Episode 256 · 9 December 2025 · 51:10
Gen-Alpha are coming! PLUS! Micro-joy, power poses and what to get the CEO for Christmas
Gen-Alpha are coming! PLUS! Micro-joy, power poses and what to get the CEO for Christmas
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Generation Alpha are coming
news roundup#gen-alpha#generational-differences#news-roundup
The rise of micro-joys
news roundup#micro-joys#wellbeing#happiness-at-work
Starbucks faces its largest strike yet
news roundup#starbucks#strike#labor-disputes
Truth or Lie: Can power posing boost confidence?
truth or lie#power-posing#confidence#body-language#happiness-at-work
Workplace Surgery: Secret Santa for the CEO
workplace surgery#secret-santa#ceo#workplace-culture
Workplace Surgery: Occupational health vs. home-working adjustments
workplace surgery#occupational-health#home-working#workplace-adjustments
Workplace Surgery: Building a competency model from scratch
workplace surgery#competency-model#talent-management#hr
Show notes
Gen-Alpha Are Coming! PLUS! Micro-joy, Power Poses & What to Get the CEO for Christmas
This Week in Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) break down why the 11-to-15-year-old Generation Alpha cohort is about to flip workplace expectations on its head, why Starbucks' largest-ever strike is a warning to every dashboard-driven leader, and how micro-joys compound into serious workplace resilience. Plus, in Truth or Lie: can two minutes of standing like a superhero actually change your hormones?
🔥 Stories Covered
1. Generation Alpha are coming — and HR isn't ready A major new Benenden Health report surveyed 500 teenagers aged 13–18 and 500 HR decision-makers, and the gap is stark. Only 11% of Gen Alpha expect a single career path, 77% want meaningful wellbeing support, and six in ten personally know someone who is neurodivergent. Yet 64% of HR leaders admit they're not ready. The report warns workplaces will need redesigning around manager capability, clear communication and personalised support — not just flexible-working tick-boxes. Source →
2. The rise of micro-joys Drawing on Forbes and Amabile & Kramer's The Progress Principle, this story explores why small, repeatable moments of joy — a great sandwich, a walk, a tiny win — compound into resilience, creativity and motivation. For leaders, these moments are easy to design into a working day, and they matter far more than chasing the occasional macro-joy. Source →
3. Starbucks faces its largest strike yet Around 2,500 baristas across more than 120 US stores have walked out in the longest coordinated action in company history. Four years after the first union vote, not a single store has a contract. Workers cite pay, conditions, understaffing and stalled negotiations. Leadership churn and sliding trust sit at the core of the dispute — a lesson for any employer relying too heavily on dashboards instead of people. Source →
🧠 Truth or Lie: Can Power Posing Boost Confidence?
Leanne takes on the viral TED claim that two minutes of expansive posture can shift your hormones and transform your behaviour. The original 2010 study found testosterone up, cortisol down and risk-taking up — but replications haven't supported the biological claims. What survived? The psychological effect. Expansive postures don't transform you, yet contractive postures reliably make people feel worse.
The verdict: a light nudge, not a superpower. If it makes you feel great, do it — just don't expect your spit to change.
💬 Workplace Surgery
Three listener questions, tackled live:
- Secret Santa: "Help — I pulled the CEO for Secret Santa. What do I get them?"
- Home-working adjustments: "Can my employer challenge adjustments already approved by occupational health?"
- Competency models: "Where do I start with a competency model that's genuinely useful?"
(Got a question? Submit it via the connect link below.)
🎧 Coming Up Thursday
We're welcoming back Rob Kalwarowsky, one of the world's leading executive coaches. He's sharing how to capitalise on chaos in 2026 — and offering a major giveaway to get you off to a flying start.
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 ElliottGeneration Alpha is coming. That's the 11 to 15-year-olds about to enter the workforce. A major new study has revealed who they are and what they want from employers. The question is, are we ready?
Al ElliottI very much doubt it. Also this week, Starbucks, a company that built its brand on progressive workplace values, is facing the largest strike in its history. Thousands of baristas— am I saying that right? Or barristers? Never get those. You're never quite sure. Oh, Brazzers. Yeah. Anyway, moving on. Just read it out.
Leanne ElliottJust read it.
Al Elliott4 years after the first store unionised, there is still no contract. So how did a once respected employer end up here?
Leanne ElliottAnd in Truth or Lie, can standing like a superhero for 2 minutes actually boost your confidence? It's a viral TED Talk, it's in every leadership book, but does power posing actually work, or did the hype run ahead of the science?
Al ElliottPlus, the Workplace Surgery. Someone's pulled the CEO for Secret Santa and desperately needs gift advice without looking like a dick.
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 ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd together we help organisations build amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottSo we're gonna get right into it after a very quick word from our lovely sponsors. 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. Nice.
Al ElliottCheck out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Leanne ElliottHolidays are coming. Holidays are coming. Holidays are coming.
Al ElliottSo this is so last week we had a little bit of an argument, which I put onto LinkedIn. Basically, Leanne wanted a tree on the first of December. I wanted a tree round about the tenth or eleventh of December. So we compromised and got a tree on the second of.
Leanne ElliottWhat is the point of getting a tree on the 10th when we leave on the 14th for 3 weeks?
Al ElliottFair, fair. I still felt that 1st was the, was, was too soon. But still, anyway, we got one and it is beautiful.
Leanne ElliottShe is beautiful. I think any time in December isn't too soon.
Al ElliottWe had one person on LinkedIn who said just before Thanksgiving. No, Black Monday, Black Friday. They said Black Friday, that's the day I go out and buy my Christmas tree. Maybe because they're getting a percentage off. I don't know.
Leanne ElliottFair enough. But it's the last weekend before you go into December, isn't it?
Al ElliottFair enough. Yeah, yeah. Also, we learned as well, I learned that Thanksgiving isn't a particular date. It's just like Easter. It kind of like just moves around. It's apparently the last or the second to last Thursday in November. I don't know how you'd understand. Maybe there's a Thanksgiving committee. Talking of committees, we are now in the news segment. This has got nothing to do with committees. This is the news segment. This is Leanne's favourite time of the week.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's time for the news roundup. Al, cue the Christmas jingle.
Al ElliottYep. Did you like the Christmas jingle from last week?
Leanne ElliottLoved it.
Al ElliottYeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, cool, cool, cool. So what have you seen this week, Lee?
Leanne ElliottGeneration Alpha are coming. I can't wait. So excited.
Al ElliottQuick question, right? So we went Gen X, so we went Baby Boomers. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottGen X. Yeah.
Al ElliottDidn't do Gen Y, did we?
Leanne ElliottWell, Gen Y, Millennials.
Al ElliottOh, I see. Right. And then it went Gen Zed.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottThen Gen Alpha. So is it just gonna be like number plates now? It's gonna go Gen Beta.
Leanne ElliottI dunno. I don't make, I don't make the rules, Al.
Al ElliottWe might not be around.
Leanne ElliottWe might not be around now to see Gen Beta.
Al ElliottBack to Generation Alpha. What'd you, what'd you know?
Leanne ElliottGeneration Alpha. It's a big one. People have been banging on about this, like 5, 6 generations in the workplace for a while. Um, and I saw on LinkedIn, Beneden Health has published a major new study on Gen Alpha. Gen A? Gen Alpha? What are we gonna— we're gonna shorten it to Gen A? Gen A.
Al ElliottYeah. Jenna.
Leanne ElliottJenna. Jenna. The Jennas. Um, so they are the 11 to 15-year-olds who will start entering the workforce in the next 5 to 10 years. And this is what the report suggests.
Al ElliottOw.
Leanne ElliottAnd I think you're going to enjoy this. So the report surveyed 500 teenagers aged 13 to 18 and 500 HR decision makers to compare what young people expect from work versus what organisations think they want.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottYou can already see how this is going to turn out.
Al ElliottI can see a disparity coming.
Leanne ElliottSo yeah, everything I'm about to say comes directly from the report. In terms of what Gen Alpha expect from work, they don't believe in one career path. Only 11% of teens surveyed said they'd expect to stay in a single career. Nearly 40% expect 2 or 3 careers across their lives. And that's not necessarily job hopping, hopping, hopping, not job hopping.
Al ElliottWord of the week.
Leanne ElliottBasically a completely different career.
Al ElliottSo doctor, stuntman, stunt person, sorry.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd then IG model.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Well, I mean, they might be connected. So for example, it might be Welfare to Work Service Delivery Manager, Executive Brand Writer and Consultant, Podcast Host.
Al ElliottWho would do such a crazy thing as those?
Leanne ElliottI know.
Al ElliottI'm not sure I want to meet that person.
Leanne ElliottI mean, I'm not sure I care for them. So yeah, they're gonna have multiple careers, a portfolio career, I think it's called. Second, they're prioritising mental health support. So 77% say mental health support will be important when choosing an employer. Almost 40% said it will be very important, and their reasoning was basically they're looking for more happiness, greater loyalty, reduced exclusion, and higher motivation, and they believe mental health support is going to support all of those things. And you know what, Al? They're not wrong.
Al ElliottNo, they're not.
Leanne ElliottKids are smart. Um, they also said that pay still matters most. So despite everything, when asked to pick their number one priority, 64% chose high pay. Um, so I guess it's really support me and pay me properly. Hopefully it's not one or the other, which we have been kind of stuck in this cycle of, isn't it? That either we need to hustle hard and get paid well, or work in something meaningful and lots of, lots of hope work there, lots of free time.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnother interesting thing from the report, neurodiversity. And this is one of the most significant parts of the data. So 6 in 10 teenagers personally know someone who is neurodivergent. 15% identify as neurodivergent themselves. And 47% want to work for an employer that actively supports neurodivergent staff.
Al ElliottInteresting.
Leanne ElliottIsn't that interesting when you compare when I entered the workplace? Nobody— I don't think I even knew what neurodiversity was.
Al ElliottNo.
Leanne ElliottReally. So it's amazing in 15 years, actually, the awareness that has grown about neurodiversity, which is so important.
Al ElliottWhen I entered the workforce 25 years ago—
Leanne Elliott1974.
Al ElliottWe just had the motor car. My boss had a Ford. No, there was— they used to describe, oh, You know, go and see the guys in, in like tech support or finance or whatever, um, but they're a bit weird, so just like take someone with you. And that was, that was, that was the equivalent of the, of the diversification there. It's like, oh yeah, Weird Steve. Yeah, go and speak to Weird Steve. He's, he's a bit weird.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Um, I mean, in terms of carrying on this neurodiversity theme, in terms of the HR side of it, 64% of HR leaders say that they have had an increase in requests for reasonable adjustments from neurodivergent employees in the past year. We had a question on the surgery recently, didn't we, about occupational health and ADHD? 83% say making their workplaces neuroinclusive is now important, and their reasons included things like improved creativity, innovation, and productivity. And that was all explicitly mentioned in the report. So it sounds like HR is understanding the assignment.
Al ElliottYep.
Leanne ElliottBut it's whether, whether business leaders are really gonna, gonna invest in that quickly. Also, the research showed that neurodiverse executive teams solve complex problems So we're talking about execs now.
Al ElliottYeah. If we're talking about Gen Alpha, we're probably, we're probably about 20, 15 years away from them going to exec level or C-level, aren't we?
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah, no, we are. But the point it was making is in the research, it cited other research, sorry, that basically showed that executive teams that are diverse in any way, including neurodiverse, are much more creative.
Al ElliottWell, I like Dr. Nancy Doyle. She's She's from the Genius Network, I think. And we talked to her and she was so cool. She's like, yeah, yeah, I looked at a problem and no one else could fix it. And I looked and I was like, I see straight away what the problem was because I think differently. And it was cool. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottAbsolutely.
Al ElliottSorry, I hijacked there a little bit.
Leanne ElliottNo, it's fine. It's okay. This is a conversation now. It's not a lecture.
Al ElliottThank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Leanne ElliottTeenagers were also asked what they think employers should actually do to support neurodiverse. And people in the workplace. Bear in mind, these are these are what are these fifteen thirteen to eighteen year olds?
Al ElliottYep.
Leanne ElliottThey suggested quiet spaces, flexible working, mental health support, better manager training. If you do one thing, and more open communication. And that is basically the report's recommendation. So in terms of how prepared are employers, well, they did ask some HR leaders, and they admitted that they're struggling to adapt quickly enough. They expect Gen Alpha. demand more personalisation, more flexibility, and more openness than previous generations. And many organisations simply don't have the systems or leadership capability to meet those expectations yet. I'm sorry, if your organisation doesn't have the leadership capability to meet the expectation of personalisation at the lowest of levels, you need to look into that. That's problematic leadership. That's, that's not going to build or grow your business.
Al ElliottThat's not capability, that's give-a-shit ability.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottThat's someone who just doesn't care. Well, you said there, though, I think there was 5 things you said that was that, that, that Gen Alpha want, that Gen Z want is quiet spaces, uh, better management training, flexible work, mental health support, and more open communication. Of those things, like, 3 are pretty easy. Like quiet spaces. Okay.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottWell, that's a quiet space. Done.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottIt's a 3-minute job. More open communication. All right. Just talk more openly.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottBetter management training. Fair enough. That might take a little bit of a while. Mental health support. There are so many like add-ons, bolt-ons you can go and get to just go, look, we can't provide mental health support, but we know that this organisation, and we're not talking about going and getting a fucking mindfulness app or something.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottWe're talking about actually saying, right, 20 quid a month and you've got access to all these amazing mental health support people. We don't have to have it in-house. And flexible working. Come on now.
Leanne ElliottI know it's 2025, almost 2026.
Al ElliottThis is what— imagine, imagine creating a product, going out and interviewing your potential customers, and them saying, right, these are the 5 things we really want from your product. And you going, yeah, it sounds really nice. We don't have the capability, so we'll just launch it without those things.
Leanne ElliottYeah, we don't really have the leadership capability to offer flexible working at the minute. Yeah, nonsense. Absolute nonsense.
Al ElliottYou're ruining my narrative.
Leanne ElliottAlso, sorry, but also with bearing in mind that mental health support that Our young people might well see it as an individual level. As organisational leaders, we need to remember that mental health support also comes at an organisational level. How are we controlling those psychosocial risk factors within the workplace to support positive mental health? So that's things like how much control and autonomy do our people have? What relationships like in the workforce? How is change managed, etc., etc.? I'll leave a link in the show notes, blah, blah, blah. Have you seen this, Al?
Al ElliottEveryone knows that the link is always in the show notes. So I came across an article and it It was based on some research by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. Um, they've got a book called Pro— The Progress Principle. And essentially what they're, what they're talking about in this is the idea of something called a micro-joy. Have you come across this micro-joy idea?
Leanne ElliottNo.
Al ElliottSo it's not like huge life moments like buying a house. That's, that, I suppose, would be a macro-joy. Buying a house, getting promotion, you know, um, getting a pay rise. The micro-joys, they're just little things like, A really nice cup of coffee, um, or a quick walk, or someone just sending you, you know, a silly message, or someone just saying, I really like your jumper dress. You look great in green and black, and I never would've put you in green and black, but you look great in it.
Leanne ElliottIt's navy blue.
Al ElliottSo today I learned that I'm colourblind. The point of this was that, um, we can spend months chasing these big wins, but actually if we can start to incorporate micro wins, and more importantly, recognize the micro wins, then that's gonna make us happier. So they've got written down here sort of 7 key things they got out of this. I'll just pick a couple. So they said they create— so these micro wins create psychological upward spirals. So someone called Barbara Fredrickson— that's a good Scrabble word— Barbara Fredrickson. Sorry, Barbara. She says that frequent micro positives broaden attention and build long-term resources like creativity, coping skills, and stronger relationships. So it builds resilience. So it's not these huge celebratory moments of getting like, you know, oh, I've got a, you know, I'm getting a new car or whatever, which might only happen once every 2 or 3 years. It's just the tiny little things like, oh, got a really nice cup of coffee. The other thing they said that if you actually control these and be present for them, and I'm sorry to sound a bit like a new worldy sort of like, but, but if you're gonna get a really nice cup of coffee, Don't go and sit down and type on your keyboard and drink your coffee while you're doing it. Just go and sit in a park for 5 minutes and enjoy your coffee and just nothing else. Put your phone away. Um, they also suggested that, uh, if you write them down, write down your gratitude. You always— you're a big fan of gratitude journals, aren't you?
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah, yeah.
Al ElliottSo if you were to write down the things you really enjoyed, your micro-joys at the end of the day, um, it'd just be a little note on your, on your Apple Notes or your whatever, if you're Other, other mobile platforms are available. And just, you can, you'll be able to spot those micro-joys 'cause you'll go, oh yeah, yeah, I had a really nice cup of coffee, or that sandwich I had was great, or—
Leanne ElliottSee where a lot of your joy comes from.
Al ElliottTo be fair, it really, really does. I love a good sandwich. Leanne made a crab salad. Here we are. Welcome to recipe hour on Truth, Lies and Work. Leanne made a crab salad yesterday, which is based on something called a Cantabria salad or something. Yeah. Basically crab sticks, basic bitch of all the seafood sticks.
Leanne ElliottOf all the fish sticks.
Al ElliottYeah. Chop it up, add mayonnaise, tomato sauce, and radish. And what was the other thing?
Leanne ElliottCucumber.
Al ElliottCucumber in it. Beautiful.
Leanne ElliottDelicious.
Al ElliottReally nice bit of toast. Beautiful. Anyway, so that was my micro-joy from yesterday. Le, thoughts?
Leanne ElliottMy micro-joy from yesterday was getting our tree. That was actually more of a macro-joy. You know how much I love it. Yeah, it makes sense. This is all, I guess it's living in the world of mindfulness, of gratitude practice. Of positive psychology, which we know has loads of research that has shown if we can be mindful, if we can be present, if we can focus on the positive things and train our brain that way, it builds our psychological capital. That's our hope, our optimism, our resilience, and our self-efficacy, our confidence in our ability to do well. And they're the 4 psychological states that are really important in terms of maintaining positive wellbeing. So makes complete sense to me. And yeah, and I think in terms of the gratitude, it's It's what the research has found is that it, it's more impactful if it's very specific. So like you say, I had that, I had a great cup of coffee, the milk was so creamy, and there was a perfect amount of sweetness. Being more specific is actually gonna, um, kind of drill down into that micro-joy and that gratitude. Um, and what are the other ones? Um, social things, people rather than things. So my micro-joy Today we're sharing our first Rudolph of the season with you as we put up our Christmas tree.
Al ElliottRudolph being, just in case you don't know, it's from our other podcast. We invented a drink.
Leanne ElliottWe did invent a drink.
Al ElliottI'm sure someone had done it before. Sparkly, just cheap old sparkly wine.
Leanne ElliottOr a Prosecco, if you will. We can't get decent Prosecco where we are.
Al ElliottAnd even if we could, I'm a tight— I'm not gonna buy Prosecco. And then just a shot of Campari in it.
Leanne ElliottDelicious.
Al ElliottLovely. Beautiful. Beautiful. So, yeah, we enjoyed that.
Leanne ElliottYeah. And then taking things that take away, just to finish it off, that take away discomfort or pain. So for example, when you finally got rid of your wedgie yesterday, that was a micro-joy.
Al ElliottWedgie? I didn't have a wedgie. That's not true. I'm a fan of the looser pant. By the way, those of you who are interested in, who have been into continuity will notice that Leanne referenced yesterday as getting the tree, whereas this is going out on the 9th. I specifically referenced last week. So, uh, yeah, this is not recorded the week before. Come on, guys, we've got 18 episodes to record in 10 days because we're off for a month. So give us a break. Stop coming at us. Leanne, what else have you seen?
Leanne ElliottStarbucks.
Al ElliottOh yeah.
Leanne ElliottSpeaking of good cups of coffee.
Al ElliottGood coffee, bad culture. Is that what we're saying?
Leanne ElliottYeah. So Starbucks apparently is in the middle of what workers are calling the largest and longest strike in the company's history. Now, don't get me wrong, I have been aware that Starbucks have been in a bit of a pickle.
Al ElliottYeah, we did something a couple of weeks ago on the Green Apron something.
Leanne ElliottYes, we did all their training stuff, didn't we? And I think something on their kind of CEO transition as well. They had— they brought out like a manifesto, didn't they, of new values, but didn't consult anybody about it. It's been car crash after car crash for Starbucks. And it continues. Saga continues. So currently about 2,500 baristas across 120 stores in 85 cities have walked out. Oh, the union behind it, the Starbucks Workers United Union, is warning this could stretch well into the holiday period unless the company comes back to the table with something meaningful. So Starbucks themselves—
Al ElliottThis is not— I feel this is, this is probably not gonna be the way that one should respond to this, just by your tone of voice.
Leanne ElliottNo, Starbucks themselves have said, oh, don't worry, the impact's really tiny. Like, it's like less than 1% of our stores affected.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottLike, it's 2,500 of your staff.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottDeadly arithmetic of compassion here, Al. Anyway, so Starbucks seemed quite chilled about it. In terms of how we got here, we did kind of allude to some things that went down. So 4 years ago, there was one small store in Buffalo, Buffalo, New York. Is that right?
Al ElliottI believe so. I've just been talking to Erica about that. Sorry, I've just realised that Erica— this might have been a private conversation that I was supposed to have with her. Yes, Buffalo. Carry on, Buffalo.
Leanne ElliottSo Buffalo held—
Al Elliotthi, Erica—
Leanne ElliottBuffalo held a staff vote on whether they wanted to unionise, and they said yes. Since then, more than 650 stores have had their own votes and also chosen to unionise. These aren't political elections. They're basically store-by-store ballots. When employees say that yes, they want collective representation, then this newly formed Starbucks Workers United, um, the SWU. Yeah, it comes, comes into play. So the reason the workers say, um, they wanted to unionize is that basically pay has fallen, um, behind the job. So some long-tenured baristas were earning barely more than new starters. Conditions worsened during the pandemic, so stores stayed open, they got more from customers, um, and workloads intensified. Staffing levels dropped, so there were basically fewer people. People left were picking up the slack. So understandably, Al, people were getting a bit frustrated, were having conversations with, with management, and nothing was really, really happening. So hence the unionization. Um, so what— in terms of what the company says, Starbucks insists it is ready to come to the table and bargain. It points to average hourly pay of around $30, high application numbers, and turnover that's less than half the industry average. So basically going, yeah, but it's not that bad. Um, and yes, stores open and busy, but that doesn't make the underlying, um, issues any, any more of a problem really. Um, there's of course a leadership churn. We've seen that in the past few years. They've cycled through multiple CEOs. Um, and the baristas' view in this article is pretty blunt. Leadership is relying too heavily on algorithms dashboards to run the business and not enough on the people actually serving customers.
Al ElliottThere you go, mic drop moment.
Leanne ElliottSo anyway, um, apparently more than 100 members of Congress have backed the workers. There's been mayors on picket lines, and even Bernie Sanders has shown up at Stonewall in the crowd.
Al ElliottOh, Bernie.
Leanne ElliottHardest working man in finance, that guy, ain't he?
Al ElliottBernie— oh, hang on, what am I thinking of? Am I thinking of Bernie Sanders? I'm thinking Bernie Sanders, the guy who was— did that meme with his mittens. Um, and he was like, for about 5, 6 years ago. And he says, once, once again, I'm asking you to— is that Bernie Sanders? With the, the oldest guy with the, with the gray hair?
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Al ElliottI just feel like he just turns up whether, whether people invite him or not. And he's just a bit like, a bit like that slightly grumpy, slightly weird old man at the park who just sits on benches and shouts at pigeons. Uh, but maybe I'm completely wrong. I don't know anything else about him apart from the fact that he just seems to turn up and say things.
Leanne ElliottYeah, well, he's turning up for the baristas, so there you go.
Al ElliottHe likes a coffee.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think, I think it's— I don't, I don't think we need— I think the listeners can fill in, connect the dots at this point, can't they? Like, if you're gonna turn around an organisation, you have to actually invest in the people that run it every single day, and that means going to talk to them about what their beef is and how you can make their lives better. It's not necessarily that you give them everything that they, that they are demanding. Maybe that's not possible within the constraints of your business, but you need to at least have a conversation. I think the fact is this new CEO came in a year ago, still hasn't had an actual conversation with unions about how it's going to progress things, and people are just getting really frustrated to the point where they go, I'm off, I'm walking. Um, so there you go. I think, I think, yeah, the trust is broken. It's going to be really hard to put it all back together. Um, workers aren't asking for anything Outrageous. You know, they're asking for, yes, higher pay, but they're asking for a bit of clarity, a bit of stability, a bit of dignity at work. They've got customers kicking off at them. Do better, Starbucks, please, because you do make my favourite flat white, but I will go somewhere else if I have to.
Al ElliottYeah, you may have to if they're striking in your— in the mould store.
Leanne ElliottYeah, maybe.
Al ElliottOkay, so all the links are in the show notes. We're going to a very quick break, but after that, we have got our truth or lie. We're gonna be asking, can power posing actually increase confidence? I've got a new hat. And I will tell you about it after the break. We've also got the— it's Christmas.
Leanne ElliottWell, it's all getting a bit unhinged today.
Al ElliottIt is a little bit. We've not even had a drink. And we've also got our world-famous weekly workplace surgery. I'll put your questions to Leanne in a second. Bye-bye.
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 behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not going to say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Leanne ElliottThe audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless. Seamless. Tell us about your latest 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 create your own brand, how to business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
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. Okay. Welcome back. Let's kick off with our truth or lie. Can power poses—
Leanne ElliottDo you wanna tell people about your new hat?
Al ElliottWell, I wanted to say, like, it's not a power pose, but Leanne bought me a hat and it is a Pull&Bear, I think, hat.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm. Beanie hat.
Al ElliottBeanie hat. And I've been wearing the same hat for about 5 years, and it was from Primark, which if anyone knows that from— who's not from the UK, it's like, it cost about a pound.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottAnd I loved it and I lost it. And I've got my new hat. And when I put it on, I feel different.
Leanne ElliottReally?
Al ElliottI love it so much. You feel more powerful? I don't feel more powerful, I just feel more cool.
Leanne ElliottRight.
Al ElliottThe problem is that this has got— I realise now has nothing to do with power posing. So tell me, what is power posing, Leanne? Dr. Leanne, tell us what is power posing?
Leanne ElliottI'm glad you like your new hat, Al.
Al ElliottI love my hat.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Do you want me to just go into it? Normally we do like what Truth and Lies is, and if people haven't listened before and Oh yeah.
Al ElliottYeah. I forgot about that. Yeah. Truth, lie, uh, myth-busting segment. Uh, what most people believe, and Leanne's about to say whether it's true or not based on the psychology of it. Do you, is there anything I've missed out from that bullet point there?
Leanne ElliottYeah, no, that's fine. So yeah, so the question is, can you—
Al ElliottDo you want to build it up a bit more? Is that it?
Leanne ElliottA little bit.
Al ElliottAnd now it's the moment you've been waiting for. It is the truth or lies segment with the incredible Leanne Elliott. She has post-nominals, she has pre-nominals. She is just incredible. Okay, Lee. What is power posing? Do you know what's funny is that I actually stood up my chair a little bit when I said that. So maybe I was power posing a bit.
Leanne ElliottCan standing like a superhero, that's what power posing is, for 2 minutes actually boost your confidence? Well, this is one of the ones that in terms of like, is it true or is it lie, in the psychology world has been going on for about 14 years, maybe, yeah, maybe 12, 14 years. It's basically the psychologist version of EastEnders. Like, you never know which way it's gonna go.
Al ElliottThat's just— we probably have, I think we're about 71% non-Brits. So there's 71% of listeners that are going, what the hell is EastEnders? Days of Our Lives.
Leanne ElliottDays of Our Lives. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, where did it come from? Let's start at the beginning. So back in 2010, 15 years ago, 3 researchers, Dana Carney, Amy Cuddy, You've probably heard Amy Cuddy and Andy Yap ran a small experiment at Columbia and Harvard. They were basically testing if people were put into a powerful posture, would they feel more powerful? They defined high-power postures as open, big body language. So, take up space, shoulders back, chest open. So, like the Superman pose.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottIt's like the classic power pose.
Al ElliottYeah, I was doing it right now.
Leanne ElliottI was doing it now. And then they also had this, people test a low-power pose, that's kind I'm small, more closed, hunched, arms tucked in, legs crossed tightly.
Al ElliottSo we're saying like, in He-Man terms, Cringer and Battle Cat. Is that what we're saying?
Leanne ElliottI haven't watched He-Man, but sure. What?
Al ElliottWe're gonna rectify this afternoon. Carry on.
Leanne ElliottI have the powers of that one.
Al ElliottBy the power of Grayskull! And he points his sword at Cringer, which is a little cat. He's cringing down like, ugh. And he goes, and he turns into Battle Cat and goes, rawr. It's all very exciting.
Leanne ElliottNo, it's more Power Rangers, truth told.
Al ElliottPower pose.
Leanne ElliottPower pose. So yeah, high power pose or low power pose. So the researchers brought in 42 students to the lab. They randomly assigned them to either a high power or a low power pose, held those poses for a couple of minutes, and then tested 3 things. So first, they tested the feelings of power. So participants rated how in control or powerful they felt on a, just a simple scale. Second, they measured hormones. So the team took saliva samples before and after the poses to measure testosterone, which is linked with dominance, and cortisol, which is linked with stress.
Al ElliottCan I just ask you quickly, so women have testosterone as well, and that would increase?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah. I know it's a really basic question, but I'm not— I wasn't 100% sure.
Leanne ElliottSo I believe— yeah, I believe we do. Yeah, I believe we do. Not as much, but yeah. And third behaviour, they gave participants a small gambling task to see if the pose made them more willing to take risks. And the results at the time were pretty, pretty big. So people in the expansive poses, the power poses, they did feel more powerful. They did take more risks in the gambling challenge. And unbelievably, some might say testosterone went up and cortisol went down.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottSo the hormone that makes us feel dominant went up, the stress hormone went down. So yeah, everything looked cool. Then came the TED Talk, Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are, from Amy Cuddy, which has now had over 75 million views.
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Overnight, pretty much, the power posing became mainstream. I remember it popping up on television programmes. I remember seeing politicians doing it, people in work would do it, trainers were teaching it, job applicants, you know, the whole Wonder Woman pose in the toilets before the interviews. It really did explode. The trouble started about 5 years later when researchers tried to replicate the findings. So, in 2015, a team in Zurich repeated the study with 200 people, so nearly 5 times the sample size. That's important in psychology, Al, isn't it?
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottWe like large sample sizes.
Al ElliottLarge sample size, yes.
Leanne ElliottThey did find that people felt more powerful in expansive poses, in the power pose, but hormones didn't change and risk-taking behaviour didn't change. So this was kind of the first sign that maybe the TED Talk version of the story was just a little bit too neat and a bit too flashy. That then kicked off almost a decade of Research, back and forth arguments, replications, failed replications, methodology being questioned, massive meta-analysis pulling thousands of participants, and eventually an entire journal issue was dedicated to sorting this out.
Al ElliottI can imagine there's probably nothing more dull than watching academics argue.
Leanne ElliottNo, there's really— no, I've been there. It's really quite dull. So in terms of what this, all this kind of kickoff where we're left now. In terms of the case for where power posing does work is that people continually in the research feel more powerful after posing in a powerful pose.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottThat effect is real across dozens of studies, whether it be very small labs or large multi-country applications. This is the one result that keeps coming back, that people feel more powerful in an expansive pose than a contractive pose. So when they're kind of hunched up. One meta-analysis, what's a meta-analysis?
Al ElliottIt's an analysis. Is it an analysis of an analysis? Is it like a— no, I don't know.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottIs that right?
Leanne ElliottYeah, almost.
Al ElliottSo you do another analysis of the existing report and you just report on—
Leanne ElliottReports.
Al ElliottReports.
Leanne ElliottSo basically you get existing multiple studies and then you take all that data and you analyse it as one big thing and that's called a meta-analysis.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottSo yeah, so we like it. It looked at over 1,000 participants and found a reliable effect again on subjective power. So people feeling more powerful. Another one in 2020 examined 48 experimental studies with more than 7,000 people. Huge, huge sample. And the conclusion was the same. Expansive postures reliably increase how powerful people feel. In terms of the case for as well, isn't just the TED Talk. This idea does fit into much older psychological theory. So it's embodied, it's rooted in embodied cognition, which is basically the idea that the body influences the mind, goes well back to William James. We talked about William James on the show before.
Al ElliottWe did.
Leanne ElliottLate 1800s, who basically argued how we hold our body shapes how we feel. So power posing is basically another expression of that principle, that theory. And finally, the real effect might be about avoiding shrinking. So this is one of the biggest surprises in the 2020 meta-analysis, that basically expansive poses weren't significantly different from neutral poses. So if I'm just kind of sat on a chair with my arms crossed, feet on the ground. Expansive poses weren't significantly different, but contractive poses, when you're hunched and you're closed and you're protective, consistently made people feel worse.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottSo, there's a small effect going from neutral to power. There's a massive effect going from neutral to contractive. So, actually, is it less about standing big and feeling powerful and more about don't collapse in on yourself?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottBecause that's going to kind of signal threats to your brain and low control and all that type of fight or flight, basic, basic psychology. So yeah, so a very different takeaway actually from the original research, but far more realistic in terms of what we know about the human mind. So on the other side, in terms of the case against, I mean, the case for is already fairly shaky, but the case against the hormonal and behavioural claims.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThat was the thing that made this whole thing go viral, because it wasn't just about feeling more powerful, it was talking about physiological changes, behavioral changes that made you more powerful. The hormonal and behavioral claims haven't survived. They haven't stood up across all of the studies. Um, scientists have repeated the saliva test with large samples. They find no evidence of testosterone reliably increasing. No evidence of cortisol reliably decreasing, and no changes in risk-taking behaviour. So, the whole biological transformation that made the TED Talk famous isn't actually supported by any evidence. So, in terms of truth or lie, can power posing make you feel more confident? It's true, but I guess with a lowercase t, in that power posing can help you feel more confident in the moment, but it's not gonna change how your body is operating in terms of its hormones, in terms of, uh, your personality, in terms of your behavior. It's not gonna turn you into Beyoncé. Do you know what I mean?
Al ElliottAnd we all wanna be a bit more Beyoncé. Here's a question for you.
Leanne ElliottWe all wanna be a bit more Beyoncé.
Al ElliottHere's a question for you. So we're saying that, um, a power pose might make you feel more powerful, but on a physi— physiological level, it's not gonna alter anything, even though they reckoned it did. But there's also the third aspect of how people perceive you. And we all know people who naturally will like curl up and they'll be a curler. What was the curler? What was the cringer? Yeah, they're all going to be like, you know, as soon as you see someone like that, subconsciously you kind of think, well, they're not particularly confident. Whereas if you see someone in a Superman's, not necessarily a super person's pose, but someone who looks confident, then you treat them a bit more confidently.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSo, so we've got like the, it doesn't really matter if physiologically it doesn't Absolutely.
Leanne ElliottThat's where you're kind of leaning into social construct theory. And absolutely, that's, um, yeah, this is all kind of stuff we knew. So the, the kind of backlash we've seen from the psychological community is that this was meant to be something huge, transformative, new discovery, that body language could actually change how, like, the physiology of our body, our hormone levels, that could— that was massive.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd it's not. But in terms of replication, no one else has been able to find that. And what this also kicked off in the psychology world is this basic existential crisis amongst researchers, because then we start to try and replicate lots and lots of famous studies. And there are many where we have failed to do that. Famous ones including, oh, what's your man's name? Most famous psychology experiment, electric shocks.
Al ElliottMilgram.
Leanne ElliottMilgram.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah, amalgam, that didn't stand up either. So, um.
Al ElliottInteresting.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottInteresting.
Leanne ElliottBut the fact is, if it makes you feel great, do it.
Al ElliottYeah, absolutely. Yeah, do it. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just don't expect your spit to change is what we're saying.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottIt's not gonna make you more competent, but if it makes you feel better, that's nice, isn't it?
Al ElliottYeah. Confidence and competence. Yes. I love it. Okay. So if you've got a question that you want me to put to Leanne, then, uh, then go on to the show notes and there's an email there. Just send it across. I would love this because we've got a few more for the new year and I'm really looking forward to them. But I'd love to get a few more from the listeners. Talking of—
Leanne ElliottI should say as well, I'm actually on the scout for other psychologists, behavioural scientists who want to come on and present the Truth or Lies segment. And Al and I will react and ask questions. I actually have one person booked in for the new year.
Al ElliottExcellent.
Leanne ElliottWe haven't quite nailed down what they're going to talk about because I've got some good ideas. So if you're a psychologist or behavioural scientist and you want to come Truth or lie and tell us about a myth and whether it is true or not, um, get in touch. LinkedIn, you know.
Al ElliottYeah, get in touch. And, um, you just ruined my link there because I was going, and listeners, talking of listeners. So, uh, but no, that's really important to get, to get these people on. Okay, so talking of listeners that we weren't, uh, then we're on to our world-famous weekly workplace surgery and almost said it right. World-famous weekly workplace surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. Uh, Lee, I've got 3 questions for you today. Um, the first one, bless. The first one, I'm sorry, I shouldn't chuckle. It's probably, it's a real problem, but it's still a bit, a bit amusing. Um, hi, Al. Hi, Leanne. I've got a festive dilemma for you. We're doing Secret Santa at work and I've drawn the CEO. She's smart, approachable, works in finance, 6'4, works in finance. Um, very cool, but still very much the boss. The budget's around between £40 and £80 and I want to get it right. I don't want to go cheap, but I also don't want anything that screams teacher's pet. In case that's not a term that's used outside the UK, that's someone who's a bit of a suck-up to the teacher. I also don't wanna feel like I'm trying too hard. So what's the right balance? How am I gonna buy a gift for the most powerful person in the business without it getting awkward? Lee.
Leanne ElliottI dunno.
Al ElliottAsk them.
Leanne ElliottI don't know this person.
Al ElliottI think that's difficult.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottBecause asking that question, you're like, you need to know a little bit about someone. You can't just say, oh, well, this is the formula. However, I'm gonna say this is the formula. No, I'm not. I'm gonna say this is how I would approach it. I would look at something which they, let's say that like Leanne's favorite saying is, if you do one thing, if you only do one thing, train your managers. So if Leanne was my boss, which technically she is, I suppose, but if she was my CEO and I was, and I was stuck to buy something, I'd probably go, go onto Etsy or go into something where I can personalize and get a nice picture frame with, if you could, if you only do one thing, train your manager. And that I think would be kind of personal as long as it's like Leanne said, you don't, don't go weird or anything they've said, but just their, their regular thing.
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottThere's the other thing which might be, um, might be a good call is to go and get, if you know, you can buy these personalized hardback journals and you can sometimes get them etched or get them.
Leanne ElliottOh, right.
Al ElliottYeah. I would be tempted, let's say this person was Juliette. Was was the name of this the CEO? Then I'd put something like Juliet Gold of 2026 or something on the front of it, so that it's not just giving her a journal; it's giving her something to go. Oh, that's nice. Every time she opens it, she thinks of you. That's cool, I think, without being too creepy. Cups. I mean, I'm a big fan of cups and stuff. Leanne and I get a mug for each other every every every birthday, roughly six months apart. And what's cool about that is we usually put some a little message on there that sort of is. Irrelevant to the previous 6 months of that. So it's, so we now have a collection of, I don't know, probably 30 mugs that we can look back and go, that, I know exactly what that was because that was the period of time when that happened. So mugs are a good idea. I just think you, you probably know the answer to this, but just, you're overthinking it, in my opinion.
Leanne ElliottI think what we've all learned here is if you need some gift-giving advice, speak to Al. That was wonderful suggestions.
Al ElliottLovely. Well, I'll move on from there because I've had a lovely Lovely compliment, and, and I've had a lovely day, so thank you very much. Okay, question number 2: can my employer push back on homeworking if occupational health has already signed it off? So this question is, I work in central government and I have a serious long-term health condition. Back in 2021, OH, which is occupational health, recommended I work from home after a period of sick leave, which I've been doing ever since. My performance is solid, but there's ongoing scepticism from my line manager and team whether I really do need these adjustments. They referred me to OH, occupational health. Physically leaving the house more than 10 minutes causes real pain and exhaustion. I'm worried that this new referral might be the first step in trying to force me back to the office or even reduce my role or my pay. What are my rights here? Lee, we need to find out. Can this employer challenge or override an existing OH recommendation? Lee, I feel like we need a hero.
Leanne ElliottI believe we need a hero too. Let's head over to Harry Kramer, shall we, over at Smart Clinic. Harry, help!
Al ElliottOh, goodness me. If I had a penny for every time I was asked about working from home and whether it's medically justified or not. So, there is probably a legal and a medical answer to your question. In terms of the legal answer, I suspect that now you've been working from home for 4 years or so, there is an argument to say that this is now an implied contractual term. And therefore possibly can't be changed without a change of contract. I've got to be honest and say that's not really my field, but I would definitely love to hear an employment lawyer's take on that particular point. However, as a more general point, no, employers absolutely don't have to follow all the recommendations from occupational health if they have a good reason not to. It could be, for instance, the adjustment just simply isn't something that the employer can accommodate, for example. Now, from a clinical perspective, it's important to distinguish the role of occupational health. OH, occupational health, will not be signing off on anything. They can't do that. Only your employer can do that. What they can do is they can make recommendations, they can provide advice, they can answer medical questions on behalf of you and your employer, but ultimately it will be up to them to decide what to do next. OH can't make them do anything. So, with the whole working from home topic, my experience is that employees often feel like any reference to returning to the office suggests a bit of a lack of trust in the employee. And I think employers feel like a request to work from home represents a bit of a lack of engagement from the employee. Now, there may be an element of truth to both of those things. There may not be. But for now, just try and put yourself in your employer's shoes. They've allowed you to work from home for medical reasons. That's great of them. The fact you've asked this question makes me think that this isn't the case for some or even all of your other colleagues, and therefore it's probably not their ideal way of working, but it's something that they have granted for you as an adjustment. So, it is probably sensible for them to ask for an independent third-party, um, specialist, like an occupational health clinician, just to determine whether this adjustment is still required or not. It's not that they don't trust you, it's just that they would like to get an independent piece of advice to ensure that they're doing right by you, but also right by themselves too.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think Harry said it all there, really. Interesting, I think, things to emphasise that occupational health can't sign off reasonable adjustments. They just present recommendations. It's then up to your employer. In terms of which ones they feel able to provide. Trust is the big issue here, isn't it, as Harry said, in terms of there seems to be a trust issue with the line manager of their team. But I felt reassuring in terms of what he was saying, that the referral to occupational health is a third party who's going to look at this very objectively and hopefully give you some useful recommendations for reasonable adjustments. So, stay tuned, trust the process.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottHopefully it'll all work out okay.
Al ElliottLovely, lovely. Just go to smartclinic.com if you want to learn a bit more. Okay, on to question number 3. So this person says, I'm trying to build a proper competency model for my team, mostly commercial roles like marketing, comms, and sales. We've got nothing in place at the moment, and I want something that helps people to understand what good looks like at different levels. Oh, I like this. I like this. It's not for HR box ticking. I like even more. I want something we can actually use in development conversations and will show people what they actually need to work on to progress. I'm happy to build it myself, but are there any existing models you rate for these kinds of roles? Leigh, what are your thoughts?
Leanne ElliottYes, there are existing models that you can use. It's very cool that you want to build it yourself. Equally, are you sure? Because that's a big old project, that. That's a time-consuming project to build a competency framework. That's the type of thing that organisations pull in me to do, rather than just going, oh, I'm an ops director, I've got time, I'll do it myself. You can do it yourself with the right resources, but it's a big old project. So, if you are going to do it yourself, what I'd say is start with a job. What do we like about starting with a job, Al? That good old word.
Al ElliottJob crafting.
Leanne ElliottJob analysis.
Al ElliottOh, I got it wrong. God, you'd think after 260 episodes I'd be able to get this right.
Leanne ElliottSo, yeah, start with your job analysis, basically looking at what the job involves, what good looks like, the skills and behaviours that you want, or you believe will help someone succeed in that role. And as part of that, what can be quite useful, and I think I've talked about this before, it's called repertory grid or rep grid, where you'll think about a manager who was awesome, a manager who was okay, and a manager who was terrible. And you go, right, the manager that is awesome and the manager that was okay, what did they have in common? What did they both do well? What did the one who was really great do differently from the one that was okay?
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd then you pick another 2. So, the great one and the bad one, did they have anything in common? Was there anything that they both did? really well, and it helps you understand actually the skills and behaviours and competencies in terms of what good looks like using real-world examples, which can be really helpful. So, start there. Look at skills and look at more behaviour-type things, how they motivate people, how they help to regulate emotions, how they handle pressure. It's not just kind of about the technical traits, particularly in sales roles. We need to understand how someone's gonna deal with rejection and objections and all that type of stuff. Competency models as well. I think people can go overboard. I have seen competency models that are like a 15-page booklet.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottAnd it's like, you probably need like 4, 5.
Al Elliott4, 5 what pages?
Leanne ElliottCompetencies.
Al ElliottCompetencies. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottSo, you might have things like communication as a competency. You might have relationship building as a competency. You might have Dealing with conflict is a competency. Well, that's probably more built within communication, but do you know what I mean? You don't need loads. You need kind of like 4 or 5 maximum.
Al ElliottCan I ask just really quickly at this stage? Sorry to interrupt, but so we're talking competencies. Is this like a more of a broad thing like conversation, or would you put into this competency model being able to use Excel?
Leanne ElliottThat's probably more of a technical requirement. You're not going to be— I guess you would have to measure that. So, yeah, you could have, yeah, you could have technology competence as a competency.
Al ElliottBut if you were putting this together, you'd probably be more higher level than actual tactical.
Leanne ElliottFor sales, marketing, comms roles, yeah.
Al ElliottRight, okay, got it.
Leanne ElliottGot it.
Al ElliottThank you.
Leanne ElliottBut, yeah, no, absolutely, you can involve kind of the technology component as well. So, yeah, there's a couple of really good, really good resources that you can use. There is the Universal Competency Framework from SHL. That's the testing company. They do lots of personality assessments as well.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottIt's ready-made. It's only got 8 competencies. You don't need to use all of them, but basically 8 broad competencies. So, things like adapting and coping, and then they break that down into 15, 20 or so sub-competencies that you might go, right, we need this sub-competency is reflective for somebody in an entry-level position. This sub-competency is reflective for somebody in a head office position. Senior leadership position, and we'll fill in the gaps. And then you've got that clarity that you need and framework in terms of recruitment and development, so people know where they need to improve their skills to move up the chain. It's pretty flexible, it's tailored, it will do junior and senior roles. It's pretty good. It's pretty good, actually. I've used SHR before when organisations haven't got the time or indeed the resources to design their own. Competency framework, and there is an absolutely brilliant book called The Handbook of Competency Mapping by Seema Sanghi. It is the bible of competencies. It is a chunky book, and it's got so many different competency frameworks in there that you can pull from, that you can get ideas from. We used that actually, Al, when we did our competency framework, when we were looking to recruit some team members for the podcast, if you remember.
Al ElliottI'm going to pretend I do. Yes, I remember that.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottOh, yeah. Yeah, Sima Sanghi, is that right?
Leanne ElliottYeah, exactly. Exactly. So, it has all the competencies in there, and then it also has kind of step-by-step advice on how to do the process if you are going to do it yourself. So, it is very, very useful, but not for the faint-hearted. It's quite a technical book and quite long, but it's a bible if you want to do your own competency framework. So, I think, does that cover it, Al, do we think?
Al ElliottI believe it does. Brilliant. You're going to put links to those things in the show notes? Lovely, lovely. In terms of competency of answering questions and being entertaining at the same time, I'm going to give you 5 out of 5 for both of those.
Leanne ElliottThank you very much.
Al ElliottOkay, so that is sadly the end of it. We've got no more for you, but we will have more for you on Tuesday with another edition of This Week in Work. So just so you know, Tuesdays, This Week in Work generally, it's just, just like this. Thursdays, interviews. We talk a lot less. We bring in an expert and we've got a fantastic guy for you. Friend of the show, Rob Kalvarovsky, one of literally the world's most renowned executive coaches living in, I wanna say, not Cuba. Where does he live at the moment?
Leanne ElliottCosta Rica.
Al ElliottCosta Rica. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Um, he's got a brand new book and it's about capitalizing on chaos in 2026. Basically, it's how you can hit your goals and outperform everyone in the world by capitalizing on chaos. He's offering a huge giveaway that's gonna give you the best flying start to 2026. You do not want to miss this. And I know we say this every time, but But to be honest, we really mean it this time.
Leanne ElliottYeah, this giveaway is massive. I was really quite shocked when, when Rob kind of talked me through exactly what prizes he was putting on. If you've got any interest in executive coaching, you need to enter this draw. Absolutely.
Al ElliottYeah. And also, he's not put on the list an all-expenses-paid trip to Costa Rica to go and stay at his house. But I'm sure if you message him on LinkedIn, he will add that. That 100%. Okay, so we'll see you next Tuesday for a bit more of this nonsense, and we'll see you on Thursday for some amazing stuff with Rob Kalbarowski.
Leanne ElliottYeah, just, just fair warning, next Tuesday is our last This Week in Work of 2025. So if you thought this was unhinged and helpful, tune in next week. Yeah, I think Harry will probably be the only thing making sense on the show next week. Until then, subscribe, Come over to LinkedIn, say hi.
Al ElliottHey, see you soon.
Leanne ElliottBye-bye.