200. Rule-benders, quiet quitting and the DEI dilemma. PLUS! Is happiness overrated? With Julian Hayes II
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Coming up in This Week in Work. When it comes to leaders, do we actually prefer rebels or rule followers? This week, we're looking at the psychology of trust and why some people earn it by working around the rules, not following them. Plus, what would you do if an employee asked to borrow some money? A Boston business owner went viral this week after sharing how one of his team members asked for $40. Some commenters said never lend money to staff. Others say it's a sign of trust. So what is the right move for a healthy workplace?

Plus, in the workplace surgery, is it fair to expect diverse employees to do extra DI work just because of who they are? One listener says they're tired of being the token voice and asked, when does inclusion start to feel like exploitation?

This is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. Brought to you by the HubSpot Power Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered occupational psychologist. And my name is Al, and I'm a business owner. And together we help organisations build amazing workplace cultures. We'll be getting right into today's episode after this very quick word from our sponsors. Music

HubSpot's inbound event 2025 is bringing together the brightest minds in business, AI and entrepreneurship. We're talking Amy Poehler, the genius behind ChatGPT, Dario Morode and Sean Evans from Hot Ones because apparently even hot sauce interviews

can teach us about business strategy. Yes, September the 3rd until September the 5th in San Francisco. And no, this isn't just another one of those conferences where you pretend to take notes while secretly checking your phone. This is three full days of actionable insights that you can actually use to grow your business. What I love about this is the focus on practical application. We enjoy applied science here. You're not just sitting through fluffy keynotes.

you're getting tactical breakout sessions, networking with people who are actually building things and learning from entrepreneurs who figured out how to thrive in this AI powered world. Plus, come on, you're in San Francisco, the global headquarters of Let's Disrupt Everything and See What Happens.

It's the perfect place to meet your next co-founder, investor, or just someone who gets why you're obsessed with optimizing your customer acquisition funnel. Head to inbound.com forward slash register to see the range of tickets, including VIP options. Fancy. Fancy, fancy. Fancy. Trust us, your future self will thank you for actually investing in learning something useful. Guess what, Al? What? We're going to be there.

No, we're not. I am. I'm manifesting. Oh, okay. Yeah, you can come and meet us there. That's the reason to go and book your ticket today. VIP experience will no doubt include us. I'd imagine they'd invite us to the VIP area. So go and visit inbound.com slash register to get your ticket today. Welcome back. Episode 200-ly. I know. Isn't it exciting? That's impressive. And 200, I think that's the first time you've let me say that you're brought to you by the business hubspot. See, I didn't kind of say it. Because you usually get it wrong. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity. You're very welcome. You're very welcome. 200 episodes. Al, what have you learned about podcasting, work, life in general in 200 episodes? It's relentless. We do really enjoy it, but I think I love doing it and I love editing and pushing it. But sometimes like you go, oh man, we've got two more to do this week. But no, I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't change the world. What about you, love? I agree. It's a job in itself, isn't it? I think I've learned that...

Whilst it's not about external validation, it certainly is about community. So I love it when we get reviews, when we get people comment on the show, what they've enjoyed. We started getting more comments on Spotify now. Even the comments that don't agree with us, that didn't like the episode but want to tell us why, that's really good feedback. We're not about censorship of opposing views. We want to present the truths and the lies and help you come to some kind of conclusion. So thank you for all your support.

over the last 200 episodes. Talking of loving things, Leanne, I think it's your favourite time of the week now. It is. It's time for the news roundup. Key the jingle. We're being cued. Leanne, what have you seen this week? Ground-breaking news, Al. Oh, God, it's breaking. Do you know what really annoys me when you see breaking news? And it's not breaking. It's like, oh, freak off, will you? Go on. Sorry, what's your breaking news, Leanne? Well, apparently, happy staff are good for business. Okay. Yeah, that doesn't sound right. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I mean, it does seem a little basic, I think, if you're a regular listener to this show. But that is indeed the groundbreaking news from the Sunday Times this week. Apparently, happier staff make for more productive businesses. So this comes off the back of the Best Places to Work 2025 report.

And while I do jest, it is, of course, good to see a list like this being backed up by actual data. So to kind of give you an overview, this is the UK's biggest employee engagement survey covering thousands of workers in organisations of every size. And what it shows is that when people feel valued, listened to and supported, they're

the payoff isn't in morale alone, it's in performance too. Some of the best examples from this year's list include Iceland, where they've seen a 500% rise in head office job applications since being recognised last year thanks to real investment in apprenticeships

and second chance hiring. CGI, this is hard for me to say, Hal. I'm going to try it. It's my third time. CGIIT. I think it's a double I that's throwing me off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. CGIIT UK. Well, 96% of their staff hold shares in the company, which shows a genuine stake in success and a culture that values contribution. And we have Awin. Is that how we say it? Awin?

Eowyn, which has moved into a four-day working week while still paying people for five, doing it the right way, making a very clear statement about work-life balance. So the survey has it all work. It looks at six key areas, reward and recognition, pride, information sharing, empowerment, well-being and job satisfaction. And what was clear from the list is that being a best place to work isn't about perks. It's about giving people a voice, creating trust and following through on promises and thoughts.

Lovely. Yeah, I mean, what's going to be interesting is that our hot take, let's find out if Julie and our hot take actually agrees with this. But there is nuance here. And I think we're not just saying we want people to be happy. You're talking about their reward and recognition, which are two of the fundamentals of the RX-7. And so, yeah, I can see why just by blanket saying we need happy staff, that's not enough.

But this, I'm pleased to see this has gone into a little bit more of the depth of it. And it's actually sort of breaking it apart and going, we don't just want everyone to walk around with a stupid smile on their face. Because let's be honest, work is not what I alluded to before. Love our podcast. Sometimes don't look forward to actually sitting down and creating them. So yeah, I think that's a very smart way to delineate or delineate

pick apart the idea of a happy member staff. Yeah, and I think it's all just about semantics, isn't it? And I think this is where we can get kind of sometimes bogged down discussion, but also a very important discussion. So is it about happy staff or is it about engaged staff? It's probably more about engaged staff because that's what we know

from the psychology engaged employees are more loyal, they take through a sick days and they attract more talent. And what I particularly liked about the article that drove into the companies was actually showing what an organisation needs to do in practical terms to improve employee engagement. And that's not perks, it's things like trust and recognition, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, the fact that we saw Iceland with a 500% jump in head office applications after making a list last year

I mean, if you don't believe us when we've said before that these types of things will absolutely improve your competitiveness in terms of talent acquisition, things like potentially a four-day workweek, flexibility, trust, great recognition, it's

I mean, that alone, just as one stat, is pretty impressive, isn't it? Yeah, and going way back, I mean, we're going back to episodes of like 20 or 30. We had Jill from Vitality, which sponsored the happiest workplaces in the UK. And a lot of the top 10, 20 had something similar to this, which wasn't, I mean, all right, some of them were massive companies. But what's cool about this award is it breaks it down into huge companies like Novo's something, Nordisk, I think.

It's got like half a million people down to like really small companies. So there's loads to learn. So yeah, if you're interested in this kind of thing, then go back and search. I'll put a link in the show notes. I can't remember exactly which episode it was, but it was really interesting to hear back from that. And also we got Christian Van Stolt, who was the guy behind the survey for

he's come on as well and also Donna Burgess as well she worked for one of the companies that won the happiest workplace yeah I'm being intentional with it you know it's and they make the point in this article it is about listening and acting on that feedback and that's what employee engagement is it starts with

insights so whilst this will give you some really cool ideas it's not necessarily kind of a copy and paste but some of the initiatives that these companies are doing that I thought were quite cool an organisation called Childbase gives staff up to 20 extra days off and big childcare discounts they're a group of childcare

So it makes sense that they're offering perks that are going to be related to the type of employees they're likely to have. Co-created new leadership workshops because staff said they wanted more development. And an organisation called Involve paid for driving lessons

which is quite cool for some staff, particularly if you've got an RTO mandate. That's a nice little thing there, isn't it? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It's a shame they don't pay for the car, the fuel and the insurance as well. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But interesting learning. I will leave a full link to the full list in the show notes. Al, what have you seen this week? Talking of giving employees things, there was this post on Twitter by a guy called Joey Salvin. He runs a moving company in Boston. That's

So Boston, Massachusetts, not Boston, Lincolnshire, if you're from the north of England. I should like to go to Boston. I should like to go to Boston. HubSpot, you're based in Boston. If only we knew somebody. Yeah. Get us across to HubSpot. Oh, and if you like Boston and Bostonians, we've got another guy from Boston on this Thursday. Jeff, you're going to like it. Anyway, so this guy, let's go back to, I've forgotten his name already, Joey Selvin. So he's on Twitter and he basically posted a screenshot of a message from an employee that read,

Hi, Joey. I was hoping you would send me $40 on Cash App. Please. I'm low on funds. Now, just in case you don't come across Cash App, which seems to be a very, very American thing. I don't think we get much over here. I don't know whether the kids use it in the UK or not. Essentially, it's like Venmo or PayPal or something like that. So this employee is saying, I want $40. Please send it to me.

Now, Joey asked the Twitterverse what they thought would be, did I tell you this on Twitter? I'm not sure I did. Anyway, it's on Twitter, it's on X. We'll leave a link in the show notes. So Joey asked the Twitterverse what they would do in this situation and the responses I thought were pretty interesting. My initial instinct as someone who has managed people before as an employer was, nope, not going to happen. But some of the replies sort of changed my mind a little bit. There's

There's a guy called Tanner Mullen. We kept the best names on him. He suggested establishing a $500 employee IOC where they can borrow money and pay it back. No interest. I'm guessing, I don't know what IOC, do you know what IOC stands for? No, I'm guessing it's some kind of like credit system or something with them, like a, you know, free...

free credit system. So if they borrow $500 and then they're completely maxed out, then that's your excuse for saying no. Is it LOC, a line of credit? Oh, it could be line of credit. It could be line of credit. Aren't you clever? It might not be that. It might be something else. But LOC does sound like a line of credit. Now, the

Because the downside of that is it means you're putting, if you've got 20 employees, you're putting like $10,000 into a program. And I don't know, it seems like quite a big risk, particularly for, you know, a smallish company. Perhaps if you are Coke, then fair enough. But I don't know. Another guy called Connor Grossi or Grocky.

um he said tell him no and see how he responds if it's respectful and positive i would consider slipping the cash bonus next time you see him if it's impulsive and negative that tells you all you need to know now this was my favorite reply for 40 you're basically buying a fight buying the way to find out all you need to know about this guy

And finally, the sign guy said, if he's been good the last two months and shows up and has good attitude, then yes, of course, this was at 10 a.m. Now, this is the other thing which this guy said. I forgot his name, the sign guy. He said, of course, this was at 10 a.m. He sent this.

So it'd be pretty easy to find a $40 task for this guy to knock out that you've been avoiding or needed to get done that you can pay him $40 cash for. So he saves space and you pay for something needing to be done. I really like this. I thought that was, there was some really interesting, there was the obvious stuff you get on Twitter, like say no, what an idiot. And oh my God, I've been in need. And yes, you're an employee. You've got all the money, you know, all that stuff. We just put that, sweep that bullshit aside.

But recently, funny enough actually, Leanne, do you remember recently someone we know, not really a friend, but someone who I regularly buy stuff from. Are you going to throw shade at people we know again? No, I'm not. No, I'm not. But they asked for a loan. Who? I'm not telling you. Somebody asked us for a loan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone we know asked us for a loan. Now,

This is someone who's kind of a friend, but also is someone who I buy services from. I'm being deliberately vague just in case this person is listening. And they asked for a loan. So instead of saying, I said no. I said don't lend money to friends. But I did suggest paying him a year's worth of the services up front.

She then declined, which I found very, very strange. Anyway, that's by the by. So a lot of other people in the comments were asking if this is a good employee or not. The thinking was, I think, if they're a good employee, then lend it. It's worth it. If he's mediocre or bad, then don't.

That is kind of interesting because should we be responding differently to this kind of request from good employees versus bad employees? Is that fair? Lee, what are your thoughts? My first thought is why on earth are you putting this very private request from an employee on Twitter? Because they want clout. They want followers. Yeah, of course. Just uncool for one. And do you know what it is, right? People are always quick to answer like the what. Someone's asked for money. What should you do about it?

Not one of those examples that you said, say, have you thought about why this person is asking for the money? Are they all right? Is something going on? Are they in trouble? They've just got a parking ticket that they can't pay. Their finance is in the gutter. Because if their financial well-being is really, really bad, that's absolutely going to affect how they show up to work. It's going to affect their performance, their ability to concentrate, their productivity. It's going to impact so much. So my first thing I want to know is why do you need the $40? What's...

what's caused this cash shortage? Is it that I pay you every month that it might be more useful for me to pay you every week? Is it that you're in a ton of debt that you're never going to get out of? I'd be more inclined to,

to think about what is the root cause of this because that's what's going to build loyalty and trust with an employee, not slipping them 40 quid because that is a very potentially short-term fix to a much bigger problem that's going to reoccur. And what are they going to do then? Ask for $100? Ask for $200? Where does that stop? And that puts you in an even more awkward position. So I think my first thought would be figure out why this person is asking this question in terms of like the line of credits and other stuff. Yeah, I have heard of that. Organisations do that in terms of employee loans.

can be effective for various scenarios potentially. If you're doing that though, you have to look at organisation-wide. You can't make these kind of policies or decisions just on one person. Even in a small business, it breeds mistrust, ambiguity and really causes, yeah, we call it organisational justice, troubles with that. So that's my thought. Why put it on socials? Why don't you actually be human and ask this person if they're okay? And three, if you're going to look at policy, it has to be organisation-wide.

I think in defense of Joey, I have a feeling that this is something which is, he has potentially been asked something similar and they just written out the message and sent it on there. So I don't even know whether it necessarily happened, whether it's like, you know, it did happen in another company. I don't know. But just in defense, let's take the best part of it because it might be, you're right. If he's just essentially taking a screenshot, that's really bad. That's really, really bad.

There is a guy on Twitter called GasBizGuy, and he always seems to be like the wise old uncle of the internet. I always like listening and looking at what he's written because he's always got really good... Basically, what he does is, I think he buys big gas, either gas stations, petrol stations, or he's involved in the supply of gas, as in petrol. And I suspect the man has got more than $40. That's what I'm thinking. But he

His suggestion was kind of quippy, but in my opinion, really decent response. Quippy? I've never heard you use that word before. Quippy. Quippy. It's quip-like. No, I understand what it means. I've just never heard you say it before.

Quippy. Go on, let's hear this quippy response. It was quippy. It was quippy. Sure it was. Let's hear it. He said, Wine is just saying to this guy, I made a deal with the bank. They won't move furniture and I won't loan money because the company moves furniture. And I thought that was kind of a quippy way of doing it. Perhaps a little bit. I don't know whether that just makes light of it or perhaps that. I don't know. The other side of the coin is, is could be the way to gain the unwavering trust and loyalty of an employee. Yeah.

for $40. Because if you did give them the $40, then you're shaking your head. It's not. It's not. The way to get the unwavering trust and loyalty of an employee is to understand what the root problem is and help them with that. £40 ain't going to fix it. There you go. So, to summarise, don't listen to people on the internet, don't listen to me, listen to Leanne. Talking of Leanne... No, if you want unwavering trust and loyalty, £40 ain't going to do it. There'll be other perks you can get from...

from this person but it's alright I'm sorry the psychologist in me just won't allow allow that I like to feel like I said this is what a listener wants but you should have jumped on Twitter and gone I'm a psychologist and this is what you should do because I think a lot of people out there weren't qualified to answer this question which makes you beg the question why was it on the internet in the first place I'm not sure the type of people on Twitter give a shit about what I have to say truth be told excuse my language

Off Twitter, back onto the mainstream press. What have you seen? Well, keeping it on trust, really, but rather than trusting your employees, trusting your leaders. Do you trust leaders, Al, who respect the rules, or do you prefer the ones that are willing to break them? Yep. Yes, you could be part of, you need to be studied. Different, separate people. I've done so much dodgy stuff in the past. Not for people, but they always say behind every fortune, every fortune is a lie.

about 40 of them anyway let's not get into that because this is this is on tape and uh and the authorities may be notified carry on leanne so do we write rule do we like rule keepers or rule breakers that was the question of a new study by astrid homan astrid what a lovely name and colleagues at the university of amsterdam published in the journal of experimental psychology applied

they um suggest that the answer is neither it isn't about breaking them it isn't about keeping them it's about bending the rules and that's what we like in leaders they just bend the rule so here's what they did they created scenarios for people to judge so one of these scenarios was an employee called james who was at a car company facing a cash flow crisis he had three options he

He could stick to the rules and raise money by crowdfunding. He could break the rules and sell cars illegally. Or he could bend the rules by selling memberships that included a free car, a legal grey area, but not outright breaking the law. They then asked participants, who would you trust to lead? Who seemed most capable and most respected? And the results were fairly surprising. Rule followers were seen as solid, dependable, but they didn't really stand out as leaders. Rule breakers seen as

Oh, no.

So in cooperative settings, so things like building alliances or forming a government, rule abiders were still trusted, but rule benders were a very close second because people admired their ability to find workarounds without tearing up the rule books and basically still getting stuff done.

In competitive settings, when it's about winning debates or outperforming rivals, rule benders were the top choice, even above rule followers. And the rule breakers were on the bottom in both of those scenarios. So the difference the researchers found...

It's all about dominance versus prestige. While breakers were dominant, they'll boulder us through, but it doesn't always earn respect. While benders have that edge of resourcefulness, they're clever enough to navigate the system and people feel good about following them. Our thoughts...

Well, story time. Here's the time. Let me tell you about the time that I bent the rules. Way back about 23 years ago, I started a company. It was selling alcohol after hours in the UK to students. So they want four cans of lager. We'll come around with four cans of lager. So I got a license to sell it, which in the UK, you need a license, a liquor license. They call it in America. And I got a license to sell it.

And, but the law said I still couldn't do it because I could only sell during permitted hours, which is between sort of like 10:00 AM and 10:00 PM. That's when I could sell it individually. Otherwise I couldn't sell it or I'd sell it wholesale.

Well, this is what I did. First of all, I created a wholesale, an order for every single possible person that could ring up. So if someone said, oh, this person's ordered something, I can say, oh, there's the order. That didn't really work. And in fact, it worked so badly that the court, the police took my license off me. So there I was selling alcohol with no license to do it. But I could still, anyone can sell alcohol. This is back in the day. Anyone could sell alcohol in wholesale quantities, which is basically 24 cans of lager.

but nobody wants 24 cans of lager at one o'clock in the morning. So what I found was, there's a bit in the law which says essentially, if you, you can combine lager and also something called peri, which is pear wine, which is grim, but really cheap. So what we did was, we said you can order whatever you want, but you have to also buy one bottle of this, what's called Lambrini. It was a five litre bottle of Lambrini. It was horrible. Cost about four quid to buy. You had to buy that because that fulfilled us and made us wholesale again.

but if you already had one of those in your house from a previous order, you could swap it over.

So essentially we'd give you a refund for it. So touchy. So basically people had a membership fee of a bottle of Lamborghini. Yes, exactly. And as long as they had it, we'd give you the money back on that bottle and take it away and give you the new one. Of course we didn't. We just basically went, there's your bottle of Lamborghini, there's your four quid back. All right, keep it for the next order. And that was it. And we had a lot of fun with it. But ultimately there's a reason why I'm not running that business anymore is because I went bankrupt for about £103,000.

which was partly due to the fact that the law changed and anyone could sell alcohol after hours. So like the, you know, big supermarkets did and my market just dried up. But definitely that was my first dillying, dallying? Dalliance, that's the word. First dalliance into rule bending and also rule breaking. And I think that, I think the people, I had about 20 people work for me at the time and they all thought it was really fun. And in fact, my solicitor at the time who used to come with me to the courts, he used to really enjoy when he came to the courts because he'd be like, oh, right, okay. They put the,

there was a copper there who was like dead against me he didn't want to be shut down and he used to come along and we used to come up with different ways creative ways of getting around it and then the one time when they took my license away he came in and says do you know what Dave's really unhappy this is the end you're going to have your license taken away but anyway he enjoyed it too so anyway that was the end of my story Lee doesn't really help it doesn't really support it I think it does I think

I think it does. I think rule bending is exactly that. It's entrepreneurial. It's innovative. It's pushing back against maybe two rigid systems that don't need to be that rigid. And they didn't because fundamentally that business went out of business because they changed the licensing rules because they realized they were too rigid. So you were only fighting the rigidity that was then eradicated. Look at me with the worst day. Rigidity eradicated. I haven't even had coffee today. Very quippy. Quippy. Thank you.

Anyway, right, talking of rule breaking, we're late for our break. But after this very, very short break, we're going to be talking about the hot take. We've got a really interesting one, which is going to link into one of Leanne's articles. So we will see you in just a second. Billion Dollar Moves, hosted by Sarah Chen Spellings, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Join venture capitalist and strategist Sarah Chen Spellings as she asks the hard questions and learns through the triumphs, failures, and

and hard lessons are the creme de la creme, so you too can make billion-dollar moves in venture, in business, and in life. Maybe start with episode 124, where you're going to hear how industry giants from Canva to YouTube define leadership. Listen to Billion Dollar Moves wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back. It is time for our hot take, those honest expert perspectives that make us rethink what we know about the world of work. Today, we are talking about happiness. It's a word you'll find in almost every HR strategy and company values. Happiness is held up as the ultimate goal in workplaces, the sign that everything is working as it should. But

But is this really the right thing to chase or have we been missing something deeper all along? Yeah, as we heard at the beginning and we alluded to, happy employees are supposedly the secret of success. If people are happy, everything else is going to fall into place. But it's fair to ask, are we confusing happiness with real well-being? And are we focusing on the right things?

And that is exactly what our guest today wants to challenge. Julian Hayes II has spent years working with leaders and teams on how to build real lasting performance, not just short-term smiles or surface level perks. He believes that happiness isn't enough and it's the wrong thing to focus on if we're serious about well-being because happiness is

fleeting. It comes and goes. What really matters, Gillian says, is helping people find meaning and challenge in their work. That's what drives the kind of energy engagement and resilience that actually lasts. And that's what too many workplaces are missing right now. So let's go and hear Gillian's hot take.

Happy employees are overrated. Sorry, say that again, because this sounds like the opposite to what everyone's saying. Yeah, happy employees are overrated, and it's a terrible metric. So if we don't want happy employees, what do we want? We want fulfilled employees, employees that have meaning. And oftentimes when we think about happiness, we confuse it with engagement, and we use those interchangeably. But they're two distinct things.

Happiness is more of a fleeting emotion that is pretty much like the market at times. It's very volatile. It's like the weather. It comes and goes. Whereas engagement is going to be something a little more sticky. How would I tell, if I was a leader and I'm looking around at my team, what clues would there be that they are happy but perhaps not engaged or fulfilled and fully engaged? Is there anything I can use to tell that? Yeah, a lot of times when you think about happiness is...

I think we'd look at surface level things we think that they want. So maybe we can throw more money at them, right? Or maybe we can make them a little more comfortable in office, maybe give them some surface level perks. But again,

I always go back to the sports analogy. For those of us that played sports, we don't remember the games where you won by 30 points. We remember the games that you won at the buzzer. We remember the games that you had to hold on for dear life because that really made us have to really grow and overcome an obstacle. And that's something that we can hold on throughout the years. And it's the same thing at work. The meaningful challenges, when you're getting stretched, it might suck in the short term.

But this is what really gives you that fulfillment down the road and something that you can hold on to. And then that's what you have to be proud on. Because happiness, a lot of times, these things, they make you feel good in the moment. I've seen this with friends. So I'm mid-30s. So I had friends who took a job, awesome salary. And that's what they focus on. Nothing else about it is really that...

good to them. So it's almost like this hollow feeling that I have money, I have this, but there's something else missing. And that's because when we think about well-being and wellness, we oftentimes think about it as a physical thing, which is true, but there's so many other pillars. There's a mental, there's an emotional, and there's a spiritual. And spiritual doesn't have to mean religion. It has to mean there's a deeper sense. Because we spend a lot of our times working, whether you're working at home, whether you're working in an office, whether you have your own business, work and

personal life are increasingly becoming a symbiotic thing. So for a leader, a business owner, a manager, I suppose the easy thing to do is just to throw a load of pizzas at the team on a Friday and go, sorry, you worked so hard. It's a cliche. Or, all right, I've got you an extra two grand a year as a pay rise. But that's not what we should be doing, is it? No, you can't do that. I think one thing is for the leader,

He has to sell his team to dream. And what I mean by selling your team to dream is like, let them know why this is important. What's the connection? What's the specific importance of their role to the bigger picture of the company? And then once you do that,

I would give them some autonomy so you can challenge them. Let them be on their own. I think people call it more of an entrepreneur now, right? Whereas people within the workplace can still be a little entrepreneurial, make the role their own. Because I believe I wrote about it a long time ago in a Forbes article that especially with millennials and especially with Gen Z even more, they want to have more purpose and meaning in there. What better way to give purpose and meaning and well-being than to have someone...

take the role and sort of make it their own. But the leader has to first and foremost sell his team the dream and connect them and let them know why this is important. And they have to do it more than lip service. They can't just do lip service because a lot of times people write these statements on their website or what we believe in or go on LinkedIn and give these very...

I'll keep it clean. Boring post about their team and culture. And we can sniff that. We can smell it. We can smell that through the screen. That, oh, this is a load of crap. Think as a manager or a leader.

The pushback that I might be giving you is going, yeah, but if I just let them go off and give them a lot more freedom to do whatever they want, then are they going to do anything or just play games all day? Or B, are they going to really screw something up? Well, I think that's the good part, right? Because then you get to really separate who's actually there to work and who's actually there just to collect a paycheck. You always want to have some dead weight, right?

You always got to shed some things off, right? We all during the, you know, we all have skin that sometimes needs to come off. And that's just some of those people. And not to be harsh, but I mean, it's, it's a business. You're there to make money. You're there to win against your competition. So some people just may not make the team down the road. And we just have to look at it that way. But it's better to learn the people who aren't going to make the team now than to have them just tagging along,

10, 12, 18 months down the line. If you are in an organization, you have an organization where it's quite difficult to determine meaning from what your everyday job is. Is there a way to do that? In that kind of situation, I would still challenge them that there's something that you can find out of there. Even if it's not the job itself, it's what does the job bring you?

So what does this job bring to me? You know, a while ago, I had an interesting conversation with a guy who exited his company for millions of dollars. And he did the dream that we always wanted to do. I'm just going to the beach, have some drinks and just enjoy the sun. He's like, well, after a week, I got really boring. Just to do that over and over. What was the point of all this? Right. And so he started to have the itch again. And lo and behold,

He's back doing some type of work. It's not the startup life, but he's coaching other entrepreneurs now to do that. So he's finding a way to still contribute and have meaning because that's what we have. And that's what really makes us feel good is to have meaning, even when we go through something that sucks.

If we come out of it, we can find some meaning. And that really gives us that lasting happiness. That was Julian Hayes II. Really cool guy. Lots of things going on. Definitely go and check out his profile. Also, if you're watching on YouTube, he has a specific pair of glasses that we went on in the interview to talk about. We didn't have time to put in here. So yeah, interesting guy. Really interesting guy. Not a fan of the Beatles like me. Thinks they're overrated.

Interesting. Anyway. Now that's a hot take. Should have led with that, Jules. Definitely should have led with that. Anyway, so first of all, what I really actually talked about was this happiness versus engagement. Now, happiness is like the weather. You know, one minute you're up, next minute you're down. But engagement is the thing that lasts. So even if you're having a bad day at work, it's what's going to keep you going back to work

because you feel like it matters. Now, Leanne sees this all the time. People might be a bit stressed or even tired, but they're still showing up and doing the work because they are invested in what they're doing. So they may not necessarily be happy on any given day, but they're invested and they know exactly why they're doing what they're doing. Yeah, I think Julian's right that happy has become his catch-all term. And what we're actually talking about is engagement, fulfillment, meaningful work.

And this all ties back to the research as well. There's a really interesting article recently that talked about kind of the basic stuff that we all need at work. And that was very simply autonomy, having control of our work, confidence, feeling like we're competent, we're confident enough in the work that we do and the relationships that we hold. And all three of those things together had a significant impact on both motivation and workability.

wellbeing. So it does really go to show that what makes us stick around isn't the perks, isn't even happiness. It's all a bit deeper than that. Yeah, and tell you what else doesn't make us stick around, which we think does, and that's money. So people think that, oh, well, you've got a £250,000 a year job. Well, you're going to be happy.

Now, I think we've probably all seen people who take a job for the cash and then realize it's not enough or it's just horrible. Like we had someone two or three weeks back who was talking about, in fact, Nick Huber, the sweaty startup guy, he was talking about one of his friends who was a partner in a law firm, like,

half a million pound a year he was earning, but he couldn't have time off for the birth of his kid. So he quit. So, I mean, Leanne said this before, once you hit a decent wage, more money is not going to make you happier. It's about whether you're doing something that feels right for you. I think that's a reminder for leaders too. You know, fair pay is essential, but it's not the end of the story. And as we said, leaning back to the story about the best workplaces, it isn't about perks anymore.

They're a bit of a distraction perks. It's nice stuff to have, but it doesn't replace giving people a reason to really care about what they're doing. Having a role where they feel they're contributing to that mission delivery, this purpose, this fulfillment, this meaningful work is what keeps us going, builds our resilience, even when things are a bit hard. So I think, yes, it's not about free pizzas, ping pong tables. We've known that for a little while. But yes, I think if we look at real life,

and purpose, purposefully.

purpose fulfilling work then well-being is just going to be better for everybody absolutely talking about fulfilling work this is my most fulfilling part of the week before we go again I'm sorry oh sorry if you want to find out more about Julian and of course you do he's a huge writer contributed to things like Forbes and all that kind of stuff as well I'll leave links in the show notes go and follow him wherever it is you tend to follow people but not in real life that'd be a bit weird yeah and go and tell him what you think what you think of his opinion of the Beatles that'll be interesting anyway

Or tell me. I look forward to your letters. Right. I think I was in the middle of saying some kind of clever little segue into the workplace surgery. It's ruined. It's ruined because I messed it up. So, guys, workplace surgery is here. This is where I ask Leanne your questions. They are questions around the workplace, around work for managers, leaders, HR professionals, anything to do with work. I will be happy to ask Leanne it. If you've got your own question, check the show notes. Send it over.

I will read it out to Leanne. Leanne, are you ready for question number one? I'm ready. So question number one. Is it fair to ask diverse employees to do extra DEI work just because of who they are? So this person writes, I'm at a huge company and it says it's committed to diversity and inclusion, but lately I'm feeling a little bit stuck. I'm in a technical role and I found myself being pulled into almost every single interview my team does. Not because of my expertise, but because I'm...

Oh no, because I'm one of the only visibly diverse people in my department. My company wants more diverse representation in interviews and hiring panels, which I do understand in principle, but it's not my job and it's getting in the way of the work I was actually hired to do.

Recently, I even got called in from a vacation day just to sit on an interview panel. When I raised this with HR, they said it's still a requirement and that I should talk to my manager if I'm feeling overwhelmed. But to me, it just feels unfair that I'm being singled out because I'm not a white man. I want to support diversity efforts, but I also don't want to look like I'm being used as a tick box exercise. Lee, how do you even start to push back on something like this?

This is so common. This is so common. I think it's called the victim deficit. Am I remembering that right? Sure.

basically means that we, as a species, we tend to put the emphasis on the minority to fix a problem that really is impacting them. So as a woman, it's my job to fix equality for women in the workplace. As a person of colour, it's your job to fix racism. Yeah, that's kind of how it works. And it's really counterintuitive, actually, because we need the majority to really drive change.

So it's very, very common. I think, how do you start to push back on this? There was a phrase in your question, I'd basically build your case around this. I understand it's important. I understand why you'd want me there. But it's distracting me from what you hired me to do and making it harder for me to do my job. That kind of the headline message.

of the conversation you want to have with your manager. And I think, yeah, HR is always going to say go to your manager first, quite rightly, really. So I would put some little evidence together. I would first have a think about whether you want to be involved with work like this. Do you enjoy DEI work? There are better ways to do it. It's not just about having representation on the panel. It's how are you advertising that job to get a more diverse audience.

candidate flow through. It's about the actual assessments that you include in your recruitment process to make sure they're not discriminatory in any way. So this is a whole world in terms of discrimination and bias in recruitment. If that's of interest to you, this could be a really interesting opportunity to pivot into that because clearly there's an opportunity within the organisation. If it's really not, then

then it's about understanding exactly what is your obligation as part of the job you're hired to do. Go back to your job description, what's in there that could be extended into this world of recruitment. It might say something like, you know, supporting hiring efforts as and when required, etc. So have a look what's actually in your job description. Decide how much of this you're actually happy to do and support, particularly if you have a voice in how to do this a bit better. So it's not just a tick box exercise.

And then show how these extra responsibilities are meaning that your day job suffers, things that you're not able to get done or to the same time scale, the same quality, potentially. You weren't hired to do this. So it's about finding a boundary that you're comfortable with that is in the best interest of your development.

without actually undermining exactly what you were hired to do in terms of calling you in from a vacation day absolutely unacceptable that will not happen again is what you're going to say to your manager completely unacceptable um but i think that's my general advice one have a think about whether this is a world that you want to be involved in to go back to your job description and see what is in there in terms of supporting these types of efforts

And three, have a very clear, honest conversation with your manager about how you're happy to support this. You see its importance. It's tipping into it far too much and it's distracting from what I'm actually hired to do.

Yeah. Great advice. Great advice. I can sort of see why, why you're in this position because as a straight white middle-class middle aged man, I would, I think my instinct would be if I was a leader going, right, we want to get everyone involved in this. We don't want to, we, you know, there's one end of the scale where we go, this is what we're doing. And then there's the other end of the scale where we're going, this is what you have to do. There needs to be a consultation sort of in the middle of going, these are our plans and

um to make things more diverse uh make make it more welcome to uh to minorities but perhaps you you do a one-off or a regular sort of like chat with the with the person who wrote this and going what do you think is this enough are we doing it we're going too much rather than just say wheeling this person out every single time to go look how diverse we are check this out

but uh yeah so i think there's there's this there's definitely work to be done there leon just take the answer advice because yeah you are you are being used here which is not cool um and take the answer vice but uh yeah we'd love to hear that how that goes anything else in closing lee no cool so question number two how can i learn to be more assertive as a first-time manager i love questions like this

I recently got promoted to my first management role at a big tech company. And while I'm excited, I'm also a little bit nervous. I'm leading a team of 40 people after years as an individual contributor. Am I right in thinking individual contributor is just someone who basically does the job? They're not a manager. Is that what I see? Yeah, they don't have any direct reports or indirect reports. Yeah.

You'd think after 200 episodes, I'd know terms like that, wouldn't you? My director has been really supportive and believes in me. He says I'm technically skilled, good at teaching and coaching and generally a very strong presence. But he also made it clear I need to work on being more assertive. He told me I can't be too nice.

Hold that thought. We'll talk more about that in a minute. Or let the team walk all over me. I know he's right. I tend to avoid conflict and sometimes I struggle to hold people accountable. I really want to step up and make sure I'm not just liked but respected. So, Leanne, I'd love any advice you can share. How do you learn to be more assertive as a manager? Leanne, you've been on both sides of that and you're also a psychologist. So this should be a good answer. There's so many little...

little bits in here that I want to kind of pull out and pick out. But I'm going to try and remember the ones that feel kind of the most important. First of all, congratulations. Well done. Sounds like you have some qualities, innate natural qualities that a fabulous manager has in terms of being a great coach, being a great teacher and trainer. All those lovely words you used to describe you is wonderful and will serve you very well.

This is your first manager role after years of being an individual contributor and you're managing a team of 40. This would give me a little bit of anxiety if this was my first management job. That's a big old team. I think my first team was like three and then went up to there, up higher. So I think it's not unreasonable at all, particularly as your manager has given you this feedback to ask for some kind of training, management development, that type of thing. Because

Don't be a statistic. We know that 82% of managers are accidental managers, no training, no formal development. Sounds like you might be in this as well. If you can start your management career, getting some training and some support, coaching, mentorship, whatever it looks like, it's going to benefit you.

In terms of being likable, that's one of the greatest assets, particularly as a transformational leader. If you want to drive change and improvement, being likable is surprisingly effective in the research. It's much more effective than respect. So I wouldn't worry too much about being too likable. Likeable is good. Typically, people don't like people they don't respect.

Those two things usually come. The biggest thing here is not being a people pleaser, not saying yes to anything. And the key one there, you said you've not always been very good at holding people to account. That is something you're going to have to do as a manager. And I think this all comes down to me in terms of maybe an area to start,

I don't think it's necessarily about being assertive. I think it's about learning how to have difficult conversations when they need to be had. They can be had in a very supportive way, in a very coaching way, but still a conversation that might feel a little bit awkward. So I think this is probably an area when you are asking for that training and development to really focus on in terms of having difficult conversations. I actually saw a post on this recently actually from Dr. Hayley Lewis who has been on the show a couple of times before saying

She does really great sketchnotes where she'll like draw out a theory or some tips around management and leadership and make it really understandable. So go and follow her because on her website, she actually has books where she's put together sketchnotes. I'm sure there's a sketchnote on sketch notebook on leadership. But she did one and she shared six tips, which basically around preparation. So don't kind of go in just

randomly to have this conversation you need to really think about it to the point of practice it if you are nervous think about talking to your manager and actually going through the points that you want to cover in that conversation with any feedback good bad or somewhere in the middle

Be specific. If something isn't working, you need to show what evidence there is and what impact that's having. So bring one or two examples to that conversation. Think about the environment you're in. Does it need to be confidential? You don't want to be interrupted. Could it be more of a walk and talk meeting where it feels more casual, more of kind of a coaching conversation? It's really about understanding exactly what it is you want to communicate and where's the best environment

to do that. The fifth tip that she shared was remembering that silence is really good. It can give a person a chance to reflect on what you said and then respond. And this is a really powerful technique that Al and I learned in Samaritans. Often if you just stay silent, somebody will then follow up their own thought without you having to ask another question. And finally, and this one won't be difficult for you, is just working with empathy, you know, putting yourself in their shoes and really how you'd feel to be on the receiving end of that

that type of feedback. The final thing I would say around not being a people pleaser is if you're making a decision to

consultation and transparency are going to be your friends. Asking people what they think, what they do, what red flags they see, what opportunities they see, like a little SWOT analysis almost. Not with every decision you need to make, but with the big ones. And finally, if you've had to make a decision that is maybe against, the majority is explaining why that decision had to be made in that moment, how you hope it's going to help and how you're going to track it and monitor that decision to make sure it is having the intended impact that

consultation and transparency are going to be your friends. It's not always about saying yes, but it is about telling people sometimes why you said no. Yeah, and I just probably add from a layperson's point of view, obviously, if this is the first time listening, I'm not the expert Leanne is, but from a layperson's point of view, a leader is someone who makes, a great leader is someone who makes your job easier. That is, they're kind of

almost have an umbrella to stop all the crap coming down from above, from senior leadership. They deal with that. And then they're all, this analogy is being stretched, but then they almost go in front of you in the forest and chop down trees to get them out your way just so you can actually do your job great. The fact that you say you're a good coach is another really, really good, big,

green flag. And the final thing I say on this is not advice, but go back to episode, I want to say about 172173, Vincent Sanderson. It was a genuinely a 45 minute masterclass on how to be a new manager. And it goes from noughts to three months, three to six months, six months onwards. And it tells you exactly from someone who's an expert in management and also has millions and millions of followers and views on TikTok and across all the socials.

tells you exactly how to become the best manager you possibly can be. Yeah, definitely go and check out that episode. I will leave a link in the show notes. Yes, she will. Okay, so question number three. Is it normal to stop caring when your company doesn't value you? Hi, Alan Leanne. Oh, hello. I don't think anyone's ever said that before. Hi, they've included me. I mean, I'm chuffed a bit.

Hi, Anne and Leanne. I'm really glad I found the show because I've been feeling stuck and needed a place to ask for advice. I've been working my ass off. Oh, I like this person already. Working my ass off for a company that doesn't seem to care. No pay rise, no appreciation. And I'm the only woman here, which makes it even harder to negotiate for better pay.

Honestly, I haven't even tried to push for more money because I know it would just mean more work dumped on me. So I've kind of stopped caring. I'm working less, not giving it my best anymore, and honestly, just enjoying the bit of freedom that comes with not trying quite so hard.

I'm also keeping my eye out for other jobs since I don't think this place will last much longer. Am I being a coward but not fighting for what I deserve? Or is it okay to take a step back when a company doesn't value you? No, you're not being a coward. And yes, it is fine to take a step back. I think as well, it's such a funny question, actually, coincidentally to come in this episode, unless you planned it that way.

is that I feel like you've probably answered a lot of your question already just about what we talked about on today's show in terms of great places to work, in terms of what it means to be happy, in terms of what it means when we have fulfilling work. So I think you already got a lot of insights from listening to today's episode.

What you're doing is you've disengaged and you're now what the kids call in quiet quitting where you're doing the bare minimum. And there will be an element of relief that comes with that. There will be, as you said, those little freedoms that I'm going to stop caring so much. And that's particularly common in high achievers. I'm guessing you're a high achiever and take your career very seriously because that's really hard for ambitious people to do is to take a step back.

So with that in mind, it'll feel like a bit of a relief now. That won't last very long, I'm sorry to say. You might get a couple of months out of it, but it's not going to last because you're not fulfilling what it is that you need as part of your identity as an ambitious, hardworking person. As always, I would say take some time to reflect on why your needs aren't being met.

why this work isn't meaningful to you what recognition would look like if it's not just about the money what else is it is it development opportunities all the things that are going wrong in this job that are just causing you to disengage and then make a list of all the things that you enjoy about your job so you're not losing sight of actually this is the type of work I enjoy or actually my co-workers are occasionally my senior leaders that aren't great

really take the time to understand what it is that you find fulfilling about this role if there is anything and what you're not so then you can start to try and craft a checklist of what to look for now you're starting to look at other jobs or keep an eye out for other opportunities so you're not going to fall into the same trap again of going into another organization

The final question I would say to maybe reflect on is what have you done in terms of asking for these development opportunities, in terms of asking for these pay rises? Are you perhaps also a bit uncomfortable with having these difficult conversations or can feel like difficult conversations?

So I would reflect on that as well. So again, when you're going to your next job, you know what development opportunities you want and why they're important, how they're going to contribute to your development and the value you can add to an organisation. You can be clear on the salary and the benefits and the other perks that you need because that's what you need to run your life so that you can give everything and your best self to the organisation. So I think any time like this, it's all about introspection, taking back that control, taking

if you can't control anything in the environment is taking that control back in terms of what you want and what you're looking for next but in terms of headline question are you a coward no um is it okay to step back yes but use that time as an opportunity to to really reflect on what you want moving into another company so the same doesn't happen again and for any big

business owner listening this is what happens when you don't invest in your people this is what happens when you don't train them when you don't give them the resources they need the recognition that they need um this is this is what happens so let the servers are warning people as you will already seen disengage quiet quit we'll leave beautiful i have no notes liam that was perfect not one really what would you say there of someone who's a bit like oh

I don't know. And the key thing in there, which I picked up was this place might not last much longer. And I thought, well, if that is the case, well, I can kind of see from the manager's point of view or the leader's point of view, what's the point? If we're heading on a car that's on fire to a cliff, then why would we make sure everyone's wearing their seatbelts? Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess maybe the slight potential, tiny little ray of hope,

Could be that once you've figured all this out in terms of what you want, that you then go and have this conversation with your manager, with somebody higher up in the organization to see if your needs can be met. Maybe, but equally from what you've said, doesn't sound very likely. Okay, so that's all for now. Join us next Tuesday for another edition of This Week in Work. As we mentioned before, if you're a super fan or you just want to be involved a bit more in making these episodes, then we have started a private WhatsApp group.

Mentioned last week, I didn't tell you what to do. Just check on the show notes for Leanne's email or my email. Fire us over an email and just say you're interested in joining and we will ask you some more. And yeah, by the way, did you, not you Leanne, listener, did you notice a different format for last Thursday's show? Did you like it? Did you hate it? Not necessarily the subject

content because that was that was kind of heavy but the actual format of it we started doing something a bit different and we'll be doing again this week so let us know the links to get in touch are in the show notes or we don't even mind if you publicly find us on linkedin and go we i hated that episode the the concept of that episode and if you disagree with that episode you wouldn't be alone as the analogy before someone disagreed very very strongly in the comments on spotify

we can invite that person on and see if they want to talk. And I suspect they won't. But if you have an opinion, you could be the next hot take.

You could. So as Al said, if you don't know what we're talking about and you want to check out this new format, listen to last Thursday's episode. And this Thursday's episode, this Thursday, we'll be asking the question, is kindness at work a display of weakness? Controversial. We're joined by an author and lecturer who has spent thousands of hours looking at the impact of kindness at work. But do nice guys and gals come last? Does kindness always correlate with happiness? We will find out.

Yeah, so join us as we explore the truth about kindness in the workplace with the awesome and hilarious and Bostonian Jeff LeBlanc. No, no relation as far as I know. Have we asked?

Do you know what? I didn't ask him. So maybe, do you know what? That could be the revelation. So we could go, yes, this is Jeff LeBlanc. He's got a very famous brother. You might have heard of him. Although I suspect Jeff would have brought that up in our soundcheck. But anyway. Now, Jeff, really lovely guy. Some quite strong opinions, but also, as you can imagine as a lecturer, you can see both sides of it. So yeah, definitely don't miss that one. This Thursday coming. We'll see you on Thursday. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

And I'm Al, a business owner. I don't say that. C-G-I-I-T-U-K. Well, they, they, sorry. Fucked that up, didn't you? Welcome back. Welcome back.