Episode 310 · 16 June 2026 · 57:14
Workplace Nostalgia, Stalling Careers and Leaked Microsoft Data. PLUS! How to Praise Introverts
Workplace Nostalgia, Stalling Careers and Leaked Microsoft Data. PLUS! How to Praise Introverts
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News Roundup: The Rise of Stalling Out in Mid-Career
news roundup#career#stalling#mid-career#news
News Roundup: The Death of the Technical Interview
news roundup#technical-interview#hiring#news
News Roundup: Microsoft's Leaked Employee Engagement Survey
news roundup#microsoft#employee-engagement#survey#news
Truth or Lie: Does Nostalgia Make Teams Stronger?
truth or lie#nostalgia#team#culture
Workplace Surgery: How to Praise Introverts
workplace surgery#introverts#praise#communication
Workplace Surgery: Acknowledging Financial Anxiety
workplace surgery#financial-anxiety#wellbeing#workplace
Workplace Surgery: Handling Unpopular Corporate Mandates
workplace surgery#corporate#mandates#leadership
Show notes
Workplace Nostalgia, Stalling Careers and Leaked Microsoft Data. PLUS! How to Praise Introverts
This Week in Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) break down why nearly 1 in 4 mid-career professionals are completely stuck, what Microsoft's leaked employee engagement survey reveals about management, and why the legendary technical interview might finally be dead. Plus, in Truth or Lie: can nostalgia actually make teams stronger?
🔥 Stories Covered
1. The rise of "stalling out" in mid-career New research from the Burning Glass Institute and NYU reveals a hidden crisis: stalling out. This happens when a professional goes five or more years without a meaningful promotion and experiences little to no wage growth. The study analyzed over 1.3 million career histories and found that nearly 1 in 4 mid-career professionals (24.2%) are completely stuck. Source →
2. The death of the technical interview For 35 years, tech giants like Google and Amazon have relied on grueling, whiteboard-based technical interviews. Now, Steve Yegge — the legendary senior engineer who helped build these systems — declares them completely broken. Internal data showed interview scores had almost zero correlation with actual on-the-job performance.
3. Microsoft's leaked employee engagement survey Thanks to an internal memo leaked to Business Insider, we get a rare sneak peek into employee sentiment at Microsoft. While their overall "Thriving" score hit a healthy 79%, critical management metrics took a significant hit. The score for managers coaching employees fell five points to 76%, and giving clear feedback fell four points to 79%. Source →
🧠 Truth or Lie: "Nostalgia Makes Teams Stronger"
Leanne puts "organisational nostalgia" under the psychological microscope.
The Case For: Peer-reviewed research from 2024 tracking over 3,800 employees found that during massive organisational change, employees who felt higher workplace nostalgia became better colleagues.
The Case Against: When nostalgia occurs naturally during the workday, it can make employees distracted, reduce daily task performance, and trigger lower daily well-being.
The Verdict: It's a conditional truth. Nostalgia is a powerful tool for resilience during major organisational shakeups, but leaders must use it intentionally.
💬 Workplace Surgery
Three listener questions, tackled live:
- Introverted recognition: "Most of my team are introverted. If I praise them publicly, they look like they want the ground to swallow them up. How do you make people feel valued without making it awkward?"
- Financial anxiety: "I get the feeling my team are carrying a lot of anxiety about the economy and layoffs. Should managers acknowledge that sort of thing, or is it better not to open a conversation you can't really solve?"
- Unpopular corporate mandates: "Our company has just mandated more days in the office and my team are not happy. How do you handle that as a manager when you end up being the face of a decision you had no say in?"
(Got a question? Submit it via the connect link below.)
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 ElliottFancy a sneak peek into Microsoft's employee engagement results? Well, thanks to a leaked internal memo, we've got one. And while employees say they're thriving, some of the most important management scores are heading in the wrong direction. So what is really going on? Are managers becoming less effective, or are they simply being asked to do too much?
Al ElliottAlso this week, for 35 years, companies like Google and Amazon have used something called the technical interview to assess candidates. It's the kind of thing, you know, where someone will solve some kind of contrived problem in the interview and someone will assess them on whether they did that well or not. The guy who practically invented these now says they're dead. So what is the better way?
Leanne ElliottAnd in Truth or Lie this week, I've been wondering about nostalgia.
Al ElliottNot as good as it used to be.
Leanne ElliottNot as good as it used to be, but can it actually make teams stronger? Can shared memories help people feel more connected and committed at work? Or does too much focus on the good old days make it harder for organisations to move forward? I've read the research and I've got a verdict.
Al ElliottAnd in the Workplace Surgery, one listener asks, should recognition always be public? They've been told their team needs more appreciation, but what if the people you're trying to recognise hate being recognised and the centre of attention?
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 is 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'll help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottWe'll be right back after a quick word from our lovely, beautiful, delicious 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.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Hello, hello, welcome back, welcome back. Lee, there's something I need to get off my chest.
Leanne ElliottHit me.
Al ElliottUh, you know, we were back in the UK last week.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottUm, and well, there was one day and we went out for dinner and I had— all I had was 3 bottles of wine and then I just couldn't podcast. It was podcast worse. It sent me off my—
Leanne ElliottDid it ruin the next 3 days of your life?
Al ElliottIt ruined the next 7 days of my life. I, I didn't eat as well.
Leanne ElliottI bet you didn't go to the gym either, did you?
Al ElliottI did. That's what's most disappointing is it meant that I'd now got an 893-day streak of missing the gym. So yes, I was devastated about that. Just in case anyone doesn't know what we're talking about, Lee.
Leanne ElliottStephen Bartlett and that, that, that clip that went viral. He has had some— I've seen it everywhere. I've seen it in like highbrow newspapers. I've seen it in blogs. I've seen it on the TikTube. That's YouTube Shorts, which is basically TikTok for old people. I've seen it on Instagram. Everywhere I've looked, somebody is either taking the mick out of Stephen Bartlett? Or can I go in, this is, this is the perfect example of why kind of this whole, what's it called, culture?
Al ElliottOptimisation.
Leanne ElliottOptimisation culture is so problematic.
Al ElliottWell, I, there's, there's a podcast called This Is Entertainment with, um, big tall guy.
Leanne ElliottWhat's he called? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Al ElliottRichard Osman.
Leanne ElliottThis Is Family.
Al ElliottYes, part of the Goldhanger. I almost said gold digger. I meant Goldhanger.
Leanne ElliottGary Lineker, right?
Al ElliottGary Lineker. And also the guy from Coupling. And he's also the British guy from Pirates of the Caribbean.
Leanne ElliottOoh.
Al ElliottYeah, him. I forget his name, but—
Leanne ElliottBusiness is good.
Al ElliottYeah, yeah, yeah. Benny is, Benny is. Anyway, and also the sports director as well. Sports director of BBC, I think was part of it. Anyway, anyway, I digress. So this is entertainment and they were talking about it and they spent a good like 15, 20 minutes on it. Some people are saying that it's because he wanted to talk about his WAP ring or whoop ring or whatever it's called, which is, if no one knows what that is, that sounds a little bit dirty, doesn't it? Can I, can I show you my whoop ring? Yeah, bend over. Let's have a look. And, and apparently he's an investor in it. And so that was his way of like getting that into the— getting inserting his ring where it's not required. But other people, there seems to be— I mean, like, we, we're quite good friends. I say we're good friends.
Leanne ElliottWith Steven Bartlett?
Al ElliottNo, not with Steven Bartlett, but Oliver Yonchev.
Leanne ElliottWe're quite good friends.
Al ElliottSteven's our ex-business partner. So I don't want to slag off Steven too much, just in case Oliver is listening. And but generally, it does feel like the tide is slightly turning on these optimization bros and slightly turning on Diary of a CEO is still phenomenally successful and probably do more in downloads in a day than we do in a month or even a year. But yeah, I wonder if maybe the tide is turning a little on it.
Leanne ElliottI think that the tide has been turning on Steven for a little while. There was something, wasn't there, about— it's about 6 months ago where there was a run of people on his podcast making huge health and wellness claims that had no empirical evidence behind them at all. But we being presented as fact and not challenged. So I think it is a little bit the case that it's kind of been that way for Stephen for a little while. But I think that's the problem when you start dipping your toes into things that you don't really necessarily understand or read.
Al ElliottThat's a bit too close to home for me, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottYou understand this. I need to talk to you about a message I got from Danny Wareham, actually.
Al ElliottOkay. Hello, Danny.
Leanne ElliottWhere was my last— my train of thought? Yeah, no, the tide is turning. Agreed.
Al ElliottAnyway, talking of tides and turning and football and World Cups, this is the worst link ever. Le, anything going on this week in terms of football?
Leanne ElliottThe World Cup has started, and any regular listener will know that Al and I very enjoy a 4-year periodical sports tournament that we have no business liking and barely understand, but we enjoy it.
Al ElliottThat's not true. Leanne is— Leanne's a Liverpool supporter, and you do not— and when you sit and talk to my dad, it's like, oh my God, you're like coming out with like, oh yeah, well, of course, well, the forward crawl and the 1965 whatever. And you're like, yeah, well, you know, and I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? To be fair, both of you could be bullshitting. It could be my dad doesn't understand what you're saying. You don't understand what you're saying either, but you tend to know a lot more about football than I do. But when it comes to World Cup or Euros, we are there. We watch every match.
Leanne ElliottWe're so excited.
Al ElliottWell, not every match.
Leanne ElliottYeah, well, we usually do watch the majority of matches, don't we? But obviously it's in North America this year, which means there are a lot of them happening in the middle of the night, and Al and I are too old, too old for that game. So yeah, we're just watching the ones that we can. But some good, interesting results so far. The first game we watched, of course, Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Canada. We live in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Specifically, we actually live in Herzegovina. But I worry that if someone goes, where do you live? And I said Herzegovina, they'd be like, what?
Al ElliottIt's like saying Trinidad and Tobago. Where do you live? I live in Tobago. And you'd be like, it takes you a little while to go, oh, that's Trinidad and Tobago. Yeah. I wonder how many countries there are where it's just 2 things like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Trinidad and Tobago. Can't think of anything else. Anyway, so what was the final score on— have we only played— have Bosnia only played once in this group? Yep.
Leanne ElliottYeah, yep, yep, yep. It was 1-1 draw to— well, 1-1 draw to both.
Al ElliottOh, right.
Leanne ElliottJust after saying how much I know about football. Yes, but what was exciting is the Scotland game, which they won against Haiti. That's not a massive surprise necessarily, but I don't know if you know this yet, Al, Brazil drew, meaning now that Scotland are top of the group.
Al ElliottNo, they are.
Leanne ElliottWhich means there's a pretty frickin' awesome, almost guaranteed reality that they're gonna get through to the next stage, which I think is the top 32. There's loads of teams in this year's World Cup, which is why we're seeing games like Germany and Curaçao. Poor Curaçao.
Al ElliottThey did do their best.
Leanne ElliottYeah, they did.
Al ElliottThey were keen. They were, and they were saying like there was something like there's only 150,000 people in the entire country, whereas there's probably 150,000 people in a bar in Berlin.
Leanne ElliottYeah, true.
Al ElliottAt any one time. And so that's fair enough. 7-1. Have we just spoiled the surprise for somebody who's not watched it? Well, if you've taken—
Leanne ElliottSpoiler alert. Sure, you've heard, if you even care. But let's not forget as well that Brazil lost 7-1 to Germany. In the last— was it last World Cup?
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSo we're saying Scotland is better than Brazil?
Leanne ElliottYeah, and Curaçao is as good as.
Al ElliottInteresting.
Leanne ElliottAnd also one that I don't know if you would have heard this because I believe it happened overnight, but what came in this morning was that Spain drew to Cape Verde.
Al ElliottOh.
Leanne ElliottNow Cape Verde is obviously a teeny, teeny, tiny, tiny country that, that really doesn't, doesn't have much in terms of football calibre, in terms of volume of talent. So everyone's very, very excited. There is a goalkeeper that I think you'll like, 40-year-old, he's called Wozniak.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottHe became the breakout star last night because he held Spain to this nil-nil draw, and some of the saves he made were phenomenal. I watched the highlights this morning. He reportedly went, and a reporter asked me about this afterwards, his Instagram had 50,000 followers before kickoff. By the end of the match, it was 2 million.
Al ElliottNo!
Leanne ElliottAnd 24 hours later, it's 5 million. He has gained more followers than the entire population of Cape Verde itself.
Al ElliottWow, that's a brilliant stat.
Leanne ElliottHow cool is that?
Al ElliottSo, so my Twitter with about 300 followers, what I probably want to do is go and goalkeep for someone like Curaçao.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah, if they've got any more games, I'll go and do that and hopefully I'll get it up from like 400 to about 4 million.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottIs that what he's saying? Okay, that's what we'll do. So let's get this over and done with, and then I'll fly out to the States and I'll, and I'll take over from the goalie who, bless him, couldn't kick. But he could— he saved, he saved some good ones, but didn't save them all.
Leanne ElliottYeah, no, he did save a couple.
Al ElliottHe did.
Leanne ElliottBut yeah, expect more of this chat if you're not into the World Cup and you're sick of seeing it everywhere. Soz. But we'll try and bring some lighter-hearted commentary to it. The teams we're keeping an eye on— who we're keeping an eye on? England, obvs. Good luck for Wednesday, England. Scotland, obvs. Al's half Scottish, if people didn't realise. Wales, sadly, aren't in it, so we can't, we can't support them. Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is where we live. And Croatia, which is where we have spent a lot and lot of time.
Al ElliottAnd Spain, where we spent a lot of our time.
Leanne ElliottAnd Spain, yeah.
Al ElliottSo we are very much fair weather, I think, fans. We'll basically look at who's winning and go, oh, that's our team now.
Leanne ElliottWe're a bit loose. You're a bit loose.
Al ElliottWell, we did that in the last World Cup. We suddenly became huge fans of Morocco because they got through the semis or something. And we're suddenly like, we're Moroccan. Because they're like, well, Spain, it's only over the water from Morocco.
Leanne ElliottAnd I think the Euros before that, we got massively into Hungary at one point.
Al ElliottYeah. Okay, Leanne, enough football talk. Let's talk about what's been going on in this world, in the world of work. It's been so long, I've forgotten how I kick this up. Cue this up. Leanne, favourite time of the week?
Leanne ElliottIt's a 2-week holiday we've had, hasn't it?
Al ElliottI know. Favourite time of the week, Leanne?
Leanne ElliottNews roundup.
Al ElliottNews roundup. Cue the jingle. Okay, Leanne, what have you seen?
Leanne ElliottI've got a new word.
Al ElliottGo on.
Leanne ElliottI love that the news keeps newsing when we're away and I come back and there's just so much to catch up with, including new words. My new word is stalling out.
Al ElliottStalling out. Okay, so if a plane is stalling out, it's rising too high usually, and it starts to stall and then it starts to fall because stall equals fall. That's what all good pilots know. So that's what I'm thinking. So probably in terms of work, you work far too hard, you, you rise too quickly, and your engine can't— help me out here. Just, just interrupt me, please.
Leanne ElliottYou're not wrong. You're wrong a little bit.
Al ElliottOh yeah? What did you say there?
Leanne ElliottOh dear, I'm out of practice. You're not far off.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottYou're not far off wrong.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottBut it's not quite right.
Al ElliottGo.
Leanne ElliottSo basically, according to new research from Burning Glass Institute and New York University, stalling out is when someone goes 5 or more years Without a meaningful promotion and with little or no real wage growth.
Al ElliottHmm. I see.
Leanne ElliottSo I guess you were kind of right. They're climbing and then they stall.
Al ElliottYeah. My stall was like they climbed too fast and then crash and burn. Yeah. But this is— so just so I've understood, this would be someone who potentially has been in the same job for 5 years and they just feel like their career is just plateauing. It's flatlining.
Leanne ElliottYeah, pretty much. Yeah. So it's not that it's going backwards and it's not really going forwards. Either. So this is actually reported on by a lovely woman called Lindsay Ellis in the Wall Street Journal. I don't know Lindsay, but I had a little look and she looks delightful. She reported on— yeah, me too. She reported on the study and basically said that people are very good at kind of getting into good jobs. So they'll get the degree, they'll get on the ladder, they'll get that first promotion. But what the research is showing is that there's a huge group of people That once they get that, they're employed, they're experienced, they're building the skills, things just kind of stop. That momentum stops. So Matt Sigelman is president of Burning Glass Institute, and apparently the, uh, reporters— the reports— the reports— I can't talk. One of the report's authors, Mm-hmm. he said 1 in 4 midlife career professionals are stuck. They're not employed, they're not displaced, they're not low wage, but they're not going anywhere. And according to research, it's not a niche problem. The team analysed more than 1.3 million career histories and found that 24.2% of professionals were experiencing this storm.
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottA quarter!
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottIsn't that massive? 1 in 4. Yeah, thoughts?
Al ElliottI suppose statistically that kind of makes sense. I mean, I wonder if— and I try not, we try not to do the generational thing here, but I wonder if Actually thinking back to maybe my dad's generation, perhaps he, perhaps he, that's what he wanted. That's what he dreamed of. Actually, that's a good point to think about it. Maybe we're saying, okay, this, these are the numbers, but actually a lot of people dream of just coasting for the rest of their career. Is, is, is the report saying that this is a bad thing and this, these numbers come back and people don't like this?
Leanne ElliottWell, I think what the researchers are really, really saying is that people don't necessarily stall because they've run out of ambition, although they're not talented enough. It's more that they're sitting in roles that have limited pathways for progression. So I also, I haven't, full disclosure, I've not gone to the original report and read it. I shall do, and we'll report back anything interesting, because my questions going through this report will be, what's the gender split here? Is this women, for example, more likely to have their career stall if they've had time out of work to have children? Is it through choice? Was that measured?
Al ElliottCan I just say how shoddy journalism this is? Shoddy journalism. You haven't gone back and read the original article. Just shame on you. Anyway.
Leanne ElliottWell, it's the News Roundup. We're reacting to the news.
Al ElliottAnyway, carry on.
Leanne ElliottThe point is we, we, we pique curiosity and somebody else will go and read the full thing. Some better psychologist than me. Danny will do it.
Al ElliottOr get Dr. Jake to do it.
Leanne ElliottJake will do it. He'll tell us next week. Yeah, recognition is my point though, Al. How long have I been banging on about recognition?
Al ElliottYep.
Leanne ElliottAnd how we really need to pay more attention to it, especially in terms of career professional development. And that doesn't necessarily mean all these massive fancy promotions every 12 months, but it does mean some kind of investment. I think this is another example because ultimately people will rust out, which we've covered before as well, or they'll just stagnate, and, and that ultimately leads to similar, similar Symptoms to burnout, which ain't good. You can tell I've not really talked out loud, like in this pace on this type of topic for like 10 days, can't you?
Al ElliottI know, I know.
Leanne ElliottStruggling. Good job we've not got a live in 45 minutes.
Al ElliottLee, anything else to add to that? Will the link be in the show notes?
Leanne ElliottAsk me one link will be in the show notes.
Al ElliottOkay, I want to tell you about a guy called Steve Yegge, I think, or Yegge. His surname is Y-E-G-G-E.
Leanne ElliottYeg.
Al ElliottWell, he spent 35 years conducting technical interviews, and he said— now I read this on Twitter, Twix, X, whatever it's called. I believe it was a Medium article, but I'll put that— it's free to read. So Steve was a senior engineer at Amazon and Google, and he helped define Amazon's Bar Raiser program. Come on to that in a second. He sat on Google's hiring committee for years, and basically 17 years later, he's saying the technical interview Explain it again. Really simply, it's, um, uh, you say you wanna come for a job at Google. Okay, here is a maths problem. Here is a programming problem. Use this communal whiteboard to solve it. Show us how you'd solve it. Um, and then at the end, like there's 3 or 4 recruiters will watch them do it and then they'll, they'll all vote on whether it's, um, whether it's a good thing or not. What basically Yeg is saying is that, um, Is that these don't— this is gonna be groundbreaking for you, Leanne. They've discovered that these don't actually tell you anything about whether the person's gonna be good at the job. All they'll tell you is whether they're good at the interview. Now, can you imagine that, Leanne? Now, funnily enough, what they are suggesting is that you need some kind of what they describe as— I can't remember exactly what the word to use, but basically a work trial. He said do 3 days working on a piece of code. It's called a campfire. That's what he called it, campfire. He says do 3 days working on a piece of code.
Leanne ElliottThey just love coming up with their own words, don't they? It's a work sample test.
Al ElliottWell, they're saying actually do it over 2 or 3 days because then you'll work with— so the recruiter will work with the, uh, with the, with the person, the, the— what they call when they're applying for them? The applyee?
Leanne ElliottCandidate.
Al ElliottCandidate, that's the right word.
Leanne ElliottApplyee? Applyee?
Al ElliottThat's not a word. That's not a word. Uh, that's good. That's gonna fox our transcription software, isn't it? Um, and so they'll work with them over 2 or 3 days and they'll find out how they work. But of course, that's not very practical because if you're going for like a £250,000, um, senior developer job at Google, you're not gonna spend 3 days working on something if you're just gonna, you know.
Leanne ElliottYou might do, and that's still a work sample test. I, I was part of the design team of a recruitment process for— that involved a writing task, and that the entire task would probably was about an hour commitment, which is still, still quite a fair amount in a recruitment process. And we offered the opportunity for people to ask questions, and we'd provide feedback. And they had a three-day, I think it's three to five day deadline. So some people did come back and go, "Can I ask you some questions about the the tone of the piece that you want, the structure of this blah blah?" And that was obviously really brilliant positive behavioral indicators because people were were coachable because they were asking for for direction and stuff like that. Not that that was the only thing we measured, of course. So it's. It's still a work sample test, Google. That's all I'm saying. Well, but they're not doing these anymore, or what?
Al ElliottThey're not. Well, to be fair, Google was one of the only companies in Silicon Valley which are, which are testing the, the efficacy— is that the right word? The efficiency of this. Um, and, uh, they did loads of internal analysis. I'm just going to read from the article. He said the results were incredibly depressing. Interviewers routinely disagree with each other. They put the same candidate in front of 2 experienced engineers and you would regularly get confident yes from one and a flat no from the other. So Google did this whole thing of going, right, why don't we just totally anonymize it and see what happens?
Leanne ElliottSee if the—
Al Elliottso they did. They, they got, um, I think it was 5 recruiters around a table. They got 5 packets, which are, I think that's what they call them. They're like the package of interview stuff and whatever.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottSo 5 packets which had the results of the test already in there. Uh, they went through them and I think it was 2/3 of them would not, um, would not take any. I think 2/3 of these people were declined completely. What they subsequently found out It was those 5 packets with the 5 people sitting in the room. It was the original stuff that they submitted for their—
Leanne ElliottOh, well played, well played, well played. Bravo, whoever came up with that. What a brilliant— so what did they conclude from said experiment, Al?
Al ElliottBasically, uh, he said— let me just read it from the article, uh, he said whether this becomes the new standard, which the Campfire one, is an open question. He doesn't have a fully formed solution yet, but the diagnosis, he says, is clear. We've been using a broken process since before most of us were born. So basically, I think what Yegh's saying is it ain't working, but he doesn't have the answer. And I think he's a decent guy because I've looked, I follow him now on Twitter. He's a decent guy. So I don't think he's like trying to be sensationalist. I think he's just basically going, look, let's just be real honest, this don't work. And we've tried it for a long time. It's not working.
Leanne ElliottIt seems as well that they just need some guidance in terms of what they're looking for. What does good look like? What's the scoring system? Because then you won't have 2 people going on gut instinct or bias to then come to a different conclusion. It sounds like he's just missing the second step of a work sample test. It's like how you grade it, how you score it. The other thing about Googlers as well, so that bothers me. I thought you were going to talk about something else. In terms of, you know, those questions that would be like, I remember once we knew a guy who worked for Google in the UK. And he was telling us about a question he got asked at interview that was like, you've just made yourself a cup of coffee, your colleague comes in and requests you to look at something, so you have to leave the room. Do you pour in the milk before you leave the room or not? And it was something about thermodynamics and how you— what temperature your coffee will be when you come back.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd that tests your knowledge of like mathematics and stuff. And that's a bit tentative.
Al ElliottYeah. And like you say, work sample test, because let's be honest, without AI, then you just ask, you ask Claude that, you go, what should I do? And by the way, just for the further, if I'm right about this, then I will keep it in. If I'm wrong, I'll cut it out. But I think you should put the milk in because I think, I think that it's going to cool faster, the top temperature. So to go from 100 to 80 will cool faster than it would go from 80 to 60.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottThat's my thinking.
Leanne ElliottI believe that is a correct answer, isn't it? Something as well, then it brings brings the temperature of the coffee closer to the temperature of the room, therefore it slows down the rate at which it reduces in temperature. Anyway, this is such interesting listening for everybody.
Al ElliottWow. Yeah, so if you are still listening, then I think Leanne's got something else to talk about. Leanne, was it Microsoft?
Leanne ElliottYes. Would you like a sneak peek at their employee engagement results?
Al ElliottLove one.
Leanne ElliottThis one was from Ashley Stewart at Business Insider, who got hold of— didn't say how, but I'm sure it was It was with consent because, because it seemed to be in collaboration with Microsoft this article was written, but managed to get hold of an internal memo from Chief People Officer Amy Coleman.
Al ElliottOf the mustard family?
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottIs she? Keen mustard? Yeah, yeah, she is. Is she?
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah.
Al ElliottNo, no.
Leanne ElliottShe might be, but she was sharing the results of the latest employee survey. So basically right now people seem to be excited. They're experiencing meaningful work. But they're also feeling a little bit uncertain. So Microsoft's Thriving Score, which measures whether employees feel energized, empowered, and able to do meaningful work, increased by 3 points to 79, which is very impressive. Employees also scored the company highly for inclusion, culture, and security. Uh, 86% said they felt included in their team. Uh, the same number said the team acts in ways that reflect Microsoft's Microsoft's culture. And when asked what helps them to do their best work, employees highlighted empowerment, teamwork, communication culture, and customer focus. So far so healthy. It's very good, Microsoft. Microsoft then went on to highlight some opportunities. It's such a CPO thing to do, I love it. While showing off some more fabulous results, they're identifying these figures as improvement opportunities, right? Only 79%— Al, only 79% of people said they had opportunities broaden their experience in their current role. 80% said they have what they need to be productive in today's work, and 81% said they can clearly see how their work connects to broader organizational objectives. But what, um, what Ms. Coleman is saying basically is that this is an opportunity because 79 is not in the 80s, which is, you know, commendable, commendable. But then there was some other, other areas that seemed maybe a little bit more interesting, perhaps, if not negative for Microsoft. So overall confidence in managers remained very high at 85%, which is phenomenal. Employees rated managers most highly for embracing new challenges, creating inclusive environments, and bringing different perspectives together. That is psychological safety in action, which is wonderful. But underneath that headline number, there were some of the biggest declines in the entire survey. So when you've got a survey like this where the results are actually really, really great, anything in kind of the, the 70s is, is really positive numbers. So you have to look for other clues as to where there might be some tension, there might be some risk hotspots, and seeing declines in figures is a really good way of doing this, and that's what the CPO is calling out. So the score for managers coaching employees through day-to-day challenges fell 5.2 It still doesn't seem a lot. Well, 5 points is quite a big— it's quite a big difference, isn't it? If your share price fell by 5 points, yeah, there'd be some rumblings, would there not?
Al ElliottTrue, true, true.
Leanne ElliottUm, the score for giving clear feedback fell 4 points to 79%, and the score for motivating people to do their best work fell 2 points to 82%. So what basically is the results are saying is that people are still very confident in their manager, and feel very supported by their manager, but in terms of coaching them through day-to-day challenges, getting feedback, and actually motivating them, things are starting to, starting to decline. Um, so the thought was, is that it could be down to uncertainty, it could be pressure as work evolves, and the CPRS leadership team is committed to being more transparent, communicating more frequently, and giving context where they can. And I'd imagine one, one thing that they will genuinely be keeping an eye on is this idea around coaching and feedback, because Microsoft has positioned managers as coaches for quite some time. I think it was like 2010, 2012, they kind of moved to this philosophy. So for this to start to shift, and 5 points is quite a significant amount, Right. it is something to be mindful of. But you've got to wonder, haven't you, with everything Microsoft has been through, In terms of AI. They've had layoffs, they've had changing payment and promotion things. They had that retirement, voluntary retirement program for certain colleagues that just happened to be 50 or over.
Al ElliottOh yes.
Leanne ElliottSo it's not surprising we're seeing some dips in places, but I think the really good thing to take away from it is that, is that having managers and having great managers is such an important thing, and having managers who Coach is just the beautiful, best way to do it. So yeah, I'll leave a link in, in the show notes. But I agree, Al, a little bit of, yeah, self-promotional bragging there, but with an important message for us all. Marketing is important.
Al ElliottIf you're interested in learning a bit more about how Microsoft works, then go back to episode 309, which is last Thursday's.
Leanne Elliott309?
Al Elliott309. I was about to say 300, but then I realized the 309 309, which is Sean O'Shea, used to work at Microsoft.
Leanne ElliottYes. Relevant to this as well. I was going to mention Sean.
Al ElliottThat's, that's what I mean. Yeah, I'm making it relevant to this because you mentioned Microsoft. You weren't listening.
Leanne ElliottYou weren't listening.
Al ElliottSo if you like Microsoft, then go back and listen to that great interview. But we also talked quite a bit about Microsoft and he was under Steve Ballmer. And then the new one, I always forget his name. I always kind of want to call him Nutella and I know it's not quite that.
Leanne ElliottSo he But what the point I was gonna make, which wasn't what you said, what you thought I was gonna say, and you said, so I was listening, was it what Sean— a point, great point that Sean made, is that if people are going to AI chatbots for questions they might normally go to their manager, then that reduces these opportunities to have these conversations. So is that data a reflection of managers coaching less or employees going to their manager less?
Al ElliottI think it's a reflection of Less managers coaching less.
Leanne Elliottand using chats and therefore feeling less supported even though they're initiating it.
Al ElliottOh, we need to get Sean back on. I know, good guy Sean. I really like, you know, one of these people you meet, like, you know, you read the, you read that person's name. What was that? I can't remember, Ellis something. And you were like, I like her. I like her face. Yeah. Yeah. I like Sean. Just one of those people who just seems like a really good guy. I hope nothing bad comes out about him because then this is going to age very badly. Imagine if he has, if he's got single parents.
Leanne ElliottAs of the 16th of June, 2026, we believe that Sean O'Shea is a good egg.
Al ElliottBased on the information we've got that is in front of us. Okay, talking of things that are in front of us, this is a better link. Then in front of us is still the Truth or Lie and the World Famous Weekly Workplace Surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. We're gonna go to a break. We'll see you in a second. Please come back, please. It won't be like this in the second half, I promise.
Leanne ElliottWe'll get our act together.
Al ElliottWe will.
Leanne ElliottUs, by the way.
Al ElliottYeah, yeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network.
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use 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. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s— the HubSpot Podcast.
Leanne ElliottThe 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 behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics. It is.
Leanne ElliottIt's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Lunch wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back, because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in. Welcome back to Truth or Lie. It's that time of the week where we take a popular workplace idea and ask if the research actually backs it up. This week's topic came from Leanne. What's going on, please, Leanne? This is usually my job.
Leanne ElliottYes. Well, I'm going to see Take That on Sunday, and it's a redo of their circus tour that happened like, I don't know, 10 years ago or something.
Al ElliottSo you've already seen it, and there's only 3/5 of the people there, and the tickets are twice the price, just to confirm.
Leanne ElliottYes, and I'm very excited about it.
Al ElliottYou're flying back to the UK specifically for this. Okay, no, that's fine. That sounds perfectly reasonable. Yeah, that's exactly what I would do.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah. Carry on. You're singing Circus Circus.
Leanne ElliottI am. And it goes— I think anyone who, who, you know, had a band or an artist that they liked when they were younger and they're still knocking around, then, then, you know, this music kind of comes across different parts of your life and you've shared memories with your closest friends to that music. So it got me thinking about nostalgia. Out as an emotion, and if it has any useful place in organisational life. For example, does shared nostalgia bring teams closer together? So I thought, if I'm going to do a bit of research anyway, 2 birds, one stone. Here we are, Truth or Lie.
Al ElliottSounds a little tenuous, and you just want to show off about going back to the UK to see Take That. But carry on. Let's, let's keep up this facade.
Leanne ElliottNostalgia is an interesting area of research, actually.
Al ElliottWell, tell me about it.
Leanne ElliottWell, psychologists would describe nostalgia as basically bittersweet. It is predominantly positive, but it does come with that tinge of longing. You know, when you've kind of thought back to the good old times.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottAnd it is triggered by memories of meaningful experiences in the past. And it's almost always about other people. So, when researchers analyse nostalgic memories, friends, family, teammates, other people are almost always involved in some way, which is kind of interesting. Is what makes it interesting, I think, and indeed relevant and less tenuous for a workplace question. Because if it's about relationships, where are some of the most important relationships in our life?
Al ElliottAt work. Yes. Okay. Right. I'm sold. So tell me what I'm guessing you do normally. If you're not listening to this before, I think you do a for the truth and then a lie. No, an against.
Leanne ElliottAnd then we decide if it's a truth or if it's a lie.
Al ElliottI've only done this 40 times. Carry on, Leanne. Let's have the for.
Leanne ElliottSo, for in 2024, so some recent research here, researchers tracked more than 3,800 employees across 9 separate studies, including people going through actual organisational change in their companies, and they measured what's called organisational nostalgia.
Al ElliottJust making words up at this point, aren't you?
Leanne ElliottWhich is fond, bittersweet longing for meaningful moments in your working life. That's the definition. So, it's not nostalgia for childhood or uni or the job before. It's this team, this organisation, and the early days of being there. So, whether it be a difficult project or maybe you've grown from startup, the version of the place that you joined. So, they measured this using the Organisational Nostalgia Scale. I learned only recently that that's a thing.
Al ElliottThe ONS?
Leanne ElliottWho knew? Yeah.
Al ElliottThe ONS. Yeah, yeah, I'd known about that before.
Leanne ElliottInteresting. It's an 8-question tool asking employees about past achievements, relationship with colleagues, and moments of belonging. And then they tracked behaviour over time and ran experiments where some employees recalled a nostalgic work memory and others just recalled an ordinary one. And the pattern was consistent across all 9 studies that when change happened, employees who felt more nostalgic became better colleagues. They were more committed. They were more likely to go above and beyond. They were more likely to defend the organisation if it was criticised. And looking back basically helped people move forward is what the researchers concluded.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottA separate team then looked into why. So, nostalgia at work satisfies 2 basic needs: the need to feel that you've achieved something and the need to feel like you belong. And when both are met, engagement goes up and then performance follows. So, their studies found that organisational nostalgia predicted better job performance, more creativity, and a greater willingness to support change. I thought that was really interesting that actually having this, this look back at how things were can actually make you more motivated, more creative, and more willing to grow with the company. Because sometimes we think it's the other way around, don't we?
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne Elliottthat team that started is less likely to want to change. But if they're experiencing organisational nostalgia, apparently not. Belonging keeps showing up actually in the research as well. So, when researchers analyse what nostalgic memories actually contain, as I mentioned before, other people are almost always at the centre of that. So, it's not necessarily places or achievements even, it's the people you did that with. So, the summer I'm going to try and say it. You know when you only look at names written down and then you realise you're going to have to say it out loud for the first time?
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottLet's see. Sedekidis and Wildschut.
Al ElliottWow. Is that Greek? German?
Leanne ElliottI don't know. But they found across multiple studies—
Al ElliottYou're just going to make your own mind up.
Leanne ElliottThat nostalgia increases what psychologists call social connectedness. So they felt a sense of being valued, by the people around them. And that was directly linked to finding more meaning in work, which we know is really important because meaningful work is one of the biggest predictors of work engagement. And importantly, this held even when researchers introduced loneliness in participants first. So nostalgia didn't just strengthen existing relationships, it repaired them when they'd already broken down. So it was actually a way of rebuilding connectedness between colleagues. Then there's what happens when nostalgia is shared. So a 2014 study split people people into groups and asked some to recall a nostalgic group memory, others a positive but non-nostalgic one. And the nostalgic group felt more connected and more willing to invest time on the group's behalf. And to check this was a real behavior and not just kind of intentions, the researchers gave participants actual money and staged a situation where a fellow group member was treated unfairly. And people who'd recalled and shared— uh, sorry, recalled a shared nostalgic memory Spent significantly more of their own funds to defend that person.
Al ElliottOh.
Leanne ElliottI know. Interesting. Interesting. So across workplace studies, lab experiments, research involving thousands of employees, the evidence does build a fairly consistent picture that nostalgia at work, and particularly shared nostalgia, strengthens connection, increases meaning, and drives people to invest more in the people around them.
Al ElliottRight now, see, I, our friend Alec, um, who was your work husband for a while, wasn't he?
Leanne ElliottYep. Yep.
Al ElliottYep. Um, it's funny because you both have this amazing nostalgia for a time, which I remember you coming home very, very stressed a lot of times in that job, but you have the shared, um, the shared nostalgia for a particular job and you've become like amazing friends now. Um, by the way, Alec came to surprise us in our house, in our home in Bosnia, came from Manchester. Um, that's how much of a friend he is. So yes, I can see that. And also in my own life, I can remember back to the beer days. Um, unfortunately, I don't speak to— not I don't speak to, but I haven't kept up with a lot of the people. But certainly with my brother who worked with me at the time, we'll often have like little— and Chris, my business partner, we'll often have little sort of exchanges going, oh, do you remember when this happened? Do you remember when that happened? So yeah. Okay. Okay.
Leanne ElliottAnd you've got your doorman friends as well, haven't you, from updates?
Al ElliottYes, I do.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottThe doorman. Yeah. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottYou're still mates with them?
Al ElliottI still make— we're mates in the way that men who don't see each other very often are mates. We've just got a shared group and we will just We will just rip the other person apart from time to time. You go, oh, I love you too, man. Anyway, right. Okay. So that's where, that's where we're, that's the for. So far, I can't see why there'd be an against.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I agree. I, yeah. But let's see. Let's see. Because it isn't, it's never that straightforward, is it? No. There's always, psychologists always need to find something to pick at. So most of the—
Al ElliottThat's why they're like a buffet or a sharing plate.
Leanne ElliottSo most of the research we just talked about works by asking people to deliberately sit down and recall a meaningful memory. And that's not really how nostalgia works in real life. Like you said, it's just random things like picking up your phone and messaging somebody or chatting, having a conversation. It's not kind of, I'm going to sit down and think about a nostalgic memory before I start my day.
Al ElliottTrue.
Leanne ElliottAnd researchers themselves have been honest about this. So the 3— there's 3 research behind some of the most foundational research in nostalgia, and that is Wildschut, Sedic—
Al ElliottSedicidis.
Leanne ElliottSedicidis and Routledge. So they acknowledged very early on that almost all of their studies, you know, this was a problem, and they had been run with British undergrad students, which, you know, are eager, bright young people sitting in a lab deliberately trying to do their very best to conjure the, you know, the memories on request. So it has been flagged as a As a limitation. So how much of this would translate to a group of 45-year-olds going through a restructure in a bank, you know, is genuinely an open question.
Al ElliottFair.
Leanne ElliottOther researchers decided to test whether the lab setting itself was a problem. So instead of asking people to recall memories in a controlled environment, they basically messaged participants throughout the day for several weeks and asked them how they were feeling in real time. And they found that Nostalgia, as it naturally occurs, was associated with lower wellbeing, not higher.
Al ElliottOh.
Leanne ElliottAnd the negative effect got stronger throughout the day and the following day. A separate team did the same thing specifically at work. So they tracked over 100 employees over 3 weeks as nostalgia arose naturally during their working days. And again, 2 things happened at once. Nostalgia made people more helpful and generous to colleagues, but it also made them more distracted, reduced their daily task performance, and increased counterproductive behaviour. So looking back pulled people away from the work that was in the here and now.
Al ElliottSo I guess they were just sitting there looking out the window, some music, thinking about the good old times. Like the sad bits in Neighbours.
Leanne ElliottNeighbours, yeah.
Al ElliottYeah, when Babs died.
Leanne ElliottSo few people understand that reference.
Al ElliottI know, it's niche references, a number of Venn diagrams. Sorry, Danny Wareham will get it. Carry on.
Leanne ElliottDid you know I was— segue.
Al ElliottWhy not?
Leanne ElliottI was watching that Kylie documentary that's on Netflix.
Al ElliottOh yeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd they basically had to— the reason, you know, Neighbours was repeated, it'd be on at lunchtime, then be on again like after 5. It was because people kept skiving school or coming late after lunch hour because they'd gone to watch Neighbours.
Al ElliottReally? Yeah.
Leanne ElliottOh, there's a huge problem around people, like the country would stop at 1 o'clock to watch Neighbours.
Al ElliottAustralia or UK?
Leanne ElliottUK.
Al ElliottOh, wow. Anyway, moving on.
Leanne ElliottSo yeah, so the researchers basically made the point that if nostalgia allows people to mentally travel back in time to a more comfortable state, then what stops them from tipping into complacency? And as we said, kind of getting a bit distracted at work. Then there's the question of who nostalgia actually helps. So research tracking people through major life transitions found that nostalgia only works as a positive force when people feel connected to their past. So when there's that thread between who they were and who they are now, that's good. But when that connection is broken, nostalgia works in reverse. So it becomes a reminder of what's been lost. So people become more likely to see obstacles, less open to new opportunities, report lower wellbeing. And the research described it as both kind of a medicine and a poison depending on the person and the circumstance. That matters for teams because not everyone shares the same history. New joiners weren't there for the early days. People who've been through difficult periods in the organisation may have a very different relationship with the past than those who didn't. So, nostalgia that brings some people closer together can actually leave others feeling on the outside, which is what we mentioned before, didn't we, in terms of like startups and that, you know, people reminiscing on those early days for those newer starters weren't there. So, Tim Wilder, as I said, one of the leading researchers on collective nostalgia has acknowledged this, and he noted that nostalgia can be used in ugly ways. So it can be seen in politics when leaders appeal to a mythical past— Make America Great Again, maybe. Um, and the same dynamic can play out in organizations. So a culture that is built heavily on a shared memory can make it much harder for new people to, to break in. That's why we see these, these cliques. So, is it a truth or is it a lie? I'm gonna say it's true, but it does come with a few conditions. So, the evidence shows that yes, shared nostalgia can strengthen connection, commitment, and a willingness to invest in the people around you, but it only really works when it's deliberate. And it's best for people who already feel connected to the organisation's past. So, those who don't share that history, your new joiners, people who maybe had a hard time during that period, um, they can do the opposite. So, if you are a leader, you need to use it intentionally, especially during change. That's when, um, the research shows it's, it's most useful and most powerful. And you need to be careful who you're including. So, creating new shared memories matters just as much as invoking old ones. So, um, yeah, as for Take That on Sunday, the research, I think, would say— It's time well spent, Al. Time and money well spent. Nostalgia consistently increases wellbeing and meaning and social connectedness when we look back with fond memories on that time. And I do with my friends. So yeah, Al, my trip is absolutely necessary, even though we've only been back a week since our last holiday. Science says it's a good idea.
Al ElliottWell, a psychologist says you should go back and watch Take That. There you go. So if anyone's not in the UK and the tickets are still available, Then if you go to truthliesandwork.com/takethat, then you can get a 20% discount. No, you can't. I've just made that up. I have a question.
Leanne ElliottWe don't have that kind of power.
Al ElliottWe don't have that kind of power. I have a question. So you said something, I think the phrase was nostalgia allows people to mentally travel back to a more comfortable state. Your first, like, reaction to that was like, oh, that could make them complacent a little bit, but could it also almost underline How shit things are now, because you go, oh, well, I've— I remember nostalgia. I remember when it was great, and now we've got AI who is doing most of my job. And do you know what I mean? Where it's basically you're saying it's— I think I've made my point. Question?
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think you have. Nostalgia only really works in a positive way if that nostalgia is viewed positively.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottIf it's viewed negatively, then it can have— or, or yeah, it's vice versa, isn't it? So if it was good in the past, but Bad now or vice versa. Yeah, it's, you know what I'm trying to say. You said it.
Al ElliottI think Jimmy Carr says something quite cool. Jimmy Carr's such a, like, he's like sort of Sun Tzu. No, he's not. Who's the guy who's Confucius? He's a modern-day Confucius. I know. I know.
Leanne ElliottLook at you knocking out knowledge.
Al ElliottWell, what he said was, he said that grief is the price we pay for love.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd yeah. And maybe he didn't say it. Maybe someone else cleverer said it. Uh, but I think it's sort of almost like that with nostalgia, isn't it? Like we, I, I can't really connect those, but anyway, someone clever connect those and do a LinkedIn post about it.
Leanne ElliottBrilliant.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThere's lots of cheesy, cheesy motivational things about though, isn't it? Like, like what if you could realize that the good old days is happening right now? Yes.
Al ElliottYes. Yes. We are living the good old days.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah. Yeah. I hope, I hope most of you, in fact, I hope all of you are living the good old days. Do you know what are good days? Days when I get to ask you 3 questions which are sent in, a part of the world famous Weekly Workplace Surgery rapid-fire questions.
Leanne ElliottLeanne. Woohoo, we did it!
Al ElliottYes, yes. Only like, I think we've done 200 of these and that's the first time I think I've done it without fluffing. Uh, hello Jeremy, because, uh, he was, uh, Jeremy Klein, um, a friend of the show. He sent me a message going, oh, you got it right.
Leanne ElliottI was like, thank you, Jeremy.
Al ElliottThank you, Jeremy. Also quick for— right, so one of the things just behind the scenes we're talking about, Leanne and I were talking about maybe Moving the show to 5 times a week. I asked her—
Leanne ElliottOh yeah, we did.
Al ElliottYeah, I asked Jeremy about this. He went, don't do that, I can't keep up, I can barely keep up with 2. So like, yeah, we probably won't be going 5 days a week. Anyway, so question number 1.
Leanne ElliottWhat were we thinking? We were proper like work mode. That's before we went on holiday.
Al ElliottI know.
Leanne ElliottAnd now, now we're kind of newly jellied back. I'm like, that's a terrible idea. Why would we do that? Oh my gosh.
Al ElliottI like working 8 hours a week. Okay, so question number 1, Leanne. Am I missing something with record So, I keep hearing that people need more recognition at work, probably from Leanne, and most of my team are pretty introverted. So if I praise them publicly, they look like they want the ground to swallow them up. Now, I know people want to feel appreciated, but I'm not convinced everybody wants a shout-out in a team meeting. Lee, is there a way to make people who potentially might skew introverted feel valued without making it feel awkward?
Leanne ElliottWell, you don't have to do it in public. I'm not sure where this assumption comes that you have to do it in public. I know it's kind of, it's quite a, oh, is it like, I think, does OfficeVibe do it where it's like give kudos or something to like a team member and it's quite public? And yeah, you can, and that's nice, and people, you know, sometimes people like that. But really, recognition in that sense only works if it's very specific, if it is linked to either the values of the organisation or the goal that was trying to be achieved, and you're clear on how that person contributed to that. So, me going, Shout out to Al in the team meeting, he smashed it this week with customers, yay! Is, is kind of like, that's nice, but it's of no use to you, and it doesn't really have the psychological impact that, that recognition has. If I went, even in private, Al, I saw that, um, what happened in that email chain with a customer who's being really nasty and difficult. I thought you handled it really brilliantly because you completely defused the situation by using this type of language, and that completely reflects everything that we talk about in the organisation in terms of customers being our core focus, and we do everything we can for them. The way it resolved is brilliant. You know, you managed to add another £5,000 to the revenue this month. I'm really impressed. Thank you so much. Well done.
Al ElliottEven though that's fake, I'm all— I'm still feeling a bit fuzzy.
Leanne ElliottYou smile!
Al ElliottI know, I'm still like, oh, thank you, Leanne. I am good at that. See, I am.
Leanne ElliottYeah, exactly, exactly, because it's specific, and you can do that in a one-to-one. I think it's always nicer to have it is a conversation, but that might just be because that's how I prefer to communicate. You could do it over email, you could do it over Slack. You can, yeah, have these, these conversations however you want to do it, as long as it does follow that kind of structure of being specific and embedded in some kind of context of the organisation and the competencies of the individual. The other thing about recognition, it's not just about that. Recognition is also about using people's strengths, engaging in things like job crafting, like what things do they want to do more of, what things do they want to do less of.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottcareer development. Where do they want to go in the future in terms of their career? Is it in the same industry? Is it in the same type of role? What, what opportunities do you give them to develop, either in terms of training and education or work-related opportunities? That's also part of recognition because it's noticing somebody's strengths and competencies and stretching them in a way that is going to help them to get to where they want to be. So, that would be my advice. Recognition is more than one thing. It is about how you do it. So yeah, maybe try that and see how it goes. And I'm sure, particularly if people are introverted, they're going to respond much better to that.
Al ElliottExcellent answer. If someone's listening and they're like, oh, this sounds really psychologisingly great, then recognition is one of the 7 foundations of Leanne's RX7 model. If you want to learn a bit more, just book a call with Leanne. The link's in the show notes. It's always been in the show notes. You go back to episode 1, it's been in the show notes. You can book a call with Leanne. Just don't try and sell her anything, or I will join the call and I will say, oi, off you go. Okay. Question number 2, is everybody worried about money or is it just me? So this person writes, I get the feeling my team are carrying a lot of anxiety at the moment. No one's come out and said it, but between the economy, rising costs, and constant stories about layoffs, the mood just feels different. As a manager, should I acknowledge that kind of thing, or is it better not to open a conversation you can't really solve? Wow. This is one of my favourite questions ever been asked on the surgery.
Leanne ElliottReally?
Al ElliottYes, because I think that's what a lot of managers would ask, going, if I can't fix it, do I even bring it up?
Leanne ElliottWhen you and I volunteered for the Samaritans and we would talk to people who were feeling very distressed to the point of feeling suicidal, was our job ever to fix it?
Al ElliottNo.
Leanne ElliottWhat was our job?
Al ElliottTo listen, reflect back, and ask questions and get them to feel a bit more— in fact, your analogy of essentially you have a washing machine and it's got lots of thoughts tumbling around in it. And you open the door and you take out one t-shirt, look at it, fold it, put it down, and then take the next one out.
Leanne ElliottYeah, there's an enduring myth that managers have to have all the answers, and you don't. But being able to hold a conversation with somebody to help them offload and reflect, particularly if you're feeling like this, can really, really help them. And as we found with Samaritans, a lot of the time people come to their own conclusions or, you know, develop their own options. It's asking lots of, you know, these types of coaching questions as well. guiding them through it. It's also worth, though, arming yourself with some information on what the organisation does do in terms of supporting financial wellbeing. And most organisations tend to do something around that now. It is the, it is the, the most neglected area of wellbeing, I think, but there are still, still things that organisations do. For example, EAP systems will have things like cashback things, won't they, or shopping things or discounts and That type of thing, or they'll have free sessions with a financial advisor for a period of time. Again, I know we've mentioned it all the time, but something like Perks offers those types of things, and it's like £4 a month per person, and you can do it as an individual as well. So, you could, even if you don't have that internally, you could recommend that they look at that as a kind of cost-effective way. There's also lots of free education. I'm thinking about GoHenry, talk about Octopus Money, do lots of free education.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottUm, there's lots out there on financial wellbeing that the— well, there will be free resources available. Just Google it. Um, ask ChatGPT. You'll, you'll find some depending on where you are in the world and what's relevant. So I think it's understanding that sometimes having a conversation with somebody on a one-to-one, just asking them how they are, asking how they're doing, maybe saying, you know, it's quite a lot at the minute, isn't it, with the economy, rising costs.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottI'm finding it, you know, my anxiety has peaked a little bit. You might then, you know, open up a conversation where somebody will share with you, and just having that conversation will help more than you will realise. And if you've got some resources in your back pocket to signpost people to, then that's even better.
Al ElliottExcellent advice. Excellent advice, as always, as always, Leanne. Right, okay, so we've got question number 3. This person is complaining that they didn't make the return to office decision, but they're having to implement it. So they said, our company's just increased the number of days people need to be in the office. My team are not happy, and a few have said they're considering leaving. They're feeling like it's a backward step. The problem is I didn't make the decision. I'm just the person who has to explain it and deal with the fallout. So how, as a manager, should I end up dealing with a problem like this, which I had absolutely no say in? Thoughts?
Leanne ElliottYeah, I'd find this one hard as well because I struggle with return-to-office mandates. My first thing would be to understand why this decision has been made. Hopefully that's been communicated with you in, in some way, whether it be for customer reasons or whatever excuse they've made around collaboration and ideation and all that kind of stuff. I would try and understand why the company has made this decision. Typically, people will want to— they'll have kind of the visceral reaction first of all, because it's significantly Changing their way of working, and it's going to have some negative impact, whether it be in terms of their time commuting, the cost of commuting, childcare, other caring responsibilities. So, I would, I would be tempted to try and understand why from the organisation, to maybe give you, you know, something to work with, and then sit down with the individuals who have, you know, been very vocal about saying that they might leave, and over time sit down with everybody and understand why this is so.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottdifficult? Is it because they struggle to focus in the office? It might be you have some neurodiverse colleagues, there's certain adjustments you can make in an office environment to help them be more productive. It might be a cost-related aspect in terms of commuting, in which case, I don't know, some organisations do do things around that, don't they, in terms of supporting travel costs. It could be around childcare. So, what flexible working is allowed within the organisation or will be considered? Can they put in a request for flexible working if they—
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottneed it. I think it's understanding exactly why people are having such a strong reaction to going back to the office beyond that they might just assume they enjoy working from home. There's probably going to be something else. And if it is just that they enjoy working from home, chances are over time, given the current state of the number of return-to-office mandates we're still getting, they'll realise that actually it's still a hybrid situation, and this is maybe as good as it's going to get unless you look at a fully remote career.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottrole, which you're getting fewer and fewer ridiculously. So, I think that's really understanding why and trying to address those individual concerns and challenges rather than trying to kind of a blanket solution to helping people accept this decision. You're not going to be able to do that, but there might be some things you can do with some individuals to make this transition a little bit easier.
Al ElliottYeah. And I think that you're not alone. In fact, probably 90%, excuse me, 90% emotionally, 90% of the decisions that any manager has to implement is likely not made by them anyway in a larger organization. So you're definitely not alone. If any of the— if this is really bothering you, then again, I have said book a call with Leanne. So if you are— if the listener is in this position or someone who's listening is in this kind of position, you do want a little bit of advice. Leanne is just such an awesome person. So just book a little call with her. She'll talk you through something. I hope that's okay. You're just looking at me as if I— Of course it is. Do not let the public, the general public access it. Of course not.
Leanne ElliottIt's always nice. surprise as well when somebody books in and I'm in my diary and I'm like, huh? And you're going back through messages and emails going, have I, have I just not remembered this person?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Um, it's like, no, no, we've not spoke. It's a surprise.
Al ElliottSurprise. Love it. Love it. Love it. Tell you what's not a surprise is we are back on Thursday with another interview. But what is a surprise is that I haven't written down who is there. So I will double check who's coming. Uh, I'm not going to tell you now. You'll have to wait till Thursday or we don't know. Anyway, if you, if you have your own question that you want to add to ask Leanne, then just check out the show notes. You can submit it there. All right, Leanne, anything else for these lovely people to hear before we go?
Leanne ElliottSubscribe, please leave us a review if you haven't before. It really helps other people find the show and we love reading them. We've had a few new ones recently and they're lovely. Comments as well. We'd love your comments on Spotify. So yeah, go do that. We will, we will have a look and respond. LinkedIn is where to continue the conversation with myself. And occasionally Al, he's starting to dip his toe into the world of LinkedIn now. Um, yeah, all links in the show notes, subscribe, etc. Thank you, bye!
Al ElliottBye-bye!