194 – Beyond the Performative – The Price of Nice with Amira Barger

December 24, 2025

Episode #194: Beyond the Performative – The Price of Nice with Amira Barger 

In this episode of Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson welcomes back Amira Barger, award-winning communications executive, educator, and author of The Price of Nice: Why Comfort Keeps Us Stuck and Four Actions for Real Change.

Together, they explore how “niceness” often operates as a form of social control, especially in workplaces, nonprofits, and volunteer-driven organizations, and why prioritizing comfort can come at a steep cost to individuals, teams, and missions. This conversation challenges leaders to rethink performative politeness and replace it with courage, clarity, and values-aligned action.

If you’ve ever held back from speaking up to avoid rocking the boat, this episode will resonate deeply.

Performative – Episode Highlights

• [00:29] – Welcoming Amira Barger and Her New Book 
• [01:24] – Amira’s Background and Journey 
• [03:09] – The Importance of Volunteer Engagement 
• [04:44] – Transition to Communications 
• [07:44] – The Concept of Niceness and Its Impact 
• [10:11] – Personal Stories and Reflections on Niceness 
• [13:44] – Niceness in the Workplace 
• [17:19] – Challenging the Culture of Niceness 
• [28:07] – Strategies for Effective Communication 
• [33:41] – The Power Dynamics in Organizations 
• [34:40] – Understanding Inclusivity and Privilege 
• [35:17] – The Butterfly Metaphor and Emotional Labor 
• [38:00] – Framework for Courageous Conversations 
• [38:30] – Volunteer Program Development 
• [40:24] – The Price of Performative Niceness 
• [41:46] – Four-Step Model for Change Management 
• [47:34] – Building Capacity for Discomfort 
• [57:39] – Accountability Without Shame 

Helpful Links

• VolunteerPro Impact Lab  
• 2025 Volunteer Management Progress Report – The Recruitment Edition  
• Volunteer Nation Podcast Episode #125: Diversity & Women in the Workplace: Claim Your Space with Amira Barger  
• Volunteer Nation Podcast Episode #84: Building an Inclusive Culture at Your Volunteer Organization with Advita Patel 
• Volunteer Nation Podcast Episode #160: Leadership Principles for Sparking Change – Part 1 with Jenni Field  
• Volunteer Nation Podcast Episode #161: Leadership Principles for Sparking Change – Part 2 with Jenni Field 
• Amira’s Website 
• Bulk Book Purchase Discount, Porchlight 
• LinkedIn 
• YouTube 
• Instagram 
• TikTok 
• Bluesky 

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #194 Transcript: Beyond the Performative – The Price of Nice with Amira Barger 

Tobi: Hey, welcome to the Volunteer Nation Podcast, bringing you practical tips and big ideas on how to build, grow, and scale volunteer talent. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and if you rely on volunteers to fuel your charity, cause membership or movement, I made this podcast just for you.

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast.

I’m your host, Tobi Johnson. It is such a treat today to bring back Amira Barger. She’s got so much healthy, helpful, challenging, courageous, and just important information that we all need to take in. So I hope you’ll. Listen in. Maybe take out a pad of paper, take some notes, think about your takeaways. This is gonna be a really good conversation.

And Amira, I’m so excited to have you here. I’m gonna introduce you in a minute, but I just wanna congratulate you on getting this book out. The Price of Nice, why Comfort Keeps Us Stuck in Four Actions for Real Change. Yay. Congratulations. Yes,

Amira: thank you. I received that and thank you for having me. Yeah,

Tobi: it’s, I know you’re on a book tour right now, so I’m part of your virtual book tour.

We were talking about it earlier. Yes. She’s traveling the country, y’all. So Amira Barger is an award-winning executive vice president of communications and change management offering senior counsel and on reputation management and strategic communications to clients worldwide. She’s also the author, as I just mentioned, of the price of Nice, why comfort keeps us stuck, and Four Actions for Real Change.

That book is now out. We are excited. It’s in my hands. I held it up. I’m so excited. It’s a bold examination of niceness, quote unquote, as a harmful social construct that. Upholds inequity and a rallying call for those ready to create real lasting change. I mean, this book is so awesome on so many levels, a dedicated educator.

Amira also serves as a professor of marketing communications and change management at Cal State East Bay, where she joined the faculty in 2019. She also lectures at UCSF. She’s a Bay Area girl. She’s a data informed organizational architect. She leverages. Design thinking to advance DEI and solve complex challenges.

She is, does comms, she works for comms companies, has worked for comms companies. She’s done a lot. I am gonna put Amira’s entire bio in the show notes because it’s so awesome and she’s done so much. But Amira, welcome to the show and let’s talk about, we’re gonna jump right into this because I know we have a lot to talk about.

Okay. But before we do that, let’s talk about really quickly how you got into volunteer engagement and communications. Both, because I think we’re gonna be talking about both of those things. They’re kind of, they’re very part and parcel. Part and parcel. They’re just intimately connected, aren’t they?

Amira: They are.

And I did not start in corporate boardrooms. I’m there now, but I started in community rooms, churches, nonprofits, health centers. And for most of my early career, I was in the nonprofit world and fundraising community engagement where volunteers are not an extra, right. Right. They are in many ways the labor force and the workforce that’s needed for the mission to be fulfilled.

And one thing people may not know about me is I grew up. In a bubble and on an island at the same time. So I am a little black girl from Guam, the second oldest of eight kids, raised by a minister, father and mother. And that was a huge part of how I grew up and got into this passion for volunteer engagement, both as a leader of volunteers, but also as a volunteer myself, because I watched my parents, aunts, uncles, and community members who were organizing food drives without titles, without budgets or fancy tools.

And someone would say a family needs groceries. And before the sentence finished. Three people were already in motion doing what needed to be done. And those were my first lessons in volunteer engagement. People do not move because you have the perfect title or email. They move because they feel connected and seen and needed.

And that’s what I grew up around.

Tobi: Uh, so Awesome. So how did you make that transition to communications and where you are now? I think it’s a, it’s an interesting story, but also I think it’s a lesson for others who are thinking about transitions in their career or thinking about what their next step is.

So I’d like to highlight guests who are making really interesting pivots in their work lives.

Amira: Communications across all the volunteer. Engagement and nonprofit work I’ve done was always a tool, right? Because I saw what happened when language matched people’s lived reality. When the words were real, people showed up, and that’s still my work today.

I just do it now for leaders, organizations, and sometimes entire health systems. But communication is simply how we connect with one another. And whether I was communicating through a volunteer orientation. Or recruitment, whether I was communicating through fundraising appeals and letters. I was able to tell that story to the first corporation that I lept to when I left the nonprofit world of my job every day is to reach a variety of publics.

Tobi: Mm-hmm.

Amira: Sometimes that public is major donors, sometimes it’s volunteers, sometimes it’s fellow nonprofit peers and workers, you name it. It’s all about connecting people to something that they care about, using language or communications. And that really resonated with my very first communications firm that I went to of this is a person who knows how to move people to action, and that’s what communications allows us to do.

I definitely know how to do that. I’ve done that with volunteers. You move people to action using language.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve had a few guests on the pod all linked to some of these episodes. We had Jenny Field who talked about leadership principles for sparking change and some of that. We did a couple, part one and part two because it was such a deep conversation where we talked about communications and how it’s not always about necessarily being authentic and authentic, it’s more about being credible.

So that’s a really interesting episode. We also, a Vita Patel, I had a ATA Patel come on and talk about leadership communications. So. Diversity of women with women in the workplace. So, and we talked to you in episode 1 25 when we talked about claiming your space. So we’ve got this amazing group of smart women who are talking about leadership, talking about communication.

So I just wanted to point that out and we’ll put those links in the show notes. But it’s a great compendium of podcast episodes to just be inspired by strong women who are making a difference, who are, who have a point of view. And Amira. Talk to me before we get, go into more into the book. Just why this book, the Price of Nice, we’re moving beyond the performative we’re, mm-hmm.

Which I think people have, people who are really supporting equity not only in the workplace, but in the world and in their volunteer engagement. Have a hard time with this idea of not being a people pleaser in a lot of ways. Sometimes being nice is about being a people pleaser. But there’s more to it.

For you, this is about, this is coming from my understanding of my reading of the book is it’s coming from your identity, it’s coming from what you wanna offer people like you. Tell me a little bit more about the impetus for this particular book.

Amira: Yeah, for me, I had spent so much of my life being precious, sweet Amira.

It’s something that I referenced in the book, Uhhuh. My, my late mother-in-law Pearl used to refer to me as Precious, sweet Amira, like it were my government sanctioned name. And I was always known for being really nice. And I think part of that was the social conditioning I got early on, right? As the child of ministers, I was always in front of people and we were an example always.

And so there were a lot of calls to be nice, to be pleasant, to not rock the boat. And I had to spend a lot of time unpacking that and. The really pivotal moment for me was 12 and a half years ago, and that coincides with how old my daughter is. She’s 12 and a half. And there’s something interesting that happens when you’re responsible for a little human, whether or not you brought them into the world, whether you’re an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent, a caregiver of some sort.

And I just started asking different questions as I was bringing this little human into the world and responsible for her shaping and upbringing of all the things I was handed and believe, do I believe them because they were handed to me, or do I believe them because I chose them and picked them up for myself?

Tobi: Yeah.

Amira: And I couldn’t answer that question in a satisfactory way for myself. And one of those beliefs, instead of beliefs, was around what it meant to be nice and pleasant and likable. Mm-hmm. And for so long, I had spent a lot of time keeping. Things comfortable. Mm-hmm. Myself and others, and actually makes me think back to, it was in 2022 when my daughter was nine.

We were sitting down and we were watching the, here in the us the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Justice Kaji Brown Jackson, and she was going to be the first black woman. Mm-hmm. Right. Nominated to the Supreme Court as a very big moment. And this was essentially a multi-day job interview for her.

And during her committee hearings, a lot of people were peppering her with really harsh questions, but doing a lot of interrupting. Yep. And Audrey, my 9-year-old. She asks me, she says, why are they interrupting her and why isn’t anyone doing anything about it? And then she asked is, can I say a word I’m not supposed to?

And I said, sure. And she said, well, isn’t he kind of being a jerk? And I think I told a portion of this story the last time we chatted, and in many ways I feel like this book is an answer to some of her questions that she had then at nine of how can we each lead from our seat and our chair and our position where we are to help the people around us when and where we see something happening that isn’t okay, that isn’t right.

Or where people don’t have what they need. And I think too often we don’t do that and we don’t disrupt, and we don’t challenge and we don’t push back because we are used to being comfortable. We don’t wanna rock the boat. We don’t wanna be labeled difficult, hard to work with or any other label that people assign to us, so we play.

Nice.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Let’s dig a little bit deeper into this idea of quote unquote, nice. So how do you define niceness? How is it different? Because people are like, well, wait a minute, shouldn’t you be kind? Shouldn’t you have a strong moral compass? All that good stuff. How do you unpack it as different than just genuine kindness or morality?

Yeah.

Amira: Well, the first thing I often tell people is I am kind to be clear. Yeah, kindness is still the aim and the goal. But I was also a little girl who asked big questions, who colored outside the lines, if you will, who challenged the adults around her? And someone who has always been willing to say the quiet parts out loud.

And so what I eventually realized is this, that nice is often about protecting feelings, but usually someone else’s. Mm-hmm. Kindness is about protecting people, even when feelings may get temporarily bruised. And another concept I talk about in the book neutrality is I find pretending that you’re not involved or it’s not your problem when silence is in fact a decision.

Yeah. And a choice. Yeah. So niceness to me is a performance. It’s a costume. That’s why on the face of the book you see a mask. Mm-hmm. That’s the cover of the book. It is a performance piece, and I think of kindness or nerve, which I talk about in the book as the antithesis is a practice and action. Right?

It might be inconvenient. It will sometimes make a room go quiet, but kindness and nerve is aligned with care and justice, not just comfort and being liked.

Tobi: Absolutely. H how do you think niceness operates as a tool that upholds or protects systemic oppression? Because you also talk about th this book is for women of color, for example, who have, I think.

In my mind, addition added burden. Mm-hmm. And added standard of quote unquote niceness. Do you think there’s privilege around who can be nice and who doesn’t have to be nice? Yes,

Amira: absolutely. I tell people all the time, I practice nerve on a dial. Sometimes it’s a two on the dial, sometimes it’s a 10. It depends on so much context.

What room am I in, right? Do I have any allies in the room that will back me up? Mm-hmm. And stand alongside me or fight for me if needed, or pass the mic if needed. How safe am I in this room? Am I gonna lose a job? Am I just gonna lose an acquaintance? Am I gonna lose a family member? All of those pieces of context come into play.

And I also tell people a lot of the time, the. Antithesis of nice nerve that I’m asking people to show up with. Isn’t rebellious table flipping? Burn it all down because niceness. And oppression to use a specific word that you asked in the question. Oppression. I think people also have a bigness that they picture in their mind when they hear that word, but I also think oppression doesn’t always show up wearing a giant sign or a hood.

Sometimes, a lot of the time it shows up in a conference room in the form of tone policing, in the form of stealing someone’s idea, right? And sometimes that’s what niceness is operating as in terms of a tool that upholds systemic oppression. It happens to me all the time. I’m in a lot of boardrooms, and it’ll be, suddenly Mike on the corner will say an idea, and I’m thinking, I just shared that idea five minutes ago.

And now suddenly he says it and it’s the greatest idea Under the sun. Yeah, exactly. And no one but me is willing to say something. Right. And that’s that niceness coming into play. No one’s gonna rock the boat and say, actually Amir just shared that same idea five minutes ago and it was great. Like, let’s give credit where it’s due instead, we’re gonna play nice and just be quiet and just tell Amira to let it go.

Tobi: Yeah, exactly. I feel like systemic oppression when you think of systemic mm-hmm. It, it means that, in my mind, it’s a set of consistent, often very small actions that are just a constant drip. Mm-hmm. That keeps people down. So it can be like small reactions, it can be larger thing. I think ultimately it’s a big thing, but they’re often these little tiny thing when you talk about tone policing.

Mm-hmm. Or you

talk about, especially women in the workplace. If you’re a man in the workplace and you act boldly, people clap. You’re a leader, right? Suddenly you’re a leader, and if you’re a woman, you’re gonna tap dance a little. You’re gonna have to, because, and I think for women of color, the burden must be much higher,

Amira: and the cost is much higher to us for speaking up.

Right? We end up mm-hmm. Being penalized. Even if the penalization isn’t immediate or obvious, it suddenly, I’m not invited to the board meeting next time. Mm-hmm. Suddenly I’m off the list for a promotion. Right?

Tobi: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yep, yep. Can you think of a time where in a, in your work life. Where you really felt a moment of you saw niceness as a way of social control.

Can you think of like something where you were just like, wait, what? Yes.

Amira: Unfortunately, so many. The very major one that comes to mind is one I wrote about in the book, and people will see a chapter in there about sacred cows. People might also know them, refer to as Darling systems. But I was a part of an organization and we had a sacred cow.

That was a person, it was our CEO. He was the, and a sacred cow, right? Is simple. It’s a, a system, a person, a rule, or a policy that you don’t touch, you don’t change. It’s that idea of, we’ve always done it this way. This is so sacred. We cannot touch it, change it, reimagine it, leave it alone. And that was our CEO.

He was somebody who was beloved in our community, but within our organization, he was somebody that would bristle at critique and he would get really offended if anyone ever pushed, challenged, or tried to disrupt anything that he said did or decided. And as an executive team. But also as a board of directors, we had failed in many ways.

We didn’t push back on him. We talked about his behavior, his bad behavior in closed rooms, but never addressed him directly. It got to the point where we would even edit meeting notes so that it would sound, wow, less critical, like next level ridiculousness to protect this person’s ego, essentially. Right?

Yep. Yep. So we were playing nice. We said, stay in your lane. Let’s keep it comfortable. Let’s keep it nice and comfortable. Let’s not disrupt and do anything. And really, our board of directors had the true power. They are the CEO’s boss. So how this played out. Our niceness being the wrong choice was we had this big one shot meeting.

So we get on a plane, we fly to Capitol Hill where it happened to be today for my book tour. We fly to DC mm-hmm. And we’re sitting down with a Congress person. It is Congresswoman Jackie Spear. And this is one of those once in a lifetime, like big shot meetings. We needed $9 million for a multitude of years and this new initiative.

And so our CEO is sitting there and he finishes our collective pitch in the room to our congress person. And then he drops his signature catch brace. He says, I don’t know if I’m just sipping my own Kool-Aid. And in that moment, my CEO, who has all the self-awareness of a brick had no idea this tidal wave of discomfort he was unleashing in that moment with that phrase.

And I swear, the Congress women’s staff, people were frozen in place and their jaws were on the floor. Their eyes were out of their heads, and. Congresswoman Speier looks at my CEO and says, you really shouldn’t say that to me. And by the way, it was Flavor eight, not Kool-Aid. So for your listeners who may not know the origins of that phrase, sipping my own Kool-Aid, it comes from the Jonestown Massacre.

Tobi: Yeah.

Amira: In the seventies it was a mass. Unli of 900 people who drank a cyanide laced beverage. And Congresswoman Spear was a aid to her congress person in those years, and they were visiting, trying to help all that was going on there. And so she was harmed that day and injured. And so that phrase has some very dark history tied to it and.

It’s an example of there were so many opportunities where we as an executive team and our board had a chance to correct this very consistent pattern of behavior from our sacred cow, our CEO to course correct, to coach him. There were opportunities and we didn’t take those. We had said, let’s be comfortable, let’s be silent, let’s play nice.

And ultimately it cost us an embarrassment. It cost us in relationship and opportunity because we didn’t wanna challenge, we didn’t wanna disrupt. And we, everyone will have a story like that where you have this moment where you’re like, oh my goodness, get me out of this room. I can’t believe this is happening.

And that was that moment for me of the one thing you shouldn’t say to Congresswoman Speier, he said to her. But that was an example of what playing Nice got us and what it cost us.

Tobi: Yeah, exactly. This kind of performative niceness. What does it cost individuals in your mind? You talk about the hidden price of NICE in the book.

What do you think it cost? It costs, obviously, it costs organizations and those they hope to impact. Mm-hmm. And support and the causes they hope to support for individuals. What do you think that price is?

Amira: I think a lot of it for individuals, the cost is self erasure, right? People start doubting their own perception.

They edit themselves so much that they forget what their real voice, real beliefs sound like. And I can say from experience, that is what it costs me. That’s why I am the person to write this book or one of many people to write something like this. I had. Learn to shrink very early on to shrink who Amir was, to shrink my questions, to shrink my ambitions, and in many ways to erase myself.

And a lot of people missed out over the years who are no longer in my life on the opportunity to know the fullness of me. And I don’t want that anymore. I don’t wanna be a smaller version of myself that is palatable. I really wanna be powerful in this world, not palatable. And so for individuals, the cost is self erasure and that’s just too high a cost.

The world needs to know you. We each have something so distinct to bring to our relationships, our friendships, our communities. So I don’t want us to self erase.

Tobi: Yeah. Absolutely. I love that, that you say, I wanna be powerful, not palatable. Yeah. And I was writing, becoming a smaller version of yourself is the result and can have a really deep impact on your psyche.

Oh yeah. You start to minimize what’s possible for yourself. You also start to train other people that it’s okay. To continue to do this to people, these types of aggressions. Yeah. I know we’re in the holiday season, so I feel like this is really like coming home because you think about in dysfunctional families and families are families.

Mm-hmm. There’s always something going on, and sometimes you become a smaller version of yourself and your family as well. When you’re at a family event, you’re playing nice and sometimes maybe it makes sense, but it also can leave you feeling a little. Depressed it, it really too, I’ve had those situations where I’ve minimized who I am.

I’ve kind of muzzled myself, and that’s not really who I am. I’m very direct. Yeah. It’s kind of like my personality. Exactly. When I, like when I’m working with consulting clients, I’m doing comms audits, or I’m doing a program audit, I’ll preface the whole conversation. When I’m reporting out, I’ll just say, look, you have to know that I’m very direct and that this is from a place of caring, and this is, I’m gonna be very direct because I want you to succeed.

Yeah. And I have zero value judgment in what I’m saying. I don’t see you as less than, or I don’t have value judgments around these things. Mm-hmm. I just see them as things that need to change or improve. So I know nowadays that when I was younger. As a young leader, I often was the opposite of nice. I was very extremely direct, so I had to like temper myself and maybe that was from a place of privilege of being a white woman.

I imagine that’s part of it. Sure. But I also know there’s also times when I’m not that way and I, it’s so clearly not who I am and it’s so clear. I can feel it. It just being fake. It’s just not set of. Everybody has their standards for themselves, right? Their values, my value, one of my strongest values is honesty.

And when you can’t be honest, you’re really not working with your own value set.

Amira: That’s right. And I think it’s such a good example you bring up around the holidays because this often comes up in the conversations with people of sometimes the holidays just bring up hard conversations. Or you see those people who you aren’t values aligned with, that you don’t see all that often.

So I’ll use myself again as an example of sometimes practicing that nerve and doing something other than just being nice and silent and letting it go will maybe. Change relationships you have or cost your relationships? My siblings, the ones that I still speak to in this moment, will often send me memes of like, oh, here comes that one sister who’s always willing to say the thing and ruin family dinner because that is me and I am that person because I’ve just come to this place in life where I’m not gonna shrink anymore.

And like I said, I. We’ll communicate with kindness, and my goal is always to restore relationships where they can be restored. But sometimes things just come to a head where it’s clear we’re not values aligned, and this relationship may need to be one from afar or may need to end because you are that person who’s willing to.

Say the thing, ask the question, push back.

Tobi: I know. And like from my values set, I love that. It’s like, absolutely, please do that. I’ve had people call me out on things and mm-hmm. It’s not comfortable when someone calls you out. Of course not, but, but you know what? You are very grateful even in the moment.

Mm-hmm.

Amira: That’s where you grow is at that point of discomfort is often where we see, okay, I’m being stretched and maybe there’s something from this feedback that I can learn and something that I can do differently. And that really takes a, it takes a certain person. To be willing to receive feedback and to have a growth mindset to say, I don’t have all the answers, and maybe there are some things I’m wrong about.

Tobi: Yeah, Lord, there are a lot. Anyway, let’s, you know what, let’s get back into the workplace and when we become that person who’s known for challenging that culture of nice, what do you advise folks who are, who might be told, whether directly or indirectly, look, you’re being too direct. This is too much conflict.

We don’t wanna upset anyone. Mm-hmm. I hear this a lot with leaders of volunteers. Mm-hmm. Whether it’s a major donor or it’s a long-term volunteer, or it’s someone that who has power in their organization, a board member, whoever, where they feel like there’s a bit. Either a power differential or they just are sh shoulding themselves.

Like, I should not be calling out volunteers because they’re contributing their time for free. No, there are

Amira: some greatest hits that of pushback that come to mind of like, you’re being too direct. Some you just mentioned you’re being too direct. This feels like a lot of conflict or don’t wanna upset anyone, and it’s rarely that you are wrong, right?

It’s usually that you are making us feel something we don’t wanna feel, even if that’s not what they’re saying. And niceness becomes the shield that we hold up against that discomfort. And so when someone is telling you’re too much, or this is not the right time, what they hear is our, what I hear is our comfort matters more than either the truth or your truth, right?

So. You can push back on. I, I hear that this feels uncomfortable, but discomfort doesn’t mean harm. Discomfort is a signal that there’s something that needs attention here. Right? Or my goal isn’t conflict. My goal is clarity. And clarity helps us serve the people in community that are depending on us so much better.

So reframing is a tool many of us have heard of, right? How can you reframe the feelings of, again, discomfort, fear, or uncertainty that people are. Having and dredging up because you are being direct. Because you are not conflict avoidant.

Tobi: Yeah.

Amira: And you, because the way this question often comes up to me, especially with this book, is people ask, I don’t wanna rock the boat.

So if I’m someone who doesn’t wanna rock the boat, what do you say? And I will often let them know, like if the boat can’t handle the truth, that boat wasn’t seaworthy in the first place like you and your honesty is not the threat. Right. Your honesty is the stress test that reveals where there might already be cracks in this boat.

Right? Right. And so your silence always protects something. Make sure that it’s protecting the most right thing or people. And if you’re silence is protecting comfort at the expense of, say, the people in community who rely on our organization and our mission being fulfilled. That is unaligned. And so it needs to be addressed and that’s how you can talk with volunteers about it.

Of, look, our shared goal here is there are people in our community who rely on exactly the thing we’re doing right here. Whatever action we’re taking, whatever volunteer initiative or project, I know that we share that goal and let’s talk about how we can make sure that shared goal is fulfilled. And sometimes that means we need to have a difficult conversation.

Tobi: Yeah. I really, I love that. Just being really clear, it’s pa it’s almost like pausing and talking about the meta Yeah. What’s happening in the moment, because sometimes people don’t know, like they’ve been brought up this way. Mm-hmm. In their family. They have been culturally through systemic oppression.

Yeah. Been trained to, or I wouldn’t say trained is not the right word, but you know what I mean. It’s been reinforced. Yeah. Right. That this is a safe space. You don’t wanna be unsafe. And people do feel unsafe. And I like this idea of reframing and just, well wait, let’s take a pause. I understand this is what’s happening.

Sometimes I use, tell me more to pause. Oh yeah. I’ll use like, so tell me more. Here’s what I feel going on in this moment for a minute. Mm-hmm. Tell me more about what, what you think’s going on here. So then it’s a conversation back and forth. Mm-hmm. And I love this idea of regrounding in the mission. So there’s reframing, there’s pausing, there’s regrounding in the mission and why we’re here.

I hear this a lot with, and also stating your responsibility and why you’re stepping up in the first place. Mm-hmm. My job here is Yes. And often this is with, I’ve had some fairly. I would say squeaky will, I’ll, I’ll use that kindly, squeaky will volunteers in the past, yes. Who have very strong opinions about things, which is fine, and I wanna hear them, but I also don’t want a toxic environment.

And there’s a point where it becomes toxic and it’s better to step in before that toxicity starts to take hold and take root. But if it has already, you’ve got to decide. And I’ve talked to. Volunteer coordinators I’ve been working with in, in that worked in our, with our partners, with our organization, and I said, I would say, is the mission the volunteer, or is the mission that people were helping?

Mm-hmm. Because the way we’re prioritizing the needs of this particular volunteer or small group of volunteers over That’s right. The mission. That’s a way of being nice. Right. It’s like we, we wanna avoid, we wanna avoid, this is uncomfortable. They have a tremendous amount of power because they’ve been in the organization and with the organization and c supporting the organization for years.

Mm-hmm. And they wanna have a say. And I’m like, yes, I wanna have a say, but at the price of what Exactly. Yeah. When it becomes toxic. And so it’s a great litmus test. I love that you’ve pointed out this sort of litmus test. What’s it at the price

Amira: of? And you’ve always gotta ask that question because nerve challenges, nerve disrupts.

Even those people who might be counted as precious within our organizations, we have to be willing to ask that bigger question of. What Yeah. Are we serving here? The mission? Yeah. Or the volunteer.

Tobi: Yeah. And unless you’re a volunteer center mm-hmm. Or a capacity building organization, volunteers are not your mission.

Amira: Right. Right. They’re a component of fulfilling the mission. Right. Exactly. Exactly.

Tobi: So how does inclusivity play into this, particularly when nonprofits are re responsible to a diverse set of stakeholders? Mm-hmm. I think that becomes a, a conversation as well. Mm-hmm. How are we balancing, especially when there’s a conflict between what different stakeholders want, which also comes up.

Amira: Yeah. I mean, I think, let’s get clear on what inclusion is, right? Because there’s a lot of lacking clarity these days, but yeah. Inclusion isn’t about keeping everyone comfortable. Inclusion is about. Ensuring that the burden of discomfort doesn’t fall on the same shoulders over and over and over again.

And so I use, in the book, there’s a metaphor I use with my daughter about butterflies, right? Where she was much smaller than she is now at 12 and a half. And she was nervous about something. And I would tell her in those early days, get your butterflies in order, and butterflies don’t disappear. They are feelings, not facts.

And you can line them up, you can organize them. So they help you fly instead of hold you back, right? That’s the thing in the part you can control. And in, in workplaces, some people are allowed to have butterflies. They can be nervous or passionate and still be read as thoughtful. Others, especially marginalized folks, are expected to steady themselves completely.

And always be steady to smile, to be endlessly gracious or to risk being labeled difficult. We are not allowed to have butterflies that we have to get in order. And so if you are someone whose voice is not punished in the same way, that is privilege. Yes. And privilege is not a pass. It is a position of responsibility.

Your willingness to speak up can lower the cost of courage for someone who has been paying with their dignity or even with their humanity. So. Mm. Some of us aren’t allowed to get our butterflies in order ’cause we’re not allowed to have butterflies to begin with. And that is a privilege if you are allowed to have butterflies.

Mm

Tobi: mm That is deep. That is deep. I’m gonna be watching for this. I’m gonna be watching for this and seeing how I can ally around this. Yes. I’m just gonna, whenever I’m around people and there’s, and asking people if you’re willing. Anybody else having butterflies right now? Yeah. Anybody else? Making it, normalizing it a little bit.

Amira: Totally. And for every leader out there listening, you can take an action yourself. Just ask yourself, where can I take a risk here that might be too costly for them, but manageable for me. Right. Yeah. And you be the cushion. Be the cushion to the impact that might be had on someone else. Especially if you’re someone who’s allowed to have butterflies.

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That is deep. That is deep. Thank. Thank you. I’m thinking history. I’m thinking centuries right now. I’m going way back and I’m thinking centuries of history in this country about why this is still the way it is. You know, it’s really like, that’s something to think about y’all. If you have a little privilege, figure out how to share it, really.

That’s right. Let’s take a break from our conversation with Amira Barger about how performative communications may be hurting us and what to do as instead when we come back. Amira, I wanna talk about, you’ve got a framework. I wanna talk about a few pieces of your framework. Now y’all, you need to get your hands on this book to learn the whole framework.

You know, whether you’ve got some privilege or you feel like you don’t have privilege, whatever it is, this book is gonna help, and I want y’all to think about getting your hands on it. We’ll put a link to it in the show notes, but after the break, let’s get into a little bit more framework. Amira. Sound good?

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Okay. We’re back with a conversation about the price of NICE and the performative. With Amira Barger, we’ve really been talking about the idea of performative.

Nice. The idea that being nice and keep not rocking the boat actually has major costs, and in, in fact has deeper, makes deeper cuts on some people more than others, and that we are really respecting ourselves and also the relationships we’re in when we’re willing to step forward. When we, and Amir, like you said before the break, really, you’re working with a dial, you figure out how mm-hmm.

Strong you feel. In any given day, you’re assessing the room. You’re figuring out wh which allies are there folks? We’ve got to realize that not everybody’s experiencing communications in the same way. I think this is my biggest takeaway so far from this conversation, and that if you are operating from a place of privilege, even partial privilege, there are things going on, dynamics happening that you may not be aware of, and that you have to kind of dial up your own, just like emotional intelligence and observation in conversation.

Mm-hmm. And be that brave person when you have the tools and the space to do it. So let’s talk about what that might look like. One of the most powerful tools, I think in your book is your four step model, which is the way the book is organized. Mm-hmm. Think, feel, do, revisit. Can you walk us through just an overview of those four steps and why does this sequence matter?

Amira: Yeah, so the model grew out of two places. It is borrowed from the world of social psychology and we actually use it in communications all the time. Mm-hmm. Whether we’re building messaging or advertising, what do you want people to think such that they feel a way such that they act away and then get them to repeat it.

So that’s the business side of what it grew out of. The personal side of what it grew out of is my life on a tiny island. And a boy who told me one time that sandcastles wash away. So quick story, every year we would visit this tiny island from my tiny island, Guam, to an even Tin Island called Yap for a missions trip.

And at the end of the trip we’d have this giant crab boil like Louisiana style. And the rule was simple. If you wanted crab for dinner, you had to catch your crab. The. Trick was with your bare hands, no tools, no gloves, just guts and uhhuh. The idea is that in the islands, the crabs turn away from the sunlight.

So you follow the sun, you find the crab hole and you, that’s how you know where to stick your hand down the crab hole, reach in so you don’t get pinch right and bleed. So year after year I would choose instead to not catch crabs for years up until I was 14 and I would be like, I’ll go build sandcastles with the kids.

I’ll babysit the younger kids and I knew how to build something beautiful that wouldn’t scare me sandcastles. But one year, one of the local boys really like got on me and was like, saw me sneaking away and said, come on, you have to learn how to do this sandcastles wash away. And he wasn’t just talking about the beach, he was talking about life.

And so the moment eventually became part of this model where think is the first part of the four part model. Think what story am I believing. For me, with the sandcastles and the crabs, I was believing if I avoid fear, I’ll stay safe. Uhhuh, right? The second step in the model is feel right. What emotion is running the show?

For me, it was fear. Fear was loud and convincing and had me act in a certain way running away. The third part is do I was asking myself, what one brave action can I take anyway? Do it Scared they say, right, uhhuh. So eventually I reached into that dark hole and grabbed a crab that I could not see and then revisit.

What did I learn and how do I carry it forward? The fear shrank once I faced it, and that my sandcastle strategy didn’t protect me. It just postponed my experiencing life, right? I was not doing this thing over here that could have been transformative because of the fear I was feeling. So we skip steps all the time in organizations.

We go straight from think to do and skip feel, so we bulldoze over people or we feel deeply, but we never act or we act once and never revisit the lessons so that we can repeat those good behaviors. And so we slide slowly back into old patterns of behavior. So the sequence matters because it helps us move from awareness to aligned action.

Which is really what we want. Consistent patterns of good behavior.

Tobi: Right, right. This is so much about change management. It is. Exactly. Which it, you know, I’m like, oh, this is, so, this is a great framework for change management. I think about the changes that folks wanna make. And I’ll often say nobody’s going anywhere until their emotions are aligned.

That’s right. And they can get over the fear. So change management has gone from like, look, we’re gonna have a come to Jesus talk with everybody. Mm-hmm. Tell ’em what’s happening and tell ’em the consequences if they don’t get on board to actually, we need to talk through how this change is impacting people.

We need to reassure them that some things aren’t changing. So we’re not like spiking the, the primal part of our brain. And people are going nuts with that adrenaline. That’s right. You know, I know so much more about the human brain and how it operates. I mean, we used to think that the prefrontal cortex like ran the show.

Like we are thinking reasoning human beings, but we’re actually not. Yep. We’re emotions. Emotions drive decisions. Right. They do. So I’m looking at this and I’m going, this is so much about change management as well. It really is. I draw from that. So you talk about checking in with your spirit, that that emotional LA labor of change and that just given, you know what we know about neuroscience, obviously human beings are kind of skittish.

We wanna avoid conflict. When we think about change, people love their feathered nest. It’s really comfort. Comfy in there. They got feathered in. Yeah, they’re comfy with their buddies.

Amira: Good image.

Tobi: Good image. It’s feeling, feeling warm and cozy. They’re like, what? You want me to get out in the cold world? I’m not flying anywhere.

No way. It’s comfy. But we’re here to do a job in the nonprofit sector and that job is hard and we’ve got to be willing to be uncomfortable because you know what? There’s so many, we’re here to help. With other people’s uncomfort and discomfort and yes, suffering. Right? That’s what we do as a sector, is to enhance people’s lives.

And that means that we need to be a little bit warrior-like at times, not with, just in terms of courage. In terms of courage not being violent. That’s not what I mean. I mean, right. When I say warrior, like I mean courage. So how can people, especially leaders, build the capacity to sit with that discomfort without retreating to niceness?

It is not easy.

Amira: It’s not easy at all, and I hope that’s not what people think when they dive into this book. These are practices that I’m trying to offer to people, and there’s a reason. The fourth stuff is revisit because it’s not easy and you won’t be done. Yeah. You don’t build capacity through heroic leaps, and I think that’s something people need to hear.

You build it through consistent repetitions. Patterns. So try this, right? Once a week, say I disagree out loud in a meeting. Start there. I know people are like, what? I can’t do that. Like, wait a minute, I disagree. And then follow up with the why and an alternative. Another step would be let there be three seconds of silence before you rush to fix someone’s discomfort, or even before you rush to fix a problem for someone.

Yeah, just give it a lull. A few second lull. Just sit there, pause. Another one would be to practice naming your emotion instead of hiding it behind analysis, like, I feel defensive or I feel anxious about this change. Name it, right? Because naming it allows us to address it. We have to acknowledge first, right?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Those are examples of the. Simple, but consistent repetitions or acts that each of us has the capacity to enact that, build that muscle of nerve, of staying present in discomfort instead of escaping back into, oh, everything’s fine. Just let it go. Stay quiet, stay nice. Start with something that feels comfortable for you, and learn to master that repetition and that thing that you do.

For me, early on when I started practicing, Nere was asking questions and I still have this rule for myself today. Ask one more question in the meeting before the meeting ends. Ask one more question. One more question, whether that’s something as simple as, you know, what, as we wrap up the action steps, who wasn’t represented in the room today that we need to have in the follow-up meeting?

I force myself in meetings to have one more question. Yeah. And that’s a simple way that I practice nerve that is consistent and builds my nerve muscle.

Tobi: I was thinking about that when you recommended just stating, I disagree that I might follow that up with I disagree. Have we thought of mm-hmm. Dot Beautiful, you know, you’re inviting a conversation.

Yes. So you’re saying, I disagree. You need to know that I’m being honest about that. But also have we thought of, instead of, I disagree, I think we should do blah, blah, blah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So you’re kind

of bulldozing folks in that way. I, I like that. Have we thought of, I also love that you talk about naming your emotions, but not necessarily analyzing them or, I feel like I just did this last Friday.

Mm. I came home, or no, it was Sunday. I came home from an event I. That I had organized, it was my uncle’s celebration of life and I’m very close to his wife. And so I wanted to do this as out of a place of love because I know how to run events. So I’m like, you know what? Let me organize it because I wanna do this to help you.

’cause you’re not, you don’t do event organizing. It turned out great, but there were family dynamics happening and there were things going on, and of course someone had passed away, so we were celebrating a passing and so it got me very contemplative, but it also got me feeling a little bit blue, but I wasn’t, I couldn’t put my finger on.

I’m fairly emotionally aware, but I couldn’t put my finger on why be, besides the fact that I wasn’t super close with my uncle. Yeah, I’m very close with my aunt, but not with my uncle. So it could be like vibes from other Yeah. Folks in the room. I feeling the feelings, but also I also said to myself, you know what?

You don’t need to know why. Mm. Let’s sit with this. Mm-hmm. And be quiet and plan your week that you slow down and that you just see what comes up. Now we can’t do that in the middle of a business meeting, obviously. Right. But afterwards that, that, that price of NICE does stick with us. Sometimes it does.

If we’re being. We, if we’re feeling like we’re becoming a smaller version of ourselves, that will have a lasting effect. I have had that feeling, yes. Mm-hmm. I know what that feeling feels like. It’s not fun and it’s hard to sit with, but I think sometimes we don’t have to know. Mm-hmm. Right away. We can just sit with that.

So naming it. Wow. I feel a little blue. And I told my husband, I talked to my husband about it. I said, it’s not that I’m depressed. Yeah. It’s just blue. And it’s a strange, I can’t like put a, there’s not a clear understanding of why this emotion is coming up. Yeah.

Amira: That’s so powerful. And there’s a really popular book right now, right?

The Body Keeps the Score. Yes, I’ve read that. Yes. And that’s what it makes me think of in the feel section of the book, is that if you ignore your emotional experience, you will either shut down or explode. And neither of those things is sustainable. Especially in the field of work that volunteer leaders work in.

Yes. You have to pay attention to and be aware of your emotional experience and name it in order to move through it. Like I said, even if you don’t analyze it or have an answer, but just to move through it, you have to feel it. Yes.

Tobi: Yeah. And it will dissolve. Mm-hmm. In some respects, sometimes you need to, you realize through that sort of self, not analysis, but self discovery, I would say.

Yeah. That you realize you have to take some action. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes that emotion is dissolves. And in mindfulness practice, we know that we are not our emotions. Yeah. Yeah. Our emotions are like clouds that go by. Mm-hmm. And they’re gonna come and they’re gonna go so good. And we don’t have to be attached to them, but they can be information that we need.

So I just, if you feel like you’re being, as a listener, you’re being a smaller version of yourself, is that okay? Sometimes I feel like we have a, well, some folks in our sector mm-hmm. Have a savior complex that they believe that their belief set is such that. I need to give up who I am in order to make this thing happen in the world and that I completely disagree with.

I don’t think it’s healthy. I also don’t think it makes a difference. Ultimately. Agreed. So, so feelings are part of it, but at some point you must act and you talk about the do phase. Let’s move into that do step. This is where our courage really becomes visible to other people. I think our emo analysis or examination of our own emotions is our courage within ourselves.

What are some practical actions people can take to move from the performative to a more purposeful? We’ve talked about some of the things we might do in meetings. Are there any, anything else you wanna add to the conversation around this, around the do step?

Amira: I think choose one courageous thing. You can do a day.

And again, don’t let courageous. Scare you and feel like that has to mean heroic and big. Right? Right, right. It could be one courageous sentence a day, right? I see a risk here that we’re not naming right or this decision will land differently for people with less privilege. That’s a courageous sentence in a decision meeting.

That’s a courageous sentence. In some rooms retire that tone, policing that often comes up where we ask people to shrink themselves of labeling people too angry, too emotional, too direct, right? Yeah. Let’s remove that from our vocabulary and have better conversations that instead, focus on the substance of things and start with yourself of when I’m sitting there and I start to feel that Tobi’s being too direct.

What does that mean and why am I uncomfortable with it? Is it, oh, maybe Tobi’s really clear about what she believes. Why do I interpret that as too direct? What does that say about where I am and what I’m feeling? Yeah, yeah. Right. That can be something that we can do as an action step. I also talk a lot in the book about the tools of questions.

I often use a three part question framework of what, so what and what next. Mm-hmm. That is a very simple way for us as leaders to act, and that can be applied to a multitude of scenarios of, okay, what’s the what here? What’s the thing that matters? Why does it matter to my stakeholders, whether that’s the volunteers I’m managing my CEO members in the community, and what next?

What’s one step I can take that matters based on this problem or this situation that I’m dealing with that matters to the people that matter to me?

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. One other question, because I feel like when we’re talking values, we’re going to have values that don’t intersect well, that there’s a clash of values sometime.

Mm-hmm. How can we build in organizations accountability, equality, without, you talk about in the revisit stage, we’re gonna revisit what happened, we’re gonna think about what we can do differently. How can we do this without shaming or policing one another? It’s such an interesting thing to try to do, especially when values are in conflict.

Amira: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, accountability without shame is about shifting. I think the questions that we ask or the way we frame in our minds from something like, who messed up to what made this hard to do? Right? Yeah. It’s about seeing gaps as design problems, not a moral failure. And not a failure of the human on the other end.

Okay. Where’s the gap in the way we design this process? In the way we design how we meet as a team in our norms, right? Let’s address the problem and point at the problem, not the people. Yes. Process, not people. Yes, there are systems and habits that help, right? Quarterly retrospectives where people can be honest without punishment or anything punitive, clear metrics that are tied to who we’re including in these conversations.

The space for actual reciprocal feedback or even anonymous feedback. ’cause sometimes people are willing to be more honest when they can anonymously share leaders publicly naming where they got it wrong and what they’re gonna do differently and the next time around. So some of that accountability without shame is about shifting our frame of mind.

And that’s so much of what this book is. Mindsets, tool sets and skill sets, right? Yes. And practicing accountability without shame requires a different mindset, a different set of tools, and you need the skillset to be able to use those tools properly.

Tobi: Yeah. And with that, I think that’s a great place to, great note to end on is.

Yang pick up this book. It is amazing. Amira, you’re amazing. Thank you. I really appreciate you joining me to hear I here today. I hope that this is giving folks some courage. This is important. Like you said, if you are direct and honest and clear, if the boat sinks, was the boat even right built well to begin with, right?

So like you gotta question those things like, is this the right place for me? Mm-hmm. Is this the right relationship for me? In the end, if we don’t take care of ourselves and we’re not, if we are all given the space to be our true, authentic selves and we are operating from a place of love and abundance, and I would say solidarity with others in the world.

Imagine what could be done. Yeah. And I feel like our sector really needs to start embracing that there are so, there’s so much talent within our volunteers, within our teams that we may need to make sure everybody can flourish. And I mean everybody. Yes. Right. So let me ask you one more question as we wrap up.

What are you most excited about in the year ahead? Ooh,

Amira: I, continuing the book tour of course, but also something we talked about. I am, I think more and more people are tired of sandcastles that wash away the story I told. That’s right. People are ready to catch crabs, to take the risk, put their hand down the ground and risk getting their hand chopped up.

And that is the kind of nerve that we need. And every time I have a conversation with people, they really get the essence of this book and they really understand nerve versus nice. And I think so many people are ready to go out and catch those crabs. And that’s exciting to me because that is how we get to that reimagined world that you were just talking about.

Aw,

Tobi: that, that’s so good. And thank you so much for giving folks a guidebook. For the way a blueprint to make it happen. So how can people learn more about your work, get in touch with you if they’re interested in learning more, buy the book, all that good stuff,

Amira: very easy. Amira barger.com, you’ll find everything there.

My social media links. Links to your favorite places to buy the book. The book tour stops. You name it.

Tobi: Awesome. Awesome. And we post those in the show notes. So Amira, thanks so much for having us, everybody. Let’s just, with the one takeaway, be more observant. Well, two takeaways. I would say be more observant of yourself, of others, and then take that leap to, you know, do something that makes you a little bit scared.

Yeah, it’s okay. Yeah. We’re all

Amira: gonna be okay here. You can do it. I believe in you.

Tobi: Take care everybody. If you like this episode, go ahead and share it with a friend who you think might benefit and join us next week. Same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Take care, everybody.