She is the author of Dignity, its essential role in resolving conflict and leading with dignity, how to create a culture that brings out the best in people. Donna, what a joy to be in your work. Welcome to the show. Oh,

thank you. Very happy to be here with you. Me

too. Dignity is a word that we all know, but I don't think many leaders have thought about that word very much. And I know I didn't until really getting into your work. How did you come up with the concept of dignity? Well,

it's an unusual pathway, I think, in that, as you mentioned, reading my bio, I spent years in my career facilitating dialogues for parties in conflict all over the world. I started out in the Middle East with Israelis and Palestinians. I did a 10-year project in Sri Lanka. shifted over to Latin America, did a decade-long project in Colombia, worked in Northern Ireland, worked in Libya, worked in Syria. I mean, wherever there was a really hot, intractable conflict, my organization was often asked to come in and see if we could contribute some, you know, some movement toward a peace process. So while I was sitting at those negotiating tables, and let me tell you, Dave, we had the best and the brightest people working with us. They were so committed, both sides of the conflict. They wanted desperately to bring an end to the suffering that both of their, you know, their communities were experiencing. So they were motivated. And still, they weren't able to sign on to an agreement. And there were times when they would just explode at the negotiating table. And I would say to myself, oh my gosh, what just happened there? Something just triggered that person. And it derailed everything that we had done up to that point. So we were back to square zero. And, you know, this was everywhere. I mean, as I said, I started in the Middle East, so I saw that a lot there. But even going to Sri Lanka and Columbia and Northern Ireland, the same thing happened sitting at those tables that we would get someone who would just explode with anger or resentment. And at one point I said to one of the people who got so upset, I said, look, could we just stop for a minute? Could you tell us what happened to you that you had such a big emotional reaction? And he looked at me and he said, emotions? This isn't about emotions. This is about justice. This is about identity. Okay, we are not going to use that word. That's a bad word, emotions, because they felt like it was taking away from the political urgency, calling it emotional. So then anyway, I just went back to Harvard and really spent time thinking about, well, what would they want to say to each other if we were able to talk about it? And I thought they'd want to say, how dare you treat us this way? Can't you see we're suffering and you're doing nothing about it? You're not even treating us like human beings. That's what they would want to say, Dave. And so I'm thinking, what's the word? What's the word? Because to me, it was a profoundly human reaction to experiencing years in these conflicts. And so one day, I don't know, it just kind of hit me like a bolt of lightning. I said to myself, this is about their dignity. This is about not even being treated as like a human being and treated as inferior, like they would treat their pets better than they would treat us, they would say. And so I thought dignity, okay, that's the word. That's the word I can use to see if I can open up a conversation about this. And so long, long story short, the next time I was at one of those tables and somebody exploded like that, I said, hey, look, can we just stop this process for a minute? I said, I can see that you had a big reaction here. And I have a feeling, and you tell me if it's true, but I have a feeling this might be about your dignity, about being treated as if you don't even matter. And I said, if you agree with me, can we talk about it? And this guy, he just stared at me for about 30 seconds. And he said, yes, it is about our dignity. You are right, he said. It's about our dignity. And he said, we need to be treated as if we are human beings and that our suffering makes a difference and that we should strive to end each other's suffering. So, oh my gosh, Dave, I cannot explain how euphoric I was that they all said. And then you know what else happened? What else happened was the guy kind of sat up straighter and he said, yeah, that's it. And because I validated Dave, I validated and legitimized his reaction. So that's how it all started.

Huh. Wow. And like so many of us, you have been learning so much as you go. And Desmond Tutu was influential in your work, as I mentioned in the introduction. What did you learn from him?

Well, the first thing he taught me, Dave, was when he asked me, he said, okay, Donna, this is really interesting. When I first met him, he said, tell me how you arrived at this concept of dignity. And I said, oh, sure. I said, I was working all over the world on these international conflicts. And it was very common for the parties to say to me that the other side stripped them of their dignity and that they were fighting in order to regain that lost dignity. And Archbishop Tutu, mind you, this is like the first 20 minutes that I met this guy. Yeah. And he said, stripped of their dignity? And I said, yeah, that's what they said. And he said, don't ever say that again. I said, oh, what? Yeah, why? What did I say? He said, nobody can strip us of our dignity. Our dignity is deep inside us. It's in our soul. Nobody can take it away from us. It can be injured. It can be trampled on. And you know better than anybody else. You've seen it in action all over the world. And so he said, but it can never be stripped. And he said, don't you ever perpetuate that myth anymore. And then he finally looked at me and he said, how do you think we got through apartheid in South Africa? We Black South Africans during that horrible dehumanizing regime. How do you think we got through it? And he said to me, we got through it because we knew that we had our dignity and that we weren't going to give it up for anybody. So that, Dave, was like the first real whoa kind of moment for me with recognizing that I guess I did in the beginning think that we had somebody had the power to strip us of our dignity. I thought that, but never again. I have never, ever said that again after that encounter with that first encounter with him. So, but, you know, he was such a man of honor and integrity. And I remember asking him another question. I said, look, you're considered the champion of reconciliation all over the world. You got a Nobel prize for all your work that you've done. And I said, I've got to ask you, I've been working in these conflicts for, you know, going on two decades now. And my question to him was, what do you think it takes to put the past to rest when you've been in conflict with somebody? What do you think it takes? And he paused for a second, not very long, but he paused and he said, well, Donna, when people have been roughed up, they need acknowledgement for the suffering they've endured. Acknowledgement. And I thought, whoa, that's it again, you know, because think about it when somebody mistreats you or violates your dignity. you get that horrible feeling, you just want somebody to come to you and say, look, Dave, that was awful what happened to you. That should have never happened. people who've been violated, you know, what I call jumpstart the healing process, because Tutu said there's no healing without acknowledgement of these dignity violations. And that's something all of us can benefit from, all of us, no matter where we are, whether we're in a leadership position or whether we're, you know, somebody's direct reports, this is the essence of acknowledging that something bad happened to somebody.

You write, one of the major misconceptions about dignity is that we think we gain our sense of worth from external sources. And I think about that line and the lessons you learned from Desmond Tutu, and you crafted something you call Mandela consciousness in learning from that. What

is that? Well, first of all, let me just say what my simple definition of dignity is, because I think we have to start with that. My definition is that we were all born worthy. We are all born as something of value, we're also born being vulnerable to having that dignity assaulted and injured. So very simple definition, very simple. It's our inherent value and worth and also our inherent vulnerability. I mean, we're physically vulnerable to injuries, but our dignity is also vulnerable. And we have to take care of that just the way we would take care of our physical selves. So those Mandela consciousness, I mean, the first starting point of it is we have to develop a deep connection to our own dignity. And in fact, Mandela consciousness is broadly defined as being connected to three things, connection, connection, and connection. First connection, you have to embrace and accept your own dignity. That starts there because so many people feel like their dignity comes from something that they've actually achieved. Like, oh, I've got a good job. I made X amount of money, and I've got a house here, a house there, whatever. Those external things are not true dignity. True dignity is embracing that inherent birthright that each and every one of us has. So the first connection in the Mandela consciousness is to our own. That's our first job. Second job is to connect it to the dignity of others, to recognize, well, if I have this inherent value and worth and I'm a human being and everybody else around me is a human being, then they deserve to be treated with dignity. And the final connection is to be connected to something greater than yourself and bigger than yourself. I don't necessarily want to say greater, but bigger than yourself. And, you know, Tutu informed me this, you know, he always says that we are born in the image and likeness of God. And I think, wow, you know, that's great for people who are members of faith communities. But I work with people who are not necessarily members of faith communities. And as much as I can embrace that whole notion of being part of the divine plan, I say to people, look, we have the desire, we humans often have a desire to do something big in our lives. We want to have a purpose that helps others. We want to be thought of as contributing to the greater good. My students, Dave, are all wanting this. This is a major aspiration for them that they want a life of meaning and they want a life of purpose. So the third connection, first one to your own dignity, second one to the dignity of others, and the third one to something bigger than yourself is making sure that you're contributing to the greater good somehow, that you are doing work that enhances other people's lives, not just your own. So it's like a, it's like a defense against narcissism because you could say, oh, well, if you think you're so great, but no, these three connections really are, I think, if they're in alignment, if you have all three secure inside you, I believe it's a recipe for a fulfilled life. I really do. in the corporate world, because one of the things that happened, Dave, when I discovered this insight about the role dignity plays in conflict and how we all want to be treated with dignity, I mean, I see it as our universal human yearning. We all want to be treated as if we matter. And when we don't, we suffer terribly. And so for leaders to understand this profound aspect of what it means to be human, that we all want that feeling that people are valuing us and seeing our inherent worth, that's a fundamental and simple truth. It's a really simple truth. But also the other simple truth is that when we are treated like that, we flourish as human beings. So for leaders, this is a no-brainer to try to deeply understand this.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You said something really big a moment ago that I'd love to come back to. I think about those three Cs that you highlight, connected to our own dignity, connected to the dignity of others, and the dignity of something bigger than ourselves. And I thought one of the really interesting things that you surface in the book is, especially thinking about this from an organization standpoint, that how interesting it is that sometimes the organization is really good at that third one, right? The dignity of something bigger than ourselves and serving the world and serving customers, stakeholders, clients, donors, whoever that organization is serving, and yet sometimes missing one or both of the other two. You've seen that come up a bunch, haven't you? Oh,

all the time, all the time. And in fact, the first order of business that I engage with when I'm asked to consult in an organization is making sure that people have the consciousness of their own dignity and that they have accepted it. Because, you know, it's so, so often, I think I mentioned this earlier, so often people think that their dignity comes from something that they have to do. They have to outperform somebody. They have to get to the top of the, you know, the top of the hierarchy and they have to gain so much power. Well, that's what scientists call false dignity. The true dignity is the dignity that we're born with. And I'll tell you, Dave, when people, like grown people, you know, grown adults, they say, when they listen to me say this, it's like, oh my God, all these years I've been thinking that I've got to, in order to feel good about myself and to feel worthy, I have to do something. Well, okay, doing something is important, but that core essence of who we are, we don't get that message very often anywhere else. And so, as Tutu said, that's your first thing that you have to do to make sure people know that they have dignity, they were born with it, and nobody can take it away. And it's the first step toward understanding that we're all in this together, we humans, we all, we may have our differences, but at the same time, we are, we all have dignity. And it's our highest common denominator. And we have to aspire to understanding it. But if you don't accept your own dignity first, I mean, I know this from my own example. I used to think, you know, I mean, I got five degrees, Dave, thinking I was going to find dignity in those degrees, you know, five degrees in a two-year postdoc at Harvard before I got my Harvard job. So I was really thinking that, whoa, I'm going to feel good about myself once I get all this stuff taken. But honestly, it's the real, sincere, authentic dignity is what each and every one of us come into the world with. Yeah.

Boy, I just keep coming back to what you've said and in the book of the importance of being connected to our own dignity first, right? Before we can even do more for others. And when you talk with people about this and they're thinking about this word sometimes for the first time really intentionally, what's an indicator that comes up that that connection isn't quite there? Well,

you know, it shows up, Dave, in the form of anxiety, depression, the feeling that you really can't be your authentic self in certain environments that a colleague of mine, Bob Keegan, he said when he went in, he's another consultant, and he said that for the first time he went into the corporate world, because he's a psychologist like me, a human development psychologist, he said the first time he went in, he was amazed that people in the workplace were doing two jobs. And I thought, whoa, two jobs, what's that? And he said, well, it's the job that they were hired to do to begin with. But then the other job was covering up your sense of inadequacy or not, you know, not really feeling like you're up to the task and you have to be sure that. And he said, it's usually, you know, the covering up part, it takes so much of the energy away from the job that you were actually hired to do. So it's, yeah, it's a liberation, you know, what I often say that we have to liberate our dignity, because it's in there, you know, it's in there, but we have to set it free. And I think once we get to that point, Dave, where we've liberated our own dignity and we can see it in others and we can understand the importance of the dignity of the greater good and all of that, once we see that, it becomes so much easier. Like we let go of that anxiety. We let go of that depression. We let go of the feeling that we're less than, or we can't really, you know, measure up to everybody else there. But it's a lot of psychological pain, Dave, I think, to answer your question. I think there's a lot of self-doubt. I see a lot of self-doubt even in very accomplished people. Really.