236. Office frogging, A.I. workslop and Deloitte's awkward pay gap. PLUS! Are lefties really more creative?" - This Week in Work, 30th September 2025

0:02Coming up this week in work. Two new workplace words, office frogging and work slop. You've probably never heard of them, but there's a good chance you're already living with the consequences. So what are they? Why do they matter? And what can leaders actually do about them? And in our brand new segment, Truth or Lie, are left-handed people really more creative because they use the right side of their brain? It's a claim you've heard everywhere and I've heard everywhere, but does the science actually back it up? So we're digging into split brain surgery. Ugh, you don't even want to think about that.

0:35Nobel Prize winning research and what creativity really requires. Plus, in the workplace surgery, a new leader has discovered disc profiling and wants to know if it's genuinely useful or just another personality test for select marketing. Stay tuned for that one. I bet you can't guess which way it's going to go. This is Truth Lies Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a choice occupational psychologist. And my name is Al. I'm a business owner.

1:08And together we help organisations build amazing workplace cultures. So let's get right into this after a very quick word from our sponsors. Welcome back. It's Leanne's favourite time of the week. It is. It's time for the News Roundup. It is. You say it's your favourite time of the week, but then also you have a lovely gin and tonic with cucumber and lime is your recent thing. Ginger gin with cucumber and lime. So is that your favourite time of the week or is it? Maybe. Maybe. Well, let's pretend for podcast production purposes, it is your favourite time of the week, is the news roundup. It's one of my favourite times of the week.

1:41It's one of Leanne's favourite times of the week, is the time of the news roundup. What have you seen? What have you seen, my love? I have a new word. Well, we know what it is because we said it in the top. I do. Office frogging. Yep. Okay. Office frogging. You've not listened before. Leanne gives a new word. I try and guess what it is. Leapfrogging is jumping over something. So office frogging is, is it when you take turns to try and jump over the office? Yes. You take a trampoline, you jump over the office, a bit like in the original The Office, the UK office, which is better than the American.

2:14No, it's not. The American's better than the UK. Is it? Saddens me to say that, yes. Not me either, to be honest. No, the UK. The UK's great, but really cringy. The American's not. Anyway, sorry, how do we get on to this? Office frogging. What is it? Office frogging. Well, this came from a Forbes article. And it's the idea that Gen Z, those pesky Gen Zedders, they are hopping from job to job like frogs on lily pads, chasing better pay, better growth or just a better fit. How dare they? How dare they want a better life? How dare they? So they're not staying anywhere too long and employees are starting to notice.

2:50Our thoughts? I think you said it all. how dare they want a really nice job a nice life when os gens exes and millennials had it really tough i would doubt down pits you know oh well when i was a kid we've seen that you've seen that thing it's a really old but i think it's monty python we'll sit there and go oh yeah but when i was a kid i had to i got killed twice before breakfast and then to walk to the mill anyway sorry what was the question do you office frogging do you like it as a term do we think it's fair do we need to pay attention to it no um yes yes and no in that order say more i think it's a bit of a weird term um i think it's just one of those it's we have it all the time tiktok tiktokers i blame them because they say oh we've come up with a brand new word and a brand new term this is what gen z is doing and actually i'm pretty sure that most of us been doing that for a long time used to be something back in the day used to say uh oh they acted like a monkey they never let go of one branch until they got hold of another and that was more kind of like you don't quit one job until you just seemed common sense to me yeah yeah do you know what i think i think you're right some of these some of these are kind of coined on social media by the gen zedders themselves others i think are just a word to take the responsibility away from the organization and put it on the individual like i'm not i'm not a lacking employer you're an office frogger and it's like all right children okay um my lily pad isn't lacking you're just frogging exactly and you know what the article did did kind of go on to call out some of this so peter juris who's the ceo of kick resume described the so-called office frogs as people who aren't afraid to take a leap of faith um and some data from culture and backed it up suggesting nearly half employees are actively looking to leave because trust in leadership is dropping, motivation is down and people are getting restless.

4:43Interesting because our word of the week last week was job hugging. I've also got job frogging. And didn't we say, don't be fooled that this low retention is employee engagement. The minute opportunities come up, the minute people feel safe to leave, they will. And I think you're right. You know, this isn't new. This really isn't new. I think it was probably the younger Gen Xers like you, Alec, kind of started this trend certainly the older millennials because we were the first generations to be shown that loyalty doesn't pay you know it's not the you're employed by with one employer until you retire with a gold watch watching and two kids we watched our parents do that and that was great but then we got ourselves made redundant and we saw other people get made redundant recessions and stagnating wages and no pensions um so we learned to self-protect and i think as well there is just a hunger that comes from being young you want to learn you want the best opportunities you're in a rush when you're early 20s it's not new I think the only word of caution that I would give is if you are if you are job hopping too frequently for example if it's less than 12 months questions will be asked if you've got four jobs in two years questions will be asked that's not to say you can't defend it you can't explain it but it may put you at a disadvantage if the job market is particularly competitive.

6:01So a word of caution, but I think organisations just need to accept that if people are not going to get meaningful work, be paid fairly for it and be treated well, they're going to look for an alternative as they well should. If you want to do the whole like jumping around, just do gig work, do project work, because I know that looks really good on a CV. I did eight projects in eight months. And to be honest, I'm not advocating you do this, but if you were to job hop, you could always potentially position it on your resume as a project. Would that be dishonest? Yeah, maybe a little bit. It's whether you can get the references as well that people are going to require.

6:40But you're right, there are ways to cleverly structure your resume to not be at a disadvantage. But I think the real thing is, as a business owner, you have to ask yourself, are you giving people a reason to stay? And if you're not, then the job hopping may be on June. what's it called sorry office frogging might be on you al what have you seen this week well i've got my own new word i was a bit jealous of my yeah i know i'm a bit jealous of you coming with a new word so i've got my own when i say i've got my own new word it was in um harvard business review check me out as i'm speaking to you i'm drinking tea and i've got a monocle in because i'm that fancy well i didn't even know you knew what hbo i was to be honest i did use your subscription to log in so did you cheeky anyway so my new word is called work slop what what do you what do you think that means pleasant pleasant yes work slop i don't i don't enjoy the word no no um i'm guessing it would be kind of like tasks that are just not very good kind well no i was being kind no it's Okay.

7:46It's a new word. It's a new word. Yeah. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Well, have you heard of AI slop? No. Right. So something which is big on X, Twitter, Twix, whatever you want to call it. AI slop is when all of the replies with a post are written by AI. Say it again. So a post is written by AI. That's classed as AI slop. There's so much more AI or so many more AI replies on Twitter than you think. And once you start to understand and you can see patterns and you'll see the AI replies are basically empty. They'll go, what an amazing insight. I love when I learn stuff like this. No human's going to write that.

8:26And there's so many people out there who are using AI to reply to posts on Twitter. So that's what work slop is. Work slop is similar, but is when you use AI at work to produce something. And it's a bit rubbish. Now, I'll just give you two summaries. So the majority of guest requests that we get, we'd call them work slop. We'd call them guest slop. That's what we'd call them. No, but somebody writing a pitch email, a sales pitch email using AI, and it's not very effective. Yeah. That's work slop. That's work slop. Someone who says, oh, I need a report on so-and-so, so they go to ChatGPT and say, please write a report on the tree frogs of Amazon, their decline in the last five years, and it comes up in line, you know, that's slop.

9:08Right. The difference is, what this HBI article described it as, empty content. They said empty calories was what they used. Basically, anything which comes out and says a lot of things but doesn't really say much is AI, slop. Or work, slop. Now, to be fair, we know a lot of people who also talk that way. They say a lot and say nothing at all. Yeah, that's talk, slop. Some of it's made a career out of it. But the content looks fine. you produce it but when you scratch the surface there's no real substance now it is starting to cost companies a little bit of money because the research from you see better up labs and stanford found that 41 of workers have been on the receiving end of this work slop do you think well is it is it harmless no because usually if you ask someone to write a report and then someone sends it to you and you can't really put your pin on your finger on why it's bad but you know it's bad you're gonna spend hours rewriting it and generally it's about two hours um on average people spend rewriting this work slop so that's hours of lost productivity there's frustration there's trusts all that kind of thing lee what are your thoughts i think there are people out there who are lazy and not clever yes yes and they're the people that are going to engage in work slop yes i think there are plenty of other people out there that are that are lazy and clever so we'll leverage AI to the best of its ability and then spend the time putting the polish on.

10:35I see so much backlash against it that it's like you can never use AI for copywriting or any kind of content creation. It's like, of course you can. It's a speedy little way of just getting the bones of something on there that you can then use your expertise and knowledge and research to flesh out. but yeah I think I think it's getting old quickly and I think I can see it I can see it reducing particularly in terms of content creation because the strategy won't work and the minute it doesn't work there's no point in doing it so people have to pivot yes you're absolutely right as ChatGPT says all the time what else have you seen my love?

11:17Deloitte's UK chief executive has received a 17 % pay rise taking his annual salary up to£4.9 million. Sorry, I thought you said that was£4.9 million. £4.9 million. That's his salary. That's his annual salary. Yeah, Richard Houston, who runs Deloitte in the UK, it was reported in The Times this week that his pay has gone up by£700 ,000 in a single year. Wow. Taking him to almost£5 million. Now, on the surface, you might say, Al, fair enough. I don't think I would. Well, you might, because Deloitte is, to be fair, a multi-billion pound company. It's one of the big four. It's highly influential.

11:57Richard Houston's been there for six years. He's been in charge for six years. He also has wider responsibilities across Europe and sits on Deloitte's global executive. So you might say, do you know what? He's earned this. Good for you, Dick. Dick as in short for Richard. Yes. Yes. Yeah, just checking. Yep. But actually, if you look at it, it does start to get a bit icky. Oh, no. So Richard got a 17 % pay bump, right? Mm-hmm. Staff at Deloitte in general got an average pay rise of 2.9%. Okay. Equity partners, who are the senior leaders just below Mr. Houston, averaged 4%. So while the vast majority are getting very small increases, the boss's pay has jumped by almost five times that of the average Deloitte employee.

12:39Yes, but to be fair, well-performing chair people or CEOs, they usually get bonuses, don't they, when business is good? Yeah, you'd think so, and that might make it okay. Okay, but here comes the awkward bit, Al. Business ain't so good. So a few months ago, Houston himself told staff in Deloitte's biggest division, which is Technology and Transformation, to expect smaller bonuses and fewer promotions because the division had underperformed and in fact revenues in that part of the business had dropped by 10%. Overall, Deloitte UK's revenues fell by 1%. Profits, yes, were up by 4%. That was thanks to growth in other areas like tax and audit.

13:17But the headline is still this, revenue down, warnings to staff, tightening belts, and yet the chief executive takes home a double-digit pay rise. And the real shocker, I think, for me is when you put these ratios, or when you put this into ratios. So Mr. Houston is now paid 65 times more the median Deloitte salary of£75 ,000. Last year, it was 58 times. So the gap isn't just huge, it's growing. Which leaves the question, how do leaders justify rewards at the top when the results don't seem to back them up? And what message does this send to everyone else in the business health thoughts? Well, yeah, it's the message, isn't it?

13:58I think what you're saying there is, yeah, lots of CEOs like the Boeing CEO, I think they know. Boeing CEO has had a pickle of a year, hasn't he? He has, but he's still taken home like$30 million or something as a salary. I was about to say something like a career-taking nosedive, but that's in bad taste. I will not be saying that. Just so we're clear, right? So Houston's paid 65 times the median salary. So that means that there are 65 people he could employ if he didn't take any money. Yeah, yeah. Right. But his increase is 700 ,000 and the median 75 ,000. So actually, just the increase alone could pay for 10 median Deloitte.

14:39Yeah. Yeah. So if he went, do you know what? I'm not taking this increase. he's still going to do very well and get paid the same as 65 employees but he's also going to save 10 jobs it just seems in really bad taste if the truth be told really bad taste it does seem in bad taste and I think the only thing to say is Deloitte isn't the only firm who's under scrutiny for this famously CEO to worker pay ratios in major companies are massive I think in the US it averages about 270 to 1 so by that comparison maybe he's not as bad um but i think the thing is when the staff see bosses pay increasing at that rate when they're being told not to expect pay rises not to expect as much bonuses and loyalty starts to slip and then performance dips because that extra effort that you get from saying we're all in this together just isn't there anymore and it is it is mainly a corporate problem but it's not confined to the corporate world smaller businesses can face similar risks as well if leaders are taking rewards in a way that feels out of step and we have seen this with some of the clients that we work with although it'd be very unintentional these these things can happen so there's a few simple things that will go a long way to avoiding this trap the first thing is being really transparent people don't need every payslip to see that of their md but they do want to know how decisions are made how people are rewarded how bonus works that has to be really really transparent especially if you're taking something away think about that proportion um if times are tough it really lands well for leaders to be seen as taking it doesn't land well for leaders to be seen as taking more themselves and actually this is my frustration when it comes to layoffs so as you said Al if just that pay rise hadn't been taken would it potentially save 10 jobs and that I have beef with.

16:32More from an organisational perspective because it's just going to tank the organisation for years to come. And yeah, so it could be anything. It could be profit sharing. It could be better benefits. It could be smaller gestures. But the point is, it's not just about money, is it? As you said, Alex, the message and people want to know that their contributions count, not just the dicks at the top. The dicks at the top. I like that. That should have been the headline, I think. It seems myopic. Is that the right word? When you don't really look at something properly. There are plenty of... I've read quite a few people.

16:59I want to say the chairman of Costco. Maybe I've made that up. But there was someone, a chairperson or a CEO, who instead of taking the bonus, split it amongst their employees because they said no one else is getting bonus, so I'm not getting bonus, so split it. So I'm sure everyone only got like 50 quid or something. But still, like you say, it's that extra bit. And I've never actually earned 4.9, 4.4 million pounds. I've never earned 700 ,000. That was just the increase. But the thing is, at that point, you go, well, do you need that extra 700 ,000? Is it really going to make a difference? Money just simply rich it up.

17:36Anyway, that's a different... If you're interested in that kind of conversation, then go back to MFD, Megan Furlong, Detroit. She was maybe episode 234 or something, 235. She's a really interesting woman, but also she talks a lot about this kind of thing. Whilst also building a business, being an entrepreneur herself and making money. So it's not about like, no one can make money. It's about, come on, guys. Don't be a dick. There you go. Don't be a dick. It's when making more money is actually making things harder for you in other places. Yes. You know? It's just, it's not worth it. It's not worth it.

18:10It's not worth it. It's not worth it. Anyway, Lee, does that conclude our business? That concludes our news roundup. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. Love all the links are in the show notes. We will come back to you after this very short break with our brand new segment, a second week of it truth or lie plus our world famous weekly workplace surgery where i put your questions to leanne we'll see you in just a second don't go anywhere welcome back it is time for our new segment truth or lie we need a we need a theme tune for this yeah oh no no no no no no no no no i'm not gonna put theme during this week sorry i know i'm disappointed you anyway time for truth or lie which is our weekly myth busting segment this is where we take those psychology soundbites you've probably seen on TikTok or LinkedIn post or as Leanne and I call it, TickTube, which is the TikTok for the older generation.

18:59YouTube shorts. Yep. Or maybe it's a management training session. We're going to ask you, does the evidence actually back this up? Yeah, let's be honest. Psychology appears full of nice little neat claims that feel very true. They're simple, they're catchy, and they spread fast. But when you do scratch that surface, a lot of them are built on half-truths or they've been stretched way beyond the research entirely. Last week, we talked about white noise and concentration. And next week, we're going to pick something that we've said. In fact, if you've got an idea for it, drop us an email. But today, as truth or lie is this.

19:33Ah, Leanne, are left-handed people more creative because they use the right side of their brain? Just in case you haven't heard that. I think that is true, isn't it? That the left hand is controlled by the right hand side of the brain. Is that right? I shall get into this. Right. I'm sorry. I'm jumping ahead. Leanne. So yeah, are left-handed people more creative? i i've i've definitely heard this before i think the majority of people have so yes basically the left side of your brain is logical and analytical the right side is creative and artistic that's the thought and that's because the right hemisphere controls the left hand right so left-handed means the right side of your brain is dominant which means it's creative and autistic um so left-handed must be.

20:17Autistic or artistic? Artistic, sorry. Sorry, I think it's autistic. Creative and artistic. So yes, left-handers must be more creative. It's a nice little story, isn't it? But humans are a little bit more complicated than that, Al. Yes, I thought they might be. So let's start at the beginning. The brain does have two hemispheres. This is true. And they are connected. And we have two hands. That is also true. So our two hemispheres in our brain are connected by a bundle of fibers and that's called the corpus callosum. It's not important but I wanted to sound clever. And yes each hemisphere does have its specialties so the left hemisphere or what we hear called the logical brain is more involved in language structure and step-by-step processing.

21:02So the sort of thing that you rely on when you're writing an email, you have to be very precise, you're working through a budget, you're following a formula. the right hemisphere on the other hand the creative brain in you know little bunny ears is stronger when the task needs imagination or pattern spotting so it's when a designer is sketching out a new logo it might help you catch the meaning behind someone's expression it's what gets you swept up in a piece of musical it's that whole picture awareness and that's a big part of what we call creative thinking so there is some truth there we have a left hemisphere a right hemisphere they control the other opposite sides of the body um so yeah it's it's that that part is true this idea caught on in the 1960s from very famous study from roger sperry this is so famous actually included on the curriculum in the uk for a-level psychology yeah it's one of like the the seminal works that need to to be taught so basically and i'm going to try and explain this really simply because it's a bit it's a bit head for g but literally yeah literally so roger sperry was studying patients who had a split brain blip so roger sperry was studying patients who had a split brain procedure.

22:27So that was when people had really severe forms of epilepsy. They didn't know how to treat at the time. So to stop procedures spreading, surgeons would cut the corpus callosum, those fibres in between, that would connect the brains. So yes, so Sperry then realised that this gave him a chance to study two sides of the brain, almost as if they're separate minds because they're no longer connected. They're no longer communicating with each other. So he ran a series of experiments. Are you with me so far? Yes. Just out of interest. The people were like, they could still like walk about and eat and all that kind of stuff with this Corpus Christi thing split.

23:06Okay. Yeah. Well, yes. There was some complications which we're going to go into actually. Right. Okay. You were just one little step ahead, aren't you? Sorry. So one of the most famous experiments, what he did is he flashed a picture of a house in the patient's right eye. Okay. Yeah, so cover the left eye, show the patient's right eye a picture of a house. Because of the way vision is wired, that information went into the left hemisphere. Right. Yeah. And in most people, the left hemisphere has the language center there. So the patient could instantly say, that's a house. No problem. When he flipped it, so when he showed the house only in the left eye, that information went to the right hemisphere the right hemisphere could recognize the picture perfectly well but it doesn't have the machinery for language so normally it would send that information across to the left side of the brain so you could say the word but because those the hemispheres are disconnected the information was trapped in the right hemisphere so when Sperry asked what do you see the patient was speechless they knew but they just couldn't say it but here's the really cool bit so what he did is he handed the patient a pencil in their left hand because this information is trapped in the right hemisphere and asked them to draw what they'd see and that's exactly what happened the patient sketched out a house wow they couldn't name it couldn't say it but they could reproduce it wow huge breakthrough moment really to show that each half the brain can take in and act on information but only the left hemisphere can put it into words that's where all of our language centers live um so yeah completely ground making unbelievable Sperry won a Nobel Prize for showing it and because of this famous experiment because the right hemisphere could draw and imagine when the left couldn't and the right hemisphere means you're left-handed this kind of got oversimplified and generalized to the creative right brain do we see i do see i do have a question i'll wait till the end you'll take questions at the end i'm guessing questions at the end so the reason this is a bit of an overgeneralization is because we have to remember that these people had surgically severed brains right in healthy brains the two sides are in constant conversation they're working as one so pop psychology stripped away that nuance and turned it into left equals logical, right equals creative.

25:41Makes sense. But in terms of left-handers, there is also some nuance here. So research shows that left-handed people are more likely to have language spread across both hemispheres rather than just the left. They also have a larger corpus callosum, the fibres that connect them. There's more wiring between the two sides. So that could make them a bit more flexible when switching tasks or making unusual connections. but it's not like destined to be there are plenty of uncreative left-handers and plenty are brilliantly creative right-handers so the best way to think about it right is like an orchestra so your brain is an orchestra and at one side you've got the violins and they're carrying the melody and the other side you've got the brass and they might provide the power and then somewhere else you've got the percussions and they're keeping the rhythm but you don't get a symphony from just one section you need them all working together and creativity is the same it doesn't belong to one hemisphere it takes the whole brain so in terms of truth or lie the idea that lefties are automatically more creative or that one side of your brain makes you logical while the other makes you artistic that is a lie the truth is really more interesting i think both hemispheres are working together and creativity comes from the whole if i remember correctly when they covered the left eye when this guy Parry or Sparry covered the left eye and showed a house to the right eye it could draw the house but couldn't say it did he ever cover the right eye show a house to the left eye and ask them to draw it?

27:15I would need to read it again but I believe yes they tested it in different scenarios and yeah they couldn't do it so one would have language and one would have and they did it in different ways as well so they also had it where they'd search like behind a covered table with objects on it and they could pick out like a key for example that they'd seen a picture of as well as drawing it like it was very much more physical so yeah really interesting i would imagine nobel prize oversight committee would have asked that question back in 1960s before when they gave him the nobel prize so uh i mean i think it's enough isn't it even if he didn't do that not enough for me i'm disappointed with you richard sparrie was that his name sparrie sparrie i'm disappointed i'm disappointed because he's not around anymore no no i don't believe he is but um but yeah a very cool study a proper groundbreaking i used to tutor um a level psychology students and we'd go through this one and their minds would be blown yeah it would take a lot of it because it's so complicated well having to regurgitate this in an exam yeah it's it's it's confusing isn't it but um but yeah very cool this is why psychology is ace this is why humans are awesome and why it's hard to be very simple because we're very complex beings you are less complex than most but still quite complex are you saying i'm simple simple being it's a very simple big no no that was absolutely fantastic i really i love these and but if you tell us when if you're listening what what do you want to hear next because i've got a whole list of things but you come first i will if you send me in a suggestion something you want me to ask leanne i will very happily ask it next week or the week after.

28:54Yeah, so thank you very much. Really enjoyed that. Thank you. Now is on to my favourite time of the week. Well, one of the favourite times of the week. I also, too, enjoy Gin Friday. It is time for the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. If you've never heard this before, Leanne, as you already will know, is a psychologist specialising in work and organisations. She has the answers to the majority of your questions. And if she doesn't, very often she'll go and find someone who does. If you listen to the last couple of episodes, you'll hear we brought in some people from the Curve Group who are specialists in HR.

29:23question number one this person says i've just discovered disk d-i-s-c is it actually useful for leaders or just another personality tool okay let's see how this goes i've recently stepped into my first proper leadership role i'm confident in the technical side of the job managing people is all new to me and i want to approach you with a bit of structure i came across disk profiling while looking to different leadership tools sounds promising helping you understand your own management style, how your team operates, what motivates people and so on, but I'd never even heard of it before. It makes you wonder, is it widely used?

29:57Have either of you used disk in a team setting? Is it something worth exploring further? No. Do you know what? I think that might be the shortest and most complete answer. Just in case someone pushes back and goes, wait a minute, I've heard disk is all right. What do you say to them? You're incorrect. Are we really just leaving it there no disc is very popular um some fun facts about disc um it was created by the same guy who wrote the wonder of uncommon comics to be fair that guy was also a psychologist but it was first it was you know what it came from the model behind disc came in like 1920 something and it's a theory that's never really been proved and the scientific support for DISC in terms of an accurate way of measuring personality or indeed behavior is very lacking it's not very robust and also if you're not sure DISC basically will ask people questions and then give you a color so you're a yellow you're a red you're a blue you're a green and as as John Amici my favourite cyclist in the world, said to me, Leanne, how have we got to the point where the complexity of the human psyche is distilled into a primary colour?

31:13There we go. Mic drop moment. So yeah, disc isn't good. Speaking more broadly about psychometrics, and I'm pleased that you're curious and psychometrics can be useful in terms of understanding your team and figuring out the best way to manage them. Broadly speaking, psychometrics fall into three buckets. You have kind of anything around intelligence which will include um iq and eq you have personality psychometrics and you have behavioral psychometrics now do you know what i always thought disc was personality but when i looked into it more again recently um it calls itself a behavior-based psychometric i i don't think i don't think it's either to be honest i think it's nonsense but i would want to dump it more in the personality because you're trying to put people into a type which is very much steeped in the personality literature personality inventories have two main buckets they're either type where you'll get a color or an int p f and j whatever they are or they're on a continuum like introversion to extroversion we're all somewhat introverted extroverted we sit somewhere on a scale and that gives of course much more um variety of profiles that will pop out you're not just going to get 16 or god forbid four um so yeah personality inventories can be useful if you pick a good one Hogan is a great test publisher for example as is SHL the problem with personality when it comes to understanding your team is personality is pretty fixed it doesn't change much from the point of like 20 to 75 it's fairly fixed so you're kind of giving your team members permission not to change if you talk about their personality because they're going to go oh well I can't finish that report I'm not I'm not a I'm not red or I can't do that sales call I'm not a yellow um it just limits people's potential that they'll use either for bad because they don't want to do something they don't want to do some grunt work or it will limit them in terms of imposter syndrome and confidence so I don't think personality regardless of how effective the tool is is particularly useful in this scenario I would go for a behavior-based metric the real world group are one of my absolute favorites belbin is not a bad place to start as well um it's not the same kind of robustness of psychology behind belbin is there is the tools from the real world group but it's a really nice place to start and will give you team roles that you can discuss but again it's preferences it's not a defined like you are definitely this um so good thinking honestly if you're using any psychometric you really should be engaging an expert somebody who is trained in psychometrics like an occupational psychologist to really understand exactly the tool that you need to serve the the task that you need it to but broadly speaking for this scenario i would say behavior based is the way to go look at belbin look at real world group now can i just check because this original uh letter it's not a letter but i'm pretending it's a letter said um it sounds promising helping helped me understand my own management style how my team operates and what motivates people is all of that encompassed under behavior then is that where what we're looking at we should be looking at the behaviors which will help us with those three things exactly because behavior can be modified behavior can be changed behavior can be coached so in terms of a management style managers also need to be adaptable depending on the team they're they're leading in the context they're leading it so for example with the early onset of COVID, we saw a very sharp shift to much more command and control levels of leadership.

34:56People needed quick answers, go home, this needs to close, that needs to happen. As the pandemic progressed, it became much more open, consultative leadership in terms of, well, how do we deal with this? And how do we overcome that when we've got a bit more time to do it? So understanding your own preferred style and how that looks in terms of the behaviours you enact in the workplace is going to be really important for you to know when the context changes suddenly or you're given a task that is yeah contextually specific so for example if you're going through a merger or something like that so yeah it's great for understanding how you show up as a manager and how you might need to start working on behaviors that you don't naturally enact impact also in terms of how your team operates you're going to see how your typical behaviors might differ to the typical behaviors of your team you might also get clues of people that you clash with who might be very similar to you in terms of behaviors or indeed very different it could also show people that you might favor unfairly because of this similarity and how they all work together so it gives you just a really nice framework to understand yourself understand your team and understand how you can modify behaviors to get the performance you need in the context.

36:12Fabulous. Okay, so we're saying no to DISC, no to Myers-Briggs, no to anyone who does personality because personality tests like Myers-Briggs and DISC are kind of the equivalent of those things that went around talking about the pandemic of going, what kind of chocolate bar are you? And you answer six questions and it tells you you're a Kit Kat or something because you have four things, you know, don't go down that road. I don't know where that was going. Sorry, listener. So we say that's bad. What's good is something that measures behavior. And you said that that Real World Group is your favourite of that which we'll probably put links in the show notes.

36:43If you do have to do a personality test you rate Hogan, do you? Yeah, Hogan. Hogan, nothing to do with Hulk. It's a very different thing. If you just search Truth, Lies, Work Hogan you'll see we had an interview with the Chief Science Officer. Dr. Ryan... Sherman. Who's wonderful. Ryan Sherman. Yeah. Not to say personality frameworks and tests don't have their place but I think in team development is limited because it's fit what are you going to do with that recruitment different things you're bringing in a personality um but yeah i'd always go behavior for a team-based setting interesting thank you very much okay so question number two how do senior leaders answer tough questions without without actually answering them oh this is going to be interesting i've noticed something in company all hands meetings and press briefings when senior leaders get asked difficult or uncomfortable questions they somehow manage to respond without really committing to anything they don't dodge the question out right but they also don't land on a clear answer either.

37:40It's like they've got a framework or script in their back pocket that helps them stay neutral and in control. Is there a technique leaders use to handle these moments or is it just practice? Lee, do you think this person's asking how they can do it or how they do it? Does the person writing in want to learn this skill or they're just curious about how these people have learned the skill? I think maybe it's a little bit of both. But I think is there a technique leaders can use? yes is it just practice and yes also yes also yes um yeah do you know what there's you use two words here they're absolutely nailed down what leaders are doing these moments they stay neutral and they're in control so neutrality comes from high levels of emotional regulation you don't panic you don't react immediately um and senior leaders who are effective are very good at regulating their emotionals, emotionals, emotions.

38:35And in terms of control, it's showing that you, people can trust you, that you've got this, you can provide that reassurance in moments that are often very ambiguous. So yeah, being neutral and in control are key things that leaders are trying to in their communications. There are so many different frameworks and stuff out there that you can follow across psychology research across PR and comms research marketing behavioral science as well um there are so many so I thought I would maybe just share one that I quite like in terms of being science-led and looking at how our psychology and our brains can can be used in moments like this to to look aloof as a leader but also sound very in control um so this was a model that is developed by neuroscience called david rock in the late noughties and it's called the scarf model s-c-a-r-f i like it already yeah so it's based on care around care and i like the the letters when you can yeah what's it called is it an acronym or is it um an acronym is different acronym let's just go with acronym because there's no one here to correct us true um look forward to your letters so it's based on the neuroscience of kind of how our brains react to social threats so it's that kind of fight or flight area of neuroscience so how we react to things like embarrassment or power dynamics uncertainty the brain treats us as a threat and in the same way treats it a similar way treats it like physical danger so if a tough question comes up in public their brain is on high alert so senior leaders will be media trained in how to manage this in the moment so the scarf model basically says there's five things people are always scanning a context for status am i respected here certainty do i know what's happening autonomy do i have any control relatedness am i included and safe and fairness am i being treated justly so bearing in mind this is for anyone who finds himself in a social or leadership context where there's a threat if you've been called to a town hall there's a good chance you're going to feeling a little bit of threat because you know a big organizational change is coming so whilst you're feeling it the leader is also feeling it but wanting to control that in both them and in you so when the leader answers a tough question what they're really doing is managing these five areas and in that managing the context as well as the content interesting that makes sense yes so in terms of how this might apply to a town hall question let's say there's some layoffs coming because that seems to be happening everywhere at the minute right um so in terms of the first one they want to protect status they're gonna say things like i know how much effort people are putting in that's not going unnoticed so i'm not taking any respect away from your status away from you no then they give certainty we will be reviewing roles across the next three weeks and we'll get keep everyone updated got a timeline clever we've got an idea what's happening then they move to preserve autonomy so let's say something like managers will be speaking to teams individually this won't be handled top down without input clever i feel reassured already then they build relatedness so i would say something like i know this is difficult i've been through this in my own career and it's never easy oh that's a nice touch and then they frame the fairness um so whatever decisions we make will be consistent across departments and based on clear criteria so if you've got somebody put their hand up and say am i going to be laid off you've not got an answer to that question no but you've been protected in terms of of the respect and status people feel for you've got a bit of certainty you've got a bit of autonomy you feel the leader's more relatable and it seems like the process is fair you've learned nothing to answer your question but you feel reassured and that's what that's what leaders do they're regulating the emotional climate um and that's why they pay them the big bucks that makes sense why they get 4.9 million pounds a year but that totally makes sense and also you see that quite often in um i think you say quite often like if you if at the end of football matches if you if If they're interviewing the manager and they've lost, the manager will often seems to use that sort of thing.