Transcript:

Welcome to the Course

I’m Dr. Julie Pham, the author of the bestseller, 7 Forms of Respect: A Guide to Transforming Your Communication and Relationships at Work. This framework helps you increase your self-awareness, build better relationships, and communicate clearly. I founded my company CuriosityBased to help foster curiosity in the world, starting in the workplace, because that’s where we spend most of our waking hours. I have over 15 years of experience as a community builder, and I apply that approach to strengthening teams and empowering individuals. 
I am so lucky that I get to work with the CuriosityBased team. 

And together we created this digital course for you to introduce you to the 7 Forms of Respect. 

One of the biggest misconceptions about the 7 Forms of Respect is that I’m going to teach you how to be respectful. Here’s the thing: I believe you already know how to be respectful. And other people also know how to be respectful. We just have different ideas of what respect can look like. 

I saw this from my community building work and from facilitating collaboration among people from diverse backgrounds. There’d be friction that would come up about the different ways people wanted to be treated. So then I started to ask people: “Well, how do you want to be treated at work?” And I kept hearing the word ‘respect’. And so I started to dig in and ask “Well, what does respect mean to you?” And then people would share different descriptions of respect and sometimes the same action could be interpreted as respectful by one person and disrespectful by another person. And that’s when I realized how respect is relative, it can be contradictory, and subjective. 

Now you’re probably going through this course because you are experiencing change. Either, it’s happening around you or inside you, and most likely it’s both. With change comes uncertainty, and that can feel scary. Perhaps you are working with new people, either because you changed organizations or you changed teams. You might be trying to figure out what you want next and how you feel about these relationships may also change. You may have to reassess what you want and what you need and you may have to set new boundaries. You may have to figure out what other people want from you and to ask yourself if you can accommodate them. When you’re done with this course, you will have a new language to initiate tough conversations with yourself and with others so that you can move forward through change. 

I’ve been doing this all my life. I’m a Cambridge-trained social scientist, a journalist, and a community builder. I'm a Vietnamese-born refugee who grew up in the US and I’ve lived abroad in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Vietnam.  In each of these countries, I would see how respect was interpreted differently. And so, I saw first-hand how respect can be relative and subjective. 

I’m so excited that you’ve decided to learn more about the 7 Forms of Respect. Now, I’ve told you a bit about me.  I would love to learn more about you so that I can cheer you on along this journey. So, take a pause here and fill out our short member survey . And once you’re done, please go on to the next video.