Dr Donna Hicks: Every Conflict Hides a Dignity Wound

Donna Hicks spent three decades at the world's hardest conflict tables and found one hidden injury beneath them all: a violation of human dignity. From the Middle East to Northern Ireland, she watched negotiations stall not over policy, but over something no one in the room had named. This episode is the word that changed everything, and the model she built around it.

Dr Donna Hicks, author of Leading with Dignity and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, spent her career as a third party in unofficial diplomacy across the Middle East, Sri Lanka, Colombia and Northern Ireland. She co-facilitated the BBC series Facing the Truth alongside Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and her earlier book, Dignity, reshaped how the world understands conflict, connection and leadership.
 
This one runs close to home for me. As a young boy from a Pied-Noir family — French people of European origin who had left Algeria after its independence — newly arrived in Nice, I was once told by a schoolmate to “get out of here.” I came home devastated. My father’s answer, that I should be proud of where I came from and that I had something real to give, was dignity restored long before either of us had a word for it.

In our conversation, we explore:
 → Why respect is earned but dignity is not, and how leaders who confuse the two quietly damage their teams
 → The ten elements of dignity, and the single one that 80% of employees say is violated most at work
 → What happened when the BBC sat victims and perpetrators face to face, and why healing did not require forgiveness
 → Why Donna now teaches dignity to eight-year-olds, and her advice to young leaders entering a harder world
 → Mandela consciousness: the three connections that rebuild dignity in any team, family or boardroom

"I don't believe we need to find common ground. I believe we need to find higher ground."
 - Dr Donna Hicks, Harvard University

If you have ever watched a meeting derail over something that was never really about the agenda, this conversation hands you the missing word, and a practical model for what to do next.

🎧 Related Episodes:

•  Amy Edmondson on psychological safety, the dignity element 80% of employees say is violated most at work: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1798971/episodes/15687150
•  Stephen M.R. Covey on trust as the foundation of culture, and what sits beneath even trust: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1798971/episodes/12252258
•  Barbara Fredrickson on Love 2.0, and why dignity is the fastest path to genuine connection: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1798971/episodes/9437036

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JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Hello, and welcome to Positive Leadership Podcast, the podcast that helps you grow as an individual, as a leader, and ultimately as a global citizen. This is Jean-Philippe Courtois. Today I'm very honored to welcome a woman who spent over three decades at the heart of the world's most intractable conflicts, and where she discovered the inconvenient truth, that beneath every conflict lies the same invisible wound, a violation of human dignity. At Harvard, she facilitated, she facilitated dialogues in the Middle East, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Northern Ireland, and many other places. She co-facilitated the BBC series Facing the Truth alongside Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Her two landmark books, Dignity and Leading with Dignity, have changed how we understand conflict, connection, leadership. Dr. Donna Hicks, Donna, if I may, associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. A very warm welcome to Positive Leadership Podcast.

DR DONNA HICKS: Well, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to be here with you, and I'm so looking forward to, our conversation.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: So Donna, I always like to start, again, with the roots of my guests, where they started, early childhood, and I know that your... like for all of us, your family, dad, mom, and grandparents and more, the big impact on who you are, who you became, and so I'd like you to take us back to that childhood. What was it like growing up where it seems to be that the conflict was constant? And how did that shape, how did that shape the girl who dedicate her life to understand why do we hurt each other?

DR DONNA HICKS: Mm. That's the question. Why do we do this? Yes, I grew up in a very small town in Upstate New York where... And, it was a rural community. There was only maybe 2,500 people in this town. And, my father's My father was from a long, line of educators, theologians, philosophers, and my mother's family were Polish immigrants. And they, my mother and father met in high school and, fell in love, and I think that was where all the good, good news ended because once they, once they started having children and all the pressures of, life were, were on them then that's when the conflicts began because my father's family, they were all very proper, and my grandmother was Dutch, and she had her own very fastidious ways of doing things. And my mother, on the other hand, she was one of 16 children. Imagine that. 16, yes. And my grandparents on the Polish side had a farm, and I'm convinced the reason why they had so many children was so that they could didn't have to hire anybody to work on the farms. They just had their kids doing everything. But anyway

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: ... What Thanksgiving was looking like, by the way, Donna.

DR DONNA HICKS: Oh, it was crazy. I don't even go there. It was crazy. But they didn't get... My mother and father didn't get along. The cultural differences were just too, too much, too different, too, too, impossible to kind of integrate. And as little kids, I mean, I'm one of five myself. But as little, as a little girl, I would see my mother and my father screaming at each other and calling each other names and I said to myself as a five-year-old there's something wrong here. It isn't supposed to be this way. You know, families are supposed to love each other. So anyway, I feel like that early imprint at five years old it stayed with me. It stayed in my soul. Like, we can do better than this. This is not right. This is not right. So anyway, I... That was my, I think, the foundation of my interest in dignity. I didn't know it at the time. I never, never used the word dignity ever. But I know that the basic foundation started there.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Is this, is it a sentiment that was shared, that you share with your siblings as well, Donna?

DR DONNA HICKS: Oh, sure. Oh yeah, yeah. I think my older sister and I, really had it the worst because they were... You know, my parents were so young themselves. They were only 18 when they got married. Imagine that. So I think, sure. I mean, it was not only my sisters, but my grandparents knew it, and what the... They rescued us, actually, my grandparents. They took us everywhere. We had rooms in their house. And they knew that my mother and father weren't getting along. So we... I mean, in spite of all of that I actually had quite a lovely childhood because of my wonderful grandparents on my father's side. So

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Can you tell us more about your grandparents? Actually, what they did to make you actually have, some hope for the future?

DR DONNA HICKS: Well, they were just very... There was a lot of structure, a lot of structure in their homes. We had our own beds. We had to make our beds. We had our own books that we were to read, and everything was very organized and very predictable, whereas in my parents' home, where, you know, where my biological parents' home, it was a mess. It was, constantly fighting, And we didn't feel safe anywhere, the kids. My grandparents that's where all the safety, came in.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Safety sentiment as well. So Donna, what, what strikes me is that, again, before the entering the world diplomacy and conflict resolution, you first choose to study human behavior, I think, at a much more intimate level. Long before dignity actually became your framework, I think, you're already trying to understand what drives suffering, reaction, healing, and you choose to study psychology early on. So why did that field call you so strongly at that stage of your life again, after we fast-forwarded your childhood, of course? And what were you hoping to understand about yourself, about your family maybe, about human to you know, human conflict together through that choice?

DR DONNA HICKS: Yeah, I mean, at that time I was interested in human development. My PhD is in human development. I mean, I got about five different degrees when I was, in school because I thought, "Oh, that's where I'm gonna feel worthy, is if I keep getting degrees, I'm gonna get my sense of value and worth by having all these PhD, MA, you know, all of these, letters beside my name." But it didn't really work out that way. But one thing that I did understand very deeply was how conflict interrupts human development. It keeps us in a state of, frozen, trauma. And when we're experiencing that conflict in a, in a, from a young age especially, that really does arrest our ability to move on, to even to learn, even to learn. So school was, always a challenge too. I mean, I was... That was the one thing that I was good at. I was a really smart little kid, you know? So my teachers loved me, and I always did well in school. That was the one thing that I felt like I was so good at. But fast-forward again, as a graduate student I also became very interested at that time in international conflict. Because I felt like I grew up in an international conflict. Poland on one hand and the United States on the other. And so anyway, having, having studied that so deeply, I realized that, I wanted to go further. I really wanted to get a postdoctoral fellowship somewhere to understand how to bring people together. How to, how to become a mediator of international conflicts. And lo and behold, I met this wonderful professor at a meeting. His name was Professor Herbert Kelman who was a social psychologist at Harvard. And he... We met, and we talked because there were very few people, Jean-Philippe, very few people at that time who were thinking about the psychological dimensions of international conflict. Everybody was talking about power, and everybody was talking about resources and self-interest. And my mentor and I, and others of us who studied under him, we were more interested in the human dimension of these conflicts. What does this do to human beings to be in an intractable, you know, 30-year conflict? And what do... How does that do... What does that, what does that do for your development when you get arrested? It's like being frozen in time. So I just took to this. I And my mentor, Professor Herbert Kelman after spending a two-year postdoc with him he hired me to just stay with him and teach with him, and the rest is history because I've been at Harvard for, 30 years now.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: So would you say that, again, that mentorship and that fellowship and very close relationship with that professor was kind of the trigger for your calling into the dignity work and conflict resolution? That was

DR DONNA HICKS: Oh, it was definitely, it opened a door for sure. Because I mean, one of the most amazing things about being, at Harvard for so many years, was that it opened doors that would never ever be accessible to me if I weren't affiliated with Harvard and if I weren't, teaching there with Herb Kelman and my Professor Kelman, and I would have never gotten to the negotiating tables in the Middle East or Colombia or Sri Lanka or So, the... being there and studying that unique... It was a unique aspect of conflict the human dimension of conflict. And I actually came up with the dignity, framing of these conflicts kind of independent of Professor Kelman. I mean, he set the stage. He certainly did use the word dignity, but I took it a step beyond where, Yeah, because I actually developed a process to help people

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: If you don't mind, Donna, we'll come back to that in a few minutes. Let's continue the discussion, Donna. Your career has taken you again into many conflicts. Obviously Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which still exists today, unfortunately. A 10-year project in Sri Lanka, I think Colombia, US-Cuba dialogues Libya, Syria, and some more, and these are situations where people have lost loved ones and communities and have been torn apart for generations. So when you first enter those conflict zones, what did you learn about human nature that textbook didn't teach you? And is there a story you can share with us in one of your very first theaters operation where you unveiled again that inconvenient truth about lack of dignity?

DR DONNA HICKS: Hmm. Well, the issue dignity, the label that I put on it using the word dignity came after, but what I ob no, yeah. What I observed sitting at those tables, no matter where I was, whether I was in the Middle East, Sri Lanka, all those different places you mentioned what I recognized that the people were wanting to talk about the political issues that divided them. You know? So for example, if in... if it was the Middle East, it would be about, having a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, having Jerusalem as the capital ending the settlements, all these political policy issues that were dividing them. And I'm sitting there, trained as a psychologist, and I am, I am watching them go through a process where inevitably somebody would explode at the table. And I would say to them, "Whoa, just... can we stop for a minute? Because-" "... I think something really important just happened here when you had that big emotional response." And the guy said to me, "Emotions?" "This isn't about emotions. This is about justice. This is about identity. This is about-" "Okay. Okay. I'm not... Sorry, I used the wrong word." Oh, boy. So then I, when I was... I think I was in Sri Lanka after that. And the same exact thing happened. The same thing happened. Somebody exploded when they were talking about, you know, the lack of how the Tamils didn't have recognition of their culture blah, blah, blah, all of that. And somebody got really upset. And I thought to myself, "Gee, this is probably a trauma reaction." You know? This is really about being so traumatized for so long. They that conflict went on forever. Those poor people suffered. And so when the when the big explosion happened, I said, "Oh, gosh, can we wait a second here? Can... Are you willing to talk to me about what just happened on the inside?" "'Cause I have a feeling this is a result of having been so traumatized by this conflict." And the person said to me, "Trauma? No." "This is not about trauma. This is about justice. This is about ident-" I said, "Okay. All right." So I got two strikes, Jean-Philippe. I have two strikes right now. I had to come up. I thought I had only one more chance to figure out what the right word was. And lo and behold, I was in, I think I was in Colombia at the time doing the same kind of, facilitation, and the same thing happened, and I finally nailed it. Because when somebody exploded, I said, "Wait a minute. I just, I just have a feeling. I've seen this happen everywhere that I have been facilitating these dialogues." "And I have a feeling the reaction that you just had was because of the way your dignity has been assaulted over, you know throughout this conflict." And the people on both sides of the divide, they just sat there. And they said to me, "Dignity?" "Yeah." "This is about our dignity." And then, oh my goodness, I couldn't stop them from talking about the ways in which their dignity had been injured, assaulted, trampled on, and it was like all of a sudden I found that magic word.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: So it's quite amazing actually, Donna, as you walk us through the story, the power of one single word, right, that you pronounce. And what is it do you think happened in the minds of those people who exploded one minute earlier and just paused and kind of started to hear you, listen to you in a different way, and probably opened a different dialogue with the other counterparty?

DR DONNA HICKS: Oh, yeah. Oh, that

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: How is that? How is that power of the word

DR DONNA HICKS: The power of the word

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: ... Working in the minds, right, in the brains of the people? What is your view as a psychologist and as a facilitator of negotiation? Because you've used, I think, many techniques in your life, right, of negotiations that people know or don't know, but you express a word and then a strategy which was very different.

DR DONNA HICKS: Yeah. I think what I named the word really matters because people felt like there's integrity in that word. That word is something they can be, you know, they'd be willing to say, "Yes, my dignity was injured," and rather than saying, "Oh, I just had a big emotional reaction." Because all those other words, they felt weak to the participants. Whereas dignity had some legitimacy. It had some integrity. It had... It was a word that they could stand behind and say, "This is what's happening, and let me tell you." 'Cause I would ask them, and I would say, "I wanna know about your dignity violations here, but I also wanna know about your community's dignity violations." And so they said, "Oh my gosh, yes, not only is it in our community, but our ancestors have a narrative of, you know, dignity assaults and dignity And it got, it gets passed down to us intergenerationally, these dignity assaults." And so it was so profound. I mean, it was... The word just... it took us to places that I would, we would never go. They would never open up and talk about their, how their grandparents suffered. You know. They would never do that because they would think that this is a weakness, but boy, when I used that word, everything changed.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Yeah, something very big. And so what I, what I'm actually struck by as well, Donna, is the distinction between some words we pick, right, as we discuss with-... people, loved ones or foreigners. And the distinction between the words like dignity and respect as an example, right? Because, you know, I can relate to many discussion I had in the business or even in social, environments where we often use the term of respect to define the shared values between the different parties around the table. It doesn't, it doesn't bring the same power, right, than dignity. So why is that I found that many leaders confuse the two words, even in business

DR DONNA HICKS: Always

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: ... Where respect and dignity, because those are two different, very different type of behaviors and meanings for the brains and the minds of the people.

DR DONNA HICKS: Two very different words. You're right. And I actually, Archbishop Tutu helped me with this distinction because, you know, he said that, dignity is something inherent. We are born with dignity. It's like we are born with blue eyes or, you know it, well, it's more than a right. It's a part of our humanity. It's not just a legal right. It is a legal right, but I'm talking about the part that is defines who we are as human beings. And it's... And Tutu would say, you know, we, in South Africa, he said, "We were assaulted by our dignity. Our Black colleagues were assaulted all the time, our dignity." And he said, "How do you think we got through all of that? How do you think we got through that, horrible regime, the apartheid regime?" And I said, "Well, tell me." And he said, "Because we knew that our dignity was in our hands and our hands only. It is in our soul." "Nobody can take it away from us." And then he said, then he said "It can be injured, it can be assaulted, and we have to heal from that." But that is the inherent, inherent, quality of our shared humanity, all of us. And respect, on the other hand, has to be earned. We have to do something in order to earn respect. And he said, "You're never, you're never gonna get people who have been in a war to say 'Oh, I'm gonna respect the other side.'" No. But we will be able to say, "Look, we have something in common here, and it's our shared desire to be treated with dignity." And let's just focus on that. And, you know, let me say one other thing, Jean-Philippe about this powerful word. You know, in my field of conflict resolution, we always talk about trying to find, common ground in order to see if we can come to, an agreement about how to end the conflict. I don't believe that anymore. I don't believe we need to find common ground. I believe we need to find higher ground. Because it, and dignity is the one thing that can take us there to that higher elevating our shared humanity, not the differences that we experience on the ground. The ground is a mess. You know? The common ground is a mess. We need to elevate our consciousness and our behaviors toward one another. And so it's dignity that takes us to that higher ground.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: No, I love it. I think it's super powerful, and it connects me back to the conversation I had with Raj that you know well, Raj Sisodia, on conscious capitalism and consciousness as humans as a core, as a core element of who we are as people, as, as humans. Now, Donna, I'd like you to walk us through, the deep work you did because you identified 10 essential elements of dignity. I'm just gonna list them quickly, but then we'll pick a couple of them if you don't mind. Acceptance of identity, recognition, acknowledgement, inclusion, safety, fairness, independence, understanding, benefit of the doubt, and accountability. And this brings me actually to some conversation I had with some guests on my podcast, Donna, one that you may know, Stephen M.R. Covey, who you know, has been his, the son of his famous dad and famous books as well. And he, you know, he said and he showed me that trust is built through both character and competence, but I think your work is adding something else even more foundational. Before people can trust our, our leadership, actually, they need to feel that their dignity is seen, is protected, and honored. So can you walk us through these 10 elements by elevating maybe the ones that are the most often violated, and which one, honored, you think have the most transformative power?

DR DONNA HICKS: Hmm. Well, first of all, I-- let me just tell you how I arrived at those 10 elements 'cause it's really significant. I did interviews with people all over the world and asked them to tell me about times when they felt their dignity had been violated or had been honored, and I expected to find cultural differences there. I thought, "Well, maybe Asia would be different from Africa, different from you know, North America, from the Middle East." And but what ended up by happening was the stories that they told me, it's a really interesting point here. If you wanna get to the heart of the matter, you ask people to tell them, tell you a story about what happened to them. It opens doors like you wouldn't believe. So no matter where I was in the world, I would hear similar stories about ways in which they felt their dignity was honored and violated, which they're two sides of the same coin, as you well know. But, and so I was shocked not to find these cultural differences, that they actually ended up being, people having the same deep emotional reaction it, no matter where we were. And I thought "Oh, my gosh, I've stumbled upon a universal human, -... truth that, you know, we all wanna be treated with dignity, and when we're not, we suffer. So the, these 10 elements that emerged from all of the stories that I collected all over the world were these, the ones that you just, you just, articulated. Identity is huge. You know people want their, identity accepted no matter their race, their religion, their ethnicity, their sexual orientation. People want to be seen as equal in dignity even if they differ in status, you know? We have, we have hierarchies in all of our organizations, and yeah, we got bosses with more power and all that but it's the, what people want more than anything is to be seen as equal in dignity. So that was a, that, identity's a big one. You know what else is a huge one is acknowledgement. And you might not think so, but here's the story. Again, I feel like Desmond Tutu gave me so much of his wisdom and that I feel like I'm the guardian of it. I have to pass it along to people. But he said to me, I said, "Archbishop, you are known as the champion of reconciliation in the world. What you did in South Africa to prevent a blood bath was amazing." "Tell me," I said to him, "what does it take for us humans to put the past to rest after we have been so badly treated? What does it take?" And he looked at me and he said, "Donna, it's one thing. We need acknowledgement for the suffering we've endured." "We need acknowledgement for the suffering we've endured." "We need somebody to say to us, 'Oh, Donna, that was terrible. That was awful what, what you went through.' I, we, we're hungry to hear somebody say 'What happened to you was wrong, and you should have never been treated that way.'" So acknowledgement's a big one. I mean, understanding is another, another one, the need to be understood, because so often we have these stereotypical notions in our mind about people, and we just, you know, instead of listening deeply to them and hearing their stories, we just, like, come to judgment, you know, quickly. We're very good at judging, we humans. Negatively. Negatively judging. And I mean, these are all... I mean, I hate the, like my 10 children you know, I hate to say one is better than the other. But the other one that is so powerful, probably the most, and which surprised me I mean, when I, when I went into the corporate world for the first time after

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: We'll, we'll come back to that, by the way, but please expand a little bit on that one. Yes.

DR DONNA HICKS: Well, I mean, yeah, I just, I'll just say this one thing. I introduced these 10 elements of dignity to every, all the employees that I worked with. And they all said that when I asked them, "What is the one element here that you feel is violated most of the time?" And I was expecting maybe identity, maybe recognition, you know. And they said, 80% of the time they said safety. Safety. And I said, "What? Safety? You mean you're, you're walking around and people are beating you up or something?" And they said, "No. This is, it's psychological safety." "We don't..." and I said, "Please tell me more." And they said, "We don't feel safe to speak up when our boss treats us badly." "We're afraid to speak up. We're afraid we might lose our job. We're afraid we won't get a promotion. We're afr..." You know. So there is this toxic implicit norm in especially the corporate world, that I discovered after working there for many years that people just are terrified of speaking up to their bosses. So, and then you get this culture that says, "Okay, it's okay. Mistreat me. I don't..." You know. It's a bad, it's really toxic. So yeah, and anyway, these 10 elements, I think accountability's very important to people. People want to be, have somebody to apologize when they've been mistreated. And accountability is just so big in leadership anyway because if you're not holding yourself accountable as a person who is leading a group or leading an organization it's, it, you know, people know. I mean, people know when you're covering up. People know when you're lying and trying to hide a mistake. And so accountability is actually quite a magical process too

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: ... Is a big one as well, yeah.

DR DONNA HICKS: It's a big one.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Interesting enough, just to make a side comment, Donna. You know, I'm someone who spent a lot of years in tech, and still I'm passionate about AI, obviously, and AI for good as opposed to AI for bad. But you know, when you think about what is called kind of the responsible AI, and you may have heard about that concept responsible AI, you find actually at least three or four of your elements of dignity in the definition. You find, like, you find actually inclusion, you find safety you find fairness and you find accountability. This is part of framework used by most of the AI tech companies to define what a good governance process is to establish the guardrails for responsible AI in your company or in the world. So it's very interesting to see the bridge between the work you did and what tech companies and all of us have to deal when we actually work with AI these days.

DR DONNA HICKS: Well, it's, I'll tell you, what I'll tell you now, you won't be surprised because I had a student in, I have a student in, Australia, a woman-Who integrated dignity into her AI, model. 'cause she was interested in ethics and what's gonna happen, you know, with AI. People are-- how are people gonna be treated and recognized? So she put all of that into, into her dissertation. AI is... I mean, it's-- And then I have another student also in, and this one's in the United States who, who established a website where if you wanna go and figure out how to send a dignified message to somebody they have a-- they've got this whole AI thing that they've done. And so it's not a surprise because a lot of the people I have trained and dealt with, and given my dignity, intellectual property to, it's now, it's out there. That's it's out there. Yeah.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: I, I'd like us to continue to peel the onion a little bit, Donna, and you talked already about some, negative, obviously, aspects of dignity when it's violating, violated. You also identify what you call, I think, the temptations to violate dignity, right? And what I find so powerful in your work is you, that you don't describe this reaction as sign that we are bad people, by the way. You describe them as deeply human impulses, almost hardwired reflexes that show up when we feel threatened exposed or diminished, and that changes the conversation because, of course, it moves us from judgment to awareness, and from awareness to responsibility. So why do you frame them as evolutionary rather than moral failures?

DR DONNA HICKS: Well, first of all, I... Somebody-- When I was writing my first book on dignity, it's called Dignity: Its Essential Role in Resolving Conflict someone said to me, "You really should study the work of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology," because the way we humans react under stress and in times of, like you just mentioned, when they're feeling threatened, there are evolutionary roots to that, and if you're gonna be talking to people about their negativity and how they are, you know, mistreating other people you have to understand that part of those reactions that we have under circumstances of threat are in our brain even before we're born, you know? We're in the womb. It's in the womb. So these evolutionary Go ahead.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: No, please, I was just listening to you. Absolutely. Keep going, please Donna.

DR DONNA HICKS: So these evolutionary, what, what, E. O. Wilson, he talks about them as, ancestral, memories that we have that we inherited from the evolution of our species to this current day, and we have always-- we have never gotten rid of this reaction when we feel like our-- we're being threatened, our lives are on the line, and it's automatic. It's it comes like that, and e-even without thinking. So it's part of the ancient part of our brain in the, limbic system, in the medulla. It's where we experience all kinds of emotions. So they're in us. They're wired. Our job, in terms of evolving that consciousness to another higher level, our job is to recognize when we're triggered to those ancient, impulses. They're called self-preservation instincts. They're all about survival, and so when... If we don't recognize that, oh my gosh, we have a capacity to lash out, to seek revenge, to wanna cover up when we make a mistake. We wanna avoid conflict. We-- I mean, there's so many impulses that we have to learn how to control, and if we don't control them they will control us, and w and the only way to move past them is to understand them and to recognize, "Wait, I have to not respond to that." If I wanna behave in a dignified way, if I wanna honor my own dignity I have to push the pause button when these these instincts to take the bait, to shirk responsibility, to save face, all these ugly things that save us from looking bad in the eyes of others. So, yeah.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: I'm with you, and what's amazing is yet, and we'll come back to that later, by the way. In we are in 2026. We are talking about OAIs is evolving to AGI maybe. We still, as humans, cannot or do not control for most of the time those impulses that you talk about, right? I don't think we've made much progress over the last few decades, in a way, to, you know, to make that pause, as you said, and to step back and have this kind of a inner voice, moral manager. Ethan Kross would tell us to be able to be back in control really of what's going on, right, always my emotions. But we'll come back to that. I'd love us maybe now to shift gears a little bit, Donna, and talk about the work you did with, the BBC when they did the Facing the Truth, three episodes bringing victims and perpetrators of the Northern Ireland conflict face to face. And I think that, Archbishop Tutu that you talked about facilitated alongside you and Lesley Bilinda that work. And in one encounter, a widow reached out to shake the hand of the man who murdered her husband stunning everyone in the room. So can you tell us about that moment, and tell us more about that work you did with, again, Archbishop Tutu, and what you learned about reconciliation in that event?

DR DONNA HICKS: One of the things that was remarkable about that project was that the BBC recognized that even though there was a peace agreement that happened, a couple of years before in 1998, -Everything wasn't resolved in the conflict. Yes, the major political issues were addressed. They, there were decommissioning and all of that. But the human dimension of this conflict still needed, there was healing that needed to happen. And again, I, it's back to that human dimension, back to injured dignity. Because here, here's the other thing that I didn't say about dignity that's so profound that the neuroscience of dignity shows that when we experience a wound to our dignity, when someone violates our dignity, it shows up in the brain in the same area as if we experienced a physical injury. Again, it's that amygdala. It's that old survival brain. And this, even though, and the BBC, even though they didn't have the science behind them, they knew that there was something else that had to be healed here before, before the two communities could get together and live peacefully, together. And it's that human dimension, and it, certainly the dignity issues. And so, they were so smart to know that we have to have another kind of process, not the negotiations that George Mitchell helped with and all of the IRA people and the, you know the Protestants. No. This had to be a deeply healing moment for people. If they, remember, they had to be acknowledged if they had suffered. They had to, remember Tutu said, "Well, what, put, how can we put the past to rest?" We put it to rest by acknowledging the suffering that people endured. So that's what the BBC and us, you know, the three, facilitators, and certainly Tutu was, significant in this 'cause he did all of those Truth and Reconciliation meetings in South Africa for, like, three years or something. So we tried it in Northern Ireland, and, yeah, it was, it, when, as I told you, this magic, issue of having people tell their stories there is something that happens, and we sat down, the victim on one side of this small table and the perpetrator of the violence on the other side. And we had them look straight in each other's eyes and tell each other the stories about what they had endured. And both sides. Both sides. It wasn't just the victim. But, you know, I remember at one point when, I actually wrote about this one. At one point after the IRA guy had finished talking about his, childhood and everything that happened and all the trauma he experienced, his violations, the British police officer sat there and said, "Well," Ronnie, his name was Ronnie, the IRA guy. He said, "Well if I had endured what you endured in your growing up, I probably would have done exactly what you did." So there was that acknowledgement, you know that recognition that, oh my gosh, yes, this was really, you know, this, as a human being, this was so deep and such an insult to our dignity. And so I mean, this happened a couple of times. That person that, the other episode that you were talking about where the person reached over and shook the hand, it was the same dynamic. Same dynamic that we created in that room. And it was because we focused on what it felt like as a human being, not as an IRA person or a British police officer. We got to their shared humanity, and they identified with each other's pain and suffering. So that's the, that's the magic of this whole process is you know, not going to the politics and the, you know, this and that. Yes, that had to happen, and it did in 1998. The agreement was, Good Friday Agreement in 1998. But it isn't enough for human beings to say, "Okay, I can put the past to rest now. I can let go." You have to heal those wounds, to your dignity. You have to be able to talk about the, and talking about them. And imagine, we were, the BBC was, there in the room with, you know, eight cameras filming all of this. It's not like it was this intimate moment. And, you know, we're all thinking. But actually, once they started telling their stories those cameras disappeared in our minds, you know? They disappeared and it was so remarkable. I can't even describe what it was like to be not only participating as a facilitator, but observing the depth of the pain, observing the healing, how the, how it jump-started, like, by the extension of that hand across the table, like you were commenting on. It's such simple stuff. We humans, we don't need too much, you know? We don't need all this elaborate this and that and technology. We need to understand each other's humanity. That's what we need. And

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: ... Very powerful, and I, I'd like you maybe to comment a little bit as well, because you already talked about, Tutu again, and the incredible role model I think he's been, right? Can you tell us more about what you learned from him, right, in that example or other example that you witnessed working, you know, hand in hand with him on, on such a process, which is based on a real, you know, war happening somewhere in the world, terrible, many lives lost, and people with hate. And tell me, tell us more about Tutu and what he did that surprised you, that you learned maybe.

DR DONNA HICKS: Oh my gosh. You know, there's, there are so many stories because we worked together after that for 10 years. We were that was just the beginning of our relationship. And I think the most enjoyable story that I'd like to share, with your listeners and with you, Jean-Philippe, is that after the first day when we were eight hours behind those cameras. Imagine. I mean, in front of the cameras, not behind. We were eight hours filming these, these encounters c and they were edited down to, like, a 40-minute show or something by the time they got on, on the air. And but sitting there and hearing the sadness, hearing the pain and agony, and we had, you know we had to be good listeners. That was part of honoring their dignity and honoring their story was being very careful about how we were questioning them, being careful about what we were, you know, asking them to say. And so it was exhausting. We finished the first day, got out, of this little room where we were filming, and the BBC producer said, as we were walking out of the room, said, " I think we'd better, get together in, maybe in a, in the living room," 'cause we were filming this in a big manor house in it was a private, privately owned manor house in Belfast, outside of Belfast. And she said, "Well, let's go in this living room here and have a debrief. Let's debrief everything that happened today." "Maybe we should do something different tomorrow, whatever." And Tutu was behind me. I was like one of the last people getting out, and Tutu was behind me. And we're walking out, and we get into the hallway, and he said, "Did I hear somebody say we should do a debrief?" And the producer said, "Yeah, I think we should, you know, just to see, you know." And he said, "No way." He said, "No way are we gonna do a debrief." He said, " there is enough negative energy in this space, in this whole house. The sadness was so deep, the you know, we don't need to talk about any of that anymore." He said, "In fact, what I want you to do, if you wanna go out and take a walk or something," 'cause this was, like, at the end of the day. "If you wanna go take a walk, go ahead. Get some fresh air. I'm gonna go upstairs and take a nap," he said. 'Cause we were staying in this house as well. He was exhausted, and he said "Here's the thing," he said. "When there's so much negative energy in the world our job, our job is to put positive energy back." And we said, "Well, how are we gonna do that? What are we gonna do?" And he said, "Here's what we're gonna do. We are gonna get together in one hour's time. We're gonna sit in the living room. We're gonna play music. We're gonna dance. We're gonna have cocktails. We are going to have a party." He said, "We're gonna have a party every single night." Yes, a party. And we said... And we're all standing there like "Oh, okay." And he said, "Do you think you can all do that? Would you be willing to have, to have a joyful party?" And we all said, "Oh, yeah, we can do that. We can do that." And so he was running up the stairs, and meanwhile, all of us are still kind of standing there, you know, dumbfounded by what he said. And he turns around, and he and if if anybody has met him, everybody knows, like, what a little joker he, jokester he is. So he turned around, and he said to us, "And I have one important message for all of you." And we're saying, "Oh, no. Now what? What did we do now?" And he said, "I don't want you to ever, ever forget that it's our duty to be joyful." It's our duty to be joyful. That's what he said.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Love it. What a wonderful story, Donna. Taking that because I love those quotes. One thing I'd like to come back to as well in Facing the Truth, on something that we misunderstand often, you discover that forgiveness is not always the only path to healing. You've proposed dignity restoration as an alternative. Can you explain the difference between forgiveness and dignity restoration?

DR DONNA HICKS: I think what we show, what we experienced in the BBC, shows, all of them, was that something else happened that wasn't wasn't forgiveness language. It was the people identified with one another. They shared their understanding of the pain and suffering that they had both endured. It was like something that... It, this was that they reached the higher ground Jean-Philippe. They reached that higher ground and it took them to a place where they could shake each other's hand. And one of the, one of the groups, one of the victim and the perpetrator actually went, they went, joined their families and went out to dinner together after.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: As families? Wow.

DR DONNA HICKS: As families. So it, there was no mention of the word forgiveness. And I, I'm not saying that forgiveness isn't wonderful and important. It is. It is. And I'm a big advocate of it. At the same time, I also wanted to emphasize that there is an alternative when you sit people down and let them talk about what happened to each other and have face-to-face, 'cause oftentimes forgiveness, you know, you don't even have to-Be with a person to say, "I forgive them," you know? And so it's, it, it's an alternative, let's put it that way. 'Cause I'm not gonna downplay forgiveness. I think it's really important for some people, really important. But this demonstrated to us that there is, there is healing without forgiveness, too.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Got you. Make, makes, makes a lot of sense. You know, building also on many of the learnings we had from South Africa, you've developed the concept of Mandela consciousness. The unshakable conviction that no one can take away your dignity. Mandela, as, as our listeners know for sure, spent 27 years in prison. I visited that prison, actually, in South Africa a few years ago, and he emerged from that prison with his dignity intact and choose to restore the dignity of an entire nation, obviously Black and white South Africans alike. Tell us about Mandela consciousness, Donna, and how did Mandela embody it, and what does it teach us about leadership in our own lives?

DR DONNA HICKS: Yeah. That was a remarkable, story about Mandela because he... When, you know, when Tutu and I talked about the difference between dignity and respect, and he said, "Look, our dignity is in our hands and in our hands only," and he, at that time he said to me, "Oh, go read Nelson Mandela's book, A Long Walk to Freedom." And he... And because in there, it was his, you know, autobiography after he got out of Robben Island. And what he said was that he understood, profoundly that what the guards wanted to do with the, all the Black prisoners was to strip them of their dignity. And Mandela said, "There's no way. Nobody's gonna strip us of our dignity. It's in us. It's in our souls. You can't take our dignity away." "You can injure us," and they did. You know, they were treated terribly. But he said, "We knew that, we had to have this consciousness that..." and, you know, here's the other thing he recognized. He even recognized the dignity of his, of his, wardens and the people who mistreated them so badly. So, and I ended up talking about that dignity consciousness really, involves three things. The first thing is connection. The second thing is connection, and the third thing is connection. So I call these the three Cs. And I call it Mandela consciousness because when you have these three connections, you could be, have the same consciousness as Mandela. And the first connection is with our own dignity. We have to claim our own dignity because I'll tell you, Jean-Philippe, I go everywhere and you know, all over the world doing these doing these trainings of dignity leadership and most people have not claimed their own dignity. They have not

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: ... And I, I'd love you, Donna, actually, to develop a little bit the way that ordinary people, you know, people, you know, neighbors, who knows, you know, can develop their inner fortress of dignity. How does it, how does it apply in a way to the workplace, to families, to everyday conflicts, right, beyond of course those trauma and drama happening in the war territories? How does it work? What is your advice?

DR DONNA HICKS: Yeah. Well, so anyway, the, let me just tell you the other two connection. The first thing, we have to claim our own dignity, and the ignorance surrounding this issue of dignity, Jean-Philippe is really vast. You don't learn this anywhere in school. This dignity is not a subject that we learn. We don't learn how to be in relationship with other people. You know, we don't learn that. And I think kids... And now I have schools that are doing this all over the place, so that's the good news. But the second connection is to the dignity of others because if I have dignity and I'm a human being, so does Jean-Philippe. So does everybody here. Everybody has dignity. That's our shared humanity. That's what takes us to that higher ground when we recognize we all have this. And then the third connection is to something greater than ourselves. Like, to have a purpose. You know, my students say, "Well, I wanna have meaning in my life. I wanna... I don't wanna just make a lot of money. I don't wanna just have a big house. I want to do something that contributes to the greater good." That's what they say. And so that third connection is to something making the world a better place. Let's put it that way. That's a simple way of putting it. You know, I mean, your, your, the work that you're doing with young people and entrepreneurs, I mean that is contributing to the greater good, all right? And what my understanding, my personal understanding of what it takes us as human beings to flourish is that we have those three connections intact. We're connected to our own dignity. We see it in others, and we have something greater that we're doing. I mean, you can talk about this in religious terms too if you want. You know, being connected to your creator if you're a, if you're a religious person. My students really wanted to make it practical for them. I want meaning in my life. I want my life to contribute, you know, to the wellbeing of the humanity and to the planet. A lot of young kids are looking at climate change, you know, wanting to protect the dignity of the planet.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: It, it's exciting, Donna, because in the work I do, both on the podcast, both in my foundation, I built a lot on, as you know, the three circles of positive psychology, which is me, me and others, and me and the world. Which connects completely with your three Cs of connections and dignity. And it works across so many dimensions, actually, to think about ourselves to do and have a positive impact with others, and together, hopefully, have a positive impact in the world as we live our lives, as we do, as we are entrepreneurs, as we are change-makers, whoever we are on, on this planet. So, I relate to that. Building on positive psychology, because obviously you've done very advanced studies much more advanced than mine on psychology. I've been inviting a number of key guests that I'm sure you know well, like, you know, Martin Seligman, Kim Cameron, and Barbara Fredrickson on this podcast as well. As you know, Barbara, wrote this wonderful book called Love 2.0, which is

DR DONNA HICKS: I've got it right here on my desk. I've got it right here on my desk, yes.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Okay. It's a great book. I always, I refer to it with, to my listeners quite often as well. And what she calls it, for some listeners who have not read the book, is basically love is not just a romantic experience, who is of course the loved one, as we said. And she described it as a series of micro moments of love, of shared positive resonance we have as we meet someone we've never met before, actually, in the street

DR DONNA HICKS: Could be a stranger Could be a stranger

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Yeah, a stranger. Completely. So how do you see the connection between dignity and another big word, love, don't know if it's Love 2.0, between your work and the work of Barbara Fredrickson's again, on the fact that love and that dignity is also built on those micro moments of genuine and deep connection with people?

DR DONNA HICKS: Oh, listen, I'm so glad you mentioned Barbara Fredrickson because one of the, I, you know, we've, I've talked to her about this, and one of the things that we, actually emailed, I didn't really have a phone conversation. But we I said, "Look, the fastest way to having one of those micro moments of resonance is to be honoring each other's dignity." And it was like, oh, yeah, that is the way to love is by honoring dignity. And, you know, I end my second book by, called Leading with Dignity: How to Create a Culture

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: I'm getting there, actually, one minute. Yeah, keep, keep going.

DR DONNA HICKS: Oh, okay. But I ended it by saying that all of these years, I know I was teaching a class at the divinity school here at Harvard, and one of the students asked me about my own spiritual development and how I arrived at this dignity. Because I do believe that dignity is spiritual practice, that once we can create those moments of loving connection and that is a, it, it's the best of what humans can do for each other, is being in relationship in a way where we're feeling that resonance, whether it's a stranger or whether it's your family at home. And so, and so when this, person asked me, "Well, you know, tell me, what, what are you, where are you now in your own spiritual development?" And I said "Well, in my early years, I thought I was interested in conflict." "I thought I was trying to figure out how we can end it, how we can, you know, put the past to rest, all of that." And then I said, "Once I, once I actually read Barbara Fredrickson's book, I realized what I'm interested in now is not conflict but how to get better at loving." How can we get better at loving? Because love is the connection, you know? And honoring each other's dignity is that connection that creates those wonderful moments with each other. And, that's what's gonna advance our consciousness. She nailed it. She nailed it.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Yeah. Love it. Love it, and obviously something I also, leverage a lot in all the, you know, kind of the programs and resources we provide to those entrepreneurs and people we work with. Love to get to your second book now, Donna, Leading with Dignity, in 2018, I think, which is structured around three pillars, where leaders must know what they must do and how they can create a culture of dignity, which resonates as well with another guest I had, Angela Duckworth, who shared about cultures that sustain excellence. Without dignity, there's no psychological safety, as you said before, actually. Without safety, there's no grit, by the way, and so there's no way you can basically strive in your life. So what are the biggest mistakes you've seen leaders making when it comes to dignity? What are the blind spots that, you know, even well-intentional leaders struggle with, actually?

DR DONNA HICKS: Yeah, I say one of the lines in that book is that good people with good intentions can harm others by violating, unconsciously violating dignity. And so I think the biggest mistake... Oh, so just one, one short story before to just explain to people why I, after studying international conflict and doing it for years, why I got into leadership. It was because when my first book came out, it was all about dignity and conflict, but people in the corporate world called me and said, "I think you've nailed our problem." "I think you have addressed an issue that we are, can explain our toxic workforce. Can you come in and can you help us here?" So that book was a result of having gone into the corporate world for, like, five years. And what I and I'm still doing it, but what I, what I recognized in going into these, organizations was that the ignorance around, like I said earlier, the ignorance surrounding dignity w I have a friend from Ecuador, he says, "Donna, ignorance is encyclopedic." You know, there's so much, it's, you can't even see the edges of it. And it's because, you know, we're, we we're not trained as leaders in the business world to be conscious of the impact of our actions on other people. You know? We, we're driven to produce, to make increased shareholder profits, to whatever the you know-... issue of the day is. But the way we treat each other, they just didn't get it that matters as much as the bottom line. And if you treat your people well, you're gonna get several things. You're gonna get more employee engagement. You're going to get willingness to give discretionary energy. You're going to get loyalty to the company. You're going to get... And lo and behold, oh, job retention. That that's a big one because it's so costly to lose people. But finally, you also get higher profits. So some friends of mine in the corporate world have done this research. My, business, professor colleagues, they've done that research and shown that you can't ignore this anymore. You can't ignore the way you treat your people anymore and expect to get them to stay, to, you know, give you everything that they've got. You know, create a culture that brings out the best in people. So the big mistake is it's not really even their fault. It's like we never learned this in business school. We never l We never learned this anywhere. I have some a colleague that, I'd like to introduce you to, m Dr. Michael Pirson who started this whole new, what he calls the humanistic management, network, where he puts a, he made a whole new paradigm for business which he calls, the humanistic, paradigm. And he said instead of trying to increase shareholder profits, which is what most of the business models are, his model puts human dignity in the center of this new model, and new leadership requirements. Because what, how, how do you put dignity in? And it has to be learned. It has to, you have to, like those 10 elements, like you mentioned, and the 10 temptations, and the neuroscience of dignity. All this stuff deserves to be in classrooms. And fortunately, my friend Michael Pirson, from Fordham, Fordham University, you'd love him. You should interview him. He has, he has really moved this into the business world in a in a powerful, powerful way.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: I love it. I'd love us to continue a little bit on that dialog on the business side, because I've got, we've got many leaders on my podcast, by the way, Donna. Early leaders in career seasoned leaders across the world. You know, one thing I discussed with a few of my guests, including, you know, actually a few, many of them, is about a powerful application, I think, of what the work you do and a few others do is delivering feedback to people. As we know, delivering, delivered poorly, feedback can be actually a dignity violation. But approached

DR DONNA HICKS: Well

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: ... With acknowledgement, genuine care, deep listening, it becomes actually dignity affirming. So how should a leader, based on your work, give feedback that is both honest, by the way, it has to be honest for people, and dignity preserving? Walk us through the dialog you would have to prepare as a manager, as a leader, to have these sometimes tough feedback discussion that many managers, you know, actually are very anxious to have with their people.

DR DONNA HICKS: Well, it's not only the leaders to their people, it's their people to their leaders. That's even more important in some ways, how to give feedback to your leader, because that's when, that's what the, all the people who said safety was their most violated, element in the workplace. So how do we get people to tell, have that open conversation, give feedback to their bosses, their managers? So it's a two-way street. It's, but the process is the same. And one of the things, and especially I, we developed this, feedback... By the way, it's in chapter seven of my second book, Leading With Dignity if anybody wants to take a look at that. But I'll, I'll just say a little bit here that what one of the things that we have to do is reframe what feedback is. Usually, it's given as a weapon, given as a weapon, especially from the direct reports to their bosses because they feel like they have so much more power and everything. But the idea is that we all have blind spots, we humans. All of us have blind spots. And we can't see what other people can see about the impact we're having on, on people. And so we, it's like a golden opportunity if we can figure out, either way which, whichever way we're looking at it, bosses to employees or employees to their bosses. If we can figure out a way to help people see what we can see about them in a way that isn't hurtful, that isn't like a weapon, used as a weapon, but to actually promote their own growth and understanding of how to treat people. It's a gift, you know? It ends up being it ends up being a gift if we can do it powerfully. Now, the thing of it is, what I, what I like to do always is to start, with let's say you're my boss, okay, and you violated my dignity, and I want to, I want to, give you that feedback. I'll say to you, "Look, Jean-Philippe, my relationship with you is very important to me." "I really want to, us to be able to work together and to flourish together here in this organization. Unfortunately, something happened in the staff meeting that we had yesterday-" "... that I can't let go of. I'm feeling like I have to talk to you about this because-" "... my relationship with you is so important that it's good." And now that's a big line right there. That's to be underlined. And so-That is the starter. And then that's the opener. "My relationship with you is so important, I have to tell you." And then she, me, I would go through the story about what happened to us at, at the staff meeting, and I would say, "You told a joke about me that I felt embarrassed by. I didn't feel safe around you after you joked about me, and-" "... you never asked me if it was okay to say anything like that. And, but most importantly, I wanted you to understand what the impact was on me." "I know you thought you were funny, and I appreciate that you really thought it was a funny thing you wanted to share, but I was... I felt scared. I didn't feel safe." And I... And then I usually say, "And I know I have a feeling that you would wanna know this, and-" "... and because you can't see what other people can see. Other people came to me afterward and said, 'Oh, I'm so sorry that happened.'" so that starting point where you, where you say, "My relationship with you is so important to me. I wanna have a good working relationship, but what happened yesterday got in the way, and please let me, let me share with you." And so you would come back to me and say, "Whoa, I certainly didn't see that. I certainly didn't... You were right. I thought I was telling a joke, and, -" "... and I'm really, really sorry." "And I didn't understand the impact." And you name the violation. Like I said, you know, you, I didn't feel safe. And so at the end of all this, and again, there's more details in the book you can look. But the important thing here is to deliver the message as a, learning opportunity about something that we can see on the outside that you can't see because you're you have a blind spot like all the rest of us. And the other important thing to say at the end is, "Well, thank you so much for..." you would say this to me, "Thank you, Donna, for sharing this with me." "It must have been really difficult to do that, so I appreciate that you had my interest at heart, and thank you." But then you accept it as a gift, you see?

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Yes. No, it's wonderful. It's very much, you know, what actually Mellody Hobson showed me in a podcast. You know Mellody Hobson, right? In... And she had this wonderful story as well, and then she ended with, yeah, feedback when, when delivered is definitely a gift, as you said. It's a gift. And I'm with you, and I think there's, again, so little teaching in business school, universities whatever, on what it is to deliver a constructive feedback to build trusted relationship with people when we work together. Now I'd like to shift gears, and talk, last few questions, obviously, hopefully. You know, time is moving too fast, Donna. Your work is not just about war zones and ballrooms, as we discussed. A single word or gesture can honor or violate dignity, and this reminds me actually of Ethan Kross, I'm sure you know well, on the chatter inside your heads. And, I like to understand or I love to always ask my guests, to share some of their practices for the listeners, right? How do you how do we practice dignity in every day's life, in families, as an example, with colleagues or even strangers? What are the small daily habits maybe that transform relationships? What, what is your advice for listeners?

DR DONNA HICKS: The 10 elements of dignity are, they're like guidelines for a good relationship. If you wanna strengthen your relationship that you have with a friend or family or colleagues, whatever, take a look at those 10 elements and figure out, "Gee, do I, do I consciously discriminate against people because of their race, their religion, their, ethnicity?" "Do I give recognition routinely to my people when they do a good job? Do I, you know, give them a little pat on the back and say, 'Thank you'"? "Do I include them in issues that are important to them?" And so you go through those 10 elements, and in fact, I have a questionnaire that I give to people which is basically, looking at what your dignity strengths and weaknesses are. Because those 10 elements are the guidelines. Like I said, they're the rules of engagement. If you wanna have a good culture and a good healthy culture in your workplace, these 10 elements-- I mean, I've had companies that have made big posters of them and put them up in the coffee rooms, you know, and everything, so yeah.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: And, I was just looking as well, Donna, by the way, on maybe some rituals you've, you've built, you know. Because I fully understand the 10 elements, but it's very hard, as you know well, because the example you gave on feedback is, I think, is someone we can all relate to. Myself, all of us, right, as we try to have some introspection about what we do well, we don't do that well. How do you deal with that, you know, every day, every week, every month? Do you journal? Is there a feedback process that you're trying to build? What are the signals kind of system you build to stay self-aware about the way you work on those 10 elements?

DR DONNA HICKS: So one of my students actually came up with a brilliant idea. And the idea was to have a dignity buddy. She called it a dignity buddy, and this is a very practical, practice. Very, very practical. You can use it every single day. Because this dignity buddy should be a trusted person who really does care about your well-being and who you care about, because this has to be a reciprocal relationship. And if, let's just say you mess up, and you violate somebody's dignity at, -At work and you're feeling bad about it and you didn't apologize, you go to your dignity partner, your dignity buddy and you say, "Help me here. I I'm a little fogged up here from... I'm caught in these temptations to save face." "Help me here. Help me." Because we can't do this alone. We... and this idea of a dignity partner, dignity buddy, whatever you wanna call it. And it is invaluable, and it's probably the one thing that most people have said, "Gee, this made a huge difference for me." Because the other thing here is, though, you know, you, let's just say you're talking about a workplace and you wanna make sure everybody does these practices and everything. They have to be educated in this. It's not just, oh, you listen to this podcast and you're gonna be great. You have to take it seriously. You have to study it. You have to... And there's lots of people who have written about dignity besides me, and but I think really taking it seriously and showing... Because there's two things, two ways that we really need to understand dignity. One is interpersonally. You know, when we're dealing with each, with each other face to face. But as leaders, as leaders, we also are in charge of systemic dignity. In other words, what kind of policies are we creating? What kind of policies are we creating? Are they dignity honoring policies? Or because they happen all throughout the company. It's not just you and your, you know, direct report.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Yeah. By the way, maybe we should rename diversity inclusion to dignity inclusion.

DR DONNA HICKS: You know what? Don't laugh, but I've done this a lot. I have helped I have helped people reformulate, the DEI because the language, again that language, it's the language. So now we are talking about creating cultures of dignity in the workplace. Or in education, everywhere, yeah.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Absolutely. My very last couple of questions, Donna. I mean, throughout the dialogue we had, which is a wonderful dialogue, I love it, it's very clear to me there's a lot of connection again between positive psychology and what I've, what has been called positive leadership, which, as you know, is a school of thought that has been developed over, over the past 20, 30 years between positive psychology, neuroscience, mindfulness, and many more other practices. So what is the connection you see between dignity and positive leadership, and what would the world look like if more leaders truly practiced the dignity model as far as that positive leadership kind of school of thought?

DR DONNA HICKS: Yeah. Well, I think Marty Seligman's work is, was just path breaking in the early days when he introduced it, and he has a whole, you know a whole organization that is promoting it, and I've, I was always a proponent of it. I just didn't see dignity in there. I didn't, I didn't see dignity in there. And I thought

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: ... That's why I invited you, because I think it's a missing element.

DR DONNA HICKS: Yes. And I thought... You know, I wrote about it actually in my... Because I reviewed all these books when I was writing. And I said, you know, that this is the one piece that I think is missing, is our understanding of what it, what it takes to make a connection with someone and to create a culture that is a culture that is affirming, that shows people that you care, and it goes hand in hand with positive psychology. It's just that the word, again, that's the powerful word. You, you'll see when people start using it in the workplace or in organizations, it comes alive. The whole practice comes alive, and people say "Oh my gosh, I take this home, and it's not just what I learn here at the work, but my relationship with my wife is improving," you know? My children, my parents. And so it is just, it's a fundamental human yearning that we all want to be treated this way. And a couple things happen when we're not treated as if we're, we have value and worth. We suffer. And the third truth is that when we are treated as if we are something of value and worth, that we have, we're treated with dignity we flourish. We flourish. We flourish. It's the way of unfreezing a frozen, arrested development, you know? But the healing process is really important as well. Healing from these old wounds.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: So Donna, in this dialogue, we explore many different types of audiences. I mean, from, again, work conflicts to business leaders. You know, a particular aspect of my discussion always is also centered on the next generation of youth. I love spending time with youths, my foundation, entrepreneurs, and more because I think they should have more power to actually build the world they're gonna live in, and not just my generation, clearly. So what advice would you give to such young leaders, you know, across the world who want to live with dignity in a world that these days, honestly, seems to ignore that entirely? I'm not even going to refer, but everybody has in his mind so many examples coming up in the media, in the world. It's brutal.

DR DONNA HICKS: Social media especially. Social media is Brutal

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: ... This is terrible. So what is your advice to those young aspiring leaders?

DR DONNA HICKS: Well, take it seriously. Learn about it. Take-- Do your research. Read about it. And the exciting thing is, I'm telling you, which makes this work so gratifying to me, is that I have this now. Teachers are teaching this in schools. And I even have a teacher in Fort Worth, Texas, who is teaching third graders how to lead with dignity. How to become dignity leaders, and it is it's magical what happens. So, and the fact is, and I just got home from a big conference, two big conferences actually, in education- in K through 12 education. People are integrating it into their, curriculum. All of this stuff, everything. Of course, it's, you know, age appropriate and all that, but that, you know, I'm excited for the future because these young people who are learning it and starting in, you know, five years old, and to having it in their consciousness, you know, when they graduate from high school or from an education, higher ed too. And it's all, it's in higher ed. We have a... I mean, there's so many positive, stories that I could tell you about how we have embedded this dignity model into, and leading with dignity, into, schools all over. Not just here in the, United States, but I have colleagues in the UK. I have a colleague in France who's, who, who's doing this too with businesses, and so it's all over. Australia had a big big project in Australia, New Zealand. Anyway, just make it your business to study it because unfortunately it's not gonna be in your school probably right now if you're, if you're an, a leader of a group of young people. But you can do what it takes to... It's, it, it's worth the effort, believe me. It's so worth the effort.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: No, it is. And so for all the listeners, of course, read Donna's books. I'm sure you can find also some templates and some of the, you know, some of the workshops you've designed, I'm sure, Donna, that

DR DONNA HICKS: Yep, they're in there

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: ... Would be probably as well shareable. That'd be wonderful. My very last question now. When you back on your life's work from the little girl that we started with, right? In a conflict-ridden family, to the woman who helped victims and perpetrators find their shared humanity, what do you want your legacy to be? In many years, obviously, but what do you want that to be?

DR DONNA HICKS: Well, that I figured out a way to create loving connections with people. And that all the dignity, the dignity model that I've created really at the end of the day for me is, helping people understand how to love better, how to be in relationships better and how to, how to pass that on to our kids, your, you know, their kids. Because this stuff does have to be passed down. This is a wisdom, this is a wisdom that is different from education in some ways, you know? But that deep wisdom that we understand something about humanity and our, the responsibility that we have to advance it.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Yeah. It's wonderful. So Donna, thank you so much for this very inspirational but also very revealing dialogue we had. For our listeners, make sure you study the 10 elements, the good ones.

DR DONNA HICKS: Study everything. Yeah.

JEAN-PHILIPPE COURTOIS: Everything. And start to obviously implement that in your life, in your business, in your workplace. And, you know, I'm just using a quote from, Archbishop Tutu, he said, "If you want peace, be sure everyone's dignity is intact." And I think that's a big learning from our discussion. And so for our listeners, if that discussion, of course, dialogue inspire you, read Donna's book, but also get subscribed, be subscribed to Positive Leadership Podcast, to my newsletter. Feel free to leave a five stars rating, always appreciate it. And you give your comments as well, of course, your candid feedback. Donna, please, continue your wonderful work, inspiring work. I'm again Jean-Philippe Courtois, host of Positive Leadership Podcast. For all of you, stay positive and keep leading with purpose and take care of yourself. Thank you so much.