The Five Ives Hot Seat: Honest Answers for Hard Questions

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In this Q&A, Lauren unpacks burnout, turnover, and behavior struggles.

In this Q&A episode, Lauren tackles some of the most pressing challenges organizations face including burnout, high turnover, and behavior struggles in both staff and students. She explains how the Five Ives framework, rooted in nervous system science and trauma-informed care, offers practical micro-strategies that boost morale, improve regulation, and create sustainable cultural shifts without adding extra burdens.

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Transcript:

Lauren Spigelmyer: We're back. Okay. We're not going to start a new series yet. We just went through a series and I thought this is a good time if you've been here long enough, you know that sometimes like between series, I'll drop in some Q &A sessions. And since we've shifted the podcast out of kind of solely behavior, school-based, family-focused work into Five Ives work, which is more nervous system, trauma invested work for organizational holes and addressing more leadership as well as alongside of frontline staff instead of just frontline staff. I thought it'd be a good time to do some Q &A, some hot seat coaching to answer, honestly, some really hard questions that organizations have. So, I asked people to submit questions that they had around the work that we do or the work that they do or their stuck points. So, I today I'm going to walk you through those questions, walk you through the answers from the Five Ives standpoint and this is gonna be a little hot seat for me, I guess. Q & A session. So, what do you do when your staff is stretched thin? What do do a behavior challenges feel endless and are burning out all your staff if you work in a field related to behavior or education or nonprofit, maybe medical even pediatrics or leadership feels extremely disconnected and that could be any organization. So, I'm going to tackle some really tough topics and ones that most organizations feel on most days and expect to hear like my usual straight track, but with some easily implementable digestible strategies and hopefully something of a new perspective that is grounded in nervous system science and trauma informed, compassionate care.

Lauren Spigelmyer: All right, let's jump right in here. Someone submitted the question that says, where stretched thin and turnover is high. How does your organization or how does the Five Ives framework actually help to retain staff and boost morale without adding another to do or more to our plate? I feel like this question comes up so much. It really comes up in the conversation that we have when we're talking about onboarding organizations and how to get buy-in. One of the things, humbly, that I do really well is Jessica has this amazing brain. Jessica's my business partner. If you've been listening, have maybe seen her, heard her, seen her on here, um she's a big... She has this amazing, massive brain. why Jessica and I work so well together is because she has these amazing ideas that would never float through my mind, but they float through her mind. And I take those ideas and I make them super, super, super, super, super simple and practical. So, basically to answer this question, how does it actually help to retain staff, boost morale and not add something else to our to-do list? The biggest thing is in designing, content, because that's what we're doing. We're sharing information with people and the information is going to yield change. The problem is when most people are sharing information, it's like conference style where you're spending all day in a conference. Well, frankly, I don't know why we still do that. It's so antiquated, yet it's all over the place because you can learn stuff from that. But when you have so much information coming at you so fast, like in one day or two days, it's hard to retain most of that information. You're going to lose about 80 % of it in 48 hours. So, what we do is we drip content. Even think about like, if you've gone through like online coursework, online modules, like some of those things are usually like video recordings are like 20, 30 minutes long. That's way too long. Your brain cannot sit and digest that. Think of like, okay, here's the good stat. For each year of age, you have about that many minutes of like listening time, engagement time, instructional time before someone loses interest or their brain just doesn't have the capacity to keep taking in information. That maxes out at about 18, 20 minutes. So, technically you couldn't listen to like a 20 minute long video, but if it's 30 minutes, you're gonna lose a huge chunk of that. So, what we do is we break down content into micro doses and we share it in such a way that doesn't require everyone to be always live, to be always in person, to watch these long modules. So, basically what we have is we have options. We have in-person options, we have live digital options and we have asynchronous options. So, we give you the choice of like, what do you feel like as an organizational whole? You all have the capacity to do. But even if you choose any of those options, it's still going to be like in person, a little bit of work, break, apply, think, come back, digest, and it's gonna be short chunk. It's gonna be like little sprints instead of a longer marathon like day. It's the same if we're live online. In fact, a lot of times when we do is we're live online, we send you little bit of pre-recorded content to watch, reflect, move through. We give you guiding questions, we come back together, we debrief them, we coach. and we talk about application. So, our live time together is usually like 30 minutes. If you are online and you're doing any of our asynchronous components, your videos are like two to three, max five minutes. That's it. There might be like one, seven to eight, nine minute intro video to introduce you to the content, but that's it. You will not see a video in our course that's above 10 minutes. And the reason for that being is we give you little micro doses of information. Then we ask you to kind of like, work with it to apply it to your setting and really like map it out what it's gonna look like to apply it. And then we're gonna ask you to kind of implement it and come back or like plan out your implementation or get it ready to go. Because here's the thing, we get this information at these conferences or these events, we read a book, we do whatever, and we have the information, but then we don't do anything with the information. Or we try to do something with the information and it fails and we get stuck and we give up, or we just get stuck and we just stop, we don't know what to do, we give up, we just don't know what to do. So, what we do is we give you places whether live, in person, live online, or asynchronous, we give you places where we coach you, bordering and after your implementation. So, when you do get stuck, you know how to move through it and you know how to adapt it and accommodate it and differentiate it and scaffold it so that it does work for your setting. Plus, what we offer, what we provide, typically is very motivating and engaging to people because one is grounded in trauma, work, trauma-based work, trauma-informed work, trauma-invested work, compassionate care, nervous system education, neuroscience, but it's usually really fun. the strategies that we use, the interventions that we suggest, the things that we map are not only like microdoses, so they're super easy to implement in everyday life. They are really fun and unusual versus like a lot of the standard regulation practice like do some breath work, go to yoga, do some mindfulness. Yeah, those things all do help. You're in, even if they are, there are other things that might be better starting points. And maybe that's just not even something that is going to work for your organization or for you as an individual. So what else is out there? So, giving kind of more non-traditional options here. Okay, so how do we actually retain staff and boost morale? Well, we get buy-in first. And buy-in comes through a lot of the science and it comes through explaining that what we're gonna share is gonna be highly applicable. and it's not gonna feel like a lot of extra to do because it's going to be seamlessly integrated into what you are already doing in micro doses. So, in a nutshell, that is how we retain staff, we boost morale and we add things to the list without it feeling like another thing added to the list. That said, this is all like nervous system, neuroscience grounded. So what keeps the staff is these micro practices as you implement more and more and more micro practices and they are micro habits. the habits turn into like long-term formation, and then you see the entire culture of a shift. And the reason it works so well is because we work with frontline staff to get them regulated. And we also work with leadership to help them get regulated and for them to co-regulate the frontline staff and to regulate themselves as well. So, it's kind of hitting all parts. We have a four piece framework where we're like, okay, who are the people that you're serving? How do you help them? Okay, who's your frontline staff? Okay. who's super in your frontline stuff, your leadership. Okay, who's above your leadership, your practice, know, the people in the practice or the people in the organization and the policy that drives them. We address nervousness and dysregulation and trauma-informed care at all of those levels, which most people do not do.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, I digress. Let's move on number two. Our team understands that trauma matters. It doesn't need to be trauma, it could be chronic stress. But what's the first most impactful step to becoming a truly trauma-informed organization without overwhelming? everyone. That's the thing I love about trauma-informed care. It's gotten a bad rep or people have used it in different ways or people have experienced it in negative ways. But one of the things I love about trauma-informed care is all it is is teaching us to be more empathetic and compassionate. Like that's compassionate. So, when we're talking about trauma-informed care, it's just being a better you with more curiosity and grace than you would maybe before you had trauma-informed care. So, for me personally, everyone's gonna answer this question differently and there's not necessarily a right or a wrong answer, but for me, what's the first most impactful step? Understanding the nervous system. And the nervous system is really hard to understand. But like I said in the last question, we break this down in such a simplified way that is so easy to digest and then so easy to turn around and use that you instantaneously see results. For example, without even explaining you to you the nervous system, I can tell... what an organization looks like or what people's nervous systems are in, what state they're in, just by spending like 30 seconds with them or hearing about their life or lifestyle choices. For example, are you a person who when you see a red light or a yellow light that's going to turn red, do you usually slow down and stop with like a lot of space or do you gas and try and get through that light? Are you a person who usually drives in the left-hand lane or the right-hand lane? If you're in the right-hand lane and you can't get around in the left-hand lane to pass because of the traffic or you're in the left-hand lane, and there's a car going too slow at the speed limit or under the speed limit, does it drive you absolutely crazy? These are all signs that your nervous system is a little bit dysregulated. Is that a bad thing? No, your nervous system is designed to save you. But in those circumstances, do we want our nervous system to get so activated and elevated by something so simplistic? No. So that's a good indicator for me that, hmm, we need to do a little bit of nervous system work to shift you out of that heightened state. And then those things won't be such bothersome things for you. And that's just a very simplistic, basic example. And that's without even really explaining to you the polyvagal theory and the parasympathetic versus sympathetic side of the nervous system and all the sciency stuff. But the beauty is we break it down so easily, so easy to digest. You understand that your whole life changes. I am telling you.

Lauren Spigelmyer: All right. For those of you that work with behavior, this individual submitted a question that says, behavior challenges in young children feel constant. This is so true. How can Five Ives help us move from reactionary discipline to a culture of regulation and support? This is some of my favorite work to do for the Five Ives. Like I... because behaviors I feel like are always understood the wrong way. Like people, people. Gosh, people just don't understand where behaviors come from. They think it's like a malicious intent. It is almost never a malicious intent. It's communicating something, something that's going on subconsciously or underneath the surface. And we don't usually get to the root. We usually just try and focus on stopping the behavior. So, what do we do with behavior? We teach you what's under. We teach you what is the root problem. And we teach you to put interventions in place that address the root problem. Because if you don't and you're just focused on stopping the behavior then the behavior is just going to manifest itself in other ways or other times. But if you actually get to the root cause of the behavior and you address that underlying need, kind like the whole and the soul issue, then the behavior stops completely. So, we do a lot of helping people understand what's really under behavior, getting curious about behavior. We do a lot of nervous system work for children and for the frontline staff and for the leadership. And we begin to teach people about co-regulation and how your dysregulated state or a child's dysregulated state makes other children or other adults dysregulated? And how do we keep everyone regulated when the dysregulation comes into play? So, very simple things, very easy things. Again, micro doses, micro based strategies that can become habits and it just changes the entire energy of the space.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Number four, what role does leadership play in nervous system informed workspaces? Which is kind of a term that I haven't really heard. I think it's more of one that we have kind of coined of like, what is a nervous system informed workplace? Most people would say like trauma invested, trauma informed. I think you could kind of use this term simultaneously. eh Simultaneously is not the right word, but you know what I mean? And how can leaders model regulation for their teams? So again, I can walk into a business, an organization, and within a couple of seconds of hearing people interact with each other or see how people move through their position, I can tell where you're at on nervous system spectrum, where you're at on the five, five scale. And I think leadership plays a huge role in that because how your leaders show up, regulated or dysregulated, or how they respond to almost anything in the organization, like day-to-day stuff, habitual stuff, or big fires, tells me a lot about where they're at as a human with a nervous system. And that really impacts where the organization is on the nervous system five, five scale. So, for me, I'm like, it influences everything. It it starts there. That's why we start with leadership. We definitely work with our line staff simultaneously, but we also start with leadership because leadership's regulation is what starts kind of at the top and allows the regulation to trickle down. And when it's more, when you're more regulated, everything else falls into place. More productivity, less turnover or motivation, uh less resistance, less conflict. So, just everything improves because people are staying more regulated and people are staying more regulated. They're staying in their logical rational brain longer, can produce more, they can respond to conflict better, they can receive critical feedback better. And there are always some underlying things that get in the way that come from genetics or that nature nurture argument, debate, the nurture side of things, even like environmental influences from their childhood or family system influences from their childhood can impact this. But once you learn how to regulate, can kind of over... override that.

Lauren Spigelmer: What can leaders do to model regulation for their teams? Go back and listen to the last episode. If you really desire to have a depth full, full of depth answer, a deeper answer to that second part of that question, I went over a whole bunch of strategies in the previous podcast.

Lauren Spigelmyer: Okay, here's your last one. We serve a diverse community. How does Five Ives ensure that its strategies respect different cultures, values, and ways of relating? I honestly think if you're truly, truly, truly doing trauma invested care and trauma invested training, all of that is grounded in empathy and compassion and the nervous system. If that is actually true and the trauma care training you're receiving is actually that, then all of this falls into that. There is some level and some element of, if you're working in a very diverse culture or you're working with diverse cultures, there's going to have to be some educational element within the organization to understand and learn about these different cultures and values and like ways of relating with each other. But the beauty is that when you have this care or nervous system invested support in your organization, when conflict comes into play because of different values or different cultures or different ways of showing up and relating, the response to it is much better. People face and feel less conflict and they can share what's going on and they can be heard and we can learn from it and the cycle kind of goes around in a positive way versus like defensiveness and rigidity and conflict. You have a more open space where people can feel seen and feel heard and that's mostly what they want anyhow. It's maybe not even always about respecting cultures or values or ways of relating. It's just people want to feel heard. They want to feel seen and they want to feel heard. So... creating an environment where that is absolutely true at all moments. And we're all so human. We're gonna have moments that are not so good. And, so, what does the repair work look like? Like as a person who has been doing this work for, I don't know, 15, 20 years, especially with children, having my own child, I still fail. I'm not perfect. Even though people are saying all the time, like, probably the perfect pair, this is a perfect pair, you have all these skills. I do, and when I come home, I turn those things off. So, I still have falling outs with my child. I still have shame spirals. I feel like there are a lot of things that I do that are like... misaligned with what I teach and then I go back immediately as soon as I am regulated and I repair and I apologize and I think through the next time, okay, this is how I responded this time, here's how I want to respond next time, I want to take initiative to make a change and do better. And I'm kind of like rehearse this in my mind so the next time that scenario comes up, I don't default to the old behavior and I instead adopt the new thing that I desire to do or to be or however I desire to show up.

Lauren Spigelmyer: So, love these questions. They were good ones, very good ones. And really all five of these questions are answered through multiple different episodes in the last three years, but really in the last like year. So if you want to learn more about any of these search back through some of old podcasts and they'll answer them in a lot more depth. Okay, real quick. We are preparing to, we just launched our fall cohort for behavior breakthrough program in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania. We're going to run it again in the spring. It's 4.5 credits, graduate level credits from University of Pennsylvania, designed mostly for educators and learning about what's kind of behind behavior and under behavior and having behavior breakthroughs in a positive way. So it's a self-paced, research-backed course that you can take with us. If you want to learn more about that, the link is in the show notes and also on our website under our services page. And we're about to launch a book program that we've been doing for the last couple of years, but we really amped it up. a little bit longer and more mmm like beefed up, guess I would say, or maybe just more intentional, but stretch it out a little bit to add in a couple other elements that you felt like we're missing. And we are about to push that live. Actually, the web pages went live on our website, but go to our services page, check out the services that we offer, and you can learn about that sustainability program so they can keep your staff from burning out and what that looks like and how we implement it on there as well. Okay, if... You want to lock in what you learned, don’t forget to share this episode with someone else or talk about it or reflect on it or think about it or if you know someone who can use these supports send them the episode or send them the Five Ives website and until next episode I am Lauren Spigelmyer and it was a pleasure to be joining you.


Categories: : Emotional Regulation

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