190: Is being busy a personality? PLUS! Being lucky, manager mates and job offer red flags - This Week in Work, 22nd April 2025
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Coming up this week in work, would you hire someone just because they said they were lucky? Well, Jeff Bezos did. And according to new research, that answer might reveal more about a candidate than you think. And a landmark study of one million employees has revealed the one thing that great teams always get right. It's not talent or budget or

or even workload. It's how the team is led day in, day out. So what exactly do the best managers do differently? Stay tuned to find out. And in the workplace surgery, what if it's not your job you hate, but the entire idea of working? One listener questions the nine to five grind.

and wonders whether they're being idealistic or just saying what everyone else is thinking. We're also going to hear from Cas Briscoe on why being consistently busy isn't a personality and what we should be doing instead. This is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a choice occupational psychologist. My name is Al and I'm a business owner. And together we help organisations build amazing

amazing workplace coaches. Let's dive straight into this week's episode right after a very quick word from our sponsors.

Al, you've spent hours on Tumblr, haven't you? Yes, I have. I jump on for just like five minutes and look up and it'll be 11 o'clock. Well, guess who's just solved a huge problem for Tumblr? Mm-hmm. I think I know the answer. You do? It was HubSpot. HubSpot to the rescue yet again. So this is what happened, right? Tumblr needed to move fast to produce trending content, but their marketing team was stuck waiting on these engineers to code every single email campaign. And Al, you know how engineers want everything to be perfect.

Well, fast forward to today and they now use HubSpot's customer platform to email real-time trending content to millions of users in just seconds. And the impact? Well, it's had three times more engagement and double the content creation. Very nice. I know. If you want to move faster like Tumblr, visit HubSpot.com.

Welcome back. It's Leanne's favourite time of the week. It's time for the news roundup. It is. It is my favourite time of the week. Cue the jingle. Let's cue it. Okay, my love, what have you seen this week? I've got a new word. You always have a new word. Go on. Not always, but this one actually made it into the air. It's being considered for inclusion in the Cambridge Dictionary. Fancy. The word is alonement. Alonement.

Not allotment. Not allotment. Alonement. So am I going for the, am I going to guess the definition of what you're saying? Alonement is when you like to be alone. It's the alonement. So you have some alonement time. All about.

Yeah, pretty much. But specifically, it's in the office. Right. So, alonement is a designated area in an office where an employee can go to work in silence and privacy without being distracted by their colleagues. So, basically, you're on a little corner to think, breathe in, and get stuff done without any kind of interruption. Yeah, so apparently it's been called a mini fortress of solitude without leaving the office.

Quite grand. It is a little bit, isn't it? Basically, it's the broom cupboard. Yeah, and I think it makes sense, really. After a few years of working at home in relative peace, many people are finding the return to...

to open plan offices a little bit overwhelming. All the noise, constipability, pressure to be on, not being able to just go and make a cup of tea whenever you want. So yeah, that's what it is, is being coined alonement. Al, thoughts? I'm a huge, huge fan of quiet time. Also a big fan of being able to like having a different area for different work. No, no, not everyone can do that, but...

It's kind of nice if you're working, like Leanne and I work in an office together. It'd be kind of nice if you had another separate space, which you do, actually. We built a little breakfast bar. So you go and sit there sometimes and you work. And I just want to go there and work somewhere else. Or just go there and... Is it soundproof? Can you screen? Well, it's not specifically. I think it's more that it's just a designated space. But I agree. And I think when...

Long term listeners will know when we've recorded the podcast from Water Cooler, from Clark and Mel Design Week, we partnered with an organization called Oboe who provides with a mute pod, which is basically like, it's like a large telephone box.

Don't tell Gary you described it like that. Well, you know, you know what I mean. Go Google it. But it was brilliant. And actually when we did it at Clerkenwell, I actually sat down with somebody I knew and we just went in there because obviously it's very busy. It's basically the middle of a conference kind of place, hall, and just sat and had a cup of tea and chatted and had the most conversation.

sensitive conversation like you would want nobody to overhear that conversation and we felt entirely comfortable even though we could see everyone else around us yeah so I think if it is soundproofed it could be a good idea it does of course go into question why don't we just let people work from home on the days that they have this high focus work

But equally, you know, that's a different, different thing. And we do know there's lots of research about this. Do go and check out Dr. Craig Knight, who's been on the show before. We actually talked about this from Clark and Mel Design Week about design thinking and mental comfort and how aesthetics and autonomy can actually impact our emotions and our job satisfaction. So, yeah, physical comfort is unsurprisingly has a direct impact on

on our emotional comfort. So yeah, leave a link to some studies if you're interested in the actual science of it. But there you go. That's our new word of the week, alonement. Alonement. I like it. I definitely want, yeah. Nobody knows this, but apart from maybe my brother who's just been with us, hello Andy, is that we're building a house next year or this year and next.

And one of the major things we're building into that, into the office, is a small space where you can go and take your laptop and just go either work or just sit and watch YouTube or whatever it is. So yeah, we'll have an alonement space. We'll call it the alonement suite, even though it's just going to be a cupboard.

Okay. All right, well, I'll tell you what I saw this week, and this is one for all you hiring managers out there. I've been reading about Jeff Bezos, you know, off of Amazon. I've heard of him. Yeah, sending celebrities into space this week. They all seemed to get a little bit overwhelmed when they came back to Earth after 18 minutes of being in the lower atmosphere. I think Katy Perry kissed the soil. She was like, oh my God. It's like, come on, love. It's not like you've been in space. A bit insensitive considering those people are in space for like nine months. But anyway, yeah.

That's enough. I kissed the earth and I liked it. That's a Katy Perry song. So Jeff Bezos, back to Jeff Bezos. He had an interview question when he was running the show at Amazon. Bit weird, but apparently brilliant according to psychology. Reading this in Inc. magazine, which would be my want. I will leave a link to that in the show notes. So what is the question? The question is, are you a lucky person? Something which Taxi Driver, I think, first...

first started back in about 1988 um that's a weird reference for you so the question is are you a lucky person that's it it's not like brain teas it's not like where do you see yourself in five years um it's just do you consider yourself lucky now you might be thinking bed sauce was a bit woo back in the day but actually there's some real smart thinking behind this because first off it's a brilliant test for humility because if someone says yeah i've been pretty lucky in life they

They're essentially admitting not everything they've achieved is down to them being brilliant and superhuman and just all-round awesome. They recognize that some of it was being in the right place at the right time. Warren Buffett calls it winning the ovarian lottery, I think, which is...

slightly weird way of putting it, but, you know, the fellow's worth billions, so I think we'd better let him have that one. Secondly, there's this really interesting psychology experiment. I should know how to say that word, shouldn't I? Psychology experiment, where researchers gave people a newspaper and asked them to count the pictures in the newspaper.

The clever ones, this is according to the study, the clever one finished in seconds because on page two there was a massive box saying this paper has 43 images you can stop reading now. So the people who spotted this, they tended to be the ones who described themselves as lucky. Well,

Whereas everyone else just carried on just counting all of the pictures. We should definitely go and read this because it's really interesting because I think that some people who they interviewed afterwards, they saw the box, even though they weren't counting all the things and counting all the pictures and carried on, they saw the box but assumed it was a bit of a trick.

So basically what we call luck is actually being alert to opportunities, which is obviously pretty handy in the business world, really. So those people who saw themselves lucky, saw the box saying you can stop now, there's 43, wrote down 43, went out a cup of tea and won.

The last thing I suppose about this study, which was pointing out, was that people who think they're lucky tend to be optimistic. And optimists, according to some research from the University of Pennsylvania, actually end up with better financial health than pessimists. So next time you're interviewing someone, maybe chuck in this Bezos classic. See what happens. Lee, what are your thoughts? Bad advice. Don't do what I just said. Really? Really.

It's not, I mean, you shouldn't be including questions like this in your recruitment process. And, you know, because the whole point of asking a question is to assess somebody's suitability for a job or help you predict their future performance in a job. And that's going to be based on a job analysis. So it's not exactly going to be linked to the job. You might want to include it in terms of

kind of exploring personal attributes. And you're right, there is research that does show that optimism, which is a key part of our psychological capital, along with hope, self-efficacy and resilience, can predict change.

Better outcomes in terms of relationships, in terms of mental health potentially, in terms of work potentially. And all this is rooted in positive psychology, which yes, optimism and optimistic positive thinking is good for us and will probably help us succeed in all areas of our life, including work. But the problem is, and I think particularly with the example that you used about the box system,

So what they were saying is that lucky people found the box and then used that to finish the task quicker. Yeah, yeah. It's a bit, is that really the cause and effect going on here? I'm not sure in terms of linking that back to being lucky because you also said, and I don't know whether this included the study or whether this is your just little assessment of it, you said the intelligent people saw the box and

and then knew that that was the answer and they could finish the task. We know that general mental ability is the best predictor of future job performance. So it could just be that actually that exercise is identifying intelligence rather than somebody's perception of luck. The other problematic aspect of this question is that you are going to get people who...

aren't particularly lucky in terms of how they define that word, which they might look at more as a privilege. I go, do you know what? I'm not particularly lucky, actually. I was born into, you know, a tough background and school didn't always work out that well and blah, blah, blah. So am I lucky? No. But despite that, I've done X, Y and Z. And that kind of shows what Adam Grant talks about in Hidden Potential is that you're kind of measuring people's

from different start points. So if I graduate with a 2.1 from the University of Manchester, coming from a middle class, two-parent family where I had a good education, some might say that was underperformance. Or it's okay, it's a 2.1, good.

If somebody has come from a very poor background, haven't been encouraged in school, maybe got into trouble with the police in their early teens, managed to turn it around, go to university and get a 2.1 from Manchester University...

they're probably showing a bit more resilience, a bit more grit, whatever you want to call it, than I have because they've achieved something that was even harder for them to achieve. So we're not comparing apples and apples, you know. It's a lot more complicated. It massively oversimplifies it. Can it be...

an indicator of somebody's mindset yes should it be used to make hiring decisions absolutely freaking not and it's another example of one of these things from you know tech startup that gets drawn into by small businesses and they do it and it's hugely problematic for the talent they bring in and potentially the unlawful hiring practices they're engaging in but that aside it's a cute story isn't it

Well, how about this one is a different idea. This is another idea. Nothing to do with this article. I read it a few months ago. So a recruitment manager takes all of the people who've applied...

And then just goes through and counts one, two, three, four, and puts the fifth in the bin. One, two, three, four, fifth in the bin. Because he doesn't like unlucky people, and they're unlucky if they were number five on the row. Is that a valid way of recruiting? It's just nonsense. I did obviously read that. Are you serious? I think it was someone in GE or something. I don't like unlucky people, and if they're unlucky enough to be in the bin, then they're not good enough to work for me. Oh, my God, Complex.

Just a quick one. I have the power. He's a bit like the gladiator, like, thumbs up. Yeah, they live. Yeah.

Am I not entertaining you? Anyway, just a quick one. Was that the quote? I haven't seen that film for years. Just a quick thought. If you do want to find out what's working right now in recruitment, then I have a very timely and essential resource for you. Our guest on Thursday is Nick Huber, the sweaty startup guy. If you've not heard of him, you've probably seen him on Twitter. He's got like millions of people who follow him on Twitter, whatever.

He's built businesses that do more than 30 million in annual revenue and he employs over 300 people. He's got a brand new book that I got a pre-release copy of and it is brilliant. Rather than the same old like theory stuff, which I'm sorry, Leanne, but some of this stuff which I read just feels a bit theory heavy. This one is really about how he properly built it, how he properly recruits great people and exactly what he did to build his empire.

go and pre-order his book at Amazon wherever you get your books it's out next week and tune in on Thursday because he's here and as you can probably tell I'm fanboying a little bit because I've been following him for years if you remember the sweaty start up from Reddit days that's him that's the guy I think that's enough fanboying for this week shall we move on yes for your best what have you seen Leanne I saw

I saw a study this week. It's a study from 20, is it 22 or 24? Maybe 2022. But it was new to me and I was very, very excited by the results. A study of one million employees found that one thing that great teams always have in common and it's leadership. Ain't no surprise to you that is it Al? No. If you do one thing

Train your managers. Exactly. So this was published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and the research pulled together 202 peer-reviewed studies from across industries and countries that covered nearly a million employees. This is called a meta-analysis. We enjoy meta-analysis. Wow.

We like them. Anal eye? No, that's not really. You don't want to be talking about your anal eye, do you? Sorry. Carry on. Metro analysis. Analysis. Carry on. So a million employees. So the focus of the research was what happens when you zoom out from the individual and look at actually how teams experience work as a whole. So rather than focus on my individual levels of resilience or my level of positivity or intelligence, what happens if we look at things like leadership, workload support, autonomy and trust?

The researchers only included studies that used what's called multi-level data, which basically means that employees were studied within real teams or departments, not just individuals in isolation, which is even better because we're actually getting some kind of real life team examples. They then looked at how team-wide conditions affected three outcomes. Number one, productivity, so performance, efficiency, service quality. Number two, health, psychological and physical outcomes.

And work-related well-being, so that's employee engagement, job satisfaction, commitment. And the results were really pretty convincing. Leadership was the most consistent, positive influencer across all outcomes. And strong, ethical, supportive leaders, so servant leadership or high-trust relationships, made a measurable difference. These teams didn't just feel better, they performed better.

Other resources mattered too, so teams with clear roles, learning opportunities and mutual support saw higher engagement output. But uncertainty, like unclear expectations, unstable roles were consistently damaging. Interestingly, workload wasn't always the villain. High workloads only became a problem when teams lacked the structure and support to handle them. So in the right environment, people were willing to stretch as long as they felt trusted and backed.

So Al, convincing research, a sample of one million. If the conditions around a team can make or break performance and leadership is the biggest lever, why?

in the name of RuPaul Charles, do so many businesses still treat it like a soft skill rather than a strategic priority or worse, not even train their managers at all? Because they're freaking idiots who don't listen to you. That's why. If you're listening to this and if you listen to this, you probably believe train your managers, you probably believe it. But if on the off chance you are listening to this and going, yeah, look, you know, we'll sort out the engagement first, then we're going to get onto the management or we'll sort out recruitment first, then we'll go into engagement and then we'll sort out the management part of everything.

You're doing it wrong. You're doing it arse about face. You need to start with the management, then work on your engagement. Then only then when you've got great managers and a great engagement, as in everyone loves there and they're all in that metaphoric boat rowing the right way, then you can start bringing new people in. Don't try and fix it. I've got loads of analogies around sales and marketing. I won't go into that because I always bring them up.

Yeah, I'm a believer. I am a believer, Leanne, and I am 100% behind you with the training management. Just as a quick aside, if you are interested in teams, then we had an episode last week with the amazing James Hawkins from PostHog, and he has teams of two to six people. He's got about 180 people across his organization, and they're all broken into teams of two to six, and they just work on one thing, and there's like an entire little mini company in there.

Do you remember, Lee, from the interview, was there anything that you saw in this study that James was doing that you went, oh yeah, that feeds into this interview? I'm putting you on the spot here. Um, I trust was a big thing, autonomy. Um,

So yeah, and I think the structured support. So James talked a lot about kind of, I'm going to make this change, but this is the channel to tell me what's wrong with that. So yeah, having that influence is important. I think another really cool takeaway from this, if you're a small business owner who's listening and has team members or even a manager,

a middle manager and has a team that's starting to to moan a little bit about workload and how high the workload is and there's nothing you can do about that workload then it might be worth looking at well what can I do to either give you more clarity over your role the expectations in terms of performance uh the support um that I'm providing that can actually as that this study showed

alleviate um the negative impacts of a high workload so if you can't do anything about the load maybe look at something you can do about the wraparound support you're providing for your team fabulous i love it when you explain what this what this what the uh the surveys and the research does because like meta i'd never heard of that i've never heard of this multi-level data that's cool there's another word longitude so just tell me again what longitudinal research means longitudinal um

means over a long period of time so the most famous will be the Harvard study on happiness which has been going for like 80 years it's a longitudinal study so a longitudinal study will typically mean we'll see if

We'll see how behavior is over time, which is going to be typically more reliable, particularly if there's other things that might influence behavior, which it would over 80 years in terms of economic crisis and et cetera, et cetera. Cry sigh. Cry sigh. We can confidently say that relationships are the biggest predictor of happiness because we've measured lots of people over a long period of time with lots of different influences and that has stayed consistent, which is why longitudinal studies are pretty good. Yeah.

If you're listening to this and you think, wow, Leanne's amazing. Yes, she is. Go into the show notes, send her an email. First of all, tell her she's amazing. And secondly, see if she'll work with you.

You should come and do that because you need Leanne in your organization. Anyway, talking of needing people, you might need a little break after our, after, after anal eye. So after this very short break, I don't know why I brought it up again. Don't know. After this, after this very short break, we're going to be back with a hot take from the amazing Cass Briscoe, who thinks that if you're overwhelmed, then you fundamentally misunderstood what work is. Don't go anywhere.

Leah, do you know who I think is awesome? Me. Well, yeah, of course. Yes, of course. But also my long-term hero and former guest, Joe Feer, who's the host of Hustle & Flowchart podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Of course. I remember when you booked Joe as a guest last year and you were so excited. Yeah, he's just an awesome guy. I've been listening to his podcast since about episode 100, long before we joined the network. And I tell you what, if you like systems...

mindset tweaks, reframes and strategies to actually enjoy the process of being in business. And this podcast is right up your street. Now it's true. Joe does love talking about building business systems, which isn't entirely my bag. But when you bear in mind that he loves talking about these systems so he can work less and live more, I'm there for it.

He also has loads of guests I know our listeners are going to love too. Yeah, like episode 644 with a guy called Robert Glazer, who's an author and an employment expert. He's advocating for a new way to manage the resignation process. He's got a book called Two Week Notice and explains why two weeks notice is the wrong way of doing things. And well, obviously, I'm not going to spoil the surprise. You need to go listen for yourself. Episode 644 with Robert Glazer. Listen to Hustle and Flowchart wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back. As regular listeners will know, every week we ask a workplace expert for their hot take on the world of work. Our hot take this week comes from someone who's on a mission to make work feel better, quite literally. Cass Briscoe is the founder of Soft Work Society, a community focused on banishing burnout and creating more human workplace cultures. She's worked as a workplace experience lead, a head of Vibes,

and now partners with organizations like The Future Kind, Confidence Live, and NeuroWorks, all with one goal to make work more sustainable, more inclusive, and a lot less soul-crushing. In this hot take, Cass challenges the cult of busyness and asks a question many of us have been avoiding. If being overwhelmed is your default setting, is it time to rethink what you're actually working for? Let's hear from Cass.

My hot take is that being busy isn't a personality and it's not a badge of honor and it's not something that we should be striving for or being proud of. And yeah, it's just, we shouldn't be glorifying being busy. I think it's really toxic. No.

I agree because one of my, what I started doing about five years ago, maybe even 10 years ago, was someone said, how's things? Are you busy? And I used to go, no, not really. Because that's the opposite of what people expected you to say. You go to a networking event and you go, how's things? Oh, it's hectic at the moment. And you think, like you say, is it a badge of honor? Is it them just trying to say how important they are? Talk to me, why? Let's get into the nitty gritty. Why is it a toxic trait?

It's not a personality. Being busy is not a personality. And often it's just like a socially acceptable way to be overwhelmed.

uh and i think for a lot of people when whether you're in an employed role or whether you're self-employed like me it's this like idea that you have to be perceived to be busy all the time whether that's because you're in a role and you're trying to go for like promotion maybe or even you know you're worried that you're going to lose your job so you're trying to you know if you're in a company that's having a lot of layoffs or an industry that's having a lot of layoffs you feel like you've got to be performatively busy all the time so that you know you don't get laid off and if you work for yourself like i do it's it

it's actually very toxic out there with people self-promoting feeling like having to be posting all the time on like linkedin and instagram about what you're doing how busy you are because it feels like you're not succeeding if you don't do that um but actually a lot of it is performative and it's not doing you any good as an individual i think you just have to think about what's meaningful and what's real versus what's performative and just like filling space um

And thinking about, you know, if I'm doing something, does it serve me? Does it need to be me that does this? Or could it be somebody else? And just thinking, basically defaulting to no when you're asked to do things, unless it's like a, you know, a hell yes. So rather than just yes to everything, yes, because people are asking you to do things and you feel like you have to be on and say yes all the time.

try to get really comfortable and practice saying like let me get back to you and then thinking about it through the lens of like is this going to serve me overall and it's not just about you know is this gonna is this gonna keep me really busy all the time is this what I need to be seen to be doing like do I want to be doing this is it gonna bring back any value for me because quite often in jobs you know obviously you're asked to do things that you're all asked to do things in our job that we don't particularly want to do and I'm not necessarily talking about those things I'm

I'm talking about going above and beyond your role when you don't want to be doing that, like staying late when you don't want to or because you can't, but feeling like you have to or like taking on extra projects that you don't really have capacity for.

that are outside of your job role because you feel like you have to go above and beyond to demonstrate that you're worthy and that you're valuable but you are already worthy and valuable because you're in that role you don't need to prove that you need to be there and I think a lot of it stems from for me personally I've been there I've been that person where I'm like in a job and I'm completely burnt out because I'm just taking on everything and saying yes to everything and it's something that I still struggle with now but

And a lot of them is from like low self-esteem and, you know, that anxiety of feeling like you have to be constantly clawing your way up the career ladder or you have to constantly be getting promoted. Whereas I think oftentimes people just need to take a step back and be like, am I happy where I am? Do I need to be going for that promotion? Do I need to be going for that pay rise? Do I need to be going to that other job?

Or is work just one small part of my life that slots in to the rest of my life? So we've said that you've identified there's people who say they're busy because they want to look busy because they've got either low self-esteem or they feel that that's the way to do it. Then there's the people who are busy because they've got no choice because they have to work three jobs.

Now, obviously, you've explained very eloquently what the situation with those, but I feel there's a third group of people who are busy because they've got a fear of missing out. That if they don't take this new project on, if they don't build an AI agent now, then in two years' time, the opportunity is gone. What would you say to those people? Look, if it's something that is really important to you and you're very passionate about,

That's fine. But I think you need to take that step back and think, is this something that really is going to serve me? Or am I just doing it because I'm feeling like the external pressure? So, you know, I think a lot of people do this with like side hustles.

they've got a job and actually this is this is the point i was going to make before um with the cost of living crisis uh some people are having to take on extra jobs or create side hustles and like if you're either falling onto the side of like tiktok where you scroll and it's like i make 20 000 pounds extra a month with this like digital product tell me how and it's like well if you're making 20 000 pounds a month why do you have to keep coming up here to prove it anyway but i feel a lot of people fall for that and they're like we have to like monetize our spare time so it's not enough that you know we're

We're working all the time. We have to like monetize every spare moment that we have. And for people who really are like, oh God, we're feeling this external pressure and we need to create the next AI, whatever, because AI is the thing. I just, I would say,

if it's something that really like lights your fire and floats your boat that's one thing because it's it's got two different values um but if all you're doing it for is because you feel like you need to compete or because you know you're trying to monetize it then I think you're just gonna you're just gonna end up burnt out because if you're not if it's not something that's that you know lights your fire then eventually it's going to become a problem I mean when I first started working for myself two years ago uh I suggested everything because

because I had that fear. I had that fear of disappointing. I had that people pleasing thing. And when you're trying to get a business off the ground, you're like, I have to say yes to everything because what if the opportunities dry up or like what if people don't want me? So I would say yes to everything. And I got into, you know, a couple of situations where I ended up working with people that weren't really like a fit or like,

They were perfectly nice people, but like perhaps the work they were doing wasn't super relevant to what I wanted to do or I was working a lot more than I wanted to. And look, everyone says this, you work for themselves. The reason I started working for myself is so that I could choose my hours and, you know, not work as much basically. And somehow I ended up working 10 times more, which I think is like a very common freelancer trap that happens. So I was saying yes to everything then.

now I try and sort of filter requests through like this lens of like does it align with my priorities is it something I'm going to feel resentful about later and if my schedule was already full would I still say yes to it um and you know an opportunity can give you either like money like good money or it can open doors um or it can be something that you're really interested in and want to learn about and I think if it doesn't hit two of those three things it's not worth your time um

Because quite often, and I think if you start to view stuff through that lens, you realize that a lot of requests that come in don't make even one of those things, never mind two of the three. I believe you've got a t-shirt that says something like boundaries are hot. That's right. Yeah. Go on my website. Buy my t-shirt. So I'm a big believer in the idea of setting boundaries. Whether that's small boundaries, like someone messages you at six o'clock when you're about to log off saying, oh, can you just quickly do this thing?

Again, I think for a lot of people, there's that instant need to be like, yes, absolutely. I'll do that. I was going to log off, but like, nevermind. I'll just quickly do that now. When oftentimes there's no need, like that person's asking you, but you don't have to work. You'd have to have to dance to their tune. You don't have to work to someone else's timeline. So small boundaries, like saying,

Great. I'll get on this, you know, tomorrow morning. Bravo, bravo. Cass, I've been talking about, and I know I interviewed you and we geeked out a little bit about this. I've been talking about this for years. One of my pet hates is when you say to someone, how are you? How's work? And they go, oh my God, I'm just so busy.

And I'm like, number one, don't be a dick. It's just you're basically wanting me to go, oh my God, you must be so important. And number two, if you're busy at work and you don't like it, do something about it if you can. You know, and if you can't, then don't just be flipping about. It goes, oh, I'm so busy. I just, I love how Cass is basically saying that constant hustle is not a badge of honor. It's actually a red flag. This is, this

This is what I believe in. The unbeliefs in research, the unbeliefs in training your leaders, I believe in you should genuinely work should energize you most of the time. We all have stuff we don't want to do, but it should energize you most of the time. And so by saying that you're constantly overloaded or feeling constantly overloaded or saying you're busy,

I don't know, I just feel like thoughts become feelings and all that kind of thing. And by saying, I am so busy, I haven't got time to have my lunch, you're basically telling yourself psychologically, not psychologically, deep down, subconsciously is the word, that you are busy, you haven't got time for lunch, and that something's gone wrong. But anyway, that soapbox dismounting, Leigh. You're right though, and it's kind of the slogan of hustle culture, isn't it? You're busy, yeah, I'm really busy. It's funny when people say to me now, you're busy, we go, not really, no. And they go, no.

what? we're busy enough we're you know

Anyway, what is quite interesting, I guess, from some kind of the research perspective, because you might be thinking, well, I am busy and I like being busy. Back off. Okay, but just so you know, there are some studies that have shown that people who are in high demand, low control jobs, so you haven't got that autonomy, but you've got a lot of expectation, are more likely to overcompensate through workload. I would also argue, given the kind of work...

work-life boundaries that are so blurred now you might be overcompensating through overwork in other areas of your life because maybe you've got either low autonomy low control or I guess even even low demands the other thing as well I guess is that sometimes it can be

It can be so ingrained with this generation and particularly Gen X, right? Because Gen X kind of had the boomers, you know, as their parents and quite right. There's lots of opportunity and there was such an opportunity for social change by doing well work wise that there was this big emphasis on you hustle, you keep working hard.

it's that fear of letting people down even if your parents are no longer here it's that fear of letting yourself down you completely internalize that expectation that that fear is is probably what is most likely going to drive you to burn out not ambition and it's really kind of having that self reflection introspection moment to go is this is this from a point of fear or a point of ambition

And my feeling is it's from a point of fear, which is why we're also seeing a lot of Gen Xers now talk more openly about how they want to have their second act of their career, find more meaningful work that resonates with them. So just a little another point of reflection if you are

if you believe that you enjoy being busy yeah and a final thought on this fear i think there are some people out there who are just people pleasers and that the fear is that if they say no to something people won't like them and that generally leads to a to-do list that is never ending because they take on work going yeah it's fine i can do that yeah no worries i can do that because they worry that if they say no i can't do it or no i won't do it people are going to think who's that and

Amanda in accounts has gone a bit arsey, hasn't she? She's only decided. I know that's not something you can change overnight, but that is something to be aware of. If you are a people pleaser in your life, then there's probably a very good chance that your to-do list is a lot longer than ours. And if you are a people pleaser, it's really hard to say no. So maybe go with not yet.

Remember that power word that we talked about the other week? So it's like, can you help me with this? Oh, not yet, but I can tomorrow when I've got some extra time in the afternoon. That's sometimes a really nice way to transition from being an absolute people pleaser to starting to set some more boundaries and hopefully then get to the point where you can just say no if you don't want to do it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Don't let someone else's to-do list become your to-do list. And in fact, I often look at emails as when you open your inbox, it's someone else's to-do list.

They've sent you an email and usually it's because they want you to do something or they're asking you to do something because they want it. Lee, are you ready to move on to the surgery or anything else the listeners need to know about Cass? Just as a big thank you to Cass, we will leave a link to her website and her LinkedIn profile in the show notes. Go follow, go buy her t-shirt. I know I want one. Yeah.

Yeah, she's a cool lady. Yes, definitely go and follow her. Okay, this is my favorite time of the week. This is the World Famous Weekly Workplace Surgery where I put your questions to the lovely Leanne. She's amazing. She knows everything. She always says she doesn't, but she does because whenever I put anything to you, like I was, I genuinely thought that lucky question, I mean, I thought, that's a clever way of doing it. I might do that. And then Leanne's like, no, don't do that, Al, don't.

Okay, so question number one. And this person has written in, they've said six interviews and then a pay cut. Interesting. I just went through six rounds of interview for a grad role and this graduate role that was advertised at 35,000. It was my first full-time job out of university and I worked hard to prepare. I thought the interviews went really well. When the offer finally came through, it was for 30,000, not 35. I really want the job though.

The people seem really great. The benefits are good. And it's hybrid with two days in the office. It's a dream. And I feel like I'd actually learned something there, but I couldn't ignore the salary difference. So I asked the recruiter about it.

A few hours later, I got a call from someone I know in the company. And this is the same person who helped me get the interview in the first place. And he told me I'd done a great job, but the recruiter had taken the question about the salary difference very, very personally. Apparently, if I didn't have an internal connection, this person, they might have pulled the offer altogether.

In the end, I accepted the job. I'm excited and I know 30k is still a good salary for a first-time job. But part of me keeps wondering, did I make a mistake by asking this in the first place? Or is this just how things work sometimes? I don't think they made a mistake by asking. I think that's more than fair. I mean, one, good for the company that they're advertising the salary. We enjoy that pay transparency.

But then to adjust it and not expect a question is just silly. So good for you. You're well within your rights to ask about that, even just from a point of view. Can I understand why the offer was at 30 when it was advertised at 35? Is there maybe something missing in my experience? Or, you know, it's quite...

quite uncool of the recruiter to react like this and bordering on unprofessional if they're reacting in a way that this person who referred you to the business is now getting wind of it to tell you you didn't say if that recruiter works for the company there could be a third party recruiter in which case

they might be bonused on how they may be bringing in a candidate for a lesser salary, get some percentage of the difference or even just get, you know, a nice tick against their name as a recruiter with that client, which means they might get more roles in the future. So if they're a third party,

yeah if they're internal yes this could be a bit of a red flag because what it's showing is how people behave how they react when they're challenged in this example not behaving and reacting very well particularly to give that threatening language of oh well you know we would have pulled it all anyway if you wouldn't have been connected to the company I don't think any company is going to hire somebody for a job

who isn't qualified or qualified enough to be developed, and particularly in a grad role, that's all you really need to prove is that you've got huge amounts of potential to be developed through the grad scheme. So it is uncool. Equally, you're excited about the job, you're excited about the people, it's hybrid, excellent. 30 grand is a good salary for your first job out of uni. I think, yeah, you've got to do what you can. It sounds like you have anyway to kind of move on

and look forward into the future and into this role. What I would say is that you are right to ask, never be afraid to ask about salary and have that conversation. Two, it's not how things necessarily work in terms of how the person reacted to it. It probably is how things work in terms of, you know, salary negotiation, which is frustrating, but part of the current working way.

And third, I would just maybe be a little bit cautious because what this might show is maybe potential red flag in terms of a lack of trust, things being changed without any real reason, potential lack of transparency. I would just make little notes as you go through anything else like this that you notice, any other behaviours that happen, just to keep yourself a little record, if only to help you distinguish between what is normal and abnormal or what

you know, the consistency and frequency of it. So you can talk to a mentor or a friend or to kind of get their view on it as well. And just accept that if this behavior does come up again and again in six months time, that might start to

to shift your perception and view and feelings towards this organisation. So there's an element of being prepared for that if it happens. Not in a, oh, I knew I shouldn't have taken the job, but I was aware this was a risk. I thought it might be coming. I'm not too overly disappointed. I've still, you know, learned lots of stuff and got what I needed out of my first job. And when the time is right, and I'd say you want to be in that job probably at least 18 months without

raising a red flag of another recruiter, then it might be time to look around and move on. But in the meantime, congratulations. It sounds like a really great opportunity. And fingers crossed, this was a third party recruiter and not a reflection of the organisation. Could be a reflection of the recruiter person. Maybe the recruiter person's had a bit of a tough week. Plot twist. What about if this didn't happen at all and the person inside the organisation, your friend who's helping you, just wants to feel really important?

And so they want you to fall in love with them and go, oh my God, thank you so much for saving it. When actually none of that actually happened. Yeah. There's a thought. Yeah. How well do you know this person? Keep an eye on this friend. Yeah. Maybe they're a little bit of a, what are they? What are the kids call them now? Snakes. Yeah. Your friend's a snake. There you go. That's, that's the headline right there. No, I'm sure it's, I'm sure they're not. I'm sure they're lovely, but maybe they're not. Okay. Question number two. I don't hate my job. I hate the whole job thing. I think we've all been there.

For years, I thought I just hadn't found the right company or the right role. But now I'm not so sure. What really gets to me is the idea of spending most of my time week in, week out, doing something I just don't care about just to survive. I look ahead and think, is this it?

40, maybe 50 years of planning my life around work, squeezing in the things I actually want to do around someone else's schedule. Is this it? Is this what I need to do? I don't want to live for weekends. I don't want my best energy to go to a job I don't love, but I also don't want to throw away a stable career path.

Maybe this is just me being idealistic. So tell me straight. Am I being an entitled Gen Z person that everyone always talks about? Or is there a better way to work that doesn't mean sacrificing your whole life for a payslip? I like this question. I think this person...

is destined for good things because they're questioning and that's what you want out of an employee or a business owner or possibly leader. Anyway, Leigh, what are your thoughts? I remember waking up in my early 20s when I was a couple of years into work and thinking, this is it.

Really? Same. I couldn't, I couldn't imagine being that bound to a workplace for, for, you know, 45 hours a week. I couldn't imagine only having 20 holidays a year, which is going to sound very privileged to our American listeners who only have 10. Rub it in. Yeah, sorry about that. Us lazy Europeans. Yeah. Um,

No, you're not unreasonable to question this. You're not unreasonable to hope and think there's another way and there absolutely is another way. There's a few things I think you can do to kind of transition this and I'll kind of start from like least disruptive to most disruptive. The

The first one is have you really thought about the work you want to do? And I bring up this example all the time, but the vitals model. What are your values? What are your interests? What's your temperament? What time of day do you prefer to work? How do you like to structure your day? What are your life goals? What are your strengths? Really understanding yourself and what motivates you and interests you is going to help you identify both the role that you want to do and the organization you want to do it in.

If you have done that and it's still not clicking, then there absolutely is other options. The trouble is there's not many other options that come with a stable career path. This is the slight problem that we have. Unless you can find a potentially remote company,

that doesn't care where you work and you can travel as you work, which we did very happily for seven years, then that could work. But that is a needle in a haystack in these times. You can start your own business. You can go freelance. You can be self-employed. You can have absolute control over your work, your time, where you work, how you work, who you work for.

And that will no doubt give you the freedom you're looking for, the flexibility you're looking for, the purpose and meaning that you're looking for. Does that provide a stable career plan? No, it does not. It's like that. You know, what was it, Al, that is it based on kind of famous? Is it a parable, like a story? No, the dog. Oh, one dog. Yes.

Yeah, so I think it's an Aesop fable, or Aesop, I've never seen it written down, don't know how you say it, but Aesop fable, there's two dogs, and they're talking, as they do in Aesop's fables, and one of them was saying, isn't it amazing, because you can just roam the streets, and you can do whatever you want, you wake up in the morning, and you're like, oh, I'm going to just do whatever I want today. And the dog that was free, not behind the gate, was saying, yes, but I don't know where my next meal's coming from, it's amazing, you've got an amazing life, because you can just, you just...

every night you get a huge big bone and you get loads of meat your life's better and the whole point of the whole thing was which by the way sorry Aesop if you're listening and you didn't die 400 years ago then I've made a right hash of that but essentially what it's saying is that both of them admired each other's life but they both had sacrifices both had problems in their life did that help in any way at all listener and Leanne? Kind of I think the point is like one dog's wearing a collar one dog isn't one has yeah you get the gist of it

I think the point is, it's not a question of the grass. Is the grass greener on the other side? It's just a different shade of green. Yeah. You know? So I think it's at this point deciding, and if you're, it sounds like you said you're a Gen Z, go take risks. Go be crazy. You've got so much runway in your career, you can afford to mess it up a bit and then go, actually, do you know what? A steady career path and incoming salary every month is worth it. You've just got to figure out what,

what it is. And it's, you know, people often say to us, oh, you're so lucky. Or, um, I wish I could do what you did. And it's like, I'm not, and you can, but the fact is I'm not as far ahead in my career as a lot of my other peers. I don't think I'm getting paid as much as a lot of my other peers. I get a lot more autonomy over holidays and where I spend my time. Um,

You know, I get to do the work that I love in a way that I want to do it. I get to work with people who inspire me and not work for an absolute knob. There's lots of great things that come with being freelance or self-employed, but there's a lot of risk. There's a lot of sacrifice. There's a lot of nervousness. There's a lot of financial uncertainty. It's which one is going to, which is a compromise you're willing to face.

um you know to take it's it's up to you but you're at a point of time in your in your life and in your career where you've got the time to figure it out so I would go if you're thinking is this it go out there and see if it is

Yeah, 100%. You got, you Gen Zs love a side hustle. So start something else. Just my only tip would be don't start something that's your passion. So if you love making cake, baking cakes, don't start a business around that because then you're going to have to bake cakes all day long, even when you don't want it and you'll end up hating it. But I feel like there's must be like, there's a triangle saying good, saying good, fast or cheap. Choose any two.

if you're like when you're working with consultants or suppliers or whatever. And I feel like we've got the makings of one here, which is sort of like a certainty, freedom,

and meaning perhaps and you can really only choose two of those because you can't have a well some some people manage it but most people have a job if you have if you have certainty you also then have to accept that you've got responsibility and you've got a boss you go and work for yourself oh my god it's amazing but as al from 2006 will tell you when he went bankrupt for 103 000 pounds it ain't always that good

But good luck to you. And yeah, I would say definitely take some time to understand exactly what it is that you think you want or what's important to you and then go play. You've got time. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Okay, so this last question comes from a listener who writes, can managers have mates? Just in case the mate is a UK thing or an Australian thing as well. It doesn't mean like mate as in like mate for life. It means like friends. Just to be clear for our North American listeners.

So I have been invited to a game night with about 10 of my coworkers, but here's the catch. Half of them directly report to me. We got on really well and outside of work, we become really friendly, but I'm also trying to move up in the company and I was worried how it might look if I start socializing with my team outside work.

There's nothing in the handbook about it, but I know my own manager has said that she avoids hanging out with staff because of the conflict of interest concerns. I don't want to seem aloof, but I also don't want to blur professional lines or risk looking like I'm playing favorites. So here's my question. Should I sit this one out or is there a way to join without crossing boundaries? Lee!

This is a tricky one and I've seen different managers handle it in different ways. Me personally, I kept a distance and I never went to any social event that wasn't work organised or related.

So if this was a games night organized by the company as a team building exercise, then of course you go. This is a social thing. On one hand, it's really nice that your teammates like you enough to invite you as their manager or they're just being polite. But either way, it's nice that they either have that admiration or that respect for you.

I've seen managers do it. I've seen managers who can engage very well in social relationships and maintain professionalism and hold that line, you know, very steady in work environments. My struggle was always that I'm...

I find it hard to set a boundary in social situations in that if a member of my team would start telling me things that might impact their ability to work or their effectiveness of work or the support they need from me in a social setting I find it really difficult to shut that off because that might be the only point that they feel comfortable telling me and if I don't

Give them that space and hold that space for them. Then they'll never bring it up again. Or it might be inappropriate for me to bring it up again. I always found that really awkward. So then for me in social situations, when I tried, it quickly became basically an informal venting session. Which then also changed how I approached one-to-ones in work situations and more regular check-ins with people. But for me, I felt it blurred lines more.

I think your manager has also shared with you the expectations that have kind of been set within the organisation, even if it isn't in the handbook, that there could be a conflict of interest. I kind of agree with it. So it's not to say that as a manager you can't have mates, but there is to say as a manager you might need to just set some boundaries that will work for you. But I think as a new manager, my advice would be set some fairly clear boundaries

boundaries. That's a very clear boundary, not going to a social event that's not work related or organized for work and then work from there. So I ended up setting quite hard boundaries in a way that I often wouldn't go to social events that were mainly team orientated rather than kind of for, you know, like the Christmas do kind of thing. Like I'd go for an hour and then I'd do one because again, these boundaries get all blurry.

It's completely up to you. It sounds like a discretionary thing. We know lots, we talked lots recently about the Primark CEO from Enya Doyle about how these relationships can get really blurry between work and social. So sometimes it's just easier and safer to keep a firmer line. But in this case, I would personally think it's not worth it.

engaging in in social events that aren't work related in any way and in in the meantime try and figure out exactly where your your kind of more work-based socializing boundaries lie so quick question lee then what would what would a good manager's response to that be would it be i'm sorry i can't make it this time would it be i'm sorry i'm not coming to any of these ever what how would you tactfully respond to that

I just say, I'm sorry, I can't make it, but I think you have a great time. Oh, do you know why? It'd be really cool if we did a games night flag as a work thing, as a team building thing. Maybe we could organize that in a couple months time. I think the first thing you just say, I'm sorry, I can't make it, but I hope you have a brilliant time. Thank you so much for asking me. If they continue to ask you, then yeah, you might want to say, particularly if it's one person that keeps asking you, it's that one person that maybe you've been friends with for a little while or who knows you quite well, just saying, look, I'm not sure I want to kind of really...

crossed that line in terms of socializing when it's not work related but equally I'd love to spend time with people maybe we can arrange it as a more work related activity but I think in the first instance I just said that's really kind thank you so much for asking me for me but I can't make it now my temptation would be to say that and then go but here's 20 quid towards a takeout that's not a good idea no I just think again it's it's what's what to what end what purpose

But my thought, maybe it was my neediness coming through, like I was saying before about Cass, not Cass's needy, what Cass was saying, was that I'd be like, oh, I'll be nice because then they're sitting there and then having like, you know, curry or something or some pizza and they're thinking, oh, I'll sort this out. But that's probably just my insecurity, isn't it?

And hoping that your team will perceive that in a positive way. What if your team sits there and thinks, oh, do you think he's going to ask us to work late on Tuesday? Or is he going to expect this from us now? And again, it's bringing a professional relationship into the social realm. And that's awkward enough when it's work related, but when it's completely irrelevant to work...

then I just think don't engage. It's a different thing if like you, you know, your Christmas do and you put 100 quid behind the bar, then that's a bit different. Or you pay for everyone's taxis there and back or that's a bit different. But if it's completely social situation, I just don't see why you have any business getting involved. Fair enough. Fair enough. See, listen, I'm listening. I'm learning too. I'm learning.

Okay, well, I think that's all for now. You need to join us next Tuesday if you'd like today because we've got a new edition of This Week in Work. And also, as I say, I say in the last couple of weeks, have a look at our YouTube channel. Leanne's been doing all kinds of lovely stuff over there, chopping up videos. So Workplace Surgery now has its own dedicated videos, I think. Lots of little sort of like six to eight minute videos you can just...

binge on hopefully um and uh yeah if you if you like it then let us know if you don't like it let us know too um and yeah because because it's a new thing we're doing and we think that it's going down well but obviously you know we're keen on everyone's opinion

We really are. If you are also keen on hearing stories of how people do things differently, then you'll really like our Thursday episodes where we have an interview with an expert guest. This week is the man, the myth, the legend, the professional troller on Twitter, Nick Huber, the sweaty startup guy. Nick has built businesses that do more than $30 million in annual revenue and employ over 325 people.

Plus, he recently bought a controlling share in Somewhere.com, the recruitment company that helped over 3,500 businesses hire more than 6,000 remote workers.

And he's also got a multitude of other businesses, including self-storage, real estate cost consultants, an SEO company, a pest control business, an insurance company, web dev, and loads and loads more. Nick really knows how to recruit and engage and manage the very best people in the world. So firstly, make sure you're subscribed so you get Nick's interview automatically downloaded to your podcast app. And secondly, consider pre-ordering his book, The Sweaty Startup. It's out, I think, if you're listening today on Tuesday, the

No, Tuesday the 22nd. It's out next Tuesday. You can get it from Amazon and all that kind of stuff. I read, I got a pre-release book. I read it. It's genuinely one of the best business books I've read in the last five years. I think you're going to love it.

I'm sure you will. I'm sure it's going to be an interesting conversation. And as Al said, to the people in the surgery who have questions that kind of link into this, do join us for an alternative view on what work can look like when we speak to Nick on Thursday. Until then, I hope your first day back at work is all right. It's the first Tuesday back after the Easter break, isn't it? Yeah, but does America have like...

Good Friday. I doubt they have any holidays at all, do they? Oh man, if you live in America, come and live in Europe. For our British friends, I hope your first day back at work was okay. I hope you enjoyed the bank holiday weekend. If you're a parent, just one more week left and those kids will be back in school. And yeah, stay in touch, subscribe, LinkedIn, see you there. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye.