Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the iWork4Him Power Pod. I'm Michael Miracle producer for iWork4Him, the voice of the faith and work movement. We are on mission to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. Each quick listening Power Pod is designed with you in mind and jam packed with Kingdom resources to help you connect your faith and work.

How will this impact your work? Let's find out right now!

Jim: Rising Above a Toxic Workplace, the Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, The Vibrant Workplace , Sink or Swim. When it comes to the workplace, there are thousands of books out. There are leadership and management, but few authors have hit the trifecta in my world.

Three books that I love and all three of them significant and impactful. Today we're visiting with Dr. Paul White and his wife Kathy in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. White is a noted author, speaker, psychologist, and yes, an all around nice guy. Today we'll get the inside scoop of what he is really like and when he is not writing [00:01:00] books, what he is really like.

We all know that behind every great man of God is an incredible woman of God. So getting to know Kathy, his wife will also be fun. You're in for a fun hour today as we do the whole Dorothy thing and fly across Kansas City, Kansas with a pit stop in Wichita. Welcome Dr. Paul White and Kathy to the iWork4Him Radio Show.

Martha: So we were talking about these four books.

Jim: Why don't you list them all?

Martha: Yeah, we should, we haven't even done that yet. Okay. So in order, is it this one? This one first. Okay, so the Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, right? And then Rising Above a Toxic Workplace. And then Sync or Swim. And that's S Y N C. So like you're syncing your phone, you know that for our young people, they know how to sync, right? And The Vibrant Workplace.

So as these were being written, Kathy, did you, were you involved in any of the behind the scenes or were you, did you just keep life going in the home while he was delving into his papers?

Kathy White: I [00:02:00] mostly ran the home, but I tend to do his first initial edits, so everything he writes, then he would pass by me. And I would say this is a really important point to emphasize. I really like this thought, or this needs some work, or whatever. So, that was kind of my input. But all the ideas are his.

Jim: How did you get this relationship with Dr. Gary Chapman? Where'd Paul, where'd that come from?

Dr. Paul White: It came from the fact that Kathy and I were working through reading and working through the five love languages ourselves and found him really helpful. And so I was consulting with different families and businesses and had the experience of working with one father and son in North Carolina.

Talked to the dad and said, you know, how's this transition going? He said, it's going great. My son's stepping up. I think it's gonna be fine. I go across the hall and ask the son the same question, and he says, this is a disaster. It's never gonna work. I can't ever please my dad. And so I just saw the, the possibility of, you know, maybe applying the five love languages in work.

And so actually it took [00:03:00] me a year to get through to Dr. Chapman. He had a very nice gracious southern bulldog receptionist that was tough to get through . And so finally we met up and I pitched him the idea and he had already had 20 years or so more of others pitched the idea of applying the five languages love languages to work.

But the fact that I was a psychologist, had sort of a relational background, I was working in and with businesses - that was different. Both of us are Wheaton college grads and that helped some. And, and I actually, he was not interested in writing a book at that point in time, but I pitched the idea about creating this online assessment which we developed - the motivating by appreciation inventory.

And so I started working on that and then created the training materials and started using it with different non-for-profits. Friends, small businesses and so forth. And then he told me to go ahead and start writing the book. So I did that, and that took a year or so, about nine months, I think, and then he reviewed it.

So it was, it was a process. He's a great [00:04:00] man. He's generous. He's gracious. I think he's sort of the consummate gentleman in the true sense of the word. And, It's just been a, a real blessing to be able to work with him.

Jim: I love the five languages of appreciation in the market, in the workplace. Love that. But rising above a toxic workplace really spoke to me, and I know it speaks to a lot of people out there because there's so many toxic workplaces, no matter what the organization is. So that was one that, that was like, if I were to say my favorite. , but that's, you know, that's hard because they're so good.

Martha: I think that one of the keys to that, Jim, is that there's, you know, they have different purposes. And it's really like, okay, if I want to avoid being the cause of a toxic workplace, what can I do to improve the workplace? And then, you know, go to the Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.

And I hope after the break, we're gonna talk about what those resources really are and who can really use them, because it doesn't have to be At the top of the organization in order to really get this to be a part of your culture.

Jim: So middle manager can bring these in and start making an [00:05:00] impact?

Dr. Paul White: Absolutely.

Jim: Why'd you write these books? I mean, what did you see that made you write your first book?

Dr. Paul White: Well, so the first one was the Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. And so obviously the Five Love Languages have been incredibly impactful to millions of couples over the years and I saw that, you know, I think the principles could work and we have to change 'em up a little bit.

And so we, Dr. Chapman and I, felt like appreciation was the sort of the core concept there, and so I'm all about making things practical and helping people, you know, live better and not just theory and so forth. So, I started using the five languages in workplaces and developing training materials in this assessment tool, and it just seemed to be a need, you know, that people want to be valued and appreciated.

 I think it's sort of the workplace equivalent of being loved. We wanna feel like we're significant. And so when we do something, when we create, [00:06:00] or, you know, put something of ourselves into our work, we wanna know that it's valued not just by ourselves.

Yeah. We have to, you know, sort of sometimes just do it because it's what we should do, but eventually you'd like to know that somebody else values it as well. And so that's sort of where it came from and it seemed to really strike a chord, especially in the workplace. There was a lot of focus on employee recognition programs. And they just really haven't worked, to be honest. I mean, they work okay when you're focusing on performance and you know, sort of supporting and encouraging performance, but we're more than just work units. We're more than just, you know, a number that's, we're not a machine. We're not just a production unit.

And so but a lot of businesses lost sight of that. And managers, you know, we're looking at the financials and what this department or unit's doing. And so we're really calling it back to, hey, these are people. And not only are they people at work, they're people outside of work [00:07:00] and they have lives that impact work.

And they have skills and abilities that you can value even if they're a low performer. And that's, it's been an interesting journey to learn about, think about, and understand that people wanna feel valued for who they are. And one way to do that is to communicate in the way that's important to them.

And it's, I think that's the other part is that not everybody wants a compliment or some kind of verbal praise. We found that, actually had over 140,000 people take our inventory.

Jim: Oh my goodness. That's a ton.

Dr. Paul White: Yeah. And, and less than 50% value words. So that means more than 50% of your employees don't really want a compliment. They want something else and we need to help get that message out.

Jim: Why use the word appreciation versus love? I mean, you have the five love languages. Why'd you have to reinvent it?

Dr. Paul White: Well, you know, love in the workplace is a difficult concept. I think for those of us that are followers of Christ we can love and care for, but as we've seen [00:08:00] in our culture, you know, things get sexualized and we're not looking to create personal love relationships at work. We're looking to help people feel valued and we've just felt like appreciation was a better way to go.

Martha: I can appreciate that. I think that I would like to hear and let our listeners hear before we move on to the other books, what goes along with this book? Because you were saying that online, there's kits, there's the MBA inventory, right? Let's talk about that for a minute.

Dr. Paul White: Sure.

Jim: The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. That's the book we're talking about first.

Dr. Paul White: Yes. All right. Yeah, so if you go to AppreciationAtWork.com, you'll see that there's sections about the books and there's audio books, and it's in 16 languages now, so Spanish and Chinese, Tagalog, so you can use it you know, cross-culturally and so forth.

We then created the inventory. And when you buy a book, a code for taking the inventory and it takes about 15 minutes and it identifies your primary language of appreciation, your secondary, your least valued one, which is your blind spot. So one you don't care about, but you have people around you that [00:09:00] have that. And then we can create a group profile for your team so that people know how to show appreciation to one another.

And that's one of the lessons we've learned over time is we, initially, we really focused on managers and supervisors, but what we found is that people first of all, wanna know how to encourage their colleagues because when somebody's having a bad day, who knows first? It's the person that's sitting next to 'em and not necessarily your supervisor.

And secondly we found that it's really powerful when colleagues and coworkers learn how to encourage and show appreciation as well as top down. And that it just really - it makes it sing and it is cool the way that works and it empowers people to be able to not have to wait for their supervisor to get it, you know?

You can start where you are with a couple of colleagues. The other part about languages of appreciation and it's a little bit different, is we found that there're different actions within the language that make a difference. And so like quality time. Some people do want time with their supervisor.

I've had [00:10:00] some often shy guy or gal say, no thanks. My supervisor's pretty intense, but I like to hang out with my colleagues. And so after in the inventory, after identifying your primary language, you go back and identify the specific actions within that language and also from whom you want that.

So you may wanna hang out and watch sports with your team, but you're not gonna invite your supervisor. And so it allows you to get really specific so you're not guessing and you can hit the mark.

Jim: What kind of impact are you seeing? I mean, pick one example of you brought this into an organization and this was the transformation that happened.

Dr. Paul White: The coolest one that I just love is a mining company out of South Dakota. Now you wouldn't think about miners and quarry workers and, you know, truck drivers. But they brought me in and I did a leadership training, a half day leadership training for all their managers and supervisors. And then they had I think five or six of their people go through our course and then they, over the past year and a half, have [00:11:00] gone out and taken everyone in their organization through this and done, you know, the studies and sort of applying it and have people take the inventory so they know one another's languages of appreciation.

And I had a call with the COO who told me, he said, you know, when this was first brought to me, I just was not a fan. I was not excited. He said, I am your number one fan now. He said, because now when we even have exit interviews that people leave for whatever reason, most often, the one thing that they say that really they loved about the company was going through the appreciation at work training and finding out both how they were encouraged and how others were.

And he said, it's transformed our culture. And in fact, I mean, what I love is when a company takes it on and sort of, you know, chews on it and figures out and creates something unique. Well, we have icons, little symbols for each of the languages. Well, they had stickers made for their hard hats.

And so just, it's fun to hear that kind of thing and that they - yes, we did it. [00:12:00] Yes, we provided - but they took ownership of it and drove it. And the leadership, the management provided the resources to help make the training happen. So it's been fun.

Jim: After you wrote the Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, what book came next?

Dr. Paul White: So actually, Toxic Workplace came next because as I was out speaking and training, people had breaks and afterwards would come up and tell me nasty stories about, you know, their workplace or what a jerk their boss was. And I'm like, okay. But it just kept coming. It was waves and waves And so then we have a number of, you know, we got 120,000 people on our newsletter list and we will use it to get polls.

And we sent it out and said, Hey, tell us about toxic workplaces. And so we got just hundreds and hundreds of responses and sort of called that as well as followed up and interviewed a number. And that's sort of what happened. Because it was just such a felt need and unfortunately it still is. I mean, there's just a lot of nasty workplaces out there.

Jim: Well, and it seems like the, you know, the industrial Revolution brought about workplaces that [00:13:00] obviously unions had to come into play in order to provide protections. And we went from this agrarian economy to industrial economy where people just became a number instead of significant. And we're kind of making that swing back where people are figuring out businesses that really focus on people, the heart of the people. Then all of a sudden, those businesses are succeeding to a level that business hasn't succeeded. I mean, and you're on the wave of that. You started the wave of that. This languages of appreciation in the workplace gives managers, leaders, owners the ability to actually see their people for who God created them to be.

Dr. Paul White: Right. Well, you know, the financial crisis that happened in 2008 and 2009, I think it was evidence of capitalism without a biblical worldview leads to greed. And that's the same thing in businesses. If you focus solely on making a profit, then you will wind up basically you know, just using people as resources and not treating 'em as people.

And so we've gotta have a call back to that. Not [00:14:00] everybody obviously comes from a Christian worldview in our culture today. But there are a number of people that understand the need to value people. And lots of times, you know, they're more, unfortunately more receptive than some Christian leaders, which I'm still trying to figure out.

So, Rising Above a Toxic Workplace describes toxic workplaces, how people should respond to it, and sometimes they just have to leave. But The Vibrant Workplace talks about what does it look like when you actually put all this stuff into practice. Talk about that book.

Well, that really was the culmination of working in this area for 10 years, seeing what works well for organizations, what doesn't, what are the sort of common repetitive barriers? And so I identified sort of 10 common obstacles, and that's the subtitle of the book. It's overcoming the obstacles to building a culture of appreciation. And I guess a point I wanna make is that this is not for, I mean, it could be used by top level leaders, but really it's about just plain employees, supervisors, [00:15:00] managers. It doesn't really matter where your position is. You can make a difference. And that, I think, to me, that's an important point. Like even in a toxic workplace, it's not only you don't wanna create it, but how do you survive one? And, and you can survive it.

Now, depending how bad it is and where you are, I mean, it can be tough. And sometimes you have to leave, but lots of times it just takes a few people to work together and you can at least make an area of health within your organization, and I think most organizations overall aren't toxic, but there's usually like little spots or departments. Toxic people. And then in little areas around them.

And so The Vibrant Workplace talks about, okay, how do you do this? How do you try to help create a more positive workplace if the management just doesn't get it? You know, is there anything you can do? And yes, there is.

What about when supervisors sort of push back and say, you know, why should I have to tell my people thanks for doing their work? Or how am I supposed to show appreciation when I don't feel valued? The issue of busyness, the [00:16:00] issue of a negative, just overall negative workplace inauthenticity as far as you know employee recognition programs just feel really not genuine. How do you get past that? How do you get past the issue of people who are difficult to appreciate?

You know, not everybody is as nice as we are. It's always somebody else too, right? And cross cultural issues. Difficult settings. I mean, what if you work in a setting where you're actually supervising people on a different shift? How do you deal with that, you know, and or different cultures?

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace. It's our mission field, but ultimately, iWork4Him.

Outro: Thank you for listening to the iWork4Him Power Pod with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Want more? Hear the full broadcast at iWork4Him.com. Stay connected and receive power packed content when you sign up for our blog at iWork4Him.com or follow us on social media at iWork4Him.

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