Kyla Mitsunaga

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Kyla Mitsunaga

Founder/CEO, WITH Warriors LLC, Korea, Republic of

Kyla is a Global Happiness Coach/Speaker/Award-Winning Professor and the founder of WITH vs AT. Kyla realized her true calling and passion when she won her first teaching award at Harvard. In 2012, she was a TED@Seoul speaker where she was humbled to have shared the stage with a North Korean refugee, world-class violinist, and a teenaged archer to name just a few. Since then, she has created her very own Happiness Workshop that she has brought all over the world.

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Tricky workplace situation handled

By this mentor in various human skills

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1. Walk away. I know it sounds counter-intuitive. Or does it? When a grenade explodes, it makes sense that we would want to run for cover. The same rule applies here. If you can’t immediately get away, excuse yourself to use the bathroom, answer a fake call or just take some deep breaths. 2. Collect your thoughts. While away, ask yourself, “What are they really saying? Am I taking it personally? How can I best respond to this feedback so I can grow and learn?” 3. Clarify and control. What’s hard about grenades going off is that we never really know when they’re going to go off, right? So it feels like we don’t have control. Well, one way to even the playing field just a little is to clarify what they mean when they say certain things by writing them down on, say, the white board (you can do this virtually, too). That way, you and your feedback givers can make sure you’re both on the same page and there’s no room for misunderstanding or more grenades. 4. Put the safety pin back in the grenade. In my opinion, part of the reason feedback sessions are so challenging is that both parties often feel like there’s no closure or forward movement. So, in order to diffuse that situation, close out your feedback session by asking something along the lines of “What would you need from my side in order for us to move forward from this?” 5. Give feedback on feedback. There are some ways to make sure you’re not walking into a “hot” room: • Schedule regular feedback sessions (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, as needed). • Ask if it’s possible to have it in the form that is most productive for you (verbal, email, phone, in-person, etc.) • Ask if it’s possible to have someone you vibe with deliver the feedback to you. • Ask for time. If it isn’t urgent, ask if you can take some time to reflect on it. You’ll be happy to hear I was able to apply four out of the five tips during my recent "F" word sessions, I mean, feedback sessions. And I walked away with just a few tears, unlike the flood I would normally have. This experience left me better equipped at diffusing the grenades before they exploded in my mind. Because you can’t prevent someone from throwing a grenade at you, but you can learn better ways to dismantle it before it goes off.

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1. Address it publicly 2. Don't just simply delete it 3. Resolve problem properly and quickly

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Usually what I do is I set up a Zoom call WITH the clients and get as much feedback as possible in a non-threatening/ego kind of way. For example, I ask them what could be improved? What would you like to have seen go differently? If you could have another session, what would you like to see change?

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I would teach them about core values. One cool and creative way to teach this is to have the person do a venn diagram. They look at what core values the person (who gave them negative feedback) and them have in common. From there, they can look at how to better effectively deal with negative feedback based on the core values they share. For example, I had a bully at one of my previous jobs. I scheduled a meeting with him. Prior to that, I looked at what core values we had in common: women's empowerment. I knew he had two daughters and he was a doting father. So during our meeting I said: "I know you have two daughters whom you love very much and you would want them to feel empowered with what you say to them, right? Well, when you said XYZ to me, I don't feel empowered at all as a woman." He stopped his negative feedback/bullying me after that.

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I think it would be good for Lara to take a deep breath first and foremost to give her some space/time to think about how to respond so she doesn't react from her emotions. After that, it would be good for Lara to acknowledge the customer's emotions, and then bring her back a new order without peanuts on the house.

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*Create high level trust and high level accountability *Ask: How can we attract people to our team? *Ask: How can we help them learn to be in a team? *Ask: How do we get them to do that at a higher level? *Put pressure on upper management to start training for this

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I think I've always been someone who has tried to collaborate with others. However, looking back on the moments when I wasn't really collaborating, I think it was because I was trying to compete with them. It didn't feel good and I recognized that I was approaching it with ego first instead of higher self. What I learned from that experience was that to be in true collaboration mode, we both needed to feel that sense of trust and accountability.

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I think encouraging collaboration is always a win-win, because it helps foster team work, creativity, different perspectives, work ethic, and overall is great for the company.

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Teaching this skill to someone, I would have them do 3 tasks with some friends of theirs: 1) They complete the task by themselves. 2) They complete the task in competition with their friends. 3) They complete the task in collaboration with their friends. And ask them at the end of all the tasks, which one did they prefer and why? Did they notice anything different between the 3 tasks? And any other questions that may come up for them.

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I think I do. I am working through it. So far, when I challenge my confirmation bias I get better results!

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*Seek out new experiences *Try new solutions *Talk to different kinds of people/customers *Take new courses *Do things to challenge our confirmation bias *Talk to people in the same industry but a different company *Read books that challenge confirmation bias *Be OPEN

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I would play the game where you have to guess who you are. So I would have certain cards where for example I was "African-American." My mentee might say, "You're good at basketball," or "You like rap music." We would then discuss their confirmation bias and ways to go about challenging it.

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I think it's best to prepare probing questions by first reviewing the candidate's resume. There may be some parts of the candidate's resume that lend to inquiry/more probing questions. Second, I think it's good to prepare probing questions based on what the candidate is answering during the actual interview. For example, if he/she answers with just "yes/no" answers, it would be a good idea to follow up with more probing questions. Third, based on the candidate's body language, it would be a good idea to follow up with more probing questions. For example, if the candidate seems fidgety, or is shaking his/her leg, it would be a good idea to follow up with some positive probing questions to make the candidate feel safe/not threatened. Finally, at the end of the interview, if the candidate has any questions, you can use probing questions then as well to ask any questions that may be lingering or that have come up throughout the interview.

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I think it's a good idea to go a little bit deeper than just the standard questions, to understand the candidate at a deeper level, to make sure the candidate is really the right fit, and research shows that EQ skills trump IQ skills. So asking probing questions can help to get to the bottom of the candidate's EQ skills.

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I was interviewing a candidate for a position as an ESL instructor. He had left Saudi Arabia, but he didn't say why. So I asked him a probing question to try to get a better sense of why he left Saudi Arabia. He responded that his partner (who is female) didn't feel comfortable living there as a woman, so they made a collective decision to leave. It was helpful to know that it wasn't because he didn't like his job, his school, or his position there.

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As a mentor, teaching this skill to someone, I think the best way to teach this would be to role play. One of us would be the interviewee, and one of us would be the interviewer. Prior to that, we would go over a fake resume, any kinds of probing questions, and anything else that could come up. Then, we would take turns being the interviewee and interviewer. That way, the mentee would get to see both sides of the coin.

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Convergent thinking: Reflective/analytical thinking Divergent thinking: Coming up with ideas/possibilities

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1. Contact 10 customers that seem genuinely enthused about helping our company succeed and have been genuinely happy with previous lines of swimwear. 2. Offer them an opportunity to come into the company and try on the new line of swimwear. 3. Use this as an opportunity to ask them any kinds of questions and get concrete feedback on what could be improved. 4. Have them be in an internal video for the company on how to give/receive feedback from customers. 5. Reward these 10 customers with a gift voucher so they can buy some swimwear to thank them for their time.

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Trying to get new clients. We have rolled out a FREE 60-minute workshop for clients on what theta healing is and give them some theta healing tips, so they can better understand what theta healing is, and experience it first hand for free on their own.

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I would have them in their notebook, split the page in half. On one side, they would write down everything they know about a certain topic. On the other side of the page, they would just come up with new and creative ways to see that topic. One side of the page would represent convergent thinking, and one side would represent divergent thinking.

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Kyla Mitsunaga

Tricky workplace situation handled

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Kyla Mitsunaga

Tricky workplace situation handled

1 What are effective ways of handling negative feedback?

2 Watch this video and answer the following questions. What are suggestions for handling negative reviews on social media?

3 What can you do to enhance your skills of dealing with negative comments from clients?

4 If you were to teach this skill to someone else, what life or work experience can you share to bring this to life?

1 Watch the video and answer the following question. What should organizations do to encourage collaboration?

2 Recall a moment where you were supposed to work with someone. Now, look back at your feelings then. Were you collaborating or competing?

3 What can your company improve on: encouraging collaboration or competition? Why?

4 What experience and guidelines can you offer to teach this skill to someone else?

1 Do you have confirmation bias? How has it affected your work so far?

2 What can we do to overcome confirmation bias?

3 If you were a mentor teaching how to overcome confirmation bias, what key points would you focus on?

1 How should we prepare probing questions?

2 Why should we ask interviewees probing questions?

3 Can you recall a time where a candidate gave you a vague, succinct, or an evasive response during a structured interview? What kind of probing questions could you have used to gain more insight into the candidate’s behaviors?

4 What life or professional experience can you offer to bring this skill to life if you were to teach it to someone else?

1 Watch the video and tell the difference between convergent and divergent thinking.

3 Think of a current problem at your company. Use divergent thinking to list possible solutions to the problem.

4 What life or professional experience can you offer to bring this skill to life if you were to teach it to someone else?

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