This episode discusses art in the intergenerational workplace. Our team found the topic extra interesting, because three of the four of us had just moved into blank new offices.

Our big finding was that the art you hang on your walls can cost your workers cognitive wellbeing, especially if it's visually gaslighting.

We learned that term from our guest Dr. Vasu Tolia, a former pediatric gastroenterologist now turned visual artist. Her paintings build resilience, strength, and vibrant organizational community.

Ken Heffner, our Boomer, Emily Bosscher, our Xennial, LaShone Manuel, our Millennial, and Madeline Witvliet, our Gen Z discuss the surprising business outcomes of workplace art.

You can see Dr. Tolia's art at her website: www.vasutolia.art. She also has an active presence on LinkedIn.

If not, you need more psych safety. Tom Geraghty joins our roundtable to show you how to create workplace conditions where interpersonal risk, bold laughter, and a good cry are all fully possible.

Tom Geraghty spent the first four years of his life in silence. That experience of speaking disability led him to his now international work helping companies cultivate psychological safety, which is, as PsychSafety.com explains, “the belief, in a group, that we are safe to take interpersonal risks.”

Our intergenerational crew—Sheila the Gen Z, LaShone the Millennial, Emily the Xennial, and I the Xer—had plenty of questions about what makes interpersonal risk possible in the workplace. But we also have questions from you! Thanks to our listeners who shared psych-safety questions such as…

1. What do I do when my coworkers stop helping me on a project I love?

2. How do I talk about workflow with a colleague who does things really slowly?

3. What do I do when I can’t stop crying in a meeting?

4. Is psychological safety as important as physical safety?

5. What should you do when men assume women will take notes, bring snacks, and do other logistical tasks?

My big takeaway from our conversation with Tom is that psychological safety is not a merely negative value. It’s not just about avoiding harm or hurt. It’s about creating workplaces capable of sorrow and joy.

The crisis of employee disengagement today responds to workplace conditions in which people feel mute and work feels dead. Tom’s discussion of psychological safety helps us begin to restore the soundscape of a good working community. He’s a big idea guy, but he’s also like an at-your-elbow guide—as you’ll see from all the resources on his astonishingly well-resourced website.

You will love Tom’s ticklish sense of humor (and our roundtable is, as you know, prone to bust into laughter). But you will appreciate even more that Tom’s a good listener. He hears the questions behind the questions, which makes him a good work culture sherpa.

These are intense days we’re living through. Last night, my dreams were full, full of children in peril. And everybody’s days are full of news stories that are hard even to skim. We humans keep generating problems that, most days, it looks like we simply won’t ever solve. But here’s a thing you and I can do. We can turn our workplaces into what my colleague Debra Rienstra calls refugia, or hidden shelters for good life and work.

So, press play on this conversation and let Tom’s insights and our intergenerational exchange help you create a shelter for fully human tears, fully human joy.

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This week, executive coach Allison K. Williams joins the Mode/Switch Pod to help you discern how much of your private stuff it's okay to disclose at work.

Can I start with a slightly boozy story?

Yesterday I skipped lunch for a day too full of meetings to stick a fork in a salad. And then, at the day’s end, I joined my wife and a couple of friends for Detroit-styled cocktails. I can’t hold much liquor on a good day. Those drinks hit yesterday’s stomach so hard I had to hide a stagger on the way out to the car.

Now that I think about it, hard liquor on an empty stomach is a pretty good metaphor for swallowing what your job pushes at you everyday—and pretending you’re good to go.

Most days, you’ve got what it takes to toss the job back. But there are other days, too.

For me, the question is, how much do you let your manager know when your gut’s as empty as a drum? Do you tell your coworkers about the test results you’re waiting on? Do you talk about your quarrel with your teenager? Do you explain the plantar fasciitis that makes it hard to get up from your office chair?

Or do you just hide your limp between 9 and 5?

It’s just the kind of subtly complex question this intergenerational roundtable loves to take on as we seek shifts in mindset or behavior that makes a difference. This week, Ken our Boomer, Emily our Xennial, LaShone our Millennial, and yours truly the Gen Xer engage our guest Allison K. Williams to better sort out all the selves we are in work and life.

Allison pulls up a chair to our podcast table with a pretty wild story about what she learned on the hardest night of her life. That night launched her on a career of executive coaching, where she helps people understand more fully what it actually means to “bring your full self to work.”

Before you bring your self to work, Allison says, make sure you actually know that self. Doing that, on an empty stomach, may take more grace than you think.

Glad you’re here! Would you hit reply and let us know about at time when you felt like you wondered if you should hide your stagger at work? Did you disclose what was going on? Keep it to yourself? Let us know!