Episode 7

Jesse Favre: Have you ever found yourself on a team where gossip and negativity are spreading faster than the flu? If so, this episode is for you. Welcome back to Inside the Team with Jesse Favre, the talk show for decoding human behavior at work and identifying strategies for a healthier work life. Before we get too deep into this, please make sure to like, comment, and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. Okay, so today we're getting into a topic that so many teams know on a very deep level, and maybe they don't want to. Workplace drama. It often starts small. It's a side conversation. It's a little gossip over here. It's a tiny misunderstanding that snowballs into a much bigger issue. Left unchecked, this is something that drains energy, it breaks down trust, and it destroys team morale. Here's the thing though, the sooner you can address this stuff at work, the stronger your team will be. And if you're wondering how to do that, I'm bringing in a special guest, Ke'Ira Lewis, a serial entrepreneur who has a proven track record for creating really collaborative and high trust teams. In addition to her experience in the marketing and events industries plus so much more, Ke'Ira brings a passion for entrepreneurship, particularly supporting women in the space of connectivity, sisterhood, and driving entrepreneurial growth. So today we'll talk to Ke'Ira about how to spot workplace drama before it spreads and how to intentionally create cultures where everybody's brilliance can shine. Let's dive in. Ke'Ira, it is a pleasure to have you here on Inside the Team. Ke'Ira Lewis: Thank you for having me, first of all. Jesse Favre: Of course. I've been a fan of your work for about the last year, and I've been able to see you do so many different types of things. One of the things that strikes me is you've got these very different businesses, different industries, but the common thread is that it's all high pressure. Ke'Ira Lewis: Very much so. Jesse Favre:How does that shape your philosophy on what a healthy work culture should look like? Ke'Ira Lewis: Always remembering the why. Why are you doing what you're doing, which is going to go back to your calling and your purpose. And so if you always remember that and hold that as the priority, then every task, every mission, every project is going to have 100% commitment to it, and you choose the team that is going to also honor that commitment. I remember telling in a meeting, my KDL cast and crew, I want you to care about this more than I care about it, was the term that I gave them. And I care about it. I actually call it my baby, and I tell them all the time, you'll find yourself out of here quick if you are mishandling my baby. So we have to have that mentality about why we're doing what we're doing and what it means to us, and then that can create a healthy environment. It can create a healthy team as well. Jesse Favre: So you show what right looks like. Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely, absolutely. Jesse Favre: All the time. I've seen it firsthand. Let's talk about what it looks like when it's not going right. Ke'Ira Lewis: And I've had those experiences. Jesse Favre: Okay, talk to me, talk to me about this. So when you hear the term workplace drama, what comes to mind for you? Ke'Ira Lewis: Oh, it's a lot of things that come to mind. Gossip is one of the number one things though. Jesse Favre: Well, I know that even from a social contagion standpoint, it's so easy to see things like somebody's behavior, their attitude, their affect starts spreading very, very quickly in a group. What do you see as the implications of that when you have an environment that has a lot of gossip going on? Ke'Ira Lewis: What I have learned from those experiences is that a lot of people's behavior and characteristics have nothing to do with you or the person that they're gossiping about. It's their outpour of what's inside of them. I'm not going to say we all come from environments that can be unhealthy, but some people do. They come from environments that can be unhealthy, whether that be in their marriage or it's something that they grew up under, the relationships that they may have with their parents. It's just not a good place. And so what they do is they take it out on others, and taking it out can come in different forms. It could come in what seems like, oh, she has a bad attitude, or it can come in the form of I need to protect myself from whatever it is they feel they need to protect ourselves from by bullying you because there's such a thing as adult bullies. And I have taught my son that. I said, sometimes kid bullies become adult bullies. Jesse Favre: What I'm hearing from you is that a lot of times we'll see behavior, but there's a lot under the surface that we may not know about somebody's story. Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely, absolutely. Now you're able to practice grace and mercy, which is so hard to do sometimes. Jesse Favre: So how do grace and mercy fit into your views on squashing drama? I know you've used that phrase before. Ke'Ira Lewis: You have to be a bigger person. You have to be the example. How else do we create a better world? It starts with you. That's what you hear, and that's true. It starts with you. So how does it start with me Practicing grace and mercy, being an example, showing others what you wish they would show to you, pouring into them is what it's called. And once they see, oh, this person is not really trying to attack me or this person is not against me, they soften, some do, some don't. The reality, but most do. And now you have created a different environment. You have started initiating a different type of situation amongst the workplace. Jesse Favre: It sounds like part of this is being the role model, showing up, showing the behaviors that you want to see spread in a team. Are there any other practices that you recommend that people lean into in moments where they're trying to disrupt some of the patterns in a workplace that don't feel healthy? Ke'Ira Lewis: Structure. Whatever protocol you set, you stick to it and you have discipline to it. And some people find that to be a struggle. They'll set a standard, but then they'll let things slide or they'll, okay, well I'll let you do it this time. No, the protocol is the protocol and I need you to adhere to the protocol. I'll give an example of that with my company, KDO productions, the rule is communicate to me, communicate to me when you're not going to be at rehearsal. Communicate to me if you're going to be late to rehearsal. And if you don't, then there's compensation situations that can happen. Or if you have an understudy for those that don't know what an understudy is, it's a person who is your backup person when you're acting, then it's going to flip flop. Now they are the primary role and you're the understudy because it's not fair if the understudy is showing up more than you. Well, I had several cast members that were either not showing up to rehearsal or they didn't communicate, they were not coming or they were always late. I found myself texting them or calling, Hey, where are you? Are you coming to rehearsal? And after a while I had to say, oh, wait a minute, Ke'Ira, why are you calling them? Why are you texting them? You set a standard, they're not upholding the standard. And what happened is that because I started going against the standard, they were expecting me, well, I'm going to be late. She's going to call or text me anyway. But then when I stopped, it's like, well, I didn't get a call or text because I should not have been calling or texting you. So when you set a protocol, when you set a standard, stick to it, and that's how people learn to adhere and respect you. Jesse Favre: Part of what I love in how you're describing this is this feeling of fairness across the team. If we are consistent with something like a standard, then everybody has that sense of certainty that when I'm on the team, I know that this person's going to hold us to a particular standard. And that feels better than a one-off situation where Favoritism could come up. Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely. And I despise favoritism. Jesse Favre: So you spoke earlier about workplace gossip. What do you see as the difference between gossip and healthy venting to a colleague? Ke'Ira Lewis: When you start using phrases of did you hear or I heard, or let me tell you, this is gossip. Jesse Favre: You're never going to believe what I heard. Ke'Ira Lewis: The list goes on, and the person who was on the receiving end, going back to being that example, well, if that person didn't tell me, then don't tell me, or I didn't hear it from the other person, so I'm going to take this with a grain of salt. You have to be that example in all situations. Otherwise, if you're listening, you're gossiping. Jesse Favre: I think a lot of times with gossip, people assume that, oh, if I'm just listening, if I don't say anything, then I'm not really taking part in this. Ke'Ira Lewis: You're gossiping. Yeah. Jesse Favre: I mean sometimes that is actually stirring the pot, right? But it is so easy. I know sometimes people are like, well, I just leaned in a little bit, right? It's not that big of a deal. What happens in a situation where somebody has leaned into this at some point in their career and they're trying to back out of this? Ke'Ira Lewis: That is again, maturity. Do you have that maturity to do that? Do you have the maturity, once you found that you are encamped, do you have the maturity to say, you know what? I think I'm going to back out of this. We've been talking about this a little bit too much and I don't want to talk about this anymore. Maybe we should bring him or her in and we all talk about it together. Or if we can't do that, then maybe this is considered gossiping and we need not to do this anymore. You barely get a person to say that because that's a maturity level or it's a fear that I'm not going to be liked anymore because I stood up for what was right. You have that situation as well. Jesse Favre: I love that you're encouraging, let's bring them in if you want to talk about this, because that is moving towards a workplace culture that has direct communication. And I think when things get so indirect, that's where we start to see the culture kind of slip. Ke'Ira Lewis: Maybe you need to go to that person directly and express to them how you're feeling. Encourage them to wait until they're at a place mentally to talk about it calmly. Because what you don't want to do is step to a person in a certain demeanor that is going to build a defense mechanism. So make sure that you're in a space where we can talk like this. Hey, Jess, what you said the other day, it offended me. Can I talk to you about that? If you can't come in that tone, wait. It's all about timing and then also having the maturity. I know I sound like a broken record, but it's important having that maturity to recognize when you need a mediator. And don't just pick any person to be the mediator. your favorite person, right? Jesse Favre: Yeah, your favorite person, right? The one who loves you. Ke'Ira Lewis: The yes man, the person's going to like, yeah, I agree with you. No, I need someone that's going to say, ah, sis, bro, you were wrong in this situation. Jesse Favre: Well, I think there's a real power too, or maturity to being able to say, let's call the meeting right now. And that's one thing if I could start my career over, that's a piece of advice I'd give myself. If somebody's not speaking in the tone that you described, being able to be professional, stop the meeting. I'm noticing that you're raising your voice. This doesn't seem like it's a good time to talk. I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting and we can talk when we have both gotten into a professional head space. Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely. And I'm going to add to that and say to the leaders to recognize when one-on-one is necessary. Because some meetings are not meant for the whole team. And what I used to hate so much about that is that my leadership, when I was in banking specifically, we would have these meetings all the time about situations that occurred in the workplace, but it wasn't the whole team. It was just this one particular person or a few people, and it was always the same people. So at what point do you have one-to-ones? Because you can have an overall team meeting and they can sit there and say, well, this isn't about me, then this is not about me. We can easily do that. But if you call that person out by, Hey, can you come in my office and I talk to you for a second? Then they know directly, you're out of order. Jesse Favre: I've seen that play out and I think it's so uncomfortable because often people know exactly who it's about. It's not fooling anybody. It's not a general announcement. It's like we know exactly who this is for, but the direct communication piece is hard. I think one of the things that I have experimented with in situations like these is leaning into curiosity. If I need to have a one-on-one with somebody, I'm going to get curious about the situation because if I'm curious, I'm way less likely to be anxious. And to your point earlier, there's so much that can be under the surface. And so if we lean in and we have kind of a learner mindset, to me that just helps calm me down so I can actually take in that information of, okay, how did we get to this point? Ke'Ira Lewis: Digging deeper is just so important. It is so important, and it's a step that many do not take. We just jump right on in without doing the research, having the learning mindset that you just spoke of. Jesse Favre: I think even in those moments too, just having the belief that there could be a reason for it, just even if you don't know what it is, that there could be something. So just to give an example, I went to a grocery store the other day. I was stressed out and I'm sure that I did not look like a friendly customer. And when I was checking out. Ke’Ira Lewis: Not you! Jesse Favre: I had my moments, so I was checking out. I know that I looked a certain way, and the person who was bagging the groceries, instead of getting upset or fighting with me, he was like, you know what? I'm going to double bag your stuff because I really don't want any of these bags to break when you walk to your car. And I started tearing up. I was like, he has no clue what's going on. But he picked up that something wasn't quite right and instead of fighting with me, it was, I'm actually going to take some extra care in this situation to make sure that you're okay. Ke'Ira Lewis: What you just spoke about, not to cut you off, was being intuned. And that's something that is an important ingredient as a team because believe it or not, we probably see our coworkers more than we see our family. And so being in tune with one another is what's going to create a strong team. So understanding when a person comes to work out of the ordinary, something's wrong. So being that example, being that role model that we talked about earlier, take the initiative and say, Hey, is everything okay? Do you want to talk? Offer them that space. That's what keeps workplace drama to a cease, and that's what creates high morale and relationship as well. I'm not saying that you have to be friends when you go to work. I'm not saying that, but you got to be something in order for you to band together. That puts me in the mind with my band. So ya’ll, I set my band down, okay, because I got tired of them not coming to rehearsal or coming to rehearsal late or unprepared. So that's also developing great teams. When you have to make those hard decisions, get some musicians that feel like I don't need rehearsal. I've been a musician for 40 years, or this is an easy song. I don't need that many rehearsals. It's not about your skill. It's about the chemistry that we're trying to build. It's about us becoming a band, making sure that we can come together. Me as a lead singer, I need to be able to communicate to you in my way when I'm ready to take it to the vamp or when I'm ready to come out to the chorus or break the song down. I need you to feel what I'm about to do. And the only way you can do that is by us rehearsing together, coming together to build that chemistry. That's the same thing with the workplace. We come together and we make intentional chemistry, and that causes you to be in tune with that person. So picking up on the behavior that you had at the grocery store, that bagger, it's like something's not right with her. This lady seems like she's having a bad moment. Let me do something courteous to just bring a smile or something to her face. And we have to learn how to do that at work as well. Jesse Favre: And I just want to call out because I've seen your work firsthand. I've seen your productions. This is what shines through. You pull together people that have such raw talent, but there is no way that talented people could pull off what you all pull off without your leadership and saying, we are going to make this tight as a group. Ke'Ira Lewis: Thank you. Jesse Favre: That’s why I wanted to bring you on. Ke'Ira Lewis: Thank you. And by the way, I'm a fan of yours. I wanted to say that earlier when you said it, but it's vice versa, so I love what you're doing. Jesse Favre: Well, thank you. Ke’Ira Lewis: You are welcome. Jesse Favre: So in thinking about what you've shared from a leadership perspective, I'm hearing two pieces that I think are both true, and one is the consistency, the structure. We need to hold people accountable, and also we need to be understanding how do we make these both true at the same time? Ke'Ira Lewis: Holding people accountable while leaning to understand is very important because when you hold them accountable, you're providing them a coaching opportunity. A coaching opportunity allows them to grow as a person. So all of it just becomes a domino effect. If you're not holding them accountable, you're enabling them at this point. And so now what kind of atmosphere are you creating in that person? Jesse Favre: I love this because I think so often people feel like, oh, if I give feedback, if I coach, they did something wrong. And this is really about. Ke'Ira Lewis: Not necessarily. Jesse Favre: Yeah, that's not what I'm hearing. It's like I'm doing this out of respect for you. This is actually part of my understanding of my caring and I want to help you figure out how to be successful here. Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely. And that's the whole point in the workplace. We don't ever want to stay complacent. If you are a bagger, okay, how do we get you from being bagger to cashier? And then how do we get you from being cashier to sales lead? And from sales lead to management, we want you to keep climbing the ladder. So sometimes accountability comes into that, sometimes coaching, and not sometimes all the time, coaching is a part of that, but just know that it's coming from a place. And so that goes back to what we said earlier, your tone, your approach. Because otherwise now a wall is coming up and I don't hear anything that you're saying. Jesse Favre: And that tone is so critical. I had somebody who was in a session of mine about a year ago, she's from Romania, and she translated this phrase for me that she said she used all the time, and it is the tone that creates the music. As a musician, you might like that. Ke'Ira Lewis: Yes, it did something to my feels. Jesse Favre: I thought it might. I thought it might. The tone creates the music. And so now when I listen to people talk, I'm not thinking just about the lyrics. I'm like, what's the melody of what they're saying? And also how do we have awareness of what we're putting out in terms of the melody of what we're sharing? Ke'Ira Lewis: You can only have awareness when you're in tune. Oh, we are making so much music tonight, girl. Jesse Favre: All the goosebumps. Ke’Ira Lewis: All of it. I think I might put that on my arm as a tattoo, but yes, you have to be in tune in order to receive and feel and accept any of that that you just said, being in tune. Jesse Favre: I'm feeling like a huge part of squashing drama isn't so much about something that is like an aggressive squash. It's actually mindfulness presence with someone else. Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely. Jesse Favre: This is a more delicate approach. Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And if we have that type of approach, there would be some amazing citizens in our communities because you can then take that from work and pour that into your personal as well. And just imagine how many great relationships we would have in our families and amongst our friends and things like that. Jesse Favre: So Ke’Ira, we are going to play a game called squash It. Ke'Ira Lewis: Let's squash it. Jesse Favre: Okay, so I'm going to read some scenarios to you and I want to hear how you would squash this drama at the moment. Ke'Ira Lewis: I get to do a little acting. Jesse Favre: You get to do a little acting. So do I. Ke'Ira Lewis: That's in my wheel. Jesse Favre: You overhear your coworker say, I can't believe what she wore today. How are you going to squash it? Ke'Ira Lewis: I'm going to say, well, I actually think that it looks really good. The way that she coordinated the necklace with the pants actually shows a little bit of style. Jesse Favre: So you're flipping it into a compliment. Sneaky. Sneaky. Next one. You see two teammates whispering and glancing toward your desk during a meeting, and that's all you got. How are you going to squash it? Ke'Ira Lewis: I'm going to say, so what y'all talking about? I want to have a good time too. You got to make them uncomfortable at this point, I want to laugh too. What are you guys talking about? Jesse Favre: So you're making an observation about the behavior, and then you're getting curious. Ke'Ira Lewis: Okay. And you're making it known to them that I see you being gossipy. Don't do it. It's not nice. Jesse Favre: Yes. And to your point on this, there have been times I have been in a meeting, meeting will be crickets, right? And I get these looks. So I have a thought in my head, oh my gosh, they hate me. They hate this initiative. They hate the project. There have been times I've done that. Wow, it's really quiet in here today. I feel like I can hear crickets, what's going on? Sometimes they just got horrible news. I have had times where I'm like, I had no clue. Do we need to take five? Do we need to reschedule the meeting? And so sometimes I think it can be a real surprise what gets unearthed from doing that. Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely. We talked about that. You don't know what they're carrying inside. You don't know what they brought in. I get that sometimes when I'm facilitating my workshops with Score, it is quiet and I'll stop in between, do we have any questions and there's no questions. And so I'll just say, well, I guess I'm doing a great job with explaining this stuff to you. And I would see in the chat, yes, this is great information. So they just captivate it. So just make a joke out of the moment and see where it goes or bring it on yourself where, like I said, I'm just doing such a good job then, and then see what the reactions are. Jesse Favre: And I've been one of those captivated people in the Score workshop. I probably wasn't asking questions either, but I was taking all the notes. So you never know what's going on on the other end. A coworker tells you, everybody's saying that management doesn't know what they're doing. Ke'Ira Lewis: I would say, well, what are your thoughts? What do you feel that management isn't doing? Maybe we should come together and go to the management with this list of things. Jesse Favre: Encouraging direct communication. Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely. Jesse Favre: Beautiful. Two people on your team are openly frustrated with each other in front of clients. I feel like this would not go in your companies. What are you going to do? Ke'Ira Lewis: I'm going to take over. What I mean by that is if they're getting into it, there is still a client in front of us that needs to be serviced. So I'm going to step in front of them. I'm literally going to step in front of them because I'm using my body to block what is inappropriate in front of the client and ask the client, how may I help you, and make sure that we're taking care of the priority. The priority is the client. Once I am done taking care of that client, then I'm going to turn to my coworkers, holding them accountable. We talked about accountability earlier, and expressing to them, first of all, this was not professional. That was the coaching moment. This is unprofessional that we did this in front of the client, you guys, and then let's step away and what's going on? And now you're getting to the situation to be that mediator. Jesse Favre: There's something that's coming up from my theater pastor. Everything that the audience can see is a part of the act. So you are putting them backstage, effective immediately. Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely. Jesse Favre: Yeah. And then talking about next time, this is not going to happen. Ke'Ira Lewis: It's not going to happen. Not, absolutely not. We don't want to miss that coaching opportunity, but then also become concerned to be that mediator so that you can squash it. Jesse Favre: Yes. And also I love that you're pulling this offline because as you said earlier, it's not always a team conversation. This is not necessarily for the customer to see. So you're thinking about the impact on them, and then how do I have this direct conversation at a time that it's appropriate? Ke'Ira Lewis: Absolutely. We live in a world now where you can easily get blasted on social media. And so what you do in front of your clients can easily find itself viral. And so you want to try to clean those things up ASAP. Jesse Favre: Yep. Let's say that you are in a brainstorming session and somebody just suddenly cuts you off and then they keep cutting you off. Ke'Ira Lewis: So some may call me really sarcastic, and so I'm just that type of person sometimes where if it keeps happening, baby, listen, you have just cut me off like five times now. Is everything okay? Are we good? Okay. As I was saying, so I'm the type of person where I will call something out like that in that manner. It's joking, but I'm serious. Stop cutting me off. But at the same time, I want to give a tone to where I'm not seeming confrontational, but yet enough to say, I don't appreciate this. Jesse Favre: There's some authority in this moment. And there's also warmth. And I feel like that's one thing you just do so well. So I would receive that well, I'd be like, okay, okay. Ke'Ira Lewis: Thank you. Good. Jesse Favre: Noted. I'm Done. I'm done. Ke’Ira Lewis: So if you get me in the false setter for those that sing, if I start getting into, la la la, whatcha doing, that means I need to pipe it down just a little bit. And some people say I speak with my eyes. Jesse Favre: I used to be in meetings and my boss would text me. She'd be like, Jesse, watch your face. Ke'Ira Lewis: I get that every day. I get it every day. You will never see me at a poker table. Jesse Favre: Me neither. Me neither. Okay, last one. A coworker gives you feedback that is feeling more like a personal attack. And this is what it is. Ke’Ira, you're just too sensitive. I was scared. Ke'Ira Lewis: It wasn't the eyes. Did I give you eyes just now? So I'm laughing because I've actually had something similar like that, but it was more baffling than the statement you just gave me. I came to work one morning, and these are the exact words that were spoken to me. Ke’Ira, some of the ladies have complained that your confidence intimidates them. That was my look as well, because who says that? I thought I was being punked. I thought Ashton was about to pop out of the break room somewhere, because what? My confidence intimidates them. So my answer was, well, I'm sorry that they're not confident in themselves and they don't understand what their worth and value is, that they find mine to be intimidating. And then I put my stuff in my locker and went to my station because what more do you need to say at that? So yeah, that actually happened. I had to say, God, how can you use me for these women? Because there's something deeper here that anyone would say that another person's confidence would intimidate them. They're lacking something inside of them. So how can you use me to pour into them to find themselves, to find what they need to feel confident? And that's the prayer that I had to immediately go into. I couldn't take it personal, because at that time I was definitely experiencing growth. And so my growth that I experienced at that time allowed me to understand, Ke’Ira, this is bigger than you, and it has nothing to do with you. So how do you stand in the gap for those women? Jesse Favre: I think with feedback, when there's no business impact, we really have to ask why are we giving that to each other? Is there really a business impact that you have confidence? It sounds like it would be a positive one. Right? Ke'Ira Lewis: When I tell you I was shooketh. I was like, what? Is this serious? Are you really telling me this? And this goes back to leadership and picking and choosing what's considered coaching. I would never bring that to a team member. At that point, I'm talking to the people that came to me and brought that to me. What's really going on here? Being in tune with your team, I would've never brought that to a team member. That is a crazy statement. Jesse Favre: It's crazy. And even in a situation where let's just say you have to give constructive feedback, there are still some ways that that can happen that are also not okay. I remember at the start of my healthcare management career, I had a very mysterious one-on-one on my calendar, which is never good. At least it wasn't to me. And so the feedback was, you're just too intense. You're too intense for this career. This was the start of my healthcare career. And so I was thinking, well, I guess I probably shouldn't do this job. And so I went to the bathroom stall and I cried. The room was spinning. I was like, I have no clue what to do. When I think about now, what happened then and what I would do if this happened present day, to me, this is where I have to get really curious. I want to understand this better. Can you share some recent examples? Because I do suspect that there were things that I needed help with. Maybe I got so excited. I talked over somebody, maybe I got excited and my voice got really loud in a meeting room. Ke'Ira Lewis: It was just passion. Jesse Favre: It was just passion. That's what I suspect. But I don't know for sure. And I think when we're thinking about how to challenge a workplace culture, sometimes it is leaning in with that curiosity and asking for specifics so that you can do your best to try to understand, because this person may have been trying to help me, but for me, it was just kind of feeding into this feeling of I don't belong here and I should get out. Ke'Ira Lewis: But I'm going to say, I'll play devil's advocate with that. In your defense as a leader, why would you utilize the word intense? Because I'm sure there's other ways that they could have broken that down to you. What if you hadn't the sense to say, well, now that I think about it, maybe they were saying this, this and that. What if you would not have thought of it that way? Because going back to maturity, what if you were not mature enough to think of that way? And we have people who will take a person's word and that's it. They just run with what that word is. Jesse Favre: Yeah. I would've lost that whole career. Ke'Ira Lewis: And so think about all of the hopes and dreams that they could have tarnished for you just from that one statement. So we have to be careful of how we bring things to the table, what we say, how we say it. We've already talked about that. And word usage. What exactly does intense mean? Jesse Favre: And are there some ways to look at this as a strength? Because fast forward 10 years, and I have a coach who's helping me with speaking, and they're like, one of your biggest strengths is your intensity. And what I mean by that is blah, blah, blah. How can we make it bigger? How can we make it more playful? And I was like, what? Ke'Ira Lewis: And you should say, back then. Jesse Favre: Well, maybe I was like, maybe I was in the wrong job. I don't know. But even being able to see the good in other people and call that out, I think just changes the culture completely. A totally different work experience for me. Yeah. Ke'Ira Lewis: The kudos to you for not giving up. Jesse Favre: Thank you. Ke'Ira Lewis: Yeah. Jesse Favre: And nice job on squash it. Ke'Ira Lewis: Thank you. Did we squash it? Jesse Favre: We squashed it. Jesse Favre: So before we leave, please make sure to comment and subscribe so you can see other wonderful episodes. And just remember, you've got to know what's important to you at work. You have to be intentional about your culture. Keep it human, and we will catch you next time Inside the Team.