Episode 61 · 19 October 2023 · 43:43

What the 6th MAD World Summit Reveals About the Future of Mental Health at Work

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What is MAD World and why we went
other#mad world summit #workplace mental health #conference
The story behind MAD World with co-founder Simon
other#mad world summit #founder story #simon
Trend 1 — Allyship in action
other#allyship #workplace culture #diversity
Trend 2 — Healing from trauma
other#trauma #mental health #healing
Trend 3 — Anger in the workplace
other#anger #workplace #emotions
Trend 4 — Reasonable adjustments for all
other#reasonable adjustments #workplace accommodations #legal
Trend 5 — Emotional literacy
other#emotional literacy #self-awareness #emotions
Trend 6 — Individual wellbeing
other#wellbeing #organizational wellbeing #individual wellbeing

Show notes

What the 6th MAD World Summit Reveals About the Future of Mental Health at Work

Al and Leanne had the privilege of being the official podcast for the 6th MAD World Summit — and they came back with six major trends reshaping the landscape of workplace mental health.

From allyship in action to healing from trauma, reasonable adjustments for all, emotional literacy, individual wellbeing, and anger in the workplace — this episode distills conversations with nine expert guests, including leaders from the Bank of England, the RSPCA, IBM, ACAS, and First Direct, plus former Premier League footballer Clarke Carlisle and his wife and campaigner Carrie.

Whether you couldn't make the summit or just want the highlights, this is your backstage pass to the conversations shaping where workplace wellbeing goes next.

The Six Future Trends

1. Allyship in Action Shelley O'Connor (Performance Manager and LGBTQ+ Network Co-Chair at the Bank of England) explains why employee resource groups don't need to start big — sometimes it's just one or two people representing a community. And as Al puts it, allyship boils down to being a decent human being and not an asshole.

2. Healing from Trauma There's trauma with a big T and trauma with a little t — and both are showing up in the workplace. This trend explores how organisations need to create space for the little traumas that don't make the news but shape how people show up.

3. Anger in the Workplace The numbers of people reporting anger at work is rocketing. When you combine anxiety with powerlessness, anger is often what comes out. Isabel Berwick (host of the Financial Times' Working It podcast) frames it as a signal worth listening to, not just a problem to manage.

4. Reasonable Adjustments for All From a legal perspective, employers have obligations — but the word "reasonable" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Françoise Woolley (Head of Mental Health and Wellbeing at ACAS) and Kimberley Ward (Financial Inclusion & Vulnerability Lead at First Direct) share what reasonable adjustments actually look like in practice.

5. Emotional Literacy Being emotionally literate means being self-aware, recognising your emotions, and understanding how they show up in your behaviour. Clarke Carlisle's lived experience — five suicide attempts before 2017 — is a powerful reminder of what happens when we don't have the language for what we're feeling.

6. Individual Wellbeing Stuart Sandeman (DJ, BBC Radio 1's Decompression Session host, and founder of Breathpod) shares how he went from finance to breathing — and why the one tool you always have with you might be the most powerful one you're not using.

Meet the Guests

Shelley O'Connor — Performance Manager and LGBTQ+ Network Co-Chair at the Bank of England
Jeremy Gautrey-Jones — Assistant Director of Employee Experience at the RSPCA
Isabel Berwick — Host of the Financial Times' Working It Podcast
Amit Sidhpura — Global Business Strategy Leader for Talent Transformation at IBM
Clarke Carlisle — Former Premier League footballer
Carrie Carlisle — Mental health campaigner and Clarke's wife
Françoise Woolley — Head of Mental Health and Wellbeing at ACAS
Kimberley Ward — Financial Inclusion & Vulnerability Lead at First Direct
Stuart Sandeman — DJ, Breathpod co-founder, Sunday Times bestselling author of Breathe In Breathe Out

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

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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.

Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more. Nice.

Al ElliottCheck out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. And I got into breathing actually through grief. My girlfriend was diagnosed with terminal cancer and passed away, and it was a really challenging time, as you can imagine.

Leanne ElliottHello 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 is Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.

Al ElliottMy name is Al and I'm a business owner.

Leanne ElliottWe are here to help you simplify the science of people and create amazing workplace cultures.

Al ElliottYeah. And, um, Did we mention we were at the MAD World Conference?

Leanne ElliottHave we mentioned it at all? I dunno.

Al ElliottIf you were, if you follow us on LinkedIn, you will see we were all over that, weren't we? Mm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottI think we had to do something useful.

Al ElliottYeah. The quick story is that, um, there was a fire at Luton Airport, which is, if you don't know the UK, Luton is, uh, one of the airports outside of London and served by Croatia, which is where we were flying from, 'cause we live in Bosnia. Um, and there was a fire. And so we woke up about 4 o'clock on the day we was due to fly. Good job on this time because our flight got cancelled because of this fire. It was flying into the airport and all flights were cancelled.

Leanne ElliottSo yeah, all in all, it just meant that unfortunately I wasn't able to go, which was really rubbish.

Al ElliottBut you made your— you made the most of it though, because you were here and you were on LinkedIn every 30 seconds telling people what was going on, which I think actually helped cause a little bit of a buzz at the event because people were coming up to us and going, oh, I've seen you. Yeah, I've seen you on LinkedIn.

Leanne ElliottSo this episode is dedicated to the 6th MAD World Summit that happened last week on the 12th of October in London 10. I think that's what they call it. I don't know, I'm not from down south, I don't know. Uh, but yeah, we are bringing you this episode in collaboration with MAD World Summit and Make a Difference Media, which is the all-round media channel that supports both MAD World and its sister event, the Water Cooler, which you might remember, regular listeners, we attended April this year. Make a Difference Media is well worth checking out as a platform. It is packed with content. It has brilliant webinars, reports, interviews. I personally have been subscribed to their newsletter for about 18 months, and I Love it. So much valuable content. And you will also get a sneak peek at the speakers that are already confirmed for the Water Cooler in April 2024. That's the 23rd and 24th of April next year. Um, so yeah, do check it out, have a look. If you're— if you didn't attend MAD World, maybe you can attend the Water Cooler instead. So I will leave a link in the show notes, but do check it out. Go look at their website. It's makeadifference.

Al ElliottYeah, and it's well worth going to these events because you get to see or hear from lots of different people. And also the speakers just mill around as well, so you can talk to them. They're not like up on— well, they are up on stage, but it's not like they stay on stage. You can, you can actually go and speak to them. I spoke to some amazing people from the BBC, uh, L'Oréal, Bank of England, Mental Health First Aid. Uh, we had an interview, and we'd interviewed all of those. Don't worry, they're coming up. Calm down, they're coming up. All right. Um, we also spoke to Shauna Brown, who is An England rugby player. Uh, we also spoke to the BBC Radio 1 presenter of the Decompression Sessions. Easy for me to say. And that was Stuart Sandeman. We also spoke to the former Premier footballer Clark Carlyle and his lovely wife, Carrie. And we'll also be speaking to the amazing Isabel Berrick, who's got a podcast, a Financial Times podcast called Working It. We have so many conversations to bring you over the next few weeks, but for now, we're just gonna be sharing what we learned about the emerging trends in mental health. and wellbeing and what you, the listener, need to be— know, need to know about over the next 12 months.

Leanne ElliottYeah, it is a jam-packed episode with some awesome guests that we will introduce you to very soon. But before we do, I would like to just say thank you to the team at MAD World for looking after us again so well, especially co-founders Simon Berger and Mark Pagu, Global Head of Content Claire Farrow, and the rest of the event marketing and PR team, including Jasmine Brown, Kate Jeffrey and Susie Bashford.

Al ElliottAnd a shout out to the man with the coolest beard in the world. It's our lovely friend Gary Helmut Oboe, who provided yet again for the 4th time, 3rd time running, uh, a booth for us to record in that was soundproof and also looked really, really cool. If you wanna have a look at that, look at LinkedIn on some of the posts that Leanne's been sharing. You'll see the booth there. Um, if you're interested in any kind of office furniture, if you're interested in growing an amazing beard, Go and speak to Gary at obo.life, or I think it might be obolife.com now. I think that both of them will take you to the same place.

Leanne ElliottLovely. So today's show, we are going to be sharing with you what MAD World is, why we went, what happened, and who we spoke to. We're going to go through the future trends that we saw people talking about in terms of workplace culture and wellbeing. We're also going to talk about maybe why you should come next year and also why you should come to the Water Cooler. Yeah, the events really are so much fun and a more personal level, I guess, we met Simon Berger, who's one of the co-founders of MAD World and The Water Cooler, when we interviewed him for the podcast a while ago. It was on a, um, a VC—

Al ElliottYeah, it was on the VC Funding Podcast, part 1 and part 2.

Leanne ElliottThat's the one. Um, so yeah, speaking to Simon, we learned that he co-founded MAD World with his business partner Mark following a death by suicide in the family, and it was really a tragic event, and it made them both very aware of how significant and severe the impact of mental health can be, poor mental health can be. So yeah, I mean, if you've listened to last week's episode, you'll also know that Al and I have experience in suicide prevention. So from when we met Simon and talked to him more after he was on the show, the more we got to know him, the more we realized that our, our mission and our values are aligned. So when he invited us to the Water Cooler and subsequently MAD World, it was a no-brainer for us.

Al ElliottSo let's go and meet the 8 guests who are going to be on the pod today. Lee?

Leanne ElliottYes, our first guest is Shelley O'Connor. Shelley is Performance Manager and LGBTQ+ Network Co-Chair at the Bank of England. So Shelley O'Connor, pronouns she/her, um, and yes, LGBT Co-Chair, um, at the Bank of England. And I've been in co-chair for a few years now, but I've actually been in the bank for 12 years, um, so I'm a long-standing member, shall we say. And my day job, I'm working HR. So I'm a performance manager, so the appraisals, end-of-year performance, and all that fun stuff. I wouldn't say I'm famous. Um, I suppose on LinkedIn and social media I talk a lot about DE&I, and that's why I've been invited to be a speaker at this— today's event. So yeah, I would say if I'm famous for anything, maybe that.

Al ElliottThen I sat down with Jeremy Gautry-Jones, who's the Assistant Director of Employee Experience at RSPCA. If you're from The States, for example, I think it's called the SPCA over there, all about animals.

Leanne ElliottRoyal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Al ElliottHere's Jeremy. My name is Jeremy Gorch Jones. I'm the Assistant Director Employee Experience at the RSPCA. I've been with the RSPCA for 3 years, and what I'm famous for, probably within the RSPCA, is leading our quite flexible hybrid working strategy.

Leanne ElliottAnd of course, we were hugely excited to speak with Isabel Warwick, who is the host of the Financial Times' Working It podcast. So I'm Isabel Berrick. I have worked at the Financial Times for 22 years. I've done a lot of jobs. For the last couple of years, I've been a podcast host, and I have a weekly newsletter for our subscribers about the world of work. They're both called Working It, and it's about the modern workplace, the future of work, leadership, management, all those things that FT readers are very interested in.

Al ElliottAnd I sat down with Amit Sidhopura, who'd flown in all the way from Zurich just to talk to me. Not really, he'd flown in for the event, but he also managed to speak to me. He's a global business strategy leader for transformation at IBM, a small company. You may have heard of them. So yeah, my name is Amit Sidhpura. I'm currently based out of Zurich, Switzerland. So I flew in for this event and I'm just, yeah, just fascinating to be here. The last 15 years have basically been spent, all my passion is all about helping people transform. So up until 2019, all of that was from an organizational perspective. You know, how do we find the right people within the right organization, create the right culture, create the right environment to help engage Develop them so they have a fulfilling career. And as I mentioned before, we spoke to Clark Carlisle and his lovely wife, Carrie, who are the Mental Health Campaigners. They're a married couple who are dedicated to raising awareness for mental health and suicide and have a really, really personal story. What do we do? We share our lived experience around mental health, uh, adverse mental health. Uh, my personal journey is of recurrent complex depressive disorder that led to multiple suicide attempts. Um, and we share that, but most importantly, we share, uh, from both sides of that lived experience. So Carrie shares the impact that it had on her, uh, and our family. And along that, you know, going along with the brutal honesty that we share around the journey, it's not a sensationalised, um, you know, conversation or delivery. We talk about the practical implications and the practical applications of what we've learned.

Leanne ElliottAl also had the pleasure of speaking to Françoise Woolley, Head of Mental Health and Wellbeing at ACAS. So, my name's Françoise Woolley. I'm Head of Mental Health and Wellbeing at ACAS. So, essentially, my role has changed quite recently. So, for the last 3 years, I've been responsible for developing the mental health and wellbeing strategy internally to support our own staff and for delivering that. More recently, I've been more external-facing. So, I'm actually for ACAS, on behalf of ACAS, influencing policy, debate, practice around mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. So I work closely with other colleagues in ACAS, really to try and help develop our guidance, to develop our products around supporting mental health in the workplace.

Al ElliottI also sat down with Kimberley Ward, who's the Financial Inclusion and Vulnerability Lead at First Direct, which is a division of HSBC Bank. Kimberley's got an amazing story.

Leanne ElliottMy name's Kimberley Ward. I am the Financial Inclusion and Vulnerability Lead for First Direct Bank. I am famous, actually, for being the first person in the UK to undergo cochlear implant surgery whilst pregnant. This is a surgery for someone who is hearing impaired, profoundly deaf, and it is basically embedding an implant inside your skull to help you hear. That surgery is normally done under a general anaesthetic, which means you are put to sleep. However, because a general anaesthetic is dangerous to a foetus, Mm-hmm. I was offered the local anaesthetic, so quite a terrifying experience. And finally, thank you to producer Dean and Jasmine Brown from Notion. We were able to welcome Stuart Sandeman into the podcast pod. I loved it. I lost my shit when I heard this. Dean was like, oh my God, we've got Stuart. And I was like, what? If you haven't heard of him, Stuart is a DJ and host of The Decompression Session on BBC Radio 1. He is also co-founder of BreathPod and a Sunday Times bestselling author. His book is called Breathe In, Breathe Out.

Al ElliottI founded a company called Breathpod. Breathpod is really about giving people the tools to empower themselves. And a big tool that I use is breathing. Writing a book was never on my radar. I avoided writing as much as possible. So even when somebody floated the idea of writing a book, I was like, no way, that's not happening. So you've heard that we spoke to some fancy people. You heard that we had some really good interview— interviews and conversations. The question on your lips is probably, why do you need to care about this stuff? If you understand that investing in the mental health of your employees is the right thing to do, and I believe that if you're listening to this, you do, and if you're also a regular listener, you'll know and also believe that wellbeing means a healthier performance and a healthier bottom line. You'll also know that mental health is this complex, multifaceted problem. As business owners and leaders, we're only human. We get it wrong. So therefore, it's only by like continually learning and challenging ourselves, we can continue to create these amazing workplace cultures that we really want to create. So I'd like to hand over to Carrie Carlisle, who's gonna share a very personal experience that holds valuable lessons for us humans and leaders.

Leanne ElliottWell, this is a cycle, but let's take it back to 2017, uh, Clark's last, um, suicide attempt. And I knew Clark was poorly, but I thought he was depressed because he was telling me he was depressed. And he was telling me so succinctly, and like the whole world on the news and stuff, that I thought he was telling me the whole story, but he was just telling me the bits he was comfortable with. So actually, Clark was equally depressed and suicidal, but wasn't comfortable, so he just shut that bit off.

Al ElliottAnd I was like, well, he's communicating, right?

Leanne ElliottHe's communicating all the time. No, he's not. He's being selective. So I got that wrong. I took his symptoms personally. Clark wanted to sleep all the time. Instead of addressing that, oh, this is a medical thing, I took it as this is a personal thing, this is a relationship thing. I took it personally, and I didn't confront I dismissed and justified. And stuff like he didn't want to sit with me in the same room, he didn't want to make eye contact. And of course, then he disappeared and left me a suicide note. And that was when I had to start saying to myself, I can't handle this. This is— we need to get services involved now, the police. We have to get medics involved. He has to go to psychiatric hospital. It's not about me at all. It's about a very real illness. So, got it horribly wrong on a very public platform, and then practiced getting it right. I think Poor mental health, depression, feelings of suicide can affect anyone, and even the most successful people, as you know, we'll see with with Clark and many others, can suffer with mental health. It could affect you as well. We all, I think, have found ourselves in positions in our lives and in our businesses where we've known that people aren't okay, but we've not known the full story. We probably would have experienced selective communication as leaders that maybe resulted in a surprise resignation or period of sickness. We've probably also been in a situation as a leader where, you know, we, we knew something was wrong but we didn't confront it. We dismissed it, we justified it. As business owners, it is hard not to take resignations personally, or, you know, to get to the point where you feel lost or overwhelmed by the people and culture challenges that you're experiencing in your business. If you employ people, people are your business, and you have to take that responsibility seriously. Nobody wants to be a stop on somebody's downward spiral, so we have to invest in our own mental health, in the mental health of our teams, of our employees. And if you don't know how to do that, as Carrie said, engage somebody who does.

Al ElliottWell said, Leanne. Well said. So the trends that we're talking about In this particular episode, we, I told you there was gonna be 6 of them. They are gonna be allyship. We're gonna talk about workplace trauma, and that's big T and little t. Talk about reasonable adjustments, something which I don't, I hadn't really thought about before, but, uh, as Leanne will point out, emotional literacy for leaders, investing in individual wellbeing, and finally, a very strange one, anger. Why are we all so angry?

Leanne ElliottSo our first future trend is allyship. I'm not sure it'd be a surprise to anybody that equity, diversity, and inclusion continues to be at the, you know, near the very top of people and culture priorities as we finish off 2023 and move into 2024. But what really interested us was how this conversation is evolving. We'll be bringing you an episode soon that will feature leaders from— fancy, I can't believe we get to talk to these people— but yeah, leaders from the BBC, the University of Warwick, and NASA.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottSo let's hear from Shelley, who is LGBTQ+ Network co-chair at the Bank of England. So, uh, ERG Employee reference group networks. Different people have different names. We call them networks, staff networks, colleague networks, and they're the communities that are in an organization that can really make a difference in DE&I. So, and allies are important. So, as I mentioned, I'm co-chair of the LGBTQ+ network, and I'm the first ally co-chair of the network. The communities, and say 30 colleagues in a small organization or a small business, they still have a voice. They still have a different lived experience. Yeah. to the straight white male in the corporate world. So whether it's your colleagues of ethnic minority or people of color or LGBTQ+ or women, men, different genders, non-binary, like, so everyone will have a voice and have different lived experience. So for your organization to thrive, you need to listen to all voices around the table. So the networks, it doesn't have to be, if you're that small organization, have to be a well-organized steering group and meetings.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottIt could literally just be one or two people representing that community, because when you do eventually grow, because most businesses want to grow, you've got a starting block to kind of have that safe space for them colleagues. Yeah, I think it's a really interesting and necessary evolution of the conversation, I think, because I think when we've talked about EDI on the podcast before, Al, you quite rightly kind of served as the voice for business leaders that might be saying, well, what can I say? What can't I say? It feels like I'm You know, it's us and them. And, and, and I think what allyship first and foremost is how you, how you ensure that you show up for your people if you're representing them, but make sure they can show up for themselves. And I think what, what's really interesting about allyship in organizations, it's taking employee voice to that next level.

Al ElliottYeah. And I think that for anyone who's listening, they're going, oh my God, yet another word that I'm gonna have to learn and learn what it means.

Leanne ElliottYou want—

Al ElliottYes, you should. But really, it just boils down to just being a decent human being and not being an asshole. Um, and number 2 is Gen Z. This is— the Gen Z are all over this, and if you aren't all over it, then you are not going to be attracting Gen Z. So it's so important for a number of reasons, just to be a decent human being, but also to continue to be competitive in the workforce and attract the top talent that you know you want. So the 2nd trend is workplace trauma, and I was a little bit surprised to hear this. Um, hadn't really considered it before, but it was quite a theme across a number of our interviews, and it's definitely a future trend that needs to be on your radar. So we'll be bringing you a full episode with Dr. Clare Fernandes from the BBC and our featured guest today, Jeremy Gortree-Jones from the RSPCA. But just for now, here's a snippet of Jeremy explaining why we need it. One of the things we've done recently, uh, is we've introduced, uh, TRIM, Trauma Resource Management, which actually supports people who come across traumatic events in their workplace, and it helps them talk about those issues with a peer and prevents a spiraling decline in their mental health. We didn't design it. It's something that exists in the emergency services and was in the military as well. And we've taken that idea and brought it into the organization, and it's really popular and working well. It is aimed around people witnessing traumatic events. So, I mean, depending, you know, so there are lots of different jobs that that potentially could apply to. Um, so yes, I mean, we'd encourage any employer, um, who has staff that could witness such events, um, to actually look into TRIM. It's not only about trauma as in people who are, you know, like in the RSPCA, seeing horrific scenes. We're talking about all kinds of trauma here. And it's something which I think we brushed under the carpet perhaps as leaders of yesteryear. We might be going, oh, they'll be fine, just grow up, stiff upper lip, all that kind of stuff. Well, that's not going to cut it anymore.

Leanne ElliottI think what'll be interesting as we dive into this a bit more is that, you know, there's trauma with a big T and trauma with a little t. You know, employees that work for organisations like RSPCA or the NHS or the police, they will experience traumas with a big T. But there are plenty of other scenarios where people may experience smaller traumas or lighter traumas, traumas with a little t. I do think is, you know, the more that work and life come together, the more that they blend, these things are gonna need to be a consideration for leaders. And it always comes down again, doesn't it, to if you've got a good relationship with people in your team, you're gonna know that these things are going on. We're not gonna have those secrets that we talked to, to, um, Bonnie about a few episodes ago on toxic workplace cultures.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottUm, so yeah, I think trauma is going to be something that, that needs to be talked about for the, the little t traumas and for any organization that is, you know, creating an environment or has employees that may experience, um, uppercase trauma, then that is definitely something that, that needs to be managed. And I'm really looking forward to learning more about the framework that Jeremy shared there.

Al ElliottOkay, Leanne, and what's trend number 3?

Leanne ElliottTrend number 3, um, anger. Which, which I don't know whether it would be a surprise or not. I think when, when you first mentioned this was something that came up, I was like, huh. As I reflect, I was like, yeah. But you know, why, why are people angry? And what can we do to better manage anger in the workplace? We will be bringing you a much deeper conversation on this with Isabel Barrick from the Financial Times Working It podcast and another high-profile expert guest on anger that we are currently in talks with. But cross your fingers and toes. I'm pretty sure we will get them on the podcast. So yeah, but for now, let's hear from Isabel and her view on why anger is one of the biggest issues in the workplace today. What's the biggest issue in workplaces today? And I would say to you, anger.

Al ElliottOh, really?

Leanne ElliottAnger. People are angry. The numbers of people who report being angry at work is rocketing. When we did an episode on anger, it was incredibly popular. I think suppressed anger, whether it's suppressed or expressed, it doesn't come directly from the workplace. In many cases, it comes from outside. But the pressures that we're all feeling in terms of the global economy, society, the wars that are being fought on 2 fronts, we are feeling anxious, we are feeling uncertain, we are feeling powerless. And if that is replicated in a workplace, a lot of people feel powerless in their day-to-day job. And anger is, I think, the emotion that we are gonna have to learn to manage over the next 5 years, whether we are team members or managers. Yeah.

Al ElliottI think the, when you combine anxiety with powerlessness, which I think is what Isabel said, when you feel like you, you don't have control over something and there is so much uncertainty at the moment, God knows. I mean, at the, as the time recording, there's like at least 2 major wars going on in the world. Um, prices of everything seem to be doubling every day. And when someone feels that they don't have control over something and there's lots of uncertainty coming, that's where anger comes from.

Leanne ElliottYeah. I mean, it's, it's an emotion that is, you know, we've all heard the fight and flight. We've talked about it before. The anger is the emotion that is attached with that fight. If you're not leaving your organisation, you're gonna grit your teeth in and try and get through it. There is gonna be some negative emotion that comes with that, and one of those could well be anger. And like you say, it doesn't even have to be about anything you're getting angry about in the workplace. There's so much to get angry about right now.

Al ElliottAnger is number 3. What's number 4, Lee?

Leanne ElliottNumber 4 is reasonable adjustments. This is our 4th trend. From a legal perspective, as a business owner, you're probably familiar with the term reasonable adjustments, particularly in terms of if you employ somebody who has a disability or is perhaps returning to work following an injury. But what about reasonable adjustments in terms of when mental health constitutes as a disability? Employees are getting much more savvy about this. Like you said, Al, the Gen Z are all over these trends. They know that they are protected by the law, and it's becoming increasingly clear that businesses need to do more to step up to make sure that they are being compliant, they are putting in place these reasonable adjustments. And that's just even in the case of, you know, if we look at But the physical side of things. In terms of the mental health side of reasonable adjustments, this is a really interesting conversation and one we are going to hear get louder and louder over the next few months. I followed and used ACAS services for years to make sure that both myself and members of my team have got the support that we are legally entitled to. So I was really excited when Françoise Woolley decided that she would be on the show. She is head of mental health and wellbeing at ACAS.

Al ElliottYes, I think Leanne really sums it up there perfectly. I'll leave Françoise in a second, who's going to talk a little bit more about it. The key thing I think you need to remember is that this isn't just— although ACAS does come from the point of view of going, look, if you don't make these adjustments, then as Françoise says, you have to open your wallet and pay, pay the compensation. But also, when you do make them, then it just has a direct impact on your bottom line, a direct impact on your culture, a direct impact on your people. So here's Françoise.

Leanne ElliottReasonable is a word that's used in employment law, really. So employers have a legal obligation if someone has a disability to put in place what's called reasonable adjustments to make sure that that person is not disadvantaged as a result of their disability. So to reduce or remove any kind of barriers for them, really. What is reasonable really depends on the employer. So a large employer is going to have more financial capability to put in certain adjustments than a smaller kind of an SME. So, it's thinking about, you know, what's practical, what's reasonable, what's financially available to try and remove that barrier for that individual. So, that's the word reasonable, really. Employers get really hung up on that kind of what, you know, what constitutes a disability. So, many people with mental health difficulties, they won't necessarily think of themselves as having a disability. But under the Equality Act, the definition is that it's a physical or mental health impairment that has a substantial, long-term, and adverse impact on someone's ability to do their day-to-day activities. What we say at ACAS is that actually, irrespective of that diagnosis, if someone is struggling, or if there are adjustments you can put in the workplace that is going to support someone to help them not just stay in work, but thrive at work and produce their kind of best work really, then why would you not do that? So we would recommend that So Françoise shared her insights on a panel session that also included Kimberley Ward, who's Financial Inclusion and Vulnerability Lead at First Direct. We spoke to Kimberley about her own personal experience and how making these reasonable adjustments, as Al said, can not only improve mental health but can improve employee engagement and be good for business. So, um, I'm here as a speaker today at the Make a Difference conference to talk about reasonable adjustments. And, um, one of— I've had quite a number of negative experiences, um, in education and working, um, as well, where I have asked for reasonable adjustments. It was simple things like, can you just tell me where you're going to be standing just so I know where I can position myself so I can feel included and that I can hear you? And would you mind maybe not turning around facing the other way? Um, and someone actually turned around and said to me, I can't make just adjustments just for you. There's 40 people in this room.

Al ElliottWow.

Leanne ElliottIn this room, and I didn't feel my request was out of— out, you know, out there. It was just, where are you standing so I can sit myself in a way that I can be involved? And, you know, that had a massive impact to me and my mental health. So I think one thing that people should really think about is just talking to people. Listen, be open. Sometimes you don't need to say anything at all. It's just be there, hear. and take that feedback on board and then support that individual in a way that meets their needs, because they will provide that support back to you tenfold. They will be loyal to you. You know, you can reduce your staff attrition. And where you have a business that has direct customers as well, that has a knock-on impact to their performance and ability to provide fantastic customer service. And that's something that we really, really promote in the First Direct Bank.

Al ElliottWe'll be hearing much more from Françoise and Kimberley a bit later, well, in subsequent episodes. Also, I think we might include the clip about Kimberly's hairy legs. Um, we'll, we'll leave that for when we, uh— She did say it, and she said we could, we could publish it. So I will put that in the next episode. Um, so really the bottom line is make reasonable adjustments, because not only because you have to and it's against the law if you don't, but also because, like we said before, don't be an asshole. Be a decent human being and look after your people. The 5th of the 6th Trends was emotional literacy for leaders. Leadership is, was the key theme and is the key theme in any mental health conversation. But the fact is now we are now looking much more in terms of leadership and emotional literacy for leaders.

Leanne ElliottYeah, I mean, being emotionally literate means being self-aware, recognising your emotions, recognising how those emotions affect your behaviour, and really crucially, understanding how to manage your emotions. We're just concluding some research at the moment that's looked at leadership and really highlighted the importance of emotional literacy when it comes to being effective as a leader. And that's including people's willingness to engage with a leader and to follow that leader. Let's hear more on this trend, emotional literacy, from Amit Sadapura from IBM.

Al ElliottThe session I did today here was all around thoughts and emotions. Now, when you talk about someone, You know, when you talk about thoughts and emotions, you're like, okay, I get it. That's good. But imagine even if you turn around and look a little bit deeper, it basically adds into every aspect of your life. Every experience is associated with your thoughts or your emotions, right? But we've never been again told how to basically connect and understand those. So, you know, I grew up in the— I was born in '84, so I grew up in a period of time where You know, from a masculine perspective, everything was supposed to be macho, right? You're not supposed to show any form of emotion. You're not supposed to have, like, not cry, nothing. And I shared an example on stage where, you know, where I was playing, you know, we were doing PE. Obviously you had to do it once a week and then you'd play different kinds of sports. I didn't mind the other ones, but I hated rugby. I apologize to all those rugby fans, right? And I remember that when I told the the teacher at the time that I wasn't feeling comfortable doing this, I got called a pansy in front of everyone and everyone laughed, right? So these are all, again, it's not to call anyone out, but this is how life works. So as a little kid, as you grow up, and I grew up in a normal family, there's nothing different about that, but it's, you grow up in a society where you've been conditioned that you're supposed to be hard, you're supposed to be fearless, and that's the masculine figure. And you aspire to do that afterwards. It almost becomes like a thing.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottAnd the more you do that, you almost move away from who you really are. So it's, it's like going into a wrestling ring and having that persona, and you forget that you've got a persona because you just keep living it, or you're an actor and you forget you're acting. So almost your life becomes the set. And this was interesting. It just carries on, right? And then through my life, I had various other experiences. A lot of them were personal challenges. And again, when I was going through these personal challenges, I don't know how to deal with them. I had no idea. There's no book to write on that. So you try your best. And generally when I tried my best, I screwed it up even worse. Right. And then what I did is, okay, I remember on a particular day, on a particular occasion, I said, I'm going to suppress it because I don't know how to deal with these things.

Leanne ElliottClark Carlyle had a similar lived experience in this challenge of experiencing emotions, processing emotions, managing emotions, led to multiple suicide attempts. Let's hear from the former Premier League footballer Clark Carlyle.

Al ElliottPrior to 2017, 5 suicide attempts, you know, bring me to that point. And people say that, that men are poor communicators, or, you know, general society, we're not great communicators. My actions were screaming that there was something that warranted attention. But because I didn't know that there was something to be looking for, we dealt with each action individually as though that was the root of the problem. For example, you know, I was cyclically going on massive self-sabotage, self-destruct benders, for want of a better word. You know, big drinking benders, 3, 4, 5 days going missing, turning my phone off. And we looked straight at the alcohol. Oh, alcohol's the problem. So I go to the clinic, I come out of there, I'm sober. But just because there's no alcohol anymore, it doesn't mean I'm not still exploding in these, you know, self-sabotage behaviors. Now, what I didn't know was that that was me in a position of overwhelm where I couldn't manage the emotions that I was trying to suppress. And what I was doing was just expertly Avoiding or distracting. So that's what all my maladaptive coping mechanisms and behaviors were, whether it was drinking or gambling or playing computer games, or like Carrie said, when I was in those deep throes of depression, it was hypersomnia. I'd sleep for 30 or 40 hours straight. But we'd look at me as though, you know, what are you doing these for? As opposed to looking at the symptoms and saying, oh, what are these showing us?

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottWe've covered in some depth before the male mental health or mental health for men. I'm thinking back to Kate Goodgett from Langer Rourke, where she's got a predominantly male workforce, um, who she's helping to deal with mental health. Then we go back to the amazing Jim Young and our very, very intimate conversation around about mental health, um, earlier this year. I think that Leanne's told me this stat, something about 96% of all footsie CEOs are men. Is that right?

Leanne ElliottYeah. For C350, 90, 95, 96%.

Al ElliottSo of course we wanna, we wanna rebalance that, but at the same time, we have to assume now that of these leaders, a lot of them are potentially gonna be struggling with mental health. And so how do we ensure that men, men's mental health is top of the agenda?

Leanne ElliottYeah. And I think, you know, emotional literacy is for everybody, but I think, you know, what, what the data shows is in terms of suicide rates being much higher amongst men. It is something that I think perhaps male leaders, men need to, to really think about prioritizing because it, it kills. It's, it's killing the men in our lives, as you know, Carrie and, and Clark explained so, so candidly. I think as well, when we think about, you know, the, the prevalence of men in leadership roles and we think about our other trends as well about allyship, about anger, Building emotional literacy will help with both of these things. It will help people process anger in a more functional way, away from the workplace, in a way that isn't detrimental to teams. It will help men and other members of majority communities show up. I think, yeah, you can say it's emotional intelligence, but I think it's slightly different. It's not so much about understanding others, it's about understanding yourself. And that is a really Great, great place to start.

Al ElliottYeah, we'll be doing a follow-up episode, uh, with Amit about, uh, about emotional literacy, uh, but also how suppressing these feelings can really impact your mental health and it creates this sense of loneliness. So look out for the episode, it'll be coming up soon, and I'm gonna call it The Lonely Leader because it's a, it's, it's alliterative. So trend number 6 is individual wellbeing. We've always thought about wellbeing, but I think that we've tended to come at it from the, on this podcast, from a point of view of organisational wellbeing, and, and we're starting to now narrow it down and talk about individual wellbeing.

Leanne ElliottI think we are bullish on, on wellbeing and looking at wellbeing from an organisational level because we know that this systemic change is the only thing that will improve overall mental health and wellbeing, will eliminate burnout, will create a society, businesses, organisations in which people thrive. The thing is, we can invest in our own individual wellbeing, our own resilience as much as we like. But if we're going back to a toxic workplace again and again and again, that individual-level resilience ain't going to make much difference. That said, now these organizational-level conversations are being had and change is starting to happen, we need to make sure we don't lose focus on the equal importance of individual wellbeing. We need to take accountability for investing in that.

Al ElliottAbsolutely. We're going to be bringing you a special episode on how to build individual wellbeing. As a business owner, a leader, or as employee over the next few weeks, featuring all the senior leaders from HSBC, Peppy Health, and all the other people we mentioned before. Just today is a little bit of a sort of a teaser. We'd like to introduce you to Stuart Sandeman, who's BBC Radio One DJ and the host of the Decompression Sessions. He has this incredibly moving story about how he discovered breathwork and how it can help as a powerful coping mechanism. And I got into breathing actually through grief. My girlfriend was diagnosed with terminal cancer and passed away. And it was a really challenging time, as you can imagine. And I didn't find breathing at that time. I didn't really have many coping mechanisms. But when she passed away, one thing that amazing that happened, I took my mom for Mother's Day to a breathing class. That's as far as I thought about breathing. I'd spent my life too busy to breathe.

Leanne ElliottI've been all—

Al Elliottbefore my music, I worked in finance. And so I'd kind of jumped from a few things before that. I was quite heavily involved in sport. When my girlfriend passed away and I was in a bad headspace, breathing— I came across breathing. Sounds so simple, that thing we do all day, every day. And it literally changed my whole outlook. It was like the light bulb switched on. I had a very powerful experience. I felt like the weight of grief was pulled off me, but it also felt like my girlfriend was there holding my hand saying, this is exactly where you need to be, which is very strange, very weird, very wonderful, very helpful, but also left me with more questions than answers.

Leanne ElliottSo that's where I set off on this journey around breathing and breath.

Al ElliottLike, what just happened in this session? Why haven't I been looking at breathing before? If this is the one thing that keeps us alive, Why was I not looking at breathing as a tool to manage myself throughout my life, whether that was sport, whether that was creatively with music, whether that was being in a busy office when I worked in finance? So that's what got me into breath and breathing. And I think for many practitioners or many people, when you find something that impacts you so heavily and you find something that helps you transform So much because it wasn't just grief. That was like the onion layer that peeled off. I felt like obviously worked through grief, but then my sleep got better, my energy improved. I started to realize deeper aspects of myself, the way I'd been living, the way I'd been thinking, the way I'd been operating, the reactive states that I was in, my deeper kind of belief systems from my past.

Leanne ElliottSo I started to really kind of uncover Did you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?

Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.

Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.

Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking.

Leanne ElliottAnd you're not wrong.

Al ElliottI'm not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—

Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the 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.

Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?

Al ElliottIt can.

Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking monkeys.

Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.

Leanne ElliottBut come back.

Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this, so come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in. Okay, as a quick recap then, the future trends we talked about, first of all was allyship, secondly was workplace trauma, remember big T, little t. Then we talked about reasonable adjustments and how that is now moving into the mental health arena. We talked about emotional literacy for leaders. We talked about investing in individual wellbeing. And finally, we talked about anger. In actual fact, just to confuse you, I think we did that in a slightly different order, but you'll have to go back and listen. Yeah, exactly. Go back and listen again, and that will help us with our, with our download figures.

Leanne ElliottYes, we will be bringing you more detailed conversations on these future trends over the next few weeks, and you'll be hearing so much more from the incredible guests that we featured today alongside other people that we met at the MAD World Summit, including England rugby player Shauna Brown, Justin Boxall from Mars, and Malcolm Staves from L'Oréal. I am very disappointed that Al did not ask the final question I put on the sheet for Malcolm, which was, how do we get signed up to their PR list for skincare and makeup?

Al ElliottYou know, I did say to Malcolm that I've got that joke I want to say because you're worth it, but then he looked at me with such a death stare And he said, don't. And I was like, okay, I'm not the first person to try and crack that joke. So he didn't seem in the mood for me to ask for a load of free stuff for you. So, uh, sorry about that.

Leanne ElliottFair enough. Fair enough. Well, um, I'll, I'll, I'll drop Malcolm an email. It's fine.

Al ElliottLook out, Malcolm.

Leanne ElliottDo check out the show notes. As always, you'll find links to our guests. You'll find links to the MAD World Summit and Make a Difference Media. You'll also find additional links from Make a Difference Media with more conversations from some of our guests today and others in the future. If you weren't able to attend MAD World Summit and you are experiencing, like I was last week, some serious FOMO, don't worry, we've got you. Registration for the Water Cooler happening the 23rd and 24th of April 2024 is now open. It is happening at the Excel in London, and you might even see us there.

Al ElliottYes, you may well see us there. And, but you will definitely see us next week for another episode where we're gonna be talking more in depth about some of these themes we've talked about today. So if you're not registered, registered isn't the word. If you're not subscribed, then click— we've got registration on the mind with all these, all these shows. If you're not subscribed, click subscribe, please. And if you would feel like leaving a review, then we'd love a 5-star review. And Al is amazing. Leanne's okay, but you know, he has to have someone to bounce off. That's just a suggestion for your review.

Leanne ElliottHow rude.

Al ElliottBye for now. Bye.

Chapters & timestamps

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What the 6th MAD World Summit Reveals About the Future of Mental Health at Work

The Six Future Trends

Meet the Guests

More From This Episode

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