Awkward moments are inevitable but they can leave us feeling self-critical and ready to hide. Henna Pryor, a workplace performance expert and author of "Good Awkward," rejects the notion that cringey-ness is something to avoid. She challenges us to embrace awkward moments and use them to find human connection and self-compassion.

Transcript

Rachel Mandell (00:00)

Hi, everyone. Today we are welcoming Henna Pryor. Henna is a dynamic workplace performance expert who speaks and writes about performance mindset, interpersonal dynamics, high impact communication, and embracing bumps in a world that keeps optimizing for smoothness. She's a regular expert columnist for Inc Magazine, 18 times award-winning author of Good Awkward, and an in-demand global keynote speaker.

Thank you again for joining us.

Henna Pryor, CSP (00:26)

Thank you for having me

Rachel Mandell (00:27)

So I recently read your book, Good Awkward. So I'm gonna focus some questions on this. We actually also shared it with the Femme Factor network and folks loved the title and were very intrigued. So I'd love to start with your reframe of awkwardness. Can you talk to us about why this is something that we can actually embrace instead of something we can avoid and cringe about?

Henna Pryor, CSP (00:51)

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think this is a new understanding of an old emotion. So let's just anchor to a truth first things first. We cannot eliminate awkwardness. Awkwardness lives in uncertainty. It is a social emotion of discomfort. So the core thesis of the book is knowing that we can't eliminate it, knowing that we can't avoid it. My true deep firm belief is that

Most people's success, their confidence, their courage, their ability to take the risks that they want to take comes with them reframing their understanding. Feeling awkward is not a bad thing. It is about as human as it can be and getting good at that emotion, understanding it, knowing what to do with it in the moment and actually recalibrating your experience with it is the thing that will unlock your next level of success. Hence the good awkward.

Rachel Mandell (01:41)

Can you talk to us a little bit about what we can do about it? Because I think often when awkward comes up, we fold in on ourselves and we remove ourselves from the situation and that's kind of it. And then maybe we freak out for a little while and move on.

Henna Pryor, CSP (01:55)

Yeah, yeah, there's a number of things. So let's talk about the inverse first, because you just talked about it. Where do we fall into quote unquote bad awkward? So there's no such thing as a comfortable awkward experience. First of all, let's be clear that it is a social emotion of discomfort. I'm not claiming that through this work, you are all of a sudden going to enjoy the feeling that is not exactly possible for most people. What I would argue is that, you know, there's a few scientific truths. The avoidance of awkwardness.

actually increases awkwardness. So when you have one of those moments and you shut down or you fold in, like you said, it actually makes it worse. You're festering in it longer, you're ruminating in the shower, in the car, we've all been there, right? It actually increases its grip versus when you work on what I refer to in the book as your comeback rate, your recovery rate, you have that moment because we all do.

And then you have a strategy, a plan, you have worked ahead to figure out what is the story I'm telling myself about this moment? What is my history

with this emotion? And do I have some strategies, things like naming it, things like humor, things like having talk tracks on the ready for when those moments inevitably occur. When we have that, we're still gonna feel that discomfort momentarily, it just doesn't sink our hooks into us and we are able to move on. And ironically, those are the people we see as confident.

Not the people that never have a moment, but the people who recover quickly. That is the goal. That is what we're all going to work towards.

Rachel Mandell (03:21)

I love this example because you're one saying, this is never going to end. And then not only that you can have coping mechanisms or just recognize it, but also that it can actually lead to confidence, which

Henna Pryor, CSP (03:33)

Yeah. Do you want a recent example? Something just happened to me. Again, I think people are like, oh, she's a speaker. This never happened. Oh no. We write books on the things that happen to us all the time. We often teach what we need to learn. So I keynoted an event recently. The night before they had a big welcome reception. So there was drinks, there was music. That happens a lot at these big multi-day conferences.

So the next morning I was getting ready to go to my tech check. I'm on the elevator, a gentleman's on the elevator. I say, hey, good morning. And he's kind of like, oh, good morning, know, scraggly. And I said, oh, fun night last night. You know, I heard the music, drinks were flowing, fun night. And he goes, no, it's throat cancer.

And of course I'm like, God, you idiot, Now, former Henna would have said, you idiot, Henna, why do you speak? Like bright red, hot, and like not say anything again because opening my mouth again feels horrible. Luckily, I'm someone who has worked very hard on these things and I have worked on improving my comeback rate. So immediately I say, well that's

Horrifyingly embarrassing. I'm so sorry. My name is Henna and I promise I'm normally a little better at conversation than this right and we shook hands we both laughed I am telling you throughout the rest of the conference when I saw him in the hallways Rachael or when we like interacted It was like we almost had this shared inside joke. We kept smiling at each other. It was like this connective moment so what could have been a horrifying moment actually turned into this moment of connection and those

are the opportunities, right? Just not to pretend like it didn't happen, not to let it grip you, but to take it, operationalize it into something else, and then move forward.

Rachel Mandell (05:32)

Yeah, I love that example. what you keep coming back to is kind of this self-compassion as you kind of have to give yourself some grace in these moments. Can you talk to us about how you practice that and get started?

Henna Pryor, CSP (05:38)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, self-compassion is so hard for people. You know, we look at other people having a misstep or a blunder and we're like, poor thing, you know, they'll be better next time. And for us, we're like, we're the worst. How are we allowed to join society? Right? We're so bad at this. So what I often recommend is a couple of things. First of all, whenever you're telling yourself, you know, a beat up story, whenever you're just like self-flatulating, like just kind of like giving yourself the hardest time.

Stop yourself, notice it and say you're beating yourself up, Henna, and stop yourself and ask, what would you say to your best friend right now? What would you tell your best friend right now? If this was your best friend who just had this exact same situation or your closest work colleague, would you say, you idiot, you should never open your mouth again? Or would you say, I'm sure that was embarrassing for a second, but I'm sure, you know, they already forgot it and sounds like you handled it well, right?

That's what we would say to someone else. And so there's a technique actually in psychology referred to as temporal distancing. By physically slowing yourself down and saying, what would I tell my best friend right now? You can't just think it quickly. You really have to physically slow yourself down and either write it out or even say it into the air. Henna you would tell your best friend blank. It actually helps you rewrite the story, put some distance between yourself and the story.

And one other thing that's just very useful in the context of the awkwardness conversation when it comes to self-compassion is a lot of times people who experience this emotion often feel like they're the only ones. And so a couple things, awkwardness is universal. Everyone who experiences the full range of emotions experiences this emotion, even the confident people. And it's something that again is a trainable muscle. I talk a lot in the book about social muscle.

we can get better at managing this emotion. We can get better at entering those conversations with practice, which is really encouraging because it's not an innate trait that we either have or we don't. Yes, shyness, introversion, those things exist on a spectrum, but all of us can get better at managing the emotions of awkwardness, embarrassment, cringe, if we understand them better and we have techniques on the ready.

Rachel Mandell (07:55)

Can you talk to us about an additional layer of being a woman or an underrepresented leader dealing with awkwardness?

Henna Pryor, CSP (07:59)

Mm. Yeah. Yes, this is so important because it would be a miss not to talk about the fact that women and specifically women of color are often held to a different level of confidence where confidence sometimes needs to appear as flawlessness. And so I want to make sure that we don't gloss over that. That is, you know, we can have the best male allies in the room, but we are also working on decades of

corporate and business systems that were built by and often led by cisgendered, Caucasian, heterosexual men. That is just the system that we are still changing very, very slowly. Women didn't have a lot of these rights a couple of decades ago. And so this is real and flawlessness is impossible. We know that. That strategy doesn't serve us. And so when it comes to embracing awkwardness in the workplace, what I often suggest is

Two things, number one, do not confuse the emotion of awkwardness with ineptitude. They are not the same thing. You might feel awkward about saying something incorrectly. That doesn't make you inept. Inept means you lack skill or lacked competence in a certain area. Awkwardness might sound like, I don't think I said that quite right. Can I run that back? Can I try that again? That's like an awkward moment, but it doesn't imply ineptitude. They're not the same thing.

The second thing is this is where the psychological safety conversation is important. If you're trying to test how much of something is welcome in your workplace, you know, I don't know that your first try at this is, wow, I totally screwed up that project. I feel awkward about it. Right. That's that maybe is a little too big. It could be, you know, I'm not sure how to pronounce your name and I feel awkward asking because I feel like I should get it right. Can I try that? Or I don't have quite the right words for this.

but I'm gonna do my best because I feel like it's important that I try and model that to you. Those are micro moments of embracing awkwardness that allow you to get that muscle for the bigger moments and see what's okay in your workplace.

Rachel Mandell (10:06)

Is there anything in particular for leaders or leadership that come up? I know we were talking about women and underrepresented leadership, but there is that other layer of flawlessness that may come in if you're leading a discussion with hundreds of or a small boardroom.

Henna Pryor, CSP (10:22)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Interestingly, even since the book came out, I would say more than ever, people are craving your full humanity. It is so easy for a leader right now to write a perfectly polished script with the help of an AI tool. We can feel it. We can tell because we know what someone normally sounds like.

So I'm actually writing another book that's coming out this fall called The Signal Gap, which I'll be sharing a lot more about in the coming weeks on social. But it talks about this, which is there's a version of a person we've come to know, and then there's a version lately that people will project, whether it's through their words, through their tone. And when there's a gap between those two signals, we deeply do not like it. We do not trust it. It's actually really wrecking influence. So for leaders in particular, I'm not saying to manufacture

awkward moments. I'm not saying to manufacture, you know, faux humanity. Please, Lord, don't do that. But what I am saying is, flawlessness not only is a standard that you'll probably never meet, it actually is hurting you. We don't trust it. Everything that's flawless, we're like, AI, deepfake, scam, right? That's the world we live in now. So this is, again, where do I see this as good news? I see opportunity. Relax.

Try your best and when your best feels like it's a bit of a fumble, say, you know what? That wasn't exactly the way I wanted to deliver that, but in the spirit of transparency, I also want to model for all of you what it's like to try and stay in this and stay in the real stuff versus micro polishing ourselves to death. That is something that earns a ton of respect if you're a leader, more than you realize. So lean into that, lean into that stuff.

Rachel Mandell (12:09)

I think it's respect and relief. It's respect from others and relief for yourself. And that combination is winning. I have attempted to put this into practice and it works. One question I have, because we do talk to a lot of women who are either in a...

Henna Pryor, CSP (12:11)

for sure.

Rachel Mandell (12:24)

professional transition or thinking about making a professional transition. So they're having conversations with new people at introducing themselves, their background, potentially a new service they're offering. Can you talk a little bit about how your theory plays into new scenarios and how that can help build their confidence, then confidence in new scenarios as well?

Henna Pryor, CSP (12:30)

Mm-hmm.

Yes, it's funny that transition period that you're describing was honestly a huge impetus for me writing the book because I felt very awkward as a child, you first born of immigrant parents. My name is Henna. It's not a traditional name in America, right? So there was a lot of that feeling. And I thought by the time I got to college that I had sort of found myself, right? Got my confidence. And it was when I got into the workplace, it was every inflection point, every transition point when I had to be,

fight for a new promotion, took a new job, was in between, that all those little Henna feelings came rushing back. And I was like, why do I feel like this again? I thought I had dealt with this, right? So 100%, this is where a lot of that emotion ticks up. We feel awkward when it's new people. Again, uncertainty. We don't know what they're gonna think of us. We don't know what their expectations are. So the very first suggestion I would give to people in transition, before you use humor, before you talk about naming it, I would actually

encourage you to spend a little bit of extra time examining the stories that you grew up with or the stories that you tell yourself. So let me just quickly give you an example. I am South Asian, Pakistani, immigrant parents. And there was a phrase that I was taught often growing up, which is just a cultural phrase. was "Log kya kahenge?" which translates to "What will people say?"

My entire upbringing was run through this filter. What will people say? What will the community say? What will they think? Right? Not, this a good fit for me? Or does this bring me joy? Or does it advance where I'm trying to go with the goals of my life? But what will people say? And it wasn't until I really sat with that conditioning and realized how much it wasn't serving me.

that I was able to start to crack open some of those stories and rewrite them. And I would say a lot of people who feel very awkward in transition or uncomfortable with new people have been holding onto a story and it often comes from upbringing, from media. Everyone is watching you. What will people say? Hey, fun fact, the science is there. Not everyone is watching you as closely as you think. Everyone's the main character in their own story. They might've watched you for a second, but they're also back to themselves two seconds later, right? That is not reality.

So spend a little bit of time there and also understand that people want you to win more often than not. There might be one or two, you know, villains in your story that are like, I want to see them fall on their face. I want to see them, you know, the step in it and have egg on their face. Unlikely, unlikely scientifically and statistically, most people want you to win. So give them a chance to be on your side before you tell yourself an entire story that you're completely failing.

Humanity is very bonding. Remember the elevator story. It's okay if it's not perfect. Do it with smile, do it with grace, just lighten up a little bit and it can be actually the thing that bonds you instead of the thing that destroys you in that moment.

Rachel Mandell (15:42)

I just want to say thank you so much for choosing the word awkward and relating it to humanity because it resonates in a way that other words that are or approaches don't because it is such a visceral feeling, but it's also, you also feel pretty isolated when you feel it because you don't want to really feel the ripple effect. So I think as we

We know millions of women are leaving the workforce trying to figure out different ways to work that align with their lives, with their ambitions, that they don't have to battle red tape every day. I think your approach to leaning into the awkwardness and finding our humanity as leaders also really aligns well with how women do it. ⁓ And I... I just find it really comforting and illuminating and also like you're seeing a lot of us in a way that we haven't felt seen before. So I really.

Henna Pryor, CSP (16:38)

That means a lot. Thank you.

I hope, you know, anybody who picks up the book, it's written like I talk, meaning, you know, there's research, it's backed and it's also playful. All I want is for all of us who felt that way a lot in our lives to feel seen and to have a toolkit for what do do with this? What do do with this emotion that has its grip? It's real. It's there. And I'm just grateful that I'm not alone. Writing the book has made me realize, wow, there's a lot of us.

And so let's do this together. Let's not be alone because none of us are doing this alone.

Rachel Mandell (17:09)

Well, thank you so much. We appreciate your time and we appreciate the book and we'll definitely stay tuned for the next one. Can you let people know where they can find you?

Henna Pryor, CSP (17:16)

Of course, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I'm Henna Pryor in all the places. I would say LinkedIn and Instagram are my two primary playgrounds. So @ HennaPryor, if you go to hennapryor.com, that'll take you to my website, which will link you to my ink magazine column, the blog. There's some free resources you can download, but yeah, so far I'm the only Henna Pryor. So you can catch me in any of those places.

Rachel Mandell (17:17)

Excellent. Thank you so much. was great chatting with you.

Henna Pryor, CSP (17:43)

Thank you for having me.