Episode 50 · 3 August 2023 · 48:36
How Workplace Culture Myths Impact Your Bottom Line
How Workplace Culture Myths Impact Your Bottom Line
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Why we're doing lighter summer episodes
Myth 1 — Workplace culture is just a passing fad
Myth 2 — People only care about pay
Myth 3 — Hire the right people and culture takes care of itself
Myth 4 — Culture doesn't work in remote or hybrid setups
Myth 5 — Stick values on the wall and you've got a great culture
Final thoughts and what makes values actually stick
Show notes
5 Workplace Culture Myths That Are Costing You Money — Debunked
Episode 50 — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Business Psychologist) are back with a special summer edition, tackling the five biggest myths about workplace culture that might be quietly hurting your bottom line.
No expert guests this time — just the dynamic duo, some Sicilian sunshine, and a refreshingly honest conversation about what actually creates a thriving culture (and what's just corporate wallpaper).
From whether culture really "takes care of itself" if you hire the right people, to why your values statement might be doing more harm than good, Al and Leanne bust the myths that keep leaders stuck — with their signature banter, a few detours into Gen Z memes, and at least one questionable McDonald's copywriting critique.
🔥 The 5 Myths, Debunked
1. "Workplace culture is just a passing fad." Culture is having a moment — but that doesn't make it a trend. Leanne points out that the conversation has shifted because the workforce has shifted. What Gen Z is asking for now is just the natural evolution of what the boomers started. The language might be new; the need isn't.
2. "People only care about pay." There's a short-term truth here — people will tolerate toxic environments for the right money, and oil rigs pay well for a reason. But Leanne makes the sharper point: younger workers especially are increasingly unwilling to trade their wellbeing for a paycheck. The businesses that win are the ones that don't force the choice.
3. "If you recruit the right people, culture will take care of itself." The chicken-and-egg problem: to know who the "right people" are, you already need to know what your culture is. Recruitment is a powerful lever, but it's not a strategy. Culture needs active, ongoing attention — not just a brilliant hiring process.
4. "Culture doesn't work if you're fully remote or hybrid." Bullshit, says Leanne — and she's got three arguments to back it up. Precedent (large organisations are doing it), digital intimacy (you can build real connection without a shared office), and a personal story about working for years with a team she met exactly once, for half an hour, over coffee in Sydney.
5. "Stick your values on the wall and you've got a great culture." The classic. Al and Leanne dissect why most values statements are forgettable, meaningless, or actively counterproductive — including a glorious takedown of McDonald's "Plan to Win" and a reminder that Google dropped "Don't Be Evil" around the time they started tracking "the ever-loving shit out of whatever you do." The fix? Short, specific, and actually lived. Six words. No commas.
💡 The Takeaway
Culture isn't a poster, a policy, or a perks package. It's the sum of what you actually do — every day, in every decision. If you can't remember your values, neither can your people. And if they can't remember them, they can't live them.
More From Truth, Lies & Work
Listen back for more on:
- Will remote work beat the office?
- Well-being for all: How pirkx and Stella Smith are redefining employee benefits
- 2023 Predictions in people and culture
Connect With Us
Join the conversation, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
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Full transcript
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Al ElliottThe 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.
WorkWhat 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 hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. So basically, high pay means that you can kind of treat your guys like whatever you want, like in Suits or Billions or all those sort of, um, sort of dramas.
WorkHello and welcome to the Truth, Lies and Workplace Culture podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name's Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
WorkAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of people and create amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottSo this is week 2 of us being in Sicily. The temperature's dropped a bit. It's only about sort of, say it's only, it's only like 34 at the moment, which is, but it was 42, 43 yesterday. So it's dropped a bit. 44 last week. Pretty unbearable, wasn't it, Lee?
WorkIt wasn't pleasant, it wasn't. But like you say, it's, um, it's okay now. It's a cool 35.
Al ElliottSo talking of summer and summer weather then, these are slightly lighter episodes over the next 4 weeks because if you're anything like us, you're probably going to be relaxing a bit, probably taking it a bit easy in August, um, as Leanne always talks massively about, uh, downtime and how important that is, don't you, love?
WorkYeah, and I think August typically is when people will take some downtime, especially with kids. You know, the kids are off, it's time for holidays. Um, but I think even, you know, just, just because so many people are perhaps not in work in August, everyone just kind of feels to be on a bit of a slower, slower vibe. Um, so yeah, we didn't want to bring you anything too heavy. If you are listening to this on your morning walk, if you're on the beach, if you're by the pool, uh, wherever you holiday, um, we didn't want to kind of lecture you in this time. Yeah.
Al ElliottAnd if you are somewhere on holiday or even just you're not on holiday, staycation, then, why don't you send us a picture? We're on— are we on Instagram, Lee?
WorkYeah.
Al ElliottYeah. So Truth, Lies, Work on Instagram. Or just go to LinkedIn and you can send us a message there if you want.
WorkI don't know.
Al ElliottWould it be weird to post a picture of someone on the holidays on LinkedIn? I think that might be a bit weird.
WorkMaybe. And my Instagram's a good shout.
Al ElliottYeah. Go to Instagram. Okay. So today we're gonna tackle a number of lies about workplace culture. Now, I say a number because we'll just see how long we've got because we wanna keep this around about 40 minutes, I think. So, so we might, we might not get through them all, but this is me putting Leanne to the test. Leanne's had a quick scan at these, but I've only just shown her the list and then just whipped it away so that, so we could get her, her natural reaction to this. So shall we start with lie number 1? And that is that creating a good workplace culture is either a fad or it's for The woke. Thoughts?
WorkWell, in terms of fad, I think it is having a moment, workplace culture. I think the conversation is definitely louder and more frequent now than it ever has been before, uh, thank goodness. When I started in this game 15 years ago, workplace culture wasn't talked about very much. So is it a fad? I'm not sure it's a fad. I think maybe awareness has been building and now it is recognized as something that is important in organizational life and business Performance. So, I don't think it's a fad, but I think it's definitely a trend at the moment that we're hearing a lot about. So, yeah, maybe. What was your other one? Is it woke? Well, a culture is, a culture is a culture, you know? Your organisational culture might be woke. Your organisational culture may be very competitive. Your organisational culture might be somewhere in the middle. Your organisational culture may be purpose-led. There are many different cultures, so some are woke and some are not. So, yeah. So is it woke? Maybe. But you'll probably have a better idea of that than I would.
Al ElliottI think what's interesting is that we are talking about the Gen Z. We talk, we talk about generations weird because that's another thing that we didn't really, we didn't really talk about generations maybe 15, 20 years ago. There was no like, oh, he's a boomer. I think it must be, maybe it's TikTok that's brought out this whole okay boomer thing, and then everyone else has jumped on it. But because we are talking about the new generation, Gen Z, and they have very different values to boomers, Gen X, and even millennials. And so perhaps it's not a question of it's woke or it's a fad. It's a question of it's something that's quite new because this generation is demanding, literally demanding a better workplace culture.
WorkYeah. And I think it's kind of like, do you know, I guess it's like people saying, oh, well, why do we have vaccines? We didn't have vaccines in the 17th century. It's like, well, we lived until we were about 50 in the 17th century. And it's a similar thing now. Now, workplace culture may not have been much of a thing in the '70s and '80s, but you think about the context of that at the time, there was still massive baby boomers. I think it was Carrie Cardinale on our Gen episode said something like baby boomers were the pioneers of purpose. They were the people that campaigned for workplace rights, for equal rights for women in the workplace, for people of colour. The Mental Health Act first came out in the 1980s, so that would have been campaigned by people probably from the late '60s and '70s. about the '60s, like, you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, '60s and '70s. They were outrageous, the boomers, in their time. That's just what youth culture is. They invented youth culture. And I think it's no different now. I think the only difference perhaps is that we are planning to work much longer because we are staying healthier for longer. Therefore, we will be working more than likely into our 70s and potentially even our 80s. So that kind of work fast and hard, retire at 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100, 55 to 65 and then enjoy retirement. So what is it the retirement age in the UK is now? 67?
Al ElliottSomething like that.
WorkAnd that's public sector. That'll be the earliest that you can retire to get your, your state pension. So I think it really is a case of regardless of, you know, whatever place they're coming from, I guess my arguments would be one, It's a continuous evolution of the evolution of work we've seen since the 1970s, where these major legislations started to come in. Pretty sure that the parents of, of the 20-year-olds in the 1970s, when workplace rights for women were coming in, were considered very woke, if that word probably didn't exist, but very cool, very groovy. Was that the word, Al? You know, you were there.
Al ElliottI was there for 3 years in the '70s, and, and 2 of those I was crapping myself, I think, because I was a baby, not because I had problems.
WorkYeah. So yeah, I think it's an evolution. I think, I think the Gen Zs are just picking up what the boomers started, probably, let's be honest, before them. I think when we talked about our health and safety, that was kind of the early 1900s, wasn't it, that those laws start to come in? So really it's just a continuous evolution of the workplace we've seen over the last 100 years, and perhaps also a little sprinkle of economic uncertainty that the millennials and Gen Zs have experienced much more than the boomer generation did. The lack of security in jobs is a big issue as well, and the fact that we're going to be working longer, so we can't afford to burn out. We need to be keeping ourselves happy and healthy physically and mentally in our jobs to continue to, to have a living wage. So yeah, I think it's, it's just working, working smarter.
Al ElliottAnd that all makes sense because let's be honest, the majority— if you talk about a generational gap of 2 or 3 generations, then It's— there's always been the older generation again, the younger generation don't know they're born. And our grandparents, I remember my grandparents saying, oh, you got it so easy now, you've got this and you've got that. But actually, I'm sure that their grandparents saying it's so easy now, you've got electricity in your home, you've got running water in your home. So there's always gonna be that generational thing. I saw something which will make you laugh the other day, and it was an article on how Gen Z—
WorkI don't understand the memes, Oh, that brings me so much joy.
Al ElliottI know. I, I, I thought you'd like that. It made me, made me laugh because I'm just thinking, haha, there we go. The Gen Zs that I see the memes and go, I don't have a fucking clue what this is.
WorkSo what's the memes of the Alphas?
Al ElliottApparently, there's something to do with a talking toilet, and they take the— there's this toilet, and you can superimpose— maybe it's a Snapchat filter. Maybe there's a new Snapchat that the Gen Alphas are using that we don't know don't about. But they're sharing memes of know a talking toilet. anything about. And, and what you can do apparently is you can sort of like, I think you film yourself and then you superimpose on top of a toilet, and then you, the toilet basically speaks. And the, the gen— yeah, the Gen Zs are going, what the hell are you talking about? I just don't get it. And I thought, that is sweet poetic justice.
WorkAbsolutely. I mean, you might not remember people talking about generations. I mean, because you're, you're, what do they, what do they call you, Al? The The lost generation, the quiet generation, Gen Xs. Although I have seen more TikToks popping up on that as well, actually, that are really funny. They're basically like, like, the reason that you don't fuck with a Gen X is because we will fuck you up. Like, it's really aggressive and quite satisfying. It's kind of like, we had to do our homework with a pen and paper.
Al ElliottWe did.
WorkYou know, kind of thing.
Al ElliottOn the bus.
WorkOn the bus. Yeah, yeah, we only had one phone.
Al ElliottUm, and you could— and you had to get off the phone if somebody— if you want to go on the internet, you had to go off the phone.
WorkDoing the doing.
Al ElliottAnyway, enough about TCR.
WorkI had a point.
Al ElliottHandshake. Did you have a point, or—
WorkOh yeah, no, I did, I did. There it is, I found it. Um, so yeah, you might not remember about generations, but I remember people losing their shit about millennials being entitled and privileged and who the hell do you think you are, um, just because we, we kind of, you know, wanted something. We want to be treated without being sexually harassed. And he was like, who do you think you are? And it's like, well, it's an adult in a workplace. Is that okay? So yeah. Anyway.
Al ElliottSo when I was putting this episode together, I was just Googling, like, what do people not really believe about workplace culture? So these are less about lies, more about myths. But to stay on brand with Truth Lies, I've called them lies. Okay. Onto lie number 2, which is nobody cares about a rough workplace if you get good money. So basically, high pay means that you can kind of treat your guys like whatever you want, like in Suits or Billions or all those sort of, um, sort of dramas. Thoughts, lovely Leah?
WorkI think there's 2 things here. I think there are many people who have and would happily work in a very toxic or competitive environment for a short period of time for a high level of pay. And that's why we see jobs that would have a very high turnover, but people might enjoy them for a certain period of time. Recruitment, sales springs to mind.
Al ElliottOil rigs, perhaps?
WorkYeah, oil rigs is very well compensated. That's more because of the health and safety issues.
Al ElliottYou might die.
WorkThere's a chance that you will actually die.
Al ElliottIn terms of workplace culture, being swept out to sea is kind of high up there in the, in these sort of like things you don't really want your workplace culture to be That'd be interesting.
WorkI bet actually that the majority of gas and oil companies actually have very good workplace cultures because that psychological safety needs to be so high so that these mistakes and near misses are reported. It is that matter of life and death. That'd be an interesting case study, actually.
Al ElliottI know someone called Campbell who does recruitment for and HR for oil rigs in Aberdeen.
WorkOh, cool.
Al ElliottI'm gonna get in touch with him and see if we can get someone on the, on the pod.
WorkYeah, let's do that.
Al ElliottIf you're listening, Campbell, get in touch. Been a while.
WorkSo yeah, short term, I think so. And I think there is an element of people, particularly younger people, who want a— who want that money for a short-term financial goal, like saving up for a deposit to get your first house. There is an argument that's how you could structure your business. You can pay very well, expect to have a high turnover, and plan for that and manage that, knowing that you've got this continuous churn of young, ambitious, hungry talent who want to, who are willing to make these sacrifices, um, to get that financial reward. So short term, yeah. Long term, I think maybe there's a difference between a toxic culture and a competitive culture. I think even the most, you know, competitive Wolf of Wall Street cultures, you look at that, you know, that movie, there's actually a huge sense of belonging in that organization, a huge sense of camaraderie and relationships and And resources in terms of people knew exactly what their role was, exactly what target they had to achieve, and exactly what means they had to do it. So actually, it can look at quite, from the outside, quite an aggressive culture, competitive culture. That doesn't necessarily mean that the people within it are well suited to that environment and actually supported in all the ways that they need to be. You know, even look at your main boss guy. How many times was he like kissing people and hugging people when they did a good job and giving lots of recognition and huge rewards? So I think there's a difference between toxicity and competitiveness in a culture. So in that scenario, and if the person is well suited, I think the fact is, what was your original lie? That culture doesn't matter as long as people are being well paid? My argument would be that actually that having that competitive type culture, that winning type culture, is actually a very effective culture if you're recruiting the right people with the right mentality. Into it. I think from a psychology perspective, the, the problem with toxic workplace cultures, even if they are very highly compensated, is that without meaning, without purpose, without a sense of belonging, we feel hugely lacking in terms of our own well-being and our own sense of fulfillment. And that can sound fluffy, but what that basically means is if we're missing that, it's like we're missing food or we're missing Water, like we can survive, but we're not performing optimally. We're not our best. We can all get by and you know a couple of days on on a few hours sleep, but we do that for for too long, and you know our cognitive functioning starts to be affected, and our performance and our behavior starts to be affected. Our mood does. How we nurture our relationships, how we engage with other things outside of work, and that's the same thing in a toxic work environment. Over time, it's going to really deple complete every other resource that we have to live a rounded and balanced life. And I think in that point, that's when you get to, to periods of burnout. And how many, even anecdotally, have you heard of people who've had these incredibly successful, high-flying roles in huge corporate companies where they're doing very, very well for themselves and burn out at 40 and usually end up writing a book, maybe going into some kind of mental health or well-being profession or a keynote speaker because it's just not sustainable. Um, so yeah, so I think it's not necessarily a lie. I think you need to be careful on how you're defining culture, whether it is actually a toxic culture or a winning culture. Those 2 things are very different. And I think really we're just talking about longevity in terms of sustainability, in terms of resilience, how long people can last.
Al ElliottI like hearing— I like hearing when you say things like this because Even in, like, outside of work, you have a very balanced idea of things, and you very rarely will say X is really bad and Y is really good. You'll go, I can see the pros, I can see the cons. I can see, you know, you look at— you're very good at that. And this is great because if someone does have a very competitive— like, we have a good friend who's in recruitment, and she almost thrives for that competitive environment. But then you take someone in the state who's like, The same person, but they've got the same place, but there's people stealing deals from underneath you, or there's always the risk that if you don't get this, don't hit your targets, you'll be fired by Friday. That's a different thing. There's competitive and there's just knobheads. And I think that's basically what we're trying to avoid, I think, is that on the knobhead to competitive scale, yes, it's fine to be competitive as long as everyone really enjoys it and everyone enjoys the competitiveness. Yeah.
WorkYeah, and I think this is why, you know, often when we talk about culture, we talk about teams in businesses, we'll often draw on analogies from sports. There is nothing more competitive than, than elite sports. Name a sport, it's so competitive, whether it's individual, whether it's team, you know, people are fiercely, fiercely competitive. Yet there are rules, and there's transparency, and there is regulation, and there are standards that need to be upheld. Yeah. Those standards and regulation don't exist in workplace culture in businesses. If they did, and there are some, but if it did to that extent, we wouldn't see toxic places, we probably wouldn't see much burnout, and we'd probably see a much healthier and happier workforce in society. So that is where I think sports is a really good analogy to draw on. I think often maybe one that might be misunderstood from business owners perhaps in that, well, if you know, if they can maintain that level of performance, why can't you in a business? Um, it's, it's a bit more nuanced than that, isn't it? Um, so yeah, psychology, you call it balanced. It's, it's just that it depends. As a psychologist, it depends.
Al ElliottI love it. I love it. So number 3. Now this one's a bit of a contentious one because I genuinely don't know whether it is a lie or whether there's some truth within it. So Let's ask you, Leigh.
WorkOkay.
Al ElliottIf you recruit the right people, then culture will take care of itself. Ooh.
WorkIf you recruit the right people, then culture will take care of itself.
Al ElliottLet's just put it in some kind of scientific box. So we'll say you do nothing else apart from you get really good at recruiting the right people.
WorkI think there is an element of truth to this because my beef, which I've talked about before on this podcast and other podcasts as well, is often businesses that will invest so little in a robust science-led recruitment process. Because if we get that right, it can solve a lot of problems from even happening. So I think there is definitely an element of truth. I think the only thing would be is to recruit the right people. How do you know you're recruiting the right people?
Al ElliottI don't know. And the reason I'm pausing is that This was one of the things that I saw on quite a few forums going, if I recruit the right people, will, will culture take care of itself? And so people, there was lots of different answers to it. So I'm going to assume that they are this, that this fictitious person in my example is good at recruiting. They're recruiting people and they're trying their best to find the people who are best suited for the job. But once they're recruited, they don't run engagement surveys. They're not that fussed about psychological safety. You know, they don't like, try and put things in place for psychological safety. Uh, very much is you're, you're left to do your own thing. But if you get the right people and you're matching it to the way that you want to run the cult— your company, the culture you already have— you talk about culture match sometimes, culture fit I think is the term you use— then if you recruit for that, is that, is that, does that solve the problem?
WorkI think it's like a chicken and egg argument, because to know who you want to recruit, you have to either know the culture that you have or the culture that you want. Because culture is behaviours. Culture is the behaviours that we want to see within our business. Behaviours are linked to how we treat each other. It's linked to how we perform. It's, it's linked to everything. Everything is behaviour. That's, you know, action equals outcome. So I think it is that chicken and egg where if you know the person you want to recruit and why, and why in terms of their competence for the job and the add that they bring to your culture— we're not necessarily looking for people exactly like us, we need diversity of thought. Yeah. But culture ad, would that take care of itself? Probably largely, yeah, because it's intentional. The fact is that you are approaching your recruitment process in a way that is intentional in terms of what your culture is, or at the very least, the desired behaviours that you want to see in your organisation. And as we know, my favourite definition of culture is culture is defined by the worst behaviours tolerated. So, I think if we look at it like that, Yeah, probably largely it would be, but it's intentional and it's continuous. Is it gonna eliminate all problems? No. Is it a good first step in kind of creating that foundation and that culture? Yeah, probably. And that's also probably as well why we see in much smaller organisations, you know, people don't really start to be an issue until they start to hit kind of 12, 13, maybe 15, certainly when they hit that tipping point of 20.
Al ElliottYeah.
WorkBut we start to see those issues at the point where people start to— those groups start to separate. It's no longer one group. It's, it's, it's— there's too many people, so therefore people have to be 2 groups. There was somebody, might have been Simon Sinek, who said something like, a team is too big if you can't share one pizza or something, or 2 pizzas.
Al ElliottYeah, it was Simon Sinek, or it might have been, it might have been Jeff Bezos. It was someone.
WorkYeah.
Al ElliottYeah. So let me just, let me just talk to you about that for a second, because this is really, really interesting. I, I like it when you've got kind of little of a rule of something. So you say if you've got 10 people, if you've got 7, the 7th person you're gonna recruit is, you're gonna start seeing problems. That's where I kind of like go, okay, I like these sort of rules. So if you, if there's 6 slices of pizza, and I know I'm being a little bit nerdy here, but there's 6 slices of pizza, then are we saying that when you get sort of 7 or 8, that's when you start might seeing some problems? When you get to 12, you're almost certainly gonna see some problems. When you get 20, there's going to be problems. Is that— is it— I mean, I know you can't say for every company, but is that generally the trend, do you think?
WorkYeah, I think I might have misquoted. Maybe it was 2 pizzas, because I think it is 12 seems to be that number of consensus that, that we start to see that kind of tension building. It's quite simply because, you know, 12 is a— is quite a big number. You can't— if again, if we think about that very simple definition of culture, it's the worst behaviours tolerated. If you suddenly have 11 people that you need to oversee, you're not going to be as involved with them every day to see firsthand their behaviours. You're going to have to trust other people to police those behaviours, whether that be on a peer-to-peer basis or a manager-to-an-employee basis. So I think, yeah, 12 is where it'll start to, start to get tension. And I think that, you know, that if you're a business that doesn't really have much intention of, of kind of scaling indefinitely, then keep it small. Really keep it small. You know, if you can keep your team to kind of 5 or 6 people, you probably won't ever have to really invest in, in culture because it will be much more organic and it'll be much more, um, owned collectively. That's where I think recruitment is going to be much more important, and it will be about recruiting the right people into the team for culture to take care of Um, so yeah, I think, I think there is actually an element of truth in that.
Al ElliottThis is strange because I kind of— these magic numbers of like 3 is the magic number and all that. 12. There are, you know, on a clock there's 12 numbers. In a year there's 12 months. Uh, 12 disciples. I mean, are we talking about— all right.
WorkThat's where he started to have problems. He recruited that 12th disciple, he was fucked.
Al ElliottWas it the 12 or was it 13? It was 13 including him. And so the 13th would be Judas. So that's basically—
WorkOh yeah.
Al ElliottThis is interesting how we got to the workplace culture of the disciples. That's, um, I think that feels like a very niche blog article we can create. But I think— but this is so interesting. I think this is so cool that anyone listening can go, right, all I need to know, all I need to worry about is 12. If I want to keep— if I want to keep a small team, I don't need Don't wanna bring in Leanne to do culture. I don't wanna have to deal with any issues. I'll just stick to around about 12. Once I get to my 13th, my 14th, my 15th, that's where I'm gonna start seeing problems because the teams will separate out. One or two will people want to manage. You will need managers. Is that, is that about right?
WorkYeah, I think typically that is true. And particularly if you're not losing staff, you know, if you, if you're struggling to get up to 12 because people are leaving, then you've got a problem somewhere. Yeah, exactly. It's you. If you're, if you're keeping hold of people and you're building your team nicely up to 8, 9, 10, 11 people, you probably don't. Work with a really good recruiter, work with a really good kind of HR consultant for that, that more kind of transactional legal aspect of people will still be really important that you need to manage. Um, but yeah, in terms of people and culture, probably not really.
Al ElliottI love it. I love it. There's a great book called The Company of One by, I think it's Paul Jarvis. And it is so interesting because he talks all about the idea that most people who start a business go, I— in fact, it's weird. Whenever you— I don't think it happens anymore because I haven't met anyone for about 10 years because I've lived abroad and a hermit. But when you used to go to a networking event, people go, oh, right, so what do you do and how many people work for you? And that was the second question you always get. And I always felt really embarrassed, like, 3, because I hated recruiting. I was no good at it. And this is before, obviously, Yeah. When I met Leanne. And, and so I never really wanted more. And I always felt like I was, I was losing out, like I was never going to make it because I didn't want more than 3 or 4 people. If you're listening to this and you feel the same, go and get Company of One by Paul Jarvis. It might not be Paul Jarvis, but certainly search for Company of One on Kindle. Download it. You will love it. It's such a relaxed, laid-back book. And it basically gives you permission just to keep a company very, very small of just one person if you want, or up to 12. But you don't have to be big to be boss. There you go. That's, that's a t-shirt for you right there, isn't it? Anything else, or shall I move on to our myth, no, or lie number 3?
WorkGo for it.
Al ElliottSo lie number 3 is that workplace culture doesn't work if you're fully remote or a hybrid.
WorkThat's bullshit.
Al ElliottRight. Okay. Number 4.
WorkNext question.
Al ElliottWell, tell us then, because I think a lot of people Worry. And I know we've had clients who go, I want everyone back in the office because I want to develop my work, our workplace culture. I want to develop our culture. So what you're saying, if I've understood this, is that it doesn't matter where they work. You could possibly never have met them in person, or they could be in the office 2 days a week, or they could be in the office 5 days a week. But culture is the same. You still do the same things. Talk me through it.
WorkI think there's maybe 3, 3 arguments I can think of maybe that, that might explain why I think this is bullshit. I think the first is maybe kind of the precedent set. Is that the right word?
Al ElliottYeah, I think so.
WorkPrecedent.
Al ElliottYeah.
WorkPrecedent. Precedent.
Al ElliottPresident Trump.
WorkYes.
Al ElliottYes, you're using it right.
WorkThe precedent set by large organizations, the rise of digital intimacy that we've seen generally across generations over the past I know 15 years. When's the internet? How long have the internet been here properly? 20 years. And the third one is leadership. So big organizations. Now this this is what confuses me, right? Because what you're saying is a as an organization, large organization bringing your teams back into the office because you can't create culture or nurture culture without doing that. If you're talking about teams of thousands of people, what are your leaders and managers doing on a daily basis to engage even in person to person with those tens of hundreds of thousands of people. Like, that's not just how it— that just doesn't work like that. It's like having managers, and we've had it for decades, managers in area management roles, national management roles, country management roles. They don't see, have eyes on their staff all the time. That's dependent on the relationships they have with, with their direct reports, that those direct reports have with their teams, that those teams and so on. That's why we have this hierarchy, because we need that structure or until arguably we needed that structure to build the relationships that we need to engage people and get them working and performing to the level that we needed them to. So not having eyes on people, I think, is bullshit for larger organizations especially, because you've not had eyes on your people for a long, long time. So the steam of Amazon, you know, sitting in there in their rooms and deciding together over what was it, over multiple occasions of that article, who we quoted on the news roundup, meeting him on multiple occasions to say that that's not how you create culture. Those senior leaders have no intention of going face-to-face on boots on the ground and meeting all 10,000 of the employees in the organization. Bullshit. Which is why I have beef with that. Smaller organizations, I think it's just a lack of control. I think it's— and this is where it kind of comes into leadership— what we're finding, it's really interesting with the, the massive increase of research we saw during and post-pandemic about leadership in hybrid and remote environments. What all the research is showing us so far is effective leadership is defined by the same constructs, the same behaviors in every context, whether it's on-site, in the office, remote, hybrid. There is no difference. The only difference is the intention to which those behaviors are enacted The frequency at those behaviors are enacted, and I guess the the capability of the leader in acting those behaviors. So basically, COVID and remote work completely exposed bad leaders and lazy leaders. Great leaders didn't have a fucking problem during COVID They were fine. They were great. And we're finding that as well as the research goes on, as I said, that. Actually, great leadership is great leadership. Is it a bit more time intensive? Sure. Should actually that have been the case for the past number of decades anyway, that there is a proportionate chunk of chunky proportion of your time as a leader and manager carved out for managing and leading your people? Sure, that's in the job title. So I think really it's just it's just refocus what our managers and leaders should be doing and how they should be. Behaving to motivate and engage and inspire their teams. So yeah, and I think where we're seeing it with smaller organisations, they perhaps, particularly on the lead, if they haven't come from a leadership background, if they haven't come from a team management background, if they haven't come from a people and culture or HR background, they maybe haven't developed these competencies to the level that they need them to. Those that are working on that leadership development, I think, are having a much easier time with it. So then, yes, we've got that leadership thing, we're looking at bigger organisations, so we're panicking, we're pulling people, everyone back in, because if Meta and Google and Amazon are doing it, then surely that's the right thing to do. A lot of psychologists are starting to lose faith in the best practice of these big tech companies, because it's just not best practice anymore. So there are two, I say the bigger companies, the leadership, and the final one, the rise of digital intimacy. How many times have you heard about, your friends meeting online and falling in love and building these amazing connections, or having best friends. You know, the younger generations that have been gaming for the past 15 years have got a circle of friends online. There are so many ways for us to connect without being in person. And I think we've all experienced to some extent that, that sense of connection, especially during COVID We all had a time where Yes, we were craving that face-to-face, but imagine if we didn't have the technology that we had during the pandemic. Imagine, imagine how hard that would have been and how much that would have affected our mental health and our well-being. Because— and it didn't to that extent because the vast, vast majority of us are able to engage in digital intimacy and build these relationships. Personally as well, in my experience, I have recruited and managed a remote team that spanned 3, 4 continents, and we had a great workplace culture. And they all said that we had a great workplace culture that nurtured wellbeing.
Al ElliottAnd you never met any of them?
WorkI met one of them. I met one of them when we were in Sydney.
Al ElliottThat was it?
WorkBut just once for about half an hour. We went for a coffee.
Al ElliottI love this. And I think what's funny is that you're quite right. Digital intimacy, technology, the Yeah. And we're in a time of such advancement technology. I mean, we're— this time last year, there was, there was— I'm sure ChatGPT existed, but it certainly wasn't out for the general public. We can now— we've got now artificial intelligence machines, yet we still— probably it's just me, the Xers, and the millennials— whenever you get on a Zoom call, the first thing you always say is, can you hear me? And it's like, we've moved on so far, but that's the first thing we still say. So hopefully we'll move, move away from that. Okay, that was really good. I like that. I like that a lot. There's also a term which I think I've heard you use, which is servant leadership or servitude leadership.
WorkServant leadership.
Al ElliottServant leadership. And that's, that basically summed up, I think, a lot of what you were saying. Whereas, you know, those people who want to be the boss because they sit in the corner office and everyone looks at them and they, and they storm out and go, Nigel, get Tokyo on the phone for me. Um, as opposed to the bosses who actually just want their employees to have the world's best day by providing all the resources that they need and giving them all the space they need to create.
WorkYeah, I think as well, if we look at, you know, the personality of people that are likely to be entrepreneurs or, or own a business, they're probably much more likely to be extroverted, which means they're probably much more likely to gain their energy from being in a room full of people thinking this is how we build camaraderie and this is how we get the energy going and the creative juices flowing. Whereas, you know, there's probably 60% of people in that room are actually introverts going, this is hell. I'm much more creative when I'm on my own or I have quiet time to think. So just because it's your preference doesn't mean it's going to be everyone else's preference, or indeed that that preference is going to help people to perform better. And also, you know, you mentioned servant leadership. That's basically based on empathic concern, which is what can I do to make your life easier? And if what you can do as a leader to make my life easier and my job more manageable is to enable me to work from home for X number of days a week for various reasons, then that is servant-led leadership equally. It might be better for me because of what's going on at home or my setup at home that it's better for me to come into an office or a coworking space. So yeah, I think that's the thing, isn't it, that for any leader out there, if you have defined your hybrid policy, you've probably done it wrong, 'cause you probably need to ask people what they want and create that policy. in collaboration with your team. Again, I think that where, you know, the vast majority of businesses have been exposed is because they haven't thought about workplace culture or employee wellbeing or performance or productivity in a measurable way before. So they have no idea if people are more productive at home because they've not been measuring it. They have no idea if people are happy and healthier working from home because they've not been measuring it. So I think it's the same thing, and I think that's understandably why employees have got beef and going, well, why are you dragging me back into the office? I think I work really effectively at home.
Al ElliottYeah.
WorkAnd he's going, well, I don't think you do. I was like, well, prove it. You know, the organizations that, if you know, if you're, if you as a leader have put in, you know, yeah, we have a complete flexible policy. You can work at home, you can go to the office, whatever you want, totally up to you, no rules here. And you were measuring employee engagement and measuring using a predictive model, which means that you can measure how happy and healthy people are. You can measure how much discretionary effort is being put into their roles, how much they're going above and beyond. You're measuring how creative and innovative people are, your speed to market, how happy your customers are. If all of these things are being measured under an umbrella of a predictive model of engagement, and after 6 months of having that remote policy you've got unhappier customers, you've got unhealthier staff, your productivity data is down, your performance is down, your revenue down, then you, you have a business case to bring people back into the office. That's black and white. That's just for business reasons, we need to bring you back into the office. So yeah, I think that's, that's the problem, is that employees are quite rightly going, why? And business leaders are going, because. And that's just not the adult-to-adult conversation that, that we need to create these environments that are going to be effective for anyone. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way—
Al Elliottyeah, yeah—
Workand the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network.
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
WorkAnd 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—
Workthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless. Seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. 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, business, and brands as well. It is.
WorkIt's such, it's such a good 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.
WorkAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
WorkBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
WorkSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in. Okay, Lee, for the last one, for number 5, do you wanna pick a number between 1 and 15? Ooh.
WorkI'm gonna go 15 because I was born on the 15th.
Al ElliottIf you create values and you stick them on the wall, then you've got a great culture.
WorkGo. Why?
Al ElliottWhy? Why? Because I just—
Workwhy? Why would you?
Al ElliottBecause what I like doing is getting a stick and just poking you and just going, go on. Go on, do it. Get angry. Get angry.
WorkWhat, what, what is a value? What can you— Al, you're, you're a marketing person. What is a value? Loose definition.
Al ElliottLoose definition of value is something which, uh, you believe in. Um, perhaps it's— I'll give you an example of what I believe, like, a company corporate value might be. Um, we are always looking for creative solutions that will help our customer.
WorkCreative solutions that will help our customer. How do you know if a solution is creative?
Al ElliottOh, good question. Because it's not been done before, because it's interesting, because you go, ooh, that's clever.
WorkOkay. So if you go, ooh, that's clever, what are you reacting to? You're reacting to perhaps the idea, the way it's implemented, that maybe somebody has given you, or you've had as part of that discussion, or you've had an environment where you felt comfortable as a team to ideate, to suggest new things, to explore, to do some blue sky thinking, as our corp talkers like. What is that? They're behaviors. Values are words. Values are empty and meaningless unless they are brought to life through action and behaviour and outputs. So values on a wall is like having— it's like saying, oh, I'm a vegetarian because I've got a pumpkin in the fridge. We've all got a pumpkin in the fridge. Is that a euphemism? I don't know. I don't wear a pumpkin.
Al ElliottI've got a pumpkin in the fridge. I think it means that you've just fallen pregnant.
WorkNo, it's like having a gym membership and never going, isn't it? Just because you've got one doesn't mean you're a fitness freak. Just because you've got values doesn't mean that you have a good culture. Um, so yeah, it's values. Values does not a culture make, behaviors make a culture. The other thing that makes me laugh about values is how many people seem to have. Like, we've got 10 core values, and it's like, cool. I've worked for a company, favorite company I've worked for, I think they had 12. I could remember 3, so I just rolled with them. Um, 3 is a good number.
Al ElliottIt is a good number, and I think that it's also like, um, Priority. What are your priorities right now? Well, from what I understand is that semantically you can't have more than one priority. You can, you can have a priority and then a— what's the word when you have like a cascading of priorities?
WorkYou'd be one of those wankers, wouldn't you, if you actually worked in a business? You're like, um, I believe we can't have multiple priorities. And if your manager was like, come on team, we're going to give it 110%, you'd be like, I believe that's mathematical Practically impossible.
Al ElliottExcept I'd say it in a very nerdy voice. Excuse me, I think you'll find that you can't have more than 100%. So I wanna read you just a company mission statement, and I wanna see if you can guess which company it is, and then we'll just start ripping it apart a little bit. Okay. You ready?
WorkYeah.
Al ElliottOur worldwide operations are aligned around a global strategy called the Plan to Win. which centre on an exceptional customer experience. People, products, place, price, and promotion.
WorkExceptional customer experience. Like, that's all you needed. That was the bit.
Al ElliottI have a feeling that Reginald in strategy came up and went, oh, yeah, we've got this. Look, Arnold, we've got this. It's just exceptional customer service. And he's gone, we've got space for 11 words here. Go back and come and come up with another 6, because it is bullshit, isn't it?
WorkYeah.
Al ElliottAny idea which company it is? It's a massive one.
WorkIs it Amazon?
Al ElliottAmazon? No, it's not.
WorkOh, I don't know. Who is it?
Al ElliottIt's McDonald's.
WorkSure. Why McDonald's talk about exceptional customer experience? That's not why you go to McDonald's. You're not like, do you know what, I really fancy going to Mackie's because you just can't get better service anywhere else.
Al ElliottNo, it's just the way that they put it down on that plastic tray and give it to you. It just feels like it's— yeah, it's just, you just have this— yeah, you know you've made it when you can afford a Big Mac meal. Absolutely. Well, just to give them a little bit of defense, they started their mission statement by saying McDonald's brand mission is to be our customers' favorite place and way to eat and drink. I didn't get rid of the drink, but I think—
WorkFavorite place to eat. This is turning into a bit of a masterclass in copywriting, isn't it? Between us, with your marketing and my executive branding, we're like, you're getting all the words wrong. This is—
Al ElliottYou're getting it wrong. So McDonald's, if you're listening and you want to hire us, then yeah, for £100,000, we will rewrite your mission statement. Anyway, the point I think where I feel like I've taken us off point here, and my point I think was that people think they sit down and they write 5, they go to the— go on this proverbial mountaintop for a weekend, they'll write out their 5 core values, they'll come back, They will pay £600 to get them stuck on the wall, and then they think, great, we have now nailed corporate culture, we've now nailed our workplace culture. And then they're worried, they're surprised when nobody even knows what they're talking about and nobody can recite even one.
WorkYeah, I think you're right. I think there is— if you can't, if you can't remember it, if you as the business leader can't remember it off the top of your head, it's probably too long, and certainly your people aren't going to remember that.
Al ElliottYeah, absolutely. Google started off and they don't use it anymore, but do no evil, I think, was there, was one of their, their, like, kind of core values. In fact, I think it was their core value. Do no evil, I'm sure, or not be, don't be evil. There was something like that. Now, obviously, they very quietly got rid of that around about 10 years ago.
WorkWhen they started to do evil.
Al ElliottBasically, yeah. When they started to track the shit, the ever-loving shit out of whatever you do.
WorkThe ever-loving shit. Oh, dear.
Al ElliottBut, uh, but yeah, so, um, so yeah, don't be evil is a really cool mission statement.
WorkYeah, but I've actually done the opposite, and I've, I've Googled like some good short, short succinct mission statements.
Al ElliottHit me.
WorkWould you like to hear some?
Al ElliottYes.
WorkHave you heard of Wix?
Al ElliottWix? Yeah, like W-I-C-A— oh, W-I-X or W-A-C-K?
WorkW-I-X.
Al ElliottYes.
WorkCreate your own professional web presence exactly the way you want.
Al ElliottAnd, and to be fair, Wix does do that. They are pretty much the Walmart of website builders. Um, they're not very good and they're quite expensive. And but the thing is, you're right, Wix won over— what was that other really badly named one with the— there was an advert on the UK TV with this German woman who's called IONOS or Um, but there's lots of the similar ones like this. Um, and Wix have won. Wix have won. They are, I think, the biggest. GoDaddy might be slightly bigger, or GoDaddy might have bought Wix. But yeah, so you can see why they've— why they've excelled.
WorkThey've grown because they've just gone, right, create your own professional web presence exactly the way you want.
Al ElliottThere you go.
WorkYeah, I've got some others. I've got some others, nice succinct ones. Google's changed theirs. He said, to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and See, I don't think you necessarily need to have that last bit. Just organize the world's information.
Al ElliottThat's it.
WorkAmazon.
Al ElliottEarth's biggest store.
WorkYeah. Oh, this is a good one. TED. Spread ideas.
Al ElliottOh, this is TED Talks, isn't it? Yeah. TED. Yeah. Obviously just amazing. Absolutely amazing. TED. Whatever they do, they are amazing. Spread ideas. And what's interesting is they're not— they could have gone back and go, oh, no, we only wanna spread good ideas. No. Good is subjective.
WorkGood.
Al ElliottWhat makes a good idea and a bad idea? In 1939, a certain Austrian guy had what everyone thought was some very good ideas. Turned out not brilliant at all. So it's very subjective what, what good is. So that's interesting. Anyway, moving on. I'm not quite sure. Didn't know where we're gonna go down that road when we started this podcast.
WorkYeah. One here from Starbucks. To inspire and nurture the human spirit. One person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time. I have no real opinion on that. Again, it's a bit, I think, again, you could stop after to inspire and nurture the human spirit, or probably just to inspire the human spirit. But I think what's interesting about Starbucks, and I think this is where people will have beef against mission and values if there is this incongruence, and particularly if your marketing comms team has been pushing this for a number of years, to inspire and nurture the human spirit, yet that human spirit is being mandated back into the office, that human spirit is being—
Al ElliottForced.
Workbeing paid less because they live in a place where that is socially acceptable for them to do so. It's this incongruence then that completely just, just makes it all very uncomfortable, very hypocritical, doubts of integrity in terms of leadership, and that whole, yeah, one person, one cup, one neighborhood at a time. Well, apparently it depends on the person, it depends on the neighborhood, doesn't it, Starbucks?
Al ElliottDefinitely. Yes. So congruence, integrity, authenticity.
WorkYeah.
Al ElliottSo that makes perfect sense. Is there anything we've not covered, Lee?
WorkNo, I'm just getting lost now in people's mission statements.
Al ElliottWell, that's our afternoon.
WorkOh, Casper, well done. Casper Mattress.
Al ElliottOh, okay.
WorkYeah, to awaken the potential of a well-rested world.
Al ElliottOh, you see, now that's nice and everything, but what I'm worried is that then that's what someone's gone, this is clever, isn't it? Oh, we like that. Everyone goes, we like that one, that's brilliant, because We've got 2 little euphemisms in there and they both relate to sleep. Oh yes, we've got it.
WorkAnyway, so I think we're starting to tip more into maybe marketing and, and sales now and, and product than necessarily culture. But anyway, so interesting. So there you go. That's something to ponder while you're on your sunbed. How many values do you have and how long is your mission statement? Because if you have more than 3 and it's more than kind of what, what are we saying?
Al Elliott6 words?
WorkYeah. If it's a sentence with more than one clause in it, it's probably too long.
Al ElliottThere you go.
WorkYeah. No commas. That's what we're saying.
Al ElliottNo. Oh, I like it. Values, not commas. I like it. Right. So let's— I think we'll leave it there, Aileen.
WorkYeah.
Al ElliottYeah.
WorkYeah.
Al ElliottOkay. So I hope you're having a fantastic August. And we'll be back with you next week on the YouTube, the YouTube. If you've seen Gavin and Stacey, you know what I'm talking about. Although that was a really bad impression. So we're on YouTube, we'll be on LinkedIn, and obviously we'll be coming into your ears on Spotify.
WorkOur American listeners like, what the hell talking about? You've not seen any British sitcoms then? Al's trying to be funny. He's not trying to be— what's the word?
Al ElliottCreepy. Creepy. Yes.
WorkCovering your ears.
Al ElliottThis last bit hasn't gone that well, so I'll leave it there. Say goodbye, Lee.
WorkBye, Lee.
Al ElliottBye-bye.