208. Steve Jobs wisdom, Gen-Z hustle and the perfectionist trap. PLUS! Is your Zoom set-up saying 'I don't care?'
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Coming up this week in work... Is hustle culture making a comeback just in some slightly prettier packaging? There's a new TikTok trend that looks like discipline but might actually be driving burnout. So what does that mean for your team and your retention?

Are we rewarding the wrong behaviours at work? Steve Jobs once said that the most creative people don't join the Navy, they become pirates. So why are so many organisations promoting rule followers rather than rule breakers? And in the workplace surgery, do we need to fake it to get promoted? One listener says that being calm, quiet and confident just isn't cutting it with her boss. So we're asking, is extroversion...

still the unfair shortcut to leadership. This is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered occupational psychologist. My name is Alan. I'm a business owner. And together we help organizations build amazing workplace cultures. Okay, we're going to get straight into today's episode right after this very short break from our lovely sponsors.

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Welcome back. And it is Leanne's favorite time of the week. It is time for the news roundup. You always say something at this point, Lee. Start the jingle? Yes, that's exactly right. So jingle is being cued. What have you seen this week, my love? I've got a new word. Oh, I love when you get new words. Do I guess the new word? Completely guess it. Sure. Is it work sharking?

Oh no, what's work sharking? Work sharking is when you circle around your... No, I just made that up. I just completely made that up. But to be fair, everyone else just makes up words. So yeah, what's your new word? I think we should make work sharking a thing, by the way. We'll talk about that later. We'll workshop it.

Yeah, we'll put a pin in it for now. We'll circle back. My new word, locking in. Okay, well, I know exactly what this is. Go on then. Well, they say that on Twitter and on the Twik Twok or whatever it's called. I'm locking in. I'm doing, I'm committed. This is what I'm doing. So, you know, I'm going to have a summer body, so I'm locking in. At work, things are going well, so I'm locking in. If I'm vibe coding, I'm locking in. What's vibe coding?

Vibe coding. Vibe coding. You know, it's weird that because we run in different online circles, I thought everyone knew what vibe coding was. Vibe coding is when you basically use something like Lovable or Cursor or Windsurf, which are applications, AI-driven applications, which you can basically build other applications in. So if you want to build yourself a new base camp or build yourself a little mobile app that perhaps will give you beauty tips every single morning...

You can go on, you can vibe code it. You'll give AI a prompt and it'll build the software for you. About two years ago... I didn't enjoy anything that came out of your mouth, Justin. Do you understand anything that came out of your mouth right now? About two and a half weeks ago, we talked about a new word locking in, I think.

Right, yes. Vaguely. Locking in. Yep, no, you're absolutely right, Al. You're absolutely right. Yeah, it's being coined Hustle Culture 2.0. I first saw it in a Refinery29 article, which is a publication I'm not familiar with, but it was posted on my LinkedIn and I was interested. So yeah, this is the definition. Apparently, locking in is a trend which sees TikTokers pursue discipline, cut out distractions...

So the article, I should say, was written by Jade Biggs. So Jade noted that this is a pivot from the soft life trend that we've seen, which is a bit more about self-care, more like slow mornings.

And this pivot towards locking in Hustle Culture 2.0. She asked why. Fair question. We enjoy curiosity on this show. We enjoy the hard questions. Well, the big questions, according to Jessica Bigg. Yes. Very nice. Yes. That's called a loop back in podcasting. Carry on.

So these are some of the whys, Al. So Jade, it was Jade, wasn't it? I don't remember, Biggs now. Jade spoke to some Gen Zs because they're the TikTok people, aren't they? TikTok's right. Yeah. So they spoke to Halle Jammer, 22, from Minnesota. Halle's what? I'm just laughing because when someone says 22 after their name, I always think, well, there's 21 people better than you and earlier adopters than you in the world. So anyway, carry on. What?

Because, why do they just have their name? That's their age. Oh, is it? Hallie's 22. I thought that was their username.

No, Hallie Jermack, who's 22 and from Minnesota. I shall just drink from my big cup of shut up. There we go. I'm drinking now. Carry on. So Hallie said, rent is up, school tuition is wild, and social mobility feels like it's shrinking. So naturally, there's this urgency, especially among young people, to do something about it. It's not just about working, it's about reclaiming power in a system that often leaves us feel powerless. Nicely said, Hallie. I think you have a

in politics or something. Then we have Chloe Gaynor. Chloe Gaynor is 26 now in years and she's from Los Angeles.

So Chloe said, with the unending uncertainty of the world, economically, politically and culturally, I believe people are turning inward and focusing on what they can control. We were talking about this just the other night. Just the other night. When you finished, I'll tell you. Yeah, she went on to say their mindset, their habits and their goals. I knew I had to change the way I was living, starting with my mindset and daily habits. That's so weird. Really weird. Really weird. Just for context, what...

I have what I call the ellipse of give a shittery. And it's a very complicated scientific diagram. If you know what a Venn diagram is, it's basically two circles with intersecting ellipse in the middle. And you've probably seen jokes and stuff, but they're using maths or whatever. And so my Venn diagram I created, or might have stolen, not sure, said things you care about in one circle, things you can control in the other circle. And the bit in the middle, which is things you can care about and the things you can control, is your ellipse of give a shittery. That's all you need to worry about in your entire world. Mm-hmm.

We can't control who's bombing whom. We can't control. It got a bit dark real quick, didn't it? Yeah, man. Our neighbor just came out the other day and was like, we're at war. I was like, what? What? Not wrong. Sorry, I'll carry on. Anyway, that was the point, is that, yeah, what you can control. So if you just lock in on your lips of gibbershittery, your life will be so much better. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

But this is apparently what the Gen Zers are saying about locking in. They also talked about how it is maybe replacing the soft life. And then we had, who do we have? Samia23 in age from London.

um sammy you said the soft life was about rest and protecting peace but i think a lot of us realize that soft living isn't sustainable long term without some structure or achievement to back it absolutely if you want a quiet life don't you want to focus on self-care but we also need purpose and meaningful work in our lives it's that balance that keeps us thriving so yes absolutely you're not wrong um i thought that was really interesting you might be thinking this is this is cool but i'm a business owner leader why should i care excellent question and i'm getting to a point i promise

Why is it meta? Well, as we've just heard, people are potentially going to be picking up other side hustles to get this sense of control, this sense of financial freedom back on a possibility on the table. With that, burnout is going to be potentially high. People could be overworked, overstretched.

And with that as well, you might get some instances of high turnover and your other job market is a bit tricky at the minute. But if someone sees a higher paid job, that job hopping behavior that we saw just post-pandemic might start again. And I think finally as well, it's that control aspect that's going to be really important for business owners and leaders to be mindful of. Anything you're doing in your leadership style, it's going to potentially affect

take control away from somebody. People could react very quickly and very defensively because if all of this locking in is trying to gain some sense of control and then as a leader, you're micromanaging, you're demanding they're back in the office and all that type of thing, no autonomy, rigid hours, it could tip them over the edge. And again, we could see instances of burnout or indeed people quitting. So I thought it's a really interesting trend

that actually really speaks to the kind of political economic climate we're in at the minute and does have some real organizational impacts potentially. Al, what have you seen this week? I have been reading an article about Steve Jobs. Now you might have heard of him. iPhone dude. iPhone dude, exactly. This article was like Steve Jobs and creativity and all the buzzwords that LinkedIn absolutely loved. But it was a really cool article because it basically was talking about the five conventional rules that

create a truly creative people break and i thought well i think myself as relatively creative so relatively thank you very much for the vote of confidence

I'll find some creative insults for you in a second. So the first rule is stay in your lane, don't be a generalist. Second rule is plan everything in advance. Remember, these are what we're going to break. And the third one is climb the corporate ladder slowly and politely. So, I know, that one sounds really boring as well. So according to Jobs, the most creative people do things and ignore specialization. His famous quote was, creativity is just connecting things. Basically, the more random stuff you do...

the more you're going to be able to connect dots. And I know that Leanne and I have done this because we've had quite an interesting and crazy life. And the number of times that we come into work and we go, actually, do you know what? Didn't we meet a guy who was doing something totally different, but we could potentially port that over here? So that was rule number one. I really like that. I also, when I was a kid, my dad used to call me a butterfly mind, and it wasn't a good thing. You are a butterfly, my darling. No.

That's a good thing, though. Butterfly mind. Yeah. Yeah? And it means that, you know how butterflies go from flower to flower to flower? I used to go from idea to idea. So one week I was making kites out of bin bags, and the next week I was making a remote-controlled truck. But all of those things I think really helped. So when we come into creativity now, I'm like, oh, I know a little bit about quite a lot of things. So it's kind of like, I don't know.

I like that. Maybe that's not just justifying breaking that rule. The second rule to break was to plan everything in advance. Jobs said, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. And finally, there's the whole don't politely climb the corporate ladder. He actually reportedly said, be a pirate, don't join the Navy, which sounds great until you realize that actually most jobs are the Navy and pirates tend to get arrested or thrown out. But I think this point still stands is that...

If you think, oh, well, I'll just work really hard for 30 years and when there's a promotion comes up, I'll go, yeah, I'd kind of like to have a go on that. Is that okay? This might have worked for your dad or your grandfather, depending on how old you are. It might have worked in the 60s, 70s. It doesn't work anymore. You need to be a little bit louder. Live life loudly, as we talked about last week. I feel like that's one of those live life loudly laugh lots. LAUGHTER

We'll get that in tapestry. We'll get a t-shirt. Yeah, we'll get a t-shirt for next week. But yeah, don't... In today's day and age, you need to be a bit louder. You need to, if you want something, go out and get it. If you don't be polite and sit back and be a wallflower, just go out there and think, what am I going to do? And his point of being a pirate is, if you take that to extreme, you join the Navy for discipline and ranks and order.

A pirate does whatever the hell a pirate wants to do, which is dangerous, but also kind of cool because you get a patch and you get to speak like...

That's my impression of a pirate. Anyway, I want to be a pirate. What are your thoughts, Leigh? You are a pirate. You are a pirate. I like the whole not planning thing. I think it's one thing to have a rough plan, a bit of a structure or an outcome. Like you said before, an outcome you're working towards. Exactly how you're going to get there is going to change. Corporate ladder, yeah, that's tricky. Equally, you know, financial stability.

Oh, can bring some of that. But then equally, redundancies, and as we're seeing now from the Gen Z about locking in and trying to do things they can control, makes sense. I'm interested in the generalist thing, right? Because I feel like we've spoken to a lot of experts over the last year or so that have maybe given the opposite advice on that. They said, like, you need a specialism, you need a niche. Now, don't get me wrong, as a generalist, I feel reassured by this.

But I don't know. Haven't we heard from people who say we need to be specialists? Or is it now that actually it's too dangerous to be a specialist because you specialize in one thing like C-sharp programming and then AI comes in and can just do it for you? Yeah, I think reading between the lines, I think this was more like

The advice was stay in your lane, don't be a generalist. And Jobs wasn't saying, well, just do a little bit of everything. He was saying, be a bit more creative, go and experiment with other things. So, for example, you might be a specialist in neuroscience, like Dr. Hilary Scarlett we had on episode 80-something. She might be that. But also, she was really interested in other things, like change management. She was interested in what happened. She did a lot of work around MRIs, I think.

which technically speaking wasn't necessarily her specialism. So I think my advice would be, which to anyone now is, be known for something, but also be curious about everything. Oh, that's a quote right there. Is it be known for something, but be curious about everything? Nice. Mic drop moment right there. Say no more. Lee, what else you seen this week? I don't want to.

Did I win Tuesday's episode? You won soundbite of the week, that's for sure. No, I do have something else and it is really cool. I have a study about perfectionism and a study that asks, is perfectionism causing burnout? Oh, do you know what's so weird? What? As you were talking about locking in, one of the things I was going to talk about was...

Perfectionism is the worst thing you can do if you're locking in. I was about to say that. Really? How strange is that? Man, if you had, this would all sync up really nicely. It would be. I wonder if I can go back and edit that in. Yeah, say it now and then we'll pop it in. Yeah, one of the things I'm thinking about really is perfectionism is like the enemy of locking in because if you lock in and you really want perfectionism, you're going to end up burnt out, I think. Interesting. Let's find out if that comes up later in the episode. Perfect, so we'll pop that in.

Anyway. I'm not going to do it.

Does Perfectionism Cause Burnout? So I did, I have posted about this on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to share a few more details. So it's a lovely study from Anushka Singh and Dr. Neelam Pandey from Amity University. This was published earlier this year in the International Journal of Indian Psychology and explores basically the lived experience of perfectionism among IT professionals. And it did find a consistent pattern that essentially proves

High quality work is being done at the expense of mental health and well-being. Say that again.

High quality work is being done at the expense of mental health and well-being. And so you're saying the high quality work is that it's got to be, that they feel like it's got to be perfect work. Exactly. Got it, right. Exactly, and it's having an impact. So this is how they did the study. So the researchers conducted in-depth interviews with IT professionals across companies like Google, Amazon and Meta. All participants had at least three years of experience identified with perfectionist traits and reported symptoms of burnout. Wow.

But then used something called thematic analysis. That's when we just analyse words and find themes. And the study identified consistent trends in how perfectionism shows up and also how it wears people down. So these are some of the main findings and what kind of stood out to me. So perfectionism was the norm, not the exception. So 100% of participants associated their job performance with perfectionism and often defined...

this as delivering error-free work even if that meant long hours or missing deadlines

Burnout was widespread, so 93% reported physical symptoms like migraines and fatigue, and the emotional toll of never good enough was shared across roles and across companies. There was also some tension found between productivity and performance. So whilst perfectionism led to high quality outputs, as you'd imagine it would, and professional pride, about 80%, 87% said it also caused delays,

So overthinking the small details led to missed deadlines and increased team pressures.

And then from an organisational perspective, mental health policies just weren't cutting through. So only 47% of participants found their company's mental health initiatives effective. And many said the policies existed on paper, but not in practice, which is a very common thing, I think. And of course, leaders play a pivotal role in this as well. Leadership can improve this situation by encouraging work-life balance. Man, if only they did. So I thought it was a really interesting study, particularly

in the climate we're in, particularly the pressure we're seeing on the tech industry, it gives an interesting kind of side note to this as well, doesn't it? And also potentially the impact that these people may have psychologically or might experience psychologically if they are laid off from jobs where, you know, it gives them a lot of professional pride, feeds into their identity and they are very, you know, they're perfectionists as well. It could be very detrimental having worked with people who have been laid off from tech giants. Yeah.

I know this anecdotally to be true, and I think this study is kind of pointing to that as well. So in terms of what companies can do if you employ people of any profession, but people who are perfectionists, I'm thinking probably technical things are right. You're going to see more of that. So things like accountants, things like IT people, where the error is going to break something or stop it from happening.

from working um things like setting realistic deadlines redefining performance beyond error rates that's the thing isn't it these organizations have error rates in there you have to hit not helpful and train leaders to balance quality with well-being and also creating systems where progress is better than perfection thank you to Anushka for sharing that on LinkedIn I will leave a link

to her and they study in the show notes okay so after the break we've got our hot take because that is the way we do things around here um i believe there's a really good looking older gentleman on this week um and then we've got the world famous weekly workplace surgery wrap up your questions till the end don't go anywhere see you in 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 failures of the business.

and hard lessons of 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's time for a hot take. The time of the week where we asked a workplace expert to let us know what's grinding their gears and what they'd want to change about the world of work. This week, I don't need to look very far for my guest as he's sat right there.

Hello to you. Yes, that's right. Our guest today is my co-host, Al Elliott. As you probably know, Al is co-founder and co-host of Truth, Lies and Work podcast. He's also the co-founder of Oblong, an organization that helps organizations build amazing workplace coaches. And he's here to give his hot take, his first official hot take, though he often has some spicy opinions. Al, tell me, are you ready? I am. Are you nervous? I am.

I've made some notes as well, so bear in mind what you were saying before. Oh wow, you were prepared. I know, you didn't last week, you just turned up and winged it, it was amazing. I did, I knew what my heart, anyway, it's not about me, it's about you. Anyway, Al, welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, thrilled to have you here. Tell me, what is your hot take? Well firstly, thank you Leanne, it's a dream come true to be on the podcast. My hot take is that if you look bad on Zoom calls...

You don't look busy. You just look like you don't give a shit. I'm a mess. My background's a mess. I'm all a bit flustered because I'm so important and busy. That's not reading is I'm so important and busy. It's just reading that I don't care enough. Exactly. Exactly. Say more. But the point is that you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be like, we've got a studio at home and it is really nice. And we've got lovely lighting and great cameras and stuff. We still don't always get it right, but we try. We try really hard. However, all you need to do really, if you're going to look good on camera,

and sound good on camera is work on three things. It's your video, it's your audio, and it's your background. That's what you need to work on. And none of those things require huge amounts of work to get right. Now, just to give you the context, the worst thing you can do on Zoom, and a lot of people do this on Zoom, is they'll either have the, you know, they'll have the laptop on and it's looking up their nose.

So it's really weird. Or they'll have maybe on a different screen. So the camera's on one side, they're looking at the people in the Zoom call on the other screen. It's like, well, it looks like you're not even looking at the camera. But all of these things are going to give you these sort of like six or seven tips just to make yourself look and sound good on Zoom. Some of them will cost you money, but most of them won't. First of all, let's start with the video. First of all, have your video at least so the camera is eye height.

You want to be ideally sort of like, sort of chest to top of your head in the camera. Usually, I usually try and have about four fingers, three or four fingers away from the top of the frame. And that gives you a nice framing. Secondly, don't have the camera so close to you. The number of people we interview and I have to go...

you do us a quick favor. Can you just, either you sit back or you move your camera back because they're just basically like, hello, help me. They're like, stop it, go away, go away. So that's really sort of your video. And in terms of your actual video equipment, a webcam is good. Like most people have got, I think it's a Logicam C920, which is those ones which you sit on top of your screen. Most people got those. They're okay.

But if you do have, if you are in the Apple ecosystem, then there's something called continuity camera, which means that you can actually use, you can plug in your iPhone into your laptop, if you assume you've got iPhone and MacBook, and you can actually have, your webcam can be your iPhone. And your iPhone camera is about as good as almost any digital camera you can buy for less than a thousand pounds. I know. It's so nice.

Yeah, these are all our secrets are coming out now. So that's really sort of like the main thing is just make yourself look as good as you possibly can. In terms of lighting, now this is a big one. We had a guest on, I'm not going to name who it is, we had a guest on and they were sitting there and they had two windows behind them with the blinds up and they just looked really like,

Like washed out. They look like they're on crime watch. You know, those things on crime watch where they've got, they're all shadowed out. That's because your camera, no matter what you use, your camera is looking for light. That's the way cameras work. So if it sees a huge light source behind you, it's going to grab all that light and forget about anything in front of you.

So tip number one, don't sit with a light source behind you like a window. Tip number two, if you do have to do it that way, just drop some blinds. You will see it make a massive difference. Secondly, if you've got a light, now you've got a ring light, what a lot of people do is put the ring light straight on their face,

they shouldn't be doing that. They should be putting it against a wall or something, diffusing off the ceiling, something like that. So the light bounces off the ceiling, comes back down, diffused. It'll make you look so, so much better. You can do the same with a floor lamp or any other kind of lamp. You don't need a ring light. Just get a really strong bulb, bounce it off the ceiling and you'll look really good. And that's really it for cameras. Lee, before I rant on, any thoughts? I mean, I have follow-up questions. I mean,

The one thing that gets me right is that we're in this world of podcasting, but also our entire world works online. We tend to work remotely the majority of the year. Our clients are remote. We're remote. We're good at being remote. Some people aren't as good at being remote. And it's surprising because we had the pandemic where everyone was remote. So I guess my question is like, if I can only get one of them right, is there one that's more important? Like...

Is it getting my video right? It's better getting my audio right? It's better getting my background? It's better because you do checks with every single guest that comes on the show now and you have for the past four or five months or so to coach them through these things. So which is the most important? Is there a running order?

Believe it or not, it's audio. Right. Most people feel like, you'll notice this yourself. If you start watching a YouTube video and the audio's pretty good, but the video's not great, you'll watch it. If you watch a video where the video's really good, but the audio's really bad, you'll click off.

So audio is the most important thing. Now, well, let's talk about audio then, because you can go like full on knobhead like we have and get these mics and they are fabulous. And they're not that expensive, about 200 quid each or something. Maybe what's that about? 220 dollar. But they have to be very close to you.

So, yes, you can do that, but that's like the best of the best. The next one down is getting a shotgun mic, and that's one which can sit behind your camera, and it just basically directs itself right at your face, and it picks up your sound much better. Again, you're still talking 100, 150 quid to get a fairly decent one. What I would suggest is just using AirPods or AirPods,

like Android equivalents, you know, the Bluetooth pods, because most of them, unless you're buying like the nine pound ones on Wish or what's the other one they have in the UK, unless you have those, they're going to have a pretty decent mic in them. So just sync that up to your computer. If you have some of the, if you have like some wired ones with a microphone in it, that's great too.

Now, a couple of other tips with the audio. First of all, never ever, unless it's just like a really like we have a quick call with your team or something. But even then I would counsel you should make an effort. Never ever just have the audio coming out of your laptop and your microphone in your laptop. Because what happens is the audio comes out the microphone, goes back, sorry, comes out the speaker, goes back into the microphone. It makes you sound all echoey. And the second tip is no matter where you are, try not to sit facing a hard surface like a wall.

Because if you've got a wall, what will happen is you'll talk, it'll go into the mic, whatever mic you're using, it'll bounce off the wall and a quarter of a second later will go back into the mic. And that's what makes you sound all echoey. It's the echo is your voice going into the mic, bouncing off something else and going back into the mic. And is that also why sometimes when I speak to people, I can hear myself?

That's usually because they've done the first thing. They've not got any headphones in or anything. So I'm coming out of their speakers and then it's coming back through their mic into me. I can't deal. I can't continue to talk if I can hear myself. I can't concentrate. Okay, so sound is most important. Backgrounds. Because I remember reading some research that was about this, impressions we make on Zoom. And it was saying that actually we're pretty good at making sounds

positive and negative first impressions and kind of as good as judging them and making decisions about them over Zoom as we are in face-to-face. But there was a couple of caveats and one of them was about how backgrounds can actually provide more

cues potentially about who a person is. So for example, I've got a picture of my dog in the background, then you're going to know that I love dogs. Or for example, you might see that I'm in somewhere that is maybe very plain. It might give you a sense of potentially where I live. Yeah, you're absolutely right, Leanne. I think when it comes to background, there's a couple of rules. First of all, don't have a white background. There's a lot of people who think, oh, well, I look more professional if I've just got a white background. No, you look like you're in prison.

So don't do that. Have something in the background. And it doesn't matter if it's like, shows you a little bit of your life. Like I was speaking to some guy the other day, and he had a cot in the background. Now he just got a newborn baby. So I'm like, well, that's fine because it's something to talk about. So have something in the background, even just a plant or something, but ideally a shelves or something was just, and you can use that to tell people a little bit more about you.

The second thing is, don't sit right next to your background. If it's possible and you've got the space, pull your desk forward about two or three feet. What's that about? About a meter? Pull it away from the background because no matter what camera you're using, it's going to be, it's called depth of field. It's going to make it look a little bit better. And also, if you're right up against something, it just looks a bit weird to look.

crowded so try and do that if you do use your iPhone for that then it's got a brilliant depth of field which means the further away from the background is the more blurry it is and it looks all cool and like cinematic and how where do you stand on like the fake backgrounds

don't why because because when you move like this then it it shows you if it's a fake background it's like wearing a wig on a zoom call it's like why have you got a fake background what's going on in your background and i start thinking what more about why is it fake than and when and the people do the blur thing and that's just i mean it's got better but still then there's some people who do it and it's like a library or something and i'm like are you are

Are you on the same call as the other person I spoke to two weeks ago who had exactly the same background? No. I would suggest don't do it. Be authentic. What...

Some people talk about green screen and you can get these green screens that sit behind you. There's so much even attached to the back of your chair, like in a big circle around you. Yeah, you can do that. But if you start using Zoom with an actual green screen, like proper, like screen, physical screen, then it uses a lot of your computing power. And so that's why you've got laptops, which will overheat or you'll hear the fan spinning, which will affect your audio. So my advice is,

Just be authentic. Just spend a few minutes having a look or sorting your background out. And then before you jump on a call, just make sure there's like no dirty knickers hanging from the window or something, or make sure you haven't got like your breakfast sitting behind you. So yeah, that's my advice. Oh, and finally, clean your lens. Clean your lens for...

all that is holy and good just get a little cloth and clean your camera lens because oh my god it just looks so much better no i like it i like it and i think it's really good advice for anyone in a leadership role that does a lot of video calls video meetings these are things that are going to affect how you come across your level of influence how you understood how engaged your people are going to be you're going to want to make sure that these things are all all done um and particularly for

particularly for anyone out there who is a thought leader or wants to really, you know, change the world with their messages around organisational life and leadership and wellbeing. Again, it's going to be much more credible if you've kind of got these things sorted. And as a typical budget then, just to get like, I've not got loads of money to invest in this, but I'm willing to invest a bit. How much am I going to need to get a decent camera, a decent camera?

um microphone and some kind of something with my background okay probably less than 200 dollars um because if you've got an android then there's lots of things on android i forget i think they're called elgato elgato's got a and i forget virtual cam or something but just google um just google a way to connect your android to your laptop um you can just use your android phone so you don't need a proper phone you've got an iphone as i said before they connect natively to mac

Your mic will be the best thing you can do. And you can actually go and get, I've only ever seen it written down. I think they're called Lavalier mics. Please tell me in the comments how you actually pronounce that word. But you know the ones that newsreaders have. Pin on here. You can pin it on there. Plug it into your mic hole, mic hole.

mic socket in your computer that's going to be 100 times better and you can get those for 30, 40 quid Rode does a really really really good one about 60 pounds R-O-D-E that's all the equipment we use here and that's it background should just be stuff you've got at home just go and move a plant that's it

Lovely. Lovely. It's very affordable, actually. And if people want to learn more about how to get all this stuff right, Al, maybe engage you, because I know you've actually done some coaching around this. Where do they go to book in that opportunity? Well, I'd love to say I've got a fancy website, but I don't. Just go to the show notes, you'll see al at oblong.com, oblonghq.com, or al at truthliesatwork.com. It goes to the same place. Drop me a quick email. I think the main thing we just need to remember is we're not about being YouTubers. It's about...

It's not about perfection. It's about presence. There we go. Mic drop moment of this, of, of, of, and that's on brand from what you were talking about before. Yeah. Lovely. Lovely. I'll thank you very much. I'll leave a link to all of that in the show notes. Fabulous. Okay. Lee is now my favorite time of the week. It's the world famous week of workplace surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne. You know, all this, it's just, just,

Tune out for 10 seconds. Leanne is a chartered occupational psychologist. She's an expert in workplace culture. She's here to answer your questions around work. We tend to get questions from managers and from people who want to be managers or people who've just got problems at work. If you've got one of those problems, just send us a quick email. Details in the show notes and we'll read it out. We'll keep it anonymous, of course, unless you tell us otherwise. Leanne, are you ready for the first question? I'm so ready. So where is a great place to work remotely and feel inspired again? Hi, Leanne. Hi, Leanne.

And Al, thank you for including me. This might be a bit outside your usual questions, but I know you've both worked remotely while traveling. We have. So I'd love your take. Oh, I see. Right. Okay. I should have read this beforehand. I thought it was like, where in the house is where in the world? Um, that one.

I did read the other two just didn't read this one I've been in the same remote job for nearly five years lately I found the need of a change of scenery something with nature new people and a bit of adventure I'm thinking somewhere in Europe Asia or maybe even Australia okay so you've got a small area to look at locations

I'm not looking to completely quit or do the digital nomad thing full time. We did. Just hoping to spend a few weeks or months somewhere that's comfortable, energizing and remote work friendly. Any tips or sharing your thoughts or experience would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. This is right up our street, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. Oh, there's so many variables that we don't know. Yes.

When are you going to go? What time of year? Do you prefer warm weather, cool weather, mountains, beach, seasides, that type of thing? You said nature. Nature can mean a lot of things. Broadly speaking, the most important thing is going to be things like your internet, isn't it? And making sure you can still do...

do what you're doing. And in our experience, it's actually really surprising where you'll find some of the best internet. Obviously, you're going to have your kind of digital nomad hotspot. So I'm talking things like Prague. Where else? Bali. Yeah. I mean, I guess anywhere around...

Croatia has now got a digital nomad visa, so there's lots going on there. Portugal. Portugal, of course. And that can be quite nice because you'll find a lot of other people are doing what you're doing. There is a risk of getting a bit lonely sometimes if you go to more obscure places. So for your first time, I'd recommend going to more of a digital nomad hotspot or at least where there are some. So they're probably the main ones in Europe, aren't they? Czechia, Portugal, Croatia, Poland, potentially, are probably the main ones that you want to look at.

And I don't remember any internet struggles in those places. Croatia is a bit hit and miss from time to time. That was on the island. So yeah, if you stick to somewhere around Split is a cool city. Yeah, Split is really great. Beautiful coastline as well. Lots and lots of nature. Stunning. If you're going for the nature, yeah, Croatia is probably a really great shout over country.

Prague Czech Republic very built up Portugal beautiful nature but very busy so yeah Croatia could be a good shout but it is quite expensive yeah um if we're looking east and this is where you'll be surprised I have had some of my strongest 4G um internet access network thingy going on whilst I've been on a ferry in the middle of the sea somewhere in around Thailand I don't understand how it works but it did um

Thailand has got loads of digital nomads. I think it's a really good introduction to Asia. If you've never been before, the food is incredible. Lots of different islands you can go to with different vibes. So when you're feeling a bit quiet and a bit like you need some, you know, something more going on, you can go to the busier islands like Koh Samui or then you've got other ones that are a bit quieter. Koh Lanta. Koh Lanta. Oh, that's the bigger digital nomad one, isn't it? Koh Lanta. Koh Lanta's the one you want to go to. Yeah.

So yeah, I think Thailand is a really good one. Don't go to Bali. No, just don't. Don't go to Bali. Don't. It's not. It's not good. And do you know what gets me? Alec, if you're listening to this, you know. I have friends ask me about Bali and I always say, didn't like it.

didn't vibe with it, wouldn't go again. They always still go and then come back and go, you were so right about Bali. I'm like, I know, I know. I guess maybe just have to have to see it. Don't go to Bali. Australia. Yeah, we spent some time in Australia and New Zealand. Beautiful. I'd probably vibe a bit more with Melbourne than I did with Sydney.

But again, that city. Yeah. New Zealand could be a better shout. Again, expensive, but you're going to have some beautiful, beautiful countryside there. So,

So they're my general thoughts. I maybe have some quick tips on equipment as well, but Al, first of all, what are your thoughts on location? Yeah, I agree. I think if you really like nature, then Eastern Europe is a good place. Oops, sorry, I just took my microphone. Have you got that excited? If you really like Eastern Europe, it's a good call. So you potentially, I mean, if you're intrepid, look at Georgia. We've never been, we'd love to go. It's a bit spicy now, isn't it? Well, yeah, I don't know how quite, oh yeah. I mean, I've seen that it's okay, but...

Maybe don't take my advice on that. Do your own research. But certainly look at, you know, Bulgaria is really cool. Look at Greece, North Macedonia, Macedonia is a cool place. So I think Eastern Europe is really cool and also is relatively inexpensive. The internet is usually pretty cheap. If you just want beach life for a couple of months, Thailand, go to Koh Lanta or Trieste, not Trieste, that's in Europe. What's the one down, Trat, Trat?

yeah Traps on the Mainland isn't it yeah yeah Koh Lanta Koh Chang we really enjoy Koh Chang is stunning and you're going to go in there you're going to go and buy so before you go go and buy a 4G router make sure it takes a SIM card usually about $60 go and get a 4G router and then when you get there locally there's an application called Saley yeah which I don't know whether it works over there we use it in Europe but I don't know if it works over there but just go to any kiosk and just go and buy a data and the data is so cheap yeah

It's like fast. At the time we were getting 20, 30 megabyte down.

And that was like seven years ago. So it's going to be so much faster now. And you're just going to get the most beautiful experience, in my opinion, if that's your bag, if that tickles your pickle, because you can be sitting on the beach. Don't sit on the beach with your laptop. You get standing in your laptop, but you can be sitting there. You could go and have some lovely food. You'll be in shorts and t-shirt. It's just go at the right time of year. Yeah. Oh, I, do you know what I think? Yeah. I think Thailand's a really good show, particularly if you're looking for travel, something a bit different to reset. Yeah.

There is a digital nomad community there. There's great internet there. Internal flights are really cheap so you can bob around different islands. It's really also cheap to hire a driver. We did that a couple of times. It's about the same as a flight for both of us to just get in a taxi to go down from Bangkok to one of the islands.

It's fabulous and the accommodation is so affordable so you can stay in places that are a bit more hostel-y, backpack-y. Then you can go somewhere really nice. Great hack if you do go somewhere nice that includes breakfast because they have a lot of savoury stuff for breakfast and breakfast usually goes on until 11. We get up early, go for breakfast at like 7.

This is when we had a bit less money. Also, it's just a savvy thing to do. So we'd have breakfast at seven and then we'd have lunch at like quarter to eleven. Beautiful. Yeah. Agreed. Go to Thailand. Okay. Well answered. And we love questions like that. I'd love to say, if you like that, go and check out our other podcast, A Sideways Life, but don't because we haven't posted for about 18 months. There's a lot of episodes there. There's a lot. There's 200 odd episodes. Yeah. We get a little drunker on that one. Actually, we don't get drunk at all on this one, just to be clear. Yeah.

Question number two. Do I have to fake it to get promoted? I'm 28. I'm project coordination for four years. But last week, my manager told me I'm not leadership material because I don't speak up enough in meetings or make myself visible. Apparently, I need to build influence.

The thing is, I listen more than I talk. I avoid drama. I get on with the work and fix things before they become problems. I've tried being louder for a month and it just feels fake and it feels exhausting and I don't think it's working. So here's my question. Do I really need to become someone I'm not to get ahead? I put the wrong intonation on that. Do I need to become someone I'm not to get ahead? No.

but you might need to manage the expectations of others and how they see you at work this is one of the most frustrating myths for me in in the workplace is that extroverts equal better leaders the loudest person in the room is often not the smartest so I think that is just a myth that isn't

you are actually also really smart though everyone needs an exception everyone needs an exception so I think I think yeah loudness gets you noticed but being talkative isn't great leadership that's not really how how it works and in

Introverts can absolutely lead. We talked to John Amici about this when he was on the show and he was very, very clear that often introverted leaders can be even more effective because they're more introspective, they're more reflective, they're more empathetic. I think he said something like, you know, no one's ever turned to a leader and gone, you're just too empathetic. So yeah, introverts just lead differently and that's okay. But of course, because we're in a system that exists now,

already and favours extroverts. We might need to just tweak some of our behaviours occasionally so we, you know, we get on and get up. So, yeah, so I think,

You don't have to fake it. And you're right, that will be exhausting because it's all this effort going in, which is hard for an introvert anyway. But anything that is the dissonance between our behavior and how we're actually thinking and feeling inside is going to cause tension and ultimately stress. So I think it's really kind of looking at behaviors that guide your decisions, guide your approach to leadership, and maybe a bit more vocal about those, which

with your leader. So say, for example, you might go into them and just check in with him. And I used to do this with my manager, actually. And it took him a little while to get to know me. Once he did, he'd get to the point where he'd tell me something and go, I'm going to leave that with you. I'll call you in about an hour. What I'd say is if you've had a really positive experience

with a member of staff that was maybe a bit difficult. Maybe they had a bit of beef. Maybe they weren't happy with how something was being handled in the organisation. Maybe you sat down with them. You had that conversation with empathy, with honesty. You explained the reasoning behind the decision. You gave them the why. They then understood and were like, okay, I get it. You've got my buy-in. Let's move forward. You might...

them on a phone your manager go just to put it on your radar nothing to worry about at all but I've just had a conversation with a member of staff you don't need to say who member of staff who thought this felt that had a conversation with them I brought them around they're now on board but I just thought just wanted to share that with you it then kind of shows okay so the behaviors that that

This person is enacting as a leader that I thought weren't effective actually are, or they're enacting behaviors I didn't even realize they were enacting and are effective. So it's almost like you need to be a bit more vocal in feeding back your approach and how that's working. And I think this is maybe what you'll feel comfortable in terms of speaking up about.

It isn't being the loudest person in the meetings, but it's maybe speaking up in terms of what's going on in the organization and how you've handled it effectively. So that can be one technique that you can do. There's also going to be lots of organizations out there who are going to appreciate a more introverted leader, who are going to...

yeah, look for leaders that have the right behaviours rather than the right talking voice. We heard that from NHS Christie a few weeks ago. And actually, in terms of that, one thing that may help is to understand the behaviours that you are enacting and you are doing effectively and doing something like a psychometric, like the real world leader could help you do that. So then you can understand your own behaviours better so you can point them out more effectively to the manager.

At this point, there's going to be people going, this sounds like you're just telling him to do his manager's job for him. Yeah, essentially, because your manager doesn't know what she's talking about or he's talking about because they're making incorrect assumptions about what it is to be an effective leader. So at this point, you're going to have to try and educate them because it doesn't sound like they can educate themselves. Yeah, and I'd probably maybe suggest, see if there's anyone else on your team who you can sort of team up with.

So maybe the idea being that in meetings, then if you've got like a partner in crime that you've met and deal with, then they can say, oh, did you know that Arthur did this thing? And Arthur and you being Arthur can go, oh, yeah, I know I did do this thing. I can tell you a bit more about it if you want. Just gives you that in rather than going, yeah, I did this thing, which is quite awkward if you are slightly more introverted or you don't like speaking up quite so much. I think what Leanne says is just be yourself, be authentic.

And if, it might be a bit tough this, but if you're not being appreciated for being yourself in this organization and you're still turning in great work and contributing,

Long term, it might not be the organisation for you. But obviously, you don't make any rash decisions. But yeah, last thing you want to do is fake it. Because to be honest, faking it, as Leanne said, takes so much energy from you, but also is inauthentic and people can spot it a mile off. I mean, the other thing that you could do is ask more questions around what your manager said about you.

leadership material what does leadership material look like in this organization what are the behaviors the values the outcomes that they drive it might be that you're doing that but just in a different way so again you're going to have to try and find a way to

to vocalize that in a way that's effective and comfortable for you but it might be worth digging into exactly what the leadership material means um so you can have a better understanding of how you can reach that but in your own unique way love it in your own skin i love it okay question number three leanne what does purpose-driven leadership really look like in practice this is a great question i want to know the answer to this question i should know the answer to this question

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to lead with purpose. I was recently part of a discussion on authentic leadership. See, you need to be authentic. Authentic leadership, and it really got me questioning what that actually looks like on a day-to-day, especially in seeing your roles. How do you stay aligned with your values when you've got deadlines, politics, and commercial pressure pulling you in all directions? I'd love to hear your take. What does leading with real intention look like, Leanne?

you, you, you've answered your own question. It's a, it's, it starts with values. It starts with understanding exactly who you are. And that sounds really cheesy, but it really is a case of understanding what kind of professional am I? What kind of person am I? What kind of human do I want to be? How do I want to be better? And having that really deep

period of reflection using coaching models to help you with that whether it be the vitals model whether it be things like there's a you know what is a quite a good exercise to do if if that all seems a bit abstract or you're not exactly sure what your values are is a career timeline exercise so basically right right draw a horizontal line on the left hand of the line start with your very first job even if you were

14 and then map out every job that you've ever had through to current day then as you go through reflect on what you really liked about that job what you didn't like about that job if there was somebody there that inspired you if there's someone there that really irritated you to help you get an idea of the work that was meaningful for you the work that you enjoyed that gave you energy that you found fulfilling and and why and saying why it's going to give you those clues as to what

your values are, who you want to be, whether you want to be an empathetic leader, whether you want to be wildly creative, whether you want to build something really exciting, that's going to give you an idea. Once you have this in mind and written down, it's a case of

looking at your organization is going to be critical because if your values are out of sync with the organization that you're currently working in or considering working in that's not going to work out that leads to what we call moral burnout and it's really hard it's really tough and you just can't last long in an organization that's fundamentally out of sync with your values you might get 18 months out of it maybe two years depending on how involved you are

anything longer than that is where you're going to find yourself. What do you say in these places where you're being pulled in all directions? If your organization is aligned with your values, that probably won't happen very frequently at all. My kind of general advice. And I think finally, it's kind of thinking about where are your weaknesses? Where are you

Where do you stumble when you're stressed? So for example, when I'm stressed and under pressure, I get very direct because I just need somebody to understand what needs to be done and that somebody is usually out. I'm sorry, Tilling. I get very direct because I just need to communicate this as clearly as possible to make sure it happens properly.

Having that self-awareness is if I'm working with somebody who isn't my husband, which is another conversation, is it when you work with your partner, actually the behaviors that you would never do with another professional. But if I'm in another environment, I can feel that that stress starting to build up.

I know that's going to happen. I don't want to be an arsehole. I don't want to make people feel uncomfortable or stressed or like they've done something wrong. So I know to calm myself down and have that conversation calm me in terms of, right, can I just ask some questions to clarify what's going on? And then I think once we've done that, we'll be able to agree a way to move forward.

And it's having that self-awareness to adjust your behavior in those moments because I don't want to be an asshole. I want to be a good manager. And if that's one thing that you want to be as a professional, then that's something that you're going to kind of check yourself on. And I think another one, I think I heard this from...

Louise Kershaw, who was on the show, brilliant, brilliant career coach. And she was kind of saying things like in terms of understanding your values is looking through your day and going, what did I enjoy today? What gave me energy? What did I not enjoy? What took energy away from me? And if the negatives are outweighing the positives on most days, then that's another indicator that you're out of sync with the organization you're working in or the role that you're in.

So in terms of what is purpose-led leadership, it's intentional, it's mindful, it's reflective, it's proactive, and it's done every day in a way that you self-audit yourself. And over time, when you find yourself in that right organization, your colleagues will help you audit that behavior as well and check in.

That is essentially what authentic leadership is. It's knowing who you are, how you want to operate in the world and finding an organization that will celebrate who you are and how you operate. Last week, we had Jeff LeBlanc on talking about kindness. And he said the best manager is a flawed person. So this whole thing seems to be around perfection right now. But just don't try and be perfect. Don't try and get it right straight away. The best managers are usually flawed.

So thank you for the listeners who sent in questions this week. If you have a question along any of these lines, anything specific that's happening in your organization, you can send us an email. Hello at truthlivesandwork.com. Yes, we'll see you next week. So Thursday, we've got another interview and next Tuesday, another This Week in Work. And then in about three weeks time, we're starting our new format for Tuesdays. Summer, summer, summertime. So we will see you then. Have a great week. Bye bye. Subscribe, like, share, review. Do all that.

Thank you. Bye. Bye. This week in work, is hustle culture making a comeback? That's my bit, bitch. Oh, sorry. Plus, are we rewarding the wrong behaviours at work? Steve Jobs once said, join the Navy. No, he didn't. This is Truth, Lies and Work, where workplace culture meets science. The award-winning podcast. I don't do this, Ben. Do you want me to just do it?