E187 - Work And Well-Being - Talking About Culture With Matt Cameron

Speaker A: This is the World of Work podcast

Speaker B: with James and Jane. Hi everyone, this is Jane. And just before we get into this episode, I want to remind you of all the really great stuff on our website at www.worldofwork.IO. over there you can check out all the online seminars and workshops we do, as well as our team development programs. You'll also find articles on topics to help you thrive at work. So that's www.worldofwork.IO. now let's get onto the episode. Hello and welcome to today's episode of the World of Work podcast. It's Jane Stewart and. Oh, uh, have I got a treat for you today. So as always, this is one of our guest episodes that we're sharing during the season and I'm really excited to introduce this guest because for many reasons. One is because he's local and therefore I have actually met him in real life. And how often does that happen on the podcast these days? And more importantly because we were both speaking at event a little while ago and I was so struck by what he shared at uh, that event that I totally forgot what I was meant to be presenting. And in all honesty, it was quite difficult to follow. So I'm really excited to share this conversation with you, you, uh, our listeners. And without further ado, Matt M. Cameron, welcome to World of Work podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself to the World of Work audience and tell us a little bit about you and your work?

Speaker A: Amazing. Thank you so much for having me and for the really lovely introduction. That was really sweet, thank you. But yeah, my name is Matthew Cameron and I am an employee retention, performance and wellbeing consultant. Having launched my own startups previously, I now collaborate with businesses to enhance organizational success and employee experience by creating these environments that nurture employee fulfillment. Amazingly, increasingly a lot of businesses focusing, uh, on the benefits of well being and work life balance, which is, which is absolutely fantastic. But I find many well meaning companies tend to prioritize giving people the tools to improve their life outside of work, which of course is important. But instead I focus on empowering leaders to create a fulfilling work experience that goes far beyond the typical financial rewards and benefits because this will also impact someone's life, both positive and negatively, while also impacting the business's productivity, their retention and ultimately at the end of the day, their profits. Sometimes consultants, a bit of a vague term. Um, so essentially I run workshops, I speak on panels like we did together, do some keynote talks, and I guide businesses and their cultures forward.

Speaker B: And so those of you listening will absolutely Be familiar with the world of work, projects, ambitions and what we're trying to do. And therefore you'll be completely unsurprised having heard that. Why we've invited Matt to join us on the podcast because we know this stuff is hard and the more people that we can hear from and talk to about what they're actually doing out there with organizations, the better chance we've got of giving all of you and for ourselves, of making better workplaces for people and making work work for us more often and in more places. And I think it would be fair to say that whilst we're both based up, uh, in Edinburgh, we're both passionate about this from a national and even from an international perspective. This is not a unique problem to one place. So I'm really excited to talk about it. I guess if you'd be comfortable, I'd love you to share a little bit with the audience about why you particularly care about this topic and why it's so important that to you that you're spending your effort and energy helping others to address it, prioritize it.

Speaker A: Not a problem whatsoever. It's been quite the journey to get here today. And if you'd asked me several years back, uh, if this is what I would be doing, I probably wouldn't have believed you because my background's actually in the hospitality industry. My life started, my working life started in roughly 2006, washing dishes. And I was, I was never paid legally, I was never trained, yelled at, and it was awful. We could probably do a podcast on that experience in itself, but I vowed to never work in hospitality again after that experience. And, uh, long story short, after a bit of a break, I did find myself back there, I guess to maybe be a bit closer to my brother who'd been overseas for some time. And I fell back in love with the industry and the people and the places that I was doing, like, the creative side of things. And I worked my way from bottom to top in both bars and in cafes on both sides of the world, back in Australia, in Brisbane and over here in, uh, London and Edinburgh and leading teams, running menus and serving customers. Hospitality has been really good to me until it wasn't. And that's where I guess my story gained momentum to end up here today talking to you with a series of events that, uh, I guess reach its climax on 2nd January, 2019. And that was actually the day that I planned to end my life. So there was a particular bridge in Edinburgh, uh, Dean Bridge, and I'm sure you're familiar with it that I would often walk to, whether that was on my way to work or a day off or just going for a stroll. I would walk below it and I would look up and I would just wonder, like, what it would feel like to take that step off or how long it would take for anyone to find me. And it was a process over several, uh, months where I was becoming more and more comfortable with potentially making that decision and making that, uh, final choice, I guess. And when that New Year's came around, that year, I was sat at a bar. I was drunk and alone. And while everyone else was around me and they were celebrating and planning their next year and what they were going to achieve and what they were going to do, I made the decision that this was going to be one of my last days on this earth. Uh, so when that day came around, when the second came around, I was sat on the edge of my bed and I'd already tied up one of my boots that morning to walk and to go to Dean Bridge when something stopped me. I had a bit of, uh, a moment and whatever we want to call it, whether it's an enlightened moment or it was just a thought, it was, I guess, a curiosity, something that defines my existence. Just being curious. Something happened in that moment. And ever since then I've been on this journey to, I guess, first improve my life, but to understand what happened and how I can use that to help others and prevent them from ever reaching that point that I hit in my life. And I guess what makes me unique in this space isn't that I've spent decades in HR or developed some amazing procedure that revolutionizes culture. It's that I was once the person that, uh, businesses put systems in place to protect and to optimize and to retain. And I fell through the cracks. I very nearly, yeah, lost my life. I guess with that, uh, story, it's be quite obvious why I'm doing what I'm doing, how I've ended up here, and why this is so important to me. But there's something I haven't told you yet, and that's that at the time there was nothing majorly wrong in my life. There was no big breakups or trauma or deaths in the family. These things that we commonly talk about as triggers to end up at that point. There's no history of major mental illness, aside from mild bouts of anxiety in the past. Yet I still found myself there. I still found myself on the edge of my bed that day. And to be honest, I didn't really understand it. I didn't even know I was getting to that. Point sort of just crept up and I thought maybe I was weak or I couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle the stress that I wore as a badge of honor previously. And I'd already implemented the things that I thought I probably should have been doing at the time. The common conversations around improving well being. And for me that's a bit of a simplistic. That's a bit of a problem I have with the simplistic view of the work life balance. My life outside of work was just fine. It was the work that was making me quite miserable. I did play a part in it. I began drinking quite heavily and I wasn't taking care of myself. And you know, I wasn't sleeping properly. I wasn't taking care of myself. But this environment that I was spending 8 to 10 to 12 hours a day very much began a series of events that, uh, led me to ending up in that space. And it took me quite a long time to reflect and understand what had happened. But I now use that story and my journey to help others and to draw the link between work and life and how work, uh, can impact our lives. And while my story does highlight the extreme negative effects that work can bring to someone's life, it can also bring a lot of joy and a lot of positives to people's lives too. And when people are having those positive experiences at work, uh, more often than not the business is thriving as well. And I guess that's why I'm passionate about what I do. It's creating environments where both people and business can both win.

Speaker B: Thank you for sharing that. And I think, I guess the positive I take from all of that is that for you to still be working in this space, you must fundamentally believe that it can get better, right? Otherwise, what's the point? So with that in mind, like, what is it that you think is really creating these negative experiences that we're having at, uh, work? What are the factors that are, uh, adding to take a workplace from a place where we're like, oh, it's not great, but everything's fine, to actually really quite a negative experience of work?

Speaker A: I do love this question because I'm asked it quite a lot. And people often expect me to jump to very specific things and point out very specific factors, leadership styles or stress or workloads. But I always tend to jump to a bit of a higher level conversation that ties into all of those specific factors. And I think It's a lot of people don't really understand what contributes to a positive work environment. If you don't understand that side of things, how do you create one that isn't average at best? And then people are turning up to this environment every day where they're not getting too much out of it. Potentially a lot of businesses think of positive experiences, a long lunch or table tennis or staff drinks on a Friday night. But it runs far deeper than that. It runs into the very foundations of who we are as people. Also, a study I always like to bring up happened in at Harvard, I believe in 20, uh, 11, that took the diary entries of 238 people. I believe there were roughly 12,000 diary entries. And I was trying to find out what the key indicator of a good day at work was. And it was progress. It was just making a step forward each day. So if you don't know what that positive experience is or where people are trying to reach, how do they make progress? So, and that ties it back into the leadership styles, the communication, the stress. All these things are influenced by that work progress or these other higher level conversations with, let's just use the example of a raise. Everyone always focuses on the money, which is obviously amazing. We all want a little bit more money. But a raise is more than that. It's a recognition of our hard work. It's the sign that we have grown professionally. We focus on the money, but there's a lot more to it than just that. People say I deserve a raise. They don't say I deserve more money. It's a feeling that they've grown and that they should be recognized for that growth. Obviously the money helps, but there is that internal drive to be better. And I guess a disconnect then comes with the leadership styles and the communication. When there's differing opinions there, maybe there's a conversation, uh, that needs to be had, what they need to achieve to get that promotion or why they're not getting it. And then that uh, dives a little bit deeper. But I guess long's like to loop back around. When we understand our people, we can then look at those individual experiences, those negative experiences, if we're going to use that term. But until we understand what drives people, then how do we know what a negative or a positive experience is?

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think listeners who are uh, familiar with some of our past catalog and past guests will recognize a little bit in what you're saying from some of the stuff we've done with Dr. Kevin Teo around. Well, being where we've talked about this idea of organizations getting a little bit. I don't want to say distracted is the wrong word, but overly focused on secondary and tertiary interventions. So the reactive stuff. So everyone's busy, everyone's stressed. Let's make sure they're having. And I'm sorry, I love yoga, but I'll use it as an example. Let's have yoga at lunch available, or head massages, or go on walking meetings or whatever it is. And actually not enough time is spent on the primary interventions, which is the proactive. Is work creating a good experience and is it, I don't want to say stress free because a small amount of stress is helpful for us because we get progress, but excess stress? Are we creating experiences that don't have excess stress? And I think certainly for me, just listening to you talk, it's like, I don't know how we reframe the conversation yet. I don't know how because I feel like a, uh, lot of the work we've seen around wellbeing has gone so far down that road that I almost don't know how to bring people back to the. Can we just talk about your basic work design your rotors? Can we just talk about your shift patterns? Can we just talk. And shift patterns is a classic within hospitality, but there are some basic work design stuff that we kind of gets not talked about. Like, does it ever occur to you you're just not allocating work in a way that is allowing people to feel that they are making progress? And I think what's really interesting about what you say is we work quite a lot with small organizations, scaling organizations, and also the charity sector, and we're definitely seeing that issue around. I don't feel like I'm making progress. I feel like there's no journey of my work that I'm meant to be moving forward through. So it's just, as you say, that I'm like, yeah, uh, like I can see how that progress piece especially could really start to become an insidious problem within a team. If no one feels like they're moving forward, then what on earth are we doing, apart from taking a paycheck? So I guess my next question, we asked the question quite a lot of people when we're talking about different issues is, do you think this is a new problem? Do you think this is something that is getting worse? Do you think workplaces have fundamentally changed and it was all okay before? What's your perspective on where we are right now in comparison to where we were?

Speaker A: Do I believe workplaces have changed. I'll say yes and no, which is quite vague, but I believe workplaces have changed, especially with technology coming in. The foundations of what work is has definitely changed. But what hasn't changed just yet. AI may have some words to say in this in the future, but, uh, what hasn't changed is people. People are the foundations of what we do in business. And every workplace in the history of man has had people. There's a great Simon Sinnet quote. Every employee is a person. All employees are people. All customers are people. All investors are people. If you don't understand people, you don't understand business. People are still there. But with that as well, people have also changed. The wellbeing and mental health conversations are, uh, louder than ever. That's never been more talked about. Work is increasingly a bigger part of our lives and our identities and they blend into our vision and goals. And if it doesn't align, we'll look elsewhere. We're seeing more people change jobs than ever right now. My generation is known as like the most jumpy generation of all time so far. So that's happening. But I saw a really interesting study that came out of, indeed just in the last couple of weeks. I believe that 93% of, uh, I believe 18 to 24 year olds were okay with ghosting an interview. They were okay with just not turning up. I found this quite fascinating. It's going back to have workplaces change. It's like yes and no, but people definitely have. I think the workplace needs to change with them. And they quoted, I believe his name was Ricky Martin, great name, winner of the, uh, Apprentice, who now runs a recruitment firm and essentially said that people were turning up and asking what the business would bring to them rather than what they would bring to the business. And I find that's really interesting. It's not just about money and what you can bring to a business, but what a business does to align with your values and your goals and what it brings to your life outside of a paycheck. And you went into a little bit of a rant of like back in my day, but we'll skip over that one. But I think we need to just understand what is driving people better. And the workforce is only going in one direction, it's only getting younger. So the better we can understand them, the better we can drive our workforces forward. What are we offering people? What's our value proposition? What are you bringing people outside of that paycheck? It's so important. And no matter what kind of workplace you are, whether you're in person or online or hybrid or have employees all over the world, understanding those people and what you can bring to them is instrumental in building a strong culture and a strong business.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think, like for me, we talk about a lot with people. We try and shift organization, particularly leaders views around recruitment and retention, around the idea that it is an exchange and people. Listeners will be very bored of hearing me talk about this, but this idea. But I will continue to bang this drum, which is that you, uh, are quite literally in a negotiation of exchange for selling your labor and your effort and your energy and your skills in return for a wage, benefits and an experience of work. And I just like, it baffles me that that doesn't get listed like the single. Like my favorite thing is Dan Pink has a phrase, pay people enough to take money, take the issue of money off the table and then think about what the work is. And the work is like the people you're with, the work you're doing, the environment you're in, the experience of it. And if the net exchange is negative, like you're paying them all this money, but they're like unhappy and it's not well organized or it's not able to give them some sense of purpose or progression, that exchange is not a good one. And this, it's this really weird thing of like. And it's a little bit, it's a hierarchical capitalist like thing of let's try and get as much out of labor as possible when we pay you. But this idea that you wouldn't in an interview ask these questions and shouldn't, like I had this, uh, it's just as you say it, I had a conversation like someone was really put out that they were like, what can I expect from you in terms of support as a manager? And they were like, well, how dare they ask that? And it was like they're about to make the second biggest decision aside from like getting married and having kids and buying a house. The job you have is so formative of your life. I, of course they should be asking those questions like they're about to give. And you don't get that time back, by the way. Right. I'm 48, I don't get the decade up back that I worked for X organization or Y organization. So it better be good for me. It better be something that gives me something beyond like the bare minimum, surely. So, yeah, sorry, listeners, you know, that's a rant that go on. But it's really important one I think, and I guess listening to you speak at the very beginning. So, uh, in your, in your very beginning intro you were talking about hospitality. And I have worked in hospitality on and off in my career, everything from collecting glasses through to being in management, like in the sort of back office type roles. What's different about hospitality, do you think, do you think it's any particular kind of problem or challenge in hospitality? Do you think it's a different challenge? What are your thoughts on how that shows up?

Speaker A: I find it fascinating. It's almost 247 workforce, it almost never closes. It's got high staff shortages currently, which is very problematic. I think there was a perfect storm over the last few years here in the UK that's left roughly 100,000 jobs empty. It's high stress, it's high paced and a lot of businesses, they kind of expect you to be resilient to that without offering much of a reason to be. But what I find super interesting is that it often doesn't have the time or the budget to try to improve the situation. If you don't have the time, if you're always open, if you're open seven days a week, sometimes 20 hours a day, how do you stop and how do you take note and how do you reset? And I guess what I find so fascinating is, especially with the low budgets, that it's got to be a people focused solution. You need to focus on the leadership and the culture because those are the people you are working with and seeing all day, every day and spending the majority of your time with. So, uh, yeah, like it's fascinating because it can't stop. So how do you find a solution in an industry that's always moving forward?

Speaker B: And I think it's, I mean, and I'm speaking as we are like in the uk, I'm going to speak very specifically about the UK here. I would like to think it's relevant to people listening elsewhere. I am, um, fascinated by our obsession with talking about office based workers or desk based workers. So if you think about remote as well, and what is predominantly, and I know there's huge variation over the hours people work and stuff like that, but predominantly a Monday, Friday night culture. And yet when I think about what healthcare for example, have been through and you talk about that sort of 24 hours, and I know officially, certainly in the UK officially then it just is only half 24 hours. It's not. Not, but it is. I mean that's the function, right? The organization as a whole is open, like it's not like they shut their doors and they're on shifts and they've got loads of different competing challenges and they've got different roles within that. Uh, and I don't know how you carve that um, out. Like my experience of working in hospitality was exactly as you describe now at the time I was pretty resilient. I had all the privileges that go alongside not worrying about keeping a roof over my head when I was there because I was still in my mum and dad's spare bedroom and I didn't have all the pressures. So yeah, it was relatively easy for me to be resumed. But even then if you couldn't keep up, if you couldn't maintain a relatively healthy environment, relatively healthy disposition, if you couldn't make your shifts, things like that, you weren't that perception of a good worker.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: I think when you combine that, uh, and a. Healthcare is obviously very different, it's much more regulated but at the same time there is still anything that involves like actual shift presence, like where the work has a time where it needs to be done is just different. And I think the other thing that always strikes me, and you and I have both talked quite a lot about scaling organizations and particularly the tech sector is how like differently those organizations exist. They don't exist against this. All the literature, all the research, all of this stuff is around. Oh, so in a 9 to 5, that's not all but like a huge amount of it dominates around our experience of work. Whereas my experience of places like healthcare, particularly healthcare and particularly retail, uh, hospitality and a little bit retail is. Your social environment is much more complex. So because you're working shifts quite often you tend to have your like. So I've never been closer to my work colleagues than when I've worked in those two industries because no one else is off the same time as me and no one else is doing the Monday morning like Pilates. Weirdly, I've never had more friends who were either stay at home mums at that point in their career or carers or were working in similar industries because when you finish work at three in the morning, like who's around because you're not ready to go home. So I think that then can compound it because you don't have that outside. You can have a great work life balance but you still have this thing of you're very immersed in it I think as well, which can be really. And it's definitely the thing we see in scaling tech. They are so immersed in the world they're living in that it's all fine when everything's good. But if it's not good at work, then it's not good everywhere in work because it's kind of in sort of everywhere in your life and got fingers everywhere in what's experiencing. We asked this question quite a lot and we love this question which is what would you like to be different?

Speaker A: It's a bit of a lofty goal, but I would like to culture and leadership and progression and progress to become a part of the wellbeing conversation. I uh, feel like sometimes they're part of a culture conversation. It's a completely different sector of the business that looks at it. But I think happiness at work and well being and work life balance, sometimes they can be a bit of a fluffy term in lack of a better phrase. Uh, it's nice to have rather than a needed, uh. And work is just a big part of our life. It's a big part of our life, our well being. And the diary study I mentioned before, like making progress is impacting our uh, life inside and outside of work. You're spending 8, 10, 12 hours a day in somewhere and if you leave and you get home and you feel like, you know, I've had a day, I've uh, just that day happened, but nothing happened. It's another day in our life that we'll, we'll never get back. You mentioned you never get those days back. And I think it's just being happily engaged in what you do and just understanding that and knowing that work does have an impact on people's life. It can be a positive or it can be a uh, negative. And the businesses who turn it into a positive, they're going to be the ones succeeding. When. Not sure if you had this, but when I was working in hospitality, there was a phrase like leave your problems at the door. No matter what happened, you walked in and you smiled and you gave everyone a great experience no matter what was happening outside of work. But did it ever work the other way around? When you leave work, do you just leave work at the door? I think it's a bit of an unfair exchange if businesses expect engaged, passionate employees, but then expect them to switch off the moment they leave work. The two don't mix. For you to be passionate about what you do probably are going to take it home with you a little bit. So it is a part of the same conversation. But that link is somewhat missing in a lot of conversations. And I don't think all work should be fun, but that's not the point. It's about working towards collective goals and creating a great team that will work together and giving people the autonomy to shine and giving them some purpose to work towards. And many of like minded people, it's building trust, it's building that, that drive forward so people are feeling like what they're doing on a day to day has worked, that they're contributing to that worth. And I would love for that link to happen. I would love to be a part of that. I hope I can one day.

Speaker B: Brilliant. Yeah. I was thinking about how tricky it is with those kind of roles to create that transition time that we know is so powerful. So I was just thinking you were talking about taking, bringing leave at the door. The emotional labor of putting a smile on your face behind a bar and motivating a crew if you're leading like a team leader or something when you've got stuff going on is so, uh, it's so difficult. And I was thinking about both. This is similar with healthcare. I don't feel like we, and I understand there's a massive cost involved, but we do not give people enough transition time. And you kind of have to, surely you have to split the difference a little bit. Surely you have to say you do a little bit of the transition and we'll give you a little bit of space at the end of your shift or the beginning of your shift. Just, just make that processing, whether that's a 10 minute personal chat with your boss or whether that's a chance to shake it off and have a chat with your colleagues and have a cup of tea. Give them that space to make the navigation through rather than just demand that it's. And you're right, I've totally heard that. I've totally heard it many times. Leave everything outside. Be Jane the person working here. Be Jane the assistant. Say, don't be bringing all of that stuff in here. Don't be chatting about it. Everyone can see, customers can see. Uh, if you all look like you're having serious conversations, even in your tea break, put your jumper on. Don't be like wandering around having a miserable face on you even when you're like on your brakes. I mean that's the reality of what you hear, right? You're like, remove yourself, you're a misery. And I think that kind of emotional labors a lot, I think, and it makes it quite often, I think probably compounds the issue. So look, there are definitely organizations wanting to be better at this, right? There are definitely leaders wanting to be better at this. We know this, we talk to them. They're the ones that are listening, they're the ones that are coming to you and saying, look, what should we be doing? They're listening to your talks and going, oh, I want to be better at this. What stops them from getting it right? What is it that's getting in the way of uh, us just being better at this?

Speaker A: I think we've both sort of touched on the sides of it, uh, at uh, different points in this conversation so far, but not jump too deeply into it. And I think the narrative around how we improve it needs to improve, uh, the solutions essentially currently suggesting that work and life are two separate things and the solutions are focused on improving the life rather than the work. They're not going to be overly effective in improving that productivity or that retention or the happiness at work. There was Oxford study that me, uh, and you both talking about quite recently from Dr. William Fleming about the individual level mental health well being interventions and their uh, effectiveness in the workplace. We're talking about things like resilience training and mindfulness and well being apps and their effect on making the workplace happier. And these are the things that uh, businesses are spending lots of time and hundreds of millions of pounds on each year. And effectively the study came out and said they were somewhat irrelevant and ineffective. And I guess that's where the narrative has been. It's like these are the other things we should be doing. But then these studies come out and say well actually they're not working. There needs to be an integrated approach that looks at both the work environment and people's life environment. And I think I mentioned resilience training and mindfulness and wellbeing apps and gym memberships. And you mentioned yoga earlier, like all of these things are fantastic. This is not me saying that they're, they're ineffective at doing things, but you've got a toxic work environment that you're in for 8, 10, 12 hours a day. You're probably more likely to reach for the bottle of wine than you are the meditation app at the end of a long day. It's not something that's going to fix that environment. So I think we need to reshape the conversation into it's more about who you are versus what you give. But it doesn't need to be about the money because when it is, you lead to the people without the budget thinking they can't do anything. And the people who do have the budget, they spend the money and they feel like they've done their bit without actually digging into the real people side of things. They've done all the things and they've given all of the things that people say they should. But then they're still dealing with a disengaged workforce because they haven't taken that time to dig deeper into what makes their people tick.

Speaker B: And I think I might be able to get some of the answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway, just in case. So you're sitting there, you're exploring this, you're seeing it up close with organizations, people listening want to be better, right? There's people listening, thinking, I want this to be a better situation. I want my work to be more healthy, having a better impact. What would your advice be?

Speaker A: Are we talking managers, people in the workplace? What are we thinking?

Speaker B: Let's start with managers. Let's start with managers and leaders and things like that.

Speaker A: Perfect. So in terms of leaders, managers, the first step is just knowing you're never going to be perfect. You're never going to get it right the first time. These things are difficult and they are different to, uh, like the things we're talking about. They are different to, I guess, the playbook, the things we've been doing for decades. And I think just being curious and being open to being vulnerable and being open and, you know, talking to people and understanding them. And I feel like the further you go down the hierarchy, you need to give your people the trust and the freedom to do what's best for their team, because they're going to understand their team and their people more than anyone else in the business. And those people are going to have different needs from people in different sections of your business. You can't just throw a blanket over the entire business and assume everyone has the exact same needs and goals and wants. These managers are playing a huge role in your business. We're looking at the role of a manager. It's to achieve the goals and the ambitions of the organization, and part of that is the people. But often the organizational and the operational side of things tend to come first and the people come second. The people bit gets missed. And perhaps there needs to be a little bit of a buffer there between the operational side and the people side and people that understand their people. I feel like I'm saying the word people a lot today, but people specifically designed to lead rather than manage everyone plays a, uh, significant part in the organization. And, you know, the people who are a little bit more focused on getting things done, they're important. But you need other people within the business who can also, you know, inspire and understand their people and Bring them along for the ride. Yeah, I guess that's where people can start being curious, being open, taking that first step, and being willing to fail and to try. It's that.

Speaker B: And I think what we know from a lot of the research around culture is that like, leader role modeling, I think we all know is important. Right? Like, I think that's fairly well documented. But I'm always shocked by how surprised they are by this. And maybe. And I don't think you will be, but I think I'm always shocked about how often leaders is one of the most influential things on culture is what's called leader attention. Right. So where leaders spend their time and energy is what other people think matters and will prioritize. So if you as a leader are spending time talking about, thinking about and exploring how to improve working cultures, then your team will believe that it matters, even if you get it wrong. Right. It's what you are spending your time and effort on. Because if you, as the most senior people in the organization are spending time on it, then it must be important. And if it's important, then I want to be part of it and I want to be part of the solution. They were like, I remember speaking to someone recently and they were like, how do they know what I'm spending time on? I was like, oh, you must not believe that. That's not. You can't be that naive about your organization. He was like, but they don't know. We don't. We're remote. Like, I'm not in our venues very often. All of the back management's remote. And I was like, do you not think people talk to each other? Do you not think the person who's got an appointment and saw you run out the office because you were running late doesn't know exactly where you're going? Because trust me, they do. Like, organizations have a very informal communication system. And I think particularly hospitality, actually, like, the way in which that network communicates and connects is so human as a society. Like, I remember being on, like, I hadn't shared shifts with someone for like six weeks, but I still knew what was going on in their personal life because the way that we would communicate and connect. So everything you say about, like, how to approach it feels really, really important, but also I think sometimes gets totally missed because everyone's so busy talking about either role modeling and that is important, don't get me wrong, or they're talking about how are we going to relieve some of the stress and symptoms, rather than how are we going to make it so that we have less symptoms, which feels really obvious but I don't think gets talked about. Okay. We're getting towards the end of our time together and I just uh, wanted to give you a final opportunity. Whether you've got any reflections now we've been talking about it, certainly I'll share mine. Like listening and exploring this, it just, it strikes me that the playing field isn't even for small organizations and for organizations with really low profit margins, thinking hospitality, thinking, healthcare, thinking scale ups, it's not an even playing field. They don't have HR teams of a size that can help, they don't have money to play with and it's not an even playing field. But even talking about it and creating space for your staff to talk about it and hearing for them feels like it's a really place you can start with all of this. Is that fair? Any thoughts, any final reflections on that?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think. Oh, well, I know and I truly believe that even when there isn't a budget for this, there is potential solutions and there are potential problems as well. I think doing nothing says something as well. And when you have these businesses to scale up to start with one or two people, they set a culture from that day one and then that culture goes through. And same with hospitality, there is that link of maybe it was a pop up or something that opened with one or two people and they set that culture from the very start. And the people are ah, the important piece of the puzzle here that sometimes we miss. They are our champions and they are the people that make us who we are. And oftentimes being human, being authentic and opening that conversation and showing that you care is incredibly important. Even if you said it's unfair playing field like even if there isn't, that just doing those small things makes a huge difference and being willing to do it and to open that conversation and care.

Speaker B: Brilliant. Great. Lots to think about, lots to explore, probably all the time we've got for today's conversation. But yeah, I've got a load of different head things thoughts in my head that it's going to make me think about how we approach culture work certainly from our end, as always, there'll be people listening. They'll be like, oh, Matt's got some interesting things to say. I'm really curious about that. I'd love to connect and understand a little bit more. Are you open to people getting in touch and if so, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Speaker A: Definitely. I'm Quite active on LinkedIn. You can find me there. That's Matthew Cameron. Alternatively, my website is where you can contact me directly and even book in a call if you'd like to have a chat and talk further on this. This topic fascinates me and I love having conversations like these.

Speaker B: Brilliant. And I think, um, hopefully we're gonna world work and you are gonna do a little bit more at some time. We're gonna explore a few things. So watch this space, everyone, if you're interested in this particular topic. Right, well, that was all we have time for. Sadly. We're gonna leave the conversation on culture there for now at least. All it really leaves for me to do is say a massive thank you for giving us your time, your thoughts, your story, and allowing us to spend a little bit of time exploring this very, very important topic. And with that, it's a goodbye from me.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker B: Hi, it's Jane and I just wanted to say thanks for listening to the whole episode, if you enjoyed it. If you have a question or if you just want to say hi, you can find us on twitterorldofworkio. Don't forget, you can also find out more about what we do, including our online seminars, workshops and development programs on www.worldofwork.I.