This Podcast Will Help You Flourish At Work

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Apr 02
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1142: How to Experience Less Stress and More Joy at Work with Amy Leneker

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Amy Leneker discusses how to spot and stop stress for more joyful days at work.

You’ll Learn

  1. The top five barriers to joy at work
  2. The three-step un-stressing method
  3. The simple practice that leads to more joy

About Amy

Amy Leneker is an optimistic, joy-seeking, recovering workaholic. She’s also a leadership consultant who has helped over 100,000 leaders and teams – including those at Fortune 100 companies – lead with less stress and more joy. Her soul goal? To help one billion people do the same. With over 25 years of leadership experience – including a decade in the C-suite – Amy understands the soul-crushing toll of burnout because she’s lived it. Twice. After surviving her own brush with burnout, Amy became determined to help others succeed without sacrificing their joy, their health, or their weekends. A first-generation college student, Amy earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees while working full-time and later raising a family. She has studied leadership at Yale, neuroscience at the NeuroLeadership Institute, and stress resilience at Harvard Medical School.

Resources Mentioned

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Amy Leneker Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Amy, welcome!

Amy Leneker
Thank you for having me. It’s great to see you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about cheering Monday. And, first, let’s hear about your personal story. You mentioned you’re a recovering workaholic and you have, I don’t know if it’s a record, but a striking number of panic attacks that occurred in a three-month window. Can you tell us a little bit about the story?

Amy Leneker
I did. And thank you for asking because it was a horrible, horrible time of my life. I wish that I could say that my burnout story was because I had an epiphany and decided to do something different, but it wasn’t. It was that my body just shut down, and it’s what you said.

So over the course of a summer and into the early fall, I had over a hundred stress-induced panic attacks and it was horrible. The most terrifying time of my life. And so, through lots of work with my doctor and the medical support, I was able to heal from burnout and definitely don’t ever want to experience that again.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow! Well, thank you for sharing. And just so we’re clear, what exactly is a panic attack? And how does it feel as opposed to being kind of stressed out?

Amy Leneker
I am not a medical expert, so this is only from my own experience. I’m sure that there is a valid medical definition of what one is, but for me, what happened was I thought I was having a heart attack. Everything I had read about a heart attack, I’m like, “Oh, this must be it,” because my heart was racing, I was sweating, I had tunnel vision.

It was this moment of almost feeling like you’re out of your body, watching yourself, but like not actually being yourself. So you’re never gonna wonder, “Am I having one or is this just stress?” because there, you’ll know. It is not. It is not your everyday, “I feel a little stressed out.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So can you take us into that world, that picture? So this comes from a great deal of stress. What kinds of stresses were you experiencing?

Amy Leneker
Looking back, I had been stressed for as long as I could remember. I had what I thought was my dream job. It was the job I had gone to college for, had gone into huge amounts of student loan debt in order to go to graduate school for. It was the job that I wanted. And looking back, I don’t remember when high amounts of stress weren’t part of my life.

So at the time, we also had two little kids, so there was a lot of trying to figure out how to be a mom and how to work, and how to work and be a mom, at the same time of an incredibly demanding job. And on top of all of that, one of the saddest realizations for me was just how much of the stress was self-induced, how much of those expectations really came from myself, not always from the outside world, but it took me years of reflection to understand the role that I had played.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you give us an example of a self-induced expectation that’s just not at all helpful?

Amy Leneker
Yes. So here’s a great one. I thought that I had cracked the code on work-life balance. So here’s what I did. I was leading a large team at the time, huge performance measures, lots of stress, but I left work at a reasonable time every day. I very rarely stayed. I wasn’t “at the office till nine or 10 o’clock at night” person. So I thought I’ve cracked the code.

Because what I would do is I would get to work. I would work at the speed of light all day. I would leave at a decent time, and then I would be home for soccer and homework and baths and all the things. And then once the whole house shut down, that’s when I would log on and do all of my email. That’s when I would do all of my prep for the next day.

So I’m working alone, just me and my labradoodle, until 12, one o’clock in the morning and then waking up the next day and doing it all over again. Week after week, month after month, year after year, thinking that I had cracked the code, thinking like, “I had figured this out.”

I figured out how to be a mom and a career person and not take away from the family. But what I was doing was completely negating myself. I had taken myself out of the equation.

Pete Mockaitis
I see. Okay. Well, that’s a good little warning right there in terms of living just that. It’s like a watch out.

Amy Leneker
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
So thinking through your own lived experience and your research process for writing the book and working with clients, what’s something that’s really surprised you in terms of your discoveries about stress?

Amy Leneker
The first one would be that there isn’t just one kind of work stress. There are five. And I didn’t know that. At the height of my burnout, I didn’t understand that there were five kinds of work stress because once you see that, you can’t unsee it. Once you understand that there’s actually five actionable types of stress, then you can look at solutions that really work. So that would probably be my number one.

My second biggest aha was just how much of an intersection there is between stress and joy. We have got lots of great studies on stress at work. We’ve got fewer studies around joy at work. But what I couldn’t find, what I didn’t see was a study about the intersection between the two. How does one impact the other? How does a lack of one impact the other?

So that was my other biggest aha was that there was this research gap that I wanted to fill. What is it that we could understand about how these two seemingly opposite forces can work together and be in support of each other?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, can you unpack a little bit of that dynamic between stress and joy for us?

Amy Leneker
Yes, so here’s what I found. So we just did this national research study in 2026, so this is brand new data. And what we learned is that 79% of working Americans said, “I need joy in order to do my best work.” That’s a lot, 79%. That number jumps to 89% for executives.

What’s fascinating to me then is when you look at the data, 75% of American workers say that feeling joy helps them cope with work stress. So these are not two independent forces. We spend so much time, especially since the pandemic, so much time talking about stress and burnout, but very little time, very few organizations that I work with are having conversations around joy, even though it’s part of the equation.

People need it in order to do their best work. And 75% of people say, “I need it in order to cope with work stress.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, joy is a good word, and we dig it. And so, I guess I’ve heard multiple definitions of joy. I’m thinking, you know, partially in a Catholic theological context, we could talk about the virtue of joy. But how are you defining it here?

Amy Leneker
Here’s how I define it. So in our research, we found that there were three key drivers of joy. So the way I define joy is the feeling you’re experiencing when you have these three key drivers. So the first one is when there’s meaning and purpose in your work.

The second is when there is mattering in your relationships. So if you and I are on the same team, I matter to you, not just because of the work that I do, not just because I meet my deadlines, but I matter to you because who I am as a person.

And when I did the study, I thought those first two would show up. Meaning made sense to me, mattering made sense to me. The third one was a surprise. I was not expecting the third key driver of joy at work, which was momentum.

When I feel that I am making some type of progress, when I can look back and say, “Things are different because I was here,” those were the three key drivers. So when you have just one of them, you can experience joy.

So if you think about a moment, I hope you’ve had one, I bet you’ve had hundreds, a moment with a coworker where you shared a joke or you laughed or you went and had coffee, you can have joy just from one of those three. But when you have two or when you have all three, then you’ve set yourself up for a perfect storm in the best way for the conditions for joy.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So then, in this definition, that would be distinct from, say, pleasure, like, “I had a really tasty lunch,” or, “I was playing a really fun game.” That’s a different thing here.

Amy Leneker
It is a different thing, and it’s different than happiness, too. And so what I often tell leaders and teams is the words are important. Words matter, definitions matter, and not to get too lost in the semantics. So what I don’t want to do is to go into an organization where they spend the next six hours trying to figure out the difference between happy and joy. So that’s probably not going to be a great ROI for bringing in a consultant for six hours.

But what I want to do with them is I want them to really evaluate those three key drivers. Are they experiencing those? Are they helping to create those for other people? And just as importantly, do they understand the biggest barriers to joy? Because in the majority of teams that I work with, they are completely unaware that they are inadvertently blocking joy for themselves and for everybody around them.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting. Well, could you share a story along those lines?

Amy Leneker
Absolutely. So here’s a great one. The fifth one. So if you look at the top five, we found 12, but if you just look at the top five, the fifth leading barrier to joy was when there’s isolation or disconnection. So if in the workplace you feel apart from or separate from, that is a barrier to joy.

And yet in a lot of teams I work with, they don’t really want to talk about whether or not they’re connected as a team. They don’t really want to talk about whether or not someone feels isolated on their team. But we have to because what we know is that when you’re in emotional pain, like this driver or this barrier to joy, that the part of your brain that lights up is the exact same part that lights up when you’re in physical pain.

So when people describe a really hard work situation, they might say things like, “This really is painful,” or, “I’m not sure I can take it,” because their brain is processing that pain in the same place. So if we can understand not just what drives it, but if we understand actually what gets in the way of it, we have a much better chance at creating a culture.

Can I share the number one barrier to joy?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, please.

Amy Leneker
So the number one was an overwhelming workload. So when leaders say, “I don’t know where to start. I don’t know where to begin,” or if an individual contributor will say, “Gosh, I just wish I had more joy,” what I can say is start with the number one barrier.

If you don’t know where to begin, let’s look at the number one barrier, what is your workload? Do you have a workload that feels sustainable? Because at least we know we can go in with the highest priority and hopefully create some shifts on the margin.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So what’s the two, three, and four?

Amy Leneker
Yeah, let’s fill in the middle because we’ve got the two bookends. So the fourth one is when you have technology problems that disrupt your day. The third…Isn’t that funny?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that actually makes me feel better. It’s like, “I am not just an impatient jerk. This is a universal human condition.”

Amy Leneker
I do a conference every year with the CIOs in Washington state. And so when this came up in the data, I went back to the research team and I’m like, “We got to be really certain that this is there because I’m about to tell a conference full of CIOs that they’re the…

Pete Mockaitis
“You’re killing everybody’s joy. It’s all your fault.”

Amy Leneker
Exactly. The third leading barrier is when there is sudden change without an explanation. And the second was feeling underappreciated. When I work with leaders and teams, I do an exercise where after I share with them that the second leading barrier to joy is feeling underappreciated, I have them take two minutes and appreciate someone at their workplace.

Send an email, send a text message, whatever it is, it just has to be true appreciation because we all have the ability to do something in less than two minutes about the second leading barrier to joy.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, that’s really helpful to have that rundown. And I guess, I’m thinking, a sudden change without explanation. I mean, you did the research, so you tell me if this is accurate. For me, at least, I’m thinking sudden change without acceptable explanation.

Because it’s like, there’s a sudden change and the explanation is just like, “Oh, so-and-so wants it this way now.” It’s like, “Well, why didn’t so-and-so mention that a month ago when we started doing this thing, you know?” Or, “So-and-so wants, prefers it to be in a different color,” or whatever.

It’s sort of like… in a way, it’s almost interrelated to feeling underappreciated, “I feel yanked around and disrespected.” It’s like, “Oh, I guess you gave no thought whatsoever to me, the human being, who had to execute this thing. That’s not a great feeling.”

Amy Leneker
I think you’re spot on and I think what you’re describing is backed up not just by research, but what I’m seeing anecdotally in organizations, which is that younger generations have an even stronger desire for the why. That’s what I see. When I go into organizations, younger generations are not tolerating this idea of, “Just do this because we said so.” There’s really this deeper need to understand, “Well, why is that?”

So I think you’re spot on that sometimes it’s not just hearing the change, it’s, “Do I understand the why behind the change?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so then, if we need joy to do our best work, and joy helps with work stress, is it also true that, I guess that would be the dynamic, is that joy helps with stress and stress impedes joy.

And so you’ve identified some barriers. I guess I’d love to know what are some of the top things that make a world of difference rather quickly in this equation?

Amy Leneker
It’s a great question, because I think the most important thing that we can do, regardless of where you sit in an organization, is to look at the three drivers. So we know that meaning, mattering, momentum, that’s what fosters joy. So are you tuned in to each of those three? Do you have those three? And, unfortunately, there are times where someone will say, “No.”

So here’s an example. We had talked earlier about the five kinds of work stress. And one type of work stress is called system stress. It’s when the very system that you’re a part of makes it hard for you to be successful. Things like inequity, unfairness.

When you’re in a toxic work environment, and I hope you’re not, I hope you never find yourself in one, but if you are in a toxic work environment, the ability to feel joy is pretty small. So recognizing that sometimes this isn’t just a personal issue, this isn’t just, “I need to be more resilient. I need to figure out how to manage my stress better,” it’s actually understanding, “Am I in a workplace with system stress that is actually preventing me from doing that?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So we recognize it and then, hopefully, if you do you, you try to get out of there, I guess, is what you do. Well, let’s hear these five. So we got system, what are the other four?

Amy Leneker
The first type of work stress is schedule. It’s when there is just not enough time in the day to do everything that you need to do. Even if you work through breaks or lunch or you skip a vacation, there just isn’t enough time. You’ll also see schedule stress when folks are just booked back to back to back all day long. That is schedule stress.

The second type is suspense. When you are waiting for information or you’re waiting for a decision, and while you’re waiting, that ambiguity, that uncertainty causes stress. The third type is social, and this is the stress of people. In an ideal world, the people that you work with help you do your job. They make your work enjoyable, but that isn’t always the case. So the third type is when the relationships at work are making it harder for you.

And then the fourth one is sudden. Sudden stress is when something happens out of the ordinary, something unusual, and it requires you to do something. You’ve got to think about something or make a decision or that last minute fire that you’re putting out. That is sudden stress.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m also curious to hear your take on, I don’t know if I would just call it biological stuff, but my stress joy situation is largely impacted by, “Have I slept enough? Have I exercised? Have I eaten enough and not junk in recent times?” How do you think about these in the domain of stress and joy?

Amy Leneker
It’s a huge component of it. So what I think we’ve done that has done a tremendous disservice to employees and to entire organizations is that we have ended up in a place where you’ve got one who blames the other. So what I see is organizations blame employees for everything you just said, “You’re not sleeping well enough. You’re not eating well enough. You’re not taking breaks and walks and all the things.”

And then you have employees blaming organizations saying, “My workload is too high. I can’t be successful here.” So the only way this works is when everybody understands the role that they play. So, yes, individuals have a role. Yes, leaders have a role and organizations have a role.

Where I think we have really missed the boat is that we have turned this into a shame-blame finger-pointing game rather than coming together and saying, “If our goal is to really have a healthy workplace that thrives, what does that look like? And what is everybody responsible for in order to make that happen?”

So long answer to your question, yes, absolutely, those things matter and they’re not enough. So in our research, 25%, this blows my mind every time I say it out loud, 25% of working Americans report feeling bullied at least once a week. And many reported feeling bullied more than once a week.

So if that is your experience, if you’re going to work every week feeling bullied, how much sleep would it take to get over that? How many walking breaks do you need to get over that? So that’s where the shame and blame comes in. And I see this all the time because we do workshops on stress. We do workshops on burnout.

But if I go into an organization with system stress, how helpful is my training? I can tell you all the barriers to joy, but if you’re feeling bullied at work, that resolve is not going to come from you alone. That requires a change outside of just you.

Pete Mockaitis
And that is striking, 25% bullied weekly.

Amy Leneker
Isn’t it? It’s heartbreaking!

Pete Mockaitis
What are common examples of workplace bullying that are very prevalent?

Amy Leneker
So in our research, we were clear not to define it because what was important to us was to understand if people felt bullied using their definition. So I think it varies depending on where you work. I think it varies depending on the level of organization you’re in.

I think the important thing is that, “Do you know what that is where you are? Do you know what’s okay and what’s not okay in your workplace? Do you know what to do if you’re feeling bullied and what happens?” So I think that’s the key piece is, “What do you do? How do you tap into those resources if you believe that’s what’s happening for you?”

Pete Mockaitis
I suppose what I’m driving at is if someone finds, it might be minimizing an incidence of bullying, like, “Ah, it’s kind of annoying. Yeah, I kind of don’t care for it,” as opposed to like, “Well, no, actually, that is straight up hostile, toxic, unacceptable stuff.” Could you give us some examples of things that maybe get minimized yet are very common and deeply problematic?

Amy Leneker
Sure, I am a certified mediator. I specialize in workplace conflict. I have over 10,000 hours of mediation hours. And what I see in those mediations is exactly what you just described. That, very often, one person will say, “I didn’t even know this was a big deal.” And the other person says, “This is causing me so much pain and strain that I’ve now brought in a third party mediator to help us get through it.”

I just did a mediation recently where, I mean, you cannot make this up. It was a comment, a misunderstood comment six months ago that had created so much tension and conflict on this team. So rather than those two being able to talk about, “What did you mean by that comment? What was your intent in that?” it created six months of conflict.

So a lot of it comes down to communication. I see a lot of it around when people believe they’re being treated unfairly. So at work, they are experiencing that, “How other people are being treated doesn’t reflect how I’m being treated,” or even that they believe other people are being treated unfairly. I see that as one.

If I had to name a third one, I think it would probably be around this idea of, “What is a respectful workplace?” And when you’ve got different ideas, different generations, different cultures of what respect looks like. So a great example, I just did a mediation with a team because there was a whole team that was not getting along.

And they were frustrated because they would share ideas and they believed that the manager wasn’t hearing them and they were calling it hostile. They were using these words that create a red flag in my head as a mediator.

And what the leader said was, “I do hear your ideas. I’m just not taking them.” So now we’ve got a different conversation to have. It’s not about whether or not they’re hearing you, it’s whether or not they’re taking the ideas. So if I had to sum it up into one, communication would be the one that I see most often in my workplace mediations.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so you’ve got an ABC of Joy method. Can you share this with us?

Amy Leneker
Sure. It is so simple, and I share it with leaders and teams all the time. So the first one is just to be aware of it. So to actually start being aware of, “Am I experiencing joy or am I not?” To not let joy be accidental because joy is really different than toxic positivity.

This is not about forcing joy on people. This isn’t about forcing people to feel positive. So just that first moment of, “Am I aware of just how much joy impacts my world of work and how much it ripples to my world outside of work?”

The B, and it almost sounds silly, but the B is actually breath. It is that so many of us move through the workday in a complete state of stress that we are breathing from our chest and not actually from our belly.

And when I’m doing mediations or when I’m doing tough conversations, I always watch how people are breathing. Because if they’re breathing up here, that’s the breath of stress. And so are we able to get that into our diaphragmatic breathing to make that shift?

And then this C is connection. Stress thrives in isolation. Relief comes through connection. Joy is through connection. So when in doubt, are you feeling connected to the workplace? Who do you feel connected to in the workplace? Because they are going to be a shortcut to joy for you.

Pete Mockaitis
And in your appendix, you’ve got the unstressing method. Are those the ABCs or you got more for us?

Amy Leneker
No, the unstressing method is different. So it’s actually what I’m most excited to share with everyone. I often joke, I went on a work trip recently and I shared it with the barista at the airport, with the ride share driver, and then with the person checking me at the hotel. Because when I say, “How are you?” if someone says, “Oh, to be honest? I’m really stressed.” I’m like, “Well, I got something for you.”

So really simple, three steps. Step number one, you’ve got to see your stress differently. So you’ve got to get all your stressors from your head, from your heart onto paper. And it works best if you can use sticky notes. You don’t have to, but it works best if you can put one stressor per sticky note.

Then you see your stress through the lens of, “Is this important to me? And do I have control over it?” And how you answer those questions, then you place your stressor on the unstressing matrix, because there’s four quadrants. So based on how you answer, “Is it important? Do I have control?” you place it on the matrix.

Step two is we sort it. And you sort your stress into those five categories that you and I talked about just a few minutes ago. Which type of stress is it? And sometimes it’s more than one type. Sometimes it’s all five types, but you write down on those numbers one through five, which type of stress it is.

And what I love about step two is you’ve got this really quick visual of, “What’s actually happening for me right now?” If you look and there’s a whole lot of threes, you’ve got some work to do with the people that you’re working with. If you look at your matrix and you’ve got lots of fives, that’s a red flag that you’re feeling system stress. So it gives you this really quick snapshot into what’s been happening behind the scenes.

So then in step three, we solve it. Because wherever your stressor landed on that matrix, there is a next guiding step for you to take. So you don’t have to feel stuck. You don’t have to feel like you’re in analysis paralysis. There is a next guiding thing for you to do wherever that landed.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so I’d love to work through something here. Let’s say right now I am stressed by the war in Iran. Now that was sudden. I was not expecting that. That just sort of appeared. It is suspenseful. It’s like, “What the heck is going to happen?” It feels unfair. You point the blame anywhere you want, but at least one person did something that wasn’t cool.

And so now it’s completely out of my control. It’s important to me, although not super immediately directly personally, but just in terms of like the wellbeing and flourishing of humanity. And I don’t know, “Are my children going to go to war in years to come?” You know, so there’s that suspense thing.

So, okay, let’s say I have that posted, I’ve put it in the right quadrant, I’ve labeled some of those S category types. Well, now what the heck do I do?

Amy Leneker
The action there is about asking for support that you need because you don’t have control over it. My guess is that you don’t know anyone directly that has control over it. Is that a fair assumption?

Pete Mockaitis
I am not that powerful.

Amy Leneker
Not that powerful. And this example that you gave, I’m hearing it in every workshop that I’m in. Right before this podcast with you, I did a workshop this morning. People are talking about it. This is a huge part of our lives that is completely out of our control and feels wildly important. So that’s quadrant one.

So in quadrant one, it’s about asking for the support that you need, “How do I manage this thing that I have no control over? How am I going to be able to still move forward? How can I still function and be able to do what I need to do while this stressor is here?” And while it’s here for a length of time that we’re not sure of, we don’t know the consequences of it.

So the important thing about understanding when something is in quadrant one is that it frees you up from, “There isn’t an action, a direct action that I need to take, but is there something?” Then you can start to. So what happened just this morning in the workshop was someone said, “Well, but I can write a letter. I can send an email.”

Like, okay, yes. So then you can start to think about, “Are there actions connected to it, even if it’s not directly?” I mean, none of, at least no one I work with has the power to put an end to the stressor, but what are those things that are within our control? So I’m glad you brought up that example. It just came up this morning.

Pete Mockaitis
So then, for asking for support, I suppose some of that support is just kind of me doing things that are helpful for me. But then what is useful support, you and I and our pals can offer to each other in a world where we don’t have the control?

Amy Leneker
I think there is support that we can offer each other through connection, so just by recognizing what you’re going through. And I think sometimes the support needs to come from a professional. You may have really well-intentioned friends, but they may or may not be mental health experts.

So part of quadrant one is recognizing, “Do I need someone who is a professional at this?” Just because you love someone or just because they love you doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re trained to provide support to you on a stressor that’s wildly important to you and outside of your control.

So sometimes that support can come from family or friends or community, and other times it may need to come from someone who’s actually trained in how to do it.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot because a therapist or a professional can really get to some custom stuff there because, like, it could be stressing you in completely different ways than it’s stressing me.

Amy Leneker
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, maybe one person is ruminating. Another feels betrayed, lied to. They don’t feel that they could trust anyone anymore, “And it’s just like this other time in life,” you know, it’s bringing back traumatic memories. Others could be binge watching the news to the detriment of their responsibilities. And so there’s different kinds of interventions that happen there. So, I liked that a lot in terms of support can take a lot of different varieties, but it’s the thing to do when it’s important, but out of your control.

Amy Leneker
And I’ll tell you, I work with a lot of leaders. I work with public sector leaders, Fortune 100 leaders. I work with leaders across industries. The most successful leaders I work with, they have coaches, they have therapists, and most of them have both.

So, I mean, most really successful leaders know that, “I’ve got to surround myself with the support that I need to be successful.” And the really good ones have gotten really good at figuring out what that support looks like.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. All right. Well, Amy, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Amy Leneker
Here’s what I would offer, that if you’re listening to this, and you are feeling wild amounts of work stress, to know that you are not alone. Over 80% of people are right there with you.

If you’re listening to this and you’re not feeling that way, then I hope that you can go back into work tomorrow with some empathy for people who might be because we are not all having the same experience at the same time. So that’s what I would love to leave before we jump into the next part.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Amy Leneker
Anne Lamott says that, “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save. They just stand there shining.”

And I think that is such a beautiful metaphor for stress that we don’t have to go running all over our workplaces looking for people to save, looking for stress to eliminate, that if we can take really good care of ourselves, that that very notion of standing like a lighthouse in our own wellness has a ripple effect on everybody.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Amy Leneker
I’m going to go with Dare to Lead. When I read Dare to Lead by Brene Brown, it felt like these pieces of the leadership puzzle that I had been missing fell into place.

And I was so inspired by that book that I ended up getting trained by her and certified by her to bring Dare to Lead into organizations to help people be courageous. So that book, it changed my life. And it’s not hyperbole to say that. It literally changed my life.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool?

Amy Leneker
Is a confetti cannon a tool?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool, yeah.

Amy Leneker
Because I keep this puppy on my desk because you never know when a confetti moment is going to hit. So I think this is my favorite tool, that when there’s a celebration, I always try to have a confetti cannon not too far away.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, are confetti cannons, I’ve never owned one or interacted with one personally, are they refillable, reusable?

Amy Leneker
This one is not. There probably are. I bet there are some environmentally safe ones that are. This one isn’t. This is so cute. I just realized, while I was on the call with you, my daughter wrote “Cheers to Monday.” Can you see that?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s sweet.

Amy Leneker
That’s so cute because I sent two of these off this week with the book lot so she was really sweet and cleaned the office and then put this. That’s so darling. Super cute.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s 1,140 some interviews, I’ve asked people about a favorite tool, and this is the first time confetti cannon has appeared.

Amy Leneker
Really? I love it! Let’s name the episode that.

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s so good. And a favorite habit?

Amy Leneker
Whenever I am driving in my car, I call my parents. And it just is such a great way to connect with two people that I love more than anything else in the world.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, they quote it back to you often?

Amy Leneker
I think what I’m hearing back most often now is what I shared with you right at the end about stress, thriving, and isolation, that many times after I give this talk, people will come up and sometimes they’re even crying saying that they didn’t realize that they had been disconnecting from people that they love. They had been isolating from people that they cared about. And so, unfortunately, stress just takes on this spiral. So that’s what I’m hearing right now a lot.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Amy Leneker
Oh, thank you. I love that question. AmyLeneker.com is the best way. And I’m also on all the socials and I would love to connect, so reach out. I’d love to stay connected.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Amy Leneker
My call to action would be to use the stress ruler today. On a scale of zero to 10, how challenging has your stress been? Ask the people you love that same question and then do something about it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Amy, thank you.

Amy Leneker
Thank you. This was so fun. I loved being here.

Mar 30
0

1141: How to Stop Burnout Before It Starts with Guy Winch

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Guy Winch shares the simple strategies for taking back control of your mind, energy, and attention from work.

You’ll Learn

  1. How to stop rumination loops
  2. The trick to dealing with difficult situations beyond your control
  3. The overlooked key to build into your weekly schedule

About Guy

Guy Winch Ph.D. is an internationally renowned psychologist who advocates for integrating the science of emotional health into our daily lives. His science based self-help books have been translated into 30 languages and his 3 viral TED Talks have garnered over 35 million views. 

He advises start-ups in the mental health space, worked with the US and UK governments, and has created emotional health programs for fortune 500 companies. His work has been featured in the NY Times, WSJ, the Boston Globe, CNN, Time, Psychology Today, and other major outlets. He is the co-host of the Ambie Nominated Dear Therapists podcast. He lives and maintains a private practice in Manhattan.

Resources Mentioned

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Guy Winch Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Guy, welcome!

Guy Winch
Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to chat about Mind Over Grind. Could you kick us off with your dramatic story about being stuck in an elevator?

Guy Winch
Yes. So this is actually a story of how I learned, or figured out, rather, that I had burnout because I was a year in to my career, one year. So it’s not exactly what you tend to think of when you think about burnout. But it occurred to me when I was, that was a Friday night, I was coming back from work. I was in the elevator with a neighbor and the elevator stalled and shuddered and just stopped between floors.

And the neighbor actually happened to be a physician in an ER, used to emergencies, one would think, started hitting all the buttons, pounding on the door, and going, “This is my nightmare! This is my nightmare!” And I was so depleted, what came out of my mouth is I just looked at him, and I said, “And this is my nightmare.” And it was such a cruel, unempathetic thing to say.

I am a psychologist, I do know the right thing to say, “Here’s a person in distress. This is literally what I trained for,” and that’s what came out of my mouth. And so when you act out of character in a very substantial way, at least for me, you ask yourself, “What’s going on? Why would I do something like that?” And then when I got home, I realized, “Wow, I am just so drained. I feel like I’ve been doing this for 50 years. I just had nothing left.”

And I realized, “Wow, I’m a year in. That is a major problem.” And the thing is, you don’t learn about burnout in graduate school. At least I didn’t. You know, the PhD never mentioned. So it’s not as if it was something I was alerted to. It just wasn’t something that occurred to me. But that’s what was going on. I was totally burnt out.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s a nice alert right there. So when we act out of character in kind of a snippy, snappy, unkind, impatient sort of a way, that could be a clue, “Oh, I’m not a jerk. Well, maybe. Maybe I am.”

Guy Winch
No, you qualified with the out of character part when you said that.

Pete Mockaitis
Out of character, right. So that could well be an indicator, a little sign, “Hmm, there may be burnout afoot here.”

Guy Winch
Burnout, you might be depressed, but there’s something going on, is the thing. Something is going on. If it’s that uncharacteristic for you, you have to ask yourself, “What’s happening?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us, that’s one sort of dramatic illustration, like, “Oh, something’s going on here.” Could you give us a couple other signs that, “Oh, maybe I need to pay attention here”?

Guy Winch
Well, with burnout, I mean, the primary symptom is exhaustion. And it’s the kind of bone-tired, this kind of deep feeling of exhaustion that, you know, it’s not a good night’s sleep will remedy that. Neither will a good weekend remedy that. It feels like every day is a slog.

You feel very jaded about what you’re doing. You don’t know if you’re doing a good job. You don’t necessarily care all that much anymore. And you feel so overloaded that every new thing that comes down the pike, every new, like, for me, it was like, I was, to the point where any new request someone, you know, I hadn’t seen for a while, “Oh, do you have time for a session?” I would get so angry or resentful.

Like, “No, I don’t. Just leave me alone. I’m doing enough.” It was that kind of feeling of like, I am taxed beyond what I have and I can’t. But you have to keep going. So you keep going, there’s this kind of numbness that develops.

And it impacts you inside the workplace and without. It’s not as if you can’t be burnt out, totally burnt out at work and be absolutely jovial at home. That doesn’t happen. So it’s impacting you in every area of your life.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we’re going to dig into a lot of potential interventions, strategies, things you can do. But maybe, first, could you share with us any particularly surprising discoveries that you’ve made in the world of burnout that maybe a lot of folks haven’t heard?

Guy Winch
Well, one thing that’s interesting to me, and this is part of what I got when I decided to actually really start to look into this more seriously. I mean, obviously from year one in my career, I was alerted. But the pandemic was an interesting time because the pandemic, especially the shutdowns that happened at the beginning, there was a moment for emotional health in the workplace.

Like, all the companies were like, “Oh, my goodness, we’re so worried about now everyone’s virtual.” I was giving like, I don’t know, like 15, 20 talks a week to companies about how to maintain emotional health at work in teams when you’re all virtual. All the companies were flooding, their resource pages were here, resources and help, and everyone was aware.

And the discussion of work-life balance came into the picture. People were going on job interviews and asking, “What’s the work-life balance in this company?” Nobody would have dared ask that before. It’s like, “Why? Are you planning to slack off? That’s not necessarily making us want to hire you.” But, suddenly, that became legit. So awareness went up.

Companies were putting a lot of resources into it. And individual workers, both with quiet quitting and their own prioritizing, were trying to do something about work-life balance. And yet, as that was happening, as that moment was happening, work stress and burnout were peaking and have remained at all-time highs in the workplace. And that’s a paradox.

How is it everyone is so aware, everyone on both ends, both the employees and the employers, are trying to do something about it, and it keeps going up? That’s the thing. And so what got me interested is that. And what I found and why I wrote my book, Mind Over Grind, is that the answer is that it works a little bit like a pinball machine.

The work stress shoots out, but then it starts dinging around in your life within and outside of work. And so it makes it harder to, you know, you get home, you’re more likely to have a conflict with your partner, which is going to make you more stressed the next day, which is going to make you come home and ruminate about the bad things that happen, which is going to impair your sleep, which is going to make you more susceptible and more irritable, so more bad things will happen.

It just keeps digging around back and forth. And the ball of stress, as it were, remains in play for much, much longer, and that’s why the burnout is happening and the stress is so high, because it’s escaped the workplace. It’s now operating outside the workplace in our lives in all kinds of ways, some of which we’re aware of, many of which we’re not. And that’s why things keep getting bad, because unless we turn off all those dingers, not just at work, then it will remain problematic.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s a spooky, scary picture there in terms of the cascade, the doom loop that one thing begets another and another and another, like an avalanche, snowball going downhill. So then what do you recommend? If we find ourselves in the early or the later stages of this kind of situation, what are the top things that we should be doing?

Guy Winch
So, first of all, I don’t think it’s a big if. In other words, the workplace right now is really difficult. It’s very demanding for many people. You don’t have to be burnt out to be susceptible to some of these things that are going on. And I’ll give you just one example.

If you have a very difficult day at work, something went wrong, you had a conflict with a co-worker, your boss treated you really poorly, you were one of the many people who were subject to either harassment, or bias, or bullying, or truly even incivility, which is incredibly common in the workplace, just rudeness, you are likely to come home and stew about that.

Ruminate is the word we use professionally. To ruminate means to chew over. You’re likely to come home and chew over about those things because they’re going to bother you, and you’re like, “Why would they say that to me? And why would they do that? And I wish I wouldn’t.”

And then you’re starting to, you’ll spend the evening like imagining having this fantasy conversation with your boss that you actually never have because he’ll fire you, but you’re like, “I wish I could say this to her. And I wish I could say that to him,” and all these mic drop moments that you imagine. It is going to be extremely difficult after those kinds of days to switch off and be present in whatever your family life, personal life is that evening.

Work will hijack your thoughts, and that is extremely, extremely common. And when it does, we are not aware that we’re being hijacked. We think, “Well, we’re processing. Isn’t that a good thing? Wouldn’t a psychologist say processing is good?”

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds wholesome. PhD approved.

Guy Winch
“Sounds wholesome. I’m thinking things through.” You’re not thinking things through. You’re churning. You’re spinning. You’re in an emotional hamster wheel. Thinking things through, by definition, means that there’s a start point and an end point. That end point is a takeaway, a conclusion, an insight, an action item.

But what you’re doing is, again, when you’re doing fantasy conversations about how you’ll tell someone off that you’ll never have, there’s nothing. You’re not doing anything there. But what you are doing, mind you, when you’re ruminating, is, number one, you’re flooding your system with cortisol. You’re stressing yourself out. You are picking the scabs off whatever emotional wounds that left.

So all the irritation, the annoyance, the upset, the insult that you experienced during the workday, by replaying it, you are re-experiencing all those things. You are adding hours of unpaid overtime into your evening. You are checked out from whatever it is and whoever is around you. So you’re actually doing a significant amount and you’re impairing your sleep. You’re more likely to eat unhealthy foods.

There’s just this list of things that are bad when you’re ruminating, and most people are not aware when they’re doing it, but it’s actually quite damaging.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so very clear. Rumination, bad. So how do we knock it off? Sometimes that’s easier said than done.

Guy Winch
First all, it actually is a little bit easier said than done, but it has to start with the awareness that what you’re doing isn’t useful. And the way you know that is, because when you’re trying to figure something out, that’s a mental process. You’re in your head. You’re strategizing. You’re thinking. You’re analyzing.

When you’re ruminating, you’re in your chest. It’s visceral because you’re upset again, you’re charged again, you’re angry again. And so you know it because, A, you’ve had that thought for the tenth time. You’re not actually getting anywhere.

You’re just replaying how upsetting something was, or your fantasy arguments, or like just imagining, or remembering all the other times they said the insulting thing to you, just literally replaying the greatest hits. That’s when you’re ruminating.

So, first of all, step one, catch it. Label it as rumination. Label it as unuseful and damaging thought. There’s two kinds of self-reflection. There’s more, but just for the sake of argument. There’s healthy and unhealthy. Productive, unproductive. This is unhealthy and unproductive.

The solution, therefore, is to convert the ruminating into healthy and productive self-reflection. Healthy and productive self-reflection has a point. It has a goal. So, in this case, whatever it is that’s troubling you, ask yourself, “What is the problem I need to solve here? Is it, do I need to speak to that co-worker who was so dismissive of me, etc.? Should I go to Human Resources to talk about the bias or the harassment or the bullying?”

“Do I need to get support from somebody else, etc? Do I need to address this rudeness? How do I avoid that coworker who constantly upsets me when I see them?” You’re asking questions that you actually need to figure out and answer. Now, what you’re thinking is actually productive because you’re trying to actually figure something out and know how to handle it and have takeaways from that.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a really useful distinction there. We’re thinking it through, so we’re landing somewhere. It’s a plan, a decision, a next to action. I think some of the trickiest parts for me with rumination, because I love figuring stuff out, strategizing, and problem solving, getting to the bottom of stuff. But I think what I have the hardest time is when it seems like there’s not really a solution to the external circumstances.

Guy Winch
Give me a “for instance.”

Pete Mockaitis
So, I guess, but perhaps the for instance would be you have had conversations with a manager or colleague about the matter at hand multiple times. And they have demonstrated a fundamental unwillingness to adjust their behavior in a manner that you would like.

So, in a way, you’re kind of stuck. And I guess, in a way, we always have a choice, “Well, you could leave. You could find a new workplace.” And I guess that’s true, but sometimes, at least in the short term…

Guy Winch 
That’s a nuclear option, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis 
Yeah, in the short term, we find ourselves somewhat stuck like, “Well, you know what, at the moment, I need this job, I need this income. Boss is not responding to my previous requests to adjust their behavior in a way that would accommodate me. He’s done this again and again, and it makes me angry again and again. So it’s not as though I’m going to arrive at a solution or a magical script. All right.”

Guy Winch
No, but here’s what you can arrive at. Yes, but here’s what you can arrive at. There are numerous things you can do. Number one, you can look around and say, “Who does this boss not do it to? Why do they not do it to them? Is there something I can learn from that?”

Number two, “If they’re doing it to everyone, it’s something about the boss. Is there a way I can understand why the boss does this that would make it easier for me to tolerate? Because I have a little bit of understanding, insight into what’s going on with them. Are they simply obtuse, so they’re not aware that they’re being insulting or annoying?”

“Is it that that’s what they get from their manager and, therefore, they’re just passing that down the line? Is it that they have a really difficult home situation, and so they just take out their frustrations and anger on their subordinates at work?”

You can try and reframe the situation so that it’s less activating for you. If you’re stuck there, “How do I make this feel less annoying? It’s going to occur. How do I avoid some of it? And how do I think of it in a different way?”

For example, some people – I’m just giving this as an example – literally do not have the emotional intelligence to recognize and realize when they’re doing something that’s rude and offensive. They literally don’t get it. You can try and point it out, it doesn’t stick. It’s not something that crosses their radar in that way. It’s just they don’t have the apparatus to.

And so it’s not necessarily on purpose. They don’t realize they’re being that difficult. And if you think about it that way, for example, then it’s like a blind person who just like stepped on your foot because they didn’t see it. Like, it’s hurtful, it’s annoying, but there’s only so angry you can get.

So, in other words, I’m just giving examples of you, if you can’t change it, then change how you feel about it so that you don’t have to live in that anger and resentment as much as you have been. Do you know what mean? So there’s always something that you can do to try and better your situation.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you give us some cool examples of reframes that have been really transformational for folks and within their situations?

Guy Winch
Look, it can be as simple as, “I’ve tried so many ways to manage the situation and I’m not managing. Therefore, this is the sign that I actually do need to look at the nuclear option because I’ve done everything before.” But, again, that’s a nuclear option of leaving.

But another one is to understand, you know, people sometimes when they get the backstory of who the person is, why they’re behaving the way they are, develop some empathy for them. They understand that, “Oh, they have a sick kid at home. They’re stressed out beyond belief.”

“They got passed up for this promotion and they’re really, really hurting. And, no, they’re certainly not managing it well, but they’re not, you know, skipping through the tulips while they’re making all of us eat crap.” You know, that’s not the case. Empathy, perspective taking so that you get some kind of empathy and insight for the person and why they’re doing it often helps mitigate the feelings of frustration and anger.

But often it is something that’s more workable because, you know, again, if you see the person doing it to everyone, then it’s about them, but sometimes it’s just, it’s not to everyone, “So what’s different? What am I doing to step on someone’s toes to make them, to make me a target for them?” I’m not talking about bullying, but just about a boss who’s not treating you nicely or respectfully.

Is it bias? And if it’s bias, you can’t do anything about it. You can think of collecting other incidences of it, finding people who will join with you, and consider going to HR. But, again, that can be dangerous and iffy depending on the company.

But just look first at your behavior. Because a lot of people will say to me sometimes, “You know, I realize that every time I come up with an idea, my boss shoots it down. But the only place I come up with these ideas are in these meetings. And he doesn’t like it when people come up with great ideas in the meetings because they’re supposed to be about his ideas, not our ideas.”

“I need to go to him on the side. And then when I go to him on the side, he’s actually, one-on-one, he’s much nicer than in the public forum.” You know what mean? Like, you have to try and figure out the method behind the madness, and that can really transform your perception and your strategy and your handling of the situation.

Pete Mockaitis
Could you share a specific story of a person who had a transformational reframe?

Guy Winch
In my book, I follow five characters, you know, clients of mine throughout. And this is a reframe in the other direction, mind you, but the first person I talk about is a guy called Tony. He’s a trader and he’s in this political fight… he’s the number one trader on the desk with the number two trader on the desk.

And he keeps thinking that the number two trader on the desk is just jealous of him and tries to sabotage him or tries to kind of turn people against him. And so he kind of doesn’t take it seriously enough. When he understands what the number two person on the desk is trying to do is actually oust him entirely, literally sabotage his entire career, that’s transformational for him.

He suddenly looks at everything with very different eyes, with very different levels of alarm, which are appropriate. And sometimes we don’t fully understand the reasons other people at work are doing what they’re doing. And we really need to, because that will reveal a chess game that we might not be aware of.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s really powerful. And I’m thinking about movies like “Fight Club” or “The Sixth Sense” where there’s a big reveal that sort of recasts your understanding of everything. It’s like, “Oh, now I have to watch this movie again.” And so that is big in terms of uncovering those things really does bring new things to light.

And what’s so interesting is when, I think a lot of times, when someone’s behavior just doesn’t make any sense to us, it seems there’s often another element that when you understand that, it is that unlock. Like, “Oh, so that’s why you do what you do.” “Oh, you’re trying to oust me.” “Oh, you have a super stressful home life situation.” “Oh, you’ve always learned that had to be tough in certain situations.” “Oh, you think this meeting is about you looking like a brilliant, innovative, creative genius. Okay.”

So it’s like when we’re flummoxed by others’ behavior, there may very well be just a missing piece of the puzzle that can put everything into the right perspective.

Guy Winch
Right. Another example is, “Oh, your self-esteem is so fragile, you are so incapable of owning a mistake that you will, literally, look to blame the most ridiculous people rather than take any ownership or responsibility because you’re constitutionally too threatened by that notion,” let’s say.

Pete Mockaitis
You might not say that out loud to your boss, unprompted.

Guy Winch
No, but it would be useful to understand because then any kind of effort to try and make them see or make them get is like it’s going to be useless and a waste of energy because they cannot, they will not take ownership of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, this is useful. Thank you. Well, in your book, you’ve got a fun structure in terms of chapter one, Monday morning, chapter two, Monday afternoon, kind of like moving through a work week. Can you share with us what are some of the most transformational practices, not just in the moment when, oh, rumination is striking, but, in general, to have our mind over grind?

Guy Winch
So when we have a difficult and demanding job, when we’re very, very busy, our tendency is, for most people, is, you know, anyone who’s gotten up in the morning are like, “I just need to get through this day,” or, “I just need to get through this week. There’s just so much going on. I just need to get through it.”

That kind of thought, or that kind of strategy, is problematic because what it’s going to do, what that means is it means you’re putting your head down and you’re going from task to task to task. You’re just getting through. What it means you’re not doing is you’re not actually looking at the week more strategically and more intentionally planning out, “How do I manage my energies through this week?”

“How do I utilize my time out of work to recover from this very, very difficult and demanding week? How do I break up the day? If I have 10 minutes here and five minutes there..” you know, some people literally running all the time “…where can I schedule those 10 minutes? What can I do within them that will refresh me a little bit rather than just keep grinding through and just praying for the end of the day to arrive?”

“How can I be more intentional in the breaks that I choose, where I choose to take them, what I choose to do in them, because the default is going to be serve social media or distract myself in some way, as opposed to doing something that will actually revitalize me even in five minutes?”

In the book, I have this whole section about mini breaks, like two minutes here, five minutes here, what you can do that will actually be useful, as opposed to what most people do that is not. So how we curate the rest period, the break period, the recovery options, is super important and it’s the last thing we think of doing when we need it most because we just put our head down and let’s just get through it.

But we need to be more strategic and more deliberate in how we do that. And that makes a huge difference because when we just get through, by the second part of the day, our creativity, our decision-making, our attention to detail, most of our executive functioning is depleted, is on the decline because we don’t, you know, we’re not computers, we don’t keep going at the same level until we crash.

There’s a downward slope that happens quite quickly. So unless you’re really planning for breaks that will refresh you and will revitalize you and kind of restore your functioning to a higher level, you’re not going to do as good work as you might if you are more thoughtful about doing that.

And the second part is what happens after hours. The more stressed and pressured you are at work, the more essential it is to use those times to recover. And the research shows the less likely we are to do that in any way that’s effective.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s a huge nice bright light for us there. If you’re having the thought, “Ooh, just got to get through this day,” it’s like, you know, “Time out, you know, that is probably exactly the wrong thought to be having,” versus, “Where do I get my energy replenished? And I’m going to have to look harder for those opportunities given that there is a whole lot competing for my hours in this day.”

So share with us what are some of the most rejuvenating mini breaks that really go a long way for people?

Guy Winch
So, for example, if you’re sitting all day, and then stand up, go up and down some stairs, do some push-ups if you’re inclined to do that, do something physical for a few minutes, number one. Number two, you have 10 minutes. If you can take a walk around the block, if there’s any nature to be parked in, nature is very restorative. Just sitting among trees, even if it’s for 10 minutes, can really kind of refresh.

If you have a very difficult, you know, say, some people say to me like, “Oh, I have three hours of the most obnoxious client meetings. They always are so hostile and so tense and I have to smile through it because they’re critical clients. I always feel so like, you know, yucky afterwards.”

I’m like, “Great. That’s after those meetings is when you need to make a plan with a coworker to go so you can vent, so you can get support, call your grandmother with a smiling face. If you’re working from home, that’s when you bring the puppy over to get some cuddles. Like, do something to help you recover from the tension of those meetings.”

Meditation can be done in five minutes. If you have a very, very difficult day, like, “Wednesday’s going to be hump day. I just need to get through Wednesday,” what’s your favorite thing you can make yourself for lunch and take it to work on Wednesday?

So even though that’s the hardest day, you can look forward to, “But you know what, I’m going to have this thing at lunch and take 15 minutes and I really enjoy this thing that I’m bringing, and so I’m going to look forward to having that over that day and give myself the treat at lunch that day.”

Be thoughtful about what you can do so it’s not torture all the time, because that’s how the stress happens. We go into fight or flight, the workplace is a modern-day battlefield. Even though it’s not a battlefield, it’s a conference room, but it’s same thing. It’s a cubicle, it doesn’t matter. It’s like we’re on alert all the time. Our bodies are activated in fight or flight. You need to have breaks from that.

And if you come home and you’re ruminating about stuff, you’re still in fight or flight. Or if you come home and you’re so tense that, you know, everyone’s avoiding you, you’re still in fight or flight. So we have to be aware that that’s how burnout happens.

Our systems did not evolve. Our mental and physical body systems, you know, functioning, did not evolve to be activated like that for many, many hours, for most of the day, day after day after day after day. That’s never our evolution. Even in times of war, there was R&R. Nobody stayed at the front forever. And now we are at the front forever.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I really resonate with what you said about lunch. I have actually had days where, “Oh, my gosh, this day is so brutal. But you know what? I’ve got those delicious chicken pineapple meatballs from Costco. And, really, it’s like a bright light.”

Guy Winch
It is though, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Okay. Well, so you mentioned social media is the default. Guy, is your good doctor’s opinion that that is not an efficacious means of rejuvenation?

Guy Winch
No, it’s the researchers’ opinion that it’s not an efficacious means of rejuvenation. There are studies done about it. And, look, when you’re working, if you’re going to, if your social media, there’s two kinds, really, right? It’s your social, actual social media, what your friends are doing.

Tell me how many friends you have that post pictures of them looking absolutely harassed during the workday, looking miserable in a cubicle, crying in the toilets after they got chewed out by their boss. No one posts that. What you will see, they’re drinking Mai Tais on the beach or the time they went out with their coworkers and they’re all semi-drunk and having a great time.

Whatever the thing is, it’s going to make you feel like, “Oh, wow, everybody’s living except me.” It’s not going to make you feel good. That’s one type. And the other type is news and all kinds of things like that. And those algorithms, all of them, are slanted toward getting your attention and activating you and making you upset and outraged and angry, is what will get your attention.

And so they will feed you content that you’re going to be like, “I cannot believe that happened. I can’t believe this.” It will, literally, be activating in all the wrong ways. Relaxing, it will not be. No one’s feed shows like a Philharmonic playing casual classical music with aromatherapy wafting through your phone. We don’t get that. So that’s not going to be useful.

My phone, I don’t, you know, like I post on social media. I have somebody who does it for me, but what I use my phone for, I have trained my algorithm so that if I am going to do that, it is going to show me stuff that is going to make me smile.

And I can show you my phone, you can go to the search, the only thing it will show you is stand-up clips and puppies. That’s it. That’s all you’re getting. In other words, I’ve trained it, I’m not interested in anything else. If I’m coming to you, it’s for like a few seconds of relief. So that’s what it knows to show me. You can train your algorithm.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I was just going to ask, because I find that sometimes when I turn to social media or news, what I’m really after is a quick hit of, like, a palate cleanser. Like, I want something that’s interesting, that’s stimulating, that makes me go, “Hmm.”

Guy Winch
Can you see that you’re going to get that on the news?

Pete Mockaitis 
And is novel and different. Well, I guess usually I don’t but sometimes I do. I think that’s the thing. It’s like the gambler, like pull on the the slot machine one more time. It’s like, “Oh, maybe this time, you know, I’ll hit something makes me go, ‘Huh, that’s really interesting.’”

But I’m gathering, from my own experience and from all the research that, yeah, this isn’t really a great place to to get what I’m after. So one approach is, you’ve just trained it, “Give me puppies and comedy and nothing else.” Are there perhaps superior substitutions? We’ve talked about nature and having a walk and some exercise. That’s cool. Any nice intellectual substitutions for social media?

Guy Winch
Yes, but what you want to do on break from work is you actually want to use the intellectual muscles that are not the same ones that you’ve just used. So, if you’re in a job that’s just very rote or analytical, you might want something that stimulates your feelings of creativity, right?

If you’re in a creative job that’s just very, very artistic, you might want something that gives you puzzles, or something that just uses different, you know, it’s like you want to use a different area of the brain. If those muscles are tired, let’s use other muscles and give them a little bit of a workout.

If you’re working from home, you know what’s great to do for five or 10 minutes if you can? If you play a musical instrument, play it for five or 10 minutes. If you’re a singer, sing for five or 10 minutes. If you’re a dancer, dance for five or 10 minutes.

Like, I know that’s not a lot of time, but it’s enough time to kind of, really, it does two things. Number one, it’s so different from what you’re doing probably for work. And secondly, it’s giving some oxygen to other parts of your personality and your identity that you don’t really get to express that much. So that’s quite refreshing to do.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it. Well, Guy, tell me, anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Guy Winch
Yes, one other thing. I talked about the recovery after work, too. Our brain doesn’t distinguish that well between physical exhaustion and mental exhaustion. So a lot of people get home after eight, nine hours, let’s say even in the office where they sat all day and they feel, “I am wiped out. All I can do now is veg four to five hours of TV or shows or screens in some kind of ways, but I couldn’t move because I’m wiped out.”

You’re not wiped out physically. You’re drained mentally. And, in fact, doing something physical or doing something, and so they rest for four or five hours, right? They over-index on resting. Resting is half the equation. Resting doesn’t deplete your batteries further, but it doesn’t recharge them.

To recharge your batteries after work, you actually need to do something that you can’t do on a couch. Again, if you’re creative, you need to do the creative endeavor. If you’re a social person, you actually need to meet people and interact.

If you’re athletic, you have to work out in some kind of way. If you’re artistic, you’ve got to practice your art, you’ve got to practice your music, you’ve got to practice your writing, you’ve got to tinker in the garage, you’ve got to organize if you’re an organizer.

You have to do the thing that recharges you. Not every night is that possible. And people say to me, like, “Well…” I have an example of somebody in the book who used to do improv. And they’re like, “Well, I can’t do it. I can’t join a troupe, I can’t perform. I don’t have that kind of time.”

I’m like, “You don’t need a lot of time to do it for 10 or 15 minutes a day with your kids. Ask them what character they want you to be and be that character to fool around.” Like, you play the violin, 15 minutes of, and, again, it’s not a lot, it’s not enough, but picking it up and doing something is enough to kind of make you feel recharged again, remind you that it’s not all about work.

You know, the life part of the work-life balance is the you part as well. It’s not just add an hour of yoga. It’s about live. Be present in the life that you do have. Be present in doing homework with the kids and putting them to bed and having a date night with your partner. Hanging out with your friends. Be present in that.

But people are like, “No, I’m too drained.” So you have to remind yourself that you’re not physically tired. You’re mentally tired. Your body is deceiving you. Your mind is deceiving you into thinking that you’re physically tired.

And everyone has done that and forced themselves up from the couch and forced themselves to then do the recharging thing has come back with a second wind in which they actually expended energy but now they feel more energized.

Everybody knows the ROI is significant but you have to remind yourself of that because if you don’t, if you just veg all evening, you’ll wake up tired the next day, you won’t feel recharged or refreshed. So that’s the biggest mistake. And the more stressed you are at work, the more likely you are to fall into that trap. So you really have to override it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well. now could you share your favourite quote, something you find inspiring?

Guy Winch
So I forget who said it, maybe it was Carl Sagan who said, “The human brain might be the most brilliant machine in the universe.” And so that’s the quote.

“So the human brain might be the most brilliant machine in the entire universe…” Here’s my addition, “…but it requires adult supervision.” In other words, we have to be mindful. We have to be intentional. We can’t just let our mind be on autopilot because it’s smart and it’s brilliant, but not when it comes to emotional and psychological sophistication. It defaults to easy solutions.

It’ll distract us by just, “Go to social media. Just zombie out on the couch.” It’ll tell us all those things, and we have to be able to be the adult and to make the managerial decision about, “That’s not what I need. Here’s what I need. I have to get my ass off the couch and do this. I have to get the chicken pineapple thing from…” I forgot now what it was.

Pete Mockaitis
Hell, yeah, chicken pineapple meatballs.

Guy Winch
But, yes, chicken pineapple meatballs from Costco. “I need to get up and heat that up because that’s what’s going to put a smile on my face, even though I don’t feel like it.” You know, we have to do the adult thing and we have to manage our mind and not just let it be because it doesn’t make the best decisions for us when it’s on autopilot.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And can you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Guy Winch
One of the studies that really caught my attention when working on this book is that when one person in a relationship is really stressed out at work for a long period, their partner will start to develop symptoms of burnout because it transfers that substantially to the other people in the house.

And people, most people think like, “No, no, no, I keep it under wraps. I don’t stress everybody out.” Even when you don’t intend to, we do. So there’s one. I’ll just throw in one other one of the same example. When one person in their job is really stressed out, their partner is likely to lose their sex drive, because, you know, again, those things cross over and they impact our loved ones way more than we realize.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And could you share a favorite book?

Guy Winch
Here’s one on topic. And I don’t know if this person has been on your podcast, Mita Mallick. Has she been on your podcast? She wrote a book that just came out a few months ago. It’s called The Devil Emails at Midnight. And it’s about difficult bosses and how to handle them, and that she had fallen into the trap of being a difficult boss herself, but it’s a great book about the workplace that’s also quite funny.

One that’s not on this topic at all, but just one that I read recently that I absolutely loved, it’s called Eve. It’s a New York Times bestseller, how female evolution drove 200 million years, how the female body drove 200 million years of evolution. It looks through at evolution, starting literally 200 million years ago, through the lens of women and the female body. And it’s remarkable.

As much as you think as you know about the female body, as much as women think they know about their own body, you will learn so much from this book. And it’s written in such a way that almost every page you want to pause and call someone and say, “Look what I just found out,” you know? It’s great.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Guy Winch
One of the tools that I use daily is gratitude exercises. I really believe in them. And the gratitude exercises is that you really write a paragraph about something that you’re grateful for every day. If something bad happens, you deal with it, you process it, but you also try and find some good in it.

It’s a great balancing act. We’ve evolved to be predisposed to notice the bad, the danger, the difficult stuff that’s coming on the horizon. We need to counterbalance that by intentionally looking for the good and the positive because that comes much less naturally to all of us.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And could you share a key nugget you share that seems to really connect and resonate with folks, you hear them quoted back to you often?

Guy Winch
It’s from earlier in my work, but that nugget is that we need to treat psychological and emotional wounds the same way that we do physical wounds. When we are upset, when we are injured emotionally or psychologically, there’s a wound there a lot of the time that we actually have to be informed about and do something to treat.

Much as we would put a bandaid, or a bandage on something, or an ice pack on a sprain, there are ways we need to recover from experiences like rejection and failure. And little exercises that we can do, that will be those bandages and ice packs and pain relievers. And we need to get sophisticated enough to be able to recognize when we’re injured and apply these small little tools and techniques to feel better more quickly.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Guy Winch
GuyWinch.com is my website, that’s G-U-Y-W-I-N-C-H.com, where they can get links to all my social media, my books, and my newsletter on Substack. It’s only every two weeks, so it’s not too burdensome, but GuyWinch.com is the place to go for all of that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Guy Winch
Yes, I would like you to be much more thoughtful about how you are managing yourself during the work day. Make informed decisions. Be deliberate. Don’t be on autopilot. Autopilot will fly the plane into a cliff without you realizing it. So just be much more mindful.

Lift up your head and ask yourself, “What do I need this day? What do I need this week? How do I make this intentionally? What do I need to get from Costco that will put a smile on my face?”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Guy, thank you.

Guy Winch
Thank you.

Mar 26
0

1140: Bringing More Laughter, Fun, and Connection to the Workplace with Chris Duffy

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Chris Duffy discusses how to find the humor in anything—and why that’s important in the workplace.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why to take humor seriously at work
  2. The simple habit that makes you more magnetic
  3. How to find humor in the most unlikely places

About Chris

Chris Duffy is an award-winning comedian, television writer, and radio/podcast host. Chris currently hosts the hit podcast How to Be a Better Human. You can watch his comedic TED talk, “How to find laughter anywhere” online. He has appeared on Good Morning America, ABC News, NPR, and National Geographic Explorer. 

Chris wrote for both seasons of Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas on HBO, executive produced by John Oliver. He’s the creator/host of the streaming game show Wrong Answers Only, where three comedians try to understand what a leading scientist does all day, in partnership with LabX at the National Academy of Sciences. 

Chris is both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student.

Resources Mentioned

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Chris Duffy Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Chris, welcome!

Chris Duffy
Thank you so much for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about humor, and not just for the fun of it, but how it can actually enhance our experience of career and job and be an asset in that zone. But could you kick us off with a fun story about some of your most memorable moments in your career as a comedian?

Chris Duffy
Probably the most memorable moment I’ve ever had in my career as a comedian is I was a fifth-grade teacher before I did comedy. And so I never had use for LinkedIn because, listen, like you don’t get a job as a fifth-grade teacher through LinkedIn, like business networking, and you don’t get a job as a comedian through LinkedIn networking.

So I never had a LinkedIn profile, but I’d always heard about it, and I was curious about the world. So one day I went on and said, like, “Okay, I’m just going to make a profile.” And the first thing I realized is you could just say you work wherever. If you say you work for Nike, they don’t, like, email a Nike hiring manager, which struck me as completely bizarre.

And so I wanted to see how high up I could go. So I made my job on LinkedIn, the CEO of LinkedIn. And I thought, like, when I click save, it’ll say, “Error. You can’t do that.” But instead, not only did it let me do that, it sent an automated email to everyone in my contacts list that said, “Congratulate Chris on his new job. He is now CEO of LinkedIn,” which is, to me, that’s the funniest joke that I’ve ever been involved in. And I didn’t even make it. It was just LinkedIn’s like automatic emailing thing.

And then, I was the CEO of LinkedIn on LinkedIn for a full year. And at a year, it sent another email to everyone in my contacts list saying, “Congratulate Chris on his one year work anniversary as CEO of LinkedIn.” And that started going a little viral.

And so I got a message from someone on LinkedIn’s Trust and Security team. My account was frozen. And you can’t make this up. The person on the Trust and Security team, her name was Faith. And Faith said, “Your account has been locked due to concerns about its inaccuracy.”

I didn’t want to let the joke go because I love the joke so much so I sent her a photo of my license, front and back, and said, “There’s proof that my name is actually Chris Duffy.” And Faith said, “The problem is not that we don’t believe your name is Chris Duffy. The problem is you are claiming to be the CEO of LinkedIn.”

And I said, “Faith, you are taking a pretty disrespectful tone for someone who works for me.” And five seconds later, she permanently deleted my account. And so that was the end of my time on LinkedIn. But a very memorable moment in my comedy career.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun. Okay. So one takeaway I’m gleaning right away is, “Go ahead and lie about how senior you are on LinkedIn, and the odds are pretty good, you can skate by for a good while with that.”

Chris Duffy
You know, if there’s one message I have for people, it’s, “Commit some light fraud.” No, that’s not my message. You know, I think the heart of what I like about that is that no one was going to hire me anyway from LinkedIn. So I think the thing that I encourage people to do is to think a little outside of the box, to not be afraid to play around and to have fun and to do something that is silly, even in a place where it’s serious.

And LinkedIn is a great example of a place where people tend to take themselves so seriously. So I think the more that you can be human and playful and fun, the more that things stand out. You definitely can’t and shouldn’t do what I did because, actually, one of my lasting contributions to society after me, they did make it so you can’t do that anymore.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, congratulations. Your ripple…

Chris Duffy
Thank you so much. We all want to have an impact, you know? We want to affect the generations after us.

Pete Mockaitis
…it reverberates. That’s beautiful. All right. And so it’s funny, I’m thinking I actually do follow a couple satire accounts on LinkedIn, and it’s really funny in terms of the difference, like the contrast when there is sort of a vibe, a tone, a subculture, a script. You know what I’m saying?

Like, there’s a little bit of a feel for how a LinkedIn post is “supposed to go,” like one-sentence hook grabbing you like, “I had to fire someone today.” Like, “Huh? What? Why? I had to know the rest, you know.”

Chris Duffy
Yeah, “Here’s what my wedding taught me about peer-to-peer marketing,” you know, something like that. It’s like, “What? What? What are you talking about?” You know, I think it’s true, in a lot of our lives, professional, personal, social, there are these like scripts that we’re supposed to follow or we think we’re supposed to follow, I think is a better way to put it, right?

Where it’s like, someone says, “Hey, how are you?” “I’m doing pretty well. Yeah.” “Oh, crazy weather,” right? Like, you just kind of, like, that’s what small talk is supposed to go like. And I think the thing about when we get into autopilot like that is that things just blur into the background. They’re not memorable and we don’t make real connections and we’re not actually our full human selves.

And, to me, the beauty of humor is that it lets us laugh about and acknowledge these, like, ruts that we get into that we don’t even realize are just like our habits. And the thing that I love about laughing with other people is, like, when you connect with them, you are actually genuinely connected. But also then people like you more, they feel attracted to you. And I don’t mean romantically attracted, like they want to spend time with you.

And there’s a lot of great studies that we can talk about that show that from a professional standpoint, if you are acknowledging things in a funny, humorous way where you’re willing to laugh at yourself, people respect you more even if what you’re acknowledging is your shortcoming.

They did a psychological study where they looked at people in job interviews. And people who acknowledged their shortcomings, like the things they didn’t know but made a joke about it, were much more likely to get hired than people who didn’t acknowledge it at all, or than who acknowledged it in a serious way. Because we like those people, we trust them, and we want people to admit that they’re not perfect, because we’re not perfect either.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s really interesting. And I’m just speculating as to the why behind that. And it feels as though, if someone is capable of acknowledging their shortcomings in a fun, lighthearted way, it kind of gives a subtle implicit permission that, “It’s okay to talk about those kinds of things with me and maybe it’s okay to talk about a broad range of things with me.” And so there’s just a little bit more of a vibe of comfort and safety. I’m totally reading a lot into this, but this is how I’d speculate are the underlying kind of facets that make it go that way.

Chris Duffy
I think that’s totally plausible. And I think another piece is that if you’re willing to laugh about the things that you don’t know or that you’re not good at, it probably means that those are places where you would be able to improve as well because you’re open to feedback on them. You’re open to growth.

Whereas, the things that you get defensive about that are like no-go conversation topics, it’s really hard to then grow in those because you’re locked in to like your idea that, “I already know everything there is to know about this.” And none of us do.

You know, I’ll give you another study that I love psychologists at a number of universities looked at, they did a study where people evaluated job candidates. And so they didn’t know that the people they were evaluating were actually research assistants reading from a script.

But when they were evaluating these candidates, of course, everyone rated the people who were qualified more highly than people who were unqualified. No surprise there. But between the people who were qualified, there were two people who were exactly identical, except one of them spilled a whole cup of coffee on their shirt before they came in for the interview. And they said like, “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, I spilled coffee all over myself.”

And that person, the coffee spiller, was consistently rated higher, was rated more confident, and was the one that people thought they should hire for the job. And, for me, the big lesson that I take away is not, like, if you’re applying for a job, dump a scalding hot cup of coffee on yourself. That’s not the lesson.

The lesson is that we have this idea that we’re supposed to be perfect, that people want us to be flawless and perfect and have no mistakes and just impressive. And, in fact, when you’re like that, people can’t latch onto you. They can’t relate to you at all.

People much prefer someone who is a little bit of a mess, but is still good at their job and good at the things they need to be good at. And so, to me, I think lowering the bar in that way makes you so much more desirable as a job candidate, but also just as a person to work with.

I mean, think about it, Pete, like I’ll give you an example. In your real life, I think there’s an intuitive example, is if you, Pete, walk into a room and you meet someone and he goes, “Hey, by the way, Pete, nice to meet you. I have a six pack. I make a million dollars a year. I give to charity every single day, and I work at a soup kitchen. And, by the way, both of my kids went to Harvard, and I think I’m probably going to be nominated for a Nobel Prize.”

Like, you don’t like that person. You know what I mean? At best, you’re intimidated, and more likely you’re like, “I hate this guy. I never want to see this guy ever again.” That’s certainly how I would feel. Whereas, if you meet someone who’s like, “Hey, can you do me a favor? I think that my pants might have just ripped, right?”

Like, you have a lot more to talk about, a lot more to relate with that guy, even though it’s a little weird because they’re not perfect and you’re not immediately intimidated and are jealous and have all these other feelings about them.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And what’s coming to mind right now is, internet personality. Her name is Elyse Myers and I just got her book.

Chris Duffy 
Oh, I love her.

Pete Mockaitis
She’s so delightful. It’s so funny, everyone loves her. That’s kind of where I’m going with that. I think her moniker is like the internet’s best friend or everyone’s best friend on the internet, something like that. And she’s repeatedly sharing her shortcomings, and her foibles, struggles with mental health and more, but she’s clearly very smart and very funny and very insightful and very personable. And when you bring those two things together, yeah, she’s the internet’s best friend.

Chris Duffy
Well, you know, I think the fact that you said very smart is actually, I think, really a huge and important piece here. I, for years now, have hosted a comedy show with the National Academy of Sciences, where we interview scientists about their work.

And, you know, I’ve interviewed Nobel laureates, I’ve interviewed MacArthur geniuses, all these really incredible people. And the number one thing that I’ve noticed is that people who are willing to say, “I don’t know,” or to be funny or to laugh at their own research, those are the people who are actually super intelligent, right?

Like, the people who don’t have a sense of humor and aren’t willing to admit that they don’t know some things or get defensive and blocked off, those are rarely the real geniuses. Because when you actually are exceptional at something, you have a level of confidence and comfort with admitting the limits of your own knowledge and also with trying to explain it simply and not just relying on jargon.

And so I think there’s a real piece there of, like, smart people, you can signal your comfort and your intelligence by laughing and by the things that you’re willing to laugh at and be open about.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I like that a lot. So can you give us maybe a story, an example, of someone in a professional context who upgraded some of their humor skills and found that genuinely helpful or transformative for their career?

Chris Duffy
One that immediately comes to mind is I talked to a former Navy SEAL, Joe Choi. And Joe was in very extreme life-or-death situations often. Even just the training for Navy SEALs can be really, really dangerous.

And when Joe was promoted so that now he was leading a team, he realized really quickly that the way to actually have people respect him, the way to have the men trust him, and know that in these life-or-death situations that he was someone they could rely on wasn’t to be super serious all the time.

The way he put it to me is that the best leaders that he had encountered as a SEAL, the best leaders took the work really seriously, but they did not take themselves so seriously. And so he found that he was able to motivate his team and to get them to be much more connected to him by being willing to laugh at himself.

And he told me probably the most dramatic laugh-at-yourself story I’ve ever heard, which is he was doing a training exercise where you were supposed to grab onto a ladder hanging out of a helicopter while you were in rough ocean waters.

And Joe managed to grab onto the ladder, he was going to demonstrate what to do. And he managed to grab onto the ladder, but he grabbed onto the wrong side. So instead of being able to climb up, he was actually getting dragged under the water. And he was struggling to breathe. He was about to pass out when he finally was able to pull himself up and flip over the ladder and climb up into the helicopter.

And when he got up, he was kind of gasping for breath and struggling. And it had really been a dire situation. And he says that all the guys who he’s supposedly leading are looking at him after this, like, scary and also, you know, not really like great example of how you’re supposed to do it. And one of the guys just said, “Wow, that was some real frog man shit.” And then they all looked at Joe and they saw if he would laugh, and Joe laughed really hard.

And he said that that became this moment for his group where they came back to it and it was like a bonding thing, but it was also a moment where they trusted that he was confident enough and honest enough about what had happened, that he was willing to laugh and acknowledge that he hadn’t done it right. And he said that that was something that really came back again and again in the group trusting him.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really nice. Well, can you share with us, I think we like humor, humor is fun, the points you’re bringing up makes sense. They check out. So what are some things that we do with that knowledge? Do you have any sort of key pro tips or questions or ways you recommend we go forward and do more good humoring?

Chris Duffy
I will say that, I think, the biggest thing that people get wrong about humor is, I think, people often think that having a great sense of humor means you are the one on stage with the microphone or in the circle at the party or at the water cooler where everyone is around listening to your story, and you’re the one that’s getting all the attention.

And I would actually say that not that that’s not good humor, but the people with the best sense of humor aren’t always the ones performing it. They’re not always the ones getting the attention. Often, the people with the best sense of humor are the ones who are laughing the most. So they’re generously giving their attention to other people.

They are noticing things that are odd and unusual and delightful throughout their day. They’re laughing about it, even if they’re not sharing it with other people. And I think that when you broaden your definition of good humor and what good humoring looks like to include that kind of humor, you avoid a lot of the pitfalls.

Because one of the big things that people always say is like, “Well, how do I make a joke that doesn’t offend people? Or, what if I cross a line?” And the answer that I would say to them is the safest way that you can bring more humor into your life is to not be the one making the joke, to find people who make you laugh and to laugh with them. People love that, right?

I mean, like, the number one way to make someone like you is not to talk more, it’s to listen more. So I think if you can bring humor into your life in those other ways, that will really make you magnetic to other people because you’re having fun.

And so something I would ask you is, like, “Who are the people that already make you laugh? How can you spend more time with them? What are the ways that you are naturally laughing already?” So maybe one thing, one exercise that I really encourage, which is really simple, but I think can be transformative is just keep track of everything for a week that makes you laugh, or a month, however long, but write it down.

Write it down on a piece of paper or in a notes app on your phone. And what you’ll find is that just the act of paying attention makes more and more things surface, right? Anytime we direct our attention towards something, we find more and more.

And so having more of that humor and that laughter in your life is going to make you the kind of person who laughs more and has more fun. And that has all these benefits, both professionally and personally.

Pete Mockaitis
And I think that’s a theme that’s come up elsewhere in terms of like gratitude. If you are identifying things that you feel grateful for, or that turned out better than you thought they might in the course of the day, you are more inclined to notice more such things and feel more gratitude.

Chris Duffy
Totally.

Pete Mockaitis
So, in like fashion here, by taking note and attending to that which is funny, you’re having more of those good humor vibes going on.

Chris Duffy
I think this is kind of true of anything, right? Like, I talked to a guy recently who is a roofer. And he was just kind of telling me about, like, the good, what a good roof is versus a bad roof, and, you know, the kinds of roof that he likes working on and all that.

And then I was walking around afterwards, and I noticed all these roofs, right, these things that have been totally invisible to me. All of a sudden, I was like, “That’s like a nice roof. Oh, that roof needs some repairs.” And I have no ability to actually, like, repair a roof or know about it, but just having talked to someone who had a real passion for it and knew a lot about it, all of a sudden, this piece of the world that was invisible became really visible to me.

And I think the same is true kind of for anything, right? Like, if you’re always looking for professional chances to connect, you’ll find more chances to connect. And I think what I love about humor is that it offers us the ability to take ourselves less seriously, to make other people want to be around us, and to have a better time all at once.

Because it’s, like, without trying to think like, “I should have social connections.” If you focus on laughing, people want to be around you. You’re a magnetic person. And so just by noticing more of this stuff, you get those side benefits.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, to do the noticing, I’m just going to pay attention. I’m going to write it down. Are there any key prompts or internal questions you recommend that can generate more of this good stuff?

Chris Duffy
So, for me, for more than a decade, I’ve been a professional comedian, both like writing late-night comedy shows and telling jokes and as a standup, and doing all sorts of other stuff. And what I found is that, actually, the most interesting part of comedy is not the performing.

It’s actually the generating the ideas and the noticing the material because that’s the part that I think anyone can do regardless of whether you perform or not professionally, right? Like everyone can have more laughter in their life.

And so the first thing that I would say is the seed of something funny is something that is a little unusual or off or different than expected. The gap between how things are supposed to be or how we think things are going to go and how they actually are is where comedy lives.

So one of the things that I would do is focus really small. The artist, Sister Corita Kent had a practice that she did where she would, literally, carry around a rectangular frame made of cardboard, and she would just, for her art, would hold up that frame and just look at what was inside the frame, everything else, narrow her field of vision, and that’s where she would find the art.

And I think you can, literally, do that for comedy. Just look at a corner of your house and just spend five minutes noticing all of the small things in that, what are the things that are a little off or a little weird or a little different. And you’re not going to find something laugh-out-loud funny right away, but you might find something small and odd that then you can think about and is the seed of it.

Or, a more relatable way, I think, is, Pete, when you go to someone’s house for the first time, and you go in their bathroom, you notice all sorts of stuff about their bathroom, right? You notice, like, “Where is the toilet paper? Is it hanging over? Is it hanging under? What kind of soap do they have? Do they have a hand towel? Do they have paper towels? Is there a pile of books next to their toilet? Do the books kind of seem weirdly wet? Is there a candle? Is there a little spray?” All this stuff in their bathroom.

But if you go to their house a few times, that fades into the background really quickly. It just becomes a bathroom. So the more that you can switch into that new bathroom mindset where you’re actually noticing the things in your life, the more that you can see the things that are odd and unusual and delightful. And that can really make you laugh.

So can we do an experiment like in real time rather than having this be a…?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, I was just about to go there in terms of looking at a corner for five minutes, how might that turn into some chuckles.

Chris Duffy
So, okay, so right now you’re in a hotel room, right?

Pete Mockaitis
I am in a hotel. I’ve had some flight cancellation action.

Chris Duffy
Great. So a hotel is kind of one of the most kind of stereotypically antiseptic places, right? Like, all the character has been taken out of it. And sometimes that can be hard to find something funny, but sometimes that in itself is the funniness, right? Like, that they’ve tried so hard to make no design choices, that it is bland in a way that is exceptionally bland.

So I would look around and be like, “Is there any art on the walls?” Hotel art is often funny to me, because it’s like, “What is the choice? Why is that the art?” What strikes your interest right away? Or what do you notice right away?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, what’s interesting is there’s these vases on top of inside-floating shelves that are tapered and they’re like pierced. It’s almost like it was a dagger that punched through this hanging shelf.

Chris Duffy
That is already incredible. I mean, that’s already really funny. Like, to think like the person who was like, “I know what they need. They need shelves that have been stabbed by a dagger. That will be our brand.” Like, that. And that’s a good example of, like, you could spend a week in a hotel room and never notice that, I think, but then you see it and you think about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And I like what you did there because, in a way, because what you said is like, “The seed is something that’s a little off, unusual, unexpected.” And that was that, but you didn’t bring me into the chuckle zone until you went that extra step associated with imagining the people who were discussing this, and deciding, “Ah, yes, this is what’s necessary.”

Chris Duffy
“This is our masterpiece.”

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s just funny because, but, really, who had this conversation? How did this come about? It’s genuinely silly.

Chris Duffy
Well, it’s also one of those things where, like, I think about this a lot where, like, when I’m in my own house and trying to find things that make me laugh. One thing that I always think is so funny is, like, on my washing machine, it says like, “Bright Whites. TM,” trademark.

And I’m, like, I love the person who was there who was like, “Listen, LG is going to own the phrase bright whites. That is our phrase. That’s really important.” And I’m like, “I think that that is not actually a trademark. Like, you might technically have that trademark, but Bright Whites is not memorable for anyone else. That’s just the white setting on my washing machine. I don’t think that you needed to trademark that.”

And, like, thinking about the person whose job that is, like this was probably like a series of interviews. There’s this, like, in an interview, they’re like, “I have a vision for naming the white cycle, something that we can own that will be like part of LG’s brand.”

And then they had a bunch of meetings and they filed paperwork and there was a lawyer involved. That kind of stuff, thinking about like the world behind the things that you’re seeing that are odd is often where I find things the most funny.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good, yes. And so, once again, it’s sort of like you’re noticing the thing and then you’re going deeper into it. I’m sort of imagining the lawyer there bumping into Bright Whites on like a GE washing machine, and said, “What?”

They just become utterly furious. And he, like, calls up their lawyer and starts cussing them out and screaming. It’s like, “If you think you can pull this stunt, you got another thing coming. I’m going to see you in court.” And they duke it out.

Chris Duffy
“You think you could screw me like this? Oh, you can’t. I will not allow this. No one messes with me.”

Pete Mockaitis 
Yeah, “Bright Whites. The trial of the century.”

Chris Duffy
It’s true. And that often is called the trial of the century. A lot of people don’t know that, but that was the real trial of the century. Something that is a trick that we often do to make something funny in comedy, in professional comedy, but I think you can apply this to your own life, too, is to take an observation and then layer on top an emotion.

So if you’re writing a joke, like one of the ways you can write a joke is, “I find it so scary that…” blank. “I find it so exciting that…” blank. “I am so happy that this thing happened.” Like, putting an emotion tells the audience how to feel about it. And often that, like, “I’m happy that this thing happened…” is what makes the audience laugh, because then you’ve set up like, “Here’s what I expect.” And then you can turn it in another direction.

And I think anytime we’re communicating, letting the people we’re communicating with know how we feel about something, and then the specific detail that we feel that about, that really lets them latch onto something really clearly.

So, like, “I am so confused by the vases in my hotel room,” or, “I absolutely love the way the vases in my hotel room were pierced by a dagger.” That is a sentence that people can latch onto emotionally.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now, I’m sort of combining these things. I’m thinking about, if you have an emotion associated with a thing that is unusual, it feels like we’re in comedic territory, per your previous notion. So I’ll throw this out here. When I have all of my laundry done, folded and placed in the dresser, I feel a sense of power.

Chris Duffy
That’s great! Yeah!

Pete Mockaitis
Like, I am unstoppable. So I feel like that’s a little bit unusual to feel a really strong emotional association with these somewhat ordinary occurrences in life. So it feels like we’re in fertile comedic territory here, Chris, but nothing hilarious is coming to mind.

Chris Duffy
Oh, I think that is hilarious. I completely disagree. I think that you feeling like, “I am powerful and I am the master of my domain because I folded my laundry,” is so funny and so relatable and wonderful. And I actually think this hits at a thing that is, you know, talking about how to be awesome at your job.

You just naturally did this piece, which is you took that noticing and then you put it onto yourself. So now we’re laughing at ourselves and the fact that you’re like, “The most powerful I ever feel, the most in control I ever feel is when I finish folding a towel. That towel is perfect,” right? Like, there’s something hilarious about that, and also very relatable, but it’s also that you’re laughing at yourself.

And this, again, like from a professional standpoint, being willing to laugh at yourself, being willing to like give people that in, that lets people connect with you. It lets people not feel intimidated by you, but also be impressed by you because it is really impressive to have this kind of self-knowledge. And so I think you just naturally did it in a really beautiful way. And I think that’s genuinely very, very funny.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Interesting. So that’s funny for you.

Chris Duffy
This is an important thing. Like, it’s funny for me, but often the things that are funniest for other people are actually quite obvious to us. They don’t seem funny because it’s like, “Well, that’s just me being genuine and honest.”

But our authentic, genuine, honest feelings are often very funny to other people because there’s this gap between how we actually feel and how we’re supposed to feel, right? You’re not supposed to feel powerful and in control when you finish folding the laundry, but you actually do.

So for you, it’s kind of like, “But, yeah, that’s how I feel.” And for me, it’s really funny because I haven’t ever thought about it that way.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, you’re illuminating a decade plus mystery for me. And that is the TV show, The Big Bang Theory. I’m not really a fan. I don’t find that amusing. And so we got Sheldon who expresses his ideas in a very, you know, scientific-y, multi-syllables, big words, whatever kind of a way. And then the laugh track always hits.

And I’m just like, “The dude is just expressing his mind. This is not actually a joke at all.” And the funny thing is, in some ways, I, at times, can speak like him. I have a friend who’s like, “Oh, my friend is like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.” So, for me, it’s not funny because it’s not unusual because I am also talking weird in a way that’s sort of like Sheldon.

And maybe there’s a level of self-insight, self-awareness to be had from that. And that’s really intriguing in terms of, “They think it’s funny, I don’t, because I think that’s just how some people talk and that’s normal-ish, but apparently that’s very…”

Chris Duffy 
What is funny about Sheldon? He is a normal, attractive, intelligent man. He’s a totally socially normal, intelligent, attractive man. I think he is the peak of masculinity and I don’t see anything funny about him. Like, that is a really funny perspective to have, right?

Pete Mockaitis 
Yes, that is what… well, I wouldn’t call him masculine, etc. But, yeah, that’s intriguing that other people will find, and that’s just a good heads up. It’s like, “Hey, don’t get angry if folks are laughing at that. It’s not hostile. They’re just appreciating something that’s kind of special or unique or different about you, relative to perhaps the human norm.”

Chris Duffy
Yeah. Well, I want to unpack that, if it’s okay. I want to unpack that a little bit.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure.

Chris Duffy
On the one hand, sure, most times, I think, people laughing is not something to be offended by. It’s actually like a point of connection. But that doesn’t mean that people can laugh and be really mean in bullying you. So I think it’s possible to, like, you should be offended sometimes. So I think it really depends.

I think one of the things that is challenging about humor in terms of, like, the context that we’re in is there’s no such thing as a universal joke. There’s no such thing that’s always funny. Humor is always subjective. It’s always context-dependent.

So you strike me, I mean, we just met, but you strike me as like a confident, socially-adapted and successful person.

Pete Mockaitis
Handsome.

Chris Duffy
Handsome, charming, wealthy, powerful. You know, I could go on and on.

Pete Mockaitis
That checks out. It checks out.

Chris Duffy
But as a result, like, if we laugh about how you’re like Sheldon in some ways, I don’t think that’s hitting at some sort of like deep insecurity. And so, as a result, it is funny and it’s not bullying. But if that wasn’t the case, and you actually did feel like maybe you were getting, you had like a deep insecurity about how you fit in and that people were always laughing at you, and then we laughed about how you’re like Sheldon, that could actually be a really cruel, mean thing that wasn’t.

So I always go back to, like, “Is the laughter forming connection or is it pushing the person away? Are you trying to exclude them or include them?” And the kind that is really successful in our social lives, in our friendships, in our relationships, in our work is the kind that brings people in and makes people connect to us, not that pushes people away. And that’s always context-dependent. You can’t just have a universal role.

And speaking of that, like laughing at yourself is great in a professional setting, but there are these, like, lines. If you’re the leader of a company, people want to be able to connect to you. But also, you know, I’ve learned about the concept of selective vulnerability, which is like, if you’re a leader and you go into a meeting and you say, “Hey, everyone, the economics are really bad and we’re going to have to lay a bunch of people off, and I’m really terrified and I have no idea how this is going to go.”

Like, that might be really authentic and honest and vulnerable, but it’s not the right thing to say. People are going to be terrified and scared after that. Instead, you might want to be selectively vulnerable. So say like, “Hey, I’m aware that we are going into a really hard time and I just want to say, we acknowledge that and we’re going to figure out the way through together.”

So you’re still kind of acknowledging. You’re not denying the reality, but you’re not saying like, “I’m terrified and I have no idea what to do next,” because that’s not a helpful form of vulnerability. And even if that would get like a laugh in my context, it’s not worth the laugh.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have any thoughts about humor in terms of boosting resilience, ability to bounce back from mistakes, failures, these kinds of things?

Chris Duffy
Totally. I think this goes back to, like, my core message, which is that we think we’re supposed to be perfect. And in fact, you’re not supposed to be perfect. The most resilient people understand that, like, a mistake is part of the process. For me, in my work, right, like if I go up on stage and I tell a joke and it bombs, no one laughs at all, if I say, “Huh, that means I’m a terrible comedian,” then I’ll never tell jokes again.

Instead, what I need to say is, like, “Oh, that was information.” And because the goal isn’t to have one perfect night of comedy, the goal is to, over time, get better and better, then I say, like, “Next time I tell that joke, I will try clarifying it, or I’ll phrase it in a different way.”

And I think that’s kind of true for all jobs, right? It’s, like, if you view it as an iterative repetitive thing where you can laugh about your mistakes and not feel like it’s indicative that you are some huge disaster or failure, then you get better and better because the point is to have the hundredth time be better than the first, not for the first to be perfect.

And laughter, I think, really helps us with that process because it takes away the judgment and shame and it makes it so that it’s, like, fun to share how badly something went and it’s fun to laugh at it rather than to think, “This is like a thing I need to sweep under the rug and not let anyone see.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Chris, tell me, any key do’s or don’ts, top things you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Chris Duffy
Well, you know, the number one things I want people to do are keep track of things that are making you laugh naturally, pay attention to the world around you. And I would say that, you know, the number one other thing that you should do once you’ve done those is try taking a small social risk and sharing something that makes you laugh with someone else.

Don’t just have the same regular conversation you have every day, “Pretty hot outside, huh?” or, “Whoa, crazy weather.” Instead, try telling them like, “The other day, on the way to work, I saw a squirrel try and jump from one tree to another and it fell. Have you ever seen that? A squirrel missed the tree?”

Like, even if the other person doesn’t laugh, you’re going to have a different conversation than you would have had otherwise. And I think that is both the seed of connection, but also the seed of so much laughter and joy and comedy.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. What’s funny with that squirrel, you’re right, that that opens all sorts of avenues of conversation in terms of…

Chris Duffy
What does it make you think? There’s something boiling around in your head right now.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, I was like, “Well, was the squirrel okay? What happened afterwards? If you plummeted a long distance, you know, was it grass? Was it concrete? Like, did it get up and keep moving? Or was he done for?”

Chris Duffy
Oh, wow. Okay. You know, Pete, that is just indicative of what a kind, caring human being you are. And I will tell you, this is a true thing that happened to me. The squirrel I saw fell a small distance onto grass. It got right back up. But then it looked at me like, “You saw that. Oh, you weren’t supposed to see that.” And then it ran away.

So we just shared a really beautiful interspecies moment of, “Don’t tell anyone about this.” And here I am telling all of the listeners of How to be Awesome at Your Job, and that squirrel is furious somewhere, who is also, by the way, a listener. I could tell. He seemed like he’s listening to this podcast.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, now that makes me laugh because I’m imagining a squirrel with headphones that are, you know, pushing in the squirrel cheeks, you know, even more to make them even more fat and squirrel-like.

Chris Duffy
Yeah, and he’s wearing some of your merch, right, like he has like a T-shirt with your face on it, and he says, like, “That’s nuts.”

Pete Mockaitis
Wow. All right, man. This is your life. Like, all day, your brain gets to play here.

Chris Duffy
As excruciating as that joke was and a terrible dad joke, that is my life. That is for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Chris Duffy
I’ve been thinking about George Orwell talking about humor, and he said, “Every joke is a tiny revolution.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Chris Duffy
One of the best books that I read is Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. I think that’s a really relevant book to our world today and also just a beautifully written book.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Chris Duffy
Oh, I want to say a microphone. That’s probably the only tool that I use regularly. And anyone who’s seen me try and do home repair will tell you this is the only tool that I’m safe to be around. So a microphone.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you sound good, so I’ll ask what are you working with there?

Chris Duffy
Okay, this is a, hold on, I got to look at it. It is an RE320, an Electro-Voice RE320, baby. Oh, yeah, that smooth radio sound. Hello.

Pete Mockaitis
There you go. And a favorite habit?

Chris Duffy
I’ve been trying to do the 7 Minute a day Workout app. And when I do that, I feel a lot better and it only takes seven minutes. So that’s a good habit.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, they quote it back to you often?

Chris Duffy 
When people yell something back at me, it is often, “Sir, you need to move or out of the way.” Probably the key nugget, I think, from all of the work that I’ve done on humor is to be willing to laugh at yourself and to connect with other people through laughing more and taking yourself less seriously. I think even in hard times, finding something to laugh about.

And it could be as simple as watching a clip of outtakes from The Office, or going on Reddit’s contagious laughter Subreddit, or it can be an inside joke that you’ve laughed about with friends. But I think that idea that when you’re having a hard day, going back to something that reliably makes you laugh can transform part of the day, that’s something that I think is the biggest thing, and also kind of an obvious and intuitive one, but that we forget to do so often.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Chris Duffy
ChrisDuffyComedy.com. That’s the place.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Chris Duffy
At your job, find the person who makes you laugh and spend more time with them this week. And then share something with them that made you laugh. I think that connection, connecting on something that’s lighthearted and fun is going to make that person want to be around you more.

And it’s also going to make them feel really honored that like you’re the person that laughs at them the most in a positive way. And I think that those connections pay dividends in ways that we can never expect professionally.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Chris, thank you.

Chris Duffy
Thank you.

Mar 23
0

1139: How to Become the Manager that People Want to Work For with Ashley Herd

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Ashley Herd illuminates under-taught manager skills required of leaders.

You’ll Learn

  1. How build trust with your employees from day one
  2. Simple ways to make meetings more effective
  3. The key question that helps accelerate your career

About Ashley

Ashley Herd is the founder of Manager Method, a leadership training organization that helps managers drive performance without driving people out the door. A former General Counsel and Head of HR with experience at organizations including McKinsey and Yum! Brands, she’s also a LinkedIn Learning instructor and co-host of the “HR Besties” podcast. Ashley is the author of The Manager Method, and is known for giving practical tools that make leadership feel human and doable.

Resources Mentioned

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Ashley Herd Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Ashley, welcome.

Ashley Herd
Thank you, Pete. I love listening to your podcast, so it’s a treat to be on here.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. You, too. It’s funny, I had to check. Wait, we haven’t met in person before, have we, right? No, I don’t think we have. Okay, well.

Ashley Herd
No, no, although it feels like it.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. All right. Well, I’m stoked to be talking about managers and methods therein. You said something intriguing, and I had heard that, “Oh, many managers don’t receive any training.” You went ahead and quantified that, depending on what segment we’re talking about. It’s a whopping 40-60% of managers have had no training whatsoever. Can you talk to us about this concept?

Ashley Herd
Well, what often happens, I’ve seen, is this idea of when managers are selected. And I say that intentionally because often it is this selection process that, when you get picked or told you’re going to become a manager or interview to become a manager, there’s this idea of, you know, “This person is great at their job, so we’ll take them. We’ll make them a manager. They’ll teach everybody else how to do it and magic. It’s awesome.”

And despite the fact that most people making that decision are actually managers, people-leaders themselves, that know the realities of doing a job and leading a team are very different, you just kind of forget that it’s a very different skill set.

And so people are put into this position, really focusing on the work without ever giving that consideration or actual training on how to do it with this idea of like, “Oh, they’ll figure it out as they went along.” Sometimes that’s what people did and it works out for you.

Sometimes leaders think that it’s worked out for them, but it has not, actually, and data shows that it does not tend to work out to just magically learn leadership.

Pete Mockaitis
So you just mentioned data, one my favorite words. What are the indicators? What are the numbers telling us about things not working out so much here?

Ashley Herd
Well, you can look at things the boards of directors and leadership levels are going to be looking at of retention, engagement, so people are going or staying. Engagement, sometimes that can be a little trickier to monitor. You often may have employee engagement surveys.

I, personally, now that I do manager training, frequently people come to me and say, “We did an employee engagement survey. It shows that we need manager training.” And the answer to that, “It’s okay.” Well, what does that say? Because generally it’s not going to be quite specific as our managers need training. It’s a lot of run on comments sections about the realities of what it’s like to have a manager or what they’re doing.

But then sometimes with manager training, I say, “Okay, well then employees, managers get training, but then employees want it themselves.” So I do think the reality is people are looking for tips on how to work. And so when you do look at factors like retention, engagement, performance, there’s great quantifiable data.

I personally have no affiliation, but I love Harvard Business Review, HBR.org. It’s great because the things that may seem very common sense to you and I, Pete, and those listening, that if you don’t train managers, you’re probably going to see negative effects from them.

HBR has done a really nice job of having examples of what that looks like. But all of those check-the-boxes that are ticked, that boards of directors and others care about, those do really, really trickle down to the idea of, “My manager isn’t the type of manager I want to work for. I’m either not going to care about my job or I’m going to go find a job where they do.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, engagement numbers aren’t great, retention numbers aren’t great. Is there anything dastardly or shocking that you’ve uncovered about the state of manager effectiveness in the workplace nowadays?

Ashley Herd
Well, one thing that I’ve really been interested in seeing, including in the world of AI and whether you’re managing people or AI agents, and they are not one and the same, the thing, but some of the data has really continued. Like, I actually, before, like I was a lawyer, but before I even went to law school, I worked for a company called Corporate Executive Board. They were acquired by Gartner.

And they partnered with Gallup to do research on employee engagement. And I, like a lot of people, including maybe like a lot of people listening, didn’t really understand, one, what that means or what goes into it other than pay me more.

And I do very scientific studies all the time on social media when I post videos, and I see comments that say, “It’s simple. Pay people.” I say, “Okay, but I’ve had some of the higher-paying jobs that I’ve had, I actually would trade that and have actually in my life traded for a lower salary to have a quality of life and autonomy and a manager.”

There are other things that go into your experience. And the data that stood behind that, that Gallup had done on employee engagement, that we did with the company I mentioned that’s now Gartner, is the number one driver of employee engagement, meaning how much you care about your job and the work you put into it, it isn’t pay.

Like, pay will keep you in seat or not often, but it’s whether your direct manager helps you understand if you’re good at your job, how that impacts the organization’s goals. Like, really the human equivalent of, “Do I matter?”

And that research has been redone sometimes identically, but sometimes in other ways, and that still continues. I mean, that’s over 20 years later since that was originally done. And so I think one aspect is how continuous this idea of people really wanting to feel like they matter as a human at work, that that stood still, including as technology has evolved.

Pete Mockaitis
To feel like they matter. Yes, and I’ve seen a number of studies which say, you know, “Appreciation is the top thing.” And that’s in that zone of feeling like we matter. And what are the top drivers that contribute to feeling like you matter or don’t matter in so far as stuff your manager is doing or not doing?

Ashley Herd
Well, I’d say Gallup, and, again, like while there’s no affiliation, there are some organizations I really like and trust the research, and Gallup continuously is one of them. And so they’d have this idea of, “Okay, let’s look at regrettable attrition.”

What that means is it’s like the people that they leave, and the manager says like, “Oh, shoot. I really wish they hadn’t left.” Gallup did a whole study around that of like, “Okay, let’s take out times when someone is not a fit for the job or times when the employer is making the decision, lay off, things like that.”

“But when people quit and the manager or organization wishes they hadn’t, what would have changed their mind?” And they went through the factors on this. And it was incredible because, as I mentioned, compensation can keep people in seat. And about a third was compensation, “Compensation would have kept me here.” But also about equal to that, about a third was two things.

One, if they had more positive interactions with their manager, and, two, if they’d had less negative interactions with their manager. And so what that can look like isn’t some, you know, big question of, “Did my manager put me up for this promotion? Did they give me this strategic guidance?”

Sometimes it’s literally thinking about that of, “Okay, I have a manager. We’re in person. I’m sitting in my cube, and I sit there every day and watch my manager stop by this person across from me, and never stops by me. Like, I just literally feel like I don’t matter.”

Or, on the flip side, “Okay, I have a manager that they have a kid that’s in Little League. Okay, their team.” Sometimes team members will say, “I know more about my boss’s kid’s batting average than I know of my own. I can’t go to a single one of my games while my boss is somehow leading this team and coaching their team because they can take the time off, but I’m not allowed to.”

And so that type of environment versus, “Okay, my manager has a kid that’s in Little League. I don’t have children. I don’t really have nothing to relate to them on. But if I have a manager that says, ‘Oh, but I’m personally into fly fishing,’” meaning me, the team member, “That has nothing to do with my manager, but they stop and ask me about that…?”

Conversations like that and moments like that, I mean, those don’t pay the bills. But when you’re coming down to your decision of, “Do I apply for another job? Do I want to stay here?” When you have a workplace that you show up to and you do feel like you have those interactions, that can truly influence people choosing to stay even when they have opportunities elsewhere.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I love it. And it’s funny that that comes up in terms of it seems so simple, yeah, more positive experiences and fewer negative experiences, like, “All right, let’s turn that into a tremendous prize for a research insight.”

Ashley Herd
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
But, nonetheless, it’s not a super common practice, apparently, as is showing in the data associated with people’s experience of their engagement and their retention. I’d love it if you’re familiar with any of the super simple behaviors – you just mentioned one, you ask about their life and the things that they’re interested in – super simple behaviors that are pervasively neglected would just make a world of difference for folks.

Ashley Herd
I’ll give you three because, from my time at McKinsey, I learned the power of three, and so I say sometimes I’ll give you four to go above and beyond, but we’ll stick with three, the magic number.

One is if you’re hiring somebody, so let’s say you’re a manager and you’re hiring somebody on your team. Great. They go through, maybe you call and let them know, “Hey, you’re going to get the offer. You’re going to hear from HR on the paperwork. Congratulations!” And, in a way, you almost treat it like a lottery prize, like, “Congratulations! You’re on our team. HR does the paperwork. They take care of things.” And so the next you see them is on their first day, virtually or in person.

But there’s a step that can often be missed. If you’re a manager, have you ever had a conversation with a new hire and told them why they got the job? Or, on the flip side, if you’re listening to this and you’re not a manager, how often have you gotten a new job and the person that’s going to be your boss tells you, “Hey, this is why you stood out in the hiring process, and this is why we’re uniquely excited to have you join our team”?

It doesn’t cost anything. It doesn’t really take much time. But that kind of conversation helps tremendously with things like engagement, because you’re starting and you feel like you matter, that it really is that two-way street. And so that’s something I often recommend, especially as a hiring manager, because I’ve been in legal and HR.

Those are not two of the most popular departments in any organizations. HR is more popular when you’re giving people new hire paperwork, but to keep present and tell people that really sets it up as a two-way street. And so I say that’s neglected just because it doesn’t, most managers don’t pause to think about how impactful that can be.

The other, I’ll say, is during employment. So let’s say delegation. You listen to all sorts of podcasts, of course, including Pete’s here, and you hear, “Okay, I should delegate. Give opportunities to my team member. It’s going to help them grow. It’s going to help me not feel like I do everything.”

But one thing that happens is you have a conversation and you tell your team member what they’re going to do and you feel great about it. But that team member, they hear it and they’re not so excited. They think to themselves, “Okay, well, now my boss is just trying to pawn work off on me, and I already have a full plate. So I guess I’ll just have to work more hours to figure this out.”

And so what’s neglected is having a conversation to, again, one is get their interest in working on this, “Sometimes you’re going to be able to work on things you’re interested in, sometimes you’re not,” but also explaining why you picked this person out for this opportunity and how it connects to actual development opportunities.

But then also to have the conversation of, “I don’t want to assume. I think I have a pretty good idea of what’s on your plate, but I don’t want to make assumptions. Let’s talk about this and how it can fit in with other things. And if there’s anything that can and should move off your plate to work on this.”

Again, that’s something that’s often neglected, it’s that step of between telling you what you’re going to do and how it gets done. The last thing I’ll say, and then I’ll flip back is, sometimes what gets neglected is when people quit. So we’ll go back to that regrettable attrition.

I’m meeting with Pete. Pete sets up time with me. I kind of have a sense of what’s coming because Pete is on my team and he tells me, “Hey, I need a quick minute.” Pete tells me, “I’m sorry. I’m leaving to go to another company.” I’m pissed because I take it very personally, because I see all the time on the internet. I’m like, “People don’t leave people. Pete is leaving me. This is super personal.”

Well, sometimes that happens. Sometimes Pete wants and needs to make more money. Sometimes Pete is moving. All sorts of other reasons aside from just the manager. But what gets neglected is pausing by managers to think about how it matters of, “How I talk to you, Pete, in that situation and understanding that you may have been incredibly stressed before telling me that and felt super guilty.”

But people make professional decisions all the time. And as a manager, projecting calm and not taking it, you know, back personally or getting frustrated back at Pete, and also then how I talk about you, Pete, to the rest of the team.

So sometimes what happens is managers bash and say, “You know, Pete is leaving us, so we’ll figure it all out.” But in those three moments, each of those is often just a pause to think about sometimes what you can do or how you can react that make such a difference in leadership beyond those moments.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And that seems to be just a theme throughout is pretty much like and you’re going to share with us a framework. But you are, you just have a pause and think about the other, the human being in front of you, and where they’re coming from, and what they’re thinking about, and how they’re feeling, and then providing a little something-something, in terms of, “Hey, here’s why we picked you. Here’s why I think you’d be great at this.”

Or, “Hey, well, it’s going to be a bummer to see you go and we’d love to hear some more about what might’ve caused you to stay,” or whatever, you know, in terms of, in some ways, it doesn’t seem that hard, and yet it’s often not done. Why do you suppose that is?

Ashley Herd
Probably, some of the biggest doubts I’ve had about what I do is, like, “Am I going to write my book?” or, “When I put things out, is it just common sense?” But common sense really isn’t that common. And why I think it happens, and why a lot of research does back it up is that people do just get busy.

And some of it’s research, some of it’s just common sense, is we all have intentions about what we’re going to do and say. I mean, look at it. If you made a to do list this morning, Pete, hopefully it was have a fun podcast conversation with Ashley.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right, it is.

Ashley Herd
And anything else, I mean, we do this all the time though. We make these to-do lists for ourselves. Sometimes, morning me has this idea of, afternoon or evening me, and it’s two different people. I have no idea what I thought was going to happen, but the reality is we get busy and you’re just trying to get through things.

And no matter what your role or title is, how many years you have experience at work, you get busy. And so you do not pause. I mean, that just happens. And so you’re just reacting in the moment, and you’re trying to get through things, and you’re making assumptions just like you wouldn’t want someone on the other side to do but you’re doing that yourself. And I really do think a lot of it is because we just get busy and we don’t think about it.

Pete Mockaitis
That makes sense. Well, I want to dig into your framework, but maybe we could just zoom out. Tell us, The Manager Method, your book, what’s sort of the big picture message here?

Ashley Herd
So the big picture is to meet managers where they are. So whether you are a brand new or aspiring manager, or an experienced senior executive, I have found that people in leadership have so much in common. And so I’ve taken from my experiences working at, including in the corporate departments, from KFC to McKinsey, and seeing that often managers don’t take time to pause.

And so what this is, is a framework that you can use in any situation as a people leader, and then all sorts of examples of how to bring it to life, whether you’re hiring, or whether you’re delegating, or whether it comes to taking time off for yourself and as well as your team. And so all of those different aspects of work. So it’s designed to be, hopefully, an easy read, but also one that sticks with you, that helps people actually lead better.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And could you share with us a story of someone who dug into some of these principles and saw a cool transformation?

Ashley Herd
So one is, and I think I actually saw this, this is somewhat spurred it on, but I once had a boss, a future boss that was going to interview me. As I mentioned, I’ve taken a pay cut once in my life from higher pay to lower for quality of life. That happened when I was a lawyer. I moved from law firm to in-house counsel.

And I was interviewing with a client, which has all sorts of aspects to it. It was a general counsel of a publicly traded company. At the time, I had a toddler. I worked 24/7. I traveled all over the country on employment litigation cases with the law firm. All I did was work. I didn’t really like the person I was, honestly, for myself or my family.

But this client I interviewed, and I had all these questions in my head because you hear like it’s kind of being a consultant, going to industry, like, “Oh, is it better? Hope it is.” But this general counsel, who was a man, had two teenage sons, but also stay-at-home wife and a nanny, had no idea or no reason to understand fully what I was going through.

But he said, proactively, “I want to be clear that moving in-house, in this role in particular, is a pay cut, about 20-25% pay cut,” which is true. But he said, “Part of your compensation package is a more predictable schedule. You will work eight to five, you will not be expected to work out of those hours. We have a lot of fun. We take our jobs seriously, but we do really enjoy each other.”

And these are conversations, I don’t know if any lawyer has ever heard in a job interview, certainly not proactively from a general counsel or senior leader since, but I saw this, in proactively having that. So what that did for me was communicate information about what I was going to be paid very transparently, but also for me, I was willing to take that for transforming what my life was like.

And so I’ve taken that, and now had conversations with managers, and included in the book, about things to proactively tell candidates when hiring. And I’ve had so many managers that have said, you know, things like, “What kind of decisions can you make? What are the actual hours that you have? What are the things that may drive candidates away because they’re so bad? And then can you rethink those so you’re not having people quit and you’re constantly doing the turning wheel of hiring?”

But I’ve had so many managers that say, “You know, there’s things about this,” or, “If I had a candidate that brought up to me work-life balance, I wrote them off. Maybe in the moment I didn’t, but I thought it was that showed me that’s what they care about. And I need someone that’s going to focus on work. We can figure out the work-life balance.”

But it’s when I thought about it and understood, “Okay, but it’s not a game. And it’s important to me to have people that start and understand the realities of the world, for better or for worse, in proactively providing that. Because people often aren’t going to ask that question, because for that exact same reason.”

And so that’s what I’ve heard is the feedback of whether it’s things from interviewing or otherwise, how helpful it can be for managers to have those conversations, but ultimately, how you can bring people on that are a fit for the realities of what your role is. And doing that can help everyone’s lives be a lot more effective at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I think that’s great. And I’ve had that experience and when I’m hiring people, and I’ll say, “Hey, here’s my personal opinion of why I think this role is really cool. And here’s my personal opinion of how this role, in some ways, will really suck. And you know you the best in terms of if that seems like appealing and a fit or like a, ‘Uh-oh, maybe we should just stop talking right now.”

And I think that that’s great for everybody, in terms of there’s no surprises, because that’s super costly, it’s like, “Oh, shoot, I thought this was that, but apparently it’s something completely different.”

Ashley Herd
Yeah. I mean, you see the cost of hiring and you can see the ranges from 50 to 200% of salary, again, depending on whether someone started their role, all of those things. But we know it is expensive by money. It’s expensive at time.

And then there’s the whole morale of you have someone that starts on Monday, and by Wednesday they’ve ghosted you and they are not coming back to work, and what that means to the rest of the team. And that just creates a lot of grumbles. But I love that you do that, Pete. What are the reactions that you get when you say things like that? Or, like what are the aspects of roles that may suck or not suck?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, terms of it’s like, “Hey, you know, this is kind of repetitive. I mean, we’re going to be doing another episode, then another episode, then another episode, then another episode. And you might have perhaps eight key things that you’re trying to accomplish with them again and again and again and again.

And so that might feel great, like, “Oh, I can get into the groove. I can master this craft.” Or, it might feel not great, “Oh, I’m bored out of my mind.” And so, hopefully, the variety of the topics and exchanges will be of interest and supporting.

And so I think, as I’m recalling those times, it’s just like, “Oh, good. Understood.” I think it’s just a little bit – relief might be a strong word – but it creates a little bit more calm and peace on a couple of fronts. One is like, “Okay, I could see what I’m getting into,” as well as, “Oh, okay, this person I’m talking to is real in terms of it’s not all rosy, okay? And that’s to be understood and expected.”

And then I think it creates a bit more freedom in the conversation to express what’s really on everyone’s mind, because we don’t have to kind of play a game in which these are…And I’ve seen YouTube videos on this, like, when the interviewer asks this, “This is really what they want. And so what you’re thinking is this, but you don’t really say that.” I mean, just this whole layer of obfuscation, it’s like, “Oh, we can let go of some of that. That’s nice.”

Ashley Herd
It is. And it sounds like common sense because you think, like, “Okay, well, this is work and I’m the leader. If people don’t like that, then they should look elsewhere.” And they can, but you’ll also tend to have consequences of that.

If you create, whether it’s a hiring process or a workplace, that your attitude is people can go work elsewhere, then probably the people that you want to work with you will be looking elsewhere sooner rather than later. And you and I both, if people wanted to work on our teams, that they have a lot of data they could look at.

Namely, they can listen to and watch your podcast, have and say, “Okay, I wonder what Pete is like in real life.” But you get a glimpse into what someone is like. Oftentimes, someone is interviewing and, aside from your LinkedIn, maybe it’s a profile picture from 20 years ago or all those things, but people are, they are, they’re just trying to find out the realities just like you are of them.

And I’ve just seen so many managers that they forget, not that they don’t care, you’re just not thinking about the fact of this is a real human on the other side. And so if we have 10 rounds of interviews, that can mean 10 times of them trying to figure out how to lie to their boss about exactly where they are at that moment. And so we may be making this process a lot harder than it should be.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And that’s a great point, it’s like, for most, the vast majority of humans have a very tiny public profiles, like, “Okay, you got a LinkedIn profile, but you haven’t posted anything for years, and maybe you haven’t updated some of the positions either. So I don’t know if you’re the guy who just screams, ‘You can’t deposit excuses, you know, every week’ or what you’re like at all.”

Ashley Herd
Yeah, and so they may look, it’s like, but I hear all the time, like, Glassdoor, and HR leaders will say, “Oh, you can’t trust Glassdoor.” And I say, “Well, sure, I know. I know from very real experience.” Sometimes you look at a Glassdoor of you, and you think to yourself, “I know who that person is.” And there’s some more context to that that could probably even it out a bit.

But when you do see themes like that, or if you’re a manager that has a reputation that people have identified you by name or by function, that’s what people are building their information on. And so knowing that the candidates you’re talking to, these are real humans with real lives. And those are people that, ideally, you want to have come join your team and want to be there and grow, and so providing as real of information as you can.

I totally love the way you put it. I think the value of having peace and calm and just feeling this is somebody you can have a communication with and trust what they’re saying, that is such an underrated skill in management, meaning underrated by managers thinking about how important that is for them to establish.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s hear about your pause, act, consider framework. Walk us through it.

Ashley Herd
Okay. So, again, three steps, all revolutionary. And I’ve mentioned the pause a bit. And this is a step that I do see people miss, whether you work in an organization that all your job descriptions say fast-paced, or you work in an organization where that’s not written down, but it always feels like it’s respond immediately, reply to emails, always be available.

Technology has made it often that despite the word asynchronous, you often feel like there’s this expectation that your value is in being fast in responding. And so you are, you’re getting things out. Sometimes you’re frustrated. You immediately respond with that.

The third word is act, so it doesn’t mean to stop or not do things at work, but it’s to take a breath, take a beat, sometimes take longer if it’s really something you need to think through, but it really is to give yourself an opportunity to consider other things, which is the second step because the pause is not just, “Okay, be quiet for a moment. Look strategic, like some YouTube trick of look strategic and then do exactly what you were just going to do. Just make it think and think that you’ve been thinking about it.”

But, yeah, this space. So it’s to consider, and you can consider things. The one thing I say to people, if you’re just going to remember one thing, is consider what you’d want to have happen if you were in that person’s position.

So, talking about job interview, for example. Like, if something is crazy, like my first job that I took, the title was marketing associate. This was not a marketing role. It was sales and it was cold-calling and it was called marketing associate, but, really, it was sales.

And so, whether it’s the titling of something or how you describe it or anything that’s going on at work, thinking about how you’d want to have the conversation on the other side because managers I really see, even if you’re not a manager at work, just thinking about the person on the other side of that, because we’re not thinking about that person from the receiving end.

So, okay, if something’s, this job is absolutely crazy, wouldn’t you want to know? And again, the way Pete phrases it, the things that might suck, the things that are great, but describing it, at least giving people the truth, and letting them decide.

Sometimes you’ll be disappointed because you really like someone and it’s not for them. Or, if you’re giving performance feedback and, “Well, I don’t want to do that. It feels mean.” Okay, well, what if I was on the other side and I knew my manager had feedback for me? I wasn’t doing something right. But they weren’t saying anything because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

But I’d probably say, “Well, let’s have the conversation. But maybe ask for my perspective or say it in a way that’s not going to hurt my feelings, or that doesn’t feel so harsh.” And so that consider is, really, I think the most helpful step to think about how you’d want to be treated.

Think about any other factors. Okay, they knew or they experienced. What are the what are the options? But then act is to actually do something about it. Like I mentioned, morning me often has a lot of expectations about how I’m going to act throughout the day. Sometimes I don’t feel like doing something. I say I’ll do it tomorrow. But making sure that you actually do the thing.

And so having the conversation, making the decision. If Pete and I are having a conversation, I give him an idea. And Pete says, “Let me think on that. Okay, I’ll get back to you.” Well, if you, Pete, never get back to me and I never hear anything about it, I assume that you’ve thought a lot about it. Maybe you’ve talked to people about it and you think I’m a complete idiot.

But reality, what’s happened is you probably forgot about it like a human being. And so the act is whether it’s making the decision, or if you are thinking about something, having a note for yourself, having a reminder so that you are getting back to people. And it’s really, again, not revolutionary, but three steps that, whether you’re in management or in any role, that can really help you be awesome at your job, no matter what that job is.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good, the pause, consider, and act, because, I guess, I’m thinking about, I’ve had a number of occasions in which I am in a meeting with my business partner and we’re talking to someone, maybe it’s a sales context, maybe it’s operational thing. And he keeps saying things, like, “Oh, I should have said that,” “Oh, I should have said that.”

And it’s usually because of exactly this. It’s the pausing and considering of that other person, where they’re coming from, what might they want to hear in this situation, as opposed to, you know, whatever, getting on to the next thing. Or, my hang up, I think, is more so that I get very excited and very curious.

So it’s like if someone sends me just an amazing piece of work, and so it sparks all kinds of new questions and ideas and possibilities. And so I say, “Oh, what about this? Well, what about this? Have you thought about that? And how about that?”

But what would be ideal is, before going down that, would be to talk about more positive interactions and fewer negative interactions to say, “Wow, this is a very impressive piece of work. Thank you so much. It must’ve taken a lot to pull all of this together. Wow, this opens up all kinds of exciting new opportunities and possibilities.”

Like, that took maybe 20 seconds. And then they say, “Well, yes, thank you. It was a lot of work and it feels good to be acknowledged.” And I’m not nowhere in my heart am I thinking, “I wish to punish this person,” or, “I take them for granted. And, of course, you just did your job. You don’t need a cookie or praise for…” you know? Like, that’s nowhere in my psyche, and yet I can blow right past it.

Ashley Herd
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’d also want to get your pro tip when it comes to great meetings.

Ashley Herd
Well, I’d say two pro tips. One is for one-on-one meetings and one is for team meetings. My biggest pro tip for one-on-one meetings is to show up for them and show up on time and be focused. So that was kind of three things at once, but those are going to be things that sound very basic.

But it is wild when I do a scientific study of a video about one-on-ones with your boss, for example, and I make a video about you have a 30-minute one-on-one with your boss. The comment sections are much more than not comments of, “One-on-ones haven’t had those. They’ve been on the calendar, but I haven’t had one in about two years.”

Or, I’ll make a video about, “Okay, but you’re a boss that shows up 25 minutes into a 30-minute one-on-one, and says like, ‘Okay. Oh, I was meeting with SVP of XXYZ,’” but that happens constantly. And how you as a manager are probably thinking, “I’m giving an explanation of where I was,” but the team member is thinking, “Okay, well, wherever you are, you’re with people that are more important than me, but I have 47 things I really need to get through with you. So how are we going to make this happen?”

And so it is a step that, again, in the book, I have tips about things on agendas and how to make the shared agenda and how to make them more actionable. But it is amazing when you give people focus time where they know they’re going to be able to run through things, and you’re going to be looking at them, not at your cell phone, not at your second and third screens, all over the place.

But when you can have that time, it helps tremendously. It helps your team members, but it also often helps you avoid the people trying to reach you. Because you’ve told them, “Oh, I just have an open door policy. I don’t do one-on-ones. Come find me if you need me.”

And then everyone’s trying to find you, and it can feel crushingly stressful. And it’s, obviously, not effective. And so that’s my biggest tip for one-on-one meetings is to just consider how impactful that could be for both you and them.

For team meetings, I’ll just say one thing that’s a pro tip is in those, taking an opportunity to give opportunities to team members, including those that don’t speak up as much, but just to take a few minutes and you can rotate it, to talk about something that they do that feels super easy to them.

So maybe that’s a process they do. Look up, some people are going to be much more comfortable just talking about work and focus on a work thing that they know how to do. Other people, this may be the opportunity for them to say, “Oh, this is how I make this banana bread that I bring to every potluck. But these are my tips of how I do that.”

But why that can help is to give people an opportunity to explain something that choose whatever they want that really feels genuine. Or sometimes they’ve done something well and the manager say, “Okay, come and talk to the team about how you did that and some of the challenges you went through.’ But it also then can build that communication and confidence skills.

Again, it doesn’t have to happen every meeting necessarily, but it can absolutely be a way to give people who just show up to every meeting, otherwise, don’t feel like they have anything to say, but it can give them the opportunity to really have communication, learn from each other.

And I’ve sat through some of those meetings. And some of the things I can tell you, years later that I learned that stuck with me, even those non work-related topics, much more so than just any work-related thing. But it also changed the way that we work together because I saw those people as real humans rather than just super transactional.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell me, Ashley, anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Ashley Herd
Well, the one thing I’ll say is, because if you’ve been listening to this and you’re not a manager and you think, “Okay. After listening to this episode, now I really want to become a manager. So I want to be good at my job,” one tip I have is, is to think about if someone gives you something, like if your boss asks you something, finding out why they’re having it, why they’re working on it.

And also explaining why you want to ask. So, “Okay, I’m meeting with Pete.” Pete says, “Okay, can you give me three bullets on this status that you’re working on?” “Okay, I can do that.” I may have no idea what Pete is doing that for.

But so if I add and say, “Okay, let me know what that’s for. And I ask because, if it’s for an email, I’m happy to format that in an email to the audience, or if it’s for a slide, I’m happy to put that together to require less work for you and make sure I know the audience and I’m creating less work for you. Not more.” It takes about seven and a half seconds to say more.

But when you become known for thinking just a step ahead in doing that, whether it’s putting something in a format that’s helpful for someone, or asking those questions, it helps you to become the person that’s trusted. And, again, we always have to be careful about then not being the go-to person that just takes on everything.

We all could use someone that we work with that helps think that step ahead. And so when you start doing that, not only can it help your own career, but sometimes it’s the ripple effect of how other people start doing that as well. So it can even come back and benefit you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes, those follow-up questions can change everything in terms of, “Oh, well, I would have done this in a completely different way,” or, “Oh, well, if that’s what you’re after, I don’t think what you actually need is three bullets, but perhaps instead is this other thing.” And it’s like, “Oh, fantastic. Thank you. You’re amazing.”

Ashley Herd
Totally, because you may even say at the bottom, one thing I did for managers constantly was say, “Okay, here’s what to say, and you don’t need to say this, but if someone asks this, this is what you can say. Just have some of that below this of the FAQs in case someone asks. And some of that information, again, can just help that person tremendously, but also also help in your career.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Ashley Herd
I do love the quote from Maya Angelou, that people forget what you said, but they never forget how you made them feel. And I know that’s one that is said quite a lot, but I see it. The more and more I live, the more years I have, which I wish I were Benjamin Button and reversing, but that hasn’t happened yet. But I think back to how true that is.

I first heard that years ago and I didn’t appreciate it as much as I do now. But so I think bringing that into the workplaces, it’s not just what you’re working on, but especially as a manager, you think about how you work with people. You can transform people’s work and also their lives outside of it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Ashley Herd
There was recently research in Gallup, this was in, I think, January of 2026, that’s about how people are selected for management. And it really quantified this aspect of what percentage. I think it was 60. I may be misquoting that, but you can Google. But it’s how people are picked to be a manager and then what to do about it.

And so as organizations think about management, because I’m a huge proponent of not just selecting people for management, but exposing them, having a real two-way street considerations and career paths that don’t require you to be a manager. But it’s a really nice piece of research that just shows the reality that so many organizations have, which is how we started the episode.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Ashley Herd
I love A Separate Piece by John Knowles. I never went to boarding school, and it’s all about boys at a boarding school. But I read that when I was a sophomore in high school and it has stuck with me for some reason for decades.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool.

Ashley Herd
I’d say a calculator because when I was in elementary school, I was told I needed to learn math and so I worked really hard at it, and that I couldn’t talk for a living. And I do tend to talk for a living and I also relied much more heavily on a calculator than I’d like to admit.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Ashley Herd
I’d say a favorite habit is gratitude, both with yourself or with telling others. And sometimes it can feel super corny. And so if you have gratitude to express and it’s not something you normally say, and so, Pete, if you were to say, if I started telling people, I’m thankful for this because then people would call 911 because they think that you are being held for ransom and that’s your help signal.

You can say, “I was listening to Pete’s How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast, and the speaker, Ashley Heard at Manager Method, said to think about somebody that you’re grateful for and why you’re grateful for them, and text someone and tell them that, and tell them what you’re grateful for them for.

And any discomfort you feel for seconds will go away because they will likely feel delighted and they won’t think of it as, “Okay, you’re only doing this because you heard it on a podcast.” They hear this and think, “Well, of all the people that you know, you thought of me.” And so you can make someone’s whole day and far longer by expressing that gratitude.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that folks really connect and resonate with, and quote back to you often?

Ashley Herd
So in the book, I talk about how to not be a tight jeans manager, and also not be an oversized sweatpants manager, but to instead be a cozy joggers manager. So you can read in the book about what that means.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Ashley Herd
You can go to ManagerMethod.com, which is my website. You can kind of find me anywhere from there. If you go to @managermethod on different social media platforms, you can see some of my 59-second plays that I write and act most days.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Ashley Herd
It’s to try that. Try to do pause, consider, act. Like, if you find yourself immediately going to react to something, just pause and think about some of the different options and what you can do differently. You may do the same thing, but at least think it through, and I bet you may tweak something a bit.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Ashley, thank you.

Ashley Herd
Thank you so much, Pete. Thanks for having me and thanks to all for listening.

Mar 19
0

1138: Breaking Free from the Invisible Norms that Limit Our Best Work with Nilofer Merchant

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Nilofer Merchant debunks some of the pervasive beliefs and practices that keep us from succeeding at work.

You’ll Learn

  1. Striking examples of how hidden norms limit us
  2. Why you owe it to yourself to play office politics
  3. The mindset that creates more win-win solutions

About Nilofer

Nilofer Merchant spent over 25 years leading technology companies (Apple, Autodesk, GoLive/Adobe) and personally launched over 100 products and services, netting $18 billion in revenues. She is ranked among the top 50 influential management thinkers in the world (one of her TED Talks has been referenced 300 million times). Our Best Work is her 4th book.

Resources Mentioned

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Nilofer Merchant Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Nilofer, welcome.

Nilofer Merchant
Glad to be here, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m glad to be here as well. I’m excited to talk about your book, Our Best Work. And could you kick us off with a particularly surprising and fascinating discovery you’ve made about humans and work while putting this one together?

Nilofer Merchant
You know, I think right now we’re in this AI age where we’re thinking a lot about what is the role of technology in our work. And I think I’ve kind of come back to the basics, which is if we don’t understand how to actually create that connection between us humans, we’re never going to be able to take advantage of the technology. And it was not so much a surprise, but sort of like this deepest reminder that it’s all about people.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is an intriguing assertion. Tell me more.

Nilofer Merchant
Well, so one of things I wanted to just share is most of us are in a position where we think we don’t have power, especially now when people are cutting back. A couple days ago in tech, one of the companies, Block, ended up firing 40% of their staff.

And they’re having this conversation about, “Am I allowed to push my own agenda right now? Because it might be time to hunker down and crawl underneath a desk and just do whatever I’m asked to do.”

And I’m like, “Actually that will not lead to goodness, not for ourselves, not for companies, not for the industry, nothing.” And yet, I can see how much fear is in the room.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that is well said because, emotionally, that’s natural in terms of, “Because there is fear and because there is risk, I am less inclined to put forward my stuff. It might be kind of out there. It might be rock the boat, disrupt things or it feels emotionally, like, not a great time.”

And yet, in some ways, it is the absolute best time because, one, you might not have that much to lose. And, two, I think when folks get jolted with something that wasn’t even on their radar, it’s like, we don’t know what we don’t know. And then someone’s like bringing these things up. I am personally inclined to think, “Oh, you are very valuable and I want you around. Thank you.”

Nilofer Merchant
Yeah, you know, one of the things about the Block news was really fascinating. Jack basically fired 40% of the organization, and people were asking me what I thought about it. And I said, “Well, I mean, if your only goal is revenue optimization and sort of profitability, I understand why you would do that because AI does lend itself to efficiency.” But that is really appropriating more value and values to capital.

If it were me, I would have sat there and thought, “Okay, if I can do twice as much with the tools, and I’ve already hired this exceptionally talented group of people, and they’re onboarded and running, why wouldn’t I figure out how to grow the business?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and not to go down an AI rabbit hole, although a reasonable proportion of my conversations are doing that these days. But that’s exactly the vibes that I feel when I read this news. It’s like, “Okay, yeah, I imagine because of developments, you’re able to do the stuff.” Like, I mean, in Block’s world in particular, “We’re making software features, additions, and we’re doing customer service-y things.”

So I can hear like, yeah, in that zone, yeah, that makes sense that you can pull off that amount of features and that amount of customer service requests with fewer humans handling it. Like, I buy that. That makes sense to me.

But what I find tricky is exactly what you’re saying there, it’s like, “Well, is that what we’re trying to do in this organization, is just to maintain the status quo more cost effectively?” And maybe there’s a time and a place where that is the right strategic business move, but I’m with you. I’d say, “Ooh, this is exciting. We have all this capacity to go create, invent, and push forward into new territories. So let’s have some fun with it.”

Nilofer Merchant
And if I was a listener to this conversation, one of the things I’d really be thinking about is, “How do I use this stuff for my own gain?” So whether it’s, “I do my job better at my own desk by using some of the tools and technologies,” it could also be as a team, we get together and say, “Hey, listen, we can reimagine who we are.”

And go, “Oh, if we can do more and we can do things better just using tools, then, okay, what else could we imagine for ourselves that we’ve not been able to do because we were so busy doing what we’ve already been doing?”

And there’s, I think, an upside there that any of us can kind of take on and go, “Oh, what is the thing?” In fact, a friend of mine just sent out a thing where he redesigned his website and did a whole series of things using tools, migration, etc., that he could have hired a designer for, but he could do it all himself.

And so he said, “I saved so much money. I’ve also taught myself new things.” And I was like, “Yes, isn’t that what we want to do?” It’s, “How do we take advantage of this stuff instead of it happening to us?”

It reminds me of the early days of the web, which I was lucky to partake in. And everyone was like, “Oh, the web will put designers out of business.” And actually, the designers who won were the ones who figured out how to use the web for their own gain. And I feel like we’re in a similar place, maybe at a little higher speed trajectory.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, tell us what’s the big idea or core thesis behind your book Our Best Work?

Nilofer Merchant
I started with this question, “Our best work changes based on how you define those three words.” So if you define “our” as a small group, you know, the people maybe who are capitalizing the business, or you define it as “our” as the entire organization and team.

If you define best as, “Oh, it’s about making money and capital optimization of revenue,” or, if you define best as solving really meaningful problems. If you define work as the contract, right, “I scope this job for this person to do,” or we define it as a calling and a way for each of us to express ourselves and be a part of the world, those aren’t just linguistic choices. Those are like forks in the road.

And one grows, you know, if you go towards a couple people benefit and it’s about how fast we can make money and it’s about we scope out jobs and ask people to do those jobs, that creates one type of economy and one type of workplace.

And then you go towards the definition of inclusive and meaning and really doing things that call to us, and you end up in a completely different place. And I feel like if we could explore those questions, if we could just even examine, “What are we doing today that might hold us down to the sort of existing model?” instead of going, “Oh, what could we possibly create?” that was, I don’t know, motivating for me to explore.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Okay. And can you tell us a cool story of a professional who zeroed in? You identified 24 invisible norms that limit us. Can you share with us a fun story of someone who identified, “Oh, wait a sec, here’s a norm that’s been limiting me,” and what they identified and how they busted it and what cool stuff happened on the other side?

Nilofer Merchant
Yeah, so one of my really good friends came to me after her boss said to her, “If you have good ideas, they’ll get stolen. Just get used to it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, the boss said this?

Nilofer Merchant
The boss said that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Nilofer Merchant
“Just get used to it and make your next set of ideas.” And she was basically asking me this question about, “Is it me? Like, is it me that I’m not accepting that as true and I should just get on with it and be an adult and go on and come up with the next idea? Or is it him? Like, is he being an ass by not protecting the interests of my team and the work we’ve been doing for a while?”

And I said, “Actually, it’s neither of you. It’s that the organization has accepted that idea theft is a good thing. That as long as we get the flower from the field of wildflowers, as long as the organization benefits from it, it doesn’t matter who came up with the idea.” And I was actually saying, “What it does is it kills the entire field of wildflowers.”

And so that norm of saying, “Ideas get stolen,” which almost all of us have heard in our careers. We’ve been told, “Oh, don’t worry about it if your idea gets stolen. It’s actually a compliment. Just move on.”

And she was basically saying, “Is that a norm I should accept?” And I was like, “No, it’s not a norm we should accept, because it says that the genesis of an idea, that original source, that point of view, that creativity is not to be valued enough. And that’s actually on the organizational norm that we allow bad behavior to happen.”

And then we say, “Whatever happens, happens.” And I’m like, “No, no, no, it’s whatever we allow to happen, happens.” And so that’s a big shift in how we can think about accountability at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, certainly, whatever happens happens, I mean, that’s true only in so far as it’s completely outside your control and influence. But inside an organization, it’s like, “Well, hey, actually, you know, we’re the humans kind of who make the rules and the norms, and the incentives, and the carrots and the sticks associated with what sorts of behaviors we think are fine and not so much fine, as opposed to just victims of the economy or the climate, you know, that, are sort of beyond us.”

Nilofer Merchant
Or the culture.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Nilofer Merchant
And one of the things that people often think is that, “If a management norm has been here for a long time, it must be like working for a reason.” And I’m basically saying, “Listen, just because it exists does not mean it’s persuasive, right? It’s just persistent.”

Pete Mockaitis
Or helpful, useful, beneficial in any way, yeah.

Nilofer Merchant
Yeah, right. So we get a chance to examine that water that we swim in and go, “Hmm, is this helping or hurting?” And I think the book is really doing that sort of, “Is this helping or hurting?” examination. And then, more importantly, “What else could we do?” And holding open that space for, “What else could we imagine that we could create as a norm at work?”

Pete Mockaitis
Now, in that story, we had some concern about idea theft. What became of it?

Nilofer Merchant
Well, so she had actually been working on a plan with her team for six months, had conceived the plan, had gotten the plan funded, had done all the vendor management, in addition to their day job. So it’s not like they got relief.

And so they were really pushing for a brand new thing that they thought the team would benefit from. And somebody else came along and basically presented that idea to the CEO and CMO as if it was theirs, not so explicitly, but enough where it kind of gave that appearance.

And when this friend came to me and said, “What should I do?” I said, “Well, if your boss is unwilling to protect your team, then what’s going to happen is the idea might be executed, but it won’t link back to the original genesis, right?”

Like, all of us, when we come up with an idea, have a rootedness and a fullness of an idea that we want to see manifest. And so if they sort of take credit and we do the skimmed version of the idea, it will never actually be what it needs to be.

So that idea ended up becoming an ad for a Super Bowl. And then by the time they kind of came around to, “Oh, gosh, we need the next new idea,” my friend had already left because she wasn’t going to stay in an organization that didn’t respect her and her ideas.

And so the organization lost the ability to do the next big success because they lost the person who was that great idea generator. And so I always define success as not the ability to do one thing well, but the ability to do things well over time. Like, that’s what causes real growth.

And so they lost the ability to do things well over time. And my friend was disillusioned and disheartened, but she also knew that talent doesn’t beg. And she was able to go on and find another place that really respected her.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And just to close the loop here, when it comes to idea theft, call me naive, idealistic, a softy. But so, my understanding of idea theft is just that folks want the credit and the status and the advancement and the associations of it, “There’s a clever, smart, creative professional right there.” And that’s why they do it.

But, I mean, in my world, I just think, “Wow, like, that’s so easy just to say, ‘Oh, yeah, Nilofer has been working on this and it’s brilliant. Why don’t we loop her in and see how far we can take this thing?” I mean, that takes like a sentence.

And I’m thinking like, if I witnessed that behavior, I think more of that person. I think more of the person who’s sharing credit and including other folks. I think that person’s more awesome than the person who I’m misled to believe has had the idea.

Nilofer Merchant
Yeah, it’s a difference between scarcity and abundance. Like, if I believe, “Hey, man, I’m talented and you’re talented, then I’m going to give credit to a whole bunch. I’m going to figure out how to get all of our talents on the table.”

But if I believe that the world is a scarce world, and only so many of us can get credit, and only so many of us can win, and I have to out compete you, then I’m going to nudge you aside from the table. I’m going to use all my elbows doing it, and in order to “win.”

And so it’s also the cultural norm that that CEO and CMO didn’t ask, “Hey, who all has been working on this? And tell me more about what the genesis of the story was?” and so on and so on. They could have just asked in a couple questions and been able to go, “Oh, let’s bring those people in,” so they could have also been the fix. So that’s where it becomes more than the people involved. It becomes, “What do we accept as valid behavior within an organization?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I’d love to dig into your chapter four, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” I think that there’s a lot of wisdom there. Can you unpack a little bit about what’s the norm you’re zeroing in on and what is to be done about it?

Nilofer Merchant
Yeah, so the norm in that chapter is the fact that a lot of people inside organizations have been taught that politics is icky. And it is that person elbowing at the table and getting credit and getting advancement because they play politics well.

And so one of the things I was doing there was saying, “Okay, politics is about the icky behavior of shoving other people aside in order to win, and it’s been labeled as icky,” none of us really want to be icky. And so we’ll go, “Oh, we’ll leave politics to those self-serving people, and we’ll do what’s right for the business.” So we kind of, like, distance ourselves from it.

And I’m actually arguing that we ought to think about the definition of politics a little here, and understand why we need to play. And I basically define politics as the way we decide what we’re going to do. And so if it’s about the way we decide what we’re going to do, then you’re really hurting yourself, your team, the work, if you’re not sitting in there advocating for what you need.

It’s the people who say, “Well, so-and-so is going to get credit anyway, and so-and-so is going to do it, then I will just pass.” And I’m like, “The minute you stop showing up for yourself, you’ve actually given up on yourself.” And so at least you owe it to yourself to be able to say, “Hey, this is what I think we need and this is what I think we want.”

And in this idea’s economy, original ideas come from that place, only one stance. And so we actually need to put ourselves back on the table and go, “Yeah, I owe it to myself and to the business to show up and advocate for what I want.” And it’s hard, right? It’s really hard to do.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I really like that definition. Let’s hear it again. Politics is…?

Nilofer Merchant
The way we decide what it is we’re going to do.

Pete Mockaitis
And what I like a lot about that definition is it’s neutral as opposed to, “Aargh, politics are just the worst.” Or, maybe if you’re one those rare birds, like, “Ooh, I love politics. Let’s play the game,” you know? But it’s neutral. like, that’s what it is.

And then it also inspires you a bit, I’d say, to not accept as an explanation for something. “Oh, politics.” It’s like, “That goes without saying, it’s politics. That’s because, definitionally, according to this definition. So let’s specifically say, what does that mean?”

“Oh, well, the SVP of operation was concerned about this and how that impacted that. And so he said, ‘Let’s not do that this quarter.’” It’s like, “Oh, well, now that’s something we can get our arms around and deal with.”

Nilofer Merchant
Exactly. And so the more transparent we are with that, it could be, you know, we actually think marketing is a bigger feature set in our team success than product, right, because we’re a plus one product or something. Then all of a sudden you kind of know where you are.

And so when we start saying what the actual thing is, it gives everyone more context to go, “Oh, this is what’s going on.” And that’s what we really want to do. We want to engage so that we have transparency. One of the stories I told in the book was when I was working with a big company who was really good at doing trade-offs.

It’s REI. So in America, one of the best sports retailer kind of organizations, one of my favorite places to go hang out. And I was working with the team, and they started to say, “Well, we can’t do that because so-and-so won’t like it.” And I go, “Have you asked if so-and-so won’t like it or do you just think so-and-so won’t like it?”

And they were like, “Well, the team in Tennessee always gets what they want. We never get resource, so we think that’s a no-go.” And I go, “You know, it’s totally cool if that turns out to be a no-go. Like, I get it. But if you haven’t asked, then you haven’t gotten clarity on what really matters here.”

And I’m always like, “Deny me, turn me down. That’s your job. If you’re in a leadership role and you have to make those kinds of resource allocation decisions, that’s your job to figure out what to say yes to and no to. But you owe me an explanation so I can understand how that fits in with priorities so I can make better decisions myself.”

“But I owe myself the full proposal. Like, let me bake it, let me complete an idea, let me pitch it to you, let me tell you it in context with other things, all of that. I owe it to my own belief system to show up and advocate for it.” And then if I get shut down, I get shut down and we can go, “Gosh, it’s just not a priority.” But you owe it to yourself.

And I always think the times I’ve regretted in my own career not showing up to myself are like the times when I feel crappiest about my career. And I feel the same way about every team I’ve ever worked with when they say, “Oh, so-and-so won’t care.” I’m like, “Well, give them a chance. Give them a chance to care.”

And, first, you start that by you caring about your own ideas and your own principles. And then you get to advocate for that, show up with your best work, and then people can decide if that’s also our best work.

Pete Mockaitis
And I like your perspective there that we start learning something and we illuminate what’s going on in terms of the priorities or the people or the power structures that are behind things, as opposed to if we just say, “Oh, well, they wouldn’t like that.” You’re just quiet and just do nothing with it. Well, then you’re completely stuck.

Nilofer Merchant
Exactly. And it’s like The Wizard of Oz. You know, we all think there’s a man behind the curtain who is managing everything and making everything happen. And then we pull back the curtain and we realize no one’s really there.

If we can pull back the curtain and realize most of the reasons why decisions are being made the way they are is because no one’s made a better argument. No one has shown us what the trade-offs are. No one has shown us what the downstream effects are.

And so if we can go upstream in our own thinking and say, “Let me at least show up to it,” then we get transparency and visibility and understanding. We’ve shown up for our own agency and we’ve revealed that, quite often, we don’t know why we’re making the decisions we’re making. It’s just what we’ve done. And so we get a chance to help the business grow, right, and show up.

I guess that part I feel like we all stand a little taller when we can show up and be our fullest self. Because work is a place where the self can meet the world, it’s not just what we do for money. It is also the way we become who we are. And so this is a way to practice becoming who you are and showing what you care about, even if we’re scared.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, we also have to hear this Marie golf story.

Nilofer Merchant
So I was working at Apple in my 20s, and one day, one of the people that I worked with said, “Do you know, doesn’t it feel to you like the meetings are perfunctory, like the decision has already been made?” And I said, “You know, that’s funny, I was thinking that too. Like, every single thing I say, I feel like it’s just, you know, hitting a wall and kind of sliding down. And I keep thinking it’s me, like it’s a communication issue, I need to learn how to pitch this better or whatever.”

And she goes, “No, I have this other feeling that something else is going on.” And so we took that conversation to a couple other people down the hall, and everyone was like, “Yeah, actually, that’s it. That’s exactly what it feels like as the decisions are being made somewhere else.”

So we ended up thinking, “Well, how would we suss that out?” And a couple of us knew the admin. So we said, “Are they having a pre-meeting like the morning of or something that’s causing us to kind of go into meetings that are already decided?” And they said, “No, there’s no pre meeting, but they are playing golf the day before. They have an offsite every Thursday before the Friday meeting.”

So we said, “Oh, who’s invited?” Just like out of curiosity, right, like, “Oh, who’s coming?” And it was basically every decision-maker in the room was going to the golf game. And we thought, “You know, this is not Machiavellian. This is just opportunistic.”

They know there’s a bunch of decisions to be made. It’s on their minds. They’re probably just talking about it together to be like, “Hey, what do you know? And what do you know?” and blah, blah, blah. And they’re making some pre-decisions. So by the time they come into the room, they’re not probably listening very much.

So one of us decided that we weren’t game for that, but we didn’t know quite how to say anything or do anything without sort of it seeming like we were calling them out. We wanted to call them in. And we wanted to figure out how to participate in this conversation.

So one of the people, a really tall woman named Marie, Marie Schmidt, six-foot tall woman had played volleyball in college, like had played a bunch of sports. She’s really athletic. And that was the point of that story.

And she goes, “You know what? I’m going to learn to play golf. I’ve never learned, but I could do it.” And she went and took lessons. She played every single weekend. She got really good. I remember she even bought custom clubs so that it would suit her body type, which I thought, “Wow, that is a big investment.”

And then after her scores got good enough, she actually emailed the group and said, “Hey, I hear you guys play golf. I’ve actually come to recently love golf. And here’s my scores. And I wonder if I can join in on the team.” And, right away, the golf game went away.

Because what was being called out was, “Listen, you’re doing something that’s actually excluding a bunch of us. And maybe you meant to, maybe you didn’t.” But as soon as it became visible and got called in to that conversation, they ended the golf game. And they showed up to the meeting not predisposed to certain answers so that we could actually have the conversation in the room with all the people who needed to be in the room.

And that, to me, shows the power of showing up for yourself and just advocating for what you believe is right. Because it’s not like she made some overt like, “Oh, you guys suck,” kind of thing. She just did this beautiful, “Decisions need to be made in the room. Let’s make them in the room.” And have that changed to happen.

And I love that it also shows, like, you can play the long game quite literally and not do it as, you know, “Oh, tomorrow we got to fix this.” It can take a little bit to be like, “Hmm, how do I maneuver the chess pieces on the board so I can actually play the game really well?”

Pete Mockaitis
I like the story a lot for the similar reasons, in terms of that proactivity. Because, in some ways, it just feels natural emotional response to say, “Oh, that’s not fair. That’s dumb. I don’t like that.” And it takes quite a lot of effort, you know, to learn a new sport and get custom clubs and all the things. And then there could be an interior reaction of, “I shouldn’t have to do that and, therefore, I won’t,” and then it’s over and done.

But it’s also a choice of what we are free to engage, it’s like, “Well, you know what? If that’s where it’s happening and this is important to me, even though it’s pretty dumb and I shouldn’t have to, I’m going to go ahead and make the sacrifice and then see what unfolds.” And what might happen is you’re included, “Hey, great to have you.”

Or, what might happen is they say, “Oh, I guess, actually, this is not appropriate. That didn’t occur to me before you brought this up.” And either way, you’re making some advancement. Of course, it’s entirely possible they might just say, “No, you can’t play golf,” and they keep doing their thing.

And then, again, that is illuminating. You have additional information from which to decide, “Should I find another workplace? Should I challenge this in a fresh way?”

Nilofer Merchant
That’s right. It’s making progress. And making progress is how we actually, all of us, really can measure success. And one of the beautiful things about what you just, you know, we’re chatting about Pete, was that in that story, there are no villains and there are no victims.

And I love it when we move past this architecture of bad guy, good guy, right? Or the person who says, “Oh, I don’t want to go and, therefore, I’m the victim in this situation.” I’m like, “Well, we all have choice. We all have choice.”

And the question is, “Do we understand our choices? And can we create more choices for them, for us, for all of us?” And as soon as we’re working from a place of choice, we have an ability to actually influence a lot of things. And so it’s more how we hold the mindset, how we invite people into conversation. And then as we move on in our careers, we get a chance to go, “Okay, what are the cultural norms I want to help create?”

And so if we create a culture where we say, “Listen, we’re going to call people in when things aren’t working. We’re going to be able to say, ‘Dude, do you realize that you monologue a lot? And when you monologue a lot, it takes up all the oxygen in the room. And it’s probably not the kind of behavior you really want to do. And do you want to change?”

And that person could go, “Oh, yeah, I was kind of taught that behavior, right? And the only way I ever got things amongst my siblings was to just talk it out with them. And so I need to change my ways.” Like, that kind of conversation can now start to happen instead of saying, “You’re an asshat and I don’t even want to deal with you.”

Which, by the way, might be true. It’s like, “Okay, well you’re here. So now what do you want to do as an agent of change? And how do you show up ready to create that best work? How do you show up with that agency and that power?” Not because we give in to people, but because we say, “What else is possible here?” And it’s going to be a test of imagination for us to reinvent how work works.

The engagement data, whether it’s Gallup or other data, says that we have something like 80% of people at work disengage. It’s crazy. And that number, by the way, hasn’t changed. It just keeps getting worse. The latest statistic was that middle managers were the group that dropped out last, and so they’re just miserable.

So many of the statistic at work says work isn’t working for most of us, which is why people become entrepreneurs and they find other ways of manifesting themselves, because work just generally sucks. And I think it’s about like, “Okay, well, yes, it does suck.” And the question is, “What part of the solution are we?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. And talk about solutions, you’ve got some pro tips, some key steps, some key questions you recommend folks engage with as they’re navigating the political side of things.

Nilofer Merchant
Yeah, one of the things I really want to do with this book is not to say, “Hey, here’s what’s not working,” but how do we become, you know, in just the smallest way, more agentic in our power? And so in the power, that politics chapter, I talked about how do you show up and actually ask people, ‘What’s happening here?”

So if you have an idea about the decisions being made a certain way by certain people, you might want to kind of map that out and then go to other people that you work with and say, “Is this how we’re making the decision?”

And have people have that conversation with you and say, “Okay, I’m interested in influencing that decision. How might I do that?” And enrolling other people with you, because this is not meant to be a go-at-yourself kind of work.

Change at this magnitude of actually changing our norms is going to take at least two of us gathering together and saying, “ I’m not in it by myself,” right? Because it’s easy to think, “I’m the problem or you’re the problem.” And, actually, if it’s the norm, then what we want to do is have a couple of us kind of sit at the same side of the table and look at it and go, “Hmm, what is that? What is the situation?”

And then, as we kind of kibitz about that, we can go, “Oh, well, then what are different ways we might navigate that situation?” And we can start helping each other to do that. So I think, my goal is read it with someone else, a bud at work, and then figure out if something’s important to you, how do you team up together and start doing this work? And then you can problem-solve and get creative about that because, otherwise, you’re going to feel alone and not as powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
And you mentioned, you know, “Who is the problem versus what’s the problem?” You mentioned William Ury and the distinction between people and positions, it can be easy to just accept something when, in fact, that is a position that ought to be challenged. Can you speak to that?

Nilofer Merchant
So when I was in community college, I got an opportunity to also represent the entire student body of the community college, not just at my one school, but then for the entire state of California. So for all 106 community colleges at the time, so it was a million plus students.

We were lobbying for community colleges to actually change from being trade schools, which they were at the time, mostly teaching mechanics and nursing and that kind of work, to actually being the front load for your education.

And he got brought in to teach us how to do that negotiation. And one of the things he said is we often assume what people’s interests are, and we assume that they’re baked. So we assume we know what they are, and then we assume that they’re unmovable.

And if we can actually really figure out what’s underlying someone’s interests, then we can often find other ways to accomplish that. So we might say their interest is, oh, what’s a funny one? Their interest is to have lunch. And then we go, “Well, it’s dinnertime, so we really can’t solve that problem of lunch.”

But if we sit there and go, “Oh, the goal is to have food,” or, “The goal is to have nutrition,” or, “The goal is to feel satiated,” there are other ways to solve that problem just by changing what the goal is from lunch to satiation, or lunch to nutrition.

And that’s where I think we kind of get stuck. We get stuck with the initial definition of, “This guy says he wants lunch.” And so then we go, “Oh, well, we can’t give him lunch because it’s dinner time.” And I know I’m making up a funny example, but that holds true for even the most complex situations.

And we can go, “Oh, what actually is he trying to solve for? What is it that we can then create together?” And we’ve just got to figure out how to show up and assume that most people don’t really know what they want. They only know what they can have right now. And so they state the thing they think they can have, like they think it’s lunchtime kind of thing.

And if you can go, “Let me learn more. Let me explore,“ then everyone’s in a learning mode, you know, using Carol Dweck’s beautiful framework of growth mindset, then we’re just going to learn together. And then as we learn together, we can actually find multiple ways to solve any problem.

And if we kind of assume that abundance mindset, the growth mindset, and kind of show up with sort of really deep curiosity, we can usually figure out that the presenting problem is not the actual problem. And no one is a villain and no one’s a victim, and so then we start getting creative together.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ve taught my children, when someone says no, a great thing to say next is, “What are your concerns?” And it is so hilarious to see my sweet little seven-year-old girl, Mary, when she’s told no, and she’ll say, “What are your concerns?”

And it does, it gets right to the heart of that, in terms of we might assume that we’re getting a no because, I don’t know, they don’t like us or they’re obsessed with power and money and prestige or whatever. We just have any number of assumptions about what they’re after.

And then the no is really just like, “Oh, I’m not scheduled to have a meeting with that person for another three weeks.” It’s like, “Oh, okay. Well, how about we talk then?” It’s like, “Oh, that was way easier than I expected.” And your example about lunch, nutrition, it can be quite surprising what you learn in terms of, “Oh, they don’t even want food of any sort. They just wanted a break and some socializing.” “Well, we can do that. Let’s, yeah.”

Nilofer Merchant
Exactly. I love this. I love your example of your daughter because you can imagine her asking for ice cream after dinner, “What are your concerns?” “Well, I’m concerned you’ll get too much sugar before bed.” And I can imagine her turning to you saying, “Well, then after school tomorrow, right?” Like, she can negotiate really well. You’re teaching this kid to become a monster in the best possible way.

Because you can then go, “Oh, well, we can get that. We can solve your concerns and get what it is I want at the table.” And that’s exactly right. It’s that, “What are your concerns?” and what else is possible.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, certainly. Well, tell me, Nilofer, any other key things you want to make sure to share before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Nilofer Merchant
Well, I hope we’ve communicated that it’s not you or them. It’s us. I hope we’ve communicated that management norms aren’t so much persuasive as they are persistent. I hope that we’ve communicated that politics is simply the way we decide what we’re going to decide. And I hope people understand that it’s a way for them to join together and figure out how to fix work.

Like, none of us are happy, really, very few. And even the bosses aren’t happy and I get a chance to talk to a lot of really top leaders, and I can categorically say people are miserable. And so this is, hopefully, a hopeful book and a hopeful set of ideas about how do we pay attention to the intangibles around us and make work better.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Nilofer Merchant
You know, there’s a beautiful quote somebody just reminded me of Nelson Mandela said, “Don’t measure me by my successes. Measure me by how many times I got up off the floor.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Nilofer Merchant
I love the one where a team, basically a group of people are asked to watch how often the ball is passed. And between, I think, it’s like some of the teams wearing black shirts and some of the teams wearing white shirts, and they’re asked to count the number of times the ball is passed between the team and who had the ball most in terms of like which shirt.

And a big hairy gorilla, like actually a person in a gorilla outfit walks through the scene. And then after the experiment is over, people are asked how many people notice the gorilla. And something like 50% of the people don’t notice the gorilla at all. And it’s huge. You can’t miss it.

But there’s something about how, when our attention is directed one way, we can get kind of lock scoped and not see the full range, the full aperture of what’s going on in the room. And it reminds me that if we can actually stop being so obsessed about the specific and start just really opening up our own apertures, we can see more of what’s going on and, more importantly, navigate that more of what’s going on.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Nilofer Merchant
I’m going to choose Mary Oliver’s Devotions, which is a beautiful book of poetry collected over her lifetime. So it was published towards the end of her life, so it’s really a beautiful body. And I find it one of those books that you can open up and have it speak to your day about how to be more present to yourself and to the world.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Nilofer Merchant
I’m pretty much loving all the tools right now that let you do coding online and just, like, create websites and stuff. I’m playing with quite a few of them, so I can’t say I love one particular one, but I love that I can now go back to coding using natural language and having it actually translate that to all the code because it gets you back to that place of being a creator again.

Pete Mockaitis
And, well, just a quick follow-up. In terms of the quick creation of a website with natural language, just like the chatbots, Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, or is there something special that seems kind of cool there?

Nilofer Merchant
Oh, there’s like 12 of them so far that I’ve tried so I can’t even tell you all their names.

Pete Mockaitis
Twelve.

Nilofer Merchant
But one of the things that you can now do is, like, go from, “I want to build a data tool set that tells me the answer to X.” And within, like, really short window of time, it can pull all this data that, literally, would have taken three researchers a couple of weeks to do, and organize it in a way that it would break Excel. And I think that gives us the opportunity to sort of prototype ideas.

We can always work with a bigger team later and kind of get it better, but to go, “Oh, what if I could do this? What if the business team could do X or Y?” And just play around with it to go, “This is what an early idea could be.” Because sometimes if we show up with an idea that doesn’t have proof of concept, it’s hard to imagine.

But if you can show up with a nascent idea that also is associated with a thing, then people can go, “Oh, I can see how that would work,” and it would just help that imagination process go forward.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Nilofer Merchant
I think that habit that Duhigg said, which is “Choose the one thing you’re going to do the next day before you go to bed,” because if you can do that, your brain can actually start solving that problem as you sleep. And then you wake up just ready and charged up to go. So I love that habit.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that seems to really connect and resonate with folks, they quote back to you often?

Nilofer Merchant
The one quote that people always say back to me is they say, “Any good work is not created, it’s co-created.” And I wrote that in my very first book, which was called The New How, and it was about collaborative leadership. And I am so surprised at how many people have turned that into T-shirts and pins and just different ways of communicating all work isn’t created, it’s co-created.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Nilofer Merchant
Website is NiloferMerchant.com.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have any final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Nilofer Merchant
Showing up over and over again to yourself. It’s not about proving to other people how good you are or how worthy you are. It’s showing up to yourself and making progress against your own goals that helps you actually become the person you’re meant to be.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Nilofer, thank you.

Nilofer Merchant
Thank you for having me, Pete.