How do you build a Caring Community?
Today, we have the privilege of being joined by Misty Janks, CEO of Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities, and Micki Gibbs, Senior Director of Caring Communities.
Together, we embark on a journey of exploration, innovation, and transformation as we discuss our organization’s exciting initiatives and goals.
Join us as we uncover the key to creating Caring Workplaces and Caring Communities, paving the way for impactful change within our regions.
Tune in, listen closely, and let’s learn, grow, and lead together.
https://connect.chapmancommunities.org/f/cfcc-caring-workplace-caring-community-interest-form
AI-generated dictation of the podcast audio
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Misty Janks 0:00
Bob and Cynthia Chapman saw and heard the amazing stories from participants on how did our community lessons change their lives, how did it improve their relationships? And so they wanted to give that same experience to the family members and different communities that we were in. I
Speaker 1 0:29
on the listen. First podcast, you’ll join us as we connect with an array of fascinating guests from varied backgrounds and perspectives to explore how we can build and become leaders that transform their families, workplaces and communities, tune in for insight on mastering skills like active listening, verbal and nonverbal communication, understanding behavioral tendencies and appreciating individuality.
Unknown Speaker 1:02
You welcome
Adam Salgat 1:04
to the listen first podcast. I’m your host. Adam salgat, how do you build a caring community? Stay tuned to find out you
Unknown Speaker 1:19
music.
Adam Salgat 1:27
Today, we have the privilege of being joined by Misty Jenks, CEO of the Chapman foundation for caring communities, and Mickey Gibbs, Senior Director of caring communities. Together, we embark on a journey of exploration, innovation and transformation, as we discuss the exciting initiatives and goals of our organization, join us as we uncover the key to creating caring workplaces and caring communities, paving the way for impactful change within our regions. Tune in. Listen closely, and let’s learn, grow and lead together.
Adam Salgat 2:11
I’d like to welcome in today the Chapman foundation for caring community, CEO Misty janks and our director of caring communities, Mickey Gibbs, Mickey and Misty, thank you both for being on today’s podcast.
Unknown Speaker 2:23
Thanks for having us.
Misty Janks 2:24
Thank you.
Adam Salgat 2:25
I’m so happy that the two of you are here today because it’s a great opportunity for us to talk to our alumni about the exciting initiatives taking place with our organization. Consider this a glimpse into the future, about how we plan to continue to create leaders that transform their families, workplaces and communities so misty and Mickey today, you’re going to share with us the goal of the organization in creating caring workplaces and caring communities throughout the different regions in the United States that we have a foot in, right? We have a foot old in, but first Misty, let’s take a moment to touch base on the history and the evolution of the Chapman foundation. How is the thought process on how to strengthen leaders and communities changed over time? Well, it’s
Misty Janks 3:13
crazy to think that next year, we’re coming up on our 15 years of being of service to our communities, way back in 2010 and 2011 we started the organization through this individual impact. It was meant to be a gift to our communities that we were in, Bob and Cynthia Chapman, saw and heard the amazing stories from participants on how did our community listens change their lives? How did it improve their relationships? And so they wanted to give that same experience to the family members and different communities that we were in. So we had that gift for a very long time, from up until about 2018 2018 we started to take a more coordinated impact, and we started working with different partner organizations. So really starting to examine, how could we work with different organizations and their team members so they would have this collective experience together and learn the skills and be able to improve their relationships from there, what we started to see as an organization, is, what if we aligned all of that impact from the individual organizations, that individual themselves, that might just have been a community member, but not connected to someone, and got them all moving in this same direction with this same skill set? And what could we do, and what could we create and really make a more caring community from that, you
Adam Salgat 4:47
know, that visually, kind of reminds me of, if you take, like a, if you’re doing a painting, and you drop, drop some paint straight down, it kind of just splatters out in all directions, right? But if you stand from one side, you know, at a canvas, and you. Row paint and one direction, you can kind of see that everything’s kind of going in one direction. It sounds like it’s the idea of, like, trying to get everything moving in one direction Right,
Misty Janks 5:09
exactly, trying to line up all of those skills and ability and get what we’re calling a collective impact movement going because of the relationships that are being improved.
Adam Salgat 5:21
The opportunity that we are now building is to build a caring community. Let’s get into the details and name some specific areas or organizations, as you’ve mentioned, and I believe you actually refer to them as anchor organizations, right? So for us, who does that include? What kind of anchor organizations are we working with? Yeah. So
Misty Janks 5:41
when we are creating a carrying a community, what we’re we’re using is a collective impact framework for community change. So collective impact is a network of community members and organizations who advance learning together by aligning their actions to achieve population change. And so to do this, we when we go into a community, we are looking for those anchor organizations. An anchor organization is kind of exactly what it sounds like is they have been in the community for a while. They already work collaboratively across that community with many different types of organizations and individuals, so they have that reach and ability to bring organizations and individuals together. So by working with them and delivering our programs through them and to them, it gives us the opportunity to really expand the reach inside of those communities.
Adam Salgat 6:40
Give me a concept of like, specific organizations that we are working with in the regions that we already have a foothold in. Yeah. So
Misty Janks 6:47
we are currently working with a Roaring Fork Valley in Colorado, and one of our anger organizations there is the town of Snowmass Village. So they are delivering the programs to their team members, but then also open up seats in those training programs to different organizations, different nonprofits, small or large. So they also then collaborate with Pitkin County, and so they collaboratively, again, offer those seats to both of those counties and city employees and team members, but also to any community member at large that would want to attend the program.
Adam Salgat 7:26
So that change over time, though, is what you’re talking about. Is how things are a little bit different than maybe 2018 or prior, right? Because I would say, if I remember, right, like you said, 2018 was very much like it could have been any organization, anyone with a nonprofit or or any community government organization, even school districts that were coming into our community classes. But now what you’re explaining here is in working with Roaring Fork Valley, we’re working with the town of snow, West Village, their local government, then Pitkin County, part of their local government. And while we’re working directly with them. We’re also still allowing those community members in, but it is a directed force, right,
Misty Janks 8:06
correct? We’re working on delivering the same program, the same skills, the same interventions, so we’re all growing together in our leadership skills and abilities. Yeah, I
Adam Salgat 8:19
love that idea of growing together, right? I mean, that’s, that’s what’s going to make a very big collective impact. We also talk about the opportunity to work with organizations that we consider collaborators. And I think you already touched on that a little bit, but tell me a little bit more about collaborators. Yeah. So we
Misty Janks 8:35
know not every organization is going to have the capabilities to be an anchor organization. Maybe they’re smaller in size, maybe they haven’t been around as long. So what they do is, then they work in a collaboration with our anchor organizations to still be able to bring the skills and the trainings to their team, but they’re leveraging the systems and the infrastructure of those larger, larger organizations, so they can still have that same experience.
Adam Salgat 9:05
That’s wonderful. Yeah, great opportunity for them to obviously collaborate and work with the larger groups that do have infrastructure to help and make it a little easier for them. And then you already mentioned this too, they’re still taking in potential individuals, whether they might just be those that are in the community who have an interest in leadership development, or just have an interest in communication style that they are looking to improve themselves. So those individuals might work for small, real, small organizations even, might even work for the gas station attendant, you know, might be a plumber down the street. You know, it could be anyone who’s running their own small business even trying to just improve their communication style. It
Misty Janks 9:43
could be a retired individual that just wants to give back to their community. So really, this way, it is open for all, and because we all know that the way that our classes are advertised or heard about the most is from a referral saying, Hey, you should take this. And so that door is always open for anyone that wants to attend a class,
Adam Salgat 10:04
I will say that’s one of the easiest parts of my job, because the best part, and the best marketing is word of mouth, and that’s the best part. Sometimes of our alumni speak so highly of the impact that it’s had on them that they bring so many people in just because they are sharing the impact it’s had on them, either at the workplace or maybe even in their everyday home life, in the people that they care about at home. The idea of becoming a caring community as a designation that the Chapman foundation is creating, but obviously that’s a big task, right? The idea of becoming a caring community, that’s a lofty goal. How do we get there? Well, we
Misty Janks 10:42
know that this is a big goal, a big vision, but we also can see what is happening in today’s society. We are seeing our communities divided with this vision and with this framework, it is a way that we can bring something to our communities and make them better. This will not be a short term project. Collective impact movements take anywhere from four to seven years. We realize that. But what is great about this is we have been working in some of our communities since 2010 and 2011 we have a lot of the groundwork already laid. So what our programs do, and what we have seen since that beginning, is we strengthen relationships, and by being able to do that that impacts our families, our workplaces and our communities. So when we can have all of us coming together, we can get there together.
Adam Salgat 11:41
I love that response, and I love the idea of what you mentioned in there is a catalyst of workplaces, and therefore our second designation that we want to talk about today, caring workplace. Touch a little bit on caring workplace and tell me about how that program is built and what’s what’s it being based on our
Misty Janks 12:00
caring workplace designation is built upon our five pillars of caring leadership, and with each of these pillars, we have taken evidence based practices to help organizations integrate these critical leadership behaviors in their everyday lives. So the five pillars of caring leadership include, first is the culture of learning. What this does is it really sets the stage for an organization to bring in our three foundational courses of our community listens, our community serves and our community transforms. It also creates this environment where our team members are learning and growing together, and that is a beautiful thing that then also connects to the other pillars. The second pillar is recognition and celebration. So really letting team members know that they matter, that their work matters, that we are seeing the amazing things that they’re doing every single day. Our third pillar of caring leadership is intentional connection, specifically with those in your span of care. How do we go beyond just it being about work, but really getting to know those individuals and what matters to them. How can we connect their values to help propel the organizational forward? Fourth pillar of caring leadership is trust. So this is really important, right? So we have to be able to trust each other to create this environment for flourishing and create this environment for learning, and then our fifth pillar of caring leadership is meaningful work. Again, now that you know your individual team member, how can you connect them to the larger mission and vision for the organization so they can find value in the work that they do?
Adam Salgat 13:59
Misty, thank you so much for giving some explanation as to what we’re building this caring workplace structure on. I want to ask, though, give me a little bit of background on where have we done our research to pull these five pillars together to build this caring workplace program? I have a background
Misty Janks 14:19
in industrial and organizational psychology. So I have been doing the research on these pillars, but also it is through our connection with Barry whitmiller and bob chapman in understanding the work that they have done inside of that organization, and how do we continue to learn from them? I’m currently in my PhD program where I am studying, how are these all connected, and how do they really create this environment for flourishing for team members?
Adam Salgat 14:51
Let’s bring Mickey into this conversation to discuss the details of the caring workplace program. So Mickey, my first question is, how do we know what to do for. Organization to help them determine how to improve or enhance certain elements of their current workplace culture.
Micki Gibbs 15:06
Yeah, thanks for asking that. Adam. You know, something to remember about the partners that we’re working with is, chances are, by the time they get to the point that they’re interested in the caring workplace program, they have either brought us in to do some of our coursework into their organization, perhaps a presentation, or they have put some of their folks through our community classes, which means they already understand how the classes can impact them as individuals, and maybe even a little bit inside their organization. What that really means is we already have a trusting relationship with them. We’ve worked with them. They’ve had us as part of their work, at least to some degree, and so we just what we’re doing is we’re building on that trusting relationship we already have with them. It starts really with just a connection, meeting with me to learn more about the caring workplace program or one of our webinars that we will launch a few times a year, and then we move them into an application process. And when you talk about an application process, that can sound a little daunting, but that process is just a chance for us to get to know the organization a little bit better. Who from their organization has already experienced our content, what size is their organization? What does their day to day work look like? And frankly, what struggles do they face? We combine the application with some surveys to get a sense of the health of their organization and the things they want to work on, and then that gives us a chance to basically give them a prescription for care. Where do we start with the pillars? Where do we start with programming? And we work with them closely to figure out what would the journey look like.
Adam Salgat 16:39
So it sounds like this is pretty customizable, right? Like we have a structure built, but it can be customized to what they’re what they might need. Yeah,
Micki Gibbs 16:47
every organization’s a little bit different. We work with organizations that might be 50 people, and perhaps by the time they start a caring workplace journey, all of their employees have had listens. We also work with organizations that are quite large and maybe only a few of their folks have experienced some of our foundational courses and content. It really doesn’t matter where they start. It just gives us a sense of wherever that starting point is. What does that journey look like, and it is really a very slow journey, because we fully understand that they’re embracing this and embedding it as part of the work they already do on a daily basis. We by no means want it to overwhelm them. We just want it to enhance we want it to enhance their work and make them better together.
Adam Salgat 17:31
That is something that recently, when I was able to visit capital credit union, one of our current caring workplace partners, that they talked about how we are a piece of their puzzle. They already had elements in place, but we came in and are supporting them. Can we touch on that a little bit, that puzzle piece aspect? Yeah,
Micki Gibbs 17:49
when we get to know an organization, we’re getting a sense of what their work is and also what their values and beliefs are. As an organization, we’re not trying to change who they are. We’re trying to change how they do it together, and that’s really the essence of the caring workplace program. Is it’s not uncommon for us to work with organizations that are very focused on their outward service. If they’re a school district that’s families and students, if they’re a fire department and they’re first responders, that’s their community, whatever their outward service is, is very important to them, and they want to do it so well. Often, the struggle is that organizations are sometimes building that work on the backs of their own employees without realizing they’re making that mistake. So we want to give them that element of how do they focus on each other? We work for students and families or community members, or whatever your service is to your community or your constituents. But we really work for each other. And I think the other important piece of this is at the Chapman Foundation, everything, everything we’re teaching caring workplaces to do, we live it at the Chapman Foundation. We know it takes energy. We know it takes intentionality, and we know it’s not easy, and I think that’s what makes us really well equipped to walk that journey alongside of an organization and help them through it, because we’re very upfront in the beginning saying there’s going to be times you fall and there’s going to be times you succeed. We want to make you better at the things you’re great at, and we want to help you with the things you’re struggling
Adam Salgat 19:21
at absolutely, when we’re thinking about how long this could take an organization, I’m sure it kind of varies depending on the employees, because, you know, if you have a very large organization, obviously going to take a little longer to get everybody through and get the momentum going. If you’ve only got 20 employees at your team, should you know, progress a little quicker just because of the sheer numbers. But so that being said, I’m sure the timetable can be different, but I’m kind of curious, what does a timetable look like to, you know, earn that caring workplace designation?
Micki Gibbs 19:52
Yeah, I would, I would even hesitate Adam, to even define what a timetable looks like. It is a very long term project. Perfect, and that’s for several reasons, first, because it’s often very personalized. How fast we can get employees from an organization through the foundational courses and the continuous learning. We have some organizations that need very specific cadences of the classes to make that work around their everyday work that they do together, and also it can take quite a bit of time for them to embrace all five pillars, because we certainly don’t ask that they hit the ground running and embrace all five right away. And I think the more important part is to think about what’s the timeline for change inside of an organization? And really that’s that, to me, is the key to all of it. It’s it’s not enough to say a CEO or a director wants to change the culture of an organization. It really will depend on the actions of the employees. Sometimes it takes a little while to create those environments Misty touched on pillars like trust, that doesn’t get built overnight, right? So it is, it is a very long term project, and again, we’re embedding it with their everyday work. So we want them to do it at a pace that feels very doable for them, yet challenging enough that it creates change Misty.
Adam Salgat 21:10
I want to jump in here and talk a little bit about continuing around the idea of everyone is accountable, and how that matters to make that change. Well,
Misty Janks 21:18
we know the only way to long term sustainability is to ensure that we have those accountability structures really built into the program. So Mickey and her team does an amazing job of, okay, look what. Let’s look at what is the organization already doing. And then how can we even add even more pieces in to really cement and integrate those skills or those practices into the organization. So those accountability structures are key.
Adam Salgat 21:50
I love that you mentioned Mickey and her team in there, because I want to bring up a quote that was shared with me from Bev Thiel, who is Habitat for Humanity, and Kent County’s Executive Director, and I think this is one of the best features of our program, is the continued support and that we truly are. You know, walking with them along this journey. Here’s Bev’s quote,
Bev Thiel 22:12
having the Chapman foundation as advocate for really being a caring workplace has been helpful, because they provide the conduit for seamless implementation. And so you can have the best ideas in the world, but the products and the templates and the support, I have never met a more cheery group of people who believe in you, and that belief helps you when you’re trying to implement something in an organization. So really, the Chapman Foundation has been super supportive as a caring workplace and providing all the templates, all the information we need to easily take what is a concept and a strategy and implement it into the organization. And so our teams are able to now take this information and put it in a staff meeting, put it in a daily conversation, and without the Chapman’s foundation really the work that we’re doing as a caring workplace, we wouldn’t be able to be as successful.
Adam Salgat 23:10
In the end, this is not us just tossing an ebook as an attachment in an email and sending the message, here’s your workbook. Good luck. It’s not that kind of program, right? Mickey, so can you touch on the support that we provide on a weekly, monthly basis? Yeah,
Micki Gibbs 23:26
absolutely. We we start, really from the very beginning, meeting with the partners that are interested, or maybe even have applied and are going to start that journey with us. And again, as I said before Adam, we don’t want it to be a burden on them, so we’re generally meeting with them about once a month to assess the pillars that they want to start with the programming cadence that they’re going to have. We want to make sure that we’re meshing it with their values and embedding it in their everyday work. And then we do come up with a joint investment strategy between the organization and the Chapman Foundation. And I think you know, Bev said it very, very well. Our goal is to make sure that the skills and the conversation become part of your everyday work, so that you’re sort of making it habit inside your organization. Me and my team, we’re very focused on not only having those conversations at the whole organization level, but we also want it to impact every single individual that’s part of the organization, if they’re not impacted by the content, they’re not going to be part of that change.
Adam Salgat 24:26
That’s such a great reminder. Yeah, it really and it comes down to, as we just touched on a little bit ago. It comes down to individuals making that culture shift. You know, being a part of that culture shift, it’s a great win. Comes from the top down, but it’s not going to shift if everybody’s not working together, right? Misty, I want to give you the opportunity to go over our foundational courses again. I know the names have been mentioned, but I’d like to get a little more detail. In case someone has only taken listens with us, tell them a little bit more about everything. But let’s start with listen. And because obviously they build on each other.
Misty Janks 25:02
Yes, our three foundational courses of our community listens, our community serves and our community transforms, follow an impact framework from positive psychology called me, we and us. So listens is all focused on the me component. How do I build better relationships. How do I improve my communication with those in my span of care so we can have a better relationship? So the listens class is all about communication skills. We talk about our behavioral tendencies, some strategies to be able to communicate better with individuals, we talk a lot about listening and empathy and acceptance versus agreement, and then we cap that experience off with effective confrontation. So how can we have difficult conversations about things that really matter to us and preserve that relationship?
Adam Salgat 25:58
Really love hearing you talk about listens, because everything that you mentioned in there, in my time, I’ve spoken with so many people who have been through listens, and I just I hear all these stories of impact, whether it’s a conversation they had at work, we have a story coming out in the next few months of a lady who wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue her job, but she decided to use the confrontation model and talk to her boss, and she said, things have gotten so much better. So I’m looking forward to people to hear that story. I just I hear all these comments in my head of like the impact that this, this has made, and many of them, sometimes outside of the workplace. So we know that matters. Misty, tell me about our foundational course, our community serves.
Misty Janks 26:44
Our community serves focuses on the we component of that, me, we and us impact model. And this course is all about taking our leadership behaviors from me centric to we centric, and building those cultures inside of our organizations, this is a two day experience where first we get to examine our mindsets that help us with service, and then what are actual service behaviors?
Adam Salgat 27:13
I know I took serves last year, and one of the exercises in there is to re, kind of relive an interaction you’ve had, maybe with a loved one, or could be with a co worker, whomever. And I tell you what, man, that’s very eye opening when you start thinking about looking at it through other people’s lens. So it was a great experience. It’s something I am continuing to try to incorporate into my life. What about our community transforms?
Misty Janks 27:38
Our community transforms is the US component, well, listens and serves. Really is looking at the individual, and what can we do individually? Our community transforms takes it from the organizational lens, and we look at it through for organizational development. What are the skills that can help and support all of those individual behaviors that we want to see from our team members, but then connect us to those five pillars of caring leadership. So really, how do we understand meaning and purpose, and how do we connect the individual work to the bigger work of the organization, and then we talk about trust and psychological safety, a change management structure that can help with the integration of skills.
Adam Salgat 28:35
Sounds like there’s a great opportunity here for people to work on themselves, work on their entire teams together and that we and then the opportunity to really think about what does that look like as us, right? So we’re getting back to that concept of community, but before I kind of go there, Mickey, I want to touch back with you about working with these organizations in the caring workplace realm. These are three foundational courses, but we also have lots of continued learning support, right? Or other half day disc for example, or other options from Can you touch on some of those? A little bit? Yeah,
Micki Gibbs 29:12
continuous learning is really, in my opinion, one of the critical parts. People often think about the foundational courses as the critical programming pieces, but if we don’t have continuous learning, what will happen is people can go through the class learn the skills. They walk away from the class very inspired, but it’s sometimes it’s a little bit hard at the end of a three day class or a two day class to know that you’re going to go out and you’re going to try those new skills and perfect them right out of the gate, because that’s really unlikely. That’s that’s that’s true for most of us, when we learn something new. Misty talked about that first pillar being the culture of learning. And part of culture of learning is saying we’re not only going to have the opportunity to learn new skills, but we’re going to have the opportunity to think about how we’ve practiced those and give ourselves the chance to get better. And that’s really what continuous learning does. We structure those. Continuous learning sessions very specific to the pillars that the organizations are working on, and also to maybe some things that they just particularly know for their organization need just a little bit of extra focus. Those continuous learning sessions are chances for us to engage more together with participants and understand what did practice look like for you? What did you do well, and where did you fall a little bit? And then, how do we help you get better and understand the roadblocks that maybe got in the way or ways that you used to communicate before that you’re really trying to unlearn. I
Adam Salgat 30:32
want to take the opportunity to let alumni know, even if your organization right now is not in our caring workplace program, continued learning sessions, as Mickey just pointed out, are very important. And there are many, many that you as an individual can get involved in. We have roundtables each month. There’s on demand sessions, email threads, so many opportunities this podcast, if you’re listening to it now, we often do skill refreshers. So those are opportunities our YouTube Channel to, you know, pick up some skill snippets. There’s many, many opportunities to continue to get these skills back into, back into your life. And I also want to mention, if these foundational courses, if some of these are new for you, hearing about serves or transforms, we have upcoming classes on those available as well. There’s links in the description of this podcast,
Adam Salgat 31:29
ladies, as we wrap up our discussion today, as always, I like to do a key takeaway for our audience. Mickey, why don’t you go first with our key takeaway?
Micki Gibbs 31:38
I think what’s important for folks to remember is that the caring workplace program, as we engage with organizations, I would say there’s not a single organization out there that says we don’t want to care. Most places know they want to care about their employees. They just don’t know how to do it, and that’s what our role is, to teach you very slowly and very strategically how to do it, because we know what we want is for people to wake up in the morning and not feel like they have to get up and ramp up, because they know by the end of the day they’re going to feel worse than they felt when they started their work day. We want to flip that and make sure that when folks get ready to close out their work day, they actually feel better than they felt in the morning when they woke up.
Adam Salgat 32:21
That sounds like a wonderful space to be in Misty. Go ahead and touch on your key takeaway.
Misty Janks 32:27
I think for me, the key takeaway here is, no matter what part of community you represent, maybe you’re a community leader or organizational leader, a volunteer, a parent, but every single individual has a part in building a caring community.
Adam Salgat 32:47
So wonderful reminder as well. We are the message, right? I am the message. If anyone has been inspired today to learn more about the caring workplace program and about caring communities, please reach out to us. We have a link in our podcast description where you can fill out an interest form, and I’d like to thank Mickey and misty both for being part of our discussion today.
Misty Janks 33:10
Thank you, Adam. Thanks, Adam.