Episode 212 · 8 July 2025 · 58:56
Can toxic cultures really change? Inside BrewDog, NatWest and secret burnout. PLUS! Why do wellbeing leaders have to be perfect? With Matt Smeed
Featuring Matt Smeed
Can toxic cultures really change? Inside BrewDog, NatWest and secret burnout. PLUS! Why do wellbeing leaders have to be perfect? With Matt Smeed
0:000:00
Tip: click any timestamp below to jump there and keep playing.
Enjoying the show? Subscribe for free
Chapters & timestamps
Click any timestamp to jump the player to that moment.
Intro and Episode Preview
BrewDog's Wellbeing Rebrand: Real Change or PR Stunt?
news roundup#brewdog#wellbeing#pr#corporate-culture
NatWest Thinks Like a Tech Company: Employee Journeys and Failure-Free Work
news roundup#natwest#tech-company#employee-experience#failure
Career Plateaus and Secret Burnout: The Hidden Cost of Feeling Stuck
news roundup#career-plateau#burnout#employee-research
Hot Take: Why Wellbeing Leaders Have to Be Perfect (with Matt Smeed)
Workplace Surgery: Do Investors Care About Culture?
workplace surgery#investors#company-culture#workplace-advice
Workplace Surgery: Should I Tell My Boss I'm Burnt Out?
workplace surgery#burnout#boss#communication#workplace-advice
Workplace Surgery: Gathering Peer Feedback Without Being Thrown Under the Bus
workplace surgery#peer-feedback#feedback#workplace-advice
Outro and Next Week's Tease
Show notes
Can Toxic Cultures Really Change? Inside BrewDog, NatWest & Secret Burnout — with Matt Smeed
Guest: Matt Smeed — Business Psychologist, co-founder of the Working Well Community, and two-time HR Influential Voice (yes, really).
BrewDog says it's all about wellbeing now. NatWest is trying to think like a tech company. And new research reveals what happens when employees get stuck in dead-end jobs. But the big question this week: why do the people responsible for workplace wellbeing have to be perfect?
Matt Smeed joins Al and Leanne for this week's Hot Take to argue that wellbeing leaders are held to impossible standards. Other departments get to try, fail and iterate — but when it comes to wellbeing, the bar is sky-high. Matt says it's time to ditch the perfectionism and make space for progress.
Plus, in the Weekly Workplace Surgery: do investors actually care about culture (and how do you prove it)? Should you tell your boss you're burnt out — or push through? And what do you do when you've been asked to be the "culture go-between" and nobody wants to talk to you?
🔥 Stories Covered
1. BrewDog says it's all about wellbeing now After years of scandal, staff walkouts and open letters from "Punks with Purpose" and "BrewDoggers with Beef", BrewDog is trying to clean up its act — training 200 mental health first aiders and rolling out a new leadership charter. But should we believe them? And what does real culture change actually look like? Source →
2. NatWest starts thinking like a tech company From giving back nearly half a million staff hours to killing off bad ideas fast, NatWest's COO is leading a culture shift inside one of the UK's biggest banks. Is this the future of large-scale transformation? Source →
3. Stuck employees act out — and here's the science behind it New research finds that career plateaus don't just hurt motivation — they drain people's mental energy and make them more likely to break rules, disengage, or behave badly. Not because they're unprofessional… but because they're burned out and stuck. Study: Zhao, Chen & Xie (2025), Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Study → Follow-up →
🎙️ Hot Take: Matt Smeed on Why Wellbeing Leaders Are Held to Impossible Standards
Matt Smeed — Business Psychologist and co-founder of the Working Well Community — joins the show to ask a simple question: why do wellbeing leaders have to be perfect?
Other departments are allowed to try, fail and iterate. But when it comes to wellbeing, the bar's sky-high. Matt argues it's time to ditch the perfectionism and make space for progress.
Here's where it gets really interesting: Matt also floats an even hotter take — that some wellbeing initiatives could actually be doing more harm than good. And he's got a point about how we'd never expect an IT rollout to work perfectly first time, so why do we expect that from culture change?
💬 Workplace Surgery
Three listener questions, tackled live:
- Investors & culture: "I'm gearing up for my first funding round and want to show off our strong team culture. But will investors actually value it — and how do you make it measurable?"
- Burnout: "I've been the fixer, the firefighter, the one who holds it all together. Now I'm running on empty. Should I tell my boss — or just push through?"
- Peer feedback: "My boss wants me to be the 'culture go-between' and gather peer feedback. But no one wants to talk to me. I feel awkward, underqualified and unsure how to do it. Is it OK to push back?"
(Got a question? Submit it via the connect link below.)
More From Matt Smeed
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-smeed-b6033922/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@workingwellcommunity
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
Expand full transcript
Al ElliottComing up this week in work.
Leanne ElliottBrewDog announced this week that they are now all about wellbeing, 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 rebrand a real culture change or just a PR stunt?
Al ElliottAnd can a major bank really work like a startup? NatWest 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?
Leanne ElliottAnd in the workplace surgery, do investors care about culture? And if they do, how do you prove it? One listener is gearing up for a funding round and wants to know, will culture make a difference to the investor numbers?
Al ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work.
Leanne ElliottThe award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne, and I'm still a chartered occupational psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al, and I am still a business owner, although a bit fed up of it now, if the truth be told.
Leanne ElliottIn this climate. And we are both still helping you create amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottWe're going to get into today's episode in just a second after a quick break and a message from our lovely sponsors. See you in a second. 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.
Leanne 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.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Welcome back. Welcome back. How's July treating you? What are you on about? 7 days into July, 8 days into July. How's it going? Is everything all right? 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, is Canada cool in summer?
Leanne ElliottI don't know. Tell us, tell us, Canadians.
Al ElliottYeah. If you're from Canada, then drop us a quick email. Sorry, Canada. Sorry, I'm saying it wrong. Then drop us a quick email. Anyway, this isn't about Canada. This isn't about weather. This is about the news roundup, which is Leanne's favourite time of the week. I've taken the words out your mouth.
Leanne ElliottIt still is my favourite time of the week.
Al ElliottOkay, I've done the jingle. Leanne, what have you seen this week?
Leanne ElliottBrewDog.
Al ElliottOh, okay. BrewDog. For those people who don't know about BrewDog, they're a UK-based— were the darling of the investment, of the armchair investors about 10, 15 years ago. My dad and my brother-in-law both invested in BrewDog, I believe.
Leanne ElliottDid they?
Al ElliottYep. When they first started.
Leanne ElliottOh, well, that went well, I'm sure.
Al ElliottIt did go well. Yes. Yes, it did. Not shared any of the money with me, but why would they, I suppose? So anyway, BrewDog. It's a kind of— it used to be a scrappy startup brewery, is that right?
Leanne ElliottYes, um, and quite well known for having a problematic culture. But this week it says that it's now all about wellbeing. Um, so in an article in The Times— fancy, doesn't seem quite on brand, does it? They are, they are trying to shift. Um, in The Times it said that they have been training 200 of their staff as mental health first aiders. Fair play. Step in the right direction. But as I mentioned, they have had somewhat of a problematic culture over the years. Um, let me fill you in. Back in 2021, over 60 ex-employees 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 instances, this was a pattern. And it came from a group called Punks with Purpose, and it kind Blew up. If you haven't heard of BrewDog, it is quite a punky brand. That was kind of their, their kind of thing, wasn't it? Um, so anyway, BrewDog responded at the time with promises. They said they were listening, uh, they rolled out forums, a listening line, and even a dashboard, a nice shiny colorful dashboard.
Al ElliottWell, that solves everything, doesn't it?
Leanne ElliottTo show how transparent, uh, they were being. But then in 2024, staff were saying none of that worked. A second open letter, because one bad enough. Second open letter, this time from current staff rather than ex-staff, claimed people were still scared to speak up, that retaliation was happening, that people worried they'd be pushed out if they talked about pay or unions. Oh, and that they've just scrapped the real living wage. And that transparency dashboard funnily just went away. Transparent.
Al ElliottI'm curious, before you go on, you had— they were called the professional punks or something. What were they called, the people before?
Leanne ElliottPunks with Purpose.
Al ElliottPunks with Purpose. So these are now called, these were current people, so current, what, what have they called themselves?
Leanne ElliottNo, this was the first open letter. Oh, I see. So this is kind of like ex-workers.
Al ElliottNow it's current workers.
Leanne ElliottEx-gruntled, called themselves Punks with Purpose. And now—
Al ElliottSecond open letter is from, have they not got a name?
Matt SmeedSorry.
Leanne ElliottBrewDoggers with Beef.
Al ElliottBrewDoggers. I like that. BrewDoggers with Beef. Okay, so BrewDoggers with Beef, they were saying that it wasn't working.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottI interrupted you. Sorry. Go on.
Leanne ElliottWait, it just wasn't working.
Matt SmeedRight, okay.
Leanne ElliottSerious, 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, worried you'll get pushed out, all that type of thing. Um, so this was just last year. So now in 2025, you can imagine my surprise when I saw this article in the Times that BrewDog are leaning into wellbeing. Um, they do have a new CEO though. The, um, original founders, I believe, have now been pushed out. A new leadership charter and a rebrand that in terms of its product as well has also ditched the kind of what they were known for, the shock tactics, the dead animals I think they used to pour beer into.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd yeah, all very strange. But yes, mental health first aid is— and talk of wellbeing is now central to their strategy. It is a puff piece, do you know what I mean? It's all just like, oh, 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 change because training first aiders is not a culture change make because first aiders are brilliant. Mental health first aiders are brilliant. And actually, as an initiative in your organisation, it's probably one of the most impactful things that you can do to support your, support your people and create that psychologically safe environment. Everything though that has been claimed by previous employees and current employees points to issues with systems, processes, people, culture. Not individual levels of wellbeing. So 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 behaviours we expect to see in leadership, and those behaviours may well drive the culture change. But I must admit, I'm not really convinced, Al. What do you think?
Al ElliottYeah, there's kind of a famous thing in startups saying, what got you here won't get you there. And I think that applies to both marketing. So yes, all right, getting dead animals and being all like shock marketing probably did really well when they were a scrappy startup. Now they're an established company, what, probably 15, 20 years old? That's not gonna work. Same way when you're starting up, the temptation is to go, well, culture's great and we're doing our very best and see, look, you know, we're trying, but it's never— not everything's perfect. Now it needs to be a bit more formalized. I don't know. I mean, the, The leader was the founder, I think. I think I've got this right. The founder and his new fiancée or new wife were on LinkedIn about 3 months ago going, there is no such thing as work-life balance. You just don't understand. You don't love your work. That showed that they were in the wrong, that they were going down the wrong route. And it's just no massive surprise. Leanne, is there a way they can fix this?
Leanne ElliottI think that they've taken a good step with the leadership charter. I think that's a really positive step and removing problematic founder. I think this is a sad thing for founders, and often where that, that the innovation that kind of created the initial brand is, is lost. I agree that it's very noughties, isn't it, all the guerrilla marketing type stuff, and it needed to kind of be updated a little bit with what people are actually, um, interested in now. Um, but I think this is a problem when founders get a bit too— continue to be too chaotic as the business grows. That's not the energy that a scale-up, or even at that point, a small, medium-sized business needs. And I think often we see that in founders. It's too disruptive, they get pushed out, and ultimately they'll come back in some way because a brand would have lost, you know, like Steve Jobs would have lost its, its little magic something. But I think it's understanding as a founder, am I the best person to be in charge of people and culture, of operations? Am I more now, uh, stand back a bit, work on, you know, the product development, the That side of it, um, that, yeah, I think it's understanding when, as a founder, you are not the right person to be CEO.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Al ElliottAnd obviously it does, it's not an either or thing. It's not like, oh right, uh, I can't be in charge of culture, so I have to go and get a chief people officer at 90 grand a year. No, there's fractional people like Leanne does fractional stuff. So fractional chief people officer, someone who just does a, you know, a day a week or even just a day a month or something. Maybe you find someone, um, who is interested in the culture and they can take it on as part of their role. Obviously speak to Leanne about that because you need to make sure you get the right training. Get the right person and you make sure that you do it properly rather than just promoting someone who goes, oh right, now you're head of culture. And actually what they were doing before was filing. True story. But anyway, yeah. So cool. BrewDog. Anything else to say on BrewDog?
Leanne ElliottI think the only thing, what I'd be more convinced about if 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 in bringing the right consultants, including organisational 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 year from staff.
Al ElliottWell, talking of change, I read something in a website which I've not written down what the website is, but actually it's part of the PwC. The link's in the show notes. Part of it, not that you ever go there and look. We know, we check. But it was part of a PwC publication and it was an interview with the COO, Chief Operating Officer of NatWest Bank. UK bank, quite big, probably one of the big 3 or 4.
Leanne ElliottOh yeah.
Al ElliottYep. And it was, it was, it's only like 50 years old, so it's not like super, super old, like some of the old, old banks, but it does own like Coutts, which is like a, you know, where the, where the royals, where the royal family bank. And there was a big palaver about that recently. But anyway, so just to give you a bit of context, 2007, what you call it, what have you got? What's that fancy word you use for the financial crash? You go the IF9 or something.
Leanne ElliottThe GFC, the Global Financial Crisis. I think that's just what it's called now, to be honest.
Al ElliottSuch a loser, GFC. So during the GFC, during the GFC, they almost went under and the UK government bailed them out by $45 billion, which they've just recently got back. NatWest have just paid it back. Do you know what? If I borrow, we've got a mortgage with NatWest.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Al ElliottAnd can you imagine if we—
Leanne ElliottNot bad.
Al ElliottYeah, yeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottThat's not bad.
Leanne ElliottThe time it took them to pay that back, what, 15 years? 17 years?
Al ElliottYeah, yeah, yeah. 17 years.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottJust kind of took the wind out of my sails there. That's about what I was gonna say anyway. Going back to this interview.
Leanne ElliottLet's get back in.
Al ElliottThank you very much. I'm re-sailed. So this person we, that, this, that was being interviewed was a lady called Jen Tippin. I love the names on here.
Leanne ElliottOh, that's a nice name.
Al ElliottIt is, isn't it? Jen Tippin.
Leanne ElliottI prefer Jenny Tippin.
Al ElliottJenny Tippin.
Leanne ElliottOh, that sounds lovely. Nice Jen. Nice Jen.
Al ElliottYeah, it sounds like a, it sounds like it should be in like Postman Pat or something. Now we're going to Jen Tippin who owns the 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 really listen to employees. They just basically went, right, this is what's happening. Here's the changes. They started a couple of years ago 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 the ultimately the goal is to get them to have a credit card, you know, a mortgage or whatever.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Al ElliottAnd so they map out the journey in like intricate stages. With ideas of what happens on each one. Some bright person, probably our Jen Tippin, said, why don't we do the same for our employees? So they did.
Leanne ElliottOh, crazy talk.
Al ElliottSo basically what they have now—
Leanne ElliottPeople have started to focus on the employee experience.
Al ElliottWell, what they've started to do is they'll have now a journey which is, uh, starts off where someone sees a job ad and ends up with them being 6 months in and a happy employee. Um, so they've passed their probation. So that's the entire journey. And of course they've got mini 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 of little mini interventions. So at one point, you know, they were at 2 weeks in and perhaps a little bit like disillusioned. This wasn't the job they thought they were gonna be. Then there's, there's a, like a pulse check or a, or a manager check-in going, how are you finding it, John? Are you enjoying it? And they're going, no, I think you're a set of ruthless capitalistic bastards.
Leanne ElliottSo. All right, John.
Al ElliottJohn's very, very left wing. John, to be honest, I dunno why John applied in the first place.
Leanne ElliottNo, it was a bad fit, John.
Al ElliottIt was, but it should have been.
Leanne ElliottThat's what happens when you feel pressured to just take the next job that comes along.
Al ElliottBut then John should have been filtered out perhaps in the earlier in the trust journey.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Al ElliottSo 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 failure means. It just doesn't exist. So what I've got down here is they trained their top 170 leaders to see every experiment as valuable data regardless of the outcome. This created psycho— this is what Jen says— this created psychological safety where teams felt empowered to try new approaches without fear. And the culture shift encouraged innovation because people weren't afraid of getting things wrong. People just treat them as experiments now. And they go like, and they learn from each other's success. And they're like, they won't boast, but they'll basically go, yeah, we did an experiment, didn't work at all. But do you know what's weird? We found out that John is not a great fit. Imagine John's experiment. He's like, I just wonder if I can unplug the server and take down this, this entire establishment. Um, yeah, so that's, that's the number 2. Any thoughts so far, Lee?
Leanne ElliottUm, I know I'll save said thoughts.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottCarry on.
Al ElliottCool, cool, cool. So, um, and then number 3, they did out of 5, they gave their team nearly half a million hours back. So basically they did what they call process simplification and smart automation. They returned 385,000 hours to employees in 2024, and they're on track to give them back 820,000 hours in 2025. That's like giving every one of their employees an extra week of time. Now, this is not time off. This is just of time at work. Number 4, the courage to kill your own ideas. This is a big one. What used to happen was they go, right, we're gonna roll out a load of change. And then, do you like it? I don't care. John's not gonna like it, but everyone else doesn't like it. Instead, what they've done now is they have 6,000 of their 60,000 employees are part of like kind of a, almost like a council where they can just say, this is what we're planning on doing. And they had huge changes planned and the 6,000 people said, no, I don't think we're gonna like that. It's too overwhelming, all this change. So they rolled it back and said, right, we're doing it in phases. Jen says, and I quote, we've even shelved ideas when they've not met the reality of what our colleagues really care about. And that's great because we're listening and experimenting before rolling out the change and investing too much of our time. Lee, thoughts so far?
Leanne ElliottI'm loving the Giving value-add time back. I've seen that work really, really well in organisations, both in terms of providing a more manageable workload and also allowing people the time to focus on more value-add activities like innovation, research, development, blah, blah, blah. And I think that's the biggest thing when I speak to a business owner and I say, you know, unsurprisingly, John, the workload has come back as a bit too high in your organisation. And they're like, yeah, but what do you want me to do about that?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottI might understand, but what I want you to do about it is how can you find efficiencies, automations? Like you say, it's those administrative tasks that are just annoying, and particularly now there's no excuse. Look at AI, you know, there's loads that you can do. So I love that, very much appreciate that. I'm very, I'm very impressed with the, um, the level of consultation they're going through with employees. I think that's a fine balance because you don't want to put everything out to a committee because that will kind of, you know, stall some progress potentially.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo I think that needs to come with kind of guidelines of what those things are. Very interesting how this is all gonna shake out in a very heavily regulated industry in terms of making mistakes and fails. And I'm sure, I'm sure there's some very clear boundaries around that so they're not breaking any rules.
Al ElliottYeah, she did actually say, and I've not got the full article in front of me, but you can go to the show notes, click on it and you can read it. At one point she said, we started off by putting in a load of guardrails. 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 experiments didn't bring down, you know, the— not that— I think probably Jon wants this to happen, but didn't bring down the UK financial institutions.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah, no, I applaud it. Interested to see how it'll work out. Be very interested to see how— what employees would say about it. But from what you've said, it sounds pretty cool and I'm fairly impressed, NatWest.
Al ElliottI'm glad you said that because I haven't told you this, but I'm going to try and get Jen. Jen—
Leanne ElliottReally? Yeah, on the pod. Oh, we like Jen.
Al ElliottYeah, I was hoping that you wouldn't go, well, she's made a right mess of this, and I'd be like, oh no.
Leanne ElliottAwkward.
Matt SmeedNo, no, no.
Leanne ElliottI think, I think Jen's got some cool ideas.
Al ElliottSo if you're listening to this, Jen, we want you. Okay, my love, what have you seen this week?
Leanne ElliottUm, I've seen some research and you know how I like my research, Al.
Al ElliottYou love a bit of research. Yeah, honestly, when Leanne goes to bed, she'll just sit there and read research. You can imagine her with a little nightcap, little half-moon glasses, and like a big like journal in front of her. It'll be something called like the Journal of Psychological Safety Practices in the UK.
Leanne ElliottThat's a book. Yes, that's exactly what I do. That's exactly what I do. So if like John, you feel like you're in a dead-end job— that was a completely unintentional segue. We didn't make up John until like 3 minutes ago.
Al ElliottI didn't know John existed until I started saying his name and started giving his attributes.
Leanne ElliottNo, no. So anyway, this was research that suggested that people who are hitting a career plateau are more likely to slack off, bend the rules, and even mistreat others at work. Not because they're lazy or mean, because being stuck changes how they see themselves.
Al ElliottI'm liking the way you say plateau.
Leanne ElliottPlateau.
Al ElliottI like it.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So I think, I think there's a lot of people who are in jobs at the minute that they're not particularly happy with, particularly given the current climate. And I understand it. You know, you feel lucky enough to have a job and have that wage coming in when you're seeing these thousands and thousands of redundancies happen. Equally, maybe you need to be mindful that this might have a detrimental impact on your professional reputation, but also potentially your own psychology, your own identity, your own opinion of yourself. And that's important. So this research anyway is quite good. Decent sample as well, 450 employees. They looked at how career plateau, so that feeling, if you're not sure what I mean by that, the feeling that you've stopped advancing, stopped growing, you're just a bit stagnant, languishing, I think it's been called as well. So yeah, they looked at career plateau and how it affects behaviour at work. So they tracked 3 different types of what they define as bad behaviour. Withdrawal, so disengaging, skipping meetings, putting in minimal effort. Deviance, breaking rules or behaving unethically.
Al ElliottSorry, I thought you said deviance as in like, you're a bit of a deviant, you, and you're a sexual deviant. Deviance. I'm sorry.
Leanne ElliottDeviance.
Al ElliottSorry, carry on.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Incivility, being rude, dismissive, or disrespectful. And then they also measured employees' self-control and ego depletion, which is a sense of having no psychological resources left to manage stress or resist impulses. Quite interesting, isn't it? Like how these behaviors show up, and particularly in this lens. Anyway, these are some of the, the results that stood up— stood out, and I thought were really interesting. Um, so feeling stuck did trigger bad behavior. So employees who felt they were in dead-end jobs were more likely to act out, not in dramatic ways, but in everyday disagreement, passive aggression, um, and bending the norms. And I think that's very typical as well in terms of that kind of rust-out burnout, isn't it? That disengagement from, from work when you're not feeling it. Um, ego depletion, um, explained why. So the link wasn't just emotional. Feeling plateaued drained people's mental energy and left them less capable to regulate their own behaviour, which makes sense. And they did find that self-control buffered the effect, so employees with higher baseline self-control were less affected. Um, they were able though, however, to resist those more, um, negative, um, impulses and behaviours. And also what I thought was really interesting is the behaviour was reactive, not premeditated. So it's not like you're sitting there, and I think there's always the argument quiet quitting, wasn't it? Like I'm making an intentional, you know, choice to not do anything. And I don't think for the majority of people that is necessarily the case. I think it's more that, you know, you're overwhelmed.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Leanne ElliottIt's people just running out of fuel. They're running out of— Out of cares. I don't stop myself, but yes. Um, so yeah, so it's not really a rebellion. People are just kind of like, meh. Um, but I think the key thing, um, in that as an individual is recognizing that if you are starting to lash out and, and enact these bad behaviors, it could actually start to, to really impact your reputation at work and just how you feel about yourself. You don't want to be an arsehole. You know, you don't. Nobody wants to be. Few people want to be. And in terms of an organisation, why does this matter? I think this is a real key sign that rather than kind of seeing people who are showing these signs of maybe quiet quitting or elements of incivility, it's maybe thinking, am I pushing them enough? Am I challenging them enough? Are they in the right role? Is there things I could do around what we call job crafting to, um, to enrich that role and give them more meaningful work? I think there's things we can do as leaders to fix it rather than go, oh well, if you don't want to give 110% to my organisation, like the BrewDog fella. There's things that we can do that, that means you're not going to have the disruption and the cost of actually losing a member of staff. I thought it was interesting. Al, was it?
Al ElliottYes, yes, it was. In the end, it was. No, no, actually it was, it was. I think, to be fair, I think anyone who's been in, been in the workforce for like 5 years plus will have felt plateauing at some point. And it's just like you say, it's demoralising because you wake up and you're like, what's the point? Yeah. Because I go in there, I do my job and nothing happens. Like that famous, like, Friends line, uh, Chandler says, well, I don't go in there and do my get to work early, nothing's gonna happen. It's like that, isn't it? So, so I think we're, um, yeah, yeah, plateauing.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Al ElliottIf you're— do you know what? This would be an interesting episode to do it on. We're happy to do it anonymously if you're listening and you are plateauing, we're happy to do it anonymously. Or if you have experienced the past and you're willing to talk about it the opposite of anonymously, which is non-animously, I'm guessing, um, then, uh, then get in touch because that would be an interesting episode to do in the, in the autumn, I think.
Leanne ElliottYeah. And I think, and I think that's where we're going to see a lot of, um, a lot more movement actually in terms of, yeah, in terms of people resigning. Well, we think we talked about, didn't we? It's kind of that August is the peak month in the UK.
Al ElliottI know the phrase, you call it temporal milestones. Is that right?
Leanne ElliottLandmarks. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Al ElliottDifferent to pro tempore.
Leanne ElliottYeah, so I think that's— I think we're going to see the resignations in August and a lot of activity in terms of movement in, in the autumn. Um, so yeah, but you can stop this, business owners. If you're seeing people who are being a bit, a bit naggy, who aren't particularly happy, who aren't maybe giving everything, rather than just assume that they're the problem, maybe think about how you could offer these type of stretch opportunities, um, or even just check in and see how they're they're doing, um, is always just a nice start, isn't it? Um, yeah, it doesn't need to escalate is what I'm saying. Pick up on these behavioural cues and you might actually, yeah, prevent people from leaving in the autumn.
Al ElliottWhich is what I suppose you want to do, unless it's John, in which case you want to encourage John out the door as soon as you possibly can. Talking of getting out the door, we're gonna have a very, very quick break, then we're back with a hot take from a guy, um, who we— I've only met him once and I feel like he's my best mate. I really like him, Matt. Yeah, I really like Matt. As we're back with a hot take, and then we've also got the world famous Weekly Workplace Surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. Don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere.
Leanne 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?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Matt SmeedAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking.
Al ElliottAnd you're not going to say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.
Matt SmeedUh, 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 behavioural 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.
Leanne 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 Can toxic culture make beer taste better?
Matt SmeedIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd are we all just status-seeking monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
Matt SmeedDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in. Welcome back. Welcome back. It's time for our Hot Take, which, as you know, is where we bring a guest in to challenge the way we think about work. And today we are asking an important question. Are wellbeing leaders held to a higher standard than everyone else?
Leanne ElliottYeah, it's a really interesting one. And this is coming from Matt Smeed, who is a business psychologist and 2 times named HR Influence Voice of the Year.
Al ElliottYeah, apparently.
Leanne ElliottHR Influential Voice.
Al ElliottYeah, I've been told something and I can't tell you.
Leanne ElliottNo, you can't. I checked with Matt and we can't.
Al ElliottI can't tell you.
Leanne ElliottNo, no.
Al ElliottThere is something coming.
Leanne ElliottSo Matt is obviously a very engaging person and a very influential person in the world of HR.
Al ElliottOr he pays a lot of bribes.
Leanne ElliottIndeed. All things, all 3 things can be true.
Al ElliottCan be true, yes.
Leanne ElliottMatt is also the co-founder of Working Well Community. He works with organisations to design better, more evidence-based approaches to wellbeing. Hurrah! But today he is calling out the perfectionism that is creeping into the field.
Al ElliottSo Matt's here to ask what that pressure we're all putting on these leaders about wellbeing is actually doing to the profession, and whether it's time we allowed a little bit more trust and a lot more experimentation. Let's go meet Matt.
Matt SmeedMy name's Matt Smeed. I'm a business psychologist, and I am the co-founder of the Working Well Community. And 2 times HR's Most Influential Thinker.
Al ElliottSo hit me. What is your hot take?
Matt SmeedMy hot take is that wellbeing leaders, people who are responsible for wellbeing within organizations, hold themselves to too high a standard. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to unpick that a little bit. So I want to preface it all by saying that I am a huge advocate of things like evidence-based practice. Um, 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 get onto 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. But if we talk about a lot of the wellbeing leaders that I meet and I come across, there's sometimes a feeling that they need to present a watertight, bulletproof business case evidence base for every little thing that they do in a way that I don't see in other industries.
Al ElliottYeah.
Matt SmeedYou know, so for example, I go 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 that IT system? Did they consult with the employees before they did it? Did they properly talk 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 and it's a core part of the business. So therefore, we're just going to do it, right? Whereas if it's a wellbeing intervention, even something seemingly really, really small, it has to go through all these loops. They've got to fight for the budget. They've got to do— and I almost wonder, I don't necessarily know what that means in terms of how we switch that, because I don't just want wellbeing spend being agreed at the drop of a hat. But I feel like there's a pressure for wellbeing leaders within organizations to There's a desire for legitimacy. So perhaps they overcompensate 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. Wellbeing initiatives are seen as optional rather than core part. Maybe the fact that wellbeing professionals are so deeply passionate about their job means that they Hold themselves to such a high standard. They're perfectionists almost.
Al ElliottI like that. I think most people would expect someone in your position to go, well, you need to really think it through. You can't do this. This is about people. You know, you've got to be careful. But you're saying no, people do overthink it. Is that, have I got that right?
Matt SmeedUm, to a certain extent, yeah. Do you know the other thing that comes into my head, and this is an even hotter take, is, is it, is it affected by the gender demographic of people who work in that industry, which is primarily female rather than male? And you'll have seen these studies that have come out, and I'm sure Leanne's talked to you about these, where you look at how men and women apply for jobs, and women want to be able to tick like 80% of the things on the job description, whereas men, it's like 20%. Oh, I could do those 2 things, so I'll just apply for it. You never know, it'll be fine. And I do wonder sometimes whether you'd get a lot more females comparatively working in the world of wellbeing, but I'd also broaden that out to people functions, HR, More broadly, and whether that contributes to them feeling that they need to, you know, have ticked every single box, whereas in maybe a sales role, or as I say, IT, sounds like I'm having a go at IT, or operational roles, maybe you get a few more men who it's, yeah, this is the right thing to do. Of course it is. You know, and it's pure ego.
Al ElliottWe're saying that we're potentially over— well, 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, someone we've heard of. You're going in to help them implement something decent around wellbeing. How much business case do you need to put together? How would you approach implementing something like that in a larger organization?
Matt SmeedWell, so I think the dream case scenario for me would be that you're working with an organization that are already bought into this stuff, who already view wellbeing as not just a nice thing to have, but as a fundamental aspect of the way that the organization works. So therefore, absolutely, if you want to put a specific intervention into place, again, I'm a huge advocate actually of evidence-based practice and collecting data and, fancy word, but participative 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 would do it in a very consultative, very participative way, from the bottom up, if possible. I would collect the data. You'd think about piloting it, all that sort of stuff. But that's all in the context of the organization pretty much being bought into wellbeing 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 worry that that's a risk with some of this stuff, that if we hold ourselves to too high a standard where we feel like everything needs to be perfect, does that lead to a lack of experimentation? You know, does that lack of, you know, just trying something out to see if it works? I was recording a livestream the other day and I was trying to use the analogy, which I'll try and butcher again today, of likening this to almost, what I was looking at was the environmental movement, right? So, how do we reduce climate change? And it's very interesting that obviously, well, I was about to say everyone believes that it's an issue. I'm not sure everybody believes it's an issue. 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 example I was using was, Plastic bags. So, in the UK, certainly, we use far fewer plastic bags. You have to pay 5, 10p for them or 30p at Marks Spencer's. And 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 much as they used to. Great. 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.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Matt SmeedAnd 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 going to save us from the next apocalypse 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 something like that. What then is interesting, and this is where the plastic straws analogy kind of falls down a little bit, is sometimes it's then difficult to roll it back.
Al ElliottYeah.
Matt SmeedYou know, so can you imagine the UK government coming out and saying, right, we're banning paper straws now, we're bringing plastic back. Like, that would go down very, very poorly. So if you think 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 going to 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 the flexibility again to kind of roll that back. Without that then being seen as a failure, because that in itself, and this is where all the cycle comes in, is then held against the wellbeing professionals. Well, you brought that in, 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 in 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.
Leanne ElliottThat was the awesome Matt Smeed. I told you he was great. You can see now why he's the, yeah, what is it? The voice of influential HR voice of the year.
Al ElliottMost important person in psychology ever.
Leanne ElliottRight.
Al ElliottI think was what he got. He got it twice. 2 years running.
Leanne Elliott2 years running.
Al ElliottYeah. Yeah. It's like the Nobel Peace Prize for the psychologists.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Leanne ElliottI mean, I'm not offended at all that I haven't been even nominated, but whatever.
Al ElliottUm, I've not met you.
Leanne ElliottDid you?
Al ElliottNo, I'm going to though.
Leanne ElliottWell, I'm not sure. No. Anyway, it's not quite the same, is it? Um, what did I— do you know what? I really liked it. And I think what was— what I really liked, and we talked about a bit on this episode as well, actually, with the NatWest thing, is allowing time for that experimentation. And I understand when things are pressured, it can be really hard to, to feel as a business owner that 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 where there's going to be ideas that will change the, the organisation in terms of its operations or the products it offers or the customers it serves. Innovation is what keeps businesses moving forward, so I like that, and reminding ourselves that as scientists, we too can be creative.
Al ElliottYeah. And also he makes a really good point about rolling out an IT system and you go, well, you just roll it out and if it doesn't work, you go back and you change bits and pieces. Whereas you need to have like this sort of 12-page business case for rolling out something to 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.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Al ElliottAnd 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'd necessarily do that with your people, but again, be more Jen from NatWest. Maybe say, look, this is what we're planning on rolling out. What are your thoughts? Because let's be honest, in terms of business case, if you're having to prove a solid business case with an ROI to some nerd who's got a calculator going, excuse me, how much will this cost? You're probably not going to make a huge amount of inroads in that organization anyway. But if you are worried about what the impact's going to be, well, just go and ask your people.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottHere we are, here's our plan. This is what we're thinking of doing. What, what's good about this? What's bad about it? And if you've got psychological safety, then they'll come back to you and they'll give you their opinion like they did in NatWest.
Leanne ElliottYeah. And it's tough, isn't it? And I can, I can understand, I can understand why organizations think in that way. You know, being brutal, marketing is a revenue-generating function. Wellbeing is a cost function. Yeah. In the, in the most strict commercial terms, I think it actually is, it's a money-saving Um, function because you're keeping your people engaged, you're keeping them well, you're keeping them healthy, you're keeping them productive and performing at the highest level. That's really difficult to measure in a tangible way that a business owner or senior leader is going to buy into easily. So, I can see why, as wellbeing practitioners, there's a need to overcompensate a little bit in building that business case. And I think ultimately, um, it comes down to leadership, as Matt said, doesn't it? You know, those organizations that are already bought into it.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Leanne ElliottLike NatWest, for example. Um, 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 wellbeing as a nice-to-have, and there are other businesses in the world that see it as a fundamental part of their operations and their organizational success and performance. And I think maybe where we're wasting our energy as wellbeing practitioners is trying to convince the ones that just aren't that interested.
Al ElliottWell said. Well said. If you want to go and follow Matt, which you should, jump onto LinkedIn. He's got it. He's the one with the yellow banner and the best profile picture in the world. You've got to go and just go and look for him. S-M-E-E-D. Go and look for Matt because he's got a great profile picture. And also go and look at, um, it is workingwell.community is his website. Um, I think from what I understood, it's totally free. You join and you get loads of really good stuff. Now we are launching something similar. I did mention that to Matt. So we're not copying him, but it sounds like, yeah, just go, go and join Working Well, and then we will launch our thing, join ours as well, and then you can tell us which one is better.
Leanne ElliottYeah, Matt also has a podcast, but didn't copy us. You're allowed to do similar things, you know. You can, you can be, you can be competitors and colleagues at the same time.
Al ElliottThe two can be possible.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So I'll leave a link to Matt's podcast in the show notes as well.
Al ElliottFabulous. It's time for my favourite time of the week, which is the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne. Leanne is a chartered occupational psychologist who's an expert in work, the world of work, and I don't think we've ever had a letter that stumped you. There's a couple which have shocked you.
Leanne ElliottI don't think we've ever had a letter.
Al ElliottI'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 one, a big sack of letters, and they'd 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 1, Leanne. Do investors care about culture? And if so, how do you prove it matters? Hi, Al and Leanne. I'm preparing for our first round. Most of our focus has been on the usual SaaS metrics, MRR, monthly revenue, monthly recurring revenue, churn, growth rate, all of that. But I keep coming back to our team. This is nice. This is nice so far. I hope it, hope it turns out nice. We've worked hard to build a place where people want to stay. Turnover's low, morale is good. Culture-wise, we're in a strong spot. It feels like a real asset, but I've no idea how to show that to investors in a way they'll actually value. Do investors really care about culture? And if they do, how are 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 he can go on the balance sheet?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottGot it. Leanne, what are your thoughts?
Leanne ElliottExcellent question. Yes, really good question. Um, and yes, you absolutely can prove, um, in metrics what your, your culture is saying and doing. I think investors are getting increasingly interested in this, and I know when we have spoken to some investors through the podcast, they are absolutely interested in that type. I think it was Sarah-Chan Spellings from Billion Dollar Moves who always looks at that when she makes decisions around VC funding. I think, yeah, particularly in the current climate that we're in, and yeah, the way the world of work is going, I think it is important. And also just from a risk perspective, you know, if you're going to invest in a business and then 60, 70% of the team leaves, and that could be your IP, that could be what you paid for. There's all sorts of considerations. In terms of how you do it, um, there's a really useful scorecard that was developed in a book about wellbeing, actually. All this is crossed over— culture, wellbeing, employee engagement— it's all crossed over. Um, so it's Sheena Johnson, Kerry Cooper, and Ivan Robinson wrote this book on wellbeing. Love it, really good, very practical. Um, I would show you, but I don't have it with me. Um, but it has a scorecard in there that breaks it down to basically 4 different areas that you can look at that will be, um, give an indication of how healthy your culture is or how, how, um, how well it's working. Um, so I'll, I can leave a link to the book in, in the show notes, but it's things like you look at business and financial indicators. That's the first category. So, that's things like sickness rates, uh, retention rates, um, the cost of having to use agency staff. Um, the number of ill health retirements, stress-related referrals to occupational health, um, all that type of thing. Then you've got internal process indicators. So that's things like stress levels, levels of work-life balance, um, and your stress risk assessments. That's either going to be your HSE risk assessment management standards that you should be doing annually, um, anyway, as a UK business, um, or a more sophisticated employee engagement and wellbeing survey like mine.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottwill also give you all this data as well. So, everything around kind of engagement, quality of 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's 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 development. So, How people, how many people have signed up for certain interventions or training, feedback from those things, and the level of innovation that you have. If you have that, that what NatWest is doing in terms of that ideation time, how engaged people are with that and what's been produced from that is a really good indicator as well. So, they're the kind of the 4 main areas. And as you can see, there's lots of different metrics that you'll already actually be generating in your business or be able to put your hands on within your business that you can show to demonstrate how your culture is currently 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 HSE or with people like me.
Al ElliottExcellent answer, Leigh. And yeah, that book, if anything's by Sir Kerry Cooper, then it's going to be good. Although he has written over 200 books. Where did he get the time? Oh, and fun fact, a little bit of link back because his company or his consultancy, Robertson Cooper, was where Matt used to work.
Leanne ElliottYes. Yes.
Al ElliottYes. Nice, nice link back.
Leanne ElliottNice little loop there.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Al ElliottVery good.
Leanne ElliottI should say the lead writer on that book is actually Sheena Johnson, who was my lecturer at Manchester Business School.
Matt SmeedReally?
Leanne ElliottYeah, she's awesome. Awesome.
Al ElliottWhy is she not on the pod?
Leanne ElliottOh, well, she will be.
Al ElliottThere we go. So I'll go after NatWest and you go after— I'll go after Sheena.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Al ElliottThere'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, in fact, it's probably quite a lot intangible. But perhaps when that first came in, people were a bit like, oh, 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 5, 10 years and you're gonna have employee goodwill. There'll be probably a really fancy name for it. Maybe you should come up with it and it'll be known as the Elliott Test or something.
Leanne ElliottWell, it's a bit like discretionary effort, extra role effort, as the Americans call it. 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 employee engagement survey like mine will measure such things.
Al ElliottOkay, on to question number 2, Leigh. 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 7 months, managing a team of 11 in a company of around 70. The first few months were intense, constant firefighting, 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 starting 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 being the fixer in a few different roles, always stepping into chaos, and I think that finally it's all caught up with me. So do I open up to senior leadership about how I'm feeling or keep pushing and hope I bounce back? Little PS here, I worry that being honest could change how I'm perceived. But staying silent feels risky too. Leanne, oh, this poor person.
Leanne ElliottYeah, conundrum. I think at this point, without a significant change in the way that you're working, um, or the way that you're managing your life and work together, I don't think there's much of a scenario where you're just going to bounce back and this will be fine. Um, it sounds like you're in early stages of burnout, um, and without some fairly significant changes, that typically continues to escalate. And I think what, what sounds absolutely sure is it isn't necessarily this organization is, is to blame. It sounds like this has just been compounded over role and role and role. If you're a fixer, um, if you work in, in transformation, and again, very common when you look at such, um, such levels of change and ambiguity and the emotional load that comes with that as well, not just the actual workload, um, is, is exhausting. And it sounds like you're exhausted, which is one of the, the 3 main symptoms of Burnout, the second being disengagement, which it sounds like you're also doing as well in terms of kind of going through the motions 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 should 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 work hours down or being put on a different project that isn't as, as, um, 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 right. No, I'm not saying it's right and it's not okay. Um, 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 prioritise yourself for the moment and what you can do within the boundaries of the organisation to start to rebuild some of that resilience. So, I think in terms of the work that you're doing, is that stability going to continue? Is that what your predictable role is now going to be? Because that's good, and over time, Yeah. You'll start to regain that energy back, um, and start to want to invest it in, in your role again. Can you, um, yeah, take some time off, whether it be some, um, annual leave, whether it be, um, a few long weekends, um, whatever it is, it sounds like you need to detach from work in a very literal way, um, to, to allow some rest and 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 will, we know, build energy. So, connections, your friends, your family, doing things outside of work, staying active is really helpful. Eating well is really helpful. Getting enough sleep is really helpful. All of those things that are going to help, so long as you're in a position where you can control your organisational environment to an 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 no incivility there. You know, it's not that this is a toxic work environment, it's just been a chaotic work environment. And now that, that, um, busy level has returned to something more sustainable. Um, you will know if you can trust your leaders. I appreciate it's only been 7 months, but I think you'll have a feeling. My feeling is for you to ask the question.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Leanne ElliottYou have some doubts. Um, but maybe have a think 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 organisation around, you know, how does— what's the general, um, you know, efforts around mental health and wellbeing here? And maybe get a sense, sense for that. Um, but I think I'd start by looking at what you can control.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottUm, and then continue to reflect and explore, um, 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 that it'll be a positive conversation, then I would absolutely have it.
Al ElliottYeah, good advice. And I think, I, I mean, the 2 key questions are, is that what do I do? And do I tell the, uh, do I tell my bosses? Um, I think Leanne's explained exactly what you should do. That's a, yeah. And also go back and listen to so many of our episodes on burnout. We've got Sally Clark, is it? Was she on burnout? Yeah, Kate Donovan. Kate Donovan. Um, yep, all of those. So yeah, go back and listen to those. Um, secondly, a little bit of a tip I would— well, not a tip maybe, but what 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, hey, look, I just want a bit of a guidance. Um, 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 sneakily find out, I think, how your, your boss and your boss's bosses think about this kind of thing.
Leanne ElliottYeah, that's a really good idea. It's that fact gathering, isn't it? Like getting that more information to understand the level of psychological safety that you have, the level of commitment the organization has to, to wellbeing. That's a really good idea. I like that.
Al ElliottThank you. Thank you. See, I, I, once a year I bring a really good idea.
Leanne ElliottOh, it's more than that.
Al ElliottOnce a month, less than that.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottOkay. Onto question number 3. I've been asked to gather peer feedback, but why would anyone open up to me? My manager's 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. And 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, he's ruled out an anonymous survey and wants it 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.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So he's— so the manager has said he doesn't want to do an anonymous survey.
Al ElliottThis 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 against it and take it back to my boss?
Leanne ElliottOh, this is, this is not the way to do it. This is not the way to do it. And nobody is going to be honest and give you any useful data. Equally, not your circus, not your monkeys, my friend. This is just all about appeasing your boss at this point, isn't it? I'd be more tempted to kind of, you know, have this conversation of like, probably with your— so is he the supervisor or just his teammates? Just his teammates.
Al ElliottTeammates. He describes them as this person. In fact, it doesn't have to say, it doesn't have the gender. So, my manager's asked me to speak to my teammates.
Leanne ElliottI would be inclined. To go to a teammate that you're closest to, and I know you said you're not super close, but go to a teammate you're closest to and kind of go, look, this is what I've been asked to do. I don't think it's going to be particularly effective, and I don't, you know, I probably don't feel safe myself being very, giving very honest feedback in this type of public scenario, unless everyone actually loves the culture, the tone of it. I'm guessing there are some issues there.
Al ElliottYeah, it seemed to be.
Leanne ElliottI'm not sure why this would be a question, a problem of everything with Rosie. So, kind of having that honest conversation with one of your colleagues and kind of going, This is what I'm thinking. We just kind of sit down together and do a bit of a SWOT analysis, because I think a SWOT analysis is for 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 where things need to be fixed, but probably in a bit more of a commercial business process kind of way.
Al ElliottIf you've not heard of SWOT analysis, it stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and it's like a matrix.
Leanne ElliottYeah, so it could be things like, right, what do we think the strengths are of the organisation right now, or the team, or how we work together? And I see that a lot, um, in surveys that I do, is that people really aren't getting on with senior leadership, but they found these little, these little safe havens within their team where everything's really nice. It might be that you have that. Um, so yeah, what are the strengths? What are the weaknesses? I would focus on process. I would focus on things that are very transactional rather than the leadership behaviour.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottI'm not saying this is going to be effective in any way. It won't be. But this is just about protecting yourself and appeasing your manager because he's just thrown you under the bus, essentially. So, weaknesses, I would focus on very transactional, process-led things. Opportunities is maybe your opportunity to actually provide feedback that might be useful. So, for example, if the IT system you're working with is really annoying and clunky and causing you extra time, there could be an opportunity to upgrade your IT systems to better serve customers or to introduce new product that people keep asking about. Um, that could actually be the opportunity section, the chance where you actually can provide some, some feedback. And the threats as well, um, is always useful. I think, I think typical, typically business owners are interested in that. If there's things that you've heard from competitors or things that are going on or things in the market, um, AI was an obvious one. It's both a threat and an opportunity. Um, I'd maybe focus on that. So it sounds like your manager as well.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Leanne ElliottIt sounds like he's been asked to do this by a senior leader.
Al ElliottI was just gonna say this. It sounds like he's been asked to do it. He doesn't really believe in it. He went, I'll just give it to someone.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So, I think you wanna give your manager something back that's useful and will make him look fairly competent in front of his senior leaders. Um, and actually, I think it'd be something that, that might, might 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 you felt entirely comfortable with, it's not within your wheelhouse, and you're more than happy to support with this type of thing again in the future, but you'd want to speak to somebody who does have some expertise around that, either in terms of HR or organisational psychology. I think it's fair to kind of go, you know, I think if we're going to do this, I'm not the right person to do it. But, you know, hopefully this time has provided you enough with what you need. But yeah, protect yourself.
Al ElliottYeah, there's a couple of things, there's 3 things I thought of when you were talking. The first one was, which you mentioned before, is that this is a phone-it-in. The manager's not taking it very seriously. So don't stress too much because they're just— it's a box-ticking exercise. They want to go back to their boss and go, yeah, I've done that. Secondly, if you do want to 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 wallflower. I sit, you know, I sit at the back and not really do anything. How would you approach this if you were given, if you were given this task? And I bet they'll be like, look, I'll go and 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 if it's about the manager, because if they've just 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 speaking to anyone and go, yeah, I've spoken to a few people and basically they want anonymous surveys.
Matt SmeedYeah.
Al ElliottThat's the feedback. And then you just go, right, we want anonymous surveys. So then you go, no one will really talk to me. And they go, well, what did you say? Well, I said we're doing this and no one really talked to me. They want anonymous surveys. Oh God, do I have to do anonymous surveys? And they'll go, well, luckily I listened to a podcast episode the other day where Leanne does anonymous surveys. So, uh, yeah, get in touch with her and buy that.
Leanne ElliottOr you can look at the HSE Management Standards Survey.
Al ElliottOr you can buy one from Leanne.
Leanne ElliottUm, if he doesn't want to do an anonymous survey, doesn't mean that That you couldn't.
Al ElliottOh, good point.
Leanne ElliottUm, yeah, it's all just, it's all just lip service really, isn't it? It's not going to provide any useful data at all, which is why I'm thinking the SWOT 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. Um, so if you're gonna take the time to go through this exercise and your colleagues are as well, I, I just think something like that might make it somewhat useful.
Al ElliottYeah, totally agree. If you've got your— if you've got any questions you want to put to Leanne, then check out our show notes because there's links in there where you can submit your question. I believe that's the end of the episode. Join us next week for another This Week in Work on every Tuesday, as there will be, but there might not be soon because we're going to change things around for summer, but we'll talk about that in a second. Lee, what's going on Thursday?
Leanne ElliottWe are joined again by another expert guest. This week we are talking to someone who is leading a team of bona fide Geniuses. Genii? Geniuses. Um, and we're gonna get a masterclass on how to recruit and manage people who are smarter than you. Not you, than one.
Al ElliottAnd maybe you.
Leanne ElliottAl, no smarter than Al.
Al ElliottSmarter than me?
Matt SmeedYeah.
Leanne ElliottOkay.
Al ElliottWell, thanks very much. If you've enjoyed this, then leave us a, leave a 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 it, because we do wanna make it better. If you just genuinely don't like British people with stupid sense of humours, then this probably isn't for you.
Leanne ElliottI'm not sure you'd have got this far.
Al ElliottNo, I don't think you would. Be interesting though. Interesting anyway. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye. Uh-oh, whoever said they've ditched top-down performative— don't know what that means. I've just made that word up.
Leanne ElliottThe award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets work play—
Al ElliottAnd today's is all about leaders and specifically, don't know what I'm talking about. To gather peer feedback. But why, why would anyone open up to me? I made a mess of that.