Business psychologist reveals: Why paying more WON'T stop your best people leaving | Claudia Gasson, Bailey & French

0:00Claudia, as a former recruiter, what's one unique insight you can share with our listeners from speaking to thousands of job leavers? Well, I think fundamentally everyone kind of leaves their job for the same reason. Which is? Which is, you know, well, there's a few things I show you the same, but it's always a common theme. And it's typically they don't get on with their boss. You know, it's quite a big one. But also there's a lot around salary and pay. You know, there's a lot of motivations around that, but also around opportunities for progression as well. I think, honestly, they're the key fundamental things.

0:37But when you speak to an external recruiter, you also don't want to share that you're like not happy with your boss. So it doesn't always come up. But you know what that actually through a lot of research that is fundamentally one of the key reasons. So, yeah, it's all about just making sure that people you get on better with your boss. you have good page transparency um and you just got to keep people happy at the end of the day okay amazing love that so you are subject matter expert in the world of recruitment you had your own business so definitely want to talk to you about that as a b2b service provider similar to my business we've got really similar stories with that as well so i'm really excited to dive in um and since then you've now decided to start studying organizational psychology doing a masters at Birkbeck which is amazing so I'd love to ask you on that note what's some fascinating insights you can share from the masters you're currently doing well there's so much that we cover um down to like selection assessment so like making sure that you create really robust validated selection processes when it comes to recruitment as an example um down to things like leadership development so understanding what makes a really good leader um there's so much that goes into that around change management and really like lots of things around that.

1:52But I think probably one of the most fascinating things is like for me, learning about performance motivation. So I'm really understanding what makes people thrive at work and what makes people tick. But there's so much within that to do on comma. Yeah. That I guess to pinpoint like one particular thing, I think, yeah, getting into the nitty gritty of that has been fascinating. I appreciate there's a lot here um so apologies if like the questions aren't like specific enough but I would love as as someone who is on the outside and and doesn't study organizational psychology and everything what is I guess what's something that you've recently learned that's really kind of made you go like oh wow like made the penny drop and really sort of like got you excited i think from like learning about motivation theories as an example yeah probably one key thing so you know what really makes people like thrive at work i mean it's really motivated to work i think we can draw upon like one particular theory that i can come to mind so um it's all around self-determination theory and that's all around understanding um what you need in order to be perform better at work so it comes down to having autonomy so for example having control over your work and the second thing is around competence so you know making sure that you actually feel like you're capable of doing that doing your job and then the third thing is around relatedness so around making sure that you're actually connected to people at work so I think that really comes into play and I think you know we spoke about this before working remotely really taps into that relatedness piece because if you're not around people then it's really hard to know what's going on you've got no feedback loops coming through and so it's really like easily understandable to see why you get such high churn in remote jobs um and you know why people really suffer from mental health in that respect as well so I think I really learned a lot from that from my own experience working and running a remote business and also producing down my team headcount as well so that was an interesting all right so touching on like the remote the hybrid the in-office obviously that's still like this whole kind of push and pull today five years on from the pandemic where do you stand on that then which team are you on well interestingly enough um a bailey and french where i work at the moment we have a fully in office policy which is a little bit like taboo but um actually i have found it amazing because having worked remotely i really missed the connection of people the relationships that you build and it's just so much more interesting to learn about other people and like just build those friendships and you just become so much more cohesive as a team work so much better as a team are there any specific benefits that you've enjoyed going back into a a real world and in office environment having been remote for so long honestly I think my mental health has improved really significantly oh wow I think having I'm I'm quite an extrovert anyway so being close to people and building those relationships at work has always been quite a fundamental part of like why I enjoy jobs you know being a recruiter you're quite social you know um and also I study people at work so I think um it's just really really interesting to um yeah that that's the experience I've had because I was slightly dubious about going in full-time you know a lot of people like say that hybrid is the best option nowadays because it gives a little bit more flexibility and I think it also does for like working mums as well as an example and or working fathers who need to collect children from school and it just gives that a little bit more flexibility so there's a whole debate we could have around that but I'm not sure yeah not here for that necessarily um but no really interesting to hear your perspective and in particular how much that's helped you mental and like mentally with your mental health which is amazing I want to just connect back what you're talking about here around um your enjoyment of being back in the office the what was it called the self-determination theory of like feeling connected related and capable all this great stuff I want to just kind of connect that back to the opening answer around common reasons for people leaving their jobs so not getting along with your boss but pay was something else that you mentioned here as well yeah so how do you reconcile like how important is the pay factor in the mixed here because so there's also another theory tell me I could draw love it I mean class taking notes it's all around making sure that you have the support um you know the fundamental support i.e the pay like feedback support around that um and making sure that you have the resources to be able to do your job so pay really comes into that that resource bucket exactly so you need that to have you know you can't do a job if you can't feed yourself if you don't have a good place to live so the fundamental human needs really come into making sure that people on a fundamental level can actually then thrive at work because without that how are you gonna you're just gonna be worrying constantly stressed about how to survive so and that argument is like easy to understand but i feel like it's one of those things which is like easier said than done and especially for you know us two as well we've been on both sides of the fence we've both been business owners we've both been employees so doing that as an employer isn't as straightforward how can employers overcome that tension point between making sure their employees are connected they're well paid etc etc but also they've got to look at their profit margins the bottom line their opex etc etc well I think it's the constant struggle you know I think there's also new legislation coming out in the EU around pay transparency so from you know well that will immediately mean that there's a lot more things on the table and I think it will be a real benefit for things like equity in you know pay and everything like that um so i think that that will really support with well employees but it'll be difficult for employers and i think you'll see a lot of churn um so i mean it's just a constant i'm trying to think of a solution for them but ultimately it's going to be around like having good communication um and making sure that they can cover their costs and i think that in itself will cause a wave of change within organizations yeah for the good for for employees but for yeah for employers i mean they just got to step up and make sure they're paying everyone fairly what can you say to the you know these companies that aren't paying their employees enough but then in the same breath are reporting like record-breaking profits and especially if they have got external investors to answer to and especially that kind of outsized return vc model that can be you know that aggressive growth at all costs what's your kind of take on that I mean they should just pay better I mean like honestly it just makes me are you anti VC then well no not necessarily I think that there is a place for VC 100 % but and I worked fundamentally well we're VC backed companies so I understand the struggles and the the waves of funding that everyone goes through and things like that and I understand the pressures that that comes with with being a founder but you know my business wasn't VC backed but ultimately I think it's yeah it's just gonna be I don't know I think at the end of the day also it's a wall for talent you know if you're gonna if you're one of the best people you've got to pay for the best people and it is just you know one of the old oldest tricks in the books that you really do need to pay people appropriately and that's just my stand on it what do you think gets in the way of that for some employers obviously budget but um I also think that people don't understand the value of the ROI of employees you know like you could get a really excellent employee if you just pay them a little bit more than someone you know who's a bit subpar but then the amount of ROI that you could get on that individual could be astronomical you know they could open up a door like let's say an example of a salesperson like an enterprise sales um rep let's say you get someone who can open up a door into like a three billion dollar um account happy days right you know paid for itself 100 and and you're paying them probably 120k base plus double ote well if they exceed their targets more like you know your profit margin on that is amazing so i can imagine there's still a fear factor potentially for some employers when like that isn't a guarantee when it is kind of like okay like they say they are well connected and they've got a little black book again in the sales function but it's still a gamble isn't it so is that kind of is that a drawback for some employers I think this is a constant thing that I'd always come up against um and it comes down to a robust recruitment process I think at the end of the day um making sure that you have someone who is proven is always going to help um sorry graduates out there but um so yeah making sure that you have um a structured interview process making sure that you have competency-based interviews where you can draw upon past experiences um as opposed to like promises exactly that may or may not be met exactly you want to hire people who are proven rather than that they're not that makes sense so and you as a bootstrapped founder did you ever have any struggles with hiring talent yourself not being able to afford that quality that you wanted and how did you overcome some of those challenges that is a great question um I I think to be honest I was really like I did speak my truth in terms of you know paying people appropriately I wanted to pay even though I couldn't necessarily afford it I knew that if I had a really good person then they would pay for themselves you know in miles and so therefore yes I did um hire people slightly above market rate and I had a very competitive commission structure as well nice and that was to make sure that I got the best talent and that they stayed ultimately and it still worked for you too so it's a win-win yeah set up and it was great I think yes you always get some people who don't necessarily perform as well but they were probably those hires that I made they're a little bit junior so it is harder to assess um based on that experience but I actually it came down to where I maybe made missed hires it came down to making sure that I had someone in a seat doing the job and I sacrificed probably on quality and I probably should have waited a little bit longer to find the right person that whole hire slow fire fast mentality right it's so true but it's just that again one of those other like truisms that's so much easier said than done when you're in the situation right and you're just like I could really do with another pair of hands but actually holding on and waiting out for the better fit is is much better in the long run what else can employers do to attract top quality talent beyond simply the salary offer that is a great question um I think perks like you know everyone laughs about like fruit beanbags yeah beanbags like ping pong tables that's like you know that really doesn't actually make um that much of an impact ultimately what you really need is opportunities for progression um so you know having lots of training development leadership development programs things like that making sure that there's good flexible working practices um enabling people to thrive at work just fundamentally like making sure people have good well-being um and that is honestly i think just fundamentally what it comes down to how can leaders model a behavior that cultivates that kind of workplace culture that's needed to give employees that sense of like security and know that well-being is a priority I think instilling a culture of psychological safety so like making sure that people can feel comfortable enough to communicate how they feel is really really important and so making sure that people are understand understand you know what people's values are as well so for example if someone needs to take time off to go and take care of a family member or something like that that's not going to get penalized against them to make sure that they feel safe enough to do that and that the rest of the team will cover them so it's all about like making sure that you work in you know in a nice flow together you understand each other um and you know at bailey and french we do a whole like we have whole programs around designing this to make sure that people feel psychologically safe to be able to thrive at work and that they can come to work be authentic um with with boundaries obviously yeah um but then also making sure that they have that connectedness to feel that they can make mistakes you know work and and those kind of things to enable people to then have control and autonomy throughout what happens when that goes too far so like that all sounds amazing and lovely and people who have got their heart in the right place and like good intentions but unfortunately not everyone does for whatever reason so the very rare instances where okay fine someone needs to take time off for something what happens if they kind of take that too far and you kind of mentioning just there as an example like the other team members coming in to cover that can sometimes create a strain as well right and then a sense of perhaps unfairness with the others so you kind of laughed when I first started with this question right so I'm sure you've got some stories what can you speak to on on that point quick one so sorry it interrupts I'm sure that you are on the edge of your seat listening to this interview at least I hope so I'm so aware of all the other podcasts that are already out there so the fact that you've decided to tune in and listen to this one is not lost on me if you can just go that one step further and hit that follow or subscribe button doesn't cost a thing it takes two seconds now is your chance to do that it means so much really appreciate your support thank you so much now let's get back to the interview what happens when that goes too far so like that all sounds amazing and lovely and people who have got their heart in the right place and like good intentions but unfortunately not everyone does for whatever reason so the very rare instances where okay fine someone needs to take time off for something what happens if they kind of take that too far and you kind of mentioning just there as an example like the other team members coming into cover that can sometimes create a strain as well right and a sense of perhaps unfairness with the others so you kind of laugh when I first started with this question right so I'm sure you've got some stories what can you speak to on on that point um well I think it comes down to probably policies to be quite frank yeah making sure that there are really robust policies and there's a framework so that people know the boundaries that they can work within to be honest just quite quite simply HR policy um and I you know even when I started my organization I made sure that I had really explicit policies available on our notion to make sure that everyone knew what the boundaries were yeah and when it's both ways doesn't it yeah 100 and so having them readily available yeah really helps and you know being able to for people to refer to them yeah amazing so you've mentioned your day job now is at bailey and french which sounds amazing so tell us a little bit more about what bailey french is what do you do i know you've got some incredible clients that you work with and i'd love to hear about how that kind of connects with your master's degree at the moment as well so tell us about Bailey and French first yeah absolutely so Bailey and French are an organizational psychology consultancy and we're all focused around humanizing the world of work so we're focused on like positive psychology so it's really understanding what your strengths are to enable to flourish at work so a lot of our work is kind of has that interwoven within it so we do lots of programs around like making sure that employees are engaged at work as I said before leadership development programs we do team effectiveness we do um like programs around well-being um and also we do lots of coaching as well so we have um 130 psychologists work working in over 150 countries um and we work with companies like the bbc ocado allianz like spec savers that there are so many massive companies that we work with in the private sector but we also work with the public sector as well so um all of the civil service so it's incredible i appreciate you've only been with the business for i believe like under a year right it hasn't been like a huge amount of time but what crosses my mind is like the fluctuation i can imagine that a business like this has been through given how much the world has changed in recent years is like i definitely believe there is more of a need for this sort of organization and and helping to train leaders to get the best out of their people are there any challenges that you guys are coming up against now given the sort of leadership that we've got in place at the moment i.e the oval office look i think it is definitely a challenge but i love a challenge yeah it comes down to the actual impact that it has on your organization so are you having really high attrition are you having um like lots of grievances at work all of these things we mitigate as a proactive response rather than reactively dealing with you know lawsuits or whatever so we are there to buffer all of those issues and also it comes down to a you know literally a monetary thing as well if you have someone who's productive at work they're going to be way more cost effective to you and they're going to bring in far more revenue overall versus and it's so important on a lean team as well you want those people to be happy at work rather than stretched so it's about making sure that you create the environment that people are unable to thrive are there any organizations that like don't get it yeah and do you try and like educate them persuade or you literally just kind of like we're dealing with the people who do get it and we'll see you at the finish line kind of thing yeah i think we deal with a lot of larger organizations because they do understand the impact that has on profits ultimately so because of that we do deal with a lot of large organizations but we also deal with a lot smaller who really do value that and I think it is about educating people you know this is a great platform to be able to demonstrate how we can really help organizations and yes sometimes people do think it's like a nice to have yeah exactly but actually your people are the blood of your business and your organization so if they aren't happy and you haven't got the best people working for you then you're not gonna you're not gonna scale you're not gonna reach your business objectives and I think that's what it comes down to so yeah get Bailey and French on board and we'll help we'll sort out all your problems love that love that how much overlap is there with your masters at the moment and I appreciate that that's also still in progress you're not graduated just yet but with what you're currently learning how much of that are you getting to apply in your day job at the moment oh every day um I think what's really underpinned what I'm doing at Bailey and French is that everything we do is so evidence-based so there is you know we really draw upon the most recent research in order to implement that in the workplaces and the organizations that we work with um and I even said that to my CEO the other day and said you know this is we're so on the money and on point with all the latest stuff that um you know we do have the most innovative products out there to really help people thrive at work so it's pretty exciting to be part of them yeah amazing i can tell that you are doing so well and really flourishing in what you're doing as well now um what we talked a little bit before about kind of talent attraction so beyond paying for that quality but also other ways that you can you can get the best people to join how about once they are actually in you mentioned attrition as well can you give any practical tips that leaders can take away to help kind of increase that engagement to make sure that people not only stick around but like are doing their best at work um yeah I think it kind of touches a little bit on what I mentioned before so um it's about making sure that you have a psychological safe environment um making sure that you have um like you set clear expectations around the purpose of the organization um even down to um providing support around you know development practices um and incentives will also help you know i think there's a lot of if you've got bonuses are you know attributed to performance and that is also a really good performance indicator that you've got are motivated by um you know it's shown time and time again otherwise i wouldn't be there um in the world and um i think just making sure that they create a culture of understanding that resting is good you know like even down to things like you know when you go on holiday take some time out and actually switch off um and making sure that you have good working hours and things like that but i think um this all seems really basic but honestly so many companies just completely over when they get into the but that also comes down to policies as well making sure that you know you do adhere to them yeah um internally as well um and what about like different personality types different job functions so you mentioned before using example of like a salesperson with like a little black book and even now like bonuses and you mentioned with your business as well you had a commission structure so like that all does kind of fall more into that kind of business development maybe a bit more sort of customer success functions but what about other functions and those other sort of personalities that they tend to attract because obviously we're not all the same so what i would definitely draw up on here is all around like leaning into your strengths yeah and so as a classic example is um something called job crafting so within your particular role right now think about all the strengths that things that bring you energy so where you really feel like you can get into a state of flow you're really productive you don't know where the time's gone and you're just like oh that was great i'm really happy with that think about all the things that you um do to reach that state of flow um and then essentially if you can try and find someone else in your team to like match what you are lacking in so you can then all kind of be all working in a state of flow and that you're way more productive in that way so that's like something called job crafting and um that's something i really recommend so just identifying ways that could make you more productive um as a more of a holistic thing um and that we run workshops on that as well nice are there any practical tips either like at interview stage or assessments that founders in particular you know listening to this show the more entrepreneurial audience can they do anything at those early stages to help assess like what sort of personality and like how how can i craft this team where everyone's in flow and balancing each other out nicely um well i think a lot of people like to draw upon psychometric assessments as as an example um what's your take on those well love it there is a lot of bias sadly interesting and it's actually been shown that people from ethnic minorities actually overall perform worse on psychometric assessments so in the spirit of diversity and inclusion it's not the best form of assessing people how come there are reasons around it like um people generally from ethnic minority backgrounds might have not been exposed to them as early on like in their educational career um and also i think there's just a societal um issues just around like lack of representation of people who even reach the psychometric testing stage um for certain industries and jobs that um that there's just a bit of a trend on that and i imagine like who the psychometric assessments have also been created by like the creators of those which is another bias in the system 100 so they're assessing it based on um yeah just one demographic essentially and they try to validate them as much as possible these days and they do have a place but um i think you can definitely use them but you need to use them in conjunction with structured interviews so that is the most validated way of assessment so i.e following the same questions for each person that you interview following competency-based frameworks making sure that you have a scorecard to assess who is you know like how well that their responses are based on like a one to five criteria and you write down those criteria for each of the questions so having quite a robust structure is really critical also having work samples so i you know having a sample of work that you would be doing in that job and then assessing them based on that as well is probably the most robust recruitment process you can have okay interesting does that assess everything though because i feel like there are some who maybe like have got that potential maybe they don't interview as well you know you hear these cases of like people who are fantastic and they smash the interview and then actually they get in and it's a very different story and vice versa um you've got culture fit you've got all these other things that like come out of the woodwork that don't get captured by this like robust scoring process so what can employers do with that um i think well to capture culture it's like well what is your culture it's not just like like stickies on the wall or what have you yeah um I think um what else can we I guess emotional intelligence like comes into play here a lot of just kind of like vibes or does that play even more into biases 100 % yeah yeah exactly and I think that's what you're trying to eliminate um so I think with you know I think that's honestly the most robust structure you can go with um and then you know there are things like you know meet the team and like things like that but then that also comes that bias comes into play because it's like you know it's a likability factor yeah a lot of versus like actually how well can they do the job and obviously you want your team to get along and have um you know good energy together and be able to work well together but still the bias does come into play there i guess that's really what i'm getting at is that tension and especially for startups again with our listeners in mind is like like this whole thing around like culture fit how well do they get on with the team but then to your point it's like well that's you're measuring the likability factor and you've all got your biases so is there is that just something that people just need to be conscious of and just look out for in that process i think you can ask questions around you know values in the interview process so for example i i did some work with a company called cargo one and one of their question one of their values was radical candor and also um you know what can you tell me about the times that you have um failed which i think is a fantastic question um but it really identifies how people approach the failure and what their mindset is do they have a growth mindset and understand that they've learned from the process um so i think that's a killer question to ask in terms of like resilience um especially for startups because they really you need that you need to be able to be adaptable to change so asking questions around you know things like you know can you give me an example where something's changed really quickly in your organization what happened and how did you deal with it yeah i love that i love those sort that sort of that level of specificity those specific kind of tips for listeners to kind of really take away and bear in mind if they are interviewing at the moment what's your take on those like kind of like i don't know how to phrase this like those gamified interview tricks that certain leaders have so for example there's a famous I think like Charlie Munger he had this thing where if the final like candidates he'd take them out for lunch and like the thing he's actually looking out for is like how they treat the waiter and one particular thing I think it might be somebody else I'm not sure if I've got this exactly right but like if they sort their food first before they've tasted did it like what's your take on that on those sorts of judgments playing those sorts of games those fun tests that people do or not so fun I mean look people like to understand I think they're assessing skills that will come to play in a workplace setting so in a way I'm quite here for it and also people also forget that you really need to get the buy-in from the candidates too so you need to sell the opportunity so if you're taking them out for lunch you're giving them time to speak especially if you're a ceo you're giving them that time to like really understand ask questions and build that rapport with that individual so that they will be like okay i get a job offer from this person yeah i love them let's do it it's an opportunity for you to sell as the employer as well yeah so even though some biases might come into play i think it's a fantastic way to um get involved in the group yeah good i like that take because i kind of love those things as well um it can be a bit unfair i'm kind of like if you don't know the rules of the game like you're not really setting that up for for the fairest kind of assessment here but i think i don't know i don't even know how true they are right they're like urban urban legends because another one that's just come to mind as well is brian chesky apparently i think also in the early days he would ask the final candidates um what they would what they would do if they um if they like won the lottery or if they found out they only had like a year to live like those sorts of weird questions and that was his very extreme way of assessing like how bought in they were to the airbnb mission and of course nine out of ten if not more than that maybe 99 out of 100 were like i'm gonna go and sip on margaritas on a beach somewhere like obviously it's like right you're out you clearly don't care enough yeah I don't think that's fair that's way too far no but apparently he did get told off by his colleagues and investors for doing that good yeah but he was like no I need people who were like brought into the mission it was a very different time yeah I think that questions like that hopefully I mean they still happen all the time I've had interview processes where people have been interviewed after 15 minutes and they get the job which isn't really against other candidates.

32:45But, you know, at the end of the day, sometimes when it comes down to it, speed is critical for hires. And even when you're doing contract hiring as well, like, you know, like, have you done this job before? Cool, great, you can come and just do it. Are there any wild stories that you've come across in your time? Obviously, no need to name names, but like...

33:03I had an interview happen on a swing before. As in with you? So my client had, did a video call, but they took the call on their phone and they were just on a swing, swinging. So that was quite an interesting one. But, you know, you get the standard stories of like, oh, you know, someone's died so you can't turn up the interview. But that's all just standard stuff. Oh. Yeah, that used to happen all the time. So I hope. Used to happen all the time. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. People use family members dying not to turn up to interviews all the time. Oh. Yeah. As an excuse to not turn up to the interview, to not start their jobs.

33:41Oh. Yeah, the amount of people that... Suddenly drop down to it. Yeah. That's hilarious. Any other red flags that employees should look out for in that interview process? Yeah. Levels of engagement throughout the interview process. So I think one of the key indicators that I've learned over the years is if someone isn't responding to you within a timely manner, i.e. within a day. It's already a red flag. A real red flag. You want to know that they're really interested in you as an employer. And also you want the excitement there. You know, you want them to be like, oh, this is a great opportunity.

34:16Yes. If someone just doesn't like take three working days to respond to you. That's a huge red flag. And honestly, I have recommended to clients in the past, you know, we should pull that candidate based on the level of engagement. and I know that might not seem fair and I know lots of people will be gasping and horror potentially but if you're not showing that you're interested then especially at the start right when you are supposed to be in that like I guess more honeymoon period like if you're not that excited at the start then how well is it going to go from here do you have any other like organizational psychology insights you want to share before we move on I'm just fascinated in like this masters that you're doing is there anything I haven't already touched on that you'd like to share bear with me yeah yeah please check your notes I want I want you to make sure that we share what's on your notes here what have I got here um I think we covered most things you know

35:15I think some of the key things that I've learned about that I love are just understanding myself better at work um understanding what's motivated me or hasn't like the environments I've been in that haven't enabled me to thrive um like let's pull up let's draw upon the you know connectedness piece again yeah you know being a remote worker I know I've had friends who have become really depressed as a result of working remotely and if they just change their environment and then had some built those relationships again in person even if it's a hybrid once a week it can really really significantly impact people's mental health and their engagement at work and make them far more productive and help with their well-being there's just so much within it so i think um from a remote worker standpoint that so many startup scale-ups work remotely as a cost saving benefit um but you really need to understand about the impact that it's having on your staff even if they're not talking about it with you um i think having honest conversations has also been a real key thing that has come out of it so creating environments where people have the space to speak um about how they're feeling at work and just generally um we i mean even at bailey and french we have honest conversation we have conversation mats which are guided conversations around things like well-being like team team flows understanding team effectiveness um around performance motivation but they really enable people to have a real deeper conversation about how they're feeling at work and then make practical tips in order to um make changes yeah or have extra skill development that they need and actually solve the issue yeah I was going to ask you as well about your own experience especially when you're talking about flow and like leaning into your strengths so what are some of yours and when are you in flow I this is a really good question I think some of my strengths are like communicating with people makes sense from a recruiter I know I just really enjoy being around people and just uncovering who they are and I think that's probably one reason why I've ended up becoming a psychologist as well um and I really just get into flow when I and I get I get a lot of energy from other people as a you know classic extrovert I guess um so I think that's probably one of my key strengths um when you mention about really understanding like who people are given you're not that much of a fan of those like psychometric assessments what do you use any sort of like framework at all in that case then like star signs astrology I don't know like how do you how are you like oh okay that makes sense because of xyz like um I guess from my experience I just draw upon that um I mean in a do you mean in a workplace setting or like yeah I guess just yeah just the the human right like how like I guess is it fair to like categorize them in that sort of way yeah or like your your process of like figuring people out i think there is some really interesting work out there so you can think about the people often refer to colors yeah you like insight so you've got like red blue yellow and green yeah and there's attributes across those different colors and then it puts people in a box but then people think that they can't be one or the other and therefore people will also you there's also research out there that people will approach you let's say if you've got a color on your desk because a lot of people organizations have this um and then they feel like they can't approach you if you've got a red brick on your desk so like i.e you're more entrepreneurial or but people look at the negative connotation sometimes is that and that's what i don't really like appreciate because it doesn't give a holistic view of yeah that person is and it really puts them in a box but then there are other um things like luminous spark as an example who do assessments of like 50 or so questions to really understand what your personality type is yeah and they have like a splash on a sheet which kind of demonstrates where you really fall into in terms of your different characteristics yeah and I find it really helpful because there's also one thing as well that and they kind of demonstrates how you work under pressure and I think is really important so it's really helps people become more self-aware around like how they're approaching situations and I do think there's a lot of value in that even though I have said you know psychometrics have lots of bias but at the same time there is a place for them um so I think things like that are really interesting actually yeah I love the sound of that and I think what makes a lot of sense to me on that is it it seems to allow more space for that nuance and it's more kind of like rank a bit more highly here a bit more low here as opposed to that real like rigid like categorization like you're red you're yellow you're this you're that where of course we are so much more complex and I mean it's also like you know timing is a factor as well right not only how different of a person you might be from one year to the next but even just like like you know within a day within a week I mean as women as well right like we've got our cycles there's all these other things that like sometimes I'm not feeling as resilient as others so it's like is a psychometric assessment gonna answer that for me and even on cognitive ability testing um you can do a test one year and then a few years later you score much higher right um and that's down to neuroplasticity so like you know how your brain actually does develop and it is there is lots of evidence to show that your brain does develop over time and you can become more intelligent what that does really highlight for me actually I've never really realized is the risk of those psychometric assessments is actually like how much we can internalize that identity and how actually that can hold back some people because they're like no I'm this no I'm that whether you are an MBTI ENFJ yellow brown like Capricorn you know and it's kind of like I get what you're saying because it's like on the one hand it can help you to better understand who you are and your strengths and where you thrive but on the other it can also create those limitations even just just for yourself as an individual um are you familiar with the uh the gallop clifton strengths assessment um the strengths finder i think they renamed it is it i know of strength scope oh okay similar yeah probably i'm a huge fan of that i love that i i'm guessing it's kind of similar right where like it assesses your natural strengths your abilities what's your take on that are you a fan totally because all of our work is focused very much around strengths and um you know the positive psychology um ethos is all around understanding what your strengths are so then you can flourish yeah exactly um so if you can identify them like through a you know those psychometric kind of tests and that's that's awesome but um you know it's also really good to just have general awareness of what they are um so then you can be happier and flourish and be more productive yeah yeah yeah exactly love it all makes sense all right let's shift gears here for a sec let's go over to your previous chapter so you set up you were a recruiter for many years you set up your own business called autus what led to you ultimately deciding to end that chapter well tell us about what autus was first and that story yeah absolutely well um autus i started in the midst of the pandemic you know sat at home thinking I could just give this a go and try out running a recruitment agency I'd done it for like I don't know by that point probably 10 years or so working and I worked in Australia I'd worked in Canada so I'm kind of somebody that likes to have like have a bit of a challenge and change my environment um so I thought let's give it a go and um yeah grew the team out we basically well we basically did tech sales hiring and get well go-to-market hiring for VC back tech startups all across Europe, US and Singapore.

43:18We grew out to a team of about eight, the biggest headcount. We did like half a million in our first year of turnover. So we did pretty well. But then honestly, so much hit the fan post-pandemic around the, well, the desire, and I guess for recruitment services, because so many companies were doing, started to go into layoffs. so many companies um vcs were pulling out funding um and even down to silicon bank valley um silicon valley bank yeah going under um really impacted a lot of the businesses that i worked with and so um we i just had to unfortunately get rid of some of my staff because which was really really difficult for me to do i was you know in my early 30s i was devastated that i'd have to let my team go and it was really I felt like a failure and I think a lot of people can probably resonate with that yeah for sure um and so I tried to rebuild and um I rehired like three or four of my my staff I had let go oh wow which is awesome but then ultimately like the economic climate was just not in working in our favor after like such a high um so then I just decided to reduce the head count again sadly and I think I was just kind of questioning you know if I really loved it anymore I'd hit burnout without a doubt um I just completely loved lost the love of what I was doing yeah and so I wanted to try and understand what went wrong um why my motivation completely crashed and burned for it I just didn't care anymore about it I would try and desperately to like push myself every day but it was feel like felt like walking through mud yeah um and so So I just kind of discovered the world of organizational psychology and wanted to understand why I felt that way.

45:10And I don't want any other people to feel that way, too. So, you know, going through the study now really helps people have the best workplace practices to not let that happen to other people. So interesting. And this must be almost therapeutic for yourself as well. Right. Like quite cathartic, almost as part of that recovery is being that business owner. you've been through the ringer and so going back into like education I can imagine that sort of feeling a bit more kind of like okay safer territory we know what we're doing like completely opposite to like being your own boss running your own business but actually leveraging those new learnings to better understand what you went through it sounds like with your journey and we'll dive a bit more into that as well if you don't mind but it's just going back to your journey with autos it sounds like you got off to like an amazing start like hitting half a million your first year is phenomenal so congratulations and then it feels or it seems as though it was much more of a struggle from there which is usually the inverse in these stories right usually it's that zero to one is the hardest is that correct and like what can you speak to on that sort of the highs and lows in your journey there there are so many highs and lows in that journey um is that a correct interpretation of that sort of like was it it was yeah a great start and then challenge from there it was a slow start within the first sort of six months but then we really like went amazing off can you attribute that to anything in particular that like breakthrough that was probably down to confidence you know I was sat at home alone in the pandemic wasn't able to see anybody and didn't have any feedback from anyone reassuring me that what I was doing was right because I was living by myself as well um I think honestly the mini wins were just giving me that extra bit of confidence nice I got a big project with Bolt um and we did quite a lot of hiring for them so having a great brand within our first month of opening the doors amazing really set us off for something really cool um and then we just kind of built yeah I just kind of got into flow nice you know from there I just got a bit um got more motivation decided to hire a third person within six months probably or maybe eight months um and yeah they were amazing as well wow they were like hiring the right people really early on really helped me to ensure that we reach that and i can imagine at that point as well like practically speaking you would have had like some case studies under your belt got a bit of marketing been to quite a few events like so um to all of that coalescing confidence building hiring the right person and there's other kind of wins in your in your wings which sounds amazing so what happened from there what was kind of then when did we go to our next sort of low Oh, a classic one is probably when I worked with a seed funded like restaurant tech company, similar to like an Uber Eats kind of thing, but also payments related.

48:07They were hiring like crazy. So we did 20 hires for them in two months. Wow. And this was to kind of get their feet on the ground so they could set themselves up to go for a Series A funding round. they unfortunately didn't secure the series a and had massively overspent their seed funding round so they owed us pretty well we had five people due to start and we had 20 people like overall due we were due loads of loads of invoices um anyway they owed us like 150 grand no and that is a chunk for this size of your business as well yeah and that's a good percentage of your annual revenue right there yeah fuck so then I had to call a lawyer and uh try to understand how I could mitigate this and get all the money because my terms were tight yeah so key learnings from this were like get a really good lawyer aboard and also um make sure that you've yeah you yeah that was a whole thing yeah yeah what was the upshot of that were you able to get back the money I managed to negotiate with the ceo um through a letter for action to make sure that i got paid yeah and thankfully i managed to negotiate pretty much full payment good um but that like you know at 30 early 30s was just like such a blow it was such a blow and not only that all of my team had worked so so hard yeah i'm getting those 20 hires over the life demotivating exactly so then i then had to try and re-engage my my staff to make sure that they were all gonna get paid you know even though the cash flow was a real issue yeah um and to keep them engaged with their jobs yeah and so we did actually manage to like do fairly well in the couple of quarters after that to be honest because but my my like top performer she really was like this is really intense really took a hit yeah really took a hit on her and like those kinds of things happen in business and she was really young and like you know those things are really going to affect your motivation at the end of the day because you think that you failed yeah and actually it's got nothing to do with you and it's so demotivating yeah to think that you've saved all those people and then claudia been there done that definitely got more of those stories um what i want to connect that to actually is the risk tolerance piece because this was something i learned i think running your own business i think you said this as well with autist with your company like it teaches you so much about yourself as well and um obviously like you know by default of being a business owner you've already kind of taken kind of a bigger risk than kind of the average person like you've taken that leap anyway but I think within the entrepreneurial like spectrum of risk tolerance one of the things I learned about myself was actually I don't think I took enough risk but then you have those blows and as I kind of alluded to I had a few of those situations as well and you mentioning with your team is like well good bloody job I wasn't so risk aggressive like these guys I'm blown all this cash that we don't actually have because I'm able to now weather that storm right very practically and like directly speaking I've got enough of a financial buffer to keep paying my team and keep the promises that I've made them did that ever come up for you in terms of that risk tolerance specifically and like specifically with your finances did you ever feel like oh maybe we should be investing more in our marketing or yeah like actually no we've got enough of a buffer so I can keep paying my team I'd love to just get your take on all that that's a really good question I think at that point I probably did become far more risk averse because yeah um I you know cash flow is king exactly today and so I really pulled back and actually I think without probably realizing it I probably lost a little bit of confidence around like taking those risks um I was very much kind of like I really enjoyed the element of being an entrepreneur where I could like test things and play with things see what worked see what didn't and I think I probably stopped doing that as much uh once bitten twice so yeah like investing in some new technology or hiring somebody or you know working with a really cool marketing like marketer on a freelance basis yeah come in and do some like really cool things to shake things up yeah on like you know a project basis I probably didn't do that as much yeah not your confidence doesn't it Claudia I 1000 % relate totally totally relate this is where we've got so many parallels in our story so coming to that so you've gone through those blows ultimately a few years later you know the market has turned you're so demotivated I'd love to now kind of at this point in the story sort of talk about your reflections on entrepreneurship versus employment like now you have been your own boss now you've had your own company we touched a little bit before we started recording here around how glamorized entrepreneurship still is and this is kind of part of the show as well like I know this is for entrepreneurs and I really want to provide both inspiration and education to my entrepreneurial listeners but there is that element you know it's called strategy and tragedy because it isn't always all it's cracked up to be so I'd love to also just get your take on on that whole piece of over glamorized entrepreneurship versus employment now that you're kind of like on the other side of being your own boss and back to being an employee again um well I was constantly anxious yeah being an entrepreneur yeah but I really preach yeah I thrive off chaos and I think that I've really learned like you said like I learned so much about myself it's the steepest learning curve you could ever have yeah um I learned that having a coach was like fun like just amazing same um yeah having someone to check in with every week yeah it's amazing to like keep you on track and make sure the sense check you make sure you're not going crazy like have just a little bit of a debrief or just rant too um and help you get perspective as well sometimes we lose that like when we're so close to it can't see the wood for the trees we haven't slept enough and you get some bad news and you get a shitty email from a client and you're just like what the fuck yeah so even someone just say stop and just breathe exactly yeah is amazing and I I loved it I did love it and it really kind of got me going in the morning and I loved I loved my team I just really was like took them under my wing and I really wanted them to be so happy and really enjoy where they're working because you know we work so many days a week that you want to create an environment where people really like love it um and so I did really enjoy it but it was really tough and I don't think unless people have been an entrepreneur themselves they have no idea yeah you know yeah um like I said like going through the legal battles and like letting my team go and um and that's all part of like what is going to happen if you run a business for long enough like you're going to have all these things that come in the way but I think it's about building your resilience and I think you build natural resilience through going through so much yeah um and so that's probably put me in a position now moving forward where I'm probably quite a resilient person um although it was very it was difficult at the time and like I've I've just learned so much going through this whole process and I'm really enjoying working for someone again because I love working around like like-minded people people who I can share um like ideas with i think that's really what it comes down to um if i would do ever do it again i'd probably get a co-founder yeah for a few yeah yeah really match your strengths and really you know combine it because there are definite things where i have major like like weaknesses yeah and i feel like you know if you get people who can just compliment what you do that's brilliant and that's why i'm really enjoying working for someone again and also i don't have to worry about cash flow right now i have that in the back of my mind and it probably makes me quite a good employee because I'm really conscious of the impact of everything exactly but you're in business before yeah are you are you so much more grateful now for those sorts of things as an employee as you had I am probably far less bitchy so much more grateful so much more grateful and um yeah I just really appreciate all the struggles that people go through like I think my CEO sometimes is just like you'll understand and I'm like I do so I'm like take your time do what you need to do like if you need me I'm here kind of thing you know um yeah because it's a struggle running your business what is your perspective on that kind of glamorization of entrepreneurship and like any potential like shame I'm doing air quotes people can't see me because it was obviously ridiculous but that's it is there anything on that that you were maybe maybe not so much now because I feel like you're in a much better place but like maybe at the time of taking that decision to step away from the business and close that chapter like was there any did you have to battle any sort of like in a shame or guilt or what people think or like now that I'm like leaving that entrepreneurship it's funny that you say that I had someone who I was looking to kind of merge more businesses with and she has come to me recently and said I don't want to do this anymore what did you go through she felt like she was a failure and honestly I think I'd already grieved and felt like a failure before you grieved have you seen succession i had yeah okay free grieved it and so therefore there wasn't that much shame and i didn't really care i'm like i'm in control of my own narrative yeah if people were looking at me online being like oh her business is shut down all what went wrong there i don't care good i'm like i like you don't know what i've gone through of course and also it's like i'm in a much better place now than i was at the end of my business because i've gone through a whole journey of learning and I think I can only take everything that I've learned as like a real positive into the future because yeah so what did you say to your friend who was grappling with that who was like I want to throw in the towel I just said you've done so well not many people would ever take the risk that you've taken and even got this far you are so courageous to do to do this and I was like put that shame in the bin because you are a boss and nah I'm not having it she was like okay good advice good advice I think I genuinely I really do genuinely believe that I mean we know that it is it is worse but I honestly do think there should be more shame I shouldn't say it that way but like I do think it is worse when people go so far the other way that they are flogging a dead horse and when there is that stubbornness to keep I mean I don't know so much with I think like our B2B service businesses it's slightly different if you've got that like tech that products you're trying to get that product market fit you're trying to get investment for it like obviously very different sort of business model I think maybe more so with that sort of thing where like the writing's on the wall there is no validation there are no positive indicators here we are so much better off either parking this pivoting maybe coming back to it another the time when the market has shifted so I genuinely do believe that knowing when to quit like knowing when to throw in the towel and I don't want to be using that sort of language right but just knowing that like this is it is so much more kind of noble than just kind of like keep beat like yeah flogging the dead horse for what exactly and so many people end up putting themselves into debt like yeah personal in order to fund the business yeah I think you just need to know and cut it before it gets that point or even just look at like where you can chop up the business and get pieces of it acquired you know yeah that's a good way of just looking at it as well think about what assets you have yeah and the values that you have within the organization whether it's something from that whatever it is um to make sure that it doesn't all just go down yeah and i think a really like to clarify nuance in this is there is definitely that argument for resilience and risk tolerance that we've touched on and so when you say about okay people like maybe remortgaging their homes putting themselves into personal debt it's like okay like I definitely know some entrepreneurs who've got the stomach for that and maybe that has been a prerequisite for success because it's like you know he or she who dares wins kind of thing right and you've kind of like okay you've taken that amount of risk but I think the the real kind of like fine line to clarify here is is like the validation and the indicators that you've got that separate the stubbornness so like you may well believe that there's something here and I appreciate that like passion and excitement to go for it but if no one else agrees with you like that's that's where you draw the line final traditional closing question on this show one tragedy that's taught you an unforgettable lesson Claudia I think it has to come back to the lawsuit that I went to oh really yeah um I think that you know losing a potential 150 grand overnight and not being able to pay my staff was just like a real tragedy um but it taught me so much it taught me how to engage with a lawyer it taught me how to re-engage my staff after a tragedy like that yeah it also taught me that I need to have lots of cash flow in the bank um and it gave me resilience to know that if I ever go through something like that again I've got it covered yeah so well done you any final words of wisdom you might want to leave with our guests before we wrap anything I haven't already asked you I think entrepreneurship in general is a wild ride and it's a roller coaster and you've got to hold on um I think everyone should do it once yeah I think everyone should get a summer job in a bar once i would like if i were the queen of the world i i would make it almost like the military service like i'd make it compulsory to like work in hospitality for like a summer and i might entertain the idea of everyone trying entrepreneurship once as well to your point yeah no i think um maybe it's not for everyone do you know what i mean but um but give it a shot i think it just teaches you so much about yourself and um what have you got to lose i mean probably we only live once YOLO exactly only live once and I'm very much of that attitude that you just got to grab life by the balls and just go for it love it amazing alright well good note to end this on Claudia thank you so much for coming on the show appreciate you sharing your wisdom your stories I really hope the listeners have taken something away from this if you have please hit that subscribe or follow button if you haven't already thank you so much for listening thank you for joining really hope you've enjoyed this and hopefully see you next time

1:02:55Bye.