EP 28: Conversations for Good with Corinne + Briggs
“You and I are either blessed or burdened with an incredible amount of empathy.” Kicking off a new series called “Conversations for Good with Corinne + Briggs,” host Corinne Morahan welcomes COO and head of HR at Grid + Glam, her right-hand woman and (one of her) favorite people in the world, Briggs Rolfsrud. While today’s conversation highlights the womens’ fun and funny dynamic and the deep friendship at the heart of their working relationship, it nonetheless addresses the best way to approach difficult conversations in the workplace. They also tackle how to keep healthy boundaries between personal and professional life and why empathy is a double-edged sword.
They will explain why things actually go more smoothly when one person decides they are in charge. When one person takes on the responsibility of approaching the other with concerns or criticism, the other must hold up their end of the responsibility by being receptive and listening without judgment or defensiveness.
Briggs shares a hilarious story about her mother attending her granddaughter’s softball game which is a reminder that just when we think someone isn’t paying attention, they may actually be focused on the most important thing of all.
Quotes
- “I coach a lot of entrepreneurs, some of whom are in partnership, and I think it absolutely can work when two people are in charge. It works best when there are very clearly defined purviews that people oversee, but I do think it’s tricky. I think at the end of the day it reduces a lot of conflict, believe it or not, when there is one person in charge.”(5:47 | Corinne Morahan)
- “You’ve told me that if there is something that is bothering me about you, to tell you and to be direct about it, and I took that seriously. So, instead of letting things fester or getting too upset about them, I tell you, so that you know. But the other part of that, that is really important, is that you are willing to hear it, which is hard.” (10:53 | Briggs Rolfsrud)
- “In the depths of hard conversations we’ve had where we’ve been crying is that I know—and I think we feel this about each other—that we love each other so much, we respect each other so much, and how each other feels is paramount to any money, to any business decisions, to anything else. We would throw the whole frickin’ company away for our friendship, but truly, truly. And when you feel that someone really cares about you to that extent, then you hear what they’re saying through the lens of, ‘This is not an attack. This person doesn’t have ulterior motives, they want the best for me, for us, for everything.” (12:36 | Corinne Morahan)
- “As a society, I wish we would focus on the importance of empathy. Ambition is very highly regarded, everyone knows who’s the most ambitious and you’re so proud of them and that’s wonderful, but who’s the most empathic? No one gets any awards for that.” (19:24 | Briggs Rolfsrud)
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