Episode 162 · 14 January 2025 · 52:33
Bruce Daisley Unfiltered Full Interview - Special Episode
Bruce Daisley Unfiltered Full Interview - Special Episode
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Who is Bruce Daisley?
interview#bruce-daisley#tech#google
The problem with resilience training
Why Bruce wrote Fortitude — and the burnout myth
interview#fortitude#burnout#book
The research behind the book
interview#research#book#engagement
One takeaway for every leader
interview#leadership#takeaway#advice
The power of social connection
Remote work, hybrid and the push-pull
interview#remote-work#hybrid-work#flexibility
The uncomfortable truth about redundancy
interview#redundancy#layoffs#tech-industry
Do perks actually work?
interview#perks#company-culture#tech
The story behind Eat Sleep Work Repeat
interview#podcast#work-culture#book
A favourite guest — Zeynep Ton
interview#zeynep-ton#guest#interview
Fun at work — is it still allowed?
interview#fun-at-work#workplace#culture
Show notes
Bruce Daisley Unfiltered: Resilience, Burnout & the Power of Connection
Special Episode — Part of the Unfiltered Series: Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) bring you the full, raw, unedited conversation with Bruce Daisley — workplace culture expert, bestselling author of The Joy of Work and Fortitude, and host of the acclaimed podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat.
Recorded just in time for Blue Monday, Bruce challenges everything we thought we knew about resilience, burnout, and workplace culture. Why traditional resilience training doesn't work. Why burnout is a symptom of broken systems, not personal failure. And why the secret to stronger teams might be as simple as a stack of Pringles on a Thursday.
🔥 What We Covered
The truth about resilience Bruce has huge issues with how we've come to think about resilience. At its heart, the traditional idea is flawed — it turns resilience into an individual burden, a "man up and get on with it" mindset that ignores what the research actually shows: resilience is drawn from the strength of our connections, not individual toughness. Two-thirds of chief execs still believe in the pre-pandemic version of work, and that nostalgia is driving bad decisions.
Burnout is a systems problem When we talk about burnout, we tend to point at the individual. Bruce flips that: burnout is a symptom of broken systems, not personal failure. The thing that really decimates people's wellbeing is being separated from their team, their purpose, their sense of belonging — not a lack of grit.
Social connection is the secret weapon The research is clear: social connection is more predictive of how you'll be than drinking, exercise, or smoking. And yet we keep designing work that strips connection out. Bruce shares practical advice for leaders on fostering connection, trust, and belonging — even in hybrid or remote environments. Including the magic of "Crisp Thursday": a simple ritual where people gather around a stack of Pringles and just talk.
The perks myth Perks and benefits don't make people more motivated or happy in their jobs. What does? Feeling connected to the people you work with and the purpose of the work itself.
Fun is still allowed Worried about whether you can still have fun at work? Bruce's take: if the gags you're making are about the work, not about people, you're fine. Humour builds stronger teams — and laughing with colleagues is a game-changer for culture.
💡 Key Takeaways
- Resilience is collective, not individual. We draw strength from our groups — the idea that resilience is about toughing it out alone is both wrong and harmful.
- Burnout is a symptom of broken systems, not personal failure. Stop blaming the person; start fixing the environment.
- Social connection drives better culture and performance. Team lunches, shared rituals, Crisp Thursdays — the small stuff is the big stuff.
📚 More From Bruce Daisley
- Website: brucedaisley.com
- Podcast: Eat Sleep Work Repeat — eatsleepworkrepeat.com
- Books: The Joy of Work and Fortitude — available wherever books are sold
🎧 What's Next in the Series
Join us for the final episode in our Unfiltered Series with Dr. Ryan Martin — known as The Anger Professor — who shares insights on managing emotions in the workplace. Don't miss it.
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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?The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Al ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
?Nice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Al ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning psychology podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered psychologist.
?My name is Al, I'm a business owner.
Al ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of work and create amazing workplace cultures.
?Welcome back everyone, happy Tuesday. Normally, you— this is where we bring you This Week in Work, where we dive into the latest workplace news, we have hot takes, we have all the questions for Leanne in the world-famous weekly workplace surgery. But for January, we're doing something a little differently. We're doing something a little special.
Al ElliottThat's right, we are. This is the 5th episode in our Unfiltered series where we're bringing you the full, raw, unedited interviews with some of the most interesting and thought-provoking guests we have ever had on this— on the show. So far, it's been really good, hasn't it?
?Yeah.
Al ElliottSo far, we have brought you unfiltered conversations with the one and only Rory Sutherland, psychology legends John Amici and Professor Sir Kerry Cooper, and the undercover candidate Nora Burns. Today, we are bringing you the unfiltered conversation I had with Bruce Daisley earlier this year.
?I think what Leanne means is earlier is, is last year because earlier last year, we are in 2025 now. Today's episode couldn't be more timely. Next week it is Blue Monday, the 3rd Monday in January, known as the most depressing day of the year. Maybe that's a little dramatic. Maybe we're giving it too much power, but it is a reminder of how many of us struggle to find the energy and positivity during this time of year. And when it comes to resilience, how to build it, how to foster it, and how we often misunderstand it, Our guest today has the insights you need. Bruce Daisley is a workplace culture expert, a bestselling author of The Joy of Work and Fortitude, and the host of the brilliant podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat.
Al ElliottLongtime listeners might remember Bruce from episode 78 where he joined us. That was back in February 2024 to talk about making work better for everyone. If you missed that one, it is definitely worth revisiting.
?This time Bruce is back and we're bringing you the full unedited conversation, which is packed with research-backed truths. Leanne loves a bit of that. Actionable insights, and yes, some excellent mediocre pop music references.
Al ElliottIndeed it does. If you missed any of our earlier Unfiltered episodes, don't forget to check your podcast feed. They'll all be in there. Um, or head over to the YouTube, and while you're over at YouTube, you'll find part 2 of Rory Sutherland's episode that's exclusive. You won't find it anywhere else.
?No, you won't. Don't miss that. So grab a cup of coffee or something stronger perhaps if it's later in the day, or maybe early in the day. It's up to you. It's your life. You live however you want it. You need to settle in for this interview because this will shift how you think about about resilience, especially at this time of year.
Al ElliottCan we start by you introducing yourself to our listeners? Tell us who you are, what you do, and what you're famous for.
Bruce DaisleyHi, I'm Bruce Daisley. For a long time, I did technology jobs. I worked at companies like Google, at Twitter when it was Twitter, and I worked at a place like that. Along the way, I developed a fascination with how teams work and, and just how to have fun at work, how to create good cultures. And I started doing the podcasts on those things that has led to me publishing a couple of books that have become bestsellers, one called The Joy of Work and one called Fortitude. And so now I spend my time helping companies think about themes of workplace culture and how to make work more enjoyable.
Al ElliottI don't think it'll be a surprise to most of our listeners that we'll have quite a few things in common. Workplace culture, we're enthusiastic about that. We're both podcasters. I think we both personally have pretty awesome accents. But I've also done my research, and there's something that I think— I'm not sure you'll realize we have in common, but I was very excited about, and that's that we share a passion for mediocre pop music.
Bruce DaisleyWhen you started that, I was wondering if you were, um, if that was where you're going to take it.
Al ElliottWas it? What is the— what is the greatest mediocre pop song of all time?
Bruce DaisleyWell, you know, I, I only use the, the modifier term mediocre because other people often take issue, but probably the best pop song of all time is either Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe Or— and most people disagree on this— but you wait till you see them with a glass of rum and Coke in their hand, and it's either, um, I Got a Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas. Most people, like, really resent that suggestion, but let me tell you, that moves people, that song does. It builds continuously. Uh, the finest work of Mr. I Am and Mr. Guetta, that one.
Al ElliottOh, so I'd like to start with what would be a simple question, which I'm sure has a really complicated answer. So complicated, I think you wrote a book on it. The concept of resilience as we know it, truth or lie?
Bruce DaisleyI've got huge issues with it, and, and for a number of reasons really. Firstly, I think at its heart the idea of resilience is superficially really appealing, but the expectation of it is actually something close to victim blaming. And so the, the expectation of resilience— and you know, you witness this all the time, you witness my friend works in a hospital in North London. And she said in the middle of the pandemic, overwhelming, we stood and cheered for these people and then denied them a pay increase. But these people were working relentless hours and someone pinned a notice on the notice board saying resilience webinar on Thursday. And she was like, the issue around here isn't that we're not resilient enough. The issue is that we're in a toxic culture. And what you've attempted to do there, you've attempted to, I guess, to appropriate a term from dating, you've attempted to gaslight the people there. You've attempted to tell them that something that is right in front of their eyes isn't actually happening. And so, you know, the concept of resilience is already a cautious one. So when firms say, you know, when they say we need to introduce some resilience training, the first thing you might wonder is, Why do you need resilience training? What have you overseen? Why is your culture so toxic that you've got people who need resilience training? Okay, question number one. Second thing is resilience is a bit like sort of anti-aging creams in the sense that the demand for anti-aging creams is limitless. And yet there's no single cream that ever stops people aging. There isn't one. There isn't a single cream where people don't look a year older or they don't look a little bit older. But there's no shortage of them. You know, you find yourself wandering around beauticians or, you know, the parts of stores that sell these things. There's no shortage of them. And resilience is a bit like that. There's no shortage of people who will sell you resilience courses. And look, the fascinating thing about that is that, okay, let's see if they work. Because, you know, the biggest customer of resilience courses in the world is the US Army. It spent somewhere close to $1 billion training combat soldiers to be resilient. The great thing about something like that, when you've spent that amount of money, is that other people come along and say, oh, right, well, if you've done all the work and you've done all the sort of investment, let's implement that. Let's measure that. And they've come along and said, oh, that resilience course that the US military has spent a billion dollars implementing has had zero impact. Soldiers are not any more resilient. Right. Okay. So, you've got this interesting thing. The very idea of it is to some extent victim blaming. But look, it's desirable. The ability to bounce back, to re-energize, is desirable. We all want to do it. But, you know, question the expectation of it. But then when you try and train people in it, it doesn't work. Why? Because we look for resilience in the wrong place. We've looked for resilience as this individual trait, this almost like this switch that some of us have or some of us don't have, some of this capacity that we've got to to reenergize on demand. And in truth, when we witness resilience, it actually has the characteristics of something collective rather than individual. You know, I mentioned combat soldiers, and there's a real conundrum at the heart of the situation of combat soldiers in the sense that combat soldiers who are in service often report feeling supported, emboldened, strengthened by the people around them. And actually, the thing that really decimates their well-being is the fact that they're separated from their tribe. Resilience is the strength we draw from each other. What you witness— combat soldiers are a perfect example of it. Combat soldiers often describe it's the moment where they don't have people who understand them, they don't have people who've gone through the same, when they find themselves trying to relate to people who've never had to witnessed the things that they've witnessed, that's when their resilience suffers. So I think whether we witness a situation like Ukraine where people have demonstrated this incredible capacity to deal with just horrible hardship, resilience is the strength we draw from each other. You don't see examples where some people in Ukraine say, I can't cope with this. And others say, oh yeah, I'm living my best life. Actually, it's the capacity for us to draw strength from the community around us that seems to be the defining aspect of resilience. And I think, you know, for me, that's the most intriguing enigma about the whole thing, that we— it's so heavily desired, but we often look for it in the wrong place.
Al ElliottI can already see some eye rolls around some of the things that you've said, Bruce, in terms of um, victim blaming. Um, I can see that, oh, you know, oh, we didn't have resilience training back, you know, when I was in my early career. I didn't need it. It's just about, you know, grit and determination and, and getting on, and that's that. Adversity ultimately makes you more successful. How do you, how do you respond to that type of opinion?
Bruce DaisleyYeah, well, where, where the questioner in that, in that scenario is coming from is the really important thing. You know, anyone who can't recognize that the world of work is fundamentally changed in the last 20 years, then there's some really stark data to prove that. The average working day has gone up by more than 2 hours a day in the last 15 years. In fact, the evidence suggests that the availability we give to our job, the cognitive availability we give to our job, has gone up to around 65-70 hours a week in most jobs, which just means that we're thinking about work, we're effectively in a work mindset for far more than we ever were before. It's no wonder then that yes, if we compare, there didn't used to be resilience training courses. Well, of course, there didn't used to be the systematic burnout that we're witnessing now, that we're witnessing 3 out of every 4 people in the UK say they've experienced an episode of burnout in the last 12 months. Now, if we were to rewind the clock, maybe to the millennium or whenever this glory era of work was, almost certainly people didn't have the demands of work that we're witnessing now. So of course, no doubt, there's been a massive increase in the amount of resilience training and the amount of demand for these things, a massive increase in the amount of burnout that we're witnessing, but the world is fundamentally a different place now than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago, I think.
Al ElliottSo Fortitude, your book, fundamentally questions resilience and how it's been thought about. What motivated you to write the book in the first place?
Bruce DaisleyI was just intrigued really with, I guess it's adjacent to the discussions of burnout, with the discussions of burnout that we've witnessed pre-pandemic. It's really important to remind ourselves that, you know, sometimes that we find ourselves in a situation where people think, well, we need to get back to when work was functioning again. There was a survey that came out in October this year by KPMG that said that 2/3 of chief execs believe that by 2028 we'll be back at a 5-day office, that we'll be working in the office 5 days a week. of chief execs believe that. Why? Because they believe in that version that the time before the pandemic was when work was working. Well, I guarantee if you and I were sitting down and having this discussion in 2019, we were talking about burnout. We were talking about how people were overloaded, how people couldn't cope with work. So, you know, the idea that we get— we rose-tint what 2019, 2018 looked like is an unfortunate consequence of where we're in right now, where people end up thinking about the good old days. And we all do it in all manner of our life. I think the most critical thing is that it's with those discussions of burnout, there's discussions about resilience. Why can't the kids cope? In my day, we could cope. Of course, comparing 2 different scenarios. And I was just curious about those things. Finally, my partner's Lebanese and they I adore Lebanon. I adore the Lebanese people, really lovely people. And, uh, but you know, the one thing that's often directed at them is that they have a lot of bad luck, a lot of misfortune. And you know, I was in Beirut where there was this, there was this almighty explosion, biggest explosion in peacetime in any city in the world. If anyone sort of, if you ever put it into YouTube, uh, Beirut, I think the first thing that comes up as autocorrect is explosion. And it's mamma mia. It's like a a sight to behold. The whole city's enveloped in this sort of, this fast-expanding mushroom cloud. It's terrifying to look at. But when we were there, all the news coverage when the explosion happened was, well, you know, the Lebanese people will be all right because they're really resilient. Well, if we know anything, Lebanese people are resilient. Let me tell you, on the ground, they weren't thinking that. They were seeing resilient as this label that other people were giving them, kind of, So they didn't have to help. It was a bit like, well, you're resilient, you'll pick yourself up. I'll see you later. Good luck with that. And it's not unsimilar to that, the use of resilience in that hospital, right? It's like, actually, I saw a tweet and someone said resilience, the word resilience is a demand for silence, right? That's really interesting, right? Because what you're saying is, be resilient. Like, it's a bit like, there, there, there, you'll be all right. And effectively, you're telling someone to demonstrate that they can bounce back from something rather than reaching out and offering them support, you know, rather than sort of trying to share their discomfort from them. So I found it really interesting, more than anything, you know, the sort of what you might consider then a distraction of the criticism of the word. I felt it was a bit overused. We were using it for everything. You know, if you put on the morning radio, if you listen to news radio, you'll hear resilience 4 times every hour. And so I was just intrigued because I was like, okay, so you've got all these people doing resilience courses. Schools around the world do resilience programs. And the really interesting thing about that is it's based really on the same psychology as the army stuff. And when people have said, oh, These resilience programs we're putting kids through, are they working? No, they have no impact whatsoever. So we've got this really interesting thing. We're spending loads of time trying to train this really desirable trait, this really desirable property. It's not working. I was like, okay, well, let's go back to first principles. Is there anything that we can do that really tries to understand our capacity to bounce back? And is there any way that we can achieve that?
Al ElliottDid you know that the UK's number one management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number one Marketing Podcast are both on the same podcast network.
?We actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Al ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
?And 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Al ElliottThe audio destination for business professionals.
?Seamless. Seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Al ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
?It can.
Al ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
?I am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Al ElliottBut come back.
?Yeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Al ElliottWhat I really enjoyed about Fortitude is that it's written in such an engaging and easy-to-read way, yet it is packed with research. I mean, the amount of research that you've done, is there anything that you still look back at and go, man, that was a surprise, I wasn't expecting that?
Bruce DaisleyYeah, the big one really was that, um, I sort of— I look a little bit at some of those narratives we hear that are often described as resilience stories, you know, the, the one you might pick I think if you were going to be timely, we often reach— when there are big resilience stories, we often reach for sports stars or famous people because they're just the people whose story, the people whose biography we get to hear. And sports stars, their stories are replete with examples of people who overcome adversity, and it often goes to serve resilience narratives. So, you know, Mo Farah might spring to mind right now. You know, won the double-double. He won 2 gold medals at 2 successive Olympic Games. And, you know, what you might say is, oh wow, look at Mo Farah's story. He actually was a refugee. In fact, you know what we discovered? That Mo Farah was actually a victim of human trafficking. So his story has this trauma at the heart of it. And I became fixated with that because what you discover is that Actually, it's a characteristic. A lot of Olympians have got a history of trauma, and what you discover is that it serves sort of via destroying their own identity, really. The way that we experience trauma is we experience it as shame quite often, which is heartbreaking because, you know, something bad has happened to you, and the way that we internalize it is we often feel Like it's about us. It's about we've got a sort of damaged identity from it. It's heartbreaking, but that's the way that broadly trauma is experienced. Anyway, one of the things that I was really interested to discover is that not only is there a high instance of trauma amongst athletes, and what you often discover is they effectively— trauma is normally correlated with addiction and with self-adapted behavior. So it's more likely to be associated with drinking, it's more likely to be associated with drug taking. You know, you're 4 times more likely to have alcohol and addiction problems if you've experienced high levels of trauma. Almost without exception, addiction has an episode of trauma that has Has spawned it. But what I was really struck by was the—I chatted to someone who looked at performance-enhancing drugs, so people who took performance-enhancing drugs—and he said to me, people who take performance-enhancing drugs have got—if they've got about a nine times higher likelihood to take performance-enhancing drugs if they've been. If they've had episode of sexual abuse, and if they've had physical abuse, it's about it's about eight times higher. But those are multiplicative, meaning that if you've had both, then multiply that likelihood anyway. So you end up with these situations where I think sometimes we can find ourselves when we hear the story of a shamed athlete thinking why would anyone take performance enhancing drugs? And what you often discover is right at the heart of it is an episode of. Of someone destroying their sense of identity, someone who is broken and their sporting performance is their redemption arc. So look, you know, I've cul-de-sac of taking you on there, but I was really blown away by that. The guy who told me that, I was like, wow, for the first time you can understand that when you see these people who've done These episodes of cheating, they've done it from a perspective that they have a really so low self-worth. They they broken people, really. And for the first time, you actually can empathize. You know, Lance Armstrong, famous cyclist, had episodes of abuse in his childhood. I think episodes of shame. There was also. there was also another Tour de France cyclist who was abused as a child. There's lots of these biographies that it's only in hindsight you can see, wow, this is why they did these things.
Al ElliottIn terms of work and leadership, is there any kind of one takeaway that you just wish all leaders could take from Fortitude?
Bruce DaisleyYeah, I think for me, especially the moment of work we're in right now, we've got this interesting conundrum where you need to believe 2 things at once. You need to recognize that 90% of people believe that flexible working is a good thing and they don't want to go back to the way they were working before, and that 2/3 of chief execs believe that we should be back in the office, right? Okay, 2 things at once. So you've got these bosses wanting people together, and I guess to some extent, part of the finding of the book is that resilience and strength is collective. And so, from that, you might say, well, okay, yeah, that's it. That's the mandate to get back to the office. But I think, you know, you need to bear in mind that desire to preserve the benefits of now. So, I think the lesson from leaders is thinking, how do I create a sense of cohesion, a sense of strength that will be the basis of our team resilience? How do I create that in a different way? And so, you know, I've seen really lovely things from people saying the job of leaders right now is to be entrepreneurial about building connection, about trying to make a way for teams to feel connected to each other. And that's the job of a leader right now. And I think it's a really interesting challenge. And I think really at the heart of it, even though the book's about resilience, really it speaks to team dynamics and groups and making us all feel more connected.
Al ElliottI enjoyed in the book how you uncovered lots of different myths, which we enjoy at Truth and Lies. What do we know from the evidence, from the science, from your experience? What can leaders do to foster those types of relationships that will support more positive wellbeing?
Bruce DaisleyYeah, the notion that we draw strength from groups is, you know, even though it's really well known, we don't really explore it. And, you know, in the medical community, for example, if you're hospitalised for anything from depression to heart illness to whatever it is, the best predictor of how you will be in 2 years and 5 years is how many social groups you report feeling part of. Why on earth is that relevant? Well, from doctors' and physicians' point of view, it's, it's kind of not, so they don't ask about it. They don't say, are you part of a social group? Do you do any group activities? Do you have any activities you feel part of? They don't ask it. And yet, it's far more predictive of how you'll be than if you drink, if you exercise, if you smoke. In fact, if you have friends that you see every day, it on average increases your lifespan by 15 years. It's like this remarkable, extraordinary impact on longevity. And so, I guess at the heart of it, we kind of overlook these things. And they really go to the heart of strong organizations as well. Normally, I heard this brilliant thing. I attended a session where different companies talked about culture and a big retail store that, you know, probably one of the most famous retail stores in the UK. And somebody who worked there, she said, we did some analysis and we found an interesting correlation. The stores that used all of their staff entertaining budgets had much better culture than the ones who didn't. I mean, it's like such a silly, self-evident thing, but the ones who arranged staff baseball, softball in the park, or the ones who arranged a sort of a staff quiz night, or the ones who did those things had much better culture than the ones who didn't. And what you broadly discover is that good culture generally has socialization, it generally has social connection at the heart of it. Now, the interesting lesson for all of us right now is that, you know, the world has changed a bit. A lot of people have, since COVID have got much longer commutes. They've moved out. They're staying on a— going to the pub after work, you know, actually typically only half of the office have ever enjoyed that and they kind of didn't go, but we didn't notice them. Everyone else who was having so much fun there didn't notice that, you know, the ones with care responsibilities weren't there, the ones with long commutes, the ones who didn't drink weren't there. So, I guess the challenge increasingly for leaders is recognizing socialization plays a big part of stronger culture. Stronger culture generally translates into better results, better performance. But we maybe don't want to do all of those things outside of work hours. And so, the interesting challenge for leaders is, okay, how do we create social connection inside work hours? Now, that might be team lunches, It might be team bake sales where everyone brings something in, costs zero money, people bring things in, you'll sit and eat something together. Or I've seen companies that do team food, world food events, and everyone from different countries brings the food their grandmother used to make them. Or everyone brings the food that they most love cooking at home. And so, you've got like this Polish food, you've got this Indian food, you've got these these like Nigerian dishes, like, and you've just got this incredible collection of people doing things. But it's just more, I think the challenge is thinking about doing as many of those things in work environments. I spoke to one organization, they said the receptionist changed the culture here. I was like, okay, I'm intrigued, tell me more. They said the receptionist was one of those actors who sort of worked for a bit, then came back and then did some acting, then came back, did season of pantomime came back and she said, this is the worst place I've ever worked. I guess you can say that when you're the temp. And she said, no one talks to each other, there's no connection, no one even seems to like each other really. Anyway, she took it into her own hands, she went out, she bought some bags of kettle chips and Pringles, she laid them all out on paper plates and she said, back to the point I made before, she said, ladies and gentlemen, it's the best time of the week, 4:30 on Thursday, it's Crisp Thursday. Thursday. And, you know, people came up and they had like a little stack of Pringles and they stood around going, what's this? Next week she did it again. Next week she did it again. She was dressed up. On the third week, she was dressed up as a Pringles tube. And anyway, it became like a little ritual. People would say, let's not have a meeting. Are you going to be at Crisp Thursday? I've just got 2 things to ask you. You know, oh, occasionally someone turned up with cake. Someone turned up with Prosecco. Anyway, it became the in-work moment where they all stopped doing stuff for 15 minutes to connect, or for half an hour to connect with each other. And I guess the spirit of that, the spirit of that Crisp Thursday is how leaders need to be a bit more entrepreneurial with connection. It's realizing that generally, you know, we're engaged with our job when we've got a friend at work. And it's one of the fundamental details about work culture that we often forget. So the more that we can make— build connections, we make people feel like we're all in it together, that, you know, we can draw strength from each other. All of these things seem to be in service of better culture, really.
Al ElliottI feel like we've got like a push and pull now. Like you said, lots of people want to engage in remote working, flexible, hybrid, whatever that looks like. We've got CEOs that want to get people back to the office, and then we also know that social connection the main driver of resilience, workplace culture, performance, well-being. Do we need to be together to build those types of physical connections? Is the future back in the office?
Bruce DaisleyI don't think we need to. I mean, you know, the one thing we know is that there's huge communities that never meet each other online, whether they are music fandoms or fandoms of TV shows or, you know, huge communities that never meet each other, or they might meet each other once every 2 years at a gig. Or a comic conference. And, and so, you know, we don't need to be with each other every day to, to forge connection. I think the, um, the thing that we might think though is we might think, how do we sustain those things? People who've looked into this have said, in terms of the office, spending between 25% and 50% of our time together seems to have an impact on making culture more cohesive. So, you know, any more than that, it doesn't necessarily have a huge impact. The other thing that's of interest as well is that what you often find is that people get really frustrated if they've made a journey in. I was with one organization a couple of months ago and they said, the average commute in our team is 2 hours each way. People have moved to Southampton, they've moved to York, they've moved to, you know, They're commuting into London and they'll do it one day a week happily, two days a week fine, but you know it's a long commute. They don't want to be doing that every day. Now you can force them in, but if they come all the way in and they spend the day on Zoom calls, they will not forgive you. If they come in and they spend all day on Teams with people who are at home, they'll think, what was the point of that? You know, like I'm being— I was chatting to someone yesterday and he said a member of his team, 23-year-old, His average commute when he comes in is £75, and his peak time commute is £75. His off-peak commute is £22 or something. So he's like, oh, I love coming in, I love being in the office. If there's any chance I can do it off-peak, it makes my life just so much less impoverished, you know. Like, if I'm getting £75 train I've got to feel like that extra hour in the office was worth it. And, you know, actually, if you're getting in and people are just chatting, having a coffee, it's like, please don't punish me for being late when it's got a £50 difference to me. And I think, you know, understanding those things are really critical for where we are in work right now.
Al ElliottI want to ask you about your background in tech. You're very modest in how you presented that, but I believe you were at the highest global leader outside of the US for Twitter.
Bruce DaisleyYeah, that's right, that's right.
Al ElliottTwitter has been on such a journey the last 12 months or so. I mean, how do you reflect on, on that and, and what's happened since it was acquired by Elon Musk?
Bruce DaisleyFully compartmentalize it. So, you know, for me, if someone's rich enough to buy it or any organization's rich enough to buy it, they're rich enough to do whatever they want with it. So I don't feel a sense of loss. I was reading an article yesterday Um, a magazine called Campaign Magazine wrote a lovely feature when Elon Musk bought Twitter and made 60% of the staff redundant. And it wrote a lovely feature about asking people who dealt with Twitter in the UK, um, what their experience was and, and why the culture there was special. It was so lovely. You know, one of the things I always take pride on is that even though I talk about these things, and, um, and I'll be the first to tell you I haven't got all the answers on culture, but I feel proud that the culture of, of what we created at Twitter was regarded as a really wonderful, special place. Um, but the— look, you know, what he's done since is entirely up to him. I think, you know, I think more than anything, these, um, there's a few character tells in the way you do things. You know, he's— he got rid of people who were criticizing him, impersonating him. He's banned journalists who were criticizing him. He shows That guy shows a remarkable thin skin for someone who's the richest person in the world. I mean, if you're I with the richest person in the world, you know, maybe any flight of ego I'd like to imagine would be thinking, yeah, you know what? Bit of an ego boost, but I'm going to solve malaria. You know, bit of an ego boost, but I'm gonna transform our our relationship with cancer. You know, like you'd have thought you'd do something would be a lasting legacy that people would go. Wow, you know, the world was so much better for that guy being around. Not buying something and then specializing in racist memes. It's just a really strange approach. But, you know, probably more than anything from the first instance, the way he dealt with employees there was probably the most upsetting thing because he fired a lot of people without even telling them, without even communicating with them. Most people had not received an email from Elon Musk when they got fired. You know, he'd owned it for 2 weeks. They found out they'd been fired because their computer wouldn't log in anymore. It just seems like, you know, it seems like a really cruel way to deal with people. And I think that's probably the thing that sticks in my head.
Al ElliottI mean, speaking of redundancies, it's, you know, it's a lot of disruption we've seen in the tech industry last 12 to 18 months. I mean, what are your thoughts on the mass redundancies being made by so many tech tech companies? And what are your predictions for tech in 2024?
Bruce DaisleyYeah, it's a really interesting thing about redundancy that generally making people redundant doesn't have any impact on performance. It doesn't make performance better. You know, it's really interesting research on it. So I think what you would probably say is that there was like a social contagion. When a few firms started making job cuts, everyone else started making job cuts because it looked like that's what everyone else was doing. And if you didn't, it posed the question, Why are you not doing job cuts? So it's a degree of social contagion, really interesting phenomenon. It's, look, you know, it's a reflection that the economy's been tough the last couple of years. Every firm I chat to has said this has been a really difficult year, you know, expectations haven't been met. It's been a really difficult year and I don't think tech's alone in those challenges. So Hopefully around the world, the economy is improving, and so, you know, we might move beyond that contagion of wanting to reduce the headcount of organizations, I think.
Al ElliottStaying in tech, moving on to YouTube, where you were for 3 years. I've seen some data being published that suggests that the culture there might be in a bit of a pickle and a bit of a decline. And I guess the thing that I've seen is employees losing confidence in the leadership team. What are you hearing about YouTube, and why do you think employees might be losing faith?
Bruce DaisleyYeah, it's a long time since I worked there, but I think, you know, the interesting thing I would say about YouTube is that it's, in the whole time it's existed really, it's never stepped up and owned the innovator position that it should have done. You know, we knew— I worked at YouTube for a long time, almost 4 years, very, very happy there. And, um, and, you know, initially YouTube was like the home of video, great. But when streaming video came along, oh yeah, it wasn't the home of that. Twitch came along and took its mantle. Then, uh, TikTok came along. 2 innovations at the heart of TikTok, really. Um, the algorithm, which showed you really exciting new content, but also the camera, the capacity to create new content on the fly. And, you know, until then, YouTube was almost 15, 20 years old and had never created anything that allowed people to edit videos. Incredible, you know. And now they have, they've got something which just illustrates that the absence of competition has made the business quite slow. And, you know, So I would say it missed TikTok, it missed Twitch, it missed all manner of different innovations in its backyard really. And it's just a demonstration that I don't think it's innovated quite quick enough. It's, you know, like a lot of businesses, it's a bureaucracy, it moves very slowly. And so, you know, I personally think the best thing that could happen to both Google and YouTube is if they're broken up. out. Having separate companies is generally good for competition. It's generally good for us, good for stockholders if that bothers you, you know. But yeah, it's sort of better for everyone when these companies have a bit more competition against each other.
Al ElliottI mean, thinking about tech, it was often tech companies kind of held up as the best practice, gold, platinum, shining example of workplace culture, these incredible complexes, these different ways of working. And yet that shift that we've seen with Twitter and Elon Musk coming in, companies like Zoom bringing, you know, calling people back into the office, Amazon— are they still the best practice example of culture, the tech industry, do you think? Or is there another sector that's caught up?
Bruce DaisleyYeah, it's worth adding the caveat that Zoom called employees in 2 days a week, so It's still relatively liberal compared to most firms. I've always said from the moment I worked in tech, I used to say, I just want you to know that the culture in technology is no better than anywhere else. You know, things that tech companies got famous for, for providing free food to people, don't get me wrong, it was spectacular. It's for someone to cook you a hot dinner and to offer you a choice of that every day, don't get me wrong, it's dazzling. In fact, To the extent that for the first 3 years I worked in that environment, I just used to have a sandwich every day because I just thought, if you get too comfortable with having a nice plated meal every day, you'll never leave here. Who could leave having a meal and dessert every day? So I just used to sit like some weirdo eating a sandwich every day. But yeah, so don't get me wrong, those things are good, but the culture's no better. And broadly, what we discover is that perks and benefits don't make people more motivated or happy in their job. Even if you're getting a free meal, and look, don't get me wrong, I've just said how lovely it is, it doesn't generally improve your engagement with your job. It's a strange thing. It doesn't make you feel like your job's a better one, even though someone's given you a lasagna at lunchtime.
Al ElliottI'd like to ask you about your podcast, Eat Sleep Work Repeat. For anyone who hasn't heard of it, hasn't listened to it, can you introduce it for us? Tell them what they should expect.
Bruce DaisleyThe podcast was formed by my own desire to make work better. I mentioned I worked at Twitter, and tech firm culture isn't always the best. And there was certainly a time we'd been forced to do a round of job cuts. I think we'd done another round of job cuts, and the culture, which had been this magical thing, it really sort of had been adored by the people there, And people said, you know, this is the best place I've ever worked. And then the culture just didn't bounce back. And so I, I was like, okay, well, what can I do to fix this? And just, I started doing a podcast, which was kind of my own self-education. It was like, it was like I'd see a fascinating article, I'd contact the person who wrote it, I'd interview them. Um, about 6 years ago now, so like sort of pre any sort of boom in podcasts. Along the way, it became number one business podcast. So, it way exceeded my expectations. And as a result of that, it sort of allowed me to go on and do a couple of books. And I do a newsletter about workplace culture that came from it. Yeah. So, it's really for anyone who is ignited with the question of how do I make work better? And that might be for their team, it might be for their whole organization, it might be just a really for their department, whatever it is, someone who's thinking, how can I use the research that's out there to make the job of me and my team better?
Al ElliottWhere does this passion stem from, Bruce? You're very passionate about people and culture, and you have, you know, strong, strong feelings and thoughts about it and practices about it. Where does that stem from?
Bruce DaisleyI've always been relatively fortunate that most of the jobs I had, I enjoyed. And so, you know, I would always say to myself, it had been a good day if I'd laughed 10 times that day. And, you know, it'd been a— and so, like, that's it. If I went home that day and I was like, man, that was a funny day, that was the defining thing. If I was like getting on the public transport home saying to myself, that was a funny day today, that was all that mattered to me. It's really interesting. I was like, does that correlate with good culture though? He's like, You know, to some extent, I had someone once tell me, don't be seen laughing around here. You know, we weren't doing very well as a business. If the big boss walks past, don't be seen laughing. It's like, oh really? You're not allowed to laugh when things are bad? It's interesting because if you chat to people who do really bad jobs like firefighters or soldiers, they laugh all the time. But, you know, it's like, okay, so this is really interesting. that people will help diagnose what good culture looks like. Anyway, I was just really intrigued with that. What does good culture look like? If people laugh more, is that better for culture? Will we get better results if people laugh more? Or is my own instinct a bad one? And I just became obsessed with that. And, you know, actually, I'll tell you, I don't know the sort of jobs you've done, but I've done a lot of bar jobs and restaurant jobs. And there's something when you start a new shift at a bar, And you get a bit of a vibe when you turn up and you ask if they've got any jobs, and then you find out, then you start there. When you start a new shift at a job, you know within the first shift whether this is going to be a horrible place to work, or whether this— and you're still looking, you go carrying on looking— or whether this might be a good place. Okay, you go home at the end of the first shift, that was good actually, I like those people. Really intriguing. Well, obviously that's got to have an impact on customer service. If everyone in a place hates each other or hates the boss, of course, you know, it's gonna have an impact on whether you're good to customers. And so, you know, for me, I was just like really interested in those dynamics, interested in the dynamics of whether, how those things work together. So yeah, I've always just had a, as a participant in teams, I've just always had a curiosity of how we can make teams better.
Al ElliottAnd you've had such a range of incredible guests on, on the podcast. Is there any favorite guest that you have?
Bruce DaisleyYeah, I love this woman I have the utmost admiration for called Zeynep Tan. She's a professor of operations at MIT. I've had her on twice. She wrote a book called The Good Jobs Strategy, and she wrote a good book called The Good Jobs— it was this year she updated it— Good Jobs Method, I think. Anyway, 2 brilliant books. Started off actually looking at retail stores, supermarkets, and then she went on and looked at just the general world of work. And she found that the more that you build a good culture, the more successful and profitable a business is. Brilliant, brilliant work. And the other person I admire the most is a woman called Frances Frei. And she goes into those companies when you hear like Uber's got a culture problem or WeWork's got a culture problem, or there's another one called Riot Games that had a really bad sort of sexism and bullying. And she's the person they call. So I was like, man, what do you do? You walk in, they've called you, you know, wouldn't like the fear be running through you? Like, oh my God, what am I gonna do? Because they're gonna— they want answers here. I can't not do anything. And so I've chatted to her twice and I'm always like, what do you do? What's the first thing you do? Number one thing she does, train managers. That's what she does. She trains managers. That's really interesting. Like, you know, of course there's quick fixes, you know, change that policy, we change that. That's maybe not well advised. Then she trains managers. Wow. Okay. That's so interesting.
Al ElliottAny dream guests? Anyone you're hoping to get on in the future?
Bruce DaisleyAlong the way, I've tried to get like politicians and things like that. because I was interested, you know, what does someone who's thinking about, you know, a mayor of London, of Manchester, are they thinking about what the city of the future looks like and our changing relationship with place? I was really interested. I tried to get those people. Yeah, like, you know, people like that probably are of most interest. People who think, or whose job it is to think about where we're going rather than just where we are right now. I'm not sure all politicians do that, if I'm honest, but I was just interested what— whether they did have a vision.
Al ElliottMy last question, which I always like to be my last question: is there anything that I haven't asked you that I should have?
Bruce DaisleyNo, no. Number one, firstly, I— it's such a pleasure to turn the microphone, and, you know, actually it's so uncomfortable when you spend your whole time listening and asking questions. When you find yourself talking, you feel like, oh my God, listen to me going on, shut up. And you sort of, you find yourself very conscious of the fact that you've sort of monologued a bit. So, um, no, so, so that's been pleasurable. Thank you so much. It's been a, uh, a lovely thing. No, not at all, actually. I've talked about enjoying people laughing at work, and that's the only thing I really always like to get out, you know, that a good job is when we've got a friend at work and we, you know, when we laugh with friends. And that, that works in so many ways. It gives us someone to help us decompress. It gives us someone to sense-check the nonsense that we're hearing. It just, it makes life less lonely, right? And so, you know, making work a place where we have friends is probably the most important thing for me.
Al ElliottI have heard some people say, oh, you know, it's really hard to have fun at work now. You're never sure if you're going to offend somebody. Are we allowed to banter? Where's the comfortable, safe, having fun at workplace.
Bruce DaisleyYeah, I don't see an issue with that really. You know, I, I, you know, if the sort of gags you are making are at the expense of someone's identity, I suspect it was never as funny as you thought it was in the first place. You know, if you need to challenge who someone is and what they're about to get a laugh, I don't think that was probably ever as funny as you think it was. And aside from that, I think there's a billion things that we can laugh about and joke about. So, you know, to my mind, if someone's gender or ethnicity or sexuality is the thing that you thought was banter, you know, probably time has moved on for that. But apart from that, still a billion things you can laugh about. The great thing is there's a wonderful book I'd recommend. By 2 women who teach at Stanford, a book called Humor Seriously. And one of the things they wrote was, look, you know, we much prefer managers who laugh. We much prefer being in an environment which is filled with laughter. And here's how you laugh more. You try and laugh more. You find moments in meetings where there's 5 minutes at the end of a meeting where you make it, you know, you share funny things that have happened this week. You share funny things that have happened And you just set yourself up for opportunities to laugh more. In fact, the only thing I'll say is that my only strength in life is that I'm quite generous with my laughter. I love laughing at stuff. And what you find is that when you laugh at stuff, other people also enjoy laughing. Generally, we only laugh with people we like, which is an interesting element of psychology. So I wouldn't say that I wouldn't say if you're open-hearted, I wouldn't say that there's any reason to believe that there's less opportunity for laughter. What I will say is we do laugh less on Zoom, and so, you know, we've got to rebuild the times that we are around each other, rebuild those relationships, make sure we spend our face-to-face time laughing.
Al ElliottWhere can our listeners find out more about you, get in touch with you if they want to find out more?
Bruce DaisleyI've got a website, brucedaisley.com, or eatsleepworkrepeat.com. arm. It's got a lot of the stuff for the podcast on it, and you can take a look. My newsletter and everything is on there.
Al ElliottAmazing. Thank you so much.
Bruce DaisleyThank you so much.
?What a conversation. Bruce Daisley always brings so much energy, insight, and passion to an interview.
Al ElliottHe really does. His take on resilience, I really like it as a collective strength rather than just an individual trait. It's, it's important, it's that distinction, and I think as well, it puts some accountability back on organisations, which is really important when it comes to wellbeing. Yeah, I really enjoy everything Bruce has to say. And fun fact, if you struggle sometimes with reading a book, you're easily distracted, or you've just got stuff to do, I'd highly recommend his audiobook, Fortitude, the audio version. I listen to that and it's just brilliant. You've heard Bruce now, he's got a hell of an accent, He talks, he talks about everything so brilliantly. Very storytelling, very engaging. Highly recommend.
?So talking of which, if you want to explore a bit more of Bruce's work, then we've linked to everything in the show notes. Make sure you check out his books, Fortitude, as Leanne just said, and The Joy of Work, and the podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat.
Al ElliottThis Unfiltered series doesn't stop yet. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Um, but it does soon, actually. On Thursday, we will bring you our final full unedited conversation with a guest who is doing what he can, or will continue to do what he can, to keep us calm over the year ahead, we will be joined by the anger professor himself, Dr. Ryan Martin.
?If you haven't already, then subscribe to the podcast and follow us on LinkedIn. And if you're loving this series, which of course you are, we made it, leave us a review or share it with someone who needs to hear it. Many of us will need a little bit of support this January, so just fire it over to someone you think needs to hear it.
Al ElliottYeah, and on that note, don't forget to check out the show notes. We always leave a list of mental health resources should you need them.
?Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time for the last in the Unfiltered series with— have we said who it is yet? No?
Al ElliottDr. Ryan Martin.
?Sorry, Dr. Ryan. Yes, we did say that. It's been a long day.
Al ElliottBye.
?Bye-bye.