Episode 246 · 5 November 2025 · 53:52
Career catfishing, outrageous interview hacks and recognition at work. PLUS! The truth behind the 10,000 hours rule.
Career catfishing, outrageous interview hacks and recognition at work. PLUS! The truth behind the 10,000 hours rule.
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Career catfishing: when job promises don't match reality
news roundup#career#job-search#expectations
The interview hack: calling companies to schedule interviews
news roundup#interview#job-search#tips
Why people keep giving: the psychology of volunteering and recognition
news roundup#volunteering#psychology#recognition
Truth or Lie: The 10,000-hour rule
truth or lie#10#000-hour-rule#skill#practice
Workplace Surgery: Christmas bonus or gift?
workplace surgery#christmas#bonus#gift
Workplace Surgery: Presenting a strategy you don't believe in
workplace surgery#strategy#leadership#communication
Workplace Surgery: New hire 40 minutes late on day one
workplace surgery#new-hire#onboarding#management
Show notes
Career Catfishing, Outrageous Interview Hacks & the 10,000-Hour Rule — Plus Recognition at Work
This Week in Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) break down why nearly 80% of workers say they've been misled during hiring, the Reddit interview hack that landed five callbacks, and new research on why volunteers keep giving even when they feel taken for granted. Plus, in Truth or Lie: does the 10,000-hour rule really hold up?
🔥 Stories Covered
1. Career catfishing: nearly 80% of workers say they've been misled Companies are selling the dream role — then delivering something very different. Leanne explains how the broken psychological contract does more damage than the reality of the job itself, and shares the interview questions that help candidates avoid the bait-and-switch. Source →
2. The interview hack that's forcing everyone to rethink hiring One Reddit user started calling companies and saying "I was told to schedule my interview" — and landed five callbacks. Is it smart initiative or workplace deception? Al and Leanne debate where the line is when the system feels broken. Source →
3. Why do people keep giving? MSc researcher Mary Luu surveyed 118 volunteers and analysed 87 written responses — and the word "recognition" came up 20 times. Volunteers don't want grand gestures or financial rewards. They want to be seen. Source →
🧠 Truth or Lie: The 10,000-Hour Rule
Leanne puts Malcolm Gladwell's famous rule to the test. The truth? It starts with K. Anders Ericsson's 1993 research — and it was never an absolute. Quality, feedback and context matter more than time alone. Ericsson called mindless repetition "naive practice" for a reason.
Verdict: Mastery takes effort and structure, not a stopwatch.
💬 Workplace Surgery
Three listener questions, tackled live:
- Christmas bonus: "Should I give a Christmas bonus or gift to my team?"
- Strategy: "How do you present a strategy you don't believe in?"
- New hire: "Should I get rid of a new hire after a bad first day — 40 minutes late?"
(Got a question? Submit it via the connect link below.)
🎧 Coming Up Thursday
Dr Ryan Martin — better known as The Anger Professor — joins Leanne and Al to explore how we can hack our emotions to perform better in life and work.
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 ElliottWhy do some people keep giving their time even when they start to feel taken for granted? Well, new research sheds light on what's really motivating volunteers and what it can teach business leaders about reward, recognition, and resilience.
Al ElliottRemember those 3 words? They're part of the RX-7. If you know, you know. Also this week, one job seeker says he's cracked the hiring code. 5 interviews later, we're asking, is this a clever hack for a broken system or just a new form of workplace deception?
Leanne ElliottPlus, in the Workplace Surgery, what do you do when a new hire turns up 40 minutes late on their first day? Well, one listener gave someone a shot, and now they're wondering if it's already time to let them go.
Al ElliottAnd in Truth or Lie, I'll be getting to the bottom of the 10,000-hour rule. Is this all you need to become the master of your craft, or is it just a little bit weird?
Leanne ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered occupational psychologist.
Al ElliottAnd my name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we help organisations build amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottSo let's get right into it after this quick word from our beautiful sponsors. Thanks, HubSpot. 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. Hello and welcome back. It is Leanne's favourite time of the week.
Leanne ElliottWe're back, Al.
Al ElliottWe're back.
Leanne ElliottWe're back from holiday.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottOur jolly bobs.
Al ElliottWell, did we—
Leanne ElliottWe had a lovely time. Thank you for asking.
Al ElliottDid we, did we tell them that we were away?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottOh no, we didn't, we didn't.
Leanne ElliottYeah, we did.
Al ElliottYeah. We didn't think about you at all. We were drinking, we were drinking gin with our friends and also wandering around the old, the old town of Mostar. That's not true. We did actually talk about you quite a lot.
Leanne ElliottWe did.
Al ElliottSpecifically you. Yeah. Yeah. You, Geoff. We talked about you quite a lot. Anyway, talking about things, it is now— can we move on to the favourite time of the week?
Leanne ElliottYes, that I have missed greatly.
Al ElliottYes, of course. It's Leanne's favourite time of the week. It's time— this is so professional. It's time for the news roundup. Let's cue that jingle.
Leanne ElliottCue it, Al.
Al ElliottSon of a bitch took my line. Okay, Leanne, what have you seen?
Leanne ElliottGot a new word.
Al ElliottOf course. What is it?
Leanne ElliottCareer catfishing.
Al ElliottNow, if you haven't listened before, Leanne comes up with a new word. I try and guess what it is. Invariably get it wrong. Career catfishing. Well, catfishing is when you pretend to be someone you're not. So you, so if you're career catfishing—
Leanne ElliottInstead of food ya, instead of food ya.
Al ElliottHey, Chris. So career catfishing would be, would be probably pretending you've got skills or experience you don't actually have.
Leanne ElliottOr the way round. Oh, so it's the organisation that is doing the catfishing. So I saw this in Moneywise. Nearly 80% of workers say they've been misled during the hiring process. So basically promised one thing and then delivered something quite different once they've started. This has been coined career catfishing.
Al ElliottI like it.
Leanne ElliottI quite like it.
Al ElliottWho do you reckon there's like a committee that sits down every week and goes, right, we need 6 new words and just comes up with 'em?
Leanne ElliottI see it. Do you remember the National Lottery back in the day where they'd have like the machines? Yeah.
Al ElliottOh yeah.
Leanne ElliottI think it's more like that. And they had names as well, didn't they? Like Genevieve and—
Al ElliottErnie and— Yeah.
Leanne ElliottI think it's just more that they have these machines going and it pops out a little ball and someone goes, Catfishing. And then it goes again and this one goes, career.
Al ElliottSo a bit like, you know, when they call the— pull the FA Cup out of the bags and they go, Bournemouth versus Leeds United. That's basically what you said, but in a worse way.
Leanne ElliottYeah, but thank you so much for explaining it back to me. That's so helpful.
Al ElliottTruth, Lies and Work, brought to you by mansplaining. It's a career catfishing. Let's move on. Yes. So— I'll just drink my tea and shut up.
Leanne ElliottSo basically it's what happens. This is according to the Moneywise article. It's what happens when companies paint a glossy picture of the role the culture or the pay package, and that doesn't really exist. So the job looks great on paper, and then you arrive and discover that it's long hours, the flexibility you're promised isn't there, uh, it's nowhere near the support you expected. It's all just a bit of a mess. So some workers have said that they found the day-to-day job nothing like the advert described. Others said the supportive culture turned out to be far more pressured, or that the benefits were overstated. Apparently it's not just employers stretching the truth. Around 13% of employees admitted doing the same in reverse, so exaggerating their skills or experience to land the job. I mean, I think we've all done that. Um, not me, of course.
Al ElliottNo, no, no, no one in this room.
Leanne ElliottNo, no, no. Um, so yeah, I guess the question is, is this a little bit of a creative spin on account of the organisations to make sure they're securing the biggest talent, or is it just, is it just not clever, not good, not sustainable, just causing yourself A problem later down the line. Al, thoughts?
Al ElliottI once heard a really great podcaster describe this as the Big Mac syndrome.
Leanne ElliottBig Mac, as in like the burger?
Al ElliottAs in the burger, because you look up at the Big Mac on the menu and it looks beautiful, and then it comes out, it looks like it's been run over.
Leanne ElliottYes, it does.
Al ElliottYes. Yeah. So I think it's kind of similar thing. That, that podcaster was me just then. I just made it up. I just made that up on the spot. I know.
Leanne ElliottNo, you didn't.
Al ElliottYes, I did.
Leanne ElliottReally?
Al ElliottWell, I might have read it somewhere, but I'm the first to come out and say It in this context, I believe. So it's called, it's called the job Big Mac. That's very—
Leanne ElliottNo, it's called career catfishing. Al, we just covered this. Well, we don't need another word.
Al ElliottWe need another word. We need a term for it. But no, it's exactly that. I think then, and it just, it does make me laugh. There's lots of memes online where they say working in a dynamic and exciting environment and then just show you a load of cubicles. I don't know if you are honest about, imagine you, you had a job where you were sitting down all day and you had to basically just move data from one spreadsheet into a system, that was your job. Would you really go and say, right, so what you're gonna be doing basically is Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V for 8 hours?
Leanne ElliottYeah. Do you know, and yeah, and I understand if there are certain roles that are just a bit grunt work, but I think they're getting less and less with AI.
Al ElliottTrue.
Leanne ElliottI think for me it's more when, and I've had these conversations with clients and really had to coach them, coach them down off of their ivory tower. Because they want to get the best talent. They want to be like, oh, we don't want to put them off by saying that we're in kind of a bit of a turnaround transformation stage. And, you know, we don't want them to think we're not as, you know, we're smaller than we are. And it's kind of like if you start off on that foot of mistrust initially, it's just not going to, it's just not going to end well. And I think as well, there's certain— you're doing yourself a disservice by potentially picking candidates that aren't matched to the environment in which you're recruiting for, indeed the job.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo if you're trying to recruit somebody who's used to, to kind of having a bigger team, bigger budgets, very much kind of boom or stable, then they're probably not going to have the skills that you need to lead some kind of team turnaround or transformation. But there's gonna be other people out there that are going to be really excited by that because they've done it before and they want to do it again. And I've had coaching clients who had been in transformation turnaround for 20 years. I'm like, how are you not exhausted? And they're like, I love it, I love it, Leanne, I love it. You just get people like that that are just energised by change. So I think you're doing yourself a disservice to, to not tell the truth, really. But the article did go on to say there are some ways that you can, um, try and weed out the people who might be career catfishing you by asking some questions.
Al ElliottSo this is for the interviewee?
Leanne ElliottFor the interviewee.
Al ElliottTo get, to get rid of the corporate career catfishing.
Leanne ElliottYeah, so question 1, what does success look like in the first 90 days? How do managers handle workloads when someone's off sick? When was the last time someone was promoted internally? Pretty good questions. Also suggests that to listen carefully to the language and run if you hear phrases like, we're like a family, or we all wear many hats.
Al ElliottOh God.
Leanne ElliottOh, anything else to say on that, Al?
Al ElliottIf you think about in terms of the dating, analogy, then you would put up the best picture of you, wouldn't you?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottOn your dating profile.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I would.
Al ElliottAnd that's not a lie, it's just, it's the best version. So at what point does the best version of the role become catfishing?
Leanne ElliottI think it comes down to very simply, are you in a state of growth, a state of stability, or a state of chaos? And chaos being any kind of underperformance, turnaround, transformation needed. Things need to change.
Al ElliottHmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd I think if you're presenting, if you're presenting, we're a really high-growth company and really innovative, and actually you're a bit of a stable monkey, then people are gonna get bored. They want something a bit more high-pressure. And similarly, if you're like, oh yeah, no, everything's really cool, it's quite chilled actually, and you walk in, it's chaos.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottBecause it's that, it's the psychological contract that's broken. It's less about, it's less about the kind of what you're presenting versus the reality. It's the fact that You wanted to deceive the candidate from day one. And yeah, it, it is what, it's what we call in psychology a psychological contract, which, you know, include all of those things plus how I'm treated, how I'm supported, benefits and all that kind of stuff.
Al ElliottVery, very good. Anyway, is it my turn?
Leanne ElliottYeah. What have you seen this week, Al?
Al ElliottI've been on, on X, Twit, Twix, as would be my will. And there was a great repost for, or a great post by a guy called, whose handle is Rational Aussie. And the, the favourite of all my Aussies are, are the rational ones.
Leanne ElliottI prefer the irrational ones, to be honest.
Al ElliottDo you mean irrational?
Leanne ElliottUnrational.
Al ElliottUnrational. Not sure irrational's a word. Uh, professor, if you wanna— It is in Australia. Any words in Australia is, uh, to be fair, a word that doesn't have a swear word in it is probably not proper Australian. Anyway, so this rational Aussie said, hilarious, the social contract is broken and people are done playing by the rules, and took a screenshot of something on Reddit. It's all getting a bit meta now, was this on X, on Reddit, whatever. So this, uh, in Interviewer Coder Pro, uh, subreddit, which is a community. If you've not been on Reddit, I'm sure you have. If you've not been on Reddit, go on Reddit. And this username is Ed— I'm gonna have a go at saying his name. I think it might be Polish. Ed Jakubowski, the first, you know, the head of the Jakubowski family.
Leanne ElliottGood for you.
Al ElliottGood for you.
Leanne ElliottWhat was his first name?
Al ElliottEd.
Leanne ElliottGood for you, Ed.
Al ElliottYeah. Good for you, Ed. So this is what Ed did.
Leanne ElliottFound your energy right there.
Al ElliottThis is what Ed did. He said, I started calling companies and saying I was told to schedule my interview. The results are insane. So basically the background is he was getting nowhere. He was sending his resume. Out. I'm guessing it's coding, so he must be a developer or something. So sending it out all the time. After 4 months of getting ghosted, pretty much every single company he applied to, he didn't know what to do. Then he had this epiphany. Recruiters— this is what he said— recruiters just buried under hundreds of applications. It's not personal, they're just overwhelmed and probably lost track of who they spoke to and who they haven't. It's organized chaos. Any recruiters out there will probably resonate a little bit with that. So I came up with a new strategy. I'd apply for a job online, give it a few days to get into their system, then call the main line. When I got someone in HR, I'd just say something like, hi, I'm following up on my application. I was told to give you a call today to schedule an interview. I'd say it with total confidence, as if it's the most normal thing in the world. The crazy part is how well it's working. I've landed 5 interviews in the last 6 weeks, which is mind-blowing compared to the 0 I got in the 4 months prior. Just to be clear, 5 interviews, 1 interview, almost 1 interview a week compared to 0 over 4 months. I've tried it 25 times. It blew up my face only twice. One time the HR person was sharp and said, told by who? I'm the only one who handles scheduling. Hey, you should have said— actually, grammatically correct to say told by whom. That would have got you far into the interview. So apparently I just mumbled something about bad connection and hung up. But a couple of failures for that kind of success rate, I'll take those, those odds any day. Ed, I applaud you. If I could stand up and still talking to Mike, I would stand and applaud you. I think that's brilliant. But let's ask someone who actually is ethical. Who has ethics, unlike me. Is this a bad thing? What's, what's going on?
Leanne ElliottAl, do you have a little button somewhere that's like the crowd cheering?
Al ElliottUh, yeah, let me press it now. I'm gonna do it in post. This is how podcasts work.
Leanne ElliottIt's on a button there. It goes, yay!
Al ElliottNo, but then it's at the wrong levels, Leanne. I need to add it in post-production.
Leanne ElliottOh, it just ruins my fun.
Al Elliott246 episodes and you don't know how this works. I'm disappointed. Anyway, so as a matter— so there will be some crowds cheering in there. There'll be a sound effect.
Leanne ElliottGood. Ed, I applaud you.
Al ElliottYep.
Leanne ElliottI applaud you. Ooh, is it the ethical question's interesting? Do you know what? No, I think, I think this is an ethical grey area. You've applied for this role. It's not like you haven't applied. It's not like you haven't put your thing. You're leaving it a few days for that application to get processed, giving them a chance to get in touch with you, and then you're calling and going, Yeah, I mean, one, if they, if they're not on top of it and book your interview, then it just reflects that they need to tighten up their recruitment process in terms of their ethical guideline boundaries as well. I love the person was like, who told you that? Also, what I'd say, Ed, is that happens again. Get the name of their biggest competitor. So for example, if you phone up and are like, oh, hi, Told you to call and book my interview. Be like, oh, I'm sorry, who told you that? I'm the only one that does that. Oh, um, Nudge Podcast, or somebody at the team at Nudge. I'd be like, sure, I'll schedule you in right now. Do you know what I mean? Like, oh, that's probably not ethical. That's probably a bit dirty.
Al ElliottOh, I'm loving that. You're getting definitely points from me from that.
Leanne ElliottI think in these times where the game is hard and it's— I think, I think the system is a bit broken at the minute. Doing what you need to do to get yourself noticed, you're still gonna have to go through the interviews. You're still gonna have to pass whatever criteria it is they've set to deem if you're the right person for the job. All you're doing is, is jumping the queue in terms of interview, and I applaud it because it's so hard right now. And, and there are so many people I see on LinkedIn who are crushed and heartbroken by this kind of 6, 8, 12-month job search where they're not getting anything back. It's great for you even if you don't get that job in terms of interview practice, in terms of building your confidence, in terms of understanding that it's all a farce. It's all nonsense. It's not that you're not good enough, they just haven't even seen your application for whatever reason. I like it, and I'll be honest, as a business owner, I enjoy the scrappiness. I enjoy the, the, the proactiveness. I, I like it. I'd be inclined to want to work with somebody like that.
Al ElliottSee, now I agree, and if it was for an entrepreneur, then I'd be, I'd be interested, or a business owner-led business. But if it's just someone in HR, they might not think the same way, and they might get quite angry. Anyway, so that, that is one of my favourite stories I've seen this week. Leanne, what else have you seen this week, my love?
Leanne ElliottI have seen some research, Al, that asks the question, why do some people keep giving their time even when they start to feel taken for granted?
Al ElliottHmm.
Leanne ElliottEver been there?
Al ElliottYes, with you. No, I mean, yes, in a previous position.
Leanne ElliottWith me?
Al ElliottNo, never with you. I was just, I was just making light. I was making light of the situation.
Leanne ElliottYou paint us to be such like an old boomer couple, like mansplaining, like, oh, I'm gonna pay for that later. It's like, really?
Al ElliottIf anyone knows us in real life, they'll know that we are just exactly the same in real life as we are on here. We're always making jokes and I've never slept on the couch, so yeah. Don't break it down. Leigh, what have you seen?
Leanne ElliottSo this research, it's what Mary Lou, who is a business psychology MSc student at the University of Leeds, at the University of Hertfordshire set out to explore in her dissertation. Now, the reason I'm sharing this— you might be going, um, MSc student, Leanne, why are we talking about this? Do we not need some, like, you know, PhD-level stuff? No, we don't, because research like this is from students, is bringing that fresh perspective. It's bringing the question that the young people have when they're not weighed down by workplace politics or corporate language. And as anyone who's been through academia will know, Any dissertation at this level is heavily supervised by a more senior psychologist, so this is legit research, and I thought it was really, really brilliant. So Mary's research looked at the psychology of volunteering using a framework called the effort-reward imbalance model. It is a theory that usually explains burnout at work, the idea being that if you give more effort than you feel rewarded for, your wellbeing is likely to take a hit.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottIntuitive.
Al ElliottYep, makes sense.
Leanne ElliottBut in the world of volunteering, things didn't quite play out in that way, Mary found. So she surveyed 118 volunteers across the UK and found that yes, they were putting in huge amounts of effort, and no, they didn't always feel rewarded, but those who described themselves as overcommitted— so the people who gave more than they probably should— actually reported higher levels of wellbeing.
Al ElliottNow we've, we've, we've volunteered before.
Leanne ElliottYeah. That's how we met.
Al ElliottThat's how we met. Volunteered for the Samaritans. And we ended up both on the committee. Me, me being the chair of the committee, you being the head of training or recruitment, I think it was.
Leanne ElliottRecruitment.
Al ElliottRecruitment.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottI have to admit, for a short period of time, I was more committed the more I took on. However, for me, it lasted about a year and then I was a bit like, I think I've taken on too much.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think it's probably a bit longer than that, actually. I think it's about 2 years. Yeah, but yeah, it's easy for— I guess it sounds counterintuitive, but for us having been in quite a varied volunteer role with an organisation for a long period of time, we did get a huge sense of meaning from that, didn't we?
Al ElliottYes, absolutely.
Leanne ElliottA huge sense of purpose, and that is exactly what Mary's research concluded. So it seems that for volunteers, it's not the balance that matters, it's the meaning. So giving time and energy Makes people feel part of something bigger. They're not working for the money, they're working for purpose. And I think it's something that every business owner should really pay attention to, uh, because Mary also found that recognition was the most powerful motivator of all. I've been banging on about recognition all year, Al.
Al ElliottAnd the irony is no one's recognised you for talking about recognition.
Leanne ElliottI know, I know. So what she did is she analysed 87 written responses. The word recognition came up 20 times.
Al ElliottIn '87?
Leanne ElliottIn '87.
Al ElliottSo that's about 30-33%. Lovely.
Leanne ElliottMore than anything else, volunteers didn't want grand gestures or financial rewards. They wanted to be seen. A simple thank you, a moment of appreciation, or someone noticing their effort meant more than any formal incentive. Younger volunteers also talked about learning and confidence. This is such a big one, I think. Um, training, uh, skills for the future. And older volunteers mentioned accessibility and flexibility, so small adjustments that help to, help to keep them contributing. I think this is such an important thing for both aspects of that in terms of age. So for older people who may not be as involved in their work anymore, maybe have retired, to allow that kind of keeping connected to something again bigger than yourself. And for younger people in terms of learning and confidence, like you said, I was leading recruitment at Samaritans or co-leading recruitment for Samaritans when I was 25.
Al Elliott35 years ago.
Leanne ElliottHow dare you, sir?
Al ElliottHow dare you, sir?
Leanne ElliottHow dare you, sir?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottWhich is an opportunity I'd never get anywhere else in an organisation. So I think there is, it's such a, it's such a big thing. And when I went to my interview, future interviews, I was always asked about Samaritans. Sometimes that's all they wanted to talk about. So I think it is, again, such a, such an important thing. And we also know that from all wellbeing research that's done, and particularly I think it was a meta-analysis done by Oxford a couple of years ago that caused a bit of a kerfuffle, um, did actually find that volunteering was one of the few things that actually did have a positive impact on wellbeing. So I thought it's some really interesting research that brings a little bit of, a little bit of nuance we haven't really talked about before or haven't appeared in the research before. Um, but yeah, I think it comes down to people need to feel valued.
Al ElliottSo let me ask you, so if I'm a business owner listening to you and going, um, this woman, she knows what she's talking about, uh, you, not Mary Lou, although Mary Lou knows also.
Leanne ElliottYes, she does.
Al ElliottShe does.
Leanne ElliottHow dare you?
Al ElliottSorry, sorry, Mary. I look forward to your angry email. But if they're listening to this and going, okay, so volunteering, recognition, getting it, cool, I love that. Are you suggesting that people then try and find volunteering opportunities outside of work? For their employees, or is there like a volunteering, like a sort of a mentoring situation within work? What are they supposed to do with this information?
Leanne ElliottI think there's, there's 3 main takeaways. One is that it isn't even about necessarily volunteering. If you wanna apply this type of, this type of psychological thinking in your organisation, it's all about purpose and recognition. Do your people have purpose and recognition, or as we call it in RX7, reason and recognition? So by purpose, it means how are they connected to the mission of the organisation? How do their values align with it? How do they get up in the morning and go, yeah, this is a worthwhile thing to do? And the recognition comes from, yes, it's salary, yes, it's benefits, but it's also going to be flexibility. It's also going to be individualisation. It's also going to be those thank yous, that kudos, and that very structured feedback that is very steeped in context. So Al, I loved it when I saw your email reply to that customer the other day. They were being a bit, a bit natty, weren't they? And what you did was be able to calm them down because you said this and you said that, and I thought it was brilliant. Like, oh, thank you very much. And that, that—
Al ElliottI already feel good about that, and there was no email.
Leanne ElliottThere was no email. Send it later. Because it's building your self-efficacy, your self-confidence in your ability to do your job, and that's a huge part of psychological capital, which is one of the 4 psychological states that we need to have positive wellbeing. It's so important. And in terms of volunteering, yes, if you are an individual in an organisation who doesn't feel this sense of purpose and recognition, but you have to stay there for now, go and volunteer, go and find your people, find those with the same values, get those learning and development experiences. If you are an organisation that's looking to invest in community and wellbeing, setting up a volunteer programme is something that could be really, really great. And if you can do that together as a team somehow, even So, conservation projects, or I don't know, something to do with the local community, how you can support that could be a really great thing to do. It's like, what, a one-day volunteering, a quarter? It doesn't have to be anything massive, but yeah, can be really, really effective. So, I love that research from Mary. Thank you so much, Mary. I did reach out to her and ask if she put a post on LinkedIn. I was like, I need to know more immediately. So, she sent me some more details. So, Mary, thank you so much. I'll leave a link to Mary's LinkedIn profile. In the comments so you can check out her Paris. And I'm sure if you are interested in her research, she'll send it on to you too.
Al ElliottFabulous. That was what— that was one of your best news roundups. I loved it.
Leanne ElliottReally?
Al ElliottYeah, I really enjoyed it.
Leanne ElliottThank you. Amazing what a break does, isn't it?
Al ElliottEh, do you know what it does? And also, you didn't bring up longitudinal studies, so, uh, I'm pleased about that. Anyway, after talking of long, long periods of time, after the break, we've got our truth or lie segment where we're gonna ask, does it really take 10,000 hours to master anything? Or is Malcolm Gladwell full of whatever you think it is? I've just made the ad spit out her tea, so we'll see in a second.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number one management podcast, that's us by the way, that's us.
Al ElliottYeah. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd 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 behavioral science to help people do better at work. Mm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm. And we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are wearing suits. And you're not gonna 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. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agents to fake their fandom. 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 enjoy Can balsamic vinegar make beer taste better?
Al ElliottIt 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. Definitely 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 to Truth or Lie, which is part of Truth, Lies and Work podcast. It's all getting very meta, very confusing. Truth or Lie is basically a segment where we take the idea that everyone says is true and no one really questions. And we basically say to Lee, Leanne, you are a psychologist. Is this a truth or is this a lie? So today we are looking at the 10,000-hour rule. You've probably heard it. If you put 10,000 hours of practice in, you can master anything. The Beatles did in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Tipping Point. No, Outliers. I can't remember what it was in.
Leanne ElliottOutliers.
Al ElliottOutliers. And he said, he said that the Beatles had done 10,000 hours worth of practice of playing for like in random clubs. And they were masters, apparently. It does sound reassuringly. Success is just a simple kind of equation. You go, all right, put the time in, you get great out. But is that actually true?
Leanne ElliottLet's see.
Al ElliottLet's find out.
Leanne ElliottLet's find out. I've obviously heard of this one as well. If you haven't, let's start with where it comes from, shall we?
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottIt doesn't start with Malcolm Gladwell. It starts back in 1993. A psychologist called K. Anders Ericsson And his colleagues studied violin students at the Berlin Academy of Music.
Al ElliottNo strings attached in this study.
Leanne ElliottNo strings attached. They found a pretty clear pattern. So the top performers had practised for around 10,000 hours by the age of 20. The good students had done about 8,000 hours and the less skilled ones close to 4,000 hours. So Ericsson's takeaway wasn't that there was a magic number. It was that the most accomplished people simply practised more And differently. So he called this deliberate practice. So it was intense, it was focused effort on weaknesses guided by feedback. So the teacher played an important role in this and designed to push just beyond one's comfort zone. So it wasn't just about practising, it was a specific type of practice that he found.
Al ElliottHmm.
Leanne ElliottSo then along comes Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers, he turned What was a pretty small academic finding into a pretty big cultural story in the only way Malcolm Gladwell can. So you're right, Al, the Beatles, he did talk about in his book, they were playing all night in Hamburg. Bill Gates coding for hours as a teenager. I think Ed Sheeran also talked about it on a chat show saying that he was a 10,000 hours believer. And all those examples do fit perfectly, don't they? It's, it was actually Gladwell that called it the 10,000-hour rule.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo, he coined that bit, and the idea went viral. Absolutely. To the point where I'm not even sure many people would track it back to Malcolm Gladwell.
Al ElliottNo, no.
Leanne ElliottIt's bigger than Malcolm at this point. To be fair, what we can understand from that is practice does matter a lot. In terms of other research that might back this up. So, in medicine, a study from 2020, if you're interested, Al, it's in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.
Al ElliottOh, one of my favourites. I've got, In fact, I've got one waiting for me outside. It just should be delivered yesterday. Fascinating read.
Leanne ElliottFascinating. I've got a joke, but I can't quite get there. It's like it's on the pulse of something.
Al ElliottOh yeah, I was trying to think of organs and then I started to go down a different route that I probably shouldn't have done. Sorry. So Journal of Thoracic and Sporadic Cardiovascular Surgery.
Leanne ElliottYes, 2020 found that hospitals and surgeons performing higher volumes of lung cancer operations had lower mortality rates.
Al ElliottKeep it light, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottLower mortality rates. This is light. They're not dying.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottOkay. So yeah, experience saves lives. In chess, we have some classic work from Simon and Chase, which also sounds like some kind of electric music.
Al ElliottIt does, doesn't it?
Leanne ElliottSimon and Chase in chess showed that grandmasters typically spent about a decade, often equating to roughly 10,000 hours, Internalizing over 50,000 patterns of play. Goodness. So we do have some evidence from outside of music. So yes, Ericsson's principle that expert performance comes from thousands of hours of focused effort has been held up across disciplines. The principle. Where Malcolm made a slight mistake is calling it a rule.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottBecause what don't psychologists like, Al?
Al ElliottRules.
Leanne ElliottJust absolutes. Absolutes. We're not a fan of absolutes. And that's what makes it problematic. So Ericsson never said 10,000 hours was a rule. In fact, he spent years correcting that misunderstanding. It was an average from one study of musicians, not a universal law. And this is the problem with all of these things. They're just overgeneralized. Some people do reach elite levels faster as well. Um, others take much, much longer. So there's other factors at play.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo, in Ericsson's later book, Peak, which he co-authored with somebody called Robert Pool, pleasant name, he said it may not require exactly 10,000 hours, but it will take a lot. So, the real insight—
Al ElliottI like you said a lot.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it's a lot.
Al ElliottHe's left that open there.
Leanne ElliottA lot, which isn't like absolute, Sam. The real insight from Ericsson wasn't also, it wasn't just about time, as you'll remember, Al, it was about quality. Not all practice is created equal. So 10,000 hours of unstructured repetition, um, the musical equivalent of just like jamming.
Al ElliottPlaying Chopsticks.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottUm, doesn't build experience. Um, Ericsson actually called that naive practice.
Al ElliottOh, so can I just stop you? I just wanna make sure I've understood what we're saying here. So the, the 2 words sticking in my head is causation correlation. Is that what we're saying? That people are re— are looking at data and retroactively fitting a rule or taking a rule from it. So they'll go, 10,000 hours, I've got all this, all these case studies to back it up, and then going, that's the rule.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So what Ericsson found in his research was a correlation between the number of hours practiced and the competence of the musician. What Malcolm Gladwell has extended that to causation.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottIn that if you do 10,000 hours of this, you will be an expert in it. And there's other There's other things that are happening alongside that, as well as the type of practice you're engaging in during these 10,000 hours. So, neuro research, for example, 2014, uh, we have some psychologists that analysed 88 studies of musicians, athletes, and professionals, and their conclusion was that yes, deliberate practice explained about 26% of performance, but the rest came from other factors like cognitive ability, personality, and even look. And actually, if you look beyond musicians and athletes in professional settings, practice actually explained only 1% of performance.
Al ElliottWow. That's a, that's why it's a small number, but it's a lot smaller than I thought it was gonna be.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah, it is. There's other researchers that have gone deeper arguing that the 10,000-hour story oversimplifies Ericsson's work, ignoring the role of mental representations. And so that's a detailed mental maps expert build through practice that allow them to anticipate and plan and adapt. That's what, um, regular listeners will know Chip Conley talks about in terms of wisdom work.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo it's not just— it's, it's, yeah, it's all these different mental representations, scenarios basically, that, that we've been through that allows us to anticipate, plan, adapt to something that happens in the moment more effectively. And that internal Knowledge isn't built by time alone. It does again come from how you practice and crucially who you learn from. Um, so yeah, then there's context again. More recently, Jamie North, 2012, from Leeds Metropolitan University. That's where you went, Al.
Al ElliottGo on, Jamie.
Leanne ElliottUh, Jamie reviewed the deliberate practice model and found it fits well in highly structured environments like music or chess, but not in more open systems like management or teaching. So, the verdict, is it true or is it a lie? Does it take 10,000 hours to master something? It's true that mastery demands time and structure and sustained effort. There are no overnight experts. But it's a lie that the number itself, 10,000 hours, holds any real meaning. It's not a rule. It's a rough average. It's definitely not a guarantee because actually it comes down to the quality of practice that you are engaging in for said number of hours. So, Is it true? Not really.
Al ElliottI suppose also, if you do spend 10,000 hours doing something, you've actually properly committed to something you're probably gonna do for a long, long, long time.
Leanne ElliottHow long is 10,000 hours, like, over time?
Al ElliottOh, it's around about, uh, 600,000 minutes. Um, I dunno. How long is 10,000 hours in days? What, what?
Leanne ElliottSo if you said 10,000 hours, let's say you practice for something like, what, an hour and a half a day?
Al ElliottYeah. So, well, let's take 2 hours so I can, I can do the maths.
Leanne ElliottEasy maths. Yeah.
Al ElliottYeah. Yeah. So that would give you 5,000 days. And let's say you practiced every, what, 5 days a week? Yeah. That gives you 100 weeks, which is about 2 years. So if you did 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, for, check my maths, listener, 2 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Leanne ElliottFor 2 years.
Al ElliottFor 2 years, you'd hit your 10,000 hours.
Leanne ElliottIt's not that long, is it?
Al ElliottIt's not, is it? Mm-hmm. No, I think you'd be an expert in, uh, in Instagram by now, wouldn't you? But—
Leanne ElliottOr podcasting.
Al ElliottOr podcasting.
Leanne ElliottClearly not. We could say, yeah. It's the quality of the practice hour. That's what we have not been engaging in.
Al ElliottLet me choke on my water there. Yes. Well, there you go. So I like that. And also I'm really, really enjoying this series. So, um, but I'm starting to run out of ideas to what to ask Leanne. I've got 3 or 4 more, but if you're listening, we wanna hear your idea. What do you think? What is something which everyone believes in or believes is true, but actually may not be? I'm trying, wording that very carefully so we don't, we don't get sued for copyright by Radio 1, by Greg James. If you haven't listened to it, that's a great one. Unpopular opinion. That's how it goes.
Leanne ElliottJust like that.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottIf you've got a myth that you want—
Al ElliottI'm not on Radio 1.
Leanne ElliottYou've got a psychological pop psych belief that you want proving or indeed disproving. Send us an email, hello@truthliesandwork.com, or come and find me on LinkedIn.
Al ElliottYeah. Okay. So, if you haven't followed Leanne on LinkedIn, go and join.
Leanne ElliottHow dare you, sir?
Al ElliottYes. That's gonna be the headline, the subtitle for our—
Leanne ElliottI think it might be the title. How dare you?
Al ElliottHow dare you, sir? So it's onto my favourite time of the week, which is the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne. Not done it for a week or so, so let's see.
Leanne ElliottI'm surprised you said it right.
Al ElliottLet's see how it goes. Okay, so question number 1. It's about giving your Christmas bonus or a gift to your team. There was a new manager who wasn't quite sure, so they did the right thing and asked Leanne. Leanne, it reads, I recently took over managing a small business, 6 employees, a mix of full and part-time. It's my first year actually being in charge, and I wanna do something nice for the team at Christmas, but I'm not sure what's considered normal or expected. I've been here. My partner keeps warning me that I might come across as too nice because I've been talking about giving everyone a Christmas bonus or maybe a small gift like a voucher or hamper. But I just really appreciate the work they've done. It's been a tough year and they've stuck it out and helped keep things running smoothly. Leah, it feels like every year for the last 3 years or 5 years has been a tough year, but I feel for this person because I had a team of maybe about 25 people when I had my beer business and I didn't really know what to do. And I'll tell you after Leanne's replied, I'll tell you what I actually did and you can tell me what's the right thing or the wrong thing.
Leanne ElliottYou said you recently took over managing a small business. I would go to the person. I'm assuming you've taken them from an owner. That person is still in play. Ask them what usually happens, because the thing is as well, you don't want to not do something that's been happening every year.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo if someone's been getting a bonus, Christmas bonus every year, you have to make sure they get a Christmas bonus every year. Otherwise, you're the one that stopped that. So you want to make— you want to do whatever you can to find out what has happened previously. In terms of whether it should be bonus or a gift, We know that financial reward isn't always the most motivating, as we've heard. Recognition comes in many forms. For example, I once wrote handwritten Christmas cards to all of my team, thanking them for all of the work they'd done and calling out specific examples again of something that I'd been really proud of that they achieved that year. People cried, people left them on their desks for months afterwards.
Al ElliottAww.
Leanne ElliottBecause it meant something, it was personal, and I'd taken the time. As we know as well, as Phil from Nudge talked about on our show, It's that effort, that perceived effort is seen as something that is more likeable in a person. So, I'd look at something like that. The other thing as well, I would say, if people don't want money, people want money or time. So, if they're not expecting any money, or you can't give them enough that it's actually gonna really make much of a difference, you know what I mean? If you're gonna slip 10 quid in everyone's card, it's like, sound, nice one. If you're gonna give someone like a grand bonus, then yeah, all right then, thanks very much. So, I would look at time. Another thing that I did, Because we didn't, we'd worked in a private company for a public sector contract, so we didn't really have the money to be kind of giving people bonuses every year. When we did, we did. The years that we didn't, we would have like a Christmas party on the last day. We were a customer-facing business, we had customers coming into us. So, we'd go, right, the morning is what we'd call kind of a news and views. So, what's been working well? What can we improve on next year for you guys?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottStaff would answer that as well. We'd celebrate people that had done really well by either getting a job or finishing a course. We'd have a raffle, we'd have a buffet. Very casual, very lovely. One year we gave away bikes.
Al ElliottOh, I remember you telling me about this. God, you literally came home and cried.
Leanne ElliottI did. I did. I got the train and I just cried all the way home on the train. I've told this story before, go back and listen, but basically we teamed up with another contractor who had surplus children's bikes. They brought them to the centre on this day before Christmas, and our customers came in and were able to get kids, um, bikes for their kids that they've never been able to do before. Um, and yet grown men were crying at their ability to be a good dad that year, and it was very emotional. Um, that finished about 1 o'clock, and I went, guys, we can do no better this year. Go home, enjoy. I will see you in the new year. And having that afternoon off, they just loved. Um, the only thing I would say with that is Do give a heads up to anybody who has kids or has maybe arranged childcare that this is probably gonna happen, wink wink, nudge nudge, so they can, they can manage it. I think time and appreciation is really what is gonna stay with your people, particularly if it has been a tough year. Unless of course you do have the capacity to give a very nice chunky bonus, I would still do these things as well because money is not as motivating as we would like to think.
Al ElliottExcellent. I love that. I love that. And also, yeah, definitely. If you, if you, if you're listening and you, I can't remember which episode you were talking about the bikes, but go onto LinkedIn, go and follow Leanne and send her a message. Or even better, go onto LinkedIn and just start a message and go, just listening to the Truth, Lies and Work podcast. There was a bike story. Leanne, can you tell me what it is?
Leanne ElliottAnd she'll tell you. You know what? I think it was like, it was the episode where it was like, who is Leanne Elliott? And then we did one of you, who is Al Elliott? I'm talking like episode 12 or something.
Al ElliottSee, I'm trying, I'm trying to farm engagement here on LinkedIn.
Leanne ElliottOh, sorry.
Al ElliottYou've ruined it.
Leanne ElliottYou've got the time. Just go back and listen to the episode.
Al ElliottYeah. Don't, don't spend 3 minutes writing a post. Go back and listen to 60 minutes of us talking back in. Uh, and also you notice the audio quality as well. We definitely have improved on that. So I, I started, I decided to, I opened a curiosity loop at the beginning of this by saying, yes, you did. Yeah. By saying, this is what I did. Tell us whether I did it right or wrong. So my beer delivery company, ultimately highly unsuccessful, went bankrupt for 102 grand. Not a great idea. Not great operation. It was basically Uber for drinks in 2002. Great idea, poor execution. So we had a really tough year. I had a little bit of money left. So basically I booked an Airbnb in January, 2 nights. Uh, it slept like 16 people and I offered it to the 20 people who worked and said, who wants to come with us? So we all went up to this Airbnb. I made sure there was low— obviously there'd be loads of alcohol because we had a beer delivery company.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottSo I had loads of alcohol in there, took the alcohol. One of the guys became the barman. He was shaking stuff up and making cocktails. There was pool tables, there was card games, there was all that kind of stuff. People seem to really like it, but was it the right thing to do?
Leanne ElliottIt was different times, Al. 2002. Is it problematic to take a team away with lots of alcohol?
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottBut it was a different time, and I'm sure it all ended fine, and you had no complaints or—
Al ElliottOne of them got pregnant, but apart from that— that's not true. That's not true. I don't— well, I don't know, actually. Maybe they did, but— okay, so obviously—
Leanne ElliottI wouldn't recommend it, but—
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottI mean, the other thing is, is ask, is ask people, ask some, some kind of main people in the team that have been around for a while, what they think people would appreciate, um, rather than trying to figure it out yourself. Um, yeah.
Al ElliottFair enough. Okay. So to just go show this is realistic. So I, I gave a real, and real situation there and I got told, I got schooled. So let's move on to question number 2, which is how to present a strategy to your team when you don't believe in it yourself. Ooh.
Leanne ElliottNo, no.
Al ElliottI'm in a leadership role and I've been asked to roll out a strategy I don't fully agree with. I understand where the decision's coming from, but I'm struggling with how to present it to my team with any conviction. They trust me to be honest and open, but I also don't wanna undermine senior leadership or create confusion. How do I handle this? Is it ever okay to show doubt? And they've also put, PS, should I just back the plan and keep the concerns to myself? Lee, this is a tough one. Rock and hard place.
Leanne ElliottThis is, this comes down to what my greatest leadership management mentor called hiding the wires.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottSo, we've all been there as managers. We've all been there, been told something from senior leadership, from corporate, a change that has to be made and go, oh my God, it's gonna be so hard. It's gonna take, it's just gonna be so disruptive. It's not even gonna work, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We can get very caught up and we don't like change anyway. So, any type of change is always gonna trigger us. So, understand that you are currently being triggered by that change. Mm-hmm. The thing is, what I was always taught to do is to go hide the wires. I'm not gonna take my frustration, my doubts to my team because that's gonna cloud their judgment or influence their, um, their opinions, particularly if, if they trust me, they're gonna wanna follow, follow my opinion.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottSo I don't wanna influence that. I would arrange some kind of meeting where you go, right guys, this is what we've been asked to do. This is a change coming from Head office, I'd love your thoughts on it. What do we think about it? And just leave it at that. And, and you'll always be surprised by how many times people go, okay, yeah, I can see what they're trying to do there. But you know what, if operationally, if we just tweak that, I think it would work perfectly. So then you go, okay, let me take that back to senior managers. And you go, I think this is going to be great, but just from an operational perspective, which, you know, I understand that you don't know the ins and outs of kind of what we do every day, can we just change this one thing in it and it should be all good? And usually senior leadership will go, yeah, yeah, fine, whatever. That's your job tactics. Yeah. So I think often people are, are a bit more open to it. One thing that actually, um, Mamie said in her interview a couple of weeks ago, she said something like, um, just get everyone, the first question you ask when you present this new strategy is ask them to rate, just give you a number on a scale of 1 to 5. 5 being I'm on board, this is awesome, let's go. 1 being absolutely fricking not. 3 being neutral. I said, often when you get that initial feedback, it gives you an anchor point to start from. So you're either gonna go in and go, this is gonna go down like a lead balloon, and actually everyone says 4, or you're like, okay, okay, so then we're in a better position. It could be that you're so convinced this is the best thing ever and everyone goes 2, and you're like, huh, we have to talk about this. So again, it, it's hiding the whys. It's not putting your emotional baggage or your frustration with change onto your team. It's keeping it open, keeping it honest, as you said as well, and just getting that feedback. And I think typically senior leadership are never going to want you— probably not going to want you to show doubt in a way that is pushy-backy, which is a technical term.
Al ElliottPushy-backy, I like that.
Leanne ElliottBut I think in terms of applying this strategy into the day-to-day operations that you know much better, Going back to them in terms of, this is gonna be a blocker, this is gonna be a barrier, this is gonna cause a point of friction. Can I suggest these tweaks to make it operationally more sound? I think the vast majority of senior leaders are gonna go, yeah, cool, thanks so much for letting me know.
Al ElliottI like that. Now, I think I would be, my concern and possibly listeners' concern would be, if I just say, this is, this is what they've asked us to do, what do you think about it? If, if you did either the exercise of asking 1 to 4 or 1 to 5, Or whatever. What happens if everyone came back and said it's a 1? What happens if everyone came back and said, this is just not gonna work? You as a manager, I feel like then as a manager, I'm gonna have to go, oh balls. Um, well, it's gonna have to happen. How do I recover from that if everyone's like dead against it?
Leanne ElliottWith curiosity. You, your follow-up can't be, well, it's gonna happen, so get on with it. Yeah. Because that completely defeats the purpose of asking them in the first place.
Al ElliottFair.
Leanne ElliottIt's kind of going, okay, cool. So we know we're a 1. Let's, let's go around each person individually and talk about why you think it's a 1. What are the challenges? Why is that? Are there any merits here? Is it that it's an operational issue? Is it that our customers are going to hate it? Is it that it fundamentally misaligns with the values of the organisation? This is a massive change. There's going to be nuances, and there's going to be— again, remember, people have a very visceral reaction to change. We don't like change. It throws us into that threat state. So, it might be that initially you get 1s, and as you start to talk it through, they'll start to get easily to a 2 and a 3, and then before you know it, you're cooking on a 4.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd everyone's happy. So, I think it really is just about staying curious and understanding why people are having this reaction, because again, they're going to have understanding that you don't have as a manager in terms of their individual role and what they do within the business. Ultimately, if your senior leaders want this strategy to be delivered, they're going to need the team on board.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottBecause without that, the changes aren't going to happen. Your job as a manager is to facilitate that change by bringing The two things together. And if you still go through all of this and it's still a 1 and people aren't on board, then yeah, that's going to be a very awkward conversation with your senior leader. But again, you go to that conversation with, with some potential solutions, with some potential ways to, to bridge the gap. But I think it's pretty unlikely you're going to get anything that severe unless it is a huge fundamental change within the business that actually shifts values or ways of working. I can't imagine as a manager you're gonna be asked to implement this level of strategy independently.
Al ElliottFair enough. Great answer. Great answer. So question number 3, should I get rid of a new hire after a bad first day? So this person writes, I recently gave a young guy a chance. He was eager to get his foot in the door, seemed decent on paper, and asked me directly for an opportunity. Well done. So I brought him in as a contractor for a one-off project, but on his first day he showed up 40 minutes late. No message, no explanation. Now I'm seriously considering letting him go. I know that might sound a bit harsh, but if you turn up late on day 1 after asking for the chance, it doesn't give me much confidence. I've got that gut feeling this could be more trouble than it's worth. So, Leanne, should they, should this person give the, give the benefit of the doubt or trust their instincts and go, I'm sorry, dude, you're outta here?
Leanne ElliottFirst of all, very smart to engage this person as a contractor for a one-off project.
Al ElliottYep.
Leanne ElliottTo test them out.
Al ElliottWell done.
Leanne ElliottVery nice. Also to this person, good for you for having initiative to, to make that pitch to this person. All right, it's 40 minutes late. It's day 1, dude. Chill out. Do you know what I mean? It's like, at least he showed up.
Al ElliottI feel exactly the opposite.
Leanne ElliottReally? I just think if it's— you said he's young, right? You said that he, he seemed decent on paper. He asked you directly for opportunity. This could be his very first opportunity. He might not know the etiquette of things. He, he's also a contractor, so he's not a firm fixed employee. So, my question would be, have you laid out the kind of expectations in terms of turning up on time, what that looks like? If there is an issue, how to message in explanations that would be required? I think if this young person is one of their first roles, part of your job is going to be kind of mentoring them into what the expectations are in the workplace in general, and specifically within Yours. I think that to give this person no second chance without any effort from you to coach them through this moment is really, really harsh. It could still be that your gut feeling is right. It could still be this person is more trouble than they're worth, but I will always be the person that will want to give them the benefit of the doubt and coach them through this moment so they can learn. And if you're willing to give up on day one, ah, I hate to say that kind of tough love thing, but I'm kind of like, well, where's, where's your effort as a manager to want to encourage people, to want to develop people, to want to help them learn? Where's the psychological safety that you're going to need to, to build within your organisation? Also, they're a contractor for a one-off project. Give them the benefit of the doubt, see what they can do. If he is more trouble than he's worth, then it's a one-off project and you can find a way to get rid of him pretty easily if he's just a contractor. But I think this is a really great opportunity for you to learn as a manager and to engage in that kind of coaching behaviour and to potentially really have a positive and long-term impact on this young person's entire career.
Al ElliottOkay, so you have slightly softened my, my approach on this by, by that. Um, I still think my instinct would be like, absolutely no chance, get rid. Um, and the, and part of that I'm realizing now reflecting on it is because they, they didn't message or they didn't apologize. And then I'm like, oh, well, obviously they don't respect me, which not is not necessarily the case. So yeah, this is interesting. Before you answered this, I would've said, nope, they're out. Now I'm realizing that maybe they just don't know that that's the etiquette. Maybe, maybe they're perpetually late to go and meet their friends and no one's ever said to you, where, where have you been, Frank? You know, we said we meet at 8 and it's now 20 to 9. Maybe Devin's like, oh, Frank's always late. So he's just assumed that it's okay. He just turns up when he wants. I still think there's a problem with that, but I think from what you've told me there, my job now is to establish what the expectations are and give him a second chance against the new agreed expectations. And if he fails again, then I'm like, dude, you've just wasted the biggest opportunity of your life.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah, maybe. Quite the opportunity.
Al ElliottI don't know what company this is. This could be Elon writing in.
Leanne ElliottIt's true. Well, Elon, he'd be freaking gone. Elon wouldn't even ask the question, would he? The thing is about this, digging, why is he 40 minutes late? Is it because where he comes from only has one bus an hour and the one before is going to get him in 2 hours early? It might be— no. Yeah, exactly. But if that expectation hasn't been set out for him, he's gonna go, that's all right, I'm only a contractor after all. It could be this person is neurodiverse and, and struggles with this kind of time management. There's gonna be things to explore. But yeah, I think if you said he seemed decent on paper, you recently gave him a chance because there must have been a part of you that wanted to give this young person a chance. There's a part of you that's excited by developing young people. Well, this is part of it. This is part of it. People make mistakes. People don't know what the expectations are unless you lay them out. So I think— Have that conversation, set some expectations, set some guidelines in terms of, of the behaviours you expect, and see how it goes. Be willing to be wrong that this person could actually do, do brilliantly.
Al ElliottFair enough. I think it's a very balanced answer, and you all know what I think, and you all know that, that it's wrong. So definitely do what Leanne said. So that's the end of our entire episode, I believe, Leanne. We're gonna join us next Tuesday. Well, you are gonna join us. See, that was just, I was assuming the close there. Please join us next Tuesday for another edition of This Week in Work. Uh, on Thursday we have another interview with— oh my goodness, he is a legend. It's the second time coming on here. We've only ever had, I believe, one other person who we've, we've invited back for a second time.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottUm, Rory, Rory Sutherland invited himself back for a second time.
Leanne ElliottYes, he did.
Al ElliottI still, I still have plenty to say. Uh, so, so join us on Thursday for interview. Join us next Tuesday for another edition.
Leanne ElliottThat person, by the way, is Dr. Ryan Martin.
Al ElliottI was leaving again. I was leaving.
Leanne ElliottReally?
Al ElliottYeah. No, no, we probably should say, actually, probably, probably I probably should say Dr. Ryan Martin, the expert in anger and emotions. He's got a brand new book out, which is really cool.
Leanne ElliottHow to Hack Your Emotions. There we go. Very good.
Al ElliottSo you don't need to listen to the, to the episodes.
Leanne ElliottYou do. You know what? You know what? You don't know how.
Al ElliottFair enough. Quick one. If you are a founder of a business that's got about 15 to 75 employees, so 15 to 75 employees, you've been going about 5 years, I wanna talk to you. I've spoken to a few people already about this top secret project. Basically, I want to pitch something to you and I want you to tell me all the reasons you're not going to buy it. I'm not going to try and sell you it. I just want to hear what, what, why it wouldn't work for you. We've probably got about 3 or 4, 3 more slots of those left. So if you want to get in touch, just find me on LinkedIn, DM me, or my email is in the show notes. Let's get in touch and let's book you in. All right. So anything else to add before we go, Lee?
Leanne ElliottSubscribe, follow, leave us a review, get in touch on socials. It's been lovely having so many people People, yeah, sliding into our DMs and saying hi. So keep doing that, please. Hope you're well. Happy November, um, and we'll see you next week.
Al ElliottSee you soon.