Episode 276 · 17 February 2026 · 54:30
Is your career giving you the ick? PLUS! A.I. literacy for managers, finding hope and the verdict on NLP
Is your career giving you the ick? PLUS! A.I. literacy for managers, finding hope and the verdict on NLP
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Story 1: The career comedown
news roundup#career#career-change#burnout
Story 2: Google's Generative AI Leader certification
news roundup#google#generative-ai#certification
Story 3: Hope is the emotion that creates meaning at work
news roundup#meaning-at-work#hope#purpose
Truth or Lie: Does NLP actually work?
truth or lie#nlp#neuro-linguistic-programming#truth-or-lie
Workplace Surgery: Breaking into business psychology
workplace surgery#business-psychology#career-advice#psychology
Workplace Surgery: Common people problems in business
workplace surgery#workplace-issues#people-problems#business
Workplace Surgery: Mistakes leaders make fixing culture
workplace surgery#leadership#culture-change#mistakes
Workplace Surgery: Trends for aspiring business psychologists
workplace surgery#business-psychology#ai#trends
Show notes
Is Your Career Giving You the Ick? PLUS! AI Literacy for Managers, Finding Hope & the Verdict on NLP
This Week in Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) break down the "career comedown" slump that follows big promotions, why Google's new Generative AI Leader certification signals a shift in leadership skills, and the research showing hope — not happiness — is what makes work feel meaningful. Plus, in Truth or Lie: does NLP actually work?
🔥 Stories Covered
1. Have you ever hit a major career milestone and felt... underwhelmed?
Leanne introduces the term "career comedown," coined by Stefanie Sword-Williams. It describes the emotional slump that can follow promotions, pay rises and career success. Many professionals report feeling bored, stuck or disconnected once they reach the goals they worked towards.
The research suggests three paths forward:
- Stick — reshape your current role
- Twist — change direction or reinvent your career
- Tap out — reduce how much work defines your identity
2. Generative AI becomes a leadership skill
Google has launched a Generative AI Leader certification, signalling that AI literacy is becoming a core leadership capability. The programme helps business leaders understand generative AI, identify opportunities and adopt AI responsibly. Leaders who lack AI literacy risk making strategic decisions without the full picture.
3. Hope is the emotion that creates meaning at work
New psychological research shows hope may be more important than happiness for creating a meaningful life. Across six studies with more than 2,300 participants, researchers found hope strongly predicts meaning, motivation and wellbeing. Seeing progress, believing change is possible and having a future direction all boost engagement at work.
For leaders, clarity, visible progress and realistic optimism matter more than constant positivity.
🧠 Truth or Lie: Does NLP Actually Work?
This week we explore Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). While NLP training can boost confidence and communication skills, strong scientific evidence for its broader claims is limited. Many techniques overlap with established psychology, but NLP itself is not considered a robust evidence-based approach.
💬 Workplace Surgery — Special Edition
This week's questions come from The Business Psycho, a new platform launching for students and early-career professionals in business psychology.
We discuss:
- Breaking into business psychology
- The real people problems inside organisations
- Mistakes leaders make when trying to fix culture
- Future trends in workplace psychology
Follow The Business Psycho: LinkedIn · Instagram
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 ElliottNew research suggests happiness isn't actually what makes work feel meaningful. There's one emotion that matters far more. We'll be diving into this meaningful emotion and how leaders can create more of it.
Al ElliottAnd Google's launched a generative AI leader certification— certification, I'm saying that very strange— certification for non-tech professionals. So is AI literacy about to become a basic leadership skill?
Leanne ElliottAnd in Truth or Lie, we're scrutinising neurolinguistic programming. It's in leadership courses, sales training, coaching qualifications, and posted a lot about on LinkedIn. The claims are pretty huge, but does NLP actually work? I've read the research and I've got the verdict.
Al ElliottAnd in the Workplace Surgery, we're doing something a little bit different this week. We've got 4 big questions from a brand new business psychology platform launching in April. We'll be asking things like, what does it actually take to break into business psychology? What do leaders get wrong about culture? And all kinds of other questions.
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.
Al ElliottMy name's Al, I'm a business owner, and I'm here to ask the questions you might be afraid to.
Leanne ElliottAnd my name is Leanne, I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, and I'm here to answer them. And together, we will help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottWe're gonna be right back after a quick word from the aforementioned 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 use. 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 hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Welcome back, welcome back. God, it is windy here in, uh, in, in Herzegovina.
Leanne ElliottI know, I feel like we're going to do a Dorothy at any moment and our house is going to get picked up and Do you know, I've never seen Wizard of Oz. Okay, seriously? Really?
Al ElliottSeriously, never seen it.
Leanne ElliottReally?
Al ElliottYeah, never seen it.
Leanne ElliottWell, that's our afternoon activity plan then.
Al ElliottWe've got, yeah, right, so when the wind howls around us, we will watch that and then, yeah, that's what we'll do. We'll get a blanket. That'd be nice.
Leanne ElliottThat'd be nice. Maybe some popcorn.
Al ElliottYeah, how you getting on with your Olympics?
Leanne ElliottOh, I love it so much. I love it so much.
Al ElliottJust in case you didn't hear, last week Leanne went off on a rant, not a rant, but a lovely little sort of like, Love note to the Winter Olympics, didn't you?
Leanne ElliottI did. I love it. I love it so much. I learned about bumpy skiing this week. I think it's called mogul skiing. It's wild. I honestly think people must just sit around, get high in some way, and start coming up with events because they basically, they like, obviously they're at the top of a really high mountain. They set off and like the snow looks like bubble wrap paper, you know, with all the bubbles that you pop.
Al ElliottOh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leanne ElliottSnow looks like that. So it's all bumpy. So they go bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. And then they have to do a trick where they basically do like 6 or And then they'd land on like bumpy snow again, and they do another trick, and then— and the fastest one gets points, but it's also about style and execution. And then they also do it where they have it in like tandem. So they have like the individual events, and then they have ones where you race against people at the same time.
Al ElliottSame trick or different trick?
Leanne ElliottThey can do different tricks if they want to. Yeah, it's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And then of course, the snowboarding, seeing Team GB get that gold was fantastic. Pretty fabulous.
Al ElliottYeah, I was saying to Leanne, we were having a chat about this over a glass of wine, and I reckon I've worked out that the Olympics is essentially just— everything's a ski. So you've got skiing, so you've got normal ski, downhill ski, ski fast. Then you've got cross-country, ski medium with a gun. Then you've got ice skating, very small skis, bring your partner. Then you've got curling, that's very small skis, Bring your family with brushes. Then you've got like, what's the other one called? Skeleton.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottLarger ski. Face first.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottThen you've got luge, larger ski, feet first.
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottThen you've got bobsleigh, much bigger ski. Bring your friends again.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Or not. They have the monobob as well.
Al ElliottThe monobob. That sounds a bit weird. And then there's, isn't there like 2 different types of bobsleigh? There's a bobsleigh where everyone gets in it, and then there's a bobsleigh where people just hang off the edge. And is there a bobsleigh where they just, There's people there and they just push it and then they stay at the top. Or is that just me?
Leanne ElliottI must admit, I haven't seen anything other than the monobob, so I'm not sure, but it sounds highly likely that that would be the case.
Al ElliottAnyway, anything to add before we go on to your favourite time of the week?
Leanne ElliottNo, I think that concludes our Olympic and wind-related business.
Al ElliottOkay, so it's Leanne's favourite time of the week. It's time for the world famous— no, it's not the world famous Week of Surgery. That comes later.
Leanne ElliottTime for the news roundup, Al. Cue the jingle.
Al ElliottI know, I'll just shut up and cue that jingle. Okay, my love, what have you seen this week?
Leanne ElliottI've got a new word.
Al ElliottYeah, you know by now, she, Leanne comes up with a word, I try and guess what it is. So what's the word?
Leanne ElliottCareer comedown.
Al ElliottCareer comedown. Oh, well, well, if you, if you could, back in the day, if you went to like a nightclub or something and perhaps you, you availed yourself of certain substances, then you would at 3 o'clock in the morning go for a comedown session. Would you not? Or would that be chill out session? Is that—
Leanne ElliottNo, I didn't. I didn't party like that. No, I didn't.
Al ElliottI didn't. I'm trying to be cool. So comedown, I always feel like it's a bit like you've had a huge high, now it's a comedown. So a career comedown might be like, oh, you've had a brilliant thing happen at work, and then a few days later you just can't keep up with it. It's a bit like, oh, it's a bit of a comedown.
Leanne ElliottYes, but less about a day and more about career. So career comedown. So basically it's defined as the slump that can hit after you've achieved the milestones you've wanted to work towards. So the promotion, the pay rise, recognition. Only to find once you get there, it doesn't feel as satisfying as you expected.
Al ElliottI mean, let's be honest, who do we have on recently? Richard Clarke, if you're listening, Richard. Richard and I, he's not been published yet, but when he is, he's gonna be talking about happiness. And one of the key things we talked about there was that if you're not careful, then you go, I'll be happy when, I'll be happy when, and that's when this comedown is probably a very, very dangerous thing. Whereas if you sort of just wake up and go and go to bed and in between do something you really enjoy, then you've probably not going to have the comedown. So give us, give us the science behind it. Give us more.
Leanne ElliottYeah, well, I mean, I'll give you more in terms of where this, this comes from, because I didn't, I didn't coin this word. It was coined by Stephanie Sword-Williams. Excellent name. She is the founder of a career platform and community called Fuck Being Humble.
Al ElliottNice.
Leanne ElliottYeah, which focuses on helping people overcome the fear of self-promotion at work. Um, and she's also just released a book called Career Comedown. Right on brand. This was an article I actually saw in, in a magazine. I think it was like Grazia or—
Al ElliottReally?
Leanne ElliottYeah, like one of those magazines. It's on my, um, Apple News subscriptions. Just anything that's about work will pop up from all over. So I think it was Grazia. Um, anyway, she describes a pattern that she started to notice amongst her friends and eventually in her community, which was that smart, ambitious women who had done everything in, in kind of bunny ears right. So the promotions, the pay rises, awards, the milestones you're meant to want to want, weren't feeling fulfilled. They were feeling flat, irritated, and actually questioning whether they even wanted to be on the path that they were on. And she calls that feeling a career comedown. So it is the slump that can hit after that initial thrill of climbing the ladder. And she compared it to when relationships, you get the ick.
Al ElliottYeah. I've never understood what that really means. What does it mean when you get the ick?
Leanne ElliottUm, so for example, if you walked into the bathroom and the girl you were dating brushed her teeth with your toothbrush.
Al ElliottOoh.
Leanne ElliottThat's the ick.
Al ElliottOh, I see.
Leanne ElliottSo you might go, oh, I'm— that's icked me out so much, I'm not sure I wanna spend any more time.
Al ElliottAll right, fair enough. You don't do that, do you?
Leanne ElliottNo. Oh no, no, I do not.
Al ElliottDo you know, fun fact, Leanne won't even let me use her mouthwash. She said, you can't use my mouthwash because you'll have to buy your own because I just can't deal with you potentially drinking it from the bottle.
Leanne ElliottI didn't say that. I said you're more than welcome to use my mouthwash, but can you promise me you'll pour it into the cap and take it from the cap and not swig it from the bottle? Because that gives me ick. Fair enough. I said, if you'll promise me that, then I'll trust you to do it.
Al ElliottAnd I, I have done it a couple of times, but it does taste a little bit like petrol. So yeah.
Leanne ElliottAwful, doesn't it? Yeah. Really bad.
Al ElliottI'd rather have bad breath. Anyway, sorry, you were up to, where were you up to?
Leanne ElliottAnyway, so yes, So she also found from conversations that she had in the research that she did for her book that there are 3 possible responses to a career comedown. Either you can stick with it, stay where you are, but reshape the role to better suit your current needs. That's called job crafting in psychology, where we look at the things that bring us joy, use our strengths, and at times stretch us a bit more if that's what we need. Twist— you reinvent yourself, change direction, start again. I think this is where we see a lot of people Leave corporate careers and go self-employed?
Al ElliottYes. Yes. That's what us founders call blowing it up, or what I like to call Etch A Sketch, where you just shake it and start all over again. Yeah. Um, I, my bankruptcy was an Etch A Sketch of my life. Yeah. When I went bankrupt.
Leanne ElliottAnd a very successful one.
Al ElliottWell, yes, it wasn't a successful bankruptcy.
Leanne ElliottPost-bankruptcy.
Al ElliottPost-bankruptcy. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Carry on. So you had, you had stick, which is where you stay where you are, but you reshape, you do job crafting.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYou had twist where you basically reinvent yourself, change direction, go become a goose farmer.
Leanne ElliottYeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Or Drive Over Lemons.
Al ElliottOr drive— yeah, Driving Over Lemons, great book if you, if you, if you want to read that. It's about moving to Spain.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Or you can tap out. So basically, you quiet quit, decenter work from your identity altogether, and just consider how it defines success for you. And I think this is a really important thing that we can get into the trap of, psychologically speaking, on the kind of corporate hamster wheel, or just the work hamster wheel. is we can often, as you say, lose touch with what's actually important. And this is where I'll always say things like the self-coaching is a really good way of kind of grounding yourself for a minute and evaluating as you go. And then you can make those little, those little adjustments to, to the journey. So things like the VITALS, the values, interests, temperaments model is really good. The Wheel of Life is simple.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd really good and gives you an idea of where things might be out of balance or where you're getting your joy. And I think it's important to remember that that doesn't have to all come from work. Yeah, it can come from community, from family, from volunteer work, from hobbies. There's lots of different sources of that. So I think that's a really important thing to, to hopefully stop you from experiencing this career come down at a point where it might be hard to shake things up.
Al ElliottCan I ask you, right, so, so this woman, um, I just want to say her name, Stephanie Sward-Williams. I love it. Stephanie Sword-Williams. Is she saying that you can either stick, twist, or tap out? Is she saying the tap out is a bad thing or any of those a bad thing? Or is it just like those are your realistic options?
Leanne ElliottI think these are just the choices. I don't think she's said— I haven't read her book. I should say that I've only read this article, so I haven't read her book. She might go into more detail in terms of right or wrong, but how I kind of interpreted it was it's— there isn't a right answer. It's just how you, how you respond. You either kind of try and improve your job to To feel more fulfilling. You completely change what it is you do for work, or you start to find fulfillment in other areas of your life, and work is just part of what has to happen.
Al ElliottExcellent. Love it, love it, love it. What was the name of her book?
Leanne ElliottCareer Come Down.
Al ElliottCareer Come Down by Stephanie Sword-Williams. Go out and— is it out now? Do we know?
Leanne ElliottI believe so, yeah. I'll leave a link to her LinkedIn in the show notes along with a link to that article.
Al ElliottYeah, cool.
Leanne ElliottSo there you go.
Al ElliottAnd get onto LinkedIn and just say you heard Heard it here first. Heard it here first. Well, actually you didn't, probably on her, but anyway, right, Le, something caught my eye. I know you didn't ask, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. Something caught my eye this week. Google Cloud has launched something called the Generative AI Leader Certification. Again, we've discovered that I can't really say that word. How do you say it? Certification?
Leanne ElliottCertification.
Al ElliottNot certification.
Leanne ElliottCertification.
Al ElliottCertification. Now what's interesting is there's a lot of these on Google Cloud Platform. But they're mainly for developers or data scientists or engineers. This is for someone who's a leader. So it's really pretty much any job role. It could be a founder, leader, manager, someone who wants to be a manager. Now what's cool is there's no prerequisites. You don't have to know even what generative AI is. And I'll tell— talk about it in a second. It's a 90-minute exam and it costs $99. So—
Leanne ElliottThat's all right.
Al ElliottI know. And it's not really about sort of credentials or going, oh, I've done this exam. It's more that Or what I found is more interesting. It's more like a signal that leaders need this. Do you remember back in the day when you used to like your manager would go, I'm not really an Excel person, so can you or a Google Sheets person, can you go and do that for me? Or we'll get IT to do that. And now if a manager said, oh, I don't really know how to use a spreadsheet, you'd be like, what's wrong with you? How have you possibly become a manager? I think that's where we're headed with this. So just quickly, let's just talk about generative AI just in case you don't know what that actually is. Generative AI is something that creates something. So like if you do ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, anything like that, Midjourney to create an image, that is generating something. It's not thinking because there's other types of AI. Like for example, there's predictive AI, which is fraud detection. And so what— well, they use it in fraud detection and that's what predictive AI was used for. And it's basically spotting patterns and making predictions. Generative AI is different because it produces new So essentially, it doesn't understand meaning. It just predicts patterns based on, like, massive volumes of data, and then it'll generate an output that looks human. Okay. Right. So we're on the same, we're on the same, same, same level there, whatever I'm trying to say. So $99, 90-minute multiple choice exam. The exam isn't about coding. It's not about nerdery. It's basically how you can improve or how you can use generative AI to improve your leadership model.
Leanne ElliottAnd do you go through, like, a course first? Like, will it teach you?
Al ElliottWell, there is a course by CodeCourse, I think it's called. Let me have a look and see what the, what the course is called. Yeah, it's on. I haven't got the link right now, but it'll be in the show notes. There is something which is on YouTube right now, which you can go through and—
Leanne ElliottOh, for free?
Al ElliottFor free. And yes, yeah, CodeCourseCamp or something. It's all camp, code, code, CodeCourse. Quite a big, like, sort of education platform, but they've got this thing on how to, how to help you. Get through it. And I've done some of these for Google AdWords back in the day, and they let you have another go. You can also have your notes up when you're doing it. Obviously not cheating, but you have your notes up when you're doing it. So it's something which for $99, and you can go into work and go, go on, something just occurred to you.
Leanne ElliottWell, what happens if you use generative AI to cheat your generative AI exam? Is that actually allowed because you're using generative AI in a way that is giving you the information that you need?
Al ElliottHmm. That's an interesting idea. There's, um, have you seen those things for, uh, interviews where you can run it on your phone and it'll listen to what they— what, what? Yeah. And yeah. And then it'll tell you what to say.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottI, I, I can't recommend that.
Al ElliottNo, I can't imagine you would recommend that. But, um, yeah, that's some really interesting things. Anyway, the point of this is not— although that's an interesting conversation, I think the point is it's starting to become mainstream. It's starting to become, okay, you are, let's say you are a mid-lower manager for a paper company based in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Leanne ElliottSpecific example there.
Al ElliottIt's an Easter egg, people will get it. And so, and so you're like, okay, I want to, I want to be a better leader. It's not a question of going on courses anymore and going, this is how you deal with conflict. It's like, okay, you need to know how to use generative AI thoughtfully.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think that also ties in really nicely with Andrew Palmer, who's coming up on Thursday's episode this week. We talked all about exactly this, like how managers are using AI, how they're using it effectively, how they're completely messing it up, and how it is just now a fundamental skill that managers have to, have to have. So it makes all the sense. I think if you're not already fairly comfortable with generative AI, you need to get on with it. I'm also kind of interested to do the course myself, or the, um, and the exam, just more curiosity, like how, like, I think I'm all right with generative AI, but I'm sure I— there's lots I could learn.
Al ElliottYeah, well, I don't know. We do use it quite a lot. I don't know. I don't think there's too much you can learn. I think you know a lot, but it would be interesting. I think it's maybe about 90-minute or 2-hour, like, course to go to help you get through it. Free co-counselling. Actually, you know what? Check the LinkedIn. Check the LinkedIn. Check the notes. It'll be on there. Anyway, Lee, so you're going to go and do the course, but before you do that, what else have you seen this week?
Leanne ElliottWhat makes work feel meaningful, Al?
Al ElliottWell, this is very meta, isn't it? What makes work feel meaningful? For me, something where I can create something. So maybe this is why I do like generative AI. If I feel like at the end of the day, something exists in the world that didn't before, that for me is the biggest— you've seen me at the weekend. So the last 2 weekends, I've spent most of Saturday and Sunday—
Leanne ElliottWhilst I've been watching the Olympics.
Al ElliottYou've been watching the Olympics and I've been building my top secret project. Um, for managing podcasts. We won't tell you about that, but if you're interested, DM me. Um, and I've been building that in Laravel and Livewire, and I really, really, really enjoy it. And it feels like I look up and it's like, how the hell is it 5 PM? Yeah. Anyway, so that wasn't— that was a very long answer to a very short question.
Leanne ElliottI'm really pleased for you. That's lovely. Really nice.
Al ElliottI hope that people understand Leanne genuinely is. It does sound a little bit sarcastic, but—
Leanne ElliottOh no, no, I genuinely am. That's lovely. Yeah, no, so this, this was some research that came out and it was asking, is happiness actually what keeps people going? Is it happiness that makes work meaningful? And this was research from the University of Missouri. And the answer is basically no, it's not happiness.
Al ElliottOh.
Leanne ElliottSo this study was led by Meagan Edwards and Laura King from the Department of Psychological Sciences. And the research suggests that hope, not happiness, is the emotion most strongly linked to a sense of meaning in life.
Al ElliottI love that. I also enjoying that those 2 surnames, Megan Edwards and Laura King, put them together, you get King Edward potato. Enjoy a King Edward potato.
Leanne ElliottYeah, good for roasties.
Al ElliottGood for roasties. Anyway, talking of roasting things, so what were the findings? What did it basically say?
Leanne ElliottSo basically, across 6 separate studies, which involved more than 2,300 participants, and they were from diverse backgrounds, the researchers examined a wide range of positive emotions. They looked at amusement, contentment, excitement, happiness, and consistently found that only hope— only hope reliably predicted a stronger sense of life meaning. And that is really significant because meaning is what, as I mentioned before, underpins so many important outcomes for us in, in terms of our life. Laura King actually put it: experiencing life as meaningful predicts happiness, high-quality relationships, higher income and even improved physical health. So the question is, what do they mean by hope? Because it can— I'm not sure I'd be able to define hope very well. So the research deliberately moved away from the traditional idea of hope as goal setting or motivation, and instead framed hope as an emotional experience. So the sense that the future holds possibility and that situations can change. And they do point to some practical implications. So first, noticing progress matters. So hope is strengthened when people can see forward movement. Even the small signs that things are getting better or going in a positive direction is really, really impactful. Second, future-oriented activity builds hope. So long-term projects, skill building, mentoring, investing time in something think, um, all of these reinforce a hopeful mindset. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, hope begins with the belief that situations are not fixed. Even in difficult moments, the perception that change is possible appears central to sustaining meaning in life.
Al ElliottSo let me just double-check and check in here with you. I've got this. So in order to have hope, In your life and at work, you first of all need to notice when you're making progress. So actually notice, oh, I'm better at this than I was last week. Second, you need to have some kind of something to look forward to. So future-oriented, I think, or future-oriented something.
Leanne ElliottActivity.
Al ElliottActivity. And the third thing you gotta do is that if you've got even those 2 things, but you believe you can't get out of the situation, you're not gonna be hopeful. But if you can believe that actually you could change the situation, like becoming a goose farmer, then that— those 3 things together mean that you almost certainly have hope in your life and work. Is that right?
Leanne ElliottExactly, exactly. It's the— it's a belief that situations aren't fixed, like they can change. Like this whole, like, this too shall pass kind of mentality is, is really, really important. And these are all things that I think people will agree listening are pretty practical. In terms of noticing progress, in terms of engaging in these future-forward-oriented activities.
Al ElliottAnd controllable.
Leanne ElliottExactly, and controllable. And that belief that situations aren't fixed really comes again from things like gratitude practices are really going to help with that, because it's noticing that things have changed, it's noticing that things have got better, and that reinforces it. What was the study that you brought up in the pod, Al, about rewiring the brain? Because negative, negative thinking actually Change neural pathways?
Al ElliottI don't remember it, but I know what you're talking about. Essentially, it's like negative self-talk. One of the things that we got taught when we were doing sales is you say, hi, how are you? You know, at work, hey, how's it going? And the British thing to reply is, not bad. Which gives you that sort of like subconsciously saying, well, you know, it's not too bad. It is bad though. And they were like, no, just change it. How's it going? Really good, thanks. And it kind of changed the way that you think and So yeah, is that what you were talking about?
Leanne ElliottYeah, absolutely. And it's this, it needs to be intentional, doesn't it? It can be practised. It's not that this only applies to people who are naturally sunny by disposition. We can work on this. And I think for business leaders listening going, oh, well, this is nice, but what's it got to do with me? A lot, friend. Because in terms of meaningful work, which is, we have so much research on meaningful work, like tens of thousands of studies, It is the highest, the biggest predictor of work engagement, which is basically the opposite of burnout. So if we're engaged in our work, we feel energy, we feel this sense of purpose. When that flow state that you were describing before, where you look up and it's like 6 o'clock, it's really, really good for us to be engaged in our work and to experience meaningful work. So particularly in an environment where burnout is still raging on and we're seeing lots of cynicism and, and people just feeling a bit a bit lost, this could be really important. So in terms of your, your work environment, having a clear direction is going to be really important in terms of that noticing progress, because if you know where we're going, you're going to notice those milestones you hit along the way. Same in terms of that communication around long-term projects, skill building, mentoring. You're going to give people hope if they have a clear development pathway, a clear career pathway. The Gen Zs especially, we know, really, really love that. And if times are hard, being honest about the point at which things will change.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottPeople can put up with high workloads for, for a period of time, but not if they can't see an end in sight. They need to know that this situation isn't fixed. It's a blip whilst this project finishes, or while this team is getting, um, it's recruiting more people into it. That type of thing. So it's it's actually really important this stuff for business leaders, and much more than anything in terms of of your the well-being type activities that might be your team away days or your I think we're past fruit in the break room now, but still you know all the mindfulness apps. This is probably going to have more impact on your people in terms of their work engagement and their performance than something like that individual level well-being intervention would. So I think this is a really really cool. Cool study. I will leave a link to it in the show notes because it is actually available, um, not open access, but in terms of the Missouri website, it was published there before it went to publishing. So you can read it, read it all.
Al ElliottThank you very much, Megan Edwards, Laura King. Okay, so we're going to take a short break, and after the break we've got our truth or lie segment. We're going to be tweaking a— this is where we basically— I'll say to Leanne, I've heard this, Is it true or is it a lie? And she will, she will tell us the answer. So we'll see you in just a second.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking. 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 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 worlds 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 will 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. Welcome back. So this is Truth or Lie. This is the part of the show we take a big idea from the world of work or psychology and ask a simple question. Is it true or is it a load of goose shite? This week's topic is one you've certainly come across or almost certainly come across. If you've ever been on a leadership course or a sales training program or a coaching qualification, or even just spent some time on LinkedIn, you're gonna hear this in like communication training, confidence workshops. You're gonna hear people talk about rapport, mirroring, reframing, powerful language patterns. Sometimes it sounds scientific, scientific. Sometimes it sounds a bit mystical. I think you might have already guessed what we're talking about. It's got a huge claim behind it, but is NLP, neurolinguistic programming, Is that— does it work? Is that true or is that a lie? Lee?
Leanne ElliottYou have some personal experience with NLP.
Al ElliottYeah. Back when I was maybe about, I dunno, mid-20s or something, I went on an NLP weekend.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd we learned about NLP. And at the time I was like, oh, I understand. This is great. I think that's, that's one of the weird things, isn't it? Like Myers-Briggs. I've admitted before that before I met you, I thought Myers-Briggs was cool. And then I really met you and you explained why I was wrong.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottNLP, I thought it was cool, but the fact is it actually helped me. To like, it gave me a mental, an idea for a mental model. And just, and just by doing the course, I felt like I got better rapport. I was in sales, so I felt like I could build better rapport with people. So truth, it helped me at the time.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah. I believed it.
Leanne ElliottRemember that thought.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottRemember that thought, 'cause it'll be important. It'll be important in a sec.
Al ElliottForeshadow.
Leanne ElliottNLP, neurolinguistic programming. In terms of how it was created, it was created in the '70s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in the US. Their backgrounds were in maths, computer science. They weren't from a psychology background, but did get very intrigued by psychology and psychotherapy especially. John Grinder was actually a linguistics professor who specialised in how language shapes meaning. and thought, and their goal wasn't to run experiments. Their goal wasn't to build out a traditional psychology theory or framework. Their goal was to model excellence.
Al ElliottHmm.
Leanne ElliottThey studied recordings of 3 very famous therapists, Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, and Milton Erickson. These were therapists known for getting unusually strong results with clients. So, Bandler and Grinder believed that if these people were so effective, And the way they spoke, the questions they asked, the behaviours they used must follow hidden patterns. And if those patterns could be identified, then anybody could learn them.
Al ElliottMakes sense.
Leanne ElliottMakes sense. So the idea was that modelling successful behaviour and turning it into teachable techniques would be beneficial for people in all sorts of industries. And that is basically the foundation of NLP.
Al ElliottOkay, so they've gone, I've, I've gone through a load of transcripts of people who do things really well. I'm gonna be a scientist about it, a nerd, and try and find things, common things they do. And build that up into a framework.
Leanne ElliottExactly. Exactly. And because it did promise these really practical tools and approaches for things like communication, influence, confidence, NLP unsurprisingly very quickly moved out of therapy and into the workplace. It became hugely popular, as you were saying, Al, in sales training, leadership development, coaching. I did a seminar on it in my MSc. So yes, it's all over the world of work. And the, the, the, it's the claim, the big claim that's problematic, I think, that NLP techniques can improve communication, influence behaviour, boost performance, and even help people change how they think and feel. So of course we need to look at the research and see if this is the case.
Al ElliottOf course we do.
Leanne ElliottSome of the research on NLP focuses on whether its techniques can produce these measurable changes. So in things like confidence, communication, or performance. A number of studies have explored this. They've looked at NLP-based training programmes in education and in professional settings. And some of these studies do report improvements in confidence, motivation, and communication skills after people have completed an NLP course. So, participants will report feeling more self-aware, more confident speaking to others, and more capable of managing stress. Like you were saying before, Al, with yours, you felt more confident.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottOne reason for this is that NLP does borrow heavily from established psychological ideas. Even though it didn't originate through traditional psychology research, there are techniques in there that have. So things like goal setting, visualisation, which we talked about not too long ago, reframing negative thoughts that we've just talked about, and building rapport. They all overlap with well-established areas of psychology like cognitive behavioural approaches and sports psychology.
Al ElliottSo this sounds like It is true. It's true that NLP works.
Leanne ElliottIt's true that goal setting, visualisation, reframing negative thoughts, and building rapport can help build confidence. I sense a twist. There's a nuance. There's always a nuance. But yes, it's true. When people learn structured ways to set goals, they practise conversations or think differently about challenges. Yes, they feel more capable afterwards.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottSome studies also reported improvements in areas like self-esteem, communication skills, interpersonal effectiveness after these types of workshops. And in workplace contexts, participants often feel— they say they feel more confident handling difficult conversations, giving presentations, that type of thing. So, there is some evidence that NLP-style training can make people feel more confident and motivated. But then it comes a bit more complicated when we look at actually the body of research that we have.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottBecause when researchers started testing NLP more rigorously, because remember, the research came retrospectively because NLP was already in the world. It wasn't based on psychology theory, or it was kind of retrospectively testing this.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottThey started to ask a much stricter question, which psychologists and scientists do. Not do people enjoy NLP training? Not do people feel more confident afterwards? But does NLP actually work better than existing psychological approaches. This is where it kind of falls down. So across multiple reviews and research papers, it's fairly consistent there is very little high-quality scientific evidence that the core claims of NLP are reliable or effective. And I think one of the biggest kind of, I, I, I guess, indicators of this, of the tens of thousands of studies out there on NLP When people have done systematic reviews or meta-analysis, the number of studies they've been able to include after putting down some of the strict scientific criteria we need to, it's dropped to like tens of studies.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottLike maybe 20, maybe 30. So of all these thousands, we've not got the kind of the rigour to really look at it. So yeah, a large review examining NLP in coaching or organisational settings basically concluded that the evidence base is weak. It's inconsistent that many studies supporting NLP have small sample sizes. They have really weak research designs. They lack proper control groups. And most importantly, some of the central claims of NLP have been directly tested and failed to hold up.
Al ElliottWell, that's not good news.
Leanne ElliottNo. So one famous NLP idea is that people have preferred sensory communication styles and that matching somebody's language or communication style improves persuasion. and rapport. But multiple studies tested this directly and found no reliable evidence at all about matching communication styles, much like the learning styles. We might have a preference for it, but does it actually improve our level of learning?
Al ElliottNo.
Leanne ElliottDoes it actually improve the level of persuasion and rapport? No.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottYou might like the person a bit more, but—
Al ElliottSee, now my problem with this is that we learnt this mirroring thing. Okay, so we learnt to mirror people. And I believe in my sample survey of 3 people that it works. So I believe that I do build better rapport when I mirror someone. Not too much. It's not too weird. But when I mirror them, when perhaps they're talking and we use a, you know, I might use a particular way of phrasing something which mirrors the way that they talk. I don't know. I just feel that at this stage, okay, I understand that it's that the researchers said no. But it does still feel to me that some of these techniques are good.
Leanne ElliottYeah. I mean, mirroring can, can help to build rapport. It can help to build trust, but also it's mostly unconscious.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottBecause if somebody mirrors really badly, you're gonna notice that and be like, dude, why are you copying me?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottWhy have you started to— exactly. Why have you started to put your hands out like that? Why do you move when I move? It's just a bit weird.
Al ElliottYeah. Yeah. Fair.
Leanne ElliottWhereas what is called the chameleon effect in psychology is a real thing, but it's mostly unconscious.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottAnd when, because of that, it just feels like, again, that familiarity effect that we talk about so often that we like it.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottSo it's, it's, it's, it's not that mirroring can't help build rapport and build that sense of connection, but you have to be really good at it if you're doing it intentionally. Otherwise, you're just gonna look a bit creepy. You know?
Al ElliottFair enough. And basically, I'm thinking I've I've got no sort of scientific way to, to judge whether my rapport got better after that. I just felt it did, which is again one of those things because I did NLP, I'm probably thinking, oh, I'm better at rapport now because I've done the NLP, not necessarily because I am.
Leanne ElliottI think as well, it's that as the research kind of shows, there are techniques within NLP that are already well-established psychological effects and techniques that do improve communication in and influence or mindset and positivity, put them all together in the package of NLP. It's almost like they've stumbled across some bits in psychology that already existed wrapped up in something really saleable. And basically what they brought to the party doesn't do anything.
Al ElliottFair. Okay. Fair, fair, fair.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So in terms of a verdict, I'm not sure you'd be that surprised at this point. But yeah, the sweeping claims about NLP are a lie. There are— there is no scientific evidence that it is reliable. It's not an evidence-based method. It can't change behaviour or improve performance very reliably. So yeah, it's a lie. But it is nuanced because, as I've said, many of those techniques do overlap with real psychological principles. So things like goal setting and all the things that we talked about. So yeah, it's not that the idea of NLP is Complete nonsense, but it's more the things it accidentally got right psychologists did first.
Al ElliottRight. So it's more like someone's taken some existing ideas, packaged it up and said, this is NLP, and given a fancy, fancy sounding name. Because even like the name of it—
Leanne ElliottBut padded it with stuff that is complete nonsense.
Al ElliottRight. Because even the name of it, like neurolinguistic programming, sounds sciency to those people who aren't scientists.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottUm, but actual fact. So the, the verdict is that NLP, as it stands on its own, is not scientifically validated in any way. Talking of asking questions, it is now time for the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne. Specifically this week, we don't put your questions. I'm putting— doing things a little bit differently. So we've got questions here. So as Leanne talked about at the top of the show, um, there's a new platform called The Business Psycho. Is it really called The Business Psycho?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottI love it. I absolutely love it. It's a new, new platform called The Business Psycho is launching in April. So we've got 4 questions all sent in from this platform. So just to give you a bit of a background, so The Business Psycho's blog forum is focused on business occupational psychology. It's especially for students and early career professionals who want to understand how work actually plays out inside real organisations. There you go.
Leanne ElliottYeah, this is a really interesting project actually. It's, it's coming from Mary Lou, who regular listeners with an excellent memory for names might remember was one of the first MSc dissertation researchers we featured. She looked at voluntary work. So yeah, aspiring occupational psychologist, finished her master's now, and I think it sounds like a really, really great platform.
Al ElliottGreat. Yes. So here we go. Question number 1. This is again, just to give you an idea, this is what's going to be on the platform. Could you share how you secured your first role or internship in business psychology? Now I'm wondering that you can basically expand that to I'm guessing to the majority of things, how do you, how do you secure your first role or internship? So there's gonna be lessons here even if you don't wanna be a business psychologist, but specifically, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottI didn't. I didn't. I graduated in, in 2008, which was a really bad time to find a job, particularly one in people and culture. It was the start of the global financial crisis and some of the highest unemployment rates the UK has seen in in a while. So it wasn't a great time. I, when I was doing my master's, I did do an internship with an HR consultancy, and that was just advertised through the university. So I just applied for that and went. I then ended up basically looking at jobs that were similar. I couldn't get a business psychology, an occupational psychology. There was a few out there. I did apply for one and didn't get it.
Al ElliottHmm.
Leanne ElliottWith a very famous, uh, Northwest-based consultancy.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottUm, but there you go. So, what I did was I looked for roles that were adjacent and things that would continue to build my knowledge and experience in the areas of organisational psychology, which, as we know, are things like organisational change and OD, wellbeing, training and development, recruitment, psychological assessment, employee engagement, leadership, that type of thing. So, I worked for RBS doing competency-based interviewing.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottWhich helped me in terms of my psychological assessment in work. I continued with the HR consultancy for a little while, but wasn't getting much out of it. So, I completely pivoted and went into welfare to work, which was hugely beneficial for my experience as a psychologist and as a manager. And I think it's also as well, there's an element of advising people about it and then also having experience of doing it. So, if I talk to people about management and leadership, I know how flipping hard it is because I've done it. At a time where, you know, I've done it in, in from startup, I've done it in environments that needed turnaround and transformation. I've done it in environments where there's lots of infighting and incivility. So it's, it's good to have that experience and connect what you've learned with the actual real-world practice. So I found in that role, I ended up going into management roles, which meant I built loads of experience in psychological assessment and work in terms of recruitment. I was developing training, I was delivering training, so it was ticking off lots of boxes there. It was a high-pressured high-targeted role with very unpredictable customers, multiple barriers to, to work. So the wellbeing, emotional labour toll on staff was massive. So wellbeing was always part of the conversation. Employee engagement was something I was asked to look at when I got promoted to a national level, and there were other teams that were experiencing high levels of turnover. So there's so many areas of my— probably all 5— I was able to apply in this very real-world example. And I think this is really important for anybody who is graduating thinking they need to go and work for the Cabinet Office or in public sector or for a small agency. Yes, you can do that, but there are also plenty of roles you can do that are going to build your experience in all 5 areas of psychology. Welfare to work being a really good one if we are in a bit of an economic slump, which I think we kind of are at the minute, and I imagine there's more coming. That is a really, really good one. Or, as I say, going into roles where you are going to be potentially on a management track is going to be very beneficial as well. So, I didn't take the traditional route. I went into an adjacent industry that I was able to apply my experience and knowledge of business psychology, and then I went freelance and did my chartership by finding my own projects. So, there's lots of different ways to do it. You don't have to get that. that typical job, you know.
Al ElliottOkay. That's quite, I think that's such good advice there. And also, um, I would say just to just reiterate, go and get some experience actually being a manager or working, you know, working with people because people like me are going to know straight away. People like Leanne are going to know straight away if you come up and start talking to us, if you've never actually done the things you're saying that we should be doing. So very, very important. Okay. Question number 2, from your experience, Leanne, working with founders and leadership teams, What are the most common people problems businesses think they have versus what's actually going on beneath the surface? So have I understood this? So we're saying, what are the most common people, uh, people problems that businesses think they've got, but actually there's something under the surface that is affecting? Is, is that what we're saying?
Leanne ElliottYeah. I think you can help to answer this one as well, based on the clients we've worked with.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottI would sum it up with love, with love to our beautiful clients. Um, past, present, and future. I think the main, probably the most common problem is that founders think the issue is with the team, where more and often the issue is with them or the workplace design.
Al ElliottYep.
Leanne ElliottIs that fair?
Al ElliottYep, 100%.
Leanne ElliottThe team is the issue, whereas really there's things that they're doing as a leader or in terms of how they've designed their workplace, in terms of how they're kind of governing their culture, That is having a negative, albeit unintentional, impact on the team. And I think that's probably the most common thing I see. I think the other common people problem I see is turnover. Turnover is usually the trigger that people start talking to us, isn't it? Or an inability to grow because something's just keeping everything held back. And I think in terms of what's actually going on beneath the surface is they don't know.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd as a psychologist walking into the business, I'm not going to know either. I need to do that discovery phase. I need to ask those questions, have those interviews, do those surveys, get to know the business and figure out what, what's going on. But typically, it's high workloads without the, the resources to do it. And by resource, I mean extra team resources getting recruited in, more streamlined processes, better technology.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottWhich is making high workloads very— feel even more difficult. Sometimes you'll see things around a lack of a disconnection with what the organisation is trying to do in terms of their mission and the values, what, what they do and how they want to do it, and either not being communicated in a way that resonates with people, so they kind of feel a bit detached or they're not invested, or the business has grown so far away from that original mission and values. Mm-hmm. That nobody connects to anymore, including the business owner. So that needs to be reworked exactly because of everything we said about meaningful work earlier in the episode. And I think the final thing I'd say is that sometimes it can be, particularly for founders, almost an element of wanting to protect staff, and so not communicating basic things around business performance that will make things make more sense and not giving the context For fear of worrying them. And I think we see this typically in organisations that have grown quickly from that kind of 12 to 20 mark. They're still gatekeeping a lot of information, and that causes distrust and a perceived lack of organisational justice. So, how decisions are made and how things are communicated can seem unfair, and that's not the intention. It's just kind of how that lack of transparency is impacting things. What about you, Al? Because you work with our clients as well.
Al ElliottYeah, no, I think that's, that's, that's, you've basically summed it up perfectly in terms of the actual problems. Um, I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that people go, well, my business is different. And as Steve Kemish said from last week, from last Thursday, he said basically, look, change the logo, change the haircuts, same business problems. And he said he worked on British Airways. He's worked on lots of different clients. Um, and it's the same marketing issues. It's the same issues in an organization, like you said.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd what's really interesting is that most of the surgery questions that we come up with, people saying, but I've got this specific situation and I don't quite know what to do. They all end up with you going, well, talk to them, ask them. And of course, what we're saying there is that Leanne obviously has come up with the RX7, which is a, which is a way to build an amazing workplace culture, which starts off with a survey. And we ask people, we ask them, we ask them. And I think that's basically a lot of the problems can be solved by just basically going in there and doing a survey, a proper survey, not one to make yourself look good.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottBut do a proper survey to uncover what the problems are at Leap.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah. And I think that's the thing for any, any kind of aspiring psychologist or consultant, management consultant, change consultant. Your first job is to come with all the questions. You're not coming with answers initially. You're coming with all the questions because it's going to take you time to figure out exactly what's going on. Because then it means you can design a solution that's actually going to have impact. So for anyone who's a business owner listening, who's being sold off-the-shelf solutions to to problems, I wouldn't trust it necessarily, because if they're not taking time to understand the problem, the solution probably isn't going to work.
Al ElliottYeah, I think that applies to everything. Okay, brilliant. So question number 3, what mistakes do leaders most commonly make when trying to fix culture? And fix has got inverted commas around it. And how can psychologists help them avoid these pitfalls? So what mistakes do leaders make when they're trying to fix culture?
Leanne ElliottThat they're trying to fix culture, that they think they can fix culture. Culture is really complicated and really nuanced. We don't have an agreed definition on culture as psychologists. We don't have an agreed methodology for assessing it or influencing it or moderating it or changing it. In terms of psychological science and research, culture is really complex and really, really nuanced in a way that I think for most business leaders is just too hard unless you're working hand in hand with a very experienced psychologist. in culture change, then that's going to be very, very difficult. In terms of how psychology can help them avoid these pitfalls, I think culture is almost like the most— if we think about culture being quite sophisticated and quite nuanced and interconnected, how do we get the foundations in place first? And those foundations are psychosocial risk factors. So, the elements of an organisation that can cause psychological harm and stress.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne Elliottto an individual if they're not managed in the best way. And that's going to be things like how change is managed within the business, how it's communicated, the input people have, how clear people are on their roles and responsibilities, how they can have autonomy, they can decide elements of their job in terms of how they prefer to do it, that we have good relationships. All of these things are, are elements of the workplace that are very practical and very operational.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne Elliottthat are going to improve the employee experience. It's going to reduce stress. Because of that, it's going to have a better— it's going to have more of an impact on achieving task cohesion, team cohesion. And in terms of, in inverted commas, culture, what we're actually doing is creating civility.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottBecause we've got an organisational environment which isn't causing harm and where people feel able to do their job in the most effective way and have some meaning to it as well.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottFrom that point, you can start talking about exactly what type of culture we need to achieve, where the organisation needs to go to next, because it might be you start with a very, very kind of salesy culture, a very results-driven culture. It might be then you need to pivot to a more innovative culture, depending on what's happening in the economy. It's almost like culture can be a lens that you put on the organisation in terms of what it needs to achieve and how that fits with the strategy of the organisation. But if you don't have this foundation in place, it's not going to work anyway. And I think leaders typically, the mistake they make is they think this, this foundation is culture and it's not. The foundation is the psychosocial risk factors.
Al ElliottWell, there you go. That's a perfect explanation of it, I think. I love it. I've got nothing else to add. Lee, question number 4 and the final one. What trends in leadership and workplace culture do you think aspiring business psychologists should be paying attention to right now? What trends should they be paying attention to?
Leanne ElliottA.I., definitely, I think goes without saying at this point, doesn't it?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAs we've, we've heard today in, in terms of your training course that managers are, are looking to go on in terms of how generative A.I. is currently being used. We talked about how the financial services industry is looking to hire majority, um, psychologists and behavioural scientists into their A.I. departments to help with the ethical side of of AI and how it's managed in a human environment. So, I think anything around AI is going to be really important to keep up to date too, and particularly the ethical side. I think that's where behavioural scientists are going to be brought in to have a big impact. Loneliness, I think, is something that has been around for a little while as something to have on our radars because it is— it's been called an epidemic.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThis was before COVID It's not because of COVID And loneliness is really bad for us. It is linked to conditions like heart disease and dementia. It impacts our health. And from a work perspective, it reduces productivity, employee engagement, leads to turnover. Loneliness is something to work into. Connie Hadley, we had on the show, didn't we?
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottTalked about loneliness. So, I'd definitely go and check out that episode if you're looking to kind of dive into that area and build up your knowledge. We've got loads of AI to scroll through. We talk about AI probably every other week. I think other things, leadership, as we heard, From, is it SHM that did the survey?
Al ElliottSure.
Leanne ElliottWas it them?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah, that it's leadership or ineffective leadership and management is the number one workplace concern for 2026. And it was up there for 2025 as well. So I think things around leadership we haven't fixed yet. And of course, the ongoing debate argument between hybrid, remote, onsite, which is interesting, but it's a power struggle. It's not about the context of the work environment. Definitely follow people like Nick Bloom from Stanford. Ina and Elena that we had on the podcast talking about how to design hybrid that is most effective. Yeah, I'd keep an eye on that as well.
Al ElliottFabulous. Thank you so much, Leanne. If you are interested, not you, Leanne, but if you're listening, if you're interested in business psychology or you're thinking about a chartership, or maybe you just want like decent conversations about leadership and culture, keep an eye out for The Business Psycho when it launches in April. Love that name, by the way. So much fun you can have with the memes from American Definitely.
Leanne ElliottThere is already LinkedIn and Instagram pages for Business Psycho where you can get updates in terms of when the website will launch. I will leave links to those in the show notes.
Al ElliottSo also, don't forget to join us on Thursday. We're gonna be joined by Andrew Palmer, one, one of the very few people who've come twice on the, on the podcast. Yeah, very, very pleased. He is the host of Boss Class podcast. That's The Economist podcast. Um, he's also vying with us for number 1 in our category on Apple, uh, Apple charts. I think we go number one, then he goes number one, and we go number one. But he's got this brand new series coming out, which is diving into the real impact of AI in the workplace. So, and right, Andrew's a proper journalist, like, you know, time-served journalist. We, we've kind of—
Leanne Elliottwe're not journalists.
Al ElliottWe're not journalists. So, so you're going to have a really, really great insight into what AI really, what the impact is really having. He's also been testing AI on his own work. He's been speaking to the people who are building AI. They're asking the questions that most leaders are too polite to ask. What actually changes? What falls short? And what managers are getting badly wrong right now? You do not want to miss that.
Leanne ElliottYou absolutely don't. You, you'd be a fool to miss it.
Al ElliottYou'd be a goddamn fool. Fool.
Leanne ElliottUntil then, subscribe, follow along on LinkedIn. The password remains to get on the show, Cherry Vibes. Still only one person used it, so lonely. Dan, So yeah, uh, apart from that, we'll see you on Thursday.
Al ElliottYeah, see you soon.
Leanne ElliottBye-bye.
Al ElliottBye.