Marina Martinez-Bateman: Tech Policies To Reduce Toxic Productivity
First, what is toxic productivity? Then, as your teams use technology more often for work, how might your practices be hurting the people who work with you? Finally, what are the better practices and policies? It’s all covered by Marina Martinez-Bateman, at New Coyote Consulting. (This originally aired August 1, 2022.)
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And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. We did promise you Veronica La Finna this week, but I couldn’t record with her because I had a family emergency. So we have one from the archive and we’ll get Veronica on within a month. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of BRAC ignatia if I had to speak the words you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with what’s going on this week? Hey, Tony, this week it’s tech policies to reduce toxic productivity. First. What is toxic productivity? Then as your teams use technology more often for work, how might your practices be hurting the people who work with you? Finally? What are the better practices and policies? It’s all covered by Marina Martinez Bateman at New Coyote consulting. This originally aired August 1st 2022 on Tony’s take two tales from the plane. The civility of deplaning were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org here is tech policies to reduce toxic productivity. It’s all covered by Marina Martinez Bateman at New Coyote consulting. If you start buying shoes instead of food, buying shoes, instead of paying the rent, then you have a real problem, right? And productivity is like that, you know, it’s just like any other thing that we engage in, we can do it so hard that it hurts us toxic productivity is when we will choose work over things that we need, like taking lunch breaks or moving our body or um engaging with family and community things that sort of are essential to our mental and physical health. And then, you know, what happens is as we engage more and more with this toxic level of productivity, our actual real true product or output diminishes and then we see our output diminish, we get really upset about that and then we double down on being more and more productive and, and then our output diminishes because we’re exhausted and we’re not getting filled up in other places and we double down again and it can lead to, you know, you can create uh you know, really unhealthy spaces. You can um you know, make yourself ill, you can hurt yourself, you can get hurt, you know, how many people have fallen asleep while driving um because they’re working too many hours. Um You know, how many times do we make really silly mistakes when we’re exhausted. Um Those things sort of creep in and creep in and then your identity starts to change into being someone who can’t get things right, who isn’t able to perform when that was never a part of your reality, you’re just engaging way too hard in work thinking that that’s the answer to your, your problem when really it’s the cause. And before we go further and toxic productivity, let’s remind folks in case there’s any question, uh You said, you know, it replaces being filled up by other spaces like community, family friends. Let’s remind folks of the, the joys that and, and maybe there’s even research that shows the physiological changes when we’re engaging in things that are not work. Yeah. Yeah. So you get different parts of your brain activated when you’re engaging in hobbies that are different from your work, um your creative life, you know, if you have a creative job um sometimes doing something that’s not so creative or doesn’t require a lot of like big innovative leaps um can be nice like, you know, tidying up or taking a walk or um doing something physical, like hiking or going out into the outdoors, going fishing and camping, et cetera, or even going shopping or going to the movies, like those things when they’re safe. Of course, because it’s still COVID right now um are important to engage in because they activate other spots of your brain and also just your body moves differently on a hike than it does in the office or at a desk it moves. First of all, first of all, it moves your standing desk, even if you attach a treadmill to it or something can never really replicate going outside. Um And then, you know, we’re people even introverted people need other people. We just do, we’re not, um, we cannot exist completely alone. Um We have to be able to engage in the people that we have in our personal bubble. However big that bubble is we have to be able to sort of like activate um that empathetic drive that we all have as humans or that, you know, the vast majority of us do. Um And we, we just have to be in, in concert, you know, how many of us have been at work, especially in the nonprofit sphere and things are sort of looking gloomy and we’re thinking, oh, the world is filled with bad people, everyone’s making terrible choices. This is the worst, you know, and then you go to dinner with a friend and you’re like, wait, the world is wonderful. This is great. Everyone’s making great choices. I bet all these people are just trying to figure it out because that human connection needs to exist for us to be people in the world, which is, you know, why we’re here is to be people. Thank you for that reminder, right. We are, we are communal. We are social, even the most introverted to some degree. Still, as you said, you know, with however, however, however many or few it may be uh uh contact community. All right. All right. So what are nonprofits doing that uh is leading us to toxic productivity? And we’ll, we’ll certainly get to the solutions. But what are we doing to? Uh, I don’t wanna, I certainly don’t want to say, improve it uh to induce it, induce it. Yeah, I mean, part of it is that we have these and these are, it’s great that we all want to end hunger and that we, you know, no one’s being like, oh, but it’s hard when you have 16 people and they’re all making 20 to 50 to 100% less than they could make in the free market trying to end hunger from a small office with broken chairs and a raccoon that won’t leave the trash alone. You know, like we are so severely under-resourced in nonprofit and that’s not our individual fault by any means. It’s the culture and the structures of the culture that we live in. Um where uh poor people are, the people that build this country and their labor is so exploited that they are um kept poor so that the rich can stay rich. Um And then we at the nonprofits and generally those are the people we serve are the poor or people who are missing something from their, their experience or their needs. And uh and we’re under resource too. I mean, it’s a whole, it’s a whole culture, right? It’s a whole structure. It’s a whole system that’s made to make it so that we have these incredibly vast missions and we have a broken pencil and our own gumption to make it happen. And um and it is, you know, we, we as individuals cannot solve that entire problem by ourselves. One, we can’t solve the problem that we’re working on by ourselves. We can’t end hunger alone. Um Even the most vast and well resourced organization would have to work with others in order to make that happen. Um And part of that, so we have this, like we have these vast resources, we are severely under-resourced or we have these vast missions. Yeah, and we’re severely under resourced. And then um what we as organizations do on the, on the organization to organization level is that we compete with one another. We don’t coordinate with our organizations in our same sphere or it’s hard, we find it hard to coordinate. Um We also don’t recognize that we’re under-resourced. Um Frequently we will sort of like, you know, when you get a bunch of nonprofit workers together in a room, we’ll joke about, you know, how we don’t have a chair that works and our computer is 15 years old and all these things. Um But we don’t talk about how that makes the mission harder to do and nor do we talk about how we’re still hitting goalposts. We’re still crossing finish lines. We’re still making things work and where do those resources come from? In general? They come from the individual workers. Um And some of us have vast resources to put to this and some of us don’t. Um But there’s no adjustment, a, there’s no adjustment of expectation based on how much resource we’re individually putting into the, the work to make it cross the finish line. And there’s also no, um it’s seen as an individual failing if we can’t do this impossible work with very little resource in the, in, in, in terms of money, in terms of time, in terms of support, in terms of whatever. We’re all fighting an uphill battle. And um and our organizations frequently lean into that martyrdom and lean into that, you know, while I was working 17 hours yesterday, while I was up at two o’clock in the morning, finishing with this grant while I was, you know, and um and it doesn’t have to be like that. I mean, if we live in a world where we think that our clients deserve education, food, um a healthy ecology to, to Roman community, art, all of these things, you know, medicine and um recovery and all these things that we provide to people. If we think that our clients deserve that, how come we’re not getting that for ourselves? Like how many of us are pushing off things like doctors appointments, how many of us have skipped um significant times in our family members lives because there was some campaign or something that had to go on. And then also how much of that um happens because of expectation. You know, when we start a nonprofit, we’re working with nothing, we work our way up, we become leaders in the, in the sector. And then it doesn’t seem weird to us that the people, the workers that are coming behind us are experiencing the same hardships that we experienced because it’s normal for us to struggle in this way. A lot of what you’re saying is that it’s, it’s culture and, and mindset. So I guess you’d like to change the culture and change the mindset and change the investments. Um So please, let’s uh let’s start talking about what, what we can do differently. I think what we can do differently is it starts with the leadership in nonprofits. People who are lower on the York chart do not have as much power. Although a lot of people, especially right now with the great resignation. Um A lot of people who are lower on the art chart are as asserting their power by leaving um environments that are toxic or don’t work for um what their vision is for the future. I think Gen Z is a great motivator for us to all take a look at how we’ve been working in the past and how it has harmed us and how, if we don’t get right and start cycle breaking, we are going to be perpetuating the same harm that was done to us, which while it’s not fair that we were harmed, it’s also not fair to, to sort of slough that off onto others. Um, but in the leadership of the nonprofits, we have to stop thinking that because it happened to us, it’s ok for it to happen to other workers, especially younger workers coming sort of, you know, rite of passage, you pay your dues and then you’ll, then you’ll emerge a better leader in the, in the sector. You know, that’s, that’s silly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And punishing to be, you don’t have to be punished to be successful. Exactly. Can we be like, can we be the nonprofit executives and CEO S that we needed when we were younger and that we didn’t get, can we do the things that, that would have helped us to heal or would have helped us to be safe or be properly resourced or succeed even if that’s not something that we experienced when we were younger in career? All right. Um Do you have specific, like, uh are there specific things that leaders can, can encourage? Like, you must take time off or something? You know, I, I don’t want to see anybody not using their vacation time. And you know, the these folks who say, hey, I haven’t had a vacation in four years. I’m so proud of myself and I’m thinking, like, don’t blame me. That’s your own fault. Yeah, if it’s been that long, it’s your own fault for not taking it, you know. So what, what, what can leaders do, you know, specifically to avoid this? The, the, the toxic productivity is? Yeah, that, that sort of thing where it’s like, well, it’s not my fault that Sharon hasn’t taken a vacation in seven years saying that is, is a thing we can put to bed. And we can say actually, if I’m in charge of this organization and of course, we work together with our boards and advisory councils, sometimes with governmental agencies, whoever we’re helping to steward this change with. Um but if I am the CEO here, I am the executive here, then if someone hasn’t taken a vacation in four years, that’s, that’s on me. Um This is the, this is the container I’m building for workers. Um I see my view my duties as a CEO very explicitly to keep the people in my, you know, in my organization safe. That’s one of the things that, that I have, you know, task been tasked with is to keep people safe. Um If I can tell people what kind of work we’re doing and where we’re going and what our goals are, then I have to take responsibility for their safety during that journey because I’m the one taking them that, that place. I’m the one on that journey with them. Um And so asking, you know, why is it, why is it that Sharon feels like she can’t take a vacation? Um Is there something going on internally that is making that happen? Does she not have anyone who’s trained on the thing that she does? Does she, um, has she not gotten a, a performance review in four years? And she, so she doesn’t feel like she can take a vacation because she doesn’t even know how well she’s doing her job. You know, there’s just a bunch of little things that we can look at and it takes time which most of us don’t have. And I advise leaders to look at our plate and find out where we’re being performative productive. How many of the things do we do every day? That looks like we’re doing something. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t actually cons it doesn’t actually contribute to the mission. We can spend three hours on something. And um, and not only are no more Children fed, they’re not going to be on that labor that we just did, but it looks really good. It looks like we’re doing a lot. How can we cut that out and then focus on, let’s get somebody cross trained on Sharon’s job so that she can finally take a vacation. Let’s let’s make this a safe space for our workers to make healthy decisions. And the truth is that because a lot of our sector has for so long leaned into this under resourcing of workers. There becomes a pathology around being under resource. There becomes a sort of like um system wide martyrdom. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money but also supports you in retaining your donors, a partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location. So you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers. Just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability, your organization needs, helping you help others visit Donor box.org to learn more. Now back to tech policies to reduce toxic productivity. There’s something called a brotherhood of suffering. Exactly. It’s, it’s, I’ve read about it in prison populations where I mean, the phrase says it, the brotherhood, sisterhood. Um They would of suffering the uh the, the shared experience among all folks of being in something that’s, you know, ritualistic, punishing suffering, difficult. And then, and it ends up being a source of almost pride that we’re, we’re suffering this way together. I’m sure you want to turn that on its head and, and disabuse us of that. It’s, and it’s hard, it’s entrenched, there are people for whom for whatever reason. And then this does become an individual problem once you’ve done all of the systematic things around alleviating that suffering around creating um you know, the concept of abundance, even as we’re in these systems where we’re under-resourced. And part of that is acknowledging how we’re under-resourced and, and, and speaking its name out loud, um which is capitalism and racism and colonialism. Um Once we sort of do that in our organizations, there are still going to be people for whom it is necessary, they need that they feel for whatever reason that, that this is what they have to do, this is how they have to work. Um And, and in general, what I find um in the times when I’ve managed to create this package, which is really hard to do, well, we have all these other external forces sort of like working for us to have this hero complex to keep in the savior mindset. Um When I’ve been able to make this abundance package with the sort of container where we can all work in abundance towards our common goals. There are a couple of people who will leave and sometimes it’s messy, sometimes it’s not thankfully, but sometimes it is messy. Um But it’s because they need to be in an environment that feels like home to them and that toxicity is going to feel like home until they make the choice to step out of it. And, and recognize that this is this is a choice that, that they’ve made. There’s systemic issues at hand and then there’s individual issues at hand and we as CEO S can do a lot to solve the systemic issues and also we can never make someone heal themselves. Yeah. What’s some of that uh performative work that you uh that you mentioned just if you could tick off two or three things that are performative but lacking in value and, and, and benefit. Um Staying in the office on a day when there’s no reason to, you know, if, uh something like something tragic frequently happens, if there’s something terribly tragic in our community requiring, you’re requiring everyone to keep their butts in their seats is just ridiculous. No one’s working, that’s not gonna happen. Um, even sort of staying in the office when there are things going on that are, are wonderful. Um, for example, uh, if it’s, you know, if we are living in a beach town and it’s a great surf day and we are a surf, you know, protect the surf nonprofit, everybody goes surf, like, come on, this is our whole thing. Like, it doesn’t make any sense if we are. Um, say we’re, uh, you know, very into free media and we have a free media conference in town. Nobody should be expected to come to work. We should get tickets to the free media conference and we should go to that. Um, you know, there are a lot of things I think, um, you know, if we’re a big sports town and our team is winning. Nobody’s going to pay attention to work and there’s no reason to be here. All of these things, you know, they’re all individual to the nonprofit. Then there’s also things like, you know, some of us and I’m one of these people, I admit it love to see a meeting room packed with people. We love it. But half those people do, they need to be there. Do they really, does this really important to, to the running of the nonprofit that, that, you know, so many people are there for an hour doing nothing and, or, you know, getting information that could have been in an email or, you know, et cetera. Um, yeah, I think there’s, uh, some people have gone into the, um, oh, I can’t remember what they call it but they do 15 minutes stand ups every morning and they’re never 15 minutes long. They always run over the morning huddle. I mean, if the morning huddle makes you guys productive and it helps your, your nonprofit do the thing you, you’re put here to do. Great. But a lot of times these huddles are just performative and it’s awful and everyone’s so tired because it’s the first thing in the morning and there’s no reason for them. Um, I think also there’s a lot of like email checking that happens throughout the day for me is one of the ways that I am performative, productive and, and my uh my only employee is remote. We are all remote here. So no one’s watching me. No one can see me in here. But I will sit here and check email because I want to quote unquote, feel productive. And so then I spent 2.5 hours moving emails around the digital space doing nothing and I leave and then I leave, you know, I have to go to lunch or it’s the end of the day or something and I didn’t need to be there and do that. There was, there was no reason its time for Tonys take two. Thank you, Kate. Uh starting a new series because I’ve been traveling a lot. So starting the Tales from the plane series and uh starting optimistic and positive deplaning the deplaning process which I, I don’t know why they just don’t call it. You’re leaving the plane. They gotta have a word for plane deplaning, but it’s just done so civilly. Everybody is so friendly as they’re getting off the plane. Uh People wait for each other. Very thoughtful. They let, they let uh the all the rows, you know, go just in line orderly before them. You know, we’re, we’re not, it could be imagine the worst of humanity. It could be just everybody rushing, pushing, tripping over each other’s bags, tripping over people who are, who are smaller or weaker, you know, just stampeding. It could be that but it’s not, it never is. It’s nowhere near that. It’s all very civil and thoughtful. Um, when bags are, when, when somebody stuck with their bag, you know, a few rows back, they point to it and people offer to get the bag and then it gets passed up to the person and we all wait until that person leaves and then we take our turn. I just think it’s so admirable, you know, uh, it, in the current, you know, in the, during the presidential campaign, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got a mega hat on or a Harris walls. T-shirt. People are all very thoughtful civil as we’re getting off the plane and it’s admirable. We help each other people offer. Can I get that bag for you? A man? Would you like some help, sir? You know, you look a little, you know, not, you don’t say you look a little short but you know, short gentlemen, would you like help? Can I help you? It’s all very polite, civil, thoughtful humane. I admire it and I think it, I don’t know if it has promise for a bigger lesson for all of us. Uh I mean, we can be civil. That’s clear. Uh but I’m not getting carried away. I just, I admire the civility of our deplaning process in the process. Why is it, why does it have to be a process or when they’re boarding? It’s the boarding process? Why are we starting a process? We’re just getting on the plane to me. Uh, a process is, you know, cooking dinner or putting out a fire. Um, you know, those are, those are processes. Digestion. Digestion is a process. But getting on a plane we’re just, we’re just boarding, we just start the boarding, start the boarding, boarding period. I don’t know why there has to be a boarding process. But anyway, that was a little, that’s a little sidebar. The point is the civility of the deplaning period. The deplaning, I admire it. Thank you. Thank you, everyone for being all so civil to each other. And that is Tonys take two. Ok. I wish ann track was more civil. I mean, I’ve never been on a plane but I’ve been on a train and it’s not very, uh, welcoming. You mean getting on or getting off, I think both for both. Yeah, I mean, I started, I used to take coach, you know, free for all. You find a seat, you sit down kind of thing. But then I could never find seats where people were just like putting their bags on like the second seat, you know, and saying like, oh, someone’s sitting here and then so I started like getting um, business class. So I actually had an assigned seat because people just weren’t, they weren’t thoughtful. Yeah. No, that is true on Amtrak you have to say, you know, excuse me? Uh, I mean, and then if they say somebody’s sitting there, I mean, I’m taking them at their word. I don’t need, I don’t need to see the person’s ID or anything but, but uh you do have to be a little assertive and say, excuse me, you know, like to sit down. Alright. Anyway, we’ve got just about a butt load more time. Here’s the rest of tech policies to reduce toxic productivity with Marina Martinez Bateman. Is there more that, that we can um ask of our, of our leaders, you um not that you haven’t given uh given, given a lot of uh uh uh a lot of advice but uh is is there any more that, that we can expect from our leaders to help us make the right choices? Yeah. And part of that is so we are in a unique space as leaders where we are suffering from the exact same ailments that our people are suffering from and we are suffering from the exact same structures of oppression that our people are something. I mean, not the exact same ones, but we’re here, we’re in it, right? So all of that um you know, all the systems that are set up to make it so that personal health and art and the environment and food and how like um communities and all these other things that we fight for, right? In the nonprofit sector, all these things are devalued. We’re, we’re in the same boat. Um And also we do have power within the walls of our our organization, sometimes it’s limited, sometimes there’s other factors at play, but we have more power than anyone else in the building almost. Um, with very few exceptions. And so part of it is that we have to make certain sacrifices as leaders, which I think all of us know, but those sacrifices are probably not going to be the ones, the ones I recommend are not going to be the ones that we expect. So, um we need to protect our own time. We need to be seen eating lunch, we need to be seen taking time to move our bodies. Um A lot of the things that we do as leaders are are um the second we get to work, the second we log on whenever our day starts, we are being seen by everyone at the organization, even if it’s a small organization, even if it’s a remote organization, we don’t realize how visible we are. Um And so when we model these behaviors for people taking vacation, telling people about how wonderful and restorative the vacation was reassuring people um that it’s ok to take vacation for themselves, leaning into abundance even though we know what the budget is and we know scarcity very intimately um making those choices um that are, that are on mission, um that are values driven because that’s what we’re called to do. Um And then having to make tough calls uh as a leader is, it’s why we’re here. It’s why we got put in this seat. Um It’s why we sought the seat we wanted this position most of us. And um and so it’s time to sort of like what we sacrifice when we have this uh out. Like when we are modeling this good behavior is we sacrifice any delusions that we might have had towards the productivity nature of, of, you know, performative productivity, right? So those big meetings that have a ton of people in them that are really kind of just ego strokes for us, we can get rid of those. That’s a sacrifice that, that is a good sacrifice to make. Um a lot of times we do things like we have those big meetings because we’re not feeling very productive, but we want to see everybody’s face, you know, working. Um And really what we needed to do is take lunch and start taking lunch probably three months, three or four months ago, or years ago or 10 or 1520 years ago. Um And then we would feel productive and filled up and we would need a big meeting of 15 people that doesn’t do anything. Um So, so modeling the behavior ourselves is very, very important and um and specifically in a way that is seen, um it can be very hard because as leaders, we want to say, well, I’m gonna take, I’m modeling the behavior I’m gonna take off early, I’m gonna go home and um that is valid. And if we need to do that, we should do that. And also say, ok, everybody, we’re going home early this day is just whatever happened this day is in the pits, let’s go home early. If we can, of course, some of us can’t do that because we have certain service obligations. Um, but we can do things like look around the room, take the temperature of the room and say, all right, everybody, we’re getting, you know, pizzas delivered or whatever. Uh We’re just gonna sit down and hang out together and blow off some steam. I can feel it. We just, we’re not doing productive work right now. You know, be thoughtful, be intentional um about creating uh about the culture you’re creating and that culture starts with leadership, whether whether you might be the CEO or you might be a mid-level leader, you might be uh uh lower on the org chart, a lower level leader, but you’re still leading two or three people, right? I mean, it applies. This is not only for the CEO, you’re a CEO, but this is not only for CEO S. Yeah, the people like your choices are going to be dependent on what’s up with the people and focus them and then model the behavior that you because you know that a lot of us don’t realize how seen we are in our organizations. We’re very, very visible if we’re in a leadership position. Yeah, you made the point, you know, even even in a virtual organization like yours virtual company. Um Well, uh so flush that out. Well, how, how do you feel like folks know when you start logging in when you’re reading email, et cetera? How is that seen? How is it seen? How am I checking in? You know, if we have a digital chat platform? How am I checking in? Am I showing up? Am I saying? Hey, I’m here. Am I asking questions? Um Am I, you know, am I asking for feedback? You know, am I, am I visible enough for you? Am I you know, am I bugging you too much like um and listening to people and trusting people when they tell you what’s going on with them. Um and also trying to remember it’s very hard, it can be very hard with everything going on that you have to do as a leader. But when someone says, hey, I’m gonna be out for the afternoon, put it in your own calendar and make sure that you don’t reach out to them during that time. Yeah. Right. Those, those uh slacks or texts or emails, whatever it is that start sorry to bother you on your day off. But, but of course, the universal and the gator cancels everything before it, but I need, you know, blah, blah. Exactly. And that, you know, so much of that it could just wait until the day off is over. So the week off is it? You know, and, and, and you, you said earlier, you know, cross training so that people feel they can take time. And so the organization doesn’t suffer when they do. Exactly. If so, and so doesn’t have the thing. I’ve cross trained this other person which, of course, you know, i, it’s easy for me to sit here in my office and say cross training when a person listening is looking at me like what with what resources with what people? But that’s where the sacrifices come in. You have to say, OK, well, this vanity project of mine doesn’t happen because cross training is happening instead or this. And somebody bristled when I said Vanity Project, I know it. But we all have them, they exist. We’ve got to accept that, that they exist. So instead of the thing I want, we do cross training because that’s, that’s, and eventually I’ll get the thing I want probably, especially if it’s mission aligned and it makes sense. But we have to prioritize workers needs and comfort because we have a lot of options here. The people that we employ, have less options than us have fewer options than us. And so we need to, to, to honor that. What about some uh questions that you got questions or comments you got uh in your session? Uh What uh what do you, what do you, what, what stuck out for you? I always get this question in all, every time I teach his training, I get this question and it’s some version of the, you know, my coworker, my direct report, my boss, my board member is very into toxic productivity. They’re very into this. They’re, they’re the ones that are always, you know, I was answering emails from the hospital when I was in labor with my second daughter or, you know, all of this stuff. Um, it’s very badge of honor. You know, we wear these sort of like wounds like medals and nonprofit. Um, that’s the, the person who would have suffered. I said the person who of suffering it is a bad, they do become a badge of honor. I’m, I’m always the last person to leave the office. Yes. Yes, exactly. And, uh, and, and, and this person is that their, their toxic productivity is harming people. They’re pushing, uh, the culture, you know, more and more to work more and more. Um, they have unrealistic expectations of people that work nearer with them, et cetera, et cetera. It’s harmful. And what I always tell people is, you know, you can do this. Uh, first of all, your proximity to this person is not a coincidence. At some point, you guys probably saw eye to eye on this or we’re working together in tandem to create something that really worked for you. Um, you know, I look back on my nonprofit career and one of the, my best times, one of my favorite times in my career was on as deeply into toxic productivity. And so was everyone else around me and it was wonderful because we were all on the same page. We felt like such a good team. We were so unified in the way we thought about things and the way we thought about things was deeply unhealthy. Um But uh I tell them, you know, you can tell this person, especially if you really care about them outside of work. Um You can say, I think we’re in a toxic relationship. I think we are operating in a way that is making each other less healthy, that’s not, not helping us thrive. I want to try and heal from this. I think that healing is gonna bring about a really incredibly positive change, not only for me, but for the work that we’re doing here, will you, will you heal with me? Will you come in this on this journey with me? And you can ask them with sincerity and the truth is that you can’t do anything else other than that, just ask them. And if they say no, you can’t keep asking them. You have to, you have to respect that and everyone has the has, has their own path, you know, and not everyone is going to heal at the rate that you are going to heal at, not everyone is going to heal the way you think you should or they should. Um Some people just have other journeys. And so if you are that person’s boss, you can make decisions about. Ok, well, we’re going in a different direction. We need competencies around healthy productivity. You don’t have the competencies around healthy productivity that we need. Therefore, we’re no longer a good fit and that hurts. It’s hard to say those things. But if I had, you know, if I said, you know, we’re gonna go, uh we’re gonna move towards gap accounting everyone. You know, we’ve got to do things, uh best practices, ways and, and not have, you know, our accounting all Willy nilly and our accountant at the time was like, nope, I do my accounting on post its and I will never not do that. You can’t make me change, then we would have to get a new accountant, wouldn’t we? So it’s the same thing when we’re trying to create this healthier productivity. If someone doesn’t want to learn or become competent in this, in this new work way, we can’t keep them on just because we like them or because of what they did in the past that was helpful. Um We can honor them and say that, that, you know, thank you very much and we can also release them to continue on their own journey. Whatever that is. What have we not talked about that? Uh You want to um, good question. Uh And I do my best to uh channel our listeners, but you’ve been thinking about this for a long time and I’m just coming to it. So maybe the, the stuff that we, I haven’t raised. Yeah, let’s talk about perfectionism. Perfectionism is, is a, we know for a fact we know that perfectionism is a, is a um feature of white supremacy. Perfectionism is um pervasive and insidious in our culture as a whole, but also in nonprofit culture. And so when we are practicing uh healthy productivity, when we’re trying to learn how to do things differently, the fact that we’re doing things in a way that we haven’t done them before means that we’re not gonna be as good, effortlessly good at them. Um As we were before, even if we were doing something that ultimately harmed ourselves and our organization and our mission, we were really good at it for a long time. We had a high level of proficiency. So when you sort of like decide to go home at five o’clock and uh walk around the block and then take a bubble bath or whatever, that’s not gonna feel super good because you’re not gonna be super good at it. Um I can’t tell you how many times I used to buy coloring books because I was like, I need to be less, you know, work centric and I need to do creative things. I miss being creative. And so I would buy those adult coloring books and I would hurt my fingers from coloring. So hard because it had to be perfect. Um, and then I would think, ok. No, I can’t do this. It’s too, it’s too physical. This coloring is too physical. I’ll go get in a bath. That’ll relax me and I’ll, I would sit in this bath just, uh, tense because I’m supposed to be relaxing and I’m, and I’m not doing damn bath over yet. Right. Exactly. That’s not working either. Right. And, but it’s not working because you’re not familiar with it. It’s hard. The first time you did anything, it was just kind of a little bit difficult and a little bit unwieldy and overwhelming. And, you know, for those of us who have been neglecting our other, the other parts of our lives for however long because of work, it is daunting to go into a place we feel very new at, especially when we’ve been in a place where we feel extremely, um, you know, experienced and comfortable. Exactly. Yeah. So, the, the perfectionism of like, if you are going to engage with your community and if you are going to engage your creativity and you’re going to go on a hike and you’re going to, you know, reclaim the other part of your life that isn’t at work, be willing to do it badly because it’s that important. You have to be able to do it badly because you have to get through that sort of like new unwieldy part. Um, and it’s ok to say, like I’m really new at this, I’m only going to hike for 15 minutes or I’m only going to sit at the trailhead and look at the hiking place and then I’m gonna go get back in my car and go home there. There’s no level of engaging with your non work life that is not gonna be beneficial. There’s no, it’s not like you have to hike to the top of the mountain. I mean, this is part of the toxic productivity that’s been, you know, making this, this bad scene this whole time, right? Is that we feel like we have to, um, do everything the best the most, regardless of what else is going on. You’re not gonna, you’re not gonna start your physical fitness journey with AAA Triathlon. You know, you’re gonna run around the block and in a week you’ll be able to run around the block twice or maybe just walk to the end of the block, pardon me? Or maybe just walk to the end of the block or whatever it is. Yeah. However, you start, right. But, but starting and, and you’re saying, you know, you’re eee embrace the discomfort because it’ll become comfortable and you’ll get better at it. You know, you’re in a pattern now where you’re, uh, you know, you’re like you said, highly efficient, uh you know, highly efficient at toxic behaviors. You’re really good at this and you can be really good at something else too. I mean, I remember, uh there was an interview with Terry Crews who’s an actor and he’s very muscly. And um people always ask him, how do you get so buff? Like you’re always, and he said, look, the gym is my happy place. And so I can’t tell you a person who doesn’t really like the gym how to get like me. I look like this because I hang out at the gym all the time. It’s my favorite place. But he also says, you know, go take a, if you really like something, take it to the gym with you. So if you really like romance novels or mysteries or something, go and go and take your mystery novel to the gym and just sit there, read your mystery novel and then go home and then, you know, you don’t have to pick up a weight, you don’t have to do a single thing. Just hang out there because it’s for a lot of people like the weight room at the gym even especially is like a very new place. It’s pretty foreign. There’s a lot of traditions, there’s rules, you don’t really know what they are. Um, so ali acclimatizing yourself to a new place, you know? Interesting. Yeah. All right. All right. Leave us with, uh, with something inspirational. Please. Marina, there’s been a lot of inspiration. Sum it up, sum up 40 minutes as best you can. Well, when we think about how much we as nonprofit workers on an individual level, on an organizational level and on a sector wide level have been able to achieve and, and move the needle on with. So with how little we’re given, if we made sure that we ourselves were properly resourced, in order to do this transformative work, imagine how much more could be accomplished by people who are showing up fully in their power to this mission work. I mean, it’s incredible. And then also the thing I like to remind everyone in my training is that this is generational work. I have generations of people behind me, you know, relatives and ancestors who have done their own mission work. And I will have generations of people in front of me doing the mission work that they’re called to do. And all I have to do is show up for my part, my link in that chain. Marina Martinez Bateman, Ceo, New Coyote consulting. Oh, I have to ask, why is it New Coyote consulting? What is that? It’s New Coyote because I wanted a name that spoke to my ancestry, which is Mesoamerican and uh and which spoke to my sort of like presence and the way I show up. And uh the Aztec, there’s an Aztec God, uh Weiwei Coyote, which means very old coyote. And um I thought he’s um frequently gendered as a, as a male, but very also frequently gendered as non-binary or female. So I’m non-binary. It felt very like I felt a lot of kinship with, with that. And then, um, old, very old coyote is a storyteller and he teaches through storytelling. So that felt very appropriate to me as well. You know, he’s not didactic, he’s not teaching humans lessons or if he is ever teaching humans lessons, it’s in this very jokey sort of way. Um, he brings people along with him on journeys rather than sort of like telling them to go places. Um And I uh I also feel like in the context that I’m in, which is a very white context and a very colonizer context. Frequently, a lot of people will call my work new. They’ll say that the things I’m doing are new, these new ideas, they’re new concepts. And for me, they’re not new, they’re very, very old. Um But also new coyote is a transformer. He’s a trickster. So he, he becomes the thing that you need in the moment. And I thought, well, then we’re a new coyote. We’re not a very old coyote. We’re a, we’re a brand new one. So that’s why I named us New Coyote. Lots of levels. Yeah. Again, Marina Martinez Bateman Ceo at New Coyote consulting. Marina. Thank you very much. You’re welcome. Thank you so much for having me on. You’re welcome too. Next week, Tony will pick one from the archive. It won’t be the fermentation show with Sandor Kraut. If you missed any part of this weeks show I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising for your nonprofit donor. Box.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martinetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guide and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.
