How can you communicate with candor and care?

Farra Trompeter: Welcome to the Smart Communications Podcast. This is Farra Trompeter, co-director and worker-owner at Big Duck. In today’s episode, we’re going to ask the question: How can you communicate with candor and care? I am delighted to be joined by Keyante Love. Key uses they/ them pronouns and is the founder and president of Good Love Group, an Afro-Indigenous and trans-owned consulting firm specializing in coaching, training, and conflict transformation. They’re also a cultural organizer, healer, and Sweet Southern Somebody. I love that phrase. You know, I first met Key back in 2017. Key, we’re going on eight years now we’re recording this in the summer of 2025, when Big Duck hired Race Forward, and we were lucky to have Key as one of our co-facilitators. Key has also been on the podcast before, talking with Ally Dommu, exploring how can you facilitate inclusive conversations? So if you’re so excited by this episode––I know we haven’t even started yet––and you want to learn more from Key, be sure to check that out. We’ll link to it in the show notes at bigduck.com/insights. But without further ado, Key, welcome back to the show.

Keyante Love: Thank you. I’m really excited to be here.

Farra Trompeter: Love it. We’ll get into later about your Sweet Southern Somebodyness, but you know, we’re going to let that sort of dangle for everyone’s intrigue, for just a moment. So before we dive into today’s topic, I’d love for our listeners to get a sense of who you are and how you approach this work. Lots of consultants talk about organizational culture issues, but I’m curious what informs your approach, Key?

Keyante Love: So, what’s in my bio tracks. Like, I think the Sweet Southern Somebody is very much embedded in my approach. And I think my approach is deeply rooted in my identity as, like, a black indigenous country somebody, which for me translates into being a human that is deeply rooted in relationships. Like relationships are at the center of everything I do, and country, as in like, if it’s broke, you fix it. If you need it, you grow it or you make it. And you can’t really do those things alone. You need your folks with you along the way. And as I grow in my understanding of who I am as a being, I’ve just like, I’ve released the idea that I need to be like a particular kind of like hard or tough. And the truth is, I’m really just, it’s just a lot of, like soft and fluff over here. So deeply rooted in love and appreciation and an understanding of the sacredness of all things and beings.

Farra Trompeter: I love that. As someone who’s quite fluffy themselves, I really appreciate that. Well, I want to get into our topic here about communicating with candor and care. And let’s just actually talk a little bit more about the organizational culture piece of that. How can you even approach the idea of being more clear, intentional, and kind in your communications if your culture is conflict-averse? So we know, we see lots of organizations who say they want to do these things, but yet they kind of shrink up when it comes time to have the talk and walk the walk. So what do you think about all that?

Keyante Love: I think it’s juicy, and I think like, let’s get into it. And first, I think there’s so many reasons why this is the case, right? So much of the ways that systemic oppression operates is really set up to keep us disconnected from ourselves, disconnected from one another. And if we’re disconnected from ourself, our ability to, like, identify what we are existing in and how we’re contributing to it, then it gets really, really tough and sort of fraught to try to dive into like how that works with other people, places, and things, particularly in our organizational cultures. So I would say the first step in almost anything in life is identifying, assessing, understanding what is actually going on here and what is my experience in all of it. So I think if we’re in a place where we’re noticing, feeling, sensing something is a little bit off, maybe it’s around being conflict-averse, think the very first stop is, “And how am I showing up in this? What is the impact to me and my nervous system? How do I want to engage here?”

Farra Trompeter: You just mentioned the nervous system. I know that you bring a somatic framework to what you do, getting people to explore what’s happening for them internally as they may be processing external events and interactions. And I can only imagine what that work has been like the past six months in 2025, however many months it’s been, six months, 20 months, I’ve lost track of 2025. But I’m wondering if you can share a little bit more about the connection between the internal and the external and how that somatic framework shows up in the work that you do.

Keyante Love: So I think in a couple of different flavors, then thinking about the need to be able to identify and assess a thing so that we can get to the antidote, the medicine, right? Understanding what the medicine is, the first point of information is actually inside of ourselves. So, indigenous wisdom teaches us a lot of things. It also teaches us that knowledge is both lived and experiential, which means as much as we might have been socialized to sort of seek the answers external to our own beings, that the body, the physical being, is a site and a source of an incredible amount of information. It sort of lets us know, and sometimes folks might experience this as like, when you are in a tough conversation and you feel like a knot in your stomach, that’s really good information. Your body is trying to tell you something is happening.

Keyante Love: As I’m, like, having this conversation with you, I feel like a little bit of tightness in my chest because I’m nervous. And if I lean into like what I’m nervous about, it’s because “Oh, I really care about this. I want to make sure I do a good job communicating these things.” Right? It helps to sort of lead us into information. And in our relationships, I think particularly in the context of organizational relationships, we spend so much time sort of projecting ourselves out and into other people’s experiences. And then we’re just like wrapped up in this world, like, well, “What’s this person going to say and what’s that person going to think?” And like, “How will they treat me if they know that I really feel this way?” It can oftentimes be really helpful to just be rooted and grounded in self, right? What is happening for me? How can I make sure that I’m showing up in a way that is in deep alignment with my values?

Farra Trompeter: And as we focus on getting in touch with ourselves, let’s talk back into that organizational framework and into communications. So first, let’s take the view of someone who works within an organization and may not be on the leadership team or lacks positional power in some way. How can they communicate with candor and care, and how can they respond if others on their team are not communicating with candor and care?

Keyante Love: I think in like, let’s fact check this, but the quote, I believe Alice Walker comes to mind like, “One of the main ways we give away our power by thinking that we don’t have any,” and I think particularly in this structure that we have, usually organizations being hierarchical in nature, folks having implicit and explicit ideas and understanding of like what it means to hold power, what it means to not hold power. I think we sometimes get really good at pushing power sort of out and away from ourselves. It’s actually one of the ways that, like, white supremacy and colonization really thrive, right? When individual people say “Would that I could do something, but, and I can’t do anything because there’s this wall in front of me that says I can’t.” So I think that the, again, I’m going to just keep leading us back to ourselves, is the idea and understanding is you actually have a tremendous amount of power within your own being to decide, understand “What is it that I feel like needs to be said here? Am I able to say it not from necessarily a place of, like, fear or urgency or a reaction, but a really grounded response to the context and what is happening?” And when you’re telling the truth and you’re able to be rooted in your values, I would say most of us hold some sort of value around kindness, right? That can sort of help to shape our interactions. Am I in a place to communicate this clearly and kindly? If the answer is no, what might I need to be in a place to communicate clearly and kindly?

Farra Trompeter: That’s a great question. I feel like I could write that on a post-it note and come back to reflecting on it. Along with, you are correct from Alice Walker, I got the official quote. You pretty much had it right, but just in case people are fact-checking. Apparently, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” I think you had it like 95% of the way there. Got to love Alice Walker and The Color Purple in all its varieties. So let’s now flip it and talk about managers. How can they be more real and vulnerable in these moments, and lead by example, while also creating an organization that is consistent in how it approaches its internal communications? So again, you know, every manager in every organization is different. You can try to have an approach to management, but folks will certainly interpret that. So how do managers show up in how they interact with each other and how they interact with their staff, and really try and create a great approach and consistency to internal communications?

Keyante Love: So, there’s sort of two things that come to mind. I think (1) As a manager, how are you thinking about understanding, metabolizing, and enacting power? Right? What is your framework for how you are engaging with this idea of power? Knowing that there’s sort of this sometimes very loud, sometimes very covert culture that says if you are in charge of something, then you have to be perfect at being in charge of the thing, right? You have to have all of the answers. You are not allowed to make mistakes. You sort of have to control things. And we learned this really early on. If you think about like early childhood experiences and like public K through 12 education, teachers had to do a lot of work around classroom management, like behavioral management, right? Like managing other people’s behaviors. We learn really early what it is to be in leadership.

Keyante Love: And so I think the first part is some sort of interrogating for self. What is my understanding of my own power in this dynamic? How am I responding to real or perceived pressures around getting it right that might be inhibiting me from also being able to be transparent and communicate really clearly about the realities of what is happening? And so I think if we’re able to get to that place, and my strong advocacy for anybody who is in a managerial or like a supervisory role is to really focus on, of the sort of four facets of power, thinking about power with and power to, right? How are you using your power to support your folks in having what they need to, like, do the best version of their work, whatever that is? So, I think that’s sort of like one, one side, one piece of it. And then also thinking about what are the systems that you have in place to be clear, kind, candorful (not a word, but it could be) communication with the folks on your team?

Farra Trompeter: So when we prepared for this conversation, we spoke about not just considering content, but cadence. So not just the what, but the when. Sometimes folks are surprised when people on their team are not familiar with something they know they’ve shared, but chances are they might have only shared it once or twice. What do you recommend folks think about when it comes to repeating or resharing something over and over again, versus the annoyance or fatigue doing that may cause? How do people get that right rhythm of communicating information?

Keyante Love: Love rhythms. I think there’s so many things that we can do there. I think one of the things that I recommend is getting really comfortable with introducing the concept of rigor as a core value, which, for me, rigor means we really dive in and we do the work necessary. In my former life as a member of an executive team at a large national nonprofit, I absolutely found myself in moments of being like, “We definitely sent the email. You definitely got the calendar invite. You’ve definitely read this in the employee handbook.” And what I had to come to realize and understand is that I needed, as a leader, to hold a particular value that says: At no point in time do I want anyone in my team to be surprised. Right? Like, I don’t want folks to have the experience of feeling surprised or shocked or like they didn’t have access to information. And so clearly the way I am sharing information is not working because, lo and behold, my team members are consistently like surprised and shocked despite the emails and reminders. So I think with the principle of rigor, sometimes that means we have to repeat ourselves. Every time I get on an airplane, I don’t know about you, but they be telling me exactly what I need to do in case of an emergency.

Farra Trompeter: The two exits, you know. You get the pamphlet out, right? You can’t see Key and I are on video here, we’re pointing to the front and the back.

Keyante Love: You could do it, you could read the script right now. Or you don’t even have to read it. You know, you know what it is, right? Repetition, I think, can absolutely be a gift. And sometimes it’s just shifting the framing of it, right? If it’s like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t want to have to listen to this thing over again,” or “I don’t want to have to repeat myself.” When I think it’s a good question of like, why? Why don’t you want to repeat yourself? And if that’s what is necessary, then maybe we shift the frame from, “Oh my gosh, I don’t want to have to keep repeating this information. I’m afraid that people might get tired of hearing this information. They’re not going to listen to it.” Shifting it to a framework that maybe says, “Ooh, maybe this is a really good way that I can support my folks in consistently being aligned and on the same page.” Right? How might I, how might I get to be in practice around that?

Keyante Love:And because I am who I am, I think often when I feel a little lost in the world, and I’m like, I don’t really know what to do, I try to look to the natural world for some like inspiration, some information, some guidance around like, “Okay, what are the trees doing? Like, what do, what do the, the birds have to say about this?”

Keyante Love: And in terms of communication, I think sometimes it’s helpful to even look at things seasonally, right? Can we follow the pattern? And it might shift or vary based on your geography, but what is happening in the wintertime? Things are slowing down a little bit, and we’re sort of in a period of like rest and reflection. Maybe this is a good time to share this information in a way that invites reflection. We’re moving into the springtime, things are blooming and growing. Maybe this is a good time for us to come back to this information in a way that is generative and is inviting folks to like pour in new ideas or checking in. Is this still working for us? Do we still feel really clear? Right? So I think there’s lots of ways to think about how we communicate in the cadence of communication. I think being able to sort of slow down enough to feel into the rhythm that you need, that your team needs, is going to be the quickest way we sort of get to success.

Farra Trompeter: Great. Well, there’s tons more we could talk about, but sadly, it’s time to wrap things up. If you would like to learn more about the courses Keyante offers and how you can work with them, visit goodlovegroup.com. Goodlovegroup.com. I love that URL. Key, before we go, anything else on your mind or anything you want to share?

Keyante Love: Ooh. Be good to each other. That’s it.

Farra Trompeter: Short and sweet. Love it. Love it. Well, thank you all for listening, and be sure to be good to yourself and be good to others out there. Have a great one.

Keyante Love: Bye.