Ep 209, Midcareer Development

Welcome to Conflict Managed. I'm your host, Merry Brown. This week on Conflict Managed, we welcome Lucy Standing. Lucy is a charter psychologist, founder of Brave Starts, and vice chair of the Association of Business Psychology.

She was previously global head of recruitment in the investment bank and strategy consulting sector across JPMorgan and LEK Consulting. Lucy is co-author of the new book Age Against the Machine, a book that argues the talent shortage gripping British businesses isn't a talent problem, it's a filtering problem. The most experienced, emotionally intelligent, highest performing workers in the room are being screened out by algorithms, assumptions, and by hiring systems built for a workforce that no longer exists.

Lucy has spoken in the UK Parliament on this issue, contributed research to the OECD on aging and employment policy, and writes a regular column for the Daily Telegraph. As founder of the Brave Starts CIC, a career development community of over 2,000 people navigating midlife work transitions, she isn't just making a theoretical argument. She has thousands of real stories to back it up. Good morning, Lucy, and welcome to Conflict Managed.

It's very nice to be here, Merry. Thank you very much for having me. I know we're going to have a fabulous conversation today. I can't wait to talk about your brand new book that has just come out.

But before we get to that, I would like to hear about the first job you ever had as a young person. The first job I ever had was working, I grew up in Hong Kong. So I actually worked for a restaurant chain called LA Cafe, which is a rather odd name for a Hong Kong based restaurant but I was a hostess so I would meet and greet people as they walked in and show them to their tables I'd also sort of help plan the sort of seating you know all of the reservations for the day when I got in I planned so that all of the waiters would get equal spoils for the tips and things and yeah that was it was my first job and I did that two summers in a row.

What was that like? So when you went to work, did you feel, was it supportive? Was it scary? Was it, what was it like?

Well, I mean, in many ways, it was an absolutely brilliant job because it wasn't the sort of role that was going to dictate or predict the rest of my life. I knew it was a summer job and it was a fun summer job, but I didn't have all of the resources at that point to maybe say no a little bit more hard and a bit more you know with a bit more authority so I do remember there being quite a strong culture around drinking and of course with it being a bar and a restaurant the you know it was very much de rigueur that at the end of the day you'd sit around the bar and have a few drinks with your work colleagues and because I was finishing my university my summer holidays going back to university so they'd know I was leaving the tradition was anyone who was leaving would You'd be forced to drink a couple of really quite potent cocktails.

And if you didn't drink them, you'd get thrown in the fountain outside. And I didn't want to drink the cocktail because I knew it had Sambuca in it, which I hate. But I also didn't want to get thrown outside. So stupidly, I did cave into peer pressure and I drank them.

And let's just say, let's just put it this way. I spent the rest of that evening on a friend's balcony throwing up over the balcony. I mean, actually, it was OK in the end, but genuinely really quite dangerous. Yeah.

It can sound like harmless fun, as we know that people die from alcohol poisoning and hazing, right? That's it's hazing there's a reason why we don't do it yeah you know and i was one of my when i went to university one of the kids in the first year in the block that we were living in died from that so way too much alcohol one night choked on his own vomit died i mean how ridiculous it's awful it's awful yeah it is it is a an excellent reminder of why we do have certain standards of behavior and why something that might look like harmless fun really is not, right?

That's highly dangerous. Yeah, it is. I mean, I think 99 times out of 100, it's usually okay. But yeah, being older and wiser to not want to be the 1% is something that I think takes a bit of maturity to get to.

Yeah. And you mentioned peer pressure, like we're subject to that. A lot of times, So we think about that for the young worker or for the younger person. But I'm sure you see in your work, as I do in mine, that peer pressure never goes away.

It's how are we going to decide to deal with it? How are we going to show up when somebody is pressuring or a whole group is pressuring us to do something that doesn't feel right or that actually might be illegal or just against our own moral code? I mean, I would say the way that I see that show up with our members and the kind of the workshops that we run, the discussions we have, I would say that the men that I work with probably struggle most, as in, if I'm going to have a conversation with somebody, most of the women that I deal with have strong social support around them and they have strong peer-to-peer network.

With with men the difference is very subtle so there actually aren't very big differences between men and women but societally you know if a group of women get together they're probably more likely to talk about feelings impact emotions when the men get together it's a little bit more the latest deal whatever is going on in sports there is less space for them and i guess a bit less availability and potentially less societal structure for them to kind of go oh look i i'm not really enjoying my job or look, I've been made redundant and look, I'm really struggling to find work again.

The mechanisms for them to be able to share that seem to be fewer and far between. So I find a lot of the men that I deal with will struggle with the expectation that's put upon them and they don't often have an outlet to voice their anxieties, their struggles, their concerns. It's a really good point because when we have these expectations that are put on us and we're not sure, it is so very helpful to have somebody or a group to process that with instead of we're just when we don't do it outside we're just kind of stuck in these loops and we've got this our own narrative instead of sometimes just saying it can help us figure it out but if we don't do that or we don't have an outlet then we can get I think really easily stuck and reduce our possibilities because we're not thinking collaboratively or a group or we're just we're spinning in ourselves and, And I think that's one of the reasons why I put such strong emphasis on dialogue, discussion, conversation, connection.

You know, we don't have one meeting that's a webinar. I refuse to do anything where we're just talking at people or we're not even I mean, whilst we have a resources section, this is the nonprofit I run. Whilst I've got a resources section, it's not really where we're sending people to spend hours and hours of time doing e-learning or anything like that, because it is the most unengaging form of learning. And that isn't what brings people back time and time again.

If you're actually having to discuss and answer questions, why do you do that? What makes you worry about that? What help would you like next? That idea sounds okay, but what about, have you thought about this, that, or the other?

When you actually have a dialogue. Puts whatever thinking you've got in your head, it kind of pushes it down to a next layer of processing because now you have to justify, you have to answer, you have to articulate your anxieties about things. So it just, it takes it from one particular level and just pushes it down another stage, which I think has the impact of it being more potent. But certainly as far as reward is concerned.

If somebody is articulating an answer to something, if they are communicating an anxiety and they're getting some form of feedback from that that's live, that's empathetic, that's supportive, then actually that as an experience is far more rewarding. And I think in a world, maybe we'll go on and talk about this later, but in a world of AI and constant private equity firms wanting to sort of support and invest in the software as a service, subscription models, passive income, blah, blah, blah.

I think, yeah, you know what? I'm hopefully building the model that's scalable, but human in connection. Yeah. Because it's just more effective.

You know, people just don't engage as effectively with something that is passive and non-interactive. 100% agree. Absolutely. You know, it's the thing about technology is we, and we have all these tools but sometimes we just fall in love with technology and and we want it to work we want it to do this certain sort of thing but then we forget but who is it serving if technology is serving us and we're human persons and then we have to understand how human persons really are how they really work what really motivates them and unfortunately for the vast majority of us it's not clicking through a series of videos and they're like oh okay i've got it and this has seeped into me and now I'm going to make these changes and this is, you know, not that we can't learn bits of information, but we're more than algorithms.

We're not bits of information. So we need something else. Yeah, I completely agree. So, Lucy, I want to talk about your nonprofit, Brave Starts.

But before we get to that, I want to know how you got into this space. So can you just take us a little bit through like what you studied at university and your career trajectory to get to where you are today? Yeah, my well, so I'm a chartered business psychologist. And so that's my sort of my professional hat.

And I have been a psychologist pretty much my entire life. So obviously, at university, there was the odd job that you're doing, like the waitressing and so on to sort of help supplement a bit of income. But my sort of my serious job, if you like, started, you know, I did my degree in psychology at university. My first job ever was actually working in an executive search firm.

But I think the more colloquial name that you might refer to that is as headhunting. So I did headhunting for a year and I absolutely hated it it was repetitive it was dull it was I felt I had no integrity because I was lying to people the whole time you know it was in the days before LinkedIn it was in the days where you'd have to contact through switchboards make up excuses for why you needed to talk to people pretended I was a journalist so that I could get through to certain people ask them all sorts of questions and then and then bare-faced lie about why I was asking these questions and people were so you know generous with information I I couldn't even send an email afterwards to say thank you from a Financial Times email address or whatever excuse I was lying about.

So I absolutely hated that role. And I thought, right, if I loved my degree, I'm going to go back and do my master's and do this properly. So I went back and did my master's. From there, my first job was working in an investment bank.

And that was really where it all started on. So I was managing graduate recruitment. And actually, it was probably that first job that made me realise how poor so many forms of assessment are. So, you know, we used to run assessment centres.

And these assessment centres, we would ask people to do things like interviews, case study exercises, role plays, group exercises and things. There was one interview and that was done by the managing director. And when I followed up two years later, and we looked at how these graduates performed in their roles, and we'd sort of go, let's look at the bonuses, a percentage of salary, line manager ratings, and how happy they are in their jobs. The assessment exercise that had not only no correlation, but a negative correlation with people's performance two years later was the managing director interview.

So in other words, we had managing directors go, I can spot an investment banker the minute they walk in through the door. And of course, they couldn't. They could spot people who are probably quite confident, well-dressed, you know, these sorts of things. If anything, they ruined and undermined the effectiveness of the process.

So then I was like, hmm, very interesting information. But of course, comparing the grads with interns was where things got really interesting. Because of course interns would come in and some of them would get offered a job at the end of the summer and some of them would say i never want to work in an investment bank ever again thanks but no thanks others would turn around and go oh my god my dream i've loved this summer and in inevitably again two years later the ones who tended to be the best performers were the ones who were interns that had converted into the jobs as opposed to the grads so what that tells us is that people make better decisions for the business if they are allowed to self-select the job for themselves.

So, you know, if we give people more insight into the job, They will make a better decision about whether or not they want that job. And ultimately, that's then better for the company. And yet here in 2026, we are still in a scenario where for most jobs, the way that we find out about them is through a job description. No conversation, something on a website or worse than that, a jobs portal.

And then the way that we apply for it is easy apply, no effort needed. You can do 500 applications in a day with LinkedIn if you like. So zero effort required. And that leads to probably the worst outcome.

And so, you know, that's a bit of a long-winded way of saying the reason I do the work I do now and the whole Brave Starts piece is it's come from lots and lots of pieces of experience all stitched together over the course of my life. It started in graduate recruitment, but actually it's also come from things like designing e-learning modules that I know nobody ever looks at. You know, it comes from running courses where I know people enjoy the face-to-face element most. And all of that insight comes together to build Brave Starts.

And the reason we've built Brave Starts is because I think adults need career guidance just as much as students at university do. And we know that the world is ageist. So there are specific barriers that people face as they get older. And actually, you know, helping support people through that and helping them understand that they're going to have to do things differently.

Doesn't take someone talking to them the whole time. It takes someone who does show them the reality, gives them the insight, but then facilitates them to talk to each other, to want to meet again because they've met each other last time. And it's a great group and I want to get together next week. And then because we've given you the insight, how are you going to start doing things differently?

Let's see how that plays out over the next few weeks and months. Is that more effective or less effective, and so on and so forth. So everything that we're doing is about trying to push people to understand more about the reality that they're up against, have more agency about what it is that they do to take control over their lives. But ultimately, so that they're in a position where they can carry on working, making a contribution to the world of work.

You know, as far as I'm concerned, forever. You know, I would like a world where people don't ever retire. But don't get me wrong. I'm not saying everyone has to work five days a week for the rest of their lives.

I think I want to take the 25 years of retirement and just sprinkle it across the course of our lives. I don't mind if there's someone in his 90s who's doing two mornings a week, but I also don't mind if there's someone who's 28 that decides, I've just had two young children. I'm going to take a two-year break right now. Right.

Thinking about work in a very different way is what I hear that you're saying. And from the beginning. So whether it's our first job or we are mid-career and we want to change careers, the question is, how do we find that shift when there aren't these mechanisms out there? It's, okay, I studied this, and so I'm going to go into this profession.

And I think, I mean, many of us know people who did one thing at university and showed up in that career, and now they're not doing that anymore because once they get into the job, the job of it, the day in, the day out, it's not satisfying. It's not what they thought it was going to be. It doesn't suit them. And then mid-career, if we think about changing careers, again, it's like, okay, well, who did I have contact with?

What do I imagine this is? Maybe you have more of an idea because you've been in the world of work, but still this particular job, what it actually looks like day and day. And so just finding, you know, what career is going to be suited to me is seems like there are lots of answers to that, but we don't seem to be doing that in society. There aren't very many cultures or really i don't know really any culture that says let's practice let's do all these different sorts of things to find out what resonates with you and therefore that's best for you and the organization and society yeah i mean you you get snippets of it there's not you're right there's not much but you know there are case studies there are stories of people who've kind of done things like you know i've done 24 jobs in 24 weeks or I took a year out to do as many jobs as I wanted in order to learn all of the different options that there are.

So it's not, it's definitely not common. My niece, I think, has almost taken a leaf out of my book. You know, she's sort of saying, right, she's finished university now. And she's going, I'm going to, there are sort of four or five things that I'm really interested in.

So I'm going to work really hard to secure my self-work experience doing those four or five things. And then I will make a decision at the end of that year. But I'm going to treat this year as a as a learning year and in fact that's what she's done so she did strategy consulting she did civil service she did work in a startup pharmaceutical something or other i forget the last one but out of all of oh the last one was legal that was the one that she was like okay i think i'm going to go down the legal route which does mean going back to the draw board and doing another degree or a conversion but actually she now knows she's like that's my tribe it's the people I think are the most impressive.

It's the thing I will feel most proud about, you know, in 10 years time when I look back, that's what I'm going to feel really proud about. So in terms of informing, yes, it's costed her a year of her life, but she's far more confident about what it is that she's going into now. But she's about to invest 10 years, right? Those 10 years are things, you know, it's the pensions you're going to be contributing to, it's the networks you're going to be building, it's the pride you're going to be feeling, it's the bed at night, the quality of sleep you're going to have.

I mean, it's just, given that schools and universities aren't going to do this for us, doesn't it make sense that actually we carve a bit of time ourselves out now to do some of this experimentation so that we do make better decisions? I love that so much. It's such a great idea. It seems to me that what we ask of young people.

So I know where I live in West Tennessee in the States, I remember all of my children when they were in elementary school, they would have like a university day, wear a jersey from a university where you want to go to. And the question is from a very early age, what is it you want to do? What do you want to do? Or what do you want to major in as they get a little bit older?

Or do you want to go into what kind of trade. And so we're, you know, when they're 12, 13, 14, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? And as if you would know, first of all, that you would know what the options are, and then you would know necessarily what resonates with you.

Now, some people do. Some people come out knowing I want to be a doctor, lawyer, teacher, engineer, whatever it might be. But so many students, young people feel behind, even when they're entering university because they don't know what they want to major in. And then they invest all this time and this money in this one thing and they come out and now they feel either stuck or compelled.

Instead of what you're saying, right, this space to really investigate because that investment you're putting up front might be a tough ask. And of course, not everybody's going to be, have the support system or the lecture of being able to do that given their life situation. But if you can do that sort of fifth year or however you think about it, to decide what you're going to be doing maybe for the next 10, 20, 40 years, depending if you stay in one profession. Sounds like such a wonderful investment in yourself.

And I would imagine an employer would be impressed as well. You did all of this. You gained these experiences. And you chose this because you have this experience.

Yeah, I would I would argue it puts them in a much stronger position to then get that job at the end of it all because they can demonstrate that the reason they want it is because they know they want it. They've done it as opposed to the other three or four things that they tried. Yeah, I mean, that's that's far more compelling than I like the idea of it or my dad did it. Right.

So internships are great. And I know that you can apprentice and have internships. But sometimes, again, that's found within this little, you know, I'm majoring this one thing. And so these are the things that are available.

Of course, that's better than nothing. But encouraging experience, especially as a young person, because I think nothing is ever lost. So your niece who did these four things, right? So she chose the one.

But those other three, like the kinds of conversations she can have, the kinds of the ways of thinking about the world and the way of work, just by having that proximity can also make her better in her own field because of this breadth of knowledge. I think everything that we learn, we can put into our work. Completely. You know, and if we imagine it, you know, less from the perspective of someone who has no idea because they're leaving university and they've not yet really joined the world of work.

Even if we looked at it through the lens of someone who is an experienced employee, but they've always stayed in their own lane. So I'll give you, when I did work in banking, that's probably the largest organization I've been in because a lot of other smaller organizations, I've kind of got a chance to sort of see and experience most of the roles. But certainly in banking, the larger an organization is, the more silos the roles. So, you know, you'd walk around, you'd even have security cards that would give you clearance to this floor, but not this floor.

So it was really difficult to actually get an understanding what goes on behind the door. What do you actually do in this department? And yet what the research and evidence will show is that most people get, get a little bit bored after a role. All right.

So once somebody's done something for between about four to eight years, obviously the more complicated and complex a role is, probably the latter, you get a bit more bored when you get sort of eight year plus. But if it's a relatively predictable kind of role that you're doing, yeah, I mean, four years, you're looking at it. So rather than just sort of say to people, right, you have to do this role forever in a day. Imagine if one day a year or even two days a year, they get to go and shadow or spend time in another part of the organization, or even if they just got to sit down with someone who is like a chief careers officer and say, like, in the job that I do now, I really like the financial modeling and I really like this, but I don't, I could do with more relationship building.

You can imagine them sort of going, well, have you thought about the private bank part of the organization? Or have you thought about working in telecoms or, or anything like that, in which case they might go, well, we could set you up to go and spend a day in telecoms, or we can set you up to go and have a day in HR, for example. And as you say, nothing's ever lost. Because if somebody was to come and spend a day working with me as it was in the time in HR, they might leave with a higher degree of respect for all the stuff that you get done and achieve in a day.

But way more understanding is that when I come and knock on their door and go, hey, I really need some help. We've got a load of interviews we need to resource for? Could you give me a couple of hours? You might find that they turn around and go, sure, I know what you're doing for the organization now.

So I just think even if they'd make a decision to say, I never want to work in that department, I thank God I'm going to go back to my job slightly more energized. But if everyone understands a little bit more about what everyone does, how is that a bad thing? Yeah, I mean, it's wonderful. So we all know that stuff gets done because of networking.

So that's internal and external networking. The more you know that what somebody does that they're there the more you can be a resource for them and vice versa and so even in a ginormous organization obviously in a small organization the more you do that the more you know the more you know the more, things that you can be drawn from, that you can draw from, and then more of your talents can be used. Yeah. And I do tend to think the larger the organization, the more you consciously have to think about putting these things in place.

You know, I mean, when I was, I used to run my own hotel, slightly random left field thing, but I mean, I did it because I did it with my brother. But when you've got 12 bedrooms and somebody phones in sick and they say, I can't do the housekeeping today, whether you want it or not, you're changing the beds, you're cleaning the toilets. So the smaller an organization, you don't have to think about. Oh, do we rotate people around and give them exposure?

You're going to get the exposure, whether you want it or not. But yeah, as I say, the larger an organization gets, the more I think you have to be more conscious about how do you give people those experiences so they can make more informed choices. And even thinking of it as a good for the organization, because a lot of times, why do people stay in one position and they aren't developed? Well, because they're this asset.

I need you to do this. You do this so well. And if you're not doing it, if you look someplace else, then I've got to fill this hole. Then I've got to, right?

And so when we think about, somebody might think, well, organizationally, it's better if Betty stays in this position until she retires. It's short-sighted. It may not be best for her and the organization. Now, of course, it may.

It depends, right? But if we don't ask those questions, we don't give people opportunities, then we don't see how the organization benefits and we don't see how individual contributors benefit and all that can go in engagement and longevity, institutional knowledge, prizing all of these, prizing individuals so that we have more satisfaction all the way around. So, Lizzie, you talked a little bit about Brave Starts, but I'm not sure our audience really knows who it's for. So this is, tell us a little bit about who it's for and then and tell us about your book.

So Brave Starts is for anyone who wants to remain engaged in the world of work. Typically, they're over the age of 45, but we can't age discriminate. It's just that most people have this issue of struggling to get access to good quality careers advice, and they struggle to access jobs as they get older because ageism is a genuinely big, severe, real issue. So therefore most of the people that come to us come to us with that in mind and it and it works because we do also this is where we have a lot of our knowledge we support people to understand how their age can be an asset so i guess typically when you look at our website and it's sort of saying age is an asset and now that you're over 45 and whatever so that yeah we've got a lot of people in their 40s, 50s, 60s who want to work, but for whatever trigger might struggle.

Could be that getting divorced, could be they've been made redundant, could be they're bored. The triggers are numerous, but they very much want work to remain part of their life. They want to be engaged by their work. They want to feel it's something purposeful, that they're making a conscious choice about what it is that they're doing at this point in their lives, as opposed to just staying on that autopilot button.

So that's what we do. The underpinning of what we're trying to achieve. So I don't have a goal of getting people, for example, who are unemployed to be employed. My goal is that people leave after going through our workshops and programs, being much clearer on what it is that they want, having a stronger network, feeling more confident and optimistic, feeling that they understand the issues so that they're able to successfully navigate the next few years.

Because genuinely, I have people that come to me, 68% of our members are in full-time jobs. So they will be coming to me saying, I don't want to work full-time anymore. You know, I actually want to dial back a bit. I'm curious.

I want to do something different. I want to explore my options. I want to see what's out there in the world. I want to make a conscious decision and so on.

So, you know, hence, those are what we're looking at. If people have got clarity, if they've got a strong network, if they feel confident, you know, if they've got all of that resource at the end of that, that's a much stronger predictor for them being successful in whatever it is that they want to do. You know, getting a non-exec direct position, doing their own startup business. Going back into whatever sector it was that they've left.

You know, it's that that's really what we're looking at. It is so wonderful because when we get stuck, a lot of it is lack of clarity. I don't know what to do. I don't know what's really going on.

I know I want something else. I know this isn't working, but what's not working? What are my options? So many times, again, when we're stuck in our head and we don't have support, we've narrowed our options because we just, whatever it is, the stress, uncertainty, the whatever's going on inside of us, just we get kind of closed down.

And so having clarity, being opened up to really look at the options and if I do this, what might happen is very important. And I love this because we don't talk so much about mid-career development. We talk about it, you know, career development is for the person who is just leaving the university or whatever, educational. And so we think about what is your next thing rather than I've been in the world of work.

What is my next thing? Yeah. And I guess this is where it sort of starts to relate to what we've been doing with the book, which is, you know, obviously with life expectancy pushing outwards, because, you know, most retirement was developed at a time where life expectancy was going to be sort of mid 60s. I mean, if we take the example of the UK, for example, you know, mass retirement was sort of bought in in about 1948 when life expectancy was 66 and retirement age was 65.

So, you know, we were expected to be retired for one year, whereas now people have got this sort of huge amount of time. You know, some people are living. It's not unusual nowadays for people to make it to 100. You know, Andrew Scott, Linda Gratton, famous for their 100 year life.

But the reality of all this extended time means that careers have gone from being 40 years to, you know, it could be 60, 70, 80 years, right? So over the course of that period of time, there is going to be significant amounts of change. And yet most entry points for most jobs are targeted at people who are in their early 20s. You know, it's pretty rare to come across an organization that is actively recruiting people who are, you know, in their 40s, 50s, 60s to come and do an entry level job.

Yeah, it's really interesting, too, because as you mentioned, change, right? So in the world of work, one thing that is constant right now or that we can count on is that things are going to change. Now, right now we're dealing with AI and whatever that might mean, but then that will morph and then we'll deal with that and then something else will come. And so in order to stay relevant, to stay engaged, you need to expect that things are going to be changing.

And so no matter where we are in our career, we should be expecting to be a lifelong learner, that if we aren't actively developing ourself or our organizations don't take that as a priority, then we are missing opportunities. We're putting a burden on ourself. And individuals are making themselves irrelevant by saying, I mean, if you say, I don't want to learn right now what are you saying i mean you are you are making yourself irrelevant or you're falling below the digital divide however you might think about it and so if that is reality that things are constantly changing then really talking to people who are wherever you know mid level career or however you know maybe they are 50 60 and if they thought because when they came into the world of work there's a sort of steady expectation whether or not it actually meets what What was happening in the world was certainly an expectation, but that expectation needs to shift in that it's not an option to opt out of learning the next thing because of this long career, as you were talking about.

Well, I mean, to a degree, it's an option. It's just not a successful one, right? I mean, you know, but I, my, my audience is probably slightly biased because if someone is searching this stuff out on the internet or Google, or they're talking to somebody else who goes, you should look at this organization. And then they come and they spend time looking at our website and then they commit and they pay.

It's not a lot of money. It's, you know, 89 quid a year. It's not a lot but it's still you know you've got to fill out the form it's not a long form but it's a commitment and then you've got to verify your idea you know it's just there's quite a few hurdles there's quite a few steps and I would argue that that kind of individual that does that is one who's probably slightly more proactive but even then so even though I've got a skewed audience, it is not unusual for me to come across people who I would, if I'm going to be really undiplomatic about it, I would describe as being slightly entitled, right?

But that sense of entitlement has come because of the kind of the past, you know, this idea that you, if you did this job at this time and you met certain goals and you, you know, you delivered certain things along the way, you would be rewarded with a big pension, job security. Seniority, status, and so on. So I understand where it's come from. But increasingly, I think that is not how things are going to work going forward.

Yeah. So you mentioned ageism, ageism alive and well, unfortunately. When you say that, what do you mean and how does it show up in working places? Well, I guess it shows up in a couple of, I mean, the two main obvious ways that it shows up will be on the recruitment side of things.

So, you know, as people get older, if somebody is over the age of 50 and they're applying for jobs, they will, 68% of the time, they will still be unemployed 12 months later. Whereas somebody who is half the age you know between the eight between the kind of cohort group of about 25 and 35 they will only be out of work about 34 percent of the time 12 months later so the older you get the harder and harder it is to secure work so you've got the the obvious. Recruitment barrier and that's that's not just the the slightly invisible because nobody ever says to you, we're not hiring you because you're too old.

It's the veiled, you know, not the right fit and these sorts of things. You can only really see the discrimination when you see the big numbers. So when you see all of the groups of people in their 50s, 60s, whatever, trying to access work versus other groups. So you've got that.

And then I guess you've got the sort of the developmental ageism. So we're selecting these people for the high performance, the high potential program and so we're wanting people who are here probably full-time hitting the highest sales numbers making the most making themselves the most visible and and that sort of thing but actually that that sort of that's one section that's one group right you know it's the let's do high potential. Nobody ever really evaluates all of the high potential people think these programs are great.

Not many people look at all the others who, by definition, are now no potential. You know, nobody ever evaluates them and says, hey, now that you weren't selected for that program, how do you feel? So the kind of the entirety of an organization is not predicated on, you know, the success of one small cohort. And actually if you're looking at things like engagement surveys and satisfaction at work i'd argue there's a huge space and room for improvement and i think a lot of that comes from just the lack of encouragement you know the lack of now now that it i'm not saying sit down with people and go now you're getting older let's think about your options but i think having those conversations regardless of age, You know, I'll give you one example.

I think people fit into one of four archetypes, regardless of age. So one is, I want to progress and be the CEO. The next is, leave me alone. I'm really happy in my job.

The next is, I want to make some changes. Maybe I don't want to work full time anymore. And then the other one is, I actually want to change. I don't like my job anymore.

I want to do something different. And I think if you sit down and you say, which of these four boxes do you fit into? That applies to someone who's 28. It applies to someone who's 64.

But then acting off the back of it, you know, someone who's 68 could still be wanting to be the CEO. Maybe that's totally unrealistic, at which point somebody might need to turn around and go, it's never going to happen. What are you going to do instead? How can we do something that is going to be likewise for the person who is, I want to do something that's entirely different.

Again, that could be any age. Well, what is it you want to do? Well, maybe I want to move into HR. Maybe I want to work in corporate social responsibility.

Maybe I want to go work on the dealing room floor. You know, maybe I want to go and do, right, okay, well, who can we introduce you to in the organization? How can we get you shadowing, doing some work experience, working on some projects? None of that is predicated on anyone's age, but it just doesn't seem, it doesn't seem to happen.

You know, there are career conversations that are really quite assumptive. What's your next step on the progression of the career upwards, upwards, upwards? The assumption needs to be much more, which are the four quadrants? Because some people may want to move down.

Some people want to change entirely. There's only one quarter of people who want to keep going up. When I hear you talking, when I think about what it means to be a human person at work, I hear being seen. Somebody is interested in me.

Somebody sees me, and they're asking these questions, helping me to think about it. Because when we are buried in the busyness of work, and then not only do we have work, but we have our lives, and depending on what's going on in our lives and our health or the people around us and families and hobbies and all these other sorts of things, sometimes we're not thinking about that. But for someone to stop and be curious about us at work you know we think about engagement and buy-in and being seen and all these things that help make a healthy work environment.

That is so powerful for someone to stop and do that but i as you said before those sorts of things don't happen by accident right there's the the one in the 20 or one in the 100 who's just going to be doing that because that's a part of who they are and their personality and they're going to be searching out those options. But, you know, if we think about our people, the people in the organizations as the heartbeat, as the lifeblood, as people who are valuable because they're people, how do we really reach in and get the best of them?

Well, that's by dialogue, by engagement, by curious questions. And the more we set that tone, that we ask questions here And we want you to be thinking about these we want you to advocate for yourself But it's this back and forth sort of dialogue. However long you're here There's a good chance you're going to get more of that person to show up. You're going to get more engagement and There's there's a good chance that person will be here longer because they are thinking about What quadrant am I in right now?

Right because that might shift Yeah, what what is it that I want to do? How can I contribute instead of this, you know mass quiet quitting that we have. And that happens for a lot of reasons, such as the narrative, you don't care about me, Well, I'm not going to care about you. Right.

And so we shoot each other in the foot because that's not good for anybody. Yeah. Yeah. It's odd, isn't it?

Because I do think that we, this idea of something like a chief careers officer, right, we've got a human resources officer, we've got someone who deals with compliance, right, somebody deals with anti-money laundering and I don't know what. But actually, of all of the things that we should be doing for individuals and organisation. A careers officer makes a huge amount of sense, right? Because you were saying earlier that a manager may not have the best interests of their employees at heart.

And that's absolutely right. You know, if I've got my team rocking and rolling and I really like Jenny and I really like Richard and they're doing a great job and I don't want them to leave because they're doing a great job for my team, right? If they're pulling in the sales, I don't want them to go work for my competitor and the other part of the organization. But that's because i'm being selfish you know i'm not so actually the ideal person to do this for people is not their manager it's someone who is part of the organization that's looking at this through the the lens of what is the best thing for the organization to keep this individual and if that means that they move to another department that's fine it's still a win for the company but it can't come usually it can't come from that manager you get some that are just amazing but i would say the majority of the time it would have to have a sort of a more conscious mechanism in place because you just can't rely on everyone having these amazing management skills you know and it's i think most people know what they want in themselves because this is the other thing right you know because people given half a chance if they get to experience something they'll know quite quickly oh god that's more cold calling than i'd like oh god that department is really quiet.

You know, oh, it hasn't got a window in there. I definitely don't want to be there. We don't know what all of the different factors are that drive meaning for each individual, but they do. So giving them more of a chance to actually experience, feel, you know, it gets, I mean, I had one, I had one great example of somebody who thought he wanted to go and become a bed and breakfast, you know, like a little boutique hotel owner, but he'd been a CEO of his own kind of psychometric testing business.

And I'm like, you think you want to do that job? Just go and spend two days, go and spend two days doing that job. And I lined it up for him. I found a hotel that was willing to let him do it.

He comes away from those two days going, thank God. He was about to invest his life savings. And he was like, thank God I don't do that job. Because actually, the thing that turned him off was the way that people spoke to him.

He was used to a certain status. He was used to being the CEO. And then all of a sudden, you're waiting on tables and people are going, oi, mate, I asked for my bill five minutes ago. It was like, actually, I don't want to deal with customers like that.

I want to deal with a customer that's coming to me with a really highly complex problem where I can get really excited about developing a solution. So it just wasn't right for him. But you know, we've all had those holidays where things seem really idealistic. Like, oh my gosh, like this is, I want to move here.

I want to buy this boutique business. I'm going to set up a pottery, a gallery, and it's going to be great. It's going to be really boring. It's such a it's a great example because i also think when somebody might be dissatisfied because you know the grass is greener syndrome well then i go look and see what somebody's doing on the other side of the hall or on a different floor and i'm like oh no actually i do have a good i you know and so sometimes we just can re-romanticize the idea you know we just see the good hearts we don't see every job has its words every job has and that's a part of being a grown-up and being in the world is there are parts of the jobs that we don't like to do.

Before we spoke this morning, I had been putting a few things off and I made a list and they'd been on my mind. These are things I don't like. And then I did them and I'm like, oh gosh, that didn't take much time. But you know, that's, that is the way of things.

So every, every job, everything has that. But the question is, is that something that you want to deal with? And as you see what the, those parts are of another job? Does it make your job more endearing, more grateful?

You could just see it in a down kind of way. Yeah, yeah, totally. And that's why would we deny people the chance to make those chances for themselves? You know, why try and assume, you know, because of course the other thing is aging workforce and so on.

We don't always know the people's financial position, right? Some people might just be about to inherit a buttload. You know, other people have a spouse who's doing really well, or maybe the opposite, who are really struggling. And all of these contextual factors also feed in.

There's no way a manager can know that. We assume that over the next few years, you want to keep going, no, don't make assumptions. People know for themselves, but we're just not always that effective at asking the questions. So I'm very interested in conflict and dealing with conflict at work so that we can have healthy work environments.

Is there anything that you have been seeing from the work that you do about how people in midlife or towards the end of their career, how they deal with conflict? Or does it seem to be the same no matter what age you are when you show up at work? I mean, I think things are probably getting much, much worse. As in you know this is probably where I'm going to come across as being very politically incorrect right but you know back in the day if you offended somebody or if you upset someone then I'm hoping they would turn around and go you were a bit of an arse yesterday and I didn't like it I didn't appreciate it oh sorry what have you I think we're now in a culture where people are so terrified of being cancelled or they're so terrified of being accused of being racist or being a misogynist or being ageist or whatever it might be, that actually everyone is walking on eggshells all the time.

And the minute that somebody is offended, they go, I'm offended. And everyone's like, oh my God, oh my God. We've got to a point now where the fingers are firmly in the ears. And instead of sort of going, okay, I upset you.

I'm sorry, why is that a big deal? Why why can't we just deal with this as adults we've now got people that will go no no I will not hear what it is that you're saying or what you've said is so bad I now have to go and complain about it to somebody else and that I think creates a much worse culture for people to deal with than actually the original irritation that they would have had in the first place. I think we've lost the ability to be more sympathetic, to be more tolerant.

You know, we've become much more accusatory. We've become much more of a kind of a blame culture. And I think that's deeply, deeply bad for psychological safety. You know, I have lots of, you know, men, women, you name it, who will not articulate and won't voice their anxiety.

They won't talk about what it is that they're worried about. If somebody is a real poor performer at work, they won't say it because they'll be accused of things that are completely untrue. No, I'm just worried about your performance. But maybe the race card will get pulled.

Maybe the gender card will be pulled. Maybe the age card will be pulled. And it's just become a bit too much like that. Do you have any advice about how to reverse this or what to do when faced with this environment?

I mean, I would love to see more advocacy for personal accountability and freedom of speech. I mean, I don't think anyone has, everyone I think has the right to say things, but they also have the right to be judged for it. And I think we're so scared about allowing people to be judged that we just put down all these guardrails all the time. You can't even say this.

If you say this, we're worried you will offend somebody. So we're not even going to give you the platform anymore. Whereas actually, you know, give them the platform. If their ideas are stupid, if they can't back them up, if they fall under the tiniest bit of scrutiny, let them fall.

But we have to have the debate in the first place and actually the enabling of the debate, the coming back to somebody and saying, it's not going to work for this reason and this reason. Or what would you say to this perspective over here, which your point doesn't address? Actually allowing that to happen in the first place, I think puts us in a stronger position than we're just not even going to talk to you anymore. Or this is the position, you know, too much politics has entered the workplace where it just has no place.

You know, half of it is all because of this, you know, bring your authentic self to work and all of that. No, don't. You know, some of your authentic self is actually you're a bit of an idiot. You know, there are sort of organizational standards for a reason, because actually we don't want people behaving rudely, badly, whatever.

So it's uh yeah i think we've become we've introduced a level of politics into organizations that makes them deeply deeply deeply harder to be productive because instead of just getting on with the job we've got to worry so much about everyone's feelings all the time yeah i mean i think i would say part of the answer is going back to dialogue having genuine dialogue but A principle of having genuine dialogue is the principle of charity, right? And the principle of charity is that I assume the good of you instead of assuming something nefarious.

Was, yeah. Right. And so if you say something that I think is misogynistic or racist or homophobic or ageist, whatever I want to, you know, whatever I think, the principle of charity assumes the good of you. And so I can say, I heard you say this.

Is this what you meant? And the person most likely, because the vast majority of people who show up to work, the vast majority of people don't intend harm, right? I mean, of course there are outliers, okay, but then we can have a conversation and get to that. But did you intend this?

This is how it's coming across. And then somebody can say, oh, no, I meant this. Okay. And then we can go on that route.

And so right then, we're able to have this discussion. But if I don't have that base level of charity with you, if I'm already assuming the opposite of that, that you are out to get me or that you are to be minimized because of your age, because you're young and you know nothing or because you're old and you know nothing or whatever, we want to fill in the blank. I already have this assumption about you, then whatever I hear from you is already tainted because I'm on the defensive, because you're trying to get me, because you're, instead of, we're all in it together.

We're all trying to accomplish at work this mission. Okay, what is it we're trying to accomplish? And so you said this, we have to work together as a team. So what did you mean?

Maybe you don't, maybe I heard a sexist comment, but I heard it and it wasn't there. And so the principle of charity also works for me. I'm trying to we're trying to have our same expectations together so you having the grace to hear what I'm hearing so that we can actually communicate and so it works both ways being able to constantly make sure that we're on the same page but that takes dialogue especially because we have all these different life circumstances and we come at work and a problem in a variety ways which that diversity is so golden if we use it instead of using it to distance ourselves yeah and you know we all we all have that i'm not going to say her name but we all have the friend don't we who is you know.

The person who exaggerates everything or sees darkness where there is none so you know she'll quite often sort of say to me you know lucy you wouldn't believe what this guy said to me on the bus and then she'll say the comment and then she'll say wasn't that so racist and i'm like no i don't think that was racist at all i think someone asking you where you're from is actually just curious but she sees it through a different lens so the dialogue between us means that I might turn around to her and go, no, I think you're not, I think you're seeing something that's not there because you're looking at, you're so expecting to hear what you're wanting to hear in a way that that's what you see.

But that's exactly as you say, it's not always what people mean. And, you know, having the, having other people around who can say, you know what, I don't think that was meant badly. I think you can just chill a little bit because actually if you make complaints about this and if you stress about it all the time, you're just going to upset them. But you're also, what are you actually achieving for yourself?

You know, how could you see this through a slightly more generous perspective? Or if it does really upset you, okay, but how can you have a conversation that's not so antagonistic? Hey, you said this, you know, and I'm really offended by it versus I preferred it if you would call me like this. Or if you, if you, when you use my name, could you do it in this way?

Or I was a bit upset when you said it the other day. Would you, would you mind if actually you said it in a, that that is a kind of a spirit, as you say, of generosity, as opposed to now, what I think a lot of people do is not even say anything, but they'll go behind someone's back. They'll go to complain to somebody in HR, then somebody in HR, and then that person feels a complaint's been made about you. Now they feel they can't say anything.

Now they feel they have to leave. And then what do everyone else observe? They observe a culture of no dialogue. Now they observe a culture of, if you say something wrong, somebody else is going to go and complain about you and you probably won't even get the chance to justify yourself.

And that is just, it's awful. You know, it's so not an improvement on where we were. What you said, I really thought really struck me of this idea of what's next. So I've been offended.

Sometimes I get offended. People mean it. They don't mean it. Okay.

The question is, what am I going to do next? And if we think about building resilience, resilience doesn't mean I'm never going to come up with against hardship, right? I'm never going to build resilience if I don't find things difficult. so this thing was said to me or done to me and it was harmful impactful then the question is what's next what do i want to have next what do i want in my relationship with this person what do i want at this organization and how am i going to bring that about right so this idea of personal empowerment instead of i need to tattle now we're not talking about illegal behaviors right there are illegal egregious behaviors but we're talking about the normal difficult things that happen at work.

Normally, difficult things happen because we're dealing with other humans and ourselves, right? And so what do I want to do next? If I go tell my boss or HR, I mean, how would I feel if someone did that to me? Because most people, they have what they intend to do, right?

We talk about intent versus impact. But if I'm impacted, that's still, I'm impacted that way so I can choose what I want to do next. And just because I was impacted that way doesn't mean the other person actually did something wrong because i might be taking it in a certain way i might not it's all very specific it's all about the individuals the relationship and the structure but having those conversations. Helps me grow as a professional as a person helps you helps the organizations and in the absence we're still having conversations but now it's usually toxic gossip and we are silencing people so who are we talking to we're not talking about the problem we're talking around it and to others, Yeah.

Yeah. Well, Lucy, this time has really gotten away from us. So I do want to mention your brand new book, Congratulations, that you have co-authored that has just come out called Age Against the Machine. I just ordered my copy today.

I'm very, can't wait to read it. Thank you. Thank you. So, but I do have this last question for you.

When you look into the future of work and you think about your kids out into the workforce, what do you think needs to happen so that not only will all people be treated with dignity and respect, but that they'll be encouraged to thrive and flourish. Well, I don't have the power of a magic wand to make everything happen, but I do wish for there to be some form of breaks or questioning around the use of so much AI. If I liken it to all of the stuff that Jonathan Haidt is sort of finding now and all of the research that's coming out, you know all of these tech bros were coming out with social media that we didn't want or need really and has had an absolutely detrimental effect on children's livelihoods and life satisfaction and skills and ability to build relationships and so on and so forth and mental health but we just went headlong into it you know we've exposed everyone to it without any real understanding of consequences and yes i do think ai is a force for good right there is no question if it can come to spotting things like breast tumors in cancer earlier at an earlier point.

Nobody is going to dispute that. But when it comes to the scale and the pace of livelihood impact, the scale and the pace of people's sense of meaning and purpose, you know, humans have not evolved for a life of leisure. And everyone's sort of going, oh, this is great. People will have universal basic income.

We'll get all the robots to do the jobs. And you go, yeah, but at no point in human history have we just sat on our arses all day and had other people do jobs for us. Part of the reward in life and the sense of achievement, a sense of pride, is a direct function to the struggle and the hardship. This is what you were saying a bit with the resilience.

So who's asking us, do we want these changes to happen? We vote for different people to have power positions in government because in theory, these politicians have some sort of an impact over our lives. As far as I can see, the politicians have zero impact. The AI tech leaders seem to have a disproportionate impact on people's livelihoods at this point.

So that just feels like something that I want to say, but I have no answer and I have no solution to it. In terms of what can people do to prepare themselves, I would say prepare yourself for a life of constant change. So the world of the full-time job is gone. So not only should we be asking kids, what five or six different things do you want to be doing?

It's probably going to be a case of not even considering that from a sequential, go from one job to another, to another. It's probably going to be multi-layered, right? So I met someone recently. I don't know if it's true, but he claimed he had income from 17 different sources.

So he had three jobs, two that he did one day a week fractionally, and then another part-time job that he did two days a week. He then did consulting. He then also rented out one of his rooms. He did some tutoring a bit on the side.

I think maybe he had a couple of dogs. So he also would take money for dog sitting somebody else's dog every now and again. I don't even know. Maybe he had an online course as well somewhere.

And maybe there were some ads that came in via YouTube videos or something. But the long and short of it is, is that if he's true, even if he's not true. It is incredibly common for me to see people at the end of a year doing at least two or three different bits of work that give them income from different sources. And I would say that having that, that is probably the strongest position you could be in.

You know, the people who have always worked five days a week for one employer, and that employer is not necessarily thinking about your career. They're thinking about their business performance and their job and so on and so forth. So the individuals haven't been thinking about it. I'd say those are the people who are the most vulnerable.

Because whether it's a comfortable position, having to catch and kill your next meal, your next meal, your next meal, you are at the very least being constantly forced to consider, how do I stay relevant? The conversations that I'm having, they're buying or they're not buying? Why are they not buying? That.

As a kind of an armor to wear to help inform you as to what it is you need to learn, what it is you need to kind of skid yourself up in. As uncomfortable as it is, it's probably the most secure position you can be in. Because then if one card falls, you've got something else that you're looking at. And I just, I think it's probably going to be increasingly the way of work going forwards you know we already see organizations like PayPal and Google they have more freelancers than they do have people full-time and you know the more that things change the more that things change so you know and it's probably people in our sorts of you know people embrace that kind of cohort we've got this aging cohort I don't know anyone who wants to work in a job full-time five days a week they want more curiosity they want to learn more things they want more space in their life just for life and now that they're dictating more of those terms you can And you'd better believe that's going to start feeding its way back down through the chain.

And then organizations now are going, well, why should I pay someone five days a week if I can just pay someone two days a week? This is great. And so I can just see that that's going to keep on spiraling. So younger people today, I think, have to be really cognizant of how the world of work is changing and how that means that they will have to adapt.

What a wonderful answer. Lucy, thank you so much, and congratulations on your new book, and thank you for your time today. Thank you very much, Mary. I appreciate it.

Take care. Thank you, Lucy, so much for a fun conversation about really important issues, and dear listener, I encourage you, if you are mid-career or wherever you may be and you're interested in career development, to check out Brave Starts. And then also her new book, Age Against the Machine looks really interesting about how we deal with the workforce that we have and where we might be and how to really make it so that everybody can flourish throughout their career. Conflict Managed is produced by Third Party Workplace Conflict Restoration Services and hosted by me, Merry Brown.

You can find us online at 3pconflictrestoration.com. Come back, we have new episodes every Tuesday. And if you haven't checked out my latest book called Winning the generation wars at work, making your age an asset, it is available on Amazon.

Our music is courtesy of Dove Pilot. And remember, conflict is normal and expected. Let's deal with it. Until next time, take care.