How to Improve Workplace Communication: Open Conversations for Better Team Performance

"If you're working on a team or with a partner, the only way to resolve conflict is between the two of you. Walking away doesn’t solve anything, it just creates more friction." – Grace Gavin

In this episode, we chat with Grace Gavin, co-founder of KnowHonesty and co-author of a powerful framework for building open and honest communication in both professional and personal settings. Grace shares how she and her business partner, Ken Bogard, have built a method for helping teams and leaders communicate more effectively by simplifying the process.

In this episode, listen for: 

• Open and Honest Communication Defined: Grace clarifies the distinction between "open" and "honest" communication. Being honest is about truly expressing your thoughts and feelings, while openness is about listening without reservation and placing the other person's needs first. Together, these two halves form the foundation for productive conversations.
• Meeting Resistance with Curiosity: Instead of getting defensive or shutting down when faced with resistance, it’s important for leaders and team members to ask open-ended questions. Curiosity can break down barriers, leading to mutual understanding, even if agreement isn’t reached.
• The Agreement Framework: Grace shares a practical tool that KnowHonesty teaches clients—The Agreement. This simple, powerful script helps set expectations for communication within teams, ensuring everyone is both heard and respected.

Tune in to hear how you can apply these lessons to your business, personal life, and beyond!

Connect with Grace Gavin:

Website: https://knowhonesty.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-gavin/

Buy Graces Book: https://knowhonesty.com/book/

Transcript

Welcome to our podcast. Today we're discussing the importance of open and honest communication. This is something that if you've tuned into almost any episode, Sarah and I have mentioned this often, but today we have Grace Gavin joining us. Thank you for sharing your expertise.

Sara Lowell (00:27.033)

Yeah, we got there.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (00:53.715)

Can you tell us a bit more about your work at No Honesty?

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (00:57.588)

Well, first off, thank you so much for having me and having this conversation. We were just talking about how we love to have conversations with people and that's the most fun part of this. So that's awesome. And really at No Honesty, you got it perfectly. Basically what we're doing is helping teams be open and honest. And I want to clarify what I mean by open and honest, because a lot of times in society, we just kind of slam those two words together and we take it as just meaning about ourselves. And that's really not...

what we mean when we say open and honest. There's two halves of it. Think about it, the exchange of conversation, of communication, there's two halves, two people at least in the conversation. So honesty is being truly and freely yourself, speaking into what you want and how you feel. Really important. That's where the spotlight is on you, if you will. Now, if there's a time where the spotlight's on you, that means there has to be a spotlight on somebody else at the other part of the time. And that's where openness comes in. So openness is listening without reservation.

putting your needs and wants on pause for someone else. So that's what we mean by open and honest, the two halves of communication, the bedrock foundation of everything that we do. And that's what we help clients and teams do at KnowHonesty.

Sara Lowell (02:12.761)

That I love that like that. Again, like Dana mentioned, like we talk about communication so much. you know, communication is the number one. And what we believe is like the number one skill that you need to have it as a business owner as a leader or any position that you're in in the workplace, even in your personal life, because if you can't communicate, then how would somebody else know nobody can read your mind? Right. So I think that that's

pretty cool that you do that for your clients.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (02:46.697)

I knew that you were going to be excited when I had my first call with Grace. I was so, I was, I've been waiting, like patiently waiting for this. I think I love how even in your pre-recording call, you, you broke it down almost to an elementary level of what does it even mean to be honest or what does honest communication mean? What does open communication mean? Because I do feel like,

or more often than not, people throw those words out, but they don't really know what it means. And so they're asking someone to basically keep it one-sided of, listen to me. I'm not gonna listen to you. I'm a mom of many children, so I see this so often. And I'm constantly, honestly, I rephrased how I speak to my kids about listening to the other person because of the how you described it.

or defined it during our pre-recording call. Because I was like, maybe this is the way to, maybe this is the tweak to finally get it to work. So that is such a powerful, like simple way of describing it. So how did you get to the point in your career? And you can certainly tie it into your book, but.

Well, how do you or why do you believe open and honest communication is so important in building strong relationships and fostering trust, whether it's among team members or leaders to their subordinates or even just like partners in business?

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (04:25.952)

think it's a lot of things, but pretty much what Sarah said, right? That it all comes back to communication. If we don't have really strong skills in that, how are we gonna share what it is that we want and how are we gonna understand and really listen and hear what somebody else wants? Our core human need really is to belong and to belong means you're heard and respected.

Not necessarily that you always agree with everybody that's around you, but that there's an opportunity for you to be heard and respected. And so like before I was saying, if we know that we need that, then we have to create the opportunity for others to do the same. And so I think about that and all the work that I've done and just even in the family that I grew up in, seeing where miscommunication hurt us and then...

created rifts in relationships that then you had to go back and repair because there was miscommunication there, whether somebody didn't share fully, they weren't 100 % honest, or the other person wasn't really listening to what they said and kind of put on their own filters and covers on that. And so I grew up seeing that all the time and just not understanding why can't we just say what it is that we want to have somebody else hear us. And then I started working with Ken, who's my business partner, Ken Bogard, co-author on the book too. And we were working with leadership teams and I was just...

kind of blown away really by these grown adults and their inability to communicate. was like, well, first of it's not just me and my experiences, but like what is happening here? Adults leading companies can't communicate and it was hurting them. It was hurting their teams and their effectiveness and their ability to really move forward and capitalize on an idea. And on the other side of that, get down to the root of issues and what's really the problem here that's happening. And so seeing that, was like, well,

We gotta do something about this and we gotta help. And I think it's really important and to us and especially to other people is to keep it simple like you were saying, Dana, because when you're in a heated conversation or you're talking about an issue with your team or somebody, your spouse or somebody you're in a relationship with, you're not gonna remember the 10 step communication theory that you might read in a book somewhere.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (06:43.723)

But you might remember two things. And those two things might be be open and be honest. And you can point back to that and you can come back to that because it's simple and we're not trying to overcomplicate it. We want things that you're able to grasp in the moment and hold onto and work on because that's where you're changing your neural pathways, where you're building those muscles to do it. When it's simple, you can grab onto it and work on it that way rather than trying to say, what was step six out of this and trying to figure that out. So everything we do is purposeful in that way to be simple, tangible.

and implementable for teams and for people. And certainly even in your personal relationships, my husband and I use it all the time and it really helps us get through issues. Like, yes, we still have communication issues. We still have fights, all those things. We're not perfect by any means, but we can get through it quicker and we can really get to the root of what we're dealing with because of this framework and how we think about it and how we talk.

Sara Lowell (07:35.991)

Yeah, I would have to agree with that. And what I think would I mean, you can agree or not, but I think having those open ended questions as well, like you're saying, like, get to the root of the problem, like

What's that game 21 questions that you plan to get to know somebody like it's like you can in my mind when you're having a conversation and not instead of asking yes or no questions and if you really want to understand and obviously having those open-ended questions so that you can get to the bottom of the issue or just Learn somebody else's perspective because that's one thing I do enjoy is having conversations with other people because I like to hear what their opinions are their

perspectives and that's how I that's how you learn you know you can you can have all these ideas and thoughts in your own head but like obviously when you are learning from other people like if you are wanting to learn about a different culture right you ask those questions like what's this or how is this done or whatever the case may be to learn that so or when you're learning

about business and entrepreneurship, you can have questions as have those back and forth open into questions so that you can learn new things.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (08:56.874)

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things we talk about in the book actually, so I'm glad you touched on this, is the idea of meeting resistance with curiosity. And so it's great to ask questions and to be curious and to get deeper into that conversation. But sometimes there are things that block us from that and block us from hearing what somebody else has to say, whether they just have a different idea or they have something we disagree with. And if we're finding resistance in ourselves or finding resistance in others,

Sara Lowell (09:11.939)

Thank

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (09:24.95)

The solution there is to get curious, like you're saying, to ask questions and to sense that resistance and continue to butt up against it and ask questions because that's how you're going to be more open. That's how you're really going to listen to somebody and not just saying, well, you're wrong and we're done with this conversation. I wash my hands of it. Ask some good questions. Get curious. Understand you might not still agree at the end of it. Like if you're working on a team or you're working with a vendor and you see things differently, you still might not agree at the end of it.

Sara Lowell (09:40.313)

Yeah.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (09:53.344)

but you will understand where they're coming from and kind of where their thought pattern goes. And more often than not, what I find happens in teams is that there are parts that they agree on. And so then we build on that, okay, where do you agree? Where can we continue to push this forward and work on this project together? And yes, we still disagree on these parts, but we can work through that where we can find a solution that works for both of us. But you're not gonna find that if you're not asking questions and being curious like you were saying, Sarah, it's a good point.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (10:22.163)

So I feel like my question, I'm moving you to a different screen so I can actually look at you. I feel like I was sideways. My question is gonna be like, I guess the opposite, because I am someone who asks a lot of questions. My kids are ones that ask a lot of questions. They won awards and pre-K for asking questions. Like that's just how I've raised them, that's how I understand things. I don't blindly follow anyone or do anything.

Once I make the decision, I'll leap, but there is no leaping without asking probably 10 or more questions. So for someone like myself who comes up against that type of person of, I'm done with this conversation and he's kind of shutting it down, that curiosity to get on the same page or to grow, find a solution. How would you recommend we navigate that?

Sara Lowell (10:55.922)

you

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (11:20.829)

to make a more positive outcome versus just being shut down. I hope that makes sense. Okay.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (11:20.842)

Mmm.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (11:28.382)

No, it does. Absolutely. That's a really great question. And maybe the listeners are hearing me pause a little bit. And I think maybe that's important for them too. So I'm just going to touch on that is when you pause, that's your brain processing. And what it tells you is that you fully listened to the question the person asked and it's okay to have a pause. And a podcast is kind of weird because then it's just dead air, but you're hearing me or not hearing me. should say pause and really think about that question.

Sara Lowell (11:52.153)

Thank

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (11:57.482)

What I would say to that is the question back is what is the relationship there and do you have some type of expectation of how you're going to communicate and, if you're on a team, you need to have that in place to continue moving forward because if your team ends up in silos, then what's the point of having a team? So there's this practice that we teach our clients called the agreement and we encourage them to, to use it at beginning of meetings when they're bringing a team together.

anytime they're meeting, because what it does, it sets boundaries and parameters around the communication, the expectations there. So this is quite simply the agreement. It's a simple, powerful script. And it goes like this. Will you agree with me on how we're going to communicate? I want you to be a hundred percent honest, meaning be truly and freely yourself, speaking into what you want and how you feel. I promise I will be a hundred percent open to it. I will listen without reservation. I'll put my needs and wants on pause for you.

And in return, I'll be honest with you and I ask that you be completely open to it. And so the question is, do you have that in place in the relationship? And if you don't, please go put it in place so that you have that to point back to. So when that person puts up a wall and they say, I'm done with this, you can come back to that and say, I feel like you're not being open. You're not really listening to what's happening here. And maybe sometimes the emotions get heated in the conversation. You just need to step away for five minutes and that's okay. But what's not okay is to stop the conversation, to not resolve it because then that's...

That's not helping you at all. And it's going to create more friction within the relationship than if you simply had the conversation, went through the conflict and then come out on the other side of it. But if you simply wash your hands of it and walk away from it, that's not resolving the conflict, which means the conflict is still going to go somewhere, whether they hold it internally, they go talk to a different person about the conflict. But the only way to resolve it is between the two of you. And so helping that person build that skill, that muscle of communication to continue.

working through it because sometimes people in conversation, it gets hidden and they really back away and they can't handle it. Some people it gets hidden and they just dig in them. They want to keep going and you have to recognize when do we need to step away for five minutes? When are we living into the agreement? When are we not? How do we hold each other accountable to that and come back to it? Because if you're on a team, if you're in a partnership, a business partnership, a vendor partnership, whatever it looks like, you got to have that in place because otherwise like how in the world are you going to work together?

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (14:23.328)

how in the world are you gonna work together?

Sara Lowell (14:25.807)

For sure. I want to give an example of something that you were talking about. a couple of months ago, had a team meeting. It was for my client and her team. I work with a bunch of teams. there were some heated moments. Somebody on the team was getting upset. she started, she was, did it, you can tell she was given attitude and, you know, not really being nice.

And I was like, Hey, let's we're gonna let's you and I talk one on one. So like I saw after the meeting, like her and I talked and like, okay, like to get to the root of like, what's going on? Because again, like you were saying, like you have to have those tough, you have to have tough conversations, you have to figure out like, okay, why is so and so on my team getting so upset about this? Because, you know, we laid things out, black and white, like

Here's a standard operating procedure or here's this to help you move your tasks forward. So having those conversations one on one to get the feedback, because sometimes I've noticed, sometimes the team is not afraid, but afraid at the same time of giving feedback to the.

the manager or whoever in the top, right? They don't want to give that feedback. So what I've been doing is allowing the team members to get me feedback and not the owner. So like I'm like the middle man, like here's the news. This is what I heard from the team. And then me and my client would hash it out and say, okay, what can you do to, to,

Sara Lowell (16:09.419)

solve these quote unquote issues with your team. So it's like going back and forth trying to solve problems so doesn't get heated.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (16:17.524)

Yeah. And I think that maybe based on that team, that's a good solution for now. And what you're doing is maybe building up their ability to actually even say anything, but then hopefully getting them to the point where they don't need you for that because they have an ability to actually talk to each other. And there's not that delay in communication. Cause I see that happening all the time with clients. I'll work with leadership teams first, and then I'll work with management levels. And when I get to the management level, they're like, well,

Sara Lowell (16:27.95)

Yeah.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (16:46.218)

Do I talk one-on-one to a person who's not like, they're on my team, but I don't lead them. I'm not in charge of them. not their manager. Do I go talk to the manager or do I talk to them? Well, if you can solve it at the level where the two of you are at, then do that. Cause as soon as you take it up the chain of command or you take it to an external person, now you're adding time and delay to that where things can't move as quickly. And so helping the team build up the ability to give that feedback. And then on the leader side with.

Sara Lowell (17:00.143)

Mm-hmm.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (17:13.366)

What it sounds like to me, again, I don't know the situation at all, but just from a bird's eye view, maybe that leader doesn't necessarily have a strong ability to be open or the team doesn't feel like they do. They're not displaying that where it doesn't seem like the leader's really willing to listen to what they have to say and just maybe wants to button and direct it their way. And that's, and that's a way of leadership. Yeah, absolutely. But if you want feedback and buy-in from your team, you can't continue to do that. That's not going to help them. So yeah.

Sara Lowell (17:24.644)

Yeah.

Sara Lowell (17:39.445)

I bet I've been on the negative side of that. I've been on that so many times, like, like, my goodness. I'm not gonna get too much like I'm not gonna get into it. But I've like had somebody like, so leadership and then somebody on my level leadership told this person on my level, things brought me you know,

to the side like so and so said that you need to do this. Well, why isn't leadership coming to me? Like if they're saying these things, why not come to me? Like they're having somebody else do their dirty work essentially. And I didn't have a slick. Yeah.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (18:12.598)

Yeah, and then it gets weird. It's like, we don't need to be weird in our teams. We already are dealing with so much stuff. Like, let's not make it weird on top of it and hard, because then you go and if you know who the person is then it's really weird. Because I was like, why wouldn't you just say that to me and have that conversation? And yeah.

Sara Lowell (18:26.501)

Yeah, exactly. Are we in high school? Like, we just gonna like, you know, you know, I like we're not like gossiping or anything. We want to improve our team. Like, you gotta have those conversations and then if not, then people are just gonna leave, honestly. Like, that's gonna happen.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (18:46.93)

Exactly.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (18:48.105)

I if that's, I'm basing off what you said, Sarah, of like, it's not gossiping, but maybe that is a fear or a mindset of maybe that's why, maybe it's, I'm gonna get my thoughts, see, I probably need to pause, get my thoughts together, but maybe it's, that's what's the holdup, it's not maybe they're,

see.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (19:17.366)

I think I get what you're saying, but like it's, it gets perceived as gossip. I get what you're saying. Yeah. Like it gets perceived as gossip, but the way that it's gossip is if somebody like in this example for Sarah, if somebody recognizes that Sarah's maybe not following a process well, just in this example, and then they don't go tell Sarah, but they tell somebody else on the same company level, then that's gossiping. Cause that's not helping Sarah. And now we're just talking about Sarah and

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (19:17.961)

Okay.

I'm glad you do.

Sara Lowell (19:35.109)

Mm-hmm.

Sara Lowell (19:42.008)

You got me, son.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (19:44.618)

this might be a blind spot for her. Like she doesn't know what the process is or didn't realize she was missing a step, whatever it is. And now we're gossiping about her. But if you notice that she's not following the process or it's different, something, whatever it is, and you go to her and help her and do it in a loving way, please, like if you're dealing with this issue, doing it in a loving way, giving feedback to somebody because you really care about either them doing it correctly or the process, whatever it is, that's not gossiping. Then that's just helping, you know? Is that kind what you were saying?

Sara Lowell (20:00.631)

Yeah.

Sara Lowell (20:12.612)

Yeah.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (20:14.25)

are thinking about.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (20:14.665)

Yes, I was trying to form a whole question. So don't know how he's going to edit that, but there you go. So following up, I guess, the mindset or fear of gossiping, like how do you guide teams and leaders on both sides to encourage that more solution focused communication? I know you just said do it in a loving way, but sometimes even that can feel like, don't want to feel like I'm nagging on you. But like, what are you doing?

Sara Lowell (20:20.151)

you

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (20:20.874)

What?

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (20:44.201)

What's going on? So how do you shift the focus on resolving the issue rather than just winning the argument or proving, I don't even wanna say winning the argument, but like just proving that you're smarter or better at X, Y, Z task. I hope I just won myself back over, that's never happened. I can always articulate and I was, that's fine.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (21:08.384)

Now it's perfect.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (21:12.926)

It's good. You got a little going on. get it. Well, number one, winning the argument. Nope. Don't think about it in wins and loses and losses. But yeah, that's never going to help you in figuring that out. And I think it's a mix of we talk about it in terms of in on the honesty side of things. How can you be 100 percent honest and 100 percent loving?

And so I'll teach clients and like, here's what it means to be honest. We go deeper than just the definition. Here's what it looks like and where do you see this happening? And then we, and then invariably somebody will talk about brutal honesty. I'm just like, I just say it how it is. Hmm. Okay. Well, that's probably not being well received. And so you have to figure out what the balance is being a hundred percent honest and a hundred percent loving. Cause if you're just giving feedback to somebody to just cut them off at the legs, they're not going to receive that. There is no openness happening. So help them be a little bit more open, approach it with.

love in that way and considering like is this going to help them and that's love and I know love gets people get weird about in business but I I really am hoping we're changing the tide on that because it's it's love and care for people right we're spending a lot of time with these people at work and doing it in that way and then understanding maybe starting with curiosity with yourself of like if I'm gonna give this feedback

We're going to pick on Sarah again. Go back to the Sarah's not following a part of the process. Well. Do I need to share that with her? Is it really important for a client? She's missing a step or my sharing that with her just because I think it's important like what is it and a little bit of curiosity for yourself and then bringing that into the conversation with saying, hey, I'm sharing this with you. I'm giving you this feedback because I care and I want to be honest with you and.

not have this problem continue and consider it that way and bringing it into it. And then what I also tell people with feedback and thinking about it, is if you're going to give feedback to somebody, you better have some ideas for them or a solution for them. So in the process thing, like, here's the process doc, read it over, let me know if you have questions. That's easily enough a solution. But if it's a tougher conversation around, like I got feedback in one of my very first workshops with a client from the leader and

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (23:30.482)

love her to this day because what she did and giving me the feedback, she helped me jump leaps and bounds in my facilitation skills that I would not have gotten otherwise if she didn't give that feedback to me. And so there are a couple of pieces in there. Like one of them was, I typically recommend people wear a blazer when they're working with leadership teams. I'm not into blazers. I'm not going to do it, but I appreciate it. And she recognized that too. She's like, I know it's a little bit more of an old school thought, but this is how I coach people when they're meeting with leadership teams.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (23:41.832)

Mmm.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (23:59.338)

dressing for the job that you want. feel like, okay, great. Another one, she said, I noticed that you say, that you were saying right a lot. And she said, that's typically an indicator that either maybe you're not confident in your presentation skills or, you know, we need to pivot and do some things differently there. And this is coaching that she received too. So she's passing it on with me. So she's like, think about that, consider that for yourself. Why are you saying right? And she was right in that sense because

What I didn't realize in my timing is that I was going really deep on the definitions and they didn't need that. Some teams do. Some teams are really high fact-finders. They want to all this stuff, but they were just like, yeah, okay, we got it. Let's move on. And so that sharpened my timing immediately and recognizing what a team needed and what teams need differently. And so just in that feedback that she gave me, it was such a gift. so recognizing if you're going to give feedback to people or you're going to share something that you're seeing.

Are you doing it because you care about them? Are you doing it in a loving way? Are you doing it to help them get better, to help the company or the team or the organization get better? And consider that and how you deliver it, that will change then, if that's the way that you're approaching it.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (25:17.523)

Sarah.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (25:18.709)

You

Sara Lowell (25:20.303)

No, I was just thinking about like just like the different the different teams that I work with because that's why I specialize in like yes, I'm a business manager type thing but like I may I love working with teams. So every team that I work with

every client that I have are all in different industries. So but everybody again, but the commonality is the teams, right? So every team that I work with, there are so many different personalities. So I have to like, it's not that I change my personality when I'm around every team member that I work with, but knowing but now that I'm getting to know each team member is depending on how I present myself to them in a way like

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (26:10.259)

think that's helpful.

Sara Lowell (26:11.525)

it, just, because I know, okay, so for example, when Dana and I first met, I am, I'm so sarcastic. She does not take, she did not take that. She did not was mad at her. I'm like, I'm not mad at that. You know, we're texting, you know, you can't, there's not like, you can't get emotion in texts. So I started to kind of back off doing that because I didn't want to, you know, but now, now I can do it's fine. Three years later. But on the other hand, but I have to, but again, I'm working

with teams being professionals, I have to, you know, you have to be careful on what you say, how you say it, depending, I think depending on the person, because I guess I can be sarcastic with some people and some not. So I have to just remember who I'm talking to.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (26:56.679)

Yes. Fun fact, I don't read sarcasm well for anyone. Well, I rely. So if I'm messaging, I rely on emojis to share what I'm trying to say or communicate what I'm trying to say. My husband's very sarcastic, so it's a very I've gotten better over the years. I'm also an oversharer and Sarah does like short, short messages.

And I'm like, God, there's something wrong. And I'm over here trying to write a whole book of trying to explain things to communicate my whole thought process. It's fine. But based off what you're saying, I love even just that with the communication that's happening on this episode is that's what Sarah took away. And then I'm over here thinking, Sarah's going to pick up on the outfit thing of like wearing a blazer and looking professional because we've had.

a couple of guests on here before that, you know, kind of like dressing to impress, but that doesn't necessarily mean the old school way of, you have to wear a blazer and you have to dress for the job. Well, the job has changed a hundred times because we work remotely. So it's just you're dressing for the job. Yes. But dress it in a way that allows you to share and communicate.

with confidence. for Sarah, I think in the episode, it was like a pair of green pants. And for me, it's a dress and probably a blazer on top of the dress. I think that I love that she gave you that feedback. And I'm constantly requesting feedback on the things that I do just so I can, you know, get a bird's eye view from someone else that's going to see something that maybe I don't.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (28:50.068)

Yeah, and then having the recognition part of that of just what is core to you and what will you take and not take? Because I think when we, I say this for myself, maybe solicit feedback and then I think, they're more seasoned or they see it differently, whatever it is. So their opinion is right. And that's not always the case. so somebody were to watch this on video, you'll see I'm wearing a leather jacket. And so I'm like, okay.

She said, Blazer, not my thing, but how can I take that feedback still and just elevate my game a little bit more? And then I was thinking about like, leather jackets, love them. I'll just bring them into my wardrobe. And now I'm kind of known for them, which is fun and a little weird. But that's modifying and making it work for you and thinking about it in those terms. And just, yes, solicit feedback and get that, but don't become so.

like a flag in the wind and just floating to whatever somebody says to you and figuring out what is true for you.

Sara Lowell (29:52.697)

Yeah, I'm all about feedback, but I've been in situations where I've been told that I need to change drastically about like certain things. I'm like, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, you know, I will give me the feedback. I want to learn. I want to improve. I want to make sure that I'm doing this correctly or doing my, you know, but when it comes to

you as a person, I mean obviously as a person like you can improve certain things about you to make them better but not necessarily having to change certain things about you to be professional you know if you if you're confident enough in yourself I think that says a lot in itself.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (30:41.95)

Yeah, absolutely. Some of these people you see on the stages, they're wearing sneakers and t-shirts. And I'm sure they've gotten feedback from other people. You should dress more professionally when you're in front of these people. Not if you are confident and in yourself and it's fine. There was, I think a month ago that I saw a presentation and that the guy was a CEO, right? So maybe doesn't get that feedback anymore. We perceive that differently, but he was wearing a loose linen shirt and jeans and a t-shirt. And we're all sitting there. There's hundreds and hundreds of people.

listening to him, right? At that point, we don't care what he's dressed as because clearly he's gotten to a point and a success in being who he is. so owning that a little bit more and understanding, I think the other key part is who is the feedback coming from and who is soliciting it and are they doing it and giving it to you in a way that because they love and care about you. And is that relationship there? Because sometimes people will just give me feedback and it can be helpful and I'm open to it because of the nature of what I do.

Sara Lowell (31:26.649)

Yep.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (31:40.704)

But that's not always the case for everybody else in recognizing, have we established that you want this from me? Do we have that communication there? And if not, maybe we need that in place before we're given feedback.

Sara Lowell (31:56.377)

Mm-hmm.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (31:58.568)

I like it. I feel like we could talk for hours on this topic. So, a pre-warning, I will probably want to have you back at some point. But for those that are tuning in, I know you mentioned your book a little bit already, but can you share a little bit more about it? I know it's launching or by the time this comes out, we'll have launched. So, where can we find it? How can we buy it?

Sara Lowell (32:02.663)

yeah, me too. me too.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (32:03.092)

Yeah, let's do it.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (32:27.357)

gift it to other teams.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (32:29.566)

Hmm, yeah, gift it to other teams if you if you don't have the agreement in place, but they need some help with communication. Just say here I got this for you. That's a great way to do that. And then maybe that starts the conversation. But anywhere books are sold is where you can get it. It's called no honesty. And for those listening, that's K no w little bit of play on words there, but no honesty, because what we were seeing out in the world is that there was a lack of honesty, there was no honesty and no

And so what we're doing is we're flipping that and we're helping people know it and understand the other side of communication that tends to block us from having more honesty, which is the openness side of things and helping teams do that. so, you know, Ken and I think about it in these terms, the work that we do with clients, we're humans, we can only serve so many people at a time. And in our lifetime, we can only serve so many people. And those people are leadership teams of companies most often.

Now we do have offerings for individuals and things like that, but a vast majority of the world we realized was not experiencing the magic of what happens in a session room with us and what it looks like to really invest in communication, invest in the trust in your team to have that. And so we wanted to unleash the work that we're doing for anybody, for anybody who wants to do it. Now, maybe they read the book and they come and work with us. Fantastic. Maybe they never end up working with us, but they use this in their home life.

or they use it in their teams. And it greatly improves their ability to be open and to be honest is what we really want and why we wrote the book. It's a total labor of love. It's been over three years of work to get to this point, which feels insane. I remember the books arriving. We got author copies and just seeing the physical copy was really, really cool to us. But the coolest part to me is we sent out advanced copies to people and they started reading us reading it and sending us pictures of it. I was like,

I could tear up seeing that in people's hands and them reading it and how they're thinking differently about their lives and their relationships because of this book. And so if you're a growth oriented person and you want to create deeper relationships, you want to create real communication in your life, this is the book for you.

Sara Lowell (34:22.981)

That's awesome.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (34:23.079)

Yay!

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (34:40.873)

and there is the book for me. I love it. I know. I want to buy a copy and just like leave it in my coworking space and just see who picks it up.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (34:43.254)

So there we go.

Sara Lowell (34:45.531)

I want to read it.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (34:52.79)

There you go. There you go. That is perfect.

Dana | Entrepreneur Encounter (34:58.227)

Well, Grace, thank you so much for hopping on and honestly showing us the power of the pause with communication and everything. was all of the information is going to be in our show notes. And thank you guys for tuning in until next time. Bye. You're welcome.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (35:07.488)

Hmm.

Sara Lowell (35:17.285)

Bye. Thank you.

Grace Gavin - Know Honesty (35:18.326)

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.