Dr. Fateme Banishoeib is a visionary in organizational development. She blends analytical prowess with poetic sensitivity to craft innovative work cultures through storytelling and creative methodologies.

Dr. Banishoeib underscores the transformative power of cultivating empathy, care, and creativity within workplace environments. She highlights how facilitating open discussions enables teams to tap into diverse perspectives and insights, leading to more innovative solutions and inclusive decision-making processes.

When leaders shift from focusing solely on metrics to considering employees' emotional and psychological needs, workplace satisfaction, resilience, and engagement improve.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast platform to learn how to become an authentic and emotionally engaging leader.

Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen Matini or send him a message on LinkedIn.

TRANSCRIPT

Stephen Matini: Like me, you have two different cultures essentially that have inspired your life. And then both of us have moved around quite a bit. So when people ask you, where's home, what do you say?

Fateme Banishoeib: I don't actually have an answer to that. And I have to tell you something. I have to confess a secret, which is not that of a secret.

One of the reason why I have traveled so much I lived everywhere in the world is actually because I don't know where home is. I've come to the conclusion that home is a feeling is not a place. And when I find myself into that feeling or when I can recreate that feeling, then I know that I'm at home.

I've been confused most of my life about where home is. I was interviewed. There is a video in which I actually talk about home and where home is, and on top of my bed actually have a, a beautiful painting of the world. And Maya Angelou said what she said something like, freedom is being at home everywhere. It is true. And it comes with a price. So I don't know where home is. Home is wherever my cat is.

Stephen Matini: So in terms of your professional choices, you know, growing up kind of understanding where I should go with my professional career, how much these two backgrounds that you have have influenced the way you think?

Fateme Banishoeib: Work or career wise is a similar journey. I've embraced the same journey as I embrace like traveling and looking for, for home everywhere till I made home for myself. The same happened for my career.

I think in our first conversation I mentioned to you that I was born a highly artistic child, but of course art is not a job or is considered a frivolous hobby. So my parents were, every time I would say, I want to be a poet, I want to be a designer, they were like, no, no, no, no <laugh>. As soon as I became a little bit, you know, older that I couldn't understand, they were like no, no, no, no, that's not really a job. What do you really want to do to earn a living? And another thing I would say is I want to be a crazy scientist.

And I literally use those words, crazy scientist. So actually they convinced me that art is not a job and in some way they are right in the sense that to be an artist is a way of being. And this is what I do currently now, and I can talk about that a little bit more.

So I became a scientist and I became a scientist really for the deep love have for science and understanding how we work as a human being. And also for the love of curing people that I've always been passionate about curing people since I was a little child. I mean, there are memories and stories in the family of me. Every time I would hear someone saying, oh, I haven't headache or whatever, I cut my finger. I would just run and I would make up something and I would create something to cure them.

And I've said that. And I've also written about, in my first book in the Whisper, I literally wrote this word like I became a scientist to cure people and wrote poetry to save my life. And this has happened to me literally what saved my life as being really rediscovering poetry in my life.

Once I have become aware of that artist within me again that was just there maybe dormant and and sleep as I was, you know, busy with my corporate career, I actually start seeing the world with very different highs.

And I started wanting to be all I am and not just the scientist or just the artist actually I get equally upset or equally triggered when someone refers to me only as the scientist or you know, the executive, the mentor or the artist. I really want to be all of them because I am and all of them.

And I've spent the past years in my life trying to bring harmony and an equilibrium between all of these facets. And that's how I redesigned my career. That's when I founded Renew Business.

And when I decided that there was place for all of I am, I didn't need to, you know, take a break from my corporate job to paint or I didn't need to whatever. To me, there is no switch. We can only be all of who we are. And that has changed not only what I do, but also how I perceive life by that, how I can support or help others.

For example, there are occasions in which someone calls for my help for very specific or technical tasks. However, I do not forget that I'm an artist. I do not forget there is border within me. I do not forget that sensitivity. I do not forget that way of seeing things.

And one of the remark that people always make is like, do you see those things? How do you come? And to me it's surprising because it is like why isn't the same for you? And after all, I actually really think that the quality of what we do, whatever it is, that what we do depends on the quality of who we are. I'm trying to be everything I am.

Stephen Matini: A lot of people can distinctively perceive it. There's more sides to themselves. They have multiple interests, multiple talent. And somehow so many people feel compelled that I have to choose, you know, whichever route. And that creates a lot of stress to people because it always feels, as you said, what about all the other parts of myself? When did you realize that your, who comprised the scientist and the artist?

Fateme Banishoeib: Well, I've always known what I did not know and took me longer. Also because society and the su and education don't help us understand that we can have different interests and we, if we want, we can pursue all of them or some of them. I mean, we live in a society and an education that really pushes us to specialize in something. And there are people who are very happy with doing that. They only have a passion or something.

So it's a, so-called like growing vertically or in a, or specializing, going deep into something. And there are people like me who can go deep in different sectors, in different areas, in different backgrounds. What I actually like to think is that we can act as a bridge between domains that apparently look like so separate and so different very often actually make this example which helps people understand especially when they ask me like, but what the chemist and the poet have in common.

And I always say them, well, the seeking the, this love for seeking truth. When I was a chemist in the lab and now when I write poems, that's what I seek. And there is a peculiar, maybe a little bit pot poetic metaphor that is brilliant alchemy is combining the elements that could be material elements, molecules, atoms or experience feelings and making something that didn't exist before. And in that I only act as a bridge. So I've always known, I just had to unlearn what society, people or conditioning had told me that it was not possible and create it, make it possible for me. But I've always known

Stephen Matini: Was there an event or something that happened in the past that this somehow pushed you to realize that meaning you have always known, b