Jonathan Poullard:
They’re talking about the physiological way that we hold trauma. So it’s, it’s embedded in us. Then I have an emotional response to it. Then I have a thought to it and then I speak and all that happens in less than two seconds. Right. So you know, how careful I, and how good I have to be in my own leadership journey to know what is going on for me emotionally physiologically in the moment, right. Moderate that, and then respond

Keith Edwards:
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs NOW. I’m your host, Keith Edwards today. We’re talking about apologies. We all mess up how we take responsibility, apologize and try and do better. Is one of the key things that separates leaders and humans. I’m joined today by folks who have thought about and practiced this in many ways. And I’m so excited to learn from each of you. Student affairs now is the premier podcast and online learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs, we release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browse our archives at studentaffairsnow.com. This episode is sponsored by LeaderShape, go to leadershape.org, to learn how they can work with you to create a just caring and thriving world. Today’s episode is also sponsored by Simplicity. A true partner, Simplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Keith Edwards, my pronouns are he him, his and I’m a speaker consultant and coach. You can find out more about me at keithedwards.com and I’m broadcasting for Minneapolis, Minnesota at the intersections of the ancestral homelands of the Dakota and the Ojibwe peoples. Let’s get to our conversation. I’m so grateful to have each of you with us today. We’re going to begin with some introductions and I think we’re Jonathan, you’re going to go ahead and kick us off.

Jonathan Poullard:
Hi, this is Jonathan Poullard. I am the president of the equity consulting group incorporated which I’ve been the president of since 2016. Prior to that, I worked in higher education for 27 years with my last role being at UC Berkeley as the associate vice chancellor and Dean of Students.

Keith Edwards:
Glad to have you here, Jonathan, we’re excited to learn from you. Carrie, tell us a little bit about you.

Carrie Landrum:
Thanks Keith. I’m Carrie Landrum. I am a professional space holder and facilitator and conflict resolution professional at the University of Michigan. I’ve been facilitating restorative practices there for about 12 years and more recently have been doing that for cases of sexual and gender based misconduct.

Keith Edwards:
All right. Thanks for being here, Carrie and Craig, tell us a little bit about tell us a little bit about you.

Craig Elliott:
Excellent. good to see you all. My name’s Craig Elliot pronouns, he, him and his coming to you from Butte, Montana, and the currently serving as vice chancellor for student affairs at Montana Technological University and am also a parent of some elder teenagers. So a lot of my stories about apologies will come from that space.

Keith Edwards:
Yes. Sounded like it was hard, hard to say that elder teenagers.

Craig Elliott:
Yeah. Right. You used to it actually 20 and 17. and I don’t know how any of that happens.

Craig Elliott:
Time doesn’t lie. But yes, I have late teens,

Keith Edwards:
So. Excellent. Yes. Well, I’m so glad you’re bringing this up. I think a lot of what I have learned about apologies is what I have overheard myself teaching very young children and then hearing myself and going. That was good. What if we all did that? What if I did that? That would be so great. So practicing what we preach, I think would, would be great. Thanks to each of you for being here, Carrie, as you mentioned, you’ve done lots and lots of work in restorative justice where responsibility and healing harm and restoring wholeness is really a center part of that process. I’d love for you to start us off telling us a little bit about what we can learn about the role of apologies and how to do good ones. Can you kick us off here?

Carrie Landrum:
Yeah. Thanks for framing it that way. The role of apology is really important. I think a lot of people slice and dice their language or it’s a PR move, right? What is the intention of an apology? An apology ought to be reparative it should have the intention of repairing harm, not just to make a statement or make some PR situation go away. In my opinion, there’s three basic key points of an apology. One is basic acknowledgement, right? so can you acknowledge what happened your role in it? Can you acknowledge the harm you, you caused? Is there a clear indication that you know, what the transgression or the harm was? So like, if you’re just saying, oh, I’m sorry, but you don’t actually know what you’re apologizing for. That’s not helpful in actually repairing harm cause you usually cause harm again. So there has to be some kind of acknowledgement with the demonstration of understanding.

Carrie Landrum:
You understand what the action was that you did that caused harm. You understand the impact of what the harm caused on the other person. And then there’s another piece around acknowledgement. Some people want to go into like justifying what they did or giving more context or explaining it. That’s usually not helpful what it can be helpful to some people I encourage folks sometimes to ask if you would like to know more information about why I said what I said or what I was thinking about the time, let me know. I’d be glad to tell you. And that, you know, sort of motivational interviewing style gives the other person’s permission to say, yeah, I would like to know more or like, no thanks. I’m good because we know if we say like, oh, I didn’t mean it that way, or that was just a joke, you know, we’re trying to explain it.

Carrie Landrum:
We’re justifying it. That is not helpful. And apology, it’s not helpful in repairing . So the other two points after acknowledgement that I think are key in an apology are again the intention of it being repair of making amends. If you’re not saying it with that intention, if you’re not delivering it with the energy of making amends being reparative, then it’s just going to fall flat. People are like, oh, I’m sorry you felt that way. Or you know, I’m sorry we don’t do that here. You know, like we can say, I’m sorry with all sorts of nasty ways. And those don’t have intentions of being so people can smell right through like an insincere apology. I’ve tried to like transmit, apologies between students. And every time I do, even if I feel it was sincere, they’re like, Nope, that wasn’t sincere. That’s not sincere.

Carrie Landrum:
They didn’t mean that. So it has to carry that sincerity and then the third piece that would make a good apology is assurance that it won’t happen again. And this just can’t be say, oh, I promise I won’t do it again. Right. That’s a statement. It’s not an assurance. so how can we assure the other person that we’ve learned from it that we’re going to do things differently? So sharing our, learning, sharing our journey, sharing what we, what we know now that we didn’t know, then you know what we’ll do differently. What we don’t do again, what we won’t do again, these three pieces, I think are key. The acknowledgement, it being REPA, you know, the energy and intention of repairing harm, repairing the relationship. And then how do we prevent it from happening again, kind of like the title IX things like stop the behavior from happening, remedy it affects and prevent it recurrence. It’s kind of like similar those three things.

Keith Edwards:
Oh, say that again. Say that again. I know that’s boiler plate for you, but say that again.

Carrie Landrum:
Stop the behavior from happening, prevent its recurrence. And what I think is also very important, remedy its effects. How do we remedy? How do we make amends? How do we repair restorative justice? It’s about restoring the relationship. How do we repair and restore?

Keith Edwards:
Well, I’m thinking of an example based on what you’re sharing of and I’ll use a childish example. Cause I think it’s helpful. right. The milk spills, right. An acknowledgement would be, I spilled the milk, right. And this is what happened and I did it and that’s not like the milk magically spilled somehow. Right. I spilled the milk. Right. That’s the acknowledgement. And then what you’re not going to do, I’m not going to do that again. And then maybe what you’re going to, what you will do to not do that again. I will use two hands right. To carry the milk the next time. Right. So I’m not going to do it. And here’s the learning about what I am going to do. And going through that I loved what you said at the very beginning about the transgression and the harm. And sometimes those are together and sometimes there’s not some, what happens if there’s harm, but maybe not a transgression, right? Maybe the person didn’t do something wrong or something they, but, but it still harms someone. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Carrie Landrum:
Yeah, sure. That’s where like intention and impact you know, become important. So we may not have done anything wrong per se, from our perspective or for an objective perspective. but harm was caused. So I’ll give an example just the other day, a student wanted to meet with me and they emailed right around five o’clock on a Friday. I didn’t see that until Monday . And I had meetings all Monday morning and the student had emailed, requesting time to meet at 11 and on Monday, well just before 11:00 AM, the student said, Hey, are we still meeting? I didn’t get a zoom link. And they were, you know, frazzled. And they said, I’m confused. So they shared an emotion. So it seemed like there was impact in me not acknowledging their email, that they didn’t know whether we were meeting. I thought, well, gosh, I don’t check my email on the weekends.

Carrie Landrum:
And I didn’t acknowledge your request for 11:00 AM. I didn’t affirm that we were meeting there. So I didn’t feel like I had done anything wrong, but you betcha. I led with an apology. I’m so sorry for the confusion. Actually, I think I said, I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I didn’t like really believe that I contributed to the misunderstanding, but I still recognized there was impact. She was waiting right before 11. She was confused. Are we waiting or not? . And she had already had some negative things happen to her that she was seeking assistance with, so I thought, oh, let me just, you know, try to assuage these feelings, take responsibility where I can, I’m sorry for the confusion. You know, sorry about that. Explain, I don’t check my email on the weekends. And then when we went on

Keith Edwards:
and what did it cost you to make that apology?

Carrie Landrum:
Nothing. Just a few minutes to think through like literally nothing and I didn’t do anything. I was like, why would she ever assume we’re meeting? And I never confirmed,

Keith Edwards:
I think it’s, it is such a wonderful example because what led to the harm was something that I think actually many more student affairs professionals should do, which is not check their email on the weekends and, you know, have some boundaries and right. Yeah. And it’s really great recommend

Carrie Landrum:
That to everybody.

Keith Edwards:
So it’s a great example of not only did you not do anything wrong, not from a place of defensiveness, but this is something that we actually want to encourage more people to practice. And the student was harmed and upset. And I love that you’re noting that there was some other cumulative impact coming in, that it was on top of that. And rather than should I, does the student deserve, am I, do I have to, it was just, this cost me, nothing can repair and, and maybe undo some of the harm, but at least if nothing else is going to make the, the rest of the interaction with the student

Carrie Landrum:
That’s right.

Keith Edwards:
Much, much better.

Craig Elliott:
Go ahead. I’m sorry, go. I was just going to say, you know, I think sometimes it’s it’s, you know, both things being true and I think it’s easy for us to get stuck and our ego have egos get in the way and we frame everything in terms of our own experience. So I didn’t do anything. So why, why are you going to, or that wouldn’t bother me. And rather opening ourselves up to like, yeah, I, I did a good thing. I didn’t check my email on the weekend and, and somebody was upset about it,. And so for us to be able to say, to approach these interactions and apologies to say, it’s not about me admitting guilt , but it’s about me caring for another human being and saying, yeah, I’m hearing that it hurt or upset. And, and I think, you know, this is a, a, a low level kind of, you know, I think later we’ll talk about bigger stuff.

Craig Elliott:
You know, I think about, you know, my relationship with, with my spouse, you know, I’ve been married 25 years, you know, I’m always bumping into stuff and, you know, almost 20 years with kids how many times I’ve set up, you know, I’m sorry for, you know, doing something and doing my best in the moment. Yeah. And then realizing, oh, that didn’t, that wasn’t either the way I wanted to do it, or that didn’t go well. Or, or I see that that had an impact that I didn’t intend. And so it’s really kind of letting my ego get out of the way or doing my homework to get the ego out of the way so that I could hold that somebody was harmed by it hurt or upset, or it had an impact. And, and me going to the park, starting from the places I don’t want to, I don’t want to exist and cause harm to other people. I don’t want to do things.

Jonathan Poullard:
And what I’m also holding though, quite honestly, is with the way that Carrie framed the three levels of apology, there’s an opportunity to revisit this because one of the things that I’m still holding is that there was nothing to apologize for. So if I have an expectation that someone is going to meet with me at 11:00 AM, but I’ve made no commitment to do so. I also bear ownership for that interaction. So at some point we are going to have to want to talk about what that was that made you think Carrie was going to do something that Carrie didn’t even talk about. and hadn’t even read right now. I can still acknowledge. Wow. I’m sorry that you were confused. If you’re willing to hear from me what that was about, then let’s talk about this next piece. Cause what I’m, what I’m missing in this particular example is ownership on the side of that student yeah. For their behavior and what they assumed that got them to a harm right. So I want to decouple what is harm and intent from what is also my own lived experience and responsibility in my communication with other people. Yeah. Right. So that’s a nuance for me that I don’t want us to like miss out in terms, especially from a student development perspective. Right. I well, development folks, right?

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. And I want to nuance the nuance because I love that you’re pointing out. Like there was an expectation. Right, right. That, that maybe wasn’t fair. And then I think where we could respond to that is then have an expectation. Well, I will apologize for the confusion and then expect a student to apologize for their unfair expectation of me. And now, now we’re, we’re not really apologizing. We’re just, well, I apologize now it’s your turn and, and these expectations are seeds of resentment. Right? all along the way.

Jonathan Poullard:
For me, I was even holding that the, that I would expect the student to, to apologize as much as I would back to Carrie’s original kind of context. If you’re willing to hear from me right. Then let’s talk about that a little bit further in terms of how we got to this confusion place, because the confusion place was a dual shared confusion right. Right. Whether you take ownership for that or not. Right. But I want that to be a part of how we continue to move forward, because let’s say that two weeks from now there’s going to be another meeting. What are our expectations for one another, right?

Keith Edwards:
Yeah.

Jonathan Poullard:
Right. What? So I go ahead, Carrie. I’m sorry.

Carrie Landrum:
Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.

Jonathan Poullard:
No, go

Carrie Landrum:
Ahead. I was saying it, I’m just saying this about building relationship. I really love what you’re bringing in about taking responsibility and how do we take our own responsibility? Encourage others to take responsibility and how do we be in relationship? And if this is one moment of our relationship, where do we go from here? Yeah. Like I was saying it’s about care, right? It’s all relationships.

Jonathan Poullard:
Yeah, absolutely. Well,

Keith Edwards:
I think we have really mind this example for all it’s worth. Right. So Jonathan, let’s add some more here. You’ve been, as you mentioned new students at Berkeley senior student affairs officer, you have mentored and coached many senior level leaders within higher education and beyond higher education. What have you learned from your own apologies and, and other people’s apologies that might serve our listeners.

Jonathan Poullard:
Yeah. I think that one of the things I love about apologies and I’m I’m right. I’m, I’m a Brene Brown fanatic. And one of the things I love about Brene brown and her braving model, when she talks about, if you’re not familiar with it, the boundaries, reliability, accountability, the vault integrity nonjudgment generosity. When she talks about accountability is that I get to make amend. I get to make a mistake and I get to make amends for them. And on the other side, you get to make a mistake. And I allow for there to be a men’s made without that accountability, there’s not the trust. And I think from a leadership lens and as a former leadership person, I can give one of the best examples. It was right when I began my role at UC Berkeley. The area that I inherited there really wasn’t a Dean previously. I was kind of the first Dean to come in and let’s, let’s talk about what deans do. No offense to the former person, but it was just a structure of how Berkeley operated and my vice chancellor at the time basically told me, Jonathan, this area is kind of a mess. I need you to fix it. And I don’t care what you do. Go make it happen.

Keith Edwards:
Sounds

Jonathan Poullard:
That’s the worst thing you can tell someone like me who was a

Keith Edwards:
Task. Yeah, that’s

Jonathan Poullard:
Right. Yeah. And who was a pace setter and wants things done yesterday? so one of the things that I always talk about that I made a huge mistake on it. I had to apologize for was not moving the organization. I thought the decisions that I made were the right decisions, right? The speed at which I made the decisions were inappropriate. cause what I ended up doing was calling people’s babies ugly. You don’t call people’s children ugly. right. You don’t do that. So I’m basically throwing stones. I’m this doesn’t work. This is broken. We gotta fix this. Never really recognizing that people had been invested in this work for a very long time and were doing the best they could do. with the resources that they had at the time and they did not have the level of advocacy to make the types of changes that I was even talking about. Right. So the lesson there was, I needed to apologize authentically for one moving quickly. Two, the impact that, that had now for those of the folks in the, my area who were ready for that change, they were loving me. I was the best thing since slice spread, that was half of the team. The other half of the team felt like, who does he think he is? And here’s what I learned about the apology. Even when you make them, I always say, make them without the expectation of them being accepted

Keith Edwards:
right, right.

Jonathan Poullard:
So I genuinely made it and I was able to then re cultivate about 30% of that 50 that I had offended. the other 20% never came back. Right? Yeah. They were gone. They had, they had, they were, they were like, I don’t trust this person. I don’t like him. He thinks he’s all that how dare he, luckily for me, I had enough of the area to continue forward movement, but it was still painful to know that there were those who were never going to get back on board because of the manner of how it had happened, whether I had apologized for it or not.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. This is a great example because, and, and I, you were bringing in responsibility the other time. And I’m just thinking about this sort of as, as an equation, right. how do I own a hundred percent responsibility for my half of the equation?

Jonathan Poullard:
Exactly. Yeah. That’s

Keith Edwards:
Precisely the other person may or may not own their half. They may not accept it, but what happens on the other side of that equation? That’s for that person, but I’m going to take full responsibility for what I’ve done, how I’ve done it, the harm I’ve caused. Right.

Jonathan Poullard:
Right.

Keith Edwards:
And then not having expectations where what, and you’re going to do this. Right. I, I see my kids do this, you know? Right. Well, I, we got in a fight. I said, I’m sorry. And she never said, sorry, right. That’s an expectation that, that was something

Jonathan Poullard:
Wasn’t there. Right. And then layer in that hierarchy and privilege of positionality. Yes. Layer in that gender class, ethnicity rate, all the things that come into every conversation. Right. And then we wonder why this world is complex and we sometimes miss one another in our communication. Right. I don’t wonder. Right.

Keith Edwards:
And, and layer in whatever those people might have experienced as children or other trauma or, or

Craig Elliott:
The prior person.

Keith Edwards:
Right.

Jonathan Poullard:
The, the previous Dean, the pre all of it. Right. I always say that people supervise their, their, the staff and all their past supervisors. Right. Right. So Carrie could have been wonderful, but then Craig, wasn’t so wonderful. So now I’m inheriting both Carrie and Craig’s issues as I’m trying to lead an organization and they still have all of Carrie and Craig up in the mix. , which I wasn’t even a part of, but now I’m still responsible for how I’m going to show up,

Craig Elliott:
But you gotta clean up. Right.

Keith Edwards:
Right.

Jonathan Poullard:
I gotta hold it. Right. Yeah. It’s not mine to, I gotta hold it because it’s a part of the equation.

Keith Edwards:
yeah. So we’re bringing in here apologizing for transgression and or harm, which may be connected and may not be, we’re talking about expectations. We’re talking about responsibility for your half of the equation completely. Right. And letting go of the other half Craig and Carrie, what do you want to add here before we, we move on anything that’s coming up for you?

Craig Elliott:
Well, I, one of the things I loved about how Jonathan described his experiences, that we are ripples of change in organizations and systems and relationships, even if we intend to or not. And so for us to own, like that’s what I loved about the that we’re owning our, our part in the mix is that, you know, and Jonathan example, and mine here is starting in a new institution. Just the fact that I’m here, I’m creating there’s newness and, and throw people off their rhythm. And so how do we enter into these relationships holding as much of that as possible. And again, I go back to like, we’re, we’re there to do, do what we are called to do, doing with good intentions and good vision and trying to bring other people along, but there’s just, we aren’t going to get everybody or we’re going to be more disruptive than we hope to. And so it’s us about owning, I say kind of owning our, or taking the responsibility and accountability for the who we are and the work we’re trying to do and how that impacts the people around us. . And, and that is that ultimate caring and loving space that, that I advocate for. I think all of us do. And I think we wish we all see that we wish we had more people in the world that kind of operated with that caring space.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Well, and I, you know, something you mentioned earlier about ego being a huge obstacle to apologies. Right. And did I do something wrong? I didn’t want to admit that I did something wrong. I don’t want to admit to myself that I didn’t do wrong. I don’t want to see them. You know, I feel shame or guilt or, or I want to avoid blame. And Jonathan also bringing in this notion of, we have to allow that I’m going to mess up and I can learn from it and do better. And we have to allow for, you’re going to mess up and you can learn from it and do better. And I think one of the things I worry about in what’s happening in our culture is there’s a lot of noticing when we mess up or when other people mess up, but not creating space for that learning and growth and change and learning to do better. Craig, you are in this senior student affairs role, you actually got to rather recently I think lead a CPA as a vice president, president past president. And you’re deeply involved in social justice work, particularly from positions of privilege in thinking about it in that way. What have you learned about apologies that you want to share with us?

Craig Elliott:
Yeah. so I will say so definitely leading at that national level, both in terms of student affairs and, and social justice work you know, apologies are, are so crucial to us doing good work and building, trusting, caring relationships as, as both Carrie and Jonathan have said that, and especially coming from a place of maleness and whiteness that it it’s been important for me to own my part in the larger equation. So this is where the ego part has been so important for me is that you know, it talk about certainly, certainly there’s been things, you know, I perpetuated oppression but there’s a lot of stuff that we’ve all inherited. And so kind of getting out of this, like it’s not my fault. And getting out of that space where I need to feel like I need to apologize for stuff I didn’t have anything to do with, and then begin to focus on here’s, how I’m contributing and start that authentic reflection and taking accountability for it.

Craig Elliott:
And this is where I, I love what Carrie’s model talks about. It’s not just about me saying, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m white and I, we hear that a lot and I’m doing a lot of work with white people. and so I’m sorry, I’m white, you know, what do you want me to do about it? And we kind of, we help people build in to taking, you know, acknowledging that there’s been so much harm and that’s happening around us. And then, then allows us to help it get to the point where, Hey, we might have contributed to it either through action in action lack of awareness, not having the right skills. And then we can then talk about this repair restorative stuff. So how do I take this? So when I say the wrong thing in a room when I’ve been insensitive or offensive for gender or or orientation or race or not even seeing how, how class is showing up in the moment, then I, then I can say, whoa, wow.

Craig Elliott:
I did thank you for bringing that to my attention. I’m sorry that I participated, I did something that caused hurt or harm, and I need to, you know, I need to go understand what was going on for me so that I can make sure that I can show up and I can be a better partner, a bit of teammate and make sure that I don’t do that again. And so in both of those contexts, both for me being, working with white people and how do we, how do we interrupt white supremacy and how do we then become agents of positive change? you know, I, back to that bell hooks part, like it’s going to take all of us to change the system. And so we need white in this case, we need white people to do it. And the same thing we need men to, to stand up for women’s rights, and women’s health rights and to, you know, fight for abortion rights and pro-choice, and, and we gotta be a part of that. And so but we’re going to be messy and imperfect. And so when we make mistakes, how do always say, yep, I, I blew it, I’m going to do better. And here’s what I’m going to go do it. And I’ll, I’m going to show up better next time.

Keith Edwards:
I want to leverage this notion about you know, avoiding, apologizing for something that you can’t change, like being white, but taking responsibility for how you’ve contributed to white supremacy taking responsibility for how I’ve contributed to harm to people of color or to trans folks taking responsibility for your role in that. And then also acknowledging the broader context right. In seeing that, I, I wonder if you have an example in your time as the formal leader of ACPA as a large thousands of people organization with, you know, a hundred years of history where you maybe had to apologize on behalf of an organization. Yeah. Yeah. And what kind of dynamics does that evoke I’m, I’m assuming you had some practice

Craig Elliott:
yeah, right. Yeah. Well yeah, I mean, again, thankful for my kids, for helping me learn, be, be in good practice about apologizing for, and my wife. I mean, she’s a Saint for putting up with me all those years. Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s hard, it’s really hard to apologize for an organization, you know, a 6,000 member organization, which you’re in charge of leading, but have no direct responsibility for how all the things manifest. And you know, there was sounds

Keith Edwards:
A lot like life actually

Craig Elliott:
no, no, right. It is. And I mean, it was such a, it was such a wonderful experience and, and it was, it was one of the harder things I’ve ever done. We, we were prepping for our annual convention and we dealing with logistics. And so we are the year we were in Nashville just dealing with logistics and every place. And every city has its own great things and hard things. And, and so we’ve got a group of talented, dedicated volunteers doing the best that they can try to create this amazing experience. And we had the coalition on, on disability come to us and say that, Hey, we had not been paying attention. We had not been as thoughtful about accessibility and, and, and access and inclusion as much as we were hoping or thought we were. And they felt like we weren’t hearing their voice and weren’t including them in decision making the, the perspectives and, and, and their leaders in, in our decision making.

Craig Elliott:
And it was really one of those moments of sitting there and, and listening to this feedback from these people that I know well and them saying, you did things that hurt me. . And and it was really that, that moment of just taking that moment. And, and, and so here’s where the practice came in for me is, is listening, hearing what they were saying to me and not being in that ego space about, like, I didn’t, I didn’t do it. That was somebody else or whatever about really owning my role as a leader, the symbolic and the, the logistical leader of that organization and saying, I’m hearing that there’s pain here and we had something to do with it. And, and it isn’t about whether, like, could we have done it, should we have done it? How did we miss that?

Craig Elliott:
It like, that’s all for later , but it’s, it’s being in a space of hearing that, that somebody’s been pained or a group of people have been pained . And then really being in that authentic space and saying, you’re right, and I’m sorry. And we’re going to, we’re going to go back and see what we can do about it. And, you know, in this case it was about, and we’re going to work with you to make sure that you’re a part of how we how we a solved the problem, but how do we make sure that this doesn’t happen again? We want you to be good partners in that, and we invite people in. And so it, it was a wonderful example. You know, I felt like, you know, in the, in the ways that the thousand ways that we’ve seen apologies go from all of the examples we’ve had, like, I felt like it was one of the better ones, because it, we actually were able to make some of the changes that, that we talked about, but we did it in a way that was caring and loving. And for me, that was the important thing , is that we honored the people that, you know, our colleagues and friends that were right next to us and, and that we’re able to, to hear them and then, and make the change at the same time and not just do one or the other

Keith Edwards:
Carrie you’re, you’re doing restorative justice work there at the university of Michigan. And we’ve talked about lots of ways of engaging with students. And then you also said, you know, and now I’m doing it in the title I realm, which is, I think, a place where people say, I’m all for restorative justice. I’m not sure about here. So I’m wondering what you’re learning about. Apologies as you’re moving into this realm and navigating the so personal. And, and, and so, so individual, and so close to home there, how, what are you learning and navigating as you, as you’re exploring this?

Carrie Landrum:
Yeah. Thank you for that question. I think what I’ve learned, I’ve been surprised how so I thought for myself, I would want an apology, like an acknowledgement would be really key. I’ve really law of acknowledgement. So I think that’s really important. And I had expected that more students coming in were going to be requesting acknowledgement and apology. And what I learned is that, that wasn’t important to most of this. It’s actually rare in the cases that I’ve managed using restorative practices for sexual gender business conduct. It’s rare that in the processes that I’m facilitating, they’re requesting an apology, and I’ve been surprised by that. And I think what I’m learning is that that is not necessary for healing. And it’s not necessary for accountability too, either because you can show up and be accountable. I’m going to do these things. I’m going to engage in this educational program. I’m going to engage in this repairative process. I’m going to do these steps to repair harm. And apology is great. It’s can be like a cherry on top if it’s done well, which they’re seldom not, which is perhaps why they’re not being requesting. Cause what are the changes

Keith Edwards:
Why we’re having this conversation?

Carrie Landrum:
Is this going to be decent, let alone good. You know? So it’s, it’s interesting to me about thinking about accountability and apology and where the overlap is. I think like a ven diagram, right? so that’s, what’s been surprising to me.

Jonathan Poullard:
What are they wanting, Carrie? What are they, what are they wanting? What are you finding?

Carrie Landrum:
Went the recurrence they want education to so that it doesn’t happen again. So the two things they’re asking for is I want, I want them to know what they did was wrong. And I want them to know how it impacted me. And I want to make sure it never happens to another person again, which is why this, like, how do we make sure it doesn’t happen again? You know, part of the apology I was laying out earlier is the third piece is what are you doing differently? Or what are you not going to do now? What have you learned? Another reason why the acknowledgement is so important if you’re apologizing, but you don’t know what you did, you’re just apologizing. because you think the other person needs to hear that. Then we have no assurance that it’s not going to happen

Jonathan Poullard:
Yet. Yeah. Yeah. And then if you think, if you, if you layer that in, in a university context, that’s an individual experience. Now take that to a group experience where some racial thing has happened. Some gender thing has happened. Some antisemitic thing has happened for the 15th time. Someone be Craig as the president or the chancellor or the Dean of students has apologized. But because other individuals keep committing that same harm, I will move. So there’s a wonderful continuum when I’m doing, doing conflict work around apologies and how people show up in it. I’m either on that side of, am I feeling fragile and fearful or am I feeling frustrated and fatigued?

Keith Edwards:
Hmm.

Jonathan Poullard:
So your apology will hit me depending where I am on that continuum about that issue. So if it’s around race as a person of color, I might be way on the frustration side and Craig is apologizing, but it doesn’t hit me where he probably wants it to hit me. because I’m sick of hearing the apology, because I have not seen back to your point, Carrie, any real substantive change systemically around that thing. So I was a freshman. Some stuff happened. I was a sophomore. Some things happened. I was a junior. Some things happened by the time I’m a senior, forget you and the boat and the whatever get, get, no I’m done and I have no patience for you at all. So now I come in,

Keith Edwards:
This is a place where then in your example, Craig has to take a hundred percent responsibility for his apology to you. Right. And let go of what you’re going to do with it. Cause you’re not accepting it. Not because of Craig or his apology or what he did, but exactly all this other stuff,

Jonathan Poullard:
All the things, all the things, all the things, all the things. Right? Yeah. So I don’t think we really, and then I may be at multiple points on that continuum. Sometimes I am both fearful and frustrated at the same time. I’m fearful. I’m going to say the wrong thing. I’m fearful. I’m going to get this wrong. And I am frustrated that I have to keep saying it yeah. So now I’m so if I’m not even aware of my own emotional contagion, so I do a lot of work around EQ, you, you are bringing your emotion to whatever is happening and bouncing off how Craig is feeling, how Carrie is feeling, right. How those groups are feelings all at the same time.

Craig Elliott:
Yeah, yeah.

Jonathan Poullard:
Right.

Craig Elliott:
And, and I love this and because I think it, so that what pops into my head is in Jonathan’s example of I have to let this go, but I have to hold this. Like, this is a seed that I’m planting and trust in the arc of the universe that maybe 10 years from now, Jonathan will come back to me and say, thank you or, or I, you know, thank you for that apology back then. And I’ve seen these things and I’m open to being in relationship with you differently, spit balling here. But, but that’s the investment that we’re making in that moment that has, but we have to, I have to let go of Jonathan. I just apologized to you. Why didn’t you, why aren’t you loving me again?

Keith Edwards:
Right.

Craig Elliott:
Right. And, and, and that, I think that’s where we get in trouble. You know, again, maleness, whiteness. I do a lot of work on that and that’s where a lot of that stuff shows up and it, and why we can’t hear others.

Keith Edwards:
Right. And ego, I mean, and let’s not right. Let’s not let go of ego and its ties to whiteness and maleness. Exactly. And power and privilege. And talking about perfectionism as a key component of white supremacy culture. Yep. I think perfectionism gets in the way of apologies. Right. If I’m trying to convince all y’all that I’m perfect. Right. I’m not apologizing because then I I’m admitting I’m not perfect and I’m not perfect. Yeah. I love Carrie. You really separated from me the apology, the acknowledgement from the accountability. And I think I thread them together because so often I see the apology and I want the accountability to come with it. And, and you’re saying there can be accountability without the apology. And I think that I don’t know that I see that very often. So I really appreciate you bringing that possibility in that the, the change and the change in behavior and repair can happen and the apology can, in some ways, sound of you be skipped over. It might not be necessary.

Carrie Landrum:
It’s like, let me show you, instead of telling you, apologies are a lot about, let me tell you, I don’t have to tell you though. If I show you, I can show you, am I showing you will tell you, right. I can tell you through my actions.

Keith Edwards:
I, one of the great lessons I learned from slam poetry is show don’t, tell right. Painting people the picture of the heartbreak. Don’t tell ’em you were heartbroken. Show them your heartbreak. Right? And you’re talking about this in another context of show people you’re going to change. Maybe you can skip to tell ’em, but apology is saying, I, I recognize the harm. I’m going to do something different. And then the accountability is doing that different thing. I know so many of us have people who are in our lives, who apologize for the same thing over and over and over again. And they keep doing the same thing that I think is apology without accountability. Right, right, right,

Jonathan Poullard:
Right. Yeah. Right.

Keith Edwards:
Jonathan, you, I know that you’re coaching one on one really senior leaders in higher ed, in many industries. And I’m imagining as I coach leaders and I hear from leaders, they feel like everybody wants an apology from them for everything. And everybody’s telling me what I’m doing wrong and, and, and such pressure. How do you help these leaders navigate the feeling of nothing I do is right. And people just want me to apologize for everything and yeah. How do you help them sort through that?

Jonathan Poullard:
One of the frames that I use a great deal is from the Institute it’s called the outward mindset. So they wrote two seminal books. One is called leadership and self deception. The other is the outward mindset. And in the outward mindset, they have this beautiful exercise where it’s a four box exercise. The first thing in the far, the bottom corner is something that people do or say that really bothers you and really upsets you, or really just gets you triggered the next box to it is. And because they do that, here’s what I see or feel . So Craig has done something and because he did something I see, or I feel something the next box up then is, and then what do I do because of what I saw and felt. And depending upon what I do, the other person will then see and feel what I did.

Jonathan Poullard:
And then the cycle just keeps continuing. So Carrie does something I see or feel something about that. I then respond to her, maybe not as appropriately as I want to she then sees and feels something about what I did. And then she continues this cycle. And the only point in the cycle that is you have the most control over is on what you do with what you saw. you only have control over what you do. So a part of my work with, and most of my work now is not even in higher education is mostly it’s within the ad agency space and in the biotech space. And most of this is with the CEOs, the senior vice presidents, the global vice presidents of organizations and their next levels. I just had a coaching client that was unsuccessful. He was actually asked to leave his organization because by the time he got to the repair, back to what Carrie was talking about too much water had passed. Right. And, and folks were just not willing to allow him to recover. Yep. . And we spent most of our time, most of our time on looking at what he was doing in response to what he was seeing and feeling . And he was the senior, most leader of this particular organization. It was a site. And what he, what I had to really help him understand was why this is back to the EQ. Why were you responding that way in the first place?

Jonathan Poullard:
So if I don’t do my own inner work on why I’m responding that way, I don’t ever stop doing that thing. So I just keep the cycle moving. Right. And then add back in who he happened, just to be a white heterosexual man . So that then layered in how people were responding to what he was doing. if I had done the exact same thing, it wouldn’t have been, felt the same way. Right. It wouldn’t have been received the same way because our personhoods matter in the conversation. Right. So this for me is if I can get folks there from, so most of my coaching within the EQ lens is on both self-awareness and then self-regulation in the moment, not after the fact, right. In the moment, do I know with my somatic? So they’re not work around Soma and somatic issues.

Jonathan Poullard:
Like what’s on, even in my body, when Craig says something that I deem racist, what’s going on in my body. When I say something and Lisa perceives it as sexist. What? And if I can’t touch it somatically, right. So people think that first things happen in our heads, then our emotions, then our body it’s the direct opposite. Yeah. It happens first physiologically. Right. So if you’ve read Dr. Perry and Oprah’s book on what happened to you, great book by the way. Yes. But they’re talking about the physiological way that we hold trauma. So it’s, it’s embedded in us. Then I have an emotional response to it. Then I have a thought to it and then I speak and all that happens in less than two seconds. Right. So you know, how careful I, and how good I have to be in my own leadership journey to know what is going on for me emotionally physiologically in the moment, right. Moderate that, and then respond

Keith Edwards:
Well. And this is why the, the somatic work around meditation around absolutely yoga around these things. Absolutely. Is not just, it’s not just physical. It can help us manage ourselves.

Jonathan Poullard:
Absolutely.

Keith Edwards:
Absolutely. Shoulders get tight. That’s a sign for me. that this thing is happening and it may, maybe isn’t anything to do with what Jonathan just said. It’s about, that reminds me of all this other stuff,

Jonathan Poullard:
All the other stuff, all the other

Keith Edwards:
Stuff. And I don’t want to take that out. Right. And so how do I remind myself, although this reminds me of that, this isn’t, it’s not this,

Jonathan Poullard:
It’s not that right.

Keith Edwards:
It’s not that present with what’s here. This

Jonathan Poullard:
BES be present is how do I be present? Right. And again, I always help my, my senior leaders think about you’re doing this without expectation of reciprocity.

Keith Edwards:
Right? Right.

Jonathan Poullard:
You’re expect

Keith Edwards:
Seeds of resentment back

Jonathan Poullard:
To go to the you is how you want to be in relationship as a leader with the folks that you are trying to lead. And so you will apologize. You will own, you will take accountability. And through that modeling, you will create it, a culture that this is how we do, you will create psychological safety because you’re doing the very thing that you say you are about. Even when Keith and Carrie are like live it, because it is the 10th time it has happened. Even though for me in your it’s only the first time.

Keith Edwards:
Right, right, right.

Jonathan Poullard:
They’ve beening in the org for eight years and it’s happened 10 times.

Keith Edwards:
Right. And it’s about being the leader. You want to be with the, with the organization. And as Craig has talked about in relationship, but that are caring and loving, but it’s also how you want to be in relationship with yourself.

Jonathan Poullard:
Absolutely.

Keith Edwards:
Your own integrity. How do I want to move through the world?

Jonathan Poullard:
Right. Absolutely.

Keith Edwards:
This is amazing. Too amazing. I want to keep going, but we, we are running out of time and so I want to move us to our closing question. This podcast is called Student Affairs NOW. And so I just want to invite each of you, just, what are you thinking? What are you troubling? What are you pondering now? It might be related to apologies. Might be just something that’s just, as we are here gathered today, you came in here with what is, what is with you now. And then if you also want to share where folks can connect with you where you’d like to direct them, that would be great. Carrie, what is, what is troubling you now?

Carrie Landrum:
I was not prepared for that question, but something came to me. So thanks for calling on me first. What I’m thinking about is I’m thinking about collective trauma and grief, right? That’s really present for us right now and hitting our country really hard in the globe. And I, as we were doing this podcast, I was thinking about apology. And I kept thinking about from like an individual perspective, you all brought in organizational perspective, but how do we apologize? You know, for their atrocities that have happened to our ancestors and that legacy continues. And so I’m thinking about so much of like harm and repair tends to be focused on one person or a leader doing it. But how do we all take responsibility for that? Like what Craig was talking about when, and also what Jonathan was talking about when we weren’t the person who necessarily caused the harm, but we are living in the system where harm is continuing to happen. Thinking about systemic oppression. I think so much of our healing is like really focused on like go to therapy. It’s very individualistic . And so it’s traveling me now as thinking about where’s the collective room for like collective apology, collective healing, collective harm, repair, restorative justice offers some beautiful

Keith Edwards:
Collective accountability,

Carrie Landrum:
Collective accountability. How do we take collective accountability for where we are right now? That’s, that’s what I’m thinking about.

Keith Edwards:
Wonderful. Jonathan, what are you pondering now?

Jonathan Poullard:
Similar, slightly different. I am pondering hindering healing and humility. What I do still a lot of DEI work as embedded in leadership development, work of organizations, but I have found myself moving further and further and further away from doing directed, just DEI work. I have, my capacity has grown to a point where, because I see and feel so little humility and so little willingness to heal. I cannot hold that container the way that I held it once before. Right. I can hold it in the context of as a leader. How am I norming culture and expectations for how I want folks to engage where I am mostly troubled by is I don’t know that we share back to Carrie’s point a collective sense of a valuing that diversity equity and inclusion is a common good.

Jonathan Poullard:
And if I don’t feel that it is a common good, then I don’t begin to shift my behavior and how I show up in the conversation, because I’m not quite sure. Sure. It’s like, almost like, well, what about me? If I have to pay attention to these women, then what about me? What about me? If I gotta think about these Jewish folk? What about, what about me? As opposed to if I’m in it with you then of course, if I pay attention at that level around issues of ability, of course it’s going to affect everything else around us. So one of the things I’ve been telling my leaders is I when you are not and when you are in the majority, if you want to opt out of the conversation, you can opt out.

Jonathan Poullard:
I don’t have to opt in, but if I’m not, I don’t have a choice about whether I opt in or not as every single day something that’s going to happen where this apology piece may have to come into the conversation. Right? So I am just wondering as we move forward and I’m still hopeful, my class is always helpful that we will find our way through what I consider to be a changing cultural tide that is asking us to engage very, very differently as a people. And this is the time for the first time I’ve seen that it’s not going away. Yeah. Right. I think hearing George Floyd, it’s not going away.

Keith Edwards:
I’m hearing, you’re seeing this us versus them mentality and yearning for more collective,

Jonathan Poullard:
We sort of approach. Right. And Angela Davis, just recently, I were talking to my colleague this morning. She said she listened to Angela Davis and Angela Davis said, I it’s a, it’s really a falseness that we are us and them 50 50. That is not our lived. That is not really true. , it’s not that it’s not that simplistic. so yeah.

Keith Edwards:
Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful follow that, Craig.

Craig Elliott:
Yeah, right. Seriously such wisdom and beautiful people and offerings. And so, yeah. So Carrie and Jonathan, thank you both. I I’ll offer just building on something, each one is said, you know, one is we, we gotta do our own work. I mean, we, this that’s so essential to so many things, but definitely how do we be in authentic, loving, caring relationships with each other, where we are trying to not do the individual harm, but also trying not to do the intergenerational harm that we all come with. And that all starts with us somatic stuff, doing our readings, our learnings, picking at our own ways that oppression shows up in us. So essential. And the second thing is liberation. I mean, I think about that for me is that I hope for us as a people to move for this move toward this collective vision of, of liberation.

Craig Elliott:
And there’s so much pain happening daily. I mean, I, it just coming off the shootings in Texas that came right off of Buffalo that came right off of the attack on Roe V Wade and abortion rights and, and a number of states on top of, you know, years of continued racial violence and, and murder black men, black women, trans folks. And and I’m kind of holding like, like there’s a lot of us out there doing great work and it hasn’t changed anything yet. And so how, how can we, we gotta think of new strategies and, and, and new ways of being in partnership and relationships. So, so that we can create the change that we’re and that’s, and I linking back to what both and Jonathan said about it’s going to take all of us and we’ve gotta do this. It has to be this collective accountability and collective responsibility so we can get to this collective healing. And it’s so it’s, it’s so hard to be a parent right now. It’s so hard to be a student affairs professional. It’s so hard to be a caring community member because it’s just, it keeps coming. Right. And so I hope for us to, to do new things and work together and, and find a way to get this

Keith Edwards:
You’re using that word hope. And I, I hear that what’s, that’s what you’re yearning for. Yeah. And I, and I think it’s really important to remind folks that hope is not a passive optimism. It is a reckoning with the reality, which Craig just spoke beautifully too. And believing that positive change is possible. And that I have a role in contributing to that. It’s not, I can’t do it by myself, but it is a combination of that, that hope and hope contains agency. Yeah. That I can contribute to that. And it’s so needed for what we’re doing right now. Well, this has been terrific. Thanks so much to each of you, for your insight, your wisdom, your experience, your self reflection as you were sharing your final thoughts, I was reminded particularly Craig talking about doing our own work. Someone, I think we all know is Reverend Jamie Washington, Reverend Dr.

Keith Edwards:
Jamie Washington, saying a lot of folks are using the language who haven’t done the work. Right. And how do we make sure we’re doing the work along the way. So thanks to each of you for helping me and our listeners continue to do our work. I really appreciate that. And thanks to our sponsors of today’s episode, as well, LeaderShape and Simplicity. LeaderShape partners with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences, both virtual and in person for students and professionals with a focus on creating more, just caring and thriving world. LeaderShape Offers, engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building. Find out more leadershape.org connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and Simplicity is the global leader in student services, technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to goals, a true partner to the institution.

Keith Edwards:
Simplicity supports all aspects of student life, including, but not limited to career services and development student conduct and wellbeing, student success and accessibility services. To learn more, visit Simplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. As always a huge shout out to Nat Ambrosey, the production assistant for the podcast who does all the behind the scenes work to make us look and sound good. If you’re listening today and not already receiving our weekly newsletter, please visit our website@studentaffairsnow.com and scroll to the bottom of the homepage to add your email to our mail chip list while you’re there, check out the archives. I’m Keith Edwards. Thanks again to all who are listening and watching make it a great week. Thank you all.

Brené Brown’s BRAVING

https://brenebrown.com/resources/the-braving-inventory/

Brené Brown and Harriet Lerner’s 2 part podcast on apologies.

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/harriet-lerner-and-brene-im-sorry-how-to-apologize-why-it-matters-part-1-of-2/

4 Keys to Apologies

The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice 

(includes a great primer on what restorative justice is)

https://livingjusticepress.org/product/little-book-of-race-and-restorative-justice/