212. Can toxic cultures really change? Inside BrewDog, NatWest and secret burnout. PLUS! Why do wellbeing leaders have to be perfect? With Matt Smeed

26:16So Matt is obviously a very engaging person and a very influential person in the world of HR.

26:20Al Elliott:Or he pays a lot of bribes. Indeed, all three things can be true. Matt is also the co-founder of Working Well Community. He works with organisations to design better, more evidence-based approaches to well-being. Hurrah! But today he is calling out the perfectionism that is creeping into the field. So Matt's here to ask what that pressure we're all putting on these leaders about well-being is actually doing to the profession and whether it's time we'll add a little bit more trust and a lot more experimentation. Let's go meet Matt. My name is Matt Sweed. I'm a business psychologist and I am the co-founder of the Working Well community and two times HR's most influential thinker.

27:00Al Elliott:So hit me, what is your hot take? My hot take is that wellbeing leaders, people who are responsible for wellbeing within organisations, hold themselves to too high a standard. So I'm going to unpick that a little bit. So I want to preface it all by saying that I'm a huge advocate of things like evidence-based practice. And I don't want people out there doing a crap job and adding no value within their organisation. So I'll just preface all this by saying that. And actually, we'll probably go on to this, but is there a risk that sometimes this whole space turns into the Wild West? Perhaps. And I think we should talk about that at some point.

27:35But if we talk about a lot of the well-being leaders that I meet and I come across, there's sometimes a feeling that they need to present a watertight, bulletproof business case, evidence base for every little thing that they do in a way that I don't see in other industries. You know, so for example, I go into organizations and they're constantly moaning about this new IT system that they've implemented. And you think to yourself, was a business case presented around that IT system? Did they consult with the employees before they did it? Did they properly talk it through as a board before they implemented it?

28:10Probably not. They probably just did it because it's IT and we need to keep up and it's a core part of the business. So therefore, we're just going to do it right. whereas if it's a well-being intervention even something seemingly really really small it has to go through all these loops they've got to fight for the budget they've got and i almost wonder i don't necessarily know what that means in terms of um how we how we switch that because i don't just want well-being spend being you know being agreed at the drop of a hat but i feel like there's a pressure for well-being leaders within organizations so there's a desire for a legitimacy so perhaps they they overcompensate to be taken seriously i see that um there's a scrutiny and skepticism on that area of work that i don't see in areas like sales or marketing or it or whatever it may be well-being initiatives are seen as optional rather than core part um maybe the fact that well-being professionals are so deeply passionate about their job means that they hold themselves to such a high standard they're perfectionists almost i like that i think

29:19Al Elliott:most people would expect someone in your position to go well you need to really think it through you can't do this this is about people you know you've got to be careful but you're saying no people do overthink it is that have i got that right um to a certain extent yeah do you know the other thing that comes into my head and this is an even hotter take is is it is it affected by the gender demographic of people who work in that industry which is primarily female rather than male. And you'll have seen these studies that have come out, and I'm sure Leanne's talked to you about these, where, you know, you look at how men and women apply for jobs, and women want to be able to tick like 80 % of the things on the job description, whereas men, it's like 20%, you know, oh, I can do those two things, so I'll just apply for it, you never know, it'll be fine.

30:03And I do wonder sometimes whether you get a lot more females comparatively working in the world of well-being, but I'd also broaden it out to people functions, you know, HR more broadly. um and whether that contributes to them feeling that they need to you know have ticked every single box whereas in a maybe a sales role or as i say it sounds like i'm having to go it or operational roles maybe you get a bit a few more men who it's yeah this is the right thing to do of course it is you know and it's pure pure ego we're saying that we're potentially over well

30:36Al Elliott:that people are implementing it could have the potential to overthink it or need to provide a business case. So let's imagine it's a dream scenario. So you can pick the organization, IBM, someone we've heard of. You're going in to help them implement something decent around well-being. How much business case do you need to put together? How would you approach implementing something like that in a larger organization? Well, so I think the dream case scenario for me would be that you're working with an organization that are already bought into this stuff, you know, who already view wellbeing as not just a nice thing to have, but as a fundamental aspect of the way that the organisation works.

31:14So therefore, absolutely, you know, if you want to put a specific intervention into place, again, I'm a huge advocate actually of evidence-based practice and collecting data and, fancy word, but participative design. So basically talking to employees so that they have a voice in what you're creating, not just sitting with the board or the exec team in a dark room and working out what people need. So I would do it in a very consultative, very participative way from the bottom up, if possible. I would collect the data. You'd think about piloting it, all that sort of stuff. But that's all in the context of the organization pretty much being brought into well-being being a good thing to do, full stop.

31:55You know, this wouldn't be, it's not competitive. It's not, I need to reach a certain threshold where now I'm suddenly allowed to try something out. because I sometimes worry that that's a risk with some of this stuff, that if we hold ourselves to too high a standard where we feel like everything needs to be perfect, does that lead to a lack of experimentation? Does that lack of just trying something out to see if it works? I was recording a live stream the other day and I was trying to use the analogy, which I'll try and butcher again today, of likening this to almost what I was looking at was the environmental movement, right?

32:33So how do we reduce climate change? And it's very interesting that obviously, well, I was about to say everyone believes that it's an issue. I'm not sure everybody believes it's an issue. It seems to be the majority of people think we need to do something about it. So that's a given. Now, what that thing is, we haven't necessarily worked out. So the example I was using was plastic bags. So in the UK, certainly we use far fewer plastic bags. You have to pay 510p for them or 30p in Marks and Spencers. and we're replacing those. And that seems to have been a really positive thing. That's something that seems to have created large-scale cultural change.

33:08People don't use plastic bags as much as they used to. Great. The other one that I used as an example, though, is plastic straws, moving to paper straws. Now, I don't know if you've used a paper straw, but they're absolutely useless. They're absolutely useless. And I get to the point where I'm like, that's just not the thing. That's not the thing. I don't think paper straws are going to save us from the next apocalypse rather than plastic straws. but back to my experimentation point i think that it's good that we tried it i think it was good that we tried to tried something like that what then is interesting and this is where the plastic straws analogy kind of falls down a little bit is sometimes it's then difficult to roll it back you know so so can you imagine the uk government coming out and saying right we're banning paper straws now we're bringing plastic back like that would go down very very poorly so if you give all this back to the organizational context I want practitioners and organizations to be able to try stuff out without necessarily perfectly knowing the impact it's going to have on their workforce to try it out because you might find the next plastic bag but if you find the next paper straws maybe you need the flexibility again to kind of roll that back without that then being seen as a failure because that in itself and this is where all the cycle comes in is then held against the well-being professionals well you brought that in it didn't work so therefore your job's useless and it's like well no why am I always constantly having to prove myself in this an IT system might be implemented it might be a complete disaster they don't abolish IT and say right we're not using computers now because that last IT system didn't work they go that wasn't the one let's find let's find one that does work that was the awesome Matt Smead I told you he was great You can see now why he's the, yeah, what is it?

34:53The voice of, influential HR voice of the year.

34:56Al Elliott:Most important person in psychology ever. Right. I think was what he got. He got it twice. Two years running. Two years running. Yeah, yeah. It's like the Nobel Peace Prize for the psychologists. Yeah. I mean, I'm not offended at all that I haven't even nominated, but whatever. I've nominated you. Did you? No, I'm going to though. Well, I'm not sure now. Anyway, not quite the same, is it? um well do you know what i really liked it and i think what was what i really liked we talked about a bit on this episode as well actually with the nat west thing is allowing in time for that experimentation i understand when things are pressured it can be really hard to to feel as a business owner that's an important thing to to do but really that's where people feel creative that typically work that gives us energy doesn't suck our energy away and ultimately way there's going to be ideas that will change the the organization in terms of its operations or the products it offers or the customers it serves um innovation is what keeps businesses moving forward so i like that um and and reminding ourselves that as scientists we too can be creative yeah and also he makes a really good point about rolling out an it system and you go well just roll it out if it doesn't work you go back and you change bits and pieces whereas you need to have like this sort of 12 page business case for rolling out something to do with people well i tell you there's one function in in in most businesses where they deal with people and they don't have even they experiment every single day and that's marketing and so like in marketing you don't sit down and go well let's do a case i'm going to a business case for running this particular ad with this particular headline all you do is you run the ad and you see if it works now i'm not saying you necessarily do that with your people but again be more gen on from nat west maybe say look this is what we're planning on rolling out what are your thoughts because let's be honest in terms of business case if you're having to prove a solid business case with an roi to some nerd who's got a calculator going excuse me how much will this cost you're probably not going to make a huge amount of inroads in that organization anyway but if you are worried about what the impact's going to be we'll just go and ask your people here we are here's our plan this is what we're thinking of doing what what's good about this what's bad about it and if you've got psychological safety then they'll come back to you and they will give you their opinion like they did in that west yeah and it's tough isn't it and i can i can understand i understand why organizations thinking that way you know being brutal marketing is a revenue generating function well-being is a cost function yeah in in the most strict commercial terms i think it actually is it's a money saving um function because you're keeping your people engaged you're keeping them well you're keeping them healthy you're keeping them productive and performing at the highest level that's really difficult to measure in a tangible way that a business owner or senior leader is going to buy into easily so I can see why well-being practitioners is a need to overcompensate a little bit in building that business case and I think ultimately it comes down to leadership as Matt said doesn't it you know those organizations that are already bought into it like NatWest for example so yeah it's a really really tricky one a really tricky one but I think I think it ultimately comes down to there are some businesses in the world that see well-being as a nice to have and there are other businesses in the world that see it as a fundamental part of their operations and their organizational success and performance and i think maybe where we're wasting our energy as well-being practitioners is trying to convince the ones that just aren't that interested well said well said if you want to go and follow matt which you should jump onto linkedin he's got it he's the one the yellow banner and the best profile picture in the world you've got to go and just go and look for him s-m-e-e-d go and look for matt because he's got a great profile picture and also go and look at um it is workingwell.community is his website um i think from what i understood it's totally free you join and you get loads of really good stuff now we are launching something similar i did mention that to matt so we're not copying him um but it sounds like yeah just go go enjoy working well and then we will launch our thing join ours as well and then you can tell us which one is better yeah matt also has a podcast um but didn't copy us you're allowed to do similar things there You can be competitors and colleagues at the same time.

39:05Al Elliott:The two can be possible. Yeah. So I'll leave a link to Matt's podcast in the show notes as well. Fabulous. It's time for my favourite time of the week, which is the World Famous Weekly Workplace Surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne. Leanne is a chartered occupational psychologist. She's an expert in work, the world of work. And I don't think we've ever had a letter that stumped you. There's a couple which have shocked you. I don't think we've ever had a letter. I'm so old. I'm so old. I remember back in the day, Saturday morning, TV, and it was brilliant because you sit down and they'd have a big sack of letters.

39:35Al Elliott:They'd pull them out and open them and go, this one is from John, who wants to grow up to be a banker. Okay, so question number one, Leanne. Do investors care about culture? And if so, how do you prove it matters? Hi, Alan Leanne. I'm preparing for our first round. Most of our focus has been on the usual SaaS metrics, MRR, monthly revenue, monthly recurring revenue churn growth rate all of that but i keep coming back to our team this is nice this is nice so far i hope it turns out nice we've worked hard to build a place where people want to stay turnover is low morale is good culture wise we're in a strong spot it feels like a real asset but i've no idea how to show that to investors in a way they'll actually value do investors really care about culture and if they do how are you meant to measure it in a way that resonates so i understood this that basically he wants to put a number on his culture so he can go on the balance sheet yeah got it lee what are your thoughts excellent question yes really good question um and yes you absolutely can prove um in metrics what your your culture is saying and doing um i think i think investors are getting increasingly interested in this and i know when we have spoken to some investors um through the podcast they are absolutely interested in in that type i think it was sarah chan spellings from billion dollar moves who always looks at that when she's um makes decisions around vc funding i think yeah particularly in the current climate that we're in and and yeah the way the world of work is going I think it is it is important and also just from a risk perspective you know if you're going to invest in a business and then 60 70 % of the team leaves and that could be your IP that could be what you paid for there's all sorts of considerations in terms of how you do it there's a really useful scorecard that was developed in a book about well-being actually all this is crossed over culture well-being employee engagement all crossed over um so it's Sheena Johnson Kerry Cooper and Ivan Robinson wrote this book on well-being love it really good very practical um i would show you but i don't have it with me um but it has a scorecard in there that breaks it down to basically four different areas that you can look at that will be um give an indication of how healthy your culture is or how how um how well it's working um so i'll i can leave a link to the book in in the show notes but it's things like you look at business and financial indicators that's the first category so that's things like sickness rates, retention rates, the cost of having to use agency staff, the number of ill health retirement, stress-related referrals to occupational health, all that type of thing.

42:05Then you've got internal process indicators so that's things like stress levels, levels of work-life balance and your stress risk assessments that's either going to be your HSC risk assessment management standards that you should be doing annually anyway as a UK business or a more sophisticated employee engagement and well-being survey like mine will also give you all this data as well so everything around kind of engagement quality of management leadership all that stuff you can be able to show through metrics as well and then also you can get quality indicators so that's things like customer satisfaction levels that's reflecting of you know how good your staff are service quality the number of complaints and then you also have things like engagement in training and in development so how people how many people have signed up for certain interventions or training feedback from those things and level innovation that you have if you have that that what NatWest is doing in terms of that ideation time how engaged people are with that and what's been produced from that is a really good indicator as well um so they're the kind of the four main areas um and as you can see there's lots of different metrics that you'll already actually be generating in your business or be able to put your hands on within your business that you can show to demonstrate how your culture is currently functioning functioning and how it's impacting the business the only one you might need to invest in is some kind of employee insights um which you can either do free with the hse or with people like me

43:39Al Elliott:excellent answer lee and um yeah that book if anything is if anything's by sir carrie cooper then then it's going to be good although he has written over 200 books um where did he get the time um oh and fun fact a little bit of link back because his his company was consultancy robertson cooper um was where matt used to work yes yes nice nice little loop there yeah very good i should say the lead writer on that book is actually sheena johnson um who was my lecturer at manchester to business school really yeah she's awesome why is she not on the pod oh well she will be there we go so i'll go after nat west and you go after shana yeah there's something about goodwill now it's funny goodwill has been measured on balance sheets for quite a long time now and it's basically you know how likely it's a little intangible it's probably quite a lot intangible but perhaps when that first came people were a bit like oh i'm not sure about measuring goodwill but actually now it's kind of a standard thing that's what goes on your balance sheet so just fast forward five ten years and you're going to have employee goodwill.

44:37Al Elliott:There'll be probably a really fancy name for it. Maybe you should come up with it and it'll be known as the Elliott test or something. Well, it's a bit like discretionary effort, extra role effort, as the Americans call it. Basically, how willing somebody is to go the extra mile is a really good indicator of how engaged your staff is. And again, a good employee engagement survey like mine will measure such things. Okay, on to question number two, Lee. Should I tell my boss I'm burnt out or should I just push through and hope it gets better? I've been in a leadership role for about seven months, managing a team of 11 in a company of around 70.

45:07Al Elliott:The first few months were intense, constant firefighting, fixing broken processes, trying to hold things together. Things are more stable now, but I'm running on empty. I'm showing up, I'm getting things done, but the spark has gone. My head's foggy, I can't switch off properly, and I'm starting to worry what this might be doing to me in the long term. Now, this isn't the first time either. I've ended up being the fixer in a few different roles, always stepping into chaos, and I think that finally it's all caught up with so do i open up to senior leadership about how i'm feeling or keep pushing and hope i bounce back little psc i worry that being honest could change how i'm perceived but staying silent feels risky too lee oh this poor poor person conundrum i think at this point without a significant change in in the way that you're working um or the way that you're managing your your life and work together i don't think there's much of a scenario where you're just going to bounce back and this will be fine um it sounds like you're in early stages of burnout um and without some fairly significant changes that typically continues to escalate and i think what what sounds absolutely sure is it isn't necessarily this organization is is to blame it sounds like this has just been compounded over roll and roll and roll if you're a fixer um if you work in in transformation and again very common when you touch um such levels of change and ambiguity and the emotional load that comes with that as well not just the actual workload um is is exhausting and it sounds like you're exhausted which is one of the the three main symptoms of burnout the second being disengagement which it sounds like you're also doing as well in terms of kind of going through the motions and doing the bare minimum in terms of whether you should tell your leaders i really i really can't answer that confidently without knowing more about the organization the relationships you have with your leadership i want to say of course yes of course you should speak to your leaders that should be the first people you go to to understand what your options are either in terms of of taking some leave or reducing your work hours down or being put on a different project that isn't as as um as transformative that said if your leaders aren't supportive in that way then it could impact your reputation it could impact your longevity in that organization i'm not saying it's right not it's not it's not right no i'm not saying it's right and it's not okay um but yeah there are more sadly more bad leaders in the world than there are good ones as we've heard over the last few weeks um so i would say prioritize yourself for the moment and what you can do within the boundaries of the organization to start to rebuild some of that resilience so i think in terms of um the work that you're doing is it is that stability going to continue is that what your predictable role is now going to be because that's good and over time um you'll start to regain that energy back um and start to want to invest it in in your role again can you um yeah take some time off whether it be some um annual leave whether it be um a few long weekends um whatever it is it sounds like you need to detach from work in a very literal way um to allow some rest and recovery time and I think finally it's looking at other things you can do to build your levels of individual resilience so things like setting those clear boundaries between work and life making sure you're investing time on things that will build energy so connections your friends your family doing things outside of work staying active is really helpful eating well is really helpful getting enough sleep is really helpful all of those things that are going to help so long as you're in a position where you can control your organization environment to an extent where it's not as chaotic it's not as change heavy you've got the support of your team around you you've got the support of your leadership in terms of the work that you're doing there's no incivility there you know it's not that this is a toxic work environment it's just been a chaotic work environment and now that that busy level has returned to something more sustainable you will know if you can trust your leaders I appreciate it's only been seven months but I think you'll have a feeling my feeling is for you to ask the question you have some doubts um but maybe have a think if there's somebody you can speak to whether it may be somebody in HR or another manager who maybe you don't directly report to or even a colleague within the organization around you know how does what's the general um you know efforts around mental health and well-being here and maybe get a sense sense for that um but i think i'd start by looking at what you can control um and then continue to reflect and explore um leadership and and how they might respond to this and if you if you feel that they will be if you're getting all those clues it'll be a positive conversation i would absolutely have it yeah good advice and i think i i mean the two key questions are is that what do i do and do i tell the uh do i tell my bosses um i think leanne's explained exactly what you should do that's again and also go back and listen to so many of our episodes on burnout we've got sally clark is it was she on burnout one recently about kate donovan donovan um yep all of those so yeah go back and listen to those um secondly a little bit of a tip i would well not a tip maybe more i would do in your situation is because you're a manager i would go to whoever you were going to go and speak to about this problem and say, hey, look, I just want a bit of a guidance.

50:25Al Elliott:No one said this, but if someone comes to me and says they're starting to feel a bit burnt out, they just don't feel themselves, basically describe your situation. You know, what should I be saying to them? Should I be helping them? Should I be like, is this a performance management thing? And then you're going to sneakily find out, I think, how your boss and your boss's bosses think about this kind of thing. Yeah, that's a really good idea. It's that fact gathering, isn't it? Getting that more information to understand the level of psychological safety that you have, the level of commitment the organisation has to well-being.

50:52That's a really good idea. I like that.

50:54Al Elliott:Thank you. Thank you. See, once a year, I bring a really good idea. Oh, it's more than that. Once a month. Less than that. Yeah. Okay, on to question number three. I've been asked to gather peer feedback, but why would anyone open up to me? My managers ask me to speak to my teammates and gather feedback on our team culture and work environment, basically to act as a go-between. him i'm not in hr i'm not particularly close to anyone and honestly it really feels awkward people seem confused about why i'm even doing it now he says he's ruled out i'm guessing this is the manager manager he's ruled out an anonymous survey and wants it done quickly but i don't think i'm the right person for it should i give it a go and hope for the best or push back on doing it at all that's a tough one yeah so he's so the manager has said he doesn't want to do an anonymous survey this person's got to go individually to the people and go what's wrong with the culture can i write this down and put your name against it and take it back to my boss oh this is this is not the way to do it this is not the way to do it and nobody is going to be honest and give you any useful data um equally not your circus not your monkeys my friend um this is just all about appeasing your boss at this point isn't it um i'd be more tempted to kind of you know have this conversation of like probably with your so is he the supervisor or just his teammates just his teammates teammates he describes him as this person this right in fact he doesn't have to say it doesn't have the gender so my manager asked me to speak to my teammates i would be inclined to go to a teammate that you're closest to and i said you're not super close i'm gonna go to a teammate you're closest to and kind of go look this is what i've been asked to do i i don't think it's going to be particularly effective and i don't you know i may probably don't feel safe myself being very giving very honest feedback in this type of public scenario unless everyone actually loves the culture the tone of it i'm guessing there are some issues there yeah i'm not sure why this would be a question a problem of everything with rosie um so kind of having that honest conversation with with one of your colleagues and kind of going this is what i'm thinking we just kind of sit down together and do a bit of a SWOT analysis because i think a SWOT analysis is for something that's fairly fairly neutral and well known to managers and yeah can be can be put together in a way that you can provide some indications of what's happening and where things need to be fixed but probably in a bit more of a commercial business process kind of way if you've not heard of SWOT analysis it stands for strengths weaknesses opportunities threats and it's like a matrix yeah so it could be things like right what do we think the strengths are the organization right now or the team or how we work together and I see that a lot in surveys that I do is that people really aren't getting on with senior leadership but they found these little these little safe havens within their team where everything is really nice it might be that you have that so yeah what are the strengths what are the weaknesses I would focus on process I would focus on things that are very transactional rather than the leadership behavior I'm not saying this is going to be effective in any way it won't be but this is just about protecting yourself and appeasing your manager because he's just thrown you under the bus essentially um so weaknesses i would focus on very transactional process-led things opportunities is maybe your um your opportunities to actually provide feedback that might be useful so for example if the it system you're working with is really annoying and clunky and causing extra time there could be an opportunity to upgrade your id systems to better serve customers or to introduce new product that people keep asking about um that could actually be the opportunity section the chance we actually can provide some some feedback and threats as well um it's always useful i think typical typically business owners are interested in that if there's things that you've heard from competitors or things that are going on or things in the market um ai was an obvious one it's both a threat and an opportunity um i'd maybe focus on that so it sounds like your manager as well it sounds like he's been asked to do this by a senior leader i was just gonna say this it sounds like he's been asked to do it doesn't really believe in it when i'll just give it to someone yeah so i think you want to give your manager something back that's useful and will make him look fairly competent in front of his senior leaders um and actually i think it'll be something that that might might be easy enough for you to put together with with some of your colleagues i think then it's also making it very clear that you know this isn't something you felt entirely comfortable with it's not within your wheelhouse and you're more than happy to support with this type of thing again the future but you'd want to speak to somebody who does have some expertise around that either in terms of HR or organizational psychology.

55:21I think it's fair to kind of go, you know, I think if we're going to do this, I'm not the right person to do it. But, you know, hopefully this time provides you enough to, with what you need. But yeah, protect yourself.

55:33Al Elliott:Yeah, there's a couple of things. There's three things I thought of when you were talking. The first one was, which you mentioned before, is that this is a phone in. The manager's not taking it very seriously. So don't stress too much because it's a box ticking exercise. They want to go back to their boss and go, yeah, I've done that. Secondly, if you do want to do it properly or as properly as you possibly can, go and find someone in the team who's like outgoing, who's like the team favorite. Everyone loves them. Go to them and just say, can I borrow you for a minute? Look, I've been asked to do this.

56:01Al Elliott:Everyone loves you. Whereas I'm like, you know, I'm just like the wallflower. I sit at the back and don't really do anything. How would you approach this if you were given this task? And I bet they'll be like, look, I'll go and have a word with the guys. Don't worry. We'll do something. still be careful about taking negative feedback particularly about the manager because if they've been asked to do it the last thing they want is information about them or the third option is a little bit sneaky but you could you could just go back to the manager without speaking to anyone go yeah I've spoken to a few people and basically they want anonymous surveys that's the feedback and then you just go right we want anonymous survey so then you go no one will really talk to me and they go well what did you say well I said we're doing this and no one really talked to me they want anonymous surveys oh god we're having to do anonymous surveys and they'll go well luckily i listened to a podcast episode the other day where leanne does anonymous surveys so uh yeah go in touch with her and buy that well you can look at the hse management standard survey or you can buy one from leanne um if he doesn't want to do an anonymous survey doesn't mean that that you couldn't oh good point um yeah it's all just it's all just lip service really isn't it it's not going to provide any useful data at all which is why i'm thinking the swot analysis might at least be something productive and useful i don't think yeah anything around sentiment or employee attitudes is really what this manager is looking for or cares about um so if you're going to take the time to go through this exercise and your colleagues are as well i i just think something like that might might make it somewhat useful yeah totally agree if you've got your if you've got any questions you want to put to leanne then uh check out our show notes because there's links in there where you can submit your question i believe that's the end of the episode uh join Join us next week for another This Week in Work on every Tuesday, as there will be, but there might not be soon because we're going to change things around for summer, but we'll talk about that in a second.

57:46Al Elliott:Leigh, what's going on Thursday? We are joined again by another expert guest. This week, we are talking to someone who is leading a team of bona fide geniuses. Genie-eye? Geniuses. And we're going to get a masterclass on how to recruit and manage people who are smarter than you. Not you, than Wand. And maybe you. How? No smarter than Al. It's not on me yet. Okay, well, thanks very much. If you've enjoyed this, then leave us a review, please, because that really helps us. Also, if you haven't enjoyed this, then send us an email and tell us why you didn't enjoy it because we do want to make it better.

58:18Al Elliott:If you just genuinely don't like British people with stupid sense of humour, then this probably isn't a guest for you. I'm not sure you've got this far. No, I don't think you would. It'd be interesting anyway. We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye-bye.

58:37Al Elliott:I've said they've ditched top-down performative... Don't know what that means. I've just made that word up. The award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets work... And today's is all about leaders and specifically don't know what I'm talking about. It's to gather peer feedback, but why would anyone open up to me? I made a mess of that.