the South. Okay. And the only reason I remember them, cause I remember thinking they are an outlier. This is not a, I messed up. but then as people kept talking, then it was the public librarians somewhere in Prince, I mean, an academic librarian somewhere in Pennsylvania. And then it was an instruction library and in the end, you know, very

very different practices but telling me stories, not even stories, their narratives, their experiences and I was like okay well I got this is the data I have this is the data I report.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (13:00.514)
and the common experiences. There were commonalities. The stories, the narratives, of course, were individualized to the people experiencing it. But the trajectory, there were common elements like an abuse, know, an act of abuse has occurred, responses to those abuse, changes in behavior. How am I gonna get out? Can I get out?

How do I feel about that? How do I feel about librarianship? What's helping this experience along? know, so I was just, as I did the data, was like seeing the commonalities and I reported the data that I got. So, like I said, my original point was, it was like, I'm not by myself.

Brittany Young (13:50.808)
Yes, I think that's part of what, like when I heard you present, that was part of, I was like, whoa, this this encapsulate, encaps, I can't talk today. It, it, I'm gonna stop trying to say that word. This is like everything that I've been talking about with my friends and I've been hearing from my friends as LaRee and Kristen can attest to, because we have a,

whole chain of texts in which we talk about this kind of thing. Right? So, so it was, and then that just like, it like starts to build a community, which we'll talk about more. We'll get into it. I just like did a little like side rabbit trail. So I guess I'll get us back on questions.

LaRee (she/her) (14:26.313)
And we thought we were the outliers.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (14:26.434)
Yeah. Yeah, well, you're not the outlier.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (14:39.576)
Yeah.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (14:47.406)
It's okay.

Brittany Young (14:48.974)
So in your 2023 study, The Cornered Office, you explore low morale experience among library leaders. What surfaces for leaders when they have this experience?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (15:02.542)
Well, they have, when I talk with them, this is my last study, so in 2023, I talked to the leaders and I didn't find out any, we'll talk about enabling systems in a little bit, but the different, they validated the same experience, which I wasn't surprised to hear because they work in the same types of workplaces and similar organizations. So I wasn't surprised to hear that they were having low morale experiences. What I was interested in was what might any differences be?

And so what the differences were, this group reported new impact factors. And impact factors are things that influence the experience from the beginning through its quote unquote resolution. And I'll share a couple. One is it surfaces that this group is more likely to feel isolation because of their position. So.

There's something called executive isolation which just means that executives usually feel isolated just because they're executives because of other people perceive them. But within positional isolation this is different. This is when people are dealing, this is in the context of being harmed at work and being a formal leader. Who are you telling?

Who are you telling? Right? You're the dean and the provost is harming you. Who are you telling? You're not telling your other colleagues. You're not telling the other deans. Okay? You're not going to tell because the deans might see you differently because you're the library dean. And there's a differentiation already there socially and culturally because you're the library dean sometimes. You're not telling your direct and indirect reports because why are you telling your indirect and indirect reports?

that you're being abused and neglected that's going to decrease morale and you're not going to who are you going to tell HR as the Dean are you telling the board of trust like who are you telling another impact factor is accountability when and remember this is happening these impact factors that are happening while people are being abused and neglected okay so the other thing that impacts this is

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (17:13.334)
you're trying to create accountability in your organization, particularly if you're in a low morale organization. A lot of people that contacted me were experiencing low morale, having this experience because they're in a place that allows abuse and neglect to flourish. So you're likely in a low morale oriented organization. So that means you're trying to figure out how to stop it.

Because people generally come to leadership, formal leadership, because they want to affect change in the organization. And so now they're trying to figure out how to do that through this lens of people are being harmed in the organization, including me. How can I try to make it better for everybody and make these policies do what they're supposed to do? And they realize they're not able to do that. Connected to that is another impact factor, which is I call legacy toxicity. This is when a formal leader

Inherent a toxic group organization Individual Unit and they realize that they're not going to be able to mitigate that toxicity because The people that they that report to them see their seat as the place where the harm comes I eat the previous person in that role was the one that harmed everybody and so they recognize that the person in that role is the person that causes the harm and they expect that or they're real I the

the indirect reports to the new leader like, well the last leader tried to do everything and we already know it's not gonna work, the system's not gonna help let them clean this up. So we're gonna either continue doing our negative behaviors or we have no trust in the leader because they can't do anything, we already know that. And the other thing about legacy toxicity is the direct and indirect reports who want things to get better, the leader starts working on that and then these folks have a

conscious or subconscious resistance to whatever the leader does to improve stuff. And what we learn there is there's a power in dysfunction. There's power in dysfunction. You figured out a way to navigate it. You figure out a way to sub-de-fudge. You figured out a way to circumvent. So it's easier for you now to do that. It's similar to like we say we want to improve our nutrition. Is it easier? What's harder to chop up the salad or

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (19:37.826)
reach for the burger. So it plays out in a similar sort of way where you have this unconscious or conscious resistance to making things better because that means we have to change what we've been doing but that gave us power, right? That dysfunction gives us power in a way so folks might be wanting to stop that. So those are some things.

Brittany Young (20:00.076)
Now I have follow up questions. One, so who do I tell? And then two, how? Because I know, I've heard that story so many times about you're suddenly a leader in what is already a toxic environment. And particularly, and I love this phrase, there's a power and dysfunction kind of thing happening. I know I've been offered a job in a public library in Indiana before. And my second interview was just them bringing me in to tell me about all of the toxicity to see if I wanted to take the job. I did not. It was also for lower pay. And I was like, no.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (20:52.194)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brittany Young (20:53.248)
No. So I'm just curious. And I don't know if you have the answers to those, but I just imagine some other people might have those those follow ups too.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (20:59.916)
You know, the question who you tell, I don't know. I mean, I'm always going to tell the people that need to know because at the end of the day, we don't want organizations saying that they did not know. So I'm always going to recommend documenting. tell the organization that is happening. Tell the organization in whatever way that needs to happen. And the key here is sometimes it's not

I would say be careful of being a cynic here. I.e. nothing's going to happen if I tell them. Well, maybe, but definitely nothing's going to happen if you don't tell them. that means you're not... The system is the thing that isn't working. And so if we're not going to invoke the system, it ensures that it doesn't work even more. And it also removes accountability because if you don't say, then they can say they didn't know.

So always tell the organization what's happening. And you can decide when that happens. Maybe you want to document. I recommend documenting until you see a pattern of behavior. That means the first time someone, the first time, even if you think they really meant it as a joke, because librarians are so nice and we talk about that in a little bit, but you know, we often discount the first time someone says something because we don't want to seem quote unquote sensitive or we don't want them to be mad at us. But you know.

they're already doing something that's putting us on the track there the moment you feel destabilized either unintentionally or intentionally by someone else you can decide later if it was a joke for now write it down

You can decide later, that was a one-off, because you'll see a pattern in their behavior. If they never do it again, then you can see from your documentation that was in fact a one-time. They saw it as they didn't, you know, that wasn't, it might have been harmful, but they didn't, and they didn't do it again.

LaRee (she/her) (22:55.017)
I think those are the two things that are so prevalent. Why tell anybody? Because it's not going do anything. And to give people grace when they don't deserve it.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (23:10.306)
And the grace comes in the documentation and also, you know, a lot of times too, this is why I talk about this as trauma and abuse because that first time we turn in on ourselves instead of putting it back on the person who did the thing, okay? So, you know, there's levels to how you can respond the first time someone says something. And if they say it was just a joke, you can let them know the parameters of joking with you. That certainly has happened to me.

LaRee (she/her) (23:23.158)
Yes.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (23:37.164)
and I let that person know, don't know you well enough to know that we're joking so I didn't take that as a joke. Perhaps later we'll know each other better and I'll recognize your humor. But that lets them know, you know, watch. There needs to be, if you talk to Kaetrena  there needs to be some indicators that I'm joking that it can't be in sarcasm or things like that. You know, we don't know each other well enough to use sarcasm because I don't know that's jokey to you, that sounds mean.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (24:06.614)
I don't know you.

so you can create parameters of joking or let them know, I need more to recognize that's a joke.

LaRee (she/her) (24:17.473)
Yeah.

Brittany Young (24:19.18)
like the I like it to the parameters like I think of it like as boundaries similar.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (24:26.028)
Yeah, especially if they say something that knocks you right? Like especially if the thing that they're saying knocks you and then you know, instead if you don't, you I know often people, you're so sensitive you can't take a joke. I am not sensitive but I didn't know you were joking. That's the thing. I'm not, actually I'm not sensitive. I just didn't realize you were joking. How was I to know that this is my first meeting or our second meeting or what have you? This is your first joke, jokey interaction with me. Sorry.

LaRee (she/her) (24:40.951)
Thank you.


Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (24:54.222)
I like slapstick or whatever, know, my jokes include falling down, you you know, you know, if you fall on purpose, I would recognize that because that's more and more universal, you know, but you knocking me when we don't know each other the first time that's, that's, you know, when we think about this in any of them, we talk about internal family systems, going back to that idea, you know, or, or social interact is nagging, nagging people, negative people.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (25:23.81)
being you know those types of things. is the first joke you bring to me something that's diminutizing me? I have to check you there. So it's just better to err on the side of yourself and if someone calls you sensitive. Okay.

Brittany Young (25:41.742)
I may be sensitive, but I still would have no idea if you were joking.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (25:49.132)
Yeah, I'm sensitive, but that's still not true. Or I'm sensitive, but that was still kind of mean because we don't know whatever the thing is.

LaRee (she/her) (25:58.327)
So you've talked about your research and you talked with public librarians and you talked with academic librarians. And what is there a unique challenge to public librarians or academic, their academic counterparts for low morale? It seems like in some ways it could be the same, but in other ways... they're just inherently different.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (26:31.19)
Yeah, so when we look at the enabling systems of low morale experiences, enabling systems are the systems that if they work well, abuse and neglect in our workplaces wouldn't be as prevalent. I wouldn't say that it would go away because of humans, but if the systems we had in place were working well, it would be more easily mitigated and you would see perhaps less of it.

Public library workers and academic library workers share some enabling systems, including staffing and employment, which is to say, staffing is often weaponized against both groups in low morale experiences. Both groups are subject to perceptions of librarianship and librarians. So for instance, when they report out that something is happening, we often get, what's going on in library? It's quiet in there. What are y'all fighting about? Are y'all throwing books at each other?

y'all are so quiet, y'all are meek anyway, so surely you're not fighting. So that reduces our desire to share what's happening outside the library. Human resources limitations are an enabling system that both groups discuss that have to do with their, that connect to their low morale experiences. And this is when we go to HR, HR puts the onus back on the reporter overly to fix it.

or there's no response, or it's a sidestep, or the policy doesn't apply to their group. This happens particularly in academic libraries, where if you're a faculty member and you bring an abusive complaint, they might say, take it to faculty organization. But faculty organization, the only grievance they have policies for are promotion and tenure concerns and processes. Leadership styles is also an enabling system that both groups

deal with and leadership styles like toxic leaders, authoritarian leaders, what we call ambivalent leaders, are also called laissez faire leaders. Colloquially, I call this the dude bro leader. The dude bro leader is the one that's like when you bring them a concern, they want you to fix it. It'll be fun, you know, just work it out over there. I'm going to come. I'll be at so and so next week. And then when you come back.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (28:53.368)
When they come back from, they're never there and when they come back, the kind of hope is that you have resolved it with the folks by the time you get back and why can't y'all just get along and if y'all would just fix it over there, you know, and I'll be over here and you fixed it? Great. So those are some things that are the same. Some differences, when I did the public librarian study, we found some different impact, some other different enabling systems too. They are more for

public librarians and they include organizational structure. you know, generally libraries, public libraries are smaller, so there's nowhere to go. can, it's like this, you're in that hierarchy and you're the public librarian one, that's you forever. know, unless somebody leaves, there's no, or unless they create a new structure where you can get promoted.

your public library, your librarian one, period. So there's not a lot of leverage to move. You can move from branch to branch maybe, and maybe one day you can get a manager, but it has to open up. So you almost feel like you're kind of stuck in that space. But also organizational structure for public librarians includes lots of turnover at the leadership level. you know, public direct library directors, you know, one person will tell me, know, I've had three in three years.

or three in five years. That's a lot. And so every time a new leader comes, they want to do something for their vision. So you're working on one thing and now you're doing something different because they have a different vision, so on and so forth. On-demand relocation is an enabling system. So this is when public library workers, generally, if you're working for a municipality, let's say you work for a county system, if they need you to move to another branch, you'll be given a certain amount of notice so you can get your stuff in order.

But people who report workplace abuse and harm will be unceremoniously moved from one branch to another. And they feel like that's a punishment and also it hides the abuse at the branch where they reported it. And one more is equity, diversity, and inclusion. this is when we are, the library workers are talking about either being pigeonholed, like one librarian who speaks Spanish as their another language,

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (31:19.32)
The other librarians use that person to speak Spanish all the time, even though this person would rather be, actually wants to be the program director generally, but they have to stay in that branch because they're the person who speaks Spanish. So being used as a token and overworked because they have a skill set of, know, convenient identity and being pushed there. So, and then also watching pushback for equity, diversity, and inclusion.

watching mistakes and remember all these things are happening while people are experiencing direct harm to them.

Brittany Young (31:58.478)
Especially the last part with the, well the last two parts, the pigeonholing. I know that within the friend group that like, LaRee  and I are in, we've definitely talked about that with some of the libraries. Not just that we're at now, but specifically in
previous experiences, we won't name names of those libraries, but and then the the moving people around part Yeah, I definitely saw that a lot in Indiana. They would say well either you quit or you go to this location

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (32:41.474)
Yeah, but yeah especially and like this is happening for people when they report. So you say something happens at a branch and you know all of a sudden you're being you know okay in two in one week you're going to be at so-and-so branch and that branch is across the county and you're not given enough time but they're did so it feels like a punishment right they're moving you away from the abuser but they're punishing you because why not move them and give them a week. Not to say that anybody should be under that I don't even perceive that or agree that the person who's being who's the abuser should be, you know, given only a week to go. But why they don't move the abuser and or why do they, you know, so that's what folks ask like why move me? Because they get to stay there and just keep doing what it is they're doing.

Brittany Young (33:30.094)
All right, as you shared with me when we were preparing for the podcast, all of your studies surface systemic issues. That to me is a powerful statement because it can't be particularly for white people like myself. Something that we forget. We forget that the systemic issues are always present. So.

Given that, in the fall session I heard you speak in, you provided some specific BIPOC low morale experience enabling systems. Could you share some of those with us?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (34:12.46)
Yeah sure and I want to take a note to note to say here I am sure in your experience it may be that you might forget them as a person who presents as Caucasian. The other thing is I will ask us to reflect of how many do we know, recognize, and ignore.

they don't harm us. They don't harm you in your experience. They're only harming others so we tend to de-center what doesn't harm us directly. So I'm going to ask for some reflection there. Like certainly we can have the privilege of forgetting and also you have the human experience of witnessing and not doing. How much of that might be playing out for you know you and your experience or some listeners as well.

When we look at black, indigenous, and people of color who are experiencing low morale, they have even more. So they experience some of the same enabling systems that I mentioned, staffing and employment, LIS processions, and it's even more because no one recognizes me as the librarian. I can stand at the library desk and someone will ask, I need to see a librarian. Hi. Hello. Here I am.

Right? So, and of course the human resources limitations and the leadership styles. When we look at their experience and that differentiation there for those enabling systems, there are eight more that come up and half of them deal with race and race relations. So whiteness is an enabling system. And that's why I ask you, you know, that area of how much are we seeing and ignoring of systems.

on white supremacy, the implicit and explicit, by that actually can be invisible, it's embedded in lots of things that are our interactions and systems. And then there is the more visible issues of racism. So, this group reports racism. These are the acts that people do against them because they see the library, the BIPOC librarian as inferior or subjugated to other people. And diversity rhetoric and this is when, remember I just want to keep the context here, the folks are already being harmed in the workplace by colleagues, okay, but they're being also asked to

represent diversity in the organization, do the work of diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and justice in the organization while they're being harmed. So in the organization where they're being harmed, they're seeing diversity rhetoric about how the organization is committed to diversity and all these things they say they would aspire to while then also discounting diversity, equity, and inclusion work. What we see now, even now, as we actually turn our backs absolutely on the value and de-center the value and hide that we're doing.

that we're doing the work or now this is a convenient time to just let it go which means that it wasn't ever a central value. So imagine that you know your organization is saying that they are committed to these things and they are aspirational to these things while harming you. So those are just some of the enabling systems for black, indigenous, and people of color who are dealing with low morale in their library workplaces.

LaRee (she/her) (37:23.479)
Those are huge.

Brittany Young (37:25.706)
And thank you for sharing those and for the reflection piece. I appreciate that. And on the podcast in general, that's a very good actionable, well, actionable on the part of reflecting in yourself, because if you're not looking internally at what you're doing, you're not being accountable. So I appreciate that. Yeah.

LaRee (she/her) (37:28.853)
Yes.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (37:49.74)
Yeah, like how much do we ignore? Yeah, like some of the systems, some things are invisible and we gotta take a moment. Like white supremacy is absolutely invisible. It's in every, you know, unless you, wait a minute, right? It's designed that way. It's how it works. But I question how we see suffering all of the time and in low morale experiences, people are suffering. So it's not necessarily that we're forgetting systems all of the time.

LaRee (she/her) (38:13.527)
Mm-hmm.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (38:16.14)
We're ignoring systems because we feel like we can't fix them. Or we're ignoring them because we don't suffer the harm from the system. So there's a piece there that we need to be thinking about and acting on rather than saying, I forget it sometimes. There's a human piece of suffering. You see it. What's your world?

LaRee (she/her) (38:17.995)
Yeah. Right.

Thank you for giving voice to those folks that are having to carry the load and be part of the issue at hand to suffering. That's a nice way to look at it. Maybe not nice, a good way to look at it. So what are some of the behaviors people can be aware of?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (39:46.092)
So there are several but the one I want to talk about that I think is most pervasive when it comes to low morale and trying to stop it and mitigate it is something called triangulation. Do you all know what triangulation is?

LaRee (she/her) (42:57.832)
Not in this context, I don't.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (43:00.976)
So I'm going to use you guys as you all you both as example. I come to you one day and I say will you let LaRee  know that I need her to do this task.

and you say to me, I'll let her know. And then a couple days I see Laree and Laree is giving me major side-eyes. Just an awkward interaction. I'm not sure what's going on. But I might never find out that Brittany, you might have told Laree what to do but you added some, I don't know why Kaetrena wants you to do this but she asks so and so. And then y'all have a conversation and it might be that Brittany is already aware that Laree is concerned about some aspect of the task. And so she's exploiting

both of us. Brittany is exploiting both of us and I might never know and because Brittany's pretty sure that I will never ask Laree why she's upset and Laree's never gonna ask me, Kaetrena why did you have me do so-and-so? So who's in control of that

Brittany Young (43:58.262)
That would be me.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (43:59.408)
Alright, and we might never know. So, so it's basically in a family systems. This is I have a little one little one comes to me and says mom Can I play games on your phone and I say no So little one goes and asks dad. Can I play games on your phone? Sure, and so who's having the argument about game playing on the phone? Me and dad and who's playing on the phone little one Okay

LaRee (she/her) (44:23.135)
Mm-hmm.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (44:29.074)
that's triangulation that that person is bringing in another person to maintain control over both people but mainly for that person for me right the person that they really want to control is me so they bring in someone else and the second person is not aware that they're being used to control me

LaRee (she/her) (44:47.873)
Hmm.

Brittany Young (44:49.336)
That is, I love that example. It's also a perfect example for how adults are really just children.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (44:57.822)
I'm going play games on this phone. I'm going play games with you. I'm play games with this person and they'll never know. Because how likely? Think about it, and this really happens and this is something that leaders need to be aware of because leaders are often busy with other things, right? And so hey they're just delegating and it's rare and a lot of people won't come back to the leader and say, Lareed you're not going go back to the dean or the director and say, hey you told me to do so and so. You're assuming that your supervisor Brittany has advocated and said surely

LaRee (she/her) (44:58.251)
He he.

LaRee (she/her) (45:14.017)
Yes.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (45:26.716)
you know hey Kaetrena actually, Laree can't do that right now or you know I'll get back with you I'm not sure she can do it let me report back to you but what's happening is both of y'all are you know I'm busy doing so and so I'm thinking that Laree's gonna do the thing and Laree's never gonna come to me and say hey there's a problem with that and Brittany has decided that they're not gonna say anything because there's something that you want me to do or you want that other person not to do okay you're angling for something that is going to harm both of us

but really going harm me. And it harms that relationship between me and LaRee . And by the time, if I ever find out, by the time I find out that you've compromised my relationship with LaRee , it doesn't matter what I say because think about when you've been triangulated. By that time it doesn't matter what you say, it plays into the narrative that the person who's triangulated you has told them. So it really does destroy relationships.

LaRee (she/her) (46:19.979)
Yeah, it does.

Brittany Young (46:21.704)
So that just sounds super abusive.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (46:22.15)
so that's the person that's doing the triangulating usually is a narcissist or a toxic individual a manipulator so think about through those lenses you know this person is manipulating two people

LaRee (she/her) (46:32.449)
Mm-hmm.

LaRee (she/her) (46:39.84)
Right.


Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (46:42.822)
And so when we go back to that legacy toxicity, you know, the manipulator may come to you, the new leader, let me tell you everything. Because they triangulate almost immediately. The person that wants to tell you all the things right away, why do they need to tell you the story so quickly?

why they need to make sure they're in your ear really quickly after you get there.

LaRee (she/her) (47:06.999)
That's a good point. We see that happen a lot.

Brittany Young (47:08.514)
Yeah.

Brittany Young (47:12.194)
Yep. Even like right in front of like large groups of people.

LaRee (she/her) (47:15.82)
Yeah.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (47:16.956)
Yeah, and people might even realize, but there was a time when this happened for me and I realized it. But by the, it's like you realize it but you can't, you might not be able to create that question right away. And then there are also other things that might show up that interrupt you from asking that question because...

their cultural problems and you know power dynamics too. You know if you realize your supervisor, your own supervisor is triangulating you are you going to say hey you might not do that. You're going to certainly not going to say it in the moment and you still got to figure out how much how long has this been happening what is the narrative that they created and again even by that time that narrative might be established no matter what you say to that other person it ends up fulfilling the narrative that the triangulator has created. there's not a it's not a clean

LaRee (she/her) (47:36.149)
Mm-hmm.

LaRee (she/her) (47:42.935)
You

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (48:04.164)
way to clean up even if you go and say hey I think I realized that so-and-so told you so-and-so but if that person already thinks of you as the person that's not going to help them or has been harming them or whatever that manipulator has said it really doesn't matter what you say it sounds false.

Brittany Young (48:19.362)
I can so relate to this. am just, there's too many people that pop into my head thinking about the narcissist aspect of it too, because if that person is indeed a narcissist, they're gonna twist and turn whatever you say and you're not gonna win with them. I know we have, we do,

We talk a lot about gray rocking. and I'm not sure how I'll probably explain horribly what gray rocking is just for listeners, but basically, you know, ignoring and not reacting to the actions of a narcissist. feel like is the best way I can say that. But like sometimes like with like a situation that you're talking about, Kaetrena , that's, there's still going to be.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (48:49.618)
Mm-hmm.

Brittany Young (49:16.686)
there's still going to be abuse and trauma that comes out of that.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (49:18.648)
mhm mhm yeah I think one of the things you know when I think about triangulation some things we can consider is

Once you realize or if you suspect triangulation bring in everybody at the same time. doesn't mean you stop the hierarchical communication process. What it means is everybody gets the message at the same time because one of the problems with triangulation is if I am asking someone else to send the message then there's a compromise there. But if everybody gets the message at the same time which means we're not compromising the hierarchical model. The supervisor and the other direct report are there.

both know it's just that we're going to do it at the same time rather than level by level we bring everybody in at the same time and that way the person can hear me directly and they can ask me questions directly or I can offer that invitation to that person in front of their supervisor that you can come see me later or we will be talking about it later.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (50:21.042)
without the manager or the supervisor. And that way everybody's aware.

Brittany Young (50:28.182)
like that that kind of like solution of being like you can come talk to about it later in front of the supervisor.

LaRee (she/her) (50:35.328)
Right.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (50:36.36)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brittany Young (50:39.148)
Okay. We like to provide our listeners with a few actionable takeaways. Now that you've outlined the enabling systems and behaviors to watch for, or some of them anyway, there's more. But wait, but wait, there's more.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (50:51.518)
There are more, that's just one.

There more, that's just the one I think is like, recognize when that's happening as soon as you, you know, be aware, don't be looking for it, but when you get that little twinge, that's what that might be.

Brittany Young (51:12.014)
And actually, ask before I keep going with the question, did you want to tell us more enabling systems?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (51:20.74)
enabling systems? For public librarians, they deal with something called, well actually it's an impact factor, I'm going talk a little bit about impact factors. Resilience narratives. Resilience narratives, have you ever been told to do more with less? Have you ever been compared with a more, you know, why aren't y'all doing what LA Public is doing? Well, we don't have the money or the resources of LA Public.

Brittany Young (51:21.782)
Yeah, if you want to, you know.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (51:46.814)
So, resilience narratives require that individuals fill in the gaps for organizational processes. So, you know like how K-12 teachers have to, you sometimes they go down deep in their purse pockets to pay for the things that they need for their classrooms.

the school should be providing that. So we do this too in libraries. figure out ways to fill in what the organization, the organization has said do this job and then they don't fund us to do our jobs and we end up doing the job anyway without the funds to our own detriment. So resilience narratives is an impact factor for public library workers. In terms of impact factors for black and business and people of color, they talk about during their experience something called deauthentication.

when black, indigenous, and people of color who are working in hostile workplaces leave their selves at home. So because they know that if they talk about themselves they might be weaponized against them. So they're not talking about Diwali. Okay. They are going to reconsider if they should color their hair purple because me coloring my hair purple and Brittany you coloring your hair purple is a different thing.

You're quirky. I might be seen as something else if I colored my hair another color. So I might not do that.

So that's deauthentication. Or might not speak my second language at work because then I'm going get pigeonholed and I end up doing that all the time. So we leave those things behind when we come to work because they'll be weaponized or used to exploit us. Remember, this is happening already while we're being abused and then there's just what we're realizing through deauthentication is that black, indigenous, and people of color who are working in libraries while they're being harmed are realizing there might be another level of harm that's going to show up if I bring my full personality.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (53:39.904)
My full ethnic identity, full heritage to work is another point of harm for me. So I want to share those.

LaRee (she/her) (53:50.251)
So that sort of plays into the leaving yourself at home to the code switching that we all do, or most of us do.

Brittany Young (53:50.274)
Thank you.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (53:57.084)
Yeah. Yes. Yes.

LaRee (she/her) (54:03.159)
Thank you.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (54:05.982)
Sure.


Brittany Young (54:23.822)
We like to provide our listeners with a few actual takeaways. Now that you've outlined some of the enabling systems and behaviors to watch for, our audience is better equipped to recognize the patterns in their own libraries, or least they should be. Right? That's the hope here. You've previously spoken about the concept of collective care. Could you share more about what that means and how it can support in meaningful change.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (54:55.078)
Yes, so collective care is when we determine that well-being for people of the group is a shared responsibility of the group. Usually when we're in low morale experiences everything what we were realizing is the placement of the onus of all the work and the labor of recovering and healing and recognizing and identifying. Yes, some of that is on the individual.

But once people are harmed, we need to be in community. We need community support. Again, just like you said at the beginning.

even when I was doing this research I thought I was by myself. You've mentioned, you know, feeling, I thought we were outliers. And many people when they come to my research, even almost 10 years later, I thought I was by myself. So what that tells me is the most, the time when we most feel isolated is when we should be seeking community and we recognize that the trauma response means that we may isolate. But what if we had a place where collective care is a countermeasure and we recognize that there was a

in our organizations of people who are committed to helping people get taken care of? What if we saw leadership as a pathway of care rather than just an administrative tab, a bevy of administrative task or, you know, nebulous cultural development or organizational development aspirations? Because collective care is action, action-based and we don't need a structure to do that.

you can start by saying how are you you can again this goes back to my reflection question of when you see people suffering what are you gonna what can you do right now that has nothing to do with your title nothing to do with your station but because you see another human suffering what's your response that's collective care

Brittany Young (56:45.368)
I feel like collective care should be a managerial style.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (56:49.758)
It can be. That's what saying. How can we view leadership as a care?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (56:58.77)
peace right like it could in and of itself be a care philosophy rather than just I have a title in the organization and I live in this place hierarchically and I have to move this paper and have to make sure these processes and these workflows and these policies because a lot of the policies and things especially in Loma Rau are not conducive to care they actually pre barriers to care I'm not saying don't follow the policy I am asking are there pockets of care in the policies that you have

that you can vote just because you're human that you don't need permission to do. don't need permission to care for people.

Brittany Young (57:36.014)
pockets of care.

LaRee (she/her) (57:37.737)
Yeah, and it seems like if that could start even in a small place, it would empower other staff members outside of managers to say, hey, are you OK? And actually pay attention. Because I feel like this is one of those things that you can see almost a daily basis, people isolating because

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (57:47.716)
Exactly. Yes! Yes!

Yes.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (58:04.562)
Mm-hmm.

LaRee (she/her) (58:04.897)
they're not on this committee or they're not in that group. And it just seems like a big snowball.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (58:15.102)
And humans are social people once and when we are afraid

Brittany Young (58:31.256)
Are you still there? Okay.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (58:31.784)
I need a moment, I need a moment. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? I think that's kind of been a question for me these last few months. People are becoming afraid to show care. It's almost, know, it's like, you know, especially with the rhetoric about not, you know, empathy as this thing that should be decentered or seen as less than.

this is when we need empathy the most. We now need care more than ever and people are, you know, it can be a fear-based thing that stops us from doing it. But like I said at the beginning, what is your role? You are a human and another human is suffering. And the great thing about humans is when we see people suffering we want to help. So how can you avoid the questions of things are too big? And instead of saying that you can say what can I do right now with the space?

What can I do? What can I do right now? Instead of going, I can't do that. That's so big. I can't affect what's going on over there. It's so big. But how can you show your care where you are at home, locally? If you can't help people in a refugee camp across the world, what can you do with the neighbor that doesn't have food around the corner?

Brittany Young (59:28.212)
I love that.

Brittany Young (59:53.208)
That's beautiful and it makes me think that like care.

LaRee (she/her) (59:54.445)
It is.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (59:56.158)
you know that push in community with other people who are in fact working in the refugee camp in the big place in the other round around the other side of the world now you're in community with them on your level at your capacity at your capacity and if it's one dollar send the dollar because imagine if everybody just say you know I can't spend fifteen but I do have a dollar I'ma send my one dollar every day imagine if everybody said I can do X rather than I can't

LaRee (she/her) (01:00:05.591)
Right.

Brittany Young (01:00:08.138)
Yes!

LaRee (she/her) (01:00:10.283)
Mm-hmm.

LaRee (she/her) (01:00:19.575)
Absolutely.

LaRee (she/her) (01:00:25.205)
Mm-hmm.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:00:25.598)
imagine how much movement would occur if we were placed on abundance based instead of all the we can't do because of course there's not things we can do, we certainly cannot do. What are the things you can do? What are the things you can do? Everybody got a skill, everybody got an art, everybody has a truth. How are you going to tell it in service of humanity?

Brittany Young (01:00:35.79)
It's like abundant.

LaRee (she/her) (01:00:37.45)
Yeah.

Brittany Young (01:00:47.534)
It's like abundance instead of scarcity. I like that. you got me thinking with the, there's a lot of fear leadership happening on larger levels. And I feel like care could be, that can be an action that is against the fear.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:00:49.99)
Right.

LaRee (she/her) (01:00:50.091)
Mm-hmm.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:00:59.687)
Yeah.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:01:12.306)
Yes, when you think about it, if you are concerned about what you can do, then you can't be concerned about it. if you're thinking about you can't do, that is a fear base, right? can't do that, right? What can you do and then do it immediately? Because then if you stop, you're going to be like, well, if I do that, then blah, blah, blah. Now you're going back into fear. That's a fear base. So if you got it, how are you going to live it? How are you going to show it? What can you do? What can you do? I can do this.

LaRee (she/her) (01:01:40.277)
Yeah, and I appreciate that right now. What can you do right now? Because that's absolutely what happens. You think about it even for a split second and that fear can take back over again.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:01:43.036)
right now.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:01:56.488)
tomorrow okay if you're do it tomorrow you better put an alarm on at six o'clock is happening you know if you have to you can't right if you can't do it right now put a parameter around it just like we put parameters around everything we want to do I'm gonna go to that concert I'm buying I can't buy the ticket tonight but I'm putting it on payday is March so-and-so I'm buying a ticket that day right we put parameters on things we want to do that we can't do right now either you do it right now or you put a parameter on it, and then you do it.

LaRee (she/her) (01:02:00.439)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

LaRee (she/her) (01:02:31.863)
It's great.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:02:34.8)
I did not. And we're human. We're all humans.

LaRee (she/her) (01:02:40.439)
So reflecting on your career, what motivated you to focus on the emotional and psychological aspects of librarianship?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:02:52.126)
I said at the beginning of this conversation that I am not immune from low morale. I am not separate from the experience. So when I started this work, wasn't necessarily consciously, I was never, I have never been consciously thinking I'm going to look at in library and psychology. I was wondering what is happening with our colleagues. This is happening to me. Is it, what's going on with y'all?

and my query is always colloquially to myself, well let me go see. I'm gonna go see. So I never consciously was thinking I'm gonna look at these things. It was more, I wanna know if I was by myself. And I moved into these things and I feel like I, when I think about this question of what can I do right now, now that I know people are harmed,

What can I do? I'm going to make sure people know about it. I'm going to keep finding out as much as I can and report as much as I can so people can't say it's not happening.

So for me, I'm doing the thing I can do right now. In relation to, I have heard suffering. So what can I do? So this is what I do.

LaRee (she/her) (01:04:11.935)
I love that impetus to go out and find out. Go see what's happening, if this is happening to other people or not. Do something. yeah. Yes.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:04:19.838)
Go see, but now that I know, I have to tell it. I have to tell it. So, because people are being harmed and people want to act like they don't know or they want to say that libraries are quiet or that libraries are safe spaces. Safe for who? Yeah, certainly we create safe spaces for our patrons while our colleagues are not safe.

Brittany Young (01:04:26.657)
Yeah

LaRee (she/her) (01:04:36.606)
Exactly.

Brittany Young (01:04:37.501)
Right?

Brittany Young (01:04:43.916)
And that vocational awe is real and we don't talk enough about what's actually happening in our libraries.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:04:45.799)
Yeah.

LaRee (she/her) (01:04:46.241)
Hmm.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:04:51.43)
Right, right. So vocational all, resilience narrative, library nice, we can't say anything. We want to be nice to each other even when we're being... Library workers are harmful to each other. You will get harmed by a library worker and still be told implicitly or explicitly that we should be nice to each other. Okay? We're not doing that. I'm not saying be mean. I am saying be clear.

LaRee (she/her) (01:04:51.788)
That's right.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:05:18.128)
I don't think library workers should be mean but what research is telling me is that in fact clearly we are. So we need to respond to that. So it's not just the thing about going and finding out. It is that I am going to tell it. I am determined to get as much information as I possibly can and figure out ways to mitigate it. Recognizing that Kaetrena doesn't fix low morale, people do.

just like we engage in these behaviors we have to figure out methodologies to interrupt them and be aware of when we're doing them because certainly we have been mean to others, true all of us perhaps, I'm sure. So what do those behaviors look like? What activates you to be mean or abusive to somebody in your organization? And certainly if you've been harmed you are harming others because hurt people hurt others. So not just the finding out but also the telling.

Brittany Young (01:06:12.654)
And there's another good reflection question, what activates you to be mean?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:06:19.602)
Yeah.

Brittany Young (01:06:20.152)
then you can stop it. can figure out how to at least pause. Yeah and then I mean then you get people that are just intentionally mean

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:06:33.404)
But that means something has happened to them and so there's an element of compassion here. people aren't mean just because they're mean. Like something has occurred. Most people, generally, humans aren't mean to other humans. That's a learned behavior. It's a defense mechanism. So I'm not, so we have to think about these things and leave these conversations with compassion even for the people who are harming because certainly something has occurred.

Brittany Young (01:06:53.165)
Yes.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:07:03.004)
that lets them know that this is something that keeps them safe in some sort of way and it has become dysfunctional because the thing that used to harm them is no longer available but they are still in that behavior and that's what makes it dysfunctional. But remember harmful behaviors that people perpetrate were learned from someone else and their reactions were at one point how they protected themselves.

LaRee (she/her) (01:07:26.539)
Mm-hmm.

Brittany Young (01:07:26.702)
Yeah, that was the defense piece. That's when I say when I mean to people, it is often when I've become defensive.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:07:30.887)
Yeah.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:07:37.97)
Right.

Brittany Young (01:07:38.4)
And that, and like, that's always something that I have to go into my internal family systems and be like, okay, who's, who's reacting in here?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:07:45.042)
Yeah.

you're reacting to you know the manipulator who's doing triangulation learned that in general as it comes from internal family system they learned it probably during their childhood how to navigate and bring somebody in so they can get to do the thing that they need to that was originally a defense mechanism or something like that where you know who knows but we have to we want to keep in mind that the behaviors that people perpetrate in our responses to them

LaRee (she/her) (01:07:52.65)
Right.

Brittany Young (01:07:53.603)
Yeah.

LaRee (she/her) (01:07:58.188)
Mm-hmm.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:08:14.32)
must be navigated with a sense of compassion both to self and others. doesn't excuse people's behavior, it certainly does make sure that we are when we have to correct and identify and speak power to, we remember that it's not just their behaviors, it is systems influencing it.

and that's why again I ask you have to be aware not only saying why they're doing this behavior but what are the systems that are allowing it and how am I responding and connecting to the system to do it again to somebody else or how am I going to connect to the system in my own way to mitigate it recognizing and mitigating the behavior and the system.

LaRee (she/her) (01:08:51.105)
Yeah, and getting rid of that fear that pulls people back.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:08:55.933)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Brittany Young (01:09:00.142)
feel like I need like a workbook of yours so I can...

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:09:02.59)
It's something I thought of but you know because of you like even though right now you're realizing the complexities of this right So that so it's like you can't do step one step two step three

LaRee (she/her) (01:09:02.655)
Yes, yes, that's a great idea.

Brittany Young (01:09:07.022)
Do you have one of those?

Brittany Young (01:09:14.422)
Is this something you've thought of, maybe that you're creating?

Brittany Young (01:09:21.826)
Yes!

LaRee (she/her) (01:09:22.037)
Yes. Yes.


Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:09:26.416)
It's not like step one to mitigate low morale, step one. And then if you do step two, but what's step two? It depends on so many things. What kind of behaviors are happening? You might not be dealing with equity, diversity, and inclusion concerns, but someone else is dealing with, you know, resilience narratives. But

somebody else might not be so the best thing i can do is do exactly what i'm doing which is talking to people individually to coaching working with people to consulting so we can navigate those particular organizationally individual aspects of people's long route experiences not to mention the actual experience that's happening

Brittany Young (01:10:04.748)
You must be very busy.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:10:07.678)
in my brain and my brain is always rocking I mean I got lots of things in my brain always navigating and that doesn't mean to say I'm always learning different things that's why I do these ongoing low morale projects you know it's all this bear is an extremely complex experience that I'm always every time someone tells me something I gotta find I gotta figure out that part too so it's kaleidoscopic it's not just the one experience what if you going through several experiences and you've had different reactions that this at one organization, then you go to a new organization thinking it's healthier, but other things happen. So it can be layered in so many ways. And you know, I don't know anybody that says, has ever said to me, I am completely recovered from my low.

LaRee (she/her) (01:10:41.921)
Mm-hmm.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:10:50.45)
experience. I've had low morale experience been harmed early in my career and I still think about there are thoughts that come that are intrusive about experiences that I had as a new librarian and I started librarianship in early 2000s and I still think about those things and they bring up somatic responses in me and they're very strong and I'm not the only one when I talk about to people about their experiences. People tell me things that happened 20, 30 years ago when I asked they'll describe an experience and I asked them when it happened

Brittany Young (01:10:52.206)
Mm-hmm.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:11:20.384)
but I'm thinking they're about to tell me about this happening. It's happening right now. It's happening today. No, this happened 30 years ago. So these experiences are chilling. They are impactful. They are long-term. And it really does go back to Maya Angelou's quote, which I say with the full power behind it, even though it is a quote that most people know.

The first time someone shows you who they are, know, believe them, believe them. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. And another thing she says is people will always remember how you made them feel. They will always remember how you made them feel. Always.

LaRee (she/her) (01:12:04.567)
So.

Brittany Young (01:12:06.55)
more to think on.

LaRee (she/her) (01:12:08.951)
Absolutely. And in the Follett Forum, you spoke about glimmer gathering. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about glimmer gathering and why it's so important?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:12:15.281)
Mm-hmm.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:12:22.67)
Yeah, so Glimmer Gathering. Glimmers comes from Deb Dana's booka. It's called Polyvagal Theory. So Polyvagal Theory is a somatic lens of how bodies work and how we can navigate trauma and trauma responses. So she talks about glimmers and glimmers are

small moments of connection, small moments of awe, small moments of calm that we can look to at any point in our lived experience we are. So think of it as you know all the awful things in a black sky, the all in the black sky is all the awful things and then there are stars. All these awful things are happening and one star is I made art today.

Another start is that person came into the library and told me thank you. I was so tired but they told me thank you right on time. They didn't even know it. I'm thankful for that. What can I do today? I was able to send five dollars to that cause I care about. I smiled at somebody today. I haven't felt that good in a while to smile at somebody. That was good. So to me it's an experience of what good happened today.

what things good happened today instead of looking at the negative and it's not toxic positivity I'm acknowledging I'm tired and that person smiled at me today they don't even know what they did I needed that

LaRee (she/her) (01:13:58.995)
this. I'm writing this.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:14:00.016)
so what is baby ways we can reflect we can reflect that we can we can know that good things are happening anyway good things are happening anyway and not view it as cynicism because that's a lot of energy to carry around when you're cynical you have to assume everything is awful and you also have to assume that you have no power and nothing good ever happens to you and i just don't certainly awful things are happening and certainly we go through to awful times when nothing actually feels good

Brittany Young (01:14:00.41)
Thank you.

LaRee (she/her) (01:14:11.457)
Mm.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:14:28.496)
and also you know i get to see my kid everyday and that bring me a lot of you know that's a joyful experience when they say something funny you know so what are those small things the small things you know another thing i say here that the power of the glimmer is

LaRee (she/her) (01:14:31.415)
Mm-hmm.

LaRee (she/her) (01:14:37.739)
Yes. Yes.

Brittany Young (01:14:38.037)
Yes!

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:14:49.318)
In low morale experiences we find ourselves only having big emotions and all of them negative. The capacity that we have to identify gradations of emotions goes out the window. We're angry. We're in a rage. So glimmers allow us to reconnect to gradations of emotion.

LaRee (she/her) (01:15:08.279)
Hmm.

LaRee (she/her) (01:15:11.703)
It's a wonderful way to think of things and I'm definitely adding glimmer gathering.

Brittany Young (01:15:21.976)
Yeah, I'm gonna change my planner instead of to say what I'm thankful for. I'm gonna put glimmer, glimmer gathering.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:15:22.376)
And I do this practice i just came to this practice earlier this year or late last year and i think you know for me there's lots of ways you can practice this and you can decide if you want to i document some of mine on instagram and i call it Glimmergatherers on instagram and so if you want to check out some of my glimmers that i happen to take photos when i move to do so you can check it out

LaRee (she/her) (01:15:35.99)
Mm-hmm.

LaRee (she/her) (01:15:53.21)
that's awesome.

Brittany Young (01:15:54.776)
Yes. So speaking of, you know, other other projects, what are some of your current or future data collection projects?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:16:07.742)
I'll talk about some of my current ones and I'll send y'all a link so you can look at them. I encourage people to participate because they are ongoing. The only one that's closed is one I did for low morale experiences during the formal COVID-19 pandemic. But one that I recently started is moral injury during low morale experiences. Moral injury is when basically you're watching leaders for instance make decisions knowing that they're bad.

and they do it anyway and so you it's a moral and you do something that goes against your core value system and that has an experience impact on you so I'm looking at moral injury during low morale experiences I'm also trying to find out more about how people who have been harmed at their workplaces are treated during their resignation period

I'm interested in that little pocket. You've been harmed for a while at the organization and then you announce that you're leaving. I'm interested in how people are treated during that resignation period from the time it's announced to the time that they leave. How does the abusive organization treat them? How do those abusive individuals treat them during that resignation period? I want to hear from leaders about if they've left their leadership roles due to a low

experience and their experience of the impact factor of legacy toxicity like how does that play out for them. And I also am exploring how low morale experiences are presented and received at unionized library workplaces too. So those are just a few.

Brittany Young (01:17:52.962)
feel like I can already think of multiple people that have stories in these areas, including myself. And I'm hoping that other people on the podcast will hear this and go check that out. So that way we can be part of your data collection.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:18:00.168)
Yeah.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:18:07.91)
yeah this is how i again i'm come my goal is to talk you know tell if you tell me i will tell it basically okay if you tell me i will tell it so this is how i tell it

LaRee (she/her) (01:18:23.447)
This conversation has been amazing. And I've got pages and pages of stuff written down, of notes, of... And I'm...

Brittany Young (01:18:27.585)
Yessss!

Brittany Young (01:18:34.798)
And our producers also have pages of notes and it's not just from the editing that they have to do. It's from just everything that you have been sharing with us.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:18:39.866)
gosh. my word.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:18:46.59)
I hope that is helpful. read my work so you can get more information. And know that you're not alone. mean, your experiences of workplace harm are certainly individual and unique to you. And also, you are not alone. You are not. I'm trying to tell you. Just know you're not by yourself. That's the thing I can tell you.

and I will keep doing this work. don't see myself stopping it unfortunately. Because, well I say unfortunately because what it tells me know, people are being harmed. I am very, so this is a sunburst for me. We talk about glimmers, this is a sunburst. I am thankful that whatever happened the thing that happened to me happened to me because it caused me to ask this question and it gave me this role right I am NOT happy that this happened to me I am NOT happy that is happening to my colleagues I'm not happy about it but and no and and I will keep doing this work so if you tell me I will tell it so tell it, but also tell it to your organizations. doesn't really matter if they do, it does matter if they do something or not, but don't let your telling of it hinge on what they do. Tell them.

Brittany Young (01:20:21.838)
Well, know I appreciate all of this work that you've been doing. And I think you said earlier that you started it in 2016. And I just cannot believe the amount of data and information you have already to share. So I just want to say thank you for coming on the podcast to share this with us.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:20:22.269)
Tell them.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:20:35.519)
Yes.

LaRee (she/her) (01:20:47.671)
Yes.

Brittany Young (01:20:51.734)
our audience and I can't wait to read the books that you recommended and go and look at your glimmer gathering on Instagram.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:21:01.81)
Yeah, come on.

LaRee (she/her) (01:21:01.909)
Yeah, and thank you for reminding us all that we are not alone. That's one of those things that weighs you down all day long. And then after this conversation, there's some relief.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:21:18.92)
Yeah.

Brittany Young (01:21:19.128)
Yeah, and just knowing that I know for me, knowing that there are other people out there experiencing similar things, it definitely makes me feel less alone and it's one of those, when I can connect with those people and create community, it's one of those things that keeps me going even in low morale experiences.

LaRee (she/her) (01:21:19.937)
Thank you.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:21:46.332)
Yeah, so I have several communities too. So we're on Facebook at Renewers. There's almost 2,500 people in there. I'm on Instagram, so you can keep up with what we're doing. I give people, know, every now and then I put a reel out there asking some questions or giving some scenarios. And so I'm constantly thinking about ways that I can show people that they can be in community. it's helpful to be in community.

and I'll be doing some in June I'll be offering a community event so folks can come out so definitely be sure to follow us on Instagram so you can get those details but it is key this is the time when you most feel like you want to not to be alone to be left alone and to avoid to avoid people and I submit that collective care happens in community and so does critical hope that's another thing we can talk about another time but if you want to be hopeful, if you want to do it critically, if you want support, those things happen in community. join the renewers if you can or if you can't just find if you don't want to join from renewers create a community and be in collective care.

LaRee (she/her) (01:23:05.431)
So we can have you back again perhaps to talk about critical hope. that would be awesome.

Brittany Young (01:23:10.273)
Right?

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:23:10.388)
yeah, that'd be lovely. That'd be a jam.

LaRee (she/her) (01:23:14.753)
Yeah, it would be wonderful.

Brittany Young (01:23:17.698)
Yes.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:23:17.886)
Alright, I love it. I would love it.

LaRee (she/her) (01:23:21.313)
Thank you for sharing your time and energy and everything you're learning with all of us and our listeners. You are so appreciated.

Brittany Young (01:23:33.656)
Just thank you, thank you, thank you.

Kaetrena Davis Kendrick (01:23:36.51)
thank you so much on the i'll take care of you set yourselves and each other and i was down to it but really take care of yourselves take care of each other's figure out your role do it now