In this micro-lesson, I'm breaking down the Bubble World theory of inclusive leadership — why most collisions at work aren't malicious, they're assumptions — and how the ARC Method® gives us a way to move through the world without bursting each other's bubbles. Plus: we built an actual game to practice it. Link in the show notes.
In this micro-lesson, I'm breaking down the Bubble World theory of inclusive leadership — why most collisions at work aren't malicious, they're assumptions — and how the ARC Method® gives us a way to move through the world without bursting each other's bubbles. Plus: we built an actual game to practice it. Link in the show notes.
Takeaways
Good Vibes to Go: If you haven’t watched any of the Paralympics, please do! I’m inspired by the athletes’ determination. This is the last weekend. You can watch clips on NBC/Peacock.
Connect with Me
In this week's Five Things newsletter, the stories are about paid job pathways for refugees, neurodivergent talent leading in advertising, Amtrak making station support easier for disabled passengers, and more. But if you wanna read those stories, you're gonna have to check out the Five Things newsletter which you can get at 5thingsdei.com — because this podcast is now Good Vibes Leadership.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Good Vibes Leadership. I'm Bernadette Smith.
So today's episode is one that's been on my mind for a while.
I want you to picture something. I want you to imagine all of us — all of us humans in the world, every single person on your team, in your life, on your street, at an event — all of us are essentially walking around in these invisible protective bubbles. Like that movie, The Boy in the Bubble, if you ever saw that. It's an old movie with John Travolta. Um, I'm not actually sure I ever saw that movie, to be honest. But anyway, these bubbles are essentially everything that made us who we are.
These bubbles contain things like our traumas, the things from our childhood. I'm the youngest child — what are some of the little things that I have as baggage because of that? Any sort of big T or little t traumas, your wins that you've had, your fears that you've had. All of these types of things are sort of our lived experiences that are all stuffed in this protective bubble. And each of us has our own bubble. And each of us has our own shit. It's all invisible, but it's there. And it's ours.
So what happens when we move through the world is that we're gonna be bouncing into other people, bouncing into other bubbles. And sometimes, sure, no big deal — just sort of bounce off each other and on we go. And that's probably the case most of the time. But in relationships in which we are spending more time with folks, where we're trying to build relationships with folks, we have to pay more attention to the bubbles. Right?
Because sometimes we can accidentally pop someone's bubble — or they can pop our bubble. And when both bubbles get popped, there's a lot of triggering going on. You know, it's not always intentional. But then we're in this sort of ugly trauma soup. I know it's kind of a gross metaphor, but — trauma soup. And no one wants to be standing in it, but that's essentially what happens when we burst each other's bubbles.
So there's a lesson here for leaders.
I've been doing this work for a long time. I've definitely burst people's bubbles. I've had people burst my bubble. What I've learned is that most of this stuff is not malicious. These collisions that happen at work, they're not malicious usually. Sometimes they're based in assumptions — mistaken assumptions about what someone needs or who they are. Sometimes that's what happens. Sometimes we burst someone's bubble by being a little bit too direct, or perhaps overly critical without adding some softness to our approach, and that can burst someone's bubbles.
You know, we might think that we know what someone needs, but we don't always. Right? So sometimes we don't ask. We just sort of charge forward, or we assume that what someone else needs is the same thing as what I need — which is what I've done a lot. I have assumed that people operate the same way as I do, which is pretty direct and hyper focused at times. I've had to learn to be softer because I have burst lots of bubbles over the years.
In the past, I have charged into people. And then I wonder later why the relationship is a little bit fragmented, or why I broke someone's trust. You might notice if someone goes quiet — well, maybe they feel like their bubble was burst. The same conflict may show up over and over again for leaders, and it's because we're not mindful of other people's bubbles.
So this is what I think about. Right? I think about all of this stuff. But it all relates back to this tool I created called the ARC Method. It's something I talk about in a lot of my workshops and keynotes. It's a contextual model we use throughout our firm, Equality Institute. We have train-the-trainers on the ARC Method. It's great. It's a great tool.
And again, it stands for Ask, Respect, Connect.
The idea is when we lead with curiosity — kind curiosity — instead of making assumptions, we stop colliding with other folks. We're less likely to burst someone's bubble when we are kindly curious. We can, in fact, start to protect other people's bubbles. And that's where trust gets built. It gets built in the kindly curious questions and relationships that we start to have when we're aware that we all have our own stuff going on and we have to be mindful about how we approach.
Those smaller conversations are where we build trust — not necessarily in big moments, but in these small moments.
Now, of course, it can be hard to do this. Like I said, I can be very direct. So it has been a challenge for me over the years to not sort of charge into a conversation. Not to always do connection before content — which, by the way, is one of the things I preach: connection before content. That has been a hard lesson for me over the years.
But it all starts with the pause. Having enough mindfulness to remember that we're all in these bubbles. That we all have our shit going on and that we can crash into each other. So when we have that mindfulness — and we have the mindfulness to pause before we approach someone in a conversation — it can start to activate trust and relationship building. We definitely want to pause before we go into the ARC Method. So keep that in mind.
And because I've had all of this in my head, I decided — you know what? Let's build a game.
So we built a game called Bubble World. It's an actual interactive digital game and it allows you to practice connecting with folks, not popping someone's bubble, using the ARC Method. The idea here is that it's gonna help you move through the world with more intention. I'll post the link to the game in the show notes. Play it on your laptop or desktop — it's fun. It's a really fun game, and you get to practice in three different scenarios: the workplace, home, or a social event. And how do you get to the other side? How do you get to common ground without bursting anyone's bubbles? That's the idea behind Bubble World.
So, you know, this whole conversation might give you a clue into how my brain thinks. But I do think it's important for us to move through the world with more intention — to keep our bubbles intact, to keep other people's bubbles intact, to protect ourselves, but have that kind curiosity about others.
When I shared this in my newsletter, I had a really high response. A very high number of people started playing the game. So hopefully you get to check it out.
Here's what I want you to think about as you go: think about the last time you bounced into someone's bubble without meaning to. What did that look like? Were you both triggered? Was there this ugly trauma soup that I was referring to? But what precipitated that? Did you make an assumption about what they needed, or you didn't ask before you approached? Maybe you said something that landed wrong.
Think about what one better approach could have been in that moment. Just one better approach.
The idea here of Good Vibes Leadership is that those little approaches are where inclusion lives. Not really in the grand gestures, but in those little moments.
Alright, folks. Let's get into this week's Good Vibes to Go.
The Paralympics just ended. So if you haven't gotten a chance to watch any of those amazing athletes, check it out. You can watch clips on NBC, Peacock, on YouTube. I'm really inspired by all athletes who have that kind of grit and determination, and it is a beautiful thing to watch. So for some good vibes to go — check out the Paralympics.
Alright, folks. I'm Bernadette Smith, CEO of Equality Institute, author of Inclusive 360, and your weekly guide to Good Vibes Leadership.
If this show landed with you at all, please share it with one person on your team who you think needs to hear it. And if you want more good vibes every Saturday, subscribe at 5thingsdei.com.
I'm cheering you on.