420: The Hidden Force Pulling Your Team Apart (and How to Reverse It) with Matt Poepsel

0:00Matt Poepsel: Here's an uncomfortable truth. Your team isn't falling apart because something went wrong. It's falling apart because that's what teams do by default. Left alone, every human system drifts towards this connection. That's not pessimism. It's physics. My guest today calls it entropy, and he's built an entire framework and even a measurement tool around reversing it. Matt Poepsel is the author of Expand the Circle, Enlightened Leadership for Our New World of Work, And he hosts the Lead the People podcast. He's vice president and godfather of talent optimization at the Predictive Index, holds a PhD in psychology, an MBA, and a Harvard Business School certificate of management excellence.

0:38Matt Poepsel: And he teaches leadership and HR as a part-time faculty member at Boston College. In this conversation, Matt breaks down the four forces that pull teams back together and gives us specific, fast, free things we can do as managers to counteract the drift before it costs us our best people. If you've ever felt like your team is quietly coming apart at the seams and couldn't quite name why, this one's for you. Before we dive in, I provide a one-pager with my key takeaways from every episode. You can get it for free when you subscribe to my newsletter at themodernmanager.com. And while you're here, please follow the show so that you never miss an episode.

1:13Matt Poepsel: Now here's my conversation with Matt.

1:19Matt Poepsel: Thank you so much for joining me today, Matt. I'm so excited to have you here on the show. I just love every conversation we've ever had. And so I'm just really excited for my audience now to get to hear directly from you today. So thanks so much for joining me.

1:33Manager: Thanks for having me, Mamie. I'm looking forward to it. All right. I feel like the topic we're going to talk about, I am still new to this thinking.

1:39Matt Poepsel: And so I'm hoping you can kind of lay out the land for us of what organizational or team drift is really about. You call it entropy in some of your work. So like, what are we really talking about here? Because I'm not even sure I fully understand it yet.

1:54Manager: Yeah, I think it's one of those things that we've all felt, but we've struggled with the language for it. I feel like every time you can think about a team, a group, even in our families, we have this notion that things aren't like they used to be. A lot of our historic ways of working closely together are starting to be challenged. A lot of us in the workplace have shifted to remote and hybrid work. We've seen new generations enter the workforce. There's been a lot of focus on sort of individual satisfaction of our goals and our needs, and we're losing some of that collective. And so I really wanted to understand like, what is this happening?

2:26Manager: Why are we feeling the way that we're feeling? People seem to be experiencing this. So that's where this understanding came from.

2:32Matt Poepsel: I mean, I definitely experienced that myself and I'm sure everyone else listening too. It just, it feels like the world is moving so fast. There's so much complexity. It's hard to even like find your own footing, let alone align with other people.

2:47Manager: Oh, a hundred percent. And I think that a lot of it has been going on for a long time now. You know, even before the pandemic, you know, we've shifted toward knowledge work and a lot of collaboration is needed. But at the same time, there's been this offsetting notion that you get to have anything you want all the time. When you think about if I go on a dog walk, I see Amazon trucks driving around my neighborhood all the time. Every time they're dropping off a package, I'm thinking that's somebody who's not going out in town and interacting with other people. Netflix wants people right at home, you know, and consuming all that great content.

3:18Manager: And at the same time, it's like this, things are breaking down and changing. And I don't think that for all the conveniences, and I certainly enjoy those conveniences. I don't think we always understand what that does to us in terms of how it is pulling us apart. People don't get involved in community organizations the way they used to. When we're at work, there's been these long lengthy tenures of people being at an organization five years, 10 years, 15 years, not anymore. You know, there's a lot more transients. And when you look at the nature of what that does, all of a sudden, a lot of times when we face headwinds, maybe some budget cuts, maybe we've had to have a riff.

3:56Manager: Maybe there's a big change coming in, like adopting AI. All of a sudden, when people feel fear and anxiety, they shift into self-protection mode. Exactly what we don't want when we're trying to innovate or to move together. So I think we have to understand that modern life is creating this sense of drift, the entropy that I talk about, every system known, every physical system and social systems too are subject to entropy. It's just this natural complexification and deconstruction of things that were once tied together. And when I started seeing that drift over and over again, I thought, oh no, we're going to have some trouble here if we're going to try to pursue things as a collective group, like we do obviously in organizations, we're going to have to relearn some of those old tricks.

4:44Matt Poepsel: Yeah, I love this word entropy that you're using to describe how teams work or how organizations function, because it really is eye-opening to think about the natural order is for actually things not to work, for things to fall apart, for us to get on each other's nerves, for there to be bumps and problems and all of that. And I think sometimes we just assume the opposite, right? The natural order is for everything to work, is to find commonality and to come together in alignment and make good decisions. But when you think about that as being what we want and what is aspirational and what is possible, but not what is the default, I feel like it really changes how you then think about your role as a manager and what you need to do to drive towards that outcome, because it's not going to happen accidentally.

5:33Manager: Right. I found this notion of systems thinking to be liberating and terrifying all at the same time. And it was liberating because it helped us to understand, you know, what's the way things actually work. And sometimes when we hear the term entropy, we're like a grown. Okay. Now I'm back into freshman physics or sophomore physics. And I think about my messy desk. If I clean my desk, it doesn't stay clean. Why not? Maybe, why does my desk stay clean? Well, the answer is it's a system, right? And unless I apply energy, It's just going to default to that state. Same reason we can't unscramble eggs and all kinds of stuff.

6:04Manager: But it was only when I started to think of human systems in the same way that I recognize exactly what you're saying. Every human system, if we do nothing else, is going to tend toward drift. People are going to fall out of alignment. There's going to be a nature of confusion. There's going to be miscommunication. Things are going to get harder, not easier. And this is what opportunity we have as leaders then is to say, in a world that's pulling us apart, right? It's causing this rise in self-interest and it's creating distance between. And I would say the chasm has never been greater. When you look at the difference between employers and employees generally, right?

6:38Manager: Employers are saying, well, you got to return to office because, you know, I don't trust that you're not going to be folding your laundry during a Zoom call. Okay. And then the employees are saying, well, you're just trying to get us to do all this AI so you can get rid of all the people and make your bottom line look great. And neither is universally true, but there's probably enough truth on both sides to create a healthy amount of skepticism. But when that chasm increases, it actually makes everything we're trying to do together that much more difficult. So that drift that's the natural byproduct of any system, it's actually accelerating maybe.

7:07Manager: That's the part that scares me the most. We're actually falling apart faster than we can hold ourselves together. And this is where it's really going to be challenging for us as managers, as leaders, to try to recognize that our people are going through some things and some of the choices we make about how we communicate or in some cases don't communicate are only exacerbating this natural challenge. And I really see this as the defining problem of our times, because the reality is that every human system right now is breaking down. And if we don't take action, everything is going to get a lot worse.

7:39Matt Poepsel: Oh my gosh. Now I'm terrified too.

7:43Manager: Well, if that's where the story ended, we should be terrified because it would seem like there's nothing that we can do. We're kind of pushing a rock up the hill. But the truth is that we do have the opportunity to clean our desks and we can offset some of these challenges. But it's going to take a different approach to leadership than what we've kind of done in the past. A lot of times I see that sometimes we get into this debate, is management different than leadership somehow? And you know, I'm sure it's come up on your airwaves too. And I do think there is a difference. I think that historically we've applied the technical approach to leadership and we try to think about operations and strategy and technology and process and metrics and all those great things and we need those things but when you think about what it is that actually helps us overcome this distancing this separation that we're experiencing it really is cohesion it's the chance to pull our people together and make sure that we are in in tight alignment what I call a tight loop you can imagine that if we were all spread out in a circle, it would be hard to even communicate.

8:45Manager: But once we cuddle up and we get like in a football huddle and you tighten that loop, then all of a sudden communication becomes a lot more facile and it becomes a lot more easy for us to be nimble and to execute better. So I feel like if the world is pulling us apart, then as leaders, we have to learn to pull ourselves together. And there are specific techniques we can do it. So we don't have to stay frightened. I mean, we don't have to stay frightened. We can be knowledgeable though. We have to understand the system for what it is Otherwise, we just continue to be confused and frustrated. But thankfully, we don't have to stop there.

9:18Matt Poepsel: Well, that's good. And that's exactly why you're here today. Because now we're going to talk about how do we pull ourselves together? How do we tighten that loop so that we can effectively but also appropriately counteract on some of these things? Because I'm guessing that there are things that we can do that we think might help but actually might not, especially what you were just saying about sometimes the way we communicate helps, but sometimes it actually hurts. It sounds like there's some nuance to how we might go about bringing our people back together.

9:47Manager: Yeah, it's so true. And in the research, I found a manageable number of things we can do, but we don't often naturally think of. So they might sound a little unusual, but the truth is that you can think of these almost as counter forces to what's happening otherwise in our system. So if every system is primed to kind of fall apart, what are the things I've found that really pulls together? The first one is hope. And what a simple sounding word, hope. What is hope? Hope is this understanding of some positive future state that collectively we're going to work toward so that we can make it a reality, right?

10:20Manager: So when you think about that, how much training instruction do we give managers and leaders on how to actually generate hope, to communicate hope? When you think about these changes about like, hey, what about all this AI adoption that people are feeling a lot of pressure to adopt AI and it lands differently on different groups and in different jobs. But the question I always have is, have we provided some level of hope when it comes to what the positive future is going to bring? And not even just for the organization, obviously, but for the individual. So when we say, hey, look, isn't it going to be great?

10:53Manager: It's going to do all these aspects of your job so you don't have to do them anymore. Isn't that awesome? And you're like, no, that's not awesome. I love doing those things. That's what I do. That's my whole identity. I spent the last 30 years doing this thing. Now you're saying it's going to be extra bit to explain why I should be hopeful. Like, and not just tell me, but ask me based on what I'm trying to accomplish, based on my role. How can you take the extra few minutes to help me understand how this is going to be good for me, right? And what is it that we're trying to see together? Too many times we say, we roll out programs, but we don't explain to the people who are affected by the programs why we're doing it and why they should be hopeful about it and how it's going to make the world and, you know, our service of our customers or stakeholders better, whatever it might be.

11:36So I think the first of hope and all the techniques I'll share,

11:40Manager: maybe they're all fast and free. We just have to do them.

11:43Matt Poepsel: I love this partially for its simplicity and partially because it really sets the stage that we're working towards something together. There is a brighter future ahead of us, but that we have to believe in it. We have to be clear about what it is and we have to work towards it. So it feels like hope is both seems like a no brainer, but also is like the most important foundation to set before you even take steps in other directions.

12:08Manager: Yeah, I find it generates energy and we need energy to offset all of this drift that otherwise we're going to experience. So to generate that positive energy, let's make sure that people, there's a couple of keywords you can think of when it comes to hope. One is it's collective, right? So it includes everybody. It's not just going to be good for some people and not others. That it is future oriented. You know, there's work that we have to do, sure, but we're headed someplace and it's positive. It's attractive in some way. When those three conditions are present and there's enough specificity that it's not just, you know, a bumper sticker, then people will be hopeful.

12:38Manager: And you need that positive energy because we have a lot of work to do, obviously, in this challenging environment that we're in. So that's the first, which is hope. All right.

12:47Matt Poepsel: Tell us about the second one.

12:48Manager: Yeah, the second one is a little bit more unexpected, too, which is I call it mutuality. It's basically, are we giving an equal measure and are we receiving an equal measure? That doesn't mean that the individual contributor earns the same as the CEO, of course, but it just means that across a group of people, are we contributing and carrying our share of the burden, if you will? And then is there going to be participation in these future benefits that we derive? And again, this is where there's a bit of a breakdown sometimes. A lot of times the employees will say, well, as an employer, I can see what's in it for you if I train the AI with everything I know how to do over the last 10 years, but I don't see what's in it for me, right?

13:23Manager: How's that going to be a good thing for me when all of a sudden I make myself replaceable in some way? And that's a violation of mutuality. Or if the employer says, I'll let you have autonomy and freedom and you can work from home, but if I don't get the deliverables, it's like, well, I don't get that. I'm not paying you in terms of payroll to just take advantage of that flexibility. And sometimes you see TikTok videos of people doing exactly that, and that hurts trust. So I feel like that mutuality of making sure that we're contributing in kind is important. One of the things that I see a lot right now is when we say, let's return to office, let's return to campus, wherever the workplace is, that doesn't land equally on everyone.

14:04Manager: If you live 10 minutes away, that's one thing. But if you have young kids and you live out in the suburbs and it's a 45-minute commute and you don't get to put your kids on the bus, you're paying a higher price for that decision to return to office than some others may be. So that's a violation, if you will, of mutuality. We're not equally paying the same price for that decision. So I think trying to find ways to restore and to communicate and honor that level of fairness, of evenness, of equity, of equilibrium, however you might want to think about it, that mutuality, I think, is really difficult to maintain.

14:41Manager: And I've seen some employers kind of skirt the issue by saying, that decision's up to Dear manager. Oh, here we go. So one manager is a softy and says, yeah, you can work remotely. Like just come in maybe one day every other week. That's fine. We can do our work. Meanwhile, the other one's kind of hard nosed and says, no, we're in the office four days a week. And you're like, well, wait a second. Our work isn't materially different than theirs, but the manager is. And now because the culturally they've said, well, it's just up to each manager how they want to do it. So we don't want to draw the line here.

15:14Manager: So that way we can sleep well at night. Yeah, but what's happening on the floor is all of that cohesion that we might have otherwise is breaking down because people are saying this is unfair. It's unfair that my boss telling me we have to come in and their boss telling me they don't have to. All of a sudden, when we want people close together, what's happening? Exactly the opposite. They're drifting apart. And we're allowing that to happen. It's making everyone's job harder.

15:36Matt Poepsel: Oh, my gosh. I really want to know what you think about what do we do as managers if we find ourselves in that situation where we are tasked with making a choice and it's not a clear cut. I should give everyone flexibility. I should make everyone come back in. What do we do when we're responsible for trying to find that balance of mutuality, but we don't really know what to do?

15:58Manager: Yeah, I think creating transparency is huge. I think giving flexibility where you can, and it may not be the way that everybody wants, but I think that they'll go on that journey with us. If we've done the first part, have we created hope? Can they see specifically why their membership on the team and their pursuit of this collective aim is a hopeful thing. That's going to be incredibly important. And if we've done that, then I think that asking our people to kind of be transparent, to weigh in, to try something for some period of time before reserving the right to say, as conditions change, we're in a fluid environment, that's something that we're going to revisit.

16:33Manager: But I think just being transparent or saying, it's not an easy decision. We're all going to sort of weigh in on it. And then my job as the managers to move us forward. And if it's not popular, let's have a conversation about that. If there's things that we can do, we will do to try to make it palatable for you. But just understand that sometimes, you know, we're not going to be able to please everybody. I think people respect that. What they don't like is when there's these blanket policies that affect everybody or there is a tolerated unfairness in the system. That's like, oh, why am I? Come on.

17:04Manager: This, you know, the actions speak louder than words. And they're thinking, this isn't fair. I'm not going to stick around and put up with this forever. As soon as the job market opens up, I'm out of here. That's not the energy you want in your team, right?

17:15Matt Poepsel: Exactly. Exactly. All right. I want to move us on to number three.

17:18Manager: Commitment. Commitment. And commitment isn't just like determination to do the thing. To me, I'm talking about commitment to, I like to say commitment to the team's work and the teamwork. So it's almost like, are you committed to being part of this team? Do you socially get rewarded for your team affiliation? Do you feel as committed to the team's functioning as to the work product, whatever that might be for that team? And a lot of times I look at something as simple as the team's name. Oh, we're the accounting team. Well, that's not very exciting. Who wants to be on the accounting team? Can we be a little bit more creative than that?

17:51Manager: How do we incorporate sort of our identity around the team participation and membership, if you will? And I think a lot of times people are saying, I'm just here for the paycheck. Oh, what a devastating attitude that is, right? And it's so transactionalizes everything in a world that's increasingly transactional. If you really want to have that next level, then be the type of leader that people are like, I want to be on this team. I enjoy my coworkers. I enjoy the work we do. I enjoy the way we do it. I enjoy that we pick each other up. If we're having a tough time, we share the load, all those types of things.

18:27Manager: Those are all reflections of commitment, you know, and understanding that dynamic is important for managers. So they don't just say, you know, I've got names on the board and they're do the work and they're like light bulbs. I just change them out. You know, that's not that's not going to get it done when it comes to the nature of the dynamic collaborative work that we need to do now. All right.

18:48Matt Poepsel: I want to lift up two things you just said. So the first is that as the manager, we're really the ones setting the tone here. If we're not enthusiastic about working with our people. They're not going to be enthusiastic about working with us or with each other. So we need to create that desire, the container to hold the team together like that. Because if we aren't showing up and investing in our people and investing in those relationships and investing in the team collectively, no one else is going to do it in a way that really matters. So that's the first thing I want to highlight. Then the second is it's not easy to do that, right?

19:24Matt Poepsel: It's not easy to get someone who feels like they're just going through the motions, they're not really, they're not feeling connected to other people, especially if you're all working remotely. So what thoughts do you have on how we can actually help our people feel like they're part of something in a meaningful way?

19:41Manager: One of the biggest mistakes I see is this undue focus on the results. I'm an old military guy. We used to have this phrase, right and tight. How do we make sure things are right and tight? And to me, what that means is right results, because we have to get the results, but also tight teamwork. The team concept is incredibly important, right? So when I was in the Marines, we had these very small teams that would be in these kind of dangerous situations. We invested heavily in the team side of things. We knew each other very intimately. We cared for one another. We would have done anything for one another, even outside of the mission.

20:12Manager: It made the mission flow that much more smoothly. So I think one of the techniques that I love is something I call first five minutes. Can you take the first five minutes of each team meeting and really work on the team itself and the identity and calling out who's doing fun stuff on the weekends, who's going through something, anything at all. You can have the whole rest of the meeting for the work you work stuff. But just use the first five minutes to get the team part right. Get to know each other. And I'm not talking about the classic icebreakers. I mean, really create space for the team to be a team and to support one another and pick each other up.

20:43Manager: I think that's going to pay a lot of dividends. But when a manager comes in and they're just like immediately, let's talk about the numbers. We're off. What are we going to do? Let's solve the problems. Of course, we're going to get to those things. But if that's all there ever is, you know, it's just not enough of a bond to really help people stay, but also to really stay engaged and avoid the burnout, the isolation that we're seeing today, and certainly the performance issues that we see. When I have my graduate students talk about the worst boss they ever had, the best boss they ever had, the worst boss always come back.

21:13Manager: They never took an interest in me outside of work, right they were micromanagers all these types of things but for the bosses that were seen as the best the most benevolent bosses they cared about me they knew what i was trying to accomplish in my career they would challenge me but they knew it came from a good place you know they really connected me with other people around the organization like all those types of things it's all bonding stuff right so to me that's that's a really rare opportunity when you have the team together, make the first thing they experience, that real team identity and cohesion.

21:45Manager: And then, of course, we're going to move on to the performance, the results bit too. Sure.

21:49Matt Poepsel: I love this so much. And it reminds me of a client I had who had a new team member starting. And I asked, what are you doing to celebrate their first day? And he was like, what do you mean? I was like, are you having a team breakfast? Are you all gathering for lunch? Like, what are you doing to like get everyone together to acknowledge the excitement and this important new start for this person. And he's like, why would I do any of those things? Like they have a whole onboarding plan. They'll meet everybody. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. You're totally missing the point here. This is not work time.

22:20Matt Poepsel: This is, I mean, it's part of work, but the idea is not to be doing work, which you're doing during onboarding. You're getting to know people in a very particular way through an onboarding plan. This is just about being together and bonding and celebrating. And once he made that shift of, oh, that is part of the work too, is creating those spaces and those times for human connection that's not about the work, but it's actually about the people. He totally changed how he approached and he started having monthly breakfasts. Anybody who wanted to come in could join for the breakfast. This was pre-pandemic and so they were all still in the office together.

22:59Matt Poepsel: But that kind of mindset is exactly what you're talking about. And if you can weave it into your every meeting or you can weave it into a monthly cadence, you get so much out of those relationships. And the other thing it just made me think about was I read somewhere that if you know someone, you're more likely to like them. It's like this weird thing. Even if what you know about them isn't all that much and isn't all that connected to the things that you're interested in, just simply by knowing about someone, you have an affinity towards them. So I just always remind myself of that. I'm like, it's worth it just to get to know someone because it'll help you like them more.

23:39Matt Poepsel: So even if you have team members, you're like, I don't particularly like that person. Get to know them more. You might find you like them more.

23:45Manager: And how surprised are we when all of a sudden we do get to know somebody like they were fascinating. I had no idea. They really like this thing. They were way into gardening and I had no idea. You always learn something. And it does make even the worky work stuff flow more smoothly when you have a relationship with somebody and you have some of that shared interest and that shared understanding of one another for sure. But I think the point you're making is so spot on, Mamie. It really comes down to almost think about like two sides of a coin, right? They're inseparable. You can't remove the head from the tail.

24:14Manager: And the fact is when I say right and tight, no, right is tight and tight is right. When the teamwork is there, the results are going to follow. and then when the results are good because the teamwork is good, then the teamwork gets easier. It's a lot easier to be part of a winning team than a struggling team. So it's almost like managers come in and they say, am I trying to do the people thing or am I trying to do the business thing? The answer is there are no things. It's all fully entwined and integrated and one enhances the other. So stop thinking of them as if they're separate.

24:45Matt Poepsel: Exactly. All right. I think there's one more. You want to give us the last one?

24:48Manager: Yeah, the last one I call synchrony, which is a really unusual word, perhaps. But the easiest analogy I can think of is in a crew boat. You know, if you have rowers in a crew boat, do they just pull the oar whenever they want? No, they all are synchronized because the way that one does their work makes it easier for others to do their work. And it's all connected. So when you think about how many times do we have a teammate who says, well, I got my job done. And you're like, okay, but I have to pick up where you left off and then I have to go do something with it. And you're not doing it in a way that it actually sets the table for me to kind of run with it.

25:19Manager: Like, not my problem. I'm green lights over here. My dashboard lights are green. That's all I care about because that's how I'm judged and bonused. And that's, you know, you're like, okay, but we're a team. And so when you think about how can we do our work in a way, and sometimes, you know, people who like a lot of detail, they tend to write long emails, for example. Well, people who don't like a lot of detail don't particularly like to read a lot of long emails. So the fact is that whether it's communication, whether it's coordination, whatever it might be, we have to find a way that helps everybody on the team do their respective work as a team in as efficient a way as possible.

25:53Manager: And I think this is where we see real breakdowns when we start to look at companies that either are offset by time, I'm an early person, you're a late person. There are more tools than ever, but there's not a lot of evidence that we're working better together. So I think we've got to really break through that and start to understand that when we are all kind of pulling on the oars in synchrony and in that sort of that cadence, then all of a sudden we can do our work more collectively in a way that doesn't drain us. Now I got to take the thing that you wrote and then I got to put it through my AI tool to summarize it because there's no way I'm going to read that.

26:24Manager: Now I'm doing extra steps and now I all of a sudden don't feel so great about being part of this team. Thank you very much. OK, great. Now you see the drift coming back in. So the most important thing in all of this, maybe, is that we can actually measure these things. I've created a way that we can measure each of these these counter forces and understand where they're present where they're absent where they need to be shored up We don't have to just say this is a nice handy framework and I can just like, you know, do my best We can actually measure these things. We can improve them. We can verify that we're having them And it was important to me as a scientist to be able to understand that And it gives me a lot of hope of saying we don't just have to accept our fate that we're all just getting ripped apart by modern life and modern work We can actually reverse this type of drift by creating more cohesion, by making the work easier, by making the team participation more enjoyable, by making turnover go down and retention go up and all these kinds of things that have better well-being as a result.

27:19Manager: So now every time I see people who are feeling isolation, burnout, frustration, all these types of things, I'm always looking at cohesion. And guess what? You just don't see those situations where all the things that I just suggested are present and people have those maladies. I think it's because the system is getting the better of us because we don't even know we're in it. We don't even recognize that we're in a system, much less that it's falling apart on us. So fortunately, that's why I'm excited about this work. It's very new, very wet paint, all the things we're talking about. It's very, you know, very kind of cutting edge in a way, but I'm really encouraged by what I'm finding.

27:56Matt Poepsel: Oh, I'm encouraged too. All right, we have to wrap up. So Matt, can you tell us about a great manager that you worked for and what made this person such a fabulous boss?

28:03Manager: Yeah, there was a manager I had. She was CEO at the time. Her name was Nancy. And Nancy was fabulous because she really understood and took the time to understand me as a person. I was at a pretty raw time in my life. I was coming from one work experience into another. And she really did the whole thing holistically. She made sure I was comfortable with the job and the work. It was a very demanding and fast-paced time. But at the same time, she took a deep interest in me in terms of my family and what I was trying to accomplish next and how I was going to rebuild, you know, my professional life and all these things.

28:34Manager: So my heart goes out to Nancy. We remained great friends, you know, well after we stopped working together because she was just so thoughtful and so professional. One of the best saleswomen I've ever seen in my entire life, but took the time to put all that heavy stuff aside and just really sit down and make me feel like it was just her and me one-on-one, you know, taking an interest in how my performance and my experience would certainly help the organization, but also, you know, would take care of my own needs. So that was nice.

29:03Matt Poepsel: Sounds amazing. And where can people learn more about you? Tell us, can we access these assessments that you talked about? How do we find all that?

29:12Manager: Yeah, I'm doing a lot of my work on LinkedIn. Certainly love being on LinkedIn every day. It's such a platform that I enjoy being a part of. So that's one of the easiest places to get me. And if you want to talk about the inspiration behind all of this, kind of my view for what's possible in the workplace, there was a book I wrote a little bit ago called Expand the Circle. and it really talked about leadership from this more principled place. So it was a precursor to the work that we've been talking about today, but it's a good read as well. So lots of ways to kind of take a different angle on the work I'm up to and would just love to hear from anybody if there's an interest in a specific aspect of it that I can elaborate on.

29:46Matt Poepsel: Excellent. Well, thank you again, Matt, so much for joining me today. I feel like I have a whole new outlook now and I really appreciate every conversation we have and I get to learn from you.

29:57Manager: Thanks, Mabee. It's been awesome. I love seeing you. So much love for all the work that you're putting out there. There's so much work that we have to do. It's great to know that we can do it together.

30:08Matt Poepsel: As Matt explained, drift is the default, but so is your ability to counteract it once you know what you're looking for. If you want the key takeaways from this conversation delivered to your inbox and every future one delivered as well, subscribe to my newsletter at themodernmanager.com. and as always, all the links are in the show notes. Thanks again for joining us. Until next time.