240. Starbucks’ CEO fail, toxic superstars and Dubai’s Wolf of Wall Street? PLUS! Is Maslow's hierarchy a myth?

0:00Coming up this week in work. Would you make 100 phone calls a day for£24 ,000 a year? While a London firm is hiring salespeople in Dubai with brutal targets and barely any base pay, they call it resilience. But what does the psychology say about high pressure without support? Also this week, Starbucks wants staff to make eye contact, write personal messages on cups and finish every order in four minutes. Sounds friendly, but employees say it feels fake. Can you mandate genuine connection? What does that defeat the whole point? And in Truth or Lie, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This famous pyramid is taught in every business school and stuck on every training slide.

0:41But does it actually explain how human motivation works? Plus, in the workplace surgery, would you fire your best employee if they were destroying team morale? One business owner says they're torn between performance and team culture. This is Truth, Lies and Work. The award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne and I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. My name is Al, I'm a business owner. And together we help organizations build amazing workplace cultures.

1:13So let's get right into it after this very quick word from our lovely sponsors. Does your experience with AI sound a little like this? You prompt for 20 minutes, the output is polished, is confident and is completely flipping useless. Well, that's what happens when AI doesn't know anything about your business. But you know what does know something about your business? HubSpot. HubSpot's AI. It works with your actual customer data. Every interaction, every signal your team has generated over time. So instead of prompting and hoping, you ask once and ship it. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

1:54Welcome back. It's Leanne's favourite time of the week. It's time for the News Roundup. We did find out the other week that your favourite time of the week is actually a gin and tonic on a Friday. So this is your second favourite time of the week. It's time for the News Roundup. Yes, it is. Keep the jingle out. Leanne, what have you seen on the tintywebs this week? I've got a new word. Go on. Breadcrumbing. If you've not listened to this before, I try and guess what it is. So breadcrumbing. Hansel and Gretel, they drop breadcrumbs. So breadcrumbing is a trail back to something else. So possibly breadcrumbing is following back to your original culture.

2:27No, but follow that through in terms of they're following their breadcrumbs and what happens to Hansel and Gresham. They go in the oven. Things don't end well. No. It's similar. Right. So this, I think, has been, I believe, picked up from the dating world. Right. And then reapplied to the business world. So in the dating world, it means that someone strings you along just enough that they hold your attention but never really commits okay so in the workplace this has been basically applied to mean when a manager or an organization hints at promotions raises and opportunities but never actually follows through um so they basically they're leaving a small crumb trail to string you along yeah a bit like i did when we first started dating yeah you absolutely did breadcrumb it i did i'm an awful human being yeah you did but you stuck with it and we're together now and look now we're world famous podcasters broadcasters anyway so so this is a bad thing isn't it it's not good so this is an article where did i see it can grade is that how you say it can grade why not so they said that you might hear things like someone's breadcrumbing you um you might hear things like we're thinking about moving you into leadership we're just thinking about it we need to finalize the budget we've all heard that one next quarter we'll revisit your development plan but then nothing no structure no timeline no meaningful progress and it is quite relevant now because we are seeing signs of this aren't we're seeing pay growth slowing down we're seeing that internal mobility shrink with lots of these organizations going for flatter structures and the job markets are are still a bit shaky the one thing that we know though we're not wired to wait forever so in terms of behavioral science it shows that we're made it motivated by progress we're going to talk about motivation a bit later on as well with maslow's hierarchy of needs aren't we but what we know is that even small wins um are good it's that progress that that feels like we're getting somewhere but if that progress is promised not delivered then we lose trust and that impacts our motivation that goes down and then engagement and turns in to resentment.

4:42So yeah, that is breadcrumbing our thoughts. Now I can see from a kind of like a leadership or business owner point of view, you do want to keep your good people around. You may not be able to follow through, but I will be tempted, not breadcrumb, but maybe say, look, I'm going to be really honest with you, but nothing I can do over the next sort of like six months, but I really want you to be the next manager. I'm not promising anything, but can we work towards it? And if it comes off, then you'll be the first in line. Is that fair or is that still breadcrumbing a bit? I think that's fair. And I think that's the only thing you can do if you're an organisation where budgets are limited or opportunities aren't there right now.

5:20I think, like you said, it's being honest and being transparent and people will respect that. And it might not necessarily change their mind to leave, but it's certainly going to make them motivated and performing until they do. I mean, there are other things that you could do if you're not able to offer that promotion. Working on extra projects, stretch projects, job crafting. What's a stretch project? So a stretch project is say, so say in terms of I wanted to really get some experience in organisational change at a huge organisation, I might go and work alongside a psychologist in Microsoft for certain periods of the week to get an idea of what that looks like.

6:03Right. So it's a stretch in terms of it's not beyond my capability, but it's stretching my capability in terms of multinational global level Microsoft chain. You've got to meet Bill. Exactly. Me and Bill have a cup of tea. Another thing you could do is job crafting. Job crafting is actually really effective in terms of motivation and professional development. It's basically when you say to somebody, what's the best parts of your job? What would you like to be doing more of? And allowing that person to go, do you know what? I really enjoy podcasting. So I would like to launch the business podcast for the company.

6:37So yeah, there's other things that you can do. But bottom line is, I think, if you're just being deceitful, manipulative, people aren't going to buy it for too long, and they'll lose trust, and they'll lose motivation, and they'll leave. I think that covers all of leadership, doesn't it? And management and business ownership. If you tell lies, you'll get to find out. There's a story about the Pied Piper of Hamelin. and my dad used to read it to me at night and he read it over and over and over again and at the end he said and promises once made should always be kept and he looked me right in the eye at it when he said that and I think now from that point forward any promise I make I'll only make a promise if I can keep it I think now because I keep seeing my dad's eyes going I will find you and I will kick your ass anyway anyway there you go life lesson from Brian Elliott there Al, what have you seen this week?

7:32Well, I was on Twitter. There's a woman called Minda Zetlin. Originally, I think I saw this in Inc.com, but a bit of digging. She writes for everything. She's pretty incredible. We have to get her on the pod because she's like, oh, she's columnist for Inc. She's columnist for this, columnist for that. Also lives in a place called Snow Homish in WA. What's that? Is that Washington? So it's a made-up place. Or it's from Lord of the Rings. I'm not sure. Maybe she lives in Lord of the Rings. But anyway, that's not what I want to talk about. She did an article about the CEO of Starbucks, a brand new CEO called Brian Nickel, and he has created guidelines for staff.

8:07Starbucks has seen about six consecutive quarters of sales declines. So Brian came in and he introduced a raft of new policies to reverse this. So part of this is called the Green Apron Service. It's all part of this, what he calls Back to Starbucks plan. I'd like to make a joke about Brian Nickel and nickel and diming, but I won't. So the Green Apron service is all about stricter dress codes, restriction on body piercings, but also the interaction you have with your barista. I always get that wrong, not barrister, barista, is actually quite tightly scripted. I'll read from the article. It says, they're told to pause for a second to make eye contact.

8:43Don't rush the moment. This is according to the Wall Street Journal, who's reviewed the manual. You're also supposed to greet a customer by name if you can and make eye contact when you take the order. And then finally, you're supposed to write something meaningful on the cup. Now someone does report they were fired for not doing this. Then eye contact again when handing drink over. Oh, and you're going to keep all this down to less than four minutes because people are leaving because Starbucks was taking too long. There is lots of backlash. Employees are saying this is what they call fabricated empathy.

9:13And they're supposed to do all these new things and reduce this time to process a customer. The eye contact. Someone may come up with a good point. In fact, I think it might have been the author, Minda. Minda Zetlid, with a good point, saying that neurodivergent staff or those uncomfortable with eye contact might find that a little bit difficult. Feels like this could backfire. I mean, I understand why they're trying to do it. I think they're trying to make Starbucks a little less corporate and more like your sort of family run coffee house. But again, this idea of fabrication is where I think it might be going wrong.

9:42What are your thoughts, Lee? What did they call it? Green apron? A green apron service. See now, I enjoy that because it's giving, it's an iconic thing, isn't it? It's like a cultural landmark, that green apron that people can connect with. And I think the step that they've missed is because I can only assume that this has come directly from the leadership team without any employee consultation because of the backlash. is that why wouldn't you, as a new CEO, bring people into that conversation? I'm new here. What does it mean to you, this Green Apron service? What do you miss? What's got lost in Starbucks?

10:23What do you want to go back to? And then creating what that means in terms of a philosophy or values or designed behaviors is then going to be much more acceptable because people have been involved in that change. have been consulted what does green apron service mean to you what do we want it to mean for us moving forward so i think that's that's problematic assuming that there wasn't any employee consultation or by the sounds of it wasn't done very widely or very well the other thing starbucks has had a bit of scandal the last last two years or so hasn't it what with the tax or oh well yeah and then they had accusations didn't they of like union busting within the workforce.

11:08There's been lawsuits for unfair dismissal. There's been talk about potential child labour within the supply chain. There's a lot been happening and then we've had the CEO move on, didn't we? So I think it's a time of transformation. So I understand the sense of urgency for the new CEO, but often, what's it called? What was it? What's it? I don't know what you're saying. More speed, less taste. Less, less taste. No, less haste, more speed. No, the other way. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, more haste, less speed. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Well, you say the new CEO should have come in and probably should have done consultation.

11:49What this new CEO, Brian Nichols, has been busy doing is the first policy change was to reduce remote working to one day a week. I'm guessing this is not for... Oh, what's his name? Brian Nichols. Brian. Come on, Brian. I'm in it. Unless you're a senior leader, in which case being in the office is mandatory. Yet, Brian runs this Seattle-based head office from his place in California, where it's much nicer weather. Oh, Brian's cancelled. Brian's cancelled. And he wonders why this didn't go down well. Well, exactly, exactly. The author, Minda Zeppelin, sums it up like this. Most human beings are good at recognising one another's emotions.

12:23If a Starbucks employee looks you in the eye, smiles, and writes something cheery on your cup, While they're seething with fury on the inside, chances are you will pick up on that. I'll be honest. I do enjoy Starbucks. It's probably my coffee chain of choice, truth be told, which might get me cancelled. Yeah, maybe. I would quite enjoy it if now knowing this, I was going in Starbucks and they were writing quite salty messages on it. Like, save me. Or, I don't know, we'll dance for tips. I had to take my nose ring out for this job. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. We're all cancelled. We'll join Brian in the hole.

13:01What else have you seen this week, love? Would you make 100 calls a day for£24 ,000 a year? I kind of did. Yeah? Yeah, one of my first jobs was selling advertising over the phone and I used to make 100 marks on the piece of paper and dial 100 times. Anyway, sorry, that's about me. This is not about me. So you're saying yes. I'm saying I wouldn't do it now. Thank you, HubSpot, for giving us a different source of income. but when I was a kid I did do it. Yeah, I mean I think that... Does that totally take the wind out of all of this sales? No, no, it doesn't. It's like it's an entry level expectation, isn't it?

13:34I went into sales as well and I was more inbound than outbound but I still would take more than 100 calls a day for sure. Free advertising space, fun times in a newspaper aisle. The kids even know what a newspaper is. Back to the article. 100 calls, 24 grand. Yes, this was reported by The Telegraph and it's about Waxton Wealth, a London-based financial planning firm with offices around the world, including Sunny Dubai. So according to the report, Hoxon's trainee wealth managers in Dubai are expected to make at least 100 phone calls a day. The advert, which describes the role as not for the faint-hearted, says candidates must show exceptional resilience and a strong work ethic to succeed.

14:16What do we know? We know the phone is the job, is phone-based for the first two years. and the targets are explicit 100 calls a day at least one confirmed booking every day five hours of talk time and five meetings secured each week in return trainees receive a starting salary of 24 000 pounds rising to just in 29 000 pounds by year three plus a five percent commission on any sales they make the advert also promises visas and medical coverage which are mandatory for dubai residents so sounds like they had to plus makes clear that success depends on stamina it's frames an opportunity for people with a competitive spirit who can thrive in a high pressure environment.

14:56It's all sounding very Wolf of Wall Street at this point, isn't it? Yeah. So the practice of aggressive calling, the article goes on to mention, has been heavily restricted in recent years. So cold calling financial products actually banned in the UK after a crackdown by the Financial Conduct Authority in 2023 and similar rules in Dubai limit calls to between 9am and 6pm. Hoxton has insisted its trainees comply with both sets of rules, saying that people contacted have already expressed interest in the company's services, meaning they're not technically called calls. But how many times do you express interest in something?

15:31You're like, did I? Did I? I don't know. Tick a box somewhere in a form? Anyway, for more context, I guess, because this is an entry-level position, so it might sound a little bit measly in terms of the work-to-pay ratio. But for context, Hoxton Wealth manages, it's huge. So you'd imagine the senior employees get paid a lot because they manage 2.5 billion pounds in assets and have more than 10 ,000 clients across nine offices worldwide. So what do we think, Al? Is this fair for an entry level position? Is it a bit, is it a bit bro? Is it a bit wall for wall street thoughts? I think yes to all of those things.

16:08And we can sit here in our podcasting ivory tower and go, well, you know, things should be better. However, sales is the best, in my opinion, sales is the best thing you can do to get yourself grounded for any kind of business. Now, if you want to be like, I don't know, a feng shui consultant, actually, even then you need sales because you need to sell your stuff. So I think, you know how some countries do mandatory military service? What do they call it? There's a special name for it. Conscription, I can't remember. Well, I think that everyone should do mandatory one year of sales, phone sales, hard phone sales.

16:45I did door-to-door sales. That was brutal, man. Brutal. But I also did see some very, very strange things. So I think that should be mandatory. What strange things did you see? Oh, well, there was a couple quite openly enjoying intercourse in the window. I knocked on the door. They looked up and he kind of looked at me and said, give me a minute. I'll be there in a second. I also ended up sitting in a tiny one-bedroom terrace in Halifax. This isn't Nova Scotia. This isn't Yorkshire. In Halifax with eight Rottweilers. And they were the softest things in the world. and that's what made me get our first Rottie.

17:24Aww. Yeah, because they were the loveliest dogs in the world. Anyway, that's not the point. So sales. I think sales is a really good base for everything and anything. Whatever your job is, there's a good chance there's a selling element to it. Also, they're not telling people they have to do this. This is a choice. So you always say job design, role design, role, you know, clarity. They're being quite clear about what it is. They're not saying come and work in a fast-paced environment where you're going to really enjoy the camaraderie. They're going, you are going to work like a dog, man. That was a UAE accent.

17:58Don't even know what accent that was. Oh, my goodness. I wonder how many times we get cancelled in this one episode. I know, I know. So, bottom line for me, cool. Crack on. Because you're not making people doing it and you're actually being really explicit. So, you're saying, this is the job. Do you want it or not? And so, yeah. Anyway. I agree with you. I think they're being very explicit. it they're being very clear on what they want we all know what this role is we've all seen this role some of us have done this role it is what it is they they're they're a firm that goes for the approach of we want people to burn bright and burn fast very few people are going to stay in this this type of environment for the entirety of their career the majority people probably do it until they're 30 and then and then tap out and go and do something else because they made their money so I think I think yeah it is it is what it is and jobs like this exist because we live in a capitalist society where money makes the world go round I can go into the psychology of it but I think it's no real mystery that if you don't have that purpose in your role if you don't have that autonomy if you're not given diverse things to do it is gonna hit your motivation levels it is gonna feel hard managing by outcomes is good but if it's not connected to a bigger purpose then it's not really going to keep us going.

19:17We know it's going to be stressful, tiring, tunnel vision. Competitive could bring in a lot of toxicity. Who knows? I don't think anyone is that surprised by what the psychology of this will lead to over time. Probably toxic work environments, burnout, high turnover. But I think that's the point of what Hoxton is going for. But anyway, I agree. They're chasing what they will call A players. they've defined what they think an A player is. And I'm sure in an organisation of that size, that much under management, 2.5 billion assets, I'd imagine once you get out of your training, you can start to earn some decent money.

19:56And what we also don't know as well, to be fair, is they earn 5 % commission on any sale that they make. That could add up to lots and lots and lots. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's what it is, is what I'd say on that. I agree. If you're listening to this and you want, there's two movie recommendations I've got for you, The Wolf of Wall Street, Leanne's already mentioned, and Pursuit of Happiness. And both of those are positioned as someone who is willing now. Wolf of Wall Street goes off in a different direction to Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith. But both those people who are willing to work from the bottom up and they were successful.

20:26And if you want to be in wealth management and you want to earn, you know, £250 ,000 a year, then perhaps this is the way you start. And to be honest, probably a lot of people at the top did start off on this. Anyway. Lee, anything else to add before we go to our lovely break? No. Okay, so after the break, we've got Truth or Lie. This is our new segment where I ask Leanne, is something true or is something a lie? Bang on brand. And we've got our world famous week of workplace surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. Don't go anywhere. See you in a second. School might soon be out for summer, but marketing school is here to stay.

20:57And it is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Genuine marketing legends Neil Patel and Eric Su bring you daily actionable digital marketing lessons learned from years in the trenches with nearly 100 million downloads, probably a million of those are from me actually, and over 2 ,500 episodes, Marketing School delivers bite-sized marketing wisdom you could implement immediately. Whether you've got a new website, you're an established business, you're going to learn the latest in SEO, content marketing, social media, email marketing, conversion, optimization, and genuine online marketing strategies that work today.

21:30So if you want real-world marketing tactics from practitioners who are still in the arena building and scaling businesses, this show is perfect for you. And if you're considering using AI, which I think you should, then the latest episode looks into why AI often costs companies more than the employees it replaced. It's, yeah, definitely go and check that one out. Listen to Marketing School wherever you get your podcasts.

21:56Welcome back. It is time for Truth or Lie. Here's a new jingle. Is it a truth? Is it a lie? Is it a truth? Truth? Truth is a lie. I've not heard that. Wow. I'll be honest, I hadn't heard it until it actually came out of my mouth. I didn't even know it existed. Yeah, I think that just goes on some kind of approval process, that one. Yeah, and maybe we just get someone else in to do the vocals, perhaps. Maybe. But a lovely melody. Thank you very, very much. This is our weekly myth-busting segment, where we take those psychological claims you see everywhere and ask, does the evidence actually back this up?

22:28So we've recently done left-handed people. We haven't done left-handed people. We've talked about left-handed people. Are they more creative? We've looked at whether tall people really are more successful at work. Did we do one other? No, this might be our three. I think this is maybe our third one. So this week's Truth or Lie, does Maslow's famous pyramid of needs accurately explain what motivates us? And do we really need to satisfy our basic needs before we can pursue things like self-esteem and reaching our full potential? You can tell I'm reading from a piece of paper here. Basically, is Maslow correct?

22:57Is it a load of rubbish? What's your thoughts? Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's that famous pyramid. You've all seen it. You all know what I'm talking about. You've done one training session on leadership. You've opened a textbook. um yeah you would have seen it it's five levels stacked up into a pyramid so at the bottom you've got psychological needs like food sorry physiological needs like food and water then you've got safety and security then love and belonging then esteem and recognition and finally self-actualization at the peak which means basically becoming our best selves it's simple it's elegant it's everywhere and it's been taught in business schools and psychology departments since the 1950s.

23:36The core idea that goes with it, which is important to know as well, it's not just about the levels. The core idea is that you must satisfy each level before you can move up to the next. So you can't worry about making friends if you're hungry. You can't pursue your dreams if you don't feel safe. Fair enough. Yeah, yeah. All seems intuitive and makes sense. Yes. Here is the first problem, Al. Abraham Maslow never drew a pyramid. Oh. Not once. Okay. So where's the pyramid come from? Well, when Maslow proposed this theory, it was in the 1940s, 1943. He described it in writing. There was an article, the pyramid was created 17 years later in 1960 by a business consultant called Charles McDermid for an article about motivating workers.

24:21So he uses a pyramid to help managers achieve maximum motivation at the lowest cost. It's a catchy visual, isn't it? It's memorable. It's perfect for training slides and it stuck. So this is a version everyone learns and it isn't even Maslow's original idea. Poor Maslow. So in terms of what Maslow actually said, so he proposed that humans have five basic needs that are hardwired into us through evolution. So the key idea is that these needs work in order. So when you lack something, it motivates you to get it. But once you have it, it stops motivating you. So this means you focus on whatever need is currently unmet.

24:59so if you're hungry that dominates your attention but once you're fed you can move on to worrying about safety once you feel safe you can focus on making friends and so on up the ladder um so yeah basically you can't focus on gaining respect and recognition if you're worried about where your next meal is coming from that's the core logic of the theory can i have not a question but just i want to go back to that pursuit of happiness because if you watch that film it actually goes through those levels it's quite yeah today's episode is brought to you by the pursuit of happiness movie yeah it's um i mean it's inspired movies it caught fire in the business world it's been used in all sorts of ways it's been used to design pay structures recognition programs employee motivation strategies and it is still taught as a foundational concept today second problem maslow himself knew this was an incomplete theory oh so in the original paper he mentioned other needs like the desire to learn and appreciate beauty but he didn't know where to put them so he recognized that his list wasn't finished so after 1943 Maslow's work split into two into two paths so one was very practical working with businesses and the other was much more philosophical so he started studying people who seemed to have reached their full potential and asked what motivates them once they've achieved success so once they've got this self-actualization and he found that they weren't driven by personal success anymore they were driven by bigger values so trust beauty justice making the world better there's nuance in there as we just said with this sixth level which never really got famous because he only developed this about two years before he actually passed away and it was published in a really obscure psychology journal that most people never read so the five level pyramid became a standard version taught in schools whilst only a handful of researchers knew about the sixth level and I came across a really interesting story when I was looking into this from a psychologist named Hazel Skelsey Guest.

26:57What a name. I know. So she ran a weekend course on Maslow at Cambridge. She spent 90 minutes teaching about the sixth level, these transcendent values beyond self-interest. When she marked the essays, some students have still drawn the hierarchy with only five levels and with self-actualization at the top and when she looked into it it's basically that was all the students with the background in business and management they just couldn't accept that there was a sixth level because they'd always known it as five um whereas the psychology students were a little bit more open to as we tend to be um to things changing um so the problem is that one there's no pyramid two the pyramid wasn't complete um and three maslow himself said it wasn't it wasn't a finished thing it was a moving living theory that was still developing.

27:42So problematic. So the next question is, has any other research shown that Maslow's hierarchy of needs can be backed up? Right. Can be true. So in the 70s, two researchers reviewed every study that had tried to test Maslow's hierarchy and their conclusion was that there's very little evidence supporting the idea that needs work in a rigid order. So yes, we all have needs, but following it step by step in a progression doesn't really make sense. And also, you know, you've got to think that if I need to eat before I focus on being safe, if I've got a tiger running at me, I'm like, actually, I'm a bit hungry.