Truth, Lies and Work

what if you want to hire people who are genuinely brilliant i'm talking about the top one percent of experts the phd scientists the ai engineers who could probably code circles around most of us well that is hard enough but how you supposed to manage these geniuses the conventional wisdom says you need to be the smartest person in room to lead great teams but why if that could be completely wrong our guest today manages some of the clever people on the planet my name is steve rust roost and i am the ceo and c founder of pop doc which is one of the uk's fastest growing health tech businesses now steve openly admits that he's not the most technical person on his team yet he's successfully leading scientists and engineers who are developing cutting edge medical diagnostics steve believes being the non technical founder is actually his superpower so if you've ever felt intimidated by the expertise around you or wondered how to hire and manage brilliant people without micro them this episode is for you join us today as we discover how the most innovative companies in the world manage their technical teams welcome to truth lies and the award winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture we are brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals my name is lia and i'm a charge occupational psychologist my name is ali i'm a business owner and we are here to help you simplify the science of work after this very short break we'll hear how our personal tragedy steve's life set him on this mission and why he wants to prevent anyone else go through the same heartbreak you like case leanne mh here's one from hubspot about sandler training and how they got their sales cycle in half using hubspot ai tools in half that sounds a bit far fetched stuff the numbers are actually pretty solid they used breeze which is hubspot ai tools suite to personalize every customer interaction and as a result their qualified leads quadrupled their click through rates jump by twenty five percent and people spent three times longer on their landing pages i think i'd worry that using ai would kind remove the human touch fair point but not in this case in fact using breeze they actually enhanced it so if this sounds like something you want for your organization not yu the listener go to dot com to see how breeze can help your business grow welcome back let's go and join a and hear steve's story my name is steve rust and i am the ceo and c cofounder founder of poc doc which is one of the uk's fastest growing health tech businesses i'm also the creator and host of one of europe's largest health tech which is called the health tech hour and in my spare time of which i to be fair don't have quite a lot it i run something called the last friday club where i help entrepreneurs in a free safe space to answer any challenges i give up the last friday of every month to help entrepreneurs i think you had admitted it to me when we chatted before that you're not necessarily the clever person in the room so how do you how do you manage all these geniuses sure so so i don't have a clinical background or a health background which is definitely true prop poll docs initial area of focus was cardiovascular disease so heart the prevention of heart attack and strokes my passion for that i guess comes from when i was fourteen and my dad was basically the same age that i am now almost to the day he had a huge stroke due to un diagnosed cardiovascular disease so i've always it was catastrophic for him as you'd expect catastrophic for our family all kinds of bad stuff happened as a result and it it meant that i had a really deep understanding of that disease area so while i wasn't a healthcare professional i really understood that use case from a very personal patient perspective which is very helpful and that really created to drive for the healthy heart check our poll healthy heart check is now the number one diagnostic test on the high street it's available in boots super drug well and it delivers in nine minutes the equivalent of the nhs health check just using one of our rapid test kits and the pop doc app but to answer your kind of original question i'm not sure i necessarily ever been the smartest guy in the room i'm not sure i've ever been the dumbest guy in the room either i think that that what i've learned through my career of having done multiple ventures is you don't have to be the smartest person in the room to ask the right questions and actually when you're dealing with highly technical complex multifaceted problems that need to be solved highly collaboratively it actually isn't beneficial to be the quote quote smartest person in the room because that doesn't actually necessarily create the right environment to solve those problems in the best way and so you know we've we've we've developed cutting edge biochemistry we've developed cutting edge applied ai to transform a smartphone image of a rapid test into a fully quantified cardiovascular risk assessment i'm an expert in neither of those places but i am capable and confident enough to challenge the individuals in those groups and ask common sense questions and challenge them to sort of establish why we should do one thing and why we should not do the other well what i've seen consistently with highly technical groups highly technical individuals is that there's often a default to perceived wisdom in those groups because of the incredible level of qualification and experience it takes to get to be proficient in those in those specialties and often it's a bit of like wood for the trees issue so under no circumstances am i in my r and d group saying well you know this is how you dilute samples and this is how you run you know experiments and this is what we do with the freeze dryer and things like that like that's definitely not what's happening but i can set questions and goals and challenge them and help them solve problems in a way that they might not necessarily be able to do themselves so i'm i'm a i'm a huge advocate for technical businesses to have senior people that aren't technical but don't have technical backgrounds as well right you can't run an r and d group without someone that's highly qualified in that scientific area or clinical area that's i'm definitely not saying not saying that but having that blend at the top is really helpful so i i'm the non technical cofounder if you wanna put it like that and my two other cofounder are both scientists so i come from a commercial business background they come from a scientific background i've become a lot more scientifically literate they've become a lot more commercially literate that's how i would explain that one so right from the start steve's charging this idea that you need to be the most qualified person to lead experts what's important is how he frames it he's not saying technical knowledge doesn't matter he's saying the role of a leader is fundamentally different and steve story goes deeper than just management philosophy his motivation is deeply personal and i think that's really important for understanding how he approaches his leadership let's hear about why he chose a business route rather than becoming a scientist himself can we just go back to the point which i know is not a great point to go back to but after your dad had his stroke you obviously read up you learn a lot about it why didn't you go down a technical why didn't you become a clinician or a scientist it's a really really good question i think from a young age for for from the point of which my dad stroke happened my mom became his sort of default carer i mean he was in hospital from for a really long time and he was he was bedridden for a even longer period of time and so we my sister and i who was two years younger than me was sort of left to our own devices for a few years i i was really focused on following sort of i guess my dad's footsteps and my dad in the nineties this is sort of when i became conscious of what he did for a job i guess he was in and around all of the tel space which is what the internet was called back then so he started and ran a number of those early online ventures where you put the cd in the machine he ran comp serve if anyone listening remembers comp serve and then and so you know we used to have tv cruise over the house filming all of these different random things you know i remember they came over one time and we we we had one of the first ever internet through the tv boxes which was just such a poor product it was just completely unusable it was re it was horrendous but it was sort of now seeing what netflix is and it sort of actually wasn't it was sort of like this very very initial version but it was all on this was all on a dialect up modem so it just didn't work and then and then after he had his stroke he was out of the workforce for a while and the first job that he could get coming back really was was the ceo of this troubled startup up he was the first ceo that their founders had hired they'd raised a million dollars as a series a right so just put that out perspective a series a as a million dollars and they weren't really making any progress to market they had huge issues they had all kinds of stuff but their tech was really good that business was business called s so he was the first ceo of s and back when there was no smartphones this was all pre this was years pre smartphone and so i did my work experience ripping cds off so that they could build up their music library and and things like that so i was always really we used to have bench venture capitalists over my mom would cook them dinner and things like that so it was a really weird childhood in some ways very good in some ways but otherwise definitely non standard but it made me realize that i found the elements of high risk high reward that you could get within tech whether it was a startup up or not necessarily a startup up but that sort of high growth industry where you're willing to trade time and effort and pension effectively against a highly non accelerated root of growth i was totally fine with that trade like i was completely fine i mean even when i was a kid i knew from an early age that i could work in a way that other people couldn't work or wouldn't work and so not all the time you know like i was i've been quite public about the fact that i failed my first year at oxford because i didn't work hard enough after that i worked really really hard so it wasn't like it was i was some beast the whole time but i i i could look around and realized you know that i was able to work harder than other people were in if i really cared and i sort of self selected for industries that valued that my claim to fame so to speak is that i'm i i i'm still the only person in college history to have failed their first year and ended with a first with distinction so i flame out in my first year because i i i i came from a state school and a sort of inner a city state school and it was a really horrible school experience for me i mean it was it was awful but got oxford super happy had had had like you know the sort of three to five years leading up to that was this very turbulent difficult period of time at home with my dad after i was fourteen and was a very very strange existence and got to oxford had this huge freedom also got to oxford and realized that the gulf between my education and everyone else's education was enormous i mean it was talk about impostor syndrome i i was completely blown away you know like i i i was dealing with people with with intellect that were just like a book of you know a mystery to me i mean it was insane and so for the first time in my whole life before or since i just stuck my head in the sand re you know i a ro before i became the captain of of my college rowing club i you know went into the social life piece and strangely enough i failed my first year nearly got kicked out and actually weirdly this is this is kinda of funny but the every single person i spoke to so my tutors my dad quite a lot of my friends from home who else quite a few other people they said you're not oxford oxygen material or maybe look you tried it didn't work your state kid look good good on you but my even my dad told me it's quick he was like just lower your expectations just just there's no harm you know because he got kicked out of university at the end of his first year or second year and i sort of spent the summer thinking here through my girlfriend broke up with me as well from oxford as well which sucked at the time and then i just thought you know what i'm not having this like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna quit i've never quit i'm not quitting so i studied scrape through straight through my research and then from there was sort of off the races really this is such a classic trait for an entrepreneur when everyone tells you to quit you dig in now it doesn't always work out when it does it's a personal victory because entrepreneurs love to prove the world wrong they absolutely do an early exposure at two start ups and these high growth environments have absolutely shaped steve's risk tolerance he discovered that he could work harder at than most people when he really cared about something that's such a crucial trait for leading innovation teams but here is the key question if you're not the technical x but if you don't always understand the work that your guys do how do you actually lead these teams day day so oxford you're a surrounded by people who you felt perhaps had got a better education or that you perceived maybe you more than you you now see you've now surrounded yourself deliberately with people who are experts in in a narrow field how much do you need to know as a leader about what they do to help them or to guide them or to lead them that is a really really good question and i think that it's not necessarily i think that's a question that i asked myself continuously as i seek to improve and the the the job of a ceo and founder is to help the company win i think the the the thing that i fall back on is that the first thing is that these groups with highly technical people do not need you to tell them how to do their job that so if you have an ai engineer and you are telling them how to code a model they aren't very good at ai that's that's that that that's the reality similarly if i have an r and d scientist and i'm explaining to them how to plan and run an experiment to develop a new piece of biochemistry that's not right that person is not the right person for that role or you as a leader are massively overs stepping your your boundaries the only exception to that for example is is is there are many technical businesses scientific businesses where the ceo or senior leader is an expert in that field but that person then ultimately is the head of that group they're not necessarily acting like a ceo they're more acting like the head of that group and that's okay and that can work really well and there's loads of examples of that working really super well like for example bill gates is a great example in microsoft he was also a coding so he ran effectively an engineering group which is really good congrats like that that works very well in our business where we've got multiple different departments that all have to come together and to build a medical device which is multifaceted that's not really very practical and that's also the same way in many other places so the first thing is is that they don't need you to do their job for them and if they do they're probably not right or good enough the second thing is they don't know for the most part the overall vision of where you're trying to get to k because they're in their piece of the puzzle trying to deliver on what you're asking them to do when when i'm talking about this i mean predominantly technical businesses that are trying to solve technical scientific engineering challenges so your job isn't you have to appreciate that if if you haven't explained to them how these pieces come together and if there's no proactive plan about how these pieces come together they will not do that themselves because they're so busy solving the thousands of hard problems that they need to solve to finalize the product or improve the product you can't expect them to have heads base to then also be great at inter team opera ability this is just in my in my experience that doesn't happen so that then leads on to where i played the role which is one this is where i believe my value add in is in these things making sure that that there is a very clear set of goals that we're trying to get to with some timelines that are then broken down into a set of priorities that we think we need to achieve to achieve the goal because in in in medical devices really you fail thousands of times in thousands of ways and then you sort of make it successful so it's actually about how you create a mentality in a process failed slightly better each time and avoid going down rabbit holes that suck up times suck up cash and won't go anywhere so whenever something fails there might be a hundred reasons why it didn't work the ability that we you have to you have to try as as this is what i try and do is help guide people into solving the problems that will help us move forward more quickly as opposed to getting distracted by things that aren't necessarily relevant so i see the the role of a sort of non technical founder in a technical business as almost like the person that sets the overall plan and agenda and is responsible for challenging the people in those groups and helping them make better decisions about how they solve those problems but not solving those problems for themselves this is such an important distinction that steve is making a leader role isn't to tell experts how to do their job is to help them understand how their work fits into the bigger picture and this is a trap that a lot of owners and leaders tend to fall into they either try to become technical experts themselves which is obviously impossible at scale or they are completely hands off and provide no direction whatsoever steve's managed to find this middle ground where he's setting clear goals and challenging assumptions without overs stepping into the technical details but this approach does create its own challenges tick when you're dealing with brilliant people who might have very strong opinions about how things should be done and the brutal truth is this not all brilliant people are unnatural team players academic environments often reward individual achievement over collaboration so the challenge is to help these experts work as a team and it's not always easy i mean i'd even go further is like we have scientists we have tech engineers and then we have other people that makes sense so it's not just tech sales we have a whole scientific group as well so there's a huge amount that has to come together there but all of that would be useless unless we had understood from the beginning and obviously this stuff it does it does move around i'm not saying it doesn't but at the beginning we had a very clear idea about what our product needed to do to solve a real customer problem and we hung everything all of our design decisions are innovation decisions our technology decisions were hung off of that thesis so they came after we we knew what our technology roughly could do conceptually but we developed it to solve customer problems we didn't develop the technology then try and use it to solve customer problems when i started in health there are a few things that really struck me as really odd one of them is referring to sales as funding and growth or revenue growth as adoption right i i i think those are almost like codes that some groups of people some tribes people prefer to use to distance themselves from the nitty gritty of actually selling and sometimes that might be because they're not familiar with selling sometimes they're not comfortable with it some sometimes they view it like a black box and someone just you know making it rain and things like that but i think those kind of distinctions are super unhelpful so my background is purely in was really ex deep experience in and around commercial b2b sales so i i really understand this this area deeply and that sort of form some of the stuff that i help other entrepreneurs with particularly in technical companies and so i think there the way that we've built things at pop from from day one is that there's no there's no barriers between the groups first of all obviously sales for example can't sell something that doesn't exist so particularly in medical devices so you got you you you you can't history littered with examples of companies that have salespeople out there selling vapor that never materialize so that's pointless so we've been very clear that they're unable to sell what's actually available now there might be some things that they talk about oh this is coming this is coming but that's a very clear rule set fundamentally the second thing is is i'm a huge believer and this is the way i came up is that the best salespeople are the people that understand the product the best the the the really great elite sellers really understand every aspect of the product so to your point around do we let the scientists talk to the salespeople well actually the salespeople sit at the center so if you think about our tech stack we've got physical micro we've got ai diagnostics we've got a digital infrastructure that integrates back up with the patient record and integrates with risk assessment tools and there's all kinds of other bells and whistles connects people to treatment salespeople in our organization actually sit at the center of that and understand all of those aspects whereas for if you're to your if you're a specialist in r and d you're desperately every day trying to solve a hundred hard things that day you you probably don't have a lot of exposure to how we integrate back up with the patient record but if you're a salesperson and you don't understand that element then you're not gonna be able to go and talk to the healthcare system about how that works we're actually they're in this very privileged position to get a really good overview of how all this stuff fits together and then the final piece if we go back to what we talked about before businesses not just pot dot businesses exist to solve customer pain if you can't solve a pain for a customer then i don't quite know what the longevity looks like for your business and so actually salespeople people are really that front of listening to customers ensuring that the great technology that we've developed solves those issues for those customers and then feeding back any any new problems or new things or new opportunities back into the business so i i i'm a big believer and i i sort of write about this on linkedin quite a bit about how we need to move past sales being this sort of quote unquote dirty word and that's why i don't like the use of funding instead of revenue or adoption it it sort of makes it a bit more childish hey you you if you're enjoying truth lies work there's another podcast on the spot network that i think you're gonna really really like you joined to me yeah was that the is this the mistakes that may be podcast yes it is i've been binging this as well recently hey you man ism interviews these amazing business owners about their biggest business mistakes and honestly it is fascinating how often these massive errors lead to the biggest breakthroughs through i just love how real m and is i'm hugely helpful in her eyes in her latest episode she's thirty four weeks pregnant and breaks out exactly how she is assist her agency so it runs smoothly while she's on maternity and of course as a psychologist i really appreciate how emma is normalizing fe as just a simple part of the business journey you can listen to mistakes that made me wherever you get your podcasts putting salespeople people at the center makes perfect sense from a systems thinking perspective they're the ones who need to understand every component and how it all fits together for the customer there is a problem though scientists and technical people want to solve complicated problems that's what they live for but businesses need to solve problems the customers have so we have the situation where sometimes the thing your technical people want to work on is something your customers don't actually want do you find that people who are working on very hard problems that they might be a little afraid afraid of actually going to market with it because that will then say nobody wants it with with the healthy heart check i'll just talk about the healthy heart check we knew quite a lot about the pathways that we were that we were gonna solve for the health system before we started any development so that is how you should build products and services now sometimes you might be ahead of the curve and a lot of innovation is ahead of the curve as in you're solving a problem that people might not realize that they needed quite yet like uber for example solved an issue that we didn't realize we had but it turns out oh my goodness did we have that problem right we've really had that problem but if you'd have asked at the time i'm not sure necessarily many people would have landed on that spontaneously so there is an element of of that but with the healthy heart check we we we we deliberately spent a huge amount of time on understanding the customer problem and the reason that we did that and i guess maybe i was more instrumental in that potentially than than my scientific cofounder was that i i'd already identified that one of the biggest issues were one of the biggest all cause all failure causes in in health tech med tech is lack of product market fit it's it's not that the product doesn't work as you specified it too it's not that the science doesn't work it's that what you built no one wants or what you built no one will pay what you need them to pay for you to have a viable business model and i personally did not want to waste my time all of those years in r and d only to get to the point where nobody wants the product that was so i i don't think the bit if you think about how much money and funding and this ecosystem within universities and and and signs of technology in the uk is hugely vibrant innovation coming up with innovative ideas is not really the issue that we face it's actually the the one somehow somewhere some due diligence to ensure that those innovations are fit to be turned into a business and support with the translation of those things into a viable business and one of the things that that that affects innovation quite rightly particularly med tech is this really long journey from the what they call the value of death so between starting development and getting it through regulatory approval is literally years i mean years so that's quite difficult to create funding to to keep the business going you know to keep going to to keep focused and get that through and you know there's no guarantee about when that will get through regulatory so that's quite a difficult market condition to solve for you know and it's getting harder because of really the confusion in the uk at least around what the nhs will purchase at scale and what they won't so there's a massive gulf at the moment so did you health tech in med tech you need to raise private capital basically because of the level of innovation the investment in r and d the value of death before you can generate revenue you're out a lot of money before you can generate revenue and then you've got no guarantee around what that revenue is and so there's a gulf between the venture capital fund or the private market fund and the number one customer in the uk which is the nhs those groups do not talk to each other so you've got the main providers of capital who don't understand what the nhs is looking to purchase and the nhs which won't sit down with the veg capital people to explain what they're looking to purchase so it creates a very difficult a very difficult situation but also a gap that you've exploited by understanding both sides of that yes i mean we've yes we've we've been really lucky so far you know touch and you know we've we've been yeah we've we i mean a lot of it was was was hard graph but we've we've spent a lot of time i guess i just didn't fundamentally on a really personal level i could have done lots of things with my time and although i feel and felt really passionately about pop doc and healthy heart check which is by the way now the number one diagnostic test on the high street which is great very exciting i didn't want to be one of those companies that didn't solve a real problem but was on the sidelines talking about how great their technology was i want i i would prefer to have a white label company with a huge impact than a branded company with no impact obviously if i can have a branded company with impact that's the best but i i i i was really geared around making a difference partly motivated because i i want to prevent anyone going through what me and my family went through with my dad but also like this isn't dress rehearsal people you know we only get one shot at the thing that we call life so let's go and sort of have it a bit as opposed to i don't know just sort of things away i that was that was sort of my my take on it and i knew even in the best scenario you were talking about two and a half years from starting the lab to a fifth to a product in the market it's a huge amount of effort it's not like you're chilling on the beach in that time there's a does do you're working your absolute socks off and to the idea that you could do that and then get to market and you've completely missed product market fit as that we can't but just can't do that let's talk about product market fits in research and development or r and d we see this all the time brilliant innovations that never find their market because a focus was on the technology rather than the problem the technology was trying to solve steve also mentioned that pop doc screen for ego in their hiring process that means traits like na someone who is pre preoccupied with their own importance grand a person who has an exaggerated sense of their own purpose and self absorption that's when people are preoccupied with their own feelings thoughts and experiences often to the exclusion of others so when you're dealing with people who are genuinely world class experts how do you separate confidence from arrogance in this kind of industry where you do have experts sort of top one percent of people in the world do you find that some of them have an ego to match absolutely and we screen for that so you tell me more about that well so in in in any area where technical competence is valued and where technical competence is achieved through qualifications over time particularly in academia the value system is not necessarily merit bureaucratic and the reward structure that they've been used to is not necessarily does not necessarily incentivize collaboration team effort working towards a singular goal at the expense of personal credit personal ego and so if you think about how the academic structure works is very much around how many times have you been published how many times have you been sighted how how what research money have you brought in it it's very that the process is very much around i'm right you're wrong in a sense even when you submit a paper for peer review journal and they respond you respond back sort of arguing your case so and that that's quite hard for for for for people to sort of break free of to understand that actually while you may be right and you may have won this argument there's still another nine hundred and ninety nine problems that we're trying to solve today that aren't related and actually by digging in over there you've created this weird kind of does this sort of weird atmosphere that actually works against the principle of everyone pulling together and everyone working towards a team goal or a company goal so actually within those highly technical areas it's it's we try and screen for people that are more interested in motivated by achieving team goals goals that are above themselves as opposed to individual accolades obviously what we the the fact that you're the lead scientist at one of the uk have popped up which is one of the uk's fastest growing health tech companies the healthy heart check that you've built has scaled across the high street and is you know finding thousands of at risk patients every every month that's incredible for your cv that's that's and and and we've published lots of academic papers and you're listed on the academic paper for example things like that but at the end of the day nobody including myself is bigger than the company nobody is bigger than the mission that is what matters and trying to scream for i'm not saying we always got it right particularly not in the early stages but that's really what you're really what you're looking for now i'm not from an academic background but my brother is he was a professor at uk university for decades i learned that academic goals are very different to business goals for example publishing papers and winning arguments is very different from building products collaboratively and the research tells us that individual brilliance doesn't automatically translate to team performance in fact teams with moderate individual talent but high collaboration often outperformed teams of superstars so how do you actually identify whether the superstars can work as team players in the interview process steve mentioned they have a couple of specific techniques exactly for this and can you give me without getting away your secret questions for your interview process but just give maybe me in the listeners an idea of what sort of things you would be asking to uncover whether this person is centered about them or centered about the mission so you can create instances in interviews where you sort of artificially create some conflict and you can do it openly by saying things like well what would you do if this thing sort of happened how would you react or you can openly disagree with something that somebody says in order to see how they react and with technical people in my experience it when you do this with salespeople they're very they understand exactly what's happening they they see through it pretty much immediately because they're any good salesperson deeply entrenched in objection handling skills like that's why sales are often some of the hardest people to hire for because they're so good in an interview situation they are really really good and some cultures are significantly better like for example american salespeople people generally speaking will crush interviews so actually trying to understand the reality is is hard you have to come up with all kinds of other clever ways to to screen for those but within technical group it's very difficult i've found for a technical person in an interview situation to not engage in a debate if you seek to do that it's it's it's it's just what they they like they like it they used to it so that you can start to sort of prod and push and see what happens when you you get where when when you sort of create a slightly antagonist environment that's one thing the second thing is you can also look at some of their their work history is often indicative so what what what you find is like if people have moved quite a lot within technical roles that can it's not always the case and so i don't want people to start shouting at me it's not always the case and there's no there's no definitive test you said this is more like building a picture but if someone's moved on every year or eighteen months and and there isn't sort of an another compelling reason for that what often is the case is that basically they come in and as it reaches a point where their coworkers is where they're just not playing ball right i'm right you're wrong and then it boils up and it boils up and then they move on and then the same thing happens in the next place they come in they start working then they disagree with the direction of whatever's is happening no one's listening to me i'm really smart no one's listening to me you know you're all idiots and then the whole thing blows up and often those individuals will say things like that in interviews when you ask them because obviously some some some scientific people and and technical people unlike salespeople aren't necessarily as guarded in interviews and said they might they might say things like well you know i i thought we should be doing certain things and management disagreed with me that might be true but that also might be a signal that you know there's something else that's gone on and if that story repeats itself then that's a that's a bit of a pat but as i said there's no single thing there's nothing there's no single there's new single test but actually looking for people looking for people that are willing to subs consume themselves to the team ethic and the team goal is really really important because particularly in in in anything technical like i said you can go off down a hundred rabbit holes if you need to you know and and and that's really what that academic process is about is is exploring rabbit holes to find niches that you can publish unique pieces of research in that is not building a business it's actually the opposite of building a business so actually trying to find those people that are wanting to build things and bring them to market that are innovative still but very focused very directional on solving specific customer problems that's what we try and screen for creating artificial conflict to see how someone responds that's really getting it emotional intelligence and collaboration skills not just technical competence and generally speaking technical people respond differently to conflict and salespeople people because they're used to academic debate whereas as salespeople well they live to overturn objections so imagine you've found and hired these brilliant people you've screened for ego you've identified they can work collaboratively now how do you give them enough creative freedom to innovate without letting them disappear down rabbit holes that just don't serve the business someone could come up with something absolutely brilliant and then you go that's cool derek it's gonna take three years and we need to launch something in nine months how are you managing that without herb their enthusiasm more sort of slowed down yeah so a it's a great it's a great question like i said at the beginning of the show i don't have all the answers and and one of the things that i try and i guess subs myself too is that my job is to try and help us improve and and and and win ultimately and i'm open to the fact that i'm wrong and i might be wrong from day one to day two but what i will do is i will always focus on how i can get better how i can help the group better so to this point absolutely you don't wanna s for creativity that's the last thing that you want because then while are we all here it's not a battery farm you know we we want people to be alive and enjoy it coming in and passionate and feeling like they're breaking boundaries and all of that amazing stuff which which they are where i come back to it is that we have to have a plan it has to be directional i e we have agreed that we will be launching a healthy heart check the customer needs for this roughly look like this so therefore the product and the design and the functionality roughly has to somehow align with those things how you technical people scientific people solve the ai engineers how you solve those challenges bring the creativity completely fine open field greenfield but let's not spend our creative time solving problems that aren't on this agreed list of problems that we have to solve because these problems are hard enough as it is without us going off and finding another problem that we might be able to solve elsewhere and what i have found is that there's so much ip that we've generated some that we've patented some that still secret in house that we we we won't disclose because it's unbelievably valuable that even within a predefined problem set you still create groundbreaking technology you don't have to necessarily have this sort of free wheel r and d group that can ping off in all kinds of different places now separate to that i mean there's all kinds of history around like you know how they invented the post it note you know you know that story well like the guy was messing around to try and make a super strong glue and then made a super weak clue and suddenly they're selling three billion post it notes so we we keep ourselves open to those those type of things but bear mind the products that we're building so the healthy heart check the diabetes health check and our kidney health check the actual test and diagnose ai diagnostic pathway in those is completely new and groundbreaking it's never existed before so we are by definition doing new things in the launch of those products so the individuals in those groups have ample opportunity to break new scientific ground but similarly we don't exclude anyone from doing anything that they wanna do themselves and we've often discussed about do we do what google does which is carve off half a day where people can do their own free sort of research i think the reality is is that if you have a very directional customer problem plan which we do which is also one of the reasons why i think we've been able to engage so successfully with the venture capital and private markets in the uk around investment is that you your your r and d is all geared around solving those problems which means it's really applied and actually relevant so and i think what we try and talk to our teams about is that you can go up and create new ideas but isn't it better to create ideas that solve massive global problems that's the holy grail that's where we wanna get to steve thank you so much you've been so open and honest and it seems unusual for someone at your level to be so open and frank about about the challenges and the opportunities thank you so much if people wanna learn more about pop doc i'm guessing is pop oh it's pop doc dot c p c d c dot c or you can find me on linkedin i'm steve roost or on instagram i'm at steve roost that was the amazing steve go and listen his podcast link in the show notes the three key takeaways from me was first of all you don't need to be the smartest person in the room to lead brilliant people secondly your job as a leader is to set clear goals and challenge the assumptions not solve technical problems and third screening for collaboration skills is just as important as technical confidence and this was a most important bit for me steve has invested time in designing a recruitment process that is specific to the jobs he's recruiting for and the talent he needs to do them is not one size fits or cv sift an interview it's evidence led and fit for purpose so with that in mind it's no surprise that steve finds a very best talent or that pork dog is one of the uk's fastest growing health tech companies if you're leading technical teams or you're thinking about hiring brilliant people will steve just giving you a really practical framework to work with to attract to manage and to engage amazingly talented people or this is truth lies and work we will see you next week

coming up this week in work brew dogg announced this week that they are now all about well being but should we believe them after years of public scandals and a so called culture of fear they are leaning into mental health but is this a re brand a real culture change or just a p stunt and can a major bank really work like a startup nat way coo say that they've ditched top down planning with small empowered teams and it seems to be working could this be the future of big business and in the workplace surgery do investors care about culture and if they do how do you prove it one listener is gearing book for a funding round and wants to know will culture make a difference to the investor numbers this is truth lies and work the award winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture we are brought to you by the spot podcast network the audio nation for business professionals my name is leanne and i'm still a charge occupational psychology my name is allen i am still a business owner a little bit fed about it now i've have the truth be told i we're in this climate not still helping you create amazing workplace coaches we're gonna get into today's episode in just a second after a quick break and a message from our sponsors see you in a second you like kate mh here's one from hubspot about sandler training and how they got their sales cycle in half using hubspot ai tools in half that sounds a bit far fetched though the numbers are actually pretty solid they used breeze which is hubspot ai tools suite to personalize every customer interaction and as a result their qualified leads quadrupled their click through rates jumped by twenty five percent and people spent three times longer on their landing pages i think i'd worry that using ai would kind remove the human touch fair point but not in this case in fact using breeze the enhanced it so if this sounds like something you want for your organization not yu the listener go to hubspot dot com to see how breeze can help your business grow welcome welcome back how's july treating you what are you on about seven days into july eight days into july how is it going is everything alright is it too hot for you i know that a lot of europe's on fire uk is hot and sweaty it sounds like the us is about the same so maybe if you're in canada i don't know canada cool in summer i don't know tell us tell canadians yeah if you're from can then then drop us a quick female email sorry canadian sorry i'm saying wrong then drop a quick email anyway this isn't about canada this isn't about whether this is about the news roundup which is favorite of the week i take the words out your mouth of money it still is my favorite ten week okay after done the jiggle leigh what have you seen this week brew dogg oh okay brew dog for those people who don't know about brew they're a uk based were the darling of the investment of the of the arm chair investors about ten fifteen years ago my dad and my brother law both invest brew i believe yet when they first started because that went well i'm sure i it did go well yes yes it did not shed any of the money with me but why would that suppose so anyway a brew dog it's a kind but it used to be a scrappy startup up brewery is that right yes and quite well known for having a problematic culture but this week it says that it's now all about well being so in an article call in the times i'm same it seem right on brand does it they are they are trying to shift in in times it said that they have been training two hundred of their staff as mental health first aid fair play step in the right direction but as i mentioned they have had somewhat of a problematic culture over the years let me fill you in back in twenty twenty one over sixty employee signed an open letter accusing the company of creating a culture of fear bullying burnout people being treated like objects all the really ugly toxic culture stuff and it wasn't just one off instance this was a a pattern and it came from a group called punk with purpose and it kinda of blew up if i give you haven't heard a brew dogg it is quite a funky brand that was kind of their their kind of thing wasn't it so anyway brew dog respond at the time with promises they said they were listening they all that forums a listening line and even a dashboard a nice shiny colorful dashboard that solves everything doesn't he to show how transparent they were being but then in twenty twenty four staff were saying none of that worked a second open letter because one is bad enough second open letter this time from current staff rather than ex staff claim people were still scared to speak up that retaliation was happening that people worry they'd be pushed out they talked about pay or unions oh and that they've just scrapped the real at living wage and that transparency dashboard funneling just went away parent i'm made curious before you go on you had they were called the professional punk or something what were they called the the people before punk with purpose punk with purpose so these are now called these were current it was a current what what did they call themselves now this was the first open letter or this is kind of like x workers now it's colin george called themselves punk with purpose and rope letter is from have they not got a name sorry groove dogg with beef b duck i like that brew dogg is with beef okay so brew dogg are beef they were saying that that it wasn't working yeah i interrupted you sorry gone wait we just wasn't working right okay serious serious issue with psychological safety everything they talked about there is what happens when you don't have psychological safety you're scared to speak up retaliation is happening ring you'll get pushed out all that type of thing so this was just last year so now in twenty twenty five you can imagine my surprise when i saw these article times that brew dogg are leaning into well being they do have a new ceo though the original founders i believe have now been pushed out a new leadership charter and a re brand that in terms of its product as well is also ditched the kind of what they were known for the shock tactics the dead animals i think they needs to pour beer into and yeah all very strange but yes mental health first eight aide and to well is now central to their strategy is it a puff piece do you know what i mean it's all just like look at us and look at all the amazing things that we're doing because let's be honest i don't believe this is real culture to change because training first aid is not a culture to change make because first aid is a brilliant mental health birthdays is are brilliant and actually add an initiative in your organization play one of most impactful things that you can do support your support your people and create that psychologically safe environment everything though there has been claimed by previous employees and current employees points to issues with systems processes people culture not individual levels of well being to the solution for me isn't matching with the problem that employees are speaking up about the leadership charter more interesting that is good leadership charters typically map out behaviors we expect to see in leadership and those behaviors may well drive the culture change but i'm i must admit i'm not really convinced that what do you think yeah there's there's there's kind of a famous thing in in startups saying we'll get what got you here won't get you there and i think that applies to both marketing so yes or getting dead animals and being all like shock marketing probably did really well when they were scrappy start now they're established company what probably fifteen twenty years old that's not gonna work same way when you're starting up the temptation is to go well culture great and we're doing our very best and see look you know we're trying but it's never not having perfect now it needs to be a bit more formalized i don't know i mean that the leader was that the founder i think i think i've got this right the the founder and his is new fiance or new wife we're on linkedin about three months ago going there is no such thing as work life balance you just don't understand you don't know your work that what that showed that they were in the wrong that they were going down the wrong route and it's just no massive surprise is there a way they can fix this i think they've they've taken a good step with the leadership charter i think that's a really positive step i'm removing problematic problematic founder i think this is a sad thing for found and off and often where that that the innovation that kind of created the initial brand is is lost i agree that it's very na it's not all the gorilla marketing type of stuff and it needed to kind of be updated a little bit with what people actually interested in now but i think this is a problem when found is get a bit too continue to be too chaotic as the business grows that's not the energy that scale up or even that that put a small medium sized business needs and i think often we see that and found as it's too disruptive do they get pushed out and ultimately they'll come back in some way because a brand would have lost like steve jobs would lost its it's little magic something but i think it's understanding it as a founder am i the best person to be in charge of people and culture of operations am i more now stand back a bit work on you know the product development that that side of it that yeah i think it's understanding when as a founder you're not the right person to be ceo yeah and obviously it does it's not an either author thing it's not like alright i can't be in charge of culture so i have to go and get a chief people officer at ninety grand a year no there's fractional people like lean fractional stuff so fractional chief people officer somebody just as you know a day a week or even just a day a month or something maybe you find someone who is interested in the culture and they can take it as part of their role obviously speak to lia and about that because need to make sure you get the right training get the right person and you make sure you did it properly rather than just promoting someone who goes oh right now you're head of culture and actually what that we're doing before is filing true story but anyway yeah so cool brew doc anything else i'll on b rudolph i think the only thing what i'd be more convinced about this was actually an actual proper intentional culture change is talk of who they're working with to do that because i don't mean to be rude but your average ceo even your exceptional ceo is not necessarily gonna be an expert in culture change they're gonna be the expert and bring in the right consultants including organizational psychologists to do this so for me at this point there's not enough there to actually for me to actually believe it i think i think it's a puff piece and i think we'll see similar complaints later in the air from stuff well talking of change i read something in a website which i've not written down what the website is but actually is that part of the p there's the links in the show part of it not you ever go there and look we know we check but it's part of a p publication and it was an interview with the coo chief operating officer of nat west bank uk bank quite big probably one of the big three or four oh yeah yep and it was it it's something like fifty years old so it's not like super super old like some of the old old banks but does own like coat switches like a you know whether whether the royals were the royal family bank and there was a big pal polaris about that recently but anyway so just to give you bit of context two thousand and seven but what you call it what you've got what's that fancy word you use for the financial crash you go the if nine or something g the global financial crime that they i should always called out to be honest but cha lose at g so during the g during the g they almost went under in the uk and the uk government bailed them up by forty five billion dollars which they just recently got back then that was to just paid it back since do you know what if i bark we put it we've got a mortgage with nat west yeah okay can you imagine you that yeah yeah yeah what's not bad but the time it took them to pay that back what fifteen years seventeen years yeah yeah seventeen years yeah yeah kind the window myself that's what i was gonna say anyway going back to the get back in thank you very much i res resell so this person we that this that was being interviewed interview was a a lady called jen tip in wait i love the names on it a nice name t isn't it jen for jenny tip in jenny took oh that's jen nice jen it sounds like it sounds like it's should be in my post power something now we're got going get jen tip in who owns their local sweet shop and these this is what she's been doing right so originally what they were doing was they didn't really they were like the normal banks they didn't re listen to employees they just basically went right is what's happening here here's the changes they started a couple of years ago to to realizing that actually they have what they call customer journeys so they've got customer goals and journeys mapped out really really clearly so they know that if a customer gets a credit card or joins them then they ultimately the goal is they get to have a credit card you know a a mortgage or whatever and so they'd map out the journey in in like intricate stages with ideas what happened on each one some bright person probably our gen tip in said why don't we do the same for please for the dead oh crazy tour or so basically what they happen started to focus on the employee experience well what they've started to do is they'll have now a journey which is starts off where someone sees a job ad and ends up with them being six months in and a happy employee they've passed their probation so that's the entire journey and of course they've got many goals throughout it and they've built this entire thing up so they can actually monitor where people are up to and more importantly have sort a bit little mini interventions so at one point no they're at two weeks in and perhaps a little bit like dis this wasn't the job they thought they're were gonna be then there's there's a like a pulse check order or a manager check going how are you're finding it john are you enjoying it and they're going no i think you're a set of ruthless capitalist bastards so alright john john's very very left wing john to be honest i don't know why john applied in the first place it was a bad fit john it was but it should be since when you feel pressured you just take the next job it comes along and john should have been filtered out perhaps in earlier in the short journey yeah so that was the first thing they did the second thing they did was they've now you talked about this just a few seconds ago they've now got what they call a failure free workplace they've redefined what fairly means it just doesn't exist so what i've got down here is they trained their top hundred and seventy leaders to say see every experiment as valuable data regardless of the outcome this created psycho this is what jen is this created psychological safety where teams felt power to try new approaches without fear and the culture shift in encouraged innovation because people weren't afraid anything's wrong that people was treatment with experiments now and they're like they and they learned from to the success and they they're like they want boast but they'll basically go yeah we didn't experiment didn't work at all but you know what's weird we found out john is not a great fit imagine john's experiment like i just wonder if i can unplug the server and take down this this entire establishment yeah so that's that's the number two any thoughts so farley i know else else save said thoughts okay i cool cool kill so and then number three they did at of five they they gave their team nearly half a million hours back so basically they did what they called process simplification in smart automation they they returned three hundred and eighty five thousand hours to employees in twenty twenty four and they're on track to give them back eight hundred and twenty thousand hours in twenty twenty five that's like giving every one of their employees an extra week are of time now this is not time off this is just of time at work at number four the courage to kill your own ideas this is a big one what i used to happen was they go right we're gonna roll out a lot of change and then do you like it i don't care john's not gonna like it but everyone else is like instead what they've done now is they have six thousand of their sixty thousand employees are part of like kind of a almost like a council where they can just say this is what planning on doing and they had huge changes planned and the six thousand people said no i don't think we like that's too overwhelming me all this change so they rolled it back and i said mike we're doing it phases jen says and i quote we've even shell ideas when they've not met the reality what our colleagues really care about and that's great because we're listening and experimenting before rolling up a change in investing too much by time lee thoughts so far i'm loving the giving value our time back mh i seen that work really really well in organization both in terms of of providing a more manageable workload and also allowing people the time to focus on more value activities like innovation message research for that blah blah and i think that's the biggest thing when i speak to a business owner and i say you know unsurprisingly like john the workload is come back as a bit too high in your organization and then like yeah what you want do about that and might understand but what i want do about it is how can you find efficiencies automations like you say it's says administrative tasks just know in particular now there's no excuse look at ai you know there's loads as that you can do so i love that very much appreciate that i'm very i'm very impressed with the the level of consultation they're going through with employees i think that's a fine balance because you don't wanna put everything out to a committee that will kind of you know stall some progress potentially so i think that needs to come me kind of guidelines of what those things are very interesting in how this is all gonna shake out in a very heavily regulated industry in terms of making stakes and fares and i'm sure i'm sure there's some very clear boundaries around that so they not breaking any rules yes she did actually say and i've not got the full item in front me but you can go the show quick on it and you can read it at one point she said we've started off by putting in a loaded of guard rails and i'm guessing that sounded to me like really boring talk but now you've said it i'm guessing that was to ensure that that the experiment didn't bring down you know the not probably john wants this to happen but didn't bring down the the uk financial institutions yeah yeah no i applaud it interesting how it'll will work i'll be very interesting to see how what employees would say about it but from from what you said it sounds pretty cool and i'm i'm barely impressed not i'm glad you said that because i haven't told you this but i'm gonna try and get jen jen really on odd so like jen yeah i was hoping that you wouldn't go well she's made a right mess of this so be like no awkward quiz yeah so i think i think jen got some cool ideas if listening to this jen we want you okay my love what have you seen this week i've seen some research and you know how like my research out love a bit research yeah honestly when goes to bed she'll just sit there and read research you can imagine her with a little night gap little half moon glasses i like a big like journal in front of him it'll be something called like the journal of psychological safety practices in the uk that's yes moving i see what i do that's exactly what i do so it's like john you feel like you're in a in a dead end job that was a completely your intentional segue we didn't make up john until that three minutes ago i i didn't know john existence until i started saying his name giving his his attributes no no and just anyway this was research bit that suggested that people who are hitting a career plateau are more likely to slack off bend the rules and even mist treat others at work not because they're laser room because being stuck changes how they see themselves i'm liking the way you say plateau plateau and like yeah so i think i think there's a lot of people here in jobs at the minute that they're not particularly happy with particularly given the current climate to and i understand it you know you feel lucky enough to have a job and have that that wage coming in when you're seeing these thousands and thousands of happen equally maybe need to be mindful that this might have a detrimental impact on your reputation also potentially your own psychology your own identity your own opinion of yourself and that's important so this research anyway you're quite good decent samples as well four hundred fifty employees they looked at how create plateau that feeling if you're not sure what i mean by that i think that you stopped advanced advancing stop growing you just a bit stagnant lang i think it's been called as well so yeah they looked at career plateau and how it affects behavior work so they track three different types of what they define as bad behavior withdrawal so dis disengaged skipping meeting putting in minimal effort devi breaking rules or behaving for ethic so i think it's a devi is in light you're a bit of a devi you and you're a sexual devi devi i'm sorry devi sorry carry on yeah in instability being rude dismissive or disrespectful and then they also managed employees self control and ego depletion which is the sense of having no psychological resources left to manage stress or resist impulses quite interesting isn't it like hall behavior show up particularly in this lens anyway these are some of the the results that that stood stood out and i thought were really interesting so feeling stuck did trigger bad behavior so employees felt they were in dead end jobs were more likely to act out not in dramatic ways but in everyday disagreement pass progression and bending the norms and i think that's very typical because well in terms of that kinda rushed out burnout isn't it that dis disengaged from from work when you're not feeling it ego depletion explained why so the link wasn't just emotional feeling plateau drained people's mental energy and left them less capable to regulate their own behavior which makes sense and they did find that self control buffer the effects are employees with higher baseline self control were less affected but still felt stuck they were able to however to resist those more negative impulses and and behaviors and also i thought was really interesting is the behavior was reactive not pre so it's not like you're sitting that and i think it's always the quiet quitting wasn't it like i make making it an intentional you know choice to not do anything and i don't think the majority of people that is necessarily the case i think it's more that it's people just running out fuel they're running out of our care i would i don't stop myself but yes so yeah so it's not really a rebellion people just kinda like meh but i think the key thing in that as an individual is recognizing that if you are starting to lash out and and after these bad pain it could actually start to to really impact your reputation at work i can just how you feel about yourself you don't wanna be an asshole you know you don't know he wants to be few people want to be and in terms of an organization why is this matter i think this is a real key sign that rather than kind of seeing people who was showing these signs of maybe quiet quitting or elements of instability is maybe thinking am i pushing them enough am i challenging them enough right they in the right role is the thing that i could do around what we call job crafting to to enrich that role give them more meaningful work i think this things we can do is lead us to fix it while and go oh well if you don't wanna forgive a hundred and ten percent to my guys like brew dog fella there's things that we can do that that means you're not gonna have a disruption and the cost of actually losing a member of staff i thought it was interesting a was it yes yes it was in the end it was no no actually it was it was i think to be fair i think anyone's been in been in the workforce for like five years plus will have felt plateau at some point and it's just like you say it's demo because you wake up be like what's the point yeah because i go in there and i do my job and nothing happens like that explain like friends line chandler says well i don't go in there and do mind get get to work early nothing's gonna happen they like that isn't it so so i think we're yeah yeah plateau if you're do you know what this will be an interesting episode to and we're are happy to do anonymous if you're listening in you are plateau and we are happy do anonymous but or if you had experienced the capacity you're willing to work talk about it the opposite of anonymous which is anonymously i'm guessing then then get in touch because that will be an interesting episode of do in the in the autumn i think yeah and i think and i think that's where we're gonna see a lot of a lot more movement actually in the in terms of yeah in terms of people and well we're think you taught about by doing it's kind of that august is the peak month in the i know the phrase you call it temporal milestones is that right landmark landmarks yeah yeah exactly yeah it's different to pro tempura paula yeah so i think that's i think we're gonna see the resignation in august and a lot of activity in terms of movement in in the autumn so yeah but you can stop this business erin if you're seeing people who are being a bit a bit na you aren't particularly happy who aren't maybe giving everything rather they just assume that they're the problem maybe think about how you could offer these type of stretch opportunities or even just check in and see how they're they're doing is always just a nice start isn't it yeah it doesn't need to escalate is what i'm saying pick up on these behavioral cues and you might actually yeah prevent people from leaving in the autumn which is what i suppose you wanna do and that's is john in which case you wanna encourage john out the door as soon as you possibly began talking to getting out the door we're gonna have a very very quick break and we're back with a hot to take from a guy who we i've only met him once a and i feel like he's my best mate i really like him max yeah i really like that as we're back with the hot take and then we've also got the world weekly episode we wrap your questions to today don't go don't go anyway don't go anywhere welcome back welcome it's time for our hot hot take which as you know is what we bring a guest into challenge the way we think about work and today we are asking an important question our well being leaders held to a higher standard than everyone else yeah it's a really interesting one and this is coming from matt sm who is a business psychology and two times named hate job influence voice of the year yeah apparently chart influential voice yeah i've been told something and i can't tell you can't i checked with matt and we can't i can't tell you no no and there's something coming so matt is obviously a very engaging person and a very influential person in the world of pays a lot of bribes indeed all thing all three things can be true but is also the c cofounder of working well community he works with organization's design better more evidence based approaches to well being aurora but today he is calling out the perfectionism that is creeping into the field so matt's here to ask what that pressure we're all putting on these leaders about well beam is actually doing to the profession and whether it's time we'll add a little bit more trust and a lot more experimentation let's go meet matt my name is matt weed i'm a business psychologist and i am the cofounder of the working well community and two times hate mo hate charles most influential thinker so hit me what is your hot take my hot take is that well being leaders people who are responsible for well being within organizations hold themselves to too high a standard okay so i'm gonna i'm gonna unpack and pick that a little bit so i wanna preface it all by saying that i am a huge advocate of things like evidence based practice and i don't want people out there doing a crap job and adding no value within their organization so i'll just preface all this by by saying that and actually we'll probably gone to this but is there a risk that sometimes this whole space turns into the wild west perhaps and i think we should talk about that at some point book if we talk about a lot of the well being leaders that i meet and i come across there's sometimes a feeling that they need to present a watertight bullet proof business case evidence based for every little thing that they do in a way that i don't see in other industries you know so for example i'm going into organizations and they're constantly moaning about this new it system that they've implemented and you think to yourself was a business case presented around the i of that it system did they consult with the employees before they did it did they properly took it through as a board before they implemented it probably not they probably just did it because it's it and we need to keep up but it's a core part of the business so therefore all we're just gonna do right whereas if it's a well being intervention even something seemingly really really small it has to go for all these loops they've got a fight for the budget they've got and and i almost wonder i i don't necessarily know what that means in terms of how we how we switch that because i don't just want well being spend being you know being agreed at the drop of a hat but i feel that there's a pressure for well being leaders with an organizations so there's a desire for a legitimacy so perhaps they they over compensate to be taken seriously i see that there's a scrutiny and skepticism on that area of work that i don't see in areas like sales or marketing or it or whatever it may be well being initiatives of a a seen as optional rather than core part maybe the fact that well being professionals are so deeply passionate about their job means that they hold themselves to such a high standard they're perfection almost i like that i think most people would expect someone in your position to go where you need to really think it through you can't do this this is about people you know you gotta be careful but you're saying no people do over overthink is that if i got that right to a certain extent yeah generally the other thing that comes into my head is an even part take is is it is it affected by the the gender demographic of people who work in that industry which is primarily female rather than male and you'll seen these studies that have come out and surely anecdotes to you about these where you know you look at how men and women apply for jobs and women want to be able to tick like eighty percent of the things on the job description whereas men it's like twenty percent you know oh i can do those two things so i'll just apply for you never know it'll be fine and i do wonder sometimes whether you could get a lot more females comparatively working in the world of well being but i'd also broaden out to people functions you know hr more broadly and whether that contributes to them feeling that they need to you know have ticked every single box whereas in a maybe a sales role or as to say it sounds like having to go it or operational roles maybe you get a bit a few more men who it's yeah this is the right thing to do course is you know and it's pure pure ego we're saying that we're potentially over what that people are implementing it could have the potential to overthink it or need to provide a business case so let's imagine it's a dream scenario so you can pick the organization ibm someone all we've heard of you're going in to help them implement something decent around well being how much business case do you need to put together how would you approach implementing something like that in a larger organization well so i think the dream case scenario for me would be that you're working with an organization are already bought into this stuff you know who already view well being as not just a nice thing to have but as a fundamental aspect of the under of the way that the organization works so therefore absolutely you know if you wanna put a specific intervention into place again i'm a huge advocate actually of evidence based practice and collecting data and part fancy way but design so basically talking to employees so that they have a voice in what you're creating not just sitting with the board or the exec team in a dark room and working out what people need so i i i would do it in a very consultative very way from from the bottom up if possible i would collect the data you'd think about piloting at all that sort of stuff but that's all in the context of the organization pretty much being bought into well being being a good thing to do full stop you know this wouldn't be it's not competitive it's not i need to reach a certain threshold where now i'm suddenly allowed to try something out because i sometimes sometimes worry that that's a that's a risk with some of this stuff if we hold ourselves to too higher standard where we feel like everything needs to be perfect does that lead to a lack of experimentation you know does that lack a you know just trying something out to see if it works i i was recording a a live stream of the day and i was trying to use the analogy which i'll try and butcher again today of liken this to almost what i was looking at was the the environmental movement right so how do we reduce current climate change and it's very interesting that obviously well i was about to say everyone believes it's an issue i'm not sure everybody believes it's an issue it it seems to be the majority of people think we need to do something about it so that's a given now what that thing is we haven't necessarily worked out so the the example i was using was plastic bags so in the uk certainly we use far fewer plastic bags you have to pay five ten p for them or thirty pm months spencer and we're we're replacing those and that seems to have been a really positive thing that's something that seems to have created large scale cultural change people don't use plastic bags as met as much as they used it grow the other one that i used as an example though is plastic straws moving to paper straws now i don't know if you've used a paper straw but they're absolutely useless they're absolutely useless and i get to the point where i'm like that's just not the thing that's not the thing i don't think paper straws are gonna save us from the next apocalypse rather than rather than rather than plastic straws but back to my experimentation point i think that it's good that we tried it i think it was good that we tried to tried something like that what then is interesting and this is where the plastic draws and analogy kinda of falls down a little bit is sometimes it's then difficult to roll it back you know so so can you imagine the uk government coming out and say right we're banning paper straws now we're bringing plastic back like we've go down very very poorly so if you think of of all this back to the organizational context i want practitioners and organizations to be able to try stuff out without necessarily perfectly knowing the impact it's gonna have on their workforce to try it out because you might find the next plastic bag but if you find the next paper straws maybe you need to the flexibility again to kinda of roll that back without that then being seen as a failure because that in itself and this as where all the cycle comes in is then held against the well being professionals well you you brought that in and it didn't work so therefore your job's useless and it's like well no why am i always constantly having to prove myself and this an it system might be implemented it might be a complete disaster they don't abolish it and say right we're not using computers now because that last it system didn't work they go that wasn't the one let's find let's find one that does work that was the awesome match me and i told you he was great you can see now he why he's the yeah boy what is it the voice of sequential hr voice of the year most important person in psychology ever right with what he got he got spice to running he is running yeah yeah it's like the piece prize for the psychologist yeah i mean i'm not a offend all that i haven't shouldn't even nominated but or whatever i've nominated you did you no i'm going to that well i'm not sure now anyway not quite the same as it what do you know what i really liked it and i think what was what i really liked we talked about a bit on this episode as well actually with the nat west is allowing in time that experimentation i understand when things are pressured it it can be really hard to to feel as a business owner that's an important thing to to do but really that's where people feel creative that typically work that gives us energy doesn't suck our energy away and ultimately way there's gonna be ideas it will change the the organization in terms of its operations or the product it offers or the customers it serves innovation is what keeps businesses moving forward so right i like that and and reminding ourselves is that as scientists we too can be creative yeah and also he makes a really good point about rolling out an it this them and you go well i just roll it out if it doesn't work you go back and you change bits and pieces whereas you need to have like this sort of twelve page business case for for rolling out something do with people well i tell you there's one function in in in most businesses where they deal with people and they don't have even they experiment every single day and that's marketing and so like in marketing you don't sit down and go well let's do a case i'm gonna do a business case for running this particular ad with this particular headline all you do is you run the ad and you see if it works now i'm not saying you necessarily do that with your people but again be more jen on from nat west maybe say look this is what we're planning on rolling out what are your thoughts because that's to be honest in terms of business case if you're having to prove prove of a solid business case with an roi to some nerd who's got calculator going and excuse me how much will this cost you're probably not gonna make a huge man of inroads in that organization anyway but if you are worried about what the impact is gonna be we'll just go and ask people who we here's our plan that's what we're thinking doing what what's good about this what's bad about it and if you've got a psychological safety then they'll come back to you and they will give you their opinion like they in that west yeah and i it's tough isn't it and i could i can understand i can understand why organizations thinking that way you know being brutal or marketing is a revenue generating function well being as a cost function yeah in in the most strict commercial terms ideally actually is it's a money saving function because you're keeping your people engage you're keeping them well you're keeping healthy healthier you're keeping them productive and and performing at the at the highest level that's really difficult to measure in a tangible way that a business or overall senior leader is gonna buy too easily so i can see why well being practitioners is a need to over a little bit in building that business case and i think ultimately it comes down to leadership as matt said doesn't it you know those organizations that are already bought into it like nat west for example so yeah it's a really really tricky one a really tricky one but i think i think it ultimately comes down to there are some businesses in the world that see well being is nice to have and there other businesses in the world that see as a fundamental part of their operations and their organizational success and performance and i think maybe where we're wasting our energy energies as well being practitioners is trying to convince the ones that just aren't not interested well said well said if you wanna go and follow that which you should jump onto linkedin he's got it he's on the yellow banner and the best profile picture in the world you gotta go and just go and look for him s m e d go and look for mac because it's got great both profile profile picture i'd also go and look at it is working well dot communities his website sound i think from what i understood is it's totally free you join and you get loads of really good stuff now we are launching something i did mention that to matt so we're not copying him but it sounds like yeah just go go enjoy working well and then we will launch our thing join ours as well and then you can tell us which one is better yeah matt also has a podcast but didn't copy yours you're allowed to do similar things you can you can be you can be competitors and colleagues at the same time the can be possible yeah that's why i'll leave a link to matt's the podcast fabulous is time for my favorite time in the week which is the world famous weekly we workplace surgery i put your questions to lia lia is a chartered occupational psychologist is an expert in work the world of work and i don't think we've ever had a letter stump but couple of never had a lesser i'm so old i'm so old i remember back on the back in the day saturday morning tv and it was brilliant because you sit down and they'd have either on at a big of sack of letters that pull them out and open them and go this one is from john who wants to grow up to be a banker okay so question number one lia do investors care about culture and if so how do you prove it matters hi lia i'm preparing for our first round most of our focus has been on the usual saas metrics mr mr monthly revenue monthly rig recurring revenue churn growth rate all of that but i keep going back to our team this is nice this is thanks so far i hope covid turns out nice we've worked hard to build a place where we want to stay turnover is low morale is good culture wise we're in a strong spot it feels like a real asset but i have no idea how to show that to investors in a way they'll you value do investors really care about culture and if they do how you meant to measure it in a way that resonates so have i understood this that basically he wants to put a number on his culture so we can go on the balance sheet yeah got it late what are your thoughts excellent question yes really question and yes you absolutely can prove in metrics what your your culture is saying and doing i think i think investors are get increasingly interest in and i know when we have spoken to some investors through the podcast they are absolutely interested in in that type of think of sarah chen spellings from a billion dollar move who always looks at that when she's makes decisions around vc funding i think yeah particularly in the current climate that we're in and and yeah the way the world of work is going i think is it is important and also just from a risk perspective you know if you'd be gonna invest in a business and then sixty seven percent the team leaves and that could be your ip that could be what you paid for this there's all sorts of considerations in terms of how you do it there's a really useful scorecard that was developed in a book about well actually all this is crossed over culture well being in employee engagement all all crossed over so is sheena johnson and cara cooper and i've robinson wrote this book on well being love it really good very practical i would show you but i don't have it with me but it it has a scorecard in there that breaks it down to basically four different areas that you can look at be given an indication of how healthy your culture is or how how how well it's working so well i can leave a link to the booking in in the share notes but it's things like you look at business and financial in case that's a first category so that things like sickness rates retention rates the cost of how agency staff the number of ill health retirement stress related referrals to occupational health all that type of thing then you got internal process indicators so that's things like stress levels loves of work life balance and stress risk assessments that's either gonna be your hs risk assessment management standards that you should be doing annually anyway as a uk business or a more sophisticated employee engagement well being survey like mine will also give you all this data as well everything around kind of engagement quality management leadership all that stuff you can be able to show through metrics as well and then also you can get quality indicators so that things like customer satisfaction levels that's reflecting of you know how good your staff are service quality the number of complaints and then you also have things like engagement in training and in development so how people how many people have signed up for certain intervention or training feedback from those things and level of innovation that you have if you have that that what nat is doing in terms of that idea idea time how engaged people play that and what's and produce from that it's a really good indicator as well so they're are kind of the four main areas and as you can see there's lots of different metrics that you'll already actually be generating in your business will be able to put your hands on within your business that you can show to demonstrate how your culture is currently functioning functioning and how it's impacting the business the only one you might need to invest in is some kind of employee insights which you can either do free with the hs or with people like me excellent certainly and yeah that book if anything's if anything's by carrie cooper then then it's gonna be good although he has written over two hundred books where did he get the time out un fun fact bit link back because he's his company was consultancy robertson cooper was when matt used to work yes yes yes nice nice loop there yeah very good i should say the lead writer in that book is actually sheena johnson who is my lecturer at manchester clearly yeah she's awesome awesome why is she not on the pod oh well she will there we go well i'll go after nat west and you afternoon sheena yeah there's something about goodwill now it's funny goodwill has been measured on balance sheets for quite a long time now and it's basically you know how likely it's a little intangible if it's probably quite a lot intangible but perhaps when that first came it'd be a bit like i'm not sure about measuring goodwill but actually now it's kind of a standard thing that's what goes on your balance sheet so just fast forward five ten years and you're gonna have employee goodwill it'd be a probably a really fancy name for it maybe you should come up with then it'll be known as the as as the elliott test or something wasn't it like discretionary effort at extra roll effort as the americans call it i mean basically how willing somebody is to go the extra mile is a really good indicator of how engaged your staff is and again a good a good employee engagement survey they like mine measure such things okay on to question number two lee should i tell my boss i'm burnt out or should i just push through and hope it gets better i've been in a leadership role for about seven months managing a team of eleven in a company around seventy the first few months were intense constant firefight fixing broken processes trying to hold things together things are more stable now but i'm running on empty i'm showing up i'm getting things done but the spark has gone my head's foggy i can't switch off properly and i'm trying to worry what this might be doing to me in the long term now this isn't the first time either i've ended up been the fix in a few different roles always stepping into chaos and i think that finally it's all caught up with me so do i hope not to senior leadership bowel feeling or keep pushing and hope i bounce back little ps i worry that being honest could change how perceived but staying silent and feels risky too lee paul conundrum i think at this point without a significant change in in the way that you're working or the way that you're managing your your life and work together i don't think there's much of a scenario where you just gonna bounce back and this will be fine it sounds like you're in early stages of burnout and without some fairly significant changes that typically continues to escalate and i think what what sounds absolutely sure is isn't that necessarily this organization is is to blame it sounds like this has just been compounded over a roll and roll roll if you're a fixer and if you're working in transformation and again very common when you touch such levels of changing in ambiguity and the emotional load that comes with that as well not just the actual workload is is exhausting and it sounds like you're exhausted which is one of the the three main symptoms of burnout out the second being dis engagement which it sounds like you're also doing as well in terms of it kinda going through the merchants and doing the bare minimum in terms of whether you should tell your leaders i really i really can't answer that confidently without knowing more about the organization the relationships you have with your leadership i want to say of course yes of course you did speak to your leaders that should be the first people you go to to understand what your options are either in terms of of taking some leave or reducing your workouts down or being put on a different project that isn't as as as transformative that said if your leaders aren't supportive in that way then it could impact your reputation it could impact your longevity in that organization i'm not saying it's not it's not it's not right no i'm not saying it's right and it's not okay but yeah there are more sadly more bad leaders in the world than there are good ones as we've heard over the last few weeks so i would say prioritize yourself for the moment and what you can do within the boundaries of the organization to start to rebuild some of that resilience do i think in terms of the work that you're doing is it is that stability gonna continue is that what your predictable role is now gonna be because that's good and over time your start to regain that energy back and start to want to invest it in in your role again can you yeah take some time off whether it be some annual leave whether it be a few long weekends whatever it is it sounds like you need to detach from work in a very literal way to to allow some rest recovery time and i think finally it's looking at other things you can do to build your levels of individual resilience so things like setting those clear boundaries between work and life making sure you're investing time on things that all but we know build energy so connections your friends your family doing things outside of works staying active is really helpful eating well is really helpful getting enough sleep is really helpful all of those things that are gonna help so long as you're in a position where you can control your organization environment extent where it's not as chaotic it's not as change heavy you've got the support of your team around you you've got the support of your leadership in terms of the work that you're doing there's now in instability there you know it's not that there's the toxic work environment it's just been a chaotic work environment and now that that busy level has returned to something more sustainable you will know if you can trust your leaders i appreciate it them been seven months but i think you'll have a feeling my feeling is for you to ask the question you have some doubts but maybe have a thing if there's somebody you can speak to whether it may be somebody in hr or another manager who maybe you don't directly report to or even a colleague within the organization and you know how just what's a general you know efforts around mental health and well being here and maybe get a sense sense for that but i think i'd start by looking at what you can control and then continue to reflect and explore leadership and and how they might respond to this and if you if you feel that they will be if you're getting all those clues it'll be a positive conversation i would absolutely have it yeah good advice and i think i i mean the two key questions are is that what do i do and do i tell the do i tell my bosses i think the anne explained exactly what you should do that's a get and also go back and listen to so many of our episodes on burnout got sally clark is it was she burnout one recently about kate donovan donovan yep all of those so yeah go back and listen to those secondly a little bit of a tip i would one not a tip maybe anymore i would do in your situation is because you're a manager i would go to whoever you were gonna go and speak to about this problem and say look just want bit of a guidance no one said this but if someone comes to me and says they're starting to feel a bit burnt out they just don't feel themselves basically describe your situation you know what should i be saying to them should i be helping them should i be like is this a performance management thing and then you're gonna sneak find out i think how your your boss and your boss's boss think about this kind of thing yeah that's a really good idea that fat gathering isn't it you're getting that more information to understand the level of psychological data that you have a level commitment the organization has to to well being that's a really good idea i like that thank you thank you see i once a year i bring a really good idea more than that what's the less than that okay onto to question number three i've been asked gather peer feedback but why would anyone open up to me my manager asked me to speak to my teammates and gather feedback on our team culture and work environment basically to act as a go between i'm not in hr i'm not particularly close to anyone honestly it really feels awkward people seem confused about why i'm even doing it now he says he's ruled out i'm guessing this is the manager and manager he's ruled out an anonymous survey and once it's done quickly but i don't think i'm the right person for it should i give it a go and hope for the best or push back on doing it at all that's a tough one yeah so he's so the manager is said he doesn't want to do an anonymous survey this person's got to go individually to the people and go what's wrong with the culture can i write this down and put your name again it didn't and take it back to my boss oh this is this is not the way to do it this is not the way to do it and nobody is gonna be honest and give you any useful data equally not your circus not your monkeys my friend this is just all about pee your boss at this point isn't it yeah i i'd be more tempted to kind of you know have this conversation of like probably with you or is he the supervisor or just his teammates just his teammates teammates these scribes us this purpose is funny doesn't not say it doesn't have the gender so my manager is asked me to speak to my teammates i was being inclined to go to a teammate that you're closest to and he said you're not super close i'm a go to a teammate you're closest to and kindly go look this is what i've been asked to you i i don't think it's gonna be particularly effective and i don't you know i may probably don't feel safe myself being very giving very honest feedback in this type of public scenario unless everyone actually loves a coach the tone of it i'm guessing there are some issues there yeah i see i'm not sure why this be a question a problem for everything with rosy they're kind of having that honest conversation with with one of your colleagues because then kinda go in this is what i'm thinking we just kind of sit down together and do a bit of a swat analysis because i think a swat analysis is first something that's fairly fairly neutral and well known to managers and yeah can be can be put together in a way that you can provide some indications of what's happening and and where things need to be fixed but pulling a bit more of a commercial business process kind of way if you not how to start analysis it stands for strengths weaknesses opportunities threats and it's like a matrix yeah so it could be things like right what do we think the strengths are of the organization right now or the team or how we work together and i see that a lot in surveys that i do is that people really aren't getting on a senior leadership but they found these little these little safe havens within their team where everything is really nice it might be that you have that so yeah what the strengths what are the weaknesses i would focus on process and i would focus on things a very transactional yeah rather than the leadership behavior i'm not seeing this is gonna be effective in any way it won't be but this is just about protecting yourself and piece your manager because he's just drawing you under the bus essentially so weaknesses i would focus on very transactional process led things opportunities is maybe your your opportunity to actually provide feedback that might be used so for example if the it system you're working with it really annoying and clunky causing extra time there could be an an opportunity to upgrade your id systems to better serve customers or to introduce new product that people keep asking about that could actually be the opportunity section the chance we actually can provide some some feedback on the threats as well it's always useful i think i think typical typically business owners interest in that if there's things that you've heard from competitors or things that are going on or things in the market ai was an obvious one yeah both a threat and an opportunity and maybe focus on that so it it sounds like your manager as well it sounds like he's been asked this by a senior leader i was just gonna say this it sounds like he's been asked to do it it doesn't really believe me when i'll just give it to someone yeah so i think you wanna give your manager something back that's useful and we'll make him look fairly competent in front of his senior leaders and actually i i'd be that that might not be easy enough for you to put together with with some of your colleagues i think then it's also making it very clear that you know this isn't something that you felt entire comfortable with it's not within your wheelhouse and you're more than happy to spot with this type of thing again the future but you'd want to speak to somebody who does have some expertise around that either in terms of hr more organizational psychology i think it's fair to kinda go you know i think if we're gonna do this i'm not the right person to do it but you know hopefully this time is provide enough to with what you need but yeah protect yourself yeah there's a couple of things those three things i thought of when you were talking the first one was which you mentioned before is that this is a phone in it's the managers not are taken it very seriously so don't stress too much because there it's a box ticking exercise they wanna go back to their boss and go yeah i've done that secondly if you do wanna do it properly or as properly as you possibly can go and find someone in the team who's like outgoing who's like the team favorite everyone loves them go to them and just say can i borrow you for a minute look i've been asked to do this everyone loves you whereas i'm like you know i'm just like the wall i say i did not sit the back and no doing how would you approach this if you were given if you were given this task and i bet they'll be like look i can't have a word with the guys don't worry we'll we'll see we'll do something still be careful about taking negative feedback particularly is about the manager because if they've been asked to do it the last thing they want is information about them or the third option is a little bit sneaky but you could you could just go back to the manager without being to anyone going you spoke to a few people and and basically they want an anonymous surveys that's the feedback and then you just go right we want an anonymous survey so then you go no one really talk to me and like well what what did you say well i i'd say we're doing this and no talked to me i want an anonymous surveys oh god i doing an anonymous surveys and they'll go well luckily i listened a podcast episode the other day well lia does anonymous them a surveys so go in touch with her and buy that or you can't look at the hs management standard survey yeah can buy one from yeah if he doesn't wanna do an anonymous service it mean that that you couldn't oh good point yeah it's all just it's all just let service really isn't it is not gonna provide any useful data at all which is why i'm thinking the swat analysis might at least be something productive and useful i don't think yeah anything around sentiment or employee attitudes is really what this manager is looking for or cares about so i if you're gonna take the time to go through exercise and your clothes are as well i i just think something like that make might make it somewhat useful yeah totally agree if you've got your if you've got any questions you wanna put till lia then check out our show notes because there's links in there we even submit your question i believe that's the end of the episode join us next week for another this week work on every tuesday as there will be but there might not be soon because we're gonna change things around for some of what we're talk about that a second lee what's going on thursday we are joined again by another expert guest this week we are talking to someone who is leading a team of bona fide geniuses g geniuses and we're gonna get a master class on how to recruit and manage people who are smarter than you not you than one i maybe you so it's not out well me yeah okay well just thanks very much if you've enjoyed this then leave us a leave review please because that really helps us also if you haven't enjoyed this then send us an email and tell us why you didn't enjoy because we do wanna make it better if you just genuinely don't like british people we're super of humans then this puppies got this far no i don't think you would be interesting enough interesting anyway we'll see you next week bye bye i've said they've ditched top down performative don't know what that means i've just made that word up the award winning podcast podcasts where behavioral science me to work like p and today's is all about leaders and specifically don't know what i'm talking about just to gather peer feedback but why why would anyone open up to me i made a mess of that

what if i told you that the reason you're not getting what you want at work has nothing to do with your performance your qualifications or even how much your boss likes you research by fran francesca gin and deep deepak m h from harvard business call shows that having strong alternatives changes how you negotiate you become more confident and willing to take risks but here's the thing most of us negotiate from the worst possible position desperation well if i have another job offer if i have somebody in the background who said rich at the moment you leave your current industry i'll give you a million dollars a day to work for me i'm gonna negotiate a lot harder with you because i can afford to walk away now if i have nothing and i lose what i have i might lose my apartment i might lose everything my walk away alternative is terrible and so i'm not gonna have a lot of power negotiating with you that was richard burke who's our mediator negotiation expert one of the most experienced deal makers in the world he's a harvard law graduate who went on to lead research at stanford taught business decision making for twenty five years and now handles billion dollar disc disputes including case like en and trump university but today he's here to talk to you about something much more personal your career one if the key to getting what you want at work isn't how you ask but how easy it is to walk away you are listening to truth lies and work the award winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture we are brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals my name is leanne i'm a charge occupational psychologist my name is a i'm a business owner and we are here to help you simplify the science of work and as you would have heard already we're joined by richard burke who spent forty years mastering the art negotiation he's a harvard law graduate who became associate director of stanford centre international comfort negotiation then spent twenty five years as a law professor teaching decision making now at jams he handles billion dollar sp such as en trump university and massive corporate settlements and what his discovered would genuinely surprise you you know how we always think negotiation is about being persuasive civil or charming or even having the right arguments well it turns out that's completely backwards the most powerful negotiators don't win because they're great talker they win because they have something called a bat bat stands for best alternative to a negotiated agreement and the psychology behind it is really interesting when you have a strong alternative your brain literally operates differently you're more creative more confident and paradox more generous in negotiations so today we're gonna show you how to create your own partner so you can negotiate like a pro we're also gonna look at why most people negotiate badly we're also going to give you a step by step system for getting anything you want at work not through manipulation or aggression but through preparation and strategic thinking so are you ready to discover the secret the world class negotiators have been using all along let's find out after very short message from our lovely sponsors you like kate leanne mh here's one from hubspot about sandler training and how they got their sales cycle in half using hubspot ai tools in half that sounds a bit far fetched stuff the numbers are actually pretty solid they used breeze which is hubspot ai tools suite to personalize every customer interaction and as a result their qualified leads quadrupled their click through rates jump by twenty five percent and people spend three times longer on their landing pages i think i'd bury that using ai would kind remove the human touch fair point but not in this case in fact using breeze they actually enhanced it so if this sounds like something you want for your organization not newly the listener go to dot com to see how breeze can help your business grow welcome back so here's the thing before you can negotiate for anything you need to know what you actually want and richard has his brilliant technique for figuring that out because our wants changed depending on our mood maybe in the time of day whether we've had coffee one of the basic questions to negotiation is what do i want and you know because it's hard to get things if you don't know if you can articulate them to at least to yourself in the privacy of your on own so you have to be able to think what do i care about what do i want and yet i know that wants are very transient there were things that i might want ten o'clock at night when i'm getting ready to go to sleep and then i wake up in the morning and like yeah maybe not you know i try there there's a a a wonderful social scientist who says the me that wakes my breakfast my lunch in the morning is a different person than the me that opens my lunch at noon and sometimes the me at noon says who packed this and why did they think i would want you know four lettuce leaves i was like you know so the me in the morning was thinking about a healthy lunch and the me at lunchtime wanted something more substantial so knowing that once are transit that some of them change that they're they're they're dynamic not static when i'm thinking about any kind of decision or negotiation i usually take out my phone and i have a little note section as we all do in our wonderful little computers in our pockets and i'll just make a caption of whatever it is i'm thinking about where do i wanna go on vacation which car do i wanna buy should i leave my job you know what will i do next it could be anything and i might have a thought when i'm commuting to work and say oh open my phone note put that in i might have a thought later when i'm at lunch i might have a thought when i'm at dinner and i will just sort of keep that list of phone notes until i start to see that i'm not adding anything new because i will notice that there may be basic conflicts on there like you know i wanna lose weight and i love to eat pint of ben and jerry's and so what i will have to first admit to myself and this is a tough one is it's hard to know what you want because sometimes you want things that are mutually exclusive what riches describing there is actually backed by psychological research from barry schwartz link in share notes when we make decisions under emotional stress like when we hate our job our cognitive load increases and we start to limit our own options it's called choice overload and it makes us worse negotiators before we even start and this is where most people make their first mistake they decide they only want one thing and refuse to consider alternatives richard ko is bargaining against yourself a mistake that most that that many people make is they bargain against themselves and they reduced the bargaining range before they've ever found out what's available so if i say do i want a red car or do i want a blue car and i decide i only want a red car and i will not even consider blue cars and so then i go to the car dealership and i started asking for cars and they say would you consider another color and i say no i never find out that there was a blue car that they were willing to sell me for a dollar that would have been the perfect car and i would have made be very happy but i've already limited the bargaining range by negotiate against myself in advance so when i i'm taking those phone notes when i'm writing things in there i expect that they will be contradictory options because i know like wall whitman said i am large i contain multitudes some of those multitudes don't exist in the same universe some of the others i wanna lay in bed all day i wanna go get exercised so once i start to see that the notes are kind of coming to an end i can tell that you know i've tried well i'm gonna take a when i'm hungry i'll take a note when i'm full i'll take one little tired when i've just had a cup of copy when i start to see that nothing that was happening then i can look at those notes and i can start to prioritize what are the main themes that i'm seeing and i try to look at it as an objective third party so that's the first problem we don't know what we want and the second problem is we limit our option before we explore them the third problem is that most people just don't prepare properly they think negotiation is about being clever in the moment but richard says it's actually about the work you do beforehand first thing i would ask you is well tell me about your discontent what is it was it were you happy once and now you're not because that could be your interest have changed you've gotten bored something has changed at work but i wanna find out what happened what do you care about because your discontent is gonna be highly revealing about the things you want more of and less of so i want us to be a hundred percent clear on that is it just money is it something else right what's what's the issue there then i'm gonna ask you questions about your relationship with your boss say okay so can you have an exploratory conversation without it leading going to a bad place you know can you say i'd like to talk about making a change is your boss gonna say well the change could be able to just remove your name from the door and you'll be you know or do you socialize and say yeah i think that they'd be open to that so i'm gonna first start thinking about what do i want and then i'm gonna think how do you inquire about what's available right can that be a collaborative conversation with your boss so we've established that most people negotiate poorly because they don't prepare don't know what they want and limit their own options now this is what we get to this bat idea and honestly when richard first explained it to me it completely changed the way i think about every conversation i've ever had at work let's learn more about this banner after his very very short break welcome back here's where it all gets interesting richard has a framework that solves all of these problems it's built around three questions and the third one is where the real power lies but firstly let's just remind ourselves what partner is you just tell us what the button was that was an acronym was it best alternative to a negotiated agreement that's what you walk away to i like to boil things down to simple easy to remember rubrics and i think in every decision in every negotiation you wanna ask yourself three hard but basic simple questions and the first one is what do i want and like me say that one's hard so if you're thinking you know do i wanna leave my job do i want to make my job better well what does better mean because better is gonna be ec it's gonna be better to you you need to separate out the means to an end from the end it's like well i'd like to get a raise or why well because i want a nicer car well maybe the company can lease you a car right there may be other options and maybe be way there so so the interest versus the way to achieve that interest are different so the question the first question everybody should ask themselves is what do i want the second question that they should ask is what's available because many people in decision making become attached to things that would never end a million years happen so you need to think what's available because it's no use getting attached to things that are never gonna happen and when i say what's available part of what makes a complex is let's say we're in a negotiation you're my employer and i'm looking for a change of status what's available is gonna be a product of what you're gonna say yes to so that second question is a question requires exploration of a world outside of you so if you're interacting with others i'd like to get a job as a movie star okay is that available have you explored that you know how realistic is that and the third question is well what happens if there's no deal in other words how well does the status quo served by interest that third question what happens if there's no a deal that's your partner and the psychology here is brilliant research by adam gal a columbia business school shows that people who have strong alternatives feel more confident take more risks and achieve better outcomes negotiations it's not just strategy it's neurological so let's go back to richard explaining how he used a partner when he was negotiating for his current position at jams in the negotiation literature the best in selling book in our field of all times getting to yes the authors talked about something called the best alternative to a negotiated agreement and they act they create the acronym bat what's my bat for folks around the world they can just like that what what do i walk away to if the deal falls apart now the better you're bat the more power you have at the negotiation table when i was negotiating with jams about am i gonna join i was a tenured lot professor i didn't have to take a deal in order to keep feeding my family or enjoying what i was doing so i had a really good walk away and i brought that right to the table and said look you know it's gonna be hard for you to persuade me to leave because i kinda like where i am but i'm open to listening and of course they succeeded me i am so if i'm sitting down with you and you're my employer and i say you know ally i wanna be we're in the headphones and doing the interviews sometimes and you say well maybe i don't think you're quite you know i make it look easy because i'm a pro but you know there may be some things that you could develop and we could think about that well how hard am i gonna bargain with you if i gonna say no if i don't get a podcast in a week i'm out of here well if i have another job offer if i have somebody in the background who said rich the moment you leave your current industry i'll give you a million dollars a day to work for me i'm gonna negotiate a lot harder with you about how soon and i'm gonna get a podcast because i can afford to walk away now if i have nothing and if i say gosh if i jeopardize my relationship without and i lose what i have i might lose my apartment i might lose everything my walk away alternative it's terrible and so i'm not gonna have a lot of power negotiating with you about a change in duties so the one of the first things a savvy negotiator will do before they sit down the table to think about what's available is they will make their walk away better you know it's it it it's kind of like if you're negotiating for a new car and your car is broken maybe you wanna see if maybe a little small fix to your car is available because when you're negotiating with the car dealer if you have a car that doesn't work you're gonna the dealer gonna have the upper hand if you have a car that you can at least drive for a little while you bought yourself some time and so some of what might need to happen is before you sit down and negotiate with your boss about different terms you might wanna ask well what happens if they negotiation negotiation go south and can i prepare better can i have a better walk away alternative that's gonna make a huge difference in negotiation i love that car analogy because it shows how your partner isn't just about having options it's about your psychological state when you know you can walk away you literally negotiate differently your posture changes your voice changes your confidence changes so it's not about being manipulative or aggressive it's just about being prepared for example you should never go into a client pitch without knowing exactly what you'll do if they say no it's gonna make you much more relaxed which makes you better at the actual conversation because you can concentrate on what people are saying now to be fair this does raise an interesting question imagine you're negotiating for a raise at work if having a strong bat gives you power should you go out and get job offers just to use as leverage i asked richard about this because honestly it felt a bit weird to me that doesn't really feel that ethical to me i mean if you're just using a job as leverage right you have to go back to the what do i want and maybe you say well geez jeez i don't wanna have bad relationships in the industry and so you know i'm kinda of poisoning the well if they i go and let's just say flirt with a lot of people with no intention of ever taking a next step that'll quickly become known and i don't think that'll feel good to you as well but i don't think there's anything wrong with being open to exploring when james was talking with me about joining i didn't really ask them they asked me and so you know i was i guess i was in a little bit of a privileged position that way had i really desperately wanted out of my job it might have looked a little bit different but i wasn't kinda go try to get another offer that i wasn't gonna accept just as leverage on my own job because then i have to turn back to that person and say thanks to the job offer but no and if they say why it's like some level of well i was just using you as a tool and maybe some people feel fine about that and but but i wouldn't now exploring seeing what's available talking to friends and other industries or adjacent industries you know a lawyer talking to another a lawyer or another firm say how are things over in your shop are you looking for people what kind of qualifications how to mine match up there's a lot that you can do short of applying for a job strategically just as leverage what is touching on there something psychologist call authentic self presentation basically being genuine about your interest rather than playing games and there's research from a china at you're business school showing that people can actually sense when you're being strategic versus when you're being honest and it affects their willingness to cooperate now there's another question something i read about and it's about whether you should pretend to want something you don't actually want just to get something you do want rich has got some quite strong views on this i read somewhere i think it in beau be book that there was a an entrepreneur and he used to negotiate very hard on certain on when he was when he's was buying real estate on certain terms like the price for example notion get really hard on the price knowing that actually what he wanted was more square footage or something where he wanted something else so we sort of like negotiated really hard in the price and then when alright tell you what i'll go to your price but you have to throw this in and the point was he was prepared to pay the price and all he wanted was the thing that he asked him to throw it at the very end like a sort of off offhand comment is that just a nice story is that is lesson there perhaps for someone who was doing a bit negotiating at work yeah and i don't know that i agree with that lesson entirely because we we categorize that as strategic mis misinformation of interests be careful what you asked for because the other side might say yes you know if if in the real estate negotiation somebody just you know exceeds to the price well now all of a sudden you say oh but i really want square footage well so you're either saying okay so you want everything you wanted the best price and you want more square footage or you were lying to me about price and you only care about square footage now all of a sudden the deal is in a whole new place and the the party on the other side might say i'm not really sure i wanna work with you so if we're talking about employment you're talking about a continuing relationship with an employer that strategic mis representation of interest like asking for a job duty you don't want because you know you think that it'll go to somebody else and then they'll owe you a favor because they said no oh i could you know that could be a big problem but now i have reason not to trust you or anything you say because i know you're asking for things you don't want and you're not bargaining a good faith and in an employment context that could be terrible but at least if you go forward you talk about your interests as opposed to the positions and the same as true with your employer to say you know i want more responsibility i want more money over time i wanna feel excited about my job i want to maybe you can point that somebody in the organization say i eventually wanna be them when they retire so if you talk about your interests as opposed to turning them into concrete positions there may be many ways to achieve your interests that the other person knows about and they could start to reveal well we're thinking about starting a new project and we weren't sure who was gonna do that we were thinking about expanding this division or opening a new you know branch over here and maybe would you be interested in some of those things and now you're in a nice dynamic conversation whereas if you say you know if i don't get ten thousand dollars more a year by friday i quit well you better have a really good bat if you're gonna negotiate that hard so if established you need to be honest about what you want an ethical about how you build your partner but richard also has this brilliant technique for figuring out what career move you should make in the first place it's all about role models now this comes from richard's own story of leaving the da office to become a professor he had this moment where he realized he needs to find someone his field who was actually happy i would encourage anybody who it is first honor the feelings that you're having but don't take a transient moment as reality it's just a reality in that moment so it wasn't like i had one day i thought oh i don't feel like getting up and going to work it was the beginning of a seed of something that kept going on and i realized okay i need to make a change and so first honoring your own sense of where you need to be and what you wanna do secondly have a role model you know i am a i a daughter adopted from china and she super excited to see asian figures represented as the leads and movies right and so you know there was that sort of if you can see it you can imagine it and so i think in your profession just ask yourself if you could be any person in your field who would it be and why alright and start and so i started making decisions based on role models who were one step at me in the path toward happiness and of course the the the funny little paradox was happiness is the journey not the destination so once i was moving toward a goal i realized i was waking up in the morning and i was excited again so that serve well and that's a piece of advice that i give everybody step back and always imagine and is there you know is there something you wanna do and if there is it's probably because you saw somebody doing it and thought oh i'd like to be doing that right so let's just bring this all together for a second you've worked out what you want using the phone notes technique you've identified a role model someone who's genuinely happy and you've built your partner ethically now what how do you actually have that conversation with your boss this is where richard base becomes your negotiation coach he walks through exactly what questions to ask yourself before you sit down with your manager as a practical matter if i were helping you let's say why are you unhappy what do you think would make you happy and tell me about your boss so those that's a practical way of saying you know taking the big questions and turning the image to a a a context and of course you're gonna have answers to those questions with me and those are gonna lead to additional questions as well so with the limited information that i have now that's about as far as i could get but if you started to enrich the story and tell me you know i would like to do more of this you know and say no sounds like you should be inventing a new ai company and finally there's this question of timing how long should you wait before deciding whether to stay or go richard's approach here is really smart i love this idea of finding out the person who is happiest in your industry i'd never thought of it that way however let me ask you there's everyone has bad days at work every and lots of people have bad weeks at work and some people are born know i thought i unfortunately you'd have bad months at work so how long are we leaving it before we start going this really isn't for me i'm gonna think that more proportionally you know if you've been in a job for fifteen years and you know let's just say you're well a law professor and there's a change in who's the dean and all of a sudden the dean doesn't support your program quite the way the prior dean did or you know financially or class schedules or you know whatever things are not things aren't the way they used to be and we put on our rose colored glasses and we say wow yesterday was so much better well fifteen years you know one bad semester is not enough to say time to go if you're in your first semester and you hate it maybe it was a bad fit so i think that you can't make that decision in isolation so there you have it the bat method it's not about being ruthless or manipulative it's about understanding how true negotiating power comes from having genuine alternatives and like richard said when you have a good bat you can actually afford to be more generous in negotiation because you're not coming from a place of desperation your entire psychology is gonna change which brings us back to that preparation piece as we said before people with strong alternatives don't just get a better outcomes then more creative problem solve and they maintain better relationships because they're negotiating from confidence not fear there's a very famous book by an fbi guy i think his name chris something negotiator chris boss chris never never split the difference my question is that a lot of the stuff in that book you read it and go oh so if i just use certain words in a certain way i'll get my own way doesn't seem as simple as though you know in order to sell a book you have to dis steal things down into some pretty simple phrases that are memorable and you know chris v is a brilliant negotiator he's a great marketer it's a very popular book and there's a lot of great stuff in there but everybody who's giving advice and some respects cannot get outside of that's the advice that they would give themselves so i would say it's not enough to read one negotiation book no matter what that book is read three four five negotiation books and ask yourself what they all have in common and what you'll if you read getting to yes or if you read you know blacks and you know books on negotiation and there are harvard business school people or max ba books you know whatever this this money and there's you also wanna be looking for books written by authors who feel like maybe they resemble you i'm gonna do a plug for a book by a colleague of dam peter just wrote a book called negotiating well black and it's how to b who you are to get what you want right and so you know maybe if you're thinking you know you know maybe you're a young african american female and you're saying oh i'm reading five negotiation books by sixty five year old white guys i just don't necessarily see myself in these conversations just be aware that there's a much bigger literature out there and you can find people who kind of speak to you now one of the things that they're all gonna say is prepare prepare prepare right i so chris v was not just sort of oh it's a hostage situation let me pick up the phone i mean he was asking questions about like who is this person what is this situation right so the amount of preparation that you know you're gonna find that to be common whenever you see hard and fast rules i am a knee jerk negative never split the difference actually sometimes splitting the difference is really the most efficient simple best way and i do that with friends when we go to lunch all the time so never split the difference it's like avoid knee jerk splitting the difference i would say to you know buy chris boss's book wherever you are chris i'm a fan but you're not the only voice out there and i think the title of your book well provocative maybe it was a little bit too absolute for for for me so always prepare and then take else with the so here's your homework this week and this is gonna sound completely mad but trust me just for a second i want you to go out and try and negotiate for something you absolutely do not want maybe it's a car you hate or a service you'd never use or a product that's completely wrong for you brilliant because your partner is perfect you genuinely don't want it you can walk away from anything they offer because you never wanted it in the first place just be careful not to talk yourself into actually buying it exactly and pay attention to how differently you feeling in that conversation notice how relaxed you are how curious you become about their position how willing you are to explore creative options when you've got zero attachment to the outcome then ask yourself how can i bring this same energy to the negotiations actually matter the promotion conversation the salary review the project assignment you really want if the people want to learn more about you as the best person for them to go rich jan pathways dot com is a wonderful website where you can learn more about how some of the ideas that i've been thinking about for decades are manifesting themselves in practice at work you can also easily link to my bio and i'm also on the main jams site which is just jams a d r dot com so feel free to reach out to see if there's a a question i can answer for you or whether there's something that our company can do for yours we'll be back next week with another deep dive into the science of work until then remember your partner isn't just your plan b it's your secret weapon this is truth lies and work we will see you next week

coming up this week in work the gender pay gap doesn't exist at least that's the claim from our guest expert today and his hot take may just change the way you think about women equity and the workplace altogether and one of the giants of the recruiting world filed for bankruptcy last week so why is the world of recruitment changing so fast and in the workplace surgery what gift is appropriate to get from an employee who is essentially a family member we have a question from a listener who just bought his mom's business and wants do something nice for a long term employee without it back firing this is truth lies and work the award winning podcast behavioral science meets workplace culture we are brought to you by the hopes hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals my name is leanne i'm a chartered occupational psychologist my name is allan i'm a business owner and together we help organizations build amazing workplace coaches let's get into the episode right after this word from my lovely sponsors you like case leanne mh here's one from hubspot about sandler training and how they got their sales cycle in half he's in hubspot ai tools in half that sounds a bit far fetched stuff the numbers are actually pretty solid they used breeze which is hubspot ai tools suite to personalize every customer interaction and as a result their qualified leads quadrupled their click through rates jump by twenty five percent and people spend three times longer on their landing pages i think i'd worry that using ai would kind remove the human touch fair point but not in this case in fact using breeze they actually enhanced it so if this sounds like something you want for your organization not ann the listener go to hubspot dot com to see how breeze can help your business grow welcome back it is july i july happy july yes so we're officially in there like well i think we've officially been in the last second part of the year for about thirty days but yes july the day are getting shorter don't me oh man doesn't feel like it here in bulgaria if you wonder warren in bulgaria go back to upside two zero one we explain everything there but yes it's thirty five degrees today which is quite warm so we've got the air con on so if there's a slight home on this one i'm really apologize but i don't i'm not really sorry that that's sorry because i'm a good turn i will melt in front of your eyes if we don't put that thing on so yeah sorry anyway late your favorite time of the week i believe the time for these round about queue that lovely jingle okay mila what have you seen this week it turns out out of the all good matches in the world in fact there are some great ones yay we found them yeah no we knew they were out there so some of you might remember a few weeks ago we did a story about bad bosses and shed horror stories and this came from an original post from laura lan on linkedin who had a hundred of comments about bad bosses we shared them on the podcast we reached shared un linkedin it's all getting very matter at this point we had of a listener and former guest sarah wei reach out she said there should be a part two to this conversation we've covered the bad manager stories now we need to look at the good manager stories i like that idea laura like that idea so we did we post on linkedin and today i have some of the good boss stories for you all the warm fuzzy feelings that it's just just gonna give you hope in the world i love this and obviously as regulars know linkedin not really for me so i don't really go on it so i've not seen this so i've not seen any of this so this is all brand new yeah it is it all brand new so with that in mind i will tell you what laura original post was about asking about good bosses so she said okay so two hundred and seventy first had crazy boss stories that the previous post to get can of viral and this was bad bosses to design off with yeah so two seventy comments on bad bosses yep she said if you missed the truth on wear podcast on it gonna take a peek thank you laura and she said know as time with the happy stories have you had an amazing boss maybe even one that changed your career trajectory share the happy vibes with us and maybe even tag your boss if they're cool we had some lovely responses i'm not gonna lie there weren't quite as many good good boss stories of there were horror stories but that's an opportunity we'll talk about later well there's no movie called good bosses is there no it's true there's a three called bad bosses that's true but for now let's just get in the little the little nice place shall we so the first story shared came from jacqueline le she is a content marketer oxford grammar no sorry oxford comma enthusiasts i'll be honest i think i was about twenty eight before i knew what an oxford comma was hang on i think i know what it is it's like the difference between helping your uncle called jack off a horse or something and helping you call jack off a horse no maybe that's wrong what's the what's your cover it is the may be in the way that i i seen it use and intend to use it or not use it but americans tend to use it is when you have a list of things so you put a come after each ice assume the oxford comma would be the comma before the end oh okay so yeah anyway with my one cut that how it's a bit boring anyway i i like it you talk about jacket of chocolate get tell tell schoolers please on what the oxford comma actually yes because clearly we don't know trainers us so jacqueline said my boss steps up to the bat to defend us if we feel we're being treated on unfairly he recently went recently went out of his way to get me a spot bonus for a new type of work project i picked up and he and his boss had been supported when i voice my desire to come a content manager on a brainstorming tangible ways for me to get on that path oh i see nice story yeah absolutely some proactive career development there we like to hear that we also had a quote from sara sara who suggested this segment in the first place she said after both my parents passed away i had boxes of their papers and writing they're done through throughout their lives i wanted concentrated time to go through them a part of the grieving process too i asked my vp if i could have a couple of months leave he said sure we worked together to find out the coverage and i was very grateful oh that's nice yeah that is nice as and i think it's such an important thing we did do an episode on grief in the workplace oh would be just before christmas yeah so back to that because is it it's a difficult difficult thing to navigate as a manager so if you wanna be a great manager and be like sa manager and go and check out that episode also had a really nice distinct to one from adrian quest who just says id marketing on a linkedin profile you like that it says more actually so i did marketing sometimes communications or whatever rewards average cook off cycle what or cycle cycle cycle bye so anyway adrian said once had a boss used to say go home still a best before which review i've ever had i've had a few bosses who said that to me before i'm not sure it's the same vibe i don't think it is i don't think it is we then had one from vanessa child is she i'm not gonna lie vanessa wrote two comments worth of brilliant praise for her manager this is a long one so i'm not gonna read it all we simply don't have the time but i will read some of the highlights so she called out her manager meghan french dunbar excellent name meghan and here is here are some of the things that she said on my first day we talked about miscarriage breakups and the non chaos ladders there no small talk or performative onboarding just full presence and no it wasn't employ love bombing it was a beginning of a year's long work relationship the age like fine wine she coined the term e f w r everything fucking works out because radical trust is her r in outcomes but also in people she trusted me with a whole magazine did remote work in twenty eighteen before it was cool didn't micro management micro my time just yeah lovely lovely stuff it goes on fd you do you like that yes yeah oh no sorry m d i thought it told my m d no megan fur detroit what was the name of the boss megan french jumper there we go what a great name m d m t m d f t w yeah it was really nice she's also we're also are the ones that we're really nice about megan she's she's a kind of leader who says son or more take the day off i've got you means it she loves dogs at level that rivals mind and if you know me that's saying something if we only had more megan in the world yeah be more meghan be more m m m d be more m we need to we need a hashtag if you listening to this let's get this hashtag going it hashtag m d be more m yes what we can go with we need to give people a clear let them check let them choose it's a democratic process and whichever hashtag does better will be the one that wins okay i i was under the lovely story from ko daly who is in business psychology cara said you might you might recognize his name a i'm landing straight in here to shine a light on paula rockwell well paula oh shoot awesome yeah she is no surprise that paula is an awesome manager but cara said shutting a light on paula for consistently seeing things in me that i have a blind spot for and then giving me so many supportive opportunities to recognize them in myself and keep building on them i'm not sure if there is a character limit on ally comments but i don't think there is space to list all the ways that she has helped positively shape things for me over the last nine months of working together there we go paula brock well an amazing manager and also an amazing if i remember she also helps pension do marathons or something there's something she does around that and she just load christmas baking as well bacon brownie it's christmas that she sends out to hundreds of people where does she get the timely we we do we did two episodes a week and and that's it i know and she's at the highest of levels yeah now it's it's lovely late paul i actually replied this i thought it's be sweet it's a pleasure to work with you and see you bloom and bloody hell that you doing that not sure how i'm gonna keep to be honest what really nice woman lovely lovely stuff isn't it so nice nice warm for these stories that give us all a bit of hope hope is important hope is an important part of our psychological capital and we need that to get through the tough terms of man times tough so yeah go and check out the post if you have any stories to to share add them add them to it the converse still going i will leave link in the show notes oh tell me what you've seen this week fabulous i we're talking of tough times then one of the giants from like two thousand and five two thousand and ten has just declared well i think is called chapter eleven bankruptcy what i understand that to be is they've not gone bankrupt but they look of protection from going bankrupt from their creditors that's what i leave that means in america slightly different in the uk we don't have that over here no as someone who's been bankrupt so monster dot com monster dot com was the big job search site back in about two thousand and five two thousand and six all the way through to about two thousand and fifteen or sixteen and they are now seeking perception from bankruptcy what went wrong well there's a few things sound like a few things went wrong with the organization and a few things went wrong just with the world the world of work i believe they changed hands several time now part of a private equity group also i i think there's a they've got a you know rand start the people the the dutch rand stuff of course yeah of course yeah i think they have a minority shareholder in it so yeah i think there was a little bit of mismanagement there but also just fundamentally the way that people apply for jobs has completely changed since two thousand and five back in two thousand and five late now when when did you graduate was seven thousand and six six so how did you get your first job was it ne no my foot i took a year up for back to masters my first job was for was selling newspaper advertising space back in the time when that was even a thing and i got it because there was like an open day recruitment interview thing at the palace hotel in manchester oh that walking past there's a billboard outside so i went in had an interview and started monday brilliant it you're like i'm not unemployed i'm might as well going in there see what's going on come out with a job fabulous well this is gonna show you how old talking to newspapers to show you how old i am because i the last job i had i literally applied from an ad in the newspaper that was electric took the newspaper cut it out either way through but then when i was applying backing and like this would be a one or something two thousand one two thousand two thousand one when i was applying then what you used to do is go down all the ads in the newspaper and then you'd like sort send off your what would it be an email back then yeah probably it would be an email but also then sometimes you had to contact your cv somewhere and that was such a pain in a backside to go and do that so when monster jobs came out indeed and and all these they were like the google of job searches they just meant that you could just go in there own tick tick tick tick tiktok like i can apply for hundred jobs bosch done and that's the way it used to work but because since the pandemic and also with the younger generations they've got a different approach to the way they look for jobs like spray and pray and much more like i i don't i don't care for that phrase you don't enjoy it don't really enjoy what came your asked just now little back to last two days one of my favorite bits of last tuesday i start about vibe coding me the i went i don't enjoy what come out of your mouth and what she meant was out stand i think but it was a bit four indian thing i'll tell you who ford was in in a second i don't worry catch you walk you just to put this in context for someone who's like maybe going so what it's like google declaring bankruptcy because monster sort of declare sort of made this entire industry of online jobs they were the ones who you who who define this industry created this industry just like google created the search industry know that yahoo who's gonna look forward to your letters from yahoo but that's they created yahoo why what we're saying yahoo but oh well done well done it's not lang that's to do it twice bing that's the microsoft bing oh wow is that still a thing apparently apparently they've got like two point three percent of the search of the global search but that's only because apple default apple defaults too big i think on their safari and than all the old people don't how to change it so it's just it is a relatively big thing probably something which isn't very a massive surprise to anyone who does recruitment these days because if you are applying for jobs you probably don't use monster dot com if you are recruiting you're probably likely to use much more specialized job boards perhaps i know that a lot of people you do a lot of work with people building their recruitment processes job boards aren't necessarily a thing these days or is it more remote work or what niche niche boards yeah yeah yeah it's the end of end of an era yeah another thought actually just on that readings has been just last week that something like the the number of applications for jobs going through linkedin has increased by something like twenty two percent since the beginning of the year and it's something insane like eleven thousand applications made per day through linkedin so yeah i think linkedin a big competitor now as well because it's it's easy then to to use the stay the platform to look at what's going on the organization what they're saying about values and culture see who's working there maybe get in touch with them it's all just kind of one place to do isn't it so yeah everything combined is no else surprise really is it okay lee what else have you see mu love has science found an actual emotion hack oh oh go on and tell me yeah this is about emotional regulation you mentioned last week out that we don't tend to run in the same online circles but on my online circles i feel like i'm seeing a post every day of not two or three about emotional regulation now i would imagine that a lot of people see those person and go cool what's emotional regulation that's what i would do yeah that's a fair question i must admit sometimes i need to think about it because it's there's so many different terms knocking around in the world isn't there so yeah no what tell us what what is it so what is it emotional regulation it's basically the ability to manage how you feel so your emotions don't don't take over so if you've ever snapped at somebody when you're a bit stressed or felt frozen at getting bad news or just sit in existential crisis for three hours on the sofa that is emotional regulation or or not emotional regulation irregular regulation yeah you're not regulated so yeah that's what it is and if it goes on for a bit too long it can also to get a little bit messy especially if it's in the workplace and understandably the blade like his stressful right now lots of around queues lots of change lots of uncertainty everybody's getting a little bit wired and with that we might struggle to regulate our emotions quite effectively so i came across the three this week it gives us a hack for this according to science so he can stay calling calm so the study basically looked into something called cognitive re appraisal i know another another fancy word it basically means can i think about this a bit differently okay i'm i'm i'm gonna be honest i'm slightly under overwhelmed by the hack at this point but try and re weld me okay so if you don't like it just don't think about it so you're in the meeting you're feeling a bit stressed can feel you still starting to boil at the point that you reach her over the table but and slap your c across the face not cool cool oh great we're need to we need to regulate our emotions she and and the research to say we can do this through cognitive appraisal thinking about things differently so one reframe the situation so instead of thinking my boss ignored me today you'd think they might just be really busy or instead of thinking i'm anxious something must be wrong you go i'm anxious this is normal it will pass yeah so if i'm at work and barry from accounts comes over and and he smells of sweat and he's and he's got b o and he's just like leans across me and accidentally wipes his forearm sweat across my forehead i just think differently and go well least i can get run over on the way to work this morning is that what we're saying or is that very very specific example but essentially yes i got it okay anyway to research ask people to try one of these one of these techniques twice a day while they were at work mh so and that was it no big program apps ai driven anything just just ref framing a situation and it worked it results found that people felt less stressed they were calmer and more focused they didn't snap at colleagues as frequently and they got more done they were more productive and this is what was really interesting the benefits lasted so a month later they were still doing better in terms of their emotional regulation it's even a short sharp intentional change of mindset in the way that we think can have a longer term impact i'm not cool very cool yeah so if you're managing a team right now or just wanna try and polish you shit together yourself it could be something really really useful to to try i'll leave a link in the show notes to the study i'm not gonna lie the title isn't necessarily the cat i've seen so i have also written it up in english on medium so i'll leave the links to both of those in the show notes for you there you go how to emotionally regulate yourself according to science blow it subtitle just think about something else is that yeah methane reframe ref reframe reframe yeah okay no to be fair serious example i'm much talking much sweaty barry now okay serious example when when i do call when i hadn't this job i talked about before used to be cold calling and selling advertising and i used to make a a a hundred like lines on a piece of paper at the beginning of the day and every time i a know i took off the line and that was my way of going okay once i get i reckon once i get ten or fifteen no i'll get a yes and was weird because most i realized most of the calls out that that i want they just weren't answering or so when i was looking for a yes actually what i was getting was maybe out of every ten calls three no and seven people who weren't there and this helps to refocus so yeah that will going back in two thousand two re appraisal can't weird appraisal yeah i should call off for that paper anyway lee i'm sure you could read the title of that paper that's good boyd oh that's no shade i don't think it's you're right though with with words like that but i see titles that got look lo i have to sit there panic me a little i'm like there's seven words in this title and i i've never heard of six yeah i've never seen the of them and the seventh word is the so leigh does that conclude our business that concludes our business i think you okay so after this very short break we'll be back with the spicy hot take possible the spices we've ever had and our world famous weekly workplace surgery put your questions till the don't go anyway don't go anywhere soon as second can hey you gay at you if you're enjoying truth lies work was another podcast on the hubspot network that i think you're gonna really really like you joined me yeah was it the is this the mistakes that may be podcast yes it is i've been binging this as well recently eu man ism mail interviews these amazing business owners about their biggest business mistakes and honestly it is fascinating how often these massive errors lead to the biggest breakthroughs through i just love how real m man is and hugely helpful in her advice in her latest episode she's thirty four weeks pregnant and breaks out exactly how she is system ties her agency so it runs smoothly while she's on maternity and of course other psychologist i really appreciate how emma is normalizing failure as just a simple part of the business jenny you can listen to mistakes that made me wherever you get your podcasts welcome back it is time for our hot where we hand the mic over to somebody with dicey opinion about the world of work and today might be the sp one ever and the brave man in the world because we've got a man coming on who's talking about the gender pay gap let's go here from antonio rib from y dot c uk and find out he's about to be canceled my name is antonio rib romero i'm the founder and ceo of y an insurance technology firm with a social impact that supports parents and carers in the workplace as well as parents and carers through their nurseries in their schools we're on a mission to help level the playing field for people who have got dependents be those adults and childcare dependence i have to ask you the question we're we're here to ask antonio what is your hot take the gender pay gap doesn't exist that that's a bold statement antonio i'll be honest some of the hot takes we get a mildly warm that is spicy it is it is but i should say let me give you a caveat it's true that it doesn't exist but the truth is that it doesn't exist up until day thirty so tell me more so what we're saying is the gender pay gap doesn't exist before women reach their thirties do we have any data behind it what have you seen it at you or where is this coming from yeah so basically the nature of that data is that on average a a person will have where a woman will have a child at the age of thirty two obviously they're not explicitly forced out of the workplace when they have kids but when they start to have kids around age of thirty two it becomes a choice that a lot of women are making because they simply can't reconcile work and care and there's a really great entity and institution that i'd love to give a shout out to there's done so much research in the space and partly where this data comes from which is careers after babies and they've spoken to literally tens of thousands of of mothers parents workplaces and they do a lot of work in workplaces as well and it's a really really shocking statistic and one that basically kicks off a massive divergence up until probably the ages of fifty five sixty they're all all culminate in a a man and a woman of equivalent comparison in terms of their workplace status for example and of course age that a man will retire with a hundred and thirty nine thousand pounds more in their pension pot than a woman and that's a statistic that's come from pension b they've done really awesome work until the impact of care giving and the overlap with earning power earning potential over a career i know that there'll be there'll be people listening to this and and i'm gonna i'm gonna suggest maybe more males but there could be women as well or however people identifies a as agenda who are thinking well that's just the way it is isn't it they had a kid they took time off of course they're not gonna get paid the same as as a man who's been in the workplace entire time that's just the way it is how just is it that women and men don't have equal opportunities as it as it act to work right so we know that society both men and women benefit from people having children right for every obvious reason companionship emotional reasons are a lot of people would say that the reason that we exist is a species is to pro but then to then saddle women with this responsibility in a really uneven way only allows women to reach one conclusion which is after one two three years of trying to balance working in care giving there will be so many different occasions where a woman will be bumping up against their work deadline at the same time that her child is sick at the same time as the child is to be dropped off here dropped off there it's summer in the summer clubs whatever it may be and all of the different context and circumstances change you know depending on the child the household the age of the child etcetera but a couple of times three times four times to one more to say oh that's really frustrating but you know i'll crack on with things but that happens often enough for enough weeks months years in a row that a person can only logically conclude that at least i can't continue to work the hours that i'm working so i work fewer hours perhaps i'll also conclude that i can't work in this company that doesn't support me perhaps i'll also conclude that actually i can't work in any company because no company in society at the moment has really understood how difficult this is to do the truth is we do have to do something and we can't just stand by id our companies function better when there is a balance inside of the company that's representative of our clients our partners are are you know our community right and so to it's just an atrocity that a woman as she starts to have children the statistics starts to kick in us another really scary statistic which is two and three a woman will reject a promotion because they think okay i can just about manage with the job that i've got right now and so why would i seek out or accept a promotion given that i'm already struggling to keep things in balance in in tune here so it's just something that really needs to be addressed i think it's it's it is a matter i think of equality of of opportunity which i think ultimately in a modern society that we live in surely we need to do better and want to do better if somebody is net less well off when they hire a professional help because they need to go and work and have the bandwidth and the time to go and work then naturally any rational person would say well one of us needs to stay at home and generally speaking that's the woman who would stay at home still that's the society's expectation and society will probably reward a man more so than a woman so again rationally speaking a typical couple of a man and a woman the conclusion will be the man continues because the man will climb that corporate ladder quicker and to a higher level on average and so for as long as i can make the math of my household and make my feeling of wealth and prosperity i can boost that more by having one day at home parent when you take both childcare or adult care there is a massive dear of paid professionals or access to paid professionals across the entire world which is why actually that carers uk are a really prominent charity representing the interest carers has published the statistic which was really scary which is twelve thousand people each day become a caregiver in the uk and that's because they're filling a void that's left by professional services because either you know as a function of they're not being the same amount of supply as there is demand for professional care either the price point gets out of whack for most people to afford or alternatively and i guess this is just an extension of that first thing is that you conclude as a household that you know you need to fill that void that's left by the access to professional care with informal or family care giving or unpaid care giving as it's as it's called so we need to find ways creative ways to boost the supply of care giving support for people we need to find ways to i guess cheap the castle or the access to that pay professional care and lots of companies do get involved and paying on behalf of their employees when there are care emergencies obviously yet or is one such example of a product that tries to help companies help their employees we've got dependents either by helping them boost their avenues of support from their community as well as third party professionals or also in our case we make access to funding available to parents and carers when their original childcare care or adult care arrangements entrants for through we provide a cash allowance that can be spent in whatever way makes their life easier people want to show up be the best professional achieve their career ambitions their employers want them to show up do the best job that they can grow the business and so this isn't actually a mis of of wants or incentives everybody wants to what's best for their family wants to do what's best for their employer because those things are inter linked right so when we were thinking about a solution to this problem we realize that actually it's just because people don't have alternatives that they're turning to this i guess nuclear option of pulling sick when they actually just need to tend to a childcare emergency for example so what we thought was okay at its crux when i wake up and my child is sick and the nursery says to me sorry your child won't be allowed into the nursery for at least two days because they've got vomiting in diarrhea suddenly i'm sitting their thinking sometimes by the way the call comes in the middle of the day interrupting your meetings or whatever it may be suddenly i'm thinking wow my whole next two days of work that i had planned out meticulously is broken down so we realize actually the thing that will get that person into work which is where they want to be or at least they feel they need to be this thing that will help them is twofold one money for an alternative and two help them find an alternative in a world where there's not that many professional alternatives we needed to build a solution and we have through our app that connects people to their family their friends their neighbors in such a way they're able to build a resilient care team around them when they can share care tasks at short notice and that's when just to continue example of the child who's got vomiting and diary gets excluded from nurse with forty eight hours yet tools insurance products that we call a care cash plan we'll step in and provide a cash allowance for each day of that illness that is commensurate with the cost of backup care at eighteen pounds per hour so roughly around a hundred and fifty pounds a day that you can use however you want there's no strings attached there's no need for receipts so it could be just i call grand mine grand up and say listen there's a new brow outside of your house jump in it you need to be at my house in the next forty five minutes because i've got a crack on with a an important bored pitch or something like that equally it could be to pay for extra hours the babysitter says that you know love and trust that's down the road equally if you trust a stranger which i think a lot of people struggle to do with their children you can go and find a third party professional so it's a case of just empowering people with the two things that they need which is alternatives and financing to actually fund those alternatives it's such an interesting interesting product antonio i'm i know our listeners is gonna want to learn even more about it where the best place them to find you and to find out more about at our website is probably the first best place so yeah at all dot c dot uk and linkedin were super practice on linkedin through our year or pages and equally my email is antonio at dot c dot u uk i'm not gonna lie i thought it was gonna go down a slightly different route there i thought you are a brave brave gentleman to on and say something like that yeah i did made the chuckle and a really nice angle on it i think one of the things which does make me think though is that i've read a lot of stuff that jen z are be having being parent or becoming parents a little bit later and later i've also seen this plenty stuff all over twitter or tweaks talking all about now what's the term they use when there's like it's a reduction in birth rate is it birth rate reduction do that this term that go let's go with that yeah just for lack of another term so so i don't know whether that naturally in ten years so you might be looking to pay gap my is sort of thirty six or thirty seven but still it's it's a problem it is a problem and it was quite a shocking number that you might i'm not sure if you kept it in but you might have heard it when antonio said the hundred and thirty nine thousand pounds poorer by end of career women compared to men that's not like a smaller amount we're not talking like change significant amount of money what was really enlighten about the conversation with antonio was kind of this flipping it that yes women have children yes that interrupts their career for a period of time depending on various situations but what we're doing is society is we're punishing caregivers we're punishing from a financial perspective a lifestyle perspective potentially a health perspective the role is to care whether it be for children whether it be for adults the so unpaid care this unpaid labor is a significant problem in society if we don't have the government infrastructure the financial infrastructure the care infrastructure to either deal with it so people can still work and be financially equal at point of retirement or have a system in place where this unpaid labor isn't unpaid it's rewarded at some point either in the moment or in terms of of benefits through throughout life it's it's a really interesting societal problem that is only gonna get worse as we have a much larger aging population and i think i think it it might sound very abstract right now but i think if it five ten years we're gonna start to feel it our services will get even more overwhelmed in the audio yeah absolutely absolutely well let me just play the part of a dusty old man for a second of business owner and say if if women aren't that we're talking predominantly women because that is what happens i'm not i'm not gender and i'm not saying that that should be the way i'm just saying this is how it is if we take time off work to care so they take fifteen years out of work what i'm expected to pay for that am i that just doesn't you know what i mean i i totally can see both point points of view but if they're not in work and they're not working that seems to me as a business owner it well that's the end of it for me i don't have to worry about anymore and i think this is this is a trouble is typically it's the businesses that are allowed to solve a societal problem and i don't think it is necessarily up to the businesses to solve this problem i think it's i think it's above that i think it's bigger than them but what ur has done so cleverly is actually give businesses a way of solving this problem that is very light touch and actually works in the business owner's best interest because it keeps the people they need in work so i think it's actually really innovative ways to look at is it the business leaders this problem to solve no but this a societal problem where we all need to play a part in in solving it and i think y is a really cool solution to do that in a pretty easy way absolutely absolutely and of course hundred fifty quid a day comes out to the person who's who's having to take time off but it's not the business who's paying because it's an insurance back thing so it's just a standard like just a business cost for a for for a business seems like the best genuinely does seem like the best the best win for everyone yeah i agree really interesting i will leave a link for antonio so you can check out his detailed you keep the bin and he actually gave his email address out i was well include that in the share notes as well he was happy to share that and of course his website as well so you can check out yet at all okay it's my favorite time of the week it's the world famous weekly workplace surgery where put your questions to lia the and uncharted occupational psychologist she's here to answer your word related questions so question number one how do you think an employee who's basically family this person writes i recently took up my mom's business and one of the longest serving employees coming up on a ten year anniversary she's kind loyal and incredibly hardworking and honestly it feels like she feels like part of the family i gave her a but a vouch i'd better make sure i could say that clearly i gave her a massage voucher didn't give her a i gave her a massage voucher for her birthday which she loved but i do wanna do something more sentimental to mark this milestone lee any ideas for a meaningful gift that truly says thank you i'm gonna skip over the family bit i'm just i'm just gonna i might come back to that late but just to take your question as it is what do we know what do we know what psychology tellers now its experiences over stuff is probably the really simple high level answer we like experiences that they they boost our our happiness for longer much more than things in terms of experiences there's two things in life that we're all short of and that's money in time so if you can give this person some time back in some way to maybe go away for a bit or or but give us some saying it as well as always always quite nice in case there's some variables there that you don't know about so maybe a trip away somewhere i don't know i don't know this person so it's very hard to be specific but i would say experiences and anything that you can do to give the person back some time would be really nice i don't know if you have an office if you have a wall of fame if you have employees in the moment so that type of thing you could you give her one of those as well yeah i i don't really know where to go from here because i'll be honest the question makes me a little bit uncomfortable because of the family thing because you've just taken over your mom's business so i appreciate it's a family business this person been with the business for ten years that's awesome does it say ten years where's made the look no long time years ten years they're not family they're not family there they're a part of your community they're important part of your community a important part of your business part part of your world but this mindset could potentially get you into trouble further down the line if something happens with this member of staff or indeed as you start to span your business family doesn't stay family very long if you've got twenty thirty forty fifty employees the other thing is well in terms of what you can actually do to do something nice for this person think a bit broader think a bit more about her a considerable contribution to the business and how you can reward that in terms of her career her professional life i don't know what that would look like but it could be things like does she want to travel does she wanna take a six months basketball knowing that her job is waiting for her does she want to pursue a different stream of her career a development avenue that she hasn't had the opportunity too that she still gives her a place in the business but you know is is something new and fresh and challenging for her oh the elements of the job that she really hates and she just puts up with because she's very loyal it's having these conversations dani you know we want you to be with us for another ten years or until you retire what can we do to make sure that the work is still interesting it's still meaningful it's like gives you purpose it's still rewarding all of those questions are gonna do much more to show this person how appreciated they are how much you recognize them and how committed you are to keeping them in the business that in terms of the engagement you're looking for the the celebrating this person aspect of it i think you're gonna find much more success there than buying them a gold watch you're sending them on a holiday is that harsh shall no actually i that's a really good point and i think also we've gotta think about is that this is potentially gonna set a precedent for everyone who hits the ten year anniversary yeah so you might be like oh you know this is this is marjorie this a female isn't is a woman yes longer employs she's yes so it could be like oh marjorie you know when i was a kid marjorie used to look after me when i was coming back from school and stuff separate that because that's mar outside of work and then you've got mad who works for you so yes we could guest do just be careful if you might be setting a preston secondly i like that idea of a sa cervical i really like that idea of asking her what she wants the next ten years to look like because that's gonna benefit you massively because if they if this woman stays for another ten years and does a a sterling job for the next ten years you've got yourself an amazing employee so but yeah like the says just be careful with family businesses if you want to go back into the archives it's about episode thirty three thirty four we had steven short on we've talked about family businesses and often they go aw if you've seen succession then you'll know yeah so yeah maybe just go and i cancel we'll go back and look at that as well yeah so if you if you want more help on that hat to approach that conversation drop us another email booking a chat the link in linkedin the link is on linkedin on the brain the link out to book a call with me oral is always in the share arts book but yeah i i love the sentiment i think we can expand on it to have the most impact okay great advice question number two what should i look what should i watch out for when hiring remotely for the first time i run a fully remote business and i'm about to make my first higher congratulations i found remote work productive so far but i've never hired this way before are there any common pitfalls i should know about what should i be looking for to in order to make sure i bring in the right person leah yeah i have some experience in this world i have you do recruited for a a company that is fixed office i recruited for a company that works in the community have come come recruited for a company that's completely remote and had employees across across various continents the biggest decision you're gonna have to make is whether you're employing them employing them or if they're self employed contractors because if you're employ them employing them he'll get a little bit complicated in terms of of where they are actually doing the work and the labor laws that apply there and then crossing that with the way your business is and that can get quite complicated there are various platforms and you can use for that remind me which one is hr got the the founder come on recently yeah so that there are tools and apps out their platforms to help you do that the alternative is to hire people as freelancers like tapping into the gig economy there all self employed their long term contractors and i'll be honest when i've worked for our businesses that has typically been what's done and typically been what's the most effective because it gives people the flexibility to build that portfolio creating it gives people the flexibility to dial up and down the work as and as and when and gives you the flexibility and be able to have a pool of contract is rather than staff that you're having to commit a salary to so that's kind of just a first thought after that it's the same processes you'd recruit anyone in fact it's almost a bit easier because you have these niche job boards that we talked about before about remote work flex jobs comes to mind but there's laura them just google or put into church bt they'll give you all of the launch we know linkedin and the other platforms have a remote option now as well and remote work is so highly sought after you'll be flooded with applications flooded with applications to give you an example i did a recruitment drive would have been late twenty twenty no it wouldn't have been twenty twenty one so before the great resignation when everything was still really tight but because we were doing remote roles we must have got two hundred and fifty applications in the first twenty four hours of the job being advertised insane amount so you're gonna get loads of applications in so with that it's really important to have a very clear and stringent screening process because you wanna go through as many applications you can you wanna go through more ideally and you wanna have a criteria to evaluate each cv on and they're a clear process to put them through because of the volume of applications you're gonna get my advice would be to start with aspects of your recruitment process that are gonna be light touch from your time perspective so for example asking them to complete an application form with certain answers in that you'll evaluate against a set criteria is a really good way of doing it or a work sample test is another really effective way of doing it because you then you're sending all the candidates that make it through that first screening process the same exercise they get it back within the same time frames you evaluate them and you move forward there then you can knock that candidate pulled down then you when you are doing interviews or other assessments so for example ones just throwing a psycho you're gonna be doing with a much smaller talent pool which gonna be much less time intensive that kindly me my german advice there the key is gonna be understanding exactly the job that you want doing in your business a lot of people when they hire their first person think about the person you don't wanna think about the person i think about the job what does that job look like is it one job because if you are remote you could recruit five people who are doing ten hours a week doing various different things there's so much flexibility when you recruit remotely it's it's a gift as a business owner to have this set up so i would counsel you to spend as much time thinking about the actual job the actual work you weren't done within your business as you then do designing your recruitment process to look for the right people to do that do that work if you broadly speaking get those two things right then you'll be fine i think we do have an episode way back well now i think it might even be episode like three or four or something that talks about this in a lot more detail but again if you want to get in touch booker a free out with me to go through it a bit more detail and specifics then then please do but broadly speaking decide how you're gonna employ them and they're gonna be employed or self employed understand exactly the work that you need doing in your business is it one person is it potentially five and then finally designing a really robust recruitment process around that that's gonna nicely reduce your talent pool over time so when you're doing the high intense activities you've got smaller candidates brilliant brilliant can i ask you a couple of quick questions lee cool you talked about work sample what i'm guessing there is that someone does half a day work or a full day work or they do a project or something yeah it's it's typically a a project or a task a task so say for example if we were gonna have somebody to come and help us with with truth and lies we might say right your job is to put together a list of the top three trending terms in workplace culture this week with an angle of how we can talk about it and it was probably only gonna be you probably wanna keep it fairly light it might only be one be an hour to two hours in terms of time you don't wanna take the mickey but very specific very and bed within the job they're actually gonna be and is this tamed is this paid for typically it's not in my experience of doing that i've had it occasionally people push back and ask for it to be paid when i've explained the time time expected to be spent on it people usually are okay with that or let themselves out of their recruitment process it's something that you can think about as a business but i think to be honest it's it's not unreasonable as part of our recruitment process to put an activity like this in that is directly linked to the job that somebody is doing because also you might find that there's people who will misunderstand the job and select themselves out because they don't enjoy the task that you give them so i think it's it's it's worth knowing you might get some pushback but not very much talking if people not stay the task i advertised for a copywriter and someone inquired and said what do you want copying because i got great writing and no that's it probably you out second question then in order to scream people out bucket this is when i was backing before we before we were working together i want to runner a run a job advert and said please send me an email with a google doc attached with now anyone who didn't you just attached it or attached a word document or put it in the e body of the email i just automatically went no because they couldn't follow instructions is that bad it's it's its shaky ground in terms of potential and unlawful practice because can you prove that that is very important to the job why is it you can do that they were yeah because it was they they we used the google suite all day long so i wanted to make sure that they if they didn't use google then they were able to go and set up a gmail account and also create a google docs account and upload it there and but then also i wanted to get rid of the people who were like oh they say that but i'll just send you word it'd be fine yeah i mean you could do i mean i think we i used to be similar where i'd i'd always ask for a cover letter and we'd still get probably three out of seven applications that wouldn't send a cover letter i wouldn't necessarily completely exclude them but against my in terms my my checklist of things that they're gonna pass first screening they've already got across against one the thing that i've asked them to do so if you've asked to do a google doc if they've said that in a word doc but they're hitting every other criteria that you wanted for part of that application that i think you kind of couldn't nothing know despite your face by the fact they just happen to send it in words right they might have just overlooked it they might be applying for various things at the same time they're asking similar things it's it's worth a little investigation if they've hit enough of the points that you're looking for in every part of that application one last bit of advice from a a fellow business owner is that this is gonna be a tough time for you at not you listening this a tough time for you because you need someone to come in you need to recruit someone because i'm guessing because there's now too much work for you to do so your your your instinct is gonna be right these gets a winning fast because we are growing so fast i need to get this done what actually happens with recruitment i found his business owner is it usually takes about ten times longer than you think and then you you'll you'll be tempted halfway through to go oh screw it we'll just have that person because you you don't have enough time as it is and now this recruitment take over another ten twelve hours a week so just manage your time carefully try not to panic and panic and just recruit the first person and maybe look at it like the and said freelancer okay is this somewhat so is this is this someone who perhaps take on a small part of your work to free up five to ten hours a week for four weeks you to go to this properly and give it the time it deserves or indeed engage a consultant who will lead that entire process here there you go someone who's an expert in remote first i would have thought someone like leanne anne okay so question number three how do i keep up keep moral morale up when everything feels uncertain i'm a manager in the us federal government oh my goodness so sorry are you okay oh dear i think that's that's the ask the question isn't it yeah you okay yeah i imagine in the in the us federal government right now a lot of doom and gloom i'm trying to stay positive for my team but i worry that too much optimism might come across as tone death fair point i'm or dismissive even how do i strike the right balance showing empathy while still uplifting my people when the future feels so uncertain oh this a tough only can you answer this wow let's let's find out oh you know it's really tough and i think you're falling into that classic great manager trap where you wanna do all the right things where you you think that you need to solve it and you don't need to solve it you just need to hear how people are feeling like you know we joke like we're you okay like asking that question daily are you okay how is last night how are things it's really helpful and just listening letting people vent letting people learn and let people share their concerns making sure that they know that you're you hear them offering support where you can offering sign while you can is gonna be really all that you can do or potential resources podcasts that talk about the stuff and and kind of yeah evaluate these things there's there's really it's it's white we were talk about last week in terms what do you call all your your the lips of give us shit the lips of give us history i'll a venn diagram if you wouldn't do one zane and it is the things that you can it's basically what think about what you can control what you can't control you can't control what is happening in the federal government right now you can't control what is happening in geopolitics you can't control any of that you can't control what layoffs are are gonna come next the only thing you can do with the only thing that you can control is how you show up your people every day and that really isn't and it sounds so simple and ineffective by promise you it's not is checking in asking if they're okay listening to them letting them vent is gonna it's gonna be ninety percent of of what you can possibly possibly do at this point i mean there are other the little things that you can do you're absolutely right you don't wanna tip into toxic positivity you want to acknowledge how people are feeling in the fares that they have that's part of the listening exercise that you'll do with them in that level of empathy equally as we've heard we can look at the cognitive reappear or we can look at things of how do we reframe this how do we look at this from a slightly different angle how can we put a positive spin in terms of what it could mean for the future what opportunities it covers it's really hard but as we as we saw from the science and the research even just really small reframe can have a lasting impact on armor morale on our performance on our relationships with with colleagues and relationships is probably the final thing i'd say on this there is gonna be a lot of survivor guilt in federal government right now there's gonna be a lot of people wondering why was it me that stage that is real and that is really hard to deal with and you feel like an absolute nut for bringing it up because who am i i've still got my job i've still got a paycheck why should i be moaning about this it's hard because it pours in things of partisan syndrome it pause in things of insecurity it mean next there's lots of ambiguity going on we continue to stay in that threat state it's a really stressful immersive time so i think with that it's acknowledging these things that that people will be feeling and calling it out for them you know has anyone else been feeling a bit of survivors was guilt about all this did anyone else see the thing on the news last night and and wouldn't we've been worried about that being maybe proactive in calling out these things that may be difficult for people to speak about or find the vocabulary for could be really useful as well and with that it's gonna build this comrade where we're in this together we are the survivors we're gonna get through this whatever happens and it's those bonds that we're also gonna help with people's morale well being as well a tough tough time my friend but the fact is that you even ask this question shows that you care enough to make a difference that people in your team so well done you yeah well done well done and also come on let's be honest it's us federal government everyone who works their knows that you know you don't have the power to go and complete revolutionize stuff stuff one of the wealthiest people in the world tried to go and revolutionize stuff and got his asked kicked and handed back to him and then he went back to what he was doing so i think that being realistic people might complain to you about why is it like this and you know all this needs to change and why do this decide need to happen the fact is they probably know already that you can't do anything about it they're just complaining inventing and like the answer the best thing you can do is just listen to them and say you know well you know what does i don't work for you a better government know what i'd say but you will you'll know i'm sure okay so that is the end of our surgery if you have a question you'd like me to put the lovely lily ant then all the links from the show or you can just email hello at truth lies and work dot com so we will see you next week later this week tuesday tuesday see you again on thursday yeah we're definitely not pre recording list we're not recording before the week not tomorrow on the day after it's right yeah yeah yeah so we'll that's what i bet that's exactly what i've been so we will see you soon and we've we've got a little super group we talked about before if you are a bit of super fan or you just a fan and you want to help direct how this cow this pop podcast together you'll see there's a few things we're experimenting with particularly over the summer we'd love your opinion so even if you don't wanna be part of whatsapp that group just if there's something you've see your like or something easier you don't like just get on to linkedin messages dms or you can email again all the links from them the shown notes it's anything to add like subscriber review if you wouldn't mind it really really helps other the people find the show and build build a little community that we have have here you mentioned linkedin didn't here that's where i tend to tang out if you see something interesting send it through his might talk about it might not but we'll both but both have fun finding out exactly if you're if if you want if you if you wanna speak lia go and find linkedin if you wanna go and speak to me ago i'm probably on be or my myspace i think sending carry a pigeon into be area little fine me speak soon bye bye and this episode brought to you by a grumpy peanut and a very quiz bobby b are you talking to me i'm talking no i'm to turn that you talk to me bobby exactly the same yes it's july i'm sorry that again when i need you do that a little bit again one second let me just i'll go to drinking my tea and then you can you can i'll cut to me and then you can start again has science nope yes this is about emotional can canal else sorry miss tucker okay so after very short break we're back with our world famous work that so after the very short break we'll be back after can you just look up for so after this very short break we'll be back with the spicy hot take possible the spices i know absolutely okay so question number absolutely okay so question number two what should i remote you mean it's just you on a in a bar in bali don't be so

what if i told you that right now as you're listening to this your body is telling a story that you have absolutely no control over research shows that within the first couple of seconds of meeting someone they've already decided whether they trust you as a leader it's called thin slicing and here's the thing it has almost nothing to do with what you say today we're asking a question that might make you completely rethink everything you know about leadership is there really a secret language of the best leaders have been using all along hello and welcome gonna truth lies and work the award winning podcast where behavioral science meets to workplace culture we are brought to you by the hopes hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals my name is leon i'm a chartered occupational psychologist my name is a i'm a business owner and we are here to the science of work and create amazing white workplace coaches today we are joined by someone who spent twenty years conducting orchestra almost every single continent from the jerusalem symphony to the london solo orchestra now i know you're thinking conducting orchestra what the heck is that gotta to do with being a great leader well it turns out quite a lot roi felt in christ has taken everything she's learned about leading one hundred musicians through high stakes performances where there are literally no second chances and she's brought those techniques into the boardroom and what she's discovered is gonna genuinely surprise you you know how we always talk about the importance of clear communication and leadership well it turns out that's actually only half of the story the research is pretty staggering some suggest that up to ninety three percent of communication is nonverbal but here's what's really interesting most leaders have absolutely no idea what their body is saying to their team so today we're gonna go deep into the world of non leadership we're gonna find out if it's just corporate fluff word or if there's real science behind it and more importantly we're gonna give you the tools you need to master this hidden language of leadership because trust me once you hear what roi has to say you'll never sit in a meeting the same way again are you ready to discover what your body's been saying about you all along we're gonna find out after very short message from our lovely sponsors hubspot inbound event twenty twenty five is bringing together the brightest minds in business ai and entrepreneurship we're talking amy poe the genie is behind chat do mu and sean evans from hot ones because apparently even hot source interviews can teach us about business strategy yes september the third until september the fifth in san francisco and no this isn't just another one those conferences we pretend to take notes while secretly checking your phone this is three full days of actionable insights that you can actually use to grow your business what i love about this is the focus on practical application we enjoy applied science here you're not just sitting through fluffy keynote you're getting tactical breakout sessions networking with people who are actually building things and learning from entrepreneurs who figured out how to thrive in this ai powered world plus come on you're in san francisco the global headquarters of let's disrupt everything and see what happens it's the perfect place to meet your next c founder investor or just someone who gets why you're obsessed with optimizing your customer acquisition from head to inbound dot com forward slash register to see the range of tickets including vip options fancy thanks fancy fancy trust us your future yourself will thank you for actually investing in learning something useful guess what a what we're gonna be there no we not i am a manifest thing oh okay yeah we're yeah you can come and me us there they that's the reason to go to go and book your ticket today vip experience will no doubt include us imagine they'd invite us to the vip area so go visit inbound dot com slash register to get your it today welcome back let's go join the and he grow its story hi i'm wade felt cries i'm an international orchestra conductor public speaker and the founder and ceo of basic consulting for the past one years i've conducted orchestra in almost every continent from the jose symphony orchestra to the london sol orchestra where every moment is high stakes and alignment is crucial because there aren't any second chances so i recognize the parallels to executive performance and i created the s phonetic leadership framework to bring these skills to the corporate world so we do that and i continue to conduct worldwide as well and how did you begin to bring all of that into the business world well it happened like or organically it's really amazing you know a few years ago i started giving keynote speeches in in different companies connecting the leadership world with the orchestra conducting industry and so because we i recognize so many parallels between what we have to do as conductors and what leaders face daily in in different industries and so so many people reached out later on to ask me different questions and hear my opinion about different struggles that they were having as as executives whether it's you know owning the room reading the room when you have to give a presentation to the board whether it's dealing you know having difficult conversations with your reports maintaining these boundaries because you're not their friend you have to maintain a certain distance so many things like that a pho leadership framework i really do like that phrase but leah i think some of our listeners might be wondering what this actually means in practice which is fair because when most of us think about leadership communication we think about what we're going to say not exactly about how we're going to say it so roi gets really practical here i was reading just just the other other day about psychologists have actually looked into orchestra and nonverbal leadership and it it's so interesting and as she say so transferable to the business world i i'm aware that some of our listeners might not have an exact understanding of this so could you just in really simple terms give us an idea of what nonverbal leadership is the notion is that what we as of leaders have to really the master is is communication of course so when we see communication most people think okay so i will prepare this fantastic presentation i have ai to do it for me now it's really easy i have this this fantastic beautiful presentation with all the notes i need and i i will just read it and it'll be everything will be fine so that is you know something that we can begin by doing but the verbal communication while it is important and of course we have to master that as well we tend to forget that there is a whole different level that people perceive when they just watch us when they just look at our facial expressions and how we hold our body how we give space or don't give space how we are anxious when we speak to them so what happens is many leaders either either you know start to be really anxious or either over speak over explain or even withdraw you know do the opposite thing so what happens is that teams feel so disconnected from the person that is supposed to be there for them is is supposed to lead them through these you know corporate challenges this changing world so the the trust that is supposed to be there is immediately gone when you say one thing but your body or your face shows a completely different thing so that is the beginning of what we do of course we can do so many more things and master the power of nonverbal communication to really lead and motivate and inspire our teams and why do these nonverbal cues matter so much and and as you say equally if not more than what leaders actually say what's the impact that these nonverbal verbal cues can have well the thing is that we are social creatures and although we have gotten used to doing meetings on zoom and you know reading emails and doing all this and of course when you have to work with teams that are globally you know they're are spread around the world so we're we've gotten news to this type of communication but inherently we are as i said social creatures so we always look and and see if you know what we are being told is the actual truth and this is exactly for for your your podcast you know is it something that is real or is it something that is just being said because you know it's the quote unquote right thing to say professionally but the energy is quite different and if the energy is quite different then there is a dissonance and this is exactly like in the music world where if i come on and i say one thing but my arms in my face do another thing then what happens is the music just doesn't come out so the performance either with your team in your office or on stage it reflects that automatically and what is the biggest lesson you've learned about that presence when you're on the podium well i think the biggest lesson is that presence starts from within so you have to take the time to work on your internal conflicts and your internal you know thoughts and vision and everything before you even think about you know going up on on stage and trying to transmit that to your players so this is an internal work as much as it is an external work you have to really be fantastic at both now i think we've all been in those meetings where something just feels a bit off you know you can't put your finger on it but you know that that lead it isn't connecting with their team yeah and i asked ro for some examples of what happens when leaders don't get this right we'll hear those after this very shortly billion dollar moves hosted by sarah chen spellings is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals joint venture catalyst and strategist sarah chen spellings as she asked the hard questions and learned through the triumphs failures and her lessons of the creme to the cr so youtube can make billion dollar moves venture in business and in life maybe start with episode a hundred and twenty four we even gonna hear our industry giants from to youtube define leadership listen to billion dollar moves wherever you get your podcasts welcome back let's go and hear some examples of when leaders get non communication wrong as well as does all this work over things like zoom there are so many so many examples one one executive i was working with he was a very very technical person he was fantastic at anything you know coding things like that you know a real cto kind of die and he would come to basically address the you know everyone in in the company you know to give this update on how the the development is going and things like that so what you would see is that he would be speaking and saying all these really great things usually you know we're making progress and everything is fine and everything and but you know that there were just words because he would not look you know his employers in the i and tell on these things he was just glance at the home so bit by bitch it was astounding to see you know each each team member would look at their friend you know the one sitting next to them and and say okay so weird you know like what is he saying and why and have so many questions and he's not giving us you know the space for answers for example or i don't really get what he's saying and so they wouldn't even speak out loud because they felt that it's not you know there is such a such a place that they just give up they just give up so he would do that he would do these little meetings every single week and each week it had you know it was worse and worse because the team members just knew that something was off and as a leader can you see that in in your team if something's off if their nonverbal isn't matching maybe the the the mood that you're trying the virus trying to set the message trying to get across is that also a signal for leaders to to maybe adapt oh for sure because i think you know before things actually happen before people leave before people tell you that they are having a hard time you you can see that in their body language before anything else so what is super important to look for is that if you're speaking to your team and they're not making so much eye contact with you or they are smiling but their eyes aren't or they are you know sitting with their body just like with this type of angle that they are not exactly facing you they are not their body is an open to receive your message or if you see them gl at one another so all these and and a few more you know cues are really important to to notice because these are the points that you are missing and if you're missing these you know the next step will be much more difficult to to repair and is it still possible do you think to read these queues over during as you say so many meetings now happen particularly large organizational meetings how can lead maybe look out for those signs when when doing this virtually well of course it's so much more difficult if you're doing things virtually it's a whole other ball game of course but what you can do is there are a few things first of all that you know all cameras should be open always all cameras should be open and you know i would give time to each member and to ask their opinion specifically not just ask you know a like an open question does anyone have any questions does anyone have any you know feedback but really ask them one by once so let me hear your opinion i see that you're quiet so really bring them out to to hear their opinion their true opinion so this of course doesn't happen in you know in an instant it happens over time and it's more of you know maintaining this culture of trust and openness that would allow them to actually you know say what they think but it's even more important on zoom because you don't get to see exactly what's going on and it is the habit that you you know like a skill you need to master when you're speaking to a team on zoom to see their facial expressions on zoom which is quite more difficult of course i'm really get back to to the leaders again and and what they can do in terms of of non verbal communication and i'm specifically in person when they have those those moments what can later do to show more presence in meetings i mean you have to do two two things basically to come in when you are not distracted or if you are distracted because things are going on you can say i'm so sorry i'm distracted today because you know x y z whatever but to really put it there you know in the open air and tell them i'm sorry i'm not as engaged today i have so many things going on i wanna get through this meeting and hear your thoughts but keep in mind that i'm having this insane day of of many different tasks that i have to get to so then immediately they they are with you they are you know they understand what you're going through so sharing a bit of of that is really really crucial and on the other hand being super respectful of their time of their talent so for example if you have a meeting of a a certain subject you you know you come at the hour that you're supposed to come and you finish you're not just dragging on the meeting because you know you're not afraid of of you're not awesome of making that decision so all these things that show them that you respect their time and the other thing that you can do is you know when people are sitting across from you and you see one or two that speak up much more than the others then really take a minute to say okay so let's say john i see that you're not speaking so much today i see that you're quite quiet is there anything that you're concerned about is there anything that you want me to know i would love to hear your opinion so i think i think what we're lacking today and this is something that you know we have to get a move on because ai is taking you know so many abilities from the workplace but what it's not going to take is these software as i call them power skills you know of really understanding one another really connecting and motivating the the people that you work with that emotional regulation is such a key part of it isn't it and i think something that really does show through when it's not be regular that nonverbal verbal you know whether it'd be like squeezing of the fist i actually sat in one meeting once where a leader being challenged and they stretch back and beat their chest with their fist it was it was yeah quite wow so i think in in terms of that are there certain emotions that you think have you seen that as well that comes through in non verbal communications what what have you seen that that has maybe been that tell that a lady isn't regulating their immersion so well i think it happens more often than we think i think that you know most people unfortunately do not have the time or did not take the time beforehand to really understand what ticks them off you know and what they can do about it and how it actually you know how it impacts their leadership you know because what happens is people just think okay so i know the job i know i'm a master at you know technical skills for net financial skills it doesn't matter what but basically in order to lead people especially at a higher level you have to maintain that level of of you know emotional intelligence so there are so many things that i've seen happen basically i think it depends people get really stressed and then for example they start speaking really quickly and you know doing so many things and just saying their thoughts without thinking about the consequences so that leads sometimes for example to saying things to your employees or being angry with them in a way that you didn't wanna do so that really breaks the bond or the trust that you have been able to create so that is one thing you know the lashing out is something that people experience that really really ruins their relationship in in the workplace but so many other things so many other things you know it can be just this little frown and sensitive people we pick up on that immediately you know so no one says anything and that's even worse sometimes because you just have a disconnection that doesn't go away you're not sure what will happen next if they will get angry or upset or can even you know suggest your ideas or your you know your thought process of your innovations and the company loses immediately and i said progress as is a as a conductor that's absolutely vital isn't it i'm imagining i'm i'm you know as a general conductor i'm not say that you done this very but i guess you know if somebody in the makes a mistake that might be but if that then starts to impact your handling and how quickly they're going or how high they were up and there they're going that's gonna directly impact actually what the orchestra is gonna give you back isn't it so if you give them frustration there in a way gonna give you frustration back so like this isn't script that yes exactly exactly you've got it spot on because it's such a reactive you know environment so whenever i give i transmit you know my vision and something happens it is so crucial to be respectful of the people that i work with and just tell it like it is correct on the spot which is something that i i do recommend for for the corporate world to really embrace correction on the spot saves you time in ways that no you know a weekly meeting would do or an email nothing like that so if you see a mistake being made of course it's different when you are on stage with a hundred people and when you have your team spread around the world yeah of course but try to acknowledge things rapidly because for me when when i'm on stage and something happens and you know for example the violin section makes a mistake so i just stop immediately or even sometimes i don't even stop i just call it out and continue conducting i tell him bar fifty eight my ga here or bar fifty two you need to or this was a out of two or not in tune enough for things like that and if i see that they nod while playing and this is what we do constantly because we just don't have time it's it's an an insane time frame then i know that they have it done you know they really understand what i wanna do but if they don't i say okay let's stop for a minute and tell them exactly what's not working correct hear them play and then continue so immediately i love our phrase correction on the spot but here's what i'm thinking there if i'm having a pretty bad day and someone makes a mistake my immediate response probably isn't gonna be super zen is it exactly and that is the entire point you really can't fake this stuff if internally you're a bit of a mess that's gonna show up in how you handle these moments as a leader it starts from with you it starts within and managing any conflicts first are there any tools or techniques that you'd recommend or have used to help leaders do that because it sounds it sounds quite simple equally difficult to you know figure out who i am and and what kind of lead do i want to be where does one start wow that is a huge question of course and we don't have you know like the entire map for for you know doing that because it's a it's a life's work what i suggest well there are few things i suggest but the the first one would be to to master your own emotions to master your own emotions to know what triggers you possibly why but that's not even the point when you're working with people they are going to trigger you they are going to upset you you are going to get you know frustrated or even angry at at a certain time so mastering your your emotions as a leader is something that is so so crucial it's it's above anything else and once you have that and of course you can do that through therapy through coaching through different mind mindset exercises or any types of you know of theory that that works for you or practice that works for you but it's all about you know if something happens you have to stay calm you have to stay collected otherwise the the people that you're supposed to lead they are immediately going to see that you're off and if you're off they lose all you know all certainty all you know the the strategy or the feeling of being safe in in that place okay there's a challenge but we have this person we have our you know our our leader here that will ultimately get us through the situation in terms of you say these lead leadership behaviors in and the ways that they can communicate can this be trained some people just better nonverbal than others as some people just naturally have better eye contact or hold their posh in a way that that provides authority or can people learn to do that better oh for sure some people have it you know naturally they are better communicators they are they have it easier socially sometimes to to engage with other people and others might be a bit more insecure withdrawn or even just you know introverts it's fine it it's it's all fine i mean i'm i'm an introvert expert myself i have both sides so i totally get it but these are all skills that you can learn for sure and it's just like in music i i always say in the years that i've been teaching which i i don't do so much right now but i've taught for for a few years and i always say you know you can always improve so if someone comes to you with you know this type of talent you can always improve that and if they come with a you know a higher higher ability you can prove on that as well so that goes for you as a leader and these are skills that you can master and it also goes for your team i mean this is a point that i have to connect because it also goes for your team so you get these team members that are fantastic but they might you know be great at one thing and not so great at another so you have to work with what you've got and continue to improve you know with what you have and wondering is do you have any favorites either like good examples of presents or or maybe for a key or what not to do well i have quite quite a few i think it it depends on what you want to achieve i do really enjoy for example steve bartlett quiet presence you know when he's interviewing he has that really really centered grounded presence that he knows who he is what he brings to the world why he's doing what he's doing and that is also something to really you know focus on why am i doing what i'm doing you know so that can be one example if i see you know people that go up on stage and have this really vibrant vibe to them that something that i personally really enjoy so when i go up on stage and have to speak in front of you know a hundred thousands of people i try to you know bring that sense to elevate this feeling of you know bubbly and really that that excitement so it transmits to my audience and this is something that i actually do as a conductor as well because nervous between you know before we rehearsal before a concert we one of the key things that i work on and i teach the executives i work with is to convert nervous into excitement because our brain you know registers both in the same area so when we are excited about something it's a whole different ballgame so for each thing that you know each mission or each task or each event that i have i try to think okay what type of person what type of like which side of me do i wanna bring because we all have so many different sites what does it feel like in that moment when you're leading an orchestra and everyone is together oh this is such a such an incredible feeling i think there's nothing like it maybe maybe like we can compare it to athletes when they're you know just in those final five seconds of their base or things like that when everything really comes together it's such an exhilarating feeling that you are able to sync all these amazing talents all these are amazing people to one peak performance moment so it is it is an incredible feeling it's so it's so important to to see the context of the situation and ultimately what you want to achieve what type of feeling do you want your people to to feel when the conversation the presentation the keynote is over it all seems to come down to everything you said that as you said that preparation that intention and end that connection of of what i say what i don't say how i prepare how i show up has to be that thought thought through if you wanna have this presence an impact as a leader yes exactly it's not something you can just pull off and that goes back to what i said before that you can't be someone else so you have to dig deep within yourself to see what you want to ring to to the world and to that specific situation so for me as a conductor each piece or each movement or each even musical phrase you know i think about it beforehand i said okay what type of emotion do i want to you know my audience to feel what type of state do i want them to encounter when they leave the whole is it something profound is it something that as is you know happiness ex acceleration anything like that what do i want them to actually feel before anything else and of course it's different in music but when you're leading people and you have to have an outcome for for each each you know event or each presentation you have in specific outcome that you need to focus on so that will give you the clues to which type of person you wanna be there you know what site to ring you've given us so much to think about if there's one thing that a listener would take from this conversation what would you want today wow just one thing let's see i think that the most important thing that for me right now i would i would suggest people to really focus on is to maintain that connection that human connection that really is something real it's not an ai crafting an email it's not something that you've been told to do but you know the actual connection that inspires people to to do good things to do good things in the world that would be my my main takeaway so there you have it non verbally leadership isn't just about standing up straight or making eye contact it's about that fundamental human connection that as rory said inspires people to do good things in the world i like anything this all comes back to authenticity you can't fake this stuff because your body is always gonna tell her the truth about what's going on inside your head which brings us back to that emotional regulation piece if you're triggered or stressed or anxious your team will know before you even open your mouth the work really does start from within so here's your homework this week i want you to try one thing in your next virtual team meeting put yourself in gallery review so you can't see your own face and just watch really watch your team's faces and look for those clues that rory talked about are people really engaged or are they just politely nodding along while their bodies open to your message or are they suddenly turned away and then ask yourself what is my body language telling them right now we're back next week with this week in work on tuesday until then remember your body is always talking the question is is it saying what you think it's saying this is truth lies and work we'll see you next week

coming up this week in work is hustle culture comeback just in some slightly prettier packaging there's a new tiktok trend that looks like discipline but might actually be driving burnout so what does that mean for your team and your retention are we rewarding the wrong behaviors at work steve jobs weren't said that the most creative people don't join the navy they become pirates so why are so many organizations promoting rule followers rather than rule breakers and in the work play surgery do we need to fake it to get promoted one listener says it being calm quite and confident just isn't cutting it with her boss so we're asking is extra version still the unfair shortcut to lead ship this is truth lies and work the award winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture we are brought to you by the hopes hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals my name is leanne i'm a charge occupational psychologist my name is alan and i'm a business owner and together we help organizations but amazing workplace coaches okay we're gonna get straight into today's episode right after this very short break from our lovely sponsors hubspot inbound event twenty twenty five is bringing together the brightest minds in business ai and entrepreneurship we're talking amy polar the genie behind chat gb da mu and shawn evans from hot ones because apparently even hot source interviews can teachers about business strategy yes september the third until september the fifth in san francisco and no this isn't just another one of those conferences we pretend to take notes while secretly checking your phone this is three full days of actual insights that you can actually use to grow your business what i love about this is the focus on practical application we enjoy applied science here you're not just sitting through fluffy keynote you're getting tactical breakout sessions networking with people who are actually building things i'm learning from entrepreneurs who figured out how to thrive in this ai powered world plus come on you're in san francisco the global headquarters of let's disrupt everything and see what happens it's the perfect place to meet your next founder investor or just someone who gets why you're obsessed with optimizing your customer acquisition for head to inbound dot com forward slash register to see the range of tickets including vip options fancy thanks fancy and say trust us your future yourself will thank you for actually investing in learning something useful guess what a what we're gonna be there no we know i am a manifesting oh okay yeah we're yeah you can come and me us there think that's the reason to go to go and book your ticket today vip experience will no doubt include us i imagine they'd invite us to the vip area so go visit inbound dot com slash register to get your ticket today welcome back and it is leanne favorite time of the week it is time for the news roundup who always say something at this point stop jingle yes that's exactly right so jane was being queued what have you seen this week my love got a new words oh i love your new words heck do i guess the you were completely guessing it sure is it shocking oh no what's workshop work workshop is when you circle around your room now i to made that off just completely made that up this is good to be fair everyone else just makes it words so yeah what's you what's your new word i think we should make workshop a thing by the way we'll talk about that later we'll workshop it and yeah we'll put a pin if now we'll we'll circle back my new word locking in okay well i know exactly what this is for them well if this say that on twitter and on on the t or whatever it's called i'm i'm locking in i'm doing i'm i'm i'm committed this is what i'm doing so you know i'm gonna have a summer body so i'm locking in at work things are going well i'm locking in if i'm vibe covid coding i'm locking in that's vibe coding vibe code you know what just weird that when we're because we we we're running different online circles i thought everyone i thought everyone knew what vibe coding was pipe coating is when you basically use something like lovable or cursor or win which are applications ai driven applications which you can basically build other applications in so if you wanna build yourself a new base camp or build yourself a little mobile app that perhaps will give you beauty tips every single morning you can go on and you can vibe code it you'll give it you'll give ai a prompt and it'll build the software for you about two years anything that came out of your mouth just job understand anything that came right from work right now about two and a half weeks ago we talked about a new word locking in i think okay yeah vaguely locking in yeah no you're absolutely right are you're absolutely right yeah it's being coin hustle culture two point o i first saw it in a refinery twenty nine article which i to a publication i'm not familiar with but it was posted on my linkedin and and and i was interested so yet this is the definition apparently locking in is a trend which sees tiktok has pursued discipline cut out distractions and chase long term goals with near military focus albeit in their professional academic careers or simply their workout routines so yeah spot on now ten ten again another prize in the way la so the artist that i should say was written by jade big so jade noted that this is a pivot from the soft life trend that we see which is a bit more about self care like slow mornings and this pivot towards locking in hustle culture two point out she asked why fair question we enjoy c tea on the show you enjoy the hard questions well the big questions according to jessica big yes very nice yes that's called a loop back in podcasting carry on so this is these are some some some of the wise out so jade it was jade was don't remember big now jade spoke to some gen z's because there's a death tiktok people are they tiktok yep so they spoke to hall ja twenty two from minnesota how he's wrong i'm just love because always had twenty two after their name i always think well there's twenty one people better than you and earlier earlier adopters than you in the world so anyway carry on what because they think why did they just have the name they've they've got go home that's their age oh is it oh hall twenty two i thought that was used no do you jungle who's twenty two and from minnesota i shall just drink for my big cup of shot up there we go i'm drinking now carry on so hall said rent is up school tradition is wild and social mobility feels like it's shrinking so naturally there's its urgency especially among young people to do something about it it's not just about working it's about reclaiming power in a system that often leaves us feel powerless nicely said hall i think you have a future in politics or something then we have chloe gainer chloe gay is twenty six out in years and she's from los angeles so chloe said with the une ending uncertainty of the board economic politically and culturally i believe people are turning inward and focusing on what they can control we were talking about is just the other night just the other nine i when you finished our we don't say that mindset their habits and their goals i knew i had to change the way i was living starting with my minds and daily habits that so weird really weird really weird look just for context were i have i have what i call the lips of give shit and it's a very complicated scientific diagram if you know what a venn diagram is basically two circles with intersecting a lips in the middle and you've probably seen jokes and stuff but they're using it mass whatever and to my venn diagram like i created or milestone stone not sure said things you care about in one circle things you cut you could control in the other circle and the bit in the middle which is things you can care and the things you can control is your lips of give a shit that's all you need to worry about in your entire world we can't control who's bombing whom we can't control we yeah we can i've got a bit dark real quick emma we can't maybe just came out through the day i was like we're at war i was like what what not wrong sorry yeah karen anyway that was the point is that that yeah what you can control so if you just lock in on your on your lips or give a shit your life will be so much better follow thank you for coming from my tech to my tech but this is apparently what the gem jen z is saying about locking in they also talked about how it is maybe replacing the the soft life and then we had who do we have sami twenty three in age from london sa you said the soft life was about rest and protecting peace but i think a lot of us realize it's soft living isn't sustainable long term without some structure or achievement to it absolutely if you want a quiet life don't you wanna focus on self care but we also need purpose and meaningful work in our life it's that balance that keeps us thriving so yes absolutely you're not wrong i thought that was really team you might be thinking this is this is colbert i'm a business owner a leader or why should i care excellent question and i'm getting to a point i promise why is it matter well as we've just heard people are potentially gonna be picking up other the other side hustle to get this sense of control this sense of yeah financial freedom back on on a possibility on the table with that burnout is gonna be potentially high people could be overworked overs stretched with that as well you might get some instances of high turnover and you're the job market is a bit tricky than minute but if someone sees a higher paid job that job popping behavior that we saw just post pandemic might start again and i think finally as well it's that control aspect that's it's gonna be really important for business owners needs to be mindful of anything that you're doing in your leadership style it's gonna potentially take control away from somebody people could we add very quick play very defensive because if all this locking in is trying gain some sense of control and then as a leader you're micro managing you're demanding their back in the office and all that type of thing no autonomy rigid hours it could tip over of the edge and again we could see it as a burnout or indeed people quitting so i thought it's a really interesting trend that actually really speaks to the kind of political economic climate within at the minute and just have some real organizational impacts potentially what have you seen this week i have been reading an article about steve jobs now you might have heard of him iphone dude iphone dude exactly this this article was like steve jobs and creativity and all the buzz words that linkedin absolutely love well it was really cool article because it basically was talking about the five conventional rules that create a truly creative people break and i thought well i think myself as relatively creative so thank you very much for the vote of confidence i find some creative insults for you right so the first rule is stay in your lane and don't be a generalist second rule is playing everything in advance remember these what we're gonna break and the third one is climb the cut corporate ladder slowly and politely so i know that what sounds really boring as well so so i according to jobs the most creative people do things and even ignore specialization is famous quote was creativity is just connecting things basically the more random stuff you do the more you're gonna be able to connect dots and i know that lia and i've done this because we've had quite alright interesting and crazy life and the number of times that we come into work and we go actually do you know what do we meet a guy who was doing something totally different but we could potentially pull port that over here so that was rule number one i really i really like that i also when i was a kid my dad my dad used call me a butterfly mind and it wasn't a good thing you are a butterfly my journey it's a good thing now butter butterfly mind yeah yeah and it means that you know our butterflies go from like flower to flower to flower i used to go from idea to idea so one week i was making kite in my out of bin bags in then the next week i was making a remote controlled truck a butt all of those things i think really helps and when we come into creativity now i know i been like oh i know a little bit about a little about quite a lot of things so it's kinda like i don't know i i like that maybe like not just just fine breaking that rule the second rule brake was to plan everything in advance job said you can't connect the dots looking forward you only connecting and looking backwards and finally as the whole don't politely climb the corporate ladder he actually reportedly said be a pirate don't join the navy which sounds great till you realize that actually most jobs are the navy and pirates tend to get arrested all thrown out but that i think this point still stands is that if you think a wow just work really hard for thirty years and i when as a emotion comes off i go yeah i i kinda like how i go on that was that is that okay this is not this might have worked for your dad or your grandfather was money i old you are might work in the sixty seventies it doesn't work anymore you need to be a little bit out you live live life loudly as we talked about last week i feel like that's one of those like live life loudly laugh lots we'll get that in tapestry t shirt yeah we'll get a t shirt for next week and but yeah don't in in today's day age you need to be a bit louder you need to if you want something go out and get it each if you don't be polite and sit back and be a wall just go out there and they what am i gonna do and his point of being a pirate is if you take that to its extreme you join the navy for discipline and ranks and order a pirate does whatever the hell a pirate wants to do which is dangerous but also kinda cool because you get a patch and you you get to speak like r a yeah that's my impression of a pirate anyway i wanna be a pirate that's that's what what are your thoughts like you are a pirate you are a pirate i like the whole not planning thing i think it's one thing to have a rough plan a bit of a structure or an outcome like you said before an outcome you're working towards exactly how you're gonna get there is gonna gonna change corporate ladder year that's tricky equally you know financial stability oh can't can bring some of that but then equally we done see as we're seeing now from from the gen z about locking in and and trying to do things they can control makes sense i'm interested in the generalist listing thing right because i feel like we've spoken to a lot of experts over the last year or so that have may be given the opposite advice on that that said like you need a special you need a niche now i don't get me wrong as a generalist i feel reassured by but i don't know didn't didn't haven't me heard from people say we need to be specialist or is it now that actually it's too dangerous to be a specialist because you specialize in one thing like c sharp programming and then ai comes in and can just do it for you yeah i think reading between the lines i think this was more like the the advice was stay in w generalist and jobs wasn't saying we'll just do a little bit of everything he was saying be a bit more creative go an experiment with other things so for example you might be you might be a specialist in neuroscience like doctor henry sk that we had on ram episode eighty something you might be that but also she was really interested in other things like change management she was interested in in what happened she she did load work around mris i think which technically speaking wasn't wasn't necessarily her professionalism so i think my advice would be which to to anyone now is be known for something but also be curious about everything oh that's a quote right there is it be known for something but be curious about everything nice mike dropped moment right there hey them lee what else you did in this week i don't i don't want did i win did i win tuesday episode you wouldn't sound by the week that's for sure no i do have something else and it is really cool have a study about perfectionism and a study that asked is perfectionism causing burnout oh you know what's so weird but as you were talking about locking in one of the things i was gonna talk about was perfectionism is the is the worst thing you can do if you're locking in i was about to say that really how strange man if you had god i rolling link up really nicely would be wonder if i can go back and edit did that in yeah say it now and then we'll pop it in one of the things i'm thinking about really is but that is perfectionism is like the enemy of locking in because if you lock in and you really want perfectionism is you gonna end up burnt out i think interesting best find know if that comes up later in the episode perfect up with pop anyway what could i do does and cord burnout so i did i have posted about this on linkedin a couple of weeks ago by once to shared few more details so it's a lovely study from a singh and doctor neil pan from ami university this was published earlier this year in the international journal of indian psychology and explores basically the lived experience of perfectionism among it professionals and it did find a consistent pattern but essentially high quality work is being done at the expense of mental health and well say it again high quality work is being done at the expense of mental health and well and so you're saying the high quality work is that it's got to be there they feel like it's gonna be perfect work exactly got it right exactly and it's having an impact this is how they did the study so the research conducted in interviews with it professionals across companies like google amazon and matter all participants had at least three years of experience identified with perfection traits and reported symptoms of burnout but then using it called analysis that's why when we just analyze words and find themes and the study identified consistent trends in how perfectionism shows up and also how it wears people down so these are coming the main findings and what kind of stood out to me so perfectionism was the norm not the exception so a hundred percent of participants associated their job performance with perfectionism and often defined this as delivering error free work even if that meant long hours or missing deadlines burnout was widespread so ninety three percent reported physical symptoms like migraines and fatigue and the emotional toll of never good enough with shed across rolls and across companies there was also some tension found between productivity and performance so whilst led to high quality outputs as you'd imagine it would and unprofessional pride about eighty percent eighty seven percent said it also caused delays so overthinking the small details led to miss deadlines and increased team pressures and then from an organizational perspective mental health policy just weren't cutting through so only like forty seven percent pot participants found their company's mental health initiatives effective and many said the policy exist on paper but not in practice which is a very common thing i think and of course leaders play a pivotal role on this as well leadership can improve this situation by encouraging work life balanced man if only they did so i thought it's really interesting study particularly in the climate marine particularly with the pressure we're seeing on the tech industry it gives an interesting kind of kind of side note to to this as well just it and and also potentially the impact of these people may have psychologically or my experience psychologically if they are laid off from jobs where you know gives them a lot professional pride feeds their identity and they are very you know their perfection as well it it could be very detrimental having worked with people who have been laid off from tech giants i know this ain't anecdotally to be true and i think this study is kinda pointing to that as well so in terms of what companies can do if you employ people have any profession but people who are perfection i'm thinking probably technical things that are right you're gonna see more of that something things like accountants and things like it people where ever is gonna break something or stop it from from working things like upsetting realist take deadlines redefining performance beyond error rates that's the thing is it this organization have error rates in that you have to hit not helpful and train leaders to to bounce quality with well being and also creating systems where progress is better than perfect and thank you to an for sharing that on linkedin i will leave a link to her and the study insurance notes okay so after the break we've got our hot take because that is the way we do things around here i believe is a really good looking older gentleman on this week and then we've got the way world things weekly we up by surgery wrap up your questions to lia anton c anyway in a second billion dollar moves hosted by sarah chen spellings is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination business professionals joint venture capitalist and strategies sarah chen spellings as she asked the hard questions and learned through the triumph failures and her lessons of the creme to the cr so you too can make billion dollar moves in venture in business and in life mega start with episode a hundred and twenty four we're even gonna hear our industry giants from converting to youtube define leadership listen to billion dollar moves wherever you get your podcasts welcome back it's time for a hot shape the time of the week where we asked a workplace expert tell let us know what's grinding their gears and what they'd want to change about the world of work and this week i don't need to look very far my gas stacked right there hello to you yes that's right our guest today is my c host a elliott as you probably know a is c cofounder and c host of truth and work podcast he's also the c cofounder of oblong an organization that helps organizations build amazing workplace coaches and he's here to give his hot take his first official hot take though he often has some spicy i opinions a tell me you ready i am you nervous i am what i think some notes as well so based what was before just heard i know you did the last week you just up a wing again it was it was amazing did i knew what at my heart anyway know about me it's about you anyway a welcome to tree lies and i'm work thrilled to have you here tell me what is your hot to take well firstly thank you yan a dream come true to be on the podcast my hot take is that if you look bad on zoom calls you don't look busy you just look like you don't give a shit i'm a mess my background mess i'm all a bit flustered because i'm so important and busy exactly that's not reading as i'm so important and busy it's just reading that you i didn't care enough exactly exactly same more what the point is that you don't have to be perfect you don't have to be like we've got a studio at home and it is really nice and we've got lovely lighting and great cameras and stuff we still don't always get it right but we try we try really hard however all you need to do really if you're gonna look good on camera and sound good camera is work on three things it's it's your video is your audio in your background that's what you need to work on and none of those things require huge amounts of work to get right now just to give you the context the worst thing you can do on zoom and a lot of people do this on zoom is they'll either have the you know they'll be they have the laptop on and they're and it's looking up their nose so it's really weird or they'll have maybe on a different screen so the camera on one side they're looking at the people in the zoom call on the other on the other screens it's like well it looks like you're not even looking at the camera but all of these things are gonna give you these sort of like six or seven tips just to make yourself look and sound good on zoom there some of them will cost you money but most of them won't first of all let's start with the video first of all have your video at least so the camera is i height you wanna be ideally sort of like sort of chest to top of your head in the camera usually i i usually try and have about four fingers three or four fingers away from the top of the frame and that gives you a nice framing secondly don't have the camera so close to you the number of people we interview and i have to go you does quick favor can you just either you sit back or you move your camera back because it's they're just basically like like stop it go away go away so that's really sort of your video and in terms of your in terms of actual video equipment a webcam is good like most people have got them i think it's a logic c nine twenty which is those ones which you sit on top of your the screen most people got those they're okay but if you do have if you are in the apple ecosystem then there's something called continuity continue camera which is means that you can actually use you can plug in your iphone into your laptop if you're assuming got iphone and and and macbook and you can actually have you that your webcam can be your iphone and your iphone camera is about as good as almost any digital camera you can buy for for less than a thousand pounds i know yeah these are these are all our secrets are coming out now so that's really sort like the main thing is just just make yourself look as good as you possibly can in terms of lighting now this is a big one we had a guest on i'm not gonna name who it is had a guest on and they were sitting there and they had two windows behind them with the blinds z and they just looked really like washed out it look like they're on crime watch you know those things on crime watch where they've got they're all shadowed out that's because your camera no matter what you use your camera is looking for light that's the way it cameras work so if it sees a huge light source behind you it's going to grab all that light forget about anything in front of you so tip number one don't sit with a light source behind you like a window tip number two if you do have to do that do it that way just drop some blinds you will see it'll make a massive difference secondly if you've got a light now you've got a ring light what a lot of people do is put the ring light straight on their face they shouldn't be doing that they should be putting it against a wall or something diff diffuse off the ceiling something like that so the light bounces is off the ceiling come back down diffuse it'll make you look so so much better do the same with a floor lamp or any other kind of lamp you don't need a ring light just get a really strong bulb bounced off the ceiling and you'll look really good and that's really it for for cameras lee before i rant on any thoughts i i mean i have follow up questions i mean the point one thing that gets me right is that we're in this world of of podcasting but also our entire world works online we tend to work remotely the majority of the year our clients are remote we remote we're good at being remote some people aren't as good at being remote and and it it's surprising because we had the pandemic where everyone is remote so i guess my question is like what what's if i can only get one of them right is there one that's more important like is it getting my video where is better getting my audio where it's better getting my background is better because because you do check with every single guest that comes on the show now and you have fly the past four or five months or so to coach them through those these things so which is the most important is they're a running order believe it not it's audio right most people like you'll notice is yourself if you start start watching a youtube video and the audio is pretty good but the video is not great you'll watch it if you watch a video where the video is really good but the audio is really bad you'll click off so audio is the most important thing now well let's talk about audio then because you can go like full on knob ed like we have and get these mics and they are fabulous and they're not that expensive but two hundred quid just something maybe was say about two hundred and twenty your dollar but they have to be very close to you so yes you can do that but that's like the best of the best the next one dad is getting a shotgun mic that's on which which can sit behind your camera and it just basically directs itself right at your face and it getting picks up your sound much better again you're still talking hundred hundred and fifty quid to get a fairly decent one what i would suggest is just using airpods or or like android equivalents you know the bluetooth pods because most of them unless you're buying like the nine pound ones on west or what's the other one they have the uk unless you have those they're gonna have a pretty decent mic in them so just just sync that up to your to your computer if you have some of the if you have like some wired ones with with a microphone in it that's great too now a couple of other tips with the audio first will never ever unless it's just like a really like we have a quick call with your team or something but even then i would cancel you should make an effort never ever just have the audio coming out of your laptop and your microphone in your laptop because what happens is the audio comes out the microphone goes back sorry so comes out the speaker goes back into the microphone it's how you sound all equity and the second tip is no matter where you are try not to sit facing a hard surface like a wall because if you got a wall what'll happen is your talk it'll go into the mic whatever mic you're using it'll bounce off the wall and a quarter of a second later will go back into the mic and that's what makes you sound all luckily is when you got your you it's it's the echo is your your voice going into the mic bouncing something else can going back into the mic and is that also why sometimes when i speak to people i can hear myself that's usually because they've done the first thing they've got they've not got any they've not got any headphones anywhere so i'm queen out there speakers then it's coming back to through their mic to make i can't deal i can't can't continue to talk if i can hear myself i can't concentrate okay so sound is most important backgrounds because i remember reading some research that was about about this impressions we make on zoom and i was saying that actually we're pretty good at making positive and negative first impressions and as kind of as good as as judging them and making decisions about them over zoom as we are in face to face but there was a couple of caveats and one of them was about how backgrounds can actually provide more cues potentially about who a person is so for example i've got picture my dog in the background then you're gonna know that i love dogs or for example you might see that i'm in somewhere that is maybe very plain it might give you a sense of of potentially where i live yeah you're absolutely right lia ann i think when it comes to background there's a couple of rules first of all don't have a white background there's a lot of people who think oh well i look more professional if i've just got a white background no you look like you're prison so don't do that have something in the background and it doesn't matter if it's if it's like shows you a little bit your life like i was speaking to some guy the other day and he had a cotton in the background now we just got a newborn baby so i'm like well that's fine because it's something to talk about so have something in the background even just a plant or something but ideally is shelves or something was just and you can use that to tell people a little bit more about you the second thing is don't sit right next to your background if you it's possible and you got the space pull your desk forward about two or three feet what's that about about a meter pull it away from the background because no matter what camera you're using it's gonna be it's called depth of field it's gonna be it's gonna make it look a little bit better and also if you're right up against something it just looks a bit weird crowd it's to try and do that if you do use your iphone for that then it's got a brilliant depth of feel which means the further away from the background is the more blurry is and it looks all cool and like cinematic and how where do you stand on like the fake backgrounds don't why because because when you move like this then it it shows you if it's a fake background it's like wearing a wig on a zoom call is like why have you got a fake background what's going on in your background and i start thinking what more about why is it fake then and anyway and the people do the blur thing and that's just mean he's got better but still then there's some people who do it and it's like a library or something i'm like are you are you on the same cause that's the other person i spoke to two weeks ago who had exactly the same background no i would suggest don't do it be authentic the what some people talk about green screen and you can get these green screens that sit behind you there's so much even can attach the back of your chair like in a big circle around you yeah you can do that but if you start using zoom with an actual green screen like proper like screen physical screen then it uses a lot your computing power and so that's why you've got laptops which will overheat or you'll hear the fan spinning which will affect your audio so my advice don't just be authentic just spend a few minutes having a look at or that's sorting your background out and then before you jump in a call just make sure that there's like no dirty nick is hanging in from the window or something or make sure what like your your breakfast sitting behind you so yeah that's that's my eyes oh and finally clean your lens clean your lens for all that is wholly and good just get a little cloth and clean your camera lens because oh my god it just looked it so much better no i like i like and i think it's really good advice for anyone in a leadership role that just a lot of video cause video meetings these are things that are gonna affect how you come across your level of influence how you understood how engage your people are gonna be gonna wanna make sure that these things are all all done and particularly for anyone there who is a thought leader or wants to really you know change the world with their messages around organizational life and leadership and well being again it's gonna be much more credible if if you've kind of got got these things sorted and as i mean as a typical budget then just to get like i'm not i've not got laura of money to invest in this but i'm willing to invest a bit how much am gonna need to get a decent camera a decent microphone and some kind of something with a background okay probably less than two hundred dollars because if you've got an android then there's lots of things on android i forget i think they're called el el has got a and i forget virtual camera or something but just google just google away to connect your android to your laptop you can just use your android phones so you don't need a proper phone you've got an iphone as i said before they connect natively to mac your might your mic will be the best thing you can do and you can actually go and get funny written down i think if they're called lava valley lava mike love please tell me in the comments what it what how you actually pronounce that word but you know the ones in that you know that news readers just have yeah pin on here you can pin it on there plug it into your mic hole mike socket in your computer do that's gonna be a hundred times better and you can get those for thirty forty quid road does a really really really good one about sixty pounds r o d that's all the equipment we use here and that's it background should just be stuff you've got a home just go and move a plant that's it lovely lovely links are very affordable actually and if people wanna learn more about how to get all this stuff right out may you be engaged you because i know you've actually done some coaching around around this where do they go to book in that opportunity what i'd love to say got a fancy website but i don't just go to just go show notes you'll see ally oblong dot com on hq dot com or our fly work dot com go the same place drop me quick email i think the main thing we're just need remember is we're not about being youtubers it's about it's not about perfection is about presence there we go mike dropped moment of this of of and that's on brand from what you were doing my before yeah lovely lovely i'll thank you very much i'll leave a link all of that in the share notes fabulous okay it's now my favorite time in the week it's the world weekly workplace surgery where i put your questions to lia you know all this just tune out for ten seconds lean a chartered occupational psychologist choosing an expert and workplace culture she's here to answer your questions around work we tend to get questions from managers and from people who want to be managers or people blue just got problems at work if you've got one of those problems just send a quick email details in the show notes and we'll read it out anonymous of course and unless she tell us otherwise lee are you ready for the first question so ready so where is a great place to work remotely and feel inspired again hi leanne anne and a thank you for gl me this might be bit outside your usual questions but i know you've both worked remotely while travelling we have so i'd love your to take all i see right okay i should have read this before beforehand and i thought it was like where the house is wearing in the world hat that one i did read the other two just you read this one i've been in the same remote job for nearly five years lately i found the need of a change scenery something with nature and new people at a bit of adventure i'm thinking it's somewhere in europe asia or maybe in australia okay so you got a small area to to locations i'm not looking to completely quit or do the digital no matter thing full time we did just hoping to spend a few weeks or month somewhere that's comfortable en merchandising and remote work friendly any tips or sharing your thoughts experience will be greatly appreciated frank's this is right about street isn't it yeah it is yeah it is oh there's so many variables that we don't know when are you gonna go what time of year do you prefer warm weather cool weather mountains beach seaside that type of thing you he said nature nature come in a lot of things broadly speak king the most important thing is gonna be things like your internet isn't it and making sure you can still do do what you doing in and in our experience it's actually really surprising why you'll find some of the best internet obviously you're gonna have your kinda digital no hot so i'm talking things like prague where bali yeah i mean i guess anywhere around croatia is now got additional my visas there's lots going on there portugal portugal of course and that can be quite nice because you'll find a lot of other people that are doing what you're doing there is a risk of getting a bit lonely sometimes if you go to more obscure places so if your first time i'd recommend going to more of additional at hot or at least where are some so they're probably the main ones in your apartment they check here portugal croatia poland potentially probably the main ones that you wanna look at and and i don't remember any internet struggles in those places croatia is but hit and mess from time to time but that was on the island so yeah yeah somewhere around split is a is a cool city yes try yeah split really great beautiful coastline as well lots and lots of nature stunning if you're going for the nature yeah croatia is probably a really great shout over prague czech republic variability portugal beautiful nature but very busy so yeah cray could be a good shout but it it's quite expensive yeah if we're looking east and this is where you'll be surprised i have had some of my strongest four g internet access network thingy going on whilst i've been on a ferry in the middle of the sea somewhere in and around thailand don't understand how it works but it did thailand has got laura additional nomads i think it's a really good introduction to asia if you've never been before the food is incredible lots of different island you can go to with different vibes so when you're feeling a bit quiet in a bit like you need some you know something more going on you can go to the busier islands like chris or then you've got other the ones that are a bit quiet so land atlanta oh that's the bigger digital no one is poland go to so yeah i think thailand is a really good one don't go to bali no just don't go to don't it's not it's not good and you know what gets me alec if you're listening to this you know have friends asked me about barley and i always say didn't like it didn't vibe with it wouldn't go again they always still go and then come back and go you were so right about bali i'm like i know i know i guess maybe just have to have to see it don't go to bali australia yeah we spent some time australia and new zealand beautiful i'd probably vibe a bit more with melbourne than i did with sydney that city yeah new zealand could be a better shout again expensive but you're gonna have some beautiful beautiful countryside there so they're my general thoughts and maybe have some quick tips on equipment as well but i'll first of all what your thoughts on the case yeah i agree i think if you really like nature then eastern europe is a good play oops sorry to take my mic for review it's got that excited if you really like eastern europe is a good it's a good call so you potentially i mean if you're if if you're intrepid look at georgia that spoke we've never been a love spicy now having it well yeah i don't know how quite yeah i mean if i've seen this okay but yeah maybe don't take my advice on that do your own research but certainly look at you know bulgaria is really cool look at them greece yeah greece north north at is is a cool place so i think eastern europe is rico and also is relatively be expensive the internet is usually pretty cheap if you just want beach life for a couple of months thailand go to cola or tri not tree that's in europe what's the wanda trap trap trap yeah traps on mainland is it yeah yeah colon c we really enjoy bang is stunning and you're gonna go in there you're gonna go and buy so before you go go and buy four g router make sure it takes the sim card usually that's sixty dollars go and get a four g router and then when you get there locally this an application called sale yeah which i don't know if it works over there we use it in europe but it works over there but we just go twenty kiosks can just go and buy a data and the data is so cheap yeah it's fast fast you get at the time we were getting twenty thirty get gigabyte megabyte down and that was like seven years ago so it's gonna be so much faster now and you're just gonna get the most beautiful experience in my opinion if that's your bag if that tickle was your pickled because you can be sitting on the beach dove it the beach tree your laptop get sending you in your laptop but you can be sitting there you could go and have some lovely food you'll be in shorts and t shirt it's just go at the right time of year yeah i know what i think yeah i think tan are really good show particularly if you're looking for travel something a bit different to reset there is additional in my community there there's great internet there internal flights to really cheap so you can bubble around different islands it's not it's really also cheap to hire a driver we did that a couple of times yes but they're about the same as a flight for both of us just get a taxi to to go down to from bangkok to one of the islands it's fabulous and the of accommodation are affordable so you can stay in places they're a bit more costly backpack then you can go somewhere really nice great hack if you do go somewhere nice that includes breakfast because they have a lot of savory stuff for breakfast and breakfast usually goes on to eleven we get up early go for breakfast like seven this is when we had a bit last money also it's just just a savvy thing to do so we'd have breakfast at seven and then we'd have lunch at like coach eleven beautiful yeah agreed go to thailand okay well answered and we'd love questions like that if i'd love to say if you like that go and check out our other podcast to sideways life but don't because we haven't posted for about eight to eighteen months there's a lot of episodes there there's a lot there's just two hundred on episodes yeah so we we get a little little drunk on that one actually we no get drunk at all on this one just to be clear okay question number two do i have to fake it to get promoted i'm twenty eight and project coordination for four years but last week my manager told me i'm not leadership material because i don't speak up enough in meetings or make myself visible apparently i need to build influence the thing is i listen more than i talk i avoid drama i get on with the work and fix things before they become problems i've tried being louder for a month and it just feels fake and it feels exhausting and i don't think it's working so here's my question do i really need to become someone and not to get ahead i put the wrong intonation on that do i need to become someone i'm not to get ahead no but you might need to manage the expectations of others and and how they see you at work this is one of the most frustrating myths for me in in the workplace is the ex equal better leaders the loudest person in the room is often not the smartest so i think that is just a myth that isn't you are actually also really smart though what everyone needs an exception everyone needs an exception so i think i think yeah loudness gets you noticed but being talk isn't great leadership that's not really how how it works and introverts can absolutely lead we talked to john meet you about this when he was on the show and he was very very clear that often introverted leaders can be even more effective because they're more intros they're more reflective they're more empathetic i think he's a submit bike you know no one's ever turned to a leader and gone you're just too empathetic like don't more like that so yeah we just introverts just lead differently and that's okay but of course because we're in a system that exists already and favors extra we might just tweaks some of our behaviors occasionally so we you know we we get on and and get up so yes so i think you don't have to fake it and you're right that will be exhausting because it's all this effort going in which is hard for an inch introvert anyway but anything that is the dissonance between our behavior and how we're actually thinking and feeling inside is is gonna cause tension and and ultimately stress so i think it's really kind of looking at behaviors that guide your decisions guide your approach leadership and maybe be a bit more vocal about those with your leader so say for example you might go into them and just check him with him and i this with my my manager actually and it took him a little while to get to know me once he did he'd gets to the point where he'd tell me something again i'm gonna leave that with y calling about an hour pack call group what i'd say is if you've had a really positive conversation with a member of staff that was maybe a bit difficult maybe they had a bit of beef maybe they weren't happy with how something was being handled in the organization maybe you sat down with them you had that conversation with empathy with honesty you explained the reasoning behind the decision you gave them the why they then understood like okay i get it you've got my buy and lets me forward you might then wanna phone your my go just to put it on your radar on nothing to worry about it all but i've just had a conversation member of staff don't need to say who member of staff who thought this felt that had a conversation with them i brought them around they're now board but i just thought just want to share that with you it then can i show okay so the behaviors that that this person is acting as a leader that i thought word effective actually are all their anatomy behavior i even realize they were acting at are effective so it's almost like you need to be a bit more vocal in feeding back your approach and how that's working and i think this is maybe what what you'll feel comfortable in terms of speaking up it isn't being the loudest person in the meetings but it's maybe speaking up in terms of what's going in the on the organization and how you've handled it effectively so that can be one technique that that you can do there's also gonna be lots of organizations out there who are gonna appreciate a more introverted leader who are gonna yeah look for leaders that have the right behaviors rather than than the right talking voice we heard that from nhs christie a few weeks ago and actually in terms of that one thing that will may help is the understand the behaviors that you aren't acting and you are doing effectively and doing something like a psycho like the real world leader could help you do that so then you can understand your own behave is better so you can point them out more effectively to the to the manager at this point there's gonna be people going and this sounds like you're just telling him to do his manager's job for him yeah essentially because your manager doesn't know what she's talking about or he's talking about because they're making incorrect assumptions about what it is to be an effective leader so at this point you can have to try and educate them because it doesn't sound like they can educate themselves yeah and i probably maybe jesse if there's anyone else on your team or you can sort of team up with so maybe at the idea being that in meetings then if you've got like a partner in crime you've made and deal with then you could they can say did you know that arthur did this thing and arthur and are you being arthur can go well yeah no i did do this thing no i tell you bit more about it if you want just gives you that in rather than going yeah i did this thing which is quite awkward if you are slightly more introverted or you don't like speaking up quite so much i think all says is just be yourself be authentic and if if might be a bit of this but if if you're not being if you're not being appreciated for being yourself in this organization and you're still put putting turning in great work and pre contributing long term it might not be the organization for you but obviously don't make any rash decisions but yeah last thing you wanna do is fake it because to be honest faking it out as the take so much energy from you but also also is ina and people can spot it at mile off i mean the other thing that you could do is is ask more questions around what your mind just said about leadership material what leadership material look like in this organization what other behaviors values the outcomes that they drive it might be that you're doing that we're just in a different way so again you're gonna have to try and find a way to to vocal that in a way that's affected and uncomfortable for you but it might be worth digging into exactly what the leadership material means so you can have a better understanding of how you can reach that but in your own unique way i love it in your own skin i love it okay question number three lia anne what does purpose driven leadership really look like in practice this a great question i wanna know the answer to this question i shouldn't know answers this question everything thinking a lot about what it means to lead with purpose i was recently part of a discussion on authentic leadership nick rear need to be authentic authentically leadership and it really got me question in what actually looks like on a day to day especially in seeing your roles how do you stay aligned with your value when you got deadlines politics and commercial pressure pulling in all directions i'd love to hear your take what is leading with real intention look like leanne you you you've answered your own question it's a it's it starts with values it starts to understand exactly who you are and that sounds really cheesy but it really is a case of understanding what kind of professional am i what kind of person am i what kind of human do i wanna be how do i wanna be better and having that really deep period of reflection using coaching models to help you with that whether it be the vitals model whether it be things like there's a you know what is a quite a good size to do if if that all seems a bit abstract or you're not exactly sure what your values are is a career timeline exercise so basically right right draw a horizontal line on the left hand of the line start with your very first job even if you were fourteen and then map out every job that you've ever had through to current day then as you go through reflect on what you really liked about that job but you didn't like about that job if there was somebody there that inspired you or there's someone that really irritated you to help you get an idea of the work that was meaningful full for you the work that you enjoyed that gave you energy that you found fulfilling and and why i'm saying why it's gonna give you those clues is to what your values are who you wanna be whether you wanna be an empathetic whether wanna gonna be wildly creative whether you wanna build something really exciting that's gonna give you an idea once you have this in mind and written down it's a case of looking at your organization is gonna be critical because if your values are out of sync with the organization that you're currently working in or considering working in that's not gonna work out that leads to what we call moral burnout and it's really hard it's really tough and it you just can't last long in an organization that's fundamentally out of sync with your values you might get eighteen months out of it maybe two years depending on how well you are anything longer than that is is is where you're gonna find yourself what you say in in these places where you're being pulled in all directions if your organization aligned with your values that probably won't happen very frequently at all my kind of general advice and i think finally it's kinda thinking about where are your weaknesses where are you where do you stumble when you're stressed so for example when i'm stressed and under pressure i get very direct because i just need somebody to understand what means to be done and that somebody usually ill i'm sorry telling think i get very direct because i just i just need to communicate this as clearly is possible to make sure it it happens having that self awareness is if i'm working with somebody who is at my husband which is another conversation is it when you work your partner actually the behaviors that you would never do with another professional but if i'm in another environment i can feel that that stress started to build up i know that's gonna happen i don't wanna be an asshole i don't wanna make people feel uncomfortable or stressed or like they doesn't wrong so i know to calm myself down and have that conversation call me in terms of right can i just ask some questions to clarify what's going on and then i think once we've done that we'll be able to agree way to move forward and it's having that self awareness to adjust your behavior in those moments because i don't wanna be an asshole i wanna be a good manager and if that's one thing that you wanna be as a professional then that's something that that you're gonna kind of check yourself on and i think another one i think i heard this from louise k he was on the share brilliant brilliant career coach and she was kinda saying things like in terms of understanding your values is looking through your day and going what did i enjoy today what gave me energy what did i not enjoy what took energy away from me and if the negatives are outweigh the positives on most days then that's another indicator that your out of sync with the organization you're working in or the role that you're in so in terms of what is purpose led leadership it's intentional it's mindful it's reflective it's proactive and it's done every day in a way that you self audit yourself and over time when you find yourself in that right organization your colleagues will help you audit that behavior as well and check in that is essentially what authentic leadership is it's knowing who you are how you want to operate in the world and filing an organization that will celebrate who you are and how you operate last week we had jeff long i'm talking about kindness and he said the best manager is a flawed person so the whole this whole c whole thing seems to be around perfection right now but just don't try and be perfect don't try and get it right straight away the best managers are usually flawed to thank you for the listeners you sent in questioned this week if you have a question along any of these lines anything specific that's happening in your organization you can send us an email hello at truth lies dot com yes we'll see you next week thursday we got another interview and next tuesday another this week work and then in about three weeks time we're starting a new format for tuesdays i was slightly so done summer time so we will see you day and have a great week transcribe subscribe like do that do a review thank you bye bye this week in work is hostel culture making a comeback bit bitch oh sorry loss are we rewarding the wrong behaviors at work steve jobs once said to join the navy no we didn't this is truth lies on work where workplace culture meets science the award winning podcast i don't do this man just me to just do it

what do you picture when you hear the word kindness at work is it a boss that always checks in on your mental health or someone who lets things slide a little too often does it sound strong or soft because depending on who you us kindness sized the missing peace our organizations or the reason nobody gets anything done these days and yet even as leaders talk about psychological safety and empathy we're still seeing toxic behaviors celebrated in politics in business and in that linkedin i said what i said post so what really is the truth about kindness at work this week we're investigating what kindness means in a leadership context not just whether it works whether it's misunderstood weaponized or simply missing and this week we're joined by someone who's made this his mission jeff leblanc is lecturer at bentley university a forbes featured leadership and workplace justice and create at the engaged and complete leadership model and this is the shift we want to explore this week on truth lies and work the award winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture we are brought to you by the hopes hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals my name is leanne i'm a charter occupational psychologist my name is a i'm a business owner and will be getting right into today's episode after a very short message from our sponsors hubspot inbound event twenty twenty five is bringing together the brightest minds in business ai and entrepreneurship we're talking amy poe the genie behind chat gb da mu and sean evans from hot ones because apparently even hot source interviews can teachers about business strategy yes september the third until september the fifth in san francisco and no this isn't just another one of those conferences we pretend to take notes while secretly checking your phone this is three full days of actionable insights that you can actually use to grow your business what i love about this is the focus on practical application we enjoy applied science here you're not just sitting through fluffy keen you're getting tactical breakout sessions networking with people who are actually building things and learning from entrepreneurs who figured out how to thrive in this ai powered world plus come on you're in san francisco the global headquarters of let's disrupt everything and see what happens the perfect place to meet your next c founder investor or just someone who gets why you're obsessed with optimizing your customer acquisition for head to inbound dot com forward slash register to see the range of tickets including vip options fancy thanks fancy fancy trust us your future yourself will thank you for actually investing in learning something useful guess what a what we're gonna be there no we know i am manifesting oh okay yeah we're yeah you can come me there that's the reason to go to go and book your ticket today vip experience will no doubt include us i imagine they'd invite us to the vip area so go visit inbound dot com slash register to get your ticket today from what i've understood from what you've told me before in my research is that it is predominantly around kindness if i understood that ultimately the idea was what i was seeing from younger generations and frankly anyone not just younger generations that just happened to be where my study was focused is that i was really finding that you know that was something that was lacking which wasn't a huge shock but the idea for me was taking it a step further and really saying something you know okay kindness is is important we know being empathetic perhaps is more important than kindness and all of which is more important than what i call nice right and just standard superficial level you know nice cities and so i i would say that yes there's three three pillars but kindness is one of them and kindness is certainly what drove i would say actually i would go as far as to say kindness is what drove the entire be the the model home so to speak you said there were three pillars now i've got kindness written down number one what the other the two so the other two are structure and fairness and that's really essentially where i found that you know what i was finding and that's where i sort of draw the lot draw the difference if so to speak and i was finding that you know a lot of individuals a lot of again my studies happen to be around gen z but i really believe this is universal that a lot of people yes kindness was something they wanted kindness was something that was you know always towards the top or at least in the top five but there were other things organization was there communication was there yeah things that most of us or at least hopefully most of us would say sure that makes perfect sense so for me the idea was okay kindness is part of it kindness is a cornerstone or filler or so to speak but in order to really connect i think especially the workplace we have to have the structure we have to be able to you know help people what it is that's expected let you know the the the lines be drawn on so to speak and the rules of the game and also fairness i think people you can be someone who's nice so to speak you can be someone who's even kind but if you're not fair if you're not offering up you know a sort of i guess you could say model or leadership style that's leading with some sort of clear guidelines and clear structure and clear idea of how do i play this game that we call the is then what good is it right what what good does it really do that's my theory anyways right and i think a lot of people probably have said that before me and we'll say that after me so that's where really where the three of them come into play can you give me an example of what the difference is between nice and kind i can't and you know i have a story that i usually tell and i and i don't i've i try not to curse at least publicly but i will say that i i i think if we can if we can go there i you know i call it really the nicest asshole i ever met theory and essentially what that in my opinion is is i break it down in this way and i talk a little bit about it in in other writings and what have you but essentially there there is you know a situation where you have a let's call let's say him at this point i can specifically recall this person no names of course but this with this person who was everything that you would expect in terms of what the average person i think would call nice you know very friendly very cordial it's definitely someone who people wanted to be around you know had his favorites without doubt and those favorites were people who sort of had the inside track right which i think was certainly not a a fair way of of doing things and to me was qui quintessential nice sure nice and you know i mean really not earning anyone but to me that's i i then move on to okay well what is kind and so for me kind i've had and worked with people that were not particularly friendly i guess you might say like really some of them were a little bit cold and a little bit harsh than in the way that they handle things however i found that those people unlike the nicest asshole they were people that were and i can think of one person in particular he was very stern but you always knew exactly where you stood with him he was very clear in terms of how you could get ahead he was very fair in terms of how we treated everyone and actually he he i would take it i would say he was kind because he often would remember things he would remember if you had i remember my grandmother was ill at the time for example and he would often check in and ask about that where the nice asshole would never do that would never check in because he didn't remember those things right it was all superficial there was nothing that was you know sticking it was all just sort of smiles and you know balloons and the poodle i have no idea whatever signifies happiness but realistically we needed something more and this guy did that and but on the surface he was someone who most people would write off as i hate to say it but they didn't probably think he was the a right but he was anything but and but i think it takes empathy to be able to distinguish between the two and to be able to say okay this guy actually cares more and it's probably doing a better job leading but it's not as flashy and it's not as i guess you could say surface level right it doesn't jump out at you so that's the difference in my opinion then and you know and and of course like i said leaving some things out so you know not to identify anyone but hopefully you know the aligned of sort of what i see between the two and you can be both believe me i've known plenty of people who are incredibly i'm sure you have as well incredibly kind and also incredibly good at what they do very structured very fair all those things and that's hitting the jackpot right but i think just drawing the line between the two helps people sort of think a little bit more about it and maybe analyze it a little bit more you know and i don't know if one's i mean i think one's better than the other but i suppose someone who's nice in the workplace in not exactly leading you know with structure or fairness or whatever that may be it's better than being rude and insulting when you were describing that kind of person it was a little bit stern it reminded me very much of my grandparents who were born i think probably just before the nineteen hundreds maybe just after and they were you just did not cross them but they always looked after you and they always made sure that you had at least have chips on a on a friday night well i think that's one version right i think that that i love that example of the you know of the the older and i think that that sometimes you know this is a whole other topic that sometimes it is older generations that are you know more set in in that model so to speak however you wanna look at it and they they are a little bit stern but i think that you know i don't i i don't i i don't want to send the message that and my thought process is that everybody is like that i mean there are plenty of that that's what i would call an extreme version you know there are plenty of people who are also very cordial and very very open and happen to meet all those criteria that i would consider you know in this model so to speak right and then engaged empathy you know model that would fit that but i guess what for me you know the differences is really trying to and i would i would you know mentions to students and i even do this myself you know really trying to give the person a shot think that's where the whole empathy idea really is you know started with me you know it's that you know sort of starting to connect with i can remember it's far back is you know from the boston and area so we have our own fair share of characters who we'll leave it at that and i can remember you know as a as a child you know certainly coming about people who were they it it's it's very hard to sort of put towards similar to your grandparents i would say you know they were a type that would you know if you were if you needed their help they they might help you right and they they'd be there for you but they might insult you while they're doing it right because you screwed up or you made a mistake or whatever it might be so i guess that sort of made me more open to the idea of going a step further and accepting that you know taking a look at what it really means to be kind and to me there's a there is just that distinct difference and you just you know when you know and and the more i think where empathy comes in is the more that you put yourself in their shoes and think about it from their perspective you start to realize that you know maybe this person is just built differently you know and they're not the mister rogers type but they that doesn't mean they're not friendly you know i mean you can be a friendly beast right and a a kind beast so far are are examples of yours and mine of someone who is kind who fits the kindness template we're talking about you mean people in authority so is it if is it just leaders managers that that that need to be kind or do we all need to be a bit kind for me my immediate gut reaction is yes we absolutely need to be what i would call kinder i don't think i'm not in the business of telling people that they need to be nicer right i don't if if i mean look it would be you i i think that life is easier when you're a little bit more pleasant right a smile here away there that sort of thing and that happens you know some people are comfortable with that some people aren't but i i also don't think that that's make or break right i think that for me the the taking a step back and being kind yes because let's say that now we're the employee and we're working for someone like we've both talked about right that stern sort of you know not exactly what people would automatically label nice right but we need to how are we where if if we don't give them the time of day so to speak and how are we ever going to get to know what they actually may like right and that's there's been one of the my favorite things that i always think about is i had a teacher in high school and there were also sorts of rumors about her because she was a a very strict person and a person who was a bit strange which is not uncommon in these parts but but ultimately she was someone who she she would she she she really was a decent person and it was only students like myself and a few other people that would stay after for extra help and what have you that would get to know that right and could really say you know she's not drinking river water and you know living in in a camper and all these rumors that were started about her she not if there's anything wrong with doing those things to anyone in the audience i'm not saying there is but but but the idea was you know we took the time me and you know and other students to really sort of see that person and so i think that i would argue younger generations or sometimes a little bit more willing to do that and that's one of the things noticed with with gen z and working with them but but yeah i think that's a you know a long we did way of saying i think we do i think we have to be willing to recognize and give someone a chance you know and not just write them off because they don't fit the standard idea in our head at what a kind or nice person is and i think we all have that i think i don't you know i don't know if it's universal globally but especially here in the us and mean we have that image think i mentioned mister rogers earlier and the different people that were sort of shown you know they growing up that fit that ideal mold but not everybody can fit that and that doesn't mean that they're not kind so that's where i get empathy right but yourself in their shoes easier to do when you're older i think than when you're a teenager and spreading rumors about your teacher but nevertheless so far we've challenged the way we think about kindness not as soft but as structured it's not about being like for being trusted and we heard jeff reframe kindness is a leadership choice one reading consistency fairness and systems that actually support people not just words on a poster but jeff doesn't just stop there he doesn't just think about kindness he's actually built an entire model around kindness at work it's called the engaged empathy leadership model and the power is in its structure now from what understood from what you're saying is that the structure and the fairness is what balances out the kindness to make sure that everything or you become just the best leader or the best person in the workplace but talk to me about those two parts of the of of the puzzle what what do i miss misunderstanding there well i think they're very connected and i think the to sort of explain it i i can just sort of go back to how it started and and i i was studying you know like working and studying with gen z and sort of figuring out what they wanted in the workplace you know i wrote my instrumentation sort of on that and you know what they wanted from a lee and what leaders thought that that generation wanted in the workplace and one thing that i was repeatedly finding was that while something like kindness and was coming up there were other factors and the factors were often the idea of organization structure got thrown around there but a lot of the times you knows you know like organized or knows what they're doing you know that sort of thing very clear all sorts of of of of phrases and and then of course the fairness element the element that they you know that that was repeatedly coming up sort of something along transparency you know honest to double sorts of that eye i sort of could group and i felt sort of in the fairness and so for me essentially i took it on you know and and expanded it you know and basically said that you know i felt that this was much more than just a younger generation thing although i do think that it's very helpful with leading younger generations because i think that again that kindness is something that's that's important but i think it goes a step further they're very good i i think younger generations are better and maybe it's because the media that we were referencing at sort of recognizing the you know the false nice right like you can be that sort of nice nice person but a lot of them that i see it all the time you know the students they sort of can see through that and i think people are getting better at that in general but so for me these two elements really help also say to the skeptics and i talk about this in my book that you know we're not again we're not ordering standards the idea is to provide you know this level of kindness this level of event but empathy but also balance it with so that we take it a step further and we make sure that we're holding our standards for where we want them to be so for clarity you know for for fairness you know that's i think clarity comes into play i think the idea that you know we see a lot of people get hired for positions and have really no sense of what it takes to be promoted or what it takes to receive a raise and so i often you know talk a little bit about you know the clarity check ins and sort of a clarity check the way that i see it is you know simply having a conversation with your employee and sort of seeing if we're all on the same page you know you do you know sort of an and and ultimately the goal would be to sort of lead with this right to start with you know right from the beginning with your job postings you know it starts in human resources i would say but that's really you know this is you know do i feel like i'm being treated fair and with the structure you know i really do believe that structure is one of the things this is the one that most people actually respond to the most you know the idea of having and it and it does tie into fairness but it's a little bit more in terms of you know basically being very clear from the beginning i know that of of one company that know i spoke to they were losing people and one of the issues was they they had no idea the employees when i would talk to them what sort of in this sort of ties into fairness too but it was more structure they had no idea sort of what the policy was in terms of again going back to promotion they had no idea of senior majority was valued they had had no idea if there were like checkpoints points in terms of how they could you know move beyond the that next step or even how they would be evaluated there was no structure in terms of how they were sort of being evaluated and so they felt that even though they liked everyone they worked with with and they liked their boss they felt that they had no clue where their future was heading because there was no guidance in terms of you know what what was you know where am i going and so i think that i would argue the structure and fairness keeps people it's sort of going back to that nice verse kind the structure the structure and fairness allows people to really think about you know how do i look as an employer i come off you know having high standards but being you know a kind person an empathetic person and then the the from the an employee perspective you know i think it helps them sort of feel like okay this person's being kind it nice to me but again going back to the nice first kind they're actually giving me guidance they're giving me the the instruction the structure they're being fair they're telling me upfront senior security matters they're telling me upfront you know how many clients i bring in matters or whatever it might be right whatever the criteria is and so i know that it's on surface level so i just think that it tough it up i think it strengthens up the the kindness and it adds layers to so now we understand what kindness can look like after the break we'll ask what happens when it gets misunderstood understood or gets in the way of power billion dollar moves hosted by sarah chen spellings is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals joint venture capitalist and strategist sarah chen spellings as she asked the hard questions and learned through the triumphs failures and hard lessons of the creme to the cr so youtube can make billion dollar moves in venture in business and in life mega start with episode hundred and twenty four we're even gonna hear our industry giants from cam to youtube define leadership listen to billion dollar moves wherever you get your podcast now let's talk about power for a second because whether it's elon musk or gordon ramsay society seems to admire a very strong leader so can kindness really coexist with power i don't think any conversation about leadership and kindness would be complete without mentioning now i i i don't know whether to be politically or not but there there your president the without talking politically but some of the things that we see in the uk that reported about him making him sound like he's not a particularly kind person now regardless whether that's case or not that's the perception now we'll let's go a little more politically agnostic and that's talk about steve jobs extraordinary visionary amazing amazing company by all accounts he was an asshole so but these people are the world people people remember like oh you're the next steve jobs who wants to be like that but people do so what am i missing about this why are we lord these people who possibly were on kind in real life well i think that usually i think history you know a lot of the times remembers people like the steve jobs for what they accomplished right and i do believe that i'm not of the the the mind that someone can't be in incredibly you know like a steve jobs incredibly brilliant and incredibly visionary and also not be a you know very problematic difficult person i think that that that can happen and you know again i i would say that for me you know i'm not in a position model it wouldn't happen now anyways but i'm not in a position to give advice to a steve jobs you know i mean obviously he's doing what he's doing and that's you know peaceful and that was his goal and he made it work but for me the everyday sort of individuals that i'm talking to you know they're not necessarily leading in the same way and doing things the same way and i don't think that they necessarily you know what i who i would like to speak to is the people that were working for steve jobs at the time how were they viewing him were they letting him get away with it because he was and i don't know i only know so much about his story you know i i would like to speak to them you know how were they feel were they okay with it because they felt that they were on they bought in because you know he was doing something so you know visionary that very well could be the case so far we've explored how kindness when paired with consistency and structure can drive trust retention and performance but let's be honest not everyone's on board some leaders hear kindness and flinch they see it soft slow or simply incompatible with high performance when kindness goes wrong when it's vague or inconsistent or used to avoid conflict it can actually do more harm than good so let's take a look at the back let's take a look at the risks and how power really works when kindness is done right i think one of the pushback that someone hearing this for the first time would have is yes but if i'm kind as a leader or kind as you know as subordinate to everyone else in my workplace am i just not gonna get tram and heard that nice guys come last yep and i and and and i've had that happen i you know in terms of when i worked with a the big example i always give i worked with a interviewed and spoke with you know someone who was by i guess i would call you know more of a a blue call or background you know more you know the trade that area you know and he was someone that was very concerned loved loved the other elements of the model the kindness was the one that was the biggest concern you know and i and my thought was again same thing you know this was a guy that i i think that i mean i didn't know him well but just from speaking to him he seemed like somebody that you know naturally had kids had grandchildren seem to speak highly of them when you know when you just didn't when we were discussing and talking you could tell that to me seemed like a perfectly decent guy so i just saw no reason why that couldn't be brought in and you i remember saying to him and he said the exact same thing used he actually said part of the accent but you know will will this be weird or weird you know will they think i'm weird and and the reality is is that like i said no you know and even if they do who cares because ultimately you're setting the standard and and the idea for him was look i said you're not you don't have to type of guy that you're you're going to yell be overly friendly and all these sorts of things that would come off stride i really do think that would come off may strange but i said what about little things you know i said what about sort of keeping track of you know which one of the guys on the on the you know your team likes a certain you know sport right or likes a certain sports team and you know sort of connecting with them in that way you know or how about just remembering when and even if you have to make a note for handy and his memory wasn't great so he would sort of make a note like if one of the people that he worked for had you know at a child that was sick right or had a family member that was sick or things like that i said you know how about making a note and then just remember and because i'm because you have a lot going on so you can't remember every little thing how about making little notes so you just send a quick email or send them a quick text you know asking how how things are going with you know they're there's you know they're their six son or you know whatever av and in some instances made a big difference you know and i guess for for him you know and this might be a generator i think this was a generational thing he you know just never really thought of that as something that was even maybe appropriate you know like it just never dawned on him but it made sense when he did it and he started doing it and things started looking different i think it's incredibly hard to be truly kind so if we can reframe it and we can start making people think that you know kindness is a good thing is a strength makes you makes you strong than that i think goes a long way with the mindset of people and i'm not saying that it it's you know that that's necessarily what it should be but i think that that's part of it you know i think people see i mean let's i mean people see kindness is sometimes as a weakness i mean they still do let's face it and so if we can tough up the image you know then i think we can sort of get better reactions for people well let's stick with the idea because if i wanted to be kind as a manager then i might say oh i'll take on this dis disperse struggling bit this week so i'll do a bit of their work for them and surprise them and say great you know i've been really kind but then do i not run the risk of someone going well if i just don't do all my work then now is gonna pick it up for me and that's really where the structure and and the fairness can come in and so in that situation you know i think that it would be perfectly acceptable you know for i think you said you know you were the lead are right and you're sort of picking up the slack for perhaps someone who's going through a tough time i think that it would be you know perfectly acceptable to sort of in the beginning right before you know sort of when someone comes in to work when you're sort of on onboarding right when you're sort of to sort of have a culture that sort of sets these things up so to speak right and sets them it's to ocean and so in other words if that employee sort of is accustomed to this sort of thing and comes into a workplace where you know the idea of helping someone out if they're having a tough time you know and then they might then in turn you know have to do that at some point you know it's sort of laid out very clear that you know this is part of our culture or we help each other but at the same time you know we realize that however you wanna frame it right that you know this is not something that you know that becomes consistent or however you wanna look at it right and then hopefully then that individual will sort of appreciate that and sort of pay it back right and then sort of go ahead and offer up their time and what happened if not and if they do start taking advantage then i would say that it's someone that sort of has missed the boat altogether you know and they might not be a right fit for a company that's leading with that so in this final part of the episode we're gonna pull everything together what kind of mindset shift is kindness really demand from leaders these days and what does it look like when it's applied clearly consistently and most importantly with intent let's imagine we can build the world's best boss so we're gonna use your framework to build world's best bosses he or she is equally kind equally fair and and equally has structure in place explain to me what that would look like as an employee so i think the world's best boss is someone who is first and foremost flawed and i think they're flawed and they accept that and i think that's a huge thing that needs to be sort of put out right at the beginning because i don't think that you can use this model if you don't accept right that because i think the kindness factor right there if you can accept that you're going to miss things and that you're not going to be perfect because i don't think you can relate to people i don't think you can be empathetic if you don't accept that you use yourself are not perfect so that's the first thing that i would stick that sticks out but i think that if i'm running if i'm picturing the perfect boss running the workplace it starts of course even beyond the hiring process it starts with the recruiting right and it starts with my mission in my vision i wanna run this workplace i am fully bought in i want this to be a workplace that people stay they're comfortable or you know whatever it is that i want i have a very clear set out i know what i want right i think that's absolutely crucial but if you don't know then how are you supposed to lead other people right i think that's possible and it can change i'm not saying it can't evolve i'm just saying at the beginning and i think letting people come in you know looking at each one the structure and fairness is a little bit i think easier actually it's not that hard right providing having outlines having very clear guidelines so people sort of know what to expect know where they stand a lot of workplaces are just so scattered right the average workplace versus what i think would be the perfect workplace or the the ideal so to speak i think the idea is to take and you know have those guidelines in place really know when you're hiring for people you know for for for physicians excuse me really make sure that you are being clear right about what it is you expect if you want a certain skill right if you want a certain you know degree or a certain amount of experience just being very clear with that right i i almost would like to see the preferred skills you know sort of go away it's like either the skill is either desire or it isn't right and then maybe you can adapt as needed it but but ultimately being very clear right from about from the perspective from the hiring process and again through orientation and all these things and running a very you know people know where they stand right and and and trying to level have that that level playing field i think that's actually the easier part i think if you put the time in the effort in that could be easy but this perfect boss to me is someone who does all of that so they have that ahead of they have they're ahead of the game right because they they know that they're going to be as fair as they can be they're gonna be very transparent and honest about what it looks like and how we can advance in this workplace but they take it a step further and they actively try to be kind and like i said they don't have to be nice they don't have to be you know some people don't you know some people don't necessarily i don't think wanna work for someone that you know hangs around and you know tries to make small talk all day and you know ask what they do in the weekend and all that that's not that's not appealing to everyone so that's that's what i would call nice kind i mean i i think like i said is the idea of as the perfect employee you know he or she is someone who is making an effort to understand that everyone that comes through that door is human has a lot going on has a lot of different perspectives has a lot of background and sort of accepting that that doesn't mean you have to take to them it doesn't mean you have to change what it is that that you have put in place but this perfectly leader understands they listen right they communicate they remember things i really am among a big for me i am a big supporter of the idea of trying to remember right small things i hear you know a lot about bosses that remember like i mentioned before something as simple as it used to be birthdays but i feel like even now we can be work anniversaries or if you know you know i i i i worked with someone who knew that a particular person they had had a tragedy happen in i believe it was like the month of august a year prior and this boss i thought it was one of the best stories this boss remembered that and they told the they they were they remembered and they were i remember them telling me you know he was unsure exactly how to handle it right but ultimately it was more of a you know taking a moment in passing to that person and sort of saying you know i know that this month you know could potentially be you know i remember you know i hope everything's going well and like just we're here for you you know something like that and that does take vulnerability i think from a from an employer perspective and again it takes the culture that you build because if you do that and you've built a culture that that's not a norm your employee might not might not react what you want them to so again going back to day one and creating this atmosphere where these things are not only expected but embraced you know i think that's really a a huge part of what i would call the ideal boss listening listening is you know listening gang attention and realizing they're not just cogs in the machine right they're not cogs with the degree so if kindness isn't weakness and it's not avoidance what is it really because it's one thing to say that kindness matters it's another to turn it into action especially when things are tough in other words kindness isn't about who you are it's about what you choose to do so maybe the real question isn't where the kindness fits into leadership it's where the leadership without kindness can still work if someone wants to know a little bit more about the engage with empathy leadership model then where's the best place for them to go jeff well they can go to jeff blank dba b a dot com and learn a little bit about that and they can also always follow me on linkedin and they can also probably do some there's quite a few articles out there that i've you know written and there will be by late summer i believe it's late summer early fall we're have hopefully a pre link for this pre order up soon but the bulk that you know will go into a lot more detail that if we're up to me you know i i'd give out to for free but you know i've been told that's not how business works so apparently you know that's that's not something i'm able to do but i am going to hopefully you know people will read it and respond to it and and and and find something we can take away from it even if it's one thing done right kindness doesn't get in the way of performance kindness is performance because in the end kindness at work isn't about being liked it's about being clear being fair and showing up even when that's hard that's how a truss is built that's how culture changes one kind decision at a time this is truth lies work we'll see you next week

coming up this week in work what do you do when your team has gone all past aggressive but it's all happening online from ir roll emojis to snarky emails did tool communication is changing how conflict shows up at work so how should the leaders handle it and our hot take this week is from someone you know very very well when the leading psychologist in her field and also set the c host of you choose lies and work podcast yes is that very old leanne for the first time ever hot take and in the workplace surgery what do you do if you're managing somebody difficult what if they even told you to do the work yourself we discuss how to balance being a great boss without being taken for a mug this is true lies and work the award winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals my name is leanne i'm a charter occupational psychology psychologist and my name is a and i'm a business owner and together we help organizations build amazing workplace sculptures so let's get in today's episode right after this quick word from our sponsors hope spots inbound event twenty twenty five is bringing together the brightest minds in business ai and entrepreneurship we're talking amy poe the genie behind chat gp da mu and shawn evans from hot ones because apparently even hot source interviews can us about business strategy yes september third until september the fifth in san francisco and no this isn't just another one of those conferences we pretend to take notes while secretly could checking your phone this is three full days of actionable insights that you can actually use to grow your business what i love about this is the focus on practical application we enjoy applied science here you're not just sitting through fluffy keynote you're getting tactical breakout sessions networking with people who are actually building things and learning from entrepreneurs who figured out how to thrive in this ai powered world plus come on you're in san francisco the global headquarters of let's disrupt everything and see what happens the perfect place to meet your next c founder investor or just someone who gets why you're obsessed with optimizing your customer acquisition for head to inbound dot com forward slash register to see the range of tickets including vip options fancy fancy fancy fancy trust us your future yourself will thank you for actually investing in learning something useful guess what out what we're gonna be there no we not i am manifesting oh okay yeah we're yeah you can come and me us there day but that's the reason to to go and book your ticket today vip experience will no doubt include us i'd imagine they'd invite the vip area so going visit the inbound dot com slash register to get your ticket today welcome back right okay so you know our continuing drama we're now in bulgaria regulators know that we live in house governor we're near near master we're now in bulgaria we're here for about eight weeks it's beautiful place but taking our studio on the road has been a little challenging so if i here some maybe a bit of an echo or something it's just not the that we're not in our studio is what we're saying or it probably dog in the background yes well yeah it's just yes of your spending your somewhere else maybe your working on the road as well let us know get in touch all the links are as always are in the s notes but enough of that yes diana enough of that it is your favorite time of the week it is what was toward time is it italy it is time for the news murder kidding jim was be beautiful hello i did remember to bring it i did oh that's good that's good you managed to pack in time solely what have you seen this week i have any words yes go digital instability do i have a guess yes in instability well you always talk about civility in the workplace there that's basically just being civil being nice not being asshole so digital civility would be someone who's being a bit of a knob over digital means so like slack or something yeah yeah on ten point stinging excellent get a prize what my prize i will find some sort of sweet treat oh could get an apple yeah anyway apple actually hi my smith tell me more about this digital inc instability so yes digital inc instability it means subtle rude or respect that happens through digital channels or things like emails messages slack video calls that type of thing and it goes against the basic norms of mutual respect at work that's the definition we're not talking full blown bullying it's quieter stuff you know the stuff you were just talk about last week like the eight ways to sell tell someone to do one yes so it is those things like as per my last email or just messages being ignore i on zoom bet i think was one that we had have an example of someone from our youtube channel on the youtube go in touch with a jen z kind of pet peeve so yes that is cyber ins instability so i came across this in a post by occupational psychologist nicole williams who like nicole we love nicole we love nicole so she was referencing a new systematic review by j and pac twenty twenty five so hot off the press and i thought she described it really perfectly she said it's not the avert stuff but those little moments that stick with people silence it feels cold a message that lands a bit too blunt video called body language that makes you second guess yourself so yeah she shared this study and it's a really interesting piece of research so the review looked at thirty one studies the results of all of those and then drew some conclusions from it and found that cyber instability is especially common perhaps unsurprisingly in remote and hybrid teams and it's doing real damage so it's been linked to emotional exhaustion and burnout hormone motivation and performance higher staff turnover and even physical symptoms like sleep disruption and stress related illness i'm right this gonna you're probably gonna kick me gonna get canceled for this but i'm like if someone just says that's suppose my last email and you are suffering from sleep deprivation or stress i'm might maybe you need to have more important things in your life i don't know to teach free school me see that at work is pretty important and if you're getting it constantly tick maybe from somebody who has more authority than you or in more see position with you you can start to of course some real anxiety around your own job security perhaps but i think what's what's really striking about the research and i i thought was really interesting in conclusion that they found is that people don't often feel angry about this digital instability they feel sad i know and i think what what the researchers pointed out is that can actually make it harder to spot i mean someone's kicking off than it's fairly easy to to see that but it is much harder to talk about somebody's just feeling a little bit sad it's a bit blue making to just have some passive aggressive comments and emojis and reactions from colleagues so yeah easy for leaders to miss entirely our thoughts well tell me is if if i sent like i've sent you hey leanne i've just done this project could took me a few hours to do it i'm really pleased with it but i'd really love your opinion on it and you just did a thumbs up would that be a digital instability i think it all depends on the social norms of the group so it could be that if you asked me to do that and i just thumbs up you're probably by oh just am kind of showing that she's seen the message and she'll get onto it if you were doing that to maybe a manager or a colleague that you were really hoping to hear a more detailed reaction from them maybe i think you mentioned it in terms of some of the generational differences sometimes like you're write a little message and then just get like k it's it's all just kind of what is kind of agreed and expected within the within the norm so perhaps maybe be if if i you used to me sending a that of course i'll look at that after lunch i'll come back to you by five that's usually how i replied and i just to thumbs up you might be like oh that's a bit is that shift and behavior isn't it that that normally comes back to is that change that we're not expected to can feel as being a bit bruised a bit alert to something going on because you could be digitally in seville no in civil un civil that's the word you could be digitally un civil without knowing it just by using the wrong emoji but the good news is the research should also point out what helps in these sn and i guess some of these are kind of of kind of preemptive you could do beforehand but also potentially reactive if you start to see some digital instability so the first one is set clear digital norms that's what we're kind saying about things to avoid in terms of email turn use of emojis what to avoid and that might be a really simple thing just only you know just not use emojis as much that people might miss interpret train your team and digital etiquette and emotional awareness and i think that's the big one is it where you know you well you said this before you know people need to get more important things in their life of they're feeling a bit sad because they've just had a bit of a turn on an email it's like yeah but if that impacts me emotionally if i take that to heart and that kind of helps me or it means that i question my confidence at work myself efficacy then that can have a real impact on as we've seen my my mental health it's maybe that awareness that it might be no to you but having that emotional awareness said it might be a thing to to somebody else and then finally to make space to check and clear the air when something lands wrong i think that's really important just keeping that that communication over but in the same in terms of am i being a bit too sensitive when you sent that probably yes but having that having that conversation yeah because i think that's the thing isn't it these behaviors are digital but they are still very much behavior i mean narrow behaviors shape workplace culture so if you don't talk about this stuff it can faster start having an impact thought it's was really interesting thank you against a call for bringing that study to my attention i leave a link to her post and the study in the show notes a what have you seen this week i saw something in fast comfort t fair i saw it on linkedin but the actual articles was in fast company by ali kushner you're on linkedin this week on insta last week i'll change again into social shows i'm just old and i just old and i'm tired and i've seen it all before on facebook and on myspace and on be and i'm like you know what i don't need to learn another the platform but anyway gru aside ali kushner that's wrong took my not me ali kushner ali kushner she's she wrote an article in fast company called forget quiet quitting now i am living loud living i right now i know so i think i've got a new word i a new word what do you think loud living means i don't i don't know i guess doing you una and very loudly prioritizing life over work get exactly the last one it's pretty much all of those things but it's mainly the last one is what ali least say she lives so basically her idea is that instead of going if you if let's say that someone say can you get this project done by the end of day and you get on put complete the kids up some people would be like yeah no problem and i think well i have to work until eleven o'clock at night whereas she says no set you down and just go i'm afraid that's not possible and this is the wording i think she used in the article that's not possible and you can say in fact i think she says you should say because i'm picking my kids up not the whole point is not that's not possible i can't do it and and she's she's bringing her sort of her life to work by going i have other things in place thing also says rather than blocking out busy which peter timely don't we rather than blocking out busy because that's why i'll tell you a second word baby juggle busy then put out put something like going to dentist because then you're like living life out loud you're going i'm going to the dentist so it's not a question i can't do it's a question of i've got other stuff fun reason i made me chuckle was that i saw this a little while ago on twitter was there something like i only realized today that i put my calendar was public when my boss emailed me and said we i'd like to meet you today at three o'clock that you've got a diary entry called get a chicken is that something that can be moved which really baby juggle and also everything does he even go and get a chicken a live chicken to go egg squeezed eggs out of it or go buy a roast chicken i don't know anyway so back to ali basically she say don't hide don't pretend that you haven't got a life outside work just turn off and go yeah look i can do that but i to take the kids or i can't come to work before nine am any days those are mike dead but though my hard boundaries can't come in but absolutely i can stay till six o'clock on tuesday thursday and i can perhaps do that morning or something like that thoughtfully i enjoy the transparency i enjoy being upfront that you have other responsibilities that need building into your your day i worry that some organizations would use this as a way to discriminate against parents or carers or people with a disability or people with a health condition that need more appointments that type of thing but in in the spirit of this being used for good yeah i think it's good because i think it's well when you see one is just busy like oh they're always busy they're always this but if you see it's actually for for decent decent reasons and it's at times of the day that aren't encore work hours or even after work or i think it's good i think any transparency anything that shows that we can bring ourselves to to work that whole person it will help to build relationships it will help to breed empathy because we'll seeing that somebody is is human i think often we can forget that with our c is particularly there is in in leadership position so i applaud it i would approach with caution depending on the culture of your organization i might think there might be some cultures not healthy coaches but some coaches that might use that as a way of of potentially picking people out but that's just my cynical side speaking and ali didn't mention that i don't think in the article and i'm sure that she would if you pushed her further because vas gonna give you like a thousand words or something to talk about i think if it was left up to me this is why i can't work in an organization because i'd be like okay right i'm gonna try each week and see if i could put the more more and more ridiculous things in my diary and just see at what point do i get caught to into a charge to go you've said plan a revolution for tuesday morning at ten am and you've actually invited at three of our x ex employees is that something is that would be amazing and actually you know why humor like that that is actually really effective way of building relationships again depending on the type of organization you're working in but yeah i'm sure things like that do really well i'm i'm always kind of remembering things like that i've usually my experience worked really well in in jobs that have high emotional labor know that are quite dark i mean like it's smart yeah you feel a lot of that type of chat going around because you need that that lightness that levi tee so yeah i don't know i would enjoy that in fact i would very much like you over the next week to put those things in the diary and i'll report back next week as to what my favorite one was if i did i put by diary public online so listeners can go and subscribe to it but this the amount of rubbish i put in there no i i'll often put in there things like oh don't forget to put the cat on or give the dogg flea jab or something like that on a work calendar so yeah maybe maybe i am living out loud there you go you are that's what i'm doing i'm living out loud in our organization of two people and two hands lee what else you see my love do you know what it's more what i haven't really seen it's pride month june i don't know about you but it feels a bit different this year it feels like haven't been a bit quieter i've not seen as much online i've not seen as much of my news feed of organizations kind of kind of celebrating this and and yeah the only thing i've seen i've seen a couple of things from organizations that work specifically within diversity both posts as well saying that it's it's been quieter and also some posts from people who are part of the community who saying they don't really feel safe to celebrate part this year which is which is really sad worrying so when i did see this article it kind of made it all click for me so this was the times it reported that loads of big brands have actually pulled out sponsoring pride events in the uk so we're talking people like sony costa hsbc deloitte massive companies they've either gone completely in terms of events or they're doing something much much smaller and what the artist actually went on to highlight was at three quarters of pride organizers have said they've lost corporate sponsors in last year really three quarters man wow and is this sorry is this is this because of the cancellation of d stuff over the pond yeah i and i think it's still it's that sentiment breeding hit and in the uk as wasn't it with reform and nigel fro and all that bs so yeah so it was saying that a quarter of them have lost more than half of their funding so it's no surprise that these as events are aren't happening they're not as visible so we're not we're not seeing them on online or on socials as i said a big part of this is is fear especially from global brands who don't wanna be targeted by trump's anti d agenda or the tariffs and all that kind of stuff so there's a growing pressure to stay neutral and sophie would mention this when we spoke her about trans inclusion a few weeks ago it's not the organizations have gone hostile they've just hesitate they're stop talking about it and that's as damaging because the support that that people are used to feeling experiencing isn't isn't there and with that what does it feel like for people who are actually in the lgbtq plus community well it says that there's was a quote there that said it was like being told we supported you when it was easy and now it's not we're not gonna put ourselves in a position where we might you know experience some negative backlash which is kind of so frustrating because that's the point is it we're supporting minorities who used to living just their day day life experiencing negative consequences and opinions for no good reason so for organizations not to have the authenticity to go no we'll stand up with you when it's hard it kind of makes you wonder whether they've been in it at all or whether it has just been for for good press for you know for yeah nice stories in the media that makes people think them they're the nice guys and really they don't really care so yeah i think i think if you are there out there and you are seeing this as well i'm sure you're feeling a bit angry i'm sure you're feeling a bit disappointed and i'd love to hear from people in the community about how their organization might be celebrating pride this year or supporting them during this time because yeah my anecdotal experiences seems to be that things are dialing down massively and this article the time seems to support that as well our thoughts yeah it's all very sad isn't it i think we i mean i can i from a commercial point of view i can see why particularly large companies would go oh well we won't support it this year because we wanna see where or where the chips fall or whatever it is it is potentially you know if they make a decision that there's the wrong decision then yes i can see they won't be scared of that i mean it's not there shouldn't be but i can definitely see their point of view maybe we're gonna transition to more of a let's just grip that line is it grassroots is that the right term where like you say where individual organizations celebrate it and there's no so maybe it is that hsbc just threw some money at it it was just a rounding error at the bottom of their promotion budget and they didn't think about it at all and so now everyone's like this is not right last year was looked like as this year next year they said last year was a wash out so we'll do something properly within the organization it might just promote people or encourage people to do something proper in their organization which isn't just for show isn't just a a well both course we'll throw a couple of mill at that and and and we ticked our ie thing i don't know i'm i hope i'd think on the positive side yeah fair it might be that organizations are are funds into initiatives that are more in an individual level potentially yeah that's that's fair and and i've got no basis for that i are well yeah and i'd hope that be the case but equally i'm sure these organizations would still be shouting about that if i thought it was publicly a good thing to do it's it's really it's really sad making and i think it it brings into question what is going on in the world and how organizations are are showing up because it's this lack of authenticity that particularly millennials and gen z won't won't get on board with you know they're gonna remember that hsbc drop this or deloitte did that it it really is so i think if you are a small business and again it's usually small businesses that we don't see this type of your behavior from because what you might think of it doesn't mean matter they're just not having an event they're not having a party so what it's about more than that if you've been to a pride event it's about much more than that and even if you wanna say it's just a party it's representation it's that visibility in the world it's is so important so people who see it who may be are afraid of being their authentic self or younger people who don't know how to have that conversation you know we're just having this representation in the media and tv shows it's much easier you know for people to come out now than it was thirty years ago because it's just much more much more common and and people see it and empathize with it and yeah tv is actually a really powerful way of doing that so anyway i if you you're are a small business i think it's it's important to me just checking with your people at the moment see what what support they might need how you can you know help them make pride worthwhile month whether it be around educational interventions awareness just checking in and seeing if if they're okay because i think right now it's gonna be a lot of people feeling very scared very anxious very let down by politics by leadership and as we know if all these organizations are doing something that is this spine lesson is not ina what an amazing opportunity for you to stand up and actually show your values and show your your people that you really care yeah well said well said okay so we're gonna go to a break but just before we do a little thought for you and use roundup we tend to be looking for articles but if you've got something news where they're gonna on your in your organization or perhaps you've done some research and you want us talk about it well if it's any good we will absolutely check out the show you can send any email to lia anne maybe the truth hasn't work to be honest but you can check out the show notes and yeah let us know we might be happy featuring it next week so after this very short break we're gonna be talking to the uk no the world's leading psychologist in our workplace culture and her hot take yes it is the amazing lia elliott to see you in just a second billion dollar moves hosted by sarah chen spellings is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals joint venture capitalist and strategist sarah chen spellings as she asked the hard questions and learned through the triumphs failures and her lessons of the creme of the cr so youtube can make billion dollar moves venture in business and in life mega start with episode a hundred and twenty four we're even gonna hear our industry giants from cam to youtube define leader's ship listen to billion dollar moves wherever you get your podcasts welcome back yes it's time for our hot take with a very own leanne elliott she's a chartered occupational psychologist she is a work c culture expert i should be able to say it that right now we've been doing this for about five years she's also my wife for my car so i'm a little bit biased but i wanna an know anne first time ever are you nervous by the way on this hot taker you know it the first time i'm doing it you want me to say yes yes very nervous i'm very nervous i'll take it easy don't worry leanne so what grinds your gears lia ann elliot my hot take i believe that people management should be a regulated profession like as in doctors as if like that sort of regulate mh yeah talk more about that because that sounds that's good that genuine is a hot take yeah to talk more about that i am a psychologist i am governed by at least three codes of ethics five if you bring in the fact that i'm also a coach countless laws if i do something in an organization or with an individual that is harmful to them psychologically emotionally that causes them trauma that causes them stress mental health challenges that individual and or organization has channels to go through whether it be the british psychological society the h that they can make a formal complaint they will get me stroke off and i will never work as psychologist ever again as a psychologist not psychologist i will never have as much impact on somebody's mental health as their direct line manager i just can't because a line manager has so much influence at times control and power over a people's emotion in psychological health we know from the data that managers have more than an impact on mental health and somebody's therapist we know that sixty five percent at the variance and employee engagement is down to a line manager we heard from last week about how serious trauma can be caused by direct line managers and leaders so it to me it seems really strange that we have these people in organizational life with absolute power and control positive and negative over somebody's mental wellness their career their development their potential way of living if they lose their job through this person we have these people in organizational life who aren't trained who aren't governed who aren't regulated who aren't monitored and i think that is a significant problem in organization life that we haven't even begun to think about let alone solve so if we're going to make it so that a manager has to be like you know as to go through this training as to go through a certification i'm guessing that kind of thing that's gonna restrict the number of managers we can quickly spin up so does that know mean we're gonna start with fewer managers and that's gonna cause big problems for organizations who wanna grow quickly there will be a transition period where it'd be painful of course but ultimately no i think we'll be left with fewer bad managers i think we'll that process learn identify the people who really want to manage people not just get a pay bump i think that process will also train people up on what it means to be a manager and make sure that they don't accidentally or unintentionally do harm i don't think the majority of people would want to do harm to an individual there are some people that are the narcissist the that people who were psychopathic soc so i think ultimately yes it would be it would be a transition that would be painful but i think one that would completely transform the performance levels of an organization of productivity levels of an organization and the overall mental and physical health of of the entire nation i should mention there were organizations that that do work in in this way i think it's the the institute of chartered manages is it is that what it is ims safe i forget the way it is but charter management is a qualification you can do but it's not one that's mandated it's not one that's specifically asked for in a lot of roles you look at people like ci is a really good comparison if you work in hr you too have that impact potentially over the human experience so therefore you are trained you are monitored you a part of a professional organization that sets a standard for how people in this profession should be working again lots of codes of ethics around that and again the hr managers leaders the the ones that left to pick up the pieces after a bad manager has done their worst so again kinda it makes me think that all the people that are further further down the chain the ox psycho the business psychologist the hr professionals we have to be trained and heavily regulated yet the people with direct impact don't it's like saying oh we won't we won't regulate gps but we we'll definitely regulate the surgeons because they do the really important work you know yeah so if if you imagine that you you you came into power you put this in place and you're like everyone needs to be certified what's the sort of minimum training you'd want to see people have i would want to see some training around what we call psycho social risk factors at work so these are things that are actually actually mandated by hsa in the uk in terms of organization should be doing a audit essentially on these levers of stress essentially within organizations should be legally doing every twelve months very few organizations do therein lies another problem but it's gonna be things like understanding that as a major the sense of control autonomy my people feel how they experience relationships in the workplace how i approach change in the workplace it's very practical transactional things as well as things that might more core skills around leadership emotional intelligence self awareness that type of thing of course listening is gonna be a big one as well i think those would be the kind the two broad topics i'd i'd turn it turns from kind of training into is around the psycho social risk factors so managers just educated on how they influence and impact organizational life and on the other side some work around self awareness emotional regulation emotional intelligence that type of thing yeah i think there are two things together would have such a transformative impact on the experience of people in work that makes a lot of sense and i know that you've i mean you're you're if you add if we had merch then on the cap would be if you did one thing because the if you do one thing just train your managers let me ask you a weird question do you really want this to happen or do you think that that will be fantastic if it did happen but you'd but you wouldn't you think practically it couldn't i think practically organizations would make a way that it couldn't right because if you have good managers then you have more equity in an organization you have more fairness you have equal pay you don't have people on power trips that will lay off fifteen thousand people and then put out five thousand adverts the next day just to lower pay i think that was microsoft saw recently oh no intel intel for microsoft on microsoft to just spell yeah so no i i i would love to see it happen i think it would it would absolutely transform not even organizational life but i think it would change it it would drive change at a societal level in terms of our relationships in terms of our levels of anger in terms of our health our fulfillment or ability to find meaningful work making sure that we're being paid fairly it would have an impact on so many things i don't think it'll happen because i think organizations will never champion this and ultimately you gonna need organizational buy in at least initially unless it came into law it would be so disruptive that i don't think there's a government or an organization that would voluntarily choose to do it but just because something hard doesn't mean it shouldn't be done yeah bravo bravo people wanna hear more about you where would the go where with the goalie well you can listen to my podcast i'm in the c host of the uk's is number one management podcast chief lies and work you got a little podcast that's cute there i thank you available wherever you get your podcast and on youtube long hq is our dot com is our organization if i'm me on linkedin i say every week but i believe all the links will be in the insurer i believe they will be thank you so so much lee it is now now you're shopping to a hosting lee now okay yeah hosting lee lee is my favorite the time of the week it is your favorite time of week what time is it it is time for the world famous weekly could workplace surgery where i put your questions to leanne you already know julian leanne because she just normally i'll give you a little sort of like ten second julian lia is you already now unless you skip to this with just getting know go back and listen to what leanne said because she gets a little rant it's kinda of cool okay so the first question we've got in here why is it so hard to get back in a routine after time off i've i've had we've had a really weird time don't don't ask we talked about two weeks ago really weird time over the last couple of weeks i found it really difficult to get back into it so i'm i'm with you here caller hi hi alan lia anne i've noticed a weird pattern myself and i'm wondering if it's just me every time i take a short break even just a weekend or a couple of days off i completely lose my rhythm before the break i'm in a good routine and getting stuff done sticking to habits but when i come back i feel off like mentally foggy on motivated and everything just takes longer it's frustrating because the break was supposed to give me a break from work but i end up feeling worse is there a better way to ease back in without losing all my momentum this is so common now i'm sure everyone listening will be like i've totally had to had a break like that there were are things that you can do and it's things that you can do before you go away and and while your your a way that you're gonna gonna improve the quality of your time off your time off is to help you rest and recover we build that that resilience we actually looked at a study on this from the bp bts a few months ago or the holiday effect oh yeah basically research showed how people take paid leave makes a difference of of how energize they feel on their return so it's things like completely detach so no checking emails no going on linkedin no any socials where you follow lots of work related content absolutely not accepting any measures or phone calls from your colleagues completely detach from work not engaging with it in any way meant that when we return to work that well being boost lasted longer activities was an interesting one so what they found is that physical activities on holiday actually help us more in terms of that recovery time and the impact of that so things like if you went on lots of walks we went on a skiing holiday or if you're to my son go swimming every day having that type of physical activity has a much better impact in terms of how a effective the time off is and how much our well being is boosted for longer and our return it went like two three times longer if we had a more active holiday right lounging around didn't really have any positive impact on on our boost in well being when we returned which seems counterintuitive intuitive that seems what we wanna do but not so much in my my theory on that would be that potentially when we're lounging around we might still be thinking about work things we might be reading something that will trigger something around work whereas actually when went out about doing stuff it's harder to it's easier to distract ourselves from that and also what i thought was interesting is if you go on holidays with strong levels of social connection so she went on a on a holiday with some friends or you've brought some family members along or you go somewhere with lots of sick people is there similar age to you where you're gonna get on with that also boosts our well being on our return and i think finally the thing is as i said before you go how do you handle that how do you wind everything down so you can switch off so who's handling that client who's picking up your emails how is that all gonna be managed while you're way which we taught in detail a few episodes ago so i will leave a link to that to go and listen it's really about making sure that you completely wind down your work hand over feel comfortable that somebody is gonna pick it pick it up for you whilst your away doing all of these things on holiday being active being social and completely detach and then when you come back having that hand from that person rather than ten thousand emails to come back to that's kind of the tips around house holiday my only other thought would be are you taking long enough at one time having kind of a couple of days off here and there or it's hard to it's hard to switch off enough and then and then go back into that world so my advice would beef if you just taking these short rates maybe try a little longer holiday and see if that has an impact as well integrating all the things that we just showed about yeah for a personal view when we we took some time off we went to spain about a month ago came back and i genuinely forgot my password to to get into my computer like i almost gonna get locked out and i'm like i'm sure it's double character in the middle but it wasn't so yeah i can i can totally see that i think finally answer is detach is definitely gonna help but perhaps just preparing for your return might also help so just clear off the first day that you're back and put in your calendar like we said before putting your calendar okay from ten to eleven i'm doing my emails from eleven till twelve i'm writing out my task for the week from twelve to one i'm doing some so then when you come back you sounds probably looking at your at your your letter there your letter how old am my look at your email it says i'm good i mean a good routine getting stuff done sticking to habits well clearly you have habits and what what seems to happen is when you're coming back you're like what are my habits so actually plan out your first three or four days make sure your habits are in your calendar or a iphone reminder or android or other firms are available and that might help you just to get back into the the the swing of things as anne said a weekend weekend three days away probably for someone who's into habits is probably not enough because you're probably gonna spend all your time thinking about it and then come back and you're like you might feel foggy because you go i feel like i i've not really had any time off i might those was that was a waste of time because all i did was think about work so you're a bit tired about that but yeah i mean was are summer of i thought lee anything else that might help no i thought i was really really good tips sir oh thank you very much thank you okay so onto to question number two why is hiring so hard i'm right the beginning of launch my business and honestly hiring has been brutal out of seven interviews i lined up last week only two people showed it up no replies no cancellation just ghost this week is going the same way first interview today another no show the business isn't even open yet we're gonna talk about that in a second the business isn't even open yet so i get that i don't have much for reputation to attract people but also i can't run the whole thing on my own i'm offering decent pay i'm guessing i can't run the whole thing away on meaning that that's where they need to recruit someone guessing i'm offering decent pay flexibility and i'm clear that i need people who can multitask a bit but still it feels like tumble weeds is this just what hiring looks like in the early startup up phase lay thoughts yes and no right if you have an organization that's brand new un tested yes people might be reluctant in in terms of job security in terms of what they're walking into it's it's a different startup up world as a different organizational live and that's gonna attract some people and and and not so much others that said my question to you would be how much effort have you put into your recruitment process and my feeling is you're getting applications of people who are maybe kinda scatter gun applying because they're really in need of finding work either because they want to leave their job or or find one and when something better comes along they're ghost you and i we know from recent research and is that ghost is big amongst the gen z in terms of having manage your recruitment recruitment process so that's not unusual that is just sadly something there is it it's trending at the minute i would say there is possibly something in your job advert your job description that isn't landing in the right way maybe it is a bit too vague in terms of this multitasking i would focus on because you're in startup i would focus on the vision you have for your organization what's the reason people are gonna get out of work every day to put everything the effort into into your organization into your dreams and goals how is that gonna align with their values how is that gonna make them feel in terms of contributing something positive how does that make meaningful work for them in terms of specific role that you're recruiting them to do and then in terms of the third part of that is a recognition if you've got you've got good pay some decent benefits and then that's gonna that's gonna kinda be the final bit of glue i would focus on that aspect initially whilst your building your reputation the only thing i'd say as well is that if your first stage is interview i'm not really surprised that people aren't really showing up because that is again on an in an unknown limited information out there about you and your company a fairly big ass for somebody to take time their day and go to wherever it is that you meet the marine do zoom call they've got other priorities or other recruitment processes that they're engaged with and maybe look at having a quick telephone conversation maybe look at you know their first making the application a little bit more complex so for example we used to do a work sample test would be the first stage of our recruitment process for renal know a company i worked with that went really well because it helps you really made other candidates select themselves out of the process before you even start thinking about interviews so it will work sample can be really helpful i think it's maybe looking at your recruitment process i would suggest having a quick conversation with a recruiter to somebody in hr somebody like myself to just kind of talk through what a simple non expensive but effective recruitment process could look like how that's reflected in the documents you're putting out that your job descriptions your job adverts where you're advertising your job is gonna have a massive now massive difference in terms of the type of candidates you're going to attract i think that'll make a massive difference to the the current success rate you're having and i would i would i would count for you to go down that route and educate yourself a little bit around the recruitment process and what it looks like rather than going straight to a recruiter recruiters typically unless it's a very it's a niche role or it's a volume role at this point i'm not sure you're entirely sure what it is in terms of a role and it's certainly not at a scale that recruiters a you know some of the recruiters that you used to dealing with so that would be my advice to to educate yourself on the recruitment process because i think i think you'd see some very quick wins doing that yeah and there's a couple of things i'm gonna add to that first of all i'm having done a few startups ups with myself what i found was that putting adverts in the baby didn't really work but going out and finding people now if you wanna hear how to hunt people which sounds a little bit weird but listen to this sweaty startup nick hoover his episode was somewhere about one nine four something like that you'll find it he's he basically that's how he gets all his talent as he goes to starbucks he's the person running around and fixing problems and solving problems so he goes would you like to come and work with me actually that actually got a much more elegant way of doing it i think he says something like if you've got any friends you'd like to explore this your the second part it is that you're in a startup so lightly anne says it's all exciting but also you're not if you've got people who are maybe my age who are looking for you know maybe you've got a family or something and they're like i can't afford to take a punt on this and they might apply then you might have given them a a jot you know i at you day and then they go and do some research you go oh god i can't go work it looks cool but no it's not for me it's not for me your no shows could actually be them just being a bit nice to you then well i don't wanna say i don't want it they might just i just not turn up because i might hurt their feelings sounds like it's actually worse than not turning up the third and final thing i would say is if you've ever done any marketing or any advertising and you advertising something like facebook then generally if you if you run an advert on facebook and say would you like to buy my stuff and they yes i would and you go book a put book an appointment here you're gonna you're gonna know show where you got a shop rate about twenty percent because like anne said one you're advertising facebook but that's everybody so you're gonna get people who just go oh yeah yeah fine you're addressing that's absolutely fine and then forget about it or just change their mind whereas if you were to if if you would did something around i don't know if you were looking for a software developer and you advertised a job on stack overflow not advertising the paper you're advertising it just in front so you've got much more chance of of getting someone who's a gonna be good and b is gonna see it at the right people we're gonna it and see you're gonna turn up sorry i've kind of mixed up all those things that my main key message were is number one is that every stars i've done i've gone out and i've never and i've recruited either i've run advert from intern which worked really really well i've got a fantastic one called richard tank who now runs a digital agents himself he's run several names of often on his own and my second thing i think is that yeah look where you're like the answer look where you're recruiting you can't just put an advert in the paper these days you need to find a very specific place where people your people are hanging out and i'm sure by pay me generic ad has nobody's posting a job in babe now it's not in the print another i mean another thing i don't you didn't mention what your organization is or or how it works wax but a great way just if you're if you're able to offer the flexibility of remote there's an optional remote first i'm sure that will significantly increase your applications and the people that show up as well and with that there's remote specific jobs like flexi jobs that type of thing but most job was now have that option post covid so that could be a little a little trick to get get more applications but the fact is you don't want more applications you want quality applications so i think there's a little bit of work to be to be done here but i love that idea out in terms of yeah finding in interns going to getting in twitch local colleges universities around korea is that type of thing could also be really a really good take and as you say younger people typically more energetic and optimistic about start life and perhaps somebody a bit older who has got a few more commitments okay leigh question number three how do you manage someone who keeps pushing it i've read this before i it real good if that's got a difficult guy to i so that's a different pushing i think they move it on into this i managed around twenty people and honesty finding it hard to get the balance right am i the too soft or too harsh one team members constantly late on leaving early always with a personal reason been going on for weeks i finally listed out all the times that she's left early and she just replied you approved them all i did not then yesterday i asked to do a report and she told me i should do it myself wow my own managers avoiding the issue i'm stuck how do i handle this without making things worse hey i'm i wanna hear this answer twenty people is a lot actually so i'm not surprised that you're not getting the balance right with everybody jacob and stuff that's a that's a tough one i'm sure you're engaging in your own training in professional development to help you with this so i i won't even dip my little show into that side of it this is it it goes back to that instability in the workplace doesn't it this isn't digital it's it's it's face to face but it is these types of ever little behaviors i mean i'm not gonna lie if i had a manager who came who let this behavior continue for two weeks and came with me to a long list of things irritated me about them about me do you know what i mean mh then i'd i'd probably be a bit like oh well you said i could as well i think that i would probably you kick my little defense it's yeah defense response i don't think you handled that in the brilliant way if you notice the behavior and this all but it comes down to is having difficult conversations which is one of the worst and hardest things about being a line manager the most important thing about having a difficult conversation is to have it really early so it's not that difficult the longer it goes on the more difficult it gets and the more you dread that conversation i think it was was it cat who was on the show probably fifty episodes ago i said the more uncomfortable is the more needed that conversation is so i think the fact that you left it two weeks hasn't helped i think by the sounds of it there is some misunderstanding around the flexibility this person has in their workplace that might just need to be reiterate to them in terms of why they you know if they do have to leave early how that process as manage whatever your internal process is and if you don't have one then kind of what do you expect if you're doc you've not got those boundaries i'm sorry our dogs are as we did say the beginning the show are around and starting to get a bit vocal we've ignored them for about forty five minutes now that might be why so yes i think reiterating what is your policy around flexibility what is your preference as a matter in terms of how that is requested make sure your flexible well because i'm more rigid you are isn't gonna help to rebuild what is now tipping into a difficult relationship i think finally giving this person again the benefit of the doubt if you've asked them to do a report and they've said no why have they said no have they said no because they don't wanna do it they can't bothered and i think you should do it because that's your job or is it because they don't feel capable or confident enough to do it is it a stretch activity that you've given them and we know from lots of research around this in terms of this type of delegation is if you delegate anywhere it's like i understand that this might sound like a big ask i understand that this is new to you that it's gonna really push up your comfort zone and i think because of how you handled this task previously the levels of communication you showed the level of insight the level of analyst were thinking you shared i think this is gonna be a really great task it's gonna push you but in a way it's gonna be really great for your development i'll work on it with you or we'll check in as and when and kind of framing like that again we know from the research that building up somebody's these con confidence when we delegate task massively increases the likelihood when did they gonna get them accept that accept that challenge so i think there's some things that you could be doing here in terms of your management assuming this person isn't just really awful it might be that they are it might be that they're going through something while are they having to leave early every day what is going on there it sounds like this a little reset conversation is needed in in terms of this person in terms of the policy around leaving work early in terms of why they didn't feel able to take on that extra report and just a little bit of a welfare check in terms of why they're needing that flexibility is everything okay there's something going on that you could be supporting them way yeah excellent answer and i think i just add one one last to that is saying is is it out of your twenties is it just a problem with one person or are you having this problem with most of your people because if it's most of your people it probably is your management starter it's just the one person never everyone else is is cool as a cucumber then maybe i mean has that was that one person potentially up for your job as manager at one point the answer is maybe there's something terrible going on in their life yeah if you go back to christina hawk from last week she was talking about divorce that man how that's got a huge impact on on work you know and so perhaps this person going through divorce i don't know maybe at a breathe you don't know that lean in fact first thing you need to do is email anne and have like twenty minutes anne she will tell you how to fix this secondly it may be you but thirdly it may only just be that one person and maybe just unlucky that that one person is making your life a little bit out just like a lot of people have got one bad manager in their life making making their life if you got rid of that one bad manager everything be cool yeah yeah there's some there's some investigation here isn't there in terms of whether it is you whether it is this person or more than likely a small combination of both yeah but yeah to to as a said i offer a link to book a call with me direct and i offer it free half an hour advice to anyone who who needs it not trying to sell anything just trying to help so yeah get touch okay that's it for this week if you've enjoyed this episode then good news for you there's another one next tuesday if you enjoyed the interview style question surveys no what am i talking about interview style episodes there's another one thursday and if you have enjoyed it then can you do us a little favor can you jump on whichever pack plus platform that you use we podcast apple podcast gets the perfect one for us but and leave a review just give us five stars if you if you think it worth five stars and just a little sort of like oh i like this because that really does genuinely help us we have been at number one in the management podcast in the uk for quite a while business i know it's this morning leanne anne on apple we're about twenty five just be great because we we were lang round at about fifty a couple of weeks ago and i think that's down to the number of reviews that people have left and also just say nice things about is genuinely makes our day monica todd hello monica hi monica you're still off favorite you still have favor says really lovely on on linkedin we've never met monica i don't know who monica is and see add a little dog proves yeah so that's the other little thank you from from our little dog called bobby so yeah if you just if there's something if you like it then just maybe mention us or we sounded bit need here but be fair did make our day it really did make our day it really did you know it's it's it's this is so much about community and and we believe that you're there in and getting value from this we'd love it when people get in touch and tell us how they can get more value from from the show so yeah everyone needs a little bit of love and appreciation so we're massively massively appreciate that but yes we're back on thursday with another interview and well finally gonna bring you that interview about candidates at work that we teased ages ago before our our life i've got turned upside down we will be speaking to jeff lap leblanc no relation as we know i didn't i meant to asking but i didn't ask him but yeah i'll i'll ask before we yeah before we that out possible find that out jeff is is awesome he's north at university professor a proud boston an expert in kindness and empathy in work and and all around just really nice guy well he had to be really if he's an expert in kindness of work he had to he couldn't be an asshole or could he it would be it would be odd so yes we'll be asking jeff the question is kindness at work a weakness oof jeff has spent thousands of hours looking at the impact of kindness at work so we will finding out do nice guys and girls finish last yeah so we'll see you on thursday with jeff we'll see you next tuesday with lia and owl that's us too and hopefully we'll be able to lock our dogs somewhere else for next week but if you wanna see what our dogs look like going linkedin the and put it post on them okay see you soon bye bye coming up this week on work got it wrong already brought to you by the business brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the business oh my god are you weren't calling get this out the audio destination for business protective purpose brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals my is the by now if you don't you're first listening lia is a business psychologist she's charter occupation char occupational see one of the things that was that was good but

so i did write down a sentence that shows how you could tell when people want you sound and but all that comes across is a bunch of nonsense so per hour synergistic discussion i'll proactively interface with cross functional stakeholders to id scalable solutions that ladder up to quarterly kpis and these are things that you hear recent graduates and newbies into industries say poor communication cost american businesses one point two trillion dollars a year that's trillion with a t for the average employee that's around about twelve thousand dollars in wasted time and productivity every single year and as you just heard it's not about the major miscommunication it's about the everyday corporate speak that makes smart people sound clueless today we're revealing the truth behind why some people sound authoritative at work while others get completely ignored or worse people laugh at them behind their back this is truth lies and work the award winning podcast where behavioral science meets its workplace culture we are brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals my name is leanne i'm a chartered occupational psychologist my name is ali i'm a business owner and today we're giving you a communication masterclass class that will change how you sound at work our guest today is doctor cheryl robinson she's interviewed over seven hundred people for forbes magazine earned thirty five editors picks and discovered exactly which words make you sound incompetent even when you actually do know your stuff after this short break we're gonna be kicking things off with a master class on how not to introduce yourself hubspot inbound event twenty twenty five is bringing together the brightest minds in business ai and entrepreneurship we're talking amy poe the genie behind chat gp da mu and sean evans from hot ones because apparently even hot sauce interviews can teach teaches about business strategy yes september the third until september the fifth in san francisco and no this isn't just another one of those conferences we pretend to take note while secretly checking your phone this is three full days of actionable insights that you can actually use to grow your business what i love about this is the focus on practical application we enjoy applied science here you're not just sitting through fluffy keynote you're getting tactical breakout sessions networking with people who are actually building things and learning from entrepreneurs who figured out how to thrive in this ai powered world plus come on you're in san francisco the global headquarters of let's disrupt everything and see what happens the perfect place to meet your next c founder investor or just someone who gets why you're obsessed with optimizing your customer acquisition for head to inbound dot com forward slash register to see the range of tickets including vip options fancy fancy fancy fancy trust us your future yourself will thank you for actually investing in learning something useful guess what a what we're gonna be there no we know i am manifesting oh okay yeah yeah you can come and beat us there jacob that's the reason to to go and book your ticket today vip experience will no doubt include us i'd imagine they'd invite us the vip area so go visit inbound dot com slash register to get your ticket today welcome back let's go and meet doctor cheryl robinson and as promised we start some tips on how not to introduce yourself we're talking about communication right so here's a tip i'm gonna give everyone when people ask that question tell us a little bit about you they start with well twenty years ago i worked up this company no cares so people should start with a snapshot so hi everyone i'm doctor cheryl robinson i'm an international speaker founder of creative renegade game media and i am a regular regular contributor at forbes where i have interviewed over seven hundred individuals and have earned thirty five editors picks so what that does what a snapshot does is it leaves the other person room to ask questions to get to know you more because people care about what you're doing now and not what you were doing twenty years ago but that's snapshot then when they ask you questions well how did you get to where you are then you tell them about the twenty years ago and that shows them the foundation as to why you're doing what you're doing now there's some lovely psychology here what doctor cheryl just demonstrated is a clever use of both the p and rec effects which are both examples of cognitive bias so so in english that basically means that our brains are wired to latch onto what we hear first that's a privacy effect so when someone lead with their current role it gives us a clear anchor to make sense of who they are but we're also more likely to remember what we hear last that's the rec see effect so in this scenario end with a strong statement about how your journey shaped you to do what you do today better than anyone else because that is what sticks it's the middle bit all those titles of milestones that be pretend to leave because to be honest they're just not that interesting so if you want to leave a powerful impression structure your story with intention lead strong end is strong and keep the middle a bit short and from a business perspective this obviously saves everyone's time including yours because if you're at a networking event for example you're can have three meaningful conversations instead of just one where you ramble on plus people are gonna learn to avoid you dull people aren't interesting and here's is the deeper issue doctor cheryl addressing most workplace communication is driven by insecurity and over compensation people use complex language when they feel uncertain about their expertise which backfire spectacularly because your colleagues are thinking just tell me what you actually do let's say exactly which words us sa charging your credibility can we talk for a second about the words that kill your authority because this was one of the things that we first came across you with we're talking about particular specific words i've got written down here that you you once throat to stop trying to sound impressive and start sounding useful can you start off by telling us what you mean by that yeah when you listen to newbies and industries recent graduates they use a lot of fluff in jargon that should not be added into sentences and you want to show the value that you bring and what current project for the company you're working on so i did write down a sentence that shows how you could tell when people want to sound impressive but all that comes across is a bunch of nonsense so per hour synergistic discussion i'll proactively interface with cross functional stakeholders to id scalable solutions that ladder up to quarterly kpis and these are things that you hear recent graduates and newbies into industries say there is so much in that sentence that could just be cut down to talking to our partners and we'll get back to you on what we're working on that is how you could break down that sentence and i wrote an article about how when people use fuck forward or too many fuck words too much jargon that it makes you sound like you're new and not know what you you are talking about and as you climb the ladder people get more to the point is it insecurity do you think that people are trying to hide behind these fancy terms one i think it's in insecurity two i think that it's just people thinking that they are quote unquote the best thing that's ever walked out of college and three i think it's what they're taught and when you have young professionals going to networking meetings for young professionals this is what you hear all the time but instead of going to young professional networking groups they should be going to just regular networking groups and then they would understand oh people above me at different levels they speak differently and they act differently but when you have a room full of early twenty year olds that's all you're gonna hear so you think that's the correct way to do it so what about another one in my bears the the corporate speak the i'll circle back will revisit in q two and all this bullshit why right tell me you're an expert in this why do people talk like that when they clearly sound like an idiot and they do it because out of habit and everything that we do even as leaders is rooted in habit so if you have received praise at a meeting where that may have been one of your phrases you're going to keep saying it because who doesn't like to be recognized right who doesn't like the pat on the back but there is the corporate jargon that it needs to go one hundred percent needs to go so imagine you are in one of those organizations where everyone else does talk like this and they're saying well we do this we deliver a shareholder value for contextualize etcetera and then you just go what all i do is i just make sure that your sales graph goes up into the right i would feel like people are gonna think i'm stupid in that organization because i don't talk the same ways they do so i feel differently and i'm gonna use a fluff jargon word that needs to go but i would feel like a trail blazer in the corporate or in that corporation because i think so many people think it but they are afraid to just say it and we've all been in meetings that should have only been in email and how many times do people rely on the small talk when all you want to say is here's why we're here this is what we're doing and you would be the hero of that meeting so i always tell people that you can say i bring value but where's the data how do you bring value so by saying you know if everyone else is say well i bring value to the stakeholders and this is what we're doing when you come in and directly say ivory sales by ninety three percent for x company and our projected rate is another fifty percent for next month oh okay next move on people are going to applaud you because the meeting is going to go quick people often use big words when they're feeling insecure psychologically it's a form of masking or self protection if we're not sure we belong in the room and then we try and prove it by sounding clever but here's the catch research from princeton ensures that this has the opposite effect over complicated language makes people think you're hiding something and that you're less intelligent so if you want to build trust and credibility keep it simple yeah and we've already found out that senior executives become more direct as they gain the confidence because they know their time is valuable they cut straight to the results the highest performers don't say things like a strategically leveraged cross functional synergies to optimize revenue trajectories they say angry increased sales by ninety percent yeah and communication isn't just about word choice doctor cheryl about to show that knowing when to stay quiet can be just as powerful strategic silence is a leadership skill was that something you said i did yes being a great listener there's value in that especially in leadership because it shows that you genuinely care about your team member and that you're giving them that space to share feedback to express how they're feeling and a lot of leaders are used to just constantly speaking and it's like being in a relationship especially a new relationship where there's that awkward silence and it's should you say something shouldn't you say something when studies show that if you can be comfortable not talking being silent around someone that means that your relationship is extremely strong because you could just be in each other's presence without having to fill that error and i believe that to be true in leadership that there is a time and place when you just need to take a step back and listen to what is going on around you because that's where you're gonna learn the most valuable information that is going on with your team if i'm a leader sitting in a in a meeting there's six people of my team around us and we're all talking and i'm using this strategic silence to allow them to talk so i can listen i think i might be concerned they think i don't know what i'm talking about i don't know anything so that's why he's staying quiet my i thinking about the long way yes and no because my follow question to you would be what is your relationship with those team members do have you built trust are they open with you in general do they support you do they manage up and if you answered yes to all that then no i don't they that they think you're an idiot i think they're you're doing your leadership thing you're assessing the situation you're listening to what they're citing and then you could be one of those quiet leaders who then all of a sudden say something so profound the whole team goes well yeah we never thought of it that way yeah this is what we need to do but now if you're one of those leaders you you just use the jargon the fluff whenever you talk you never ask them how they're doing what stress they might be under what are some of their project challenges yes i think they would think you're an idiot if you're not saying anything let's imagine that someone is now sitting with their senior leadership so there's all their bosses and their bosses bosses and they're at the table and they're a little bit excited intimidated but they also want us want to you know play the strategic silence from doctor robinson playbook you shouldn't be silent the whole meeting you shouldn't interrupt you also shouldn't use the jargon and i think when you become a leader you know when to interject or let me rewind good leaders know when to interject and i don't think they see silence as weakness they see it as you're waiting for your moment where you're the expertise to chime in as to what to do i think a lot of times and this is just my personal belief is that when you get to those taught you know c suite level positions they do invite a lot of people to meetings and there's so many chefs in the kitchen that they don't know how to handle it so if you're one to just be self aware and know when to interject i think they see that as great leadership and someone that they can trust because you're not just trying to fill the air you're not just trying to bs them with fluff words that mean absolutely nothing but when you speak it's valuable so let me tell you a story and i learned this early on i interviewed this woman probably month three of re having my column so as a newbie i asked her so briefly tell me how you got to where you are today and typically people take about five minutes to share that story so she took forty five minutes now bad on me i should have cut her off at marker ten but i just let her talk because there were some key nuggets you know in there that of information i was like okay but she talked and talked and talked and after that at the forty five minutes when she was like oh so you what are it the other questions you have for me i said no we're good because i was so zoned out at that point but i said i will never ever do that to myself again and the best interviews i have less ten minutes if they know how to share their stories ten minutes we're good and we're moving on have you got any tips or any perhaps some magic phrase that people could use which is a nice way to say dude just stop talking for a second i feel like you should be so blunt i like deep by heart i wish people could be blunt what i would say and what i do say during interviews when i just i need them to stop their train of thought is i say excuse me i do say this is interesting and maybe we can talk about this later on in the interview i would really like to talk about what you said five minutes ago about x so in meetings i don't think it's rude because you know those ramble you know the people who like to share every minute detail and it is excuse me thank you for sharing that can we now shift our focus to x and when you add the can you're opening up that question as if you're giving them the control even though you really have that control and from my perspective it is not rude because you can always tell them we can talk about this afterwards for right now let's talk about x i have i've got a note down here that that smart leader skip small talk now i understood that as like hi sandra how's your day being her i was day the dog that's that's not what you mean by small talk d you no it is some small talk helps small talk deaf helps build relationships within the company but it also there's a time in place for it and if you're early to the meeting i am chronically early all the time so i plan my schedule so i had at least fifteen minutes before my next meeting that's when the small talk should happen that's when hey what are you watching on netflix or what's your latest you know favorite song but as soon as that time comes it should just be we're all very busy we don't have that much time let's get to it it's when the meeting starts and the leader opens up with so it's everyone doing for the weekend oh now you're in for the long haul you know this f and hour meeting is gonna turn into an hour meeting and now you have to push things back so there's a time in place for the small talk and i believe people respect leaders more who are pun functional well at least i do so if i'm ten minutes early to that meeting yeah i'm talking about netflix i'm talking about what i'm doing for the weekend but when it comes to that meeting time get to the point let's move on so that we can accomplish things there have been studies where corporations have scheduled so many meetings it leaves zero time for the employees to actually work on their projects so there i i've interviewed a company where they said every single wednesday no meetings on the book they cannot meet with anybody anyone because that is their productivity day because all although their other time is just overloaded with meetings is there anyone who any organization you can think of which has nailed this meeting i know the base camp is very famous for having a asynchronous current communication no meetings is there any company you can think of that does this really really well honestly no no i think that's one area of business that people if someone could find an actual formula that works i think there would be a gazillion after writing that book in that formula let's imagine that the prime minister of the uk just to appoint you the minister for meetings and so you are allowed to set you're allowed to set the criteria for a meeting then it's illegal to break some of your your rules what sort of things would you mandate you have to be there at at least five minutes early if you don't get to the point we cut you off in two minutes because unless if it's this ginormous presentation that you're rehearsing for fundraising people should be able to convey their message in two minutes and if you cannot you're getting cut off and you can share the rest of it in an email and no median should go over fifteen minutes or in half an hour depending on the level of severity of that meeting doctor cheryl will just reveal something really crucial about workplace dynamics comfortable silence signals established trust but only if that trust exists already without it staying quiet can make you look like you're a bit out of your depth this is about perceived competence when people trust your expertise they interpret your silence as thoughtful consideration or reflection when they don't the same silence reads as confusion or incompetence also notice the psychological framing can we creates collaborative language while establishing control so what researchers call soft authority leading without triggering defensive after this short break we'll hear five of the most powerful words you can use in the workplace don't go anywhere billion dollar moves hosted by sarah chen spellings is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination of for business professionals joint venture capitalist and strategist sarah chen spellings as she asked the hard questions and learned through the triumphs failures and her lessons of the creme to the cr so youtube can make billion dollar moves venture in business and in life mega start with episode a hundred and twenty four we're even gonna hear our industry giants from to youtube define leadership listen to billion dollar moves wherever you get your podcasts welcome back so when you do speak doctor cheryl says there are five specific words that instantly boost your credibility one of the articles you wrote was about the five words that successfully leaders use and we've even did this in one of our new roundup ups i think that's how we we've met you in the first place can you just tell us what the five words are and why they are so important because together curious noticed and yet and yet because they give out if someone says you're fired and that's the end of the sentence well why so you wanna add that because because it gives the why and then when people have the why they can get behind you maybe not why you're fired but around other stuff together shows the collaboration we're all in this together it's not me versus you curious it's not oh that was the most stupidest thing i've ever heard anyone say which would not make you a popular leader but if you say wow i'm really curious of how you got to that conclusion can you share more that opens people up and lets them explain their why and i like to use the word oh that's really interesting like what i'm very confused about something that's very interesting tell me more about it noticed everyone wants to get recognized two dozen and the more you could as a leader you say you know i really noticed that you have been making more sales calls this month that's amazing that boosts their morale and then that makes them their productivity level increase and yet people it's like well we can't do this project yet and the yet shows them hey the company is open to join it we just have to figure out at what point versus no we're we can't do this project well why tell me right like where's is the cause where's is the why so those five words if leaders can start putting that into their habits or making that a habit they're gonna see their team increase in productivity and the trust as well these five words trigger positive responses curious activates exploration rather than defensive notice provides recognition which releases dopamine because it satisfies our brain's need for curiosity and c coordination yet to transform rejection into possibility and of course you're also gonna get better results because instead of argument about decisions you're actually building buying in from your team but workplace communication has become a much more complex we're managing generational language gaps digital turn issues and cultural communication habits that might be undermining your authority happens if you're a jen z and you've got older colleagues should you be adjusting your language what if you find yourself constantly apologizing at work even there's nothing where you to apologize about and do emojis have a place in the modern workplace it ir me when women constantly apologize and there are some men who feel the need to constantly apologize but it's mainly women self confidence yes i believe a big part is developed i believe a big part is also your personality and when since how many generations now are in the workforce four or five now at this point when you have the boomers and do you call that in the boomers in the uk you do okay so for time i heard boom i go what are you talking about but when you have the boomers and especially women and i've worked with the older generation the women constantly apologized because that's how they were brought up and i'm that jen f i'm that in that bridge gap that they have of gen x and millennials so i have learned i used to apologize all the time too until someone pulled me aside in my mid twenties and said stop saying you're sorry there's nothing to be sorry about it happened you'll fix it move on and that really stuck with me so with the younger generations they like to come off confident and some of them i think really are confident the others i don't think no how to navigate it and i also think it's how you how you're brought up too and what kind of work experience you have but apologizing in the workplace and i totally just credits your leadership all you have to say is i apologize for this or this happened here's how i'm fixing it and you move on we're all human and when we can accept to that why are we apologizing for being human no human is perfect and when i mentor younger people that's what i say stop saying you're sorry your human shit happens we've all been there move on what i've noticed a lot people saying things like the might cooperate and say cheryl sorry just a quick one that is that undermining or is that okay because it's just that's just the way we talk alright is how we talk if you're trying to be intentional and change your habit so the so the brits may be for generations and generations that's the same sorry even if you're not the one that did a few thing i believe everything is based in habit but first you have to be intentional about the new habit so there are people who you've realized they're busy you don't wanna bother them instead of saying i'm sorry can you help me with this because then like oh another interruption you can go up to them and say i know you're busy when you have a moment so you look at this it takes the pressure off so the suit one as soon as you say you're sorry you come across as weak two now you feel bad for that person and you're like okay now gotta i drop what i'm doing and i'm gonna have to help them with this but if that person came to you saying i know you're busy when you're validating that other person you're saying i understand i'm right there with you i need help when you have a second so it's not urgent but i do need help with this so when you can and it takes down that wall if you will that is put up i want to talk continue if i can to this generational multi generational challenge we had a couple of questions on the workplace surgery around this and for those who've not heard the work their service basically with people were write in and ask questions i put them anna and lia psychologist rip replies and one of them was around the idea that they've got two or three sort of they call them jen z i'm guessing there as the right early twenties and then the majority workforce was sort of around about their sort of forty fifties sixties what these gen z ever are doing were on group chat saying things like bet cap you know all these sort of words that gen z is used all the time and the other people in the office we're getting annoyed gun can you not just speak english but the problem i and the question i wanna put to you is who's that the fault here should jen z be using the language of us older people should we be adapting to the new language how do we navigate this this is tough it is tough i don't think that there is a right answer there could be a good answer and that is being self aware knowing if you're in a slack channel with the whole company or team and you know that the ages range just be professional when you're in a side slack channel or whatsapp group and you know the people are your age or your counterparts yeah that's fine and even the older generations say things where younger generations go what does this mean and it's so ingrained in our vocabulary and how we talk you have to be self aware and that is what's lacking at all levels of the company is self awareness so the good answer for that is just be self aware and if you're in a large group chat just talk professionally you know i i have younger cousins i go what does no cap mean what does build the team you and so out of the loop but i would never i i i don't even use the lingo from my error when i know who i'm talking to or who's in that group chat and that's what people have to be aware about if we're told to bring a whole selves to work and then we're having to adapt to talk to different people that feels like they're two sides of a coin bringing your whole self to work does mean that you're self aware and professional people mis what that means you're a whole self your whole self coming to work yeah you could talk about your kids your family but if you're bringing your whole self do you talk about your financial issues do you talk about the fight that you had with your best friend from great school maybe maybe to a few people but not to everybody so you're monitoring what you are saying or what you are sharing so i think that lingo that professionalism that is part of your whole self and you should monitor that because you're you are monitoring everything else do you come to work letting everyone know the company that you know for a woman oh i got my period my cramp are horrible i don't think i'm gonna get this project on no you're you're definitely not doing that so if you you're not doing that you should be able to control how you speak and under intentionally use words that everyone understands you wanna talk about emojis for a second is it cringe for someone older to use emojis assuming they're using the right ones is it cringe for them to use them in text messages when emails and text you lose tone of voice you lose the how the person says it and where you can hear their intentions whether it's a joke or whether they're serious and there's companies out there that tell people you must use emojis in your emails in in your email messaging yep i'm not gonna say which ones there are very very big brands but it's because so many leaders would a message someone and the team member would be very upset because they thought they were the leader was mad at them or offensive or whatever the case may be is because we can't see their facial expressions we can't hear their tones so do they have to use emoji so within in their messaging so that people understand where they're coming from and i think it's fabulous doctor albert meridian he the seventy thirty eight fifty five principal rule where your message seven percent of your message is words thirty eight percent is your voice in your tone and fifty five percent of your messages is perceived by your body language and when you're just talking about email or text slack messages you lose all of that all you have left is that seven percent which is your words so i think emojis is really good at helping get that message across great leaders use something called contextual code switching it's where we adapt our communication to the audience we're are speaking to and you do it all the time to whether you realize it or not the way you taught your boss is different from the way you taught to your colleague or your best mate or your nam that is contextual code switching and great leaders use it intentionally it's not about being fake it's a sign of emotional intelligence and genuine respect because the best leaders don't just want to be heard they want to be understood i remember doctor cheryl rules about meeting that not about efficiency necessarily they're about respect when you protect people's time they trust your leadership and this breeds reciprocity when somebody respects your time you're more likely to respect their authority it's a fundamental principle of influence really everything doctor cheryl has tours comes down to one principle authority comes from making other people's lives easier not from impress them with over complicated vocabulary you can of course find doctor cheryl on linkedin just search for cheryl robinson if you stick forbes at the end of your search she'll be the first one that comes up you can also go to doctor cheryl robinson dot com where there's much more information about her let's just rejoin doctor cheryl for some final thoughts if there was one thing that you wanted listeners to take away from this just one change they could make and you think of one be intentional with your words practice with a team member practice with your partner friend parent be intentional take that pause before responding quickly take the pause say what am i trying to get across what words in tone facial expressions is going to get me there even if you have to use an emoji and that's a point great communication isn't about sounding impressive or using all the buzz words it's about being intentional with your words so that other people feel valued and heard so if you a manager or leader ask yourself this when was the last time you sat in a meeting and you really listened instead of just waiting for your turn to speak and when you did speak did you use words to be helpful or to make yourself look impressive because that's how authority is really bill not with impressive phrases or corporate jargon but with respect and respect is earned one conversation at a time this is truth lies and work we'll see you next week

coming up this week in work what if your boss didn't just annoy you they traumatized you a viral linkedin post triggered a flood of stories about bullying burnout and psychological harm at work this week we're asking how we normalize trauma in the workplace are you hiring leaders based on personality or one nhs trust has challenged that idea and found assessing behavior not charisma completely changed who got the job and who excel are we measuring the wrong thing when it comes to leadership potential and in the workplace surgery would you fire your best client if they calls you at two am one mister wants to know when going the extra mile stops being impressive and starts being unsustainable this is truth lies and work the award winning podcast where behavioral science me to workplace culture brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business calls my name is leanne i'm a chartered doctor occupational psychologist my name is a i'm a business owner and together we help organizations but amazing workplace coaches let's get into today's episode right after a word from my sponsors hubspot inbound event twenty twenty five is bringing together the brightest minds in business ai and entrepreneurship we're talking amy poe the genius behind chat gb da moe and shawn evans from hot ones because apparently even hot source interviews can teachers about business strategy yes september the third until september the fifth in san francisco and no this isn't just another one of those conferences we pretend to take notes while secretly checking your phone this is three full days of actual insights that you can actually use to grow your business what i love about this is the focus on practical application we enjoy applied science here you're not just sitting through fluffy keynote you're getting tactical breakout sessions networking with people who are actually building things i'm learning from entrepreneurs who figured out how to thrive in this ai powered world plus come on you're in san francisco the global headquarters of let's disrupt everything and see what happens it's the perfect place to meet your next founder investor or just someone who gets why you're obsessed with optimizing your customer acquisition for head to inbound dot com forward slash register to see the range of tickets including vip options fancy thanks fancy and say trust us your future self will thank you for actually investing in learning something useful guess what a what we're gonna be there no no i am a manifesting oh okay yeah we're yeah you can come and communicate us there jacob that's the reason to go to go and book your ticket today vip experience will no doubt include us i'd i imagine they'd invite us to the vip area so go visit inbound dot com slash register to get your ticket today welcome back welcome back i hope it's summer for you where you are is definitely summer here in in c in montenegro is beautiful beautiful but anyway that's enough chassis it's it is a little sweaty it is a little sweaty because i can't have the aircraft when we're record see yeah so over the next forty five minutes we're gonna get increasingly hotter and sweaty here to look out for that if be watching on youtube fun fun anyway onto your favorite time of the week we anne it is it is time for the world famous no it's not it's time for what what time is roundup up that's my favorite time of week out lenny he's roundup up it's good so well okay lee what have you seen this week have you out the jingle i didn't ask you to yes jingle started the jingle has definitely started well if i've seen this week have you ever had a bus that was so bad it left you traumatized i haven't really had a bus since two thousand and two so not really but i have heard of other people you've had a pretty bad boss though yes i had a very bad boss yes remember particularly will name them person yes i've i've definitely have some bosses that have of yet left left a feeling or two but this is a question posed by laura lan on linkedin laura is a product and content writer at rabbit how you say it book i i don't know i'm assuming it saying that doesn't in a it's american i think it's american robert r a double t a comments out oh my gosh the comments it was a scary place to be that comment section not gonna lie so what did the post set so the pug actually said word for word have you ever had a boss so bad that it left you traumatized vent to me i'm feeling salty which immediately grabbed my attention and many other people's attention to at the time of recording this post has got two hundred and twenty four comments five post more than two hundred reactions so yeah it's hitting a nerve so i dived into the comments had a look through i have asked permission from the people your left comments for me to share them so i'm only gonna read out the ones that said yeah cool don't worry there were some others who understandably didn't didn't want to it feels wrong to say these are my favorite given the subject matter but they're the ones that made me go like jaw drop really yeah proper goodness me so here here is some of them out catherine boyd who is a strategic marketing director shared that she had a boss tried to get her to join a cult he belonged to and with withheld money from my paycheck to pay for the first meeting wow the next one came from katie rider a data analyst katie said i quit my i quit after my boss walked in on me pumping breast milk pumping not my pumping pick what did me breast pumping and hr said it was my fault and i still had to report him that was just the tipping point i'm still traumatized and have flashbacks from working them slowly recovering with time hang on so the boss walked in on this person pumping and hr said that they had she had to report the boss yes so i actually messaged katie about this and she she actually shared a post about a year ago that said this one year ago did i survived a workplace trauma that shaped i am today i tell this story people's jaws usually drop i was in my private office of nine years pumping when the door suddenly opened my boss c ceo barge in since he did not knock and it ignored my pumping sign he saw me with my shirt or breasts out pumps on exposed i had to yell at him to leave my office after talking with hr i sent in my statement along with some things he said during my pregnancy weeks passed i was terrified to be at work did not leave my office or my lab error mental hub was declining along with my milk supply there's a whole post which i'll leave a link to but yeah it's it's it's unbelievable isn't it that that yeah that that that's her fault even though how sign up another one came from nick power who's possibly the most famous person on linkedin at the moment if you let been poured into the nick power universe no who's nick power nick powers is some well he's he's a marketer from mer and he's just somehow got like linkedin famous everyone follows him tags him in posts it's like if you want to beat the algorithm you'd tag nick power he doesn't like she's couple letters so it's a vibe anyway nick said had a boss show me in a magazine the image of the sports car he was going to buy with all the money we made this quarter shortly before denying my request for raise i left two months later well that was foolish wasn't it i think yeah we i've i've had a boss who was way back in the day and he was like right okay so we've got a brand new range rover and then i had to do his account rooms those personal accounts as well he has to do that and i could see how much he paid for it and then then he complained he he also did this thing to me he said right okay you're a contractor so you invoice me five hundred pounds for every sale i made he said are you that registered said no he says alright so we take off seventeen half percent of that and that's what i pay you because you're not that registered i kept saying that stands for value added tax not valued it's not visitor value deducted tax but yeah and yes i i left shortly afterwards and also they did a radio four exposed like documentary thing on him later on so he was a bad man bad man and very very bad ideas yes so yeah that was nick go and follow nick i'll go and have a look and and and report back next week the another one oh this was this was really shocking trivia dal strategic chart and talent lead not a boss but i had a c worker once call me a half breed the hell a half breed to do with race she's mixed race oh okay yeah i'm not shock it into that one shocking again had her a conversation with trivia about this and she was saying that she sat in like six seven years because she was an internal time didn't it feel that she could speak up which i think is very you know a very common experience for young people so y awful another one came from s anderson who is a trusted accountant she said most of my former bosses were bullies when i spoke up about paid disparities one manager told me i was just a senior accountant it didn't matter that it had over twenty years of experience which included training and mentoring people three certifications and two degrees and spent two years as an intern interim director for a client in that company i walked away from corporate last year to start my own bookkeeping book bookkeeping business now i have an amazing bus which is her yeah yeah very very good bookkeeping always basically to chalk because i always basically think of someone who keeps books like bee bookkeeping and book keeping there they're just not the same idea anyway like instead librarian should be called a bookkeeper exactly exactly this that's what i keep thinking but it's not the same thing because and also is is it two k is it bookkeeping or bookkeeping anyway questions for another day what day you see anymore i did this one actually came from malaysia covid who was in be grade oh hello i know travel no it's seo on content depp for saas brands this was awful so he said my wife was having longer problems and i had to drive to see a drive her to see a doctor asked my manager to leave a one to our meeting early all i got was i'm sure there are taxis available where you live oh that's not cool yeah also had a a little chat with me he said he told me that if if you wanted to add some more details that margin made his life a living hell everyone was afraid to report him took all them almost three years fire him long after i was gone just goes to show right lia always said people don't leave organizations leave managers and so if you got a bad manager look at the damage they are doing anyway that's it again a different story for a different aid soap box dis mounted anything else any any other comments yeah we had jacqueline content marketer i worked under see mark chief marketing officer who decided she didn't like me for no real reason which was confirmed by my direct manager she was rude and condescending and she once told one of my very busy and productive c she didn't know what the coworker did for eight hours a day it was like mean girls that worked like that's the film the movie yeah yeah oh honestly some of there were so many out was really really sad making i'll i'll share a couple more we had joshua who is an amateur db architect emma man author said i had a groin surgery they made me wear a catheter to the office oh i'm a bit sq about that kind of so don't wanna go too much into that one it's like give give that give the guy some days to the other come on goodness me the bike is the architect businesses is like you need to come in and finish this drafting otherwise the hospital is not gonna get billed and one more there's absolute loads but i'll show one more nicole later who who's a life coach she said i once had a boss that after i was passed on a promotion and i reached out for feedback and improvement tips for four months gave me only one piece of feedback maybe you won't have a baby anyway oh was this nineteen sixty five was it you'd think so wouldn't yeah you'd think so so yeah shocking shocking stories there and i'm sure there's loads more that people have to share up for reason don't wanna do it on a public platform what's so silly is that everyone's going oh yeah i've had a bad manager but very few people are probably gonna admit that they used to be the bad manager or they are the bad manager i think you know some of these stories are really horrific i mean the half breed comment completely unacceptable the catheter in the office there may gonna have a baby anyway that's like you know really bad discriminatory thing is coming from managers but there was one that maybe can it kinda of put into context for me how we might be normalizing the behaviors these behaviors are just aren't okay this one came from cassidy greg who's a copywriter and content strategist she said she knows you like the me they kinda of things like scripts so she said me hey i've been handling our mind workload since they quit can i get paid more for the extra work stroke hours i've been contributing boss laughs we don't do that here and i just thought that summed up perfectly how many of was engaging in what's called hope work that we hope that we're gonna get something from it if we're not getting that financial gain in the moment and i just think it things like this are really adding the pressure on people financially professionally psychologically it's it's a bit of fun and it's a bit of a laugh and it's a bit like wow oh my gosh and it makes us feel great that we're in it together but really i'd prefer that we didn't have to be in it together you know absolutely absolutely anyway so thank you very much laura i did ask as well her permission to share that post i'll leave a link to the original post in the s go follow laura she puts some really great stuff fun on linkedin i'll what have you seen in a week well this is probably applicable to to a lot of people you just mentioned in that i saw a post on it was on instagram which it's not my usual goodness what were you doing on the insta it's be fair i think i saw on twitter there i saw a link to it on twitter and then i went over to instagram to watch it and it's called eight ways to say screw you at work so i think this to be really useful for those perfect perfect this wasn't coordinating it it wasn't hit me okay so now just to be clear this is the one who is lee harding a brick he goes under the introverted recruiter handle he did not say gateways ways to say screw you he used other words that might rhyme with truck so so yeah so i've i've tied it up a little bit it is hilarious but a little pro profane so you probably don't want be playing this in front of your na or maybe your boss saw in pro work but it is hilarious if you like a swear brit which i do i like swear we are swearing brits this is this is our our best behavior on this pod so here we go his eight ways says screw your work and he said as per my last email now what he suggests is that in other words i've told you at least once before you freaking idiot you didn't read it did you just go and do the job i yep brilliant love that number two this is i love this to to reiterate because i've told you freaking once his his situation was translation was i'm not telling you again just do it you and then the see that to to reiterate i really do like that to reiterate number three i've cc seed in and then person and he said this is nick's idea is i'm not playing anymore i'm collecting wick collect witnesses at this one it's so true when you do cc in someone i use specifically saying the email you cc someone basically you mean that i want someone else to see the id that i'm gonna to deal with right here number four i don't love this one it's probably maybe just a british one but thanks for your input oh that's brutal crucial least brutal like that was completely useless but thank you wasting my time well his translation was that is hang on a minute nobody asked you literally nobody thanks for your input i'll be using that the the earliest opportunity not with you late of course number five as a reminder his suggestion is i'm not here i'm not here to babysit you you should have already done this fair enough number six respectfully now this is so funny because when someone says with the greatest of respect they don't respect if someone says respectfully in an email you know find well the next sentence coming me out mouth is not gonna be good it's basically be like i have zero respect you sit the put down right now this is not of your business so a wonder if you could that i mean wouldn't i just like a a boss employee i don't think you can send it to them the anything other than a colleague or a or a a direct report or if someone says moving forward can we this is this translation is are you seriously this stupid you've been doing it over and over again please never do this again moving forward can we not cc in a client when we're talking about putting the prices up for example and the last one you said which i found myself possibly doing this is if you send an email and you end it with best regards basically what it means is i hate my job i hate this place but most of all i hate you but i can't say this because i really get fired so i have to say best regards instead it's some i was a really really good little video again i say it is quite swearing but you know if you're into that kind of thing which we are then we we absolutely love it anything else to annie what are your thoughts on this i it just makes me laugh because everyone everyone knows the translation yeah you know it everyone it's it's this kind of civility at work but everybody knows what's some underlying it yeah oh so yeah i think it's i think it's quite funny i i like i like post like that tick my things and on emails yeah they they're quite good i also think as well that a similar thing as well if you like that type of thing if you just google like the best out of office replies most some of them are beautiful yeah absolutely beautiful if you hate corporate talk or you don't wanna sound like a corporate then it's thursday's episode is for you and also you'll learn how you can potentially use some of these phrases but in a good way lee what else you see my love sticking on the recruitment chat actually a case study fell into my email inbox this week and i thought it was really quite cool i mean i think we've all made a high that we regret at some point always certainly been an organization where a hire has been made that that you see regret coming from leadership it's a very common common thing and i think you know that particular recruitment isn't always necessarily very robust in small businesses i'm sorry guys i'm sorry but if you if you engage a psychologist to help you design your a group process then i take it all back but you know don't know i know you just we're just hoping that you know the candidate says all the right things they have some really sexy achievements on their cv maybe they even pass your psycho your might breaks your discs with flying colors but once you're in the role then those signs start to creep in very quickly starts to unravel yes it's very detrimental for the organization lots of confusion turnover and the impact takes age is not only the cost of we know it's like five times the typical salary of the person it's gonna to take two years to get back to that level of performance it's so disruptive and i think the thing is what this case study was talking about is they're pinning it on the personality trap so that for years companies have used personality psycho like your myers briggs fight your discs maybe even on the ones that are much more reputable like your your hogan to guide leadership recruitment and on paper that makes us a lot of sense to figure out the type of person you've got in front of you and then trying to predict how they're gonna behave as this case shows and it the case study are the christie nhs foundation trust which is of the uk's most respected cancer sent centers in manchester they realized that debate tours weren't during the job simply because managers found the report hard to interpret the feedback was vague and crucially they weren't getting what they really needed a clear picture when the candidate could actually lead now i get these personality one kinda of being vague way back when i tricked out into doing the myers briggs and shared his results but actually just wear out he's got his horoscope and i was like oh wow yeah that's really accurate wow and that's a bottom effect isn't it when you have like yeah anyway so sorry now oh okay yeah i thought it was quite good fun so yeah it's it's this case that leadership is discussed differently across across the organization we don't have this shed for vocabulary for it we don't even know what great leadership looks like or what great leadership looks like here those conversations aren't hard so then to try and recruit somebody in as a leader it's no surprise that it's not gonna not gonna work you know so the christie made a different move they stopped assessing who people were and started assessing what they actually do so they adopted the real world leader diagnostic which instead being a personality based assessment is a behavior based assessment and it looks at the leadership behaviors have been proven to be effective in the workplace by science lots and lots of data behind for the model and these tests as well so focus on the leadership behaviors proven drive fed performance they group them together into ways that make sense and they basically show what behaviors are being enacted most in an organization by leader and which are being enacted least and what i particularly like about this tool is it's not about behaviors being good or bad all the behaviors are good and positive but how and when we enact them can have impact on our people their performance and the organization so it's having that self awareness it's really important so once the candidates have completed the assessment then they'll have a full feedback session go through the results and be allowed to talk about the context within these that these behaviors are being inactive it makes it real world rather than like a hypothetical color or feeling right and brand for real world group and of course as well then from a candidate experience perspective it's always gonna feel a bit more authentic and a bit more relevant how many times have you sat through an interview process i don't understand what this is showing about how well i can do this job but okay and actually this is one of the key results that they found the christie is that they had enhanced and experience so ka reported a fair more transparent and higher quality recruitment process they had stronger leadership development from day one because they know already what leadership means and how it talked about within the organization they were able to make sharper more informed hiring decisions they reduced turnover after appointment so that leadership focused hiring led to stronger job fit and lower early stage attrition and it minimized poor hiring fits because focusing on leadership payments over personality traits significantly reduced mismatch that's the key here really in terms of the organizational benefit the benefit for you is a business there is nothing worse us particularly at a senior leadership level of making a bad hire i've i've seen people do it and just the yeah the path of destruction it leads for leaves for for a long long time so if you run a business and especially if it's growing especially if this is gonna be your first senior leadership higher it's really expensive to make this type of mistake so anything you can do to prevent that is gonna be a good thing and taking a behavior based approach is gonna be a really effective way to do it because most traditional tools weren't built to assess real leadership their built to assess personality which can be can indicate leadership behavior so yeah they measure potential not performance but this case study shows that when you get specific about behaviors the things people actually say and do your leadership pipeline and get stronger more diverse and more effective and when we think about that connection between behavior and culture culture is defined by the worst behaviors tolerated it ties all really nicely that emphasizes a point that most people don't get is that culture start with recruitment so yeah a really interesting case study doing fabulous fabulous things at christie always do very innovative and but actually yeah taking a science that approach to improving the quality manufacturers of their leadership team how caused that so what we're saying is that if there are some behaviors that this real world group is measuring that are better for specific roles like leadership yeah and even specific behaviors within different leadership roles right because not all leaders equal not all leaders have the same same demands and and priorities and this again is where our job analysis is really effective could you gonna identify the behaviors that are gonna be important in that leadership role and specifically look out for those behaviors is also gonna show you but potentially where leadership behaviors are lacking within your organization if you've done this assessment as well as a development tool then when you're acc people you're gonna be able to look at okay these are some behaviors that are currently lacking on it strengths in and that just makes a really well balanced effectively leadership team because it's about behaviors about how we turn up every day what we do when we're under pressure what we do when i'm stressed how we deal with our people how good we are creating a vision it's all these lovely leadership behaviors are so important but rarely measured in the interview process and this tool has been specifically designed and tested do exactly that it's very very cool i will leave a link to the real world group to this case study am to the real world leader in the show beautiful beautiful okay so we're gonna go you a very quick break after that we got our a hot take and then we got our world famous weekly workplace surgery wrap your questions to lia as you know don't go anywhere see in a second billion dollar moves hosted by sarah chen spellings is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination of business professionals joint venture capitalist and strategist sarah chen spellings as she asked the hard questions and learned through the triumphs failures and her lessons of the creme to the creme so youtube can make billion dollar moves in venture in business and in life mega start with episode hundred and twenty four we're even gonna hear our industry giants from to youtube define leadership listen to billion dollar moves wherever you get your podcast welcome back is time for our hot to take the moment in the show where we hear a board pill opinion about the world of work lucky didn't drink wish i had and today's is this we need to start talking about alcohol as a workplace issue alcohol in the workplace it's kinda like always been normal things like we're not always but in my generation definitely used to be friday drinks fact my generation when i did teacher training back in nineteen ninety seven i'm on a friday all the teachers including me went to the pub had a couple of pint on friday afternoon at lunch lunchtime and then went back and tore in the afternoon wow it's just kind of like you know when you got client did is we all that kind of thing alcohol seem to be a normal thing for a lot of people but is it dangerous is it harmless and let's be honest is it making some people in the organization for a bit uncomfortable our guest tab in arm and thinks it's time for a rethink she is the founder of wine to water coaching nice name and the author of bustling up trouble a book that's just been shortlist for business book of the year she worked with organization to examine how alcohol shows up in culture and what it's really costing in terms of well being productivity and inclusion not to mention performance so today issues here to explain why a colonies to come off the personal problem list and be recognize recognized for what it actually is which is a well being blind spot what i wish people knew is the extent to which alcohol may be harming their business and the fact that it doesn't have to be like that they can help and avoid leaving so much money on the table effectively and improve their productivity and their profitability so whether it's a public sector or private sector alcohol if you've got more than three employees the chances are that alcohol is having a detrimental effect on the organization and that isn't necessarily your fault as a business owner or or a a manager in within the business because it could be just that you your employees are drinking out of work but not able to ask for help alcohol it's it's a weird thing because we are encouraged to drink if you go to a party and you say you're not drinking people will say art disappointing to and all of that sort of thing and so you're you're kind of encouraged at if you know every juncture in in your personal life and your working life to drink and yet when you get into trouble it's like you're completely on the pale and you shouldn't be doing that and it's you know you need to go and get yourself sorted out and we're not sure we can trust you and you're sort of a marked man or a marked woman so people don't ask for help if they feel they've got a problem with alcohol and it's completely different if you think about heroin or cocaine if you go to a party you're not gonna you know never i'm just gonna say i think it's such a win you know have some cocaine it just just doesn't happen and so you're not being we're not being encouraged in the same way but society encourages the use of alcohol it's advertised and marketed really heavily and some very i would say probably the clever people in the advertising business work on the boo accounts you know that it's it's something that everybody in an advertising agency kind of wants to work on because the you know they tend to be very good creative accounts i personally never did work on booze because there was alcohol problems to my family and i didn't i didn't really wanna get involved in that and and i was lucky enough to work at an agency which was fairly principled but it that therein lies the problem that people are encouraged to drink there's virtually no education about the harms the alcohol causes and when people get into trouble with it and s substance so a substantial proportion will get into some degree of difficulty they're on their own so i see alcohol as a well being blind spot like from what you're saying it sounds like we're separating things into two different parts we've got social drinking at work events and then we've got drinking after hours yeah now if if you were a a a business owner or a manager listening now which of those would you tackle first is like something you need to fix today for any organization where there is alcohol as part of working life they need to look at that because they are it's directly contributing to to problems within their business and within their employees own lives the if i look around at the people that i worked in during my career in advertising when i've been too far too many funerals of people who've died unnecessary early because of diseases which alcohol has contributed to and we don't have enough awareness of all of that so there's definitely an education piece that's needed but the culture whereby people are made to feel that drinking will help them get on is is really quite toxic men alcohol course is a whole load of health problems physical health and i think the thing that people don't really know so much about is the mental health side of things alcohol directly and inevitably exacerbate the three most common mental health issues depression stress and anxiety a stress has overtake sort of muscular causes as the number one cause of absence but actually alcohol is causing some of the stress and so if and because people don't feel they can talk about the issues they have with alcohol at work they may be signed off and and even given some counseling sessions but actually nobody's addressing the real issue they're addressing the stress but not the fact that alcohol may be a factor in it if you go out and you have three or four pint with someone at work you feel like you know them better have i got that wrong what am i supposed to do instead oh that's a really good question i was talking yesterday to a a muslim woman she's never ever drunk her life and i'm quite sure she never will as i so we haven't an in in the west we have this belief that of what you've just said that that that's how we get to know people and i said how do you how do you do it and she said well we get to know the real person because alcohol changes you nobody is the same after three or four pint as they are beforehand and generally speaking it doesn't change us to the better i've never met anybody i like more drunk than sober i worry about what you're saying i think i agree with it but i worry about it because as a manager why is it any of my business what people who work for me do after hours how am i gonna start a conversation saying having when you go home you cannot drink tonight how am i supposed to do that i don't think you in any way should but i think that the the way into this is to to set an example now i've coached a lot of business leaders who had problems with alcohol themselves but they still carry shame about that and they are terrified of people finding out that they had a problem and that's the thing we need to to change because having a problem with alcohol you don't have to hit a spectacular rock bottom most of those people would have been what i would call middle lane drinkers it was interfering they were having their mental health problems they're were feeling groggy they were lacking energy they were eating badly not exercising but the only way that anybody is gonna feel safe and comfortable asking for help at work is if they feel that it's not gonna be a black mark against their career development so and for that to happen we need senior people to say yeah i had a bit of an issue i've also too happy with the way i was drinking so this is what i did and i've been alcohol free or i've been well within government guidelines for the last few months and it's made a huge difference it's in a let's talk let's just make sure that anybody who is struggling a bit gets some support so from my point of view i think just helping people to understand that anybody just anybody can become addicted to alcohol because it's an addictive substance any human being who drinks enough of it will land up with a degree of addiction and the technical term that's used now by the medical profession is alcohol use disorder and it is on spectrum but unless you intervene once you get past a certain point it it probably will only get worse it's an interesting one isn't it and i i can imagine a lot of managers and leaders listening this going on my gosh it's another thing that i need to help my people with and it's like well yeah mah and ideally before anything hits a crisis point i think it's you know even moderate drinking habits can affect productivity they can affect mental health they could potentially affect absentee i think it's really just a case of knowing your people having these regular check ins and if anything is going on recognizing that seeing those behavior changes those appearance changes alcohol might be one of the potential challenges that somebody is is having yeah and there's the other thing that workplace like in a work drinking or the drinking culture is often quite baked in so we're going to an award ceremony or we'll have some champagne we're going to a client dinner or we're gonna order some wine we're going out for drinks on a friday night or a tuesday night or something like that so we gotta be careful because social drink at work events especially when it's seen as this way to bond or get ahead is actually probably pretty toxic and understanding if there is anybody in your organization excluding through this type of of courts these types of events you're gonna have people in your organization who don't drink with that beef for moral reasons health reasons were religious reasons or they've had challenges of our alcohol in the past it's not about not having fun but it's making sure that the fund you're having isn't excluding anybody yeah and we don't wanna be policing this we'd only always think you must not drink need to be leading by example so responsible drinking if you do drink or just creating events perhaps where drinking isn't isn't expected yeah and i really also thought tab point was important about addiction is not a character flaw we have very negative stereotypes when it comes to addicts whether it be alcohol drugs or or anything else so i think you know the medical term is alcohol use disorder and understand that exists on it on a sliding scale and as we say you know if we're gonna create this psychological safety for people to share what's going on that should include disclosures like this from time to time that's not to say as a manager it's your job to fix it it's your job to cancel somebody through it but it is your job to support somebody getting the help that they need from the qualified people organizations absolutely so go check out to tab in all the links from the show notes just on on an side if you if you're may of my age or forty forty years old and upwards perhaps you might be thinking oh well maybe drinking is a problem jen z don't drink so that's not a problem seem to be a lot of drug use in gen z recreational drug use which i think is going to be just as dangerous as alcohol you know we us generations we all have will all have our problems and we all have our addictions so yeah i don't think old gen z it doesn't apply to them it could be substances rather than alcohol that could be a problem in the future anyway moving on to the world fe weekly workplace surgery where i put your questions to lia if you've never listened before there are three questions submitted that i put lia is a chartered occupational psychology psychologist she's a workplace well being expert she's a she's just explained everything she knows everything about everything she does she always says this every year every every week but she does she's brilliant so we're gonna start as we always do with question number one am i being dramatic to wanting for wanting to find my best paying client for a two am call i run a small design agency and one of my clients brings nearly forty percent of my income but they treat me like i'm on call twenty four seven shifting deadlines random phone calls and now they run me three times after midnight i don't think we need to go any further i think we've got the answer here but anyway crack on the latest was at two zero seven am just to run an idea past me i didn't pick up this morning i got a message saying i was unavailable and unreliable they might need to reconsider our arrangement honestly i'm ready to let them go good but when i told a friend they said i was over reacting i just need firmer boundaries am i being emotional is it okay to fire a top client if they're wrecking your mental health lee seems like a fairly open shop case here i think is absolutely fine to fire a client like that that's gas lighting to call you at two am expect you to be to be there on demand and then to blame it on you that you're not reliable and you're unavailable that's projecting their own toxic behavior onto you that is gas let no we don't we don't do that your friends right you could look at saying firmer boundaries it doesn't sound like this person gonna be open to those boundaries being set i don't know i think it's it's one of those things where it's not worth a hassle it's unlikely it's gonna get better yes it might give you a significant chunk of your revenue now but i'm it sounds like if you're ready to let them go you you've already made already made the decision and my only advice would be being mindful of how you do that doing it in a way that is you a kind is civil is professional doesn't leave any bad blood doesn't mean that they can bad you to to anyone so with that in mind it might be worth taking it a step in terms of of trying to enforce these boundaries maybe reiterating like this is how we work these are the hours we do that doesn't suit you we totally understand would you know we'd be devastated to to lose you but this is how we work this is how we operate and we just fundamentally not we understand if you wanna walk away and if they stay hall says boundaries and if they don't then breathe a sigh relief and take that holiday absolutely from a commercial point of view if you if you have a client who has got who accounts more than like ten percent of your of your income then you don't have a client you a boss because you have to do whatever they're doing and the whole point you set up your agency i an agency for ten years whole point you said is so that you don't have to have have a boss when i had my agency i had the same thing i'd like one or or two clients which account for maybe like fifty sixty percent and it was terrifying because i thought well i can't sack them because then i'm down fifty percent of my income my revenue i had to end up you know in the end it didn't work out well well what so send to the email which perhaps was needed to be a little more rightly and it's a little bit more measured than it wasn't and that relationship ended but i felt such a sense of relief so yes it was a problem because then i had to go and replace that income but then i never allowed any client at more than ten percent of of the revenue share the the other thing is that maybe this person is just is just trying to test you see how far they can go it doesn't sound like it it sounds very much like they they've got some serious problems and serious boundary issues the the the last thing is that if you follow anyone on twitter like nick baked designs i think it's called he quite often will post about saying just refunded a client today they bought they paid their six grand subscription on tuesday wednesday they expected me to to get on a call with them so i just refunded the money and said no not interested anymore now if you are in a position to be able to do that great if you're not then my suggestion is try and work towards being in a position where they they call it fu money and where you could where you could just say f fu to anyone you want without worrying about whether the the implications of that yeah really good advice good tips and possibly a good whatever happens with this client maybe a good moment to think about those things what are your boundaries what are the expectations the sla if you wanna be caught about it that that yeah you'll agree with your your client as you onboard them because yeah should hopefully stop this from happening again but it's just the way it is as well as it you know eighty percent your problems come from twenty percent your clients yep absolutely absolutely and and onboarding is a good point actually because you obviously want to delight a client when you onboard them but at the same time if you are then answering you know sending emails at nine o'clock at night or they bought the package at seven o'clock and they got an email at nine you're sending the wrong expectations there so yeah just be careful with that and that's something that any good consultant will work workout in during contracting they'll have these conversation conversations in terms of what you expect from me this what i expect from you it's a mutual adult to adult professional relationship you're well within within your rights and and what great consultants do is set those boundaries in in the contracting phase so yeah it's actually a really good book evelyn in this journal it's called something like organizational change in consulting that i don't can't remember sexy title but it's got whole chapter on contracting which actually really good goes into psychology of it well leave a link if that's useful okay question number two am i doing enough to make this a great place to work oh oh lovely i run a business in the uk with thirty plus employees and i've been trying to build a workplace people actually enjoy being part of beautiful well i've made some changes over the past couple of years and i'd appreciate your thoughts leanne and on whether i'm on the right track or if there's more i should be thinking about here's a rough idea what we've done four day week for office staff same pay brilliant everyone's had a decent pay rise brilliant we increase annual leave adding extra sick leave great we cover health dental extinction a don't i wanna go working we match pension contributions up to six percent we're also looking at adding things like a couple of life's two short days each year for you just wanna make the most of the sunshine like that they call them duvet days as well don't think mh that's what i'm guessing that's a winter thing secondly a paid sa asymmetrical every few years thirdly help with childcare care forty profit sharing just be careful profit sharing we've we had su cooper and he explained that this company was trying to do profit sharing and they did a load of worker around and it turned out people didn't want it it was equity share that one i was equity even worse yeah so just be careful with that people pretty happy but i wanna keep improving have you seen anything really makes a difference to how people feel at work anything i should be careful of lee lovely question lovely question good for you for approaching your business and and your people in this way very cool stuff we know all of those things have great connections with performance with engagement with well being productivity all really great i would say before i guess there's two things here to answer immediate question is there anything more you could be doing if we you you're not i can't answer that you're gonna have to ask actually people they're gonna tell you what what is needing the organization what benefits they're really enjoying it was actually jeanette rum from the curve group you said that's part of their kind of like annual review six month review she asked people what they want the organization to keep and what they'd be okay with and getting rid of so things that wanna keep came up time time again as a four day workweek week things that they'd wanna get rid of might be things like you life's two short days or or anything else it might not be you know as valuable as as you think and of course that's gonna depend on employee to employee or team to team and it might be that that sentiment gonna change over time so i think first of all azure your people second i think my advice at this point would be now would be a really good time to measure the return on investment of all these wonderful things that you're doing and a really great employee engagement insights survey is gonna help you do that because it's gonna show you how people are thinking feeling within your organization it's gonna show you how that's tied to kind of the found cultural foundations of the organization what's going on and that's gonna include things like benefits how decisions are made relationships purpose led work having meaning having the right resources which will include training as well and it's also gonna tie into the impact that's having on the individual in terms of their well being their performance their productivity as well as it impacts it's having on the organization so for example your speed to market your turnover rates your absentee rates all all that that type of of thing because i think what you're doing is is really admirable and you've chosen things that we know from the research and and organizational life are typically really great for performance while being in engagement what you want now is more granularity around the impact these things are having within the context of your specific organization in the context of your specific teams and people so my advice would be get an employee engagement survey survey in every year so you can start to track through and see the return on investment of all these wonderful things that that you're doing just in case maybe someone come knocking on your door one day and say you've got call business i wanna buy it and you go no worries here's all the information you need about my culture which is increasingly becoming part of the due diligence process for investors so there you go yeah great i i maybe i'm being a bit unfair but i would just counsel you just to be a little bit careful of what you're promising because if you the last thing you wanna do is give something and then have to take it away so be really careful of that also you don't wanna be you don't wanna look too like maybe dan's gonna i'm gonna disagree with you but i worry that maybe you might look like you're a bit more desperate for them just people to stay and then the power balance might shift people go well he's doing all list makers leave we know we can go and demand a hire you know a a pay rise or something like that i hope that's not the case but it's just great that you're putting all this together those four things you mentioned profit sharing help with childcare care paid sa tobacco and life two short days why not just run a poll on like the ann said on slack or something or you know you do old fashioned way with piece of paper you know just get people to tell you which of these they actually want and then you'll soon find and and just implement one of them and then you've then got the ability to implement something else and i would also from a commercial point of view else also maybe tie them to revenue targets or targets within your organization so that you can say right okay what if we can get three client three new clients in this next quarter what we'll do is everyone's gonna get a live too short day and then in you know now lee quick question on that is is that unethical or is that okay i think as long as it's very transparent it's stuck to people in agreement with it they've been able to yeah provide their thoughts on that process before it's implemented i think that's fine yeah i think there's no harm in that but i think the thing is then that and where i agree allan in terms of starting to to not just promise to much or invest too much that then they're gonna cause problems elsewhere where i suppose if it's not something that people necessarily need or one is by having these insights so for example if you you run your insights you implement the childcare support you might find that over the six months from certain people in the organization who are who are parents or carers you'll see an increase in their performance because they're less stressed that mental load that we talked about last week is has reduced they've solved that one problem they're more productive because they can focus whether they're at work they're we'll commit to the organization so there's last turnover from parents in the organization and you should see that track through over the twelve months when you run your your survey again so you can be able to say that right by implementing childcare support we increase performance in ex blue ex population of the organization by ten percent we reduced turnover by twenty percent and profits up which we put down to increase productivity so it's it's yeah it's a nice way to actually make all these lovely people and culture stuff actually commercial and we need it to be commercial so we can keep businesses like yours open because that's how want i want to be treated absolutely it's a good look let us know how it goes okay question number three why did they only offer what i asked for after i quit oh no this person works in public sector said like a lot of people have been hybrid for a while one day a week in the office which went really well but we were told in february that full time office attendance was mandatory again since then it's been awful full stocking traffic paying to park don't see my dog who's left over ten hours no i asked to go part time in february they said no i kept asking one theft month they still said no last week i got a job off elsewhere well done yay before accepting i double check with senior management his part time definitely not an option they said no so i resigned and a few days later suddenly they came back to me and since my this is a code employee came back to me and said they can offer part time honestly i'm furious why wait until i quit to offer the only one thing i've been asking for is this just the way it goes in some workplaces or is there some power play going on i think that's how things work in the public sector typically i'm not sure it's a power play i'm not sure it's that that deeper intentional i think my and this is very stereotypical and possibly very unfair my experience of of public sector i've worked in various public sector organizations or with various public sector organizations and departments is this very much like a a closed minded at like well we don't do that computer says no they just don't have the the flexibility of thought or systems or process and i understand because typically these organizations and machines but a lot of leaders don't always think they have that flexibility within their teams and departments and typically they do or it just seems too hard or they don't want you to go part time because they value do a full time employee i think it just it's very typical of a public sector organization mindset whereas if it's not broken we won't fix it and you broke it when you quit so they try to fix it the real question is how much do you care i understand that you're furious i would be furious too because you tried in a really flexible way that financial detriment to yourself to solve this problem so i guess it's at this point if they've let you down that much an organization like that probably isn't gonna change very quickly that what happens the next time say you stay you go back what happens when you have another request what happens when your dog is ill and you need to take them to the vet so what happens if you suddenly get some caring responsibilities and you acquire that flexibility around working from home again it sounds like you're not being over demanding but your life requires some degree of flexibility and you work at your best when you have that flexibility so my advice would be fine an organization who's willing to give you that flexibility whether that be part time or or full time whatever works best for you at this point i would double check with the organization who's offered you a job that they are flexible that they do offer these things and have offered them for for a a time maybe try and get in touch some people via linkedin to get there they're kind of views on it very subtly and then make a decision because the worst thing it's probably gonna be if you go to this new organization there as rigid as the old organization because it's kind of at this point better the devil you know until you find something else so that's all i'd say but ultimately it sounds like this public sector organization isn't for you in the long term so my thought would be it it might be time to move one if you did wanna stay then you're in a good negotiating position yeah if they want you to stay you part time yeah but i want full time hour full time pay or something like that i mean maybe not full time pay but you could potentially you gang that but then are you just creating resentment are you just creating a problem fees down the line is your line manager gonna be like why why is you getting paid more than me he or she sorry i don't think you actually said that was an assumption on my part wasn't that was terrible so yeah good good luck with it that's a tough one let's know it goes i think i personally agree lia anne i think you should ditch this company go organization go and work for the other one but just don't expect it all to be roses and whatever the phrases it might be my have own challenges yeah and i think if you are really looking for something that is is flexible if these you know these shifts really have a significant impact on your your performance in your well being it might be time to to think more broadly about the organizations and industries you want to work in and and typically smaller businesses as we've just heard from our previous question typically are much more open minded and flexible when it comes to to these types of adjustments within the workplace so yeah it might be time to leave public sector and maybe look at a small business and i understand people are typically that they wanna stay in public sector because it's it's always felt very secure job for life i'm not sure that's the case anymore with everything everything we're seeing so i don't think that's as big a reason a reason to stay anymore so yeah maybe start to think about actually what what type of industry organization sector is gonna be best for me absolutely so that's all for now you need to join us on thursday well first of all join us next next tuesday for a new addition of this week in work and then this thursday we've got a fascinating conversation with doctor cheryl robinson who is an expert in communication and also shares lia and i is hatred for corporate speak yeah so make sure he circle back loop in and also we'll have a synergistic conversation around which will align shareholders expectations and provide value for the dough i don't see it's making me sick whiteboard it whiteboard it so join us on thursday for another amazing episode and if you are a super fund if you do like to get involved then check out the the the the show notes there's ways to get in touch we have a private whatsapp group that where super fans are in which we're very very grateful for we give them we asked them for advice around titles they give us honest feedback on what they like honest more importantly what they don't like if you don't wanna do that but there's something you don't like about what we're doing just we we do really wanna hear it although we probably cry deep deal it bit don't be harsh and if you wanna join the conversation in between episodes head over to linkedin that's where i typically tend tend to hangout out come say hi come say connect i love it when people connect i had one today actually who was the lovely lady's name let me give her a shout out claire kenny thank you for connecting thank you for listening to show always lovely to hear messages by that wallace brilliant so we'll see thursday bye bye bye love you bye so what is post setting so it basically said have you that's it's a good question i scott for that on you i've been wearing my glasses that's a continuity nightmare no get leave mask and if we seal the packs into my eyes