Episode 102: Managing in a time of political division with Leanne Elliott

Speaker A: Welcome, welcome.

Speaker B: Welcome to Real Job Talk, the podcast with practical advice for mid career professionals. We are so thrilled to have Leanne Elliott on as our guest today. Liz and I were honored to be guests on Leanne's podcast Truth, Lies and Work. And we talked about politics in the workplace right before the US election and you can find that episode on her feed and ours. And today we're going to be continuing our conversation around politics and political tensions post election and we're talking with Leanne about how to manage fairly in our currently divided world.

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Speaker B: And on to Leanne. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Real Job Talk, the podcast with career advice for the mid career professional. We are so excited to have Leanne Elliott as our guest today. Liz and I were honored to be guests on Leanne's podcast Truth, Lies and Work. Uh, and by the way, that's One of the UK's top career podcasts and we were super honored to be a part of that. Today we're going to be continuing our conversation around politics and and political tensions post election and talking with Leanne about how to manage fairly in our currently divided world.

Speaker C: Leanne is an organizational psychologist who has worked with companies to help with leadership recruitment, organizational culture and development and so much more. For the last four years Leanne has been the co founder of Oblong hq, a consultancy helping owner leader businesses set and implement people and culture strategies with measurable impacts on employee engagement and commercial performance. She developed the Company Culture Roadmap which is a nine step framework encompassing the key pillars of uh, best practice, people management, including recruitment and engagement and management. In order to help owner Leaders create a business that they're proud to lead and their people are proud to work for. Leanne is also co host, as Kat said, of the Truth, Lies and Work podcast, which is a HubSpot production. Welcome to the show, Leanne. Um, thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker A: Thank you for having me and thank you for that lovely introduction.

Speaker B: We've been looking forward to talking with you again all week. Um, so Leanne, let's start with some of the basics. Can you tell us a little bit about you're an organizational psychologist for our audience members who don't know what that is, can you speak to that in layman's terms and also tell us a little bit about how you found your career path?

Speaker A: Yeah. So, um, organizational psychologists, we have many names in the uk. Occupational psychologists, business psychologists, um, industrial psychologists, work psychologists, they all really encompass the same thing and that's the study and practice of human behavior in the workplace. So we can create environments where people, uh, thrive in their jobs and also businesses make money or organizations deliver the outputs they need to. Those things don't need to be mutually exclusive. We can have thriving workplaces for businesses and for the people within them. Um, so that's what I do. And basically my work, um, evolved into helping mainly owner led businesses, small businesses that maybe don't have the internal capability or expertise to help them with things around people and culture, uh, before they're ready to build that capability internally. Um, in terms of my career path, um, I knew early on that psychology was a subject I wanted to pursue. Um, and I've talked about this on our show before. When I was in high school, uh, one of my friends lost her mum very quickly and suddenly to meningitis. Very shocking experience. We were 14, 15, um, and the school that we went to was brilliant. It was a small school, but they were really receptive. The fact that this was a traumatic event that we were all going through, um, so they brought in a clinical psychologist to speak to us about grief, about loss, about the feelings that we're having, about how we can manage them ourselves and how we can show up for our friend as well and be there for her in the months that followed. And I remember being in this session and coming out and thinking, I don't feel better, uh, but I feel more in control. And that's pretty cool what that psychologist does. Just done. Um, and she ended up staying around and was in and out over the few months, talked to us as a group and one to one, um, and then I asked her once, you know, I'M really interested in what you do. How did you get there? What topics would you recommend? I focus on in school to potentially do a degree in psychology. Um, and then kind of fast forward six years later I did my undergrad, I was looking at what to do, um, and I went into sales initially. Um, I think most people do actually out of university, try and get some experience, make some money, pay off those student loans. Um, and it was a really great culture. And then we got a new MD and overnight it went from being a really great place to work and not the work I was passionate about, but a job I enjoyed to just all of a sudden being very toxic. Lots of infighting, f changes without consultation. And I saw people leave, I saw people go sick, I saw my managers just go from happy people to, to very um, dissatisfied people. And um, it was at that moment I kind of record. I only did like a 4, 6 week module in occupational psychology in my undergrad. But it really resonated because for the first, since the first time since that experience when I was a teenager, I saw the application of psychology in the workplace and what can happen when we get it wrong. And that for me then all just seemed to click into place because whilst clin counseling was always like a maybe I really like the idea of using psychology to create environments for the majority of people for a very universal, typically universal experience. Most of us go to work. Um, so that's when I did my um, went back and did my masters and, and yeah, the, I guess the proper career trajectory started from there. So cool.

Speaker B: I think it's fascinating, fascinating that you know, that experience as uh, in high school led you to, you know, led you to say, hey, this is interesting. I'm interested about this and I think that that is one key things with career. If we are really interested it's going to keep our attention. Right. So I love that you followed your inner knowing there on that.

Speaker C: Yeah. And it's also really interesting. I'm thinking a lot lately about how when we live something we can believe it. Like you can believe like workplaces should be great, but then when you lived it changed so drastically so quickly. You're like wait, there are some really key variables here that can change things so much and I want to help keep those negative variables from happening for other people. And so by your lived experience you really took it to the next level and that's just fascinating. Um, very cool. Well, we're so glad you're here and we're glad you found your path and you're doing what you do, and you're helping so many people, both with your work at Oblong HQ as well as with your podcast. So we spoke with you about two weeks before the 2024 election here in the US and the, the atmosphere, at least in our country, and I know globally a bit as well, was fear and tension and people on both sides were feeling cautiously optimistic. Um, and the unknown kind of loomed. Um, and now we're recording about a month post election, with the world watching what a second Trump presidency will look like both here and abroad. Leigh Ann, I'd love to hear how you're counseling leaders around communication post election. Like, how has this election in the US affected your work and what you're seeing in the workplaces that you work with?

Speaker A: What we're seeing initially, I think, is that, I guess from a positive side, is that we at least now have some clarity. We know what the future. Well, we know what the framework of the future might look like and who's going to be in charge. So with that, we can start to at least start, uh, to navigate what is happening rather than what could happen.

Speaker C: Sure.

Speaker A: I, um, think really the main challenge I'm hearing from business owners is how this is going to, um, this kind of, these types of geopolitics are going to influence, um, the economy. Because in Europe as well, we've had a really turbulent few years, as you have in the US with, um, the pandemic and all that type of thing. But then we also now have two very active wars in Europe that we haven't seen since the Second World War at this scale and this level. And that is causing a lot of very real life impacts. The cost of living crisis that we've been living through the last 18 months has been devastating to a lot of people and pushes more and more people every day, um, below the poverty line. So organizations are very aware that, ah, you know, commercially things are difficult. Commercially there's still a lot of uncertainty, although, you know, there's some signs that things might get better next year. Um, and with that, I think just that people are exhausted. People are burning out at a rate that we have not seen. I'm not sure we've ever really seen it. And we're burning out in different ways. It's not just from workplace exhaustion. It's from the exhaustion of the pandemic, the exhaustion of geopolitics, the exhaustion of the uncertainty, the cost of living crisis. There's so much that is weighing down on us that I think for the first time, really, business leaders are believing me when I'm saying there are lots of different things that impact the employee experience. Not all of those you can control. So really digging into the ones you can control now is, you know, it was always important. Now it's absolutely critical.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Can you give us a little bit of an example of some of the things you can control? I'm sure that that's different for every, every company, but maybe some general things.

Speaker A: I mean there are absolutely nuances to a workplace culture, but really there's only seven things you can do as a business leader to create an awesome workpl. Place culture. Um, because it's. And I, maybe I shouldn't admit this, Kat, but it's not.

Speaker B: Please do, please admit it's not as

Speaker A: complicated as maybe some people make it out. It's not rocket science. It just consistency, dedication, intention, um, it needs to be thought through. But once you've, once you've got those things in place, you kind of just roll with it and it's, you know, largely, it's fine. Um, so I think the main thing that business leaders can do within the context of the current geopolitical climate is there may be a. Where politics is being talked about more in the workplace or religion is being talked about more in the workplace. And that can cause tensions and um, potential divisions and potential conflicts. And business leaders looking at that might be thinking, well, why are we bringing politics into the workplace? Why are you bringing these things in? And the reality is because it impacts us, it just does. And we talked about this on when you guys came on. So refer back to that episode listeners for all of the reasons why that just is the case. Um, I think the thing that we can look at is how do we bring teams back together, how do we rebuild those relationships? And this is all about team cohesion. And there's two different types of cohesion when it comes to teams. There's task cohesion and there's social cohesion. And we tend to focus recently on the social cohesion aspect of it because for a long time it was overlooked. And that's. How do we build civility in the workplace? How do we build great relationships between employees, between managers, between leadership teams? And social cohesion is really, really important. But it's not more important than task cohesion. Task cohesion is basically gathering everybody around, the same mission, the same goal. And, um, that reason, which is one of the seven things that you can do, having that reason in the workplace is a brilliant way to get past the conflict, get, ah, past divides and um, find things that we can all agree on, focus on and work towards together more than that. So we take that one step further. We've got the reason now. We need the role. And that's another thing that you can do to build a great workplace culture and role. What does my role look like? What responsibilities do I have? But most importantly, how is my role connected to that mission delivery directly? What do I do every day that pushes that mission forward? What do I do to help my team members push that mission forward? And um, by focusing on that, we can kind of take away some of the emotion that's around the workplace at the moment, some of the conflict, and start to reunite people back together towards that conflict commonality. And the great thing is, if we can do that, what the research shows us is that builds trust, that builds camaraderie, and that will start to impact the social cohesion that is currently so under threat.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: So let me, let me just make sure I'm hearing you correctly. Companies mission actually is an important aspect of having people feel connected to their work and having that task, that, that task.

Speaker A: Connection.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, because sometimes, you know, sometimes we, oh yes, we have a company. You know, leaders will say, oh yes, we have a company mission and vision statement. We did that when we started the company. But you know, we don't really revisit that much. Right. Have you. I've certainly encountered that with leaders that I've worked with. And, and so, you know, I almost feel like I have to do a sales pitch to them about the importance of having your people understand mission and vision and really where, where their role fits into that. So that's exactly what. But that's exactly what you were just saying. So I think that that is, it's super basic, but it's also important, like why bother to do all that upfront work if you don't bring it home and make sure that people are connected to it? Yeah.

Speaker A: And it is super basic. And um, that's what I mean, this isn't anything we're going to talk about. It probably isn't anything that leaders haven't heard about before, but it's reinforcing why it's so important, particularly in the current context. And as you say that it requires intention, it requires revisiting. You should be revisiting your vision every time you revisit your strategy, you know, is still. Right. Is anything shifted?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Same with values, you know, particularly with startups and scale ups, they change very, very quickly. And the values you started with may well have evolved to values that really, the, the current company culture and organizational life really doesn't really work too. There's other values now that are more important bring. And at that point as well. And I think there's always a magic number of small businesses, usually around kind of 12 to 15 people, where culture will start to exist independent of you as an entrepreneur and business owner. So at that point, you all, you know, you need to bring your team into that conversation. What values are important to us and how does that. How do they show up in the work that we do as a team with our clients? It's. It's such a foundation. It's the cornerstones of culture. And it's not values written on the wall. It's not a mission statement that you don't look at for five years. It needs to be embedded into the expected behaviors of your people, the desirable behaviors of your people. The behaviors aren't tolerated, that will be performance managed, because that reinforcement shows that values become behavior. And behavior is ultimately what defines culture 100%.

Speaker C: And it's also, how are we living? Like, how is this coming out? When we're making a decision, we look at our values and make sure that things are aligned. And I take it. I agree. Mission, vision, 100%. I'm with you. I also think it's quarterly goals, annual goals, and how are we setting our goals? And as employee number 300, what is my role like in terms of alignment and getting people together and bringing them together? Our company wants to build a new widget. Okay. What's my role in building that new widget and bringing it to market? I, uh, need to feel a personal connection and a personal how I'm contributing if I think the work I'm doing makes no sense. It's funny, I think of my 15 year old who just last night was like, why do I need to read Macbeth? What's it going to do in my life? Like, make you a decently educated person? He's like, yeah, I'm not buying that. Right. And, uh, so why do I need to do this activity? I think answering that question up front and companies being incredibly transparent. These are our goals. These are why these aren't goals. And these are the outcomes we're hoping for. And this is, Leanne, what I need you to do to help make that happen, that allows me to buy in whatever my political situation may be. Absolutely.

Speaker A: Uh, simple. Yeah, it really is. The idea is simple. The execution is a bit trickier. That can be a bit trickier. What you said there, the why this is what's missing. Fundamentally missing in organizational life.

Speaker C: Why?

Speaker A: We talk a lot about what, we talk a lot about how, don't talk about why. And the why is often the missing piece. And I think particularly for managers and particularly for middle managers, because middle managers always get the noise, always get the, you know, the grunt work, the things that happen. You know, this is my vision, make it happen. Um, and it's like, okay, cool. But often we'll get told something as a middle manager from corporate. And how many times have you, you worked on a team? We're like, oh, corporate want us to do this. Corporate wants to do that. Yeah, yeah, they do. But, you know, if we can take the time. If your senior manager comes to, your senior comes to you and says, I want, we need this, make this happen. These targets change, this operational process needs to change.

Speaker C: You should.

Speaker A: You're well within your rights, you go, can you explain why? Because if I understand, I'll buy into it more and I'll be able to communicate that better to my team so they buy into it and this change will be more successful. It might be that the reason's brilliant and you're like, okay, cool, I totally get it. So you can go to your team, right? The big change, not going to be easy, but let me talk you through the reasoning why and how actually in the long run, it's going to make all of our lives easier, or it's a really rubbish reason and it doesn't really make any sense. And then you go to your team and say, well, how can we execute this in a way that still reaches the main outputs the senior leadership team are trying to hit whilst not disrupting our operational processes? And that as well gives people control, it gives people autonomy within their roles while still very clear on how they're contributing to the vision and mission and the delivery of that to the organization. And this is where middle managers are, ah, really a superpower within an organization. And if we invest there, oh, gosh, it'll do so much for organizational success, but also for employee experience. And then just to link it back to what we're talking about in terms of relationships and rebuilding that managers have the single biggest impact on our employee experience, our mental health. Ah, the single biggest impact. You get everything else wrong, but I have brilliant managers and you'll probably be all right. So at this point, if there's an organization out there thinking, I am seeing lots of incivility, I'm seeing lots of disruption and conflict, just ask yourself, when was the last time you actually got your managers together? In and trained them and trained them on psychosocial skills like how to influence, how to be aware of their emotional intelligence, the emotional intelligence of others, self awareness, even delegation, if you want to go to more transactional and tactical sides of it. If you haven't trained your managers, there is an immediate solution to that will make everything infinitely better within the next. If you just train your managers.

Speaker C: So true. So true.

Speaker B: Mic drop. Well, Leanne, let's go back to election. Right. Post election, have you. And I know it's only been a month, but I would love to know how conversations have been impacted by the election. When you're having conversations with leaders, the

Speaker A: conversation that I had that really sticks out me was it was in my, in my earlier life. Um, I used to be a Samaritan. It's a listening service in the UK which helps people in distress and despair who may be experiencing suicidal feelings. I did that for five years. And it was very much, very much taught me the power of listening and very much taught me about just the weight of, of grief, of disappointment, of sadness. Um, I had a conversation with a leader last week and I've not seen that level of, of disappointment and sadness and grief since I was in the Samaritans. And this isn't necessarily to talk about politics, because I think Trump transcends politics. I think the main reason some people are grieving the fact that he will be the next president isn't because of his politics, although there will be aspects of that. It's more the leadership behaviors that he is normalizing in that moment and will, uh, normalize further over the next four years. That is devastating to people who genuinely believe that leaders can be and should be a force for good in the world.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And I think that for me was a really, it was a striking conversation because it was, you know, this person was looking completely rethinking everything m their business, their life, how they work, who they work with, who they're friends with. And I think it's a real. We call in psychology, call it a temporal landmark. And it's a point in time of either person that happens to us. A big birthday is a good example of a temporal landmark. When we graduate, we start our first job, we buy our new home. When we get married, when we start having kids. Um, but we also have. There's also other temporal landmarks m that happen in politics. Covid was a massive temporal landmark for all of us. I think we all talk now about pre or post Covid, just part of the conversation. Um, so this election is Serving as a temporal landmark. And with that comes a wave of self reflection of what we're doing with our lives, the meaning that we want them to have, what we're putting out in the world, the work that we do, the relationships we have and what we need to be content and happy in this life. And I think, I mean, that's one example and it was an extreme one, but I think it certainly, um, is providing a temporal landmark that everyone is kind of, I think, just moving into this deep period of reflection. And I think the time of year, um, emphasizes that as well. The fact in the UK that we have a new government, that the first two days have been interesting. Again, not about politics, more about the change in how that executed. Yeah, I think that's what I'm seeing at the moment is just very much reevaluating what it is that we're doing, the environment in which we're doing it, the impact of geopolitics. I think for the first time, business leaders are really realizing and feeling that impact of geopolitics. And how actually, uh, in this scenario, what's really difficult is particularly being British or not being non American, um, although there'll be Americans feeling this now post election for sure, is that there's no, there's no control. But the stakes are high.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: And that's a really uncomfortable place to be as a human because we can't control it. There's nothing we can do about it. But we know over the next few years we're going to feel that impact on our lives, businesses, on our world of work.

Speaker C: Yes. I love that you brought up the fact of, like, this is who a entire country is choosing as a leader. Someone who speaks like this, speaks about people like this and all these other things. And I don't care reasoning like, oh, it's better for this. Um, I think it's really hard. It says a lot. I'm kind of embarrassed, personally. I'll just put it out there. Like, globally, people are like, that's who you. That's your number one person. Like, that's okay.

Speaker B: Um, speaks volumes. It speaks volumes.

Speaker C: It speaks volumes and it's embarrassing. Um, and then when you take it to the next level around inclusion, you know what, as HR people, as organizational psychologists, we're like, inclusion's better. Diverse teams, this and that. Like, we've been saying all of those things and believing it and seeing data around it, and then that's the winner. And, um, I think the reconciliation of that, not only the policies that he's talking About. But also just that's not in my brain or in my world. That is not what a effective leader looks like. So it is a really hard reconciliation. And how do we look at our kids and don't be a bully. Yeah, it's a real tough one to stand behind these days.

Speaker A: I just want to say as well, I don't want an American listening to, thinking raw, looking at America. What the hell. Honestly, it's the same everywhere. We've seen far right swings all over the world. In Europe is not immune to that. It's definitely a climate. It's not just, um, us only. I think obviously the concern is the US Is still the most powerful nation in the world. Um, so it's the consequence of that. But for me as a psychologist, it's the scale of the normalization of that type of behavior.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: You know, that's what I find unsettling. Right.

Speaker C: It's that behavior that you've been counseling against for your whole career. Like stuff.

Speaker B: What, what, what advice would you give people who are, who are feeling this uncertainty and, and feeling, you know, all of the feelings that they're feeling and, and, and having to navigate what, what advice do you have for, for folks to. I mean, you know, my first thing is focus on what you can't. You know, my thought is focus on what we can control as opposed to what we, we don't have control of. But beyond that.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Local control is really important and it's, and it is hard. As I said, the stakes are high, so it's really hard to, to, to reconcile that. But I think that's the, the thing is that, and often we're very quick to jump to the solution. I think particularly as, as HR practitioners, people and culture practitioners, we're keen to make things better as quickly as possible. And I think in this situation, actually this is going to be a grief process for a lot of people, um, across the world, for various reasons, whether it's political, whether it's leadership, whether it's anything else. And I think the real thing is to understand that this will need, this grief will need dealing with, they'll need processing. There's a really good psychological framework called the Bridges change model. And what I really like about it is it's the sentiment that change is external and it happens to us very quickly without our control. The psychological transition we need to go through to accept that change is in our control, but is much, much slower. And what's uncomfortable is this dissonance that we're experiencing between the external Change that's already been executed and our um, internal psychology that hasn't yet accepted this, this change and is going through this transition. Um, and when you're in this first stage, it's called the ending phase. And with that comes sadness, anger, denial, um, frustration, um, you know, it's all the feelings or lots of negative feelings that are uncomfortable. Our uh, um, threat state is, um, is, has been activated. We'll have physical symptoms of it as well. We might lose our appetite, we might start eating loads more, our sleep might be disrupted, we might get brain fog. There's physiological reactions to this as well as emotional. So really what we need to do is process that and whether it is, if you, if you know you're fortunate to have coach, bring it to your coach, if you have a therapist, if doing some um, some self coaching, some journaling practice to really just understand what emotions it is you're feeling, what maybe sits behind it in terms of the fears, the apprehensions, um, and start to process what they mean to you in terms of, you know, morally and that moral injury that we're feeling. And then also more practically in terms of, you know, how does that immediately impact my life in the now, knowing what I know with the information that we have and being honest, a lot of that will at the moment be fairly low. Um, but you know, it might change, but at the moment it's, it's really focusing on how our actual reality has changed. I think a lot of it at the moment is that moral injury that we're, we're experiencing. If you can work through those emotions and start to accept them, start to deal with them and journaling is a really good way actually if you're not in a place where you can afford to have a coach or a therapist. There's some really cool neuroscience research that's coming out now that we have the MRI technology and it shows that even just the, the process of writing down and not so typically, actually the research was done with writing, with writing down how you're feeling and thinking about things. That transference of energy just from our brain, taking it from our pre, our uh, amygdala, our emotional brain into our prefrontal cortex where we ah, are thinking logical brain. That transference of energy alone helps us to release the emotions, the weight of them, um, and over time reduce our stress that we experience from them. So there's definitely things that we can do. So I think that's the thing I'd say, you know, we want to be quick jump solutions and of course what we can control. But as I said, this is, this has triggered a really big, for what I've seen, a period of self reflection. I think it is this ending stage that we're going to need to take some time to deal with. And um, to be honest, you know, we have a, we have a time in place, you know, if we can do that before we get the next wave of information and what's actually going to happen, we probably will be in a better place psychologically and practically to move forward more positively.

Speaker C: That sounds great. So speaking of moving, like, one of the things that we've seen in our HR circles and different conversations is all of a sudden all these people like, I want to move to Canada, like employees or I'm moving to a different state or I'm moving to Canada or I'm. Or another country. And HR leaders are like, um, uh, do I, like what do I do?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And um, there's a real. So I'd love to hear your advice to companies around this trend and what, what do they do and how do they kind of set themselves up kind of operationally, kind operationally and ethically and all the things to this, these requests to be other places.

Speaker A: I'd always start with the, with the ethical and the human, you know, aspect of it in that. And I know time is precious and short, but really we're talking about a fundamental shift, you know, in terms of this mobility of people that's going to change the business. So it's worth taking some time. I think the first thing really is just to understand the motivation behind that request.

Speaker C: Sure.

Speaker A: Because motivations are going to be very different and there's going to be a reality, a perception of what's going to happen that might not be quite as accurate with the information that we have now or at all. So I think it's really digging into down what, you know, what is the, the motivation behind that request? Is it. And it's probably going to be fear, it's probably going to be apprehension, it's probably going to, you know, link to very personal reasons want to move. But I'm sure the more people that we speak to will have themes within that. And then it's a case of maybe saying, well, okay, if there's, if women's health, for example, is the main reason people want to move states, then it's, I guess, a case of understanding, well, what as a company can we do to support women's health, health in a way that might enable somebody to stay in the state they're currently in? For them because maybe they're leaving family, you know, social networks that certainly support them. So many things that, that they need. You know, in terms of that support networks. There might be things that we can do as an organization to support women's health in a way that allows them to stay in the state that they currently are. It's going to be very nuanced, it's going to be very specific to each situation. But I think there's going to be a trigger reaction of no, let's put in a policy, nobody can move states, no, it's too complicated operation that's going to go. Uh, it's, you know, it's. And I think really we just need to take a minute and go, okay, let's just, let's just open the conversation.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Why, why do you want to go? And it might be that many people are moving for other reasons. It might be that, as I said, this temporal landmark has triggered something that I've always wanted to work in Europe or I've always wanted to move in Canada, or I have family in California.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: There may be other reasons that people are deciding to make that. Um, so I think again, we just need to gather the data. We need to take time to understand the problem before we start coming up with solutions.

Speaker B: I think that's incredibly important. Right. And to decipher what is beneath the reason. And I think that, you know, I think one of the things that we wanted to address today is that there is extra fear in the environment right now. But if someone wants to move for reasons that you just expressed, Leanne, that's really different than fear. So we wanted to get your thoughts around how do we, how do we help as leaders? How do we help as just people too? Because, you know, regardless of whether it's in the workplace or not, how do, how do we help people navigate fear?

Speaker A: Yeah. So the what, what everyone is, this fear is coming from our threat state being activated. And it comes down to that evolution psychology, you know, psychology, it's fight and flight. And right now people are in, in fight and flight mode. And that is a tricky time because during that time, physiologically we're not thinking straight. You know, our, uh, amygdala, our emotional brain is in overdrive. The blood is rushing away from our prefrontal cortex. We're trying to gather people and things as close to us and protect them. We'll start to turn against colleagues. Maybe there'll be infighting, maybe we'll start to withdraw from people. There's going to be so Many cognitive, psychological, physiological reactions to this fear because we're in threat state. And the important word here that I want leaders to remember is state. It's temporary, it's not forever. Uh, it's heightened, it's a heightened point of emotion. And this is all still very fresh and it's all still very raw. So in terms of helping people deal with that fear, I go back to the, you know, I said earlier, you know, have these conversations, understand where that fear is coming from and why that's been triggered specifically for them or for certain groups of employees within your organization. But I think the other thing that you could do right now as a leader is help your, help your people understand that this is what's happening to them, this is what they're experiencing, this is what they're feeling. Because there's so many of us that would have experienced this before and it's only with the distance from it, you know, the clarity of hindsight that we go, oh yeah, I quit that job because, because I was triggered by my manager. And that happened. And um, we can start to piece it together in the moment. It's really hard. So any kind of training, coaching workshops, listening events that you can put on, uh, now for your people m to recognize that fear, talk them through what is happening. From a science perspective. This isn't a snowflake generation thing. This is physiological science. What's happening within our body and our psychology. So people almost that uh, education, that awareness that helps because people go, I'm not the only one.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: Everyone is feeling like this and this is why. And we said again the why. I've got the why, which I don't often have. Then maybe with that extra bit of information, I just need to take a step back myself. I need to take some time to think this, think this decision through, see how the organization responds over time and make that decision with more, more clarity. And I think it' it's not going to be a quick fix. There is no silver bullet. People are anxious and fearful in ways that I'm not sure we've seen since the pandemic. And the difference with the pandemic is we're all in it together and now we're in trouble. So this is going to take is again going back to that ending stage. It needs, that organizational brief needs to be processed. We need to help our people manage that as well. And I appreciate this can sound a bit fluffy. What all the research shows is that if we don't manage the crisis, the trauma now, the grief now and we just patch over it and you know, move forward in time.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: It's going to have even bigger impacts on our people, on their engagement, on their wellbeing, on their performance, on our profitability, on our revenue, on our turnover. Name a commercial metric. It will suffer if we don't deal with this now.

Speaker C: Totally agree.

Speaker A: It really is something that I think for the next couple of months just needs that conversation, that empathy m that compassion, those conversations. And um, that uh, again coming back to managers being able and equipped to have the conversations they need with their people to explore the individual reasons behind the fear, behind any knee jerk reactions, decisions that they're making in the organization.

Speaker C: I fully agree with all of that. I also think that at a leadership level you have to make some decisions. So if you've all decided we're hybrid then that means that you moving to wherever and being remote, we're a hybrid organization. But you have to be consistent and you have to accept, explain the why and all these other things that we're saying. And also people don't get it. Like people like oh, I can just move to whatever. I'm like actually if you move to that state, we have to set up a whole new entity in that state or that country. We have to pay you in a totally different way. A PEO costs 500 bucks per person per month, yada yada, yada yada yada. And like help them understand this is what we're doing around relocation. This is why we're doing it. This is actually the impact you decide to move to Canada. This is the financial impact on the organization. These are all the things that need to happen if you do that. It's not so easy as you may think. You're like well I just zoom in. It's no big deal.

Speaker B: Well.

Speaker C: And so the company needs to decide this is what we're willing to do or not willing to do and then live it and communicate it and live it just like any other policy.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the only. I couldn't agree more. And what I'd add to that is if as an organization you can forge a month to have these conversations, gather the data, inform those policies that will hopefully be the most effective and productive and keep your talent then all, all the best. But what I love about what you said there Liz, is it's going back to the why. You know, as an employee I'm uh, like I'm going to move to Canada because I can't possibly deal with this. I'm running, I'm in flight mode, it's fine. Zoom in, having somebody to sit down and first of all, go, you all right? How are you feeling? Tell me about what you're experiencing right now and what you're afraid of. What sol do you see for this? I'm going to move to Canada. Okay. How would you see that work? And you start working with this organization or another organization? Yeah, it's that layering of conversation that needs to happen, I think, over the next couple of months, for sure.

Speaker B: I think that's great advice. Um, any advice? You know, we're in this highly political, um, politically charged environment right now, and we touched on this a little bit in the last episode when we were guests on your podcast. But any advice on what to. What to avoid politically at work? Any advice there, um, to keep, uh, the teams cohesive?

Speaker A: Oh, it's tricky, isn't it? Because there's so much going on. Um, I think what we're seeing as well, particularly in the uk is very much around, um, the conflict in Israel, Gaza that is causing lots of conversations that are very difficult here too.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Um, and it's. Yeah, it's very, very. It's very complicated and very nuanced, I think, as a leader. Ultimately, you know, I think. Was it.

Speaker C: Which.

Speaker A: Who was it recently? Was it base camp? They just banned politics. You're not allowed to talk about politics anymore, right?

Speaker C: Yes. Yeah.

Speaker A: And it's kind of like. And we talked about on the show, and I was kind of like, well, I get it. It's a clean, you know, line in the sand, but very hard to police, very hard to actually make a reality. And also asking people to know, not basically live in a vacuum, work in a vacuum. And that's not possible anymore. As, you know, we've talked about. With the technology that we have and how we operate in the world, I think there's certain things leaders can do and what I would say. And this ties back to the kind of. The task cohesion and the mission cohesion is really. Look at what it is to be a team. And this is regardless of whether your organization is feeling the pressure, um, of politics or conflict or anything else.

Speaker B: Have.

Speaker A: Having what is called a team charter can be really effective because it all comes back to culture and behavior. So my. There's. There's more than 50 definitions of organizational culture. We can't agree. Um, we all have our favorites. My personal favorite is from a psychologist called Gianna Michi, who says that culture is defined by the worst behaviors tolerated. And what I like about that Is, it's is two things. One, culture is behavior driven. So it turns culture from this m mystical. Nobody really knows what it is. We're a fun culture, a results driven culture, a sales culture, uh, to actually something we can see that's tangible, that we can measure. You know, we see behaviors every day. The second thing it does is it frames it in a way that the least behavior is tolerated. So our culture isn't defined by the 95% of things we're doing right. It's defined by the 5% pocket of toxicity that we are, for whatever reason, refusing to eliminate. And it might be that that area of toxicity is coming from, um, you know, very abrupt conversations about politics where people are being shamed for a point of view that they have, whatever that is. Um, it could be a variety of reasons. But I think what a team charter does, and particularly this is particularly good for managers who perhaps work in a large organization where they don't have as much control over these conversations, but they certainly can in terms of their team. They say, right, this is our mission, these are our values. What do they mean towards the team? What do they mean in terms of how we show up to work, how we support each other, how we deliver our work, how we speak to our customers? What does that mean to us? What types of behaviors do you want to see that back up that value? How does that then as you said, how does that tie into our goals and to what our targets deliverables are this month, this quarter, this year? And then how do we then feed that into a way of policing these values, these behaviors within our team charter as a collective? How do we challenge a behavior that we see that we think is against this charter that we've all agreed in consultation and collaboration? How do we challenge that behavior? How do we address that behavior? How do we eradicate that behavior?

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: And what that's going to do is it's not going to create an organization where everyone's best mates because people are still individuals and people are still going to have conflicting opinions. But what it's going to do is breed civility. It's going to breed respect, it's going to breed trust, it's going to breed a sense of control of the environment I work in. And um, all the research shows is when it comes to workplace relationships, civility is the only real thing that is directly correlated to our employee experience, our engagement, our health and our performance. Everything else is a nice little cherry on top. Very nice, thank you very much. But actually being civil is what Drives a positive employee experience. So I think if there is an organization that is noticing these pockets of toxicity, whether it's in political conversations else, this is a really good starting point because, again, you know, it kind of shows that we're taking this seriously. We care about our people. We want you to show up as your authentic self. Yes. What does that authentic self look like for you and within the context of this team and what we do.

Speaker C: Yep. And I think that piece about authentic self and putting it into a team charter, I love that because you were talking about middle managers and they're, they're such a powerful piece of, uh, our ecosystem, and yet sometimes they don't feel empowered. But why not? Our team does it this way. This is what our team does. And again, that sense of belonging and all of those things, it's huge. Um, and something that they can do. So. But in that vein, I've had a lot of managers and HR folks be like, I feel like a therapist and I'm not a therapist and I don't know what to do with it. And like, I'd love to hear your reaction as a therapist to when a lot of these folks, you know, someone comes in my office and they're crying about the election and I'm like, dude, uh, use our erp. But you want to be a kind manager. You're trying to do the right thing. You're trying to listen to everybody and make them feel heard. And yet you're like, this is not something I'm qualified to really deal with. Um, I'd love to hear your thought on that because I, I can't tell you how many HR meetings I've had. People like, it feels like I'm with my therapist. I'm like, oh, like, did I, you know, I'm like, but I'm not. So I'd love to hear, you know, your thoughts on kind of that when people are in that seat and what they should do.

Speaker A: Yeah, I did. The hard thing about it is we're starting from a really difficult place in the, in the, you know, the beginning, because we don't really carve off enough time in a manager role for people to actually manage.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, often got very busy jobs, very task driven, and they're like, oh, and you, you manage people too. I read something really shocking. There was something like, in the UK, only 30% of management positions actually specify people. Management skills in the job description.

Speaker B: Stop.

Speaker A: Yeah. And in the US it was better, but not much. I think you were about 45%. So we're already not in the, just in the job carving out enough time for people to manage people. And that, uh, is a big part of the job, you know, to help the things that they're experiencing and how that's interrupting their work. So I think initially it's a really hard starting point because I know as a manager you probably haven't got time for this, but find it because otherwise it's going to make your job harder in the long run. I, um, think initially my thought is always going to be, as a manager, don't buy into the myth that as a manager you always have to have the solutions. You really don't. You don't have to have all the solutions, you don't have to have all the answers. But you should probably have some really great questions, some really great coaching questions. And that's things like, you know, reflective, this need. Tell me more about that or somebody tell me more or somebody just said come into your office and goes, I'm devastated about the election. Reflect that back. Uh, you're devastated about the election? Yeah, I just can't believe how much it's going to impact my life. It's going to impact your life. And you don't even, you know, you don't even have to have a very good question. You just repeat the last thing that they said in a reflective m way, you know, having those techniques. And there's been loads of resource online with, you know, the way YouTube is now look at things like listening skills. Go to Samaritan's website actually they have some free resources on active listening. That's a really great skill to develop as a human, but it's a really great skill to develop as a manager. So first of all know that you don't have to have the answers, but maybe arm yourself. Some really good questions, a lot of patience, um, and you know, set some time aside to know that this is probably going to happen. And it might be you want to structure that in. It might be that you need to start setting some boundaries and say, look, I'm in deep work, married today from 11 till 3, but I'm going to have office hours from like 3 till 6. Anything you need, come see me then or slack me then or video call me. Then you can set boundaries within, you know, when you're available. And I think that the second thing is once you, once you start doing this, I'm sure you'll start to see that the majority of employees that come to you will come to you once, twice and then will, you know, they've got it off their chest. They figured out their own solution because often by asking those questions, people come to their own solutions. You know, they figure it out. You are going to be left with a, uh, percentage of employees that aren't able to do that for themselves, that need more support. And at that point, what I'd say, um, ideally before that point is going to HR team and saying what resources are in place already to help people with stress, with burnout, trauma, with whatever it is. What EAP programs do we have? How if you don't, if you're not familiar with them, how do they work? Log on, how many manager speech you've never logged onto the EAP system? Have a look around, see what it does, see what support is available, um, figure out what else is available. Ask for, um, a list of signposting, um, services agencies that you can direct people to. You're not a mental health practitioner, you're not a therapist. And, um, you need to be very aware that engaging in that type of relationship for too long could do harm. People are very highly trained in these things. So it's important to know the limitations, limitations of your own capability and on responsibility as a manager. And you're not in that alone. Go and speak to hr, see what's around, see what signposting you have available. And then you should have some routes to send people to who are maybe requiring a bit more, um, specialist and professional support. It could be occupational health. You know, there's so many different things, but I think it's understanding what is available in your organisation that you can access. And if those things aren't available, then it's probably a good time to flag that with your HR person, with your OPS director, with your MD and go. Given the current climate, do we need to think about this?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Time for a resource list, minimum.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Okay. Oh, Leanne, we could just talk to you forever, I think, uh, fascinating stuff. And the work that you're doing is just so, so great and on point. Thank, um, you so much for coming into the podcast with us and talking and sharing your expertise. We really appreciate your vast wisdom on how to keep leaders and managers focused on their roles while also focusing on what's important on their teams. Right. Um, and as human beings. So please let our audience know how they can find you, learn from you, and hire Oblong HQ to help you help them with their leadership teams.

Speaker C: Yeah, Plug away.

Speaker A: Yeah, you'll find me on LinkedIn, Leanne Elliot. Um, that's where I'm probably the most active. If you want to just send me a direct message if you've got a question. And we have an episode of the podcast where we just answer listener questions actually. So if you have one and want to send it in, we can answer it anonymously for you. Um, so yeah, send that in, um, or directly to me. Leanne oblonghq.com oblonghq.com is our website that tells you more about the services that we offer, which also includes leadership coaching. And of course we have the podcast which was set up and designed to provide a lot of this information and best practice to organizations who maybe don't have that internal capability. Jill's to do a lot of this themselves. Um, so yeah, truth, lies and work. You'll find it wherever you get your podcasts. Fabulous.

Speaker C: Well, thank you so much Leanne. It's been wonderful having you and uh, we appreciate the work you do. So thank you so much.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker C: Until next time, this is Real Job Talk, the podcast with practical advice for mid career professionals.

Speaker B: Our website website with all Real Job Talk related information is realjobtalk.com we'd love

Speaker C: to hear from you. Please send us your questions, topics you'd like to talk about and Real Job Talk stories and you may find them featured on a future episode. Use the website or email us@realjobtalkmail.com you

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Speaker B: My name is Kathleen Nelson Troyer. You can find me on Twitter ayleykat and on LinkedIn.

Speaker C: I'm Kathleen Nelson Troyer and I'm Liz Bronson. On Twitter I'm Lizbeconsult. And on LinkedIn, I'm Liz Bronson.

Speaker B: Real Job Talk is produced by John Mark Troyer. Our graphic artists are, ah, Lexi and Zachary Bronson. And thanks for joining us. Until next time, Sam.