Questions to Hold with Casey Carroll
Questions to Hold with Casey Carroll
Why do we separate our work selves from our home selves? with Deena Chochinov
Why do we separate our work selves from our home selves?
Join us in an honest conversation with Deena Chochinov (she/her) exploring what a career as a professional “listener” has revealed about how to be a leader in the boardroom and the living room.
Deena is a therapist, management consultant, and family enterprise advisor. She supports executives and senior teams in the corporate and nonprofit sectors, with a focus on leadership coaching, talent management, and organizational development. She advises multigenerational business families who seek the tools and techniques to make smart decisions, manage conflict effectively, and develop strong, lasting relationships. As a Registered Clinical Counselor, she works with individuals, couples, and families to help them navigate life’s challenges and increase their resilience.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- Tips and reflections for integrating your whole self in your leadership
- Overlaps and intersections of leadership in work and life
- How boundaries are different than barriers
- The nuances and complexities of family businesses and what it takes to be in resilient relationship together
Connect with Deena:
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Podcast Song: Holding you by Prigida
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
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License code: CELWR55ONTDIFRSS
CASEY: Welcome to the Questions to Hold podcast. I'm your host and BWB founder, Casey Carroll. In a world that often praises answers over questions, the act of holding a question is an act of resistance, presence, and devotion. In this podcast, I hold space for discussion at the intersection of life's biggest questions and our personal and professional worlds.
These are honest conversations with progressive leaders dedicated to questioning our institutions, igniting change, and provoking new possibilities.
Join me for my next discussion.
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CASEY: Hello everyone and welcome to the Questions to Hold podcast. I have a smile on my face today because every time I think of this woman, for some reason I get a smile and a giggle, whenever I think of you. So I am just so happy to be in conversation today with the one and only Deena, who needs no introduction, although I'll allow her to introduce herself here in a second, and we're gonna be in the territory of questions today around home and work and leadership and family, and all the big juicy questions and inquiries that sit at the intersection of that, which is many and could be a whole podcast in and of itself, probably is! So we'll just scratch the surface today and hopefully continue to go deeper as time goes on. So, Deena, I'm gonna kick it over to you. I'll let you introduce yourself, however it makes sense, and then we can dive into it.
DEENA: Casey,, I'm so happy to see you. Thank you so much for inviting me on to be your guest. So I've been thinking a lot about how I wanna introduce myself, and I think the easiest and clearest way is that I am someone who listens for a living, partly because, you know, I'm fascinated by how other people think and feel and act by their stories, but mostly because I really believe that none of us receive enough attention in our lives, especially, uh, when we really need it. So I identify myself as someone who has a job that is, that exists to really, really listen by giving other people a hundred percent of my attention because too often I'm the only one who does. I don't believe that people get enough attention. So, by way of introduction, here's who I listen to. I listen to therapy clients who are individuals, couples and families who are really trying to lead healthier and more satisfying lives. They have like, a barrier to overcome or a trauma or a discovery. They wanna discover their purpose or they wanna rekindle a relationship or they just wanna get to “good enough: at all the roles they juggle, ‘cause my clients are partners and parents and professionals. And they don't get enough attention. And so I offer it to them. So I listen to therapy clients, I listen to senior leaders of corporations or social enterprises, public or not-for-profit organizations who are all agents of change, obsessed with creating healthy, sustainable organizational cultures who want to keep their employees engaged and their customers satisfied, and who are really worrying about, you know, getting on top, staying on top, or how about just staying relevant or solvent, and they don't wanna be victims of, I heard this expression that I love called, time famine. They wanna be time abundant, right? They want, they wanna have an abundance of time. And then my, the third group of people that I listen to are family members, so grandparents, parents, kids, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins who are owners, operators, and employees of their family business. So they work together from one generation to the other. Now that is a recipe for a potential gong show, and so I work with family business leaders who need a ton of support to navigate this very complex and tender, and fragile, and sometimes vulnerable system of overlapping relationships so that they can be successful in the business and harmonious at home. So that's what I do. I listen, I pay attention, and when it's required, I intervene and support people to get over their hurdles or their barriers or what's ever getting in the way of their wellness, their wellbeing.
CASEY: Mm-hmm. I love that. And I will say, I got to meet Deena for the first time when you were publishing your book, which is so beautiful and amazing, Homework, which we'll have links for in the show notes. So please check that out. That's all about that last piece you're naming, I mean all the pieces you're naming, but specifically about how to really be a leader in the boardroom and at home, and how all of that comes together. It’s such a beautiful read. Caitlin and I were so honored to be on that journey with you as that was entering the world, and we know the ripples that that continues to have. And so that'll be in the show notes. But I really love this framing of yourself as a listener, as that being the real kind of common thread, which to me has a deep intimacy and relationship with questions in and of itself that we're talking about here. Cuz I find questioning to be a listening practice in a lot of ways and a presence practice in and of itself. And then we kind of get to learn what content we're working with through that. So I'm curious if you could just name right off the bat what it feels like, especially in modern, uh, western society where we're all starved of attention and listening, really just positioning yourself that way for people what impacts you've seen happen or, you know, maybe just patterns or trends you've noticed as being a, a listener simply and what that ripples out for people.
DEENA: Oh, the first thing that comes to mind is how rare it is for people to experience so much attention and presence and being in a safe container to, well, respond to my questions, but to figure out what their own questions are that I can help them answer because there's so little time and energy in everyone's day to think about what matters most for me. You know, I, I believe that everyone is a leader in some kind of way. So I do focus my practice on helping leaders become integrated and whole in their, in themselves. Like my big questions that I've been asking since I started thinking about this book, you know, I've, I've worked for three decades in this, in these worlds, and so I notice things over and over, and the way that I have articulated the big questions for me are like, why is being a leader limited to or defined as our professional self and doesn't include our personal one? Why are we only leaders at work but not at home? And like, why do we separate our work selves from our home selves when we are really all one person? And that is something that resonates for the people that I attend to, because a lot of them are sort of caught in this old notion that that dichotomy between that sort of splits us or separates those selves, work and home. And also the paradigm of, you know, either/or rather than both/and, and I think this either/or paradigm is very psychologically restrictive and disconnecting and the both/and allows for like this psychological congruence and this stability of all these sort of complexities and textures, the beauty and the messes that holds all the experiences in the container that is our life, and when I can help people find ways to connect themselves, I actually think that it's, it's, it allows them to connect with others in a more holistic, integrated, and stable way.
CASEY: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense that I'm thinking about that obviously there's a whole ecosystem of reasons why that dichotomy has come both from like cultural and social elements and how that we were socialized and how that was internalized and rewarded and what we've been modeled and the norms that have been there. Those are all there. Plus, you know, even more on different layers of our personal identities and how that is different in terms of how we showed up at work and how we showed up at home and how these, um, relationships work. And I think as a broad brushstroke, what I've seen, and especially in conversations with you, is just the reckoning in the West, particularly that we're in, especially through the pandemic times where, you know, that all is crumbling. You know, never was a good dichotomy to have anyways, but especially, uh, crumbled and was not even possible and feasible for folks to have in so many ways with the pandemic. Really merging those things for so many folks in different ways. So there's that, but then I think there's what I love too about, you know, the big cultural umbrella, but then these little intimate ways that you're in into it as well is that it's so deeply personal, not just from what's happening culturally, it's so deeply personal about how we all are approaching this work and you know, the questions you're posing all the little nuances and answers that may be in there. It's like, it's just so nuanced and complex and important that we're given a whole spaciousness to really ask those questions, wonder about it, and then start to find how we come back into some sense of semblance and wholeness within ourselves with it. So it's beautiful work.
DEENA: Thank you. What came up from, as you were speaking was how we are so encultured and supported to be human doings instead of human beings. And I think that there's a place for doing for sure. I wrote a book about being and doing. You know about how people show up as leaders, like the qualities that they can hold, to be great parents and great partners in relationship and great presidents in organizations. And then taking those qualities, what can you actually do? As a leader, what are the, the actions that you take to keep moving forward and achieving success? So I don't think we can just sit in the being. But if we're not grounded in that, I don't think that we can be effective in our doing.
CASEY: Yeah. And even prior to hitting record on this podcast, Deena and I were talking about, even personally for me, I, I talk about this quite a bit, being a parent of two young children, both, um, supporting the home and supporting my children, and supporting the business, and supporting myself and all the different ways that, you know, family and home life and personal leadership intersect with work leadership. It is a living question and practice, I think, about what it looks like to be in relationship with those things, and everybody has their own set of those things. Those are just some of the pieces I was naming to Deena prior to this and why it feels like such an important conversation that we have more normalcy around having these conversations where there's questions and not answers, but just room to explore what all of this is and how we wanna be in relationship…. That's an evolving thing too, cuz I think sometimes, however we might feel might be different in a couple years or et cetera. It's kind of our relationship that's evolving that we need to be attuned to and listening to what it looks like to be in both leadership at home and leadership at work. Together.
DEENA: Yeah, there's something else that I think we really have to consider, which is how we are part of a system of interrelated people and dynamics that are constantly in flux, and we wanna make sure that they, there's a kind of, we're always searching for an equilibrium, so we're not in crisis all the time. But we are not, very few of us are born hermits. We are part of a social. An environmental system, a commercial system, we're all, everything's a system to me, and I never work with one individual and listen to them as if they have no part of another system and how so many of the qualities of leadership for them to be successful in whatever home, work, both, all, is very- it’s very important that they understand the systems in which they operate and for them to be attuned and really sensitive to those systemic dynamics. Families, organizations, certainly family businesses, relationships. We are not alone. And so how do we maneuver through, and I don't mean manipulate, I mean maneuver through this dance, of this systemic dance so that we are healthy. I know we did talk earlier about how if we don't take care of ourselves, if we don't build our own resilience, and our own nourishment and energy versus depletion and exhaustion, how do we stay psychologically, spiritually, mentally healthy? Yeah. To be able live well within all these systems that we're navigating. You know, you're dealing with children and parents and staff and colleagues and we all are. So you're, you're in the center of this very varied system and you have many complexities and many aspects that you offer to different members of that system. But if you are not aware of that, You're gonna get pushed off your center and you're never going to come back up. And I think all leaders have to manage this. And let's use the word navigate instead. You know, I think that this is, there's a flow that we have to find even when we're getting hit over the head with a crisis at work and a crisis at home and a crisis in our community, we have to have some sense of resilience to be able to be.
CASEY: I'm wondering, I mean, all of your work I find to be incredibly important and fascinating, and I also find this nexus of family business to be particularly fertile in where these intersections come together. Whether or not we like it or not, in family business, having worked for family businesses, having had a father who, um, was an entrepreneur and owned a business, owning a business myself, I have so much interest in this area, you know, personally and professionally. But I'm curious if you could just speak to the unique environment that it is to be in family business, you know, at these questions you're talking about and some of what you've seen and how you've seen it kind of maybe modeled even successfully over the years.
DEENA: Yeah. I have to say that this is the hardest work I've ever done. You know, I've been in very serious conversations with folks who've been in all kinds of, in trauma and well, terrible situations.And I've, I've been able to work with those kinds of clients. The family enterprise advising that I do is a whole other movie.And that's because there are, uh, there's this constant overlap of three circles that people are in, in that system. They're, they're family members, they're working in the business, and they're owning the business. And the overlap is where the complexities really come. So an example is you're a family member, you're also an owner. How do you manage being both of those without losing your center? So the way I work with families that way is if you have a family, there's certain family statements that I work on, so I wanna make sure that everybody in the family knows that there's a set of values, there's a mission and there's a vision, there's a way of behavior that is completely understood and respected in the family circle so that they can use that information, their family statements as their springboard to making business decisions. And so that's one way to sort of help clarify the boundaries between those circles, if you believe that you are a legacy family, and you pride yourselves on honesty and community-mindedness and faith-these are just some examples. You're not gonna make decisions about the ownership of your business that are in conflict with those values. If you are, um, in the family, but you're, and you're working in the business, what is the employment policy around being able to get into the business and get hired in the first place? No, just because you're a family member doesn't mean you get to, get to start working in the business with no training, and immediately you wanna be the vice president. There's structures and processes and lots of policies that need to be put in place. We call that governance. When family businesses have governance, there's no reason for a revolution to have to happen. and we, we do, we do those things to help allow the family business to be successful and for the family to remain harmonious, because that's what they do. Like I have a, my own mission statement is I advise family enterprises to maintain and grow their relational health so they can increase their social impact and enjoy their financial wealth.
You can have all the money in the world, but if the relationships are, are in dire despair, it doesn't matter because it's not integrated.
CASEY: Yeah. I'm glad you're bringing up too, cuz I was going to- I was thinking about it earlier in the conversation, but didn't name it. But this piece around boundaries and basically skilling up in communication and then also applying that in terms of like systems, processes, policies, what you're naming, all of that actually coming like, becoming a structural foundation for the business as well, but for the business, for the home, for the relationship, whatever you want to kind of apply that to really doesn't matter. But I was thinking that like the more that I've done, uh, work in the realm of really understanding my identities outside of it being a dichotomy of work and life and how to be a whole person in all of these equations, what that has required in a beautiful way for me to skill up around is boundaries, and communication and things like that. So it's, it's been a natural kind of evolution or skilling up, however you wanna call it, learning that I've had to do to be able to support growth in this kind of, as you said, like reintegration of those parts of myself so that there can be room for all of me in any of those different dynamics. So I'm sure that's probably, and you can speak to this if you'd want to more, but I'm sure boundaries and communication come up quite a bit.
DEENA: They come up all the time. So boundaries aren't the same as barriers. And so barriers are separators. Boundaries are helpers to understand the nuance and the complexity of whatever hat we're wearing. So just because you have a boundary doesn't mean that you're separated from the other person. I have a little anecdote about a couple who owned a business together and it was really getting in the way of their family life. So we had to institute some kind of governance. This is like not a typical policy, but they made a deal. I helped them make a deal with each other that as they were driving home from the workplace, they knew that they needed to, if there was any conversations that had been unfinished while they were at the business wearing their business hat, they had to be finished by the time they'd parked in their carport and they walked into the car and they closed the door and then they put their family hat on so that they could actually be available and attentive to their children and to each other as parents and partners. That doesn't mean that they aren't still business partners and working together in the business, but they were comfortable enough to let that go and for that not to interfere into other parts of their lives that demanded a different kind of behavior and attention and care. And that was enough to stop the fighting. And they would literally, I said to them, if you need a visual, just if somebody starts doing the business stuff while you're at the dinner table, you just put your hat on. Say, what hat am I wearing? We're not wearing that hat now, honey. Take that hat off, just as a reminder. And they didn't need to spend so much time getting used to that. Took about a week or two and now they've, they're really, really fine in their boundary setting without losing all parts of their identity. It's just that they have to use the quality of discernment to figure out which hat they're wearing when.
CASEY: Which again is another skill and something we can develop our understanding of discernment and when and how to discern one from another. Again, I think these all open up opportunities once we're not like too up close to the content and kind of in the crisis, as you said, opens up these opportunities to see where there's room for growth and support, like communication or boundaries or discernment, et cetera,, that's gonna help it. Again, we're planting many seeds cuz this is a conversation that could go on eternally and I think is something that people sit with their whole life. Right? You know, is, is a question that's at the center of many, I won't say every but many of our, who are both working and having home life, many people who are in that situation. But I'm curious where you see these kind of questions or inquiries headed as, you know, work is changing, home life is changing. The clients you've been seeing and you've been having perspective from being in this industry in this work for, you know, three decades, where do you see this going and what feels like some of the critical work people need to be doing to be able to move forward into the future with it?
DEENA: I think what I'm noticing is that people are, refusing to only show up in the old way of being. This is who I am at work, but when I'm outside of work, I'm all of these other things. I have this very richly textured life. What I'm noticing is that people wanna be who they are wherever they are and they want social support and the executive support to be able to do that. They can fully inhabit their identity in all the systems they reside in. And employees are not willing anymore, I mean, if they have any courage, they're not willing anymore to be put into one employee box. And they have to respond in one kind of way. You know, I work with a lot of women leaders and it's just ridiculous what they've had to do to accommodate the social systems and the expectations that are completely ridiculous for somebody who wants to live a full and integrated life. You cannot stop being a parent when you're at the office. You can't, you can't stop being a, a caregiver for your elderly parents just because you're at work.And you can't do any of those things in isolation. That's what I mean about the compartments. It's like, well, I'm just putting that away. I don't know how anyone can psychologically put something away when it's living in your cellular structure. I have two aging parents who've recently had some health crises, I have a, I 'm in a marriage that means the world to me. I have clients who are in distress. I have other clients who are moving forward in really healthy ways. I have friends who are going through a hard time. I am holding all of this at once and I'm never going to cut myself off. I'm just going to have real presence-, this is one of my leadership qualities. I'm going to be, uh, completely present to commit, to listen, to pause to ask more questions with whomever I'm with when I'm with them. But I don't cut myself off from those other relationships and those other experiences. And I think the world of work is starting to understand, the people who are making those decisions about how we're going to develop organizational culture are starting to understand, that we have to accept everyone in their integrated selves and, and stop putting in people in these boxes.
CASEY: And same with the world at home. I think, you know, just being a working parent who works at a remote office at home and having my children see me working a professional job at home, it's the same, you know, like the work isn't going to be that way anymore, but the home life also is going to have to change to understand like that whole dynamic person upfront and personal.
DEENA: But I think that's, I think that's amazing for children, like that you are modeling for kids your entirety. Like you are all things to all people at different times so that they understand that right now Mom is wearing her work hat and then, I can't interrupt her because she's giving her attention to somebody else and she's going to be giving her attention to me when she's wearing her Mom hat. And all of those things are real and true and completely healthy.
CASEY: Yes, I agree. And it's a practice. Yes, it is a, it is a practice that I am leaning into. Again, skilling up and leaning into how to be doing this over and over and over again. I actually remember prior to, um, having kids or even being pregnant or anything like that, I was in a circle, a leadership circle, and I had this like strong feeling I had to say like somehow I was going to, in my quest in life, one of the big questions I was holding was, How can I be in my entirety? As a parent with somebody who desires to have a body of work, in work, whatever it is, like I was not, not willing to compromise on one of those things and felt determined that they could all happen. And that doesn't mean that it's this like, easy thing or that, you know, it's something I'm learning more and more about all the time and that there's compromise and that there's ebbs and flows of it, all of those things. But that's why I love your work so much is it has been this. I mean, even prior to that, but in that moment it was like, I am committing to what this looks like and what this requires in terms of learning together, unlearning and learning together what all of this could look like, um, and how, and how it can inform, you know, going forward, how we work together, live together, all those things.
DEENA: Yeah. Are you talking about compassion, I think? Not just empathy, but you're talking about taking your empathy, putting it into action, and acting with compassion with your partner and with your children, and with your business partners, and with your extended family and your community. My work with Family Enterprise Systems is all about giving them a safe container in which to have all these conversations. Whenever there's a problem in the family enterprise domain, it seems to me, at least from what I've, what I've lived, is that people aren't having enough conversations to identify what's getting in their way and to together come up with solutions. I really believe that the process of having those conversations will lead to solutions even when it's high conflict. Like, what are we gonna do together? If you know that you are a legacy business family and you are committed to that, to the continuity, and you are committed to harmony and safety and you know profitability, if that is the foundation that you've set in your family enterprise, then that is the beginning of the conversation around the specific issues around ownership or governance or business strategy or money, compensation, dividend policies…. All of those things need to have a conversation around them. So I work with a lot of families who want, you know, they want a policy and I go, Great, we're gonna have the policy, but first we're gonna have the conversation that's gonna help me write the policy. It's not coming out of the blue . It's gonna come out of what matters most to you. What do you believe in? Where do you wanna go? How do you wanna relate to each other? How do you want to continue the legacy? And then we'll write the policy that fits your family, your ethic.
CASEY: Well, Deena, I'm wondering if you could offer to the listeners, maybe a question for them to sit with or, you know, some sort of a way to get inside this inquiry for themself a little bit further. Even if they aren't hiring you, which I hope they are. I hope to hire you all the years of my life. But outside of that, just how to, how to be in this inquiry a little bit, or a question you may pose to them as we start to come to a wrap on the conversation.
DEENA: Okay. Well, I think one of the questions is what are the qualities that I need to find within myself to increase my ability to be truly integrated? In the roles I live in. In all parts of my life. What are the qualities that I'm seeking to give me the wherewithal to navigate all the roles that I live in a way that is healthy and nurturing and sustainable?
CASEY: That's a big question, and as we say, not necessarily to be answered, but to be with and think about. And those qualities may shift depending on life and the moment. But I just love that question. I will be sitting with it and I'm wondering if you could share how people can find you, uh, work with you, learn more about you, read your book, anything about how people can engage with.
DEENA: Great, thank you. Um, I have a website, deenachochinov.com.. It's got all kinds of information about me, including how to get my book. Uh, the title of my book is Homework: How to Be a Leader in the Boardroom and The Living Room. So I think it really encompasses my thesis around finding that integration, available at any online bookstore of your choice. I hope that people will, would consider it because it's not just a philosophy or a thesis. It is filled with very practical tools, techniques, and exercises for people to, to navigate these, these two, the places that we spend most time in, which is in our homes and in our workplaces, and sometimes they're the exact same places, only different rooms in the same house, and how to put this idea into action.
CASEY: I love your book. It is true everything, you're saying about it, and I'm like, oh, I need to pick it up and read it again, you know? Sometimes you have to go back to it. I've already highlighted, but it might be time to go back to it. Deena, I respect you. I'm super grateful for you. I'm so glad that you're out in the world doing this work. Thank you for doing this work and engaging as a listener in all the ways that you are. And, um, I hope our conversations continue to go on.
DEENA: Me too. I, I need to, I really wanna end by saying something about Bold Woman Brands, about you and Caitlin and how the role that you played in giving me a foundation to move my “brand”, my being out into the world. I could never have done that without your support and talent and enthusiasm and intelligence and love, and I just wanna say thank you so much, to both of you. You will be in my heart forever and I will be referring people to you forever.
CASEY: Well, that's always the best form of gratitude and we love you so much, Deena. It was such a fun journey to do that together and really an exercise in just listening and encouragement and compassion and discernment and all the things that you teach so wisely. So we were just able to hold space for you in the same way, which is the form of a perfect, beautiful relationship. So it was so good.
DEENA: Thanks, Casey. I love how you listen. Don't forget that part. You're, you're really skilled and gifted at listening to other people and holding space. So continue to be successful in all your realms and all your talents.
CASEY: I'm gonna keep listening for the rest of my life.
DEENA: Thank you.
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CASEY: Thank you for listening to the Questions to Hold podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode and are leaving the conversation with way more questions than answers.
I invite you to build a more meaningful relationship with yourself and the world around you through the simple yet profound act of holding questions. Visit questionstohold.com and wearebwb.com to learn more about this practice, our Questions to Hold card deck, and explore more conversations. See you there.